Academic literature on the topic 'Public broadcasting – Political aspects – Case studies'

Although the nature poems of the Jamaican writer Una Marson are usually set against her transnational projects, they are inextricable from the cosmopolitan vision described in her radio broadcasts and journalism. Studies of transnational modernism have brought to the fore Marson's participation in pan- Africanist political and literary networks, her poems' mediation of the black West Indian woman's experience, and her work promoting West Indian literature in the metropolitan institution of the BBC. Analyses of Marson as a transnational igure, however, have obscured aspects of her literary production—speciically, her nature poetry. Placing Marson's West Indian nature poetry that was broadcast by the BBC in the context of the original programs reveals the efects of moving from print publication to radio broadcast. And, along with her editorials for the Jamaican literary magazine The Cosmopolitan (1928–31), Marson's BBC broadcasts (1939–45) make the case for the ongoing relevance of the pastoral tradition to public life.

The historic relationship between public service media and major national sporting events is strained and/or broken across the globe. This article offers a broad picture of the recent developments in the global market for sport broadcasting and frames the debate between those who view sport as an essential element of national culture and others, for whom sport is a product best left to the marketplace. This special issue explores the place of sports broadcasting rights in the increasingly contested environment of public service media.

For over a decade media legislation, controversial as it was, has been a matter of controversy in Serbia. It was only in 2011 that a newly adopted media strategy developed by European Union and Council of Europe criteria hinted at change for the better as it envisaged the amendment of the entire media legislation (about 18 laws). Consequently, three new laws were passed in 2014: on public information and the media; on broadcast media; and, on public broadcasting service. Ten laws are still pending – either to be amended or adopted. After the change of the regime in 2000, the media legislation was changed but not in line with a democratic value system. This specially refers to media freedoms. Repression against the media characteristic of the 1990s was replaced by “soft censorship” and self-censorship. Serbia’s media market is small and underdeveloped, and under strong influence of the government. The adopted strategy provides against state ownership of the media except in the case of the two public broadcasting services. Media outlets, especially electronic, are too many for such a limited media market; the state has a hand in media businesses in many ways, including subsidies and paid advertisements for large public enterprises. Non-transparent media ownership and money flow are among key problems of media transition.

Public broadcasting institutions have existed as central and publicly funded national institutions, providing services in the public interest. The coincidence of technological, political and economic circumstances in the last 20 years or so, however, has challenged their monopoly position. Technological developments – specifically digitalisation – have expanded spectrum availability. In some cases, public television has been commercialised, privatised or marginalised by the introduction of commercial channels. This article focuses on a specific case study of the Slovene public broadcaster. It addresses the fate of public service television in the digital and post-communist era, tracing the transformation from state broadcasters to the era of digital delivery, audience fragmentation and commercial nationalism. It explores, on the one hand, the way in which public service broadcasters have embraced and capitalised on new forms of digital distribution and, on the other, how they continue to embrace national(istic) and commercial imperatives.

Australia and Britain share many common aspects in their democratic political and media systems, but there are also important differences. Perhaps the single most important media difference is that television has been a much more important element in the UK political communication system than it has been in Australia. The British Broadcasting Corporation is a much bigger and more central institution than the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and commercial TV in Britain has a much stronger public service mandate. The British press has a national structure which can give it a substantive collective role, although its right-wing dominance means it has been a less-than-benign influence on public life. Both countries are facing rapid changes, with partisan political divisions in flux and the digital environment disrupting traditional media models. In this article, we seek to interrogate the commonalities and differences between the media and political systems operating in Australia and the United Kingdom. After tracing some important differences in their institutional structures, the dominant theme of our later analysis is that in both systems, and in both countries, the overarching narrative is one of disruption. And we pose the question – Will the current disruptions widen or narrow these differences?

