Blockchain Papers

Hammed Afolabi, Emre Parlakkaya

Abstract This chapter examines environmental sustainability and digital accountability in South Africa’s mining sector, a domain marked by the tension between economic development and enduring ecological and social harm. Through a conceptual and reflective approach, this chapter adopts a multi-theoretical lens, drawing on institutional theory, stakeholder theory, legitimacy theory, economic theory and ecological modernisation theory to explore how social and environmental accounting (SEA) practices are shaped by regulatory frameworks, power dynamics, corporate disclosure strategies and technological innovation. Further, by using illustrative case examples, the analysis reveals a persistent gap between South Africa’s progressive environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies and their uneven implementation. Also, it shows that institutional and legitimacy pressures often drive symbolic compliance, while stakeholder engagement processes remain exclusionary. At the same time, emerging digital ESG tools, such as artificial intelligence (AI) monitoring, blockchain traceability and renewable energy systems, offer new possibilities for reform, though access and uptake remain unequal across firms and communities. This chapter presents a critical synthesis of theory and practice, highlighting the risks of techno-performative sustainability and proposing a more inclusive, participatory and justice-oriented approach to SEA in the Global South. Recommendations are offered across short, medium and long-term horizons, and future research directions are outlined to support empirical validation, comparative learning and deeper engagement with marginalised voices. This chapter contributes to both SEA literature and the practical reimagining of sustainability governance in resource-intensive economies.

Shankar T. Naskar, Jose M Merigo

Purpose This paper aims to examine how publication temporality and citation impact jointly inform the contemporary evolution of organisational capability within the resource-based view (RBV) literature between 2021 and 2025. This study clarifies how theoretical thinking about firm resources has shifted towards novel forms of value-creating organisational capabilities and identifies the consolidation of theoretical themes and future research directions within the field. Design/methodology/approach This study analyses 4,232 peer-reviewed articles published between 2021 and 2025, a period that accounts for nearly 50% of all RBV literature published since 1984. This study uses a quantitative bibliometric and science-mapping methodology, including semantic co-occurrence analysis of author keywords, with overlay and density visualisations in VOSviewer. Overlay maps highlight the temporal relevance of organisational capability constructs, and density maps reveal their structural and conceptual influence. The dual-lens approach provides a diagnostic framework for interpreting the contemporary trajectory of RBV-based organisational research. Findings The findings reveal a structural shift in how RBV scholarship conceptualises organisational capability, through three distinct evolutionary trajectories. Firstly, core renewal, where digital transformation and artificial intelligence fuse with dynamic capabilities to create high-impact internal capability routines. Secondly, emergent experimentation, in which constructs such as entrepreneurship, early-stage resource bootstrapping and blockchain form exploration frontiers. Thirdly, stable influence, in which environmental performance, the natural resource-based view and corporate social responsibility are broadly accepted as baseline pillars. This paper demonstrates that there is an active reconfiguration of traditional resource logic within the RBV field, with organisational capabilities moving along divergent theoretical trajectories. Research implications This study offers a diagnostic framework for positioning future RBV research within organisational theory. It delineates which capability constructs are undergoing renewal, which peripheral themes merit further development and which established organisational vocabularies continue to anchor the field. The dual-lens approach reveals where visibility is rising, but citation influence lags, guiding scholars in prioritising constructs for theoretical extension, consolidation and empirical testing. Practical implications For strategists and corporate leaders, the findings reframe how competitive advantage is created and sustained in volatile, unpredictable environments. Instead of relying on static, capital-heavy physical asset stocks, strategic advantage requires dynamic resource orchestration – coalescing flexible digital capabilities, cross-border relational networks and alliances and ecological stewardship into hard-to-imitate organisational routines that drive resilient value creation. Social implications The findings indicate that contemporary RBV scholarship increasingly aligns firm capability building with societal demands for environmental sustainability, ethical governance and digital inclusion. The results categorise transient, emergent and enduring capability practices – including those within resource-constrained contexts – and provide policymakers with actionable insights to inform initiatives aimed at organisational resilience and sustainable economic development. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper provides the first quantitative dual-lens structural and thematic synthesis of contemporary RBV literature published between 2021 and 2025 – a pivotal period accounting for nearly 50% of all RBV publications and 16% of all RBV citations since 1984. It introduces an integrative diagnostic framework that analyses the evolving theoretical identity of a leading strategic management theory. This study operationalises the divergence between publication recency and citation authority and advances a novel theoretical typology – core renewal, emergent experimentation and stable influence – that reveals how traditional firm resource logic has been actively reconfigured across the contemporary literature in response to technological disruptions, regulatory mandates and global shocks.

