Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'PRIME MINISTERIAL'

This doctoral research investigates prime ministerial predominance In Britain and Australia. It makes an important contribution to the study of prime ministerial leadership, using comparative research methods. The research is located in the emerging field of comparative political leadership and uses case study analysis of two prime ministers in similar political systems: Tony Blair (1997-2007) and John Howard (1996-2007). The research draws on two strands of literature which tend not to be used together. The core executive model favoured by institutionalists considers the prime minister as one of many interdependent actors in a model of executive government whereby power is dispersed. It is the role and function of these actors which explain political change. This contrasts with the individualised or personalised model which focuses on a single leader and the impact of agency. Seeing the prime minister as the predominant actor with greater n operating within the core executive model, enables us to progress beyond the disputed territory.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Sydney, 2001.
Title from title screen (viewed 28 January 2010). Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the Department of History, Faculty of Arts. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print form.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Sydney, 2001.
Title from title screen (viewed 28 January 2010). Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the Department of History, Faculty of Arts. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print form.

This study has three main objectives. First, it suggests a novel theoretical framework that bridges advice-related literature with the recent developments in the study of political leadership. Second, it fills a knowledge gap in the study of the Italian executive by providing a comprehensive recognition of the appointed personnel at the direct disposal of prime ministers. Third, it tries to explain the uncertain and non-linear consolidation of prime ministerial staffs in Italy by addressing the political and psychological motivations accounting for different staffing arrangements. Political staffs are perceived as increasingly consequential actors in modern democracies. Yet, the literature has long been dominated by accounts of advisory structures in countries of the Anglo-Saxon model, and of their alleged impact on the neutrality of the civil service. More recent analyses have tried to go beyond the normative-prescriptive approach by focusing instead on different typologies and definitions of advisory work. Overall, neither of these works provide a consistent account of advisers within the broader narration of political leadership. By adopting a relational, resource-dependent approach, this work challenges the dominant framework(s) and focuses on both ends of political advice. Its theoretical contribution unfolds along with a systematic definition of staffing stages, strategies, motivations, and factors. Namely, it: (i) postulates that staffing strategies differ with regard to the selection, internal organisation, and external deployment of appointed personnel; (ii) frames those differences in terms of mirroring or compensation – i.e. aiming at either reinforcing or expanding the prime minister’s expertise, informational, and relational capacity; (iii) motivates either strategy as need- or preference-based; (iv) draws needs and preferences from the incumbent’s political constraints and personal inclinations. The descriptive effort relies on extensive documental analysis, qualitative interviews, and data triangulation, and offers a first-time outlook of the background and work of political staffs: who are the members of prime ministerial staffs? What do they do? And how do they perceive their role and functions? – are some of the questions addressed in the first empirical section. The analytical part focuses on the political constraints and personal preferences that may lead to different staffing strategies in each of the three dimensions of advice. Through a Qualitative Comparative Analysis of prime ministers’ political capital, personality traits, and observed strategies of selection, organisation, and networking, it finds that a) constitutional prerogatives are neither sufficient nor necessary to explain the failed consolidation of prime ministerial staffs; b) the political context alone does not account for all the observed variations; c) personality matters, but in a way which is sometimes counter-intuitive. Namely, certain personality traits seem to operate as enablers for prime ministers to pursue their preferred arrangements even when the political constraints would suggest otherwise.

Political biography as political intervention is explored in this thesis: biography as action rather than as passive publication. This idea is investigated through contemporaneous political biography in twentieth century Australia — specifically, biographies written in the lead up to, or during, the active political careers of Australia's prime ministers from Barton to Howard. Australia had 25 prime ministers in this first century of Federation, but only 17 contemporaneous biographies of them were written and published. Three-quarters of these were written in the post-war period, and half were written in the 20th century's final two decades. Most were written by journalists. Given that perceptions of politicians influence their electability, and that biography can influence perceptions, this is a highly prospective area for testing the idea of biography as action — in this case, as political intervention. Here the metaphor of biography as a silken cord composed of several strands — historical, philosophical, psychological and political — can be seen to operate with specific application. The silken cord of biography slips on easily because of its familiar form; it is capable of dragging a politician's reputation up or down and may even be designed to hang them. While the biographer makes the cord, someone else may be holding onto it or subsequently seize it for their own ends. Of the 17 contemporaneous biographies examined here, the majority were found to promote or burnish the subject's standing - the silken cord lifting the subject up. One biography unequivocally sought to diminish the subject's standing - the silken cord dragging them down. This thesis takes perceptions of biography from a simplistic 'authorised/unauthorised' binary to a more nuanced exposition of its character and dynamics.

Australian Prime Ministers in the 1970s and early 1980s did not incorporate Anzac into their discourse of national identity. However, since 1990 Australian Prime Ministers and their governments have increasingly engaged with Anzac in a manner that has supplanted the traditional role of the Returned and Services League as custodians and drivers of Anzac. This has involved them consistently giving Anzac Day addresses during the last twenty-five years, both at home and at significant sites of Australian war remembrance overseas. But this has not always been the case. Prime Ministerial engagement with Anzac in the past was primarily as a participant, not as a custodian, and was more sporadic, more suburban, and less spectacular. The thesis explains this shift by tracing the increasing use of Anzac discourse by Australian Prime Ministers from 1972-2007. It will be argued that these Australian Prime Ministers have increasingly shown ‘Anzac entrepreneurship’ – successfully identifying the public’s desire to engage with Anzac and facilitating Anzac’s resurgence by employing the power resources of the state in order to amplify Anzac. Critical discourse analysis is adopted to analyse the integration of Anzac discourse into Prime Ministerial language. Such an approach points to the socially embedded nature of language, whilst simultaneously analysing the linguistic construction of this language. The thesis identifies that Prime Ministers have engaged with Anzac in order to both constitutively renovate Anzac as a central Australian identity and for instrumental policy ends. These twin developments have pertained especially to the processes of domestic economic reform in a globalising world and the deployment of Australian troops during the War on Terror. Such a study is important, as recent scholarly interest in Australian politicians’ role in the resurgence of Anzac from political scientists and historians has not seen systematic investigation of Prime Ministerial Anzac Day addresses that analyses the evolution of these addresses over time or closely examines their language on a sustained basis.

