Peasants, workers, worker-peasants, nomenklatura and the state in northern Poland’s ‘Recovered Territories’ have employed a strategy they call ‘kombinacja’ to survive economic transitions into and out of socialism from 1945 to the present. Kombinacja is the process of manipulating space and legal, political, or cultural rules in order to appropriate a resource—food, commodities, labour, information, power—and then combine them into an ersatz product to meet an economic, cultural, or political end. No person, class, institution, or economy ‘owns’ kombinacja. The ‘who’ and ‘what’ are relational. The ‘when’ and ‘where’ are contextual. Yet, it is not ubiquitous; every kombinacja is a form of speech that charts a terrain of economic and political trajectories intended to shift the balance of power at a given point in time. This multi-sited historical ethnography tracks how these ‘arts of combination’ have pirouetted across agrarian and industrial, formal and informal, socialist and capitalist boundaries in the agro-industrial commune of Dobra. The arts of combination were forged through the exploitation of workers in Poland’s industrialising cities during the 19th century, across its popularisation as a survival strategy during Nazi-occupation, and towards its reformulation into an economic stabiliser for both villagers and the state during the ‘socialist’ era from 1945 to 1989. Villagers used kombinacja to access or hide resources from the state in the midst of broken supply chains, bureaucratic gridlock, food shortages, and complex regulations. When commune officials turned a blind eye to kombinacja to stay in power, they too drew from the arts of combination to ‘fix’ formal state problems in the commune. Kombinacja was used to subvert and accommodate the state. Reworking the state through kombinacja to ensure that no one went hungry informalised the command economy and contributed to the incremental breakdown of the local state apparatus into a feudal-like order. I then turn to nomenklatura privatisation, potato pilfering, alcohol consumption, mushroom foraging, and other practices to trace how kombinacja is being reformulated (or not) to rework post-socialism. The arts of combination call attention to practices that cut across a series of binaries - capitalist/socialist, formal/informal, state/non-state - to show how those marginalised by power seek to control the conditions of their subjection and how those in position of power seek to control the conditions of others’ subjection. Building upon J.K. Gibson-Graham’s ‘diverse economies’, the case of kombinacja shows us that informality does not always create alternatives that subjugate hegemony; rather, they can alternatively be used to crystallise a hegemonic imaginary. I suggest a much broader understanding of how informality has been a site of ingenuity and nequality, innovation and suffering, across time and space.

The primary objective of this thesis is to identify why sectarianism has declined in Liverpool. In doing, it is necessary to identify what sectarianism was in a Liverpool context, whilst also outlining its development. In relation to this, the part played by nineteenth century Irish immigration, the Orange Order, and the Roman Catholic Church will be analysed. Although assessed, it is not the intention of this work to concentrate primarily on the sectarian violence that gripped the city, nor the complex relationship between sectarianism and politics in Liverpool: the latter having already been expertly covered by Waller (1981) and the former by Neal (1988). Nonetheless, in analysing the degeneration of denominational antagonism both the reduction in sectarian violence and the rapidity of its political disintegration will be considered. For a period spanning two centuries the sectarian divide in Liverpool soured relations between its residents. Indeed, the city’s political representatives were often elected on the basis of their ethno-religious pedigree. Politics continued to be influenced by religion until the mid-1970s. Weakening sectarianism, in the limited existing studies, is attributed largely to post-war slum clearance, but this thesis asserts that causality is much more complex. There are a range of factors that have contributed to the decline. As this thesis demonstrates, the downfall of sectarianism coincided with the creation of a collective identity; an identity based not on ethno-religious affiliations, but on a commonality, an acknowledgment that principles which united were more significant than factors which divided. Importantly, the success of the city’s two football teams, Everton FC and Liverpool FC, gave the city a new focus based upon a healthy sporting rivalry rather than sectarian vehemence. A complex interplay of secularism and ecumenism, the economic misfortunes of Liverpool and their political impact in terms of class politics, the growth of a collective city identity and the omnipotence of (non-religiously derived) football affiliations combined to diminish Liverpool’s once acute sectarian fault-line. This thesis examines how and why.

