Civil society and international governance: the role of non-state actors in the EU, Africa, Asia and Middle East

Structures and processes occurring within and between states are no longer the only – or even the most important - determinants of those political, economic and social developments and dynamics that shape the modern world. Many issues, including the environment, health, crime, drugs, migration and terrorism, can no longer be contained within national boundaries. As a result, it is not always possible to identify the loci for authority and legitimacy, and the role of governments has been called into question. \ud \ud Civil Society anf International Governance critically analyses the increasing impact of nongovernmental organisations and civil society on global and regional governance. Written from the standpoint of advocates of civil society and addressing the role of civil society in relation to the UN, the IMF, the G8 and the WTO, this volume assess the role of various non-state actors from three perspectives: theoretical aspects, civil society interaction with the European Union and civil society and regional governance outside Europe, specifically Africa, East Asia and the Middle East. It demonstrates that civil society’s role has been more complex than one defined in terms, essentially, of resistance and includes actual participation in governance as well as multi-facetted contributions to legitimising and democratising global and regional governance

Public Welfare Foundation - 2002 Annual Report

Contains board chair and executive director's message, mission statement, program area and grant guidelines, financial statements, and lists of board members and staff

Digital resistance: #SaveSheikhJarrah and the role of Palestinian activism on social media

This Master dissertation explores the evolution of transnational social movements and the rise of digital mobilisation in the twenty-first century, with a focus on the Palestinian case. Parallel to the theoretical study of social movements, the core of this work represents a synopsis of Palestinian resistance history, with a focus on the period between 1936 and today's popular struggles, particularly digital resistance in the age of social media. More in detail, this dissertation is based on a case study around the hashtag #SaveSheikJarrah, which went viral in May 2021. The hashtag represents a generational outcry against the Israeli occupation and settler-colonial evictions in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah and has brought unprecedented attention for the Palestinian cause on a global level. This dissertation contributes to the documentation of activists' narratives and maps the meanings of Palestinian resistance in the new era of social media within a broader historical context. Furthermore, the rather novel and multidisciplinary research approach, which combines digital ethnography with interviews with activists, makes an original contribution to Palestine studies within Portuguese academia, which constitutes a major research gap that exists to this day.Esta dissertação de Mestrado explora a evolução dos movimentos sociais transnacionais e a subida da mobilização digital no século XXI, com enfoque no caso palestiniano. Paralelamente ao estudo teórico dos movimentos sociais, o núcleo desta obra representa uma sinopse da história da resistência palestiniana, com destaque para o período entre 1936 e as lutas populares de hoje, particularmente a resistência digital na era dos meios de comunicação social. Mais em detalhe, esta dissertação baseia-se num estudo de caso relacionado ao hashtag #SaveSheikJarrah, que se tornou viral em Maio de 2021. O hashtag representa um clamor geracional contra a ocupação israelita e as expulsões relacionado ao colonialismo do assentamento no distrito de Sheikh Jarrah em Jerusalém Oriental e trouxe uma atenção nunca vista para a causa palestiniana ao nível global. Esta dissertação contribui para a documentação das narrativas dos activistas e mapeia os significados da resistência palestiniana na nova era dos meios de comunicação social, dentro de um contexto histórico mais amplo. Além disso, a abordagem de investigação bastante inovadora e multidisciplinar, que combina a etnografia digital com entrevistas com activistas, dá um contributo original para os estudos sobre a Palestina no seio da academia portuguesa, o que constitui uma grande lacuna de investigação que existe até aos dias de hoje

Constructing collective identities in the Internet age: a case study of Taiwanese-based internet forums

