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Members of Congress must manage both their representative and legislative responsibilities. / Government

In order to eradicate the legacy of the past, the South African democratic government adopted a developmental approach to local government. The White Paper on Local Government (WPLG) (1998:17) defines developmental government as government committed to working with citizens and groups within the community to find sustainable ways of meeting their social, economic and material needs and of improving their quality of life. A developmental approach aims at enhancing the skills and capacity of community members by promoting their own development process (Theron, 2005a: 120). South Africa made provision for an Act of Parliament to authorise the establishment of a cross-boundary municipality. The Municipal Demarcation Board, after initial research, noted that there are a number of areas in South Africa where large tracts of land, including a number of different communities and settlements, straddle provincial boundaries. A cross-boundary municipality refers to a situation where parts of a local municipality are located within the borders of two different provinces. For example, in the case of Merafong, the smaller part in the south was located in North West Province and the larger part in the east was located in Gauteng Province. This in effect meant that the governance of these municipalities was a shared political and fiscal responsibility of two different provinces. The aim of the study was to determine the impact of public opinions on post-violent protest recovery processes in the Merafong Local Municipality. Both qualitative and quantitative approach was followed that included a review of documents from public administration and conflict theories literature; discourse analysis of interviews with municipal officials and councillors, and community members. The document review included a review of municipal documents that incorporated demarcation or describe development and use of public participation. It also included the legal frameworks and statutory requirements for community/citizen participation. The key findings of the study indicated contrasting views between the community and the municipality perspectives in particular with regard to the role of the community during the prioritisation of needs and the decision-making processes. The researcher concluded that in order for community participation to have maximum impact, local government is obliged to create an enabling environment for participation which includes amongst others addressing the institutional obstacles and the capacity gaps within the community. The researcher finally recommended that these roles be implemented, evaluated and integrated in the current performance management system of Merafong Local Municipality.

This research study examined public participation activities in Lady Frere during the LED strategy formulation process. Lady Frere is one of the three small towns constituting Emalahleni Local Municipality (ELM).A review of existing literature and legal frameworks suggest that authentic participation by the public occurs when the dimensions of representativeness, interactiveness, use of stakeholder/public inputs and the quality of public inputs are satisfied. The current study sought to identify conditions that would serve as a measurement to be satisfied before we can say authenticity was factored into the public participation effort during the Local Economic Development (LED) strategy formulation process in Lady Frere. A three-tier model was adopted to assess the performance of the ELM public involvement initiatives during the LED process. Key indicators of the four dimensions of authenticity were formulated and used to determine authenticity of these initiatives (programs).The data for this study came from analysing the LED strategy (2010-2015) document and the qualitative interviews held with purposively selected respondents. Nineteen respondents representing different institutions in Lady Frere agreed to be interviewed for the study. Organisations represented included public service institutions in operation in Lady Frere, private formal businesses in operation in the area and some civil society structures present in the town. The results of this study suggest that the municipality fell short of implementing public participation programs that achieved authenticity during the LED strategy formulation process. A careful and well-intentioned use of various public participation tools that embrace increased interaction between municipal employees and the public can assist in achieving better levels of authenticity in their public involvement initiatives. The willingness of municipal staff to adopt new ideas and innovations learned during public engagements is key to achieving higher levels of authenticity in their programs. Municipal participation programs would greatly benefit from training that increases individual acceptance of public participation as a valid service delivery mechanism. The researcher took opportunity to suggest the following recommendations for the ELM to work towards: Increased opportunities for occurrence of authentic public participation; Creation of individual ownership of authenticity in public participation; Creation of community partnerships to foster authenticity in public participation.

State processes and programs are often constructed and implemented with the intention to ameliorate the lives of the inhabitants living within those borders. However, in order for citizens to benefit from these programs and processes, for example, anti-poverty programs and decentralization projects, their participation is a necessity. But societal contexts in which citizen participation occurs vary to great extents. It is important then to investigate these differences so as to further our understanding of the workings of participation. This research conducts a comparative analysis between two states in India, Kerala and Bihar, of contextual factors impacting participation. It shows that both trust in the state as well as formal education affect the level of participation of the population. This research engages with and attempts to add to the literature of participatory development by analyzing and explaining some of the impact that context has on participation of inhabitants.