This thesis investigates the development of radical politics in Liverpool in the first half of the nineteenth century and argues that distinctive events and trends in Liverpool exercised an important influence on the activities of the Reform Movement nationally between 1848 and 1854. It addresses two important but largely neglected areas of historiography: first, the political history of Liverpool in the years between the abolition of the slave trade and the mass influx of Irish refugees in mid-century, during which time the town rose to commercial pre-eminence; secondly, the influence of major provincial centres such as Liverpool on politics at the national level. The origins of Liverpool’s reformist Town Council of 1835-1841 are traced and show a continuity of thought and personalities over several decades against a backdrop of Tory paternalism and institutionalised corruption. The new reformist administration is seen as laying the foundations of a modern society through good governance, financial economy, civil liberty and innovation. On the Corn Laws issue, Liverpool’s reformers were reluctant to follow Manchester’s lead, preferring to pursue free trade on a broad front. This study follows their progress and shows how, ultimately, their thinking on financial reform influenced Cobden’s “National Budget” and remained an ever-present stimulus for several decades. The most prominent of Liverpool’s radical reformers was Sir Joshua Walmsley, whose achievements in both municipal and national politics have received much less attention from historians than they have merited. This study details the influences and experiences in his early career and then traces how, through political dexterity, he pushed parliamentary reform to the forefront of the national political agenda and established the National Parliamentary and Financial Reform Association in 1849. The influence exerted by his Liverpool background on both his political development and style of campaigning may be seen throughout his parliamentary career.

The last two decades have seen an evolution of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) capabilities in the public sector which facilitates the adoption of several IT innovations. Electronic government is one of these strategic innovations that many government agencies have considered adopting to deliver government information and services and support the modernisation of government’s administrative tasks. This research investigates an e-government adoption process as represented by the Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) adoption process. XBRL constitutes one of the key components of the electronic regulatory reporting process in HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and Companies House (CH). A comprehensive conceptual framework is developed to examine XBRL adoption process and the influential technological, organisational, environmental factors and e-government challenges that affect this process. The contribution of this comprehensive framework is that it develops various relationships among these factors, challenges and stages of the adoption process which have not been identified in the IT adoption or e-government literature. The framework for e-government adoption in the public sector is useful in multiple ways. The major benefit is to contribute to understanding the adoption process, identify the technological infrastructure, and emphasise the importance of the organisational readiness and impact of the environment on the adoption process. The framework can also help government decision makers to visualise a suitable strategic action plan for the future of electronic government by identifying the key issues and potential challenges associated with adopting e-government projects.

This thesis examines the work undertaken by Elizabeth Taylor Cadbury (1858-1951) to support social reform in Bournville and Birmingham during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It concentrates on her involvement in the development and promotion of Bournville village, the establishment and management of elementary and infant schools in Bournville and her local government work implementing school medical treatment provision in Birmingham. The thesis argues that Taylor Cadbury’s approach to social reform was shaped by her sense of religious faithfulness expressed through social service and by perceptions of women’s maternal expertise, demonstrating that she engaged with maternal work supporting social welfare as a form of religious service. Interpretation of Taylor Cadbury has been informed by the production of a revised catalogue of her largely unexplored personal archive within the Cadbury Family Papers. This catalogue enhances access to papers created and preserved by Taylor Cadbury and provides insight into the religious and social discourses within which she defined her identity and social work. By combining archival cataloguing with analysis of Taylor Cadbury’s philanthropic and municipal activities, this thesis offers a distinctive contribution to scholarship exploring how women identified with religion and maternalism in their social reform work during this period.

