Home-grown strategies for greater agency: reassessing the outcome of civil society strengthening in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan

This paper seeks to reassess the outcome of mainstream civil society promotion policies in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan. While it agrees with critics that the distorting effects of funding relations have meant that the promised ‘grassroots citizen empowerment’ has not been achieved directly through NGOs, it does not agree that NGOs are therefore merely vehicles of the Western ideological agenda and international aid to the Kyrgyzstani population. It argues that the facilitation of international actors has opened up opportunities for individual NGO activists to pursue their own social and political development agendas. In recent years, some activists have begun to use these opportunities to develop strategies through which grassroots interests are represented to decision-makers, and citizens' abilities to represent their own interests are enhanced. The strategies adopted differ from the mainstream civil society model and have allowed some NGOs to function in a manner more relevant to the specific Kyrgyzstani context. This suggests that local Kyrgyzstani NGOs and activists should not all be written off as ‘artificial’ civil society, irrelevant to the dynamics of state–society relations.     

Arnoldo Alemán Takes on the NGOs: Antifeminism and the New Populism in Nicaragua

This article analyzes the campaign of Nicaraguan president Arnoldo Alemán (1997–2002) against organized competitors, what has been called his war against the nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs. Alemán's attacks on the NGO sector are shown to be consistent with the logic of the new populism in Latin America. At the same time, his choice of targets—prominent NGO figures who were often foreign-born and always female—must be explained with reference to the specifics of Nicaraguan civil society and its evolving relationship with the political parties. This study argues that by choosing to respond to the challenges of international neoliberalism and local feminism through the anti-NGO campaign, Alemán helped to weaken democracy in Nicaragua.     

'We ourselves, we are part of the functioning':: The ICC, victims, and civil society in the Central African Republic

As a new justice institution, the International Criminal Courtneeds to gain legitimacy not just with states, but also in civilsociety, both at the global level and in the societies in whichit intervenes. This article, based on interviews, NGO documents,newspaper articles, and participatory observation, looks atcivil society relations with the ICC in relation to its mostrecent and least publicized investigation, in the Central AfricanRepublic (CAR). It charts the role of civil society organizations,local and international, in the opening of the investigation,and it discusses the initial responses of civil society figuresand victims in the CAR to the investigation. It finds that,unlike in any of the other situations, the ICC's involvementin the CAR has been largely instigated by local civil societyfigures, and that, as a result, it operates in a quite receptivecontext. However, the slow pace of investigations and trials,the meagre outreach to date, and the Court's probable lack ofcapacity to provide victims with physical and material securityare long-term challenges to its ability to meet local expectationsof justice.     

Great powers,civil society and authoritarian diffusion in Central Asia

ABSTRACT

This article draws on the authoritarian promotion literature to assess contending pressures for democratization and authoritarianism in Central Asia. Domestic actors ultimately determine receptivity to democracy promotion, but external pressures for democratic transformation or authoritarian persistence exist in Central Asia. A brief overview of authoritarian trends in Central Asia is followed by the theoretical arguments for authoritarian persistence, with special attention to the civil society dimension in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Western programmes supporting liberal democracy and civil society have encountered resistance from authoritarian leaders in Central Asia, though the evidence for direct influence from authoritarian external actors is limited. A process of indirect authoritarian diffusion, in combination with the region’s illiberal societies and Western democracy promotion fatigue, undermines the development of civil society and makes authoritarian persistence in Central Asia likely.     

The growing role of NGOs in ASEAN

The role and activities of nongovernment organizations (NGOs) in Southeast Asia are increasing, says JoAnn Fagot Aviel, Professor of International Relations at San Francisco State University. This growth is being encouraged both by the increasing emphasis, world‐wide, on regionalization and by the attempts by the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) to promote regional economic cooperation. Although in the past NGOs have been on the periphery of ASEAN, Aviel argues that the future of the Association may depend as much on the activities of NGOs as on those of ASEAN's governments and private enterprises. In this article, Aviel focuses on the role played by NGOs in the Asian region and their relationship with ASEAN. She predicts that NGO activity in Southeast Asia will continue to grow and forge links between people in the region.     

非政府组织和印尼的政治改革

非政府组织经常被看作是充满活力的公民社会的基础。对于发展中国家的政治、社会发展来说,非政府组织至关重要。关于这一点,印尼这个东南亚地区的最大国家体会得相当深刻。本文将通过探讨苏哈托政府时期印尼非政府组织的生存发展,展示非政府组织在发展中国家政治发展中的杠杆作用。     

Social Movement Tradition and the Role of Civil Society in Japan and South Korea

In 1947, Japan became the first East Asian country to introduce democracy, and it was not until four decades later that South Korea completed the democratic transition. Today, surprisingly, South Korea stands out among the East Asian countries as the one that has the most vibrant and politically powerful civil society, whereas in Japan, the role of the nongovernmental organization (NGO) sector in political advocacy is greatly limited. Using historical institutionalism, this paper tries to explain why the NGOs in South Korea and Japan play vastly different roles in political advocacy. It concludes that the different social movement traditions have played important roles in the evolution of the civil societies in Japan and South Korea, and led to the different levels of institutionalization within the NGO sector.     