This paper seeks to examine the impact of electoral websites on young people’s electoral engagement, focusing on the 2012 London Mayoral and US Presidential election. It does so by employing an innovative research design to connect the supply and demand side of the equation, including quantitative content analysis and an innovative experiment that allows for qualitative evaluation as well as for an examination of the causal effects of exposure to specific websites. The three specific types of websites examined in each election are: youth mobilization websites, the official candidate campaigning websites and Vote Advice Applications. We explore the effects of these websites on behavioural, cognitive and attitudinal aspects of engagement: likelihood of voting, attention to news, internal and external efficacy and political trust. Research to date on the effect of electoral websites on young people has produced mixed results on political engagement and efficacy (e.g. Tedesco, 2007; Xenos and Kyoung, 2008). We find no direct effect on young people for voting across the websites but we do find a number of significant effects across the other variables, which are occasionally found only amongst those with the lowest pre-existing levels of engagement. This leads us to conclude that the web can create a pathway to participation for young people but this is dependent on the specific type and attributes of the website, the election context and the young person themselves.

Masters in Public Administration - MPA / Community participation is relevant to every sector of development, for example, education, health, housing, water and sanitation, agricultural development and conservation. The assumption is that public participation is positive in that it can contribute to making programmes more sustainable. Public participation in local government processes, especially in the Integrated Development Plan, is imperative to the promotion of institutional democracy. The Integrated Development Plan as a development tool promotes participatory democracy. This public participation study of the Integrated Development Plan in the City of Cape Town was conducted in four sub-council areas of the city to determine whether public participation was successful and whether the objectives of local government are being met. / South Africa

This study is about political participation of women in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. The study will attempt to understand women’s views on the matter. The aim of this thesis is to contribute to knowledge of how Cambodian women’s participation in politics displays in relation to their educational background. To research and analyze this problem area, I have travelled to Cambodia and used semi-structured interviews as a method. Hay’s types of political participation and intersectionality have been used as theoretical framework to form questions for the interviews and to analyze the findings to uncover potential differences in participation between women of different social classes. The findings show that both interviewed groups participated in politics in various ways, but the main differences between the two educational groups of women are mostly concerning opportunities in and knowledge of politics. For all women to feel empowered, to feel like their opinions matter and to feel comfortable to express their views, education for all women is a necessity. Actions for guaranteeing women education is critical for their participation in politics and for the Cambodian society to develop. Therefore, intersectionality needs to be applied in analyses to change these structures and education for women is a prerequisite to create equal opportunities for everyone.

"As will be seen, the OAU Refugee Convention contains many provisions which, if not properly construed, might lead to a great curtailment of refugees' political rights. Yet the right to participate in the government of one's country is guaranteed by a number of international human rights isntruments. In any case, when people are forced to leave their country of origin, it is simply natural for them to seek the means whereby they could go back to their country of origin. ... Besides, not only voluntary repatriation is generally regarded as the most desirable solution to the refugee problem, but also it has been observed that a successful return is dependent upon the political conditions in the country of origin. It will be argued that refugees should be allowed and assisted to play a proactive role in order to create a political environment propitious to their return. ... The first chapter is a presentation of the study, its background, the research questions, the literature review, the methodology and the limitations to the study. The second chapter deals with the problems related to the refugee status and international protection. It is a presentation of the big picture of international refugee protection, with a focus on Africa. From an African point of view, it looks at the definition of the term refugee, the refugee status and the available protection mechanisms. The third chapter discusses the traditional durable solutions to the refugee problem, as well as the new approaches in refugee protection. It discusses the availablility, effectiveness and shortcomings of traditional solutions, and highlights repatriation as the most suitable solution to the refugee problem. The fourth chapter is a reflection on the right to repatriation and the extent to which political participation of refugees can be used to realise that right. This chapter examines the legal foundation of the right to return, the significance of political participation to that right, highlights the major obstacles to political participation of refugees, and puts forward ideas that might serve as guidelines for enhanced participation of refugees in the political life of their country of origin. The last chapter is a summary presentation of the conclusions and recommendations drawn from this study." -- Introduction. / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2006. / Prepared under the supervision of Prof. T.P. van Reenen at the Faculty of Law, University of the Western Cape / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/academic_pro/llm1/dissertations.html / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

The Vietnamese have been resided in Czech Republic since 1950s. Literature claims that the Vietnamese is a rather successfully integrated group in Czech Republic comparing with other minority. Hence, the master thesis aims at exploring the political participation as well as civic engagement of university students with Vietnamese ethnicity and are conceived as second generation of the Vietnamese group in Czech Republic. Based on a review on literature on theories and relevant studies on political participation, the research employed qualitative approach through semi-structured interviews with 15 Vietnamese university students in Prague. Analysis of the responses demonstrates that most of the participants perceive political participation as their duty of citizenship and do not link their political participation with minority identity. Meanwhile, a distinction of attitude towards civic engagement and political participation for the target group and the trend of replacing political activities with civic activities is discovered. At the end of the research, this study indicates that conventional theories of political participation are not be able to cover the complexity of political participation in the modern society. Keywords Vietnamese minority, political participation, civic participation, minority...