Suchergebnisse

the body of literature on institutional fragmentation and interlinkages has become quite extensive over the last 10-15 years, especially in global environmental governance research. This common ground and the merits of existing scholarly approaches notwithstanding, there are still major new conceptual, theoretical and empirical grounds to be explored. Conceptually, the literature could further go beyond additive accounts that are underspecified with regard to the quality of relations among various components of an institutional complex. Instead, more multi-criteria sets should be developed to assess and compare different degrees of fragmentation across environmental issue areas. Moreover, new methodical ground can be broken following the pioneering examples of different network approaches and mappings (Hollway 2013; Kim and Mackey 2013; Widerberg 2014). Similarly, more can be done to root the study of institutional fragmentation and interlinkages theoretically (Chambers et al. 2008, p. 7; cf. O. Young 2008, p. 134). What Underdal (2006, p. 9) observed nearly ten years ago for research on interlinkages also goes for fragmentation research today: the focus of explanatory approaches has been so far 'primarily on interaction at the level of specific regimes and less on links to the kind of basic ordering principles or norms highlighted in realist and sociological analyses of institutions.' Indeed, some the most influential approaches in the literature on institutional complexity suffice with basic ideas about causal pathways while falling short of more fundamental theoretical approaches that relate to concepts of power, interests, knowledge, norms or other scope conditions (e.g. Keohane and Victor 2011). Moreover, many studies still attend to the normative question whether a centralized or a polycentric global governance architecture is preferable (Biermann et al. 2009a; Ostrom 2010; Rayner 2010; Keohane and Victor 2011). This entangling of analytical and normative claims may have partly stood in the way of the development of more fundamental theoretical frameworks. To be clear: I do not mean to build a strawman argument here. As shown, various authors have begun to address this research gap more systematically, notably Oberthür and Stokke (2011), Gehring and Faude (2013), Zürn and Faude (2013) Orsini et al. (2013) and Van de Graaf (2013) – based inter alia on neoliberal institutionalism, sociological differentiation theory or functionalist approaches. As Zelli and van Asselt (2013) argue in the introductory article to a special issue on the institutional fragmentation of global environmental governance, causal explanations would not need to re-invent the wheel but could in part be derived from different strands of institutionalism and cooperation theory. This 'institutionalism revisited' could develop and examine assumptions that link the degree of fragmentation in a given issue area of environmental governance to, for instance: the constellation of power, drawing on neo-realist perspectives (cf. Benvenisti and Downs 2007); situation structures and constellations of interests, based on NEOLIBERAL INSTITUTIONALISM (cf. Rittberger and Zürn 1990; Van de Graaf 2013); major qualities of the issue area (e.g. the global or local nature of a good; the level of scientific certainty) and the question of institutional fit (O. Young 2002); conflicts among core norms or the contestation of discourses (Zelli et al. 2013; see also LIBERAL ENVIRONMENTALISM).Finally, a whole set of empirical themes merits attention of future single case studies or comparative analyses across environmental domains, for example:- the interactions between TRANSNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS and public institutions (Abbott 2014); - the consequences of fragmentation for different types of non-state actors, including further in-depth studies about the legitimacy, accountability and inclusiveness of complex governance architectures (Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen and McGee 2013; Orsini 2013); - the impact of fragmentation on the overall EFFECTIVENESS of a global governance architecture, by both QUALITATIVE COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS and QUANTITATIVE COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS, e.g. by adopting counter-factual approaches to an entire institutional complex (cf. Hovi et al. 2003; Stokke 2012); - the suitability and effectiveness of specific management attempts like ORCHESTRATION (Abbott and Snidal 2010);- the stability or fragility of institutional complexes, including the question whether they move towards a (new) division of labour (Gehring and Faude 2013) or rather towards new types of positional differences and conflicts (Zelli 2011).

This introduction to volume 7 of Inter Faculty traces the reasoning and objectives for taking the theme of Fragmentation and Divergence as the focus of discussion. It takes a close look at the discussions proper and their outcome. In considering the issues taken up here, the introduction underscores the complexity of the systems that make up the present globalised world (economical, political, social, cultural) and questions the role of research in human and social sciences, highlighting the importance of articulating the phenomena of mankind and his existence and those of nature.

The concept of segmentation is mainly used to describe division in the labor market and the formation of primary and secondary markets, or division within the firm into a core and a peripheral labor force. This theoretical formulation that focuses on employment terms and conditions, although valid at a general level, becomes inadequate once the researcher observes closely actual workplace conditions. I argue that there is a multiplicity of segmentation factors and levels, social as well as work‐related, which produce identifications and differentiations and social cleavages, which reflect and sustain differentials of power resulting in labor force fragmentation. Gender, ethnicity, and age may combine with skills and occupational positions leading into the construction of formal and informal hierarchies. Drawing on data from Cyprus, this article illustrates the basic institutional, economic, cultural, and social factors producing labor force fragmentation contributing to the relevant literature with new empirical findings.

The scholarly debate over the rival merits of local government consolidation and fragmentation is an old but enduring one. However, in this debate very little attention has been focused on the political dimension of council amalgamation and fragmentation – yet political considerations play a central role in both the formulation and outcomes of de-concentration policy. The purpose of this article is to fill a gap in the literature by examining local government fragmentation in Ghana from 1988 to 2014. The article does this by identifying the key players and analysing their interests and gains, as well as the tensions arising from the fragmentation exercise. The implications from the Ghanaian case for more general theories of fragmentation are drawn out.

Fragmentation is a potential problem in an international legal system that has seen the creation of new courts and tribunals around the world, with the chance for different judicial approaches to develop in different courts. This book addresses this issue by analyzing judicial practice in three areas: genocide, immunities, and the use of force

AbstractWe analyse the competitive equilibrium and socially optimal allocation of production fragments in a two‐country model where there is learning by doing with spillovers between fragments in the home country. We distinguish between forward and backward knowledge linkages, where learning results from producing products that are less (more) complex than the current knowledge frontier with forward (backward) linkages. We compare the pattern of comparative advantage in the competitive and socially optimal cases, and compare the intensive and extensive margins of fragments produced at home in the two cases. We establish a sufficient condition for the range of fragments produced at home to be non‐decreasing with forward linkages. We also show that with backward linkages, the home country will produce some fragments in the neighbourhood of the steady state that are more complex than those produced in the steady state.

This paper analyses the ways in which product fragmentation (producing part of a product in one country, and a part elsewhere) can be used by multinational firms which have different productivity to serve the market abroad when product chains can be internationally and arbitrarily fragmented. Product fragmentation is thus an additional option to serving markets abroad by either horizontal or vertical FDI. Upon opening a market to trade, firms with the lowest productivity will exit, those with intermediate productivity will export, and those with higher productivity will choose fragmentation. Among the latter, the more productive a firm is, the more product chains are allocated abroad. Firms with the highest productivity will choose horizontal FDI. At a sector level, the more prone to fragmentation a sector is, the lower will be the ratio of exports to FDI sales.