Localization in Development Aid: How Global Institutions enter Local Lifeworlds 9781138673274, 9781315562049

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Localization in Development Aid

This edited volume brings together the work of scholars from different disciplines including sociology, political science and anthropology, and analyses how global institutions are embedded in local contexts within development aid. It examines theoretical and empirical implications of the diffusion and anchoring of world polity institutions at the local and global levels. The volume furthers the understanding of the dynamics of norm negotiation and glocalization processes in culturally varied societies in an era of globalization. Themes and topics covered include: children and human rights, gender mainstreaming, multi-level actor partnerships, anti-corruption programming, local ownership, land rights and corporate social responsibility. This comprehensive volume will be an invaluable resource for all scholars of localization and globalization studies, as well as those in the field of international relations. Thorsten Bonacker is Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at the Institute for Sociology and the Centre for Conflict Studies at Marburg University, Germany. Judith von Heusinger is a Junior Researcher at the Centre for Conflict Studies at Marburg University, Germany. Kerstin Zimmer is a Senior Lecturer of Sociology and Peace and Conflict Studies at Marburg University, Germany.

Rethinking Globalizations Edited by Barry K. Gills, University of Helsinki, Finland and Kevin Gray University of Sussex, UK This series is designed to break new ground in the literature on globalization and its academic and popular understanding. Rather than perpetuating or simply reacting to the economic understanding of globalization, this series seeks to capture the term and broaden its meaning to encompass a wide range of issues and disciplines and convey a sense of alternative possibilities for the future. Full series title: www.routledge.com/Rethinking-Globalizations/book-series/RG. Most recent titles: 62. The Redesign of the Global Financial Architecture The return of state authority Stuart P. M. Mackintosh 63. Markets and Development Civil society, citizens and the politics of neoliberalism Edited by Toby Carroll and Darryl S. L. Jarvis 64. Occupying Subjectivity Being and becoming radical in the 21st century Edited by Chris Rossdale 65. Globalization and Global Citizenship Interdisciplinary approaches Edited by Irene Langran and Tammy Birk 66. Global Insurrectional Politics Edited by Nevzat Soguk 67. Time, Globalization and Human Experience Interdisciplinary explorations Edited by Paul Huebener, Susie O’Brien, Tony Porter, Liam Stockdale and Yanqiu Rachel Zhou 68. Localization in Development Aid How global institutions enter local lifeworlds Edited by Thorsten Bonacker, Judith von Heusinger and Kerstin Zimmer 69. The new global politics Global social movements in the twenty-first century Edited by Harry E. Vanden, Peter N. Funke and Gary Prevost

Localization in Development Aid How Global Institutions Enter Local Lifeworlds

YORK YORK

Edited by Thorsten Bonacker, Judith von Heusinger and Kerstin Zimmer

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LONDON LONDON LONDON

LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2017 selection and editorial material, Thorsten Bonacker, Judith von Heusinger and Kerstin Zimmer; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Thorsten Bonacker, Judith von Heusinger and Kerstin Zimmer to be identified as authors of the editorial material, and of the individual authors as authors of their contributions, has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-67327-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-31556-204-9 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Taylor & Francis Books

Contents

List of figures List of contributors 1 Introduction

vii viii 1

THORSTEN BONACKER, JUDITH VON HEUSINGER AND KERSTIN ZIMMER

PART I

The localization of human rights 2 Multi-level actor partnerships for implementing children’s rights

17 19

ANDREA SCHAPPER

3 Framing the position of social media in the local institutionalization of international human rights norms

40

REILLY ANNE DEMPSEY WILLIS AND BENJAMIN MASON MEIER

4 Japan’s experience in localizing human rights in post-conflict Nepal

58

MIHO TAKA, MAIKO TAKEUCHI AND SACHIKO GOTO KAMIDOHZONO

PART II

The localization of gender 5 Appropriating gender: The ambivalent effects of Nigeria’s CEDAW implementation

77 79

MATHIAS GROßKLAUS

6 How the localization of macrocultural concepts can reinforce gender inequalities: A case study on the localization of reproductive health in Cambodia THORSTEN BONACKER AND JUDITH VON HEUSINGER

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7 Hybridization and the case of a ‘successful’ gender mainstreamed community-based disaster management project in Cambodia

115

FRANZ F. WONG

PART III

The localization of agency 8 Localizing rebellion: International development agencies and the rise of the indigenous movement in Ecuador

133 135

PHILIPP ALTMANN

9 Strengthening civil society through development cooperation?: Localizing participation in post-Suharto Indonesia

154

FELIX ANDERL

10 Victims, victors and saviours: The politics of aid and women’s rights in Zimbabwe

173

MANASE KUDZAI CHIWESHE AND SANDRA BHATASARA

PART IV

The localization in economic development cooperation

189

11 The localization of CSR norms: Development agencies and the promotion of responsible business conduct in China

191

MELANIE CONI-ZIMMER

12 From (un)employment to employability: Localized neoliberal norms and the politics of proper progress in Sierra Leone

208

ANNE MENZEL

Index

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List of figures

3.1

Mapping campaigns and associated vriables driving normative change 11.1 CSR reporting in China

48 197

Contributors

Philipp Altmann is a Professor for Sociological Theory at the School for Sociology and Political Studies, Central University, Ecuador. His areas of research include the constitution and diffusion of discourses and political concepts, the formation of structures of inclusion/exclusion in global social sciences, social movements and the development of their discourses, especially in Latin America. Felix Anderl is a Research Associate in International Relations at Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany. He works in the research project ‘No Alternative? Social Protest in the Alter-Globalization Movement between Opposition and Dissidence’. His main focus is the interaction of protest movements and international organizations, especially in the fields of economic governance and development. In his PhD project, he analyses how international financial institutions react to resistance. Sandra Bhatasara is a Senior Lecturer in the Sociology Department, University of Zimbabwe, teaching social policy and social administration, gender and sexuality studies, and environmental sociology. Her fields of research include rural sociology and environmental change, women’s studies and social development. She is also a feminist scholar and activist working on women’s rights and social justice in Zimbabwe. Thorsten Bonacker is a Professor for Peace and Conflict Studies at the Institute for Sociology and the Centre for Conflict Studies, Marburg University, Germany. His areas of research include the diffusion and localization of global institutions with a focus on reproductive and sexual rights, international state building and transitional justice with a regional focus on Central and South-East Asia. He is also a member of the International Research and Documentation Centre for War Crime Trials, and of the research network ‘Re-configurations. History, Remembrance and Transformation Processes in the Middle East and North Africa’, at Marburg University. Manase Kudzai Chiweshe is a Senior Lecturer in the Centre for Development Studies at Chinhoyi University of Technology, Zimbabwe, and winner of the 2015 Gerti Hessling Award for the best paper in African Studies. He

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has an interest in African gender and youth studies. His other interests include agrarian studies, sport studies, urban and rural sociology. He has published on gender issues and is also an advocate for youth rights in Zimbabwe. His work revolves around the sociology of everyday life in African spaces with a special focus on promoting African ways of knowing. Melanie Coni-Zimmer is a Research Fellow at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, Germany. Her areas of research include the diffusion and localization of global institutions with a focus on transnational governance schemes and corporate social responsibility norms. She works on the role of business and private self-regulation in international relations and, more specifically, in developing countries and zones of violent conflicts. Reilly Anne Dempsey Willis is a PhD candidate at the University of East Anglia, United Kingdom, in both the School of Law and the School of Politics. Her research looks at the effectiveness of social media campaigns for human rights change, in particular exploring women’s rights. Reilly holds a JD from NYU School of Law, United States, where she studied international human rights, and a Master’s in Public Health from Columbia University, specializing in global health and sexual and reproductive health and rights. She has worked in South Africa, Poland, Geneva, London and New York, advocating for evidence-based policy changes in gender and health issues. Mathias Großklaus is a PhD candidate at the Graduate School of North American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. His research interests include norm dynamics in international politics, security discourses, and local responses to transnational human rights promotion. In his dissertation project entitled ‘Ordering Targets, Targeting Orders’, he traces the normative history of ‘targeted killing’ as a foreign policy instrument. Judith von Heusinger is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Conflict Studies at Marburg University, Germany. She works on development aid workers as norm entrepreneurs as well as HIV/AIDS prevention and sexual and reproductive health as part of the development paradigm. In theoretical terms she is interested in sociological neo-institutionalism and norm localization research. She recently completed her PhD thesis on cultural conflicts in development cooperation as part of norm localization processes. Her regional focus is on Central and South-East Asia. Sachiko Goto Kamidohzono is a Research Fellow specializing in the field of Peace and Development at the Research Institute of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA-RI). She has been working on peace building and development as a practitioner as well as a researcher in various conflictaffected countries/areas including Afghanistan, Palestine, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Her present research interests lie in post-conflict reconciliation/ co-existence, conflict and education, and human security. She received a Master

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List of contributors of Arts in International Relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, United States.

Benjamin Mason Meier is an Associate Professor of Global Health Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, United States. Dr Meier’s interdisciplinary research – at the intersection of global health, international law and public policy – examines rights-based approaches to health. He has written and presented extensively on the development, evolution and application of human rights in global health. As a contributor to the development of global health policy, Dr Meier serves additionally as a Scholar at Georgetown Law School’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, and as a consultant to international organizations, national governments and non-governmental organizations. Anne Menzel is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Conflict Studies in Marburg University, Germany. Her current research deals with redressing sexual violence after conflict. She is also interested in policy narratives about sexual violence and in gender and internationalized power relations in postconflict settings. Her previous research focused on post-war lack of peace, peace building, development disappointments and hopes for development in Sierra Leone. Andrea Schapper is a Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Stirling, United Kingdom. Her current research focuses on the relationship between climate change and human rights. In general, she is interested in the global-local interface: how global norms gain meaning at the local level but also how local concerns receive international attention and lead to changes in global norms. Andrea’s regional expertise comprises South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. At Stirling, she is a member of the Centre of Policy, Conflict and Cooperation Research and of the Centre for Environment, Heritage and Policy. Miho Taka is Senior Lecturer in Peace Building at the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations (CTPSR), Coventry University, United Kingdom. Her research interests include peace, conflict and development, natural resource governance, business and human rights, corporate responsibility and global governance. She has published several papers on artisanal mining and conflict issues. She is a reviewer for several international academic journals in the area of corporate governance and sits on the editorial advisory board of the Journal of Corporate Citizenship. Maiko Takeuchi is a Deputy Director of the Law and Justice Team, Governance Group, Industrial Development and Public Policy Department, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). She has been working as a development practitioner mainly in the field of the legal and judicial sectors in South-East and South Asian countries. Her research interests include access to justice, human rights, and the relationship between law and society.

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Franz F. Wong is a Senior Adviser and KIT Gender Team Coordinator with the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He has worked in international development for some 25 years, and for over 15 years as a gender specialist. He has undertaken numerous studies concerning gender mainstreaming, women’s leadership and empowerment, gender norms and gender in agricultural research for development. His PhD thesis is entitled ‘Following the Commitment: The Case of Gender Mainstreaming and Oxfam GB’. Franz has held various posts as gender adviser for development agencies and non-governmental organizations in Cambodia, Vietnam and Jordan. Kerstin Zimmer is a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Conflict Studies and the Institute of Sociology, Marburg University, Germany. Her fields of research include political and social change in Central and Eastern Europe, with a particular focus on reproductive health and HIV/AIDS, ethnic minorities and migration.

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Introduction Thorsten Bonacker, Judith von Heusinger and Kerstin Zimmer

Increasingly, global norms affect culturally very different local settings. This is especially true for so-called non-Western states, in which international development programmes contribute to the spreading and implementation of ‘good’ or ‘proper development’. In particular, this includes the introduction of human rights standards, anti-corruption and good governance programmes or ideas of social responsibility. Global norms or global normative concepts can be considered an outcome of the contention between different international, transnational and state actors who agree at some point on the validity of norms and models for development policies. Norms are usually understood as standards of appropriate behaviour (Axelrod 1986); global norms can be conceptualized: as ideas of varying degrees of abstraction and specification with respect of fundamental values, organizing principles or standardized procedures that resonate across many states and global actors, having gained support in multiple forums including official policies, laws, treaties or agreements. (Wiener 2009, 183ff.) Normative concepts, then, consist of more than just one norm and also comprise cognitive and policy elements. For example, the normative concept of social inclusion emerged in the global arena in the course of negotiation processes between human rights activists, politicians, scholars and other influential actors, leading to the anchoring of the concept in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Inclusive Education Agenda of 2008. Social inclusion can be described as a norm to include people with disabilities in the education system, as well as the norm to encourage them and to strengthen the capacities of people without disabilities to learn and work with them. Beyond these norms, the concept of social inclusion also refers to the general, and today largely uncontested, idea that education provides people with disabilities with necessary skills. In the same way, ‘development’ itself is a normative and globally institutionalized concept, as we will discuss below.

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Once normative concepts such as social inclusion have become part of the global system of rules and standards they diffuse in societies worldwide, often through development policies. They are then incorporated into national legislation and the policies of state and civil society actors. Social inclusion has become an influential concept in education and development around the globe because it is widely presumed that the inclusion and participation of all social groups into the labour market (and society in general) will lead to more productivity and prosperity. However, even though there is a global consensus that inclusion is ‘good for development’, context-specific local dissent on which groups to include and how to include them is a prevalent phenomenon in different societies around the world. For example, whereas there is a partial consensus in European Union (EU) states to accept lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) groups in society and respect their rights, this is harshly rejected in most post-Soviet societies and wide sections of the Arab world and sub-Saharan Africa. Consequently, diffusion of norms and establishment of the global norm of social inclusion spark off conflict between global development actors and local activists on how to deal with certain social groups. This may lead to a partial adoption and appropriation, or the complete neglect, of the global norm in the process of norm localization. In spite of the fact that norms are institutionalized and therefore taken for granted on the global level, on the local level a great deal of negotiation, interpretation, modification and sometimes disagreement and resistance take place.

The aim of this volume So far research has focused mainly on norm diffusion, i.e. the horizontal and largely formal dissemination of norms. Vertical localization of global norms and their often controversial local understanding, as well as the practice of implementing and translating global norms are less well researched. Localization, or the embedding of global norms in the local social environment, brings about a number of challenges, obstacles and conflicts. Global norms are often contested, modified, appropriated, rejected or politicized and discussed by local actors in processes of sense making while being fitted into a specific local setting (Appadurai 1990, 1996; Capie 2008; Chan 2014; McGinty 2011; Zimmermann 2014). According to Acharya, who introduced the localization framework, localizing norms involves the ‘active construction (through discourse, framing, grafting and cultural selection) of foreign ideas by local actors, which results in the former developing significant congruence with local beliefs and practices’ (Acharya 2004, 245). Localization can take place by various means and channels. The aim of this volume is to shed light on the processes of localization of global norms and normative concepts with a focus on development policies that are driven by normative concepts, and simultaneously function as a practice to implement concepts such as social inclusion, reproductive rights or gender equality.

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We discuss the localization of ‘development’ with a particular focus on how global normative concepts are translated into national and local contexts within the framework of development programmes, and what kinds of negotiation processes can be observed in this context. In doing so, the volume combines localization research with sociological perspectives, ethnographic methods and post-development studies in order to make sense of local practices and the behavioural patterns of actors involved in the development enterprise. The contributions in this edited volume study various processes of localization through development policies in different empirical contexts and from various scholarly fields. This volume is positioned within constructivist norm localization research and enriched by insights from other strands of research such as post-development theory and aid ethnography, which add empirical knowledge about development and deploy a broad methodological toolbox with sociological and ethnographic expertise. Even though scholars from both localization studies and post-development theory have recently claimed that local responses to global expectations should be taken into account, the two strands of research have rarely been linked. In what follows, we will present both approaches, indicate their interconnectedness, and show how the contributions to this volume fit with, and contribute to, understanding the nexus of both.

Norms, diffusion and localization Norm diffusion research frequently tends to underestimate cultural conflict and friction in localization processes as it tends to pay little attention to the vertical anchoring of global institutions (Cobb 2014, 289). The localization framework pays more attention to how norms are embedded culturally in order to explain how transnational norms are contested, adapted and incorporated in new settings. According to that framework global normative concepts are to a large extent cross-culturally negotiated rather than simply imposed (Zwingel 2012, 126), so that uncertainty of outcome is an inherent part of context-specific anchoring of norms (Brake and Katzenstein 2013, 730). Norm entrepreneurs make sense of normative concepts from a cultural and context-specific perspective and reshape normative concepts in order to fit them into local normative orders. In the course of localization processes conflictual interpretations of global norms and cultural conflict emerge (Börzel and Risse 2009; Cortell and Davis 2000; Reus-Smit 2001; Sandholtz 2008; Van Kersbergen and Verbeek 2007; Wiener 2004). This can lead to the ‘erosion’ (Rosert and Schirmbeck 2007) of norms, which might otherwise be perceived as ‘non-compliance’ with global norms and standards (Goodman and Jinks 2008). Negotiation processes about the meaning of global norms frequently continue even after the norms have been formally appropriated (Capie 2008, 639). From this perspective, there might be a global consensus – for example, about human rights – on paper, but in practice a context-specific process of

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redefining and reshaping continues in various cultural settings (Harris-Short 2003; Liese 2009; Wiener 2009), which may redesign the global norm in such a way that it is no longer recognizable (Biukovic 2008). In other cases localization processes materialize in the form of a ‘local struggle’ for meaning (Reus-Smit 2001; Sandholtz 2008; Van Kersbergen and Verbeek 2007). Sometimes, local actors are very strategic as norm entrepreneurs who adapt to global standards in order to advocate local interests (Kaelble 2005, 2). They can be highly selective, only taking on parts of global norms and leaving other aspects aside (Zimmermann 2010, 8). From a theoretical perspective these complex processes of localization and sense making in different normative orders and local settings have yet to be systematized. In general, norm diffusion research seems to be less interested in analysing how global normative concepts arise and what factors initiate institutional change in the global community (Dierkes and Koenig 2006, 133). Commenting on this gap, the first generation of constructivists dealt with norm socialization (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998; Keck and Sikkink 1998; Risse et al. 1999; Risse 2000). These studies have often been labelled ‘mainstream constructivist scholarship’ (Björkdahl 2013, 80), and can be subdivided into two seminal approaches (Aharoni 2014, 3). On the one hand, the ‘norm life-cycle’ theory of Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink (1998) elaborates three stages of global norm formation, namely emergence, institutionalization and internalization. On the other hand, the ‘spiral model’ (Risse et al. 1999; Cortell and Davis 2000) explains national change and resistance to the local anchoring of global norms in a spiral institutionalization process. The first generation of constructivist scholars highlighted the importance of ‘norm makers’ for emergence of norms and institutional change but failed to show that non-Western and local actors are not simply passive ‘norm takers’ who receive and absorb global norms and standards. Norm localization research began with a critique of the first and second generations of constructivists (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998; Keck and Sikkink 1998; Risse et al. 1999; Risse 2000), based on three perceived shortcomings. First, it was argued that they portrayed non-Western actors mostly as passive ‘norm takers’. If there was an exception to this, it was most often in the case of local norm makers who have been educated in Western universities and who belong to influential political elites (Björkdahl 2013, 80; Checkel 1998). Second, it was noted that constructivists suffer from a ‘liberal’ (Adamson, 2005), ‘cosmopolitan’ (Acharya 2004) or ‘secular’ (Kubálková 2000) bias and therefore have a simplistic understanding of norm diffusion. Instead, studies in norm localization have pointed to the fact that local norm negotiation is often messy, and that norm anchoring is influenced by global and local, as well as Western and non-Western, actors alike (see also Acharya 2013; Adamson 2005; Bettiza and Dionigi 2014; Boesenecker and Vinjamuri 2011; Brake and Katzenstein 2013; Capie 2012; Zwingel 2012). Third, norm takers who have not been socialized according to global discourse and principles, are mostly neglected in constructivist studies. Non-Western

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normative agency remains largely overlooked, since global norms are presented as ‘traveling from a western core to a non-western periphery, from western norm-makers to non-western norm-takers’ (Bettiza and Dionigi 2014, 1). Norm entrepreneurs such as civil society actors and activists, states (to a certain extent), or local community leaders can take on various roles and act as ‘mimickers’ (Katsumata 2011), selective ‘localizers’ (Acharya 2004) or ‘vernacularizers’ (Levitt and Merry 2009; Merry 2006; Michelutti 2007), ‘glocalizers’ (Robertson 1994, 1995) and in ‘resistance’ (Kinzelbach 2013) when faced with global norm diffusion. In this volume we add more empirical cases of different actors and the roles they take on in the norm localization process. In summary, research on norm localization has contributed three seminal insights which are of relevance for this volume. It shows, first, that the vertical anchoring of global norms is often conflictual and leads to processes of sense making in various local settings. The phenomena of conflict and friction (Buttel 2000; Finnemore 1996; Hirsch 1997; Koenig and Dierkes 2012) are normal in development politics. Second, norm localization research highlights the agency of actors for the emergence, establishment and anchoring of global norms in macro as well as micro settings with actors following context-specific logics of action (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998). Constructivist research stresses the role of norm entrepreneurs in localization processes, which in our case highlights that global development politics are put into question or reshaped by local actors in various cultural settings. Third, constructivist norm localization research highlights the importance of the local culture for norm institutionalization that has been neglected by other research strands.

Development and post-development Post-development theory locates the beginning of the development discourse in the second inaugural speech of US President Harry S. Truman in 1949, when he postulated: ‘we must embark on a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas.’1 The notion of development is much older and can be traced back to Herder and Kant, but it only became a potent part of international politics after World War II, as part of a geo-political containment strategy in the context of the Cold War and decolonization where Western states tried to retain socialist movements in countries of the ‘Global South’ through economic and ideological support. Initially, the development discourse postulated processes of social transformation and poverty reduction in favour of non-Western – less industrialized – societies, and takes on a modernist embodiment with a Western-centric perspective that distinguishes between ‘developed’ donor countries and ‘underdeveloped’ countries that need help to advance according to ‘global’ norms and standards that originate in Western enlightenment and modernity. Similar thought patterns have been used in colonial discourse where the world was divided

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into ‘civilized’ and ‘uncivilized’ societies that needed Western support for social advancement. Global development politics changed with a crisis in development theory in the 1980s when global activists and researchers alike unmasked the authoritarian structures in the arguments used to promote development (Ziai 2010). The global community has since seen an immense number of new global concepts and paradigm shifts in development politics such as ‘local ownership’, ‘participation’, ‘inclusion’ and ‘donor alignment’, which try to discursively compensate for unequal power structures among donor and recipient countries in the global community. Still, a prevailing aspect of current development politics is that nation-states, local actors and activists attempt to acquire legitimacy in world society through the adoption of global norms and standards into local settings using a discourse of advancement and development. Post-development research and ethnographic studies on development aid have pointed out that ‘development’ is a Western concept that transports hegemonic ideas about the ‘proper’ behaviour for local actors which is being transmitted through development aid interventions across the globe (Easterly 2007; Escobar 1995; Esteva 1992, 1995; Latouche 1993, 134–5; Mignolo 2008; Quijano 2008; Rahnema 1997; Sachs 1992; Woods 2005; Ziai 2010). Post-development research has argued that globally constructed ideas about good development comprise unidirectional models of modernization and progress that marginalize non-Western thought (Crewe and Harrison 1998; Ferguson 1994; Lepenies 2014). Decoupling between global discourse and local development practice is, therefore, a daily phenomenon where development aid experts broker global ideas and concepts in order to fit them into the local setting (Baaz 2005; Roth 2015; Rottenburg 2002; Merry 2006; Lewis and Mosse 2006; Mosse 2011, 2013; Fechter and Hindman 2011; Fechter 2013; Schondelmayer 2010). With their microscopic focus, these ethnographic studies show what is happening in everyday practice on the ground and how individual actors carry out processes of localization, yet they fail to augment theory in the field of globalization theory and vertical diffusion research. In order to fill this gap, in this edited volume we combine these different strands of research to further investigate localization processes. Localization research aims to challenge an understanding of globalization as a more or less uncontested process of diffusion and adaptation of global normative concepts on the local level. Contrary to the notion of globalization, it argues that even if a global consensus on the validity of norms and normative concepts is reached and articulated through resolutions, institutional frameworks, legislation or regulations, on the local level norms are usually re-negotiated, challenged, modified and redefined, or sometimes simply ignored. We still know little about the various processes of localization, especially in the field of development which Ferguson (1994) famously characterized as an ‘antipolitics machine’ that is not aware of the friction and conflicts the localization of global normative concepts produces. Post-development and aid ethnography research has pointed out that friction occurs in the everyday work

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practice of different actors within the field of development aid but it fails to add to or extend theory in the field of norm localization research and globalization theory. With this edited volume we investigate how development politics is instrumental in the localization of global normative concepts and potentially provides arenas for contestation. The contributions presented here examine the theoretical and empirical implications of the diffusion and anchoring of world polity institutions at the local and global levels. Overall, the volume furthers the understanding of the dynamics of norm negotiation and localization processes in culturally varied societies in an era of globalization.

Chapter overview The main empirical focus of this volume is international development cooperation as a practice of the localization of global normative concepts. We bring together the work of scholars from different disciplines – such as sociology, political science as well as anthropology – who analyse how global normative concepts are embedded in local contexts within development cooperation. Themes and topics covered include: children and human rights, gender mainstreaming, multi-level governance, anti-corruption programming, local ownership, land rights and corporate social responsibility. The contributors address the following questions: Why do some international norms and standards find resonance in local contexts and why do others fail? How are the meanings and claims to validity of norms negotiated in the local context and what conflicts can be observed in this regard? In what way do local actors politicize global normative concepts? What kinds of strategies do international development experts use to embed their agendas locally and how do local actors react to these interventions? To what extent do local actors succeed in modifying those agendas? In our discussion of localization we focus on three topics: 1 human rights, which have been a key issue in development cooperation since the 1990s; 2 the question of how global, but especially local, agency is constructed in development projects; and 3 economic aspects of development cooperation, which are frequently overlooked in the discussion on localization. Part I focuses on the localization of human rights, starting with a focus on Bangladesh. Andrea Schapper investigates emerging multi-level actor partnerships. Multi-level actor partnership can be understood as institutionalized forms of cooperative relations between public and private actors, from the local, national and international levels, engaging in norm implementation. The chapter looks at how multi-level actor partnership emerge, how they are designed, what functions each cooperating partner undertakes, and whether they are institutionalized in the long run and take over traditional governmental functions in implementing international children’s rights at the local level. Comparing four different types of multi-level institutions implementing

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children’s rights in Bangladesh, this chapter concludes that the sustainability of donor-funded norm implementation projects is problematic. After that Reilly Anne Dempsey and Benjamin Mason Meier analyse the role of social media in the localization of human rights norms. Making use of the spiral model of changes in human rights discourse, they investigate the influence of transnational advocacy on domestic policy making. Building on previous research that has shown that social media enhances the ability of civil society to influence agendas, expose abuses and organize for change (all with positive long-term outcomes), the chapter focuses on digital tools as a means to localize transnational human rights advocacy in women’s health and human rights, and examines the causal mechanisms that institutionalize global norms for women’s rights in local policy contexts. In the following chapter Miho Taka, Maiko Takeuchi and Sachiko Goto Kamidohzono discuss the experience of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in localizing human rights in post-conflict state-building and peace-building efforts using the example of drafting a civil code in postconflict Nepal. The country began the processes of state building following the end of the ten-year civil war in 2006. While the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) supported the establishment of a broad legal framework primarily based on international human rights standards, JICA began its assistance in drafting Nepal’s civil code as part of its programme of peace building and steady transition to democracy in 2009. During the process, JICA’s law experts went through the whole civil code with Nepalese counterparts in order to develop a civil code that satisfied both international transaction rules and also Nepalese norms and cultural understandings. The authors show that the Nepalese agreed on contract-related clauses easily, but did not accept the advice on family-related clauses such as women’s rights. Although the promulgation of the drafted civil code remains pending, the analysis of the process reveals valuable insight into the localization of the international human rights framework in non-Western contexts. Part II of the book focuses on the localization of gender. Mathias Großklaus illustrates how norms and rights attain their specific local meaning through acts of interpretation and contestation by operationalizing appropriation from a discourse analytical perspective. Applying the appropriation framework to the case of the implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in Nigeria, Großklaus illustrates how gender equality norms that are promoted externally attain their specific local meaning. The case study highlights how the transformative power of rights norms is checked by their translation and embedding into pre-existing normative configurations. While external knowledge about development has been perpetuated through discursive filters and affected the country’s legal framework, the Nigerian government managed to devalue the meaning of specific rights and dissolve semantic links for resistance by appropriating pivotal concepts. Ultimately, the external promotion of gender rights further stabilized long-established rights arrangements. In

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conclusion, this perspective illuminates a dualism of human rights as both enabling transformation and leading to the stabilization of the pre-existing order. It accounts for local structures not as pre-given settings but as perpetually challenged orders – that is, layered results of struggles about what is right or wrong. Contrary to what the literature on diffusion suggests, the local context emerges here as the subject of norm localization rather than a mere condition for it. Thorsten Bonacker and Judith von Heusinger then look at development aid programmes in the field of reproductive health which aim at improving the health situation of the population in Cambodia, concerning, for example, sexual reproduction, sexually transmitted diseases and mother-child health. These programmes also target issues of gender inequality because they promote the empowerment of women in choosing freely about whether and when to have how many children. We argue that development aid interventions in the field of reproductive health produce paradoxical outcomes in societies such as Cambodia, given that internationally funded health programmes reinforce local understandings and traditions of gender relations and health. Research in the context of macrosociological institutionalism has shown that in different areas, globalization occurs primarily due to governments responding to exogenous expectations. In this case, we focus on a particular aspect which has so far received little attention, namely the potentially paradoxical effects of the local establishment of global models and the related challenges for local institutions. We ask how social inequalities are reproduced through the acquisition of macrocultural constructs, such as reproductive health. Those inequalities are usually considered problematic in global discourses because it concerns unintended effects, which result when the changes sought by the adoption of global models does not take place as expected. Conceptually, we deal with contributions on the localization of global standards and models that draw mainly on sociological and anthropological research. Thus we want to contribute to the discussion about the local consequences of the global diffusion of institutions. Referring to Oxfam GB’s development work in Cambodia, Franz F. Wong’s chapter shows how gender-mainstreaming efforts were tied into the project framework as a criterion of success and a model for the integration of global norms and standards on ‘proper development’. He shows that development aid advisers on gender, and project staff, became part of a relationship of mutual benefit akin to contemporary patronage relations in the context of development, where each needed to work with the other to secure their place in ‘Aidland’ (Mosse 2005; Fechter and Hindman 2011). Gender advisers as norm givers consequently gave advice, while project staff as norm takers took on such advice. Nonetheless, in the course of localization hybridized ideas were diffused, informed by ideals of gender mainstreaming and dominant gendered understandings of women being particularly ‘vulnerable’ to floods, socially, physiologically and otherwise. In particular, community participation infrastructure and village committees, established by Oxfam GB

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in Cambodia, served to co-opt women and their labour as part of the aid relations. Yet, participants were not unknowing pawns in development, but rather acted as brokers and translators and mediated between project sponsors and beneficiaries in the communities, often performing reporting and policing functions. Consequently, local actors adapted global norms and ideas to their local needs. Part III is devoted to the localization of agency, i.e. the raising of awareness and strengthening of local-level agency in defining local interests and negotiating norms in the global sphere. It starts with an exploration of the indigenous movement in Ecuador. Philipp Altmann investigates how international development agencies influenced the organizational and discursive development of the indigenous movement and its organizations. He focuses on actors and their relationship with concrete organizations, the success of their efforts and the general strategy visible behind given actions. Altmann analyses the support for the establishment of indigenous institutions – in education, traditional medicine and development – and the engagement in internal organizational processes on a structural level. Moreover, he adds an analysis of the discursive level, in which the support of certain political tendencies within the movement – namely, those more ethnicist and less socialist – as well as the influence on the diffusion of determinate demands or political concepts are interpreted. Furthermore, the diffusion of demands for autonomy and of concepts such as interculturality and the ‘Good Life’ (buen vivir) are discussed to explain localization processes. In the following chapter Felix Anderl analyses how the norm of local participation has been framed, pruned and crafted by Indonesian actors, facilitating a process of hybridization in which the participation norm meets an existing normative framework represented by local norms such as the integral state and Pancasila, as well as Adat practices. In addressing the ambivalent evaluations with regard to success or failure of the transportation of this norm, the chapter argues that the mainstream constructivist concept of norm diffusion is too narrow to understand what has happened. Rather, the norm has been localized and hence mingled with existing structures, preferences and norms, which are summarized as ‘Cognitive Prior’. Anderl argues that this process indeed precipitated change, even though it was not necessarily the one for which the development agencies (norm entrepreneurs) had aimed. Rather, the case of localized political participation shows that donor concepts such as decentralization can lead to paternalistic practices in the provinces, which, by making use of the localized norm, can be attributed to the global Other by local rent seekers or traditional leaders. Finally in Part III, Manase Kudzai Chiweshe and Sandra Bhatasara discuss the localization of the global discourse of women’s rights in Zimbabwe in confrontation with patriarchal cultural and religious systems. They observe a narrow understanding and rejection of the rights framework as ‘Eurocentric’. The chapter offers an analysis of how victims, victors and saviours are created within a context, in which ‘African’ women are often portrayed as powerless

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victims who need saving. The authors review the discourse that has underpinned development efforts geared towards the promotion of women’s rights and argue that it was difficult for the idea of women’s rights defined from a narrow perspective to penetrate African spaces. Women’s rights as currently defined are largely formulated on the experiences of white middle-class women, forgetting the contextualized and unique circumstances in which most African women find themselves. Often women’s rights are conflated into the gender category, yet what this concept precisely denotes remains highly contested. This chapter highlights the reasons why global women’s rights have failed to impact the largely patriarchal social structure. At the beginning of Part IV, on localization in economic development cooperation, Melanie Coni-Zimmer looks at the implementation of the norm of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in China where, at least initially, state actors and the business community rejected the idea of CSR as a Western idea that does not fit into the local context and was being imposed to push Chinese corporations out of the global market. While other actors (such as the activities of major Western corporations) also played an important role in diffusing the idea of CSR in China, development agencies became active in the early 2000s. Several of them, such as the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), engaged in opposing the Chinese discourse. This contribution explores how development agencies have promoted CSR and how local actors have reacted to these efforts. It is argued that processes of localization take place when transnational norms diffuse into national contexts. The existence of a kind of ‘cultural match’ (Checkel 1999) between transnational and national norms is, in itself, not enough. Moreover, the activities of international and local norm entrepreneurs matter. Results indicate that multilateral and bilateral development agencies indeed played a decisive role in introducing the idea of CSR into the Chinese context. Finally, Anne Menzel analyses the norm of employability of young men in post-conflict Sierra Leone, with a focus on the tailoring of donor-driven vocational training measures as well as their outcomes. She explores how the global concept of employability (introduced via international development discourses, which informed Sierra Leone’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, which in turn inspired government-funded ‘attitudinal change’ campaigns) resonates with local ideas about ‘decent’, ‘good’ and ‘proper’ lifestyles – and their ‘deviant’ opposites – as well as with hopes for access to Western-style ‘modernity’. The concept of employability is a good normative fit for Sierra Leone, where it also adds to and reinforces existing stereotypes about ‘deviant’ unemployed young men who are regarded as living obstacles to the good development of society overall. This volume would not have been possible without the support of different people and institutions, which we would like to thank. First of all, earlier versions of the chapters were part of an international conference, ‘The Glocalization of Development: How Global Institutions are Negotiated Locally’,

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held in July 2015 at Schloss Herrenhausen (Hannover, Germany), funded by the Volkswagen Foundation. The idea for the conference came out of our discussion within a research project on the ‘Localization of Global Institutions. A Comparative Study on HIV/AIDS and Reproductive Health Programs’, which is funded by the Thyssen Foundation. We would also like to thank Vanessa Zohm, Coady Buckley and Stephen Foose for their support in preparing this volume, and Ruth Theile for assisting during and after the conference.

Note 1 See The American Presidency Project: www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=13282 (last page visit on 22 January 2016).

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Part I

The localization of human rights

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Multi-level actor partnerships for implementing children’s rights Andrea Schapper

Introduction In November 2014, the world commemorated the 25th anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Until today, the CRC is the most widely accepted human rights instrument worldwide; only one country, the United States, has not ratified it. The convention belongs to the so-called targeted treaties (Alston 2005, 789) stipulating both civil and political, as well as economic, social and cultural rights. Just like other conventions embracing social rights, the CRC emphasizes the need for international cooperation to support developing countries in the progressive realization of children’s rights. In this chapter, I will introduce, reflect and take a critical perspective on multi-level actor partnerships as particular forms of such cooperation contributing to rights implementation. These partnerships often emerge in the context of transnational development projects and comprise international organizations (IOs), national governments, sometimes private businesses and local non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The main argument I will present is that multi-level actor partnerships can initiate rights implementation processes. Due to the temporary character of these partnerships, however, implementation is not always sustainable. Therefore, more attention needs to be paid to sustainability concerns pertinent to multi-level actor partnerships in research and in practice (Jenichen and Schapper 2015). To further understand the emergence and functioning of multi-level actor partnerships, I draw on theoretical considerations from international relations (IR) scholarship on norm compliance, norm localization and public-private partnerships (PPPs). These will be complemented with further insights that have their origin in anthropology, sociology and development research. Empirically, my findings are based on an in-depth case study of Bangladesh. Methods for conducting this study involved intensive field research, including expert interviews, field observations and focus group discussions. I also interviewed children, parents and key community actors as the target group of children’s rights. They, however, have been very careful in voicing concerns about initiatives that were launched in cooperation with IOs or the

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government. Hence, the most valuable statements on local implementation and norm localization could be gained from expert interviews with local civil society. I selected Bangladesh as a typical case. Its implementation problems are also representative of other country cases (Gerring 2007, 149). Moreover, the country displays a great diversity in children’s rights programmes, including projects by the UN International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), the International Labour Organization (ILO), local NGOs and the government. It is also the only country in which UNICEF and the ILO (usually following a different approach towards children’s rights) have cooperated in an exceptional policy project in the garment sector. Therefore, Bangladesh can also be regarded as a unique case from which important lessons can be drawn. In the following, I will first introduce major children’s rights instruments and frame the discrepancy between global norms and compliance deficits as one central question in IR scholarship on norms. This includes carving out explanations – from IR, anthropology and development studies – on how to overcome this discrepancy. In the next section, I will refer to Bangladesh as an empirical case study as well as to the emergence of multi-level actor partnerships for implementing children’s rights in the country. Finally, I critically discuss whether contracted local NGOs can serve as intermediary agents and raise sustainability concerns, before I draw together some conclusions.

The discrepancy between the aims of global norms and local realities The global aims of child protection are primarily laid out in three international conventions: the aforementioned UN CRC (UN 1989), the ILO Minimum Age Convention (MAC) (ILO 1973), and the ILO Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (WFCL) (ILO 1999). Ratification of these conventions can be seen as an indicator of the official acceptance of respective norms (Liese 2006, 67). The CRC is known as the human rights instrument with the widest international recognition. Today, 196 countries have legally committed to it (UNTC 2016). The WFCL has received similar approval: 180 out of 186 ILO member states have ratified it until today (NORMLEX 2016a). By now, the MAC has been ratified by 168 member states of the ILO (NORMLEX 2016b). Despite the broad international consensus that exists around these three children’s rights conventions (Reynolds et al., 2006, 298), an empirical gap can be observed between the aims and ambitions set out and the local realities on the ground. This is particularly true in developing countries. The UN, especially those organizational units concerned with child protection and promotion, such as the ILO and UNICEF, regularly delivers empirical data on the local child rights situation underlining this discrepancy. New estimates published by the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), the ILO’s technical cooperation unit responsible for implementing the WFCL and MAC, reveal that progress in eliminating child labour in the last measurement period between 2008 and 2012 could be

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achieved. Nevertheless, there are still about 168 million child labourers in the world today. This means that 10 per cent of the world’s children are child labourers. Moreover, approximately 85 million children are still occupied in hazardous work that is detrimental to their physical and mental development (ILO 2013, 3). Latest figures from UNICEF, the agency mainly responsible for implementing the CRC, show a similar trend: there are improvements in the rights situation but these come at a very slow pace. In 2012, the estimated number of children who died under five years of age was still at 6.6 million, compared to 7.0 million in 2010 (UNICEF 2014, 23–28). The most severe health problems children face are diarrhoea, and diseases related to the absence of vaccines, hunger and malnutrition, polluted air, HIV and AIDS, but also the lack of access to clean drinking water and sanitary facilities (UNICEF 2012, 4–5). In relation to education, UNICEF and UNESCO even declare that ‘progress has stagnated’, and that ‘the unfinished education agenda’ needs to be addressed (UNICEF and UNESCO 2013, 3). Today, there are still about 57 million children, among them 32 million girls, who are not enrolled in primary schools (ibid.). This very slow progress or stagnation marks the chasm between rights acceptance and local realities. The pace of progress is particularly slow in countries that face difficulties in realizing the complex, costly and time-intensive implementation measures anchored in each convention. The case of Bangladesh reveals that it is not necessarily the harmonization of national legislation that leads to these difficulties. Quite the contrary, the government of Bangladesh ratified the CRC and the WFCL very soon after their adoption and reformed its national legislation accordingly within a few years. Its current national labour legislation is even in congruence with the MAC, which it has not yet ratified (Khair 2005, 39). Legislative change, however, does not necessarily reveal whether compliance among the actual rights holders could be achieved. In Bangladesh, only partial change in the child rights situation on the ground can be observed. Whereas primary education improved considerably, the health situation of children even worsened in some respects. Although there is better immunization coverage today, the use of improved drinking water sources decreased and the use of improved sanitation facilities stagnated (UNICEF 2014, 42). Regarding child labour, estimates are very difficult to make since the last national child labour survey was carried out between 2002 and 2003 (BBS 2003) and no newer data are available. Human rights practitioners emphasize that global norms have to gain meaning within states among the local people (Robinson 2002) – they have to become anchored in local contexts (Uvin 2004, 239) to not just remain a nominal construct on paper. Louise Arbour, the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, claims that one key challenge in fostering national and local implementation processes is to translate global norms to appropriate policy programmes that become effective in country-specific, local contexts (Arbour 2006, iii). However, empirical studies that systematically (and comparatively) carve out the main features of these programmes and which reflect them in light of

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their contribution to rights implementation are still rare. In this chapter – after introducing theoretical explanations for the discrepancy between norm acceptance and societal compliance – such a comparison will be undertaken for the case of Bangladesh. Hence, the objective of this chapter is to present empirical insights suggesting how to overcome the disparity between the aims of global norms and local realities.

Explanations from international relations scholarship Norm research in IR points to conceptual differentiations between ‘norm adoption’ and ‘norm internalization’ (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, 902–909), and between a ‘prescriptive status’ and ‘norm-consistent behaviour’ (Risse et al., 1999). These conceptualizations carve out the empirical difference between formally ratifying an international treaty and state actors’ behaviour according to it. State governments do not necessarily have to be convinced of a human rights norm when they ratify it. Instead, they could merely demonstrate commitment due to external pressure, conditionalities for foreign aid or for advancing international cooperation (e.g. Risse et al., 1999). Hence, states can de jure adopt a human rights norm, without de facto respecting it. Compliance scholarship in IR carves out mechanisms fostering behavioural conformity with the norms stipulated in international treaties (Chayes and Chayes 1998, 39). Factors advancing compliance are monitoring and sanctioning, juridification, and legal as well as civil internalization (Zürn and Joerges 2005). Another important mechanism is compliance management (Chayes et al., 1998; Zürn and Joerges 2005; Mitchell 2007). This includes capacity building, the provision of administrative, technological and financial resources and information (Zürn and Joerges 2005, 30; Chayes et al., 1998, 40). Among other sub-mechanisms that have to be considered, effective cooperation between state and non-state actors plays a significant role in compliance management (Jacobsen and Brown Weiss 2000, 512–13; Tallberg 2002, 609). In compliance research, mechanisms directed at state actors to foster rule conformity among norm addressees are differentiated from mechanisms directed at society to foster rule conformity among norm targets (Zürn and Joerges 2005, 26). This differentiation is particularly relevant for understanding compliance with human rights treaties which, on the one hand, are intergovernmental treaties in the world of states but, at the same time, embrace societal regulations with individual people being the rights holders (Risse 2004, 228). In the past decade, research on PPPs in IR has contributed to understanding institutionalized modes of cooperation between public and private actors for the delivery of governance services (Börzel and Risse 2005, 198). In PPPs, both civil society and private business actors – in cooperation with government partners or IOs – take over traditional state responsibilities and participate in providing respective public goods (Huckel et al., 2007, 115). Hence, they can be described as ‘hybrid types of governance’ (Schäferhoff et al., 2009). One decisive conceptual differentiation of transnational PPPs from

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other cooperative modes of governance is that they allow for non-state actors to be, to the greatest possible extent, equal partners in the policy process from agenda setting to implementing decisions (Huckel et al., 2007, 116). Increasingly, PPPs emerge in developing and transformation countries that lack the capabilities, resources and administrative capacities to implement norms and enforce political decisions (Huckel et al., 2007, 248). By providing rights-related social services, they engage in local norm implementation processes. To achieve common objectives, PPPs exchange and mutually provide material resources, among them money, goods and infrastructure, as well as ideational ones, including knowledge, information and experience (Huckel et al., 2007, 118). Thus, they address and complement each other’s deficits and pursue common goals with combined strengths (Reinicke and Deng 1999, vii, 98). In areas of limited statehood, internal management and external capacity-building mechanisms, the institutionalization of learning processes and strengthening of local ownership through participation of affected actors count as success factors for PPPs (Beisheim et al., 2007, 259–62). Research on norm socialization, human rights change and compliance in IR is strongly focused on state actors (Schimmelfennig 2002). Therefore, it continues to be too state centred to explain comprehensively how global institutional arrangements become meaningful within local societies (Acharya 2012). Scholarship on PPPs, in contrast, acknowledges the role of non-state actors in implementing social norms. In this strand of research, cooperation between IOs, private businesses, state governments and/or international NGOs is often emphasized. Local actors or community members, however, are only very rarely taken into account. PPP research often concentrates on explaining the mere delivery of social services without diving deeper into explaining processes of norm localization. Amitav Acharya has criticized IR scholarship in this respect and has emphasized that campaigns by transnational civil society – also pertinent to human rights – remain in the centre of attention, neglecting and marginalizing the agency role of local actors (Acharya 2012, 2). He conceptualizes norm localization as an active construction process undertaken by local actors for establishing congruence between universal norms and local beliefs and practices. Discourses, framing, grafting and cultural selection are utilized to initiate this process and local civil society plays a key role in it (Acharya 2012, 2–3; Acharya 2004, 239–241). Localization can be understood as a dynamic undertaking involving re-interpretation, re-definition and re-constitution of norms for attaining congruence with a local normative order (Acharya 2004, 244). This means that external norms can also be adapted and converged in order to meet local practices (ibid., 251). Norm localization is not merely one-directional; it can rather initiate a two-way dialogue, in which local actors mediate between ‘outsider’ and ‘insider norms’. Thus, not only will the local community learn about global norms, but also international actors can study the meaning of local beliefs and practices (Acharya 2012, 3). This mediation between global human rights norms and the local norm target group has already been examined in greater

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detail in scholarship that can be situated at the intersection of anthropology, sociology and development studies.

Insights from anthropology, sociology and development studies Many of the studies originating in anthropology, sociology and development research suggest that a comprehensive understanding of the local context is an essential prerequisite for implementing global rights. Scholars emphasize that global norms need ‘local emphasis, refurbishing and interpretation’ (Reynolds et al., 2006, 298) to become meaningful in a particular context. Hence, development programmes that target children and youth as a specific group should at best reflect their own reality (Boyden and Mann 2005, 4). White (2002) suggests that economic as well as cultural (and identity) factors need to be recognized and combined (White 2002, 734–735). Abstracting children from their own social environment and treating them as one independent client group in development policies leads to a situation in which the intricacy of the relationship between children, their families and the entire community is being neglected (White 2002, 734). Jo Boyden et al. argue that what is needed to design appropriate policies is not only a contextual knowledge of children’s reality but that this knowledge be provided by the children themselves (Boyden et al., 1998). In line with this argument, children are viewed as social agents who participate in and shape their own environment (Woodhead 2006, 29–31; Boyden and Mann 2005, 19). The work of Sally Engle Merry has been path-breaking in explaining how global rights become meaningful in local contexts (Merry 2006a, 2006b). Merry introduces the concept of vernacularization as the adaptation of global norms to local communities, their institutions and their meanings (Merry 2006b, 39). Key to vernacularization processes are the agents who connect behavioural standards codified in international law with local realities and practices. These ‘translators’ or ‘intermediaries’ are people who engage at various levels, including the local, regional, national and global spheres (ibid.). Human rights intermediaries can be activists of a social movement, lawyers, NGO leaders, academics or others who ‘have one foot in the transnational community and one at home’ (ibid., 42). This means that they need to apply the language of IOs and external donors but they also need to reach out to the local norm targets. Translating agents depend on external funding and shape their strategies in a way that attracts donors. Nevertheless, they have to create a suitable frame that resonates within the particular cultural context (Snow 2004, 401). Intermediaries ‘indigenize’ meanings; they make them comprehensible within prevalent cultural terminology, ideas and traditions (Merry 2006b, 39–41). Often, NGOs take the positions of intermediaries: they have legal expertise, they know the human rights system and how to apply the language of pertinent conventions (Merry et al. 2010, 102), and they have access to the local target populations. Interventions of NGOs as intermediaries of human rights translation can lead to informal protection processes and institutional support

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(Boyden and Mann 2005, 8). There are some key parallels in the concepts of norm localization and vernacularization. Both can be understood as endeavouring to mediate between global norms and local beliefs and practices, as well as between IOs and local community groups. In addition to that, both concepts highlight the meaning of local agency and the key role local civil society plays in this mediating process. In this chapter, I will make use of insights from both strands of literature introduced above. I argue that achieving norm compliance of a target group requires a national and a local implementation process. I understand national implementation in accordance with the compliance literature (e.g. Jacobsen and Brown Weiss 2000, 4–5) as a process towards achieving norm conformity of the government. This is a process that takes place at the national level and state actors play a central role in it. In order to achieve societal compliance, however, I argue that a local implementation process also needs to come about. I understand local implementation as the process that makes norms effective within society for the respective norm targets. Hence, it takes place within society, and both state and societal actors potentially play a role in it. To learn more about local implementation, we need to be aware of the specificity of local contexts, about actors who mediate between international norms and local practices, and about social mechanisms governing the behaviour of local actors. In the following, I will introduce an empirical case study on children’s rights implementation in Bangladesh from which one can learn more about these actors and mechanisms.

