This project examines the determinants of political responsiveness to bureaucratic performance. A large literature exists that has examined how bureaucratic agencies are responsive to political institutions. While policy theory contends that the reverse is also true – that is, political institutions engage in political assessment of policies – there is little empirical literature examining this important question. Indeed, research in public administration suggests that political responsiveness only occurs following massive bureaucratic failure or policy crises. Using data from Texas public school districts, this dissertation explores the role of policy salience in determining the likelihood of political responsiveness to bureaucratic outputs and outcomes. The findings suggest that issue salience is the key determinant of political involvement in administration. Furthermore, this project incorporates the concepts of descriptive and substantive representation in examining these questions. The results indicate that policy salience depends on the composition of the interests of political institutions. Furthermore, race and ethnicity work to shape those preferences and, in turn, condition what policy makers deem as salient. The findings suggest that descriptively unrepresentative political institutions are less likely to be responsive to the needs of those who are not represented (e.g. Latino students). Thus, representation is central to political responsiveness when the policy outputs or outcomes in question are not universally salient. Finally, this project examines whether political institutions can influence policy outcomes, and, more importantly, what factors – environmental, organizational, managerial – either facilitate or constrain the political influence of elected officials. The findings suggest that goal and preference alignment between political institutions and bureaucratic agencies is critical in enhancing political influence – a finding that is commonly argued in formal models of political control, but rarely tested empirically. This research also finds that bureaucratic power or independence can work to hinder political influence of policy outputs.

Cette thèse est l'aboutissement de huit années de travail qui ont portés sur la représentation de la défaite dans le théâtre du dix-septième siècle. Notre corpus comprend 75 pièces, 60 tragédies, 14 tragi-comédies et une comédie-heroïque jouées entre 1634 et 1663 et mettant en avant le thème de la défaite, telle que la définissent les dictionnaires de l'époque, c'est-à-dire la perte d'une bataille après une intervention armée qui peut aller des guerres externes ou internes, internationales, civiles ou religieuses, qui dominent dans les tragédies de la première période étudiée, soit les années 1634-1643, aux complots militaires ou privés qui seront plutôt l'apanage des pièces de la dernière période, soit les années 1653-1663. / This thesis is the outcome of eight working years wich concerned the representation of the defeat in the theater of the seventeenth century. Our corpus includes 75 plays, 60 tragedies, 14 tragicomedies and a heroic comedy played between 1634 and 1663 and putting forward the theme of the defeat, such as defined in the dictionaries of this time, that is the loss of a battle after an armed intervention which can go external or internal, internaltional, civil or religious years 1634-1643, in the military or private plots dominate in the tragedies of the first studied period, or which will be rather the priviledge of the plays of the last period, or the years 1653-1663.

The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate whether there is a statistical relationship between accident-related factors including use of drugs or alcohol, speeding, driver distractions, gender, driver drowsiness, practice of dysfunctional driving maneuvers, and use of occupant protection devices, and fatal vehicle crashes among young teen drivers. Secondary archival data from 84 North Carolina crashes occurring between 2009 and 2013 and involving young teen drivers between the ages of 15 and 18 years were obtained from North Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles Form 349 crash reports. These data were analyzed using chi-square tests for goodness-of-fit, chi-square tests for independence, and z-tests for proportions. The study found statistically significant associations between gender (p <.019), speeding (p < .001), practice of dysfunctional driving maneuvers (p < .001), and non-use of occupant protection devices (p < .001) and teen crash fatalities. The implications of this study for positive social change include recommendations to the State of North Carolina to enact legislative action related to driver education for new drivers, with the anticipated result of reducing traffic fatalities when a teenage driver is involved in an accident. In order to counteract deadly dysfunctional driving maneuvers on the part of young teen drivers, it was recommended that State driver education curricula be expanded to include exposure to more real world, on-the-road supervised driving experience conducted under more varied conditions and that high school driver education facilities be upgraded to include skid pads for student driving practice. Further research relating to the supervised implementation and verification of the requirement of the 50 hours of adult-supervised driving experience for Graduated Driver Licensure was also recommended.

In 2017 an old law recirculated in Germany which illegalized doctors from informing about abortion other than verbally in person. According to previous research on feminist policy change, a removal (liberalization), of the law hinges on: the presence of an autonomous feminist organization, if civil society, norms and a political majority supports the removal. The more of these factors are present the higher the likelihood of liberalization. All these factors were present in the German case but the outcome of the debate and policy process that occurred, a preservation of the law after a one-year long struggle, was highly unexpected. This thesis aims to understand and explain the outcome focussing on the struggle between the confessional and secular government coalition members CDU/CSU and SPD, as the latter, as expected, supported the removal but then unexpectedly voted for preservation. The study is conducted as an abductive explanatory process tracing, concentrates on the factions within the SPD as well as the CDU/CSU throughout the different stages of the process. The main findings are that confessional parties can utilize formal and informal institutions in a parliamentary setting to avoid a substantial liberalization of abortion regulatory laws. The SPD was split on the issue where its leadership, who compromised to keep the government running, overrun the large faction within the party supporting revocation.

This thesis deals with policy failure and policy success and aims at introducing this issue into the context of the Czech Republic. The main perspective of the thesis follows approaches to analysis of policy success and policy failure developed by Mark Bovens, Paul 't Hart, and Allan McConnell. Their theoretical assumption is complex, as they evaluate the policies upon the criteria of the more general dimensions (process, program, and politics). The goal of the thesis is not only to utilize their theoretical background but also to refine and reconceptualize current theory of policy success and policy failure, respectively. The thesis is based on case study research design. The chosen case - organizational reform of labor offices - is considered as a typical policy failure. I describe and analyze in detail the selected case with a wide range of qualitative and quantitative methods. This reform was extensive and was realized in two stages. The first stage focused on the organizational structure (from decentralized to centralized management). The second stage included changes in the content of the public employment services provided by the labor offices (the newly introduced services were all non-insurance social benefits). The analysis of labor offices reform seeks to answer the following questions,...