published_or_final_version / Public Administration / Master / Master of Social Sciences

<p>Communal land tenure reform in Zambia is the overarching subject of study in this thesis. It is an important issue across southern Africa, raising questions of governance, livelihood security and conservation. WIldlife is a 'fugitive' and 'mobile' resource that traverses the spatially fixed tenure of communal lands, national parks and public forest reserves. The management of wildlife therefore requires that spatially defined proprietorial rights accommodate wildlife's temporal forage use. Land may bebounded in tenure, but if bounded by fences its utility as wildlife habitat is undermined. If land is unfenced, but its landholder cannot use wildlife then it is more a liability than an asset. Africa's terrestrial wildlife has enormous biodiversity value but its mobility requires management collaboration throughout its range, and the resolution of conflicting ecological and economic management scales. The paper does not aim to describe and explain the internal communal system of tenure over land and natural resources but rather how the communal system interacts with the state and the private sector.</p>

The thesis covers two sides of the truancy problem in the period following compulsory school attendance - the truanting children and their parents, and the local authorities charged with enforcing the law. The introduction covers current concerns about truancy and school attendance, which have increased in prominence since the 1980s. Chapter 2 reviews the historiography, which has mainly debated working-class attitudes towards compulsory schooling in the nineteenth century. This study draws instead on the insights of development economists into household decision-making over children's schooling to investigate the effectiveness of enforcement in several contrasting localities - rural and urban, industrial and agricultural, and in a seaside resort. The thesis brings together evidence to show that local authorities could make an impact on attendance levels, even in unpropitious local circumstances. Chapter 3 considers the success of measures to improve attendance up to 1900. Chapter 4 offers a detailed case study of a sample of truants and their families from Coventry in the period 1874-99. Chapters 5 to 7 cover 1900-39 and demonstrate changes in the enforcement of attendance, within the context of growing local government services related to child welfare and the family. Attendance officers' local knowledge of working-class families supported the delivery of child welfare legislation in the period after 1906, including special education, assessment of families for free school meals, assistance with medical treatment and the policing of restrictions on children's street trading. Attendance officers also supervised children deemed at risk of offending, who were committed to institutions. These additions to the enforcement role led increasingly to a remedial, rather than punitive, approach to truancy during the 1920s and 30s. The conclusion returns to contemporary policy issues over truancy and sets in context the historical reasons why it has proved such a long-standing problem for government and schools.

CHDS State/Local / The Citizen Corps (CC) is the primary Department of Homeland Security vehicle for achieving civilian preparedness. CC volunteers are included in the National Preparedness System (NPS) through various sponsoring agencies who determine the roles and functions of the volunteers within their organization. However, not defining the CC as an independent support function within the NPS makes it difficult to isolate data for the purpose of creating Target Capabilities Lists, measuring performance, and including volunteers in operations plans. This thesis posits that to achieve adequate civilian preparedness, the CC's roles and functions need to be restructured to align with the certification systems of the professional emergency response disciplines. CC certifications will also bridge gaps in the response continuum. The CC reorganization will modularize and isolate roles and functions for the purpose of strategic planning, measuring performance levels, serving as a predeployment civilian response, typing, credentialing, and pre-registering as an independent resource capability (which will be essential in planning for a pandemic and surge capacity needs). For planning purposes, and to add visual clarity to the CC roles and functions, the CC should be positioned as an independent Emergency Response Function within the National Response Plan.

The purpose of this study is to make an investigation of certain governmental policies in relation to parochial schools and to ascertain reasons why parents enroll their children in parochial schools instead of public schools.

This dissertation analyses the biofuel debate in the UK, focusing on how the UK Government has deployed expectations to legitimise its biofuel policy. The analysis builds on the sociology of expectations, integrated with insights from the multi-level perspective (MLP) on socio-technical transitions. By the end of the 1990s, a sustainable paradigm permeated UK road transport policy opening a space for biofuel policy to emerge. In the second half of the 2000s, disagreements among UK stakeholders over the translation of EU biofuel targets into UK biofuel policy prefigured later EU-wide discussions over limiting targets for first-generation biofuels. Biofuels critics disagreed with the UK Government and biofuels supporters over how to protect a space for future second-generation biofuels, which were expected to overcome the harm caused by currently available, but controversial, first-generation biofuels. The UK Government and biofuels supporters defended rising targets for available biofuels as a necessary stimulus for industry to help fulfil the UK’s EU obligations and eventually develop second-generation biofuels. By contrast, critics opposed biofuels targets on the grounds that these would instead lock-in first-generation biofuels, thus pre-empting second-generation biofuels. I argue that these disagreements can be explained in relation to the UK Government‘s responsibilities relating to “promise-requirement cycles”, whereby technological promises generate future requirements for the actors involved. Further, I claim that the UK Government’s stance reflects what I call a “policy-promise lock-in” – i.e. a situation in which previous policy commitments towards technology innovators of incumbent technologies (currently controversial and potentially driven by several imperatives) are officially justified as necessary for the development of preferable emerging technologies. Finally, my analysis expands the focus of the sociology of expectations, which has hitherto mostly been used to investigate expectations from technology innovators – i.e. scientists or industrialists – by investigating how other types of actor mediate expectations among different parties, in particular, public authorities, industry associations, consultancies, and non-governmental organisations.

