What responsibilities do individuals have in relation to global injustice? Iris Young argues that all agents “connected” to global structural injustice bear political responsibility, rather than moral responsibility; the difference being that political responsibility is non-blameworthy, shared and forward-looking, whereas moral responsibility entails blameworthiness, isolates particular agents for censure and is backward-looking. Thus, individuals are not guilty of wrongdoing but they bear responsibility for global injustice. Young’s argument is intuitively appealing and influential, however it is underdeveloped. In this thesis, I aim to develop Young’s account into a coherent theory of individuals’ responsibilities for global injustice, by reconstructing her core insights and critically developing the aspects that lack clarity and coherence. Young does not sufficiently distinguish political from moral responsibility. In Part One, I argue that there are two kinds of moral responsibility: relational moral responsibility, which refers to the traditional account of directly causing harm with intent and knowledge – what Young calls the “liability model” of responsibility; and moral responsibility as virtue, of which political responsibility is a particular kind. I strengthen Young’s argument that ordinary individuals cannot bear relational moral responsibility for global injustice, because they perpetuate structural injustice inadvertently, unintentionally or unavoidably, but that they should cultivate the virtue of political responsibility to participate in collective action for change. Young conceives of political responsibility as a responsibility for justice. In Part Two, I assess this claim. For Young, individuals’ behaviour reproduces unjust social-structural processes, thus individuals have a responsibility for justice. I contrast this to Rawlsian “dualism”, whereby responsibility for justice is institutional. I characterize sweatshop labour as a form of global structural exploitation. Political responsibility is triggered by “connection” to such an injustice, which I define as the reproduction of unjust structures or dependency on oppression.

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This thesis begins from the premise that identity is only possible as a function of difference. If someone is British, That is because they are not French or Pakistani. What matters, however, is not the fact of these divisions but how they operate and with what consequences. For contemporary practices of thought, the identification of others by means of temporal distinctions has become extremely important. To explore this, I work genealogically to draw on empirical material from colonia and post-­‐colonial Britain and Pakistan, including legislation, political discourse, government projects and broader cultural representations. I make two main arguments. First, I show the importance of these modes of “temporal othering”. I empirically examine the temporal distinctions that constitute a British, democratic, national identity by dint of positing an “other” that is barbaric, alien, despotic, violent and – most importantly – backward. It is in encountering and constantly re-­‐narrating these threats to democracy that the British come to have a sense of an imagined, democratic community that has emerged -­‐ through a seamless, progressive history -­‐ by virtue of what it is opposed to. Relatedly, democracy is understood as the endpoint of history, with consequences for overseas Democracy Promotion. Second, I argue that it is possible to narrate alternative versions of history. In examining the emergence of such teleological versions of history, I show that teleology isn’t the driving force of history, but rather emerges from the messiness of historical events. Furthermore, the practices that it legitimates are deeply involved in promoting the violence and social marginalisation for which democracy is thought to be the remedy. However, I show that the version of history that currently pervades practices of thought about British identity and democracy promotion is contestable and that therefore it might be possible to think, act and live differently.

The success of the Western-led promotion of democratic institutional forms in Central and Eastern Europe has gained widespread recognition, facilitating accession to the European Union for most of these states. These specific institutional forms – competitive elections, the rule of law, the separation of powers and so-on – arose in the West as the historical realization of liberal principles such as individual liberty, equality, civic tolerance and representation. Despite this, existing modes of democracy measurement neglect the fact that, besides formal institutions, ‘democracy also needs to be reflected in the ideas that people hold and value’ (Blokker 2009:1). Since citizens can only attain the capacity to uphold liberal democratic institutions when they both understand and identify with the principles enshrined in them, it is clear that the quality and stability of these new democracies depends significantly upon the content of political discourse and its resonance with those subject to its appeals. In this thesis project, I address the empirical question of the capacity of citizens to perform the role of democratic citizens through an application of normative theories of the public sphere (after Habermas 1989 [1962]) to elite political discourse and everyday discussion in Serbia and Bulgaria. From this normative liberal perspective, the findings of this study are quite conclusive: the Serbian public sphere is clearly more contested, pluralist and (at the margins) liberal relative to its Bulgarian counterpart. The resonance of liberal-cosmopolitan ideas with a significant minority in Serbia has prevented an illiberal, exclusivist consensus from forming around conservative orthodoxies on nation and society as has happened in Bulgaria. Thus, in spite of the fact that Bulgaria is already a full member of the European Union while Serbia remains stuck in the waiting room, it is in Serbia that distinctly liberal forms of democratic citizenship are more evident.

