Multi-agency collaboration is often advocated as a means of tackling cross-cutting areas of public services and viewed as a solution to service fragmentation, with local agencies on the receiving end of government exhortations to collaborate. Yet there is relatively little research examining the effectiveness of policy tools and mechanisms aiming to stimulate local collaboration. This thesis examines the influence and dynamics of vertical and horizontal coordination tools, investigating their potential to enhance collaboration in local public service delivery networks and to reduce negative externalities. A theoretical framework is employed which synthesises models of policy implementation and bureaucratic decision-making. The empirical research is conducted in relation to organisations working with the homeless in England, and the research methods include a survey of Local Authorities and interviews with civil servants and frontline professionals. While governmental attempts to foster collaboration are partially effective, there are weaknesses with some of the policy tools employed, and limits to State control. Local actors’ collaborative decision-making is influenced more by ‘bottom-up’ than by ‘top-down’ factors. Moreover, the competitive context in which service providers operate leads them to pursue strategies to promote their own organisational interests rather than working towards a dominant common interest. The strategies employed are broadly in line with a bureaucratic politics perspective, and include failure to share information, possessiveness over client outcomes and projecting an image of success rather than sharing problems. Nevertheless, formal collaborative mechanisms do have the potential to alleviate externalities associated with fragmented systems. With strong local management and appropriate central facilitation, they can help to meet client needs and to counter fragmentation, ultimately leading to better services.

The politics of trade after the Cold War has transformed United States foreign policy. In fact, given the surge of interest in free trade agreements (FTAs) and the far-reaching political and economic repercussions of globalization, this thesis argues that the post-Cold War period, reinforced by the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, constitute a critical juncture in the history of U.S. international economic policy and trade diplomacy. The U.S. began to seek FTAs after 1989 as a way to maintain its strategic influence in international relations and counterbalance the formation of trading blocs such as the European Union (EU). Yet, despite its hegemony, the U.S. has succeeded in negotiating and implementing relatively few FTAs. Addressing this paradox, this dissertation seeks to answer two basic questions: First, why does the U.S. have relatively few FTAs compared to other economically powerful countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD)? Second, why has the U.S. taken longer to negotiate and conclude certain FTAs over others? These questions will be examined by analyzing the evolution of interest group coalitions and the persistent conflict surrounding FTAs and international trade in general since the end of the Cold War. To further this analysis, the dissertation will study the influence of interest groups, bureaucratic politics, and the role of institutions, as well as the interaction among state and civil society actors, on the politics of trade. The dissertation will focus on the immediate aftermath of the Cold War period, which set the tone for current U.S. trade policy, and will examine the negotiations leading to the agreements signed with Jordan, Singapore, and Chile.

<p>The break-up of the Soviet Union handed down the Russian Federation a number of Soviet environmental legacies ranging from contaminated areas to the old bureaucratic procedures and outdated practices. In the post-Soviet years of transition to a free-market economy Russia began to face increasingly acute tension between environmental security and economic development, and the state’s ability to effectively pursue environmental policies deteriorated. Current environmental policy-makers are faced with a multitude of challenges that range from complicated environmental systems to the inconsistent legislative framework and resource deficiencies. Although researchers have paid some attention to these problems, environmental decision-making remains a poorly illuminated area and constitutes a theoretically challenging problem. This paper addresses the regional environmental decision-making process in the Russian Federation. Using the Pskov region on the border with Byelorussia and the two future EU members Estonia and Latvia as a case study, this paper seeks to supply a better understanding of how environmental decisions are made on the regional and local levels with a special focus on constraints affecting environmental policy-making. The study attempts to explain the environmental decision-making process in light of the two competing theories of decision- making, incrementalism and the bureaucratic politics model. It is primarily based on interviews made in the Pskov region in the autumn of 2002.</p>

The break-up of the Soviet Union handed down the Russian Federation a number of Soviet environmental legacies ranging from contaminated areas to the old bureaucratic procedures and outdated practices. In the post-Soviet years of transition to a free-market economy Russia began to face increasingly acute tension between environmental security and economic development, and the state’s ability to effectively pursue environmental policies deteriorated. Current environmental policy-makers are faced with a multitude of challenges that range from complicated environmental systems to the inconsistent legislative framework and resource deficiencies. Although researchers have paid some attention to these problems, environmental decision-making remains a poorly illuminated area and constitutes a theoretically challenging problem. This paper addresses the regional environmental decision-making process in the Russian Federation. Using the Pskov region on the border with Byelorussia and the two future EU members Estonia and Latvia as a case study, this paper seeks to supply a better understanding of how environmental decisions are made on the regional and local levels with a special focus on constraints affecting environmental policy-making. The study attempts to explain the environmental decision-making process in light of the two competing theories of decision- making, incrementalism and the bureaucratic politics model. It is primarily based on interviews made in the Pskov region in the autumn of 2002.

