Using a social historical framework applied to Gottingen, North Germany, from the sixteenth century to 1948, the dynamics of local government structure are researched. This is seen through time as a corporate organisation of domains of externally oriented activity variably integrated with a decision-making core as an involute structure. Through examination of recruitment practices, administrative allocation and decision-making it is shown how integrated processes of decision-making (means of choice) constitute a framework for political action, where individuals have differential access to and control over critical events and modes of communication within that framework. / Deriving from this, political activity in local government is analysed in terms of a categorisation of means and dimensional properties of power in local government. A link is made to a theoretical enquiry of the nature of social classes and the state and their implications for community politics. This provides the basis for an examination of class relations in Gottingen.

This study was on the effect of non-payment of services by the government to the local municipality referring specifically to the Mafikeng Local Municipality. According to the literature review, there Is lack of research on the management of finances hence not only this municipality Is still struggling to manage their finances and as a result, some are collapsing. The main objective was to Investigate the reasons for non-payment of services by the government. The study used questionnaires and structured interviews to get the information on non-payment. The government owes the Mafikeng Local Municipality huge amount of services. There is a poor system of collection of debts at the Mafikeng Local Municipality which impact negatively on the financial condition of this municipality. There are challenges surrounding the failure of the government departments In paying the Mafikeng Local Municipality due to the fact that they do not budget enough for services. The other factor is that they do not receive their bills on time which makes difficult for them to pay their bills on time. / (MBA) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2006

Municipal government is responsible for public safety, maintenance of city streets and parks, wastewater treatment, trash removal, fire and rescue services, public transportation, and other essential services which mean that it plays a big role in the life of the city and its citizens. The efficiency of the work of the municipality largely depends on the work of its top management. Most common forms of the head of a municipality in Russia is a mayor or a city manager. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze municipal officials’ views on a proposed change from a system with a mayor to a city manager system in the city of Arkhangelsk, Russia. In order to understand this, I look at the history of the country and interviews, study the theoretical material as well as the media. The thesis is qualitative and aimed to find out what the new system of city manager mean in practice and see the benefits and downsides of the new system according to those who are involved in the local government. In the case study I interview civil servants and councilors. The theoretical framework is based on the theories of Weber, Simon, Du Gay, Christensen & Lægreid, Pierre & Rothstein and others. The result shows that both civil servants and councilors see the possibilities of more efficient work of the municipal government if one has the city manager system of governance. They see the city manager to be a professional manager who would be out of politics and not dependent on the opinion of certain group of people. At the same time, I can point out that the ideas of New Public Management help the public sector to be productive. NPM-ideas are often argued to enhance efficiency, but they are not fully compatible with the Russian context. Due to the history and realities in Russia, I have come to a conclusion that the city manager system has weak points such as the lack of professional managers and the power vertical built in Russia, whose representatives mostly belong to one political party.

This thesis is a comparative investigation of how federal institutions accommodated linguistic and religious identities in India and Pakistan. There are three explanatory variables. The first is the history of self-rule for the principalities within South Asia; tracing continuities in territorial autonomy from the Mughals up to independence. The second is the distribution of linguistic and religious identities within the states of India and Pakistan, both at the provincial and national levels. The third is the articulation of a national identity in India and Pakistan. These explanatory variables are not independent of one another; their interaction accounts for the different strategies adopted by India and Pakistan in the formation and stabilisation of their federations. The differences in federal design are calculated according to a scoring system that measures the degree of consociationalism within the federal plans proposed before independence, and the constitutions created after independence. The state-sponsored national identities are distinguished according to their recognition of identities in the public and private spheres. They are further categorised according to the costs for a non-dominant group of being managed by this strategy. The three explanatory variables explain why linguistically homogeneous states were created in India but not in Pakistan. It is argued that this variable explains the stabilisation or otherwise of their federations. It therefore confirms Wilkinson's rebuttal of Lijphart's claim that India under Nehru was consociational. Unlike Wilkinson, it argues that the degrees of consociationalism that emerged since the formation of the constitution have enhanced federal stabilisation within India. It defines federal stabilisation according to continuity in state borders, the number and type of secessionist movements, but more importantly by correlating the effective number of linguistic groups at state level with the effective number of parties in national elections. It concludes that federal accommodation of linguistic groups in homogeneous provinces has enabled the party system to fractionalise in India and Pakistan; an indication of the security of these groups. Where secessionist movements have existed in India and Pakistan, their emergence is explained by the lack of security for a group - defined on either linguistic or alternative criteria.

A lack of historical perspective sustained the widespread view that participatory initiatives in Brazil represented a marked rupture from traditional forms of political engagement to radically new democratic practices. This view overlooks both incremental steps towards broader political participation taking place throughout the 20th century and setbacks restricting participation in the 1980s. This dissertation offers a historical account of the emergence of participatory democracy in Brazil that challenges this dominant view and calls attention to the importance of structural factors and national-level political-institutional contexts. Three case studies of municipal administrations in the late-1970s and early-1980s shine light on the impact of structural factors in the emergence, design, and outcome of participatory initiatives, and the contrast of these precursory experiences with the internationally known 1990s participatory models shows how participatory ideals and practices responded to the changing institutional context of the 1980s. This dissertation puts forward three central arguments. First, research should not treat citizen participation as a normative imperative but instead examine how it emerges through social and political struggles fueled by structural inequalities. Second, it is unfounded to assume that citizen participation will lead to profound transformations of national-level institutions, but it is equally erroneous to suppose that citizen participation is always intended to strengthen representative institutions; the long-term impact of direct citizen participation is an empirical rather than analytical or normative question. Third, a key challenge of participatory democracy today is to free itself from the inflated expectations imposed on it by its own enthusiastic supporters.

A lack of historical perspective sustained the widespread view that participatory initiatives in Brazil represented a marked rupture from traditional forms of political engagement to radically new democratic practices. This view overlooks both incremental steps towards broader political participation taking place throughout the 20th century and setbacks restricting participation in the 1980s. This dissertation offers a historical account of the emergence of participatory democracy in Brazil that challenges this dominant view and calls attention to the importance of structural factors and national-level political-institutional contexts. Three case studies of municipal administrations in the late-1970s and early-1980s shine light on the impact of structural factors in the emergence, design, and outcome of participatory initiatives, and the contrast of these precursory experiences with the internationally known 1990s participatory models shows how participatory ideals and practices responded to the changing institutional context of the 1980s. This dissertation puts forward three central arguments. First, research should not treat citizen participation as a normative imperative but instead examine how it emerges through social and political struggles fueled by structural inequalities. Second, it is unfounded to assume that citizen participation will lead to profound transformations of national-level institutions, but it is equally erroneous to suppose that citizen participation is always intended to strengthen representative institutions; the long-term impact of direct citizen participation is an empirical rather than analytical or normative question. Third, a key challenge of participatory democracy today is to free itself from the inflated expectations imposed on it by its own enthusiastic supporters.

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