This study examines the Presidential Library System, an agency within the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), as an example of a policy subsystem. A policy subsystem may be defined as an informal political coalition of individuals from different parts of a formal policy structure who cooperate to influence policy-making. Actors in a policy subsystem are multifarious, they span both public and private sectors at various levels of government, and may include agency personnel, congressional committee members, interest group participants, citizens of localities affected by the subsystem, and others. A policy subsystem's strength lies in its ability to draw upon bureaucratic expertise, legislative leverage, and interest-group capacities to communicate with the government about the area of public policy it is vitally concerned with. Despite the 60 year existence of the Presidential Library System, its nationwide geographic distribution, and its approximately $30 million/year allocation from the federal budget, it is not widely recognized as a policy system and it has not been the subject of a detailed, scholarly description. The Presidential Libraries policy subsystem is described by tracing its development and mapping the richness of the administrative and political processes which support its continuing viability. The specific research questions addressed are:1) how do the administrative and political processes of this policy subsystem unfold, 2) how do these processes provide system maintenance, and 3) who are the players? Qualitative research techniques, via a case study methodology, were used to address these questions.. In-depth interviews were conducted with the directors of the ten Presidential Libraries, the staff of the Office of Presidential Libraries at NARA, and key stakeholders in the system. Questions addressed included: what do all of the presidential libraries share?, what is unique about each?, to what extent IS the Presidential Library System a policy subsystem?, and how is government organized to deal with presidential libraries and their mission of 1) preserving and providing researchers access to presidential papers and historical materials, and 2) providing museums and educational programming designed to give the general public a better understanding of the individual Presidents, the institution of the Presidency, and the American political system as a whole? / Ph. D.

This study provides insights into the behavior of an environmental policy subsystem. The study uses neural network theory to model the Gulf of Mexico Program's allocation of implementation funds. The Gulf of Mexico Program is a prototype effort to institutionalize a policy subsystem. A project implementation fund is at the core of the Gulf of Mexico Program. The United States Environmental Protection Agency provides the implementation fund and the Mexico Program Office (GMPO) administers it. The GMPO uses the implementation fund to encourage other federal, state, local, and private organizations to undertake projects designed to improve the environmental quality and economic vitality of the Gulf of Mexico and its surrounding region. The implementation fund constitutes a program "portfolio" and is the Gulf of Mexico Program's primary means of influencing policy. The way a policy subsystem manages its program portfolio through the allocation of fiscal resources provides important insights about its priority concerns and dominant actors. The benefits of this study are threefold. First, the study offers an initial systematic description and analysis of the Gulf of Mexico Program and its policy implementation process. Second, using the Gulf of Mexico Program as a prototype, the study sheds new light on why and how policy subsystems formulate and implement policy. Finally, the study provides a means to assess the value of neural network theory as a technique for modeling and analyzing policy subsystem behavior. / Ph. D.