Multi-level actor partnerships in Bangladesh In a context of severe poverty such as in Bangladesh – ranking 142nd out of 188 countries according to the Human Development Index (UNDP 2015) – children are particularly disadvantaged and vulnerable. The ‘Save the Children’ Child Development Index ranks Bangladesh 98th out of 143 countries from the available data (Save the Children UK 2008, 21). Taking developments in recent years into account, however, child well-being in Bangladesh keeps improving. The South Asian state even belongs to those countries that achieved the most notable progress between the last survey period (1994–99) and the most recent one (2000–06) (ibid., 13). One explanation for this progression is the emergence of multi-level actor partnerships contributing to local children’s rights implementation. Bangladesh belongs to the first nations in the world that ratified the 1989 CRC in August 1990 (Khair 2005, 20) and the 1999 WFCL in March 2001 (NORMLEX 2016a). Three very basic rights stipulated therein, i.e. the right to basic education, the right to primary health care and protection from the worst forms of child labour, will be further investigated in this case study. Children’s right to education and the right to health care and nutritional provisions are anchored in the CRC (UN 1989, Art. 28, Art. 24), and the WFCL calls for immediately removing children from the worst forms of child

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labour (ILO 1999a, Art. 7.2.a, Art. 7.2.b). Both article 24 and article 28 of the CRC and a recommendation accompanying the WFCL (ILO 1999b) emphasize that international cooperation needs to be encouraged to support progressive rights realization. As a consequence of its legal commitment to international children’s rights, the government of Bangladesh started harmonizing national legislative provisions. The Constitution declares the right to education and the right to health and nutrition as fundamental principles of state policy (Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, Art. 15.1), and a Primary Education Act was passed in 1990 making primary education obligatory in all areas of the country (Primary Education Compulsory Act 1990, Art. 3). In contrast to these prompt educational reforms, laws enshrining the prohibition of hazardous child labour have developed comparatively slowly. Only in 2006, the Bangladesh Labour Code, a legislative act that consolidated the bulk of national labour laws from British colonial rule and the Pakistan period, entered into force. It explicitly prohibits labour for all children below the age of 14 and includes provisions protecting adolescents from hazardous work (Bangladesh Labour Code 2006, Art. 39–44). The Labour Code is the result of a labour law reform that provides for domestic law to conform to major ILO conventions (Khair 2005, 39). Both the Primary Education Act and the Bangladesh Labour Code demonstrate that the government pursued a national implementation strategy. Despite this congruence between global norms and national law, however, key gaps in local implementation prevailed for a considerable period of time. To fill these gaps, international organizations, the ILO and UNICEF, approached the government offering international cooperation for realizing the CRC and the WFCL. The ILO’s technical cooperation programme IPEC planned three major, externally funded policy initiatives in cooperation with Bangladesh’s Ministry of Labour and Employment (MoLE) and local NGOs. All of these initiatives were PPPs operating across various levels, i.e. involving international organizations, the national government (and in one case, a national employers’ association) and local civil society. A project called Preventing and Eliminating the Worst Forms of Child Labour in Selected Formal and Informal Sectors in Bangladesh (ILO/IPEC/USDoL) – funded by the US Department of Labor – focused on the systematic elimination of the worst forms of child labour in five prioritized formal and informal sectors of Bangladesh. Among them were the bidi1 industry, the construction sector, the leather tanneries, match factories, and domestic child labour. Implementation of this project was carried out between 2000 and 2004 (ILO and IPEC 2003a, iv). In 2001, another project initiative entitled Prevention and Elimination of Selected Worst Forms of Child Labour in Dhaka City (ILO/IPEC/NET) became operational for the following five years, with financial support from the Netherlands (Bannerman and Berghuys 2008, i). The programme focused on abolishing hazardous child labour from Dhaka’s informal working sector which employed around 94 per cent of the child work force in Bangladesh’s

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capital (ILO and IPEC 2003b, 8). In both of these ILO/IPEC projects, children were withdrawn from hazardous occupations and provided with education, skills training and health care services. Here, an international organization (the ILO) cooperated with the national government (the MoLE) and local NGOs (as implementing agencies). The Bangladesh Garments Sector Projects (ILO/IPEC/UNICEF/BGMEA) were established by both IOs, the ILO and UNICEF, in cooperation with the MoLE, and Bangladesh’s Garment Manufacturers and Exporters’ Association (BGMEA). The initiative concentrated on withdrawing and rehabilitating children employed in one of the numerous garment factories. The participating children received stipends as income compensation and became integrated into particular project schools. Project implementation commenced in 1995 and terminated in 2003. Whereas part of the project costs was shared among the four main partners, the United States, Norway and Italy served as the main donors (ILO and IPEC 2004, 50). In this endeavour, two IOs (the ILO and UNICEF) cooperated with the national government (the MoLE), a national employer’s association (BGMEA) and local NGOs. UNICEF, in addition, launched a large-scale programme with the objective of implementing the right to primary education for children engaged in hazardous child labour. The Basic Education for Hard to Reach Urban Working Children Project (BEHTRUWC) was founded in cooperation with Bangladesh’s Ministry of Primary and Mass Education (MoPME) and offered non-formal education to children who continued working. Its first project phase, between 1997 and 2004, was funded by the United Kingdom and Sweden (Government of Bangladesh and DNFE 2002, i). Canada took over funding in the second phase which went on until 2012. In this case, an IO (UNICEF) cooperated with the national government (the MoPME) and local NGOs.

Children’s rights implementation through multi-level actor partnerships In all of these cases, the ILO and UNICEF contracted local NGOs to conduct the norm implementation process on the ground. Usually, the ILO and UNICEF predetermined certain criteria that NGOs had to fulfil to be eligible as a project partner. NGOs were selected on the basis of their management capacities, their expertise in providing rights-related services, their previous experience in implementing similar projects, their access to the target areas and their reputation.2 Selected local NGOs received a paid contract from the respective IO and the ministry in charge. Based upon that, they undertook all implementation activities on the ground that directly involved the local norm targets, i.e. the children and their families. In this way, multi-level actor partnerships between IOs, the national government and local NGOs came into existence. A systematic empirical analysis of the main mechanisms of these policy projects points to basic features of a common local implementation strategy that all of these actor partnerships have pursued. First of all, they establish a

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local infrastructure through which rights-related services, such as schooling and health care, can be delivered to the children. BEHTRUWC, for example, during its second phase, managed to set up 6,646 learning centres in the urban slums of Dhaka and Chittagong.3 In these centres, child labourers receive non-formal education sessions that are compatible with their respective working hours.4 Second, institutions that manage and administrate this infrastructure were established. In Bangladesh, these were usually called centre management committees composed of local government authorities, employers, elites like the Imam or the Mullah, school teachers, social workers and parents. This inclusive approach helped to strengthen community ownership for the learning centres. In the case of ILO/IPEC/USDoL, the programme facilitating committees arranged regular meetings with NGO field workers and ILO monitors to discuss and solve emerging problems related to project operation and service provision.5 These committees turned to institutionalized anti-child labour platforms within local society (ILO and IPEC 2003a, 19). The managing institutions coordinated the delivery of protective measures and rights-related services to the norm targets. Depending on the specific project’s objective, children were removed from the worst forms of child labour and provided with health care services, non-formal education or vocational training. One example is ILO/IPEC/NET, in which project partners withdrew children from their hazardous workplaces and integrated them into multipurpose centres. Here, they received education services and health care. Their parents became eligible for micro-credit and were offered courses on entrepreneurial skills. In this way, the household’s dependency on child labour was shifted towards more reliance on self-employed adult labour (ILO and IPEC 2006, 7). A qualitative comparative analysis of all the project mechanisms at stake revealed that compliance among the norm targets could best be achieved if a certain combination of regulatory mechanisms was in place. Children and their families made use of the rights-related services offered through the policy projects if these were combined with awareness raising of children’s rights and the creation of income-generating opportunities for the entire family. In addition to that, projects turned out to be much more effective if children were targeted with the help of household surveys. In this way, the project implementers directly addressed children who were engaged in the worst forms of labour, who were not in school and were without health care (Schapper 2014). All of these implementation projects were conducted by multi-level actor partnerships: public and private partners of various levels combine their strengths for making global rights travel to their local targets. Cooperation of the project partners is characterized by a division of labour. On the basis of their knowledge and experience in technical cooperation, international organizations usually propose a norm-promoting project to a government that requires international cooperation for norm implementation. IOs not only function as the initiator of such policy projects, but also design and plan it

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according to their technical expertise. Furthermore, they engage in a project’s supervision, monitoring and administration, and in some cases send their own field workers to support the local implementation process. Governments, of course, have to be willing to cooperate; they have to agree to IOs taking a policy initiative within their sovereign territory. Hence, multi-level actor partnerships can only emerge within a cooperative state (Mayntz 2009, 43). The government’s own role within these partnerships can vary. In both ILO/ IPEC projects, it was limited to approving its initiation. In contrast to that, the MoPME undertook some of the planning, supervisory and administrative tasks within BEHTRUWC. In the framework of ILO/IPEC/UNICEF/ BGMEA, it even provided a substantial part of the financial resources, engaged in capacity building, monitoring, and took over part of the field assistance responsibility. In all cases, however, local NGOs undertook the bulk of tasks related to local implementation. They provided for the establishment of community centres and administrating institutions, they initiated schooling and health services and installed regulatory measures, such as awarenessraising activities. They are the partners that have access on the ground to the norm targets in urban slums and poor rural areas. Local NGOs are in direct contact with the projects’ beneficiaries; they convince them to participate in rights-promoting activities, and they make them aware of the meaning of children’s rights. Thus, cooperative partnerships between international organizations, the national government and local NGOs combine their strengths to compensate governmental implementation deficits.

The key role of local actors Within multi-level partnerships, local actors play a key role in mediating between IOs (and the government) and local communities, and between global norms and local realities. Thus, local civil society engages in norm localization as described by Acharya (2004, 2012) and in vernacularization as proposed by Merry (2006a, 2006b). They, unlike the government and the IOs, have access to the norm target communities in disadvantaged rural areas and urban slums. In these communities, they are perceived as ‘insider proponents’ (see Acharya 2004, 249) who know about prevalent problems, such as poverty, illiteracy and hazardous child labour, who can relate to the people and the challenges they are confronted with and who, in a first step, simply engage in a dialogue with them. To initiate this dialogue, the local NGOs often undertake house-to-house visits in a respective target area.6 During these visits, they establish contact with the target communities and start communicating with them. Instead of talking about rights – often perceived as abstract concepts – they address aspects that are visible and pressing problems in local people’s lives: Rights is in the book, in the law book or conceptionally this is abstract, it cannot be touched. What people can touch, what can people feel is, what

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This exchange about ‘visible things’ does not only take place with the parents of working children who do not go to school, or the children themselves, but also with their employers. These are often the owners of informal businesses, i.e. small companies that are not registered under the national tax system and which do not respect national labour laws. Rather, these informal businesses operate on the edge of survival; their owners often are also poor and depend on cheap child labour to sustain their small enterprises. Parents, on the other hand, send their children to work because they believe that formal governmental schools are not meant to educate the children of slum dwellers or people from disadvantaged rural communities. Thus, they urge their children into so-called apprenticeships that are low-paid, hazardous and detrimental to their health and education situation: Since there are very few employment opportunities in the country […], they feel that instead of sending children to school, if I involve him at the early stage in the job […], whether he is paid or unpaid but he is involved, after three, four years of experience, he’ll be getting good jobs and more options […].8 Acknowledging these perceptions that have evolved in a situation of extreme poverty, local NGOs try to mediate between the meaning of basic children’s rights principles and communal practices and beliefs. Thus, they initiate small compromises by convincing employers and parents that children can join nonformal education programmes within the framework of the multi-level partnership projects. This means that children do not have to give up working completely but receive basic education (and later skills) training either before or after their working day. Lessons are prepared by teachers who are trained to work with child labourers and the entire non-formal education programme takes place within their own community to avoid dangerous long-distance travelling, especially for girls. This means that children do not have to give up income-earning completely. However, local NGOs in cooperation with the employers try to remove hazards from children’s workplaces in very small and affordable steps, such as providing health and safety training and protective clothing. Additionally, children obtain access to regular health check-ups and to medical services. In this way, the very basic meaning of fundamental children’s rights, including protection from hazardous child labour, and the provision of education and health care, can be mediated: So it’s not, it’s not saying about what law is, it’s more understanding what is the inner meaning of the law and what the law is for. So we

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[concentrate] more just on those aspects, on understanding elements, on the understanding part of the law rather than communicating the law itself […].9 Community members can appropriate, discuss or even question these ‘inner understandings’ of the law in civic centres initiated by local NGOs. In these centres, all social services offered through multi-level partnerships are delivered. Moreover, the entire community, including social and religious elites, but also social workers, parents and children themselves, can meet and reflect on how to integrate the meaning of these rights principles into their local practices. It turned out to be very important to involve the Mullah and the Imam because they played a significant role multiplying the message of appropriate social norms. Eventually, local NGOs viewed community involvement as one central factor though which children’s rights programmes could gain a sustainable impact: This is the root of the sustainability, I think, because if we don’t involve the local people, we are the outsider, […] but they are the people, their area; […], if we aware [of] them, […] then they are the actual factors to sustain the project.10 Local communities indeed spread the message of children’s rights protection such as promoted in the ILO and UNICEF programmes. At the same time, however, they rely on the infrastructure and services offered through the international partners in these multi-level actor partnerships to realize protection from hazardous child labour and the provision of education and health care.

Sustainability concerns Upon a closer look, the temporary character of multi-level actor partnerships implies several problems related to local rights implementation. In Bangladesh, most of the programme activities introduced above depended on external funding by donor agencies and had to be terminated after a certain project period. Although IOs initially entered into legal agreements prescribing a continuation of rights-related service provision, the government, in most cases, finally refrained from taking over the established infrastructure and from offering education and health services. As a consequence, learning centres were ultimately dismantled after respective project phases, and children and their families were – despite all awareness-raising activities – again denied their rights: So that’s why I was so incredibly disappointed that we had to cut down our infrastructure, that we had to dismantle it because we had raised expectation levels, we had raised value levels, we had raised, etc., which

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Therefore, dependency on donors and a lack of commitment by national governments led to a situation in which the implementation of children’s rights according to global norms could only be achieved temporarily. Sustainable rights protection and promotion was, in the end, prevented by the government itself. The government of Bangladesh took the view that new external funding would initiate new projects which would re-establish infrastructure and re-install rights-related services. This means that beside governmental commitment, donors themselves also need to take responsibility for making rights implementation processes more sustainable. Undertaking rights-related project activities and contracting local NGOs, on the other hand, fostered an incremental growth of service-providing NGOs which lost their critical stance in relation to the government’s implementation failures. A conflict of interest emerged between their own advocacy functions, i.e. to externally pressure for better implementation policies, and gaining lucrative development contracts, i.e. becoming implementers themselves (compare Deacon 2007, 94–95). According to statistics published by the government of Bangladesh, both the number of externally funded development projects approved (not only relating to children’s rights but other issues as well) and the number of local NGOs have increased significantly over the last 20 years. Whereas in June 1990, eight projects financed through foreign aid had been approved and 267 local NGOs existed, ten years later, in 2000, the figures were 776 projects and 1,347 NGOs. The latest statistics from June 2010 show another major expansion, with 1,172 development projects and 2,305 local NGOs (NGO Affairs Bureau 2010). These figures serve as proof of several issues at once: the growing number of externally funded policy projects that lead to increased relationships between IOs and local NGOs. Ultimately, these development contracts have created more and more serviceproviding NGOs, and although they take over important local implementation responsibilities – within the framework of multi-level actor partnerships – they do so only temporarily, on the basis of external funding and as long as the government does not engage, without longer-term sustainable effects.

Contracted agents as intermediaries? Reflecting these empirical results in light of the theoretical considerations introduced above, it becomes clear that the multi-level actor partnerships identified in the empirical analysis of this case study are special types of PPPs. In some respects, they differ from what recent research in IR scholarship suggests. In the multi-level actor partnerships examined here, the cooperation of actors cannot be described as non-hierarchical as in global policy networks (e.g. Reinicke and Deng 1999), partners are not equal in agenda setting and conducting a policy process such as in PPPs (e.g. Huckel et al.

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2007, 116), and stakeholders do not have the same decision-making powers as can be observed in inclusive institutions (e.g. Rittberger 2009). Instead, what is characteristic of Bangladesh’s actor partnerships is their multi-level character and their hierarchical organization. Multi-level institutions consisting of IOs, national governments and local non-governmental actors have a considerable vertical outreach for transporting global norms to their local targets. Moreover, they expand their horizontal level of influence towards reaching societal rights holders. Actors at the higher levels, IOs and governments, are usually responsible for policy initiation, planning, supervision and monitoring, and for providing financial resources. Local actors, mostly NGOs, are indispensable for local-level implementation. This means that local NGOs serve as transmitting agents or intermediaries just as Merry (2006a, 2006b) has suggested. These intermediaries are the most important agents of a vernacularization process (Merry 2006a) or norm localization (Acharya 2004, 2012); they take over significant functions in local implementation (Schapper 2014; Jenichen and Schapper 2015). They have access channels to local communities and shape norm-promoting programmatic interventions in a way that reflects children’s and their family’s realities (Boyden and Mann 2005, 4). In the policy programmes introduced here, intermediaries transport standards for child well-being agreed upon in the global arenas of IOs to Bangladesh’s local level by establishing infrastructure, institutions and providing rights-related services. With these programmes, they address material as well as social factors through the initiation (and combination) of income-generating and awareness-building activities (see also Woodhead 2006, 17–18; White 2002, 734–735). Raising the consciousness of local communities about, for instance, the meaning of education for breaking an intergenerational cycle of poverty, often leads to a situation in which community members, even children, continue to multiply these messages. In this way, children and families themselves become participating subjects in the rights realization process (James 2007, 270). In the course of awareness raising, local NGOs, in particular, pursue intermediary functions in the sense that Merry (2006a, 2006b) has identified in her studies. They ‘indigenize’ meanings of global norms by utilizing familiar terms, symbols, stories, traditions and practices to raise consciousness of them (Merry 2006b, 39–41). Here, local particularities like community meetings can be used as a cultural resource for change (Merry 2006a, 9). If it is possible to integrate social and/or religious elites like the Mullah or the Imam into the awareness-raising process, it will be much more feasible to mainstream children’s rights within the respective community. However, multi-level actor partnerships are usually called into life within the framework of IOs’ technical cooperation projects, and therewith have a temporary character. This means that local NGOs are contracted on a competitive basis and only take over intermediary functions for a given time frame depending upon external funding. They can only initiate local rights implementation processes – and, therefore, compensate for a lack of

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government responsibility – for a limited period. Eventually, the government either has to take over implementation responsibility or it has to continue funding the activities of NGOs to keep up the rights realization process. Contracted NGOs that continuously cooperate with governmental agencies, though, tend to act like social entrepreneurs aiming at gathering new lucrative development contracts. They usually lose their critical (external) voice towards governmental children’s rights implementation deficits and become an internal partner of the domestic rights realization strategy. In addition, in their role of a social business actor, they may no longer even have an interest in sustainable rights implementation. If they were eventually successful in abolishing the root causes for deficits in rights realization, they would prevent themselves from receiving attractive development jobs (Schapper 2014; Jenichen and Schapper 2015). Issues such as these have yet to be comprehensively addressed – in the scholarship on PPPs and in the literature highlighting vernacularization or norm localization processes.

Conclusion In this chapter, the role of multi-level actor partnerships for implementing children’s rights has been introduced and discussed. The empirical analysis was guided by theoretical considerations from IR literature on norm compliance, norm localization and public-private partnerships that have been supplemented with insights from development studies and anthropology, most importantly Merry’s (2006a, 2006b) work on vernacularization processes and the role of intermediaries. Combining these strands of literature helps understanding the implementation of children’s rights comprehensively, including local processes of norm realization. After a national government – in this case study Bangladesh – has ratified international child rights conventions and changed national legislation accordingly, multi-level actor partnerships contribute to transporting these norms to the local societal level. These partnerships comprise IOs, national governments and local NGOs. The latter take up a crucial role as intermediaries in local implementation and norm localization. They have unique access channels to the target communities and utilize local language and practices to shape awareness-raising processes. However, since multi-level actor partnerships often emerge within the context of transnational development projects, they usually depend on external funding. This means that the partners involved cooperate within a limited time frame and terminate the endeavour when the budget is exhausted. Hence, partnerships initiate processes of local rights implementation and then, if funding is withdrawn, cannot always sustain it (Jenichen and Schapper 2015). This has, first of all, serious implications for the societal rights holders who have – due to processes of norm localization – learned about the value and potential of education and eventually cannot continue education programmes or no longer have access to health care after the project comes to an end. Second, contracting local non-state partners leads to a situation in

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which NGOs concentrate more on gathering development contracts from IOs or the government itself (and internally engage in local implementation) than on critically observing the implementation process (from the outside). Furthermore, there is a risk that these groups have an inherent interest in seeing rights-related issues remain ultimately unresolved in order to secure their own jobs. It is therefore vital to monitor and further research sustainability concerns relating to multi-level actor partnerships that emerge from transnational development projects (Jenichen and Schapper 2015). In particular, this concerns the capacity building of government actors during the project period, government commitment after project termination, and the long-term support of norm-promoting activities.

Notes 1 Bidis are small hand-rolled cigarettes. 2 Interview Abul Haseeb Khan, Resource Integration Centre, Director, 26 May 2008; interview Aftab Uddin Ahmad, Underprivileged Children’s Educational Programs, Executive Director, 25 June 2008; interview Ronald E. Berghuys, ILO/ IPEC Chief Technical Adviser, 19 May 2008. 3 Interview Mohammad Golam Kibria, UNICEF, Education Section, Education Officer, 4 June 2008. 4 Interview Rezaul Quader, Ministry of Primary and Mass Education, Project Director, 8 July 2008. 5 Interview Nazrul Islam Miah, ILO, Administrative and Finance Assistant, 24 June 2008. 6 Interview Sanwar Moni, Padakhep, Coordinator Executive Director’s Secretariat, 1 July 2008. 7 Interview M. Ehsanur Rahman, Dhaka Ahsania Mission, Deputy Executive Director, 25 May 2008. 8 Interview Mohammad Golam Kibria. 9 Interview M. Ehsanur Rahman. 10 Interview Sanwar Moni. 11 Interview Ronald E. Berghuys.

Bibliography Acharya, Amitav. 2004. How Ideas Spread: Whose Norms Matter? Norm Localization and Institutional Change in Asian Regionalism. International Organization, 58: 239–275. Acharya, Amitav. 2012. Local and Transnational Civil Society as Agents of Norm Diffusion. Paper presented to the Global Governance Workshop, Department of International Development, Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford, 1–3 June. Alston, Philip. 2005. Ships Passing in the Night: The Current State of the Human Rights and Development Debate Seen through the Lens of Millennium Development Goals. Human Rights Quarterly, 27: 755–829. Arbour, Louise. 2006. Introduction by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. OHCHR, 5–6. Geneva: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

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Bangladesh Labour Code. 2006. (Translated English version.) Dhaka: CCB Foundation. Bannermann, Mathew J. and Ronald E. Berghuys. 2008. Breaking the Cycle: Key Learning from an ILO-IPEC Project in Bangladesh. Dhaka: International Labour Office. BBS. 2003. Report on National Child Labour Survey. Dhaka: Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, Planning Division, Ministry of Planning, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. Beisheim, Marianne, Andrea Liese and Cornelia Ulbert. 2007. Erfolgsbedingungen transnationaler Partnerschaften: Hypothesen und erste Ergebnisse. In Risse, T. and U. Lehmkuhl (eds) Regieren ohne Staat? Governance in Räumen begrenzter Staatlichkeit. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 247–271. Börzel, Tanja A. and Thomas Risse. 2005. Public-Private Partnerships: Effective and Legitimate Tools of Transnational Governance. In Grande, E. and L.W. Pauly (eds) Complex Sovereignty: On the Reconstitution of Political Authority in the 21st Century. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 195–216. Boyden, Jo, Birgitta Ling and William Myers. 1998. What Works for Working Children. Stockholm: Rädda Barnen. Boyden, Jo and Gillian Mann. 2005. Children’s Risk, Resilience, and Coping in Extreme Situations. In Michael Ungar (ed.) Pathways to Resilience Across Cultures and Contexts: Handbook for Working with Children and Youth. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 3–25. Chayes, Abram and Antonia Chayes. 1998. The New Sovereignty. Compliance with International Regulatory Agreements. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Chayes, Abram, Antonia Chayes and Ronald B. Mitchell. 1998. Managing Compliance: A Comparative Perspective. In Jacobsen, H.K. and E. Brown Weiss (eds) Engaging Countries: Strengthening Compliance with International Environmental Accords. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 39–62. Deacon, Bob. 2007. Global Social Policy and Governance. London: Sage. Finnemore, Martha and Kathryn Sikkink. 1998. Norm Dynamics and Political Change. International Organization, 52: 887–917. Gerring, John. 2007. Case Study Research: Principles and Practices. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Government of Bangladesh. 1971. Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. Last modified 2011. bdlaws.minlaw.gov.bd/print_sections_all.php?id=367. Government of Bangladeshand DNFE. 2002. Non-formal Education Project-3 (Hard to Reach): Mid-term Evaluation Report. Dhaka: Eusuf and Associates in association with Centre on Social Research and Hum Dev. Huckel, Carmen, Lothar Rieth and Melanie Zimmer. 2007. Die Effektivität von Public- Private Partnerships. In Hasenclever, A., K.D. Wolf and M. Zürn (eds) Macht und Ohnmacht internationaler Institutionen. Festschrift für Volker Rittberger. Frankfurt: Campus, 115–144. ILO. 1973. Minimum Age Convention C138, Adopted by the General Conference of the International Labour Organization. 58th Session, 26 June. Geneva: International Labour Organization. ILO. 1999a. Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention C182, Adopted by the General Conference of the International Labour Organization. 87th Session, 17 June. Geneva: International Labour Organization.

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ILO. 1999b. Worst Forms of Child Labour Recommendation R190, Adopted by the General Conference of the International Labour Organization. 87th Session, 17 June. Geneva: International Labour Organization. ILO. 2013. Making Progress Against Child Labour: Global Estimates and Trends 2000–2012. Geneva: International Labour Organization and International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour. ILO and IPEC. 2003a. Preventing and Eliminating the Worst Forms of Child Labour in Selected Formal and Informal Sectors in Bangladesh BGD/00/P50/USA. An Independent Mid-term Project Evaluation by an Independent Evaluation Team. Geneva: ILO and IPEC Design, Evaluation and Documentation Section. ILO and IPEC. 2003b. Prevention and Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour in the Urban Informal Sector in Bangladesh BGD/00/P01/NET. An Independent Mid-term Project Evaluation by an Independent Evaluation Team. Geneva: ILO and IPEC Design, Evaluation and Documentation Section. ILO and IPEC. 2004. Combined Evaluation of ILO/IPEC Garment Sector Projects as Part of the ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ Framework with the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association. A Final Project Evaluation by an Independent Evaluation Team. Geneva: ILO and IPEC Design, Evaluation and Documentation Section. ILO and IPEC. 2006. Prevention and Elimination of Selected Worst Forms of Child Labour in the Informal Economy in Dhaka City BGD/00/P01/NET. An Independent Final Evaluation by a Team of External Consultants. Geneva: unedited and unpublished project document. Jacobsen, Harold K. and Edith Brown Weiss. (eds). 2000. Engaging Countries: Strengthening Compliance with International Environmental Accords. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. James, Allison. 2007. Giving Voice to Children’s Voices: Practices and Problems, Pitfalls and Potentials. American Anthropologist, 109: 261–272. Jenichen, Anne and Andrea Schapper. 2015. Between Global Ambitions and Local Change: How Multi-level Cooperation Advances Norm Implementation in Weak State Contexts. Journal of International Relations and Development, 20 February. doi: 10.1057/jird.2014.29. Khair, Sumaiya. 2005. Child Labour in Bangladesh: A Forward Looking Policy Study. Geneva: International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour/International Labour Organization. Liese, Andrea. 2006. Staaten am Pranger. Zur Wirkung internationaler Regime auf innerstaatliche Menschenrechtspolitik. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Mayntz, Renate. 2009. Über Governance: Institutionen und Prozesse politischer Regelung. Frankfurt: Campus. Merry, Sally E. 2006a. Human Rights and Gender Violence: Translating International Law into Local Justice. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press. Merry, Sally E. 2006b. Transnational Human Rights and Local Activism: Mapping the Middle. American Anthropologist, 108: 38–51. Merry, Sally E., Peggy Levitt, Mihaela S. Rosen and Diana H. Yoon. 2010. Law From Below: Women’s Human Rights and Social Movements in New York City. Law & Society Review, 44: 101–128. Mitchell, Ronald B. 2007. Compliance Theory: Compliance, Effectiveness, and Behaviour Change in International Environmental Law. In Brunee, J., D. Bodansky and

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E. Hey (eds) Oxford Handbook for International Environmental Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 894–921. NGO Affairs Bureau. 2010. Flow of Foreign Grant Fund through NGO Affairs Bureau: At a Glance. www.ngoab.gov.bd/Files/statistics.pdf (accessed 19 December). NORMLEX. 2016a. Ratifications of C182 – Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention 1999. www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=1000:11300:0::NO:11300:P11300_INSTRUM ENT_ID:312327 (accessed 7 January). NORMLEX. 2016b. Ratifications of C138 – Minimum Age Convention 1973. www. ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:11300:0::NO:11300:P11300_INSTRUM ENT_ID:312283:NO (accessed 7 January). Primary Education Compulsory Act. 1990. Part V – Acts, Bills of the Bangladesh Parliament, Act No. 27 of 1990. Dhaka: Bangladesh Parliament. Reinicke, Wolfgang H. and Francis M. Deng. 1999. Critical Choices: The United Nations, Networks, and the Future of Global Governance. UN Vision Project on Global Public Policy Networks. Washington, DC: The Global Public Policy Project. Reynolds, Pamela, Olga Nieuwenhuys and Karl Hanson. 2006. Refractions of Children’s Rights in Development Practice: A View from Anthropology. Childhood, 13: 291–302. Risse, Thomas. 2004. Menschenrechte als Grundlage der Weltvergemeinschaftung? Die Diskrepanz zwischen Normanerkennung und Normeinhaltung. In Rittberger, V. (ed.) Weltpolitik heute: Grundlagen und Perspektiven. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 223–244. Risse, Thomas, Stephen C. Ropp and Kathryn Sikkink. (eds). 1999. The Power of Human Rights. International Norms and Domestic Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rittberger, Volker. 2009. Legitimes Weltregieren durch inklusive, multipartistische Institutionen? In Rittberger, V. (ed.) Wer regiert die Welt und mit welchem Recht?. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 261–282. Robinson, Mary. 2002. Making Human Rights Matter. www.ksg.harvard.edu /news/ news/2002/robinson_100102.htm (accessed 27 January). Save the Children UK. 2008. The Child Development Index: Holding Governments Accountable for Children’s Wellbeing. London: The Save the Children Fund. Schäferhoff, Marco, Sabine Campe and Christopher Kaan. 2009. Transnational Public-Private Partnerships in International Relations: Making Sense of Concepts, Research Frameworks and Results. International Studies Review, 11: 451–474. Schapper, Andrea. 2014. From the Global to the Local: How International Rights Reach Bangladesh’s Children. London: Routledge. Schimmelfennig, Frank. 2002. Internationale Sozialisation: Von einem ‘erschöpften’ zu einem produktiven Forschungsprogramm? In Hellmann, G., K.D. Wolf and M. Zürn (eds) Die neuen Internationalen Beziehungen. Forschungsstand und Perspektiven in Deutschland. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 401–427. Snow, David A. 2004. Framing Processes, Ideology, and Discursive Fields. In Snow, D.A., S.A. Soule and H. Kriesi (eds) The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 380–412. Tallberg, Jonas. 2002. Paths to Compliance. Enforcement, Management and the European Union. International Organization, 56: 609–643. UN. 1989. Convention on the Rights of the Child, Adopted and Opened for Signature, Ratification and Accession by General Assembly Resolution 44/25 of 20 November 1989. New York: United Nations.

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UNDP. 2015. Hum Dev Report 2015: Work for Hum Dev. hdr.undp.org/sites/default/ files/hdr_2015_statistical_annex.pdf (accessed 8 January 2015). UNICEF. 2012. The State of the World’s Children 2012. New York: United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF). UNICEF. 2014. The State of the World’s Children 2014. New York: United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF). UNICEF and UNESCO. 2013. Envisioning Education in the Post-2015 Development Agenda. New York and Paris: United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). UNTC. 2016. United Nations Treaty Collection: Convention on the Rights of the Child. treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=IV-11&chapter= 4&lang=en (accessed 7 January 2016). Uvin, Peter. 2004. Human Rights and Development. Bloomfield: Kumarian Press. White, Sarah T. 2002. Being, Becoming and Relationship: Conceptual Challenges of a Child Rights Approach in Development. Journal of International Development, 14: 1095–1104. Woodhead, Martin. 2006. Changing Perspectives on Early Childhood: Theory, Research and Policy. Background paper prepared for the Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2007. Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Zürn, Michael and Christian Joerges. (eds). 2005. Law and Governance in Postnational Europe: Compliance Beyond the Nation State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Framing the position of social media in the local institutionalization of international human rights norms Reilly Anne Dempsey Willis and Benjamin Mason Meier

Introduction Epistemic communities and transnational advocacy networks traditionally seek to influence local norms from a global perspective. Through access to expert knowledge, highly informed issue selection and framing, and long-term management and steering of multiple strands of work, these interest groups have found success in influencing and institutionalizing international human rights norms in domestic contexts. Groups or individuals using social media advocacy set out to achieve the same ends. This research indicates, however, that the formation, modality, and perhaps impact of advocacy campaigns driven by social media platforms are inherently different from other ‘glocalization’ mechanisms. In order to develop a framework for necessary empirical research on this new form of advocacy, we must first analyse both the opportunities and limitations presented by this modality of global advocacy in institutionalizing human rights norms, as compared existing international relations models. Across the field of development cooperation, we consistently find advocate reports, studies, and conference materials that explore what has been done to engage with new communication technology, and how advocacy organizations have embraced this new form of media; however, there is a paucity of empirical research linking such social media advocacy to public policy or state behaviour outcomes. Rather than exploring the ground-level impact of social media campaigns through outcome indicators, success is reported via process indicators. We can gauge the level of public engagement in a social media campaign, and thus estimate levels of awareness on a particular issue, but we cannot yet, at least empirically, identify the impact of social media on policy change. While others have focused on social media as a tool for groups to connect in the pursuit of their organizational missions, this research seeks to explore the use of social media as a means to achieve normative change. In this chapter, we first set out to provide a contextual overview of the pervasiveness of social media followed by a comparison two primary global interest group models: epistemic communities (networks of experts who use collective knowledge to effect change), and transnational advocacy networks

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(groups who use external influence to affect domestic change). We then use these models to map the more traditional course of normative change through human rights. Using this background information, we position social media as a tool for human rights advocacy in development cooperation, surveying both the opportunities and limitations of social media in bringing global norms to local contexts. We conclude by proposing a research agenda and methodological approach to fill the demonstrated gap in existing research.

Demographics of influence There is little question about the pervasiveness of online communications in contemporary advocacy movements. These technologies have fundamentally changed the ability of groups of like-minded individuals to join together for a common cause across geographic boundaries, with these technologies expanding the scope of influence beyond those possible via traditional campaigning or media work. It is no wonder that the globalized, instantly accessible (to some) nature of modern communications and the emergence of related global communities have impacted advocacy movements. Although it is recognized that the advent of social media has fundamentally changed civil society’s actions, particularly individuals’ ability to participate in advocacy campaigns, the effectiveness of this new form of activism is debated, even derided as ‘slacktivism’ by its critics. Globally, there are 2.08 billion active social media accounts, representing 29 per cent of the world’s population. There are 1.4 billion Facebook, 300 million Instagram and 284 million active Twitter accounts (Kemp 2015). Yet in looking at the demographics of these billions of users, global inequalities stand out. The penetration rates of Internet usage by region show how, despite huge increases in the past decade, Internet and social media users continue to be chiefly from developed nations: 81 per cent of the developed world has household access to the Internet, compared to just 34 per cent of the developing world, and a shocking 6.7 per cent of the least developed countries (ITU 2014). Whereas 58 per cent of the population in North America is active on social media and 47 per cent of those living in Western Europe, only 9 per cent of the population in Africa is represented in active social media use, and 9 per cent in South Asia (Kemp 2015). These inequalities across regions are significant impediments to global justice: social media engagement is often being driven by those in high-income Western nations, even when addressing issues of principal concern to low-income populations in the Global South (Duggan and Smith 2013). Social media have not only penetrated the online lives of individuals, but also the campaigns of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) (Vissers and Stolle 2014). Often used to increase awareness, 98 per cent of US traditional non-profits and charities (taken from the Philanthropy 400 list) reported using at least one form of social media for their work, employing these video and

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multimedia tools far more extensively than the business sector. Assessing the influence of social media, nearly three quarters of NGOs interviewed measured their social media success through a focus on processes such as reach and engagement (Barnes 2014). Without also examining the associated impacts, there is no way of knowing the possible changes or outcomes of social media as an advocacy tool for public policy. Thus a paradigm exists in which: 1) individuals in high-income countries continue to dominate the demographic profiles of those with access to the Internet and active social media accounts; and 2) organizations using social media as an advocacy tool are overwhelmingly focused on internal process measures of success rather than external impacts. We must question the effectiveness of a tool driven by one group of individuals, aimed at improving the lives of others, with little to no assessment of its effects. Applied to development cooperation, ‘[t]he challenge in this field of development practice is to avoid technological determinism, and rather to explore the strategic possibilities for social media to help push forward the ambitious agendas of international development cooperation’ (Braskov et al. 2012, 7). We are therefore at a point where empirical research can, and indeed should, move from looking at process indicators and examine outcome measures on policy impact.

Comparing social media to the established understanding of communities of influence In applying constructivist international relations theories to consider the impacts of social media, we focus on group characteristics in exploring epistemic communities and transnational advocacy networks. Situating group networking through social media under this larger academic literature presents new practices of group formation, new drivers of issue selection, and new questions about political efficacy that must be empirically assessed. Epistemic communities and group characteristics Forming groups through collective action, the practice of epistemic communities is rooted not just in their expertise but in the collective power of a group of experts agreeing on a particular point that requires unique technical knowledge and understanding: [E]pistemic communities are networks of experts who persuade others of their shared causal beliefs and policy goals by virtue of their professional knowledge. Their policy goals must derive from their expert knowledge, not some other motivation, otherwise they lose authority with their target audience, usually elite governmental decision-makers. Their reliance on expert knowledge, which they validate within their group, is what differentiates them from other actors that seek to influence policy. (Cross 2012, 142)

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It is in the practice of constructing collective meaning that these communities influence policy (Adler and Haas 1992). Research into the work of epistemic communities – particularly where there is policy uncertainty, for example in the field of environmental law and policy – substantiates the influence and effectiveness of this model of global governance through collective expert action (Cross 2012, 158). Issues are thus selected by mutually constructed values, regardless of geographic boundaries, and the representation of those issues in a collectively agreed manner. These communities have been translating international norms into domestic policy for decades. As scholars have described the influence of the ‘international game’ on the ‘domestic game’: the domestic game therefore refers to how expectations and values enter into the political process through active participation of domestic and transnational epistemic communities and how through the policy process these ideas help define the national interest, which then becomes a conceptual and normative input into the international game. (Adler and Haas 1992, 373–4, emphasis added) Such interaction between international and national elites frames a process whereby issues are selected and norms are spread, both from the top down and the bottom up. The rapid expansiveness of epistemic communities is growing in today’s globalizing world, yet the political efficacy of such growth is not always clear. Online collaboration allows for these epistemic communities to thrive; however, the usage of social media for such advocacy raises a challenge to epistemic communities: no longer are these communities strictly a group of carefully selected, technical elites providing governments with the evidencebased information needed to make informed policy decisions. Social media global communities are open to anyone connected to the Internet, and with this decrease in the ‘cost of entry’, such an increase in the expansiveness of some epistemic communities has come, arguably, at the expense of their expertise (Cross 2012). Proponents of the efficacy of social media advocacy find that social media enhance the ability of civil society to influence agendas, expose abuses and organize for change, all with positive long-term outcomes (Howard and Hussain 2011). Contrasted with epistemic communities, it is from this popular appeal that social media campaigns derive their influence on governance, under the belief that ‘as with the printing press, the current changes will result in a net improvement for democracy’ (Gladwell and Shirky 2011, 154). It is a game of numbers, not necessarily expertise. While there may be inherent differences in which select campaigns are better positioned to take advantage of social media, some advocates continue doggedly to highlight the positive change that these tools bring to the global community and the dynamic change in advocacy that is already underway (Shirky 2011).

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Sceptics, however, take the view that social media activism is not ‘real’ activism, in the sense that there is no individual risk in social media and, in contradistinction to the work of epistemic communities rooted in shared knowledge, that social media have the potential to be harmful in addressing complex policy issues (Gladwell 2010). Proponents of social media are seen to ‘have over-emphasized the role of information, specifically access to alternative and independent sources of information and unfiltered access to the internet’ (Etling et al. 2010, 38). Because these campaigns are short and condensed, public audiences have an easier time passively ‘understanding’ what is wrong rather than actively undertaking the detailed actions necessary to ‘fix’ a problem (Chouliaraki 2010). Social media campaigns are grounded in the idea that ‘if only people knew, then they would act accordingly’, but it is unclear what acts are undertaken by these ‘clicktivists’ or ‘slacktivists’ (Cohen 1996). Although these individuals are motivated enough to portray that they are politically concerned on social networking sites, they may not be motivated, able or qualified to do much more, ‘cheapening’ the idea of activism in changing specific policies or actions (Gladwell 2010). With these new dynamics influencing the metrics of efficacy for social media, the driving impact of these new communities is seen only in the number of ‘likes’ or ‘fans’, not the depth of collective knowledge, the shift in policy norms, or the action taken to address a particular issue. Viewing social media through the lens of epistemic communities, knowledgebased clout is seemingly superseded by scope of engagement through social media, and it is unclear, depending on the subject matter, whether policy makers are better off responding to a group of knowledgeable experts or a campaign that has catalysed a large number of unrepresentative individuals whose only qualification is Internet access.

Transnational advocacy networks and modalities of influence Within this debate on the efficacy of social media, there is an imperative to examine not just the group characteristics, but how these groups exert influence on decision makers. Built on the international relations foundations of epistemic communities, transnational advocacy networks (TANs) are defined as groups working internationally on an issue and bound together by shared values and common discourse (Kiel 2011). This institutional model maps the process whereby global knowledge and shared values can be applied domestically. These groups frame international issues to exert influence based ‘on their strategic use of information and issue visibilization in order to challenge official discourses’ (Acosta 2011, 173). TANs thereby challenge prevailing discourses, focusing not just on specific policies but on institutionalizing norms through agenda setting and debate. In this debate, the attributes of the issue, the ability to exert pressure and the favourable normative environment set the conditions for successful transnational advocacy (Carpenter 2007b, 2007a).

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Under this model, successful domestic influence, though mobilized by a global community, must be rooted locally (Kiel 2011). In a ‘traditional’ advocacy campaign, a driver for norm change emerges at the local level, and through a careful process of issue selection and framing, experts are able to connect the strengths of global interest groups and communities to the local drivers. Thus, not only do individuals in positions of authority drive issue selection and framing within TANs, but also the collective power of individuals who make up the network, in and of itself, becomes an intrinsic part of the work (Acosta 2011). From there, local groups and networks recognize the potential of tapping into the leverage and influence of TANs and thus frame their grassroots work in ways that will attract a TAN to take up the cause. Reinforcing local efforts and deeply rooted issue selection and framing, TANs are able to exert external influence to overcome domestic obstacles, and through these connections, normative change can then become institutionalized. Working through constructivist international relations theory to predict state behaviour in relation to transnational advocacy, the spiral model of human rights change posits that when domestic groups find their efforts blocked, they then turn to international communities to take up their cause and return benefits to them (Keck and Sikkink 1998). For the domestic groups, TANs thus provide access, leverage, information and money; in return, TANs gain credibility for their causes and outlets for tangible impacts. Under this spiral model, the voice of the local groups is intrinsic in issue framing and selection, influencing global efforts which in turn reinforce local groups and policy impacts (Risse 1999). Analysis of this constructivist model has led to debates on the effectiveness and influence of TANs, where empirical research has shown that TANs have not always been positively linked to normative shifts; that, in some circumstances, the work of TANs was more focused on moving text from one highlevel document to another without institutionalizing norms at the local level (Riles 2007). For example, in work on rape crimes prosecuted by International Criminal Tribunals, scholars have found that a need remained for locally driven and derived work to achieve positive results, where it was the national government decisions and domestic legal professionals (and some international legal professionals) that truly drove the campaigns to seek domestic prosecutions of rape crimes as war crimes (Nelaeva 2010). When local actors are ignored in the work undertaken by TANs, the elite space occupied by global NGOs is seen as exclusionary, with direct stakeholders silenced or overlooked: Global NGOs and civil society networks, while representing the issues and concerns of poor or marginalized people in global policy realms, often have few formal or structured links with direct stakeholder constituencies. Their ‘take’ on issues and strategic priorities is rarely subject to debate within the communities whose concerns they represent. When

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While global NGOs are influential in debates that will ultimately institutionalize norms, grassroots-driven advocacy work is seen as crucial to links between local and global, with domestic groups and voices having more leverage than the global networks. Thus, in some circumstances, the work of TANs can be problematic for domestic groups from lower-income countries to seek intervention from networks based in higher-income countries, and correspondingly, it can be ineffectual for TANs to propel global debates without local leadership. This leads to the crux of the argument: what happens when we skip the collaborative partnership altogether and simply allow networks from the high-income countries to undertake global campaigns using online technology? Social media look as though they significantly alter the successful well-defined TAN models, fundamentally changing the framework to assess the localization of global human rights norms.

Linking transnational advocacy to norm change through human rights and development We now move from describing these models and their spheres of influence to describing in more detail the mechanisms for domestic normative change. This will allow us to see how global advocacy is translated into local impacts, using the framework of normative change to identify the ‘glocalized’ human rights changes desired by global social media advocates. Norms are inherent in human rights, including certain shared ideas, values, attitudes, identities and expectations that guide policy makers in choosing the most appropriate policy to meet the ideals of the global community (Campbell 2002). Constructivist theory frames these ideational factors as a basis for understanding the evolution of international human rights law, describing the iterative role of norms in social life and the process through which ideas become ‘socially causative’ in such a way as to prompt local policies to realize the global norm (Ruggie 1998). With normative development understood through constructivist theory, these norms have come to be codified in human rights law, whereupon they spread across the world through transnational advocacy.

Defining norms through human rights The application of normative policy analysis as a means of understanding changes in human rights reflects a broader constructivist debate in international relations theory. Constructivist theory holds that international relations is influenced by norms (Checkel 1998), viewing norms as both constraining

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and enabling actions, ‘constructing’ and ‘constructed by’ the interests of state and non-state actors (Davies 2010). The constructivist paradigm is primarily focused on the formative role of these ideational factors, the most important of which ‘are widely shared or “intersubjective” beliefs, which are not reducible to individuals, and these shared beliefs construct the interests and identities of purposive actors’ (Finnemore and Sikkink 2001, 393). Creating a network of shared ideas, a model of governance emerges in which norms guide rule-governed, as opposed to power-driven, actions (Wendt 1999). These norms are defined by human rights and have the capacity to shift the behaviours of a wide array of policy actors (Checkel 1998). Standardizing policy-making behaviour, human rights norms act by restricting or enabling the range of acceptable choices and actions, thereby affecting local change (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998). Human rights are both influenced by norms and influential in the development of norms, with norms internalized (or implemented) in policy proposals and policy-making processes (Goldstein and Keohane 1993, 3).

Transnational norms and local contextualization In this process of realizing human rights norms, such ideational discourses evolve across both time and space in accordance with (and driven by) the TAN and spiral models, emerging in particular communities, circulating domestically and internationally through the dissemination of ideas (stimulated in large part through globalized communities and networks), re-emerging in distinct groups at different points in time, and shaping global institutions that are continuously transformed by normative shifts. Through these dynamics of normative change, the ‘normative life cycle’ begins with norm emergence (where norm leaders, or norm entrepreneurs, work to persuade a critical mass to embrace a new norm), gains momentum through norm cascade (where states come to accept and maintain the norm), and becomes part of the social and policy structure through norm internalization (where the norm becomes commonplace, is no longer an issue of public contention, and can achieve regulative status) (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998). From this norm internalization, international human rights have come to reflect a negotiated codification of norms, advancing collective global ideas, discourses and goals through national and global governance. During this iterative process of normative change, both state and non-state actors harmonize individual norms (negotiating potentially conflicting norms through a logic of argument; Risse 2000), and advance these collective ideational goals through transnational advocacy, with these global norms then incorporated in national law and, with time, internalized in government practice (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998). The spiral model maps ‘the various processes involved in the movement from norm expectation to real countrylevel results’, framing the relationship between global advocacy and domestic human rights norms (Risse-Kappen et al. 2013, 5), and thereby tracking how

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states move from repression to denial, to tactical concessions, to prescriptive status, and finally to rule-consistent behaviour (i.e. the implementation of human rights norms). Following from TAN theory, scholars have come to recognize that the continued presence of transnational advocacy is critical in moving from repression to denial, from denial to tactical concessions, and again from tactical concessions through to norm institutionalization (Neumayer 2005; Sikkink 2003). When the group characteristics and modalities of influence of the transnational advocacy are altered by the use of social media, how does the model change the glocalization of human rights in development cooperation?

Discussion: exploring opportunities and limitations for social media in transnational advocacy and development cooperation By highlighting the differences between more traditional advocacy methods used by epistemic communities and transnational advocacy networks through normative change, and the reigning model of human rights change alongside the differences in using social media, it is possible to see, as diagrammed in the visual map in Figure 3.1, the empirical research needed to understand more fully the role of social media in global advocacy and development cooperation. These causal dynamics highlight the ways in which the underlying drivers of normative evolution through social media can either start globally and filter down, or start locally and filter up. Traditionally, movements would start locally and filter up, rather than vice versa. We present here an initial overview of potential variables present in social media campaigns, both opportunistic and limiting, which warrant further empirical exploration. Although there is some narrative case study research, there has been little empirical work undertaken to understand properly the role of social media in changing human rights norms. It is necessary to study the political efficacy and policy impact of this new advocacy modality linking global to local, applying these results on the opportunities and limitations of social media to inform the practice of human rights promotion.

