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The proliferation of surveillance-enhancing laws, policies and technologies across African countries deepens the risk of privacy rights breaches, as well as the risks of adverse profiling and social sorting. There is a heightened need for dedicated advocacy and activism to consistently demand accountability and transparency from African states, governments and their allies regarding surveillance. The purpose of this paper is to understand the issue frames that accompany anti-surveillance and privacy advocacy in Ghana and the related implications.

Using a qualitative and interpretivist approach, the author focuses on three different surveillance-oriented incidents/programs in Ghana and analyzes the frames underpinning the related advocacy and narratives of various non-state actors.

Privacy and anti-surveillance advocacy in Ghana tends to be less framed in the context of privacy rights and is more driven by concerns about corruption and value for money. Such pecuniary emphasis is rational per issue salience calculations as it elevates principles of economic probity, transparency and accountability and pursues a high public shock value and resonance.

Economics-centered critiques of surveillance could be counterproductive as they create a low bar for surveillance promoters and sustains a culture of permissible statist intrusions into citizens’ lives once economic virtues are satisfied.

While anti-surveillance and privacy advocacy is budding across African countries, little is known about its nature, frames and modus compared to such advocacy in European and North American settings. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is likely the first paper or one of the first dedicated fully to anti-surveillance and advocacy in Africa.

This study aims to examine the threats posed by cybercrimes toward the quest for achieving a reliable digital economy and to identify practical strategies for countering the crime.

A qualitative phenomenological paradigm was used as the methodology. Both primary and secondary sources were consulted for data collection. A thematic analytical interpretation was used for data analysis.

This study discovered that Nigeria is a leverage environment for using digital economy as a means of diversifying the economy owing to population bulge, and an increase patronage of internet and digital space but the threats of cyberfraudsters is ostracising a substantial number from using it which is decreasing the performance of the digital economy.

The research is limited by the scarcity of resources to widen the horizon of the study particularly the fieldwork and the rampant incidences of cybercrime in Nigeria which poses a difficult task for studying the phenomenon. In addition, this study is constrained by the confidentiality in releasing data owing to the sensitivity of the subject of study and its relationship to national security.

This study presents some suggestions that are plausible in countering the crimes and enhancing the digital economy in Nigeria through effective surveillance, massive information and communication technology (ICT) awareness creation for users and severe penitent sanctions for cybercriminals will help in securing digital spaces.

This study has social implications including the suggestion for simplifying digital transactions that will save time, increases economic activities and passive multiple stream income for Nigerians and ease of doing business with less risk of robbery and other cumbersome tasks.

This study has originality value because after the survey of the existing literature, a field work is conducted to have the views of experts on the subject of study which adds value to the subject and originality of the findings.

This paper aims to make sense of the social enterprise in a frame of social procurement and conceptualise it as a provider of public welfare based on bibliometric material. Comprehensively, it contributes to developments in social procurement, which has received limited attention.

Scoping literature from Web of Science and using bibliometric methods, the paper identifies and qualitatively explores the literary intersections between social enterprise and social procurement.

Of the 183 articles, four literary clusters are revealed illustrating scholarly intersections and a detailed exploration of social enterprise as a public provider. The alignment and themes of the clusters further indicate the application of, and role played by, social enterprise in social procurement. Collectively, they reveal the dominance of social enterprise in this dyadic relationship and a minor undertaking of research in social procurement.

This “sense-making” groundwork forms a foundational step in developing our understanding of procurements through social enterprises. Furthermore, a positioning and conceptualisation of social enterprise accredits their utility and applicability in delivering public benefits. In this way, the paper informs and supports scholarly and practice-based interest into social enterprises for the delivery of public services.

The paper presents the first bibliometric conceptualisation of social enterprise in relation to social procurement and offers detailed insights through the bibliometric clusters. Furthermore, the paper contributes to the underdeveloped social dimension of procurement and bridges the gap between two distinct fields of scholarship: public management and administration and social entrepreneurship.

