School of Public Policy
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The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations.
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Item Did State Renewable Portfolio Standards Induce Technical Change In Methane Mitigation in the U.S. Landfill Sector?(2007-11-28) Delhotal, Katherine Casey; Ruth, Matthias; Public Policy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Landfill gas (LFG) projects use the gas created from decomposing waste, which is approximately 49% methane, and substitute it for natural gas in engines, boilers, turbines, and other technologies to produce energy or heat. The projects are beneficial in terms of increased safety at the landfill, production of a cost-effective source of energy or heat, reduced odor, reduced air pollution emissions, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. However, landfills sometimes face conflicting policy incentives. The theory of technical change shows that the diffusion of a technology or groups of technologies increases slowly in the beginning and then picks up speed as knowledge and better understanding of using the technology diffuses among potential users. Using duration analysis, data on energy prices, State and Federal policies related to landfill gas, renewable energy, and air pollution, as well as control data on landfill characteristics, I estimate the influence and direction of influence of renewable portfolio standards (RPS). The analysis found that RPS positively influences the diffusion of landfill gas technologies, encouraging landfills to consider electricity generation projects over direct sales of LFG to another facility. Energy price increases or increased revenues for a project are also critical. Barriers to diffusion include air emission permits in non-attainment areas and policies, such as net metering, which promote other renewables over LFG projects. Using the estimates from the diffusion equations, I analyze the potential influence of a Federal RPS as well as the potential interaction with a Federal, market based climate change policy, which will increase the revenue of a project through higher energy sale prices. My analysis shows that a market based climate change policy such as a cap-and-trade or carbon tax scheme would increase the number of landfill gas projects significantly more than a Federal RPS.Item The Dynamics of Political Protests: A Case Study of the Kyrgyz Republic(2007-08-31) Jones, Kevin DeWitt; Steinbruner, John; Public Policy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)On March 24th, 2005, after ten weeks of non-violent protests across the country, the President of the Kyrgyz Republic, Askar Akayev, fled the country. The protests in the Kyrgyz Republic followed closely after the events in Georgia and Ukraine and policy analysts and the international media initially saw it as another example of the new wave of democracy in the post-Soviet states. This dissertation explores the reasons for the non-violent protests from January to March 2005 and how they led to the government's collapse. I use a combination of macro-level data, household opinion surveys, and field interviews to show that common causal explanations of protest behavior are poor predictors in the case of the Kyrgyz Republic. Individual levels of well-being, dissatisfaction with the government, and perception of conflict had little influence on where or when protests occurred. The role of international funding, western government influence, and local civil society were minor and relatively unimportant in determining the final outcome. The thesis of this dissertation is that the protests started for local causes, were sustained by local political entrepreneurs, increased because of political repression and succeeded because of the failures of the government. I argue that the decisive factor that determined the final outcome of the protests was the government's repressive action against the protesters. Understanding the causes, conditions, and process of the protests in the Kyrgyz Republic is important for current U.S. policy towards other post-Soviet countries and for these countries own internal political succession dynamics. The methodology is a within case study process tracing using survey data taken immediately before the protests and event analysis based on in-depth field interviews and media reports.Item OSCE Principles in Practice: Testing Their Effect on Security Through the Work of the High Commissioner on National Minorities 1993-2001(2007-07-31) Yamamoto, Marianna Merrick; Steinbruner, John D.; Public Policy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study extracted from official OSCE documents a set of basic principles designed to regulate the security relationships among the participating States, including their behavior toward their own populations. The study then assessed the practical effects on security of the implementation of the principles by tracing their detailed application to highly contentious situations in Ukraine, Estonia, and Macedonia by Max van der Stoel, the organization's first High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM). The study identified and articulated twenty Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) security principles that addressed international security through principles guiding the relations between participating States; security within States through principles guiding how governments would fulfill their responsibility to establish and maintain the conditions in which all members of the State could exercise their human rights and fundamental freedoms; and the processes by which the States would apply the principles to specific circumstances, review and measure their implementation, and develop them further. The principles addressed State sovereignty; a comprehensive, cooperative, and common security concept; conflict prevention and the peaceful resolution of issues; the State's responsibility to protect and promote the individual rights and freedoms of State members through the use of democracy, the rule of law, and the market economy; minority rights and responsibilities; the development of shared values; and processes. From 1993 to 2001, the HCNM directly applied the OSCE principles in fourteen intervention cases. In the three cases analyzed, the implementation