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Highlighting civil society activities to strengthen nuclear security

Highlighting civil society activities to support the Chemical Weapons Convention

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has recently made numerous commitments to engage civil society organizations (CSOs) in its governance practices. However, the opportunities created offer limited means for CSOs to contest policy as a result of strict controls over who can participate and the forms of participation permitted. Activists have consequently pursued their agendas outside of spaces sanctioned by ASEAN through 'created spaces,' such as conferences organized parallel to official summits. However, this form of political participation has limited potential to influence official processes because despite its independence, these activities are still structured in relation to ASEAN practices. The ineffectual nature of CSO advocacy despite ASEAN's people-orientated shift has been documented, however explanations for this trend remain limited. This article applies the modes of political participation framework that acknowledges the role of intergovernmental organizations in structuring spaces for civil society participation and, in doing so, shaping the contribution that CSOs can make. Through an examination of the regulations and practices that govern CSO participation in both ASEAN-sanctioned and independent spaces, it argues that spaces for CSO participation are structured to prevent CSOs from contesting policy, suggesting that ASEAN's shift to widen participation is directed towards legitimating its reform agenda. Hence, ASEAN's claim of becoming 'people oriented' must be considered in recognition of the limiting effect its engagement practices have on CSOs' ability to advance alternative agendas. (Pac Rev/GIGA)

AbstractThe European 'crisis decade' triggered discussions about solidarity and it´s limits; at the policy level, the debates were mostly about determining thedeservingnessof solidarity of each vulnerable group, and at the street level, actors involved saw the demand for concrete service provision grow while their resources stayed the same or retrenched. This paper is interested in the limits of solidarity precisely at the street level; hence we investigate what combinations of operational conditions (budget, status, volunteers) lead the civil society organizations to engage in more solidarity activities (service provision and advocacy). Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) are, beside the state and the family, a vital provider of solidarity services and a significant actor in advocacy for vulnerable groups. As any organization, CSOs are rationalised structures that pursue a concrete goal and for this purpose, rely on different resources and strategies. The paper, therefore, investigates configurations of operational conditions that account for higher levels of solidarity activities by CSOs in Germany and Greece. These countries have both experienced an increase in the demand of social services while they present different civil society traditions, different welfare systems and have been differently affected by crises. While Germany was less dramatically affected by the financial crisis and voluntarily took in almost a million refugees in 2016, Greece was severely hit by the financial crisis and, located at the EU borderland, has had a different experience with the inflow of migrants and refugees. The analysis builds on a series of semi-structured interviews conducted with CSO representatives of the social sector in the framework of the TransSOL project (www.transsol.eu) in 2017. We employ a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to understand the necessary and sufficient conditions under which CSOs are more active, looking at their organizational traits and preconditions, their capacities to mobilise volunteers, their status in the community and their cross-sectional coverage of social issues.

Rez.: Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) play an active and noteworthy role in governance, both at the national and international level. Three questions arise: First, how do CSOs exercise their advocacy, what repertoires, strategies and resources do they use? Second, to what degree are they legitimized to do so? Third, are there systematic differences between member and non-member CSOs, respectively between policy fields? Based on a survey of 60 exemplary CSOs covering four distinct international-level policy making fora, we will inquire into these questions. The central finding is that membership CSOs neither differ substantially from non-member CSOs in their roles and strategies of dealing with International Organizations, nor do they differ in other aspects of legitimacy, such as transparency or inclusion of beneficiaries. There are no systematic patterns in CSOs properties or behavior which correspond to policy fields.

Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) play an active and noteworthy role in governance, both at the national and international level. Three questions arise: First, how do CSOs exercise their advocacy, what repertoires, strategies and resources do they use? Second, to what degree are they legitimized to do so? Third, are there systematic differences between member and non-member CSOs, respectively between policy fields? Based on a survey of 60 exemplary CSOs covering four distinct international-level policy making fora, we will inquire into these questions. The central finding is that membership CSOs neither differ substantially from non-member CSOs in their roles and strategies of dealing with International Organizations, nor do they differ in other aspects of legitimacy, such as transparency or inclusion of beneficiaries. There are no systematic patterns in CSOs properties or behavior which correspond to policy fields. ; Zivilgesellschaftliche Organisationen (ZGO) spielen im modernen Regieren eine wichtige Rolle, sowohl im Staat als auch auf internationaler Ebene. Drei Forschungsfragen stehen im Mittelpunkt dieses Papiers: Erstens, wie genau nehmen ZGO am Regierungsprozess teil und welche Einflussstrategien, Ressourcen und Handlungsrepertoire nutzen sie dabei? Zweitens, wie steht es um die Legitimation dieser Organisationen und ihrer Aktivitäten? Drittens, verhalten sich ZGO mit zahlreichen Mitgliedern systematisch anders als ZGO ohne Mitgliedschaft? Gestützt auf Daten von 60 transnationalen ZGO aus vier verschiedenen Politikfeldern gehen wir diesen Fragen nach. Zentrales Ergebnis ist, dass ZGO mit breiter Mitgliedschaft sich in ihren Rollenverständnis und ihren Einflussstrategien nicht grundlegend von anderen unterscheiden. Auch im Hinblick auf wichtige Aspekte ihrer Legitimität, wie etwa Transparenz oder Einbindung von Regelungsadressaten, gibt es keine auffälligen Unterschiede. Die Politikfelder, in denen ZGO aktiv sind, haben ebenfalls keinen messbaren Einfluss auf ihr Handlungsrepertoire und ihre politischen Strategien.

