This thesis is an attempt to study local level politics among the urban poor, i.e. the squatters in Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia, by focusing attention on a Malay squatter community in a squatment in the southwestern part of the city and examining their struggle to retain their illegally occupied land and their attempt to improve their living conditions in the squatment in the face of an apparently unsympathetic urban bureacracy. The study is prompted by Oscar Lewis' theory of 'culture of poverty' and the concept of marginality and it is the contention of this thesis that the Malay squatters are neither marginal nor do they exhibit traits of Lewis' 'culture of poverty'; they are sufficiently well organised at the community level which accounts for their success in achieving some of their communal goals and such success is attributable to their close association with politicians from the party in power. The thesis consists of eight chapters. Chapter I, the introduction, outlines the aims and scope of the thesis, its problems, theoretical orientation and provides a brief background of the country and its people. Chapter II traces the historical development of squatting in Peninsular Malaysia (formerly Malaya) with special reference to the emergence of squatting among Malays in Kuala Lumpur. Chapter III examines the development of the squatment under study and the squatters' initial involvement with political parties. Chapter IV deals with the squatter community, its economy and social networks. Chapter V takes a look at the squatters' relationship with the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), the predominant party in the ruling Barisan Nasional (National Front) between 1967 and 1977. Chapter VI examines the basis of the squatters' dependency on UMNO and the exchanges taking place between them, while Chapter VII looks at the role of the political party in community organisation of the squatters. Chapter VIII, the conclusion, summarises the findings of the thesis, compares the Malay squatters with those of other ethnic groups and explains the nature of the relationship between the squatters and UMNO in terms of political party patronage.

The United States Congress mandated the Secretary of Defense develop a strategy to streamline the joint capabilities integrated development system (JCIDS). The purpose of this qualitative single case study was to explore strategies that senior U.S. Army Commanders might use to reduce the approval time for an acquisition category (ACAT) III need document in the JCIDS. Data came from historical documents and semistructured interviews of 30 ACAT III requirement writers and senior U.S. Army commanders with expertise in JCIDS. The conceptual framework was Goldratt's theory of constraints. Miles, Huberman, and Saldana's data analysis method was used to identify themes. Six themes emerged that yielded 6 possible strategies to reduce approval time: (a) define and implement an objective goal, (b) simplify the process and decrease redundancy by reducing or eliminating irrelevant levels of review, (c) determine the optimum number of reviews necessary for the desired outcome, (d) determine if the Chief of Staff of the Army should be the approving authority for an ACAT III need document, (e) determine the appropriate offices and individuals that should be consulted about the need document during the world wide review process, and (f) enhance training for JCIDS personnel participating in the ACAT III need approval process. The study findings may contribute to positive organizational and social change by potentially saving U.S. taxpayer funding and by enhancing the combat efficiency of the U.S. Army, thereby increasing the safety and security of the United States and its citizens.

Socialsekreterare är en yrkesgrupp med stora påfrestningar emotionellt och ärendemässigt. Enligt tidigare studier har belastningen på socialsekreterare de senaste tio åren ökat. Syftet med denna studie är att få en ökad förståelse för hur socialsekreterare upplever sin arbetssituation. Utifrån ett hermeneutiskt perspektiv belyses vilka emotioner som uppkommer i arbetet och hur socialsekreterare hanterar dessa samt vilken betydelse socialt stöd har för hur de uppfattar sin arbetssituation. Studien bygger på en sammansatt metod bestående av kvalitativa intervjuer och textanalys. De fem socialsekreterare som intervjuats arbetar inom socialtjänstens barn- och ungdomsavdelning. Analysen är utförd utifrån fyra teman: emotioner och emotionellt arbete, yrkesroll och yrkesidentitet, sociala relationer, socialt stöd och responsivitet samt byråkrati. Förutom analys av materialet från intervjuundersökningen analyseras en debattartikel av Pia Tham från DN debatt och tre repliker på denna. I resultatet framkommer att stöd från chefer och kollegor är avgörande för att uppleva sin arbetssituation som hanterbar och arbetet som positivt. Socialsekreterare som känner ett gott socialt stöd på arbetsplatsen mår bra i sitt arbete och känner yrkesstolthet medan de som inte upplever tillräckligt socialt stöd upplever mer negativ stress, uttrycker hälsoproblem och vill lämna sitt arbete. / Social workers are a professional group of workers that deal with emotional strains on a daily basis. According to previous studies the workload of social workers has increased within the last ten years. The aim of this study is to increase the understanding of how social workers perceive their work situation. Based from a hermeneutic perspective, the emotions that appear in the workfield and how social workers handle those emotions are highlighted, as well as the importance social support has on how they perceive their work situation. A mixed method consisting qualitative interviewes  and text analysis is used. The five social workers that are interwiewed are working within the children social services and youth department. The analysis is based on four themes; emotions and emotional work, professional role and professional identity, social relations, social support and responsivity, and finaly bureaucracy. In addition to analysing the material from the interwiews a debate article of Pia Tham from DN debatt has been analysed as well as three replications of this article. The result reveals that support of managers and colleagues  is essential for social workers to percieve their work situation as manageable and work as positive. Social workers who experience strong social support in their workfield feel good and useful about their job, and they look up to their profession with pride, while on the other hand, those that do not experience a proper social support feel more of the negative stress, express more health problems and wants to leave their work.

