Research Area D contributes to all six goals of the Collaborative Research Center (SFB). At the center of the research projects are the actual measures of governance performance in areas of limited statehood, i.e. concrete material goods or services, as well as the related rules for whose enforcement the welfare-states of the OECD are ultimately responsible: health services, water supply and sanitation, financial stability, and the assurance of property rights or an intact environment. At the same time, we study the cooperation between state and non-state actors in a multilayered context. We are especially interested in the local processes of adopting or resisting trans- and international governance initiatives in areas of limited statehood.

During the first funding phase, the individual research projects demonstrated in their differing empirical contexts how new interactions develop between state and non-state actors in areas of limited statehood. Through these interactions, which are entwined in national and transnational systems, it is possible to organize – or even locally assume responsibility for – the essential goods and services. In the first phase, the research projects focused on the emergence and development of these new forms of governance, along with their effectiveness and legitimacy, as well as the transformations of their markets, either through state institutionalization or a lasting transfer of control to the state. The empirical results of the individual research projects have led us to a new set of questions framed by the SFB’s six research goals, which we plan to investigate in the second research phase.