The strategy of the National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance program is to incorporate the private sector into the bulk data collection of customers information, yet there is little legislative and judicial oversight. As a result, internet and telecommunications companies participated, placing at risk protected privacy interests of their customers. Using policy feedback theory and narrative policy framework as the theoretical framework, the purpose of this qualitative, case study was to explore how the federal government gains compliance of the internet and telecommunications industry to engage in information sharing with NSA during post 9/11, 2001 terrorists' attack. Secondary data were collected about internet and telecommunications companies through document analysis, corporate records, and credible news sources. These data were compiled as raw data and developed into codes, which led to categories and eventually developed into themes. Findings indicate that private companies participated for three main reasons: first, an interest in preserving national security, second, they believed they had limited or no liability, and third, profit-making. At the same time, the participants expressed concerns that the government gained compliance via the use of coercion, influence, and persuasion. The positive social change implication of this study includes recommendations to public policy practitioners/evaluators that it is necessary to include private sector analysis in a comprehensive review of public policy because inter-dependencies of the private-public sector guarantees effective public policy implementation/ assessment.

African American males are more likely than any of race of males to report unreasonable and unnecessary negative experiences with law enforcement officers. They may describe these experiences as unjustified due to the level of force used. In some cases, excessive force used by police has resulted in the death of African American males. Due to unresolved issues between African American males and police officers dating back to the slavery era, there is a deep historical division between these groups. Among African American males, the percentage of individuals who express distrust toward police officers tends to be higher than in any other group. The purpose of this research study was to explore African American males' perceptions of police officers in order to understand this distrust. This study involved 16 males residing in a large southern city who were selected to share their experiences with and perceptions of police officers. Social relationship theory as defined by Weber was used as the theoretical framework for this study. Participants were selected via snowball sampling to answer questions during semistructured interviews. The data were analyzed and coded using modified van Kaam analysis. The findings were that African American males distrust the police due to their personal experiences during police encounters and police officers' biases toward them. The findings of this study may help leaders, policymakers, administrative assistants, and law enforcement agencies within the study city understand how to implement positive social change that could assist law enforcements officers and African American males with developing a positive relationship.

This study examines the social and cultural contexts, and factors of global and local sources, which influence teacher preparation and which may serve to impede or facilitate the training of public and private school English teachers at the "University of Banten," in Serang, Indonesia. A central question of the ethnographic case study is how, and to what extent professors are modeling and encouraging active-learning methods in the students' English and Education courses in response to decentralization reforms. The specific focus is on student-teacher preparation pedagogically and instructionally, knowledge of curriculum utilization and development in relation to Indonesian decentralization policy, and the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC-KTSP) standards for English instruction, the PAKEM Active Learning methods, and the Local Content Curriculum (LCC). Uniquely, it examines English and teacher-training responses representative of the realities of localization and globalization, and is concerned with increased levels of teacher autonomy and decision-making in contemporary Indonesia. The study also explores the implementation of decentralization and English instruction, and how past center-periphery cultural and political traditions affect response to educational reforms. A discussion of theories of educational decentralization builds a framework for situating the present contexts of Indonesian education reform in order to identify specific challenges which impact English teacher preparation and the knowledge and implementation of contemporary decentralization of education policies. The knowledge and implementation of the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC-KTSP) curriculum and instructional standards for English instruction, the concept and implementation of PAKEM Active Learning methods, and the Local Content Curriculum (LCC), which represent major elements of decentralization policy, autonomy, and self-motivation for learning, were explored thematically through ethnographic analysis. The analysis and discussion follow in-depth accounts of professors, teachers and students at the campus over 10 months and provides extensive and diverse evidence of dynamic responses to policy changes. Lecturers and teachers were well informed about and engaged in the implementation of current decentralization of education reforms, including the integration of the CBC curriculum standards with active learning methods in instruction, and the development and implementation of Local Content Curriculum courses. Global influences generally were not viewed as threatening to local, traditional cultural teaching practices, but as potentially advantageous means for improving schooling. / A Dissertation submitted to The Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2011. / Date of Defense: November 29, 2010. / Teacher training, Indonesian education, English education, Globalization, Decentralization / Includes bibliographical references. / Jeffrey Ayala Milligan, Professor Directing Dissertation; Pamela Carroll, Outside Committee Member; Stacey Rutledge, Committee Member; Thomas Luschei, Committee Member.