Driver for norm change

Global

Global take-up

Normative change

expert Global expert Global expert management

Social media take-up

~

Transnational Transnational

Normative change

public awareness, mass media, policy reforms issue selection, external influence, timing, evolution

Figure 3.1 Mapping campaigns and associated variables driving normative change

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Social media opportunities Judging by its prevalence, social media appear to be regarded as a progressive new technology to achieve policy change (Ferguson and Taminiau 2014). Where transnational actors have embraced social media in their advocacy to institutionalize global norms at the local level, there is a mandate to explore the potential contributions of social media in translating human rights norms across local policy contexts through public awareness, mass media and policy reforms. Emerging scholarship is examining the use of social media for naming and shaming and identifying possible human rights violations; however, that work is neither under question nor within the scope of this chapter (Alston 2013; Satterthwaite 2013; Root 2013; Ratner 2013). Here, we focus on social media specifically aimed at campaigning to influence domestic human rights norms directly and reform specific policies by raising awareness, influencing traditional media and disseminating policy ideas: 1

2

Raising awareness: The sheer number of social media users, in particular those engaged in ‘philanthropic’ or social justice campaigns, underscores the critically important opportunity for social media to raise awareness on human rights issues. Although traditional media still play an important role in thick descriptions of complex situations, social media allow the user to share information on issues and organizations widely, free from editorializing, journalistic filtering or, in some cases, government censorship. Raising awareness about specific incidents or issues – as seen, for example, in the Arab Spring, or the #bringbackourgirls campaign – social media have allowed local human rights issues to become ‘household names’ among individuals active on social media (Obar et al. 2012). Further, NGOs have used social media to raise awareness of their specific human rights work – providing inexpensive models for innovative fundraising, such as crowdfunding, Kiva, ‘The Access Campaign’ (Médicins Sans Frontières) and ‘Born HIV Free’ (Global Fund) – and these opportunities to reach a global audience have allowed local grassroots organizations to undertake mass marketing and fundraising previously out of reach (Gonzalez and Bogen 2013). Social media have undoubtedly brought local issues and organizations to the attention of the global community, but we do not have tangible evidence of the efficacy and outcomes of these campaigns: the ‘and then what?’ question. It stands to reason that social media can, and do, play an important role in pure awareness raising, organizational profile raising, and fundraising, but perhaps online campaigns are best positioned to raise awareness about an issue, and then leave the arguably tougher and more specialized work of normative change to more traditional models of advocacy. Without empirical support for the effectiveness of social media campaigns, it is currently impossible to say. Influencing traditional media: Traditional media (i.e. edited journalism, reported online, on TV, radio or on paper) play an important established

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Reilly Anne Dempsey and Benjamin Mason Meier role in transnational advocacy efforts to localize global human rights norms, and social media are now evolving to play a role in influencing these traditional media sources (Keck and Sikkink 1998). Those stories that are ‘trending’ on social media or gathering significant online readership are often picked up by traditional media, whereas in the past these stories may never have made it to the headlines, as seen in: the Ice Bucket ‘Challenge’ in support of ALS research, the ‘Movember’ campaign for men’s health, or the Kony 2012 documentary on a Ugandan warlord. Although it is difficult to say whether the same stories would have been taken up by professional selection in the traditional media, one can easily hypothesize that some stories are brought to the forefront of traditional media based on selective attention via social media. Social media may play a significant role in guiding traditional journalism to cover human rights stories that are of most interest to the general public, but caution must be applied not to overshadow equally important stories that may not have ‘social media appeal’. Without more research to catalogue the traditional media coverage catalysed by social media, and ultimately any resulting impacts, it is not yet possible to conclude whether social media provide a basis for normative change in ways that traditional media cannot. Disseminating policy ideas: Social media have lowered the barriers to political and social involvement, placing added pressure on international organizations and national governments to reform policies (Joseph 2012). The bottom-up uprisings of the Arab Spring were driven by normative shifts advanced through social media (Hirschkind 2011). As seen in the Egyptian uprising, social media were able both to organize domestic actors to protest government policies and enlist global activists to sympathize with their human rights struggle (Khondker 2011). Beyond a single uprising, social media allowed these domestic protests to inspire other domestic protests, with online communications allowing for the sharing of policy goals and advocacy strategies. Clearly social media provide a critically important ‘space’ when domestic governance shuts down organizing.

Yet even with this protected space for organizing, outcomes are still unclear. The limited amount of information in social media messaging, the consumerist qualities they portray, and the idea that people only ‘care enough to click’ makes experts and activists alike wonder if social media can lead to the realization of rights-based policy reforms. Through an analysis of social media messaging and either government policy statements or specific legislative reforms, research can clarify the relationship between online advocacy and policy change. Social media limitations In the sections above, we have highlighted a selection of potential opportunities afforded by new technologies, although even in this positive light there are still questions and areas that must be investigated. Additionally, this

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initial survey has raised several questions about the effectiveness of social media advocacy in impacting human rights. Below we problematize the use of social media through a selection of potentially damaging variables not yet properly researched: issue framing, foreign interference, online speed, and crowding out local actors: 1

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Issue selection and framing: As explored earlier in this chapter, both access to information and the framing of issues are critical to all kinds of interest groups – with epistemic communities relying almost exclusively on their elite access to information to influence norms and TANs firmly rooted in issue framing and selection – but social media alter these models where information is drowned out by sheer volume of posts. Social media allow issues to be selected and framed by popular opinion, which is in turn guided by the medium in which the issues arise and are disseminated. Issues that translate well into a catchy tagline, a short YouTube film, a straightforward petition, or a memorable hashtag are the issues that will capture the (short) attention span of large audiences and thus become the focus of social media campaigns. The idea of shared norms and discourse is also altered, as commonality across online communities requires a much broader focus, and discourse is rooted in an inherently non-specific medium, for example, 140 characters. ‘Global’ influence seen as ‘foreign’ interference: There are dangers that governments may reject the work of advocates where they are seen to prioritize global norms over domestic interests (Keck and Sikkink 1998). This is of particular importance when looking at development cooperation. History shows how global governance institutions seek to maintain the dominance of state interests over foreign interference. While TANs – with active management, expertise and oversight – can address this danger through careful strategic planning, negotiation and moulding of advocacy, social media have no way of ensuring a domestic focus on state interests. As discussed earlier in this chapter, even well-established TANs tend to fail when the partnership with domestic groups is not present or centralized. Social media campaigns can, and do, quite easily take on a life of their own and potentially lead to an inflated feeling of ‘foreign’ intervention without either issue expertise or local knowledge. Although such campaigns may start with a knowledgeable local individual or group of individuals, the overarching tenet of social media is that the content and drive comes from the users. Social media campaigns, by the very nature of the form of the media, are not necessarily ‘led’ by any one individual. As the majority of participants in human rights campaigns are likely living in countries outside the target nation (given the demographics of access presented earlier in this chapter), such campaigns can easily be viewed as foreign interference, rather than carefully crafted and managed work by experts with the knowledge and skills to assist in domestic policy development and institutionalization.

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The speed of social media is faster than norm evolution: Proven by both theoretical and empirical research, the trajectory of norm evolution, influence and human rights institutionalization is slow and steady. One excellent example is the global boycott on Nestlé products to address increased infant mortality in Africa that resulted from Nestlé’s promotion of breast milk substitutes in areas where those ‘formulas’ were unsafe for infants because of the quality of water. According to an analysis of the campaign by Kathryn Sikkink, one of the primary strengths of the NGO coalition was the length of time it continued campaigning: ‘they [advocates] were able to hold a disparate coalition together for over seven years of boycott, to present a unified front, and to prevent significant defections’ (Sikkink 1986, 828). Campaigning via social media does not last seven years. Social media campaigns, rooted in the nature of the medium, move fast and chaotically. In many instances, the success of a campaign will be measured in terms of number of engagements over time, where the greater the number of engagements over the shortest period of time is considered a huge success, and even likely then to cross boundaries from ‘new’ media into traditional media such as broadcast news or print. Those stories that ‘trend’ on Twitter or have X number of YouTube views in a single day take on a life of their own and sweep the globe. We are then left with a paradox: there is much greater worldwide coverage, but this coverage extends over a finite period of time. This rapid burst of advocacy and equally rapid dissipation of that activity certainly does not automatically equate to norm change, which requires prolonged attention to complex dynamics at the local level. Overshadowing and/or crowding out local or organic efforts: While the successful work of global epistemic communities and TANs is either built upon or in partnership with domestic work – where local organizations and movements still play a vital role in changing domestic norms – social media campaigns do not require such partnership and thus may not align with local movements. Where social media advocacy does not necessarily need to derive from grassroots efforts, both the demographics of social media users and the parameters (or lack thereof) for framing issues present a potential scenario where local movements are overshadowed, overlooked or crowded out by the sheer scope and global nature of social media campaigns (Garman 2015). Although a human rights issue will be geographically situated, it is very easy for the issue to be picked up by social media without any guidance from those working ‘on the ground’.

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The group characteristics, modes of formation, issue selection and issue framing, which are all unique to social media work, leave huge gaps in assessing the impact of this and require critical assessment through empirical research to understand fully the place of social media in the localization of global human rights norms.

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The research agenda The framework presented above provides a means to undertake empirical research to uncover how social media do, and do not, work from a transnational perspective to influence domestic human rights change. Using a constructivist approach, empirical research needs to look at the process of using social media to impact policy. To examine the variables outlined above, carefully selecting social media campaign case studies and identifying the conditions under which success was found in institutionalizing global human rights norms will provide an important first step. Moving on, finding social media campaigns and more traditional campaigns will provide the basis for determining whether, under comparable conditions, traditional advocacy methods would succeed where social media failed. The specific methodology best suited for this work is built upon normative analysis through analytic coding. Using a system of qualitative coding will allow the researcher to understand the complexities of human rights norms present in both advocacy campaigns and policy reforms (Meier and Kim 2015). Human rights scholars are increasingly looking to empirical research methods to understand issues of government accountability (Hafner-Burton 2012). Using normative analysis to engage with public documentation provides insights previously overlooked in uncovering meaningful human rights change. In looking to whether governments ‘talk the talk’, the research agenda seeks to undertake textual analysis through qualitative coding of a ‘relevant corpus of government statements, press releases, documents, speeches, and debates’ to evaluate whether normative change has occurred (Simmons 2013, 52). This kind of ‘theory-driven thematic analysis’ (Landman 2009) of normative human rights change can then be correlated with the norms expressed in media campaigns to create detailed evidence of advocacy impacts. This proposed methodology goes beyond word counting or looking to behavioural change in national-level datasets, seeking to dig far deeper into rhetoric to analyse change and/or accountability. A three-stage process could be used to: 1) track the effectiveness of social media campaigns; 2) identify conditions under which these campaigns do and do not work (via comparative analysis); and 3) identify variables that influence or predict the potential success of the advocacy campaign. The research should first carefully select a series of social media campaigns for human rights change that are ripe for analysis. Once selected, the first stage is to code the stated objective of the campaign as it was at the outset. This could be evidenced from documentation or social media communications from original organizers or organizations. The second stage is to code the historical data set of social media platforms to develop an understanding of how the advocacy manifested itself over the course of the campaign. The final stage is to code (using the same norms) the relevant corpus of government documentation, including policies, debates, press releases and reports. In looking at both the independent and dependent variables (the campaigns and

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the policy outcomes), researchers will be able to empirically assess the relationship between the transnational social media campaign and the domestic normative change. Using statistical analysis to locate other influencing variables and conditions will begin to answer some of the questions posed in this chapter regarding the efficacy of social media for domestic human rights change.

Conclusion Challenging existing constructivist theoretical frameworks, there is a distinct difference between more ‘traditional’ campaigning and advocacy using ‘new’ communications technology. In this chapter, we have sought to theoretically position social media amongst proven models of advocacy. These models provide a basis for developing a new framework for empirical research into the role of social media in localizing global human rights norms. Based upon the work of epistemic communities and transnational advocacy networks, we have developed a framework to apply the spiral model of human rights change and normative life cycles as guides to understanding these opportunities and limitations of social media. With the potential risk of doing more harm than good, there is a demonstrated and immediate need for the collection and analysis of empirical evidence on the effectiveness of social media as a means for advocacy in development cooperation. Proposing a research agenda and methodology to undertake this work, it will be possible to examine how social media are altering past models of transnational advocacy and normative change to realize human rights.

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Japan’s experience in localizing human rights in post-conflict Nepal Miho Taka, Maiko Takeuchi and Sachiko Goto Kamidohzono

Introduction Post-conflict state building and peace building engage in the areas of security, political transition and governance, socio-economic development, and justice and reconciliation. Formulating and reforming legal frameworks is one of the areas where donors provide assistance to facilitate political transition and democratization through the establishment of the rule of law. This normally involves integrating universal norms, including human rights and international transaction rules, and has been considered crucial as the foundation for the transition to stability, democracy and a market economy. It is, therefore, enforced by many donor agencies and international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. While more than US$1 billion was spent in an effort to establish the rule of law in countries recovering from conflict and fragility in recent decades (Mani 2008, 33), it has not only proven difficult to institute the rule of law appropriately, but has also been unclear as to its contribution to post-conflict peace building and economic growth as subscribed as the benefit of rule of law (Shiga 2013). Rather, emerging studies in this area have revealed mixed results, at best, in the rule of law assistance in post-conflict transition (Mani 2008, 33). This ineffectiveness of the international efforts can be partly attributed to the fact that the process of building or reforming the judicial system is largely under-studied and under-explained (Santiso 2003, 113). While the definition of the rule of law remains elusive, two versions of the rule of law formulations, namely formal theory and substantial theory, have been suggested (Tamanaha 2004). The substantial theory differs from the formal theory by including requirements for the contents of the law to be consistent with universal norms and values such as human rights. These different models have different implications for assistance in the judicial system. One of the criticisms of inefficient international interventions to the rule of law points to the dominance of the formal approach in donor assistance. Much rule of law support tends to take an ‘apolitical’ and ‘technical’ stance, in which donors ‘focu[s] on institutional attributes and reforms that replicate Western-style institutions in non-Western contexts’ and avoid ‘substantive and sometimes

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politically contentious reform’ (Mani 2008, 38). Meanwhile, when donors try to take the substantial approach, they often face the intractable challenge of how to balance the conflicting demands of respecting the ownership of aid recipient countries and achieving universal norms and values (Shiga 2013). Human rights are one such group of universal values that frequently engender conflict with local customary norms and practices. Human rights are defined as ‘rights inherent to all human beings, whatever our nationality, place of residence, sex, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, language, or any other status. We are all equally entitled to our human rights without discrimination. These rights are all interrelated, interdependent and indivisible’ (OHCHR n.d., para. 1). The ‘universality’ of human rights was initially highlighted in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights in 1948 and then enacted through subsequent international human rights law and various other conventions, treaties and laws (OHCHR n.d., para. 3). Therefore, human rights have been the standard that donors and international institutions have in mind during their rule of law interventions in countries in post-conflict transition (Stromseth 2006, 384). Endorsing human rights demonstrates a particularly complex dilemma in the substantial approach since donors consider human rights as a fundamental underpinning of the rule of law, and therefore, their protection and promotion are a natural and inevitable part of the substantial approach (Mani 2008, 27). This chapter presents an empirical analysis of such a dilemma in substantial rule of law interventions through a case study of Japanese assistance in post-conflict Nepal. It examines the experience of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in supporting the Civil Code drafting process in post-conflict Nepal. JICA is the implementation agency of Japanese official development assistance (ODA) and one of the largest bilateral aid agencies in the world, with an annual disbursement of $12 billion (JICA 2012a). Its assistance to Nepal in drafting a Civil Code started in 2009 as part of the programme for peace building and steady transition to democracy, which was going through its state-building process following the end of the ten-year civil war in 2006. JICA took a substantial approach in the assistance, upholding the most important philosophy of Japan’s ODA to support ‘self-help efforts of developing countries’, or self-ownership of the process (MOFA 2003, para. 2). During the Civil Code drafting process, JICA’s law experts went through the whole Civil Code, clause by clause, with a Nepalese counterpart in order to develop a Civil Code that is consistent with international standards and in harmony with the Nepalese cultural climate (JICA 2012b). They faced a dilemma, however, in endeavouring to incorporate human rights as a universal norm. This chapter draws on the localization framework proposed by Acharya (2004) for its analytical approach. Localization is defined as ‘the active construction (through discourse, framing, grafting, and cultural selection) of foreign ideas by local actors, which results in them developing significant congruence with local beliefs and practices’ (Acharya 2004, 245). It presents a

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unique perspective on why and how transnational norms are diffused, by moving from a simple to a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between ‘norm taker’ and ‘norm entrepreneur’. The role of norm entrepreneur, or an agent who spreads and institutionalizes a new norm in a society where the norm is regarded extraneous, tends to be vested in a transnational actor, while a local actor is only regarded as a norm taker or a recipient of a new norm. In contrast with this dichotomy between ‘domestic’ norm taker and ‘foreign’ norm entrepreneur, ‘the localization perspective calls for a shift in the understanding of norm entrepreneurship from “outsider proponents” […] to “insider proponents”’ (Acharya 2004, 249). The localization framework offers three important ideas about how human rights as a foreign norm was adapted and incorporated into the drafting process of the Civil Code in Nepal. First, the new political order in Nepal, which had emerged from the 240-year Kingdom of Nepal, needed ‘to import ideas about human rights promotion and assistance as the basis of their foreign policy because such ideas would legitimize their authority and new identity’ (Acharya 2004, 247). Second, in this attempt to integrate the human rights norms in the Civil Code, Nepal as norm taker went through the process of ‘cultural selection’ by omitting certain features (Acharya 2004, 245). Third, there were several opportunities encouraging localization of human rights norms in Nepal: the pre-existing local norms in Nepal were deep-rooted through religion, culture and long history, and needed transformation; there were credible local actors ‘with sufficient discursive influence to match or outperform outside norm entrepreneurs operating at the global level’ (Acharya 2004, 248) whose roles were filled by Nepalese counterparts as well as JICA; and there was an unyielding sense of identity (Acharya 2004, 249) that is shared by Japan and Nepal for their culture and traditions upholding their distinct values as well as aspiring to advancement. What this case study illustrates is that it was both the Japanese aid providers and their Nepalese counterparts who produced institutional change (Acharya 2004) in the country’s Civil Code through mutual consultation. Furthermore, what makes the case especially unique is a dual role that JICA, a foreign actor, played in the process. In this role, JICA was a transnational norm entrepreneur, who tried to introduce a universal norm of human rights into the Nepalese Civil Code, but it was also to some degree a norm taker as human rights being a norm of Western origin was extraneous to Japan but imported in the process of the country’s modernization. Therefore, unlike other transnational norm entrepreneurs, JICA was not a pure ‘norm entrepreneur’ and was confronted with a dilemma in respect of the ownership of the aid recipient. While the Nepalese Civil Code that was drafted has not been promulgated, the chapter reveals valuable insight into the localization of the international human rights norms in non-Western contexts. It also provides a critical view on the prevailing aid agendas and approaches applied in bringing the rule of law to fragile post-conflict societies.

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The remainder of this chapter is structured as follows. The second section provides the background information on the case study by explaining a brief history of the armed conflict and the recovery process in Nepal. The third section explains the distinctive approach used by JICA in its assistance, which became one of the significant foundations for localization to take place in this case of Nepal, before analyzing the process of drafting the Nepalese Civil Code. Finally, some discussion is followed by the drawing together of some conclusions.

Background of the case study Nepal had been ruled by monarchs since the unification in the late 18th century until it became a federal republic in 2008 (CIA n.d.). While the constitutional monarch initiated reforms in the 1990s to introduce multi-party democracy, responding to the continuous struggle for democracy, the attempt was not successful. As a result, a Maoist insurgency against the government broke out in 1996. Although the conflict ended in 2006 when the Comprehensive Peace Accord (CPA) was signed by the government and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), the fierce fighting that lasted for ten years resulted in over 13,000 deaths and more than 1,000 disappearances (UNDP 2009). Following the nationwide election held in April 2008, the Maoists became the largest parliamentary party while the monarchy was abolished, to be replaced by a federal democratic republic (CIA n.d.). The CPA encapsulated the political transition from authoritarian rule to democracy through ‘inclusive, progressive and democratic restructuring of the State in order to address the problems […] by ending discrimination based on class, caste, language, gender, culture, religion and region’ (UNDP 2009, para. 4). Therefore, to develop a new constitution that provides equal rights and opportunities to all the Nepalese population was a key part of the CPA; however, the contents of the new constitution have been contested and have caused political instability, even after the constitution was finally adopted in September 2015 (BBC 2015a, 2015b). Meanwhile, there was also a need to create new Basic Codes as Basic Civil and Criminal Codes in Nepal are based on the Country Code, Muluki Ain, which was introduced initially in 1854 as Nepal’s first codified law (JICA Nepal Office 2010, 1). The foundation of the Muluki Ain is the traditional Hindu Dharma Shastras or legal treaties, ‘Manu Smriti’, which encompass the Hindu socio-cultural values, thereby ‘legally validating the caste system to suit the customs, practices and beliefs’ (JICA Nepal Office 2010, 1). The Muluki Ain had gone through several amendments and was replaced with a new Muluki Ain in 1963. However, there are several shortcomings in the new Muluki Ain, such as the complex legal terminology and the ‘random order’ (JICA Nepal Office 2010, 1). The Muluki Ain was also ineffective as a means of providing justice or conflict resolution since it was effectively codes of conduct (JICA 2011d). Furthermore, it was largely obsolete and hence

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inadequate in dealing with emerging issues, especially those related to the newly adopted liberalization policies and principles of human rights and civil affairs (MOJ 2010, 1). In this context, reform and modernization of the Country Code became a national priority of the country. To achieve this objective, the Nepalese government decided to split the Muluki Ain and formulate the Basic Codes, comprising a Civil Code, Civil Procedure Code, Penal Code and Criminal Procedure Code (JICA 2010b). The Civil Code, together with the Constitution, forms a foundation for post-conflict Nepal by defining individual rights and obligations, and clarifying the ways conflict amongst the population is resolved (JICA 2010b). The Nepalese government formed a Civil Law Reform and Improvement Task Force (henceforth Task Force) including the judges of the Supreme Court, officers of the Ministry of Law and officials from other law-related organizations to draft the Civil Code (JICA Nepal Office 2010, 1). The Task Force had been aware that transferring civil codes from other countries to Nepal would not work and preferred to formulate a Civil Code that fits with the distinct tradition and society in Nepal and at the same time meets internationally accepted standards (JICA 2010b). They specifically aimed to remove discriminatory provisions against women in marriage and divorce and to clarify land ownership and use, as well as dispute resolution of contracts (JICA 2011a). To learn from the Japanese experience in creating a hybrid legal system by adopting continental European, British and American systems since the end of 19th century, the Nepalese had studied the Japanese civil code to prepare their preliminary draft civil code, and requested JICA to assist with their drafting process (JICA 2011a).

The approach of JICA One of the characteristics of Japan’s ODA is its longstanding philosophy of ‘supporting “self-help effort[s]”’ of recipient countries (Shimomura 2015; Manning 2015). The emphasis on ‘self-help efforts’ has been repeatedly expressed in the Japanese government’s ODA-related documents such as ODA White Papers and Mid-term Policies. The brand-new ‘Development Cooperation Charter’, which was released in February 2015, reiterated the emphasis by describing ‘[c]ooperation aimed at self-reliant development through assistance for self-help efforts as well as dialogue and collaboration based on Japan’s experience and expertise’ as one of the three basic policies of Japan’s ODA (MOFA 2015, 4). The philosophy of supporting ‘self-help efforts’, or ownership, derives from the ‘request-based’ principle of Japan’s ODA, which originated in its historical background as part of the country’s war reparations (Ishikawa 2005; Lancaster 2007; Kato 2015). It is also underpinned by ‘Japan’s experience of development and its experiences of providing aid to East Asia’ (MOFA 2003, para. 2). Japan has experienced remarkable transformation since the late 19th century from a small feudal state in the Far East into one of the world’s

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largest economies. It has also witnessed rapid economic growth and the ‘graduation’ from foreign aid by multiple other East Asian countries, in many of which Japan had been a leading donor. Those experiences as both a developing, aid-recipient and a developed, aid-providing country has led Japan to hold a strong belief that ‘only a recipient country advancing its own development based on its self-help efforts would lead to the true economic independence of that country’ (MOFA 2003, para. 2). Accordingly, Japan has been advocating the promotion of ownership in international arenas such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development – Development Assistance Committee (OECD-DAC) and the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), amongst others (MOFA 2003). In assisting ‘self-help efforts’ of developing countries, Japan’s ODA provides ‘cooperation for their human resource development, institution building including development of legal systems, and economic and social infrastructure building, which constitute the basis for these countries’ development’ (MOFA 2013, 205). JICA started its assistance in the legal and judicial sector in 1996 for countries in transition to democracy, a market economy or post-conflict reconstruction, with the aim of improving their governance (JICA 2011c). In line with the ODA philosophy, JICA’s basic policy in this area is centred around respecting developing countries’ ownership of the process and assisting their self-help actions (JICA 2009, 10). JICA states that: The choice of legal systems and the path to ‘Rule of Law’ promotion are matters of state sovereignty, and the appropriateness of various options is the sole purview of the state itself. Efforts directed toward the realization of the ‘Rule of Law’ must be based on the individual situations of the respective countries. Thus, the ownership and efforts of the people who have deep understanding of their own culture and existing systems are crucial to the effective use of external support. On the other hand, capacity development for legal and judicial sectors that is imposed or compelled upon a country raises the question of sovereignty infringement as well as the possibility of arriving at a legal system that will never take root in the country. (JICA 2009, 10) The above statement is based on Japan’s experience and knowledge in ‘customizing and adapting foreign laws to its culture and society’ (JICA 2009, i). Japan went through two major phases of legal development. First, during the modernization process of Meiji Restoration between 1868 and 1912, Japan ‘borrowed’ basic concepts from the advanced Continental Law based on French and German legal institutions to achieve ‘the gradual formation of a “rule of law” through trial and error’ (JICA 2009, 6). Second, during the US occupation after the end of World War II, Japan was strongly influenced by the US legal tradition (JICA 2009, 8). Rather than ‘simply “importing” the

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foreign legal traditions’, Japan ‘customized and adapted those laws to the cultural, and societal factors present within the existing system’ based on social research conducted on customs and existing formal and informal legal systems in the relevant area (JICA 2009, 8). As such, JICA believes the Japanese experience in localizing foreign legal systems to build a hybrid legal system could offer valuable knowledge to the ‘rule of law’ development processes that are in harmony with the reality of the country as well as international standards, thereby taking root in a society (JICA 2011c). JICA interprets this basic policy of placing a great value on recipient countries’ ownership in three ways in its operations on the ground. First, it stresses that JICA’s role is to offer ‘various options’, instead of one desirable solution, to a recipient country by ‘providing knowledge of other countries’ systems and ideologies as points of reference, rather than imposing any specific system or idea of Japan or any other nation’ (JICA 2009, 10). For this purpose, JICA places legal advisers in the recipient country for several years who give advice according to the country’s needs and capacity. It also creates an advisory committee in Japan comprising academics and practitioners with extensive knowledge and experience, such as lawyers and government officials from the Ministry of Justice and the Supreme Court, to help the legal advisers (JICA 2009). In forming this advisory committee, JICA benefits from a pool of existing researchers with expertise on comparative laws in Japan, owing to the Japanese modernization process of studying and adopting various laws. Second, after providing ‘options’, the approach JICA emphasizes is ‘dialogue and cooperation’ rather than pressure and imposition. While the Japanese legal advisers and experts on the advisory committee share their opinions with their counterparts in a recipient country, those opinions are presented as suggestions. Therefore, there is significant room left for the receiving side to decide whether to accept the Japanese views. Third, the assistance emphasizes a gradual process, starting from the recipient’s current situation, based on social research rather than drastic change. While this approach can be time consuming, especially in countries with limited capacity, JICA believes that it may enable capacity development and legal empowerment, and hence lasting impact (JICA 2009, 55–56). This Japanese long-term and ownership-oriented approach seems to present a distinctive feature from law reform projects provided by other donors which are often criticized because they are short-term, inadequately funded and lack ownership (Channell 2005). However, the three approaches, outlined above, entail intractable difficulties and contradictions. JICA’s explicit principle of respecting developing nations’ ownership over the process of developing an appropriate legal system can conflict with other foreign aid norms that Japan is expected to follow. For example, the OECD-DAC, of which Japan has been a member since 1961, urged member countries to promote universal norms and values such as human rights and democratization (Raposo 2014, 54), which the governments of many developing countries do not fully embrace, and often tends to

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alienate these states. Although the respect for local ownership has recently become an internationally agreed principle and is highlighted in the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (OECD 2005), the Japanese way of balancing local ownership and universal norms through ‘dialogue and cooperation’ appears to be distinct (Shimomura 2012, 133–134). Consequently, JICA’s legal assistance is inclined to accept local values at the expense of universal ones and, therefore, is prone to face criticism from the ‘international’ community. Moreover, concerning human rights, the criticism against Japan is amplified by the fact that there is a notable gap between generally expected human rights standards and Japan’s achievements in the field. To illustrate, the Universal Periodic Review by the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council in 2012 put forward more than 174 recommendations to Japan (UN General Assembly 2012). The areas Japan needs to improve include the elimination of all forms of discrimination in legal systems, the awareness and measures against gender-based violence, abolishing capital punishment and reform of the detention system. Institutional gender inequality and discrimination against women, in particular, are some of the longstanding sources of criticism against Japan, which has been blamed for lagging far behind the international standards in this area, due to the existence of discriminatory provisions against women in the country’s Civil Code, such as a lower legal age of marriage for women (16 in contrast to 18 for men), a 180-day prohibition period of remarriage only for women, and non-recognition of keeping the woman’s maiden name. More recently, the latest human rights situation in Japan is perceived as a constant deviation from international human rights standards, manifested by regressing movements such as the newly established Act on the Protection of Specially Designated Secrets to restrict transparency and the right to know, and inaction against increasing hate speech about ethnic minorities (Amnesty International 2015).

The process of drafting the Nepalese Civil Code Following the agreement of the Comprehensive Peace Accord in 2006, JICA started assisting Nepal in its efforts to promote democratization, peace building and inclusive governance through capacity development programmes and technical cooperation projects (JICA 2010a, 5–6). The assistance in drafting the Civil Code falls under the democratization process support programme. It was launched with the creation of an Advisory Group of academics and legal experts in 2009 in response to a request from the Nepalese government (JICA 2010b). In line with the aforementioned Japanese ODA policy to assist ‘self-help efforts’ of aid recipient countries, JICA considers that it should allow Nepal to improve their governance incrementally until the country achieves the necessary level of economic development (Minamikata et al. 2012, 5). It also prides itself on its approach in promoting governance that is compatible with the tradition and society in Nepal and justifies it based on the observation that

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the misinterpretation of Western concepts such as democracy and human rights has already led to confusion in some social and political arenas in Nepal. During the process of drafting the Civil Code, the Japanese Advisory Group and the Nepalese Task Force met at least once a month through a series of meetings, seminars in Nepal and Japan, and video conferences, in addition to regular exchanges of revised provisions and comments via email (UNDP Nepal 2010). Through these channels, the two parties had extensive communications over the structure of the draft, the organization of chapters, alterations of each clause and the inclusion of new provisions. Amongst those communications, the seminars formed the key phases of the Civil Code drafting process as described below (JICA 2010c). At the first seminar held in Japan in July 2009, the Advisory Group introduced Civil Code examples from Japan as well as other countries to allow Nepal to make an informed decision, and provided comments on the preliminary Civil Code draft developed by the Nepalese counterpart from the perspectives of comparative law and Japan’s experience. As there were about 500 provisions in the preliminary draft, the Japanese Advisory Group spent almost six months reading all the provisions carefully and provided comments on the overall draft as well as on every single clause (UNDP Nepal 2010). The Nepalese Task Force considered the advice and comments and revised the preliminary draft accordingly. The Advisory Group took another three months to read and comment on all the provisions in the revised draft. The second seminar held in January 2010 resulted in an agreement on the restructured and revised Civil Code draft containing 751 clauses that are organized in six parts. Subsequently, national consultations with legal experts were held in various regions of Nepal as well as in the capital (JICA 2010c). This process was also attended by the Advisory Group to ensure continuous dialogue between Japanese and Nepalese parties. The drafted Civil Code was then submitted to the prime minister in August 2010. Just after the draft submission, the third seminar was held in Japan to consult over areas for future improvement as well as various systems and institutions necessary to enforce the Civil Code once legislated. Following the completion of the three seminars and further minor adjustments, the draft Civil Code was presented to the Cabinet in January 2011 and submitted to the Constitutional Assembly in February 2011 (Minamikata et al. 2012). Although it was not promulgated owing to the dissolution of the Constitutional Assembly in May 2011, JICA intended to continue its assistance until March 2012 to facilitate legal reform among the public as well as judges and legal officials (JICA 2011a, 13). With regards to the contents, the draft Civil Code consists of six parts, namely: preamble, law related to persons, family law, property law, contract law, and rules related to private international law (Minamikata et al. 2012). The Nepalese aspiration to remove discriminatory provisions such as those against women in marriage and divorce (JICA 2011a) led to the inclusion of a new provision on gender equality in the family law, and provoked a heated

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debate at the national consultation in the Nepalese capital in March 2010 (JICA 2011b). The guarantee of fundamental human rights and equal treatment of women and minorities is also stressed in the draft Civil Code as Civil Rights Part 1, Chapter 3 states: ‘[e]very citizen shall be equal in the eye of law’; ‘[n]o citizen shall be excluded from the equal protection of law’; and ‘[n]o citizen shall be discriminated [against] in the application of general law on grounds of religion, colour, caste, tribe, sex, origin, language or ideological conviction’ (UNDP Nepal 2010, Appendix 45). During the drafting process, some discriminatory provisions against women in marriage and divorce were deleted from the family law; for example, ‘daughters should return inherited property after her marriage’, and ‘[o]nly men are entitled to remarry if the medical board certifies that the couples have no children within ten years of their married life in case of not having children’ (UNDP Nepal 2010, Annex 47). Nonetheless, there remain a number of discriminatory provisions within the draft Civil Code over which the UN Development Programme (UNDP), another provider of assistance in this area, has raised concerns (UNDP Nepal 2010, 65–66). Amongst 46 major discriminatory clauses that the UNDP identified in the draft Civil Code, 34 clauses were based on gender, and 12 clauses were based on caste and ethnicity, while some of them have been amended or omitted (UNDP Nepal 2010, 35–41). The inequitable clauses on gender largely concern the issues of marriage, divorce and inheritance for women, married women in particular, within the family law; most of the unfair clauses based on caste and ethnicity are from the chapter on quadrupeds while two clauses relate to caste-based social hierarchy, and one clause concerns community ownership of natural resources. While the draft Civil Code demonstrates an improvement from the previous codes through the inclusion of provisions related to fundamental human rights and equal treatment, the equal treatment of women and minorities continues to be a key human rights issue. JICA acknowledges that the Task Force did not incorporate all the advice and suggestions they had provided, resulting in the draft Civil Code that does not meet all international standards (UNDP Nepal 2010, 66). JICA, however, appeared to have compromised in order to prioritize Nepalese ownership and insists that the current draft Civil Code includes ‘the best possible provision of articles’ for the likelihood of being accepted and being enforced in presentday Nepal, as well as the possibility of improvement over time (UNDP Nepal 2010, Annex 47). Correspondingly, the Honourable Khil Raj Regmi, the head of the Nepalese Task Force, confirms that the Task Force always presented Nepalese cultural values and theoretical practices to the Advisory Group during the process and praises that ‘JICA was the first to understand the real legal cooperation to the government of Nepal’ (JICA Nepal Office 2010, 1–2). Despite some donors’ claims of remaining discriminatory clauses in the draft Civil Code, the Nepalese Task Force claims that the draft Civil Code ‘turned out to be that of international standards’, with the revision and inclusion of provisions related to emerging issues such as women’s empowerment and private international laws, amongst others.

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As such, the international standards in the draft Civil Code were explained as part of an incremental process. The Japanese Advisory Group highlighted their efforts to ‘harmonize Nepalese traditional rules (“non-Western” elements) with international best practices (i.e. “Western elements”)’ (UNDP Nepal 2010, 66), so that the draft Civil Code ‘represents a carefully considered mixture of two sides’ (UNDP Nepal 2010, Annex 47). Moreover, JICA maintained its incremental approach to law reform despite other donors such as UNDP asserting that Nepal should incorporate universal human rights standards in the Civil Code to fulfil its obligation as a signatory to various international treaties on human rights and in line with its Interim Constitution (UNDP Nepal 2010, 66). Similarly, the head of the Task Force considers that the best path is ‘a gradual process of reformation to the existing laws over time’ rather than ‘a drastic repeal[ing] and replacing of old ones’ (JICA Nepal Office 2010, 2).

Discussion The previous sections have reviewed JICA’s assistance in developing a draft Civil Code from the outdated Country Code, Muliki Ain, as part of its technical cooperation on democracy and peace building for post-conflict Nepal. The process exemplified a challenge for JICA in balancing between respecting the ownership of the recipient country and promoting the ‘universal’ human rights norms. The challenge was pertinent because the former is the most important philosophy of Japan’s ODA (and the latter is officially agreed as an expected foreign aid norm amongst the OECD-DAC members). This, however, resulted in a conflict in the draft Civil Code: while the draft demonstrates progress from the Muluki Ain, it is notable that there are a number of provisions that do not meet international human rights standards (UNDP Nepal 2010). This mixture of progress beyond, and persistence with, tradition indicates that the international human rights norms have been ‘localized’ (Acharya 2004) in the newly developed Nepalese Civil Code. As mentioned in the previous sections, JICA’s approach in the process of drafting the code placed particular importance on harmonizing universal standards and local traditions based on the philosophy of catalyzing ‘self-help efforts’ of the recipient countries. In addition, there was an emphasis by both the Japanese Advisory Group and the Nepalese Task Force on gradually ‘updating’ the pre-existing Country Code to meet international standards (JICA Nepal Office 2010, 2), rather than just replacing the former with the latter. This is a process of adapting foreign norms to meet local norms, through reinterpretation, representation and reconstitution as highlighted by the localization framework (Acharya 2004, 243). In this section, we delineate how and why such a process of drafting a Civil Code in post-conflict Nepal took place with JICA’s assistance drawing on the localization framework. The process of modernizing the outdated Muluki Ain

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and blending it with ‘universal’ human rights norms by degrees illustrates a dynamic ‘congruence-building process’ of localization (Acharya 2004, 240). In this process, the standard of ‘universal’ human rights was neither ‘obeyed nor disregarded, but something in between’ (Kersbergen and Verbeek 2007, 221). Since the localization framework elucidates dynamic interactions between extraneous norms and indigenous ones, it provides practical discussions about how the substantial approach for the rule of law assistance in this case of JICA’s assistance in Nepal could (or could not) work in establishing a new or reformed legal framework that endures. The reason why the localization of universal human rights norms took place in this case can be explained by the ‘domestic political changes’ Nepal has been going through following the end of the civil war. The transition from constitutional monarchy to federal democratic republic after the 2006 CPA made a newly established government, a primary norm taker in this case of Civil Code drafting, need ‘to enhance the[ir] prestige’ for the smooth and successful establishment of governance in the country (Acharya 2004, 246). In its efforts, the government attempted to update the Country Code and needed to promote human rights to legitimize themselves both in the eyes of their citizens and the international community (Acharya 2004, 247). However, the Nepalese government was also aware that the pre-existing local norms in the traditional code were deep-rooted in Nepalese society through religion, culture and long history (Acharya 2004, 248). Through this longstanding basic law – in addition to customary law – societal, cultural and religious norms were ‘entrenched’ and could conflict with extraneous universal human rights norms (Tamanaha 2011, 24). Therefore, there was a need simply to update it ‘with the infusion of new ideas’ rather than abolishing it as ‘harmful’ (Acharya 2004, 247). As a result, it was neither a full acceptance nor complete rejection of the universal norms, but instead localization that the Nepalese government adopted. During the process of localization through which universal human rights norms were incorporated into the draft Civil Code, the acts of ‘cultural selection’ or omission of certain features of the universal norms were observed (Acharya 2004, 245–246). As pointed out in the previous section, the draft Civil Code preserves several discriminatory provisions, conflicting with the interim Constitution and the civil rights section of the draft Civil Code as well as the fact that Nepal is a signatory to various international treaties on human rights. It was noticeable that the discriminatory provisions were mainly found in matters of gender and caste and ethnicity in family law (UNDP Nepal 2010). According to the Advisory Group, such provisions in family law strongly reflect the situation in which Nepal currently exists (Minamikata et al. 2012, 9–12). There appears to be a range of norms to regulate family systems and relationships in Nepal owing to diverse ethnicity, religion and caste, as well as different customs in various regions including cross-border relations in border areas. Since family law regulates the daily lives of people, and caste and

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ethnicity are strongly attached to people’s identity, the traditional norms and customs related to those issues are a deep-rooted and integral part of society; therefore, the ‘cultural selection’ on them can be viewed as ‘rational exclusion of certain elements of new ideas that might harm the existing social order or increase the risk of social and political instability’ (Acharya 2004, 246). As a result, the draft Civil Code includes provisions to respect customs of ethnic groups and regions, thereby accepting the existing gender inequality especially for married women based on the collective value centred on a patriarchal family. These provisions in family law contradict the international human rights norms such as gender equality and individual rights; however, they are a product of compromise between the existing norms and modern laws, and hence should be understood as a transitional process through which international norms and standards are to be incorporated into the Nepalese Civil Code at a gradual pace (Minamikata et al. 2012, 9–12). As Acharya pointed out, ‘cultural selection’ does not imply complete exclusion as localization is ‘a long-term and evolutionary assimilation of foreign ideas’ (Acharya 2004, 250). What was interesting with regard to the cultural selection described above is that JICA as an international donor, which is expected to function as norm entrepreneur, found itself in a dilemma in facilitating the process. As reviewed earlier, JICA stressed harmonizing the international human rights standards with indigenous norms, values and systems in Nepal; at the same time, it respected the Nepalese Task Force’s decision on the cultural selection without imposing ‘universal’ norms as the only right way to follow. We can identify two factors that caused a dilemma for JICA to promote the universal norms of human rights. The first important factor that relates to the selection of certain elements of ‘universal’ norms in the process of supporting drafting the Civil Code in Nepal can be attributed to Japan’s own identity as a successful ‘norm taker’ in localizing Western-origin norms and values in their modernization and the desire of Nepal to follow the Japanese model. In other words, Japan and Nepal shared a strong sense of identity (Acharya 2004, 247–249) as being Asian or non-Western nations upholding their distinct values as well as aspiring to advancement. This self-recognition as a successful ‘norm taker’ is the background of Japan’s emphasis on ‘self-help efforts’ or ownership, and can be clearly observed in the frequent articulation of Japan’s ‘own experience’ in its assistance policies as reviewed above. According to JICA, they encouraged their Nepalese counterparts to reflect the international conventions related to human rights, but due to the perceived gap between the proposed revision and the practice in Nepalese society, JICA faced reluctance from its Nepalese counterparts. In such a situation, JICA had a dilemma as they were aware of their own country’s experience of having ‘localized’ international norms as a norm taker. In this regard, JICA as a Japanese agency is not simply a norm entrepreneur but a norm taker in the process of assistance to draft the Civil Code. Sharing unique values and identity appeared to have led to a collaborative process of the ‘pruning’ and ‘grafting’ the human rights norms.

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The second factor that led to JICA’s indirect endorsement of the cultural selection of the universal norms was a concern for legal pluralism. Generally speaking, legal matters related to family are heavily influenced by common law including tradition, religion, culture and customs within the society; hence, statutory law is more likely to be overlooked if it is not relevant to the reality on the ground, resulting in the situation of legal pluralism and difficulty in implementation (Minamikata et al. 2012). According to Tamanaha (2011, 8), legal pluralism typically ‘involves the presence of norms and institutions identified with custom, tradition, or religion, or with informal or village tribunals, operating alongside state legal institutions’ as ‘a functional arrangement that reflects and manages the normative inconsistencies between the society and the state legal system’ (Tamanaha 2011, 20–21). Technical cooperation in legal reform often leads to legal pluralism because it results from the incongruity between cultural and societal normative orders and legal norms, especially when foreign aid agencies attempt to promote human rights agendas such as women’s rights that severely conflict with ‘entrenched’ societal, cultural or religious norms (Tamanaha 2011, 24). He argues that foreign aid agencies need to consider whether the assistance will lead to legal pluralism that could discredit and reduce the meaning and function of legal systems in their recipient country (Tamanaha 2011, 24). JICA’s awareness of legal pluralism upholds their incremental approach in assisting legal and judicial reform, rather than a permanent exclusion of universal norms and standards. According to the Advisory Group, the current draft Civil Code demonstrates a transition from the pre-existing Country Code to a Civil Code with international standards, and will need further improvement in the future (JICA 2010c). It can be observed that the Nepalese reciprocate this Japanese approach of incremental change in an example of reviewing the provisions on the partition of property. These provisions were based on the tradition under which the father or husband owns family property through a partition system and hence was discriminatory for married women (MOJ 2010). In an effort to address the discriminatory provisions, the Nepalese Task Force discussed the possibility of introducing provisions to transfer property through a will system even though it could mean a shift from the transitional system of paternal property. JICA’s incremental approach through harmonizing the existing traditional laws with internationally accepted norms so as to ingrain the draft Civil Code in present-day Nepal appears to be a careful way to avoid legal pluralism, though some would argue that the gap between the law and reality should be handled by court decision, not by law. Moreover, JICA’s approach could face criticism that it justifies international human rights standards not being met. Those two factors above contributing to the cultural selection resulted in respecting the Nepalese initiative and emphasizing harmonization between universal norms and local tradition. It resonated with a stronger intent placed by the Nepalese counterparts on ‘preserving the best of old values’ within the

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pre-existing laws (JICA Nepal Office 2010, 2), and alerted both Nepal and Japan to select the path to harmonize the norms. In any case, the process seemed to consider ‘whether, to what extent, and how the pre-existing norm helps to redefine the emerging norm at least in the local context, or at the receiving end’ (Acharya 2004, 244). By so doing, ‘incremental norm transplantation’ or ‘grafting’ to institutionalize the human rights norms ‘by associating it with a pre-existing norm in the same issue area’ (Acharya 2004, 244) was exercised by both parties. In addition to roles of ‘norm taker’ and ‘norm entrepreneur’, the localization framework highlights the importance of local actors, especially those with credibility and ‘sufficient discursive influence to match or outperform outside norm entrepreneurs operating at the global level’ (Acharya 2004, 248). In the process of drafting the Civil Code, this role was filled by both the Nepalese Task Force as well as the Japanese Advisory Group representing JICA. From the outset, the Nepalese government was keen to learn from the Japanese experience in incorporating Western laws while preserving its culture (JICA 2011d, 85). Through continuous and mutual dialogue, JICA gained further credibility in the eyes of its Nepalese counterparts as the Nepalese Task Force had seen that ‘JICA was the first to understand the real legal cooperation to the government of Nepal’ (JICA Nepal Office 2010, 1–2).

Conclusion JICA’s assistance in drafting the Civil Code in post-conflict Nepal presented several opportunities that encouraged the localization of human rights norms within the drafted Civil Code. First, there was a strong need and potential to enhance legitimacy and authority of the newly established government by upholding the universal norms of human rights which were extraneous, and therefore new, to Nepal. Second, despite the needs for new norms, there were also the pre-existing local norms that were deep-rooted in Nepalese society through religion, culture and long history (Acharya 2004, 248). Some of these existing norms could conflict with Western ‘universal’ norms of human rights; therefore, a complete replacement of indigenous norms with the new ones could entail critical risks for the country in post-conflict transition, harming the existing social order or increasing social and political instability (Acharya 2004, 246). Under the circumstances, localization served as an effective option for the Nepalese government by balancing the need to introduce universal norms and to maintain the existing social order. Therefore, cultural selection took place in the process of localization by preserving some of the traditional norms and customs mainly associated with gender and family issues, caste and ethnicity. Third, by prioritizing the harmonization of universal and local norms, JICA’s assistance affected the acts of cultural selection to some extent. While the remaining discriminatory provisions caused a dilemma for JICA as an international donor who is expected to uphold the universal norms of human

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rights, the two factors led to its cautious stance on full acceptance of the universal norms and to respecting deep-rooted local traditions. This created a unique identity which followed from the Japanese experience of localizing Western norms through the process of its own development and the necessity of avoiding legal pluralism. Fourth, JICA’s dual function as norm taker and norm entrepreneur played a significant role by performing as a credible and influential actor that could compete with foreign norm entrepreneurs who endeavour to apply universal norms. The approach adopted in this case of drafting a Civil Code in post-conflict Nepal contrasts clearly with the many examples of ineffective rule of law assistance that tend to import Western-style institutions into a non-Western context (Mani 2008, 38). While a ‘substantial’ approach for the rule of law assistance (Tamanaha 2004) engenders intractable dilemmas between sometimes incompatible universal norms and indigenous ones, it could lead to the process of localization, through which foreign ideas can be voluntarily and gradually assimilated over time, leading to more profound change (Acharya 2004, 250). Although the impact of JICA’s assistance in developing the Civil Code in Nepal cannot be evaluated before it becomes legislation, the experience presents useful discussion points on incorporating universal norms such as those of human rights into non-Western contexts.

