Public Policy Commons^™

The Politic 2008 Fall (Special Issue), The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.

The Politic 2008 Fall, The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.

Revisiting State Failure: Developing A Causal Model Of State Failure Based Upon Theoretical Insight, Tiffiany O. Howard

Political Science Faculty Research

Developing a theoretically driven causal model of state failure is necessary if scholars are committed to improving the predictive power and forecasting ability of early warning models of state failure. Building upon the work of the State Failure Project(1) and earlier statistical models of state failure(2), this study develops a causal model of state failure that is based upon a theoretical foundation that satisfies the parsimonious condition that policy forecasting models typically rely upon. The statistical model of state failure developed for this analysis extends the work of previous models by developing an alternative definition and measurement of state failure …

Health Insurance Policy In New York City And Westchester County, Colin Stone

Master in Public Administration Theses

Health insurance policy is an important and timely issue in the United States. According to many reports, the number of individuals who lack any type of health insurance in this country numbers approximately 47 million. This paper will focus on government sponsored health insurance programs in New York City and Westchester County, New York, including a discussion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).

Geography, Poverty, And Development Policy In The New African Millennium: Monitoring The Millennium Development Goals Through Human Development, Joseph Tamba Koroma

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The eight United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and empower women, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV I AIDS, ensure environmental sustainability, and develop a global partnership for development. The eighth goal (MDG 8), aims to develop and strengthen a global partnership for development between rich and poor countries. Three main components of the latter (MDG 8) aim to accelerate the infusion of official development aid (ODA), liberalize international trade, and introduce information and communication technologies (ICT) in the hope of creating a conducive …

The Politic 2008 Fall, The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.

Artificial Transitive Fatty Acid (Tfa) Ban In Restaurants In Us Cities: Nyc-Doh Tfa Ban As A Model For Proactive Public Health Policy, Vidia S. Ramdeen

Master in Public Administration Theses

Today, restaurants, including all eateries that operate within New York City, as well as restaurants across the country, regularly use a rather large amount of an artery-clogging agent, commonly found within their vital ingredients. Artificial transitive fatty acid, or trans-fat as known to the consumer, is the target of the NYC Board of Health and Mental Hygiene, medical experts, and health conscious consumers, for permanent removal from all NYC restaurant menus by July 2008. Specifically, the NYC health code now requires that all establishments holding a NYC Health Department permit, including all restaurants, caterers, stationary hot and cold vendors, and …

Environmental Stewardship Of The Vermont Ski Industry And The Public's Willingness To Support, Karina V. Warshaw

Master in Public Administration Theses

No abstract provided.

The Politic 2008 Winter, The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.

Contract Enslavement Of Female Migrant Domestic Workers In Saudi Arabia And The United Arab Emirates, Romina Halabi

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Slavery was not abolished in Saudi Arabia until 1962, and in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) until 1963. It is unsurprising, then, that contract slavery of domestic servants continues to thrive in much of the Persian Gulf, where local economies prosper on the immigration of foreign workers. Economic incentives on the part of the sending and receiving nations encourage the migration of female workers from their home countries to Saudi Arabia and to the UAE. These incentives, coupled with restrictive contract systems, bind the female domestic worker to her employer and create an environment conducive to exploitation and involuntary servitude.

Rights And The Hijâb: Rationality And Discourse In The Public Sphere, Howard Adelman

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents, and Citizens by Seyla Benhabib. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 251 pp.

and

Why the French Don’t Like Headscarves: Islam, the State, and Public Space by John R. Bowen. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006. 290 pp.

and

Muslim Girls and the Other France: Race, Identity Politics & Social Exclusion by Trica Danielle Keaton. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006. 223 pp.

and

Human Rights and Religion: The Islamic Headscarf Debate in Europe by Dominic McGoldrick. Portland, Oregon: Hart Publishing, 2006. 320 pp.

[Introduction To] Medicare Prospective Payment And The Shaping Of U.S. Health Care, Robert A. Berenson, Rick Mayes

Bookshelf

This is the definitive work on Medicare’s prospective payment system (PPS), which had its origins in the 1972 Social Security Amendments, was first applied to hospitals in 1983, and came to fruition with the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. Here, Rick Mayes and Robert A. Berenson, M.D., explain how Medicare’s innovative payment system triggered shifts in power away from the providers (hospitals and doctors) to the payers (government insurers and employers) and how providers have responded to encroachments on their professional and financial autonomy. They conclude with a discussion of the problems with the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 and …

Women Of Talent: Gender And Government Appointments In Massachusetts, 2002–2007, Carol Hardy-Fanta, Kacie Kelly

Publications from the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy

Despite the high educational and occupational attainment—and considerable talent—of women in Massachusetts, the state ranks just 22nd in the nation on women's overall share of top executive, legislative, and judicial posts, compared to their share of the population. The goals of this study were to (1) calculate the percentage of women holding senior-level positions in state government at these four points in time; (2) analyze the distribution of appointments by type of position and executive office; (3) provide possible explanations for the status of women’s representation in these positions; and (4) offer recommendations that will serve to promote the appointment …

November Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“Disaster Capitalism: The New Economy of Catastrophe” by Naomi Klein. Harper’s. October 2007.

If It Were Only That Simple, Katherine Gockel

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Reading “Disaster Capitalism,” one would think that the current dire situation in Iraq and the lingering effects of Hurricane Katrina are all because of an emphasis on “small” government, privatization, and partnerships with the business sector. If only it were that simple.

