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.

"The problem with which this investigation is concerned is the determination of the role played by public relations professionals in Texas politics. This exploration of modern campaign technology relies on a survey of related literature, published and unpublished, and on personal interviews conducted in 1968-69 with candidates for public office, party workers, public relations experts, campaign managers and consultants, and media specialists involved in the Texas Democratic Gubernatorial primary campaigns of 1968...the findings show that the public relations professionals are playing an ever increasing role in Texas politics and that their expertise and skills play a particularly important role in political campaigning. The Texas Democratic Gubernatorial primary campaign of 1968 illustrates the widespread use of professional consultants by Texas politicians and indicates that their use has had recognizable consequences for the distribution of power and influence."-- leaf [1].

How does respect for human rights affect the disbursement of food aid by US foreign policymakers? Scholars analyzing foreign aid generally look at only total economic aid, military aid or a combination of both. However, for a more nuanced understanding of human rights as a determinant of foreign aid, the discrete foreign aid programs must be examined. By disentangling component-programs from total aid, this analysis demonstrates how human rights influence policymakers by allowing them to distribute food aid to human rights abusing countries. Consequently, policymakers can promote strategic objectives with food aid, while legally restricted from distributing other aid. The primary theoretical argument, which links increasing human rights abuse with increasing food aid, is supported by results from a Heckman model. This procedure models the two-stage decision-making process where foreign policymakers first, select countries for aid and then, distribute aid to those selected.

This dissertation analyzes the political leadership crisis and the violations of human rights in the Arab countries during the period 1970 to 1990. The main purposes of this study could be briefly summarized as follows: (1) to explore scientifically whether there is a political leadership crisis in the Arab World; (2) to explore the concept of political leadership, i.e., what constitutes political leadership, what are its necessary requirements, and what differentiates it from dictatorship; and (3) to examine the effects of political leadership in the Arab countries upon the violation of human rights.

The purpose of this study is to explore the administrative setting of the Office for Civil Rights, treating especially the functional requisites of agencies: namely, the development of a viable role within its set and the internal necessity of developing among its functionaries a degree of cohesion and sense of common purpose. This case study is designed, moreover, to challenge the naturalistic assumptions of the pluralist model of administrative theory. Chapter I develops the theme of "social engineering agencies" as a distinctively new genre of public agency in the American political setting and adumbrates the theoretical challenges which these organizations present to the conventional pluralist paradigm.

This investigation, covering the past two decades, attempts to determine what benefits the Soviets have sought to gain in their relationships with Middle Eastern oil-producing nations. Chapter I surveys the U.S.S.R.'s oil industry and its tentative prospects for the 1980's. Chapter II discusses Soviet involvement in the Middle East since 1950, including nationalization and oil embargoes. In Chapter III, developments less favorable to the U.S.S.R. are, analyzed: the growing influence of conservative, anti -Soviet oil-producing states and the deradicalization of other Middle Eastern nations. Chapter IV concludes that the Soviets have met with varying success in their Middle Eastern involvements. The future of their oil industry remains uncertain.

This study hypothesizes that the major barriers to expanded trade between the U.S. and Eastern Europe are systemic in nature. Using this approach, each political/ economic system is examined in an attempt to define the obstacles to foreign trade expansion, to describe the most important systemic and political factors at work, and to demonstrate how they have determined and will continue to shape the economic relationships between the U.S. and the countries of Eastern Europe. A final synthesis presents the two systems in a unified picture of the economic environment and concludes that significant trade expansion is unlikely in the near future due to basic systemic incompatibilities which impede the resolution of key foreign trade problems.

The purpose of this study is to expound the dilemma that, in spite of the huge wealth of Saudi Arabia, its drive for development and modernization is stumbling. This situation is due to a large extent to the country's severe administrative limitations.

This study examines the consequences of interdependence between Saudi Arabia and the United States from 1960 to 1978 as it relates to the concepts of cooperation and conflict. Research on interdependence focuses primarily on relations among Western countries and on whether interdependence is increasing or decreasing between them. It has rarely addressed relations between countries with different levels of economic development or the consequence of interdependence for international relations in terms of conflict and cooperation. Specifically, this study examines the following question: Does the level of interdependence between Saudi Arabia and the United States have any affect on the level of bilateral conflict and cooperation between the two countries? The hypotheses are tested using regression analysis. The primary conclusion is that increases in bilateral interdependence between Saudi Arabia and the United States from 1960 to 1978 produced increased cooperation as well as conflict.

