Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

5-1998

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Political Science

Major Professor

Michael Fitzgerald

Committee Members

Hyrum Plass, Robert Cunningham, Tuan VoDinh

Abstract

This study evaluates strategies employed by bureaucracies to mitigate organizational stress when faced with a hostile and changing organizational environment. Since the enactment of the National Environmental Protection Act in 1970, federal agencies such as the Atomic Energy Commission, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Department of Interior, and the United States Army Corps of Engineers, have been under assault for the methods used in performing their organizational missions. These groups as well as many other public organizations have had to learn to adapt to the public's demand for environmental accountability, or face the prospect of a diminished organizational mission.

The study examines the case of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer’s Jacksonville District, and the strategies employed by the organization to adapt to the concern of the nation's populous in the area of environmental awareness. The focus on water management in South Florida is suited to meet the purposes of the study given the region's volatile and high spirited set of actors, and the extensive and long standing role the Jacksonville District has played in water resource management. The region with its many politically powerful and highly organized interests, presents the Corps with the Herculean task of performing a balancing act that meets the needs of the growing population in Florida, preserves the environment, and incorporates the needs of the politically powerful agricultural interests.

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