State Actors Research Articles

Mapping “Weird Alliances”: Tracing a displaced housing ecosystem along the eviction trajectories of Palais des Droits in Brussels

<p>As displaced people arrive at European cities, the experiences of displacement caused by forces of bordering and securitization do not end at the point of arrival. Due to a pre-existing housing crisis characterized by critical shortages in affordable housing, a series of urban displacements ensue. The intersectionality between the border regime and neoliberal housing systems produces gaps in migrant housing needs which neither the reception nor the housing governance adequately respond to. In this vacuum, moments of encounter can be witnessed between displaced migrants and non-migrants, who share a need for housing, in the limited affordable urban space where they attempt to address their own precarity. Through stories from housing struggles in Brussels, this paper investigates typologies of displaced housing along the trajectory after the eviction of Palais des Droits, where migrants and non-migrants come together and employ tools that vary from (political) occupations of vacant buildings to inventive ad hoc partnerships with state and non-state actors towards the provision of housing and other hospitality infrastructures. Building on Lancione’s (2019) notion of “weird exoskeletons”, the paper aims to map such constellations. By focusing on infrastructural elements that reflect the non-conventional alliances emerging to respond to displacement and narrate the solidarities as well as antagonisms within them, the paper sheds light on displaced housing governances from below. The purpose is to highlight the diverse and hybrid forms of actions, actors, and coalitions constituting an ecosystem for housing migrants, in relation to and beyond formal reception and housing systems.</p>

Turning land into assets: local government borrowing through land assetization in China

ABSTRACT Local governments use state-owned land to raise massive funds to finance urban development in China. However, how is land formed and calculated as a financial asset? We aim to unpack the political-economic dynamics underpinning the phenomenon of turning land into a financial asset. Based on practices in Shanghai, Nanjing, and Jiaxing, this study provides a concrete account of how state-owned land is mobilized to secure funds by urban development corporations (chengtous) and the state itself through land reserve bonds. In either approach, the state manipulates asset formation and calculative techniques to achieve a favorable quantification of asset value. Therefore, the land is not a standard type of collateral but an extension of state credit. We contribute to the geography of assetization by arguing that land is turned into assets through state actions beyond being colonized by financialized techniques.

Navigating the interplay of cognitive warfare and counterintelligence in African security strategies: insights and case studies

ABSTRACT Cognitive warfare and counterintelligence are critical elements of Africa's security strategies. This article examines their interplay in the diverse African context and develops the concept of content as a tool used by state and non-state actors in systematic cognitive warfare campaigns to erode public trust in government institutions and societal resilience. Meanwhile, counterintelligence efforts focus from a defensive perspective on mitigating the effects of cognitive warfare and offensively employing similar tactics against threats actors. The cognitive warfare-counterintelligence nexus shapes intelligence collection, disinformation, propaganda and subversive activities, destabilising African societies. Examples from Nigeria, South Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Egypt, Kenya Zimbabwe and Uganda highlight how these concepts intersect in various contexts, impacting governance, conflict resolution and regional stability. Understanding this interplay is crucial for developing comprehensive strategies to address security threats and safeguard the integrity of African content ecosystems. Strategies should be inclusive of international collaboration, education, intelligence exchange, capacitating national counterintelligence capabilities and secure cyber-related critical infrastructure.

STATES OF COMPULSION: Reassessing ‘State‐Led’ Neighborhood Change in Hong Kong

AbstractThis article provides a critical reassessment of the role of the state in processes of neighborhood change in Hong Kong, based on mixed‐methods research conducted in the rapidly changing Sai Ying Pun neighborhood. We argue that common narratives of ‘state‐led’ processes of neighborhood change often overstate, oversimplify or unduly assume the influence of state agencies, especially the Urban Renewal Authority (URA) and other ‘usual suspects’, obscuring the complex ways that states facilitate and compel the actions and agendas of other actors. By elaborating implications of several specific forms of state action, especially a 2010 amendment to Hong Kong's Land (Compulsory Sale for Redevelopment) Ordinance, we demonstrate that the state in Hong Kong plays many different roles in facilitating neighborhood transformation, creating an uneven geography of state intervention dependent on locally specific factors such as the particularities of architecture, housing types and residential density in different urban areas as well as existing configurations of policy, legislation and infrastructure. These many articulations of the state are of strategic value to a variety of elite interests, from property developers to wealthy residents and international consumers, whose distinct and competing agendas could hardly be so well served by a less dynamic state.

