Anders Uhlin

Transnational Advocacy Networks, Female Labor Migration and Trafficking in East and Southeast Asia: A Gendered Analysis of Opportunities and Obstacles

The aim of this article is to advance political economy and politics into migration studies by analyzing the role of transnational advocacy networks working on issues of trafficking and labor migration in East and Southeast Asia. Drawing on some empirical research, but mainly offering conceptual ideas, we demonstrate the importance of gender not only in trafficking and labor migration but also in transnational advocacy. First, we contextualize trafficking and labor migration within a gendered international political economy, focusing on existing power relations between genders, between classes and between states. Second, we examine the role of transnational advocacy networks in this context. In particular, we argue that a broader understanding of political opportunities and obstacles is needed. Emphasizing the transnational context and the importance of gender, we outline different types of opportunities and obstacles to advocacy in this particular area.

Which Characteristics of Civil Society Organizations Support What Aspects of Democracy? Evidence from Post-Communist Latvia

This article reconsiders the argument that civil society promotes democracy. Both the independent variable of civil society and the dependent variable of democracy are disentangled. Several hypotheses on what characteristics of civil society organizations (CSOs) promote what aspects of democracy are tested using survey data including 500 CSOs in post-communist Latvia. The regression analysis shows that organizational characteristics (such as the field of activity, extent of political activities, and number of members) have a stronger effect on democracy than have relational characteristics (such as the degree of open recruitment and autonomy). Certain characteristics of CSOs can be supportive of some democratic functions but constitute obstacles to other aspects of democracy. It is possible to distinguish between an advocacy civil society, which is vital for the institutional aspects of democracy through performing the functions of interest articulation and checking state power, and a recreational civil society, which may strengthen democracy through the fostering of support for democratic values and increasing individual capacity for political participation.

Transnational democratic diffusion and Indonesian democracy discourses

There is a wide variety of ideas on democracy and democratization represented among the Indonesian democratic opposition. What is most striking is the importance of Islam as a motivation and inspiration for demands for democracy. Islam, like any other religion, can promote democratic as well as antidemocratic ideas. It is clear that the struggle for democracy in Indonesia is mainly motivated and driven by the domestic situation and not at all manipulated from abroad, as is sometimes argued by the government. However, external influences seemed to be an important inspiration showing that change is possible. This encouraging effect is more important than the diffusion of specific ideas on democracy and democratization.

Renewing Global Governance: demanding rights and justice in the global South

Abstract Global inequality is increasing. Global inequalities are an expression of global social injustices and ‘pathologies of power’. Global governance has been posited as a way forward. However, global governance will not deliver justice unless it embraces a more radical vision of what justice means and permits the voices of the marginalised to be heard in spaces of decision making. We identify two important approaches to building more just forms of global governance: the civil society approach, which is useful when it draws attention to the agency of those at the margins of global circuits of power; and the rights-based approach, which can provide opportunities for justice claims by marginalised groups.

Democratic Legitimacy of Transnational Actors: Mapping Out the Conceptual Terrain

Global governance is not the preserve of states and state-controlled international organizations only. A number of non-state actors — like transnational corporations (TNCs), a broad variety of transnational civil society actors, philanthropic foundations and diaspora groups — are increasingly recognized as important players on the global scene. Moreover, the participation of such transnational actors (TNAs) in global governance is increasingly put forward as a solution to democratic deficits at the global level. However, the democratic credentials of these actors are also challenged. The democratic legitimacy of transnational NGOs, in particular, has been questioned, though much of the criticism applies to other types of actors as well. Debates on the democratic legitimacy of TNAs often suffer from a lack of conceptual clarity, both as to the type of actors referred to and the actual meaning of democratic legitimacy. This chapter aims at contributing to clearing the analytical ground in this field through a systematic discussion of dimensions distinguishing different types of TNAs as well as different dimensions of democratic legitimacy applicable to these actors.

