Public Policy Commons^™

"How Big Should My Water Wings Be?", Margaret Davidson

July 10, 2013: Best Practices and Communications Strategies for Adapting to Sea Level Rise and Flooding

No abstract provided.

To Catch A Pirate: Analyzing Processes Of Policy Making On Maritime Piracy, Victoria E. Collins

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

There has been a resurgence of political and media interest in maritime piracy, specifically in the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Somalia. This is credited to a rise in the number of piracy attacks that have been committed in Somalia's coastal waters. In response to this rise in attacks there has been an increased deployment of military warships from as many as 30 different countries to the region in efforts to combat piracy. Although the problem of piracy has received much attention there has been little attention paid to the structural conditions within Somalia itself, such as the …

Usace Flood Risk Management Partners In Shared Responsibility, Michelle Hamor

March 13, 2013: Regional Sea Level Rise Assessment, Adaptation and Flood Mitigation Projects

No abstract provided.

For The People: Popular Financial Reporting Practices Of Local Governments, Juita-Elena (Wie) Yusuf, Meagan M. Jordan, Katharine A. Neill, Merl Hackbart

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

Popular financial reports are reports distributed to citizens and other interested parties who lack a background in formal government financial reporting but who desire an overview of the government’s financial status and activities. This paper examines the current state of local government popular financial reporting in the U.S. The results of a survey of large cities and counties indicate that 75 percent of these local governments have issued popular financial reports and that the types of reports and methods of distribution vary. Many of the reasons for providing popular reports relate to providing information and improving transparency and accountability by …

State Energy-Based Economic Development Policies And Examples, Juita-Elena Yusuf, Katharine A. Neill

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

States have adopted various policies and initiatives to develop and/or expand their energy industries, many of which have been driven by economic development purposes rather than specific energy or environmental concerns. Of the many reasons states have considered explicit energy policies, the direct economic benefits of stimulating the economy—creating jobs and increasing revenues—have often been at the forefront of policy decision making. This research note reviews existing policies targeted at developing the energy industry and presents two typologies of state-level energy policies. The first typology offers an organizing framework for categorizing such policies by energy source (existing vs. new) and …

Policy-Making Under Evo Morales: Explaining Ethnopopulist Redistributive Measures In Bolivia, Luis Ferreira

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

The Evo Morales administration has radically transformed the Bolivian state since his election in 2005. As a result of Morales' indigenous identity and overt ethnic tensions in this state, there is a perception that this factor plays a decisive role in Bolivia's policymaking. However, as the 'renegotiation' of the hydrocarbon industry in 2006 demonstrates, ethnopopulism and political survival provide the most comprehensive approach to predicting the policies of the current Bolivian government.

The resistance to liberalization efforts, the success of redistributive measures and the role identity has had in Bolivia explains why this approach to policy-making has allowed Morales to …

Forum Notes: Infrastructure And Utilities Breakout, Hr Adaptation Forum

November 16, 2012: Best Practices for Adapting to Sea Level Rise and Flooding

No abstract provided.

Climate Change Up Close And Personal: Impacts On Hampton Roads Region, Russell De Young

November 16, 2012: Best Practices for Adapting to Sea Level Rise and Flooding

No abstract provided.

Forum Notes: Land Use And Planning Breakout Group, Hr Adaptation Forum

November 16, 2012: Best Practices for Adapting to Sea Level Rise and Flooding

No abstract provided.

Forum Notes: Emergency Management, Hr Adaptation Forum

November 16, 2012: Best Practices for Adapting to Sea Level Rise and Flooding

No abstract provided.

Adaptation Practices And Lessons Learned, Molly Mitchell

November 16, 2012: Best Practices for Adapting to Sea Level Rise and Flooding

No abstract provided.

