Thesis (Ph. D.)--Uppsala University, 1986. / English abstract and summary. English abstract with thesis statement inserted. Includes bibliographical references (p. 209-219).

The Coalition Structure Generation (CSG) problem requires finding an optimal partition of a set of n agents. An optimal partition means one that maximizes global welfare. Computing an optimal coalition structure is computationally hard especially when there are externalities, i.e., when the worth of a coalition is dependent on the organisation of agents outside the coalition. A number of algorithms were previously proposed to solve the CSG problem but most of these methods were designed for systems without externalities. Very little attention has been paid to finding optimal coalition structures in the presence of externalities, although externalities are a key feature of many real world multiagent systems. Moreover, the existing methods, being non-heuristic, have exponential time complexity which means that they are infeasible for any but systems comprised of a small number of agents. The aim of this research is to develop effective heuristic methods for finding optimal coalition structures in systems with externalities, where time taken to find a solution is more important than the quality of the solution. To this end, four different heuristics methods namely tabu search, simulated annealing, ant colony search and particle swarm optimisation are explored. In particular, neighbourhood operators were devised for the effective exploration of the search space and a compact representation method was formulated for storing details about the multiagent system. Using these, the heuristic methods were devised and their performance was evaluated extensively for a wide range of input data.

Esta dissertação analisa o resultado da COP 21, que aconteceu em Paris no ano de 2015, através da capacidade que as coalizões domésticas, dentro de China e Estados Unidos, tiveram em influenciar a política climática durante o período que vai de 1992 até 2015. É através da identificação das coalizões domésticas (ambiental e pó-desenvolvimento econômico) que buscamos explicar como o processo político doméstico, nos dois países, foi moldado a partir das articulações e interações entre os grupos que compõe as coalizões. Até a COP 21, a política climática global parecia não avançar em vistas a uma solução do aquecimento global, a COP 15 é referenciada neste trabalho como o fracasso dos acordos climáticos, no entanto, 5 anos mais tarde, em 2015, juntos EUA e China, o dois maiores emissores da atualidade, anunciam suas metas de redução dos gases de efeito estufa. O que explica essa mudança de posicionamento, segundo a hipótese deste trabalho, é o amadurecimento e a articulação das coalizões doméstica dentro dos dois países, em primeiro lugar, e os acordos bilaterais que ambos promoveram entre os anos de 2009 e 2015 para trata das questões climáticas fora do sistema ONU de tomada d decisão. O resultado encontrado é que de fato, até 2009, a coalizão pró-desenvolvimento econômico conseguiu que sua influencia no processo político da condução da politica climática prevalecesse, no entanto, do período posterior a 2009 até 2015, pudemos ver que a coalizão ambiental conseguiu que sua influencia causasse, inclusive, um transbordamento para a arena internacional. / This essay analyze the COP 21 outcomes, that was held in Paris in 2015, through the domestic coalitions capacity, inside China and USA, had to influence the climate policy during the period that goes from 1992 until 2015. It is through the identification of domestic (environmental and economic development) coalitions that we seek to explain how the domestic political process, in both countries, was shaped by the articulations and interactions between the groups that make up the coalitions. Until COP 21, global climate policy did not seem to advance towards a solution to global warming, COP 15 is referred to, in this paper, as the failure of climate agreements, however, 5 years later in 2015, U.S and China together, the two largest emitters today, announce their targets for reducing greenhouse gases. What explains this change of position, according to the hypothesis of this work, is that the maturation and articulation of domestic coalitions within both countries, first, and the bilateral agreements that both promoted between the years of 2009 and 2015 to deal with the climate change issues outside of the UN system of decision-making. The result was that in fact, until 2009, the economic development coalition had its influence on the political process of climate policy prevailing, however, from the period after 2009 until 2015, we could see that the environmental coalition succeeded in its influence would even cause an overflow to the international arena.

