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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political activism > Non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
The JDC at 100: A Century of Humanitarianism traces the history of
the JDC-an organization founded to aid victims of World War I that
has played a significant role in preserving and sustaining Jewish
life across the globe. The thirteen essays in this volume, edited
by Avinoam Patt, Atina Grossmann, Linda G. Levi, and Maud S.
Mandel, reflect critically on the organization's transformative
impact on Jewish communities throughout the world, covering topics
such as aid for refugees from National Socialism in Cuba, Shanghai,
Tehran, the Dominican Republic, France, Belgium, and Australia;
assistance to Holocaust survivors in Displaced Persons camps for
rebuilding and emigration; and assistance in Rome and Vienna to
Soviet Jewish transmigrants in the 1970s. Despite the sustained
transnational humanitarian work of this pioneering non-governmental
organization, scholars have published surprisingly little devoted
to the history and remarkable accomplishments of the JDC, nor have
they comprehensively explored the JDC's role on the ground in many
regions and cultures. This volume seeks to address those gaps not
only by assessing the widespread impact of the JDC but also by
showcasing the richness and depth of the JDC Archives as a resource
for examining modern Jewish history in global context. The JDC at
100 is addressed to scholars and students of humanitarian aid,
conflict, displacement, and immigration, primarily in Jewish,
European, and American history. It will also appeal to readers with
a more general interest in Jewish studies and refugee studies,
Holocaust museum professionals, and those engaged in Jewish and
other relief and resettlement programs.
Ambitious humanitarian military, economic and social interventions,
undertaken by Western actors acting in defence of liberal values,
have today become indelible features of Africa's engagement with
the world. Yet the continent's long, complex historical
relationship with Western humanitarian intervention, dating back to
the origins of imperial engagement with the continent, is often
overlooked in the study of contemporary African security and
development issues. This volume responds to a need for greater
historical grounding in the study of humanitarian intervention, by
bringing together a wide and interdisciplinary range of
contributors who explore the history, theory, and practice of
humanitarian intervention in Africa. In doing so, it traces
continuities in the discourse and practice of the concept as it
evolved from the colonial past to the present, and argues that the
West's colonial relationship with Africa is crucial for better
understanding humanitarian intervention and how the legacies of
colonialism continue to impact emerging international policy.
What does it take for warnings about violent conflict and war to be
listened to, believed and acted upon? Why are warnings from some
sources noticed and largely accepted, while others are ignored or
disbelieved? These questions are central to considering the
feasibility of preventing harm to the economic and security
interests of states. Challenging conventional accounts that tend to
blame decision-makers' lack of receptivity and political will, the
authors offer a new theoretical framework explaining how distinct
'paths of persuasion' are shaped by a select number of factors,
including conflict characteristics, political contexts, and
source-recipient relations. This is the first study to
systematically integrate persuasion attempts by analysts, diplomats
and senior officials with those by journalists and NGO staff. Its
ambitious comparative design encompasses three states (the US, UK,
and Germany) and international organisations (the UN, EU, and OSCE)
and looks in depth at four conflict cases: Rwanda (1994), Darfur
(2003), Georgia (2008) and Ukraine (2014).
Responding Effectively to humanitarian disasters is far from
straightforward, and relief workers often find themselves in a
world of uncoordinated , highly competitive agencies working with
cross-cutting purposes. Managing Humanitarian Relief is aimed at
relief workers charged with putting together a programme of action
to help people in extreme crisis. It provides humanitarian relief
managers with a single comprehensive reference for all the
management issues they are likely to encounter in the field. The
book is organized in two parts. First, it provides an outline of
different relief programming sectors: food and nutrition, health,
water and sanitations, and shelter. Second, it presents 20 separate
management topics that are essential for overseeing programmes.
It's easy-to-use format includes checklists, tables, diagrams,
sample forms, and no-nonsense tips from practitioners to help
readers in emergency situations.
The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) is one of Africa's most notorious
armed rebel groups, having operated across Uganda, South Sudan,
Sudan, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of
the Congo. When they entered the Juba Peace Talks with the Ugandan
Government in 2006, the peace deal seemed like a gift to fighters
who had for years barely been surviving in Central Africa's
jungles. Yet the talks failed. Why? Based on exclusive interviews
with LRA fighters and their notorious leader Joseph Kony, Mareike
Schomerus provides insights into how the LRA experienced the Juba
Talks, revealing developing dynamics and deep distrust within a
conflict system and how these became entrenched through the peace
negotiations. In so doing, Schomerus offers an explanation as to
why current approaches to ending armed violence not only fail but
how they actively contribute to their own failure, and calls for a
new approach to contemporary peacemaking.
