Institutional Rearrangement Research Articles

“Take your responsibility”: the politics of green sacrifice for just low-carbon transitions in rural Portugal

The EU has recently taken important climate action, notably through the launching of the European Green Deal. However, EU action has been criticized for its potential to generate a heavy increase in mining of ‘critical minerals’ necessary for renewables technologies, and so create green sacrifice zones both overseas and within Europe. We explore the politics of green sacrifice making through an analysis of green governance practices and opposition to them in a case of a lithium mining conflict in rural northern Portugal. We find that institutional rearrangements attempt to reconfigure lithium mining as a force for sustainability in ways that enable capital accumulation. Such reconfigurations clash with concerns about maintaining a meaningful life in localities where mining would take place, as well as alternative definitions of the logic of the circular economy and of what the proper scales of decision-making for marginalized territories should be. Government and corporate action attempt to resolve these clashes by promoting a discourse of ‘responsibility’, which assigns public institutions the role of convincing communities to accept ‘green’ mining; to corporations the role of exercising corporate social responsibility; and to affected populations the role of subjects whose political action should conform to their consumption habits and help deliver a distinctive ‘European way’ of being responsible in a warming world. We conclude that green sacrifice is essential for maintaining economic growth and a liberal order of governance, delivered through a biopolitics of inclusion that exists side-by-side with attempts at self-constitution. We highlight a contradiction between what such praxis tries to achieve and ways in which some critical constituencies seek to address democracy challenges of just transitions.

Institutional rearrangements in the north Luangwa ecosystem: Implications of a shift to community based natural resource management for equity in protected area governance

Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) is presented as an equitable approach, particularly relative to strict types of Area-based conservation. In Zambia, traditional and formal, contemporary institutions were combined to leverage CBNRM for natural resource management. We investigate whether and how this shift in conservation approach and interaction between institutions works in practice, and to what extent it produces more equitable governance processes. We identified 30 key informants from NGOs and government departments via snowball sampling. We conducted 20 focus group discussions involving local community participants in three Game Management Areas (GMAs) adjacent to North Luangwa National Park. Focus groups were divided by age and gender to minimize any potential influence of unequal power relations. Data collection included informal discussions with individual community members and participant observation. We found that the customary roles held by chiefs gave them relative power over the Community resources board and made them gatekeepers for NGOs and government institutions. Instead of fostering community participation and empowerment, new CBNRM institutions have had the unintended consequence of increasing the customary chiefs’ power through commercialization and bureaucratization of their positions. Rather than reinforcing local and indigenous institutions CBNRM has become a vehicle through which governments and NGOs centralize power and manufacture consent while weakening traditional institutions and reproducing existing patterns of inequity. This research provides unique insights into the workings of a CBNRM institution that is a hybrid between traditional (socially embedded) and Government (bureaucratic) institutions. We recommend that rather than simply setting up idealized institutions as a means to devolve power and enhance equity, the realisation of effective local participation and representation in CBNRM projects requires careful assessment of cultural contexts, local institutions and power dynamics.

Russia in Outer Space: A Shrinking Space Power in the Era of Global Change

Since 2014, the Russian space sector has handled institutional rearrangement and external economic pressure. On the one hand, the establishment of the State Space Corporation Roscosmos intended to renovate a critical segment and save an industry that is one of the jewels of the Soviet legacy. On the other hand, the Russian annexation of Crimea triggered waves of financial and economic sanctions that crippled the country's access to space technologies and broader international cooperation in outer space. As a result of the dynamic, the Russian space program has been in a grey zone in recent years. On the eve of the war in Ukraine, the Russian government made a strategic choice for total decoupling from Western countries. The Russian decision stresses a trajectory already taken where space activities are increasingly becoming an instrument of deterrence. The military dimension increasingly defines the Russian space program, while LEO becomes an area for confrontation. To circumvent complete isolation in the international arena, Russia will attempt to maintain vigorous diplomatic actions to curb the technology desert and maintain vital space activities in the foreseeable future. Hence, this article aims to identify available tools that Russia may use to envision a new strategy in outer space. Considering the rupture between the West and Russia, we describe the long-term effects on the space industry. We finally highlight potential alternative cooperations that may allow Russia to build its space diplomacy around a network of peripheral states while the partnership with China remains restricted.

