Private Actors Research Articles

Key Innovations in Financing Nature-Based Solutions for Coastal Adaptation

The implementation of nature-based solutions (NBSs) for coastal adaptation to climate change is limited by a well-documented lack of finance. Scholars agree that financial innovation represents a solution to this problem, particularly due to its potential for mobilising private investments. It remains unclear however how exactly innovative solutions address the specific barriers found in NBS implementation and, given the distinctive local characteristics of NBSs, to what extent successful innovations can be replicated in other locations. This study addresses this issue by reviewing the literature and case studies of innovative financial solutions currently implemented in NBS projects, highlighting which financial barriers these arrangements address and which contextual conditions affect their applicability. We find that there is no “low-hanging fruit” in upscaling finance in NBSs through financial innovation. Innovative solutions are nevertheless expected to become more accessible with the increase in NBS project sizes, the increased availability of data on NBS performance, and the establishment of supportive policy frameworks. The flow of finance into NBS projects can be further enhanced through the external support of both public (de-risking and regulation) and private actors (financial expertise).

Balancing reputational strategies in the European administrative space: how private actors and agencies talk about regulation

ABSTRACT The reputational perspective on agencies has sparked fruitful research. We argue that this perspective can also be applied to private actors in regulatory governance. As they are incorporated into governance because of their expertise, we hypothesise that a technical reputation dominates private actors´ regulatory talk. Furthermore, we test whether agencies have a more multi-dimensional reputational strategy than private actors. We analyse documents of private actors, national regulatory agencies (NRAs) and a European agency (ACER) in energy market regulation. We code rule drafts and agency decisions, and show that private actors not only use technical, but also legal and performative arguments. However, NRAs and ACER have a more balanced reputational strategy. They balance the reputational mix of the private actors when approving rule drafts, adding to the reputational dimensions that private actors neglect. Thus, our article shows how private actors and agencies differ in their regulatory talk within one rulemaking process.

Slaying the Toothless Tiger: Social Equity as the Legal Element of the Blue Economy

The ‘blue economy’ is slowly emerging as a catch-all concept that captures the goals of sustaining economic development opportunities while simultaneously maintaining ocean ecosystem health. However, identifying the scope and boundaries of the blue economy has proven to be a challenging task. The aim of this article is to provide a new approach to finding a practical definition of the blue economy. Social equity is noted as the legal component and balancing mechanism that operates between the economy and the environment. This legal compensation mechanism has so far only been rudimentarily elaborated on in governance texts and must be given concrete form through legal methods and, in particular, through the creation of an institutional and procedural framework. The article introduces the idea that an advanced legal concept for the blue economy can be realised by using existing administrative processes and by strengthening the participation of private actors within these processes.

The Horizontal Effect: Conceptualisation and Application of Constitutional Rights in Private Law

Private law has traditionally followed a separate mindset of rights, which is not necessarily related to the constitution. With the rise of constitutionalism in the world, thinking about constitutionalism and fundamental rights has spilt over into private law. The constitutionalisation of private law (or the horizontal effect of constitutional rights on relations between private actors) is one of the important topics that attract scholarly attention around the world.
 It can be seen that the modern history of the horizontal effect of constitutional rights has more than 60 years of development. However, in Vietnam, the topic of the effect of constitutional rights in private law has just been raised recently among legal scholars. This article serves as a development of the emerging discussion on the horizontal effect in Vietnam by providing a general conceptualisation and a brief history of the horizontal effect of constitutional rights in the world. The article also proposes the identification of horizontal effect paradigms in countries/jurisdictions and suggests implications of the horizontal effect for Vietnam.

