Public Policy Commons^™

Organization For Security And Co-Operation In Europe 2012 Annual Report, Osce

Global CWD Repository

We end the year one participating State stronger. and, as an organization,we remain as committed as ever to our founding principles. i am pleased to welcome Mongolia as the latest country to join our (now) 57-member strong community. this demonstrates the continuing relevance of the oSCE comprehensive approach to security and the viability of the organization as a forum where security issues can be discussed and solutions sought in an open and inclusive manner.

We have another first this year: the transnational threats Department was established to provide co-ordination and cohesiveness to OSCE-wide activities. the new TNTD combines OSCE resources …

The Massachusetts Elder Economic Security Index (2011), Gerontology Institute, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Gerontology Institute Publications

The Elder Economic Security Standard^TM Index measures the income that Massachusetts’ seniors need to maintain independence and meet their basic living expenses in the community. The Elder Index uses an income measure that reflects the actual expenses for basic needs of older adults, and includes cost estimates for housing, food, medical care, transportation, and household essentials. Elder Index values are calculated for each state, on a county-by-county basis, providing policy makers and individuals a benchmark for determining what income or governmental supports are needed in their communities.

Elder Economic Security Initiative™: The Elder Economic Security Standard™ Index For North Carolina, Gerontology Institute, University Of Massachusetts Boston, Wider Opportunities For Women

Gerontology Institute Publications

This report addresses income adequacy for North Carolina’s older adults using the national WOW-GI National Elder Economic Security Standard Index (Elder Index) methodology. The Elder Index benchmarks basic costs of living for elder households and illustrates how costs of living vary geographically and are based on the characteristics of elder households, including household size, home ownership or renter status and health status. The costs are based on market costs for basic needs of elder households and do not assume any public or private supports.

Elder Economic Security Initiative™: The Elder Economic Security Standard™ Index For South Dakota, Gerontology Institute, University Of Massachusetts Boston, Wider Opportunities For Women

Gerontology Institute Publications

This report addresses income adequacy for South Dakota’s older adults using the national WOW-GI National Elder Economic Security Standard Index (Elder Index) methodology. The Elder Index benchmarks basic costs of living for elder households and illustrates how costs of living vary geographically and are based on the characteristics of elder households, including household size, home ownership or renter status and health status. The costs are based on market costs for basic needs of elder households and do not assume any public or private supports.

Bankruptcy And Politics: A Framework For Bankruptcy Policymaking In The United States Congress And Courts, Kevin Mandell Ball

Wayne State University Dissertations

The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 was enacted amid much controversy and was considered by many observers to mark a major change in the direction of U.S. bankruptcy policy. The dissertation uses the law's passage as a vehicle to develop an explicit model of the integrated role of Congress, issue networks, and the courts in making policy. Following Baumgartner and Jones (1993), Sabatier (1988), and others, the dissertation tracks bankruptcy policymaking and implementation over a seventy-five year period to demonstrate that policy is made in three distinct venues: Congress; a policy community made up of lawyers, …

Civilian Aviation Screening: A Time-Series Analysis Of Confiscated Firearms At Screening Checkpoints, Shon Agard

Online Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the aviation screening process and sought to determine if the federalization of the screening process had any effect on the number of firearm confiscations at civilian aviation screening checkpoints. The hypothesis of the study was that airport screening firearms confiscations (per one million screenings) were lower before the U.S. government (TSA) took over screening in 2001-2002. This quantitative research required the performance of an interrupted time series analysis. Interrupted time series analysis evaluates the impact of one or more events on the values in the time series. An interrupted time series analysis attempts to determine whether an …

Voter Ideology, Tax Exporting, And State And Local Tax Structure, John M. Foster

Theses and Dissertations--Public Policy and Administration

State and local governments play an important role in financing and delivering public services in the United States. In 2008, state and local governments collected 57 percent of total federal, state, and local revenue (Urban Institute and Brookings Institution, Tax Policy Center, 2009). The decentralization of fiscal responsibility has enabled a high degree of variation in state and local tax structures to emerge. This dissertation presents two empirical studies that extend the positive literature on state and local tax policy.

The extant literature contains evidence of a direct relationship between voter ideology and state and local tax progressivity. However, the …

San Jose Police Department: A Managerial Audit Of Patrol Staffing, Self-Initiated Activity, Response Times, And In-Field Arrest Rates, Justin T. Deoliveira

Master's Projects

No abstract provided.

Message From The Editors, Michael L. Crouch, Michele Ogawa

Pepperdine Policy Review

No abstract provided.

