The study focuses and explores citizen participation in the policy and planning process in local government in Lesotho. The study argues that citizen participation in the policy and planning process is important. This is because it is through citizen participation that the government is rendered accountable and responsive to the needs of the local community. Secondly, citizen participation is important in that it helps in the deepening of democracy. In Lesotho, citizen participation has been encouraged by the different governments since the era of Moshoeshoe to the present regime. Lesotho held the first democratic local government elections in 2005. One of the objectives of introducing local government is to foster citizen participation in policy and planning processes. The interviews conducted reveal that citizen participation is taking place even though at a minute degree. Several challenges exist in local government that hinder active and effective citizen participation in local government in Lesotho. One of the major challenges impeding citizen participation is the statutory framework regulating citizens’ participation in local government. This study has found that there is no direct legal or policy framework regulating or enforcing citizen participation in local government. Coupled with this challenge is another crucial challenge relating to the structure and mechanisms that are used for citizen participation. The study reveals that the structures and mechanisms are not adequate to enhance and encourage citizen participation. Pursuant to this, the study proposes some reforms with a view to improving citizen participation in Lesotho. Firstly, the study proposes that the policy and legislative frameworks be improved so as to provide enough scope and space for citizen participation. These frameworks should provide for adequate structures, mechanisms as well as processes and areas that can improve citizen participation in local government. Secondly, crucial instruments for community participation in planning such as the IDP, budget process and the performance management in South African context can be designed with specific cognisance of the structures established. Thirdly, the government must encourage, educate and sensitize citizens to actively take part in local government, through capacity building programmes. It can take the advantage of the NGOs already working with the communities and citizens as a strategy to enhance citizen participation. / Public Administration & Management / M. Admin. (Public Administration)

The dominant definitions of sustainability are too various and neglect essential elements necessary for effective sustainability discourse. This project considers what current understandings of sustainable development mean to those who subscribe to them and how those understandings affect public policy for sustainable development. I begin by presenting a timeline on the evolution of the term 'sustainability'. Then, I offer narrative policy analysis as a methodological tool for investigating communities of meaning with contending views on sustainability. This provides a foundation for the analysis of case studies using Harrisonian Sustainability Narratives-efficiency, equity, and ethics-as lenses through which three corresponding U.S. case studies are explored, each representing different levels of analysis-corporate, state, and individual. First, the Business Roundtable, a lobbying organization comprised of the CEOs of top U.S. companies exemplifying the efficiency narrative, claims that the problem of sustainable development can be addressed through free markets, which continually increase eco-efficiency and encourage technological advancement. Next, the Environmental Protection Agency, a state organization mandated to protect water and air and to manage toxic and solid wastes and representing the equity narrative, sees the problem of sustainable development as ensuring the just distribution of natural limits so as to reduce the impact of those limits on individuals within communities. Lastly, the ethical anthropology of Anna Peterson, philosopher of religion, points to the power of ethical narratives in creating wide-scale changes to our ideas about humanness and human nature as they relate to our relationship with our environment for sustainability. / What I found in common with both the efficiency and equity narratives, representing both the political and corporate perspective and having significant influence on policy formation, is that they are pro market-based solutions of ecoefficiency and technological advancement. What they blatantly lack is guidance on what we ought to do, ought to value. I conclude that a humanist ethic is missing from both these narratives. Neither narrative sees matters of justice as co-equal partners with sustainability for sustainable development. Policy resulting from these narratives may offer efficiency and process but fails to include a robust humanist ethics necessary for a true sustainability. The way we think about our relationship to the environment shapes our behavior towards it. Just Sustainable Viability combines a complex systems approach that views human societies as complex adaptive systems and aims at optimizing social adaptive capacity with notions of distributive and procedural justice. With the inception of this new vision for sustainability, a new narrative must follow that firmly places humanity within the context of complex social and environmental systems. / by Andrea Leigh Best. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2010. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2010. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Title from title page of PDF (University of Missouri--St. Louis, viewed February 24, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 328-345).