Analysing ideology through discourse is practiced academically in humanities and other social sciences. It is based upon the hypotheses that through close reading, and systematic analysis, people can figure out the ideologies behind spoken and written texts. People adopt discourse analysis to associate context with the structure of discourse itself. For instance, social positions (e.g. ethnicity, gender or profession) are linked with structural units or linked with strategies of speech or talk that are embedded in their so­ cial, political and cultural contexts. Depending on their various social positions, lan­ guage users might be categorised into various groups or communities . They are ex­ pected to follow a certain set of rules and regulations of their social positions. Based on the Appraisal theory this thesis seeks to discover not only the words people have uttered, but also their implicature which is not easily noted. It also seeks to understand to what extent their words are related to their stance. Firstly, the thesis review what has been achieved on the Appraisal theory. Then the thesis will come to a detailed presentation of the theoretical framework . This leads to the main discussion of this thesis, which is a comprehensive analysis on the basis of the Appraisal theory and have a better under­ standing of each candidate's propositions.

The 2010 general election witnessed the UK's first ever televised pre-election leaders' debates, thereby heralding the introduction of a new form of mediated political discourse, in an instant changing the face of British electoral politics for good. The present study interrogates these debates, focusing specifically on the self-presentation work evident in the contributions of the three participating party leaders, in their attempts to construct credible and likable identities in their talk and discourse. Working with a broadly post structuralist understanding of discourse and identity, the study asks how the leaders construct the various identities evident in their discourse, what kinds of resources are drawn upon the process, and how the resulting identities might be consequential both for television audiences, and for the evolution of political discourse more generally. The study considers the construction of identities as individual, relational and collective phenomena, utilizing a pluralistic, mixed-methods approach. It incorporates the use of corpus tools alongside more traditional, fine-grained discourse analysis. The qualitative analysis offered draws upon the insights of scholarship conducted in a range of research traditions, including social and discursive psychology, self-presentation research, membership categorization analysis (MeA), face research, and narrative analysis. The study investigates not only how identities are constructed, contested and defended during the debates, but also the significance of the identity work observed in terms of political marketing, and the growth of perception politics. Some suggestions are made regarding the potential usefulness of the findings in terms of critical language awareness development in educational contexts, and the study concludes with a consideration of the next debates, and the future of electoral politics in the United Kingdom.

Le thème des conseillers est quasiment absent des études de l’échiquier politique en Pologne, bien que la présence de ces acteurs sélectionnés et non élus dans la configuration de gouvernance s’ajoute à la complexité des questions de légitimité et de représentation. Cette thèse vise à combler ce vide, en explorant l’ancrage institutionnel, les traits sociodémographiques, les carrières et les rôles des conseillers des premiers ministres polonais de 1989 à 2014. Elle propose également un recadrage de la problématique du conseil, en l’intégrant dans le contexte des processus de délimitation de champs et de professions. L’analyse est orientée par les concepts de professionnalisation, trajectoire et boundary work, et repose sur la mobilisation de méthodes qualitatives et quantitatives. Les résultats montrent que l’institutionnalisation de l’informel au sein des cabinets politiques devenus dispositifs de conseil, les irrégularités dans les parcours professionnels et la liquidité du rôle façonné par des préférences contingentes rendent les frontières entre les conseillers et les autres catégories d’acteurs floues et négociables. Dans le même temps, la consolidation des cabinets politiques dans le paysage institutionnel, les convergences de profils de conseillers, l’adaptabilité de leur rôle et leur auto-identification comme conseillers suggèrent que plusieurs composantes de professionnalisation sont présentes. Le conseil politique apparaît comme un ensemble des pratiques variées, différemment placées sur les axes du formel et de l’informel, de l’expertise et de la confiance, de la science et de la politique, dont l’opposition est aussi discutée et contestée dans ce travail
The theme of advisers is virtually absent from analyses of the Polish political system, although the presence of these selected and non-elected actors in the configuration of governance adds to the complexity of questions of legitimacy and representation. This thesis aims to fill the gap by exploring the institutional affiliation, sociodemographic features, careers and roles of advisers to the prime ministers of Poland active between 1989 and 2014. It also suggests a reframing of the question of political counsel by embedding it in the context of delimitation of fields and professions. The analysis is oriented by the concepts of professionalisation, trajectory and boundary work, and it relies on a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. The results indicate that the institutionalisation of informality within advisory units, the irregularities in professional trajectories and the liquidity of the role shaped by changing preferences blur the boundaries between advisers and other categories of actors. At the same time, the consolidation of political cabinets in the institutional landscape, the convergences in advisers’ profiles, the adaptability of their role, and their self-identification as advisers suggest that multiple components of professionalisation are present. Political counsel appears thus as a set of diversified practices positioned in a variety of ways on the axes of the formal versus the informal, trust and expertise, science and politics, whose contradictory nature is also discussed and contested in this work

