This study explores both formal and informal arrangements for care of orphans in the Maseru district of Lesotho. The study adopted a qualitative approach using both in-depth interviews and documentary research as the primary methods of data collection. The research findings show that care of orphans in Lesotho is predominantly in the hands of non-governmental and church based organisations. The government’s role is limited to the provision of technical support, including the formulation of policies and laws and some welfare grant provision in the form of free primary education. Care of orphans in the communities is undertaken not only by the extended family members of orphans, but also non-relation community members. It is clear however that while such informal arrangements might provide care and protection to orphan, many are struggling in the face of extreme hardship and poverty. A crisis of social reproduction is therefore increasingly apparent in Lesotho.

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Yes / We examine the role of generalized social trust in substituting for employment protection legislation. Using foreign direct investment from the US to a sample of OECD countries, we find that trust diminishes the importance of formal employment regulations in investment attractiveness.

Civil conflict is a complex multi-layered event. As an outcome it represents a product of both the structural framework in place and decision-making between the different elite groups. From a historical neoinstitutionalist perspective, this dissertation will provide an answer as to why some illiberal democracies fall into civil conflict while others do not. It argues that horizontally unequal elites bargain for (re)distribution of political participation, economic assets and social services through formal and informal institutions in order to expand the shares of the goods distributed. The presence of cleavages and grievances amongst groups are enhanced when exclusion through inefficient redistribution takes place; therefore, a bargain failure with the potential to activate violent means, implies a disagreement amongst the elites over the allocation of resources to different societal groups. Bargain failures occur in the presence of non-credible commitments and information asymmetries. Inefficiency in the distribution can also be captured through informal institutions in the form of patronage networks, a side of the transaction spectrum which has been understudied. The contribution of this thesis to the general debate stems from this acknowledgement and alleviates this by incorporating the full spectrum of institutions which operate effectively within illiberal democratic regimes. Patronage networks despite being a fundamental part of how politics is conducted in illiberal democratic regimes have surprisingly been neglected in the contemporary study of conflict onset. By conducting two-level fsQCA along a selection of 21 cases of illiberal democracy across 1980-2012 including cases of ethnic conflict onset, the analysis will show that distribution through patronage networks does play a role in triggering conflict or in aiding to control violence depending on the efficiency of the distribution across grieved groups. Further comparative analysis of a most likely and least likely case for cases of conflict (Thailand and India Bodo conflict) and peace (Namibia and Bolivia) reveals that the effect of the patronage mechanisms when redistributive, plays a larger role as an instrument of preventing violent disputes across horizontally unequal ethnic groups.

The dissertation analyzes why legislators fail to use their oversight powers over bureaucracy in democratic Mexico. While dominant institutional theories assume a unidirectional flow of authority from politicians to bureaucrats, in Mexico there is a bidirectional negotiation process; as such, principals have formal rights to control the agents, but agents have informal leverage over principals, as well. Due to the absence of a Weberian state and extensive state intervention, bureaucrats are able to control resources that legislators require in order to advance their careers. By distributing resources that politicians can use for patronage purposes, bureaucrats obtain legislators’ consent to design and implement programs as they wish. Consequently, members of Congress renounce their control powers in exchange for securing resources for their constituents or cronies. Furthermore, informal mechanisms of influence neutralize the formal control powers that legislators have over bureaucrats. Public officials’ power and the lack of legislative control over bureaucracy are documented by analyzing the budgetary process and health policy in Mexico between 1997 and 2006. The main implication of the dissertation is that although democratization produced changes that gave more formal powers to Congress, it has not eliminated the informal mechanisms used by bureaucrats to influence legislators. As a result, public officials continue to enjoy ample leeway in implementing public policies and programs. / text

