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Public concern about inequitable economic globalization has revealed the demand for citizen participation in global decision making. Civil society organizations have taken up the challenge, holding governments and corporations accountable for their decisions and actions, and developing collaborative solutions to the dominant problems of our time. Critical Mass: The Emergence of Global Civil Society offers a unique mixture of experience and analysis by the leaders of some of the most influential global civil society organizations and respected academics who specialize in this field of study. Co-published with the Centre for International Governance Innovation
Corruption and ineffectiveness are often expected of public servants in developing countries. However, some groups within these states are distinctly more effective and public oriented than the rest. Why? Patchwork Leviathan explains how a few spectacularly effective state organizations manage to thrive amid general institutional weakness and succeed against impressive odds. Drawing on the Hobbesian image of the state as Leviathan, Erin Metz McDonnell argues that many seemingly weak states actually have a wide range of administrative capacities. Such states are in fact patchworks sewn loosely together from scarce resources into the semblance of unity. McDonnell demonstrates that when the human, cognitive, and material resources of bureaucracy are rare, it is critically important how they are distributed. Too often, scarce bureaucratic resources are scattered throughout the state, yielding little effect. McDonnell reveals how a sufficient concentration of resources clustered within particular pockets of a state can be transformative, enabling distinctively effective organizations to emerge from a sea of ineffectiveness. Patchwork Leviathan offers a comprehensive analysis of successful statecraft in institutionally challenging environments, drawing on cases from contemporary Ghana and Nigeria, mid-twentieth-century Kenya and Brazil, and China in the early twentieth century. Based on nearly two years of pioneering fieldwork in West Africa, this incisive book explains how these highly effective pockets differ from the Western bureaucracies on which so much state and organizational theory is based, providing a fresh answer to why well-funded global capacity-building reforms fail—and how they can do better.
This book looks at experience in government restructuring and devolution from a variety of national and international perspectives, both within the European Union and elsewhere, focusing on lessons learned and ways forward.Since the 1980s, there has been a global trend to give more power to local governments. Even in Korea and the United Kingdom, the most centralised countries in the OECD, local government powers have increased, with substantial economic benefits. Within the European Union, the principle of subsidiarity has enshrined the idea of devolution. New member states, particularly in central and eastern Europe, have significantly created new and self-sufficient local and regional governments. However, this process has been complicated. Devolution is not a panacea in its own right, and need not lead to economic growth. While it can encourage savings through collaboration, it can also lead to confused lines of authority and can complicate policy formation and implantation. Devolution can strain local budgets, forcing local governments to rely on their own sources of finance, rather than central government transfers. Suburbanisation, rural depopulation, the growth of some regions, and the decline of others have raised new problems, particularly related to inter-governmental cooperation among local governments and different levels of government. In many cases, an increased number of governments has increased administrative costs.
Corporate Governance examines in an extraordinarily practical and accessible way the legal concerns of today’s shareholders, stakeholders, directors, officers, and their counsel, with a special emphasis on drafting documents and developing procedures to anticipate and prevent problems. Designed for real-world application by students, practitioners, executives, investors, and activists, the text includes excerpts from only the most important judicial decisions. Extensive notes and analyses provide context from courts, commentators, institutional investors, proxy advisors, stock exchange requirements, and businesspeople. Dozens of examples “ripped from the headlines,” or taken from corporate documents, the “Great Books,” or pop culture illustrate and illuminate key principles. Appendices offer detailed information to establish, support, and advance the reader’s career in corporate governance practice. New to the Third Edition: Composite provisions, offset in text boxes, patterned on the corporate governance guidelines of major corporations, identify the issues in and approaches to drafting such documents. New appendices discussing: On Preparing and Presenting “Actionable” Advice, for both executives and their counsel (Appendix B), and Ten Tips for Transparency in Posting Core Corporate Documents Online (Appendix C); and a fully updated list of Recommended Resources for Corporate Governance Research (Appendix A). In Chapter 1, enhanced discussion and examples of themes and trends in the study, theory, and practice of corporate governance. Throughout Chapter 2, expanded treatment of the directors’ responsibility to monitor and reduce risks (including special issues of cybersecurity); and analyses of the rules of conduct for board meetings, of variable/differential voting powers of directors; and of emergency bylaws. In Chapter 3, new discussions of meetings in “executive session,” and of the viability of a policy against a company’s directors’ dating each other; and additional material on: constraints on executives’ “private” activities and statements; special responsibilities of members of the audit committee; and the composition and role of the executive committee. In Chapter 4, updated discussions of virtual meetings of shareholders, of the rules of conduct for shareholder meetings, and of forum selection provisions for intracorporate litigation; and new sections on “loyalty shares”/“tenure voting,” on fee-shifting provisions, and on mandatory arbitration provisions. In Chapter 5, new examinations of: increased efforts (and mandates) to diversify the composition of boards; the “financial literacy” requirement for (some) directors; enabling the CEO also to serve as the board chair; the role of the “executive chair”; “golden leashes” for directors; the roles and responsibilities of advisory board members, advisory directors, emeritus directors, honorary directors, and board observers; proxy access proposals; and “refreshing” the board through age and term limits for directors. In Chapter 6, expanded discussions of clawbacks, restrictions on executives’ pledging and hedging company stock, Key Employee Retention Plans (KERPs) in bankruptcy situations, “golden hellos,” and “say on pay” litigation; and an analysis of the recent requirement of “pay ratio disclosure.” In Chapter 7, updated material on ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) issues, and on social enterprises such as benefit corporations and Certified B Corporations. In Chapter 8, a new discussion of the role and relationship to corporate counsel, of the chief compliance officer. Professors and students will benefit from: References to more than 200 newly added decisions. Identification of hundreds of intriguing topics for papers and/or blogs. Comparisons and contrasts of the governance practices supported by institutional investors, proxy advisors, and stock exchanges. A practice-ready, drafting-oriented approach to the systems, structures, and strategies of corporate governance.
Carbon is the political challenge of our time. While critical to supporting life on Earth, too much carbon threatens to destroy life as we know it, with rising sea levels, crippling droughts, and catastrophic floods sounding the alarm on a future now upon us. How did we get here and what must be done? In this incisive book, Kate Ervine unravels carbon's distinct political economy, arguing that, to understand global warming and why it remains so difficult to address, we must go back to the origins of industrial capitalism and its swelling dependence on carbon-intensive fossil fuels – coal, oil, and natural gas – to grease the wheels of growth and profitability. Taking the reader from carbon dioxide as chemical compound abundant in nature to carbon dioxide as greenhouse gas, from the role of carbon in the rise of global capitalism to its role in reinforcing and expanding existing patterns of global inequality, and from carbon as object of environmental governance to carbon as tradable commodity, Ervine exposes emerging struggles to decarbonize our societies for what they are: battles over the very meaning of democracy and social and ecological justice.
A passionate examination of why international anti-corruption fails to deliver results and how we should understand and build good governance.
Critical Dialogues of Urban Governance, Development and Activism examines changes in governance, property development, urban politics andcommunity activism, in two key global cities: London and Toronto.
Identifies the major weaknesses in the current United Nations system and proposes fundamental reforms to address each. This title is also available as Open Access.