James Ron

The NGO scramble: Organizational insecurity and the political economy of transnational action

of transnational actors are largely optimistic, suggesting they herald an emerging global civil society comprising local civic groups, international organizations (IOs), and international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs). This new civil society, moreover, is widely assumed to rest upon shared liberal norms and values that motivate INGO action and explain their supposedly benign inouence on international relations. The NGO Scramble The NGO Scramble Alexander Cooley and James Ron

Paradigm in Distress

This special issue of the Journal of Conflict Resolution contains six articles discussing the link between primary commodities, political instability, and civil war as well as a response essay by Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler (CH). The latter is especially welcome given that all our contributors wrestle, in one way or another, with the implications of CH’s early claim for a correlation between a country’s propensity to experience civil war and its dependence on the export of primary commodities. Although the robustness of this statistical finding is increasingly being questioned (Ross 2004; Lujala et al. 2005 [this issue]; Fearon 2005 [this issue]), we are in its debt for helping to initiate a barrage of elaborations, criticisms, and extensions. Cumulatively, these have helped reinvigorate debates over the sources of political violence, spurring the creation of new paradigms for the study of civil war and its associated resource curse (Sambanis 2004; Ross 2004). This special issue is one of the few devoted solely to the topic of natural resources and civil war and perhaps the only to contain critiques and defenses by the field’s leading figures. Our contributors represent an emerging “second generation” in the primary commodities and war subfield, bringing regimes, states, and economic institutions back into the picture. Natural resources have powerful effects on civil wars, our authors suggest, but they do so in ways that are profoundly political, a claim downplayed or undertheorized in much of the earlier work. Most important, resource abundance can create low-capacity states that are vulnerable to rebel challenge. In so

Varying methods of state violence

At some point during 1991–92, something substantial changed in the way Israels security agencies interrogated Palestinian detainees. The change was not in the number of detainees interrogated; on any given day in 1993, some four hundred to six hundred Palestinians continued to be interrogated by either the General Security Services (GSS) or the military (Israel Defense Forces; IDF). Overall, Israel interrogated some five thousand Palestinians every year from 1988 to 1994. Nor was the change one of interrogation results: the conviction rate of Palestinians in the military courts remained above 96 percent, with most convictions based on confessions obtained during interrogation. According to official statistics, of the 83,321 Palestinians tried in military courts in the West Bank and Gaza Strip between 1988 and 1993, only 2,731, or 3.2 percent, were acquitted. The security forces were still questioning a remarkable proportion of the adult male population, obtaining vast amounts of information on Palestinian social, political, and military activities.

Shaping the Northern Media's Human Rights Coverage, 1986-2000

What influences the Northern medias coverage of events and abuses in explicit human rights terms? Do international NGOs have an impact, and, if so, when are they most effective? This article addresses these questions with regression analysis of human rights reporting by The Economist and Newsweek from 1986 to 2000, covering 145 countries. First, it finds that these two media sources cover abuses in human rights terms more frequently when they occur in countries with higher levels of state repression, economic development, population, and Amnesty International attention. There is also some evidence that political openness, number of battle-deaths, and civil societies affect coverage, although these effects were not robust. Second, it finds that Amnesty Internationals press releases appear to have less impact on media coverage when discussing abuses in countries that are central to the medias zone of concern. Indeed, Amnestys press advocacy may be more effective when addressing violations in lesser-noticed countries. The article attributes this to the saturation of coverage of abuses in highly mediatized countries. Cumulative attention by multiple journalists and others raises a countrys media profile but also makes it more difficult for any one voice to be heard. The authors conclude that Amnestys press advocacy may have greater media impact when focusing on abuses in countries located away from the medias core areas of concern. Overall, the authors are encouraged by the Northern medias sensitivity to actual patterns of repression and to Amnestys lobbying, since both indicate that the media is potentially a useful ally in efforts to combat abuses worldwide. Yet, the discouraging effects of poverty on the medias human rights coverage are cause for concern.

Rights Based Approaches to Development: Implications for NGOs

The rights-based approach to development has swept through the global development assistance sector during the last fifteen years. As a result, bilateral development donors, international organizations, and development-oriented nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are increasingly committed, in theory, to implementing human rights. This commitment has dramatically accelerated the discursive and organizational merger of the global human rights and development policy communities. What impact—if any—has the rights-based approach had on the structure, resources, and work styles of development NGOs? This article offers five empirically grounded hypotheses to guide future research.

