This chapter introduces the conceptual foundations of the international law of energy. It characterises ‘energy’ as a legal object, describes the purposes pursued over time by the international law of energy, analyses the overall structure of international energy transactions and presents the main patterns that can be extracted from a detailed and comprehensive analysis of the relevant rules, instruments and institutions.

This chapter theorizes that sovereignty is the interplay of two contrasting modalities. In Idealized Sovereignty, sovereign authority is represented exclusively in “the state” per the doctrine of indivisibility developed by early modern theorists and reified in IR theory. In Lived Sovereignty, achieving sovereign competence involves divisible practices of state and nonstate actors in a variety of social relations. We would do a disservice to sovereignty’s complexity if only one of the two modes persevered in analyses of sovereignty. Instead, the chapter intervenes in major IR debates to argue that sovereignty should be hybridized. This overarching framework guides the ideal-types of public/private hybridity developed in the next chapter and the empirical analyses in the remainder of this book, where hybrid sovereignty is necessary to build a global empire, go to war, regulate global markets, and protect rights.

Why do autocrats use courts to repress when the outcomes are presumed known from the start? This chapter introduces the puzzle of political trials in autocratic regimes and provides a theoretical framework for rethinking repression from a judicial perspective. I introduce the main theory, which is outlined in three parts: the function of political trials, who goes to trial, and the dynamics of a cooperative judiciary. I then explain the analytical approach and empirical focus of the book: comparative historical analysis of postcolonial regimes in postcolonial Anglophone Africa.

Chapter 1 – The Humanisation of Global Politics – provides an overview of the books central claim of a growing humanisation of global politics. Humanisation denotes the growing reference to and the appearance of the individual human being in global politics. The chapter describes the apperance of the individual human being in global politics with reference to the three discourses on prosecution, protection, and killing the individual human being which the book studies. The chapter presents the research questions and the three arguments the book makes. The chapter also presents the books's contribution, and outlines the abductive research logic and the interdisciplinary approach as well as the books interpretative methodolgy. Finally, the chapter gives an overview of the books structure and the chapters of the book.

Chapter 2 provides an overview of the development of Norway’s and Germany’s national school systems up to the 1950s, with the aim of setting the scene for the analysis of the postwar reform period. The narrative focuses on comprehensive school reforms, but also on other much-debated reforms of primary and secondary schooling. The chapter sheds light on how dominant cleavages came to expression in school politics over time and on how political playing fields developed, forming the school as an institution. It provides the necessary context to understand the conditions actors faced during the postwar reform period.

Chapter 2 provides a historical look at the processes and events that shaped local perceptions of gender and development. Development invoked a variety of memories, emotions, and perspectives for the residents of Nampula. I group these understandings around three themes: development as freedom and liberty; development in terms of citizen–state relations; and development as ‘projects’. While people were generally positive about the increased stability and freedom they experienced after the civil war, they were more sceptical of development projects, which increased exponentially in the rebuilding years following the Rome General Peace Accords in 1992. People in rural Nampula interpreted the handpump within a history of colonial, state-led, and neoliberal approaches that primarily served the interests of domestic and international elites and disrupted rural social relations and livelihoods. Throughout the book, the discourses that animate development projects are in tension with those that circulate within the villages of Nampula.

What explains why some countries become democratic and others do not? Building on a wealth of studies on this question, this book looks to the distal causes – the deep roots – of democratic regimes. It argues that natural harbors, as catalysts of economic and social exchange, are one such factor. Blessed with an abundance of harbors, Europe developed an early form of democracy. As Europeans spread around the globe during an age of colonization and conquest, they brought this form of governance with them and implemented it to the extent that it allowed Europeans – and only Europeans – to hold power in colonial lands. Chapter 1 introduces the arguments around these two factors, and sets out the book’s methodological approach. It concludes with definitions of key terms and a brief outline of the subsequent chapters.

This chapter analyzes the rise and consolidation of Qajar rule from a tribal monarchy to a national dynasty. It examines the pervasiveness of centrifugal forces dominating the country’s landscape following the collapse of the Safavid dynasty, and slow rise in the 1780s of the Qajars from a tribal chieftaincy to a dynasty. The Qajars consolidated power, eliminated various tribal rivals, incorporated the clerical classes into the power structure, and implemented what was at best halting and scant social and economic reforms. Personal autocracy, and the avarice of successive monarchs and courtiers, undermined prospects for any kind of political development, paving the way for the dynasty’s steady decline and eventual collapse.

Before we can explore the ontology of security, we must establish a preferred meaning of the word and purge it, as far as possible, of ambiguity. This preliminary task is especially important when one’s subject is a term in common currency and deployed in a wide variety of contexts for a wide variety of purposes.1 The more familiar a word, the more likely we are to take for granted that our own particular understanding of it is widely shared and that its meaning goes without saying. This is as true of the word ‘security’ as it is for almost every other key concept in the study of world politics.

