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This thesis seeks to explore the ways in which individual European Union Commissioners may be capable of exercising agenda-setting and/or supranational political and policy entrepreneurship. The prevailing orthodoxy posits that in very limited circumstances the Commission and the President of the Commission may act as supranational entrepreneurs. The most significant example ofEU supranational entrepreneurialism centres on the activities and achievements of former Commission President Jacques Delors. Intergovernmentalist scholars dispute and keenly contest this leadership label. Littl~ or no attention has been paid to the supranational political and policy entrepreneurship and wider political leadership potential of individual Commissioners. Absence of systematic research on this area is the result of a general reluctance of European political science to adopt leadership approaches to the study of decision-making. Strategic relationist accounts on the nature of agency-structure discourses facilitated a methodologiCal approach incorporating elements of 'rational institutionalism' and social constructivism. The leadership of Commissioner Padraig Flynn, as a member of the Delors III and Santer administrations - his portfolio, Social Affairs and Employment, is widely held to be one of the most supranationally resistant EU policy spheres - forms a modest case study that seeks to explore the extent to which individual Commissioners may provide supranational political and policy entrepreneurship. This is achieved in the following way. A literature review of the Commission, supranational political and policy entrepreneurship and leadership· is provided. The findings of which are distilled into two typologies geared towards establishing whether, or not, individual Commissioners can exercise political and policy entrepreneurship. These are tested by posing three related research questions around the extent to which previous political experiences, personal skills, beliefs and ideological construction ------'--------------may-iiifluence policy-making ana-leadersliip~ylesinBrusseKcAcase--studyor-Flynn's--~----- contribution to the emergence of the European Employment Strategy seeks to demonstrate the nature ofh~s political leadership and policy entrepreneurship. The findings of this research suggest that leadership personas developed in national and intergovernmental contexts are relatively resistant to change and that pre-existing belief systems and ideological constructions are reflected in supranational or intergovernmental policy preferences. Individual Commissioners' may adopt strategic approaches to policymaking and may be capable of exercising political and policy entrepreneurship. Further comparative and longitudinal research is necessary. . ii Supplied by The British Library - 'The world's knowledge'

This study interprets the results of research into how one college met the challenge of change brought about by the Education Reform Act 1988, with reference to appropriate social research methodologies and a wide ranging review of relevant literature. The aim was to investigate how one college, well established in a traditional pattern, would respond to educational change stemming from a political culture which relocated emphases upon financial considerations, market forces and quality controls devolving from a business-like reorientation. A review of the college's aims and intentions, with an examination of the methods managers might adopt and options they might select in moving towards a business organisation, moved the research into a detailed investigation of sub-organisational micro-politicking. The research led naturally to an in-depth examination of the nature of management and management skills training within an educational institution, raising questions about the cross-discipline transferability of educational/business skills. Interview and established techniques of participant observation have exposed the lacunae between rhetoric, supposed practice and what has become the reality of change within the organisation. The research focuses upon the myth of 'professionalism' which, in the uncertainty of change, supports the new managerialism brought about by the Education Reform Act. An alternative strategy for educational change within the institution is suggested. The conclusion is a critique of educational management training within the organisation and locates both micro- and macro-educational management preparation within some commercial systems with which it might seek to identify.

Le secteur de la santé est en crise. Depuis une vingtaine d'années, tous les professionnels de santé manifestent régulièrement leur mécontentement. De la grève des internes, aux consultations sauvages des médecins libéraux, toutes les professions de ce secteur ont connu une mobilisation collective. Le travail de recherche mené a pour objectif d'analyser l'action collective de ces praticiens. Ainsi tant le passage à l'action que les développements des mouvements sociaux sont au cœur des réflexions. Force est de constater que l'analyse des mobilisations collectives des professionnels de santé comprend à la fois une dimension macrosociologique (les structures, les organisations) et une dimension microsociologique (les croyances, les identités, les corporatismes). Le point commun entre ces deux sphères est que tous les éléments s'y rattachant sont des ressources du mouvement social, qui permettront la mise en place d'une structuration et d'une cohésion de la mobilisation dans le but de s'imposer face aux pouvoirs publics. Ce travail de recherche permet ainsi de mettre en exergue les dénominateurs qui expliquent à la fois le passage à l'action collective (les dynamiques mobilisatrices des mobilisations), et les développements de ces mobilisations (l'expressivité des mobilisations). / The health sector is in crisis. Over the past two decades, all health professionals regularly show their discontent. The strike of internal consultations with wild private practice doctors, all professions in this sector have experienced a collective mobilization. The research work was conducted to analyze the collective action of these practitioners. Thus both the transition to the action that developments of social movements are the heart of our reflections. It is clear that the analysis of collective mobilization of health professionals includes both a dimension macrosociological (structures, organizations) and dimension microsociologique (beliefs, identities, corporativism). The common link between these two spheres is that all elements are related resources of the social movement, which will permit the establishment of a structure and coherence of the mobilization in order to win the government. This research thus highlight the denominators that explain both the shift to collective action (dynamic mobilisers moving), and developments of these mobilizations (expressiveness mobilizations).