Nations And Organizations: Explaining The Mérida Initiative Through The Essence Of Decision, Richard Sebastian Flores

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This thesis seeks to explain state behavior and underpinning influences paramount to the political development of the Mérida Initiative. To accomplish this task, it crafts distinct, yet complimentary narratives that illustrate how and why the formulation of this policy unfolded. Utilizing historical, archival and empirical evidence, this thesis maps out the manners in which the national governments, organizational hierarchies, and bureaucratic entities involved with Mérida's origins reacted to the changing landscape throughout the policy's development.

The Mérida Initiative is critical to understanding how nations are approaching the problem of illicit crime organizations and institutional instability in the U.S.-Mexico region. Encompassing …

Alternatives To Piloting In Bracksih Waters: Accuracy And Precision Of Commerical Reverse Osmosis Membrane Design Model Projections, Erika Mancha

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In a time of economic recession and drought, the Texas Water Development Board is reviewing alternatives to the current Texas Commission on Environmental Quality requirement of demonstration-scale pilot testing membrane desalination to decrease permitting costs and project construction delays. One alternative is to use engineering judgment with membrane manufacturer's software models to predict membrane performance and ensure that product water quality requirements will be met. To comply with state permitting requirements, the first few months of successful full-scale operation can be submitted in lieu of pilot demonstration.

The goal of this research is to characterize the accuracy and precision of …

Neighborhood Crime And Travel Behavior: An Investigation Of The Influence Of Neighborhood Crime Rates On Mode Choice – Phase Ii, Christopher Ferrell, Shishir Mathur

Faculty Publications, Urban and Regional Planning

No abstract provided.

Unlocking The Black Box Of Policymaking: A Discursive View Of The Florida Commission On Mental Health And Substance Abuse, Ardis Hanson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Discourse creates the world of policy. Discourse plays a key role within policy formation; political discourse is made visible within particular discursive (spoken and written) practices. Hence, mental health policy is the endpoint of a discursive process and that it is, in itself, an institutional process. The shared understanding necessary to formulate policy is crucial to persons who are responsible for policy decisions and recommendations. Since the public perception is that public policy problems are too complicated for ordinary people to deal with, the policy problem is reframed into manageable "bits." It is how these "bits" are framed, named, and …

The Age Of Greed And The Sabotage Of Regulation, Rena I. Steinzor

Faculty Scholarship

President Obama has exhibited a steadfast determination to respond with conciliation to intemperate and relentless demands by his political opponents that he dismantle regulation because it is undermining the nation’s economy. Viewed from the perspective of winning either political support or the basis for compromise with Republican legislative leaders, his concessions seem not only to have failed, but have also made matters significantly worse because, as negotiation experts would remind us, responding to highly competitive negotiation tactics with conciliation incites escalating confrontations and even more extreme demands.

The Article uses the Administration’s decision to kill a proposed rule updating “hazardous …

Federal Neighborhood Stabilization Policy Deployment In Select Florida Jurisdictions, Kevin Carl Mccarthy

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In 2008 the Federal government enacted a Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) to address the neighborhood effects of the late-2000s foreclosure crisis. Congress subsequently funded a second and third NSP. This research employs mixed methods to examine the effectiveness of the first round of the NSP in three Florida jurisdictions. The results are analyzed within the larger context of substantive housing theory and federal housing policy. The success of the program is evaluated using a mixed-scanning procedural planning theoretical framework.

Talking About Talk: The Problem Of Communication As An Object Of Study In Public Participation Research, Lauren Leigh Cutlip

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

When citizens participate in risk assessment and decision-making for environmental and other issues that affect members of the public, more robust decisions may be made. Public participation in policy decisions is not only more democratic, but it also enables members of the public to contribute valuable expertise to the decision-making process. However, the development of an effective forum for such participatory projects has been difficult. Participation mechanisms that foster dialogue and interactive exchange between participants have been regarded as the most beneficial, but the practical application of these mechanisms has been observed to be problematic. The goal of this study …

The Relationship Between The Social Construction Of Race And The Black/White Test Score Gap In, Toriano M. Dempsey

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

This research is an investigation into the relationship between the resegregation of American

public schools and the social creation of race. This research is based on the popular notion that

American public schools are failing to produce students capable of competing in today's global society.

The proof most often used to assert the failure of American public schools is the Black/White Test Score

Gap. For the purposes of this research the Black/White Test Score Gap is defined as the gap between

the scores on academic standardized tests between Black public school students and White public school

students regardless of …

Impact Of Occupational Health Interventions In Indonesia, Hanifa Maher Denny

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Although the Ministry of Health, Indonesia, has achieved some successful occupational health interventions, published literature on such interventions in Indonesia remains scarce.

