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Forests and water are highly interconnected with forestry practices negatively affecting forest water. In the last five decades, the Swedish state has enacted multiple policy changes and allocated significant resources towards the implementation of soft policy instruments to alleviate the effects on forest water. The European Union Water Framework Directive has further raised the legal requirements for water protection, including within the forest sector. However, these efforts have largely failed thus far. Forests and water are governed by two separate sectors, each with its own polycentric governance system and policy goals that are often conflicting. The governance mode of these systems is determined by a unique combination of policy instruments and a varying degree of centralisation depending on state involvement. Since governing forest water requires collaboration between the forest and water sector governance systems, it entails interplay between the two systems on different ecological scales. The aim of this thesis is to explore and explain the challenges related to the governance of a resource that requires cross-sectoral multi-level governance and to examine the role of the state in those interactions. The thesis includes a mix of quantitative (survey and aerial photographs) and qualitative (interviews, analysis of documents and meeting observations) research methods for investigating forest water governance across national, regional and local levels. Empirically, it involves four case studies analysing units embedded in the larger case – namely cross-sectoral governance of forest water. The results show that within the current structure of Swedish forest water governance there is minimal cross-sectoral collaboration, with an exception being at the national level. Regional and local implementation of the outputs produced at national level relies mainly on the forest sector, with little to no coordination with water sector institutions at the regional district or river basin levels. Moreover, power asymmetries between the two sectors are transposed to the collaborative process which affects participants' capacity to influence the governance of forest water. Since the studied cases show that most of the financial resources for forest water protection are provided top-down, the role of the state in initiating and maintaining collaboration is crucial. The thesis confirms previous research findings that water governance requires a more centralised polycentric governance system. Combining polycentric governance (including at the river basin scale) with centralised state-coordination is a potential solution to problems that require cross-sectoral and multi-level governance interplay. Further inquiry into cross-sectoral governance of natural resources could develop a better understanding of how coordination in polycentric governance systems at different ecological scales could be structured to mitigate policy goal conflicts across sectors and institutional levels, thus fostering more effective governance.

Rapid urbanization, economic growth and growing consumerism have resulted in increased solid waste generation across the globe and especially in South Asia. In this paper we try to address the issues surrounding the governance of municipal solid waste management by mapping the governance institutions associated with MSWM and studying their interactions in order to better understand the governance of MSWM in India. This study primarily maps the institutional structure of governance of MSWM, unpacks the mandates of the ministries involved and identifies the conflicts among the stakeholders involved in MSWM at the national (central government) level, state (Kerala) and local (Thiruvananthapuram city corporation) level. The study was done by conducting literature review of academic papers and official government websites and documents. Semistructured interviews of government officials, practitioners and local representatives of Thiruvananthapuram Corporation were also conducted. At the central level, it could be observed that conflicts stem from the differing approaches of various ministries towards the problem of MSWM and discrepancies in data pertaining to waste. At the state level, we could identify overlaps between the two of the government's missions pertaining to MSWM. A clash between the central government and state government with regard to handling of MSWM at an urban local body has also been discussed in the paper. It could be observed that the reason for the clash is the insistence that the state has to follow central government norms, despite it being less suitable to local needs.

