In the Local Government Act 2000, central government mandated a change in political arrangements within English local authorities. Through introducing a blended separation of powers to the majority of local authorities, with a leader, cabinet and overview and scrutiny committees, the legislation moved the constitutional structure from a form of assembly government to a Westminster-style split between decision-makers and those who scrutinise those choices. One of the goals was to remove the party group grip on decision-making. Given the evidence of the strength of groups in authorities (Maud 1967, Widdicombe 1986, Copus 1999a) there are questions but no clear answers about how group behaviour has changed since this legislation (OPDM, 2002, Ashworth 2003, Copus & Leach, 2004, ELGNCE, 2004, 2006). This research assesses the impact of the change on major political parties. Due to the shift in the institutional environments, this thesis uses a rational choice institutionalist approach to consider how the legislation has affected groups; through assessing methods used to satisfice their goals. Using a mixed-methods approach incorporating survey research and case studies, the research has discovered that despite the reform to remove group influence, the legislation served to make local government more prone to domination by party groups.

This thesis examines how the process of outsourcing of public construction (OPC) projects is influenced by institutions and why. Extant literature focuses on explaining how outsourcing through competition improves efficiency with limited treatment of how institutions actually influence the OPC projects. The thesis develops an analytical framework for process-tracing that integrates institutional and social capital (SC) theories to examine what have hitherto been disparately employed to study their influence in policy reform implementation. By deploying this integrated framework, actors’ decision making in outsourcing process is analysed based on plural rationality at central (CG) and local government (LG) contexts. The thesis argues that actors in OPC simultaneously pursue material gains and SC investments while trying to minimise their transaction costs, in the process engaging in ‘forum shopping’ between formal and informal institutions. Depending on degree of social embeddedness, the process of outsourcing will incline to formality or informality. In the case of Uganda, findings indicate that the informal institutional regime dominates and no major difference in informal practices for both CG and LG levels exist although at CG level it may appear like formal institutions dominate in decision making. The thesis proposes that public policies should take cognisance of informal institutions as well as social structure in their design.

There are an increasing number of opportunities for community leaders to be involved in governing processes. However, the community leader literature fails sufficiently to distinguish the interaction of structure and agency. The thesis establishes a theoretical approach which places community leaders as ‘situated agents’. The thesis establishes a ‘reading-acting-effect’ model to examine how the readings of actors are translated into action and how they interpret the difference this makes. Case studies of two neighbourhoods in Sheffield reveal the changing influence of the community and of the state upon community leaders’ behaviour. In the early stages of development community leaders concentrate on the substantive difference their actions have in their community. The state plays a more significant role as community leaders begin to operate in governance arenas, making compromises to access state resources. State actors play important roles as rule makers and interpreters that affect how community leaders behave. Community leaders face a central dilemma between: modifying their behaviour to work with the state thereby increasing their opportunities to receive funding; and the freedom of working at a distance from the state without such support. Conflict can arise between community leaders as they adopt different positions in relation to the state based on their distinct interpretations of this dilemma.

The creation of eleven directly elected mayors in England between 2002 and 2005, as part of the Labour Government's wider local government reform, altered local governance in those localities. The 1998 White Paper Modern Local Government identified three key weaknesses in the previous local government system: a lack of leadership, legitimacy and accountability. The main question the thesis sought to answer was: what was the political difference made by the introduction of executive mayors in England.? The key issue in this study was to assess if executive mayors have improved the efficiency, the transparency or the accountability of local government. The investigation of the executive mayoral option employed an analytical framework to measure change on three dimensions of efficiency, transparency and accountability. To aid the investigation seven hypotheses were constructed from the government’s White Papers to explore various aspects of executive mayors and assist in providing generalisable conclusions about the introduction of directly elected mayors. Leadership and representation theories were used to operationalise the concepts of leadership, legitimacy and accountability. Models were developed which mapped the locus of power in the council's political space. Given the population of executive mayors was eleven local authorities for the period of the field research, a qualitative approach was adopted relying primarily on interviews augmented with documentary sources and observations. Election results were also analysed using conventional quantitative methods. With regard to elections, the study demonstrates that voters differentiate the office of executive mayor from other political posts. Other findings in this study indicate that one of the main political differences made by the introduction of executive mayors is the creation of a new balance between politicians and officials with the former being more dominant when determining policy matters while the senior officials taking the lead in administration and management. In addition, executive mayors have developed a better capability to challenge professional officers. The strength of executive mayors as leaders within their local authorities over the policy making process demonstrates a change from the operation of the previous system in England. The key person driving policy is now is the directly, clearly identifiable and more accountable executive mayor. This research has shown that directly elected mayors have made positive political differences which can be measured against the core goals of effective, transparent and accountable local government. Executive mayors demonstrate a continuity of governance in local government and have made a difference in the way local councils are run.

