Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have gained prominence and attention at the local, national and international scene during the last two decades. NGOs are considered as important actors on the landscape of development. The NGO sector in Pakistan is gradually expanding, yet it is less mature as compared to other countries in South Asia. Most of the research available on NGOs studied the importance and role of NGOs, the impact of NGOs on social services and government - NGO relationships. Nevertheless, capacity development, institutional strengthening and leadership development in NGOs have been largely ignored or given less attention. One goal of this study is to fill this gap and study the capacity development and leadership challenges in the NGO sector of Pakistan. Capacity development is one of the central ideas within contemporary international development. This emerges from the belief and experience that addressing social, economic and environmental issues requires greater competencies everywhere in society. This dissertation has three principal purposes: (a) to understand the dynamics and factors shaping the capacity development of NGOs in Pakistan; (b) to elaborate the pressures and challenges faced by NGOs for capacity and leadership development and (c) to generate theoretical propositions for successful capacity building interventions. In the process of achieving these goals a more general understanding of the interactions among the various stake holders in the NGO arena and the internal and external environment of NGOs were studied. This study observes that capacity development is an ongoing and long term activity that involves a wide range of actors whose participation and contributions are important. It is not a onetime activity by an outside agent. Similarly, successful capacity development interventions need to have ownership from those for whom they are designed. It is a multifaceted concept and there is no single accurate way to define and implement it. It is conceptualized and implemented by stakeholders according to their contextual situations and preferences. NGOs are successful in attaining a unique position in the development sector of Pakistan. However, this new and increasing role of NGOs has implications for organizational capacity development and skills of the NGO staff. This study supports the idea that too much emphasis on the top leadership ignores the role and importance of rank and file managers where much of the organizational knowledge exists. Also, the over emphasis on top leadership hinders the capacity development of middle level managers. The government lacks a well-established policy framework with regard to the roles and responsibilities of the NGOs in service delivery and development sector. The findings here suggest that government needs to play a more proactive role by undertaking proper institutional arrangements for NGOs where they can perform and deliver and at the same time they can be held accountable. For survival and sustainability of NGOs it is important to explore alternate sources of funding especially from private philanthropy. People in Pakistan donate large amounts of charity to religious organizations but they do not consider funding NGOs with their charities. Scholars and researchers may explore this issue further. People can be encouraged to consider donating for addressing issues like development and improvements in social services through NGOs. This study proposes that for successful and sustainable capacity development of local NGOs donors have to focus more on local NGOs and establish close ties with them in addition to the larger national level support organizations. Trust is an overarching factor that plays an important role in shaping the partnership between government and NGOs on one hand, and promoting collaboration between donors and the government on the other hand. In order to improve trust relations a genuine understanding of mutual expectations and agreements on different roles and responsibilities is expected of each stakeholder. The findings of this study demonstrate that the capacity development efforts of the three stakeholders are not properly triangulated and there exists a trust deficit among the NGOs, the government and the donors and which needs attention. / 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. / Fall Semester, 2013. / August 12, 2013. / Capacity Development, Development, Foreign Aid, Leadership Development in NGOs, NGOs / Includes bibliographical references. / Ralph S. Brower, Professor Directing Dissertation; Stephen McDowell, University Representative; Lance deHaven-Smith, Committee Member; William Earle Klay, Committee Member.

Interlocal energy collaboration builds upon network structures among local policy actors dealing with energy, climate change and sustainability issues. Collaboration efforts overcome institutional collective action (ICA) dilemmas, and cope with the problems spanning jurisdictional boundaries, externalities, and free-rider problems. Interlocal energy collaboration emerges as the agreements in greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction, pollution control, land use, purchasing, retrofits, transportation, and so forth. Cities work collaboratively through contractual mechanisms (i.e. formal/informal agreements) and collective mechanisms (i.e. regional partnerships or membership organizations) on a variety of energy issues. What factors facilitate interlocal energy collaboration? To what extent is collaboration through interlocal contractual mechanisms different from collective mechanisms? This dissertation tries to answer these questions by examining: city goal priority on energy related issues as well as other ICA explanatory factors. Research data are drawn mainly from the 2010 national survey "Implementation of energy efficiency and sustainability program" supported by National Science Foundation and the IBM Endowment for the Business of Government. The research results show that city emphasis on common pool resource, scale economies and externality issues significantly affect individual selection of tools for energy collaboration. When expected transaction costs are extremely high or low, the contractual mechanism of informal agreement is more likely to be selected to preserve most local autonomy and flexibility; otherwise, written and formal tools for collaboration are preferred to impose constraints on individual behavior and reduce the risks of defection. / 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. / Summer Semester, 2011. / July 7, 2011. / Interlocal Collaboration, Energy Policy, Sustainable Development, Climate Protection / Includes bibliographical references. / Richard C. Feiock, Professor Directing Dissertation; Kaifeng Yang, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; David Cartes, University Representative; Tingting Zhao, Committee Member; Frances Stokes Berry, Committee Member.

