Civil Society Transformed: International Aid to New Political Parties in the Czech Republic and Slovakia

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - How do international nonprofit organizations influence political party formation in new democracies? Despite recent...     

The Structure and Resources of NGOs in Estonia

The paper examines the present state of voluntary associations in Estonia—their resources and fields of activity. First, the paper discusses two possible functions of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in the postsocialist social change: the opening up of participation channels complementary to those of representative democracy and the support to the state in fulfilling social welfare functions. A view stressing the latter function of the voluntary sector has hitherto dominated Estonian domestic political discussion. The actual capacity of Estonian NGOs is assessed on the basis of previous research and the results of a mail survey (779 responding organizations). The resources of the respondents are smaller than expected. Resources differ greatly between urban and rural associations, and between NGOs representing different fields of activity. The paper concludes with a discussion of the empirical findings and of the need for further research.     

Locating Security in the Womb

The discourse surrounding US family planning policies has evolved into a highly moralistic one that mirrors US domestic debates surrounding abortion rights. However, the original intent of ‘population control’ was to protect US access to raw resources and maintain US global supremacy. US family policies did not first identify woman as the object to be controlled, but policies have changed such that women's bodies have become a symbolic representation of – and site of resistance to – the power relationships between the US and developing states. The change in the rhetoric – from population control to family planning, women's empowerment, environmental sustainability and human rights – does not mean the ‘rules’ enforced by the hegemon have changed so much as it indicates a process of identity formation occurring through the implementation of these rules.     

Toward the Systematic Study of Feminist Policy in Practice:An Essential First Step

ABSTRACT

This article proposes an analytical construct, based on feminist and non-feminist policy studies, to be eventually used in the systematic study of feminist policy in practice in postindustrial democracies. The measurement allows for the analysis of democracy, representation, and symbolic reform in terms of the array of policy actors who come forward during the crucial implementation and evaluation stages, the policy instruments that are used in these phases, and policy outcomes. As the article argues, developing this analytical measurement constitutes the essential first step in the emerging research cycle on feminist policy postadoption in a comparative perspective.     

Donor withdrawal and local civil society organizations: An analysis of the HIV/AIDS sector in Vietnam

The impact of international donor arrival on local civil society organizations (CSOs) is well researched. Less well understood is how local CSOs react and adapt to donor withdrawal. This article explores this phenomenon in the context of the HIV/AIDS sector in Vietnam. Using data from government, donor and CSO sources in Vietnam, it examines how current and planned cuts in donor funding, including donor exit, impact local CSO agency and effectiveness. It finds that while donor withdrawal may reduce CSO capacity and independence, it can also prompt local innovations that—if successful—may improve CSOs’ responsiveness to local stakeholders.     

Indirect consumer activism and politics in the market

ABSTRACT

Social movement organizations use consumer activism to mobilize public pressure and cause economic or reputational damage to their target. However, current frameworks fail to explain why organizations would use indirect consumer activism: targeting one firm to elicit change from a third party. This paper aims to explain this choice, drawing upon theories of opportunity structures to explain why groups choose to use indirect strategies. I examine three campaigns using indirect strategies: US-based Grab Your Wallet and Sleeping Giants, and UK-based Stop Funding Hate. Groups use indirect strategies to reach inaccessible targets and to mobilize the public; these strategies help social movement organizations to raise public awareness at the beginning of a campaign. I conclude with some expectations for future research.     

Evaluation from a Gender+ Perspective as a Key Element for (Re)gendering the Policymaking Process

ABSTRACT

Feminist scholars have challenged the neutrality of policymaking processes and the outputs resulting from these processes. However, some elements of policymaking have not been studied as well as others. In this article I explore the concept of evaluation from a gender+ perspective as an essential step for a complete gender mainstreaming strategy, which can help to identify gender issues that should be integrated into the content of evaluated policies and to ensure gender does not get lost in the policymaking process. This exploration is carried out by relying on feminist policy and evaluation studies.     

The Role of NGOs in Strengthening the Foundations of South African Democracy

This paper assesses the contribution of South African nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to the process of democratic consolidation. By drawing on a 1998 survey conducted among 270 NGOs, on several expert interviews, and on an analysis of the structures and programmes of the umbrella body of South African NGOs (Sangoco), the author presents a multi-faceted picture of the activities of the South African NGO sector. The focus is on the NGOs' role as (1) schools of democracy, (2) in bridging societal cleavages, and (3) in providing channels of interest representation for the most marginalized sections of the population. The paper concludes that the contribution of South African NGOs to the process of democratic consolidation is significant, but highly dependent on an enabling external environment.     

Reflections on the Concept and Measurement of Global Civil Society

This paper argues that the current academic debate about global civil society has reached a point where some assessment or reflection could be useful for informing the course of future research in the field. Behind this call for an assessment is the very nature of the debate and emerging gaps and weaknesses that together produce a potential slow-down in generating new knowledge and understanding of global civil society. There are several shortcomings to the current research approach: the failure to take account of other civil society traditions; the failure to address the relationship between global civil society, conflict, and violence; and, most critically, the neglect of the notion of civility, both conceptually and empirically. The balance of the paper then explores the implications of this new assessment of global civil society research.     

