泰国非政府组织研究现状综述

20世纪70年代以来,非政府组织(NGO)在全球范围内迅速发展,泰国非政府组织也获得较大发展,并对泰国的政治、经济、社会的发展产生了较大的影响。多年来,国内外学者对其多有著述,分别从不同侧面、多个视角给予了较为详尽的论述和评价,形成了各种观点。本文在这些研究的基础上就国内外学界对泰国非政府组织的研究现状进行简要总结和概述。     

Co-producing a post-trafficking agenda: collaborating on transforming citizenship in Nepal

This article discusses how a new agenda on post-trafficking is gaining momentum through academic and activist anti-trafficking collaborations focused on co-producing knowledge with women who have returned from trafficking situations. Co-production of this nature is important as the issues raised by post-trafficking scenarios are largely ignored in anti-trafficking strategies, and the stigmatisation and poverty which women in these circumstances encounter means they rarely have a voice in policy-making. Drawing on research in Nepal, we present four types of co-produced data around transforming citizenship post-trafficking, and reflect on the strategies for generating and using them for advocacy purposes.     

A cooperative Peru: Is centralisation of cooperatives better for local development?

Research shows that some agricultural cooperatives implement development projects in their local communities. What remains to be explained is why certain cooperatives pursue local development while others do not. Through a comparison of coffee cooperatives in two regions of Peru, this study examines the implications of a regional cooperative for local development. The creation of a regional cooperative leads to a concentration of resources and a decrease in the need and ability of local cooperatives to pursue independent development projects. At the same time, it allows for more equal access to those resources and to the benefits of cooperative-led development projects.     

The origins of international child sponsorship

International child sponsorship typically involves the pairing of an individual, identifiable child, or young adult in a developing country with an individual donor or sponsor in a relatively wealthy country. Regular payments by sponsors, accompanied by the exchange of personal information, characterise a fundraising phenomenon which currently links sponsors to more than eight million children globally. Although child sponsorship underpins a multi-billion dollar flow of funds to developing countries, its origins have become obscured by the passing of time, to the point where many international NGOs utilising it as a fundraising mechanism are unaware of the aims and context of its early use. This article argues that the pairing of individual children with international donors was initiated by the UK-based Save the Children Fund and the Society of Friends Relief Mission in post-First World War Austria in 1919. Unlike the long-term support that would characterise later programmes, early sponsorship funded the short-term assistance of children and avoided the creation of dependency.     

Domains of faith impact: how “faith” is perceived to shape faith-based international development organisations

Increasing interest in faith-based international development organisations (FBOs) recently has improved understanding of these agencies. One reason for complex, often contradictory findings is the lack of frameworks analysing the interactions of worldviews on organisational structures, processes, and behaviours of agencies, and development outcomes. We utilise Lincoln's (2003. Holy Terrors: Thinking about Religion after September 11. Chicago: University of Chicago Press) four “domains of religion” to explore how the literature reports faith impacting the shape of development FBOs’ structures, behaviours, and outcomes. Literature suggests faith has a significant impact upon these agencies. We outline very specific similarities and differences, highlighting the importance of nuanced analysis of faith's role in FBOs. Further research is needed to build more evidence around these impacts of faith on FBOs.     

Has Basismo Disappeared?1

Abstract – In Brazil basismo has evolved from a libertarian discourse encouraged by the Church to a more institutionalised activity centred on local and international NGOs, with their increasingly managerial priorities.     

Civil society and democratic progression in postcolonial Nigeria: The role of non-governmental organizations

Abstract

With the ever increasing demands of market forces via globalization on governments, the parallel requests from citizens to fill the gap often left open by states have become just as prevalent in the modern era. Governments have become ill-equipped to handle such citizen demands or simply unwilling, thus civil society agents in the form of Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) are attempting to fill those gaps. Ideally, civil society actors like NGOs collectively mobilize and advocate more political openness, in the form of civil liberties and civil rights. However, NGOs can stymie democracy-building as well. Demands for more democratization are increasing precipitously, and seem to be coinciding with the rising tide of globalization, even in nascent democracies such as Nigeria. However, the idealism of the 1990s, that NGOs would be the panacea for democratic limitations, are not revealing themselves as once anticipated for a plethora of reasons. This paper will investigate the impact of NGO efforts and democratization in the face of instability in postcolonial Nigeria.     

The challenges of measuring food security and sovereignty in the Yucatán Peninsula

In a study of food security and sovereignty (FSS) in 22 indigenous Mayan communities in Yucatán State, Mexico, a participatory action research (PAR) methodology was combined with an analytical framework comprised of 10 FSS indicators to measure food security in the study area and identify strengths and weaknesses of the analytical framework. While some of the FSS indicators were approaching satisfactory, the majority were only partially satisfied, and food self-sufficiency was for the most part unsatisfactory. It was also found that food security indicators are relatively easier to measure, while sovereignty indicators present challenges in terms of defining progress.     

Informing the future of capacity building: lessons from an NGO partnership

Despite a recent surge in popularity, critical gaps remain in effectively building the capacity of organisations through global development projects. Two non-governmental organisations, FHI 360 and Conservation Through Public Health (CTPH), established a partnership focused on strengthening CTPH's organisational capacity to conduct high quality monitoring and evaluation and to effectively advocate for integrated population, health, and environment work. To help inform the design and implementation of future capacity building programmes, the partners describe their lessons learnt as illustrated through the five key capacity building steps: stakeholder engagement and partnership formation; capacity needs assessment; capacity plan design; plan implementation; and evaluation.     

Subsuming the ground: how local realities of the Fergana Valley,the Narmada Dams and the BTC pipeline are put to use on the Web

Abstract

Studies of the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) seek to come to terms with a particular problem of political globalization. While global forums are widely attributed the capacity to put in place the conditions for the resolution of local issues, at the same time these sites are seen to place unacceptable restrictions on the articulation of the issues from localist perspectives. ICTs occupy a special position with respect to this dilemma, as they are both seen to be part of the problem, a factor in the enrolment of NGOs in global governance networks, and part of the solution, as instruments of alternative, translocal forms of political organization. This piece shows how a particular style of Web analysis, informed by actor-network theory, demonstrates the need to complicate certain assumptions that inform both these critical and these constructive perspectives. In a series of exercises of network analysis on the Web, we open up for questioning the assumption of the ‘primacy of the local’ on which these perspectives tend to rely. We suggest that the role of ICTs in the globalization of NGO practices should rather be understood in terms of the reformatting of issues for transnational networks. In our interpretations of issue networks on the Web, we argue for the importance of taking more seriously the ways in which the Web highlights the practical constraints on issue articulation faced by NGOs. By way of conclusion, this paper draws attention to the fact that Web studies present a notable extension to the sites studied by actor-network theory and related approaches in assemblages studies, as it compels consideration of the media circulations characteristic of publicity.