Public sector organizations currently operate in an environment of change and choice (Berry, 2007). In particular, the complex governance and unpredictable nature of the contemporary public sector environment have challenged governments' attempts to improve their performance and accountability. Organizational learning is the key to performance improvement in changing and uncertain environments (Argyris and Schon, 1996; Schein, 1993) because it is based on new knowledge development or performance information use, which in turn enables managers to make better decisions to improve performance. In this respect, organizational learning is an important component of the current performance management reforms or managing for results, which focus on collecting, distributing, and using performance information to improve government organizations' performance. Although organizational learning is a critical domain in performance management, empirical understanding of organizational learning in the public sector settings is limited. Thus, this study attempts to advance both theoretical and empirical research on organizational learning in the public sector, using data from the Organizational Learning and Performance Management Survey 2010: Florida Municipal Governments. The overall research question of this dissertation is: what factors influence organizational learning in Florida municipal governments? In particular, this study attempts to assess if there are differences in the antecedents of single-loop and double-loop learning. In this study, therefore, we use two dependent variables which consist of indicators for single-loop and double-loop learning respectively, in our models to examine a facilitative environment or condition for organizational learning. To answer this research question, based on past research, this study develops a theory composed of six factors to assess what seems to impact single and double-loop learning based on: 1) structural factors, 2) cultural factors, 3) learning forums, 4) performance management systems, 5) network characteristics, and 6) external stakeholder's participation. We found strong support for our organizational learning models, and variables representing each of the six theoretical factors were significant. Research results indicated that there are some different patterns of effects and different impacts for single-loop and double-loop learning. The goal and mission orientation, strategic planning, external networks, and political officials' participation are facilitative factors to double-loop learning but do not have a significant relationship to single-loop learning, while the utilization of IT is important to single-loop learning but not to double-loop learning. Moreover, the impacts of decentralization, risk-taking culture, and learning forums are stronger in double-loop learning than in single-loop learning, while the impact of internal network is greater on single-loop learning than on double-loop learning. Low formalization, resources, and benchmarking, however, were unexpectedly found to have negative relationships with at least one type of organizational learning. Moreover, we found the mediating effect of single-loop learning on double-loop learning. Overall, the findings provide insight into antecedents of and strategies for fostering single-loop and double-loop learning, and ultimately performance improvement of local governments. / 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. / Fall Semester, 2010. / October 19, 2010. / Single-loop Learning, Double-loop Learning, Performance Management, Networks, Local Governments / Includes bibliographical references. / Frances Stokes Berry, Professor Directing Dissertation; Koji Ueno, University Representative; Lance deHaven-Smith, Committee Member; Kaifeng Yang, Committee Member.

One of the most important questions rising out of the War on Terror and the end of the Cold War is how changes in a country's defense spending will affect its economic performance. Despite the significant amount of work on the defense-growth relationship, a consensus has failed to be reached within the literature as to whether a relationship does exist, its direction, and how it should be modeled. In this dissertation, the defense-growth relationship is investigated by looking at the effect of changes in the defense sector's human capital investments on growth. After theoretically deriving a human capital based model, the model is empirically tested with U.S. data for the time period 1949 to 2009. By doing so, previous scholarship on the defense-growth relationship is advanced by contributing to the theoretical foundation and theoretically deriving a model which uniquely captures the on-the-job training that enlisted soldiers and officers receive. The results show that the sector's investments have a positive effect on the economic growth of the United States. This effect is both direct and indirect. Directly, the sector's investments influence the economy's growth rate as a form of on-the-job training. The results show that approximately 18.9\% of economic growth can be attributed to the investments.Indirectly, they influence the production of a military good, which further influences general production. According to the calibrated parameters, a 1\% increase in the military good is expected to produce a 0.034\% increase in total economic output. / 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. / Fall Semester, 2011. / July 22, 2011. / defense sector, Defense spending, economic growth, military output, United States / Includes bibliographical references. / Robert J. Eger, III, Professor Directing Dissertation; Milton H. Marquis, University Representative; Frances S. Berry, Committee Member; James S. Bowman, Committee Member; David S. T. Matkin, Committee Member.

