ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes most of the ASU Theses and Dissertations from 2011 to present. ASU Theses and Dissertations are available in downloadable PDF format; however, a small percentage of items are under embargo. Information about the dissertations/theses includes degree information, committee members, an abstract, supporting data or media.
In addition to the electronic theses found in the ASU Digital Repository, ASU Theses and Dissertations can be found in the ASU Library Catalog.
Dissertations and Theses granted by Arizona State University are archived and made available through a joint effort of the ASU Graduate College and the ASU Libraries. For more information or questions about this collection contact or visit the Digital Repository ETD Library Guide or contact the ASU Graduate College at gradformat@asu.edu.
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Drawing on 30 interviews with key actors and document analysis, this dissertation employs a multiple case study design to conduct an interpretive policy analysis of the initiatives of four U.S. welcoming cities: Austin, Texas; Boise, Idaho; Chicago, Illinois; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The analysis explores three independent but interconnected themes. The first theme concerns multiple, context-specific framings of “welcoming” and the types of assets cities seek to leverage and develop through the welcoming city initiatives. This investigation finds that while each city puts a priority on developing a certain set of assets based on its unique political, economic, and demographic contexts, welcoming efforts tend to encourage immigrant entrepreneurialism, the leveraging newcomers’ human capital and financial assets, and the development place-based assets to attract and retain newcomers. The efforts to strengthen community capacity seek to institutionalize a new norm of welcoming, structure immigrant-friendly governance practices, and engage newcomers and longer-term residents in their community affairs. The second theme probes the ways in which these four cities create and maintain governing regimes for the initiative. The analysis finds that, while the four cities develop different governing structures, all pursue the creation of mixed types of governing coalitions that combine pro-growth and opportunity expansion regimes by incorporating the goals of economic growth and immigrant integration. The third theme investigates different modes of immigrant incorporation and their contribution to immigrant integration, the final stage in immigrant settlement. The analysis suggests that political leaders and bureaucratic agencies of the welcoming cities tend to build reciprocal relationships, rather than principal-agent relationships, in which political leaders rely on the positional, professional, and technical expertise of bureaucrats. In these early stages on the initiative, political and bureaucratic incorporation aim to create institutional changes that help immigrants and newcomers to be viewed as political constituents and clients of bureaucratic agencies.
This dissertation broadly concludes that the welcoming city initiative is a promising new urban economic development framework that could reshape urban space by integrating pro-growth demands with social integration and inclusion. Going forward, however, deeper consideration of the perspectives and rights of immigrants and newcomers themselves is needed in these initiatives.
This research identifies SMS usage patterns, differences, and policy implications within a large city government where multiple agencies have independent control over their own SMS sites/pages. It examines how each agency/bureau uses SMS and to determine if such use fits within Iris Marion Young's deliberative democracy model. This research contributes to voids in the academic literature in the topics of governmental SMS usage, intra-city SMS usage, and SMS as a mechanism for promoting deliberative democracy.
Theoretical factors in the implementation and policy network literatures relevant to successful implementation of environmental agreements are reviewed and used to examine HCP implementation. Phase I uses the USFWS Environmental Conservation Online System (ECOS) database to identify characteristics of policy networks formed to implement HCPs within the State of California, and how those networks changed since the creation of HCPs in 1982 by amendment of the 1973 Endangered Species Act. Phase II presents a single, complex, multiple-party HCP case selected from Phase I to examine the policy network formed, the role of actors in this network, and network successes and implementation barriers.
This research builds upon the implementation literature by demonstrating that implementation occurs in stages, not all of which are sequential, and that how implementation processes are structured and executed has a direct impact on perceptions of success.
It builds upon the policy network literature by demonstrating ways that participation by non-agency actors can enhance implementation; complex problems may better achieve conflicting goals by creating organizational structures made up of local, state, federal and non-governmental entities to better manage changing political, financial, and social conditions; if participants believe the transaction costs of maintaining a network outweigh the benefits, ongoing support may decline; what one perceives as success largely depends upon their role (or lack of a role) within the policy network; and conflict management processes perceived as fair and equitable significantly contribute to perceptions of policy effectiveness.