Scaling up Civil Society: Donor Money,NGOs and the Pastoralist Land Rights Movement in Tanzania

Tanzania's pastoralist land rights movement began with local resistance to the alienation of traditional grazing lands in Maasai and Barabaig communities. While these community–based social movements were conducted through institutions and relationships that local people knew and understood, they were not co–ordinated in a comprehensive fashion and their initial effectiveness was limited. With the advent of liberalization in the mid–1980s, they began to gain institutional legitimacy through the registration of pastoralist Non–Governmental Organizations (NGOs). Registered NGOs provided community leaders with a formal mechanism for co–ordinating local land movements and for advocating for land rights at the international level. The connections of pastoralist NGOs to disenfranchised communities, and their incorporation of traditional cultural institutions into modern institutional structures, resonated with the desires of international donors to support civil society and to create an effective public sphere in Tanzania, making these NGOs an attractive focus for donor funding. In spite of their good intentions, however, donors frequently overlooked the institutional impacts of their assistance on the pastoralist land rights movement and the formation of civil society in pastoralist communities. NGO leaders have become less accountable to their constituent communities, and the movement itself has lost momentum as its energies have been diverted into activities that can be justified in donor funding reports. A political movement geared towards specific outcomes has been transformed into group of apolitical institutions geared toward the process of donor funding cycles.     

河南农村的仪式性人情及其村庄社会基础——深化理解村庄社会性质的新视域

村庄社会基础是理解仪式性人情的根本。在河南一村,仪式性人情是镶嵌在血缘关系所组织的社会秩序中的,人情的背后是道德伦理规范及其秩序状态,而人情也在不断表达和再造着这种规范和秩序。这启示我们要不断深化对村庄社会性质的理解。     

普鲁士改革中的乡镇自治与市民社会的培育

"市民社会"概念是从欧洲历史发展中演绎出来的,但市民社会本身并没有一致的共同模式,而只是一种具有特质的社会现象.德国市民社会的发展也有自己的特点.以普鲁士改革中的乡镇自治为重点考察对象,不难探讨出德国市民社会建立的模式:普鲁士国家借助法律手段和对公众舆论的掌控,强行规范公民的政治参与,使农民和城镇市民从家庭、血缘、社团、行会等传统权力的支配下解放出来,卷入国家政治生活,为他们的发展创造新的社会空间.在普鲁士市民社会的形成过程中,国家是积极的参与者和推动者,国家与社会之间存在着某种相辅相成的关系.当然,国家与社会间的特殊关系也带来了负面后果,它导致了西方式的议会民主在近代德国难以建立.     

Participation and Representation in ATSIC Elections: A 10 Year Perspective

This paper examines participation and representation in ATSIC elections over the 10 year period since 1990. It attempts to identify patterns of participation and representation that seem to be emerging and what these might suggest about ATSIC's operation. By examining numbers of nominees compared to positions available, the paper suggests that ATSIC elected office has been fairly keenly and consistently sought and competed for by Indigenous people, though there may have been some slight initial reticence in the 1990 elections. By examining voter numbers and voter turnout, the paper suggests that voter participation nation-wide rose slightly from 1990 to 1996 and then largely stabilised in 1999. It also suggests that there have been significant variations from this national pattern at State and Territory levels and it explores some reasons for this. The paper also examines voter numbers and voter turnout at the ATSIC regional level since 1993 and finds that there has been much higher voter turnout in the sparsely settled regions of northern Australia and much lower voter turnout in the southern and urban areas. This is explained in terms of ATSIC program and expenditure priorities and in terms of polling place access. The final two sections of the paper examine the representation of women and Torres Strait Islanders among ATSIC elected representatives. Both are seen as significant issues which should be of some ongoing concern within ATSIC, alongside the issue of the southern/northern difference in voter participation.     

Nation,Nationality, Nationalism and Civil Society

Abstract. This article vindicates the phenomenon of the nation and argues that civil society could not exist without it. The nation, although related to nationalism, is by no means identical with it. Extreme forms of nationalism are generally speaking iniquitous and in many cases severely damaging to the societies in which they occur. The same stricture does not apply to the nation.     

Direct Taxation and State–Society Relations in Lagos,Nigeria

Existing research suggests that external sources of finance, such as foreign aid and natural resource rents, allow states to generate revenue independently of their societies, disincentivizing them from forming close links with their citizens and severely problematizing the notion of a social contract. In Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital, a series of personal income tax reforms have seen an increase in taxpayer compliance. Considering Lagosians’ perceptions of their relation with the state government, this study examines whether the state had to ‘earn’ its revenue by developing a closer relationship with its citizens, and whether citizens responded through a greater willingness to pay tax. It explores how citizens understand this relationship, what role they perceive themselves to fulfil, and what their expectations are for the future of state–society relations. The study shows how, through efforts to visibly link tax to service delivery, a social contract is emerging between Lagos State and its citizens — but that this relationship differs among groups, in that it is shaped by pre‐existing concepts of public organization and modes of political engagement.