<p>Communal land tenure reform in Zambia is the overarching subject of study in this thesis. It is an important issue across southern Africa, raising questions of governance, livelihood security and conservation. WIldlife is a 'fugitive' and 'mobile' resource that traverses the spatially fixed tenure of communal lands, national parks and public forest reserves. The management of wildlife therefore requires that spatially defined proprietorial rights accommodate wildlife's temporal forage use. Land may bebounded in tenure, but if bounded by fences its utility as wildlife habitat is undermined. If land is unfenced, but its landholder cannot use wildlife then it is more a liability than an asset. Africa's terrestrial wildlife has enormous biodiversity value but its mobility requires management collaboration throughout its range, and the resolution of conflicting ecological and economic management scales. The paper does not aim to describe and explain the internal communal system of tenure over land and natural resources but rather how the communal system interacts with the state and the private sector.</p>

This study investigates the impact of the New Basics Project on teachers at a special school for students with intellectual impairments. The study is aimed at exploring the complex nature of the work of special educators as they enact the New Basics curriculum with a particular focus on the teachers’ opinions about challenges that arose for their curriculum, pedagogy and assessment practices. Attention is also paid to how the principal’s leadership supported the enactment of the New Basics in respect to what he did and why he used particular strategies. The nine teachers and their principal were involved in a series of in-depth, semi-structured interviews from one of only three special schools in phase one of the New Basics trial in Queensland, Australia. These interviews produced data from the special educators as they were confronted with a new curriculum that challenged their previous teaching practices. The enactment of the New Basics curriculum occurred within the context of a state-sanctioned mandate to provide alternative programs to those offered in mainstream schools, for students with special needs. This thesis explores these teachers' experiences using critical theory as a basis for analyzing their opinions on issues such as the role of the special educator, tensions between old and new curricula, pedagogical and assessment practices, and connections between the at-school learning experiences for intellectually impaired students and the realities of post-school life. The investigation also examines the leadership conduct of the principal in changing times at the school. The findings suggest that the New Basics has played a significant role in providing structures for developing communities of practice amongst teachers; in supporting special educators to focus more on the educational needs of the students (e.g., literacy, numeracy, financial planning) and less on their medical needs (e.g., toileting, feeding, personal hygiene); and supporting school leadership that empowers and listens critically to teachers as essential components of the successful enactment of curriculum reforms like the New Basics.

This thesis investigates the impact of the reform of the split share structure on the Chinese capital market. It adopts an event study methodology to examine the share price performance around the announcements of the reform and its predicted determinants, the type and level of consideration by using a sample of the top 300 companies listed in the combined Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) and Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE). I find the three-day cumulative abnormal returns (CAR) to be negative and significant around government announcement of the reform on 29 April 2005, but the three-day CAR around company???s announcement of the reform to be positive and significant. I attribute this change of sentiment by the market to the release of information about the reform process concerning features such as type and level of consideration. I also regress the company???s CAR on the type and level of consideration and find evidence to suggest that type of consideration matters, where investors prefer payment of shares from capital reserves or retained profits, cash, warrants or any combination of these methods as opposed to payment of shares from non-tradable shareholders. However, I observe no relation between level of consideration and CAR. I interpret this reaction to be that investors perceive that the consideration level is fair and reasonable based on the company???s financial and operating conditions. These results imply that the reform of the split share structure exerts a positive impact on a company???s share price and the extent of impact is a function of the type of consideration.

Translated title: Transnational Care Space Central Europe. Working and Living Conditions of Irregular Migrants in Domestic Care Provision

This study investigates whether Christianity has a reformative influence in the lives of prisoners who consider themselves ‘genuine’ Christians. Interviews were conducted with forty-five prisoners and fifteen ex-prisoners (who had been released from prison as Christians) - all high/medium-security inmates with long sentences. The study had two basic aims: to examine aspects of their religious backgrounds, experiences, and beliefs, and whether Christianity benefited and/or hindered them; second, to investigate their religious needs (in prison and post-release), whether they were being met, and the likely effect to potential benefits of existing support structures. It was anticipated that existing support would be inadequate to meet the men’s needs, particularly those who had been released from prison. In relation to these issues the findings are both positive and negative. With few exceptions, Christian prisoners/ex-prisoners believed that being a Christian made a qualitative difference to life in prison, offering essential hope, meaning and purpose in life, a positive outlook, and productive use of time. Christianity provided a different way of life, with new morals, values, and a renewed sense of self that helped overcome guilt and generally enhanced relationships. Belonging to a religious group provided practical and moral/spiritual support, which assisted prison adjustment and personal security. Moreover, Christian inmates had more self-control and tolerance/respect (than they ordinarily would) for authorities and others, resulting in fewer institutional rule violations. (For complete abstract open document)

