Enforcing citizen participation through litigation: analysing the outcomes of anti-dam movements

In environmental politics, social movements play a crucial role, promoting participatory rights and confronting injustice, inequality, and the interests of the powerful. This article examines an underexplored topic in the literature on social movements, especially in Latin America: the use of litigation to force decisionmakers to comply with participatory formats, specifically in the course of opposition to hydroelectric dams. These projects often are destructive to the local environment and communities. This study examines four cases of environmental litigation that halted dam construction in Brazil and Chile, singling out causal pathways for successful collective action. It focuses on two dimensions of movement success: the implementation of participatory formats and the resulting cancellation of dam projects. In line with the joint effect model of social movement theory, the crosscase comparison of legal disputes shows that pursuing legal strategies in parallel to broad social mobilization and the support of institutional allies, can lead to successful outcomes

Exit-Prozesse in der Entwicklungszusammenarbeit: Synthesestudie

Die vorliegende Synthesestudie untersucht, was im Zuge von Exit-Prozessen in der bilateralen staatlichen Entwicklungszusammenarbeit auf Ebene von Ländern, Sektoren oder Instrumenten berücksichtigt werden sollte, um einen Exit-Prozess mit Blick auf die Nachhaltigkeit von Wirkungen und die partnerschaftlichen Beziehungen möglichst gut auszugestalten. Die Erkenntnisse beruhen auf einem Literaturreview, ergänzt um Expert*inneninterviews, einen Onlinesurvey sowie Vertiefungsstudien zu Exit-Prozessen in der deutschen bilateralen staatlichen Entwicklungszusammenarbeit

Evaluierung des Kooperationsmodells der Reformpartnerschaften: Partnerschaft durch Fördern und Fordern?

Seit 2017 arbeitet das Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (BMZ) in ausgesuchten Staaten Afrikas mit einem speziellen Kooperationsmodell, den sogenannten Reformpartnerschaften (RPs). Diese folgen dem Leitprinzip "Fördern und Fordern". Das Fördern beruht auf einem besonderen Ausmaß partnerseitiger Ownership und einem außergewöhnlich attraktiven Unterstützungsangebot. Letzteres wird im Sinne des Forderns jedoch nur beim Erreichen vereinbarter Reformschritte implementiert

Development Cooperation from a Partner Perspective: How can Germany and other donors perform better in the eyes of their partner countries?

Partner perspectives are of particular relevance for Germany and the international donor community, because partner countries can increasingly select with whom they cooperate. Thus, favourable donor assessments by partners will become important for a donor to stay in the game and to be able to eventually contribute to the achievement of development outcomes in countries of the Global South. In addition, donors should have an interest in knowing how their support for internal policy processes in their partner countries is assessed by those countries’ policymakers and practitioners, because these partner-country stakeholders can be expected to be among the best judges of the quality of the support provided. Even as partner countries play an increasingly important role in development cooperation over the last decade, research about partner assessments of donors remains rare. This study fills this research gap by asking how partner-country policymakers and practitioners assess Germany’s and other donors’ support and what donors can do to improve the quality of their support in the eyes of their partners. It builds on an earlier joint study by AidData and DEval that focused on analysing assessments of Germany’s official development cooperation. This study is a collaboration and is based on AidData’s 2017 Listening to Leaders Survey, involving nearly 2,400 partner-country policymakers and representatives of civil society and the private sector. We complement the survey with 136 qualitative interviews involving 193 partner-country policymakers and practitioners in four country case studies (Albania, Cambodia, Colombia, and Malawi). Based on a conceptual framework that draws on the policy cycle model, we analyse two measures of partner assessment: donors’ perceived influence in agenda setting and perceived helpfulness in policy implementation. The aim of this study is to inform donors about how to improve their support for internal policy processes in the eyes of partners. Results show that action can be taken at three levels: partner-country selection and resource allocation (macro level), adherence to aid effectiveness principles (meso level), and donor–partner interactions (micro level)

Oportunidades de participación étnica en América Latina – Una nueva evaluación contextual con referencia a Bolivia, Colombia y Nicaragua

América Latina es una región de gran actualidad para el análisis de instrumentos participativos para grupos étnicos. Este artículo examina su potencial para una inclusión efectiva de los pueblos indígenas y afrodescendientes. Argumentamos que los instrumentos deben diseñarse de manera apropiada, tomando en cuenta el contexto social del país. Además, es necesario considerar las características organizativas de los pueblos, así como limitaciones estructurales tales como las relaciones de poder. Estudiamos Bolivia, Colombia y Nicaragua, países que utilizan diferentes instrumentos para fomentar la participación étnica: consulta previa, autonomía y cuotas étnicas. Demostramos que estos instrumentos tienen efectos positivos, aunque también detectamos déficits, derivados de su implementación inadecuada y relaciones asimétricas de poder. El estudio contribuye a engrosar la creciente literatura sobre cómo los estados latinoamericanos manejan su composición multiétnica. Nuestros resultados revelan la importancia de mirar más allá de las renovaciones institucionales para promover la autodeterminación indígena y afrodescendiente.</jats:p

Heterogeneity, Participation and Democratic Quality in Latin America: A Comparison between Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru

Abstract Societal and economic heterogeneity are regarded as a challenge to the functioning of democracies. We integrate this problem as context variables into a model of evaluating the quality of democracy. The context determines the optimal composition of participation structures. This demand has to be confronted with the given structure and its effectiveness. We discuss the problem of effective participation for Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, which share similar problems regarding economic inequality and societal heterogeneity. Our main aim is to analyze how different institutional settings are enabling citizens, particularly minorities, in the decision making process and how these elements affect democratic stability and the quality of democracy. We deduce the demand for differentiated participation structures from the societal and institutional context and qualitatively compare the effectiveness of the given participation structures. We analyze how the deficits in the institutional arrangements and their effectiveness affect the democratic quality and the democratic stability of the systems. We find that overlapping societal and socio-economic heterogeneity can be considered as especially threatening to democratic consolidation and stability. </jats:sec

Towards effective e-learning on sustainability: a case study-course on participatory processes in environmental politics

Purpose – Distance universities are of great importance for establishing sustainability literacy, as they operate as multipliers for thousands of students. However, despite several advantages of e-learning environments compared to traditional class-teaching, there are still challenges regarding suitable e-learning tools and didactical models. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of several e-learning tools on students’ knowledge and skills growth and to compare two learning paths, synchronous vs asynchronous, exploring how each affects the level of students’ knowledge achievement and skills acquisition. Design/methodology/approach – The empirical analysis is based on an online course “Participatory processes in environmental politics”. International MSc and PhD students who enrolled in the course were from FernUniversität in Hagen (Germany) and Aberta University (Portugal). The course was designed as the flipped classroom, applying different e-learning tools and activities, some synchronous and others asynchronous. A pre- and post-evaluation questionnaire was applied to evaluate students’ knowledge and skills. Descriptive statistical analyses were carried out on this data. Findings – Results showed that in the synchronous group, knowledge about theoretical approaches to citizen participation and sustainable environmental governance improved to a greater extent, whereas the asynchronous group showed greater improvement in nearly all skills related to intercultural communication and e-learning. Also, in the synchronous path, students enhanced their knowledge on “research application”to a greater extent. Originality/value – Evaluating the effectiveness of different e-learning tools on students’ sustainability knowledge and information and communication technologies skills is a fundamental issue. The study discusses these issues, contributing to enhancing the use of adequate and grounded e-learning models on sustainable development in higher education.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio