Civil Society in World Politics: How Accountable are Transnational CSOs?

Transnational civil society organizations (CSOs) are often said to lack accountability. Taking issue with this claim, we report the results of a study on the accountability regimes of 60 transnational CSOs engaging in political advocacy. We scrutinize their transparency, opportunities for internal participation, evaluations and self-regulation, complaint procedures, and their independence from the state and intergovernmental organizations. We find that most transnational CSOs are reasonably transparent and offer participatory opportunities at least for members. They are organizationally independent from states and intergovernmental organizations, but dependencies on public funding are striking in some cases. Independent evaluations of their activities are scarce and codes of conduct, often suggested as an avenue towards better self-regulation of CSOs, do not seem to play a major role in practice. We conclude that the debate over transnational CSO accountability should focus on the most critical issues. In the case of general interest organizations, this seems to be the danger of co-optation through public financing. Special interest organizations, by contrast, are highly independent but have deficits in external transparency, especially regarding their budget.     

Legitimacy and the Rise of NGOs: the Global and Local in South Asia

We extend sociological institutionalist theory and draw on evidence from South Asia to develop a research agenda for studying how nongovernmental organization (NGO) legitimacy plays out in national and local arenas. After first presenting a sociological institutionalist approach to nongovernmental organizing, we extend it into three areas: national laws governing international and domestic NGOs, growth in domestic NGOs, and the situated interactions among international organizations, nation-states, local organizations, and other actors. (1) International and domestic NGOs are governed by national laws, and we sketch the history of such laws in South Asia to hypothesize a pattern of legal change leading to the present social concern about accountability. (2) Sociological institutionalism suggests that domestic NGO growth is related to the presence of international NGOs and can be interpreted as the diffusion of formal organization. (3) We conceptualize the situated interactions of the plethora of actors as a meso realm at the interface of the global and local. The interrelations of these actors are marked by tensions and conflict. There are many permutations of how they coalesce, not always along a global—local cleavage, and there is a need to examine the full range of interactions. We explore some of these and it seems that actors use accountability strategically in their conflicts with others. The ‘uses of accountability’ in contesting legitimacy within such situations is proposed as a fruitful research direction.     

After the halcyon days: the anti-/alterglobalization movement and international organizations, 1996–2011

Why are relations between non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and international organizations (IOs) sometimes conflictual and other times collaborative? This article evaluates hypotheses in the international relations and social movements literatures with reference to relations between NGOs associated with the anti-/alterglobalization movement and multilateral economic institutions (MEIs). Drawing on an original database and interviews with MEI and NGO staff members, the article shows that attributes of NGOs – including NGO budgets, ideology, and organizational structure – rather than the political or economic environment better account not only for an overall increase in collaboration with IOs since the late 1990s, but also for a growing divergence among NGOs regarding the acceptability of such collaboration.     

Performance accountability in the UN Secretariat – The conflictual way toward more flexibility

The article investigates accountability structures in the Secretariat of the United Nations (UN) by emphasizing the institutional design and the interaction between member states and Secretariat. Empirical findings indicate that reform endeavors toward a more performance‐based accountability in the UN Secretariat have fallen short. The article finds that mistrust between Secretariat and member states and among the member states themselves is predominantly responsible for the identified shortcomings and outlines how polarized the legislative organs – namely the member states – are. Evidently, a substantial concern of the countries represented in the G77 is that an empowerment of the Secretariat would ultimately lead to an empowerment of the influential donor countries and the permanent members of the Security Council. Consequently, the authors identify three main challenges that have to be handled in order to move toward a more performance oriented accountability structure: The creation of a trusting environment and strategic partnerships between the governing bodies, the further empowerment of senior managers, and a review of the current performance management system. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reinventing the Governance of Public Finances in Remote Indigenous Australia

The economies of remote Indigenous settlements are dominated by public finances. The current system of governing public finance is highly saturated, fragmented and centralised, and this has a corrosive effect on local governance capability. The political accountability of leaders to their constituents is weakened in favour of an administrative accountability ‘upwards’ to higher authorities. New Public Management reforms have promoted administrative deconcentration, over political devolution, and this has been accompanied by an influx of public servants, Non‐Government Organisations (NGOs) and private contractors, and a decline in Indigenous organisations and local government. The end result in many settlements is a marked disengagement of Indigenous people in their own governance. There is evidence of considerable political capabilities existing within local government electorates. Decentralised financing arrangements can be used to catalyse these capabilities and then address deficits in administrative and technical performance.     

Governance Under Surveillance in South Africa

Good governance and legitimacy are becoming more and more important in South African society. Increasingly there are tendencies and trends of corruption, poor service delivery, crime, violence, and xenophobia in South Africa. The lack of accountability, responsiveness, and transparency reflects negatively on governance principles. It is becoming more evident that governance in South Africa must be investigated. Government is finding it difficult to tend to public participation, maintain law and order, provide for the basic needs of citizens, and combat unemployment and strikes. There is a direct link between governance and legitimacy because good governance is one of the essential elements and a prerequisite for legitimacy. Legitimacy depends on the government＇s performance and the support of citizens for the ruling party.     

Did they ‘Read Before Burning’? The Coalition and Quangos

Attitudes to quangos are paradoxical. On the one hand they are perceived to be undemocratic, unaccountable organisations, while on the other they are seen to improve effectiveness, limit political interference and increase public confidence in government. This paradox is reflected in the behaviour of political parties, which generally adopt a harsh line towards quangos in opposition, but come to rely on these bodies in office. Ahead of the 2010 general election it was, however, noticeable that the Conservative party rejected this dynamic by promising to pursue ‘a more sophisticated approach’. This article explores the Coalition government's subsequent ‘public bodies reform programme’, assessing its progress against recommendations contained within the Institute for Government's Read before Burning report of July 2010. It concludes that while the Coalition has addressed long‐standing concerns about the day‐to‐day governance of public bodies, it has failed to resolve a set of broader and strategic (metagovernance) issues.     

Toward “hardened” accountability? Analyzing the European Union's hybrid transnational governance in timber and biofuel supply chains

The voluntary/mandatory divide is a constant feature of scholarly debates on corporate accountability for sustainability in global supply chains. A widely held assumption is that the addition of state authority to private transnational governance in global supply chains will “harden” accountability and, thus, promote more sustainable production. The state's ability to set legally binding requirements is expected to coerce companies into complying. The hybridization of private and state authority is seen to strengthen good practice in private authority. This empirical study questions these assumptions based on an analysis of two hybrid governance arrangements for sustainability in global supply chains: the EU's Timber Regulation (EUTR) and Renewable Energy Directive (RED). The results demonstrate that both EUTR and EU-RED yield sector wide efforts of compliance and to this extent can be seen as enhancing accountability in the sense of answerability. At the same time, we find that the policies in both cases are not more demanding, nor enforced strictly, the latter putting into question their potential to coerce companies. Further, a “hardening” of accountability is at least obscured as both EUTR and EU-RED have stripped private authority they employ in their hybrid transnational governance from the need to establish legitimacy with a broader audience. This makes legal compliance and cost-effectiveness the core factor for companies’ efforts to demonstrate compliance. Our findings hence question whether the EUTR and EU-RED have led to “hardened” accountability compared to private transnational governance, and ask for an empirical, more nuanced understanding of what there is to gain or lose from hybridizing private and state authority in transnational governance.