The place of stories in development: creating spaces for participation through narrative analysis

The stories that we hear as we conduct development research or implement development projects are often relegated to the margins of development studies. This article argues that these stories require our attention, for they are windows on to indigenous narratives of development and our placement in those narratives. Examining these stories as efforts to emplot experiences of development and encounters with development professionals within particular narratives enables us to better understand our own positionality in the communities in which we work, and therefore better understand the opportunities and challenges that our research/interventions present to the emergence of a truly participatory development.     

The press and political controversy: The case for narrative analysis

This paper introduces narrative analysis, a method for press criticism that relies on concepts drawn from nondeconstructionist literary criticism, to study questions about the political power of the media. Narrative analysis seeks to specify the range of compositional options available to journalists covering a particular topic and the conventional meanings associated with each option. In the case at hand, the paper identifies choices made by profilers of James A. Baker III, to affiliate their news stories with six genres of American political journalism. The genres are called celebrity, contest, image, passage, investigation, and crusade stories. Classifying news stories by genre shows, in this case, that media portrayals of authority figures are not as uniformly supportive or adversarial as, respectively, left‐liberal and neoconservative theorists of media power have contended.     

Making sense of terrorism: a narrative approach to the study of violent events

ABSTRACT

How does violence become understood as terrorism? In this article, we show how a narrative approach to the study of violent events offers a conceptually productive way to understand the process of “seeing” an event as a terrorist act, one that explicitly integrates the phenomenology of violence. While the collective practice of defining terrorism in academia and the policy arena has struggled to produce a universal definition, we identify a set of “common sense” characteristics. We argue that if the framing of violent events prominently features these characteristics as discursive anchors, this primes processes of sensemaking toward interpreting violence as terrorism. While terrorism markers are often articulated as being pragmatic and apolitical indicators of terrorist acts, we show that they are indeed at the core of political contests over historical and physical facts about violent events. The narrative approach we develop in this article underscores that intuitive leanings toward interpreting violence as terrorism are a sign of political agency precisely because they are produced through the stories political agents tell.     

Aids and political cartoons: a case study

ABSTRACT

Broadly, this article looks at the role played by political cartoons in the Aids struggle. A sample drawn from the period 1988 to 2001 was used for this study, the purpose of which is to discover how Aids has been represented in political cartoons published in major South African newspapers. Two sub-problems are identified. The first sub-problem looks at the frequency of Aids-related cartoons over the study period and follows a quantitative approach using content analysis. The second sub-problem considers the representation of Aids in cartoons and uses a qualitative approach through the application of semiotic analysis. This analysis is based on the interpretation of the sign system drawing on the iconic, indexical and symbolic elements in the cartoon. In conclusion, the value of political cartoons is debated. Political cartoons serve as an important adjunct to editorials, providing a summary of a certain situation or event. As a visual image, cartoons can instantly make a point that would be difficult to articulate in written text and often leave a lasting impressions on the reader. A problem in analysing political cartoons is the lack of definitive supportive theories. A model devised by Medhurst and Desousa, based on the assumption that the political cartoon is a rhetorical device, is used as the starting point.     

Women and NGO professionalisation: a case study of Jordan

This article examines the impact of NGO professionalisation on the recruitment of NGO staff. Based on an in-depth survey of employees in 20 advocacy NGOs in Jordan, it demonstrates the gendered impact of professionalisation. The majority of NGO employees are highly educated women, often Western-educated, who work in NGOs primarily for career opportunities and because they are attracted by the NGO's goals. In contrast to existing literature, this article argues that gender considerations, such as job flexibility to accommodate household duties, play less of a role in determining the reasons why women seek work in NGOs and their degree of job satisfaction.     

The politics of self-defence: beyond a legal understanding of international norms

This contribution considers an alternative approach to the research on the use of force, a field that has been largely dominated by international legal scholars. I argue for application of an evolutionary approach to international (legal) norms, one that complements current legal approaches and moves the discussion of norms beyond their dichotomous legal/illegal understanding. This kind of research highlights the role of politics in international law and allows us to determine factors influencing dissemination of international norms. Through a study of seven post-Second World War cases, I trace the development of both narrow and expanded notion of preemptive self-defence and conclude that while ascertaining legality of specific actions is vital for understanding established international law, one cannot talk about radical breaks in development of the law on the use of force. The expanded concept is in fact a product of the evolution of (societal) norms on self-defence and an accumulation of previous successful challenges in metanorms on the use of force.     

