Campaigning has become an important area of work for development NGOs (NGDOs). How political, in terms of public mobilising to confront authority, has it become? What frameworks can we best use to study this? Based on precedents such as della Porta and Diani's suggestion (2006) that social movement (SM) theory can be enlarged as a theory of collective action, I borrow six SM concepts – frames, repertoires, networks, mobilising structures, identity and political opportunities-threats. I then combine them with NGDO campaigning literature themes to explore those questions in a case study of ActionAid's Tax Justice Campaign (TJC) in Nigeria and the UK. ActionAid's TJC operates through two campaign formats – a single-issue format with one international claim and a multiple-issue format with claims specific to each level. Both formats exist in tension for campaign resources, yet combine to expose international and domestic causes of poverty in low-income countries. This example illustrates ActionAid's campaigning style: walking a tightrope to balance tensions and opportunities in its idea of ‘campaigning'. This style also includes embracing moderate and radical supporter views on poverty and a structure of sponsorship and service-delivery programmes with campaigning accompanying them. For example, financial supporters mobilise towards confronting authorities alongside direct campaigner recruitment. Other NGDOs share this, with other ActionAid campaign features, which together shapes an understanding towards the idea of NGDO political action. I suggest that my findings contribute to both NGDO campaigning and SM theory. To NGDO campaign actors, SM theory provides a new vocabulary to study NGDO campaigning, particularly little explored dimensions in NGDO campaign literature such as state/authority confrontation and political identity. To SM theory, my findings offer an empirical contribution which helps position campaigning NGDOs as another type of contentious actor. At a practice level, ActionAid's multiple-issue campaigning may help prevent local tokenism in international campaigns.

This thesis explores various factors that may influence the production of value for charities on social media websites. A mixed methods triangulation-based approach is used in order to improve understanding around why charities use social media and what they want to achieve by doing so, why supporters interact with charities on social media, and how this behaviour actually occurs on two popular social media sites: Facebook and Twitter. Qualitative sources of data are utilised in order to establish the reasons behind why social media are used, while quantitative sources provide evidence of interaction on these sites to establish whether or not the motivations of the charities are portrayed through their actual behaviour. An argument is made that because there are so many influencing factors on the resulting value, it is extremely difficult to measure this—and to distinguish success on these sites—through the use of automated tools that do not take into account the context of the organisation involved and what they are actually trying to achieve in the first place. Furthermore, this thesis suggests that analysing what the charity does in relation to their strategy can help to indicate whether or not a social media strategy has the potential to create the desired levels of value, and a classification system of communication styles is presented in order to assist with this process. This thesis therefore provides contributions that help to understand the value of social media for charities, and as such has implications for future social media research, charitable strategy planning and Web Science as a wider discipline.

When Frank Prochaska first published his studies on philanthropy, he provided the most in-depth scholarship to date. But this research is now over 20 years old and is ready for review. It is also a purely historical analysis, with little archaeological content. This research seeks to enhance Prochaska's findings, using the archaeological record to evaluate, augment and further develop his findings. A complex web of personal and societal motivations interweave through individual philanthropic activity. Most research to date ignores this interconnectedness, or relegates it to subordinate status, producing a simplistic model. This research seeks to explore the relationship between personal impulse and societal pressure, investigating the affiliation between the two in diverse case studies, both UK and international. This is accomplished through archaeological methodology, and the exploration of material culture. The model proposed in this research provides a recognition of the complexity of personal and communal action. It draws heavily on a theoretical perspective that includes Bourdieu and Giddens. It places these theoretical perspectives within a practical and appropriate framework, to provide a robust analysis of change through philanthropic action. As such it complements much of the research of Prochaska, whilst providing a modern interpretation.

This dissertation examines what happens when NGOs attempt to implement systems to improve their accountability to intended beneficiaries. While NGO accountability is widely discussed in the literature, there has been very little work done on how accountability systems operate in practice. My dissertation aims to address this important gap by providing a detailed case study of one NGO’s initiative in this area using qualitative empirical data. The data relate to the ‘best case’ example of ActionAid, an NGO that has made substantial, high-profile efforts to improve its downward accountability since 2000 through its Accountability Learning and Planning System (ALPS). The case study reconstructs the evolution of ALPS and examines efforts to implement it, both at international level and within a single country setting: Uganda. The data reveal the obstacles which have hindered ActionAid in its attempts to strengthen its downward accountability. Despite positive rhetoric around ALPS and downward accountability, my findings indicate a significant disjuncture between intentions and actual outcomes. Key factors causing this disjuncture include the benefits that the organisation can reap from an appearance of downward accountability, such as enhanced external legitimacy, even if this does not reflect reality. More broadly, my case study suggests that disjuncture between aims and actual practices is a necessary feature of how NGOs function in the aid sector, in terms of accountability and also in other areas. What then can NGOs do to attempt to overcome the negative implications of disjuncture and improve their relationships with intended beneficiaries? My central recommendation is for NGOs to reflect and to recognise their tendencies to promote disjuncture, such as when they over-state achievements to donors. Frank assessments of the actual status of an NGO’s relationships with communities and of the limitations caused by the NGO’s funding structures are important steps to improving these relationships.

