Before an audience of specialists from politics, economics, and academia, the special issue of Governance “External Actors, State-Building, and Service Provision in Areas of Limited Statehood” (ed. Stephen D. Krasner and Thomas Risse) was the subject of discussion on December 8, 2014, at the Federal Foreign Office. The publication was introduced by Thomas Risse, one of the issue’s editors and coordinator of the SFB 700, and discussed by Ambassador Georg Wilfried Schmidt, regional coordinator for Sub-Saharan Africa and the Sahel at the Federal Foreign Office. Prof. Tanja Börzel and Dr. Gregor Walter-Drop from the SFB 700 also participated as authors of the special issue. The event was moderated by Dirk Lölke, head of Department 300 at the Federal Foreign Office.

The special issue identifies conditions for the success of governance services by external actors in areas of limited statehood. The book launch provided a forum to discuss the policy implications of the research findings and their applicability to German foreign policy. The presentation is one result of the SFB 700’s current collaboration with the Federal Foreign Office through the transfer project T3. Through mutual exchange, the transfer project aims to incorporate the research findings of the SFB into foreign policy practice, as well as to integrate practical expertise from the Federal Foreign Office into the work of the transfer project.