Thesis (M.E.S.)--Evergreen State College, 2007. / "June, 2007." Title from title screen (viewed 6/3/2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 45-50).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--RAND Graduate School, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (MTech (Information Technology))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2013. / This study explores information sharing in government departments from a developing country's perspective. Efforts to understand the relationship between information sharing as a concept and the e-government(s) phenomenon are made and discussed. Literature reviewed in this study indicates that information sharing is a core component of the eadministration part of e-government. E-government initiatives are intended to enable information sharing between and within government departments. ICT initiatives under the egovernment umbrella facilitate information sharing within government departments. However, such initiatives fail to or do not achieve their intended objectives due to technological, organisational, environmental and people related limitations. The process to overcome such barriers can begin by analysing activities focusing on information sharing processes as a means of identifying needs for improvement. There is a need to discuss work activities, actors, aims of activities and the role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in government departments, in order to identify information sharing needs and make possible recommendations for effective information sharing processes. A conceptual model is recommended to improve information sharing in government departments, and it has shown promise when applied to a selected work activity in this study. The results of the work activity case study show that technology, organization, environmental and people related factors indeed exist in the government's department and can have both a positive and a negative influence on information sharing between the three governing levels of the Namibian government. A pair of recommendations is given in this study. Firstly, a technology-organisationalenvironmental- people framework is recommended to government departments for effective information sharing. Secondly, recommendations are given to facilitate the information sharing needs of the Child Allowance (CA) department in the Ministry of Gender Equality and Child Welfare (MGECW). Limitations of the study and opportunities for further research that have been identified are stated at the end of this study.

A tese examina o municipalismo brasileiro após a Constituição de 1988, verificando como os municípios se saem no provimento dos serviços locais de saúde face à descentralização desta política com a criação do SUS. Argumenta-se que o processo de descentralização da saúde desenvolveu-se, ao longo dos anos 90, em duas fases distintas: a fase da descentralização autonomista, entre 1990 e 1998, quando os municípios tinham total liberdade nas escolhas da política local de saúde, e a fase da descentralização dirigida, após a introdução do Piso de Assistência Básica - PAB, quando os municípios começaram a receber recursos \"carimbados\", destinados exclusivamente a determinados programas de saúde, determinados pelo Ministério da Saúde. Todavia, conforme demonstramos, ambas as fases não foram capazes de minorar as desigualdades regionais existentes, em termos de oferta, acesso e financiamento aos serviços municipais de saúde. Enfim, demonstramos que as desigualdades em saúde produzidas pelo nosso federalismo não foram equacionadas pelo desenho adotado pela política de municipalização da saúde. Somado a isso, demonstramos que os argumentos normalmente utilizados pela literatura sobre federalismo e municipalismo no Brasil, críticos à \"onda municipalista\" e à existência de milhares municípios pequenos e altamente dependentes dos repasses do Fundo de Participação dos Municípios, não são suficientes para explicar a produção local de políticas sociais, dado que não são estes os municípios que apresentam os piores resultados na política de saúde no que tange à oferta, acesso e financiamento da saúde pelos gestores municipais. Por fim, demonstramos que o consorciamento pode ser um mecanismo eficiente na superação de um dos principais problemas enfrentados pelos pequenos e carentes municípios na provisão de serviços de saúde: o acesso a serviços de maior complexidade, inexistente em diversas pequenas municipalidades, sem que isso acarrete um \"efeito carona negativo\", ou seja, ao encaminhamento de pacientes para outras municipalidades sem a correspondente contrapartida financeira. / This thesis examines the Brazilian municipalism after the Constitution of 1988. It verifies the municipalities performance in the provision of local health services vis-à-vis the decentralization of this policy due to the creation of the SUS (Unified Health System). It argues that the process of health services decentralization developed during the 90\'s presented two different steps: the step of autonomist decentralization, between 1990 and 1998, when the municipalities were totally free to choose their own local health policies; and the step of the driven decentralization, after the creation of the Basic Assistance Floor - PAB, when the municipalities started receiving targeted incomes, which could be used exclusively for specific health programs, determined by the Health Department. However, as we demonstrate, the both steps were incapable to decrease the extant regional inequalities in what regards the supply, the access and the financing of municipal health services. To summarize, we demonstrate that the inequalities in health produced by our federalism were not balanced through the outline of policies that municipalized the health services. In addition we demonstrate that the arguments usually raised by the literature on federalism and municipalism in Brazil, which are critical to the \"municipalist wave\" and to the existence of thousands of small municipalities - which are very dependent to the transfers from the Municipalities Participation Fund (FPM) - are not sufficient to explain the production of local social policies, since such municipalities are not the ones which present the worst outcomes in the supply, access and financing of health services by the municipal managers. Finally, we demonstrate that the consortiums can be an efficient mechanism to overcome one of the main problems which are faced by the small and poor municipalities to provide health services: the access to services of higher complexity - which do not exist in many small municipalities - without causing the \"negative free-riding\", i.e., the transferring of clients to other municipalities without the correspondent financial retribution.