The choice of electoral systems in new democracies: a case study of South Korea in 1988

Most theories about electoral system choice are based on the experiences of Western European countries, many of which shifted from majority/plurality rule to proportional representation (PR) at the turn of the twentieth century. This article aims to explain the choice of the South Korean legislative electoral system in 1988 as an example of electoral institution choices in new democracies, which may be different from those in the Western European countries. Through analysing multiple steps leading to the choice of a single-member district plurality voting system, this article suggests three potentially generalizable findings. First, in new democracies, labour parties can only induce old parties to shift to a proportional representation system if they have mobilized the working class prior to democratization. Secondly, parties in the developing world at times face unusual systems that are neither majoritarian nor fully PR. Under such unusual systems, party size would not be a reliable predictor for the party's preference over electoral institutions. Finally, when parties choose a legislative electoral institution in a presidential system, parties tend to prefer an institution that helps them in the subsequent presidential election even though the institution might harm them in the upcoming legislative election.     

The external-domestic interplay in democracy promotion: a case study on public administration reform in Croatia

In this contribution we conceptualize the under-investigated interplay between external and domestic actors in democracy promotion. We first propose a typology of the instruments and means used both by external and domestic actors to influence reform outputs and then trace these instruments' effects on outcomes, thereby expanding the existing concepts of domestic agency. Although democracy promotion continues to be a rather asymmetric relationship between the “donors” and “receivers” of aid and advice, domestic actors employ a wide array of instruments to manage external demands for reform, including diplomacy, take-over, slowdown, modification, resistance, and emancipation. The article draws on a case study of European Union democracy promotion within two reform initiatives in the field of Public Administration Reform (PAR) in Croatia.     

The discourse and study of terrorism in decolonised states: the case of Pakistan

The existing literature in the terrorism field does not address the absence of terrorism scholarship in developing countries. This article focuses on this intellectual gap using the case of Pakistan. It argues that most decolonised states, including Pakistan, are yet to grasp the complexities of traditional approaches to the study of terrorism, let alone its critical dimensions. The article explores some of the prevailing conditions in developing countries, specifically decolonised states such as Pakistan, which prevent the development of a robust academic discourse on terrorism and the development of a strong field of study. It suggests that the main barriers that account for this shortfall include the state’s legitimacy deficit, a flawed education system that nurtures fictions as truth and inhibits knowledge production, the institutionalised role of conspiracy theories in national politics and the multiplicity of terrorism discourses among government and sociopolitical entities. The conclusion highlights a number of reasons that might help to explain this persistent condition and offers a few policy recommendations.     

The ‘Economy of Communion’: a case study of business and civil society in partnership for change

The role of Northern‐based civil society organisations has undergone dramatic changes in recent years. In particular, their principal role as ‘redistributive’ agencies working in the South has come under criticism, leading them to seek new ways of defining their part in eradicating poverty. One widely adopted strategy has been an increasing emphasis on advocacy for social justice, while another is the creation of partnerships with non‐state and state actors, including the private sector. Such partnerships raise some difficult questions relating to the underlying values and civic legitimacy of the action, in particular of Northernbased development NGOs. This paper examines the question of partnerships between civil society organisations and business through a case study of the ‘Economy of Communion’, a global project bringing together small businesses and church‐based organisations whose shared aim is that of eradicating poverty.     

Peer education in sexual and reproductive health programming: a Cambodian case study

This article analyses in detail the impact and effectiveness of peer-education projects implemented in Cambodia under the Reproductive Health Initiative for Asia (RHI), in an attempt to provide important lessons for the design and implementation of such interventions and to contribute to the development of best practice. Under RHI, which was the first programme in Cambodia designed specifically to address the sexual and reproductive health needs of young people, peer education was implemented as if it were a directly transferable method, rather than a process to be rooted in specific social and political contexts. Consequently, peer-education concepts of empowerment and participation conflicted with hierarchical traditions and local power relations concerning gender and poverty; peer educators were trained to deliver messages developed by adults; and interventions were not designed to reflect the social dynamics of youth peer groups.     

Women's empowerment in challenging environments: a case study from Balochistan

This article offers strategies for women's empowerment in conservative, tribal, and religious environments, based on an innovative programme in Pakistan. Mainstreaming Gender and Development (MGD) encouraged participants to build on their communities' strengths, minimised resistance among families and communities by including them in the development process, and succeeded in building a cadre of women activists. Drawing on its experience, the author questions the importance of collective action, suggests that the selection of participants should be based on aptitude rather than socio-economic status, and highlights the potential for women's empowerment in challenging environments.     

