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This paper describes a study carried out for the Ministry of Transport and Communications (MoTC), Oman to identify more efficient institutional and governance structures for Oman's transport sector. The paper has been prepared for a wider readership of transport sector political leaders, public officials and their advisers who may be contemplating the assessment or strengthening of transport sector governance in their own countries. The study also recommended that a new framework for Oman's freight logistics be established outside the structure of MOTC. This will be led by an inter-ministerial logistics council, with a technical logistics center to undertake research and plan improvements, and a Logistics Consultative Committee that will provide an interface between the private and public sectors.

This thesis examines the rise and fall of an emissions trading scheme in Australia between 2007 and 2014. It offers a novel analysis of the Australian climate policy debate. The thesis develops a heterodox political economy of carbon pricing that draws out the links between polyvalent social struggle over climate change and the process of instituting marketised climate policy. In contrast to existing depictions of the struggle over carbon pricing as a neat division between forces for and against carbon commodification, the thesis argues that there is a more complex dynamic at play and explores the contradictions of carbon pricing in theoretical and empirical detail. The prospects of legitimate and effective carbon pricing cannot be asserted in principle; rather they must be examined empirically. The thesis provides evidence of the interconnections between political contestation and the brief institution of a carbon market. It details carbon pricing policy and legislation, parliamentary debates, and contests in the media and civil society. The case of carbon pricing in Australia illustrates that the approach to marketised climate policy adopted does not deal with, and in fact has exacerbated some pre-existing issues of governance failure in energy and land sectors. The thesis demonstrates that governance failure provides a more compelling explanation for the outcomes observed than approaches that conceptualise the political economy of carbon pricing in terms of state failure or market failure. The normative implications of the political struggles in Australia are explored. Contestation over carbon pricing reforms has posed a political challenge to marketised climate governance in Australia. Conservative and industry opposition is a key part to the political failures of carbon pricing, but so is the broader lack of authority of social democratic political parties, experts and environmental organisations on this issue. A popular agenda for carbon pricing is now very far off, if not impossible. However, new ...

Political participation involves voluntary and deliberate efforts by the members of a political system to determine the kinds of political institution and individuals that will govern them and equally influence the mobilization and allocation of the available societal resources. Over the years, youths in Nigeria participate actively in political party rallies and voting to elect their leaders and representatives in governance. This paper examines categories and nature of participation in politics as well as factors that drive youths into politics in Sokoto State. A survey conducted, through focus group discussions, interviews and questionnaire, in the six sampled Local Government of Sokoto State identifies three category of political participation; namely, active, moderate and apathetic participation. The findings reveal that 63.57% of respondents are apathetic to politics in the State and unemployed youth constitutes 34.74% of the entire responses. The paper establishes that lack of attainment of need (63.22%) is one of the reasons that make youths engage into participatory activities that encourage political thuggery and manipulation of electoral outcomes. The paper recommends that youths should be engaged into positive rational participatory activities that ensure inclusiveness and promotion of good governance in Nigeria. It is hoped that this will enlighten youths and policy implementers on the constructive strategies in controlling youths' negative participation in politics in Nigeria.

Good governance is now accepted as a pre-condition for sustainable development. Ensuring better governance of corporations, financial institutions and markets is increasingly recognized in India. However, very little attention has been paid to the governance system of cooperatives, despite their country wide network. The importance of the cooperative sector as a whole remains poorly understood, and its specific governance challenges have yet to be addressed. The Short-term Cooperative Credit Structure is currently undergoing a reform process initiated by the Government of India. It consists of over one lakh primary agricultural cooperative credit societies (PACS). This study was undertaken to find answers to certain question viz., how does democratic governance work in PACS? Do PACS necessarily lose touch with their members over time as they grow, or are there practices that keep member engagement alive? Should democracy be practiced as a policy option, or as a tool that moves the PACS forward to protect the interest of primary stakeholders? Its specific objectives are to study the nature, the emerging issues, and to suggest suitable strategies to strengthen the governance system in sample PACS. Purposive sampling method was used in selecting three PACS surveyed for the study. Results show that there is no organic relationship between the management of PACS and their member users. The nexus between political system and PACS decides the style of functioning of PACS. PACS remain as the channel of the State to deliver its schemes and programmes to the public. The central challenge for governance in PACS remains, how to balance the principle of democratic control and retain the imperative of professional management to safeguard the interest of primary member users.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual model that explains the relationship between Islamic leadership successionpersonalityattributes and good governance. The paper sources information from an extensive search of literature to design a conceptual model of Islamic leadership succession (personal attributes & governmental characteristics of Succession) and good governance. The model will provide an integration of relationships that will add valuable insights into improved leadership succession theory in the related literature. The paper may assist particularly policy makers and strategists to focus on new possibilities of leadership successors attributes that will lead to improved governance as well as government performance in the world in general, and the Palestine community, in particular.