Esta dissertação visa contribuir com uma agenda específica na Ciência Política, a saber, a questão da transparência de dados econômicos e sociais. Apesar da importância que tem sido dada ao tema, são poucos os estudos que analisam os determinantes políticos da transparência. Quando o fazem, utilizam medidas de democracia e variáveis socioeconômicas em sua explicação. Nosso texto vai além disso e identifica que a variação no nível de transparência pode ser explicada por variáveis institucionais e de competição política, vale dizer, o tipo de forma de governo e força da oposição em países democráticos, em um primeiro momento, e a consolidação democrática na sobre as novas democracias da América Latina em sequência. A nossa análise se debruça sobre uma amostra de 78 países de 1980 a 2007 e evidência efeitos significativos de nossas variáveis explicativas. / This thesis aims to contribute to a specific agenda in political science, namely the issue of transparency of economic and social data. Despite the importance that has been given to this issue, there are few studies that examine the political determinants of transparency. When they do, they are using measures of democracy and socioeconomic variables in their explanation. Our text goes beyond this and identifies that change in the level of transparency can be explained by institutional variables and political competition, that is, the kind of form of government and opposition forces in democratic countries, at first, and the consolidation democratic in on the new democracies in Latin America in sequence. Our analysis focuses on a sample of 78 countries from 1980 to 2007 and evidence significant effects of our explanatory variables.

O presente trabalho visa estabelecer quais são as condições responsáveis por permitir à oposição o poder de influenciar o processo decisório em Legislativos. Para tanto, a pesquisa se divide em duas frentes, a primeira teórica e a segunda empírica. Em campo teórico o trabalho chama a atenção para a inviolabilidade do princípio majoritário no que diz respeito à produção legislativa e às suas regras regimentais e, por fim, demonstra como a sua desconsideração pode levar a equívocos no tocante à expectativa sobre o comportamento dos diversos atores envolvidos. Em solo empírico, demonstrarse- á que a incorporação deste princípio é essencial para compreendermos de que maneira a oposição pode intervir no processo decisório, assim como quando e porquê acontecerão mudanças regimentais que aumentem ou restrinjam os direitos da minoria. / The present thesis aims to establish the conditions that give oppositions the power to influence the decision-making process in Legislatives. Our research will be presented in two views, the first theoretical and the second, empirical. On the theoretical view, the study draws attention to inviolability of the majority principle in conducing the legislative process and its regimental rules and ultimately, how disregarding it can lead to mistakes in expectations of involved actors\' behavior. On the empirical view it will be shown that embedding that principle is essential to understand in which way the opposition can intervene in the decision-making process, as well as how and why regimental changes will happen either to restrict or to widen the minority rights.

No description available.

