The research puzzle of the thesis is to investigate how policy discourse mediates domestic policy adjustment consequent on commitments entered into at the domestic level by the European Union. Conceptually, it adopts the discursive institutionalist framework as developed by Vivien Schmidt and Claudio Radaelli. Empirically, it chooses a single-case study approach to focus on the Greek old-age pension policy adjustment during 1990-2002. The thesis also appraises the process of Europeanization. It adopts the ‘bottom-up’ approach to Europeanization as developed by Claudio Radaelli. Under this scope it’s analysis does not start from EU policy commitments as an independent variable, but from a system of interaction at the domestic level. Conceptually, the thesis looks at policy discourse as a consensus and legitimacy building resource. It focuses on the discursive interactions of key policy actors and analyses how they use policy discourse in order to justify the necessity and the appropriateness of policy adjustment in a given institutional context. The thesis suggests that the discursive institutionalist argument of how policy discourse facilitates policy adjustment puts too much emphasis on the governmental discourse and that the input of the rest of key policy actors must be included in the analysis. It thus proposes the integration of certain elements of the Neo-Positivist Narrative Analysis framework to discursive institutionalism. The argument claims that policy actors’ discourse will take the form of policy narratives that either expand or contain the policy issue. The institutional context will determine the level at which the discursive interaction will take place. In simple polities like Greece, discourse will be thicker at the communicative level and thinner at the coordinative. The effectiveness of discourse will be determined by the level of trust between the government, the key policy actors and the public. The empirical analysis points to a number of domestic factors that restrict the effectiveness of policy discourse and the process of Europeanization, which fall outside the pension policy area and Greece. The thesis also contributes to the advancement of discursive institutionalism. Firstly, it incorporates narrative analysis to the study of discourse. Secondly, it highlights certain limitations, it suggests ways that discursive institutionalism could be improved and directions towards which it could be fruitfully developed.

Among the tools available to enhance the rationality of policy formulation, Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA) has captured the attention of many scholars for its potential to enhance the accountability and transparency of regulatory governance. Although almost all EU and OECD member states have adopted RIA, only a sub- set of small-n case comparative studies on institutional, political and administrative impact have been conducted. By filling this gap in the literature and proposing the rigorous operationalisation of concepts such as adoption, extent of implementation, and learning, this thesis ascertains the extent of interdependency among governments in their choices concerning an innovation of regulatory governance. Methodologically, the dissertation draws on a multi-method approach, consisting of qualitative analysis to track the process of institutionalisation, as well as event history analysis, based on a dataset covering thirty-eight countries from 1968 to 2006. The empirical findings show that diffusion is a multifaceted process. In the decision to adopt RIA, the role of the OECD in translating, packaging, and promoting such administrative innovation coexists with previous innovations and other administrative variables. Yet the impact of interdependency is marginal in the successive phases of implementation and evaluation. Earliness of adoption is the major predictor of the extent of implementation. There is little evidence of interaction and communication among adopters on the subject of their learning experience. On balance, this regulatory governance innovation is a domain of symbolic and rhetorical meanings that is not adequately supported by administrative capacity.

This study explored the views and perceptions about agency social work in England. At its core is the first known case study of adult services social work teams in a rural local authority. The case study took place over the period 2008- 2010 and used qualitative methodology to capture perspectives from agency and employed social workers, agency and employed managers and agency and employed administrative staff. Agency social work was seen to have developed from a background of deteriorating conditions in local government employment and in the absence of effective and flexible workforce planning. Labour process theory provided a meaningful framework to help explore the phenomenon of agency social work within a public sector increasingly dominated by markets and managerialism. A directional tendency towards a degraded workplace was noted despite some perceptions of upskilling in respect of agency social workers. A range of explanations regarding the motivation and the experiences of agency social workers was found that largely supported previous case study findings from urban local authorities. The roles carried out by employed social workers under the care management system were indistinguishable from those of agency social workers, several agency social workers having remained in post for periods of two years or more. No ways of working were identified as being particularly tailored to a rural context. The antipathy toward agency social workers noted in previous case studies was largely absent in the rural case study and agency social workers were not perceived as part of the private sector. Issues regarding the cost-effectiveness of agency social work and its affect on service users and carers were inconclusive. Recommendations for further research were made and agency social work was seen as being likely to remain as a core feature of modernised social work while vacancies remain high and alternative models for contingency workforce planning remain absent.

