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Bill Moyer observed that there are eight stages in a social movement: seeming normal, exposing injustice, ripening conditions, taking off, losing heart, winning the majority, reaping success and consolidating achievement. For more than 30 years, Hong Kong people have been striving for democracy. Applying Moyer's model, Hong Kong should be now at a stage close to reaching its ultimate goal of establishing a genuine democratic system in the territory after years of work, especially the triggering event in September 2014 and the occupation during the Umbrella Movement. However, Moyer's model cannot be mechanically applied to the case of Hong Kong in light of the unique situation faced by Hong Kong people. Hong Kong's authoritarian sovereign holds the final key to Hong Kong's door to democracy. Unless there is a significant shift in the balance of powers in the Chinese polity, Hong Kong's democracy may be so near and yet so far.

The question of the practice of urban land in Bamako is the subject of a crucial (in-)security, which is based both on bureaucratic imbroglio and on an epistemological difference of regularisations of access to the ground through national, regional, municipal institutions and the grassroots. To put an end to the illegal occupation of urban land by the population in need of housing, the state and its representatives have undertaken urban redevelopment measures. Land speculation is taking hold where the State's intervention capacities do not seem capable to control demographic pressure. Households have been and continue to be evicted by the authorities for projects deemed as "urban redevelopment" or "public utility." Some citizens have regrouped in Associations that have set themselves the task of combating abuses by the state.

Despite the important role that intra-party democracy plays in democratic consolidation, particularly in third-wave democracies, it has not received as much attention as inter-party democracy. Based on the Zambian polity, this article uses the concept of selectocracy to explain why, to a large extent, intra-party democracy has remained a refractory frontier. Two traits of intra-party democracy are examined: leadership transitions at party president-level and the selection of political party members for key leadership positions. The present study of four political parties: United National Independence Party (UNIP), Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD), United Party for National Development (UPND) and Patriotic Front (PF) demonstrates that the iron law of oligarchy predominates leadership transitions and selection. Within this milieu, intertwined but fluid factors, inimical to democratic consolidation but underpinning selectocracy, are explained.

AbstractThe global energy industry is transforming as governments invest in clean energy technologies to address climate change, enhance energy security, and strengthen national competitiveness. Comparative research on clean energy transitions highlights the domestic drivers and constraints of clean energy transitions. This article contends that we need to understand the effects of global interdependence on clean energy transitions. Shifts in forms of interdependence between firms—influenced by the rise of global supply chains—have new implications for policy choices made by governments. Governments face more complex demands from domestic industries facing global economic competition, and act strategically in response to the actions of other governments, including sub-national actors, and firms in the global economy. We suggest that research on interdependence in clean energy transitions benefits from an analytical focus on mechanisms of transnational change such as cross-national and multi-level policy feedback and cross-national policy sequencing. Global interdependence has important implications for economic and environmental outcomes, affecting the durability of competitive advantage, and influencing the pace of the diffusion of clean energy technologies.

How do electoral systems and legislative institutions modify the logic of delegation in ministerial selection processes? This study argues that candidate-centered electoral systems and bicameralism increase the risk of agency loss. I reveal how these two institutional contexts mediate party leaders' strategies on the allocation of ministerial posts by analyzing Japan's ministerial-selection data and survey-based ideal point estimates from 2003 to 2014. The empirical results indicate that, under the party-centered electoral systems of the lower house, individuals' ideological proximity to the party leadership increases the probability of their joining a cabinet. However, party leaders allocate cabinet posts to ideological outliers in the upper house and also select MPs who are ideologically distant from the party leadership under the candidate-centered electoral systems in order to maintain party unity.

The advent of 'Peace Parks' on the African continent is puzzling from the perspective of institutional theory. We focus on the world's largest transfrontier conservation cooperation that exists to date, the Kavango–Zambezi Treaty, which was ratified by Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe in 2011. The collaboration seeks to foster sustainable governance of resources in the region. The paper asks two questions: What were the main factors facilitating the establishment of the Kavango–Zambezi Treaty? What potential challenges for the treaty remain on the operational level? Analysing interviews with key informants, we contribute by providing insights regarding the emergence and existing challenges of the treaty. Factors reducing coordination problems during the treaty's establishment included that it did not compete with existing institutions at the international level, the important role played by moral authorities such as Nelson Mandela, and that consensus rather than conflict prevailed between respective political actors as they realized the function of this cooperation. The treaty is challenged by differences in macro-institutional factors amongst participating nations and a variation in the extent to which communities trust in and comply with these institutions. There are significant remaining obstacles with regard to harmonizing policies in the five partner countries.