Health sector corruption constitutes a pervasive challenge and a major obstacle to the equitable enjoyment of the right to health by exacerbating health inequalities within societies, while often eroding public trust primarily amid public health crises that threaten human security. The purpose of this paper is to examine the value of advancing right to health considerations in national legislative and regulatory responses against health sector corruption.

This paper builds on existing evidence, with focusing attention on international standards that are relevant to the topic under discussion. The literature research included publicly available reports, peer-reviewed studies and other documents primarily of human rights bodies at the United Nations level.

Advancing right to health considerations in national responses against health sector corruption offers comprehensive guidance for the deployment of a strong regulatory anti-corruption framework for action by the governments as part of their health rights obligations. Essentially, the implementation of such a national framework for action, encompassing accountability, participatory decision-making and transparency, constitutes a necessary and an important step towards maintaining well-functioning health systems and a robust social pressure for continued political commitment with the ultimate goal the provision of equitable access to quality health services at all times.

By using a rights-based approach, the paper identifies a national framework for state action consisting of legal obligations and tools towards guiding governments, while at the same time empowering civil society groups to demand the implementation of core human rights principles of transparency, participation and accountability within health system governance. It provides insights for the future development, reinforcement and/or reform of national law, policies and practices towards minimizing and eradicating vulnerabilities to health sector corruption.

This study aims to investigate the decline of American hegemony as one of the most prominent crises of the modern world order, from a broader perspective that transcends narrow traditional interpretations. The paper assumes that the September 11 events in 2001 have launched the actual decline in American hegemony. Tracing the evolution of US global strategy over the past two decades, the study seeks to analyze the main causes and repercussions of the decline of US hegemony, which would provide a bird’s eye view of what the current global system is going through.

The study investigates the decline in American hegemony through a longitudinal within-case analysis which focuses on the causal path of decline in hegemony in the case of the USA, since the events of September 11, 2001, and tries to identify the causal mechanisms behind this decline. Following George and Bennet (2005), the study uses process tracing to examine its research question. Process-tracing method seeks to identify the intervening causal process – causal chain or causal mechanisms or the steps in a causal process – that leads to the outcome of a particular case in a specific historical context (Mahoney, 2000; Bennet and Elman, 2006). The study chose this method, as it offers more potential for identifying causal mechanisms and theory testing (George and Bennet, 2005); it opted for a specific procedure, among the variety of process-tracing procedures listed by George and Bennet, which is the detailed narrative presented as a chronicle, accompanied by explicit causal hypotheses. Using this process tracing procedure, the study assumes that American hegemony has witnessed dramatic changes in the aftermath of critical junctures, particularly the events of September 11, 2001, and the financial crises, 2008, which contributed significantly to this decline. Consequently, it traces the impact of these events on the state of American hegemony, in light of the review of contributions of different theories on hegemony in the field of international relations, both traditional and critical. Consequently, introducing the theoretical framework used in the study (the four-dimensional model of hegemony), which transcends criticisms of previous theories.

The crises of the modern world order and the decline of American hegemony – being the main manifestation of such crises – revealed the inability of the traditional and critical approaches reviewed in the study to interpret this decline and those crises. The reason behind that was the inability of these interpretations to reflect the various dimensions of American hegemony and its decline since the September 11 events. This highlights the importance of using the four-dimensional model, which combines different factors in the analysis and has proved to be an appropriate model for studying the case of American hegemony and its decline after the events of September 11, as it deals with the phenomenon of hegemony as a social relationship based on specific social networks.

Despite the currency and relevance of the decline of US hegemony for both the academic and political world, the topic needed to be analyzed systemically and addressed in a thorough scientific way. Through the application of theoretical concepts into the analysis of empirical data, this study contributes to a field where too often the discourse about decline of American hegemony is led without the required theoretical or conceptual considerations.