Bibliography Acharya, Amitav. 2004. How Ideas Spread: Whose Norms Matter? Norm Localization and Institutional Change in Asian Regionalism. International Organization, 58, Spring, 239–275. Amnesty International. 2015. Amnesty International Report 2014/15: The State of the World’s Human Rights. London: Amnesty International. BBC. 2015a. Why is Nepal’s New Constitution Controversial?19 September. www.bbc. co.uk/news/world-asia-34280015 (accessed 10 December 2015). BBC. 2015b. UN: Nepal Blockade Puts Millions of Children at Risk. 30 November. www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-34968252 (accessed 10 December 2015). Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). n.d. Nepal. The World Factbook. www.cia.gov/ library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/np.html (accessed 6 August 2014). Channell, Wade. 2005. Lessons Not Learnt: Problems with Western Aid for Law Reform in Postcommunist Countries. Carnegie Paper. Rule of Law Series, 57, May. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. carnegieendowment.org/files/CP57. Channell.FINAL.pdf (accessed 14 August 2014). Ishikawa, Shigeru. 2005. Supporting Grown and Poverty Reduction: Toward Mutual Learning from the British Model in Africa and the Japanese Model in East Asia. GRIPS Development Forum Discussion Paper No. 9, March. www.grips.ac.jp/ forum-e/pdf_e02/DP9.pdf (accessed 7 August 2014). Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). 2009. Capacity Development for Legal and Judicial Sectors in Developing Countries – JICA’s Cooperation for ‘Rule of Law’ Promotion. June. Public Policy Department. gwweb.jica.go.jp/km/FSubject0401.nsf/

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03a114c1448e2ca449256f2b003e6f57/82696a8eef347f08492577260007b98c?OpenDo cument (accessed 11 August 2014). Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Nepal Office. 2010. A Step Towards Reformation of Legal System. Quarterly Newsletter, April–June, 57. www.jica.go.jp/ nepal/english/office/others/pdf/newsletter_57.pdf (accessed 7 August 2014). Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). 2010a. Japan/JICA NPPR Background Paper: NPPR Annual Meeting 9–10 September 2010. www.jica.go.jp/nepal/ english/activities/pdf/background-paper.pdf (accessed 7 August 2014). Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). 2010b. Houseibininihon no keikenwoikasu (1) [Utilizing Japanese Experience in Judicial Reform]. Topics, 10 September. www.jica.go.jp/topics/2010/20100910_01.html (accessed 30 May 2014). Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). 2010c. Houseibininihon no keikenwoikasu (2) [Utilizing Japanese Experience in Judicial Reform]. Topics, 9 September. www.jica.go.jp/topics/2010/20100910_02.html (accessed 30 May 2014). Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). 2011a. An Ancient Himalayan Land Gets a New Legal System. JICA’s World, January, 13. www.jica.go.jp/english/p ublications/j-world/pdf/1101_8-15.pdf (accessed 7 August 2014). Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). 2011b. Funsounigyakumodorishinaiminsyu-kokka no jitsugenwo [To Materialize a Democratic State that Does Not Relapse into Armed Conflict]. Jica’s World, April, 16–18. www.jica.go.jp/p ublication/j-world/1104/pdf/tokushu_04.pdf (accessed 7 August 2014). Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). 2011c. Issue-Specific Activities and Initiatives: Public Policy – Realizing High Quality Public Services Based on People’s Needs. JICA Annual Report 2011: 86–91. www.jica.go.jp/english/publications/rep orts/annual/2011/pdf/19.pdf (accessed 11 August 2014). Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). 2011d. Kadaibetsu Shishin: Houseibi Shien [Issue-Specific Guideline: Legal Reform Assistance], March. gwweb.jica.go.jp/km/ FSubject0401.nsf/ff4eb182720efa0f49256bc20018fd25/d3d6c38c35e0857e492579d40027 daed/$FILE/%E8%AA%B2%E9%A1%8C%E5%88%A5%E6%8C%87%E9%87%9D% E3%80%8C%E6%B3%95%E6%95%B4%E5%82%99%E6%94%AF%E6%8F%B4%E3 %80%8D(H23).pdf (accessed 11 August 2014). Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). 2012a. JICA Annual Report 2012. www.jica.go.jp/about/report/2012/ku57pq00000sc3za-att/59.pdf (accessed 30 August 2014). Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). 2012b. Project ID – 0900585. Project Basic Information, JICA Knowledge Site. gwweb.jica.go.jp/km/ProjectView.nsf/ VIEWParentSearch/65DE069AFC013640492577ED0079EDDD?OpenDocument& pv=VW02040104 (accessed 30 August 2014). Kato, Hiroshi. 2015. Japan’s ODA 1954–2014: Changes and Continuities in a Central Instrument in Japan’s Foreign Policy. In Kato, H., J. Page and Y. Shomomura (eds) Japan’s Development Assistance: Foreign Aid and the Post-2015 Agenda. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1–18. Kersbergen, Kees van and Bertjan Verbeek. 2007. The Politics of International Norms: Subsidiarity and the Imperfect Competence of the European Union. European Journal of International Relations, 13(2): 217–238. Lancaster, Carol. 2007. Foreign Aid: Diplomacy, Development, Domestic Politics. Chicago, IL and London: The University of Chicago Press.

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. Mani, Rama. 2008. Exploring the Rule of Law in Theory and Practice. In Hurwitz, Agnes with Huang Reyko (eds) Civil War and the Rule of Law: Security, Development, Human Rights. Boulder, CO and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 21–45. Manning, Richard. 2015. OECD-DAC and Japan: Its Past, Present, and Future. In Kato, H., J. Page and Y. Shimomura (eds) Japan’s Development Assistance: Foreign Aid and the Post-2015 Agenda. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 276–292. Minamikata, Satoshi, Hiroyuki Kihara and Hiroshi Matsuo. 2012. Neparuniokerugenkou-minjihou no genjyou to kongo no rippoudoukou [The Current Situation of the Present Civil Code and the Future Legislation Trend in Nepal]. A study commissioned by the International Cooperation Department (ICD), Ministry of Justice, Japan. www.moj.go.jp/content/000111943.pdf (accessed 13 August 2014). Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA). 2003. Basic Policies – How is ODA Implemented? Japan’s Official Development Assistance White Paper 2003. Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), Japan. www.mofa.go.jp/policy/oda/white/2003/part1_2_1_ 2.html#s_1 (accessed 11 August 2014). Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA). 2013. Reference Materials on Japan’s ODA. Japan’s Official Development Assistance White Paper 2013. Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), Japan. www.mofa.go.jp/policy/oda/white/2013/pdfs/0305.pdf (accessed 11 August 2014). Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA). 2014. Jinkengaikou [Human Rights Foreign Diplomacy]. Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), Japan. www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/ga iko/jinken.html (accessed 30 August 2014). Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA). 2015. Cabinet Decision on the Development Cooperation Charter. (Provisional Translation). 10 February. www.mofa.go.jp/files/ 000067701.pdf (accessed 14 March 2015). Ministry of Law and Justice (MOJ). 2010. The Draft of Civil Code, Civil Procedures Code and Report. Ministry of Law and Justice (Government of Nepal), Kathmandu: New Era Offset Press. Office of the High Commission for Human Rights (OHCHR). n.d. What are Human Rights? www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Pages/WhatareHumanRights.aspx (accessed 13 August 2014). Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). 2005. Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness. OECD Publishing. dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264098084-en (accessed 30 August 2014). Raposo, P. Amakasu. 2014. Japan’s Foreign Aid to Africa: Angola and Mozambique within the TICAD Process. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Santiso, Carlos. 2003. The Elusive Quest for the Rule of Law: Promoting Judicial Reform in Latin America. Brazilian Journal of Political Economy, 23(3(91), 112–134. Shiga, Hiroaki. 2013. ‘Hou no shihai’ no kouchikuwanazemuzukashiika – sonokouchikukatei no seiji-sei [Why is the Development of ‘Rule of Law’ Difficult – the Political Nature of its Development Process]. In Kimura, H., H. Kondou and Y. Kanamaru (eds) Kaihatsu-seiji-gaku no tenkai – Tojyoukokukaihatsusenryakuniokerugabanansu [The Evolution of Development Politics Studies – Governance in Development Strategies]. Tokyo: Keiso Shobo. Shimomura, Yasutami. 2012. Chugoku no taigai-enjyo no daitou to nihon no katsuro – ‘Daitai-an’ to shite no ‘Ajia-gata enjoy moderu’ [Rise of Chinese Foreign Aid and New Opportunities for Japan – Asian Assistance Model as an Alternative]. Chugoku no taigai enjoy [Chinese Foreign Aid]. Japan Institute for International Affairs, March, 131–145.

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Shimomura, Yasutami. 2015. The Political Economy of Japan’s Aid Policy Trajectory: With Particular Reference to the Changes and Continuity under the ODA Charter. In Kato, H., J. Page and Y. Shimomura (eds) Japan’s Development Assistance: Foreign Aid and the Post-2015 Agenda. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 72–87. Stromseth, Jane. 2006. Improving Local Participation. In Can Might Make Rights: Building the Rule of Law after Military Interventions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 376–386. Tamanaha, Brian Z. 2004. On the Rule of law: History, Politics, Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tamanaha, Brian Z. 2011. The Rule of Law and Legal Pluralism in Development. Legal Studies Research Paper Series, 11-01-01, July, Washington University in St Louis School of Law. United Nations (UN) General Assembly. 2012. Report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review Resolution: Japan. Human Rights Council Twentysecond Session Agenda item 6, 14 December, UN General Assembly resolution A/HRC/22/14. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). 2009. Political Transformation and Inclusion Critical for Building Peace in Nepal. Press Releases, 17 August. www.np. undp.org/content/nepal/en/home/presscenter/pressreleases/2009/08/17/political-transform ation-and-inclusion-critical-for-building-peace-in-nepal.html (accessed 6 August 2014). United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Nepal. 2010. Outcome Evaluation of UNDP Nepal Access to Justice and Human Rights 2001–2010, Final Report. 29 November. erc.undp.org/evaluationadmin/downloaddocument.html?docid=4507 (accessed 14 August 2014).

Part II

The localization of gender

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Appropriating gender The ambivalent effects of Nigeria’s CEDAW implementation Mathias Großklaus

Introduction In 1985, with much rhetorical noise, Nigeria became a signatory to the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). It has been highlighting this as a landmark step towards more gender equality ever since. Yet, beyond verbal commitment on the international stage, the Nigerian government has shown little dedication in truly carrying out the convention’s provisions. CEDAW has never been implemented into domestic law. The document appears to be little more than a paper tiger.1 Nonetheless, and despite lack of legal power, small things have changed. CEDAW norms have become established as points of reference within the Nigerian debate. While the respective norms continue to be highly controversial and far from widely internalized, they have incrementally become part of the Nigerian debate on gender equality. Not specific provisions, but the contentious nature of gender representation in the wider normative context of development has become localized as part of a broader domestic normative struggle. As a result, government actors have begun to engage those norms. While external knowledge about the meaning of ‘development’ has been perpetuated through discursive filters and affected the country’s legal framework, the Nigerian government has managed to devalue the meaning of gender rights and dissolve semantic resistance by appropriating pivotal concepts. Ultimately, the penetration of United Nations (UN) gender norms into the Nigerian discourse has not challenged long-established value orders, but rather ultimately has led to their stabilization, minimizing the transformative challenge posed by the norms originally promoted. How can we make sense of such multifaceted and seemingly contradictory outcomes of development policies promoted internationally? In this chapter, I propose the concept of appropriation as a suitable analytical framework. Appropriation describes productive processes of adaptation that embed international norms and developmental scripts into existing sets of values. It sheds light on subtle processes of normative change that are neither adoption nor rejection. Consequently, appropriation is neither necessarily a ‘positive’ nor a desirable process that can lead to both order transformation and order stabilization.

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The promotion of international norms and developmental scripts: localization as appropriation Appropriation, as used here, is a notion that originates from Shmuel Eisenstadt’s concept of ‘multiple modernities’ (Eisenstadt 2000, 2007). Within this understanding, modernity is not seen as an artefact or as subject matter for analysis, but as a category of sociological observation. Modernity is semantic in nature, open for negotiation and renegotiation, leading to the parallel existence of multiple modernities. The appropriation of foreign or ‘alien’ norms and ideas is of pivotal importance to this process: In the non-West, social groups take over Western concepts and normative patterns in order to participate in a normative order – even though this appeal comes with the rejection of Western control over this very order. Through this process of appropriation, Western ideas of (claimed) universal validity can become incorporated within non-Western identity constellations without replacing local identities. Local struggles for equality and hierarchy may hence be transferred to the international level by appropriating the respective language. This way, local politics can be dealt with in Western terms without having to fall back on the traditions of Western societies at the same time. It thus becomes possible to challenge social realities in a language with foreign roots that has become one’s own, still maintaining a semantic relation to Western (‘modern’) frameworks of reference (Eisenstadt 2007, 39). This has institutional consequences: the appropriation process pivots around conflicting conceptions of the relation between state and society, between individual and collective – about what’s normatively right (De La Rosa 2008, 85). Due to its perpetual nature, the transformative force of appropriation lies in the fact that it not only alters societal configurations but also the traditions of the appropriating actors. Putting special emphasis on the constitutive role of communicative relations in the formation of entangled modernities, Shalini Randeria expands Eisenstadt’s approach. Instead of classifying specific normative concepts as Western achievements, this approach conceives of those concepts – and the specific modes of action linked to them – as unsteady and alterable constructions. A norm is thus not to be understood as a coherent concept that can be exported and transplanted in another context. It is an ambiguous institution that is subject to contestation, appropriation and advancement (Randeria 2004, 161). This implies that Western modernity does not pave a specific path of development but rather constitutes a cultural frame of reference for non-Western societies. Accordingly, appropriated institutions cannot be reduced to a simple takeover or imitation of Western ideas, nor can they be fully understood without taking their relation to those very ideas into account. Still, this conception does not deal with the mechanisms of interaction at play. This gap is addressed by Homi Bhabha’s work on cultural hybridity, whose conceptualization is not essentially about how ideas or knowledge travel, but about definitory power within postcolonial interaction

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(Bhabha 1994). As modes of takeover, Bhabha differentiates mimicry and hybridity. While the former denotes unintended, rather random imitations, the latter comprises creative and thus intentional appropriation. Hybridity describes the formation of something new that goes beyond a reproductive relation between original and copy. Hence, appropriation can entail both reactive practices of imitation and instrumental action. The latter serves as the counterpart of the colonizers’ instrumentality, e.g. by undermining the forced takeover of certain imperial terms and concepts through its redefinition (Bhabha 1994, 171f.; De La Rosa 2012, 43–50). This emphasizes the power implication enshrined in the concept – and highlights that appropriation can be understood as a practice of resistance. Naturally, the discursive formation that arises out of this performative tension does not necessarily lead to order transformation as conservative actors may succeed in further stabilizing an existing configuration by embedding and ‘taming’ a potentially challenging idea. In the following, I apply this framework to the Nigerian CEDAW implementation process. I use intertextuality (Göhler et al. 2010; Holzscheiter 2010, 27ff.) as the guiding analytical category, accounting for the temporal and spatial patterns of reference central to appropriation, disclosing where discursive change takes place. (Re)contextualization (Goodwin and Duranti 1992; Holzscheiter 2010, 76f.) then sheds light on the productive aspect of appropriation as the creation of something new through translation and reinterpretation, which could be observed along the contested contexts of reform, development, tradition, nation and democracy. Discursive macrostrategies (Wodak et al. 1998, 74) visualize appropriation as a part of larger struggles for normative orders. Covering the discursive formation around gender representation, a data corpus has been compiled comprising all major gender-related policy reforms in Nigeria since 1999, the end of military rule. The analysis has been limited to provisions on representation in order to narrow down the vast amount of subjects covered by CEDAW to one policy field that affects a central regulatory area of political and normative structures in direct relation to a nation-state’s distribution of power. The corpus consists of legal texts, the data produced in the various constitutional reform commissions, governmental strategy papers, international treaties and conventions, the reports and proceedings of the CEDAW Committee, reports, articles, briefings, strategy papers and other publications of Nigerian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), as well as media coverage and scientific literature referenced in the reform process. The subsequent sections present the findings, highlighting the subtle outcomes of appropriation processes.

Negotiating ‘gender’ and ‘development’: the implementation of CEDAW in Nigeria Adopted in 1979 by the UN General Assembly, the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women is the most farreaching international treaty on women’s rights. As of today, 189 states have

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ratified the document, with the United States being the most notable exception. In Article 1, the document defines discrimination as ‘any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women, irrespective of their marital status, on a basis of equality of men and women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field’. Even though this still leaves substantial leeway for interpretation, it goes far beyond other declarations like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by employing a definition of gender and gender rights that implicitly includes and challenges the status of men in society. Crucially, the convention links gender issues and the broader development context. The long and contested process that led to its inception marks the first notable transnational arena where women from the Global South first received heightened international attention as important actors in the development process, as pivotal promoters of the emerging socio-economic ‘development’ framework and by that, as specific addressees of Western ‘Women in Development’ programmes (Zwingel 2005a, 2005b, 85). Over the years, this process led to a reconstruction of the meaning of development as a global script, among others linking poverty, population growth and the status of women in general, within societies and within families (Zwingel 2005b, 87–88). These opportunities were enthusiastically taken up by domestic women’s rights movements. Paralleled by the evolution of a legalistic human rights framework that saw no need for a systematic inclusion of a gendered perspective, CEDAW positioned itself as the first document that explicitly addressed this gender blindness in development. However, when the negotiation process gained traction and it became apparent that CEDAW was about to emerge from the shadows of a feminist corrective to a landmark international treaty, activist delegates were gradually replaced by seasoned diplomats representing state interests. This inevitably made the convention less radical as its main line of attack began to converge around a secular feminist understanding of gender rights. This went hand in hand with weak enforcement mechanisms as member states were determined to reduce CEDAW’s impact on state sovereignty (Zwingel 2005a). Accordingly, the CEDAW monitoring process relies on state reporting. Signatory states are obliged to regularly issue reports on the implementation process of CEDAW provisions. These are then considered by the UN CEDAW committee which in turn issues a final report to be submitted to the General Assembly. As part of the monitoring process, the UN encourage nongovernmental groups to submit so-called ‘shadow reports’ to the committee. By soliciting opinions, original research and policy recommendations from NGOs, it hopes to circumvent government bias in the CEDAW reporting.

Nigerian women’s rights organizations and CEDAW Precisely because of its international nature and the accompanying ‘development’ connotation, transnational gender discourses in general and CEDAW

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in particular have always been highly contentious issues in the Nigerian women’s rights landscape. On one side, there’s a very active and well-networked transnational NGO scene that has readily taken up the opportunity to engage in CEDAW shadow reporting. With the first report published in 1998, the practice gained traction fast and more organizations began to take part in the process, most notably the National Coalition for Affirmative Action (NCAA), Civil Resource Development and Documentation Centre (CIRDDOC), and Women Aid Collective (WACOL). In 2008, 148 NGOs from all federal states contributed to the report coordinated by WACOL. Because of their active role in the CEDAW implementation process, those organizations were successful in acquiring foreign funding for that very process – in the case of the 2008 shadow report, funding came from the German Heinrich Böll Foundation. This capacity building proved to be pivotal for NGO influence on the CEDAW implementation process (as I will argue below), but simultaneously broadened an existing cleavage in the Nigerian women’s rights landscape between Western-style NGOs advocating a secular feminism, and more radical, strictly domestic organizations. This camp rejects the ‘development’ framework as a whole, arguing that it sustains discriminatory structures from the international economic system rather than transforming them, and therefore runs counter to the goal of women’s struggles. Those organizations oppose internationalism as an instrument of class reproduction, attacking the international ‘universalized’ brand of feminism as an oppressive inheritor of the post-colonial state. In the Nigerian debate, such a collectivist grasp of the women’s struggle is spearheaded by thinker Ifi Amadiume, who famously terms women’s organizations devoted to ‘traditional African matriarchal heritage’ as ‘daughters of the Goddess’ in contrast to elite-led and foreign-funded NGOs as ‘daughters of Imperialism’ (Amadiume 2000). This polarization has its roots in the country’s history of continued political turmoil, with an emerging civil society sector reacting to instability and social injustices. This trend continued and gained more traction following the country’s independence in 1960, leading to a massive increase in NGOs. This continued after the coup of 1985 and the military rule that followed. Many NGOs reacted to the political shift by repositioning themselves as institutional critics instead of a more radical opposition with the danger of prosecution. As a result, these organizations began to re-frame their political struggles around the electoral process, which in turn generated an opportunity for Western development cooperation as it fitted with donors’ procedural understanding of democracy. Nationalistic structures played a key role here, as this allowed NGOs to gain funding from external donors sympathetic to the idea of the nation-state. Nigerian organizations began to call for, and build up, ‘civil society’ by strategically linking the concept and its organizational development to a post-independence national identity. After the end of military rule, when the 2000 Constitution reinstated democratic institutions and the rule of law, those NGOs that had strategically

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focused their oppositional struggle on civil society and electoral rights stuck to their path. This allowed their inclusion in many of the newly formed institutions, especially the electoral reform committees. Even though this inclusion was highly symbolic and entailed very limited direct influence, it had two non-negligible effects. First, it further sharpened the alignment of publicly visible (and externally funded) NGOs and rights-based organizations as watchdogs and overseers of the electoral process. Second, the institutional embedding created organizational structures and knowledge resources that would later be used to introduce aspects of CEDAW norms into the ongoing reform process. Especially those very NGOs that had been actively positioned as electoral reform watchdogs were tasked with preparing drafts of an implementation bill and providing input to federal ministries, most notably in the drafting process of the new National Gender Policy 2007.

Gender quantified Women’s representation has not always been a prominent feature of the Nigerian government’s CEDAW implementation strategy. Rather, its relative appreciation can be explained by a change of strategy that became institutionally stabilized: as the Nigerian government felt cornered by the CEDAW committee in other policy areas, it shifted its focus towards representation where small achievements could be easily backed by numbers (UN 1998a, 1998b, 1998c). This emphasizes a demand-driven aspect of norm diffusion: the relevant normative ‘supply’ has always been present but only became relevant when the ‘recipient’ actively demanded it. This was no more than a strategic move, but it had major effects nonetheless. First, it compelled the Nigerian government – at least rhetorically – to stick to the path of representation concerning its implementation strategy. Not only did the government try to co-opt the emerging shadow reporting that it had previously redflagged as ‘irresponsible’ and ‘non-objective’ (UN 1998a, 2), but it moved its domestic gender focus towards representation, concentrating most of its efforts on this aspect of reform. Second, the CEDAW committee absorbed the shift of focus. Although UN monitoring had hardly mentioned representational issues in the years prior, the UN side began to take over intertextual patterns stemming from Nigerian NGO shadow reports that had cloaked their local struggles in international terms and began referencing the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BDPfA; UN 2004a, 2004b). The Nigerian government then, in turn, referenced those emerging normative patterns in their subsequent reports, which slowly established the BDPfA as a point of reference, both in the UN monitoring and in the domestic reform process, to a relevant normative pool. Although strategic in nature, the rhetoric of representation impacted the Nigerian reform process. Various knowledge resources stemming from the shadow-reporting process have found their way into existing domestic institutions, albeit discursively filtered so that direct references to CEDAW and

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BDPfA began to disappear. In line with its ‘statistical turn’, countering the emerging NGO shadow reports, the Nigerian government began to train dedicated ‘data researchers’ for its reporting process in order to maintain control over the data backing the implementation process (Federal Republic of Nigeria 2004). This enhanced the status of the National Centre for Women Development (NCWD), a semi-public, state-financed think tank. Although founded in 1995, only after the government’s ‘statistical turn’, in 2004, did it become the central point of reference for policy rationale at the Nigerian Ministry of Women’s Affairs (UN 2006b, 2006a). In the ongoing constitutional reform process, the NCWD began to operate as an important discursive filter through which normative reasoning stemming from CEDAW and BDPfA – exempt from its foreign origins – seeped into the domestic reform discourse. As a semi-state institution, the NCWD was assigned to produce policy material that could be presented to the CEDAW committee. Yet, subsequently, the manifold publications, working papers and briefings that were written in the context of NGO shadow reporting were also used in the National Policy Reform Council (NCPR) and other institutions not directly related to the implementation of international protocols (NCWD 2005, 2012). In the process, UN norms were filtered: while provisions on representation analogous to those of CEDAW and BDPfA became widely used, direct references to their international origins disappeared, reform commissions quoted NCDW materials which had in turn originally referenced UN sources. The NGO landscape in Nigerian proved to be well aware of the strategic importance of data and knowledge production. While the first shadow reports can be seen as merely interventionist strategies, NGOs then began to work towards the consolidation and diffusion of knowledge that had emerged in the drafting process (BAOBAB 2008; Nwankwo 2005, 2008). Over time, the shadow reporting became more formalized, moving NGO work closer to the academic complex (AAWORD 2007; WOCON 2004). Analogous to the NCWD papers, the NGO papers helped to ‘filter’ external norms. While the shadow reports and subsequent documents were not directly referenced in the electoral law reform process, the literature and data the NGOs had used in the shadow reports was referenced in the Gender Electoral and Constitutional Reform Committees, substantially influencing the reform commission’s reasoning (GEM 2008). As it became embedded in the relevant institutions – in what had been a merely tactical concession – affirmative action became an established topic in the constitutional reform process.

Development, empowerment and power: appropriating the context While gender norms seeped into the Nigerian discourse on reform, appropriation strategies proved to be powerful tools to counter their normative impact and stabilize established normative orders. The Nigerian government effectively challenged the connotative importance of affirmative action by recontextualizing it, making use of its discursive connection to the

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‘development’ frame. As key documents heavily referenced in CEDAW reporting, the National Planning Commission’s developmental strategies2 were used to frame the implementation of CEDAW as a subordinate aspect of national (economic) development, both towards the UN and domestic audiences: Thus, using a development oriented approach; gender inequality is no longer seen only in human rights terms, but also as a cost to the development process. (Federal Republic of Nigeria 2006, 1.4) Crucially, the development frame competes with the democracy topos, countering the institutional impact of external norms. The reception of gender as a minor aspect in a larger process of economic development is hardly surprising, as the UN itself frames both CEDAW and BDPfA within this broader development context. Yet, the interpretation of Nigerian state actors, discharging representation of its power- and democracy-related implications, no longer offered semantic points of contact for dissent and criticism in terms of democracy. As representation had become an aspect of economic development, local struggles for representation as a political right were now part of a different debate. The term empowerment serves as a discursive hinge between the two frames of reference. While empowerment (understood as the shift of political power) had been a key concept and slogan during the early phase of the emerging Nigerian gender debates (GADA 1996), Nigerian state actors began to pick up the term ‘empowerment’, and it is widely used in the various developmental strategies, yet consistently reinterpreted as ‘individual economic empowerment’ (NPC 2004, 34). Similarly, gender as an instrument replaces gender as a policy goal. Embedded in the context of holistic poverty reduction, gender equality loses its meaning as a developmental goal. Rather, CEDAW provisions are downgraded in the overall norm hierarchy as mere instruments in line with the national economic development strategies. While the relation between policy goal and instrument is still dialectical in the NEEDS strategy, this dualism incrementally disappeared in the reform process in subsequent years. This effect is reinforced by the growing importance of statistical data in the reporting and monitoring process (see above): while the respective statistical turn put representation as an aspect of CEDAWon the map in the first place, it also caused the original socially transformative implications to recede into the background. Towards international audiences, domestic development strategies have been advertised as a ‘reorientation of Nigerian values’. Not surprisingly, this strategy is only seemingly transformative. On the declaratory level, such a ‘modernized’ Nigerian value system is explicitly characterized as a hybrid formation, consisting both of ‘traditional’ and ‘global’ norms: This [economic success] will require two major fundamental changes. The first is a need to re-examine those shared values which have been so

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essential to whatever successes we may have recorded in the past […] The second major change is to open our minds to select the best options the world has to offer and then devise together a truly Nigerian success formula which will enable us [to] forge rapid success. (NPC 2009, 10, emphasis added) Contrary to this rhetoric, the intertextual foundations on which the argument is based are preceding strategy papers stemming from the era of military rule as well as the current Nigerian Constitution. The values that are supposed to be strengthened in order to achieve economic development are hardly a reorientation but rather a fortification of established values, entailing national consciousness, hard work, and respect for elders (NPC 2004, viii). In practice, ‘respect for elders’ is synonymous with male elders (Pereira 2008, 43). In line with this, questions on gender equality are grouped among technical issues in the operational chapters of the development strategies. Accordingly, the (‘empowered’) individual is linked to the frame of national interest in the context of poverty reduction, shifting the responsibility for social change to women as individuals. Gender as a distinction between more and less powerful groups hence takes a back seat in favour of national unity. The Nigerian government’s appropriation of the concept devalues the inequality between men and women by emphasizing the equality of all Nigerians, thus limiting gender reform in its normative scope. Again, this strategy could by legitimized towards the CEDAW committee by relating this conception of individuality to the principles of European Enlightenment (UN 1997, 12).

Concluding remarks Both the Nigerian government and Nigerian NGOs sought to gain control over the meaning of the developmental discourse to be implemented into the Nigerian context. While CEDAW norms found their way into various legal institutions, they were limited in their resonance as appropriation strategies effectively defused their transformative force. Governmental actors not only directly target the central norms that had penetrated the reform discourse but rather engaged in reinterpreting broader notions like ‘development’, ‘empowerment’ and ‘gender’. When gauging the impact of the transnational gender norms around CEDAW on the Nigerian reform process, Western modernity did not serve as a direct path of development, but rather as a normative framework: emerging institutions can neither be understood as a transplantation of the CEDAW provisions, nor without the reference to this context. The meaning of human rights on the domestic ground is subject to a process of adaptive interpretations that emerges through local actors’ strategies of productive appropriation. Aspects of CEDAW and the BDPfA only became institutionally relevant when local actors actively demanded it as a normative ‘supply’. Local actors transfer their local struggles to the international sphere by using a respective

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language. Such strategies have been used by all actors involved, not only civil society actors, but also by the government. As state officials appropriated feminist terminology and managed to shift the debate on representation from the realm of power and rights to the realm of economy, it ultimately led to the stabilization of a long-established, resilient normative configuration.

Notes 1 The respective Gender and Equal Opportunities Bill (SB. 376/C 477) that was drafted in order to implement the CEDAW provisions has been revised numerous times, but is still not formally adopted. 2 Most prominently the National Economic Empowerment and Economic Development Strategy (NEEDS) and the Vision 20-20 (NPC 2004, 2009).

Bibliography Amadiume, Ifi. 2000. Daughters of the Goddess, Daughters of Imperialism. African Women, Culture, Power and Democracy. London: Zed Books. Association of African Women for Research and Development(AAWORD). 2007. Les perceptions et représentations des africains et des africaines de l’égalité hommes-femmes. Dar al-Qalam: AAWORD. BAOBAB. 2008. The Nigeria NGO Coalition Shadow Report. Submission to the 41st Session of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Violence against Women. Bhabha, Homi. 1994. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge. De La Rosa, Sybille. 2008. Aneignung oder Annäherung. Zwei Formen interkultureller Kommunikation. In de la Rosa, S., U. Höppner and M. Kötter (eds) Transdisziplinäre Governanceforschung. Gemeinsame Blicke hinter den Staat. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 80–99. De La Rosa, Sybille. 2012. Aneignung und interkulturelle Repräsentation. Grundlagen einer kritischen Theorie politischer Kommunikation. Oldenburg: VS Verlag. Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. 2000. Multiple Modernities. Daedalus, 129: 1–29. Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. 2007. Multiple Modernities. Analyserahmen und Problemstellung. In Bonacker, T. and A. Reckwitz (eds) Kulturen der Moderne. Soziologische Perspektiven der Gegenwart. Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 19–45. Federal Republic of Nigeria. 2004. Federal Ministry of Women Affairs. Nigeria’s Report on the Implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action and Commonwealth Plan of Action. Federal Republic of Nigeria. 2006. National Gender Policy. Gender and Development Action (GADA). 1996. A Political Agenda for Nigerian Women. Second Post-Beijing Women’s Political Awareness Summit. Lagos: GADA. Gender Electoral and Constitutional Reform Committees (GEM). 2008. Hearing Women’s Voices: Mainstreaming Women in the Electoral Process in Nigeria. Submission to the Electoral Reform Committee at the Abuja Sitting, 24 June. Abuja. Göhler, Gerhard, Ulrike Höppner, Sybille De La Rosa and Stefan Skupien. 2010. Steuerung jenseits von Hierarchie. Politische Vierteljahresschrift, 51(4): 691–720. doi: 10.1007/s11615-11010-0036-0036.

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Goodwin, Charles and Alessandro Duranti. 1992. Rethinking Context: An Introduction. In Duranti, A. and C. Goodwin (eds) Rethinking Context: Language as an Interactive Phenomenon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1–31. Holzscheiter, Anna. 2010. Children’s Rights in International Politics. The Transformative Power of Discourse. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Nigerian National Centre for Woman Development (NCWD). 2005. A Compilation of the Constitution, National, State Statutes and Regulations, Local Government Bye Laws, Customary Law and Religious Laws, Policies and Practice, and Court Decisions Relating to the Status of Women and Children Applicable in Nigeria. Lagos: NCWD. Nigerian National Centre for Women Development (NCWD). 2012. About NCWD. www.ncwd.gov.ng/about_ncwd.php (accessed 24 February 2012). National Planning Commission (NPC). 2004. Meeting Everyone’s Needs. National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS). National Planning Commission (NPC). 2009. Nigeria Vision 20–2020. Economic Transformation Blueprint. Nwankwo, Oby. 2005. Human Rights of Women: A Compilation of International Human Rights and Instruments. Civil Resource Development and Documentation Centre Working Paper. Nwankwo, Oby. 2008. Women in Power & Decision Making Linking Cedaw Implementation on the Political Affirmative Action to Beijing Platform for Action & MDGs Goal 3. WACOL Working Paper. Pereira, Charmaine. 2008. Appropriating ‘Gender’ and ‘Empowerment’: The Resignification of Feminist Ideas in Nigeria’s Neoliberal Reform Programme. IDS Bulletin, 39(6): 42–50. Randeria, Shalini. 2004. Konfigurationen der Moderne: Zur Einleitung. In Randeria, S., M. Fuchs and A. Linkenbach (eds) Konfigurationen der Moderne. Diskurse zu Indien. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 9–36. United Nations (UN). 1997. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. Consideration of Reports Submitted by State Parties under Article 18 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, Second and Third Periodic Reports of State Parties, Nigeria. UN Doc. CEDAW/C/ NGA/2–3. United Nations (UN). 1998a. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. Nineteenth Session, Summary Record of the 395th Meeting, 2 July 1998. UN Doc. CEDAW/C/SR.395. United Nations (UN). 1998b. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. Nineteenth Session, Summary Record of the 396th Meeting, 2 July 1998. UN Doc. CEDAW/C/SR.396. United Nations (UN). 1998c. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. Pre-session working group for the nineteenth session, List of issues and questions with regard to the consideration of periodic reports, Nigeria. UN Doc. CEDAW/C/1998/II/CRP.1/Add.2. United Nations (UN). 2004a. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. Thirtieth Session, Summary Record of the 637th Meeting, 20 January 2004. UN Doc. CEDAW/C/SR.637. United Nations (UN). 2004b. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. Thirtieth Session, Summary Record of the 638th Meeting, 20 January 2004. UN Doc. CEDAW/C/SR.638.

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United Nations (UN). 2006a. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. Consideration of Reports Submitted by State Parties under Article 18 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, Annexes to the Sixth Periodic Report of Nigeria. UN Doc. CEDAW/C/NGA/6/ Add.1. United Nations (UN). 2006b. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. Consideration of Reports Submitted by State Parties under Article 18 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, Sixth Periodic Reports of State Parties, Nigeria. UN Doc. CEDAW/C/NGA/6. Wodak, Ruth, Rudolf de Cilia, Martin Reisigl, Karin Liebhart, Klaus Hofstätter and Maria Kargl. 1998. Zur diskursiven Konstruktion nationaler Identität. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Women’sConsortium Nigeria (WOCON). 2004. Nigeria NGO Report of the Decade of Review of the Implementation of Beijing Platform for Action (Beijing +10). Zwingel, Susanne. 2005a. From Intergovernmental Negotiations to (Sub)national Change: A Transnational Perspective on the Impact of the CEDAW Convention. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 7(3): 400–424. Zwingel, Susanne. 2005b. How Do International Women’s Rights Norms become Effective in Domestic Contexts? An Analysis of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). PhD diss., Freie Universität Berlin.

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How the localization of macrocultural concepts can reinforce gender inequalities A case study on the localization of reproductive health in Cambodia Thorsten Bonacker and Judith von Heusinger

Introduction Development aid programmes in the field of reproductive health aim at improving the health situation of the population, concerning, for example, sexual reproduction, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and mother-child health. These programmes also target issues of gender inequality because they promote the empowerment of women in choosing freely about whether and when to have children, or how many. However, in this chapter we argue that development aid interventions in the field of reproductive health produce paradoxical outcomes in societies such as Cambodia, given that internationally funded health programmes reinforce local understandings and traditions of gender relations and health in Cambodia.1 This chapter contributes to the discussion about the local consequences of the global diffusion of institutions. Research in the context of macrosociological institutionalism has shown that in different areas, globalization occurs primarily due to governments responding to exogenous expectations. Since the end of World War II their policies are increasingly self-oriented. This has led to the worldwide spread of global institutions and macrocultural models, and thus to an isomorphism of national and local policies, despite significant social differences (Meyer et al. 1997). In this context, macrosociologically oriented research has long dominated an understanding of the effectiveness of the processes of diffusion as well as the spread of world culture. At the same time, it has also demonstrated the effectiveness of global institutions. Parallel to that, explanatory approaches to social change, based on modernization theory, have lost their plausibility, as have theories that make endogenous factors responsible for social change. Admittedly, this does not mean that social change can be attributed solely to the adaptation of globally institutionalized expectations. However, from the view of neo-institutionalism, the effectiveness of global institutions is crucial for determining when and how local institutions and national policies change. The main argument is that national governments, local governments and

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social stakeholders are increasingly confronted with globally institutionalized notions of legitimacy, with which they are forced to deal. In the eyes of global stakeholders, illegitimate practices are difficult to justify under the conditions of a world polity. Stakeholders who nonetheless do so and insist on local traditions – real or imagined – risk the loss of legitimacy and thus of reputation. Early contributions by neo-institutionalists made clear that for various reasons, stakeholders tend to decouple symbolic structures and actual practice (Meyer and Rowan 1977). For example, although legislation may change, it is not always fully enforced. There may be multiple reasons for this, such as inconsistency among different normative principles in world culture (e.g. progress vs. environment), an unwillingness to implement standards that contradict their own beliefs (e.g. equality), or the lack of capacity to do so. What remains, however, is to look at the social effects of the local establishment of macrocultural constructs. This seems all the more necessary as the acquisition of such constructs often takes place via processes of negotiation. This leads to modifications of the associated principles, but can also produce outright resistance. In order to bring these processes into view, the macro perspective of neo-institutionalist globalization research needs to be connected with a meso or micro perspective, which is focused not just on negotiation and conflicts but also on the impact of the implementation of global principles. This chapter builds on the recent discussions about just such a connection. In this case, we focus on a particular aspect which has so far received little attention, namely the potentially paradoxical effects of the local establishment of global models and the related challenges for local institutions. We ask how social inequalities are reproduced through the acquisition of macrocultural constructs, such as reproductive health. Those inequalities are usually considered problematic in global discourses. In other words, it concerns unintended effects, which result when the changes sought by the adoption of global models does not take place, or not adequately. Conceptually, we deal with contributions on the localization of global standards and models that draw mainly on sociological and anthropological research. We first outline the initial premises of the neo-institutionalist research programme and show that paradoxical effects have already played a role in some recent contributions. However, they were not related to the question of how the implementation of global models could reinforce social inequalities. In order to take this into account, we expand the globalization theoretical perspective of neo-institutionalism with a localization theoretical perspective. Then, in our case study, we analyse the macrocultural construct of reproductive health, as it has been localized through development programmes in Cambodia. Two effects of localization can be observed here. One, from the research on local adaptation of policies of global expectations, is the known and predictable effects of decoupling. The second is the paradoxical, and in this sense unexpected, effect of the reproduction of existing gender hierarchies, which are considered problematic

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precisely in connection with the proposed development. Specifically, we show that there is first a takeover of legal frameworks for the implementation of the concept of reproductive health and, second, development policies, based on world cultural notions of reproductive health, operationalized traditional or context-specific norms. The development policies studied primarily target the responsibility of women, which is consistent with traditional Cambodian perceptions of gender roles, relationship patterns and family. Methodologically, the chapter is based on documentary analysis of legal frameworks and development policy papers. There is, as well, a content analysis of qualitative interviews which were conducted with development experts in Cambodia in 2013. This means, for the theoretical discussion about the connection between macro and micro perspectives, that closer attention should be paid to the mechanisms of localization and local social structures.

The diffusion of development and reproductive health as macrocultural concepts Since the 1990s, work in macrosociological institutionalism and world polity research has repeatedly shown that globalization occurs primarily through the diffusion of globally institutionalized principles and models. Responsible for this is, on the one hand, the effectiveness of a world polity with certain forms of stakeholders, and within which certain normative and cognitive principles have attained global legitimacy. Although these originate in the cultural horizon of Western modernity, they have spread globally only since the end of World War II. This is ensured, not least, by international organizations, which often embody these principles and promote their dissemination. Membership of states in these organizations often encourages the adoption of the entailed policies, which are often aimed at social change in different sub-regions. In many of these areas, it can be shown that universalistic macrocultural constructs such as progress, development, justice, human rights or environmental protection impart a tremendous effect on national and local policies. Examples of this can be seen in education reforms (Schofer and Meyer 2005; Chabbott 1998), the liberalization of sexual relations (Frank et al., 2010; Frank and McEneaney 1999), and gender equality (True and Mintrom 2001). In all these areas, ‘world polity research shows that the effects of the world polity often outweigh the effects of traditional national-level factors’ (Beckfield 2008, 420). Sociological neo-institutionalism, or world polity research, is based primarily on four interrelated core assumptions. First, states are strongly influenced by macrocultural constructs and global models such as progress or justice. These models contain universalist parameters about how responsible states should act. Second, states are held responsible for social progress within the framework of these models. Third, ‘[t]hese models increasingly define collective progress and societal justice as contingent on the development and activity of entities reconstituted as individual citizens’ (Ramirez and McEneaney 1997, 8). Finally, a fourth assumption relates to the dissemination of these models.

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According to Meyer, rationalized ‘policy scripts’ are disseminated worldwide which define and modify what is regarded as legitimate practice for stakeholders (states, organizations or individuals) (Meyer et al. 1997; Boli and Thomas 1997; Meyer and Jepperson 2000). They are disseminated by so-called ‘rationalized others’ (Meyer and Jepperson 2000), who appear to be entirely committed to the spread of abstract principles and macrocultural constructs. In particular, inter-governmental organizations (IGOs), such as the United Nations (UN) and its numerous subsidiary organizations, and international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) count among these. States, in turn, tend to orient themselves around these parameters, in order to appear as legitimate actors in the global community. This ultimately leads to the permanent modification of state policies and of social stakeholders, and thus to permanent social change. Development programmes contribute to the global diffusion of macrocultural constructs in two aspects. First, they see themselves as part of a macrocultural construct. Second, development programmes and the stakeholders in development politics convey and implement other globally rationalized principles that are regarded as important components of development; for example, a biomedical understanding of health, school education or social justice. They want to bring about social change insofar as these measures generally conform to existing local institutions and national policies aimed at global expectations. Through such curricular changes, a modern health care system is built or principles of good governance are implemented. In this respect, development cooperation is an established tool to convey the global institutions, from the core of world society to different cultural contexts around the world. Development workers effectively act as conduits for global models such as education, democracy, human rights and health. Development policy organizations and their experts are engaged worldwide in sustainable development and poverty reduction, effectively acting as rationalized others. They work with no apparent self-interest, with the mission to effectively and efficiently achieve sustainable development. In their discursive self-understanding, they are committed to overarching normative goals and do not follow national socio-economic interests (Andersen 2004). To achieve sustainable development, they operate worldwide in development policy contexts, transporting global knowledge to different local contexts. Development workers legitimize their interventions through the universal character of the human rights aspect, which is anchored in the right to development (Cook et al. 2003, 8). The notion of development can be traced back to Herder and Kant, but has become a potent part of international politics only after World War II. It was part of a geo-political containment strategy in the context of the Cold War and decolonization, where Western states tried to restrain socialist movements in countries of the ‘Global South’ through economic and ideological support. The right to development has been strongly emphasized since the 1970s, when the third generation of human rights, with emphasis on collective rights of societies and peoples and

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transnational solidarity across national boundaries, gained importance in global discourse. Concepts such as reproductive health consequently become part of the development paradigm and the object of localization beyond the national territory: ‘The impact of reproductive health is not limited to the individual, family and society at large. It extends across national boundaries to the world as a whole’ (ibid., 13). Global ideas and norms regarding development diffuse worldwide through development aid programmes. Since development aid actors intervene with these principles in mind, they are not prepared for paradoxical effects of norm localization. Below, we look at development cooperation and development programmes primarily as a globally institutionalized model, where macrocultural constructs such as reproductive health are translated into social contexts, delegitimizing local institutions. Development experts intervene in this social context as the rationalized other, equipped with global legitimacy. They confront local institutions and put them under pressure by supporting global ideas, such as the introduction of sex education in schools, efforts to facilitate access to contraception, or a push to increase the social acceptance of a biomedical understanding of birth. Since the mid-1990s, reproductive health has become a central component of sustainable development cooperation. Aiming to achieve health and wellbeing in any society is seen as an important requirement for development. Development experts agree that countries will remain precarious where there is development without a significant improvement in the health situation. Poor health of the population, in terms of reproductive health, is seen as an obstacle to development and poverty reduction. As a concept, reproductive health: implies that people are able to have a responsible, satisfying and safe sex life and that have the capability to reproduce and the freedom to decide if, when and how often to do so. Implicit in this are the right of men and women to be informed of and to have access to safe, effective, affordable and acceptable methods of fertility regulation of their choice, and the right of access to appropriate health care services that will enable women to go safely through pregnancy and childbirth and provide couples with the best chance of having a healthy infant.2 Development policies in the field of reproductive health include family planning, abortion, safe pregnancy, the reproductive health of adolescents and adults, protection against infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, protection against infertility caused by infections, menopause and reproductive health in old age, reproductive rights and aspects of gender equality, the role of men in the reproductive health of women, and measures to prevent sexual violence. Relating to the health of mothers and children, which is emphasized in particular in development cooperation (as a result of the prioritization of UN Millennium Development Goal 5), the following fields are emphasized: family

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planning, antenatal care, safe delivery and new-born care, post-partum care and basic obstetric care. Furthermore, curbing the spread of HIV/AIDS plays a central role in global development policy, as UN Millennium Development Goal 6 stipulates the limitation of pandemics. In the post-World War II period, the global community was dominated by the notion that population growth was the key obstacle to development, a view which was then directed to the well-being of individuals and their rights. Something similar can be observed in the overall conception of health: here the focus of the international debate – conducted mainly in international organizations – focused initially on the idea that the improvement of health, insofar as it contributes to development, increases the capacity of individuals in society: ‘Healthy people are more productive people, and more productive people are more prosperous and developed. Thus, health becomes a social service with an ulterior goal, namely development’ (Inoue and Drori 2006, 209). However, by the end of 1990s, the view that there is a right to health began to prevail (Bonacker et al. 2014). The emergence of the concept of reproductive health can be understood as the result of a change in the conception of health policy, from development to a right to health. Consequently, development is measured on the basis of whether the reproductive health situation has improved, especially for women. The right, and the responsibility, of the international community to implement reproductive health was enshrined in the global social context at the Cairo Conference in 1994. From the point of view of development policy stakeholders, reproductive health in Cambodia has not been satisfactorily fulfilled. Consequently, they intervene locally to establish internationally designed programmes to adequately deal with sexual and reproductive health. The focus on the implementation of rights is the basic notion that runs through all development policies in the area of reproductive health. Here, the individual with rights and duties increasingly becomes the focus. This approach, aimed at strengthening individual rights, thus produces the paradoxical effect of reproducing social inequality – especially gender inequality – because development policies emphasize rights and obligations, especially of women, and can therefore become directly linked to Cambodian notions of asymmetric gender roles.

The localization of macrocultural concepts and its effects In recent years, this perspective on the global spread and effectiveness of macrocultural constructs has been both enriched with further empirical analyses, for instance on transitional justice (Pfeiffer 2015), science and culture (Finnemore 1993), education (Koch and Schemmann 2009; Anderson-Levitt 2003), health (Inoue and Drori 2006), gender (Cobb 2014; Frank and McEneaney 1999; Frank et al. 2010), women’s rights (Bercovitch 1999; Ramirez & McEneaney 1997; True and Mintrom 2001), and theoretically expanded though the integration of other globalization theoretical approaches

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(Beckfield 2008; Holzer and Werron 2015). One of the central discussions has been devoted primarily to the question of the relationship between macro, meso and micro levels in institutionalist theories. This discussion is summarized in Bromley and Suárez (2014), who suggest that institutionalist theories have, over a long period, indeed focused on the macro level, but have also increasingly taken micro processes into account. This applies to studies that are interested in processes of the translation of global principles in local environments, and why some global principles work better than others in local contexts (compare, for example, to Steiner-Khamsi 2012). In this regard, it is often held that institutionalist theories are unable to keep in view the processes and mechanisms of selective translation and recontextualization of global models, ideas and policies (Takayama 2012, 519). Bromley and Suárez refer to the defence of the institutionalist perspective in the work of Scandinavian institutionalism, which they deem particularly appropriate to track such processes of localization, the implementation of macrocultural constructs in local contexts, and thus to supplement the diffusion theoretical perspective of world polity institutionalism: Two concepts have been developed as alternatives to the phrase diffusion. The first alternative, ‘translation’, is used to simultaneously convey movement and transformation of an element (Czarniawska & Sevón 1996). The emphasis on translation is to draw attention to the fact that management practices, formal structures, or ideas are typically not passively transferred wholesale from one setting to another. Instead, they are changed as they are copied in new contexts […] The second conception, developed to sharpen notions of how translation processes occur, is captured in the phrase ‘editing’ (Sahlin and Wedlin 2008). The ‘edited corporation’ is one where organizational templates are drawn from the environment, but actively reshaped by local participants (Sahlin-Andersson 2006). (Bromley and Suárez 2014) Both perspectives have indeed been fruitful in institutionalist research on the local implementation of global models. However, contrary to sociological and anthropological approaches of localization research, they provide only a limited account of social structures and the context of cultural communities, where global models are translated and localized. A second important addition to the classical diffusion theory perspective of neo-institutionalist research concerns the question of the effects and impacts on a local community. Historically, the focus here was the thesis of decoupling, the purpose of which was to show that diffusion is often not accompanied by practical adoption, but the symbolic or formal adoption of state and local policies. ‘The idea is that countries (or organizations) adopt formal practices in order to gain legitimacy by conforming to expectations in the environment. The process leading to adoption occurs separately from implementation and new formal structures can remain highly buffered from

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existing activities and/or exist largely as window dressing, either due to lack of capacity or lack of will’ (Bromley and Suárez 2014, 7). In particular, the ensuing discussion focused on the question of the different causes and mechanisms of decoupling (Boxenbaum and Jonsson 2008). Beyond this debate, the question of the social effects of the implementation of global models has experienced relatively little attention. This is particularly true for the potentially paradoxical effects associated with processes of localization of macrocultural constructs. In terms of paradoxical effects, we include the consequences of the localization of macrocultural constructs that are inconsistent with the global expectations associated with these constructs. An example of this would be strengthening the authority of fundamentalist religious organizations through the introduction of religious freedom, which liberalization schemes generally target in relation to the practice of religion, but under certain conditions may cause greater social influence by fundamentalist religious organizations. So far, there is little work that deals with such paradoxical effects. Hafner-Burton and Tsutsui (2005) have shown that the global institutionalization of human rights can have a ‘window-dressing’ effect in which governments, although committed to human rights, can in practice see a deterioration of human rights: As nation-states make formal legal commitments to symbolize human rights compliance even while they are in violation, this process of ‘empty’ institutional commitment to a weak regime paradoxically empowers nonstate advocates with the tools to pressure governments toward compliance. Our approach thus stands in sharp contrast to current theoretical views, none of which examine the two processes in the same model and therefore fail to explain the paradoxical impacts of global human rights institutions on local practices. (ibid., 1378) With respect to the global institutionalization of human rights, Koenig (2008) has identified that the associated change in the global model of the nationstate may in itself create paradoxical effects at the social level. This appears under circumstances when demands by actors are reinforced by collective rights. An individualistic understanding of human rights promotes collective, transnational or subnational identities. Thus, the worldwide diffusion of the nation-state model, legitimated by the link of national self-determination and human rights, led to the appearance of new actor-constellations and situations in international human rights discourse that required a further specification and differentiation of collective human rights and, paradoxically, resulted in the eventual delegitimization of national statehood and citizenship. (Koenig 2008, 108)

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Both studies show that global institutionalization may initiate social change, which is contrary to the goals enshrined in macrocultural constructs – for instance, a deterioration in governments’ human rights policies or a delegitimization of the institution of citizenship in favour of subnational identities. This chapter expands this perspective of the paradoxical effects of global institutionalization in two respects: first, it shows that paradoxical effects might also occur as global models are implemented in a local context; second, it focuses on the social context itself, and uses the example of reproductive health to articulate that through the localization of macrocultural constructs, existing social inequalities can be reproduced under certain circumstances and not simply changed. Contributions from norm localization research have shown that powerful local norms and traditions alter macrocultural constructs, in a context-specific manner that leads to – from international development workers’ perspective – unintended outcomes. Checkel (1999) as well as Cortell and Davis (2000) have introduced the idea of a ‘cultural match’ to explain the mechanisms that underpin the local reception of international norms. Those aspects of macrocultural concepts are adopted within the local society that correspond with local norms and values as well as traditions and institutions, whereas ‘alien’ aspects are mostly ignored or left out in the localization process. This notion of ignoring is described by the authors as ‘cultural resistance’, when the adoption of global norms is otherwise perceived as a threat to traditional values in society. Rather, local actors integrate those aspects of global institutions that fit their agendas and normative understanding. Global institutions can provide opportunities for local actors and activists to strengthen their position or to reinforce their arguments (Keck and Sikkink 1998; Risse et al. 1999). International development aid interventions, therefore, initiate societal change in local settings when global ideas strengthen local actors’ positions. This may lead to rather creative processes of localization, which Acharya (2004) has described as the ‘active construction’ of meaning by local actors. This, from our perspective, can lead to unintended and paradoxical outcomes of norm diffusion. In the following case study, we illustrate both effects of localization: decoupling and paradoxical outcomes.