Focusing on Actors, Scaling-Up, and Networks to Understand Co-Production Practices: Reporting From Berlin and Santiago

In different policy agendas, such as the New Urban Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals, co-production is introduced as a desirable urban planning practice to validate the engagement and inclusion of diverse actors/networks. Nevertheless, some scholars argue (e.g., Watson, Robinson) that the Western planning approach faces difficulties incorporating rationalities beyond the Global North–South division. In this context based on the research project DFG-KOPRO Int for the German Research Foundation on Chilean and German cases and the local context, this article seeks to explore how local groups are undertaking co-production, which means of legitimacy are used, and which socio-spatial results develop. In doing so, the research focuses firstly on the negotiation processes (governance) between stakeholders by undertaking network analysis and, secondly, on understanding the impulse for urban development by analysing the project’s socio-spatial material patterns. Chile’s neoliberal context and the case studies showcase diverse cooperative forms that try to close governance gaps within strong political struggles. In the German context, actors from different areas, such as cultural institutions, universities, and private actors undertake diverse mandates for testing regulatory, persuasive, or financial instruments. As different as local realities are, the overall results show that co-production occurs mostly in highly contested fields such as housing projects and highlights a three-part constellation of actors—state, private, and civil society—in urban development. However, negotiation processes take place, ranging from conflictive to cooperative. Hence, co-production challenges prevailing social and political structures by providing an arena for new forms of collective and pluralistic governance.

Home alone: Evaluating the implications of government mandates and disease prevalence on time usage during the pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic governments and individuals alike faced incentives to limit the spread of the disease. Our objective is to assess the extent to which government mandates and private actions influenced time allocated to specific activities and the social interactions of individuals. Information on how individuals spent their time before and during the early stages of the pandemic come from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), which identifies time use for a 24-hour period and includes each individual's activities, locations and companions. We combine the time diary data with data on state-level restrictions from the Kaiser Family Foundation and state-level COVID-19 infection and death rates from Johns Hopkins University. Our findings suggest that private actions in response to reported death rates are comparable to the effects of state-level public mandates on the outcome variables of time alone and time at home. In evaluating effects based on sex and age, we find that young males experienced the largest disruption in time use, significantly changing both their location and their companions. We also find important age profile differences between males and females.

5G Wales Unlocked.

This paper examines Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and Welsh Government support for 5G deployment in rural areas of Wales. This project introduced several use cases based on 5G-enabled digital applications in Monmouthshire and Blaenau Gwent. The findings highlight the ongoing challenges associated with 5G deployment in rural Wales, and the current lack of a business model for 5G deployment by Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) in such areas. The report illustrates how the public sector may collaborate with private actors to develop an experimental approach to 5G deployment challenges faced in rural areas. This approach is based on an iterative learning process, in which small-scale experimental actions aimed at identifying sources of demand and understanding the potential impacts of new technology solutions are established. The report suggests that policy action is required at multiple levels of governance in such experimentation to address the challenge of deploying new 5G, and to ensure that firms and public service provision in rural parts of Wales are not disadvantaged.

Network Governance in the Tourism Policy: The Case of Padang, West Sumatra

As the capital city with a beautiful landscape, Padang has a huge potential as the center for development growth of West Sumatra province through its tourism sector. Besides its natural landscape, Padang also has historical sites, culinary uniqueness, and halal tourism that attract both local and foreign tourists to visit this region. This study then aims to explain the implementation of network governance in the tourism public policy in Padang City, so that the tourism performance in Padang can be optimized. The method used in this study is a qualitative research method with a literature review design by studying and analyzing secondary data. The results show that the government of Padang City has applied network governance to improve the formulation and implementation of its tourism policy. The application can be seen through the government’s efforts in conducting cooperation and collaboration with private actors, local communities, and other government agencies. Nevertheless, this implementation has not been optimal because there are some challenges faced by the governments, such as a lack of infrastructure and human resources capability.
 Keywords: network governance, public policy, tourism

Exploring the functions and role of social impact measurement in enhancing the social value of public-private partnerships: A systematic literature review