This thesis traces the development of the ministerial staffing system in Australian Commonwealth government from 1972 to the present. It explores four aspects of its contemporary operations that are potentially problematic. These are: the accountability of ministerial staff, their conduct and behaviour, the adequacy of current arrangements for managing and controlling the staff, and their fit within a Westminster-style political system. In the thirty years since its formal introduction by the Whitlam government, the ministerial staffing system has evolved to become a powerful new political institution within the Australian core executive. Its growing importance is reflected in the significant growth in ministerial staff numbers, in their increasing seniority and status, and in the progressive expansion of their role and influence. There is now broad acceptance that ministerial staff play necessary and legitimate roles, assisting overloaded ministers to cope with the unrelenting demands of their jobs. However, recent controversies involving ministerial staff indicate that concerns persist about their accountability, about their role and conduct, and about their impact on the system of advice and support to ministers and prime ministers. The contemporary ministerial staffing system is an organisation of considerable complexity and diversity. This study profiles its key features and elements, with a focus on the governance framework within which ministerial staff work. Analysis of staffing arrangements under the Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke and Keating governments shows that all governments have built on the innovations of their predecessors, developing arrangements that reflect their own needs and preferences. But, as this thesis demonstrates, governance arrangements to regulate and control ministerial staff have not evolved as quickly as structures to help and support ministers. Two case studies from the later years of the Keating government demonstrate that problems always inherent to the ministerial staffing system became increasingly evident as public sector reforms challenged the role of the public service, and boundaries between the respective roles and responsibilities of ministerial staff and public servants became blurred. As ministerial offices became larger and there were greater demands on ministers, questions arose about their capacity to manage and supervise their ministerial staff. There has been no scholarly analysis of ministerial staffing arrangements under the Howard government. This thesis contributes original data and analysis documenting the further evolution of the ministerial staffing system during the period 1996 to 2004. This shows the trend towards large, active and interventionist ministerial staffing arrangements has continued under the Howard government. The ministerial staffing system has evolved in ways that reinforce the power of the Prime Minister. Ministerial staff are a key means by which public service responsiveness is achieved. They reach deep into the operations of the bureaucracy in their quest for information and advice. Although it has enhanced employment arrangements for ministerial staff, the Howard government has done little to strengthen the governance framework within which they operate. In the absence of a clear framework, confusion has arisen about the demarcation of roles between ministerial staff and public servants. Two cases, the 1997 Travel Rorts affair and the 2001 Children Overboard controversy, provide a dynamic account of the contemporary ministerial staffing system in operation. They also provide an empirical basis for assessing the adequacy of the current governance framework for ministerial staff. This thesis concludes that the actions of the Howard government in handling controversies involving ministerial staff have undermined the already weak governance framework regulating and controlling them. Over time, and especially in the past decade, the ministerial staffing system has broken out of the framework on which its development was premised. In a constitutional and managerial sense, the contemporary staffing system is ‘out of control’. This thesis identifies important parallels between the problems with ministerial staff that are being experienced in Australian and other Westminster systems, and those that have characterised the White House staff. The US experience offers a useful way of understanding the endemic problems of political staffing, and highlights potential trajectories along which the Australian system might develop if left unchecked. Finally, the thesis considers proposals for reforming the ministerial staffing system, and assesses the prospects of such proposals being adopted by current and future Australian governments.
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department of Politics and Public Policy
Griffith Business School
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La tesi che presento si configura come un’analisi del binomio linguaggio-politica, con riferimento ai due principali paesi anglofoni del mondo, Stati Uniti e Gran Bretagna. La disamina critica del Political Discourse è interamente condotta secondo le linee guide stabilite dalla Critical Discourse Analysis, con particolare riferimento ai massimi esperti di linguistica testuale e analisi del discorso, tra cui spiccano i nomi di Van Dijk, Fairclough e Wodak. Adottando l’approccio metodologico proprio della CDA, l’analisi testuale condotta si prefigge l’obiettivo di travalicare i confini entro cui si colloca quella che può essere considerata come una semplice analisi del ‘contenuto manifesto’ di un discorso politico. Al contrario, la mia indagine privilegia l’implicito più che l’esplicito, trascendendo il mero piano semantico nel tentativo di presentare un’analisi del testo fondata sulla compenetrazione di molteplici piani - lessicale, morfosintattico, pragmatico e retorico. Tale compenetrazione consentirà di considerare i testi nella loro totalità; totalità all’interno della quale rientrano gli elementi contestuali e co-testuali, così come le contingenze socio-economiche, politiche e culturali che permeano la società e si riflettono inevitabilmente sulle pratiche discorsive. Partendo da questi presupposti, il mio sarà principalmente un lavoro di interpretazione, e perciò intrinsecamente legato ai concetti di ‘contingenza’ e ‘parzialità’. All’interno di un contesto di CDA, infatti, il linguaggio smette di essere considerato soltanto all’interno della sua dimensione strutturale e semiologica, che tende a declassarlo ad una mera sequenza di parole e preposizioni, per essere invece inglobato all’interno di un contesto più ampio, che privilegi la relazione dialettica intercorrente tra linguaggio e società. Partendo dalla teorizzazione di Fairclough, per cui il linguaggio è anzitutto una pratica sociale, in queste pagine cercheremo dunque di disvelare il modo in cui le pratiche discorsive e le ideologie sono interconnesse. L’indagine assumerà così le sembianze di un’analisi comparativo-contrastiva volta a descrivere e differenziare il modo in cui categorie politiche contrapposte, asserviscono il linguaggio ai propri scopi manipolativi. Verranno evidenziate anzitutto le principali differenze ideologiche tra Repubblicani e Democratici per quanto concerne il panorama statunitense; tra Laburisti e Conservatori per quanto attiene al panorama britannico. Sul piano morfosintattico, analizzeremo una selezione di discorsi ufficiali tenuti da Obama, Romney e una serie di leader politici britannici distintisi per le proprie abilità oratorie. In questo modo, dopo aver fornito informazioni di natura contestuale, i discorsi verranno analizzati da un punto di vista quantitativo e qualitativo, soffermandosi su tempi verbali, verbi modali, e l’alternanza tra forme esclusive ed inclusive. L’attenzione si focalizzerà così su elementi quali la ‘deissi personale’, ovvero l’utilizzo di pronomi deittici che trasmettono percezioni di prossimità o distanza, o concorrono a rappresentare il mondo in chiave dicotomica, creando contrasti ‘noi/loro’. Stessa attenzione sarà riservata all’utilizzo di aggettivi e verbi modali, accorgimenti linguistici che consentono all’oratore di comunicare il suo atteggiamento rispetto alle proposizioni che enuncia. Verranno altresì descritti gli artifici retorici di matrice aristotelica più ricorrenti, la cui indiscussa capacità suasiva sembra riflettersi prevalentemente sul piano ritmico, nell’intento di accrescere l’effetto di risonanza mnemonica degli enunciati. Ciò che emerge è l'intrinseco potere della parola, finalizzato all'assoggettamento dell'individuo tramite l'intento allocutivo (far credere) e quello perlocutivo (far fare).

