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Integrated Water Resource Management relies intensive coordination, vertically across different levels of government and horizontally across policy sectors, as many decisions affecting water resources are taken outside the water sector (e.g., in agriculture, industry). Coordination problems across levels and sectors may arise due to incompatibilities of governance modes – coordinative mechanisms ranging from hierarchy, network, to market mode – employed in the often fragmented water policy domain. This paper contributes to the discussion departing from the overarching hypothesis that synergistic interplay of governance modes rather than the dominance of a single mode supports coordination. This hypothesis is rooted in the assumption that given the plurality of state and non-state actors in water governance, who are entangled in formal and informal relationships, neither the dominance of hierarchical control, market competition, nor collaboration in networks alone is capable to ensure coordination results as different modes are appropriate for different relationships within the sector. Coordination processes and results, therefore depend on the synergistic interplay between the governance modes employed. The paper presents case studies from Germany, Mongolia, South Africa, and Spain, which face different cross-sector coordination challenges. Our findings suggest that despite policy reforms for integrated water and environmental governance, hierarchy prevails in formal provisions and practices to differing degrees. We find evidence that synergistic interplay between governance modes supports horizontal coordination, which is necessary for solving nexus governance challenges. However, synergistic interplay is not sufficient to translate coordination practices to coordination outcomes. Factors such as leadership and conflicts powerfully influence the translation as well. • Synergies between governance modes affect cross-sectoral coordination processes and results. • The article presents a rigorous comparative study on five river basins worldwide. • Despite integrated management approaches, hierarchy prevails in water governance. • Horizontal coordination requires synergistic interplay of governance modes. • Conflicts over water resources and power asymmetries may render coordination ineffective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faced with the challenges posed by enhancing the performance of national waste management policy, sub-national political authorities in China have engaged with the public and non-state actors, particularly NGOs. Across China's multi-level administrative governance, different levels of government have consequently committed toward working with NGOs in waste management but the degree of actual participation remains questionable. Therefore, this study aims to assess participative relations between NGOs and neighborhood level governments as an indicator of this newfound national commitment to urban participatory governance. Analysis of three Chinese cities is conducted in order to uncover mechanisms for NGO participation in urban waste management. Each case study reveals different levels of participation: although central, provincial and city governments have displayed a welcoming attitude towards NGO engagement, local authorities have proven less open. Moreover, where NGOs are involved in waste governance, they exhibit some autonomy even while remaining under government control. Such findings can be explained by the motivations of local governments within participatory waste governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the announcement of Kenya's Vision 2030 , infrastructure provision has been cast as a central part of Kenya's development strategy. A key component of this vision is the upgrading of the Port of Mombasa, the largest and busiest port in East Africa, to international logistics standards. Analyzing the implementation of the Mombasa Port Development Program (MPDP), this article argues that it reveals a transformation of the politics of 'gatekeeping' - understood as the political contests around the spatial and institutional sites that mediate the circulation of resources between domestic and international political-economic spheres. The controversies surrounding the management of the MPDP reveal how gatekeeping has undergone a process of decentralization, that results in arenas of gatekeeper competition multiplying at the intersection of new institutional and spatial sites of political contestation. The article demonstrates how gatekeeping now increasingly encompasses complex interactions between peripheral city-level actors and international state and non-state actors. Spatially, it emphasizes how gatekeeping contests crystallize around Mombasa's logistics sector, due to the port city's position as a crucial gateway linking the hinterland to global trade networks. This, I argue, is transforming Mombasa into a gatekeeper city understood as an urban space of transboundary logistical entanglements, where a variety of spatial practices encounter, and reconfigure the modalities of gatekeeping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protected areas are frequently used as an important governance approach for biodiversity conservation. Even though the total area of protected areas has increased over time, the coverage, quality of management and effectiveness of these areas are still suboptimal. A large body of literature identifies four main challenges that limit the effectiveness of protected areas: lack of stakeholder participation, insufficient organisational capacity to enforce rules, poor integration across social and ecological goals, and underdeveloped accountability mechanisms for assessing management procedures. To address these challenges, scholars and policymakers increasingly debate how to foster an integrated, inclusive, and transparent "whole of society" approach to conservation. We contribute to this debate by examining the role of international cooperative initiatives (ICIs), involving non-state and subnational actors operating across national borders to steer society towards a common goal. We identify 20 ICIs that work on protected areas and analyse their potential to address the four main challenges identified in protected areas, by examining their actor constellation, governance functions, goal alignment, and monitoring and reporting mechanisms. We find that ICIs working on protected areas have the potential to directly address challenges in protected areas related to lack of capacity and accountability mechanisms, and indirectly address challenges related to lack of participation and integration across goals. We discuss these findings in relation to scholarly debates in the global environmental governance and protected areas literature respectively, as well as, to policy debates over the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework within the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). • We identify 20 international cooperative initiatives (ICIs) working on protected areas. • These ICIs can directly and indirectly address key challenges in protected areas. • They are mostly civil society and public-led and engaged in information sharing. • Their goals are well-aligned with global objectives on conservation and sustainable use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on autoethnographic and ethnographic data from Macao, this study aims to elucidate the proposed concept of "political liminality." This concept highlights that politics is constituted by multiple binaries with multiple ambiguities, where the overlapping, interacting, and staggering of multiple binaries occur across the political space. Political liminality also involves verb attributes, occurring in the productive process among three key binaries— macro/micro politics, state/non-state actors, and hybrid online/offline practices. Using Lefebvre's "perceived-conceived-lived" triad as an analytical frame, this study further investigates the production of political liminality in Macao. The authors not only analyze how the one-country-two-systems policy functions as representations of space