This thesis explores the relationship between local government and social change strategies. More specifically, it examines the series of highly contested attempts during the 1980s to deploy local government in order to challenge the discrimination and prejudice facing lesbians and gay men. Whilst, much of the effort was directed at making council services more responsive to lesbian and gay needs, a key aspect of the project concerned the transformation of dominant sexual meanings. Four questions provide a theoretical and empirical framework for this research. First, why did some local authorities address lesbian and gay issues? Second, how successful were they in doing so? Third, what factors constrained or limited their attempts? And fourth, why were lesbian and gay municipal initiatives so controversial? The first section of this thesis examines the reconstitution of lesbian and gay issues on the local government agenda, and the subsequent trajectory of their development within particular authorities. The thesis then goes on to examine the impact of bureaucratic processes and right-wing opposition on lesbian and gay municipal discourses. I argue that despite significant opposition to lesbian and gay policies, in general the right did not mobilise. The ideological steer within local government bureaucracy was usually sufficient to 'weed out' or dilute more progressive proposals. However, on occasions where this broke down, opposing forces intervened, both to obstruct lesbian and gay initiatives and to use the policies' existence to advance their own political agenda. The final part of this thesis draws together several key issues: the general absence of a more radical sexual politics; the crisis of implementation; the nature of opponents' attitudes towards homosexuality and local government; and the decline of lesbian and gay municipal politics post-1987. In the conclusion, I return to the question of local government's radical potential by proposing an alternative, decentred approach to municipal sexual politics. Methodologically, this thesis is eclectic drawing on several disciplinary areas in conjunction with a range of theoretical perspectives, particularly neo-marxism, feminism and poststructuralism. Field research comprises of interviews, mass media and local government documentation combined with my own experiences as an actor within the municipal lesbian and gay project. This thesis is intended to make a contribution to a theoretical understanding of municipal politics, especially to the relationship between local government, sexuality, ideology and social change. it also offers a detailed account and analysis of lesbian and gay municipal developments, one of the most controversial initiatives of the 1980s.

This thesis examines the development by local authorities of alternative models of ownership of public housing, focusing on large scale voluntary transfers (LSVTs) to specially created housing associations. I attempt to place stock transfer within the wider policy context of changes in the State’s role in the provision of services; and changes in organisational development, reflected in transfer structures; and the wider shift in responsibility for the delivery of public services to the private sector. I examine theories that explain the development of the State’s role in housing and discuss their relationship to LSVT. As discussions involving ‘the State’ must recognise the different interests and motivations of Central and local government, I examine action taken to promote and achieve stock transfer by local authorities and central government. The research method adopted to achieve my aims includes both analysis of existing data and the collection of new data through a sample survey of twenty LSVT associations. I approached the research in five stages: background research – including reviewing literature and examining the legal and regulatory framework for LSVT; identifying the characteristics of early LSVT associations; selecting a sample of twenty selected associations for in-depth survey; conducting in-depth interviews with the twenty associations; analysing and tabulating the data collected and drawing conclusions. The survey focuses on staff perceptions of the reasons for transfer and why politicians and tenants accepted the change; organisational and management change brought about by the new landlords; and the changes brought about by private sector involvement, including new personnel brought in to help run the organisations and the influence of private funders. I attempt to draw key conclusions about LSVT associations from the evidence presented. Finally, I examine how early LSVTs paved the way for a wider stock transfer programme, including transfers by inner-urban authorities and large city councils. I argue that while LSVT may have been developed in response to the financial pressure upon local authorities from the early 1980s onwards, the process has created a new style of business orientated social landlord.

