Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1968, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2021, Geography (Arts and Sciences)

There has been increasing interest in climate change adaptation among local and international actors. This has given rise to tension in priority setting in the adaptation landscape. The multiplicity of actors and the multi-level landscape in which these actors interact has raised concern about whose priorities are reflected in adaptation responses programs. The thesis seeks to characterize the adaptation landscape in the Gambia to determine the adaptation priorities that have emerged over the past decade. It also seeks to establish whether local Gambian NGOs have agency in influencing local adaptation priorities. Using key informant interviews among actors as well as analysis of important policy documents, the thesis argues that (a) the Gambia's adaptation priorities are centered around increasing agricultural productivity, forest resource management, efficient energy use among others priorities and have not significantly evolved since the 2007 NAPA; (b) power in the national adaptation governance landscape is highly centralized and concentrated around the key ministries, an inter-ministerial climate change coordinating body, and few international actors; (c) local Gambian NGOs have limited agency in determining the direction of national adaptation priorities; and (d) local Gambian NGOs retain limited elements of agency in determining their own framings and priorities for adaptation intervention response program. This thesis argues that local Gambian NGOs should be engaged in wider consultative processes for setting national adaptation priorities by the government and international NGOs.

Committee: Thomas Smucker (Advisor); Risa Whitson (Committee Member); Harold Perkins (Committee Member) Subjects: Ecology; Environmental Studies; Geography

MA, Kent State University, 2020, College of Fine and Professional Arts / School of Music

This thesis explores the role and function of the Bandung Philharmonic as a unique impression in the symphony orchestra world and how its ventures into multicultural education forms bridges from the local to the global community. It further demonstrates the unique negotiations that the Bandung Philharmonic has to make in order to create an Indonesian identity through the utilization of the medium, and I argue that the orchestra's commitment to working with local composers, building a unique symphonic orchestra repertoire, and prioritizing the formation of a distinctively Indonesian orchestra, rejects the concept of orientalism and could be considered a marker of Indonesian identity. I begin by documenting the establishment of the orchestra in the modern era to understand how this newly formed orchestra situates itself in Indonesia while having full agency over its medium without a colonialist influence. I then examine its connections with the local community and show how the orchestra is dedicated to building a lasting legacy in Indonesian symphony orchestra music. Lastly, I reflect on the Bandung Philharmonic's endeavors as a professional symphonic orchestra deeply engaged in the community while revealing the option where an orchestra, of and by the community, can be successful by displaying the unique characteristics of its people.

Committee: Jennifer Johnstone PhD (Committee Chair); Jungho Kim DMA (Committee Member); Priwan Nanongkham PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Ethnic Studies; History; Multicultural Education; Music; Music Education; South Asian Studies

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2020, Environment and Natural Resources

The complex system of watersheds involves interconnections of water cycles, human behaviors, and the surrounding environment. Growing demand for water resources due to expanding populations throughout the world has led to the need for better management of watersheds. An increasingly popular approach involves collaborative management of watersheds that engages stakeholders and governance actors working at different scales. At the same time, watershed management has been impacted by a trend toward the decentralization of government services and decision making, particularly in developing countries. Decentralized watershed governance often faces problems including the transfer of authority from federal to regional and local government, building the capacity and resources of local stakeholders, institutional conflicts over management of the watershed, and development of policies and regulations that support local collaborative approaches. Utilizing qualitative methods, this study builds on previous research on the necessary conditions and outcomes required for successful collaborative projects to explain the dynamics and outcomes associated with watershed management in the Wanggu Watershed, Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia. Results found that many of the prerequisites for effective collaborative management exist at the provincial and local watershed scale. While there is evidence that processes have been put in place that supports collaborative management, particularly the role of a formal interagency watershed forum at the provincial level, evidence of successful implementation of programs and actual improvements in watershed conditions was less common. Some factors limiting success include political dynamics and turnover, and changes in regulations that do not always empower local leaders. In addition, the success of decentralized watershed governance was shaped by the presence of international aid organizations that were critical convenors of program implementation (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Douglas Jackson-Smith (Advisor); Eric Toman (Committee Member); Matthew Hamilton (Committee Member) Subjects: Environmental Science; Natural Resource Management