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore questions about the government's contractual choice of tax collection between tax farming and tax bureaucracy. It is commonly assumed that tax collection is an inherent function of the government. However, historically governments commonly contracted with private agencies known as "tax farmers" to enhance their tax collection capacities until the nineteenth century. Tax farming is an efficient tax collection method, but it encouraged private tax collectors to exploit taxpayers to maximize their own expected return. The dissertation tries to answer the following three research questions. First, why did governments outsource tax collection to tax farmers until the eighteenth century, and why have governments fully developed their own tax bureaucracy since the nineteenth century? Second, what are the conditions under which each tax collection contract is optimized, and what are the expected values of optimal tax collection contracts? Third, what are the effects of different tax collection contracts on administrative effectiveness and procedural fairness in contemporary government? To explore these questions, I have used the theory of agency where the principal (the government) incentivizes the agent (the tax collector) to input a high level of effort to implement delegated tasks by offering performance-based compensation. Alternatively, the principal can force the agent to input a minimal necessary level of effort by setting a monitoring system with fixed compensation. The study examines the tax collection process, exploring questions about the government's contractual choice of tax collection methods, outsourcing or insourcing the tax receivables collection process. To explore this understudied aspect of the governments' tax collection process, I explore both the effectiveness and fairness of the tax receivables collection process. My first essay is from a historical perspective, my second essay address a theoretical model of the process, and my third essay examines the process empirically across the 50 states. The first essay (Chapter 2) reviews tax collection history in Europe, the Islamic world, and Asia through the lens of the theory of agency to explore the question of why tax farming had been predominant until the eighteenth century, and why government-run tax bureaucracy have been predominant since the nineteenth century. The historical analysis focuses on identifying generalizable underlying mechanisms of tax collection contracts and key exogenous factors affecting the government's choice of tax collection contract forms. The second essay (Chapter 3) analyzes optimal conditions and relative value--the net effect of costs and benefits--of tax collection contracts through the development of a formal model of tax collection underpinned by the historical review and theory of agency. The dynamic and static optimization processes will be used to generate comparative statics. The third essay (Chapter 4) measures the effects of different contract forms on administrative effectiveness and procedural fairness in tax collection. Using panel data for the years 2000 to 2011 in state governments in the U.S., I test the following key hypothesis: delinquent tax collection outsourcing is financially effective, but it negatively impacts procedural fairness, such as the taxpayer' rights, in tax collection. The results imply two things. First, in terms of the administrative effectiveness, private tax collection reduces tax administration cost, but it has no statistical effect on the recover delinquent taxes. Second, in terms of the procedural fairness, private tax collection increases the number of tax appeals filed in the tax appeal division within state tax department, but it decreases the number of tax appeals filed with outside-independent tax appeal agency. / 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. / Fall Semester, 2012. / July 31, 2012. / Agency Cost, Contractual Choice, Outsourcing, Tax Administration, Tax Collection, Tax Farming / Includes bibliographical references. / Robert J. Eger, III, Professor Directing Dissertation; Randall G. Holcombe, University Representative; Frances S. Berry, Committee Member; David S. T. Matkin, Committee Member.

Current educational reform efforts are focused on enhancing school and teacher accountability as a means of improving student learning. One policy initiative resulting from these efforts is the inclusion of outcome-based teacher performance (OTP) as a component of teacher evaluations. OTP is defined as a teacher's contribution to the learning outcomes of her students. An increasingly popular method for measuring OTP is a set of statistical techniques known as value-added models (VAMs). Despite their popularity, the validity of VAM estimates of OTP has not been fully established. This dissertation contributes to the ongoing validity debate by evaluating the construct validity of VAM estimates. Specifically, construct validity is evaluated by examining the theory of the process by which teachers contribute to student learning that is implicit to VAM estimation of OTP. Embedded within each VAM is a set of theoretical implications about the teaching-learning process. In addition, the identifying conditions necessary for the estimation of OTP from observational data impose restrictions on the teaching-learning process and therefore have theoretical implications. Evaluation of these implications indicates that most are inconsistent with theoretical, empirical, and logical evidence how teachers contribute to student learning outcomes. This evidence weakens the validity of the claim that VAMs can be used to measure OTP. The degree to which this claim is weakened, however, remains a question for future research. / 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. / Fall Semester, 2012. / July 30, 2012. / Assumptions, Production Function, Teacher Performance, Teaching-Learning Process, Value Added Models / Includes bibliographical references. / Robert J. Eger, III, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Lance deHaven-Smith, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Carolyn Herrington, University Representative; Alysia Roehrig, Committee Member; Anastasia Semykina, Committee Member.

