Legitimation as Political Practice


Book Description

A radical, interdisciplinary reworking of legitimation, using ethnographic insights to explore everyday non-state authority in Tanzania.




NGOs, Civil Society, and the Public Sphere


Book Description

This book investigates how nongovernmental organizations can become stronger advocates for citizens and better representatives of their interests. Sabine Lang analyzes the choices that NGOs face in their work for policy change between working in institutional settings and practicing public advocacy that incorporates constituents' voices.




Transnational Private Governance and its Limits


Book Description

This volume explores a variety of forms of transnational private governance where non-state actors cooperate across borders to establish rules and standards accepted as legitimate by other agents. Transnational private governance is a core feature of the devolution of power that we observe in the global realm and that is bringing about new forms of authority. Transnational Private Governance provides theoretically and empirically informed insights into the interactions between states and non-state actors including domains beyond intergovernmental organizations, conventional non-governmental organizations, and multinational enterprises, covering a wide range of arrangements, from highly formal devolutions of power to lax and informal platforms of interaction between private actors. Contributing to the latest generation of globalization studies, the authors consider the relationship between states and markets as closely integrated and seek to broaden the scope of enquiry by including new patterns and agents of change on a transnational basis. This book will be of great interest to researchers and students of political science, international political economy, economics, business studies, globalisation and law.




Civil Society Responses to Changing Civic Spaces


Book Description

This open access book contributes to thriving debates in academic as well as professional circles about the role of civil society in shrinking civic spaces, rising authoritarianism and right-wing populism, conflicts, fragile states, and most lately, the global COVID-19 pandemic. This is one of the first books to address the implications of changing civic spaces for civil society organizations worldwide. It offers a unique overview of how social movements and civil society groups in very different settings are responding to state-imposed restrictions of basic civic freedoms. The authors are all experts in the field, and their analyses are based on original and onsite research. This unique book also contributes to a better understanding of the conceptualizations and practices of civil society. It is of keen interest to academic scholars, students, civil society practitioners, and policy makers in the field of international development research and civil society action.




NGO Management


Book Description

The task environment of NGOs is changing rapidly and significantly, making new demands on their management and leadership. This Companion discusses the complexities involved. It illustrates how NGOs can maintain performance and remain agile amidst increasing uncertainties. These factors include the position of NGOs in civil society, their involvement in governance and coping with the effects of the securitisation of international aid. Complementing The Earthscan Reader in NGO Management, selected contributions and specially commissioned pieces from NGO thought-leaders and practitioners, provide the reader with insights on the emerging thinking, competences and practices needed for success in managing and leading tomorrow's NGOs.




Legitimation and Delegitimation in Global Governance


Book Description

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. The legitimacy of global governance institutions is both contested and defended in contemporary global politics. Legitimation and Delegitimation in Global Governance explores processes of legitimation and delegitimation of such institutions. How, why, and with what impact on audiences, are global governance institutions legitimated and delegitimated? The book develops a comprehensive theoretical framework for studying processes of (de)legitimation in governance beyond the state. It provides broad comparative analyses to uncover previously unexplored patterns of (de)legitimation processes. A diverse set of global and regional governmental and nongovernmental institutions in different policy fields are included. Variation across these institutions is explained with reference to institutional set-up, policy field characteristics, and broader social structures, as well as to the qualities of agents of (de)legitimation. The approach builds on a mixed-methods research design that uses quantitative and qualitative new empirical data. Three main interlinked elements of processes of legitimation and delegitimation are at the center of the analysis: the varied practices employed by different agents that may boost or challenge the legitimacy of institutions; the normative justifications that these agents draw on when engaging in legitimation and delegitimation practices; and the different audiences that may be impacted by legitimation and delegitimation. This results in a dynamic interplay between legitimation and delegitimation in contestation over the legitimacy of GGIs.




Legitimation in a World at Risk


Book Description

This book provides a sociological analysis of the controversy surrounding GM crops in Telangana, India. There is much debate as to whether GM technology holds the key to improving the welfare of poor farmers globally or serves primarily to increase the profits of multinational corporations while enhancing cultivator risk. Desmond’s study is located in the economically vulnerable and politically volatile district of Warangal in Telangana, a context associated with high numbers of farmer suicides. Uniquely foregrounding the perspectives of cultivators and the landless, Desmond explores how GM crops are variously legitimated and delegitimated in three Warangal villages by those whose livelihoods are at stake in the debate, but whose voices are rarely heard within it. This book will be significant for those with an interest in GM crops, power and knowledge and their relation to understandings of development, democracy and risk management worldwide.




Framing the Global


Book Description

Framing the Global explores new and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of global issues. Essays are framed around the entry points or key concepts that have emerged in each contributor's engagement with global studies in the course of empirical research, offering a conceptual toolkit for global research in the 21st century.




Understanding Global Development Research


Book Description

For experienced and inexperienced researchers and practitioners alike, this engaging book opens up new perspectives on conducting fieldwork in the Global South. Following an inter-disciplinary and inter-generational approach, Understanding Global Development brings into dialogue reflections on fieldwork experiences by leading scholars along with accounts from early career researchers. Contributions are organised around six key issues: Meaningful participation in fieldwork Working in dangerous environments Gendered experiences of fieldwork Researching elites Conducting fieldwork with marginalised people Fieldwork in development practice. The experience-led discussion of each of the topics conveys a sense of what it actually feels like to be out in the field and provides readers with useful insights and practical advice. A relational framework highlights issues relating to power, identity and ethics in development fieldwork, and encourages reflection on how researcher engagement with the field shapes our understanding of global development.




Best Practices for Human Rights and Humanitarian NGO Fact-Finding


Book Description

This work outlines available resources and proposed standards for international NGO fact-finding missions. Chapter One presents an introduction to the issue of NGO fact-finding. Chapter Two discusses the problems caused by the lack of any generally-accepted guidelines for NGO fact-finding, in contrast with contexts where NGOs have achieved consensus. Chapter Three surveys proposed guidelines for human rights and humanitarian NGOs. In addition, this section examines United Nations fact-finding standards, as well as examples of internal fact-finding standards for major NGOs. Chapter Four analyzes the fact-finding standards used in five specific cases: the International Crisis Group (Kosovo, 1999), the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Conflict in Georgia (Georgia, 2008), United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Mapping Exercise on the Democratic Republic of Congo (1993-2003), Conflict Analysis Resource Center/University London study on Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (Colombia, 1988-2004), and Human Rights Watch (Lebanon, 2006). The final chapter offers conclusions and recommendations.