Towards Managing And Understanding The Risk Of Underwater Terrorism, Richard J. Gay

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation proposes a methodology to manage and understand the risk of underwater terrorism to critical infrastructures utilizing the parameters of the risk equation. Current methods frequently rely on statistical methods, which suffer from a lack of appropriate historical data to produce distributions and do not integrate epistemic uncertainty. Other methods rely on locating subject matter experts who can provide judgment and then undertaking an associated validation of these judgments.

Using experimentation, data from unclassified successful, or near successful, underwater attacks are analyzed and instantiated as a network graph with the key characteristics of the risk of terrorism represented as …

Identifying Factors That Influence Terrorist Decisions And Target Selection, Barry C. Ezell, Joshua Behr, Andrew Collins

VMASC Publications

Currently, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) elicits probabilistic judgements from the intelligence community on actions terrorists may take to attack the continental U.S. For example, how likely is the adversary to choose agent 'x' over 'y' or target 'a' over target 'b'? Eliciting these types of judgements is difficult and time consuming. The National Academies and others have suggested that a better approach may be to elicit information on adversary's preferences, perceptions, and capabilities and use this information to calculate probabilities of interest to DHS. Some terrorist groups are thinking about using weapons of mass destruction (WMD), each …

Effective Popular Financial Reports: The Citizen Perspective, Juita-Elena (Wie) Yusuf, Meagan M. Jordan

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

The article presents a study that investigates the views of citizens on the efficiency of financial reports in the U.S. Researchers did a survey to discern the perspectives of respondents about the effectiveness of the said reports in informing other individuals about government finances. Moreover, results reveal that 80% of respondents believed that the reports are effective. [Associates Programs Source, EbscoHost database]

The Impact Of The Higher Education Regulatory Environment On For-Profit Higher Education Institutions, Rhonda L. Myers

School of Public Service Theses & Dissertations

The growing presence and transient nature of for-profit higher education institutions in the US pose governance and regulatory challenges for bureaucratic structures, legislatures and non-profit postsecondary institutions. One such challenge is the perceived lack of governance and regulation of for-profit higher education institutions. This paper examines the impact of the higher education regulatory environment in the US on the presence of for-profit higher education institutions. Ordinal logistic regression is employed to determine whether state higher education governance structure, regulatory characteristics, and/or regional accreditation agency jurisdiction influence the prevalence of for-profit colleges and universities. State higher education governance structure and two …

Dispersion Or Re-Segregation: A Spatial And Temporal Analysis Of Public Policies And Their Impact On Urban African American Mobility, Brandi Lynette Blessett

Theses and Dissertations in Urban Studies

This study seeks to test Hirsch's second ghetto thesis in the city of Baltimore, Maryland. Hirsch suggested that the role of government, public policies, and administrative discretion were responsible for the re-segregation of African Americans into second ghetto communities in Chicago. Many scholars have used Hirsch's framework to explain ghetto formation. This investigation seeks to extend the literature in several ways. First, several national policies were investigated to determine their impact on African American mobility in Baltimore: the Housing Act of 1937 (public housing), the Housing Act of 1949 (urban renewal), and the Interstate Highway Act of 1956 (transportation). Second, …

Gains, Losses, And Life Goals Identified By Caregivers Of Individuals With Disabilities In The United States, Sharon A. Raver, Anne M. P. Michalek

Communication Disorders & Special Education Faculty Publications

It is often reported that caregivers of individuals with disabilities experience stress as they manage caregiving responsibilities while they make the effort to balance family and work. Thirty-one caregivers of individuals with an array of disabilities in the United States completed a qualitative survey in this pilot study that asked them to identify their gains and losses from providing care and to identify their life goals. The gains from caregiving were identified as enhanced empathy and compassion, and the losses as strained family relationships, and less personal time. The most commonly identified life goals were experiencing happiness and achieving financial …

Collective Efficacy And Intimate Partner Violence: Community Context, Catherine B. Cowling