This PhD research focuses on rural governance in the context of Mainland China. It focuses on three aspects of the changing rural governance: 1) internalization of the state-sponsored reforms for rural democratization, 2) external intervention and mediation of the human agents for policy implementation, and 3) dispute settlement. Drawing upon the three above-mentioned aspects, this study aims to dissect the interactive processes of China’s rural governance over the ongoing urbanisation of small-to-medium-sized cities. The fieldwork utilizes iterative-inductive ethnography as the research methodology. It additionally adopts the theoretical framework of social constructionism and actor-oriented perspectives to interpret the changing rural governance and employs interface analysis to examine the ethnographic data. It finds that the outcome of rural governance in the selected villages is greatly influenced by the interaction of the human agents’ capabilities and the (emerging) structural forces. In particular, various actors not only construct the emerging power structure but make use of their own knowledge, power relations, discursive practices, and innovate strategies to accommodate, negotiate and compromise with the external forces to solve problems emerging out of rural governance. Simultaneously, structural factors limit the scope of the actors’ choices, and the opportunities for strategies concerning rural governance. In terms of the representativeness of the selected samples, it firstly could reflect on the possible trajectories of rural governance over the next decade for the urbanisation of small-to-medium-sized cities, which is promoted by both the central and local governments. Secondly, the selected samples represent the changing rural governance in villages that feature Hakka culture and history. Further research should be taken on villages consisting of different cultural contexts and political-economic conditions in order to expand on this research as the representativeness of the samples is limited to the specific contexts under study.

The use of the internet and related information and communication technologies (ICT) in public administration (known as 'e-government') has gained notable space within the processes of public sector reform. Arguably, ICT provide an attractive strategy to reorganize internal government tasks, routines and processes and to make them more efficient, responsive as well as accountable to citizens. Yet, the linkages between public values and e-government programmes remain understudies or taken for granted. My research focuses on this particular aspect of public sector reforms and organising. It engages with the debates towards modernisation of central government services while contributing to discussion of the relation between technologically induced programmes and public values over time. Using critical discourse analysis, I trace the discourses on public values and technology within a longitudinal case of a technology-enabled platform to facilitate foreign trade regulations in Mexico - the Mexican Single Window for Foreign Trade. In my empirical analysis, I examine a combination of key government texts and extensive data from fieldwork to address two related questions: what public values are presented, enacted or marginalised during the trajectory of the case, and how these values are enacted and operationalised into technology over time. The analysis reveals four distinctive discourses on public values and technology: 'technical efficiency', 'legality and honesty', 'robustness' and '(forced) cooperation'. The analysis shows that while the technical efficiency cluster - commonly associated to the new public management ethos - is dominating, it cohabits with and is reinforced by other values more broadly related to traditional public administration and the bureaucratic ethos - that is, legality and honesty. In addition, the analysis shows that these four distinctive discourses have been materialised in technology in different degrees, giving rise to tensions and contestation over time. In light of the findings, I draw implications for theorizing public values and technology innovation within public sector reforms in a given context.

Between 1990 and 2010 sub-Saharan Africa experienced some of the highest levels of deforestation anywhere in the world. The problem has been particularly acute in what are known as the miombo woodlands of southern Africa. These occupy a unique ecological niche and are crucial to the livelihoods of millions of people in the region, yet are disappearing rapidly. The aim of this thesis is to identify the structural causes of this phenomenon in two of the miombo countries, Zambia and Mozambique. Standard ‘resource based’ explanations for deforestation in both countries tend to focus primarily on demographic and economic factors, emphasising the impact of economic reforms, population growth, rural migration, poverty, minimal access to electricty and a lack of institutional resources. However I argue that these explanations do not account for Mozambique’s relatively better record on deforestation during the period in question, and that a more convincing account is offered by a ‘governance based’ explanation, which emphasises different forms of forest governance and institutional arrangements affecting the forest sector in each country. Specifically, Mozambique has fared better than Zambia thanks to its more secure system of traditional land tenure, the implementation of more progressive legislation and a sustained commitment to community based natural resource management. The implication is that future initiatives to curb deforestation in these countries should concentrate on addressing institutional and policy based shortcomings before implementing market based mechanisms designed to encourage conservation.