The case study: Cambodia Cambodia is a South-East Asian country that was plagued by genocide and civil war from the 1970s until the mid-1990s. At the beginning of the 1990s, after more than 30 years of violent conflict and geopolitical isolation, a fragile peace was negotiated with the help of the UN. With this, Cambodia was integrated into global society. The first national elections were held in 1993 and since then the country and the Cambodian health system have been under reconstruction (Yanagisawa 2004). Cambodia is affected by rapid economic and social change, in large part fed by international aid, advancing economic growth and the effects of globalization. Thus far, despite

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improvements in the socio-economic situation and comprehensive efforts by international donors, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and government institutions, issues such as security of livelihood, poverty reduction, the implementation of human rights, gender equality and the achievement of reproductive health remain unfulfilled goals for most Cambodians. Based on international comparison, Cambodia is one of the lowest-rated countries regarding the state of the health care system and the health status of the population (World Bank 2014). As before, the majority of health services are supported by international organizations or by internationally funded NGOs. In 2012, 72 per cent of spending in the public health system was financed by external donors (Bureau of Health Economics and Financing et al. 2013). Measures in the field of reproductive health also have a high percentage of external finance, such as funding from German development cooperation. If one looks at the distribution of costs for the Cambodian population, two-thirds of health expenditure are privately financed by patients themselves making ‘out-of-pocket’ payments (Bigdeli and Annear 2009). Cambodia is one of the few countries in the region that is struggling with a generalized HIV/AIDS epidemic, with 2 to 4 per cent of the population infected with the virus (Sopheab et al. 2006, 81). It can be described as a patriarchal society, which is characterized by pervasive gender inequality. This leads some authors to make a connection between traditional Khmer ideas about family and sex, and the (by regional standards) higher than average HIV/AIDS rates (Aveling 2012, 462; Bühler et al. 2006; Franklin 2002). Initial steps in the field of HIV/AIDS prevention focused primarily on socalled ‘high-risk’ groups such as sex workers and soldiers. However, recent statistics show that nearly half of new HIV infections in Cambodia are married women, and development activities are increasingly targeting women (Aveling 2012, 462). The same applies to educational activities concerning mother and child health. The World Health Organization (WHO) indicates that both the timing and the frequency of antenatal care significantly contributes to the health of mother and child, and in this way, early intervention can reduce undesirable developments. In Cambodia, births are only rarely cared for in biomedical health care institutions, by trained medical personnel (Sagna and Sunil 2012, 415). The barriers for women are largely economic bottlenecks (e.g. no health insurance, high ‘under-the-table’ payments), geographic obstacles (e.g. the journey to the nearest medical facility is too far or too difficult) and the inferior quality of medical services (such as poorly qualified medical personnel). The training of medical personnel in Cambodia is often funded by development aid and is, consequently, often derived from a different cultural context (e.g. development experts from Europe, the United States, Australia and East Asia). Therefore, medical staff are frequently insensitive to Khmer traditions and conceptions of health that are dominated by animistic notions (Ith et al. 2013).

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Decoupling as a predictable effect of localization The localization of reproductive health, as a macrocultural construct via development cooperation, aims at social change. Local institutions, such as animist-influenced notions of health, are challenged. At the same time, the state is held accountable for changes in national policies in the field of reproductive health in order to promote social progress. From a neo-institutionalist perspective, it is therefore not surprising that the Cambodian government, as a responsible world cultural player, has identified reproductive health as a desirable development objective and has adopted the corresponding global expectations. Between 2006 and 2009, Cambodia adopted international standards with different legal texts and policy documents in the national law. Compared with the rest of Asia, Cambodia has adopted the most comprehensive laws and national objectives relating to reproductive health, as David Clarke found in his transnational study of 12 Asian countries (Clarke 2010, 32–33). According to policy and strategy papers, Cambodia is one of two countries in the region that includes HIV/AIDS prevention in sex education and has integrated sexual and reproductive health in all areas of the education sector. Furthermore, they have drafted detailed sectoral strategy papers to optimize education about diseases and risk reduction, including the integration of marginalized groups and anti-discrimination campaigns, for example, in the work place. In addition to Thailand, Cambodia is the only country in Asia that has adopted an ‘ABC’ strategy in development policy (abstain, be faithful and use a condom), learned from the African context. The comprehensive law has been drafted by various branches of the Cambodian ministries, with the National Reproductive Health Programme as a subdivision of the Ministry of Health, whose few employees are located in the National Maternal and Child Health Centre in Phnom Penh. Despite this, actual practice seems to be relatively far from this symbolic and formal recognition of global expectations. What can be observed is that an effect of the localization of the macrocultural construct of reproductive health is a naturally predictable decoupling of policy and practice. As Brandner notes, the department ‘is not sufficiently visible in concrete implementation’ (Brandner 2010, 46–47). Above all, the progress of indicators for development policies, relating to reproductive health, are still shocking in comparison with Western industrial nations: ‘each year about 536,000 women die during pregnancy or in connection with childbirth. Of these women, 99% die in developing countries’ (Kantelhardt and Hanson 2010, 56). In 2008, the rate of mortality during maternity in Cambodia was 540 per 100,000 live births – in Germany the rate is 4 per 100,000 live births (Plan International 2011) – as the country continues to struggle with a generalized HIV/AIDS epidemic. The rate of maternal mortality is higher than the regional average in South-East Asia, with 290 mothers dying for each 100,000 live births, and the country suffers from what is arguably the most severe STD and HIV/AIDS problem in Asia (Huff-Rousselle and Pickering 2001, 33).

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Thus, while the supply of health services in the public sector is relatively weak, the number of people working for private organizations in the health sector has multiplied in just a few years. In addition to providing educational materials and workshops, NGOs run private hospitals and health centres throughout the country. The Reproductive Health Association of Cambodia (RHAC) is registered as an NGO in Cambodia and is financed from abroad as an International Planned Parenthood Federation member (ibid., 35). The RHAC operates numerous hospitals in Phnom Penh, dealing with maternal health, birth, abortion and treatment of STDs. While the Cambodian government regards the preparation and legal establishment of the macrocultural concepts of reproductive health as corresponding to world cultural requirements, the implementation of laws and the achievement of objectives in practice are often imperfect. This theme is repeated by the Cambodian media in relation to sexual health education: ‘Though sexual health education has been part of the national curriculum since 1998 when HIV/Aids prevention was taught under the umbrella of health education, the subject is still rare in the classroom’ (Barron 2013). The Cambodian government is well aware that national plans for sex education have only been partially implemented. They shift the blame for this discrepancy from formal and legal requirements and actual practice to non-existent capacities, and emphasize the lack of funding facilities in the legally established policy measures. They make no reference to the discrepancy between cultural traditions and the global model of reproductive health, but rather adopt global expectations in this area. ‘It’s a big challenge for the ministry. We only have limited budget to print the new curriculum, and we need to train teachers in how to teach this subject’, according to a statement given to the Phnom Penh Post by Yung Kunthearith, Minister of Education, Youth and Sports (Barron 2013). Dr Kaing Sophal, programme manager at the NGO ACTED, commented: ‘According to data from the Ministry of Education, only one in three schools teach sexual and reproductive health […] but it’s crucial for youth to know about this subject’ (ibid.). Princess Norodom Soma has also been quoted in the Phnom Penh Post: Most of the books [about sex education] are in English, and there are limited resources about sex education in the Khmer language, making it a challenge for teachers to address this to their students. Cambodian parents do not want to talk about sex to their children, as this is considered a taboo topic. Young people learn about sex through pornography, which is very misleading. (Phnom Penh Post, 3 August 2012) These examples illustrate that the government believes it has a duty to ensure modern sex education. That, however, remains socially controversial, as evidenced by statements from journalists who repeatedly stress that talking

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about sexuality in Cambodian society is largely taboo (Barron 2013; Sel 2013; Soma 2012, all in the Phnom Penh Post). ‘The parents don’t want their children to learn about sex because they think it makes their children want to try sex at an early age’, a peer-to-peer trainer from the RHAC commented to the newspaper. Effects of decoupling are not only observed when it comes to the implementation of family planning programmes and sex education in Cambodian schools, but especially with regards to the transformation of gender relations in Cambodian society. Here, only those aspects of the macrocultural construct of reproductive health are localized that fit in with Cambodian perceptions of gender, whereas other aspects – namely the role of men in society – are widely ignored.

The reproduction of gender hierarchies as a paradoxical effect of localization International development organizations intervene as rationalized others in order to promote social equality within Cambodian society, which leads to paradoxical effects of decoupling. The localization of global ideas about reproductive health effects Cambodia in a social context, which is characterized by strong gender hierarchies. This is especially true since gender and health issues are being interlinked: The World Health Organization (WHO 2010) recognizes that […] addressing gender norms and roles leads to a better understanding of how the social construction of identity and unbalanced power relations between men and women affect the risks, health-seeking behaviour and health outcomes of men and women in different age and social groups. (WHO 2011, 22) Below, we first introduce Cambodian norms and behaviour patterns, and then we show how one can speak of a paradoxical effect of localization processes, because existing gender hierarchies are not altered in the course of the localization of reproductive health. They instead are reinforced according to Khmer understandings of male and female behaviour patterns.

Gender roles in Khmer society According to a Cambodian proverb, women are like a piece of white cloth. Once dirty, it remains forever tainted. Men, on the other hand, resemble diamonds. A diamond never loses its purity, no matter how often it may fall into the mud. After washing, a diamond sparkles as always. Historical poems and traditional proverbs such as this describe Cambodian gender roles, serving ideals whose tradition goes back to the Angkor period during the 8th–13th centuries, which are still valid in contemporary Cambodian society (Geurtsen 2005; Ledgerwood 1994). The socially required standards for an individual to

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behave according to their social status are more severe for women than for men, and include various issues (Brandner 2010, 38). The Khmer system of cognatic relatives guaranteed women a higher social status than in other Asian societies. Nevertheless, all social relations in Cambodia are hierarchically structured. In particular, the lines of stratification run along the diad young (pqoun) and old (bong). Cambodian society is described as ‘conservative’ because in many cases (such as in proverbs and tales) emphasis is placed on the importance of preserving the past and following traditional rules in everyday behaviour. This applies, in particular, to the Khmer woman. The rules of behaviour for the ‘ideal’ woman (srey kruap leak) are laid down in the Chbap Srey Code of Conduct, which in full form are scarcely viable. Accordingly, an ‘ideal’ woman is characterized by properties that benefit family honour and can be expressed on three levels: the general behaviour of women, their speech, and their sexuality. On the level of general behaviour, she is shy and quiet. In terms of speaking, the ‘ideal’ woman is restrained and controlled, and never begins an argument. At home, she provides a peaceful and safe atmosphere and is entirely dedicated to the well-being of her husband, her children and parents. Research on gender roles in Cambodia has repeatedly highlighted that there are more women than men, since a large number of men died during the decades of civil war (Resurreccion 2006, 439–42). This phenomenon of an above-average number of women – in addition to conservative traditions – effects their vulnerability, because as wives they often subordinate themselves for fear of separation and divorce from their husbands and lovers. Thus, in 2011, Cambodia was ranked 102 of 135 countries on the Global Gender Gap Index (which reflects the relative disadvantage of women in various sub-regions). In 2003, under pressure from international donors, Cambodia was the first country to combat violence against women by including an indicator in the Cambodian Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) (Müller 2013, 179). Women make up 52 per cent of the potential labour force in Cambodia and the female employment rate of 82 per cent is among the highest in South-East Asia. Furthermore, 53 per cent of women perform unpaid family work, often in addition to their paid jobs, compared with 32 per cent of economically active men. The clothing and textile industry is the main source of paid work for women in Cambodia, and around 90 per cent of this workforce is female. It is estimated that there are 180,000 workers, who each in turn support four to nine other people with their work. Therefore the lives of approximately 1.5 million people are connected to this industry, including jobs in the informal sector. Nonetheless, wages for men are on average 33 per cent higher than those for women (Brandner 2010, 37). Summing up, from a global perspective, Cambodian society is stratified along gender lines which leads to a disadvantage for women in their socio-economic and physical development. The discrepancy of power and potential of exercise of individual influence, along gender stratification lines, becomes especially evident when looking at Khmer perceptions of sexuality and sex work.

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Khmer perceptions of sexuality and sex work Cambodian notions of sexuality stand in stark contrast to global norms and standards. In Cambodian society, sexuality is defined in very different ways according to gender. Corresponding to Khmer understanding, unmarried Khmer women are sexually innocent and thus vulnerable. In the Chbap Srey, much importance is placed on protecting the virginity and sexual innocence of young girls and women. She should not leave the house alone, nor draw attention to herself – and no male attention in particular – in public by loud laughter or improper sitting or walking (Brandner 2010, 39). The loss of virginity before marriage is presented as a great shame, which means the loss of honour and status for the entire family. Male sexuality, however, is characterized as uncontrollable, and the satisfaction of male sexual desire is one of the most important tasks of a wife. In fact, for many boys and men, this idea leads to a feeling of peer pressure to be continuously sexually active and interact with many women. An important component of masculinity in Cambodian society is visiting karaoke bars, massage temples and brothels, based on the predominance of the idea that for men frequent sexual contact will ensure physical and mental health. However, the acceptance of male sexuality does not extend to the sex workers providing such services. Sex workers count as women who lack basic moral understanding: Underlying these reasons is a lack of acknowledgement of women’s pleasure and the narrow view that sex within marriage is purely for reproduction. Men’s sexual pleasure can only be realized through fulfillment of sexual fantasies with the sex worker, however even sex workers are not perceived to have active sexual pleasure. In addition there is a perception that the cash transaction implies that the sex worker is owned and the client has a right to demand anything, whether extreme or not. The sex worker is the less human, especially in the context of Buddhist religious orthodoxy which emphasizes that the body is not the individual soul, and thus unimportant (Derks 2005). (Duvvury and Knoess 2005, 13) This lack of respect towards female sexuality, and especially the rights of sex workers, increasingly manifests itself in the phenomenon of gang rape, described in Khmer as bauk. Here, groups of young men share a bonding experience by meeting to rape young girls, but especially prostitutes (Hyman 2004). Another trend that has been observed is the increasing number of young women who come from villages to Phnom Penh to work as beer girls, karaoke singers, waitresses and seamstresses in the textile factories outside the capital. Many of them prostitute themselves for extra income. Within society, they are often perceived as ‘available’ and are consequently exposed to the risk of falling victim to bauk. ‘Even those who do not engage in sex work are perceived as “modern” or “high life” and thus accessible and open for sexual

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violence […] They form the bulk of “sweetheart” relationships, to which married and unmarried men are increasingly turning given the high rates of prevalence of HIV/Aids among sex workers’ (Duvvury and Knoess 2005, 13). Given the societal and cultural setting, Cambodia has long been a destination for male sex tourism from Asia as well as from Europe and North America. Even though prostitution is prohibited by law, it is especially vibrant and visible in touristic hotspots, such as Sihanoukville (where child prostitution and the paedophilic scene is especially prominent), Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, the gateway to the world-renowned temples of Angkor. Abusers from neighbouring countries, such as Thailand and Vietnam, are often ‘virginity seekers’, who are interested in sex with adolescent prostitutes or even children because of health-related beliefs around the supposedly restorative or protective qualities of the virgin factor. Sex tourists from the West are especially in search of cheap sex work as well as privacy, which is not given in their home countries (Hume et al. 2013). Western businessmen have been producing sex and rape websites for the US market, showing Cambodian women, arguing that Asian women ‘sell well’ in the US porn industry (Hughes 2000, 30). Cambodian officials have attempted to ban these websites, citing laws that protected ‘Cambodian culture’ (ibid., 31), but have failed to close them down because the computer servers hosting the websites were located outside Cambodia. It has been argued that women’s rights in Cambodia have been further weakened by Asian men watching Cambodian women in Western-style-produced pornography, legitimizing violence against women (ibid.). This, it is argued, further promotes mistreatment of sex workers, bar girls and professional girlfriends.

Negotiating safe sex The often low socio-economic status of young women (low level of education, low income in the factories, the high dependence of their relatives in the village) means that they engage in sexual relations with men to financially support themselves and their families. In a society where women are expected to be obedient and virtuous, especially sex workers are motivated to identify their suitors as sweethearts rather than customers. This contributes to low consistency of condom use, which is further consolidated through physical violence and (sometimes voluntary or forced) alcohol and drug use (Nishigaya 2002). Duvvury and Knoess develop this issue further, pointing out that: a final implication of the rigid norms of sexuality is the norm that condom use in non-commercial relationships is unacceptable. Condom use or raising the issue of condom use is considered to be an admission of infidelity for men and lack of trust for women. Within the marital relationship men’s multiple sexual interactions are accepted but not openly acknowledged; moreover most married women cannot request a condom, and if they did it could result in violence. The same applies to ‘sweetheart

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relationships’, through some research indicates that young women and men agree that condom use would be a wise option (CARE Cambodia 2003; PSI 2002). Women in ‘sweetheart’ relationships seem to have a greater leeway to negotiate condom use by referring to prevention in pregnancy, which is not acceptable outside marriage. (Duvvury and Knoess 2005, 13) In turn, wives have little opportunity to negotiate about condoms, although it is usually part of marital arrangements that men maintain extramarital sexual contact. Once again, the morality of Chbap Srey is influential, namely that women are loyal, respectful, silent and subservient to their husbands, to whom all authority and control of the family is accorded (Phan and Patterson 1994). As such, Nussbaum has found that Cambodian women, themselves, see very little possibility of influencing their lives, especially with regard to their sexuality (Brickell 2011, 1363; Nussbaum 2000). These social conceptions of marriage and gender roles increase the risk of sexual diseases and the lack of reproductive health in the general population (Geurtsen 2005; Webber et al. 2010). While global programmes in the field of reproductive health aim at promoting equal possibilities to negotiate safe sex for men and women, only those aspects of ‘negotiating safe sex’ are being localized in the Cambodian context that culturally match with Cambodian perceptions of gender roles, whereas other aspects are simply ignored, or translated in the sense that men remain in power when it comes to arranging sexual relations.

Development actors contributing to paradoxical effects of localization In her study of the reproductive health of Cambodian men, Walston (2005) emphasizes that major differences in gender roles lead to women being largely responsible for securing reproductive health and protection against sexually transmitted diseases, for themselves and others. This is also reflected in the implementation of programmes for reproductive health that begin by addressing the rights and duties of women. Thus, it is sex workers, wives and girls who must protect themselves and others from illness and negotiate contraceptive methods. This is also reflected in mother and child health, where it is the women, in particular, to whom the welfare of children is attributed. Brickell stresses that in Cambodian society women are considered the bearers of responsibility for the welfare of the whole family, who have to stand by their man in his ‘uncontrollable nature’: ‘In terms of traditional gendered divisions of labour, reciprocity, or the complementary nature of male and female roles, is evoked in variations of a popular Khmer proverb, “the seedling supports the soil, the woman supports her man”’ (Brickell 2011, 1360). Development policy initiatives in the field of reproductive health thus focus particularly on women. As such, in the Cambodian context many different target groups are defined, such as wives, prostitutes, seamstresses, beer girls and karaoke singers (Delvaux et al. 2003; Nishigaya 2002). This means that

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women in particular are informed about risks and possible prevention methods, whereas men are often excluded from training and other educational activities (excluding TV commercials, educational films and awareness poster campaigns which reach all societal groups). Walston has found that most NGOs and private clinics in Cambodia practise a so-called open-door policy for men, although they do not explicitly address this target group (Walston 2005). Some awareness campaigns have tried to reinterpret the Khmer proverb ‘men are diamonds, women are cloth’ by substituting ‘women are diamonds’, the aim of which was to emancipate women from their traditional subordinate role in society in order to empower them as trustworthy and responsible agents of reproductive health and HIV/AIDS prevention (Hill and Ly 2004, 112). While they acquire greater rights, women are simultaneously burdened with the responsibility and duties for themselves and their sexual partner because they are defined as experts in this area. Lastly, for marginalized groups in Cambodia, it has been found that the established HIV/AIDS education strategies – aimed primarily at heterosexual sexual relations – has had the effect that other groups in society often have no idea of how much danger they are in: It can be seen from the above discussion that HIV prevention strategies cannot focus on heterosexual people only. In reality, there are many genders/sexualities. HIV research has brought to light very different identities, contextual realities, and hence very different needs. HIV strategies need to take these into account, and to use the terms that individuals themselves use to identify themselves. Because non-normative groups have been overlooked in HIV prevention campaigns, they may not know how vulnerable they are. They may think that their sexual activities are safe, in contrast to sex between men and women, which prevention campaigns always link to condom use. (Earth 2006, 265)

Conclusion On numerous occasions in the recent debate over the link between macro and micro perspectives in institutionalist theories, it has been stressed that the processes of the local establishment of global institutions must be better accounted for. In this article we have argued, first and foremost, for maintaining a focus on the effects of the localization of macrocultural constructs. To this end, we linked a typical diffusion theoretical perspective of world polity research with a sociological and anthropological perspective on localization research. We have analysed how the macrocultural construct of reproductive health has been localized within development programmes in Cambodia, and what effects can be observed. We have encountered two effects: the effect of decoupling which is predictable in world polity research; and the paradoxical effect of reproducing the existing hierarchy of gender relations.

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Our empirical case study has shown that cognatic relations in Cambodia guarantee women a higher social status than in other Asian societies, but that nevertheless – since all social relations are hierarchically structured – men enjoy higher status and more individual freedom in Khmer society then women. According to the traditional code of conduct Chbap Srey, women shall be virtuous and obedient, whereas men are expected to cultivate agile sexual relations with various women for good health. Consequently, and because of international tourism, sex work and gang rape, bauk, is flourishing in Cambodia, with many sex workers, young girls and wives getting infected with HIV/AIDS by their suitors, rapists or unfaithful husbands. Development cooperation has tried to address the spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic but fails to balance the gender gap within Cambodian society, since development programmes target women as ‘agents of change’ while ignoring unhealthy behaviour patterns of men. This paradoxical effect is mainly due to the fact that in the promotion of women’s rights, women are ascribed the responsibility for the reproductive health of their children and men, while men, in contrast, continue to enjoy sexual freedom. From norm localization research, we know that macrocultural understandings of reproductive health need to culturally match with local norms and values in order to be ‘successfully’ localized. Further, incongruous aspects of the concept are ignored, resisted or translated according to local understanding. From this, we conclude that the mode of localization is of great importance for paradoxical effects during the implementation of global models. In future research on the localization of global institutions, both the mechanisms of localization and the social structures should be given greater attention because both seem to affect the impact of the local translation of global models. Rather than leading to social change, they can, on the contrary, reproduce social patterns as the primary outcome of the global diffusion of institutions.

Notes 1 This chapter presents results of a research project on Localization of Global Institutions in the Field of Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDS, funded by the Thyssen Foundation, Germany. For helpful comments we would like to thank Kerstin Zimmer. 2 WHO, www.who.int/topics/reproductive_health/en/ (accessed on 30 July 2014).

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Holzer, Boris and Tobias Werron (ed.) 2015. From Globalization to World Society. Neo-Institutional and Systems-Theoretical Perspectives. London and New York: Routledge. Huff-Rousselle, Maggie and Helen Pickering. 2001. Crossing the Public-Private Sector Divide with Reproductive Health in Cambodia: Out-Patient Services in a Local NGO and the National MCH Clinic. International Journal of Health Planning and Management, 16: 33–46. Hughes, Donna. 2000. Welcome to the Rape Camp: Sexual Exploitation and the Internet in Cambodia. Journal of Sexual Aggression, 6: 29–51. Hume, Tim, Cohen, Lisa and Mira Sorvino. 2013. The Women who Sold their Daughters into Sex Slavery, Documentation for CNN Canada. edition.cnn.com/ interactive/2013/12/world/cambodia-child-sex-trade/ (accessed 4 March 2016). Hyman, Jennifer. 2004. Challenging Cambodian Sexual Norms. Global AIDSLink, 87: 12–13. Inoue, Keiko and Gili Drori. 2006. The Global Institutionalization of Health as a Social Concern. International Sociology, 21: 199–219. Ith, Ponndara, Dawson, Angela and Caroline Homer. 2013. Women’s Perspective of Maternity Care in Cambodia. Women & Birth, 26: 71–75. Kantelhardt, Eva and Claudia Hanson. 2010. Trends der letzten 25 Jahre: Entwicklungen der Müttersterblichkeit weltweit. In Busch, U. (ed.) Sexuelle und reproduktive Gesundheit und Rechte. Nationale und internationale Perspektiven. Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft. Keck, Margaret E. and Kathryn Sikkink. 1998. Transnational Advocacy Networks in the Movement Society. In The Social Movement Society: Contentious Politics for a New Century. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 217–238. Koch, Sascha and Michael Schemmann (ed.) 2009. Neo-Institutionalismus in der Erziehungswissenschaft. Grundlegende Texte und empirische Studien. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Koenig, Matthias. 2008. Institutional Change in World Polity. International Human Rights and the Construction of Collective Identities. International Sociology, 23: 95–114. Le, Thao and Tomoko Kato. 2006. The Role of Peer, Parent, and Culture in Risky Sexual Behavior for Cambodian and Lao/Mien Adolescents. Journal of Adolescent Health, 38: 288–296. Ledgerwood, Judy. 1994. Gender Symbolism and Culture Change: Viewing the Virtuous Woman in the Khmer Story ‘Mea Yoeng’. In Ebihara, M., C. Mortland, J. Ledgerwood (ed.) Cambodian Culture Since 1975: Homeland and Exile. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 119–128. Matsuoka, Sadatoshi et al. 2010. Perceived Barriers to Utilization of Maternal Health Services in Rural Cambodia. Health Policy, 95: 255–263. Meyer, John and Ronald Jepperson. 2000. The ‘Actors’ of Modern Society: The Cultural Construction of Social Agency. Sociological Theory, 18: 100–120. Meyer, John et al. 1997. World Society and the Nation-State. American Journal of Sociology, 103: 144–181. Meyer, John and Brian Rowan. 1977. Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony. American Journal of Sociology, 83: 340–363. Müller, Susanne. 2013. Häusliche Gewalt in Kambodscha. Auf dem Weg zu einem Wertewandel. In Findeisen, G. and K. Großmann (ed.) Gewalt gegen Frauen in Südostasien und China. Rechtslage, Umgang, Lösungsansätze. Südostasien Informationsstelle.

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Nishigaya, Kasumi. 2002. Female Garment Factory Workers in Cambodia, Migration, Sex Work and HIV/Aids. Women & Health, 35: 27–42. Nussbaum, Martha. 2000. Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pfeiffer, Dominik. 2015. Im Namen der Weltgesellschaft. Globalisierung und Vergangenheitsbearbeitung. Wiesbaden Phan, Hanna and Lorraine Patterson. 1994. ‘Men are Gold, Women are Cloth’: A Report on the Potential for HIV/AIDS Spread in Cambodia and Implications for HIV/AIDS Infection. CARE Cambodia. Plan International. 2011. Plans Expertise bei ‘Müttergesundheit’. www.plan-deutschla nd.de/news/article/plans-expertise-bei-muettergesundheit/ (accessed 26 January 2015). Ramirez, Francisco and Elizabeth McEneaney. 1997. From Women’s Suffrage to Reproduction Rights? Cross-National Considerations. IJCS, 28): 6–24. Resurreccion, Bernadette. 2006. Rules, Roles and Rights: Gender, Participation and Community Fisheries Management in Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Region. International Journal of Water Resources Development, 22: 433–447. Risse, Thomas, Stephen C. Ropp and Kathryn Sikkink. 1999. The Power of Human Rights: International Norms and Domestic Change, 1949–1999. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sagna, Marguerite and T.S. Sunil. 2012. Effects of Individual and Neighborhood Factors on Maternal Care in Cambodia. Health & Place, 18: 415–423. Sahlin-Andersson, Kerstin. 1996. Imitating by Editing Success: The Construction of Organizational Fields. In Czarniawska, B. and G. Sevón (ed.) Translating Organizational Change. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co, 69–92. Sahlin, Kerstin and Linda Wedlin. 2008. Circulating Ideas: Imitation, Translation, Editing. In Greenwood, R., C. Oliver, R. Suddaby and K. Sahlin (ed.) The SAGE Handbook of Organizational Institutionalism. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 218–242. Sandy, Larissa. 2007. Just Choices: Representations of Choice and Coercion in Sex Work in Cambodia. The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 18: 194–206. Schofer, Evan and John Meyer. 2005. The Worldwide Expansion of Higher Education in the Twentieth Century. American Sociological Review, 70: 898–920. Sel, San. 2013. A Troubling Taboo: Sex-ed in Cambodia. The Phnom Penh Post, 27 November. www.phnompenhpost.com/lift/troubling-taboo-sex-ed-cambodia (accessed 26 January 2015). Soma, Norodom Princess. 2012. It’s OK to Talk about Sex. The Phnom Penh Post, 3, August. Sopheab, Heng et al. 2006. HIV-Related Risk Behaviors in Cambodia and Effects of Mobility. Epidemiology and Social Science, 41. Steiner-Khamsi, Gita. 2012. The Global/Local Nexus in Comparative Policy Studies: Analysing the Triple Bonus System in Mongolia Over Time. Comparative Education, 48: 455–471. Takayama, Keita. 2012. Exploring the Interweaving of Contrary Currents: Transnational Policy Enactment and Path-Dependent Policy Implementation in Australia and Japan. Comparative Education, 48: 505–523. True, Jacqui and Michael Mintrom. 2001. Transnational Networks and Policy Diffusion: The Case of Gender Mainstreaming. International Studies Quarterly, 45: 27–57. Walston, Naomi. 2005. Challenges and Opportunities for Male Involvement in Reproductive Health in Cambodia. Policy Project/Cambodia, USAID and POLICY Project.

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Webber, Gail et al. 2010. Life in the Big City: The Multiple Vulnerabilities of Migrant Cambodian Garment Factory Workers to HIV. Women’s Studies International Forum, 33: 159–169. World Bank. 2014. Data on Cambodia. data.worldbank.org/country/cambodia (accessed 28 January 2015). World Health Organization (WHO). 2011. Gender as a Social Determinant of Health: Gender Analysis of the Health Sector in Cambodia. www.who.int/sdhconference/ resources/draft_background_paper15_cambodia.pdf (accessed 30 March 2016). Yanagisawa, Satoko. 2004. Crossing the River: Health of Mothers and Children in Rural Cambodia. International Congress Series, 1267: 113–126.

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Hybridization and the case of a ‘successful’ gender mainstreamed community-based disaster management project in Cambodia Franz F. Wong1

Introduction During a meeting of feminist academics and activists at the University of Sussex in 2004, participants lamented the de-politicization of the feminist ideals that had underpinned much of the seminal work in gender and development2 at Sussex, going back to the early 1980s. The meeting followed a watershed workshop in 2003, ‘Gender Myths and Feminist Fables’, which was one of a number of efforts, in the run-up to the 20th anniversary of the 1995 Beijing World Conference on Women, that mapped and disinterred what had happened since the conference. Some meeting participants likened the loss of feminist underpinnings of the conference to a ‘wayward daughter’ who had lost her way. Others used the analogy of a ship of which once set sail, there is no way of knowing where it will end up and what will happen to the precious cargo. These metaphors were attempts to understand what happens to transnational feminist ideas once they diffuse across time and space. The focus of attention was on gender mainstreaming which, in some cases, was deemed the culprit behind the de-politicization and co-optation of gender and development (Milward et al. 2015). In part informed by gender and development analysis and feminist advocacy, gender mainstreaming has become part of mainstream development discourse (Mukhopadhyay 2014) since the Beijing conference which marked the initial widespread endorsement of the approach by governments and the United Nations (UN). While the term is contested and understood in various ways (March et al. 1999), the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC 1997) definition is the most widely referenced and describes gender mainstreaming as: a strategy of making the concerns and experiences of women as well as of men an integral part of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and societal spheres, so that women and men benefit equally, and inequality is not perpetuated. The ultimate goal of mainstreaming is to achieve gender equality.

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Operationally, gender mainstreaming translates as an all-encompassing process of integrating gender concerns in development policy and programmes, from the assessment of needs to the design and implementation of initiatives, so that they address the needs of both women and men. The widespread adoption of gender mainstreaming by government bureaucracies and development agencies alike since Beijing can and should been seen as welcome attention to the engendering of development assistance. Overall, however, the period following Beijing has not yielded the hoped for improvements in the conditions and position for women (Milward et al. 2015). ‘Progress’ for women has been uncertain (Molyneux and Razavi 2005, 25). In some cases, gender inequality has taken on different forms, resistance to women’s public participation has increased and previous gains have been reversed (Rai 2003). Generally, there was a sense that the strategy has been co-opted, instrumentalized and rendered into a technical exercise (for example, see Mukhopadhyay 2007, 2014). This case study focuses on a ‘successful’ gender mainstreaming initiative, the Community-based Disaster Management (CBDM) project in Cambodia, by Oxfam Great Britain (OGB).3 The project is considered a success according to OGB, not only because gender was mainstreamed, but also because the project itself was seen by the organization as a model in community-based disaster management. The aim of this chapter is not to refute OGB’s gender mainstreaming claims; in fact, empirical data support that gender was integrated into the project, fulfilling many of the prescribed measures common to the mainstreaming gender concerns. A gender analysis was included in the proposal, project objectives and activities included specific measures to promote women, particularly their leadership and participation, and critical issues such as domestic violence were addressed. Rather, this chapter explores how externally introduced ideas, in this case gender mainstreaming, changed during the processes of diffusion and adoption, and how these were themselves gendered.

Understanding depolitization of gender mainstreaming In the case of gender mainstreaming, the issue is not so much that its feminist antecedents and influences have been lost but rather that they have gone astray as the strategy became diffused and was adopted by development organizations and associated actors – as illustrated by the wayward daughter metaphor. In the process of becoming mainstreamed, the ideas behind gender mainstreaming took on very different meanings from the initial ones (see for example, Cornwall et al. 2007). The shift in meaning as ideas are diffused across time and space has been a focus for development studies from different disciplinary perspectives, but mainly sociology and anthropology. For example, Long (1992) refers to the mixing of extant ideas with those introduced by the development initiatives as a process of internalization. While this concept helps us to understand what

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happens to ‘external’ ideas, it does not tell us how ideas become understood and the role of those doing the understanding. It only describes what happens, that external factors are drawn on and mean different things to different people (Long and van der Ploeg 1989). Another notion that explains how ideas are adopted is localization, which tries to address explanations that fail to take into account the agency of local actors. For example, Acharya (2004, 245), writing from the perspective of international relations, defines localization as ‘the active construction … of foreign ideas by local actors, which results in the former developing significant congruence with local beliefs and practices’. His ‘dynamic theory of localization’ includes norm takers who perform acts of ‘selection, borrowing and modification in accordance with a pre-existing normative framework to build congruence between that and emerging global norms’ (ibid., 269). What is interesting in Acharya, as well as Capie (2008), is the recognition of preexisting belief frameworks and, therefore, the shift from sources of norms to norm takers. The gaze of understanding what happens to ‘foreign’ ideas shifts from the perspective of those doing the diffusing to those doing the adopting and adapting. Moreover, Acharya’s understanding of localization echoes the same subtleties as Purvis and Hunt (1993) in their attempt to understand the relationships between discourse and ideology. They opt for a sociological understanding of ideology that explains its internalization as a way of making meaning. Similarly, Acharya’s reference to a ‘pre-existing normative framework to build congruence’ is concerned with how people relate to and derive meaning from ‘foreign’ ideas. Still, the notion of localization as an explanatory frame has its limits. One concerns the implicit dichotomy of local and non-local, which belies the much more complex system of relationships both in an era of globalization (Marcus 1995) and within the development industry itself (Eyben 2006).4 In addition, the use of ‘local’ recalls another binary, ‘us’ and ‘them’ (Crewe and Harrison 1998, 187), and associated pejorative implications, such as ‘good global or universal norms’ and bad regional or local norms’ (Acharya 2004, 242). For example, this case study is not just a matter of an international non-governmental organization (NGO) bringing foreign norms to a ‘local context’; the process was much more complex and multi-directional (Merry 2006a), involving myriad strategic groups (Bierschenk 1988, 146) engaged in complex, multidimensional and multi-faceted relations of aid (Wallace et al. 2006). In terms of ‘pre-existing belief frameworks’, this was not only the purview of Cambodian nationals (Wong 2012) but also international Oxfam staff as well (Richardson 2001, cited by O’Leary 2006). Both brought to the process of gender mainstreaming their own predispositions and gender biases.5 Hence this implicit binary presents a too simplistic relationship and relates to a number of other concerns about the notion of localization explored below. Second, while the shift of focus away from norm entrepreneurs (Capie 2008, 639) to ‘norm takers’ is welcome, it does not sufficiently take into account the complicit roles of all strategic groups within a web of relations of

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aid and effectively removes ‘norm diffusers’ from any role. In particular, the term ‘norm takers’ does not leave room for ‘norm diffusers’ to also be ‘selectively choosing and picking’ the parts of the value system they prefer. Third, this shift also implies more agency that may actually exist, in references such as ‘localization is voluntary’ (Acharya, 2004, 251), ‘borrowed foreign ideas’ (ibid., 244) and ‘demand for new norms’ (ibid., 247). As Merry (2006b) reminds us, it is important to understand and take into account the ‘local’ context. Lastly, while the process of ‘localization’ is one of ‘reconstitution to make an outside norm congruent with a pre-existing local normative order’ (Acharya 2004, 244), the emphasis is on norms being modified or ‘pruned’, implying a disservice, as do other explanations of norm diffusion (for example, see Merry 2006a, 4). Certainly this is the case of gender mainstreaming and the concern of participants in the 2004 meeting cited previously. The question remains, however, of whether the modification of norms can be a benefit. If so, who benefits and how? Harrison’s (1997, 73) notion of the ‘hybridization of externally induced values’ is a more nuanced description than ‘localization’ in that the focus is on the result of a partial process of internalization – a synthesis of ideas. Her use of ‘values’ is particularly relevant in the context of development and gender mainstreaming, ‘Aidland’ (Apthorpe 2005) is implicitly and explicitly constituted by and concerned with values (Mowles 2008; O’Leary 2006). The inclusion of values gives more weight and significance to what gets introduced and privileged as well as what gets hybridized. Also, this notion avoids making normative judgements by placing emphasis on the external while implying ‘directionality’ (Purvis and Hunt 1993, 497): development values do have an influence. Using the term ‘induced’ provides sufficient scope to acknowledge this influence without concluding too much attribution and directionality. Other phrases overly emphasize direction and attribution. For example, ‘diffusion’ implies direction from a source (often assumed to be global) to a destination (often assumed to be local).6 Lastly, Harrison’s description of the process of ‘hybridization’ as a process of the giving and making of meaning7 is critical, as it acknowledges the interpretive, and sometime political, nature of internalization.8 Along the lines of Harrison, Merry (2006b, 39) also addresses hybridization which she understands as a form of vernacularization, the process of ideas being adapted to ‘local institutions and meanings’. In particular, hybridization is an interactive form of vernacularization ‘with symbols, ideologies and organizational forms generated in one locality merging with those of other localities to produce new, hybrid institutions’ (ibid., 46). Also, unlike other authors, Merry openly acknowledges social relations of power, such as in her use of translators, being ‘both powerful and vulnerable’ and how ‘translation takes place in fields of unequal power’ (ibid., 40). Merry (2006b) provides an example of women’s courts (nariadalats) that emerged in India in the mid-1990s. As informal courts, they were meant to address legal problems of women, particularly those socially marginalized

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such as low-caste and tribal women. Although a new initiative, the courts adopted pre-existing community-based, conflict resolution structures, panchayats, while, at the same time, introduced innovations. These included replacing men, who were the usual arbitrators, with women, to address issues specific to women, and introducing new concepts of women’s empowerment and women’s human rights. Merry is cautious in claiming these hybridized institutions were instrumental in the claiming of women’s rights. Still, she contends that they ‘are thickly shaped by local institutions and structures’ and represent a merger of ‘local structures … with imported ideas such as women’s human rights’ (ibid., 48). Merry concludes that the ‘hybrid seems to offer greater opportunity for subversion despite superficial compliance’ (ibid.). What is interesting about Merry’s work is that she focuses on feministinspired notions of women’s human rights and how these move from global arenas to local contexts (Merry 2006a, 2006b) and what happens to them. What is missing, however, is an analysis that accounts for ‘the subject’ in her work. It is not any human rights framework that Merry explores, but a framework of women’s rights as human rights. She deals not just with social norms in general but with gender norms in particular. Similarly, Merry’s investigation concerns not just any form of violence, but gender-based violence. The question then remains: What is particular about the hybridization of externally-induced values related gender equality? Does the diffusion of gender norms within the development context have its own particularities because it concerns gender?

The community-based disaster management project: background Annually, the Mekong River floodplain in Cambodia is inundated with water bringing both prosperity and despair. On the one hand, flood waters support two large sectors of the economy and people’s livelihoods: fishing and rice cultivation. On the other hand, the floods also bring misery. Houses are flooded or blown away, people’s land-based livelihoods are disrupted, and they can be stranded for weeks. Food becomes scarce, and health declines as a result of poor nutritional intake and water-borne diseases. Family debts increase, and it is not uncommon for a few people, mainly women and children, to drown. It is in this context that OGB in Cambodia established the three-year pilot CBDM project in 2003, to: demonstrate to key stakeholders the importance of a comprehensive approach to DM that includes community based initiative and the sustained involvement of government and civil society partners and which can be replicated in other flood prone provinces and form the basis of a national DM operational policy. (internal document, Oxfam Humanitarian Programme Office 2002)

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The overall approach of the project was to decrease community vulnerability to flooding and strengthen their capacity to survive and recover. In particular, OGB focused on women in the project given ‘deep rooted gender disparities’ in the project area and an ‘understanding that women and children are the most vulnerable to disasters’ (internal document, OGB 2006c). It aimed to ‘encourage women to express their own ideas, to participate in decisionmaking and to contribute their direct support to the community’ (internal report, Joint Oxfam Disaster Management Team 2005b, 11). The project also aspired to ‘support change in relations between women and men in terms of control over and access to resources at the level of community and family; in terms of participation in community decision making; and reducing incidence of domestic violence’ (internal document, OGB n.d., 4). Overall, there were three main groups of activities related to the project, with the main one being the provision of assets to mitigate the effects of floods on households such as building materials to strengthen houses and raise them above water levels as well as fishing gear, boats, water filters and raised gardens to sustain livelihoods during floods. The second set of activities concerned the establishment of village committees for disaster management (VCDMs). The third was training project participants – government officials, VCDMs and community members as well as Oxfam staff – on different aspects of community-based disaster management and other development- and management-related subjects.

VCDM members as brokers and translators OGB in Cambodia viewed the VCDMs as the key mechanism for enabling community participation in the project. While NGO fieldworkers are usually the ones at the interface between development projects and those who are supposed to benefit (Harrison 1997), in the case of the CBDM project they were not present in communities on a permanent basis. Accordingly, OGB required interlocutors (Soontornwong 1996): brokers, who mediate between development funders and recipients, and translators, who work to enrol diverse interests (Long 1992). According to DeSardan (2005, 173), ‘brokers represent the local social bearers of a project, those situated at the interface between the target population and the development institution, those who are supposed to represent the local population (or to express their “needs”), the interlocutors of support and financial aid structures’. I suggest that the VCDM members acted as ‘brokers’, or as management boards in service of the project. For example, they disseminated information members gained from project training, such as Sarom, a male VCDM member from Anchang,9 suggested: ‘We only initiate [meetings] if there is information to share’ (focus group discussion – FGD). In relation to this, another VCDM role was reporting. For example, the role of the chairperson was ‘to visit people and report [to OGB] and, during flooding season, plead for help’ (interview, Kheng, a male beneficiary, Anchang). The other

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reporting function was related to transgressions. Sarom stated: ‘If someone sells boat, don’t know what we’ll do but will inform Ankar. 10 Can’t stop people’ (FGD, Anchang). As brokers, VCDMs can be understood as becoming the new ‘patrons’ (Soontornwong 1996; Vijghen and Ly Sareoun 1996a, 1996b) within the context of village-level power dynamics. Located at the interface between beneficiaries and the project sponsors were the VCDM members, upon whom beneficiaries were dependent. Although positioned differently and relatively secondary to OGB, members did have some authority. For example, they had discretionary decision-making powers in relation to who received project assets, which included themselves. This authority was also manifested in the VCDMs’ policing role, which facilitated their function as translators. Ses, a beneficiary who said the VCDM operated well, also confirmed the influence that they yielded: ‘committee comes to remind us to fill water filter. If don’t, causes us trouble […] If we don’t do what they say, they’ll blame us in public’ (interview, Sang KeChaur). Through public shaming, VCDM members were able to persuade beneficiaries to toe the line. Similarly, VCDM members had a role in mediating cases of domestic violence as part of the project’s aim for decreasing violence. That the VCDMs and the CBDM project were credited with inspiring men and women to change their ways was echoed by a number of project participants who mainly cited the VCDM’s counselling and education work about domestic violence and human rights, as a result of the gender training provided by the project. This coincides with how committee leaders approached the issue. For example, a description of the VCDM chair from Sang KeChaur and how she counselled couples was characteristic of the overall approach to domestic violence by VCDMs: to avoid violence men should show their love and women should respect their husbands, not antagonize them and not fight: People run to me about domestic violence. I counsel them. Tell them not to be rough. With wife, [I tell them to] speak softly […] In domestic violence, [I] tell men that women and men have equal right, you should support each other, love your wife and children. If you continue, means you don’t love your them [… for women I tell them] don’t speak loud to men, don’t fight back […] Use sweet word, use bad word is not good women when he comes back from work. If he does something wrong, just educate him. Not question of good or bad word. (FGD) Such messages were intertwined with those relating to power over the beneficiaries invested in VCDM members by the project, solidified by a condition, included in the contract with project recipients on receipt of project assets such as boats, that these would be confiscated in the event of domestic violence and be turned over to the wife (internal report, OGB 2006a, 16). As

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Siem, who was the only VCDM member to articulate her motivation in this way, stated, ‘[w]e tell that if they do violence we’ll take everything back … We have agreement’ (FGD, Bantey Slek). Although the condition was never enacted, it carried weight, at least among those few beneficiaries who could recall it. As one recounted, ‘[d]omestic violence is reduced … If you know law and commit violence […] you’ll lose property’ (FGD, Bantey Slek, my emphasis). The status of VCDM members as new patrons was ensured by maintaining relations with OGB in Cambodia, which represented their own patrons. And it was these relations that members were primarily concerned with. Siem’s motivation was concerned with woman’s rights but also fulfilling her obligations to the project and OGB, the only real sources of social welfare in the project villages. She stated that the violence ‘condition’ was ‘never enacted because no violence. What will I do if domestic violence? Ankar will blame me that I am not managing well, how will I respond to Ankar?’ (FGD, Bantey Slek). Similarly, the chair of the Anchang VCDM stated of her rationale to stop illegal fishing, ‘[I] won’t allow people to use boats for illegal fishing because fishing authorities will see it’s an NGO boat […] Ankar will get in trouble. Will report to […] if people misuse boat’ (interview). These instances should be seen as part of the VCDMs’ role as translators and enrolling beneficiaries in the service of the project. The VCDM chair’s reference to the ‘NGO boat’ suggests protecting OGB and preventing it from being associated with ‘illegal’ activity; its logo was on all project assets provided to the communities. As O’Leary and Meas (2001, 94) observe, ‘the project committees […] established to manage the project activities are almost always held accountable to the NGO […] rather than to people intended to benefit from the project’. Their position as patrons was also secured through their role as translators: the functions of reporting, policing and mediation in cases of domestic violence were concerned with enrolling beneficiaries in service of the project.

