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Begin New Search Content Type Working Paper Publishing Institution Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 700 Publication Year within 25 Years

1. nternational Organizations' Modes of Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood: The Case of Food Security

Author:
Leon Schettler, Angela Heucher, and Andrea Liese
Publication Date:
03-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 700
Abstract:
International organizations (IOs) are confronted with a twin challenge in areas of limited statehood (ALS). On the one hand, IOs are governmental organizations qua mandate. Their usual approach – providing a range of services to their members and working with or for a given state – may, however, either be blocked or prove unsustainable in ALS. On the other, ALS present numerous challenges to IO governance, ranging from insecurity to a lack of meta-governance. Yet, we know surprisingly little about how IOs operate in these contexts, and, in particular, which modes of governance they choose for which purposes. How can IOs attain the twin objectives of acting in accordance with their mandate, which gives primacy to governments, and responding to ALS-specific challenges in order to effectively provide food security? This paper addresses IOs’ choice of distinct modes of governance, ranging from bargaining to persuasion. It investigates how different types of IOs use and combine these modes in light of varying ALS-challenges. The empirical observations presented in this paper stem from interviews with IOs (ECHO, FAO, IDB, WFP, and the World Bank) at the level of headquarters and country offices (in Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, Haiti, Niger, and Sierra Leone), as well as from organizational documents.
Topic:
Food, Governance, Food Security, NGOs, and Statehood
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2. The Coupling of State and Sharia Justice Systems in a Secular State: The Case of Ethiopia

Author:
Girmachew Alemu Aneme
Publication Date:
04-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 700
Abstract:
The constitutional recognition of the Sharia justice system in Ethiopia has given rise to normative and judicial plurality. Both state and Sharia justice systems relate to a distinctive basis of legitimacy or justice; the state justice system is based on the Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia while the basis for the Sharia justice system is the divine law of Islam as revealed in the Quran. This paper reflects on the incongruences and incompatibilities in the relation between state justice and Sharia justice systems within the Ethiopian legal system. A closer analysis of the landmark case of Kedija Bashir et al. allows some important insight into the issue of constitutional and judicial review of the decisions of Sharia courts. Here, the objective of the paper is to explore the possible common normative grounds that would provide autonomy for each system, while maintaining a minimal normative standard in the sense of ‘ordre public’.
Topic:
Legitimacy, Justice, Judiciary, and Autonomy
Political Geography:
Africa and Ethiopia

3. Thinking About Governance Through Diasporas: Decentering the State and Challenging the External/Internal Binary

Author:
Catherine Ruth Craven
Publication Date:
08-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 700
Abstract:
Diasporas have emerged as powerful, if contentious, actors with a complex impact on global political processes. This includes the provision of governance to their homelands in the form of remittances but also through more direct involvement in the provision of public goods and services. Puzzlingly, governance research, which empirically investigates public goods provision by state and non-state actors alike, has largely steered clear of investigating diasporas. This paper argues that the reason for this blind spot is that diasporas pose an uncomfortable conceptual challenge to governance researchers. By taking a diaspora perspective on governance, we can see that state-centrism still has a firm, if elusive, grip on much governance research, which manifests as an insistence to differentiate between external and internal actors. It is this inbuilt assumption, that external and internal actors have quintessentially different properties, which does not match the often ambivalent quality of diasporas as they engage in governance in their homelands. This article will tease out some of the contradictions inherent in governance research by thinking about governance through diasporas and point out ways in which diaspora research itself has addressed the problem of state-centrism.
Topic:
Diaspora, Governance, State Formation, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4. Measuring Statehood on a Sub-National Level: A Dialogue among Methods

Author:
Luisa Linke-Behrens, Angela Heucher, and Leon Schettler
Publication Date:
02-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 700
Abstract:
Statehood can vary greatly within and across countries. For this reason, we find it problematic that the national level most often serves as the main unit of analysis when measuring statehood, thereby neglecting the sub-national level. To address this shortcoming, the authors of this working paper present five options for measuring statehood on a sub-national level, asking: What are the advantages and disadvantages of different methods to measuring and comparing statehood on a sub-national level? All contributions proceed in three steps, each discussing i) data sources, as well as methods for data collection and analysis, ii) illustrative examples, and iii) the advantages and challenges to each respective approach. While there is no silver bullet for collecting and analyzing data on statehood, we find that a combination of different methods is particularly promising for achieving more fine-grained results and a more complete picture of statehood on the subnational level.
Topic:
Nationalism, Statehood, Subnationalism, and Centralization
Political Geography:
Global Focus

5. Conflict Prevention and the Legitimacy of Governance Actors

Author:
Karoline Eickhoff and Luise K Muller
Publication Date:
09-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 700
Abstract:
The aim of this research report is to examine the empirical literature on the connection between the legitimacy of governance actors and conflict prevention. As the leading hypothesis for this research report, we take it that legitimate governance actors and legitimate institutions are indispensable in the prevention of conflict. We proceed with our examination of this hypothesis in two steps. First, we clarify the conceptual connection between legitimacy and conflict prevention. We suggest that governance actors should concentrate less on stability and more on legitimacy because legitimate actors and institutions produce stability for the right reasons. Second, we discuss the practical implications of these considerations. Our findings are relevant both for narrow, project-based external policy initiatives in the field of conflict prevention and for more general governance interventions. In both cases, policies can focus on two dimensions. First, improving governance performance will include adjusting external policies to fit local legitimacy perceptions. The second dimension is the transformation of predominant perceptions of legitimacy. We argue that while the second strategy might not be impossible, it is not a viable strategy for external actors. In fact, we believe that the focus on this second dimension explains many of the unsuccessful attempts at governance provision by external actors
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Governance, Conflict, and Legitimacy
Political Geography:
Global Focus

