The aim of this project is to find whether the national system of performance measurement in the Russian public sector is affected by deliberate data manipulation. Using mixed methods I demonstrate that locally generated data are more likely to be manipulated than data reported by external agencies. Instead of improving managerial decisions, performance indicators have become a tool of symbolic bureaucratic accountability not linked to real managerial activities. 25 current and former civil servants from three regional governments in Russia were interviewed (including three ministers of economic development); quantitative data were obtained from a publicly available performance dataset covering the period of 2007-2011 (with data for a unified list of over 300 indicators from 83 regional governments). Two strategies of data manipulation were identified: a “prudent bureaucrat” strategy consisted in minimizing long-term risks by reporting “more-normal-than-real” figures; a more ambitions “reckless bureaucrat” strategy aimed at inflating figures to maximise credit. Systematic application of these two strategies has produced a detectable bias in the overall performance data with “prudent bureaucrat” strategy dominating. Performance reporting creates a “bureaucratic panopticon” and resulting behaviour may be understood using Michel Foucault’s notion of normalisation.

This thesis combines two burgeoning fields – New Institutionalism and migration studies – to explain the process of institutional change. It tests six hypotheses drawn from a hybrid theoretical framework drawn from Historical Institutionalism, Rational Choice Institutionalism, and Sociological Institutionalism, identifying concrete mechanisms of reproduction and sources of endogenous and exogenous change. It applies this framework to changes in access to citizenship in the form of citizenship and naturalisation policy in the United Kingdom and Germany between 2000 and 2010. Its greatest contributions lie in a more comprehensive explanation of endogenous factors and incremental changes, two aspects of institutional change that have received inadequate theoretical attention and empirical investigation. Testing economic, power-based, and ideational explanations for change, it concludes that each of the New Institutionalisms makes an important contribution to a complete understanding of the process of change and the dynamics of this policy area in two very different European countries.

The concept of the ‘city-region’ has (re)gained prominence in academic discourse, firstly in a functional dimension an explanation of patterns of life and work in the modern space-economy, and secondly in a related politico-cultural dimension via an advocacy of the city-region scale as a loci for political and administrative organisation. As an acknowledgment of the connection between the two dimensions a case study approach was adopted. Firstly, the thesis considered the extent to which Scotland has city-regions in a functional sense, primarily via a quantitative analysis of census origin-destination (home-workplace) data. Secondly, having established that the spatial logic for city-regions was sufficiently robust, the thesis considered the political and organisational feasibility, desirability and relevance of devising arrangements that would facilitate planning and policy-making for city-regions. A series of qualitative semi-structured interviews featuring a cross-section of respondents across three field service case studies (local authorities, healthcare and strategic planning) were undertaken with discussions grounded in the context of Scotland’s pre-existing administrative geography. The interviews were interpreted via a series of governance principles or themes that emerged from a review of relevant literature on the city-region, and a second subsequent review of literature on Scotland’s field service geography. The totality of the quantitative research constituted a comprehensive statement on the significance of city-regions as functional entities, with a ‘spatial mismatch’ evident between Scotland’s functional city-regions and Scotland’s pre-existing geoadministrative structure. With respect to the qualitative research (regional organising capacity and culture and identity) it was concluded that existing cooperative arrangements for city-regions in Scotland are inadequate, but that a fresh approach is necessary due to reluctance amongst many field service units to cooperate across administrative boundaries. This work serves as a reminder that irrespective of any compelling functional evidence, the city-region concept must be able to overcome or adapt to the political and cultural barriers to its practical implementation that inevitably face any normative geoadministrative proposition.

What is the relationship between ethnic heterogeneity and the ability of the poor to organize and influence democratic governments to improve their welfare? Political scientists and economists have argued that democracies are superior to non-democracies for improving poverty outcomes because they are advantaged with institutional mechanisms such as universal suffrage and majority rule. Yet, there are numerous cases where democracy has done little to help the poor. Through a series of essays, I examine the effects of ethnic heterogeneity of the poor on the effect of democracy and oil revenue on poverty. I argue that ethnic heterogeneity reduces the likelihood that poor citizens will organize and pressure political elites to provide public goods and services that improve their general welfare. As a result, democracy and oil revenue are less likely to improve poverty outcomes when the poor are ethnically heterogeneous compared to being homogeneous. The first chapter presents a cross-national study to help us understand the general effects of ethnic heterogeneity of the poor on the effects of democracy on poverty. The results are not statistically significant. It is not clear if the lack of significance is due to notable endogeneity issues or that the hypothesis is wrong. For that reason, the second chapter takes advantage of an institutional natural experiment in Indonesia to produce more reliable results. The results show that ethnic heterogeneity of the poor significantly affects the effect of elections on the majority of the dependent variables. In the third chapter, I test the effects of ethnic heterogeneity of the poor on the effect of oil revenue among Brazilian municipalities. The revenues local democratic governments depend upon increased significantly due to the sharp increase of offshore oil royalties and world oil prices from early 1990s to the early 2010s. This allows me to measure the effects of ethnic heterogeneity of the poor on the effect of oil revenue on poverty at the municipal level. Results suggest that ethnic heterogeneity of the poor does not significantly affect the effect of local oil revenue on poverty outcomes in Brazil.

