This research examines the impact of formal democracy on the construction of an effective civil society in Ghana. The theoretical and policy role of civil society has received a great deal of attention in the literature. Especially for democratization theorists, the focus has been on the democracy enhancing qualities of civil society—qualities often credited with playing key roles in democratic transitions in Africa. However, the question of what happens to civil society after a democratic transition has not received much attention in the literature. Using a historical institutionalist approach, the study examines how democratic institutions and institutional arrangements affect the development of civil society. After Ghana’s return to formal democracy in 1992, democratic openings, though not immediately transformative, created an expansion in civil liberties and political rights necessary for the emergence of civil society. Paradoxically, state institutions remained weak and it was such weakness—not the strength, as some of the literature suggests, that allowed civil society to develop. Within the legislative and bureaucratic arenas, persistent institutional weakness became an opportunity for civil society to mobilize resources from foreign donors to strengthen the capacity of state institutions. Through programs aimed at enhancing the capacity of state institutions, foreign donors played a critical role in framing the relationship between civil society and the state. A major finding from this research is the symbiotic relationship between civil society and the state. As the case of Ghana demonstrates, where the state provides opportunities for civil society to develop, an effective civil society in turn contributes to building the democratic state. Findings from this research provide theoretical implications for the literature on civil society and democracy by highlighting the role of democratic institutions in strengthening civil society.

This research examines the impact of formal democracy on the construction of an effective civil society in Ghana. The theoretical and policy role of civil society has received a great deal of attention in the literature. Especially for democratization theorists, the focus has been on the democracy enhancing qualities of civil society—qualities often credited with playing key roles in democratic transitions in Africa. However, the question of what happens to civil society after a democratic transition has not received much attention in the literature. Using a historical institutionalist approach, the study examines how democratic institutions and institutional arrangements affect the development of civil society. After Ghana’s return to formal democracy in 1992, democratic openings, though not immediately transformative, created an expansion in civil liberties and political rights necessary for the emergence of civil society. Paradoxically, state institutions remained weak and it was such weakness—not the strength, as some of the literature suggests, that allowed civil society to develop. Within the legislative and bureaucratic arenas, persistent institutional weakness became an opportunity for civil society to mobilize resources from foreign donors to strengthen the capacity of state institutions. Through programs aimed at enhancing the capacity of state institutions, foreign donors played a critical role in framing the relationship between civil society and the state. A major finding from this research is the symbiotic relationship between civil society and the state. As the case of Ghana demonstrates, where the state provides opportunities for civil society to develop, an effective civil society in turn contributes to building the democratic state. Findings from this research provide theoretical implications for the literature on civil society and democracy by highlighting the role of democratic institutions in strengthening civil society.

This thesis focuses on pro-kurdish activism in Turkey during 2005–2009. It is based on a large number of interviews conducted with activists within the Diyarbakır area. The form of activism that this study seeks to describe is civil and political activism conducted within the legal framework ofTurkey’s judicial system and international law.The purpose of this thesis is to examine what kind of resistance strategies are used by pro-Kurdish political activists in Turkey, focusing on how these strategies are reflected in the language used by the respondents. The main question posed in the thesis is: What resistance strategies are used within the pro-Kurdish movement in Turkey? Two additional questions were also posed in order to make it possible to answer the main question. The first of these is: What external conditions influence pro-Kurdish mobilization in Turkey during the study’s time frame? In order to answer this question a theoretical framework is used that includes theories about ethnopolitical mobilization and political opportunity structures. The second question is: What resistance strategies are reflected in the language used by the pro-Kurdish activists?An important resistance strategy used by the pro-Kurdish activists is to adapt the language used in public communication to the legal and political environment in which they find themselves. They make linguistic choices in order to convey political messages while minimizing the legal consequences of doing so. The resistance strategies reflected in the interviews with the activists also include efforts to build organizations and cooperations at different levels, ranging from the international to the local level. Resistance strategies also include choices regarding what medium and language to use in promoting pro-Kurdish politics.

No description available.

Recent directions in organizational studies have demonstrated progressive social movements' ability to generate rewarding enterprises or environmental opportunity structures (EOS) in receptive markets. However, more nuanced opposing movements (Meyer and Staggenborg 1996), such as the pro-choice and pro-life movements, receive far less attention, leaving scholars to postulate that there is much yet to know about the impact of movements other than those with strict progressive orientations (Zald, Morrill, and Rao 2005). To better understand how opposing movements contribute to environmental opportunity structures, this thesis examines dramatic growth in the number of adoption agencies advertising services in the Yellow Pages during the last quarter of the twentieth century. Some suggest the growth may be due to changing attitudes and laws regulating interracial adoption, the growing acceptance of international adoption as a family formation strategy, and the success of the adoptee rights movement. However, I argue that at least some of this growth is related to changes in abortion laws associated with the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision and associated pro-choice and pro-life opposing movements that dominated public debate during the same period. Applying cultural entrepreneurship and competitive framing, I demonstrate that pro-choice language is adopted by adoption agencies that compete with abortion clinics as they offer services to birth mothers. Opposing movement features are evident in organization growth patterns, the services offered, and the slogans used. Dissecting the adoption services field into generalist and specialist organizational forms, I find that specialists experienced precipitous growth and were more likely to make use of certain "choice" frames, co-opted from the pro-choice movement and redirected to support pro-life ideologies. Further, I find that "open adoption" services, championed by the adoptee advocacy community for their identity-affirming and sustained relationship-allowing practices, are most often marketed by the adoption provider as a choice-granting process, giving adoption providers further opportunity to mirror the pro-choice movement's choice-centric practices. Because adoption agencies' growth, slogans, and services are largely bound up in tactics specific to the pro-choice and pro-life opposing movement dynamics, I conclude that opposing movements can indeed contribute to environmental opportunity structures for market growth.

