This thesis draws on an ethnographic research in Ghana to question mainstream views on decentralisation that local level institutions can be consciously crafted to enlist the participation of marginal actors in governance thereby leading to efficiency and equity in development. The research explores the everyday practice of local governance in Ntonaboma, a resettlement community in the Eastern region of Ghana by using participant observation and interviews. Evidence from the study reveals that first decentralisation is not a technical or managerial exercise but rather a societal practice taking place among heterogeneous actors with diverse interest and values. Secondly, the interactions occurring among these diverse actors are mediated through the interplay of a variety of institutions at the local level. Thirdly, the complex and dynamic character of decentralisation at the community level make the specificities of context very relevant in understanding the transformative potentials of decentralisation especially how it impacts on people and their social organisation. The study places emphasis on the application of agency, institutions and authority in local governance approaches. Evidence from the study suggests that institutionalised decentralisation inadequately provides possibilities for ordinary people to transform the nature of their interactions within the community. The thesis raises further questions about the simplistic and instrumental use of institutions in local governance approaches. The study notes that institutions are not static and do not determine outcomes but are informed by the prevailing conditions at the community level. Thus, the actions of actors and specificities of the locality do shape institutions. The study emphasises the role of existing institutions and socially embedded principles in village governance. It thus suggests that, the process of decentralisation is a political process mediated through diverse institutions and with varied outcomes for different individuals. The study concludes by exploring implications for local governance and decentralisation to making local governance pro-poor.

Despite the growing population in the colonies throughout the eighteenth century, decreasing numbers of men chose to train for the ministry. New England Congregational clergy not only declined in number; the status, authority and influence enjoyed by their seventeenth-century forbears had drastically declined as well. Early in the century, ministerial authority was bolstered by the clergy’s educational and financial superiority, a virtual monopoly over religious sacraments and the force of localism in small covenanted communities. But the social impact of explosive population growth, a series of currency crises, and warfare throughout the eighteenth century eroded conditions supporting ministerial hegemony. In the midst of these social and economic changes, clergy faced the temptation to prostitute their ministries for the security of their positions. The loss of educational and financial superiority, their monopoly on the sacraments, and the conforming force of localism, drove eighteenth-century clergy to negotiate for more control over their own futures. Late in the century, Congregational clergy largely managed to escape the confines of a life-long tenure with one congregation, but their newfound freedom did not restore their declining prestige and authority; rather the weakened lay-clerical bond accelerated the decline of the office of the ministry. Ultimately, ministerial authority was a negotiated process between clergy and congregations throughout the colonial period. In spite of the overall decline of clerical status, the theme of negotiation remained constant as the social and economic developments altered the degree of leverage and type of negotiation each could utilize.

The aim of this thesis is to explore the evolving relationship between neighborhood change and public housing in the historically black neighborhood of Rosewood in Austin, Texas. In October 2010, the Housing Authority of the City of Austin was awarded a grant to begin the process of redeveloping one of the nation’s oldest federally funded public housing facilities – Rosewood Courts. As the once segregated public housing complex is slated for redevelopment, community members representing an assortment of interests have engaged in a series of heated exchanges and elevated discourse surrounding the legacy of public housing in Austin, Texas. At the same time, the Rosewood Neighborhood has witnessed a dramatic transformation in recent decades, losing much of its long-standing black community to an ever emergent gentrifying population. This research evaluates the relationship between neighborhood change and public housing (re)development, highlighting the position of Rosewood Courts within larger processes of policy and political economy transformation. / text

<p>This is a case study about the Maasai and their land rights. The Maasai are semi-nomadic pastoralists, living in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. It is said that they came to this area, now called Maasailand, about 300 years ago. In the beginning, they were independent and free to walk and graze their cattle without limitations and regulations. But when the British and German colonizers of these countries came to Maasailand, they discovered the advantages of its nature and started creating reserves. The Maasai were not strong enough to resist and it resulted in a land loss of two thirds for them. This has forced them to change their livelihood. They have to combine their pastoral lifestyle with other ways to make a living.</p><p>The main purpose with the study is to look at how the land loss has affected the Maasai and their livelihoods. The essay is mainly built on secondary sources, but also on a field work from the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, with qualitative interviews. This is used here, in order to give an example of a conservation area where the Maasai and the wildlife successfully coexist. To be able to understand the changes in Maasai livelihoods, the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach has been adapted. With this approach, a more holistic view of the changes can be made. The land losses have not always brought negative results for the Maasai. They have been able to adapt a multiple livelihood, including pastoralism, agriculture and tourist industry. The Maasai might benefit more by adapting different assets; instead of only rely on one.</p>

