The Iraqi Refugee Crisis began in 2006 as a result of the instability and violence that prevailed in Iraq following the 2003 US-led invasion and occupation. Instead of being directed to camps, Iraqis flowed across international borders of Middle Eastern states nearby Iraq to live in urban centers and face varying levels of legal accommodation and deteriorating economic security. The policies of individual states in the Middle East, along with complex demographic factors, have influenced where Iraqis have gone. The role of the United States in affecting the destination choices of Iraqis is examined in this paper because of the powerful position of the US in the Middle East region and its role in creating the refugee crisis. The evidence reveals that the diplomatic relations between Middle East host countries and the United States, and the self-serving political interests of those states has created and maintained a regime in which Iraqi refugees are stuck primarily in host countries along Iraq's western border. The states involved in the Iraqi Refugee Crisis have applied political self-interest to their adherence to mechanisms of international law to which they are subject. A realist perspective of international relations is employed to explain the stability-seeking, risk-averse behavior of the states influencing the direction of migration. The purpose of this paper is to determine the destination choices of Iraqi refugees and explain the factors that dictated those choices. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of International Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2009. / Date of Defense: November 6, 2009. / The 1951 Convention on Refugees, International Affairs, International Refugee Law, Human Rights, UNHCR, Iraq War, Operation Iraqi Freedom, US Refugee Admissions Program, Special Immigrant Visa, Realist Perspective, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Gulf Cooperation Council, US Foreign Policy, US Department of State, Durable Solutions / Includes bibliographical references. / Peter Garretson, Professor Directing Thesis; Elwood Carlson, Committee Member; Mark Souva, Committee Member.

This research builds on the studies of politics-administration relationships at local government level. According to the public administration literature, the politics-administration relationship has dynamically evolved from orthodox dichotomy to modified dichotomy and to partnership models. Accepting the notion that professional administrators are important policy-makers along with elected officials, which is identified in modified dichotomy and partnership models, this study raises three empirical questions: How are elected and appointed executives different as policy-makers? What factors determine their interaction patterns in policy-making? And, do these two types of policy-makers have different policy preferences that account for their policy behavior? To answer these questions, this study systematically identifies incentive structures faced by local elected officials and professional administrators through integrating rational choice and sociological institutional approaches. In this framework three categories of factors that shape local officials' policy behavior are specified: organizational authority, social contexts, and career status, with each indicating authority-based, social-based, and individual-based incentives. This framework not only considers incentive factors that induce certain policy behavior, but also includes constraint factors. The main proposition is that elected officials and appointed administrators, imbedded in different social settings and with different career interest, face distinct incentives to policy-making and hold different policy preferences. Using the data collected though the mayor survey and city manager survey conducted in Florida cities in 2006, three sets of empirical models—mayor-manager difference models, policy leadership model, and policy choice models—are operated to address each empirical question. The purpose for the mayor-manager difference models is to investigate whether the survey data provide empirical validation for the theoretical incentive structure framework. The models of policy leadership and policy choices apply the incentive structure framework to explore policy-making patterns, which examine the usefulness of the framework. The results of these models lend preliminary support for the framework. / A Dissertation submitted to the Reubin O'D. Askew School of Public Administration and Policy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2007. / Date of Defense: June 21, 2007. / Politics-administration Relationship, Local Government, Elected Official, Appointed Administrator, Incentive, Policy-making / Includes bibliographical references. / Richard C. Feiock, Professor Directing Dissertation; Charles Barrilleaux, Outside Committee Member; Frances Stokes Berry, Committee Member; Kaifeng Yang, Committee Member.

