Antipolitics and Counterpolitics in Nepal’s Civil Society: The Case of Nepal’s Citizens’ Movement

This article considers the relationship of civil society to the domain of the political from the actors’ perspectives. It explores the attempt by a citizens’ movement (CMDP) in Nepal to construct new political realities in the context of the autocratic regime of king Gyanendra and then during the democratic transition. This was, paradoxically, to be achieved through the construction of an apolitical space. Theoretically, this production of apoliticality by civil society actors shows that civil society is not only implicated in the expansion of what is understood as ‘political’ but also in setting its boundaries. The broader aims of the article are to contribute to the ethnography of civil society and to add to current understandings of the relationship of actually existing civil societies to the political domain. Practically, it argues that debates over whether civil society is or is not political in the Nepal case and normative positions within development circles that it should not be political are misconceived since civil society is a site for the production of both politicality and apoliticality.     

The Third Sector and Civil Society: The Case of the “YES” Campaign in Northern Ireland

The recent attention on civil society has brought new focus to the third sector. This welcomed attention accentuates the need to specify the role of the third sector in promoting civil society, generally, and in promoting democratic civil society, specifically. This paper describes and examines the YES Campaign that had roots in the third sector of Northern Ireland and which conducted a nonpartisan campaign to win approval for the Belfast Agreement of April 1998. The case of the YES Campaign illustrates some direct and intentional roles of third sector organizations in promoting a more democratic civil society, and offers a basis for further study of these roles.     

Colonialism and Civil Society in Africa: The Perspective of Ekeh’s Two Publics

Although it has gained wide currency in the analysis of African politics, civil society remains a “mysterious” concept in need of proper grounding and understanding as an integral part of African social formation. This paper argues that one of the widely acclaimed canonical works in African studies, Peter Ekeh’s theory of colonialism and the two publics in Africa provides one of the most original perspectives for locating and understanding the character of modern civil society as a product of colonialism. In particular, the theory provides an explanation for why primordial attachments have remained fundamental to the structuration of civil society and why state–civil society relations have largely been fractured, instrumentalist, and dialectical in the post-colonial period.

Analysing State–Civil Society Associations Relationship: The Case of Lebanon

Civil society organizations in Lebanon have a long history, pre-dating even the existence of the Lebanese state itself, which has directly shaped their major phases of development since its creation. Based on the social origins theory and using the framework developed by Marchetti and Tocci (Peace Secur Former Pac Rev Peace Secur Glob Chang 21:201–217, 2009), this paper analyses the relationships that have developed between the state and civil society organizations in Lebanon. The main argument presented in this paper is that the scope of work of civil society organizations, in addition to their freedom of action, is directly linked to the social, political and economic development of the state. The main conclusion of this paper is that a new social contract should be forged between associations and the state in Lebanon, one that would allow them to carry out their functions properly.     

The World Bank,INGOs, and Civil Society: Converging Agendas? The Case of Universal Basic Education in Niger

This paper explores, through a case study of the World Bank's pursuit of universal basic education, the gulf between the Bank's dialogue with international civil society elites and its treatment of grassroots civil society in its development practice. It argues that the World Bank is pursuing a conscious program to build a global elite governance system similar to Bank vice-president J. F. Rischard's concept of global issues networks, in which experts from business, government, and civil society will set globally binding social and economic policies. There is a risk of co-optation of international NGOs into this autocratic global managerial system.     

The Formality of Informal Civil Society: Ukraine’s EuroMaidan

Over a period of three months, starting in late 2013, Ukraine experienced a remarkable civic transformation. What started as peaceful protests largely consisting of young idealists, grew quickly into an organized yet decentralized social movement, a conglomeration of semi-formal initiatives, and a loosely defined network of related formal and informal organizations—a process that ultimately prompted significant political and social changes in Ukraine. This paper offers three case studies related to EuroMaidan to provide insight into the formal and informal dimensions of civil society, contrasting those with official designations. The discussion contributes to the long-debated question of the strength or weakness of civil society in the context of Eastern Europe and suggests directions for future research with regard to the conceptualization of civil society and our understanding of formality.     

The ‘New Institutionalism’ in Organization Theory: Bringing Society and Culture Back In

This investigation will discuss the emergence of an economistical perspective among the dominant approaches of organization theory in the United States since the inception of “organization studies” as an academic discipline. It maintains that Contingency theory, Resource Dependency theory, Population Ecology theory, and Transaction Cost theory analyze predominantly for-profit organizations within the context of the current economic environment. It further holds that the political and cultural environments, as well as the role of communities, are widely neglected by the economistical perspective. The New Institutionalism departs from this line of thinking and offers an implicit critique. With this focus, this article addresses a sociology of knowledge theme and aims to account for this theoretical limitation by drawing on social developments in the American economy, in American politics, and in the academy. Finally, this study argues that the economization of organization studies is strongly supported by the increasing proliferation of American business schools. Here the science of organization studies has found its new institutional home.     

‘Indigenous Rights’ or ‘Racial Privileges’: The Rhetoric of ‘Race’ in New Zealand Politics

The New Zealand parliamentary election campaign of 2005 was marked by a significant break in the consensus between the two major political parties, Labour and National, in the area of Maori affairs: a consensus that had previously been articulated in terms of a shared commitment to ‘biculturalism’ and the Treaty of Waitangi. In January 2004, the National Party launched an attack on government policies, describing them as giving unfair privileges to Maori based purely on ‘race’. The present paper examines the National Party's adoption of the rhetoric of ‘race’ and the conceptual, political and ideological considerations behind it. It also examines attitudinal, social policy and socioeconomic factors to explain the widespread acceptability of this rhetoric among the New Zealand public. These events are considered within the context of a growing academic and political critique of ‘culturalism’ in New Zealand social policy and social science.     

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.     

Development Priorities in an Emerging Decentralized Economy: The Case of Armenia’s Local Development Programs

Based on a data set of 217 communities in Armenia, this paper studies the choice of priority directions in local development programs in the years 2003–2005. The scope of programs is presented and discussed relative to good practices in local development. It is shown that a disproportionately high share of programs is directed at improving local infrastructures, against the principles of good practices. Furthermore, the responsiveness to community needs of local development programs is explored for the case of drinking water infrastructure projects. This paper provides suggestive evidence for program responsiveness, which further increases with an increase in newspaper circulation in a community.     

Deriving Norms from ‘Global Space’: The Limits of Communicative Approaches to Global Civil Society Theorizing

This paper outlines the limits of the conception of ‘global space’ at the centre of attempts to establish the existence of certain communicative norms of ‘global civil society’. It particularly focuses on theoretically asserted claims made for an idealized global public sphere which are the basis upon which theoretical structures of communicative values and global norms are constituted. These, in turn, are used to inform normative critiques, from the standpoint of ‘global civil society’, which challenge present international practices. The concluding sections outline the limitations of this political project, highlighting the problematic, de-socialized, nature of these conceptions of ‘global space’; which, in lacking any mediating framework between the asserted ‘moral autonomy’ of actors in global civil society and the global norms allegedly derived from them, makes communicative global civil society theorizing innately conservative in character.

Este documento describe en forma general, los límites de la concepción del ‘espacio global’ al centro de los intentos para establecer la existencia de ciertas normas de comunicación de la ‘sociedad civil global’. Se enfoca particularmente en opiniones teóricamente acertadas, elaboradas para una esfera global pública idealizada que son la base sobre la cual se constituyen las estructuras teóricas de los valores de comunicación y normas globales. Estas, a su vez, se usan para informar sobre las críticas normativas desde el punto de vista de la ‘sociedad civil global’, que desafían a las normas internacionales actuales. Las secciones conclusivas describen en líneas generales, las limitaciones de este proyecto político destacando la naturaleza problemática y de falta de socialización del ‘espacio global’; el cual careciendo de algún marco mediador entre la ‘autonomía moral’ impuesta por actores en la sociedad civil global y las normas globales supuestamente derivadas de aquellas, hace que el método de comunicación al planteamiento teórico de la sociedad civil global, parezca, inherentemente, de carácter conservador.     

‘National Machineries’ and Authoritarian Politics

Abstract

Why do authoritarian states adopt ‘state feminist’ policies, and what are the effects of these initiatives? This article expands our understanding of state feminist institutions in non-democracies by examining the development of a women's national machinery in Cameroon. It argues that the Cameroonian state has adopted a national machinery because: (1) it provides low-cost international legitimacy; (2) it attracts international assistance; (3) this assistance fuels domestic patronage networks; and (4) the national machinery channels women's activism toward state-delineated projects and goals. These motives undercut its ability to promote women's advancement. National machineries in authoritarian contexts are not just plagued by technical problems and funding shortages but also by competing agendas within the state apparatus and a lack of a commitment by high-level government officials to improving women's status in society.     

