Local governance networks as public authority: Insights from Mozambique, Myanmar and Pakistan

Abstract

Drawing upon ‘governance diaries,’ a method which used repeated interviews with a set of households and intermediaries in three countries—Mozambique, Myanmar and Pakistan—to understand how marginalised groups meet their daily governance needs, we argue that local governance networks constitute a form of public authority. The networks we examine encompass a range of local actors (state and non‐state), who help develop and enforce rules and ensure social coordination. We highlight the role of intermediaries who constitute the first point of contact for people seeking to resolve various issues. We show how these intermediaries and their networks are specific to each context, not just at a national level, but down to a granular local level. Decision‐making and the exercise of power moves around within the networks, blurring formal/informal boundaries. We conclude that in these contexts of fragility, public authority is embedded in and exercised through local governance networks.

Introduction: Development practice, power and public authority

“…The papers' frequent descriptions of public authorities' positions within trans-local networks reinforces Ferguson's proposition that public authority is a relational property (Ferguson, 2022). For example, Joshi et al (2024) use their innovative 'governance diaries' methodology to build a picture of how public authority is both a status claimed by individuals and a property of the networks they cultivate to ensure they can resolve people's dilemmas. They show how intermediaries in Mozambique, Myanmar and Pakistan leverage their networks to bring a measure of order and regularity to the lives of those residing in places where the state can be absent, predatory and violent, and where multiple competing authorities have the power to decide who gets access to vital public goods.…”

“…They focus on places and situations commonly labelled as in crisis or understood to be subject to multiple overlapping crises, where responses to epidemics, persistent conflict and migrations are in progress (Allen & Parker, 2023;Büscher et al, 2024;Storer & Torre, 2023). However, they also examine how public authority dynamics affect everyday governance in outwardly more stable contexts, albeit showing how exclusions, coercion and violence is often used by those contesting others' claims to power (Joshi et al, 2024;te Lintelo & Liptrot, 2023). And they encompass investigations of how outsiders' interventions in such places may be forced to negotiate with hidden forms of public authority even as they seek to change by whom and how development occurs (Kirk, 2023;Pinnington, 2023).…”