Stefan Scharnowski, Yanghua Shi

Miners of proof-of-work networks like Bitcoin tend to gravitate towards regions with cheap energy. We analyze risks associated with this geographical centralization by exploiting a local electricity supply shock. Compared to a control group consisting of an energy-efficient proof-of-stake cryptocurrency, the blockchain’s capacity for processing transactions decreases while transaction fees increase substantially. The increased settlement latency on the blockchain also reduces secondary market quality as seen in higher exchange rate volatility, lower liquidity, and larger price differences between exchanges. Overall, our results suggest that geographical centralization poses short-lived but potentially severe system-wide risks to proof-of-work networks.

Fernando Juan Velasquez Chapa, Sandro Manuel Velasquez Chapa, Luis Carlos Velasquez Chapa

Blockchain; Asset-Backed Tokenization; Mining Finance; Small-Scale Mining; Traceability; Smart Contracts; Artificial Intelligence; Risk Monitoring; Peru; TMC Experimental Framework; Distributed Ledger Technology; Structured Financing

Simon Kiluba

Belonging in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is negotiated through everyday practices that link land, ancestry, displacement, and local authority. This article examines how ethnicized categories are produced in routine encounters and dispute arenas rather than only through elite politics or episodes of violence. Drawing on comparative ethnography in a periurban setting near Bukavu and a rural setting in Kalehe, based on 72 interviews, observation of 18 dispute and community forums, and a bounded discourse corpus of radio, public speech, and WhatsApp materials, it analyses how people assemble and contest claims to local membership. The study shows that local citizenship is produced through practical regimes of proof in which people must demonstrate credibility via relational anchors, witnesses, documents, and moral narratives about stewardship and suffering. Belonging emerges as graded and situational rather than binary: the same person may be recognized as a church member, tenant, in-law, displaced person, or stranger depending on the arena and resource at stake. Dispute resolution forums institutionalize these claims, while rumor and media infrastructures accelerate boundary hardening or enable restraint. The article contributes to scholarship on boundary making, autochthony, and everyday bordering by showing how local citizenship is assembled through ordinary evidentiary demands and partial forms of recognition.

Togzhan Barakbayeva, Soroush Farokhnia, Amir Kafshdar Goharshady, Sergei Novozhilov

International audience

Guodong Ma, Hongxi Bai, Zhao Wei, Qicheng Yun · 5 authors

Effective traceability management in mineral resource development faces persistent challenges including information asymmetry, data falsification, and verification difficulties across complex value chains. This paper proposes a comprehensive blockchain-enabled traceability evaluation framework integrating distributed ledger technology with systematic assessment methodologies. A four-layer architecture encompassing data acquisition, blockchain storage, analysis processing, and evaluation application is designed to ensure data integrity throughout the mineral lifecycle. A hierarchical indicator system spanning five dimensions-traceability breadth, depth, precision, timeliness, and data credibility-is constructed, with the Analytic Hierarchy Process employed for weight determination and fuzzy comprehensive evaluation applied for performance assessment. Empirical validation through case study analysis of Huaxin Mining Group demonstrates the framework's practical applicability, yielding a comprehensive traceability score of 81.2 (Good grade). Comparative analysis reveals that blockchain-based systems achieve 96.8% data accuracy versus 82.4% for traditional approaches, with trace-back efficiency improving from 127.3 min to 4.7 min. The blockchain technology contribution ratio reaches 47.3% toward maximum traceability improvement. These findings provide theoretical foundations and practical guidance for advancing transparent and accountable mineral resource governance.

