The Security Council has sometimes failed to perform its main duty, which is the maintenance of international peace and security. The Council’s responsibilities in this regard have grown as new international challenges have emerged. These challenges include global environmental issues, refugee flows and mass migration across borders, the rapid spread of infectious diseases, civil war that threatens international peace and security, global terrorism, transnational crime and illegal stocks of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. The Security Council has thus become the subject of both severe criticism and calls for its structural reform. A variety of reform proposals have been offered by scholars and politicians, almost all of which have focused solely on state-based solutions. The current study considers that reforming the Council through such means would not alter its current state to any significant extent. International law no longer reflects the state-based system of the Westphalian World Order. The international legal order does not involve only nationstates, and state-based systems are not able autonomously to deal with problems such as these in the post-Westphalian era. It is widely acknowledged that there are many non-state actors that could contribute to enhancing the Council’s representativeness, effectiveness and accountability. It is thus concluded that a reform proposal for the Security Council must consider these factors and produce a non-state based solution. It is proposed that the Council must consider granting formal access to Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that have, as non-state actors, been active in the international legal order, and that have already made significant contributions to the above-mentioned issues.

This research employs critical theories of citizenship to investigate the role of rural-to-urban migrant workers in the construction and transformation of citizenship in China. Migrant workers have long been portrayed as uncivilised and uncultured Others in contrast to the modern and urban Self in China. This binary discourse has been accompanied and strengthened by a citizenship regime based on the hukou (household registration) system, whereby access to citizenship rights in the cities is only provided for those registered as urban-hukou-holders and is thus denied to rural migrants. Through the analysis of findings from a year of fieldwork conducted among non-governmental organisations (NGOs) established by migrant workers in China, I enquire into the new ways of conceiving citizenship in China. These are the ways which go beyond the bifurcated rural-urban citizenship status and the passivity of docile and neoliberal subjects, and which instead transform citizenship via the self-remaking of migrant workers into 'worker-citizens', who utilise the urban as a new space of struggle for belonging and rights. This self-transformation is conducted through ‘acts of citizenship’, that is acts which challenge the contemporary citizenship construction in China and which simultaneously transform the performer into an activist citizen (Isin and Nielsen, 2008). By looking at how migrant workers perform ‘acts of citizenship’ around the three ‘sites’ of NGOs, labour and space, this research contends that citizenship in China does not have to be bound to the set of rights defined by the state, but rather that it can be remade by the active participation in politics of those who are normally excluded as non-citizens.

Studies of adaptive governance in social-ecological systems have identified common features that assist social actors in responding to environmental pressures. Among these features, multiple sources of ecological knowledge, trust, and networks between actors have been highlighted as properties that contribute to successful governance arrangements. However, studies in adaptive governance have also been critiqued using a political ecology approach. This is due to their under-theorization of political elements that can constrain or promote the formation of the features of adaptive governance. In particular, power dynamics between actors and the subsequent privileging of one source of knowledge over another might have an effect on governance arrangements. In China, environmental degradation is a serious issue. The Qinhuai River, located in the city of Nanjing, has experienced significant ecological decline over the last 30 years as urbanization pressures on the system increased. Over the same period, China has undergone changes in state-society relations, including allowing the formation of NGOs. Since the turn of the millennium, several NGOs have begun working on issues related to the Qinhuai River, including raising awareness and producing information on the environment. This study examines the features of adaptive governance in a critical light by situating them in the local political context of China. The relationship between NGOs, fishers who use the Qinhuai River and government are examined using Social Network Analysis and semi-structured interviews in order to understand the production of information, networking and trust between these actors. It is shown that the existing arrangements to include NGOs and fishers in the river’s governance activities are guided by a corporatist system of state-sanctioned representation. This is not conducive to adaptive governance arrangements, despite the increasing existence of ENGO networks and new sources of knowledge over the last decade. It is thus important that studies of adaptive governance take steps to contextualize their findings within the local political climate.