Femininity is not inferiority: women-led civil society organizations and “countering violent extremism” in Nigeria

The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, and the Millennium Development Goals, brought the inclusion of women in the security agenda into the international limelight. Although these global frameworks, and other international resolutions, underscore the importance of women’s participation in the politics of peace and security, Nigeria’s frameworks have not been inclusive. Extant literature has examined the role of women within the context of mainstream responsibilities for “counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency” that are held by the military and paramilitary forces. This study interrogates the role of women-led civil society organizations in “countering violent extremism” activities in Nigeria. Using a mixed-methods approach, it demonstrates that the participation of women-led civil society organizations in “countering violent extremism” activities has generated certain positive results for achieving women’s inclusion and gender equality in politics and society.     

Nonprofits and Democratic Development: Lessons from the Czech Republic

This article argues that existing concepts of the civil society–democracy relationship are misleading guides for analyzing political development because they incorporate limited perspectives on the nature and activities of civil society, particularly the nonprofit sector. First, three contemporary conceptualizations of civil society are critiqued, and a contradiction is noted between the importance assigned to ideational functions and the inadequacy of reliance upon elections and party systems. Particular emphasis is placed on civil society's involvement in policy formation, for it is there that a weak state–society connection may be discovered, with significant ramifications for democratic development. Second, recent political instability in the Czech Republic is related to negative trends in political attitudes, indicating a weak connection. Third, the general nature of Czech policy-making processes is examined, and then a closer look is taken at the formation of nonprofit legislation and environmental policy. Finally, implications for the future development of Czech democracy are drawn.     

Securing the Market,Pacifying Civil Society,Empowering Women: The Middle East Partnership Initiative1

The “Middle East Partnership Initiative” (MEPI) is now the main framework for U.S. soft interventions in the Middle East. Established by the Republican administration in 2003, this program follows a rationale of political and economic reforms as a means to uproot terrorism and spread democracy. This article offers a content analysis of this program by questioning the assumptions behind the MEPI’s focus on “civil society” and “women’s empowerment” and by showing their significance to neoliberal regimes of pacification and securitization.     

Stratagems and Spoils in US Policy in the Middle East

Current uprisings in the Middle East suggest a need for reform in US foreign policy, based in economic liberalism, to the exclusion of the needs of ordinary people. From the end of World War I to the present, the US has shaped a political economy in the Middle East, based on empowerment of patricians and oligarchies to develop a competitive edge over oil and oil-related industries. The geopolitics of US intervention has been based on forming binary categories of ‘allies’ and ‘foes’, to justify economic and political alliances, regardless of the histories behind the disenchantment of US presence in the Middle East. This has generated social conflict where people no longer seem to want to support the authoritarian regions which have allied with the US. These uprisings are a desperate call for democracy to end elitism, cronyism, and corruption—a reminder of the need to rethink inconsistent agendas and clandestine interventions which have destabilized the region for almost a century.

Los levantamientos actuales en el Medio Oriente sugieren una necesidad de reformar la política exterior de los E.E.U.U., en base al liberalismo económico, a la exclusión de las necesidades de la gente ordinaria. Desde el fin de la primera guerra mundial al presente, los E.E.U.U. han dado forma a una economía política en el Medio Oriente, en base al liberalismo económico, a la exclusión de las necesidades de la gente ordinaria. Desde el final de la primera guerra mundial a la actualidad, los E.E.U.U. han configurado una economía política en el Medio Oriente, basada en el empoderamiento de los patricios y las oligarquías para desarrollar una ventaja sobre la competencia en el petróleo e industrias relacionadas. La geopolítica de la intervención estadounidense se ha basado en la formación de categorías binarias de “aliados” y “enemigos”, para justificar alianzas económicas y políticas, no obstante las historias detrás del desencanto de la presencia de los E.E.U.U. en el Medio Oriente. Esto ha generado un conflicto social, en donde la gente ya no parece que quiera apoyar los regímenes autoritarios que se han aliado con los E.E.U.U. Estos levantamientos constituyen una llamada desesperada a la democracia para terminar con el elitismo, amiguismo y corrupción—un recordatorio de la necesidad de recapitular en las agendas inconsistentes e intervenciones clandestinas que han desestabilizado la región por cerca de un centenario.