In contrast to the practical focus of Part II of this book, Part I, composed of this chapter, proposes a theoretical framework for how de facto international prosecutors extend the reaches of international criminal law. Part II provides the empirical account of how and why de facto international prosecutors, particularly witnesses and victims of core international crimes, adopt the practical tasks required to hold a senior leader suspected of core crimes accountable in foreign or international courts. The theoretical framework outlined in this chapter is an attempt to answer the following questions: what dynamics and mechanisms can we observe and theorise as effective or not (beyond these actors’ own legal interpretive work) in pursuing accountability? How (or when) do particular interpretations of international law ‘win out’ over others in court judgements? The chapter also serves to further define and conceptualise de facto international prosecutors and the international legal order within which they operate.

This chapter synthesizes social, economic and demographic trends over the past three decades in the countries studied in this book. It argues that health policy is affected by and affects these trends. The chapter synthesizes data on economic and demogrphic trends as well as key health system input and outcomes. The chapter records impressive economic growth rates, decline in poverty, and prudent public finances in the region. It shows that all countries except India enjoy some of the best health status in the world, and that these were achieved at relatively low costs. However, rapid population ageing and rising incomes and expectations present serious health policy challenges that governments must meet.

As the very concept of TLCs rests on this notion of their being a lawmaking coalition through treaty interpretations, the General Comments (GC), the chapter introduces the UN human rights treaty bodies and gives data on their decision-making rules, their membership, workload, and on the instrument of interest for this book, the GCs. This chapter explains what GCs are, the degree to which the UN treaty bodies use GCs in different functions, and how state parties and scholars understand – and contest – GCs’ legal substance. Moving beyond notions of formal authority, the chapter argues for GCs’ authoritativeness because they serve as necessary reference points to human rights, especially because a broader community (NGOs, domestic courts, specialized agencies) enacts them in the realms of domestic law, politics, and civil society. Ultimately, what this chapter makes eminently apparent is that general comments’ authoritativeness depends less on state recognition and more on the multitude of actors breathing life into their interpretations.

Chapter 2 introduces two concepts that form the core of the theoretical argument presented in the book: settled borders and commitment problems. The concept of border settlement can encompass either mutual agreement on or mutual satisfaction with (i.e., acceptance of) a territorial border division, and scholars sometimes slip between these two meanings. Our argument relies on a conceptualization of border settlement as the mutual agreement of a border’s delimitation under international law. We also argue that the lack of border settlement contributes to interstate rivalry via a commitment problem. We offer an innovation within the rivalry program by connecting rivalries to a theory of bargaining breakdown. In particular, we argue that many unsettled borders are the product of a commitment problem. Commitment problems are a negotiating obstacle often resolved through war.Yet we propose that states might manage commitment problems through interstate rivalries as well. The second part of the chapter therefore explains the origins of commitment problems and why initiating and maintaining a rivalry might be a valid method for managing certain subsets of them.

This chapter expands on my dramaturgical theoretical framework by laying out the different credibility imperatives that are predicted to confront politicians and statisticians in government statistical systems. I suggest that politicians’ needs for data to support their policy agendas, the political imperative of creating an impression of government competence, and the pressure to depoliticise statistics are all likely to shape political decisions about delegating authority to statisticians. I then explore the credibility imperatives confronting government statisticians and note that they can be predicted to emphasise the complexity of their work, as well as their competence and neutrality. They also face an imperative to illustrate the policy usefulness of their statistics. Finally, I elaborate on the role that institutions play in creating settings for the dramatic performances of politicians and statisticians. I explain how state structures, state cultures and administrative traditions are theoretically predicted to influence the credibility of different performances.

The first chapter introduces blame games as distinct political events characterized by a conflictual style of politics that is different from routine politics. It conceptualizes blame games as litmus tests that allow the understanding of how political systems change and function when they switch into ‘conflict mode’. This chapter then provides a glimpse of the institutionalized forms of conflict management that Western democracies have developed to deal with policy controversies. It goes on to argue that blame games are context-sensitive political events that require a comprehensive but parsimonious framework to study them across institutional and issue contexts. The chapter concludes with a chapter overview and a short presentation of the strategy of inquiry and data used.

Chapter 2 offers a novel conceptualization of administrative styles. Depending on dominant strategic orientations shaping administrative routines, we identify four ideal types to systematically assess IPAs’ policy influence: a servant style, an advocacy style, a consolidator style, and an entrepreneurial style. In addition to this conceptual innovation, we offer a theoretical framework accounting for the variation in administrative styles across different international bureaucracies. We argue that the variation in administrative styles across different organizations can be explained by two factors, namely the perceptions of internal and external challenges.