The purpose of this study is to explore the perceptions of Korean public employees about the utilization and effects of computer technology. Particular emphasis is given to the motives which prompt managers to adopt new technology. Possible associations between managerial motivations and behaviors and several variables regarding the use and effects of computer technology are then explored. To contribute to a broader theoretical understanding, the responses of employees of three Korean financial agencies are compared to American employees randomly selected from financial agencies in the State of Florida. / Univariate and bivariate data analysis shows numerous significant findings. Findings from the Korean sample confirm that managerial motivations are multidimensional. Korean managers are motivated by such factors as service improvement, employee well being, cost savings and desire to enhance control. Managers' behaviors, however, are not always helpful. Management often does not give employees enough time to learn computer skills during regular work hours. Respondents in both countries indicated that informal conversation and self-teaching are the most important ways of learning about computers. Improvements in operational performance measures such as service improvement, work speed, accuracy and coordination of service delivery seem to result from the use of computers. Managerial motivations and behaviors were found to be significantly related to the attitudes of employees about computer utilization, the ways in which employees learn to use computers, and operational performance. Multidimensional motivation, and the adoption of several supportive behaviors seem to positively enhance the utilization of computers in both countries. / Similarities seem to greatly outweigh the differences between the two countries. The response patterns suggest the possibility of framing theory about the role of managerial motivations and behaviors associated with adoption of computer technology that might apply to newly industrialized countries as well as to the more maturely developed ones. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-09, Section: A, page: 2983. / Major Professor: William Earle Klay. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1994.

This study examined the attitudes of senior civil service administrators in the Sudan toward change. From a sample of 400, 205 administrators responded to the questionnaire constructed to collect data for the study. / Respondents' attitudes were tested toward change, friction, communications, responsibility and emigration. The data were analyzed to determine the association between the administrators' attitudes toward the dependent variables (above) and the independent variables of social status, education, work organization and family influence. / The analysis revealed that there is friction between the general public and the civil servants. The public's high expectations put pressure on the civil service. Communications within and among government organizations are difficult due to organizational problems and employee attitudes. Subordinates are reluctant to take responsibility, are afraid to make mistakes, and want to be left alone. The senior administrators themselves are insecure and prefer to work by themselves. Many government employees emigrate to oil producing countries, mainly for economic reasons. The senior administrators themselves are willing to emigrate for a good opportunity, and encourage their children to emigrate in the future. / Analysis showed that senior administrators are conservative toward change irrespective of social status, education, family influence and work organization. There is no significant association between attitudes toward friction, communications, responsibility and emigration when treated with social status, education and work organization. Family influence is the most important independent variable. Sudan is a tribal society and family influence has a major effect on the attitudes of the individual in the society. The association between family influence and attitudes toward friction, communications and responsibility is significant. Attitudes toward emigration have a relatively significant association with family influence; but there is no significant association between attitudes toward change and family influence. / The study results show that the senior administrators are conservative in their attitudes toward change. They are also dissatisfied and lack commitment to their work. In order to pursue social and economic development Sudan must develop its administrative system, its only tool of development administration and management. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 44-12, Section: A, page: 3804. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1983.

These are turbulent times of increasing government expenditures and opposition to higher taxes. A new kind of civil servant is needed, one who has the initiative and independence of the entrepreneur. / This study undertook the development of a profile of the personal qualities of the public entrepreneur and the identification of elements in the organizational environment which either facilitate or hinder public entrepreneurship, defined largely in terms of the way in which they impose themselves on the public entrepreneur. Further, an effort was made to examine the entrepreneurial behaviors that emerge from the interplay of the individual personality and organizational expectations. / Three research strategies were followed: a review of written and on-line literature, public documents, and interviews. Two methods were used in identifying individuals for the interviews. First, snow-ball or chain-sampling, and second, the specification of jobs which require entrepreneurial behavior in raising resources. Seventy officials were interviewed, 40 from Florida state and local governments, 22 from a public university, and eight from the non-profit sector. Content analysis was used to secure quantitative measures; and careful transcriptions of the interviews provided the basis for qualitative scrutiny. / The basic conclusion is that public entrepreneurs see themselves as creative people with a strong value orientation; feel they are needed and can function effectively in the public sector despite certain constraints; are task-oriented and place much emphasis on planning and goal-setting. These characteristics were common in the entire study population. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-09, Section: A, page: 3363. / Major Professor: Frank Sherwood. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.

