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21. Transnational Advocacy Networks. Twenty Years of Evolving Theory and Practice

Author:
César Rodríguez and Peter Evans
Publication Date:
11-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Dejusticia
Abstract:
Activists, particularly those based in the global South, have accumulated a wealth of experience in dealing with a range of transnational networks operating in diverse issue areas. New theoretical understandings have reflected this accumulating experience. As the twentieth century came to a close, the practice of global and transnational politics was undergoing a sea change. Understandings of its dynamics were changing along with the practice. Classic paradigms of international relations, which had focused almost exclusively on relations among nation-states, were being expanded to consider the impact of transnational civil society organizations. Recognition of the role of new nonstate actors in global politics was epitomized by the impact of Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink’s Activists beyond Borders in 1998. Their framework is a foundational reference point for the analyses of recent and future trends that are set out in this book. This volume brings together a set of ten essays by reflective activists who draw on their experience to provide new insights into what has been happening in the world of transnational advocacy, and by engaged academics who are committed to using the tools of their disciplines to contribute to the same agenda. The essays reflect not only the views of individual authors but also the collective dialogue among the authors at the workshop where the papers were originally presented in the spring of 2015.
Topic:
Civil Society, Non State Actors, Global Political Economy, Networks, and transnationalism
Political Geography:
Global South

22. Local Networks for Peace: Lessons from Community-Led Peacebuilding

Author:
Lesley Connolly, Laura Powers, Senzwesihle Ngubane, Patrick Kanyangara, Kessy Ekomo-Soignet, Nicolas Chamat Matallana, Stephen Kirimi, Hasini Haputhanthri, Masana Ndinga-Kanga, and Webster Zambara
Publication Date:
09-2018
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
International Peace Institute (IPI)
Abstract:
In recent years, there have been increasing calls to ensure local ownership of peacebuilding design and practice, to take local knowledge fully into account in designing peacebuilding programs and assessing conflicts, and to strive for the meaningful participation of local peacebuilding actors. In the search for new approaches to connect local-level initiatives to international programs and to move local knowledge from the bottom up, community-led peacebuilding networks may have a key role to play. This volume includes case studies of community-led peacebuilding networks in Burundi, the Central African Republic, Colombia, Kenya, Liberia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, and Zimbabwe to identify approaches for more inclusive and integrated peacebuilding. These case studies, written by local peacebuilders working in each of the countries, underscore the organizational, political, and financial advantages and risks to operating as part of a broader network. The aim of this report is to enhance understanding among international peacebuilding practitioners and policymakers of peacebuilding network structures, including their comparative advantages and challenges. In doing so, it aims to guide efforts not only to incorporate local knowledge and expertise into international initiatives but also to identify how these efforts can support and magnify local efforts. By better understanding how local peacebuilding networks operate in their communities, the international community can begin to better understand the challenges local organizations face, how to support and strengthen peacebuilding work on the ground, and how such initiatives contribute to building and sustaining peace.
Topic:
Civil Society, Women, Youth, Networks, Peace, and Community
Political Geography:
Kenya, Africa, South Asia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Colombia, Liberia, Zimbabwe, Burundi, and Central African Republic

23. La gouvernance des organisations régionales latino-américaines Etude comparée du rôle des secrétaires généraux (The Governance of Latin American Regional Organizations A Comparative Study of the Role of General Secretaries)

Author:
Kevin Parthenay
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales (CERI)
Abstract:
In Latin America, as elsewhere in the world, regional and subregional organizations have multiplied recently. Scholars tend to focus on the variety of regionalisms or their ever changing nature (postliberal, post-hegemonic...). This study, through a political sociology of regionalism approach, examines Latin American regions and their actors and goes beyond the first set of questions. In this perspective, scrutinizing the regional General Secretaries of the sub-continent is particularly useful to understand how regional powers emerge. With a specific focus on the Southern Common Market (UNSUR), the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR), the Andean Community of Nations (CAN) and the Central American Integration System (SICA), this research offers a more precise answer to the question of the configuration of power within Latin American regionalisms.
Topic:
Sovereignty, Sociology, Governance, Multilateralism, Political Science, Regional Integration, and Networks
Political Geography:
Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Latin America, Nicaragua, Caribbean, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Costa Rica, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia

24. Elections et notabilité en Iran: Une analyse du scrutin législatif de 2016 dans quatre circonscriptions (Elections and notability in Iran: Analyzing the 2016 legislative vote in four wards)

Author:
Fariba Abdelkhah
Publication Date:
05-2017
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales (CERI)
Abstract:
Elections have been trivialized in Iran. They allow for the expression of diversity, in particular ethnical and denominational, of historical regional identities, and prove the growing professionalization of political life. Paradoxically, such professionalization withdraws the Republic away into the levels of family, parenthood, autochthony, and even neighborhoods or devotional sociability, which are all institutions that instill a feeling of proximity, solidarity, communion; close to the notion of asabiyat. As the saying goes, the Islamic Republic has become a « parentocracy » (tâyefehsâlâri). The country’s industrial development isn’t at odds with such ponderousness since it lies on a web of very small family businesses. The analysis of the 2016 legislative elections in four wards reveals how important the issue of property is in political life, indivisible as it is of the various particularistic consciences. The connections with notables are still there, revealing lines of continuity with the old regime as well as longstanding agrarian conflicts that have not been erased by the Revolution and that are being kept alive through contemporary elections.
Topic:
Democratization, Politics, Sociology, Governance, Elections, Borders, Networks, and Identities
Political Geography:
Iran and Middle East