The purpose of this study is to explore the activities of transnational organizations which were involved in the Nigerian civil war, in order to evaluate the hypotheses of this study - that the transnational organizations studied here contributed to the outbreak of the civil war; that they attempted to influence the behavior of the conflicting parties; that they helped to prolong the war; and that they served as instruments of conflict resolution in the civil war. The final chapter summarizes the conclusions arrived at in various chapters of the study. The evidence yielded varying degree of support to the hypotheses, These transnational actors are seen to have, through their different interactions with both sides affected the course of the war and have produced mixed impacts. They produced some evidence for the explanation of behavioral patterns likely to be displayed by transnational actors in similar situations. Also, these interactions are seen as giving some validity to the perceived need to expand the analytic framework of actors in international politics.

This paper addresses the influence of a mechanistic world view of East-West relations. The "classic" model of mechanism orders reality into a relationship akin to a simple clock or pump. In the model, discrete and unmodifiable parts, with no natural functional relationship to each other, are balanced and engineered into functional unity. This study shows how "environmental" conditions at the international level (ambiguity, complexity, and prolonged conflict) limit the ability of policy makers to define objective limits to containment, influencing them instead to follow the universal application of the "logic" of mechanism--that any imbalance must be checked by the container.

This is a study of Korean presidential elections. Its purpose is to determine how Koreans voted in the 1992 and 1997 presidential elections and to examine the factors that contributed to winners. In addition, the study compares the two elections by developing three models: candidate choice, voter turnout and political interest models. Using post election data from the Korean Social Science Data Center a multinomial logit regression was used in the candidate choice model. It shows that Korean voters selected their candidates mainly in terms of interest in the elections, age, orientation toward the governing or opposition parties, the regional effects of the Southwest (Honam) and the Southeast (Youngnam), and the evaluation of merged parties in 1992 or a united candidacy of parties in 1997. A Monte Carlo simulation was also employed to test the traditional assumption of candidate strength. It indicates that Kim Young-Sam had a more cohesive support from his older supporters in the 1992 election while Kim Dae-Jung had a greater cohesive support from his older supporters in the 1997 election. Both Kim Young-Sam's and Kim Dae-Jung's loyalists were crucial to the winning candidates in the 1992 and 1997 elections respectively. How did people vote? To address …

Although federal circuit and district court judges are placed within a federal hierarchy, and receive legal and judicial training that emphasizes the importance of the judicial framework and its structure, such judges are also subjected to other pressures such as the types of litigants within the courtrooms as well as their local political environment. Furthermore, such judges are apt to form their own views about politics and legal policy and are often appointed by presidents who approve of their ideological leanings. Thus, federal courts are caught between competing goals such as their willingness to maximize their preferred legal policy, and their place within the judicial hierarchy. This dissertation applies hierarchy and impact theory to assess the importance of the judicial framework and its socialization, by analyzing both the judicial opinions and votes of federal circuit and district court judges in obscenity cases during a four-decade period (1957-1998). The research presented here finds the influence of higher court precedent to correspond in part with the conception of a judicial hierarchy. An analysis of citations of Supreme Court precedent (Roth v. United States (1957) and Miller v. California (1973)) in lower court majority opinions suggests low levels of compliance: lower courts at …

"This report concludes that the evidence from the analyses seems to support the following propositions in regard to Texas electoral behavior. (1) The 1956 election year was a critical election year in Texas. (2) A pattern indicative of an underlying economic liberalism-conservatism was present in Texas voting patterns from 1944 through 1956, but not after. (3) The Mexican-American and German counties experienced political realignment in 1956 which continued through 1972. (4) The counties affording the most support to the liberal faction shift continuously. (5) The Texas electorate had been in a state of flux since 1956. To date no pattern other than the ethnic group realignment has stabilized. (6) Party-competition in gubernatorial elections has been increasing since 1962. (7) Ralph Yarborough has been the only liberal candidate for a major statewide office to draw support in a high and uniform degree across the state. (8) Ralph Yarborough's base of support has completely shifted since 1952. (9) The Farenthold vote was most closely aligned with that of Donald Yarborough. (10) Socio-economic factors have stronger relationship to Republican, liberal Democratic candidates, and major third party candidates than to conservative Democratic candidates. (11) All evidence form these analyses points to personalism and candidate …