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1976, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Operations Research

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1957, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Political Science

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2016, Geography

Honduras has some of the worst health outcomes for women and children in the Americas. Despite major improvements over the past 25 years, the country still lags behind neighboring countries and regional averages. To address this disparity, Honduras is slowly rolling out national health system decentralization by delegating decision-making authority to the municipal level in select municipalities throughout the country. It is theorized that local ownership over the health system will improve healthcare access by customizing the health system to better meet the needs of each community. The selective rollout of decentralization in Honduras provides a natural experiment to evaluate the impact on healthcare access. Pre-and post-intervention secondary health survey data and primary semi-structured interview data were used to conduct a mixed methods analysis. Difference-in-differences analyses show improvement in healthcare access over time for women and children, but limited improvement attributable to the effect of decentralization. However, qualitative analyses point toward improvement in healthcare access under decentralization. The diverging results may be due to external factors, and/or a national-level prioritization of the health of women and children regardless of decentralization status.

Committee: Elisabeth Root (Advisor) Subjects: Geography; Public Health

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2015, Arts Administration, Education and Policy

In the field of urban cultural policy, hardly any non-Western studies have researched the initial stage of policy design and the role of culture, despite its significance in today's evolving policy design processes. The purpose of this dissertation study is to explore the role of culture under the influence of policy paradigm shift and to gain a comprehensive understanding of contemporary urban cultural policy design. Based on a complementary set of preexisting models and studies that challenge the limitations of the Multiple Streams Model, this study investigates multiple aspects of the Hub City of Asian Culture (HCAC) project in South Korea. Conducting an in-depth case study by incorporating document analysis, personal interviews, and several timelines, the study provides a thick description on the new urban cultural development model of HCAC. The findings indicate that there is a significant paradigm shift in contemporary urban cultural policy design, and culture has been operationalized as an innovative and autonomous tool to manage the complexity of policy design, situations, and networks. The HCAC policy design adopted multiple culture-driven tools from precedent international cases and strategically integrated them to the policy design and initial implementation processes for the sustainable management of the project. Finally, the study makes recommendations for future researchers to advance the policy analysis model for exploring undiscovered cases around the world. The study also recommends cultural policy makers to recognize the need to minimize the government's intervention in policy making, and learn how to collaborate with and nurture the vitality of policy communities.

Committee: Margaret Wyszomirski (Advisor); Edward Malecki (Committee Member); Wayne Lawson (Committee Member) Subjects: Arts Management; Public Administration; Public Policy; Regional Studies; Urban Planning

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2013, Political Science

In the study of ethnicity on public goods provision, the concept of ethnicity has largely been under specified, resulting in ambiguity in what specific attributes of ethnicity can prove to be deleterious to public goods provision. This dissertation focuses on how two specific aspects of ethnicity, rigidity of ethnic boundaries and internal ethnic social organization, affect preferences for public goods provision. Fearon (1999) argues that nonporous ethnic boundaries facilitate forming minimum winning coalitions based on ethnic identity as they more easily exclude others from sharing benefits. Hence, I argue that this lowers trust between ethnic groups as they fear that whoever comes into power will hoard government resources. It is thus not inherent antipathy as posited in many works on ethnic politics but political competition that drives preferences for private over public goods in diverse polities. Using Pakistan's recent devolution as a natural experiment, I show using in-depth surveys that introducing political competition at the union council level of local government led to a perceived increase in political significance of local kinship identities. Comparing a homogeneous union council in southern Punjab with an ethnically diverse union council I find that the homogeneous polity is more likely to vote by ethnicity, prefer private goods over public goods, and prefer public goods provision in the regime before the local government system. Yet, when asked who should benefit from a hypothetical public goods project, they were as likely to stipulate the entire community irrespective of identity as was the homogeneous polity, illustrating that it is not inherent antipathy that leads to politicization of ethnicity, but the fear of being locked out of politics. While studying the effect of social organization of ethnic groups on public goods outcomes, I compare districts that vary in tribalism, and hence internal hierarchy, in Balochistan. I find that though pub (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Sarah Brooks (Advisor); Irfan Nooruddin (Committee Member); Marcus Kurtz (Committee Member) Subjects: Political Science

