The influence of transnational actors (TNAs) on the policy process in most sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries is widely acknowledged. Yet, studies examining this phenomenon focus mainly on the imposition of policy conditionality and under explore other mechanisms such as ideational processes, which mediate the relationship between national and transnational actors. Focusing on two poverty alleviation policies implemented in Ghana – Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP), and Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS) –, this study draws on the Transnational Policy Process (TPP) Framework to explore the ideational mechanisms that were instrumental in the development of these two social policies. In order to do so, qualitative case study research methods involving interviews and document reviews are used. This thesis argues that policymaking is multi-causal, which means that focusing exclusively on conditionalities without accounting for the role of ideational and other factors obscure our understanding of the policy process in developing countries. By examining the policy process in Ghana, this study ascertains that, beyond imposition of policies through conditionalities, TNAs also deploy other mechanisms that are mainly ideational in nature. Ideational channels include conferences, field trips, technical cooperation, training and capacity building, as well as collaboration with civil society organizations. Beyond these, TNAs use their memberships in policy structures, such as Ghana’s cross-sectoral planning groups (CSPGs) and sector working groups (SWGs) as a crucial platform to purvey policy innovations. Additionally, in some cases, the mechanisms are also coupled to improve effectiveness. The study also shows the mediating role of national institutions and contexts more generally, a role that makes the adoption of new policy ideas a necessary part of the policy process. Moreover, there is an indication that using ideational mechanisms promotes a sense of policy ownership among national policymakers who actively participate in shaping policies in partnership with transnational actors.

Television impacts the shape of our common culture by depicting our societal fears, myths and hopes in a constantly shifting and negotiated manner. There is a glaring lack of research regarding media representations of children/adolescents in poverty. The study of this intersection is critically important for understanding societal discourse around education, healthcare, government assistance programs and even the opinions and practices of teachers and administrators. Children under 18 years of age represent 24 percent of the population, but they comprise 34 percent of all people in poverty in the United States. Among all children, 45 percent live in low-income families and approximately one in every five (22 percent) live in poor families. In this thesis, I trace discourse in the mainstream news and popular culture regarding children and poverty through welfare debates and policy changes in the U.S. from the 1990s and 2000s through the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations. Subsequently, I analyze the construction of this discourse on narrative television in the shows My So Called Life (ABC, 1994-1995) The O.C. (FOX, 2003-2007) and Shameless (Showtime, 2011-). Through this mapping, I examine how gender, sexuality, race, and age are mobilized in constructing televisual representations of poverty; as well as how shifting discourses and depictions make transparent society’s anxieties regarding poverty. / text

Communities across the United States have almost universal access to electricity services. However, there remains a large problem with fuel poverty, where households pay a significant and disproportionate amount of their gross income on energy bills. This is often a factor in those households’ continued poverty. Fuel poverty is especially prevalent in the unincorporated and often overlooked colonias communities in South Texas, near the border with Mexico, which are characterized by a high level of poverty, a large unbanked population that don’t have or are unapproved to have bank accounts, proportionally high energy costs, and substandard housing. There are government programs and charities that assist with bills, but the cycle of fuel poverty will continue without solutions that address the source of the disproportionately high bills: energy inefficiency. Public-private partnerships are needed to sustainably finance energy efficiency improvements and to break the cycle of poverty. One potential solution is the application of microfinance concepts geared solely at home efficiency improvements, where households can build credit while alleviating their home energy bill burden. / text

abstract / Urban Planning and Design / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

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This study focuses on the factors contributing to the lack of emphasis by the Kedah Department of Zakat (KDoZ), Malaysia on the alleviation of poverty among the rural poor through zakat capital assistance programmes and employment opportunities. In this study, seven research questions were outlined. A mixed-methods study was developed to answer research questions 1, 2, 3 and 4. Research questions 5, 6 and 7 were answered using qualitative data. Quantitative data was collected from questionnaire. The sample size was 406 participants from among the capable poor who can work which received annual monetary assistance. Qualitative data was generated from the interviews with KDoZ officers (n=11) and participants for the qualitative method were selected purposefully. The responses to research questions 1, 2,3 and 4 show that the majority of the respondents were not aware of the existence of SHS. Respondents’ awareness towards SHS programme is significantly related with the socio-economic and zakat assistance characteristics which are rate of districts’ collection, number of years respondents receive zakat and distance of respondents’ house from the KDoZ office. 80% of respondents interested to apply for the SHS programme. The factors contributing to apply SHS were current zakat assistance, current income, economic activity, lack of motivation and constraints. Furthermore, the lack of interest in SHS was significantly related to the age of the respondents. In answering research question 5, there were 3 factors leading to this approach by the KDoZ: 1) the KDoZ faces the constraints of low zakat collection caused by two subscales; 2) a high rate of failure among the recipients or the poor in economic activities; and 3) incompetence of members of the KDoZ committee. The answers to research question 6 were difficulties in dealing with the poor, responsibility of the state government, and the committee’s lack of interest. The answers to research question 7 were factors related to politics, the committee and priority in providing financial assistance. There are 5 main findings which hindered the effective use of zakat, which are capitalist thinking, local collection rates, avoiding the query of Sultan, a large number of committee members and limited zakat funds allocated for administration. Finally, recommendations were provided to overcome these problems. Several additional recommendations for future research have emerged from this study and these have been briefly outlined.