This thesis explores implications of support and advocacy with substance-misusing women during and after pregnancy in promoting parental involvement and children’s welfare within the regulatory child care framework. It is uniquely situated in relation to social construction, juridification of family lifeworlds, relations of power, and theorisation of an enabling process informed by a rights discourse that facilitates communicative action. Chapter 1 introduces the rationale for this research and contextualises the work of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children’s (NSPCC) Liverpool Families and Substance Support Team (FaSST) service for substance-misusing parents. It utilises observation evidence, outlining FaSST’s relationship to wider professional and agency networks. An expanded overview of chapter organisation makes the distinctiveness of this exploratory research clear; as it relates theory and practice within the previously little researched area of advocacy with substance misusing parents to promote the best interests of children’s welfare. Chapter 2 develops issues of social construction, identity, risk and relations of power vi affecting substance misusing parents within the modern state. Chapter 3 considers the development of child protection, children’s safeguarding, actuarialism and issues of governance. Chapter 4 examines Habermas’ theory of communicative action, rights discourses and how support and advocacy might develop. Remaining chapters examine research fieldwork. Chapter 5 explains the qualitative research design, research method and ethical considerations. Chapter 6 analyses data in terms of governance and risk and tentatively theorises those matters, and chapter 7 analyses data and theorises possibilities for support and advocacy. Chapter 8 formulates conclusions regarding how the FaSST has addressed parents’ concerns and promoted involvement in their children’s interests within the regulatory child care framework. It theorises support and advocacy in that context, and it identifies implications for its further development.

This paper examines the National Child Labor Movement in America at the turn of the 20th century and how it affected collective American social consciousness and civic engagement. One of the first and most important social movements of the Progressive Era led by the National Child Labor Committee, reformers sought to use multiple focal points to unite the American public around the issue of children and the greater good of the nation’s future. In doing so, the movement embedded a new urban social awareness in which Americans finally caught a glimpse into the lives of their fellow citizens, of all classes and backgrounds, and began to develop empathetic practices to initiate social change. Ultimately, this had a significant effect on the future of urban social reform.

Since the 2010s, China’s sports industry has undergone comprehensive reforms. This paper attempts to understand this change of direction from the central state’s perspective. By examining the dynamics of the basketball and soccer markets, it discovers that while the deregulation of basketball is a result of persistent bottom-up effort from the private sector, the recentralization of soccer is a state-led policy change. Notwithstanding the different nature and routes between these reforms, in both sectors, the state’s aim is to restore and strengthen its legitimacy within the society. Amidst China’s economic stagnation, the regime hopes to identify sectors that can drive sustainable growth, and to make adjustments to its bureaucracy as a way to respond to the society’s mounting demand for political modernization.

Voter frustration in the US is driven largely by partisanship and gridlock in Congress. This paper seeks to understand the root causes of gridlock and look at alternative methods for eliminating it. I find that while the media focuses on polarization as the root cause of gridlock, the checks and balances system plays an equally significant role, and that the interaction between the party system and the governmental structure of the US government creates incentives that cause gridlock to form. Recent reforms have failed to successfully address gridlock because they do not change the polarized party system or the barriers to policy-making in government. After acknowledging the failure of recent reforms, I consider a new set of reforms: electoral system reform. The field of electoral systems provides many policy alternatives with profound tradeoffs, many of which make gridlock obsolete. Majoritarian systems create single-party majorities and reduce checks on majority power, allowing the majority party to implement their platform tempered through voter approval rather than checks on their power. Proportional systems retain checks and balances through the creation of governing coalitions, but the parties in power have stronger incentives to cooperate and compromise than under the current polarized US system. I propose a system for evaluating electoral systems and compare them in terms of accountability, legitimacy, effectiveness, representativeness, and complexity. Finally, I propose two electoral reforms, informed by the study of electoral systems, that are both feasible and increase the ability for third parties to gain seats in the legislature. The first, proportional representation for House members, creates small to medium-sized proportional Congressional districts at the state level to reduce the threshold for party entry. The second, Alternative Vote (ranked-choice) for Senate, proposes switching to a preference ranking system for Senate elections further remove barriers to third parties. These reforms should undermine the polarized two-party system and create new incentives for cooperation in Congress.

