Policy Design, Analysis, and Evaluation Commons^™

The Effects Of The Foreclosure Crisis On The Black And Hispanic Population In Lee County, Florida, Stenia K. Reid-Hall, Stenia K. Reid-Hall Ph. D

Walden Faculty and Staff Publications

The housing foreclosure crisis of 2007-2010 in the United States disproportionately affected persons of color. Some states, such as Florida, were heavily impacted by property value losses yet little is known about the experience of losing a home and recovering from that loss from the perspective of the homeowner. Using Carlson’s conceptualization of resiliency theory, the purpose of this phenomenological study was to assess the impact of housing foreclosure and the experience of recovery from foreclosure on Black and Hispanic people in Lee County, Florida. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with 15 people in Lee County who experienced foreclosure …

Knowledge Of Health Insurance Concepts And The Affordable Care Act Among Rural Residents, Erika C. Ziller Phd

Health System Reform

Health insurance literacy is central to identifying eligibility for coverage and subsidies, choosing a plan, and using optimal healthcare services under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or other insurance reform initiatives. To fully benefit from policy efforts to improve health insurance access, rural residents must have the ability to select the plan that best meets their healthcare needs. However, a higher proportion of rural residents possess characteristics that may put them at risk of lower health insurance literacy, including lower incomes and educational attainment, less experience with private insurance, and historically higher uninsured rates. Using Health Reform Monitoring Survey data …

Race, Partisan Gerrymandering And The Constitution, John M. Greabe

Law Faculty Scholarship

[Excerpt] “For the most part, the Constitution speaks in generalities. The 14th Amendment, for example, instructs the states to provide all persons the "equal protection of the laws." But obviously, this cannot mean that states are always forbidden from treating a person differently than any other person. Children can, of course, be constitutionally barred from driving, notwithstanding the Equal Protection Clause. Thus, there is a need within our constitutional system to refine the Constitution's abstract provisions.”

Examination Of Crowdsourcing As A Tool For Policy Making, Araz Taeihagh

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Crowdsourcing is rapidly evolving and applied in situations where ideas, labour, opinion or expertise of large groups of people are used. Crowdsourcing is now used in various policy making initiatives; however, this use has usually been focused on open collaboration platforms and specific stages of the policy process such as agenda- setting and policy evaluations. Moreover, other forms of crowdsourcing have been neglected in policy making with a few exceptions. This article examines crowdsourcing as a tool for policy making and explores the nuances of the technology and its use and implications for different stages of the policy process. The …

Social Media And The Voice Of The Department, Brittany N. Rios

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

More law enforcement agencies are adopting social media as a progressive policing strategy each year. They utilize it for several reasons including, community outreach and engagement, public relations, notifying the public of safety concerns, recruitment, intelligence gathering for investigations, among other uses (IACP, 2017). This study explores Southern California Law Enforcements’ use of social media through a survey and content analysis. First, the survey results suggest that more than 93% of departments surveyed concentrate on community outreach through their social media channels. Second, the content analysis results suggest that when media (pictures/video), links, and hashtags (#), are included in posts …

Health Budget Tracking At Local Levels: A Training Manual For Uganda’S Youth Leaders And Advocates, Rehema Z. Namukose Ms.

Capstone Collection

Uganda’s decentralization policy was introduced in 1997 under the Local Government Act to transfer power from central government to local government levels. The main purpose was to promote participation of all citizens in decision making processes to enhance responsibility and accountable monitoring of services delivered to citizens at all levels. The policy “aimed to achieve efficiency and effectiveness” in services delivered and managed at lower levels (Kebba & Ntanda, 2005). But how were citizens at local levels going to participate in accountability processes? How would they monitor the quality of services delivered under this policy framework? In what ways were …

More Women In Parliament: Advocacy Lessons Learned From The Georgian Women’S Task Force On Political Participation, Emma Shattuck

Capstone Collection

Emma Shattuck – PIM 75

MORE WOMEN IN PARLIAMENT: ADVOCACY LESSONS LEARNED

FROM THE GEORGIAN WOMEN’S TASK FORCE ON POLITICAL PARTICIPATION

May 2017

This Policy Advocacy Course-Linked Capstone is a case study of an on-going advocacy campaign to increase women’s political participation in the Republic of Georgia’s Parliament. It tells the story of a dedicated group of advocates who are determined to help Georgian women’s voices be heard in a primarily male-dominated political context. Drawing on my personal experience living and working in Tbilisi, Georgia, and based on comprehensive key informant interviews with leaders of the campaign, I analyze the …