Parishes are the missing middle in studies of American Catholicism.
Between individual Catholics and a global institution, the
thousands of local parishes are where Catholicism gets remade.
American Parishes showcases what social forces shape parishes, what
parishes do, how they do it, and what this says about the future of
Catholicism in the United States. Expounding an embedded field
approach, this book displays the numerous forces currently
reshaping American parishes. It draws from sociology of religion,
culture, organizations, and race to illuminate basic parish
processes, like leadership and education, and ongoing parish
struggles like conflict and multiculturalism. American Parishes
brings together contemporary data, methods, and questions to
establish a sociological re-engagement with Catholic parishes and a
Catholic re-engagement with sociological analysis. Contributions by
leading social scientists highlight how community, geography, and
authority intersect within parishes. It illuminates and analyzes
how growing racial diversity, an aging religious population, and
neighborhood change affect the inner workings of parishes.
Contributors: Gary J. Adler Jr., Nancy Ammerman, Mary Jo Bane,
Tricia C. Bruce, John A. Coleman, S.J., Kathleen Garces-Foley, Mary
Gray, Brett Hoover, Courtney Ann Irby, Tia Noelle Pratt, and Brian
Starks
Seeking to understand why host states treat migrants and refugees
inclusively, exclusively, or without any direct engagement, Kelsey
P. Norman offers this original, comparative analysis of the
politics of asylum seeking and migration in the Middle East and
North Africa. While current classifications of migrant and refugee
engagement in the Global South mistake the absence of formal policy
and law for neglect, Reluctant Reception proposes the concept of
'strategic indifference', where states proclaim to be indifferent
toward migrants and refugees, thereby inviting international
organizations and local NGOs to step in and provide services on the
state's behalf. Using the cases of Egypt, Morocco and Turkey to
develop her theory of 'strategic indifference', Norman demonstrates
how, by allowing migrants and refugees to integrate locally into
large informal economies, and by allowing organizations to provide
basic services, host countries receive international credibility
while only exerting minimal state resources.
Implementing Inequality argues that the international development
industry’s internal dynamics—between international and national
staff, and among policy makers, administrators, and
implementers—shape interventions and their outcomes as much as do
the external dynamics of global political economy. Through an
ethnographic study in postwar Angola, the book demonstrates how the
industry’s internal social pressures guide development’s
methods and goals, introducing the innovative concept of the
development implementariat: those in-country workers, largely but
not exclusively “local†staff members, charged with carrying
out development’s policy prescriptions. The implementariat is
central to the development endeavor but remains overlooked and
under-supported as most of its work is deeply social, interactive,
and relational, the kind of work that receives less recognition and
support than it deserves at every echelon of the industry. If
international development is to meet its larger purpose, it must
first address its internal inequalities of work and professional
class. Â
The Hidden Hands of Justice: NGOs, Human Rights, and International
Courts is the first comprehensive analysis of non-governmental
organization (NGO) participation at international criminal and
human rights courts. Drawing on original data, Heidi Nichols Haddad
maps and explains the differences in NGO participatory roles,
frequency, and impact at three judicial institutions: the European
Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Human Rights System, and
the International Criminal Court. The Hidden Hands of Justice
demonstrates that courts can strategically choose to enhance their
functionality by allowing NGOs to provide needed information,
expertise, and services as well as shame states for
non-cooperation. Through participation, NGOs can profoundly shape
the character of international human rights justice, but in doing
so, may consolidate civil society representation and relinquish
their roles as external monitors.
In 2015, students at the University of Cape Town used the slogan
#RhodesMustFall to demand that a monument of Cecil John Rhodes, the
empire builder of British South Africa, be removed from the
university campus. Soon students at Oxford University called for
the removal of a statue of Rhodes from Oriel College. The radical
idea of decolonization at the forefront of these student protests
continues to be a key element in South African educational
institutions as well as those in Europe and North America. This
book explores the uptake of decolonization in the institutional
curriculum, given the political demands for decolonization on South
African campuses, and the generally positive reception of the idea
by university leaders. Based on interviews with more than two
hundred academic teachers at ten universities, this is an
innovative account of how institutions have engaged with,
subverted, and transformed the decolonization movement since
#RhodesMustFall.
