Suchergebnisse

Many of the problems that international organizations are tasked with solving are interdependent and require concerted efforts. This interdependence is epitomized in the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. Yet acting in a concerted manner poses significant organizational obstacles. In this paper, we focus on one of the most prominent of those obstacles, coordination within the UN development system—the collection of UN entities working on development issues. We highlight the complexity of coordination within the UN development system and the changes introduced by the latest reform. We argue that those changes are unlikely to improve the situation significantly and turn to theoretical and empirical sources of inspiration for adjusting those changes. We draw on coordination solutions implemented in nonhierarchical organizational settings, in particular self-managed organizations and humanitarian clusters, to recommend a reorientation of the role of the Resident Coordinator system.

Responding to the financial and economic crisis that began in 2007‐2008 – commonly called the Great Recession – has been a challenging and pressing problem for many governments, but in particular, for the advanced capitalist countries of Western Europe. These countries have experienced their most severe economic downturn since the 1930s. In this issue of the SPSR, we asked a set of prominent scholars to discuss and revisit several of the key existing results and expectations in comparative political economy in light of the events observed so far. While it is still too early to come up with a full understanding of the political dynamics in motion, this set of contributions provides a series of interesting observations and results that should stimulate further debate and research. In the remainder of this introduction, we both announce things to come and put them into context.