The Sovereign Limits of Global Civil Society: A Comparison of NGO Participation in UN World Conferences on the Environment, Human Rights, and Women

Abstract

The increased visibility of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and social movements at the international level invites continuing evaluation of the extent and significance of the role they now play in world politics. While the presence of such new actors is easily demonstrated, international relations scholars have debated their significance. The authors argue that the concept of global civil society sets a more demanding standard for the evaluation of transnational political processes than has been applied in prior accounts of transnational activity. Further, most empirical studies of this activity have focused on a limited number of NGOs within a single issue-area. Using three recent UN world conferences as examples of mutual encounters between state-dominated international politics and global civic politics, the authors develop the concept of global civil society to provide a theoretical foundation for a systematic empirical assessment of transnational relations concerning the environment, human rights, and women at the global level.

Corporate Funding and Sustainability of Non- Governmental Organizations in Africa

“…Government funds available were not accessed by civil society organizations due to inadequate awareness about the availability and the procedures required to access the funds. The findings are in line with the works of (Benthall, 1995;Nelson, 1997;Clark et al, 1998;Carapico, 2000;Ahmad, 2003;Paul, 2003;He and Murphy, 2007;Berkovitch and Gordon, 2008;Kim, 2009;Kim et al, 2011) Finally, NGOs development is about people, people who require institutions and information to enable their participation. There are no quick fixes, it requires time and commitment.…”

Normative arguments for non-state actor participation in international policymaking processes: Functionalism, neocorporatism or democratic pluralism?

“…Clark et al, 1997;Carr and Norman, 2008;Hjerpe and Linnér, 2010) has led to the institutionalisation of various mechanisms for NSA participation in climate and sustainable development diplomacy (Bernstein, 2012).…”

The Sustainable Development of Sino-African Cooperation: Actors, Gaps and Reforms

“…10 Until 2011, China has 462 thousand officially recognized NGOs. But almost all of them have little experience or history in effective international cooperation with foreign counterparts.…”