We NGOs: A controversial way of being and acting

While the forces of globalisation have intensified economic polarisation, diverse social movements worldwide are struggling to defend the public interest and to promote a more rights-based and sustainable form of organising human society. In allying themselves with the causes of the dispossessed at the local level, and raising international awareness of such issues, NGOs have a part to play in building a more equitable global order. However, NGOs urgently need to find better ways to link these struggles with their analysis, their action, and their ethical values.     

Trade unions and women's NGOs: diverse civil society organisations in Iran

A comparison of trade unions and NGOs in Iran demonstrates the diverse nature of their activities. Over the last 90 years, trade unions have played important roles in changing the political system in that country. However, unions are largely male‐dominated organisations, which explains why some women have begun to organise women's trade unions. This article focuses, however, on the activities of women's NGOs, which are engaged in improving the socio‐economic conditions of the most marginalised sectors of society. Their activities are limited and they are not engaged in structural change. However, they are challenging gender‐specific access and influence over institutional power, matters that are crucial to the process of democratisation. It is argued that, since many trade unions and NGOs in Iran are strengthening community‐based institutions in different ways, their collaboration would have a mutually transformational impact which would turn these organisations into more powerful forces in the process of democratisation.     

NGOs: Fragmented dreams

Development NGOs are in crisis. They are losing their capacity to engage in critical analysis and propose global solutions; to react to or seize the political initiative; or to situate themselves on the cutting edge of those social and political processes in which new approaches and potential solutions might be found. While some NGOs have sought to accommodate themselves around donors' policies and projects that focus on reducing the negative effects of structural adjustment, the raison d'être of NGOs is to have the autonomy, initiative, and flexibility that non-governmental status confers upon them. A growing split between NGOs' capacity to lobby and do research and their grassroots work reflects a deeper division that exists-- both practical and theoretical --between the concept and process of development and the concept and process of democratisation. The author argues that human development and participatory and representative democracy are both mutually reinforcing and indivisible and that the challenge the NGOs face is to link--theoretically and practically--democracy with development.     

Globalisation

The term ‘globalisation’ is widely used to describe a variety of economic, cultural, social, and political changes that have shaped the world over the past 50-odd years. Because it is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon, globalisation has been credited with a wide range of powers and effects. Its proponents claim that it is both ‘natural’ and an inevitable outcome of technological progress, and creates positive economic and political convergences. Critics argue that globalisation is hegemonic and antagonistic to local and national economies. This article argues that globalisation is a form of capitalist expansion that entails the integration of local and national economies into a global, unregulated market economy. Although economic in its structure, globalisation is equally a political phenomenon, shaped by negotiations and interactions between institutions of transnational capital, nation states, and international institutions. Its main driving forces are institutions of global capitalism – especially transnational corporations – but it also needs the firm hand of states to create enabling environments for it to take root. Globalisation is always accompanied by liberal democracy, which facilitates the establishment of a neo-liberal state and policies that permit globalisation to flourish. The article discusses the relationship between globalisation and development and points out that some of the most common assumptions promoted by its proponents are contradictory to the reality of globalisation; and that globalisation is resisted by more than half of the globe's population because it is not capable of delivering on its promises of economic well being and progress for all.     

Sweating it out: NGO campaigns and trade union empowerment

In the context of globalisation, transnational social regulation is increasingly the product of NGOs intervening in the sphere of global trade. Drawing on empirical research in SE Asia, the author contends that what matters as much as codes of conduct are spillover effects whose force extends beyond building walls into the broader society of the host country. The basis for effective labour law lies within states, and activism must focus on improving legal, political, and social conditions for workers in the host countries, rather than on trying to affect corporate behaviour through consumer pressure.     

