The study of e-governance in developing nations is informed by the idea that new technologies, reshaping the very nature of public services, can generate better outcomes in their provision. Beyond objective changes in governance infrastructures, the subjective perception of the state, as it is constructed by service recipients, is exposed to a parallel process of change, whose study has generated a novel research domain in the field of egovernance for development. With a view of contributing to this domain, this thesis studies the role of ICTs in processes of image formation on the state, as experienced by citizens in a developing country context. The theory on which the thesis is developed views technology as embedded in its sociopolitical context, and conceives e-governance as implicated in the reconstruction of images of the state. This vision is applied to the computerization of the main food security programme in India, the Public Distribution System (PDS), as it has been devised and implemented in the state of Kerala. Through an interpretive case study of the object at the core of computerization, known as the Electronic Public Distribution System or e-PDS, the thesis investigates the ICT-led processes of image construction by the state, and the ways in which citizens, confronted with new images, structure their perception of these. Through inclusion of front-end PDS services in existing infrastructure, and through the inscription of a clear problem-solution nexus in e-PDS, the state is found, as expected, to be using e-governance as a means to reconstruct its own image. At the same time, though, the loci of image formation that are found in citizens (direct experience, social networks, and political circuits) systematically escape control by governmental action, and seem to be, in fact, only marginally touched by the ICT-induced reinvention of governance. The thesis results, therefore, in an extension of existing theory in this respect: the capability of the state to reconstruct its image, through the usage of new technologies, is limited by the spaces of image formation which citizens experience in their daily lives.

The critical gap in scholarship on power-seeking insurgent groups is to understand whether those groups adapt violent expression as a function of popular support. If such a relationship does exist, how does it work and under what conditions do violent acts increase or decrease? To understand these questions, one must understand that the ideals that make up power-seeking insurgent groups are malleable, requiring stratagem and guile in the face of internal and external violent and non-violent influence. To sustain the capacity to project violence, a power-seeking insurgent group must maintain the support of a significant portion of its host population. Without the populace’s tolerance or acceptance of violence, this agenda would not be supported over time. This reality creates a dynamic between the insurgent group and its host population, which is bi-directional, and creates profound implications for the nature of violent expression and is largely based upon environmental conditions. This research delves into these questions about insurgent groups by developing a case study on the power-seeking insurgent group Hamas and its host population, the Palestinian people. The empirical examination begins with the group’s formation in 1987 (and refers to foundations much earlier) and ends with the events of June 2014. During this period, the group, like other insurgent groups, has been suspended between its quest to achieve the values of its ardent supporters and the desire to grow popular support. By slightly modifying Max Weber’s theoretical premise that political groups must balance values with responsibilities, we can better understand how Hamas has managed the tension between supporters who demand continued violence against Israel and those that do not. With newly assembled datasets constructed by the author on Hamas’s violent acts and public statements, Israeli Targeted Killings, historical measures of popular support and extensive field interviews, the thesis offers a unique theoretical perspective on the nature of insurgent group violence by demonstrating under what conditions the group exercises violent resistance or refrains from doing so. For example, the research shows that Hamas violence against Israel follows Palestinians’ support for violence, countering the commonly held idea that Hamas acts as a vanguard of the Palestinian people. It also shows that the nature and method of Hamas violence against Israel changed once it had territorial control of Gaza. Finally, the methodological approach used in this case study can serve as a model to better understand the origins and dynamics of powerseeking insurgent groups elsewhere.