This research examines the extent to which nonprofit organization engage in collaboration as a strategic tool using the lenses of network theory, strategic alliances, and interorganizational relations literature. It provides a unique insight into the ways in which nonprofit organizations operate by using the lenses of literature developed to examine both for-profits and governments collaborative behavior. This study contributes several important findings to furthering our understanding of collaboration within the nonprofit sector. The findings of this study suggest that there are two key elements that determine the degree to which nonprofit organizations participated in collaborations: demand for the goods and services they provide and the social structure of everyday relationships that the organizations maintain. These findings suggest that the two dominant forces at work in the extent of collaborations between nonprofit organizations are the need to keep up with demands from the community in order to fulfill the organization's mission and access to both information and opportunities to partner with others through a network. The findings also suggest power of organizations within a network setting or betweeness centrality reduces the extent to which nonprofit organizations collaborate. The second area in which this research contributed new understanding was through the examination of the networks themselves and what these examinations suggested about differences between types of nonprofits and functional networks of nonprofit organizations. Specifically, the network findings point to several emerging types of organizations such as management service organizations and volunteer referral organizations that could have important implications for the health and structure networks of nonprofits in local settings. These organizations seem to be key bridge builders between organizations operating in communities and could prove useful tools for creating stability in exchange of information and communication in local communities. In particular, this suggests that the sector itself is creating stability that Provan and Milward (2000) suggested was important to effectiveness of social service delivery networks. In contrast to their findings, the key organizing actors found in the networks of this study did not have the coercive power of control over funding that was suggested as a key feature of delivery networks they described. However, they were powerful in other respects including the potential to control access to resources such as information and/or volunteers. / A Dissertation submitted to the Rueben O'D. Askew School of Public Administration and Policy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2006. / Date of Defense: July 31, 2006. / Strategic alliances, Collaboration, Network theory, Nonprofits / Includes bibliographical references. / Ralph S. Brower, Professor Directing Dissertation; Charles Connerly, Outside Committee Member; Frances S. Berry, Committee Member; Lance deHaven-Smith, Committee Member.

The research question is how does institutional change take place? The question is answered in part by the case of the impact of special interest associations on the net ban in Florida. The constitutional ban on the use of most types of nets, including all gill nets by commercial fishers in near-shore Florida waters grew out of a conflict between commercial and recreational fishing interests. Once voted into the state constitution by the citizenry, the amendment banning the use of certain nets became the latest in a series of government regulations focused on limiting saltwater fishing activities in state waters. State regulatory activities related to saltwater fishing began in the 1800's and, over time, a large number of organizations and individuals have focused their activity on the public policies surrounding saltwater fishing. Participant activities in this issue based organizational field which begin in the 1940;s are a useful way to seek insight into how institutional change occurs. This case study about the emergence of the constitutional plebiscite commonly known as the "Florida Net Ban" has been completed to provide the opportunity to increase our understanding of institutional change. The case was developed from three primary independent views provided by professional private sector public policy participants set against a general background drawn from rural fishing informants. Two views were developed from different elements of the commercial fishing industry and the associations that represent them. The third view was provided by organized recreational fishing interests. Institutional persistence in each of the three institutional pillars described by Scott; isomorphic institutional transfer as described by North; and the coevolution of institutions and organizational fields as described by Hoffman are employed in the analysis of the case to build theory about institutional change. The case provides additional insight into institutional change related to organizational fields and the importance of public entrepreneurial activity that is associated with such change. The case provides insight into the importance of making strategic and tactical choices in response to changing institutional environments to ensure maximum long range favorable policy outcomes. The case also provides perspective on how each of the three institutional pillars, provided by Scott, under go independent change / 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: Fall Semester, 2006. / Date of Defense: October 6, 2006. / Third-order change, Fisheries policy regulation, Special interest association, Constitutional change, Institutional change, Institutions / Includes bibliographical references. / Ralph S. Brower, Professor Directing Dissertation; Jeffrey Brooks, Outside Committee Member; Richard Chackerian, Committee Member; Lance deHaven-Smith, Committee Member.