25. Counter-Narratives for Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) in South East Asia

Author:
Sara Zeiger
Publication Date:
05-2016
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Hedayah
Abstract:
This meeting report is a summary and analysis of the preliminary results of the Expert workshop on South East Asia Collection of Counter-Narratives. Terrorism and violent extremism have been threats to South East Asia for decades, with local and international terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda historically establishing networks aligned with local conflicts. For example, Al-Qaeda has established connections with the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) in the Philippines; Lashkar Jundullah in Indonesia; Kumpulan Mujahidin Malaysia (KMM) in Malaysia; and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. The terrorist attack in Jakarta in January 2016 has served as a reminder that terrorism in South East Asia is still a current and ongoing threat. Moreover, it revealed that ad-Dawla Islamiyah fi al-Iraq wa asSham (Daesh or Islamic State of Iraq and as-Sham/ ISIS) is utilizing a similar model as Al-Qaeda has historically: establishing international networks and recruiting local actors in South East Asia to carry out their aims and objectives.
Topic:
Terrorism, Violent Extremism, Al Qaeda, Islamic State, Networks, and Recruitment
Political Geography:
Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Southeast Asia

26. A Tale of Two Villages: Kinship Netwoks and Political Preference Change in Rural India

Author:
Neelanjan Sircar
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for the Advanced Study of India
Abstract:
This paper develops a theory on how voters form and change political preferences in democratic de- veloping world contexts. In the developing world, where state institutions are often weak, voters tend to be more focused on the competence and capacity of parties and candidates to deliver benefits. Such information may be difficult to ascertain, so voters must glean information from how candidates con- duct themselves during the electoral campaign. Voters use kinship networks to develop more accurate preferences by collectively reasoning through newly available information on candidates. In order to demonstrate these claims, this study analyzes data collected on political preferences and kinship net- works in two villages just before and after the campaign period during the 2011 Assembly election in the Indian state of West Bengal. The paper finds very strong kinship network effects on changes in issue preferences and vote choice over the course of the campaign and explains the results through qualitative work and a series of network autoregressive statistical models. In sum, this paper demonstrates how vot- ers develop independent preferences and implement political change, even in low information contexts with weak human capital.
Topic:
Elections, Democracy, and Networks
Political Geography:
South Asia, India, Asia, and West Bengal

27. Pyramid Capitalism: Cronyism, Regulation, and Firm Productivity in Egypt

Author:
Ishac Diwan, Philip Keefer, and Marc Schiffbauer
Publication Date:
03-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
Using an original database of 469 politically connected firms under the Mubarak regime in Egypt, we explore the economic effects of cronyism. Previous research has shown that cronyism is lucrative. We address numerous questions raised by this research. First, do crony firms receive favorable regulatory treatment? We find that they do: connected firms are more likely to benefit from trade protection, energy subsidies, access to land, and regulatory enforcement. Second, does regulatory capture account for the high value of connected firms? In our sample, connected firms exhibit superior corporate performance relative to unconnected firms and this is systematically related to regulatory capture. Energy subsidies and trade protection, for example, account for the higher profits of politically connected firms. Third, do crony firms hurt growth? We exploit a natural experiment setting to show that the entry of politically connected firms into previously unconnected sectors slows employment growth and skews the distribution of employment towards less productive smaller firms.
Topic:
Economics, Economy, Business, Networks, and Cronyism
Political Geography:
Middle East, North Africa, and Egypt

28. Exposition industrielle, production de réseaux et construction d’imaginaires : la Foire internationale du Müsiad et les représentations de l’Etat turc (Industrial Exhibition, Network Production and Construction of Imaginaries : the International Müsiad Fair and Representations of the Turkish State )

Author:
Dilek Yankaya
Publication Date:
11-2015
Content Type:
Case Study
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales (CERI)
Abstract:
Müsiad International Fair held in Istanbul in 2014 aroused great public interest due to the strong presence of political elites as well as to the mobilization of a large network of institutions, firms and media partners. International exhibitions are relevant fields to explore the formation of trade circuits and the creation of sociabilities, as well as to question the political and international issues central to the construction of trade networks and markets. This event appears as the representation of the Turkish state as it is formed under the AKP power. We witness a double trend of reconfiguration and of internationalization of the state constituting processes through the phenomena of increased interactions between private enterprise and public action on one side and the shrinkage of patronage networks on the other. Participating to this event therefore becomes a question of legitimization and delegitimization for private actors regarding these networks of power, the production of which is based on the presentation of economic and industrial productions and goes together with the creation of Imaginaries. The ethnographic study of the fair shows how industrial, cultural and symbolic representations bring about the production of two types of Imaginary, one related to the reinvention of the idea of the ummah across merchant networks and the other referring to the supremacy of Turkey as the carrier of this project.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance, Sociology, Political Science, Networks, State, and Ethnography
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, Asia, and Istanbul