MCP, University of Cincinnati, 2008, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning : Community Planning

Decentralization has been an integral part of the political reform process in former socialist countries throughout Central and Eastern Europe. The rationale behind decentralizing government services and responsibilities to the local units of government is that they are closer to the clientele they serve and, therefore, can better understand their needs to respond more efficiently and effectively. Since gaining independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, the Republic of Macedonia has instituted a number of legislative changes that transferred a significant number of competencies from the central government to the municipalities. This study examines the decentralization process in the Republic of Macedonia and assesses whether the decentralization process has created local units of government that are more efficient, effective, and accountable. The study looks at the interaction between the central government and the municipalities to investigate the degree to which the proper competencies have or have not been transferred to the lower level of government.

Committee: Johanna Looye PhD (Committee Chair); David Edelman PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Area Planning and Development; Political Science; Public Administration

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2009, ED Policy and Leadership

The International Standard School project is a new education policy in Indonesia that was enacted with a main goal to prepare the students for global competitiveness. This policy is both an effort to internationalize schools in Indonesia and a part of the national education decentralization reform. The title International Standard School, SBI in Bahasa Indonesia, is given as an accreditation status to schools that have completed the required standards. The use of the terms “international” has drawn a lot of comments and concerns among the public in general. This study is aimed at analyzing the policy documents in seeking for an answer to a thesis question: Is the International Standard School project likely to achieve the intended goal of improving the quality of public education in Indonesia? A set of policy documents was collected and analyzed against literature on international schools and education decentralization. The analysis found that the policy documents lacked of clarity in explaining some critical terms and thus were not likely to help the national schools to achieve the intended goal of the policy. Some other important findings in relation to the use of the term “international”, the impetus of the policy, and the readiness of the system to implement the policy are presented.

Committee: Ann Allen PhD (Advisor); Antoinette Errante PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Educational Evaluation

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2007, Public Policy and Management

This research investigates perceived decision influence for teachers in K-12 education. First, the ability of charter schools to provide teachers with an environment that fosters more perceived decision making influence is examined. Then, the relationship between perceived decision making influence for teachers and school performance is explored. Five different areas of decision, which cover both classroom and management level decisions in schools are considered in this research. Research and theory on decision making decentralization in the public sector provides the context for this inquiry. There are two major findings from this research. First, the data employed in this study suggest that status as a charter school may increase the influence teachers perceive they have, not only over the work they do in their classrooms, but over the management decisions that affect the school as a whole. In terms of decision making influence in school decision-making, charter schools appear to be providing the freer environment envisioned by their proponents (Nathan, 1996; Fussarelli, 1999). Charter schools may even be responding to the demands of public administration scholars who have argued that the environments of public organizations restrict public service deliverers and compromise their ability to make critical decisions (Diulio, Garvey and Kettl, 1993). The second major finding in this research relates to the ability of perceived decision influence for teachers to link to school performance. The results suggest that school performance may benefit some when teachers perceive themselves as having more decision influence in their schools. But any benefit in terms of performance that schools receive may be at best marginal, relative to important student and family inputs. These patterns appear to be similar regardless of the decision area; management and classroom decisions show similar relationships to school level performance. The findings in this research related to curr (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: David Landsbergen (Advisor) Subjects: Education, Social Sciences

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2007, Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics

This study investigates the effects of decentralization on economic growth in U.S. counties. Decentralization has given counties the added responsibility of economic growth and welfare administration. Counties use various strategies to attract and retain businesses so they can provide income and jobs for residents. Localization of economic development and decentralization of welfare programs may have an effect on economic growth of county governments. County governments in the U.S. may act strategically by setting lower welfare benefit levels, and offering business incentives to new and existing firms, thus resulting in the possible under-provision of local public services and a decrease in economic growth. Key objectives of this study are to construct a measure of decentralization and investigate whether decentralization leads to differences in economic growth in U.S. counties. A simultaneous equation framework is used to explore the relationship between decentralization and economic growth. Economic growth is measured by population and employment growth. An interaction term is constructed between decentralization and rural status to verify whether decentralization's effects differ by rural status of counties. County level data from forty-six states in the U.S. are used in the analyses. The hypothesis that the effect of decentralization on rural counties is different from that of urban counties is tested. The hypothesis that decentralization has a negative effect on economic growth of U.S. counties is also tested. Other hypotheses that are tested are that population growth and employment growth each has a positive effect on the other. The results reveal that population and employment growth both positively affect each other. Decentralization has a significant effect on population growth but no effect on employment growth. Both rural and urban counties show a negative relation with population growth so the hypothesis that decentralization results in lower economic g (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: David Kraybill (Advisor) Subjects: Economics, Agricultural