intervening in spatial textures of borders, but also challenge the presumed passive role of non-state actors in nationalist activities, yielding a bottom-up political liminality in people's lived spaces. In the case of an enclave within Macao, the authors further discuss the ambiguities involved in political liminality over the geographical and digital issues of liminal sovereignty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geopolitical strategies and transnational governance can synergistically interact to meet strategic ambitions and environmental targets. International NGOs and their transnational operations are the heart of these entangled dynamics. This study reveals how geopolitical strategies influence international NGOs and their transnational activities. Drawing on empirical insights from a comparative study of international NGOs (Japanese and Chinese) in Cambodia, we developed two models to elucidate the nature of this relationship. The "tight coupling" model is exemplified by Japanese NGOs that are closely aligned with the Japanese state's geopolitical focus on soft power in Southeast Asia. This alignment results in strong state support in terms of resources and networking capabilities, enabling the NGOs to conduct long-term environmental work and build relationships with Cambodian communities through deep engagement. The "loose coupling" model is exemplified by Chinese NGOs whose alignment with China's dominant geopolitical strategy (the Belt and Road Initiative) is relatively weak. Consequently, these NGOs receive limited state support, which restrict their ability to engage with local communities and achieve a sustainable impact. This study breaks new ground by weaving together the fields of geopolitics and transnational environmental governance, offering new insights regarding how to incorporate geopolitical perspectives in examining the roles of non-state actors in global environmental politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Network-based rural development approaches, rooted in neo-endogenous or nexogenous models and aiming to mobilise the development potential of local assets and address local needs by connecting to broader external actor-networks, have been emphasised in rural development policies worldwide. Since the introduction of its National Rural Revitalisation Strategy in 2017, China has adopted more policies, and advanced more programmes, with networked features, which seek to involve local communities and non-governmental extra-local actors in the implementation of rural policy. The 'reaching in' state has a key role to play in the Chinese networked approach, which drives technocratic remedial programmes in response to rural marginalisation, and which seeks to generate new surplus value from supported local economies. This paper introduces the concept of neo-exogenous development (NED), distinguishing this emergent Chinese hybrid development paradigm from its European-Western counterparts. The 'reaching out' of communities in Europe is frequently a response to weakening state intervention, with connections made to non-state actors and networks. However, China's NED approach is characterised by a 'reaching in' active party-state and 'conducted' (or activated) communities , which are inter-connected by 'semi-formal party organisations.' To date, few research studies have explored the specific governance structure of China's NED practices and its dynamics, or sought to situate these in a broader international context of rural development paradigms. This gap in extant research impedes the transfer of knowledge on networked approaches across international rural contexts. This article reports on research investigating the implementation process of a Modern Agriculture Zone (MAZ) programme in Sichuan, a marginalised region of China. That research drew on semi-structured interviews with key actors from county and town governments, the MAZ Management Committee, local community and collective enterprises, and extra-local enterprises. It aims to unveil the distinctive local-state dynamics of NED practice, to show how the active party-state has provoked the reconfiguration of social relations and produced activated communities. • The paper introduces the concept of neo-exogenous development (NED), which is presented as an emergent rural development model. • From the imperial, to the Maoist, and to the modern period, China's rural development has been shaped by the state's desire to effectively integrate and govern an otherwise 'discrete' rural society. • Rooted in a semi-formal and clientelist rural governance tradition, NED combines exogenous 'reaching-in' state interventions with an array of steered endogenous features. • NED connects an active party-state with activated communities via semi-formal rural party networks. • Three drawbacks of NED are underscored: dependency on political recognition and impetus, reliance on public finance, elite capture of benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kenya's new energy legislation provides a framework for participatory national energy planning. This planning process is intended to formulate a vision for the energy sector, and identify and prioritize energy programmes, projects and/or facilities that contribute to realizing the vision. This paper describes an initiative to structure and operationalize the participation of private sector, civil society, and development organizations in this new energy planning process. The initiative leverages knowledge from the field of sustainable transitions research; the transition management approach is applied to establish a transition arena where non-state actors in the energy sector deliberate and develop visions, pathways, and interventions to be presented for consideration during the preparation of the integrated national energy plan. A structure to institutionalize and operationalize the participation of private sector, civil society and development organizations in Kenya's national energy planning process is developed, as well as a standardized approach to develop non-state actor inputs for the preparation and cyclical review of Kenya's national energy plan. The focus of this paper is the inputs developed by non-state actors for Kenya's integrated national energy plan under the electricity access thematic area. • Knowledge, information & expertise amongst non-state actors to inform energy planning. • Need to structure and institutionalize participation of non-state actors in energy planning • Transition management approach facilitates participatory national energy planning. • Transition agenda developed for electricity access in Kenya. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although states continue to work together under the UNFCCC, it is increasingly apparent that not enough is being done, and that a just response to climate change is not being pursued. This paper asks whether non-state actors, such as cities, corporations, and non-governmental organisations might, by contrast, offer hope for such a response to emerge. Using the city of Bristol as an empirical case study, the paper puts forward that non-state actors can not only lower emissions and/or contribute to adaptation efforts, but more importantly have the potential to significantly shift the context of climate change action and create space for systemic change. They therefore offer room for cautious optimism. • Cosmopolitan climate justice centred analysis of non-state actors. • Non-state actors offer hope for a just response to climate change. • Non-state actors can push for systemic change in climate change policy. • City of Bristol, UK, used as an empirical case study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the Dutch policy reaction to the financial crisis in the public transport sector caused by Covid-19. Using the multi-level governance theory complemented with the notion of informal governance, the analysis explains the decision-making that defined a State-aid scheme to public transport operators following a process of consultation and concertation between state and non-state actors across governance tiers. To agree on a financial rescue package, these actors engage in front-stage and back-stage