This thesis studies and explores the history of the highway system in the Dallas-Fort Worth region. Various laws enacted to establish an effective transportation system are discussed including the different government agencies affected and their relations.

Prompted by international ramifications of Jewish migration from Nazi Germany, President Franklin D. Roosevelt called a world conference on refugees in March 1938. The conference, held at Evian, France, in July, established the Intergovernmental Committee on Political Refugees. The committee, led by American diplomats, sought relaxation of Germany's discriminatory practices against Jews and tried, without success, to resettle German Jews abroad. World War II ended the committee's efforts to achieve systematic immigration from Germany. The American, British, and German diplomatic papers contain the most thorough chronicle of American involvement in the refugee crisis. Memoirs and presidential public papers provide insight into Roosevelt's motivations for calling the conference. Although efforts to rescue German Jews failed, the refugee crisis introduced Americans to intervention in Europe.

On November 24, 1964, the City Council of the City of Fort Worth approved a contract that read, in part: "The City of Euless and the City of Fort Worth desire to cooperate in the stationing of personnel and fire fighting apparatus of the City of Fort Worth in facilities owned and operated by the City of Euless..." An examination of the establishment of this contract is the purpose of this thesis.

It is the purpose of this thesis to point out areas of failure and weaknesses in the Federal independent regulatory commissions, and recommendations for improvement, as seen by Louis J. Hector, James M. Landis, Emmette S. Redford, Bernard Schwartz and the Special Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight. A secondary purpose of the study is to present action taken by Congress and President Kennedy in response to recent criticisms of the commissions. The scope of the thesis is limited to the major problems of policy-making, personnel matters, and efficiency of the major independent regulatory commissions. The material presented in the thesis covers five chapters. Chapter I includes a general introductory statement, the purpose and scope of the study, and the method of organization. Chapter II is a presentation of the criticisms and recommendations of Hector, Redford, and Landis in respect to the problems of policy-making and coordination faced by the independent commissions. Chapter III examines the problems of commission personnel in respect to qualifications, turnover, and ethical conduct. Chapter IV concerns the efficiency of the independent commissions, showing examples of delay and incompetence in the performance of the functions of the CAB, the FPC, and other commissions. Criticisms and recommendations include those …

Conflict is present in all human relationships and societies. Throughout history, fighting has been more notable than peacemaking. Only recently have conflict resolution studies entered the mainstream of academia. Since peace is no longer an option, but a necessity, educators must become actively engaged in promoting the importance of peacemaking skills among their students. In 1986, the National Institute for Dispute Resolution funded a study of conflict resolution in higher education. Results disclosed a proliferation of courses but little about their quality. The present study evaluates the status of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) in the curricula of three major universities in North Texas and compares it with results from four other universities which were reported to have the heaviest concentration of ADR courses. A questionnaire was constructed to collect data in the following areas: place, significance of ADR in contemporary curricula, important factors determining attitudes toward ADR, and expectations/aspirations of faculty concerning teaching of ADR. Using a Likert scale, attitudes toward ADR were measured through regression analysis. Four of seven independent variables (age, sex, political orientation, and ADR training) were significant at jd = .05. Forty ADR-related courses were identified in seven universities. The concentration of ADR courses was management …

The September 11 terrorist attacks pointed out the lack of information sharing between law enforcement agencies as a potential threat to sound law enforcement in the United States. Therefore, many law enforcement agencies as well as the federal government have been initiating information sharing systems among law enforcement agencies to eradicate the information sharing problem. One of the systems established by Homeland Security is the North Central Texas Fusion Center (NCTFC). This study evaluates the NCTFC by utilizing user acceptance methodology. The unified theory of acceptance and the use of technology is used as a theoretical framework for this study. Within the study, user acceptance literature is examined and various models and theories are discussed. Furthermore, a brief information regarding the intelligence work done by law enforcement agencies are explained. In addition to the NCTFC, several major law enforcement information systems are introduced. The data for this study comes from the users of the NCTFC across the north central Texas region. Surveys and interviews are used to triangulate data. It is found in this study that performance expectancy and effort expectancy are important indicators of system use. Furthermore, outreach and needs assessment are important factors in establishing systems. The results …

"This paper analyzes the decision making processes in the federal system through a case study, that of the Dallas-Fort Worth Regional Airport controversy, and reveals the role of the many governments and interest groups involved. ...In this study the background of conflict is reviewed, after which the CAB [Civil Aeronautics Board] decision, accomplishments and problems are discussed. The presentation will reflect the cooperative role of all governments in the federal system, plus pressure groups that contribute to decision-making in the federal system."-- leaves 2,13.

