The World Social Forum has become a space for organized citizens to come together for different purposes (support, updates, education, coordination, campaigns, etc.). It has also become a sign of a massive aspiration for the global spread of democratic principles. Its intercultural complexities have not deterred participant organizations from experimenting with new forms of participation and action. The way in which populations from distant corners of our planet have engaged in an open dialogue within the WSF calls also for new ways of understanding such political engagements. This work offers an insight through an anthropological perspective, which suggests a way to observe and analyze complex intercultural dialogues on our common future.

Issa Shivji has long been one of the most articulate critics of the destructive effects of neoliberal policies in Africa, and in particular of the ways in which they have eroded the gains of independence. In two extensive essays in this book, he shows that the role of NGOs in Africa cannot be understood without placing them in their political and historical context. Aid, in which NGOs play a significant role, is frequently portrayed as a form of altruism, a charitable act that enables the wealthy to help the poor. As structural adjustment programmes were imposed across Africa in the 1980s and 1990s, the international financial institutions and development agencies began giving money to NGOs for programmes to minimise the more glaring inequalities perpetuated by their policies. As a result, NGOs have flourished - and played an unwitting role in consolidating the neoliberal hegemony in Africa. If social policy is to be determined by citizens rather than the donors, argues Shivji, African NGOs must become catalysts for change rather than the catechists of aid that they are today. Issa Shivji is one of Africa's most radical and original thinkers and has written frequently for Fahamu's Pambazuka News. He is the author of several books, including the seminal Concept of Human Rights in Africa (1989) and, more recently, Let the People Speak: Tanzania down the road to neoliberalism (2006).

TRAVESTY is an anthropologist's personal story of working with foreign aid agencies and discovering that fraud, greed, corruption, apathy, and political agendas permeate the industry. It is a story of failed agricultural, health and credit projects; violent struggles for control over foreign aid; corrupt orphanage owners, pastors, and missionaries; the nepotistic manipulation of research funds; economically counterproductive food aid distribution programs that undermine the Haitian agricultural economy; disastrous social engineering by foreign governments, international financial and development organizations--such as the World Bank and USAID-- and the multinational corporate charities that have sprung up in their service, CARE International, Catholic Relief Services, World Vision, and the dozens of other massive charities that have programs spread across the globe, moving in response not only to disasters and need, but political agendas and economic opportunity. TRAVESTY also chronicles the lives of Haitians and describes how political disillusionment sometimes ignites explosive mob rage among peasants frustrated with the foreign aid organizations, governments and international agencies that fund them. TRAVESTY recounts how some Haitians use whatever means possible try to better their living standards, most recently drug trafficking, and in doing so explains why at the service of international narcotraffickers and Haitian money laundering elites, Haiti has become a failed State. TRAVESTY reads like a novel. It takes the reader from the bowels of foreign aid in the field; to the posh and orderly urban headquarters of charities such as CARE International; to the cold, distant heights of Capitol Hill policy planners. The journey is marked by true accounts involving violence, corruption, appalling greed, sexual exploitation, disastrous social engineering, and the inside world of drug traffickers. But TRAVESTY it is not a novel. It is founded on 15 years of academic and field experience, research, and hard data. It entertains the reader with vivid first hand accounts while treating seriously the problems inherent not only in international aid, but the sabotaging effects of the drug war on economic development in remote and impoverished areas of the hemisphere.

Years of tremendous growth in response to complex emergencies have left a mark on the humanitarian sector. Various matters that once seemed settled are now subjects of intense debate. What is humanitarianism? Is it limited to the provision of relief to victims of conflict, or does it include broader objectives such as human rights, democracy promotion, development, and peacebuilding?

For much of the last century, the principles of humanitarianism were guided by neutrality, impartiality, and independence. More recently, some humanitarian organizations have begun to relax these tenets. The recognition that humanitarian action can lead to negative consequences has forced humanitarian organizations to measure their effectiveness, to reflect on their ethical positions, and to consider not only the values that motivate their actions but also the consequences of those actions.

In the indispensable Humanitarianism in Question, Michael Barnett and Thomas G. Weiss bring together scholars from a variety of disciplines to address the humanitarian identity crisis, including humanitarianism's relationship to accountability, great powers, privatization and corporate philanthropy, warlords, and the ethical evaluations that inform life-and-death decision making during and after emergencies.

