This thesis seeks to provide a qualitative and comparative account of politics and power in two densely-populated Scottish suburban communities: the former Police Burghs of Partick and Govan. These are communities whose rich urban history has been relatively underexplored by dint of their proximity to Glasgow and the fact that they were formally outside the city boundaries until 1912. The study aims to redress the balance in the burghs’ favour, making a substantial qualitative, analytical contribution to the wider historiography of political change in the British Isles, while simultaneously adding a comparative empirical case study to the conceptual debate over centralism versus localism. Foremost among the historiographical concerns addressed are civic nationalism and local self-government, class politics, the rise of Labour, including ‘Red Clydeside’, and the interlinked electoral demise of Liberalism. This qualitative study of political change in two populous and pioneering ‘locally self-governed’ communities therefore goes beyond merely chronicling Partick’s and Govan’s creation as burghs, their subsequent development and annexation to Glasgow. Rather, it examines the dynamics of ideological and party-political change in two significant urban localities from the mid-Victorian period up to the arrival of near-democratic electoral politics after the First World War. Close attention is therefore paid throughout to political rhetoric in relation to the local experience of ideological, institutional and electoral change. The central contention of this work is as follows. Partick’s and Govan’s political and administrative development from the 1850s to the 1920s is best understood within the wider ideological context of the rise and fall of ‘local self-government’. ‘Local self-government’ was a mid-nineteenth century bourgeois Liberal solution to the myriad problems associated with urban industrial life in the Scottish context. In Govan’s and Partick’s cases, ‘local self-government’ was in large part sustained by the promotion of local civic nationalism, albeit this phenomenon persisted in the Scottish context until at least the 1975 local government reorganisation: long after the burghs and the legislative framework that allowed their creation were extinguished. By 1912, when the burghs were absorbed into Greater Glasgow, the ideology of ‘local self-government’ had been gradually eroded by large-scale ‘municipal socialism’ combined with ‘national efficiency’. In broad-brush terms, it is argued here that the transition between these dominant ideals mirrored, and in some ways pre-figured, the rise of Victorian Liberalism and its eventual eclipse by independent Labour. These developments and the political conflict which accompanied them are traced throughout the study with careful analysis of the political discourse from various ‘players’ in both communities from the formation of the burghs until their annexation, and even beyond, to the electoral politics of the early post-1918 period. It is shown that notwithstanding its intrinsic merits in theory, ‘local self-government’ as practised in Partick and Govan was often undermined by hypocrisy and self-interest from the burghs’ civic leaders. Analysis of the political culture and traditions of anti-landlordism in the former burghs also sheds new light on the phenomenon of ‘Red Clydeside’. Partick and Govan were shipbuilding boom towns from the mid-nineteenth century and throughout the years examined in this study. While both communities experienced rapid industrialisation and demographic growth in the mid-nineteenth century, the latter burgh was more populous and proletarian than the former. The implications of this for their comparative political development were significant, as is outlined below. Both communities’ rapid rise in the mid-nineteenth century prompted them to adopt the ‘populous place’ provisions of the 1850 and 1862 General Police Acts (respectively) to become quasi-autonomous police burghs, a distinctively Scottish form of municipality. Both communities jealously maintained their independence from the neighbouring city of Glasgow through several aggressive ‘annexation’ attempts until they finally amalgamated with the city in 1912. By 1904, the burghs had grown so fast that they were two of only nine Scottish towns and cities (including Glasgow and Edinburgh) whose population exceeded 50,000. As major urban centres by the 1900s, their political development clearly merits more than parochial interest. The thesis is divided into two complementary sections. The first considers the development of key themes in the burghs’ civic life, including the Liberal ethos of local self-government, industrial paternalism and the emergence of class-based politics. This begins with an examination of the reasons why Partick and Govan adopted the General Police Acts in 1852 and 1864 respectively, followed by an appraisal of the municipal policies pursued in both burghs’ formative years. There is especial focus on Partick, as one of Scotland’s first ‘populous place’ burghs. The focus then moves on chronologically to consider the ways in which both burghs responded to a number of critical episodes in the late 1860s and 1870s, with reference to what the community leaders perceived as threats to their existence emanating from outside and inside the burgh boundaries. From the mid 1880s until the 1912 annexation, the Burgh Halls became theatres of partisan and ideological conflict. The 1886 Home Rule crisis triggered a split in the ranks of the local Liberal Party, which among other things had the effect of introducing openly party politics to the municipal scene. The later municipal chapters examine the competing visions of the nature, purpose and extent of municipal power proffered by Liberal, Liberal Unionist, Conservative and Labour councillors, in addition to identifying tensions regarding temperance and sectarianism. This is followed by a longer term analysis of the reasons why both communities amalgamated with Glasgow in 1912, including discussion of annexation in the context of wider ideological debates about ‘municipal socialism’ and ‘national efficiency’ against the formerly prevailing ethos of local self-government. The second and final section of the thesis considers parliamentary politics from the burghs’ 1885 formation into county divisions of Lanarkshire, each returning one MP to Westminster. This includes scrutiny of the extent to which both communities deserved their reputation as ‘strongholds’ of Liberalism in the period before 1914. Consideration is given to the Home Rule split and its implications, and to the extent to which Labour was able to dent the dominance of the Liberals and Unionists before the war. Here, as with the earlier municipal analysis, much consideration is given to paternalism and sectarianism. Neil Maclean’s precocious victory in Govan in 1918 owed much to the community’s more proletarian character than Partick, and to Labour’s emerging ability to transcend sectarian boundaries there; an ability which had been evidenced in local municipal and parliamentary politics since the 1880s, well before the upheaval of annexation and the cataclysm of war. The specific focus of this study does not detract from its general contribution to historiography as outlined above. Nevertheless, it is conceded that the emphasis on municipal and parliamentary politics, especially electoral discourse, is overwhelmingly and necessarily qualitative in approach. In consequence, the war years are discussed only briefly, due to the associated abeyance of municipal and parliamentary contests from 1911 until 1918. And as this is not a social or economic history of the former burghs, it is not intended to be read as either, still less to substitute for them.

