The subject of studying the institutional powers of state governors has largely been expressed on a macro level. Scholars have focused on obtaining a measurement of overall gubernatorial powers, often overlooking the quality of the individual measurements that make up their cumulative index. The most recognized method for measuring the formal and informal powers of state governors was created by Joseph A. Schlesinger in 1960, with Thad Beyle carrying on the work and providing periodical updates to the index. The scales used in these studies fall somewhat short of measuring the reality of gubernatorial powers in individual states, as existing scales of individual powers in appointment, tenure, veto, budget, branch official selection and party control fail to recognize important differences among the states. Measuring gubernatorial powers can be important for scholars and citizens alike. Further knowledge of the governor's role and powers in the political process can give voters and researchers a better sense of what a governor may be able to accomplish, and serve as a possible predictor of policy success. This study reviews and reworks the Beyle scales in an effort to identify power differences between states in terms of their individual powers. A closer look at the categories used in cumulative indices reveals that many states are scored identically despite awarding significantly different powers to their state executives. By identifying constitutional and statutory differences among states, revised scales and scores are suggested to improve the validity of measuring the individual powers. A time period comparison for the years 1980-2005 shows that the revised scales find less change in certain powers than the Beyle scales. Finally, the results of the project are used to partially fulfill an existing framework for predicting and evaluating gubernatorial policy success in the states, allowing researchers a better relative context from which to predict and assess gubernatorial actions. / Master of Arts

With an explicit focus on how power is enacted and what this produces in the everyday lives of chronically ill women living on B.C. disability income support (BC Benefits), this research is located at the contested juxtaposition of what I refer to as three fields of possibility; feminism, poststructuralism and critical disability studies. Each of these fields suggests methodological, empirical and interpretive readings that enable me to produce different knowledge, differently, about disabled women’s lives. Using verbatim narrative accounts from in-depth interviews focused on how each of four participants live their lives, take care of themselves, and make sense of and respond to the government policy and practices to which they are subject, reveals everyday, embodied practices of the self that constitute their subjectivities as disabled women. Together, these accounts along with critically interpretive reflections reveal/expose/make visible the lives of these women in response to exercises of power in ways that unseat, unsettle and disrupt taken-for-granted understandings of those who are disabled, female and poor. Along with explicating power relations in the lives of disabled women and what these produce, I also link these critically to their health, socio-economic well-being and citizenship, while creating a disruptive reading that destabilizes common-sense notions about disabled women securing B.C. provincial income support benefits. Thus my research purposes and those of my disability activism are melded as these intersect within the (often-contested) borders of poststructural and social justice terrain. Despite public claims by the B. C. government to foster the independence, participation in community and citizenship of disabled people in B.C., the intersection of government policy and practices and how they are read and taken up by the women, produce profound uncertainty in their lives, such that these women become uncertain subjects. Living poorly, they experience structural poverty, compromised well-being and “dis-citizenship” (Devlin & Pothier, 2006), all inconvenient facts reflecting a marked disjuncture between how government programs are publicly represented and their strategic effects. / Graduate

Several interesting findings emerged from this study. First, strong labour movements still failed to successfully bargain for employment protections due to resistance from employers to encroachments on their institutionalized managerial prerogatives. Second, governments favoured a policy of abstentionism and acquiescence to the collective-laissez-faire tradition until the critical juncture of the 1960s and 1970s. Third, the increasing power resources of trade unions and a deteriorating socio-economic climate created a window of opportunity for bold government action to improve industrial relations, albeit without the consent of employers, and at first, unions. Fourth, contrary to the liberalizing pressures one would expect to find in an archetypical free market economy, the UK has implemented far more statutory protections than deregulatory reforms. Fifth, in contrast to its traditional non-intervention in industrial relations and reputation for worker-protective regulations, Swedish governments have enacted numerous statutes, both restricting and freeing managerial prerogatives in the hiring and firing process. Sixth, statutory employment protections became an independent set of institutional power resources for unions in the long run, serving their organizational and representational interests in important ways. Seventh, unions and left parties consistently defended and advanced the policy preferences of their core constituencies in secure employment by privileging the job security of regular contracts. Eighth, employers and parties on the right of the political spectrum consistently opposed restrictions on the managerial capacity to hire and fire at will, especially for small businesses. Nineth, to increase flexibility without threatening the stability of regular contracts, reforms over the years had to foster atypical forms of work, creating a regulatory gap between permanent and temporary employment, particularly in Sweden. Tenth, differences exist between job security in the statute books and job security in action, particularly in the UK where this gap pervades all aspects of the unfair dismissal system. These findings suggest employment protection legislation has developed in ways far more complex, dynamic and contradictory than is commonly assumed by prominent theories of comparative political economy. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis examines how and why employment protection legislation developed in the United Kingdom and Sweden in the ways that it did from its early beginnings to the present period. It hopes to offer answers to questions about the initial impetus for statutory regulation, the number, content and impact of significant legislative changes and the preferences of key stakeholders with material interests in the policymaking process. It does this by drawing on a variety of both primary and secondary source materials, including employment protection databases, parliamentary records and research publications. At the same time, it assesses the explanatory merit of dominant theories in the political economy literature by testing them against voluminous empirical evidence and provides a multi-factorial account to fill the gaps in the existing body of knowledge.

This study explores the various processes that constructed and transformed the undergraduate curriculum in a Faculty of Education at a South African university. It attempts to delve beneath the representation of post-apartheid curriculum change as a linear process. The thesis argues that scholars should attempt to unravel how the curriculum performs the task of social transformation at the site of the university by empirically investigating how the relationship between structure and action links with the ideals of post-apartheid higher education policy. Theoretically, this study posits that the deficit in the local literature on the use of the structure/agency relationship as a heuristic device for examining institutional change should be addressed with the relational sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. / Sociology / D. Phil. (Sociology)

This study explores the various processes that constructed and transformed the undergraduate curriculum in a Faculty of Education at a South African university. It attempts to delve beneath the representation of post-apartheid curriculum change as a linear process. The thesis argues that scholars should attempt to unravel how the curriculum performs the task of social transformation at the site of the university by empirically investigating how the relationship between structure and action links with the ideals of post-apartheid higher education policy. Theoretically, this study posits that the deficit in the local literature on the use of the structure/agency relationship as a heuristic device for examining institutional change should be addressed with the relational sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. / Sociology / D. Phil. (Sociology)