Entering the global dealing room: Reflections on a rights-based framework for NGOs in international development

The human rights framework cuts across different aspects of development. It has a universal appeal which is increasingly supported by a stronger social, political and cultural global rooting. NGOs have made important contributions to this growing global culture of human rights. The potential of human rights as a normative instrument to further shape and form the political and human quality of globalisation can hardly be underestimated. Human rights offer NGOs the possibility to strategically position themselves at the crossroads of emerging transnational relationships between different actors in the state, market and civil sector. This will strengthen enforcement of human rights, shared among and across different levels of institutions and decision making. But in order to enter the global dealing room, the function of NGOs must be grounded more firmly in the United Nations framework, which gives human rights their principal global legitimacy.     

Governance,Representation and International Aid

The growth of the postwar 20th century international aid architecture has generated much debate over the successes and failures of aid, its changing forms and its challenges. This article uses this aid landscape to explore the representational or discursive power and authority of the aid donor over the aid recipient. It suggests that representations about what aid does, its modalities and dispensations reproduce a hegemonic discourse and that representational authority in diagnosing aid’s problems and prescribing solutions resides generally on one side of the aid binary. It thus focuses on the hierarchical or asymmetric relations of power implied by such a binary, on the way development aid in particular has come to shape self-understandings of donors in relation to recipients, and on the discursive labour that enables such a construction. It also explores how the post-Washington consensus on poverty eradication has embedded neoliberal solutions to development. The reproduction of the hegemonic aid discourse is examined in reference to NGOs involved in the dispensing of aid in Southeast Asia by drawing on scholarly literature and field research in Southeast Asia and Washington DC.     

How international sanctions worked: Domestic and foreign political constraints on the Brazilian informatics policy

From 1985 to 1989, a trade conflict between the United States and Brazil developed around Brazil's protectionist information technology policy. During that period, and under the threat of trade sanctions, some changes were made in the Brazilian policy. The effectiveness of sanctions in promoting policy changes in Brazil resulted not only from economic losses but also from the shift provoked in the balance of political support for the policy within Brazilian society. Moreover, sanctions were effective not because they affected the interests of groups benefiting from the policy, but because they pushed previously uncommitted groups to join the opposition to it.     

Unpacking the unequal representation of Northern and Southern NGOs in international climate change politics

Limited research has been done on non-governmental organisation (NGO) heterogeneity and its representation in global governance. Using the example of international climate change politics, we demonstrate that Northern and Southern NGOs tend to pursue different perspectives which are very unevenly represented in international climate change negotiations as NGOs from the Global North still constitute the large majority of NGOs taking part in these negotiations. In contrast to more hopeful outlooks, NGOs, hence, do not automatically contribute to a more democratic and legitimate global governance.     

Cacophonies of Aid,Failed State Building and NGOs in Haiti: setting the stage for disaster,envisioning the future

The January 2010 earthquake in Haiti was a catastrophe not only for the loss of life it caused, but also because it destroyed the very thin layer of state administrative capacity that was in place in the country. This article argues that the fragility of the Haitian state institutions was exacerbated by international strategies that promoted NGOs as substitutes for the state. These strategies have generated a vicious circle that, while solving immediate logistical problems, ended up weakening Haiti's institutions. However, the article does not call for an overarching condemnation of NGOs. Instead, it explores two cases of community-based NGOs, Partners In Health and Fonkoze, that have contributed to creating durable social capital, generated employment and provided functioning services to the communities where they operated. The article shows that organisations that are financially independent and internationally connected, embrace a needs-based approach to their activities and share a long-term commitment to the communities within which they operate can contribute to bringing about substantial improvement for people living in situations of extreme poverty. It concludes that in the aftermath of a crisis of the dimension of the January earthquake it is crucial to channel support towards organisations that show this type of commitment.     

Persuasion and Predation: The Effects of U.S. Military Aid and International Development Aid on Civilian Killings

ABSTRACT

Powerful states frequently employ foreign aid to pursue international security objectives. Yet aid's effectiveness will be undermined if it exacerbates the effects of conflict on civilians within recipient states. This article investigates how international development aid and U.S. military aid influence recipient governments' incentives and ability to target civilians. U.S. military aid has a persuasion effect on state actors, which decreases a recipient state's incentives and necessity to target civilians. Development aid flows, however, trigger a predation effect in some environments, exacerbating civilian targeting. An analysis of aid flows in 135 countries on civilian killings between 1989–2011 provides support for both the persuasion and predation effects associated with aid.     