Brokers and hybridization As mentioned previously, OGB viewed the CBDM project as a successful gender mainstreamed initiative because it included a number of features that targeted women. As manifestations of an ‘externally induced value’ of gender equality, what happened to these ideas? In the next section I explore three examples of how these became hybridized with extant ideas and norms. One example concerns the promotion of women as community leaders. The project aimed to promote women’s participation and, in particular, their leadership in the community through the project. For example, the VCDM chair and two additional places were reserved for women (internal report, OGB 2004a, 19). Also, having women on the committees was supposed to ‘help to address women’s practical needs and, more importantly in the longer-term, their strategic interests’ (internal document, Joint Oxfam Disaster

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Management Team 2005a, 15), which refers to improving both their social condition and position relative to men. The extant gender norms that OGB was trying to address concerned the dominant gender division of labour, with women predominantly responsible for reproductive roles and men for productive and public community roles. With the project, women were indeed playing greater community roles, particularly as VCDM leaders, in their policing and reporting functions. Yet, they now faced a double burden by taking on community roles in addition to reproductive ones (Moser 1993). Women’s increased participation and selfconfidence came at the price of an increased workload, as one female VCDM member in Sang KeChaur stated: [My tasks have] increased ten times, before did only family [work]. Now we give water, visit house-to-house, clean toilet, take care of giant jar [for storing water]. Not much rest time because do community and my family works […] I’m so busy, wake up, boil water, prepare food, pack lunch, go to field, bathe, cook, prepare bed. (FGD, Sang KeChaur) More generally, beyond their formally designated positions on the VCDM, female members’ descriptions of their activities generally followed defined gender roles. For example, a number of community members observed that women’s community roles were extensions of their household ones (Moser 1993). They were the ones cleaning public latrines and were generally inviting people to come to meetings while men ‘write down notes, people’s requests’, as Sik said (interview, Bantey Slek). Also, female members’ activities were closer to the village while male members purchased trees, for example, and were the ones involved in rescuing community members (Chu’un, FGD, Sang KeChaur). None of the women who experienced an increased workload expressed regret, however. For some, it was accompanied by improved living conditions, such as having more to eat or less debt. For others, their labour was in service of the community, even if this meant having to shoulder much of the responsibility. What this example shows is a hybridization of an externally induced value that women should formally participate in the community and have leadership roles. The outcome was a melange of this notion with extant gender norms of women’s ascribed gender roles and their reproductive functions, whether in the household or the community more generally. The second example concerns how female VCDM leaders were perceived. Community members generally expressed gratitude for leaders’ work on the project and their contribution to the community, which translated into enhanced social status but within extant ascribed gender norms. In interviews, female VCDM members (all of whom were illiterate, whereas most of the men were not) consistently cited illiteracy as a limitation to performing their duties as members and as influencing how they felt about themselves. Tola’s

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comment, ‘I’m like blind’ (FGD, Sang KeChaur), conveyed the sentiment shared by others about not being able to read or write. In particular, it affected their ability to access resources and benefits offered by the project. As the chair of the same committee said, she could remember only 20 per cent of her training because she was illiterate and she would feel more confident if she were literate (Sman, FGD, Sang KeChaur). While illiterate men also said they lacked self-esteem, women who were illiterate were more marginalized in the community and seen negatively, even if they had achieved a certain level of status due to the project. A male VCDM member, Chu’un, commented that: Women had less work in early [19]90s. Only did washing, cooking, collecting vegetables. Since development she can go to training, work and [get] food ready when husband comes back. Women join the committee. They educate us on good hygiene. They mobilize us to do agriculture. But she’s not in society because she is illiterate. (FGD, Sang KeChaur, my emphasis) The combination of being illiterate and being in a position of responsibility ironically created more dependence. OGB project staff and community members were keen to share the fact that husbands of VCDM leaders as well as male clerks were willing to support illiterate leaders by reading, taking notes and writing letters. While certainly admirable and possibly an indication of shifting social relations of gender, this also meant women were again dependent on men. Sary of the Anchang committee stated that, ‘[y]es it’s difficult that I am illiterate […] I will go to village chief, commune chair, clerk or deputy to write a letter’ (FGD): all these positions are usually occupied by men. The leader of the Bantey Slek committee, Siem, had to be more cautious. She asked her children to verify what her husband had read on her behalf, ‘especially when he does not read aloud’ (FGD). Those who were not numerate asked male committee clerks to report on financial aspects (interview, Hem). In this case, gender equality notions of women’s leadership and participants were hybridized with extant social relations of gender: women, despite rising to social positions of prominence, were still seen as lesser community members. Maintaining their dependence on men did not help. The last example, related to the previous one, concerns extant ideas of village chiefs as arbitrators in domestic violence cases imbricated in patronage relations. This notion was hybridized with the idea of VCDMs as prototype civil society organizations promoting gender equality. VCDM members maintained their positions as brokers and translators by enforcing project aims, such as decreasing domestic violence. By encouraging women to ‘use sweets words’, VCDM leaders invoked dominant Khmer gender norms in order to promote relations between husbands and wives and decrease domestic violence. The case of Siem, previously described, demonstrates her drawing

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on social norms for men and women while inter-mingling ideas of them having equal rights with an overall concern for fulfilling her role for OGB. To attribute Siem’s drawing on Khmer gender norms as determinant of her behaviour is common in literature about ‘traditional’ norms in contemporary Cambodian society, particularly concerning domestic violence (for example, see Zimmerman 1994; and GTZ 2005). Such an explanation is, however, insufficient. Gender ideologies are not determinant but influence gender norms (Brickell 2011). Additionally, such a focus assumes women and men are homogeneous categories and negates the complex, diverse, changing and often ambiguous positions that they hold in Cambodian society. Lastly, it fails to acknowledge the agency of Siem and positions her as a ‘cultural dupe’ whereas, to paraphrase Rottenburg (2005, 267), Siem is ‘competent enough to anticipate the expectations of others, to recognize these as expected expectations as such, and to reflect upon them’. Nonetheless, dominant gender norms emphasizing women’s domestic role and maintaining harmony were evoked by Siem in her role as a VCDM member and project steward and promoter of decreased domestic violence. The result was apparent decreased domestic violence,11 in part from women being encouraged to submit to dominant gender norms and change their behaviour to prevent violence.

The context of relations of aid Previously, I summarized an account of hybridization by Merry using the example of women’s courts in India. What explains these two different experiences with hybridization? On the one hand, the case of the CBDM project demonstrates a synthesis of ideas introduced by OGB, namely women’s rights and gender equality, where brokers enrolled community members into the project, by drawing on pre-existing social relations of patronage and gender (Merry 2006a), while ensuring their own positions and that of OGB. I argue that VCDMs acted more as project management boards working in service of the project not ‘incipient CBOs’ (internal report, Rowe and Menh Navy 2005, 33) promoting human rights as claimed by OGB. On the other, Merry’s account of the women’s courts shows how extant resolution mechanisms were adopted to introduce new values of women’s rights that may not have resulted in ‘strong rights subjectivity’ (Merry 2006b, 48) but did mean women taking a stand against gender injustice. Part of the story seems to be in Merry’s (2006b) contention of the paradox faced by translators given their positionality at the interface between external and internal life-worlds. They are brokers of resources while dependent on those who have appointed them. Similarly, VCDM members had two sets of patronage relations – one with OGB and the other with beneficiaries – in which they undertook different roles. In prioritizing their relations with OGB (‘translators must please their donors’, Merry 2006b, 49), for example in favouring the protection of OGB’s reputation over illegal fishing, VCDM

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members secured their roles as clients in relation to the NGO (Soontornwong 1996). This relationship also located them as project brokers, whereby they related to project beneficiaries through relations of patronage. In order to maintain the former relationship, they took on the role of translators, enrolling beneficiaries using different strategies; one concerned policing while another invoked dominant gender norms. In the case of women’s courts in India, Merry (2006b, 49) is hesitant to claim vernacularization is effective in addressing violence against women, but she does recognize the influence of a wider context and translation as ‘largely a top-down process from transnational to the local and the powerful to the less powerful’ (ibid., 48–49). She also reminds us that it is critical to understand and take into account the ‘local’ context understood as a power context (Merry 2006b). In the case of the CBDM project, the OGB’s claim of a disaster management model within the wider context of gender mainstreaming needs to be taken into account. Over its life, the CBDM project was ‘the subject of intense debate’ (internal document, OGB 2006c). A key point of contention was the project’s status as a pilot and as a model, which was an issue raised by OGB advisers for a number of reasons. First, as a ‘pilot’, the project was challenged over how knowledge and learning were being generated; it was not set up as an initiative to try and test innovations. A second issue concerned what exactly was being learned as a pilot. As the OGB regional humanitarian coordinator wrote, ‘[t]here is no substantive evidence of learning from the pilot project’ (internal communication, Norseman 2004). Third, OGB regional staff and, to a lesser degree, humanitarian staff in Oxford were unclear what ‘the model’ was. According to one regional adviser, staff ‘don’t have an idea of what works and what these ideas [of the model] are’ (field notes). The controversy of the status of the project and the constant criticism it faced over its life meant that project proponents among OGB staff needed ways to demonstrate the project as a success. With the establishment of a gender mainstreaming policy in the region by OGB – which made gender mainstreaming mandatory (internal document, OGB 2002) – being able to claim the project as a gender mainstreamed project provided it with cachet, and addressing gender issues served the project more generally. An example is the project’s claim of empowering women and facilitating their voice. Female VCDM members, especially the chairs, uniformly stated that they had experienced increased confidence, gained knowledge and had been able to take action, such as helping fellow community members and solving conflicts. That female VCDM members found such a voice, however, is not entirely surprising. Gender training provided by the project to VCDM members seemed to have been designed for this purpose, as one OGB report describes: ‘[Workshop] participants practised communication and presentation skills each evening so that they would feel confident in communicating with others and could present their project activities to visitors and donors’ (internal report, Joint Oxfam Disaster Management Team 2005b, 15).

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That female community members could speak to visitors served the project well, as noted by external consultants who undertook a mid-term review of the project: ‘Villagers are learning how to answer the questions of frequent visitors in a polished manner’ (Rowe and Mehn Navy 2005, 15). It conveyed the idea that the project was in fact empowering women which was impressive to visitors who would become future proponents of the community-based disaster management model, which OGB in Cambodia claimed to have established. Over three years of the project, 93 people from ten organizations visited the project. They were invited under the auspices of OGB sharing its model, which was supported by testimonials from well-rehearsed and trained (particularly female) beneficiaries. The visitors then mirrored the model in their comments about the project, which were then used as evidence of a model in project reports (see for example, internal documents, OGB 2004a, 2006b) and for the next visitors, as testimonials of the project’s success. One such visitor was a senior staff member from an Oxfam affiliate, who wrote after his visit in 2004 (the first year of the project): It was very interesting to visit your pilot project of Disaster Preparedness and Mitigation. I was especially impressed by the efforts of two [village committees] that we visited. Fantastic to see illiterate women empowered to work with their communities and enthusiastic to learn and share their learning. (internal communication, 8 October 2004) The three previous examples of hybridization start to show how the diffusion of gender equality as a global value is particular due to the nature of what is being hybridized as well as the contexts in which values are being diffused, namely gender mainstreaming and development. One feature is that while OGB instigated the notions of gender equality, they did not introduce them per se. There were clearly extant gender norms from which OGB-induced gender-related priorities were perceived and internalized. Externally induced gender values were confronted with extant gender norms. In this respect, the term ‘induced’ is appropriate to convey the rather consent-coercive process of diffusion. This occurs within the context of relations of aid, which points to a second particular feature. The diffusion of gender equality values is realized within the context of an explicit and intentional strategy of gender mainstreaming, i.e. the process of integrating gender concerns in all aspects of a development aid project. This happened at both the level of formal project features (VCDMs, gender training and anti-domestic violence provisions) and also informally within project relations. The examples show how gender became imbricated in broker relations informed by extant patronage relations, foregrounded in the context of aid. Mediated through a web of relations of aid (Eyben 2006; Wallace et al. 2006), gender also became part of the wider agendas of the project as an unintended outcome of its integration under the auspices of gender mainstreaming. If gender was not such a valued aspect of the project, in part because of it being an organizational policy priority, it

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likely would not have had the same profile as it did. As a priority, in fact a requirement, features gender mainstreaming – the promotion of women’s leadership and participation, addressing gender-based violence – provided the project with a certain cachet.

Conclusion The 1995 Beijing Platform for Action which resulted from the Fourth World Conference on Women is a testament to the achievements of more than 20 years of global feminist activism to place women’s rights on the international stage. The undermining of feminist notions of gender equality, which has been the concern for gender mainstreaming as previously described, is evidenced in the project with increased burdens for women, greater dependence on men and encouragement to accept domestic violence. The decades following Beijing required the definition, administration and implementation of gender mainstreaming policy. For OGB, this entailed: the definition of a gender policy where gender mainstreaming was a central focus; the establishment of administrative frameworks, such as making gender mainstreaming mandatory as part of its regional strategy and the introduction of the anti-domestic violence condition; and the actual doing of policy, which has been the focus of this chapter. All of these engagements with policy, as an articulation of an organization-wide statement of value and commitment, are interpretive processes. At the level of implementation which takes place at the global-local interface there is a ‘hybridization of externally induced values’. The case shows how externally induced values of gender equality were hybridized with community norms of patron relations and social relations of gender where the ‘target [of the ideas]’ was more powerful than their source (Merry 2006b). This case has shown that Merry’s (2006b) form of vernacularization – replication at one end and hybridization at the other – is too binary, despite being described as a continuum. ‘Hybridization’ certainly did take place with translators in the ‘target’ communities clearly demonstrating agency, but, as Merry (2006b, 48) states, they were also ‘restricted by the discursive fields within which they work[ed]’ and were vulnerable to the ‘larger structure of economic and political power’. In the case of the CBDM project, VCDM members, acting as translators and brokers, operated within their interpretive horizons which, for the most part, were informed by their tacit knowledge (Haugaard 2003) as a way of navigating the vagaries and contingencies of Aidland. Their drawing on pre-existing norms and community structures helped them promote OGB-induced values of gender equality, which were more concerned with towing OGB’s line. Similarly, OGB project staff were able to use the appearance of a successful gender mainstreamed project to bolster its claim of having established a pilot or model project. In the end, however, it was female committee members and project participants who bore the brunt of the translating and brokering work needed to make real and effective the global agenda of gender mainstreaming in the project villages.

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Notes 1 Thank you to Anouka van Eerdewijk for her helpful comments on a previous draft. 2 Gender and development refers to a body of mostly academic work that explains the subordination of women in development as being socially constituted, not biologically given, where gender is understood as a social relation (see for example, Whitehead 1979; Moser 1993; and Kabeer 1994). 3 Much of this chapter draws from my PhD research (Wong 2013). My involvement with OGB was not just as a research student, as I worked for the organization as a regional gender adviser for three years in two phases which corresponded with the period of my PhD work. The first stint, 2002–04, overlapped with the period of research on OGB, 2001 to 2006. During this time I advised the CBDM project in my formal role as regional adviser. The second stint was in 2007 and coincided with the data analysis and writing for my thesis. When I conducted field work for this case study in 2006, I was a volunteer with the Cambodia Oxfam programme conducting participant observation and interviews in their office in Phnom Penh. I also carried out gender impact assessments with OGB Cambodian staff on three projects, one of which was the CBDM initiative from which this case study draws, in addition to data I collected when I was formally an adviser. 4 Merry (2006a) makes a similar argument for the terms ‘local’ and ‘global’, as does Acharya (2004). 5 See Merry (2006b, 40), who extends this analysis by further obscuring the distinction between ‘global’ and ‘local’ and the assumed uni-direction of influence from the former to the latter by stating ‘things we call “global” are often circulating locals’. 6 See also Merry (2006b, 40) who also draws on the ideas of ‘source’ and ‘target’. 7 Mosse (2005, 170) and Shutt (2006) make similar assertions. 8 Merry (2006b, 44, my emphasis) refers to hybridization as a ‘process that merges imported institutions and symbols with local ones, sometimes uneasily’. 9 Data for this case study were collected from three project villages in Cambodia including Anchang, Sang KeChaur and Bantey Slek. 10 Ankar is Khmer for organization in reference to Oxfam GB. 11 The change in incidence of domestic violence cannot be verified. Measuring such change is challenging (Buzawa and Buzawa 2003) and the data collection was designed to address this.

Bibliography Acharya, Amitav. 2004. How Ideas Spread: Whose Norms Matter? Norm Localization and Institutional Change in Asian Regionalism. International Organization, 58: 239–275. Apthorpe, Raymond. 2005. Postcards from Aidland. Brighton: Paper presented at the Institute of Development Studies. Bierschenk, Thomas. 1988. Development Projects as Arenas of Negotiation for Strategic Groups. Sociologia Ruralis, 38: 146–160. Brickell, Katherine. 2011. ‘We Don’t Forget the Old Rice Pot When We Get the New One’: Discourses on Ideals and Practices of Women in Contemporary Cambodia. Signs, 36: 437–462. Buzawa, Eve and Carl Buzawa. 2003. Responding to Domestic Violence: The Integration of Criminal Justice and Human Services. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications International.

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Capie, David. 2008. Localization as Resistance: The Contested Diffusion of Small Arms Norms in Southeast Asia. Security Dialogue, 39: 637–658. Cornwall, Andrea, Elizabeth Harrison and Ann Whitehead. 2007. Feminisms in Development. Contradictions, Contestations and Challenges. London: Zed Books. Crewe, Emma and Elizabeth Harrison. 1998. Whose Development? An Ethnography of Aid. London: Zed Books. DeSardan, Jean-Pierre Olivier. 2005. Anthropology and Development: Understanding Contemporary Social Change. London and New York: Zed Books. ECOSOC. 1997. Gender Mainstreaming in the United Nations. New York: UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Eyben, Rosalind. 2006. Introduction. In Eyben, R. (ed.) Relationships for Aid. London/Sterling: Earthscan, 1–18. GTZ. 2005. Gender Based Violence and HIV/AIDS in Cambodia Links, Opportunities and Potential Responses. Eschborn: Deutsche Gesellschaftfür Technische Zusammenarbeit. Harrison, Elizabeth. 1997. Fish, Feminists and the FAO: Translating ‘Gender’ through Different Institutions in the Development Process. In Goetz, A.-M. (ed.) Getting Institutions Right for Women in Development. New York: Zed Book, 61–76. Haugaard, Mark. 2003. Reflections on Seven Ways of Creating Power. European Journal of Social Theory, 6: 87–113. Kabeer, N. 1994. Reversed Realities: Gender Hierarchies in Development Thought. London: Verso. Long, Norman. 1992. From Paradigm Lost to Paradigm Regained? The Case for an Actor-oriented Sociology of Development. In Long, N. and A. Long (eds) Battlefields of Knowledge: The Interlocking of Theory and Practice in Social Research and Development. London: Routledge, 16–46. Long, Norman and Jan Douwe van Der Ploeg. 1989. Demythologizing Planned Intervention: An Actor Perspective. Sociologia Ruralis, 39: 226–249. March, Candida, Ines Smyth and Maitrayee Mukhopadhyay. 1999. A Guide to Gender-Analysis Frameworks. Oxford: Oxfam GB. Marcus, G.E. 1995. Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography. Annual Review of Anthropology, 24: 95–117. Merry, Sally Engle. 2006a. Human Rights and Gender Violence. Translating International Law into Local Justice. Chicago, IL and London: The University of Chicago Press. Merry, Sally Engle. 2006b. Transnational Human Rights and Local Activism: Mapping the Middle. American Anthropologist, 108: 38–51. Milward, M., Maitrayee Mukhopadhyay and Franz F. Wong. 2015. Gender Mainstreaming Critiques: Signposts or Dead Ends? IDS Bulletin, 46(4): 75–81. Molyneux, Maxine and Shahra Razavi. 2005. Beijing Plus Ten: An Ambivalent Record on Gender Justice. Occasional Paper 15. Geneva: UN Research Institute for Social Development. Moser, Caroline. 1993. Gender Planning and Development: Theory, Practice and Training. London: Routledge. Mosse, David. 2005. Cultivating Development: An Ethnography of Aid Policy and Practice. London: Pluto Press. Mowles, Chris. 2008. Values in International Development Organisations: Negotiating Non-negotiables. Development in Practice, 18: 5–16. Mukhopadhyay, Maitrayee. 2007. Mainstreaming Gender or ‘Streaming’ Gender Away: Feminists Marooned in the Development Business. In Cornwall, A., E.

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Harrison and A. Whitehead (eds) Feminisms in Development. Contradictions, Contestations and Challenges. London: Zed Books, 135–149. Mukhopadhyay, Maitrayee. 2014. Mainstreaming Gender or Reconstituting the Mainstream? Gender Knowledge in Development. Journal of International Development, 26(3): 356–367. O’Leary, Moira. 2006. The Influence of Values on Development Practice: A Study of Cambodian Development Practitioners in Non-government Organisations in Cambodia. PhD diss., La Trobe University. O’Leary, Moira and MeasNee. 2001. Learning for Transformation: A Study of the Relationship between Culture, Values, Experience and Development Practice in Cambodia. Battambang: Krom Akphiwat Phum. Purvis, Trevor and Alan Hunt. 1993. Discourse. Ideology. Discourse. Ideology. Discourse. Ideology. The British Journal of Sociology, 44: 473–499. Rai, Shireen. 2003. Introduction. In Rai, S. (ed.) Mainstreaming Gender, Democratizing the State? Institutional Mechanisms for the Advancement of Women. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1–10. Rottenburg, Richard. 2005. Code Switching, or Why a Metacode is Good to Have. In Czarniawska, B. and G. Sevón (eds) Global Ideas: How Ideas, Objects and Practices Travel in the Global Economy. Copenhagen: Liber and Copenhagen Business School Press, 259–275. Shutt, Cathy. 2006. Money Matters in Aid Relationships. In Eyben, R. (ed.) Relationships for Aid. London and Sterling: Earthscan, 154–170. Soontornwong, Somying. 1996. Role of Local Elites as Brokers in Rural Development: A Case of an NGO’s Rural Development in Kong Pisie, Cambodia. MA diss., Institute of Social Studies. Vijghen, Johnand and Ly Sareoun. 1996a. Customs of Patronage and Community Development in a Cambodian Village. A Study of Aspects of Local Decision Making and Participation in Development in Cambodia. Phnom Penh: Cambodian Researchers for Development. Vijghen, John and Ly Sareoun. 1996b. Decision Making in a Cambodian Village. Decision Making Processes in a Development Project in Cambodia, Takeo. Phnom Penh: Cambodian Researchers for Development. Wallace, Tina, Lisa Bronstein and Jennifer Chapman. 2006. The Aid Chain. Coercion and Commitment in Development NGOs. Warwickshire: ITDG Publishing. Whitehead, A. 1979. Some Preliminary Notes on the Subordination of Women. Institute of Development Studies Bulletin, 10: 10–13. Wong, Franz. 2012. The Micro-politics of Gender Mainstreaming: The Administration of Policy in Humanitarian Work in Cambodia. Gender & Development, 20: 467–480. Wong, Franz. 2013. Following the Commitment: Development NGOs Promoting Gender Equality – The Case of Oxfam GB and Gender Mainstreaming. PhD diss., University of Sussex. Zimmerman, Cathy. 1994. Plates in a Basket Will Rattle: Domestic Violence in Cambodia. Phnom Penh: Project Against Domestic Violence.

Internal documents and reports Joint Oxfam Disaster Management Team. 2005a. Double Jeopardy: Cambodian Poverty and Natural Disasters. A Strategic Plan (2005–2008). Oxfam.

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Joint Oxfam Disaster Management Team. 2005b. The Joint Oxfam Disaster Management Programme Annual Progress Report. From 1 May 2004–30 April 2005. Volume 1. Phnom Penh: OGB. Norseman, C. 2004. Comments on Cambodia DM Proposal. OGB. 2002. Gender and Humanitarian Interventions. Non Negotiables in the Oxfam GB East Asia Programme. Oxfam GB. OGB. 2004a. Annual Report. The Joint Oxfam Disaster Management Programme in Cambodia (1 May 2003–30 April 2004). Phnom Penh. OGB. 2004b. Proposal to the Oxfam in Cambodia for the Joint Oxfam Disaster Management Programme in Cambodia (2004–2005). Phnom Penh: OGB. OGB. 2006a. Appendix 16: End of Project Financial Management Evaluation. OGB. 2006b. The Joint Oxfam Disaster Management Programme. Year 1 – Interim Progress Report. Reporting Period: May 2005–April 2006. Phnom Penh: OGB. OGB. 2006c. OPAL Short Summary for the Joint Oxfam Disaster Management Programme – Cambodia. OGB. n.d. Oxfam Programme Accountability and Learning (OPAL). Building Capacity and Prepare for the Humanitarian Emergency Response (01 May 2006–30 April 2008). Oxfam Humanitarian Programme Office. 2002. Joint Oxfam Disaster Management Programme: Strategic Plan (2002–2005). Phnom Penh: OGB. Rowe, B. and Menh Navy. 2005. Building a Wider Institutional Culture in Cambodia for DM Community Preparedness and Disaster Response. Joint Oxfam Disaster Management Programme Evaluation.

Part III

The localization of agency

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Localizing rebellion International development agencies and the rise of the indigenous movement in Ecuador Philipp Altmann

Introduction Social movements engage in constant acts of localization. Their role as local actors that mediate local demands with supra-local actors (such as the nationstate) make necessary a permanent process of translation. Their ability to succeed in translating local demands into supra-local discourses and supra-local politics in local problems is one of the main factors of their development – if they can translate local demands into a coherent supra-local discourse while constituting broad alliances, they will prevail, grow and eventually be able to impose their ideas. Even if the concept of transnational social movements is relatively new (amongst the first in defining it were Della Porta and Tarrow 2005), in the sense developed above, most social movements are transnational to some extent. For the purposes of this study, social movements will be understood as collective efforts to impose some kind of demand that can be formulated on a local, national or global (i.e. transnational) level, based to some degree on local structures. In almost all cases, those different levels are interrelated – that is, a local social movement has national and transnational contacts, structures or influences. Two central forms of localization can be detected: the installation of organizational structures on the local level that are inspired by other organizations or diffused globally through transnational networks, and the implementation of discursive content that allows for the translation of political ideas and demands between the different levels. In both cases, the reverse process, a globalization of local ideas or structures into transnational organizations or discourses is of central importance – transnational social movements are, in today’s world, a key instrument in order to reach determinate goals. Localization can be understood as ‘a complex process and outcome by which norm-takers build congruence between transnational norms (including norms previously institutionalized in a region) and local beliefs and practices’ (Acharya 2004, 241). The local actors are therefore an active part of the process of localization; diffusion, ‘the spread of movement ideas, practices, and frames from one country to another’ (Della Porta and Tarrow 2005, 2), is

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not received passively, but rather met with ‘the active construction (through discourse, framing, grafting, and cultural selection) of foreign ideas by local actors, which results in the former developing significant congruence with local beliefs and practices’ (Acharya 2004, 245). Local social movements are transnational in the sense that they have more than just a say in whom they cooperate with, whose ideas, projects and materials they accept, and what they do with them. They are the key actors of localization and the first to be blamed (or congratulated) if the adaptation of ideas or structures fails or is successful. They actually use localization (and globalization) both as a tool to gain access to resources and as a resource itself – they accept foreign ideas or structures because they want something from them, usually the key resources for social movements: influence, members and infrastructure. If those potentially transnational local social movements engage with genuine transnational actors such as international development agencies in the broadest sense – including the Catholic Church, initiatives by political parties or social movements and other institutions – localization becomes an act of appropriation that is multifaceted and contradictory. Political power is always an issue for social movements which complicates the seemingly simple transmission of ideas and turns into an openly political act – social movements cannot simply be receivers without critique, they have to translate what they want to adapt and localize into something relevant to their cause. At the same time, many social movements, at least those in the Global South, depend to some degree on international actors to provide them with resources in order to preserve their existence and ability to act. This is why the relationship of social movements and development actors is interesting for research in a broad sense: the first party needs resources, ideas, structures, knowledge – things provided by the second party, but at a cost that usually has the potential to compromise the movement (such as, for instance, becoming perceived as agents of imperialism or instruments, and the first victims of, an elite attempt to demobilize the poor). Both sides try to impose their visions, resulting in a constant interchange of localizing and globalizing attempts in a transnational/local field that is crossed by relations of power. This chapter aims to explore the role of social movements in localization and globalization of both organizational structures and the discursive contents of movements by examining the concrete example of the indigenous movement in Ecuador. This movement will be understood as the central actor in the process of localization that has since its inception engaged in alliances with international or transnational actors and in acts of localization of structures and discourses. Given the specific characteristics of the Ecuadorian case – a rather small country in the Global South with about 15 million inhabitants and with considerable ethnic and regional diversity or, even, fragmentation – the indigenous movement as a political structure parting from a group that is both economically exploited and ethnically oppressed is of considerable interest. While the organizational base of this movement – the indigenous population – is rather numerous, comprising between 10 and 30

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per cent of the total population, it remains in relative political isolation and is largely excluded from the economy which has an adverse effect on its longterm existence and ability to repeatedly mobilize. Nevertheless, the organizations of the indigenous movement were able to find and occasionally change transnational alliances that provided them with the resources necessary to survive as a political actor and actually develop an innovative and effective organizational structure and discursive expressions. This constant negotiation of transnational alliances in relation to the localization and/or globalization of discursive contents and organizational structures will be analysed in a roughly chronological manner, focusing on the current indigenous movement that began in the 1970s. The concrete examples within the case of the indigenous movement in Ecuador will be: 1) the renovation of the movement via localizations of structures and discourses provided by the Catholic Church, independent intellectuals such as the Barbados Group, and the attempts of an ethnic revitalization in the context of the political current of Indianism; 2) the effort to create and institutionalize indigenous education that was supported by religious groups and international development actors; 3) the failed attempt to localize in a top-down manner certain organizational structures through a project run by the World Bank; 4) the creation or renovation of a new political concept in the discourse on development and quality of life supported by international development actors and its subsequent independence and globalization – buen vivir or “Good Life”. The idea of this structure is to include successful as well as unsuccessful examples of localization, to analyse the reasons for those results, and to open up a perspective on globalization of certain contents as a result of their successful localization.

Importing rebellion – localization of discursive and organizational structures The origins of the modern indigenous movement in Ecuador are to be found in a series of acts of localization of global norms. While there has been an active and engaged indigenous movement in Ecuador since the 1920s, it was only later that an organizational and discursive renovation took place producing a movement that could influence broad sectors of Ecuadorian society. In the 1970s, when the indigenous organizations in question were founded or started to expand, a redefinition of ethnicity occurred on a global scale. Beginning in the 1960s, a movement called Indianism sought to form ‘an indigenous movement led by the indigenous themselves’1 (Landa 2006, 13). It brought with it ‘an undeniable increase of political mobilization of the aboriginal populations of the American continent’ (Bonfil Batalla 1978, 209), above all, a considerable growth of organizations that understand themselves as ethnic or indigenous – as opposed to the earlier peasant or worker organizations with socialist tendencies.

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The beginning of this global trend towards ethnicity can be found in the XXXIX Congress of Americanists held in Lima, Peru in 1970, where a group of anthropologists organized a meeting which took place in Barbados in 1971 (Landa 2006, 56). This meeting, the first of the famous meetings of Barbados and a moment of high visibility for this new thinking, was supported by several global actors, amongst them the Catholic Church. The discursive change2 started by it was one of the leading factors for the organization of a series of international conferences of the indigenous organizations by themselves, starting with the ‘I Indian Parliament’ of the Cono Sur which gathered in Asunción, Paraguay in 1974 (AAVV 1985, 162). This meeting was based mainly on indigenous tribes and peoples and no non-indigenous were admitted (Barre 1982, 58). It was an important milestone in the ‘creation of ethnic consciousness of the Indian peoples and their wish for organization’ (Barre 1982, 59). In fact, it was decided that the indigenous communities should organize in regional federations which should unite in national and international confederations while maintaining their political and organizational independence (Barre 1982, 59). This recommendation was influential and the proposed structure actually was implemented in the indigenous movement in Ecuador and other countries until a level which determined that only national organizations could be confederations, whereas regional organizations were regarded as federations. This parliament can therefore be considered a first moment in the process of localization of transnational norms. A conference, held in Port Alberni, Canada in 1975, was of global importance as it was here that the World Council of Indigenous Peoples was founded (AAVV 1985, 162). Organizations from all around the world, among them Ecuadorian representatives, participated at the conference. A series of resolutions on economic, cultural and political rights and on environmental protection were approved (Barre 1982, 59). The second meeting in Barbados in 1977 was more heavily influenced by indigenous leaders who had been invited to participate on an equal footing (Bonfil Batalla 1977, 100). The result was the drafting of documents that can be considered an ‘action programme of Indianism’ (Landa 2006, 59). Of considerable influence were the claims for an independent self-organization of the indigenous peoples and the construction of a coherent and easily communicable ideology (Landa 2006, 57–58). The final and most important point in this short history of Indianism is the first Congress of Indian Movements of South America in Ollantaytambo, Cuzco, Peru in 1980. Hundreds of indigenous representatives from most of South America and some other countries gathered in order to coordinate their strategies and discourses (AAVV 1985, 162). At this conference the influential regional indigenous organization, the Indian Council of South America (CISA3), was founded (AAVV 1985, 162). At the time, this was the most radical indigenous political action undertaken, demanding not only an improvement in the living conditions of indigenous peoples – as demanded by the Indian Parliament in 1974 – but fighting explicitly for the liberation and

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decolonialization of their countries. Actually, this conference was the moment when the Indianist tendencies, led by the Bolivian Kataristas and supported amongst others by the Ecuadorian delegates, imposed themselves over older Marxist tendencies (Barre 1982, 61–62). Indianism was defined as ‘the search, the re-encounter and the identification with our historical past’ (AAVV 1985, 163). It is based on the traditional collectivism and communitarianism that is opposed to both capitalism and occidental socialism (AAVV 1985, 164). The strategic recommendation made at this congress has become very influential: From this point of view of two realities that can be found in all of the countries: a) when the Indian people is the majority, its immediate end will be the takeover of power; b) when the Indian people is the minority, it should achieve autonomy, reserving for itself the right to decide its immediate action together with popular sectors, but without compromising its independence and cultural identity. (AAVV 1985, 164) Even if in Ecuador no organization or influential indigenous leader claims to be Indianist in the sense described above (Landa 2006, 68–69), it is interesting to detect clear cases of the localization of transnationally developed discursive and organizational elements. This is valid, not only for the already detailed cases of the organizational outline made in the Indian Parliament in 1974 and the strategic recommendation of the Indianist meeting in 1980, but on a more global level and also concerning more general ideas. The idea of the ‘ecological Indian’ (Landa 2006, 67) as the ideal of a person who lives in harmony with nature started in the 1970s as a discursive figure in the context of Indianism and gained considerable influence that continues to the present day. It is hardly surprising that the indigenous movement in Ecuador was, at that time, open to the integration of transnational and global ideas concerning structure and discourse. The two indigenous organizations that marked the 1970s in Ecuador were themselves products of some kind of localization. The Interprovincial Federation of Shuar Centres (FICSH4) was the result of the religious mission of the Catholic Order of Salesians, established in the 1950s and which led to the first formal organizations in 1962. They are based on a form of settlement called a ‘centre’ – a localized, village-like settlement of a group of Shuar families organized around a central square with a church and an administrative building. The different centres unite in an association, a formalized organization with its own structure which, in turn, constitutes the third or highest level of the federation (Federación de Centros Shuar 1976, 115/127). As a religious project, participation and control by ‘religious assessors’ (Federación de Centros Shuar 1976, 115) on the level of the associations was institutionalized up until the late 1970s, when the FICSH acquired complete independence. Even today, there is a close connection and constant collaboration between the Catholic Church and the Salesians and the Shuar organizations.

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Ecuador Runacunapac Riccharimui5 (ECUARUNARI), was the product of a major engagement by the Catholic Church beginning in the 1960s, and was influenced by both the global trend towards a theology of liberation and the national attempts to realize agrarian reform in 1964 and 1973. This tendency was supported by international meetings in 1970 – in the aftermath of the second Vatican Council – and Church-based organizations like the International Movement of Catholic Agricultural and Rural Youth (MIJARC)6 that supported a process of local indigenous organization. This process was not only thought to strengthen the role of the Catholic Church or to improve the situation of the indigenous peoples but also to offer an alternative to the hitherto dominant socialist and communist organizations that were understood as a danger to both the Church and the state (ECUARUNARI n.d., 1). In this context, a congress in 1972 established ECUARUNARI, created by Kichwa peoples of the Andean highlands. It was decided that ‘ECUARUNARI would define itself as an indigenous organization whose principal objective was to promote consciousness among indigenous people in order to reach a social, economic and political recovery’ (ECUARUNARI n.d., 1). This programmatic line was supported by the Church and combined with the clerical character of ECUARUNARI, that is, the functional integration of priests in the different provinces (ECUARUNARI n.d., 1–2). At the same time, no person or institution that was not part of the movement was admitted (ECUARUNARI n.d., 2), a decision which was also made by the Indian Parliament of the Cono Sur. By the mid-1970s, ECUARUNARI had established its independence from the Church and ceased to have an overtly clerical character and, at the same time, opened itself on structural and discursive levels to non-indigenous peasants and workers. In the final years of the 1970s, a class-based perspective began to emerge (ECUARUNARI n.d., 3–4), leading to the beginning of a recognition of ‘the “double dimension” of class and ethnic aspects of the Indigenous struggle’ (Becker 2008, 168).7 That led to closer relations among other indigenous and peasant organizations, both nationally and internationally, and finally to the cooperation of most indigenous organizations in Ecuador, namely, of ECUARUNARI and FICSH (ECUARUNARI n.d., 5–6). It is worth noting that this programmatic combination of class and ethnicity was already proposed at the second meeting in Barbados in 1977 (Bonfil Batalla 1977, 98), making this discursive element another possible localization, but which was only integrated plainly in the case of Ecuador. Both organizations are marked by a more ethnic understanding of the problems of their members, distancing themselves from the one-sided classist perspectives of earlier organizations. Instead of identifying plainly with a socialist revolution, this new indigenous movement started to fight for a different, pluralist state and a different society (Federación de Centros Shuar 1976, 129). The national indigenous organization that was founded in 1986 as a result of this renovation and the closer cooperation between FICSH and ECUARUNARI (and other organizations), is CONAIE.8 In the discourse of

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this organization, ‘[c]lass and ethnicity appeared at the same time to be mutually conflictive and reinforcing’ (Becker 2008, 170). This structural openness and direct experience with processes of localization of global or transnational ideas could be one of the main factors that led to the integration of further global concepts. In 1980, the central political concepts that express the primary demands of the new organization were integrated into a renewed discourse. It was certainly no coincidence that those central concepts were already in use during the second meeting in Barbados in 1977 – even if no direct connections can be made out. By understanding the indigenous peoples as nationalities with the ability and the right to autonomous self-determination in their traditional territories (Bonfil Batalla 1977, 97–99), the demand for a pluralist reconstitution of the state became necessary. This was envisioned by a clear break with the earlier rhetoric of the state in the sense of ‘the State recognizes ethnic pluralism and denies its legitimacy’ (Bonfil Batalla 1978, 212). The renewed state could be multiethnic, multi-national (Bonfil Batalla 1977, 98) or plurinational (Bonfil Batalla 1977, 100). Only such a state could integrate the spaces of political self-determination and autonomy for each of the different nationalities (Barre 1982, 74). In fact, ‘the call to recognize Ecuador’s plurinational character became CONAIE’s key and most contentious demand’ (Becker 2008, 173). This organization could expand because it was able to mobilize around the discourse of indigenous nationalities9 within a plurinational state (Becker 2008, 173). In this context, the claim made by Appadurai would appear to be correct in affirming that this process, which occurred more or less simultaneously all around the world, changed the characteristics of ethnic identity. ‘[E]thnicity, once a genie contained in the bottle of some sort of locality (however large), has now become a global force’ (Appadurai 1996, 41). This possibility ‘to ignite intimacy into a political state and turn locality into a staging ground for identity’ (Appadurai 1996, 41) has not only become a new and seemingly more effective way for political contestation, but prepared the ground for a profound change in the rules of production of discourse. However, Appadurai’s argument, that ‘debates about land and territory are in fact functional spin-offs of arguments that are substantially about power, justice, and selfdetermination’ (Appadurai 1996, 21) appears in another light when considered against the background of discursive development as depicted above. The demands for self-determination and territorial autonomy were born in the same fight, being articulated in different ways according to the concrete local circumstances. On the level of social movements, it is clear that the development of the indigenous movement in Ecuador is, at least in part, a product of diffusion. Both organizational structures and discursive contents that are proposed on a transnational level are adapted and translated to the local environments – and with considerable success, so far. The success of the localization, here, seems to be driven by two major factors. On the one hand, the indigenous movement in Ecuador has been

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reorganizing itself since the late 1960s due to both internal (the crisis of the first organizations) and external (the increased engagement of the Catholic Church) pressures. This is why the new organizations had to look for new organizational structures that ensure their permanent connection with their bases and a coherent discourse that was able to mobilize those bases. On the other hand, the interconnectedness of their allies – the Barbados Group was born out of attempts by the Catholic Church to improve their mission and both were engaged at the beginning with Indianism – as well as a general global trend towards ethnicity at that time, facilitated those processes of localization. To organize on an ethnic basis and to express the main demands with reference to ethnic identity seemed to be a promising way to get access to resources. This strategy proved correct: membership and influence of the organizations grew to the point where they were increasingly able to set their own agenda.

Adapted localization – intercultural bilingual education From the outset, the establishment of an indigenous system of education was a core demand and political theme for the indigenous movement in Ecuador. The first attempts at a bilingual education started in the 1930s, when the first indigenous organizations, all of them of communist orientation, organized communal indigenous schools in a self-determinate and clandestine manner (Moya 1987, 391–392). For a long time, this system existed on a low level, with constantly changing expressions. It has been complemented by educational programmes by radio since the 1960s, run by the Catholic Church in cooperation with the local indigenous organizations and supporting their growth and impact (Lazos and Lenz 2004, 6). The integration of the transnational attempts to create an education programme for indigenous peoples via radio since the late 1940s (Lazos and Lenz 2004, 7) can be considered another act of localization – in this case heavily adapted to the local environment and dependent on local actors. A special case is the System of Bilingual Shuar Radio Education (SERBISH10), which was supported by the Salesians but run by the FICSH (Moya 1987, 394; Lazos and Lenz 2004, 7). It began in 1972 and aimed not only at the creation of access to education for all Shuar but also at the revaluation of Shuar culture (Lazos and Lenz 2004, 7–8). While SERBISH described itself from the beginning as bilingual and bicultural, it changed this to bilingual and intercultural in 1980 (López 2009, 137–138), possibly following the use of this term at the Barbados Group (for instance, Bonfil Batalla 1978, 212). With the end of the last dictatorship (1972–79) and the return to democracy, a series of development and educational projects were initiated with the proclaimed goal to fight illiteracy (Moya 1987, 390). In 1980, a National Program of Literacy was created within the Ministry of Education, led not only by the state but also by representatives of the peasant and indigenous movement. It had a sub-programme in Kichwa (Moya 1987, 395) that was

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organized in cooperation with the Centre of Investigations for Indigenous Education (CIEI11) of the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador (PUCE). The CIEI was created around 1974 by young indigenous leaders who fought for the inclusion of Kichwa in the curriculum of the PUCE and started a model project of indigenous education in the province of Cotopaxi in 1978 that was supported by the Ministry of Education (Moya 1987, 396; Lazos and Lenz 2004, 10). In this sub-programme, the indigenous and peasant organizations participated heavily, including the management of the courses, the preparation of educational material and the supervision of the whole process (Lazos and Lenz 2004, 10). This process of literacy in Kichwa was not only important for the development of the country or the linguistic investigation of Kichwa, but also for the development of the indigenous movement. One meeting concerning the process of literacy is of special importance: the National Seminary of Indigenous Delegates of Ecuador in 1980, where a unified orthography for Kichwa was decided and the characteristics of Kichwa as a nationality was supported (Moya 1987, 398). At the same time, the culturalist approach of the CIEI, that is, the neglect of class aspects in the elaboration of indigenous education, was criticized (Moya 1987, 399). Therefore, the process of literacy in Kichwa can be considered a key moment in the construction of the discourse and political programme of the indigenous movement in Ecuador (Moya 1987, 396–397). One of the outcomes of this process of literacy was the widespread engagement of international development agencies in Ecuador. The German Society for Technical Cooperation (GTZ12) supported the process leading to a contract between GTZ and the Ministry of Education in 1985 for the creation of a project of Bilingual Intercultural Education13 (Krainer 1996, 46). This project began in 1986 with 75 schools in the Andean highlands (Abram 2004, 127), mostly in collaboration with local indigenous organizations (Krainer 1996, 46). It was the first time that bilingual education was organized within the public system (Krainer 1996, 50). This was the complete integration of the concept of ‘intercultural’ in the political discourse in Ecuador (Walsh 2000, 13). While it was used in certain domains (such as the case of SERBISH, explained above), the idea of an intercultural education was integrated on a national level at least partly due to the action of the GTZ. Outside an exclusively indigenous discourse, the demand for intercultural education was proposed at a Governmental Meeting of the Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean in 1981 (Tamagno 2006, 25), and again at a Regional Meeting of Specialists in Bilingual Education in 1982 in Mexico. At this latter meeting, ‘the need to establish national politics of plurilinguism and multiethnicity was stressed’ (Walsh 2000, 11), and it was recommended that bilingual bicultural education be renamed bilingual intercultural education in order to reflect the complexity of culture. The project of Bilingual Intercultural Education was an important entry point for new approaches in education not only in the context of the literacy

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campaign in the years 1980–84, but in a more structured manner in regular schooling. A logical next step was the creation of the National Directorate of Intercultural Bilingual Education (DINEIB14) in 1988 as an independent office within the Ministry of Education based on a contract between CONAIE and this ministry (Lazos and Lenz 2004, 11). DINEIB was managed in an autonomous manner by CONAIE – and later the other national indigenous organizations (Martínez Novo 2009, 179–180) – which controlled the curriculum, the didactic material and the personnel while the ministry controlled the budget (Martínez Novo 2009, 174). The previous, self-controlled or Church-run initiatives were integrated into DINEIB – maintaining a certain degree of independence – as well as all normal schools with more than 80 per cent indigenous students (Martínez Novo 2009, 179). From the outset, DINEIB suffered from a considerable lack of funding which led to the poor supply of equipment and low salaries for the personnel (Martínez Novo 2009, 180–181). This problematic financial situation, caused directly by the state, led to the bilingual intercultural education programme having a bad reputation, even among indigenous leaders, for low-quality education (Martínez Novo 2009, 181–182). In 2009, the indigenous control over DINEIB was terminated by the government and it now depends directly on the Ministry of Education (Martínez Novo 2009, 174). The localization of bilingual intercultural education in Ecuador happened as the integration and extension of already existing experiences and was inspired by a series of external institutions. The success of the GTZ in establishing their model of education can be explained with the strategic connection to the diversity of functioning models that were integrated and to some degree unified with the help of ‘credible local actors’ (Acharya 2004, 249) – in this case, indigenous leaders who were already engaged in the process for a number of years – and via the adaptation of local norms (Acharya 2004, 248). The close cooperation between state actors, the indigenous movement and international development agencies was a win-win-win situation, at least to begin with: the state could show it was socially engaged and increase access to rural education as well as literacy rates, the indigenous movement could improve its position as a key organization for political action in the communities and provide its leaders with jobs and continuous education as teachers in this system, and the international development agencies could demonstrate their ability to successfully establish institutional structures that actually filled a gap left by the state.

From social movement organizations to development agencies: the failure of structural localization The organizations of the indigenous movement in Ecuador are characterized by multiple structures. The local organizations (or first-degree organizations, as they are referred to in the movement) are simultaneously part of the movement, traditional institutions of self-determination, production

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cooperatives, local credit institutions, culture or sport clubs, churches and/or development agencies (Ramón 2001, 49–50).15 They are part of second-degree organizations (SDOs) that represent them on a regional level. Those regional organizations are heterogeneous depending on the local organizations that form a part of them and can engage in more strictly political actions or the acquisition of funds for development projects (Martínez Valle 2006, 110). The SDOs constitute third-degree organizations which can be national indigenous organizations or, in the case of CONAIE, the regional affiliates of the national organization. Because of their special position, SDOs are neither political organizations in the full sense, such as the national indigenous organizations, nor engaged directly in local matters and therefore controlled completely from below. This made them the main target of different development projects, by both national and international agents, which led to further complication of their characteristics (Martínez Valle 2006, 109). Particularly since the 1980s, they have been engaged by NGOs and by international actors, such as the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) (Martínez Valle 2006, 109). The major attempt to integrate the organizations of the indigenous movement in a wide development project was undertaken by the World Bank between 1998 and 2004 with the Development Project of Indigenous and Black Peoples of Ecuador (PRODEPINE16). PRODEPINE followed a strategy of attracting SDOs for development projects, converting them into smallscale development agencies (Bretón 2008, 131). In a first step, a census of all SDOs was made in 1998 in order to analyse their capabilities for the implementation of development projects (Martínez Valle 2006, 113). In this process, the ‘executive units that could be qualified to get funding from the project to execute productive and service initiatives for their bases’ (Ramón 2001, 41–42) were identified. The action of PRODEPINE led to a considerable growth and strengthening of SDOs at the expense of the organizations at lower and higher levels. A growing number of professionally organized SDOs quickly emerged – this structure being a basic condition to be able to apply for funding from PRODEPINE (Martínez Valle 2006, 114). The number of SDOs increased from 141 in 1998 to 164 in 2002, when a second census was completed. Not all of those SDOs were actually successful in applying for funding: in 2003 107 SDOs executed projects financed by PRODEPINE, which was 24 per cent less than in 1998 and 34.8 per cent less than the total number of SDOs in the 2002 census (Martínez Valle 2006, 116). Not all of them were a genuine part of their social environment or of the indigenous movement: 36.5 per cent had fewer than ten first-degree organizations and were therefore less representative; 37 per cent were founded in the five years before 2002. The expansion of SDOs was due to their role ‘as a mechanism to obtain economic resources’ (Martínez Valle 2006, 115). Martínez Valle comes to the conclusion that the growth of SDOs was mostly because of the action of PRODEPINE, ‘which

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created ad hoc organizations and revived others’ (Martínez Valle 2006, 118). This conclusion is shared by Bretón who calls attention to the fact that ‘the motivations for their existence are external’ (Bretón 2008, 127–128), so that those SDOs actually break with the organizational logic of the indigenous movement. He also remarks that the growth in number of the SDOs leads to a greater competence amongst them and to a further specialization in the execution of development projects – as opposed to political action that was primary activity of earlier SDOs (Bretón 2008, 127–128). As a result, many SDOs lost the ability to engage in their traditional activities and depended almost entirely on the execution of small projects in order to maintain their existence (Martínez Valle 2006, 111). Political questions were relegated to a second or third row, while the neoliberal logic of ‘developmentalist projectism’ was accepted uncritically and the only freedom left to the organizations of the indigenous movement was the number and scope of the projects they could manage (Bretón 2008, 129–130). This is why the participation of the indigenous organizations – and with that, the whole project – was cancelled in 2004 by CONAIE. In the words of Humberto Cholango, an important indigenous leader: the World Bank, with the Development Project of Indigenous and Black Peoples of Ecuador (PRODEPINE), allowed the entry of non-governmental organizations and tried to de-configure the political and ideological position of the indigenous movement, pretending to convert it into a developmentalist, projectist movement. (Cholango, in Tamayo 2007, 8–9) Maybe Bretón is right in describing the action of PRODEPINE as ethnodevelopment or, harsher, as an ‘ethnophagic neo-indigenism’ (Bretón 2008, 131) that uses ethnicity as a tool to access wide populations, but without the intention of actually respecting the political, economic and cultural structures of the ethnic group in question. Ethnicity in this sense is an entry point to the neoliberal society where only individuals are accepted. Beyond political questions, the reason for the failure of PRODEPINE can be found in the lack of flexibility at the moment of localization of development strategies (Acharya 2004, 248). Even if several studies were made, the actual organizational structure was not understood fully or ignored, and the political background of the existing organizations was not sufficiently respected. The ‘credible local actors’ (Acharya 2004, 248) quickly lost their credibility because they had to break with local norms in order to be able to participate in PRODEPINE projects. They were not allowed ‘to localize a normative order and […] to legitimize and enhance that order by building congruence with outside ideas’ (Acharya 2004, 249). This quickly led to a complete dependence on their ability to attract funding. According to Acharya, ‘the external norm must lend itself to some pruning, or adjustments that make it compatible with local beliefs and practices, without

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compromising its core attributes’ (Acharya 2004, 250). With PRODEPINE, this never was the case: the project was managed in a top-down manner, completely contrary to the local counterpart, which is organized bottom-up. The politics of a ‘take it or leave it’ offer of funding made the successful realization of localization impossible. The attempt at structural localization in the logic of the World Bank failed in a context where the existing organizations grew over a long time and in tight interrelation with the communities. The effort to build up PRODEPINE did not start with the indigenous organizations or communities and did not correspond to their functioning. This is why PRODEPINE can be described as just another case of a traditional, technocratic conception of cooperation to development that does not take local conditions and experiences seriously.