Civil society activism and political parties in Malaysia: differences over local representation

Despite their importance to democratic consolidation, relationships between civil society activists and political parties have often been problematic following the downfall of authoritarian regimes. In challenging authoritarian rule in Malaysia, though, these forces have increased cooperation and jointly committed at the 2008 elections to local government reform. This was especially important for middle-class non-governmental organization (NGO) activists seeking a transformation in the political culture of parties. Moreover, state government victories by reformist Pakatan Rakyat (PR) coalitions included Selangor and Penang where these NGOs are concentrated. Yet while local government reform followed, NGOs and parties placed differing emphases on elections, transcending ethnic-based representation, and checks and balances on local government power. Lacking substantial social and organizational bases, NGOs were outflanked by more powerful interests inside and outside PR parties, including those aligned with ethnic-based ideologies of representation and economic development models opposed by NGOs. NGO activists also advanced various democratic and technocratic rationales for local representation, indicating a complex ideological mix underlying their reform push. The study highlights interrelated structural and ideational factors likely to more generally constrain the capacity of middle-class NGOs to play a vanguard role in democratically transforming Malaysian political culture.     

马来西亚妇女非政府组织的发展

本文首先回顾了马来西亚妇女非政府组织的发展历程,然后对独立后马来西亚主要的妇女非政府组织及其活动进行介绍,最后对马来西亚妇女非政府组织与马来西亚政府的关系进行评估和分析。     

New forms of environmental governance? A case study of Costa Rican environmental NGOs

Increasingly development theorists and practitioners view NGOs as catalysts of sustainable development. NGOs have been regarded as champions of democratisation and promoters of new ways of engaging in politics, with considerable influence on the development of civil society and new partnerships in environmental and social advocacy. This article analyses the ways in which Costa Rican environmental NGOs (ENGOs) engage in politics, by focusing on their perceptions of their roles in environmental governance and in representation of civil society. The results of this study suggest that the ENGOs' ways of engaging in politics differ little from traditional forms of governance, while their conceptions of engaging in politics without being political are novel. While most ENGOs had no clear conception of the stakeholders whom they were supposed to be representing, the notion of representativeness is complex and should be revisited.     

Trade unions and NGOs: the need for cooperation

The challenges posed by economic globalisation make it imperative that civil society organisations break down the barriers that have traditionally divided them, in order to ensure that the rights of those who are marginalised or vulnerable are kept firmly on the international agenda. In particular, globalisation brings fresh impetus to the need to forge alliances between the trade union movement and NGOs concerned with social and economic development. While there is plenty of evidence of successful cooperation, major problems, fears, suspicions, and at times hostilities remain between them. Some of these are substantial and sharp policy differences, but others are the consequence of colliding political or organisational cultures, prejudices, financial competition, and a mutual lack of understanding of respective roles and objectives. Debates surrounding the organisation of workers in the informal economy, including the ILO discussion in June 2002, provide a useful case study.     

Representing labour in India

Trade unions in India work mainly with workers in formal employment, particularly in the public sector. However, most people in India work in the informal economy, and their needs are attended mainly by voluntary agencies or NGOs. Economic globalisation and the policies associated with it are resulting in the increasing informalisation of work; as representatives of working people, unions and agencies alike are being further marginalised. Paradoxically, this situation is encouraging these organisations to overcome the mutual mistrust that has characterised relations between them in the past, and to join forces in order to pool their strengths. This article describes the background and current situation in general terms before presenting a case study of the National Centre for Labour (NCL), an apex body of labour organisations of all kinds working in the informal sector in India. Its members include unions and agencies active among workers in the construction industry, as well as in forestry, fishing, and domestic work. Such collaboration has not only enhanced the effectiveness of both the unions and the agencies, but has also increased the unions' representative character.     

Globalisation as a Problem of Political Analysis: Restoring Agents to a 'Process without a Subject' and Politics to a Logic of Economic Compulsion*