Prime ministerial power in the Australian federal context is somewhat constrained. This thesis investigates an Australian prime minister's power to achieve reform by examining Kevin Rudd's machinery changes to intergovernmental arrangements and his policy reform agenda in two key areas of shared responsibility. Rudd committed his government (2007-2010) to transforming the federation and pursuing a significant reform agenda using a strategy of cooperative federalism. Rudd's explicit invitation to states and territories to be partners in this reform appeared in contrast to ongoing Commonwealth centralisation of policy and recent decades of increasingly coercive intergovernmental relations. This study interrogates the notion of cooperative federalism which framed Rudd's approach to policy reform. It describes Rudd's centralising changes to the intergovernmental arrangements and examines his reform agenda in the areas of finance and health. Drawing on primary research of Rudd's parliamentary speeches and using a case study method, the research traces Rudd's reforms to intergovernmental finances and health from his pre-election commitments, through the policy development, to execution, focusing in particular on his engagement with the states and territories. The analysis shows that Rudd's policy solutions in finance and health were both centralist, but that the approach taken by him and his government differed across the two cases.
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Griffith Business School
Griffith Business School
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Die Studie schließt an die Debatte in der vergleichenden politikwissenschaftlichen Verwaltungsforschung an, die sich mit der Rolle interner Beratungsakteure in Regierungsorganisationen beschäftigt. Ziel dieser Studie ist es, die Mechanismen zu erklären, durch die interne Beratungsakteure die ihnen zugeschriebene Bedeutung im exekutiven Entscheidungsprozess erlangen. Dabei werden jene Organisationseinheiten untersucht, die proaktiv an exekutiven Entscheidungsprozessen mitwirken und mit ihrer Beratung politischer Akteure in Konkurrenz zur Ministerialverwaltung stehen können. Die Einflussmechanismen dieser Akteure in der exekutiven Entscheidungsfindung werden als Formen einer "Institutionenpolitik" aufgefasst, bei der Akteure die institutionellen Bedingungen von Politikformulierungsprozessen bzw. die "Spielregeln exekutiver Entscheidungsfindung" verändern, um ihre eigene Position bzw. die ihres "Klienten" zu stärken. Das theoretische Argument dieser Arbeit folgt der neo-institutionalistischen Wende in der Organisationstheorie und definiert Institutionenpolitik als graduelle Institutionalisierungsprozesse zwischen Institutionen und organisationalen Akteuren, wobei einem weiten Institutionenbegriff folgend die Objekte solcher Veränderungsprozesse durch regulative, normative und kognitive Säulen gekennzeichnet sind. In Anwendung des "power-distributional approach" lassen sich graduelle Institutionalisierungsprozesse durch institutionenbezogene Charakteristika erklären, d.h. die Beschaffenheit der Objekte von Institutionenpolitik, insbesondere die Interpretationsfreiheit ihrer Anwendung, sowie die Restriktionen des institutionellen Kontexts. Zudem lässt sich Institutionenpolitik durch akteursbezogene Charakteristika erklären, d.h. den Ambitionen der Akteure sich als "potentielle institutionelle Agenten" zu engagieren. Diese beiden Erklärungsdimensionen drücken sich in vier idealtypischen Mechanismen von Institutionenpolitik aus: Sedimentation, Ersetzung, Drift, und Konversion, die mit vier Agententypen korrespondieren. Die Studie untersucht die institutionenpolitischen Ambitionen der Akteure explorativ, die Relevanz des institutionellen Kontexts wird mithilfe von Erwartungshypothesen zu den Effekten von vier Merkmalen analysiert, die in der bestehenden Debatte als relevant gelten: (1) die Parteienzusammensetzung der Regierung, (2) die Strukturprinzipien von Kabinettsentscheidungen, (3) die Verwaltungstradition sowie (4) die formale Politisierung der Ministerialverwaltung. Die Studie folgt einem "most similar systems design" und führt qualitative Fallstudien zur Rolle interner Beratungseinheiten im Zentrum deutscher und britischer Regierungsorganisationen, d.h. der Regierungszentrale und dem Finanzministerium, über einen längeren Zeitraum durch (1969/1970-2005). Es werden jeweils drei Zeitperioden pro Untersuchungsland betrachtet, die britischen Fallstudien analysieren die Beratungsakteure im Cabinet Office, Prime Minister's Office und dem Finanzministerium unter den Premierministern Heath (1970-74), Thatcher (1979-87) und Blair (1997-2005). Die deutschen Fallstudien untersuchen die Beratungsakteure im Bundeskanzleramt und dem Bundesfinanzministerium unter den Bundeskanzlern Brandt (1969-74), Kohl (1982-1987) und Schröder (1998-2005). Für die empirische Untersuchung wurden die Ergebnisse einer Dokumentenanalyse mit den Erkenntnissen aus 75 semi-strukturierten Experteninterviews trianguliert. Die vergleichende Analyse zeigt unterschiedliche Muster von Institutionenpolitik. Die deutschen Beratungsakteure agieren anfänglich in Ersetzung, später vornehmlich in Sedimentation sowie Drift, d.h. ihre institutionenpolitischen Aktivitäten widmen sich nach anfänglicher Ersetzung bestehender institutioneller Grundlagen zunehmend der Addition neuer Elemente sowie der deliberativen Nicht-Entscheidung zur Anpassung existierender institutioneller Grundlagen an Umweltveränderungen. Die britischen Beratungsakteure sind zumeist in Ersetzung sowie Konversion engagiert, trotz gelegentlicher Sedimentation, d.h. einer direkten Ersetzung bestehender institutioneller Grundlagen durch neue Spielregeln exekutiver Entscheidungsfindung sowie einer bewussten Umwandlung und Neuausrichtung existierender institutionellen Grundlagen, gelegentlich auch eine Addition neuer Elemente zu bestehenden Regeln. Die institutionen- und akteursspezifischen Charakteristika sind für diese Muster von