This study explored the role of institutions in countries that have improved their competitiveness in a short time period, under the framework of institutional theory. This study investigated how informal and formal institutions have evolved and interacted. The purpose of the study was to build on institutional theory by exploring the role and interaction of institutions in nations that have undergone institutional changes. A literature review was done to provide a foundation for the study. Case studies of Singapore and Finland – countries that have improved their competitiveness in a short time period – were done in this study. A number of documents in the public domain were observed: internet resources, reports, and studies on Singapore and Finland. The study concluded that countries that have improved their competitiveness achieved their goals through their own institutional mix and through interactions among institutions. Active interactions among institutions were based on broad coalition among actors and the directions of interactions in each country differed. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Magister Administrationis - MAdmin / After decades of seeking answers, without much success, to the development challenges facing third world countries, agencies such as the IMF and World Bank have turned increasingly in recent years to issues governance and accountability. In Africa especially, the failure of most development strategies has been attributed to governance issues such as democratic deficits, corruption and lack of political accountability among others. Uganda like several other African countries has been criticised for corruption - a sign that the country has a problem with the functioning of accountability and governance in general. In an attempt to find out whether the local government institutional mechanisms in Uganda embody possible explanations for weaknesses in political accountability, this study hypothesizes that institutional arrangements impact on downward accountability. While concentrating on the anatomy of institutions and the dimensions of accountability to which they relate, as well as on how the formal and informal institutions relate to each other, the study gives an insight into how institutions impact on downward answerability and enforceability at the local level in Uganda. Based on a thorough consideration of both the theoretical and empirical underpinnings of the concept of accountability, the study develops relevance criteria upon which an assessment of both formal and informal institutions' relevance for each of the dimensions of accountability is based. In both cases, formal institutions are found to be more relevant for accountability than informal ones. Critical issues about the capabilities of informal institutions are however raised, culminating in a discussion on the relationship between formal and informal institutions in the study area. While also considering other variables that interact with institutions in affecting accountability, the study calls for a re examination in the concepts under investigation namely 'institutions' and 'accountability'. The study concludes that problems of accountability can be accounted for by weaknesses in institutional design, conceptual weaknesses in the definition of accountability, as well as contextual factors such as resource constraints. In the light of this recognition, the study offers theoretical as well as policy level recommendation

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The Development of Spatial Differentiation of Unemployment in Czechia through the Lens of Evolutionary Geography The diploma thesis aims to analyze the development of spatial differentiation of unemployment on the municipality level in Czechia between the years 2003 and 2016. The theoretical framework is based on the evolutionary approaches in geography which emphasize the role of heredity, continuity and the local specifics in economic and social regional development. The first, extensive part of the research analyses the development of spatial differentiation of unemployment using statistical and spatial methods and identifies two adjacent localities which underwent significantly different unemployment development, specifically the Karviná and Jablunkov regions. The second, intensive part of the research discusses and evaluates possible causes of these different dynamics of unemployment development. An analysis of historical development, information gathered through semi- structured interviews as well as data confirm that the different unemployment development is caused by different population structure, different local customs, and norms stemming from different historical development. The historical heritage also influences locating of new investors who provide new job opportunities. Key words:...

That authoritarian regimes adopt various strategies of societal control to secure their resilience has been widely explored in comparative politics. The scholarship has emphasized regimes’ reliance upon tactics as diverse as cooptation, economic and social policy reforms, and multiparty elections. Yet, existing comparative studies have predominantly focused on formal institutions, largely ignoring authoritarian states’ resort to informal rules as effective governance and regime preservation strategies. Local governments in China have tolerated underground Protestant churches, and in doing so, they have failed to enforce the central government’s policy of religious cooptation. This dissertation explores the reasons underlying local government tolerance of underground churches. I argue that accommodative informal institutions emerge out of a bargaining process involving agents (state and society) with a mutually compatible set of interests. Both parties need to reduce uncertainty about the other’s political intentions, and for that reason, they are likely to choose to cooperate strategically with one another. On the one hand, local officials view policies of religious cooptation as ineffective to curb the expansion of underground religion, and as increasingly risky to enforce in a context where an extensive use of coercion could be subject to severe professional sanctions. On the other hand, underground pastors seek to maximize their autonomy under authoritarian constraints; to that extent, they have used informal compliance as a strategy to earn local government acceptance. Compliance manifests itself in four ways: openness to dialogue with local authorities, the proactive sharing of sensitive information about church affairs, gift-giving and -receiving, and the maintenance of a low profile in terms of church size and rhetoric. Strategic cooperation brings benefits to both parties. It provides local public security officials’ with a stable source of intelligence about the underground space, which is key to ensuring an effective management of religious affairs. Moreover, it allows underground churches to remain autonomous from the state and decreases risks that they face coercion. Yet, inasmuch as informal arrangements are self-enforcing and rule-bound, they ultimately serve regime interests by increasing the costs of political mobilization for the compliant clergy, and by accentuating divisions between the latter and politicized pastors.