The global economic crisis continue to dominate headlines, yet
measures to build a social floor under the global economy and
reform global governance have received little attention. In 2012
the Social Protection Floor was adopted as a global social policy
measure ensuring that all could have access to essential health
care and income security over their lifespan. This book by the
world's leading authority on global social policy examines why and
how the Social Protection Floor became ILO, UN and G20 policy and
how the World Bank and IMF took steps to lay its foundation. Bob
Deacon explains this development in terms of four influences:
firstly, shifts in the global social structure, secondly, processes
inside international institutions, thirdly, global actors
-sometimes individuals - using their positions to make change, and
fourthly, shifting discourses about social protection. This
much-needed contribution to the field of global social policy will
be of interest to students of international relations,
international organization and development studies and should be
read by international civil servants in global agencies.
How and why NGOs are increasingly taking independent and direct
action in global law enforcement, from human rights to the
environment Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have generally
served as advocates and service providers, leaving enforcement to
states. Now, NGOs are increasingly acting as private police,
prosecutors, and intelligence agencies in enforcing international
law. NGOs today can be found investigating and gathering evidence;
suing and prosecuting governments, companies, and individuals; and
even catching lawbreakers red-handed. Examining this trend,
Vigilantes beyond Borders considers why some transnational groups
have opted to become enforcers of international law regarding such
issues as human rights, the environment, and corruption, while
others have not. Three factors explain the rise of vigilante
enforcement: demand, supply, and competition. Governments commit to
more international laws, but do a poor job of policing them,
leaving a gap and creating demand. Legal and technological changes
make it easier for nonstate actors to supply enforcement, as in the
instances of NGOs that have standing to use domestic and
international courts, or smaller NGOs that employ satellite
imagery, big data analysis, and forensic computing. As the growing
number of NGOs vie for limited funding and media attention,
smaller, more marginal, groups often adopt radical strategies like
enforcement. Looking at the workings of major organizations,
including Amnesty International, Greenpeace, and Transparency
International, as well as smaller players, such as Global Witness,
the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, and Bellingcat, Vigilantes
beyond Borders explores the causes and consequences of a novel,
provocative approach to global governance.
The regulation of civil society provides the framework under which
those organisations can most effectively provide services in
education, health, social services, housing, development aid and so
on. Civil Society in Europe identifies common principles of civil
society law in two ways. First, the approaches of the Council of
Europe and the European Union are explored. Next, civil society
regulation in twelve domestic legal systems are investigated on a
broad range of substantive areas of law including internal
organisation, registration, external supervision, public benefit
organisations and international activities. From these, the authors
distill a set of minimum norms and optimal conditions under which
civil society can deliver its aims most effectively. This book is
essential reading for policymakers and legislators across Europe
and beyond.
In the economics of everyday life, even ethnicity has become a
potential resource to be tapped, generating new sources of profit
and power, new ways of being social, and new visions of the future.
Throughout Africa, ethnic corporations have been repurposed to do
business in mining or tourism; in the USA, Native American
groupings have expanded their involvement in gaming, design, and
other industries; and all over the world, the commodification of
culture has sown itself deeply into the domains of everything from
medicine to fashion. Ethnic groups increasingly seek empowerment by
formally incorporating themselves, by deploying their sovereign
status for material ends, and by copyrighting their cultural
practices as intellectual property. Building on ethnographic case
studies from Kenya, Nepal, Peru, Russia, and many other countries,
this collection poses the question: Does the turn to the
incorporation and commodification of ethnicity really herald a new
historical moment in the global politics of identity?
Revolutionize meetings! Over 20,000 copies sold - the easy-to-use
guide for running democratic meetings of any size The key to
promoting true democracy in meetings is clear, easy-to-understand
rules of order that support the right of each member to participate
fully and equally, and the right of the majority to make decisions
while respecting minority rights. An alternative to Robert's Rules
of Order and other complicated and unwieldy guides, Democratic
Rules of Order is the guide for the rest of us. It lays out clear,
concise, easy-to-use rules for governing meetings from clubs and
non profits to formal meetings. Benefits include: A complete set of
laws for governing meetings Can be read in an hour Plain language,
free of complex protocol and jargon to enable equal and efficient
participation Tested and honed through thousands of successful
meetings Adoptable as the official rules of order for meetings of
any size Allows informality, including decisions by consensus, but
ensures formality when needed A sample meeting that uses all the
rules plus answers to 31 common questions. Now in its tenth
edition, and with over 20,000 copies sold, Democratic Rules of
Order will produce fair, efficient, and harmonious decisions in
meetings of any size or complexity.
