The Effectiveness of Environmental Civil Society Organizations: An Integrated Analysis of Organizational Characteristics and Contextual Factors

A push to reverse unsustainable trends has come from environmental civil society, but its track record is somewhat inconsistent. Why are some environmental organizations able to enhance the environmental cause, while others fail to create a substantial impact in the move toward environmental sustainability? This paper considers related but disparate clusters of literature and identifies factors that have an impact on the effectiveness of civil society. It also addresses the ambiguity that is attached to civil society—a concept with considerable historical baggage and contextual differentiation. Given that each conceptualization of civil society has its own body of literature and that these do not necessarily speak to each other, we propose an analytical framework that integrates a variety of dimensions relevant to the analysis of environmental civil society organizations (CSOs): the degree of institutionalization, the mode of interaction with the state, sources of funding, the locus of mobilization, the choice of issue(s), and the degree of politicization. Using these organizational characteristics, our framework further integrates contextual factors, constructing a multidimensional space where there are opportunities and constraints for environmental CSOs. This framework allows us to examine diverse paths shaped by context-dependent strategic choices of environmental CSOs which may either limit or enhance their capacity to make an impact. These strategic choices are tracked by selecting entry points inspired by fieldwork conducted in Turkey—specifically, institutionalization, the choice of issue(s), and politicization.     

The Genesis and Proliferation of Civil Society in Democracy and Monarchy: A Historical Comparison of America and Prussia in the Nineteenth Century

The notion that civil society and democracy go hand in hand has been a cornerstone of modernization theory. The formation of civil society, so the argument went, contributed to the democratization of society and provided the backbone of democracy. If one follows such an interpretation of modernization and of modern society, monarchic systems should be void of civil society. And yet, the case of Germany shows that civil society developed and even flourished within a monarchic society. The Kingdom of Prussia in 1865 was the home to an extensive network of civil society organizations that included associations, endowments, and foundations. These organizations provided services in the fields of education, social welfare, and supported all kinds of cultural institutions. These organizations were essential for the functioning of Prussia’s public institutions. Donors who created these institutions had a voice in the shaping of monarchic society, and the visions of donors often coincided with the visions put forward by monarchical rulers. The number of Prussians involved in giving, the number of organizations created, and the amount of money given were truly astonishing. Between 2 and 3% of Prussia’s population was involved in civil society organizations. The funds provided by these organizations accounted for 20–30% of public-school funding. And the number of organizations created a tight network that spanned across the entire country. Nineteenth-century monarchic Prussia was not void of civil society as it should have been if American social scientists are correct. Instead, Prussia provided the home to a vibrant civil society. Civil society emerges when societies move from an agrarian and organized system of social hierarchies to an industrial, and traditional social hierarchies destroying system. The destruction of established social hierarchies, the creation and accumulation of wealth, and the emergence of social inequality provided powerful incentives for the formation of civil society. Since this economic modernization and transformation occurred not only within democratic societies such as the USA but also within monarchic societies such as Prussia, civil society developed in both types of political system

     

Making Civil Society Sustainable: The Legacy of USAID in Croatia

What makes civil society sustainable? This paper examines USAID “Legacy Mechanisms”—programs designed to support a stable civil society after USAID withdraws aid—in the context of post-war Croatia to reconceptualize civil society sustainability in terms of resilience. Rather than examine whether specific legacy mechanisms remained intact, this paper looks at how Croatian civil society organizations adopted, adapted, and dropped these legacy programs to respond to novel crises and a changing political and social environment once USAID exited Croatia. Drawing on archival data from USAID’s time in Croatia and interviews conducted between 2008 (the year after USAID withdrew) and 2016, this paper shows that the long-term impact USAID had on civil society lay not within the formal institutions and organizations it supported, but in the resilience, creativity, and cooperation it fostered in the civil society sector.     