This research aims (1) to study the practice of an Integrated Regional Development Policy Formulation (IRDPF) in Ethiopia and (2) to explore and identify the challenges of integrated regional development policy formulation in Ethiopia. The research is conducted by collecting data from 20 purposely selected key informants from both the federal and regional government sectors, political parties and community in Ethiopia. Data are collected through in-depth interviews and review of relevant documents, and systematically analyzed using content analysis technique. The results show that the practice of policymaking and IRDPF process in particular is not in line with of the law of land, in which the executive branch, particularly, the Prime Minister and ruling party’s elites are the key actor in the process at both federal and regional levels with limited consultation and participation of other House of Peoples Representatives, federal and regional policy makers, and other stakeholders. The study also identified various political, social, economic and technical challenges that affect sound and effective integrated regional development policy formulation in the country.

This study dealt with one of the most important parties to the syndicate loan contract which is the agent's bank, which is entrusted with the task of managing the daily loan. The task of this bank begins immediately after the end of the work of the organized bank and signing of the loan contract by its parties. The role of the agent's bank in the syndication loan was determined through this study, starting from appointing it through the tasks entrusted to it and ending with the termination of its powers and throughout the term of the loan, the role of this bank is a set of legal relations. The parties to the loan contract have certain specificity with respect to the responsibility of each party towards executing the contract in accordance with the agreed provisions and the required standards. This research requires the legal status of this bank in accordance with the different legal principles in the countries in which this loan originated, as well as the orientations of banks in the international markets. Accordingly, these relations were rooted in Jordanian law in the absence of legislation regulating syndicated loan contracts and the role of the agent bank. This study concluded that this bank is considered a special agent unless the Bank makes the same agent expressly - conclusively or factually - in a position that renders it liable to one of the parties for the duties of the agency for which the confidence of the secretariat is subdivided.

This study dealt with the arbitrator of emergency in commercial arbitration and this development is the most innovative in the rules of commercial arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris in 1912, where a new trend was adopted with regard to interim and urgent measures before the final form of the arbitral tribunal. The International Chamber of Commerce has already adopted the rules of this system before the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce.

The emergence of new systems in commercial arbitration needs to be examined in order to understand, interpret and check its suitability to the needs of the parties to the dispute in the framework of commercial arbitration. Among the most important new systems are the rules of emergency arbitrator, which have been taken by many commercial arbitration centers because of the advantages of one or both parties when it needs urgent and incidental measures that cannot wait until the formation of the arbitral tribunal. Therefore, the appointment of an emergency arbitrator may be requested for such measures. Many of the centers have organized such rules as Stockholm Rules of Arbitration in Sweden and ICC in Paris and others.

The study concluded with a set of results, the most important of which was that the emergency arbitrator is one of the modern rules that serve commercial arbitration, which began by relying on Western legal systems not Arab laws.

This paper is an attempt at analysing the intricacies between international law, the concept of Responsibility to Protect and its implications for the sovereignty of modern states. The paper examines how the concept of responsibility to protect (as stipulated by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS)) impacts on the sovereignty of states. It adopts the essay style of writing and reviews a number of documents on the subject of international law, sovereignty and the responsibility to protect.

The paper consequently argues that though the ICISS claims that its “purpose is not to license aggression with fine words, or to provide strong states with new rationales for doubtful strategic designs” (ICISS, 2001, p. 35), the Commission’s very attempt to exempt the permanent five and other so-called major powers from intervention does just that whether intentionally or unintentionally. It consequently recommends that much effort should be made to address the inequalities within the international system through the formulation of appropriate policies and international regulations that address the sovereign equality of states in the international system, especially on the question of intervention.