describes the relation between csos and global institutions

1. Civil Society And Global
Governance
Civil Society and the Governance of
Development: Opposing Global Institutions

2. • Since the end of the Cold War, civil society organizations (CSOs) have
increasingly targeted international organizations (IOs) and other global
governance institutions (GGIs).

3. • Forms of oppositions:
- Mass protests, as was the case with the demonstrations against the
World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1999 (Battle of Seattle).
- Campaigns to influence GGIs in a particular area.

4. • An example is the Global Campaign for Decent Work and Rights for
Domestic Workers which, in 2011, succeeded in having the
International Labor Organization (ILO) adopt its Domestic Workers
Convention.
• CSOs strive to affect policy by participating in consultations and
lobbying individual staff members (slow and continuous political
engagement)

5. • A broad range of CSOs, for instance, participate in frequent
consultations concerning overarching policies as well as specific
projects of multilateral development banks.

6. • These varied examples show how organized civil society activism is
not restricted to the local and national political arenas, but
increasingly target GGIs as well.
• Many civil society actors do not have the financial or organizational
resources to even engage with GGIs that may be headquartered in
faraway locations, but among those who do, strategies display great
variation.

7. • Some willingly cooperate with GGIs and welcome each opportunity
for making their voices heard in consultations
• Others engage in outside protest, reject the institution on normative
and political grounds and would not turn up for hearings even if they
were given the chance to do so.
• Others do a little of both, or anything in between

8. • It is thus clear that CSOs relate to GGIs in very different ways, while
also having differing opportunities for so doing.
• This more or less dissenting civil society engagement with GGIs can be
found across many different issue areas; however, the intensity of civil
society activism targeting GGIs varies greatly

9. • Some issues are more politicized than others and GGIs with a high
level of political authority tend to be most contested (Zürn et al.
2012).
• It is not a coincidence that all the examples above relate to the global
governance of development in a broad sense.
• Much transnational activism since the 1990s has focused on
challenging what the critics describe as the dominant neoliberal
model for global development

10. • Moreover, and despite the general high level of politicization in this
area, few GGIs apart from those concerned with development have as
much relatively non-conflictual engagement with CSOs who are often
hired as project implementers and consultants.
• The prevalence of civil society actors in global governance seems to
demonstrate that states are no longer the only players to be reckoned
with on the international arena (Lipschutz 1992; Kaldor 2003).

11. • This defies what was for long a guiding assumption in the
International Relations (IR) discipline
• Until relatively recently, few scholars turned their attention to non-
state-led processes or recognized the relevance of actors other than
states.

12. • This has indeed changed, and CSOs along with other non-state actors
are now acknowledged as significant agents within current global
governance structures.
• But there is not yet any consensus regarding the nature and effect of
this involvement.
• Some authors take this trend as an indication of the emergence of a
global civil society, holding great promise for transforming
international relations in enlightened, rational and peaceful directions
(Boli and Thomas 1997).

13. • Others claim that CSOs are little more than instruments of state
interests, which means that their increased visibility in global
governance does not signify any fundamental change to the
Westphalian pattern of interstate power struggles (Drezner 2007).

14. • Others argue that CSOs are granted access to IOs to the extent that
they possess
• expertise,
• local knowledge
• or some other resource that the IO requires,
• This means that the trend towards involvement amounts to little
more than the fulfilment of a functional-rational need (Reimann 2006;
Tallberg et al. 2013b).

15. • The trend towards CSO involvement is analyzed from a top-down
perspective, emphasizing on how, when and under what conditions
GGIs open up for civil society engagement.
• Here the agency, motivations and strategies of CSOs themselves are largely
left outside of this picture

16. • Here, we want to explore the perceptions, tactics, motives and
interactions of civil society actors themselves.
• More specifically, to understand the varied ways in which
relationships between civil society actors targeting the same
institution are patterned and how these actors choose strategies
towards that institution.

17. • A bottom-up-oriented perspective, is needed to move away from
state-centrism and understand questions of:
• How CSOs develop different tactics and strategies?
• Why they perceive some GGIs as legitimate and not others?
• What makes them choose among different repertoires of action?
• Under what conditions they engage in relations of cooperation or
conflict with other civil society actors in global governance?

