<p>This study seeks to understand and examine the role of public policy units with a specific focus on the South African National Parliament Policy Management Unit (PMU). The problem being investigated is that of a lack of constructive support and debate in understanding the role and functions of policy management units. Thus, the scope of the study is limited to policy management units with the South African Parliament PMU as a special reference. The primary objective of this study is to investigate the role of policy management units, with particular reference to the PMU in the South African Parliament. The secondary objectives will then be to provide a theoretical perspective of the role and functions of policy management units / and to develop a case of the PMU in Parliament for further analysis and examination. Examples of existing policy units and the support they have with parliaments will be produced, assessed, and explored.</p>

In this dissertation the construction of two coastal railways, the East Coast Line and the Bothnia Line, in the Norrland region of northern Sweden is used as a case study of how regionally based interest groups are formed, and how they gain access to decision-making processes on a national level. In periods when a number of preconditions were in place, a window of opportunity opened for the coastal railway that the regional elites could exploit. Among these was the ability to form a coherent regional interest group, through institutions that created platforms and power-bases that enable regional elites to co-operate and act on regional and national levels.The existence of an institutional framework that was adapitve towards regional railway promotion was also important. The study shows that the coastal railway had a very flexible role on the agenda, as it provided a fixed solution against which actors could pin a multitude of different problems. An important factor for explaining the development of the coastal railway question in Norrland was the ideological notion of the region itself. Being a vast, resource-rich and sparsely populated region, Norrland had almost always received special consideration in both public opinion and national policy making. It also created a remarkable stubbornness among the regional actors in working for the coastal railway. Regional interest groups had also learnt that linking their claims to Norrland's peripheral position had high legitimacy on the national arena, by claiming the need for regional fairness and/or the national importance of the regional export-intensive industries. This was instrumental in justifying the repeated exemptions from the national railway policy regimes that ultimately were decissive in making the regional elites successful.

Unemployment and/or slow economic growth nationally and in poorer regions are two problems which political decision-makers often refer to when they argue for the need to grant different producer subsidies to firms. Moreover, it is often asserted that the problems are due to different market failures. However, it is not certain that market failures exist and political attempts to correct "market-failures" might easily turn into government failures. In the thesis various industrial and regional policy subsidies are examined. The subsidies, which are studied, have become increasingly important in many countries, not least in the EU, over time.The thesis consists of four essays, which examine different aspects of interventionistic policy and political decision making from the perspective of market failure vs. government failure. The purpose of Essay 1 is to study whether Swedish regional policy, which was introduced around 1970, has significantly affected the process of growth of per capita income in Swedish counties. In Essay 2 characteristics of recipient firms are analysed from an interest-group perspective. In Essay 3, the subsidies effect on total factor productivity growth is studied. In the final essay employment effects are examined. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögsk.

With its national strength, the United States is, more often than not, a major State initiating the making of important international multilateral treaties and shaping the final outcome by wielding its influence in the negotiation processes. Nevertheless, three major international multilateral treaties concluded in three different domains all appear the same situation in which the U.S. participated actively in the negotiations but ended up rejecting to sign or ratify due to their inconformities with American ¡§national interests.¡¨ The purpose of this thesis is to examine the American proposals and interventions made in the negotiating processes of three important international multilateral treaties, i.e., the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, Kyoto Protocol and Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, so as to understand American negotiation stances as well as the issues to which the U.S. attached importance to and the derive the substantive contents of the ¡§national interests¡¨ that the U.S. held dear. Furthermore, this thesis takes one step further to analyze who were the actors that shaped and defined the ¡§national interests¡¨ which the U.S. valued and held tight.

<p>This thesis analysis four different sides of policy-making on EU-level: the Cardiff process, the white paper “European transport policy for 2010: time to decide”, the sixth Environmental Action Programme and the Sustainable Development Strategy. In those documents measures proposed for the freight transport sector are identified and used for interviews with key persons at Schenker AG. The aim with the interviews was to examine how Schenker AG was affected and felt committed by the proposed political measures. Following the arguments above the thesis discusses the role of Schenker AG in a society characterized by ecological modernization.</p>

<p>This study seeks to understand and examine the role of public policy units with a specific focus on the South African National Parliament Policy Management Unit (PMU). The problem being investigated is that of a lack of constructive support and debate in understanding the role and functions of policy management units. Thus, the scope of the study is limited to policy management units with the South African Parliament PMU as a special reference. The primary objective of this study is to investigate the role of policy management units, with particular reference to the PMU in the South African Parliament. The secondary objectives will then be to provide a theoretical perspective of the role and functions of policy management units / and to develop a case of the PMU in Parliament for further analysis and examination. Examples of existing policy units and the support they have with parliaments will be produced, assessed, and explored.</p>

Qu'est-ce que l'Europe politique et l'Europe du sport peuvent faire afin de mieux former les jeunes footballeurs et de mieux les protéger au cours d'un transfert ? Cette interrogation permet aisément la lecture de ce qui est en jeu à la jonction entre le champ sportif et le champ politique. Cet espace de positions sociales que constitue le football européen voit s'affronter des acteurs du mouvement sportif d'un côté, avec d'autres agents issus des institutions européennes. Nous démontrerons comment répondre politiquement à un problème footballistique, ce qui passe par une volonté politique de haut-niveau. Ainsi, le processus de policy-making résulte d'un compromis rendu obligatoire par l'autonomie et la spécificité dont bénéficie le football. La coordination entre les autorités publiques et le mouvement sportif sera un élément prépondérant de contrôle et de régulation pour faire face aux défis actuels dans le monde du football, dans lequel les Nations conservent le véritable pouvoir.

Aim: The overall aim is to assess the appropriateness of Lay Health Worker (LHW)programmes as a public health intervention in South Africa by considering the effectivenessof LHW programmes across the world and the experience of LHW programmeimplementation and policy making in South Africa. Methods: This thesis comprises 4 papers that explore the issue of LHWs: (I) A systematicreview of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of LHW interventions in primary andcommunity health care for maternal and child health and the management of infectiousdiseases; (II) A study of the experiences of farm dwellers trained to be LHWs, as exploredthrough focus group discussions; (III) A study of three LHW supervisors who worked on anintervention to support infant feeding mothers, as explored through individual interviews;and (IV) A study of the process of LHW policy development from the perspective of 11 keyinformants who were individually interviewed. Findings: LHWs were found to be effective in promoting breastfeeding and in improvingpulmonary TB cure rates (I). There was also some indication that LHWs could be effective inreducing child morbidity and child and neonatal mortality, and in increasing the likelihood ofcaregivers seeking care for childhood illness (I). The experience of LHWs and LHWsupervisors suggests that LHW programmes need adequate support and supervision,especially in protecting the LHWs themselves (II, III). The care and protection of LHWs wasconsidered by policy makers (IV), but policy redevelopment processes did not link the needto ensure that LHWs were not exploited to concerns about gender exploitation. Conclusions: LHW interventions can be effective but implementing them in developingcountries such as South Africa needs to be approached with caution

Thesis (D.P.H.)--University of Michigan.

Dissertation (D.P.H.)--University of Michigan.