Contributors: Michael Barnett, University of Minnesota; Craig Calhoun, New York University; James D. Fearon, Stanford University; Laura Hammond, SOAS, University of London; Peter J. Hoffman, Hunter College; Stephen Hopgood, SOAS, University of London; Peter Redfield, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Jennifer C. Rubenstein, Princeton University; Jack Snyder, Columbia University; Janice Gross Stein, University of Toronto; Thomas G. Weiss, CUNY Graduate Center

Internationally operating nongovernmental organisations, NGOs, are increasingly involved in international politics and policy making. In many respects their involvement resembles activities and policies that, until recently, were typical of traditional national authorities. This book is about the reasons for which NGOs can and the reasons for which NGOs cannot be considered as rightful participants in international governance. It tries to deliver rationally defensible starting points for the discussion and the assessment of claims for the legitimacy of their organizations and activities. The book focuses on the question: What conditions must ideally be met for an organization to be called truthfully legitimate, be it or be it not as a matter of fact perceived as legitimate by the public? This does not mean that empirically descriptive questions are left aside. Practical feasibility is important even to a thoroughly normative conception of legitimacy. For that reason and for heuristic purposes, large parts of this book are dedicated to the ways in which NGOs and stakeholders perceive NGO legitimacy.

FOREIGN AGENTS analyzes the history and activities of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC. FOREIGN AGENTS begins with testimony and subpoenaed documents from the 1963 Senate investigation into the activities of the agents of foreign principals. Senator J.W. Fulbright's discovery of "conduit" money-laundering operations in the US financed by Israeli principals touched off deep and important questions about US lobbying on behalf of the fledgling nation and the applicability of laws such as the Foreign Agents Registration Act and the Logan Act. The book then uncovers AIPAC election law skirmishes in the 1980s-1990s, analyzing the lobby's role in establishing and coordinating political action committees and AIPAC's role in alleged election law violations. FOREIGN AGENTS then turns to the question of espionage. In 2005, two AIPAC executives, Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, were criminally indicted for violating the 1917 Espionage Act. FOREIGN AGENTS reviews behind-the-scenes defense team motions and judicial decisions affecting First Amendment freedom of speech issues and questions about "inside the Beltway" trafficking in classified US defense information by lobbies. FOREIGN AGENTS evaluates Rosen and Weissman's assertions that the conduct alleged in the indictment was within the scope of their employment with AIPAC and was undertaken for AIPAC's benefit. FOREIGN AGENTS then makes comprehensive recommendations for legal oversight in the context of AIPAC's history as a powerful and secretive foreign agent for Israel.

"Grassroots social-change organizations are a critical resource for progressive movement-building in the United States. They provide political education and sites for constituent engagement, and they are beginning to create networks across issues and/or communities; they promote home-grown leadership among groups that have been disadvantaged; they contribute to a shared understanding of the problems of inequality and injustice; and they offer a public space for the dialogue needed to identify common principles."-From the Ground Up From community organizing for affordable housing in neglected neighborhoods to providing antiviolence training for youth or litigating for the rights of sex workers, grassroots organizations are engaged in energetic efforts to increase the power of marginalized groups. Social-change organizations operate in communities all over the United States, but little has been written about the details of their operations. From the Ground Up takes a close look at how social-change organizations address challenges related to leadership, staff development, decision-making, resource needs, and collaborations. Carol Chetkovich and Frances Kunreuther, both experienced nonprofit managers, draw on their in-depth interviews with leaders and staff members from sixteen diverse social-change organizations to provide a detailed analysis of these groups and their activities. They note that even working in isolation, these organizations make important contributions to justice in their communities; together they might form the base of a larger progressive movement for change.