The effects of the public sector reform impacted on all aspects of public services including the performance of the economy. Central to this argument was the re-organization of the operations of the public service from the traditional administration system to the new public management (NPM). Education, a critical service in any economy was not spared. Literatures around the application of NPM (a derivative of market principles and practices) to education (which was value based) suggested that NPM was dangerous for education and could deplete the value system of education and replace that with a focus on accounting for money by individuals who were self-interested and who would seek to maximize their benefit with guile. Arguments against NPM suggested that the human factor was neglected and that education had led to chaos among professionals, stakeholders and students. However, those who argued for the introduction of NPM suggested that it had made the provision of education more efficient, effective and relevant to the needs to the clients. It held those working in the education sector accountable for the resources used and made the system more responsive to the needs of the clients of education. Education in the Cook Islands experienced many changes since western type education was introduced by the Missionaries in the late 1800s. Cook Islands people have always regarded education as a right and also believed their participation in education would improve their lives as well as positively contribute to economic growth. As the public sector reform was a global phenomenon, the currents of NPM also converged on the Cook Islands and affected the delivery of education. Those changes revolutionalized education in ways that was not commonplace in the Cook Islands. However, professionals and stakeholders within education made the most of the system and diverged some of the practices to suit the need, the environment and the culture of the Cook Islands people. Change also refocused education from teachers teaching to student learning reinforcing the dedication of many teachers and education administrators to ensure NPM served the best interest of their clients; the students, despite the workload placed on them. The challenge in this thesis was to understand how the NPM system affected education and how the Cook Islands education professionals worked within the system in their favour. The stories of teachers and Ministry of Education professionals demonstrated that there was no resistance to the application of NPM system in the Cook Islands. In fact, the system was embraced by the education sector suggesting it was a positive change from their previous system of traditional administration. Much of their system was inherited from New Zealand where the environment, layers of bureaucracy and economic status of the country was different. Instead, it appeared the Cook Islands took much of what others deemed as dangerous for education and turned it into a positive opportunity for the Cook Islands education. This thesis presents the story of the revolution in the Cook Island education system.

China is moving towards a market economy. The greater use of market forces has made China richer, accelerated modernisation and increased productive efficiency but has created new problems, including, in the health sector, problems of inequity and allocative inefficiency. From 1997, the Chinese government committed to a national policy of regional health planning (RHP), as part of a broader commitment to harmonising social and economic development. However, RHP has been slow to impact on the equity and efficiency problems in health care. Planning requires information; better health decision-making requires better health information. Information systems constitute a resource that is vital for the health planning and the management of the health system. Properly developed, managed and used, health information systems are a highly cost-effective resource for the nation and its regions. Bureaucratic resistance, one of critical reasons is that regional health planners gained insufficient support from information system. Health information needs to adopt into the new way of government health management. The objective of the study is to contribute to the development of China�s health information system (HIS) over the next 5-10 years, in particular to suggest how provincial health information systems could be made more useful as a basis for RHP. The existing HIS is examined in relation to its support for and relevance to RHP, including policy framework, institutional structures and resources, networks and relationships, data collection, analysis, quality and accessibility of information as well as the use of information in support of health planning. Data sources include key informant interviews, a questionnaire survey and various policy documents. Qualitative (questionnaire survey on provincial HIS) and quantitative (key informant interviews) approaches are used in this study. Document analysis is also conducted. The research examines information for planning within the macro and historical context of health planning in China, in particular having regard to the impacts and implications of the transition to a market economy. It is evident that the implementation of RHP has been retarded by poor performance of information system, particularly at the provincial level. However, the implementation of RHP has also been complicated by fragmented administrative hierarchies, weak implementation mechanisms and contradictions between different policies, for example, between improved planning and the encouragement of market forces in health care. To support RHP which is needs based, has a focus on improving allocative efficiency and is adapted to the new market development will require new information products and supports including infrastructure reform and capacity development. Provincial HIS needs to move from being data generators and transmitters to becoming information producers and providers. Health planning has moved to greater use of population-based benchmark and demand-side control. Therefore, information products should be widened from supply side data collection (in particular assets and resources) to include demand-side collection and analysis (including utilisation patterns and community surveys of opinion and experience). The interaction between users (the planners) and producers (the HIS) should be strengthened and regional networks of information producers and planners should be established.

