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In a variety of issue-areas in global governance, hybrid solutions have been experimented with in order to address the dilemma created by the export of Western templates of good governance, democracy, the rule of law, etc. to non-Western contexts. The latest manifestation of this global trend towards hybridity are hybrid anti-impunity commissions which have begun to proliferate in Latin America, and which are likely to produce ripple-effects beyond the continent. Their prototype, the Comision Internacional Contra la Impunidad en Guatemala (CICIG), was deployed in Guatemala; later, variants of CICIG were created in Honduras, El Salvador, and Ecuador. However, the new hybrids remain largely underresearched. This contribution therefore discusses the state of art and outlines a research agenda on these new hybrid commissions, arguing that, on the one hand, the effects of these mechanisms require further scrutiny - how do hybrid anti-impunity commissions shape a variety of possible outcomes including the rule of law, statehood, sovereignty, democracy, and the like? On the other hand, we should investigate the factors that contribute to the establishment, successes, and failures of these hybrids, thus treating them as outcomes to be explained.

The question of how societies emerging from genocide manage to return to normalcy, restore social relationships and lay the foundation for sustainable peace, is a puzzling one. The guiding hypothesis underlying this research paper is that identity politics are a key factor for explaining the successes and failures of reconciliation processes. We still know very little about the causal mechanisms underlying reconciliation, one of the reasons for this being the near-total absence of interdisciplinary work on this issue. However, one cannot fully grasp reconciliation dynamics - which play out at the micro- and macro-levels - without synthesizing insights from different disciplines. The paper compares two post-genocide societies - Burundi and Rwanda - which have adopted extremely different approaches to identity politics and reconciliation. Whereas imposing a superordinate identity in a top-down process has not been very effective in either case, there is some evidence suggesting that bottom-up cooperation has been rather successful in promoting reconciliation in Rwanda. Transitional justice in turn plays an ambivalent role. It seems that TJ can only be effective if it is perceived as being applied in an even-handed fashion, and if the political environment is supportive of accountabilityseeking. Neither condition is entirely fulfilled in Rwanda or Burundi.

Rules of customary law figure prominently in today's law and policy. Across policy fields, courts and policy-makers are called to interpret and apply customary law. However, it is still a bit of a mystery how rules of customary law emerge and how they can be identified in the first place. In this paper, I set out why the mystery of customary law is bound to remain unresolved. Customary law cannot be treated as a body of rules 'out there', ready for application by domestic, regional or global authorities. Instead, it is part of a process of global cooperation where rules of customary law emerge and grow because they are restated. Rules of customary law only exist if they are successfully presented as already there.

Little is known about cooperation between nations engaged in a regional economic association. This study investigates cooperation and closure between Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) member economies engaged in negotiating five bilateral free trade agreements (FTA), including the Australia-Singapore FTA 2003, United States-Singapore FTA 2003, Chile-United States FTA 2003, Australia-United States FTA 2004, and Korea-Australia FTA 2014. This study found that a number of factors bring about or interfere with cooperation at the closure stage. Negotiation closure occurs within FTAs when discussions shift from trade diplomats focused on technical matters to senior national leaders focused on political decisions. Creditable deadline, party stability and instability, and linkage dynamics were also found to support or interfere with cooperation at the closure stage in FTA negotiations. Often FTA negotiations are concluded on the sidelines of meetings sponsored by international organizations including APEC Leaders' Summit and Ministerial meetings.

In order to examine the implications different forms and degrees of internationalised constitution making have on ideas of statehood and the legitimacy of a constitution, the study compares two cases - South Sudan and Somaliland - to explore contrasting patterns of international involvement in constitution making. South Sudan is the one 'extreme' case with strong international intervention, with Somaliland at the other 'extreme'. This paper demonstrates that the actual process matters and once again reinforces scepticism about the ways in which internationalised constitution making is conducted in war-torn settings. In Somaliland the societal consensus production, which included negotiating a governmental structure, was in the hands of the local elites for the constitution making period, which lasted a decade. In South Sudan the consensus production has so far been framed and guided by powerful international actors who had a seat at the local negotiating table. Not only does path dependence seem to prevent the production of a broader consensus on the mode of statehood, but the local translations of international 'models' also seem to be contrary to intended Rule of Law ideas. The study indicates that even though a locally driven and owned process supports the production of a legitimate constitution, international support is not generally denied. Inherent tensions between 'local ownership' and 'external intervention' may open space for re-negotiations on different normative perceptions and may support a redefinition of exclusion/inclusion dynamics. Nevertheless, to avoid these tensions becoming un-negotiable as a result of the imposition of international assistance which may lead to international 'models' simply being rejected or manipulated in line with internal power relations, constitution making needs to be conducted in an open manner by the local actors themselves.

