AbstractsPolitical Science

Conceptualising Compliance Enforcement Of Environmental Quality Regulations: A case of the National Environmental Policy(NEP) of Ghana. The theme and case of study has been the execution and organisation of compliance enforcement of environmental quality regulations in Ghana,which is an aspect of both environmental management in Ghana,and the implementation of the National Environmental Policy(NEP)of Ghana for the period 1992-1998.The focus,and also the point of departure was the promulgation of the NEP,and out of this we endeavoured a conceptualisation of the process by which the particular policy instrument of "enforcing compliance"to environmental quality regulations ,is organised or operationalised in a multi-organisational implementation situation of the NEP of Ghana. Essentially, I grappled with the question of how compliance enforcement aspects of the NEP has changed,and also how the eventual changes in the programme design be explainedThe issue of how the entire task of executing the policy instrument in an inter-sectoral/inter-organisational context has been tackled In a nutshell,therefore,our interest has been the extent to which the NEP tackles the issue of environmental compliance on manufacturing and other activities impacting the natural environment in an inter-sectoral and inter-agency implementation context of the NEP. To organise the analysis,we relied mostly on theories of public policy implementation because we thought that the concept of "compliance enforcement"and its execution are better appreciated in the context of the general concept of "implementation" of public policy programmes.In conceptualising environmental compliance in Ghana,we utilised,but adapted Van Meter and Van Horn's (1975)analytical model for the policy implementation process.Our presentation gives insight as to how the concrete case study may be explained in the light of the theory components employed.The objective is to explain the adjustments made to aspects of environmental policy design,which is,the re-organisation of the policy instrument of compliance enforcement to environmental quality regulation.In addressing the problem,the discussion was organised into the following chapters:chapter one gave a brief introduction about the subject matter of the environment as a policy issue area,and an introduction to our work; chapter two formed the theoretical chapter and approach to the problem statement.The NEP of Ghana is discussed in chapter three,stating aspects of environmental management in Ghana,and lastly instruments for environmental compliance.Chapter four begins with steps taken to address issues arising in the design of the NEP,and thereafter gives an empirical account account of the organisation of compliance enforcement.We integrated the theory,model , and the empiri in chapter five,where we tried to characterise the process of translating the policy instrument under consideration ,into outputs. The final chapter concludes the entire discussion by way of summary, implications, limitations, and suggestions.