Subcontracting Peace

The Challenges of NGO Peacebuilding

Henry F. Carey

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9780815397250
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351148382
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have emerged as crucial actors in peacebuilding processes in post-conflict zones, contributing to the liberal state building project. NGOs, like any other organizations, have certain strengths and weaknesses, and face tradeoffs and contradictions in peacebuilding. Given increasing NGO experience in peacemaking and peacebuilding, this volume examines their relatively positive record, as well as the constraints, limitations, and sometimes contradictory impact of their activities and interventions.

Part One:
Conceutalising NGO Roles in Peacebuilding

Chapter 1
Expanding Involvement of NGOs in Emerging Global Governance

Chadwick F. Alger

The rapidly growing involvement of nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) in world relations has created escalating challenges to both NGO participants and analysts. The growing literature on NGOs offers ever more comprehensive insights into their emergence, broad involvement in national and international politics, diverse activities, and challenges to achieve their goals. The four sections of this volume clearly reveal the broad scope of NGO peacebuilding with former enemies, especially: (1) Coordination among different NGOs and between NGOs and other actors; (2) Negotiations attempting to resolve or mitigate conflicts; (3) Development of post-conflict institutions; and (4) Monitoring the performance of new institutions. This chapter places these contributions in the scholarly context of understanding how and why NGOs are involved in emerging global governance.

Minear and Weiss succinctly summarize the challenge to assess the role of NGOs in the response of the international community to violence against humanity: 'The sheer diversity of external NGOs – a universe in its own right – is mindboggling'.¹ Katarina West provides a useful metaphor of the NGO landscape as 'like a pyramid that has a few big multinational NGOs at the top, thousands of small local NGOs at the bottom, and a number of medium-sized NGOs in the middle'.²

Although there is no doubt that the number of NGOs involved in world relations has greatly increased in recent years, historically, NGOs are not a new phenomenon. Secretary General Kofi Annan reminded his audience at a 1998 commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

Before the founding of the United Nations, NGOs led the charge in the adoption of some of the Declaration's forerunners. The Geneva conventions of 1864; multilateral labour conventions adopted in 1906; and the International Slavery Convention of 1926; all stemmed from the world of NGOs who infused the international community with a spirit of reform.³

Keck and Sikkink also remind us of the emergence of the 1833-65 campaign to end slavery in the United States, efforts of the international suffrage movement to secure the vote for women between 1888 and 1928, the campaign from 1874 to 1911 by Western missionaries and Chinese reformers to eradicate footbinding in China, and efforts by Western missionaries and British colonial authorities to end the practice of female circumcision among the Kikuyu of Kenya in 1920-23.⁴

Before going further, it is also important to recognize that the use of the term 'NGO' by some or even the majority of those focusing on their roles in world relations are concerned with only a small percentage of the total NGO population. Two volumes applying terminology from sociology make this tendency clear. Smith et. al., in Transnational Social Movements and Global Politics, define this category of NGOs as 'clusters of relatively marginalized actors [that] promote some form of social or political change' and identify them as 'social movements'.⁵ Their volume focuses on transnational social movements (TSMOs), i.e. those active across state borders. Keck and Sikkink, in Activists Beyond Borders, prefer the term 'transnational network':

By importing the network concept from sociology and applying it transnationally, we bridge the increasingly artificial divide between international and national realms ... The networks we describe in this book participate in domestic and international politics simultaneously, drawing on a variety of resources, as if they were part of an international society.⁶

The complexity of the political processes in which NGOs that are the focus of this volume are involved is not only a result of the 'sheer diversity' of those NGOs working for social and political change, but also NGOs providing humanitarian relief, as well as from the array of other state and intergovernmental actors with which they must interact. Minnear and Weiss list eight kinds of actors involved in humanitarian actions, five outside the borders of the state in which the activity is being undertaken, and three inside: Outside: (1) The UN System and regional inter-state organisations, (2) bilateral state agencies, (3) International Committee of the Red Cross, (4) military forces and (5) NGOs. Inside: (1) host government, (2) armed opposition and (3) local NGOs.⁷ Because each of these actors has its strengths and weaknesses, they assert that 'identifying who does what best in particular circumstances can help improve the humanitarian system of the future'.⁸ For their part, Keck and Sikkink offer a complimentary list of major actors in 'transnational advocacy networks': (1) international and domestic nongovernmental research and advocacy organisations, (2) local social movements, (3) foundations, (4) the media, (5) churches, trade unions, consumer organisations, and intellectuals, (6) parts of regional and international intergovernmental organisations and (7) parts of the executive and/or parliamentary branches of governments.⁹

An issue that is frequently raised in research on NGOs/transnational social movements/transnational networks is the degree to which they make world politics more or less democratic. On the one hand, many point out that leaders of these organisations tend not to be democratically elected, and the same can be said for leaders in many of the organisations on which they depend for funding. On the other hand, Sikkink advises that the standard against which to measure NGOs is against 'the existing degree of democracy in international institutions and in international governance'. This leads her to conclude that 'most efforts by NGOs and networks bring a greater diversity of viewpoints and information into international institutions than would be otherwise available'.¹⁰ Nevertheless, whether and in what way NGOs make an activity more or less democratic must be evaluated in each specific case.

The goal of this chapter is to make a modest effort to illuminate the global political framework in which the NGO peacebuilding activities presented in this volume take place. When reading about specific coordination, negotiation, monitoring and other NGO peacebuilding in this volume, it becomes clear that simultaneously these same NGOs are involved in a diversity of other activities around the world. These other activities affect what NGOs attempt and are able to achieve in particular cases.