The thesis presents a case study of asynchronous Taiwanese-based internet forums, aimed at exploring new perspectives in the question of collective identity construction via intemet-forum participation. It develops a discursive-constructivist approach that incorporates the theories and models of Goffman, Butler, Laclau & Mouffe and Melucci, investigating the performative, antagonistic and negotiated dimensions of identities. Methodologically, it deploys a series of analytic tools from linguistics and micro sociology, as well as the methods of content analysis and online ethnography. Focusing on the questions of gay identities and national identities, the case study tracks down ten years of archives of the local gay forums and political forums, examining the ways in which collective identities take form through speech performance and social interactions in cyberspace. The case analysis of the gay forums finds that the internet gives rise to networked online gay communities, where individual gays’ subject-positions are performed. Meanwhile, the forums permit the reconstruction of the Other of the gay community, which ironically results in the creation of an internal Other among the community. Furthermore, the forums allow their grassroots participants to engage in the local gay movement, which eventually leads to change in the public identity of the movement. The case of national identity shows that antagonism between the two oppositional nationalisms in Taiwan penetrates identity practices in this domain; cyberspace is no exception. The local political forums become the space for marking, creating and stigmatising the Other. Nevertheless, they also provide the space for negotiated interactions concerning identity-oriented national projects, as well as facilitate dialogues between Chinese and Taiwanese online participants on the question of Taiwan’s future. To conclude, internet forums do not necessarily lead to the devolution of symbolic and political power of their participants. Mainstream discourses still deeply influence the discourses in cyberspace. Grassroots participation in debates concerning social projects may intervene in decision-making; however, this is dependent on the participants’ access to valid information and the decision makers’ attitudes towards the grassroots forums. Finally, while connecting people together, the internet is also disuniting people in spreading antagonisms and animosity

State of Civil Society 2013: Creating an Enabling Environment

Welcome to the second edition of the State of Civil Society report produced by CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation. This report is not ours alone. The 2013 State of Civil Society report draws from nearly 50 contributions made by people active in civil society all over the world -- from our members, friends, partners, supporters and others in the CIVICUS alliance. They contributed 31 new pieces of analysis and thinking on the state of civil society. Our analysis also benefits from 16 responses to a questionnaire from national civil society platforms that are members of either our Affinity Group of National Associations (AGNA), or the International Forum of National NGO Platforms (IFP). Together, their contributions, published at http://socs.civicus.org, form the full report. Our summary report is a synthesis of this impressive array of perspectives. We believe that together their contributions offer a body of critical, cutting edge thinking about the changing state of contemporary civil society. We thank them for their efforts and continuing support. It is also important to acknowledge in this report the work of coalitions such as the Open Forum for CSO Development Effectiveness and BetterAid, and the subsequent CSO Partnership for Development Effectiveness, in bringing together many CSOs working in the development sphere in recent years to advance the debate on civil society's contributions to development effectiveness, including on the issue of the enabling conditions for civil society that are a necessary part of increasing CSO effectiveness. This report is also intended as a contribution to those wider efforts, in which we at CIVICUS are happy to be active partners

Civil Society in the 'Visegrad Four': Data and Literature in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia

The first of three publications on the '25 Years After -- Mapping Civil Society in the Visegrád Four' project contains an overview of existing data and literature in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. It looks at where and what kind of research on civil society has been and is being done, who is doing it and where the gaps are.To be consistent and comparable, the four country reports include the same core sections: relevant publications on civil society in the respective country; existing databases and other data sources; active centres of research, training, and policy studies. More than providing just a list, this report looks at how they can be evaluated in terms of scope, accurateness and depth. Finally, it considers the question of what the most crucial gaps in research and funding in the countries are.An academic volume is slated for the end of 2014. For other publications in English and German, see www.maecenata.eu