This dissertation is the product of research into white, South African masculinities. It is concerned with the official treatment of white, gay men in this country by the governments of the day from the 1960s to 2000 and the government’s control of hegemonic masculinity in order to maintain power. By looking at gay masculinities the threat to hegemonic masculinity was ascertained as well as the different versions of heterosexual masculinities. This thesis also analyses the degree of change in the toleration or acceptance of white homosexuality in South Africa from churches, society, and elements within the SAP and the SADF as well as within gay organisations. Legislative achievements in the Constitutional Court show the most extreme changes in the perceptions of gay masculinities. This dissertation primarily begins in the 1960s, looking at why it was necessary to set up the 1968 Select Committee. This committee investigated criminalising all male homosexual acts, including those in private and also aimed to dictate societal norms and maintain white, privileged, hegemonic masculinity established and defined by the NP government. The state had always repressed homosexuality through law; even colonial legislation proved this. It was the creation and maintenance of hegemonic masculinity that advocated such legislation. 1966 was the focal year where white homosexuality became a recognisable problem. A gay party was held at a Johannesburg residence, which made white homosexuality visible and alerted the police to this alternative masculinity. The Select Committee, however, did not fulfil its initial aims. Once elements within the SAP were faced with the visibility of white homosexuality, their power thereby being challenged, Major van Zyl set about requesting stricter legislation by proposing amendments to the Minister of Justice regarding the 1957 Immorality Act and submitting evidence to the Select Committee. However, numerous submissions to and interviews by the Select Committee proved that it was unnecessary and illogical to criminalise private homosexuality. Such submissions showed white homosexuality was no societal threat and that some in white society recognised gay masculinities and challenged hegemonic masculinity. Consequently the Select Committee did not propose stricter legislation regarding homosexuality. Furthermore, repressive official treatment of white, male homosexuals was evident in the SADF in the 1970 and 1980s. Through a military perception of masculinity, that is, aggressive masculinity, most in the SADF were intent on conforming its white soldiers to the traditional definition of masculinity, the NP government’s definition of white masculinity, which did not include homosexual men. Dr Levine used electro-shock therapy to ‘cure’ gay conscripts at 1 Military Hospital. This extreme practice of ensuring conformity was no longer utilised by the 1980s and there was also some unofficial acceptance of white homosexuality within the SADF by some white commanders and soldiers. There was no gay liberation movement to speak of until the 1980s. GASA, a white gay organisation, led the movement but it was to be unsuccessful in that it supported the NP government, that is, it benefited from hegemonic masculinity because GASA’s membership was predominantly white men. Because of this GASA was seen to support the government’s policy of apartheid and there ensued the consequent debate between gay essentialism and gay rights as part of the broader struggle. GASA was purely reactionary, because in effect it did not really want change and was therefore ineffective. The gay movement grew but it did not unify. This failure to unify meant the gay liberation movement, as a movement had failed, even though, later, liberation and much change was achieved, mainly through the work of the NCGLE. Like the 1968 Select Committee, the President’s Council was set up in 1985 to once again investigate stricter penalties against homosexuality. The ANC was still very quiet on the issue of gay rights, supporting heterosexist hegemony and not recognising gay masculinities. The President’s Council did not recommend stricter legislation against homosexual men but the 1988 Sexual Offences Act retained the penalties against homosexuality as stipulated by the 1969 Immorality Amendment Act. Gay essentialism damaged any headway regarding gay rights, especially when it came to gaining the support of progressive organisation in the broader political struggle because there was so much in-fighting regarding defining gay masculinities. Race could not be discounted in this equation and the RGO, a black gay organisation, challenged GASA’s support of the NP government. New gay organisations only contributed to the failure of the gay liberation movement because again there was no unity. In 1989 Albie Sachs of the ANC met with a liberal gay organisation, OGLA, and finally gay rights were beginning to be taken seriously, culminating in the protection of gay rights in the 1996 Constitution. This was due to individual members of the ANC and Kevan Botha, the lawyer hired by the NCGLE to represent gay rights at CODESA. Once sexual orientation was retained in the equality clause of the Constitution it was left to the NCGLE to fight for the legal practice of equality for gay men and lesbians. There was also greater toleration and even acceptance of homosexuality by the South African society at large, both black and white, the churches, and the SAP, especially officially. Hence, although the gay liberation movement had failed, gay rights had been entrenched and change allowed for potential equality, the last of which would be legal gay marriage, which remains to be seen. / Prof. L. Grundlingh