This article focuses on the gender of voices chosen as sources and presenters of radio news coverage in Ireland. The study examines the best and worst case studies across public and private sector broadcasters and argues that the question of gender balance in broadcasting goes beyond the simple issue of quantitatively proportionate participation to require a more complex and qualitatively fair and balanced presentation of women within news programming. We find a very clear gender bias with male-dominated coverage in both public and private sectors but with greater stereotyping by the latter.

Political and cultural agendas determine the programs of public libraries, implying complex and often conflicting requirements in terms of their functioning. On one hand, they intend to materialize a political discourse of open and equal access to knowledge. On the other, they have functional and epistemological needs that might restrict or condition the distribution and access of books, equipment, and people. This article looks at how space, program, and use interrelate in the emergence of public libraries as a building type, focusing on how they express an intended public message and fulfil specific social and cultural effects. It is argued that each of these three aspects underpins power relations in libraries. By embedding an epistemology of science, space also embeds social and cultural hierarchies. Through defining an educational agenda for public libraries, program endorses the idea that citizenship depends on instruction and literacy, implying technocracy. Finally, by becoming collective under the frames of space and program, use materializes the idea of a “self-regulated society,” which embeds a twofold process: to be regulated by all others and to engage in a process of participatory action and regulation. The article reviews the literature on the historical emergence of public libraries and recommends that studies of contemporary libraries should consider how this building type originally framed social relationships through its architecture, materializing specific ideologies of politics and culture.

This article examines a particular moment in journalism at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, with the aim of elucidating the link between public-sector journalism and political controversy in the recent Australian response to climate change. The particular moment in question involved the reporting of visits to Australia in early 2010 by two international commentators on anthropogenic climate change, Christopher Monckton and James Hansen, and an unprecedented attack by the chairman of the ABC on the professional performance of ABC journalists in reporting on this issue. We use this case study to canvass the explanatory merits of several scholarly perspectives on journalistic bias: the well-known ‘balance as bias’ argument by the Boykoffs (2004), the less well-known but incisive ‘independence/ impartiality couplet’ argument by Stuart Hall (1976) and Bourdieusian field analysis.