Resilience has emerged as a key theme in recent policy making. It spans a range of policy fields from infrastructure protection through to humanitarian intervention. This Research Paper looks at resilience as a theme of development strategy and humanitarian intervention and examines how it has emerged in German policy making. It argues that the dominant approach to resilience is a form of neoliberal governmentality that seeks to govern populations from a distance, devolve responsibility to people and communities, promote market mechanisms, encourage entrepreneurial behaviour and promote adaptation innovation and
transformation among traditional communities. However, it is also recognised that this is a strongly Anglo-Saxon approach, targeted at specific individuals and communities. The purpose of the paper is to consider the extent to which German policy making is simply a reflection of this dominant Anglo-Saxon approach, or whether there is a more distinctive German view of resilience. It does this by exploring tensions in the German discourse, indicating that there might be other political dynamics in play alongside the neoliberal ones.

How can we conceptualise the politics of aid and account for the effects of internationally-driven poverty reduction policies in the Global South? This Working Paper offers a conceptual framework that goes beyond two common assumptions in the academic literature and the activist milieux: on the one hand, the idea that one-size-fits-all international recommendations and PRSPs are imposed on recipient governments; on the other hand, the idea promoted by the World Bank and shared by most donors that Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) are efficient when "owned" by the recipient government. To do so, the Working Paper takes the case of Mali in the 2000s and presents the uses and trajectories of PRSPs in this West African country. The Working Paper distances itself from the two notions of imposition and "ownership" and takes recipient agency seriously. To investigate the politics of aid and poverty reduction in aid-dependent countries, it offers an analytical framework which borrows from the notion of "appropriation". It argues that the PRSPs in Mali have been successfully appropriated by public actors, i.e. political leaders, public servants and civil society representatives. This Working Paper shows how, over one decade, the PRSP has shifted from being a "World Bank thing", i.e. a mere conditionality to comply with, to being treated by public actors as the "reference framework". This has happened through modalities and processes of appropriation which differed from the scenario initially envisaged by the World Bank but have ensured that the PRSP has become truly Malian, i.e. embedded in the country's socio-political fabric.

Revolving around the gap between the emic judgement that corruption cannot be eliminated and the etic attempts to bring this elimination about, this paper looks at the ontological preconditions of Luo politics in western Kenya and the way in which these render both the objective measurement and the eradication of corruption impossible. By taking the statements of people on the ground seriously, the paper aims to expose the Eurocentric mind-set that lies at the heart of most discourses on corruption. Unless we expect the Luo to change the way in which they conceptualize sociality, our only course is to embrace corrupt behaviour - which goes to prove that cooperation is sometimes obliged to follow rather curious paths.

What is the relationship between cultural difference and global cooperation, and what challenges and opportunities does this relationship pose for cooperation research? This paper examines how culture is a potential resource for global cooperation while grappling with its enigmas and ambiguities. It explores the paradoxes of culture to argue that the partly unknowable character of the concept 'culture' may be an advantage for cooperation research rather than a problem to be solved. The paper casts culture and cultures as examples of a wider class of 'relational' phenomena that arise through interaction and that rely upon this interaction for their standing. This proposition foregrounds relations over entities, becoming over being, and dynamism over fixity in line with a range of contemporary philosophical developments and the burgeoning of interest in relationality. Thinking of culture in relational terms offers a way of modulating culture; of simultaneously respecting cultural difference and allowing that difference is a shared human resource. Relationality can be deployed to help facilitate cooperation by re-opening interaction within political, social, economic, and institutional arrangements, including through processes for generating relational and cooperative effects have been developed in the field of conflict resolution. However, doing so requires that the fields most obviously related to global cooperation (political science, international relations, and global governance) engage relational approaches at the limits of the precise sciences and through philosophy, religion, and non-western cultural traditions.

How do emerging powers cooperate at the global level? The government of India-one such power-has let it be known that it is seeking an enhanced role in global governance. Is Indian society ready for this new, global role? This paper analyses the impact of domestic factors on India's foreign-policy ambitions. It begins by examining the country's paradoxical social and economic development and the problems it faces in the realm of internal security. Section 2 looks at a number of socio-cultural and political factors that may help to explain India's new, globally oriented approach to foreign policy: 1. Indian society's capacity to merge tradition and modernity, resulting in the creation of resilient institutions; 2. the amorphous nature of Indian society and its distinctive capacity to exploit vagueness and improvisation in resolving problems; and 3. the competition and cooperation between political actors at national and federal level, which has resulted in the emergence of a functioning federal system but has also complicated centre-state relations. The paper concludes that, overall, the question of whether India's social structures and political institutions are robust enough to allow it to assume a global role is not one that can be answered unambivalently. The government has undertaken major reforms and the country's institutions are strong, resilient, adaptive, and keen on global cooperation. On the other hand, Indian society is still bedeviled by incoherent economic development in which phenomenal growth is found alongside appalling poverty and inequality.