This study develops a model of collaboration choice among city governments. The theoretical model suggests that collaboration is a function of transaction costs that vary with different institutional arrangements utilized in cities, as well as the degree of competition between cities. This study argues that cities facing high transaction costs and high competition are less likely to participate in collaboration and to participate less deeply. Underlying these environmental factors are resource factors that create incentives for cities to collaborate for efficiency gains, which affect both the decision to collaboration and the depth of collaboration. Eleven hypotheses are presented to explain why cities choose to participate in collaboration in the first stage of the analysis and how deeply they collaborate in the second stage. Utilizing a Heckman model of this two-stage process, I find broad support for a number of variables that measure each of these theoretical constructs.

Regional integration is not a new phenomenon but has become an increasingly important topic of political research with the continued expansion of the European Union as well as an increased number of regional organizations around the globe. This paper will seek to use both Europe and East Asia as illustrations in order to better comprehend the driving forces behind integration as well as why some regions are further integrated than others. The purpose of this research is to achieve a better understanding of what causes regional integration in hopes of developing a more inclusive theory. More specifically, it aims to see how integrated the region of East Asia is, in particular when compared to Europe. Through comparing the two regions and analyzing factors in both Europe and East Asia as determined by current integration theory, this research aims to achieve a better understanding of the driving forces behind regional integration as an international phenomenon. My research is an attempt to tie together the multiple existing theories of regional integration with the goal of creating a more cohesive and measurable theory. With an increased understanding of regional integration, we will be better able to both explain and predict integration in both Europe and East Asia, as well as other, less integrated regions around the world.

Esta tese tem como objetivo averiguar se políticas de cooperação intergovernamentais, tais como consórcios e Arranjos de Desenvolvimento da Educação (ADEs), se constituem como mecanismos de equalização de condições de oferta e resultados educacionais nos municípios brasileiros. Em 2011, 35% dos municípios do país integravam algum destes arranjos de cooperação intergovernamental, contemplando quase metade da população brasileira. A pesquisa foi constituída em três fases, sendo que as duas primeiras possuíam os objetivos, respectivamente, de construir um panorama da participação municipal em arranjos de cooperação intergovernamental, e de verificar a influência da participação dos municípios nos diferentes arranjos em relação às variáveis educacionais selecionadas. Para tanto, nestas fases da pesquisa foram analisadas as capacidades estatais e resultados educacionais de municípios em situação socioeconômicas semelhante, porém com a diferença de comporem uma ou mais formas de cooperativismo intergovernamental, com base nos dados de 2011. A terceira fase da pesquisa partiu de indícios, observados nas fases anteriores, de que os municípios integrantes do ADE do Vale do Jequitinhonha apresentavam melhores resultados educacionais do que os demais municípios em situação socioeconômica e demográfica semelhantes, e buscou investigar se tais indícios poderiam estar vinculados à participação dos municípios neste arranjo, através de um estudo longitudinal que abarcou o período entre 2007 e 2015. Nas três fases da pesquisa foram utilizadas técnicas da estatística descritiva e de análise multivariada, como regressões e constituição de agrupamentos de municípios, de forma a minimizar o efeito das variáveis associadas a aspectos socioeconômicos e demográficos. Os resultados da análise descritiva foram muito semelhantes à análise inferencial: para a maior parte das variáveis examinadas capacidade estatal, condições de oferta e resultados educacionais a variação mais significativa se deu entre os agrupamentos de municípios com perfil socioeconômico e demográfico semelhantes, do que segundo o tipo de cooperação intergovernamental estabelecido, reiterando a relevância das condições socioeconômicas nas condições de atendimento e dados educacionais. Com relação à análise longitudinal, a partir do caso do ADE do Vale do Jequitinhonha, verificou-se uma melhoria significativa no IDEB ao longo do período observado e uma redução na desigualdade de resultados entre os municípios do referido ADE. No entanto, apesar de o comportamento dos municípios que integravam o ADE ter sido muito superior ao dos municípios brasileiros em geral, e também dos municípios brasileiros que integravam arranjos de cooperação intergovernamental em 2011, este foi bastante semelhante ao dos municípios dos respectivos agrupamentos socioeconômicos do estado de Minas Gerais. Os dados apresentados retratam a situação dos municípios integrantes de consórcios e Arranjos de Desenvolvimento da Educação e reiteram análises realizadas sobre bons resultados dos municípios de Minas Gerais em relação aos demais municípios brasileiros. Com relação à hipótese da pesquisa, seus resultados demonstram que tais mecanismos de cooperação intergovernamentais, no formato como estão atualmente estruturados, não tem contribuido para a redução da desigualdade de atendimento, oferta e resultados educacionais entre os municípios brasileiros. / This thesis aims to investigate whether intergovernmental cooperation policies, such as public consortia and Education Development Arrangements (ADEs), constitute mechanisms for equalization of educational provision and outcomes in Brazilian municipalities. In 