Many U.S. municipalities are engaged in climate protection planning, or efforts to reduce their communities' greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through land use, transportation, and energy planning. However, they face a number of procedural and institutional obstacles that limit the adoption and implementation of those plans. The literature on climate protection planning identifies some of the factors that lead municipalities to join relevant policy networks, but provides little guidance for overcoming the aforementioned obstacles and adopting policies to reduce community-wide GHG emissions. This dissertation increases the understanding of climate protection planning by examining whether the adoption of these plans and policies is driven primarily by local demographic, economic, environmental, or political characteristics. It also contributes to the literature on local government policy diffusion by examining whether the spread of climate protection policies is dictated primarily by internal or external determinants. The research for this report includes a survey with responses from 255 U.S. municipal leaders. These responses are combined with secondary data and analyzed using multiple regression techniques to estimate the impact of 15 demographic, political-institutional, economic, and environmental variables on the adoption of climate protection plans and policies. A series of follow-up telephone interviews provides a more detailed understanding of how these factors influence the extent of climate protection planning. The quantitative findings indicate that the influence of neighboring jurisdictions, the presence of staff members assigned to energy or climate planning, and the level of community environmental activism have the greatest impact on climate protection policy adoption. The interviews reveal that the most successful municipalities tend to coordinate with their neighbors on energy and climate issues and incorporate meaningful community participation in their climate protection planning processes. This supports the conclusion that the extent of climate protection planning is driven primarily by internal processes, and municipalities that are successful in this area do not fit any one profile according to their demographic, economic, or environmental characteristics. Therefore, most if not all municipalities have the potential to adopt climate protection policies if sufficient resources, support, and initiative are in place. / Ph. D.

Resumé Information duty of municipalities in selected countries In this thesis I have concentrated on the topic of transparency and openness of municipality bodies in the Czech republic, the Slovak republic and the Free State of Bavaria. The legislations in these countries have historically similar grounds, nevertheless, nowadays they show up many distinctions. My concentration was focused on the Czech legislation and legislative proposals, since the topics of open (digital) society, transparent politics and elements of direct democracy are being held as popular key words in the election struggles. The attempts of last three governments were heading almost to the same goals, showing that there is a need to adjust the processes of municipality bodies in terms of enabling citizens to participate and control easily the work of their representatives. These measures were meant to have the effect of decreasing the possibility of corruption at the municipal level. I have oriented on the following topics in comparing of the relevant legislations: the possibility of public to be present during sessions of municipal bodies; processes of preparation and invitations of citizens to these sessions and legal consequences in case the procedure would not be abided by; releasing of written and multimedia records of the...

Title: Indebtedness and local self-government The author: Bc. Vlastimil Jirouš The author of the thesis deals with the debt of local governments, ie municipalities and regions, and regulation of indebtedness. Regulation of indebtedness divided into control debt "ex ante", which helps prevent over-indebtedness, and "ex post" regulation, which establishes the procedure for dealing with over-indebtedness of local governments Debts of local governments in the Czech Republic is gradually increasing. Even though most of the debts are debts of large cities are most at risk of over-indebtedness of municipalities with less than 1,000 inhabitants. The main cause of increasing indebtedness of local governments are investing in infrastructure. Most local governments debt consists of obligations of the loan agreements. The most common creditors are then banks . The author analyzes the suitability of regulating local government debt in terms of content and in terms of constitutional law. Notes that this regulation is to some extent necessary and constitutional point of view also possible. The current legal regulation of borrowing ex ante in the Czech Republic is characterized as partial information and case report. Development of indebtedness of municipalities and counties are on state legislation virtually...