中东当前的起义表明,建基于经济自由主义、将普通人的需要排除在外的美国外交政策需要改革。从一战结束至今,美国打造了中东的政治经济,它以授权贵族和寡头集团在石油及与石油相关工业领域中发展竞争性优势为基础。美国干预的地缘政治学一直是建立在形塑“盟友”和“敌人”的双重类别基础之上,以证明经济和政治同盟的正当性,而不管它迷恋于在中东维持存在背后的历史。这已经产生了社会冲突,在其中,人们似乎不再想支持已经与美国结成同盟的威权政体。这些起义是孤注一掷的民主吁求,以终结上流人士统治、任人唯亲和腐败——提醒人们需要重新思考前后不一的议程和暗中干预,这已使该地区动荡了近一个世纪。     

Defining the Nonprofit Sector: Some Lessons from History

This article seeks to establish whether the structural-operational definition of the sector, used by the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project (JHCNSP), is universal in its applicability. Historical case studies of primary health care and social housing provision in nineteenth-century England demonstrate that the definition cannot accommodate the institutional diversity of earlier periods and does not produce meaningful sectoral distinctions. The structural-operational definition rules out of the sector a significant proportion of nonstatutory, nonprofit maximizing providers. In particular, it excludes the mutual aid organizations, which are widely recognized as important for the development of civil society and which have historically been considered to be key components of the sector. These case studies suggest that the structural-operational definition limits the capacity of the JHCNSP to fulfil its aim of establishing the factors that promote or retard the sector's development owing to potential measurement errors and the pattern of development that the project implicitly assumes for the nonprofit sector.     

From advocacy to service provision: state transformation and the disability rights movement in Taiwan

This research uses the development of the disability rights movement in Taiwan as a case study to analyze the impact of state transformation, in particular marketization of social welfare policy, on the disability rights movement. First, the institutionalization of the disability rights movement enabled it to expand its organizational structure and become involved in shaping policy. Secondly, when disability rights organizations started to undertake state-funded projects, their focus shifted from advocacy to service provision. Thirdly, competition for limited state-funding gave the organizations led by urban-middle class advocates a significant advantage over small, community-based NPOs and gathered significantly greater resources. Finally, this paper suggests that, in a context in which the state did not provide basic social services for its citizens with disabilities, the institutionalization of SMOs turned advocacy groups into service providers. Although the number of disability civic organizations increased, the voices of advocacy groups were weakened.     

The Division of Labour and Inequalities Between the Sexes: An Ideological Dilemma

This article is concerned with the different assumptions and strategies that respondents in the banking sector and the police force use to account for the existence of inequalities between men and women. We search for a perspective that can theorize the different ways in which these employees deal with the existence of inequalities. We examine conceptualizations of the division of labour and of inequalities between the sexes in mainstream organization studies and in liberal, socialist and postmodernist feminist perspectives to organization studies. While these different perspectives highlight different types and causes of inequalities, no perspective can make sense of all the organizational practices in the banks and the police force. We are of the opinion that Billig's concept of ideological dilemmas offers a fruitful starting point to reflect upon the simultaneous existence of the different concepts and provides a valuable framework for our research. It sheds light on the ideological nature of theories, analyses how people think and argue with ideology by bringing in contrary and conflicting notions and opens the possibility of engaging in open dialogue about strategies for change.     

“America Will Not Tolerate Slave Traders”: Counter-Trafficking Policies and US Power

The US government has implemented an ambitious set of policies designed to combat human trafficking and sex trafficking in women and girls in particular. This article argues that anti-trafficking discourse and policy can be understood as a project to sustain and strengthen US power. This power has been wielded through the use of foreign aid, which influences the actions of both state and non-state actors overseas. Existing policies reinforce unilateralism and executive-branch dominance. Policymakers have also used gender strategically to moralize their actions and assert global leadership on this issue. Gender is thus deployed to serve US interests.     

Invisible Barricades: Civil Society and the Discourse of the WTO

Concerns about the legitimacy and accountability of international institutions have prompted a sizable literature on the potential of civil society to help democratize global economic governance. Attention has primarily focused on the institutional factors impacting civil society participation in global governance. In this article, however, I point to the existence of yet more fundamental barriers operating at the level of discourse. I use critical discourse analysis (CDA) to analyze the discourse of the World Trade Organization (WTO), focusing on a key text in which it attempts to engage directly with the concerns of civil society, supported by a broad range of additional data sources, including documentary materials, interviews, and observation. Drawing on the case of the WTO, I argue that the discourse of global governance institutions can itself act as an ‘invisible barricade’, preventing the meaningful inclusion of civil society in policy debates and deliberations.     

The classing gaze and its gendering effects: (dis)‐respectability,emotional (in)‐competency,and the counselling experiences of domestically violent Taiwanese men

Research on domestically violent men typically takes an oppositional logic of gender. While the significance of class in researching domestically violent men is identified, class and gender are often treated as separate entities that do not complicate each other. Drawing upon group observations and in‐depth interviews, this paper identifies how intersections of class and gender manifest in the counselling experiences of domestically violent Taiwanese men. From a Bourdieusian feminist analysis, the authors analyse (1) how class distinctions serve to (re)produce gendered hierarchy; (2) how contradictory experiences of gender reveal a relational understanding of class; and (3) how the gendered nature of domestically violent men is inscribed with a meaning of (working) class specificity for maintaining middle‐class ‘purity’. In analysing men's multiple and conflicting experiences, this paper contributes to research on domestically violent men by showing how class and gender are actively constructed and not produced in a monolithic/invariant way.