In diplomatic circles, Mr. Karzai is sometimes referred to as the "Mayor of Kabul," a reference to his control of the capital, but weak authority in remote areas of the country.
The report described circumstances during a period of fluidity and weak authority after the popular uprising that ousted Kyrgyzstan's authoritarian leader, Kurmanbek S. Bakiyev.
It makes us look like a weak authority.
He said all of the councils which were happy to merge were "weak authorities" which should not be paired together.
Country ownership of national and subnational coordination is undermined by the weak decision making authority of many coordination structures and limited or perfunctory engagement among GHIs and other donors, particularly at the subnational level.
As the direct overseers of their own economic sphere, the administrations of large temples wielded considerable influence and may have posed a challenge to the authority of a weak pharaoh, although it is unclear how independent they actually were.
Inevitably, they thrive where the authority of governments is weak – in the drug-trafficking heartlands of Afghanistan, slums in provincial Bangladeshi cities, in the rugged hills around Peshawar, or the unpoliced no-go zones of Karachi, Pakistan's commercial capital.
But now, Ambassador Stevens's death has led to the undermining of an already weak central authority, the further isolation of Benghazi from Libya's political center, a slowing of American and international technical aid and the empowerment of the Islamists.
The debate features some strange ideological stances, with progressive Democrats arguing in favor of weak federal authority to preempt (read undermine) state regulations and Republicans, taking up the stance of the Bush administration which oversaw federal preemption of state mortgage laws, preferring federal supremacy.
Collaboration between government and civil society can be particularly important in contexts of weak state authority and public service delivery – the same conditions that contribute to low levels of electrification and other forms of energy insecurity [ 41].
