This study evaluates the role of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in educating people about participatory democracy in post apartheid South Africa. After the first democratic elections in 1994 the new government emphasised the importance of public participation in decision-making. The government has advocated this approach through Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) documents (Base Document and White Paper) and the South African Constitution Act 108 of 1996. However, because of public participation, novelty, and social exclusion, the majority of South African citizens still have very limited knowledge and need to be educated about the structures, systems and procedures of participatory democracy. In order to consolidate democratic government, there is a need to shift away from community outreach programmes as ‘road shows’, where there is no two-way ‘iterative and ongoing’ communication because of limited public political knowledge. Conversely, government appears to have done little to increase citizens’ political knowledge. By contrast, NGOs are playing a crucial role in this regard. This study evaluates the effectiveness of NGOs in improving optimal engagement in government and decisionmaking processes in KwaZulu-Natal. Given this scenario, the Centre for Public Participation (CPP) and the Democracy Development Programme (DDP) partnership serve as case studies for this research project. Interviews were conducted with the core facilitators and directors of the two organisations. Through comparative evaluation, the effectiveness of both organisations in promoting participatory democracy was qualitatively and quantitatively assessed using the constant comparative method (Maykut and Morehouse, 1994) and the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) computer software respectively. The results show that the trainees are more likely to participate in developmental issues at local levels compared to non-trainees. The implication of this is that education for participatory democracy is very important. However, it was found that NGOs are not achieving their goal of increasing participation by their target groups in most government processes due to NGO-public differences in what constitutes priorities. Encouraging is that the two NGOs were found to be ‘eye-openers’ for the trainees in that they equipped them with skills that would enable them to monitor local authorities and hold them accountable. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal,Durban, 2005.

Although Ronald Inglehart's New Politics theory has attracted criticism, its influential distinction between materialist and postmaterialist values tends to go unquestioned. The influence of this distinction is particularly apparent when analysts interpret the "new" social movement emphasis on esteem and belonging as a "postmaterialist" departure from a traditional, or "materialist" focus on security. This way of understanding contemporary feminist and ethnocultural-minority movements is misleading because it rests on a onedimensional view of esteem and belonging. By treating esteem and belonging as expressive, which is to say as purely aesthetic or psychological goods, New Politics obscures the instrumental significance of esteem and belonging for movements that represent traditionally, marginalized constituencies. This work undertakes a qualitative study of the participation of national socialmovement organizations, "old" and "new," in Canadian constitutional politics. The analysis is based on these actors' presentations to parliamentary hearings and royal commissions on major constitution-related issues between the years 1938 and 1992. Above all, the study illustrates what New Politics theory neglects: the instrumental role of social esteem and civic belonging as bases of voice and self-defence. I argue that attending to this role can help analysts to understand better the postwar politics of recognition. The work develops this argument in three major ways. First, I demonstrate the instrumental importance of esteem and belonging for the mid-century traditional left. Second, I show that problems of misrecognition and disesteem presented feminists and ethnocultural minorities with severe difficulties in garnering a meaningful hearing for their security needs. Third, I analyze the discursive ways in which postwar "new" movement participants came to pursue forms of respect that had proved elusive in the past. The work's overall conclusion is this: the material nature of the politics of recognition is demonstrated by the extent to which increased esteem and belonging for traditionally disrespected groups has been paralleled by an expanded menu of recognized security concerns. The study's major message follows from this conclusion: because struggles over esteem and belonging have crucial material stakes, they should not be contrasted a priori with struggles that may appear to target questions of security more directly.

This study argues that previous investigations of the gender gap have concentrated almost exclusively on the behaviour of women voters and have underestimated the electoral significance of men. Employing public opinion surveys and rational choice theory of coalitions, it contends that men's voting behaviour is a key factor in modern elections and that by investigating male voters as people affected by their gender, the gender gap can be better explained. The study finds that the relative importance of the gender gap in Canada may be declining as parties contending to form the government display less gender division in their support, and significant gender differences in the 1997 election are found only in the more extreme parties, like the New Democratic Party and, especially, the Reform Party. Significant gender-related support for the Liberal Party is found to be concentrated in the Trudeau era. The gender gap in Reform Party support is attributed to differences over capitalism, feminism and the use of force. A theoretical model of gender block behaviour is developed using rational choice theory, and the power of the male voting block is demonstrated. Cohesion, elasticity, positioning, size and turnout are identified as important measures of block power, with cohesion and elasticity the most important variable in the gender gap. The gender gap is shown to not be an automatic advantage for women, and that sometimes it works against women's interests. The final chapter discusses the effect of situational and socialisation constraints on attitutudes towards violence, 'masculinized opportunity' and the reactionary backlash against feminism.