This study utilized mixed methods of qualitative and quantitative research for the years 2010 and 2011. The qualitative study covered respondents in West, Central, and East Java Provinces to gather stakeholders' perspectives on the impact, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, maintenance, and barriers of occupational health services for informal sectors in Indonesia. The quantitative portion measured the impact of occupational health training for community health officers using Reach, Efficacy, Adoption, Implementation and Maintenance (RE-AIM) dimensions. West Java, as a province …

"People...Do Not Come With Standardized Circumstances": Toward A Model For An Anthropology Of E-Government, Marc K. Hebert

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Many Americans appreciate the availability and ease of using government websites to conduct their business with the state. What then of the most vulnerable in society? How do they access and use a standardized application process for government assistance, considering their potential resource, educational and physical constraints? Many go to public libraries and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which shifts the responsibility to help applicants from the government agency administering the program to local actors whose primary duties lie elsewhere.

The aim of this research is to document the experiences of three groups of people, primarily located in a central Florida, urban …

Whose Budget? Our Budget? Broadening Political Stakeholdership Via Participatory Budgeting, Celina Su

Publications and Research

In this thought piece, I attempt to contextualize New York City’s inaugural participatory budgeting (PB) process in the larger landscape of American political participation. I discuss how the bottom-up way in which stakeholders wrote the process’s rules in the first place, alongside the core role played by the two lead organizations, helped to broaden notions of stakeholdership among constituents. Ultimately, the first year’s primary achievement regarding political participation was not a specific set of outcomes, but a debut as an unfinished form of governance—one that began to engage traditionally marginalized constituents, to trigger their political imagination, and to prompt them …

Advancing The Human Right To Housing In Post-Katrina New Orleans: Discursive Opportunity Structures In Housing And Community Development, Leigh Graham

Publications and Research

In post-Katrina New Orleans, housing and community development (HCD) advocates clashed over the future of public housing. This case study examines the evolution of and limits to a human right to housing frame introduced by one nongovernmental organization (NGO). Ferree’s concept of the discursive opportunity structure and Bourdieu’s social field ground this NGO’s failure to advance a radical economic human rights frame, given its choice of a political inside strategy that opened up for HCD NGOs after Hurricane Katrina. Strategic and ideological differences within the field limited the efficacy of this rights-based frame, which was seen as politically radical and …

Razing Lafitte: Defending Public Housing From A Hostile State, Leigh Graham

Publications and Research

The contentious politics of the demolition of Lafitte public housing in post- Katrina New Orleans and its replacement with mixed-income properties is a telling case of the strategic conflicts housing advocates face in public housing revitalization. It reveals how the qualified outcomes of HOPE VI interact with local institutional and historical circumstances to confound the equity and social justice goals of housing and community development advocates. It shows the limits to public housing revitalization as an urban recovery strategy when hostile government leadership characterizes a region, and the state is recast as an adversary rather than revitalization partner. This case …

On Tax Increase Limitations: Part Ii -- Evasion And Transcendence, David Gamage, Darien Shanske

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In this essay, the second of a series, we continue our evaluation of state Tax Increase Limitations (TILs) – special rules that limit state legislatures’ ability to raise taxes, such as by requiring supermajority votes. We analyze two strategies whereby majority parties can evade TILs to the extent they so desire. We further argue that these strategies have some positive normative features. The strategies designed to evade TILs may ultimately lead toward a more effective means for controlling the size of state government than TILs themselves are able to provide.

Building On The Strengths Of Indigenous Knowledge To Promote Sustainable Development In Crisis Conditions From The Community Level: The Case Of Palestine, Jehad Yousif Alayasa

Dissertations and Theses

This study began focused on the use of traditional knowledge in promoting sustainable development in crisis conditions. Presented the question: How have successful community-level sustainable development efforts undertaken under crisis conditions drawn upon indigenous knowledge to achieve positive outcomes? The study is a cross case analysis. The three cases addressed in this study have explained some of the ways that indigenous knowledge has played significant positive roles in promoting sustainable development for communities living under crisis conditions in Palestine. Indigenous knowledge community based patterns indicated significant focus on strengths of local culture, social cohesion, the integration process, and special advantages …

Experimentalist Governance, Charles F. Sabel, Jonathan Zeitlin

Faculty Scholarship

This article discusses the concept of the so-called experimentalist governance. It explains that the experimentalist architecture in regulation is well illustrated by the European Union Water Framework Directive (WFD) and its Common Implementation Strategy. The article suggests that experimentalism appears particularly well suited to transnational domains, where there is no overarching sovereign with the authority to set common goals even in theory, and where the diversity of local conditions and practices makes the adoption and enforcement of uniform fixed rules even less feasible than in domestic settings.