Kleine deeltjes, grote kwesties

2013 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucien Hanssen ◽  
Tim Vos ◽  
Maartje Langeslag ◽  
Bart Walhout

Small particles, big issues. An issue analysis of the Dutch national dialogue nanotechnology Small particles, big issues. An issue analysis of the Dutch national dialogue nanotechnology In 2010 the Dutch government sponsored a national dialogue on nanotechnology. A wide range of activities was organised to bring scientific and societal views into this national debate. Issue analysis showed that risk issues concerning health and environment got most attention. Good legislation and ethical motives also came up as prominent topics in discussions. Next to issue analysis, we analysed the type of organizations that orchestrated the different projects and we looked at possibilities to bring in public voices. It turned out that there is no difference in public outreach or involvement among professional media, civil society, or academic organizations. Civil society organizations often set social and ethical issues on the agenda. Due to a lack of capacity and expertise their actual participation in dialogue projects was limited. To strengthen a more robust societal perspective in further national dialogues one could invest in capacity building for civil society organisations.

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Essien D. Essien

Contemporary studies surrounding the creation of civil society in Africa have revealed two important findings. First, despite the effort of civil society organizations in supporting inclusive democratic governance, promoting participation, advocating for transparency and accountability, sustainable development and stability remain elusive due to the challenges of social exclusion. Second, institutions central to the exercise of governmental powers exhibit inefficiency, weakness, lack transparency, and low credibility which worsen extreme poverty, inequality, and deprivation. Drawing upon extensive contemporary literature on social exclusion and inclusive growth, this study examines the role of civil society organisations as a pathway for social inclusion and sustainable development. Findings reveal that the management and distribution of services in the Nigerian society is largely inefficient and exclusionary, leading to myriad of social problems. This study has a significant implication for cumulative research on the subject of inclusive society and sustainable development.


Author(s):  
Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom

International nongovernmental organizations (NGOs or INGOs) are studied from a wide range of academic disciplinary perspectives, and the perspectives and literature are diverse and growing rapidly. This article approaches the topic from a political science perspective and, in particular, from the perspective of the international relations field in political science. It also includes a range of sources from helpful instructional readings to more sophisticated works that have been influential among scholars in the field. The list incorporates both some of the newest work of theoretical and empirical importance and older works that have been important to the development of this topic of study. The scholars who study international NGOs use a variety of conceptual categories for their analysis. Hence, anyone searching for literature on this topic will find fruitful results by searching for a number of terms, including, for example: “transnational civil society,” “transnational advocacy networks,” “transnational social movements,” and “global civil society.” NGOs are also variously called “civil society organizations,” “social movement organizations,” or “nonprofit organizations.” In European literature they are often discussed as “interest groups.”


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 135-152
Author(s):  
Soma Hewa

Civil society organizations are playing a vital role in capacity building at the grassroots level around the world. Rockefeller philanthropy pioneered this civic responsibility, both at home and abroad, in controlling epidemic disease and developing public health. Since its inception in 1913, the Rockefeller Foundation had been involved in a wide range of public health programs in Sri Lanka (previously known as Ceylon), which was regarded as the key to the Foundation’s activities in Asia. Rockefeller philanthropy arrived in Sri Lanka during the European colonial rule in the early twentieth century and received a hostile reception from the colonial administration. The Foundation’s officials acted cautiously and listened to local citizens in developing public health strategies. Such efforts succeeded not only in combating disease and promoting health, but also achieving sustained community support. This paper is a critical inquiry of the program and its role in the development of a modern public health network in Sri Lanka.


Author(s):  
Güneş Ertan

This chapter is mainly concerned with providing a concise synopsis of the state of civil society in Turkey and an overview of the decision-making processes at civil society organizations (CSOs) by combining data from various empirical studies. The chapter begins with a discussion of the roots of weak civil society in Turkey followed by an illustration of the current state of civil society as a space. The chapter will then examine policy analysis practices in CSOs with a focus on prevalent decision making structures and the role of external funds in addition to agenda setting and evaluation processes. The chapter concludes by arguing that CSOs in Turkey are still yet to become effective implementers of policy analysis tools.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 184-208
Author(s):  
Paul Chaney ◽  
Seuty Sabur ◽  
Sarbeswar Sahoo

This article explores civil society organizations’ (CSOs) views on the contemporary situation of LGBT+ people in Bangladesh. It is a lacuna requiring attention because of the country’s poor and deteriorating equality and human rights record. Here we analyse the level of attention to prevailing human rights violations and apply critical frame analysis to the corpus of CSOs’ submissions to the United Nations third cycle Universal Periodic Review (UPR), 2013–2018. These reveal how a series of key pathologies—including, violence, intimidation and discrimination—affect the lives of LGBT+ people. The wider significance of this study lies in highlighting that, while not a replacement for justiciable rights, the discursive processes offered by the UPR are of key significance in seeking to advance LGBT+ rights in countries like Bangladesh where oppression combines with extremism and political elites’ refusal to embrace equality in relation to gender identity and sexual orientation.


