Strategic Growth Area: Policy

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https://hdl.handle.net/10919/79480

The Policy SGA is a dynamic hub with spokes, focused on undergraduate through doctoral education, research, and scholarship. The policy hub brings together teams of experts with different, but complementary specializations and comprehensive policy expertise in key areas. The spokes of the hub connect to and integrate this expertise within and across the destination areas to translate scholarship to practice through the complex decision-making processes of policy making, implementation, and evaluation.

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An Empirical Analysis of International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) Annual Surveys
Weisband, Edward; Colvin, Christopher (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000-02)
A Model for a Smallpox-Vaccination Policy
Bozzette, Samuel A.; Boer, Rob; Bhatnagar, Vibha; Brower, Jennifer L.; Keeler, Emmett B.; Morton, Sally C.; Stoto, Michael A. (NEJM Group, 2003-01-30)
Background: The new reality of biologic terrorism and warfare has ignited a debate about whether to reintroduce smallpox vaccination. Methods: We developed scenarios of smallpox attacks and built a stochastic model of outcomes under various control policies. We conducted a systematic literature review and estimated model parameters on the basis of European and North American outbreaks since World War II. We assessed the trade-offs between vaccine-related harms and benefits. Results: Nations or terrorists possessing a smallpox weapon could feasibly mount attacks that vary with respect to tactical complexity and target size, and patterns of spread can be expected to vary according to whether index patients are hospitalized early. For acceptable results, vaccination of contacts must be accompanied by effective isolation. Vaccination of contacts plus isolation is expected to result in 7 deaths (from vaccine or smallpox) in a scenario involving the release of variola virus from a laboratory, 19 deaths in a human-vector scenario, 300 deaths in a building-attack scenario, 2735 deaths in a scenario involving a low-impact airport attack, and 54,729 deaths in a scenario involving a high-impact airport attack. Immediate vaccination of the public in an attacked region would provide little additional benefit. Prior vaccination of health care workers, who would be disproportionately affected, would save lives in large local or national attacks but would cause 25 deaths nationally. Prior vaccination of health care workers and the public would save lives in a national attack but would cause 482 deaths nationally. The expected net benefits of vaccination depend on the assessed probability of an attack. Prior vaccination of health care workers would be expected to save lives if the probability of a building attack exceeded 0.22 or if the probability of a high-impact airport attack exceeded 0.002. The probability would have to be much higher to make vaccination of the public life-saving. Conclusions: The analysis favors prior vaccination of health care workers unless the likelihood of any attack is very low, but it favors vaccination of the public only if the likelihood of a national attack or of multiple attacks is high.
Rethinking Humanitarian Assistance Coordination
Stephenson, Max O. Jr.; Kehler, Nicole (ISTR, 2004-07)
This paper develops an analytical framework to address an issue of enduring and seemingly intractable concern, how to secure improved coordination among those parties and organizations that seek to provide assistance in humanitarian crises. This matter receives persistent attention because all parties agree that more successful coordination of their efforts will lead to improved outcomes for those they seek to serve. The trouble is that the structure of actors and the operating environments in which humanitarian agents must work do not readily encourage broad and open cooperation among them. The humanitarian assistance literature has rightly been preoccupied with describing the dimensions of that operating environment and with seeking to understand better what conditions and characteristics of organizational structure and operation might lead to improved service delivery processes and outcomes.
