This special issue contains papers on international development interventions that offer support to justice and security reforms in so-called "fragile states." Following an introduction by guest editor Helene Maria Kyed, the book includes papers on: justice and security architecture in Africa * reconfiguring state and non-state actors in the provision of safety in (South) Africa - implications for bottom-up policing arrangements and for donor funding * the consequences of ideals-oriented rule of law policy-making in Liberia * the politics of customary law ascertainment in South Sudan * hybrid and 'everyday' political ordering - constructing and contesting legitimacy in Somaliland * spinning a conflict management web in Vanuatu - creating and strengthening links between state and non-state legal institutions * decentralized power and traditional authorities - how power determines access to justice in Sierra Leone * delivering justice - the changing gendered dynamics of land tenure in Botswana. (Series: The Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law - Vol. 63)

We live in a world of legal pluralism, where a single act or actor is potentially regulated by multiple legal or quasi-legal regimes imposed by state, substate, transnational, supranational and nonstate communities. Navigating these spheres of complex overlapping legal authority is confusing and we cannot expect territorial borders to solve all these problems. At the same time, those hoping to create one universal set of legal rules are also likely to be disappointed by the sheer variety of human communities and interests. Instead, we need an alternative jurisprudence, one that seeks to create or preserve spaces for productive interaction among multiple, overlapping legal systems by developing procedural mechanisms, institutions and practices that aim to manage, without eliminating, the legal pluralism we see around us. Global Legal Pluralism provides a broad synthesis across a variety of legal doctrines and academic disciplines and offers a novel conceptualization of law and globalization.

Brauchler examines the Indonesian decentralisation process and the revival of tradition and cultural self-determination in the Moluccas. Tuori studies restatements and codifications of customary laws in Africa. Harboe Knudsen considers European Union regulation of the marketing of dairy products in Lithuania. Douglas and Hersi examine the attitudes of Muslims to the smoking of khat. Simarmata studies the contrast between Indonesian state law and local officials' practice regarding natural resources use in East Kalimantan.

This volume examines dynamics of legal pluralism and explores the varied ways in which constellations of legal pluralism play out in social life. It aims to bridge the social and theoretical space between small-scale case studies and abstract generalisation. The introduction provides an overview of developments in the field of legal pluralism and offers an analytical perspective on the dynamics of the maintenance of and change in constellations of legal pluralism. Contributions examine situations in which the state is seen as remote from local settings and others in which local populations are actively engaged in widening the scope and validity of state law. By focusing on historical developments and the fault-lines of rapid political change in both post-socialist and post-authoritarian states, the volume shows that legal legacies of the past continue to have an impact. Authors look at the social significance of the various, and sometimes competing, types of law which religious and secular transnational actors introduce into local settings.