Essays on Development Policy and the Political Economy of Conflict

Electoral Rules and Leader Selection: Experimental Evidence from Ugandan Community Groups. Despite a large body of work documenting how electoral systems affect policy outcomes, less is known about their impact on leader selection. We study this by comparing two types of participatory decision making in Ugandan community groups: (i) vote by secret ballot and (ii) open discussion with consensus. Random assignment allows us to estimate the causal impact of the rules on leader types and social service delivery. Vote groups are found to elect leaders more similar to the average member while discussion group leaders are positively selected on socio-economic characteristics. Further, dropout rates are significantly higher in discussion groups, particularly for poorer members. After 3.5 years, vote groups are larger in size and their members save less and get smaller loans. We conclude that the secret ballot vote creates more inclusive groups while open discussion groups favor the already economically successful. Preparing for Genocide: Community Meetings in Rwanda. How do political elites prepare the civilian population for participation in violent conflict? We empirically investigate this question using data from the Rwandan Genocide in 1994. Every Saturday before 1994, Rwandan villagers had to meet to work on community infrastructure. The practice was highly politicized and, according to anecdotal evidence, regularly used by the political elites for spreading propaganda in the years before the genocide. This paper presents the first quantitative evidence of this abuse of the community meetings. To establish causality, we exploit cross-sectional variation in meeting intensity induced by exogenous weather fluctuations. We find that an additional rainy Saturday resulted in a five percent lower civilian participation rate in genocide violence. Selection into Borrowing: Survey Evidence from Uganda. In this paper, I study how changes to the standard credit contract affect loan demand and selection into borrowing, using a representative sample of urban micro enterprises, most with no borrowing experience. Hypothetical loan demand questions are used to test whether firm owners respond to changes in loans' contractual terms and whether take-up varies by firms' risk type and other firm owner characteristics. The results indicate that contracts with lower interest rates and less stringent collateral requirements attract less risky borrowers, suggesting that there is scope for improvement of standard financial contract terms. Credit Contract Structure and Firm Growth: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial. We study the effects of credit contract structure on firm outcomes among small and medium sized firms. A randomized control trial was carried out to distinguish between some of the key constraints to efficient credit use connected to the firms' business environment and production function, namely (i) backloaded returns (ii) uncertain returns and (iii) indivisible fixed costs. Each firm was followed for the 1-year loan cycle. We describe the experiment and present preliminary results from the first 754 out of 2,340 firms to have completed the loan cycle. Firms offered a grace period have higher profits and higher household income than firms receiving a rebate later on as well as the control group. They also increased the number of paid employees  and reduced the number of unpaid employees, an effect also found among firms that received a cash subsidy at the beginning of the loan cycle. We discuss potential mechanisms behind these effects.

The politics of exclusion:institutions and immigration policy in contemporary Germany

Immigration is one of the most sensitive issues of modern European politics. Nowhere is this more the case than in Germany, as a result of its history and the sheer scale of immigration it has experienced since 1945. Yet despite this background, Germany's immigration, residence and citizenship policy has been more restrictive when compared to that of many other countries; indeed, official policy long maintained that Germany was not a 'country of immigration'. But why has this been the case? The politics of exclusion provides a new analytical perspective on immigration in Germany, tracing the country's immigration and citizenship policy since the Second World War. The book argues that institutional politics are central to understanding why Germany's policy structures have experienced only incremental change over the past 20 years, and have remained comparatively restrictive. With its lively and accessible style, the book will appeal to advanced scholars and students of immigration and Germany.

