Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Comparative study of public administration'

Our world continues to be impacted by large-scale disaster events. These severe disaster events create impacts that are shared across local, regional, and national boundaries. As a result, individuals, communities, and organizations are increasingly confronted with disasters that challenge their social, economic, and operational stability. To be resilient, individuals and communities rely on resources and services provided by organizations to enable each to plan for, respond to, and recover from disasters. If organizations are not prepared to respond to disasters, individuals and communities, in turn, will also not be prepared to respond to disaster events, as a consequence. Similar to the concept of civil defense prominent during the Cold War era, civil security is now required in the present day, pointing to the need for individuals, communities, and organizations to better prepare our nation by enhancing resilience. Resilient organizations also provide a competitive advantage over organizations that do not implement measures to become more resilient, yet many organizations do not know their resilience posture, and, in turn, struggle to prioritize resilience or allocate resources to enhance their resilience. To help enable organizations to invest in their resilience, it is important for organizations to discover and understand their organizational resilience score.

This research extends prior research that developed a methodology and survey tool for measuring and benchmarking organizational resilience. Subsequent research utilized the methodology and survey tool on organizations in New Zealand, whereas this research study utilized the methodology and survey tool to study organizational resilience within the state of New Jersey as part of a comparative study. The results obtained from previous research were compared against organizational resilience data captured on New Jersey based organizations. Survey data created from this research provide valuable information on organizational resilience strengths and weaknesses that can enable New Jersey based organizations to learn their organizational resilience posture and begin to develop a business case for additional investment in organizational resilience.

This thesis presents an implementation study on the handling of electronic identification in three public authorities in Sweden. Electronic identification is a complex but very topical policy domain, largely tied to the general policy aspirations of e-government development. Theories on policy action, logic of appropriateness, garbage cans, and the dialectics of institutions and technology are used. The result highlights that the policy process of electronic identification in the three studied authorities could not be adequately explained from a traditional policy-implementation dichotomy. The action imperative to develop e-services is very strong and explains why and how electronic identification has been developed within the three authorities. The three authorities have very different institutional capacity to implement e-services with electronic identification. The available technology on electronic identification is inscribed with certain logics of appropriateness, that doesn’t sit equally easy with the administrative logics of appropriateness in all three authorities.

This dissertation studies refugee resettlement in the U.S. and develops a framework for understanding a city's capacity for employing refugees who resettle in the U.S. The study exposes the tension between the humanitarian mission of the U.S. Refugee Program and the objective of immediate employment after arrival.

The research questions include: 1) How do contextual factors in the destination city relate to refugee employment outcomes? 2) How might deeper consideration of the relationship between city factors and refugee economic outcomes inform policy making in refugee resettlement program?

A framework derived from the literatures on urban policy and refugees explores how place-based factors influence initial refugee employment with an embedded comparative case study research design (3 cases, 6 units each). Interview data and 2010 employment outcomes stratified by country of origin and English ability collected on-site in 2011, in addition to public data sets from the Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics were analyzed. By comparing outcomes of refugees with similar demographic profiles across 3 cities, the research design explores how local policies, attitudes of the receiving community, economic opportunities, ethnic networks, and refugee resettlement organizations influence refugee employment outcomes.

The study finds that when comparing pairs of cases, higher refugee employment rates 8 months after arrival are associated with higher relevant job availability and accessibility in the metropolitan area. Job availability is characterized by lower unemployment, a larger low skill job market, a smaller ratio of refugees to metropolitan area population, resettlement agency outreach to employers, larger co-national communities, linguistic clusters in places of employment, a higher percentage of English speakers in the linguistic group, and Right-to-Work policies. The focus on place-based factors fills a gap in previous refugee literature with a general theory about how the local context of U.S. cities interact with refugee employment. The findings have implications for the U.S. Refugee Program's allocations strategy, terms of cash assistance, outcome measurement, and funding structure. Recognizing the employment capacity of a city for refugees enables program administrators to anticipate the cost implications of resettling refugees in that city.

This dissertation examines how state policymakers develop, evaluate, and select tax policy options, based on case studies of tax policy decisions in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia from 2007 to 2010.

States have been the main locus of tax policy change in the U.S. in recent years, varying widely in their choices of which taxes to raise or cut, and whether to adjust tax rates or the tax base. Because public finance and budgeting research has focused largely on appropriations, as well as tax decisions at the federal level, the dissertation seeks to expand the knowledge base about state tax policy formulation. This is a critically important policy area because state tax systems are threatened by the growth of services, the advent of electronic commerce, capital flows that cross state and national borders, and the aging of the population.