Political fragmentation is often considered superior for advancing allocation efficiency in the provision of public services. On the other hand, the multiplicity of local governments in a metropolitan area, acting alone, can produce diseconomies of scale and externality problems constraining Pareto-efficient supply of public services. Local governments in the U.S. federalist system address this dilemma by engaging in voluntary interlocal cooperation, typically formalized through interlocal service agreements. These service agreements provide an important but little understood aspect of horizontal federalism. Local governments' choice of interlocal cooperation, their resource commitment to interlocal cooperation, and the mechanism they utilize to sustain cooperation are constrained by the asset specificity and measurement difficulty problems they face in interlocal service exchange. This dissertation explains how asset specificity and measurement difficulty influence the choice and the level of interlocal cooperation, as well as how these transaction cost dimensions shape the structure of service agreements that offset the transaction risks and sustain the cooperation for efficient public service provision. Transaction cost analysis provides one approach to understand interlocal service cooperation since it involves exchange between local jurisdictions similar to the private exchanges that transaction cost economics was developed to explain. A national analysis of cities' interlocal expenditures across multiple services shows that interlocal cooperation increases with asset specificity, but it follows an inverted U-shaped relationship with measurement difficulty, implying increased service cooperation up to a certain level of measurement difficulty and then decline thereafter. The main reason for the increase in interlocal exchange is that a rise in transaction costs associated with greater asset specificity and measurement difficulty hinders market exchange. Interlocal cooperation, thus, provides the next best alternative for jurisdictions facing transaction risks. But what do local governments do to mitigate the increased transaction costs in order to maintain the interlocal agreements? The analysis demonstrates that they go beyond dyadic agreements and embed their exchange relationships to mitigate the transaction risks. The micro-level analysis of interlocal service agreements across multiple services for all the general purpose local governments in Pinellas County, Florida reveals that when transactions risks are relatively low, buyer governments tends to confine service relationships to a single provider government that can establish credibility of commitment to protect the buyers. As transaction risk increases with the potential for a reverse hold-up problem, however, buyers avoid dependence on a single provider. Instead, they develop a broader network of agreements with multiple providers to minimize the power of a single provider. This research develops a unique extension of transaction cost theory that includes exchange embeddedness to provide a stronger foundation for understanding interlocal service cooperation specifically, and the broader arena of self-organizing activities of local governments in politically fragmented systems more generally. / 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, 2008. / Date of Defense: April 23, 2008. / Interlocal cooperation, public goods supply, exchange embeddedness, interlocal agreements, networks, decentralized governments / Includes bibliographical references. / Richard C. Feiock, Professor Directing Dissertation; John T. Scholz, Outside Committee Member; Frances S. Berry, Committee Member; William Earle Klay, Committee Member.

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The public interest is the highest standard for bureaucratic action in American government. While the importance of this standard ebbs and flows in the literature, the eminence of it remains unquestioned as the North Star for the American ship of state. As the highest standard in American politics and policy, this standard must be formed democratically. In this dissertation, I examine the formation of the public interest standard through the lens of citizen-bureaucratic communication, using the theory of communicative action advanced by the contemporary German social and political philosopher, Jürgen Habermas. I support the use of such a theoretical framework in America by examining the importance of communication for the American pragmatist philosopher, John Dewey. I examine the ramifications of communication in the American democratic state as foundational for the formation and continued expression of the public interest throughout the institution of the American executive branch.

Thesis (doctoral)--University of Hull, 1994. / BLDSC reference no.: DX194067.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rutgers University, 2009. / "Graduate Program in Public Administration." Includes bibliographical references (p. 197-208).