Blurred discourses: how market isomorphism constrains and enables collective action in civil society

Abstract Civil society – both national and transnational – is produced through the activities and discourses of a plurality of social actors, including political parties, NGOs and (new) social movements, media organizations, third sector organizations, market firms, and professional and trade associations. To understand the current dynamics of civil society, we need to combine the concept of the plurality with the investigation of a second phenomenon: namely, that in our globalized landscape master ideas and patterns of practices travel and materialize not only across national borders but also across different spheres of institutional life. In opposition to mainstream diffusionist explanations of the travel of ideas, we use Latour and Callon's translation model as a theoretical tool for reading an ‘exemplary’ case study taken from a broader Italian research programme. In particular, our aim is to provide some insights about how the current emphasis on economic performance and managerialization is translated into organizational processes of everyday activity regarding one of the most traditional collective actors of civil society, the third sector organization. The case considered here is a cooperative, whose origins are rooted in an encounter with Africa, and which is now engaged in a fair trade network. Specifically, we depict the complex system of meaning and practices that characterize this field when economic categories and priorities (for example rationalization, calculative action and efficiency) meet and blend with more conventional and expected logics of action (for example solidarity, emancipation and expressive behaviour) that are embedded within it.     

Public relations practice in the Arab World: A critical assessment

This article discusses the practice of public relations in the Arab World. It looks at the major problems it encounters such as misconceptions, confusion in tasks and prerogatives, lack of professional manpower, and the absence of a culture of democracy, transparency and public opinion. Public relations is still looked at as a tool for the organization to foster its image through public information, publicity and propaganda. Planning and research are badly missing mainly in public sector organizations. In spite of these drawbacks, public relations is the profession of the future in the Arab World. It is growing and expanding rapidly in all sectors of life. Arab countries need public relations to meet the challenges of democracy, public opinion, civil society and globalization.     

Democratic Governance and Actors’ Conceptualization of “Civil Society” in Africa: State–Civil Society Relations in Ghana from 1982–2000

Despite civil society’s ambiguity, many scholars tend to focus on the economic reasons for the apparent conflict between state and civil society, with little or no attention to the conceptual differences that may be influencing the behavior of public and civil society actors. Using Ghana under J. J. Rawlings as a backdrop, this article argues that state–civil society relations are partly shaped by the divergent conceptualizations of “civil society” held by state and civil society actors. It suggests that the issue is not just the African state’s limited understanding of the multiple roles that civil society organizations can legitimately play in the polity; it is also civil society’s lack of recognition and acknowledgment of the legitimate functions of the African state.     

Catholic Versus Communist: An Ongoing Issue—The Role of Organizational Affiliation in Accessing the Policy Arena

This article analyses the role of organizations’ ideological affiliation in shaping information networks within civil society and in granting access to the political sphere. It investigates whether the Catholic and Leftist affiliation of organizations impacts in the city of Turin (Italy) and Kielce (Poland). Applying different social network analysis techniques, the article finds that in both cities there is a tendency towards preferring similar partners. However, while the influence of affiliation is relevant to predict the access to policy making in Turin, in Kielce, this influence is mediated by the actor’s centrality in the social sphere. In both cities, networks are characterized by the higher centrality of Catholic organizations, which also translate in a greater involvement in the political sphere. Twenty-five years after the end of the cold war, past-affiliation is still a strong predictor of political involvement and impacts on the shape of local governance structure.     

THE GLOBAL VORTEX: SOCIAL WELFARE IN A NETWORKED WORLD

This paper examines the impact of economic globalization on the organization and delivery of social welfare services. Sennett's analysis of the modern networked organization is linked to psychodynamic theory in relation to the loss of ‘containment’ resulting from the demise of the post‐war welfare bureaucracies. This changing environment has generated an anxiety‐ridden and risk‐obsessed society that features surveillance, control and the gradual diminution of civil liberties. The impact of these changes on the ethics of professional social welfare practice has been profound. It is argued that public moral debate in the context of pluralist ethics is required not only for upholding a relational based social welfare practice, but also for preserving an open and compassionate democratic society. The paper concludes with a set of questions that provides a framework whereby practitioners can assess the extent to which different practice organizations support relational practice. This typology can be a tool to enable practitioners to exercise moral agency when making career choices in today's fluid organizational world.     