"Grassroots social-change organizations are a critical resource for progressive movement-building in the United States. They provide political education and sites for constituent engagement, and they are beginning to create networks across issues and/or communities; they promote home-grown leadership among groups that have been disadvantaged; they contribute to a shared understanding of the problems of inequality and injustice; and they offer a public space for the dialogue needed to identify common principles."-From the Ground Up From community organizing for affordable housing in neglected neighborhoods to providing antiviolence training for youth or litigating for the rights of sex workers, grassroots organizations are engaged in energetic efforts to increase the power of marginalized groups. Social-change organizations operate in communities all over the United States, but little has been written about the details of their operations. From the Ground Up takes a close look at how social-change organizations address challenges related to leadership, staff development, decision-making, resource needs, and collaborations. Carol Chetkovich and Frances Kunreuther, both experienced nonprofit managers, draw on their in-depth interviews with leaders and staff members from sixteen diverse social-change organizations to provide a detailed analysis of these groups and their activities. They note that even working in isolation, these organizations make important contributions to justice in their communities; together they might form the base of a larger progressive movement for change.

"If one organization is synonymous with keeping hope alive, even as a faint glimmer in the darkness of a prison, it is Amnesty International. Amnesty has been the light, and that light was truth bearing witness to suffering hidden from the eyes of the world." from Keepers of the Flame

The first in-depth look at working life inside a major human rights organization, Keepers of the Flame charts the history of Amnesty International and the development of its nerve center, the International Secretariat, over forty-five years. Through interviews with staff members, archival research, and unprecedented access to Amnesty International's internal meetings, Stephen Hopgood provides an engrossing and enlightening account of day-to-day operations within the organization, larger decisions about the nature of its mission, and struggles over the implementation of that mission.

An enduring feature of Amnesty's inner life, Hopgood finds, has been a recurrent struggle between the "keepers of the flame" who seek to preserve Amnesty's accumulated store of moral authority and reformers who hope to change, modernize, and use that moral authority in ways that its protectors fear may erode the organization's uniqueness. He also explores how this concept of moral authority affects the working lives of the servants of such an ideal and the ways in which it can undermine an institution's political authority over time. Hopgood argues that human-rights activism is a social practice best understood as a secular religion where internal conflict between sacred and profane the mission and the practicalities of everyday operations are both unavoidable and necessary.

Keepers of the Flame is vital reading for anyone interested in Amnesty International, its accomplishments, agonies, obligations, fears, opportunities, and challenges or, more broadly, in how humanitarian organizations accommodate the moral passions that energize volunteers and professional staff alike."

"If one organization is synonymous with keeping hope alive, even as a faint glimmer in the darkness of a prison, it is Amnesty International. Amnesty has been the light, and that light was truth bearing witness to suffering hidden from the eyes of the world." from Keepers of the Flame

The first in-depth look at working life inside a major human rights organization, Keepers of the Flame charts the history of Amnesty International and the development of its nerve center, the International Secretariat, over forty-five years. Through interviews with staff members, archival research, and unprecedented access to Amnesty International's internal meetings, Stephen Hopgood provides an engrossing and enlightening account of day-to-day operations within the organization, larger decisions about the nature of its mission, and struggles over the implementation of that mission.

An enduring feature of Amnesty's inner life, Hopgood finds, has been a recurrent struggle between the "keepers of the flame" who seek to preserve Amnesty's accumulated store of moral authority and reformers who hope to change, modernize, and use that moral authority in ways that its protectors fear may erode the organization's uniqueness. He also explores how this concept of moral authority affects the working lives of the servants of such an ideal and the ways in which it can undermine an institution's political authority over time. Hopgood argues that human-rights activism is a social practice best understood as a secular religion where internal conflict between sacred and profane the mission and the practicalities of everyday operations are both unavoidable and necessary.

Keepers of the Flame is vital reading for anyone interested in Amnesty International, its accomplishments, agonies, obligations, fears, opportunities, and challenges or, more broadly, in how humanitarian organizations accommodate the moral passions that energize volunteers and professional staff alike."

