Governance discourse centers on an "ideal type" of modern statehood that exhibits full internal and external sovereignty and a legitimate monopoly on the use of force. Yet modern statehood is an anomaly, both historically and within the contemporary international system, while the condition of "limited statehood," wherein countries lack the capacity to implement central decisions and monopolize force, is the norm. Limited statehood, argue the authors in this provocative collection, is in fact a fundamental form of governance, immune to the forces of economic and political modernization. Challenging common assumptions about sovereign states and the evolution of modern statehood, particularly the dominant paradigms supported by international relations theorists, development agencies, and international organizations, this volume explores strategies for effective and legitimate governance within a framework of weak and ineffective state institutions. Approaching the problem from the perspectives of political science, history, and law, contributors explore the factors that contribute to successful governance under conditions of limited statehood. These include the involvement of nonstate actors and nonhierarchical modes of political influence. Empirical chapters analyze security governance by nonstate actors, the contribution of public-private partnerships to promote the United Nations Millennium Goals, the role of business in environmental governance, and the problems of Western state-building efforts, among other issues. Recognizing these forms of governance as legitimate, the contributors clarify the complexities of a system the developed world must negotiate in the coming century.

In the minds of many, the provision of justice and security has long been linked to the state. To ask whether non-state institutions could deliver those services on their own, without the aid of coercive taxation and a monopoly franchise, runs the risk of being branded as naive anarchism or dangerous radicalism. Defenders of the state's monopoly on lawmaking and law enforcement typically assume that any alternative arrangement would favor the rich at the expense of the poor--or would lead to the collapse of social order and ignite a war. Questioning how well these beliefs hold up to scrutiny, this book offers a powerful rebuttal of the received view of the relationship between law and government. The book argues not only that the state is unnecessary for the establishment and enforcement of law, but also that non-state institutions would fight crime, resolve disputes, and render justice more effectively than the state, based on their stronger incentives.

This study examines the principles and practices of the Afikpo (Eugbo) Nigeria indigenous justice system in contemporary times. Like most African societies, the Afikpo indigenous justice system employs restorative, transformative and communitarian principles in conflict resolution. This book describes the processes of community empowerment, participatory justice system and how regular institutions of society that provide education, social and economic support are also effective in early intervention in disputes and prevention of conflicts.

Does statelessness necessarily mean anarchy and disorder? Clan elders, religious leaders and businessmen have worked together to provide stability and security in large parts of Somalia. Urban centres continue to suffer violence, political chaos and economic disruption. Do money, international trade and investment survive without a state? Somalia has been without a state, a Ministry of Finance, or a central bank, but the Somali Shilling was more stable during the second half of the 1990s than during the 1980s. Economic agreements with transnational firms and sovereign states go ahead. Do town-dwellers fare as well as pastoralists? With the collapse of the state, herders and traders have benefited from reduced restrictions on movement and there is a booming unofficial export and import trade. Settled populations have fared less well. Do pastoralists care about development and social improvement? Throughout the Horn western-funded development projects have had disastrous results. Nevertheless the Somalis have selectively accepted certain elements; phone and internet services are surprisingly cheap.BR> Published in association with the International African Institute North America: Indiana U Press

Originally published in 2003, this book addresses the rarely explored subject of the reciprocal relationships between nationalism, nation and state-building, and economic change. Analysis of the economic element in the building of nations and states cannot be confined to Europe, and therefore these diverse yet interlinked case-studies cover all continents. Authors come to contrasting conclusions, some regarding the economic factor as central, while others show that nation-states came into being before the constitution of a national market. The essays leave no doubt that the nation-state is an historical phenonemon and as such is liable to 'expiry' both through the process of globalisation and through the development of a 'cyber-society' which evades state control. By contrast, developments in southeastern Europe, the former USSR, and parts of Africa and the Far East show that building the nation-state has not run its course.

This book explains why no opposition party has been able to offer itself as a sustained challenger in Japan.