How does interservice rivalry affect American civil-military relations? In three essays, I develop theoretical propositions about the relationship between interservice rivalry and civil-military outcomes; propose a two-stage model of civil-military interaction surrounding use of force decisions; and investigate the correlates of interservice rivalry with a focus on budget pressure.

To analyse the war in Afghanistan from different theories is nothing new to the studies of international relations. However, one aspect that yet has been studied regarding the Afghan war is the withdrawal of troops and civilian personnel and why it occurred in August 2021 and not earlier or later. This lack of knowledge creates a research gap which needs to be filled to explain why President Biden went through with the withdrawal, even though the president knew that the Taliban would seize power in Afghanistan. This thesis will therefore explain the Biden administration's decision to continue the military and civilian withdrawal from Afghanistan even though the threat of Taliban takeover was imminent. The method chosen for this thesis is a qualitative content analysis which will be used to analyse the material with the help of leadership trait analysis and the bureaucratic politics model theories. The material which was used war press statements, speeches, and committee hearings. As the analysis shows, the decision to withdraw was a compromise between actors which was possible due to Joe Bidens openness to information. In summary, this thesis offers one explanation to why the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan.

Policy makers have long recognized the importance of considering past experience, history, and the use of Analogical reasoning when making policy decisions. When elite political actors face foreign policy crises, they often use their past experience, refer to history, and use Analogical reasoning to help them frame their decisions. In the case of the ill-fated invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, the use of Analogical reasoning revolving around past covert successes may have created an environment for faulty foreign policy decision-making. Former members of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) filled the ranks of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and held key positions within the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations. OSS success with guerrilla warfare, sabotage, and intelligence gathering during World War II, coupled with early CIA covert successes (specifically in Guatemala), may have led President Kennedy to make the wrong policy decisions with regard to dealing with Fidel Castro and Cuba. This research explores the use of Analogical reasoning during the decision-making process by way of process-tracing. Process-tracing attempts to identify the intervening processes between an independent variable (or variables) and the outcome of the dependent variable. We look at six critical junctures and compare how Groupthink, the Bureaucratic Politics Model, and Analogical reasoning approaches help explain any causal mechanisms. The findings suggest that Analogical reasoning may have played a more significant role in President Kennedy's final decision to invade Cuba than previously thought. The findings further suggest that by using the Analogical reasoning approach, our understanding of President Kennedy's foreign policy in Cuba is enhanced when compared to the Groupthink and Bureaucratic Politics Model approaches emphasized in past research.

This research project assesses the continued utility of Allison's three policy-making models in analyzing contemporary foreign policy problems. It also explores the effect of cultural considerations on Allison's concepts by delving into the unique themes of Japanese politics. The climate in which this policy decision is made is framed through a discussion of the strategic environment and Japanese defense policy following the Cold War and 9/11. The rational actor, organizational process, and bureaucratic politics models are applied to Japan's 2003 decision to field a missile defense system through a qualitative analysis of English-language secondary hard-copy and online sources. Some Japanese government materials are reviewed as well; the Japanese language, however, presented challenges to research. Despite the expectation that the rational actor model best describes the Japanese approach to missile defense, this project shows the true value of Allison's theories lies in their capacity to expose issues relevant to policy problems from varying perspectives. Japan's missile defense policy likely resulted from a combination of the three models, each influenced in varying degrees by the cultural aspects of Japanese politics. / Master of Arts