Governing authority through bureaucracy: conflicts over bureaucratic cadres and the rise of authoritarianism in the late Ottoman Empire (1908–1913)

ABSTRACT This article presents a historical analysis of how internal power struggles and conflicts among state actors can foster the development of authoritarian systems, particularly when a political network gains exclusive control over the bureaucratic apparatus through its authority over appointments and dismissals. Focusing on the intricate power struggles and factional rivalries surrounding gubernatorial appointments between 1908 and 1913, this article aims to provide an alternative approach to understanding how the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) became the dominant governing force within the state apparatus, enabling it to pursue an authoritarian agenda.

Interventions to enhance corporate sector engagement in tuberculosis response in Africa: a scoping review protocol

IntroductionTuberculosis (TB) is a significant public health crisis in Africa. TB control programmes implemented by various state and non-state actors in different African countries over the years have recorded significant...

Coordinating assemblages: accounting for a novel disaster

PurposeThis study aims to examine how hospitals and regional and local health authorities in the Italian region of Marche accounted for and reported the use of emergency funds from the EU, the Ministry of Economic and Finance and administrative bodies called actuator subjects. Unlike a sudden impact disaster, such as an earthquake, the pandemic was slow moving and novel. This meant that the guidelines for medical, legislative, financial and administrative action were not as developed as those for sudden impact emergencies with which the Italian state was, unfortunately, experienced.Design/methodology/approachThe paper investigates the Italian public healthcare setting since the declaration of the State of Emergency until its end—that is, from January 2020 to July 2021. We conducted 31 semi-structured interviews with nine key-actors working for national, regional and local administrative bodies. A range of related official documents were analyzed.FindingsWe show a non-linear and emergent account of standardization and coordination. We show how different state and transnational actors developed their own procedures to standardize COVID-related cost classifications and reports. These attempts also involved coordinating assemblages, at the center of which are templates imposed on hospitals and regional authorities by national state entities for cost-reporting practices and aggregation. Importantly, templates’ visual features enabled coordination across the different standardization initiatives that populated the emergency response effort.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper provides academics and policy makers with insights into the role played by accounting tools, templates, reports and guidelines to coordinate different cost standardization initiatives.Originality/valueAccounting guidelines that standardize costs are known to be deployed hierarchically by states and transnational organizations for coordination purposes. We highlight, however, the emergence of not only hierarchical forms of coordination but also their interrelation with decentralized forms of coordination. These two types of coordinating assemblages, each standardizes cost through the accounting templates that they use. We demonstrate the emergent nature of coordination even within hierarchical entities like the state. Reporting templates are pivotal for understanding this coordination process. However, when a centralized coordinating body is absent, it is the visual features of accounting, rather than its imposition, that enable coordination.

Mass organic matter accumulation induced by rapid redox variations in lakes: Evidence from the Miaoxi area, Bohai Bay Basin, China

The Member 4 of the Paleogene Shahejie Formation (Es4) in the Bohai Bay Basin is interspersed with a set of high-quality source rocks typified as intercalation of red and black mudstones. A large amount of petroleum (crude oil) originates from these source rocks. The Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) event occurred during the deposition of Es4 in the Bohai Bay Basin, and the organic matter enrichment model under this event is worth further investigation due to its relationship with and influence on petroleum accumulations. Well LK25-A, as the first oil exploration well drilled into the Es4 in Miaoxi area, serves as a valuable case to study organic matter accumulation. In this study, we integrate total organic carbon (TOC), Rock-Eval pyrolysis, microscopic observation, vitrinite reflectance (VRo), elemental analysis, and gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) to evaluate the hydrocarbon generation potential, organic matter types, thermal maturity, and sedimentary environment of the Es4 in Miaoxi area. The analysis of maceral and rock pyrolysis data reveals that Type I and Type II organic matter make up the majority of Paleogene mudstones in this region. The TOC and rock pyrolysis data show that mudstones in this area have high organic matter abundance and oil-generation potential. The measured vitrinite reflectance distribution of mudstone samples, which ranges from 0.3% to 0.74%, demonstrates that the Paleogene strata are at the immature to mature stage, and the samples from this area contain a sizable amount of bituminite and mineral-bituminous groundmass. The analysis of biomarkers in the mudstone samples indicates that most of the mudstones in this area are in lacustrine and brackish-hypersaline lacustrine environment under a reducing condition, and some of the red mudstones in the Es4 are formed under a suboxic condition. Based on the size and morphology of the pyrite framboid, the redox conditions of the water mass during deposition or diagenesis are further analyzed. The ratio of the size of framboid pyrite (D) to the size of its micrograins (d) suggests that the Es4 black mudstone developed in an anoxic sulfuretted water environment. Both the inorganic and organic geochemical indexes show that the Paleogene paleoclimate has a great influence on the source rocks of Es4 in this area. The distribution of red–black strata in the area is the result of the combined action of the water redox state and the climatic variation during the PETM event. The development models of organic-rich source rocks from the Es3 and Es4 in this area have been created in light of potential connections between rapid redox variation and the PETM event during the Paleogene. These models may offer a theoretical guidance for petroleum exploration in Miaoxi area of Bohai Bay Basin and other contemporaneous continental basins around the world.

