Local self-governance and varieties of statehood : Reflections on tensions and cooperation

Title data

Neubert, Dieter ; Lauth, Hans-Joachim ; Mohamad-Klotzbach, Christoph:
Local self-governance and varieties of statehood : Reflections on tensions and cooperation.
In: Neubert, Dieter ; Lauth, Hans-Joachim ; Mohamad-Klotzbach, Christoph (ed.): Local self-governance and varieties of statehood : Tensions and Cooperation. - Cham : Springer , 2022 . - pp. 1-29
ISBN 978-3-031-14996-2
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14996-2_1

Project information

Abstract in another language

The debate on governance refers to cases from the OECD world, with a focus on cooperation between the state, other public institutions, and different private actors. An extended perspective beyond the OECD world discloses the limitations of this debate. Local actors are much more diverse than usually assumed, and they follow their specific notions of order, which may contradict or compete with the basic principles of consolidated constitutional statehood. This challenges the given canon of governance modes of coordination between the actors. Thus, we need to consider cases of demarcation with a certain autonomy of different orders or open conflict between notions of order. Some local actors even claim to be a state on their own. The widened analytical perspective challenges the mainstream governance debate and paves the way for a more nuanced and extended analysis of governance and statehood. With an extension of the classical governance approach, we are able to show that it is not only viable for the complexity of modern states in the Global North, but can also be productively applied to countries of the Global South, each with their own complexity.