Ph.D. theses
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Policy and Regulation - With Comparative and Multi-level Case Studies from Denmark and IrelandHelby Petersen, Ole (, )[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This PhD dissertation studies national similarities and differences in policy and regulation of public-private partnerships (PPPs), with an empirical focus on Denmark and Ireland. The starting point and motivation for the study is the observation that whereas PPPs are often depicted in the academic literature and in policy practice as a globally disseminated governance scheme, in reality, a closer examination of the PPP reform landscape reveals significant differences in national governments’ PPP policy and regulation and in the amount of actually implemented PPP projects. By comparing the initiatives taken by the Irish government, which has embraced PPPs, with those of the Danish government, which has been a PPP sceptic, this study inquires into the fundamental questions as to how, why and to what consequences some governments have developed widespread policy and regulation frameworks to support the implementation of PPPs, whereas others have been much more reluctant. The dissertation addressed four research questions: (i) what are the key actors, strategies and institutions that create policies and regulations for the formation of PPPs?; (ii) how did governments’ PPP policies and regulations develop over time, and how can their similarities and differences be explained?; (iii) how do differing national policy and regulation frameworks serve to facilitate or hinder the formation of PPPs, exemplified by four case studies from the schools sector?; (iv) what framework conditions does the EU set for PPP initiatives at national and sub-national levels? URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8304 Files in this item: 1
Ole_Helby_Petersen.pdf (1.358Mb) -
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Abstract: This thesis explores the history of humanitarian organizations as agents in public life. When taking on the role as mediators between Western publics and distant sufferers, what conception of social responsibility do humanitarian organizations promote? What are the consequences of the institutional context of these organizations on the form of social responsibility that they are able to promote? In a historical perspective, what changes in these conceptualizations can we observe and to what extent can we understand them as resulting from institutional changes? These questions are asked with the assumption that the discourse of humanitarian organizations is at once a reflection of and a force in the configuration of dispositions in target publics. Enquiring about the history of humanitarian organizations as agents in public life, thus, means enquiring about the ways in which over the past 40 years, these organizations have given meaning to our relation to different sufferers and contributed to shaping our individual and collective conception of the scope and nature of our social responsibility.... URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8318 Files in this item: 1
Anne_Vestergaard.pdf (6.561Mb) -
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Abstract: ‘Good’ Outcomes – Handling Multiplicity in Government Communication This thesis examines how five Danish government organizations produce and assess communicative solutions in practice, and argues that government communication may be understood as a case of multiplicity. In the practices of producing and assessing communicative solutions it is uncertain what constitutes a ‘good’ outcome of government communication. This uncertainty is grasped by drawing upon analytical resources from the field of multiplicity-oriented ANT analyses. Empirically, the thesis is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted at the five government organizations. Combining empirical observations, theoretical insights, and political programmes, four ‘modes of ordering’ are developed and these are utilized in exploring how the multiplicity of government communication unfurls and how it is handled in practice. The thesis shows how the ordering attempts described by the four modes of ordering coexist and interfere, and it suggests the notions of ‘sequencing’ and ‘singularizing’ for understanding how the multiplicity of government communication is handled in the production and assessment of communicative solutions. The study upon which the thesis reports has been carried out in connection with a larger Industrial PhD project, entitled Measurements you can learn from, that aimed at developing, testing, and implementing new and better communication measurements. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8306 Files in this item: 1
Morten_Krogh_Petersen.pdf (10.91Mb) -
Mikkelsen, Thorsten (, )[More information][Less information]