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This article will outline the politics and pathways of promotion among government officials working in a rural county in Anhui province and their attitudes towards elite status. It will analyze the implications these processes and pathways have for the operation of local government in rural China. Drawing on interviews and relationships spanning a ten-year period (2004–2013), this article primarily relies upon the personal experiences of colleagues and friends who have attempted to rise through the ranks of government and business in Benghai County, with varying degrees of success. While the article will focus on political elites, in Benghai it is impossible to separate business from politics. This article will delineate strategies adopted for career advancement and attaining elite political status, and the effects these strategies have on the relationship between political elites and ordinary cadres.

Cambodia has recently demonstrated one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world. While scholars have long explored the drivers of tropical forest loss, the case of Cambodia offers particular insights into the role of the state where transnational governance and regional integration are increasingly the norm. Given the significant role logging rents play in Cambodia's post-conflict state formation, this article explores the contemporary regime and its ongoing codependent relationship with forested land. Insights are distilled from comparative analysis of illicit logging in two ethnographic case studies. Both involve foreign investments by state-owned companies – a Chinese-backed hydropower dam and Vietnamese-owned rubber concessions – and both are nestled in prominent conservation landscapes that are managed with international donor support. Together, the cases reveal how Cambodia's current timber extraction regime works through the use and abuse of legal mechanisms associated with forest conservation and foreign investment projects, and the mobilization of elite alliances that log both for private gain and in service of the ruling party's interests. By implication, the government's remarkable facilitation of transnational projects for conservation and development must be reappraised and ultimately seen as constitutive of a predatory and extractive regime that continues to rely heavily upon illicit logging revenues.

Social governance is a hot topic in today's society. From the "social management" to "social governance", the latter more embodies the diversity of participation, which means based on an equal partnership, government, social organizations, enterprises, communities, individuals and other actors regulate and manage social affairs, social organizations and social life according to the law, and ultimately maximize the public interest. Community is a place where social situation, public opinion, and social basic contradictions and problems are centrally reflected, so it is an important part of society, the most basic content of the social organism and the epitome of macro society. Thus, the important part of social governance is the community governance. At the same time, NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) is the public's reaction to the event and the problem in the social governance. Lots of things from that have reference significance for the community governance. Therefore, this paper, from the perspective of NIMBY, explores how to use social capital and maximize the benefits by referring Chinese and other countries' successful experience via literature research, case analysis and comparative method, so as to better achieve the community participatory governance in China.

Die transitions theory untersucht verschiedene Wege die zu einer nachhaltigen Gesellschaft führen können. 'Bottom-up' Initiativen, die aus der Gemeinschaft heraus entstehen, gelten dabei als Innovationsquelle, die zum Motor des Transformationsprozesses werden. Die vorliegende Arbeit soll die Rolle von governance beim Erfolg dieser Initiativen untersuchen. Anhand der Organisation "Freiland" ein sozio-kulturelles Zentrum in Potsdam wird der Entstehungsprozess einer solchen Gemeinschaftsinitiative dargestellt. Mit einer Prozessanalyse werden kausale Mechanismen, die zur Entwicklung und Institutionalisierung der Initiative wichtig waren, aufgedeckt. Ausserdem wird auf mögliche, aus der transitions theory-Literatur abgeleitete Barrieren der Zusammenarbeit untersucht. Durch halbstrukturierte Interviews mit verschiedenen wichtigen Akteuren, soll der dynamische Austauschprozess der Beteiligten verdeutlicht werden. Dabei wird vor allem auf die verschiedenen Strategien zur Überwindung der Barrieren und Förderung der Zusammenarbeit eingegangen. Zur Vereinfachung der Analyse ist der Entstehungsprozess in vier Phasen eingeteilt, dadurch ist es möglich die Ergebnisse mit der reflexive governance theory in Verbindung zu bringen. Mit der Anwendung des Transition management cycles wird gezeigt, dass politische Auseinandersetzungen ein bedeutender Bestandteil von governance-Prozessen ist. Die wichtige Rolle kommunaler Initiativen für eine nachhaltige Entwicklung der Gesellschaft sollte daher von staatlichen Institutionen erkannt und eine Zusammenarbeit angestrebt werden. ; Transition theory examines pathways towards a more sustainable society. In this context, bottom-up initiatives are understood as a source of innovation and can become engines of transition. This thesis discuses the contribution of governance innovations for the success of community initiatives; it scrutinises the emergence of a socio-cultural centre in Potsdam (Germany) called Freiland. By using process tracing methods, I reveal the causal mechanisms that allowed the development and institutionalisation of the initiative. Furthermore, it enables me to test the influence of different barriers for collaboration, derived from transition literature. Thanks to a number of semi-structured interviews, with both the initiative and the local governance institutions, it was possible to gather an in-depth understanding of the contextual dynamics. For analytical purposes, the narrative is divided into four phases. This allows me to dissect the findings, identify different strategies that overcome collaboration barriers and evaluate their contribution for reflexive governance theory. In doing so, I use the transition management cycle as an analytical tool and join others in arguing for a stronger inclusion of politics in the governance debate surrounding transition theory. Moreover, I formulate the motion that governance institutions can promote a more sustainable society by collaborating with community initiatives. ; by: S. A. G. Askew ; Abweichender Titel laut Übersetzung der Verfasserin/des Verfassers ; Graz, Univ., Masterarb., 2015 ; (VLID)838636

The Myanmar Development Resource Institute's Centre for Economic and Social Development (MDRICESD), in cooperation with the International Growth Centre (IGC) and The Asia Foundation, developed this research as part of the Subnational Governance in Myanmar Discussion Paper Series. This research focuses on understanding the role of state and region governments in public finance so as to take stock of existing research and help answer: 1. What revenues do state and region governments collect, from where, and how are they used? 2. Do state and region governments collect or receive enough revenues to effectively fulfill their constitutionally delegated responsibilities?

Highlights • Theory of social capital was tested in a real-life network setting. • Cooperative governance networks are built on reciprocal ties of trust. • Working together builds trust in the network. • Common goals and information-sharing are not as crucial network-builders as trust. • Differences in goals can be put aside to find solutions to conservation issues. ; Collaboration between different actors is crucial for responding to the acute need for forest biodiversity conservation. Network theories highlight the importance of information sharing, social cohesion and mutual goals that constitute social capital. We test and demonstrate how these ties relate to each other and which ones are crucial for collaboration in a government funded collaborative network for forest biodiversity and Siberian Jay conservation in Finland. Our analysis shows that short-term governance networks operate on trust. Seemingly, differences in goals can be put aside for a collective good; that is, being able to cooperate and find solutions to conservation issues. Additionally, exchange and flow of information are a necessity in network functions. However, a network may be successful despite difficulties in flow of information, as our case of Siberian Jay Network shows. Using both qualitative and quantitative evidence, our analysis serves as a test for the usefulness of social network analysis method in bringing depth to understanding of both formal and informal governance networks.

This presentation was presented at the annual conference of the Philippine Economic Society Manila on 10 November 2015. ; The paper correlates three governance indices with GDP per capita and economic growth, so as to comment on the presumption that good political, economic and social governance is associated with these two variables. ; N/A