Embracing the new disability rights paradigm: the importance of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

In 2008 the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) commenced operation. The CRPD has created a dynamic new disability rights paradigm that empowers disability people’s organizations and creates a new paradigm for disability scholars. This paper analyses the impact of the CRPD and provides practical guidance as to how this convention can be used to drive change. Prior to this convention, persons with disabilities were protected by a range of general human rights conventions. Despite receiving nominal protection under general human rights conventions, persons with disabilities have had many of their human rights denied to them. The CRPD goes further than merely re-stating rights. It creates a new rights discourse, empowers civil society and renders human rights more obtainable for person with disabilities than any time in history.     

'Sites' of resistance: alternative websites and state-society relations

Much attention has been focused on Singapore's attempt to use information technology to build a knowledge-based economy. This paper examines the implications of the unintended consequences of the Internet in the restructuring of state and society relations in Singapore. We use the data on Singapore-based and Singapore-related websites to show (a) the diversity of positions expressed by civil society organizations, fringe groups and even mainstream segments of society; (b) the negotiation process between the state and civil society over various rights and how developments in cyber-space have implications for 'reality'; (c) how censorship and content regulation itself is a more complex multi-dimensional process such that while local politics is regulated, the multi-ethnic character of the resident population has led to greater religious tolerance such that religious groups banned in some countries have found a safe haven in Singapore and have used the city-state as a strategic Internet node.     

Characterising civil society and its challenges in post-apartheid South Africa

Since South Africa’s transition to democracy, civil society has been considered a critical component of new inclusive “democratic” societies, acting to ensure human rights for all. Government and donor agencies require the incorporation of this sector within project documents and programmes. However, is civil society merely a loosely defined term used to satisfy the requirements of project proposals and interests of the state, donors and big business, while not directly addressing the concerns of citizens subjected to macroeconomic risks (e.g. industrial pollution, unemployment and service delivery)? Since the transition, it is mainly established civil society organisations that have become well resourced and who have developed collaborative relationships with the state and industry, which has eroded their accountability to and support from the marginalised communities they claim to serve. Can such organisations then claim to be part of an “authentic” civil society striving for inclusive development? By reviewing contemporary and historical literature on civil society, and through empirical work, this paper argues that there has been a shift in the conception of civil society since the transition, with established forms of support for the grassroots remaining doubtful. Civil society has not effectively engaged with the grassroots to project their concerns about macroeconomic risks, largely due to integration into government/donor institutions. Fragmentation within the grassroots arena has also limited coherent actions against dominant groups. Although civil society can support the grassroots to address their concerns through formal activities, for example, by employing legal strategies, there is no guarantee of success. Connections between an “authentic” civil society and coherent grassroots actions engaging in a combination of strategies (formal and informal) will be required to achieve true democracy.     

The Contribution of Law and Social Work to Interdisciplinary Community Development and Peace Building in the Middle East

SUMMARY

Reducing inequity and strengthening civil society are both intrinsically related to peace building. This article outlines how social work and legal theory, coupled with an interdisciplinary practice framework, advance the development of community networks for the promotion of social rights as a medium for peace building in the Middle East. The combined effect of human rights advocacy, civic engagement, and the structuring and building of community, work to reduce inequality and promote civil society. Examples of interdisciplinary practice as implemented through the initiative of the McGill Middle East Program in Civil Society and Peace Building are presented. Finally, implications for interdisciplinary training for schools of social work are discussed.     

Cultural mediation through vernacularization: framing rights claims through the day‐off campaign for migrant domestic workers in Singapore

Scholarship on civil society in Singapore has tended to emphasize the structural and institutional constraints on civil society space. Conversely, little attention is paid to the broader cultural and discursive realms in which civil society and state actors operate. This article seeks to address this gap by analysing the day‐off campaign for migrant domestic workers in Singapore. We demonstrate that by employing the cultural mediation strategy of vernacularization, civil society was able to frame migrant rights claims in a manner that resonated with the institutional logics and cultural repertoire of Singapore society. Civil society actors gained headway by adapting the discourse on migrant rights to Singapore's socio‐cultural and political context in three ways: by reframing rights claims into a moral appeal; by appealing to the cost‐benefit logics of Singaporean employers of migrant domestic workers; and by situating the provision of migrant labour protections as a relative market position.     