The article deals with folk couplets (Lith. pl. talalinės) – an underresearched peripheral genre of the Lithuanian folklore. This genre includes short, mostly one stanza-long comic songs that frequently deal with obscene topics and use unquotable vocabulary. This unadvertised folk poetry provisionally dates back to the middle of the 19th century, when its first publications appeared. This genre of folksong attributed to the popular culture of laughter has been always marginalized in relation to the traditional culture. Therefore, the article presents an analysis of this ill-repute frivolous folksong genre, touching upon various aspects of its functioning. The main problem under investigation is, why couplets with no recognized positive value have been so popular among certain groups of the village community (especially young people), and on what grounds this essentially merry and playful folkloric communication has been carried on, bearing in mind that this process is actually not over even today. The development of the Russian частушка as a special instrument of communication and its meaning in the scholarly discourse is also taken into consideration, as well as possible influence of these Russian couplets upon their Lithuanian counterparts. The analysis of talalinės is based upon materials from the Lithuanian Folklore Archives and various publications. Firstly, the article gives an outline of the meager publication and research history of this genre, noting that for a long time these couplets have been made into a certain kind of the sociocultural taboo even in the sphere of scholarly investigation. Right from the beginning of its publication in the second half of the 19th century and throughout the Soviet times, this genre was ignored as having no artistic (or esthetic) value, which was the only criterion applied to the folklore appreciation during that period. However, the first half of the 20th century could be considered the “golden age” in terms of the public spread of these couplets: when the Lithuanian radio started broadcasting, these comic folklore pieces found their way into its program, immediately gaining huge public approval. However, performance only of couplets with appropriate contents was allowed; particularly those dealing with political or obscene topics had to be avoided. The reader is reminded about a historical case from the interwar period, when public distribution of proverb collection edited and published in 1934 by the famous writer Vincas Krėvė-Mickevičius was prohibited, since it contained 300 of obscene texts, which caused significant restrictions to the availability of this publication. A similar misfortune had somewhat earlier befallen the Latvian colleagues publishing a volume of “dirty” Latvian folksongs and other folklore. Such censorship was related to the rigorous program of fostering the national morality of the time that was introduced by the government. However, the authorities did not interfere with collecting of the obscene folklore for the archiving purposes. Therefore, big amounts of folklore material attributed to the culture of laughter were collected especially in the interwar period. Further reviewing of the history of talalinės elucidates the connections between these songs thriving in the 19th – the first half of the 20th century and the humorous poetry created by the contemporary poets, as well as the newly formed folksong genres related to it. The author presents a wide field of miscellaneous relations evolving around this form of folklore. She pays attention to the sarcastic way of caricaturing used in these couplets, when for the purposes of fun-making the outdated popular customs and beliefs are critically targeted, made fun of and vulgarized using obscene vocabulary. Discussion of the essential peculiarities of the talalinės pattern, among other things, elucidates two main tendencies in the thematic canon of this genre. One part of these couplets simply treats the members of the native community and their relationships in a humorous way, as if observing them through a sarcastically distorting comical lens. These cutting couplets mock people from the immediate surroundings, making fun of them as if having previously sorted them into groups according to various characteristics. These include: 1) age groups (making fun of the things that are well-suited to the young but ill-suited to the old, and vice versa), 2) social status (gibing at relations between people from different social classes, like landlords and farmhands, as well as those not engaged in agriculture, like craftsmen, particularly tailors, shoemakers, blacksmiths, but also musicians, priests, nuns, etc.), 3) the alleged or true foreigners, distinguished on the grounds of belonging to a different religious or ethnic group, or characterized by different behavior (however, certain “foreign” character may be attributed to nearly everyone that comes from another community, including a neighboring village or some further locality in Lithuania). According to the second provisionally distinguished type of the talalinės pattern, their thematic scope narrows considerably: these couplets focus on man as a physical creature, an on the human body, or rather, on its lower part. Such couplets are especially fond of the nonstandard – obscene or scatological – vocabulary. Obscene couplets create scenes of essentially similar kind, namely, describing sexual intercourse and the private parts, and using exclusively ribald vocabulary that is usually banned from the public discourse. These quatrains present a wide range of erotic improvisations – from foul suggestions to the harshest obscenities. However, the author concludes that this kind of comic, even obscene speech employed in the couplets is of carnival nature (to use the term by the Russian culture researcher Mikhail Bakhtin): that is, when the temporarily assembled social group aims at entertainment and by common consent decides to ignore the social norms, each participant experiences a special kind of communal unity and belonging. Having crossed the established line, the creator-performer-listener of these couplets feels free both from the public reaction and from the entrenched ideology, and experiences an overwhelming sense of freedom. Such transgression is supplemented by compromise (a certain concession in terms of individual moral principles that are temporarily abandoned for the sake of participating in the game, usually obscene, proposed by the talalinė), and it allows the addressee and the addresser to become equal members of the same group. This is a special mode of folklore communication. Having compared the Lithuanian talalinė with the outwardly related Russian частушка, the author concludes that in spite of certain coincidences, the Lithuanian couplets were composed and structurally arranged independently from their Russian counterparts. However, the most important thing is that the Lithuanian talalinė, recorded for the first time in the second half of the 19th century, presented an alternative for the old folksong, and continued to exist / keeps existing alongside the folksong, abstaining from dismantling its traditional canon, although occasionally making fun of it.