This thesis is centrally concerned with the ‘democratic debate’ and assessing the prospects for democratic transition in contemporary China. The first part of the thesis (including Chapters 1 and 2) reviews the (primarily) Western academic literature on democracy and democratisation. It is argued that while this literature is useful-up to a point-in understanding how the debate of democratisation is unfolding in China, and the processes that are generating political reforms and other changes that are conducive to democracy, it has wholly neglected the specificity of the Chinese case. The third chapter of the thesis duly embarks on a discussion of both the history of debate and discussion in China historically, arguing that this debate and discussion has to be understood in the context of Chinese history and culture specifically. This chapter identifies two strands of thought about democracy among academic commentators in China: first those who foresee a swift transition to democracy and the ‘gradualists’, who are primarily concerned with how problems of attendant social and political instability will impact on the prospects for democratisation. The second half of the thesis assesses the impact of Chinese economic reforms since the late 1970s, along with contemporary globalization and China’s growing integration into the global economy on the trajectory of political change in China. It explores important political changes within the regime, the emerging civil society forces, focusing specifically on changing state-society relations evidenced in growing village autonomy, changes in press media, and in other areas. The thesis combines the technique of discourse analysis (‘reading’ and analysing the changing discourse among state and civil society actors, including official political documents and speeches; and media -television and newspapers- and NGO sources) with an assessment of institutional changes within the party (elite), changes in power structures (the limited diffusion of power to civil society through electoral reform and changes in media operation and control), and changing state-society relations.

The purpose of this thesis is to understand the changing nature of contemporary China's state and society relationship by focusing on the construction of the relationship between newly emerging non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the state. The term "construction" refers to the process in which China NGOs emerge, struggle for existence, negotiate with state organizations and other social agents. In this process, how China's NGOs link with the state policies of both local and national levels, practices of both local government officers and the government organizations of superior branches is of the most interest. It has been found that Chinese social organizations often come to be congruent with the state at both local level and national policy level. Through the articulatory elements, which are the theoretical tools borrowed from post-Marxist theories, the state and the social organizations are integrated as if they are in a coherent whole under the macro state policies. Such pro forma consistency between state and social organizations provides legitimacy and room for social organizations to develop their own values and practices, which actually do not completely coincide with the state dominant orientations. A civil society constituted by social organizations with different value pursuits is likely emerging in China.

Successful delivery of public service depends on how the relationships are forged by the actors (organizations) involved in service provision in a given socioeconomic and political context. By applying Agency Theory to the accountability features of service transaction and Activity Theory as a tool to define relationships, I have demonstrated that the public sector (District Governments) exhibits a more liberal attitude towards relationships with community based organizations (Water Users' Committees) in the provision of rural drinking water, while being more formal in relationships with the technical service providers (NGOs). The resolution of the dilemma regarding whether to choose trust-based or more formal contractual relationships with community and service providers in service provision, depends on how effectively the public sector builds their capacity to monitor, supervise and enforce the terms of the service provision relationship. The study of the application of accountability features in the service delivery transaction helps us to understand how a government organization structures its relationships with community organizations and with others, by using either a social or a market approach. The research also reveals that it is difficult to assign accountability in the collaborative network type of service provision, particularly for the provision of public goods and services, which demands a greater level of formal accountability to legitimize the functioning of the government.

This thesis presents a development of the concept of post-liberalism to analyse processes of statebuilding in Central Asia by the example of Kyrgyzstan from a decolonial angle. Recent debates in peace, conflict and intervention studies have conceived of ‘post-liberal’ and ‘hybrid forms of peace’ as modalities of resistance against and re-negotiation of a globally dominant ‘liberal peace’ template promoted by Western governments and the international intervention architecture. This research proposes to critically reconsider these debates by introducing ‘imaginaries of statebuilding’ – understood as mental constructs structuring people’s thoughts and actions – through which the study captures the complex and contradictory processes of reception, adoption and resistance against globally dominant notions of capitalist economic development, democracy, and peacebuilding and security practices. Practices of peacebuilding and community security – and their embeddedness in the post-liberal trajectory of statebuilding – are analysed by the example of local crime prevention centres, territorial youth councils, and a national level NGO network working on police reform and participatory provision of public security. The research demonstrates how exclusion, structural violence and precarity are reproduced and feed into patterns of post-conflict governmentality which exist in sync with seemingly emancipatory and contextually meaningful ways of coexistence and steps towards institutional reform.