2011, 35% of the country\'s municipalities were part of some kind of intergovernmental cooperation arrangement, encompassing almost half of Brazilian population. The research was conducted in three phases. The first two had the objectives, respectively, of building a panorama of municipal participation in intergovernmental cooperation arrangements, and examining the influence of municipal participation in different types of intergovernamental cooperation related to the selected educational variables. Therefore, in these phases of the research, the state capacities and educational results of municipalities in similar socioeconomic situation were analyzed, but with the difference of composing one or more forms of intergovernmental cooperation, based on 2011s data. The third phase of the research was based on evidence from previous phases that the municipalities that are members of the ADE do Vale do Jequitinhonha showed better educational results than the other municipalities in similar socioeconomic and demographic situations, and sought to investigate whether such evidence could be linked to the municipal participation in this arrangement, through a longitudinal study that covered the period between 2007 and 2015. In the three phases of the research, descriptive statistics and multivariate analysis techniques were used, such as regressions and the constitution of clusters of municipalities, in order to minimize the effect of associated variables such as socioeconomic and demographic aspects. The results of the descriptive analysis were very similar to the inferential analysis: for most of the examined variables state capacity, offered conditions and educational outcomes the most significant variation occurred among groups of municipalities with similar socioeconomic and demographic profile than according to the type of intergovernmental cooperation established, reiterating the relevance of socioeconomic conditions in terms of service and educational data. Regarding to the longitudinal analysis, related to the case of the ADE do Vale do Jequitinhonha, there was a significant improvement in the IDEB over the observed period and a reduction in the inequality of results among the member municipalities. However, although the behavior of the member municipalities of the ADE was much higher than that of the Brazilian municipalities in general, and also of the Brazilian municipalities that integrated intergovernmental cooperation arrangements in 2011, this was very similar to the municipalities of the state of Minas Gerais, from the same socioeconomic groups. The data presented the situation of member municipalities of public consortia and Education Development Arrangements, and reiterate the analisis about the good results of Minas Gerais municipalities in relation to other Brazilian municipalities. In relation to the initial hypothesis of this research, its results demonstrate that such intergovernmental cooperation arrangements, as they are currently structured, have not contributed to the reduction of the inequalities regarding educational conditions and indicators among Brazilian municipalities.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T20:20:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Edna Luzia Almeida Sampaio.pdf: 1870136 bytes, checksum: 0ae876247eff92b2260dcd34202a5e6e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-03-18 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The present study deals with two basic questions: The State as organizer of the competition for different capitals in a certain society and the organization of the institutional field in the implementation of education politics, having for organizational structure the federalism. For an analysis of these convergent dimensions (State, federalism and institutional field in the scope of the education), it is taken as case study the Politics of Formation of Professors, from the concrete reality of the State of Mato Grosso and the cities of Cuiabá and Cáceres. What it intents is to understand how interlaced the federative arrangement of patrimonial trace and the pertaining to school system, in view of its regulating function in the cultural stock market. As conducting wire of the case study the politics of formation of professors was selected. The federalism while model of administrative political organization of the State, whose principles if base on the United States model, composes the problematization of the reality politics in question. The education politics reflect this model that legitimizes as univocal form to think the State, strengthening the dispersion of the politics and, at the same time, promoting the reinforcement of the local power. The spite of this, the principle of autonomy of the federate beings is submerged by the abyssal inequality that misrepresent the concepts of State and Cities as entities equivalents with severe effect on the capacity of government of each being and on the access the different types of capitals, in special the cultural capital / O presente estudo trata de duas questões fundamentais: O Estado enquanto organizador da concorrência por diferentes capitais em uma dada sociedade e a organização do campo institucional na implementação de políticas de educação, tendo por estrutura organizativa o federalismo. Para uma análise dessas dimensões convergentes (Estado, federalismo e campo institucional no âmbito da educação) é tomado como objeto as Políticas de Educação, com enfoque na Política de Formação de Professores. Parte-se do geral para chegar à realidade concreta do Estado de Mato Grosso e os municípios de Cuiabá e Cáceres e, neste último, a análise de uma unidade escolar. O que se pretende é compreender como se entrelaçam o arranjo federativo de traço patrimonialista e o sistema escolar, tendo em vista sua função reguladora no mercado de capital cultural. Como fio condutor do estudo de caso foi selecionado a política de formação de professores. O federalismo enquanto modelo de organização político- administrativa do Estado, cujos princípios se baseiam no modelo estadunidense, compõe a problematização da realidade política em questão. As políticas de educação refletem esse modelo que se legitima como forma unívoca de pensar o Estado, reforçando a dispersão das políticas e, ao mesmo tempo, promovendo o fortalecimento do poder local. A despeito disso, o princípio de autonomia dos entes federados é soçobrado pela desigualdade abissal que deturpa os conceitos de Estado e Municípios como entidades equivalentes com efeitos severos sobre a capacidade de governo de cada ente e sobre o acesso a diferentes tipos de capitais, em especial o capital cultural

