This thesis examined how Covid-19 affected the role of CSOs in the MLG EU’s system and how these CSOs adapted to the new challenges that appeared during the crisis to mitigate the impact of the pandemic on civil society in the EU. Moreover, it also used two case studies, Barcelona and Stockholm, that by focusing on the role of their CSOs during Covid-19 helped understand better how was the role of CSOs in the MLG EU’s system and allowed to give some normative recommendations on what lessons can be taken to the EU from CSOs of these two case studies, to improve the EU action across the different levels of governance when another crisis occurs. The method of analysis used in this research is thematic literature review because it allowed me to have a thematic combination of sources that were used to come up with a current summary of empirical and theoretical findings of the CSOs role and adaptation in the MLG EU’s system and from the two case studies, Barcelona and Stockholm. The analysis concludes that CSOs during the pandemic suffered a reduction of their civic space, but they were considered essential actors in the MLG EU’s system with a more relevant role than before Covid-19 because they showed their importance in reducing the social gap during the pandemic when the EU and EUMS could not handle society's needs alone. Moreover, CSOs showed how they can be very resilient when a crisis such as Covid-19 hit, they could adapt rapidly their vital services by switching their activities to digital mode among other initiatives to meet these challenges. It also showed, with the academic normative discussion on the EU and the two case studies, that the EU need to include CSOs, especially CSOs at the local level, in the participation for the agenda-setting as their knowledge and important role can contribute to making a more effective EU action plan for the different levels of governance when another crisis occurs helping reduce the lack of coordination that the EU experienced during Covid-19.

This study looks at political culture and socialisation responses to Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM). It identifies political culture and socialisation as part of a process, the development of a political culture with specific attitudes, cognitions, and feelings towards the political system. Political culture and socialisation impart the knowledge of how to act politically, i.e. how to apply values in formulating demands and making claims on the political system. They form a connecting link between micro- and macro-politics. The study maintains that political orientations are handed down from one generation to another, through the process of political socialisation. Top-down and bottom-up influences come into play to augment a discourse on the global nature of political socialisation and the political culture of international societies with regard to IWRM and governance ideologies. It is argued that these international ideas become relevant in the national political agenda, civil society organisations and trans-national networks. The IWRM aspects of water as an economic good and a basic human right have become a two-edged sword in the South African context. The study reveals that politics stand at the epicentre of water problems, and that IWRM is a political-ethical issue which challenges power bases in many communities. The IWRM global norms of equitable, efficient and sustainable use of water resources have become a major problem in a water-scarce country burdened with economic inequalities and abject poverty. This is a pressing issue because there is an increasing demand for water to sustain the development necessary to redress the draconian ills of the apartheid past. This becomes evident in the fundamental legislative overhaul that has taken place since 1994, embracing a transformation culture that glorifies the norm of water not only as a fundamental human right, but also as a commodity that is necessary to sustain human dignity. It is here that water is politicised. Violent protests have erupted in reaction to perceived neo-liberal attempts to deny the poor their access to this resource. The political culture and socialisation responses as far as IWRM is concerned appear within fragmented lines, i.e. mainly black and poor communities embrace a culture of non-payment for services and resort to violent protests as a viable method to raise their concerns. In contrast, the white and middle-class communities manifest a tendency to form parallel local government structures; they then withhold rate payments and provide services for themselves through ratepayer associations. Finally, the study considers the South African context with regard to the manifestations of political culture, and how this influences water resources. It is evident that there is too much emphasis on politics at the expense of discussions on IWRM. Civil society organisations make very little attempt to encourage public participation in water management structures. It also appears that political elites who are disillusioned with civil society organisations tend to derail their efforts to educate the public on water management structures. / MA, Political Studies, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2011

