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"Social cohesion" and the "social contract" are two related analytical concepts, which have become increasingly popular among researchers and practitioners. Both concepts help to understand and characterise societies and countries by shedding light on the relationships between members and groups of society and state institutions. Unfortunately, there is often little precision in the use of the concepts. As a result, their respective analytical strengths have not always been well utilised for policy analysis and project design. Furthermore, the synergies between them have been overlooked. This paper therefore defines both concepts, considers their respective strengths and discusses the relationship between them. The concept of the social contract emphasises the deliverables exchanged between societal groups and governing authorities. Social contracts are the sum of formal and informal agreements amongst societal actors and between them and the actor in power (the government or any other type of authority) on the rights and obligations of one towards the other. Social contracts vary enormously, but all establish more stability in state–society relations, especially if they are inclusive and flexible enough to account for changes in the framework conditions. The concept of social cohesion, in contrast, refers primarily to the quality of the relations between individuals, societal groups and the state, and the underlying values, norms and attitudes that shape these relationships. Social cohesion can be characterised as the glue that holds a society together and enables it to develop a shared vision. It concerns the horizontal relationships between members of society and the vertical relationships between societal actors and political institutions. Social contracts and social cohesion affect each other. Social contracts contribute to social cohesion because the regular and predictable exchange of deliverables between societal groups and the state creates an interdependence that strengthens mutual trust, willing-ness to cooperate and a sense of common identity. Conversely, social contracts tend to be more resilient and sustainable if they are based on cohesive societies. Both concepts are thus useful for national governments and foreign donors to assess opportunities and design policies for sustainable development. The social contract concept helps us to understand the "give and take" in a country: it shows where governments could do better in delivering to society and thereby make state–society relations more stable. The social cohesion concept in turn helps to determine what holds societies together and which attributes of intra-society relations could or should be strengthened. In addition, both concepts assist foreign donors in assessing which interventions would be favourable for the internal relationships in partner countries and in thinking carefully about potential unintended harmful effects. In particular, international donors can benefit from exploiting the mutually enforcing relationship between social contract and social cohesion.

While polluting industries are still flourishing, the green economy is on the rise. In low- and middle-income countries, the resulting opportunities are mostly underexplored. The Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)'s new strategy for "Sustainable economic development, training and employment" shifts gears towards a green and inclusive structural transformation, recognising that only a just transition approach with credible co-benefits for societies can gain societal acceptance (BMZ, 2023). It is now essential to provide evidence of how a greener economy can offer direct economic benefits to national economies and the majority of their citizens. Ongoing cooperation portfolios need to be adjusted to this new and timely orientation in the BMZ's core strategy. We suggest focusing on the following six areas: Eco-social fiscal reform should be a priority area in at least 15 of the over 40 partner countries with whom Germany cooperates on "sustainable economic development", systematically linking revenues from pricing pollutions to pro-poor spending. Development policy should promote inclusive green finance (IGF) through market-shaping policies, such as an enabling regulatory framework for the development of digital IGF services and customer protection in digital payment services. It should also build policymakers' capacity in developing IGF policies and regulation. Support in the area of sustainable, circular con-sumption should focus on eco-design, and repair and reuse systems. It should build systems design capa-cities and behavioural knowledge, to integrate con-sumers in low-carbon and circular industry-consumer systems. This will need new collaborations with actors shaping systems of consumption and production, for instance with supermarkets or the regulators of eco-design guidelines. Germany should strategically support national hydro-gen strategies, including a just transition approach and prioritising green over other "colours" of hydrogen. This means strengthening industrial policy think tanks, technology and market assessment agencies, technology-related policy advice as well as skills development, and exploring distributive mechanisms to spread the gains and ensure societal acceptance. Sustainable urbanisation should be a more explicit priority, given its potential for job creation and enterprise development. This means supporting partners in integrating land-use, construction and mobility planning for compact, mixed-use neighbourhoods, and anti-cipating green jobs potential and skills required within cities. Lastly, Germany should support green industrial policy and enlarge policy space in trade rules by promoting the core institutions of industrial policy, for example, technology foresight agencies, coordinating platforms for industry upgrading, and policy think tanks, and working towards reforms of the trading system, such as rules to allow clearly defined green industrial subsidies, preferential market access for green goods and services from low-income countries, or technology transfer. It is evident for all areas that the challenges in low- and middle-income countries will differ from those in high-income countries. It is, therefore, imperative that successful programmes are co-developed with local partners. A just green transition that harvests benefits beyond a healthier environment and is supported by societies will then be achievable.