Institutionenpolitik erklärungsrelevant. Erstens weist die Studie nach, dass der institutionelle Kontext die institutionenpolitischen Aktivitäten in Deutschland beschränkt und in Großbritannien begünstigt. Zweitens ist die Interpretationsfreiheit der Anwendung institutionenpolitischer Objekte bedeutsam, wie sich anhand der institutionenpolitischen Ambitionen der Akteure im Zeitverlauf und im Ländervergleich zeigt und somit drittens bestätigt, dass diese Interessen der Akteure an Institutionenwandel die Mechanismen von Institutionenpolitik beeinflussen. Die Arbeit schließt mit der Erkenntnis, dass die Rolle interner Beratungseinheiten in der exekutiven Politikformulierung nicht nur aus ihren inhaltlichen, parteistrategischen oder medial-beratenden Funktionen für politische Akteure in Regierungsämtern folgt, sondern insbesondere aus ihren institutionenpolitischen Aktivitäten, deren Resultate die institutionellen Restriktionen aller Akteure in exekutiven Entscheidungsprozessen beeinflussen – und somit auch ihre eigene Rolle in diesen Prozessen.
This study follows the debate in comparative public administration research on the role of advisory arrangements in central governments. The aim of this study is to explain the mechanisms by which these actors gain their alleged role in government decision-making. Hence, it analyses advisory arrangements that are proactively involved in executive decision-making and may compete with the permanent bureaucracy by offering policy advice to political executives. The study argues that these advisory arrangements influence government policy-making by "institutional politics", i.e. by shaping the institutional underpinnings to govern or rather the "rules of the executive game" in order to strengthen their own position or that of their clients. The theoretical argument of this study follows the neo-institutionalist turn in organization theory and defines institutional politics as gradual institutionalization processes between institutions and organizational actors. It applies a broader definition of institutions as sets of regulative, normative and cognitive pillars. Following the "power-distributional approach" such gradual institutionalization processes are influenced by structure-oriented characteristics, i.e. the nature of the objects of institutional politics, in particular the freedom of interpretation in their application, as well as the distinct constraints of the institutional context. In addition, institutional politics are influenced by agency-oriented characteristics, i.e. the ambitions of actors to act as "would-be change agents". These two explanatory dimensions result in four ideal-typical mechanisms of institutional politics: layering, displacement, drift, and conversion, which correspond to four ideal-types of would-be change agents. The study examines the ambitions of advisory arrangements in institutional politics in an exploratory manner, the relevance of the institutional context is analyzed via expectation hypotheses on the effects of four institutional context features that are regarded as relevant in the scholarly debate: (1) the party composition of governments, (2) the structuring principles in cabinet, (3) the administrative tradition, and (4) the formal politicization of the ministerial bureaucracy. The study follows a "most similar systems design" and conducts qualitative case studies on the role of advisory arrangements at the center of German and British governments, i.e. the Prime Minister’s Office and the Ministry of Finance, for a longer period (1969/1970-2005). Three time periods are scrutinized per country; the British case studies examine the role of advisory arrangements at the Cabinet Office, the Prime Minister's Office, and the Ministry of Finance under Prime Ministers Heath (1970-74), Thatcher (1979-87) and Blair (1997-2005). The German case studies study the role of advisory arrangements at the Federal Chancellery and the Federal Ministry of Finance during the Brandt government (1969-74), the Kohl government (1982-1987) and the Schröder government (1998-2005). For the empirical analysis, the results of a document analysis and the findings of 75 semi-structured expert interviews have been triangulated. The comparative analysis reveals different patterns of institutional politics. The German advisory arrangements engaged initially in displacement but turned soon towards layering and drift, i.e. after an initial displacement of the pre-existing institutional underpinnings to govern they laid increasingly new elements onto existing ones and took the non-deliberative decision to neglect the adaption of existing rules of the executive game towards changing environmental demands. The British advisory arrangements were mostly involved in displacement and conversion, despite occasional layering, i.e. they displaced the pre-existing institutional underpinnings to govern with new rules of the executive game and transformed and realigned them, sometimes also layering new elements onto pre-existing ones. The structure- and agency-oriented characteristics explain these patterns of institutional politics. First, the study shows that the institutional context limits the institutional politics in Germany and facilitates the institutional politics in the UK. Second, the freedom of interpreting the application of institutional targets is relevant and could be observed via the different ambitions of advisory arrangements across countries and over time, confirming, third, that the interests of such would-be change agents are likewise important to understand the patterns of institutional politics. The study concludes that the role of advisory arrangements in government policy-making rests not only upon their policy-related, party-political or media-advisory role for political executives, but especially upon their activities in institutional politics, resulting in distinct institutional constraints on all actors in government policy-making – including their own role in these processes.