Restoring the Fallen Blue Sky: Management Issues and Environmental Legislation for Lake Sevan, Armenia
Lind, Douglas; Taslakyan, Lusine (UC Davis School of Law, 2005)
Armenia is a small, landlocked country in the Southern Caucasus Mountains. It is one of the world's oldest civilizations,¹ yet a very young country. It was formed as one of the Newly Independent States (NIS) following the 1991 breakup 'of the Soviet Union. Armenia's landscape ranges from rugged, impassible volcanic peaks in the Caucasus that reach nearly 3,600 meters above sea level, to highly fertile land in the Ararat Valley, the principal agricultural region of the country. Lake Sevan, the "Heart-of Armenia,"² at one time encompassed nearly five percent of the country's surface area. Lake Sevan is one of the oldest, largest, and highest alpine lakes in the world. It is the lake heralded by Maxim Gorky as a glorious piece of fallen blue sky.³ The size, depth, and high mountain location of Lake Sevan has made it an important ecological and cultural focus for the people of Armenia over many centuries. Yet these features also turned the lake into one of the most misguided and ecologically catastrophic engineering follies of the twentieth century. Beginning in the 1930s, the government of the Soviet Union undertook a series of management'decisions to divert a substantial quantity of Lake Sevan's waters to the Hrazdan River for irrigation in the Ararat Valley and for hydroelectric power generation.⁴ The Soviet plan called for decreasing the lake's surface area, thereby decreasing water loss from evaporation and increasing the amount available each year for agricultural and hydroelectric purposes.⁵ Water was taken from the lake at rates significantly above the natural inflow, which decreased its volume by over forty percent and lowered its level by roughly nineteen meters over a span of forty years.⁶ The lake's surface area has diminished from 1,416 square kilometers to about 1,240 square kilometers.⁷ This decrease in water level, together with increased pollution loads from point and non-point sources, has significantly destabilized Lake Sevan's hydrology and ecology, resulting in an accelerated eutrophication process (algae growth) and substantial adverse impacts on the lake and its basin's flora and fauna.⁸ Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, restoration of Lake Sevan has become a matter of high priority within the newly independent Armenia, and has drawn the interest of the international environmental community.⁹ Organizations outside Armenia, such as the United Nations, the World Bank, the Ramsar Convention, and USAID have brought international attention to the lake, adopting management plans and position statements designed to increase protection, conservation, and restoration of the lake. Armenia, in turn, has responded by enacting a number of environmental laws that bear upon management of the lake and its surrounding region, including a series of laws that address only Lake Sevan. This article examines the ecological problems plaguing Lake Sevan as a result of the lake's decreased water level during the Soviet era and the legal efforts taken to address them. Part I presents an overview of the lake's limnology, comparing its original natural conditions with those found in the current wake of the level lowering project. Part II canvasses the laws enacted over the years to address the Sevan problem. This review begins at the political source of the problem-the philosophy of Soviet Marxism, the Stalinist policy to transform nature, and the few legal initiatives taken near the end of the Soviet era to address water resource issues throughout the USSR. The article then covers the post-Soviet era during which the independent Republic of Armenia enacted laws designed to address the environment in general and Lake Sevan in particular. This section reviews the international agreements and action plans that hold significance for Sevan. Finally, Part III undertakes an assessment of the various laws and management plans that impact the lake's iestoration and future health. The article concludes that while the laws and plans derive from well-meaning intent, there is little reason to expect meaningful restoration. So long as the Armenian economy remains depressed and dependent upon the exploitation of Sevan's dwindling resources, and until the laws affecting the lake's health become more pragmatic in approach and better endowed with enforcement provisions that are carried out with force, the lake's health will likely continue to decline.
The Nature Conservancy, the Press and the Social Construction of Accountability
Stephenson, Max O. Jr.; Chaves, Elisabeth (2005-04-01)
This paper explores the May 2003 Washington Post investigative articles concerning The Nature Conservancy (TNC) for their implications for our understanding of the dynamics of accountability for nonprofit organizations. This series strongly suggested that the governing board of the nation’s largest environmental organization had permitted untoward, if not illegal, land transactions that benefited individual Chapter board members, had, in the name of its stated desire to work with corporate partners, too often lost sight of its environmental mission and had “wasted” many thousands of dollars on community based projects on Virginia’s Eastern Shore that had no hope of success. In short, the Post articles suggested that Conservancy governors had failed in ethical terms, failed in fiduciary terms and failed in their responsibility to stay focused on the organization’s mission. Moreover, these failures had, according to the Post, profoundly broken trust with the organization’s stakeholders.
