From “Consultative Arrangements” to “Partnership”: The Changing Status of NGOs in Diplomacy at the UN

Willetts, Peter

doi:10.1163/19426720-00602003

Cited by 114 publications

(44 citation statements)

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“…Charnovitz 1997, 253. See also Weiss and Gordenker 1996;and Willetts 2000 organizations to turn to CSO participation in order to confront the external criticism of their perceived missing legitimacy." 29 In a similar manner, recent research speaks of IO openness as a consequence of "politicization" in global governance.…”

Section: The Conventional Wisdom: a Global Participatory Normmentioning

confidence: 99%

Explaining the Transnational Design of International Organizations

Tallberg¹,

Sommerer²,

Squatrito³

et al. 2014

Int Org

162

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Past decades have witnessed a shift in international cooperation toward growing involvement of transnational actors (TNAs), such as nongovernmental organizations, multinational corporations, and philanthropic foundations. This article offers a comprehensive theoretical and empirical account of TNA access to IOs. The analysis builds on a novel data set, covering formal TNA access to 298 organizational bodies from fifty IOs over the time period 1950 to 2010. We identify the most profound patterns in TNA access across time, issue areas, policy functions, and world regions, and statistically test competing explanations of the variation in TNA access. The central results are three-fold. First, the empirical data confirm the existence of a far-reaching institutional transformation of IOs over the past sixty years, pervading all issue areas, policy functions, and world regions. Second, variation in TNA access within and across IOs is mainly explained by a combination of three factors: functional demand for the resources of TNAs, domestic democratic standards in the membership of IOs, and state concerns with national sovereignty. Third, existing research suffers from a selection bias that has led it to overestimate the general importance of a new participatory norm in global governance for the openness of IOs.

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Section: The Conventional Wisdom: a Global Participatory Normmentioning

confidence: 99%

Explaining the Transnational Design of International Organizations

Tallberg¹,

Sommerer²,

Squatrito³

et al. 2014

Int Org

162

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Despite this vast disparity, however, GCS is a significant international force, exemplified by its sheer size, its infiltration into international governance organizations, its ability to generate global public opinion, and its proven success in transforming policy issues into international regimes. Its growing status is further portrayed through changes in language, e.g., its designation as the third pillar of modern society (Galtung 2000, p. 148), Boutros Boutros-Ghali's recognition of it as a full participant in international life (Weiss and Gordenker 1996), and the United Nation's reference to it as a social partner, signifying equality of status with governments (Willetts 2000). GCS theorists provide incontrovertible evidence of the active force of GCS in historic progress on international regimes from human rights, international corruption, democratic governance, development, and peace to environmental conservation (Brown et al 2000;Clark 1995;Khagram et al 2002;Rosenau 1990;Wapner and Ruiz 2000).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Magis

2009

Voluntas

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This study investigated the question of how civil society groups cross political, cultural, social, economic, and language boundaries to find common ground and to act collectively in coalitions to effect international change. A set of constituents emerged in answer to the research question; Complementarity, Speed and Democracy, Rules of Engagement, Contingent Alliance, and Convergence. Convergence emerged as a central and unifying construct. Convergence is the uniting of people who are different, or even opposed, around a common cause. It is based on the presumption that diversity is critical to coalition success and that it needs be employed to leverage its many potential benefits. The analyses led to the conceptualization of the Convergence System, a model that employs global civil society (GCS) diversity to discern complementarity within GCS coalitions, to discover Points of Convergence, and to facilitate collective action toward shared objectives, thus enabling efficacious action by GCS within the international polity.Résumé Cette étude examine comment les groupes de la société civile traversent les frontières politiques, culturelles, sociales et économiques pour trouver un terrain d'entente et agir collectivement en coalitions afin d'apporter des changements au niveau international. Un groupe constitué des parties prenantes a vu le jour pour répondre à la question objet de la recherche, à savoir : complémentarité, vitesse et démocratie, règles d'engagement, alliance des délégations et convergence/points communs. La convergence s'est révélée être une notion centrale et fédératrice. Elle est la réunion de personnes différentes, voire adverses, autour d'une cause commune. Elle est basée sur la supposition que la diversité est indispensable pour le succès de la coalition et qu'elle doit être utilisée pour tirer parti de ses nombreux avantages potentiels. Les analyses ont ouvert la voie à la modélisation d'un « système de convergence » , modèle qui utilise la diversité culturelle de la société civile internationale (SCI) pour discerner la complémentarité au sein des coalitions de la SCI, découvrir des points de convergence, et faciliter l'action collective en direction d'objectifs partagés, permettant ainsi une action efficace par la SCI dans le cadre de la politie internationale.Zusammenfassung Diese Studie untersuchte die Frage, wie zivilgesellschaftliche Gruppen politische, kulturelle, soziale, ökonomische und sprachliche Grenzen überwinden, um Gemeinsamkeiten zu finden und gemeinsam in Koalitionen agieren, um Ä nderungen auf internationaler Ebene zu bewirken. In Beantwortung der Forschungsfrage sind eine Reihe Komponenten zu Tage getreten: Complementarity (Komplementation), Speed and Democracy (Geschwindigkeit und Demokratie), Rules of Engagement (Einsatzregeln), Contingent Alliance (Eventualbündnis) und Convergence (Konvergenz). Konvergenz stellte sich als zentrales und vereinigendes Konstrukt heraus. Konvergenz ist die Vereinigung von unterschiedlichen oder auch gegensätzlichen Leuten um eine gemeinsame Sac...

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“…However, much of this literature remains engaged in the exercise of proving against a statecentered picture of world politics that transnational actors matter, and the literature is still weak in its analysis of how states and international institutions enable or constrain transnational participation (Risse, 2002: 259). Important exceptions to this pattern are contributions by Weiss and Gordenker (1996), Charnovitz (1997Charnovitz ( , 2000, and Willetts (2000Willetts ( , 2006, which offer detailed empirical accounts of the evolution of IO-NGO relations within the UN and the WTO; , which advances a rationalist explanation of transnational access to international environmental institutions; O'Brien et al (2000), which provides a rich analysis of responses to social movement pressure in multilateral economic institutions; and , which reports findings from a large-scale inventory of civil society participation in global and European governance.…”

Section: The State Of the Art -And Beyondmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…More specifically, Article 71 of the UN Charter states that the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) "may make suitable arrangements for consultation with non-governmental organizations which are concerned with matters within its competence." In a set of contributions, this article is presented as the source of the broad expansion of NGO participation within and beyond the UN system (Charnovitz, 1997;Weiss and Gordenker, 1996;Willetts, 2000). Steve Charnovitz (1997: 253) submits that "Article 71 set a benchmark for other U.N. agencies," whereas Peter Willetts (2000: 205), having reviewed the changing status of NGOs in the UN, concludes:…”

Section: Theoretical Logicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transnational Actors in Global Governance

2010

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From “Consultative Arrangements” to “Partnership”: The Changing Status of NGOs in Diplomacy at the UN

Cited by 114 publications

References 0 publications

Explaining the Transnational Design of International Organizations

Explaining the Transnational Design of International Organizations

Convergence: Finding Collective Voice in Global Civil Society©

Transnational Actors in Global Governance

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