No description available.

No description available.

This dissertation examines the possible impact of direct political participation by urban popular movements at the level of local government. It is argued that these movements harbour a democratic potential, which is contained in their social, cultural, and political practices, as well as in the collective identities of their participants. The relevance of this democratic potential derives from the fact that it could serve to democratize other political actors, particularly political parties, and to render local political institutions more democratic and efficient, depending on three conditions. First, effective political decentralization has to result in the creation of institutional openings for popular participation at the local level. Second, in order to overcome their various limitations and to project their potential for change into the political arena, urban popular movements have to form alliances with other actors, particularly political parties. Third, since such alliances often result in cooptive pressures, urban popular movements should strive to form multiple alliances with more than one actor in order to better preserve their autonomy. In the second part of the dissertation, this theoretical framework is applied to a study of popular participation at different levels of local government in Lima, Peru. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

This thesis deals with two aspects of operators within the framework of Government and Binding theory; (i) how they are assigned their scope, and (ii) how they are licensed. In an attempt to answer these questions, the relation of Move $ alpha$ (such as scrambling, NP-movement, and wh-movement) to the scope of operators and the licensing of wh-elements, negative polarity items, and adverbs are examined. It is argued that scope assignment is dictated by the Scope Principle and the Empty Category Principle. It is also argued that licensing of operators is determined by the Feature-Dependent Item Criterion. These principles and criterion make use of the concept of Government Theory Compatibility, which is built into Relativized Minimality. It is suggested that this concept should be characterized in terms of a set of lexical features. The approach advocated here accounts for the interpretive and distributional behavior of operators without recourse to parameterization of LF principles.

This thesis seeks to explain why Canadians have been unable to reach consensus on the meaning of Canadian citizenship and on the issue of how they relate to one another as citizens. Rather than adopt a longitudinal approach to this dilemma, that is explaining why it has persisted over time, this study focuses on the 1987 Meech Lake Constitutional Accord, and specifically the provision recognizing Quebec as a "distinct society within Canada". This thesis treats the Accord as a microcosm of the larger "Canadian question". Applying the covenantal and compactual traditions in politics to the Canadian experience, this essay argues that the source of Canadian discord lies in the inability to agree on the essential nature of federalism and political community in Canada. This development has made it difficult for citizens to construct covenantal relations which would bind Canadians together in a lasting political arrangement, free of seemingly perennial constitutional "crises".

No description available.

From the outset, Northern Ontario has existed as an exploited natural resource region, vulnerable to the vicissitudes of a "boom and bust" verity. This has had profound effects on its ensuing political patterns and political processes. This thesis describes how and why the politics of Northern Ontario are different. This thesis demonstrates that the politics of Northern Ontario, unlike Southern Ontario, are distinguished by disaffection, dependency, domination, pragmatism, and parochialism. This thesis also argues that the North's divergent development and natural resource based economy, as well as pernicious provincial government policies and extensive interventions, provoked the differences apparent in its politics. These differences are evinced in the North's disparate political culture, political priorities, and political structure. Furthermore, this thesis confirms that Northern Ontario politics feature a low level of political efficacy which is primarily the result of its "centre-periphery" connection with Southern Ontario.

Between 1990 and 2010 sub-Saharan Africa experienced some of the highest levels of deforestation anywhere in the world. The problem has been particularly acute in what are known as the miombo woodlands of southern Africa. These occupy a unique ecological niche and are crucial to the livelihoods of millions of people in the region, yet are disappearing rapidly. The aim of this thesis is to identify the structural causes of this phenomenon in two of the miombo countries, Zambia and Mozambique. Standard ‘resource based’ explanations for deforestation in both countries tend to focus primarily on demographic and economic factors, emphasising the impact of economic reforms, population growth, rural migration, poverty, minimal access to electricty and a lack of institutional resources. However I argue that these explanations do not account for Mozambique’s relatively better record on deforestation during the period in question, and that a more convincing account is offered by a ‘governance based’ explanation, which emphasises different forms of forest governance and institutional arrangements affecting the forest sector in each country. Specifically, Mozambique has fared better than Zambia thanks to its more secure system of traditional land tenure, the implementation of more progressive legislation and a sustained commitment to community based natural resource management. The implication is that future initiatives to curb deforestation in these countries should concentrate on addressing institutional and policy based shortcomings before implementing market based mechanisms designed to encourage conservation.

The thesis is concerned with the evaluation of factors in Local Authority housing maintenance requirements in the City of Manchester. Since 1982, expenditure in housing maintenance and repair works has consistently accounted for more than 50% of total expenditure on maintenance and repair work. In turn, maintenance and repair work accounts for almost 50% of total construction output in the UK. Given this level of sectorial contribution, it is apt to understand the factors which affect defects in dwelling buildings and hence maintenance requirements. This thesis reviews the catalogue of building defect causative factors leading to the conclusion that social and tenants' characteristics are equally important. The study is based, chiefly, on a postal questionnaire survey of building surveyors involved in day-to-day identification of defects as well as tenants of the sampled dwellings; and computer cost records of maintenance on dwellings within the sample. A total of 45 completed questionnaires from building surveyors, and 252 Council tenants with corresponding computer cost records formed the data base for the analyses conducted. The building surveyors' questionnaire assisted in the identification of defect-cause criteria which relate to the internal attribute of the dwelling building. The consistency of the resulting data was confirmed by the use of Kendall Coefficient of Concordance. An analysis is described of the manipulated data set using regression analysis. The analysis found that Changing standard contributes (38%) of (building structure related factors') impact on maintenance requirement variance, construction factors (23%), design factors (22%), vandalism (12%) and age factors (6%). The intercorrelations among these five defect-cause criteria within the building object necessitated further analysis using the principal component analysis. This resulted in the extraction of nine significant factors showing how the initial five factors combine to exert their influence on the building. In all, this family of building structure related factors contribute 32% of the variation in maintenance requirements. Combining the data from the tenants' questionnaire, computer cost information and dwelling survey, regression model testing was employed to identify the significant factors. This was facilitated with the use of three indices of housing maintenance requirements as the dependent variables, namely; reactive maintenance cost, property condition and satisfaction among tenants. Nine factors (six of which relate to tenant's characteristics) pertaining to tenant, environmental and housing management were significantly influential.

This thesis examines the way in which decisions about the treatment and disposal of solid waste are analysed in the English counties. The emphasis is on decisions with strategic dimensions rather than on tactical issues relating to plant operations. On the basis of an examination of legislation, government advice to local authorities, and literature from both the political and management sciences, alternative hypothesis sets about the analytical process which might be expected to exist are developed. These hypotheses are then tested, using evidence, drawn from surveys, interviews and field studies. A justification for the use of multiple hypotheses and multiple data sources which centres around the trade off between the precision of a result and its importance is offered in the thesis. The evidence supports the conclusion that the analysis process in existence can best be viewed as an attempt at rational comprehensive planning but one which is severely constrained in various ways. It is argued that the process is a barrier to both effective and efficient operations. The final chapters of the thesis adopt a more reformist approach. It is argued that collection and disposal systems should be recombined and that co-operation between county authorities should be encouraged. An appropriate analytical process is also defined.