No description available.

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.

Mainly from the perspective of transformative learning (TL), the thesis explores how the rights-based approach (RBA) by a Cambodian NGO has influenced rural citizens' agency in fulfilling their rights to development and, consequently, has brought about social change. The study was conducted in particular contexts where for the last decade there have been decentralisation reforms and land grabbing, both of which have come into existence as a result of the conjunction of neo-patrimonialism (as a patronage-based practice by the Cambodian government) and such global forces as the influences of aid donors and the increase in global resource demands. The literature indicates that RBA as a western-conceptualised and confrontational approach is not likely to work, especially in relation to the often authoritarian governments of developing countries. Hence, this study has chosen a Cambodian NGO—which has modified RBA to fit the rural context of Cambodia—as a case, so as to explore the potential and limits of RBA in a highly repressive and complex context. In order to explore the context-specific yet multi-scalar phenomenon of the agency and structure relationship, I utilised a grounded theory ethnographic study inspired by critical realism and employed the expanded framework of the TL theory, further complemented by the Freirean approach and Gramscian thought. Furthermore, in order to delve into how the exercise of citizens' agency is constrained by structures, this study also situates TL's rather active view of agency in the critical realist's moderate view of agency. This thesis argues that the Cambodian NGO, by working closely with government, has made full use of and further widened the democratic spaces made available through decentralisation, in order to create spaces conducive to TL, and has harnessed its multi-faceted and process-oriented rights-based empowerment approach in order to enhance citizens' agency to claim their rights. However, the thesis critiques the fact that the NGO has not enabled citizens to become aware of and to contend against the deep-seated practice of neo-patrimonialism that is hidden behind the democratic façade of the decentralisation process and that has engendered land grabbing, with the result that the NGO has been promoting 'thin' rights. Finally this study reveals the possibilities of TL through RBA in the highly oppressive and resource-scarce context of rural Cambodia, yet casts doubt on its replicability as it appears to demand the mobilisation of a number of enabling factors in order for TL to occur within such a context.

The question of what agenda drives NGO peacebuilding in post-conflict setting has been raised in a number of literatures which make generalized conclusions that NGOs tend to respond to the liberal peace agenda, and in the process co-opt local peacebuilding initiatives. Liberal peace agenda refers to the post-conflict peacebuilding approach based on the promotion of democracy, economic liberalization, human rights and the rule of law. As such, NGOs are seen as privatizing peacebuilding, marginalizing local initiatives and applying unsustainable approaches to peacebuilding in post-conflict contexts. Provoked by these assertions, I conducted field research in northern Uganda, which up to 2006 had experienced 22 years of conflict between the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and Government of Uganda (GOU). I contend in my findings that while to some extent the generalized observations made by liberal peace critics are true, they fail to fully engage with the micro aspects of post-conflict peacebuilding. The macro-analytic assertions of the liberal peace critics ignore the plurality of the NGO peacebuilding practice, the diverse internal organizational culture, and the complexities and diversities of the contextual dynamics of post-conflict settings. My research was based on a micro level analysis and demonstrated that the peacebuilding process in northern Uganda was interactive, and, as such, engendered diverse encounters of sense-making, relationship building and co-construction of peacebuilding discourse and practice between NGOs, donors and local community. The study shows that peacebuilding was essentially relational and developed through a process of relational constructionism, which denotes social processes of reality construction based on relational encounters.

This thesis discusses the extent to which non-governmental organisations (NGOs) operating in postcolonial countries work with religious institutions to promote social and economic development. Through postcolonial theory, and by using a qualitative approach combined with a critical methodology, this thesis will examine the relationship between particular NGOs and religion in the countries in which they operate. More precisely, this thesis will consider whether it is helpful, or a hindrance to development if NGOs work cooperatively with religious leaders and institutions.

This unique and first-time research explores the parameters of effectiveness among HIV/AIDS and development NGO managers in India. The aim of this research has been investigate and explore how these managers perceive and view their own effectiveness at work. This research contextualises Analoui's Model (1999, 2002) of eight parameters of managerial effectiveness and three contextual factors, which explores and identifies the inter-relationship between the factors and causal influences which form the basis for their increased effectiveness. The methodology employed include qualitative semi-structured individual interviews with 16 NGOs managers and 2 focus-group interviews with 16 non-managerial staff. The results revealed a myriad of factors and influences concerning the NGO managers’ perception, managerial skills and competencies, organizations criteria for effectiveness, opportunities, demands and constraints involved, as well as the inter-organisational relationship and the dominant managerial philosophy of effectiveness. All the parameters of effectiveness and contextual factors of the Model (1999, 2002) apply and are suitable for this context, however, based on the main findings and in-depth discussions, the model has been adapted and modified in order to fit this unique and complex, highly diverse, holistic, multi-faceted and culturally specific context. The findings also indicate to numerous inter-linked factors both internally and externally of the NGOs and, include various training and development (T&D) needs for managers, with implications for the formation of adequate policies and implementation of relevant development programmes to improve and increase NGO managers effectiveness in India.

The question of what agenda drives NGO peacebuilding in post-conflict setting has been raised in a number of literatures which make generalized conclusions that NGOs tend to respond to the liberal peace agenda, and in the process co-opt local peacebuilding initiatives. Liberal peace agenda refers to the post-conflict peacebuilding approach based on the promotion of democracy, economic liberalization, human rights and the rule of law. As such, NGOs are seen as privatizing peacebuilding, marginalizing local initiatives and applying unsustainable approaches to peacebuilding in post-conflict contexts. Provoked by these assertions, I conducted field research in northern Uganda, which up to 2006 had experienced 22 years of conflict between the Lord¿s Resistance Army (LRA) and Government of Uganda (GOU). I contend in my findings that while to some extent the generalized observations made by liberal peace critics are true, they fail to fully engage with the micro aspects of post-conflict peacebuilding. The macro-analytic assertions of the liberal peace critics ignore the plurality of the NGO peacebuilding practice, the diverse internal organizational culture, and the complexities and diversities of the contextual dynamics of post-conflict settings. My research was based on a micro level analysis and demonstrated that the peacebuilding process in northern Uganda was interactive, and, as such, engendered diverse encounters of sense-making, relationship building and co-construction of peacebuilding discourse and practice between NGOs, donors and local community. The study shows that peacebuilding was essentially relational and developed through a process of relational constructionism, which denotes social processes of reality construction based on relational encounters.

The thesis is concerned with relationships between different conceptualizations and understandings of gender mainstreaming in Oxfam GB during 2001-2006 and focuses on two sites of policy and practice: Oxfam House and an Oxfam project in Cambodia. Drawing on anthropology of development literature, I observe that while the mainstreaming strategy was becoming further embedded in the organisation, it also evolved differently in each research site. Gender policy and practice were not necessarily linked, and policy did not drive practice; different drivers were at play. In Oxfam House, understandings of gender mainstreaming among senior managers were informed by perennial feedback that the organisation's gender work was wanting and perceptions that previous gender efforts were overly critical and uninspiring. These understandings influenced inter-related imperatives, pursued by senior managers, of assuming organisational leadership for gender and making “gender accessible”. Both of these contributed to rendering the promotion of gender equality a contested process. In contrast, the project case study in Cambodia, which Oxfam viewed as a “successful” gender mainstreamed model of community-based disaster management, demonstrates a process of taking on gender issues characterised by mutual benefit and reciprocity. Regional gender advisors and project staff needed to work together to secure their places in Aidland. Unlike the drivers of policy in Oxfam House, the drivers of gender mainstreaming practice were the demands and uncertainties of Aidland and, in the light of these, the maintenance of project relations and reproduction of “success”. They also concerned localised contingencies of social relations of gender and relations of aid. I conclude that while gender mainstreaming policy and practice are connected by formal organisational structures, they can also be unrelated due to different micro politics within these respective sites and, relatedly, from the varying degrees of autonomous decision making exercised by Oxfam staff and their understandings of gender and their particular interests.

This thesis explores how research is implicated in the constitution of post-war environments, and gives an account of being and becoming a researcher in post-war Bosnia. My main contention is that when peace and conflict researchers conduct research in post-war contexts, their presence, practices, and the consequential production of knowledge and representations, have political effects. I argue that the implications of this have not been fully explained, acknowledged, or problematised within Conflict Resolution, which tends to rely on research approaches and assumptions taken from ‘normal’ science. This thesis suggests how reflexivity and alternatives methodologies, including visual research might be used to represent the emotional, sensory, and often intangible elements of post-war realities. It enacts an engagement in the politics of research and uses reflexive writing and visual methods to draw attention to the importance of the relational aspects of research in postwar environments. Visual journeys are also used to argue that visual methods can provide a way of revisiting the epistemological and ontological assumptions about lived experiences and realities in post-war settings. The thesis is based upon one year of ethnographic fieldwork undertaken in Bosnia, and is also informed by eighteen months of volunteer work with a Bosnian Community Centre in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire.

This thesis explores how research is implicated in the constitution of post-war environments, and gives an account of being and becoming a researcher in post-war Bosnia. My main contention is that when peace and conflict researchers conduct research in post-war contexts, their presence, practices, and the consequential production of knowledge and representations, have political effects. I argue that the implications of this have not been fully explained, acknowledged, or problematised within Conflict Resolution, which tends to rely on research approaches and assumptions taken from ‘normal’ science. This thesis suggests how reflexivity and alternatives methodologies, including visual research might be used to represent the emotional, sensory, and often intangible elements of post-war realities. It enacts an engagement in the politics of research and uses reflexive writing and visual methods to draw attention to the importance of the relational aspects of research in postwar environments. Visual journeys are also used to argue that visual methods can provide a way of revisiting the epistemological and ontological assumptions about lived experiences and realities in post-war settings. The thesis is based upon one year of ethnographic fieldwork undertaken in Bosnia, and is also informed by eighteen months of volunteer work with a Bosnian Community Centre in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. / Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)