This study takes as a starting point that climate change must be seen as interrelated with other social, technological, political, and ecological challenges of our times, and that it is closely linked to the local arena of policy and planning. By this, the study is guided by the notion that sustainability transitions are needed to combat climate change. The aim of this study is to explore if and how local carbon budgets can be a tool for municipal governance in facilitating sustainability transitions. Through an analysis of narratives of change and modes of governing, the aim is pursued by studying how the local carbon budgets developed at the Climate Change Leadership node at Uppsala University approaches a framework for transition, and how these local carbon budgets have been received by municipal planning and policy actors in two case studies: Nyköping and Järfälla municipality. The study uses a qualitative case study approach with semi-structured interviews, document analysis and participatory observation as its methods. From the results and analysis, three narratives of change emerged: Tweak the system, Re-invent the system, and Shake the system. The three narratives suggest different pathways for sustainability transitions, as well as different approaches to local governance. In conclusion, the results of this study suggest that the local carbon budgets can be several different tools for sustainability transitions, and what kind of tool it becomes is dependent on what narratives of change and approach to local governance that shapes it. Finally, the study highlights the importance of using local carbon budgets to their full potential, allowing them to question, challenge and reimage what kind of change is needed and how it can come about, if more transformative sustainability transitions are to be reached.

This thesis draws on an ethnographic research in Ghana to question mainstream views on decentralisation that local level institutions can be consciously crafted to enlist the participation of marginal actors in governance thereby leading to efficiency and equity in development. The research explores the everyday practice of local governance in Ntonaboma, a resettlement community in the Eastern region of Ghana by using participant observation and interviews. Evidence from the study reveals that first decentralisation is not a technical or managerial exercise but rather a societal practice taking place among heterogeneous actors with diverse interest and values. Secondly, the interactions occurring among these diverse actors are mediated through the interplay of a variety of institutions at the local level. Thirdly, the complex and dynamic character of decentralisation at the community level make the specificities of context very relevant in understanding the transformative potentials of decentralisation especially how it impacts on people and their social organisation. The study places emphasis on the application of agency, institutions and authority in local governance approaches. Evidence from the study suggests that institutionalised decentralisation inadequately provides possibilities for ordinary people to transform the nature of their interactions within the community. The thesis raises further questions about the simplistic and instrumental use of institutions in local governance approaches. The study notes that institutions are not static and do not determine outcomes but are informed by the prevailing conditions at the community level. Thus, the actions of actors and specificities of the locality do shape institutions. The study emphasises the role of existing institutions and socially embedded principles in village governance. It thus suggests that, the process of decentralisation is a political process mediated through diverse institutions and with varied outcomes for different individuals. The study concludes by exploring implications for local governance and decentralisation to making local governance pro-poor.

This project investigates the question of why local governments cooperate with one another for service provision and coordinated policies. It proposes that the selection of interlocal cooperation among local leaders in the Unites States can be best understood as a diffusion process by which local elites learn from the cooperative experiments of neighboring jurisdictions and reproduce them in order to realize similar gains when it makes sense to do so. This process, I argue, is driven by the mechanisms of learning, development of networks of trust, and interlocal competition. The project presents theory, methods, and results in three manuscripts. The first uses a newly constructed longitudinal dataset of financial transfers by local governments to show that localities are more likely to cooperate when larger shares of their neighbors were cooperating in the past. This process is amplified in regions with more intense interlocal competition. The second manuscript demonstrates that the diffusion of cooperation is most intense within particular types of local service provision, namely those that involve capital-intensive and system-maintenance functions of government, such as highways, sewers, and water delivery. Finally, the third paper presents results from an original, national survey of mayors and councilors that involved embedded experiments to tease out the hypothesized mechanisms of diffusion. Findings provide strong support for the role of development of trust and learning in the spread of interlocal cooperation. / Political Science

This paper attempts to explore issues related to right to information (RTI) and RTI laws, in the context of local governance. The paper focuses on four case studies¿namely, India, Indonesia, Uganda, and Nicaragua¿to highlight some of the complexities in campaigning for RTI laws and in implementing them. Based on these, a framework is developed as a tool to map alternative approaches to making local governance more effective and accountable. At present, there are two schools of thought: one focusing on supply-led or state-led mechanisms such as public expenditure tracking surveys, and the other focusing on a human rights-based approach with RTI law at its centre. The framework developed here suggests that these alternative approaches need not be considered mutually exclusive approaches but can be seen in terms of Dreze and Sen¿s argument of democratic institutions and democratic practice. Thus, activists can choose approaches that best suit a context at a given point in time as intermediate steps in the journey towards developing just and inclusive institutions.