Global Civil Society and Ethnic Social Movements in the Contemporary World

Studies on ethnic movements have largely overlooked the global dimensions of ethnic social movements. Drawing on social movement theories and the world culture approach, I argue that linkage to global civil society gives rise to ethnic mobilization because it diffuses models of claim-making based on human rights ideas, while intergovernmental networks suppress ethnic mobilization as they enhance state power and authority. Tobit analyses on violent and nonviolent ethnic mobilizations show that, controlling for domestic factors, linkage to global civil society raises the potential for ethnic social movements, while intergovernmental networks do not have a strong impact on ethnic mobilization.     

Civil society challenges the global food system: the International Monsanto Tribunal

ABSTRACT

The global food system has severe implications for human health, soil quality, biodiversity, and quality of life. This paper provides an analysis on how transnational alliances challenge the global food system. We illustrate this by focusing on the activities and hearings of the International Monsanto Tribunal (IMT), held in the Hague in 2016. The IMT provided a platform for civil society and enabled transnational alliances to demand attention for local struggles and legal disputes in relation to Monsanto’s products. With the involvement of independent and renowned experts, the knowledge exchange between local victims and civil society was enhanced, and the IMT reinforced social movement’s goals towards demanding justice for the negative effects associated with the global food system. The advisory opinion determined that Monsanto’s practices are in violation with human rights standards. The IMT exemplified that there is an immediate need for structural change in the current global food system.     

The transformative power of civil society in South Africa: an activist’s perspective on innovative forms of organizing and rights-based practices

ABSTRACT

This essay analyses recent campaigns to fulfil human rights to quality basic education and access to mental health care services, led by SECTION27, a social justice organization in South Africa. It investigates how these campaigns were able to impact on inequality in education and health care and the ways in which they mobilized and empowered communities to demand social justice and drive pro-poor transformation. In particular, it looks at the way SECTION27 used human rights law and the Courts to advance social justice. It records many positive outcomes. But concludes by asking whether, if inequality is enabled by elite power can it only be disabled by people’s power? How can civil society overcome fault-lines in its sustainability, representativity and power structure? It argues that civil society must do more to tackle the systems and not just scratch at the symptoms of a more and more unequal world.     

Approaches to civil society in authoritarian states: The case of China

Both civil society in China and research on Chinese civil society have developed profoundly over the last three decades. Research on Chinese civil society can be classified into two categories: a structure‐oriented approach and an agency‐oriented approach. Both approaches acknowledge the state's dominant position in restricting the political space for civil society engagement, but they differ in their understanding of state–civil society relations. A key concern within the structure‐oriented approach is to analyze how the autonomy of civil society organizations is shaped by their structural position vis‐à‐vis the state. Agency‐oriented scholars, on the other hand, reject the analytical focus on structural autonomy. Instead, they build on a more nuanced understanding of the authoritarian yet nonmonolithic context in China and analyze how civil society organizations develop specific strategies to be able to operate within their restricted political space. In particular, agency‐oriented scholars have analyzed two ways in which organizations exercise agency: by strategically developing formal or informal ties with state actors and by bringing their engagement into the public sphere to raise awareness and express their voice. What could be further developed in the agency‐oriented approach is, however, a deeper understanding of the political dimensions of civil society agency.     

Engendering Citizenship,Feminizing Civil Society

Abstract

In this paper, I describe how feminists in countries of the Middle East and North Africa are challenging their second-class citizenship largely institutionalized in patriarchal family laws-and are calling for an extension of their civil, political, and social rights. I use the term “feminist” to denote de jureand de factofeminists working to advance women's rights. The paper seeks to make theoretical sense of contemporary rights-based movements and discourses in the region through an application of theories of citizenship. It highlights the role of women's organizations in the regional call for democratization, civil society, and citizenship and it provides an empirical content to the discussion of citizenship, state, and civil society. Data and information are gleaned from a close reading of the literature by and on women's organizations in the region, and from personal observations and interviews.     