Social enterprises are embedded in ecosystems with multiple actors interested in the field’s growth. One way to enhance social enterprises is through public policies and developing countries like Brazil included this in the public agenda. After an important mobilization of private organizations and public managers, the Brazilian federal government implemented in 2017 the National Impact Investment and Business Strategy (ENIMPACTO) renamed in 2023 to National Impact Economy Strategy with the same abbreviation. Since its creation, ENIMPACTO saw significant modifications leading to a decree in 2023 extending its mandate, amplifying membership and changing its name to the National Impact Economy Strategy while maintaining the same acronym. This experience leads us to the following question: How was ENIMPACTO created and developed?

We used institutional arrangements and advocacy coalition theory to analyze the key elements that contributed to ENIMPACTO’s creation and its evolution through time. A qualitative, single-case study on the Brazilian experience implementing ENIMPACTO was conducted through semi-structured interviews with national strategy members, participant observation, document and data analysis.

We argue that advocacy coalition and institutional arrangements frameworks combined are needed to understand Enimpacto’s complexity. The strategy presented an extensive multiple-actor articulation involving shared beliefs that were also important to gather support on recreating and expanding Enimpacto when external events threatened its continuity. Yet, it presented important challenges on how to achieve consensus and alignment regarding important concepts and regulation strategy among the actors and manage the public policy governance and activities implementation.

We combine institutional arrangements and advocacy coalition frameworks and apply them to analyze a public policy composed of actors of multiple sectors that play an active advocacy coalition role. We also present empirical evidence that elements of the advocacy coalition framework add analytical elements to institutional arrangements literature and how they affect each other. We point to two important elements of the institutional arrangements framework (territoriality and subsidiarity) that were not initially considered by ENIMPACTO and were later incorporated because of tensions in the field. We provide empirical evidence of the incipient role that public administration can play in promoting social enterprises' agenda that might base similar strategies to boost social enterprises in other locations.

This study aims to explore when and under what conditions state-owned enterprises (SOEs) become important players in orchestrating the global climate action and what their roles are as domestic or international (de)carbonizers.

This is a conceptual paper that aims to advance understanding of the role of SOEs in addressing the global climate challenge. The authors build on the institutional theory to capture the importance of home-country climate regulation mechanisms and advance knowledge on the internationalization of SOEs. The authors review the literature on the institutional boundaries that shape the environmental activities of firms at home and abroad and develop the argument on the influence of home country institutions and internationalization on the role of SOEs in the global climate agenda.

In this study, the authors elaborate the SOEs’ climate action matrix and offer three propositions based on the fact that SOEs’ environmental strategies are driven by the interests of the state as owner and the scope of SOEs’ internationalization. First, the authors propose that the level of home country’s climate policy ambition explains SOEs’ stance on climate action. Second, scope of internationalization explains SOEs’ stance on climate action. Third, the progressive/increasing involvement of SOEs in climate action enhances the country’s climate stance.

The authors incorporate the climate argument into international business (IB) studies of SOEs’ internationalization, a novel approach that helps us to advance the knowledge on the complex issue of corporate climate action. The authors argue for a dynamic and reciprocal relationship between home/host countries and SOEs’ climate engagement. In doing this, the authors contribute to the IB research and policy agenda by exploring SOEs’ engagement in advancing the global climate agenda.

Place-based community events fulfil important functions, internally and externally. They provide opportunities for people from diverse communities and cultures to encounter each other, to participate in pleasurable activities in convivial settings and to develop mutual understanding. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the value of such events as a means of resisting or challenging the deleterious effects of territorial stigmatisation.

The authors explore two place-based community events in areas that have been subject to territorial stigmatisation: Govanhill in Glasgow, Scotland, and South Dunedin, New Zealand. They draw on in-depth case study methods including observation and interviews with key local actors and employ inductive analysis to identify themes across the datasets.

The demonstrate how neighbourhood events in both Glasgow and Dunedin actively seek to address some of the deleterious outcomes of territorial stigmatisation by emphasising strength and asset-based discourses about the areas they reflect and represent. In their planning and organisation, both events play an important mediating role in building and empowering community, fostering intercultural encounters with difference and strengthening mutuality within their defined places. They make use of public and semi-public spaces to attract diverse groups while also increasing the visibility of marginalised populations through larger showcase events.

