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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political activism > Non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
Around the world there are a myriad of NGOs using human rights education (HRE) as a tool of community empowerment with the firm belief that it will help people improve their lives. One way of understanding these processes is that they translate universal human rights speak using messages and symbols which make them relevant to people's daily lives and culturally resonant. However, an alternative more radical perspective is that these processes should engage individuals in modes of critical inquiry into the ways that that existing power structures maintain the status quo and control not only how we understand and speak about social inequality and injustice, but also act on it. This book is a critical inquiry into the production, distribution and consumption of HRE and how the discourse is constructed historically, socially and politically through global institutions and local NGO practice. The book begins with the premise that HRE is composed of theories of human rights and education, both of which are complex and multifaceted. However, the book demonstrates how over time a dominant discourse of HRE, constructed by the United Nations institutional framework, has come to prominence and the ways it is reproduced and reinforced through the practice of intermediary NGOs engaged in HRE activities with community groups. Drawing on socio-legal scholarship it offers a new theoretical and political framework for addressing how human rights, pedagogy, knowledge and power can be analysed between the global and local by connecting the critical, but well-trodden, theories of human rights to insights on critical pedagogy. It uses critical discourse analysis and ethnographic research to investigate the practice of NGOs engaged in HRE using contextual evidence and findings from fieldwork with NGOs and communities in Tanzania.
Adams surveys the impact of transnational organizations and NGOs on Latin American politics since 1990. The transition from military to civilian rule in Latin American countries has benefited local progressive forces, but resilient remnants favoring the past's authoritarian politics have compelled organizations like the UN, IMF, OAS, and World Bank to engage in various campaigns to deepen democratic institutions and norms. Adams argues that to understand current political transformations in the region, one must consider the existing role of external organizations. Latin America is offered as a prime example of the increased influence transnational authorities have over political decisions that had long been the exclusive prerogative of national governments. Beginning with the Latin American experience, Adams reviews the contemporary character of power and politics in the area, outlining how democratic transitions have been limited. UN human rights and reform initiatives are considered. Adams scrutinizes the work of the World Bank, the IMF, and the Inter-American Development Bank to modernize public administration, strengthen political institutions, enhance transparency and accountability, and fortify civil society. He also examines the work and impact and the Organization of American States and various global citizens groups.
Addresses the issues facing NGOs as their role and remits expand. NGOs have grown in scale and remit and have been given a role by states and official aid organizations that fundamentally challenge many of the assumptions that accompanied their creation. There is a general, albeit vague, feelingthat NGOs are no longer what they used to be. Yet aside from the obvious differences in scale of activity and resources, there is little understanding of the processes that have led NGOs to be the types of organization that theyare today. This book challenges the static picture of the NGO industry, to inform the debate on the relief-to-development continuum, and to provide an historical account of key issues facing NGOs today. Each chapter, a case study based on extensive fieldwork, seeks to identify and analyse the roots of problems, past and present, which have led to the current dilemma facing charitable organizations. North America: Kumarian Press
The threats the world currently faces extend beyond traditional problems such as major power competition, interstate conflict, and nuclear proliferation. Non-traditional security challenges such as climate change, migration, and natural disasters surpass states' capacity to address them. These limitations have led to the proliferation of other actors-regional and international organizations, transnational networks, local and international nongovernmental organizations-that fill the gaps when states' responses are lacking and provide security in places where there is none. In this book, Mely Caballero-Anthony examines how non-traditional security challenges have changed state behavior and security practices in Southeast Asia and the wider East Asia region. Referencing the wide range of transborder security threats confronting Asia today, she analyzes how non-state actors are taking on the roles of "security governors," engaging with states, regional organizations, and institutional frameworks to address multifaceted problems. From controlling the spread of pandemics and transboundary pollution, to managing irregular migration and providing relief and assistance during humanitarian crises, Caballero-Anthony explains how and why non-state actors have become crucial across multiple levels-local, national, and regional-and how they are challenging regional norms and reshaping security governance. Combining theoretical discussions on securitization and governance with a detailed and policy-oriented analysis of important recent developments, Negotiating Governance on Non-Traditional Security in Southeast Asia and Beyond points us toward "state-plus" governance, where a multiplicity of actors form the building blocks for multilateral cooperative security processes to meet future global challenges.