The creation of the National Assembly for Wales and the Scottish Parliament in 1999 was accompanied with an aspiration that these new institutions would allow Scotland and Wales to develop their own policies, better suited to local needs than those designed in Westminster or Whitehall. This thesis explores policy-making in the first terms of the devolved institutions in Scotland and Wales, focusing on where the policies developed by these institutions diverged from those pursued at Westminster. Policy divergence is examined by studying the development of the financing long-term care for the elderly policies. The aim of this thesis is to identify why policy divergence occurred in the long-term care case, considering the impact of actors (or agents) and the institutional setting in which they operate, as suggested by Scharpf's model of actor-centred institutionalism. As actor-centred institutionalism suggested, both actors and institutions played a major role in shaping policy responses. In the Scottish case a range of actors cooperated and lobbied together for the introduction of free personal care, spurred on by the First Minister, who created an opportunity for those in favour of free personal care to pressurise his government to introduce the policy. In contrast, in Wales, actors were divided and never built up the same momentum to ensure the introduction of a more generous long-term care package. The institutional setting in which these actors operated was a major factor in shaping their policy preferences and the strategies they adopted to achieve them. This thesis considers the impact on policy-making of the devolved institution's electoral system, financial and legislative powers, design of the institutions, and the place of these institutions in a UK setting. The different institutional structures in Scotland and Wales provided different incentives and resources for actors, encouraged different styles of policy-making from Westminster and affected the way in which issues were framed. Examining the roles of actors and institutions in the formation of distinctive policies highlighted that in the real world these two elements are mutually dependent and cannot be separated. As a result it is impossible, and pointless, to determine whether actors or institutions were most influential on the development of distinctive policies. Instead this thesis explores how the difference between the configurations of actors and institutions in Scotland and Wales contributed to the creation of policies which were distinctive both from each other and the UK Government.

This study reviewed how networks, entrepreneurs and narratives were intertwined in keeping a policy process moving and preventing it from stagnating. By applying Roe's narrative analysis theory (as developed in Narrative Policy Analysis - 1994), along with Kingdon's theory of entrepreneurs (as developed in Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies - 1995) and Kickert's explanations of networks (as developed in Managing Complex Networks - 1997) the study attempted to uncover how a complex policy issue is managed by the stakeholders involved. The Children's Bill was the case study used to show the usefulness of these three theories in understanding the intricate engagements and relations of participation around a complex policy. By applying qualitative data collection and analysis techniques, the case study illustrated how a complex policy is able to move through the policy and legislative processes despite the conflict and difficulties encountered. The dominant narratives were identified, the narrative of the Working Group (WG) (to hold the Bill over to the next parliament and to include a National Policy Framework), and the counternarrative of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (to fast track the Bill through parliament and to make excisions), as were the non-stories (on issues of poverty). The research also identifies the policy entrepreneurs (the WG secretariat and in particular the Children's Institute and Paula Proudlock) and the networks in which they operated. This information provided the basis to identify the meta-narrative to hold the Bill over to the next parliament for further deliberations on the excisions that had been made, which allowed the Children's Bill process to continue. Some recommendations for further evaluation and research into this policy process are noted. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu- Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2006.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Melbourne, Dept. of Criminology, 2007. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 276-305).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Mississippi State University. Department of Political Science and Public Administration. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis examines the public policy process. It explores the role of and relation between three concepts considered important in defining and shaping the making of policies: policy networks, evidence-use and policy transfer. It does this through examining a high profile and controversial area of public policy: the debate about sex offender community notification that resulted from the abduction and murder of eight-year-old Sarah Payne by a convicted sex offender in the summer of 2000. A case study methodology is employed, which includes interviews with key players and extensive documentary analysis. The study finds that none of the main concepts for understanding policy networks - iron triangles, issue networks, policy communities and advocacy coalitions - provide sufficient characterisation of the policy network involved in the 2000 community notification debate. Areas that these concepts do not fully address include the degree of choice participants have in getting involved in a policy network, the causes and processes of alliance building between network participants and the importance, characteristics and impact of organisational as well as personal links. Practitioner knowledge emerges as a major influence in policy making with different forms of evidence entering the policy debate in a strategic way - that is to support an argument. Factors that explain the influence of research evidence are its comprehensiveness, its perceived value for future policy debates on the same topic and the assumed integrity of the evidence-provider. The existing concept of lesson-drawing is found to focus too much on cases in which policy transfer has taken place. It is necessary to develop the concept further to explain situations in which lessons are drawn but where the idea of transferring a policy is dismissed. Finally, lesson-drawing is not limited to the substance of policies and practices but also includes lessons about tactics and processes.