A educação de jovens e adultos é um campo de políticas, práticas e reflexões que está para além dos limites da escolarização, sentido estrito. É considerada como parte integrante da história da educação em nosso país, na verdade, um dos maiores problemas da educação e que envolve milhões de brasileiros. Este trabalho tem como foco programas, projetos e ações concebidos e implementados, nos últimos anos, pelos governos locais dos municípios que compõem o ABC Paulista, em parcerias com a sociedade civil. As políticas analisadas foram desenvolvidas pelas administrações municipais no período 1987-2003, quando foi possível ver o surgimento e a coexistência de duas gerações de políticas: a primeira baseada na idéia de um estado de bem estar social e a segunda, ancorada no princípio da participação social objetivando a ampliação das esferas públicas, local e regional. No conjunto das municipalidades do ABC, este estudo recaiu sobre Diadema, Santo André e Mauá. Foram realizadas entrevistas com gestores públicos, dirigentes sindicais, representantes de entidades parceiras, coordenadores, professores; grupos focais com alfabetizandos, sendo os dados analisados à luz de extensa documentação atos legais, estatísticas oficiais, produção das secretarias municipais de educação e centros de memória locais. O estudo sobre os MOVA(s) (Movimento de Alfabetização) locais e Regional evidenciou a concretização das lutas por direitos e pela garantia à participação social dos jovens e adultos, o estabelecimento de novos atores (individuais e coletivos) a ampliação e o fortalecimento da esfera pública. / The young and adult education is a field of public policies, practices and reflections which are beyond the limits of schooling, in a strict sense. It is considered as an integrated part of the Brazils educational history. Actually, this is one of the biggest problems of education that involves millions of Brazilian people. This work focus on programs, projects and actions designed and implemented, in the last years, by the local governments of the cities from ABC Paulista, in partnership with the civil society. The analyzed public policies were developed by the municipal administrations from 1987 to 2003, when it was possible to see the appearance and the coexistence of two public policy generations: the first is based on the idea of a state of social welfare and the second is based on the principle of the social participation aiming at the expansion of the local and regional public spheres. Among the set of municipalities of the ABC, this study was made about Diadema, Santo André and Mauá. Interviews were conducted with public administrators, labor union leaders, representatives from partner agencies, coordinators, teachers and with focused groups in the process of literacy. This data was examined in the light of extensive documentation - legal acts, official statistics, production from the municipal secretariats of education and local memory centers. The study about the local and regional MOVA(s) (Literacy Movement) evidenced the concretion of the fights for the rights and for the guarantee of the social participation of the young and adults, the establishment of new actors (individual and public) the expansion and the strengthening of the public sphere.

Thesis (MPA) --University of Limpopo, 2012 / his article measures the expectations of citizens against local government‟s legislative mandate to deliver services to citizens within the context of the Molemole and Blouberg Municipalities in Limpopo. In doing so, it aims to contribute the discourse on governance from the perspective of the governed. The qualitative study utilized purposive sampling and collected data using unstructured questionnaires; individual and focus group interviews, observation and participatory tools. The key findings are that citizens in the study area are in dire need of the following services: water, electricity, sanitation and sewerage, road maintenance services, housing, refuse removal and health services in that order; and that citizens were unclear about the functions of national, provincial and local government in relation to housing, health and other services. They felt that a local municipality has the responsibility to tar and maintain roads within its jurisdiction, including district roads and even to provide housing and health services. They also felt that, while local government is touted as the sphere that brings government closer to the people, it has not been accorded the necessary powers and functions to provide basic services to communities at a satisfactory level. As a result, since the dawn of democracy in South Africa, communities have lost faith in the ability of local municipalities to improve their welfare. Key words: service delivery, governance, municipalities, essential services

While communities in the United States are already experiencing the effects of climate change, scientists project that sea level rise, increased precipitation, and record-breaking extreme weather events will devastate vulnerable regions in the following decades. The absence of federal strategies for climate change adaptation leaves state and city governments with broad discretion to undertake climate change adaptation measures. Yet cities may be unable to adapt to climate change without external assistance, particularly in states where the state leadership has not recognized the need to provide political and financial support to local governments. Collaboration allows cities to pool resources and work across boundaries to ameliorate significant problems such as climate change. Scholars of public administration have extensively researched collaboration. However, we still know little about what factors facilitate horizontal collaboration and why and how collaborative governance may lead to improved policy outputs and outcomes. Using the case of sea level rise preparedness in US cities, this dissertation contributes to better understanding of horizontal collaboration and its effects on public service provision. The analysis draws on quantitative data from surveys, administered to US municipal governments, and qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with city officials. This research has several principal findings. First, organizational propensity to collaborate on sea level rise preparedness is driven by leadership that recognizes the value and need for collaboration, and internal organizational characteristics. Second, horizontal collaboration helps cities advance plans for sea level rise adaptation, particularly when partnering with institutions of higher learning and businesses. Third, the findings show that collaboration with other municipalities and businesses is a positive contributing factor toward better preparedness for sea level rise in US cities. By shedding more light on horizontal collaboration as a tool to help cities adapt to changes in climate, the study contributes to two bodies of literature, including research on climate change policy and collaborative governance. The study also provides a number of recommendations to local policy makers and public administrators on how to facilitate horizontal collaboration to utilize local resources in public problem-solving.

