Lens Of Governance Research Articles

Elected local bodies, space, and the governance of market expansion in rural India

Departing from scholarship related to democratic decentralization which has largely treated the phenomenon through the lenses of comparative politics, public choice and participatory governance; I identify democratic decentralization as a form of state restructuring of rural spaces during an era of market expansion. Drawing upon political geography and critical governance studies and based on multi-site ethnographic fieldwork in India, elected local bodies are identified as mediators of market-society conflicts, builders of infrastructure to overcome spatio-temporal barriers to the movement of capital, and legitimators of new property regimes at the geopolitical margins. Market expansion by means of democratic decentralization is a window onto the transformation of statehood during second wave economic reforms in India, and unsettles the premise of grassroots democratization advancing distributional justice in the locality.

International corporate governance: A review and opportunities for future research

We review four decades of research about the corporate governance of multinational corporations (MNCs), which we label International Corporate Governance (ICG). We identify and discuss three main streams of research that draw on different conceptualizations and theoretical lenses of (corporate) governance. After synthesizing their respective findings, we propose several avenues for future research that integrate these three streams of research with the goal of developing a more nuanced understanding of ICG. We hope this review article will inspire international business scholars to continue examining how corporate governance can be an effective tool for MNC success.

Regulating white-collar crime in Ireland: an analysis using the lens of governmentality

A new way of governing corporate wrongdoing has emerged to address Ireland’s changed social, political and economic context. Traditional methods of laying blame, forged in the agrarian Irish State, are no longer capable of dealing with the contemporary challenges of an advanced industrial economy which is more willing to recognise the risks posed by increased corporate activity. The conventional crime monopoly became fragmented as specialist regulatory enforcement agencies were established to enforce the law. Moreover, contemporary enforcement became much more sophisticated, moving away from the “command and control” model to a “responsive” model of enforcement. Also, paradoxically, this model is explicitly cooperative and employs sanctions as a last resort but, also can actually be more instrumental and punitive in addressing corporate wrongdoing. More recently, however, since the financial crisis, the architecture seems to have shifted again. Corporate and financial crimes become politicised and new laws were passed to make it easier to hold wrongdoers to account. In addition to resolving problems in enforcing the law, they also had ostentatiously political purposes. They reflect the political desire to “tool up” executive power and “act out” for public approval, to “govern through” white-collar crime.

Sexuality as taboo: using interpretative phenomenological analysis and a Foucauldian lens to explore fathers' practices in talking to their children about puberty, relationships and reproduction.

Fathers can play an important role in their children's learning about relationships and sexuality but we know very little about the father's lived experience in this regard. To explore eight fathers' perceptions and experiences of discussing puberty, relationships and reproduction with their 10-year-old children. The paper commences with a genealogical analysis of the history of sex education in England from the Public Health Act of 1848 to the present day. Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) was used as both a methodology and a method. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with each father and results were analysed ideographically, followed by analysis across the group. Interpretations were developed using a Foucauldian lens of governmentality and biopower. The paper explores how synthesis of IPA with a Foucauldian lens revealed significant tensions between the fathers' cognitions, accounts and behaviours, which were underpinned by an enduring perception of sexuality as taboo. By providing a contextualised understanding of the fathers' practices, this study demonstrates that a more informed approach to health promotion strategy can be achieved and the implications for nursing are explored.

Exploring Adaptive Governance for Indigenous Peoples: Lessons from Aotearoa New Zealand’s Erosion Control Funding Programme

In this article, we trace the evolution of the Erosion Control Funding Programme (ECFP) on the East Coast of Aotearoa New Zealand to illustrate the importance of indigenous co-development of forest systems for more adaptive governance. The ECFP was originally created to address severe erosion on the East Coast, but uptake of the programme has been slower than planned. We employ an adaptive governance lens to track the progress of the ECFP over time, paying particular attention to its implications for Aotearoa New Zealand’s indigenous Māori people. We argue that a key aspect of the programme’s underperformance relates to the local and indigenous context that remained largely unaccounted for in the ECFP’s design and implementation. Our resulting analysis addresses a critical oversight in adaptive governance theory and practice relating to its treatment of power, history, and context, with important lessons for environmental governance in the East Coast and beyond.

