Governance Settlements and Transitions in Indigenous Areas of Limited Statehood: The Case of Coalmining in Meghalaya

Abstract

This article explores governance issues in an area of limited statehood characterized by the combination of state and indigenous institutions. This is done by adopting an institutional lens focusing on three factors—field structures, institutional logics, and actor agency—to analyze governance settlements. The results point to how complex governance settlements in areas of limited statehood hold together with a certain degree of alignment between institutional elements. However, as the field evolves, contestations and misalignments lead to changes in governance settlements. Analyzing these transitions, this study identifies three key processes that have facilitated deeper state penetration in the field, namely, delocalization of field structures, hybridization of institutional logics, and diversification of actor agency.

Governance and Business-Society Relations in Areas of Limited Statehood: An Introduction

“…Finally, it is possible to speak of governance without government, which refers to the rulemaking and selfregulation by non-state actors. Here, businesses, international organizations, NGOs, grassroot movements, rebel groups, war lords, terrorist groups, and criminal networks (Berti, 2018;Felbab-Brown et al, 2018;Lilyblad, 2014;Williams, 2002) can in different ways potentially act as "functional equivalents" for the state as governor (Börzel & Risse, 2016, 2020. They do so by contributing to the provision of collective goods, alternative regulatory frameworks, and sometimes by exercising certain measures of control over the means of violence.…”

“…Börzel & Deitelhoff, 2018). Vakkayil (2021) explores the Meghalaya region in Northeastern India as an indigenous area of limited statehood and analyzes the historically shifting interfaces between indigenous coalmining industries and state authorities. This study highlights the critical importance of examining indigenous authorities and industries often overlooked in conventional studies of governance and business-society relations (Sjoberg & Barkin, 2018) and provides a framework for exploring the interplay between such indigenous authorities and central state institutions, including the changing forms of state regulation of, and penetration into, an ALS over time.…”