Date of Award

2026-05-01

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Public Administration

Advisor(s)

James Lockhart

Second Advisor

Eric Boyer

Abstract

While much of the best-known literature on the Franco-Algerian War has emphasized insurgency, counterinsurgency, and the grievances of the colonized, this thesis takes a broader, historical and public administration approach by analyzing the relationship between the development and implementation phases of government and military policies and the unintended, sometimes fatal, outcomes that followed. Although it does this from the perspective of policymaking in the country that is trying to maintain control over its distant territory, it has implications for those interested in maximizing resistance to these policymakers.

By conducting a structured, focused comparison of a typical case across three theories on how policies lead to unintended consequences - Merton's Theory of Unintended Consequences, Street-Level Bureaucracy Theory, and Systems Theory - this thesis seeks to determine if there is an existing theoretical framework that fully explains how policy development and implementation lead to unintended consequences. It also aims to understand how different factors can lead to unintended policy outcomes and how knowledge of these factors can be used to limit secondary policy effects, thus improving development and delivery of service.

This thesis finds that, in the case of the Franco-Algerian War, all three of the theories examined account for some aspects of unintended consequences, but none were able to explain everything. Furthermore, it finds that the causes of unintended consequences are complex and multifactorial arising from policy development, implementation design, implementation drift, the actions of third parties, or a combination of these. It further identifies multiple factors across theories that policymakers can and should consider while attempting to limit unintended secondary policy effects including rapid formulation, blind motivation, practical limitations at the time of implementation, the potential for policy distortion by street-level bureaucrats, and the influence of third parties.

Language

en

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Size

74 p.

File Format

application/pdf

Rights Holder

Elizabeth Mae Tornabene

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