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This paper examines the impact of good governance in elections compared to the role of the economy. The latter is considered the key factor in electoral survival, while governance issues are rarely included in politicians' discourse or campaigning strategies. Using the ParlGov data and the ICRG indicators for 160 elections, the analysis shows that good governance matters, but mainly for developing countries. Economic growth is an important electoral topic in most of the elections, but its effect varies systematically across contexts. The impact of each good governance and the economy get weaker as the other worsens, and these conditional effects are moderated by the level of economic development. [Copyright Elsevier Ltd.]

Scholarship in international law aims at addressing global forest governance comprehensively. This article reviews the recent contribution Global Forest Governance - Legal Concepts and Policy Trends by Rowena Maguire and puts it into the perspective of recent political and policy science research on global forests. While finding Maguire's volume being a very timely and valuable contribution to the interdisciplinary discussions on international forest governance, we identify some weaknesses which are mostly rooted in methodological critique and a lack of a systematic framework for analysis.

This paper explores governance in Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs), one sub-sector of the digital games industry. Informed by media governance studies, Surveillance Studies, and game studies, this paper identifies five elements which form part of the system of governance in MMOGs. These elements are: game code and rules; game policies; company community management practices; player participatory practices; and paratexts. Together these governance elements function as a surveillant assemblage, which relies to varying degrees on lateral and hierarchical forms of surveillance, and the assembly of human and nonhuman elements. Using qualitative mixed methods we examine and compare how these elements operate in three commercial MMOGs: Eve Online, World of Warcraft and Tibia. While peer and participatory surveillance elements are important, we identified two major trends in the governance of disruptive behaviours by the game companies in our case studies. Firstly, an increasing reliance on automated forms of dataveillance to control and punish game players, and secondly, increasing recourse to contract law and diminishing user privacy rights. Game players found it difficult to appeal the changing terms and conditions and they turned to creating paratexts outside of the game in an attempt to negotiate the boundaries of the surveillant assemblage. In the wider context of self-regulated governance systems these trends highlight the relevance of consumer rights, privacy, and data protection legislation to online games and the usefulness of bringing game studies and Surveillance Studies into dialogue.

In this article, we review the evolution and current status of global value chain (GVC) governance theory and take some initial steps toward a broader theory of governance through an exercise in 'modular theory-building'. We focus on two GVC governance theories to which we previously contributed: a theory of linking and a theory of conventions. The modular framework we propose is built on three scalar dimensions: (1) a micro level -- determinants and dynamics of exchange at individual value chain nodes; (2) a meso level -- how and to what extent these linkage characteristics 'travel' upstream and downstream in the value chain; and (3) a macro level -- looking at 'overall' GVC governance. Given space limitations, we focus only on the issue of 'polarity' in governance at the macro level, distinguishing between unipolar, bipolar and multipolar governance forms. While we leave a more ambitious analysis of how overall GVC governance is mutually constituted by micro/meso factors and broader institutional, regulatory and societal processes to future work, we provide an initial framework to which this work could be linked. Our ultimate purpose is to spur future efforts that seek to use and refine additional theories, to connect theories together better or in different modular configurations, and to incorporate elements at the macro level that reflect the changing constellation of key actors in GVC governance -- the increasing influence of, for example, NGOs, taste and standard makers, and social movements in GVC governance. Adapted from the source document.

This article seeks to argue that logistics services, and the independent logistics industry in particular, should be afforded much more attention within political economy approaches to the global economy. Widespread outsourcing processes and the increased sophistication of logistics provisions mean that the industry has arguably evolved beyond being a mere service input to occupying an integral and strategic role within many global industries. It is, therefore, intimately connected to debates about shifting governance regimes and upgrading dynamics within those industries. Conceptualising logistics from a global production network (GPN) perspective offers the potential for revealing both (1) the contribution of logistics providers to value and upgrading dynamics in client sectors and (2) the ways in which the logistics industry itself can be thought of as a multi-actor value-generation network with its own strategic and upgrading dynamics. The article distils the key contributions and limitations of prevailing business studies approaches to logistics, before charting a four-pronged research agenda that foregrounds the political economy of logistics provisions within the global economy. The analysis concludes by thinking about the implications of on-going post-crisis restructuring within the world economy for the proposed research agenda on logistics and GPNs. Adapted from the source document.

AbstractThe need to understand the scope for comparative lesson‐drawing on national‐level climate mitigation policy has acquired added significance due to the current impasse in international‐level governance. Greater policy learning or lesson‐drawing among peers at the national level could, to an extent, foster meaningful developments by overcoming generalised international apathy and inaction. In this respect, we analyse the features of one significant example of national climate policy in order to examine the scope for lesson‐drawing, thereby setting out a normative research agenda. The UK Climate Change Act 2008 remains one of the few examples of legally enshrined national mitigation legislation and hence provides a relevant, but surprisingly under‐researched, source of learning for policy‐makers worldwide. By analysing its development, critical features and implementation, this article shows that—despite criticism of the sustainability and implementation effectiveness of the Act—some aspects of the policy could provide lessons for other states, and hence are potentially transferable extraterritorially, although lesson‐drawing itself is conditional on contextual constraints.

This article argues that security governance can and should be reframed as a critical tool that enables us to understand and reappraise concrete practices of security provision. Security governance needs to move beyond the functional mapping of different governing arrangements and the presumption that security governance leads to effective and legitimate problem-solving in a quasi-automatic manner. In this article, we propose a framework that identifies the essential characteristics of security governance and turns them into critical questions with the aim to reveal persisting frictions and dilemmas. First, we trace the rise of security governance as concept and practice over the past decade and identify its central characteristics with regard to prerequisites, structures and consequences. Second, we reframe the core characteristics of security governance into critical questions and thereby develop an understanding of security governance as a critical tool. Finally, we illustrate the relevance of this approach with examples from EU security governance. Adapted from the source document.

How do women fare under rule by Islamists? Whereas some scholarly work suggests that Islamists are effective at providing the type of social services that benefit women most, other studies contend that Islamic groups support 'pro-male' policies and cultural interventions that disadvantage the well-being of women. In order to adjudicate between these views, I compare two neighborhoods in Greater Cairo that are similar on a number of dimensions but in one, a militant Islamist group came to dominate local politics, whereas in the other, strongmen ruled the streets in the absence of a strong state presence. Using an original data set of retrospective health histories for women in each neighborhood, I find that women subject to governance by the Islamic group enjoyed better outcomes related to reproductive health than a statistically matched set of women in the comparable neighborhood while being no more likely to marry early or drop out of school. Adapted from the source document.

Bangladesh and Pakistan had very different experiences with aid after 1971. Politics in Pakistan was less inclusive in terms of opportunities for intermediate (middle- and lower-middle-) class political entrepreneurs, and the dominance of military aid to Pakistan exacerbated the problem by allowing the top leadership to continue to rule without sharing much power with these classes. This not only had negative effects on the evolution of Pakistan's politics but also slowed down the growth of a broad-based manufacturing sector. In contrast, in Bangladesh the less centralized organization of political power and less concentrated forms of aid allowed intermediate-class political entrepreneurs to improve their access to resources and created opportunities for many of them to enter productive manufacturing activities such as the garments industry. Differences in patterns of aid can help to explain significant differences in economic and political outcomes in the two countries. These experiences challenge conventional ideas about the relationship among aid, good governance, and security. Designing aid policies so that aid can assist developing countries in improving their economic and political viability requires a better understanding of the complex relationships between aid and the political economies of recipient countries.