Policy Design, Analysis, and Evaluation Commons^™

Water Governance In Bolivia: Policy Options For Pro-Poor Infrastructure Reform, Daniel M. Maxwell

CMC Senior Theses

As the case with most countries across Latin America, unprecedented migration to urban areas has strained city infrastructure systems. More particularly, the region faces a pressing crisis of water security, where rapid urbanization has outpaced water sector development. This thesis addresses the water infrastructure reform in El Alto and La Paz, Bolivia, focusing on strategies to better promote water access for the peri-urban poor. The research investigates the level of progressivity of water service expansion and pricing regimes: in other words, does the present model of water distribution positively improve the lives of the poorest groups? By investigating these social …

Homeland Security Grant Program: An Analysis Of The Determinants Of Federal Homeland Security Funding To States, Michaela Miles

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Ever since the devastating attacks of 9/11, America has made terrorism prevention a top priority, and the Department of Homeland Security has transferred billions of dollars to states in Domestic Preparedness and Anti-Terrorism programs. However, there has been much debate on how these funds are allocated, many speculating that some states receive more funding than others as “pork.”

Basing an analysis of funding on a variety of determinants, it can be concluded that this speculation might very well be the case. An analysis of allocation of federal Homeland Security funds to states was conducted, hypothesizing the following variables were determinants …

Government Regulation: From Independence To Dependency, Part One, Steven Alan Samson

Faculty Publications and Presentations

What Robert Bellah calls "expressive individualism" has led to unprecedented social legislation in America and expanded government employment since the 1960s, helping to produce a generous supply of public services, policy entrepreneurs, and clientele groups. The legal scholar Lawrence M Friedman notes that "the right to be 'oneself,' to choose oneself, is placed in a special and privileged position." As a consequence, "achievement is defined in subjective, personal terms, rather than in objective, social terms." When the claims of expressive individualism are considered in tandem with the increasing reach of the modern social service state, a case may be made …

Funding Defined Benefit State Pension Plans: An Empirical Evaluation, Cezar Brian C. Mamaril

Theses and Dissertations--Public Policy and Administration

Defined Benefit (DB) state pension trust funds are an integral component of state finances and play a major role in the country’s labor and capital markets. The last decade though has seen a substantial growth in unfunded pension obligations and a seeming inability by states to make the contributions needed to cover funding shortfalls. When coupled with even larger unfunded retirement health benefits, the looming threat of insolvent state retirement systems pose both current and long-term fiscal challenges to state governments already struggling with the ongoing economic downturn and billions of dollars in budget deficits. The convergence of these factors …

Institutional Lending Models, Mission Drift, And Microfinance Institutions, Bethany L. Paris

Theses and Dissertations--Public Policy and Administration

Microfinance is a development tool used to reduce poverty among extremely poor households. Impoverished households can access lines of credit through microfinance institutions (MFIs), in order to create a new business, smooth household consumption, fund medical emergencies, etc. Many authors postulate that MFIs are drifting from a welfarist to an institutionalist approach to lending.

Using MIXMarket data on specific MFIs in 118 countries between 1995 and 2011, the average loan balance of these organizations will be regressed against measure of outreach and sustainability of these institutions by charter type through a series of four, fixed effects models. The main research …

The Rising Digital Missile Gap: The Security Threat Of The United States’ Cyber Inactivity, Christian Pedersen

Pepperdine Policy Review

Over the past two decades, the ubiquitousness of the internet has created new reals in which artistic expression, dialogue, and commerce have flourished. Yet the same technologies which bring about the conveniences of the modern age also carry the greatest threats to international security over the next few decades. Defense strategies and security protocols have failed to evolve at the same rate at which internet technologies have grown. While the eminence and complexity of cyber-attacks continues to be debatable, the fact remains that networks are vulnerable to attack by both foreign governments and non-state actors. Unless definitive and aggressive steps …

Municipal Waste Management: Suffolk County Municipal Systems, Services And Infrastructure, Krista L. Greene, Susan Lienau, David J. Tonjes

Technology & Society Faculty Publications

This report describes the municipal waste management systems used by local governments to manage solid waste in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York. There are ten Towns that serve as the primary planners for waste systems in Suffolk County. Many of the 33 villages in Suffolk County have established their own waste management programs and policies. All programs tend to follow the same general plan of the approaches used by their respective Towns, however. All programs provide some degree of recycling services, although the scope of the services varies tremendously.