The role of self-help groups in empowering disabled women: a case study in Kathmandu Valley,Nepal

The literature on self-help groups (SHGs) shows a mixed record on empowering women both economically and socially, while the literature on Women with Disabilities (WWDs) highlights the problems of isolation that exacerbate their disadvantages. This article, asking whether SHGs can empower WWDs, is based on a study conducted in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. It concludes that being an SHG member is useful for gaining employment that leads to better recognition in the family and society. However, employment opportunities and organisational experiences mean that the benefits are not equally shared among all members.     

Agricultural cooperatives and social empowerment of women: a Ugandan case study

This article presents a case study of Manyakabi Area Cooperative Enterprise in south-western Uganda, which shows that benefits from agricultural cooperatives can extend beyond monetary tangibles. We discuss several social factors that women members claimed have improved since they became members of the cooperative, including their confidence, their negotiating skills, the ability to be of service to their communities through transferring skills to non-members, and the ability to take control of certain household decisions when dealing with men. We conclude that these social benefits could be enhanced if they were fully acknowledged as important by agents of change.     

The left-wing armed struggle in Italy from a critical-historical perspective: the case of study of Prima Linea

This article intends to cast new light on the history of the Italian left-wing armed struggle using the research perspectives offered by Critical Terrorism Studies (CTS). The object of the analysis is Prima Linea (Front Line, PL), which in less than 5 years (1976–1981) became the second most important left-wing clandestine organisation of the Italian 1970s. On the one hand, the historical development of the organisation is divided into two distinct phases. On the other hand, three dimensions of the armed activity of PL will be considered, namely, its ideological approaches, its organisational repertoires and the choice of the targets, in order to investigate the origins, meanings and outcomes of certain framing processes related to the concept of political violence. Taking into consideration direct sources of the organisation and the debates within the social movements, this contribution contextualises these conceptualisation processes of political violence by relating them to the surrounding social context and focusing on the role played both by the structural dynamics from above, and by the theories and practices developed within the revolutionary Left. The aim is to de-exceptionalise and historicise the left-wing armed struggle in Italy and to propose a critical explanation of such phenomenon.     

Partnerships,learning, and development: a case study from Ghana

Decades of development practice suggest the fundamental importance of improving aid-delivery systems and stakeholder competence in order to improve the well-being of poor people. However, it is questionable whether the aid system is able to change its attitudes and values through such partnerships in a way that will do this. This paper suggests that for this change to be possible, processes of individual, organisational, and inter-organisational learning have to be encouraged, in ways that do not sacrifice the knowledge obtained by aid workers in the processes of global management. The paper explores procedures of bilaterally funded community education projects in Ghana, in order to give insights into the working of partnership arrangements as a means to contribute to the alleviation of global poverty. Critical instances from the case study projects reveal the ways in which learning is facilitated, used, ignored, and hindered as the organisational relations develop.     

Social capital,NGOs, and development: a Guatemalan case study

Social researchers continue to grasp for critical factors that foster or impede the development of social capital. This article highlights some of these factors based on an investigation of a low‐income urban settlement in Guatemala. Community activists and leaders, elected representatives, regional government service providers, local residents, NGO directors and staff, and other key informants living and working within the designated locality indicated a complex and diverse range of social, cultural, political, and economic issues that contributed to low levels of ‘broad‐based’ social capital. Long‐standing fears related to violence and corruption within a historically top‐down authoritarian state were the most significant factors impeding social capital, social organising, and civic participation. Northern‐led service‐providing NGOs in the area also curbed ‘broad‐based’ social capital by fostering dependency through intervention strategies that were external, top down, non‐participatory, and not community based.     