Globalisation, in both the popular and academic vernacular, is presented as a non-negotiable external economic constraint, which must simply be accommodated. Consequently, it is a process whose content, nature and consequences are not amenable--either in practice or in principle--to political, far less democratic, deliberation. It is not at all surprising, then, that the invocation of globalisation should be associated with the logic of economic compulsion and the absence of political choice. This paper argues that the perception of the non-negotiable character of globalisation is both misleading and, at the same time, intimately connected to its depiction as a causal 'process without a subject'. For it is only by failing to specify the mechanisms of complex change, in which agents are necessarily implicated, that generic and agentless processes such as globalisation acquire their necessitarian, non-negotiable and apolitical character. Restoring subjects to the process of globalisation and assessing the extent to which their behaviour is informed by constructions of globalisation are urgent challenges for critical political analysts. They are crucial to the broader task of demystifying globalisation, of holding it open to democratic political scrutiny and, in so doing, of challenging its perceived logic of no alternative. If we are to do this, we must develop an account of globalisation capable of acknowledging and incorporating a dynamic understanding of the relationship between conduct and context, and the material and the ideational. In short, if the character, content and consequences of the process of globalisation are to be held to account, we must first restore agents to this process without a subject and politics to this logic of economic compulsion.     

‘Dancing with the prince’: Ngo's survival strategics in the Afghan conflict

Afghan NGOs have been a major provider of humanitarian aid throughout the Afghan conflict. They remained operational during this period by 'dancing' with and between the various parties to the conflict, their survival contingent on their ability to build ad hoc patterns of alliance and cooperation. This article explores the nature of 'the dance' between NGOs, the warring parties, and the NGOs' constituencies. It asks whether 'dancing with the prince' represents an accommodation with violence or is a necessary compromise which will ultimately contribute to resolving the conflict. It concludes by drawing out key lessons for donors who support indigenous NGOs operating in complex political emergencies.     

Trade unions,NGOs, and corporate codes of conduct

The proliferation of corporate codes of conduct generates both alliance and tension between trade unions and NGOs that deal with workers' rights in the global economy. Alliance, because trade unions and NGOs share a common desire to halt abusive behaviour by multinational companies and a broader goal of checking corporate power in the global economy. Tension, because unions and NGOs have differing institutional interests, different analyses of problems and potential solutions, and different ways of thinking and talking about social justice in the global economy. There are fears that codes of conduct may be used to undermine effective labour law enforcement by governmental authorities and undermine workers' power in trade unions. The substance behind the rhetoric on this new generation of corporate codes of conduct is certainly open to question. However, this paper argues that, given unions' weak presence in the global assembly line and the rapid‐response capabilities of many NGOs, such codes are a valuable asset. Trade unions and NGOs still have more in common with each other than either has with corporations, governments, or international organisations that see free trade and free‐flowing capital as the solution to low labour standards. But both need to be clear‐eyed about their differences and their proper roles as they navigate the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.     

Agrarian reform

Agrarian reform and land reform have virtually disappeared from the international development agenda since the 1980s. However, many people's organisations (POs) and NGOs in Third World countries are attempting to restore them as a development priority and policy imperative. The Philippines provides an example of agrarian reform that is currently being implemented within a democratic political framework which, while not without problems, presents an opportunity for a meaningful change for small farmers and landless peasants. In 1989, PhilDhrra, a network of NGOs in the Philippines, initiated a tripartite mechanism and programme among POs, NGOs, and government to facilitate the agrarian-reform process, which is showing encouraging results in several provinces.     

Good News! You may be out of a job reflections on the past and future 50: Years for Northern NGOs

After 50 years of spectacularly successful work (particularly in raising the equity stakes, improving the quality of overseas development aid, fostering Southern NGO work at the international level and organising quick and effective humanitarian assistance), Northern development NGOs have come to a crossroads. The author argues that the history of the NGO 'occupational category', coupled with a changing political and economic environment (the end of the Cold War, rising international investment, declining overseas development aid, and vastly heightened Southern NGO capacity), means that most Northern NGOs should close up shop. Instead, a kaleidoscopic rebirth is envisaged, where four key functions remain for Northerners--as humanitarian agents, economic policy watchers, North-South brokers, and corporate responsibility advocates. This change of job is heralded as good news: evidence that the project of global social justice has moved dramatically forwards.     

