Domestic Civil Society Research Articles

Impaling Dracula: How EU Accession Empowered Civil Society in Romania

Europeanisation scholars increasingly debate when and in what ways the European Union influences domestic politics. This article adopts a ‘bottom-up’ design and the process-tracing method to examine the influence of the EU enlargement context over the political power of the new social movements in Romania between 2000 and 2004 when the EU acquis was being negotiated. It finds that domestic civil society empowerment resulted from the nexus of three interacting causal pathways: the Executive's desire to accede to the EU; a transnational advocacy network, which included domestic NGOs, reinforcing the Executive's anticipatory self-constraint; and to a somewhat lesser extent, the Executive's self-identification with certain elements of the advocacy network, reinforced by a general concern for their external reputation.

India’s Economic Diplomacy at the World Trade Organization

India has adopted a policy of pragmatic engagement with multilateral economic organizations in recent years. In the context of India’s economic diplomacy at the World Trade Organization (WTO), where it is seen as one of the major voices of dissent from the developing world, a shift in its traditional posturing is clearly evident. This article seeks to interpret the shift both in the context of structural changes within the WTO and the changing goals of India’s economic policy. In view of the stalemate at the Doha round of negotiations, the article argues that multi-lateral organizations like the WTO need to recognize the role of domestic lobbies and transnational civil society networks in shaping the aspirations of emerging economies like India.

A civil kezdeményezések hatása a városi kormányzásra

Az integráció, a kooperáció, az együttműködés fogalmaival leírható jövő és az ezekhez nélkülözhetetlen részvétel szükséges feltétele a helyi társadalom kibontakozásának. A helyi közösség, a lakópolgárok társulásai nem „belső ellenőrei", hanem egyenrangú partnerei a helyi hatalomnak. Sokkal hitelesebb, ha az együtt-tanulás eredményeképpen civilek maradnak, tehát ügyelnek arra, hogy autentikusak legyenek.

China’s Civil Society: Controls, Limits and Role in a “Harmonious Society”

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)The rise of the global civil society in the 1990s and the emergence of an increasingly global economy reflect a new system of power distribution in the international political order. society (CSOs) are organisations that originate outside the state apparatus and business, and include those that are more widely known as non-governmental organisations (NGOs). In 1996, the United Nations outlined its formal association with civil society organisations in an Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) resolution by establishing accreditation procedures through the Committee on Non-Governmental Organisations.((2) Today, non-governmental organisations can apply for general consultative status and be accredited to take active part in UN conferences and summits. While only 714 organisations were accredited to ECOSOC in 1992,((3) today the number stands at 3,051.((4)China's regulatory framework for CSOsMirroring the global scene, there has been a proliferation of CSOs, including NGOs, charities, foundations, advocacy groups and professional associations, in China within the past decade.((5) Official Chinese figures from 1989 in the early days of its statistical record keeping on these organisations placed the number at slightly over 200,000,((6) while the 2006 statistics counted 354,000 CSOs.((7) However, due to restrictive registration policies, scholars estimate that the number of CSOs in 2006 actually exceeded 3 million.((8)This wide gap between official and unofficial numbers stems in part from the fact that China lacks a clear regulatory framework governing the definition and operation of CSOs. For instance, terminologies on how various CSOs are officially classified versus how they are commonly referred to are confusing and, at times, overlapping. In addition, the term organisation (NPO) has recently become another common and more favourable reference for civil society in China, given the non-profit nature of CSOs that is required by law. However, both terms NGO and NPO, though often colloquially used to refer to China's civil society, lack official definitions and are outside China's regulatory regime.This article provides an overview of domestic civil society organisations in China and the regulations that govern and affect their work. It examines the various layers of regulatory control that are used to limit the activities of Chinese CSOs beyond government-sanctioned activities. As a whole, these imposed tactics obstruct the development of civil society as a meaningful venue for participatory and inclusive political and social dialogue that could mediate tensions and address grievances in society, and in so doing, contribute to a genuine harmonious society in China.Overview of Civil Society in ChinaIn China, the fundamental aspects of CSOs, literally translated as Minjian zuzhi ... are not well understood, given the complex and often repressive regulatory regime that restricts their work. Several key regulations issued since 1998 have attempted to officially classify all CSOs into the three main categories of social organisations, foundations and popular non-enterprise work units (PNEWUs).((9) The legal definitions for these categories are:* Social organisations or SOs (Shehui tuanti ..., She tuan ...)-voluntary groups formed by Chinese citizens in order to realise a shared objective, according to their rules and to develop non-profitmaking activities.((10)* Foundations (Jijinhui ...)-non-profit legal entities established in accordance with these regulations that employ assets donated by actual persons, legal entities or other organisations for the purpose of engaging in some public benefit enterprise.((11)* Popular non-enterprise work units or PNEWUs (minban feiqiye danwei ... or private and noncommercial entities)-social organisations carrying out social service activities of a non-profit nature, run by enterprises and institutional work units, social groups and other social forces, and also individual citizens using nonstate assets. …