The NGOization of LGBT activism: ILGA-Europe and the Treaty of Amsterdam

This article discusses the Europeanization of social movement organizations using the case of ILGA-Europe, the umbrella of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender organizations in Europe. It examines the impact of Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which bans discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, and focuses on three entrenched dynamics ILGA-Europe has rapidly undergone: NGOization, institutionalization, and professionalization. It argues that although we should be aware of the role of the European political opportunity structure in shaping civil society organizations, we cannot overlook internal organizational dynamics and movement identities. Following the literature on the Europeanization of social movements, this piece confirms institutional opportunities and interactions with European institutions are a major cause of transformation: The adoption of Article 13 and the development of a European equal opportunity policy constitute a pivotal moment in ILGA-Europe’s history, endowing it with easier access to EU institutions and core funding. This allowed the organization to NGOize, contributed to a transformation of its internal structures, and led to the appointment of highly skilled professionals. However, this article also insists on the importance of movement identity. These transformations are not solely the result of interactions with the European institutional environment, but had been prepared by long-term orientations within ILGA, that is a preference for reformist claims and institutional strategies. ILGA-Europe’s NGOization is thus not only a response to institutional and political changes, but also results from specific ways of imagining activism. It is the interaction between movement identity and arising institutional opportunities that allowed the organization to transform.     

Civil society,social accountability and service delivery in Zimbabwe

Post‐2000, the deterioration of Zimbabwe's socioeconomic and political conditions is widely acknowledged as phenomenal and unprecedented. Consequently, government and local authorities are struggling to provide basic services. At the same time, civil society initiatives are promoting transparency and accountability in service delivery. The article explains how civil society coalitions and citizens are promoting and demanding accountability in the delivery of public services by local authorities. In particular, it focuses on four critical issues; namely local authority–citizen engagement, social accountability focus areas, social accountability tools and emerging social accountability issues. The article concludes that civil society‐led social accountability initiatives are effective under conditions of civil society capacity, institutionalization of social accountability by local authorities, and negotiating local political dynamics.     

Transnational social capital: the socio‐spatialities of civil society

Civil society remains a contested concept, but one that is widely embedded in global development processes. Transnationalism within civil society scholarship is often described dichotomously, either through hierarchical dependency relations or as a more amorphous networked global civil society. These two contrasting spatial imaginaries produce very particular ideas about how transnational relations contribute to civil society. Drawing on empirical material from research with civil society organizations in Barbados and Grenada, in this article I contend that civil society groups use forms of transnational social capital in their work. This does not, however, resonate with the horizontal relations associated with grassroots globalization or vertical chains of dependence. These social relations are imbued with power and agency and are entangled in situated historical, geographical and personal contexts. I conclude that the diverse transnational social relations that are part of civil society activity offer hope and possibilities for continued civil society action in these unexpected spatial arrangements.     

Sponsoring Civil Society: State and Community Movement in Taiwan*

This article contributes to the growing literature on the synergic production of civil society in newly democratized countries. State sponsorship can be effective when clientelism, as a form of social dominance, continues to frustrate purposive organization from below. Three elements are necessary for this scenario. First, a group of reform‐minded officials must be able to pursue an independent agenda that deviates from local elites. Second, reformers have to create new institutional avenues to channel resources downward by bypassing local politicians. Lastly, civil society organizations must be capable of effectively responding to the initiatives from above. I use Taiwan’s community movement to understand the logic and consequences of sponsoring civil society. State endorsement is critical to legitimatize community organizations’ presence in local politics. With a detailed analysis of a local case, the Qiaodou community movement, I argue that state sponsorship is critical for the growth of civil society organizations. Sponsored movement activism maintains its political independence by leveraging the incoherence in bureaucratic division of labor, and its professional expertise offers an advantageous bargaining position when facing officials.     

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.     