Environmental degradation and climate change are complex cross-cutting issues. They both call for a high level of policy coordination by all actors. This thesis examines the experienceof two Swedish popular movements integrating sustainable development as a cross cutting theme in their development cooperation: an approach known as mainstreaming. I seek to show how sustainability is understood and further how it is realized in the application of the work plans. The two case studies are the International Department of the Church of Sweden and Olof Palme International Centre. I have accounted for practical experiences via using informants as the main data source. Mainstreaming theory has been applied as tools foranalysation. Sustainability has been used in relation to sustainability of results andenvironmental aspects of the work plan. There is an increased demand to report on results and the longevity of the results in addition to address environment in all works undertaken in development cooperation organisations. The significance in studying the current interpretations and above all the challenges in application is to enable consideration in futur eamendments to strategies, policies and efforts made to mainstream sustainability. The findings conclude that there are similarities between the two cases in the identification of sustainability as pertaining to results and in the need for sustainability to focus on relationships to partners. Mainstreaming of environmental concerns is stated as a good and wanted aim. However, the actual negative environmental impact caused by the work plan is seen as low and sometimesenvironmental mainstreaming is even understood as a risk to partnerships. Environmental impact is only identified and addressed when seen as relevant and not as a concept to mainstream, this based on the relative low impact. This is in accordance with Sida guidelines but not with the stated policy wants.

This study looks at political culture and socialisation responses to Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM). It identifies political culture and socialisation as part of a process, the development of a political culture with specific attitudes, cognitions, and feelings towards the political system. Political culture and socialisation impart the knowledge of how to act politically, i.e. how to apply values in formulating demands and making claims on the political system. They form a connecting link between micro- and macro-politics. The study maintains that political orientations are handed down from one generation to another, through the process of political socialisation. Top-down and bottom-up influences come into play to augment a discourse on the global nature of political socialisation and the political culture of international societies with regard to IWRM and governance ideologies. It is argued that these international ideas become relevant in the national political agenda, civil society organisations and trans-national networks. The IWRM aspects of water as an economic good and a basic human right have become a two-edged sword in the South African context. The study reveals that politics stand at the epicentre of water problems, and that IWRM is a political-ethical issue which challenges power bases in many communities. The IWRM global norms of equitable, efficient and sustainable use of water resources have become a major problem in a water-scarce country burdened with economic inequalities and abject poverty. This is a pressing issue because there is an increasing demand for water to sustain the development necessary to redress the draconian ills of the apartheid past. This becomes evident in the fundamental legislative overhaul that has taken place since 1994, embracing a transformation culture that glorifies the norm of water not only as a fundamental human right, but also as a commodity that is necessary to sustain human dignity. It is here that water is politicised. Violent protests have erupted in reaction to perceived neo-liberal attempts to deny the poor their access to this resource. The political culture and socialisation responses as far as IWRM is concerned appear within fragmented lines, i.e. mainly black and poor communities embrace a culture of non-payment for services and resort to violent protests as a viable method to raise their concerns. In contrast, the white and middle-class communities manifest a tendency to form parallel local government structures; they then withhold rate payments and provide services for themselves through ratepayer associations. Finally, the study considers the South African context with regard to the manifestations of political culture, and how this influences water resources. It is evident that there is too much emphasis on politics at the expense of discussions on IWRM. Civil society organisations make very little attempt to encourage public participation in water management structures. It also appears that political elites who are disillusioned with civil society organisations tend to derail their efforts to educate the public on water management structures. / MA, Political Studies, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2011

During the year of 2015 and the large migration wave that hit Europe, many unaccompanied young refugees came to Sweden. For this particular group, the challenge is to become integrated to the labour market in order to receive a permanent residency permit in Sweden after they graduate their upper secondary education. Over the past few years, it has become more evident that the state is not able to handle the integration process alone, and that it is time to shed light on contemporary initiatives deriving from other actors, such as civil society organisations. The question is whether these initiatives have been successful in bringing about change, and in what ways. The purpose of this thesis was therefore to analyse the civil society organisation Right To Play that uses sports as a tool for labour market integration, through the theory of Institutional Entrepreneurship by identifying its rationales, resources, and relations that are used to prompt institutional change. Through three semi-structured interviews and one observation, together with secondary data, a narrative analysis of their stories was conducted. The results showed that the organisation manage to mix a set of strong rationales of sports, labour market integration, and youth agency, to transform the youth from being passive receivers of integration to become active agents and important human resources within the organisation, and to connect the youth with other actors in the society through external relations. The study also concluded that the elements of rationales, resources, and relations, that are used to investigate the power of an organisation to prompt institutional change, also helps the organisation to become resilient in times of crises.