This study is a comparative examination of approaches to talk radio as a genre on three Ugandan radio stations. The aim is to draw conclusions, from observations made about these stations, about the potential of talk radio to encourage public debate around social issues and improve democratic participation despite pertinent challenges in Uganda. The study first outlines a theoretical framework, which is informed by Habermas's theory of the media as a 'public sphere'. This framework is applied to an exploration of traditions of talk radio that have emerged globally in order to assess the potential of these traditions to play a role in contributing to the establishment of such a 'public sphere'. The study then goes on to discuss the historical development of radio in Uganda and the establishment of the current broadcast landscape. The focus is on the way in which this history has been defined by a struggle around public expression, in which government has repeatedly sought ways to control media as a vehicle for public expression. It is proposed that Ugandan talk radio has the potential to play an important role in ensuring broad participation in public expression. It is against this background that the study then describes and analyses the development of the talk genre at three Ugandan radio stations (each one an example of, respectively, a commercial, community and public service station). It is explained that staff on all three stations emphasise the importance of talk radio in encouraging participation, by their audiences, in the public debate of social and political issues. It is argued that, because of limitations that exist within these stations, none of the talk show teams fully realize the potential of the genre for participation in such debate. The picture that emerges is one of unequal access, with those sections of radio audiences in positions of privilege being further empowered, while those on the margins remain excluded from public discussion. The study finally recommends ways to improve public participation on Ugandan talk radio, noting the need to review government support, the problems of organizational culture within the stations, the need for more guidelines on practical arrangements around talk show production and the question of contradictions that exist at policy level.

The implementation of neoliberal economic and political policies is often touted as a way to increase overall individual well-being and freedom. While these policies may benefit those already wielding economic security and political power, marginalized populations often bear the negative cost associated with such policies. As deregulation and privatization increases, social safety nets and social spending are dramatically reduced. At the local level, liberalization has resulted in increased surveillance and regulation of public space. Organized resistance to global corporatization and increased economic and political marginalization has occurred across the globe. Resisting neoliberalism is complex as the adaptability of the state and capital requires an adaptive form of resistance. Portland Food Not Bombs provides an empirical example of an oppositional social movement organization that resists neoliberal logic and reclaims public space for collective use by serving free meals. This case study includes participant observation of both Portland FNB chapters conducted at chapter specific meal preparation and serving sites. It also includes ten interviews with individuals who are heavily involved with the SMO. Publicly available documents such as Facebook pages, chapter specific websites, and the FNB website provided important contextual information as well. This study finds that the organizational structure of Portland FNB lends itself to more democratic practices and ideals, coinciding with the values of the respondents. Through transparent, consensus decision-making and a resistance to formal leadership, Portland FNB facilitates a different form of political engagement. By using public space, Portland FNB temporarily alters the physical urban environment by socially constructing a more inclusive space, emphasizing that collectively using public space, is indeed a human right. Portland FNB seeks to create a more just society within the existing institutional framework, while rejecting practices associated with 501(c)(3) organizations and other mainstream SMOs.

Thesis (MTech (Public Management))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2014.
Ethical conduct displayed by members of the public sector is integral to creating a sustainable democratic government, which upholds the constitutional tenets of accountability, transparency and professional ethicality. Furthermore, a true constitutional democracy emphasises and advocates the notion of service leadership that nurtures public participation and engages with citizens in a positive manner. Ethical conduct in the public sector earns public trust; it is hence a key principle in good governance. Yet, in the years since the advent of democracy in South Africa, the government has been plagued by rampant corruption and maladministration by public officials and politicians in leadership positions. The external control measures passed by government in an attempt to ensure ethicality and accountability within the public sector include codes of ethics, rules of conduct and the enactment of legislation. These are intended to shape the mindset of members of the public sector, with the ultimate aim of an efficient, effective, ethical and responsive public service. The purpose of the current study is to analyse non-compliance with external control measures within the public sector by means of selected case studies and to present the reasons for this occurrence. The three cases selected are: the South African Arms Deal, the corruption trial of Jackie Selebi, and the investigation of Bheki Cele regarding irregularities in the procurement of SAPS assets, the latter two who served as National Commissioners of the South African Police Service but were each dismissed from that post. The reasons for non-compliance with external control measures in the public sector as well as recommendations based on the findings to improve compliance will be undertaken. The three case studies demonstrate the experience and impact of corruption and/or maladministration, which have contributed to the increasing loss of confidence in political leadership in the country as elsewhere in the world. A qualitative methodology of inquiry, including a review of literature covering the theories applied to the case studies will be employed. Owing to the subject nature of the current study, the findings will be validated by an independent source, which has been identified as the Office of the Public Protector.