Coastal climate adaptation planning and evolutionary governance: Insights from Homer, Alaska

Climate variability is not a new challenge for coastal communities. However, because climate variability is manifesting with more extreme climate impacts, occurring with greater frequency and with more intensity, the necessity for adaptation to minimize risk is becoming more pronounced. Though this is true of coastal communities around the globe, it is an acutely important concern for coastal communities in high northern latitudes, where the impacts of climate change are occurring at a disproportionate rate. With Homer, Alaska, as a case study, and through the lens of evolutionary governance, this research investigates coastal stressors (eg. storm surges, bluff instability) and subsequent decision dynamics around local government policy and planning for climate adaptation. In particular, the paper explores the relationship between actors and institutions, the connection between power and knowledge, as well as the challenges of path and goal dependencies. Narratives from key informants associated with Homer's climate change agenda highlight that while some stakeholders are keen to mainstream adaptation thinking into long-term strategic planning, adaptation policy remains a low priority (with a focus instead on mitigation). Uptake is further hindered by a belief among key decision-makers that the threat of climate change is a concern for the future. This in turn has resulted in diminished internal capacity (eg. institutions, knowledge) to effectively prepare for climate variability in general. Drawing insights through evolutionary governance theory, this study may provide coastal community decision-makers with an appreciation of the value (and nuanced challenges) of embedding climate adaptation thinking into strategic community planning.

Towards Transparency? Analysing the Sustainability Governance Practices of Ethical Certification

ABSTRACTEthical certifications and their related labels are frequently seen as market solutions, but less often as sustainability governance regimes. Through an analytics of governmentality lens, we analyse two different ethical certification schemes operating within a single market. We question whether ethical certification and its related labelling can be relied upon to bring about ‘better’ transparency regarding the products offered from which various outcomes become possible – such as consumers making informed decisions, and various actors being able to hold companies to account. Consumer confusion, evident in our case study, calls into question ethical certification’s achievement of a reduction in informational asymmetries. Our findings also show how this confusion provided an opportunity for a non-government organisation and a government oversight body to ultimately call a company to account. Overall, we point to both the limits and potential of ethical certification as a wider sustainability governance regime by highlighting complexities associated with acts of both governing and being governed.

An Analysis of Bodri Watershed Governance System

Watershed management needs collaboration and program integration from all stakeholders including government and non-government institutions, as well as communities. Despite the existent of a number of regulatory frameworks, there are various problems in watershed management that need to be systematically diagnosed for future improvement. This paper focuses on Bodri Watershed, which stretches through three regencies (e.g. Temanggung, Semarang and Kendal Regencies) and has a vital role not only in the ecological but also socio-economic life of the surrounding communities. The paper aims to evaluate the current conditions of the watershed through governance lens. This paper employs Governance System Analysis (GSA) approach and mainly uses qualitative method for data collection. The paper finds that there is lack of coordination, integration, synergy and synchronization in the application of knowledge, connectivity and capacity for participation of related stakeholders to the management of the Bodri Watershed. This situation explains environmental problems and ecosystem damages in the Bodri Watershed area. These problems include massive land conversion, erosion, landslides, sedimentation, and flooding and drought in the rainy and dry seasons respectively.

International Corporate Governance: A Review and Opportunities for Future Research

In this article, we review four decades of research about the corporate governance of multinational corporations (MNCs), which we label International Corporate Governance (ICG). We identify and discuss three main streams of research that draw on different conceptualizations and theoretical lenses of (corporate) governance. After synthesizing their respective findings, we propose several avenues for future research that integrate these three streams of research with the goal of developing a more nuanced understanding of ICG. We hope this review article will inspire international business scholars to continue examining how corporate governance can be an effective tool for MNC success.