political interactions, constrained and enabled by formal and informal governance structures and practices. By analyzing how the interplay between the political mobilization of actors, policy-making arrangements, and existing polity structures shapes political alignment around the financial support scheme, the paper concludes that the crisis did not change customary governance and policy-making practices. Stakeholders sought their usual partners and followed existing routines in path-dependent ways to address the policy challenge brought by Covid-19. Despite being triggered by a major exogenous shock, the policy response to the crisis was driven mainly by endogenous forces; the decision-making mechanism remained the same and the network of actors did not shrink or expand. • Multi-level governance decision-making establishes State-aid scheme for operators. • Informal practices of consultation and concertation drive response to crisis. • State and non-state actors cross governance levels in front and back-stage politics. • Customary governance routines remain in place despite shock with crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The way in which powerful AI technologies could transform our lives, society, economics, governance and most importantly ethics and morality surrounding it is quite popular in every day news media as well as our drawing room discussions at home. There is considerable confusion among individuals and communities on the impact of AI. Profit seeking global mega corporations have already poured in billions of dollars in AI research and development to maximise their profits. On the other hand, there are scary and dangerous scenarios shaping up on the impact and use of AI tools. Rouge and non-state actors are weaponizing AI technologies as well as giving rise to new fake platforms. We are not far away from killer robots, autonomous weapons and robotic war fare as depicted in the film Slaughterbots. The main purpose and objective of this essay is to understand what is good, bad and the scary of AI developments? What are the positive and negative impacts of AI on our contemporary society? Should we leave AI technology within the perspective of technological determinism or is there a scope to socially shape the new technology for the benefit of our society. These are some of the important issues that will be addressed in this essay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the world's largest seafood trading country, China has a significant influence on the global seafood system. This study explores the growing role of China as a state actor in the seafood trade since the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak. While China has been interested in ensuring its food security, China's trade policy also illustrates strategic and political motivations combined with ongoing modernization efforts in food safety. Using the recent case of China's ban on seafood imports, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, our study adds empirical evidence to support a nuanced understanding of China's food trade measures. This implies that China as a state actor is playing a more active role even with the growing power of non-state actors in shaping the seafood trade. Our finding can be applicable to other recent cases that highlight the growing role of state actors in seafood trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of partnerships in the governance of UK migration policy, considering how partnerships have been mobilised to navigate tensions between multiple state and non-state actors. The paper focuses on the work of regional strategic migration partnerships (SMPs) across the UK, bodies that bring together national and local government, statutory agencies, third sector organisations, and private contractors, all concerned with the management of migration and asylum. Considering SMPs as sites of collaboration and contention within local 'battlegrounds' of policy, the paper examines how enrolment and socialisation shape relations between actors, serving to sustain governmental authority but also offer openings for the formation of advocacy coalitions. Through examining how SMPs addressed the outsourcing of asylum support services, I argue that for many non-state actors enrolment into an SMP produces an ambivalent politics centred on forms of tactical closeness and critical discomfort. In concluding, I suggest the forms of intimacy created through enrolment serve to extend ambivalence as actors become torn between relationships and commitments, highlighting the fraught and often unstable nature of SMPs as bodies of policy coordination and advocacy potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have often found socioeconomic factors like income and education to be determinants of political participation in advanced democracies. However, past studies have claimed that in emerging democracies and hybrid regimes like those in Africa, education and income do not predict participation. If so, what determines participation in the region? This study examines the determinants of citizen engagement and political participation in sub-Saharan Africa; and argues that political attitudes differ depending on who provides the basic goods and services. Specifically, non-state provision of goods reduces political participation and leads to a weak state. I argue that when the state provides, citizens are more likely to participate; whereas when non-state actors provide, citizens are less likely to participate in politics. I also examine the effects of various non-state actors. This paper draws on data from an original survey experiment and fieldwork in Nigeria. This paper sheds light on subnational governance, democratization and citizen-state relationships. Further, the project contributes to the literature on political institutions and institutional analysis of public service delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Asia, Africa, and Latin America, complex drivers of deforestation have sparked mandatory and voluntary initiatives, including moratorium policies, zero-deforestation pledges and certification systems. The impacts of these different commitments, which aim to reduce deforestation, have yet to be documented or analytically scrutinized. Using South Sumatra as a case study, we used the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework to identify the context and impacts of public and private sector commitments. Public sector commitment was assessed by examining political will reflected in government policies and regulations, while private sector commitment was assessed by looking at compliance with mandatory and voluntary certification schemes. South Sumatra lost 63% of its natural forest between 1990 and 2019. Deforestation is driven by expansion of large-scale commercial plantations, as well as illegal logging and clearing. Our study indicates that public and private sector commitments do matter. Statistically, we found sufficient evidence that private sector commitments were able to significantly reduce deforestation from year of commitments to 2019, at a 90% confidence level. Efforts to support zero-deforestation commitments must involve radical shifts in current policy and practice, with stricter law enforcement to combat illegal activities, greater transparency to inform progress, and the development of strategic and actionable plans. • Deforestation is driven mainly by plantation expansion and aggravated by illegal activities. • Institutional analysis and development (IAD) framework helps understand how actors translate commitments into actions. • Commitments are actioned by public and private actors with non-state actor support. • Private sector commitments reduce deforestation but haven't 'zeroed' deforestation. • Implementation must be regularly monitored to allow for corrective action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the increasing failure of participatory governed planning interventions in attaining inclusive outcomes, critical governance scholars have articulated the need to pay attention to politics, especially in the global South. Motivated by this pertinent scholarly invitation, this study examines the politics