The focus of this thesis is the impact of the global news media on Nigeria, and the extent to which it has affected Nigeria’s development and international relations. The unprecedented impact of the global news media in recent decades has been conceptualised as perpetuating underdevelopment and inequality in the developing countries. This study develops the idea that the kind of global news that flows into and out of Nigeria, coupled with the access Nigerians and the world have to the news, as well as the way it is packaged, shaped, represented and interpreted, have profound effects on Nigeria. The study integrates both quantitative and qualitative methodological approaches. It refers to and selects from various theories of International Relations (IR) and Mass Communication. It is apparent that there is a growing perception that the global news media have influenced Nigerian society. The study suggests that the effects of the global media on Nigeria are psychological, sociological, economic, cultural and political. The global news media are believed to be the best instruments for the purpose of stimulating global and transnational economic development and international relations. However, the benefits of media globalisation are unevenly shared and its costs are unevenly distributed, the main beneficiaries being the developed nations, while the developing nations (such as Nigeria) are disadvantaged. The study recommends the promotion and strengthening of the local media in Nigeria.

This thesis is a comparative analysis across five Overview and Scrutiny systems within Local Authorities in the North of England. Its aim was to assess the impact and role of the majority political group on the overall system of Scrutiny. The research found that the role of the majority group was the single largest determining influence on the success of Overview and Scrutiny. From the five case study Authorities, it was clear that barring exceptional circumstances (that facilitated an open and amenable attitude towards an independent Scrutiny process) majority groups sought to channel the process and control Scrutiny as much as possible. Majority political groups appeared to be unwilling to allow the process to scrutinise their actions, for a multitude of different reasons. They also resented somewhat an independent process that could forward recommendations onto a policy agenda they felt they had a right to control. Therefore, they used their power as the major group to filter the process so that only outcomes they found acceptable came to be accepted as part of Council policy. In other cases, they sought to ensure that minimal outcomes emerged from the Scrutiny process. With a majority, they were under no obligation to consider its views anymore than they felt necessary and consequently it led to much dissatisfaction amongst members within the process, particularly those from opposition groups. At the crux of the issue appeared to be many experienced leading members who wished to retain as much control and power as possible. They appeared uneasy with allowing an independent process of any kind within the Authority, particularly one with the capacities and potential role that Scrutiny possesses. Devoid of a leadership perspective that understood and accepted the role of Scrutiny, it was only when a system was accustomed to a collaborative approach or was heavily populated with one particular perspective did the leading group appear willing to allow Scrutiny to remain completely independent. The process of Scrutiny unquestionably benefits when an opposition perspective is allowed to lead Scrutiny. The research demonstrated how a process that moved from majority group to opposition group control improved significantly in terms of independence and in terms of its outcomes. However, this practice appeared limited across Local Authorities, with the fear of majority groups greatly limiting the development of strong and independent Scrutiny processes.

No description available.

No description available.

This thesis aims to critically examine the development of Community Development Finance Institutions (CDFIs) in the UK: organisations that lend to businesses unable to access finance from mainstream sources. The overall aim of the research is to capture the development of a proto-type sector into a recognisable and fully-fledged financial sector. The research found there was considerable interest in CDFIs in the late 1990s fuelled by research reports published by the New Economics Foundation. Ideas and influences were being transferred to the UK from North American CDFIs and from micro-finance lenders in the developing world. While a few CDFIs had existed in the UK since the 1970s, from the late 1990s a new generation of organisations were being established to help combat what New Labour had defined as financial exclusion. The thesis identifies this group of CDFIs the ‘British New Wave’, because they were developing their own products and services to meet local needs. After 1997, New Labour ideas about a potential Third Way and Communitarianism were increasingly influential. This thesis argues that the subsequent development of CDFIs can be strongly interpreted as offering a Third Way between the market and the state. Their links with local communities or sectors (such as social enterprise) also enhanced their importance at district, regional and national levels. The research also analyses a number of individual case studies such as the Aston Reinvestment Trust and Street UK, the CDFI sector and government policy to highlight the complexity of the challenges facing CFDIs particularly the range of issues relating to funding. The thesis argues that the government’s initial interest in the sector has waned over time and some of New Labour policies aimed at promoting localism have in practice restricted the growth of CDFIs. At the end of the first decade of the twenty first century, the UK CDFI sector is surviving and offering loans to businesses excluded from finance and offering social and economic benefits that should be recognised and supported through social investment. However, despite the optimistic note in some areas of the thesis, it will be argued many CDFIs remain financially unsustainable precisely because they offer small business loans and work with their borrowers.

This thesis seeks to explore the changes of the Libyan economy, which began in the mid-1980s. The core of this research is to examine the influence of these changes on the course of the state and the implementation of the economic reform programmes. The relevant theoretical literature is based upon the relationship between the international and internal factors leading up the economic reform. The globalisation and state power are reviewed. The theory of rentier state and also the discussion of the most relevant aspects of the privatisation process were considered. The contribution of the thesis is its sustained analysis of the Libyan economic policies and, more importantly, its response to the neglect of the international and domestic influences of the economic reform process particularly in oil states. In addition, the literature on Libya and its structural and economic reform suffers from a lack of theoretically-grounded analysis. The methodology of this study is based upon combination of both interviews and questionnaires seemed the ideal methods in examining the economic reform and the privatisation programmes. The documentary research was also an important element for this study. In order to identify the determinants of the changes of the Libyan economy and the implementation process, it employs a variety of Libyan official documents and economic data. In general the study reveals that the relationship and the interaction between the international and domestic factors is extremely vital to understand the economic reform and privatisation programmes in Libya. Despite the significance of the international arena, its impacts are mitigated through the domestic context. Moreover, the previous state policies, the role of the state institutions and the interaction between the state apparatus and the Libyan society are important in understanding the Libyan economy.

