Within Saskatchewan, Aboriginal labour market integration has been consistently low, especially in comparison to non-Aboriginal peoples. In 2007, the Government of Saskatchewan created a Labour Market Commission to view labour market trends and challenges, with a focus on improving Aboriginal labour market integration. In 2009, the Commission developed an aggressive policy initiative called the 2009 Saskatchewan Labour Market Strategy. One of the main objectives of the policy was increasing Aboriginal labour market integration in Saskatchewan. The Commission spanned across two different governments, beginning under the Saskatchewan New Democratic Party government and ending under the Saskatchewan Party government. Despite being well received by a majority of invested stakeholders, the Saskatchewan Party government did not implement the 2009 Saskatchewan Labour Market Strategy, and the Commission was subsequently disbanded. It is the objective of the thesis to explore the evolution of the 2009 Saskatchewan Labour Market Strategy to examine why the issue of Aboriginal labour market integration gained traction, how policy makers intended to address it and why this Strategy was ultimately not implemented. John Kingdon’s policy stream theory will provide the theoretical framework for the analysis. Kingdon’s policy stream theory suggests policy development flows through three distinct streams: the problem stream, the policy proposal stream and the political stream. The thesis will use these streams to examine the development of the Strategy and conclude that Aboriginal integration was focused on for economic reasons, rather than solely improving overall quality of life, and that the Strategy was rejected by the Saskatchewan Party government on partisan grounds.

Human trafficking is a global crime that violates the rights of people by holding them in captivity and coercing them into sexual slavery or strenuous labor. It has become a growing phenomenon on Cape Cod, Massachusetts with no signs of stopping. Using John Kingdon's work on multiple policy streams as the primary theoretical foundation, the purpose of this case study was to identify the perceived barriers to implementing existing Massachusetts's policies targeting human trafficking on Cape Cod as experienced by social service providers and law enforcement. Data were collected from 6 participants through e-mail interview. These data were inductively coded and analyzed using Braun and Clarke's thematic analysis procedure. Findings indicate that participants perceived the key barriers to full implementation of state policy to be a lack of training, difficulties in forming and maintaining partnerships, gaps in policy, and funding deficiencies. Participants also consistently noted that vulnerable populations supply the demand for human trafficking, and vulnerable populations are one of the reasons why human trafficking continues to exist. The implications for social change include recommendations to local government policy makers to focus on building coalitions between law enforcement and social service agencies to capitalize on opportunities to engage in proactive policy making to ameliorate the social impacts of human trafficking, including recovery services for victims.

In 1997, on average every 40 to 45 hours criminals either shot or killed a victim in the City of Richmond, Virginia. This resulted in 122 firearm homicides in that year alone. This gun-related violent crime epidemic so terrorized law-abiding citizens that many of them became hostages in their own homes. In response to this horrific social problem, Project Exile was developed in late 1997. Project Exile is a multi-level (federal, state, and local) law enforcement effort aimed at the amelioration of Richmond's high per-capita rate of gun violence and gun homicide. Through the Richmond U.S. Attorney's Office, Project Exile takes advantage of stiffer bond rules and sentencing guidelines in federal court, where all cases involving felons with guns, guns and drugs, and guns and domestic violence are prosecuted. Although Project Exile has received extensive television and print media coverage, it has not caught the attention of the academic world. This dissertation begins to fill this research gap by combining Kingdon's (1995) Multiple Streams model with Sabatier's (1999) Advocacy Coalition Framework to develop a "Specific Collins Classification and Elaboration Model" and a "Generic Collins Classification and Elaboration Model" that will be used to analyze the formation and implementation of Project Exile. The three purposes of this research will be: 1. To elaborate and analyze Kingdon's and Sabatier's frameworks as a means for understanding Project Exile 2. To draw on these two frameworks to create both Specific and Generic new "Collins Models: to assist in furthering a deeper understanding of this case study as well as similar policy subsystems. 3. To explain the genesis and development of Project Exile. The most salient result of this research is that it shows the disparate ways in which variables, taken from the work of Kingdon, Sabatier, and the Project Exile case, fit in Schroeder's (2001) operationalization of the Political Economic framework. In addition, this research shows how both Kingdon and Sabatier compensate for the respective limitations of the other when the two of them are combined into one model. / Ph. D.