of the principles had a significant effect on security by reducing national and international tensions involving minority issues. This effect was seen within each State, between States, and in the region, and reduced the potential for conflict within and between OSCE States. The results were particularly significant in view of the instability, conflicts, and tensions of the post-Cold War period; the OSCE's ongoing institutionalization; and the limited resources and tools available to the OSCE and HCNM. The OSCE principles, the Helsinki process, and the HCNM's methods merit further examination, development, and application to national security policy and practice.Item Reading the Public: How Memebers of Congress Develop Their Impressions of Public Opinion on National Security(2007-07-31) Rosner, Jeremy David; Destler, I. M.; Public Policy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)To "represent" literally means to present again. For members of Congress, that means presenting again the views their constituents have presented to them. But how do members of Congress determine what those views are? How does a member of Congress read the public, in particular, on questions of national security, where the stakes are particularly high, but where average citizens may be silent, inattentive, or deferential to policy makers? The current study examines this question - how members of Congress develop their impressions of public opinion on national security issues - through a process of inter-views and participant observation with members of Congress and their staff. It exam-ines the information-gathering methods of eight members - six representatives and two senators - as well as their chiefs of staff, focusing in particular on three case studies: the Iraq war, especially congressional votes during 2005-2007; the sale of six American port operations to the Dubai Ports World company in early 2006; and U.S. relations with China. The study concludes that members rely on more sources of information about public opinion on national security than the literature has suggested. For example, members do not only look at intentional and issue-linear communications they receive from the public. They tend to be hunter-gatherers for information, and they seek out clues the public did not know it was transmitting. Members also look at public opinion in a highly anticipatory manner - reading the public's preferences not only in the here-and-now, but also as they may evolve. And whereas the literature tends to equate public opinion with public opinion polls, which weight every individual's opinion equally, members appear to view opinion in "lumpy" terms, assigning very different weights to the opinions of different kinds of people. All this helps to explain why there are sometimes divergences between the polls and members' perceptions of pub-lic opinion. Ultimately, it also suggests the need for a broader understanding of pub-lic opinion, which takes into account not only quantitative polling data, but also the qualitative perceptions of practitioners such as members of Congress, whose job it is to assess the contours of public attitudes.Item Structuring Biodefense: Legacies and Current Policy Choices(2007-01-23) Okutani, Stacy M.; Steinbruner, John D; Public Policy; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Policies are usually initiated in response to specific circumstances, but they do not become effective unless they are embedded in operating institutions. Understanding the historical process through which policies evolve is essential for assessing their character and their consequence. This study is a detailed history of the US bioweapons program from its inception to the present. It is an original analysis based on archival documents and scientific reports. The issue is, does the application of national security measures such as the classification of scientific programs improve biodefense? Initial organization of the US bioweapons program as a secret, military program that performed threat assessment work (1941-1969) led to the development and stockpiling of biological weapons for deterrence, but few medical defenses. A strategic review in 1969 concluded that bioweapons were not useful for legitimate military missions and did not enhance US deterrence. It also concluded that proliferation threatened the US. To reduce proliferation, the US destroyed its bioweapons arsenal and enforced the norm against bioweapons acquisition by signing the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) in 1972. Subsequent organization of the US biodefense program was as an unclassified military medical research program. This work at the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) improved medical countermeasures without a concomitant classified, offensive program. However, in response to the terrorist attacks of 2001, the US is again imposing secrecy over important aspects of its biodefense work, including its threat assessment work. Based on the analysis here, current policy will increase the risk to US security by both enlarging the threat space and reducing defensive options.Item The Paradox of Local Empowerment: Decentralization and Democratic Governance in Mexico(2006-03-14) Selee, Andrew Dan; Crocker, David A; Destler, I M; Public Affairs; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation examines whether decentralization to municipal governments in Mexico has improved democratic governance. The research examines the effects of decentralization on democratic governance in three Mexican cities: Tijuana, Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl, and Chilpancingo and draws on key national indicators. The findings indicate that decentralization has significantly increased the authority and autonomy of Mexican municipalities, but that these changes have not necessarily led to local governments that are responsive and accountable to citizens or allow for citizens' active engagement in public affairs. Further analysis of these findings suggests that municipal political institutions create few incentives for public authorities to be responsive and accountable to citizens. The use of closed party lists, prohibitions on independent candidacies, guaranteed supermajorities for the leading party, and the prohibition on reelection all combine to undermine accountability