Development NGOs: Actors in a Global Civil Society or in a New International Social System?

The international aid system forms a powerful structural force impacting organizational landscapes and civil societies all over the world in complex ways we do not yet understand. Dominant NGO research has failed to properly address this crucial issue, because of a conceptual, theoretical, and ideological tradition that is itself embedded in this very same system's normative, rhetorical agenda. This paper suggests some conceptual and theoretical approaches that should encourage more comparative research on the role of the development NGOs in shaping national and global civil societies     

Civil Society on Global Governance: Facing Up to Divergent Analysis, Strategy, and Tactics

This paper considers three different conceptualizations – three politico-ideological perspectives within civil society – on global-scale economics and geopolitics. The standpoints can be termed “Global justice movements,” “Third World nationalism,” and the “Post-Washington Consensus.” These three perspectives stand in contrast to the fusion of neoliberal economics and neoconservative politics that dominates the contemporary world. The three approaches sometimes converge, but more often than not they are in conflict; as are the civil society institutions that cohere to the three different political ideologies. From the three different analyses flow different strategies, concrete campaigning tactics, and varying choices of allies. The World Social Forum provides hints of a potentially unifying approach within the global justice movements based upon the practical themes of “decommodification” and “deglobalization” (of capital). It is, however, only by facing up to the ideological divergences that the global justice movement can enhance its presence.

Smooth Machinery: Global Governmentality and Civil Society HIV/AIDS Work in Rwanda

In recent years there has been a massive influx of aid to civil society HIV/AIDS work in Africa. Drawing on fieldwork in Rwanda, this article explores, through a governmentality perspective, the rationalities and technologies of government that accompany the new funding schemes. The paper feeds into contemporary debates on the relevance of governmentality studies in Africa and on the complicated relationship between state, civil society, and international donors in the particular context of Rwanda. Despite the country's known record of authoritarian politics, the paper argues that Rwandan civil society organizations are in fact largely subject to advanced liberal rule, rendering them responsible and active in their own government. This global governmentality, in turn, unfolds through a post-political machinery that effectively blurs boundaries between international donor, state, and civil society institutions. Ultimately, this means that researchers interested in resistance must be prepared to extend their visual field considerably.     

Inclusive Water Governance: a Global Necessity. Lessons from India

Efficient water management has emerged as a critical challenge of environmental protection and human security in the twenty-first century. Lack of water management affects the hydrological cycle of the earth, leading to a major influence on the livelihood of the people. This paper reviews the enhanced role of IWRM in water management. It discusses the functioning of Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) as a global approach to overcome the challenge(s) regarding the efficient management of water. Further, the paper argues for ‘inclusive water governance’ developed at the local level as against IWRM developed at the global level. The paper emphasizes on the approach of inclusive water governance as a practical solution to address the water management crisis in India, in particular, and developing countries, in general. Inclusive water governance is sensitive to equitable access to water, as a human right, and also to sustainability of water, as an important resource.

The Role of Philanthropic Funding in Building Research Evidence to Support an Aging Population: A Case Study from Ireland

This case study examines the role of philanthropic funding in building capacity for aging research in Ireland, and how this investment has addressed the lack of evidence to support planning for an aging population. The funding has supported a range of initiatives including the national longitudinal study on aging (TILDA), the creation of three professorships/chairs, and the establishment of four new research centers. Important potential outcomes are emerging across other domains including research-informed policy development and the generation of health benefits. The efforts of academic researchers to ensure that their findings are readily accessible to end users and to forge robust working relationships with all stakeholders have helped to enhance the use of research findings. Overall, philanthropy has played a pivotal role in building capacity, infrastructure, and expertise in academic settings in Ireland. Moreover, this work provides an excellent example of how such efforts can begin to inform effective planning and service provision.     

Decolonizing Sociology Through Collaboration,Co-Learning and Action: A Case for Participatory Action Research1

Despite important efforts by postcolonial scholars to “decolonize” sociology, this endeavor remains limited by the scaffolding of empirical research, or the institutionalized practices and beliefs embedded within data collection and researchers' relationship to research subjects. In its current form, this scaffolding excludes “subaltern” voices from critiquing and extending sociological theory, deriving benefits from the study, or informing social actions that stem from the research. This limits the field's understanding of the multi-faceted impacts of colonialism and retrenches inequalities between scholars and participants. Participatory Action Research (PAR) offers an alternative, decolonial infrastructure. PAR acknowledges the value of knowledge from the periphery and calls for (1) the participation of marginalized research populations in each step of the research process; (2) co-learning between researchers and participants; and (3) collaborative social action that centers the needs of marginalized research populations. Drawing on a case study of PAR in Rio de Janeiro, I demonstrate how PAR allows sociologists, in partnership with historically colonized groups, to decolonize sociology not only in theory, but in the concrete practices of empirical research.     