A Democratic Disaster, Michael Goodhart

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Naomi Klein’s “Disaster Capitalism” paints a grim and compelling portrait of an emerging American dystopia: Large corporations making huge profits on non-bid contracts to handle the government’s response to natural and political disasters (like Katrina and Iraq). She envisions “a collective future of disaster apartheid, in which survival is determined primarily by one’s ability to pay.” The catalogue of outrages Klein supplies is enough to make even the local chamber of commerce president blush. Yet as I read her piece, I found myself angry not so much with the corporations as with my fellow citizens. How can we allow this …

The Personal Side Of Disaster Capitalism, Susan Waltz

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Two weeks ago a tornado ripped through my small hometown in rural Michigan (population 3,500), unexpectedly providing fresh perspective on the phenomenon Naomi Klein has called “Disaster Capitalism.” While I was writing this commentary, work crews were out with chainsaws and chippers, cutting up the remains of fallen trees and clearing mountains of debris from roads and sidewalks.

The End(S) Of The State(?), Daniel J. Whelan

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Last February, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote an op-ed that anticipated Klein’s article, in part. In his view, the Bush administration has been engaged in an effort to “Green-Zone” the United States government by gutting the professional civil service—dubbed as “the enemy” by the American Enterprise Institute—and replacing its ranks with political appointees who have little interest or experience in running a state, but quite a bit of interest in enriching the private sector with public largesse. Klein’s “Disaster Capitalism” takes Krugman’s theme and pumps up the volume ten-fold.

American Capitalism - Disasterous Consequences?, Richard Falk

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Naomi Klein’s depiction of late-capitalism as feeding off a disaster-prone planet and state-system is provocative and illuminating, even if it seems to be itself a form of “shock and awe” journalism. The great cultural critic of the 1960s, Norman O. Brown, memorably said of psychoanalysis, “[o]nly the exaggerations are valuable,” and so it might be with this critique of the dark sides of recent tendencies in world economic activity. It is notable that the book version of Klein’s article bears the title The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, which itself can be read as a sly admission that …

The Politic 2007 Fall, The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.

Immigration: An Escalator To The American Dream Nicaraguans’ Experiences With Immigration To The United States In The Midst Of The War On Terror, Allison Koenker

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

No abstract provided.

The Nature Of Japan's Official Development Assistance: Japan's Bilateral Oda And Its National Interests, 1981-2001, Seiki Muratani

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The concept of national interests has always been a key for studies of foreign policy. Japan's foreign aid, known as Official Development Assistance (ODA), is the single most significant political and diplomatic tool in the arena of Japanese foreign policy due to Japan's war-renouncing Article 9. However, the argument of the relationship between Japan's ODA policy and national interests is unclear. Although there are various qualitative arguments about the study of Japan's ODA, a systematic quantitative aid allocation study is rarely done. The central question of this thesis is what interests is Japan pursuing when it allocates its bilateral ODA, …

The International Politics Of Domestic Change: Myanmar, Asean And The American Led World Order, Shyam Sudhir Kulkarni

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, have had a longstanding policy of not interfering in each other's domestic affairs. This norm of"noninterference" is considered both a hallmark of intraregional diplomacy in Southeast Asia and ASEAN's most venerated nonn. However, recent developments regarding the relationship between Myanmar and the rest of the regional grouping suggest that this principle may not currently be as sacrosanct as it has been in the past. This thesis explains the replacement of ASEAN's traditional nom1 of non-interference with a modified version of it through a framework developed from constructivist theories of ideational …

The Politic 2007 Summer, The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.

The Voting Rights Act And The Election Of Nonwhite Officials, Pei-Te Lien, Dianne M. Pinderhughes, Carol Hardy-Fanta, Christine M. Sierra

Publications from the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy

Voting Rights Act (VRA) is one of the most important—if not the most important—public policies developed over the last half century to increase access to the U.S. political system for people of color. The VRA also provides an important context for understanding the ascension of nonwhite groups into the elected leadership of the nation (Browning, Marshall, and Tabb 1984; Davidson and Grofman 1994; Menifield 2001; Mc-Clain and Stewart 2002; Segura and Bowler 2005; Bositis 2006). This essay assesses the present-day significance of the VRA for the political representation of communities of color by examining the implications of majority-minority districts and …

Sylvia Maier On Human Rights In The World Community. Issues And Action (Third Edition) Edited By Richard Pierre Claude And Burns H. Weston. Philadelphia: University Of Pennsylvania Press, 2006. 543 Pp., Sylvia Maier

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Human Rights in the World Community. Issues and Action (Third Edition) edited by Richard Pierre Claude and Burns H. Weston. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006. 543 pp.

Development And Inequality: The Origins And Consequences Of Disciplinary Power In Argentina, Jessica Cenegy Brice

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Significant emphasis has been placed upon external influences which have maintained or perpetuated the relative underdevelopment of Latin America. Though some of this literature will provide a basis for explanation, the current analysis addresses the phenomenon with a notable variation from existing perspectives by introducing the Foucauldian distinction between juridical power and disciplinary power as an evaluative framework of analysis. Specifically, it emphasizes the need to incorporate unique cultural, historical, and structural characteristics that interrelate with power dynamics that have materialized within Argentina and have frustrated development efforts.

The Politic 2007 Spring, The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.

A Benchmark Report On Diversity In State And Local Government, Carol Hardy-Fanta Phd

Publications from the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy

The Pipeline to Public Service Initiative asked the McCormack Graduate School’s Center for Women in Politics & Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts Boston to ascertain the racial diversity in state and local government. The project had the following three goals:

--To identify the race (and gender) of those holding top-level positions filled through gubernatorial appointments, e.g., secretaries, commissioners, directors, deputy commissioners/directors, and undersecretaries, in the Commonwealth’s executive offices and major departments.

--To compile the same information for members of the most influential boards and commissions in the Commonwealth filled through gubernatorial appointments.

--To assess the diversity of elected …

The Politic 2007 Winter, The Politic, Inc.

The Politic

No abstract provided.