The Structure and Culture of Post-Communist Civil Society in Latvia

Abstract This article provides an account of post-communist civil society in Latvia. Based on original survey data, the structure of civil society is analysed on both individual and organisational levels and cultural aspects are examined. The weakness of post-communist civil society found in much previous research is confirmed when measured on the individual level and in relation to some organisational aspects. The political culture of civil society in Latvia is relatively trusting, tolerant and pro-democratic, but elitist. The specific weaknesses of post-communist civil society can be attributed to the historical heritage of the communist regime as well as the context in which new foreign-funded civil society organisations emerged.

National democratization theory and global governance: civil society and the liberalization of the Asian Development Bank

Contributing to a growing literature on democracy beyond the nation-state, this article draws on aspects of national democratization theory in order to analyse empirical processes of democracy. By combining insights from transition theory and the theory of political opportunity structures, the article examines the case of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). While the ADB for a long time has been described as a closed, unresponsive and unaccountable international organization, a recent evaluation praised the Bank for its good practices concerning transparency, participation and accountability. The article uses the analytical framework to highlight the interaction between hard-liners and soft-liners within the ADB and explores the role of different transnational civil society actors in the processes that seem to have strengthened the democratic credentials of the ADB. While finding significant divisions within the ADB as well as amongst civil society actors targeting the bank, overall the article argues that transnational civil society actors, interacting with soft-liners within the ADB, have contributed to the implementation of reforms, which in turn create political opportunities for further civil society activism. The reform processes, however, are best described as processes of liberalization – rather than democratization.

Claiming Justice in the Global South

Our book began with the principal objective of exploring the scalar politics of how marginalized social groups demand justice in the Global South. We presented six empirical case studies, which demonstrate how organized and everyday forms of resistance emerge and are played out. These forms of resistance take vastly differing approaches to building coalitions, solidarity networks, and political alliances; but they share the fact that all seek to challenge the hegemony of powerful institutions and investments. The movements we discuss here also utilize, albeit in varying degrees, a rights-based approach to defend their mobilizational practices. In this concluding chapter, we now bring together the main insights from these case studies. We stress six principal themes that have emerged from the cases: (a) the importance of the form of subordination and inequality for understanding mobilization; (b) the triggers that give rise to activism and the factors enabling justice claims to be made; (c) the varied forms of contentious politics and everyday resistance; (d) the scalar politics of local-national-transnational linkages; (e) the value of rights-based claims; and (f) the extent to which justice claims have been successful. Based on a comparative analysis of these cases, this chapter suggests some more general patterns and arguments. We recognize that research on justice-based social mobilization by apparently powerless groups is still limited in number and for this reason, we end the chapter by setting an agenda for future research on struggles for justice in very difficult contexts.

Analysing Justice Claims in the Global South

The condition of marginalization that characterizes certain social groups is one of the main constraints for their active participation in social and political life as well as for their possibility to claim rights. Yet, across different countries and continents, marginal groups do mobilize. This book is about the politics of claiming rights and the strategies of mobilization by marginalized social groups. It brings together debates on contentious politics, rights framing and claiming, and the everyday politics of resistance to open up new questions about why and how some social groups are able to mobilize and achieve impacts despite the structural constraints in which they operate. It focuses on how politically marginalized groups organize themselves, their goals, and the conditions that make social and political mobilization possible. In brief, it explores agency in very challenging circumstances.

Opposition in Global Governance: An Analytical Framework

This chapter presents the analytical framework that guides our empirical investigations. The frst part of the chapter is introductory. It recapitulates and discusses our definition of opposition in global governance and presents an overview of the types of agents in oppositional fields. In the second part of the chapter, we elaborate on the analytical tools used for answering our second research question — What is the pattern of civil society opposition targeting GGIs? At this point the aim is to find ways of characterizing the ‘oppositional’ field of CSOs targeting a particular GGI. The third and fourth parts of the chapter are related to our third research question — How can CSOs’ choice of strategy towards a particular GGI be explained? — and turn attention to the strategies of individual CSOs. We first present the different existing types of strategies and then develop a model for explaining CSOs’ choice of oppositional strategy towards a particular GGI.