No description available.

Including civil society organizations in the policy process is a distinctive trait of democratic governance. But, while being highly valuable from a democratic point of view, not all civil society organizations are represented in the policy process. This dissertation draws attention to the role of the government in shaping the representation of civil society organizations in the Swedish government consultation referred to as the ‘remiss procedure’. The overall aim is to increase empirical and theoretical understanding of civil society organizations’ access to the national Swedish policy process. Drawing on various empirical data sources, it analyzes how access has changed during the second half of the 20th century, the factors influencing access, and the significance of the access provided by the government. The results are based on four empirical studies, and show that the government has encouraged an increasing number and more diverse types of civil society organizations to be represented in the remiss procedure. In addition, organizations with plenty of resources, such as labor and business organizations, are not overrepresented. However, access is slightly skewed in favor of civil society organizations with an insider position within other access points at national government level, which is consistent with a privileged pluralistic pattern of interest representation. In addition, civil society organizations seem to be invited into an arena for political influence of less relevance. Theoretically, the dissertation moves beyond the neo-corporatist perspective that dominated Swedish research during the second half of the 20th century by drawing attention to five different theoretical lenses: pluralism, neo-corporatism, political opportunity structures, policy network theory, and resource exchange theory. It concludes that a variety of theories are needed for access to be understood.

Nesta dissertação analisamos as dinâmicas de ação coletiva dos grupos negros na Colômbia, desde a abolição da escravidão a meados do século XIX até a Colômbia contemporânea. Este foco sócio-histórico tem como objetivo observar as mudanças nas oportunidades políticas que permitem, ou não, a ação coletiva de um grupo social. Na medida em que as oportunidades políticas oferecidas pelo Estado são favoráveis para a mobilização, nos interessamos em compreender as estratégias de mobilização e os recursos usados pelos ativistas, assim como as alianças e a especialização do ativismo. A dinâmica da organização do Movimento Afro-Colombiano mudou na ultima década do século XX, quando promulgada a nova Constituição Política nacional e mais uma vez na primeira década do século XXI, quando a população negra colombiana se torna alvo do conflito armado que vive o país. / In this dissertation we analyze the dynamics of collective action of Colombian black groups, since the abolition of slave trade in 1851, until contemporary Colombia. This sociohistorical focus has the intuition to observe how changes in political opportunities aloud collective action of a social group. In so far as political opportunities given by the State are positive for mobilization, we are interested in the comprehension of which strategies are chosen for groups to mobilize, as well as the usage of resources by activists. Also we are interested in understanding the alliances and specialization of the activism in certain political regimes. The dynamic of organization of Afro-Colombian Movement changed during the last decade of the 20th century, when a new constitution was adopted. And has changed once again during the first decade of the 21st century, when Colombian black population became the main victims of the armed conflict in the country.

Nesta dissertação analisamos as dinâmicas de ação coletiva dos grupos negros na Colômbia, desde a abolição da escravidão a meados do século XIX até a Colômbia contemporânea. Este foco sócio-histórico tem como objetivo observar as mudanças nas oportunidades políticas que permitem, ou não, a ação coletiva de um grupo social. Na medida em que as oportunidades políticas oferecidas pelo Estado são favoráveis para a mobilização, nos interessamos em compreender as estratégias de mobilização e os recursos usados pelos ativistas, assim como as alianças e a especialização do ativismo. A dinâmica da organização do Movimento Afro-Colombiano mudou na ultima década do século XX, quando promulgada a nova Constituição Política nacional e mais uma vez na primeira década do século XXI, quando a população negra colombiana se torna alvo do conflito armado que vive o país. / In this dissertation we analyze the dynamics of collective action of Colombian black groups, since the abolition of slave trade in 1851, until contemporary Colombia. This sociohistorical focus has the intuition to observe how changes in political opportunities aloud collective action of a social group. In so far as political opportunities given by the State are positive for mobilization, we are interested in the comprehension of which strategies are chosen for groups to mobilize, as well as the usage of resources by activists. Also we are interested in understanding the alliances and specialization of the activism in certain political regimes. The dynamic of organization of Afro-Colombian Movement changed during the last decade of the 20th century, when a new constitution was adopted. And has changed once again during the first decade of the 21st century, when Colombian black population became the main victims of the armed conflict in the country.

Including civil society organizations in the policy process is a distinctive trait of democratic governance. But, while being highly valuable from a democratic point of view, not all civil society organizations are represented in the policy process. This dissertation draws attention to the role of the government in shaping the representation of civil society organizations in the Swedish government consultation referred to as the ‘remiss procedure’. The overall aim is to increase empirical and theoretical understanding of civil society organizations’ access to the national Swedish policy process. Drawing on various empirical data sources, it analyzes how access has changed during the second half of the 20th century, the factors influencing access, and the significance of the access provided by the government. The results are based on four empirical studies, and show that the government has encouraged an increasing number and more diverse types of civil society organizations to be represented in the remiss procedure. In addition, organizations with plenty of resources, such as labor and business organizations, are not overrepresented. However, access is slightly skewed in favor of civil society organizations with an insider position within other access points at national government level, which is consistent with a privileged pluralistic pattern of interest representation. In addition, civil society organizations seem to be invited into an arena for political influence of less relevance. Theoretically, the dissertation moves beyond the neo-corporatist perspective that dominated Swedish research during the second half of the 20th century by drawing attention to five different theoretical lenses: pluralism, neo-corporatism, political opportunity structures, policy network theory, and resource exchange theory. It concludes that a variety of theories are needed for access to be understood.