This work considers the potential contribution of rational actor and behaviouralist models of political and participatory culture, in understanding specific contemporary issues within the topic of public participation in the decision making activities of UK local authorities. The basis for the research was a range of disruptive or confounding phenomena reported in various literatures, that either generate antipathy during schemes or create negative pre-conceptions that could affect future projects. It is suggested that an appreciation of these confounding factors, when viewed in the context of streamlining local authorities and a rationally acting public, can help us understand issues such as non-participation, apparent apathy in public involvement and certain participatory dynamics. It is argued that understanding these issues is vital, especially given the emergence of the Modernisation Agenda in the UK which places a great deal of importance on the consultative activities of local authorities. The research draws upon Almond and Verba’s Civic Culture theory (1963) and the work of the Public Choice school of political economics, especially the work of James Buchannan and Gordon Tullock, to address issues of political culture and rationalised political activity among both the public and authorities. These provided a framework for a multiple case study research design, looking at public involvement policies and schemes in two English local authorities, against a particularly dynamic policy background. The thesis identifies a range of issues that are linked to the public’s inclination to participate, that are additional to the traditionally quoted issues of apathy or unequal access to democracy. These issues are linked to the perceived effectiveness of participation and its methods, to individuals who are already acting subjectively on the basis of their values and material interests. This work offers and discusses the term ‘Civic Rationality’ to describe this mix of rationales in a participatory culture.

Naturalisation procedures through which states symbolically and legally recognise noncitizens as citizens offer the most secure legal status for migrants and a means for them to evade global inequalities in the world system of nation-states. This study critically examines contemporary citizenship admission procedures in the UK and Germany following the introduction of citizenship tests, courses and ceremonies in the early 2000s. Based on a multi-sited state ethnography of both countries, this thesis argues that naturalisation does not simply separate citizens by discretionary application from citizens by automatic right of birth. Rather, citizenship admission procedures suggest a specific subjectivity, the Super Citizen, insofar as ‘new’ German and British citizens are expected to become a political, economic and cultural asset to the state. This study thus conceptualises naturalisation processes as a specific subject-formation regime created through particular problematisations, rationalities, authorities and techniques as institutionalised by the state. The analysis begins with a brief reconstruction of the genealogy of naturalisation in Britain and Germany, focussing on the emergence of the distinction between nationals and ‘aliens’ or ‘foreigners’, respectively, as well as on the legal mechanisms put in place to differentiate their access to full membership. Using a thematic analysis of qualitative interviews, observations and official documents, the study then tracks contemporary citizenship applications in four research locations in the two countries. It visits ceremony halls, classrooms and naturalisation offices and considers the perspective of a range of actors involved in citizenship admission procedures. This includes those who implement naturalisation on behalf of the state such as officials, legal advisers, teachers, politicians, and guest speakers, as well as the lived experience of the citizenship applicants themselves. The thesis concludes that naturalisation procedures in both the UK and in Germany produce the Super Citizen as a particular, neoliberal and neonational subjectivity that holds newly naturalized citizens responsible for developing a new nationalism.

This thesis investigates the understanding and practices of contemporary Mongolian management since the 1990s. In particular, it focusses on the shared experiences of local managing practitioners in Mongolia by exploring the conceptions of a manager, management, and managerial roles from the participants’ perspective and the contextual influencing factors on their understanding. Since the 1990s Mongolia has undergone a series of cultural and institutional changes in relation to its political, economic and societal development. The country has fluctuated between having the fastest growing economy and the world’s worst performing currency. Mongolia itself has become the land of opportunity for many by attracting foreign direct investment, however, the knowledge of local management practice is as yet little understood as there have been no academic or empirical studies conducted in English before. Therefore, this research aims to build an understanding of the concept of management in Mongolia by examining the narratives of thirty five local managers in relation to their experiences during and after the socialist period. Moreover, it investigates the contextual influencing factors from practitioners’ perspectives with an ethnographic approach. This qualitative study draws on interviews with three groups of local managers in Mongolia, who are described as socialist-era, transitional-era and non-native managing practitioners. There are some similarities and differences amongst these identified groups, but each was distinguishable by their formal training, work ethic and management approach. Furthermore, this research found that the intertwining contextual factors of a nomadic cultural heritage, socialist legacy, and the pressures of the current economic and societal changes and political interference influence management thinking in equal measure in contemporary Mongolia. The importance of this study lies in its theoretical and empirical contributions. By evaluating the relationship between classical management literature and indigenous management concepts with a focus on the varieties of contextual factors, this study attempts to provide an original insight into non-Western management practices. It aims to extend the current theories of crossvergence, indigenous management studies, and understand the nature of managerial work in a cross-cultural context. By carrying out the first academic study to examine Mongolian management perspectives in English, it contributes empirically to global management knowledge, and to the local business community.