Francesco Bongioannini (1847-1928)fu un ingegnere con ruolo ispettivo che ha operò per un lungo periodo in seno alla Direzione generale di AABB. Nell’ambito del restauro architettonico, fu l’estensore di norme e direttive per una generale e centralizzata opera di controllo sull’azione conservativa dei monumenti. L’iniziativa di maggiore rilievo riguardò la stesura del Decreto Ministeriale del 21 luglio 1882 «Sui restauri degli edifizi monumentali» e della relativa circolare applicativa n. 683 bis. Il decreto e la circolare costituirono le più aggiornate acquisizioni prodotte dal dibattito sulla nascente disciplina del restauro architettonico e rappresentarono un fondamentale punto di riferimento teorico per gli anni successivi

El objetivo de esta tesis es analizar dónde el discurso dominante ha colocado a las mujeres en historias de ficción sobre diferentes episodios de la historia reciente del estado español. Para ello, hemos analizado cuatro series protagonizadas por mujeres que se han emitido en el canal La 1 de TVE entre 2008 y 2017: «La Señora», «14 de abril. La República »,« Isabel »y« El Ministerio del Tiempo ». La metodología del análisis del discurso crítico feminista se ha utilizado para ver cómo estas narrativas de la televisión pública sintetizan la transversalización del feminismo estatal y la promoción de la legislación para la recuperación de la memoria en nuestro contexto político reciente. En nuestro análisis, sostenemos que las cuatro series han reelaborado el imaginario de la identidad democrática a partir de la agenda institucionalizada feminista socialista, lo que implica el corte de las categorías de mujeres y memoria. En este sentido, las mujeres se presentan como las protagonistas de la memoria democrática a partir de la convergencia de dos perfiles: el burgués liberal y el socialista. Estos tipos de mujeres actúan como referencias mnemónicas para las mujeres en la democracia contemporánea. Además, las historias argumentan la relación entre la feminidad y el poder y la relación entre lo personal y lo político. En este sentido, las historias aportan soluciones creativas que rompen el ciclo de representación de las mujeres revictimizadas y con la idea del empoderamiento como un proceso individual. Lo que encontramos en los guiones son acciones en forma de experiencias de cuidado ficticias que evocan la emancipación femenina de un proyecto colectivo sostenido de lo que tienen en común. Al hacerlo, invitan a reflexionar sobre el alcance estructural y cultural de la violencia patriarcal y permiten un espacio para la representación de estrategias de supervivencia colectiva desde una perspectiva genealógica.
The aim of this thesis is to analyze where the mainstream discourse has placed women in fiction stories about different episodes of the recent history of the Spanish state. To do this, we have analyzed four series starring women that have been broadcast on TVE's channel La 1 between 2008 and 2017: «La Señora», «14 de abril. La República», «Isabel» and «El Ministerio del Tiempo». The Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis methodology has been used to see how these narratives by the public television symptomatize the rise of State feminism and the promotion of legislation for memory recovering in our recent political context. In our analysis, we contend that the four series have reworked the imaginary of the democratic identity from the socialist feminist institutionalized agenda, which entails cutting across the categories of women and memory. In this sense, women are presented as the protagonists of democratic memory from the convergence of two profiles: the liberal bourgeois and the socialist. These types of women act as mnemonic references for women in contemporary democracy. Moreover, the storylines problematize the relationship between femininity and power as well as the relationship between the personal and political. In this regard, the stories contribute creative solutions that break the cycle of representing revictimized women and with the idea of empowerment as an individual process. What we find in the scripts are actions in the form of fictionalized caring experiences that evoke female emancipation from a sustained collective project of what they have in common. By doing so they invite reflection on the structural and cultural scope of patriarchal violence and allow space for the representation of collective survival strategies from a genealogical perspective.