Politically interested individual citizens often use information and communication technology (ICT) to facilitate and augment their civic and political participation. At the local level, ICT plays an important role for communication and information sharing in order for local groups to create awareness and draw citizens into public deliberation about local issues and concerns. This research examines the interplay of individual and local group level factors in order to better understand the relationship between civic engagement and ICT, especially the internet, by using household survey data from the town of Blacksburg, Virginia and environs in 2005 and 2006. It seeks to reconcile those different levels of analysis relating to the use and impact of the internet on civic engagement in local governance. This study identifies the distinctive influences at both the individual citizen level and the group level by applying a multilevel statistical model (the Hierarchical Linear Model). First, this study found the effects of internal and external political efficacy and community collective efficacy as significant individual level influences on internet use for civic and political purposes. Second, group internet use—which includes new internet technologies—and group political discussion were revealed as key influences on citizens' perspectives on the helpfulness of the internet for civic and political purposes at the group level of analysis. Finally, in multilevel analysis, those recognized group level variables (group internet use and group political discussion and interests) led to positive agreement with the following statements: 1) the internet has helped me feel more connected with people like myself in the local area; 2) the internet has helped me feel more connected with a diversity of people in the local area; and 3) the internet has helped me become more involved in local issues that interest me when taking individual level variables into account. / Ph. D.

Village Malaria Workers (VMWs) play an important role in the prevention and treatment of malaria as frontline volunteers in Cambodia, a nation implementing decentralisation initiatives and that is reliant on task shifting to address health worker shortages. Studying the performance of VMWs and understanding the social capital that they are able to mobilise, including enabling and reinforcing factors while fighting malaria in Cambodia’s Pailin province, will benefit performance enhancement and program scale up. This dissertation examines the factors associated with the perceived performance of VMWs, which has the potential to provide practical guidance for Cambodian health system managers and local health practitioners to capitalize on locally-available human resources to implement their health initiatives as per the country’s decentralisation plans. The study was done in 2 districts of Pailin province in Cambodia. The findings were based on 35 semi-structured surveys, 13 key informant interviews, 6 focus group discussions, 3 group interviews and 2 in-depth interviews covering VMWS and stakeholders from the commune council, village health support groups, health center management committee, provincial health offices, a referral hospital, a pharmacy, village chiefs, and administrative officials. The interviews and discussions were conducted using set guides, which allowed for flexibility and asking for follow-up questions as well as probing for more information and clarification. Pre-determined themes were used in designing the instruments, and data from the survey, focus groups, and interviews were thematically coded for manual data analysis. This study showed that VMWs’ performance is affected by a variety of factors that emerge from the complex context in which they work. These include socio-demographic variables; their health system knowledge; access to enabling and reinforcing factors, including family and social support; personal motivation; resource availability, including budget, supplies, and equipment; ways of being selected; access to learning, training and capacity-building opportunities; and institutional communication and implementation of decentralised health program. Factors such as perceived corruption also were seen to affect VMW’s performance. The participants suggested various ways to address these challenges. In order to improve the performance of VMWs, people’s participation in all local governance arms, including the CC, VHSG, HCMC and the HC, needs to be strengthened. The roles and expectations regarding citizen participation need to be clarified using simple messages. Training and capacity-building support needs to be made available for learning key new skills as relevant. The equipment and supplies necessary for work as well as adequate reimbursement of transportation allowances need to be provided along with instilling a proper system of VMW supervision and mentoring that adequately recognises those that are high performing. Targeted capacity assessments for VMWs and the VHSG, HC and HCMC need to be undertaken followed by needed training and mentoring in order to address areas that need further support to enhance productivity. A volunteer selection process needs to follow the rules described in the CPP policy ensuring deliberate attempts to open up entry points for public service to those that have been excluded on the basis of formal qualifications, lack of kinship, or political affiliation. / acase@tulane.edu

