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This thesis examines the Fair Trade movement as an international response of civil society to improve basic labor rights for producers. It explains the development of the Fair Trade movement and gives an overview of the organizations that currently comprise the movement. It also highlights some of the contemporary challenges the movement faces. The paper then provides a review of the literature written on global civil society insomuch as it is relevant to the Fair Trade movement. From this information, the paper draws conclusions about the success of the movement achieving its goals in light of its challenges. The paper concludes that the movement has admirable goals, but lacks good implementations and suffers from both undemocratic practice and inadequate representation. Lastly, it suggests policy changes to improve the effectiveness of the movement.

World Social Forum annual events attract hundreds of thousands of global activists and members of Global Civil Society. WSF events coalesce a diverse group of social movements, NGOs, and global activists. Its open space politics is an inclusionary force that is outlined by the principles of the WSF charter. Each event occurs in a location whose contextual and environmental conditions greatly impact the outcomes of the events. Assessing the success of these individual events is multidimensional and is largely determined by their adherence to WSF charter principles. Under investigation are three case studies of events that are held in Porto Alegre, Mumbai, and Nairobi. Success for each event is largely dependent on local factors. The local variables of the state, funding, trade unions, and local civil society all impact outcomes in myriad ways. Porto Alegre is an ideal setting for WSF events but is not the only attractive venue. / Graduate

The purpose of this master thesis was to gain more insights into the actual impact that INGOs like Human Rights Watch incorporate as part of global politics. The case of HRW proved to be a great example, which had been largely neglected by the academic analysts so far. The theoretical framework introduced important implications necessary to understand the influence of INGOs to date. Based on a constructivist thinking, it was possible to outline a global political order, which is tremendously influenced by civil society actors such as INGOs. Especially the increasing significance of norms within an internationally arena -- that is becoming more and more connected -- gives impetus to actors that base their work on these collective beliefs. The deliberative power incorporated by INGOs enables them to actually challenge nation-states as well as market representatives by transforming the public sphere thoroughly. Human Rights Watch as particular case study has been analyzed as an organization that epitomizes the power of a rising global civil society. Throughout their historical development, HRW actively contributed to the defense of human rights against repressive governments as well as other violators. Obviously, the foundation of HRW was to a tremendous extent dependent on an overall evolution of human rights within the international arena. The end of the Second World War and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations paved the way for human rights to become an official and crucial part of international affairs. However, it took until the mid-70s when human rights turned into a major paradigm to be followed by nation-states. With the emergence of Helsinki Watch and the consequent evolution of other watch committees, the non-governmental organization strongly engaged with repressive governments (regardless of political orientation) in various regions of the world. Analyzing the contemporary organizational structure of HRW has been a difficult task due to relatively little information available. However, one can clearly state that HRW nowadays acts as a human rights defending organization that is virtually able to respond to abuses in every corner of the world. Its eagerness to review organizational process and adjust to novel human rights issues provides HRW with a unique flexibility and a large room for operations. This is also further strengthened through the integration of HRW within the international arena when considering their consultative status at the United Nations, the platform for worldwide relevant negotiations. Their growing presence in major capitals in conjunction with effective methodological approaches frequently permits HRW employees to meet up with heads of states. The impact this might have on the domestic opposition as well as on the actual socialization of norms has been described with the help of the example from Mexico, where the government refused to deal with forced disappearances. By actively engaging on-site, HRW tremendously fostered civil society movements that were otherwise unheard and powerless. As indicated in line with the spiral model, the intervention of HRW transformed the public sphere and boosted the dialogue between public and civil society representatives. The eagerness of the Mexican government to implement changes must be perceived as a success of HRW in its pursuit to defend human rights.

The last few decades have witnessed the emergence of global civil society advocacy networks as major players in global governance. This research aimed at using a case study of GCAP in critically analysing the politics and dynamics of crafting a global civil society advocacy alliance. Specifically, the study aimed to: a) identify, analyse, and document GCAP’s experiences, strategies and challenges in trans-national networking and advocacy; b) generate knowledge on recent developments in global civil society networking and advocacy. The study analyses the study phenomenon using two central features of GCAP: networking and advocacy. Chapter one attempts to give a background of the study and also discusses the methods used. Chapter two lays the theoretical framework and operationalises the concepts explored in the study. The report argues that alliances are very different from ‘normal’ forms of organisations because they are made up of diverse forms of organisations, coming together voluntarily to achieve a specific purpose. They are therefore, by their very nature, complex, unstable, and difficult to co-ordinate. Chapters Three and Four look at such intricacies and complexities of crafting and operations of global advocacy networks. I conclude this research arguing that despite challenges in alliances building and operations, global civil society organisations will still need to network if they are to remain relevant and effective in current global governance context. It is only in their unity that they will be able to confront their common challenges.

No / The term global civil society is hotly contested, admit the editors, who offer their own definition. Of the three editor-contributors and 11 additional contributors, nine are affiliated either with the Centre for the Study of Global Governance, LSE, or the UCLA Center for Civil Society. Contributions to this annually updated yearbook tackle the debate on definitions; NGOs; multiculturalism; the Arab perspective; oil and activism; globalism, democracy, and democratic power; prominent individuals behind the global civil society; and methodologies for measuring and analyzing it, among other issues. The last section gives a chronology of events. Of interest to social and political scientists, activists, students, journalists and policy makers. Editor of Red Pepper, Hilary Wainwright, identifies the conditions in which global civil society can reinvigorate or hinder the development of local democracy with examples from China, Brazil and Guatemala.