Changing the Face of Leadership and Administration in Public Service
(Center for Public Administration & Policy, School of Public & International Affairs, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2005-10-01)
The purpose of the Virginia Tech Center for Public Administration and Policy (CPAP) Roundtable Series for Leadership and Administration is to bring together the leading scholars, practitioners, students, and others for a stimulating conversation focusing on the exchange of ideas that will advance the knowledge and understanding of leadership in public administration through the sharing of research and experiences. For this particular session, Dr. Colleen Woodard moderated a discussion between Robert J. Lamb, Senior Advisor for Policy, Management and Budget for the U.S. Department of the Interior, and David Lewis, Assistant Professor of Politics and Public Affairs for the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University on the topic “Changing the Face of Leadership and Administration in Public Service.” The roundtable discussion set out to find the difference between management and leadership and also determine whether the distinction is truly necessary.
Leadership and Accountability
(Center for Public Administration & Policy, School of Public & International Affairs, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2006-07-01)
The purpose of the Virginia Tech Center for Public Administration and Policy (CPAP) Roundtable Series for Leadership and Administration is to bring together the leading scholars, practitioners, students, and others for a stimulating conversation focusing on the exchange of ideas that will advance the knowledge and understanding of leadership in public administration through the sharing of research and experiences. For this particular session, Colleen Woodard moderated a discussion between John Rohr, professor at Virginia Tech’s Center for Public Administration and Policy, and Bradford Huther, President and CEO of the International Property Institute and retired member of the Senior Executive Service on the subject of “Leadership and Accountability.” The roundtable discussion focused primarily on defining accountability and what it means in the realm of public administration and politics.
Leadership in the Information Age
(Center for Public Administration & Policy, School of Public & International Affairs, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2006-10-01)
The purpose of the Virginia Tech Center for Public Administration and Policy (CPAP) Roundtable Series for Leadership and Administration is to bring together the leading scholars, practitioners, students, and others for a stimulating conversation focusing on the exchange of ideas that will advance the knowledge and understanding of leadership in public administration through the sharing of research and experiences. For this particular roundtable session, Dr. Colleen Woodard moderated a panel discussion with Lieutenant General Walter Ulmer and Dr. Owen Jacob on the subject “Leadership in the Information Age.” Dr. Jacobs named the three dimensions of leadership that characterize leadership in the information age: (1) the scope and scale of organizational and environmental complexity; (2) the nature of leadership and how it differs depending on the position held in an organization; and (3) how an individual’s leadership abilities and their understanding of leadership both mature over time and develop into leadership capacity. General Ulmer discussed how one can develop the capacities to lead.
Final Report Abstract: Caregivers of Persons with Mild Cognitive Impairment: Information and Support Needs
Roberto, Karen A.; Blieszner, Rosemary; Brossoie, Nancy; Winston, Brianne L. (Alzheimer's Association, Medical and Scientific Affairs, 2007)
Program Development Issues in Nonprofit and Civil Society Studies: Learning from One University's Experience
Stephenson, Max O. Jr. (NASPAA, 2007)
This article examines one university's efforts to institutionalize a graduate nonprofit curriculum. It does so through the lens of situational analysis and an eye to five key challenges that have dogged the effort - operating in an picious organizational environment, creating an interdisciplinary program discipline-rich context, securing a praxis analytical focus and shared pedagogical stance, ensuring a comparative analytical focus, and developing a sustainable ance between student needs and expert claims. These concerns are examined what might be learned from each that may hold broader significance for nonprofit curriculum design, program development, and implementation. While some of these conditions are unique, what they suggest about the challenges for those seeking institutionalization of nonprofit curricula are not. The essay seeks to suggest how and why that might be so. The paper argues that, regardless of case-specific factors at play in the present analysis, would-be nonprofit program builders would be wise to be attentive to their operating context, to the nature existing program curricula and organizational cultures, and to the clear specifica- tion of their own curricular aims.