State fragility has remained a pressing challenge for international security and development policymakers for more than two decades. However, international engagement in fragile states has often failed, in part due to a lack of understanding about what constitutes state fragility. Established quantitative models usually rank fragile states on one-dimensional scales ranging from stable to highly fragile. This puts states characterised by very different problems and dimensions of fragility into the same "box". Moreover, categorisations such as "fragile", "weak", "failed" or "collapsed" are increasingly rejected in the Global South, thereby hampering international development and security cooperation. The "Constellations of State Fragility" model, developed at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS), provides a more differentiated model to measure state fragility. It assesses state fragility along three continuous dimensions, assuming that state fragility is a continuous trait that affects all states to some degree: authority, capacity and legitimacy. These dimensions are not aggregated into a one-dimensional index. Instead, the model detects typical constellations across these dimensions. In so doing, it also accounts for the fact that states can perform very differently in different dimensions. Our analysis yields three main insights about what constitutes state fragility and how it can be addressed: first, state fragility, illiberalism, repression and human rights violations are interrelated; second, state fragility is not unique to the Global South, with negative trends also occurring in the Global North; and, third, differentiated, multi-dimensional models offer better starting points for addressing state fragility than one-dimensional ones. We conclude with four policy recommendations: • Improve analytical capacity by adopting a differentiated view of state fragility: International security and development policymakers would benefit from more fine-grained, differentiated assessments of state fragility. In addition, country-specific assessments of the specific local power constellations in which fragile state institutions are embedded are needed for devising adequate, context-sensitive measures. • Connect measures to address fragility with democracy protection and the protection of human rights: Illiberalism, human rights violations and repression correlate with state fragility. This also suggests that there is a close relationship between autocracy, autocratisation and fragility. Accordingly, measures to address fragility, democracy support and efforts to protect human rights must be better connected. This also implies doing "no harm to democracy" (Leininger, 2023, p. 2). • Identify conditions under which state-building can (or cannot) be pursued: It would be fruitful if international security and development policymakers engaged in thorough discussions about the conditions under which state-building can be pursued. Where existing state institutions are legitimate, they should be supported. However, donor coherence and the capacity (and political will) of donors to commit resources to fragile states and to engage long-term are also important preconditions. State-building is both a costly and a long-term endeavour. • Learning across world regions: Patterns of state fragility can be highly similar, despite geographical distance. In particular, rising illiberalism and increasing attacks on civil liberties are global phenomena. Hence, policy decision-makers and civil society organisations (CSOs) seeking to counter fragility should engage in mutual learning across the North/South divide.

The key tools and governance approaches for international cooperation for sustainable development (hereafter, international cooperation) were set up in a markedly different time and age. International cooperation – with official development assistance (ODA) as the dominant means of implementation – remains key, despite being generally considered as no longer adequate for addressing today's common and collective challenges. Despite numerous declarations of its growing irrele-vance or calls for it even being beyond repair, the governance and reporting system of ODA has remained largely unchanged throughout its 60 years of existence. One reason is that there are few alternatives. Pandemic response and preparedness, climate finance, humani-tarian aid, the United Nations development system as well as the budgets of the multilateral development banks all by and large remain dependent on ODA. New and additional sources of development finance have been slow to materialise and run the risk of remaining time-bound and ad-hoc, as illustrated by recent discussions on Special Drawing Rights, debt swaps and green bonds. While other actors, such as providers of South-South Cooperation (SSC), and non-governmental actors are increasing and gaining importance, they are only to a limited degree institu-tionalised. In the absence of transparent and coherent methodologies for monitoring their actions, concrete financial volumes remain hard to assess. This paper analyses structural factors of the institutional inertia in international cooperation and formulates expectations for where new reform impetuses might arise from. To this end, it maps and links key reform proposals for the global development system, with a specific focus on public financial flows consisting of three connected parts. The first part concerns current forms of and reporting processes for ODA, climate finance and SSC. These concern well-established, albeit path-dependent, forms of international cooperation with different types of multi-stakeholder settings and different levels of institutionalisation. Here, we do not expect fund-amental reforms given various entrenched interests and expect that the nexus between climate finance and ODA will be the main driver for change. The second part of our mapping consists of what we call "global first" reform ideas. These ideas begin with a problem-oriented approach at the global level and aim at setting up new, universal financing schemes and re-designing institutional structures for that purpose. While the ideas in this category are still in their initial stage, we regard them to be particularly relevant for con-ceptualising the "demand-side" of reforms (i.e., "what would be needed?"). Here, we predict that the more ambitious reforms for creating universality of contributions and benefits at the global level will not materialise. However, these concepts play a key role in influencing the future orientation of specific existing (multilateral) institutions. The third part of our mapping entails positioning current multilateral and bilateral development organi-sations located between the first two parts. We observe that these organisations experience a gravi-tational pull towards both directions of reform, namely focusing on global public goods versus prioritising the (countries) left behind, often with competing incentives and trade-offs between national and global develop-ment priorities. We expect that a reform of bilateral development actors will lag behind in the broader policy field due to their domestic political constraints, whereas multilateral development banks will generate greater reform momentum (and be pushed by their stakeholders) as first movers.