<p><strong>Purpose:</strong> The overall purpose of this thesis is to provide an analysis of the effects of the documentation requirements on transfer pricing and provide a clearer picture of the documentation requirements in transfer pricing. Furthermore, the purpose is to analyze whether the chosen method of Superfos is adequate related to the new regulations.</p><p><strong>Background:</strong> In 2007, new regulations concerning the documentation of transfer pricing was enacted in Swedish law based on OECD guidelines. This change has led to new internal guidelines for companies regarding their transfer pricing work since the requirements apply to both Swedish owned companies and foreign owned companies. Furthermore, with this change, a great uncertainty about the requirements is shared by companies.</p><p><strong>Method:</strong> This thesis has been conducted as a qualitative case study with Superfos as the case company. A deductive approach has been used and the collection of data consists of both primary and secondary data. Primary in the form of an interview with the finance manager at Superfos and secondary through the use of the Swedish tax authority's stated guidelines concerning transfer pricing as well as books, journals and databases.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>In the conclusion we present a clarifying model of the documentation in transfer pricing based on the data collected for this thesis. In six steps, a clarifying picture of the overview, company structure, transactions identification, functional analysis, comparability analysis and results is provided.</p>

Behavior-analytic accounts of rule-adherence behavior suggest that rule-governance is a general class of functional (i.e., instrumental) behavior maintained by social consequences (Baum, 2005; Malott & Suarez, 2004; Jacobs et al., in prep.). Evolutionary Life-History (LH) theory suggests that LH strategy may underlie variation in rule-adherence behavior. Based on an integration of these two theories, a theoretical structural model of rule-governance was developed and tested. The structure of this model was used to develop follow-up experiments to test particularly salient links in the model. Consistent with theory, the structural model indicated that slow LH strategy directly and indirectly (through increased moral emotions and increased executive functioning) contributed to strength of rule-governance. Two experiments failed to replicate previously demonstrated effects of executive function depletion or moral identity priming (on moral behavioral outcome measures). Further, self-report measures of slow LH strategy, executive functioning, and rule-governance did not predict prosocial (donating) or rule-defiance (cheating) behavior in laboratory tasks. The limitations of relying solely on either self-report or behavioral tasks of unknown external validity are discussed.

漢娜鄂蘭是二十世紀極具代表性的哲學家，同時也是一位十分傑出的共和主義理論家，她的政治哲學寫作時期恰好是二次世界大戰結束後，極權主義垮台，冷戰方興未艾，在這段政治局勢高度緊張的時間裡，鄂蘭通過批判和反思來尋求解決現代政治問題的根本途徑，其方法為對於極權主義進行分析和理解，並提出本於共和主義的政治實踐圖像。 此一理論具體地呈現在《論革命》一書中，鄂蘭在書中透過對於法國大革命和美國革命的重新詮釋以及批判反思來探討革命理論及其共和主義理想，並且藉著對法國大革命的批判重新反思傳統政治哲學的缺陷，同時也藉著對於美國革命的詮釋和讚揚來重申共和主義精神。本論文的主旨即在通過對於《論革命》的重新閱讀來瞭解鄂蘭的新共和主義理論，此一理論面向表現為「權力」和「權威」要素。 藉由耙梳鄂蘭從早期在手稿中形成的相關論點，連接到《論革命》中的理論思考，本論文企圖呈現歷來較少受到關注的鄂蘭理論面向。反思現代政治問題，鄂蘭認為其癥結在於對於政治的錯誤理解以及匱乏的想像，而唯有透過重新梳理古典政治傳統的資源加以去蕪存菁，並融合於現代政治世界，才能對二十世紀的政治問題提供一個較為完善的回答。透過對《論革命》的重新耙梳和理解，我們也在鄂蘭的政治書寫中檢視和借鏡哲學傳統的珍貴資源。 / Hannah Arendt is one of the most significant philosophers in the twentieth century, and a remarkable republican. Her writing of political philosophy happened to begin right after the end of World-War II when the Totalitarian just collapsed and the cold war started. In that political situation with high tensions, Arendt tried to find a fundamental approach to solving the modern political problems through criticism and introspection. She was devoted to analyzing and understanding the sources and the structure of Totalitarianism. Her theories were fully elaborated in On Revolution. In this book, Arendt explored the revolution theory and its republican ideal by reinterpreting the meaning of French Revolution and the American Revolution. With her reviews of the French Revolution, Arendt re-examined the defects of traditional political philosophy; meanwhile, through the re-evaluation of the American Revolution, she reclaimed the republicanism. Therefore, the purpose of the paper aims to understand the Neo-Republicanism theory by rereading Arendt’s On Revolution, with a focus on power and authority. This paper tends to analyze Arendt’s theories less discussed before by the method of combing the arguments in Gauss Manuscript and connecting them to the issues developed in On Revolution. In terms of the modern political problems, Arendt believed that it was for the misunderstanding of politics and the lack of imagination. Only through rearranging the sources of traditional philosophical thoughts and integrating its essence with the modern world can a philosopher provide a better answer to political problems. Keywords：Totalitarianism、Revolution、Power、Authority