Considerations For Mexican Immigration Policy Reform: How Motivations To Migrate Align With U.S. And Mexican Macroeconomic Conditions, Alix Naugler

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The nationalistic rhetoric adopted by the newly-elected president’s administration along with the public’s climaxing anti-immigrant hysteria has recently forced Mexican immigration intervention to the top of the U.S. agenda. Misconceptions regarding Mexicans’ role in stealing jobs, threatening cultural and ethnic traditions, and straining public welfare, educational, and healthcare resources have spurred a fear among the American people. This politically-fabricated “schizophrenia” has ceased the political and economic collaboration between the two nations and has resulted in the unilateral militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border. In this evaluation of the U.S. government’s immigration policies, the proposed economic theories related to Mexicans’ motivations in …

How Do You Mobilize Public Support For Infrastructural Investment In California’S Aging Water System?, Christine M. Hackett

Master's Projects and Capstones

This paper looks at how the state of California maintains an aging water system – the California State Water Project (SWP) – that will threaten California’s water supply if further maintained, and concludes that the system faces three major problems that are of concern in 2017 – aging pipes, health hazards, and environmental threats. What needs to be done in order to address these issues is to invest in a new and improved SWP that will save water, protect the water supply from contamination of hazardous particles, and replenish the ecosystems within piping range that it has depleted. To do …

San Francisco's Response To Sexual Assault: Pathways To Creating A Survivor-Centered Criminal Justice System, Bianca Rosen

Master's Projects and Capstones

This research examines the process when adult sexual assault survivors in San Francisco decide to pursue legal justice and how survivors experience the local criminal justice system. My analysis exposes the mistreatment of survivors who participate with local law enforcement and recommends survivor-centered policies that could support the wellbeing of survivors pressing charges. The purpose of this research is to encourage law enforcement practices that prioritize survivors’ self-determination and welfare.

Municipal Resource Guide To Leading Practices In Cost Savings, Martin Horak, Andrew Sancton, Rachna Goswami, Umera Ali

Centre for Urban Policy and Local Governance – Publications

Ontario municipalities of all sizes face pressure to “do more with less.” Commissioned by the Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs, this Resource Guide provides municipal officials with single-source information about a range of current leading practices in cost savings in small and mid-sized Ontario municipalities. Municipalities across the province are continually developing innovative practices that save costs without incurring service level reductions. Most of these practices involve small-scale initiatives that result in modest savings. Yet even modest savings add up over time, and multiple small initiatives in a single municipality can make a big difference. In addition, by providing an …

Examining The Intersection Of Refugee Policies And Contemporary Protracted Displacement, Christopher M. Owens

Sustainability and Social Justice

Article 33 of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees states that host nations shall not expel or return a refugee to their home nation ‘where his life or freedom would be threatened.’ However, as demonstrated in three contemporary case studies in protracted displacement the interests of the sovereign state drive nations to craft strategies to limit cross-border refugee mobility. The refoulement of refugees escaping drug cartel violence throughout the Americas, internally displaced Haitians, and Syrian refugees in Jordan are all ‘managed’ by one of two methods. First, some destination nations either strategically blur refugees into other mobility …

Opioid Use In Rhode Island - Review And Suggestions, Vanessa S. Kolb

Senior Honors Projects

It is estimated that over two million Americans have an opioid-related substance abuse disorder. Nationally, 91 people die every day from an opioid overdose, and 60% of drug overdoses involve an opioid. Rhode Island has enacted some of the strictest opioid-prescribing guidelines in the country, but since 2011 the number of overdose deaths within the state that involve illicit opioids has increased by 250%. In 2015, Governor Gina Raimondo established a special task force whose goal is to reduce the number of opioid-related overdose deaths in Rhode Island by one-third by 2018.

In this project, I analyze and compare best …

Unconventional Wisdom: Estimating The Economic Impact Of The Democratic And Republican National Political Conventions, Victor Matheson, Lauren R. Heller, E. Frank Stephenson

Economics Department Working Papers

We use daily hotel occupancy, price, and revenue data to analyze the economic impact of the 2008 and 2012 Democratic and Republican National Conventions. We find that political conventions generate approximately 29,000 room nights of lodging, though this figure is offset by lower hotel occupancy during the week before and, to a lesser extent, after conventions. Conventions increase hotel revenue by approximately $20 million on average, a figure which suggests that host cities’ claims of economic impacts of $150 million or more may be implausible.