Buenvivir – localization and globalization of an ‘export quality’ concept In 2000, a series of events in Bolivia was organized by several important development actors and indigenous and non-indigenous intellectuals under the name of ‘Diálogo Nacional 2000’.17 Those events were identified with the debates on development and, more concretely, with the search for cultural elements in the fight against poverty. They were embedded in a general global trend to search for alternatives in development and a boom in the discussions on quality of life at that time. It is here where the concept of Good Life appears for the first time publicly. In the aftermath of those events, the German development agency GTZ created a programme under the name of suma qamaña or Good Life, and began to realize events and publish material on this new concept in cooperation with local agents – generally indigenous intellectuals (Medina 2011). From this moment on, the GTZ began working as an agent of discursive diffusion and localization, engaging in attempts to translate this concept to different languages and local contexts. One example would be a seminar in Panama on the topic in 2002, organized by the GTZ. The publication that came out of this event reflects the perception of this concept: the way of thinking of the West is presented as opposed to the indigenous way of thinking (GTZ 2002, 22), as well as the Western understanding of a Good Life to the indigenous one (GTZ 2002, 23). Possible translations to indigenous languages were provided and finally a provisional definition was proposed: ‘to live austerely in harmony and balance with oneself, with the community and with the cosmos’ (GTZ 2002, 24). At the same time, but without direct connection, the concept of Good Life was introduced in Ecuador. Carlos Viteri Gualinga, a journalist and Kichwa from the Amazon, published a text on indigenous conceptions of development in the Amazon in 2002. He explains that among the indigenous peoples, there is no conception of development. Rather: there is a holist vision about what the objective or the mission of all human effort should be, which consists in searching for and creating the

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This idea of Good Life is connected to the indigenous cosmovision, where jungle and earth unite the material sphere with the spiritual one, mediated through the indigenous wise persons (Viteri 2002, 3). Knowledge is in this sense the ability to adapt to the environment and therefore the condition of equality (Viteri 2002, 2). The adaptation of foreign techniques or knowledge in order to make progress in the search for Good Life is legitimate and necessary (Viteri 2002, 5). Viteri developed his text in a research group at the Latin American Institute of Social Research (ILDIS18) in Quito, run by the German Friedrich Ebert Foundation. That context could be the reason for the quick reception of the new concept by another member of the research group, the economist Alberto Acosta. Acosta cited the idea of Good Life as a possible alternative to capitalist growth in a widely read article that was published the same year (Acosta 2002, 45–46). In the following years, the concept of Good Life was integrated into the discourse of the indigenous organizations in Ecuador, becoming a central concept alongside the established concepts of indigenous nationalities and plurinationality. This introduction of Good Life was actually a re-introduction. As early as 1993, Viteri (1993) published a text that contained quite detailed definitions of Good Life. Back then, this idea was not well received at all, perhaps due to the socialist leadership in the indigenous movement at that time. It seems probable that the background of diffusion that started in 2000 with the action of the GTZ provided the ground to ‘adopt or adapt the organisational forms, collective action frames, or targets of those in other countries or regions’ (Della Porta and Tarrow 2005, 3). In this case, the act of adaptation or localization consists directly of ‘borrowing and modifying transnational norms in accordance with their pre-constructed normative beliefs and practices’ (Acharya 2004, 269). Of special importance is the connection to the topos of the ‘ecological Indian’ (Landa 2006, 67), a notion that had been popularized since the 1970s and which offered some clear points of connection to the renewed discourse of the indigenous movement in Ecuador since the 1980s. Nina Pacari, an important indigenous leader, published in 1984 a text where she based the demand for territorial autonomy and self-determination on the indigenous cosmovision (Pacari 1984, 115). It is interesting to note that not only is the diffusion of Good Life in Ecuador, in part, a product of localization, but that the concept itself is localizing in the sense of Arjun Appadurai. Good Life is connected directly to a local knowledge grown out of a constant adaptation to the environment, a kind of knowledge that is also ‘knowledge of how to produce and reproduce locality under conditions of anxiety and entropy, social wear and flux,

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ecological uncertainty and cosmic volatility’ (Appadurai 1996, 181). The concept of Good Life is therefore a challenge to supra-local institutions, like the state or multinational corporations (Appadurai 1996, 191/198) – and as a part of the process of localization it is always endangered. If Good Life is always local, its global diffusion in different conceptions and definitions would be proof of the characteristics of locality as ‘always emergent from the practices of local subjects in specific neighbourhoods’ (Appadurai 1996, 198). The globalization of a localizing concept can only lead to an incredible diversity of different conceptions of locality. A few years later, in 2008, the concept of Good Life was integrated into the new Constitution of Ecuador and the state politics of the governmental party Alianza PAÍS – mostly due to the action of Acosta, co-founder of the party and first president of the Constituent Assembly. There, Good Life loses its inherent opposition as the local to the state and is integrated into new discursive environments – examples include its usage in the National Plans for the Good Life19 2009–13 and 2013–17, or the creation of a secretary of the Good Life with the motto ‘The Good Life is inside you’. After this, the localized and localizing concept of Good Life becomes globalized, diffused transnationally by the governments in question, transnational social movements and intellectuals that function as brokers (Della Porta and Tarrow 2005, 3). This process of globalization is characterized by an abstraction of the concept that is mostly used in the interpretation of the state. The globalized Good Life becomes localized and ‘incorporated into local norms’ (Acharya 2004, 241). Examples of this re-localization of a globalized concept could be the discussions about Good Life in Germany, largely promoted by political foundations such as the Heinrich Böll Foundation which published an introduction by Thomas Fatheuer (2011), or the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation which published an introduction by Eduardo Gudynas (2012). There, it is integrated into discourses of anti-capitalism, ecologism and degrowth. The work of Acosta is a good manifestation of those efforts of glocalization of a political concept. Following Acosta, both sources and connections of the indigenous concept of Good Life can be found in ‘Aristotelian, Marxist, ecologic, feminist, cooperativist, [and] humanist’ discourses (Acosta 2010, 13) – that is, in the core of Western thinking. This can be understood as the functional expansion (Acharya 2004, 253) of discourses in which those intellectuals had already participated earlier – that is, an act of translation. The first diffusion and localization in Ecuador of the concept of Good Life happened at a time of growing critique of instrumental and technocratic conceptions of development and resulted in its localization and integration into local political discourses, connecting the new concept to older ones. In this process of localization, the concept itself experienced a considerable extension and became politicized and charged with meaning. It became a part of the political discourse of the indigenous movement in Ecuador, alongside older demands of territorial autonomy within a plurinational state. This

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extension, in turn, made its diffusion in non-indigenous contexts possible that were, in the end, the agents of a transnational diffusion of Good Life. Alberto Acosta learned from indigenous intellectuals of this concept and was able to integrate it into a discourse that shares some foundations with the indigenous movement but is directed towards a wider public, referring to European currents of thinking. The success of Good Life is due to the ability of its actors to integrate it into local or transnational discourses, establishing clear connections to other key concepts and diffusing it in the groups that engage in those discourses.

Conclusion Social movements engage in constant processes of localization. They are at the same time products and producers of localized discursive and organizational structures that in some cases were initiated by global or transnational actors. As local actors, those social movements have to seek a supra-local impact. As such, one of their core tasks is the globalization of locality – that is, the translation of local ideas, problems and demands into a global discourse or global organizational structures, in order to be heard and understood on a meta-local level. Only if they succeed with this process can they properly be called glocalization and will they continue to grow, engaging in political action and attracting members and resources. The experience of the indigenous movement in Ecuador indicates that global actors are more likely to be successful in the localization of discursive or organizational structures if they engage with local social movements at an early stage of their development. It is not surprising that the Catholic Church had an important influence given that organizations close to this institution gave rise to the foundation of some of the most influential indigenous organizations. By this, those groups were able not only to initialize this process but also to accompany it and to continue having an influence until the present day. The early openness to localization by the indigenous movement can, in turn, explain its success in translating necessary local problems to a supra-local level. The success of later processes of localization depended largely on their ability to connect to already existing discourses or structures. The intercultural bilingual education was a long-term experience and left much space for self-determination for the participating indigenous organizations. The success of this model of education and of the action of the GTZ allowed for certain foreign norms to be ‘incorporated into local norms’ (Acharya 2004, 241). This is why the local actors not only accepted the new system of education but appropriated it and developed it further. The PRODEPINE project did not learn from this experience. Expertise was provided from above and a reconfiguration of the indigenous organizations in the sense of a neo-indigenist developmentalism was undertaken which did not provide any space for participation from below. PRODEPINE never attempted to ‘provide

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opportunities for localization’ (Acharya 2004, 241). This is why it not only failed, but it damaged the indigenous organizations and deepened the crisis of the movement which began around 2002. The concept of Good Life, in turn, is both a localized and localizing concept that could be re-introduced into the discourse of the indigenous movement. The concept, initially deployed in a local context, could connect to a global discourse and become a discursive product for exportation. The experience of the indigenous movement in Ecuador shows that localization can only succeed if there is not only room for an ‘active construction (through discourse, framing, grafting, and cultural selection) of foreign ideas by local actors’ (Acharya 2004, 245), but also local actors actively engage in the introduction and adaptation of those foreign ideas. If local social movements can direct the acts of translation that are related to localization and globalization, they have the potential to connect to transnational discourses or organizations, and a way to win the fight they chose.

Notes 1 All translations are made by the author. 2 Discourse is understood here in the sense of Michel Foucault; more specifically, as the conditions of appearance of discursive elements. Discursive change refers to the change of those conditions, traceable by an analysis of the discursive elements. 3 For its Spanish name, Consejo Indio de Sudamérica. 4 In Spanish, Federación Interprovincial de Centros Shuar. 5 In English, The awakening of Ecuadorian Indians. 6 For its original name in French, Mouvement International de la Jeunesse Agricole et Rurale Catholique. 7 ECUARUNARI expressed the same idea in slightly different words (ECUARUNARI n.d., 6). 8 Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, or Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador. 9 The concept of indigenous nationalities actually has a pre-history in the communist organizations of the 1930s to 1960s (Becker 2008, 173), when it was understood in the context of the Stalinist dogma of national liberation. 10 In Spanish, Sistema de Educación Radiofónica Bicultural Shuar. 11 In Spanish, Centro de Investigaciones para la Educación Indígena. 12 Deutsche Gesellschaft für technische Zusammenarbeit, now Deutsche Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ, German Society for International Cooperation). 13 Officially named ‘Proyecto de Educación Bilingüe Intercultural’. 14 In Spanish, Dirección Nacional de Educación Intercultural Bilingüe. 15 Even if those organizations are identified with the indigenous movement, that is, understand themselves as indigenous, only 35 per cent of them are monoethnic indigenous, making the indigenous movement pluriethnic (Ramón 2001, 51). 16 In Spanish, Proyecto de Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas y Negros del Ecuador. 17 In English, National Dialogue 2000. 18 In Spanish, Instituto Latinoamericano de Investigaciones Sociales. 19 The current one: www.buen vivir.gob.ec.

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Bibliography AAVV. 1985 [1980]. Anexo II: Primer Congreso de Movimientos Indios de Sudamérica. In Del indigenismo a las organizaciones indígenas. Quito: Colección Ethnos, 161–177. Abram, Matthias. 2004. Indigene Völker, Bildung und Kultur: Interkulturelle zweisprachige Erziehung. In GTZ (ed.) Indigene Völker in Lateinamerika und Entwicklungszusammenarbeit. Eschborn: GTZ. Acharya, Amitav. 2004. How Ideas Spread: Whose Norms Matter? Norm Localization and Institutional Change in Asian Regionalism. International Organisation, 58 (2): 239–275. doi: 10.1017/S0020818304582024 (accessed March 8, 2016). Acosta, Alberto. 2002. En la encrucijada de la globalización. Ecuador Debate, 55: 37–55. Acosta, Alberto. 2010. El Buen Vivir en el camino del post-desarrollo. Una lectura desde la Constitución de Montecristi. Quito: FES-ILDIS. Appadurai, Arjun. 1996. Modernity at Large. Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. London and Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Barre, Marie Chantal. 1982. Políticas indigenista y reivindicaciones indias en América Latina 1940–1980. In Rojas, F. (ed.) América Latina. Etnodesarrollo y etnocidio. San José, CA: FLACSO, 39–82. Becker, Marc. 2008. Indians and Leftists in the Making of Ecuador’s Modern Indian Movements. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press. Bonfil Batalla, Guillermo. 1977. Sobre la liberación del Indio. Nueva Antropología, 8: 95–101. Bonfil Batalla, Guillermo. 1978. Las nuevas organizaciones indígenas (hipotesis para la formulación de un modelo analitico). Journal de la Société des Américanistes, 65: 209–219. Bretón, Víctor. 2008. De la Ventriloquia a la Etnofagia o la Etnitización del Desarrollo Rural en los Andes Ecuatorianos. In Martínes Mauri, M. and E. Rodríguez Blanco (eds) Intelectuales, Mediadores y Antropólogos. La Traducción y la Reinterpretación de lo Global en lo Local. San Sebastián: ANKULEGI, 113–136. Della Porta, Donatella and Sidney Tarrow. 2005. Transnational Processes and Social Activism: An Introduction. In Della Porta, D. and S. Tarrow (eds) Transnational Protest and Global Activism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1–17. ECUARUNARI. n.d. Proceso Organizativo de ECUARUNARI. ecuarunari.org/porta l/info/historia. Fatheuer, Thomas. 2011. BuenVivir. Eine kurze Einführung in Lateinamerikas neue Konzepte zum guten Leben und zu den Rechten der Natur. Berlin: Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung. www.boell.de/sites/default/files/Endf_Buen_Vivir.pdf. Federación de Centros Shuar. 1976. Solución original a un problema actual. Sucúa: Federación Shuar. GTZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit). 2002. Cooperación con pueblos indígenas en América Latina. Taller, 28 al 30 de abril del 2002, Boquete, Panamá. n.p.: GTZ. Gudynas, Eduardo. 2012. BuenVivir. Das gute Leben jenseits von Entwicklung und Wachstum. Berlin: Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung. www.rosalux.de/fileadmin/rls_uploa ds/pdfs/Analysen/Analyse_buen vivir.pdf. Krainer, Anita. 1996. Educación Bilingüe Intercultural en el Ecuador. Quito: Abya-Yala.

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Landa, Ladislao. 2006. Pensamientos indígenas en nuestra América. In CLACSO (ed.) Crítica y teoría en el pensamiento social latinoamericano. Buenos Aires: CLACSO, 11–75. biblioteca.clacso.edu.ar/ar/libros/becas/critica/critica.html. Lazos, Elena and Evelyne Lenz. 2004. La Educación Indígena en el Páramo Zumbahueño del Ecuador: Demandas, Exitos y Fracasos de una Realidad. www.latautonom y.org/SEIC_18feb.pdf. López, Luis Enrique. 2009. Interculturalidad, educación y política en América Latina: perspectivas desde el Sur. In López, L.E. (ed.) Interculturalidad, educación y ciudadanía. Perspectivas latinoamericanas. La Paz: FUNPROEIB, 129–218. bvirtual. proeibandes.org/bvirtual/docs/inter_edu_cuidadania.pdf. Martínez Novo, Carmen. 2009. La crisis del proyecto cultural del movimiento indígena. In Martínez Novo, C. (ed.) Repensando los Movimientos Indígenas. Quito: FLACSO, 173–196. www.flacsoandes.edu.ec/libros/digital/41809.pdf. Martínez Valle, Luciano. 2006. Las organizaciones de segundo grado como nuevas formas de organización de la población rural. In Grammont, H. (ed.) La construcción de la democracia en el campo latinoamericano. Buenos Aires: CLACSO, 107–132. biblioteca.clacso.edu.ar/clacso/gt/20100926014303/grammont.pdf. Medina, Javier. 2011. Suma qamaña, vivir bien y de vita beata. Una cartografía boliviana. lareciprocidad.blogspot.de/2011/01/suma-qamana-vivir-bien-y-de-vita-beata.html. Moya, Ruth. 1987. Educación bilingüe en el Ecuador: retos y alternativas. Indiana, 11: 387–406. Pacari, Nina. 1984. Las culturas nacionales en el estado multinacional ecuatoriano. Cultura. Revista del Banco Central del Ecuador, VI(18a): 113–123. Ramón, Galo. 2001. El índice de capacidad Institucional de las OSGs en el Ecuador. In Bebbington, A. and V. Torres (ed.) Capital Social en los Andes. Quito: Abya-Yala, 39–68. www.flacsoandes.edu.ec/libros/digital/46194.pdf. Tamagno, Liliana. 2006. Interculturalidad. Una revisión desde y con los pueblos indígenas. In Barabas, A. (ed.) Diversidad y Reconocimiento. Aproximaciones al Multiculturalismo y la Interculturalidad en América Latina. Mexico: CONACULTA, 20–31. Tamayo, Eduardo. 2007. Movimiento indígena: actor social y político determinante. Entrevista con el dirigente indígena Humberto Cholango. América Latina en Movimiento, 418): 7–15. Viteri, Carlos. 1993. Mundos Míticos. Runa. In Paymal, N. and C. Sosa (eds) Mundos Amazónicos. Pueblos y Culturas de la Amazonía Ecuatoriana. Quito: Sinchi Sacha, 148–150. Viteri, Carlos. 2002. Visión indígena del desarrollo en la Amazonía. Polis, 1(3): 1–6. Walsh, Catherine. 2000. Políticas y Significados Conflictivos. Estudios Interculturales, 2: 9–24.

9

Strengthening civil society through development cooperation? Localizing participation in post-Suharto Indonesia1 Felix Anderl

Introduction Indonesia has been the target of development aid and cooperation for several decades. Especially after the collapse of Suharto’s authoritarian regime in 1998, the ‘Reformasi’ movement and the governments that followed were, and are, heavily supported by international donor organizations. One of the central pillars in this regard is the ‘good governance’ approach, which encompasses democratization and decentralization reforms, the latter implemented at such a pace that they were named the ‘Big Bang’. Since then, Indonesia has been regarded as a model country for administrative decentralization and as such has been evaluated as a successful case of international development cooperation. In recent years, this euphoric narrative has been put into question (see Bünte 2011). Scholars argue that decentralization should not be misunderstood as an end in itself but was rather intended ‘to bring the government closer to the people’ (World Bank 2001). For such a goal, political participation beyond voting is of central concern to donor agencies. The latter have been very active in promoting civil society participation on all government levels (local, regional, national) and in all stages of policymaking. NGOs receive special attention in this regard. They are used by donors as representatives of ‘civil society’ and targeted with programmes and funds. Despite all the programmes, over ten years after the ‘Big Bang’ the vibrant civil society to which the development agencies aspired is not evident in Indonesia. What does this tell us about the potential of norm diffusion in the context of development cooperation? In this chapter, participation will be analysed as a norm, the implementation of which was attempted in Indonesia through good governance projects initiated by development agencies from Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries and the United Nations (UN) level.2 In addressing the ambivalent evaluations with regard to the success or failure of this norm transport, I argue that the mainstream constructivist concept of norm diffusion is too narrow to adequately grasp what has happened. Rather, the norm has been localized and hence mingled with existing

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structures, preferences and norms which are summarized as Cognitive Prior (Acharya 2009). The theory of localization by Amitav Acharya (2004, 2009) therefore informs this case study. Building on interviews with staff members of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and nongovernmental organization (NGO) representatives from Java with whom they cooperated, I analyse how the norm has been framed, pruned and grafted by Indonesian actors, facilitating a process of hybridization during which the participation norm meets an existing normative framework represented by the integral state and Pancasila, as well as Adat practices.3 I hold that this process did indeed bring change, but not necessarily that which was aimed for by the development agencies (norm entrepreneurs). If localization holds in this context, it explains why donor concepts such as decentralization can lead to paternalistic practices in the provinces, which, by making use of the localized norm, can be legitimized to the global Other by local rent seekers or traditional leaders. In order to check for this, I first outline the theory of localization as a constructivist norms research framework, before outlining the civil society participation norm and its relevance to development cooperation. The cognitive prior with which this international norm is confronted is outlined in a third section. Subsequently, I illustrate how this cognitive prior constitutes Indonesian ideas about how the state should be organized. In a last section, I trace the localization process to which the participation norm has been subject since Reformasi.

Detecting local practices in international norm dynamics This study looks at the ‘receiving’ actors in the spread of international norms. This requires a theoretical framework that accommodates their practices. The localization concept, briefly outlined in the following, is an advancement of the norm diffusion research agenda in international relations (IR).4 Classical norm scholarship analyses the diffusion, hence the acceptance, of foreign norms and the innovation of local norms by a given society. Social change is explained through the distribution of cultural elements – an imaginary that Acharya (2009, 9) calls moral cosmopolitanism, because it attributes universal validity to the norms it promotes, the best example being human rights. These norms are distributed by transnational actors such as social movements, which are conceptualized as ‘norm entrepreneurs’. These actors rely on international pressure to spread their good normative standards. This strategy (‘shaming over framing’) leaves little space for local actors’ (norm recipients’) selfinitiative and sticks to a top-down perspective which is similar to a teacherpupil relationship (Finnemore 1993). Research with a focus on these processes is too narrow to perceive local negotiation processes, as it presupposes a dichotomy of good, universal and bad, local norms (Acharya 2009, 11). However, as this study illustrates, such a top-down perspective does not hold empirically. Local actors play a more pronounced role than simply

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accepting or rejecting a norm. For this reason, the concept of constitutive localization (Acharya 2004, 2009) lends itself as a suitable framework. It bundles the insights of scholars who argue that a one-way street of norm implementation from A to B is very unlikely, since the social system B is host to politics and agency, too. Acharya singles out ‘framing’, ‘grafting’ and ‘pruning’ as adaptive or reconstructive strategies by local actors. Framing is the first and most common adaptive strategy by the actors in social system B (‘receivers’). It actively constructs a connection between an existent local norm and a global norm. ‘Framing can thus make a global norm appear local’ (Acharya 2004, 243). A similar tactic is used by norm entrepreneurs or recipients when they try to connect a new norm to an existent one. This practice is defined as grafting (ibid., 244). Pruning stands for the cutting-off of certain parts of a norm and only taking over those parts that suit the local normative system (ibid., 251). As opposed to framing and grafting, two mechanisms that were existent in prior constructivist literature, pruning (or ‘cultural selection’) exceeds the two latter concepts in the extent to which the agency role of local actors is stressed. Framing and grafting, in contrast, were often ascribed to outsiders (Acharya 2009, 15), although this is not necessary by definition. Norm localization is not presented as mono-causal and unidirectional; the focus lies on local actors that reconstruct the norm depending on their context. Therefore, localization is defined as an active construction (through discourse, framing, grafting and cultural selection) of foreign norms through local actors. These norms receive significant congruence with local beliefs and practices. ‘In localization, the initiative of change belongs to the local agent’ (ibid., 19). The concept of localization has the quality to grasp three adaptive processes under one conceptual frame, of which the main merit is to highlight the active role of local actors. Localization aims at integrating the norm into an existing matrix of reference points. This may go back to the initiative of local actors, norm entrepreneurs, or both. In the context of development policies, it has to be highlighted that the bulk of efforts by local actors has often taken place in order to please international actors. However, this is by no means happening out of good will. Rather, it is an attempt to legitimize already existing local practices by applying an international norm. Therefore, it is understandable that ‘[n]orm diffusion strategies that accommodate local sensitivities and contexts are more likely to succeed than those seeking to dismiss or supplant the latter’ (Acharya 2009, 15). These local sensitivities and contexts are summed up as Cognitive Prior by Acharya, the ‘given’ cultural norm on which the international norm hits. In this chapter, I show how civil society participation as an international norm was localized by intellectual political elites in Indonesia. It is therefore necessary to elaborate on the cognitive prior before the localization process can be outlined. It will become clear, though, that various overlaps and antagonistic interpretations are normal rather than the exception. This makes the sections less clearly divisible than Acharya suggests, but this is a price

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paid for taking into account the coexistence of diverse temporalities (Schlichte 2005, 47). The weak spot of the theory of localization is that it could be read as a clash of two static ‘cultural’ norms. More important, the direction of norm diffusion is still from A to B, even though local actors come in as ‘intervening variables’. While Acharya surely did not intend to imply an automatism, his theory, despite highlighting the role of local actors, merely credits them with the agency to slow down the pace of an international normsetting machine, or to use the latter as a tool to reshape existing practices. Feedback processes or a transfer from B to A are not anticipated.5 As I will try to show below, the active (re)construction in the localization process may not only reshape, but sometimes obliterate the meaning of the international norm.

Civil society participation as a goal in development Norms are ‘collective expectations for proper behaviour of actors with a given identity’ (Jepperson et al. 1996). Social norms are thus not exclusively situated on the level of rules. They constitute social identities, whether it be in the private realm or in the international political arena (see Risse et al. 2002, 18). The effort to transport the norm of participation by transnational actors in the field of good governance is therefore aimed at two outcomes. On the one hand, the rules of the target state shall be altered in order to guarantee the right and possibility to participate in rule making for all citizens. On the other hand, a norm change in the target country addressing cognitive, ethical and cultural belief systems. In the vein of the logic of appropriateness, the norm entrepreneurs try to render it adequate and expected that citizens have a right to participation and make use of it. Both levels influence each other in this process. Political participation has played a central role in political theory since its inception. In 1978 the International Labour Organization (ILO) characterized participation not only as a means but also as ‘by itself a basic need of people’, and it followed that development theory and cooperation took the concept into their repertoires (see ILO 1978). In general, development cooperation has become more political in nature, utilizing not only conditionality, but also direct exercise of political influence in the target country. The programme by the GIZ, which I draw upon in the following, is one among many examples in this regard. The instruments applied can almost all be subsumed under the umbrella of consultancy, based on international treaties like the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and strategy papers of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC), which are reflected and operationalized in the strategies of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The aims of these publications are understood as norms here, whereby good governance is the overarching global norm and civil society participation its sub-category, comparable to democratic values and practices, rule of law, and human rights standards. For GIZ, participation is a cross-sectional task. In its product ‘Governance and Democracy’,

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participation is handled as a point of orientation in all three pillars: rule of law, decentralization, finance (see GIZ 2014). The idea to use participation as part of the development portfolio can also be seen as a turning away from classical modernization theory. The frustration in the face of the non-occurring trickle-down effects of the 1970s spurred a focus on individuals (Oakley 1991, 3). Participation has a double role in, first, guaranteeing that interventions reach a wide base of society and, second, that citizens issue their concerns themselves (BMZ 2009, 8), which is reflected in the concepts ‘ownership’ and ‘empowerment’. Nowadays, all influential donors make use of development definitions that refer to civil society participation and hence appreciate its importance for good governance (see BMZ 2009, 13; World Bank 2008; OECD 1993). Its globally varying political forms notwithstanding, participation is by now a central category for democratization and development and can be counted as a deep-seated international norm.6 These actors are persuaded that participation is a part of development, and other development initiatives will be more successful through participation (local ownership). Where this seems difficult, capacity development is the instrument of choice, educating local actors in order to propagate the agencies’ goals or to formulate one’s own goals. By giving away responsibilities to the local stage, donors envisage being able to select those local players who will have a ‘positive local effect’.7 This shows the dialectic character of this process: responsibility is given to locals; the definition of what is ‘positive’ is, however, still written by the traditional actors; at least they try to keep this authority. The GIZ programme where I was a guest for this research (DeCGG), was no exception to this tendency. I will now briefly outline a framework of assessing how participatory a society is. As even dictators sometimes claim to facilitate civil society participation, we need a yardstick in order to discriminate various forms and scales of participation. The classical strategy in this regard is provided by Cohen and Uphoff (1980). They divide participation into three pillars, assessing kinds of participation; who participates; and how participation is practised. Concerning the kind of participation, they distinguish between decision making, implementation, consequences (effects), and evaluation (ibid., 219–221). With respect to coverage (who participates), they provide four actor categories: local residents, local leaders, government personnel, and foreign personnel (ibid., 222). For the questions raised in this chapter, the focus lies on the level of influence of local residents or their influence on or through NGOs respectively. In case there is no observable increase in their possibility to take part and have a say in politics, this challenges the hypothesis of the diffused participation norm. A localization effect can be assumed if the new possibilities for political influence are interwoven with existing webs of influence. In the last category (how participation is occurring), Cohen and Uphoff discriminate four modes of participation: basis, form, extent and effect. We can therefore distinguish whether it was induced top-down, or eked out from below (basis); whether it is practised indirectly or directly (form); and how

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enduring and all-encompassing it has been in its implementation (extent). Furthermore, the effect of participation is scrutinized, which is highly relevant to the context of development, because the norm entrepreneurs not only support participation as an end in itself, but as an instrument of empowerment. Therefore, we need to check whether an altered participation norm also comes with benefits in terms of a higher interaction between government and civil society.

Cognitive prior: integral state and ‘Pancasila’ The participation norm was transported by international actors, especially donor organizations, who tried to implement the norm in Indonesian society. However, the latter has never been a blank sheet. In this section, I introduce two basic concepts of Indonesian statecraft, integralism and Pancasila, which symbolize well how many Indonesians thought about the state during the 20th century and still do so to a large extent. It is these preconceptions that the international norm is exposed to and struggles with, when the norm entrepreneurs try to establish it in Indonesia. The integralist notion will represent the metaphysical, while Pancasila is the concrete, law-like principle.8 In order to understand how influential this principle is, it is helpful to see how much space it took in Indonesian public education of the New Order: in addition to history, pupils had to attend the subjects ‘History of the national struggle’ as well as ‘Pancasila moral’ and ‘Directives for the realization and implementation of Pancasila’ (Feith 1994, 16). Pancasila, the Indonesian state doctrine, is based on five columns: belief in one God; humanity; Indonesian unity; representative democracy; and social justice. Pancasila was constructed as a compromise of secular and religious administration in the constitutionally pluralist state with a predominantly Muslim population. The formula for this is the acknowledgement of the ‘one Mighty’. Suharto later used this compromise formula as a legitimizing basis for his authoritarian politics and tried to apply Pancasila not only to the state but also to NGOs, which served him as an instrument of control. Paradoxically, he discredited the liberal regime of the 1950s frequently and harshly, without abolishing the central elements of this state. Quite to the contrary, the 1945 Constitution, drafted by Sukarno and others, rather served him for his style of governance. Hence, he even outlined that it would be a central part of the New Order to defend Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution (Bourchier and Hadiz 2003, 37). In this first constitution, the political perspective of the intellectual founders of the Indonesian state are displayed. The core idea to which I refer here is connecting nationalism, which was often learnt abroad and explicitly anticolonial in character, with traditional forms of Indonesian political culture. The ‘integralist’ idea of statehood, which was based on the ‘family principle’, stands for the latter. The family principle is a set of political axioms. It anticipates a good-natured, paternalistic political order, which boils down to democracy with clear leadership (Reeve 1985, 10). The individual is situated

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in the middle of interwoven concentric circles of family, society, nation, and finally brotherhood and humanity. Hatta and Sukarno used the family principle as a guideline for the Constitution of 1945. Furthermore, it served as a foundation for the ‘guided democracy’ of Suharto’s New Order (ibid., 11). According to Hatta, such a society, oriented towards harmony and unity, should have been in the position to implement socialism without class struggle through an organic order of inner peace. The state in this sense is the organic totality of interdependent harmony (Reeve 1985, 20). The family constitutes its basis (Ciri kekeluargaan) and it is this persuasion that also supports the opposition to ‘Western’ individualism. Political decisions, therefore, do not need to be based on majority opinions. Rather, traditional decision making lies with village chiefs, who are counselled by the ‘wise men’. These are not only treated with respect because of their traditional authority but are also above bribes or failure, as they do not argue or make politics but fulfil their ‘natural’ task (Feith and Castles 1970, 183; Jackson and Moeliono 1973, 51). The integralism in the Indonesian debate could be interpreted as a signification of the totalitarian ideas of the 20th century. In order to be in accordance with the general will, the individual has to subordinate to a strong centre, resulting in collectivization (Herrmann 2005, 14). National integration is thereby constructed as the main aim of a large-scale modernist project. An individual, rights-based approach is hard to conciliate with this idea of the state. Individual rights are, on the contrary, portrayed as out of line with Indonesian group orientation: ‘An essential element of integralism is the idea that individuals have no more rights vis-à-vis the state than a limb has vis-à-vis the body of which it is an integral part’ (Bourchier 1994, 58). Hence, a paternalistic leader who is caring and worried about the well-being of his citizens fits well into the political ideal of many Indonesian intellectuals. The demise of liberal democracy in the 1950s can therefore be attributed not only to the radicalism of anti-colonial nationalists (Feith 1962), but to its origin in the integralist ideas about statecraft and the homogenizing impact of Pancasila. The latter is initially constructed in the context of the Indonesian independence movement in which liberalism and human rights were normatively less important than collectivism, and second, finds a source of legitimation in the spiritual ideas about power that were already existent in peasant societies. In these, power depended on special skills and cults (Schulte Nordholt 1987, 7). This mode of representation is still to be found in contemporary politics in which everybody is granted a special place and a corresponding function. The representation by ‘functional groups’ (Golkar)9 is part of this, allegedly non-political, understanding of how the state works.

Efficacy of the cognitive prior in the understanding of the state The degree of institutionalization and habitualization of the cognitive prior is the core internal factor determining the likelihood of international norms being successful. The deeper those ideas, norms and practices are established,

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the more likely it becomes that ‘norm recipients’ neglect or at least localize the international norm in order to make it compatible with the locally prevalent norm orthodoxy (Rüland 2014, 186). It is striking to see how in the decades after the foundation of the Indonesian state, the norms described above were slowly incorporated into a framework of governance that shifted from a patrimonial ‘family principle’ towards a clear dictatorship. At latest in the 1980s, Suharto used the integralist norms in order to introduce a totalitarian state through various decrees. The executive was enabled to ban every organization that it did not like. Such changes were subtly connected to existing ideas of how participation should be organized. Before this decision, for instance, Suharto called for a hearing in which civil society representatives could speak up. For this reason, Abdurrahman Wahid (President of Indonesia from 1999–2001) did not perceive this move as a totalitarian one. While the masses (massa) of the archipelago were made a unit by Sukarno, Suharto reinterpreted these masses as a severe danger to this very unity. Both logics are based on the conviction that the single person does not have great value, and the focal point of the Constitution of 1945 was cohered around ‘cohesion, integration, and solidarity’ (Schulte Nordholt 1987, 1). Additionally, a ritualization and verbalization of politics is prevalent in ‘traditional’ forms of Indonesian, especially Javanese, politics: ‘This almost mystical satisfaction on hearing such phraseology, in stark contrast with empirical reality, is part of a ritual aspect that still penetrates into Indonesian society’ (ibid., 4). This can still be observed, for instance, in planning sessions of village (kampung) meetings, where ‘participation’ can effectively mean attendance and not active engagement.10 The idea of functional representation in an integralist system led the leaders of the New Order to misuse this principle and interpret the population as ‘floating mass’, which does not have to be involved in politics. Even if this could be attributed to an exception under circumstances of Suharto’s dictatorship, a current quantitative view on the people’s understanding of governance shows that the norms on how politics should be organized did not change significantly in Indonesia (see Shin and Cho 2011). Here, these shall be understood as the cognitive prior, shaping how people see the state and its inherent principles. According to this cognitive prior, the village population shall be obedient and servile (Antlöv 2000, 206). Erb and Anggal (2009, 284) have elaborated on how this elitist belief still continues to shape Indonesian politics. Ordinary villagers are named ‘SMD Rendah’ (sumber daya manusia rendah), which can be translated as low human resource quality. This shows that the mystical and ‘traditional’ beliefs of the rural population, which were formed over hundreds of years of decentralized and spiritual empires and corresponded to a certain style of leadership associated with family values and an ‘organic’ picture of society, have been used by first colonialists, then modernist Indonesian leaders who stick to local phrases in addressing issues that are often influenced by European 20th-century ideologies and serve their own claims to power. One of these ideologies is dealt with in the next section.

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Localizing the participation norm In the following, I will describe how the participation norm was localized in post-Suharto Indonesia according to the three adaptive-reconstructive strategies – framing, grafting and pruning – which alter a norm as it is diffused from social system A to B. Framing Framing is a communication strategy by the actors in social system B (‘receivers’). It actively constructs a connection between an existing local norm and a global norm. ‘Framing can thus make a global norm appear local’ (Acharya 2004, 243). It embeds political ideas and norms into subjective interpretative schemes, aspiring to consensus on issues by stressing certain parts of the norm. Framing justifies a societal need for an external norm and places it in an acceptable context for the majority of the population or relevant actors, in which the norm can evolve (Acharya 2009, 13). In the case of civil society participation in Indonesia, I argue that this was the exclusive strategy used. In the following, I illustrate this by briefly outlining how the norm was associated with at least three local political discussions. The norm was, first, framed in the context of decentralization, second in a democratization frame, and third in the discourse of national integration. The decentralization frame When Suharto resigned, his party, Golkar, became the object of hostility, especially of Javanese citizens, who were hit hard by the financial crisis at the time. In order not to experience a disaster in the next elections, Golkar therefore had to concentrate on the outer islands, where the economic losses were less drastic. On these islands, however, anti-Javanese sentiment was at a peak, which led the party to perform a political U-turn from a core proponent of the centralist state towards an advocate of decentralization and regional autonomy. Traditional elites and aristocratic actors from the sultanates had a comparable interest in decentralization. They interpreted this as a possibility of broadening or re-establishing their spheres of influence, built upon traditions and ideologies that were morally discredited through their cooperation with the Dutch colonizers. By utilizing the widespread hatred toward the New Order, they often succeeded in constructing a narrative of their local histories, disregarding their corruption and collaboration in favour of more romantic elements (Schulte Nordholt 2008, 151). Local self-governance and citizen participation was in this context a false pretence, which had rhetorical and less substantial (normative) motivation. But other actors were also interested in supporting decentralization and praising it as a frame for reforms. As explained above, the liberal donor organisations, the World Bank figuring most prominently, as well as local

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NGOs were amongst them, the former hoping for economic progress, the latter mainly democratic progress. Building on this large coalition of supporters, decentralization can be attributed the status of a frame into which diverse actors projected their interests. In fact, it spearheaded the reform activities of nearly all state institutions in the years after Suharto (Rüland et al., 2006, 12). While the democracy-promoting NGOs framed participation in terms of decentralization in order to gain acceptance for the idea, local power brokers used the same frame in order to reach the opposite: stratified local spheres in which they regain importance. The democratization frame Discursive framing is most obvious where language patterns change and, by that, mobilize politics differently in a certain point in time than was the case before. In the context of Reformasi, this strategy is observable with the democratization frame. Graf (2010) shows that in the course of Reformasi, a transformation of language-in-use took place, which, since then, can no longer be characterized by kramanization, but increasing Madyaiasi. The often-cited Javanization of Indonesian culture is thereby relativized in the observation that the polite style of language of the upper status groups (Krama) develops towards the less formal ngoko of the lower classes, resulting in a middle way, signified by the Indonesian word madya, which stands for the middle. According to Graf (2010, 26), this development leads towards a ‘more egalitarian style of communication’. The transformations of society that went along with (and were supported by) those in the language as a result of the forces of opposition to Suharto were confronted by strong resistance from the old corporatist elites. Under the pressure of the masses, however, pragmatic interaction with political elites could ‘smooth the renegotiation of new social contracts without undue social disturbance’ (ibid., 317). Large parts of the elites agreed to democratic procedures, because they preferred issue-driven discussions and reforms over radical societal unrest and change. Therefore, they conveyed a positive image of democracy and joined in using the characteristic style of ‘democratic language’. Seen from the present, real change has resulted from this alteration in language and attitude (or at least has followed it). At the time, however, it was questionable whether these vague changes would result in actual policy shifts or whether they would simply follow an anti-Suharto symbolism. These discussions were held extensively in the development agencies towards the end of the millennium, when staff members feared being drawn into a relativist organizational culture by simply betting on a horse that ‘speaks democracy’.11 For pragmatic reasons, the development agencies often have to subordinate themselves to local frameworks and circumstances. Thus they find themselves in a double role, not only as norm entrepreneurs, but also as active localizers. The necessary pragmatism for this has been criticized in many instances in the history of Germen development work in Indonesia. For

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instance, the law regarding the founding and development of civil society groups (Law 8/1985) remains valid today. The process of formulating a new law, which is supported by GIZ, has been consuming a lot of time, with coordination problems posing the core barriers to success (Effendi 2010, 6). With regard to the first two frames, their constitutive relationship is remarkable. While supporters of decentralization invoke its democratizing effects (World Bank 2001), the representatives of the democracy movements in turn underline the facilitative quality of decentralization (Erb et al., 2005, 6). In Indonesia, therefore, ‘both regional autonomy and democracy were at the heart of political change and were expected to enhance good governance and strengthen civil society’ (Schulte Nordholt 2011, 1–2). The integration frame While the two frames above resulted in a turning away from the old regime, civil society participation was also put into a conservative frame of national integration which promised continuity and signified that everyone should take part in national cohesion. President Wahid (1999–2001), with his Cabinet of National Unity embodied continuity in state-citizen relations by using integration as a frame of reference for his politics, which were in fact much more progressive than the New Order. This frame is observable in his decision to continue setting and controlling school standards centrally. The stress on national struggle in school books further reproduces this nationalistic frame of integration (see Schulte Nordholt 2004, 11). This framing had consequences for the understanding of democracy for large numbers of Indonesian citizens. Shin and Cho (2011) show that Indonesians are very receptive to authoritarian forms of democracy. This first and foremost includes paternalism and the curtailment of individual rights with the excuse of serving the interests of all citizens. Alongside this phenomenon, which can be coherently deducted from the cognitive prior, they claim that the procedural dimension of democracy is not credited with much significance and therefore more than half of the Indonesian population could be called ‘regime democrats’. Citizens largely limit their understanding of democracy to voting for a government (ibid., 31) which later cares for them, a finding that corresponds with my interview with an NGO activist from Konsil LSM, an umbrella organization for NGOs that promote democracy in Jakarta. This person, although being concerned with supporting a more democratic Indonesian state, commented that her biggest hope for Indonesia would be a strong leader in the President’s Office. The question of ‘who participates?’ from Cohen and Uphoff’s scheme is therefore answered with ‘only the government’ by many Indonesian citizens. Apart from the general elections, decision making is therefore left to the administration. Everything beyond this requires long-term legwork and persuasion by norm entrepreneurs such as the development agencies. A good example was given to me by a GIZ staff member. In the process of drafting

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the ‘law on how to make laws’ (Undang-undangpementukanperaturanperundang-undangan), it took her and a coalition of NGOs three years to change the phrase ‘citizens can take part in law making’ to the formulation ‘citizens have the right to participate in law making.’ Grafting Grafting is the construction of a connection between existing local and external norms. The most impressive example for the application of this adaptive technique in the context of civil society participation was initiated in 1999 when various NGOs founded the Alliance of Adat Communities of Indonesia (AMAN). The purpose of this organization is to represent socially disadvantaged indigenous communities. The alliance builds on a double legitimacy basis. It refers to ‘traditional right’, while at the same time utilizing modern phrases that stem explicitly from the good governance discourse, such as ‘grassroots movement’, ‘bottom-up’, and ‘empowerment’ (see Schulte-Nordholt 2011). Furthermore, they refer to international treaties from the UN and their governing bodies (Asian Development Bank 2002, 6). In doing so, representatives of civil society use modern concepts and international development instruments and blend them with local traditions in order to have a supposed double legitimacy. As Thompson (2011, 68) observes, the effectiveness of civil society activists in relation to the (political) centre is limited. Recognizing this, they ‘have avoided staging frequent demonstrations in Jakarta in favour of concentrating on building up their local and regional associations’. Many NGOs process the norm in a way that maximizes their political leverage in the regions. Participation is understood as enlarging their own sphere of influence concerning local power structures, not as a way to influence law making. Influence thereby mainly means material advantages.12 This is not entirely true for NGOs promoting democracy, which are the centre of attention here. Their goals have not changed significantly after Reformasi; yet the opportunity structures to issue their concerns have become more favourable. These NGOs that aim at transforming society towards a more equally distributed form of political representation are still confronted with robust opposition as the state itself also engages in grafting external norms. As was stressed in several of my interviews, NGOs are explicitly excluded from decision making, because they are seen as opposed to the common societal good. ‘NGOs now are the enemies of everyone’, polemicized a conversation partner from Yappika in Yogyakarta. In fact, the government, parties and the private sector discredit NGOs by portraying them as constant complainers and political die-hards. In the context of an organic and consensus-oriented style of politics, critique is classified as alien. As an example, several NGO members describe the Musrembang, a village-based process of planning and budgeting, which already existed under the New Order. According to them, the situation only changed in specific villages

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where NGOs extensively fought for those citizen rights that already existed on paper. In villages in which this did not happen, meetings would continue to ‘legitimize the decisions of the village government by the presence of the community’ (interview with Satu Nama in Yogyakarta). Participation is in this context reinterpreted as attendance and, as such, the external norm is used rhetorically while the old practices prevail. It can be said that the initial strategy of donor organizations of simply flanking decentralization with capacity building was insufficient. Their vision of regional autonomy with competent administrative staff, who are willing to include civil society in decision making, was incomplete at best. Their programmes ignored local power constellations and opposing interests, which led to long-lasting fights about local power among the elites (Hadiz 2010, 92). Since then, every interest group tries to appropriate the external norm and blends it with existing or supposedly existing norms from the local context. NGOs are but a few amongst many conflicting parties in this field. Pruning Pruning happens because in the majority of cases it is not possible simply to embed a complex norm into a different political, social and cultural context. Therefore, parts of the norm are cut off. This can denote that parts of the norm are overlooked or ignored, or that certain parts are deliberately disposed of. On the part of the Indonesian government, there has been huge interest in pruning the external norm, because ‘many lawmakers still have an ambiguous attitude towards civil society’ (Rüland 2014, 192), which is seen as a competitor to political influence and especially the authority of representation. This view has the consequence that with regard to Cohen and Uphoff’s analytical framework, only one or two kinds of participation have thus far been established. Participation is granted in the phase of implementation in which the population is mobilized in order to actively support projects that have already been decided upon. Potentially, material benefits can result from this, although it is hard to test. The two other kinds of participation, evaluation and especially decision making, are mostly disregarded, which makes the possibility for agenda setting or re-framing of issues very hard for civil society activists. This is also the common denominator in my interviews with NGO representatives. Besides some participatory methods that are geared towards the media, civil society representatives perceive themselves as powerless and even uninformed about the ongoing political debates in decision-making circles. The practice of agenda setting can, furthermore, only be used very selectively, because ‘it depends on power gains and losses of government functionaries, whether an agenda can be set or not’ (interview with Konsil LSM). This form of pruning can be attributed to the integration frame, with which it is entangled and through which it is legitimated. ‘Contrary to neoliberal expectations, that [devolution] would reduce the size of the state,

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regional autonomy in Indonesia produced more state at the regional level’ and thereby brought the government and not governance ‘closer to the people’ (Schulte Nordholt 2011, 7). It must be highlighted that from the side of NGOs, similar caveats are formulated when it comes to the cooperation with representatives of the government or the legislature.13 Connections between NGOs and government are especially weak in the more peripheral areas. Because of that, in 2006 a decentralization project of the then-GTZ was consulted to pursue an ‘insideout’ approach: while other donors try to influence the government through civil society (‘outside-in’), the evaluators advised taking the converse track and increasing the willingness of local governments to cooperate with civil society organizations (Rüland et al. 2006, 40). According to Cohen and Uphoff, this would be the basis when it comes to how participation is designed. Within the German cooperation programme this problem was acknowledged. The proposed solution was, however, only pursued by inviting selected NGO officials as additional guests to pre-conceptualized meetings with the government.14 Within GIZ, there was neither optimism, nor were there any concepts concerning a change of the participation paradigm, which so far has clearly been induced top-down. In the light of this, the future of the how of participation in Indonesia does not look bright. Generally, it is observable that the inclusion of civil society in the process of decision making is rather weak and not even expected, which can be described as a pruning of the participation norm. Therefore, the openness towards arguments from civil society fluctuates with the motivation of local governments and is, hence, arbitrary in nature. As Bupati or district regents often behave like ‘small kings’ (interview with Satu Nama), decentralization frequently leads to districts being completely non-participative, because the measure of the centre to strengthen citizens’ participation was to give more weight to the districts, without forcing them to follow specific styles of leadership. GIZ and other donor organizations have realized this problem and rely heavily on the method of capacity building for NGO representatives in order to bring them into a position to cope with this situation. In my interviews, however, I got the strong impression that NGO representatives often do not lack capacity but connection to the population. The localized participation norm has triggered local governments to hold participative meetings in which NGO representatives may state their opinion. These are, however, very similar to what I described above about village meetings, where attendance is participation. The NGO representatives acquired a certain style of language (capacity) already, fostering an elite discourse, which is often detached from ordinary people. This results from the arbitrariness of the participation schemes, where local officials can pick and choose participants. This was cautiously reflected by some NGO representatives. Members of foreign NGOs such as ‘Watch Indonesia’ go a step further, criticizing the ‘shopping mall lifestyle’ of NGO representatives, which can be financed by the newly established possibility of partaking in professional political discourse. In parallel, it actively contributes

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to the pruning of the norm, because it concentrates the effect of participation on a group of the upper-middle class, which may play democracy, while the ‘constant access to decision-making and power’ (UNDP 1993, 21) for the masses is not in sight.

