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AbstractI develop a robust political economy of bureaucracy by highlighting the conditions necessary for hierarchical administrative bodies to govern protectively and productively, but not predatorily. These conditions are residual claimancy and jurisdictional competition. I make this argument by exploring a post‐cameralist interpretation of governance. Cameralism arose as a governance philosophy in the fractured principalities of seventeenth‐century Germany following the Thirty Years' War. Post‐cameralism focuses not on particular cameralist governance strategies but on a paradigm which sees governance as an activity provided within a larger exchange order, rather than imposing itself on that order as in more conventional treatments of public economics. While a post‐cameralist conception of governance comes with its own challenges, such as tensions with normative visions that promote self‐governance, it nonetheless presents an intriguing synthesis of monocentric and polycentric insights.

The need for strengthening fishers' adaptive capacity has been proposed in the literature as an important component of effective fisheries governance arrangements in the presence of rising numbers of external drivers of change. Within the context of small-scale fisheries, government subsidies have been the main tool used for increasing adaptive capacity. We examine the relationship among adaptive capacity, subsidy programs, and fishers' participation in fisheries management, as a potentially important mediating factor affecting outcomes using a data set from two periods of a fishing community in Baja California Sur, Mexico. Our results show a correlation between those fishers with access to decision-making venues and their reception of subsidies, yet the effect of participation and subsidies on fishers' adaptive capacity is limited. This appears to be due to the authorities' lack of commitment to strengthening fishers' adaptive capacity through subsidies programs, and fishers' lack of trust in the governance processes.

Community governance is an approach of shift from governmentality to governance. This is more flexible approach extends beyond government, and the place of its agencies, to a greater sharing of power between the state, the market and civil society via new network and partnership structures. This paper analyses the determinants of community governance at the grassroots level in Nepal for the efficient delivery of basic services based on primary data sources. 110 locally constituted community based organisations were selected for an organisational survey. Additionally, three focus group discussions and 40 in-depth interviews were employed for information collection. A multiple linear regression model was used for data analysis, which revealed 12 variables such as Inclusive participation (X1), Empowerment of the people (X2), Transparency and accountability (X3) Enabling environment (X4), Practice of local democracy (X5), Service effectiveness (X6), Service integrity (X7), Social capital development (X8), Institution building (X9), Community mobilisation (X10) Planning, implementation, and monitoring (X11), Coordination, linkage, and partnership (X12) are significantly influencing governance practice. Results indicated a 14 percent variance between dependent and independent variables. This shows the overall practice of governance at the community level was malfunctioned, which can be attributed to a number of factors. First, many community-based organisations (CBOs) do not adopt governance mechanisms in their approach to development. Second, despite a crisis in governance, some CBOs have participated in the service delivery process. Third, this crisis has been a foremost obstacle in the working culture of CBOs. This analysis further explores the problem from the perspective of socio-economic structure, power politics and interests, institutional issues, and capacity and resource constraints.

Purpose
The study aims to analyze the level of the disclosure of corporate governance practices by the companies that belong to the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries according to normative recommendations and coercive requirements considering the enforcement of laws and norms in the different legal systems and to explain it in the light of the institutional theory approach.


Design/methodology/approach
The practices disclosed by a sample of the 20 largest companies listed on the stock exchanges of each of the BRICS countries were analysed, and the 52 practices recommended by UNCTAD (2009) were used as a parameter. The corporate governance practices of the companies were confronted with the laws, rules and norms that require or recommend their adoption and disclosure.


Findings
China has 49 practices required by own national law in face of 52 recommended by UNCTAD/International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) followed by South Africa with 44, Russia with 33, Brazil with 28 and India with 24. Brazil has 47 practices recommended by own national governance code in face of 52 recommended by UNCTAD/Intergovernmental Working group of Experts on International Standards of Accounting and Reporting (ISAR), followed by Russia with 45, China with 44, South Africa with 41 and India with 22. It was found that Brazil has the higher median of number of companies disclosing corporate governance practices with 17, followed by India with 13, Russia with 11, South Africa and China with 7.


Research limitations/implications
This research shows that more studies are necessary using the institutional theory to investigate how the normative and coercive pressures influence the disclosure of corporate governance information considering the enforcement of laws and norms in the different legal systems.


Practical implications
The differences observed in this study about normative and coercive forces are presented as an opportunity in the legal sphere of some countries to implement mechanisms to increase their level of enforcement.