Working at the intersection—a story from Australia

Conceived by nurses in the hospital of a Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut, and inspired by Norwegian People's Aid, the international aid agency of the Australian trade unions was designed to give a genuine material base to solidarity with national liberation struggles. Bridging the difficult division in Australian labour politics between the Catholic right and the social democratic and pro‐Moscow lefts, Australian People for Health, Education and Development Abroad (now Union Aid Abroad APHEDA) was able to channel funds from unions and the Australian government to agriculture, health, and vocational training projects in many countries in the South. Unlike most counterpart organisations in Europe and the USA, its earlier partners were rarely trade unions. Only recently has APHEDA directly supported trade union training in Cambodia, East Timor, and Indonesia, under pressure from Australian unions, who see workers' rights in neighbouring countries as crucial to their own fate. Yet unions in advanced capitalist countries don't spontaneously understand the humanitarian and development needs of countries, such as Papua New Guinea, where waged workers are a small minority of the population. Unionisation is only one part of the solution. The April 2000 Durban congress of the ICFTU called for trade unions to ‘organise the unorganised’, such as informal‐sector workers, and to build alliances with NGOs and civil society around shared values. As a trade union NGO, APHEDA is located in the middle of a challenging intersection. Mandated to educate Australian workers on globalisation issues, APHEDA finds itself often more partisan than other international development NGOs in Australia, sometimes more circumspect. With attacks on union rights and the increasing share of the Australian aid budget delivered through private companies, APHEDA faces decisions about its independence, alliances, direction, and sustainability.     

Reification and Theoreticism in the Study of Globalisation,Imperialism and Hegemony: Response to Kiely,Pozo-Martin and Valladão

This commentary critiques the nation-state framework of analysis that informs papers published by Ray Kiely, Gonzalo Pozo-Martin and Alfredo Valladão in a section appearing in the Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 19:2 (2006), on the theme of globalisation, imperialism and hegemony. Kiely, Pozo-Martin and Valladão reify the state and the inter-state system by giving them an agency independent of historical social forces. They fail to put forward a conception of agency and institutions that could address the central problematic of the political management, or rule, of global capitalism. They presuppose a state-based understanding of global politics that ignores the reality of transnational capital and transnational social forces and that reduces global capitalism to international capitalism. We should focus not on states as fictitious macro-agents but on historically changing constellations of social forces operating through multiple institutions, including state apparatuses that are themselves in a process of transformation as a consequence of collective agencies.     

Reactions to globalisation by the television industry in post-apartheid South Africa

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the different ways in which the South African television industry has reacted to globalisation forces during the post-apartheid era that started in the early 1990s. Of particular interest is how the local television industry initially planned political and economic reforms aimed at bringing the industry more in line with global trends, but then later reacted mainly to protect the local television production industry against foreign competition and to protect local viewers against perceived cultural imperialism impacts of foreign programs. These protective actions were however not as successful as was intended with regard to promoting local television content production. The paper discusses the underlying dynamics of the globalisation and the various localisation processes that occurred (varying chronologically from primary, to secondary, to tertiary localisation), as well as the ways in which television industries in other parts of the world have reacted to similar global forces. It is contended that the local South African television production industry stands to benefit most in future if broadcasting policy makers respond more pro-actively to opportunities offered by global technological forces operating upon the industry. This is in agreement with the thrust of the latest broadcasting policy process of the Department of Communication. It is concluded that a recent joint initiative by the country's two major broadcasters in which an increased number of both locally produced and other “African” programs are being broadcast via satellite to prospective geo-cultural markets in the rest of Africa, holds promise for the future viability of the South African television industry.     

The future of Fair Trade coffee: dilemmas facing Latin America's small-scale producers

Fair Trade has become a dynamic and successful dimension of an emerging counter-tendency to the neo-liberal globalisation regime. This study explores some of the dilemmas facing the Fair Trade movement as it seeks to broaden and deepen its impact among the rural poor of Latin America's coffee sector. We argue that the efforts to broaden Fair Trade's economic impact among poor, small-scale producers are creating challenges for deepening the political impact of a movement that is based on social justice and environmental sustainability. The study is based on two years' research and seven case studies of Mexican and Central American small-scale farmer cooperatives producing coffee for the Fair Trade market.