<p>Abstract</p><p>In the beginning of 2007 the Swedish municipality Örebro decided to have a democratic</p><p>experiment, which ought to go under the name, “Dialouge for the citizens”. The</p><p>representative elected politicians in Örebro tried to find ways to involve the people in the</p><p>process of ruling. Why they choose to try this experiment on this very delicate matter, the</p><p>closure of several schools in the municipal, is one of the questions this essay is trying to</p><p>answer.</p><p>The purpose of this essay is to find out whether the process was an attempt for the politicians</p><p>of the representative democracy to implement deliberative democracy in the structure of the</p><p>local governance.</p><p>The result of this study is that the politicians didn’t manage to reach to the citizens the way</p><p>they formerly had planned.</p>

Cette thèse vise à rendre intelligible l’organisation des acteurs publics en charge de développer les politiques foncières locales sur la côte basque française, en analysant ce système d’action foncier public au fil de la décentralisation, depuis les années 1970 jusqu’à aujourd’hui. L’étude de ce territoire donne à voir les conséquences du repositionnement progressif de l’Etat, et notamment la manière dont les collectivités locales se sont emparées de la compétence de régulation foncière. Le rôle d’expertise foncière assurée auparavant par l’Etat s’incarne aujourd’hui dans une multitude de structures qui contribue à complexifier le jeu d’acteurs local. En parallèle, la société civile basque s’est mobilisée autour des questions foncières, au départ agricoles, et s’est structurée sous la forme d’un système foncier alternatif. La question foncière renvoie alors au modèle de développement territorial souhaitable, ainsi qu’à la question de l’institutionnalisation du Pays basque. / This thesis aims to understand the organization of the public actors who develop local land policies on the French Basque coast, by analyzing this public land action system in the course of decentralization, from the 1970s until today. The study of this territory shows the consequences of the gradual repositioning of the State, including how local governments have taken on the competence of the land regulation. The expertise, previously carried by the State, is ensured today by a multitude of structures, which contribute to complicating the interplay of local actors. In parallel, the Basque civil society has been mobilized around land issues (first in the agricultural policies): an alternative system has been built. The land issues pose in new terms the inescapable question of the institutionalization of the Basque Country.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-03T16:15:47Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 SandraScaravelli_Parte1.pdf: 1591399 bytes, checksum: d59f4ad735ea1e4a2a775b02cfc6e458 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-11-06 / The City of Diadema is well known in the official scene by creating and executing innovative programs in several areas of the public policies. In the educational area the inclusive education was first implemented in the 1990s, long before the federal laws widely discussed nowadays. As a result, in 2000 the city received an award from Fundação Getúlio Vargas (Getúlio Vargas Foundation), which aimed to encourage innovation in the administration and execution in town and state services: Inclusion Program Ways to Social Inclusion: multiple readings in the view of the difference. Thus, after the acknowledgment of this work, in 2002 a financial provision was made for the special education by the BNDES (Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social National Bank of Economic and Social Development) to reform, enlarge and adapt all the facilities at CAIS (Centro de Atenção à Inclusão Social Social Inclusion Attention Center), to better assist children, youngsters and adults with special educational needs. It was also made provision for architectural adaptation of the city schools in order to improve accessibility. This is therefore a city with a valuable experience available in the execution of social and educational inclusion public policies, in addition to the necessary pedagogical support services. In view of these assumptions, this research starts from the analysis of the conceptual basis and the influence of Paulo Freire s pedagogical thought permeating the development of the education in this city, and it aims to understand the procedures developed in Diadema to the execution of the pedagogical work, besides getting aware of the relationship between the work done so far and the current federal regulations.Thus, the following are the guiding questions for this work: What was considered educational inclusion in Diadema at that time? Which was the theoretical background of the subjects of that pedagogical work? What are the innovative