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair described the UK’s response to the Rwandan genocide as “We knew. We failed to act. We were responsible”; this thesis sets out to explore these three claims. The thesis, which draws on newspaper archives, oral history interviews and government documents obtained by the author under the Freedom of Information Act, as well as British and US official documents already made public, begins by exploring Britain’s knowledge and understanding of events in Rwanda in the build-up to, and during the first few weeks of, the genocide. It then moves on to review how the government responded and, by drawing on various theories of bystander intervention, to build up a multi-factor assessment of what influenced that response. The thesis finishes by addressing the question whether the British government, or indeed any other British foreign policy actor, bears responsibility for the crisis. It therefore looks at the Rwandan crisis from the perspective of various influences on foreign policy: the media, public opinion, Parliament and NGOs, as well as exploring the response of John Major’s government. The thesis concludes that media coverage of the genocide led to a significant misunderstanding of the crisis; this misunderstanding influenced the public response and shaped discussion within Parliament and government. In terms of official response, whilst it has to be acknowledged that the government initially failed to correctly identify the events in Rwanda as genocide and consequently delayed their response until the majority of killings had ended, the thesis shows that rather than failing to act the British government was in fact a leading aid donor to Rwanda and a leading provider of troops to the UN peacekeeping mission serving in Rwanda. This aid did come too late to prevent or halt the genocide, but did save many thousands of lives in the immediate aftermath.

This research seeks to establish a more coherent and comprehensive grip on the complex, often chaotic reality being addressed by the policy actors in the process of governance of the historic city centres and the policy coordination entailed by that process. The twofold objective of this research is to increase our understanding of governance of the historic city centres in Serbia, and to identify and explain barriers to and opportunities for policy coordination. In so doing, this research embraces the interpretative paradigm to examine conservation and governance of the historic city centres as a contextualised and subjective process that takes into account what is meaningful to policy actors. This research is important as it highlights the importance of studying the micro-social processes because policy-relevant, organisational learning is situated within ongoing policy-related practices. This research demonstrates the complexity of policy process and the amount of coordination needed to address policy agenda. This research makes three contributions to knowledge. First, it provides interpretation of governance of the historic environment in the new context, namely Serbia. Second, it extends our knowledge of micro-social and micro-political aspects of heritage governance. In so doing, it applies interpretive approaches to explore the research field that has been underresearched. And finally, this research extends our knowledge about the policy coordination in urban governance and governance of the historic environment by identifying a range of factors that combined could inhibit or support an overall effort towards policy coordination.

This study brings new empirical research on sub-state government in contemporary Spain, addressing a gap in the literature concerning the approaches taken and choices made by Autonomous Governments regarding their institutional design. It tests the hypothesis that decentralisation to territories with distinct and different characteristics will result in diversity in public administrative institutions. A multi-method investigation compares the responses of the Junta de Andalucía and the Generalitat de Catalunya to the opportunities of decentralisation and the challenges of the post-2008 economic crisis. It analyses budgets, ministerial and civil servant hierarchies, policies and strategies. It also evaluates the perspectives and statements of key politicians, senior civil servants, academics and trades unionists, obtained through one-to-one interviews carried out in Spain during 2014 and 2015. The research finds that despite recognisable differences in the characteristics of Andalusia and Catalonia, and constitutional recognition of Spain’s nations and nationalities, decentralisation has not resulted in significant divergence between these two Autonomous Governments. Priorities, structures, employment practices and administrative cultures demonstrate more continuities than variation. The constitutional and institutional framework and Spain’s political culture have been shown to reduce the scope for differentiation. This case study highlights the Napoleonic administrative tradition as the most significant influence for homogeneity. Self-identity, strong but distinct in each community, has contributed to a divergence in style and emphasis in the Junta and the Generalitat, and also to dissimilarities in their responses to the economic crisis. This research adds to public administration studies evidence that decentralisation does not necessarily result in variation in governmental institutions at sub-state level. The study concludes that the historical legacy of centralism and in particular the continued influence of the administrative tradition have acted as forces for continuity in the Autonomous Governments of Andalusia and Catalonia.

Relationships between Libya and Italy, both during and post Colonel Gaddafi’s rule, have witnessed many developments and changes, with the Italian colonialism of Libya from 1911 to 1942/1943 playing an important role in shaping those relationships. Thus, this thesis seeks to examine the roles of Public Relations (PR) and Public Diplomacy (PD) in building the Libyan-Italian relations. In order to explore those roles, the Grunig and Hunt’s (1984) Four PR Models, and the two International Models, have been applied. Furthermore, Relationship Management has been applied as a general theory of PR. For the purpose of this study, twenty Libyan and Italian diplomats, including Prime Ministers, Foreign Ministers and Ambassadors, were interviewed. Significant attention has been paid to the process of selecting the sample, where the method of purposive sampling has been selected as the most appropriate qualitative method for this study. Moreover, the thematic analysis technique has been applied in order to identify patterns and meaningful themes about the phenomenon under investigation. The results of this study reveal that PR and PD, as important communication tools, have played a significant role in building the Libyan-Italian relations. Furthermore, it has been made clear that the Libyan and Italian diplomats, had been aware of practising the original four models and the two international models. This study has also found evidence suggesting that these models could be applied to the field of PD. Furthermore, the two-way symmetrical model, the cultural interpreter model and the personal influence model are the most suitable models in building relationships between governments as they are considered to be the bridges that connect PR with PD in terms of theory and practice. Findings of this research have also shown that there are convergences between both fields, especially concerning their roles in building relationships; however, a difference between the fields does also exist.