Since its founding in London in 1844 and its arrival in Houston in 1886, the Young Men's Christian Association has always been a social service agency, attending to the needs of its clientele. Though the types of services the YMCA has offered have changed over time, its commitment to social service has not. In the first one hundred years in Houston, the association's emphasis on the spiritual, physical, mental, and social aspects of life has remained steadfast. This study will attempt to demonstrate that while applications of the aims have changed, the basic goal has not.

The first part of the thesis evaluates policy change effected toward the Old Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) program and the Food Stamp program in the United States during the Reagan years; and the Retirement Pensions program and Social Assistance in the United Kingdom during the Thatcher years (1979-1988). The Reagan administration was largely unsuccessful in attaining its major goals toward reforming OASI. Greater success was forthcoming in its efforts to effect policy change toward the Food Stamp program. Reagan, failed, however, to transfer authority for the welfare function over to the states. Non-incremental policy change was effected toward the Retirement Pensions program during the Thatcher years. A radical redirection in social policy toward the unemployed was also forthcoming. The argument is advanced that the social policies of the two administrations were guided by a determination to reinforce the historical distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor. The second part of the thesis assesses how the attempts of the two administrations to reform the welfare state were constrained by public opinion and the legislative branch of government. The public popularity of OASI severely constricted the reform options available to the Reagan administration. A broad relationship existed between public opinion on nutritional issues and policy output with relationship to the Food Stamp program. The administration's attempts to reform the welfare state were constrained by the complex legislative structure of U.S. government, and by divided partisan control of Congress. Strong British public support for the welfare of the elderly inhibited the government from attempting to cut basic retirement pension benefits. Public opinion exerted a minimal degree of influence on the direction of Social Assistance reform. Thatcher's success in effecting non-incremental reform was facilitated by the structural design of Parliament. Her position was fortified by large cohesive Conservative party majorities in the House of Commons. Policy change in Britain during the Thatcher years is interpreted on a theoretical level through an adversarial model of the policy making process. A consensus model is utilized to facilitate understanding of Reagan's experiences in office.

In this dissertation, I reconceptualize the concept of violence to consider its physical, sexual, psychological and economic dimension. I attempt to add to existing meanings of "violence" to include not only forms of abuse on the individual and group level but also abuse practiced by legal, political, ideological and economic institutions in a collective and systemic manner. Due to the significance of child maltreatment around the globe, I focus on the impact of law on this problem specifically through a study of domestic and international use of the best interests' doctrine; evidentiary issues relating to children; child abuse reporting mechanisms and protection schemes in Canada and elsewhere; and the international protection of children's rights. Lastly, I analyze the benefits of a reoriented rights-based approach to empower children within and without the legal arena.

<p> Land use regulations affect housing prices, with more restrictive regulatory environments associated with higher prices. Yet, regulations are only a part of the regulatory regime in which land use decisions are made, leading to the question: how do land use regulatory regimes affect housing prices? This study examines and compares the land use regulatory regimes of four counties, Frederick, MD, Montgomery, MD, Fairfax, VA, and Loudoun, VA through interviews, project files, and regulatory review to learn how the combination of structures, rules, norms, principles, and expectations, relate to housing prices. State differences in the tools available lead to Virginia counties having a more predictable, but not faster, subdivision review process than Maryland counties. More importantly, local differences in developer contributions for mitigating the impact of development, community involvement, and perspectives on development affect the cost and predictability of the residential development review process. These jurisdictional differences support the need to focus research on regulatory regimes rather than simply regulations to identify changes to reduce unnecessary costs that increase house prices.</p>

The planning and provision of equitable urban transportation services is critical to ensure both equitable societies and sustainable urban forms. To achieve these, planners and decision-makers must acknowledge the diversity of issues resulting from the heterogeneity in socio-demographic segments. While the transportation needs of these groups are comparable within social strata, they greatly differ across them. The goal of this dissertation is to determine the level to which these differences exist and investigate the elements that engender them at the individual level. The analysis, conducted in various demographic segments in the Montreal census metropolitan area, is based on econometric models of commuting modes and distances, which have been developed using 1996 Canadian Census data.

