Suchergebnisse

Abstract
The coronavirus crisis has negated the widely held post-Cold War narrative that the rise of non-state actors like non-governmental organizations, social movements and firms would end up supplanting states as the main actors on the international stage. States were the first responders to emerging health-related transboundary crises before the great strides of the 19th and 20th centuries to institutionalize health cooperation. Two decades into the 21st century, the world and state-level pandemics preparedness were exposed. The pandemic wreaked havoc on all states, notwithstanding their military and economic capabilities. It surpassed power asymmetries prevailing in the community of states. Among the many purposes of International Relations (IR) theories, include an attempt to explain and predict patterns of national behaviours or understand the world "inside the heads" of actors. What, then, can we learn from IR theories about the need for states to cooperate, and why was such cooperation not forthcoming, especially during the initial phases of the outbreak? Why was the initial global response so shambolic and largely inward-looking and uncoordinated? To answer these questions, the article draws insights from various IR theoretical strands and the ensuing structural, state and individual-level explanations of various actors' responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

New and more complex partnerships are emerging to address the sustainability of natural resource use in developing countries. These partnerships variously link donors, governments, community-based organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), business, certification agencies and other intermediaries. High expectations and many resources have been invested in these initiatives. Yet, we still do not know whether more sophisticated organizational structures, more stakeholders involved, and more advanced participatory processes have delivered better sustainability outcomes, and if so, in what sectors and under what circumstances. To fill this knowledge gap and build capacity in this area, the NEPSUS research and capacity building project assembles a multidisciplinary team to analyze sustainability partnerships in three key natural resource sectors in Tanzania: forestry, wildlife and coastal resources. In each of these sectors, we assess whether co-management with local communities and private and civil society actors, and putatively more participatory processes in the governance of renewable resources, result in more equitable and sustainable livelihoods and environmental outcomes. We compare 'more complex' partnerships to relatively 'simpler', more traditional top-down and centralized management systems, and to instances where sustainability partnerships are not in place. This working paper tackles the main conceptual, methodological and research design issues arising in this effort.