Transnational Advocacy in the Digital Era explores the role of digital advocacy organizations, a major new addition to the international arena. Organizations such as MoveOn, GetUp, and Campact derive power and influence from their ability to rapidly mobilize members on-line and off-line and are shaping public opinion on many issues including climate change, trade, and refugees. Research in international relations (IR) has highlighted the influence of non-governmental organizations, which wield power through their expertise and long-term, moral commitment to an issue. However, no IR scholars have explored the spread and power of digital advocacy organizations. Nina Hall provides a detailed investigation of how these organizations have harnessed digitally networked power and can quickly respond to the most salient issues of the day, and mobilize large memberships, to put pressure on politicians. She finds that these organizations operate in a globalized world but tackle transnational problems by focusing on national targets. This new generation of activists have formed a strong transnational network, but still see the state as the locus of power.
Why are some international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) more politically salient than others, and why are some NGOs better able to influence the norms of human rights? Internal Affairs shows how the organizational structures of human rights NGOs and their campaigns determine their influence on policy. Drawing on data from seven major international organizations the International Committee of the Red Cross, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Medecins sans Frontieres, Oxfam International, Anti-Slavery International, and the International League of Human Rights Wendy H. Wong demonstrates that NGOs that choose to centralize agenda-setting and decentralize the implementation of that agenda are more successful in gaining traction in international politics. Challenging the conventional wisdom that the most successful NGOs are those that find the "right" cause or have the most resources, Wong shows that how NGOs make and implement decisions is critical to their effectiveness in influencing international norms about human rights. Building on the insights of network theory and organizational sociology, Wong traces how power works within NGOs and affects their external authority. The internal coherence of an organization, as reflected in its public statements and actions, goes a long way to assure its influence over the often tumultuous elements of the international human rights landscape. "
"In the Interest of Others" develops a new theory of organizational leadership and governance to explain why some organizations expand their scope of action in ways that do not benefit their members directly. John Ahlquist and Margaret Levi document eighty years of such activism by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union in the United States and the Waterside Workers Federation in Australia. They systematically compare the ILWU and WWF to the Teamsters and the International Longshoremen's Association, two American transport industry labor unions that actively discouraged the pursuit of political causes unrelated to their own economic interests. Drawing on a wealth of original data, Ahlquist and Levi show how activist organizations can profoundly transform the views of members about their political efficacy and the collective actions they are willing to contemplate. They find that leaders who ask for support of projects without obvious material benefits must first demonstrate their ability to deliver the goods and services members expect. These leaders must also build governance institutions that coordinate expectations about their objectives and the behavior of members. "In the Interest of Others" reveals how activist labor unions expand the community of fate and provoke preferences that transcend the private interests of individual members. Ahlquist and Levi then extend this logic to other membership organizations, including religious groups, political parties, and the state itself.
What would development look like if its practitioners and scholars were 'against NGOs,' challenging common sense about them? This book presents a critical perspective on NGOs, describing how they emerged as key agents of development over time. Through an interpretative history based on Gramscian concepts it shows how civil society organizations were gradually enlisted in development as non-state technocratic actors. The book argues that management studies and development studies emerged as commonsensical explanations for capitalist crises. Each offered complementary solutions to balance the needs of capital and society, in particular historical circumstances. These solutions also situated civil society as agents of development and vectors of management. Against NGOs fills a gap within the literature of management and development studies through its original discussion of their historical interconnections and shared themes. The book raises provocative questions on what forms of knowledge-politics can respond productively to the crises of our contemporary moment.
