Civil Society Influence on International Organizations: Theorizing the State Channel

Summary, in English

The literature on transnational civil society tends to treat civil society organizations CSOs) as independent actors, accomplishing policy change largely through moral force or popular pressure. However, a significant portion of CSO successes in policy advocacy actually utilizes alliances with state actors. To understand the implications of this ‘state channel’ of CSO influence, we develop a new model of CSO use of state influence. We identify four factors that

determine whether the state channel is accessible for CSOs to use and is likely to produce more effective CSO influence than direct CSO engagement with the international organization (IO): the porousness of the targeted states and IOs, the availability of contacts, the possibility for alignment of interests, and the relative power of aligned state and IO contacts. We illustrate this theory using four case studies of civil society engagement: two case studies involving the World Bank and two involving the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Our analysis suggests that the factors determining CSOs’ successful use of the state channel currently tend to favour a small

number of well-resourced, reformist CSOs from porous and powerful states.

• Author: Christopher L Pallas; Anders Uhlin
• Department/s: Department of Political Science
• Publishing year: 2014
• Language: English
• Pages: 1-20
• Publication/Series: Journal of Civil Society
• Volume: 10
• Issue: 2
• Links: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17448689.2014.921102#.U4mOdPnV-CU
• Document type: Journal article
• Publisher: Routledge
• Topic: Political Science
• Keywords: Civil society organizations; states; international organizations; global governance; democracy; policy-making; advocacy; World Bank; ASEAN
• Status: Published
• Project: Democracy Beyond the Nation State? Transnational Actors and Global Governance; Lund Human Rights Research Hub
• ISBN/ISSN/Other: ISSN: 1744-8689