18. The Asian Development Bank
• In this section, we analyze the oppositional field surrounding ADB and
the strategies used by various opposition groups targeting this GGI

19. • We begin with a brief description of the main features of this
particular GGI and then turn to an analysis of the oppositional field.
• The next section contains an analysis of the political opportunity
structure providing access for civil society opposition.
• Then follows a section describing and explaining different inside and
outside strategies applied by various opposition actors targeting ADB.
• Finally, we offer some conclusions from this case study.

20. • ADB is a regional organization, with a broader membership than the
EU
• ADB is owned and financed by its 67 member countries, of which 48
are from the Asian region.
• The most influential members are the non- borrowing states, most of
which are North American and European

21. • Traditionally most loans have been given to large infrastructure
projects.
• Since the 1990s, ADB also provides program loans aiming at policy
reforms within a specific sector, like water or energy

22. • Established in 1966, ADB has its headquarters in Manila and 26 field
offices in different member countries.
• Its highest decision-making body is the Board of Governors, consisting
mainly of finance ministers from each member country.
• They meet once a year at the ADB annual meeting.

23. • The Board of Governors elects the ADB president for a five-year term.
• The president has always come from Japan and many other key
positions are also held by Japanese nationals.
• All operational decisions are taken by the 12 people in the Board of
Directors, who are primarily officials from member governments’
ministry of finance (or, in the case of several European members, the
ministry of foreign affairs).

24. • The Board of Directors meets twice a week to make decisions on all
loans, guarantees and technical assistance grants (ADB 2013a).
• Voting power is determined by the amount of investment in ADB.
• This means that the non-borrowing members have more than 60 per
cent of the voting power

25. • Japan and the USA are the largest contributors, with almost 13 per
cent of the total votes each.
• Like in most other GGIs, decision making typically aims at consensus.

26. The oppositional field
• Like the other multilateral development banks, the ADB has
increasingly included NGOs in the implementation of projects
• However, project-implementing NGOs often do not voice any criticism
against the ADB or try to influence its policies.
• But there are an increasing number of CSOs that actively oppose the
ADB and its policies and projects.
• The oppositional field surrounding ADB has emerged since the late
1980s.

27. • One of the first civil society campaigns targeting ADB was carried out
in 1988 by the Asian NGO Coalition (ANGOC) and the USA-based
Environmental Policy Institute (later Friends of the Earth).
• In 1989 CSOs began to attend ADB annual meetings.
• In 1992 representatives of a number of mainly Philippine-based CSOs
decided to create a ‘NGO Working Group on ADB’ with a secretariat in
Manila

28. • During the following years, the NGO Working Group criticized a
number of ADB policies and projects during ADB annual meetings,
through letters and other publications and in direct dialogue with
ADB management and staff.
• In 1998–1999 the NGO Working Group was restructured and
renamed the NGO Forum on ADB (NGO Forum on ADB 2013c).

29. • Since then, most civil society advocacy targeting ADB has been
coordinated by the NGO Forum on ADB.
• The NGO Forum on ADB has a prominent role in this oppositional
field, similar to CONCORD in EU’s policies on development
cooperation.
• The NGO Forum has established regional working groups in Central
Asia, the Mekong sub-region, the Pacific, South Asia and Southeast
Asia.

30. • The NGO Forum facilitates its member organization’s monitoring of
ADB operations in the respective sub-regions and supports advocacy
activities, including making use of ADB’s accountability mechanism for
community complaints against ADB-funded projects

31. • This means that the NGO Forum Secretariat has direct contact with
ADB’s Board of Directors, management and staff concerning specific
projects.
• They also participate in consultations regarding the review of ADB
policies.
• The NGO Forum publishes a quarterly magazine, Bankwatch, and a
number of other documents criticizing ADB policies

33. • Its website covers information on different aspects of ADB’s policies
and projects.
• While often highly critical towards ADB, representatives of the NGO
Forum have noted an increasing respect from ADB management and
staff.
• ‘If there is a possibility of policy review they definitely look for our
comments,’ claims the head of the NGO Forum (interview, Roul, 17
November 2011).

34. • Unlike many other contemporary transnational activist networks that
tend to avoid formal representative structures, the NGO Forum on
ADB has an international committee with elected representatives
from each of the sub-regional working groups.