Management Education and Earth System Science: Transformation as if Planetary Boundaries Mattered

Earth system science (ESS) has identified worrying trends in the human impact on fundamental planetary systems. In this conceptual article, we discuss the implications of this research for business schools and management education (ME). We argue that ESS findings raise significant concerns about the relationship between business and nature and, consequently, a radical reframing is required to embed economic and social activity within the global sustainability of natural systems. This has transformative implications for ME. To illustrate this reframing, we apply the ESS lenses of social-ecological interdependence, multiscalar relations, environmental governance, and environmental values to the ME functional domains of institutional purpose, social context and engagement, pedagogical practice, curricular design, and research focus. Our work contributes to the literature on business education for sustainability and the business-society-nature nexus. We explore and apply key ESS findings and concepts, discuss normative implications of these ideas, and offer guidance on transformational pathways for business schools and ME.

Is Governmentality the Missing Link for Greening the Economic Growth?

The new concept of “green growth” appears to be an economic growth model, which balances environment sustainability and fostering of economic growth. Yet, much of the green growth research has failed to address the real extent of interconnections and complexity of the relationship between governance and economic, social, and environmental structures. Furthermore, current green growth research tends to focus on the country level, such as the Millennium Development Goals and sustainable development indices, which risks ignoring the additional impacts on micro industrial economies. The lack of connection between green growth and good governance—known as environmental governance—is a crucial gap in practical adoption. Therefore, this study uses Foucault’s governmentality lens to view green growth as a technique of government, seeking an environmentally focused eco-governmentality. We examine the transformation, differential definitions, and critical dimensions of green growth in relation to particular case studies taken from China and South Korea and frame them for future sustainable studies. The findings of this study highlight the significant role of interdisciplinary research, as well both bottom-up and top-down initiatives, on enabling the transition to green growth. The proposed research framework and implementation strategy also identifies new avenues for future research and practices in the field of sustainable development, making it one of the study’s key contributions to the literature.

Governing multisectoral action for health in low-income and middle-income countries: unpacking the problem and rising to the challenge

Multisectoral action is key to addressing many pressing global health challenges and critical for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, but to-date, understanding about how best to promote and support multisectoral...

Evaluating Agricultural Extension and Advisory Services through a Governance Lens

Demand-driven extension services have been promoted as a potential mechanism to improve governance quality and lead to better-served farmers. In this paper, we evaluate i) the extent to which demand-driven elements are present in extension services in developing countries, and ii) whether governance problems persist and why. We accomplish so by performing a qualitative analysis of the Modernizing Extension and Advisory Services (MEAS) country assessments, and find that, despite the adoption of demand-driven features, extension services are not fully participatory, transparent, accountable, equitable and responsive to needed farmers.

Multi-level Governance and Local Government Reform in Pakistan

Local government reform in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province between 2001 and 2009 is examined through the lens of multi-level governance. The reforms were initiated by the military-led government of Pervez Musharraf and entrenched the power of the federal government. The reforms of 2001–09 were similar to the reforms implemented by the governments of Ayub Khan in the 1960s and Zia-ul-Haque in 1979. The article argues that three different military governments pursued similar programmes of constitutional reform to secure themselves in power. We conclude that devolution may not always enhance democracy.

Experimentalist Governance to Foster Cooperation in the Baltic Sea Region: A Focus on the Turku Process

The Baltic Sea is one of the most severely polluted water bodies on earth, with stressors resulting from anthropogenic pressures of 85 million inhabitants in nine coastal countries. All are members of the European Union (EU) with the exception of Russia. This exception poses challenges for governing the Sea, as Russia is excluded as a member country from EU Baltic Sea governing policies, such as the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region (EUSBSR). This added complexity has led to the emergence of new forms of cooperation to include Russia in the governing process. One such initiative is the Turku process, an initiative by the cities of Turku (Finland), Hamburg (Germany), and St. Petersburg (Russia) to promote cooperation, especially with Russian partners. Since its emergence in 2010, there has been no study of it in the literature. This study aims to bridge this gap by analyzing the history and evolution of the Turku process under the lens of experimentalist governance. It aims to illustrate the experimentalist governance perspective through the Turku process and to present the theoretical foundations of the concept. It does the former through key informant interviews with main actors in the Turku Process and the latter with the help of the literature on experimentalist governance. This study adds to the dialogue on governance in an especially challenging time when the Ukraine crisis has negatively impacted EU–Russia relations.

