At a crossroad: the GATS telecom framework and neo-patrimonial states:the politics of telecom reform in Kenya

Thesis submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Social Science and Policy, University of New South WalesThe liberalisation of domestic telecommunication (telecom) markets has become a worldwide trend. As a result, the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), evolving from deliberations within the World Trade Organisation (WTO), has been heralded as the mechanism with which to effect telecom liberalisation domestically. For countries in Africa, the GATS instruments have been translated as a means to establish the principles required for an effective telecom industry supported by key institutions in policy, regulation and implementation. However, the analysis of relevant literature on telecom in Africa has tended to focus on technological developments based on current observable outcomes. This methodology is inadequate because it fails to account for the context-specific nature of the policy arena and framework shaping telecom outcomes. I argue that we must consider telecom outcomes by understanding the nature of political institutions domestically and their interaction with the international arena. To explicate this intersection of ideas, I draw on two seemingly independent theories, Neopatrimonialism and New Institutional Economics (NIE) with reference to the works of van de Walle (2001) and North (1990) respectively, to shed light on the nature of the Kenyan political context and the value of the GATS as an instrument that facilitates credibility and reduces opportunistic ex-post behaviour. It is contended in this study, that for the Kenyan Government, the value of the GATS accession lies in the legitimising role that it facilitates in accessing funds from the international community. This study thus highlights the inevitable tension that arises when domestic policy-reform goals are juxtaposed with international trade obligations undertaken through treaty accession and informed by a liberalisation agenda. A qualitative approach was used to collect the data and involved interviews and documentary analysis. The findings suggest that Kenya is partially in compliance with its GATS telecom commitments. However, this partial reform results from patrimonial tendencies in Kenya and is exacerbated by the need to attract hard currency through aid packages that dictate the nature of the policy process and the relationship between Kenya and the international community. In conclusion, even with policy reforms, state agents always find ways to maintain or create clientelist practises. Unless such reform is accompanied by political changes that provide checks and balances on institutions and state agents, reform policies on their own will not create an effective telecom sector. To truly evaluate telecom reform therefore, we must appreciate the context-specific nature of policy making.The liberalisation of domestic telecommunication (telecom) markets has become a worldwide trend. As a result, the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), evolving from deliberations within the World Trade Organisation (WTO), has been heralded as the mechanism with which to effect telecom liberalisation domestically. For countries in Africa, the GATS instruments have been translated as a means to establish the principles required for an effective telecom industry supported by key institutions in policy, regulation and implementation. However, the analysis of relevant literature on telecom in Africa has tended to focus on technological developments based on current observable outcomes. This methodology is inadequate because it fails to account for the context-specific nature of the policy arena and framework shaping telecom outcomes. I argue that we must consider telecom outcomes by understanding the nature of political institutions domestically and their interaction with the international arena. To explicate this intersection of ideas, I draw on two seemingly independent theories, Neopatrimonialism and New Institutional Economics (NIE) with reference to the works of van de Walle (2001) and North (1990) respectively, to shed light on the nature of the Kenyan political context and the value of the GATS as an instrument that facilitates credibility and reduces opportunistic ex-post behaviour. It is contended in this study, that for the Kenyan Government, the value of the GATS accession lies in the legitimising role that it facilitates in accessing funds from the international community. This study thus highlights the inevitable tension that arises when domestic policy-reform goals are juxtaposed with international trade obligations undertaken through treaty accession and informed by a liberalisation agenda. A qualitative approach was used to collect the data and involved interviews and documentary analysis. The findings suggest that Kenya is partially in compliance with its GATS telecom commitments. However, this partial reform results from patrimonial tendencies in Kenya and is exacerbated by the need to attract hard currency through aid packages that dictate the nature of the policy process and the relationship between Kenya and the international community. In conclusion, even with policy reforms, state agents always find ways to maintain or create clientelist practises. Unless such reform is accompanied by political changes that provide checks and balances on institutions and state agents, reform policies on their own will not create an effective telecom sector. To truly evaluate telecom reform therefore, we must appreciate the context-specific nature of policy makin

Exploring the Occupational Impact of Pregnancy and the Role of Occupational Therapy During the Prenatal Period