In order to illuminate this framework with relative brevity, while at the same time offering very concrete insights on NGO activity, I have drawn primarily on three approaches to NGO activity.¹¹ Based on these works, I shall present a fourfold framework of NGO efforts necessary for greater peacebuilding. First, it is necessary for NGOs involved in peacebuilding to create and mobilize global networks. Second, in organising these networks and acquiring support for their operations, NGOs must enhance public participation. Third, such peacebuilding NGOs must become involved with, and endeavor to influence, the activities of International Governmental Organisations (IGOs). Fourth and finally, NGOs must become deepen their involvement in a diverse array of Field Activities.

I. Create and Mobilize Global Networks

We need to study the supporting organisations and activities enhance NGO peacebuilding.¹² Sociologists studying transnational social movements offer insights on the importance of taking into account the resource mobilisation structures and activities of NGOs.¹³ These NGOs tend to emerge out of more informal networks composed of local individuals and organisations that are linked through common concerns. These can develop into a transnational organisation with headquarters, periodic meetings of representatives from a number of countries for making policy on one or more global issues, and secretariats to promote and implement these policies. These networks gather information on local conditions in places like East Timor, Sierra Leone and Guatemala through contacts around the world. At times, these efforts may involve systematic monitoring of local conditions. When appropriate, this information is then used to alert networks of supporters about conditions requiring attention. Then, if evidence merits action, they must create an emergency response network around the world. When conditions limit, or make very costly, challenges within states, they may mobilize pressure from the outside, as in the case when pressure from the outside against the Argentine government was exercised through awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Perez Esquivel.

II. Enhance Public Participation

To create and sustain their efforts, NGOs must become directly and publicly involved in those issues which are their raison d'etre.¹⁴ Of course, these efforts tend to be directed toward activating people in support of the goals and policies of specific NGOs, not in broadening public participation itself as a worthy goal. Obviously, NGOs must overcome the general tendency for the public to be less knowledgeable and involved in foreign policy issues than in domestic issues and to feel even more distant from policy-making in IGOs. Thus NGOs are severely challenged in their efforts to enhance public understanding. At times NGOs can enhance public participation in transnational efforts by linking to local partners and facilitating the latter's transnational reach.

Many of the issues on NGO agendas are not in the headlines. NGOs act out in organisations familiar to few, in conferences rarely reported by journalists who mostly have no knowledge, slight awareness and little interest in these issues. Thus, NGOs are challenged to devise ways to inform government officials and others involved that people are concerned about these issues and taking action. In other words, they must remind government officials that they are being watched. This presents them with the difficult challenge of increasing the transparency of international negotiations and institutions.

III. Participate in IGOs

Most significant peacebuilding issues, including all cases in this volume, are placed on the agendas of organisations in the UN System and other IGOs. As a result, NGOs are increasingly involved in IGOs. They not only mobilize NGOs and build NGO coalitions around issues in IGOS, but they also attempt to place new issues on IGO agendas. Successful completion of these tasks requires NGOs to make efforts to improve their skills in what many refer to as 'conference diplomacy'. In light of their growing involvement in IGOs, some NGOs have become involved in supporting the development of IGOs by member states and their citizens.

The remainder of this third section will provide very brief overviews of NGO (1) participation in UN decision-making bodies, (2) facilitation of inter-state cooperation in IGOs, and (3) relationships with UN secretariats.

1. Participation in UN Decision-Making Bodies¹⁵

Article 71 of the UN Charter provides that 'the Economic and Social Council may make suitable arrangements for consultation with non-governmental organisations'. Through practice over the years, the involvement of NGOs has extended beyond consultation with ECOSOC to include more active involvement in ECOSOC, in the General Assembly, the Security Council, and in other UN agencies:

1. Public meetings NGOs not only observe public meetings but also have addressed public UN sessions, such as the Special Political and Decolonisation Committees of the General Assembly and the Commission on Human Rights. They have been asked to make panel presentations to committees of the General Assembly. NGOs with ECOSOC consultative status regularly submit documents to a variety of UN bodies.
2. Private meetings Public meetings of UN bodies are frequently preceded by a variety of private meetings in order to facilitate decision-making. NGOs are now involved in some of these meetings. Sometimes they are only observers, but on other occasions they participate in discussions. An NGO Working Group on the Security Council that was convened in 1995 by several NGOS: the Global Policy Forum, Amnesty International, Earth Action, Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy, World Council of Churches and the World Federalist Movement. In 1997, a special Consultation Group of this Working Group began to meet informally with Presidents of the Security Council. NGOs, even those without ECOSOC status, also regularly consult the independent, expert members of the six, treaty-based, human rights committees, such as the Committee Against Torture, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, and the Human Rights Committee itself.

2. Facilitate Inter-State Cooperation in IGOs¹⁶

In addition to participation in decision-making bodies of IGOs, NGOs attempt to facilitate cooperation among member states in a number of ways. Toward this end, NGOs sometimes provide reliable background information, which reveals the extent of a problem and reasons why multilateral agreements are necessary. This is sometimes achieved through preparing background papers and reports. Education of delegates may become more activist and include luncheon meetings or weekend seminars, as well as lobbying in meetings and receptions. A special kind of education takes place in efforts to educate representative...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Foreword
• List of Abbreviations
• Part One: Conceutalising NGO Roles in Peacebuilding
• Part Two: NGOs in Peacemaking
• Part Three: NGOs in Peacebuilding
• Part Four: NGOs and Norm Development and Monitoring
• Index