Representing the People? NGOs in International Negotiations

Brühl, Tanja

doi:10.1057/9780230277984_8

Cited by 21 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…The new opportunity structures have their own selectivity, which reproduces existing inequalities in political representation. Advocatory NGOs from the wealthy industrial countries frequently predominate (Brühl, 2010). Although they claim to speak on behalf of stakeholders in poorer countries, this cannot replace democratic equality of access to decision-making processes.…”

Section: The Effects On International Institutionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The politicization of world politics and its effects: Eight propositions

Zürn

2012

Eur. Pol. Sci. Rev.

220

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World politics is no longer a matter of executive multilateralism and technocratic expert decisions. What we see instead is the politicization of international institutions -a twofold process of growing resistance to and the more intensive utilization of these institutions. After providing evidence for this claim, this article develops propositions on the effects of politicization of world politics on the quality of decision making and the content of policies on both the international and national level. On the one hand, the politicization of international institutions arguably heralds a reflexive stage of global governance. The increased participation of societal actors leads to a new mode of decision making in world politics, which includes a notion of global common goods in conjunction with elements of public deliberation. By the same token, increased politicization of international institutions contradicts lamentations about the hollowingout of national democracies and shows that political participation is in fact partly emigrating to the international level. While politicization has the inherent potential for initiating the democratization of international institutions and making new types of global policies possible, there are on the other hand several dangers associated to this process. First, it may perpetuate existing inequalities between North and South in terms of representation on the global level. Second, the politicization of world politics puts pressure on national democracy, since it moves attention away from national political matters and skews national policies towards universalist positions. Moreover, it arguably provokes the constitution of a new political cleavage, cosmopolitanism vs. communitarianism, which may possibly restructure politics in the 21st century to a large extent. These propositions on the effects of politicization will be developed with the help of empirical illustrations. However, they will not be systematically tested -the purpose of this contribution is to elaborate the analytical potential of a new concept and identify broad trends.

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Section: The Effects On International Institutionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The politicization of world politics and its effects: Eight propositions

Zürn

2012

Eur. Pol. Sci. Rev.

220

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“…The activities of transnational CSOs have become a major topic for the discipline of International Relations since the 1990s. Extensive research on CSO activity has illustrated how CSOs advocate certain policies or norms, and what resources and strategies they use (Beyers, 2004; Bouwen, 2004); what roles they perform vis-à-vis IOs in various settings, ranging from economic issues in the World Trade Organization (WTO; Steffek and Ehling, 2008) to legal issues in the International Criminal Court (Glasius, 2008), in institutionalized settings (Martens, 2005), or negotiations (Brühl, 2010). The legitimacy of transnational CSOs, by contrast, has appeared in scholarly debates only in more recent years (Steffek et al ., 2010).…”

Section: Membership Activities and Legitimacy Of Csos: Theoretical mentioning

confidence: 99%

Do members make a difference? A study of Transnational Civil Society Organizations

Kotzian

Steffek

2012

Eur. Pol. Sci. Rev.

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Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) play an active role in European and global governance, and many commentators see them as a link that connects the international level with citizens. But not all CSOs active at the international level do have a substantial number of members. The question we investigate in this article is to what extent membership distinguishes these CSOs from other transnational actors. To what extent do member and non-member CSOs differ in their roles and activities? Is it plausible to argue, as it quite often happens, that CSOs with members are more legitimate than others? On the basis of a survey of 60 exemplary CSOs we find that membership CSOs neither differ substantially from non-member CSOs in their political behavior, nor do they differ in important aspects of legitimacy, such as transparency or efforts to include beneficiaries.

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“…Indeed, civil society actors reflect the specificities of a given society, including its conflict lines (Hellmüller 2018;Zanker 2018). The civil society sphere is thus not necessarily inclusive and can be a space for exclusion and internal conflicts (Brühl 2010). Moreover, while many civil society actors engage in peacebuilding activities, they also work in other fields ranging from humanitarian and development issues, human rights promotion, and monitoring to social service delivery, and local governance issues.…”

Section: Civil Societymentioning

confidence: 99%