The research seeks to explore the leadership development approach within a civil society organisation (CSO) in a developing country and the connection to the Inner Development Goals (IDGs). Constructive- developmental theory and transcendent leadership provide the lens through which to explore how developing inner capacities can shape constructing new meanings of the world around us with a heightened understanding and awareness of complexity and interconnectedness. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with members of a CSO in the Philippines to gain insight into their perspectives of their own leadership development while engaging in the CSO. The study has uncovered the significant role that the CSO's leadership development approach plays in the development of the mental complexities of its members and leaders. This equips them with the capabilities required to navigate adaptive challenges and co-create sustainable solutions. These skills and capabilities are closely aligned with the IDGs.

This dissertation examines emergent forms of digitally enabled boundary-spanning by considering the within- and cross-field interactions developed by LGBTQIA* organisations on social media. Within scholarship on collective actors characterised by strong collective identities, LGBTQIA* collective action fields have been conventionally found to be rather fragmented and polarised, as well as isolated from other fields. Nonetheless, recent studies have shown evidence of the emergence of cooperative and solidarity efforts by LGBTQIA* actors, suggesting that such LGBTQIA* organisations may actively engage in crossing categorical boundaries and overcoming differences in the attempt to achieve social change. Within this framework, information and communication technologies (ICTs) may provide LGBTQIA* communities with spaces to converge, share experiences, and articulate politicised identities also through the connection with other collective actors. Despite these findings, we currently lack a systematic understanding of the extent to which LGBTQIA* collective actors span field boundaries through the development of digitally enabled interactions, of how such ties evolve over time, and on the circumstances that may favour or inhibit their emergence and duration. Furthermore, the role of ICTs in supporting the emergence of boundary-spanning processes has so far been rather understudied. This dissertation addresses these concerns by conducting a mixed-method comparative research on LGBTQIA* actors based in Madrid and Milan. In particular, it focuses on different types of interactions (mentioning, sharing, and promoting collective action events) developed by such organisations on their Facebook public pages during the 2011-2020 decade. To examine the role of both cultural patterns (collective identities and framing strategies) and structural circumstances (political opportunities and threats), this study combines network and text data, analysed through social network and frame analysis. The findings provided by this research show that Spanish and Italian LGBTQIA* organisations increasingly crossed categorical boundaries through social media between 2011 and 2020, thus suggesting that ICTs do play a role in sustaining boundary-spanning processes. Moreover, they find that collective framing and networking are inextricably entangled, and hence contribute to shedding light on both symbolic and behavioural dimensions of digitally enabled boundary-spanning. To conclude, they show that actors embedded in different socio-political contexts engage in networking and framing, thus emphasising the role of contextual opportunities and threats in moderating the nexus between ICTs and boundary-spanning, as well as between framing and networking. This dissertation contributes to both social movement literature and gender studies. On the one hand, by shedding light on emergent forms of boundary-spanning processes enabled by ICTs, it not only contributes to examining the role of ICTs in empowering marginalised communities, but also further elaborates the entanglement between digital, hybrid, and on-the-ground collective actions. On the other hand, by systematically investigating an emerging phenomenon over time and across contexts, it contributes to generating knowledge on the circumstances encouraging collective actors to overcome differences and cooperate. Understanding this is of utmost importance, since cooperative relations provide collective actors with additional and diverse resources and experiences, as well as political legitimation, to resist processes of democratic erosion and achieve social change.

