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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).

We model a simple market setting in which fragmentation of trade of the same asset across multiple exchanges improves allocative efficiency. Fragmentation reduces the inhibiting effect of price-impact avoidance on order submission. Although fragmentation reduces market depth on each exchange, it also isolates cross-exchange price impacts, leading to more aggressive overall order submission and better rebalancing of unwanted positions across traders. Fragmentation also has implications for the extent to which prices reveal traders' private information. While a given exchange price is less informative in more fragmented markets, all exchange prices taken together are more informative. (JEL D47, D82, G14)

National audience Bashar El Assad Syria is undergoing territorial changes at all scales leading to increasingly fragmented national territory. This process is a direct consequence of the planning policy of the previous period, designed as a means of political control and not of development. The disengagement of the State and some liberalisation of the economy over the last ten years have therefore led to a process of fragmentation of the national territory. Internal rivalries in the ruling Aaluite caste since the death of Hafez El Assad in June 2000 have weakened the central state. This power vacancy is felt by the outskirts who expressed their violent discontent, such as the Druzes in the summer of 2000 and the Kurds in March 2004. ; Syria of Bashar El Assad is confronting to territorial changes on all the scales which lead to an increasingly acute fragmentation of the own territory. This process is the direct consequence of the policy of regional planning of the previous period, conceived like a political means of control and not of development. The disengagement of the State and a certain liberalization of the economy since ten years thus engaged a process of fragmentation of the own territory. The internal competitions within the alawi group since the death of Hafez El Assad in June 2000, weakened the central State. This vacancy of the pwer is felt by the peripheries which violently expressed their dissatisfaction, such Druses during the summer 2000 and the Kurds in March 2004. ; National audience Bashar El Assad Syria is undergoing territorial changes at all scales leading to increasingly fragmented national territory. This process is a direct consequence of the planning policy of the previous period, designed as a means of political control and not of development. The disengagement of the State and some liberalisation of the economy over the last ten years have therefore led to a process of fragmentation of the national territory. Internal rivalries in the ruling Aaluite caste since the death of Hafez El ...

AbstractIt is widely accepted that fragmentation influences conflict processes in a profound way. Multi-party conflicts with several fronts are notoriously hard to resolve. However, there is no easily computable measure to approximate conflict fragmentation. In this article, we introduce the conflict fragmentation index (CFI), which is computed by adapting the Herfindahl–Hirschman index. The CFI considers the relative prominence of each dyadic-level conflict-fronts nested in the entire civil war. The relative prominence is approximated by using available information on conflict casualties. The CFI is time-variant and highly sensitive to battlefield dynamics. The flexibility of CFI can bring several advantages. Most notably, it is possible to calculate monthly or even daily measures of conflict fragmentation by taking state-based (government vs. NSA) as well as non-state based (NSA vs. NSA) conflicts into account. Overall, the CFI provides a theoretically-informed and easy to compute measure to approximate conflict fragmentation.