This research study investigates Lotus FM, as one of many South African Media components that are catering for one specific cultural or religious group. The investigation explores the implications of practice of a pecific media component that caters for specific cultural or religious groups operating in a post-apartheid South Africa. After the end of the apartheid era in South Africa, a number of South African media components have proclaimed their commitment to reconciliation and nation building within South Africa by attempting to unite audiences. The South African Broadcasting Corporation, which held the monopoly on South African Broadcasting for decades, has promulgated the notion of the rainbow nation to audiences in South Africa. Since 1994, sub-components of the different South African media segments were developed to cater for specific ethnic or cultural groups by the station managements. This was aimed at reversing the effects of pre-1994 media that catered for the former ruling minority only or ethnic groups that were categorized by the former political dispensation. It is possible, however, that this has resulted in a renewed and continued separation of interest groups present in South Africa today.

This thesis explores the political use of branding in international relations by focusing on the branding exercises of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the State of Qatar over the last two decades. In most of the existing literature, branding is theorised as a representational and instrumental practice that is strategically used to increase a country's competitive edge. Adopting a critical constructivist lens to the study of International Relations (IR), this thesis challenges this reading and argues instead that branding is a productive and inherently political practice that (re)produces dominant interpretations of state-identity rather than merely describing them. Based on the core constructivist claim that much of politics revolves around the competition to give meaning to the world, this thesis argues that the version of the state promoted through branding is neither neutral nor brand new, but inherently politicised and tied to the conversation and legitimation of the incumbent political regime. Inspired by the ongoing practice turn in IR, the starting point for the analysis is a focus on the display of the state through a range of everyday practices long ignored by IR scholars. In particular, it focuses on how the political leadership in both Kazakhstan and Qatar has used the urban development of their capital cities, the hosting of international sports events, and the construction of 'world-class' universities to present new ideas about their state to various inter/national audiences. Using an original data corpus of multimodal primary and secondary material, the analysis traces how branding practices produce and normalise a certain interpretation of Kazakhstani and Qatari statehood, and then interrogates how we can understand this interpretation as politicised and tied to the interests of the regime. The goal of the analysis is twofold. First, this thesis aims to elucidate how relevant instances of state- branding unfold and travel across different empirical contexts (Kazakhstan and Qatar) and cases (urban development, sports and education). Second, it aims to push current scholarly understandings by (re)conceptualising branding as a genre of contemporary identity politics, and produce broader insights about the characteristics and mechanisms of this increasingly normalised - yet often as politically non-salient dismissed - practice of international relations.

Defense date: 18 December 2009
Examining Board: Adrienne Héritier (EUI/RSCAS), Anker Brink Lund (Copenhagen Business School), Gianpietro Mazzoleni (University of Milan) (External Co-Supervisor), Alexander H. Trechsel (EUI) (Supervisor)
François Mény Prize for the Best Comparative Study of Political Institutions, 2010.
In this thesis, I demonstrate that the degree of political independence that a public service broadcaster has depends on the degree of legal protection given to it, and on the size of the market for news in that country. The latter affects broadcaster independence by creating more standardized and professionalized news, which in turn reduces politicians’ incentives to intervene in the broadcaster. The former affects broadcaster independence by making it less likely that such intervention will be effective. I demonstrate these claims in two ways. First, I conduct a large-N statistical analysis of 36 public service broadcasters (PSBs), in which I demonstrate that legal protection news market size are statistically significant predictors of PSB independence (as I operationalize it), and that other suggested explanatory factors — party system polarization and bureaucratic partisanship — have no effect. Second, I carry out a comparative historical analysis of six European PSBs—Radiotelevisione Italiana, Radiotelevisión Española, Radio Telefís Éireann (Ireland), the British Broadcasting Corporation, Danmarks Radio, and Sveriges Radio and its associated companies (Sweden) — and substantiate the claims made in my statistical analysis. In particular, I demonstrate that where the market for news was bigger, broadcasters capitalised on pre-existing journalistic experience, adopting the house-styles of press agencies and learning from journalists’ associations. Conversely, where the market was small, that experience could not be drawn on, and broadcast journalism attracted political intervention.
Version of thesis published as a book "HANRETTY, Chris, Public Broadcasting and Political Interference, Abingdon/New York, Routledge, 2011, Routledge Research in Political Communication"

