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Over the past decades, the growing proliferation of international institutions governing the global environment has impelled institutional interplay as a result of functional and normative overlap across multiple regimes. This article synthesizes primary contributions made in research on institutional interplay over the past twenty years, with particular focus on publications with International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics. Broadening our understanding about the different types, dimensions, pathways, and effects of institutional interplay, scholars have produced key insights into the ways and means by which international institutions cooperate, manage discord, engage in problem solving, and capture synergies across levels and scales. As global environmental governance has become increasingly fragmented and complex, we recognize that recent studies have highlighted the growing interactions between transnationally operating institutions in the wake of polycentric governance and hybrid institutional complexes. However, our findings reveal that there is insufficient empirical and conceptual research to fully understand the relationship, causes, and consequences of interplay between intergovernmental and transnational institutions. Reflecting on the challenges of addressing regulatory gaps and mitigating the crisis of multilateralism, we expound the present research frontier for further advancing research on institutional interplay and provide recommendations to support policy-making.

With an ongoing pivot toward great power competition, there may be a temptation to reduce counter-proliferation efforts against violent non-state actors (VNSA) to a peripheral mission for U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM). However, the current and emerging threats of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) acquisition and use by VNSA are increasing through the ubiquity of various technologies, materials, and internet access. This research analyzes the use of chemical weapons (CW) by VNSA and the unique challenges of detecting and combating CW at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels. This research first implements regression models using chemical incident data from 1995–2017 to identify which strategic and operational environments are associated with VNSA CW adoption, and uses the outcomes to create a template for predictive intelligence methods for chemical threats. Next, the researchers conduct social network analysis to investigate commonalities among VNSA with chemical programs, and to determine if these CW tactics are geographically migrating. Then, lessons learned from the case study involving al-Qaeda in Iraq yield a proposed disruption model tested in a plausible, near-future scenario. Finally, policy recommendations are provided for USSOCOM and other relevant entities to improve counter-WMD efforts as they relate to the prediction and disruption of the chemical programs of VNSA. http://archive.org/details/achemicalromance1094564173 Lieutenant, United States Navy Lieutenant, United States Navy Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

This thesis investigates Albanian organized crime with a focus on the transnational crime of trafficking cannabis cultivated in Albania. It argues that the illicit cannabis market has flourished due to a difficult transition from communism to democracy, and efforts to combat the market, until recently, have been largely an afterthought by government officials. Additionally, organized crime has infiltrated portions of Albanian politics and its economy, which has had significant negative effects on Albania, its citizens, and its candidacy toward European Union (EU) membership. http://archive.org/details/internationaleff1094561277 Outstanding Thesis Lieutenant Commander, United States Navy Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

Several developing nations are grappling with the phenomenon of ungoverned territories, which are believed to be harboring insurgent, terrorist, and other armed violent groups. This study investigates how a developing nation can use its resources to reduce violent activities and, consequently, ungoverned spaces from within its sovereign territory. The study uses geo-referenced violent events data as a measure of violence and spatiotemporal data for law enforcement agencies (LEAs), social services, and economic infrastructure as measures of state authority. All data is specific to Uganda. Using multi-regression models (negative binomial and matched wake analysis), the study employs interpolated spatiotemporal data to estimate the effects of state authority factors on violent events over space and time. The findings show that LEAs, including police, prisons, courts, and border protection, are the most effective in reducing violence and therefore ungoverned territories. Save for schools and local governments, social services like health centers, and economic infrastructure like roads, tend to be associated with increased levels of violence. The policy implication for developing nations is therefore to consider directing their resources toward building their LEAs before or concurrently with socioeconomic services in order to reduce violence emanating from ungoverned spaces. http://archive.org/details/ungovernedspaces1094545911 Major, Uganda People’s Defense Forces Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

The purpose of this research is to identify factors to explain the gap in exit rate between state and non-state firms in Vietnam. With a sample of 7,962 Vietnamese firms and using the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition extended for non-linear models, the research finds out that a very large part of the ownership gap in exit rate between state and nonstate firms cannot be explained by the included covariates, but it is almost explained by the effects of differences in the coefficients of covariates. In particular, the differences in coefficients of covariates of initial assets, the industrial sector (mining, construction and manufacturing industries), and the service sector considerably increase the ownership gap in exit rate, but the difference in the coefficient of initial employment reduces the ownership gap in the exit rate. Moreover, differences in explanatory variables between state and non-state firms explain a very small part of the ownership gap in exit rate. This means that an estimate of the reduction in state and non-state firms’ exit rates (resulting from giving non-state firms the same characteristics as state firms) is very small. The differences in coefficients have a much greater impact on differences in exit rates than characteristics that may be due to existing discrimination between state and non-state firms.

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