A política comercial brasileira e o arcabouço institucional em que é coordenada e formulada passaram por importantes transformações a partir da abertura econômica em 1990. Suas estruturas administrativas foram completamente remodeladas. Estas mudanças incentivaram a politização e pluralização da política comercial de forma que a sua tomada de decisão e implementação passaram a ocorrer em um novo contexto, marcado por novos condicionantes e demandas num ambiente de comércio exterior muito mais complexo e competitivo. A complexificação da agenda comercial mobilizou novos atores burocráticos que não haviam participado da política comercial desenvolvimentista, tornando evidente o aumento do seu grau de politização. Posto isto, analisamos o processo de construção das instituições que regem a política de comércio exterior pós-abertura econômica, tendo como foco analítico as relações entre a mudança institucional e a dinâmica político-burocrática interna do Poder Executivo. Analisamos aqui o conflito interno ao Poder Executivo entre as diferentes agências e órgãos burocráticos que tinham ou tenham competências e interesses envolvidos neste campo mais complexo no qual a política comercial atual foi e é disputada e produzida e como foi a ação da Presidência da República em termos de seu grau de envolvimento efetivo em cada uma dessas alterações. Optamos por analisar as instituições que compõem o quadro de coordenação desta política. O primeiro corte de estudo foi o processo de extinção da Carteira de Comércio Exterior do Banco do Brasil (Cacex), principal símbolo e a síntese da institucionalidade do modelo desenvolvimentista de industrialização por substituição de importações sobre o comércio exterior. O segundo estudo analisa a formação, reformas e consolidação da institucionalidade do modelo da Câmara de Comércio Exterior (Camex) adotado no início do governo Cardoso e, após algumas transformações, consolidado no governo Lula. A pesquisa foi dividida em duas etapas distintas, mas com interconexões mútuas. A primeira etapa consistiu na proposição de um quadro teórico que permitisse a derivação das hipóteses utilizadas na pesquisa empírica a partir de uma avaliação crítica do que já foi produzido sobre a influência e as implicações da participação da burocracia no jogo político. Na segunda parte 7 foi realizada a pesquisa empírica na qual se avaliou o impacto da política burocrática na construção das instituições da política comercial brasileira. Para a execução empírica da pesquisa foi feito um levantamento dos dispositivos legais que alteraram o aparato institucional, das preferências reveladas dos atores e percepções de atores e pesquisadores que participaram dos processos decisórios e, finalmente, de outros instrumentos analíticos mais objetivos e menos sensíveis a questões subjetivas. Por fim, a partir do exame dos dados obtidos, ponderou-se ao final da pesquisa que o conflito interno no Poder Executivo foi uma variável importante, embora não tenha sido a única determinante do processo de construção institucional da política comercial brasileira pósabertura econômica, e que o quadro analítico forneceu conceitos fundamentais para a análise e explicação das interações entre a política burocrática e esta construção institucional. / The Brazilian trade policy and its institutional framework have undergone major changes since the economic opening in 1990. Its administrative structures have been completely rebuilt. These changes have encouraged the politicization and pluralization of the trade policy so that decision making and policy implementation have begun to occur in a new context, characterized by new constraints and demands in a foreign trade environment more complex and competitive. The complexity of the new trade agenda has mobilized bureaucratic actors who had not participated of the developmentist trade policy, demonstrating the increase in its degree of politicization. We analyze the building process of the institutions that conduct the post-economic trade policy liberalization, focusing on the analytical relationships between institutional change and the bureaucratic politics dynamics inside the executive branch. Here we analyze the internal conflict in the executive branch among the different agencies that have competences and interests involved as well as how was taken the Presidential action in terms of its actual degree of involvement in each of these changes. We choose to study the institutions that compose the coordination framework of the Brazilian trade policy. In the first cut, we study the process of extinction of the Carteira de Comércio Exterior do Banco do Brasil (Cacex), the main symbol and synthesis of the developmentist institutional model of industrialization through import substitution in the foreign trade. In a second step, we study the process of formation, reforms and consolidation of the Camex model, adopted in the beginning of Cardoso\'s government and, after some transformations, consolidated under Lula\'s government. The research strategy was divided in two distinctive stages, but with mutual interconnections. The first one consisted of the proposition of a theoretical framework that would allow the derivation of the hypothesis used in the empirical research from a critical assessment of what had been produced about the influences and implications of the bureaucratic participation in the political process. In the second one, it was conducted an empirical research in which it was assessed the impact of the bureaucratic politics in the trade policy institutional building. In order to implement the empirical research, the legal devices that changed the institutional 9 apparatus has been surveyed as well as the revealed preferences of actors and perceptions of actors and researchers who have had a participation in decision making processes and, ultimately, other objective analytical tools less sensitive to subjective issues. Finally, from the obtained data, it was pondered that the internal conflict within the Executive Branch was an important variable, although not the sole determinant of the process of institutional building of the Brazilian trade policy after the economic opening, and that the analytical framework has provided fundamental concepts for the analysis and for the explanation of the interactions between politics and bureaucracies and this institution-building process.