Governance is the process by which power and authority are exercised in a society by which government, the private sector, and citizens' groups articulate their interests, mediate their differences, and exercise their legal rights and obligations. Governance in public organisations is different from that in private organisations as they both possess different types of institutional stakeholders. Governments are directly answerable to the public. Therefore, it is essential for governments to be transparent in order to avoid any triggers in the accountability process that might adversely affect people's trust. The proper creation, capture, distribution and preservation of judicial evidence in the form of records can help avoid these problems. A trusted government is one that can demonstrate its accountability and transparency and is continually striving to improve value delivery and increase cost-effectiveness. The freedom of information demands governments to be more transparent and accountable for their actions and decisions. Whilst governments promote corporate governance to provide transparency and objectivity it can only give stakeholders better tools to do their job, it does not and cannot do it for them. The need for managing risk and audit culture is imperative to balance and satisfy the expectation of citizen and stakeholders. The accountability of a government can arguably only be achieved when it demonstrates considerable transparency, which in turn can only happen when trust is supported by authentic and reliable records. The records management community claims that records have to be preserved for accountability, but they rarely explore what 'accountability' is and what role records play in the accountability processes. In addition, the contribution of records management to good governance and accountability are often not recognised by other professions and management. In an age where corporate governance and transparency is a global agenda, it is imperative for the records management community to scrutinise their present role and approach in order to change the perception by other professions about their contribution towards achieving organisational goals in a highly regulated and compliant bound environment in the public and private sectors. The contention of this thesis is that record keeping is just a tool that ensures the availability of evidence for the accountability of governance, which in turn relies on the ethical standard of those involved.

ABSTRACT Subnational foreign activities are a new and relatively unexplored aspect of the international system. The absence of clear and universal rules creates an ambiguous political playground that can be misused by both states and their subnational governmental units for reaching their foreign policy and foreign trade goals. Worldwide, different patterns for subnational foreign activities in federal states have emerged. For example, in the United States, member states of the federation are fighting over foreign investments mainly. In Germany, on the other hand, members of the federation have delegated their rights in terms of foreign activities to the federal government. In general, federations with long democratic traditions have managed to introduce the formulas for containing subnational foreign activities. In Russia, in contrast, the breakdown of the Soviet Union confronted both the federal centre and members of federation with a fundamentally new situation. In Soviet times, the territorial units of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (RSFSR), were of administrative nature only, i.e. they lacked the political dimension. Some of the Russian regions were using their newly-gained freedom for the purpose of challenging the federal centre. Pskov region of Russia has been one of the most active subnational actors.