The thesis is concerned with the evaluation of factors in Local Authority housing maintenance requirements in the City of Manchester. Since 1982, expenditure in housing maintenance and repair works has consistently accounted for more than 50% of total expenditure on maintenance and repair work. In turn, maintenance and repair work accounts for almost 50% of total construction output in the UK. Given this level of sectorial contribution, it is apt to understand the factors which affect defects in dwelling buildings and hence maintenance requirements. This thesis reviews the catalogue of building defect causative factors leading to the conclusion that social and tenants' characteristics are equally important. The study is based, chiefly, on a postal questionnaire survey of building surveyors involved in day-to-day identification of defects as well as tenants of the sampled dwellings; and computer cost records of maintenance on dwellings within the sample. A total of 45 completed questionnaires from building surveyors, and 252 Council tenants with corresponding computer cost records formed the data base for the analyses conducted. The building surveyors' questionnaire assisted in the identification of defect-cause criteria which relate to the internal attribute of the dwelling building. The consistency of the resulting data was confirmed by the use of Kendall Coefficient of Concordance. An analysis is described of the manipulated data set using regression analysis. The analysis found that Changing standard contributes (38%) of (building structure related factors') impact on maintenance requirement variance, construction factors (23%), design factors (22%), vandalism (12%) and age factors (6%). The intercorrelations among these five defect-cause criteria within the building object necessitated further analysis using the principal component analysis. This resulted in the extraction of nine significant factors showing how the initial five factors combine to exert their influence on the building. In all, this family of building structure related factors contribute 32% of the variation in maintenance requirements. Combining the data from the tenants' questionnaire, computer cost information and dwelling survey, regression model testing was employed to identify the significant factors. This was facilitated with the use of three indices of housing maintenance requirements as the dependent variables, namely; reactive maintenance cost, property condition and satisfaction among tenants. Nine factors (six of which relate to tenant's characteristics) pertaining to tenant, environmental and housing management were significantly influential.

This thesis examines the way in which decisions about the treatment and disposal of solid waste are analysed in the English counties. The emphasis is on decisions with strategic dimensions rather than on tactical issues relating to plant operations. On the basis of an examination of legislation, government advice to local authorities, and literature from both the political and management sciences, alternative hypothesis sets about the analytical process which might be expected to exist are developed. These hypotheses are then tested, using evidence, drawn from surveys, interviews and field studies. A justification for the use of multiple hypotheses and multiple data sources which centres around the trade off between the precision of a result and its importance is offered in the thesis. The evidence supports the conclusion that the analysis process in existence can best be viewed as an attempt at rational comprehensive planning but one which is severely constrained in various ways. It is argued that the process is a barrier to both effective and efficient operations. The final chapters of the thesis adopt a more reformist approach. It is argued that collection and disposal systems should be recombined and that co-operation between county authorities should be encouraged. An appropriate analytical process is also defined.

Uganda has been considered one of Africa's few "success stories" over the past decade, an example of how a country can be transformed through a committed state bureaucracy. The thesis questions this view by looking at the experiences of development and change in a subparish in eastern Uganda. From this more local-level perspective, the thesis discusses the weakness of the state in the countryside, and incorporates the importance of religious and customary institutions. In place of a narrow view of politics, focused on reforms and policies coming from above, which rarely reach rural areas in a consistent or predictable way, the thesis describes political developments within a rural community. The thesis rests on two premises. First, that the state in rural Uganda has been too weak to support an effective bureaucratic presence in the countryside. Second, that politics at the local-level is an "open-ended" business, better understood through investigating a range of institutional spaces and activities, rather than a particular set of actions, or a single bureaucracy. Oledai sub-parish, which provides the empirical material for the thesis, was far removed from the idea of state-sponsored success described in the literature. Villagers had to contend with a history of violence, with recent impoverishment, and with the reality that the rural economy was unimportant in maintaining the structures of the government system. The thesis shows that the marginalisation of the countryside came at a time when central and local government structures had become increasingly reliant on funding from abroad. Aside from the analysing the weakness of the state bureaucracy, the thesis goes on to discuss broader changes in the life of the sub-parish, including the impact of a violent insurgency in the late 1980s. The thesis also looks at the role of churches and burial societies, institutions which have been largely ignored by the literature on political developments in Uganda. Religious and customary institutions, as well as the village court, provided spaces where political goals, such as settling disputes, building a career, or acquiring wealth, could be pursued.