in a state-community collaboration involving the provision, operations and maintenance of water infrastructures in rural and small towns of Ghana. By drawing on everyday politics and the qualitative case study, we explore the actors involved and their roles, the rules guiding the collaboration, the power relations, and how activities were performed; and offer a reflection on the implications for inclusive governance. We showed that though state-community collaboration holds the potential for joint deliberation towards the operations and maintenance of water projects, instead, it manifested more of a representation in practice, where rules and principles of the collaboration were pre-defined by state actors and served non-state actors in the implementation (provision of labour, financial/material inputs and meetings). These were shaped by the diverse interests and uneven power relations between state and non-state actors and among community-level representatives, including experts' power of dominance by knowledge, and the quest for incentives in the collaboration. The findings suggest that the constellation of actors and the uneven power relations inherent in collaborative governance arrangements tend to empower actors with the "powers over" and "powers to" empower non-state actors. Therefore, we recommend that planners and policy-makers pay attention to power relations and dynamics among actors by conducting power dynamic mapping toward building partnerships for inclusive governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-state actors are important participants in ocean governance. In China, with the transformation of government management functions and the goal of establishing a 'co-construction, co-governance and sharing' social governance system, more attention is being paid to the role of non-state actors in ocean governance. Non-state actors in ocean governance require legal basis for their different roles of participation in different governance areas. At present, legal basis has been provided to allow non-state actors to supervise the government's activities, cooperate with government to improve the ocean service supply ability, assist the government in its policy and decision-making, realise social self-governance, and enrich ocean governance resources. In the future, by providing detailed rules on procedural requirements of public participation, implementation of incentive measures and internationalization of non-state actors' participation, perfecting the underlying legal system of social organisations, and exploring a wider and deeper participation of non-state actors in ocean governance from the legal side, improved legal regime can be shaped to contribute to the enhanced participation of non-state actors in ocean governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prevailing argument that quasi-democratic institutions in authoritarian regimes improve governance outcomes hinges on the presumption that institutions empower non-state actors and constrain the discretionary power of ruling elites—a concept we call “institutional bindingness.” However, institutions are not always binding, and the degree of institutional bindingness varies across contexts. This article examines the bindingness of village elections in China. Through the lens of land expropriation in peri-urban villages and using survey data, we find that institutional bindingness—operationalized in terms of the power structure within village leadership—strongly shapes the processes and outcomes of land expropriations and therefore the quality of village governance. Moreover, village power structure depends on political bargaining between ordinary villagers and local states. Our findings contribute to the understanding of quasi-democratic institutions in authoritarian regimes by explicitly examining how institutional bindingness affects governance outcomes and how bindingness is endogenously determined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate the impact of security expenditures from military alliances involving third-party intervention on violent incidents from non-state actors. Our main learning is a rather surprising fact that at a lower level of security expenditure in the violence affected area, an increase in security expenditures leads to an increase in violent incidents (rather than a decrease); and only at higher level of security expenditure in the area, an increase in security expenditure leads to a decline in violent incidents. For the analysis, we use a novel dataset on naxalite violence obtained directly from the police head-quarters of the three most affected states in India. The data consists of 64 districts spanning over years 2001 till 2013 and includes information on the annual number of violent incidents and the size of the security forces allocated specifically to curb the naxalite violence. We use negative binomial regression model with the number of violent incidents as the dependent variable and lagged size of security forces as the independent variable, while controlling for other relevant variables. Further, to address issues of potential reverse causality, we use a propensity score matching technique to infer the causal nature of such an association. We also argue that when the union government intervenes as a third party to support the state governments to fight the naxalites, the latter may be under-funding by free riding. However, despite such underfunding, if the overall contribution is positive and continued, eventually the concentration of security forces in an area will overwhelm the naxalites and reduce the incidents. Lastly, we highlight that though the mainstream literature on civil wars has used per capita income as a proxy for security expenditures, it becomes inappropriate when a more direct measure of security expenditures is used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Space activities and infrastructure today are critical to international security and the global economy. The space domain is not, however, subject to sovereign control by international law. Like other shared domains, such as the high seas, the polar regions, and arguably cyberspace, space is a domain in which State and non-State actors interact beyond national borders. Given global dependence on space-derived information and an increase in potential adversary threats to space assets, States have taken a number of steps in recent years to protect their national interests in space. Despite its importance and increasing global attention, international cooperation and competition in space is a relatively under theorized topic in international relations. Conversely, international relations theories are not widely used in the development of United States (U.S.) national space policy and the practice of space diplomacy, from a U.S. perspective. The intent of this article is to address this rift between theory and policy by briefly describing major theories of international relations and where they can shed light on how and why States engage in cooperation and competition in space. The article addresses the major schools of realism, liberalism, and constructivism, with applications to space activity. No single theory fully describes the U.S. policy approach to international space activities. Different theories, applied to the same situation, can, however, provide useful perspectives to both theorists and policy-makers. This suggests the use of a mixed, pragmatic approach, referred to as "eclectic theorizing" in international relations literature, as a promising avenue for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has become the leading country in promoting green finance, and it now has one of the largest green bond markets in the world. To solve the problem of greenwashing in the global green bond markets, several transnational non-state actors have constructed global green bond standards, such as the Climate Bonds Standard. However, not all Chinese green bond issuers comply with global green bond standards. Why do some Chinese green bond issuers comply with the global green bond standards, while others don't? By analyzing a unique dataset of Chinese green bonds between 2016 and 2018, this article finds