Background: Pregnancy is a major transitional period accompanied by different physiological changes that can impact performance and engagement in meaningful and needed daily occupations. There is currently limited research that examines the transition to parenthood during the prenatal period through an occupational therapy (OT) perspective. Objective: The purpose of this study was to explore the impact pregnancy has on an individual’s roles, routines, and daily occupations. This study aimed to investigate this through an OT lens in order to better identify how the needs of pregnant individuals fall within the scope of OT. Methods: Pregnant individuals participated in an online survey (n=42) and an optional one-time interview (n=8) to assess the occupational impact of pregnancy. Data collected was inclusive of changes in occupational participation, perceived barriers to engagement, and perceived shifts in daily routines. Results: Survey data illustrated an overall average decrease in participation in focus areas of rest and sleep, sexual activity, social participation, physical activity, nutrition management, work and education, and home management during pregnancy. Four common themes were derived from participants’ interviews including: change in occupational form, decrease in ability to participate in meaningful occupations, temporality impacting occupational engagement, and decrease in perceived quality of occupational engagement. Conclusion: The results of this study indicated daily occupations that are impacted during pregnancy and the various ways in which occupations, roles, and routines are impacted throughout the span of the prenatal period. These results help identify how the needs of the pregnant population fall within the scope of OT practice.https://soar.usa.edu/otdcapstones-spring2022/1012/thumbnail.jp

Expanding Our Understanding Complex Decision-Making in Emergent, Routine, and Urgent Ethically Challenging Clinical Situations

Study Purpose The purpose of this study was to discover and identify the continuum between conscientious objectors and designated staff in the provision of nursing care to women seeking abortions. More specifically, we sought to gain a deeper understanding of processes that nurses use when making clinical decisions in ethically challenging situations using abortion as the clinical contex

Regularization of word order in the verb phrase differs from the noun phrase:Evidence from an online silent gesture perception paradigm

Prior work has shown a “natural” preference in the Verb Phrase for direct object Nouns to linearly precede the Verb. There is also evidence of a “natural” preference in the Noun Phrase to order Nouns before Adjectives. Given this, we asked how domain-general biases like regularization and language-specific biases like the preference for “natural” orders could jointly contribute to the emergence of these two common word orders cross-linguistically. Using a silent gesture paradigm (in which we presented iconic gestures without speech), we exposed different participants to competing Verb Phrase (NounVerb vs. VerbNoun) and Noun Phrase (NounAdj vs. AdjNoun) word orders at varying frequencies. In Noun Phrase contrast conditions, we found that regularization was greatest when the domain-general bias towards regularization and the linguistic bias to order Nouns before Adjectives were aligned. In Verb Phrase conditions, participants regularized to the same extent regardless of input: They opted for greater regularity, even at the expense of aligning with underlying word order biases. We discuss the implications of our work for understanding the effects of domain-general biases on language

How Does a Pre-Assessment of Off-Campus Students\u27 Information Literacy Affect the Effectiveness of Library Instruction?

This study investigates the impact that pre-tests have on the effectiveness of library instruction when students are given feedback on their pre-test performance. Librarians and academic faculty partnered to measure library instruction outcomes in two Master\u27s degree classes. The Research Readiness Self-Assessment (RRSA) was used as a pre-test (before instruction) and a post-test (after instruction) in Class 1 and as a post-test only in Class 2. Students who completed both tests performed significantly better on a post-test, earning higher scores on obtaining information and overall information literacy. They reported greater library/research experience and less reliance on browsing. Compared to students who did not take a pre-test, students who received pre-test-based feedback had higher scores on library/research experience and lower scores on reliance on browsing. To enhance the effectiveness of library instruction, students can be given pre-test-based feedback that compares their actual and perceived literacy and encourages the use of library databases

Hepatic encephalopathy impacts the predictive value of the Fried Frailty Index

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146338/1/ajt15020.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146338/2/ajt15020_am.pd

Predicting death over 8 years in a prospective cohort of HIV-infected women: the Women's Interagency HIV Study.

ObjectivesPredicting mortality in middle-aged HIV-infected (HIV+) women on antiretroviral therapies (ART) is important for understanding the impact of HIV infection. Several health indices have been used to predict mortality in women with HIV infection. We evaluated: (1) an HIV biological index, Veterans Aging Cohort Study (VACS); (2) a physical index, Fried Frailty Index (FFI); and (3) a mental health index, Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression (CES-D). Proportional hazards regression analyses were used to predict death and included relevant covariates.DesignProspective, observational cohort.SettingMulticentre, across six sites in the USA.Participants1385 multirace/ethnic ART-experienced HIV+ women in 2005.Primary and secondary outcomesAll deaths, AIDS deaths and non-AIDS deaths up to ~8 years from baseline.ResultsIncluded together in one model, VACS Index was the dominant, significant independent predictor of all deaths within 3 years (HR=2.20, 95% CI 1.83, 2.65, χ2=69.04, p<0.0001), and later than 3 years (HR=1.55, 95% CI 1.30, 1.84, χ2=23.88, p<0.0001); followed by FFI within 3 years (HR=2.06, 95% CI 1.19, 3.57, χ2=6.73, p=0.01) and later than 3 years (HR=2.43, 95% CI 1.58, 3.75, χ2=16.18, p=0.0001). CES-D score was not independently associated with mortality.Conclusions and relevanceThis is the first simultaneous evaluation of three common health indices in HIV+ adults. Indices reflecting physical and biological ageing were associated with death

