abstract

The aim of the study was to explore the process and practice of leading change in residential child care and assess the efficacy of ‘emotional containment’ in this context. Residential child care in Ireland is experiencing significant change. Change is an emotional experience for staff and leadership is named as pivotal in organisational change. However, there is gap in the literature because leadership and organisational change theory does not fully fit with the relational nature of residential child care. The study is responding to this gap in literature and employs a qualitative case study to explore the impact of organisational change on residential child care, strategies used by leaders to manage the emotional impact of change and identify what practices support emotional containment. Central to the study was a nine-month observation of a child care organisation (Liffey View). Funding reductions in response to austerity emerged as the change event having the greatest impact, strategies to manage funding cuts (team restructuring, reductions in salary) evoked emotions of loss, despair and anger towards external funding bodies. In fact, austerity challenged the very survival of Liffey View Children’s home. The findings highlight how emotional containment supported the organisation to manage the impact of austerity. Containment is linked to the capacity of residential leaders to hold and work with emotion, providing structures (e.g. team meetings) that allow teams to make sense of emotion and finding ways to influence relationships with funding agencies. However, containment on its own is not sufficient to lead change, learning gained through containment needs to be linked to action and the theory of emotional containment is enhanced by integrating thinking from leadership and strategy. A framework integrating thinking from emotional containment and wider management theory is offered as a tool for leading change and for leadership development in residential child care.

Over the past decade, a significant shift has taken place in British drug policy. The publication of the 2010 drug strategy shifted the primary focus of treatment away from attracting and retaining drug users in services, towards encouraging individuals to complete and exit treatment in 'recovery'. The introduction of the recovery agenda emerged alongside widespread reform to the public health system and during a period of sustained economic downturn that has witnessed the introduction of pervasive austerity measures by successive UK governments. With the reorientation towards recovery in this climate, important questions have been raised over the shape of drug treatment provision on the ground. However, despite much speculation, there remains a lack of empirical research in this area. This thesis presents a qualitative, exploratory study of the impact of the shift to recovery in two local authorities in the north of England. Through a total of 36 semi-structured interviews with drug treatment commissioners, staff and service users, this research provides an original contribution to the field by demonstrating the impact of the shift to recovery on local level policy and practice during a time of reform and economic austerity. It is argued that cuts to funding and changes to the commissioning of drug treatment services have created a highly competitive treatment system in which the success of providers is measured primarily through their ability to record successful completions of drug treatment. This has generated perverse incentives within the sector, giving rise to risky practices performed by treatment providers in the aim of demonstrating success. It is argued that these developments are best understood as the manifestation of neoliberal notions of competition, risk, choice and responsibility at the level of practice. This thesis concludes by offering important policy and practice recommendations.

The debate that rages around the concept of austerity, specifically in Europe, lacks context. This paper strives to show that successful reforms are 1) pragmatic in their nature, 2) piecemeal in ideology, 3) mandated by supranational institutions that disregard national sovereignty, 4) unattainable prior to the crisis and 5) long-term in their timeframe. Reforms have had beneficial implications above and beyond fiscal austerity. In the case studies of Ireland, Spain and Greece, the reforms instituted are laid out and evaluated. In each case, reforms achieved a different outcome but allow one to see the merits of well-regulated free market capitalism. When reform is appreciated, the legacy of the European and Troika response to the crisis becomes more appropriate.

During the period 2007-2015 the United Kingdom experienced economic crisis, troubles and insecurity in the labour market, radical welfare reforms, service cuts, declining real income levels and a diminished standard of living for many. Research has consistently shown that the most vulnerable groups in society, such as lone mothers, have been disproportionately adversely affected by these changes. Given that someday there will be another recession, or some other serious socio-economic transformations, there is the need to think seriously about how policy makers might offer meaningful protection and resilience to those who will be affected. One policy maker, for example, has recently commented that: “in this period of austerity, we need to support families, and use the power of their relationships and the networks they create to help strengthen people’s capacity for resilience” (Jon Cruddas, March 2014). However, until now, this rhetoric seems to be operating only at the level of political ideals. There is a distinct lack of both theoretical and empirical substance. This thesis offers a redress. It offers a theoretical framework, grounded in an analysis of social networks, for understanding people’s resilience in face of adverse circumstances. It then applies this framework in an empirical investigation into the social support networks of lone mothers, and examines the role that these networks play in times of recession and austerity. The evidence shows that lone mothers vary in their capacity to cope with and adapt to wider socio-economic change. The findings suggest that this variability is linked to the capacity of the lone mother to create, sustain and mobilise a social support network. Those individuals with strong support networks of family and friends are more likely to be able to obtain resources necessary for daily family life and are more resilient in face of the uncertainties associated with new social environments. Given this, the thesis suggests that one way in which social policy might strengthen the resilience of people and families vulnerable to economic crises is through facilitating their support networks, and proposes ways in which this might be done.