The empirical element focuses only on two events, one in Glasgow, Scotland (UK), and the other in South Dunedin (New Zealand). Data generated were wholly qualitative and do not provide quantitative evidence of “change” to material circumstances in either case study community.

Helps organisers think about how they need to better understand their communities if they are to attract diverse participation, including how they programme public and semi-public spaces.

Place-based community events have significant value to neighbourhoods, and they need to be resourced effectively if they are to sustain the benefits they produce. These events provide an opportunity for diverse communities to encounter each other and celebrate what they share rather than what divides them.

This paper is the first to examine how place-based community events help resist narratives of territorial stigmatisation, which produce negative representations about people and their environments. The paper draws on ethnographic insights generated over time rather than a one-off snapshot which undermines some events research.

Farmers in rural areas are generally not well empowered with knowledge and innovations to solve their agricultural problems in spite of the growing presence of such knowledge resulting from research and innovation activities across the globe. This study aims to document approaches, impact and impediments of using village knowledge centers (VKCs) to transfer agricultural knowledge and innovations.

To achieve the objective of the study, a case study research design was used to investigate the impact of a selected VKC as institutional innovation in agricultural technology outreach and extension in rural Tanzania. Primary data was collected through semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions and observation methods. Besides, secondary sources such as reports were used to complement primary data during fieldwork.

The study reveals that various approaches are used by the VKC to transfer knowledge and innovation to farmers. The use of the multi-actor platform (MAP) to run the VKC ensures inclusive knowledge production and sharing among different actors. The findings also suggest that knowledge and innovation co-creation is constructed with various knowledge systems actors to enhance the use of research generated. Accordingly, the findings show that the university efforts are an important catalyst for integrated knowledge, technology and innovation systems in rural settings.

The present study reveals different limitations associated with the use of a single case study design. The single-case design provided researchers with little basis for generalisation of the study findings and conclusions. Aside from that, the use of a cross-sectional design did not help the researchers to validate the findings and conclusions. To address these limitations, the study recommends similar studies that will adopt different types of longitudinal design such as cohort and diary methods. Apart from this, a future study to investigate the tangible impact of VKC on knowledge and innovation transfer is recommended.

Considering the novelty of the MAP approach in Tanzania and the dearth of studies reporting on how the village knowledge center works and how effective it is, the present study provides insights on the approaches, impact and impediments.

The notion that disasters are not natural is longstanding, leading to a growing number of campaigns aimed at countering the use of the term “natural disaster.” Whilst these efforts are crucial, critical perspectives regarding the potential risks associated with this process are lacking, particularly in places affected by violent conflict. This paper aims to present a critical analysis of these efforts, highlighting the need to approach them with care.

The author draws upon insights and discussions accumulated over a decade of research into the relationship between disasters and conflict. The article includes a critical literature review on the disaster–conflict relationship and literature specifically addressing the idea that disasters are not natural. The analysis of field notes led to a second literature review covering topics such as (de) politicisation, instrumentalisation, disaster diplomacy, ethics, humanitarian principles, disaster risk reduction, peacebuilding and conflict sensitivity.

This analysis underscores the importance of advocating that disasters are not natural, especially in conflict-affected areas. However, an uncritical approach could lead to unintended consequences, such as exacerbating social conflicts or obstructing disaster-related actions. The article also presents alternatives to advance the understanding that disasters are not natural whilst mitigating risks, such as embracing a “do-no-harm” approach or conflict-sensitive analyses.

The author offers an innovative critical approach to advancing the understanding that disasters are not natural but socio-political. This perspective is advocated, especially in conflict-affected contexts, to address the root causes of both disasters and conflicts. The author also invites their peers and practitioners to prioritise reflective scholarship and practices, aiming to prevent the unintentional exacerbation of suffering whilst working towards its reduction.