Foundations in the United States have long exerted considerable power over education and scholarly production. Although today’s titans of philanthropy proclaim more loudly their desire to transform schools and universities than did some of their predecessors, philanthropic programs designed to reshape educational institutions are at least a century old. In Foundations and American Political Science, Emily Hauptmann focuses on the postwar Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller programs that reshaped political science. She shows how significant changes in the methods and research interests of postwar political scientists began as responses to the priorities set by their philanthropic patrons.Informed by years of research in foundation and university archives, Foundations and American Political Science follows the course of several streams of private philanthropic money as they wended their way through public universities and political science departments in the postwar period. The programs launched by the Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller philanthropies as well as their reception at the universities of California and Michigan steered political scientists towards particular problems as well as particular ways of studying them. The rise of statistical analyses of survey data, the decline of public administration, and persistent conflicts over the discipline’s purpose and the best methods for understanding politics, Hauptmann argues, all had their roots in the ways that postwar universities responded to foundations’ programs. Additionally, the new emphasis universities placed on sponsored research sparked sharp disputes among political scientists over what should count as legitimate knowledge about politics and what the ultimate purpose of the discipline should be.
A half century after its founding in London in 1844, the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) became the first NGO to effectively push a modernization agenda around the globe. Soon followed by a sister organization, the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA), founded in 1855, the Y movement defined its global mission in 1889. Although their agendas have been characterized as predominantly religious, both the YMCA and YWCA were also known for their new vision of a global civil society and became major agents in the worldwide dissemination of modern "Western" bodies of knowledge. The YMCA's and YWCA's "secular" social work was partly rooted in the Anglo-American notions of the "social gospel" that became popular during the 1890s. The Christian lay organizations' vision of a "Protestant Modernity" increasingly globalized their "secular" social work that transformed notions of science, humanitarianism, sports, urban citizenship, agriculture, and gender relations. Spreading Protestant Modernity shows how the YMCA and YWCA became crucial in circulating various forms of knowledge and practices that were related to this vision, and how their work was co-opted by governments and rival NGOs eager to achieve similar ends. The studies assembled in this collection explore the influence of the YMCA's and YWCA's work on highly diverse societies in South, Southeast, and East Asia; North America; Africa; and Eastern Europe. Focusing on two of the most prominent representative groups within the Protestant youth, social service, and missionary societies (the so-called "Protestant International"), the book provides new insights into the evolution of global civil society in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and its multifarious, seemingly secular, legacies for today's world. Spreading Protestant Modernity offers a compelling read for those interested in global history, the history of colonialism and decolonization, the history of Protestant internationalism, and the trajectories of global civil society. While each study is based on rigorous scholarship, the discussion and analyses are in accessible language that allows everyone from undergraduate students to advanced academics to appreciate the Y movement's role in social transformations across the world.
For many years Tanzania was the darling of international aid agencies. During the 1970s it received more assistance per capita than any other nation in the world. And yet, the economy performed dismally: growth was negative, exports collapsed, and poverty increased massively. In the mid-1980s, however, the international community changed tack and developed an approach based on conditionality and "program ownership". Since 1996 the country has grown steadily, and social conditions have improved significantly. This book provides an economic history of Tanzania since independence in 1961. It covers the policies of African Socialism and the Arusha Declaration, the collapse of the early 1980s, the rocky relationships with the IMF, and the reforms of the 1990s and 2000s. This book shows that the relationship between foreign aid economic is highly complex, and that the effect of foreign assistance on poor countries performance depends on historical circumstances, ownership of programs, and the involvement of the local communities.
Religious NGOs are important sources of humanitarian aid in Africa, entering where the welfare programs of weakened states fail to provide basic services. As collaborators and critics of African states, religious NGOs occupy an important structural and ideological position. They also, however, illustrate a key irony-how economic development, a symbol of science, progress, and this-worldly material improvement, borrows heavily from other-worldly faith. Through a study of two transnational NGOs in Zimbabwe, this book offers a nuanced depiction of development as both liberatory and limiting. Humanitarian effort is not a hopeless task, but behind the liberatory potential of Christian development lurks the sad irony that change can bring its own disappointments. While rapt attention has been given to the supposed role of NGOs in democratizing Africa, few studies engage with the ground operations. Questioning the assumption that economic development is a move away from religious mysticism toward the scientific promise of progress, the author offers a remarkable account of development that is neither defeatist nor comforting.