Robert Nisbet and the Problem of Community

The article traces the importance and development of the concept of ‘community’ in Robert Nisbet’s sociological theory. Community and voluntary associations were key components of his view of civil society, because they stood between the individual and the state as bastions of personal liberty against authoritarianism. This idea was taken from Alexis de Tocqueville’s analysis of America democracy and developed by Nisbet as a critique of modern America. The article examines the conservative underpinnings of Nisbet’s sociology and compares his perspective on civil society with the idea of civil religion in J-J Rousseau and Robert Bellah. Nisbet’s perspective is criticised because not all voluntary associations have beneficial effects on civil society. The article considers how far his views on authority and community are still relevant and concludes by making a distinction between ‘sticky societies’ that are hard to join and difficult to leave and ‘elastic societies’ that are easy to join and cost-free to leave, and asks whether community is possible when the Internet has transformed sticky relationships into elastic, thin and dispersed relationships.     

Instrumental Civil Rights and Institutionalized Participation in China: A Case Study of Protest in Wukan Village

The current study uses the Wukan protest as a case study to assert that the Chinese farmers involved in the incident demonstrated “instrumental civil rights consciousness” in their protest. Civil rights is a means by which farmers strive for their economic rights and not an end in itself. Without real “rights consciousness,” the Wukan protests resemble “institutionalized participation” more than “rightful resistance.” The grassroots elections and self-governance that have resulted from the protest are not so much a harbinger of the emergence of bottom-up civil society as top-down initiatives by the central government. The central government has incorporated opposing powers into the existing institution to adjust state–society relations. By using bottom-up institutionalized participation, the central government has managed to strengthen its supervision over local governments, fight corruption, and stabilize its authority.     

The Development of Social Economy in South Korea: Focusing on the Role of the State and Civil Society

The existing literature has claimed that the state-backed social enterprises in South Korea could be degenerated since the South Korean civil society is not advanced enough to safeguard them against the isomorphic pressure wielded simultaneously by the state and the market. Taking this claim seriously, this paper examines the recent development of social economy in South Korea. Based on the considerable changes in the long-standing statist model of non-profit sector since the late 1990s, the enormous impact of 2011 FAC on the civil society and social economy, and more frequent collaborative effort between the local governments and civil society organizations since 2012, this paper claims that the development of social economy in South Korea has recently shifted from dominance of state power to a mixture of top-down and bottom-up approaches.     

Why Swedes Trust the State and Scots Do Not: An Exploration of the Diverse Protestant Roots of Modern Welfare Systems

This paper explores how the Protestant traditions of Calvinist Presbyterianism and Lutheranism have shaped church-state relations differently in Scotland and Sweden, resulting in different understandings of the role of the state and civil society in public welfare. It finds that high levels of public trust in the state's authority and state intervention in Sweden can be traced back to Lutheran doctrine and institutionally close links between the Swedish Church and the state, while in Scotland trusting independent civil society and its responsibility for welfare reflects the distance of the Presbyterian Scottish Kirk from the state both in theological and institutional terms.     

Ten years of the CRPD’s adoption in China: challenges and opportunities

This article examines the challenges and opportunities of implementing the CRPD's rights-based model in China, especially the effects of the diminishing space for civil society on the nascent disability rights movement. A disability rights movement emerged as a direct result of the CRPD’s adoption in 2008. Two recent restrictive civil society legislations, however, undermined this process. While the diminishing space of civil society has posed great challenges to the movement by marginalizing the rights advocacy approach, it has created an opportunity for service-oriented disability associations to thrive. While service-oriented associations are often ignored by disability studies scholarship and the disability rights movement, I argue that, through these organizations, persons with disabilities in China have done critical identity work and substantively increased their level of independence in their daily lives. As a result, a disability rights consciousness continues to be built in China, despite governmental hostility to political advocacy.     

