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.

The New Labour government placed communities at the heart of urban regeneration policy. Area deprivation and social exclusion were to be addressed through rebuilding community in deprived areas, a process involving tenure diversification and the building of bridging social capital to support community empowerment, increased aspirations and wide-spread mutually supportive relationships. There is, however, little empirical evidence that tenure mix is an effective means for achieving the social goals of neighbourhood renewal. This thesis contributes to the mixed tenure debate by exploring the impact of regeneration on community. The research was guided by theories of social structure and cultural systems and argues that the regeneration process may give rise to social divisions and conflict between community groups, inhibiting culture change. The research was conducted on a social housing estate located within the West Midlands region. The findings represent the views of local residents and community workers and suggest that greater recognition needs to be given to the role intimate social ties play in community sustainability, that the provision of supportive services must be balanced with individual self-efficacy, and that regeneration policy should focus less on what new homeowners can bring to a community and more on what community can already offer.

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.

The European Union (EU) has set itself ambitious objectives in order to transform its neighbourhood. It aims to induce domestic reforms in order to promote democracy, good governance and prosperity. Theoretical-oriented empirical analyses on the impact of the EU’s attempts to trigger institutional, regulatory and normative changes in domestic policies remain scarce. It is necessary to increase our understanding of the EU’s potential, limitations, and the conditions under which it may have an impact. This thesis contributes to closing this empirical and theoretical gap by examining the impact of the EU on Georgia, a country included in the Eastern dimension of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). This evaluation is derived from original empirical research of four different modes of EU governance in the context of the ENP: Governance by conditionality (access to the single market regarding economic issues); intergovernmental governance (cooperation in foreign and security policies); external governance (energy security); and cooperative governance (Security Sector Reform). This thesis suggests that we can explain the responses to EU policies in neighbouring countries if we use a synthetic ideational/rationalist analytical framework which takes into account additional variables in the EU–neighbour relations in the domestic and regional context. The findings indicate that the impact of the EU is slowly increasing, even in areas dominated by geopolitics such as energy security. Although the impact has been uneven at policy level, the EU has become an important external influence in Georgia. The thesis argues that, although important, EU incentives and geopolitical pressures are less decisive than the existing literature would predict. In contrast, the role of ideas in bilateral relations has had a crucial role across the case studies, showing in some instances the limitations of the alluring power of the EU as a ‘normative power’. Thus, EU impact is based on the existence of a coherent institutional framework of relations; embedded in social, political and economic links that are locked into favourable path-dependence processes and where ideational convergence is present.

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.

Due to its hazardous nature, occupational injuries are unavoidable in the construction industry. Although many precautions are taken and educations are given to the laborers and employers, zero occupational injury rate could not be achieved, but a decrease in the number of injuries and fatalities could be maintained. The conventional studies conducted so far, usually focused on the prevention and causation models. The approach of the researchers was, either proactive or reactive about the accidents which offered preventive or protective precautions. However, after the occurrence of an injury, these precautions become useless and from this point on, determination of the fault rates for the parties being involved in that injury becomes the critical issue. Mostly, it is difficult to reach an objective and correct conclusion at the phase of determining fault rates and decisions achieved may display great fluctuations from one expert to another. The aim of this study is to develop an expert system that reflects the knowledge of occupational safety experts for the determination of fault rates. In order to facilitate this research, required data were collected from related organizations and experts. These data were compiled and classified, the significant factors were determined and all of these factors were evaluated within a quantitative approach. In addition to this evaluation, questionnaires were submitted to the experts / at which they were asked to rate the factors which were determined by the researcher of this study. The expert system is based on these ratings and factors obtained from questionnaires.