that Chinese green bond issuers are more likely to choose a higher level of compliance with the Climate Bonds Standard when the issuers have more political connections and Western linkages. In contrast, issuers' level of compliance is lower when the domestic regulatory agency does not actively encourage compliance with global green bond standards. Meanwhile, the findings indicates that Western linkages can moderate the effect of regulation on firms' compliance. [Display omitted] • Encouragement from domestic regulatory agencies positively affects Chinese green bond issuers' compliance with global standards. • Chinese green bond issuers with political connections or Western linkages tend to prioritize higher compliance with global green bond standards. • Chinese green bond issuers that are central state-owned enterprises tend to choose a higher level of compliance with global green bond standards. • Western linkages moderate the impact of domestic regulation on Chinese green bond issuers' compliance with global standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global proliferation of camps manifests an alarming phenomenon of burgeoning marginalization, and shows that the concept of ‘camp’ is today increasingly crucial to grapple with current changes in the world’s geographies of exclusion and inclusion. Specifically, this article focuses on ‘institutional camps’, i.e. created by government agencies in alleged emergency situations and aims to conceptualize sovereignty over this type of camp. After critically reviewing the ongoing scholarly debate on camp sovereignty, I situate my approach within the work of scholars who see political authority over the camp as comprising a multiplicity of both state and non-state actors. The article contributes to this perspective by drawing on the theory of ‘contentious politics’ advanced by McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly (2001) . Through this analytical framework, I suggest construing camp sovereignties as contentious, i.e. inherently constituted by conflicting and ever-evolving power relations that change according to framing strategies, political opportunities, resources and repertoires of action. In order to show the benefits of such approach, the paper focuses on the empirical case of the Italian Roma camps in Rome, through which I show that camp sovereignty is not only fragmented into a multiplicity of actors but is also the result of conflict, compromise, negotiation, and co-optation among actors whose frames, opportunities, resources, and repertoires constantly change over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Since the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the UN General Assembly in September 2015, interest in building effective development partnerships has grown in the both the international development discipline and practitioner community. Responding to this trend, many scholars and policy-makers highlight participatory development cooperation among state actors and non-state actors as a means of achieving comprehensive development goals. Despite this emphasis, however, only a handful of empirical studies have examined whether such partnerships have any meaningful relationship with project outcomes. This study aims to answer whether and to what extent different types of implementing partnerships (i.e., state or non-state implementing agencies) affect the outcome of development projects. Using the World Bank Independent Evaluation Group (WBIEG) project data with newly constructed implementing partnership variables, this study shows that implementing partnerships with host country governmental agencies tend to produce a less successful outcome compared to partnerships with non-state actors, and on average only attain moderate-level outcomes. Projects implemented by non-state actors, on the other hand, are likely to result in higher level project outcomes. The paper further tests these findings by analyzing the relationship between the number of state and non-state partners interacting in a project and the subsequent project outcome. This result suggests that an increased number of non-state actor participants leads to a better project outcome; this positive participatory effect, however, diminishes as the number of governmental implementers increases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary This article diagnoses major causes of the uncomfortable relationship between missionaries and development scholars and practitioners, and it proposes new ways to clarify the relationship through shared reflection on sacred influences that shape global development. In the past fifteen years the turn to religion in development studies has altered how development scholars and practitioners perceive religious actors, opening up possibilities for renewed partnership. Yet the turn to religion in development has mostly disregarded missionaries. This oversight is partly due to the complicated historical relationship between Western Christian missionaries and development workers. Although missionaries have long participated in the work of development, present-day missionaries remain associated with coercive proselytization, or they are overlooked in literature on religion and development. In order to understand the challenges of positioning missionaries in development, I review 48 sources which create, apply, or critique typologies of faith-based organizations (FBOs). FBO typologies of the past fifteen years have broken new ground in exploring the links between beliefs and practices of religious actors doing development work. Yet these typologies struggle to position missionaries due to (1) simplistic categorization of FBOs, (2) unhelpful scales of religiosity, and (3) a basis in outdated assumptions of separate spheres of religious and secular actors, and separate worlds of religion and development. Based on shared critiques of FBO typologies, I propose a new framework for positioning missionaries. The framework provides a shared space to explore how all development actors, both religious and secular, are shaped by the interaction between sacred and material influences. The framework offers a way to move beyond circular arguments about comparative advantage of religious or secular approaches toward an appreciation of the complementarity of different approaches to development. The article concludes with a shared critique of missionaries and development workers who impose their beliefs and values on others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a United Nations human rights monitoring mechanism aimed at advancing global human rights protection. With Sudan as a case study, this paper conducts a content and discourse analysis to explore the extent to which UPR women's rights recommendations incorporate an intersectional lens. Findings indicate that only 12 out of 129 recommendations issued to Sudan during the first three UPR cycles incorporate an intersectional lens, demonstrating that the UPR recommendations concerning women's rights in Sudan reflect a limited incorporation of intersectionality. This could negatively impact the advancement of women's rights protection for some groups of women in Sudan. Policy implications include the need for states to issue more intersectional recommendations; the incorporation of a higher level of intersectionality in stakeholder and national reports; and the need for the Sudanese government to implement intersectional recommendations through policies at the national level. • UPR recommendations concerning women's rights reflect a limited incorporation of intersectionality. • This limited incorporation of intersectionality could negatively impact the rights of some women. • Content and discourse analysis is a meaningful methodology for examining intersectionality in UPR recommendations. • State and non-state actors need to ensure that UPR recommendations reflect a higher degree of intersectionality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many protest movements have brought down dictatorships and paved the way for democracy. However, protests can also foster large-scale violence at the level of civil war. How can we explain the development from protest to armed