The British Labour Party has spent eighteen years in opposition since 1979. During that time it lost four consecutive general elections to the Conservative Party. In 1997, however, it now looks set to win its first election since 1974. This thesis examines the Labour Party in opposition since 1979, using a theoretical framework informed by Anthony Giddens' structuration theory. Based on a dialectical notion of the structure and agency linkage, a two-tiered framework is constructed which at one level views a political party as consisting of a set of structures which can constrain and enable party leaders in their attempts to make the party electorally successful, and at another level the party is regarded as a collective agent in its own right, which in turn is subject to the effects of larger external structures. By comparing the strategies adopted by the Labour Party and its leaders since 1979, the thesis demonstrates that the apparent recovery in the Party's electoral fortunes has corresponded with an increase in the ability of agents to successfully negotiate structural constraints, whilst taking advantage of enabling structures. However, it is also clear that the transformation of Labour into an electorally viable party in 1997 is not solely the product of agency in the period since the last election; rather, it is the culmination of a longer-term process of party change. / Master of Arts

Els governs de coalició poden, per una banda, dividir-se les tasques i funcionar de forma compartimentalitzada, on cada soci decideixi sol les polítiques sota les seves jurisdiccions ministerials. Per contra, també poden optar pel compromís entre els partits i decidir col•lectivament en cada àrea sectorial, amb independència del repartiment de carteres. En el seu primer paper, aquesta tesis ofereix un marc teòric per entendre aquesta variació, amb la intenció d’identificar les condicions sota les quals és més probable un tipus de governança coalicional o altra. El segon paper testa empíricament les implicacions d’aquests arguments sobre la manera com els membres d’una coalició es vigilen mútuament mitjançant l’ús de mecanismes de control. Finalment, en el tercer paper s’ofereix un exercici empíric on s’analitza fins a quin punt els votants jutgen de manera diferent cada un dels socis de govern en funció del tipus de coalició a què s’enfronten. / At an extreme, coalition partners can divide tasks and individually decide policy in their ministerial jurisdictions in a compartmentalized way. At the other extreme, parties sharing office can compromise and collectively set policy in each dimension regardless of portfolio allocation. In its first paper, this dissertation provides a theoretical account of this variation, trying to unravel the conditions under which one type of governance is more likely than the other. The second paper tests empirically the implications of these arguments on the way coalition partners keep tabs on each other through the establishment of control mechanisms. Finally, an empirical exercise is offered in the third paper to study the extent to which voters assess each coalition partner differently depending on the type of coalition they face. Variation in the types of coalition governance, we conclude, is an important factor to take into account in political science research in the field.

Physical design for testability (PDFT) is a strategy to design circuits in a way to avoid or reduce realistic physical faults. The goal of this work is to define and establish a speci c methodology for PDFT. The proposed design methodology includes techniques to reduce potential bridging faults in complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) circuits. To compare faults, the design process utilizes a new parameter called the fault index. The fault index for a particular fault is the probability of occurrence of the fault divided by the testability of the fault. Faults with the highest fault indices are considered the worst faults and are targeted by the PDFT design process to eliminate them or reduce their probability of occurrence. An implementation of the PDFT design process is constructed using several new tools in addition to other "off-the-shelf" tools. The first tool developed in this work is a testability measure tool for bridging faults. Two other tools are developed to eliminate or reduce the probability of occurrence of bridging faults with high fault indices. The row enhancer targets faults inside the logic elements of the circuit, while the channel enhancer targets faults inside the routing part of the circuit. To demonstrate the capabilities and test the eff ectiveness of the PDFT design process, this work conducts an experiment which includes designing three CMOS circuits from the ISCAS 1985 benchmark circuits. Several layouts are generated for every circuit. Every layout, except the rst one, utilizes information from the previous layout to minimize the probability of occurrence for faults with high fault indices. Experimental results show that the PDFT design process successfully achieves two goals of PDFT, providing layouts with fewer faults and minimizing the probability of occurrence of hard-to-test faults. Improvement in the total fault index was about 40 percent in some cases, while improvement in total critical area was about 30 percent in some cases. However, virtually all the improvements came from using the row enhancer; the channel enhancer provided only marginal improvements. / Ph. D.