The Potentials and Limitations of Civil Society Research: Getting Undone Science Done

The term "undone science" refers to absences of scientific research that social movement and other civil society organizations find when attempting to make epistemic claims in the political field. The existing literature has identified various pathways for addressing the knowledge needs of civil society organizations, including asking elected and appointed political leaders to shift funding priorities and directly seeking support and partnerships with scientists. Here, a third pathway is identified and explored: civil society organizations that have the resources to fund their own research. A sample of such "civil society research" from large, mainstream, U.S. environmental organizations demonstrates that although the large organizations do engage in such research, most of it is not published in peer-reviewed journals. The peer-reviewed research is found almost exclusively in large preservation and conservation organizations that have staffs of scientists. Most of the other research reports are oriented toward documenting environmental problems and providing policy and management solutions. The research is highly applied and does not represent fundamental contributions to large mainstream scientific fields. Comparisons with civil society research in the author's previous research projects on religion, health, and economic development are discussed to assess applicability of the concept for other sociological subfields.     

The Uneasy Birth of Czech Civil Society

This paper analyzes both the political discourse and the reality of Czech civil society. It describes how the concept of civil society has emerged in a difficult ideological context, and sets out how policy towards it has developed, also highlighting its economic role. Recent empirical evidence on the existing range of citizens' activities and their attitudes toward aspects of civic society and organizations within it is marshaled in order to estimate the potential for citizenship in the Czech Republic.     

The G20's engagement with civil society: participation without contestation?

ABSTRACT

With global governance experiencing a democratic deficit, the G20's formalized engagement with civil society – the C20 – seems to be an anomaly. However, there is a gap between the G20's rhetoric and practice, with the C20 incorporating civil society organizations (CSOs) into the G20, while also limiting their ability to contribute to its agenda. This article attempts make sense of this gap by analysing the C20 through the modes of participation framework, arguing it represents an attempt to organize and manage social conflicts emerging from civil society, but do so in a way that constrains its ability to contest G20 policy. The article analyses the ways in which the C20 is designed to do so, as well as CSO strategies to overcome these constraints. While these strategies increase CSO's leverage and independence, their effectiveness remains shaped by G20 practices and the underlying political economy structures of the global economy.     

Interregionalism in Transnational Interest Networks: Euro-Asian Civil Society and the EU–ASEAN Free Trade Agreement

The study of interest groups is still a relatively small field of political science. The process of globalization has brought about the evolution of interest networks from national organizations to regional and transnational networks. This article uses the modes of political participation framework created by Jayasuriya and Rodan, in order to study the created spaces used by public interest networks at an interregional level. The empirical case study relates to Asia-Europe Meeting: the Europe-Asian interregional institution, and the work of public interest networks stemming from the civil society organizations that shadow it in opposing the EU–Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) free trade agreement (FTA). We find that the ‘modes of political participation’ model explains quite accurately the political spaces created by civil society in the EU–ASEAN FTA. We extend the framework by adding a fifth space, lobbying, which appears out of isomorphism. This concept represents the adoption by organizations of practices carried by other institutions they interact with. In this case, public interest networks have adopted the practice of directly influencing policy-makers that was the prerogative of private interest groups.     

The Participation of Civil Society Organizations in Public Policies in Latin America

Throughout Latin America, the relationship between government and civil society organizations (CSOs) has been characterized by opposition, substitution, and submission; and, the incipient path to cooperation is barely noticeable. For their part, participatory public policies make sense within a theory of democratic governance. Democratic governance seeks two propositions: (a) participation from other social actors will give rise to more efficient government action; and (b) citizen support will emerge from the said government action. This paper criticizes the current relationships between the governments and CSOs in this region. In addition, it explores the potential strategies that could be adopted were there a cooperation between these two entities. The paper is supported by theoretical literature as well as by a revision of some cases of participatory public policies that are currently active in the region. The paper proposes that the strategies of opposition to government and government substitution have to be abandoned in this region. The paper focuses on civil organizations (CSOs). It is true that they do not constitute the entirety of civil society; however, they are frequently the most organized compared with other civic actors, such as social movements, families, and individual initiatives. CSOs form only a part of the diversity known as civil society; however, they significantly contribute to the discussion about the public good, and very often they participate in providing such goods. The future of participatory democracy in Latin America is related to our ability to achieve a more complete participation of CSOs in the entire process of participatory public policies—from the formation of public agendas to their design, implementation, and evaluation.