The article analyzes the development of civil society in the Czech Republic on the basis of a large number of empirical materials. The author notes that civil society organizations operate within a broad legal framework in the state. It is proved that the Czechs are actively involved in the activities of civil society organizations that are established in various areas of life. The article examines two main types of non-governmental organizations – advocacy groups and service organizations. Legal regulation of the organizational form of non-governmental organizations allows us to study groups and organizations of civil society. Through the civil society organizations the citizens of the Czech Republic show their views and political positions, provide various services to other members of society. Civil society organizations are structured and separated from the state, usually they are not profitable and they have their own autonomy. The author argues that civil society in the Czech Republic is based not only on the activities of formally registered organizations, but also creates a number of informal groups and initiatives that do not always require legal registration. However, they function successfully and bring great benefits to society.

The paper analyses the class basis of the civil society in Serbia in the period of post-socialist transformation. The analysis is based on data from several empirical studies implemented by the Institute for Sociological Research of the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade over the past twenty years, specifically in 1997, 2007 and 2012. The main objective of the analysis is to determine whether there is rootedness of civil society activities among the middle class. The basic hypothesis of the paper is that members of the middle class are the key actors of civil society in the entire period observed. Results of the analysis show that the members of the middle class have been holders of civil protests during the period of blocked transformation - almost the only phenomenal manifestation of the civil society in Serbia in the 1990s. On the other hand, research findings from 2007 and 2012 indicated a significant decline of civic activism among all social groups, and the decline was most marked precisely among the middle class. Although members of the middle class, compared with other social groups, were still more willing to engage in civic activities, data show that the differences between social classes were not especially marked, and therefore we can talk only conditionally about rootedness of civil society activities among the middle class.

This book focuses on southern Africa by engaging with 'norms' from various perspectives and how they have proliferated within a neo-liberalising context since the 1990s. It particularly examines gender norms in relation to agency, influence and their impact. Despite growing transnational activities, regional studies analyses have so far maintained a primarily linear logic not incorporative of the increasing interface between state and non-state regionalism in a transnational context since the advent of liberalisation and democratisation. Increasing non-state activities, and their connection to state processes involved in norm creation, adaptation, diffusion and implementation around broad questions of security (including gender security), amount to regional thickening. The book's analytical approach is informed by alternatives to mainstream approaches, emphasising processes rather than linearity inherent in regional international relations studies. The research reveals that transnational activities and regionalisation of gender and women-focused civil society actors are critical for advocacy and diverse representation within intergovernmental policymaking structures at the regional scale. Cecilia Nedziwe is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Political and International Studies at Rhodes University, Makhanda, South Africa. Her research interests centre around international and regional organisations, and on issues of gender, civil society and peacebuilding. Oluwaseun Tella is Head of the Future of Diplomacy at the University of Johannesburg's Institute for the Future of Knowledge, South Africa. He holds a doctorate in Political Science. His research interests include soft power, foreign policy, Nigeria-South Africa relations, peace and conflict studies, comparative politics, African politics and global politics.

Studying individuals who move from civil society into government in an effort to pursue reform agendas provides important "bottom up" insights into the complexity of policy processes. Using a set of original life history data collected in the Philippines, this article analyses the experiences of such crossover reformist efforts in post-Marcos Philippines in the field of agrarian reform. Taking each of the four governments of the period in turn, a set of themes are discussed including entryism as a political strategy, political patronage, organizational culture, role transitions and activist identities. The article concludes with the idea that the boundary between state and civil society is an important, relatively unexplored area of political activity. By opening up this area as an arena of contentious politics, an ethnographic approach tells us more about the challenges and complexity encountered by those attempting to influence policy processes from the inside, and about the policy process itself as a non-linear phenomenon. (Contemp Southeast Asia/GIGA)