The problem. Public entrepreneurship is increasingly regarded as the means to manage governmental organizations, even through, the approach has not been fully investigated and researched. The term entrepreneurship is often overused and the process by which it occurs is not understood. This research seeks to build understanding in these areas. / Research methods and strategies. Rather than concentrate on an ideal definition, the identification of traits, or a single influential person, this dissertation explores public entrepreneurship as an evolutionary process that follows various functional stages to produce and sustain an innovation. Through nine case investigations, the process by which local governments engage in entrepreneurial activities is analyzed. The environmental factors that lead to the entrepreneurial activity are examined. The influence of community attitudes towards innovation, risk and entrepreneurial activity is appraised. The extent to which a commonly shared vision supports the entrepreneurial activity is considered, as well as the relative importance of the various governmental officials in the creation, implementation, and institutionalization of the activity. / Findings and conclusions. Each case provides a profile of the entrepreneurial process in local government and exposes variations in the decision-making processes by which entrepreneurial activities are formed and operationalized. Public entrepreneurship is found to be collective, even when it begins with an individual, and highly situational. Entrepreneurs and their visions create new or enhanced organizational cultures while at the same time the organizational cultures determine the acceptable limits for entrepreneurial activity. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-10, Section: A, page: 3672. / Major Professor: Frank Sherwood. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.

Executive Order 99-281 (1999), commonly known as the "One Florida Initiative," abolished affirmative action policies in university admissions, state employment, and state contracting. This dissertation studies the impact that the implementation of this initiative has had on the admission, retention and graduation rates of minority students in Florida's university system. Quantitatively based trend analyses are used to examine changes in the university system during the ten years surrounding implementation. These analyses are supplemented by an examination of the programs put into place at each individual university in the absence of affirmative action and qualitatively-based interviews with four subject matter experts. Finally, a discussion of how these findings inform equity policies on a theoretical and on an empirical level is provided. / A Dissertation submitted to the Reubin O'D. Askew School of Public Administration and Policy in partial fulfillments for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2010. / Date of Defense: March 22, 2010. / Social Equity, Education Policy, One Florida Initiative / Includes bibliographical references. / Mary E. Guy, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Lance DeHaven-Smith, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Dale Lick, University Representative; James Bowman, Committee Member.

An often debated and studied question is the degree to which the modern media influence and impact governmental policy-making. One major area examining these questions revolves around the agenda-setting theory of the press: that the press may not influence specific actions or policies, but does influence which policies will be placed on the public agenda for consideration. / This study examines these issues in the context of a state government policy structure, specifically examining statewide newspapers and the policy process of the Florida Legislature prior to, and during, the 1981 legislative session. The study posits that the agenda of state newspapers, by a count of stories about a specific set of issues, will correlate with the agenda rank of those same issues as expressed in questionnaire results from legislators. / Building upon the work of Drs. William Gormley, Jack Walker, McClure and Patterson, as well as Shaw and McCombs, and Caspi, the results indicate a very strong relationship between the two sets of agendas, strongly reinforcing the notion of press impact on policy development, and largely confirming the hypothesis of the study. / The study found a Spearman rho rank order correlation between legislators and newspaper content of issues of .73 (at a Confidence Level of .05). Perhaps more importantly, the study found a similar correlation of .72 between the newspaper content in the two months prior to the imposition of the questionnaire, and legislators' ranks based on those questionnaires. / The study raises significant issues regarding the relationships between policy makers and news institutions, as well as the processes and persons who gather the news about policymaking events. It also raises questions about the nature of previous agenda-setting research which heavily depended upon front page content. / The results develop a model of behavior between the institutions and actors in the media and policy/potential processes, placing greater emphasis upon the kind and type of media information, or cues, legislators receive in preparation for political and policy decisions. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-10, Section: A, page: 3415. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.

