scholarly journals ‘Community’: A Q study exploring perspectives in community governance settings in Taranaki, New Zealand

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Te Aroha Hohaia
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Q Methodology ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Practice ◽  
Community Governance ◽  
Policy Proposal ◽  
Space Factor ◽  
Local Decision ◽  
Highly Correlated

<p>Attend any public meeting in Taranaki and, more often than not, one will hear the word ‘community’ used to bolster a policy proposal, or oppose it. But when that happens, what exactly is meant by ‘community’? Taking advantage of her position as an embedded participant, the author of this thesis set out to understand what ‘community’ means to those who occupy roles of influence in decision-making settings in Taranaki, Aotearoa- New Zealand. To the study’s informants and participants, a deceptively simple question was put: ‘what do you understand by ‘community’?’  The set of techniques used to elicit responses to this question was William Stephenson’s Q Methodology. Data collection began with 29 informant interviews from which 45 statements representative of what is understood by ‘community’ were extracted. Those statements were rank-ordered by 35 participants generating 47 Q sorts (the mechanism by which each viewpoint was captured). Using PQMethod 2.35, a three-factor solution generated through principal components analysis and subjected to a varimax rotation was selected for further analysis.  The interpretation of the results substantiated three somewhat highly correlated, yet nuanced perspectives where ‘community’ is:  ▪ ‘Everyone and we’re all in this together’ (Factor 1), ▪ ‘Well... it depends’ given the multiplicity of interests (Factor 2), and ▪ ‘It’s everything’ (Factor 3).  The primacy of relationships and expectations to contribute to where one lives provide the basis for consensus. The nuance is in the scope and reach in terms of who counts, what matters and why it is important at a given point in time. The subsequent discussion noted there is still no agreement on a definition of ‘community’ and its malleability in meaning makes ‘community’ useful for furthering political interests. Its use in the community governance settings of this study reflects the pragmatism of everyday life. ‘Community’ is affirmed as a concept that frames policy discourse.  This study also identifies ‘community’ as a practice and as a way of governing that frames policy responses where the basis for ‘community’ is as:  ▪ A preference for face-to-face interaction and usually over a cup of tea (Factor 1), ▪ A strategy of enabling that is realistic and pragmatic (Factor 2), and ▪ An account of the integrated connections to places, with people and to events across time and space (Factor 3).  The study opens up new ground as the collection, analysis and interpretation of first- person, vested responses from those ‘doing’ ‘community’ in community governance settings is missing from the scholarly and practitioner literature. This study forms a bridge in an identified gap between those who theorise in the political philosophy of ‘community’ and those who advocate in the political practice of ‘community’.  Furthermore, the three perspectives identified and discussed in this study also lead to a proposition that the phrase ‘governing communities’ would be a more apt and authentic alternative to ‘community governance’. Such a development is positioned as the next step in the evolution of the theory surrounding local decision-making and local government in New Zealand and as a normative model for political practice.</p>

scholarly journals ‘Community’: A Q study exploring perspectives in community governance settings in Taranaki, New Zealand

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Te Aroha Hohaia
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Q Methodology ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Practice ◽  
Community Governance ◽  
Policy Proposal ◽  
Space Factor ◽  
Local Decision ◽  
Highly Correlated

<p>Attend any public meeting in Taranaki and, more often than not, one will hear the word ‘community’ used to bolster a policy proposal, or oppose it. But when that happens, what exactly is meant by ‘community’? Taking advantage of her position as an embedded participant, the author of this thesis set out to understand what ‘community’ means to those who occupy roles of influence in decision-making settings in Taranaki, Aotearoa- New Zealand. To the study’s informants and participants, a deceptively simple question was put: ‘what do you understand by ‘community’?’  The set of techniques used to elicit responses to this question was William Stephenson’s Q Methodology. Data collection began with 29 informant interviews from which 45 statements representative of what is understood by ‘community’ were extracted. Those statements were rank-ordered by 35 participants generating 47 Q sorts (the mechanism by which each viewpoint was captured). Using PQMethod 2.35, a three-factor solution generated through principal components analysis and subjected to a varimax rotation was selected for further analysis.  The interpretation of the results substantiated three somewhat highly correlated, yet nuanced perspectives where ‘community’ is:  ▪ ‘Everyone and we’re all in this together’ (Factor 1), ▪ ‘Well... it depends’ given the multiplicity of interests (Factor 2), and ▪ ‘It’s everything’ (Factor 3).  The primacy of relationships and expectations to contribute to where one lives provide the basis for consensus. The nuance is in the scope and reach in terms of who counts, what matters and why it is important at a given point in time. The subsequent discussion noted there is still no agreement on a definition of ‘community’ and its malleability in meaning makes ‘community’ useful for furthering political interests. Its use in the community governance settings of this study reflects the pragmatism of everyday life. ‘Community’ is affirmed as a concept that frames policy discourse.  This study also identifies ‘community’ as a practice and as a way of governing that frames policy responses where the basis for ‘community’ is as:  ▪ A preference for face-to-face interaction and usually over a cup of tea (Factor 1), ▪ A strategy of enabling that is realistic and pragmatic (Factor 2), and ▪ An account of the integrated connections to places, with people and to events across time and space (Factor 3).  The study opens up new ground as the collection, analysis and interpretation of first- person, vested responses from those ‘doing’ ‘community’ in community governance settings is missing from the scholarly and practitioner literature. This study forms a bridge in an identified gap between those who theorise in the political philosophy of ‘community’ and those who advocate in the political practice of ‘community’.  Furthermore, the three perspectives identified and discussed in this study also lead to a proposition that the phrase ‘governing communities’ would be a more apt and authentic alternative to ‘community governance’. Such a development is positioned as the next step in the evolution of the theory surrounding local decision-making and local government in New Zealand and as a normative model for political practice.</p>