Market-based development strategies designed to help the world's poor receive significant support from advocates, academics, governments, and the media, yet frequently the perceived success of these programs rests on carefully selected examples and one-sided, enthusiastic accounts. In practice, these approaches are often poorly defined and executed, with little balanced, comparative analysis of their true strengths and weaknesses. This book is the first to assess emerging market-based social change approaches comparatively, focusing specifically on social entrepreneurship, corporate social responsibility, fair trade, and private sustainable development. Steven G. Anderson begins by identifying the problems these programs address and then describes their core, shared principles. He follows with a general framework for defining and evaluating these and other development approaches. Separate chapters provide background on the historical development and application of each approach, as well as interpretations of the processes for implementation and the underlying behavioral assumptions related to successful outcomes. A final chapter compares each approach across a set of important program development dimensions and analyzes the utility of market-based approaches as part of a general consideration of social development strategies for the developing world.
This accessible book provides a concise introduction to the way in which non-governmental organizations (NGOs) work. By bringing together a range of literature - including ideas from international relations and organizational analysis - Hudock is able to develop a new conceptual framework for understanding both the strengths and weaknesses of NGOs as they operate in the development field.
From where we stand now, the election of 1976 can look like an alternate reality: southern white evangelicals united with African Americans, northern Catholics, and Jews in support of a Democratic presidential candidate; the Republican candidate, a social moderate whose wife proudly proclaimed her support for Roe v. Wade, was able to win over Great Plains farmers as well as cultural liberals in Oregon, California, Connecticut, and New Jersey - even as he lost Ohio, Texas, and nearly the entire South. The Election of the Evangelical offers an unprecedented, behind-the-headlines analysis of this now almost unimaginable political moment, which proved to be a pivotal turning point in polarizing American political parties along ideological and cultural lines and eventually in destroying the winning coalition that Jimmy Carter created. The big story immediately following the election was that a self-described evangelical Christian and improbably dark-horse candidate from the Deep South had won the presidency, leading Newsweek to call 1976 the 'year of the evangelical.' What pundits overlooked at the time, and what Daniel K. Williams delves into in this book, was the profound effect of the election on the nation's political parties. In the first comprehensive historical study of this consequential election, Williams mines untapped archival materials to uncover the strategies of the Ford, Carter, and Reagan campaigns and Republican and Democratic leaders in 1976. His work explains why, despite Ford's and Carter's efforts to the contrary, the 1976 presidential election reshaped the political parties along ideologically polarized lines. As he examines the role that religion and 'values voting' played in 1976, Williams reveals why Carter was the last Democrat to hold together a New Deal-style coalition of white southern evangelicals, northern Catholics, and African Americans. His findings dispel the most common myths about why Ford lost the election and clarify what his defeat meant for the future of the Republican Party. An eye-opening account of electoral politics at an epochal crossroads, this book provides valuable historical perspective and critical insight in a time of seemingly ever-increasing partisan polarization in American political life.
Most observers of Iran viewed the Green Uprisings of 2009 as a 'failed revolution', with many Iranians and those in neighbouring Arab countries agreeing. In Contesting the Iranian Revolution, however, Pouya Alimagham re-examines this evaluation, deconstructing the conventional win-lose binary interpretations in a way which underscores the subtle but important victories on the ground, and reveals how Iran's modern history imbues those triumphs with consequential meaning. Focusing on the men and women who made this dynamic history, and who exist at the centre of these contentious politics, this 'history from below' brings to the fore the post-Islamist discursive assault on the government's symbols of legitimation. From powerful symbols rooted in Shi'ite Islam, Palestinian liberation, and the Iranian Revolution, Alimagham harnesses the wider history of Iran and the Middle East to highlight how activists contested the Islamic Republic's legitimacy to its very core.