What attribute affects salience on a political agenda? How come some reforms are implemented while others are not? These are essential and central questions for our society. Our society, our democracy and our everyday life are dependent of these factors; communication is the condition. In the 2011 budget from the Swedish conservative government, the question of lowering the VAT on restaurant- and catering services was the single most debated reform. This was occasioned from 2009 when the European Union allowed, for the first time since Swedish entry in 2005, a lower VAT on restaurant services. Since then Finland, Belgium and France had lowered their VAT on restaurant services and now Sweden had decided to follow suit. On January 2012 the Swedish government halved the VAT on restaurant services from 25 per cent to 12 per cent. This essay deals with the processes that lead up to the implementation earlier this year, from a media- and communications perspective. For this purpose, central players of the VAT reform have been interviewed as well as a comprehensive study of the relevant documents on this subject. Agenda setting theory derived from John W. Kingdon and Maxwell McCombs makes up the theoretical framework for this essay in its endeavour to seek out answers to who, why and what lead up to the lowering of the Swedish VAT on restaurant services in 2012. In the beginning of the 1990s the question of a lowered VAT on restaurant service was raised when the VAT on groceries was lowered which created an unfair competition between restaurants and supermarkets. The restaurant enterprises have since lobbied for a lowering of the restaurant VAT. With the new conservative government coming to power in 2006 a change of political agenda followed which resulted in a new approach towards the issue. With regards to Kingdons agenda setting theory this essay conclude that the single most important issue for the reduction of VAT on restaurant services was to tackle the high levels of unemployment. In particular for those with a weak position in the labour market, such as adolescents, immigrants and uneducated citizens. While among the most important actors in the issue where the conservative coalition government as well as the socialist opposition, the restaurant enterprise organization SHR and the restaurant union HRF.

This work investigates the question, “what made ethanol’s time come when it did?” The case examined is the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-158), a landmark public policy law implemented in the United States to address the nation’s energy concerns. The Act’s emphasis on ethanol as a central part of the solution to address the energy crisis represented perhaps the most significant single policy shift in the history of the nation’s energy programme. This research draws attention to the process that resulted in ethanol being given a key role in American energy policy by investigating the pre-decision, agenda setting stage, of the process. Using qualitative research methodologies, this study conducts a historical case study analysis of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The Multiple Streams agenda setting framework developed by Kingdon ([1984] 1995) is the one which forms the backbone of the study. This research suggests that the greatest influence on ethanol’s placement on the agenda was the way in which policy problems were constructed. When the energy, agricultural, and environmental problems that had garnered ethanol some legislative consideration in the 1970s and 1980s reemerged in the early 2000s, ethanol emerged as an attractive policy option that was seen as addressing each of these concerns. The role of interest groups and policy entrepreneurs helped to reinforce the relationship between these problems. The tactic of seeking aid from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had its advantages, as support from these agencies gave the proposals offered by pro-ethanol interest groups and corn state politicians greater weight. In addition, the fall in political influence of the petroleum industry (a traditionally effective oppositional force to the advance of ethanol) helped to facilitate and reinforce favourable political factors such as pro-ethanol presidential campaign platforms and a public mood that favoured decisive action. With some small modifications, Kingdon’s agenda setting framework, originally designed and applied in the context of health and transportation, holds up well when extended to the energy policy domain. One key point where the energy agenda setting process appears to diverge from Kingdon’s model occurs in the problem stream, which does not appear to be distinct from the political stream. Instead, this research suggests that problem definition plays a strong role in informing the content of the political stream. Kingdon’s framework has significant potential to enhance our knowledge of alternative energy policy formation.

Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro / Nesta tese abordamos alguns aspectos das inter-relações entre conhecimento, ética e valores dentro da atividade científica segundo as ideias do matemático-filósofo vitoriano William Clifford. O nosso tema geral coloca em jogo o envolvimento da produção, da avaliação e da transmissão de conhecimento científico com os comportamentos, as responsabilidades e os traços de caráter do investigador. Nosso objetivo é oferecer uma introdução ao pensamento e a algumas produções intelectuais de Clifford, um autor pouco familiar ao público filosófico brasileiro, bem como uma descrição comentada de seu escrito mais famoso, intitulado A Ética da Crença. Mediante esse objetivo, extraímos suas concepções a respeito das características e consequências éticas do empreendimento científico. As questões que orientam a tese são as seguintes: de que maneira a produção de conhecimento estaria condicionada à personalidade e ao comportamento ético de quem se lança àquela prática? Em que medida essa prática promove o cultivo de características pessoais socialmente desejáveis e favoráveis? Quais as conseqüências para a sociedade dessa inter-relação entre o caráter do investigador e os valores epistêmicos que estes colocam em ação e, sem os quais parece não ser possível a obtenção de conhecimento confiável? / In this work, we address some aspects of the interrelation between knowledge, ethics and values inside scientific activity according to the ideas of Victorian mathematician-philosopher, William Kingdon Clifford. What is at stake in the overall theme of this thesis is the way the production, evaluation and transmission of scientific knowledge interact with the behaviors, responsibilities and character traits of the investigator. William Clifford is a little known author to the Brazilian philosophical public, thus our primary goal is to offer an introduction to some of his thoughts and intellectual productions, as well as a commented description of Cliffords most famous paper, The Ethics of Belief. By these means, we extract some of his ideas regarding the ethical characteristics and ethical consequences of scientific inquiry. So, these are our guiding question: in what way is knowledge production shaped by the personality and ethical behavior of the person engaged in such production? To what extent does it promote the development of socially desirable and favorable personal characteristics? What are the consequences for society of the interrelation between the investigator's character traits and the epistemic values which he/she puts into action, and without which it seems impossible to obtain reliable knowledge?

Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro / Nesta tese abordamos alguns aspectos das inter-relações entre conhecimento, ética e valores dentro da atividade científica segundo as ideias do matemático-filósofo vitoriano William Clifford. O nosso tema geral coloca em jogo o envolvimento da produção, da avaliação e da transmissão de conhecimento científico com os comportamentos, as responsabilidades e os traços de caráter do investigador. Nosso objetivo é oferecer uma introdução ao pensamento e a algumas produções intelectuais de Clifford, um autor pouco familiar ao público filosófico brasileiro, bem como uma descrição comentada de seu escrito mais famoso, intitulado A Ética da Crença. Mediante esse objetivo, extraímos suas concepções a respeito das características e consequências éticas do empreendimento científico. As questões que orientam a tese são as seguintes: de que maneira a produção de conhecimento estaria condicionada à personalidade e ao comportamento ético de quem se lança àquela prática? Em que medida essa prática promove o cultivo de características pessoais socialmente desejáveis e favoráveis? Quais as conseqüências para a sociedade dessa inter-relação entre o caráter do investigador e os valores epistêmicos que estes colocam em ação e, sem os quais parece não ser possível a obtenção de conhecimento confiável? / In this work, we address some aspects of the interrelation between knowledge, ethics and values inside scientific activity according to the ideas of Victorian mathematician-philosopher, William Kingdon Clifford. What is at stake in the overall theme of this thesis is the way the production, evaluation and transmission of scientific knowledge interact with the behaviors, responsibilities and character traits of the investigator. William Clifford is a little known author to the Brazilian philosophical public, thus our primary goal is to offer an introduction to some of his thoughts and intellectual productions, as well as a commented description of Cliffords most famous paper, The Ethics of Belief. By these means, we extract some of his ideas regarding the ethical characteristics and ethical consequences of scientific inquiry. So, these are our guiding question: in what way is knowledge production shaped by the personality and ethical behavior of the person engaged in such production? To what extent does it promote the development of socially desirable and favorable personal characteristics? What are the consequences for society of the interrelation between the investigator's character traits and the epistemic values which he/she puts into action, and without which it seems impossible to obtain reliable knowledge?

The thesis examines the Children’s Centre Programme in England and develops an understanding of its development at national and local level by using Kingdon’s (1995) streams model. Central to the thesis is a case study of the Children’s Centre Programme which looks at influential factors in the development at national level and implementation of the programme in one local authority. Traditionally Kingdon’s (1995) model has been used to understand the way that a wide range of factors interact to enable policy change at national level but a small number of authors have also used the model at local level showing that the range of factors that impact on the local implementation of a policy are also many and varied. One of the most well know aspects of Kingdon’s model is in showing how the problem, policy and politics streams come together to create a window of opportunity which allows or drives policy change and or enactment. This thesis will use the model in a broader sense showing that although this window of opportunity is important the interaction of the three streams is ongoing and not only does it lead to significant policy change but it also informs debates and policy development on an ongoing basis.

At the UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun in 2010, all the industrialised countries committed to producing long-term national strategies to achieve low levels of greenhouse gas emissions. The aim was to meet the goal of reducing emissions by 80-95 per cent by 2050, in line with the two-degrees-goal. In February 2011, the European Commission presented a communication on a roadmap for the EU for moving to a competitive low-carbon economy in 2050. Sweden has actively supported the conclusions within the EU that countries should draw up their own roadmaps, but Sweden has not yet produced a national roadmap to 2050. This thesis examines why the Swedish government has not yet agreed on a low-carbon development strategy to 2050 in line with the agreement at the climate conference in Cancun 2010 and the directives from the European Commission. The purpose of this study is to examine why the investigation on a Swedish roadmap 2050 produced by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, never reached the political decision agenda, in the Swedish parliament. The objective of the study is achieved by applying the Multiple Streams Model, a theory on policy processes and agenda setting, on the case of the Swedish roadmap 2050. The study concludes that (1) the level of political consensus is too low, especially in terms of the basic assumptions that underlie the roadmap; and (2) the document produced by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency was too weak to become a bill.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1994. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 204-213). Also available via the Internet.