Conclusion In this chapter, I applied the theory of localization to the international participation norm and its framing, grafting and pruning in Indonesia. As was shown, the cognitive prior provides a framework of political thought that strongly influences how many Indonesians conceive politics. Attendance has long been equated with participation and elites in the provinces draw heavily on these traditional belief systems in order to legitimize their position or regain power through the implementation of good governance norms from outside. Acharya’s theory of localization provides a useful framework for conceiving this mechanism, which could hardly be grasped with the classical diffusion approach. The theory’s advancement is to take local actors into account. However, numerous actors are undertaking localization strategies. The image of ‘the local’ as an intervening variable is therefore short-sighted. In contrast, localization is not only adaptive but creative in the sense that a multitude of antipodal actors mobilize norms in order to shape discourse according to their interests and in accordance with their access to resources. I showed, for instance, that the Indonesian government, Indonesian NGOs and local elites all engage in framing, grafting and pruning, although with different aims. With the example of decentralization, some hoped for democratic procedures in the villages while others used these new structures for the promotion of their private influence. Both sides, however, argued with ‘participation’ norms. Furthermore, international actors such as the GIZ engage in localization in order to connect their norms to what they perceive as cognitive prior. In that sense, localization is much more dynamic than the theory might suggest. It constitutes a two-way street of norm adaptation. Both ‘sides’ try to legitimize their claims by utilizing the normative framework of the perceived other. It would need an additional study to see whether these instrumental tactics also feed back in the sense of changing the initial normative framework of the actors involved – that is, whether GIZ staff transport altered normative claims back to Europe. It is clear, though, that the domestic side is much more diverse than could be presumed when conceptualizing it as merely ‘intervening’. An intervention is taking place, but it is in itself a discursive field, where power claims and normative demands are negotiated. This study could only provide a very preliminary illustration of this dynamic and ongoing localization discourse. For future research, sophisticated process tracing would be useful, preferably with multi-sited ethnographic methods in order to account for the multitude of actors involved rather than lumping them together as ‘the local’. Nevertheless, unintended

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consequences of development cooperation can already be seen with the localization approach, a fact that is encountered by the agencies with their own localization practices. The success of these strategies has yet to be assessed.

Notes 1 This research was enabled by a generous travelling grant by the Hans Böckler Foundation and the hosting of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) in Jakarta in cooperation with South-East Asian Studies at Freiburg. I would like to thank Cecep Effendi, Johannes Haaf, Sophia HornbacherSchönleber, Maria-Gabriela Manea, Parudee Nguitragool, Reinhart Kößler, Manfred Poppe, Jürgen Rüland, Klaus Schlichte and Elias Steinhilper for their help and advice. 2 United States Agency for International Development, GIZ, Japan International Cooperation Agency, Australian Agency for International Development and the United Nations Development Programme have been especially active in this regard. 3 I stayed as an intern in the Programme Decentralization as a Contribution to Good Governance (DeCGG) in Jakarta, Indonesia, for three months in 2011. The members of staff that I quote will stay anonymous. For the NGO members to whom I refer, the respective organization is given in the text. 4 See Acharya (2009, 9–21). See for a classical overview Finnemore and Sikkink (2001). 5 Although there are indeed examples of norm diffusions from B to A, as is shown by Steinhilper (2015) with the example of special rights for indigenous peoples. 6 Since 1989, political participation rights are even guaranteed for children according to the United Nations (UN 1989). 7 See www.aswnet.de/en.html (last accessed 6 July 2014). 8 There are a lot more philosophical concepts that should be dealt with here, especially the belief in Javanese myths and the corresponding acceptance of certain types of leadership. For reasons of space it was decided to concentrate on the two concepts as they well represent the ideational background that shall be outlined here. 9 Golkar is the party of Suharto and is still one of the biggest political parties after his resignation. 10 Own observation in Jakarta. This varies geographically, but I am unaware of any systematic studies concerning this question. 11 Interview with DeCGG staff. 12 So I was told by various NGO members. 13 One of my NGO interview partners has been fighting this tendency for more than a decade now, stating that ‘we can’t say No all the time’. 14 The responsible staff member told me: ‘What I do is to always try and bring them [representatives of the ministries and NGOs] together’.

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10 Victims, victors and saviours The politics of aid and women’s rights in Zimbabwe Manase Kudzai Chiweshe and Sandra Bhatasara

Introduction Action to promote women’s rights in Zimbabwe occurs within the overlapping frameworks of international and regional obligations and funding frameworks, global feminist movements, global development paradigms, national law, and strategies and programmes agreed to by the government of Zimbabwe and various international and national non-state actors. As such, there is no unified ideology; in fact, we could talk about a plethora of perspectives, pursued in different historical epochs by donors and local non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Some perspectives have been abandoned, some reinvigorated and some adapted to the new socio-economic and political environment. Still, while women’s rights have evolved in Zimbabwe it is clear that they are connected in a messy, non-linear fashion to global rights discourses. This process of norm localization is central to this chapter. Thus, this chapter highlights reasons why ‘global’ institutional frames on women’s rights sometimes fail to impact the largely patriarchal social structures enduring in the country. It will also analyse how different actors, whether differently or similarly positioned, negotiate and contest the meanings of women’s rights. A number of international treaties or resolutions that promote the rights of women and girls are evident, emerging from various global summits and conventions. These include the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW, 1979), Beijing Platform for Action (1995), Vienna Declaration and Program of Action (1993), United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (2000), Rome Statue of the International Criminal Court (2002), and UN Security Council Resolution 1820 on Women, Peace and Security (2008). There is now clear recognition of women’s rights and that women experience injustices solely because of their gender. The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) laid out the idea of the universality of rights, but failed to take into account women’s needs and interests. CEDAW, established in 1979, marked an important step towards explicit prohibition of discrimination against women. During preparations for the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna (1993),

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women’s groups mobilized around the slogan of ‘Women’s rights are human rights!’ which signifies the indivisibility of women’s rights from universal human rights. Participants in the UN Beijing Women’s Conference (1995) continued to promote this, attempting to broaden the conception of rights to include social, economic and cultural rights, as well as reproductive and sexual rights put on the agenda at the 1994 Cairo population conference. The 1993 Vienna Conference on Human Rights was a watershed as it marked the first international recognition of violence against women as a human rights violation. Local women’s organizations refer to regional conferences and instruments such as the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1987), African Platform for Action (1994), Southern African Development Community Protocol on Women’s Rights (1997), Dakar Strategy on Equality between Women and Men within the African Union (AU) (2003), and the AU Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa (2004). Tripp (2005) submits that regional ideas, norms, practices and strategies have influenced national policies and movements. Multi-party politics across the region have expanded the spaces for African feminists, encouraging the building of organizations linked to transnational networks (Gaidzanwa 2010). Within all these processes, the chapter is guided by the need to understand the contestation and negotiation of global norms within local contexts.

Theoretical framework Understanding and explaining what women’s rights establish within local contexts requires a nuanced discussion that highlights the conflicts and contextual subtleties that make up our societies. The questions of who defines what, why and how are at the heart of any debate on rights, of any kind, anywhere in the world. Within this section we use various theoretical frameworks to highlight how norm localization is a contested and complex process which involves negotiation, rejection and adoption. Zwingel (2012, 120), for example, regards women’s rights norms as contentious in terms of their actual fulfilment despite the almost universal ratification of CEDAW. We therefore adopt a transnational perspective that identifies multi-directional processes of appropriation and contestation of global norms proposed by Zwingel (2005, 2012). It challenges the norm diffusion theory as one dimensional. Essentially, the shortcoming of the norm diffusion theory is that it conceptualizes international norms, once established, as causes that produce effects within domestic contexts (or fail to do so); transnational and independent domestic norm creation are not within the scope of analysis (Zwingel 2012). While this model is helpful to operationalize global norm diffusion, it is firmly anchored in an international perspective and underestimates domestic dynamics of norm creation and appropriation. The transnational perspective does not assume a causal relationship between international and domestic norms. Rather, it conceptualizes global norm creation and appropriation as an open process of negotiation in which various actors are involved.

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Applied to CEDAW, for example, the understanding of mutually constitutive situatedness suggests that neither the global set of norms that CEDAW represents, nor the national apparatus, such as the government of Zimbabwe, that has made a commitment to implement them, nor the everyday life situations in which women’s rights are supposed to work are conceptually separate from each other or fixed in meaning. Rather, we are looking at a transnational assemblage of negotiating, living and contesting gender norms with many possible outcomes in many possible venues. As ideas from transnational sources travel to small communities, they are typically vernacularized, or adapted to local institutions and meanings (Merry 2006). New ideas and practices may be ignored, rejected, or folded into pre-existing institutions to create a more hybrid discourse and organization, or they may be subverted: seized and transformed into something quite different from the transnational concept, out of reach of the global legal system but nevertheless called by the same name. Some women’s rights groups envision a different set of rights from those articulated in international human rights conventions (ibid.). In a related manner, the theory of entanglement, based on the work of Nuttall (2009) – which considers the uneasy intimacies that unfold where rights ideas overlay, inter-penetrate and envelop other forms of cosmological and moral knowledge – also allows us to delve into the complexities of the localization of global ideas of rights. Similarly, we also discuss how specific global norms on women’s rights are played out in local contexts by versatile actors using Norman Long’s (1992) interface analysis approach. Interface analysis allows us to explore cultural diversity, social differences and conflict among different actors in the arena of women’s rights. As espoused by Long, interface mostly occurs at points where different and often conflicting life worlds or social fields intersect, or in a situation in which interactions become oriented around problems of bridging, accommodation, segregating or contesting social, evaluative and cognitive viewpoints. Although interface analysis presupposes some degree of common interest, conflict is inevitable due to the contradictory interests and objectives or to unequal power relations. At the same time, individuals who represent particular constituencies, groups or organizations sometimes negotiate at the interface. As such, we frame the field of women’s rights as an arena of contestation and competition, and sometimes convergence among different actors. All these actors are considered contextualized: there is no qualitative difference between local, national or international; they are regarded as being part of a non-linear dynamic of norm production (Zwingel 2012). We construe women’s rights as an arena where a multitude of actors shape the everyday realities of women’s rights programmes and projects. The realities and outcomes of actors’ actions and strategies depend on how actors positioned along and around the aid chain, interpret the perspectives, context, the needs of aid recipients, their own role and each other. Women’s rights from this standpoint are the outcome of the messy interaction of social actors struggling, negotiating and, at times, guessing to further their interests.

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Indeed, non-state actors on women’s rights, with a wide array of agendas, range from huge international organizations to small grassroots groups. These are the norm entrepreneurs, norm advocates and norm takers. Often, funding moves through an ‘aid chain’, originating from large funding agencies either directly to the South, or through an intermediary NGO based in Northern countries which then channel these resources, possibly with funding acquired through other sources, such as member donations, to recipient organizations in the developing world (Oller 2006). Thus, aid tied to particular norms finds its way into local contexts. Therein, it encounters diverse local women’s rights groups, which cannot be regarded as merely passive recipients of global discourses. Despite their universal semblance, different actors interpret women’s rights principles differently (Leader 2002). They are contextual and imbued with different meanings, even for ‘Northern’ international actors themselves (Minear 1999). Most components of the rights framework are subject to a wide range of interpretations to which all actors contribute, and from which all actors also deviate, to varying degrees (Zwingel 2013). While donor agencies derive their legitimacy from their image of being moral actors, recipients derive their legitimacy from the fact that they are in need. As a result, beneficiaries are often solely portrayed as being vulnerable, a label that renders people helpless and deprives them of their agency. As Fordham (2004) notes, it is especially women who are subject to this labelling as they are often placed in the same category as children (‘women and children are the most vulnerable’). The women’s rights arena is not ‘out there’. It is discursively created by diverse actors. In reality, women’s rights situations are not blank slates to be occupied by lone agencies, but are shaped by social negotiations over inclusion and exclusion. Agencies are in fierce competition and the outcome of their struggle is informed by their command over power and money, with international norm entrepreneurs such as UN Women, the UN Development Programme, UN Population Fund (UNFPA), UNICEF (the UN Children’s Fund), for example, sometimes gaining the upper hand over local authorities and local NGOs. Part of this struggle is over the question of who constitutes a real women’s rights champion as well as whose definition matters. The government, donors and the NGOs ascribe political motives to each other in attempts to exclude the other from the women’s rights arena. International women’s rights actors use their expertise to disempower local NGOs and community organizations. Although questions over women’s rights can concern real matters of expertise and experience, it is important to note that they are also part of the competition over access to budgets, programmes and target groups. This turns the debates over who is a legitimate women’s rights defender into a political rather than a principled one. The preponderant view is that local NGO perspectives, strategies and actions on women’s rights are determined by donors and other international norms. Constructivist scholarship on norms tends to focus on ‘hard’ cases of

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moral transformation in which ‘good’ global norms prevail over the ‘bad’ local beliefs and practices (Acharya 2004). Moreover, NGOs are often portrayed as altruistic norm advocates vis-à-vis self-interested governments (Zwingel 2012). However, the specific characteristics of NGOs may either empower local constituencies or have a patronizing, paralysing effect. All actors involved are thus norm proponents with identifiable interests within certain power relations. It is therefore inaccurate to depict local women’s rights actors as simply being subsumed by global ones or as engaging in sustained, overt resistance to global norms. Rather, what prevails is a more complex and varied situation in which local NGOs and donors shape each other. Furthermore, while transnational ideas, donor resources, and organizations have been extremely successful around certain issues in some regions, their success with these issues is more circumscribed elsewhere (Basu 2000). Therefore, whilst we agree with Capie (2008) to adopt an analysis that looks at the active role of local agents or actors as norm takers, we also contend that they are norm makers. Perhaps the most common experience with the diffusion of ‘global’ norms in the developing world is not a simple dichotomy in which they are either ‘obeyed or disregarded’, but something in between (Capie 2008).

Global feminist theories in Zimbabwe The Zimbabwe in which we live, and about which we write, is deeply patriarchal. In such a context, the use of feminist theories as a lens to understand how women’s organizations in Zimbabwe operate is highly instructive. In the context of this study we highlight how major feminist theories have influenced gender programming. Donor imperatives remain the biggest influence on the ideas transited from the global to local contexts. All organizations within the gender sector in Zimbabwe rely on donor funding for survival which leaves them unable to chart their own directions. All the same, the rise of feminist theories in the country should be historicized. Women in Zimbabwe have always organized, dating back to pre-colonial times. African societies provided spaces for women to meet, socialize and converse on their own terms. However, most of these rights and protections were lost with colonization in 1890. Gaidzanwa (1992) illustrates how in Zimbabwe under colonial rule patriarchy and white colonial capital colluded to institutionalize gender inequalities. Colonial government required male labour in the cities and mines but wanted women to stay in the rural areas to reproduce labour and care for the old, sick and injured men. African men on the other hand wanted women to remain in the rural areas to safeguard their land claims which they would use after retiring. As such, laws were put in place to restrict women’s movement, particularly in the urban areas where most available accommodation was for single men. In colonial Zimbabwe, the organizing of women in formal groups can be traced back to early missionary activities, such as the Wesleyan Women’s

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Groups and Zimbabwe Methodist Church women’s Ruwadzano (fellowship) movement, which took hold in 1919 in what was then Southern Rhodesia (Schmidt 1992). Ziyambi (1997) notes the groups were mainly concerned with teaching African women about Christianity but also performed the role of instructing housekeeping. The earliest women’s organizations were thus built on a Christian ideology that promoted a certain kind of white patriarchy and promoted unequal relations between men and women. This ideology continues to run through most religious-based organizations that are not seeking a radical shift in women’s situations but rather ‘improving’ them in their roles as mothers and subservient wives. However, in 1923 women were also actively involved in politics through the formation of a relatively national organization, the Southern Rhodesia Bantu Voters Association. Although this was largely an elitist organization, it had a vibrant women’s wing that organized a successful boycott of the beer halls in 1934. In 1980, Zimbabwe attained independence after a protracted armed struggle in which women and men fought side by side. After independence, Alexander (1993, 160) argues that ‘the re-emergence of the traditional leadership was perhaps the most surprising development in rural politics after the war’ in Zimbabwe, thus questioning ‘the extent to which patriarchal power was undermined during the war. Schmidt (2001, 416–417) outlines that: Despite ZANU-PF’s [Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front] claim to be an emancipatory force for women, the movement’s rhetoric was not matched by reality. In both military and civilian life, women continued to be subordinate to men … As ‘natural’ teachers and nurturers, women rallied support among the local population and nursed the sick and injured. Relatively few women served as guerrilla fighters. With the exception of a limited number who were connected to powerful men, women were generally excluded from positions of power and authority. Thus, in terms of gender relations, the revolution returned women, especially in rural areas, to the disadvantages and inequalities of colonial Rhodesia. For them, the revolution was betrayed (Bhebe and Ranger 1996, 28). Whilst patriarchal hierarchies were challenged during the movement, they were never undermined. Rather, they were simultaneously reinforced by parallel narratives which mobilized ‘the nation’ around ‘traditional’ notions of protecting women and children. In the early 1980s, women’s organizations took a complementary role to the state, participating in the ‘national developmental goals’. The 1990s provided space for the emergence of more feminist-oriented organizations such as the Musasa Project which directly confronted patriarchy and the state. Gaidzanwa (1992) indicates that the involvement of women in the struggle, and the rise of groups of university-educated women, forced women onto the agenda of the new African government. Colonization

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and the fight against it had opened spaces for women to study and be educated in various fields across the world. Ramtohul (2012) argues that in much of the post-colonial world, nationalist movements provided an impetus for women’s mobilization and activism. With the rise of the international feminist movement and the work of the UN on women’s issues, Zimbabwean women began to raise their voice and work towards equality. For example, several women’s groups attended a 1985 UN Women’s Conference in Nairobi, Kenya, where they were introduced to radical political perspectives that saw them expand their agenda into initiatives such as decriminalization of abortion and the political inclusion of women and gender equality (Thomas 2012). Jirira (1995) highlights how women worked through the newly created Ministry of Women’s Affairs and ZANU-PF’s Women’s League, although these structures remained paternalistic in nature. Aili Mari Tripp notes that institutions were organized ‘along patronage lines and composed of the female relatives of male leaders in the regime’. Government took the initiative without giving women the space to develop their own political movements. Women were, thus, largely relegated to generating support and votes and encouraging the female population to attend parties, rallies and meetings. There were, however, women who began to fight for equality but the ‘backlash’ against the pioneers of the women’s movement soon after independence was quite severe, especially for those who advocated for women’s emancipation. This backlash was more vicious from fellow females than males (Kwinjeh 2010, 8). Whilst a rights framework may not even be the most useful or relevant approach to the needs of Zimbabwean women, most women’s groups within Zimbabwe continue to use local law and international rights ideas and instruments (Morreira 2013). Fundamentally, civil society groups centred on women’s rights in Zimbabwe have adopted global feminist perspectives. Feminism is generally defined as a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing and defending political, economic and social rights for women. Significantly, civil society groups focused on women’s rights in Zimbabwe have adopted global feminist perspectives, one of them liberal feminism. It emphasizes legal measures such as the vote, promotion of greater recognition for women and self-worth as individuals, equality of legal rights, the use of education as a major tool of social reform, equal opportunity, affirmative action, the promotion of equal education for girls and boys, ending sex prejudice, and an end to de facto discrimination based on sex. NGOs such as the Women in Politics Support Network have adopted some of the liberal feminist principles to promote women’s political participation in Zimbabwe. ZWLA (2011) also noted that the development of the Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe as a social movement is premised around liberal feminist ideology. Radical feminist perspective has been embraced by many women’s rights organizations in Zimbabwe. Radical feminists point to such phenomena as rape, wife battery, prostitution and genital mutilation as expressions of patriarchy everywhere, and call for global sisterhood or international feminism (Willis 1984; MacKinnon 1989). Women’s Action Group (WAG), Women in

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Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF), Women and Law in Southern Africa (WLSA), Musasa Project, Women and AIDS Support Network (WASN), the Zimbabwe Women’s Resource Centre and Network (ZWRCN), as well as the Federation of African Media Women Zimbabwe (FAMWZ) identify themselves as radical feminist groups. Socialist feminism – vibrant at one point in countries where leftist politics was popular (such as Cuba, Chile and Brazil) – insists that there is something timeless and universal about women’s oppression, and have insisted that oppression takes different forms in different settings and that the differences are of vital importance. Various women’s rights groups in Zimbabwe reflecting socialist feminist dispositions criticize religious institutions and ideologies on early marriages, polygamy and wife inheritance. Socialist feminism calls for both mainstreaming (creating women’s organizations within mainstream organizations) and disengagement (creating separate feminist organizations); however, in Zimbabwe, women’s rights organizations have adopted the latter. Immediately after independence, using a combination of liberal notions of nationalism and democracy and socialist principles of justice and equity, women’s rights activists secured an undertaking on the emancipation of women.

Understanding women’s rights in local contexts In this section, we draw upon a wide array of cases to address the questions that have motivated the development of this chapter. We draw the readers to varied cases because we believe a single case may provide a one-sided picture of the many (and complex) vignettes that are implicated in attempting to understand why global norms for women’s rights fail in local contexts and how local contexts respond to global norms. We argue that although the women’s rights discourse is predicated upon an assumed universality of human rights and common humanness, this ‘supposed fact’ is revealed as deeply complex, politicized and power-saturated when one examines the invocation and attempted enactments of these rights in the actions of the daily lives of women in Zimbabwe.

Reframing global norms in local contexts There is a need to understand local women’s rights actors as both constitutive of, and important actors in, global human rights norms. In other words, they are not only norm takers as the norm diffusion theory would suggest, but they are also norm entrepreneurs. Global human rights principles give women’s movements a language for making moral claims, but without the pressure of local social movements those principles would never gain public recognition in the first place. Importantly, new claimants, new political actors may in fact push the boundaries of codified rights and norms. The tension between them, including the demands to open up new public spaces and new ways of thinking, is a crucible of social change (Petchesky 2005). One striking

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example cited by Friedman (2003) is the slogan ‘Women’s Rights are Human Rights’ which linked women’s rights advocates’ demands to the established human rights agenda at the 1993 Vienna Conference. This was achieved through strategic repertoires and common mainstreamed frameworks for gender relations. The idea of the universality of women’s rights is confronted with women’s rights practice that is always contextual and embedded in existing social relations and values. Even today the organizations that sponsor campaigns to extend women’s civil and political rights are Northern-based while Southern-based groups are more apt to address poverty, inequality and basic needs (Basu 2000). It is clear that even when they agree on the importance of an issue such as human rights, women from various world regions frame it differently. At the same time, women from the South have increasingly worked to correct nationalism’s exclusions by proposing non-discriminatory policies in newly formed states. Reframing global norms on sexual rights, bodily integrity, bodily pleasure and self-determination seems inevitable in contexts where female sexuality is governed and where women’s bodies are policed and disciplined. Gaidzanwa (2010) contends that the struggles around women’s sexuality and bodily integrity have been locally redefined in terms of women’s health and reproductive rights rather than the right of women to explore, shape and express desire. Women’s rights groups attempt to straddle ‘the politics of the body’ and ‘the politics of social justice’ (Miller 2004, 27). Organizations in Zimbabwe, such as WAG and WASN, have not been able to decriminalize sex work and change popular perceptions to ‘de-link’ sex workers ‘from the problem of sexual morality’. Instead, they have adopted a social justice approach which entails raising issues of violence against sex workers by the police and thugs, health problems such as sexually transmitted infections and HIV, and economic disempowerment, the latter raising the need for alternative independent livelihoods. Nonetheless, such adoption of different and also multiple frames should not be understood as ‘vernacularization’ but depicts a situation of confrontational mutuality, or uneasy intimacy (Nuttall 2009). Another interesting aspect within the Zimbabwean context is the issue of sexuality. Zimbabwe has a hegemonic discourse of heteronormality based on the power constructions of male domination, political interference and the rise of religious fundamentalism. Sexual rights are a contentious issue within the women’s movement. For women who are lesbian or transsexual, their interests mainly revolve around earning their rights in a country where queer and alternative sexualities are repressed and stigmatized. Most women’s organizations, especially those based on religious philosophies, do not support the fight for sexual rights, with politically based organizations such as the ZANU-PF Women’s League following the party line and thus hostile outright to homosexuality. Gays and Lesbians Zimbabwe (GALZ 2012, 5) argues that: During the Committee on the Elimination Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) reporting planning meetings held in Harare in

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Manase Kudzai Chiweshe and Sandra Bhatasara October 2011, GALZ was not invited to participate in the process and this has resulted in the organisation producing this report independently. The exclusion of LBT [lesbian, gay, transgender] people in the women’s rights space is a challenge as issues that are presented by women’s organisations and coalitions fail to reflect abuse and violations experienced by this ‘minority group’ and serve to highlight homophobia within the women’s human rights space.

This example highlights how global concerns with sexual rights often play out with local organizations at the grassroots. The majority of local organizations view the issue of homosexuality as politically charged and thus refrain from it for fear of government retribution. In a country with high levels of homophobia most people working in these organizations may also be anti-gay rights, thus providing a context in which global norms are challenged at the national level.

Negotiating local alternatives Women’s rights groups opposed to universalist feminist discourses tend to practise politics of intersectionality. They subscribe to the constraints and exclusions of gender, race/ethnicity, class, sexuality, geography, or citizenship and migration status as intersecting realities, calling for a multi-pronged strategic response. The idea here is that the understanding of women’s rights is shaped by an intersectionality of various factors such as education, employment status, class, age, physical condition, nationality, citizenship, race and ethnicity. These factors can be spatial and temporal producing differing experiences of gendered lives. Likewise, the indivisibility of rights – the inability to exercise civil and political rights without economic, social and cultural rights, and vice-versa – is largely appreciated only locally. Mohanty (2002) alludes to materialist analysis of everyday lives and gendered contexts and ideologies. The text of CEDAW constructs women as autonomous individuals rather than playing a crucial role in society and the family (Zwingel 2012). Grewal (1999) criticizes the construction of the universal woman as defined solely by her gender. She maintains that it ignores the multiple subject positions of persons termed ‘women’ who are also rooted in hierarchies caused by race and class differences and by belonging to different nationstates. Without going much deeper into this line of reasoning, it can be argued that the ‘mismatch’ between global norms and ‘localized specificities of gender inequalities’ (Grewal 1999, 340) stems from the hegemonic character of the global norm creation process, from which most voices on this globe are excluded Zwingel (2005). Struggles have also emerged on norms surrounding gender-based violence. This is particularly related to how these have been theorized without any reference to gender-based violence in the Western countries. Modern declarations on human rights have often proceeded without reference to the cultural content of rights, the existence of rights in African indigenous backgrounds, and the embodiment of certain key

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rights in the community itself (Undie and Izugbara 2011). Feminist scholars from the Global South have drawn attention to the fact that so-called global norms are predominantly influenced by Western values in which experiences of women from the Global South are not substantially represented (Mohanty 2003). Oyewumi (2004) notes that Western feminism is entangled with the history and practice of European and North American where global feminism forms a part of Europology (which universalizes the European phenomenon). Gender thus becomes essentialist ontology and pseudo-universals derived from Western culture and exported worldwide. Ogunyemi (1984) offers a radical critique of the extent to which white and Western women have ignored the realities and locations of African women. As Oyewume (2003, 28) notes: [P]olitical activism and academic theorising are often a long distance ‘affair’ carried out as anthropological studies and ‘Women in Development’ projects in African, Asian and Latin-American societies. Feminism, like imperialism, discovered its social mission, which was global in scope, and like the white’s man burden of the nineteenth century, the white woman’s burden of the twentieth century was born. The burden, from these feminists’ vantage point, entailed rescuing the exploited, helpless, brutalized, and down-trodden African woman from the savagery of the African male and from a primitive culture symbolized by barbaric customs. Mohanty (2003) argues that the term ‘Native’, constructed in anthropology in the early 20th century, drew on racial and sexual stereotypes to provide the epistemological basis of the term ‘Third World Woman’. This analysis offered a valuable examination of the paralysing power of binary forms of ‘othering’, creating in this case a distinction between the ‘West’ and the rest of the world. Bakare-Yusuf (2003) argues that any theory of gender needs to outline how our lives intersect with a plurality of power formations, historical encounters and blockages that shape our experiences across time and space. Nzegwu (2003) theorizes gender imperialism by which structures of whiteness in academia deny and subjugate African women’s identities and personhood. These imperial identities have been imposed on Africans and distort a true understanding of conditions on the continent. Universal concepts produced by rights frameworks become markers of understanding gender across the world. In such imperialistic projects, knowledge of the locals is completely ignored as they are exoticized into ‘subjects’ of research and ‘the Other’. It is important to understand the micropolitics of context, subjectivity and struggle which neither shape women in Africa nor acknowledge that not all women are the same and neither are their contexts.

Homogenising universalisms It is the intention of this chapter to present a clear picture of how global norms on women’s rights are played out in local contexts. Whilst we maintain that the interface where global actors encounter local actors is defined by

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contest, resistance and negotiation, we also argue that there is norm reception. Basically, local women’s rights groups have fallen into essentialism traps. Referring to sexual rights, Petchesky (2005) mentions how local women’s rights groups have homogenized the victimology discourse. This is the same as feminists in the ‘West’ who focus on women as perpetual victims of violence. Miller explains the strategic logic of an emphasis on violence, particularly sexual harm, among the global feminist movements whose work played such an important role leading up to, during and after the Beijing Conference (Petchesky 2005). Focusing on sexual violence seemed to make its gendered nature more evident to key human rights bodies and actors; to build a political force that could not be resisted, advocates had to emphasize and make visible what was different about the experiences of women; they had to make these experiences too horrendous to ignore. Zimbabwean radical feminist groups (for example, WAG and the Musasa Project) echo their Western counterparts by reinvoking Zimbabwean women’s victim status and this imaging of the Zimbabwean woman as submissive and vulnerable to exploitation also replicates the discourse on mothers of the nation and the preservation of Zimbabwean womanhood propagated by earlier generations of nationalists in the colonial era and by the ZANU-PF party today. Women such as sex workers, for example, are ‘vulnerabilized’ as victims of violence and economic marginalization. With regard to domestic violence such as marital rape and wife battery, women are commonly construed as victims of patriarchal marriage ideologies – lobola payment would be one example. Similarly, women are construed as victims of HIV and AIDS. This tends to reinforce the traditional patriarchal view of women as helpless victims who must be ‘protected’ or ‘rescued’ by the state (or imperial invaders) (Miller 2004, 18, 25). Feminist victim politics also reinforce the law and order agenda of the ZANU-PF party and their paternalistic approach to women’s issues. Such politics also obscure the active presence of multiple gendered and sexual subjects on the national and global political stage (Petchesky 2005). There is thus a need to challenge directly the primordial conservative image of women as helpless victims of violence, and the gender and cultural essentialism that invariably underlies that image.

Conclusion This discussion has provided an analysis of how women’s rights discourse plays out in Zimbabwe. It has shown that the ways in which women’s rights are adopted and deployed in local contexts are contested. There is a complex interplay of politics, culture, social and economic factors which explain why certain rights are promoted and others downplayed. This chapter has shown that norm localization processes are contested and negotiated. The example of women’s rights in Zimbabwe shows how global norms are localized by various actors. It has highlighted how victims are sometimes created and recreated in discourse surrounding women’s rights and how this victimology

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often resonates with specific local actors in differing contexts. The discussion concludes, however, that women’s rights are defined locally; what is clear is that we have created a dichotomy of local women as ‘victims’, and organizations, whether local or international, as ‘saviours’ seeking to help the vulnerable and helpless. Such an analysis provides a space to understand how even with the ratification of international conventions, women’s rights remain contested in Zimbabwe. Our discussion has outlined how alternative views of women’s rights are emerging amongst feminist scholars and activists in Africa, and concludes that global frames are adopted, adapted, contested and reproduced in complex ways within local contexts.

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Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ). 2012. Report on Discrimination against Women in Zimbabwe based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. Paper submitted to the 51st session of the Committee on the Elimination Discrimination against Women, Geneva, January 6. Grewal, Inderpal. 1999. Women’s Rights as Human Rights: Feminist Practices, Global Feminism, and Human Rights Regimes in Transnationality. Citizenship Studies, 3(3): 337–354. Jirira, Ona. 1995. Gender, Politics, and Democracy. Southern African Feminist Review, 1(2): 1–29. Kwinjeh, Grace. 2010. Thirty Years after Political Independence – Creating Political Space for Zimbabwean Women. EEPA Occasional Paper5. www.eepa.be/wcm/dm documents/EEPA_Occasional_Paper_5_copy.pdf (accessed 5 May 2014). Leader, Nicholas. 2002. The Politics of Principle: The Principles of Humanitarian Action in Practice. London: Humanitarian Practice Network. Long, Norman. 1992. Battlefield of Knowledge: Interlocking Theory and Practice in Research. London: Routledge. MacKinnon, Catharine. 1989. Toward a Feminist Theory of the State. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Merry, Sally. 2006. Transnational Human Rights and Local Activism: Mapping the Middle. American Anthropologist, 108(1): 38–51. Miller, Alice. 2004. Sexuality, Violence against Women, and Human Rights: Women Make Demands and Ladies Get Protection. Health and Human Rights, 4(2): 17–47. Minear, Larry. 1999. The Theory and Practice of Neutrality: Some Thoughts on the Tensions. International Review of the Red Cross, 833: 63–67. Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 2002. Under Western Eyes Revisited: Feminist Solidarity through Anti Capitalist Struggles. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 28(2): 499–535. Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 2003. Cartographies of Struggle: Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism. In Mohanty, C.T. (ed.) Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 43–84. Morreira, Shannon. 2013. Transnational Human Rights and Local Moralities: The Circulation of Rights Discourses in Zimbabwe and South Africa. DPhil diss., University of Cape Town. Nuttall, Sarah. 2009. Entanglement: Literary and Cultural Reflections on Post-Apartheid. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. Nzegwu, Nkiru. 2003. Africa: Gender Imperialism in Academia. In Oyewumi, O. (ed.) African Women and Feminism: Reflecting on the Politics of Sisterhood. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 99–154. Ogunyemi, Chikwenye Okonjo. 1984. Womanism: The Dynamics of the Contemporary Black Female Novel in English. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 11(1): 63–80. Oller, Santiago Daroca. 2006. Power Relations in the Financial Aid Chain. Development, 49(2): 34–39. Osirim, Mary Johnson. 2001. Making Good on Commitments to Grassroots Women: NGOs and Empowerment for Women in Contemporary Zimbabwe. Women’s Studies International Forum, 24(2): 167–180. Oyewumi, Oyeronke. 1997. The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourse. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

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Oyewumi, Oyeronke. 2003. Introduction: Feminism, Sisterhood, and Other Foreign Relations. In Oyewumi, O. (ed.) African Women and Feminism: Reflecting on the Politics of Sisterhood. Asmara: Africa World Press Inc, 1–24. Oyewumi, Oyeronke. 2004. Conceptualising Gender: Eurocentric Foundations of Feminist Concepts and the Challenge of African Epistemologies. In Arnfred, S. et al. (eds) African Gender Scholarship: Concepts, Methodologies and Paradigms. Dakar: CODESRIA, 1–8. Petchesky, Rosalind. 2005. Rights of the Body and Perversions of War: Sexual Rights and Wrongs Ten Years Past Beijing. International Social Science Journal, 57(184): 301–318. Ramtohul, Rahola. 2012. Globalization, Intersectionality and Women’s Activism: An Analysis of the Women’s Movement in the Indian Ocean Island of Mauritius. Paper presented at Rhodes University. Saunders, R. 1991. Information in the Interregnum: The Press, State, and Civil Society Struggles for Hegemony in Zimbabwe, 1980–1990. PhD diss., Carleton University. Schmidt, Elizabeth. 1992. Peasants, Traders and Wives, Shona Women in the History of Zimbabwe, 1870–1939. Harare: Baobab Books. Schmidt, Elizabeth. 2001. Review Article: For Better or Worse? Women and Zanla in Zimbabwe’s Liberation Struggle. The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 34(2): 416–417. Thomas, Tracy. 2012. Misappropriating Women’s History in the Law and Politics of Abortion. Seattle University Law Review, 36(1): 1–68. Tripp, Aili Mari. 2000. Women and Politics in Uganda. Oxford: James Currey. Tripp, Aili Mari. 2005. Regional Networking as Transnational Feminism: African Experiences. Feminist Africa, 4, agi.ac.za/sites/agi.ac.za/files/fa_4_feature_article_3.pdf. Undie, Chi-Chi and Chimaraoke Izugbara. 2011. Unpacking Rights in Indigenous African Societies: Indigenous Culture and the Question of Sexual and Reproductive Rights in Africa. BMC International Health and Human Rights, 11(3). doi: 10.1186/ 1472-698X-11-S3-S2 (accessed 16 May 2012). Willis, Ellen. 1984. Radical Feminism and Feminist Radicalism. In Sayres, S., A. Stephanson, S. Aronowitz and F. Jameson (eds) The 60s Without Apology. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 91–118. Win, Everjoy. 2004. When Sharing Female Identity is Not Enough: Coalition Building in the Midst of Political Polarisation in Zimbabwe. Gender and Development, 12(1): 19–27. Zimbabwe Womens Lawyers Asssociation (ZWLA). 2011. Assessing the Efficacy of the Participation and Strategies of Engagement of the Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe in Post-conflict Transformation in Zimbabwe. Stockholm: International Research Institute. Ziyambi, Naume. 1997. The Battle of the Mind: International New Media Elements of the New Religious Political Right in Zimbabwe. Oslo: University of Oslo. Zwingel, Susanne. 2005. From Intergovernmental Negotiations to (Sub)national Change: A Transnational Perspective on the Impact of CEDAW. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 7(3): 400–424. Zwingel, Susanne. 2012. How Do Norms Travel? Theorizing International Women’s Rights in Transnational Perspective. International Studies Quarterly, 56: 115–129. Zwingel, Susanne. 2013. Eliminating Violence against Women: Sexism and Scholarly Responsibility. E-International Relations. www.e-ir.info/2013/03/07/eliminating-vio lence-against-women-sexism-and-scholarly-responsibility/ (accessed 3 January 2014).

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Part IV

The localization in economic development cooperation

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11 The localization of CSR norms Development agencies and the promotion of responsible business conduct in China Melanie Coni-Zimmer 1

Introduction Today it is standard practice for large corporations to publish Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) or sustainability reports. Corporations engage in national and transnational business and multi-stakeholder initiatives, and commit themselves to social and environmental standards that go beyond the law. The debate about CSR originally developed in the Anglophone world where a long history of corporate philanthropic engagement exists, but since the mid-1990s, CSR has become a global trend (Sahlin-Andersson 2005; KPMG 2011). Of the 250 largest global corporations in 2011, 95 per cent published CSR reports, while in 2002 only 45 per cent did so (KPMG 2002, 2011). More than 12,000 organizations, of which more than 8,000 are in the private sector, have joined the United Nations (UN) Global Compact, the world’s largest CSR initiative, since its inception in 2000 (UN Global Compact 2016). This chapter departs from an empirical puzzle: despite the international diffusion of the concept, different regional and national understandings of CSR have developed. The case of China is exemplary because the term CSR is now widely used, but practices of Chinese corporations display some unique features (Yin and Zhang 2012; Xu and Yang 2010). National CSR standards were developed that compete with international and transnational standards, and CSR is framed as a corporate contribution to a ‘harmonious society’. The chapter analyses the development of CSR in China through the lens of norm diffusion and localization research. It is argued that CSR can be understood as a set of norms that has diffused globally and localized in different contexts. External actors – including development agencies – have been important actors in promoting the idea of CSR in China, and elsewhere, and have contributed to its localization. The chapter contributes to recent research on: 1 norm localization; and 2 CSR in emerging markets. The recent wave of research on norm localization (see the Introduction to this volume) has advanced our understanding of how international norms are adapted to different contexts, what role local actors play and what happens to the content of norms during the process of

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localization. This research also highlights contentious processes that result when newly emergent international norms meet with pre-existing national norm sets and identities. New international norms are neither rejected nor adopted; rather, norm localization tends to occur (Acharya 2004, 2009; Capie 2008). This chapter adds to this research by applying it to a new empirical field, the study of CSR. Often neglected in international relations (IR) research, transnational corporations are important addressees of international norms. The chapter also adds to recent research on CSR that is mainly domiciled in sociology and management studies. Most research on CSR is still conducted on corporations active in or originating from Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. In addition, research is often quantitative. This chapter contributes to research on CSR in emerging economies and developing countries. While there is a certain tendency to describe the activities of these corporations as imperfect or not well developed, the aim of this chapter is to provide a better understanding and possible explanation for CSR practices that might well differ between corporations inside and outside the OECD world. Some recent research on CSR in China has highlighted the increasing diffusion of CSR and some unique features of Chinese CSR (Xu and Yang 2010; Moon and Shen 2010), but it has rarely provided an explanatory framework. This chapter offers a qualitative study of CSR in China. It is based on a review of academic literature, the study of selected CSR reports and publicly available information from development agencies with CSR-related activities in China, as well as expert interviews on CSR conducted between 2006 and the present. The chapter is structured as follows: the emergence of transnational CSR norms since the 1990s is sketched in the next section. The following sections are then devoted to analyzing the development of CSR in China and the role of development agencies therein: first, some basic information about the Chinese context is provided and the initial rejection of CSR norms is highlighted. Subsequently, the activities of actors that have engaged in promoting the idea of CSR in China, including development agencies, are investigated. More specifically, the activities of bilateral donors (Germany and Sweden), as well as those of selected international organizations, are included in the analysis. The following section highlights some unique features of Chinese CSR that result from the pruning of the transnational norm set. It also emphasizes the importance of framing CSR as a corporate contribution to a harmonious society.

Transnational norm emergence and diffusion Since the mid-1990s, the emergence of a CSR norm set can be observed on the level beyond the state. A standard definition of norms in IR refers to ‘standard[s] of appropriate behaviour for actors with a given identity’

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(Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, 891). In this chapter, CSR is understood as a transnational norm set (or institution) that encompasses a number of interconnected norms. CSR can be characterized as a transnational rather than an international norm set because the process of norm emergence differed from what is usually analysed by IR scholars where new norms are agreed in a process of intergovernmental negotiations that is (sometimes) influenced from civil society actors and where norms are then expected to be adopted by states. CSR norms were neither negotiated in a single forum nor (primarily) addressed to states. The emergence of CSR norms is a rather incremental process that has involved states, civil society, and business actors. Since the 1990s, civil society has increasingly protested the negative consequences of globalization and the global activities and power of corporations. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) raised awareness about the non-compliance of transnational corporations with national and international standards. Scandals involved corporations from different industries operating in all parts of the world. Brand name companies from the textile and apparel industry, such as Nike, were targeted for being responsible for the violation of labour rights in their supply chains. Such irresponsible practices occurred mainly in supplier firms in Asian countries where workers were deprived of basic labour standards: for example, they had to work excessive overtime, payment was low, and health and safety standards were not complied with (Segerlund 2010). Similarly, scandals involving transnational oil and mining companies became public. Companies such as Shell, BP and Exxon became infamous for causing environmental degradation and violating human rights of local communities (Coni-Zimmer 2014). In the following years a large number of (voluntary) standards were developed or revised which promote responsible business practices. Some of these standards emerged as the result of intergovernmental processes; others were developed by multi-stakeholder or industry self-regulation initiatives.2 A prime example is the UN Global Compact initiated by former UN SecretaryGeneral Kofi Annan. The initiative asks corporations to incorporate ten broad principles in the areas of human rights, labour rights, environmental protection and anti-corruption on a voluntary basis into their business practices (Rieth 2009). The OECD revised its Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises in 2000 (and, more recently, in 2011). The Guidelines are nonbinding, voluntary recommendations for corporations, but they also include binding elements for OECD governments which have to promote the Guidelines’ implementation. The issues covered in the Guidelines are rather broad, including not only recommendations on social standards, the environment and anti-corruption, but also on consumers’ interests, competition and taxes (Rieth 2009). Sectoral initiatives range from SA8000 and the Fair Labour Association offering standards for the textile industry, to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights addressing the oil, gas and mining industry or the Equator Principles for banks.

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For the purposes of this chapter, CSR is understood as a set of norms (ConiZimmer 2014). At the core of this norm set is the expectation that businesses minimize their negative impact on society and the environment and that they contribute positively to societal development. The International Labour Organization (ILO) ‘Tripartite Declaration of Principles Concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy’ introduces this basic expectation as follows: The aim of the Tripartite Declaration of Principles is to encourage the positive contribution which multinational enterprises can make to economic and social progress and to minimize and resolve the difficulties to which their various operations give rise. (ILO 2006, 2)3 This expectation is tied to different issue areas, such as human rights, core labor standards, environmental protection and community development (Coni-Zimmer 2014). For example, the UN Global Compact expects companies to ‘support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights’ and to ‘make sure that they are not complicit in human rights abuses’. With regard to the environment the private sector is expected to ‘support a precautionary approach’, to ‘undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility’, and to ‘encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies’ (UN Global Compact n.d.). The transnational CSR norm set can be characterized as broad and unspecific: standards cover different issues and formulate varying expectations. Some standards complement each other, in terms of issues covered and sectors addressed, while others compete, addressing similar topics and targeting the same audience. These characteristics of the norm set make processes of norm localization and translation even more likely because standards need to be adapted to the specific country, industry or company context. The activities of transnational norm entrepreneurs – NGOs, international organizations, multi-stakeholder and collective business initiatives – have led to an increasing diffusion of CSR among transnational corporations (ConiZimmer 2014). In 2014 the UN Global Compact had more than 12,000 participants; local networks existed in more than 80 countries worldwide, signalling that there is at least some initial discussion about CSR in these countries (UN Global Compact 2015, 6–7). The publication of CSR and sustainability reports by corporations is another indication of the diffusion of this idea. A survey of the 250 largest global companies shows an increase in CSR reporting from 45 per cent in 2002 to 79 per cent in 2008 and 95 per cent in 2011. The series of studies also analyse CSR reporting of the largest 100 companies in more than 20 countries showing a rather rapid diffusion of the idea (KPMG 2002, 2011). However, cross-national differences can also be discerned. CSR does not spread with equal ‘success’ in all countries, i.e. the business community seems fast in adopting the idea in some countries and is rather reluctant to do so in others.

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The Chinese context and initial rejection of CSR norms Norm diffusion has been conceptualized as a two-level game in IR research. In this research tradition, cross-national variances in the adoption and implementation of international norms have been examined (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, 893; Cortell and Davis 1996; Checkel 1999). Newer research on norm localization has not only emphasized the importance of local actors in the process of norm adoption and implementation. It has also been shown that the fit between international and national norms can change over time and can be actively constructed (Acharya 2004). In fact, new norms never enter into a vacuum but into national normative environments where different identities, traditions and norms prevail. The fit between emerging transnational CSR norms and the national Chinese context was at first perceived as rather imperfect and, as a consequence, CSR norms were rejected. The People’s Republic of China was founded as a communist state in 1949. Production was organized as a socialist planned economy dominated by large state-owned companies (Naughton 2007, 55–82). Existing private corporations were nationalized; the Chinese economy was isolated from international markets. Five-year plans were introduced to structure and plan economic activities (Heilmann 2004, 162–3). In 1978, a reform process was initiated under Deng Xiaoping that led to gradual reforms from a planned to a market economy. This included an opening up to international markets and corporations, the partial privatization of Chinese state-owned companies and the development of a private business sector (Naughton 2007, 406–13). Today, the distinct nature of the Chinese economy is described as a ‘socialist market economy’, as ‘Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics’ (Huang 2008) or market-liberal state capitalism (ten Brink 2010). Until today, state-owned enterprises have remained an important group of economic actors and the state itself still plays a central role in directing the economy. In the 1990s, China became one of the most important producer countries for consumer goods, including textiles and apparel, toys and electronic equipment. Production mainly takes place in Chinese factories that are contracted by Western corporations but not owned by them. Civil society campaigns challenge the violation of workers’ basic rights in sweatshops including working overtime, low wages, no social security, and non-compliance with basic health and safety standards. Facing civil society activism at home, large transnational corporations based in the OECD world increasingly began to introduce (voluntary) codes of conduct for their suppliers which required the latter to comply with certain standards. These Western transnational corporations thereby introduced the idea of CSR in China (Chan 2005). The initial reaction of Chinese actors to these attempts of supply chain management can be characterized as somewhere between passive and hostile. The rejection of CSR norms can be illustrated by referring to the discussion about SA8000 in China. SA8000 is a transnational standard developed through multi-stakeholder consultations. The first version of the standard was

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issued in 1996. The standard seeks to improve labour conditions in supply chains through certification of manufacturing factories. The New York-based NGO Social Accountability International is the caretaker of the process. SA8000 soon became one of the dominant standards for the textile and apparel industry (SAI 2014). Many transnational companies require SA8000 certification – or certification according to similar standards – from their supplier factories. The Chinese discussion about SA8000 featured several interrelated arguments: first, SA8000 was perceived as protectionism of developed economies. This argument was broadly shared in the discussion including in many media reports. In this view, Chinese companies have to bear the additional costs for raising labor standards. As a consequence, Chinese companies would either lose part of their competitive advantage or lose business because they are denied access to markets in developed countries (Lin 2007; Chan 2005). Second, the commercialization of CSR was criticized. Supplier companies have to cover the costs of certification which can be quite substantial. Consulting companies are often involved in preparing audits. Audits and, if necessary, re-audits have to be conducted and paid for. Sometimes buyers demand audits according to different standards that might even include contradictory provisions. To cope with these requirements, companies have to hire dedicated staff responsible for these external audits. This line of arguments is closely related to another one that points to the unequal distribution of power between suppliers (Chinese companies) and buyers (Western transnational corporations). The latter promise compliance with certain standards but the former have to bear the costs. At the same time, Western transnational corporations ask for the production of goods in a short time frame and at low prices. Not least, it was argued that SA8000, and the idea of CSR more generally, amounts to an imperialism of Western values. Some norms that are promoted as part of the CSR norm set, such as freedom of association or free unionization, are controversial or even rejected by Chinese elites. It is then argued that these values should not be imposed on Chinese society (Lin 2007, 327–39). It is also argued that CSR is an idea that is suited to corporations of developed economies and must be adapted to local conditions in developing countries. Opening a CSR conference in 2007, Chinese Trade Minister Jiang Zengwei argued: To enhance corporate social responsibility requires active and steady efforts, which must be based on the specific situation in China. China is a developing country … The corporate social responsibility should not be carried out by the same means as those in developed countries. It is impossible for us to blindly pursue too high a standard that goes beyond our development level. (Jiang 2007)

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These arguments were used by political as well as economic elites and taken up in the media. Corporations complied with CSR standards if they were forced to do so by their buyers. Therefore, CSR was limited to export-oriented companies which neither actively pursued a CSR agenda nor actively influenced the transnational debate about CSR by engaging in transnational initiatives from which they were largely absent. Observers agree that the Chinese attitude towards CSR changed from resistance to sceptical acceptance – and localization – around 2005. The Chinese government’s rhetoric changed, local CSR standards were increasingly developed, and Chinese corporations started to support the idea of CSR publicly and to publish CSR reports (SynTao 2010, 2011) (see Figure 11.1). The question arises, therefore, of how to explain this change.

Promoting CSR and the contribution of development cooperation Research in IR has highlighted the importance of norm entrepreneurs whose activities are decisive for the emergence and diffusion of new norms. Most attention has been devoted to analysing the norm promotion of transnational NGOs and international organizations (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998; Deitelhoff 2006; Jakobi 2009). Literature on norm localization has highlighted the importance of local actors that are more likely to use context-sensitive strategies and can actively engage in constructing congruence between existing local norms and newly emerging international ones (Acharya 2004, 249). Different actors have been involved in promoting the idea of CSR in China. This includes the activities of transnational corporations mentioned above. Bilateral donors, international organizations and transnational CSR initiatives have also played a role. A study based on a survey conducted in 2008 among foreign organizations active in China shows that a substantial 1200 1000 800 600 Number of Corporations

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