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2005, Political Science

This dissertation addresses the causes of tax policy changes, its direction and magnitude, in a comparative way by studying three dimensions: centralization, progressivity, and level in Argentina and Brazil during the 1980s and 1990s. The two chosen cases' analytical relevance derives from having experienced tax policy reforms, but different in extent and nature; which is the central explanatory concern. Throughout the literature, explanations of change have had a focus on crisis environments, crisis events, and/or agency. Although all of them present some truth and leverage in order to understand change, some middle-range explanation is lacking. A combination of macro and micro-concerns are crucial for understanding and being able to explain change. This is why institutionally based explanations, containing generalizable qualities without being aloof to contingent and contextual characteristics, are best suited for explaining change. Thus, I present a contingent application of veto players theory in order to explain changes in taxation. It gives importance to strategic actors' interactions and their institutional realities. I put forth the necessity of a reduction of effective veto players in order for change to take place within a realm of multiple veto players. I argue that due to a reduction of veto players during the late 1980s in both cases, change took place in Argentina and Brazil, but to different extent and nature. The reason for their divergences, I argue, is the different nature of the respective veto players' reductions and the prevailing interests after these temporary reductions. The result of the analysis is that Argentina and Brazil decreased the progressive capacity of their taxation, but Argentina decreased it more than Brazil. I close this dissertation with an empirical and theoretical puzzle. Argentina and Brazil do not deviate from the accepted taxation literature of a positive correlation between development level and taxation level, but this (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: R. Liddle (Advisor) Subjects: Political Science, General

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2012, Curriculum and Instruction (Education)

In relatively poor schools, in which school facilities and human resources are limited, people rarely expect to find high National Examination (UASBN in Indonesia) test scores. Rimpang Elementary School was an exception. This study focused on studying this anomaly. A main research question: “What factors explain the unusual UASBN performance of a relatively poor elementary school?” and four sub-research questions related to the School-Level Curriculum (KTSP) and the National Examination (UASBN) were generated in order to holistically explain this phenomenon. In order to respond to those questions, the research method used Grounded Theory. The data collected from documents, interviews, reflective journal and field notes, and classroom observation were processed through initial coding, focused coding, theoretical coding, and memo writing. The study indicated that in Rimpang Elementary School, the teaching performances of classroom teachers played an important role in enabling the students to obtain relatively high scores in the UASBN. However, instead of validating the unusual UASBN performance of a relatively poor elementary school, the study of the curriculum transfer process uncovered inconsistency between the KTSP and the UASBN. The study showed that during the curriculum transfer process, a number of significant ideas were left out. In addition, the study revealed that as a measure, the UASBN lacked test validity. This study suggested that educational practitioners should be able to pin down the terms of reference in the curriculum transfer process in order to reduce misunderstanding. To do so, they should equip them with strategies to implement ideas into practice, including the strategies to embed pedagogical theories within the curriculum.

Committee: Ginger Weade PhD (Committee Chair) Subjects: Curriculum Development

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2009, Geography (Arts and Sciences)

The 1980's and 1990's were characterized by considerable debate on decentralization in the developing world. While advocates argued that decentralization would bring government, and therefore delivery of services closer to users, opponents pointed to potential problems including ‘elite capture' of the decision making process, disparities in regional resource endowments and corruption. This thesis uses the decentralization framework to investigate the outcomes of health sector reforms in Kenya, especially allocation of HIV & AIDS mitigation resources. A desk review of relevant literature was employed, but the research was also augmented by limited primary data. Findings indicate that though the government embraced a diversity of policies, the broader objectives of reforms, to enhance quality and geographical coverage of health services, remain elusive.