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) have emerged as promising and dynamic means to provide public goods, infrastructures, and services, thus representing a potential solution to grand societal challenges and social value generation. Despite this, such potential of PPPs is challenged by contractual issues, that can arise from conflicting objectives and trust between public and private actors. Social impact measurement (SIM) can play a crucial role in promoting PPP’s ability to overcome contract-related problems by providing transparency, accountability, and credibility. However, little is known about the characteristics that SIM should possess to enhance such potential. We adopt a systematic literature review method to explore approaches to and functions of SIM in PPPs. We found that when SIM is embedded in collaborative contracts between public and private actors, conducted ex-ante, and entrusted by independent bodies/organizations, it can increase the credibility and objectivity of PPPs. This can in turn enhance trust in the partnerships and support actors to manage the expectations of collaborators and citizens. We advance some recommendations for future research to explore the virtuous, relational mechanisms that may explain how SIM affects public and private actors collaborating for the common good.

Unilateral coercive measures against Cuba, secondary sanctions and “crawling” extraterritorial jurisdiction

Is a retrospective review of the U.S. regulatory policy and sanctions imposed on Cuba, citizens and legal entities of this country, as well as against third countries and persons related to this state. The aim is to comprehensively understand the scope of such restrictive measures. The research provides a brief analysis of the impact of such measures on civil and business relations along with examples of secondary sanctions and the use of extraterritorial jurisdiction, which have a negative and long-term impact on the business partners in terms of excessive compliance with restrictions (overcompliance). The authors offer assessment of concepts of economic coercion, extraterritorial jurisdiction, as well as limits of responsibility of private and public actors for breach of legal obligations due to compliance with sanctions restrictions. Continuing the study of issues related to consequences of unlawful unilateral application of restrictive economic measures against a number of states by the U.S., the EU and imposition by countries of their jurisdiction on the parties of a dispute, including those complicated by a foreign element, in the process of dispute resolution , raised by authors' colleagues on scientific research in their published scientific articles (Tsepova E.A. Unprecedented law: Protecting the Russian financial system against the impact of sanctions. RUDN Journal of Law . 2022. Vol. 26. No. 3, 655-677; Ermakova E.P. When the “pro-arbitration” policy of the United States becomes aggressive . Eurasian Law Journal . 2023. No. 5 (180), 77-80; Rusakova E.P., Frolova E.E. Digital disputes in the new legal reality. RUDN Journal of Law. 2022. Vol. 26, No. 3, 695-704), the authors come to the conclusion that it is necessary to develop obligations directly as the duty of businesses to comply with universally recognized norms regarding property, non-discrimination, legal certainty even under the pressure of secondary sanctions and unlawfully expanding extraterritorial jurisdiction of certain countries imposing sanctions, as well as understanding the complex negative impact on the structure of all levels of the economy and sustainable social relations, as well as de jure existence of already designated legal positions on the need to gain consolidated support from all the actors of international communication to overcome the existing rupture: condemnation and recording of illegality in the public law field and forced compliance with such non-legal requirements of certain jurisdictions in the domain of private law relations.

Between Smart Images and Fast Trucks: Digital Surveillance and Obscured Labour in Hyderabad, India

In Hyderabad, India, the growing information technology (IT) sector relies on ensuring safe and efficient movements of people and objects, and the city government and private actors have embraced the promise of digital surveillance to reach these goals. The new Telangana State, created in 2014, has built a new city-wide network of smart cameras, and at ‘hackathons’ programmers develop new digital tools, often connected to this network, that will technologically ‘solve’ social problems. In this article, I examine the system of CCTV cameras and programmers’ investments in these systems, and explore how migrant Vaddera stonecutters use cellphones to evade patrolling officers monitoring the streets where they carry the granite stones that they cut and load to construct the city’s buildings. Expanding on what Gilbert Simondon calls ‘the margin of indeterminacy’, this article reveals gaps in the digital infrastructure of surveillance—even as its integration and completion combine human and technical elements.

Transnational Private Actors Shaping the Policy and Practice of Child Institutionalisation

We provide an overview of transnational non-state actors and their agency that shape today’s out-of-home childcare around the world, specifically institutional residential childcare. Based on existing studies and desktop research, we reveal a broad range of complexly inter-related for-profit and non-profit actors promoting diverse, often conflicting policies and practices – with ambiguous implications for children in care. We focus on secular and faith-based international non-governmental organisations, transnational companies, private regulators, and individuals. Many of them promote family- and community-based care, yet many others support orphanages and other forms of institutional care. The growing number of transnational actors in residential childcare, the emergence of private regulatory frameworks, the advance of market-based, for-profit players, and the involvement of well-resourced religious communities make the future of child institutionalisation uncertain. We discuss how this transnational agency compares with other policy fields and propose directions for future investigations of how transnationalism impacts children in care.

The territorialisation of industry in times of transition: ecosystems, infrastructures and hubs in the green hydrogen sector

ABSTRACT Current evolutions of the relationships between industry and the state associate explicit objectives of industrial transformations for ecological reasons, a growing interest in sovereignty-driven interventions in industry, and the linkage of industrial development to social concerns. This paper examines these evolutions by analysing the territorial inscription of industry, its practical manifestation and its consequences. We speak of styles of territorialisation of industry to characterise the articulation of three components: the construction of an industrial sector, the design and use of policy instruments, and the material consequences of spatial interventions. Using the example of the nascent green hydrogen sector in France, we contrast three styles of territorialisation, which we label ‘ecosystems’, ‘planned infrastructures’, and ‘hubs’. Each of them encompasses visions of the relationships between public and private actors, faces tensions and frictions, and has inevitable exclusion effects. We contend that the study of styles of territorialisation is a productive analytical entry point for understanding the politics of transition.

Shifting the Redlining Paradigm: The Home Owners’ Loan Corporation Maps and the Construction of Urban Racial Inequality

While it is important to recognize the racist roots of contemporary urban conditions and Black disadvantage, the focus on the HOLC redlining maps of the late 1930s, which have become a staple of both research and popular literature, is misplaced. Despite statistical associations between the maps and contemporary measures of racialized disadvantage, extensive research has found no evidence to support a connection between them. Instead, the Second Great Migration and white flight, both acting in the context of the exclusion of Black buyers from the growing suburbs, led to the spatial and economic bifurcation of urban Black populations within cities and the reconfiguration of the formerly predominately white-ethnic redlined areas as segregated areas of concentrated Black poverty. It is that migratory process, rather than any public or private actions based on the maps, which, while racist, principally reflected underlying housing and economic conditions, that account for the associations found in the literature. Today, while redlined areas still tend often to be concentrated poverty areas, the great majority of poor Black households live outside those areas. A focus on the HOLC maps as a driver of contemporary inequities and disadvantage is both poor history and a poor starting point for policies to address today’s persistent racialized inequities.

Contesting China’s Developing Country Status: Geoeconomics and the Public–Private Divide in Global Economic Governance

Abstract The geopolitical rise of emerging economies has led to contestations and renegotiations of the boundaries of the developing country status. Established powers put pressure on emerging economies to give up this status and the benefits it comes with in global regimes. In this article, we analyse the (re)negotiation of China’s developing country status within the context of US–China geoeconomic competition with respect to two core areas in the global economy—finance and trade. We show that whether private or public actors are responsible for status classification influences the outcomes of contestation over China’s status. When private sector actors are central, China is more likely able to defend its developing country status against US pressure. We also find that these processes are mitigated by how decision-making processes are institutionalised. Our two case studies thus illustrate that regulatory processes such as status classification influence the outcomes of geoeconomic competition in international politics. These findings also shed new light on the power of states versus non-state actors within global governance amidst the geoeconomic turn: the public–private divide can serve as an important context factor that influences the probability of the international economic order to cater more towards US or Chinese geoeconomic strategies.

Tell me what you don’t know: large language models and the pathologies of intelligence analysis

ABSTRACT This article serves as a warning. Prompted by the likely increase in the reliance on artificial intelligence (AI) in intelligence analysis, it raises grave concerns about the prospect of relying on large language models (LLMs), including in high-stakes contexts such as the state-level resort-to-force decision making that is the focus of this special issue. It begins by identifying the twin informational pathologies that intelligence analysis is subject to by its very nature: information scarcity and epistemic scarcity. It goes on to argue that the use of LLMs would compound these pathologies, attributing this risk to the nature of the international information landscape, especially the rise of private actors in data markets and the changed intelligence environment in the years following September 11. The article concludes by making recommendations for possible responses to the informational risks engendered by the use of LLMs in intelligence analysis, especially in high-stakes contexts.

Private law, private international law and public interest litigation

AbstractPrivate actors and institutions, and by extension private law itself, are increasingly being forced to reckon with a multiplicity of challenges that extend beyond the domain of private law as it is traditionally conceived. They reflect threats to the global constitutional order and liberal constitutionalism, and threats to individual and collective fundamental rights and constitutional values. As a result, the role of private law in framing and facilitating the development of the global economy and globalization often does not fall within the direct purview of public international lawyers. This editorial aims to examine the role of private law in the litigation and enforcement of public interests against the background of the public/private divide. This is done in light of the increasing role adopted by private actors, including corporations, beyond the private realm.

Effects of multilevel governance on the design and implementation of sustainable mobility plans

Objectives: The polycentric nature of multilevel governance structures with multiple actors interacting at different levels can facilitate sustainability transitions. This study aims to explore the impact of multilevel governance on the design and implementation of sustainable urban mobility plans within the two-tiered government structure of Sweden. Methodology: The study is based on qualitative review of the academic literature, secondary sources including review of national policy documents and empirical insights drawn from the case study of Umeå, a medium-sized Swedish city which takes part in several national, local, and transnational initiatives to accelerate sustainability transitions. The empirical data is collected through semi-structured interviews with policy experts, policymakers, transport, and urban planners who are responsible for formulation and implementation of transport policies within national and local institutions. Results: The multilevel governance of transport and sustainable urban mobility policies in Sweden produces several positive effects for design and implementation of policies. These include clear division of responsibilities among public authorities at national, regional, and local government level which helps to overcome the problems such as lack of accountability and responsibility. Conclusions: Multilevel governance of sustainable urban mobility policies in Sweden enables local authorities to have access additional resources and knowledge exchange through networks consisting of various public and private actors.

Urban redevelopment of a new town: The case of Zoetermeer in the Netherlands

The success factors contributing to the development of Zoetermeer, a former Dutch new town, into a contemporary city include dedicated public leadership, long-term commitment from social housing providers, private developers, institutional investors, timely and transparent communication with residents and the need to act and outperform the city benchmark. Zoetermeer was designed and built as a new town close to the government centre at The Hague and celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2022. It is now home to more than 125,000 residents. For decades Zoetermeer’s growth took place in the surrounding green fields. Therefore, the existing capacity-building methodology was not fit for the purpose of the ‘brownfield’ urban redevelopment challenge. The city authorities were also reluctant to engage in pro-active real estate stakeholder leadership. Since 2017, however, RITTERWALD pan-European residential strategy consultancy has supported Zoetermeer’s urban redevelopment strategy, including leading the preparation of a 10,000+ homes Urban Development Agreement (Stadsbouwakkoord) which is now being delivered to provide mixed tenure neighbourhoods. This achievement involved educating the municipal administration in the practice of urban redevelopment, including hosting regular masterclasses with high-level public and private sector actors. How a new town grew up and reinvented itself is explored in this paper.

Algorithmic surveillance in the era of the mental health appsphere.

Digital mental health applications, also known as mHealth apps, are designed to help users manage their mental health using technology such as mobile devices and smartphones. However, there has been little critical engagement surrounding their impact on marginalized communities, and Black people in Canada. This article aims to explore how state and private actors conceptualize the digitalization of mental health access, leading to the creation and implementation of these apps. It is important to consider the links and interconnections between the platform and the app, and to be cautious and curious before adopting yet another app that claims to manage and mitigate moods and address mental health needs. We should be considering the implications of what comes with this access and apparent ease of use.