With limited success, international relations scholars have used principal-agent theory (P-A) to understand gaps in global governance. While P-A may not provide robust explanations, it is still useful for mapping long chains of complex, boundary-crossing relationships and locating the gaps that characterize global environmental governance (GEG). In this article, first I argue that we can get beyond merely locating and describing governance gaps, and start explaining them, by considering the problems of accountability that contribute to those gaps. Second, I argue that outsourced sustainable development projects, implemented by for-profit contractors, provide an under-studied and under-

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Purpose -This paper provides a summary of evidence on a local sense of well-being gathered from the population of a mutual resident-controlled housing association, compared at various levels with national and other comparator data. It reproduces statistics and many statements from Walterton and Elgin Community Homes (WECH) residents, to shed light on questions over the potential for community-owned social landlords to promote social capital and well-being and transform communities and neighbourhoods in line with current UK government thinking on happiness, empowerment, and the Big Society agenda.Design/methodology/approach -The paper is the second part of an overview of the potential for social housing to empower people and improve well-being, from the perspective of a full community-owned social housing landlord. Professor Peter Ambrose of Brighton University led the study of the WECH population, assisted by LSE Social Policy post-graduate students who carried out the interviews of WECH residents. Dr Satsangi of the University of Stirling led the work comparing the data collected on WECH residents with other populations and datasets. The paper includes a summary of these findings, with further reflections on the implications for national housing policy.Findings -Notwithstanding the high deprivation indices for the area as a whole, residents of WECH expressed high levels of satisfaction with the neighbourhood, and greater levels of community engagement than people living in areas with comparable levels of deprivation. The findings support the hypothesis that an empowering and participatory management style -especially where based upon full community ownership and resident control -effectively enhances community engagement, activates citizenship and significantly improves individual and collective well-being.Practical implications -Happiness and well-being, it now appears, are not so much a function of incomes and costs, as a product of control and influence. Overall, and at the very least, the results should give confidence to national and local governments to drive forward their policies to mutualise social housing, where local communities wish to take over their homes.Originality/value -The 1992 WECH transfer of 921 homes from the local authority remains the only large-scale statutory (as distinct from voluntary) transfer of council housing in England and Wales to a resident-controlled community-based housing association. Therefore, WECH's experience is especially relevant for informing the Coalition Government's implementation of the statutory Right to Transfer for council tenants.

Sustainable Development Councils were among the few specific recommendations for institution building to come out of Rio in 1992. At their best the councils manifest Agenda 21's call for new participatory arrangements. At their worst they represent the frustrations and unmet challenges of the thirteen years since Rio. The article compares attempts to establish councils in three Caribbean states: Grenada, Dominica, and St. Lucia. The cases offer lessons in the survivability of deliberative bodies concerned with sustainable development policy and raise questions about their efficacy. We conclude that such bodies survive when members derive significant if intangible benefits; and that by surviving, they help optimize limited human resources for the implementation of international environmental conventions and provide needed venues for deliberation and accountability. But the relationship between efficacy and survivability is not linear and councils may have to avoid direct challenges to government decision-makers and established relationships between the state and private sector. Copyright (c) 2005 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.