Defence date: 10 June 2005
Examining board: Prof. Andrew Webster (University of York) ; Prof. Donatella Della Porta (EUI) ; Prof. Klaus Eder (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, external co-supervisor) ; Prof. Colin Crouch (University of Warwick, former EUI, supervisor)
First made available online 31 August 2016
Ideas about public engagement with controversial technologies are growing in political prominence. This dissertation delivers a theoretically grounded, empirical analysis of why active public involvement is considered to be of growing importance for the legitimate use of new technologies. It examines the different social dynamics influencing actual attempts to engage the public and the difficulties encountered. Janus Hansen argues that while there are strong normative reasons to further public engagement with the regulation of controversial technologies, there are also strong sociological reasons to reflect carefully on what such engagement can realistically achieve. This dissertation delivers conceptual tools and empirical analyses to support such reflections based on in-depth case studies of important attempts to engage public concerns across Europe.

Tang, Li.
Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 130-137).
Abstracts in English and Chinese.
Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1
Chapter 2 --- Literature Review --- p.9
Chapter 2.1 --- Subaltern Public Sphere --- p.9
Chapter 2.1.1 --- Public Sphere: Liberal Model --- p.9
Chapter 2.1.2 --- Criticism on Unitary Public Sphere --- p.11
Chapter 2.1.3 --- Subaltern Public Sphere --- p.12
Chapter 2.1.4 --- Criteria for Subaltern Public Sphere --- p.14
Chapter 2.1.5 --- External Parties --- p.16
Chapter 2.1.6 --- Public Sphere in the Cyberspace --- p.17
Chapter 2.2 --- Public Sphere in Contemporary China --- p.19
Chapter 2.2.1 --- Application of the Concept of Public Sphere in China --- p.19
Chapter 2.2.2 --- Dominant Public Sphere in China --- p.21
Chapter 2.2.3 --- Subaltern Groups in China --- p.23
Chapter 2.2.4 --- Subaltern Public Spheres in Chinese Cyberspace --- p.25
Chapter 2.2.5 --- HBV Carriers Group and the Forum --- p.28
Chapter 3 --- Research Design --- p.32
Chapter 3.1 --- Overall Conceptual Framework --- p.32
Chapter 3.2 --- Research Questions --- p.33
Chapter 3.3 --- Research Methods --- p.36
Chapter 3.3.1 --- Textual Analysis --- p.36
Chapter 3.3.2 --- Interviews --- p.39
Chapter 4 --- Brief Overview of the Forum --- p.43
Chapter 4.1 --- Overall Development --- p.43
Chapter 4.2 --- Structure --- p.46
Chapter 4.3 --- Users --- p.50
Chapter 5 --- Empowerment on the Discursive Level --- p.53
Chapter 5.1 --- Characteristics of the Forum --- p.53
Chapter 5.1.1 --- Alternative Topic --- p.53
Chapter 5.1.2 --- Alternative Information of HBV --- p.54
Chapter 5.1.3 --- Discourse of Self-Narrative --- p.59
Chapter 5.1.4 --- Forum Accessibility --- p.61
Chapter 5.1.5 --- Relative Equality --- p.62
Chapter 5.2 --- Rhetoric of Innocence --- p.64
Chapter 5.2.1 --- Attribution of the Spread of HBV --- p.65
Chapter 5.2.2 --- Attribution of Discrimination --- p.68
Chapter 5.3 --- Summary --- p.70
Chapter 6 --- Empowerment and Collective Action --- p.73
Chapter 6.1 --- The State --- p.73
Chapter 6.1.1 --- State's Impact on HBV Carriers --- p.75
Chapter 6.1.2 --- Resistance Enabled by the Internet --- p.76
Chapter 6.1.3 --- Challenges from the State --- p.84
Chapter 6.1.4 --- Compromise with the State --- p.86
Chapter 6.2 --- The Market --- p.88
Chapter 6.2.1 --- Market Domination --- p.89
Chapter 6.2.2 --- Resistance against the Market --- p.91
Chapter 6.2.3 --- Challenges from the market --- p.99
Chapter 6.3 --- The Mass Media --- p.101
Chapter 6.3.1 --- Mass Media's Domination --- p.102
Chapter 6.3.2 --- Forum's Efforts to Get Favourably Represented --- p.106
Chapter 6.3.3 --- Mass Media's Influence over the Forum --- p.111
Chapter 6.4 --- Summary --- p.113
Chapter 7 --- Conclusion and Discussion --- p.116
Chapter 7.1 --- Assessing Empowerment Capacity --- p.116
Chapter 7.1.1 --- Formation of a Subaltern Public Sphere --- p.116
Chapter 7.1.2 --- Discursive Empowerment --- p.117
Chapter 7.1.3 --- Transformed Relationships with External Parties --- p.118
Chapter 7.2 --- Internet and Empowerment --- p.123
Chapter 7.3 --- Limitations of the study --- p.127
Bibliography --- p.130