Becoming a research university as a strategic choice in Bahir Dar university፡ A resource dependency perspective

This paper explored how the need for research universities in Ethiopia is justified, practiced, and could be improved using the strategic tactics of the resource dependency perspective. Bahir Dar University (hereafter referred to as BDU) was taken as a case to understand the need for a research university and its practices. Document analysis was used as a source of data. Consequently, an analysis of various institutional and national secondary sources revealed that the existing uncertainties related to critical resources motivated Bahir Dar University to devise a strategic choice of becoming a research university. The uncertainties are justified in terms of economic, political and institutional conditions. Although the university envisioned becoming a research university by 2025, the existing institutional and national conditions seem to be immature to sustain the necessary resources and conditions that a research university requires. As a result, following the higher education differentiation effort, BDU had to revise its vision and extend the possible time its vision could be realized to 2030. It is concluded that the need for BDU to become a research university seems to be challenging and needs much effort to be realized. Hence, institutional re-arrangements following the strategic tactics of the resource dependency perspective need to be devised to realize the strategic choice of becoming a research university.

Socio-Material Bricolage: (Co)Shaping of Irrigation Institutions and Infrastructures

Drip irrigation is often considered a technological solution to increase water use efficiency and crop productivity. However, all too often, its social and institutional entanglements are ignored. This paper treats drip irrigation as a socio-material assemblage and discusses the social and institutional changes triggered by the introduction of drip irrigation infrastructure in Ağlasun, a rural town located in the southwest of Turkey. Through an ethnographic study, we investigate how the switch from surface irrigation to drip irrigation entails an interaction of institutional re-arrangements, material infrastructures and strategizing actors to reshuffle the operation and maintenance of irrigation infrastructures, water distribution rules and water pricing. Expanding the concept of institutional bricolage to socio-material bricolage, we offer a nuanced understanding of how material infrastructures and institutions are mutually shaped by individual and collective agency.

The state-private hybrid forest policy in Myanmar: The impact of neoliberalism on the forestry sector after the 1990s

Changes in political orders, institutional rearrangements, global geopolitics, and environmental discourses shape public policy. After the 1990s, Myanmar has shifted from a centralized state (socialism) to a more decentralized state (neoliberalism). This study investigates the influence of neoliberalism on Myanmar's political economy and forest policy after the1990s. To this end, we employ a political ecology approach integrating with Marxist's political economy theory. We divide transitional periods into the military period (1988–2010) and the democratic transition period (2011−2020) and discuss how political economy change generated by “neoliberalization” in Myanmar has affected the forest sector. Myanmar has focused on developing local timber markets, dominated by privately-owned sawmills and timber processing factories after the 1990s. During both periods, the country has made progress in promoting marketization, the role of the private sector, and deregulation and voluntarism, in contrast with the internal timber industry under the so-called “Burmese Way of Socialism.” A state-private hybrid forest policy has emerged from the integration of neoliberal market principles with the state's stronghold timber extraction based on the 19th-century German forest principles of the Myanmar Selection System (MSS). This phenomenon implies the necessity to review the MSS combined with the 1995 forest policy.

Counterfactual assessment of protected area avoided deforestation in Cambodia: Trends in effectiveness, spillover effects and the influence of establishment date

Whilst protected area (PA) networks remain a cornerstone of global conservation efforts, persistent underfunding alongside the increasing severity of environmental degradation has furthered interest in quantifying the ecological benefits they generate. However, the counterfactual assessment of measures of effectiveness, such as avoided deforestation relative to unprotected areas, are confounded by the non-random siting of PAs within landscapes, which creates differential resource extraction pressures. Quasi-experimental techniques such as statistical matching can account for differential pressures by selecting suitable control areas for comparison by minimising variance across a suite of environmental and socio-economic covariates. This study presents a national scale assessment of PA effectiveness for Cambodia, involving 46 PAs, employing nearest-neighbour propensity score matching using 8 covariates, with repeated random sampling, to quantify avoided deforestation in 3 different outcome periods between 2010 and 2018. The results demonstrate that, despite historic criticism, Cambodia’s PAs generated significant positive avoided deforestation in all periods, with forested land in PAs being as much as 12.5 % less likely to be deforested than matched unprotected forest. However, effect size declined over subsequent time periods likely due to a combination of rising deforestation pressure from agri-business concessions, followed by a large-scale expansion of the PA estate and institutional rearrangements. The effectiveness of PAs in Cambodia varied with respect to PA age and a significant positive spillover effect of PAs (maximum of 5.9 % reduction in deforestation probability) was observed in 2 km buffer zones of increasing distance to PA boundaries. Our findings are consistent with studies of other PA networks that report heterogeneous effects for these phenomena.