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

Intimate partner violence is a very serious issue in the United States. In spite of improvements, there is still much work to be done. Policies focusing on formal controls such as arrest, orders of protection, and prosecution have questionable potential. However, collective efficacy and the examination of community context have much to offer the field of intimate partner violence. Collective efficacy, comprised of social cohesion, social capital, and informal social control, may be more effective in reducing intimate partner violence than use of traditional formal social controls alone. These community context variables may also be of great assistance in improving …

A Phenomenological Study Of Children's Experiences While Families Receive Services From A Homeless Agency, Sonya Lorelle

Counseling & Human Services Theses & Dissertations

Children who experience homelessness have an increased risk for negative outcomes in several developmental areas (Bucker, 2008). While there are numerous programs that hope to mediate these and other risks by offering services to families experiencing homelessness, there is a paucity of research that addresses how children's psychosocial needs are being addressed in existing programs (Gewirtz, Hart-Shegos, & Medhanie, 2008). In addition, there is also a lack of research which represents the children's and parents' perspectives and experiences in supportive housing programs, such as transitional and permanent supportive housing, or in-home case management programs. With this phenomenological qualitative study, I …

Cooperative Strategies On Parallel Tracks: The Nepad And Agoa Initiatives, Guelmbaye Ngarsandje

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

In July 2001, at the 37th of the former Organization of African Unity, African heads of states launched the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), a combination of the Omega Plan from Abdoulaye Wade and The Millennium African Renaissance Partnership initiated by Thabo Mbeki, respectively presidents of Senegal and South Africa. This was an achievement of tasks given by their peers in Algiers in 1999. Previously to that, the Clinton administration initiated the African Growth and Opportunity Act passed in law in 1998. Though the two programs aim at African development, they did not take in account each other.

This …

Integrated Water Resources Management: A Theoretical Exploration Of The Implementation Gap Between The Developed And Developing Worlds, Jennifer S. Schiff

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

As part of its Millennium Development Goals, the United Nations acknowledges that solving the world's water woes requires giving one billion additional people access to safe and affordable drinking water, while also noting that this is a difficult goal to achieve considering present environmental challenges. Amidst this atmosphere of vanishing freshwater, the legislative policy community has begun to encourage diverse discourse on the topic of efficient resource management, but the form and function of such a solution present unique political and theoretical challenges for policymakers and scholars alike. The current consensus among water managers is that a multifaceted policy framework …

Saving Saba Bank: Policy Implications Of Biodiversity Studies, Paul C. Hoetjes, Kent E. Carpenter

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Saba Bank has always been an area of special importance to the neighboring island of Saba in the Netherlands Antilles. Sabans traditionally fished on the Bank as far back as 1907, but increasing foreign fishing pressures on the Bank in the 1970s and 1980s forced many Saban fishermen out. Concerns were compounded by the suspicion that shipping was also damaging the benthic habitat of the bank. Fishery legislation, enacted in 1996, brought an end to unlicensed fishing and established Coast Guard enforcement on the Bank, but also led to protests from neighboring countries that previously fished on the Bank.Research was …

Measuring Collaboration: An Assessment Of The Containment Model Effort Used To Manage Sex Offenders In The Community, Teresa L. Van Nostrand

School of Public Service Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to provide an examination and analysis of the collaboration among sex offender professionals working with convicted sex offenders on supervision in the community. This study will examine collaboration as it is functions as the foundation of the containment model approach (English, Pullen & Jones, 1996) to supervising sex offenders in the community. The containment model guides the supervision of sex offenders in the community who are on probation with the Virginia Department of Corrections, Community Corrections. The collaboration between the Probation Officer, Treatment Provider, and the Polygraph Examiner provides a net around sex offenders …

Terrorism: A Study Of The Policy Preferences Of Old Dominion University Students, Bruce Johnson Ii

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, there have been many different approaches to terrorism utilized by the U.S. government. While sometimes it is obvious which ones are popular and which ones are not, often it is not clear. With this in mind a survey was posted and taken by 151 ODO students. The survey asked how much they supported various terrorism policies and quizzed them to see how knowledgeable they were regarding terrorism. It was found that the students who responded to the survey were generally very knowledgeable about terrorism. It was also found that almost every policy received …

