No description available.

The lobbying of Parliament and the Government in the United Kingdom by wealthy or influential groups and individuals raises concerns about corruption and political equality. Professional lobbying is available mainly to those with significant resources and is often the most effective means of influencing decision-makers. Unchecked, it corrodes public trust in core public institutions. This thesis argues that the problems attending the lobbying of Parliament and Government in the UK need to be identified and understood more clearly so that targeted regulatory solutions can be determined. Currently, lawmakers, organisations and academics have struggled to propose clear pathways for identifying the main issues and understanding them. This is due to a failure to agree on the nature and scope of the central problems associated with lobbying, the relationship between them, and how they are relevant to the model of democratic government in the UK. To overcome this, an analytical framework called ‘institutional diversion’ is developed, tested and evaluated. The framework is developed from institutional corruption literature in the United States and is divided into three parts. Part 1 provides elements which help to identify specific lobbying concerns and provide a rich account of the underlying issues. Part 2 articulates a test to determine whether the identified problem in Part 1 causes a diversion from the purpose of the relevant public institution. It is argued that the critical purpose of decision-makers in Parliament and the Government is to ‘act in the public interest’ and that a diversion from that purpose can be tested using the two criteria of ‘integrity’ and ‘objectivity’. Further, it is not sufficient for a framework to simply identify and help to understand the concerns with lobbying. The logical next step is to identify solutions, and that process must also be rationally guided. Therefore, guidelines are developed from an analysis of an interview with the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists in the UK conducted specifically for this thesis. The guidelines are intended to help future reform analyses by highlighting the practical and political restrictions within which solutions must be developed otherwise they will be unlikely to succeed.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:14:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 4212.pdf: 860992 bytes, checksum: cf060c34d981b5561583f2698876c8d2 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-05-06 / This essay is a critic review about the term lobby in Brazil. The redemocratization and the Federal Constitution, wich accured in the early decades of 1980, the studies about politics were worried about the mechanism, working and the efficacy from the politics institutions. From this way, the studies about interested groups, pressure groups and the lobby are dated from 1994 to 2007. In this work, these are two most important discussions: (a) the lack of scientific searching from Brazilian winters, means, the necessity to discus a better conception between groups in a common interested, pressure groups and the lobby to procure an empiric searching without failures; (b) the matter of don´t make use from the north-american lobby model in Brazil for the reason of each country has difference means for social matters, economy, culture, history and politics. Even with the studies about lobby in Brazil, also, there was the bibliographic analyses exposed by the collective action of Mancur Olson. The importance of democracy and the pluralism of developed organized and the grammar of Brazilian politics. / Resumo Essa dissertação é uma revisão crítica da literatura de lobby existente no Brasil. A redemocratização no país, bem como a formulação de sua Constituição Federal, aconteceram em meados da década de 1980. A partir de então, os estudos da Ciência Política se preocuparam com o mecanismo, funcionamento e eficácia das instituições políticas vigentes. Dessa forma, os estudos sobre grupos de interesse, grupos de pressão e lobby são datados de 1994 a 2007. Nesse trabalho se encontram duas problemáticas principais: (a) a falta de rigor científico por parte dos autores brasileiros, ou seja, a necessidade de se discutir melhor e estabelecer as fronteiras conceituais entre grupo de interesses, grupo de pressão e lobby para assim engendrar uma pesquisa empírica sem falhas; (b) a questão de não aplicar o modelo de lobby norte-americano no Brasil, mesmo o modelo de regulamentação, pois cada país possui suas singularidades sociais, econômicas, culturais, históricas e políticas. Além da análise bibliográfica sobre lobby no Brasil, também foi esboçado o problema da ação coletiva, de Mancur Olson. A importância da democracia e do sistema pluralista ao desenvolvimento de grupos organizados. E as gramáticas da política brasileira.

No description available.

