SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This article examines the concept of governance states in relation to environmental politics in Madagascar. Governance states can be regarded as a new development in North–South relations. The concept denotes a move towards the politics of post-conditionality, where states are defined as ‘stakeholders’ and drawn into ‘partnerships’ with global public–private networks. This article uses Madagascar as a case study through which to examine the politics of post-conditionality. In particular, it examines the politics of environmental governance through complex networks of actors, especially international environmental non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the World Bank. It focuses on how such transnational networks deeply affect conservation policy-making within Madagascar in particular, and the developing world more generally. It examines the complex and increasingly close relationships between states in the developing world, global environmental NGOs and the World Bank. It argues that such relationships are at once reflective of and constitutive of emerging forms of global environmental governance, namely the production of governance states.