Policy into practice:a study of public policy implementation and the role of learning

Public policy becomes managerial practice through a process of implementation. There is an established literature within Implementation Studies which explains the variables and some of the processes involved in implementation, but less attention has been focused upon how public service managers convert new policy initiatives into practice. The research proposes that managers and their organisations have to go through a process of learning in order to achieve the implementation of public policy. Data was collected over a five year period from four case studies of capital investment appraisal in the British National Health Service. Further data was collected from taped interviews by key actors within the case studies. The findings suggest that managers do learn to implement policy and four factors are important in this learning process. These are; (i) the nature of bureaucratic responsibility; (ii) the motivation of actors towards learning; (iii) the passage of time which allows for the development of competence and (iv) the use of project team structures. The research has demonstrated that the conversion of policy into practice occurs through the operationalisation of solutions to policy problems via job tasks. As such it suggests that in understanding how policy is implemented, technical learning is more important than cultural learning, in this context. In conclusion, a "Model of Learned Implementation" is presented, together with a discussion of some of the implications of the research. These are the possible use of more pilot projects for new policy initiatives and the more systematic diffusion of knowledge about implementation solutions.

University ranking as social exclusion

In this article we explore the dual role of global university rankings in the creation of a new, knowledge-identified, transnational capitalist class and in facilitating new forms of social exclusion.We examine how and why the practice of ranking universities has become widely defined by national and international organisations as an important instrument of political and economic policy. We consider how the development of university rankings into a global business combining social research, marketing and public relations, as a tangible policy tool that narrowly redefines the social purposes of higher education itself. Finally, it looks at how the influence of rankings on national funding for teaching and research constrains wider public debate about the meaning of ‘good’ and meaningful education in the UK and other national contexts, particularly by shifting the debate away from democratic publics upward into the elite networked institutions of global capital. We conclude by arguing that, rather than regarding world university rankings as a means to establish criteria of educational value, the practice may be understood as an exclusionary one that furthers the alignment of higher education with neoliberal rationalities at both national and global levels.

An expert system for the development of a health and safety policy/risk assessment in the plastics industry

Health and safety policies may be regarded as the cornerstone for positive prevention of occupational accidents and diseases. The Health and Safety at Work, etc Act 1974 makes it a legal duty for employers to prepare and revise a written statement of a general policy with respect to the health and safety at work of employees as well as the organisation and arrangements for carrying out that policy. Despite their importance and the legal equipment to prepare them, health and safety policies have been found, in a large number of plastics processing companies (particularly small companies), to be poorly prepared, inadequately implemented and monitored. An important cause of these inadequacies is the lack of necessary health and safety knowledge and expertise to prepare, implement and monitor policies. One possible way of remedying this problem is to investigate the feasibility of using computers to develop expert system programs to simulate the health and safety (HS) experts' task of preparing the policies and assisting companies implement and monitor them. Such programs use artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to solve this sort of problems which are heuristic in nature and require symbolic reasoning. Expert systems have been used successfully in a variety of fields such as medicine and engineering. An important phase in the feasibility of development of such systems is the engineering of knowledge which consists of identifying the knowledge required, eliciting, structuring and representing it in an appropriate computer programming language.

The European Community and innovation policy : reorienting towards diffusion

This study aims to explore the position of diffusion oriented support mechanisms in European Community (EC) innovation policy. With the shift from the traditional linear model towards an integrative approach to innovation, the role of diffusion of technologies and knowledge, achieved greater weight. This shift in both the thinking of academic experts, and of national policy makers, induced EC policy makers to appeal for similar changes in Community innovation policy. From the mid-1980s, the Commission of the European Communities, the key actor in EC policy making, thought to move its innovation policy away from the traditional science push approach. This study shows that in the implementation of programmes for research, technology and innovation, the traditional linear model is still dominant. The core research and technological development programmes still operate from a science push concept of innovation, mainly due to their pre-competitive nature. The case of SPRINT illustrates that policy programmes with an integrated innovation perspective can be successful at Community level. However the programme operates in a relatively isolated position from overall research and technological development policy. The case of BRITE-EURAM illustrates the difficulties of collaborative research programmes, the bulk of EC support mechanisms, to move away from the traditional model. The study shows how conflicting policy objectives arising from the different policy networks that shape EC policy making, in combination with a lack of co-ordination in those policy domains, hinder the emergence of the integrated approach. Consequently EC diffusion policy, implemented from the perspective of the linear model, will have a sub-optimal impact on the competitiveness of European industries.