Danae Maniatis, Kathryn J. Jeffery

Abstract The Congo Basin, comprising the world’s second-largest tropical rainforest, presents both critical environmental challenges and unique opportunities for sustainable development. This chapter evaluates key pathways for environmentally sustainable development in the region, with an emphasis on extractive industries, renewable energy, agroforestry, biodiversity conservation, ecotourism, and climate and carbon finance. Using regional indicators such as the Fragile States Index (FSI), Human Development Index (HDI), and Environmental Performance Index (EPI), the authors highlight the structural barriers—including weak governance, institutional fragility, and extreme poverty—that constrain the region’s development trajectory. Despite these challenges, the Basin’s ecological wealth offers potential for transformative interventions. Strategies such as Reduced-Impact Logging for Climate (RIL-C), sustainable mining practices, decentralized renewable energy systems, and integrated agroforestry models are analyzed for their capacity to reduce emissions, protect biodiversity, and enhance local livelihoods. The chapter further explores the potential of REDD+ and emerging carbon market frameworks to finance conservation and climate mitigation efforts. Emphasizing the role of participatory governance, indigenous knowledge systems, and scientific innovation, the chapter underscores the necessity of context-specific, cross-sectoral approaches to operationalize sustainability in one of the planet’s most ecologically and geopolitically complex regions.

Abdullah Ayub Khan, Abdulmajeed Alsufyani, Nawal Alsufyani, Mohamad Afendee Mohamed · 5 authors

Environmental deterioration can cause major issues like air pollution, water scarcity, land degradation, and socioeconomic disruptions in heavily mined places like Sindh, Pakistan's Thar coalfields. To overcome these obstacles, a novel strategy using contemporary monitoring and prediction technology is required. This study presents a novel framework for tracking and reducing the environmental effects of mining in poor nations by combining data from blockchain technology, Temporal Convolutional Networks (TCNs), and remote sensing. To ensure stakeholder confidence and accountability, the proposed architecture recodes environmental data using Blockchain Distributed Ledger Technology (BDLT) in a secure, transparent, immutable, and secure manner. The primary potential is to periodically monitor key metrics like vegetation loss, water depletion, and air quality using the Remote Sensing (RS) approach. However, by examining temporal data, TCNs are able to predict trends in environmental degradation and take pre-emptive steps to prevent damage. With a prediction performance of up to 97.3%, metrics such as the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Air Quality Index (AQI), and water table depth are assessed with great accuracy. In addition to offering politicians and regulators useful information, the proposed architecture uses chaincode to guarantee adherence to environmental regulations. Furthermore, this paper offers a scalable and adaptable solution to environmental limitations in resource-rich places. It supports international sustainability objectives and sets the standard for more ethical mining methods in underdeveloping countries.

Ben Chen, Xingyu Yang, Hui Cui, Joseph K. Liu

The mining sector faces persistent funding challenges due to high risk, low liquidity, and limited transparency. Traditional financing methods are costly, slow, and inaccessible for small or early-stage ventures. This paper presents a platform Asteroid X, a blockchain-based Decentralized Finance (DeFi) platform tailored to these challenges. Asteroid X has an architecture that combines semi-centralized governance model to ensure rigorous projects on boarding and legal compliance – with fully on chain settlement mechanisms to facilitate transparent, secure, and efficient capital flows. Built on the ERC-1155 multi-token standard, Asteroid X tokenizes real-world mining rights and supports fractional ownership through a modular smart contract framework. Its layered architecture includes an API gateway, decentralized marketplace, and oracle integration to bridge off-chain geological data. Asteroid X is validated through test deployments on HashKey Chain and Ethereum Sepolia. Comparative analysis against traditional exchanges, such as the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), highlights significant gains in cost efficiency, transaction speed, and investor inclusivity. The results substantiate the applicability and transformative potential of blockchain-driven DeFi frameworks within capital-intensive industries such as mining, offering enhanced security, transparency, and inclusivity.

