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Despite extensive writing on Social Democracy in Britain, largely in the form of histories of the Labour Party and marxist state theory, few studies have undertaken, in depth, an empirical analysis of a particular period of social democracy as government, and even fewer using the extensive documentation available in the Public Archives. Theories of the role of the state and those that manage it are often based on abstract, essentially deductive reasoning and over-influenced by a hostile attitude to their object of analysis. Such approaches have resulted in a neglect of the scope for discretionary behaviour in the management of the capitalist state by reducing it to that required for system maintenance. The aim of this thesis has been to examine the nature of any such revealed discretion by opening up and 'dissecting' the black box of policymaking through a detailed examination of a government programme considered vital to the continuing relationship between politicians and the labour movement. Analysis was made of attempts to insulate and protect the programme from forces and interests that could be expected, on a purely deductive reading, to interfere with its success. Crucial in this respect was the way in which policies or programmes were related in an environment, often conceived as one where imperatives, stemming from the constraints of the international market, reduce or remove the degree of discretion and compel adjustment in domestic policy. The closing chapters outlined the key features of the discretionary behaviour apprehended in the study. Much of the conjunctural possibility of social democratic management was seen to lie in a series of 'policy spaces' achieved through a mix of administrative control and negotiation. Some of the contradictions and resulting costs of such a strategy were also revealed: the short term horizon in investment planning, known euphemistically at the time as 'make do and mend", leading to a neglect of long run and progressive accumulation.

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This research evaluates the existing housing provision and Government housing policies in Benin City, Nigeria. It evaluates subsidized public housing, sites and services, and upgrading schemes; and the low income groups' level of affordability, through the application of economic demand models - hedonics and the present value techniques. While the hedonics is used as a predictive technique for policy evaluation, the present value technique is used to evaluate and assess the Government's low income housing policies and the target population's (low income group) level of affordability respectively. After the evaluative and the assessment exercise, it was found that the sites and services is the preferred policy option, although its successful implementation would not be possible unless Mortgage Financing is introduced and the bottlenecks and constraints inherent with the low income housing market is removed. Through the Mortgage Financing Model constructed by the researcher, it was possible to determine the amount of mortgage grant affordable by households on different income grades. It was also found that, apart from the SPSSX computer package hitherto used for the analysis of hedonics, a micro software package modified by the researcher from Davis (1973) Fortran Program developed for Geological and Engineering Surveys could be used for analysing the hedonics technique. This is an advantage to most developing countries where a large SPSSX computer package may not be easily accessible. The research was concluded by highlighting areas for further investigation.

Egypt faces a great challenge in relation to the provision of housing for its urban poor. Not only has the right formula to be found of how to satisy the escalating demand, both in terms of quantity and quality, but also of where to locate such housing. The New Cities and Settlements in the desert seem to be the only option left in order to combat the continuous loss of the agricultural land to the expanding existing urban centres. The New Cities however, initiated in the late 70's, failed to attract the low income groups of settlers. This was mainly due to the lack of affordable housing for such groups. Whilst thousands of finished residential units remain unoccupied, the workers employed in some of the New Cities' factories are commuting on a daily basis to and from the closest urban or agricultural centres near Cairo. This research argues that aided self-help and user interventions in general could offer an appropriate answer. When most of the New Cities and Settlements were planned many self-help schemes were proposed but were frequently abandoned in favour of the conventional medium rise mass housing approach. Little or no research has been carried out to evaluate the very few schemes which were implemented. The decision to cancel self-help schemes was entirely political and seemed to stem from the governments fear of the creation of sub-standard and poor image built environments within the New Cities. The research based its defence on projects which allow user interventions and participation in two Case Studies. The first concerns multi-storey extensions informally built by the residents in 5 storey walk-up public housing flats located in Heiwan and El Tebeen. The second deals with a core housing project located in The Tenth of Ramadan, one of the New Cities. The multi-storey extensions of Helwan and El Tebeen provided clear . evidence on the potentialities and capabilities of low income users working and living in positive and supportive circumstances. The Tenth of Ramadan Core Housing Scheme provides explicit and substantiated proof of the benefits of self-help and user intervention approaches, in contrast to the views of the Government and Local Authority who condemn the process as negative development leading to a lowering of standards and poor quality envi ronments. The research argues that self-help has succeeded where the mass housing approach has failed.The involvement of the household and community group are seen as integral decison makers in the planning and design process. The user's efforts to transform and consolidate their housing requirements should be appreciated and encouraged and to achieve this the research concludes that a review of management and design procedures would be the first step towards achieving this aim.

It has been widely shown that the provider-based approach to the urban low cost housing problem in the developing world has ended in failure. It has not only failed to meet the demand for such houses but the costs of producing them are so enormous that they are hard to sustain. Worse, the beneficiaries of these houses do not even meet the affordability levels required even at their subsidised selling prices. Many causes have been suggested and recommendations proffered. Yet the urban housing problem remains as acute as ever while the approach is still actively pursued by some developing countries. This research aims to examine the performance of provider-based housing policy in the context of the accessibility of the target group to the houses, the habitability of these houses in terms of their standards and quality, the sustainability of the project(s) under study, and the affordability of the households which have succeeded in getting these houses. It uses three project areas constructed by the Sarawak Housing and Development Commission (SHDC), East Malaysia, as case studies. This study stands on the premise that it is not so much the approach which is at fault but the operational environment within which it operates; namely, the political, economic and social (even cultural) context. Any approach may not succeed if it fails to take cognisance of ihe peculiarities and distinctiveness of this contextual stage. The basis of the analysis is based on two types of data. The first is mortgage data which contains all the socio-economic information (as well as loan portfolios) of the beneficiaries who have taken loans from the SHDC. This information was collected when the beneficiaries first applied for the houses, and combined with a household survey of the same beneficiaries to provide a comprehensive set of data used for the analysis. The findings of the research support the conclusions of many similar studies; that the main causes of the poor performance lies mainly on the supply side of the housing market, most of which can easily be solved; thus confirming the premise that the success or failure of any approach depends heavily on the rules within which it has to operate.