Gendered coloniality and the politics of internet access

This thesis re-theorises the under-researched concept of internet access from a decolonial feminist perspective, contributing to emergent decolonising debates in the field. Scholarship on internet access has bifurcated towards ‘digital divide’ and ‘digital inequalities’ approaches on the one hand, and internet governance and policy approaches on the other, limiting view of multi-scalar arrangements. This research considers how varied modes of access facilitate and limit decolonising politics with relation to the historically-constituted, geopolitical and sociotechnical construction of the internet. The multi-sited, multi-scalar, decolonial feminist methodology has involved five years of participant observation at internet governance consultations, Mozilla Festival, RightsCon and the global Internet Governance Forum, taking place both in-person and online. Additionally, I have followed and interviewed youth activists located across the African continent and feminist activists located across South Asia, as they have circulated between these sites and their communities of work. I argue that relations of gendered coloniality, shaped by co-constitutive processes of gendered/racialised oppression, structure expansionist moves to generate a particular internet universality. Research findings show these workings are obscured from view often by seemingly virtuous claims that, at face-value, look to be in opposition the entrenched disparities that the colonial matrix of power maintains. Gendered coloniality denigrates Majority World knowledges, ways of being and socialities. In the governance of the internet these relations project Western societies as kinetic, innovative and future-oriented, whilst Majority World societies are fixed into the eternal past. In the face of these moves to power activist collaborators who contribute to the research engage in multi-scalar negotiations for access for themselves and their communities. In their organising these activists value lived experience at the borders and multi-scalar tactics, whilst embodying decolonial habitus and cultivating solidarities. The work finds that ‘access’ is in an inherently limited concept, functioning to foreclose options outside of a market-based, US-shaped and Global North-led internet universality. However, the access agenda is used by activists to articulate and share differentiated notions of interconnectivity which are expansive and optimistic in their ambitions towards social justice; these visions are the basis for what I term ‘internet pluriversality’

Youth as E-Citizens: Engaging the Digital Generation

"Youth as E-Citizens: Engaging the Digital Generation" provides a groundbreaking overview of Web-based efforts to increase youth civic engagement. Beginning with a close-up examination of website content, the report also examines the organizations and institutions creating that content, and the larger environment in which civic sites function. The full report offers:Case studies of high-profile sites' strategies for launch, visibility and funding; the online response to 9/11; and online youth activism.Discussion of the potential that websites offer to build lasting habits of civic involvement. Current developments in technology, regulation and law that raise urgent questions about the viability of the civic Web.In addition, the project has created an online showcase of top youth civic websites. To see how they use the Internet to facilitate civic involvement and learning, take the Online Tour (http://centerforsocialmedia.org/ecitizens/index.htm)!"Youth as E-Citizens" was initiated by the Center for Media Education. With the closing of the Center in the fall of 2003, the project joined the Center for Social Media. Initial funding for this multi-year research project was provided by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE). The Ford Foundation, the Open Society Institute, the Packard Foundation, and the Surdna Foundation also provided critical support

Revolutions Without Revolutionaries? Social Media Networks and Regime Response in Egypt

Does the Internet change the balance of power between authoritarian regimes and their domestic opponents? The results of this case study of Egyptian digital activism suggest that the Internet has important effects on authoritarian politics, though not necessarily the kind we have come to expect from popular accounts of online activism. In this dissertation, I argue that what I call Social Media Networks can trigger informational cascades through their interaction effects with independent media outlets and on-the-ground organizers. They do so primarily through the reduction of certain costs of collective action, the transmission capabilities of certain elite nodes in social and online networks, and through changing the diffusion dynamics of information across social networks. An important secondary argument is that while states, including Egypt, have become more adept at surveillance and filtering of online activities, SMNs make it impossible for authoritarian countries to control their media environments in the way that such regimes have typically done so in the past. Case studies of media events in Egypt between 2006 and 2008 explain how SMNs undermine the process of authoritarian media control and why the independent press is critical for claims-making and the building of shared meaning. However, the power of SMNs is not capable of challenging the entrenched repressive capacity of determined states, nor can SMNs be substituted for the difficult work of grassroots organizing. I arrive at this conclusion through a case study of the April 6th Youth Movement, which staged nearly identical strikes on April 6th, 2008, and April 6th, 2009, with divergent results. Therefore, the dissertation concludes that even though SMNs may lead to richer information environments with increased capacity for organizing, the technologies themselves are not determinative of political outcomes. Finally, by studying the use of digital tools by Muslim Brothers and Baha’is, the dissertation argues that SMNs can provide critical public space and create discursive focal points for political and religious minorities