Introduction. The dilemma of «chaos» (a free choice of behavior by each subject) or development based on assessments and strategic goals, formed in account with internal and external factors that would allow keeping things organised, persists in countries that shape a new economic model. Dismantling of the old economic system, the formation of the foundations of post-industrial development in the XXI century raise the issue of strategic planning.Purpose. The study is devoted to the development of the methodological framework of strategic planning based on clarifying the relationships, goals, differences of its main components in the multilevel management system. Besides, it aims to assess the current practices of strategic planning tools in Ukraine and identify areas for improvement in the context of synergy and its security development.Methods. The methodological basis of the study is the use of systematic and comparative approaches in the analysis of the theory and practice of strategic planning at different levels of government. The following research methods were used: induction and deduction; system analysis is used to identify the components of strategic planning at different levels of management; PEST analysis is used to identify factors leading to insufficient effectiveness of this tool in a multilevel management system; institutional and comparative analysis is used to clarify goals and differences of individual components of the system of strategic planning; abstract and logical is used to identify patterns of evolution of strategic planning in the future; marketing analysis is used to clarify the content of management activities in the framework of strategy.Results. Scientific approaches to the interpretation of the essence and place of strategic planning in the management system are generalized. The author's position on clarification of the content of strategic planning, delimitation of the concepts of «strategy» (as a direction of action), «strategic planning» (as a management function) is presented. The peculiarities of the presentation of strategic planning at different levels of the management hierarchy in Ukraine are shown.The reasons for the low efficiency of strategic goals success in the course of realization of strategies and strategic plans in domestic practice are revealed. The place of strategic planning in the system of institutional mechanisms of multilevel management is specified considering its current documents in Ukraine; the goals and differences of functional load at different levels of the management hierarchy are differentiated.The empirical analysis of the practice of strategic planning allowed us to identify the main challenges that require the search for management decisions at the methodological, legal, and administrative levels. Specifically, the problem of systematization, hierarchy, and autonomy of planning documents; inconsistency of government's long-term and medium- term strategies with current financial documents (budgets); low quality of macroeconomic forecasts and disregard for international strategies, the presence of «institutional traps» have been defined.Ways to improve strategic planning at the regional and local levels have been identified, in particular in connection with the decentralization reform and increasing the power of local self-government. Attention is paid to ensuring methodologically sound and procedurally fixed interrelation of planning documents, program and financial documents, organizational and methodological support of monitoring and evaluation, as well as information feedback, application of regional and local marketing tools, etc.The conclusion is made about the expediency of considering strategic planning in the system of management mechanisms in the country as a multilevel system, increasing the level of its systematization to achieve a synergy effect, practical implementation of the highest level of strategic planning - strategizing.Discussion. In the mentioned context, the prospects for further research are the problems of coordination of strategic and financial-budget planning systems, the formation of strategic plans in a new format of administrative-territorial entities, the development of methodological and applied provisions for the implementation of strategies.

Purpose: Small state studies has emerged as a discipline, and this discipline has been initially dominated mainly by the issues of vulnerability and a lack of capacities of small states, although these issues have been gradually replaced by the discussions on the potential opportunities of small states, not just their challenges. Within this framework, the consideration needs to be done also on the effect of the state size on the economics, governance and public management, among others. Design/methodology/approach: The current theorizing in small state studies focuses on the specifics of the small economy modelling and governance. The existing economic literature has occasionally stressed the relations between the size of the state and size of government, but with rather mixed empirical results. Moreover, relations between state size and quality of governance has also been emerging issue. This study would like to integrate both approaches. The empirical research utilizes cross-national comparative investigation based on the data for 44 European states; and we specifically assess, in addition to the existing approaches, how budgetary and non-budgetary scope of government differentiates among smaller and larger states. Findings: The results of the study suggest that the effect of the size of the state does not necessary favour larger states in respect to the smaller size of government and quality of governance. Thus, although potential scale economies matter regarding the public services' provision, the structure of spending, institutional context, and innovations in public service delivery modes also have the role in shaping scope and functions of the government, whereas quality of governance seems to be independent regarding the state size, at least in the European context. Research limitations/implications: Analysis is limited to the cluster of European states, and the results should be interpreted within this context. Originality/value: After the World War II the number of states has increased substantially, in fact, it has tripled. We are currently living in the era of small states, as more than one third of the existing two hundred and more states around the globe are actually small, if we assess the multiple criteria combination. In this context, this paper would like to add to the development of the field of small state studies.

Can high-quality local governance alleviate the environmental impact of large-scale refugee migration? The recent surge in refugee flows has brought additional challenges to local governments in Europe, the Middle East and certain regions of Africa and Asia. In this paper, we focus on the case of Syrian refugees in Turkey and show that the quality of local governance plays a critical role in mitigating the environmental deterioration. We employ text analysis methods to construct a unique data set on local governance quality from the independent audit reports on municipalities. Using a quasi-experimental econometric strategy, we show that the Syrian refugee influx has worsened environmental outcomes along several dimensions in Turkey. Specifically, we find that the deterioration in environmental outcomes is almost entirely driven by provinces with poor-quality governance. Those provinces fail to invest sufficiently in waste management practices and environmental services in response to increased refugee settlements. We argue that good local governance practices can smooth out the refugee integration process and complement the efforts of central governments.

The literature on project governance suggests an association between good governance and project success. However, the mechanism is not known. It is suggested governance and governmentality influence six psychological constructs, and through them, decision making, and project performance. The six constructs are culture, decision architecture, naturalistic decision making, group working, identity, and social representation. We review six case studies to explore the link between governmentality and governance and the six constructs, and their influence on decision making and project performance. Secondary data were used, using six previously published case studies. We find the six constructs influence decision making and project performance. Thus, we confirm earlier research, to suggest that good governance does often lead to improved project performance and the link is via decision making. Governance creates an environment in which good decisions can be made on projects and assigns competent people to leadership positions.