Memoria (licenciado en ciencias jurídicas y sociales)
No autorizada por los autores para ser publicada a texto completo
El presente estudio se adentra en la labor desplegada por el Ministerio en el cumplimiento de su función de defensa durante la primera administración de don Manuel Montt Torres (1851-1856). Para una mejor comprensión del contexto histórico al que se refiere la obra, en su primer capítulo se describe la situación política, jurídica, social y económica de la época. En un segundo apartado se estudian las memorias de los años en cuestión, no sin antes hacer ineludibles referencias al marco consstitucional vigente y a la situación del Ministerio a la llegada de don Manuel Montt al poder; el tema principal se trata a continuación, desentrañando el cumplimiento de la función de defensa a la luz de los contenidos de las memorias; lejos de presentar un resumen de las mismas, penetra en el desempeño de la labor ministerial, subdividiéndola sintáctica y substancialmente, analizando los aspectos que ocuparon la atención de la secretaría de Estado y haciendo especial hincapié en la gestión jurídica que de ellas se desprende; para ello, se elabora un detallado listado de las leyes y principales decretos que regían la materia hasta esa época, presentándose con posterioridad, las iniciativas legales y normas surgidas durante el primer mandato de don Manuel Montt. La trascripción de las memorias, hecha en la tercera parte de este trabajo, permite al lector acceder con facilidad a estos documentos históricos que se guardan celosamente en contadas bibliotecas y en volúmenes difíciles de hallar. Las estadísticas, relaciones y otros documentos que acompañaban a las memorias originales se anexan al final, de modo de ilustrar el contenido de las mismas de un manera directa y fehaciente.

Prime ministerial power resides in the institutions of government, and relies on complex interactions between the leader and the leadership environment. The party and the electorate can terminate a leader's tenure, and other institutions such as the media, parliament and sources of advice can all impact on the relative success of the prime minister. How these power sources are navigated is influenced by personal leadership styles. Because these styles vary, there is more than one path to effective leadership and political dominance. The Paul Keating Prime Ministership (1991-1996) tells us much about prime ministerial power and Australian political leadership. The lessons from his tenure are that prime ministers must maintain support in the electorate and the party room, because power is dependent on interaction with, and the support of, others. Prime Minister Keating was a dominant leader in relation to his colleagues in the caucus and the cabinet; his leadership was individual and authoritative. His downfall was the result of the ultimate power wielded by the Australian electorate used to devastating effect. Thus prime ministers are only ever as powerful as they are allowed to be; by the party room and by the people. The media and modern competitive electoral pressures provide increasing scope for individual leadership, but neglect of either of these domains still invites political oblivion. Australian prime ministers can act 'presidentially', but only within the confines of public and party expectations. This thesis utilises new material and an interactionist framework to re-examine the prime ministerial power debate and conclude that powerful leadership relies heavily on a willingness of others to be led. Paul Keating's stores of immense authority and influence relied on his personal approach but also, most importantly, on the compliance of his colleagues in the cabinet and caucus.

The dissertation aims at assessing the Narendra Modi’s Election Campaign from the time he was nominated as a Prime Minister Candidate and till he became the Prime Minister. It was although a new style of campaigning, which included a massive use of technology in order to reach the masses and spread the word. His campaign is one of the most viral campaign ever in the Indian History and competed with the one, that of Barack Obama. The main objectives of this dissertation are:- 1. To examine the campaign’s design strategies a. To review the vision and mission of the party b. To understand the campaign planning, agenda setting done by BJP to study the leadership philosophy of BJP’s election campaign. 2. To evaluate the rallies, campaigns and mass meeting organized by the party a. To determine the role of dedicated child, sister organisations in campaigning. b. To analyse the communication strategy and the message delivery mechanism of BJP during general elections. 3. To investigate the media management strategy used by Mr. Modi and his team. 4. To critically evaluate various development and nurturing support systems of BJP. 5. To examine the fund raising structure and controversies associated with the party 6. To study the use of innovations and modern technology and internet in propagating the brand Modi The data for this dissertation was collected using extensive primary and secondary research. The primary research included interviewing various people associated with the party as well as the voters. The secondary research was based on data collected from newspapers, websites and other related public documents available on the internet.

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
What makes a political speech persuasive? Which approaches can be used to understand the mechanisms of strategic language in political speechmaking, and determine their influence? Political actors in all political systems from despots to democrats use political rhetoric in many aspects of their role. These rhetorical activities are so central to the way we understand politics that they have become an integral part of the way we are governed. Since politics involves the contest of ideas, beliefs and meanings, analysis should focus on argumentation—the original site of rhetorical theory and practice. Drawing on the classical rhetorical tradition and contemporary rhetorical theory, this thesis examines a little studied area of the Australian political process: political speechmaking. The purpose is to explore the function of rhetoric in contemporary Australian political speechmaking by analysing the full transcripts of 16 Australian federal election campaign speeches across a thirty year period: 1983-2013. The thesis develops an original methodological approach to analyse these speeches. It combines a modified version of Alan Finlayson’s rhetorical political analysis with the use of text analysis software Leximancer. Using this method to analyse the campaign launch speeches by the prime minister and, during shifts of incumbency, those of the opposition leader, the thesis identifies the strategic use of rhetorical techniques by examining rhetorical appeals, argumentation structure and narratives. These techniques point to a ‘language of strategy’ unique to each study period. The term ‘language of strategy’ captures the sustained and longitudinal use of a rhetorical method and style, in particular the overarching tone and form of the rhetorical arguments and language expressed across the set piece speeches in the study periods. The language of strategy confirms patterns of persuasive language relating to prime ministers and electoral success, demonstrating a link between arguments that appeal to three core persuasive narratives and successful bids for national leadership: the nation-building argument, articulating a vision, and building ethos through values. Similarly, the thesis findings indicate persuasive language trends associated with changes of incumbency, particularly in how successful opposition leaders harness the rhetoric of opportunism to frame change in positive terms. The analysis of the language of strategy presented in this thesis also reveals broader cultural, historical and behavioural aspects specific to the study periods, political environment and political leadership and is a formative line of enquiry for other scholars of rhetorical political speech analysis. By undertaking a textual analysis of rhetorical speech during these fundamental moments of democracy, the thesis demonstrates how the words of political leaders are fashioned into electoral weapons to affect political outcomes, and in particular how this language of strategy frames a rhetorical path to electoral legitimacy.

