Civil Society Opposition to Nonferrous Metals Mining in Guatemala

Drawing on a range of fieldwork interviews, this paper discusses the opposition of civil society to nonferrous metals mining in Guatemala. Guatemala’s mineral resources, and government efforts to encourage their extraction, are discussed, as is the emergent civil society of that nation. Guatemalan civil society has opposed mining due to the impacts of its environmental effects upon the poor engaged in subsistence agriculture. This opposition has involved protests, community consultations against mining, and networking with the forces of global civil society. The paper concludes with a discussion of how this opposition to mining is a manifestation of the opposition to neoliberalism currently underway in Latin America.

Civil Society Opposition to Nonferrous Metals Mining in the Philippines

Abstact Drawing on a range of fieldwork interviews, this paper discusses the opposition of civil society to nonferrous metals mining in the Philippines. The efforts of the Philippine government to enhance development by encouraging the extraction of the nation's mineral resources by foreign corporations is discussed, as is the opposition of Philippine civil society to these efforts. This opposition to nonferrous metals mining has involved protests, litigation, administrative proceedings, and implementation of mining moratoriums by local governments. The paper concludes with an examination of the respective costs and benefits of a mining-based development paradigm in the context of the way in which many Filipinos view foreign extraction of their nation's resources.     

Civil Society and Democracy: The Israeli Experience

Civil society has been considered pivotal to democracy, but the causes of its performance have remained controversial. According to one view the political context is a critical factor in shaping the contours of civil society. Another suggests that whether democracy prevails is contingent on society itself and the associations comprising it. In a test of these views it was assumed that if society prevails associations would vary by type. If the state is more important, then associations would be expected to score similarly on the democratic scale. It was also expected that variation among the types of performance would cut across group categories, reflecting general attributes of the polity. Data were derived from a survey conducted among voluntary associations in Israel (n = 360). Findings showed that (a) associations scored similarly on the democratic scale, (b) the scores for the democratic performance were not influenced by group category, and (c) the least performed function was integration.     

Global Civil Society and Its Discontents

According to enthusiasts the concept of global civil society is spreading rapidly and becoming pivotal to the reconfiguring of the statist paradigm. However, critics have recently grown more numerous and outspoken in opposition to the term claiming that it is actually perpetuating statism by grafting the idea of civil society onto the global by way of an unhelpful domestic analogy. This paper examines the role the concept is playing in perpetuating/reconfiguring statism. First it summarizes current criticism by identifying three basic accusations: the ambiguity of the term, the “domestic fallacy,” and the undemocratic effects of using it. Second, these criticisms are considered in turn and it is concluded that all three points relate, ultimately, back to the failure of the critics themselves and some global civil society theorists to move beyond a state-centered framework of interpretation. In the final section it is shown how global civil society discourse is beginning to move not only the concept of “civil society” away from its state-centred historical meanings, but also how it is contributing to changing the content of the concept of “the global.”

Relocating Civil Society in a Politics of Civic‐Driven Change

Politics is central to development discourse, yet remains peripheral. Over some twenty years, a civil‐society narrative has not fulfilled its potential to ‘bring politics back in’. Reasons can be found in conceptual confusion, in selectivity in donor thinking, in policies towards civil society and in the growth‐driven political economy of NGO‐ism. Remedies for the political lacunae are being sought through a focus on rights, citizenship and leadership that show valuable focused progress. This article examines a comprehensive complement to such efforts referred to as civic‐driven change (CDC). Originating in a grounded empirical approach, the constituent principles and elements of CDC offer a lens that can both sharpen and deepen insights and advance analysis of socio‐political processes.     

Global Civil Society: Royal Road or Slippery Path?

Global civil society has become an important paradigm for progressive social change at a planetary level. It posits a bold new ethical project for global democratization. For its critics, though, it is just the social wing of neoliberal globalization diverting social movements from their tasks. It is also seen as irredeemably Eurocentric in its assumptions and orientation. A third option, proposed here, is to understand global civil society as a complex social and spatial terrain. By bringing politics back in, a progressive option can be presented to contest the dominant co-optive or reformist conception of global civil society.     

