Search results

Abstract
The current ecological crisis and its accompanying environmental consciousness has prodded many to reject Western dualism and instead embrace animism. Taking the Sundarbans forests of India as a starting point, the author shows how several animated, nonhuman agents of the region guide both resource use and social relationships through a set of rules known as the "rules of the jungle." The source of these rules are deities, demons, and spirits—that is, "cosmic polities"—that undeniably govern life in the Sundarbans and across the landscape of South Asia. Mehtta shows how such nonhuman forms of governance and animistic ontologies can act as a source not only of care and an ecological consciousness but also are capable of exclusion and discrimination. Consequently, the South Asian context provides an important cautionary tale about the blind embrace of animism as the sole savior of our ecological crisis by revealing a spectrum of violence within certain strands of animistic ontologies. Simultaneously the author shows how Western repertoires of thought reveal framing devices that transcend dualism and may be read as the precursors of contemporary environmental consciousness. This article ultimately proposes the importance of acknowledging a bricolage of ontologies and realities without entrenching them in a particular identity of caste, tribe, or "indigeneity" or in being of "the West" or of "the rest of the world."

The COVID-19 pandemic created an unprecedented need for governance by a multiplicity of authorities. The nature of the pandemic—globally communicable, uncontrolled, and initially mysterious—required a coordinated response to a common problem. But the pandemic was superimposed atop our existing decentralized and uncoordinated governance structures, and the result was devastating: the United States led the world in COVID-19 infections and deaths. COVID-19's effects have been particularly destructive for communities of color, women, and intersectional populations. This Article makes sense of the early pandemic response by distilling a typology for the predominant intergovernmental relationships that emerged, some conflictual and some collaborative. Governments undermined each other by destabilizing each other's actions upward (when local governments undermined states), downward (when the federal government undermined states), and across (when the federal government undermined itself). They abdicated responsibility by failing to act. Governments collaborated by actively working together to harmonize policies. And they engaged in bandwagoning to avoid being the first mover in making pandemic policy, opting instead to follow or oppose the leads of others. Despite the seeming chaos of the early pandemic response, these behaviors were the predictable result of well-worn structural and political dynamics. Structurally, pandemic policy lies uncomfortably on two poles of the federal-state division of responsibilities. Ambiguous hierarchies and overlapping policy roles pushed governments toward conflict rather than coordination. Politically, intense partisanship transformed nearly every governance decision into symbolic, two-sided battles, providing a default set of relationships that became organizing principles for the early pandemic response. This Article uses these insights to sketch the contours of a way forward. It proposes a federal pandemic statute that emphasizes role clarity, state independence, and explicit ...

ABSTRACTThe state often struggles to meet citizens' demands but confronts strong public pressure to do so. What does the state do when public expectations exceed its actual governing capacity? This article shows that the state can respond by engaging in performative governance—the theatrical deployment of language, symbols, and gestures to foster an impression of good governance among citizens. Performative governance should be distinguished from other types of state behavior, such as inertia, paternalism, and the substantive satisfaction of citizens' demands. The author illustrates this concept in the realm of environmental governance in China. Given the severity of China's environmental pollution, the resulting public outcry, and the logistical and political challenges involved in solving the problem, how can the state redeem itself? Ethnographic evidence from participant observation at a municipal environmental protection bureau reveals that when bureaucrats are confronted with the dual burdens of low state capacity and high public scrutiny, they engage in performative governance to assuage citizens' complaints. This study draws attention to the double meaning of "performance" in political contexts, and the essential distinction between the substantive and the theatrical.

Abstract
Since the 1990s, western, developed countries have moved away from rule-making and standard-setting in multilateral intergovernmental organizations and have increasingly collaborated on those matters in clubs of developed countries, such as trans-governmental regulatory networks. Although clubs often generate rules or standards that affect developing countries, the latter have not had a voice in rule-making, resulting in a 'participation gap', for which clubs are being criticized. Against this background, I analyse a recent development that has largely gone unnoticed: Clubs have been integrating previously excluded developing countries. From small and exclusive clubs, they are growing into larger and more inclusive clubs. I call this trajectory of the past seventy years – the establishment of intergovernmental organizations, their increasing displacement in favour of clubs, and the recent reversion towards larger clubs – accordion governance. Like an accordion that expands or contracts as needed, so too have governance models and rule-making adjusted to changing conditions and preferences by becoming more or less inclusive. Focusing on club expansion, I address three questions: (1) How has participation – and the rules governing it – evolved over time? (2) Why are governments voluntarily sharing rule-making authority with new participants? (3) Can these reforms close the participation gap in international rule-making?

Public sector innovation labs are becoming an increasingly visible instrument in public sector innovation and experimentation. Proponents of these labs claim they can play an important role in addressing pressing social challenges, changing government structures and thereby shaping ideas and practices of future governance. Whilst some research has been carried out on public innovation labs, the focus of inquiry has been primarily on the emergence, models and activities of labs in Europe and North America. This paper attempts to contribute to this growing body of research by bringing forth some of the particularities of this phenomenon as it emerges in Latin America. Using as starting point three experimental interests identified in the available literature, namely increasing flexibilization of public procedures, developing methods for citizen engagement and experimental development of public policies, the paper presents insights and observations from a study of ten public sector innovation labs in Latin America. In particular, our focus is on how these interests are confronted with different realities and therefore what kind of challenges the labs face. Experimentation in Latin America seems to concern not only flexibilization, engagement and public policies; it also includes juggling with the tensions arising from budgetary constraints, the need to weave networks of regional labs to collaborate and finally the need to align their agendas to those of other institutions, while being accountable to different levels of society. This places Latin American labs in a different light than their European and North American counterparts. ; Peer reviewed

Executive SummaryGovernment post-Brexit will face sustained and difficult challenges as the UK adjusts to its new situation. Yet these challenges risk being exacerbated by fundamental changes in UK political debate that are affecting the perceived legitimacy and effectiveness of the system and structures of government. These include erosion of the clear distinction entrenched for the last 150 years between political choices by elected representatives and impartial administration by the civil service; the disruption of traditional deliberative processes by digital and social media; and increased centralisation of decision-making in No. 10 Downing Street combined with inadequate scrutiny of that decision-making either by the Cabinet or by Parliament.The centralisation of executive power reduces its perceived legitimacy across the UK, with devolved government in Scotland and Wales seen as contingent on the Westminster Parliament and Northern Ireland under control by central government. Fiscally, the UK has become the most centralised democratic country in the world. As government faces up to the challenge of unwinding membership of the legal and regulatory framework developed during 45 years of EU membership, it is vital that the UK's political structures restore their legitimacy and efficiency.Necessary reforms start with greater transparency about how government really works today. A PM's Department should be created, separate from the Cabinet Office; senior appointments including the Chief of Staff and 'Advisors', as well as instructions from No. 10 to departments, should be subject to effective Parliamentary scrutiny. Legally entrenched structures are required to confirm that devolved powers cannot simply be overridden by the Westminster Parliament. Greater fiscal autonomy should be guaranteed to local government.Finally, politicians should choose either to recommit explicitly to the original system whereby the civil service remains separate from politics and take steps to make it effective; or acknowledge the drift towards greater political control of the civil service and introduce safeguards to minimise political abuse, for example by taking steps to increase scrutiny of appointments and expenditure.