Based on a mixed-methods research strategy involving documentary evidence as well as interviews with 10 to 15 key policy participants in each state, the dissertation found that the three states vary widely in their capacity to generate and refine tax policy options, reflecting ideological and institutional differences. Nevertheless, the states were very similar in one respect: each state made only tangential efforts to expand its tax base and curtail tax expenditures during the worst fiscal crisis in decades. This pattern suggests that it will be difficult for states to carry out the reformers' mantra to broaden tax bases and lower tax rates, a conclusion that is supported by national data.

The case study states also relied heavily on "selective parity" – aligning their tax rates and tax bases with at least some neighboring jurisdictions or comparable states – in making tax policy choices. This practice suggests that states will avoid the gridlock that has marked federal tax policy, because the widespread use of benchmarking provides a rationale for tax increases as well as cuts, while still serving as a moderating factor that pulls states toward regional or national means. States are picking spots on a spectrum of service levels and tax burdens that reflect voter preferences but are also constrained by national and regional norms.

A general hierarchy of taxes constructed from the case studies and also reflected in national data shows that narrowly-targeted levies (such as health facility taxes) and "sin" taxes (such as cigarette taxes) were the most likely to be increased, while broad-based taxes with the strongest revenue performance (such as the personal income tax) were the least likely to be increased. This pattern reinforces the conclusion that states are neglecting the long-term revenue capacity of their tax systems, a finding that is reinforced by a continuous stream of small tax cuts granted in each state, interrupted periodically by larger tax increases – a pattern of "punctuated incrementalism".

Mass notification systems exist to provide rapid notification to members of the public during emergency situations. Since the middle of the 20 ^th century, these systems have evolved to incorporate a variety of different communications methods as technology has advanced. While local governments have used mass notification systems for many years, institutions of higher education generally only began using such systems following the Virginia Tech shootings in 2007. This study attempted to examine trends relating to mass notification systems and to identify differences in how they have been implemented both in local government and in higher education. While the study was not able to identify statistically valid results due to low response rates, it appears that such differences do exist and further research in this area is needed.

This research and methodology develop a set of statistical measurements to evaluate sustainability — in terms of desired high urban density, walkability for community amenity and convenience for everyday life — at the level of urban design for the cities of Chicago, USA and Taipei, Taiwan. The method, based upon GIS (Geographical Information System) technology, is used at this spatial level and for this type of academic study for the first time. The research analyzes and compares the percentage of each city's population living within the "Quarter Mile Radius Sphere of Influence" (QMSI) for three classes of community amenities: parks, public elementary schools, and subway stations. The new and unique statistical data obtained in this thesis show a great disparity between the two cities.

1. Chicago has 31.98% of its population living within the QMSI of public elementary schools. Taipei has 49.64% of its population living within the QMSI of public elementary schools.

2. For subway stations, Chicago has only 8.09% of its population living in the QMSI, while Taipei has 25.99%.

3. For urban parks, Chicago has 44.06% of its population living in the QMSI, while Taipei has 88.80%.

Further, based upon comparison, this research also discovers that the "sweet spot" areas — intersection of the QMSIs of all three community amenities — are mostly distributed along subway lines. With this indication, the research visualizes and supports the objective of improved public transit and walkability as key factors for sustainability in urban design in this case. The research also demonstrates the usefulness of GIS technology's new application in urban design studies for the future. The research shows that this new method has applicability for academic studies in other urban contexts, and for future international urban design and planning.

Military organizations are often called upon to assist with emergency management missions, so it is critical that they have appropriately established and well understood organizational perceptual factors. Military organizations are often unique within a nation, which increases the challenge for scholars to effectively analyze how organizational factors are influenced by the dynamics of national use of military forces for emergency management missions. There are several disparate theories of government organization, but the most recent and relevant is Keith James' organizational science of disaster and terrorism prevention and response theory. James' theory identified several important organizational factors specific to emergency management organizations. These factors include organizational structure and networks, processes, teams, leadership, and technology. James' organizational factors guided the development of this qualitative comparative case study's interview protocol with 24 members from the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of the United States National Guard and Israeli Homefront Command. Results revealed why two nations use their military forces for disaster response as well as provided a description of how each organization is used within their respective nation. The data affirmed aspects of James' theory, including relevant structural, networking, and procedural factors and identified the other organizational factors within James' theory as possible areas for future research. Finally, based upon interview participant perceptions, recommendations were made to the leadership of the Homefront Command and National Guard regarding areas of potential organizational emphasis to include internal messaging, additional doctrine, and clarified organizational structures for disaster response.