Measuring knowledge management in a virtual chat room: A case study

Abstract

Many organisations deem the virtual workplace to be a solution to challenges such as global competition, accelerated product development, improved quality and customer service, to mention but a few. In spite of the success of virtual communities on the Internet and although a significant amount of research has been conducted on virtual organisations, very few studies have focused on the evaluation of the combined effects of the theoretical variables of knowledge management in virtual communities. Advanced web analytics have been used in some instances to test the content of virtual communities, like discussion forums, hat rooms and the like. Because a plethora of chat rooms are devoted to special interest topics that may implicitly contain information and insights on consumers, knowledge creation and sharing, it creates the ideal opportunity to measure the management of knowledge therein. The aim of this article is, therefore, to measure knowledge management in a virtual community (an online chat room of an academic institution). Firstly, the article propounds a brief overview of the theoretical underpinning of the study by proposing a conceptual framework for the measurement of knowledge management in virtual communities. Secondly, the methodology to measure the knowledge management in a chat room of an educational institution is outlined. Finally, the research results are presented and recommendations are made for future research.     

Developing participatory communication: a case study using semi-structured interviews in Samoa

Women in Business Development Incorporated (WIBDI) was founded as an indigenous development agency in the Samoan village economy. The study described here utilises a participatory appraisal methodology to effectively articulate participants' perspectives on the programmes of WIBDI to provide ongoing input into project decision making. Increased income from increased sales resulted in being better able to pay for school fees, care for the elderly, the construction of infrastructure, and payment for utilities. In general becoming a producer for WIBDI resulted in increased certainty and confidence about the future for individuals and their families, and there were some indications of benefits for the village communities they live in.

Développement de la communication participative : une étude de cas utilisant des entretiens semi-structurés à Samoa

Women in Business Development Incorporated (WIBDI) a été fondée comme organisme de développement autochtone dans l’économie villageoise de Samoa. L’étude décrite ici a recours à une méthodologie d’évaluation participative pour formuler efficacement les points de vue des participants sur les programmes de WIBDI en vue de contribuer de manière constante à la prise de décisions sur les projets. L'augmentation des revenus découlant des ventes accrues a engendré une meilleure capacité à payer les frais de scolarité, les soins aux personnes âgées, la construction d'infrastructures et le financement des services publics. En général, en devenant des producteurs pour WIBDI, les participants et leur famille jouissaient d'une certitude et d'une confiance accrues en ce qui concerne l'avenir, et certaines données recueillies indiquaient des avantages pour les communautés villageoises au sein desquelles ils vivent.

El desarrollo de la comunicación participativa: un estudio de caso usando entrevistas semiestructuradas en Samoa

Women in Business Development Incorporated (wibdi) se fundó como una agencia de desarrollo indígena centrada en la economía de aldea de Samoa. El estudio aquí descrito utilizó una metodología de valoración participativa que permitió articular con eficacia las opiniones de los participantes en torno a los programas de wibdi, con el fin de tener insumos constantes para la toma de decisiones sobre proyectos. Los mayores ingresos, resultantes del aumento de ventas, dieron pie al crecimiento de la capacidad para pagar colegiaturas, cuidar a los ancianos, construir infraestructura y pagar los servicios de agua, luz, etc. En general, el hecho de ser productor para wibdi implicó mayor certidumbre y más confianza en el futuro de los individuos y de sus familias, existiendo, además, algunos indicadores que dan cuenta de mayores beneficios para las comunidades en las que residen estas personas.

Desenvolvendo comunicação participativa: um estudo de caso utilizando entrevistas semi-estruturadas em Samoa

A organização “Women in Business Development Incorporated (WIBDI)” foi fundada como uma agência de desenvolvimento indígena na economia do vilarejo de Samoa. O estudo descrito aqui utiliza uma metodologia de avaliação participativa para identificar efetivamente as perspectivas dos participantes sobre os programas da WIBDI e, assim, fornecer continuamente contribuições para as tomadas de decisões. Uma renda mais elevada decorrente do aumento das vendas resultou em uma maior capacidade de pagar as taxas escolares, cuidados com os mais idosos, a construção de infraestrutura e pagamento para utilidades. Em geral, tornar-se um produtor para a WIBDI resultou em uma maior certeza e confiança quanto ao futuro para os indivíduos e suas famílias, e houve algumas indicações de benefícios para as comunidades do vilarejo nas quais elas vivem.     

Challenges and dilemmas of international development volunteering: a case study from Vanuatu

This article looks at the key challenges and dilemmas of international development volunteering (IDV) as experienced within a community project in Vanuatu. By focusing on the nature and significance of IDV engagements at the local community level, it offers critical insights into roles and relationships among international development volunteers and local host communities, together with the complex global–local interface in which projects are negotiated and constructed. The article concludes by offering some ways in which IDV can be more effective in assisting community projects address the needs of contemporary village life.