<p> A historical narrative of Long Beach in the rights to the city and spatial justice literature has remained untold within the broader California narrative. This analysis looks at the case of Long Beach and focuses on two critical junctures in its development. The concept of the right to the city centers on social justice for anyone dispossessed by the conditions of urban life which can be achieved by creating more space for democratic participation and inclusivity over the production of the city for all social groups. Related to rights to the city, spatial justice theory posits that the current system of urban restructuring and development reproduce injustices through factors such as uneven development, disinvestment, and marginalization and only by transforming these processes can we achieve social justice. Rights to the city and spatial justice both underscore challenging existing power relations that drive the production of urban space.</p><p> While the focus of this research is limited to Long Beach, the implications are much broader; the concepts ofthe rights to the city and spatial justice are about understanding and transforming global processes by starting transformation at the local level. The case study of Long Beach can add to both the literature and the right to the city and spatial justice movements by demonstrating ways Long Beach community members have attempted to achieve the right to the city and transform it to a more spatially just urban area. The findings generated from the analysis of two prominent Long Beach social movement organizations, The Long Beach Area Citizens Involved (LBACI) and The Long Beach Coalition for Good Jobs and a Healthy Community (the Coalition), suggest that community members have successfully challenged the processes underlying the development of Long Beach in the pursuit of social justice.</p>

<p> "Our war is not against Islam.....Our war is a war against evil&hellip;" -President George W. Bush. </p><p> Despite President Bush's rhetoric attempting to separate Muslims in general from terrorists who adhere to the Islamic faith, the policies of the War on Terror have generally focused on Muslims domestically and abroad, often for no greater reason than a shared religious identity with the perpetrators of the 9/11 attack (see for example, National Special Entry-Exit Registration). While foreign-born Muslims were the primary subjects of earlier policies in the War on Terror, several cases involving Muslim Americans suggest that despite holding U.S. citizenship, they may be subject to differential standards of justice (i.e. Hamdi v. Rumsfeld or the targeted killing of Anwar Al-Awlaki). Building on previous scholarship that has examined the Muslim American experience post 9/11, this dissertation focuses on the relationship between the substance and implementation of laws and policies and Muslim American attitudes towards political efficacy and orientations towards the U.S. government. In addition, this dissertation examines the relationship between policy design and implementation and Muslim American political participation, alienation, and withdrawal. </p><p> This study was approached through the lens of social construction in policy design, a theoretical framework that was pioneered by Anne Schneider and Helen Ingram. Schneider and Ingram (1993, 1997) focus on the role of public policy in fostering and maintaining democracy. With the goal of understanding public policy as a vehicle to promoting or inhibiting democracy, their analysis focuses on how the use of social constructions of different policy group targets can affect their attitudes towards government and citizenship, in addition to behaviors such as political participation. </p><p> According to Schneider and Ingram (1993, 1997, 20005), groups with favorable constructions can expect to receive positive treatment and exhibit positive attitudes towards government and participate at higher levels than groups with negative social constructions, who will develop negative orientations towards government, a decrease in feelings of political efficacy, and lower levels of political participation. Within this conceptualization of the impact of policy on target groups is the element of political power, which Schneider and Ingram (1993, 1997, 2005) examine as a measure of the degree to which different target groups can challenge their social construction and, subsequently, the policy benefits or burdens directed at them. </p><p> Research studying the impact of policies on differently constructed groups (welfare recipients, veterans, etc.) has empirically verified Schneider and Ingram's (1993, 1997, 2005) social construction in policy design theory. However, none of the existing research has yet to apply this framework to Muslim Americans as a group and in the context of counter-terrorism policies. </p><p> In order to situate the Muslim American responses according to the theories' main propositions, this study provides a background on many of the post 9/11 counter-terrorism policies, highlighting those policies that have disproportionately impacted members of this group. This research also examines how the War on Terror has been framed, and the actors involved in the construction of the Muslim image, with a focus on discerning the ways in which members of this population have been demonized and positioned as collectively responsible for acts of terrorism perpetrated by other Muslims. </p><p> This study utilized a mixed methods approach and included a quantitative survey and qualitative interviews. Purposive sampling was used in order to obtain a sample of Muslim Americans from different racial and ethnic backgrounds proportionate to the demographics of this community in the United States. The study findings are based on surveys from 75 individuals and interviews with 61 individuals. </p><p> The findings in this study reveal that Muslim Americans overwhelmingly perceive themselves to be the target of the War on Terror policies. Further, the data in this study shows that Muslim Americans across a range of backgrounds question the degree to which they are entitled to equity in both cultural and legal citizenship, including procedural justice. Despite exhibiting these views towards citizenship and procedural justice, a majority of Muslim Americans nonetheless reported increased levels of political participation as a response to policies that targeted them. </p><p> These findings provide additional empirical support for the social construction in policy design framework. Specifically, this data demonstrates that Muslim Americans in large part believe themselves to be the policy targets and have internalized many of the social constructions that have emerged vis-&agrave;-vis policy design and implementation. Consequently, Muslim Americans have developed subsequently negative orientations towards government and a sense of diminished citizenship. While the study results in terms of increased political participation may appear to be at odds with what the framework suggests, these increased levels of political participation are more properly couched as being a function of fear or threat, and in this sense a symptom of being targeted. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)</p>