The purpose of this research is to investigate the performance of the Government Information Technology Officers (GITOs) in the implementation of e-government policy during the last decade. The CIOs in the South African public sector are referred to as GITOs, the position in government departments that was established by a Cabinet memorandum in the year 2000. By 2001, the South African government developed an e-government policy framework which presents the basis for implementation of e-government initiatives by several stakeholders including the GITOs. A qualitative study was undertaken based on the case study of four national departments to determine the performance of the GITOs in the implementation of this policy. The literature review has pointed out several hindrances to the implementation of e-government initiatives and critical success factors that are to be in place to ensure successful implementation. The findings identifies the barriers for the GITOs to implement the e-government policy to include, weak policy, lack of strategic leadership, critical ICT skills, infrastructure, uncoordinated funding and low levels of e-readiness by departments. The analysis categorised the factors into six themes, i.e. ICT governance framework, leadership, organisational structural arrangement, digital divide (infrastructure and access) and integration of services and systems. The analysis of the findings and lessons from the literature review constituted the basis for policy recommendations in the last chapter.

A research report submitted to the Wits Business School in the University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Management in Innovation Studies Johannesburg, 2015 / Innovation policy is a crucial driver for development, especially in developing countries. Developing countries are characterised by weak and fragmented innovation systems that pose an even greater challenge to integrating innovation policy. The key and most persistent weakness identified in South Africa’s national innovation system has been its lack of vertical and horizontal policy integration and coherence. Regions in South Africa are increasingly becoming active in developing, designing and implementing their own innovation policies. This creates an urgent need for integrating national and regional innovation policies and programmes. The basis for the study was an assessment of the extent of integration between national and regional innovation policies in South Africa and the Gauteng region in particular. The study employed both a qualitative and quantitative research approach and the methodology applied was content analysis as well as semi-structured interviews with key informants at the national and regional level. While there was no specific innovation framework regarding the question of integration across different regions due to restrictions, this study employed a more general framework utilising the policy studies to investigate this issue. The framework was based on three categories: complementary policy goals, priorities and scope; policy structures and procedures for policy integration; and mechanisms and policy instruments to steer integration. The findings of the study suggest that there is weak integration between South Africa’s national innovation policy and Gauteng’s regional innovation policy based on the framework selected for analysing policy integration. The finding revealed that there is significant lack of integration between national and regional policy structures and procedures; and mechanisms and policy instruments in promoting innovation policy. Moreover, the findings showed that South Africa’s national innovation policy is embedded in a linear, narrow path of supply-driven technology and has a top-down perspective approach. Overall, there is an opportunity for South Africa and Gauteng to improve innovation policy integration by prioritising strong leadership and commitment at the political level; establishing specific coordination mechanisms; and improving interactions between national and regional levels through policy experimentation. To achieve these objectives, functional regions should be targeted and used for improving quality of policy-relevant evidence.

Thesis (M.M. (ICT Policy and Regulation))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Graduate School of Public and Development Management, 2013. / Developing countries face the challenge of devising ways to advance rapidly through developmental stages. At the turn of the millennium, South Africa focussed its attention on pursuing the twin goals of becoming a ‘developmental state’ and harnessing ICTs to become an advanced inclusive ‘information society’. Despite these pent up aspirations, it has failed to put in place concrete policy enablers and strategies to vigorously pursue these specific goals. Furthermore, while ICT policies express ICT for development (ICT4D) perspectives, few have delivered on their stated objectives. This policy analysis research investigated seven distinct ICT policies (or policy components) published between 2001 and 2012, examining the extent to which they reflect either developmental state or ICT4D themes. The developmental state perspective is based on four sub-themes, namely developmentalist ideology, state capacity and institutional arrangements, state autonomy, and country context. The ICT4D perspective is based on five sub-themes, namely enabling institutional environment, agile ICT industry, robust ICT infrastructure, human digital capability development, and ubiquitous e-services deployment. The findings illustrate that ICT policy fairs reasonably well on only one of the nine sub-themes presented above, namely attention to the enabling institutional environment, even if only at the level of principle. The research report notes further that South Africa is headed towards a captured welfare state rather than a capable competitive developmental state, while the major ICT policies exhibit glaring gaps in terms of reflecting either developmental state or ICT4D theories. Finally, the report proposes a series of new directions for policy thinking on ICT-enabled development.