Legislative term limits are reshaping the political landscape in numerous states; however, few of the effects are consistent across all states. Everything from the political environment to the level of legislative professionalism within a state influences the trends that are often attributed to term limits. To cut through these many trends and isolate the ones most likely created by term limits, this volume develops comparisons of states with term limits to similar states without term limits. The comparisons are organized by levels of legislative professionalism. The richness of the case study approach allows the contributors to Legislating Without Experience to offer valuable insights into the legislative process in each of the specific states. They also illuminate the individual idiosyncrasies that enhance or dilute the effects of term limits in a given state. Rarely does a case study book with multiple contributors offer apples-to-apples data comparisons. This project engaged nationally recognized scholars to collect and analyze comparable data in each state. The loss of major power brokers and their institutional memory makes the legislature a more chaotic place. Legislating Without Experience argues that on the whole, the legislature as an institution has been weakened by term limits. However, these effects vary from state to state based on the specifics of the limit and the degree of legislative professionalism. Importantly, legislative actors are adapting to the limits and making the best of a difficult situation. This book will be an excellent reference for students and scholars of state politics, legislative process, and term limits.

This work deals with legal pluralism in an emerging world society. It central thesis is that globalization of law tends to create a decentred law-making process which occurs in multiple sectors of civil society, independently of nation states. Technical standardization, professional rule production, human rights, intra-organizational regulation in multinational enterprises, contracting, arbitration and other institutions of lex mercatoria are forms of rule by private governments, claiming world-wide validity independently of the law of the nation states. They have come into existence not by formal acts of nation states but by strange paradoxical acts of self-validation.

“A brilliant and bracing analysis of the Palestine question and settler colonialism . . . a vital lens into movement lawyering on the international plane.” —Vasuki Nesiah, New York University, founding member of Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) Justice in the Question of Palestine is often framed as a question of law. Yet none of the Israel-Palestinian conflict’s most vexing challenges have been resolved by judicial intervention. Occupation law has failed to stem Israel’s settlement enterprise. Laws of war have permitted killing and destruction during Israel’s military offensives in the Gaza Strip. The Oslo Accord’s two-state solution is now dead letter. Justice for Some offers a new approach to understanding the Palestinian struggle for freedom, told through the power and control of international law. Focusing on key junctures—from the Balfour Declaration in 1917 to present-day wars in Gaza—Noura Erakat shows how the strategic deployment of law has shaped current conditions. Over the past century, the law has done more to advance Israel’s interests than the Palestinians’. But, Erakat argues, this outcome was never inevitable. Law is politics, and its meaning and application depend on the political intervention of states and people alike. Within the law, change is possible. International law can serve the cause of freedom when it is mobilized in support of a political movement. Presenting the promise and risk of international law, Justice for Some calls for renewed action and attention to the Question of Palestine. “Careful and captivating . . . This book asks that the Palestinian liberation struggle and Jewish-Israeli society each reckon with the impossibility of a two-state future, reimagining what their interests are—and what they could become.” —Amanda McCaffrey, Jewish Currents

Governance discourse centers on an “ideal type” of modern statehood that exhibits full internal and external sovereignty and a legitimate monopoly on the use of force. Yet modern statehood is an anomaly, both historically and within the contemporary international system, while the condition of “limited statehood,” wherein countries lack the capacity to implement central decisions and monopolize force, is the norm. Limited statehood, argue the authors in this provocative collection, is in fact a fundamental form of governance, immune to the forces of economic and political modernization. Challenging common assumptions about sovereign states and the evolution of modern statehood, particularly the dominant paradigms supported by international relations theorists, development agencies, and international organizations, this volume explores strategies for effective and legitimate governance within a framework of weak and ineffective state institutions. Approaching the problem from the perspectives of political science, history, and law, contributors explore the factors that contribute to successful governance under conditions of limited statehood. These include the involvement of nonstate actors and nonhierarchical modes of political influence. Empirical chapters analyze security governance by nonstate actors, the contribution of public-private partnerships to promote the United Nations Millennium Goals, the role of business in environmental governance, and the problems of Western state-building efforts, among other issues. Recognizing these forms of governance as legitimate, the contributors clarify the complexities of a system the developed world must negotiate in the coming century.