Savage Restraint: Israel, Palestine and the Dialectics of Legal Repression

In 1988, Israeli security forces engaged in a wide variety of repressive tactics aimed at putting down the Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Rather than viewing these methods solely as products of instructions handed down from on high, this article regards Israeli tactics as emerging from processes of innovation and elaboration by military personnel. Rules stipulating the legal use of lethal force placed important limits on Israeli military behavior. Within those limits, however, soldiers were free to invent new methods of repression. The article draws on 50 open-ended interviews with Israeli military veterans.

Who Survived? Ethiopia's Regulatory Crackdown on Foreign-Funded NGOs

ABSTRACT How do public regulations shape the composition and behavior of non-governmental organizations (NGOs)? Because many NGOs advocate liberal causes, such as human rights, democracy, and gender equality, they upset the political status quo. At the same time, a large number of NGOs operating in the Global South rely on international funding. This sometimes disconnects from local publics and leads to the proliferation of sham or ‘briefcase’ NGOs. Seeking to rein in the politically inconvenient NGO sector, governments exploit the role of international funding and make the case for restricting the influence of NGOs that serve as foreign agents. To pursue this objective, states worldwide are enacting laws to restrict NGOs’ access to foreign funding. We examine this regulatory offensive through an Ethiopian case study, where recent legislation prohibits foreign-funded NGOs from working on politically sensitive issues. We find that most briefcase NGOs and local human rights groups in Ethiopia have disappeared, while survivors have either ‘rebranded’ or switched their work from proscribed areas. This research note highlights how governments can and do shape the population ecology of the non-governmental sector. Because NGOs seek legitimacy via their claims of grassroots support, a reliance on external funding makes them politically vulnerable. Any study of the NGO sector must include governments as the key component of NGOs’ institutional environment.

Ideology in Context: Explaining Sendero Luminoso's Tactical Escalation

This article explains tactical escalation by a Peruvian left-wing group during the 1980s and 1990s as an interaction effect between organizational ideology and the broader political and organizational environment. In 1980, Perus Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) organization ended a decade of political organizing and launched armed struggle against a new civilian government. Peru had been governed since 1968 by military officers, but popular pressure, including strong left-wing protests, had forced the military to cede control. In responding to democratization with revolution rather than electoral participation, Sendero broke with the rest of Perus Marxist left. In 1983, Sendero again escalated its tactics, initiating a campaign of violent intimidation against Perus legal left. By 1996, according to data assembled for this study, the group had selectively assassinated some 300 prominent Peruvian leftists. For theorists of revolutions and social movements, Senderos tactical trajectory poses two important puzzles. First, many revolutionary theorists believe that transitions from authoritarianism to elections decrease armed insurgency. Why, then, did Perus democratization provoke Senderos escalation? Second, Sendero might well have been expected to cooperate with other left-wing groups, rather than to attack them so brutally. Why did Sendero choose an alternative path? The groups anti-left measures are all the more puzzling given the opposition they provoked among potential allies at home and abroad. This article explains Senderos choices by drawing on political opportunity theory, theories of organizational competition, and the concept of declining protest cycles. Democratization can promote greater levels of strife if small but violence-prone groups fear marginalization in electoral politics. A dense left-wing social movement sector, moreover, can stimulate internecine competitive fighting if only some of the movements members accept the legitimacy of national elections.

Public health, conflict and human rights: toward a collaborative research agenda

Although epidemiology is increasingly contributing to policy debates on issues of conflict and human rights, its potential is still underutilized. As a result, this article calls for greater collaboration between public health researchers, conflict analysts and human rights monitors, with special emphasis on retrospective, population-based surveys. The article surveys relevant recent public health research, explains why collaboration is useful, and outlines possible future research scenarios, including those pertaining to the indirect and long-term consequences of conflict; human rights and security in conflict prone areas; and the link between human rights, conflict, and International Humanitarian Law.

Universal values, foreign money: funding local human rights organizations in the global south

ABSTRACT Local human rights organizations (LHROs) are key domestic and transnational actors, modifying, diffusing, and promoting liberal norms; mobilizing citizens; networking with the media and activists; and pressuring governments to implement international commitments. These groups, however, are reliant on international funds. This makes sense in politically repressive environments, where potential donors fear government retaliation, but is puzzling elsewhere. We interviewed 263 LHRO leaders and key informants from 60 countries, and conducted statistically representative surveys of 6180 respondents in India, Mexico, Morocco, and Nigeria. Based on these data, we believe LHRO funding in non-repressive environments is shaped by philanthropic logics of appropriateness. In the late 1990s, transnational activists successfully mainstreamed human rights throughout the international donor assistance community, freeing up development money for LHROs. Domestic activists in the global South have not promoted similar philanthropic transformations at home, where charitable giving still focuses on traditional institutions. Instead, domestic rights activists have followed the path of least resistance toward international aid, a logic of outcomes produced by variations in global logics of (philanthropic) appropriateness.