Some aspects of the editorial policy of L'Avenir from 16 October 1830 to 15 November 1831

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Strategies against racism: a comparison of a social movement and case studies of anti-racist policy and practice in the local state

The thesis compares two contrasting strategies employed with the aim of combating particular forms of racism within contemporary Britain. Both are assessed as political strategies in their own right and placed within the broader context of reformist and revolutionary political traditions. The sociology of social movements is examined critically, as are Marxist and post-Marxist writings on the role of human agency within social structures and on the nature of social movements. The history of the Anti Nazi League (ANL) in the late 1970s and its opposition to the National Front is considered as an example of anti-racist social movement based on the Trotskyist model of the United Front. The degree to which the Anti Nazi League corresponded to such a model is analysed as are the potential broader applications for such a strategy. The strategy with which the ANL is compared is the development of anti-racist and equal opportunities policies within local government in the 1980s, primarily by Labour-controlled local authorities. The theory of the local state and the political phenomenon of municipal socialism are discussed, specifically the role of various groups operating in and around local authorities in the formation and implementation of anti-racist policy and practice. Following this general discussion, two case studies in each of the areas of local authority housing, education and employment are explored to consider in depth the problems of specific anti-racist policies. In summation the efficacy of the two strategies are considered as parts of wider political currents in tandem with their declared specific objectives.

University-industry-relations - their role in technological innovation:the case of biotechnology in the UK

Biotechnology is one of a series of new `generic technologies' that have been identified by western governments as possessing stategic economic opportunities. In this thesis I examine the characteristics of the technology and the government policies that have been developed to both promote and exploit the underpinning scientific research for biotechnology. The approach I have taken involves an in-depth analysis of the role of university-industry research relations in the development of biotechnology. To this end I carried out a detailed survey of biotechnology companies in the UK on the nature of their interactions and objectives. Through individual case studies of the SERC and DTI club mechanisms in biotechnology, I provide a contemporary appraisal of the development of new mechanisms involving co-ordination and cooperation between industry, government and academia, established to couple state funded science and national economic development. The public policy implications of the club funding systems for science in the UK are examined.

Technology policy and technological innovation in the People's Republic of China

The objective of this research is to unveil the dynamics of technological innovation in planned economies in transition. It is proposed in the thesis that all innovation systems in the world, in fact, consist of certain configurations of market and hierarchy. These systems have always been shifting from one existing market-hierarchy mix to a new one, which is expected to be more conducive to technological innovation and economic development. Current reforms in many planned economies in transition reflect this theoretical proposition. A research framework is constructed to include three main dimensions for the study of a specific innovation system, i.e. Arrangements, Achievements and Actors. China, which has undergone reforms since 1978, is chosen as the empirical basis of the research. The research examined technology policy and technological innovation in China between 1978 to 1988. The thesis starts from Arrangements - R&D System in China and Its Reform. The thesis illustrates reforms in the R&D system in relation to government technology policy. There exist coherent government efforts to promote innovations through various plans, and the planning process incorporates both market and command elements. The institutional structure of Chinese R&D system remains still vertically departmentalised, but horizontal links are created through the market. Secondly, Achievements - Performance of Chinese R&D System is assessed through patterns of technological innovation. Data from National Awards for S&T Progress (1978-1988) are included in a substantial database, which is used to generate patterns of technological innovation and patterns of innovating organisations. These patterns were presented and interpreted in relation to geographical differences, sectoral differences, typological differences, forms of co-operation and the impacts of S&T policy and reform. The third dimension is study on Actors - Innovation in Applied R&D institutes. Through semi-structured interviews and questionnaire survey, internal structure and research management are analysed in the light of ongoing reforms. The reform of R&D funding system greatly affected the way applied R&D institutes operate. Both organisational and individual incentives for innovating are increasingly associated with economic or material benefits. The research suggests there is a need to put reforms in the R&D system into a wider societal and political context. Some general attributes of applied R&D institutes are also discussed in the thesis.