Determinants Of Increased Safety Belt Use By High School Students In Motor Vehicles: The Influence Of Parents And Peers And Implications For Virginia's Graduated Driver Licensing Laws, Georjeane Linley Blumling

School of Public Service Theses & Dissertations

Motor vehicle crashes are the number one cause of injuries and fatalities for persons 15-19 years of age in the United States. The higher fatality rate is caused in part from the lack of driving experience and the increased risk taking behaviors of adolescent drivers. Graduated driver licensing laws have been enacted in most states to address the risks associated with inexperience by adding restrictions on nighttime driving and limiting the number of teen passengers in the vehicle for novice drivers.

Inconsistent use or non-use of a safety belt when riding in a motor vehicle is a prevalent risk taking …

Public Recreation And Neighborhood Sense Of Community: An Exploration Of A Hypothesized Relationship, Svetoslav D. Gueorguiev, Edwin Gómez, Eddie Hill

Human Movement Studies & Special Education Faculty Publications

This study explores the relationship between park attributes (perceived safety and perceived benefits) and their relationship to sense of community in urban neighborhoods. The study finds that the perception of benefits derived from park use has a direct relationship with sense of community, and that park safety is indirectly related to sense of community, with the perception of park benefits mediating the relationship between park safety and sense of community. Theoretical and practical considerations are discussed.

Personal Responsibility Versus Government Responsibility Welfare Attitudes Post-1996, Emily C. Ing

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

The welfare system in the United States underwent a major overhaul in 1996, transforming Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) to Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). Since then, there has been little research conducted on attitudes toward welfare. This is still a topic worth investigating, as poverty and homelessness remain a problem in the United States.

This thesis hypothesized that attitudes about welfare would vary according to an individual's commitment to individualism, a hegemonic value in the United States. This thesis also hypothesized that welfare attitudes would vary according to an individual's education, gender, marital status, race, and …

Privatizing Transportation Through Public-Private Partnerships: Definitions, Models, And Issues, Juita-Elena (Wie) Yusuf, Candice Y. Wallace, Merl Hackbart

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

While contracting out has been the predominant method of privatization, there has been greater emphasis in recent times on using public-private partnerships (sometimes referred to as PPPs or P3s) instead. These public-private partnerships differ from contracting out, as they are characterized more by "a commitment between public and private actors ... in which partners develop products together and share risks, costs, and revenues" (Klijn & Teisman 2000, p. 85).

In the transportation arena the focus on public-private partnerships has resulted from both the need for greater reliance on private capital to fund critical infrastructure and services and the need to …

Stress And Coping Experiences Of Women In Transition: From Welfare To Work, William Jesse Gill

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Welfare reform and the consequent emphasis on employment represent a stressful sequence of events in the lives of women who are already facing the chronic stressors associated with single parenting and poverty. The current study assessed the levels of distress, factors contributing to distress, and coping resources utilized among a sample of 60 mothers who were making the transition from welfare to work. Ninety percent of the women were single or separated, and 71 percent were African American. All were receiving public assistance from two neighboring social services agencies in Virginia.

Psychological distress was measured by the Brief Symptom Inventory …

A History Of Public Radio In An Urban Community: Its Impact Upon Education, Culture, Public Opinion And Policy, Barry K. Graham

Theses and Dissertations in Urban Services - Urban Education

In a relatively short history, Public Radio in Hampton Roads has emerged as a most important cultural and educational asset to the urban community. The dynamic growth of the Hampton Roads urban infrastructure is the result of several political, economic, and cultural factors. Public Radio has been one of these factors and has served as a catalyst for change and growth in the community. This case study focuses upon Public Radio stations WHRO-FM and WHRV-FM and the elements which brought about their historical development.

The study presents a history of events that marked the beginning of Public Radio in Hampton …