Committee: Elizabeth E. Wangui PhD (Committee Chair); Thomas Smucker (Committee Member); Margaret Pearce (Committee Member); Sinha Gaurav (Committee Member) Subjects: Geography

Master of Science (MS), Ohio University, 2006, Environmental Studies (Arts and Sciences)

There has been a growing trend to manage natural resources on the basis of ecological boundaries; however, it has proven challenging to superimpose these boundaries over traditional political boundaries. The implementation of river basin-based water management in Mexico was evaluated in order to better understand its complex institutional and participatory dynamics. Results show that in spite of considerable reforms and innovative concepts incorporated into water management legislation, there has been difficulty institutionalizing these reforms and translating them into practice. The most notable obstacles include competition between institutions, the vision of water independent of the environment, resistance to integrated management, limitations on localized decision making and substantive participation, and impediments of political boundaries on management by ecological boundaries. In spite of these challenges, Mexico has made considerable progress in laying the foundations of environmental and water management policy.

Committee: Nancy Manring (Advisor) Subjects: Environmental Sciences

Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2011, Political Science

Beginning with the insight that highly-centralized state structures have historically provided a unifying target and fulcrum for the mobilization of contentious nationwide social movements, this dissertation investigates the hypothesis that decentralized state structures in authoritarian regimes impede the development of forms of popular contention sustained and coordinated on a national scale. As defined in this work, in a decentralized state, local officials assume greater discretionary control over public expenditures, authority over the implementation of government policies, and latitude in managing outbreaks of social unrest within their jurisdictions. As a result, they become the direct targets of most protests aimed at the state and the primary mediators of actions directed at third-party, non-state actors. A decentralized state therefore presents not one but a multitude of loci for protests, diminishing claimants' ability to use the central state as a unifying target and fulcrum for organizing national contentious movements. For this reason, decentralized autocracies are expected to face more fragmented popular oppositions and exhibit higher levels of durability than their more centralized counterparts. To examine this claim, I conduct four comparative case studies, organized into pairs of autocracies that share a common regime type but vary in terms of state decentralization. These include the single-party autocracies of Taiwan (1949-1996) and China (1949-present) and the personalist autocracies of the Philippines (1972-1986) and Kazakhstan (1991-present). This dissertation compares streams of contention in each of these sites, examining how state structures facilitate and/or impede the shift from localized and particularized forms of contention into nation-level social movements. These divergent outcomes are expected to have a powerful impact on the resilience of individual autocratic states and their likelihood of experiencing regime breakdown.

Committee: Venelin Ganev PhD (Committee Chair); Gulnaz Sharafutdinova PhD (Committee Member); Adeed Dawisha PhD (Committee Member); Stanley Toops PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Asian Studies; Political Science

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 1995, Nursing

Designing and shaping environments facilitating the practice of professional nursing is a responsibility of nursing administrators in maximizing outcomes for an aggregate of patients. Structure and processes, occurring within the nursing care environment, influence patient outcomes. Yet the theoretical relationships between structure and process, as antecedents to outcomes, have not been evaluated. Donabedian's structure-process-outcome model guided this study. The purposes of this nonexperimental study were to determine whether variations in two dimensions of structure, decentralization and expertise, influence participation in three phases of the decision making process (identification, design, and selection) among nurses working in acute care hospitals, and to describe whether these relationships are different based on the nature of the decision. The stratified random sample consisted of 300 Registered Nurses who worked on medical/surgical units in 13 conveniently chosen hospitals representing three sizes of hospitals. Eligible nurses worked at least 18 hours per week and had been on their units for at least 6 months. Nurses were given a questionnaire containing the Participation in Decision Activities Questionnaire, Job Authority Scale, Job Expertise Scale and three single item measures evaluating the global nature of expertise. The findings of this study showed that the relationships between structure and process was supported. Among caregiving decisions, the model (decentralization, expertise, and the interaction of decentralization and expertise) explained 4% of the variance in participation in design and selection. Among condition of work decisions, the model explained 5% of the variance in identification, 6% for design and 8% for selection. In each test of the model, greater decentralization was associated with greater participation. Greater expertise was found to be associated with greater in participation for selection among caregiving decisions and for p (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Patricia Brennan (Advisor) Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing