Due to high turnover, formal international organizations (FIGOs) face challenges in retaining knowledge – particularly about strategic errors in operations. Errors in the arena of crisis management involve high costs, such as civilian casualties. However, scholarship addressing how security FIGOs share knowledge about what went wrong remains limited. This chapter argues that informal networks among political and military elites are critical for knowledge sharing within FIGOs, even in the face of sophisticated formal learning systems. The study draws on interviews with 120 elite officials at NATO and employs process tracing and social network analysis. Findings indicate that knowledge sharing hinges on the actions of a few elites – “knowledge guardians” – who are central to the transnational, informal elite network. Challenging assumptions about the superiority of formal systems, this chapter stresses that informal governance plays a central role in FIGO knowledge retention, which is critical for institutional memory and learning.

Summary: The exploitation of peasants by moneylenders has been conventionally put forward as an explanation for persistent rural poverty. Governments in colonial and post-colonial India repeatedly intervened to correct power imbalance in credit markets. This chapter traces the design and impact of the origins of credit intervention in South India, investigating how lenders responded to the Madras Agriculturists Relief Act (MARA) implemented in 1937. The MARA enforced a ceiling on interest rates far below the rates charged in the unregulated market. Intervention had unintended effects. The MARA reduced credit availability, and the market operated both less equitably and less efficiently than it did before. Paradoxically, efforts to formally regulate credit disassociated the market from administrative procedures as lenders went underground and a black market for loans emerged in the 1940s and 1950s. A policy approach that prioritised equity over efficiency, the MARA failed to address the underlying reasons behind the high costs and shortage of capital.

Chapter 7 explains how militant Islamist leaders adapted “traditional” Egyptian rural norms in ways that allowed them both to supplant the political power of local notables, while simultaneously institutionalizing extortion practices and implementing their own brand of “law and order.” Islamic militants exploited the high levels of social and economic uncertainty in Cairo’s informal housing areas. An important reason behind the popularity of radical Islamists among local residents is due to the ways in which their leaders have utilized highly coercive methods to settle local disputes and enforce informal labor contracts for their members, while simultaneously preaching against the ills of conspicuous consumption in their sermons and imposing strict Islamic modes of conduct. The chapter shows how the socio-economic conditions that have served, as a “recruiting ground” for Islamist radicals was made possible as result of economic change at both the international as well as domestic level.

Chapter 6 details how the collapse of the State in Somalia led to the emergence of severe inter-clan conflicts. These conflicts were rooted in wrenching political conflicts over the monopolization of labor remittances and local currencies and characterized by continued attempts to institute law and order through military and ideological means. In the wake of state collapse, remittances continue to represent the backbone of the Somali economy. These are transferred through informal banking systems and remain untaxed by local authorities. The informal economy’s efficiency in facilitating currency trade, and the extent to which ethnic and religious networks control access to the wages of expatriate Somali labor is determining the political fortunes of local elite’s and variable patterns of state building in different regions of the country. The Somali case calls into question the very principles and analysis of conventional state building and “sovereignty” of nation states in less developed societies.

Chapter 7 explains how militant Islamist leaders adapted “traditional” Egyptian rural norms in ways that allowed them both to supplant the political power of local notables, while simultaneously institutionalizing extortion practices and implementing their own brand of “law and order.” Islamic militants exploited the high levels of social and economic uncertainty in Cairo’s informal housing areas. An important reason behind the popularity of radical Islamists among local residents is due to the ways in which their leaders have utilized highly coercive methods to settle local disputes and enforce informal labor contracts for their members, while simultaneously preaching against the ills of conspicuous consumption in their sermons and imposing strict Islamic modes of conduct. The chapter shows how the socio-economic conditions that have served, as a “recruiting ground” for Islamist radicals was made possible as result of economic change at both the international as well as domestic level.

Chapter 6 details how the collapse of the State in Somalia led to the emergence of severe inter-clan conflicts. These conflicts were rooted in wrenching political conflicts over the monopolization of labor remittances and local currencies and characterized by continued attempts to institute law and order through military and ideological means. In the wake of state collapse, remittances continue to represent the backbone of the Somali economy. These are transferred through informal banking systems and remain untaxed by local authorities. The informal economy’s efficiency in facilitating currency trade, and the extent to which ethnic and religious networks control access to the wages of expatriate Somali labor is determining the political fortunes of local elite’s and variable patterns of state building in different regions of the country. The Somali case calls into question the very principles and analysis of conventional state building and “sovereignty” of nation states in less developed societies.

Our interviews reveal that most judges from the CJEU and Supreme Administrative Courts realize there is at the moment little room for a dialogue that goes beyond one party asking questions and the other party answering them. Procedural mechanisms that could be used to facilitate a dialogue between both courts, such as: requests for clarification, provisional answers and leaving more leeway for highest courts to scrutinize potential preliminary questions before they are send to the CJEU, are relatively unpopular. A better “horizontal dialogue” between national courts before referring questions to the CJEU is considered useful by all parties but is troubled by language barriers, time constraints, and a failing communication infrastructure. Although better informed questions in combination with provisional answers could enhance the “vertical dialogue” with the CJEU, certainly not every judge is looking for this. We discovered major differences between on the one hand the judge-lawmaker, who wants to influence the way EU law is interpreted and the judge-arbiter, who is primarily focused on settling disputes. The latter judges feel the CJEU is better equipped to develop the course of EU law, while the former judges believe that in a multilevel legal order, this should be a mutual responsibility.