NGO Responses to Counterterrorism Regulations After September 11th

We examine variations in nongovernmental organizations\u27 (NGOs\u27) responses to post-2001 changes in counterterrorism regulations in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan. We connect the presence of different ideal type responses—hiding, shirking, vocal opposition, participating, and litigating—to the extent of change in regulations, the degree of uncertainty (and risk) created by new regulations, and the availability of political institutions for NGO participation in policy-making

Advocacy group effects in global governance : Populations, strategies, and political opportunity structures

Global governance is no longer a matter of state cooperation or bureaucratic politics. Since the end of the cold war, advocacy groups have proliferated and enjoyed increasing access to global governance institutions such as the European Union, World Trade Organization, and the United Nations climate conferences. This special issue seeks to push theories of interest groups and international non-governmental organizations forward. We argue that the advocacy group effects on global governance institutions are best understood by examining how groups use and shape domestic and global political opportunity structures. The individual articles examine how, when, and why domestic and global political opportunity structures shape advocacy group effects in global governance, across global institutions, levels of government, advocacy organizations, issue areas, and over time. As special interests are becoming increasingly involved in global governance, we need to better understand how advocacy organizations may impact global public goods provision

Supplemental Information for: Overcoming the laws-in-translation problem: Comparing techniques to translate legal texts

The benefits of computerized translations are their speed, accessibility, and cost. The risk is whether they are sufficiently precise for a given need. This note assesses the options available to translate legal text for socio-legal research. We evaluate three tools—DeepL, Google, Microsoft—and assess each one’s ability to translate similar legal content enacted by the Brazilian, Chinese, French, Japanese, and Mexican governments. We demonstrate that machine translators are reliable and effective, particularly at higher levels of generality. They are fallible, however, and each is prone to making critical errors that may jeopardize research. We show that employing human translators to edit automated translations produces high-quality translations in one-third the time and at a fraction of the cost. This methodological contribution promises to enrich socio-legal research by establishing a translation protocol that is affordable, rigorous yet simple, and transparent. We propose that scholars use this method for comparative socio-legal research

The securitisation of NGOs post-9/11

This article argues that the securitisation of an issue can involve not only negative, exclusionary and repressive extraordinary measures but also more positive, inclusionary and productive strategies of engagement. It also argues that such bifurcated strategies of security can evoke a spectrum of responses that sets limits on the process of securitisation. It examines these two arguments through the lens of the securitisation of development NGOs post-9/11. Development NGOs have become associated as a potential ‘second-order’ security issue related to the macro-securitisation of the War on Terror. After the launch of President Bush's War on Terror, US and allied governments shifted their approach to development NGOs from one of enthusiastically courting them as co-producers of development and security to an approach that cast greater suspicion on their activities. Aware that development NGOs still had a positive role to play in development and security, Western governments adopted a bifurcated strategy of containment and engagement towards development NGOs. State attempts to restrict development NGOs have evoked a spectrum of responses, ranging from ready compliance to outright resistance that has led to only partial success in securitising development NGOs