This thesis examines how non-governmental organisations (NGOs) claim legitimacy in the UK national context with the aim of increasing the understanding of how NGOs’ access to power is justified. The thesis argues that the limits of current theories on NGOs and legitimacy do not enable proper scrutiny of the organisational complexities involved and proposes that Beetham’s approach to legitimacy is more fruitful. A Beethamite analysis is based on scrutinising NGOs’ legitimacy-in-context. This involves examining NGOs’ normative structures and internal organisation of power in order to explain and assess their legitimacy claims. It explores the legitimacy claims of three UK NGOs by applying a Beethamite analysis to interrogate their legitimacy claims. The NGOs that are my unit of analysis are enmeshed in complex organisational hierarchies that extend beyond the UK territory. Understanding the internal organisation of power in these hierarchies is important for identifying legitimacy sources that underpin NGOs’ legitimacy claims. The three NGOs are Amnesty International UK, Greenpeace UK and Cafod. The case study of Amnesty International UK shows how the legitimation of power is justified internally where the members of the UK section legitimise the representational powers of the International Secretariat. This is contrasted with the normative sources of legitimacy that are more commonly used to justify Amnesty International UK's legitimacy claims and which ignore members as an important source of authority. The analysis in the case study of Greenpeace UK demonstrates how it is a representative unit of Greenpeace International. It also highlights how scientific knowledge has become a legitimacy source that justifies Greenpeace UK's legitimacy claims with implications for how to assess their legitimacy claims. The case study of Cafod analyses how Cafod claims legitimacy as a Catholic agency and how it is institutionally embedded in the Holy See. Cafod is primarily a social agency of the Catholic Church in England and Wales. The case study demonstrates how Cafod's sources of legitimacy are primarily Catholic and that this causes legitimacy problems when Cafod uses secular rather than theological sources of legitimacy to justify its policies. One of the main conclusions of the thesis is that a differentiated approach is needed for analysing NGOs’ legitimacy claims, one that takes into consideration the context of NGOs’ legitimacy claims, their internal process of legitimation and their sources of legitimacy, when assessing their access to power. The lack of an appropriate regulatory framework, and in particular the systematic exclusion of politically oriented NGOs by UK regulators, hinders the advancement of proper assessment and understanding of NGOs’ role in society.

During the Cold War the foreign policy of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), was heavily criticized by scholars and activists for following the lead of the U.S. state in its overseas operations. In a wide range of states, the AFL-CIO worked to destabilize governments selected by the U.S. state for regime change, while in others the Federation helped stabilize client regimes of the U.S. state. In 1997 the four regional organizations that previously carried out AFL-CIO foreign policy were consolidated into the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (Solidarity Center). My dissertation is an attempt to analyze whether the foreign policy of the AFL-CIO in the Solidarity Center era is marked by continuity or change with past practices. At the same time, this study will attempt to add to the debate over the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the post-Cold War era, and its implications for future study. Using the qualitative “process-tracing” detailed by of Alexander George and Andrew Bennett (2005) my study examines a wide array of primary and secondary sources, including documents from the NED and AFL-CIO, in order to analyze the relationship between the Solidarity Center and the U.S. state from 2002-2009. Furthermore, after analyzing broad trends of NED grants to the Solidarity Center, this study examines three dissimilar case studies including Venezuela, Haiti, and Iraq and the Middle East and North African (MENA) region to further explore the connections between U.S. foreign policy goals and the Solidarity Center operations. The study concludes that the evidence indicates continuity with past AFL-CIO foreign policy practices whereby the Solidarity Center follows the lead of the U.S. state. It has been found that the patterns of NED funding indicate that the Solidarity Center closely tailors its operations abroad in areas of importance to the U.S. state, that it is heavily reliant on state funding via the NED for its operations, and that the Solidarity Center works closely with U.S. allies and coalitions in these regions. Finally, this study argues for the relevance of “top-down” NGO creation and direction in the post-Cold War era.

NGO:s roll och inflytande inom folkrätten har ökat de senaste decennierna. De har påverkat  utvecklingen av folkrättsliga regler och normer på ett antal olika sätt. Ett forum för påverkan är internationella domstolar. Men vilka möjlighetr har NGO:s att utöva påverkan på folkrätten genom agerande i internationella domstolar? Kan NGO:s påverka folkrätten i lagskapande riktning genom sitt deltagande i internationella domstolar - och kan denna påverkan ses som lagskapande?

There is a growing body of literature arguing that NGOs are an important tool in the efforts of civil society to influence the actions of the State, especially in the process of economic development. NGOs are primarily seen as effective advocates for the less privileged sectors of civil society. This study examines the influence of local NGOs participation in the implementation of PLANAFLORO, a regional economic development program partially funded by the World Bank in the Brazilian state of Rondônia. This study focuses on four issues that are commonly used to justify the inclusion of NGOs in the development process: representativeness, accountability, autonomy and effectiveness. This study relies on three basic methods of data gathering: focused interviews of key informants, questionnaire-based surveys of different stake-holder groups, and information from secondary sources. This study’s results challenge the common wisdom regarding the positive impacts of NGO participation in economic development programs, and on their contribution to democratic governance. NGOs participating in PLANAFLORO faced great institutional and political difficulties in the process of participation. Many NGOs did not have either the institutional capabilities or the financial autonomy to influence the process of policy-making in PLANAFLORO effectively. Moreover, most NGOs did not have mechanisms of accountability to inform the program’s intended beneficiaries of the state of PLANAFLORO’s implementation. Finally, both the local State and the World Bank only reluctantly accepted the participation of NGOs in PLANAFLORO. This fact served to greatly limit the contribution of NGOs in PLANAFLORO. / Ph. D.

