Magister Artium - MA / The political participation of women in parliaments is not only important for sustainable development of every country, but it is also crucial for their voices to be heard, as they form at least half of the world’s population. Furthermore, women’s presence in significant decision-making positions represents an indicator of gender transformation and mainstreaming. However, women remain largely underrepresented in parliament and state institutions in Ghana with a current representation of 8.3% in parliament.Against this background, this study evaluates the role of women wings in enhancing women’s representation in parliament, by exploring the gendered social, political and ideological contexts in which they operate and assesses the constraints and challenges to their effective involvement in parliament. Using in-depth interviews and focus group discussions, the research analyses the activities of three main political parties’ women’s wings in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana by addressing the following key questions: (i) What are the demographic features of members of the women’s wings in Ghana? (ii) What structures and relationships influence women’s participation and advancement in Ghanaian politics? (iii) Do women’s wings attached to political parties have the capacity to advance the agendas of women and gender equality in Ghana or are they constrained by loyalties to male-dominated parties? (iv) To what extent do women’s wings address gendered political structures and ideology within Ghanaian society generally, and Ghanaian politics specifically? (v) Do women’s wings of different parties perform different roles, and reflect different strategies for enhancing women’s public participation? The findings indicated that women’s wings affiliated to political parties are constrained by their loyalty to their political parties resulting in a lack of a clear feminist consciousness.There was also lack of cooperation among the women’s wings which also affected their ability to enhance gender equality in the country. In addition cultural norms and discriminatory practices together with a lack of financial resources were found to be major obstacles to the effectiveness of the women’s wings in Ghana in achieving gender equality and social justice. The study therefore recommends a need for a stronger feminist consciousness and the building of women’s solidarity among and between women’s wings to enable them to address the strategic gender needs of the country and achieve gender equality in Ghana.

Urban planning form the space occupied by people, but their participation ratio is low. In spite of the fact that they can be concerned in city planning for example to be engaged in interest group, that could affect it. The thesis aim the question of the affect on the process of making Prague Land Use Plan (Metropolitan plan). The theoretical part defines the detailed explanation of the city planning and presents project submission of Metropolitan plan, and also set the context. In the practical part of the thesis the urban agents and their interests are charactised. The process of urban planning is influenced by three obligatory urban agents - the public, the interest groups and the political representation. The conclusion of this work is setting the way of affecting and their classification.

Public participation is a collective term for a variety of procedures aimed at involving stakeholders and ordinary people in decisions that may affect them. It is playing an increasingly important role in many democratic societies. Consequently, it has provided the impetus for a number of scientific studies. Most studies of public participation view the subject from a macro-level perspective; they focus on the criteria against which successful public involvement processes should be measured, the institutional arrangements and legal framework needed to achieve such success, etc. By contrast, relatively few studies have adopted a micro-level approach to public participation. Such an approach would entail concentrating on its psychosocial dynamics – in other words, on the behaviour and experience of individual participants, the relationships that form between individuals, the manner in which these shape deliberation and decision-making, etc. The aim of this study was therefore to address the aforementioned imbalance. It took the form of an integrative literature review encompassing publications in the fields of psychology and public participation. Its objectives were (a) to develop a theory of the psychosocial dynamics of public participation; (b) on the basis of this theory, to identify ways in which the effectiveness of public involvement processes might be enhanced; and (c) to propose avenues for future research in the field. Systems theory was chosen as a meta-theoretical framework to guide the process of theory-building. Systems theory may be defined as the study of interrelationships between the properties of whole systems and the properties and organisation of their component elements. Hence, it provided a means of demonstrating how the micro-level aspects of a public participation process (such as the actions, motives and perceptions of individual participants) interact with macro-level variables (such as the cultural and socio-political milieu in which it is embedded) to shape its course and outcomes. On the basis of the study, five complementary models of public participation were constructed. The first three models depict the macro-level characteristics of public participation. These set the stage for the remaining two models, which encompass both its macro- and micro-level dynamics. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Psychology / unrestricted