Gianluca Guidi, Francesca Dominici, Nat Steinsultz, Gabriel Dance · 9 authors

Bitcoin mines—massive computing clusters generating cryptocurrency tokens—consume vast amounts of electricity. The amount of fine particle (PM2.5) air pollution created because of their electricity consumption and its effect on environmental health is pending. In this study, we located the 34 largest mines in the United States in 2022, identified the electricity-generating plants that responded to them, and pinpointed communities most harmed by Bitcoin mine-attributable air pollution. From mid-2022 to mid-2023, the 34 mines consumed 32.3 terawatt-hours of electricity—33% more than Los Angeles—85% of which came from fossil fuels. We estimated that 1.9 million Americans were exposed to ≥0.1 μg/m3 of additional PM2.5 pollution from Bitcoin mines, often hundreds of miles away from the communities they affected. Americans living in four regions—including New York City and near Houston—were exposed to the highest Bitcoin mine-attributable PM2.5 concentrations (≥0.5 μg/m3) with the greatest health risks. The paper maps air pollution from power plants supplying electricity to US Bitcoin mines. It finds that 1.9 million people in 2022-2023 breathed toxic amounts of Bitcoin mine attributable pollution, particularly around New York City and Houston.

Hugo Estecahandy

In January 2022, a massive power blackout hit Central Asia, and especially the southern region of Kazakhstan after months of a huge rise in electricity consumption in the country and a few days after deadly demonstrations repressed by law enforcement. According to the Kazakhstani authorities, this huge power outage was due to cryptocurrency mining, an energy-intensive digital industry, highly developed within the country. This article aims to analyse and understand the geopolitical dynamics behind the fast and huge-scale development of the activity in Kazakhstan. The paper explores the geography of mining to and within the country, and relates it to the double territory’s divide, both climatic and energetic. Then, it analyses the political aspect of mining focusing on actors and networks of power involved in, sometimes illegal, crypto mining in Kazakhstan. Finally, this work discusses the future of the industry regarding the new regulation since 2023 and its limits.

Shahla Al Kli, J. Berkshire Miller, Alex de Waal

Iraq is a compelling example of a state highly dependent on a singular source of rent, namely oil revenue. Since 2003, Iraq has also been characterized by a fractured, rivalrous elite without central control over organized violence. This formula represents a “rentier political marketplace” in which state funds for salaries and contracts are the essential lubricant of the political system. During 2014–2021, successive shocks to national oil revenues represented a partial and temporary, but traumatic, decarbonization of Iraq’s government and political finance. In turn, this triggered a series of governance and political reconfigurations including a nominal decentralization process and fracturing of sectarian power, followed by a nationwide civic movement demanding transformational change. This paper traces these changes and the abrupt return to business as usual when oil prices rebounded. In doing so, the paper further investigates the nexus between oil and democracy in Iraq and addresses the unanswered question of how Iraq can decarbonize and democratize in the future.

Antulio Rosales, Heather Millar, Andrew Richardson

Cheap and abundant energy is an important incentive for the proliferation of cryptocurrency mining farms. With China's crackdown on bitcoin mining, investors have moved to the United States, Scandinavian countries, and Canada. From the perspective of business, these jurisdictions provide cheap, reliable electricity within a stable institutional context. At the same time, cryptocurrency mining has the potential to generate instability, not only through material demands on the capacity of the electricity grid, but also in jeopardizing governments’ climate goals. This article examines some strategies used by the industry to seek out favorable regulatory environments and take advantage of energy sources and infrastructures, through the case of HIVE blockchain technology, a mining company in Atlantic Canada. The article explains how in contrast with negative reports of marginal employment opportunities and drains on domestic energy supplies, bitcoin miners are developing new narratives to make cryptocurrency mining investment attractive to governments and the public. We find that HIVE has leveraged intra-provincial regulatory differences to expand operations and is currently using a “reverse battery” narrative to improve regulatory and public acceptance of cryptocurrency mining.