Democracy Assistance to Domestic Election Monitoring Organizations: Conditions for Success

Can the international community effectively promote and support – sometimes even create – domestic civil society? Supporting civic reformers is now a common practice in the international democratization policy repertoire. Behind this practice lies the idea that strengthening civic actors improves the chances for democratic transition and consolidation. This article investigates conditions for successful democracy assistance to civic actors through comparative study of six domestic election monitoring organizations in the Americas. The article argues that both international and domestic context matter. A history of soft power (diplomatic, normative) intervention and low internal polarization create relatively favourable conditions for democracy assistance to civic actors. In cases with a history of hard power intervention (such as use of force or economic sanctions) and high political polarization, intervening variables, such as multilateral provision of democracy assistance and pluralistic structures and behaviours on the part of aid recipients, can surmount unfavourable conditions for international democracy assistance. In the absence of such mitigating conditions, democracy assistance to civic actors may be ill-advised.

Making Sense of Global Civil Society

This article purports to explain why the concept of global civil society recently has attracted so much interest within academic and political discourse. Given the ambiguity and apparent incoherence of this concept, its centrality within contemporary International Relations and political theory is puzzling. The article argues that once we pay attention to the function of the concept of domestic civil society within different historical contexts, we are better able to understand the logic governing the usage of global civil society as well. Much like its domestic antecedents, theories of global civil society provide answers to the question of how to govern effectively, in this case by constituting the global realm as a sphere of governmental activity, as well as by justifying the exercise of authority within this emergent sphere. The article concludes by discussing the ethical implications of the concept of global civil society, disputing its emancipatory potential.

The Origins of Global Civil Society and Nonterritorial Governance: Some Empirical Reflections

In this article, we examine two possibly competing hypotheses on the ori gins of civil The first suggests that civil society has developed rationally over a long period of time, continuous with the development of domestic civil society in democracies. The second postu lates that civil society is a relatively new phenomenon, one that has emerged to respond to unprecedented challenges to democracy as a result of globalization. Drawing on a case study of politics surrounding plant biotechnology, we evaluate these two hypotheses. Our findings sup port the second, more institutionalist, possibility. We then use these findings to comment on how civil society might be defined and how it relates to democracy. KEYWORDS: globalization, civil society, democracy, plant biotechnology, nonstate actors. In contemporary discussions of governance, many scholars have posited the possibility that networks of new social movements, publicly oriented nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and other nonstate actors have the potential to create pressures for increased transparency and accountability. A more legitimate democratic politics would follow such developments. Such networks are often seen to be the base of global civil society. Understanding the origins of civil society is important if we are to adequately assess its possible contribution to addressing the challenge of democratic governance in an era of globalization. In this article, we evaluate two different views about the origins of civil The first suggests that civil society has been developing rationally over a long period of time, continuous with the development of domestic civil society in democracies. The second postulates that civil society is a relatively new phenomenon that has emerged to respond to unprecedented challenges to democracy as a result of globalization. We offer some initial research and reflections on these hypotheses. Using a case study of political activity in the area of plant biotechnology, we find evidence that the second hypothesis?focused on the novelty and recent origins of civil society?is more credible. Not only is the for

Civil society, the state, and the limits to global civil society

Just as domestic civil society is widely regarded as serving the greater common good of a national democratic political community, global civil society is also promoted as a vehicle through which a host of humanity's ills may be remedied. This article argues that the pinning of such high hopes on global civil society is mistaken, for its proponents have failed to recognise that global civil society is insufficiently analogous to domestic civil society for it to be a similarly positive force. At the national level, civil society functions in a balanced interdependence with the state. At the global level there is no equivalent of the state to provide the necessary scrutiny and regulation that at the national level prevents constituents of domestic civil society from committing injustices.