China’s transition from planned economy to market economy (economic liberalization) has catalyzed the private sector’s emergence and growth, as well as given birth to new forms of business associations within the private sector, such as Non-local Chambers of Commerce (NCCs, hereafter). NCCs emerged from mid-1990s, and have proliferated rapidly across China’s localities and industries. Unlike traditional official business associations, NCCs have significantly participated in local governance and demonstrated new types of state-society relations. However, they have not yet reached the attention of scholarly researchers, and have been understudied within and outside of China. At the same time, political scientists working on policy processes have begun to include China as a case to enrich their theory, but find it hard to adapt established models to China’s policymaking system. Research on the Chinese policy process have gone from elite politics in the 1950-1960s, to “fragmented authoritarianism” in the 1970-1980s, then to “fragmented authoritarianism 2.0” after 2000. During the evolution of these theories, it has been noticed that more and more non-bureaucratic actors have been involved into the policymaking process if not being the prominent actors. There have been studies on “policy entrepreneur”, environmental NGOs, international NGOs, Chinese think-tanks and different forms of business lobbying. However, within the spectrum of business lobbying, there is a gap in understanding business associations’ influence in policy processes, especially the new type of so claimed “grass-roots” business associations. This thesis sheds lights on this new type of private sector business association - NCCs and their influence in the local urban policy process. NCCs have been widely involved in local governance and political engagement. However, their political participation shows great variation due to differences in regions, organizational forms, industries and policy spheres. So the question of what lead to the variation of NCCs’ policy influence has become the highlights of this research project. By using the empirical materials from participant observation and interviews, this thesis aims to answer two main questions: How did NCCs influence the local policy process and what explains the difference in their policy influence? In this thesis, I develop a typology for NCCs by using the dimensions of “origins” and “networks”. Thus all the NCCs have been categorized into four types: “Dependent NCCs”, “Independent NCCs”, “Coupling NCCs” and “Decoupling NCCs”. Through in-depth case analysis, I argue that NCCs’ networks and their ability to mobilize resources within their networks determine their policy impact. In terms of NCCs’ network orientation, the state networks of NCCs directly affect their access to policy lobbying, while the business networks directly affect the resources for their lobbying, thus determine NCCs’ lobbying capacity in the local policy process. In terms of NCCs’ network strategy, network span influences policy making while network intensity influences policy implementations. To be specific, NCCs with network span strategy could influence more general policy agendas and policy spheres, while NCCs with network intensity strategy could exert more influence in specific policies especially in the policy implementation stage.

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This thesis constitutes a new approach to the study of labour movement opposition and resistance to Conservative Government policy and practice toward local government in the 1980s. In contrast to previous analyses, for example, this exploration of labour movement activity considers trade union involvement, does not use artificial frameworks, such as New Urban Left, or evaluate subject matter against a priori standards. Examination of the campaigns studied is undertaken within the framework of society as a whole, so that the development of campaign practices and conceptual principles, identified in relation to campaign aims of defending local government services, jobs, and local democracy, are subjected to reciprocal processes of interrogation. This is achieved by examining events within an historical context, that begins with the expansion of local service provision and employment in the 1960s, includes retrenchment of the late 1970s and early 1980s, and concludes with labour movement campaigns against rate capping in the mid-1980s. This period also includes: changes in local democratic practice, in both constitutional and labour movement terms; developments in the composition, organisation, and outlook of constitutive labour movement bodies; and, labour movement responses to attempts to reduce public expenditure, local government service provision, and local government employment. The interrelations between these factors, changing socio-economic developments, conceptual principles and practice within the labour movement, and government policy and practice are all identified and explored as part of this thesis. Similarly, an integral part of this process involves the consideration afforded to interrelations between labour movement officers, leaders, activists, members, and the broader populace; in terms of conceptual principles, the use and development of labour movement structures, and democratic practice. Thus, by exploring the interrelations between the areas identified, as opposed to imposing dichotomous or causalistic interpretations, the fate of the campaigns against rate capping are explained.

As the first study focusing on the implementation of the constitutions and quality of government (QoG) in Kurdistan from a practical point of view, this thesis examines the question why the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) fails to deliver the constitutions in a way that strengthens its democracy and produces a good QoG. From analyses of the data gleaned from 41 semi-structured interviews the thesis identifies the main factors that affect the implementation of the constitutions and QoG with particular reference to the 2005 Iraqi constitution and the Kurdistan draft constitution of 2009. The study also outlines the reform process in the Kurdistan Region and explains how a system of political checks and balances in a democratic society can improve QoG and democracy. This research considers the main obstacle to the establishment of a good and democratic government in the region to be political influence on all state institutions, including the executive, parliament, the judiciary, military forces, police and security services, and use of these institutions for political and personal benefits. Other obstacles identified are a reliance on oil products, a culture of corruption, poor administration, a low-quality legal system, Kurdish disputes with the central Iraqi government, the absence of a clear, enforceable regional constitution, the lack of experience with democracy and, more importantly, the absence of political will for reform by the ruling parties. In this light, the study recommends strengthening the state institutions, reducing political influence over them and establishing a process of political checks and balances – as exists in democratic states – as extremely important to improving QoG. However, it also argues that these aims will not be achieved without a genuine political will for reform. Thus, this thesis stands as the first detailed research in this field that qualitatively investigates the effect of the implementation of democratic constitutions in a region that has gone through conflict and violence; attempts to set out the factors that form obstacles to such implementation; and puts forward recommendations for the improvement of QoG in the light of the constitutions. This study therefore, can help the government and politicians to take action in terms of reforms to improve QoG in the region and develop the democratic process. This research will also contribute to future study on a similar theme.