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts in fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Masters of Development Studies in the Department of Anthropology and Development Studies at the University Of Zululand, 2018 / The aim of this study is to assess the role of NGOs in addressing poverty, and it was conducted in the Mpumalanga province, under Nkomazi Local Municipality. This study situates the development of NGOs within the theoretical frameworks of Keynesianism, the neo-liberal economic system, and from the theory of NGOs as a third sector. The Keynesian system holds that increased government expenditure results in a corresponding increase in economic output. The Keynesians welfare system supports the active participation of government in the economy. However, at the height of the Keynesian economy, NGOs did not receive due attention. The policies of the Keynesian economy did not support NGOs until the role of the multilateral organisations rose to prominence, and it was then that NGOs gained recognition. Problems with Keynesian economics led to the emergence of neo-liberalism, and neo-liberalism shaped policy in a way that favoured economic growth through the Market. It was within the framework of neo-liberalism that NGOs arose to prominence. This occurred under the auspices of multilateral organisations which encouraged the rise of NGOs. However, the poor performance of the State and the Market, with regards to poverty and development gave rise to the emergence of NGOs as a third sector. Literature relating to this study further shows that the operation of NGOs as a third sector depended on factors such as leadership, management, adaptability, financial capacity, corruption, and accountability. The present study adopts a mixed-method approach. This entails the integration of positivism and interpretivism into a philosophy of post-positivism. Therefore, this study uses both qualitative and quantitative data. Qualitative data was collected through structured interviews, while quantitative data was collected by questionnaires. The qualitative data were analysed by content analysis, the quantitative data were analysed by SPSS. The findings of this study show that NGOs mostly experience the following challenges: high staff turnover, mostly because of low wages; limited resources, and a lack of permanent structures from which to work. Even though NGOs experience these challenges, the results of this study show that the NGOs in the study area are able to adapt and work in an environment characterised by limited resources. Lastly, regardless of the challenges experienced by NGOs, this study shows that NGOs have a role in poverty reduction. In terms of recommendations, this study recommends that NGO sponsors should pay attention to the challenges relating to the buildings structures where NGOs’ operate. The study also recommends that NGO sponsors have to review the wages of NGO workers against the wages of retails workers. Moreover, it is further recommended that NGO staff needed to be capacitated by developing some skills, such as proposal writing. Lastly, this study recommends that NGOs develop new strategies for sustaining themselves, such as starting other income streams. All-in-all, the study concludes that NGOs in the Nkomazi Local Municipality play a meaningful role in addressing symptoms of poverty.

In the contemporary era, civil society has become an essential component for addressing the political liberalization and democratization of Middle Eastern regimes. This study concentrates on civil society in Lebanon, a small democratic nation in the Levant. Lebanon's government is a consociational system characterized by dysfunctional power-sharing among sectarian parties. Comprehending the factors in Lebanon that influence civil society's ability to function and serve its purpose is essential. This understanding can assist in gaining insights into how civil society activists in the Middle East may mobilize to contribute to purposeful political and social evolutions. This exploratory study seeks to gain a better understanding of how Lebanese civil society functions and the factors that contribute to its capacity (or incapacity) to resolve societal challenges in the context of the Lebanese state's frailty. This study seeks to analyze the impact of multiple contemporary stressors on the fragile state infrastructure, namely the over a decade-long hosting of Syrian refugees and the country's recent political and economic collapse. It also aims to examine how these particular challenges have affected the function of civil society, as well as the intricate dynamics between various organizations at the national and international levels. The gathered evidence supports the conclusion that civil society organizations (CSOs) in Lebanon struggle to navigate a landscape characterized by multiple crises and a faltering public sector. As local CSOs devote a significant portion of their attention to humanitarian aid and external funding, their interactions with international NGOs and Syrian refugee populations contends with complex challenges. Ultimately, this reality has revealed the diminished capacity of CSOs to contribute to meaningful and lasting change in the country.

This thesis conducts a comparative study of international organizations in regard to their effectiveness towards addressing humanitarian concerns in Haiti. The three case studies are the operations of the United Nations, Catholic Relief Services, and REBUILD Globally, predominantly after the January 2010 quake. The hypothesis supported in this study is that the services of smaller organizations prove to be more successful than larger NGOs, although they do not have the immense resources of organizations such as the United Nations. The independent variables are type and quantity of funding, form of humanitarian work, and duration of support. All three variables establish the degree of overall effectiveness of the organization. This topic is significant because NGOs are rising in importance and influence in the international community as the average individual can now be involved in the foreign arena. It is important to study what is truly effective in humanitarian aid rather than assuming 'the bigger the better.'