Emerging technologies are transforming foreign and security policy as they challenge traditional understandings of power, influence and security. Developments in artificial intelligence (AI) and the increasing importance of cyberspace are some of the most prominent in this regard. Yet, not only are there repercussions for security when narrowly conceived as state security, but they also affect gender relations and human security more broadly. Gender as an analytical category allows us to shed light on the impact of emerging technologies on inequalities, power and violence.

Am 24. März 2024 fanden im Senegal Wahlen für das Amt des Staatspräsidenten statt. Aus ihnen ging der zu diesem Zeitpunkt 43-jährige Oppositionspolitiker Bassirou Diomaye Diakhar Faye als Sieger hervor. Am 02. April 2024 übernahm er die Amtsgeschäfte als fünfter Präsident der Republik Senegal. Dieses Ereignis könnte einen Wendepunkt in der jüngeren Geschichte des Landes darstellen. Es belegt einmal mehr dessen Sonderstellung im gesamtpolitischen Kontext der Region Westafrika/Sahel, in der es in den letzten Jahren vermehrt Machtergreifungen durch Militärs gegeben hat. Diese Wahl ist gegenläufig zu einem derzeit auch weltweiten Trend zur Autokratisierung. Seit drei Jahren durchlief Senegal eine tiefgreifende politische Krise, die den Verfassungsstaat an die Grenzen seiner Belastbarkeit brachte. Zwar stellten währenddessen die staatlichen Institutionen ihre Stabilität und Widerstandskraft unter Beweis, und es konnten die Errungenschaften des demokratischen Rechtsstaates unter entscheidender Mitwirkung einer starken Zivilgesellschaft bis auf Weiteres gesichert werden. Schwächen aber zeigten sich während dieser Krise in den Bereichen der Justiz sowie in der Meinungs- und Pressefreiheit. Sicherheitskräfte schlugen gewaltsam Proteste und Demonstrationen nieder, die sich von Teilen der Bevölkerung gegen die als rechtswidrig angesehene Festnahme und Inhaftierung von Oppositionspolitikern richteten. Diese Maßnahmen forderten Dutzende von Todesopfern und mehrere hundert Verletzte. Weit mehr als tausend Menschen wurden inhaftiert, ohne dass ein ordentliches Gerichtsverfahren eingeleitet wurde. Bis zehn Tage vor seiner Wahl befand sich selbst Faye noch unter diesen Bedingungen in Haft. Umso erstaunlicher ist es, dass und wie es dem Senegal gelungen ist, diese Krise zu überwinden. Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht die politischen, gesellschaftlichen und verfassungsrechtlichen Faktoren, die zu dem sich abzeichnenden günstigen Ausgang dieses Konfliktes führten. Die Krise, die einstweilen ein glückliches Ende nahm und das Programm des neuen Präsidenten legen nahe, dass auch Senegal die seit einigen Jahren in der Region Westafrika/Sahel zu beobachtende Tendenz einer Neudefinition des Staates sowie des Profils seiner Aufgaben, Befugnisse und Leistungen aufgreift, und zwar mit demokratisch fundierten Lösungsansätzen. Faye und seine Mitstreiter sagten der seit Langem etablierten politischen Klasse den Kampf an. Seinen Wählern versprachen sie grundlegende Reformen der staatlichen Institutionen, eine Rationalisierung und Verschlankung der öffentlichen Verwaltung und dass sie die in den letzten Jahren deutlich angestiegenen Tendenzen von Korruption, Klientelismus und Veruntreuung öffentlicher Finanzen, Güter und Ressourcen entschieden bekämpfen würden. Hierfür gaben ihnen die Wähler und Wählerinnen mit ihrem eindeutigen Votum einen klaren Auftrag. Mit dem Amtsantritt von Präsident Faye werden auch die Kräfteverhältnisse innerhalb der Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft westafrikanischer Staaten (Economic Commu-nity of West African States - ECOWAS) teilweise neu bestimmt. In den nächsten Jahren wird es in verschiedenen Staaten der Region zu weiteren Verschiebungen zugunsten einer jüngeren Generation politischer Eliten kommen. Deutschland und die Europäische Union werden sich künftig noch stärker damit auseinandersetzen müssen, dass sich die afrikanischen Nationen auf ihre eigene kulturelle Identität besinnen und im politischen Diskurs immer stärker ihren Anspruch betonen, ihre Souveränität durchzusetzen.

