HIM:
So, though I'm teaching my juniors (in Government) about Realism and how NGOs don't mean anything from that point of view, I'm teaching my sophomores (in Humanities) about an NGO in Nepal that's stopping child slavery there (in a unit on slavery).
Imagine that eh?
So, though I'm teaching my juniors (in Government) about Realism and how NGOs don't mean anything from that point of view, I'm teaching my sophomores (in Humanities) about an NGO in Nepal that's stopping child slavery there (in a unit on slavery).
Imagine that eh?
ME:
You're going to challenge their understanding of realism before you let the juniors leave your class ... right?
NGOs pick up a lot of the slack that the government drops in terms of keeping people alive, employed, homes heated, children fed and in school. Especially as the economy gets worse. Catholic Charities of Massachusetts is increasingly providing services that were used to be provided by the Commonwealth.
Internationally, sometimes NGOS can do more than governments. For example in last year's cyclone in Burma, the Burmese government refused to respond to save lives of their own people - and they certainly weren't going to let in other countries to do the job, but a couple NGOs were already working there and were able to respond.
NGOs are nimble, responsive, but with a small mandate. NGOs is to connect people to their governments (who are ultimately responsible for the well being of citizens) - And where necessary to change the realism paradigm - so the governments view their own people as the source of their power and resources and also as "active claimants of rights." That view makes government accountable to people. And not just power hungry machines.
NGOs do this by capacity building and campaigning, lobbying (nationally or internationally) and mobilizing the media. In the Philippines recently, Oxfam led a group of national and local NGOs in a fight against the TRIPS Agreement as it applied to the Philippines which prevented Filipinos from being able to access cheap drugs. They successfully changed how the one state engaged in an interstate agreement.
Okay clearly a subject close to my heart. Sorry for the rant. Feel free to share some of these points with your class, when you get to the point where you tell them realism is not true.
NGOs pick up a lot of the slack that the government drops in terms of keeping people alive, employed, homes heated, children fed and in school. Especially as the economy gets worse. Catholic Charities of Massachusetts is increasingly providing services that were used to be provided by the Commonwealth.
Internationally, sometimes NGOS can do more than governments. For example in last year's cyclone in Burma, the Burmese government refused to respond to save lives of their own people - and they certainly weren't going to let in other countries to do the job, but a couple NGOs were already working there and were able to respond.
NGOs are nimble, responsive, but with a small mandate. NGOs is to connect people to their governments (who are ultimately responsible for the well being of citizens) - And where necessary to change the realism paradigm - so the governments view their own people as the source of their power and resources and also as "active claimants of rights." That view makes government accountable to people. And not just power hungry machines.
NGOs do this by capacity building and campaigning, lobbying (nationally or internationally) and mobilizing the media. In the Philippines recently, Oxfam led a group of national and local NGOs in a fight against the TRIPS Agreement as it applied to the Philippines which prevented Filipinos from being able to access cheap drugs. They successfully changed how the one state engaged in an interstate agreement.
Okay clearly a subject close to my heart. Sorry for the rant. Feel free to share some of these points with your class, when you get to the point where you tell them realism is not true.
HIM:
Hey listen, I'm with you on what NGOs do. I even sponsor a little baby over in Africa through CCF (commercials finally got to me). And yes, I teach my kids Realism, Idealism, and Liberalism as lenses. Myself, I tend to be a Realist for the most part. Realism's wrong, but all of them are wrong about some things. When it comes down to it, Realism has it correct about countries & self-interest in my opinion. Same reason I like Hobbes over Locke. Realism explains wars, conflict, and a lot of state-level behavior. To me, that's the most important stuff if I had to pick.
Idealism and Liberalism are good for explaining some forms of cooperation and of course the unappreciated importance of NGOs and the like.
...
Idealism and Liberalism are good for explaining some forms of cooperation and of course the unappreciated importance of NGOs and the like.
...
Now this is just me:
I learned Realism, Idealism and Liberalism in the same way at Wellesley. Any poli sci professors out there who can explain the rational behind teaching us this way? Why look through incomplete or inaccurate lenses?
Can't we just look through one all-encompassing lens? Just teach the complexity of international relations at all levels? That NGOs work against or parallel to or in conjunction with states? That states are effectual, or sometimes effectual or inneffectual given the state and the issue and the objective? That globalization hurts the poor and helps them and hurts the rich and helps them too. That the impacts of policy decisions are many, varying and hard to predict.
Maybe that's ultimately the point, and you're just starting us off slow?
Off to my Indian NGO now, to write about how rural farmers are working together to reduce their vulnerability to disasters without government intervention.
I learned Realism, Idealism and Liberalism in the same way at Wellesley. Any poli sci professors out there who can explain the rational behind teaching us this way? Why look through incomplete or inaccurate lenses?
Can't we just look through one all-encompassing lens? Just teach the complexity of international relations at all levels? That NGOs work against or parallel to or in conjunction with states? That states are effectual, or sometimes effectual or inneffectual given the state and the issue and the objective? That globalization hurts the poor and helps them and hurts the rich and helps them too. That the impacts of policy decisions are many, varying and hard to predict.
Maybe that's ultimately the point, and you're just starting us off slow?
Off to my Indian NGO now, to write about how rural farmers are working together to reduce their vulnerability to disasters without government intervention.
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