Jawad Abbas, Joanna Kurowska‐Pysz, Şerife Zihni Eyüpoğlu, Wei Liu

Geological JournalVolume 58, Issue 9 p. 3247-3249 SPECIAL ISSUE ARTICLE Nexus of geoenvironment, resource management and regional sustainable development: Introduction Jawad Abbas, Corresponding Author Jawad Abbas [email protected] Faculty of Management Sciences, University of Central Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan Correspondence Jawad Abbas, Faculty of Management Sciences, University of Central Punjab, Pakistan. Email: [email protected]Search for more papers by this authorJoanna Kurowska-Pysz, Joanna Kurowska-Pysz Department of Management, WSB University, Dąbrowa Górnicza, PolandSearch for more papers by this authorSerife Zihni Eyupoglu, Serife Zihni Eyupoglu Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Near East University, Nicosia, TRNC, TurkeySearch for more papers by this authorWei Liu, Wei Liu College of Business Administration, Qingdao University, Qingdao, ChinaSearch for more papers by this author Jawad Abbas, Corresponding Author Jawad Abbas [email protected] Faculty of Management Sciences, University of Central Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan Correspondence Jawad Abbas, Faculty of Management Sciences, University of Central Punjab, Pakistan. Email: [email protected]Search for more papers by this authorJoanna Kurowska-Pysz, Joanna Kurowska-Pysz Department of Management, WSB University, Dąbrowa Górnicza, PolandSearch for more papers by this authorSerife Zihni Eyupoglu, Serife Zihni Eyupoglu Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Near East University, Nicosia, TRNC, TurkeySearch for more papers by this authorWei Liu, Wei Liu College of Business Administration, Qingdao University, Qingdao, ChinaSearch for more papers by this author First published: 03 September 2023 https://doi.org/10.1002/gj.4852 Handling Editor: Ian Somerville Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onEmailFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. REFERENCES An, L., Jiang, X., Liu, Z., & Li, Q. (2023). Socio-economic impact of natural resource management: How environmental degradation affects the quality of life. Geological Journal, 58(9), 3310–3325. https://doi.org/10.1002/gj.4787 Belgacem, S. B., Adam, N. A., Khatoon, G., & Pawar, P. S. (2023). Do green finance, low-carbon energy transition, and economic growth help in environmental investment?: Empirical evidence from emerging economies in Asia. Geological Journal, 58(9), 3259–3267. https://doi.org/10.1002/gj.4712 Chakrabortty, R., & Pal, S. C. (2023). Systematic review on gully erosion measurement, modelling and management: Mitigation alternatives and policy recommendations. Geological Journal, 58(9), 3544–3576. https://doi.org/10.1002/gj.4709 Chowdhuri, I., Pal, S. C., Roy, P., Chakrabortty, R., Saha, A., & Shit, M. (2023). 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Nexus of financial decentralization and institutional resource consumption efficiency for a carbon neutral society: Policy implication of China. Geological Journal, 58(9), 3326–3338. https://doi.org/10.1002/gj.4782 Volume58, Issue9Special Issue: Nexus of Geoenvironment, Resource Management, and Regional Sustainable DevelopmentSeptember 2023Pages 3247-3249 ReferencesRelatedInformation

Robert G. Kreklewetz, Laura J. Burlock

Cryptoasset miners verify and record transactions, maintaining the integrity and security of the blockchain network. The Department of Finance ("Finance") has recently proposed new Excise Tax Act (ETA) provisions regarding the goods and services tax (GST)/harmonized sales tax (HST) treatment of crypto mining. Under these proposed provisions, crypto mining activities provided to anonymous recipients will not be subject to GST/HST, but the crypto miners performing these activities will also not be eligible to recover any GST/HST paid on their business inputs (and thus will be forced to bear the brunt of the tax themselves). We believe that Finance's decision to tax what it can identify—the business inputs of Canadian crypto miners—is a roughly balanced but reasonable approach. Although Finance might be legitimately criticized as departing from Canada's decision to eliminate the cascading of tax found in the former origin-based federal sales tax, it seems impossible to administer a destination-based transactional tax such as the GST/HST when faced with "anonymous" recipients (the users of the crypto miner's services). Finance appears to have minimized the cascading of tax by including a carve-out for identifiable recipients of a crypto miner's services, allowing the regular zero-rating rules in the ETA to apply in limited circumstances. In the face of utter uncertainty, Finance's reactive approach is likely the best that it can do. Given the rapid evolution and inherent decentralization of the crypto space, a more broadly based proactive approach would seem imprudent at this time.