Straightjacketing migrant rescuers? The code of conduct on maritime NGOs

In July 2017, Italy drafted an EU-sponsored code of conduct aimed at regulating non-governmental migrant rescuing NGOs offshore Libya. The code makes permission for NGO vessels to disembark migrants in Italian ports conditional on collaborating in the fight against smugglers and accepting the presence of law enforcement personnel on board. This article investigates the inception, content and likely consequences of the Code, arguing that most of its provisions are either redundant or counterproductive. As suggested by scholarship on civil–military cooperation and maritime rescuing, the code as it stands would only violate humanitarian principles without increasing existing rescuing capabilities.     

The Changing Role of NGOs in Rural Chile After Democracy

Abstract — The article examines how NGOs in rural Chile operated during the dictatorship and how their role changed after the return of democracy. An NGO (OPDECH) in Southern Chile is used as a case study. During the Pinochet regime, NGOs maintained a critical distance from the government by creating a niche for opposition researchers and activists. They provided a possibility of economic survival for professionals whilst working on alternative proposals to address the socio-economic needs of the poor majority. External funding from international agencies provided much needed resources but created as well a culture of reliance and a clientelistic middle class of professionals. The NGO in Southern Chile became a nucleus of resistance and expertise on regional development by safekeeping democratic tradition and providing a range of solutions to local development problems. After the restoration of democratic government many professionals joined the government. NGOs exchanged their altruism for a more pragmatic, opportunistic and, in some cases, more efficient role as executors of government programmes. The case study in Southern Chile illustrates this trajectory well. After municipal elections a collaborative role with local government was sought by OPDECH that aimed to implement local initiatives as well as advise local and regional governments on environmental and developmental issues. Given the NGOs historical commitment to grassroots development, it remains to be seen what role they can play in supporting local government while forging a new role for themselves in a democratic context.     

Countering Convergence: Agency and Diversity Among Guatemalan NGOs

The proliferation of nongovernmental organizations across the developing world has sparked discussions of the “NGOization” of civil society and concern that NGOs have become increasingly uniform and internally homogenous. This article explores the evolution of NGOs in Guatemala since the 1960s and finds that NGOs historically and currently respond in diverse ways to external pressures—adjusting their strategies and actively attempting to shape their environment. Comparing two microcredit NGOs, it finds in addition that old and new models combine in unique organizational contexts in distinct ways. These two findings suggest that diversity is likely to persist among NGOs.     

A new look: professionalization of NGOs in Kyrgyzstan

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan have become visible players in the social and political scene. However, despite being portrayed as professional organizations in the literature, the professionalization of NGOs in Kyrgyzstan has been understudied. This article aims to rectify this gap. It presents and discusses the findings of a study analysing NGOs from an organizational perspective using semi-structured interviews with 45 NGOs, self-administered questionnaires with their leaders and employees, and observation of their working environment. The key conclusion is that the NGO sector can be described as semi-professional. NGOs use different tactics to achieve efficiency and effectiveness. However, they face such challenges as limited funding, high staff turnover and poor coordination. The article provides an account of the NGO sector by mapping it into professional and non-professional groups that can serve as a new benchmark for better understanding NGOs in Kyrgyzstan.     

Negotiating state and society: the normative informal economies of Central Asia and the Caucasus

ABSTRACT

This special issue introduces new research on informal markets and trade in Central Asia and the Caucasus. The research presented here was conducted in Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, as well as Beijing, Guangzhou, Yiwu and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China. The following eight articles illustrate how informal markets and trade in Central Asia and the Caucasus provided spaces for people across the region to negotiate state and society in the last three decades; the articles also suggest that informality should be seen as constitutive of a normative order for polities in Central Asia and the Caucasus. Informal markets and trade in Central Asia rest on three factors: the inability of the state to measure commercial transactions; markets and trade becoming places from which citizens built personalized networks that required individualized networking and oral agreements based on social relations, particularly trust; and markets being embedded within states in which clientelism frequently thrives.     

NGO与东南亚政治社会转型

自20世纪80年代开始,NGO(非政府组织)在东南亚出现快速增长趋势.数量众多的NGO通过在扶贫开发、环境保护、女性、社会保障、人权、医疗卫生等领域的积极活动,提高和扩大了自身的社会地位和政治影响,成为促进东南亚多元社会形成,推动经济、社会和环境的全面协调发展和民主化进程的一支新生力量.     

Religion and inter-ethnic violence in Indonesia

Commentators have long struggled to understand state-society relations in Asia within the framework of the dominant liberal-democratic conceptualisation of civil society. This article examines the relevance of Antonio Gramsci's theory of civil society for understanding contemporary Cambodia and Vietnam, with reference to both legal and social frameworks. Such an analysis illuminates important aspects of state-society relations in Southeast Asia that tend to be overlooked by dominant liberal and Marxist perspectives. This article argues, however, that the utility of Gramsci's conception of civil society for understanding state-society relations in Cambodia and Vietnam, by retaining the notion of civil society as a realm associatively separate from the state, is limited.     