Deliberate or Emancipate? Civil Society Participation in Trade Policy: The Case of the CARIFORUM–EU EPA

At both the multilateral and regional levels, there have been efforts to address the democratic deficit in trade negotiations. One such example is the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the European Union and African, Caribbean and Pacific group of countries where civil society participation was enshrined in the Cotonou Agreement. Yet, the CARIFORUM–EU EPA attracted much criticism from civil society. The paper argues that civil society failed to affect the outcome of the EPA because they participated in the process within a deliberative democratic framework which did not allow for emancipation or a challenge to global economic power and structural considerations in the negotiations; neither did it achieve citizen empowerment and ownership. We advocate the practice of participatory democracy in trade policy decision making—an ideal space for citizen participation—the former holding greater promise for influencing the trade policy agenda.     

Mainstreaming ‘gender’ and ‘integration’ needs in human development initiatives: Asian and African migrant women's integration in Europe

The current study examines the inclusion of ‘gender’ in the policies/legislation relating to the human development of women migrants (from Asian and African origins) and their impact on six determinants of migrant's gender ideology in two different European gender regimes: Germany and Sweden. The study is conducted in four stages: (1) thematic analysis of different conventions and recommendations of the UN, ILO, and EU, (2) latent analysis of selected policies/legislation, (3) survey of women migrants, and (4) expert interviews. Exposure to relatively egalitarian gender regimes through migration has brought positive changes in all determinants of the gender ideology of migrants, except domestic chores and caregiving responsibilities. Inclusion of a missing ‘gender’ perspective in relevant measures can expedite smooth integration of migrants, but lack of political commitment, scarcity of financial resources, the absence of gender experts, and lack of coordination between line ministries/agencies are salient barriers to its ‘inclusion’ in both countries.     

An Analysis of State–Civil Society Relations in Finland: A Case of Joensuu

Theoretical researches have argued that state–civil society relations differ from one country to another because of different economic, political, and socio-cultural factors. This article aims to show civil society’s role in the Finnish welfare state and how the state and the civil society affect each other in Joensuu, a 72,167 populated Finnish city. Joensuu case is analyzed from the theoretical perspectives of Esping-Andersen (The three worlds of welfare capitalism, 1990), Young (Nonprofit Volunt Sector Q 29:149–172, 2000), and Schofer and Fourcade-Gourinchas (Am Sociol Rev 66: 806–828, 2001) by taking into account interviews with 13 members of voluntary organizations in the city. In the light of the field work, the argument is based on the negative impact of welfare system’s transformation process on nongovernmental organizations in Joensuu, Finland.     

Tracking Transformations in Health Movement Organisations: Alzheimer's Disease Organisations and their Changing ‘Cause Regimes’

In this paper, we aim to contribute to the elaboration of a framework for the systematic periodisation of health social movement organisations (HSMOs). Drawing on historical and contemporaneous data on two organisations that identify as Alzheimer's disease movement organisations (the Alzheimer's Society in Britain and the Alzheimer Society of Ireland), we consider transformations in these organisations' ‘cause regimes’. By cause regime, we refer to who and what an HSMO is fighting for, as articulated in its public self-identifications; to the broader framing of the cause and to how organisations' public self-identifications of their cause can govern or regulate their operation, including their interactions with and representations of those on whose behalf they advocate. We show that the transformation of HSMOs' cause regime can give rise to a series of organisational tensions and challenges, including the alignment of the public identification of its cause with the patient identities it promotes, or its day-to-day ‘patient identity work’.     

The Limits of Black Politics in the Post–Civil Rights Era

Pluralist theorists have long contended that to exercise power and influence in the American political system, blacks should come together like any other organized interest group, form coalitions with other like-minded people (white liberals), and advocate for policy reforms. Beginning during the “Black Power” era, the goal of putting black faces in high places to help address black concerns became a driving force in black politics. The deteriorating social and economic status of many in the black community, however, has not been prevented by either the political incorporation of more than 11,000 black elected officials or even the election of the nation’s first black president. This article will show how the inherent limitations of the pluralist interest-group strategy and a growing white backlash fueled by an awareness of changing demographics in the country has spawned an economic and political crisis in black America.