I Malmö stads översiktsplan fastslås en ambition om att i högre grad involvera medborgare i planeringen för att göra staden mer jämlik och socialt hållbar, samtidigt som planeringen kan bli mer effektiv när planer kan förankras genom att involvera medborgare i ett tidigt skede. Men för att involvera medborgare i planeringen, i ett tidigt stadie, krävs det att det görs ansatser som går utöver de lagliga krav som Plan- och Bygglagen ställer på planförfarandet om medborgerligt demokratiskt inflytande. Denna ansats benämner Malmö stad som fördjupad delaktighet. Men vad som ingår i de ansatser som går utöver lagens krav och möjligheterna för hur medborgare kan påverka planeringen, kan variera från en planprocess till en annan. Hur Malmö stad arbetar med att involvera medborgare med metoder som går utöver lagens krav ämnar denna studie studera. Detta har undersökts med en fallstudie som har studerat ett aktivt planeringsprojekt i Bunkeflostrand i Malmö. Fallstudien har kompletterats med en dokumentstudie samt en intervju som har genomförs med en nyckelaktör i planeringsprojektet, med ansvar för medborgardialog. Denna inhämtade information har sedan analyserats med hjälp av teorier som har sin grund i deliberativ demokratiteori, medborgarmakt, demokratiska innovationer och kommunikativ planeringsteori. Genom denna analys har vi identifierat att medborgare ges en större möjlighet att delta i planprocessen, men att detta inte översätts till att medborgare ges en medbestämmanderätt. Hur medborgares åsikter överförs till planarbetet försvåras av planutformningens teknokratiska natur, vilket innebär att det medborgerliga inflytandet kräver stöd från andra aktörer för att kunna förverkligas. / Malmö municipality’s general plan states an ambition to involve citizens, to a higher degree, in city planning to make the city more equitable and socially sustainable. By involving citizens in planning, it can become more effective when plans are thoroughly anchored with citizens at an early stage. But in order to involve citizens at an early stage in planning, it is necessary for city planning to make efforts that go beyond the legal requirements that Plan- och Bygglagen imposes on the planning procedure for civic democratic influence. This effort is defined in Malmö Municipality’s’ general plan as deepened participation. But what is included in the efforts that go beyond the requirements of the law and the possibilities for how citizens can influence planning can vary from one planning process to another. The purpose of this study is to understand how Malmö Municipality works to involve citizens with methods that go beyond the requirements of the law. This has been investigated with a case study that has examined an active planning project in Bunkeflostrand in Malmö Municipality. The case study has been supplemented by a document study as well as an interview conducted with a key employee in the planning project, responsible for citizen dialogue. This information has then been analyzed with the help of theories based on deliberative democracy theory, citizen power, democratic innovations, and communicative planning theory. Through this analysis, we have identified that citizens are given a greater opportunity to participate in the planning process, but that this is not translated into giving citizens a right of co-decision. How citizens' opinions are transferred to planning work is complicated by the technocratic nature of plan making, which means that civic influence requires support from other stakeholders to be realized.

Der europarechtlich vorgeprägte und national stark ausdifferenzierte Bedarfsplanungs- und Genehmigungsablauf für Hoch- und Höchstspannungsleitungsvorhaben ist durch ein umfassendes Beteiligungsregime zu Gunsten der Öffentlichkeit ausgestaltet. Im Rahmen der gegenständlichen Arbeit wurden sowohl die formellen als auch die informellen Beteiligungsmöglichkeiten der Öffentlichkeit analysiert, klassifiziert, kritisch hinterfragt und hinsichtlich der verschiedentlich anwendbaren normativen Vorgaben miteinander verglichen. Hierbei haben unter anderem europarechtlich das Vierte Energiebinnenmarktpaket aus den Jahren 2018 und 2019, national das Gesetz zur Beschleunigung des Energieleitungsausbaus aus dem Jahr 2019 und das Planungssicherstellungsgesetz aus dem Jahr 2020 sowie föderal das Umweltverwaltungsgesetz aus dem Jahr 2014 besondere Berücksichtigung gefunden. Insgesamt konnte die aktuelle Gesetzeslage, Rechtsprechung und Literatur bis Ende Juni 2020 in die vorliegende Untersuchung eingearbeitet werden.:Teil 1: Einführung Teil 2: Grundlagen der Öffentlichkeitsbeteiligung im Netzausbau Teil 3: Öffentlichkeitsbeteiligung im Rahmen der Bedarfsplanung Teil 4: Öffentlichkeitsbeteiligung im Rahmen der Korridor- und Trassenplanung Teil 5: (Temporäre) Wirkungen des PlanSiG auf die Öffentlichkeitsbeteiligung Teil 6: Gesamtbetrachtung zur Verbesserung des Beteiligungsregimes / The planning and approval process for high and extra high voltage power line pro- jects, which is predefined by European law and differentiated by German law, is designed in favour of the public through a comprehensive participation regime. In the context of this work, both the formal and the informal opportunities for public participation were analysed, classified, critically questioned and compared with one another in terms of the various normative requirements. Among other things, the Fourth European Internal Energy Market Package from 2018 and 2019, the national law to accelerate the expansion of power lines from 2019, and the law to ensure proper planning and approval procedures from 2020 as well as the federal law to standardise environmental administration law and to strengthen public participation in the environmental field from 2014 have been given special consideration. Overall, the current legal situation, the case law and the literature until the end of June 2020 have been incorporated into the present study.:Teil 1: Einführung Teil 2: Grundlagen der Öffentlichkeitsbeteiligung im Netzausbau Teil 3: Öffentlichkeitsbeteiligung im Rahmen der Bedarfsplanung Teil 4: Öffentlichkeitsbeteiligung im Rahmen der Korridor- und Trassenplanung Teil 5: (Temporäre) Wirkungen des PlanSiG auf die Öffentlichkeitsbeteiligung Teil 6: Gesamtbetrachtung zur Verbesserung des Beteiligungsregimes