This thesis argues that civil war has a significant, lasting impact on the formation, development and institutionalization of parties and party systems. Through in-depth examination of the cases of El Salvador and Cambodia it shows that dominant party systems and uneven institutionalization of individual political parties prevalent in post-war societies can to a not insignificant extent be attributed to war-related factors such as war-time origins of parties, the way in which war ended, the nature of the peace agreement, and post-war design of electoral, media and other public institutions. Its focus on party and party system institutionalization is rooted in the Western-oriented party politics literature, which suggests that the nature of electoral competition, the impact of societal cleavages and the workings of formal political institutions are primary explanatory factors. By contrast, this thesis argues that in non-Western developing countries affected by civil war, war-related factors and post-war security, socio-economic and political conditions are equally if not more important for understanding post-war party development. Through a structured focused comparison of party and party system institutionalization in El Salvador and Cambodia based on extensive interviews and field research, the thesis demonstrates that the war-time origins of the main Salvadoran and Cambodian parties have left a deep imprint on their organizational structures and leadership style, just as war-time political exclusion set the tone for unbalanced party competition after the war. Although El Salvador’s party system is more institutionalized than Cambodia’s and there are many other differences, there are also clear cross-national patterns of unequal individual party institutionalization and ruling party dominance that are a product of the war. Given that institutionalized parties and a competitive party system are important ingredients for a healthy democracy these findings are important for understanding the challenges and prospects of democratization in these and other post-war countries.

This thesis asks whether the internet can at all re-configure political participation into a more inclusive experience for disabled users, enhancing their stakes in citizenship. This issue assumes particular relevance at a time in which, amidst the worst economic crisis in decades, the rights of those traditionally excluded from civic life are at risk of being compromised even further. In an effort to transcend the restrictive access/accessibility framework applied so far in disability and new media research, this project focused on the “digitalisation” of disability activism in the wake of the radical welfare reform introduced by the UK government between 2010 and 2012. A combination of emerging digital methods and established social science techniques were employed to map and analyse the groups involved in opposing proposed changes to disability welfare online. These included: hyperlink network analysis; an “inventory” of online media; content analysis of Facebook conversations; and semi-structured interviews with key figures from a variety of campaigning groups. Overall, this work exposed an evolution in the ecology of British disability activism involving both changes in the way in which existing organisations operate as well as the emergence of new, online-based players. In particular, three main group types were identified. These included: formal disability organisations (both “professionalised” charities and member-led groups); experienced disabled activists who experimented with e-campaigning for the first time; and a network of young disabled bloggers-turned-activists who operated exclusively online and rapidly gained visibility on both the internet and traditional mass media (i.e. print and broadcast). Each of these phenomena was explored in detail through the analysis of three emblematic case studies (The Hardest Hit; Disabled People Against Cuts; The Broken of Britain). Several findings emerged that invited reflections on both the changing nature of disability activism in the digital age and the significance of the internet as a civic resource for disadvantaged groups more broadly. To assess the influence of contextual factors on these trends, the online experience of British formal disability organisations was compared to that of their American counterparts, which in the same period were opposing proposals for drastic cuts to federal Medicaid funding. In Britain, established players were found to be blending traditional repertoires with participatory online tools in a bid to “survive” the pressure of changing user-expectations and the fast pace of contemporary politics. Meanwhile, a new generation of self-appointed disabled “leaders” used online media to construct a radically different form of disability activism. This was focused more on issues than ideology, aspiring to redesigning protest in a less contentious and arguably more effective fashion. Nevertheless, the high centralisation and rigid leadership style adopted by these very same campaigners also cast doubts on their ability to promote a more inclusive campaigning experience for online supporters, whose involvement ultimately constituted a form of “peer-mediated” citizenship rather than direct empowerment. At the same time, the comparative part of this study captured a counter-intuitive picture for which British formal disability organisations were ahead of their American counterparts in terms of online innovation. This generated some important reflections on the very nature of “context” in online politics with particular reference to the relationship between systemic and circumstantial factors, as well as the importance of acute crisis moments as triggers of progress in e-activism.