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Governmental authorities are known for zealously protecting their ‘turf’, which is usually seen to inhibit them from coordinating their work with rival authorities. In the EU, however, national regulators often engage proactively in coordination with sister authorities in the forum of EU regulatory bodies. This is puzzling if one considers that this means that national authorities actively support EU bodies –potential rivals- in their work. The thesis hence examines what determines the coordinative behaviour of national regulators at a transnational level in the European Union. It analyses the engagement of UK and German authorities in transnational coordination in the regulatory regimes of drug safety, maritime safety, food safety, and banking supervision. The study demonstrates that coordinative behaviour is driven by strategic considerations of national regulators that want their coordination activities to add value to their own work, rather than being determined by their professional norms, functional pressures or the ‘shadow of hierarchy’, as stipulated in the EU governance literature. Their strategic assessments of whether they are getting something out of transnational activities are informed by the interpretative filters of the social relations they are embedded in at the domestic level. They are also fundamentally shaped by the institutional frameworks provided by the tasks of the EU regulatory bodies in which national regulators come together. This explains variation of coordination patterns across policy areas and national regulators, which the EU governance literature has not accounted for. The argument of the thesis implies that the engagement with coordination can be linked to an enhancement –rather than a loss– of bureaucratic autonomy. By identifying the determinants of coordinative behaviour at a transnational level, this thesis hence also seeks to contribute to our understanding of the conditions in which transnational administration functions. This, in turn, is vital for understanding of how capacity to manage cross-border risks is created in the absence of a ‘European’ state.

This thesis is concerned with approaches to policymaking analysis. It argues that dominant neo-pluralist theories of policymaking have limited explanatory force. This arises from the method of inquiry, which necessarily limits the scope of analysis. The emphasis on inductive methods, coupled with a narrow focus on nonformalised sub-state networks, produces a model which is a useful way of identifying non-state policy actors, but which has no explanatory capacity outside such networks. In particular two weaknesses in network analysis are highlighted as significant. The first is that neo-pluralism does not account for the possible constraint on meso-level activity by the state. The state's ability to constrain individual agency may arise either from its position as a distinct social actor, or from it being an aspect of structural constraint. As this latter point implies, the second key weakness with neo-pluralist network analysis is owing to its structural indeterminism. The thesis argues that an adequate account of the policymaking process must recognise the possibility of limits to actor autonomy which arise from individual interaction with structure. Although the argument is made for a structural dimension to policymaking analysis, it concedes the dangers of functionalism and determinism which can arise from the application of structural frameworks. Consequently, the thesis argues for a duality of structure and agency as the core of political analysis. This argument is made on theoretical grounds, and via discussion of an empirical case study of the EU Task Force Environment: Water. The argument then is for a dual approach to policymaking which utilises both inductive and deductive methods. It is argued (a) that a Marxist analysis of the state and the structural constraints of capitalism can be combined (although not integrated) with networks analysis in a dual approach, and (b) that this combination provides the best model of policymaking.

This thesis is a collection of three independent essays on policy-making incentives of government. The first essay examines whether citizens can indirectly control bureaucrats. If voters and bureaucrats prefer different types of politicians, i.e., they have a conflict of interest, incumbents need to increase the budget to prevent bureaucrats from information manipulation, which leads to an oversized government. If, instead, voters and bureaucrats prefer the same type of politicians, i.e., they have an alignment of interests, bureaucrats can send to voters a credible signal about the type of incumbents, which enhances the selection effect of election. Although political appointees enable politicians to implement the first-best policy in the case of the conflict of interests, they lead to the persistence of inefficient government in the case of the alignment of interests. The second and third essays study how autocrats commit not to confiscate private property. The second essay argues that the potential of economic growth would help the ruler to make a credible commitment. Since a predatory policy reduces the citizens’ income, it would reduce capital accumulation because of the income effect. Then, the ruler faces a trade-off between the current consumption with the predatory policy and the larger future consumption with the moderate policy, which would lead to economic growth. The third essay models endogenous judicial independence (JI) as a commitment device in the political commitment game. If information on JI is transmitted to citizens with positive probability, the ruler creates JI and does not renege on an announcement. Even if not, the ruler still can guarantee property rights by granting human rights as a signal on JI if the cost of the signal is low.