Public interest groups, environmental nonprofit organizations (ENPOs) among them, play a large role in the formulation and implementation of public policy. Much of their legitimacy comes from their claim that they represent their members' interests. This thesis examines ENPO communication forms to ascertain whether and how ENPOs seek their members' opinions, and if so, whether or not those opinions influence the ENPOs' issue-focus selection process, which is the issues on which the ENPO's financial and human resources will be expended. The research addresses these questions at two related levels of representation: internal to the organization (e. g., how do ENPOs seek their members' opinions) and inter - organizational (e.g., what role do ENPOs play in the political arena). On the level of internal democracy, elitist theory and Seymour Martin Lipset's "factors that encourage organizational democracy" provide a base for interpreting the results. At the inter-organizational level both pluralist and elitist theories of democratic governance provide the base for interpretation of the results. Finally, speculation is made about ENPO membership as "symbolic" political participation The results suggest that support for both pluralist and elitist interpretation of both internal and inter-organizational democracy may be appropriate. All ENPOs use a variety of communication forms to inform their members, and all ENPO survey respondents stated that they are open to membership suggestions. The findings also suggest that another appropriate interpretation of ENPO membership may be that membership is a symbolic purchase of political participation. / Master of Urban Affairs

Thesis (MA (Political Science))--Stellenbosch University, 2005. / The question addressed in this thesis was how women developed a feminist identity around other markers of identity, such as race, gender, motherhood, etc. and in the face of the negative connotations of the feminist label and what implications this hold for feminist solidarity. This question arose out of a careful study of current literature, both on international and local levels, concerning perceived division and problems within the feminist movement. The research was conducted in a quantitative and qualitative manner administering questionnaires to women electronically via e-mail and doing interviews to explore certain more sensitive issues. The criteria for the drawing of the sample were that women must have some form of feminist consciousness or identity. To satisfy these criteria the sample was drawn form the Women’s Forum at the University of Stellenbosch, from the Gender Education and Training network (GETNET) and the Social Change Assistance Trust (SCAT), both gender training organizations and from the Provincial Administration of the Western Cape where women have been through a gender training programme. The completed questionnaires were statistically analysed through using The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). Three broad themes emerged as the main findings in this thesis. First it became clear that the uncritical application of foreign measuring instruments may lead to false representation in the South African context, underlining the importance of situational and contextual specifity in research. Second, the propagated divisive power of race within feminism was not supported by the findings in this thesis. On the contrary, the profile of the sample is one of women with well-integrated racial identities and very little racial antagonism. Third it became apparent that women do support the values of feminism, but are unwilling to take a feminist label, implying perceived structural and ideological problems within the feminist movement. The feminist movement needs to redefine their theoretical base, accessibility and their approach to outcomes-based action. If the movement fails to realize the above aims they run a serious risk of disintegration as a political interest group working for the improvement of the lives of women. In order to accomplish the challenges mentioned above the feminist movement must first start with the specific circumstances of the lives of women and use that as a base for theory, policy and strategy to change the lives of women and second align themselves with grassroots movements in order to establish ties to a constituency of women they have lost touch with.

published_or_final_version / abstract / Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

L’objectif central de cette thèse est de comprendre les raisons pour lesquelles la corruption est tolérée dans certaines sociétés. Dans cette perspective, il s’avère indispensable de délimiter le concept de corruption qui ne peut être étudié indépendamment du cadre socioculturel de chaque pays, de la qualité des institutions et de la performance de l’État. Face à la défaillance de l’action collective et au coût des politiques étatiques de lutte, une norme sociale de tolérance de la corruption peut émerger dans une société, réfutant ainsi toute intervention publique. Un modèle proposé en théorie des jeux stipule qu’il est irrationnel de ne pas être corrompu dans une société où la corruption est largement répandue. Une corruption défensive, allant de l’acte individuel de paiement d’un pot-de-vin à la pression organisée des groupes d’intérêt, semble être une réaction rationnelle, un sous-produit de l’usage illégitime et répressif du pouvoir étatique. C’est la tolérance à cette corruption défensive, souvent caractérisée par des effets bénéfiques sur le bien-être social,que l’on propose comme réponse rationnelle à la corruption offensive du pouvoir. Le cas emblématique du multi-confessionnalisme au Liban montre que la corruption est acceptée dans les pratiques quotidiennes des libanais car elle se développe comme une contre-stratégie qui permet de contrecarrer la défaillance des institutions publiques et de contourner la fragmentation religieuse et confessionnelle du partage des ressources. Une enquête personnelle sera menée pour justifier l’émergence d’une « culture de cadeaux » et d’une norme sociale de tolérance vis-à-vis de la corruption. / This thesis attempts to explain the question why corruption is tolerated in some societies. At first, it is essential to define the concept of corruption which cannot be studied independently of the social and cultural context of each country, its religious and confessional fragmentation, the quality of its institutions and the performance of its state. Faced with the failure of collective action and the high cost of public policies, a norm of tolerance of corruption can emerge in a society, thus refuting any public intervention. A game theory model proves that it is irrational not to be corrupt in a society where corruption is widespread. A defensive corruption, ranging from paying bribes, to pressure groups, to buying votes, becomes a rational reaction, a byproduct of the repressive and illegitimate use of state power, especially when corruption has beneficial effects on social welfare. It is this defensive corruption that we consider tolerated, in opposition to offensive corruption.The study of the emblematic case of Lebanon shows that corruption in its various forms is accepted in the daily practices of the Lebanese, and it is used against the failure of public institutions and multi-confessional society. A survey has been conducted to justify the emergence of a "gift culture" and a norm of tolerance vis-à-vis of corruption.