This paper seeks to understand how the communicative practices of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) that advocate for women’s and LGBTIQ+ rights in the Philippines evolve as they advance the interests of the subaltern. Through two case studies of CSOs working with women’s and LGBTIQ+ rights, respectively, it identifies and discusses the communicative practices, including new media and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), that were adopted as the CSOs managed their organisational priorities and finances and navigated the oppressed contexts of the subalterns that they represent. The findings from the two case studies affirm that communicative practices adopted by CSOs are determined by their organisational objectives, organisational structure, and finances. Moreover, new media and ICT, such as social media, have proven useful, affordable, and easily accessible tools for both CSOs to reach and engage with their respective audiences. With the formation of the CSOs informed by the struggles and experiences of the subalterns they represent, their actions and communicative practices put the subalterns at the centre. For the subalterns to speak, they require alternative spaces to be safe to air their concerns and strategise to engage the public sphere. This is a role that the CSOs, which act as subaltern counterpublics, play. This also helps prepare the CSOs to build alliances, opening spaces for dialogue and advocacy for social change. These all contribute to making the demands of the subaltern heard.

This thesis examines the role of civil society in promoting good governance and development in Zimbabwe. This is done through a case study of the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA). Specifically, the thesis looks at the role of constitutionalism as a tool in promoting good governance and development by situating the Zimbabwean struggle for constitutional reform within the context of an unprecedented socio-economic and humanitarian crisis that engulfed Zimbabwe at the beginning of 2000. One of the central questions explored in this thesis is that of the value of the concept of civil society in understanding African post-colonial situations in general and the Zimbabwean situation in particular. The thesis looks at the history of constitutionalism in order to assess if the Zimbabwean crisis could be understood within the context of a constitutional crisis. Therefore, the thesis ventures into the complex dynamics of state-civil society relations while at the same time examining the formation, structure and programmes of the NCA. This is meant to highlight how the NCA’s internal governance system, its leadership style and accountability worked as well as if it reflected good governance or not. An analysis of NCA’s relationship with donors is also presented in order to dispel or validate claims that civil society is just a front for western interests to effect regime change in Zimbabwe. Of critical importance in this study is how civil society (represented by the NCA) interacted with the government and the opposition political parties. The NCA actively participated in opposition politics coming in the open to urge its supporters to vote for the opposition and later ditched the opposition when they had disagreements but their reputation as impartial actors had been destroyed. The thesis concludes by questioning the strategies that are used by civil society in engaging with the government and that in their present structure they should not be antagonistic to the state but should work in tandem with the state for the attainment of good governance and development. Civil society organisations should be politically neutral in their pursuit of developmental goals and ought to practice what they preach by being democratic and accountable themselves. / Development Studies / M.A. (Development Studies)

This thesis examines the role of civil society in promoting good governance and development in Zimbabwe. This is done through a case study of the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA). Specifically, the thesis looks at the role of constitutionalism as a tool in promoting good governance and development by situating the Zimbabwean struggle for constitutional reform within the context of an unprecedented socio-economic and humanitarian crisis that engulfed Zimbabwe at the beginning of 2000. One of the central questions explored in this thesis is that of the value of the concept of civil society in understanding African post-colonial situations in general and the Zimbabwean situation in particular. The thesis looks at the history of constitutionalism in order to assess if the Zimbabwean crisis could be understood within the context of a constitutional crisis. Therefore, the thesis ventures into the complex dynamics of state-civil society relations while at the same time examining the formation, structure and programmes of the NCA. This is meant to highlight how the NCA’s internal governance system, its leadership style and accountability worked as well as if it reflected good governance or not. An analysis of NCA’s relationship with donors is also presented in order to dispel or validate claims that civil society is just a front for western interests to effect regime change in Zimbabwe. Of critical importance in this study is how civil society (represented by the NCA) interacted with the government and the opposition political parties. The NCA actively participated in opposition politics coming in the open to urge its supporters to vote for the opposition and later ditched the opposition when they had disagreements but their reputation as impartial actors had been destroyed. The thesis concludes by questioning the strategies that are used by civil society in engaging with the government and that in their present structure they should not be antagonistic to the state but should work in tandem with the state for the attainment of good governance and development. Civil society organisations should be politically neutral in their pursuit of developmental goals and ought to practice what they preach by being democratic and accountable themselves. / Development Studies / M. A. (Development Studies)