Harnessing civil society's knowledge for development policy: Potential and challenges for the Republic of Yemen

This exploratory case study investigated Yemeni civil society actors’ actual and potential contribution to policy‐making, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, in the sectors prioritized in Yemen's national development strategy. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted in Sana'a between January and July 2015 with policy‐makers, researchers from academic institutions and civil society organizations. More specifically, this article discusses the role that YPRIs play in the public policy landscape of Yemen; the challenges they face in their interaction with policy‐makers; the opportunities they represent for policy actors in Yemen; and the factors enabling and limiting their influence, communication, inclusiveness and capacity. The authors conclude by contextualizing their findings within the ongoing conflict and drawing lessons for post‐war policy‐making in Yemen.     

Transnational Social Movements,Civil Society,and a Secret State: The Idea of a Nuclear-free World through Israel's Vanunu Affair

Studies on transnational social movements in world risk society tend to emphasize their centrality and effectiveness as the result of two major transformations: the decline of the nation-state as a primary locus of power and sovereignty, and the rise of assertive civil societies' subpolitics. Drawing on the ‘Vanunu affair’ (the Israeli technician who was sentenced to eighteen years in prison for making public Israel's nuclear secrets), and the reactions it elicited at the local and global levels, the article analyzes the obstacles that may prevent the effective influence of anti-nuclear transnational social movements, and their difficulties in contributing to global framing. These obstacles are related mainly to the cultural politics of a ‘secret state’ that constructs national sovereignty, and mobilizes the local civil society, by means of nuclear secrecy and opacity.     

基于管理者视角的区域城市品牌结构研究——以广东为例

同一区域内的城市之间既存在广泛的竞争,也天然要求彼此间的合作发展。城市品牌日益成为城市间竞争的首选工具。城市品牌的发展既需要广泛的营销推广,更需要扎实的品牌基础建设工作。本文从城市管理者的视角出发,以广东省21个地级以上城市为例,构建了城市品牌建设综合水平评价指标体系,进行了区域内不同层级的城市品牌结构分析,并在此基础上提出了促进城市间良好竞合发展格局的城市品牌发展战略对策。     

Education,Research and Innovation for Sustainable Development: a Review of the G8–Unesco Forum

The G8–Unesco World Forum recently held in Trieste examined the relationship between knowledge and sustainable development, focusing on the gap between industrialised and developing countries. In reviewing the proceedings, I provide some comments on the issue of turning the broad ideas discussed during the Forum into concrete actions. Despite being the Forum largely interdisciplinary, important aspects of knowledge were not explicitly considered, namely, humanities and social sciences, as well as indigenous knowledge. The focus on research in “hard” sciences did permit a thorough discussion of a number of crucial issues but found its limits when ideas had to turn into actions. This is particularly important for sustainable development, when community involvement at regional and local levels is key in obtaining feasible solutions. In order to help promote knowledge creation and dissemination in practice, this paper will concentrate on highlighting a common ground of agreement, from different perspectives, and what ought to be done in future for promoting a better match between all knowledge components and sustainable development.      

The Challenge of Partnerships Between the State,Capital, and Civil Society: The Case of the Media Development and Diversity Agency in South Africa

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Inspired by “extra-market” initiatives to ensure media diversity in social-demo- cratic Northern Europe, the...     

Global Norms vs. Global Actors: International Politics,Muslim Identity,and Support for Shariʿa

Many scholars argue that local cultures are an impediment to the diffusion of “global” norms. Others point out that local populations domesticate global cultural elements by integrating them into preexisting cultures, generating hybridized systems. In the current study, I argue that local cultures are not necessarily impediments to cultural change and hybridization is only one aspect of cultural domestication. Instead, I find that individuals attribute global norms to local cultural objects as a means for disassociating putatively universal norms from the powerful actors that dominate international politics. I illustrate this process using the case of support for shari?a (sometimes called Islamic law) in majority‐Muslim countries. Results of multimethod analyses show that with the exception of attitudes about gender roles and sexuality, Muslims who support implementing shari?a do not systematically object to many so‐called global norms; in fact, they may express more enthusiasm about democracy, tolerance for people of other religions, optimism about scientific advances, and concern for environmental preservation than those who oppose implementing shari?a. Likewise, many Muslims assert their full participation in global society on terms not dictated by Western actors by repackaging ostensibly universal norms as components of the unambiguously local shari?a.     