Free in the mountains or home in the vineyard: Institutional changes in agriculture and negotiating between contract farm labour and valuable fungi collection in Tibet

AbstractThis paper evaluates how Tibetan farming communities choose between two methods of livelihood production: working as labourers on vineyard land they have leased to a French winery or collecting valuable fungi. I argue new transnational land and labour management, as part of institutional rearrangements in land tenure, are leading to significant changes with mixed benefits for rural farming communities. These communities respond by seasonally seeking freedom from capitalist labour and returning to communal forms of income production based around community land tenure and common‐pool resources. Although villagers have become contracted labour, they choose to escape this new agricultural work in the mountains, collecting fungi together as a community. The common‐pool land on which fungi are collected is also managed for access in a specific way by and for the community. Contrary to agricultural labour for the winery, fungi collection creates a chance for people to interact once again more as a cohesive community as they once did in their fields by collecting a commodity from land controlled by the community. The disembedding of one section of the economy has thus in a way reinforced the embeddedness of social relations in another as a coping mechanism for the former.

The court as a market regulator: Proactive rule-making of the Supreme People’s Court of China on economic regulation

The literature on the allocation of power for rule-making and law enforcement assumes that administrative agencies are ex-ante regulators, while courts are ex-post enforcers. However, the Supreme People’s Court of China makes proactive rules to govern economic affairs, functioning as a de facto market regulator. The empirical evidence on Chinese credit regulations suggests that the incentive level and information access interactively determine the rule-making power allocation between courts and agencies. This article argues that the additional delegation of proactive rule-making power to the judiciary is both a challenge and an opportunity for advancing China’s reform agenda. It proposes institutional rearrangements to correct ineffective incentives and to channel information into courts. The research highlights the hybrid role the Supreme People’s Court plays in policy implementation and dispute resolution, offering new insights into the design of efficient rule-making power allocation.

India’s shift from mass transit to MaaS transit: Insights from Kochi

Abstract Kochi is the first Indian city to take concrete action on multimodal integration. The city is shifting from the recently hyped mass transit-based mobility to Mobility as a Service (MaaS), by weaving traditionally dominant transport modes – water ferry, auto-rickshaw and city bus along with the newly operational Kochi Metro Rail into one service fabric. This paper explores the case of Kochi based on the core characteristics of MaaS and attempts to understand how the new system is different from the traditional system post the multimodal integration anchored by Kochi Metro Rail Limited. The case reveals that Kochi’s ‘MaaS’ model has fostered several systemic and functional changes in the city public transport. Institutional rearrangement, inclusion of actors, recognition to informal transport service, upgradation and re-organisation of resources for operational efficiency, solution of territorial conflicts - these are a few of the positive changes. The paper highlights MaaS’s ability to augment mobility governance and service provision specific to developing nations’ context. It also projects a learning curve for other Indian cities to prioritise a MaaS strategy over construction of mass transit in isolation.

A practical framework for implementing and evaluating integrated management of marine activities

Despite frequent calls for Integrated Management (IM) of coastal and marine activities, there is no consensus on the ‘recipe’ for successful adoption and implementation, and there has been insufficient evaluation of successes and failures of IM to date. The primary rationale for IM is to overcome four major deficiencies of sector-based management: a) management of diverse activities by different agencies using different approaches, b) management generally focused on a subset of primarily ecological objectives that do not properly articulate or evaluate social, cultural, economic and institutional objectives, c) no mechanisms to evaluate or advise on trade-offs among objectives of activities in relation to objectives and d) no mechanisms to evaluate the cumulative effects of all managed activities. To help overcome this gap in knowledge, here we draw on our collective experiences working in Australia and Canada to develop and articulate a framework to help guide the practical implementation and evaluation of IM, which we define as: ‘An approach that links (integrates) planning, decision-making and management arrangements across sectors in a unified framework, to enable a more comprehensive view of sustainability and the consideration of cumulative effects and trade-offs.’We argue that IM will be most easily and effectively achieved by linking and modifying existing sector-based plans in an overarching IM initiative that has nine key features: 1) Recognition of need for IM, 2) A shared vision by stakeholders and decision-makers for IM, 3) Appropriate legal and institutional frameworks for coordinated decision-making, 4) Sufficient and effective processes for stakeholder engagement and participation, 5) A common and comprehensive set of operational objectives, 6) Explicit consideration of trade-offs and cumulative impacts, 7) Flexibility to adapt to changing conditions, 8) Processes for ongoing review and refinement, and 9) Effective resourcing, capacity, leadership and tools. Drawing on these features we then articulate a process for the implementation and evaluation of IM that recognises five phases: i) Preconditions and drivers of change, ii) Intentional design and institutional rearrangement, iii) Enablers and disablers iv) An implemented IM process, and v) Review of IM performance and modification. Combination of the nine features of IM with the five phases in IM development provides a framework for implementation and a lens for evaluation of IM processes. We suggest that this framework provides a guide to the appropriate design of practical IM, which will assist in overcoming the current management deficiencies and improve the sustainability of marine resources in the face of change.

