Thesis (M.P.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 74-77).

Thesis (M.P.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2005.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Canterbury, 2007. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 295-320). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF file (viewed June 11, 2007). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 183-197).

In recent decades, international courts have proliferated the international system - a trend often referred to as the "judicialization" of international law and politics. States create international courts to promote greater compliance with international law, and have increasingly embedded these actors within various international regimes. Scholars have primarily analyzed the consequences of the judicialization trend based on international judges' authority for interpreting and applying international law, adjudicating international disputes, and rendering binding rulings. However, international courts, especially when conceptualized as international organizations, also perform a variety of activities beyond adjudication. This study theorizes international courts' agency, in both its judicial and non-judicial dimensions, to explain how international courts aim to influence actors' behaviour and promote greater compliance within their international legal regimes. As a foundation, it conceptualizes the various approaches through which international courts can promote compliance with international law, showing how international courts can appeal to actors' logics of consequences and appropriateness, either through their own agency or through using intermediary actors. An original dataset on the prevalence of these approaches across all twenty-three permanent international courts reveals significant variation in whether and how international courts have expanded their approaches for promoting compliance. International courts' level of autonomy influences their capacity for entrepreneurship and developing their approaches. Furthermore, their levels of acceptance and accessibility affect their adoption of particular approaches. Drawing on archival and interview research, ten case studies of a range of global and regional international courts, operating in a variety of issue areas and contexts, elucidate international courts' variable expansion of approaches based on these core variables. The study shows that international courts are dynamic and strategic actors, which address challenges and exploit opportunities to increase their influence and promote compliance within their international regimes.

Magister Commercii - MCom / Three arguments are normally presented as rationale for the privatisation of state owned enterprises. The first relates to the problem of the financing of higher levels of public expenditure; the second is based on the viewpoint that private ownership is more efficient than public ownership; whilst the third claims that the losses of inefficient public enterprise are responsible for excessive budget deficits and other fiscal problems. Although empirical evidence proves that privatisation enhances economic efficiency, it negatively affects the affordability of and access to essential services, which may have serous consequences for poorer households. This happens through increased prices of essential services, such as electricity and telecommunication, as well as through loss of employment opportunities during and after privatisation. Many countries, also in Africa, implemented various types of privatisation programmes over the past two decades in order to decrease the relative size of governments and to improve efficient delivery of services. Towards the end the 1990’s and after the tragic genocide, Rwanda’s Government of National Unity also embarked on an ambitious restructuring programme of its state-owned enterprises. The main purpose of this study was to assess the likely impact of privatisation on poor households in developing countries. The report presents a general overview of the literature, with a specific focus on Brazil, Argentina and South Africa. It investigates the experiences of these countries and derives lessons that can be learnt. Finally it assesses the possible impact of the privatisation of essential service delivery on poor households in Rwanda. The main conclusion of the study is that governments should look beyond efficiency benefits of restructuring and focus on the overall opportunity cost of the privatisation of essential service delivery. The specific method of privatisation may determine the final social impact. The case studies also highlight the need for more research into the challenges facing the privatisation of essential service delivery. It is clear that any restructuring should be preceded by a thorough analysis of the likely impact on the poorer sections of the community. / South Africa

Information technology, media, financial flows and consumer culture have long been acknowledged as transnational connective forces that spread ideas and values around the globe. This work proposes an alternative mechanism for such spread: development-focused civil society organizations. This thesis argues that such organizations constitute a backbone of connections that link a diversity of development actors and local communities into a network with global scope. While individual nodes in these civil society networks may not possess global reach, the network as a whole facilitates the far flung transfer of knowledge and ideas. This work focuses on the ways that knowledge is generated, transferred and renegotiated on both the global, national and local scale through such networks of development institutions. How are global discourses formed, adapted and spread via civil society into local communities? How do local communities interact with, change, implement or ignore the values, knowledge and rhetoric of global movements? How are communities shaped by these discourses and what role do they have in informing the discourses themselves? The project constructs two case studies of such 'knowledge networks' - two international foundations, their partner NGOs in the developing world (Kyrgyzstan and Kenya), and the local communities where the NGOs support ecologically-focused initiatives. The case studies demonstrate the complex and uneven ways in which knowledge and values are shared - and contested - within the networks. Ideas are transformed, adapted or ignored between different nodes, and yet the network retains enough common discourse and shared knowledge to function as a whole. Despite power imbalances, local actors remain agents, not subjects, in these networks and produce knowledge that is prized by other organizations and individuals in the networks. Civil society knowledge networks thus sculpt the content and application of knowledge across global movements, development-focused civil society organizations and local communities in the developing world.

This dissertation is unique in looking at Sudanese NGOs and not at the INGOs in Sudan. Most of the literature concentrates on the role of INGOs in Sudan and neglect the contribution of Sudanese NGOs. The research offers a corrective to these stereotype created by the literature on Sudanese NGOs. This study focuses on important aspects of the voluntary sector in the Sudan. It describes informal traditional practices and indigenous associations, like communal labor, rotating savings and credit associations, and migrant associations. Although these social forms have been given some attention in the third world studies literature, the subject has never been dealt with systematically in the field of Sudanese studies. The study reveals the strengths and weaknesses of Sudanese NGOs. It doesn't, however exaggerate the role of Sudanese NGOs, given the local context. On the other hand we can not underestimate their contribution to poverty reduction efforts and peace process and in realization of rights in the last two decades. The study focuses on the present political situation in the Sudan, including the regime's institutions and its social organizations on the one hand and the position of social and political oppositions on the other. It shows how Islamic movement uses religion and power to sustain and protect a system which has lost its credibility and legitimacy among many Sudanese citizens. It focuses on the rise of the National Islamic Front (NIF), its growth and development from a small political party to the third political power, based on the election of 1986, and to a party of full ruling power as a result of the NIF military coup of 1989. It also discusses and analyzes the nature of the government organizations and the causes leading to the failure of the Islamic project in the country. The rise of Islamic movement in Sudan can be viewed as part of the decline of local initiatives as the center of the social capital. The rapid changing situation in Sudan since 1989 is gathering by new momentum with the government policies of control and restriction, on the one hand, and with the increasing numbers of civil society organizations seeking to legitimize their identity and recognition, on the other hand. The study discusses the NIF-NGO relations and concludes by raising issues of concern and discussing the way out as an alternative approach contributing to development process.

Using Schein's (1992) notion of organisational culture, this study explored the position of a South African nongovernmental organisation (NGO) in the changing environment of post-apartheid South Africa. The study pursued three central goals: to describe the organisational culture of a South African NGO; to examine the tensions that have emerged owing to the changing nature of the organisational culture; and to analyze the organisational culture in relation to the changing NGO environment. The basic assumptions of the organisation regarding networking, the relationship with the government, funders and funding, leadership, human resource development, and service delivery, were collected. A single case study design was employed, with a sample of eight participants (representing the four different sections of the NGO) being drawn. Data were collected through documentary analysis, a focus group, and eight individual interviews using the critical incident technique. Analysis was performed using various qualitative data analysis techniques. The researcher found that participants considered networking, a cooperative relationship with the government, a proactive approach to obtaining funding, effective leadership and human resource development, and a good reputation for service delivery, to be essential for NGO survival. NGO basic assumptions are undergoing a transformation process, and tensions exist between long-standing and emerging assumptions. It was found that the transformation of assumptions is enabling the NGO to adapt to the challenges of the changing environment.