This paper determines relationships between three elements of the American policy process: legislature, agency, and administrative clientele. It concerns interrelationships between these elements and their affect to agency functions. A model is constructed; revealing the policy process, illustrating behavior patterns responsible for normal functioning and failure of policies and programs. The model develops through study of a single policy area. Supplemental data are provided from a survey. The paper concludes that the process is based on legislation-- causing activity in an agency or substantial change in programs; agency actions, seated in its own organizational objectives, and resultant to internal conflicts; and by clientele behavior, determined by agency actions or inactions. This model may help predicting policy outcomes, but only after similar but more comprehensive studies.

This work explores the relationship between municipal government debt and revenue diversification using a prism of institutional and fiscal interactions, concentrating on revenue fungibility effects over time and on the role of state-imposed constraints. A diversified revenue structure tends to stabilize revenue levels by balancing income-elastic and inelastic revenue sources. The impact of such diversity has been the subject of much research on expenditure and service levels among state and local governments. Considerably less research has been conducted on its potential relationship with debt, although capital financing is a necessary and often-utilized mechanism for funding capital and operational spending for local governments. Since it is well known that debt payments are fixed in the short run, they require sufficient revenue adequacy through economic highs and lows. It is thus argued that local governments with more diversified revenue structures are better able to utilize debt financing since revenue diversity mitigates the risk of borrowing by providing for greater fiscal predictability in the long run. This hypothesis is tested on two samples - a large sample of cities in Massachusetts from 2000 through 2009, as well as a cross-state sample, encompassing the cities from the majority of U.S. states. The findings of …

Much of the United Nations' work toward achieving its aim of improving economic and social conditions for the people of the world is carried out by specialized inter-governmental agencies. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is such a specialized agency. It is the purpose of this study to explore what the author believes to be some of the more important projects of FAO as it attempts to achieve its objectives.

Transnational organized crime has been prevalent during the last century, but it recently has been recognized as a threat to the world order. Governments throughout the world, along with the intergovernmental organizations identified this phenomenon as a new threat to domestic and international security. This paper attempts to explain the impacts of transnational organized crime on the functioning of democratic societies by adopting the Russian Organized Crime as case study. The descriptive research with regard to definition, scope and organization of transnational organized crime, along with the objectives, limitations and methodology of this research will be included in the first chapter. Recent trends observed in organized crime`s character and the impact of organized crime on the political economies of democratic regimes will be contained in the following chapters. Pre-conditions for a broader response to transnational organized crime and conclusive remarks will be the context of the last chapter.

The objective of this dissertation is to test the Institutional Collective Action framework and examine the governance arrangements during health emergency. Basically, the dissertation argues that due to collaborative risks, transaction costs, barriers to collective action, governance arrangement provides avenues for action and a force for driving coordination across jurisdictional boundaries. The dissertation adopts two studies to investigate the governance arrangements represented by lead agency, emergency plans, Emergency Operation Center and city council mandates and coordination when it comes to health emergencies such as Ebola. The qualitative approach investigates the causal relationship between governance arrangements and coordination. The second study investigates to what extent do formal mechanisms and informal mechanisms affects the outcome of collaboration during a health emergency. This study uses a quantitative research approach to examine the patterns of collaborative arrangement used during health emergency. The findings of the study demonstrate the pattern used in health emergencies is dependent on the application of formal mechanisms represented by higher authority, emergency plans. Both studies indicate that due to collaboration risks, self-governance arrangements or higher authority mandates provides a venue for collective action. The survey data was collected from local, state and federal governments during the summer 2015 on the …