As state governments grapple with reconciling budgets, administrative changes, political upheaval and technological advancements public employees are confronted with years without raises, wavering objectives, heavy workloads, and the push for an increased cadre of skills. The researcher asks the question, what are the dynamics of psychological contract violations within the public sector? Psychological contracts have the potential to become an employee's assurance when the working environment seems tumultuous. Individuals utilize contracts to promulgate daily work endeavors and career aspirations. It is plausible that employees believe that their psychological contract can be a source of stability when there is organizational uncertainty. Through the use of qualitative methodology this research will interview public education and public law enforcement employees to uncover how public sector employees interpret and react to the occurrence of psychological contract violations. / 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. / Fall Semester, 2012. / November 6, 2012. / Includes bibliographical references. / Ralph Brower, Professor Directing Dissertation; Gerald Ferris, University Representative; Frances Berry, Committee Member; Lance Dehaven-Smith, Committee Member.

Recent research on local sustainability investigates the challenges to public health triggered by health disparities and inequalities. Modern public health sectors recognize that health behavioral changes among small groups and populations are not enough to promote health equality and healthy communities. Many health professions stress that the physical environment has become a key feature for reducing health disparities and accomplishing community wealth by which the environment must be managed by social, economic, and demographic circumstances. To deal with modern public health concerns and the interests of physical environment, many local governments devise a comprehensive plan to address public health improvement. The purposes of the comprehensive plan are to integrate public health interests with local policy sectors as well as to seek developmental growth and environmental protection. While many local governments attempt to reconnect between the comprehensive plan and the goals of public health, not all local governments do provide a comprehensive plan for public health improvement. The variation among local governments can be explained by the concept of healthy urban governance which includes the nature of urban politics, collaborative actions, and existing population health status. Since healthy urban governance retains interactive processes to produce a comprehensive set of urban plans, the political market framework and urban governance are applied to help understand interactive processes in terms of inter-sectoral and inter-organizational collaboration; consensus building; and advancement of political bargaining and negotiating instead of one-single way of urban plan. This dissertation investigates four questions to explore the policy choice of comprehensive planning to explicitly address public health: 1) which local contextual factors affect the adoption of the comprehensive plan, 2) to the extent of the first question, which factors including urban politics and collaborative planning governance create the integrative set in order to incorporate public health in local policy sectors , 3) which health outcomes and factors associated with the existing population health status influence the adoption of the plan, and finally 4) to the extent of third question, what are the direct and indirect causalities among health factors, urban politics, and the adoption of the plan. In terms of the above research questions, this dissertation highlights three theoretical perspectives. The first perspective is urban politics by which a political institution takes into account the mediating effect of institutions as a product of interactive processes among elected politicians, the community, and interest groups. It is more likely for the politics in healthy urban governance to be highlighted in terms of collective will and whether or not a political institution can pursue a majority rule. Second is the multidisciplinary policy action which encompasses the joint actions among inter-sectoral and inter-organizational collaboration. This perspective suggests that, rather than bureaucratic fragmentation, health policy oriented specialization and professionalization, the multilateral policy actions should be operated in light of collective will, shared norms, and agreements. Third is a place-based population health which views population health as differently shaped by existing physical, social, and environmental conditions. Moreover, this view concentrates on the presumption that the creation of efficient and effective interaction among people, environment, and economy comes first so as to increase high accessibility toward physical activities; so as to promote social inclusion; and so as to enhance social connectivity. In five published data sources (i.e, 2011 survey of `Comprehensive Planning For Public Health', U.S Census Bureau, National Population Health in Wisconsin Health Institute, Municipal Year Book), Heckman Selection Model and Path analysis are utilized as analytical methods. The empirical results explore whether urban politics, collaborative planning governance, and place-based population health influence the adoption of the comprehensive plan and the integrative sets of the plan. The empirical evidence shows that the adoption and integrative set of the comprehensive plan for public health improvement are a product of the willingness of local politics which represent governmental responsibility and accountability; a product of inter-sectoral policy collaboration; a product of collective action between local planning agencies and health departments; a product of poorly-shaped community health status; and a result of the mediating role of political institutions with community health status. This dissertation suggests that the combination of entire urban plan and the goals of public health is an aggregated preference of citizen, local politics, governing bodies, interest groups, and existing population health status, and physical environment. To achieve the comprehensive set of the urban plan, the local politics should have not only a strong willingness to commit but also a mediating role reflecting community-wide needs of population health. On the other hand, the administrative function of both planning and health agencies should create a collective will to reduce organizational and policy sectoral goal conflicts, resulting in multidisciplinary policy commitments and formulation of an integrative set of urban plan. Lastly, this dissertation provides an agenda for future research. First, the effects of regional organizations and state governments can be expanded by the assumption that the benefits of physical environment cannot be isolated. Regional-wide organizations, as much as the unit of local government, can have a critical role in attracting the collective actions of local governments which attain the summative benefits of improved public health. Second, while this dissertation tests the policy output of local government, the policy outcome of the comprehensive plan for public health must be investigated in the future. Since the data for the adoption and integrative set of comprehensive plan are restricted in 2011, testing health outcomes cannot be attributed to the effect of the plan. To establish a synthesis of theoretical and analytical models, this dissertation will be expanded from analysis of policy output of local government to analysis of policy outcomes as improved public health. / 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. / Summer Semester, 2012. / May 25, 2012. / Physical Environment, Public Health, Smart Growth, Sustainability, Urban Governance / Includes bibliographical references. / Richard C. Feiock, Professor Directing Dissertation; Laura Arpan, University Representative; Lance deHaven-Smith, Committee Member; Keon-Hyung Lee, Committee Member; Christopher Coutts, Committee Member.