This study examines the role of Ward Committees in facilitating “authentic” public participation, with particular reference to Ba-Phalaborwa Municipality. The key question of the study is whether Ward Committees serve as effective mechanisms to promote public participation in the local sphere of government in South Africa. To answer this question, this research project focuses on the composition, functioning and responsibilities of Ward Committees, and how these contribute to effective public participation. This is important because one of the mandates of local government in the post-apartheid era in South Africa is to promote local democracy through the participation of communities. The empirical findings of this research project reveal that Ward Committees are confronted with a multitude of challenges where their functioning tends to be compromised. This has led this research to recommend the improvement of capacity among Ward Committees as a way of enhancing public participation.
Development Studies
M.A. (Development Studies)

Political and cultural aspects of digital public undertakings in developing countries are often neglected as more emphasis is placed on the technological components. The mutual impact between political or cultural issues and emerging trends such as cloud computing and social networks exacerbate the problem. This chapter analyzes political and cultural issues which have a significant impact on digital public administration and e-government initiatives in developing countries, also taking into consideration the emerging tendencies and technologies. It combines theory and practice, including studies that demonstrate different political or cultural issues involved in the digital undertakings in these countries, examples from different contexts and nations, and a case study from Turkey. The chapter starts with examples of different political issues, analyzing and summarizing some of the most relevant of these issues, including existing literature related to each subject. It continues with cultural issues. The subsequent section contains a discussion of how political and cultural issues relate to the tendencies of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) sector, and why this context is important for digital initiatives in developing countries, as an initial guide to existing and future challenges. The chapter ends with the case of Turkey, which demonstrates political and cultural issues faced on both national and regional levels, in the context of digital public administration and emerging trends in ICTs.

This chapter explores the principles of comparative research design as well as the issues and problems associated with different aspects of the approach. In particular, it considers the issue of case selection, the common sources of error that are associated with comparative research, and what can be done to try and avoid or minimize them. The comparative method is one of the most commonly used methods in political research and is often employed to investigate various political phenomena, including democratization, civil war, and public policy. The chapter discusses the three main forms of comparison, namely case study, small-N comparison, and large-N comparison. It also describes two main approaches used to select cases for small-N studies: Most Similar Systems Design and Most Different Systems Design. It also evaluates qualitative comparative analysis and concludes with an analysis of issues arising from case selection and data collection in large-N comparative research.

