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This book offers an innovative framework for understanding the role of civil society in regional and global policymaking. Using political economy analysis, Gerard demonstrates that ASEAN''s people-oriented agenda builds legitimacy, while sidelining its detractors

SummaryMotivationDonors have increasingly disbursed funds using aid chains, whereby work is subcontracted to organizations socially and geographically closer to recipients. Aid chains reduce scope for opportunism in contracting. They do, however, enable donors to distance themselves from the messy work of engaging the politics of interventions—"ethics dumping"—with negative impacts on project outcomes.PurposeHow can aid chains—and project outcomes—be improved? This article investigates what can be learned from global value chains (GVCs). In particular, it examines Multi‐Stakeholder Partnerships (MSPs)—currently considered the gold standard for governing GVCs—and evaluates their potential fit for aid chains.Methods and approachThe article describes aid chains' drivers and challenges, and theoretically links the fragmentation of public‐sector service provision to the fragmentation of global production processes. By reviewing MSP case studies and thematically analysing their scope to transform power asymmetries, it empirically evaluates MSPs' potential by assessing the case of the Australian NGO Cooperation Program.FindingsWhile MSPs offer an ambitious framework, their application is weakened by, first, the lack of a consumer role, and second, their central focus on relational practices in transforming power asymmetries. The article's conclusion that MSPs offer limited policy transferability furthers nascent literatures on ethical public‐sector procurement; power asymmetries in MSPs; and how aid chains might be improved.Policy implicationsAid chains reduce the scope for opportunism in contracting, however their power asymmetries have negative impacts on project outcomes that cannot be ignored. MSPs offer an ambitious but problematic policy option for improving aid chain governance. Their lack of effective measures to address power asymmetries limits their potential, calling into question their status as the gold standard for GVC governance and their policy transferability.

Emissions trading schemes have emerged as stable components of a fragmented climate governance landscape. Yet the proliferation of emissions trading schemes raises critical questions concerning their design, the development of conflicting norms, and how such schemes might link. This Article engages with these concerns by advancing a linkage framework based on a series of core convergence criteria which are considered necessary to assess the compatibility of candidate partner schemes. For the EU, the search for a candidate linkage partner has seemed a Sisyphean undertaking, but it is suggested that South Korea offers the prospect of stable climate settings. The critical design features of South Korea's Emissions Trading Scheme (KETS) are evaluated before applying core convergence criteria to evaluate compatibility. This Article identifies a degree of alignment between the design features of the EU ETS and the KETS, but also uncovers divergences where detailed negotiation will prove necessary.

This article assesses the contribution of the clean development mechanism (cdm) to climate governance. The cdm emerged as the key offset mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol, but its contribution to climate governance remains contested. This article deconstructs the cdm by evaluating the mechanism's dominant critiques and offers a synthesised analysis of its core design and operational defects. The implications of the Paris Agreement, particularly the prospect of a successor mechanism to the cdm, are evaluated, and inform this article's vision of a reconstructed mechanism as an important component in the evolving carbon markets infrastructure. Although such a reconstructed mechanism would continue to build a base of regulatory experience in less developing countries, this article suggests that the framework emerging under the Paris Agreement should more carefully circumscribe the cdm's future role. Finally, this article concludes by considering the potential climate governance contribution of a reconstructed cdm.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has recently made numerous commitments to engage civil society organizations (CSOs) in its governance practices. However, the opportunities created offer limited means for CSOs to contest policy as a result of strict controls over who can participate and the forms of participation permitted. Activists have consequently pursued their agendas outside of spaces sanctioned by ASEAN through 'created spaces,' such as conferences organized parallel to official summits. However, this form of political participation has limited potential to influence official processes because despite its independence, these activities are still structured in relation to ASEAN practices. The ineffectual nature of CSO advocacy despite ASEAN's people-orientated shift has been documented, however explanations for this trend remain limited. This article applies the modes of political participation framework that acknowledges the role of intergovernmental organizations in structuring spaces for civil society participation and, in doing so, shaping the contribution that CSOs can make. Through an examination of the regulations and practices that govern CSO participation in both ASEAN-sanctioned and independent spaces, it argues that spaces for CSO participation are structured to prevent CSOs from contesting policy, suggesting that ASEAN's shift to widen participation is directed towards legitimating its reform agenda. Hence, ASEAN's claim of becoming 'people oriented' must be considered in recognition of the limiting effect its engagement practices have on CSOs' ability to advance alternative agendas. (Pac Rev/GIGA)