A sizeable literature documents patterns of competition between local governments in metropolitan regions, while also exploring variation in such local government financial attributes as efficiency, budget size, fiscal disparity, and service equity, which are frequently bound together under the concept of fiscal health. However, the concept of fiscal health is broader and more sophisticated than any one fiscal measure, and empirical studies tend to focus only on multi-purpose governments. This study brings these concepts together to investigate how interlocal competition affects the fiscal health of different government types. This study answers three questions: What is a measure of fiscal health applicable to different government types? How does competition among cities and towns affect local fiscal health? How does the proliferation of special districts affect the fiscal health of local governments? This study measures the concept of fiscal health using factor analysis and examines the effects of competition among different government types on the fiscal health of both municipalities and special districts. Utilizing a pooled cross-sectional time-series approach and data from the U.S. Census Bureau for metropolitan statistical areas for every five years between 1972 and 2012,the study finds that competition among municipalities has adverse influences on the fiscal health of …

This paper will show that, despite the need for extension of foreign direct investment in the form of multinational corporations to capital-scarce, less developed countries, political risk creates a gap between the demand and supply of foreign investments. In Chapter II, the patterns of foreign direct investment are analyzed. Chapter III reviews the various sources of political risk and concludes that the existence of political risk is an obstacle to the formation of optimum level investment. Chapter IV discusses the relative positions of the less developed countries and the multinational corporations. Chapter V shows the problems caused by the absence of a universal, regulatory institution. Chapter VI presents case studies of corporations based in Chile, Peru, and Angola. Chapter VII suggests ways that political risk can be minimized.

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between money spent on technology hardware, software, and training on district-wide achievement as measured by Texas standardized achievement tests, the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), and the American College Test (ACT). A series of studies were carried out to develop a model of the relationship between Texas district TAKS, TAAS, ACT, and SAT scores for all subjects and district expenditures on technology hardware, technology software, and technology training. The findings of this study showed that although the mixture of uneven distribution of training, incentives, and equipment in these Texas districts clouds the issue of effective integration as it does for all districts (Anderson & Becker, 1998), and the mean level of per pupil technology expenditure for participating districts is of an amount ($192 per student) deemed unlikely to have substantial impact on student outcomes (Anderson & Becker, 1998), there are strong positive links between levels of expenditure and student achievement on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills and the American College Test that indicate that establishing guidelines for levels of expenditure, schedules of acquisition of materials and equipment, and timeframes for training and implementation may be vital to the success …

Over the past decade the movement of natural gas drilling operations toward more suburban and urban communities has created unique policy challenges for municipalities. Municipal response is manifest in a variety of institutional arrangements, some more enabling than others regarding citizen access to public hearings. This observation lead to the main research question, “How are variations in citizen participation affecting policy outcomes?” The argument is made that institutions affecting citizen participation, in turn affect policy outcomes. If the general public is given access to public hearings, their preferences for longer setbacks will be taken into account and the approved gas wells will have greater distances from neighboring residences – effectively providing for greater safety. Given the paucity of research on the topic of natural gas drilling, the research first begins with the presentation of a theoretical framework to allow for analysis of the highly complex topic of gas well permitting, emphasizing the rule-ordered relationships between the various levels of decision making and provides a typology of collective action arenas currently used by Texas municipalities. The research uses paired case studies of most similar design and employs a mixed methods process for the collection, analysis and interpretation of the municipal level …

The major purpose of this dissertation is to explore the determinants of interest cost for state bonds. Various kinds of variables pertaining to issue characteristics, market characteristics, economic conditions, and political variables were statistically tested to assess their impact on the interest cost of state bonds. This research examines the variables found to be significant for local bonds, as well as some factors unique to state bonds, e.g., the types state agencies issuing debt and the effect of different state income tax policies.