In the wake of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, 'traditional knowledge' became a recurring theme in global environmental governance. The emergence of traditional knowledge in a governance field marked by global science begs the following question: how is it that a particular set of intellectual activities other than science came to be perceived as a form of knowledge whose attributes are valuable for governing the global environment? This paper aims to grapple with this question by tracing the emergence of the category of traditional knowledge in global environmental governance. The main argument is that traditional knowledge came to be conceived of as a cognitive resource with utilitarian and 'glocal' properties through a series of interventions on the part of public scientists and landmark environmental reports that blurred the boundaries between science and nonscience. Building upon the concept of boundary work in Science and Technology Studies, this paper puts forth the concept of boundary blurring to analyze how aspects of science are attributed to traditional knowledge, thus attenuating the demarcation between science and other forms of knowledge. Boundary blurring works as a form of legitimation of traditional knowledge and, through the attribution of knowledge to nonscientific actors, opens up a space for these to make knowledge claims in global governance processes. Ultimately, the analysis throws light on the constitution of unconventional 'knowledge actors' in global governance, in particular indigenous peoples and local communities.

The 'international community' is omnipresent in international debates. It is a point of reference. Much international action is undertaken in its name. And many a catastrophe - from Aleppo to climate change - is portrayed as a failure of the international community. As is clear from these random references, the functions, meanings and content of the concept of 'international community' are fluid: it is as appealing as it is evasive - and in fact, often it appeals precisely because it is evasive, and because a wide range of diverse, sometimes competing, meanings and expectations are projected onto it. The working paper seeks to unveil some of the functions, meanings and expectations projected upon the notion of 'international community'. While it focuses on debates in one particular field, viz. international law, its themes are of significance to a wider audience.

Focusing on the case of Lebanon in which refugee concentration is the highest in the world relative to the population size, this paper aims to explore which factors shape initial policy preferences and changes over time in the first refugee destination countries. The paper specifically questions the policy responses of Lebanon to the Syrian refugee movement from 2012 to 2016, the motivations behind policies and the consequences of change. The paper argues that despite historically being a refugee receiving country, Lebanon has had neither structured border management, nor effective reception, protection and integration policies. Instead, it has largely adopted ad hoc policies for each refugee group. Through its response to the Syrian refugee movement in the initial years, Lebanon's inaction showed characteristics of policy paralysis, a situation in which the government was unable to create or implement policy
programs. The government was only able to block undesirable policy options, such as the establishment of camps, and to implement few ad-hoc policies that overall exemplify inaction. However, since the end of 2014, inaction has been replaced by restrictive measures on border management and reception to dissuade Syrian refugees, while the creation of protection and integration policies has been avoided. Policy changes in border control and reception reflect the Lebanese state's recognition of a demographic challenge, its desire to appease growing negative public sentiment, to renegotiate its sovereignty vis-à-vis growing security challenges and to increase the involvement of international organizations (IOs) in refugee governance. On the other hand, Lebanon refrains from developing protection and integration measures due to a
lack of capacity, ideational concerns pertaining to a delicate sectarian balance, as well as its historical experience with the protracted Palestinian refugee issue. The paper is based on qualitative research including case study evaluation, process tracing and policy ethnography. Data is drawn from the desk research of secondary literature, published reports and news as well as on fieldwork.

Over the past few decades, international courts and tribunals have once more risen to prominence: their number has grown and their case-load increased significantly, to the point where we are said to live in an 'era of adjudication'. At the same time, the functions and mandates of courts have changed. Whilst 19th and early 20th century thinkers thought of them as guardians of world peace, contemporary designs of world order seek to ensure peace through varied forms of international organisation. International courts play important roles, but are no longer expected to prevent war and military conflict. In charting this evolution, this Research Paper offers a panorama on two centuries of debate on international arbitration and adjudication.

Never before has the world been globalized to such an extent, which results in a rapid exploitation of global commons and natural resources and has cross-border effects on biological diversity and climate change. As a consequence, there is a new urgency in making global cooperation in environmental politics work. Although there is a broad consensus that systemic change is needed, progress towards the latter - first, through corresponding global agreements and, second, through effective implementation of those policies at home - seems to lag behind expectations. How can these gaps be explained? And how can new scientific insights help to make environmental politics more effective? Notwithstanding the importance of non-behavioural factors as explanations from the 'outside', the author argues that explanations also have to focus on the 'inside', i.e. individual motivation. The key interest is to better understand the motivational process of individuals who are willing to undergo sustainable change behaviour and to conceptualize the results for further research. This turns human behaviour into an important risk factor in global cooperation and cognition into its relevant feature. This work is on conceptualization with a qualitative methodology and is structured as follows: In order to better grasp the meaning of 'poor' systemic change through environmental politics, the introductory part describes global cooperation as a system and identifies three cognitive blindspots, which need further analysis. As a corresponding literature review proves rich in insights but is too implicit for the further analysis, the author provides her own scheme through which the motivational process is sequenced and linked to the system around the individual. This allows new perspectives on how to discuss change behaviour in globally initiated knowledge production, learning and trial and error adaptations. The conclusions consider what the results obtained so far imply for further research on environmental politics.