Background & Problem

The author believes that there are important lessons to be

learned from the states in Africa that have managed to achieve successful transitions from

one-party regimes to multy-party regimes. However, Africa today displays countries that

suffer from enormous problems and many of them are mired in political and economical

development. A main theme of this thesis is the search for the differences, how can we

explain the transitions and the outcomes of them?

Purpose

The purpose of this thesis is to describe the nature of transitions as Bratton

& de Walle explain them and to see if their suggested explanations hold true in Ghana &

Zambia. A secondary purpose also includes a comparison between the two cases and the

differences between them.

Method

A combination of a traditional literature study and a focused comparative

study has been used in order to fulfil the purpose.

Theoretical Framework

The second, third, fourth and fifth chapter represent the

bulk of the theoretical framework. The theories stem from Bratton & de Walle and will be

weighted against the empirical information found in the two cases.

Analysis & Conclusions

The latter chapters of this thesis summarize the results from

the comparison and include a discussion and comment chapter. The conclusion argues that

the causes and results of a transition to a large extent can be found in the political. The

phases that Bratton & de Walle describe are also accurate in relation to the two cases. An

important feature that Ghana has been successful with is that they have managed to

withhold a higher political activity throughout their democratization. This has in turn

resulted in a better outcome.

Abstract

Background & Problem

The author believes that there are important lessons to be learned from the states in Africa that have managed to achieve successful transitions from one-party regimes to multy-party regimes. However, Africa today displays countries that suffer from enormous problems and many of them are mired in political and economical development. A main theme of this thesis is the search for the differences, how can we explain the transitions and the outcomes of them?

Purpose

The purpose of this thesis is to describe the nature of transitions as Bratton & de Walle explain them and to see if their suggested explanations hold true in Ghana & Zambia. A secondary purpose also includes a comparison between the two cases and the differences between them.

Method

A combination of a traditional literature study and a focused comparative study has been used in order to fulfil the purpose.

Theoretical Framework

The second, third, fourth and fifth chapter represent the bulk of the theoretical framework. The theories stem from Bratton & de Walle and will be weighted against the empirical information found in the two cases.

Analysis & Conclusions

The latter chapters of this thesis summarize the results from the comparison and include a discussion and comment chapter. The conclusion argues that the causes and results of a transition to a large extent can be found in the political. The phases that Bratton & de Walle describe are also accurate in relation to the two cases. An important feature that Ghana has been successful with is that they have managed to withhold a higher political activity throughout their democratization. This has in turn resulted in a better outcome.

Sammanfattning

Bakgrund & Problem

Författaren anser att det finns viktiga lärdomar att inhämta från de afrikanska stater som har genomgått en lyckad övergång från enpartistyre till flerpartistyre. I Afrika finns det idag länder som lider av enorma problem och många utav dem är stillastående både politiskt och ekonomiskt. Det huvudsakliga temat för denna uppsats är att leta efter skillnaderna, hur kan vi förklara skillnaderna i övergångar och vad orsakar dem?

Syfte

Syftet med denna uppsats är att beskriva övergångsfaserna så som Bratton & de Walle förklarar dem och sedan undersöka om dessa teorier håller i fallet Ghana & Zambia.

Ett andra syfte inkluderar också en jämförelse mellan de två fallen där skillnader och likheter lyfts fram

Metod

I uppsatsen används en kombination av en traditionell litteraturstudie och en fokuserad jämförelse.

Teoretisk Referensram

Det andra, tredje, fjärde och femte kapitlet representerar den teoretiska referensramen. Dessa teorier härstammar från Bratton & de Walle och kommer att vägas mot empirin som beskrivs i de två fallen.

Analys & Slutsats

De sista kapitlen i uppsatsen innehåller analysen och resultat från jämförelsen. I slutsatsen argumenteras det för att orsaker och utgångar i övergångsstater till stor del beror på och är bundna av politiska orsaker. Även de faser som ingår i Bratton & de Walles teorier återfinns till stor del i fallen. Skillnaden mellan Ghana & Zambia är främst att Ghana lyckats med att bibehålla en högre politisk aktivitet i sin demokratisering vilket har gett bättre resultat för landet.

This thesis examines the correlation between economic growth and the prevalence of a number of institutions that according to a theory elaborated by economists Christer Gunnarsson and Mauricio Rojas are growth promoting. The economic development and the institutional quality of four African countries, namely Botswana, Zambia, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau, is examined by comparing index scores for relevant institutional factors. The results show that some correlation between economic growth and the prevalence of the institutions examined can be confirmed, why the theory only gains moderate support. A minor attempt is also made to trace potential correlations between the level of economic equality and the institutions in question, but no correlation is found in this respect.