and responsiveness. In this environment, public authorities tend to be more concerned about party leaders than citizens. As a result, citizens continue to be linked to local governments through political brokers within the principal political parties and there are few real opportunities for citizen engagement outside of these mediated channels despite the nominal existence of elaborate participatory planning processes. Nonetheless, the study also finds marked differences in the way that citizens are linked to the political system in different cities. Where strong social organizations existed prior to decentralization, citizens are more likely to have effective, albeit indirect, channels for voice in public affairs. Where these social organizations are linked closely to the principal political parties, they are even more likely to influence public policy than where these organizations are highly autonomous. Strong social organizations provide a necessary basis for ensuring citizen voice, but their linkages to the political process ultimately determine whether they are effective in influencing policy decisions. In other words, horizontal linkages in civil society--social capital--are a necessary precondition for good democratic governance, but vertical linkages between citizens and political actors are equally important.Item Civic Skills and Civic Education: An Empirical Assessment(2005-04-20) Comber, Melissa Kovacs; Foreman, Jr., Christopher; Public Affairs; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Participation in public life requires sufficient civic skills. Civic skills include the abilities to communicate with elected officials, organize to influence policy, understand and participate in one's polity, and think critically about civic and political life. One source of civic skill development is civic education coursework, often provided in high school or college. This dissertation tests for a correlation between civic skills (political interpretation skills, news monitoring skills, group discussion skills, communication skills, and English language skills) and civics coursework among fourteen to thirty-year-olds using probit models and propensity score matching methods. Data sources include the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement Civic Education survey (1999), the Civic and Political Health of the Nation: A Generational Portrait survey (2001), the American Citizen Participation Study (1990); and the National Household Education Survey's Civic Involvement study (2001). Political interpretation skills are almost always correlated with the presence of civic education. According to the IEA/CivEd study, studying the Constitution and the Presidency almost always influences civic skill levels, while other civic education topics sometimes influence civic skill levels. Civic education is not always correlated with news monitoring skills. Civic education is sometimes correlated with the presence of group discussion skills and communication skills. No evidence was found of a correlation between civic education and English language skills. Among minorities, females, low-income respondents, non-college respondents, and non-Hispanic whites, differences exist in civic skill levels and the effect of civic education on civic skill presence. This dissertation recommends that all American high school students take at least one semester of civics. This dissertation also recommends schools and communities seek to prioritize teaching civic skills in schools, so as to equalize abilities of political participation. Further research is needed to fully understand the relationship between the content of civics courses, the classroom climate of civics courses, and civic skill presence.Item Minimum Means of Reprisal: China's Search for Security in the Nuclear Age(2004-09-20) Lewis, Jeffrey; Steinbruner, John D; Public Affairs; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Among the 5 states authorized under the NPT to possess nuclear weapons, China has the most restrained pattern of deployment: The People's Republic of China (PRC) operationally deploys about 80 nuclear warheads exclusively for use with land-based ballistic missiles. Its declaratory doctrine rejects the initiation of nuclear war under any circumstance. The PRC does not maintain tactical nuclear forces of any kind, and its strategic forces are kept off alert, with warheads in storage. This posture has been sustained over time and changes in threat perception, suggesting restraint is the result of choice and not expediency. The apparent implication of the sustained pattern of Chinese restraint implies a distinctly different strategic assessment from that developed by Russia and the US to justify and direct their larger and more actively deployed forces. As articulated in the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review, the United States seeks credible options for the preventive use of strategic forces. Such options will presumably undermine confidence among Chinese leaders that a small strategic force provides adequate deterrence, and that vulnerability to preemption poses a less significant risk than the loss of control over alert forces. There is no evidence yet of a fundamental revision in the traditional deployment pattern of Chinese strategic forces, perhaps because China is likely to preserve a modest capability sufficient for its minimalist conception of deterrence. If China were subjected to a level of preemptive threat that Beijing judged intolerable, Chinese leaders would likely to reject, at least initially, the systematic emulation of US deployment patterns. Although the inner deliberations of China's leadership are only barely perceptible, patterns in Chinese defense investments, strategic force deployments, and arms control behavior suggest China would consider asymmetric responses that targeted the vulnerable command, control and intelligence (C2I) systems essential to preventive operations. This dissertation attempts a systematic examination of Chinese policy statements and diplomatic actions for two purposes: 1. To test the plausibility of China's apparent strategic logic against the conflicting expectations of prevailing US assessments. 2. To provide guidance for shaping both the specific security relationship with China and global security arrangements in general.