Reconceptualising NGOs and Their Roles in Development

Reconceptualising NGOs and Their Roles in Development PDF Author: Paul Opoku-Mensah
Publisher:
ISBN: 9788773077993
Category : Case studies
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Twenty years after NGOs first emerged as objects of development research, much of the research on non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and development to date has been of a variable quality. While much useful work has been done, the development NGO research field is nonetheless characterised by a combination of an over-identification with NGOs, an excessive emphasis on technical/organisational issues and a lack of theoretical-contextual analysis. The result has been work that often bows to policy rhetoric and uncritically and unhelpfully serves to sustain a set of myths about NGOs and their performance - of both a positive and a negative kind. This volume seeks to present less well-rehearsed perspectives. Its thirteen chapters are each written by authoritative researchers in the field. The book has two main objectives: to describe and interpret key aspects of NGOs' changing roles in development, and to present new analytical approaches. A key priority is to present work that is rooted in stronger theoretical frameworks than has previously been the case, while still maintaining a relevance to policy and practice. The authors represented here are critical of many of the theories and concepts that frame the discourse on development NGOs and many of them propose alternative analytical approaches. In particular they seek to analytically integrate the international aid system in theoretical schemas that seek to explain NGOs and their roles in development. The overall aim of the book is to move forward the critical research agenda on NGOs and development by challenging its normative biases, using approaches drawn from a range of disciplinary perspectives including historical ethnography, organizational studies, political science, critical theory and anthropology.

Reconceptualising NGOs and Their Roles in Development

Reconceptualising NGOs and Their Roles in Development PDF Author: Paul Opoku-Mensah
Publisher:
ISBN: 9788773077993
Category : Case studies
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
Twenty years after NGOs first emerged as objects of development research, much of the research on non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and development to date has been of a variable quality. While much useful work has been done, the development NGO research field is nonetheless characterised by a combination of an over-identification with NGOs, an excessive emphasis on technical/organisational issues and a lack of theoretical-contextual analysis. The result has been work that often bows to policy rhetoric and uncritically and unhelpfully serves to sustain a set of myths about NGOs and their performance - of both a positive and a negative kind. This volume seeks to present less well-rehearsed perspectives. Its thirteen chapters are each written by authoritative researchers in the field. The book has two main objectives: to describe and interpret key aspects of NGOs' changing roles in development, and to present new analytical approaches. A key priority is to present work that is rooted in stronger theoretical frameworks than has previously been the case, while still maintaining a relevance to policy and practice. The authors represented here are critical of many of the theories and concepts that frame the discourse on development NGOs and many of them propose alternative analytical approaches. In particular they seek to analytically integrate the international aid system in theoretical schemas that seek to explain NGOs and their roles in development. The overall aim of the book is to move forward the critical research agenda on NGOs and development by challenging its normative biases, using approaches drawn from a range of disciplinary perspectives including historical ethnography, organizational studies, political science, critical theory and anthropology.

Reconceptualising NGOs and Their Roles in Development

Reconceptualising NGOs and Their Roles in Development PDF Author: P (Paul); Lewis Opuku-Mensah (D (David); Tvedt, T (Terje).)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 381

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Book Description


Learning and Forgetting in Development NGOs

Learning and Forgetting in Development NGOs PDF Author: Tiina Kontinen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351611682
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
Learning and Forgetting in Development NGOs draws on a range of theoretical approaches and empirical evidence to explore how development organisations learn or fail to learn from experience. Despite the overwhelming discourses of NGOs as learning organisations, little is known about the phenomenon of learning within NGOs. As constantly changing buzzwords and institutional approaches abound and old ideas and concepts are "re-discovered", development NGOs are often accused of trying to reinvent the wheel as they struggle to escape from the challenges of development amnesia. Based on detailed empirical data on the everyday practices and accounts of development practitioners, this book moves between the boundaries of organisational institutionalism, learning theories, management and ethnographies of NGOs practices to investigate the many faces of organisational learning in an attempt to counteract development amnesia. Learning and Forgetting in Development NGOs will be an essential guide for students, scholars and development practitioners with an interest in development management and organisational theory.

New Humanitarianism and the Crisis of Charity

New Humanitarianism and the Crisis of Charity PDF Author: Michael Mascarenhas
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 025302658X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 179

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Book Description
“An excellent addition to courses on development, inequality, public policy, and globalization, and it could . . . be read by an audience beyond sociologists.”—American Journal of Sociology Soaring poverty levels and 24-hour media coverage of global disasters have caused a surge in the number of international non-governmental organizations that address suffering on a massive scale. But how are these new global networks transforming the politics and power dynamics of humanitarian policy and practice? In New Humanitarianism and the Crisis of Charity, Michael Mascarenhas considers that issue using water management projects in India and Rwanda as case studies. Mascarenhas analyzes the complex web of agreements ?both formal and informal?that are made between businesses, governments, and aid organizations, as well as the contradictions that arise when capitalism meets humanitarianism. “Insightful . . . provides a scathing critique of the new humanitarianism.” —University of Chicago Press Journals

Handbook of Research on NGOs

Handbook of Research on NGOs PDF Author: Aynsley Kellow
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1785361686
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 487

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Book Description
This volume provides a critical overview of research on Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs). While it notes that the definition of NGOs is contested, and can include both business and national groups, it focuses primarily on international NGOs engaged with human rights, social and environmental concerns, and aid and development issues. With contributions by Peter Willetts, Tom Davies, Bob Reinalda and other leading scholars, it provides a series of critical essays on both general aspects of NGOs and significant issues of particular concern.

