Refine
Year of publication
Document Type
- Article (15)
- Doctoral Thesis (7)
- Postprint (6)
- Master's Thesis (2)
- Monograph/Edited Volume (1)
- Review (1)
Keywords
- governance (32) (remove)
Institute
- Sozialwissenschaften (7)
- Fachgruppe Politik- & Verwaltungswissenschaft (6)
- Institut für Geowissenschaften (6)
- Wirtschaftswissenschaften (5)
- Kommunalwissenschaftliches Institut (3)
- Extern (2)
- Department Erziehungswissenschaft (1)
- Fachgruppe Betriebswirtschaftslehre (1)
- Institut für Umweltwissenschaften und Geographie (1)
- WeltTrends e.V. Potsdam (1)
This diploma thesis deals with the process of political and administrative decentralisation in the Kingdom of Lesotho. Although decentralization in itself does not automatically lead to development it became an integral part of reform processes in many developing countries. Governments and international donors consider efficient decentralized political and administrative structures as essential elements of “good governance” and a prerequisite for structural poverty alleviation. This paper seeks to analyse how the given decentralization strategy and its implementation is affecting different features of good governance in the case of Lesotho. The results of the analysis confirm that the decentralisation process significantly improved political participation of the local population. However, the second objective of enhancing efficiency through decentralisation was not achieved. To the contrary, in the institutional design of the newly created local authorities and in the civil service recruitment policy efficiency considerations did not matter. Additionally, the created mechanisms for political participation generate relevant costs. Thus it is impossible to judge unambiguously on the contribution of decentralisation to the achievement of good governance. Different subtargets of good governance are influenced contrarily. Consequently, the adequacy of the concept of good governance as a guiding concept for decentralisation policies can be questioned. The assessment of the success of decentralisation policies requires a normative framework that takes into account the relations between both participation and efficiency. Despite the partly reduced administrative efficiency the author’s overall impression of the decentralisation process in Lesotho is positive. The establishment of democratically legitimised and participatory local governments justifies certain additional expenditure. However, mistakes in the design and the implementation of the decentralisation strategy would have been avoidable.
The authors analyze the reasons for the establishment of a regulatory regime for international financial markets in accordance with the ideas of liberal internationalism. They argue that the system of international markets is affected by polymorphy, indicating the existence of different forms of regulation. Five factors produce this polymorphy: the non-existence of a homogenous object of steering, the dynamic nature of these objects, the fact that the purpose of governance is not clearly defined, the dominance of governance by the USA and Great Britain, and governance as a result of a multi-level game with various coalitions.