Public Policy Commons^™

Pillar Ii In Focus--The Responsibility To Assist: Police Capacity-Building In Timor-Leste And The 2012 Parliamentary Elections, Charles Hawksley, Nichole Georgeou

Charles M Hawksley

This briefing paper provides a short background to the 2012 elections in Timor-Leste, and explores the UNPOL mandate to support and build the capacity of the Polícia Nacional de Timor-Leste (PNTL – the Timor-Leste National Police), so that Timor-Leste will be able to manage security for its citizens without international assistance. Based on fieldwork conducted during June 2012, including interviews with human rights-focused NGOs, and with international police implementing bilateral and multilateral capacity building, we argue that the 3,200-3,400 strong PNTL is theoretically ready to go it alone when the UN Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste departs, and explore questions as …

Wie Verändert Das Internet Die Demokratie?, Ralf Lindner

Ralf Lindner

Obwohl seit dem Aufstieg des Internets zum Massenmedium in den 1990er Jahren Ernüchterung über die Demokratisierungswirkung der neuen Medien eingetreten ist, werden regelmäßig weitreichende Erwartungen über der politische Transformationspotenzial des Internets formuliert. So wird häufig postuliert, dass das Internet demokratische Politik über kurz oder lang fundamental verändern werde, indem universeller Informationszugang ermöglicht, etablierte Machtstrukturen unterminiert und politische Partizipation gesteigert werde. Der Beitrag erörtert zunächst die Hintergründe für populäre Fehlschlüsse, die die Debatte um elektronische Demokratie begleiten. Auf der Grundlage einer kritischen Reflexion mit den ideologisch-normativ imprägnierten Erwartungen an das Internet werden theoretisch wie empirisch robustere Überlegungen zum Beitrag der neuen …

Supporting Healthy Lives And Vibrant Places: Learning About And Living The Collaborative Leadership Model, Lisa Deangelis, Maureen A. Scully, Andrea Wight

Emerging Leaders Program Team Projects

The 31 fellows in the 2012 UMass Boston Emerging Leaders Program (ELP) worked with community partners to investigate the theme, “Supporting Healthy Lives and Vibrant Places.” They worked in peer self-managed teams, in order to learn collaborative leadership skills first-hand, while engaging with stakeholders and issues where collaboration makes a difference. Their team projects addressed: best practices in corporate wellness initiatives, outreach to support health care access for homeless people, ways to grow awareness of the wide need for affordable housing, ideas for arts-based local economic development, broader funding sources to support innovative research on poverty, and ways to continue …

Empowering The Citizen-Consumer: Re-Regulating Consumer Information To Support The Transition To Sustainable And Health Promoting Food Systems In Canada, Rod Macrae, Michelle Szabo, Kalli Anderson, Fiona Louden, Sandi Trillo

Publications and Scholarship

Both health and sustainability are stated public policy objectives in Canada, but food information rules and practices may not be optimal to support their achievement. In the absence of a stated consensus on the purposes of public information about food, the information provided is frequently determined by the marketers of product. No institution or agency has responsibility for determining the overall coherence of consumer food messages relative to these broader social goals of health and sustainability. Individual firms provide information that shows their products to best advantage, which may contradict what is provided about the product by another firm or …

Women’S Political Leadership In Massachusetts, Paige Ransford, Meryl Thomson, Sarah Healey

Publications from the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy

The Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy (CWPPP) at UMass Boston’s McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies has been tracking the election of women at the municipal level in Massachusetts since 1996. In 2003, the Project expanded to include all New England states. CWPPP remains the only research center in the United States that regularly tracks women’s political representation at the local level.

Nonpunctuated And Sweeping Policy Change: Bhutan Tobacco Policy Making From 1991 To 2009, Michael S. Givel

Michael S. Givel

This paper examines policy outputs associated with the 2004 Bhutan antitobacco law, including 2009 amendments, to determine if the law is congruent with punctuated equilibrium or social policy realism theories of policy change. There was no direct and sudden tobacco policy output change in Bhutan due to a shock to the policy system contrary to what punctuated equilibrium theory would predict. Rather, policy change was sweeping but nonpunctuated. This paper reconfirms prior findings of social policy realism theory that various and complex policy output patterns occur due to a mixture of contingent and complex factors. Under social policy realism, a …

Catastrophes And The Role Of Social Networks In Recovery: A Case Study Of St. Bernard Parish, La, Residents After Hurricane Katrina, Carrie E. Lasley

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the experiences of St. Bernard Parish, La., residents as they coped with the impact of the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina on August 29, 2005. An estimated 50,000 St. Bernard Parish residents relocated to a new home one year after Katina in 2006, and many of those residents moved again. This study examines the effects of the decisions of St. Bernard residents to relocate or to return on their social connections. The utility, adaptability and durability of social networks of these residents will be explored to enrich our knowledge about the social effects …

Pillar Ii In Focus--The Responsibility To Assist: Police Capacity-Building In Timor-Leste And The 2012 Parliamentary Elections, Charles Hawksley, Nichole Georgeou

Nichole Georgeou

This briefing paper provides a short background to the 2012 elections in Timor-Leste, and explores the UNPOL mandate to support and build the capacity of the Polícia Nacional de Timor-Leste (PNTL – the Timor-Leste National Police), so that Timor-Leste will be able to manage security for its citizens without international assistance. Based on fieldwork conducted during June 2012, including interviews with human rights-focused NGOs, and with international police implementing bilateral and multilateral capacity building, we argue that the 3,200-3,400 strong PNTL is theoretically ready to go it alone when the UN Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste departs, and explore questions as …

The Leadership Of Sustainable Cities: A Multiple-Case Study Of Two Oregon Cities, Kenneth L. Weaver