This thesis explores the relationship between state funding and the organisational characteristics of third sector organisations (TSOs). It presents a cross-sectional exploratory data analysis conducted using data from charities’ accounts and annual returns. The thesis contributes to a longstanding debate about the impact of state funding on TSOs’ independence and the role of the third sector within the welfare mix. The findings make an original contribution to this debate by opening up a new stream of quantitative evidence, to supplement the largely qualitative evidence base that already exists. This makes it possible to explore how changes at the organisational level have played out across the sector as a whole. In particular, it explores the links between state funding and TSOs' voluntary characteristics, financial health, and administrative spending. The findings suggest a mixed picture. Various associations were found in the data, though there were also numerous negative results where no link was found. Those associations that were uncovered were generally quite small. As such there is little evidence overall to suggest that state income is acting as a major driving force for organisational change within the third sector.

How can NGOs contribute to strengthening the democratic legitimacy of international intergovernmental institutions? The thesis pursues two lines of enquiry in order to contribute to this discussion in the context of global environmental politics: it looks at the external claims and internal practices of NGOs. With regards to external claims the thesis investigates the democratic demands formulated by the NGO communities interacting with the UNFCCC and the CBD respectively. Demands for equitable representation at the intergovernmental level and for participation by civil society stakeholders are especially prominent among the NGOs engaged with the climate convention. The thesis finds a convergence around very similar democratic demands across the NGO community, most of which draw upon recurrent governance norms and existing instances of good practice within environmental institutions. The thesis then turns to the internal practices of large international environmental NGOs to test the assumption that these organisations have the potential to act as “links” or as “transmission belts” between local communities and global policymaking processes. It proposes the adoption of a representation perspective for analysing the contribution of civil society organisations, and provides case studies of three large international environmental NGOs (WWF, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth) and of the two issue-­specific civil society networks that organise NGO activities around the two UN conventions referred to above (the Climate Action Network and the CBD Alliance). The thesis shows that the potential for large NGOs to ‘represent’ local communities is shaped by organisational structures, decision-­making processes, the strategy for bringing about change, funding sources, alliances and partnerships, and values. The findings underline the need to adopt a more differentiated understanding of the democratic contribution by civil society organisations to international intergovernmental institutions.

Information technology, media, financial flows and consumer culture have long been acknowledged as transnational connective forces that spread ideas and values around the globe. This work proposes an alternative mechanism for such spread: development-focused civil society organizations. This thesis argues that such organizations constitute a backbone of connections that link a diversity of development actors and local communities into a network with global scope. While individual nodes in these civil society networks may not possess global reach, the network as a whole facilitates the far flung transfer of knowledge and ideas. This work focuses on the ways that knowledge is generated, transferred and renegotiated on both the global, national and local scale through such networks of development institutions. How are global discourses formed, adapted and spread via civil society into local communities? How do local communities interact with, change, implement or ignore the values, knowledge and rhetoric of global movements? How are communities shaped by these discourses and what role do they have in informing the discourses themselves? The project constructs two case studies of such 'knowledge networks' - two international foundations, their partner NGOs in the developing world (Kyrgyzstan and Kenya), and the local communities where the NGOs support ecologically-focused initiatives. The case studies demonstrate the complex and uneven ways in which knowledge and values are shared - and contested - within the networks. Ideas are transformed, adapted or ignored between different nodes, and yet the network retains enough common discourse and shared knowledge to function as a whole. Despite power imbalances, local actors remain agents, not subjects, in these networks and produce knowledge that is prized by other organizations and individuals in the networks. Civil society knowledge networks thus sculpt the content and application of knowledge across global movements, development-focused civil society organizations and local communities in the developing world.

