1. Lecture 09:
Non-governmental
organisations (NGOs)

2. What is an NGO?
• ‘Any group of people relating to
each other regularly in some
formal manner and engaging in
collective action, provided that the
activities are non-commercial and
non-violent, and are not on behalf
of a government’.
• Baylis, Glossary definition

3. States and NGOs
• Realists think that non-state actors,
such as NGOs and civil society,
are not important
• Realists and diplomats tend to talk
about ‘high’ and ‘low’ politics:
• High politics are seen as
transactions between states and
other powerful actors over (mainly)
military, economic and diplomatic
matters
• Low politics is seen as matters
such as human rights which involve
transaction between ‘lesser’ actors
such as NGOs

4. Questions
• Is this distinction accurate or meaningful?
• Is the world still dominated by states?
• Are states powerful in some areas and not others?
• Is globalisation changing the way that politics is
structured?
• Is the world becoming one ‘community’ rather than
a collection of states giving NGOs more
influence?
• Is public or global opinion something NGOs can
utilise?

5. Case Study: Greenpeace and the
French aircraft carrier Clemenceau
• 2006: President Chirac announced that the
asbestos-laden warship Clemenceau
would return to France
• France was seeking to dump toxic waste
from France in India
• Greenpeace claimed that their actions and
an embarrassing international scandal left
France with little choice but to abandon the
attempt to dump waste in India
• Back in December 2005, Greenpeace
highlighted France's attempts to dump an
old warship leaden with toxics like deadly
asbestos on India
• France didn't want to deal with its own toxic
mess and Greenpeace blocked the
departure of the Clemenceau from the
French port of Toulon

6. Greenpeace versus the French
Republic
• Greenpeace claimed it was wrong for
France to dump a 27,000-tonne warship
full of asbestos, PCBs, lead, mercury,
and other toxic chemicals in India to be
broken up by hand in a scrapyard where
impoverished workers are injured and die
every day
• France insisted it was right and sent the
ship to India
• In January 2006, Greenpeace boarded
the warship in the Mediterranean and
called on Egypt to block the passage of
the ship
• The French government intervened at the
highest level to ensure the ship could
continue to India

7. Media interest in India
• Meanwhile in India there was
a growing media and public
scandal surrounding the
Indian government permitting
France to dump a ship full of
hazardous waste in India
• Indian courts ordered the
warship to stay out of Indian
waters pending a final ruling.
However, France kept the
asbestos ship steaming
towards India

8. • Media interest intensified and
levels of public anger in India and
France increased with every day
the ship continued to steam
towards India
• Chirac was due to visit India in
February 2006, but gave in to
pressure and called the ship back
to France
• Greenpeace claimed that ‘the case
of the Clemenceau has become a
symbol of the moral injustice of rich
countries dumping their toxic waste
on poorer countries. Having tried
and failed to offload the ship to
other countries to avoid
responsibility for the toxic mess of
its own making, France has finally
been forced to clean up its own act’
Round One to Greenpeace

9. • Greenpeace claim that every
year ships containing toxic
substances – asbestos, PCBs
and heavy metals – end up in
shipbreaking yards in
Bangladesh, India, China and
Pakistan, where they are cut
up in the crudest of fashions,
taking a huge toll on human
health and the local
environment
• Shipbreaking is one of the
most visible forms of the
trade in toxic waste that ends
up dumped in developing
countries
• So: was everyone
complaining because it was
an ex-aircraft carrier?
Yet more dead ships

10. • Greenpeace believes that rich governments
should look at the precedent of the
Clemenceau case and take action to stop the
dumping of toxic waste in poor countries
• It claims that only effective action will prevent
another Clemenceau-style scandal
• Two other elements need to be added to this:
• a) there was considerable anger about
France’s nuclear testing in the Pacific in the
late 1990s
• b) the Clemenceau wasn’t broken up in
France but in Britain by Able UK, at their yard
in Graythorp; thus Greenpeace only won part
of what it wanted
Collective protest

11. The Clemenceau at Toulon before coming to England in 2009

12.
Analysis: what does this incident tell us
about NGOs?
• Hard v. Soft Power
• France is a major military power but it was unable to use
this to force through the Clemenceau shipment
• Does this undermine realist conceptions of military
power?
• Both the French and the Indian governments, with their
political resources, were not able to force the shipment
• Two powerful governments were ‘afraid’ of domestic and
international opinion or were at least influenced by it
• Greenpeace was able to mount a press campaign and
take physical action to prevent the Clemenceau from
crossing through the Suez Canal

13. One conclusion
• NGOs through the internet and the
international media made use of globalisation
to exert change
• This shows that in certain ‘issues areas’,
such as the environment, that NGOs may
have power
• ‘Civil society’ can mobilise around certain
issues internationally – however, only those
issues that can be clearly seen as ‘moral’

14. What about these ships?
The Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov
The Liaoning, China’s first aircraft carrier
Could every government be influenced by NGO campaigns?

15. NGOs and states
• NGOs have the power to influence state policies,
and even embarrass the governments of powerful
states, but their powers have real limits
• In authoritarian states where governments are
less sensitive to public opinion, NGOs face severe
restraints on what they can do
• If the Admiral Kuznetsov or the Liaoning had been
sent to India for breaking up, could a Greenpeace
campaign have achieved similar success?

16. NGOs in Russia
• Most of the 230,000 NGOs in Russia
are concerned with local issues
• A small number are active in monitoring
human rights and exposing corruption:
• GOLOS: monitors the fairness of
elections
• Moscow Helsinki Group: the country’s
oldest human rights organisation
• Russian branches of groups like
Transparency International and
Amnesty International

17. The “Foreign Agents” amendment
• In June 2012, the ruling United Russia party
proposed changing the law on NGOs.
• Under the changes, all NGOs receiving funding from
abroad – whether state or private – would be
classified as “foreign agents” if they became
involved in political activities.
• United Russia said the bill would not obstruct the
work of NGOs, but added they would have to
“disclose the true essence of their activities”.
• Sponsors of the bill said similar legislation already
existed in the United States and elsewhere.

18. Opposition to the legislation
• One campaigner said the rules aimed: “to discredit and
effectively ruin major civic organisations independent of
the authorities in our country“.
• Others pointed out that even the Russian Orthodox
Church would be affected by the changes.
• The Moscow Helsinki Group noted the American laws
apply only to official lobbyists working on behalf of
foreign governments or firms.
• “We protect our citizens when their rights are breached.
We do not work for foreign states.”
» Moscow Helsinki Group

19. Action against Russian NGOs
• In April 2013 the first
Russian NGO – the
election monitoring group
Golos – was fined under
the country’s new ‘Foreign
Agents’ law
• Putin’s government was
particularly hostile to
Golos for its uncovering of
election fraud in Russia