Between empowerment and self-discipline: Governing patients' conduct through technological self-care

Recent health policy renders patients increasingly responsible for managing their health via digital technology such as health apps and online patient platforms. This paper discusses underlying tensions between empowerment and self-discipline embodied in discourses of technological self-care. It presents findings from documentary analysis and interviews with key players in the English digital health context including policy makers, health designers and patient organisations. We show how discourses ascribe to patients an enterprising identity, which is inculcated with economic interests and engenders self-discipline. However, this reading does not capture all implications of technological self-care. A governmentality lens also shows that technological self-care opens up the potential for a de-centring of medical knowledge and its subsequent communalization. The paper contributes to Foucauldian healthcare scholarship by showing how technology could engender agential actions that operate at the margins of an enterprising discourse.

Information Technology Governance through the Complex System Governance Lens

AbstractAs the field of complex system governance (CSG) continues to emerge, definition of organizations that reflect the principles of complex system governments can be imagined. We briefly review the progression of research on complex system governance, beginning with the conundrum posed by Rittel and Weber for current research in the field. A high level over view of the Complex System Governance Reference Model (Keating and Bradley (2015)) is provided to ground the following analysis. We next apply principles of CSG identified by Keating and Bradley (2015) to an exemplar Information Technology (IT) system of systems (a complex system) that is part of a larger industrial enterprise. This application of the Reference Model continues with a discussion of gaps in the espoused governance model of the US Navy system for software acquisition and maintenance. The paper concludes with suggestions for further research. This paper is part of a sequence on the development, design and maturation of Complex System Governance.

China, Global Governance, and Hegemony: Neo-Gramscian Perspective in the World Order

This paper intends to provide an analytical framework to interpret the dynamic nexus between China and the world order from the perspective of the neo-Gramscian international relations school. It supposes that the post-war world order is mainly shaped by and reflected in the architecture of international/global governance. This supposition is largely built on the conceptual nexus between global governance, hegemony, and world order. Then, through the lens of global governance, the paper contends that the post-war historical dynamics between China and the world order can be divided into three periods: first the period of hostility and rejection (1949-1971), second the period of acceptance and integration (1971-2008), and third the period of leadership and contribution (2008 up to now). On the basis of such chronology, the paper attempts to deliver a historical and holistic interpretation of China’s changing role in the post-war world order. By distinguishing the roles China played and is playing in different historical periods, and by elaborating this dynamic historical process through a holistic view, this paper concludes that China is currently serving as a proactive rule-shaper rather than a disruptive revisionist or a stubborn vindicator of the existing world order.

Applying knowledge governance to understand the role of science in environmental regulation: The case of arsenic in Chile

The relationship between scientific knowledge and decision-making surrounding environmental issues is complex and represents a flourishing area of scholarship and practice. However, a sense of frustration persists regarding efforts to increase the use of science for decision-making. Regulations of copper smelter arsenic emissions developed in Chile during the 1990s represent a successful example of science informing policy making. The case involved production and use of local science in contrast to the common practice of copying international ambient standards.In this paper, we investigate arsenic regulation in Chile in the 1990s and focus on the role of the major science intervention during the process, project FONDEF 2-24. The case is examined through the lens of knowledge governance (van Kerkhoff and Pilbeam, 2017). This theoretically-oriented approach guides our critical reflection on the relationship between knowledge and policy making, taking into consideration the formal and informal rules that shape the intervention and the underlying social and cultural patterns. The success of the science intervention’s influence on policy is better understood with such a perspective.We expand the knowledge governance approach by scrutinizing the relations of coherence between levels of analysis to assess their alignment. The approach could be helpful for studying other cases, particularly at times when a new field of policy is emerging.

Политическая аффилированность в системе корпоративного управления: обзор международных исследований и проекция их результатов на российскую корпоративную среду

The article focuses upon the problem of political affiliation in corporate governance. It aims to provide insights into theoretical and methodological aspects of the problem applied to the Russian corporate environment. The author evaluates the academic relevance of the problem in international studies, reviews the underpinning fundamental theories, provides an insight into the construct of political affiliation through the lens of corporate governance, outlines the methodology used in the studies of political affiliation to eventually assess the relevance of the problem to the Russian corporate environment.