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     

Assessing the Overall Impact of Civil Society on Development at the Country Level: An Exploratory Approach

Very little is known about the wider and longer‐term contribution of civil‐society organisations to development and poverty reduction. Evaluators have shied away from making judgements for lack of data: rigour has trumped relevance. This article reports on the work of a panel set up by NORAD in response to growing pressure from the public to assess the wider impact of CSOs at the country level. It comes to the conclusion that CSOs have made a significant wider impact, but that this would be greater if donors were to encourage them more to think beyond the narrow focus on discrete projects and if they were to adopt a more strategic approach to their work.     

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.

The Constraints on Civil Society beyond the State: Gender-based Insecurity in Meghalaya,India

The role of civil society is vital for politicizing, contesting, and addressing human insecurity, yet there is very little analysis of the ability of civil society actors to do so. Recent critical approaches to the concept have questioned the tendency to view civil society as an unequivocal good, yet the majority of these critiques still focus on civil society at a global level or on the enabling and disabling capacity of the state at the national level. This paper argues that civil society is constrained not only by the state but by local government and other actors from within civil society. Identity politics, power relations, and existing inequalities between and within communities affect the ability of formal and informal organizations to contest the causes of insecurity. This paper examines the role of civil society in addressing gender-based insecurity in the Indian state of Meghalaya to demonstrate the influence of these factors on civil society and concludes by arguing that civil society is a much more dynamic and contradictory sphere than is often recognized by both advocates and critics. These dynamics must be understood if the constraints on civil society are to be transcended.

Civil Society Organizations and Transition to Democracy in Palestine

This paper examines, through three surveys and some interview data, the dynamics of contemporary Palestinian civil society organizations (CSOs) from the angle of their role in the process of democratization. The paper analyses the emergence, nature, and structures of CSOs in Palestine, and emphasizes the role of the public in democratization. In particular it assesses both the positive and negative facets of CSOs' work from the perspective of their possible role in democratization. It is concluded that CSOs play a positive but limited role in the democratization of Palestinian society.     

Civil Society Research Funding from a Global Perspective: A Case for Redressing Bias,Asymmetry, and Bifurcation

This paper adopts a global perspective to review the current situation with respect to the systematic study of civil society. It locates the analysis in a geohistorical framework, arguing that, as a distinct area of scholarship, contemporary civil society research is a two-track post-Cold War phenomenon exhibiting major shortcomings. A new type of dedicated research financing and process of allocation could redress today's research limitations in ways that will beneficially cross-fertilize parallel approaches and epistemological traditions while increasing the spread of centers dedicated to such knowledge generation. The analysis leads to suggestions for a civil society research agenda and investment principles.     

Women's Organizations and Civil Society in China Making a Difference

This article explores the changing terrain of women's organizations in the reform period in China. It identifies the internal and external factors which have triggered both changes within the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF), the officially designated mass organization representing women's interests, as well as the emergence of new, more autonomous women's organizations. It looks closely at the influence of these organizations on government policy. While the ACWF is particularly well positioned, as a Party organization, to influence policy, the ability of new women's organizations to bring about policy change is more limited. Through the study of women's organizations the article draws broader conclusions about the changing nature of civil society in China. Though women's organizations do not have political change as their prime organizational motive, they are nevertheless symbolically important. As occupiers of non- governmental organizational space and as components of a critical public sphere, they have implicit political agency, and as such, are as much makers of herstory as its product.     

