The new architects: Brazil,China, and innovation in multilateral development lending

Recent academic works have shed light upon the motives and negotiation dynamics leading to the creation of the New Development Bank (NDB) and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). We know less about their day‐to‐day activities and if (and if so why) they are being innovative in the field of multilateral development lending. This article evaluates novelty in the two banks. It uncovers and suggests an explanation to the puzzle of why the NDB appears more innovative (in terms of institutional design, staffing, and lending policy guidelines) than the AIIB by exploring the cases of China and Brazil. The two countries played central roles in the set‐up of each the AIIB and NDB. Drawing on extensive field research, the article proposes that their preferences and capability to engage in institutional innovation depend on interests, status, economic power, and regulatory capacity.     

A Genre-based Approach to the Translation of Private Normative Texts in Legal English and Legal Spanish

This paper aims at clarifying some of the most common issues that legal translators have to face when dealing with the translation of private normative texts, such as contracts or wills, which naturally emerge as the consequence and expression of legal or juristic acts in the scope of private law, in Spanish and English. To comprehend the differences and subtleties regarding legal communication between the common law and the continental law countries (specifically the United States and Spain, respectively), we must unveil some essential clues for their translation and application in the global scope of professional interactions, thus creating a process of inter-legal communication, which takes place through the mutual interpretation and application of two, or more, legal traditions. Through the deployment of a generic or pragmatic analysis at textual or discursive and formal or superficial, strata, of two types of genre within the domain of private law (namely wills and tenancy agreements, or leases) this work aims to prove that both the civil law and the common law private instruments are translatable with respect to each other. An important proviso, however, is that their legal traditions and the genres that constitute the communicative tools of their specialised communities must be duly respected and kept in equilibrium, so that one does not overshadow and obliterate the other. Only in that way can the ??convergence?? of the two traditions truly enrich and strengthen national and international legal culture.     

What do Household Surveys Really Tell Us about Risk,Shocks, and Risk Management in the Developing World?

We report on a project to explore empirical patterns in risk, shocks and risk management using recent household surveys with risk modules from 16 different developing countries. Natural disasters, health shocks, economic shocks, and asset loss are the most commonly reported types of shocks and, especially for the poor, often result in ‘bad’ coping responses that may perpetuate vulnerability. The information culled from these survey modules falls short of expectations in several ways.     

Transformation in Philippine local government

This research examined the challenges, enablers and outcomes of organisation transformation in Philippine local governments. We combined a multi-case study research design and backward mapping approach in collecting and analysing narratives from 55 leaders in 9 Filipino local government units (LGUs) that have successfully undergone transformation. Results show that the transformations of the LGUs appear to have been catalysed by three interrelated elements: vision, LGU leadership and citizen engagement. The transformation in the local governments concentrated on multiple foci of reform including structure and systems improvement, culture change, human-resource development as well as policy and programme development. This holistic approach enabled the transformation of bureaucratic and unprofessional government service to transparent, professional and efficient public service that engendered pride, transparency and social equity. Implications of the proposed model for transforming LGUs and in developing LGU leaders for good governance are discussed.     

Capital Accumulation,Hegemony and Socio-ecological Struggles: Insights from the ENTITLE Project

This special issue presents findings and reflections of scholars who participated in the European Network of Political Ecology (ENTITLE). By mobilising conceptual frameworks from several strands of Marxist and post-structuralist theory—and empirically engaging with a range of historico-geographical processes—the articles in this issue contribute to debates in political ecology in two main ways. First, they critically analyse the political economy and ecology of contemporary capitalism, with an emphasis on accumulation strategies associated with the uneven expansion and crisis of neoliberalism. Specifically, they unpack and critically extend the frameworks of “accumulation by dispossession” and “nature's neoliberalisation” to engage with, among other cases, the political ecology of “austerity” in Southern Europe; historical and contemporary cases of “capital-driven disasters”; and political ecological dynamics taking place around relationships of “rent”. Second, the authors of this special issue analyse new and re-emerging forms of socio-ecological resistance and contestation, including both distributional struggles and movements against “commons' enclosures”. Moreover, they focus on how struggles can (and do) move from contesting capitalist forms of dispossession towards creating alternative “hegemonic” projects and blocs, by critiquing received “common sense” and constructing and performing alternative political ecological imaginaries informed by principles of solidarity and “commoning”. Taken together, the articles in this special issue present new ways of thinking and enacting political and ecological struggles outside established scholarly traditions and conventional disciplines.     

Risk Factors and Drivers of Financial Sustainability in Local Government: An Empirical Study

The current international crisis in public finances has made financial sustainability a key issue for governments. Although the European Union (EU) and other international organisations have recommended governments to monitor demographic and economic variables, few studies have considered the influence of these variables on financial sustainability. This paper seeks to identify and analyse the drivers and risk factors that influence the financial sustainability of local government. The findings identify both risk factors (unemployment and population aged under 16 years) and drivers (budgetary outcome) of financial sustainability, which may constitute a useful basis for decision-taking by managers and policy-makers.     

Filling in the Gaps: The Transnational Administration of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Peru

Diverse sources have constructed a common narrative of individual and isolated responses by countries and their leaders to the global coronavirus pandemic, akin to sálvese quien pueda (every man for himself). This article suggests that this is a simplification of the governance of the COVID-19 pandemic in Peru. Peru's governance story is one of domestic public and private action closely interwoven with crucial elements of transnational administration out of sheer necessity. The struggle against the pandemic has generated a domestic and transnational administrative symbiosis, involving authorities at multiple levels in efforts to fill a series of interconnected domestic, regional, and global governance gaps.     

After September 11th: the Fight Against Terrorism in National and European Law. Substantive and Procedural Rules: Some Examples

Abstract: The terrorist attacks suffered by the United States of America on 11 September 2001 have caused a considerable increase in legislation at national and European level with the same objective: the fight against terrorism. The special nature of this crime makes judicial cooperation among states indispensable. In this context, both kinds of instruments are contemplated in order to provide the necessary measures especially—and not especially—addressed to prevent and repress terrorism: they give place to substantial and procedural rules, such as the European Arrest Warrant in the territory of the European Union. But in this claimed fight against terrorism there are also two important risks, namely the creation of a kind of ‘Security Criminal Law’ from a material point of view and the arguable breach of human rights infringed by some of those procedural measures.