Renewable Ruse: Bioenergy Development in North Carolina’s Coastal Plains

Rural communities in eastern North Carolina are responding to the emergence of bioenergy development as an extension of environmental injustices, rather than sustainable solutions to climate change as presented by state and industry actors. We examine how biomass and biogas development entrench logics of extraction, rather than transition, as they are built as extensions of pre-existing concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in a landscape prone to climatic fluctuations. Using a polyvocal approach to knowledge co-production that builds from multi-year collaborative ethnography, the co-authored text demonstrates a commitment to the value of environmental justice (EJ) leaders’ knowledge—to advance environmental analytics. We argue that despite its claims, bioenergy operates as a ruse of renewable energy: it is a technological sleight of hand, that deepens rather than mitigates exposure to socio-ecological harm. Discursively hinged to sustainability claims, biomass and biogas attempt to signify a temporal, moral, and technological breakaway toward a different kind of techno-social future when, in fact, there is no real rupture from the well-established export-driven, extractivist logics of production.

Goldilocks' Purgatory: The Public Transcript of Performative Governance in Singapore

This article introduces a novel concept—Goldilocks' Purgatory—to explain how the Singaporean state rhetorically communicates to itself, and to internal and external audiences, of the logic and correctness of its political and policy decisions. By framing every decision as a carefully deliberated moderate choice that balances between two extreme and unsavoury options, state actors convince themselves and their audiences that their decisions are legitimate, justifiable, optimal, and worthy of support. This transcript is socially rooted in a civil service that analyzes public policy via basic macroeconomic models of dichotomized trade-offs, politically rooted in the People's Action Party's (PAP) continued electoral success and political dominance, and economically rooted in neoliberal global capitalism that prizes regulatory conservatism. This article further specifies how to empirically identify and measure Goldilocks' Purgatory, and illustrates its expression over time through an analysis of public pronouncements on Singapore's most contentious public policies—those related to immigration and foreign workers. Ultimately, Goldilocks' Purgatory explains why criticisms of Singapore politics and public policy are neutered and minimal, and why the country's electoral politics is so valence-focused and slow- moving.

긴급조치 발령행위의 통치행위성과 불법행위성에 관한 고찰 - 부마민주항쟁 피해사건으로 본 과거사에서 사법의 역할

In South Korea, there have been too many and too diverse types of state violence to list, and innocent people have lost their lives or suffered irreparable damage as a result. The suffering of the victims of state crimes against human rights cannot be undone, and as Nobel laureate Han Kang wishes, we must forever remember the tragic history. However, from a legal perspective, we should say “goodbye” to the past as soon as possible to avoid repeating unfortunate cases. And to do so, it is imperative that the past faults are clearly corrected. Since the Korean Supreme Court consensus decision on August 30, 2022, the state's liability for damages to victims of emergency measures under the Yushin Constitution has been recognized, thus establishing the “tort of a series of state actions” theory of emergency measures. However, apart from the overall and systemic actions of the state, the proclamation of the state of emergency by the president at the time is a civil law tort against individual victims, and the court should clearly present this legal theory in the judgment. This would be the truth that the victims of past human rights violations have been seeking, and it would be a message of peace for us today.

Remembering and forgetting famines in Ethiopia

This article aims to advance the understanding of famine memorialization—or the lack of it—in postcolonial Africa by focusing on famines in Ethiopia. It analyses the memory politics of Ethiopian state actors, and the silenced or marginalized place of famines, particularly the 1984–1985 famine. Drawing on interviews with individuals involved in memory-making in Ethiopia, observations of museums, monuments and other memory sites, and archival and secondary sources, the article shows how famine memory only appears at the margins of public commemoration initiatives. It discusses how tensions between a centralized national authority and Ethiopian identity, on the one hand, and regional ethno-national politics, on the other hand, along with efforts to brand the country as modern and developed, have served to silence past famines. However, artistic work and initiatives to remember famine victims “from below” contribute, to some extent, toward making the memory of mass-starvation publicly visible.