During the transition from a planned economy to a decentralized, market socialist economy, the Chinese healthcare system has evolved from a centralized, egalitarian public system (1949-1979) to one which is largely self-governed and can be characterized as �public identity, private behavior� healthcare system (1980-1999). With blurring of the distinction between public and private governing systems, and a shift in norms towards profit orientation, major concern has arisen about the extent of high cost, high volume services being offered through excessive entrepreneurial practices. This thesis is concerned with the regulatory strategies and options to reach 2010 health reform objectives of equity and efficiency under a mixed public/private market. While possible lessons can be drawn from established economies and transitional economies, China faces some unique challenges, given the diverse market structures and fragmented healthcare system across the country, and the underdeveloped framework for the rule of law. The thesis reviews policy documents from 1949 to 2004 and draws from interviews with senior health policy-makers and hospital directors in three different locations, in order to explore the role of the state in market regulation, the effectiveness of technical and social regulations, and how policy implementation and regulatory compliance occur. The research has found that the dynamics of the healthcare system are shaped by the financing arrangements for healthcare and the absence of arms-length governance of hospitals by health departments. Without an effective state health financing tool, nor mature market institutions, China is not able to use neither performance-based regulation nor technology-based regulation. China has adopted a management-based regulatory strategy but the absence of effective governance structure hinders effective regulation. If the reform objectives of improving healthcare quality while costs are to be attained, China will need to develop purchasing tools to alter the current perverse incentives for provider behavior. Government will also need to work with civil society organizations to develop tools for clinical governance, such as clinical audit for risk management and hospital accreditation programs. To do so requires establishing arms-length governance mechanisms between health departments and hospitals, and appropriate corporate governance structures within hospitals. Specifically, MOH needs to establish a technical policy think tank to investigate all the policy issues arising from the announcement of the 1997 health reform, including coordination with other line ministries and provincial authorities, and formulation and implementation of a policy research agenda, in order to attain a market-based governance system for health by 2010.

Doctor of Philosophy / Using the Wood Royal Commission into the New South Wales Police Service in 1994 as its major case study, this thesis hypothesises that, although this inquiry had a far reaching impact on both the personal and working lives of police officers in the organisation itself, it proved ineffectual in its attempt to control corruption. It argues that corruption, and the subsequent inquiries into this corruption, can be seen to have a cyclic nature and the failure of such inquiries has a long and international history. It contends that the nature of the public inquiry itself can be seen to contribute to the continuation of the cycle of corruption. Clearly, putting an end to corruption requires more than the investigation, public exposure and punishment of a few corrupt police, followed by a generalised tightening of the chain of command. Instead, this thesis demonstrates that the problem is primarily an organisational one and it is important to look at management reforms. This thesis contends that the cycle of corruption involves the nature of police work; the catalyst that triggers the inquiry; the inquiry itself and the issue of the report; and the police and community responses. An examination of all these factors is crucial to understanding the cycle’s dynamics. The final report of the Wood Royal Commission was in 1996 and this thesis specifically analyses the cycle of corruption in relation to the response of the police executive to this inquiry. It shows how the police response focused on the tactical crisis response central to operational policing — in this case appeasing official censure and community fears. As little more than a public relations exercise, senior management strategically addressed the specific recommendations of the report rather than creatively considering the implications exposed during the inquiry. The idea that corruption is a symptom of an ineffective system and not simply a slackening of effective control by senior management was never considered. In the aftermath of the Wood Royal Commission there was much discussion about ‘police culture’ being ‘a culture of corruption’. The forgotten casualties of the inquiry has been individual police officers, many of whom see policing as a vocation. This thesis has allowed many voices to be heard and used both qualitative and quantitative methods to analyse a wide range of information and data, which included personal interviews with serving police officers and members of external organisations, as well as printed material from Royal Commission Reports, Hansard and other government documents, internal Police Service documents and media reports.It has used Bourdieu’s theoretical approach which allows an analysis of the complex relationships involved between police officers as individuals who operate within the wider networks of a specific organisation and the way the personal is important as an explanatory tool of what happens within a policing culture and how this culture is perceived differently from within and without. Bourdieu’s theory also facilitates analysis of the interactions of this network with the wider community, putting in context the responses of both the police service and the community. The connection with the personal is important as an explanatory tool of what happens within a policing culture and how this culture is perceived differently from within and without. Bourdieu constructs an understanding of the ‘nature of the game’ of policing and the shaping of the individual within police culture, giving insight into the source of moral dilemmas, personal beliefs and personal behaviour. As the current management system of command and control is at the heart of this response, this thesis has also analysed the assumptions inherent in this management philosophy, considering both necessary operational strengths as well as organisational weaknesses. A central theme of the thesis is that open dialogue will reduce the incidence of corruption and risk within policing institutions. This thesis argues that there must be an integrative approach to reform — accountable, active leadership combined with critically constructed practical approaches that tackle the complexity of the dynamics embedded in the ‘nature of the game’ of policing itself.

No description available.