conflict? In this paper, we use geographically fine-grained data to examine how collective mobilization leads to civil war violence at the local level. We argue that two mechanisms can explain this. First, in a protest escalation dynamic, confrontations between protesters and state security forces increase the willingness of protesters to ramp up the use of force. Second, in a protest capture mechanism, protests attract attention and resources from the state, thereby providing other local non-state actors with the opportunity to use violence. We test our theoretical expectations in a spatial analysis of protests and armed conflict in autocracies from 2003 to 2014. Our results show that protests increase the risk of local armed conflict when violently repressed. Further analysis reveals that the second mechanism, protest capture, accounts for the majority of escalations to armed conflict we see in our data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban governance research posits a trend towards more cooperation between state and non-state actors. We also know that civil society organizations working on common issues often reinforce each other to secure a stronger voice. However, little research so far brings together urban governance and civil society coordination. This is particularly interesting for the action and policy field of diversity and inclusion, given its constant flux, multi-dimensionality, and political salience, as well as the many competing actors and agendas. Based on an in-depth case study of the city of Rotterdam, this article investigates the relations among organizations that focus on the interests of migrants and other marginalized residents and between these organizations and the municipality. We use qualitative and quantitative Social Network Analysis and draw on 27 semi-structured qualitative interviews as well as 25 network maps carried out with and drawn by representatives of civil society organizations. Our findings show a stratified governance network of actors working on diversity and inclusion in Rotterdam, where only a few large organizations serve as brokers, facilitating exchange but sometimes also reinforcing existing power relations. These findings underscore the importance of critically reviewing the collaborative character of urban governance in practice. • Local governance involves power relations. • Civil society organizations that act as brokers can facilitate exchange, but also can reinforce hierarchy. • Social Network Analysis allows to capture networks of urban actors working on diversity and inclusion. • Rotterdam's model of governing has led to instability for civil society organizations working on inclusion and diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, private actors and civil society groups are increasingly participating in food safety governance. Although prevalent in developed countries, the phenomenon is emerging in developing countries. Using certification schemes, actors behind these governance arrangements exercise responsibilities over the food system through the enforcement of best practices, the promotion and sale of certified products, and the communication of diverse value-laden product attributes to consumers through labels. In Ghana, a new food safety governance arrangement – the Ghana Green Label Foundation – has emerged through the collaboration of multiple state and non-state actors. The arrangement represents the first successful introduction of a co-regulation regime in Ghana, achieving local market adoption and consumer patronage. This article examines the evolution of the Foundation, highlighting its trajectory towards market entry, for possible transfer of lessons into other geographic contexts. The location of this study, with a large informal food market sector, as well as the interdependence on peripheral areas and other farther regions for food supply, provide a unique context for adding to the international food governance literature. The article makes recommendations on how local policymakers could sustain the Foundation to contribute to long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability goals. • A new food safety governance arrangement called the Ghana Green Label Foundation, involving non-state actors, has emerged in Ghana • The Foundation uses certification to promote a good agricultural practices, to achieve food system sustainability • The emergence of the Foundation shows the increasing diffusion of socio-technical innovations into developing countries • Its partnership with mandated state institutions, is a shift from 'government to governance' in the Ghanaian food system. • Lessons may be particularly appropriate for cities of the Global South struggling to address food governance challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Central to climate justice is the question of who will pay for the mitigation and adaptation efforts needed as the climate crisis worsens, particularly in countries that bear little responsibility for global greenhouse gas emissions. Climate finance is a complex set of mechanisms intended to address this concern. World-systems theory has long understood international development assistance as a tool that reproduces spatial dependency between states. In this paper, we ask whether climate finance follows the expectations of world-systems theory and reproduces relationships of dependency, or if it instead advances climate justice and challenges spatial dependency in the world-system. Through this analysis, we consider the implications of climate finance for world-systems theory. We use recent empirical data to ask whether climate finance follows or challenges world-systems theory expectations, focusing on five areas: (1) spatial flows of climate finance between the core, semi-periphery, and periphery; (2) the governance of climate finance institutions; (3) the types of projects supported by climate finance; (4) the relationship of projects to dominant systems of extraction, production, and consumption; and (5) the agency of peripheral state and non-state actors in shaping climate finance in relation to their interests. Taken together, we argue that climate finance in many ways reproduces relationships of dependency, though potential avenues exist for contesting this unequal balance of power and for advocating for climate justice. This case illustrates the need to approach analyses of dependency in a nuanced way, interrogating specific processes through which dependency is produced and contested across scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how state and non-state actors claim public authority in areas of contested sovereignty. It develops the concept of the frontier as a point of departure. As zonal spaces of weakly established or overlapping authority, frontiers have historically been sites of collaboration between state and non-state actors. Extending the concept to shed light on contemporary forms of state and non-state governing arrangements, I argue that frontiers can be can also be analysed across specific domains of public authority. I highlight three domains in particular: the symbolic domain, where the state is imagined as a collective actor; the contractual domain, which depends on the use of public services to establish a social contract; and the protective domain, the classic Hobbesian justification for the state as a provider of security. Applying the frontier framework to North Kosovo, I argue that Serbia has sustained a near monopoly over the symbolic and contractual domains in the contested region yet is severely constrained in the protective domain. As a result, Belgrade has relied on outsourcing authority to local illicit actors to maintain leverage. However, these actors have also carved out their own autonomous forms of authority and actively manipulate the ambiguous political boundaries in North Kosovo to their advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Major urban redevelopment projects entail the drawing upon and coordinating of vast resources including land, capital, and expert knowledge. At the core of urban redevelopment emerge policy instruments, including Land Value Capture (LVC), that smooth the way for desired project