Variables and Dynamics of the Middle Eastern System

Background This study explores the transformative impact of three significant events on the Middle Eastern regional system: the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Arab Spring of 2011, and the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel. These events have altered the regional balance, leading to an evolving, complex, and multi-polar system. This research assesses the role of both state and non-state actors, examining their influence on the region’s stability and overall structure. Methods Employing a mixed-method approach that combines area studies and international relations (IR) theory, this study examines the regional power dynamics using twelve indicators to assess hard and soft power, including economic, military, and socio-political metrics. The analysis positions regional actors within a multi-tiered structure, evaluating the interplay between internal and external influences to explain the current distribution of power. Results The study finds that the Middle Eastern system has developed into a hierarchical yet anarchic structure, characterized by a competitive and multi-polar power distribution. Although external actors, such as the United States, continue to play pivotal roles, regional powers – including Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, and Iran – exert significant influence, leading to an inherently unstable system. This dynamic interplay fosters competition and limits cooperative stability. Conclusion The findings suggest that the Middle Eastern regional system’s volatility is rooted in this unique distribution of power, where continuous struggles among actors contribute to persistent instability. Understanding these dynamics is essential for assessing future developments and potential stability within the region.

Beyond Selective Justice

Abstract In the wake of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) conviction and sentencing of Dominic Ongwen, this article explores the complex justice landscape in Uganda. It examines how the ICC’s selective focus on the crimes of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and its reluctance to investigate and prosecute alleged crimes committed by soldiers of the Uganda Peoples’ Defence Forces (UPDF) continue to shape the trajectory of justice in Uganda and how this has contributed to the failure to investigate and prosecute UPDF atrocities in Uganda’s courts, thereby denying justice to victims of these atrocities. While Dominic Ongwen’s conviction represents a step forward in providing acknowledgement and redress to a fraction of the victims in Northern Uganda, it also underscores the broader justice deficit in Uganda. The article emphasizes the need to bridge the justice gap by implementing credible justice and accountability mechanisms that hold all perpetrators accountable, including state actors, while ensuring timely and adequate reparations for victims.

Obstacle avoidance path planning for AUVs in a three-dimensional unknown environment based on the C-APF-TD3 algorithm

To enhance the obstacle avoidance path planning ability of AUV in three-dimensional unknown underwater environments with obstacle constraints, an improved algorithm combining Constrained Artificial Potential Field (C-APF) and the Twin Delayed Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient algorithm (TD3) is proposed (C-APF-TD3). First, the kinematic constraints of AUV are incorporated into the APF algorithm, allowing C-APF to generate an approximate path for the AUV. Then, the AUV obstacle avoidance path planning problem is formulated as a Markov Decision Process (MDP), designing state space, action space, and reward functions. The TD3 training is guided by the approximate path planned using C-APF, ultimately resulting in a policy model for AUV path planning. Finally, various simulation experiments are established and designed for different obstacle scenarios. The experimental results show that the C-APF-TD3 algorithm produces more optimized trajectories compared to the C-APF algorithm. Furthermore, compared to the C-APF-DDPG algorithm, it achieves a policy model with efficient control performance with higher convergence efficiency and average returns, enhancing the adaptability and robustness of AUV obstacle avoidance path planning in three-dimensional unknown environments.

National climate change mitigation efforts for aviation: Lessons from post-Covid state action plans

The aviation sector contributes to climate change through its significant and growing production of greenhouse gas emissions. Many have suggested mitigation efforts that should be undertaken, but in general these approaches have not resulted in significant change or have ultimately been too expensive. Further, approaches have tended to be fragmented, a challenge for a global industry. There are some exceptions to this, including the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)’s carbon offsetting mechanism, but when it comes to understanding actions at a national level, much remains unclear. While ICAO encourages its member states to develop State Action Plans (SAPs) to address the industry’s impact on climate change, limited research has sought to analyze their proposed actions. In the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic’s impact, many called for a renewed effort to mitigate aviation’s contribution to climate change which resulted in a significant number of new SAPs being submitted. As such, this study analyzed 61 SAPs produced in 2021 and 2022 to identify measures being pursued by states to reduce emissions from aviation. We were also interested in partnerships across countries, given the emphasis on collaboration within ICAO’s environment programs. Findings show that most countries have focused on mitigation measures projected to have smaller emission reduction potential in the long term and what evidence we found of more ambitious “deep” decarbonization efforts was largely in the early stages of development. Additionally, we find limited evidence of ICAO’s Buddy Partnership programs in the SAPs which signals a need to re-imagine these opportunities.