35. • The NGO Forum clearly has a professional identity, although some of
its members identify themselves more as grassroots activists.
• Members of the NGO Forum include national CSOs as well as
grassroots groups and communities, including mass based
movements such as vendors and farmers’ associations

36. • The leadership of the NGO Forum claims that local communities
affected by ADB projects set the agenda.
• The main role of the NGO Forum is as facilitator.
• The NGO Forum provides support and training and contributes with
its detailed understanding of the workings of ADB, but the local
communities decide on goals and strategy (interview, Roul, 17
November 2011).

37. • The professional identity of key members of the NGO Forum is
combined with a rather strong grassroots identity.
• Strong links to local communities are essential for the NGO Forum.
• Certain ADB officials might argue that the NGO Forum is not a
relevant stakeholder and thus refuse to engage with activists from the
network.
• In such cases, activists in the NGO Forum can claim to represent the
real stakeholders in specific projects and, therefore, ADB officials
responsible for the project should be obliged to talk to them.

38. • According to the leader of the NGO Forum,
• ‘The Bank officials can say no, because we are not stakeholders on their
project. But our members are their stakeholders [. . .] so in that way, we can
substantiate the argument to make grounds for engagement’ (interview, Roul,
17 November 2011).

39. • The NGO Forum has been able to safeguard its independence and its
critical watchdog character by rejecting financial support from the
ADB.
• Funding comes from major international foundations and NGOs such
as the C.S. Mott Foundation, Ford Foundation and Oxfam, as is clearly
detailed in the organization’s annual reports (for example, NGO
Forum on ADB 2013b).

40. • The NGO Forum appears as more radical and critical towards the ADB
than CONCORD is in relation to the EU
• Focusing on social justice, gender, the environment and so on,
members of the NGO Forum unite in a struggle against specific ADB
policies, projects and programs that they believe threaten people’s
lives and the environment.

41. • The main goal of the NGO Forum is to make ADB responsible and
accountable for the impacts of its projects and policies.
• ‘The Bank is not a private bank, it’s a public institution. It has to be
accountable to every single dollar investment, anywhere,’ head of the
NGO Forum (interview, Roul, 17 November 2011).
• The NGO Forum criticizes both ADB’s development paradigm, which is
described as top-down, pro-market and oriented towards economic
growth, and the lack of accountability of the institution

42. • The NGO Forum tries to influence ADB to adopt ‘poverty reduction
focused and grassroots-based policies for sustainable development’
and demands a thorough democratization of policy-making processes
within the Bank.

43. • In terms of goals, the NGO Forum can thus be characterized as a
limited structural opposition.
• It strives at changing not only specific policies and projects, but also
the political structure of ADB.
• It voices fundamental disagreement with the dominant approach to
development taken by the Bank, which has implications for broader
socio-economic structures.

44. • Nevertheless, the NGO Forum does not argue that ADB should be
abolished.
• Its overarching goal is to reform the Bank. This often radical, but still
reformist stance makes the NGO Forum a clear example of a limited
structural opposition.

45. • The oppositional field surrounding ADB, however, does not only
consist of the NGO Forum.
• Close cooperation with the Bank Information Center (BIC), linking the
advocacy to similar campaigns targeting other multilateral
development banks (BIC 2013).

46. Bank Information Center
• Established in 1987, BIC has its central office in Washington, DC, and
additional offices in New Delhi, Bangkok and Jakarta
• 30 staff, including regional representatives across the world.
• Democratize institutions working on the global governance of
development

47. • In this respect, four aspects are highlighted:
• Protecting rights (for instance, linked to safeguards of global
development institutions),
• Promoting transparency,
• Strengthening accountability
• Increasing civil society engagement.

48. • Like the NGO Forum, BIC does not receive any funding from ADB or
any other international financial institution (IFI).
• Like other CSOs in this field, BIC relies on funding from a number of
international foundations with a progressive orientation focusing on
environmental and social issues.

49. • BIC views itself as a facilitator or bridge between local communities
and IFIs.
• Like representatives of the NGO Forum, BIC activists also stress that
local communities should decide about the activities (interview,
Hadad, 16 December 2010), hence adding a grassroots orientation to
its professional identity.

50. Global Transparency Initiative (GTI).
• Another transnational coalition of CSOs which has worked closely
with the NGO Forum in campaigns for increased transparency of ADB
is the Global Transparency Initiative (GTI).
• Several prominent Bank Watch organizations (including BIC, Article 19
in the UK and the Access to Information Network [ATIN] in the
Philippines) are linked together in the GTI.