The increase in the presence and influence of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) locally and internationally is having a noticeable effect on the policy process at a national level. While the NGO sector is more commonly examined at an international level, its impact at the state and sub-state level remains unexplored. This gap in the literature is addressed as a primary problem in this thesis. By exploring the relationship between the NGO and the state, the significance of this relationship is emphasised as a necessary inclusion in International Relations literature. The NGO sector presents civil society with a road into, and in some cases an alternative to, traditional modes of political advocacy. This increases civil society's ability to impact the policy process by creating, what is identified in this thesis as, a dialogical space. The dialogical space allows for an exchange of ideas and thus influences the decision-making process of the state, if and when it is explored. Furthermore, the dialogical space facilitates, as is shown here, learning through the conversations that take place between NGOs and the state. This thesis asks ‘what do NGOs learn from their conversations with states?' and presents the ‘lessons learned' from Scottish and Zambian case studies. NGOs are identified here as civil society in organisation and have a particular relationship with the communities they represent. This relationship is empirically examined and presented here in the Scottish and Zambian case studies. This thesis examines the relationship between the NGO and civil society, and most importantly the relationship between the NGO and the state using the ethic of care as a theoretical lens. Conclusions are drawn from the interviews conducted during the fieldwork. The ethic of care is located in practice and used as a theoretical lens to examine what the local NGOs learn from their interactions with the state. Both case studies confirm that an ethic of care is a prevalent ethic in NGO practice, as identified by the NGO workers interviewed. Furthermore, when used as an analytical lens the ethic of care is shown to be used as a tool by NGOs to nurture an ethic of care in statesmanship. The thesis specifically highlights that NGOs have learned from their conversations with states and that, through the creation and use of the dialogical space, an ethic of care in practice can be traced. The greater significance of this thesis is that it addresses the relationship between the NGO and the state at a local and national level; a topic which is lacking in current IR literature, despite being of crucial value for understanding the state's interaction with non-state actors, in this case local NGOs. Furthermore, through the use of the ethic of care both as an exploratory lens and in its identification as a practical ethic, this thesis highlights the importance of an ethic of care in theory and practice.

Current trends have seen a rise in the frequency and severity of disasters on a global scale, with disasters in recent years having some of the most devastating impacts ever seen on the societies they affect. As a result, there are increasing pressures on the Formal Humanitarian Sector (FHS) and their resources, resulting in a growing need to examine the logistical processes essential to humanitarian operations. Existing research within the humanitarian logistics (HL) domain has highlighted a plethora of challenges relating to the efficient and effective delivery of humanitarian assistance to those affected by disasters. Through a systematic literature review, it was discovered that current research predominantly focuses on the activities of humanitarian organisations (HOs); overlooking the social and logistical capacity already present within affected communities. In order to address the gap left by HO-centric HL research, this investigation approaches the challenges of efficient and effective humanitarian assistance from a novel perspective. Drawing upon the notion of Collaborative Aid Networks (CANs), this research explores the role of communities as drivers of HL processes, and of their own relief and recovery. In a field in which empirical data is lacking, this enquiry utilises a constructivist grounded theory methodology in order to gather empirical insights from post-earthquake Nepal. Interviews and observations were conducted over a period of seven weeks, with data being continuously analysed and refined throughout this process. The findings from this research culminated in the development of a theoretical framework which illustrates the interrelationships between CAN characteristics and their outcomes on HL. This study contributes to the emerging debates concerning community participation in disaster contexts, and provides revelatory insights regarding CANs’ unique attributes and competencies, which enable them to positively impact disaster affected communities. In levying CAN support, the FHS could increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their HL operations, whilst improving collaboration and communication between the FHS and the community; in turn supporting the legitimacy and downward accountability of FHS programmes.

This thesis explores state-society relations in China by focusing on the interactions between grassroots NGOs and local government departments. It presents the notion of positive-sum reciprocal engagement as one form of relationship that can emerge between the state and social organizations. Such engagement can be characterized as a dynamic and interactive process implying proximity, communication, joint action, mutual influence, mutual benefit and mutual empowerment, resulting in added value for society. Drawing on fieldwork carried out in six rural or semi-rural Chinese localities, including interviews and questionnaires with local government departments and indigenous grassroots NGOs, this study seeks to identify the conditions under which positive-sum reciprocal engagement is likely to emerge. It finds that the presence of reformist officials, the strengthening of NGO capacity in framing issues to open social spaces and to engage in effective action while communicating the results of such action are particularly important to establishment of reciprocal engagement. Significant structural or contextual factors include positive associational experience and openness in the locality. This study also explores the extent to which grassroots NGOs are able to affect the formulation and implementation of policy at the local level, and finds policy influence to be one of the significant outcomes of positive-sum reciprocal engagement. One mechanism through which policy influence occurs is in the context of a mass-line model of communication, in which NGOs participate in discourses on social issues and act as channels for the conveyance of policy information and suggestions. Grassroots NGOs are also able to model innovations and contribute to policy formulation and reform in carrying out concrete programs, which is made possible by an environment characterized by policy flexibility and amenable to experimental points.