Hope accompanied El Salvador’s peace agreements, ending 12 years of civil war. New peace and democratic renewal were expected in the tiny Central American state. Instead, extreme violence has persisted as a lived experience for individuals and a part of its state operations. Successive governments proved unable to consolidate control over the post-war crime wave. ‘Tough on crime’ public policy agendas, which included hard-handed violence-repression tactics, had little success in mitigating insecurity. In 2009, a new ex-guerrilla party, the National Liberation Front ‘Farabundo Marti’ (FMLN), was elected on a hope and change platform. The party was committed to a new approach in security governance. This presented an opportunity to study the interactions of implicated actors as they negotiated the governance of security. It raises the question: To what extent did security governance change under the FMLN government during their first administration (2009-2014)? To address this question requires an understanding of situated security concepts and an examination of the spaces created for actor interactions to formulate the policy guiding security governance. Broadly, security is often considered to be a response to the issues threatening state, society, or the individual. In the Latin American context, this expansion largely took place within the concept of citizen security – a term which recognised both rights and responsibilities within the state. However, the term has also been responsible for problematising institutional weaknesses or failure where an apparent inability to control violence is observed, justifying the inclusion of a range of non-state security actors. Theories of hybridity or state transformation instead posit that the gaze should be directed on those spaces where security problems, once identified, are managed in practice (Hameiri & Jones, 2015). For this study, three ‘levels’ of security governance are addressed: the national government, the Central American regional diplomatic structure, and strategic municipal jurisdictions. Second, by providing this multi-levelled analysis, the study includes the regional level, which is often ignored in existing Central American security studies. This is crucial to an understanding of the multiple and often competing agendas organising and supporting security interventions within El Salvador in a regional context of transnational threats. Third, this investigation shows the operational changes required of government institutions when other actors are introduced as authoritative participants in the process. Despite multi-actor, multi-level security governance strategies working to mobilise new actors, security concepts, and operational frameworks to reduce and manage security issues, many practical governance efforts enjoy only limited term results. This thesis concludes that broad changes in security governance structures are likely to be continually mitigated by traditional forces, limiting the potential for true transformation of security policy approaches.

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.

This research aimed to explore the privileging of growth and its influence on planning in England. The research examined two contrasting case studies: Middlesbrough Borough Council and Cambridge City Council. The analysis of growth privileging is rooted within a constructionist ontology which argues that planning is about the way in which people construct value relative to the function of land. This perspective enables the research to position growth privileging as a social construction; a particular mental frame for understanding and analyzing place based challenges and an approach which has been increasingly absorbed by the UK planning community. Through interviews with a range of planning actors, the first part of the research examined the state of planning in the current political and economic context and the influence that a privileging of growth has on planning. The second part of the research investigated the merits and feasibility of the capabilities approach as an alternative mental frame for planning, an approach developed through the work of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. The research results disaggregate the concept of economic growth, based on the responses of interviewees and conclude that it is characterized by homogeneity. Growth is valued, not only because of its economic role, for example, supporting jobs and income but its potential in creating diversity, enriching culture and precipitating transformative change. Pursuing growth as an objective has a range of influences upon planning. In particular, it supports a utilitarian framework for decision-making which values spatial decisions on their ability to support aggregate economic growth. The research demonstrates the feasibility and merits of the capabilities approach as a means with which to better understand the relationship between planning and human flourishing. Based on this analysis, the research proposes that the capabilities approach can provide an alternative ‘mental frame’ for planning which privileges human flourishing as the primary objective or ‘final end’ instead of economic growth.

This study investigates the impacts of government contracting on third sector providers of services for single homeless people in Southampton and Hampshire, in South East England. It focuses particularly on tendering and quality measurement. 24 interviews were conducted with representatives of 21 third sector organisations (TSOs) and a further two with local government representatives. Quantitative data were used to describe the characteristics of the TSOs. Different TSOs experienced and responded to government contracting in different ways, and a typology was therefore developed which categorised the organisations into one of four types: Comfortable Contractors; Compliant Contractors; Cautious Contractors; and Community-based Non-contractors. Tendering and quality measurement consumed significant amounts of time and required TSOs to access legal and tender-writing expertise. This was more problematic for the smaller Cautious Contractors, whereas larger TSOs with multiple contracts could meet the requirements more cost-efficiently. The quality measurement processes introduced as part of the Supporting People programme were deemed to have considerably improved standards. However, there were concerns that the emphasis on achieving measurable outcomes and moving clients on within a specified time could lead to the neglect of less tangible aspects such as improved self-esteem, and did not take sufficient account of longer term outcomes for clients. The impacts of contracting were ambiguous and varied amongst the different types of providers. However, the commissioning processes seemed to favour larger, more professionalised TSOs, which exhibited fewer of the distinctive characteristics upon which New Labour’s support for third sector involvement in service provision was premised. This points to the need for a more carefully differentiated policy discourse which acknowledges the third sector’s diversity and is more transparent about which types of TSO the government is seeking to engage with for which purposes.