29 research outputs found

    UNDERSTANDING THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF SUCCESSFUL STATE-OWNED ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT: A CASE STUDY OF THE PANAMA CANAL AUTHORITY

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    The Panama Canal turnover was not expected to end well. As the U.S. Senate deliberated upon the Panama Canal treaties in 1977, opponents painted a grim portrait of the canal’s future under Panamanian control. They warned of a toxic combination of Panamanian incompetence, malfeasance and greed. A common argument portrayed Panama as a politically unstable tropical backwater. To make matters worse, the threat of Soviet domination loomed. How could a poor country of 3.6 million people operate and maintain a complicated and internationally vital waterway? Very well, it turned out. This dissertation evaluates how Panama exceeded the alarmingly low expectations of its critics. In doing so, it details and analyzes the doomsday projections regarding the December 31, 1999 Panama Canal turnover. The research situates those concerns in the context of academic literature on state-owned enterprise management, and questions whether such profound skepticism was warranted in the case of Panama. To evaluate Panama’s performance operating the canal, the dissertation reviews a range of published material, including independent analyses of Panama’s canal management, as well as internal evaluations. It also provides independent qualitative and quantitative reviews of Panama’s record, including comparisons to the U.S. canal administration, interviews, a survey by the author of executives at multinational shipping companies, and a Panama national public opinion poll by the author. The dissertation adopts a case study approach and relies upon process tracing and thick description to determine the factors that contributed to Panama’s successful canal management. The analytic narrative is not chronological. It begins with a general discussion of state-owned enterprises; evaluates Panama’s canal management; explores the roots of Panama’s success; explains why predictions of Panama’s performance proved wildly inaccurate; and identifies risks to the Panama Canal Authority’s continued efficiency. The dissertation concludes by highlighting potential best practices for other countries operating consequential state-owned enterprises

    Police Reform in Ukraine Since the Euromaidan: Police Reform in Transition and Institutional Crisis

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    Why does reform of law enforcement remain so elusive in post-communist countries like Ukraine, despite political upheaval, a public mandate for reform and substantial international assistance? Which components contribute to the success and sustainability of a police reform and which factors produce political will from political leaders to implement the difficulties of police reform? This dissertation argues that in addition to massive corruption and the politics of insecurity, the greatest challenges to reform of Ukraine’s law enforcement system is political competition, resulting in the politicization of law enforcement institutions and law enforcement policy. Political competition is based in Ukraine’s fractured political system which has been unstable since gaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. This dissertation takes an inductive approach to studying the politics of police reform by providing a process-tracing narrative of previous and contemporary efforts to address ongoing issues of policing in Ukraine and demonstrates how reforms have been shaped by various political and social conditions over time. The narrative of this dissertation is that while the problems plaguing Ukraine’s police are systemic and long standing, partial police reform become possible under certain conditions. While pluralism and political competition are often necessary to pressure political leaders to enact costly reforms of the police, an excess of political competition or political instability (as in the case of Ukraine) will typically disincentivize political leaders from supporting police reform by increasing uncertainty about the future political order, public fears of disorder, and will prompt more intense political competition over control of law enforcement. This is because in hybrid regimes like Ukraine, the police play an essential role in determining the political balance through extra-democratic power politics such as arresting regime opponents or determining which protests will be permitted. Hence the police’s support of the regime is critical to maintaining political power and since police are opposed to any reforms which will strip them of resources, powers or autonomy, enacting comprehensive police reform becomes a costly decision for political elites, undertaken only reluctantly in the face of intense pressure from civil society and international partners in the wake of a scandal which raises policing on the political agenda. This means that the status quo towards policing policy is political inaction by decision makers and even in the event of a catalyst such as a police scandal political pressure for police reform is often difficult to sustain under the inevitable resistance from entrenched elite. This dissertation argues that in the case of Ukraine the keys to a successful and sustainable police reform in certain parts of the police have been: first, insulation of new police institutions from politicization and patrimonial staffing to ensure their independence and impartiality; and second, institutional design which mandates transparency mechanisms, accountability procedures and civilian oversight in the staffing, promotion and activity reporting of police. In other words, this dissertation argues that the types of police reforms most likely to be successful and sustainable are those with large and effective coalitions including civil society, western support, and most importantly institutional design which allows for political insulation and mechanisms that allow for public participation, transparency and oversight. In the absence of these components, reforms that lack a unified and stable reform coalition to produce continued political pressure will likely be abandoned shortly after the public attention moves on from a given police scandal. Nearly four years after the Euromaidan revolution, events in mid- 2018 provides a colorful montage of the various challenges to reform of law enforcement in Ukraine at a critical juncture. Ukraine’s success in navigating these and the other challenges described in this dissertation will determine the future of its law enforcement institutions, the rule of law, and the political system in Ukraine in its fourth republic