This book provides a historical account of the NGO CARE as one of
the largest humanitarian NGOs worldwide from 1945 to 1980. Readers
interested in international relations and humanitarian hunger
prevention are provided with fascinating insights into the economic
and business related aspects of Western non-governmental politics,
fundraising and philanthropic giving in this field. Not only does
the book contributes to ongoing research about the rise of NGOs in
the international realm, it also offers very rich empirical
material on the political implications of private and governmental
international aid in a world marked by the order of the Cold War,
decolonialization processes and the struggle of so called "Third
World Countries" to catch up with modern Western consumer
societies. This book is relevant to both United Nations Sustainable
Development Goals 1, No poverty and 2, Zero hunger -- .
Received wisdom suggests that social organizations (such as
non-government organizations, NGOs) have the power to upend the
political status quo. However, in many authoritarian contexts, such
as China, NGO emergence has not resulted in this expected regime
change. In this book, Timothy Hildebrandt shows how NGOs adapt to
the changing interests of central and local governments, working in
service of the state to address social problems. In doing so, the
nature of NGO emergence in China effectively strengthens the state,
rather than weakens it. This book offers a groundbreaking
comparative analysis of Chinese social organizations across the
country in three different issue areas: environmental protection,
HIV/AIDS prevention, and gay and lesbian rights. It suggests a new
way of thinking about state society relations in authoritarian
countries, one that is distinctly co-dependent in nature:
governments require the assistance of NGOs to govern while NGOs
need governments to extend political, economic, and personal
opportunities to exist."
NGOs set out to save lives, relieve suffering, and service basic
human needs. They are committed to serving people across national
borders and without regard to race, ethnicity, gender, or religion,
and they offer crucial help during earthquakes, tsunamis, wars, and
pandemics. But with so many ailing areas in need of assistance, how
do these organizations decide where to go--and who gets the aid?
In" The Good Project," Monika Krause dives into the intricacies of
the decision-making process at NGOs and uncovers a basic truth: It
may be the case that relief agencies try to help people but, in
practical terms, the main focus of their work is to produce
projects. Agencies sell projects to key institutional donors, and
in the process the project and its beneficiaries become
commodities. In an effort to guarantee a successful project,
organizations are incentivized to help those who are easy to help,
while those who are hardest to help often receive no assistance at
all. The poorest of the world are made to compete against each
other to become projects--and in exchange they offer legitimacy to
aid agencies and donor governments. Sure to be controversial, "The
Good Project" offers a provocative new perspective on how NGOs
succeed and fail on a local and global level.
In late twentieth century Mexico, the NGO boom was hailed as an
harbinger of social change and democratic transition, with NGOs
poised to transform the relationship between states and civil
society on a global scale. And yet, great as the expectations were
for NGOs to empower the poor and disenfranchised, their work is
rooted in much older civic and cultural traditions. Arguably, they
are just as much an accomplice in neoliberal governance. Analiese
Richard seeks to determine what the growth of NGOs means for the
future of citizenship and activism in neoliberal democracies, where
a widening chasm between rich and poor threatens democratic ideals
and institutions. Analyzing the growth of NGOs in Tulancingo,
Hidalgo, from the 1970s to the present, The Unsettled Sector
explores the NGOs' evolving network of relationships with donors,
target communities, international partners, state agencies, and
political actors. It reaches beyond the campesinos and farmlands of
Tulancingo to make sense of the NGO as an institutional form.
Richard argues that only if we see NGOs as they are-bridges between
formal politics and public morality-can we understand the
opportunities and limits for social solidarity and citizenship in
an era of neoliberal retrenchment.
