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.     

Autonomous peasant struggles and left arts of government

I argue that self-organisation cannot account for how grassroots struggles can pursue transnational political change. I develop an account of some ‘left arts of government’ through which resistance is facilitated and organised without reintroducing oppressive and hierarchical forms of rule. I do so by focusing on the practices of autonomous peasant mobilisations. Land occupation movements facilitate the ability of people to engage in ongoing resistance on their own behalf. They organise resistance through horizontal communication and through transnational networks involving representative structures. Finally, peasant mobilisations engage with states and international institutions to solidify gains made.     

Is the genie out of the bottle? Digital platforms and the future of clinical trials

Is it possible to conduct impartial clinical trials in a world full of digital networking tools that patients can use to coordinate themselves and act against research protocols? This paper builds on an ethnography of PatientsLikeMe, a company running an internet social media network where patients with different conditions share their clinical data with standardized questionnaires. The company faced a serious dilemma in 2011 when some ALS patients, members of the site, started sharing data about a phase II clinical trial of an experimental drug (NP001) in which some of them were participating, to anticipate the experiment’s outcomes and understand each one’s allocation over trial arms. In parallel, some other patients were using the site and other web tools to coordinate and run their own replication of the trial with homebrew mixes of industrial grade chemicals. PatientsLikeMe researchers reflected on their position as networks managers and eventually decided to use the collected data to develop their own analysis of the efficacy of the original compound, and of the homebrewers’ compound. They presented the NP001 events as a case in point for articulating a new social contract for clinical research. This paper analyses these events, first, by understanding the clinical trial as an experiment organization form that can succeed only as long as its protocol can be enforced; second, we observe how web networks make it dramatically easier for the trial protocol to be violated; finally, we point out how a potentially dangerous confluence of interests over web networks could incubate developments that disrupt the status quo without creating a robust and safe alternative for experimentation. We conclude by warning about the interests of the pharmaceutical industry in exploiting patients’ methodological requests to its own advantage.     

从制度主义转向行动主义的社会治理--读张康之教授《公共行政的行动主义》

近代以来的社会治理突出了制度主义的逻辑,社会治理的一切活动都是在制度的框架下开展的。制度主义逻辑中的社会治理依附于中心—边缘的社会结构,政府位于社会治理的中心,通过制度对社会进行普遍性的统一的治理,结果却在对技术理性的追求中把社会治理导向了精英治理的格局。自20世纪80年代起,人类社会进入了高度复杂性与高度不确定性的历史阶段,政府垄断社会治理的局面受到了挑战,依靠制度的社会治理出现了失灵,因而需要谋求新型社会治理模式的建构。就现实的社会治理过程来看,由于社会治理主体的多元化,行动与制度之间的逻辑关系被重置。民主的内涵从制度转向行动,专注于行动会把社会治理引向合作治理的方向。张康之教授的《公共行政的行动主义》为我们展示了社会治理从制度主义到行动主义的转向,并创造性地描述了走向合作治理的图景。     

民事公益诉讼中的职权主义

普通的民事诉讼已有一定的职权主义色彩。立法者对公益诉讼结果的正确性应有更高要求,法官在审理过程中可能需评估未来的事实,现行法对救济方式缺乏具体规定,强制执行具有持续性且需执行机构深度介入,所以,公益诉讼更应采职权主义。现行法关于公益诉讼的部分规定虽呈现出较强的职权主义,但却违反了平等原则。平等的职权主义在释明、依职权调查证据、判决内容的确定等方面都应有所体现。     

“We Need to Have a Meeting”: Public Housing Demolition and Collective Agency in Atlanta,Georgia

The last two decades have witnessed widespread demolition of public housing and a large-scale relocation of public housing residents. Much of the current literature has examined the impact of demolition on relocated residents, focusing primarily on individual outcomes such as employment, housing quality, and health. This article examines the potential collective consequences of relocation by using data from 40 in-depth interviews conducted with relocated public housing residents in Atlanta, Georgia, to examine experiences of civic engagement and tenant activism before and after relocation. Participants describe frequent experiences of civic engagement and tenant activism in their public housing communities prior to demolition and also discuss how these collective actions often translated into meaningful gains for their communities. Participants also describe challenges associated with reestablishing these sources of collective agency in their new, post demolition, private-market rental communities where opportunities for civic engagement and tenant activism were perceived to be limited, where stigma was a barrier to social interaction, and where they experienced significant residential instability.     

Behind a veil of secrecy: animal abuse,factory farms,and Ag-Gag legislation

Abstract

For years, animal rights organizations have sought to expose animal cruelty on America’s factory farms. With the meat and dairy industry inaccessible to the public, animal advocates rely on undercover investigators who gain access to farms by becoming employees. Working from the inside, these investigators become whistleblowers when they reveal animal cruelty unrelated to the already inhumane conditions of animal husbandry. An effective strategy that has exposed animal abuse as well as conditions threatening to public health, in recent years the agriculture industry has pressured legislatures to enact laws that criminalize photography at factory farms. Dubbed ‘Ag-Gag’ laws by critics, the emergence of legislation targeting animal rights advocates raises important questions relevant to animal welfare, animal rights activism, and freedom of speech. This paper exposes the failure of government institutions to protect animals on factory farms while simultaneously silencing what is currently the only available mechanism for Americans to learn about abuse on factory farms. It also explores the Constitutional implications of Ag-Gag laws. Not only are Ag-Gag laws presumptively unconstitutional, but with their enactment – animal welfare remains unchanged, the American consumer remains uninformed, and America’s factory farms are free to abuse animals behind a legal veil of secrecy.     

The Stewardship Code's Achilles' Heel

Many concerned about UK corporate governance have urged those who own equity in listed companies to forsake a traditional bias in favour of passivity and act as responsible, engaged ‘owners’. The recent financial crisis has given added impetus to such calls, with the notion of ‘stewardship’ taking centre stage and resulting in July 2010 with the launch of a Stewardship Code targeting UK‐based institutional investors. This paper summarises the Stewardship Code initiative and argues that, primarily due to sustained fragmentation of share ownership occurring over the past 20 years, the Code is unlikely to foster substantially greater shareholder involvement in UK corporate governance.     

转型中国司法矛盾的法哲学评析

当代中国社会转型的发展诱致了许多社会矛盾的产生,其中司法矛盾尤为显眼。司法作为解决当事人纠纷,化解社会矛盾的主要途径,理当发挥更为重要的作用。但目前我国虽然制定了大量法律,司法的受案率也在逐年提高,但由司法推导的法律运行效果却不甚理想。转型中国的司法矛盾集中表现为司法独立与司法受制、司法守成与司法能动、精英司法与大众司法、程序公正与实体公正诸方面。从法哲学视角对这几对矛盾进行评析,可以探知转型中国司法矛盾的症结所在,并提供相应的学理对策。     

诉讼法学硕士研究生培养质量保障机制研究

诉讼法学专业硕士研究生培养是一个系统工程。在招生环节,应当注意适度压缩招生规模、扩大推免比例,保证生源质量。在课程设置和教学计划环节,应当注意增设相应的实体法课程,强化实习,为培养学生解决实际问题的能力打下基础。在教学环节,课堂教学可以采用师生同堂授课的方法,以调动学生的主动性、积极性;同时通过举办学术沙龙、学术讲座的方式,开辟第二课堂。强化导师责任,对学位论文进行集中开题,严格学位论文答辩,也有助于提高硕士研究生培养质量。