Miller, Hugh T.

This study uses Foucault's (1979, 1983, 1995) theoretical work as a guide in examining relation of power and resistance within the unique context of street-level bureaucracies (Lipsky, 1980). It explores relationships by asking how employees and managers are objectified within street level organizations, if there are any similarities in objectifications across organizations providing different government services, and how these objectifications intersect within relations of power and resistance. As an artifact of the relations of power between street-level bureaucrats and managers, ten purposively selected collectively bargained contract documents from public organizations in Florida are analyzed in this research. Ethnographic Content Analysis (Altheide, 1996) was used to study the collective bargaining agreements selected, with phrases from the documents serving as the unit of analysis. Using Foucault's (1979, 1983a, 1995) descriptions of techniques of power as a guide, four specific protocol matrices were developed, tested and then used to collect and code phrases as illustrative of one or more techniques of power. The results of the analysis are first summarized using displays and matrices. Then, rich illustrations from the data is are discussed in detail, using Foucault's categories of normalization, individualization, panopticism and pastoralism as a framework for presentation. Results of this research demonstrate that, in the collective bargaining agreements analyzed, both 'managers' and 'employees' are objectified in ways that were similar across all of the documents studied. Through techniques of power as theorized by Foucault, 'managers', 'employees', and 'union representatives' are produced, but also constrained as well. The collective bargaining agreements in this analysis serve to 'fix' relationships between these two objectifications that are discursively affirmed as unequal. Constrained by this 'reality', any potential for changing relationships between managers and employees through prescriptions that ask street-level bureaucrats to be 'leaders'; "responsible choice-makers" (Vinzant & Crothers, 1998, p. 154) rather than policy implementers simply carrying out management directives are largely futile. As persuasive as these ideas might be, within the context of this project it is impossible to think of employees in terms of 'leader', given the objectifications of 'employee' and 'manager' found in the documents analyzed.

The politics-administration dichotomy has been one of the most disputed theories of public administration. Despite serious challenges and critics, neither the theoretical utility nor the normative power of the dichotomy has totally disappeared over the decades. The dichotomy has been advocated on the grounds that the dichotomous division of labor and authority between elected leadership and administrative leadership is prerequisite for autonomous (and effective) public administration. This dissertation (1) conceptualizes the politics-administration dichotomy, (2) specifies a theoretical model, and (3) tests and evaluates the theoretical model with empirical data collected from a nationwide sample of city managers serving in council-manager local governments. Results of structural equation modeling demonstrate that the internal theoretical logic of the politics-administration dichotomy could not be confirmed with empirical data. The dissertation then discusses implications of the findings for the field of public administration.

The influence of public choice and economic theory in public administration has increased the pressure upon government to "act like a business." Accordingly, cities have become increasingly entrepreneurial, creating redevelopment agencies and venturing into public/private partnerships with mixed results. A key financial tool for redevelopment agencies is tax increment financing (TIF), which yields increased agency revenues from increased property values. As agency activities increase property values, agencies are rewarded with increased revenues, much like profits for a business. The cyclical nature of TIF encourages a self-perpetuating tendency towards economic activities among self-interested, opportunistic agency actors, namely agency staff, elected officials, and business stakeholders who benefit from agency economic successes. Through a survey of Florida agencies and in-depth evaluation of five case studies, this research explores a series of questions regarding aspects of community redevelopment agencies: agency activities (either commercial or social), outcomes (agency TIF profits), and three theoretical constructs affecting the implementation environment (participation by business and non-business stakeholders and CRA structure as related to agency decision-making independence). The findings indicate that agencies conducting a predominance of commercial activities generated the highest rate of agency profits in the form of TIF revenues. In the implementation environment, the choice of agency activities was influenced by stakeholder participation. Agencies with mostly business stakeholder participation tended to conduct mostly economic activities, during both plan adoption and implementation. Conversely, agencies with predominantly non-business stakeholder participation, especially as a shift from business dominance, tended to prioritize social activities. Regular stakeholder participation, particularly by business interests, tended to increase as agency profits increased, underscoring the cyclical tendency towards economic activities. CRA structure varied among the cases. It appeared that more economic activities tended to occur when CRA structures were more autonomous, with a high degree of decision-making independence from parent local governments. However, while some agencies maintained high degrees of autonomy over time, autonomy was rescinded in others due to agency mishaps. Overall, economically-oriented goals in these agencies tended to win out over socially-oriented goals unless and until the under-represented "public" became unusually involved (revolts) or agencies were radically redirected by dissatisfied elected officials.

Internet technologies provide a criminal opportunity for stock manipulation and fraud that costs investors millions of dollars every day. In order to reduce this loss and craft policies and procedures to deter future losses, securities regulators have been seeking to understand the process of Internet securities fraud, including the actions of investors and fraudsters that contribute to that process. The purpose of this study is to determine the properties of the Internet communication environment associated with fraudulent stock schemes in order to contribute to these efforts of securities regulators. In addition, an aim of this study is to introduce Foucault's concept of power/knowledge as a means for theory development in the fields of finance, criminology and public administration that specifically addresses manipulation and fraud in the stock market.

Academic public administration (APA) supposedly provides theoretic and programmatic guidance for bureaucratic public administration (BPA). But in reality, a relationship best characterized as a gap between "theory" (APA) and "practice" (BPA) is deemed to exist between the two social practices. Scholars who have analyzed APA theoretic literature ascribed the theory-practice problematic to methodological inadequacies, the implication being that investment in appropriate social science methods would enhance the intellectual rigor and social utility of APA discursive works. To provide a much richer perspective on the theory-practice problematic, this study conceptualizes theoretic discourses as social actions. When scholars theorize, they invariably want to get things done, thus they are involved in social actions linked to some purposes, interests, and issues. As individuals with disciplinary affiliations and commitments, APA scholars bring purposes and interests to their work. So, what kinds of purposes underpin APA theoretic works? Since actions are meaningful within social practices, a corollary question is: What disciplinary influences constrain or authorize APA discourse, and why? To answer the questions posed: first, a discourse analytic method is utilized to analyze textual cohorts (i.e., authorial intentions, issues, themes, genre forms, and methods) in symposia articles published in five mainstream APA journals over a fifteen-year period. Second, a conceptual framework for understanding the disciplinary conditions authorizing and restricting theoretic discourse is outlined using the parameters of practice theory. Discourse analysis and practice theory are complimentary methodological and analytic tools. Discourse analysis focuses on discourse systems, whereas practice theory seeks to explain the relationships that obtain between human actions and social systems. In other words, discourse-practice approach focuses on the individuals' choices of discursive activities and explains how these choices are shaped by the social practices within which the discursive activities unfold. Using insights from practice theory, a speculative perspective relating the failure to reconfigure the discipline's telos in light of changed objective conditions is offered as the basis for the theory-practice problematic in academic public administration.