As China becomes increasingly integrated into the global system
there will be continuing pressure to acknowledge and engage with
non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Suffice to say, without a
clear understanding of the state's interaction with NGOs, and vice
versa, any political, economic and social analysis of China will be
incomplete. This book provides an urgent insight into contemporary
state-NGO relations. It brings together the most recent research
covering three broad themes, namely the conceptualizations and
subsequent functions of NGOs; state-NGO engagement; and NGOs as a
mediator between state and society in contemporary China. The book
provides a future glimpse into the challenges of state-NGO
interactions in China's rapidly developing regions, which will aid
NGOs strategic planning in both the short- and long-term. In
addition, it allows a measure of predictability in our assessment
of Chinese NGOs behaviour, notably when they eventually move their
areas of operation from the domestic sphere to an international
one. The salient themes, concepts, theories and practice discussed
in this book will be of acute interest to students, scholars and
practitioners in development studies, public administration, and
Chinese and Asian politics. Reza Hasmath is a Lecturer in Chinese
Politics at the University of Oxford, UK, and an Associate
Professor in Political Science at the University of Alberta,
Canada. His research looks at state-society relationships, the
labour market experiences of ethnic minorities, and development
theories and practices. Jennifer Y.J. Hsu is an Assistant Professor
in Political Science at the University of Alberta, Canada. Her
recent publications include a co-authored book HIV/AIDS in China:
The Economic and Social Determinants (Routledge, 2011), and a
co-edited book The Chinese Corporatist State: Adaption, Survival
and Resistance (Routledge, 2012).
Nongovernmental organizations act on behalf of citizens in politics
and society. Yet many question their legitimacy and ask who they
speak for. This book investigates how NGOs can become stronger
advocates for citizens and better representatives of their
interests. Sabine Lang analyzes the choices that NGOs face in their
work for policy change between working in institutional settings
and practicing public advocacy that incorporates constituents'
voices. Whereas most books on NGOs focus on policy effectiveness,
using approaches that treat accountability largely as a matter of
internal performance measurements, Lang instead argues that it is
ultimately several public accountabilities that inform NGO
legitimacy. The case studies in this book use empirical research
from the European Union, the United States, and Germany to point to
governments' role in redefining the conditions for NGOs' public
advocacy.
In late twentieth century Mexico, the NGO boom was hailed as an
harbinger of social change and democratic transition, with NGOs
poised to transform the relationship between states and civil
society on a global scale. And yet, great as the expectations were
for NGOs to empower the poor and disenfranchised, their work is
rooted in much older civic and cultural traditions. Arguably, they
are just as much an accomplice in neoliberal governance. Analiese
Richard seeks to determine what the growth of NGOs means for the
future of citizenship and activism in neoliberal democracies, where
a widening chasm between rich and poor threatens democratic ideals
and institutions. Analyzing the growth of NGOs in Tulancingo,
Hidalgo, from the 1970s to the present, The Unsettled Sector
explores the NGOs' evolving network of relationships with donors,
target communities, international partners, state agencies, and
political actors. It reaches beyond the campesinos and farmlands of
Tulancingo to make sense of the NGO as an institutional form.
Richard argues that only if we see NGOs as they are-bridges between
formal politics and public morality-can we understand the
opportunities and limits for social solidarity and citizenship in
an era of neoliberal retrenchment.
Enlightened Aid is a unique history of foreign aid. It begins with
the modern concept of progress in the Scottish Enlightenment,
follows its development in nineteenth and early twentieth-century
economics and anthropology, describes its transformation from a
concept into a tool of foreign policy, and ends with the current
debate about aid's utility. In his 1949 inaugural address, Harry
Truman vowed to make the development of the underdeveloped world a
central part of the United States government's national security
agenda. This commitment became policy the following year with the
creation of Point Four-America's first aid program to the
developing world. Point Four technicians shared technology,
know-how, and capital with thirty-four nations around the world.
They taught classes on public health and irrigation, distributed
chickens and vaccines, and helped build schools and water treatment
facilities. They did all of it in the name of development,
believing that economic progress would lead to social and political
progress, which, in turn, would ensure that Point Four recipient
nations would become prosperous democratic participants in the
global community of nations. Point Four was a weapon in the fight
against poverty, but it was also a weapon in the fight against the
Soviet Union. Eisenhower reluctantly embraced it and Kennedy made
it a central part of his international policy agenda, turning
Truman's program into the United States Agency for International
Development. Point Four had proven itself to be a useful tool of
diplomacy, and subsequent administrations claimed it for
themselves. None seemed overly worried that it had not also proven
itself to be a particularly useful tool of development. Using
Ethiopia as a case study, Enlightened Aid examines the struggle
between foreign aid-for-diplomacy and foreign aid-for-development.
Point Four's creators believed that aid could be both at the same
time. The history of U.S. aid to Ethiopia suggests otherwise.
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