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The aim of this research is to develop a new methodology to assist decision-makers in assessing and measuring the degree of stakeholder conflict in environmentally sensitive areas. The research tried to answer the following question: How can the understanding of the magnitude and direction of consensus among conflicting stakeholders shape the management of an environmentally sensitive area? The case study area of Lake Maryout, Egypt, provided a good example of failure in the management of natural resources. It demonstrated that conflict among different stakeholders coupled with contradiction in the current policies and legislation play a role in exacerbating the deterioration of its environmental quality. The methodology therefore, is applied on simplified application of analytical hierarchical structure as an example to identify the main variables underpinning Lake Maryout‘s stakeholders‘ conflicting priorities. The research adopted both a qualitative and quantitative mixed methodology. The underpinning data was collected through expert and stakeholder questionnaires, interviews, public hearings, field survey and remotely sensed data. The research methodology applies Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA), using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), with the support of Geographic Information System (GIS), and the Driving Forces–Pressures–State–Impacts–Responses (DPSIR) analytical framework. The research has shed light on the dynamics of environmental conflicts, illustrating the formation and direction of disagreements between various stakeholders. Results showed that areas of consensus between various conflicting stakeholders could be identified, measured and located within a uniform scale. Results provided insight of how different sustainable development pillars interact with respect to the available alternative actions. Research results showed changes in synthesised stakeholder preferences when applying comparative differentiated power. Results indicated that environmental conflicts were exacerbated by the differentiated degree of stakeholder influence ratio. The analysis of Lake Maryout‘s environmental policies and legislations highlighted two main concerns. First, Sustainable development is difficult when the available alternatives are conflicting; and secondly, the current Egyptian environmental policies create more environmental conflict than protection of the environment. The new methodology is intended to assist decision-makers overcome the limitations of the human mind to handle multiple objectives complex problems. It assists decision-makers to prioritise their decisions‘ elements in order to unveil the various alternatives of compromises and trade-offs. The research suggests that identifying the root causes and the particular areas of stakeholder conflict can assist decision-makers to take the necessary measures to minimise the possible consequences in order to improve the environmental quality of the natural resource. Results of this study provide a roadmap to improve policy-making and planning towards better environmental management of Lake Maryout.

There is a growing literature by political scientists and increasingly economists on the institutional determinants of public policy, in particular broad constitutional parameters such as presidential versus parliamentary regimes and different electoral systems. However, given the fact that resource allocation is at the heart of the political process, surprisingly little work supports a theoretically rigorous assessment of the cross-national distribution of parliamentary power over budget policy. This thesis presents an explicitly comparative analytical framework for assessing legislative budgeting and applies this framework to a sample of contemporary democracies. The focus is on how institutional arrangements determine both the extent of legislative control as well as budget outcomes. The thesis uses a unique dataset on legislative budget institutions in 36 industrialised, developing and transition countries, along with case study evidence. The historical evolution of legislative budgeting underscores the importance of institutions in achieving democratic control. One way of enabling rigorous cross-national comparison is to focus on a set of essential institutional prerequisites for legislative control of public finance. These variables are operationalised in the form of an index of legislative budget institutions, which demonstrates substantial variation in the budgetary role of legislatures across liberal democracies. Former UK colonies have particularly poorly developed legislative capacity for financial control, whereas the opposite typically holds for countries with protracted periods of minority government. While a number of institutional arrangements determine the extent of legislative control, the empirical evidence supports the theoretical prediction that few variables unambiguously affect fiscal outcomes, notably the nature of legislative powers to amend the budget tabled by the executive. Legislatures that self-impose constraints to support fiscally prudent choices, such as the Swedish Parliament, can nonetheless remain powerful budgetary actors, as long as they retain control over the design of the process itself. In taking the institutionalist agenda in political science further, this thesis demonstrates the benefits of complementing research on broad constitutional differences with more nuanced studies of the institutional setting in particular policy areas.

The thesis argues that responsive governance can be achieved through institutions that increase civic influence upon policy agendas. Participatory-deliberative processes (PDPs) are understood to offer mechanisms for democratic responsiveness. However, the ways in the outcomes of (PDPs) can be linked to policy making has received little attention, especially at higher governance tiers. The thesis analyses a PDP set up to influence central government policy agendas in the UK; the Sustainable Communities Act (SCA) (2007).The SCA was selected for its analytically relevant features. It differs from other PDPs for a combination of three reasons: (a) it was specifically designed to allow citizens to identify policy problems, develop policy proposals and influence agendas; (b) it operated across governance levels, connecting local participation to national policy development; and (c) it institutionalised a link to the policy process. The thesis aims to evaluate the processes through which proposals were developed and integrated within policy development, with a view to assessing impacts upon ambitions for more responsive governance. The analysis finds achievements such as the importance of reflexive agenda setting processes that allow participants to explore and (re)define problems, as well as the realisation of a form of responsiveness characterised by a deliberative, rather than a causal, relation between input and output. However, modest achievements are marred by important problems. First, proposal development processes were prone to ‘capture’ by the political priorities of local authorities and interest group representatives. In this respect, the analysis concludes that the SCA often resembled a ‘lobbying tool’ for local elites. Second, when it came to integrating proposals within policy development, SCA proposals were subsumed by the policy development, electoral and legislative cycles of representative institutions. Such constraints are real, but not absolute, and can be mitigated through institutional design. The thesis ends by making recommendations to this end.

The 'interpretive turn' in policy studies has emphasised the unpredictable and often incomplete nature of the policy making process, and helped to focus our attention on the level of practice. The idea of translation is a recent one in the literature, capturing the sense of fluidity and the ongoing interpretation around policy. This thesis examines one particular policy journey through the lens of translation, to evaluate the contributions that the use of this concept can make to understandings of the policy process. There have been very few ethnographies looking at particular sites of policy making and what happens to policy at different levels as it moves from central government to local enactment. The research has been conducted through a case study approach, taking a particular youth policy from 2007 - Aiming High for Young People - which had a controversial goal of increasing the participation of young people in positive activities, and one local authority area. The analysis focussed on the policy texts; what happened to Aiming High in practice; the role of practitioners in interpreting new policy; and the local authority processes that all influenced the translation of policy into practice. The concept of policy in translation has demonstrated that, in this case, the meanings in policy texts are inherently unstable. Translation illuminates the strategies practitioners adopt, how they talk about their work, and the influences and knowledge they draw on. It also emphasises the disconnects and disturbances in the process. Overall, translation advances an understanding of policy work in practice, but with some limitations - in particular around micro processes and routine practices that are part of daily work. The research highlights the need to account for translations more effectively in the policy process in the future.

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