Reconstructing Iraq: merging discourses of security and development
Sovacool, Benjamin K.; Halfon, Saul E. (Cambridge University Press, 2007-04)
This article argues that reconstruction is an emerging discourse of international politics that merges security and development discourses in powerful and troubling ways. We focus on Iraq as a site for articulating and institutionalising a particular version of reconstruction, uncovering five narratives that constitute Iraqi reconstruction discourse. We conclude by suggesting that reconstruction repackages security and development into a singular, technical, and bureaucratic worldview. This view obscures working and reliable solutions to poverty and instability by treating development as a central justification for war, and war as a promising way to develop a state and society.
A Workshop Conceptualizing Leadership
(Center for Public Administration & Policy, School of Public & International Affairs, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2007-07)
The purpose of the Virginia Tech Center for Public Administration and Policy (CPAP) Roundtable Series for Leadership and Administration is to bring together the leading scholars, practitioners, students, and others for a stimulating conversation focusing on the exchange of ideas that will advance the knowledge and understanding of leadership in public administration through the sharing of research and experiences. This Roundtable was devoted to a CPAP community effort to strategize and guide our future forums on developing and understanding leadership and administration. Stepping outside the scholar/practitioner format we have followed for the Roundtable, we asked three CPAP doctoral students to lead this Roundtable discussion with specific audience engagement. Round Table guests Susan Maybaumwisniewski, a CPAP Ph.D. student, framed and moderated a discussion with CPAP PhD students Maria DiPasquantonio and Jeff Stern, followed by breakout discussions with CPAP students. These discussions generated a robust set of agenda items and questions that the CPAP community will continue to engage through the Roundtables and other Leadership & Administration events.
Crisis to Credibility Through Inclusion: Developing an International Port Security Network
(Center for Public Administration & Policy, School of Public & International Affairs, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2007-11)
The purpose of the Virginia Tech Center for Public Administration and Policy (CPAP) Roundtable Series for Leadership and Administration is to bring together the leading scholars, practitioners, students, and others for a stimulating conversation focusing on the exchange of ideas that will advance the knowledge and understanding of leadership in public administration through the sharing of research and experiences. The subject of this Roundtable session was "Crisis to Credibility Through Inclusion: Developing an International Port Security Network." CPAP's own Dr. Anne Khademian interviewed Captain Suzanne Englebert, USCG, Seventh Coast Guard District. During the Roundtable, Captain Englebert was also introduced as the first Coast-to-Coast Inclusive Management Fellow, part of the Coast-to-Coast Inclusive Management Initiative, a joint effort between Virginia Tech's Center for Public Administration and Policy and the University of California-Irvine.
Leading, Organizing, and the Stand-Up of DHS
(Center for Public Administration & Policy, School of Public & International Affairs, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2008-07-08)
The purpose of the Virginia Tech Center for Public Administration and Policy (CPAP) Roundtable Series for Leadership and Administration is to bring together the leading scholars, practitioners, students, and others for a stimulating conversation focusing on the exchange of ideas that will advance the knowledge and understanding of leadership in public administration through the sharing of research and experiences. For this particular roundtable session Dr. Colleen Woodard led a panel discussion with Beryl Radin, professor of public administration at American University, and Janet Hill, former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, on the topic “Leading, Organizing and the Stand-up of DHS.” During this roundtable, Janet Hill discussed some of the challenges the Department of Homeland Security faced at its start and how the department was able to overcome them. Beryl Radin also offered her expertise in public administration and the creation of federal departments.
Public Leadership: Understanding and Responding to the Financial Crisis
(Center for Public Administration & Policy, School of Public & International Affairs, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2008-11-01)
The purpose of the Virginia Tech Center for Public Administration and Policy (CPAP) Roundtable Series for Leadership and Administration is to bring together the leading scholars, practitioners, students, and others for a stimulating conversation focusing on the exchange of ideas that will advance the knowledge and understanding of leadership in public administration through the sharing of research and experiences. For this particular roundtable session, Professor Roger Leeds, Research Professor of International Finance and Director of the Center for International Business and Public Policy at Johns Hopkins University, spoke on the subject of “Public Leadership: Understanding and Responding to the Financial Crisis.” He discussed the importance understanding the financial world, regardless of your career or position, because the global financial market affects everything and everybody in some way. He also discusses the circumstances and practices that led to the global financial crisis and also changes that need to be made to supervise and oversee financial markets.