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T14:52:58Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Edna Luzia Almeida Sampaio.pdf: 1870136 bytes, checksum: 0ae876247eff92b2260dcd34202a5e6e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-03-18 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The present study deals with two basic questions: The State as organizer of the competition for different capitals in a certain society and the organization of the institutional field in the implementation of education politics, having for organizational structure the federalism. For an analysis of these convergent dimensions (State, federalism and institutional field in the scope of the education), it is taken as case study the Politics of Formation of Professors, from the concrete reality of the State of Mato Grosso and the cities of Cuiabá and Cáceres. What it intents is to understand how interlaced the federative arrangement of patrimonial trace and the pertaining to school system, in view of its regulating function in the cultural stock market. As conducting wire of the case study the politics of formation of professors was selected. The federalism while model of administrative political organization of the State, whose principles if base on the United States model, composes the problematization of the reality politics in question. The education politics reflect this model that legitimizes as univocal form to think the State, strengthening the dispersion of the politics and, at the same time, promoting the reinforcement of the local power. The spite of this, the principle of autonomy of the federate beings is submerged by the abyssal inequality that misrepresent the concepts of State and Cities as entities equivalents with severe effect on the capacity of government of each being and on the access the different types of capitals, in special the cultural capital / O presente estudo trata de duas questões fundamentais: O Estado enquanto organizador da concorrência por diferentes capitais em uma dada sociedade e a organização do campo institucional na implementação de políticas de educação, tendo por estrutura organizativa o federalismo. Para uma análise dessas dimensões convergentes (Estado, federalismo e campo institucional no âmbito da educação) é tomado como objeto as Políticas de Educação, com enfoque na Política de Formação de Professores. Parte-se do geral para chegar à realidade concreta do Estado de Mato Grosso e os municípios de Cuiabá e Cáceres e, neste último, a análise de uma unidade escolar. O que se pretende é compreender como se entrelaçam o arranjo federativo de traço patrimonialista e o sistema escolar, tendo em vista sua função reguladora no mercado de capital cultural. Como fio condutor do estudo de caso foi selecionado a política de formação de professores. O federalismo enquanto modelo de organização político- administrativa do Estado, cujos princípios se baseiam no modelo estadunidense, compõe a problematização da realidade política em questão. As políticas de educação refletem esse modelo que se legitima como forma unívoca de pensar o Estado, reforçando a dispersão das políticas e, ao mesmo tempo, promovendo o fortalecimento do poder local. A despeito disso, o princípio de autonomia dos entes federados é soçobrado pela desigualdade abissal que deturpa os conceitos de Estado e Municípios como entidades equivalentes com efeitos severos sobre a capacidade de governo de cada ente e sobre o acesso a diferentes tipos de capitais, em especial o capital cultural

Local governmental units in the United States are struggling to cope with dwindling public resources and surging public demands. They often turn to interlocal agreements (ILAs) as a collaborative means by which to more effectively serve their constituents. Unfortunately, many ILAs never materialize or fail prematurely. The purpose of this qualitative, phenomenological study was to explore the experiences of 13 purposefully selected mayors in the State of Indiana to discover what factors they considered important when making their ILA entry and continuation decisions. It utilized a conceptual framework based on the transaction costs theory, as informed by the utility maximization, bounded rationality, social decision scheme, and groupthink theories. Interviews were transcribed, and data were subjected to an inductive analysis using idiographic interpretation to develop themes and to describe the essence of the ILA decision-making process. Key findings included that direct cost savings, a detailed, written agreement, contractual flexibility, an ability to perform, the effect on constituents and the current municipal workforce, and having a trusted, like-minded partner were important ILA entry factors. Furthermore, contractual flexibility, meeting constituent expectations, service effectiveness, relevancy, having a communicative partner, being able to measure an ILA service, and saving money were important ILA continuation factors, but that both service quality and doing the right thing trumped saving money. These findings have implications for positive social change because they can assist local leaders in achieving ILA success, with society benefitting from a commensurate increase in public value and in the more efficient and effective meeting of societal needs.