This dissertation contributes to the public policy literature by examining energy policy in the U.S. In a three paper format, this dissertation investigates different dimensions of energy policy. First, it covers both policy process and policy analysis. Second, it covers different levels of governance in the U.S. All three levels of governance, national, state and local levels, are covered in this study. Third, it examines different aspects of energy policy, including network interactions among policy actors, environmental impacts and growth of green jobs. In the first paper, I investigate the formation of networks among the clean energy NGOs in the U.S. With network data collected on the hyperlinks from the websites of these NGOs, testable hypotheses are proposed to test the driving mechanisms for the energy policy networks in the U.S. In the second paper, I evaluate the effectiveness of these policy tools in reducing carbon emissions in electric power sector. With a panel data set for 48 continental states from 1990 to 2008, three fixed-effect panel regressions are estimated to test the impacts of these policy tools on total carbon emissions, electricity generation and carbon intensity. In the third paper, I examine the short-term direct employment effects of state and local clean energy and climate policies in U.S. metropolitan areas (MSAs) in year 2006. / 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. / Summer Semester, 2012. / June 1, 2012. / Enegy Policy, Governance / Includes bibliographical references. / Richard C. Feiock, Professor Directing Dissertation; John T. Scholz, University Representative; Frances S. Berry, Committee Member; Kaifeng Yang, Committee Member.

There is a vast literature concerning the political control that elected officials have over agency actors in the development of bureaucratic policymaking outputs. In the context of rulemaking, I theorize that, while political signals play a role in agency response, bureaucratic decision-making is also influenced by agency attention, institutional design and path dependency. Furthermore, I suggest that managers use different strategies in terms of the magnitude and timeliness of their response according to the uncertainty surrounding the aforementioned influences. I use a three-level random intercepts poisson model with quasi-likelihood estimation to analyze an original dataset containing 35 years of rulemaking activity for centralized contracting rules in Florida. I also conduct a qualitative analysis to examine how the nature of rulemaking changes over time. The results suggest that, in addition to political signals, agency attention, path dependency and institutional design also influence bureaucratic response. / 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. / Spring Semester, 2012. / March 28, 2012. / bureaucratic response, contracting-out, institutional design, organizational attention, public agency, rulemaking / Includes bibliographical references. / Kaifeng Yang, Professor Directing Dissertation; Christopher Reenock, University Representative; Frances Berry, Committee Member; Ralph Brower, Committee Member; Richard Feiock, Committee Member.