This research explores the English local government modernisation agenda of the 1997–2010 Labour government with reference to its promotion of, and effects on, organisational learning. It does this by examining the concept of learning to learn, as constructed by local authority Chief Executives. A synthesised analytical framework is developed by exploring the commonalities of three approaches to the exchange of knowledge: organisational learning; policy transfer, and change management. Utilising this framework, local government modernisation is examined within the broader modernisation agenda and its historical context. This, and an examination of Best Value, the Beacon Council Scheme and the Comprehensive Performance and Area Assessments, exposes the links between modernisation and organisation learning that underpin a central contention of this research; that the success of local government modernisation relied on local authorities being better able to learn from each other. Analysis of the data unique to this research, obtained largely through interviews with local authority Chief Executives, illuminates the way in which they construct their views of learning, modernisation and central-local relations. The major conclusions concern the significance of networks, differences and trust and how views of each are constructed. Also important is trust within central-local relations. Modernisation consolidated the acceptance of other local authorities as sources of learning and enhanced particular characteristics conducive to learning. However, through the mechanisms utilised, modernisation also inhibited instances of learning and was less successful at embedding the concept of learning to learn within local government. Original contributions to knowledge are made in this under-researched area through innovative use of exiting approaches to the analysis of change and learning; synthesising these provides a useful tool for the analysis of those matters. Additionally, such analysis sheds new light on the way in which local authority Chief Executives construct the world-views that shape their actions.

Between 1989 and 2007, Poland went through numerous reforms, the aim of which was to build a democratic country based on the rule of law. At the core of the multiple transition from the communist state to democracy was devolution which has been translated at different scales, national, regional and local. Of central importance were the local government reforms. Analyses of local outcomes of democratisation need to include the difficult to measure effects which manifest themselves through activities of local authorities and local communities. The aim of this thesis is to help fill the gap in understanding the processes and outcomes of the democratic transition by investigating the functioning of democracy at the local level, focusing on local self-government and its relations with civil society in the context of democratic consolidation in one of the major cities in Poland – Poznań and two of its community-based self-governing bodies called Estates which are accessory sub-local government units. The main question of this thesis is what is democratic about Poznań’s local government today. Here, the functioning of local representative democracy and citizens’ inclusion in local decision making are key. It is argued that in a ‘healthy’ democracy the actual practices of local authorities should facilitate an increasing involvement of local residents in decision-making processes. Consequently I focused on local democratic practices trying to evaluate local government’s responsiveness, effectiveness and accountability. In the light of the prevailing opinion that civil society in CEE has been weak, the effectiveness and efficiency of civil society in Poznań and its relations with the local authorities were explored. The study was based on a combination of qualitative (interviews) and quantitative (questionnaires) methods of research. The research identifies that the activities of the local government of Poznań are symptomatic of the authorities’ recognition of the need to be responsive, effective and accountable. Poznań’s authorities have partners in civil society. Among these partners are organisations with a low level of formality, i.e. a community, neighbourhood and a group of residents which organise themselves to achieve their objectives. The environment (law, regulations and attitudes of local authorities) in which they operate was noted to be important to their activities and much effort has been put into upgrading the quality and intensity of the authorities’ communication with local residents. The learning process has reached the stage at which the democratic system has begun to improve itself, a sign of a maturing democracy. The thesis addresses a gap in the literature on the processes underpinning democratic consolidation in Poland. Its findings suggest that as the reformers of Polish local government in the years immediately following the overthrow of communist rule believed, local democracy and local democratic practices are an important component of the wider (national) project of democratic consolidation.

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.

This dissertation comprises a close analysis of decentralization in Bolivia, employing a methodology that marries qualitative and quantitative techniques. It first examines the effects of decentralization on public-sector investment and the provision of public services in Bolivia using a unique database that includes measures of municipalities' social and institutional characteristics and information on its policy-making processes. I find that decentralization changed both the sectoral uses of public resources and their geographic distribution significantly by increasing government sensitivity to local needs in human capital investment and the provision of basic services. I then investigate the determinants of central and local government investment respectively in order to investigate why the shift in regime produced such large changes in investment patterns. I then turn to a much deeper examination of local government via nine case studies, selected to broadly represent Bolivia's national diversity. I begin with an account of the workings of local government in the best and worst of these, analyzing the character and interactions of the major societal actors. I locate fundamental causes of good and bad government in the economic structure of a district as it relates to the political party system, and the cohesiveness and organizational capacity of its civil society. These ideas are used to build a conceptual model of the local government process in which the interactions of political, economic and civic actors reveal information and enforce accountability. I show how imbalances between them can cripple accountability and distort the policy-making process. Lastly, the dissertation tests the model by examining government performance in seven additional municipalities. I show that the framework can explain the emergence of good or bad government institutions, and thus the quality of government a district ultimately receives, through the interactions of key players —notably civic organizations — deep in the local political economy.