Chapter 2 begins the case studies by examining Demosthenes’ four speeches from the 350s BC: one for personal delivery (Against Leptines) and three for delivery by others (Against Androtion, Against Timocrates, and Against Aristocrates). The chapter argues that Demosthenes’ use of historical material in Against Leptines is part of a wide-ranging assault on what the orator constructs as an atrophied political consensus, whose members’ defective understanding of the Athenian past Demosthenes fashions as a cogent reason for the jurors to reject Leptines’ law. The project demonstrates that the young Demosthenes already had a sophisticated grasp of what the past could achieve when mobilized in a major public trial, and this is reflected in the other three speeches. Chapter 2.1 offers an introduction and an overview. Chapter 2.2 shows how Demosthenes deploys imagery of hypothetical takeover by tyrants or oligarchs (and the example of the Athenian tyrannicides) to expose the problems inherent in the opposition’s arguments and actions. Chapter 2.3 explores how Demosthenes’ arguments exploit the symbolic, rather than material significance of the aspects of the past under discussion. By the time of the Assembly speeches, this has become typical of his strategic conception of the world of the city’s past. Chapter 2.4 offers a conclusion.

The sustainable development goal 7 (affordable and clean energy) seeks to ensure that energy is clean, affordable, available and accessible to all (SD Goals, https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/indicators). Replacing fossil fuel-based energy sources with renewable ones, which include: bioenergy, direct solar energy, geothermal energy, hydropower, wind and ocean energy (tide and wave), would gradually help the world achieve the idea of sustainability. Renewable energy technologies provide an excellent opportunity for mitigation of greenhouse gas emission and reduce global warming through substituting conventional energy sources (Panwar, Kaushik, & Kothari, 2011; Owusu & Asumadu-Sarkodie, 2016). Nevertheless, investment costs, as well as political environment and market conditions, have become barriers preventing countries from full utilisation of the potential to improve the quality of air or water. The aim of the chapter is to initiate discussion on the importance of renewable energy as well as its environmental and society-related health aspects. Two short case studies presented in the text allow to describe projects concerning solar installations. In the first case, it is educational institution investing in thermal solar panel systems to supply heat for domestic hot water. The results of research conducted by Filho et al. (2019) on a small sample of universities from around the world indicate that in more than half of them, only a small share of energy consumption comes from renewable sources, whilst the European Union policy has identified promotion of energy efficiency in buildings, including educational ones, as a key objective of its energy and climate policy (EPBD Recast, 2010). In the second case study, thoughts on photovoltaic systems installed to supply buildings with electricity are contained and the problem of public resource support forms for that purpose are discussed.

In the world economy, since 1960s, countries, which are open and apply liberal policies succeeded higher economic growth and welfare. Therefore, liberal policies became more attractive. In that case, the transition, which has political, economic, and socio-cultural aspects, means moving from socialist-authoritarian structure to market based-liberal structures. In the literature, there are many studies which point out labor force and capital are not significant on the economic growth. In addition, the literature focuses on the importance of institutions on the economic growth. In this study, we compare the countries which were quickly away from the socialist structures with the countries which were slow on the reforms. Our analysis depends on their economic growth with cross section. However, we know the importance of institutional aspects on the growth research; therefore, we applied 2SLS regression analysis and to determine the economic liberalism indicators we used political rights, civil liberties, years that were under the socialism, openness, secondary school ratio, and public spending/GDP ratio. In the late phase, GDP per capita, as an indicator of economic growth, is explained with an independent variable which is predicted in the first phase via liberalism variable, and labor-population ratio and constant capital stock GDP ratio variables used in Neo-classical Solow-type growth model.