51. • Focusing on promoting openness within the IFIs, in order to create
political space to debate development models (Global Transparency
Initiative 2013).
• Both BIC and GTI are typical representatives of the limited structural
opposition against ADB
• Their goals and organizational identities are similar to the NGO Forum.

52. Radical CSOs
• But there are also CSOs which tend to be skeptical towards too much
negotiation with ADB and criticize the NGO Forum for not being
sufficiently radical.
• Indonesian Koalisi Anti Utang (Anti-Debt Coalition), which is still a
member of the NGO Forum

53. • Indonesian Peasants’ Union (SPI), which collaborates with the NGO
Forum in certain activities, but has chosen not to become a member
(interviews, anti-debt activist, 18 April 2012; Kartini, 11 April 2012).
• Global South: focus on the Global South challenges neoliberal
globalization and promotes ‘deglobalization’ as an alternative
• Works on many different issues, in particular related to trade and
finance.

54. • It is highly critical against GGIs like the WTO, the World Bank and ADB
and doubts that these institutions can be reformed.
• The leader of the organization, prominent activist academic Walden
Bello, has argued that reform of ADB is the wrong agenda

55. • According to him, ADB (and the World Bank and IMF) are ‘structural
and ideological expressions of obsolete paradigms that cannot handle
the multiple problems confronting the world economy’ (Bello 2000:
8).
• Therefore, ADB (and other IFIs) should be disempowered, if not
abolished, rather than reformed.

56. • Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC), a coalition of more than 250
CSOs and individuals in the Philippines.
• Despite being a national coalition, FDC has played an important role
in regional civil society advocacy targeting ADB
• An advocacy coalition focusing on economic justice and development.

57. • Established in 1988, it has a background in the criticism against
foreign loans that boosted the authoritarian regime of Ferdinand
Marcos and the conviction that loans to an illegitimate regime are
illegitimate debts that should be cancelled.
• FDC has continued to monitor the activities of IFIs in the Philippines
and protested against imposed structural adjustment policies and the
privatization of water and electricity (FDC 2013).

58. • FDC was instrumental in the establishment of the NGO Forum on ADB,
but unlike the NGO Forum, FDC does not cultivate direct relations
with ADB management and staff members, instead focusing on
protest activities.
• FDC is actually contesting ADB’s presence in the Philippines and more
generally in Asia (interview, Tanchuling, 24 November 2011).

59. • Other critics of the ADB include DebtWatch Indonesia, grassroots
movements in connection with ADB annual meetings
• E.g.: Militant Thai grassroots movements, mobilized large
demonstrations at the 2000 annual meeting in Chiang Mai (Tadem
2003).

60. • Hence, the major structural opposition targeting ADB is represented
by several national coalitions and grassroots movements against
foreign debt in countries like Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand,
but also by the transnational NGO Focus on the Global South.
• What they have in common is their radical anti-neoliberal ideological
position and their goal to abolish rather than reform ADB

61. CSOs cooperating with ADB.
• The WWF signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with ADB
in 2001.
• The intention was to ‘develop a partnership to contribute toward the
sustainable management of natural resources’ (ADB/WWF 2001).
• ADB and WWF have been working closely together since then.

62. • WWF even has an office at the ADB headquarters in Manila (interview,
Shrestha, 14 November 2011).
• Ten years after the signing of the MoU, ADB’s Director General for
Regional and Sustainable Development Xianbin Yao praised WWF as a
‘faithful friend’ (ADB 2011).

63. • ADB signed a similar MoU with the International Union for
Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in 2004 (ADB/IUCN 2004)
• Softer relationship with the International Federation of Red Cross and
Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) through a ‘letter of intent’ signed in
2008 (ADB/IFRC 2008).

64. • While these INGOs have close cooperation with ADB, they are not
completely uncritical of the Bank and can thus be seen as part of the
oppositional field, although their criticism is very moderate compared
to the more vocal advocacy CSOs related to the NGO Forum.
• They clearly represent the non-structural opposition to ADB.

65. • To sum up, there are three critical civil society positions towards ADB
(in addition to the uncritical partnership position of project-
implementing NGOs)
• First, the non-structural opposition focuses on shortcomings of
specific projects which they think should be corrected
• Second, the limited structural opposition argues that ADB policies
should be reformed

66. • This might refer to both substantive development policies and
internal governance policies.
• Third, the major structural opposition believes that ADB should be
abolished.
• The NGO Forum on ADB, in a sense, bridges all the three critical
positions.

