A Donor Influenced by Local Dynamics Unintended Consequences of Capacity Building in China

This article explores the relations between a foreign aid donor and local actors in the context of the dissemination of development discourses and practices in an authoritarian context. It addresses the question “To what extent may the local dynamics alter the original goals of a donor and lead to unintended consequences?” Based on archival research, interviews, and secondary literature, this case study examines the Yunnan Uplands Management Project (YUM) in 1990–95, the Ford Foundation\u27s first grant program on rural poverty alleviation in China. While the Foundation did not attain its main goal of making YUM a national model for poverty alleviation, the local actors were able to use YUM to develop individual capacities and to build roles for themselves as development actors in the form of associations and nongovernmental organizations, resulting in further support from the Foundation. The study contributes to our understanding of donor-local actor dynamics by highlighting the gaps between the original goals of a donor and the perspectives and motivations of local actors. The study suggests that local dynamics may influence the goals of donors and the ways they seek to disseminate development discourses and practices to local actors, despite the common conception of donors as hegemonic or culturally imperialistic

Citizen Environmental Activism in China: Legitimacy, Alliances, and Rights-based Discourses

While China’s environmental problems have been well publicized to a global audience, its citizens’ environmental activism is lesser known.  This paper assesses the major environmental activism that Chinese environmental Non-Government Organizations and Chinese citizens have engaged in since the mid-nineties to date, focusing, in particular, on the unique nature of such activism in an authoritarian context.  I argue that environmental activism in China has garnered legitimacy and provided citizens with opportunities to become agents of social change.  Chinese citizens have become adept at taking advantage of the state’s wish to enforce environmental regulations at the local level, adept at developing alliances with Chinese officials as well as with, in some cases, transnational actors, and adept at using communicative technology to demonstrate and to organize their environmental discontent.  Chinese environmental activism has also helped environmentally affected victims to learn of, and to exercise, their rights as citizens.</strong

The transnational diffusion of global environmental concerns via INGOs in China : a new framework for understanding diffusion in authoritarian contexts

In the twentieth century, the international community set out to build a global consensus on, and to attain political commitments to, environmental protection. Through this historical process, the roles of environmental international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) in the international and transnational arenas have grown dramatically. Despite much scholarly emphasis on the increasing power and influence of INGOs, little attention has been paid to the processes by which INGOs actually spread international norms and concerns. The question my dissertation addresses is: How do INGOs spread ideas and practices regarding global environmental concerns in an authoritarian context? My study specifically seeks to examine diffusion processes: the conditions and mechanisms through which global environmental concerns spread from INGOs (transmitters) to local actors (adopters) in China. The central findings of my study are: (1) INGOs as transmitters play significant roles in determining the likelihood of diffusion; and (2) the external political environment mediates diffusion processes. By documenting the significant and varied roles that INGOs play in diffusion processes, my findings challenge the predominant, adopter-centered diffusion theory, which envisions adopters as key actors in the diffusion process and assumes a lack of agency on the part of transmitters. I argue that INGOs, or what I call "concerned transmitters," fully participate in the constructive nature of diffusion, and that INGOs' relations with potential adopters, as well as the state, shape diffusion processes. My findings also address a gap in the existing literature by highlighting the importance of examining external political and cultural structures, for they shape the interpersonal relations between transmitters and adopters. The existing literature demonstrates little concern for external structures, focusing largely upon interpersonal relations between transmitters and adopters. I spent fourteen months conducting fieldwork, including in-depth interviews and participant observation, and conducting archival research in Yunnan, Beijing, and New Yor

Horizontal Dynamics in Transnational Activism: the Case of Nu River Anti-Dam Activism in China

This case study of transnational activism against the Nu River hydropower dam plan in China describes a horizontal dynamic in global-local relations, whereas the predominant literature in social movements assumes a vertical or hierarchical conception. The forms and operations of transnational activism were analyzed in order to understand the connectivity of domestic environmental NGOs in China to alliances, venues, and discourses. The case reveals that the translocal nature of local activism helped create linkages with global partners and establish a horizontal dynamic of transnational activism via the development of transnational solidarities and local empowerment. Local activists today should not automatically be viewed as the bottom feeders in a vertical topography, dependent upon global patronage. The study proposes a preliminary set of observable and/or measurable characteristics for assessing the degree to which any case of global-local relations expresses a horizontal dynamic. © 2011 Mobilization: An International Journal