We assess drivers of FDI in a panel of BRICS and MINT countries for the period 2001-2011. We bundle and unbundle governance determinants using a battery of contemporary and non-contemporary estimation techniques. The following findings are established. First, for both contemporary and non-contemporary specifications, while determinants for gross FDI are significant, they are not for net FDI. Second, for contemporary specifications, the significance of the governance dynamics is as follows in increasing order of magnitude: general governance, political governance, economic governance, political stability, regulation quality and government effectiveness. The motivation to bundle governance variables is articulated by the effect of political governance. Third, for non-contemporary specifications, the significance of governance variables is as follows in ascending order of magnitude: economic governance, institutional governance, general governance, corruption-control, political governance and political stability. The importance of combining governance indicators is captured by the effects of political governance, economic governance and institutional governance. The results indicate that the simultaneous implementation of the various components of governance clarifies a country's attractiveness for FDI location. Policy implications are discussed with particular emphasis on the timing of FDI and its targeting.

We offer a typology of settings to bridge scientific and indigenous knowledge systems and to enhance governance of the environmental commons in contexts of change. We contribute to a need for further clarity on how to incorporate diverse knowledge systems and in ways that contribute to planning, management, monitoring and assessment from local to global levels. We ask, what settings are discussed in the resource and environmental governance literature to support efforts to bridge indigenous and scientific knowledge systems? The objectives are: 1) to offer a typology that organizes various settings to bridge knowledge systems; and 2) to elaborate on how these settings function independently and in concert, using examples from a diverse literature in addition to field research experience. Our focus is on indigenous and scientific knowledge, but the typology offers lessons to bridge diverse knowledge systems more generally, and in ways that are sensitive to a moral, political and process-based approach. The typology includes specific methods and processes, brokering strategies, governance and institutional contexts, and the arena of epistemology. We describe each setting in the typology, and provide examples to reflect on the function and potential outcomes of different settings. Insights from our synthesis can inform policy and participatory action.

The world community convened in Rio de Janeiro in June 2012 for the third UN Conference on Sustainable Development. We are, however, increasingly facing major persistent threats, which despite being known for a few decades are still far from being solved – or are even still increasing. On the individual business level, this has four major implications: increased social pressures; possible reputational damage; exposure to resource wars; and front-running competitors adjusting their value chain strategies. In supply chain governance this leads to four main types of strategies: do it yourself; join forces; the 5C-approach and harmonising. The key question is: is this sufficient? Imagine 2022 – where will we be 10 years after Rio 2012? Is a rapid and structural transition to a circular and fair global economy possible, using this path of self-governance for products traded in the global economic arena? This will strongly depend on four key factors: rapid growth of consumer demand; 'all-inclusiveness' of these supply chain governance approaches; successful uplifting production practices of all suppliers; and addressing the major issues of unsustainability. Here we see various serious weaknesses, like the lack of third-order evaluation and biases causing some of the more recent issues to be overlooked and less visible supply chains. The challenge is to develop a form of 'meta'-governance, including new approaches by governments, combining public policy strategies with the demonstrated virtues of self-governance

In the Scandinavian countries, the regional level of governance is neither the locus of large-scale policy reforms nor a significant provider of welfare to citizens. Nevertheless, it has some important policy tasks in the area of environmental, economic, and social sustainability. These policy areas are rife with wicked and unruly problems that combine cognitive uncertainties with the risk of political conflict and stalemate. Dealing with these problems requires the construction of network arenas in which a range of public and private actors can collaborate in order to find innovative solutions to common problems. The paper analyses the efforts of Norwegian regions to enhance collaborative innovation through the formation of interactive governance arenas. It compares three different policy areas in order to better understand how different forms of interactive governance enhance collaborative innovation for economic, social and environmental sustainability. The ultimate goal is to assess the ability and potential of Norwegian regions to solve wicked and unruly problems through collaborative innovation. ; In the Scandinavian countries, the regional level of governance is neither the locus of large-scale policy reforms nor a significant provider of welfare to citizens. Nevertheless, it has some important policy tasks in the area of environmental, economic, and social sustainability. These policy areas are rife with wicked and unruly problems that combine cognitive uncertainties with the risk of political conflict and stalemate. Dealing with these problems requires the construction of network arenas in which a range of public and private actors can collaborate in order to find innovative solutions to common problems. The paper analyses the efforts of Norwegian regions to enhance collaborative innovation through the formation of interactive governance arenas. It compares three different policy areas in order to better understand how different forms of interactive governance enhance collaborative innovation for economic, social and environmental sustainability. The ultimate goal is to assess the ability and potential of Norwegian regions to solve wicked and unruly problems through collaborative innovation.