Most available literature on foreign aid lacks precise terminology, reliable data, and a theory that; permits profiting from experience. This book tries to meet some of these difficulties by analyzing the foreign aid record of the US in a specific region. It points the way toward improving allocation of aid in an area when the total to be allocated has been set. Originally published in 1960. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
As government officials and political activists are becoming increasingly aware, international nonprofit agencies have an important political dimension: although not self-serving, these private voluntary organizations (PVOs) and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) seek social changes of which many of their financial contributors are unaware. As PVOs and NGOs receive increasing subsidies from their home governments in the United States, Canada, and Europe, they are moving away from short-term relief commitments in developing countries and toward longer-term goals in health, education, training, and small-scale production. Showing that European and Canadian NGOs focus more on political change as part of new development efforts than do their U.S. counterparts, Brian Smith presents the first major comparative study of the political aspect of PVOs and NGOs. Smith emphasizes the paradoxes in the private-aid system, both in the societies that send aid and in those that receive it. Pointing out that international nonprofit agencies are in some instances openly critical of nation-state interests, he asks how these agencies can function in a foreign-aid network intended as a support for those same interests. He concludes that compromises throughout the private-aid networkand some secrecymake it possible for institutions with different agendas to work together. In the future, however, serious conflicts may develop with donors and nation states. Originally published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Since the end of the Cold War, a virtual army of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) from the United States, Britain, Germany, and elsewhere in Europe have flocked to Central and Eastern Europe and Eurasia. These NGOs are working on such diverse tasks as helping to establish competitive political parties, elections, and independent media, as well as trying to reduce ethnic conflict. This important book is among the few efforts to assess the impact of these international efforts to build democratic institutions. The case studies presented here provide a portrait of the mechanisms by which ideas commonly associated with democratic states have evolved in formerly communist states, revealing conditions that help as well as hurt the process.
This ground-breaking report on the Kosovo conflict, by a group of 12 renowned social scientists, international lawyers, journalists, and politicians, seeks to attribute political responsibility of the key dimensions of the crises and analyses the key players in the conflict. The report outlines the implications for the future and lessons that are to be learnt for Kosovo and for the international community.
Geopolitical shifts, increasing demands for accountability, and growing competition have been driving the need for change within transnational nongovernmental organizations (TNGOs). As the world has changed and TNGOs' ambitions have expanded, the roles of TNGOs have shifted and their work has become more complex. To remain effective, legitimate, and relevant in the future necessitates organizational changes, but many TNGOs have been slow to adapt. As a result, the sector's rhetoric of sustainable impact and social transformation has far outpaced the reality of TNGOs' more limited abilities to deliver on their promises. Between Power and Irrelevance openly explores why this gap between rhetoric and reality exists and what TNGOs can do individually and collectively to close it. George E. Mitchell, Hans Peter Schmitz, and Tosca Bruno-van Vijfeijken argue that TNGOs need to change the fundamental conditions under which they operate by bringing their own "forms and norms" into better alignment with their ambitions and strategies. This book offers accessible, future-oriented analyses and lessons-learned to assist practitioners and other stakeholders in formulating and implementing organizational changes. Drawing upon a variety of perspectives, including hundreds of interviews with TNGO leaders, firsthand involvement in major organizational change processes in leading TNGOs, and numerous workshops, training institutes, consultancies, and research projects, the book examines how to adapt TNGOs for the future.
For many years Tanzania was the darling of international aid agencies. During the 1970s it received more assistance per capita than any other nation in the world. And yet, the economy performed dismally: growth was negative, exports collapsed, and poverty increased massively. In the mid 1980s, however, the international community changed tacks and developed an approach based on conditionality and 'program ownership'. Since 1996 the country has grown steadily, and social conditions have improved significantly. This book provides an economic history of Tanzania, since independence in 1961. It covers the policies of African Socialism and the Arusha Declaration, the collapse of the early 1980s, the rocky relationships with the IMF, and the reforms of the 1990s and 2000s. |
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