aspects of the regulations developed in the city? How can we compare the work done and the current federal regulations? In order to answer these questions this research of quality nature features as a theoretical frame of reference, in addition to the national and city laws, the Mendes (2010) and Mainardes (2006; 2009) conceptions, among others. The field research was carried out through interviews of managers and teachers, and it allowed us to highlight the contribution of the democratic scene to the execution of an educational inclusion model. / O município de Diadema é conhecido no panorama público pela criação e implementação de programas inovadores em várias áreas das políticas públicas. Na educacional, a educação inclusiva foi inicialmente implementada nos anos 1990, muito antes da leis federais que atualmente vêm sendo amplamente discutidas. Como resultado, em 2000 o município recebeu o prêmio da Fundação Getúlio Vargas, que objetivava incentivar inovações na administração e prestação de serviços públicos municipais e estaduais: Programa de Inclusão Caminhos para a Inclusão Social: múltiplas leituras no olhar da diferença . Dessa forma, com o reconhecimento desse trabalho, em 2002 a educação especial foi contemplada com o financiamento do BNDES (Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social) para reformar, ampliar e adequar todas as instalações do CAIS (Centro de Atenção à Inclusão Social), com vistas a melhoria do atendimento a crianças, jovens e adultos com necessidades educacionais especiais. O recurso também previa adequação arquitetônica nas escolas municipais objetivando mais acessibilidade. Trata-se, portanto, de um município que dispõe de uma experiência valorosa na implementação de políticas públicas de inclusão social e educacional, além dos serviços de suporte pedagógico para essa inclusão. Em face desses pressupostos esta pesquisa parte da análise das bases conceituais e das influências do pensamento pedagógico de Paulo Freire que permearam o desenvolvimento da educação nesse município e tem como objetivos compreender os procedimentos desenvolvidos em Diadema para a efetivação do trabalho pedagógico e conhecer, a relação do que foi desenvolvido com o que hoje estabelecem as normativas federais. Assim, são questões norteadoras para este trabalho: o que foi considerado como inclusão educacional naquele momento em Diadema? Qual a formação teórica dos agentes envolvidos nesse trabalho pedagógico? Quais são os aspectos inovadores das normas desenvolvidas no município? Como comparar o trabalho desenvolvido e as normativas federais atuais? Para responder a esses questionamentos este estudo, de cunho qualitativo, teve como referencial teórico, além da legislação nacional e municipal, as concepções de Mendes (2010) e Mainardes (2006; 2009), entre outros autores. A pesquisa de campo, realizada por meio de entrevistas a gestores e professores, possibilitou evidenciar que o panorama democrático contribuiu de forma muito antecipada para a implementação de um modelo de inclusão educacional, ousado e produtor de procedimentos pedagógicos, metodológicos de grande atualidade.

Adaptive Governance approaches are being implemented by officials in Swedish municipalities. A close dialogue and cooperation between municipalities, and the acceptance of the uncertainty and unpredictability of climate change are included in the strategic work, and facilitate the introduction of Adaptive Governance approaches. However, Adaptive Governance approaches are at the same time hindered by the municipal systems, which does not allow for the introduction of new and innovative information. In particular, this study demonstrates that the systems are not structured to include such information from informal sources, such as citizens and farmers. This comparative study investigates water quality management at the local level, applying the concept of Adaptive Governance in three Swedish municipalities: Kalmar, Västerås and Upplands Väsby.The analysis is based on the theoretical framework of Adaptive Governance that expands on the understanding of adaptive management. The 17 semi-structured interviews conclude that the facilitators for Adaptive Governance are most evident within the areas of collaboration and shared responsibility between municipalities. Barriers to the development of Adaptive Governance are identified as a failure in the systems to include ecological knowledge. Expanding Adaptive Governance research to a larger number of municipalities within the European Union would shed some more light on what facilitates and what hinders the inclusion of Adaptive Governance approaches at the local level. Such research would have a dual effect: as a contribution to science and as a promotion for the practical implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive according to the Adaptive Governance approaches of the European water quality management.