This study is about public sector performance measurement in the context of developing economies; more specifically, the study focuses on local government performance measurement systems as applied in Indonesia. Although there have been numerous research studies examining performance measurement, most empirical work has been undertaken in the context of developed economies. Performance measurement research in the milieu of developing economies is still very much underdeveloped and the progress is considerably much slower than those in developed economies. This study adopts an interpretive approach and applied case study research method in order, to develop an understanding of a) what drives the new performance measurement b) how it is designed and c) how it is used? The findings show that performance measurement in the context of developing economies tends to be driven by different reasons than compared to those developed economies. The findings also indicated developing economies encounter various challenges in designing and implementing performance measurement which eventually affected the use and usefulness of performance measurement. This study thus contributes to improve our understanding of the design, implementation and use of performance measurement in the context of developing economies. More specifically, it improves our understanding regarding (i) internal and external driving forces for performance measurement initiatives in the developing economies, (ii) the effectiveness of design, implementation and use, (iii) technical, organisational and institutional factors influencing design, implementation and use and the complex interactive effects of these three categories of factors, (iv) the interdependence between design, implementation and use, and (v) the complex conflicts of interest among different stakeholders in this context.

This research sought to examine the relationship between material and virtual space for Transnational Advocacy Network members in Manila, Bangkok and Jakarta. In the decade since the seminal work of Keck and Sikkink’s ‘Activists Beyond Borders’ there have been significant technological advancement and the ensuing literature has positively portrayed the possibilities for network members and other activists. Through extensive semi-structured interviews with members of Transnational Women’s Networks in Jakarta, Bangkok and Manila and thorough review of the literature it sought to establish the relationship between traditional, material spaces and emergent virtual spaces across four main themes; access to technology, relationships, freedom in virtual space and collective identity. These themes emerged from the fieldwork and presented themselves as trends within the literature which then led to their consideration within this research. This work argues that there is a continued relationship between material geography and virtual space and that an individual or groups physical location continues to have overriding implications on their online presence both in terms of their direct access, legislative obstacles and their perceptions of relationships and identity.

The 1979 Islamic Revolution of Iran was based and formed upon the concept of Khomeinism, the religious, political, and social ideas of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini. While the Iranian revolution was carried out with the slogans of independence, freedom, and Islamic Republic, Khomeini's framework gave it a specific impetus for the unity of people, religious culture, and leadership. Khomeinism was not just an effort, on a religious basis, to alter a national system. It included and was dependent upon the projection of a clash beyond a “national” struggle, including was a clash of ideology with that associated with the United States. Analysing the Iran-US relationship over the past century and Khomeini’s interpretation of it, this thesis attempts to show how the Ayatullah projected "America" versus Iranian national freedom and religious pride. This projection used national interest and the religious and social culture of Iranians to mobilise the masses to overthrow a secular and pro-American political system, replacing it with an Islamic, anti-American system. However, while anti-Americanism was an essential part of Khomeinism, it was a conditional and impermanent concept. As the historical investigation shows, hostility between Iranian and American communities has been exceptional for much of the period since 1850. That recognition, as well as the critique of Khomeinism, offers possibilities for improvement in future relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the West, especially the US.

This thesis is an examination of human rights and constitutional development in Tanzania Mainland. The colonial and post-colonial history is used to analyse the development of human rights struggles, as well as institutions such as the Bill of Rights in the recent development of multi-party democracy. The thesis intends to establish that in spite of global factors such as pressure for democratisation from international institutions, the achievement of the Bill of Rights in Tanzania Mainland is part of a wider rights struggle of the people of Tanzania. The effective legal and political implementation of specific rights such as the right to vote, freedom of association and assembly reflect the state of that struggle. The thesis further seeks to establish that while the government sponsored the enactment of the Bill of Rights in 1984 and the re-introduction of multi-partism in 1992, it has always preferred to exercise extreme control over the enjoyment of political rights. This has often involved curtailing the establishment and free operation of institutions of popular democracy. The thesis goes on to suggest that unless a democratic culture and civil society are restored in the country, the success of the rights struggles of the people will be far-fetched. Together with the above it is argued that the struggle for rights could be enhanced by working from what is provided as legal rights, all interested parties pushing for the expansion of the human rights field. This can only be attained if the majority of Tanzanians are made aware of the existence of such rights through legal literacy programs.