A Civil Religion for World Society: The Direct and Diffuse Effects of Human Rights Treaties, 1981–20071

Much research has concluded that human rights treaties have a null or negative effect on governments’ human rights practices. This article reexamines the influence of human rights treaties, with a focus on two kinds of treaty effects: direct—the effect of treaties on the countries that ratified them; and diffuse—the effect of treaties on countries regardless of ratification. My analysis of two prominent human rights treaties finds that they often reduce levels of repression and abuse over time and independently of ratification. Some of these effects are nonlinear, reversing direction as time elapses or as more countries become party to the treaties. These findings are interpreted with reference to world polity institutionalism in sociology, and especially the “Durkheimian” strains of this approach. Human rights norms as embodied in treaties operate as a kind of civil religion for world society. These norms not only have long‐term direct effects among countries that ritualistically ratify human rights treaties, but they also diffusely impact countries irrespective of formal endorsement.     

A Case Study Using Photovoice to Explore Racial and Social Identity Among Young Black Men: Implications for Social Work Research and Practice

This article describes an exploratory qualitative case study using a research method novel to social work known as Photovoice. This case study of the Photovoice process assesses its value as a community-based participatory research (CBPR) method with marginalized communities within social work research. Photovoice was used to engage young Black men as researchers into their own lived experience. Through a photographic and group participatory project, participants discussed how intersections of race, gender, and sexuality affect their lives and health. While this methodology has proliferated within public health literature, little research exists within social work. Photovoice represents a research well-aligned with core social work values of empowerment and social justice. This method offers our profession a participatory, action-oriented tool to inform practice and policy and does so in the voices of communities who often go unheard.     

A Review and Application of Existing Theories in Neighborhood Research: Toward a Model for Social Work Practice

The application of existing theory in regard to assessing and addressing neighborhoods from a social work perspective is largely unexplored. Current theories informing neighborhood-level interventions draw little on social work literature. The purpose of this paper is to explore literature from varied fields to assess their utility and inform neighborhood-level intervention methods for social workers. Examining neighborhood theory from all fields and comparing it to those most commonly used in social work is helpful to understanding how practitioners can advance this work and research.     

Towards a generic sustainable urban transport strategy for middle-sized cities in Asia: Lessons from Ningbo, Kanpur and Solo

Almost 10 years ago the World Bank and UNDP expressed grave concerns about the likely future adverse impact of motorization on middle-sized cities in Asia and the Pacific region.¹ They claimed that, while many mega and primary cities in the region have an acknowledged transport crisis that has attracted major planning efforts, and extensive large-scale investment, the middle-sized cities (with only a fraction of the resources available to them) remain neglected and as result will reach their own crisis points unless effective policies are developed and implemented. Both agencies argued that catching the problems at an early stage would offer the advantage of developing a more systematic approach to tackling problems associated with unabated motorization and the opportunity to develop a generic method that could be applied to many medium-sized cities throughout the region. With this in mind, the World Bank, through UNDP and ESCAP, completed a study in 1998 directed by the author which sought to establish what generic strategic steps should be taken to prepare proactive measures to confront the challenges that motorization poses for such cities. The study drew extensively on the urban development and motorization experiences of three middle-sized cities in Asia—Kanpur in India, Ningbo in China and Solo in Indonesia—and recommended building blocks of a generic sustainable transport strategy for the region. Seven years on from the completion of this study, this paper examines the validity of the original motorization fears, re-examines the study's key findings and recommendations, and concludes that many still have resonance today.     

Space,People, Interventions and Time (SPIT): A Model for Understanding Children's Outdoor Play in Post‐Disaster Contexts Based On a Case Study from the Triple Disaster Area of Tohoku in North‐East Japan

Play in the outdoor environment is important for children as part of their childhood and is particularly important for children in a post‐disaster situation. This article explores issues around outdoor play opportunities in the Tohoku region of north‐east Japan, 13 months after the triple disaster of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear power plant failure. A model of space, people, interventions and time (SPIT) is used to understand the situation in this unique case study.