A política comercial brasileira e o arcabouço institucional em que é coordenada e formulada passaram por importantes transformações a partir da abertura econômica em 1990. Suas estruturas administrativas foram completamente remodeladas. Estas mudanças incentivaram a politização e pluralização da política comercial de forma que a sua tomada de decisão e implementação passaram a ocorrer em um novo contexto, marcado por novos condicionantes e demandas num ambiente de comércio exterior muito mais complexo e competitivo. A complexificação da agenda comercial mobilizou novos atores burocráticos que não haviam participado da política comercial desenvolvimentista, tornando evidente o aumento do seu grau de politização. Posto isto, analisamos o processo de construção das instituições que regem a política de comércio exterior pós-abertura econômica, tendo como foco analítico as relações entre a mudança institucional e a dinâmica político-burocrática interna do Poder Executivo. Analisamos aqui o conflito interno ao Poder Executivo entre as diferentes agências e órgãos burocráticos que tinham ou tenham competências e interesses envolvidos neste campo mais complexo no qual a política comercial atual foi e é disputada e produzida e como foi a ação da Presidência da República em termos de seu grau de envolvimento efetivo em cada uma dessas alterações. Optamos por analisar as instituições que compõem o quadro de coordenação desta política. O primeiro corte de estudo foi o processo de extinção da Carteira de Comércio Exterior do Banco do Brasil (Cacex), principal símbolo e a síntese da institucionalidade do modelo desenvolvimentista de industrialização por substituição de importações sobre o comércio exterior. O segundo estudo analisa a formação, reformas e consolidação da institucionalidade do modelo da Câmara de Comércio Exterior (Camex) adotado no início do governo Cardoso e, após algumas transformações, consolidado no governo Lula. A pesquisa foi dividida em duas etapas distintas, mas com interconexões mútuas. A primeira etapa consistiu na proposição de um quadro teórico que permitisse a derivação das hipóteses utilizadas na pesquisa empírica a partir de uma avaliação crítica do que já foi produzido sobre a influência e as implicações da participação da burocracia no jogo político. Na segunda parte 7 foi realizada a pesquisa empírica na qual se avaliou o impacto da política burocrática na construção das instituições da política comercial brasileira. Para a execução empírica da pesquisa foi feito um levantamento dos dispositivos legais que alteraram o aparato institucional, das preferências reveladas dos atores e percepções de atores e pesquisadores que participaram dos processos decisórios e, finalmente, de outros instrumentos analíticos mais objetivos e menos sensíveis a questões subjetivas. Por fim, a partir do exame dos dados obtidos, ponderou-se ao final da pesquisa que o conflito interno no Poder Executivo foi uma variável importante, embora não tenha sido a única determinante do processo de construção institucional da política comercial brasileira pósabertura econômica, e que o quadro analítico forneceu conceitos fundamentais para a análise e explicação das interações entre a política burocrática e esta construção institucional. / The Brazilian trade policy and its institutional framework have undergone major changes since the economic opening in 1990. Its administrative structures have been completely rebuilt. These changes have encouraged the politicization and pluralization of the trade policy so that decision making and policy implementation have begun to occur in a new context, characterized by new constraints and demands in a foreign trade environment more complex and competitive. The complexity of the new trade agenda has mobilized bureaucratic actors who had not participated of the developmentist trade policy, demonstrating the increase in its degree of politicization. We analyze the building process of the institutions that conduct the post-economic trade policy liberalization, focusing on the analytical relationships between institutional change and the bureaucratic politics dynamics inside the executive branch. Here we analyze the internal conflict in the executive branch among the different agencies that have competences and interests involved as well as how was taken the Presidential action in terms of its actual degree of involvement in each of these changes. We choose to study the institutions that compose the coordination framework of the Brazilian trade policy. In the first cut, we study the process of extinction of the Carteira de Comércio Exterior do Banco do Brasil (Cacex), the main symbol and synthesis of the developmentist institutional model of industrialization through import substitution in the foreign trade. In a second step, we study the process of formation, reforms and consolidation of the Camex model, adopted in the beginning of Cardoso\'s government and, after some transformations, consolidated under Lula\'s government. The research strategy was divided in two distinctive stages, but with mutual interconnections. The first one consisted of the proposition of a theoretical framework that would allow the derivation of the hypothesis used in the empirical research from a critical assessment of what had been produced about the influences and implications of the bureaucratic participation in the political process. In the second one, it was conducted an empirical research in which it was assessed the impact of the bureaucratic politics in the trade policy institutional building. In order to implement the empirical research, the legal devices that changed the institutional 9 apparatus has been surveyed as well as the revealed preferences of actors and perceptions of actors and researchers who have had a participation in decision making processes and, ultimately, other objective analytical tools less sensitive to subjective issues. Finally, from the obtained data, it was pondered that the internal conflict within the Executive Branch was an important variable, although not the sole determinant of the process of institutional building of the Brazilian trade policy after the economic opening, and that the analytical framework has provided fundamental concepts for the analysis and for the explanation of the interactions between politics and bureaucracies and this institution-building process.