Welcoming two decades of decentralization in Indonesia: a regional development perspective

ABSTRACT Since the start of the reform in the late 1990s, Indonesia has implemented an ambitious decentralization policy. One of its aims is to foster regional development from below by giving subnational governments a greater discretion in determining programmes that are more aspirational to the interests of the community and to local and regional development objectives. The decentralized government system has been implemented for almost two decades, yet limited studies have been conducted to examine its trajectory. Within this context, the study offers a comprehensive review of two crucial issues in the empirical literature on decentralization, notably regional disparity and spatial fragmentation. It is found that the rapid transition toward a decentralized system during the early years of the decentralization reform had an adverse impact on regional development. However, after several adjustments and improvements throughout the process, the decentralization practice in Indonesia began to show positive outcomes, which was signified by a declining trend of regional disparity and spatial fragmentation. It is argued that institutional rearrangement has become a crucial aspect in resolving the regional issues and, thus, improving regional development.

Enfrentando a crise financeira: como constrangimentos jurídicos causaram a fragmentação institucional do poder monetário brasileiro no pós-2008

Resumo O prestamista de última instância é o agente financeiro, que tem a capacidade econômica e está disposto a emprestar liquidez, no momento em que outros agentes se recusam a fazê-lo. Autoridades de resolução estão legalmente habilitadas a empregar ferramentas técnicas para conter crises de solvência. Diferentemente de países desenvolvidos, em que bancos centrais criaram diversas modalidades de operações de liquidez emergencial e, ocasionalmente, desempenharam o papel de autoridades de resolução bancária, o Banco Central do Brasil (BCB) foi legalmente impedido de aumentar suas ações devido à Lei de Responsabilidade Fiscal. Este artigo argumenta que, devido a constrangimentos legais, a gestão da crise causou a fragmentação institucional do poder monetário no Brasil: as funções do BCB e também do Fundo Garantidor de Créditos (FGC) precisaram ser reestruturadas. Define-se poder monetário como a capacidade econômica, combinada ou não com a competência legal, para influenciar a criação de moeda-crédito na economia. Um modelo analítico é proposto para identificar a extensão do rearranjo institucional no pós-2008 e seus limites inerentes. É possível identificar problemas significativos de eficiência econômica e de legitimidade. A estrutura legal, criada principalmente por regras ad hoc do Poder Executivo, parece ser ainda incapaz de responder efetivamente a crises financeiras mais profundas.

The Art of Coercion: Repressions and Repressiveness in Putin’s Russia

While repressions are seen to be a backbone of authoritarian rule, there is a lack of case studies of repressions and repressive policies in different kinds of authoritarian regimes and their interaction with other mechanisms of authoritarian sustainability. As Russia has demonstrated a transition from ‘soft’ electoral authoritarianism to its more ‘hard’ version during Putin’s third term in office, the role of repressions has increased. What are their scope and functions in Russia during this reverse transition? This article offers an analysis of the causes, types and mechanisms of repressions, and presents various ways of measuring their scale as well as the sources and means of their legitimation within the framework of an electoral regime. It shows that the regime prefers to demonstrate its high repressiveness—its willingness and propensity to repress—but in a limited number of cases; it also describes the role of repressive populism, namely presenting repressions as a necessary response to multiplying threats, as well as the scope and function of counter-elite repressions. The latter are seen as no less important than political repressions in the regime’s reverse transition, and as the main leverage of redistribution of power and institutional rearrangement in its course.

A Tale of Two Hybrid Regimes: A Study of Cabinets and Parliaments in Indonesia and Thailand

AbstractThis article applies the concept of hybrid regimes to evaluate the state of political transition in Indonesia and Thailand. It aims to answer why the transition to democracy in Indonesia during 1999–2004 was successful, while the transition in Thailand during 1997–2006 culminated in a reversion to authoritarianism by examining the social profiles and formation of cabinet and parliament members as well as the design of constitutions. The study suggests that the lack of inclusiveness helps explain why democratization in Thailand was in failure. During the transition period, inclusiveness has not markedly increased because of the leadership strongman style, the flaws in the recruitment process, and the problem with the party system. This was unlike Indonesia, where cabinet, parliament, and multiparty system were able to include a variety groups and broad societal segments that played a significant role in deliberating political rules of the game. Indonesia's institutional rearrangements appear to sustain popular participation and engender momentum for fostering democracy, while Thailand's constitutional re-engineering contains many provisions to disempower the elected bodies. The perpetuation of the hybrid regime in Thailand is foreseeable as the hybridity satisfies the needs and concerns of the traditional elites and the urban middle class.