6. Digital Affordances and Human Rights Advocacy

Author:
Steven Livingston
Publication Date:
03-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 700
Abstract:
Keck and Sikkink’s boomerang model (1998) and Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink’s spiral model (1999) anchor much of the scholarly debate about human rights norms propagation. At the heart of both models is “information exchange” among members of broad coalitions advocating for better compliance with human rights norms. An updated spiral model (2013) offers a more liminal, ambiguous, and conditional set of actors and processes than appeared in the first boomerang and spiral models. In this context, we consider the effects of a wide array of digital technologies on human rights NGOs advocacy work and how they affect 21st century information exchange. Traditionally, evidence in human rights investigations is collected in face-to-face meetings among activists and on fact-finding missions. We argue that clusters of digital technologies create “digital affordances” that provide nonstate actors with tools that strengthen their ability to gather scientifically grounded information that pressures noncompliant actors toward commitments with broadly shared human rights norms. As to whether this also leads to greater compliance is less clear.
Topic:
Human Rights, Science and Technology, United Nations, and NGOs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

7. The Pillars of Governance. A Macro-Quantitative Analysis of Governance Performance

Author:
Gregor Walter-Drop, John Wiesel, and Melissa Lee
Publication Date:
05-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 700
Abstract:
State building is seen as the central tenet of many present-day development efforts. This rests on a global normative script that emphasizes the modern state’s role in providing governance services from security to education to health. However, the relationship between statehood and governance outcomes is not well understood. We use a macro-quantitative approach to analyze state performance in various governance dimensions including security, health, education, economic subsistence, infrastructure, and the environment. We test for the power of statehood in explaining the variation in governance outcomes while controlling for various other factors prominent in the respective debates in political science, economics, and development studies. The analysis yields three interesting results. First, statehood does not have a consistent significant relationship with governance outcomes. It matters more for some outcomes than for others. Second, we find that statehood sometimes performs better at predicting subjective (survey-based) evaluations than at predicting objective measures of governance outcomes (which confirms the ubiquity of the normative script). Finally, we find that the degree of domestic female empowerment performs consistently strong at explaining the variation in governance outcomes. This result is consistent with the policy community’s emphasis on women’s roles in development.
Topic:
Security, Education, Health, Infrastructure, Governance, and State Building
Political Geography:
Global Focus

8. External Authority - Compensation for Limited Statehood in the Provision of Collective Goods?

Author:
Luisa Linke-Behrens and Lisa van Hoof-Maurer
Publication Date:
07-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 700
Abstract:
The vast majority of areas of limited statehood are subject to the authority of external actors, be it the IMF or regional organizations. These actors typically provide authority structures – institutions and rules – that are complementary or alternative to the state’s domestic authority structures. It is reasonable to assume that these external actors may either deliver collective goods directly, or the authority structures provided by them might work indirectly to that effect. In this paper, we systematically investigate whether external authority compensates for limited statehood with regard to collective goods provision. Our analysis shows that this is not the case. On the contrary, in fragile states with extremely limited or even absent statehood, the presence of external authority in domestic authority structures seems to have the opposite effect and is associated with poor collective goods provision.
Topic:
Fragile States, Political structure, Statehood, and Authority
Political Geography:
Global Focus

9. Dysfunctional Institutions, Social Trust, and Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood

Author:
Thomas Risse and Tanja A. Börzel
Publication Date:
07-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 700
Abstract:
Areas of limited statehood where the state is absent or dysfunctional are rarely ungoverned or ungovernable spaces. The provision of rules and regulations as well as of public goods and services – governance – does not necessarily depend on the existence of functioning state institutions. How can this be explained? This article makes two claims. First, we identify functional equivalents to state institutions that fail to govern hierarchically. Second, we focus on informal institutions based on social trust that are endogenous to areas of limited statehood. Personalized social trust among community members enables actors to overcome collective action problems, enhancing the legitimacy of governance actors. The main challenge in areas of limited statehood, which are often characterized by social heterogeneity and deep social and cultural cleavages (particularly in post-conflict societies), is to move from personalized to generalized trust in “imagined communities” despite dysfunctional state institutions. We argue that generalized trust in areas of limited statehood crucially depends on inclusive social identities as an enabling condition for effective and legitimate governance.
Topic:
Governance, Community, Statehood, and Social Identities
Political Geography:
Global Focus

10. Meta-Governance of Partnerships for Sustainable Development - Actors’ Perspectives on How the UN Could Improve Partnerships’ Governance Services in Areas of Limited Statehood

Author:
Marianne Beisheim and Nils Simon
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 700
Abstract:
In the context of negotiations on the Post-2015 or 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the process of formulating Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the United Nations (UN) (again) assigns an important role to multi-stakeholder partnerships. But how do actors view these partnerships more than ten years after the UN’s engagement with them? Our previous research found that transnational multi-stakeholder partnerships for sustainable development are neither as successful as their proponents claim nor as ineffective as their critics argue (Beisheim/Liese 2014). In light of these findings, we ask whether relevant actors argue that lessons learned with regard to partnerships’ success conditions should be translated into rules and standards that guide the operations of existing and the development of new partnerships. This kind of meta-governance of partnerships could be exerted by state or non-state actors at the national or international level. Moreover, we distinguish between two broad functions of meta-governance: enabling and ensuring. In this paper, we present first insights into actors’ views on the meta-governance of partnerships. We focus on the actors in the UN-context, where reforms of the framework for partnerships are under debate.
Topic:
United Nations, Governance, Reform, and Sustainable Development Goals
Political Geography:
Global Focus