    Association of Researchers in Construction Management (ARCOM) Proceedings Of The 35th Annual Conference

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    New Wine, New Bottles: Private Property Metaphors and Public Forum Speech

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    The Cowl - v. 74 - n. 10 - Nov 19, 2009

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    The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Volume 74 - Number 10 - November 19, 2009. 32 pages

    \u27A Literary Man & A Merchant\u27: The Legal Career of Sir William Young

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    Sir William Young (1799-1887) of Halifax was a leading lawyer, served as Attorney General, promoted legal reforms in the Assembly, sat as Chief Justice of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court, and promoted the establishment of Dalhousie University\u27s Faculty of Law. He thereby fulfilled a variety of roles in his pursuit of two professional goals he had set at an early age, namely material success and intellectual interest. Nonetheless, his career in the law has been mostly ignored. By examining Young\u27s legal career in detail, especially by paying attention to the duties he performed in his professional roles, this thesis seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the province\u27s nineteenth-century law and legal culture, with an emphasis on three themes: legal professionals (lawyers and judges) at work; Nova Scotian legal culture; and the importance of print information for professional success in the law. Young\u27s legal apprenticeship involved more responsibility than generally attributed to legal apprenticeship in British North America, allowed Young to develop a rigourous and systematic approach to readings in the law, and was likely influenced by Scottish Enlightenment ideas. Demonstrating an awareness of the need for balance and diversity in legal practice, Young developed a highly successful law business. Establishing an extensive private law library, a demonstration of his career-long appreciation of the need for up-to-date and authoritative legal materials, was also key to his success. This thesis examines the nature of Young\u27s law practice, including areas of work, clientele, colleagues, income, and activities, such as railway-related services, with implications for the province as a whole. During Young\u27s generally-overlooked tenure as Attorney General, factors beyond his control, namely conflicts prompted by ethnic and religious differences, tended to obscure his successes in the administration of justice and development of legislation. This thesis also argues that Young\u27s leading role in law reform efforts, with emphasis on civil procedure, laws affecting private property, and systematic statutory reform, is attributable to his legal liberalism. This thesis pays considerable attention to the non-adjudicative side of Young\u27s work as Chief Justice, whereby he served as a chief administrator, advisor, spokesperson, and drafter of legislation. Political divisions, some caused by his public support for Confederation, helped to divert attention from the accomplishments of Young\u27s tenure, which included his leading role in promoting published case reports. Young\u27s reported decisions, which reveal an approach between adherence to authority and instrumentalism that does not squarely fit any model set out thus far in the historiography, are also examined. As seen through the lens of Young\u27s career, nineteenth-century Nova Scotian legal culture, with its diverse roots, signs of both liberal and more traditional influences, and capacity to admire and to look outside aspects of British legal culture, reveals signs of greater complexity and confidence than has been depicted in relation to the legal history\u27 of other parts of British North America

    The Cord Weekly (January 16, 2008)

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    Legitimacy and humanitarian intervention : who should intervene?

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    I consider who should undertake humanitarian intervention. Should we prefer intervention by the UN, NATO, a regional or sub-regional organisation, a state, a group of states, or someone else? This thesis answers this question by, first, determining which qualities of interveners are morally significant and, second, assessing the relative importance of these qualities. The thesis then considers the more empirical question of whether (and to what extent) the current agents of humanitarian intervention actually possess these qualities, and therefore should intervene. Overall, I develop a particular conception of legitimacy for humanitarian intervention. I use this conception of legitimacy to assess not only the current interveners, but also the desirability of potential reforms to the mechanisms and agents of humanitarian intervention.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceEconomic and Social Research CouncilGBUnited Kingdo

    University of San Diego News Print Media Coverage 2007.12

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    Printed clippings housed in folders with a table of contents arranged by topic.https://digital.sandiego.edu/print-media/1059/thumbnail.jp
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