The primacy of patrimony: kinship strategies of the political elite of Turin in the late Middle Ages (1340–1490)

ABSTRACTCombining family history and the analysis of political elites, this article explores the development of the urban elite of Turin (Piedmont) in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, through an analysis of the transformations in the kinships forming the ruling class, with particular regard to their structures and strategies for social and economic reproduction. The deep changes that affected this group and eventually led to its extinction and replacement by a new elite are addressed. It is argued that, alongside institutional rearrangements determined by the Dukes of Savoy, the inheritance strategies pursued by the kinships in order to preserve their economic and political role played a crucial part in their demise.

Against the Odds: Syringe Exchange Policy Implementation in Indiana.

Indiana recently passed legislation allowing local governments to establish syringe exchanges. While the effectiveness of syringe exchange programming is established, there is a dearth of studies about associated policy adoption and implementation. This study documents the experiences of 24 Indiana counties engaged in the process of establishing syringe exchange programming under new state law. A mixed method, qualitative, exploratory case study was conducted from May 2015 to April 2016. We observed rapid and widespread policy adoption interest, and yet counties reported significant policy ambiguity, epidemiologic and resource capacity issues. The emergence of health commons involving information and tangible resource sharing networks allowed institutional rearrangement in the midst of resource scarcity; however, such rearrangement appeared to be a central threat to policy adoption and implementation given state structural barriers. The emerging commons could be a critical policy success factor, as it would achieve efficiencies not possible in the current resource environment, and can help achieve institutional rearrangement for the improvement of population health. Several recommendations for improvement are offered.

Analysis of Customary Institutions’ Position and Roles in Business Permission Bureaucracy: Case of Bali

Uneven investment activities distribution in Bali result in economic disparity which causes not only social tension but also endanger cultural heritage. Preservation of Balinese culture could be threatened if economic and business activities are not managed properly and in line with efforts to preserve the culture of Bali in the long term. This study aims to assess the empirical and normative sociological legal jurisdiction over existing regulations related to economic and business activities in the Province of Bali which can be considered a potential threat to the preservation of Balinese culture and tradition. Based on the problem mapping that is the result of the empirical and normative juridical study, we are able to do the analysis of regulatory and institutional rearrangement of business and investment permission bureaucracy in the Bali province by considering the preservation of cultural and traditional law enforcement in Bali.

The partisan politics of institutional welfare state reform

ABSTRACTWe propose theoretically that the government partisan effect on institutional welfare state reforms is significantly stronger than on policy reforms. Policy reforms impose losses or gains on electoral sub-constituencies and therefore are driven by an electoral logic. Institutional reforms redistribute institutional power resources between political actors, but are inconsequential for voters in the short run. Without clear electoral repercussions, partisan governments are relatively free to seek long-term policy goals through institutional re-arrangements. We evaluate these propositions in a cross-country comparative analysis of all major policy and institutional reforms in labour market policy in Sweden, Denmark, Spain and the Netherlands in the period between 1982 and 2011. We find the expected pattern of especially strong partisan effects in institutional welfare state reforms.

A theory of emerging order within institutional complexes: How competition among regulatory international institutions leads to institutional adaptation and division of labor

The article examines the consequences of functional overlap among regulatory international institutions for governance within institutional complexes. Whereas the existing literature assumes that states tend to exploit forum-shopping opportunities to pursue their parochial interests, we show that multiple members of several overlapping institutions operate in a setting of ‘nested games’. They have a general interest in some form of institutional complementarity within the complex and therefore take the implications for overlapping institutions into account when determining their behavior within either of these institutions. On that basis, we show first that the multiple members are likely to induce complementary processes of institutional adaptation, even if their interests diverge with regard to the specific form of institutional rearrangement; second, that a balanced distribution of power among the advocates of different institutions may be expected to produce particularly sophisticated forms of institutional adaptation that do not simply separate the domains of overlapping institutions, but establish patterns of permanent co-governance; and third that state-induced processes of institutional adaptation gradually produce a spontaneously emerging division of labor among overlapping institutions that organizes their governance activities. These theoretical claims are probed by two case studies on institutional complexes that are characterized by sharp distributional conflicts among the multiple members: First, we demonstrate the emergence of a sophisticated division of labor in the institutional complex on international trade in agricultural GMOs. Second, we show that an equally sophisticated division of labor has emerged in the institutional complex on public health-related intellectual property rights.