Since the early 1960s, scholars and policymakers have struggled to understand the appropriate role of government in effectively using resources to alleviate poverty. While early U.S. anti-poverty efforts emphasized place-based strategies, such as government-directed infrastructure investments, approaches have gradually shifted to favor civil sector efforts that build community capacity. Efforts to strengthen community capacity have emphasized enhancement of community participation, improvement of governance and strengthening of accountability. Yet, despite the growing emphasis on capacity building, rural regions such as the US-Mexico border region, Appalachia, the Mississippi Delta and Native American country have remained poor.This dissertation argues that government institutions have failed to improve conditions in poor, rural regions because current efforts ignore the broader context and fail to understand the needs of both formal organizations and informal participants. This research argues that without an adequate conceptual framework for assessing these three factors - the structural environment, community-based organizations, and local society -- federal investments cannot change local conditions. A conceptual model integrating these factors is applied to the case of poor, unincorporated colonias located in Arizona and New Mexico counties bordering Mexico. The empirical application of the conceptual model relies on methods integrating both regional and local analysis. The regional analysis is used to develop a socioeconomic index of deprivation. The index accomplishes two objectives. First, it reveals patterns of deprivation, uncovering the relationship between the impact of location (proximity to metropolitan and border areas) on the level of socioeconomic deprivation. Second, it is applied to select five cases for further analysis. The local analysis integrates qualitative research and formal social network methods. Unlike other studies of community capacity, which mostly rely on qualitative case studies, formal social network analysis is used to identify structural differences regarding how community organizations and individuals build autonomy and linkage with local and non-local organizations to improve the quality of life.This research improves understanding - both from conceptual and methodological perspectives -- of how to analyze rural poverty so as to better design federal government programs that will better serve poor communities, especially those in unincorporated areas.

How does poverty relate to why internal armed conflicts occur and intensify? This dissertation explores gendered dimensions of poverty related to minor internal armed conflict onset in poor contexts and suggests pathways through which nutritional insecurity may mediate conflict escalation by amplifying real dimensions of poverty. This dissertation analyzes positive-feedback dimensions between poverty and internal armed conflict by asking how minor internal armed conflict may occur because of gendered dimensions of poverty obscured by a focus on income per capita. This dissertation frames the decision to rebel within impoverished contexts as an issue indivisibility problem and engenders the rationalist logic as masculinist. By assessing how changes in national patterns of divorced males may reflect lost access to gendered resources within households and by analyzing how gendered structures may instantiate masculinist reactions to the gendered dimensions of poverty, this dissertation elucidates how the real effects of poverty and violence may align to lay the foundations for the amplification of internal armed conflict through the conflict cycle. By identifying three pathways through which nutritional insecurity may operate, this dissertation contributes to our understanding of how countries may develop self-reinforcing patterns of real poverty and internal armed conflict. I argue that the willingness and ability to rebel in contexts of poverty may be partially affected by lost access to resources produced at household levels by forms of feminized labor, as well as to resources that are distributed with gender inequality. I argue that nutritional insecurity may be captured by examining levels of per capita protein from meat consumption and offer three mechanisms through which protein from meat per capita consumption may proxy nutritional insecurity within poor countries that experience minor internal armed conflict: the proliferation of security dilemmas as conditioned by minor internal armed conflict; the loss of soil fertility as an amplified function of fighting; and the reliance on food exports. I examine data on 186 countries in the 1961-2008 period to interrogate why some countries develop the dynamics associated with the poverty-conflict trap and to find general support of the hypotheses.

No description available.

No description available.