Metamorphoses of Power: From Coercion to Cooperation?

AbstractIn probing metamorphoses of power and changing understandings of power, this treatment examines the question of whether there is a general trend from coercive towards cooperative and consensual forms of power over time. This reflection unpacks power in its various dimensions, considers the contributions of Gramsci and Foucault, and then examines the hypothesis of a growing trend towards cooperative forms of power in domestic politics and civil society, and in international politics.

Towards a Human Rights Regime in Southeast Asia: Charting the Course of State Commitment

Introduction Today, in Southeast Asia, redress of human rights violations may be far from being realized. However, following the Asian financial crisis in 1997 there has been modest progress in terms of the proliferation of discourse on human rights and democracy throughout the region. (1) More arguments have also been propounded to tailor human rights language, culture, and its implementation to local contexts and sensitivities. (2) But Southeast Asian governments have continued to regard human rights as an ambivalent subject in national development. (3) At the same time, they have been forced to engage with the issue, for a variety of reasons--from paying lip-service to an increasingly assertive public demand for accountability to using it as a means for shoring-up political credibility in a climate of regional economic uncertainty, to building up an image more acceptable to prevailing international norms. While the debate on whether human rights is a universal or relativistic norm rages on, different elements are shapi ng a new climate for human rights understanding and advocacy. For example, the imminent manifestation of an International Security Order in the wake of the terrorist attacks in the United States on 11. September 2001 will leave both critics and defenders of universal human rights groping for renewed answers to an old issue. The pervasiveness of the discourse on security over respect for human freedom has now become one of the stumbling blocks against progress in human rights, replacing the previous divisiveness stemming from the universalist versus relativist debates, with authoritarian states promoting the position of the latter. (4) Post-September 11 has turned out to be an opportunity for the nation-state to exert its sovereignty even more forcefully and to sideline the agendas of the global normative movement, one of which being human rights, to a token concern. The purpose of this article is to look at the dynamics of the human rights question by examining the role played by the state in furthering the human rights agenda within Southeast Asia. The article is divided into two areas of discussion. The first is on the prospect of a regional body such as ASEAN playing a more committed role in establishing a human rights regime. The assessment of this issue revolves round whether the regional organization, with its avowed stance on noninterference, has responded favourably and accordingly to the human rights challenge. The second area of discussion is on the four government-established national human rights institutions currently existing in ASEAN. (5) Are these nationally established human rights commissions significantly different from one another, and what have been their successes and failures? It is the contention of this article that a human rights regime is difficult to foster in the region because its very existence will be seen to undermine the concept of the strong, autonomous, and economically-sound nation-state that Southeast Asian governments have traditionally promoted. By assessing the functions and performance of Southeast Asian national human rights commissions, the article provides evidence of a strong state-centric resistance against the setting up of an effective human rights regime. In fact, the contestation for a human rights regime has always involved nation-states battling against their domestic civil society and an international movement pushing for a normative global order. The discussion will attempt to draw out this particular dynamic and concludes with some reflections on the future of human rights advocacy in Southeast Asia. The Prospect for Human Rights within the ASEAN Rubric ASEAN's early successes were largely related to its role as a regional mechanism operating within the context of Cold War politics. Despite the potentially destabilizing impact of the war in Vietnam, the founding member-countries of ASEAN successfully remained as peaceful and independent entities. …

The Emergence of a Global Anti-corruption Norm

The article analyzes the development of a global anti-corruption norm, and specifically its anit-bribery component, through the first two of three stages during the 1990s: (1) awareness raising, (2) institutionalization through the development of legal and policy instruments, and (3) global adoption, internalization, and adherence. A hegemonic actor explanation of norm development does not explain the failure of the norm in the 1970s in contrast to the relative success of norm development in the 1990s. The explanation lies in three processes: (1) the changing global environment, including the end of the Cold War and the spread of the principles of democracy and liberalism; (2) social interactions and the information revolution that contributed to wide-spread diffusion of new information about the causes and costs of corruption, as well as strategies to combat it; and (3) internal processes within the nation-state, from an explosion of NGOs and a freer, more investigative media, to changing calculations among political leaders about the costs of corruption. To reach the third stage of norm development will require both international organizations and domestic civil society actors to demand and monitor the implementation and enforcement of current commitments and to establish accountability.