Rucitarahma Ristiawan, Edward H. Huijbens, Karin Peters

Research on governance of tourism development predominantly focuses on sustainable management of a tourism destination, pinning hopes on the market and individual entrepreneurs. In Indonesia, this mission has been codified in post-reformation era (1998–2014) policies of land-use change promoting tourism and environmental conservation. One of these is the introduction of the UNESCO Geopark charter as a tool to realize the image of a modern state and “modernizing” regional economies. In this, a particular patrimonial governance arrangement appears to govern land use distribution to accrue the potential value of land from different use. This particular clientelist order will be analyzed in this article, namely by examining how finance, state power, and informal interactions between the national and regional structures of governance mesh in arranging land-use conversions for tourism purposes. Based on 4 months of ethnographic fieldwork and 32 interviews with various stakeholders in the Gunungsewu and Ciletuh UNESCO Geoparks, the paper will show how Indonesian post-reformation decentralization policies induced regional clientelism in the production of tourism destinations. This includes hierarchical relations between the local elite, private business owners, and governments representing asymmetric loyalty relations, negotiated subordination, and dominance. The more recent re-centralization attempts from the national government under Joko Widodo’s regime seem only to encourage this clientelism as a form of resistance to the state. This evidences that the Indonesian patrimonial governance and the production of tourism destinations in geoparks run counter to the ideals in governance as promoted for destination development.

Adnan Ali, Suresh Ramakrishnan, Faisal Faisal, Tooba Akram · 6 authors

No abstract is available for this record.

Jonathan Zeitlin, Christine Overdevest

Abstract This paper analyzes the interactions between the separate components of the emerging transnational timber legality regime, both public and private. It examines how far, and through what institutional mechanisms, these interactions are producing a joined‐up transnational regime, based on a shared normative commitment to combat illegal logging and cooperative efforts to implement and enforce it. The paper argues that the experimentalist architecture of the EU FLEGT initiative has fostered productive, mutually reinforcing interactions both with public timber legality regulation in other consumer countries and with private certification schemes. But this emerging regime remains highly polyarchic, with broad scope for autonomous initiatives by NGOs and private service providers, along with national governments, international organizations, and multi‐donor partnerships. Hence horizontal integration and coordination within it depend on a series of institutional mechanisms, some of which are distinctively experimentalist, while others can also be found in more conventional regimes. These mechanisms include cross‐referencing and reciprocal endorsement of rules and standards; recursive learning through information pooling and peer review of implementation experience; public oversight and joint assessment of private certification and legality verification schemes; and the “penalty default” effect of public legality regulation in consumer countries, which have pushed both exporting countries and transnational firms to comply with the norms and procedures of the emerging transnational regime. The paper's findings thus provide robust new evidence for the claim advanced in previous work that a joined‐up transnational regime can be assembled piece by piece under polyarchic conditions through coordinated learning from decentralized experimentation, without a hegemonic power to impose common global rules.

Antulio Rosales

After the oil price collapsed in 2014, debates in oil-producing nations emerged around the importance of doing away with commodity dependence. Modernization plans and developmental projects sprung up among large and small producers alike. Nevertheless, some countries remain dramatically committed to rentier practices, and many in Latin America and Africa have engaged in new forms of resource dependence by expanding their mining frontiers. Further, in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, new forms of online payments entered the global political economy and generated discussion among policymakers about the legality and implications of these payment mechanisms. In this article, I explain the linkages of two apparently disconnected forms of mining. Drawing on the case of Venezuela, I argue that the spread of small-scale, irregular and artisanal gold extraction and cryptocurrency mining is the result of the decaying rentier state in crisis. These originally decentralized and irregular activities were later endorsed and transformed by the state with the Orinoco Mining Arc project and the launching of the commodity-backed cryptocurrency, the ‘petro’. The state’s endorsement of these forms of mining translate into the collateralization of primary commodities and the emergence of new forms of authority in a radicalized form of rentierism connected with global financial circuits.

Matías Casares

Fil: Casares, Matías. Universidad de San Andrés. Escuela de Negocios; Argentina.