Study of the history and politics of non-governmental organisations NGOs are fast taking over the world of development so there is an increasing need to analyse their effect Discusses how and why the actions of NGOs are often very different from their claimed intentions A valuable new text for students of development studies and other social sciences Non-Governmental Organisations and their networks are proliferating in all regions of the world. They address every transnational issue from population to peace, human rights to species rights, genocide to AIDS. Supporters claim NGOs are effective in achieving their goals, while detractors counter that NGO power is paltry compared to governments and corporations. Challenging both views, DeMars irreverently reveals the political claims implicit in every transnational NGO. They are best conceptualised, he argues, not in terms of either principles or power, but through the partners they make in transnational society and politics. NGOs and transnational networks institutionalise conflict as much as cooperation, and reshape states and societies, often inadvertently. and reengineered the family. Their historical origins contrast sharply with current realities, and show signs of radical change in the future. Introduction 1 Your NGO Starter Kit 2 Partners in Conflict: A Structural Theory of NGOs 3 Ironic Origins of Transnational Organising 4 NGOs vs. Dictators: Argentina's Dirty War Revisited 5 Dancing in the Dark: NGOs and States in Former Yugoslavia 6 Engineering Fertility 7 Changing Partners, Shaping Progress: The Future of NGOs Appendix A: Active NGOs Discussed in This Book Selected Bibliography Index

Can foreign donors help build new democracies? In the 1990s, public and private organizations such as USAID and the Soros Foundation poured huge amounts of money and expertise into Russia to help build the dream of a vibrant democratic society. Sarah L. Henderson argues that despite the altruistic intentions of foreign assistance agencies and domestic activists, foreign aid designed to spur civic growth has had unintended consequences. Drawing on extensive field work, survey research, and work experience for several funding agencies in Moscow in the late 1990s, Henderson focuses on donor efforts to support the emerging community of nongovernmental organizations and, in particular, on efforts to build a functioning women's movement in Russia. Her intimate knowledge of Russia's growing NGO community informs a worrisome finding: foreign aid has made a tremendous difference, but not in altogether expected or positive ways. New Russian civic groups serve either the needs of an indigenous clientele or the demands of the foreign aid bureaucracy but rarely both. Henderson's research and experience show that while aid has kept a fledgling civic community alive, it is a civic community that is disconnected from its own domestic audience. The book suggests that large flows of foreign aid have in some ways damaged the long-term prospects for democratization in Russia."

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.

Independent African countries have faced many challenges on the road to economic and social development. The heritage of colonialism has weighed heavy on their shoulders, and the promises of post-colonialism have not always been fulfilled.The nature and trajectory of the development project is determined, in large part, by governments. Where they have been limited in - or neglectful of - their capacity to improve the lives of their people, non-government organizations have been quick to respond."Composing a New Song" comprises portraits of five such NGOs, from Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Each was spurred by a moral concern for those sectors of society that were marginalized or ignored completely, by the march of mainstream development, but each has chosen its own route, its own tactics and its own methods.These stories, told by founders and senior managers of the organizations, offer a rare insight into personal motivations, social reactions and political choices - indeed, the real world of development, one that is too often glossed over by more orthodox texts.

"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.

In the wake of 9/11 and the 'War on Terror', transnational Muslim NGOs have too often been perceived as illegitimate fronts for global militant networks such as al-Qaeda or as backers of national political parties and resistance groups in Palestine, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Yet clearly there is more to transnational Muslim NGOs. Most are legitimate providers of aid to the world's poor, although their assistance may sometimes differ substantially from that of secular NGOs in the West. Seeking to broaden our understanding of these organisations, Marie Juul Petersen explores how Muslim NGOs conceptualise their provision of aid and the role Islam plays in this. Her book not only offers insights into a new kind of NGO in the global field of aid provision; it also contributes more broadly to understanding 'public Islam' as something more and other than political Islam. The book is based on empirical case studies of four of the biggest transnational Muslim NGOs, and draws on extensive research in Britain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan and Bangladesh, and more than 100 interviews with those involved in such organisations.

Theorizing NGOs examines how the rise of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) has transformed the conditions of women's lives and of feminist organizing. Victoria Bernal and Inderpal Grewal suggest that we can understand the proliferation of NGOs through a focus on the NGO as a unified form, despite the enormous variation and diversity contained within that form. Theorizing NGOs brings together cutting-edge feminist research on NGOs from various perspectives and disciplines. Contributors locate NGOs within local and transnational configurations of power; interrogate the relationships of nongovernmental organizations to states and to privatization; and map the complex, ambiguous, and ultimately unstable synergies between feminisms and NGOs. While some of the contributors draw on personal experience in NGOs, others employ regional or national perspectives. Spanning a broad range of issues with which NGOs are engaged, from microcredit and domestic violence to democratization, this groundbreaking collection shows that NGOs are not simply vehicles for serving or empowering women but are themselves fields of gendered struggles over power, resources, and status.
Contributors. Sonia E. Alvarez, Victoria Bernal, LeeRay M. Costa, Inderpal Grewal, Laura Grunberg, Elissa Helms, Julie Hemment, Saida Hod i, Lamia Karim, Sabine Lang, Lauren Leve, Kathleen O'Reilly, Aradhana Sharma"

