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Nations in the Arab world are largely unitary states, yet Iraq has embarked on a seemingly ambitious agenda of decentralization and devolution mixed with federalism. While local elections have been delayed at least until 2012, and indeed may never take place, Iraq's constitutional commitment to decentralize and subsequent statutory enactments appear to be turning provincial governments into significant actors in Iraqi governance. Progress has taken place at a slower, more deliberate pace than both proponents and opponents feared in 2002–6. This article discusses the current state of implementation of this process as a cornerstone of Iraqi democratic development, from the perspective of a former U.S. Department of State senior governance specialist who served on an embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team in 2009–10. These reconstruction teams were dismantled in the year leading up to September 6, 2011, as the American relationship with Iraq was "normalized," though they likely will continue in Afghanistan into 2013.

The February 2006 national election in Canada was driven by numerous political scandals rather than by a positive sense of what needs to be accomplished in Canada. The two key scandals were the events leading to the resignation of David Dingwall as president of the Royal Canadian Mint and the Sponsorship Program scandal that lead to the Gomery Inquiry. This article examines these two financial scandals to determine f they may have been driven by a shift from traditional democratic, public-sector values to the market-based, private-sector values of the New Public Management (NPM). It appears that the NPM played little role in these scandals, although the model of contracting out for government services bears some responsibility for the Sponsorship scandal because this tool was used to avoid transparency. Adapted from the source document.

Borders and the nation-state model are increasingly under stress. This article demonstrates how networks and network structures are currently holding the nation-state model together while some as-yet-unknown future model of collective action develops. Networks are particularly useful at helping to overcome three acute problems associated with the nation state: (1) the internal clash of interests, (2) system externalities, and (3) synergy dysfunction. In keeping with a quantum, holistic view of reality, borders are best viewed as dotted lines on our maps. Another way to state this argument is that networks and network structures may now be viewed as constructs to help societies maintain the belief that national borders are still meaningful although for numerous specific policies these borders mutated or even disappeared long ago.