The purpose of this study was to explore the degree of job satisfaction and dissatisfaction in three occupational levels in Saudi Arabia. Twelve of Herzberg's factors were selected for use in this study. / Data were obtained through the use of an eleven-page questionnaire consisting of three parts. Dunnette's instrument was used with modifications. / The questionnaires were administered to 800 Saudi civilian public employees in two of the largest cities--Riyadh and Jeddah. A stratified sample was drawn to represent the three occupational levels. A total of 300 subjects was selected from the low level, 400 subjects from the middle level, and 100 subjects from the high level. / Eighteen hypotheses and sub-hypotheses were tested by using analysis of variance to investigate the differences in satisfaction with job content and job context factors among the three occupational levels, and by using the Pearson Product Correlation to investigate the relationship between job satisfaction and age, length of service and educational level. / The major results are summarized as follows: (1) The most important job dimensions motivating employees in Saudi Arabia were work itself, achievement, relationship with peers, working conditions and relationship with supervisors. (2) Employees in the higher occupational level were more satisfied than those in the two lower levels with the work itself, recognition, responsibility factors. (3) Four of the content factors were determined by employees to be important causes of dissatisfaction. (4) Only three of the seven context factors were reported to be a source of disatisfaction. Employees in the middle level were more dissatisfied with salary than those in the other two levels. (6) Employees with higher educational levels were less satisfied with their salary than those with lower education levels. (7) Older employees were more satisfied than those who were younger. (8) Employees in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were significantly more satisfied with their jobs than those in other governmental agencies. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 44-06, Section: A, page: 1917. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1983.

With the data from Florida cities' comprehensive annual financial reports, first, we identified and categorized debt into three groups: (1) general obligation (GO) bonds, (2) notes, loan, leases, certificates of participation (NLL), and (3) governmental revenue (GR) bonds. This dissertation investigates Florida cities' debt issuance incorporating three perspectives: institutions, financial management, and public economics. First, we introduce the relationship between the GO bond limit and local debt financing, and develop hypotheses for the empirical tests. Second, we examine how governance structure shapes a city's debt issuance. However, we did not find any effects of GO bond limit and governance structure on local debt issuance amounts. We also began this study attempting to explain the local government's debt financing from the financial management perspective. If cities have higher financial management capacity, it was argued, they are likely to issue larger debt amounts than cities with lower financial management capacity. Overall, test results present that financial management capacity has no effect on the debt issuance amount. From the public economics perspective, first, this study examines the effect of interjurisdictional competition on cities' debt issuance based on Jensen and Toma's model. Test results reveal that interjurisdictional tax competition does not influence a city's debt issuance. Jensen and Toma's model is extended to explain the relationship between intergovernmental or overlapping government tax competition and debt financing. We contend that Jensen and Toma's model is suitable to explain the relationship between overlapping government tax competition and their debt issuances. Empirical tests show that, in Florida, there is no serious problem of intergovernmental tax competition which induces overlapping governments' debt issuances. This study also applies the flypaper effect to local government's debt financing. A weak flypaper effect is found in local governments' issuances of GO bonds and NLL while there is scant wideness for fiscal illusion in GR bond issuance. We also find that local sharing is related to the flypaper effect in debt issuance but state sharing is not. / A Dissertation submitted to the Askew School of Public Administration and Policy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2006. / Date of Defense: January 24, 2006. / Fund Balance, Flypaper Effect, Tax Competition, Local Government Debt, Municipal Bond / Includes bibliographical references. / Richard C. Feiock, Professor Directing Dissertation; Thomas W. Zuehlke, Outside Committee Member; Robert Bradley, Committee Member; Earle Klay, Committee Member; Frances S. Berry, Committee Member.