Author(s):  
О. А. Дмитренко ◽  

The issue of interaction of the non-governmental sector with state and local authorities always remains relevant, primarily due to changes in the dynamics and trends of this process. Today in Ukraine there is a wide range of interaction tools that can be used by both civil society organizations and individual citizens to communicate with the authorities. However, a characteristic feature of the non-governmental sector is not only the requirement of accountability on the part of the state, but also participation in the formation of a political course and roadmap in a given area. In this study, we analyzed how the third sector currently uses legally regulated methods of communication with the authorities to participate in policy-making and change.


Women are at the heart of civil society organisations. Through them they have achieved many successes, challenged oppressive practices at local and global levels and have developed outstanding entrepreneurial activities. Yet CSO research tends to ignore considerations of gender and the rich history of activist feminist organisations is rarely examined. This anthology examines the nexus between the emancipation of women, and their role(s) in these organisations. Featuring contrasting studies from a wide range of contributors from different parts of the world, it covers emerging issues such as the role of social media in organising, the significance of religion in many cultural contexts, activism in Eastern Europe and the impact of environmental degradation on women’s lives. Asking whether involvement in CSOs offers a potential source of emancipation for women or maintains the status quo, this anthology will also have an impact on policy and practice in relation to equal opportunities.


Author(s):  
Essien D. Essien

Contemporary studies surrounding the creation of civil society in Africa have revealed two important findings. First, despite the effort of civil society organizations in supporting inclusive democratic governance, promoting participation, advocating for transparency and accountability, sustainable development and stability remain elusive due to the challenges of social exclusion. Second, institutions central to the exercise of governmental powers exhibit inefficiency, weakness, lack transparency, and low credibility which worsen extreme poverty, inequality, and deprivation. Drawing upon extensive contemporary literature on social exclusion and inclusive growth, this study examines the role of civil society organisations as a pathway for social inclusion and sustainable development. Findings reveal that the management and distribution of services in the Nigerian society is largely inefficient and exclusionary, leading to myriad of social problems. This study has a significant implication for cumulative research on the subject of inclusive society and sustainable development.


Societies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 36
Author(s):  
Marcus Bhargava ◽  
Lee Jerome

This article illustrates how one university-based initial teacher education (ITE) course sought to develop links with civil society organisations to develop meaningful active citizenship education. The purpose of the project was to enhance citizenship education for ITE students preparing to become secondary school teachers. The article discusses recent developments in theorising teacher education 3.0 to ensure teachers are empowered to engage with a wide range of social and political challenges affecting young people and their communities. It then describes a small project that involved university staff and students in a local community organising project, bringing together a range of local community groups to work together for social justice. The article explores how student teachers working within that community organising group developed an increasingly politicised view of their role—as public sector workers in a politicised policy landscape; as potential agents for the promotion of democracy; and as political actors in their own right. The article concludes that these insights into practice illustrate the potential for a broader conception of teacher education, involving civil society partners beyond schools and universities.


Author(s):  
Nicole Bolleyer

State regulation of civil society organizations such as interest groups, parties, and public benefit organizations is expanding yet widely contested, often portrayed as illegitimate intrusion. Despite ongoing debates about the nature of state–voluntary relations in various social science disciplines, we know surprisingly little about why long-lived democracies adopt more or less constraining legal approaches in this sphere. Drawing on insights from political science, sociology, and comparative law as well as public administration research, this book addresses this important question, conceptually, theoretically, and empirically. It addresses the conceptual and methodological challenges related to developing systematic, comparative insights into the nature of complex legal environments affecting voluntary membership organizations, by simultaneously covering a wide range of democracies and the regulation applicable to different types of voluntary organizations. Proposing the analytical tools to tackle those challenges, it studies in depth the intertwined and overlapping legal environments of political parties, interest groups, and public benefit organizations across nineteen long-lived democracies. After presenting an innovative interdisciplinary theoretical framework theorizing democratic states’ legal disposition or disinclination to regulate voluntary membership organizations in a constraining or permissive fashion, this framework is empirically tested. Applying Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), the comparative analysis identifies three main ‘paths’ accounting for the relative constraints in the legal environments democracies have created for organized civil society, defined by different configurations of political systems’ democratic history, their legal family, and voluntary sector traditions. Providing the foundation for a mixed-methods design, three ideal-typical representatives of each path—Sweden, the UK, and France—are selected for the in-depth study of these legal environments’ long-term evolution, to capture reform dynamics and their drivers that have shaped group and party regulation over many decades.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document