Report to the Virginia Department of Veterans Services Virginia Wounded Warrior Program: Assessing the Experiences, Supportive Service Needs and Service Gaps of Veterans in the Commonwealth of Virginia Final Report
Still, George; Dickerson, Thomas; White, Nancy; Sforza, Peter M.; Schroeder, Aaron; Willis-Walton, Susan M. (Virginia Tech Institute for Policy & Governance, 2010-08-05)
The Commonwealth of Virginia is the home to over 800,000 veterans who have served in conflicts ranging from World War II to the current engagements in the gulf region, Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF/Iraq) and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF/Afghanistan). The Virginia Wounded Warrior Program has been charged with coordinating and facilitating the services that are needed by Virginia’s veterans who have served in the United States military. In order to evaluate how to best serve and facilitate services for these veterans, the VWWP has commissioned a needs assessment of Virginia’s veterans that is summarized in this report.
Considering the Relationships among Social Conflict, Social Imaginaries, Resilience, and Community-based Organization Leadership
Stephenson, Max O. Jr. (Resilience Alliance, 2011)
This article focuses on the question of what role community-based organization leaders play in shaping the possibility for the emergence of new social imaginaries. It argues that deep social conflicts and efforts to secure purposive change are likely to demand strong civil society organization response and that certain forms of imagination are necessary and must be actively employed among community-based leaders if new imaginaries are to be discerned and effectively shared in ways that encourage sustained dialogue and the development of new social understandings. The article explores these briefly and draws illustratively upon two relevant examples from the peacebuilding literature to contend that such imaginationled leadership is necessary to catalyze new social imaginaries that can lead to more resilient social orders.
Institute for Society, Culture and Environment Annual Report 2011
Roberto, Karen A. (The Research Institutes of Virginia Tech: Institute for Society, Culture and Environment, 2011-08)
Virginia Star Quality Initiative Family Child Care Home Provider Demonstration Pilot Evaluation Report
Bradburn, Isabel S.; Dunkenberger, Mary Beth; White, Nancy; Allen, Elizabeth (Virginia Tech Child Development Center for Learning and Research, 2011-08-05)
The Virginia Star Quality Initiative (VSQI) family child care home demonstration project was a pilot quality rating and improvement program designed to provide intensive professional development services to family child care home providers. The pilot project took place between October 1, 2010, and June 30, 2011, and was funded by federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act monies awarded to the Virginia Department of Social Services. The Virginia Early Childhood Foundation (VECF) piloted the family child care home provider program as an extension of the classroom‐based VSQI, currently in its fifth year of a pilot phase. Through a competitive process, VECF selected six geographically and culturally diverse regions encompassing 35 Virginia localities to participate, with a recruitment target of 75 licensed family child care providers. Regions included nine localities in the Southwest (coordinated by Smart Beginnings Appalachia), Arlington/Alexandria, six localities in Central Virginia (coordinated by Smart Beginnings Central Virginia), Fairfax, seven localities in the Greater Richmond area (coordinated by the Richmond Resource and Referral Agency, ChildSavers) and five localities in South Hampton Roads (coordinated by Smart Beginnings South Hampton Roads and The Planning Council).
Women's College Decisions: How Much Does Marriage Matter?
Ge, S. Q. (University of Chicago Press, 2011-10)
This article investigates the sequential college attendance decision of young women and quantifies the effect of marriage expectations on their decision to attend and graduate from college. A dynamic choice model of college attendance, labor supply, and marriage is formulated and structurally estimated using panel data from the NLSY79. The model is used to simulate the effects of no marriage benefits and finds that the predicted college enrollment rate will drop from 58.0% to 50.5%. Using the estimated model, the college attendance behavior for a younger cohort from the NLSY97 is predicted and used to validate the behavioral model.

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