published_or_final_version / Politics and Public Administration / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Transport Policy and Planning / Master / Master of Arts

My dissertation examines the rights of children in the context of liberal conceptions of justice. The theoretical aspects of the dissertation concern liberal paternalism, autonomy, and the adequacy of Rawls's argument for the lexical priority of liberty. I apply my theoretical conclusions to practical issues of medical decision making for children, compulsory education, parental and state authority, and the age of majority. I begin with an analysis of paternalism in liberal political theory and its justificatory bases in the concepts of rationality and autonomy. On the basis of empirical studies of children's rationality I draw the preliminary conclusion that the age of majority should be lowered to fourteen years. Next, I consider utilitarian justifications for paternalistic treatment of children. I conclude that utilitarianism leads to an illiberal paternalism that would both maintain the present age of majority and call for expanded compulsory education and compulsory parent training. In light of utilitarian objections to rationality-based paternalism I consider whether the scope of liberal paternalism might be expanded to give greater weight to welfarist concerns. I argue against Rawls's lexical priority of liberty and for a more flexible balancing of liberty against welfare within the conception of justice as fairness. Turning to concrete problems, I analyze recent cases in law involving transplantation of organs between siblings, and argue that the nature of intimate relationships provides a ground for the partial compromise of freedom of the person in the context of family medical needs. However, I contend that adolescents should have authority to make their own medical decisions at age fourteen. I consider the proper scope of parental authority to shape the lives and values of children. I consider the justification and scope of compulsory education and propose a non-compulsory incentive system for continued education after the age of fourteen years. On the basis of my earlier argument for balancing welfare against liberty, I claim that it is permissible and advisable to set a higher age threshold for drinking, driving, marriage, and military service than is set for majority generally.

I began this investigation by asking a question. What is a possible design solutionthat can enable people who live-in or seek-out affordable housing to inhabit a structure that is more than a shelter, but a place they are proud to return to, bring friends to, and live in?The first portion of this thesis documents the need for affordable housing in the United States. Franklin Roosevelt, in 1944 before United States Congress, listed one of the economic rights of every citizen to be, "the right of every family to a decent home." Less money is being spent building new affordable housing or maintaining existing housing than at any other time in our history. The need for affordable housing continues to grow while the amount of available units continues to decline. There will always be a need for affordable housing in the United States. Some people will move out, but there will be new people with a need. I believe housing should be more than merely shelter. The rundown big box affordable housing we are all familiar with does not empower the people who occupy it to live their lives or easily better themselves. They are isolated in location and by negative connotation. There are a growing number of architects who have taken on the challenge to help people to better themselves, when they are unable to themselves. The four architectural precedents that are documented in the second portion of this thesis have dedicated their lives and abilities to creating better affordable housing that aids in allowing citizens, reguardless of race, ethnicity, or income (economic status), to benefit from their physical environment. Examples of each architectural firm's work are presented. I examine the design and participatory processes that enabled the architects to empower the people who live in their well-designed affordable housing.The final portion of this thesis focuses on stating and justifying seventeen design principles to enable people to create decent affordable housing based on the research and interviews. These principles investigate the ideas of being human, giving the sense of ownership to the people who live in affordable housing, being contextually respectful to one's neighborhood and community, being environmentally friendly, being modifiable or changeable for the different people who live in it over time, and respecting each family's specific story and enabling them to express their life and lifestyle. This thesis expresses the design principles of housing for empowerment. / Department of Architecture

Maps -- Chapter I. The regiments and the posts -- Chapter II. Recruitment -- Chapter III. Routine at the Western posts -- Chapter IV. Rations, clothing, promotions, pay, and care of the disabled -- Chapter V. Discipline and related problems -- Chapter VI. Entertainment, moral guidance, and burial of the frontier -- Chapter VII. Conclusion -- Bibliography.

No description available.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Harding Graduate School of Religion, 1986. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 204-214).

This study examines the determinants of location choices of Asian immigrants in the US in 1990 and evaluates the effect of education and other quality of life variables as well as the traditional economic variables. The study builds upon similar works by Gallaway, Vedder and Shukla (1974) and Dunlevy and Gemery (1977) on the distribution of immigrant population in the 1900's. The findings show that the number of Asians in an area has significant positive effects on immigrant residence. This study also reveals a negative relation between unemployment levels and the number of immigrants locating to an area. The results provide support for a lagged adjustment process in affecting locational choice. However, there appears to be no significant relation between education spending and immigrant location to an area. / Graduation date: 1997

This study provides the model that first synthesizes strategic group theory with the New Empirical Industrial Organization (NEIO) approach in the international trade analysis, and uses the annual group data (1953-1988) from the U.S. brewing industry with two strategic groups (national producers and regional producers) in the presence of growing import competition. The main goal of study is to examine the impact of import and strategic group competition on strategic group behavior and market power in the U.S. brewing industry. Using the conjectural variation technique under the profit maximization assumption, the model estimates directly conjectural elasticities and the Lerner indexes incorporating firm behavior in competing with rivals from imports, and inside and outside each strategic group. The thesis shows the main following conclusions. Inside the group, national and regional brewers behave like Bertrand-type competitors and regional firms are more competitive than national firms. In the cross-group rivalry, national firms expect a cooperative response from regional brewers and regional firms expect an aggressive response from national producers. Holding possibly a sufficient niche market, import competition does not affect the behavior and market power of national and regional producers. As for over-all behavior, neither national nor regional firms behave like price-takers. National firms exert a significantly higher degree of market power than do regional firms, the market power of which appears to be harmed by national brewers. However, an average brewer exercises no market power in the industry as a whole. / Graduation date: 1997

In this thesis, I explore experiences with my identity, looking at the identity people have seen me as, who I've thought I was, and the identities my mother's and father's different family backgrounds suggest I should be. I have divided this discussion into three main areas: my complexion, the first time I became aware of racial differences while living on Stats Street in Las Vegas, and my stay at Fort Dix, New Jersey during Army Basic Training. I explore my complexion first because it has been the biggest factor in my own understanding of my identity. Because of my darker complexion. I've been mistaken as Mexican, Cuban, Filipino, and African-American, and judged (misjudged) accordingly. It has often branded me as a "trouble maker" and made me feel ugly and inferior to my white friends. In the thesis' middle section, I look specifically at my stay on Stats Street, in a lower income housing "project." During my stay there, all of my neighbors, except one, were African American. I felt a constant barrier between me and my neighbors because of skin color and the different ideologies and lifestyles I came in contact with there. Finally, I look at a period of my life when I was forced to live among a very diverse group of people. In the Army, I was seen as a kind of anomaly because I didn't fit into the naturally occurring groups that formed. Through my entire discussion, I attempt to present a metaphor for the ever-changing and ever-creating process of identity that I've seen myself go through and continue to go through: mending walls and tearing walls down. I present a notion of identity, and ethnicity, that is in flux for everyone, one that is constantly being constructed and deconstructed. I do not attempt to enter into the discussions on ethnicity in order to offer a way to approach ethnicity or multiculturalism, but I do offer my discussion here as a process of one Japanese-Hawaiian, Cherokee Indian man who is still searching for his identity yet has begun to understand, at least, his own process of identity. / Graduation date: 1996