outcomes. This article explores three major urban redevelopment projects carried out by different coalitions of societal actors, often depicted as having irreconcilable interests and resources, in three Danish towns and cities—Aarhus, Aalborg and Køge. We suggest that a governmentality perspective, with its attentiveness to the rationalities and technologies activated in governmental projects, helps us to interrogate the ways in which the interests and resources of different actors are mobilised and reconciled for value creation in LVC based redevelopment. This paper argues that land value increment , central to LVC instruments, offers limited insight into accessing the success of, or 'best practices' in, LVC based redevelopment. LVC instruments create fields of action where the interests and resources of state and non-state actors can coalesce around broader, and some competing, ideas of value. Examining the conditions in which value is created, captured and used in LVC based redevelopment further challenges stereotypical views that depict the logics and practices of state and non-state actors as essentially antagonistic. • A governmentality framework highlights the central role of the state in processes of value creation in urban transformation • The idea of land value increment , dominant in LVC processes, offers limited insight in assessing LVC 'best practices' • More holistic conceptualisations of value suggest non-antagonistic conceptualisations of state/non-state actor relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Who do urban residents turn to in everyday security incidents? Why do some go to the police in certain locations, others to armed nonstate actors or kinship networks? We explore the ways in which residents and security actors – state and nonstate – negotiate everyday (in)security in contested urban spaces with multiple security actors. We consider how hybrid security assemblages are shaped by physical and social space and how everyday security practices shape space. We use Beirut's Southern Suburbs (Dahiyeh) as a site of theorisation, bringing local vernacular experiences into dialogue with Bourdieu's concepts of capital, habitus , doxa and field to develop a spatially dynamic analytical framework. Using this framework, we map security actors' different types and sizes of capital and how this capital is affected by residents' habitus and doxa within the everyday security field. We introduce the notion of 'translocal habitus' to capture the impact of families' origins outside Dahiyeh on everyday security dynamics. The framework we develop contributes to the spatialisation, vernacularisation and pluralisation of everyday security studies, furthers the spatialisation of Bourdieu and adds to the literature on hybrid forms of governance. Our analysis is based on extensive fieldwork, including over 150 interviews and 'street chats' with residents and security actors in and around Dahiyeh. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of transnational governance mechanisms specifically relating to mountains is limited. Using the three axes of the framework developed by Balsiger and VanDeveer (2012) – agency, substance, and territoriality – this paper reviews progress in this domain and looks forward. It introduces themes for transnational governance of mountains in the context of the Rio conferences of 1992 and 2012 and then presents progress with regard to governance arrangements in different regions of the world, first, for biodiversity and related issues and, second, for sustainable (mountain) development. As well as state actors, many nonstate actors are involved in these arrangements; these actors are discussed. The paper concludes with conclusions regarding transnational governance in mountain areas to date and identifies future actions in the realms of monitoring, research and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Based on an analytical framework that builds on theories of incremental institutional change, this article interrogates the relationship between decentralization and mineral resource conflict in the Philippines. Here, efforts to decentralize control over mineral resource wealth have resulted in a highly ambiguous institutional arena, wherein heterogeneous actor coalitions are attempting to influence trajectories of institutional change, and the associated distribution of mineral wealth. On the ground, this institutional renegotiation produces a diverse range of conflicts. Emerging on top of these institutional struggles are local elected politicians, which raises important concerns over elite capture of the decentralization process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intergovernmental organisations have developed into important sites of normative contestation where increasingly non-state actors participate. A common puzzle is however whether engaged non-state actors represent already strong and established interests or if they also bring forth marginalised voices. This concern raises the pertinent question of what views non-state actors actually represent and if this adds to the perspectives voiced by state actors. This paper examines the views held and voiced by state and a range of non-state participants at the United Nation's climate change conferences. Specifically, questions on what types of climate change solutions are favoured and to what extent these solutions are discussed are addressed. Through statistical analyses of questionnaire data and a content analysis of abstracts of side-events to the conferences, we find that while non-state actors help in broadening the discursive space, some perspectives remain marginalised. We conclude that while non-state actors represent a pluralising force, greater non-state actor participation in intergovernmental organisations is on its own unlikely to lead to democratic global governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fisheries governance, in its broader sense, is a dynamic process where fishing communities and the society at large take careful decisions to allocate resources for sustaining the ecological, economic and social viability of fisheries. The Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework has been modified to suit to the empirical context of the study area and used in the analysis. The study analyses the interaction between various state and non-state governance institutions in detail and sketch how these institutional interactions bring forth effective socially acceptable solutions for the governance of modern marine fisheries along the South West coast of India. The study noted that involving non-state, community institutions at different levels is an essential process for the success of fisheries governance efforts in a small scale modern marine fishery that is operated by heterogeneous groups of fishers engaged in a wide array of fishing practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite their implication in almost all aspects of the field, organizations remain a black box within critical geopolitics. The majority of the literature looks at organizations from the outside, either treating them as producers of geopolitical representations or as geopolitical actors. An explicit engagement with what organizations are, what makes their actorness and what fashions them with power is missing. This contribution draws on ideas from actor-network theory (ANT) to conceptualize organizations as socio-material networks that emerge from continuous processes of ordering. Tracing these processes along the associations they establish should be an important task of a critical geopolitics. The paper sketches a research agenda around four nodes for such a focus on the socio-material practices of ordering: the circulation of geopolitical ideas, the production of geopolitics, governance at a distance and technologies of ordering. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper explores the relationship between national iconography, banal nationalism and conceptions of the state. It begins by reviewing scholarship on visual culture associated with official products of the state: namely, stamps and money. This reveals a preoccupation with content analysis and a tendency to assume state control over the symbolic content of money (and stamps) without clarifying the nature of design processes, the nature of state involvement in these processes, or how ‘the state’ is being conceptualized. The paper addresses these lacunae, beginning with an examination of approaches to banknote design and clarification of the role of the state in these processes. This analysis reveals that non-state actors and institutions are frequently responsible for this key mechanism of official iconographic representation and this, in turn, supports calls for a reassessment of the concept of the state. After outlining an alternative conception of the state, as an idea that produces ‘state effects’ rather than an empirical entity separate from society, the value of this concept is illustrated by showing how it can explain banknote production in the stateless nation of Scotland. The revelation that commercial banks can be co-constitutive of state effects – things like banknotes, national institutions, iconography and identity – challenges presumptions of a discrete state that controls its own representation and the regulation of society. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