An unparalleled exploration of NOW's trajectory, from its founding to the present-and its future A new wave of feminist energy has swept the globe since 2016-from women's marches and the #MeToo movement to transwomen's inclusion and exclusion in feminism and participation in institutional politics. Amid all this, an organization declared dead or dying for thirty years-the National Organization for Women-has seen a membership boom. NOW presents an intriguing puzzle for scholars and activists alike. Considered one of the most stable organizations in the feminist movement, it has experienced much conflict and schism. Scholars have long argued that factionalism is the death knell of organizations, yet NOW continues to thrive despite internal conflicts. Fighting for NOW seeks to better understand how bureaucratic structures like NOW's simultaneously provide stability and longevity, while creating space for productive and healthy conflict among members. Kelsy Kretschmer explores these ideas through an examination of conflict in NOW's local chapters, its task forces and committees, and its satellite groups. NOW's history provides evidence for three basic arguments: bureaucratic groups are not insulated from factionalism; they are important sites of creativity and innovation for their movements; and schisms are not inherently bad for movement organizations. Hence, Fighting for NOW is in stark contrast to conventional scholarship, which has conceptualized factionalism as organizational failure. It also provides one of the few book-length explorations of NOW's trajectory, from its founding to the modern context. Scholars will welcome the book's insights that draw on open systems and resource dependency theories, as well as its rethinking of how conflict shapes activist communities. Students will welcome its clear and compelling history of the feminist movement and of how feminist ideas have changed over the past five decades.

The voluntary sector is made up primarily of not-for-profit and non-governmental organizations that engage with social issues. Voices from the Voluntary Sector contains reasoned reflections by practitioners on some of the significant challenges faced by today's not-for-profit organizations in Canada. Broad in scope, these essays present a rich, multi-dimensional set of vignettes that as a whole express the vitality and humanity of the voluntary sector in Canada.

The contributors discuss organizational and managerial challenges, social entrepreneurship, and how to foster effective global movements. The essays include a reflection on the ways that young people can find the courage to become leaders, an exploration of the absence of First Nations peoples within voluntary sector organizations, and a consideration how parental incarceration affects the life prospects of children. Voices from the Voluntary Sector is a valuable resource that addresses a wide range of concerns related to the responsiveness, character, and leadership of third sector organizations.

In the past twenty-five years, a number of countries have made the transition to democracy. The support of international organizations is essential to success on this difficult path. Yet, despite extensive research into the relationship between democratic transitions and membership in international organizations, the mechanisms underlying the relationship remain unclear. With Organizing Democracy, Paul Poast and Johannes Urpelainen argue that leaders of transitional democracies often have to draw on the support of international organizations to provide the public goods and expertise needed to consolidate democratic rule. Looking at the Baltic states' accession to NATO, Poast and Urpelainen provide a compelling and statistically rigorous account of the sorts of support transitional democracies draw from international institutions. They also show that, in many cases, the leaders of new democracies must actually create new international organizations to better serve their needs, since they may not qualify for help from existing ones.

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are ubiquitous in the Global South. Often international in origin, many attempt to assist local efforts to improve the lives of people often living in or near poverty. Yet their external origins often cloud their ability to impact health or quality of life, regardless of whether volunteers are local or foreign. By focusing on one particular type of NGO-those organized to help prevent the spread and transmission of HIV in Kenya-Megan Hershey interrogates the ways these organizations achieve (or fail to achieve) their planned outcomes. Along the way, she examines the slippery slope that is often used to define "success" based on meeting donor-set goals versus locally identified needs. She also explores the complex network of bureaucratic requirements at both the national and local levels that affect the delicate relationships NGOs have with the state. Drawing on extensive, original quantitative and qualitative research, Whose Agency serves as a much-needed case study for understanding the strengths and shortcomings of participatory development and community engagement.