Using the theory on Representative Bureaucracy, this study considers the minority representative role, which suggests that administrators who are minorities are more inclined to represent minority interests. This study examined whether officers perceive themselves as advocates based on shared demographics and whether they develop attitudes toward reducing youth violence. Considerably more researchers conduct studies in adult prisons than juvenile correctional facilities, which focus on rehabilitation for youth. Therefore, this study further examines youth correctional staff attitudes toward inmates. The way correctional officers' treat minors may impact the amount of violence in juvenile detention facilities. The purposes of the study are to determine whether bureaucratic representation can have an impact on preventing violence, and to understand what factors lead officers in perceiving they have different roles. The two types of bureaucratic representation are passive and active. Passive representation, such as race, ethnicity, and gender, may shape role perceptions because attitudes are constructed by demographic characteristics. Active representation consists of decision-making behavior reflected in measurable policy outputs that are responsive to minority interests. This dissertation seeks to determine whether minority officers perceive themselves in passive or active terms, and how that representation relates to their particular strategies for dealing with youth violence. To determine how officers perceive themselves, this study incorporated mixed methods of both qualitative and quantitative research to examine how officers implement decisions in their positions. This study uses survey research from the Performance Based Standards from the U.S. Department of Justice and interviews with individuals who worked with inmates in California juvenile detention facilities to determine the relationship between minority officers and attitudes toward youth violence. Regression models, including year, were conducted for each hypothesis as a predictor in the model. Multiple regression analysis was used to demonstrate the relationship between independent variables and a single dependent variable. The data have information on facilities as well as staff and inmates within those facilities. Due to the nested nature of the data, multilevel regression models were also conducted when examining outcomes measured at the staff and inmate level.

Bc. Matěj Zahradník 2016 School Psychology at Elementary Schools in the Czech Republic from the Perspective of Public Policy Master's Thesis Abstract This diploma thesis focuses on school psychology as a part of the educational system in the Czech Republic, specifically part of primary schools. The beginning of the thesis presents an overview of relevant policy documents, which focus on school psychology, as well as an overview of development programs designed to support it. These overviews give the reader objective information on the current state of school psychology in the Czech Republic. Using the aforementioned documents, an online questionnaire, and most importantly twelve expert interviews (with school psychologists, representatives from the Ministry of Education, National Institute for Education, Charles University), this thesis analyzes benefits of school psychology, such as personal presence and knowledge of the school, preventive character of such services, mediation and others, its possible drawbacks and obstacles, like issues with consolidating the profession in the system, its financing, or the lack of supervision and intervision. Moreover, this thesis presents policy goals of school psychology, with possible indicators to measure their fulfillment. The crucial part of this thesis focuses on...

Turkey is one of the most powerful and influential nations in the Middle East with many important alliances, but what is the status of the democracy in the country? This thesis aims to explain the challenges towards a consolidation process in Turkey. A case study is used as a methodology and the research question is analysed with the help of the theoretical framework from Juan Linz and Alfred Stepans with their five consolidation arenas. The analysis examines the civil society, political society, economic society, rule of law and state bureacracy in Turkey. These five arenas indicates to which extent the consolidation difficulties exists. The results shows that many internal factors, with civil liberties in danger, has complicated the democratic consolidation. The country’s history with several military coups and ongoing battles with the kurdish guerilla PKK has also kept back the democracy.

One part of the criticism regarding a democratic deficit in the EU is towards a considered tecnocratic bureacracy - especially in the Committé of the Permanent Representatives (COREPER). However, if the argumentation stands on research that compare the EU with theoretical constructs, how valid can that criticsm be? By relating the formal discretion of the bureacrats in Coreper to the formal discretion of the bureacrats in Swedish ministries this study contributes to the discussion on an empirical level. The research design is thus a qualitative comparison of procedure-manuals from both units. The method is text analyzing: through the lens of the policy cycle (first and second phase) and through the defined concepts `discretion ́ and `control ́. These concepts stem from theoretical contributions by Herman Finer regarding discretion and democratic legitimacy. The main findings show that the permanent representatives hold more opportunities of discretion than the Swedish bureacrats. However, these are well specified and more so compared to the Swedish case. According to the theoretical framework the specification is of most relevance - why democratic legitimacy can be derived. I therefore argue that this specific criticism towards the EU might not be as valid if Sweden is still to be considered an accepted democratic system.