International politics in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century central Asia: beyond anarchy in international-relations theory

Using historical analysis of relations between city-states and other international actors in Central Asia during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this article evaluates new structural theories of international politics, chiefly those of David Lake and Jack Donnelly. Pre-colonial Central Asia offers a usefully tough case for structural theories, since it so little resembles the modern international order that these theories were developed to describe. Empirically, the article proceeds by evaluating the region's city-states' relations with three groups of actors: one another; neighbouring empires; and the many non-state actors present at the time. It concludes with an assessment of the merits of the new structuralisms, and a discussion of their value for constructivist international-relations theories of international change.     

Resurgent authoritarianism: the case of Russia's new NGO legislation

Following the protest demonstrations of the 2011–2012 electoral cycle, tensions between the limited modernization efforts of Medvedev and the resurgent authoritarianism of Putin have become increasingly manifest. These are seen not only in the relationship between society and the state, but also in the “para-constitutional” institutions of the dual state. This article argues that whereas Medvedev created an arena for liberalization within these para-constitutional structures, Putin has firmly rejected these policies, among other things by revising the 1995 law on NGOs amended in 2006. Using the perspective of the dual state, the article argues that with the introduction of the Law on Foreign Agents (2012), the original law draft On Public Control (2014), a key element in Medvedev's modernization program, was delayed and substantially altered. Together, these amendments create precarious conditions for NGOs, pressuring their independence by threats of dissolution and reducing the quality of civil control over state organs.     

Non-governmental organisations and the management of HIV and AIDS in refugee camps: A comparison of Marratane Camp in Mozambique and Kakuma Camp in Kenya

In recent years, a number of sub-Saharan African states appear to have placed restrictions on the operations of international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) within their state boundaries. Indeed, some commentators and academics have questioned the role NGOs should play in providing humanitarian aid to refugees and to what extent they are, or should be, involved in the political, cultural, economic and healthcare concerns and agendas of any state. However, the high HIV/AIDS prevalence in refugee camps in sub-Saharan Africa creates negative economic, social, political and security implications for their host states and many states lack the knowledge, experience and funds to manage the problem successfully. Within this context, this article examines and compares the role and effectiveness of two separate NGOs involved since 2001 in HIV/AIDS management programmes in two distinct refugee camps: Save the Children in Marratane Refugee Camp in Mozambique and the International Rescue Committee in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. NGO success in managing HIV/AIDS programmes is analysed according to UNHCR guidelines and specifically against four key aspects of HIVAIDS management; HIV/AIDS awareness, HIV/AIDS prevention, access to HIV healthcare services and the provision of treatment.     

The politics of social service provision through NGOs: A study of Latin America

Abstract — This article looks at the role of NGOs in social service delivery in Latin America and questions some of the assumptions which are often made about their abilities. Following the implementation of the neo-liberal model, increased conditionality has been placed on economic assistance. This has created a new role for NGOs, whereby they are harnessed by states in order to secure effective implementation of reform packages. In the process many NGOs and their own agendas become distorted. The paper discusses the political implications of this new role for NGOs and goes on to conclude that, given the nature of the democratisation process in Latin America, and the accompanying economic model, expectations regarding NGO potential for grassroots empowerment have been over-optimistic.     

The Puzzle of India’s Relations with “Central Eurasia”

ABSTRACT

India’s relations with Afghanistan and the post-Soviet countries of Central Asia have contributed to the growing interest in the country’s rise. By treating them together as “Central Eurasia,” the discourses of Indian foreign policy invoke a contiguous geopolitical locale bound to India by a shared past. Yet, despite the strategic articulation of a manifest Central Eurasian region, the article uncovers a puzzle of bifurcation in India’s foreign policy reflecting distinct operationalizations of India’s cultural capital in its relations with Afghanistan and the Central Asia republics. The comparative analysis indicates that prior historical experience becomes a compelling strategic context for the continuous framing and reframing of the country’s foreign policy space, which reveals India’s shifting perceptions of international order, self-identity, and global roles. India’s interactions in Central Eurasia offer a good illustration of the crossroads that New Delhi’s foreign policy is facing – either keep on proliferating discourses that spin yarns of the international influence of its historical capital or develop proactive diplomatic strategies that deliver the international status that India desires.     

LEGACIES OF WAR

In this article nongovernmental organization (NGO) workers Channapha Khamvongsa and Elaine Russell discuss the massive illegal U.S. bombing of Laos between 1964 and 1973 and its lingering human, economic, and ecological toll. They survey the history of foreign intervention in Laos, with special emphasis on the cold war-era civil war and U.S. intervention. The authors describe continuing civilian casualties and obstacles to development posed by unexploded ordnance (UXO) in Laos, and detail current efforts for UXO removal. The authors propose a formal reconciliation process between the United States and Laos in which the U.S. government would accept responsibility for the long-term effects of the bombing and the governments would cooperate with NGOs and the United Nations in a transparent process to fund UXO removal.