The State and Civil Society in Disaster Response

Abstract

This paper, based on the report “The State and Civil Society in Disaster Response: An Analysis of the Tamil Nadu Tsunami Experience,” (Srinivasan, Nagaraj, & Venkatesh, 2005) is essentially an empirical analysis of state and civil society responses in Tamil Nadu (India) to the tsunami of December 26, 2004. It examines interventions by state and non-state agencies, as well as people's experiences in the relief and rehabilitation phases to identify factors influencing both positive and negative outcomes of the tsunami response. Issues related to vulnerability and exclusion, equity, transparency and accountability in different sectors of disaster intervention are explored to highlight themes revolving around reach and efficacy of relief and recovery processes. These analyses bring out some interesting lessons with regard to the importance of institutional autonomy, non-politicized decision-making, and synergetic state-civil society interfaces in fostering inclusive, transparent and accountable rehabilitation processes. The roles played by institutional responsiveness and flexibility in shaping an effective disaster response also emerge very clearly from this study of the Tamil Nadu experience. Another crucial finding points to the need for detailed, reliable and disaggregated geo-demographic and socioeconomic records as a resource base for informing relief and rehabilitation interventions. The study draws extensively from the experiences and insights of people affected by, and involved in tsunami response, and from secondary knowledge resources available on the disaster.     

Coalitions and Collaboration among Three Civil Society Immigrant Organisations in Israel

This article describes the creation of a coalition among three civil society immigrant organisations in Israel. The research questions dealt with the collaborative strategies adopted by these organisations, and investigated through ethnographic interviews and document analysis what factors facilitated inter-organisational collaboration. Results showed that these organisations provided complementary services to newcomers while struggling with hostile government policies. The collaboration dynamic between the groups was successful because these immigrant associations shared similar socialistic views. Furthermore, through the promotion of personal ties, inter-organisational solidarity was forged, but overall, these activities ran counter to the dominant Israeli culture.     

Civil Society Transformed: International Aid to New Political Parties in the Czech Republic and Slovakia

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - How do international nonprofit organizations influence political party formation in new democracies? Despite recent...     

Religion,Nationalism, and Transnational Civil Society in the Eritrean Diaspora

This article examines the emergence and significance of religion among Eritreans in the United States as a basis for building community in diaspora, reconfiguring nationalist identity, and constituting transnational civil society. It argues three related points: that religious identity and gatherings help mitigate against fractured political identities that have weakened secular diaspora associations; that practicing Eritrean identity through religion challenges the hegemonic power of the Eritrean state to transnationally control diaspora communities and dictate national identity; and that the very incipience of religious bodies as transnational avenues provides Eritreans in diaspora with an autonomous space to resist the state's totalizing demands. Through a critical ethnographic investigation of religious identity and church bodies in Eritrea and one United States diaspora community, the article shows that uneven transnational networks between the United States and Eritrea create new spaces for political action. Specifically, the relative autonomy of churches and the incipience of their transnationalism allow diaspora Eritreans to use religion in the constitution of an emergent transnational civil society.     

Civil Society in Comparative Perspective: Involvement in Voluntary Associations in North America and Western Europe

Involvement in voluntary associations is analyzed from the perspective of questions raised in the debate about civil society. After demarcating the concept of civil society in relation to the community, the market, and the state, expectations are formulated about the negative effects of modernization and individualization on volunteering and the positive effects of volunteering on social capital and public discourse. World Values 1990 data are used for inter- and intranational analyses. Neither rankings of thirteen Western nations nor in-depth analyses of the U.S., the Netherlands, and Italy support worried reflections about the effects of modernization. The Idea that involvement in voluntary associations is conducive to social cohesion and political democracy finds empirical support. Both mere membership of an association and actual volunteering within such an association appear to be important in this respect.     

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.     

State and Civil Society in the Political Philosophy of Alexis de Tocqueville

Alexis de Tocqueville discusses extensively the phenomenon of civil society. He distinguishes between the competence of the state on the one hand and the proper competences of free associations on the other. Therefore, the competence of the state should be a limited one. However, since free associations can cause social struggle, the government should also have the ability to limit self-regulation of free associations. Moreover, each government needs a social basis that gives support to this policy of intervention. The central question of this article reads as follows: What method of research is Tocqueville employing to discover this social basis. The conclusion is that his method is to discover what mores form the basis needed by a democratic government to pursue its policy of intervention.