Ending Transitional Homelessness In San Jose, California: A Process Evaluation Of The City Of San Jose’S Plan To Convert A Hotel/Motel Into A Single Room Occupancy Living Unit For The Transitionally Homeless, Alyssa Garcia

Master's Projects

The City of San Jose has been working on the Hotel/Motel Supportive Housing Program and Underutilized City-Owned Property project since 2012. The City acquired the Plaza Hotel in downtown San Jose from the Successor Agency to the Redevelopment Authority and leased the property to Abode. Abode converted the rooms into SRO units for the transitionally homeless and occupancy is expected in July of 2017. The program is estimated to operate for five years before it is torn down. The project is unique, as the city has never had a hotel/motel conversion program tailored towards transitionally homeless adults.

A process evaluation …

Addressing The Ab 109 Population In Santa Cruz County: The Santa Cruz County Recidivism Study Of Post-Realignment Offenders (2011–2016), Shea Johnson

Master's Projects

The goal of this paper and the included “Santa Cruz County Recidivism Study of Post-Realignment Offenders (2011–2016)” is to provide a meaningful presentation of recidivism rates for Santa Cruz County and, in doing so, help Santa Cruz County agencies to better design recidivism reduction programs, highlight the problems every county faces in trying to conduct recidivism reduction studies, and provide a roadmap for what is and is not possible for policymakers who are increasingly demanding more refined data sets and streamlined data for budgeting.

A Comparative Study Of Local Municipalities’ Implementation And Compliance Of Construction Site Controls, As Required By The California Water Quality Control Board, San Francisco Bay Region, Municipal Regional Stormwater National Pollutant Discharge Elimination Systems (Npdes) Permit, Maria Begiebing

Master's Projects

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has programs designed to protect the navigable waters of the United States from urban runoff pollution. One source of polluted runoff regulated by EPA is from construction sites. In support of this effort, the California Regional Water Quality Control Board issued a regional National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Permit called the Municipal Regional Permit (MRP). The goal of the MRP is to provide consistent regulation of stormwater contaminants across multiple jurisdictions (CRWQCB, 2015).

This research project evaluated the construction inspection programs of fourteen cities located in California’s San Francisco Bay Area to determine …

Policy Learning And Policy Networks In Theory And Practice: The Role Of Policy Brokers In The Indonesian Biodiesel Policy Network, Michael Howlett, Ishani Mukherjee, Joop Koppenjan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper examines how learning has been treated, generally, in policy network theories and what questions have been posed, and answered, about this phenomenon to date. We examine to what extent network characteristics and especially the presence of various types of brokers impede or facilitate policy learning. Next, a case study of the policy network surrounding the sustainability of palm oil biodiesel in Indonesia over the past two decades is presented using social network analysis. This case study focuses on sustainability-oriented policy learning in the Indonesian biodiesel governance network and illustrates how network features and especially forms of brokerage influence …

Law And Identifiability, Daphna Lewinsohn-Zamir, Ilana Ritov, Tehila Kogut

Indiana Law Journal

Psychological studies have shown that people react either more generously or more punitively toward identified individuals than toward unidentified ones. This phenomenon, named the identifiability effect, has received little attention in the legal literature, despite its importance for the law. As a prime example, while legislators typically craft rules that would apply to unidentified people, judges ordinarily deal with identified individuals. The identifiability effect suggests that the outcomes of these two forms of lawmaking may differ, even when they pertain to similar facts and situations.

This Article is a preliminary investigation into the relevance of the identifiability effect for law …

Dictation And Delegation In Securities Regulation, Usha Rodrigues

Indiana Law Journal

When Congress undertakes major financial reform, either it dictates the precise con-tours of the law itself or it delegates the bulk of the rule making to an administrative agency. This choice has critical consequences. Making the law self-executing in federal legislation is swift, not subject to administrative tinkering, and less vulnerable than rule making to judicial second-guessing. Agency action is, in contrast, deliberate, subject to ongoing bureaucratic fiddling, and more vulnerable than statutes to judicial challenge.

This Article offers the first empirical analysis of the extent of congressional delegation in securities law from 1970 to the present day, examining nine …