The research problem in this study was to analyse how the new constitutional, legal and political arrangements have influenced public policy-making in the department of labour with specific reference to the Employment Equity Act. To achieve this objective a theory for analysing policy–making process was presented. Corporatist theory is based on the following assumptions: Public policy is shaped by interaction between the state and interest groups. The state licences behaviour of interested organizations by attributing public status to them Policy-making is based on interest groups bargaining across a broad range of issues. The groups are functionally interdependent to enhance social stability. The groups use consensus in making decisions. Decision-making is centralised, it is done by leaders. The groups are bureaucratic in organization. The groups must be recorgnised by the state so that they can be allowed representation. The research questions that arise are: (1) Who sets the agenda for policy formulation? (2) How is the policy formulated? (3) how are the decisions taken? (4) How is the policy implemented? (5) How is the policy monitored? The objective of this study analyse how constitutional, legal and political changes have influenced public policy formulation in the Department of Labour with specific reference to the Employment Equity Act. Policy–making processes in the South African arena and factors that led to the promulgation of Employment Equity Act were discussed. This study was a qualitative design. Purposive sampling was used in the selection of five participants who were interviewed. All interviews were transcribed verbatim. Data was analysed as described by Rubin and Rubin (1995:260) The result negated some of the assumptions of corporatist theory and others concurred with the theory. The findings of the study revealed that policy formulation in the Department of Labour is as a result of constitutional, and international conventions obligations. The findings further revealed that policy-information is institutionalised and there are competing interests due to divergent ideological orientations, different social backgrounds; racial differences; different; political beliefs; different class background; different historical backgrounds, and gender differences. (v) The formulation of the act was also characterised by advocacy, adversarism, stereotyping, alliances and consensus. These organisations. were bureaucratic and decisions were centralised. This study recommended a theory and the theory postulates that “public policy is the product of the social, economic, political, cultural, technolergical, and natural conditions of a given society in a particular epoch or period in the historical development of the particular nation or society and is influenced by dominant national and international forces and these influences may be cultural, economically, social, politically, technological, and type and system of government.

The study focuses and explores citizen participation in the policy and planning process in local government in Lesotho. The study argues that citizen participation in the policy and planning process is important. This is because it is through citizen participation that the government is rendered accountable and responsive to the needs of the local community. Secondly, citizen participation is important in that it helps in the deepening of democracy. In Lesotho, citizen participation has been encouraged by the different governments since the era of Moshoeshoe to the present regime. Lesotho held the first democratic local government elections in 2005. One of the objectives of introducing local government is to foster citizen participation in policy and planning processes. The interviews conducted reveal that citizen participation is taking place even though at a minute degree. Several challenges exist in local government that hinder active and effective citizen participation in local government in Lesotho. One of the major challenges impeding citizen participation is the statutory framework regulating citizens’ participation in local government. This study has found that there is no direct legal or policy framework regulating or enforcing citizen participation in local government. Coupled with this challenge is another crucial challenge relating to the structure and mechanisms that are used for citizen participation. The study reveals that the structures and mechanisms are not adequate to enhance and encourage citizen participation. Pursuant to this, the study proposes some reforms with a view to improving citizen participation in Lesotho. Firstly, the study proposes that the policy and legislative frameworks be improved so as to provide enough scope and space for citizen participation. These frameworks should provide for adequate structures, mechanisms as well as processes and areas that can improve citizen participation in local government. Secondly, crucial instruments for community participation in planning such as the IDP, budget process and the performance management in South African context can be designed with specific cognisance of the structures established. Thirdly, the government must encourage, educate and sensitize citizens to actively take part in local government, through capacity building programmes. It can take the advantage of the NGOs already working with the communities and citizens as a strategy to enhance citizen participation. / Public Administration and Management / M. Admin. (Public Administration)