Three concepts associated with ‘good governance’, referring to the quality of governance processes and outcomes, are examined in this chapter: accountability, legitimacy and trust. For each concept, definitions are reviewed and characteristics identified. The chapter investigates accountability through key themes of complexity and challenges associated with delivering on downward accountability in the context of decentralisation. Complexity arises from the number and range of actors involved in co-management, situated at different administrative levels, with multiple demands on and mechanisms for accountability. Different forms of legitimacy and trust are introduced and reviewed, including input, output and throughput legitimacy and dispositional, rational, affinitive and procedural forms of trust. Challenges to delivering and maintaining legitimacy and trust in the context of co-management and solutions to these are identified.

Chapter 7 investigates how national governments can reduce corporate exposure to climate risks through public policy. It identifies three categories of policies that potentially reassure investors: governance and planning, which encompass national climate strategies and institutional coordination, capacity building, which includes disaster preparedness and public infrastructure for resilience, and incentives and regulations, such as environmental standards and climate-related fiscal policies. The chapter examines whether these policies moderate the negative relationship between climate vulnerability and foreign direct investment identified in Chapter 4. Using cross-national empirical analysis, it finds that in countries where these policy areas are relatively strong, investors’ concerns about climate risk are significantly mitigated. These results suggest that government-led adaptation efforts can serve as credible signals of state capacity and long-term stability, thereby strengthening confidence among multinational firms operating in or entering climate-vulnerable economies.

Chapter 4 examines the policymaking process behind Chile’s AUGE healthcare reform, enacted in 2004. Driven by the center-left Concertación coalition, the reform aimed to expand equitable access to healthcare by providing explicit guarantees for prioritized diseases. The Chilean parties’ strong programmatic commitments were central, ensuring cohesion from agenda-setting through implementation. Political debates focused on balancing public and private sector roles, sustainable funding, and gradual expansion of coverage. Internal disagreements on strategy existed, yet the coalition’s programmatic nature enabled compromise and long-term planning. The reform introduced new regulatory institutions, increased public funding, and improved infrastructure and human resources. Opposition came from right-wing parties, private insurers, and medical groups, but political leadership and consensus-building allowed the reform to pass and be sustained under subsequent governments. Ultimately, AUGE expanded insurance coverage, reduced unmet healthcare needs, and demonstrated how programmatic party commitment shapes effective and sustainable social policy.

Chapter 6 examines how leading energy companies have responded to pressures to decarbonize and transition to sustainable energy. Through comparative case studies of ExxonMobil, Saudi Aramco, and Ørsted, the chapter highlights three distinct strategic pathways. ExxonMobil exemplifies a business-as-usual approach, maintaining a primary focus on oil and gas production while investing selectively in carbon capture and storage to mitigate emissions. Saudi Aramco represents a diversification strategy, positioning itself as a broader energy company by expanding into renewables and low-carbon technologies while continuing to rely heavily on hydrocarbons. Ørsted serves as a pioneer of full transition, having moved fully away from fossil fuels to become a leader in wind power generation. Together, these cases illustrate the range of corporate responses to climate pressures, while demonstrating how factors such as resource dependencies, state ownership, and market positioning shape strategic choices in the evolving global energy landscape.

The context of natural resource governance is often of uncertainty and change, even more so as the effects of climate change become ever more experienced. Adaptive governance and adaptive co-management have emerged as responses to the need to cope with and adapt to new information and changing situations. The chapter reviews what is understood by these terms and approaches, and identifies key characteristics and related concepts, such as resilience and uncertainty. The centrality of knowledge for adaptive approaches is recognised, with the role of, and challenges to, community, or participatory, monitoring and use of local and traditional knowledge in co-management reviewed. Forms of social, or collective, learning are then identified, recognising that social learning may occur through experimental approaches or deliberation and that feedback from learning is essential for adaptive governance.

Tobacco, alcohol and foods of poor nutritional quality are major drivers of non-communicable diseases, and their regulation has become a central public health priority. Yet, unlike many hazardous products, they remain lawful, widely available and deeply embedded in social, cultural and economic life. The book explores how EU law mediates between these three competing dimensions of unhealthy lifestyles: health protection, market integration and ethical or cultural diversity. It addresses three core questions: the extent of the EU’s regulatory powers in this field, the balance struck between market-building and health objectives, and the accommodation within EU law of national diversity, moral choices and scientific uncertainty surrounding lifestyle practices.

