Servicenavigation

Project Details

Back

Projekt Print View

SFB 700:  Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood: New Modes of Governance?

Subject Area Social and Behavioural Sciences
Humanities
Term from 2006 to 2017
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 15088804
 
Final Report Year 2018

Final Report Abstract

For the past twenty years and beyond, Somalia has topped the list of “failed states” in almost every available dataset. However, a closer look at the country reveals that tribal groups and their chiefs have succeeded in establishing a quasi-state in the north-western part of the country, Somaliland. At the same time, nobody would probably portray Germany as a “failed state”, even though various parks in the city of Berlin are no longer policed giving rise to drug dealing and illegal prostitution. These examples serve to illustrate the SFB 700’s central message over the past 12 years: • “Areas of limited statehood” are to be found everywhere and are not confined to what the literature calls “fragile” or “failed” states. • Areas of limited statehood where central state authorities lack the capacity to uphold the monopoly over the means of violence and/or to enforce the law, are neither ungovernable nor ungoverned. There is no linear correlation between degrees of statehood, on the one hand, and the provision of collective goods and services, on the other. Instead, we find an enormous variation that include badly governed places but also “good governance” in areas of limited statehood. Over three funding periods, 29 research projects from political science and neighboring disciplines such as history, economics, as well as international and comparative law have, thus, tried to answer our central research question: How and under what conditions can effective and legitimate governance be sustained in areas of limited statehood, and what problems emerge under such conditions? During the first funding period, we reconsidered our central concepts and theoretical assumptions to avoid the pitfalls of Eurocentrism. We defined governance as institutionalized modes of social coordination to produce and implement collectively binding rules, or to provide collective goods. This definition analytically separates governance from the state and statehood. This framework enabled us to immerse into the spatial and historical varieties of governance in areas of limited statehood, and explore their local particularities during the second funding period. Finally, in the third funding period, the focus was on the generalization of our findings that ultimately led to an empirically informed theory of (effective and legitimate) governance in areas of limited statehood. This theory seeks to answer three questions: First, under what conditions are capable actors motivated to engage in the provision of governance services; second, under what conditions are these efforts successful; and third, under what condition is governance by actors other than the domestic state normatively legitimate? (1) Whereas many actors such as humanitarian NGOs and most international organizations have the organizational purpose to provide collective goods in areas of limited statehood, other important types of actors, such as business companies, warlords or rebel groups, have usually no intrinsic motivation to do so. We found that these actors nevertheless engage in governance activities, if providing collective goods is beneficial to them. This is the case if either: (a) other powerful actors assume the role of the incapable state and pressure them to provide collective goods (“external shadow of hierarchy”), (b) providing (some) collective goods themselves would be preferable to an anarchic state of affairs without these collective goods, (c) the provision of collective goods is a promising means to the end of gaining legitimacy and international recognition, or (d) they get pressured into providing collective goods by well-organized local communities that are characterized by high levels of interpersonal trust. (2) Our research over the last 12 years has identified three factors that determine the likelihood of effective governance: (a) the degree to which governance arrangements are institutionalized and “fit for purpose”, (b) the degree of social trust among the addressees of governance, and (c) the degree to which governance actors are socially accepted and perceived as legitimate by the recipients. This empirical legitimacy of governance actors is the most important among these factors. It needs to be supplemented either by functionally adequate institutions and/or by high levels of trust that facilitate social coordination within local communities. (3) Finally, governance in areas of limited statehood is not always purely beneficial for the affected actors, but can also entail considerable burdens and negative externalities for them. We therefore asked, thirdly, under what conditions this type of governance is nevertheless morally permissible. In answer to this normative question we claim that costly governance by non-state and external actors can be legitimate if it fulfils one of the following conditions: It is either (a) authorized by the recipients through fair and inclusive procedures or (b) restricted to the protection, fulfilment, or institutionalization of basic human rights. These conditions reflect the core values of self-determination and human rights that should inform governance in areas of limited and consolidated statehood alike.

Publications

 
 

Additional Information

© 2025 DFG Disclaimer / Copyright / Privacy Policy

Textvergrößerung und Kontrastanpassung