Matching Items (93)
Description
Street-level bureaucracy (SLB) theory argues that public servants take shortcuts when making decisions about the delivery of public services. These shortcuts can lead SLBs to treat citizens unfairly. Public administration and political science researchers have found some evidence that street-level bureaucrats act in biased ways towards ethnic and racial minorities, citizens of lower socioeconomic status, and religious minorities. I expand on the SLB literature on discrimination by examining whether SLBs discriminate based on the political ideology of citizens. According to the Ideological-Conflict Hypothesis, individuals act in biased ways towards others whose political values conflict with their own. Using the Ideological-Conflict Hypothesis, I test whether SLBs working in local governments discriminate against citizens based on political ideology and whether discrimination is related to type of service delivery (e.g. needs based versus universal). I carry out two audit experiments to test for discrimination. One audit experiment tests for political ideology discrimination in a need-based program among a sample of public housing authorities in the United States (US). The sample is limited to areas where over 60% of citizens voted for the Democratic candidate in the 2020 Presidential Election (n = 274)—and where over 60% voted for the Republican candidate (n = 274). The other audit experiment tests for political ideology discrimination in the delivery of a universal service using a sample municipal parks departments in US cities. The sample is cities with over 25,000 residents where at least 60% of citizens in the county voted for the Democratic candidate in the 2020 Presidential Election (n = 227) and counties where at least 60% of citizens voted for Republican candidate (n = 227). The treatment signals that an email is from a conservative citizen, a liberal citizen, or a citizen with no identifiable political ideology. The results of my dissertation provide some support for the Ideological-Conflict Hypothesis and evidence indicates SLBs discriminate based on political ideology. The results do not find differences in political discrimination for needs-based public service delivery compared to universal public service delivery.
ContributorsOlsen, Jared (Author) / Feeney, Mary K. (Thesis advisor) / Favero, Nathan (Committee member) / Miller, Susan M. (Committee member) / Stritch, Justin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
This study examines the roles and impacts of U.S. foundation grantmaking for women, as well as the influences of the foundations’ institutional characteristics on their grantmaking practices by employing a mixed-methods research design. In the first quantitative phase, this study explores three major research questions: (1) How has foundation grantmaking for women changed in the U.S.? (2) Whether and how foundations’ institutional characteristics are related to their grantmaking activities for women? (3) Whether and how foundation grantmaking for women has influenced women’s status? To address these research questions, I collect and analyze data on the U.S. foundation grants for women during the period between 2005 and 2014 from the Foundation Center and data indicating women’s status at the state level from various sources. The second qualitative phase focuses on examining the second and third research questions further by employing a comparative case study approach. Specifically, I conducted semi-structured interviews with directors or staff of the selected five foundations supporting women’s causes. The results show that foundations supporting women’s causes have focused more on their advocacy role than their charitable role by distributing their grants to programs for women’s rights/studies. Additionally, a foundation is more likely to give grants for women’s rights/studies when the organization is younger, with a higher total giving size, in the Western region, in the state of liberal ideology, or an independent foundation. Furthermore, a state with a larger amount of foundation grants for women (per woman) reveals a higher women’s status. The case study findings indicate that differences exist in how foundations implement their grantmaking decisions for women and how foundations assess their grantmaking impact on women. It also shows some evidence that foundations’ grantmaking decisions and impact assessment strategies for women are affected by the foundations’ institutional characteristics such as women’s leadership. This dissertation sheds light on our understanding of current trends of U.S. foundation grantmaking for women that was less focused and makes both theoretical and practical contributions to the nonprofit sector by suggesting a framework to assess the impact of foundations in society.
ContributorsHan, Hyunrang (Author) / Wang, Lili (Thesis advisor) / Shockley, Gordon E. (Committee member) / Mook, Laurie (Committee member) / Robichau, Robbie W. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
This research investigates how public organizations interpret and respond to the threats they face. Drawing on the open interpretative framework and progressing through its stages (i.e., data collection, interpretation, and action-taking), the three studies of the dissertation build on each other to examine how US public transit agencies deal with the risks posed by extreme weather events. The first study analyzes the “data collection” stage and draws on information processing theory to investigate how various sources of information shape public agencies’ risk perceptions. Integrating administrative data with a 2019 survey of US transit managers, results show that reliance on scientific sources of information is positively associated with perceived risk of extreme weather events. The effect of contracting on risk perceptions is contingent upon agencies’ outsourcing strategies. The second study expands on the first one and focuses on the “interpretation” stage, examining how organizations cultivate a shared perception of extreme weather events. Analyzing in-depth semi-structured interviews with public managers employed at four transit agencies, the study identifies and describes three processes that foster the development of intersubjective interpretations: conversation, suppression, and shared experiences. Informed by the findings of the first two studies, the third one examines the role played by organizational interpretative processes in enabling the undertaking of adaptive actions. I test my expectations using data coming from a follow-up 2023 national survey of public transit managers. Findings underscore the importance of “debative cooperation” and cross-agency boundary-spanning activities in facilitating the development of shared cause maps and favoring adaptation. Overall, the dissertation provides an integrated and comprehensive investigation of the organizational and social elements that shape effective risk management and adaptation to extreme phenomena.
ContributorsCaldarulo, Mattia (Author) / Welch, Eric W. (Thesis advisor) / Feeney, Mary K. (Committee member) / Stritch, Justin M. (Committee member) / Kingsley, Gordon (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2024