Familia sobre todo, emprendimiento ante todo: Secretaría Nacional de la Familia (SNF/MMFDH) y la articulación entre neoconservadurismo y neoliberalismo

The centrality of a certain notion of family in neoconservatism has a superstructural dimension as a reaction to the demands of the feminist and LGBTQIAP+ movements, and a structural dimension that reveals the way it is related to neoliberalism. From the process of confessionalization of public policies, they promote changes in the traditional patterns of the State-society binomial, in its structures, processes and actors that claim a “subsidiary” ideal of state action compared to other social spheres, especially the family (neoconservative) and the market (neoliberal). What I seek to examine here is the way in which neoliberalism in the National Secretariat for the Family (SNF/MMFDH) in Brazil aligns with neoconservative political and cultural strategies, where through the circulation of the family category, it capillarizes a specific social language with direct repercussions on the social protection system.

Multi-UAV Path Planning for Air-Ground Relay Communication Based on Mix-Greedy MAPPO Algorithm

With the continuous development of modern UAV technology and communication technology, UAV-to-ground communication relay has become a research hotspot. In this paper, a Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (MARL) method based on the ε-greedy strategy and multi-agent proximal policy optimization (MAPPO) algorithm is proposed to address the local optimization problem, improving the communication efficiency and task execution capability of UAV cluster control. This paper explores the path planning problem in multi-UAV-to-ground relay communication, with a special focus on the application of the proposed Mix-Greedy MAPPO algorithm. The state space, action space, communication model, training environment, and reward function are designed by comprehensively considering the actual tasks and entity characteristics such as safe distance, no-fly zones, survival in a threatened environment, and energy consumption. The results show that the Mix-Greedy MAPPO algorithm significantly improves communication probability, reduces energy consumption, avoids no-fly zones, and facilitates exploration compared to other algorithms in the multi-UAV ground communication relay path planning task. After training with the same number of steps, the Mix-Greedy MAPPO algorithm has an average reward score that is 45.9% higher than the MAPPO algorithm and several times higher than the multi-agent soft actor-critic (MASAC) and multi-agent deep deterministic policy gradient (MADDPG) algorithms. The experimental results verify the superiority and adaptability of the algorithm in complex environments.

Agents of capital: Matriarchs, law, and agrarian transactions in the Eastern Gangetic plains of eighteenth-century India

Abstract This article contributes to historiographical examinations of gender and capitalism in eighteenth-century India. Focusing on the fragile nature of revenue farming ventures in this period, the article illustrates how propertied women in the Eastern Gangetic plains used matriarchal authority and affect to lead their agrarian and mercantile family firms into commercial transactions. The article shows that the household was the locus of these commercial relationships and that of the competing and layered sovereignties of distinct state and non-state actors. At the same time, matriarchs exercised their authority beyond it. Travelling in palanquins, or having their kin conduct transactions on their behalf, they asserted their maternal authority and social status in different publics to protect their firms’ interests. In a second key argument, the article suggests that Mughal law, fostered by native officials in the early colonial courts in Banaras, facilitated propertied women’s participation in this economy. Matriarchs demonstrated a keen understanding of this fractured jurisdictional landscape and used it to their advantage as they manoeuvred from one legal forum to another. The third argument of this article illustrates that colonial regulations redefined, and could even compromise, propertied women’s engagements in land revenue transactions. These shifts were made possible through the mobilization of gender and specific understandings of womanhood and the household. In this article, I show that these attempts to disenfranchise propertied women in Banaras were intimately connected to the Company’s vision of a colonial public in which it could monopolize sovereignty.

When cities broke into the global stage: 20 years since the publication of ‘Cities and Climate Change’

This short symposium revisits the book Cities and Climate Change by Harriet Bulkeley and Michelle Betsill and its role in establishing cities as central actors in climate change governance. The contributors to this symposium reflect on the research themes and the book’s legacy from their disciplinary perspectives. The first response explores the tensions between the elevation of cities as sites for climate action and the persistent lack of state action, arguing for meaningful public participation and a labour of making visible how city-based practices respond to climate change. The second response examines how the book has enabled generations of scholars to appreciate the complex constitution of city actors and how they interact/enact global climate governance yet remain frustratingly marginal in the discipline of International Relations. The third response explores how the book positioned the urban as a problem space, a manageable scale of intervention, and a political space with the capacity to enact innovation, triggering new questions about the potential and limits of the expanding responsibilities of cities. The fourth response argues that as cities become active in adaptation, they need to engage in an anticolonial politics of love and hospitality that sheds ‘security’ and makes the self vulnerable to ‘others’ for an effective response to climate change. The symposium concludes with a recap by Betsill and Bulkeley which underscores the variety of interdisciplinary debates that the book has generated, and its influence on current thinking on debates on climate change governance.