The Role of Organized Labor in Civil Society

Organized labor has served as a valuable element of civil society. The focus of this inquiry is how the decline of organized labor contributes to the weakening of the civil sphere. I first assess how unions have historically contributed to the positive functions of civil society. I then review the various factors that have led to the deterioration of organized labor and comment on the current state of the labor movement. I conclude with a discussion of the implications in terms of civil society and market culture.     

The Constraints on Civil Society beyond the State: Gender-based Insecurity in Meghalaya,India

The role of civil society is vital for politicizing, contesting, and addressing human insecurity, yet there is very little analysis of the ability of civil society actors to do so. Recent critical approaches to the concept have questioned the tendency to view civil society as an unequivocal good, yet the majority of these critiques still focus on civil society at a global level or on the enabling and disabling capacity of the state at the national level. This paper argues that civil society is constrained not only by the state but by local government and other actors from within civil society. Identity politics, power relations, and existing inequalities between and within communities affect the ability of formal and informal organizations to contest the causes of insecurity. This paper examines the role of civil society in addressing gender-based insecurity in the Indian state of Meghalaya to demonstrate the influence of these factors on civil society and concludes by arguing that civil society is a much more dynamic and contradictory sphere than is often recognized by both advocates and critics. These dynamics must be understood if the constraints on civil society are to be transcended.

Non-governmental organisations and philanthropy: The case of Argentina

The social, cultural and political activities of non-profit organisations in Argentina have a long history. They existed prior to the creation of the nation state. With a very strong religious influence, they expanded throughout the nineteenth century. National state provision of collective goods only started to develop at the end of the nineteenth century as a result of what Salamon (1987) has referred to as ‘voluntary failure’. The social, political and economic changes that have taken place in Argentina during the last decade had not only had an impact on non-profit organisations, but also on the traditional roles and responsibilities in the development of the state, the market and civil society. The political democratisation which started in 1983, along with the economic stability of the 1990s, were the two most relevant factors to affect non-profit organisations. The new social movements which had emerged during the previous decade (1976–1983) tended to disappear, leaving behind a wide array of organisations concerned with youth, women, human rights and neighbourhoods. With a focus on poverty issues, several state agencies now prioritise new strategies and mechanisms which involve the participation of civil society in social policies. The extent to which these will develop, how large the resources devoted to these programmes will be, and what kinds of controls over NGOs the state will implement are some of the main topics which will demand close attention.     

Adat in Indonesian Land Law: A Promise for the Future or a Dead End?

At present the contestation of the Indonesian state’s dispossessory policies regarding land and other natural resources is dominated by a discourse based on adat. This situation is reminiscent of the colonial period, when invoking adat was a relatively effective means of protecting Indonesians from losing their land to plantation companies supported by the Netherlands–Indies government. However, adat lost its traction when Indonesia became independent and the new state started to vigorously pursue nation building and economic expansion. Only after the end of the New Order in 1998 did civil society groups revive the adat defence against dispossession. This article analyses current debates and developments concerning the place of adat in national land law and its potential for protecting communities against dispossession of their land by the Indonesian state. We argue that the promotion of adat has produced few concrete results and that it is unlikely to be more successful for this purpose in the future. Given Indonesia’s current social and political realities, any land rights strategy for protecting people against dispossession that is based on indigeneity is problematic, and alternative approaches are needed.     

Countering globalization and regionalization: is there a united front within Turkish labour and disadvantaged groups?

Turkey, situated in the periphery of Europe, is governed by anti-labour policies of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) Governments in the last 15 years. Embarking on a historical materialist perspective that draws concepts from Gramsci, this paper questions whether labour can come up with an alternative and form a united front vis-a-vis globalization and European Union membership. It then examines impediments behind the lack of a united front and a viable alternative. The analyses rely on empirical data generated through interviews conducted with trade unionists and representatives from civil society for struggles against patriarchy, environmental degradation, and human rights violations at two critical junctures in 2010 and 2017. This paper argues that labour and struggles within civil society contest neoliberal restructuring with two rival class strategies, namely Ha-vet (Turkish abbreviations for No to Capitalist Europe – Yes to Social Europe) and neomerchantilism, none of which stands as a viable alternative.