Don’t reinvent the wheel: possibilities for and limits to building capacity of grassroots international NGOs

Abstract

How can support organisations build the capacity of volunteer-driven non-governmental organisations (NGOs)? Citizen aid for relief and development has expanded rapidly in the twenty-first century, and the number of American aid organisations operating in the Global South has grown to nearly 10,000. These grassroots international NGOs – GINGOs – are small-budget, volunteer-driven organisations typically launched by Americans without professional experience in international development or nonprofit management. These groups prize the expressive and voluntaristic dimensions of development work, yet face challenges of amateurism, material scarcity, fragmentation, paternalism and restricted focus. We investigate whether support organisations, whose primary goals are to build the capacity of organisations and strengthen the organisational field, offer solutions to GINGOs’ inherent weaknesses. We draw on 15 semi-structured interviews with a stratified selection of support organisations, including associations tailored towards international development and towards nonprofit work at large. We find that support organisations offer resources to help GINGOs in managerial and administrative domains. Fewer support organisations help GINGOs build technical development skills, and fewer still push GINGOs to critically reflect on their role in development. We find that peer learning and online platforms could help engage GINGOs volunteers in networking spaces, even as their geographic dispersal in the US encourages their fragmentation and isolation.     

How to Attract Donations: The Case of US NGOs in International Development

We assess the determinants of private donations across a large sample of US based NGOs with foreign aid activities. Our results show that donations do not depend in the expected way on publicly available information on NGO characteristics that reveal an efficient and targeted use of funds, notably the efficiency price of NGO aid and the degree of specialisation. Private donors rather rely on the frequently offered option to designate donations to preferred purposes – even though this is unlikely to tie the NGOs' hands.     

Congregational Aid: North American Protestant Engagement in International Relief and Development

A review of large North American Protestant congregations (n = 423) engaging in global relief and development, or ‘holistic mission’ (HM), suggests that half engage in HM activities per year, with the majority of those activities focused on human and physical sectors. Most activities are led by religious NGOs or missionaries and about half are short-term. A mix of proximity, poverty, population, and policy variables direct short- and long-term aid. Findings provide a benchmark for enhancing learning and partnerships among churches, NGOs, and development scholars, ultimately enhancing the efficacy of Protestant aid.     

International politics and international justice: Unity in diversity?

DCL, LL.M, LL.B, Aviation Consultant and Post Doctoral Research Scholar, Faculty of Law, McGill University, Montreal, Canada. Also, Air Transport Officer, International Civil Aviation Organization. This paper has been written in the author's personal capacity.     

Critical Misunderstandings: Ineffective International Governance and the UK Nuclear Industry

In 2017, significant media and political interest was sparked by the UK decision to leave Euratom, the European Atomic Energy Community. While such interest in nuclear matters has to be welcomed, the apparent lack of knowledge displayed in the regulatory governance of the UK nuclear industry is disquieting. This article therefore offers an overview of the publicly funded UK nuclear industry and its regulatory governance including its links with European and global nuclear agencies to inform the debate and to identify critical issues in need of resolution.     

International cooperation in the field of international political terrorism

Political terrorism is defined. The various forms of international terrorism are enumerated. Types and manifestations of terrorism are discussed as well as their differentiation according to objectives and means. The necessity of international cooperation to deal with the problem is discussed, and five fields of possible cooperation are listed. The following existing multilateral conventions are dealt with: the Tokyo Convention of 1963, the Hague Convention of 1970, and the Montreal Convention of 1971. It is stressed that there is a need for a general convention of cooperation or, at least, border agreements, treaties of extradition, and mutual judicial assistance. The European Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism (1977) is discussed as an agreement meant to “deprivilege poltical offenses.”     

国际社会的现代变革与国际经济法

国际社会的现代变革及其法治化要求 国际社会的现代变革主要指国家间关系同一性和普适性的增强。冷战后，国际化、经济全球化趋势与区域化、团体化趋势突显，介于全球与地域之间、各实体相互间作为和平共存之基础的关系网络显得越来越重要，现代的平面非中心化将成为最基本的趋势。也就是说，国际社会正处于现代化变革中。然而，国际社会于政治、文化、经济等各领域的现代化变革并非同步。     

Keep going on: A qualitative comparative analysis on the durability of solidarity initiatives during and after crisis

During the COVID-19 lockdowns in the Netherlands, numerous solidarity initiatives emerged, providing relief to those affected by lockdown measures. These initiatives have an important added value for a society under crisis as they provide instant solutions to timely, crisis-related needs, strengthen connectivity between stakeholders and divide the burdens of the crisis. The durability of these initiatives is however a concern and although the literature on durability of community-based initiatives is growing, there is a lack of understanding how initiatives can sustain under the challenging dynamics of a major crisis. Using a fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis of 14 COVID-19 solidarity initiatives in Rotterdam, this article explores whether conditions for the durability of community-based initiatives in general (social capital, organizational resources, transformational leadership, and government support) also apply during a crisis, with special attention of the configurations of conditions under the challenging context of the COVID-19 pandemic.