Teaming Up For Safer Cities: A Report From The Implementation Assessment Of The National Forum On Youth Violence Prevention (2012), Jeffrey A. Butts, Caterina Gouvis Roman, Kathleen A. Tomberg

Publications and Research

The efforts inspired by the National Forum on Youth Violence Prevention will take time to develop, but survey results from the first 15 months of implementation suggest that the initiative may be generating some important changes. In five communities, survey respondents report a number of potentially valuable improvements. The results imply that the cities involved in the National Forum may be increasing opportunities for youth and improving the extent to which violence prevention approaches draw upon the perspectives and expertise of a broad range of community members. There are also indications that some cities are developing better overall capacity to …

Cultivating Reform: Richard Nixon's Illicit Substance Control Legacy, Medical Marijuana Social Movement Organizations, And Venue Shopping, Jason Scott Plume

Political Science - Dissertations

Over the course of the last two decades, organizations representing the medical marijuana social movement have campaigned for, proposed state level legislation, and supported numerous legal arguments that challenge and attempt to reform U.S. federal illicit substance policies. This set of social regulatory policies, commonly known as the Controlled Substance Act of 1970 (CSA), were drafted, promoted, and implemented by the Nixon Administration then subsequently entrenched by multiple presidents with acquiescent congresses adopting supplemental supply-side resource allocating legislation. My dissertation research uncoils the convoluted history and institutional dynamics of path dependent U.S. illegal drug control policies to answer the question …

Manager-In-Chief: Applying Public Management Theory To Examine White House Chief Of Staff Performance, David Cohen, Justin Vaughn, José Villalobos

Selected Works Temporary Series

In an effort to examine the causal determinants of performance dynamics for the administrative presidency, we apply empirical public management theory to White House administration to explain managerial performance. Utilizing original survey data that measures the perceptions of former officials from the Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Clinton administrations, we conduct quantitative analyses to determine the extent to which a chief of staff’s background, relationship with the president, and internal as well as external management approaches shape overall perceptions of White House administrative efforts. We find that managerial dimensions matter considerably when explaining the dynamics of White House organizational performance.

Manager-In-Chief: Applying Public Management Theory To Examine White House Chief Of Staff Performance, David Cohen, Justin Vaughn, José Villalobos

Departmental Papers (PS)

In an effort to examine the causal determinants of performance dynamics for the administrative presidency, we apply empirical public management theory to White House administration to explain managerial performance. Utilizing original survey data that measures the perceptions of former officials from the Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Clinton administrations, we conduct quantitative analyses to determine the extent to which a chief of staff’s background, relationship with the president, and internal as well as external management approaches shape overall perceptions of White House administrative efforts. We find that managerial dimensions matter considerably when explaining the dynamics of White House organizational performance.

The Utah Model: Lessons For Regional Planning, Brenda C. Scheer

Brookings Mountain West Publications

Utah has become an unlikely leader in regional planning through a voluntary partnership of key leaders, agencies, local government, and the general public. Given that regional planning efforts around the nation have generally evoked strong reactions from residents concerned about losing local control, the success of Envision Utah—the organization that emerged as a key driver of regional planning in Utah—in building a consensus around regional growth management holds lessons for other regions.

Envision Utah adopted several strategies that have distinguished Utah’s regional planning efforts from other regions and given rise to what can be called the “Utah model” of collaborative …

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program For Women, Infants, And Children (Wic) And The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap): Comparing Policies And Suggesting Changes, Regina T. Cucurullo

Journal of Food Law & Policy

National concerns, such as obesity, should be addressed through national efforts. Considering the national reach of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and their ability to influence the diets of a significant amount of the nation's population, changes to these programs should be made to encourage healthy nutrition.