Part of a new cohort of diplomatic actors, sub-state governments represent a particularly complex challenge for our understanding of international relations. These actors are both territorially constituted and governmental; they look and sound very similar to states. Crucially, however, they are not states at all. When paradiplomatic relations are conducted on the part of sub-state governments with a strong regional identity, in particular ‘stateless nations’, there can sometimes be challenge – implicit or explicit – to the authority of the state to speak for, or represent, its people. This thesis takes three such stateless nations: Wales, Scotland and Bavaria, and analyses their paradiplomatic activities. The unique political context in each of these case studies is used as a frame within which to understand and interpret both the motivations and implications of such activities. Using a conceptual toolkit less familiar to traditional paradiplomatic analysis, including sovereignty games, performativity and mimicry, the study explores the ways in which sub-state governments acquire international agency, and the extent to which this agency is contested by other actors. Despite the range in political ambitions in each of the stateless nations considered, the paradiplomatic activities they conducted were often remarkably similar. What differed, however, was the way that these activities were interpreted, depending on the political context and the tenor of inter-governmental relations within the state. The paradox of paradiplomacy is that in many ways it remains unremarkable in its day-to-day practices. Yet, at other times, sub-state governments use their international relationships to make important claims about their status and position within their state, the currency of exchanges becoming that rarefied concept: sovereignty. Using a marginal site of international relations such as paradiplomacy, this thesis explores the heterogeneity of the field and the variety of relationships that exist and persist within it.

Nigeria is beset with many educational, economic and social challenges, including poverty, unemployment, gender inequality, lack of skills and poor access to education, especially among young people. Lifelong learning is widely recognised as a means of addressing social injustices and economic instability in the 21st century. Although there has been much public discourse on lifelong learning (LLL) in Nigeria, the subject is under-researched. This study examines LLL policies and the practices that influence young adult engagement in lifelong learning, the pedagogies that influence the development of LLL skills, as well as the impact of lifelong learning on the transformation of young adults, and their communities in Nigeria. This study adopted a quasi-longitudinal case study that involved two methods of data collection: document analysis and semi-structured interviews, underpinned by a social constructivist perspective. The study involved analysis of three national policy documents in Nigeria: The National Policy on Education (2013); Nigeria-UNESCO: Revitalizing Adult and Youth Literacy (RAYL) (2012); and the National Universities Commission (NUC) Benchmark Minimum Academic Standards (BMAS) (2011). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 40 participants: national level policymakers (n=4); students (n=16), graduates (n=12), instructors (n=5), and management level officials (n=3) drawn from one institute (YCV) in Katsina State, Nigeria. The YCV is an LLL initiative that attempts to address social injustices and develop individuals’ lifelong learning skills for personal and economic growth. The YCV is a successful adult education initiative that empowers distressed young adults in Nigeria. While in Nigeria the predominant goal of LLL are social justice and economic growth this research shows that lifelong learning is difficult to implement in Nigeria. The triggers for participation in LLL are life transitions such as divorce, examination failures and few opportunities to find employment which demoralise young adults, as well as a need to update knowledge and provide community services. The findings suggest that pedagogy of practice informed by critical pedagogy promotes lifelong learning skills, and that the principles of critical pedagogy can transform graduates into becoming economically and socially active individuals within a very challenging economic, political and social context. The study contributes to the existing literature about the potential of LLL based on critical pedagogy to offer transformational experiences to young adults/adults. These include economic and social transformation beyond self-transformation to promotion of peace building, societal cohesion, social security and community wellbeing; a transition from ‘learning to earning; and a way to rebuild lives after divorce, particularly for women. The study concluded that the challenges to implementing lifelong learning in Nigeria are not only cultural or peoples’ attitude to learning but structural and institutional. The study recommends that the implementation of LLL should take into account local knowledge and structures based on critical pedagogy to address internal challenges rather than being guided by internationally agreed development targets.