Divining Disposition: The Role of Elite Beliefs and Gender Narratives in Women’s Suffrage

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariel J. Barnes
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Party Identification ◽  
Process Tracing ◽  
The Political ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Primary Documents ◽  
And Gender

Most accounts of franchise extension hold that elites extend electoral rights when they believe expansions will consolidate their political power. Yet, how do elites come to believe this? And how do elites make inferences about the political preferences of the disenfranchised? I argue that elites utilize the cue of “disposition” to determine the consequences of enfranchisement. Disposition refers to the innate characteristics of an individual (or group) that are believed to shape behavior and decision-making. Importantly, because disposition is perceived to be intrinsic, elites assume it is more stable and permanent than party identification or policy preferences. Using historical process-tracing and discourse analysis of primary documents, I determine that disposition was frequently and repeatedly used to either support or oppose women’s enfranchisement in New Zealand.

The Political Origins of Judicial Empowerment through Constitutionalization: Lessons from Four Constitutional Revolutions

2000 ◽  
Vol 25 (01) ◽  
pp. 91-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ran Hirschl
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Constitutional Reform ◽  
Policy Preferences ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Pressure ◽  
High Courts ◽  
Economic Elites ◽  
Political Origins

Drawing upon an analysis of the political vectors behind constitutional reform in Israel (1992), Canada (1982) New Zealand (1990), and South Africa (1993), the article suggests that the trend toward constitutionalization in culturally divided polities has not been adequately delineated by extant theories of constitutional transformation. An examination of the political origins of these four constitutional revolutions suggests that judicial empowerment is in many cases the consequence of a conscious strategy undertaken by threatened political and economic elites seeking to preserve their hegemony vis-a-vis the growing influence of “peripheral” groups in crucial majoritarian policymaking arenas. In response to perceived threats by peripheral groups, elites who possess disproportionate access to and influence upon the legal arena often initiate a constitutional entrenchment of rights in order to insulate policymaking from popular political pressure. Power is transferred from majoritarian decision-making arenas to national high courts, where they assume their policy preferences will find greater support. This process of conscious judicial empowerment is likely to occur (a) when the judiciary's public reputation for political impartiality and rectitude is relatively high and (b) when the courts are likely to rule, by and large, in accordance with the cultural propensities and policy preferences of the traditionally hegemonic elites.

scholarly journals “Wolves Have A Constitution:” Continuities in Indigenous Self-Government

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Cornell
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
The Political ◽  
Ample Evidence ◽  
Indigenous Nations ◽  
Human Material ◽  
Political Idea ◽  
Key Aspects

This article is about constitutionalism as an Indigenous tradition. The political idea of constitutionalism is the idea that the process of governing is itself governed by a set of foundational laws or rules. There is ample evidence that Indigenous nations in North America—and in Australia and New Zealand as well—were in this sense constitutionalists. Customary law, cultural norms, and shared protocols provided well understood guidelines for key aspects of governance by shaping both personal and collective action, the behavior of leaders, decision-making, dispute resolution, and relationships with the human, material, and spirit worlds. Today, many of these nations have governing systems imposed by outsiders. As they move to change these systems, they also are reclaiming their own constitutional traditions.

Law and localism: the case of multiple occupancy housing

Legal Studies ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 551-576 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonia Layard
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
The Political ◽  
Legal Effect ◽  
Local Decision ◽  
Local Decision Making ◽  
Regressive Effects ◽  
Political Logic

This paper investigates how planning regulation constructs the local, encapsulating a locality and prioritising local decision making over regional and national scales. It draws on a case study of the regulation of multiple occupation to make three interrelated points. First, the analysis emphasises the plurality of ‘locals’ and the interrelationships between them. Secondly, the paper explains how the juridification of the local is required to make a locality legally visible. This operationalisation and construction of the local (legally, spatially and socially) must take place before the political logic of localism, the prioritisation of local decision making over other scales of governance, can take legal effect. Thirdly, the paper explains how, once the ‘local’ is legally constructed and can make decisions, this prioritisation of apparently neutral local expertise and knowledge can act to enclose the spatial and social with sometimes powerful exclusionary and regressive effects.

Women in Power and Decision making Positions : Conditions and Restraints

1970 ◽  
pp. 53-57
Author(s):  
Azza Charara Baydoun
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Policies And Procedures ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
Slow Progress

Women today are considered to be outside the political and administrative power structures and their participation in the decision-making process is non-existent. As far as their participation in the political life is concerned they are still on the margins. The existence of patriarchal society in Lebanon as well as the absence of governmental policies and procedures that aim at helping women and enhancing their political participation has made it very difficult for women to be accepted as leaders and to be granted votes in elections (UNIFEM, 2002).This above quote is taken from a report that was prepared to assess the progress made regarding the status of Lebanese women both on the social and governmental levels in light of the Beijing Platform for Action – the name given to the provisions of the Fourth Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995. The above quote describes the slow progress achieved by Lebanese women in view of the ambitious goal that requires that the proportion of women occupying administrative or political positions in Lebanon should reach 30 percent of thetotal by the year 2005!

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