Participatory and deliberative democracy have attracted global attention, both as a field of research and practice. This interest reflects ongoing experimentation with ideas and practices of stakeholder governance, collaborative policy-making and citizen participation. The institutionalisation of such practices in Scotland is taking place through local partnership arrangements and public engagement processes. In particular, the Scottish Government’s Community Planning policy mandates local authorities to develop partnerships where various sectors and organisations are summoned to engage in collaborative policy-making. Central to this agenda is the involvement of citizens and communities through an increasing number of official local forums. In this sense, Scotland resembles other countries where public authorities seek working combinations of strategic partnership governance and local citizen participation. Despite burgeoning interest and developments, however, scarce attention has been paid to the role of public engagement officials tasked with turning participatory and deliberative ideals into everyday practices. Indeed, we still know little about the policy work of official ‘public engagers’ who organise participatory processes by negotiating a contested milieu of actors and agendas, while being constrained and enabled by an evolving ecology of participation. Consequently, this thesis presents findings from two years of ethnographic fieldwork shadowing public engagers in a Scottish Local Authority Area. The uniqueness of these policy workers is that their expertise is not on a particular policy area, but on stakeholder and citizen engagement across policy domains. That is, their expertise is on process, and their job is to facilitate deliberative forums to inform local policy-making. The fundamental question addressed here is not whether participatory policy-making works, but rather how does it work, what kind of work does it take, and what kind of work does it do. By foregrounding the ‘how’ question, this thesis provides a new practice-based analytical framework to both understand and inform participation processes. The findings highlight the importance of the engagers’ political work, thus illustrating the disciplinary force of engagement practice and the contested nature of participatory policy-making. Understanding these dimensions offers insight into new political spaces for the renegotiation of the relationship between authorities and citizens. Accordingly, the research shows how public engagers work to open and develop such spaces in order to foster new relationships through a new ‘politics of process’. In addition, it explores the impact that this work has on the engagers’ community of practice, as well as the challenges they face as engagement work gets institutionalised. Therefore, the thesis offers a distinct ethnographic account of the role of agency in developing official local spaces for participatory and deliberative democracy in Scotland.

The focus of this thesis is in the development and application of a normative framework for handling both variability and uncertainty in making decisions using economic evaluation. The framework builds on the recent work which takes an intuitive Bayesian approach to handling uncertainty as well as adding a similar approach for the handling of variability. The technique of stratified cost effectiveness analysis is introduced as an innovative, intuitive and theoretically sound basis for consideration of variability with respect to cost effectiveness. The technique requires the identification of patient strata where there are differences between strata but individual strata are relatively homogenous. For handling uncertainty, the normative framework requires a twofold approach. First, the cost effectiveness of therapies within each patient stratum must be assessed using probabilistic analysis. Secondly, techniques for estimation of the expected value of perfect information should be applied to determine an efficient research plan for the disease of interest. For the latter, a new technique for estimating EVPI based on quadrature is described which is both accurate and allows simpler calculation of the expected value of sample information. In addition the unit normal loss integral method previously ignored as a method of estimating EVPPI is shown to be appropriate in specific circumstances. The normative framework is applied to decisions relating to the public funding of the treatment of osteoporosis in the province of Ontario. The optimal limited use criteria would be to fund treatment with alendronate for women aged 75 years and over with previous fracture and 77 years and over with no previous fracture. An efficient research plan would fund a randomised controlled trial comparing etidronate to no therapy with a sample size of 640. Certain other research studies are of lesser value. Subsequent to the analysis contained in this thesis, the province of Ontario revised there limited use criteria to be broadly in line with the conclusions of this analysis. Thus, the application of the framework to this area demonstrates both its feasibility and acceptability. The normative framework developed in this thesis provides an optimal solution for decision makers in terms of handling uncertainty and variability in economic evaluation. Further research refining methods for estimating information value and considering other forms of uncertainty within models will enhance the framework.