Os analistas que se limitam a entender a dinâmica do Setor Elétrico Brasileiro (SEB) com base em estudos técnicos e econômicos deixam de incorporar a seus modelos a força dos fenômenos políticos que também o influenciam. Com receitas anuais superiores a R$110 bilhões (US$ 50 bilhões) em 2005 e uma configuração institucional intrincada, este setor da economia sempre foi fortemente marcado por forças políticas. Para dar um tratamento mais estruturado a tais forças, adota-se como ferramenta analítica a Teoria de Grupos de Pressão desenvolvida por Gary S. Becker, prêmio Nobel de Economia em 1992. Esta teoria expressa a competição entre grupos pela influência política que os mesmos são capazes de exercer e que, em última análise, resulta em benefícios econômicos, representados no modelo de Becker pela diminuição de impostos pagos ou aumento de subsídios recebidos. Este trabalho tem dois objetivos principais: propor uma metodologia de análise de uso político no SEB com base na Teoria de Grupos de Pressão e, pelo estudo de dois casos, examinar hipóteses de uso político no SEB. O primeiro caso observa a evolução de impostos e encargos sobre a tarifa de eletricidade e demonstra como o setor foi crescentemente usado por grupos de pressão política como fonte eficiente de arrecadação de recursos. O segundo caso analisa as regras e resultados de um leilão de energia promovido pelo governo brasileiro e discute hipóteses sobre o impacto de decisões políticas sobre os comportamentos dos competidores. / The analists who explain the dynamics of the Brazilian Electricity Sector (BES) based exclusively on technical and economic studies forego the impact of the political phenomena which also influence this Sector, a sector defined by an intricate institutional framework and which, in 2005, generated over US$ 50 billion in revenues. This configuration has historically made the BES a target for political forces. In order to study such forces in a more structured way, the author adopted as an analytical tool the Pressure Groups Theory developed by Gary S. Becker, Economics Nobel prize winner in 1992. This theory defines the competition between groups by the political influence which such groups are able to exert and which, ultimately, result in economic benefits, represented in Becker´s model by the decrease in taxes paid and by the increase in subsidies received. This document has two main objectives: propose a methodology – based on the Pressure Groups Theory – for the analysis of political use in the BES and, via the study of two cases, examine hypotheses of political use in the BES. The first case observes the evolution of taxes and other subsidies included in the electricity tariff and demonstrates how the sector has increasingly been used by political pressure groups as an efficient source of resources. The second case analyses the rules and results of an energy auction organized by the Brazilian government and discusses hypotheses about the impact of political decisions on the behavior of competitors.

This study explores the range and variance of interest group activity in constituency campaigns in the 1988 federal election as reported in the Constituency Party Association dataset created in 1991 for the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing. SPSSPC+ was used to analyze the relationships between variables in four main areas: political party affiliation, geographic variables, constituency association characteristics, and the specific issues the interest groups were promoting or opposing. The most significant finding was that interest groups were actively involved in half of the riding association election campaigns, either supporting or opposing local candidates. The cursory treatment of electoral involvement in the interest group literature provides an inadequate explanation for this widespread phenomena. This study provides an initial profile of interest group involvement in constituency campaigns. The exploration of the data revealed that interest groups were more likely to be involved in the local campaigns of candidates associated with the governing party. They were less likely to be involved in Quebec constituency campaigns, and more likely in wealthy competitive riding campaigns. The most frequently mentioned issues that motivated interest groups locally were abortion, followed by free trade.