Tiek atskiro žmogaus, tiek ir šalies gyvenime saugumas – pamatinė vertybė, kuri yra neatsiejama bei labai svarbi ir šių dienų informacinių technologijų pasaulyje. Todėl, natūralu, kad informacijos saugumas tampa vis aktualesne problema. Organizacijose vykstančių procesų saugumui užtikrinti kuriami įvairūs saugumo įrankiai, kurie turi užtikrinti vartotojų ar paslaugų identiškumą (autentifikaciją), apsaugoti bendravimo vientisumą, privatumą, apibrėžti kam yra leidžiama kokius veiksmus vykdyti ir informacijos išteklius naudoti (autorizacija) ir kita. GRID sistemos suteikia galimybę naudotis WS (interneto paslaugų) pagrindu ir ne WS pagrindu paremta autentifikacija ir autorizacija GSI (GRID saugumo infrastuktūrai) užtikrinti. Abu metodai yra pagrįsti tokia pačia baze, t.y. paremti X.509 galinės esybės ir proxy sertifikatų standartu, kuris yra naudojamas identifikuojant pastovias esybes, tokias kaip vartotojai ir paslaugos, be to, leidžia priskirti laikinas privilegijas kitoms esybėms. Darbo tikslas – ištirti sertifikatų sistemą, šios sitemos komponentus, kurie yra diegiami į GRID sistemas bei pasiūlyti savo metodus ar modelius, kaip būtų galima pašalinti esamų sistemų saugumo trūkumus. Uždaviniai: 1. Išanalizuoti GRID saugumo infrastruktūros elementus ir suformuluoti egzistuojančias saugumo problemas. 2. Išanalizuoti suformuluotų problemų sprendimo būdus. 3. Remiantis problemų sprendimo būdais, suprojektuoti sertifikatų centro modelį ir proxy sertifikatų valdymo mechanizmą. 4... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Both in the persons and in the country's life security - the underlying value, which in these days is an integral and very important in information technology world. It is therefore natural that information security is becoming increasingly urgent problem. To ensure the safety of organizations processes the various security tools are being developed. They should ensure the identity of users or services (authentication), to protect communication integrity, privacy, to define who is allowed to carry out all activities and information resources to use (authorization) and the other. GRID system provides ability to use the WAS (Web Services) and non-WS based authentication and authorization to ensure the GSI (GRID Security infrastructure). Both methods are based on the same basis - X.509 end entity certificates and proxy certificates standard, which is used to identify end entities such as users and services, in addition, allows to assign privileges to other temporary end entities. The aim of the work – investigate a system of certificates, components of these system, which is introduced into GRID systems and to offer the methods or models how to eliminate security weaknesses in existing systems. The tasks: 1. To analyze the GRID security infrastructure elements and to formulate the existing safety problems. 2. To analyze formulated problem-solving techniques. 3. On the basis of problem-solving techniques to design certificate center model and proxy certificates management... [to full text]

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This is a study of self and authority in the popular spiritual field. Since Heelas's The New Age Movement (1996), the notion of a common Self-spirituality in which seekers trust the authority of the Self has been familiar within academe. Yet, contrary to the direction of Heelas's earlier work on indigenous psychologies and self-religions, the different ways participants conceive terms like seeker and self has largely escaped analysis. This omission allows scholars to homogenise diverse activities and portray broad cultural trends. But, it also black boxes the self, side-lines how authority actually works, and obscures conflicts between participants. I address such gaps by examining four international enlightenment cultures, each with a guru (Andrew Cohen; Gangaji; Tony Parsons; and Steven Saunders of Holigral ). Research materials include field experiences, recorded events, and participants printed and online publications. Combining multi-site ethnography with sociological conversation and discourse analysis, and drawing upon science and technology studies throughout, my argument addresses three themes: seekers; gurus; and truths. Developing Heelas's earlier work, I show seekers are not pre-constituted but configured in interactional practices which draw upon various cultural idealisations of the self. An enlightened self is likewise configured differently in each culture. I show such mundane local practices constitute gurus as experiential experts through associating their personas with participants configured experiences of self. Different configurations of self are consequential, implying differing modes of engagement with wider society and figuring in credibility contests between different cultures. I provide a way of understanding enlightenment cultures which avoids homogenising them, considers their respective potentials to promote social change, and accounts for antagonisms between them. As tangential themes, through a literary Seeker Self voice, I address issues of distance and engagement in studying spirituality and the often transparent penetration of academic discourse by the discourse of spirituality, or its spiritual repertoire.