Building partnerships between Northern and Southern development NGOs: Issues for the 1990s

The number of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) involved in development in the North and the South has increased dramatically over the last ten years, provoking calls for new partnerships between them. But Southern NGOs have often been disadvantaged in the search for true NGO partnerships, because they know too little about their Northern counterparts. This article therefore describes some important features of Northern NGOs. It then goes on to identify critical issues involved in negotiating partnerships with them. Finally, the need for equitable NGO partnerships is considered in the broader context of strengthening the third sector in civil society.     

Lawyers' lives,lawyers' incomes

Women lawyers, like women generally, earn less money than men for comparable work. This unfortunate conclusion has been reached by many scholars in North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.² Frequently the explanations originate in the structure and culture of large law firms. Allan Lind and one of the present authors (Felstiner) collected data on a different segment of the American profession, lawyers who are consulted by individuals, generally practicing on their own or in small firms. This paper presents a picture of the professional lives of these lawyers and information about the connections between income and gender in this generally disregarded sector of the profession (but see Sarat & Felstiner, 1995; Seron, 1996; Van Hoy, 1997; Mather et al., 2001; Levin, 2004).     

The Curious Attraction of Wagner's Law

Wagner's ‘law of increasing state activity’ has recently been subjected to intensive use of recondite econometric testing procedures. An examination of the relevant articles reveals ignorance both of Wagner's definition of ‘state activity’ and of his insistence that he was not engaged in prediction. Consequently, the omission of public enterprises contained in Wagner's definition leads to a model misspecification and the object of testing his hypothesiss remains obscure.     

Spirituality: A development taboo

Spirituality is central to many of the daily decisions people in the 'South' make about their own and their community's development, including that of whether or not to participate in risky but potentially beneficial social action. Despite its importance, development literature and development practices have systematically avoided the topic of spirituality. This avoidance results in inferior research and less effective programmes, and ultimately fails to provide participants with opportunities to reflect on how their development and their spirituality will and should shape each other. The author offers some possible explanations for this and suggests ways in which to address spirituality in development theory and practice.