National Island Plan – Embedded Artist Commission: Exhibition – 'Angle of Vision'

In the summer of 2019, Irish artist Saoirse Higgins undertook a placement as Embedded Artist with Scottish Government, joining a consultation team that visited 40 of Scotland’s 93 inhabited islands - from the Shetland Islands to the Outer Hebrides, gathering the views of islanders in order to develop Scotland’s first National Islands Plan (NIP). This exhibition showcases newly commissioned work by Higgins resulting from this placement, being invited to respond to the consultation process from a different angle, connecting the voices and experiences of islanders and their sense of place in a different way. Taking its title from a poem by Orcadian poet Robert Rendall (1898-1967), the exhibition focuses on the interactions between islanders and those arriving from the mainland by tracing the oscillating movement between two island viewpoints: one looking out from the island edge to sea – the islanders’ horizon; and the other looking in from the sea to the island – the ship’s eye view of the edge of the island, which islanders look out for on their journey home, or when taking themselves out to sea. In portraying this, Higgins draws from her conversations with islanders, geospatial data and 360-degree film footage, while using her own body as a cartographic tool – approaching, becoming entangled with, and connecting different island landscapes. Higgins’ investigations of the sea to island viewpoint are influenced by a series of maps developed by 18th century hydrographer Murdoch Mackenzie (1712–1797), held in the collection of the Orkney Archive in Kirkwall and loaned to Pier Arts Centre specially for this exhibition. Mackenzie mapped Orkney, the Hebrides and Ireland, making the land the anchor point for the sea to make his maps. Mackenzie’s work made it safer for islanders to travel to and from islands and provides a good analogy with the Scottish Government’s National Island Plan as a tool aspiring to meaningfully improve the quality of life for island communities which simultaneously broadens connections and conversations with the mainland. Higgins’ own mapping journey begins with 'Angle of Vision – Map of the Geographical Centre Point of 93 Inhabited Scottish Islands', developed in collaboration with cartographic design consultant Paul Naylor and technical consultant Chris Mee at Ordnance Survey. This map shows all inhabited Scottish islands with lines linking their individual calculated geographical centre points to their collective island nation centre. The mainland territories are absent in this map, emphasizing an island-centred viewpoint, which destabilizes dominant notions of centre and periphery. The map is displayed in the exhibition, as well as being available as a limited edition print, and is accompanied by is a specially designed Island Centre Marker Buoy with the mathematical formula that was used to calculate the island geographical centre points printed on its body. The abstracted, geospatial information contained in the maps gives way to an embodied understanding of place in Higgins’ film 'Distant Views of the Land', adopting a land to sea view. The film was shot on the island of Papa Westray (also known as Papay) in Orkney, where she lives, on its most Northern point – called Fowl Flag. It shows a view out to sea from the land with Higgins standing right beside the viewer, who is invited to join in a moment of contemplation and survey the landscape together. While recalling imagery from art and literature in the Romanticism, including Caspar David Friedrich’s 1808 painting 'The Monk by the Sea', Higgins’ depiction of herself looking out to sea never stops being every-day, both in scale and sentiment, partaking in a sense of reverence for the landscape and collective guardianship over it that is integral to island life. Many islanders interviewed by the artist in Papay spoke to her of their close connection with the sea, and how the island’s boundedness by the ocean frames how they experience themselves in the landscape. The film’s audio track is of the sea around Papay, with 16-year old islander Jessie Dodman reading a text excerpt from Murdoch Mackenzie’s 1774 'Treatise on Maritime Surveying'. Our attention is drawn here to the younger generation, whose ideas and energy are core to the survival of islands, providing hope for the future. Nestled between physical locatedness and an imagined elsewhere, Higgins’ works draw us into a lived, embodied experience of island life, imbued with geopolitical realities and a pressing sense of both urgency and optimism in looking to the future. Both close and distant, feet rooted to the ground as much as bird’s eye, these multi-faceted views of land and sea capture moments of alive, complex and caring occupancy of islands by different generations of islanders and visitors, underpinned by a shared awareness of the islands’ own vibrant presence and agency