Originality/value
This research contributes to various audiences such as governmental institutions, professional associations, market institutions to better understand their role in the improvement of the adoption of corporate governance practices and disclosure of information related to it.

Purpose
This paper aims to investigate whether there is any change in corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure in Pakistani companies after the introduction of CSR voluntary guidelines in 2013 by Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) and determine the effect of corporate governance (CG) elements on CSR disclosure.


Design/methodology/approach
Content analysis was applied to measure CSR disclosure from annual and sustainability reports of 50 companies from eight different sectors from 2010 to 2014. Paired-samples t-test was applied to examine the difference in CSR disclosure. Regression analysis was used to examine the relationships between CG elements and CSR disclosure.


Findings
Paired-samples t-test shows an increase in the extent of CSR disclosure after the introduction of CSR voluntary guidelines in 2013. The one-way ANOVA test reveals that the extent of CSR disclosure is different across various sectors. Multiple regression results prove that independent directors, women directors and board size positively affect the extent of CSR disclosure.


Practical implications
SECP should enforce medium-sized firms to start producing CSR reports. Voluntary guidelines of 2013 moderately improved CSR reporting. Therefore, enforcement of the SECP rule of independent directors may enhance the extent of CSR disclosure.


Originality/value
This study is the first to examine the effect of CSR voluntary guidelines issued by SECP in 2013 and CG elements on CSR disclosure in Pakistan.

Purpose
This paper examines whether shareholders consider corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance when voting on corporate governance change proposals submitted by dissident shareholders. These proposals recommend changes to the corporate governance status quo and are made by dissident shareholders who are dissatisfied with the company's existing governance practices.


Design/methodology/approach
Using 195 governance change proposals voted on during 2013, the paper examines the relationship between CSR performance (obtained from the MSCI database) and the level of voting support for these proposals.


Findings
This study finds that shareholder support for corporate governance change proposals submitted by dissident shareholders is positively related to firms' CSR concerns, especially environmental concerns.


Research limitations/implications
The findings suggest that shareholders may be concerned with the potentially adverse effects of weak CSR performance, especially poor environmental performance, and may support changes to corporate governance structures when a company's CSR and environmental performance is weaker.


Originality/value
As the first research to examine the relationship between CSR and proposed changes to corporate governance, this study provides unique insights into shareholder perceptions of the value of CSR based on shareholders' support (or lack thereof) for governance changes proposed by dissident shareholders.

ABSTRACT Purpose: To study the Brazilian bond and stock markets for testing the stock market development theory of Demirgüc-Kunt and Maksimovic (1996). Originality/gap/relevance/implications: This paper tests the substitution hypothesis of stock market development, from debt to stocks, in a context of improved corporate governance, by analyzing the data with cointegration techniques. The findings show that the rejection of substitution hypothesis, as the bond market has a positive and significant association with stock market improvements. The findings also show that improving the quality of corporate governance could lead equity capital and borrower capital sources to be complementary and not substitutes, suggesting that Brazilian stock market reform has created a virtuous development cycle. Key methodological aspects: Positivist research using quantitative methodology. Data from a sample of 171 firms during 20 years, analyzed with cointegration. The null was a negative association between bond and stock markets. Summary of key results: Null rejection, non-consistent to theoretical framework. The results have shown a positive and significant association between stock and debt in an improved corporate governance context. Key considerations/conclusions: Improving the quality of corporate governance could lead equity capital and borrower capital sources to be complementary, and not substitutes, suggesting that Brazilian stock market reform has created a virtuous development cycle.

This paper focuses on Denmark's Master of Public Governance and its assessments and lessons learned. Denmark is seen to have an efficient economy and public sector, a digitalized public service delivery system, and an advanced work–life balance. The Danish government invested substantial resources into developing a Master of Public Governance program – a flexible and modular program for public managers to take over a period of up to six years. The paper focuses on the Copenhagen version of the Master of Public Governance program. More than 1000 public managers from central, regional and local government are now active in pursuing an executive public management education through this program. The development, structure, content and the innovative teaching ideas are presented. The available data, including an official evaluation of the MPG program, is used to assess the program and present some lessons learned. The program has achieved its goals as public managers express satisfaction with the content and the flexible structure of the program, which suited more governance-oriented public managers with a need for strategic-thinking public managers, and has provided them with an opportunity to try out innovative teaching ideas. Lessons learned include the necessity of securing back-up from the government for a program of this considerable size, offering a flexible array of accessible and up-to-date courses and ensuring collaboration between universities offering the program.