This study investigates how the establishment of blame becomes a framework for sensemaking in a national policy subsystem. Using the only two fatal accidents in NASA's manned space flight history as case studies, this dissertation examines how the space policy subsystem responded to these two accidents and the process by which culpability was established. This dissertation extends our knowledge of how the blame dynamic operates within a policy subsystem and how, through this assignment of blame, the policy subsystem and the nation makes sense of these tragic events. Three distinct literatures (i.e. policy subsystems, sensemaking, and blame) are brought together to describe this complex blame environment. The conclusions of this research are that the membership of the space policy subsystems increases following a disaster; the locus of the blame attribution rhetoric rests with Congress and the media, which are members of the space policy subsystem; those who were blamed for the Apollo 1 and Challenger disasters were from both NASA and the contractor; and their culpability was publicized. The space policy subsystem assigns the blame to its members and the process of blaming becomes the framework by which the Nation makes sense of the disaster. / Ph. D.

This dissertation is a descriptive study of a policy network designed for U.S. government and global cooperation to promote Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). It is aimed at exploring the historical and structural features of the ITS policy network, and evaluating its roles in the policy process. Until now, the network literature has barely examined the full arrays of networks, catching just part of their full pictures. First, this study draws attention to transnational networks and their organic or systematic relationships with lower levels of networks. Second, it examines the individual properties and synergy of three core elements of the ITS policy network: public-private partnerships, professional networks, and intergovernmental networks. Third, it takes a close look at the pattern of stability change and power relations of the policy network from within the net. Finally, this study discusses what difference networks make, compared to hierarchies and markets. This dissertation employed multiple sources of evidence: unstandardized elite interviews, government documents, and archival records. Through a networking strategy to find the best experts, face-to-face, telephone, and e-mail interviews were conducted with twenty-two public officials and ITS professionals. It was found that the U.S. ITS policy network was a well-designed strategic governance structure at the planning level, but an experimental learning-focused one at the implementation level. It was initially designed by a new, timely, cross-sectional coalition, which brought together field leaders from both the public and the private sectors under the slogan of global competitiveness. Yet, day-to-day managers within the net often experience much more complex power relationships and internal dynamics as well as legal obstacles; also, they confront external uncertainty in political support and market. For better results, policy networks should be designed in flexible ways that will handle their disadvantages such as ambiguous roles, exclusiveness, and increased staff time. In this respect, it is inevitable for the networks to include some components of a wide range of conventional structures, ranging from highly bureaucratic to highly entrepreneurial, on the one hand, and ranging between issue networks (grounded in American pluralism) and policy communities (based on European corporatism), on the other hand. / Ph. D.

This dissertation was developed as two distinct themes within one final study. The first theme is located within Chapter 2 and Chapter 3. These two chapters examine the nature of both policy analysis and organizational theory in terms of their development within the American versions of Public Administration and Political Science. I conclude that the distinctions that have been created between the two areas of research are false, and that within the basic structure of American political theory both policy development and administrative implementation are a single unified endeavor. I then propose that Anthony Giddens Theory of Structuration offers both policy analysis and organizational theory a meta-theory that would allow for both areas of research to be reconnected. Various policy and organizational analysis models are examined, and alterations in these models are suggested to comply with the basic concepts of Giddens Theory of Structuration. A final model of analysis is presented which incorporates elements from these various models, and allows for the examination of the overall operation of a policy subsystem in terms of both policy analysis and organizational theory. The second theme is located within Chapters 4 through 10. The analytical model that was created in the first theme is applied it to a specific policy subsystem, namely the wire-based telecommunications industry of the United States. The relationship between the industry and government is examined from its original inception to the implementation of the Telecommunications Deregulation Act of 1996. Seven distinct periods of development are analyzed. Each period of analysis seeks to locate the basic underlying structural principles forming the foundations for decisions in both the private and public sectors, and the processes for adaptation and adjustment. The examination of the processes engaged in the various periods supports the conclusion reached in the original analytical model, namely that political and administrative interaction are in fact linked, forming a unified process. A single underlying structural principle is located that has formed the basis for the policy subsystems existence, namely the concept of Compound Federalism as originally envisioned by the Republic's Founding Fathers. / Ph. D.