D.K. Craig

Considers two significant (2014–17) reforms in Papua New Guinea and their potential combined significance in strengthening Public Financial Management for Service Delivery. Public Financial Management (PFM)/Budget execution, including an Integrated Financial Information System (IFMS), involves reforms driven principally by the Department of Finance (DoF)); and Public Sector and Institutional (PSI) reform, including decentralization and local service delivery, involves reforms driven by the Department of Provincial and Local Government Affairs (DPLGA). Papua New Guinea’s budget execution reforms emerged from a combination of political and executive leadership, benchmarked against international standards via a robust Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) review process. While current decentralization remains at an early stage, provincial government, subject to irregular, inadequate resourcing and limited political and executive accountability, has undergone reforms but failed to remedy the difficult three-tier governance arrangements. The new approach to decentralization and service delivery has constituted District Development Authorities (DDAs) as the primary vehicle through which to pursue local development goals.

John Butcher

Abstract Externalised service provision is now an embedded feature of Australia's service delivery architecture. However, the lessons drawn from two decades of contracted service delivery suggest that “competition” is an imperfect platform for the delivery of public services, especially where issues of trust in government come into play. Could the concept of a “social license to operate” (SLO), which has been in use in the natural resources sector for over two decades, help to facilitate the conferral of greater trust, credibility and legitimacy upon governments, and externalised service providers in social policy spaces?

G. Balachandran, Grégoire Mallard, Olufunmilayo B. Arewa, Lucio Baccaro · 9 authors

This chapter attempts a broad analytical compass for surveying the main actors, institutions and instruments governing our world. Despite its seeming ubiquity, governance is a relatively new expression in this context suggestive both of new modes of exercising power, and an enhanced focus on ordering a world undergoing rapid change. Speaking generally governance may be understood as the exercise of power organized around multiple dispersed sites operating through transnational networks of actors, public as well as private, and national, regional as well as local. The turn to governance is often held to be coeval if not conjoined to profound changes in the meaning and nature of government associated with the ascendancy of ‘neo-liberal’ ideas and precepts. This has had significant implications for how governance tends to be understood. Critics associate it directly with the changing role of states in the economic and social sphere. Transnational governance, in particular, is criticized for foregrounding the priorities of corporate investors often to the detriment of social or environmental goals, subordinating principles of ‘comparative’ or ‘cooperative’ advantage to ‘competitive’ advantage, and promoting microregulatory forms of regulation over strategic or structurally-focused interventions (such as industrial policy). Associated shifts trace states’ powers, otherwise a touchstone of sovereignty, being increasingly negotiated with transnational private actors and international financial institutions (IFIs), and placed under external jurisdictions. The turn to governance tends also to framed, whether directly or directly, justifiably or otherwise, alongside cuts in the public provisioning of health, education, housing, and social expenditures wherever they may have taken place, a parallel proliferation of managerial controls, and to governments contracting out public services to private and quasi-private agencies, or relinquishing them to the voluntary sector. At the risk of oversimplifying its critics’ views, if modern governments describe rule by/of citizens, governance describes rule over subjects. This chapter maps a rather more fluid and differentiated landscape of governance across the five areas it surveys, i.e. finance, investment, trade, labor and environment. In finance, while regulation may appear to have become more transnational and to an extent even voluntary, deregulatory outcomes have reconfigured the nature of risk and the cognitive and policy frameworks for dealing with it. At the same time a growing risk of states having to foot the ultimate bill may still become a point of departure for more differentiated regulatory approaches. On the other hand, not only are environmental agreements continued to be implemented and enforced at national and sub-national scales, the ascendency of market interventions and transnational institutions here has taken place in parallel with—and sometimes through mutual cooptation of—other kinds of interventions including those for promoting decentralization and community control over resources. Trends in labor regulation may also reflect individual state choices more than direct transnational pressures, or run contrary to the preferences of specialized international organizations in the domain. Even in the controversial sphere of investment treaties, there is considerable ongoing fluidity with regard to norms, jurisdiction, and actors within and between national and international arenas. Thus, upon closer inspection and with the benefit of a more domain-specific approach, we may not necessarily observe a sweeping or uniform shift, but more a mosaic of regulatory frameworks, quite disparate trends with regard to their negotiation, implementation and impact, and a future rife with possibilities.