This thesis seeks to challenge the entrenched academic consensus that there are no opportunities for welfare state expansion in liberal welfare regimes in the face of neo-liberal economic ideology and new public management reforms to decision-making. It does so though an examination of social policy expansion in early years education and care (EYEC) in England and Canada/Ontario; two liberal welfare states. This thesis contends that EYEC policy, often neglected in comparative welfare literature, is an important social dimension of the welfare state which can potentially alter the relationship between the state, parents and children. Utilising a multi-level discursive institutionalist framework the thesis examines the processes underlying EYEC policy innovations in the two cases. Its first major contribution is an innovative framework of six competing and contrasting discursive EYEC frames and the evidence and expertise pivotal to them. Though this lens, the thesis identifies common institutional reforms that have altered practices of policy making; presenting openings in the bureaucratic structure to new forms of expertise and particular EYEC frames. It also extends the analysis above the national context to examine the influence of the OECD as a form of ideational pressure and the extent of ideational circulation between the two cases. In so doing this thesis captures complex rather than linear trajectories of development and moments of convergence and divergence between the two cases. This thesis finds that in both cases a multiplicity of competing frames and ‘evidence-based’ forms of policy innovation have led to strategic incoherence and an unstable basis for the concrete implementation EYEC policy.

This thesis presents an interpretivist analysis of institutional development in the English regional assemblies. It presents a history of institutional development in the regions, arriving at a conceptualization of this tier as a site of ‘institutional ambiguity.’ Exploring the theoretical bases of institutions and conducting a thorough critique of the schools of institutionalism, this thesis takes forward the theory of ‘constructivist institutionalism.’ A theoretical framework focussed on the processes of institutional design and change is built from constructivist institutionalism, as is a complementary and coherent methodological package to explore the empirical sites of the West Midlands and North West regional assemblies. The concepts of ‘frames’ and ‘stories’ are set out as interpretivist tools through which the primary interview data is analysed, to capture the development of the democratic institution of representation as it relates to the local government and stakeholder actors involved in these two regional assemblies. This thesis finds actors engaged in interplay between structure and agency while contributing to the processes of institutional design and change. Actors draw together their ideas with the pre-existing institutional context, relating them together in discursive constructions (frames, stories) that underpin their strategic-relational action, which in turn underpins the institutions of the assemblies. Regional representation transpires to mimic local governmental norms due to the dominant influence of the pre-existing context.

This study seeks to understand the relationship between decentralisation and human resource management in Botswana and South Africa. The study is situated within the context of the New Public Management (NPM) that has influenced the Human Resource Management reforms that the two countries aspire to adopt. This study’s main finding is that although strategic human resource management (SHRM) and decentralisation are frequently assumed to go together and are both advocated by the BrettonWoods institutions, in the cases researched SHRM reforms have been accompanied by a tendency towards centralisation. This implies a trade-off between SHRM and decentralisation in Botswana and South Africa. The study used a mixed methods approach consisting of both qualitative and quantitative research methods, applied to a sample of local authorities in Botswana and the neighbouring North West province of South Africa. In both countries the implementation of HRM reforms in local government has been slow due to other considerations – political factors in the case of South Africa and professional bureaucratic issues in Botswana, reflecting the different path dependencies of the two countries. This study argues that from the cases studied even though developing countries may implement similar reforms based on similar policy advice or prescription, a combination of factors such as social and organisational culture that are not transferable between countries account for the difference in outcomes.

This is a study of class and gender in everyday life on a housing estate in the Midlands. Based on extensive ethnographic research in a pub on the estate, it looks at how identities are constructed in the negotiation of work, relationships, children, and local ‘officials’. It considers how social and cultural capital is formed against the odds and against a widespread pathologising of those struggling to get by. It presents a detailed and contextual understanding of (white) working class identities in the context of neo-liberalism. In doing so, it questions standard sociological accounts of class as well as the official discourse of public policy which represents disadvantage in terms of ‘responsibility’ and ‘aspirations’, while ignoring structural disadvantage.

In January 1912, the Bolsheviks became a separate Party, as opposed to being merely a faction of the RSDLP. Lenin's initial problem was to convince both the leaders of the Second International and his own middle echelon leaders inside Russia that Bolshevism was distinct from Menshevism. This proved difficult before August 1914. The War made the distinction clearer, but also gave rise to an international tendency, with support inside the Bolshevik Party, to the Left even of Lenin. Inside Russia too, joint work with SR Maximalists fostered a kind of Left Populist Bolshevism among some of the Party rank and file. After the February Revolution, the Right Bolsheviks were pushing for a reunification with the Mensheviks, the Left Populist Bolsheviks began to organise nationally and, as the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee lacked authority, the Party was on the verge of a split. Lenin was urgently recalled from abroad. His intervention in the faction fight marked the end of one period of Party history and the beginning of the next. For the first time, the Party leadership was on the spot, and this contact with the rank and file enabled Lenin to clarify and develop ideas he had been formulating in his disputes abroad. The result was a new policy for the Party, quite unmistakeably distinct from Menshevism.