<p>The objective of this thesis was to investigate factors that influence local government implementation. The study is a comparative case study between two local governments in Sweden; Hässleholm and Landskrona. Primarily the thesis aimed to look at the conditions faced by those implementing a new government directive aimed at supporting women who face violence, and their children who bear witness, by focusing on three key aspects for successful implementation: Implementers level of understanding, knowledge and will to implement decisions. Material in the form of documents and 14 interviews with key actors in the two authorities constitute the empirical foundation of the analysis. According to the results, are the two local governments pretty equal in achieving their projectgoal but the local government of Hässleholm had better policy-making, policy-design and policy process. This difference in outcome between the two authorities could not fully be explained by the three investigated dimensions since the difference between the two authorities were rather limited in this respect: both authorities scored quite high on implementers understanding, knowledge and will to implement decisions. This does not say that understanding, knowledge and will are not important factors, rather it shows that also other factors can affect the outcome.</p>

That authoritarian regimes adopt various strategies of societal control to secure their resilience has been widely explored in comparative politics. The scholarship has emphasized regimes’ reliance upon tactics as diverse as cooptation, economic and social policy reforms, and multiparty elections. Yet, existing comparative studies have predominantly focused on formal institutions, largely ignoring authoritarian states’ resort to informal rules as effective governance and regime preservation strategies. Local governments in China have tolerated underground Protestant churches, and in doing so, they have failed to enforce the central government’s policy of religious cooptation. This dissertation explores the reasons underlying local government tolerance of underground churches. I argue that accommodative informal institutions emerge out of a bargaining process involving agents (state and society) with a mutually compatible set of interests. Both parties need to reduce uncertainty about the other’s political intentions, and for that reason, they are likely to choose to cooperate strategically with one another. On the one hand, local officials view policies of religious cooptation as ineffective to curb the expansion of underground religion, and as increasingly risky to enforce in a context where an extensive use of coercion could be subject to severe professional sanctions. On the other hand, underground pastors seek to maximize their autonomy under authoritarian constraints; to that extent, they have used informal compliance as a strategy to earn local government acceptance. Compliance manifests itself in four ways: openness to dialogue with local authorities, the proactive sharing of sensitive information about church affairs, gift-giving and -receiving, and the maintenance of a low profile in terms of church size and rhetoric. Strategic cooperation brings benefits to both parties. It provides local public security officials’ with a stable source of intelligence about the underground space, which is key to ensuring an effective management of religious affairs. Moreover, it allows underground churches to remain autonomous from the state and decreases risks that they face coercion. Yet, inasmuch as informal arrangements are self-enforcing and rule-bound, they ultimately serve regime interests by increasing the costs of political mobilization for the compliant clergy, and by accentuating divisions between the latter and politicized pastors.

That authoritarian regimes adopt various strategies of societal control to secure their resilience has been widely explored in comparative politics. The scholarship has emphasized regimes’ reliance upon tactics as diverse as cooptation, economic and social policy reforms, and multiparty elections. Yet, existing comparative studies have predominantly focused on formal institutions, largely ignoring authoritarian states’ resort to informal rules as effective governance and regime preservation strategies. Local governments in China have tolerated underground Protestant churches, and in doing so, they have failed to enforce the central government’s policy of religious cooptation. This dissertation explores the reasons underlying local government tolerance of underground churches. I argue that accommodative informal institutions emerge out of a bargaining process involving agents (state and society) with a mutually compatible set of interests. Both parties need to reduce uncertainty about the other’s political intentions, and for that reason, they are likely to choose to cooperate strategically with one another. On the one hand, local officials view policies of religious cooptation as ineffective to curb the expansion of underground religion, and as increasingly risky to enforce in a context where an extensive use of coercion could be subject to severe professional sanctions. On the other hand, underground pastors seek to maximize their autonomy under authoritarian constraints; to that extent, they have used informal compliance as a strategy to earn local government acceptance. Compliance manifests itself in four ways: openness to dialogue with local authorities, the proactive sharing of sensitive information about church affairs, gift-giving and -receiving, and the maintenance of a low profile in terms of church size and rhetoric. Strategic cooperation brings benefits to both parties. It provides local public security officials’ with a stable source of intelligence about the underground space, which is key to ensuring an effective management of religious affairs. Moreover, it allows underground churches to remain autonomous from the state and decreases risks that they face coercion. Yet, inasmuch as informal arrangements are self-enforcing and rule-bound, they ultimately serve regime interests by increasing the costs of political mobilization for the compliant clergy, and by accentuating divisions between the latter and politicized pastors.

Honors Thesis (Environmental Resources)--Oberlin College, 2009. / "May 2009." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 75-78).