Routledge Handbook of NGOs and International Relations

Routledge Handbook of NGOs and International Relations PDF Author: Thomas Davies
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351977490
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 26

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Book Description
Offering insights from pioneering new perspectives in addition to well-established traditions of research, this Handbook considers the activities not only of advocacy groups in the environmental, feminist, human rights, humanitarian, and peace sectors, but also the array of religious, professional, and business associations that make up the wider non-governmental organization (NGO) community. Including perspectives from multiple world regions, the book takes account of institutions in the Global South, alongside better-known structures of the Global North. International contributors from a range of disciplines cover all the major aspects of research into NGOs in International Relations to present: a comprehensive overview of the historical evolution of NGOs, the range of structural forms and international networks coverage of major theoretical perspectives illustrations of how NGOs are influential in every prominent issue-area of contemporary International Relations evaluation of the significant regional variations among NGOs and how regional contexts influence the nature and impact of NGOs analysis of the ways NGOs address authoritarianism, terrorism, and challenges to democracy, and how NGOs handle concerns surrounding their own legitimacy and accountability. Exploring contrasting theories, regional dimensions, and a wide range of contemporary challenges facing NGOs, this Handbook will be essential reading for students, scholars, and practitioners alike.

Civil Society and the Governance of Development

Civil Society and the Governance of Development PDF Author: Anders Uhlin
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137461314
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
This book re-conceptualizes civil society engagement with global governance institutions in the field of development in terms of opposition. With an innovative theoretical framework, it maps and explains opposition strategies through detailed case studies on the EU, the Asian Development Bank, and the Global Forum on Migration and Development.

The NGO Challenge for International Relations Theory

The NGO Challenge for International Relations Theory PDF Author: William E. DeMars
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317542061
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
It has become commonplace to observe the growing pervasiveness and impact of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). And yet the three central approaches in International Relations (IR) theory, Liberalism, Realism and Constructivism, overlook or ignore the importance of NGOs, both theoretically and politically. Offering a timely reappraisal of NGOs, and a parallel reappraisal of theory in IR—the academic discipline entrusted with revealing and explaining world politics, this book uses practice theory, global governance, and new institutionalism to theorize NGO accountability and analyze the history of NGOs. This study uses evidence from empirical data from Europe, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia and from studies that range across the issue-areas of peacebuilding, ethnic reconciliation, and labor rights to show IR theory has often prejudged and misread the agency of NGOs. Drawing together a group of leading international relations theorists, this book explores the frontiers of new research on the role of such forces in world politics and is required reading for students, NGO activists, and policy-makers.

The Ashgate Research Companion to Non-State Actors

The Ashgate Research Companion to Non-State Actors PDF Author: Dr Bob Reinalda
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 1409489205
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 592

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Book Description
How do non-state actors matter in international relations? This volume recognizes and examines three types of non-state actor: non-governmental organizations (NGOs), intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and transnational corporations. It illustrates how they play roles alongside nation-states and are interrelated in matters of international regulation and coordination. Accessible and articulately written, this comprehensive collection of state-of-the-art essays is essential for both scholars and practitioners in international relations.

Humanitarianism

Humanitarianism PDF Author: Tim Allen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135355126
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
The field of humanitarianism is characterised by profound uncertainty, by a constant need to respond to the unpredictable, and by concepts and practices that often defy simple or straightforward explanation. Humanitarians often find themselves not just engaged in the pursuit of effective action, but also in a quest for meaning. That is the starting point for this book. Humanitarian action has in recent years confronted geopolitical challenges that have upended much of its conventional modus operandi and presented threats to its foundational assumptions and legal frameworks. The critical interrogation of the purpose, practice and future of humanitarian action has yielded a rich new field of enquiry, humanitarian studies, and many thoughtful books, articles and reports. So, the question arose as to the most useful way to provide a critical overview that might serve to bring some definitional clarity as well as analytical rigor to the waves of critique and shifting sands of humanitarian action. Humanitarianism: A Dictionary of Concepts provides an authoritative analysis that attempts to rethink, rather than merely problematize or define the issues at stake in contemporary humanitarian debates. It is an important moment to do so. Just about every tenet of humanitarianism is currently open to question as never before.