NGOs have proliferated in number and become increasingly influential players in world politics in the past three decades. From the 1970s, with the access of social movements and private NGOs to local and international institutions, NGOs have enjoyed an opening to bring impact global policy debates. Yet NGOs find themselves highly constrained in bringing their material and epistemic resources to bear in the security arena where their activities normally must be authorized by states, or international organizations acting with authority delegated from states. They also find their activities, particularly in the security arena come frequently under attack as lacking accountability or lacking legitimacy, as NGOs are self-appointed private actors, often representing only themselves, they are seen by many as self-appointed meddlers in transnational affairs.


This book provides a comprehensive and accessible analysis whether, or the extent to which, NGOs can contribute as private actors to authoritative governance outcomes in the security realm, and thereby help mitigate armed violence by plugging governance gaps in this arena that state actors, or international governmental organizations (IGOs) either neglect, or can better address with NGO assistance. This book examines the current and future issues surrounding this objective in four sections: (i) a practitioner's perspective of the potentials of conflict governance NGOs, (ii) global civil society and legitimation of conflict governance NGO activities, (iii) conflict governance NGOs as norm entrepreneurs and norm diffusion in global governance (iv) conflict governance NGOs in action.

1.NGO Governance and Armed Conflict Rodney Bruce Hall Part I :Conflict Governance NGOs: A Practitioner's Perspective 2. NGOs, Governance, and Peacebuilding Jeffrey French and Robert Haywood Part II: Global Civil Society and Legitimation of Conflict Governance NGO Activities 3. The Legitimacy of Conflict Governance NGOs Jens Bartelson 4. Intrastate Violence and the Promise of Global Civil Society Ronnie D. Lipschutz 5. Conflict Governance NGOs as Sources of Authoritative Governance Rodney Bruce Hall Part III. Conflict Governance NGOs as Norm Entrepreneurs and Norm Diffusion in Global Governance 6. Transnational Civil Society as Agents of Norm Diffusion Amitav Acharya 7. Conversion Power: From NGOs' Ideas to Enforceable Public Power Eamon Aloyo 8. Rome Was Not Built in a Day: Understanding the Success and Failure of the NGO Aspirations - Independent Prosecutor and Universal Jurisdiction - at the Rome Conference Vanessa Ullrich Part IV. Conflict Governance NGOs in Action 9.Brazil's Transnationalized Battle over Gun Control and Implications for Proposals about NGO Governance Clifford Bob 10.Non-Profits of Peace: Understanding Mediation by Conflict-Resolution NGOs Julia Amos 11.Micro-politics, NGOs, and Global Governance Brent J. Steele 12.Contesting `black spot' governance: violence, authority and institutional constructs in Rio de Janeiro's favelas Christopher Marc Lilyblad Part V. Conclusion: Analysis of Findings, and Directions for Future Research