This study examines the impact of perceived personality traits of the political party leaders on voting decisions in the 2000 Canadian federal election, replicating Richard Johnston's research that is based on the 1997 election. Employing data from the 2000 Canadian Election Study (CES), the research uses Ordinary Least Squares regression analysis to estimate how evaluations of leader personality traits over two aggregated dimensions - competence and character - moved votes. The changes in the design of the 2000 CES from prior years created many difficulties in assessing voters' evaluations of the party leaders and limited the comparability of the results from the study. The key methodological differences are: (1) leaders were not evaluated individually; (2) it did not measure the degree of applicability of the trait labels; (3) it included significantly fewer leader personality questions, and (4) the "new ideas" variable does not fall squarely into either the competence and character domains and seems to favour the new Alliance Party leader. This study finds that leader effects are more critical to the parties struggling for their political survival. A counterfactual party leader-switching exercise suggests that the distance between the frontrunner parties and the others was too great for leader-switching effects to make a difference in determining which parties would form the government and the Official Opposition and whether the winning party would form a majority or minority government. Joe Clark improved his party's standing during the campaign and helped it to retain its official party status while evaluations of Stockwell Day declined. The relevance of judgements of Day and Clark on pre-election vote intentions moved in the same direction as voters' respective evaluations of the leaders over the campaign. This study confirms that campaigns can have an effect on voters. The study supports earlier research findings that suggests that Canadian elections are vulnerable to leader effects. Conventional wisdom that is driven by the media's focus on the personalities suggests that leaders are significant factors in Canadian federal elections, but the empirical research reported in this study and others before it suggest otherwise.

Text in Afrikaans
In die politieke en administratiewe stelsel van Frankryk bestaan die ministeriele cabinet as 'n instelling eiesoortig aan Frankryk, met die doel om ministers individueel in stoat te stel om die politieke wil van die regering ten uitvoer te bring. Die gesag van die cabinets is kontroversieel en word enersyds geprys en andersyds gekritiseer. Die Franse ministeriele cabinet neem die plek in van 'n permanente departementshoof. en bestaan uit 'n groep persoonlike personeel wot aan elke minister verbonde is. Sy funksie is om horn te ondersteun en te adviseer sodat hy 'n ingeligte oordeel kan fel voordat hy besluite neem, en ook om te verseker dot sy beleid geformuleer, verduidelik en uitgevoer word. Die ministeriele cabinet was oorspronklik 'n politieke instelling wot in die algemeen uit politieke bondgenote van die minister bestaan het. In die Vyfde Republiek het dit egter ontwikkel tot 'n formele instelling. Dit het 'n onontbeerlike rol begin speel om die skakeling van die politieke stelsel met die administratiewe stelsel te bewerkstellig en ko6rdinering te verseker. Net soos die ministers, funksioneer die cabinets op daardie kruispunte waar verskeie politieke en administratiewe instellings met mekaar skakel. Hulle vervul gevolglik 'n sleutelrol om skakeling te fasiliteer en samewerking te bewerkstellig. Ministeriele cabinets verbind dus die politieke partye, die Parlement, belangegroepe en drukgroepe met ministeries (staatsdepartemente) as uiNoerende instellings. In hierdie proefskrif word die funksionering van die cabinets ontleed en hulle besondere rol in die Franse politieke en administratiewe stelsel vertolk. Die skrywer het bevind dot, waar cabinets effektief funksioneer, hulle doelmatige en doeltreffende meganismes is om die verhouding tussen die politieke en administratiewe stelsel in die bree te versterk tot voordeel van goele regering. Cabinets wot egter nie effektief funksioneer nie, lei tot 'n verswakking in die verhoudinge in en tussen ministeries met nadelige gevolge vir die regering. Voorts is bevind dot die cabinets 'n belangrike rol vervul om die kloof tussen die minister en die amptenare in sy ministerie te oorbrug. 'n Cabinet kan dus 'n minister se loopbaan bevorder of benadeel.
The French political and administrative system includes the ministerial cabinet, a uniquely French institution that exists with the purpose of enabling individual ministers to execute the political will of the government. The authority of the cabinets is either praised or criticised. The French ministerial cabinet substitutes for a permanent head of a deportment, and consists of a group of personal staff serving each minister. Its function is to support and advise him, in order to enable him to make informed judgements before taking decisions, and also to ensure that his policy is formulated. clarified and executed. In its original form the ministerial cabinet was a political institution, generally consisting of political allies of the minister. However. in the Fifth Republic it was transformed into a formal institution. It acquired an indispensable role in effecting liaison and co-ordination of the political system with the administrative system. The cabinets, like the ministers, function at the intersections of political and administrative institutions. Thus they play a key role in facilitating liaison. Hence. ministerial cabinets link the political parties, Parliament, interest groups and pressure groups, with the ministries (state deportments) as executive institutions. This thesis consists of an analysis of the functioning of cabinets, and interprets their particular role in the French political and administrative system. The author has found that where cabinets function as efficient and effective mechanisms, they strengthen the relationship of the political and administrative systems in general to the advantage of good governance. Ineffective cabinets, however. impair the relations within and among ministries to the disadvantage of the government. It has also been established that cabinets play an important role in bridging the gap between the minister and the officials in his ministry. A cabinet can thus improve or damage a minister's career.
Public Administration and Management
D. Litt. et Phil. (Publieke Administrasie)