The West African States are known as States with endowed natural and human resources that ought to have an enlargement in the area of economic growth and development.This will help yield results to the countries in West Africa through economic cooperation among states within the region.It is therefore, the goal and objective of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to promote regional integration and co-operation for the purpose of ensuring economic growth and development in the sub-region.The endowed resources in West African states are mostly untapped due to challenges that face the region such as lack of technological know-how, bad governance, political instability, lack of adequate diversification, infrastructure problem, lack of political will and the inability to involve the private sector adequately.Therefore, the objectives of this study is to firstly, create an enabling environment where peace and security is sustainable for West African states to engineer economic governance through regional integration and economic co-operation among the countries in West Africa, and secondly, to enable partnership with the private sector.The methodology used in this research is review of previous literature and the use of content analysis which will also provide useful information on the region.The findings from this study reviews that, peace and security sustainability can only be maintained when the West African States employ the measures that would lead to economic growth and development of the region through provision of job opportunities to the youths, employing the early-warning mechanism, transparency and accountability in governance and good leadership to foster growth of ECOWAS community.

The subprime crisis led to a wave of government interventions in the private sector that has been particularly strong in Europe and Latin America, where several governments are large shareholders in a variety of public firms. In a sense, the subprime crisis induced these governments to behave as active large shareholders. This paper uses a sample of public firms in Brazil to show that government activism lowers the value of minority shareholders' voting rights. While the corporate governance literature usually associates lower voting premia with stronger protection of minority shareholders, we provide evidence that the government-induced decline in the value of voting rights harmed minority shareholders in Brazil.

In higher education, reforms have long been driven by the theory that system performance depends on governance design; yet it remains far from clear which arrangements can actually deliver results, as shown in the analysis of various streams of research devoted to assessing performance in higher education. We reason that such a question can be better answered if research aims for a mechanistic explanation and operationalizes it to avoid the shortcomings of both 'variable-oriented' and 'case-oriented' strategies. We therefore develop a 'diversity-oriented' mechanistic framework that explains differences in performance by differences in policy tool mixes, which we define as governance regimes. This set of policy tools is meant as a configuration of properties of delivery vehicles, decision-making design, and accountability design. Such an explanatory focus has many advantages: policy tools are manipulable, as they depend on political and administrative decisions; moreover, they are efficient causes, as they trigger mechanisms at the individual level that directly account for both individual and institutional behavior and, hence, performance. Tool-based explanations therefore can more easily allow for policy learning and transfer than can 'remote' constitutional, historical, or cultural accounts.

Rebuilding and strengthening the essential functions of government is a critical aspect of peace-building and recovery after conflict. There is now a wide literature on the challenges of post-conflict state-building based on the international community's experiences in such places as Kosovo, East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan. Much of this literature is concerned with the challenges of strengthening administration and service provision�what might be loosely called the policy implementation functions of government. Much less attention has been given to the policy formulation capacities of post-conflict governments. This is surprising given the importance of conflict-sensitive policies for peace-building and for laying the foundations for economic growth and employment. Many post-conflict governments lack capacity for policy development�a gap that is often filled by international technical assistance. In cases where the international community is providing support to a reasonably functioning government after a conflict, this study argues that more attention needs to be given to the government's policy-making capacity. Using the experience of post-conflict Aceh as a prism, the study argues that technical advice can be too easily wasted unless there is concomitant support for developing the institutional infrastructure needed to manage advice and to prepare options for political deliberation and choice.

Background: The Australasian Maternity Outcomes Surveillance System (AMOSS) conducts surveillance and research of rare and serious conditions in pregnancy. This multi-centre population health study is considered low risk with minimal ethical impact. Objective: To describe the ethics/governance review pathway undertaken by AMOSS. Method: Prospective, descriptive study during 2009-2011 of the governance/ethical review processes required to gain approval for Australian and New Zealand (ANZ) maternity units with more than 50 births per year (n = 303) to participate in AMOSS. Results: Review processes ranged from a single application for 24 NZ sites, a single application for eligible hospitals in two Australian states, full Health Research Ethics Committee (HREC) applications for individual hospitals, through simple letters of support. As of September 2011, 46 full/expedited ethics applications, 131 site governance applications and 136 letters of support requests were made over 33 months, involving an estimated 3261 hours by AMOSS staff/investigators, and an associated resource burden by participating sites, to obtain approval to receive nonidentifiable data from 291 hospitals. Conclusion: The AMOSS research system provides an important resource to enhance knowledge of conditions that cause rare and serious maternal morbidity. Yet the highly variable ethical approval processes required to implement this study have been excessively repetitive and burdensome. This process jeopardises timely, efficient research project implementation, without corresponding benefits to research participants. The resource burden to establish research governance for AMOSS confirms the urgent need for the Harmonisation of Multi-centre Ethical Review (HoMER) to further streamline ethics/governance review processes for multi-centre research.