Weak Institutions and the Governance Dilemma: Gaps as Traps

Intro -- Acknowledgements -- Contents -- Acronyms and Abbreviations -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- Chapter 1: Introduction -- Limited Portability of Policy Theories: Claims for a New Analytical Perspective -- Gaps as Context for Agency: Turning Towards NGOs -- Gaps, Voids, Failure, Decoupling -- Two Country Cases: Post-Soviet Armenia and Georgia -- A Comparative Policy Field Approach -- Criminal Justice -- Social Protection -- A Compound Comparative Research Design -- Data Collection and Analysis -- Structure of the Book -- References -- Chapter 2: Theorizing Gaps in Hybrid Regimes -- Gaps and Institutional Change in Developed Democracies: A Historical Institutionalist Perspective -- From Exogenous to Endogenous Institutional Change -- Gaps as Real Outcomes -- Gaps as Analytic Abstraction -- Merging Perspectives -- Institutional Weakness and Informality -- Do Formal Rules Matter? -- The Power of Informal Institutions -- An Analytical Framework of Gaps in Non-Democratic Regimes -- The Model: Why Do Gaps Emerge? -- Implementation and Impact Gaps -- Implications of Gaps for Governments and NGOs across Regimes -- In Conclusion: An Inventory of Gaps -- References -- Chapter 3: Criminal Justice Policy in Georgia: NGOs Facing Shallow Reform -- The Implementation Gap -- The Policy Environment: Zero Tolerance for Crime and Rapid Reform -- Ambiguities in Formal Law -- Implementation Problems -- Excesses of the Zero Tolerance Policy -- The Penal State: A Non-credible Liberal -- NGO as Gap Agents -- Reform Partners -- Institutionalized Interaction -- Silenced Advocacy -- Criticism and Conflict -- Gap Creates Room for Service Providers but Silences Critical Voices -- References -- Chapter 4: Social Protection in Georgia: NGOs in a Field of Low Political Salience -- The Impact Gap -- The Policy Environment: Serial Changes in Economic Policy.