Over the past several decades, the numbers of international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) that focus on tackling human rights issues have grown rapidly. These organizations operate internationally and work with governments, legislatures, social movement leaders, activists, donors, and individual citizens. As the number of operating INGOs has risen dramatically, researchers have simultaneously begun to investigate the possibility of creating a global civil society that would govern itself in order to maintain peace, create global solidarity and achieve human rights. This research investigates the role of nonprofit organizations in developing a global civil society by evaluating U.S.-based organizations that are tapping into an often-uninvolved subset of society—American donors. / Master of Public and International Affairs

Entre 1992 e 2005, representantes de 11.921 organizações não governamentais (ONGs) participaram de conferências realizadas pela Organização das Nações Unidas (ONU) e pela Organização Mundial do Comércio (OMC). Tendo em vista que, tradicionalmente, apenas os representantes dos Estados-membros dessas duas organizações seriam admitidos, a crescente presença de atores não-governamentais nesses eventos foi considerada uma das evidências empíricas do surgimento de uma sociedade civil global. Contudo, alguns críticos afirmam que a sociedade civil não seria global, mas concentrada geograficamente em alguns países. Nosso objetivo é analisar se, de fato, existe tal concentração e quais suas principais características. Com esse objetivo, analisamos a distribuição geográfica das sedes das ONGs credenciadas para esses eventos, discutindo dois dos principais argumentos contrários à idéia de sociedade civil global: o primeiro afirma que a sociedade civil não é global porque seus atores estão concentrados em países do Norte (gerando um desnível Norte-Sul, com predomínio numérico e político de ONGs do Norte sobre as do Sul); o segundo, defende que a concentração das ONGs espelha as atuais constelações de poder em âmbito internacional (pois as ONGs seriam, predominantemente, de países localizados no eixo Europa-América Anglo-Saxônica). Considerando que todos seríamos parte da sociedade civil global, procuramos constatar de onde são as pessoas e organizações que efetivamente têm participado das discussões e decisões a respeito de questões que dizem respeito a todos (os habitantes do planeta). / Between 1992 and 2005, 11921 representatives of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) participated in conferences held by the United Nations (UN) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). Given that, traditionally, only representatives of Member States of these two organizations would be admitted, the growing presence of \"nongovernmental\" actors in these events was considered one of the empirical evidence of an emerging \"global\" civil society. However, some critics argue that civil society is not global, but geographically concentrated in some countries. Our goal is to examine whether, in fact, exist that concentration and their main characteristics. With this objective, we analyzed the geographic distribution of headquarters of accredited NGOs to conferences, discussing the two main arguments against the idea of global civil society: the first asserts that civil society is not \"global\" because their actors are concentrated in North countries (creating a North-South divide, with numerical and political dominance of NGOs from the North on the South); the second claims that the concentration of NGOs reflects the current constellation of power in the international arena (as the NGOs would be predominantly of countries located in EuropeAmerica Anglo-Saxon). Whereas we would all be part of global civil society, we see where are the people and organizations that have effectively participated in the discussions and decisions about issues that concern all (the inhabitants of the planet).

Communications scholarship faces a convergent crisis. Research on networks includes the role of information networks in supporting social movements, networked civil society, the information society, and new forms of communication. But while communications literature utilizes a variety of approaches to describe the impact of networked communications, a dearth of technical expertise permeates scholarship. Despite the discourse on networks potentially bridging previously distinct disciplines, the lack of a fundamental understanding of communications networks and relationships between technical and socio-political networks remains a consistent gap. This thesis will investigate the extent that opposition to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in Europe constitute a networked public sphere. Through studying the role of civl society and the networked public in the European ACTA debate, the horizontal and vertical dimensions of socio-political and communications technology networks are not only illuminated, but the importance of analyzing the mechanisms through which vertical hierarchies enclose the public sphere become abundantly clear. This research provides the foundation for an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the relationship between information technology and socio-political networks and offers lessons for information policy makers, communications scholars, and networked civil society within the context of European democracy.

After the 1978 economic reform in China, the society is slowly detaching from the control of state. The civil society in China is also growing, the grassroots (local) NGOs increase fast. Along with the globalization, China is unable to avoid the INGOs activities inside the country. This study is going to discuss what¡¦s the effect and function(change)that INGOs would bring to China. For these years, be a part in global society is the most important work for China. That¡¦s why this study takes global civil society as background, and firstly research how INGOs interact and cooperate with the local NGOs in China. Second, observe the interaction mode between these two type NGOs through the framework of advocacy networks. Finally, we would understand the NGOs¡¦ development in China by Corporatism, and we could prove that the local NGOs¡¦ activities are affected by the global civil society and advocacy networks. We could clearly understand what is the effect of INGOs bring to China through these three structures. And what is China¡¦s attitude toward the INGOs. Besides the discussion on theories, this study also uses the statistical analysis to analyze 246 INGOs which have actual work in China. We will discuss their activity project, area, organizational funding, and the related legal regulation. After analyzed these 4 factors, we could find out what¡¦s the role China is playing in those INGOs activities. In the end, from the analysis of state, local NGOs and INGOs interactions in China, this study also discovers that INGOs in different areas would implement different activity project, and the outcome would also be different.