This study focuses on the role of the Texas Governor's Office in the development of regional councils of governments in Texas. The study, divided into six chapters, emphasizes three important points: first, that Governor Connally conceived the idea of a "Division of Planning Coordination" due to his desire to be a strong chief executive; second, that the staff he hired largely to fulfill this desire in turn convinced the Governor that regional councils of governments should be an element of the statewide planning and development system and should receive strong financial and policy support from the Governor; and third, that from January 1969 to January 1973, the statewide regional council network was completed and Texas became a recognized national leader in the use of the regional council concept.

Legal data for the study come from briefs of state and federal court decisions. Political information is drawn from various governmental reports to the Sixty-third Texas Legislature on public school finance reform. Other material is from minutes of the House Committee on Education and interviews with members involved in the legislative process. The study describes and analyzes competing forces which try to influence policy decisions and attempts to identify the salient issues in the political process of educational policy-making. This information is incorporated into a systems model for heuristic purposes. The study pays special attention to state and federal court decisions, with emphasis on the "Burger Court" and President Nixon's influence upon the court. The latter part of the study concentrates on the Sixty-third Legislature and post-Sixty-third Legislature of Texas, and its efforts to write a public school finance reform program. The findings of the study show that the disparity in educational opportunity in Texas is a reality. The study also shows that school districts with the greatest need for reform are often least effective in influencing educational decision-makers. Finally, the study reveals that the inequities in public school finance are inherent in the ad valorem tax system used in …

Challenging a long-held attachment to the medical model, this research develops a cultural model placing local governments at the center of policy making and refocusing policy attention on mobility, housing, the built environment and services. To examine the phenomenon of age friendly policy adoption by cities and the magnitude of adoption, a 21-question web-based survey was administered to a sample of 1,050 cities from the U.S. Census having a population over 10,000 and having at least 14% of their population aged 65 years and over. The goal of the questionnaire was to help identify what kind of policy objectives cities establish to facilitate the opportunity for older adults to live healthy and independent lives in their communities as they age. Multiple linear and ordinal regression models examined the likelihood of policy action by cities and provide evidence as to why some cities support more age friendly policy actions than others. Evidence illustrates theoretical advancement providing support for a cultural model of aging. The cultural model includes multiple factors including bureaucratic responsiveness reflected in the management values of the administration. Findings show variation in the integration of a cultural awareness of aging in the municipality's needs assessment, strategic goals, citizen engagement …

This thesis is an analysis of aspects of international narcotics law enforcement from 1949-1959.

The present study examines the background of the Economic Opportunity Act in a local administrative structure. An extensive investigation is made of the Community Action Program of Laredo, Texas. The Community Action Program is a new approach which is still in the formative period and this receptive to constructive suggestions for change. Perhaps, it is hoped, this study will point the direction for such change, to the benefit of the long-run effectiveness of the poverty program as well as healthier interlocal relations.

As a form of tax and expenditure limitations, property tax exemptions result in an utility gap between two groups of population residing in the same community: free-riders who are paying less than they receive and contributors who are paying more than they receive. This utility gap is problematic to municipalities because contributors may exit the city as this gap becomes wider. How do municipalities respond to the increasing amount of property tax exemptions? Using 41 Texas cities data from 2000 to 2016, this dissertation examines how property tax exemptions affect municipalities' fiscal behavior. The analysis indicates that property tax exemptions lead to higher property tax burden, change municipalities' revenue structure, and lead to less capital spending.

The purpose of this research is to investigate the innovation process in municipal personnel offices by answering three questions. What factors are related to the innovativeness of personnel offices? What factors are involved in the diffusion of personnel innovations from one city to another? What intraorganizational processes are involved in the decision to adopt personnel innovations? This research focuses on ten innovations selected by a panel of both personnel academicians and practitioners. Data collection involved a mail survey sent to all cities over 25,000 in the Chicago and Dallas federal regions and in-depth interviews with personnel directors in twenty-two cities. The implications of this research are both practical and theoretical. Officials interested in more complete innovation diffusion would do well to stress the nonradicalness of the change and any applicable governmental mandates. Federal, state, and regional governments can obviously improve both the availability and applicability of personnel information. In terms of theory, the research offers support to both the rational and power-based models of decision making and change, although the latter seems most appropriate in explaining radical change.