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communication: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Scholarship

In order for cities to become more sustainable it is necessary for the leaders of the efforts to change the organizations and governments so that they understand and embrace what it means to be more sustainable. This study examined the change processes of two Oregon Cities, Corvallis and Eugene, that had made the choice to become more sustainable as a community. The approaches that the participant leaders used demonstrated the use of different ways of thinking about the leadership of change. The ways of thinking of the community leaders were formed by their unique personal backgrounds, knowledge, skills, and abilities. …

Pioneers Of Youth Justice Reform: Achieving System Change Using Resolution, Reinvestment, And Realignment Strategies, Douglas N. Evans

Publications and Research

In the past three decades, state and local governments implemented various reform strategies to reduce the youth justice system’s reliance on confinement facilities and serve as many youths as possible in their own homes or at least in their own communities when removal from the home is warranted. The various reform strategies may be conceptualized as relying on three distinct but interrelated mechanisms: resolution, reinvestment, and realignment (Butts and Evans 2011). Resolution refers to the use of managerial authority and administrative directives to influence system change; reinvestment entails using financial incentives to encourage system change, and realignment employs organizational and …

Changing Faces, Changing Voices: Hispanics And Georgia’S Spanish-Language Media Environment, D. Xavier Medina Vidal

Georgia Journal of Public Policy

Nathan Deal’s successful 2010 campaign to become Georgia’s 82nd governor included a promise to enact an Arizona-style immigration enforcement law in Georgia, a promise he kept when he signed HB 87 into law in May 2011. To be sure, the high saliency of immigration law enforcement and policy reform in Georgia has much to do with rapid growth of the state’s Hispanic population in recent years.

The Economic Impact Of The Pace University Athletic Department, Rebecca Tekula, Anna-Kay Sinclair Mpa

Wilson Center for Social Entrepreneurship

No abstract provided.

2011 Global Go To Think Tank Rankings, James Mcgann

James G McGann Dr.

The 2011 Global Go To Think Tank Rankings marks the fifth edition of the annual report. As in previous years, the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program (TTCSP) at the University of Pennsylvania’s International Relations Program has relied on the indexing criteria and process developed by James G. McGann for ranking think tanks around the world. The Program’s Rankings remain the first and most comprehensive ranking of the world’s top think tanks, and are based on an annual global peer and expert survey of close to 1,500 scholars, policymakers, journalists, and regional and subject area experts. Given the rigor and …

Oportunidades De Desarrollo Productivo De La Población De Afectación Prioritaria En La Operación Estratégica Fontibón – Aeropuerto Eldorado – Engativá, Iván A. Rojas V

Iván Rojas V

The book analyzes the case of Operation Strategic Fontibón - Eldorado Airport - Engativa (OEFAE) and the implications on the urban economy of the city and potential opportunities for productive development for the population affected by the project in 2010 in Bogotá DC. El libro analiza el caso de la Operación Estrategica Fontibón - Aeropuerto ElDorado - Engativa (OEFAE) y las implicaciones sobre la economía urbana de la ciudad y las posibles oportunidades de desarrollo productivo para la población afectada por el proyecto en el 2010 en la ciudad de Bogotá DC.

Building Democracy In Japan, Mary Alice Haddad

Mary Alice Haddad

How is democracy made real? How does an undemocratic country create new institutions and transform its polity such that democratic values and practices become integral parts of its political culture? These are some of the most pressing questions of our times, and they are the central inquiry of Building Democracy in Japan. Using the Japanese experience as starting point, this book develops a new approach to the study of democratization that examines state-society interactions as a country adjusts its existing political culture to accommodate new democratic values, institutions and practices. With reference to the country's history, the book focuses on …

Compromising The Safety Net: How Limiting Tax Deductions For High-Income Donors Could Undermine Charitable Organizations, Patrick Tolan

Patrick E. Tolan Jr.

President Obama’s recent budget proposals have contemplated reducing the top rate for charitable deductions (and all itemized deductions) to twenty-eight percent. Because America’s largest donors are those in the highest marginal tax brackets, efforts to limit deductibility of charitable donations could have a chilling effect on charitable giving.

In this article the author looks at motivations for charitable donations and specifically at the impact of tax deductibility as a motivating factor. It takes a historical look at the philanthropic surveys and econometric models and examines empirical data concerning impacts of significant changes to the tax code in the 1980s that …

Bureaucratic Advocacy And Ethics A State-Level Case Of Public Agency Rulemaking And Tobacco Control Policy, Michael S. Givel, Andrew Spivak

Michael S. Givel

Before 2001, the Oklahoma Department of Health achieved little to protect the public from the dangers of secondhand tobacco smoke. In an ongoing effort between 2000 and 2003, the department joined with health groups to lobby for stronger requirements, resulting in a new Oklahoma administrative rule in 2002 and legislation in 2003 regulating secondhand tobacco smoke. This action was congruent with the American Society of Public Administration's Code of Ethics for interactive democratic policymaking, in which administrators are required to serve the public interest with compassion, benevolence, fairness, and optimism.

Bureaucratic Advocacy And Ethics: A State-Level Case Of Public Agency Rulemaking And Tobacco Control Policy, Michael S. Givel

Michael S. Givel

Before 2001, the Oklahoma Department of Health achieved little to protect the public from the dangers of secondhand tobacco smoke. In an ongoing effort between 2000 and 2003, the department joined with health groups to lobby for stronger requirements, resulting in a new Oklahoma administrative rule in 2002 and legislation in 2003 regulating secondhand tobacco smoke. This action was congruent with the American Society of Public Administration's Code of Ethics for interactive democratic policymaking, in which administrators are required to serve the public interest with compassion, benevolence, fairness, and optimism.