In this chapter, I consider whether Rorty’s political theory can make sense of the legitimate hopelessness/despair that might follow entrenched marginalisation or historically embedded forms of injustice. Since Rorty appears to present hope as a political attitude and theoretical disposition that we can embrace relatively straightforwardly, we might read his normative commitment to liberalism as an expression of privilege that is incapable of getting to grips with urgent political struggles. To determine Rorty’s response to this concern, I juxtapose his critique of Marxism to his interpretation of feminism, arguing that his reasons for rejecting the former (as held captive by scientism) relate to his affirmation of the latter (as the expression of political and philosophical hope). I then explore whether Rorty’s thought can make sense of the concept of power. Finally, I show how one of the most striking contemporary implications of Rorty’s world view is that commitment to political realism is hopeless.

I begin here to articulate Rorty’s alternative understanding of hope. Rorty’s understanding has been ignored both by those scholars interested in hope and by those concerned with his intellectual legacy and political identity. I argue that hope, for Rorty, involves the yearning for a future that is contingent and the commitment to redescribing – and thereby contesting – the identity of a fragile social world and political inheritance in the name of its betterment. I suggest that Rorty’s understanding of hope stems from his reading of Hegel’s account of philosophy in The Philosophy of Right. I then unpack Rorty’s enigmatic claim – advanced in Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity – that ‘common hopes’ are necessary for sustaining liberal community, which I suggest is given revealing illustration in his infamous Achieving Our Country. I argue that Achieving Our Country is a much-misunderstood text and suggest that we should not regard it as a kind of prediction, but rather as the articulation of hope for his own community and a contestation of its political future through a narrative of redemption.

Game worlds are steeped in depictions of different characters, settings, events and, in many cases, different cultures and cultural knowledges. In some cases, these in-game cultural depictions have been created by outsiders of the culture and, even with good intentions, these creators may misrepresent the culture or represent the community in superficial ways. My game design approach attempts to respond to this issue faced by digital game designers and developers and provides an approach that encourages close collaboration with communities, cultural immersion by developers and greater forms of rigorous research in constructing game worlds. While the intent of my approach is to help designers create more meaningful and deeper cultural representations in digital games, the design process itself is an educative experience and there may be opportunities to capitalise on this digital and cultural design approach in learning contexts.

Chapter 4 provides an historical overview of the content and objectives of the EU’s policy on unhealthy lifestyles. It distinguishes two periods. The first spans from the early days of European integration until the entry into force of the Treaty of Maastricht, in 1993. It is a period of negative integration: unhealthy products are regulated mostly through the prism of the TFEU internal market freedoms. One cannot yet speak of an EU ‘policy’ on the matter, in the sense of a deliberate and coordinated action made in response to the health burden associated with unhealthy lifestyles. This changes post-Maastricht, the second period, with the recognition of a formal competence for the EU in health matters. Unhealthy lifestyles are singled out as one of the key priorities of EU health action and a greater role is given to positive integration, with the adoption of various horizontal legislative instruments. Different approaches emerged for the three categories of products: while the declared goal is to bring tobacco consumption to a near end, alcohol consumption is considered to be a natural part of human life, not to be overly discouraged, with food and nutrition positioned somewhere in between.

Co-management is in essence about collaboration and participation. In this chapter, definitions are provided for each, with recurring themes identified from definitions of collaboration and collaborative governance. The chapter explores these key themes in relation to the ‘what, who, how and why’ of collaboration, moving to distinguish between cooperation, coordination and collaboration, the nature of leadership in collaboration and the relevance of scale. The chapter then moves on to review the meaning and practice of participation, reflecting on the ‘why, who, how and when’ of participation. Challenges to meaningful participation are identified, noting critique of the adoption of a mechanical, technical approach rather than recognising the political and empowering potential of participation.

When a party's consent has been vitiated (on one of four specified grounds), the Contract Act characterises the affected contract as a ‘voidable’ contract. This implies that the party whose consent has been vitiated has an option: he or she can continue with the contract, or he or she can choose to put an end to it. When the party exercises its right to put an end to the contract, the party is said to ‘rescind’ the contract. In this chapter we examine this remedy of rescission: when it arises, the implications of its exercise and when it may be lost or barred.

GROUNDS FOR RESCISSION

Sections 19 and 19-A of the Contract Act specify that the right to rescind arises if consent to an agreement has been caused by coercion (as defined in Section 15), undue influence (as defined in Section 16), fraud (as defined in Section 17) and misrepresentation (as defined in Section 18). These four vitiating factors have been discussed in detail in Chapters 7 and 8.

It is worth noting that the remaining two vitiating factors discussed in Chapters 6 and 9 have a different effect: incapacity and mistake render agreements automatically ‘void’ (as opposed to ‘voidable’). To this extent, incapacity and mistake have more severe implications for (purported) contracts than the other vitiating factors identified in the Contract Act.