<p> The purpose of this study was to conduct a policy analysis of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), created under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996, and its impact on families with children. TANF is the largest safety net and cash assistance program available to provide assistance to children living in poverty. The implementation of TANF signified a fundamental shift in federal welfare policy for the first time since its creation under the Social Security Act of 1935.</p><p> After reviewing policies, congressional hearings, government reports, federal statistics, peer-reviewed journal articles, and data from child welfare agencies, a modified version of David Gil's framework was used to conduct this analysis. The major finding of this study are that the policy's approach to reducing childhood poverty through an emphasis on work and marriage have been unsuccessful in assisting families with achieving financial self-sufficiency and upward economic mobility.</p>

<p> This paper examined patterns of decumulation and the role that health events and marital disruption play in forming those patterns. Study data were drawn from six biennial waves of the HRS (1998 - 2008), and merged RAND HRS data files for the period 1998&ndash;2008. The a priori expectation was that there will be variation in drawdown strategies households employ. Findings suggest that patterns of dissaving are heterogeneous. The five most prevalent patterns were discussed. Households predominantly transitioned between oversaving and overspending. Households are expected to have a goal of on target spending therefore the observed cycle's dissaving will influence the next cycle's draw down rate in an attempt to maintain a sustainable drawdown rate. Markov model results suggest that households do recalibrate their depletion rate as a function of their last depletion rate. This study hypothesized that the onset of a health condition or a spouse's admission to a nursing home would be associated with an excessive decumulation of assets. These hypotheses were unsupported by the research. Marital transitions as predictors of decumulation were only partially borne out by the results. Divorce was also expected to increase the likelihood of overspender however this relationship was not significant. Loss of spouse was associated with an increased likelihood of verspending. One of the major contributions of this study is the identification of patterns of dissaving in retirement. Various life course, demographic and decumulation factor variables were determinants of these patterns. Overall results suggest that elders have a difficult time managing to an on target drawdown. This study concludes with a national decumulation policy directive outline.</p>

<p>Since the end of the Second World War, US troops have served as a powerful tool of US foreign policy. Although there seems to be overwhelming anecdotal evidence indicating the effectiveness of US military intervention in promoting conflict resolution, democracy, and US interests abroad, little is known about the economic impact of US military interventions in countries where US troops have been deployed. This study examines critical factors in determining international Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in countries where US troops are deployed. Using data from approximately 95 countries from 1982 to 2012 the study estimates complimentary effects of the presence of US troops on international foreign direct investments. It finds that US troops have a positive effect on international foreign direct investment in those countries to which they are deployed. These findings suggest that US foreign policy makers might augment or complement US foreign policy applied to those countries affected with the results found in this research. For instances where US troops deploy anyway (e.g., continuing or traditional allied training missions) the complimentary effect is of no additional cost. </p>