Hatfield Graduate Journal of Public Affairs

https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/hgjpa/

List of Papers (Total 32)

Re-Imagining Regulatory Approaches for Methane Emissions

Recently, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) took a step-back in regulating the methane released during natural gas extraction. In June 2016, the EPA issued the first federal regulations on methane, estimating methane emissions would decrease by a total of 510,000 short tons in 2025, with a potential net benefit of $160 million. Yet, in October 2018, the EPA released...

The Hidden Killer: Towards Regulating Railyard Diesel Particulate Matter Emissions in Oregon

Diesel engines are the predominant choice when moving freight, particularly for the railroad industry. Compared to gasoline engines, diesel emits relatively few of the toxic compounds generally associated with internal combustion. However, diesel engines produce a disproportionate quantity of particulate aerosols. Airborne pollutants from locomotives and freight transferring...

No Easy Answer: Representative Bureaucracy and Police Use of Force

The theory of Representative Bureaucracy is a well-studied concept in Public Administration, positing that more representative government agencies will lead to greater equity for underserved groups. This paper is review of empirical applications of the theory to the use of force by police and it will show that the work does not support the idea that more representative police...

A Network Approach to Complex Problems: Understanding Collaborative Governance in Watershed Management

The complexity of current environmental problems poses a challenge to the field of public management. With multiple stressors acting on the earth’s natural systems, the likelihood that complex environmental problems will persist is undeniable. Traditional approaches to such problems follow a top-down method, often useful for problem management within public policy; however, it...

The Energy Policy Act of 2005: The Rapid Decline of Jura Majestatis for Communities in Ohio

Since Nobel Prize recipient Svante Arrhenius realized that fossil fuel combustion increased CO2 emissions in our atmosphere in 1896, scientists and policy makers have acknowledged the calamitous potential for the oil and gas industry to render substantial deleterious effects on ecosystems. Yet in 2016, the U.S. utilized fossil fuels to facilitate 80.9% of all energy consumption.1...

Has Portland been Demolishing its Green Spaces? A Remote Sensing Analysis of Portland's Urban Vegetation

The magnitude of the Urban Heat Island effect (UHI) in Portland, Oregon is determined from June 1984 to September 2017, and used as a proxy for urban development. This analysis demonstrates that the magnitude of Portland's UHI has remained largely unchanged over this period, implying no significant decline in its urban vegetation. This is supported by analysis of the Enhanced...

The Cuban Health Paradigm: An Exploratory Analysis Through LGBTQ and HIV/AIDS Individual Perspectives

The purpose of this research project was to develop an understanding of the social, systemic, interpersonal, structural, and political dynamics of the health care system in Cuba. This was done by selecting two populations of focus; LGBTQ and HIV/AIDS positive individuals. The health care system and social determinants of health are analyzed using these two populations as lenses...

Education and the Economy: The Rising Private Sector’s Effect on University Enrollment and Post-Graduation Employment in Contemporary Cuba

During Cuba’s Socialist Revolution of the 1960s, the education system was restructured to train and prepare citizens as part of the subsidized state-owned universal education model. In a centrally-planned system like Cuba’s, the state determines the needs of the economy and provides corresponding funding for associated educational and vocational training programs. Students who...

Exploring the Cultural and Infrastructural Impacts of Consumerism on the New Cuba

This paper seeks to explore how a shifting economic model and an increasing influx of U.S. tourism, customs, and products will impact consumerism and waste in Cuba. The paper begins by charting the rise of an unwitting conservationist culture among Cubans, built out of necessity as a response to Castro-era economic hardships. This is followed by a discussion of recent Cuban...

The “Necessary Evil”: State and Non-State Sector Interactions in Cuba and Effects on Public Services

Five years after Lineamientos reforms were approved by the 2011 Communist Party Congress, the effects are beginning to emerge. The development of the private or non-State sector in particular has begun to cause shifts in the economic, social, and political landscape as Cuba continues to adapt to and implement these changes. This paper explores the effects of the expansion of the...

The Effects of Policy on Cuban Transnational Families

This paper examines the effects of nations’ policies on transnational families, specifically looking at Cuban families. Transnationalism is a relatively young theory, it was developed in the mid-1990s as an alternative to the migration theories of assimilation and integration. Scholars argued at the time that migrants were actively maintaining ties with their homeland while also...

History in Motion: Seeing Cuba’s Future Through the Past and Present

This article is a foreword for Volume 3, Issue 1 of the Hatfield Graduate Journal of Public Affairs.

Symposium on Homelessness

On May 19, 2017, the Hatfield Graduate Journal of Public Affairs cohosted a symposium to address the pervasive issue of homelessness as it pertained to the city of Portland, Oregon and its greater metropolitan area. Included are the papers presented at the symposium.

Communities of Concentrated Poverty: A Proposal for Oregon

This paper is a proposal for how to address poverty in Oregon based on information gathered from interviewing experts in the field and reviewing literature produced by scholars and organizations that address issues related to poverty. The following outlines how we can best address communities of concentrated poverty in Oregon by (1) Addressing communities of concentrated poverty...

Equity and Access to Health Care in Rural Quang Nam Province, Vietnam

This paper will addresses access to health care in rural Quang Nam Province in Vietnam. In doing so, it will examine the existing literature surrounding healthcare in Vietnam and compare it with the shortage of physicians in the study area and how that impacts who is able to receive care. The research presented in this paper synthesizes this analysis with interviews conducted by...

School Vouchers: A Vehicle to Induce Greater Competition Among Public Schools

This article argues that current research on school voucher programs misses a crucial point about the variability of vouchers’ effectiveness across school districts. Most research on school vouchers analyzes the effect of voucher programs on student achievement without engaging in a more fine-grained analysis to assess which districts see student success and which do not. This...

Advancing Rationality with Sustainability: An Analysis of Agent-Based Simulation

Today, falling trends of species and ecosystem in the world due to overconsumption and destruction of natural resources are at critical levels. It is vital for humanity to operate with sustainable and resilient modes of production and consumption. In this regard, this paper examines the basic premise of rationality and introduces sustainability as an advancement to the...

Policy Analysis: Minimum Wage in the Portland Metropolitan Area

Oregon’s current minimum wage of $9.25 per hour is unsustainable as it does not provide adequate nutritional resources or housing for full time employees. Additionally, employers of minimum wage workers often rely on social safety net benefits for their workers which effectively subsidize wages. This creates an unnecessary burden on the taxpayer. Oregon Senate Bill 1532 increases...

How Has Religiosity Influenced the Restrictiveness of Marriage Immigration Policy in Serbia, Denmark, and the United States?

The following paper draws attention and investigates the impact of religion, specifically religiosity, on the development of marriage immigration policy in Serbia, Denmark, and the United States. In directly comparing between the three states, significant evidence suggests that religiosity has clearly influenced the restrictiveness of marriage immigration policy altogether...