The Relationship Among Training Policy, Knowledge Transfer, And Performance Improvement: A Study Of Private Sector Organizations In The Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia, Fayez M. Shafloot

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore human resource (HR) managers' perceptions of training practices (i.e., needs assessment, trainee preparation, training program review, accountability, management support, knowledge transfer, and performance improvement) in Saudi private sector organizations. The research questions were: (1) How do HR managers perceive the importance and or occurrence of training needs assessment, trainee preparation, training program review, accountability and management support? (2) How do HR managers perceive knowledge transfer and performance improvement as a function of training? and (3) What training factors do HR managers identify as being important to the delivery of training?

Data were …

From Building Evaluation Capacity To Supporting Evaluation Capacity Development: The Cases Of Democratic Republic Of Congo, Niger, And South Africa, Michele Tarsilla

Dissertations

Building on both the current thinking among international development practitioners and the on-going scholarly debate on evaluation capacity development (ECD), this study aims to identify strategies that might help to strengthen national evaluation capacity in a variety of countries in a more inclusive and sustainable fashion in the future. Based on a case study design featuring an extensive literature review of specialized literature (both within and outside the evaluation field), a series of semi-structured interviews and three rounds of online validation sessions held with ECD researchers, funders and implementers; this study aims at three main objectives. First, in an attempt …

School Reform: Where Does Policy Come From? Where Should It Go?, Kim Karman Friel

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Policy analysis helps to develop a greater understanding of societal problems and provide possible solutions for elected and non-elected government decision makers. Ultimately, the product of analysis is advice relating to public decisions and informed by social values. In light of the pressures placed on education by policy-makers concerning implementation of educational reform there are surprisingly few studies concerning the changing role of the federal government from a historical perspective. Looking at the past, with the present in mind, reminds us that the current shape of education was not inevitable.

This qualitative dissertation study analyzes the evolution of the intentions …

Sitting With Oprah, Dancing With Ellen: Presidents, Daytime Television, And Soft News, José Villalobos

Selected Works Temporary Series

On July 29, 2010, President Barack Obama took to the air on "The View" to talk politics, policy, and family. Pundits billed the visit as the first time a sitting U.S. president appeared in a daytime television program. The telecast drew about 6.7 million viewers, the highest rating ever for the show, and garnered the largest number of women viewers in 17 months. However, whether and to what extent Obama succeeded in getting his message out and endearing himself to female voters remains an open question that merits further scholarly inquiry. In this chapter, I put Obama’s visit to "The …

Sitting With Oprah, Dancing With Ellen: Presidents, Daytime Television, And Soft News, José Villalobos

Departmental Papers (PS)

On July 29, 2010, President Barack Obama took to the air on "The View" to talk politics, policy, and family. Pundits billed the visit as the first time a sitting U.S. president appeared in a daytime television program. The telecast drew about 6.7 million viewers, the highest rating ever for the show, and garnered the largest number of women viewers in 17 months. However, whether and to what extent Obama succeeded in getting his message out and endearing himself to female voters remains an open question that merits further scholarly inquiry. In this chapter, I put Obama’s visit to "The …

Violent Youth Crime Plummets To A 30-Year Low, Jeffrey A. Butts

Publications and Research

FBI crime data show a considerable drop in violent youth crimes between 2010 and 2011, with arrests for murder and nonnegligent manslaughter dropping 20 percent in one year. Violent crime arrest rates in 2011 were 30 percent lower than in 2008. This databit shows the percent change in violent offenses charged against youth under 18 between 2010 and 2011 and the youth violent crime rate since 1981.

Los Beneficios De La Educación Cultural Para La Rehabilitación, Samantha Thoma

Spain: Language, Community, and Social Change

In Fall of 2012, during my participation in the Spain: Language, Community and Social Change program, I volunteered at El Centro de Inserción Social “Matilde Canto Fernandez”, a center for inmates in the advanced stages of their reintegration. It is located in the center of urban Granada in order to make the reintegration into the social life of Granada easier. The center plays a residential role and offers intervention and treatment of activities, and social work.

The initial idea for my service was to conduct a “Cine-fórum” in which I would show a movie and lead a discussion where …