Suchergebnisse

Seaports are important economic engines serving many metropolitan areas in the United States. Most seaports in the U.S. are public-owned and managed by a set of elected or politically appointed board members. Indeed, this is public governance in action but the field of port governance seems to be focused on the study of operating efficiencies and less concerned with the public governance aspects of seaports. The term "governance" in a public organization conveys a level of democratic accountability to the citizenry for management of public-owned resources but, until now, studies of seaport governance in the U.S. have not focused on the important elements of public governance. The fields of port governance and public administration will benefit from this research inside of the U.S. and in the global context. This dissertation identifies economic development, environmental stewardship and financial sustainability as common missions amongst U.S. public seaports' and assesses mission accomplishment. A content analysis of U.S. public seaports mission statements enabled insight into what seaports claim as their collective purposes for existence. Once the missions were identified, constructs were operationalized to assess how seaports impact local economies and the natural environment as well as reviewing fiscal health. This research finds that on average U.S. public seaports make good on stated missions, but there is room for improvement.

Do public attitudes concerning the European Union affect the speed with which member states transpose European directives? It is posited in this article that member state governments do respond to public attitudes regarding the EU when transposing European directives. Specifically, it is hypothesized that member state governments slow transposition of directives when aggregate public Euroskepticism is greater. This expectation is tested using extended Cox proportional hazard modeling and data derived from the EU's legislative archives, the official journals of EU member states, and the Eurobarometer survey series. It is found that member state governments do slow transposition in response to higher aggregate public Euroskepticism. These findings have important implications for the study of European policy implementation, as well as for our understanding of political responsiveness in the EU.

This study examines those factors that influence the issuance of reasoned opinions within the European Union's 'Early Warning System'. It is posited that greater aggregate public Euroskepticism results in the issuance of more reasoned opinions. This expectation is tested using data derived from the European Parliament, the Commission's platform for European Union Interparliamentary Exchange, and longitudinal data from the Eurobarometer survey series. It is found that greater aggregate public Euroskepticism is associated with the issuance of more reasoned opinions. This study has important implications for our understandings of policy processes, political responsiveness, and democratic governance in the European Union and its member states.

Over the last twenty-five years, Afrocentric thinkers have made notable contributions to the ongoing task of challenging Eurocentrism. In the course of so doing, however, some measure of over-reach has occurred. In particular, Afrocentrists have coupled their general critiques of Eurocentrism with specific rejections of its putatively constituent elements, one of which is materialism. Among other things, this rejection of materialism has led Afrocentrists to refrain from interrogating capitalism, downplay the structural dimensions of racial oppression and elevate the ontological status of culture to the point where it is posited as the dominant source of pressing problems affecting people of African descent in the US. Such an outlook undermines the potential of Afrocentricity to be a force for radical social change.