Research summary: Behavioral Theory highlights the crucial role of social comparisons in attention allocation in adaptive aspirations. Yet, both the specification of social reference points and the dynamics of attention allocation have received little scholarly examination. We address performance feedback from two social reference points relative to divisions in multidivisional firms: economic reference point and political reference point. Comparing divisional performance with the two reference points can give consistent or inconsistent feedback, which has important consequences for the dynamics of attention allocation in adaptive aspirations. We find consistent feedback leads to more attention to own experience, while inconsistent feedback results in more attention to the social reference point the focal division underperforms. Results reveal that political reference point plays an important role in determining managerial attention allocation.Managerial summary: This article is based on how goal-based performance of divisions relative to both their relevant external market rivals and sister divisions in multidivisional firms influences corporate resource allocation. As a result, various combinations of performance against the two groups of peers drive the reallocation of divisional management attention. We show that specific attention shifts occur on average as a function of the focal division's performance relative to the marketplace performance and that of sister divisions. Copyright (c) 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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This dissertation examines the characteristic features and problems of a party/movement as they pertain to the Family Coalition Party of British Columbia (FCP). The FCP is a minor provincial political party in British Columbia that was founded in 1991 to provide a formal political voice for pro-life and pro-family supporters in the province. After years of frustrated activism within the pro-life and pro-family movements and ineffectual political representation, the founders of the FCP sought to establish a political access point that could provide a more direct route to the province's political decision-making process. The result was the formation of the Family Coalition Party, a conservative political organization that supports social policies which are resolutely pro-life and promote a vision for the restoration of what is understood as the traditional family. The primary goal of the party is the advancement and implementation of such policies, with electoral success pursued as a secondary goal. This agenda renders the FCP an organization that uses a political party form to perform social movement work or functions. In this regard, the FCP exhibits the hybrid duality of a party/movement in the tradition of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation and the Green Parties of Canada and Germany. In developing a sociopolitical and ideological profile of the Family Coalition Party and its politics of the family, its historical roots are traced back to the conservative political writings of Edmund Burke and brought forward to the current era of late twentieth century neoconservatism. The pro-family movement (PFM), of which the FCP is a part, is examined comparatively in the United States, where it exists in its most mature form under the auspices of such Christian Right organizations as the Christian Coalition, and in British Columbia, where the movement remains in a state of relative political infancy and organizational disunity. Despite the disparities in organizational maturation, the movements in both countries share a high degree of ideological resonance concerning their opposition to feminism, abortion, euthanasia, and reproductive technologies, and their support for increased parental control in education, programmes that will promote the traditional family, and a minimalist state. To understand the duality of the Family Coalition Party as a party/movement, it is first analyzed as a social movement organization (SMO) and then as a minor party in Canadian politics. Using contemporary social movement theory, the Family Coalition Party is found to exhibit the same traits and problems as those typically characteristic of the New Social Movements, despite the ideological disparities between the two. To this end, the FCP can be understood as a sub-type of New Social Movement, a Resurgence Movement, as it attempts to simultaneously resist one type of social change while promoting another by working to re-establish a diminishing set of normative cultural beliefs. As a minor political party of protest, the FCP, with reference to relevant political science research, is seen to embody the motivations, features and difficulties of minor parties as evidenced in the Social Credit League, the CCF, and the Green Party. In this regard the emergence of the FCP is symptomatic of a cadre party system that fails to adequately represent issues important to an aggrieved segment of the population and also experiences the institutional obstacles of the Westminster parliamentary model of political representation. In examining the FCP as a party/movement, four ways of analytically relating political parties and social movements are reviewed before a fusionist perspective is used to identify the characteristic features and problems of party/movements. Three sources of tension (organizational, institutional and cultural) are subsequently identified. These tensions are one of two types: they are either difficulties unique to party/movements, created by the deliberate fusing of party form with movement function; otherwise, they are problems common to every SMO or minor political party striving to achieve political legitimacy and potency. For party/movements, the challenge of resolving this latter set of problems is exacerbated beyond the level of difficulty experienced by single identity organizations precisely because of their dual identity. The experience of other party/movements, such as the CCF and the Green Parties of Canada and Germany, suggests that their specific tensions make it difficult to maintain a dual identity, with a drift towards either political institutionalization or dissolution likely, if not inevitable. While the Family Coalition Party is presently maintaining its party/movement nature, its future as such is in doubt unless the tensions of fusion that it now faces are effectively managed. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

Policy coherence for development (PCD) has risen on the donor community’s agenda over the years as globalization makes it impossible to ignore non-aid policies’ impact on development. Although straightforward in theory, PCD has proven much more difficult to achieve in practice. Policy incoherence remains commonplace, even as the number of guidelines and best practices for avoiding it increase. This thesis used the Advocacy Coalition Framework to analyze two cases of policy change in Sweden and Germany, namely the adoption of the democracy criterion for arms exports and the coal phase-out respectively. The findings suggest that the current discourse about PCD among donors and donor institutions – that PCD can be achieved through better evidence and greater policy coordination – requires careful scrutiny. The Swedish and German case studies strongly suggest that bureaucratic mechanisms for PCD are insufficient to make the significant political trade-offs PCD typically demands. This analysis argues that achieving policy coherence, especially where there are significant conflicts between development and self-interest, requires political direction catalyzed by an external event. This event, or series of events, must be disruptive and focus significant public attention on the policy issue, to trigger a redistribution of power in the policy subsystem. A combination of other necessary and sufficient factors is also needed for successful policy change in favour of PCD. Institutional mechanisms cannot substitute for political will, and the current move towards a de-politicized treatment of PCD – as something that can be achieved through technocratic means – should be re-examined.