This dissertation examines what happens when NGOs attempt to implement systems to improve their accountability to intended beneficiaries. While NGO accountability is widely discussed in the literature, there has been very little work done on how accountability systems operate in practice. My dissertation aims to address this important gap by providing a detailed case study of one NGO’s initiative in this area using qualitative empirical data. The data relate to the ‘best case’ example of ActionAid, an NGO that has made substantial, high-profile efforts to improve its downward accountability since 2000 through its Accountability Learning and Planning System (ALPS). The case study reconstructs the evolution of ALPS and examines efforts to implement it, both at international level and within a single country setting: Uganda. The data reveal the obstacles which have hindered ActionAid in its attempts to strengthen its downward accountability. Despite positive rhetoric around ALPS and downward accountability, my findings indicate a significant disjuncture between intentions and actual outcomes. Key factors causing this disjuncture include the benefits that the organisation can reap from an appearance of downward accountability, such as enhanced external legitimacy, even if this does not reflect reality. More broadly, my case study suggests that disjuncture between aims and actual practices is a necessary feature of how NGOs function in the aid sector, in terms of accountability and also in other areas. What then can NGOs do to attempt to overcome the negative implications of disjuncture and improve their relationships with intended beneficiaries? My central recommendation is for NGOs to reflect and to recognise their tendencies to promote disjuncture, such as when they over-state achievements to donors. Frank assessments of the actual status of an NGO’s relationships with communities and of the limitations caused by the NGO’s funding structures are important steps to improving these relationships.

The resource curse literature, which links natural resource abundance with negative political and economic outcomes, is largely based on large-N cross-national studies. This thesis examines the effects of oil production on women’s political participation at the sub-national level, comparing the 36 states in the Nigerian federation, of which some are oil-producing. Shedding new light on the negative effects of oil production at the local and community level, and exploring the gender-related dimensions of the resource curse, I argue that the effect of oil varies across different forms of political activity: while oil production may have a negative impact on women’s legislative participation, it can also have a positive impact on non-formal types of political participation, specifically protest and NGO activity. I further suggest that the underlying trigger for both of these effects is oil’s impact on women’s work, which is manifested differently at national and local levels. The analysis is based on a mixed-methods approach that combines quantitative and qualitative tools, including original datasets on oil production and legislative participation, women’s protests, and women-led NGOs across Nigeria’s states. The combination of evidence offers a wide-ranging repertoire of the impact of oil on women. Drawing on historical evidence and women’s testimonies, this thesis suggests that oil production has negatively affected women’s labour force participation in Nigeria, while women’s work in oil-producing states has been further diminished due to environmental degradation and regional militarisation. The extremely low levels of female legislative participation in Nigeria at both the national and state levels are linked with the negative impact of oil on women’s work. Analysing a dataset of press reports and a directory of Nigerian NGOs to compare oil and non-oil producing states in the Nigerian federation, this thesis finds strong evidence for the impact of oil on women’s non-formal political participation at the local level, in oil-producing states. Thus, evidence from Nigeria suggests that oil production may have a dual effect on women’s political participation – undermining formal participation while increasing non-formal participation,a finding that adds to our understanding of the resource curse, women’s political participation, and the link between the two.

This thesis investigates how collective action is achieved in the governance of transnational common pool resources, taking the example of the electromagnetic radio spectrum as a global common. The thesis asks what determines variation in operational and collective choice property arrangements in common pool resources such as the radio spectrum. The radio spectrum represents the totality of radio frequencies used for wireless communications around the world. It is a transnational resource that exhibits properties of other common pool resources: a) high rivalry in consumption and b) difficulty in excluding non-contributing beneficiaries from its use. This study demonstrates that the presence of a public actor – even one with established authority at transnational level such as the Commission of the European Union – cannot fully explain variations in the configuration of property arrangements in the radio resource. Instead, this study finds that private actors in the electronic communications industry – i.e. service operators and system developers – define rules of access and rules of use in the transnational radio resource, by means of negotiating the configuration of technology systems used to extract value from the resource. In addition, this study finds that industry actors are able to define common operational rules to access and use a transnational frequency pool even in complex situations of heterogeneous economic interests and heterogeneous technology capabilities. They reduce uncertainty in these complex situations by increasing participation in decision-making and by developing mechanisms of information exchange and mutual monitoring in industry associations. When industry actors agree these common rules of management, and reinforce them with common rules of exclusion, they are more likely to negotiate operational arrangements based on principles of common exclusive property rather than individual exclusive property in the transnational radio resource. These findings are derived from the analysis of four case studies, which trace the development of operational rules in five radio frequency bands across time. By revealing the central role of industry associations in defining property arrangements in transnational commons such as the radio spectrum, this research seeks to contribute to the debate about the nature and scope of private transnational governance of common goods.