When transparency is used as a tool for global environmental governance – i.e., to induce targeted actors to reduce environmentally-harmful behaviors, it can operate via disclosure or education. Disclosure-based policies improve the information the public has about targeted actors' behaviors while education-based policies improve the information targeted actors have about their own behaviors, whether that is information about consequences, alternatives, or social norms. Various social and political forces shape whether and what type of transparency policies are adopted. Disclosure-based and education-based transparency policies are effective under different conditions and operate through different mechanisms. Both often operate through mechanisms that reflect an instrumental logic of consequences but also can and do operate through mechanisms that reflect a normative logic of appropriateness, by increasing the legitimacy accorded to global environmental norms and the social accountability targeted actors feel regarding their behaviors. Understanding the differences in the mechanisms by which disclosure-based and education-based transparency policies operate suggests that both scholars and practitioners should use caution in understanding why, and predicting when, such policies will work. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

What happens when states or empires face multiple and geographically dispersed assaults along their frontiers from non-state, tribal actors? It is plausible to argue that the result may be state decentralization, both military and administrative. In some cases, this may be a conscious strategy pursued by the central authorities, but in others, it may be the result of centrifugal tendencies pursued by disaffected local leaders. This article illustrates this argument by describing the end of the Roman empire, caused by multiple assaults of barbarian groups. The lesson is that in such an environment a centralized state that arrogates to itself all the functions of security provision may undermine its own safety. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This article provides a review of the history of jihadi foreign fighters in Afghanistan over the last 30 years. It details the post-9/11 period and the invasion of Afghanistan by U.S. forces, focusing on the ethnic origin of the foreign fighters and how different groups engaged in different aspects of the conflict. Additionally, the piece explains that while the foreign fighters who came to fight alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan included, among others, Uzbekistanis (not Afghan Uzbeks), Turks, and Arabs, there was also a significant force of Pakistanis—of both Pashtun and Punjabi origins—that joined, bolstering the Taliban army. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Beginning with a historical perspective on foreign fighters, this article then seeks to clarify ambiguities and biases that shape how we often analyze the foreign fighter phenomenon. The central focus is then on the evolving trends and activities of the movement. A new generation of fighters has emerged who are comfortable as terrorists, recruiters, trainers and media propagandist, among other specialties. The author concludes by assessing the significance of the problem today. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

As the Bush presidency draws to a close, the foreign policy community is taking stock of contemporary U.S.-Northeast Asian relations, assessing the challenges and opportunities that are likely to confront the next administration. China presents both in abundance, as reflected in ongoing tensions and misunderstandings in the Sino-American bilateral relationship. This article assesses the prospects for Washington to improve its relations with China through the mechanism of “track two” diplomacy. First, we expand on the track two concept by examining its main components and functions with illustrative examples. We extend the existing conceptualization of track two beyond its traditional conflict resolution functions and develop an account of it as a mechanism for policy coordination and the reorientation of regional dynamics from conflict to cooperation. Second, we identify major areas of U.S. interest in Northeast Asia and show how track two diplomacy might usefully be pursued within these contexts. Our analysis culminates with recommendations on how the Unites States should apply track two strategies in its relations with China. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Successful efforts to address specific needs for governance have given rise to an Arctic Ocean regime complex encompassing a sizable collection of individual elements not related to one another in any hierarchical fashion. The density of this regime complex is likely to increase during the coming years. At the same time, the globalization of the Arctic has altered conditions affecting the complex in ways that require attention. As a result, we argue, a coordination mechanism is needed to ensure the efficacy of this dynamic complex going forward. Following a survey of the evolving seascape of Arctic maritime cooperation, we assess the roles the Arctic Council and other non-state actors are playing in the development and implementation of individual elements of this regime complex. These roles are significant. But these actors lack both the authority and the capacity to coordinate the Arctic Ocean regime complex effectively. The negotiation of an Arctic Ocean Treaty to meet this need is not feasible at this juncture. We conclude that it would be helpful at this time to organize a high-level but informal Arctic Ocean Governance Conference including representatives of a broad selection of stakeholders to explore options for addressing the growing need for coordination of the Arctic Ocean regime complex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Disaster philanthropy, provides opportunity for major changes in public policy. • Unprecedented philanthropic response of technology sector to COVID-19. • Platforms (companies) and individuals advance philanthropic agendas based on unique donor logic. • Power of for-profit philanthropy has implications for education development in pandemic times. This article contributes a conceptual analysis of the power and influence of for- profit philanthropy on educational development during pandemic times. Through highlighting for-profit philanthropy, describing its relevance to educational development, and drawing attention to four aspects that are under-examined as for- profit philanthropists enact their philanthropic agendas in response to the COVID- 19 pandemic, disaster philanthropy is presented as a window of opportunity for elite donors to enact changes in public education based on their distinct donor and institutional agendas. Implications for educational development are discussed including shifts in power, definitions and public vs. private returns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]