This study examines a Greek civil society organization, which is struggling to cope with the precarity caused by the environment of crisis. By looking into the austerity that prevails in Greece, I aim to discuss the connection between the Greek society and the organization, as both of them are struggling with the consequences of the crisis which brings them into a precarious position. The methods used during the fieldwork were mainly participant observation in the space of the organization, and interviews as well as informal conversations with the members and recipients of the Solidarity Association. By analyzing their discourses introduced in the thesis through ethnographic stories, I claim that the interplay between precarious labor and precarious life transforms the organization into a space of silence. I suggest that this deadening of life should not only be seen as an outcome of the long period of living under harsh conditions, but also as one of the factors which brings the organization into dissolution. By looking at the disintegration of the Solidarity Association, I discuss that its solidarian culture turns into a philanthropic one due to individualistic behaviors which I argue are one of the outcomes of people’s precarious living. This thesis focuses more on what precarity does rather on what it is and it should be seen as a contribution to the understanding of the influence that precarity has on an organization placed in the context of contemporary austerity-ridden Greece.

Suicide rates in Greece (and other European countries) have been on a remarkable upward trend following the global recession of 2008 and the European sovereign debt crisis of 2009. However, recent investigations of the impact on Greek suicide rates from the 2008 financial crisis have restricted themselves to simple descriptive or correlation analyses. Controlling for various socio-economic effects, this study presents a statistically robust model to explain the influence on realised suicidality of the application of fiscal austerity measures and variations in macroeconomic performance over the period 1968-2011. The responsiveness of suicide to levels of fiscal austerity is established as a means of providing policy guidance on the extent of suicide behaviour associated with different fiscal austerity measures. The results suggest (i) significant age and gender specificity in these effects on suicide rates and that (ii) remittances have suicide-reducing effects on the youth and female population. These empirical regularities potentially offer some guidance on the demographic targeting of suicide prevention measures and the case for 'economic' migration. (authors' abstract)

This PhD by published work critically synthesises eight papers using a meta-ethnographic methodology in the field of community sport development. In particular, it provides an overarching critical analysis of mass participation sport development policy and practice in England using research with national governing bodies, county sport partnerships, local government and school-based sport development officers. Latterly, the synthesis centres upon the communities themselves that have been the focus of policy in the lead up to the London 2012 Olympics with its associated participation legacy. Research was undertaken using a predominantly qualitative research methodology, with varied methods including 58 in-depth interviews, 10 focus groups, five video diaries, observational and field note accounts. The meta-ethnographical methodology developed by Noblitt and Hare (1988) was utilised to provide the framework and conceptual approach to developing a critical meta-synthesis across the eight individual papers. The PhD offers a rare analytical insight across organisational boundaries, industry sub-fields (teaching, local government, County Sport Partnerships, National Governing Bodies) and professional-community binary oppositions. Findings from this study highlight key drivers limiting the mass participation agenda. These themes include the increased diversity and fragility of the delivery platform provision under austerity, challenge the industry assumptions of pathways of progression and question existing behaviour change assumptions. Further future explanatory themes that emerged from the meta-ethnography included divergence and widening in sport development delivery (“the haves and have not’s”), sport development workforce challenges in an era of modernisation (emerging skills, knowledge and expectations in the field) and finally what was termed in this study ‘the policy rhetoric gap’.

Magister Artium - MA / The strain brought to bear on fiscal resources of municipalities in South Africa has had a negative effect on the ability by these municipalities to fulfil their obligations; that of delivering quality services to residents, especially the poorest of the poor. Inability to collect adequate revenue; the general hardships related to the global economic recession; competition over resources, all these form an interplay of factors that have a bearing on the City of Tshwane' ability to manage and deliver water resources. Successful efforts to maintain good quality water resources have not been balanced with the ability to increase access to poorer sections of the municipality. The lack of an integrated approach to the management of water resources, which should be guided by the Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) framework has led to a top-down and bureaucratic approach to the management of the resources, leading to both the exclusion of communities and other stakeholders. This thesis acknowledges the municipality's ability to manage quality issues. It however raises critical questions about ability to deliver services to the poor, and their exclusion from managing of water resources.

This dissertation examines the welfare state and social pacts and determines both the causes for their decline and the political effects of their erosion in a series of three papers. Though each of these papers stands alone, together they speak to the growing influence of the European Union, which I find has been a catalyst for retrenchment and diminished social pacts in the aftermath of the Eurozone Crisis. Furthermore, it has been an underestimated factor in the contemporary spike in support for radical right parties. In an era where unpopular policies are imposed by governments under pressure from supranational entities, this volume answers the question of how the public responds to and perceives these changes. Importantly, this dissertation finds that there are two distinct national models for how the public responds to unpopular policies and ultimately the distinction between these two models is whether or not the public rewards parties for past performance or simply punishes them for unpopular policies. This volume sheds light on a political world where austerity is the consensus policy and national governments are constrained by supranational politics. The first paper presents an experimental design testing how the policy evaluations of people in Sweden and the U.K. are influenced by partisan cues. I develop the concept of issue deficits, building and expanding upon the issue ownership literature and behavioral economics. The results show two distinct models, with Sweden acting according to the issue ownership model and the U.K. acting according to my issue deficit theory. My second paper combines a large-N analysis of a cross-national survey with a qualitative analysis, which demonstrates that Euroskepticism is a major independent driver of support for radical right parties. My third paper shows that the European Union has been a significant factor in the decline of social pacts in Europe using a nested analysis. Pressure from the EU can either produce negotiations or stifle them, depending on if the pressure is visible in the public sphere.