In recent years, "participatory development" has gained popularity in development circles. It has been recognized that participatory approaches in development programs and projects can help in meeting the conventional development objectives of economic growth and equity as well as more recent concerns of sustainability, good governance and democratisation. / This is a qualitative study examines the theory and practice of people's participation in development programs and projects on a micro level. The objective study is to understand community participation structures in Barangay Lumangan, a village on the University of the Philippines in the Visayas (UPV) campus in Miagao, Province of Iloilo, Philippines. This is accomplished by assessing the depth and scope of peoples participation in the decision making, implementation and benefits acquisition in two development programs/projects: the Barangay Integrated Development Approach for Nutrition (BIDANI) and the Community-Based Health Care program (CBHP). An attempt is also made to assess the performance of an area-based development consortium (composed of a state university, government agencies and nongovernmental organizations) in strengthening local organizations within the context of the two development programs/projects they have setup. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

Blogging continues to get attention in the field of communication studies for reasons such as its differences with traditional media and its various effects in societies. The first part of this dissertation provides the reader with a background of the use of the Internet in Zimbabwe highlighting how it has offered individuals a platform to publish their own content, thus increasing the documentation of the 2008 Zimbabwean elections. This research analyses how national identity and the construction thereof emerges from online personal narratives. The research also investigates the discourses shaping the country‘s identities such as humanitarian, anti-Mugabe and democratic discourses that emerge from the blogs and how these blogs communicate events that occurred during the polls. This dissertation is primarily concerned with how citizens have arguably become recognized as sources of information and how Zimbabwe is perceived. Finally, the blogs are critically examined for how they create spaces of resistance. I argue that the blogs challenged and destabilized the older patterns of identity creation within Zimbabwe. Whereas national identity constructions have been largely a result of the majority or ruling class, the production of counter discourses in the blogs suggests that at an individual level, citizens use the Internet as a platform to express their dissent and do not automatically internalize these projected national identities. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2011.

Recent developments in Internet technology have opened up new doors for political campaigning and related news information with video and social networking applications. These have created new spaces that the voting public can politically participate in. This study explores the extent to which such participation takes place, in order to contribute to the wider question of whether changes in the media can rejuvenate a growing apathetic electorate that has become increasingly isolated from the more traditional methods of political participation (Putnam 2000). There are now many unanswered questions regarding how this new technology will play a role in influencing voter preferences and behaviour compared to other forms of traditional mass media. The exponential growth of Internet technology and its use means that the majority of literature written on the subject becomes time-bound leaving large gaps of research and analysis that needs to be done. This thesis examined the opportunities made available for political campaigning by the Internet and how widening political knowledge can ultimately influence Internet consumers at the voting booth. The research undertaken was a combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis using participatory groups in a controlled environment. Participants consumed different forms of mass media and any significant changes in preferences and behaviour was noted. The overall hypothesis of this thesis is that the Internet does have an effect on potential voters by providing a wider and more in-depth look at politics that broadens political knowledge, leading to greater political participation.

Common knowledge dictates that cynicism and mistrust of politics is rampant among US citizens, wreaking havoc on participation in the American political process. Social Capital theories are commonly used to effectively explain US political behavior, but fail to account for alienation from the political process or the influence of peers. I argue that models of political participation would be improved by the inclusion of political alienation variables, which have fallen into disuse in recent decades. Using data from the US Citizenship, Involvement, and Democracy Survey (2006), this paper relies upon negative binomial regression with nested models to compare the explanatory power of social capital variables with models including political alienation and peer influence variables to assess the value of such concepts. Results indicate that while the parent variables of political alienation (powerlessness, meaninglessness, and mistrust of political institutions) improve model accuracy and influence political participation, the latent variable remains ambiguously useful. Powerlessness and mistrust revealed significant effects, but mistrust failed to fit into the latent concept of political alienation, and meaninglessness did not produce significant results. Peer influence only significantly affected political participation when participants specifically discussed political matters with peers. Implications and concepts for future research follow.

This qualitative research focused on the political knowledge holdings of adults. The research was conducted from the perspective and for the field of adult education. A purpose of this dissertation research was to provide a new and expanded footing for future inquiry and to enhance the further development of both theory and practice. The methodology was selected with that in mind.This study involved two distinct components. Part one involved a systematic random sample of 30 adults from a small midwestern city. A 16 question telephone survey was administered to each of the 30 adults. The survey consisted of the type questions used by previous researchers to measure political knowledge. The questions required respondents to identify political figures and election issues. Respondents were also asked to answer political parties questions and civics questions.The qualitative component, part two, was the primary thrust of this research. Seven informants were identified from different life circumstances. The informants and the 30 randomly selected adults resided in the same community. A minister, a law enforcement officer, a small business person, a retired person, a minimum wage worker, a factory worker, and an adult college student were individually interviewed on twoseparate occasions. Each interview was transcribed and analyzed by the researcher. At the conclusion of each informant's final interview, the 16 question survey, previously given to the 30 telephone respondents, was administered to each informant.Conclusions of this study were not generalized beyond the study's research participants. The informants were found to have varying areas of political knowledge. These varying areas of political knowledge arose from the informants varying personal experiences and life circumstances. Informants were not well informed, nor were they equally informed, across multiple areas of political knowledge. The seven informants performed virtually the same as did the thirty telephone respondents on the sixteen question survey.This study demonstrated that qualitative research methodology can illuminate and make meaningful that which is undetected through the use of questionnaires. Where the results of the questionnaires reflected a sameness between and among the informants and telephone respondents, the seven case studies uncovered distinct differences. / Department of Educational Leadership