MPM / Oliver Tambo Institute of Governance and Policy Studies

LLM / Department of Public Law / The defining moment of Zimbabwean constitutional reform came in 2008 after the disputed and violence riddled elections of 2008 when the three main political parties entered into a transitional Government of National Unity and were tasked with the establishment of a new constitution which was ultimately adopted in 2013 following a protracted and turbulent process which began in 2009. Some segments of the civil society however argued that the concerned political parties had ‘captured the constitutional project and narrowed it to a short-term struggle motivated by the pursuit of party political interests at the expense of the will of the people and nation’s broad long-term interests’, and thereby subverted and/or negated the aspirations of the people. It is against this background that the study therefore assesses the participation, role and significance of the rural populace in the drafting of the 2013 Zimbabwean Constitution. The study traces the history of constitutional reform efforts in Zimbabwe, beginning with the colonial Lancaster House Constitution of 1979, to the protracted exercise of 2009 to 2013 which gave birth to the current Constitution. It focuses on the 2009-13 constitution making process as a case study. The study employs an interdisciplinary approach by adopting both doctrinal and empirical research approaches. The study employed the doctrinal research approach to provide for a doctrinal analysis of the relevant global, regional and domestic legislation and case law. The empirical research approach, through interviews, was used to collect qualitative data from the general members of the rural populace and key institutions such as political parties and human rights organisations from three selected rural districts, namely Bulilima, Makonde and Mutasa. The study indicated that while a significant number of the rural populace participated in the constitution making process, the legal environment which subsisted during the constitution making process did not allow for the unfettered flow of information and ideas, as a direct result of repressive legislation such as AIPPA, Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act, Interception of Communications Act and POSA, among others similar laws, and as well as the deeply polarised political environment owing to the nature of the relationship between the ZANU PF-led government and the opposition political parties. The study further showed that the process was heavily dominated by the political parties to the Global Political Agreement and all the political parties wanted to ensure the adoption of a constitution that best reflected their preferences and partisan views rather than the will of the masses, making the 2013 Constitution an elitist negotiated document, contrary to the provisions of Article VI of the GPA which provided for the right of Zimbabweans to make a constitution for themselves and by themselves.

The threat of global warming calls for a major transformation of the energy system in the coming century. A positive and effective outcome of the development and implementation of municipal energy concepts relies heavily on public participation. Based on user research through qualitative interviews and an online questionnaire in Germany, this paper presents design implications regarding digital participatory technology for municipal energy concepts. The findings include reduction of barriers to enable participation, encouragement of discussion and debate, monitoring the progress and providing feedback. The proposed implications aim to increase public participation for municipal energy concepts and motivate citizens towards a more sustainable lifestyle. Further work is needed to validate if the design implications entirely fulfill their purpose. / <p>Självständigt Examensarbete (Forskningsartikel)</p><p>Independent Master's Thesis (Research article)</p>