67. • While excluding CSOs having too close connections to ADB, and in
particular those being funded by the Bank,
• its basic position is reformist in the way activists make use of the formal
political opportunity structure for engagement and focus on policy reform
within ADB.

68. • Nevertheless, the NGO Forum also facilitates and supports a number
of protest activities carried out by movements and associations with a
more radical, uncompromising agenda.

69. • Hence, the oppositional field surrounding ADB is dominated by
limited structural opposition as manifested in the radical but
reformist stance of the NGO Forum on ADB, but both non-structural
and major structural opposition are part of the overall oppositional
pattern.
• Given the prominent position of the NGO Forum it is still a relatively
concentrated oppositional field.

70. • On the one hand, the NGO Forum on ADB and other parts of the
limited structural and major structural opposition have goals that are
very far removed from the ADB and safeguard their financial
independence from the Bank.
• On the other hand, there are many NGOs which receive funding from
the ADB and have very moderate goals in relation to the Bank.

71. Opposition strategies
A) Inside strategy: Lobbying
• Requires a relatively open political opportunity structure.
• During the last decades the political opportunity structure in ADB has
improved significantly and this has led to very substantial inside
lobbying from most sections of the civil society opposition.

72. • The only part of the oppositional field that does not use the inside
strategy is the major structural opposition with a grassroots identity,
that is, some radical anti-debt coalitions and grassroots movements in
countries like India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand.
• NGO Forum on ADB in particular, very actively apply the inside
strategy of lobbying

73. • This can be explained not only by the relatively favorable political
opportunity structure, but also by the often radical but basically
reformist goals and the professional identity of this major part of the
opposition.

74. B) Outside strategy
• There are three main reasons for applying outside advocacy strategies.
• First, this might be the only viable option when there is no favorable
political opportunity structure. The lack of an open political
opportunity structure makes CSOs forced-outsiders.
• If the political opportunity structure improves, these activists may
turn to inside advocacy.

75. • For a local chapter of FDC in Cebu, Philippines, outside protests
against ADB projects used to be the only available form of
engagement.
• However, when ADB opened up for more formal consultations, the
organization took advantage of this (interview, Pedrosa, 21 November
2011)

76. • Second, there are ideological reasons for choosing the outside
strategy.
• Radical critics of ADB argue that the Bank cannot be reformed.
• It has to be abolished. If you engage with ADB through the channels it
provides, you only contribute to legitimizing a fundamentally unjust
institution

77. • This is the position of principled outsiders, or outsiders by choice,
who would not change their advocacy strategy because of variations
in the political opportunity structure.
• Principled outsiders are found among the major structural opposition
with a strong grassroots identity consisting mainly of left-leaning
global justice activists and certain popular movements targeting ADB.

78. • Third, the outside strategy might be a deliberate choice based on the
belief that such activities are most effective in a certain situation,
often in combination with inside advocacy.
• This is the position of pragmatic outsiders, common in the most
active limited structural civil society opposition targeting ADB.
• A combination of a changing political opportunity structure and
actors’ goals and organizational identities explains the use of outside
strategies

79. Inside and outside strategies combined
• A large number of CSOs, including the most active networks targeting
ADB, have a more pragmatic attitude to the choice of inside and
outside strategies.

80. • The relative openness of the political opportunity structure means
that the inside strategy is possible for most civil society opposition.
• These opportunities are taken advantage of by all segments of the
oppositional field with the exception of the major structural
opposition with a grassroots identity.

81. • Rejecting any direct interaction with ADB, these ‘principled outsiders’
(for example, radical CSO coalitions and grassroots movements in
some of the least authoritarian Asian countries) stick to outside
protests.

82. • However, limited structural opposition (the NGO Forum on ADB and
many other transnational civil society networks) also make use of the
outside strategy, as do non-structural opposition with a grassroots
identity (for example, local community protests against specific
development projects).

83. • Their use of the outside strategy cannot be explained with reference
to a closed political opportunity structure.
• Instead, actor characteristics such as goals and organizational identity
explain why they sometimes use the outside strategy despite having
direct access to ADB.

84. • Similarly, relatively moderate goals and a deep-rooted professional
identity explain why other parts of the nonstructural opposition (such
as well-established INGOs like the WWF and the IFRC) never use the
outside strategy

85. Characteristics and factors explaining choice
of opposition strategy