2022· Cambridge University Press eBooks· pp. 22-46· 0 citations· 3 references
Abstract
How can we explain subnational variation in local government performance? This chapter develops a theory of institutional congruence to explain why local elites pursue divergent distributional strategies following decentralization reforms. The theory is motivated by a core empirical observation: when the boundaries of elites' political worlds overlap with their social ones, local governments become more representative and redistributive across villages. But when social and political boundaries are further apart, local governance is marked by internal divisions that leave the local state more susceptible to individual opportunism. This divergence informs the animating logic of my explanatory variable of institutional congruence, or the degree of spatial overlap between the boundaries of the local state and cross-village social institutions inherited from the precolonial past.
The global diffusion of anti-corruption agencies (ACAs) has become a central feature of governance reform across the Global South, yet agencies established under similar international “best practice” models display strikingly different levels of effectiveness. This article explains this variation by arguing that anti-c...
Ina Kubbe· American Behavioral Scientis...· 0 citations
This article examines how urban disorder is governed under conditions of contested legitimacy in a post-conflict city. Drawing on documentary analysis of institutional and policy materials from 2004 to 2025, it develops the concept of symbolic governance, defined as calibrated legitimacy management through which instit...
Graham Ellison, Louise Rhodes· Sociology· 0 citations
Community mediation is one of the most widespread and, at the same time, one of the least standardized institutions for conflict resolution. Under a common label, charitable organizations without a legal basis, statutory commissions with binding authority, municipal social policy services, donor-funded networks, and cu...
Abstract In a previous volume of this journal, scholars of consociational power-sharing counselled against reform of Northern Ireland’s power-sharing institutions. Since then, repeated episodes of collapse and dysfunction have necessitated reconsideration of the case for institutional reform. This article argues that a...
Sean Haughey, Jonathan Tonge, Ben Rosher· Government and Opposition· 0 citations
Why do some dimensions of governance converge across countries while others persistently diverge? We argue that convergence depends on what reform puts at stake: institutions that build state capacity usually face little resistance from incumbent elites, while those that redistribute political power often encounter mor...
Valerio Filoso, V. Alfano, Salvatore Capasso· Economics of Governance· 0 citations
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