Many developing countries are still grappling with the consequences of the pandemic and the associated high debt burdens while facing huge financing needs, inter alia related to climate change. In response, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) issued $650 billion in Special Drawing Rights (SDRs). The G7 and G20 have committed to re-channelling SDR 100 billion of their allocation to developing countries (on-lending, recycling and re-channelling are used interchangeably in this policy brief). The question now is how to implement these commitments in a way that promotes the global transformation and at the same time supports debt sustainability. It is important to note that there are certain restrictions on the re-channelling of SDRs. Most importantly, the re-channelling must be consistent with the SDR's status as an international reserve asset. There are different interpretations of these requirements. The IMF has encouraged the use of the Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT) and the Resilience and Sustainability Trust (RST) for re-channelling. It has also signalled general support for re-channelling SDRs to the multilateral development banks (MDBs). The European Central Bank (ECB) has taken a more restrictive stance. Does the re-channelling of SDRs through the above-mentioned IMF trusts ("the current on-lending option") effectively support the global transformation? Measured against this objective, the current on-lending regime has two shortcomings. First, it does not sufficiently link foreign exchange support to deep structural transformation. Second, it does not allow funds to be leveraged in the private capital market. In this policy brief, we discuss a promising alternative: recycling SDRs for MDB hybrid capital ("the hybrid capital option"). This option can overcome the two drawbacks of the current system. At the same time, it has its own challenges. Moreover, both the current on-lending option and the hybrid capital option raise concerns about debt sustainability. If implemented in their current forms, they would risk exacerbating vulnerable countries' debt problems. It would therefore be desirable to modify these options to better integrate debt implications. This could be done by using the on-lent SDRs primarily for programmes that are not "expenditure-based", but rather help to improve the composition of expenditure and revenue in a socially equitable manner, for example the introduction of regulatory standards, feebates and carbon pricing, or the phasing out of fossil fuel subsidies. Such an approach could have the added benefit of making previously sceptical member states more receptive to the hybrid capital proposal. The mid-term review of the RST, scheduled for May 2024, as well as the full review in 2025 provide good opportunities to further explore some of the issues raised in this policy brief. In addition, the brief identifies three ways in which interested shareholders of the IMF and MDBs could advance the debate on the hybrid capital option.

"This book provides insights on the art of governing a state and managing its external relations from a wealth-power logic. It looks at "economic statecraft" which consists of wealth production, wealth mobilization and wealth-power conversion by a state. This book reconceptualizes what economic statecraft is and proposes a new theory focused on wealth-power conversion. With a long historic perspective, this book goes through the modern history of western powers practicing economic statecraft since 1500, and presents three case studies, the US, the EU and China, the three biggest users of economic statecraft in contemporary world. The book serves as an ideal reference for policy-makers, business people and researchers whose work touch upon either wealth creation, power projection or the combination of both"--

As the world grows increasingly turbulent, war crimes justice is needed more than ever. But it is failing. The International Criminal Court in the Netherlands, the world's first permanent war crimes court, opened in 2002 but it has jailed just five war criminals to date. Meanwhile, wars continue to rage around the globe. So what has gone wrong, and can it be fixed? Journalist and war correspondent Chris Stephen takes a colourful look at the erratic history of war crimes justice, and the pioneers who created it. He examines its shortcomings, and options for making it more effective, including the case for prosecuting the corporations and banks who fund warlords. Casting the net wider, he examines alternatives to war crimes trials, and peers into the minds of war criminals themselves. With war law advocates fighting for justice on one side, and reluctant governments unwilling to relinquish control on the other, will the world of the future be governed by rule-of-law, or might-is-right?

Why are children with lower socioeconomic status (SES) substantially less likely to be enrolled in child care? We study whether barriers in the application process work against lower-SES children - the group known to benefit strongest from child care enrollment. In an RCT in Germany with highly subsidized child care (N = 607), we offer treated families information and personal assistance for applications. We find substantial, equity-enhancing effects of the treatment, closing half of the large SES gap in child care enrollment. Increased enrollment for lower-SES families is likely driven by altered application knowledge and behavior. We discuss scalability of our intervention and derive policy implications for the design of universal child care programs.