Public participation in urban planning is meant to increase democracy in the planning process. Even though all citizens have the option to participate in urban planning debates, few seize their chance to partake. This thesis describes a study on how user needs are met and prioritized in design processes concerning urban planning. The aim was to determine whether user-centered design (UCD) methods could be used as an avenue for public participation in urban planning and ultimately invite more citizens into the planning process. The thesis details a design process where a team worked to develop Farsta, a suburb of Stockholm. The design problem was the question of how Farsta could become an attractive business location. Four concepts were developed and presented to the client. One of the concepts was chosen for further development. In the design process, three different UCD methods were used (interviews, observations and a workshop). The data from these methods were triangulated in the thesis to define user needs. These user needs were then mapped to the different concepts. Based on the mapping, the concept that met the largest number of the user needs could be established. The study showed that the concept that met the most user needs was not the concept that the design team chose to develop further after the presentation to the client. A possible explanation for this is the fact that the client preferred another concept. Thus, the client's wishes and the concept's feasibility were in this case prioritized higher than the users' needs. Despite this, UCD is found to have the potential to invite more citizens into the planning process since people who do not participate in the urban planning debates today could partake through UCD methods. But this demands deliberate efforts from the designer to find and include these user groups. / Allmänhetens deltagande i stadsplanering är tänkt att öka demokratin i planeringsprocessen. Men även om alla medborgare har möjlighet att delta i stadsplaneringsdebatter tar få chansen. Detta examensarbete beskriver en studie om hur användarnas behov tillgodoses och prioriteras i designprocesser som rör stadsplanering. Syftet var att undersöka om användarcentrerad designmetodik (UCD) kan användas som ett komplement till medborgardialog i stadsplanering för att på så sätt öka med- borgarnas möjlighet till påverkan. I examensarbetet studerades en designprocess där ett designteam arbetade med utveckling av Farsta, en förort till Stockholm. Uppdraget för designteamet var att undersöka hur Farsta kan bli en attraktiv lokaliseringsort för företag. Fyra koncept utvecklades och presenterades för uppdragsgivaren. Ett av koncepten valdes för vidare utveckling efter presentationen. I designprocessen användes tre olika UCD-metoder (intervjuer, observationer och en workshop). Data från dessa metoder triangulerades i examens- arbetet för att definiera användarnas behov. Användarbehoven mappades sedan till de olika koncepten och baserat på mappningen fastställdes vilket koncept som tillgodosåg flest användarbehov. Studien visade att det koncept som tillgodosåg flest användarbehov inte var det som designteamet valde att utveckla vidare efter presentationen till uppdragsgivaren. En förklaring till detta tros vara att uppdragsgivaren föredrog det koncept som slutligen valdes. Uppdragsgivarens önskemål och konceptets genomförbarhet prioriterades alltså i detta fall högre än användarnas behov. Trots detta dras slutsatsen att UCD har möjligheten att inkludera fler i planeringsprocessen. Personer som inte kan eller vill delta i traditionella medborgardialoger skulle kunna komma till tals genom användarcentrerade metoder. Men detta kräver ett aktivt arbete från designerns sida för att definiera och söka upp dessa personer.

Uppsatsen analyserar samråds- och dialogprocesserna vid planeringen av Väsjöområdet i Sollentuna kommun ur ett miljörättviseperspektiv, för att utreda hur dessa processer kan förbättras i att inkludera underrepresenterade grupper. Uppsatsen utreder även vilken syn på natur och miljö som förmedlas vid dessa processer och vad det får för påverkan på vem som ska involveras. Studien har utförts i form av en fallstudie där informanter från Sollentuna kommun intervjuats och dokument rörande exploateringen av Väsjöområdet studerats. Uppsatsens teoretiska ramverk består av miljörättvisa och medborgardeltagande. Den geografiska avgränsningen för uppsatsen utgår från de upprättade detaljplaneområdena gällande Väsjöområdet och tiden mellan juni 2006 och våren 2014. Resultatet visar att Sollentuna kommun vid en del av de samråd och dialoger som hållits arbetat aktivt för att öka den deltagande delen av befolkningen. Det visar även att bilden av natur och miljö fokuserar på lokal påverkan på den lokala miljön. Det gör det viktigt att involvera den lokala befolkningen. Dock saknas det en diskussion om Väsjöområdets framtida befolknings miljöpåverkan genom sin konsumtion.