From the International to the Domestic Sphere: The Diffusion, Adoption and Internalisation of Good Governance in the Australian Aid Program

Good governance as a concept was first unveiled at the end of the 1980s. While it has proved controversial in theory and practice it was, nevertheless, adopted by Western donor states. Scholarship on good governance has focused on the effectiveness of the application of good governance principles, and critically analysed the rationale for the transfer of good governance to aid-recipient countries. This thesis is not focused on the practical implementation of good governance but on the normative element of good governance defined in the thesis as a super policy norm. Missing from the good governance literature is a serious examination of the diffusion, adoption, and internalisation of good governance from the global sphere to the polity of a donor state. This dissertation tries to fill this gap. Through an in-depth analysis of the transfer, adoption, and internalisation of good governance in Australian aid policy it suggests that an assumption of a congruence between international organisations promoting good governance and the aid agencies of donor governments is too simplistic. Drawing on key theoretical concepts from the norm dynamics literature as well as historical institutionalist approaches, I argue that the process of diffusion, adoption and internalisation in Australia was iterative, complex, and contested and influenced by the domestic institutional environment including previous policy decisions and aid activities, as well as the expectations and constraints imposed by other government departments. Moreover, I argue that good governance was not a static or fixed super policy norm but it was flexible and open to interpretation and evolution. The Australian aid bureaucracy and executive did not copy good governance whole and unchanged from the international sphere. Instead, it interpreted it in a way that was unique to the Australian aid program and was shaped by the Australian institutional environment. This dissertation challenges approaches to norm internalisation that assumes automatic compliance once a norm has been internalised. Drawing on recent scholarship the thesis explores the internalisation phase beyond formal validity and social recognition. It shows how in the process of cultural validation the contestation of the implementation of good governance influenced the evolution of the super policy norm

Construção das identidades de jovens de origem imigrante em Europa: resultados dum projeto Europeu

Este artigo descreve e analisa alguns dos elementos que influenciam a construção das identidades dos jovens de origem imigrante na Europa. Os resultados derivam dum projeto de investigação europeu intitulado “Rumo à construção social duma juventude europeia: a experiência de inclusão e exclusão na esfera pública dos jovens migrantes de segunda geração”1, desenvolvido entre 2006 e 2009 em nove cidades localizadas em cinco países: Espanha (Madrid e Barcelona), Itália (Génova e Roma), Portugal (Lisboa e Porto), França (Metz), Alemanha (Berlim) e Holanda (Utrecht). A primeira parte analisa os dados quantitativos recolhidos nos contextos de estudo, comparando os jovens descendentes de imigrantes com os jovens autóctones, focando a questão da identidade como um assunto central no processo de inclusão dos jovens imigrantes. A segunda parte aborda alguns dos marcadores identitários presentes nos jovens descendentes de imigrantes em Portugal, à luz de dados etnográficos recolhidos especificamente para o caso dos jovens na Área Metropolitana de Lisboa focando as questões de identidade, género e discriminação