Doctoral Dissertation Research: Understanding Changes in NGO's Action Repertoires: When & Why Indian NGOs Use Litigation as a Political Strategy

在印度，非政府组织已成为公民社团的主要形式，它们通过促进政府行动，在社会团体和印度政府之间进行调解。本项目研究非政府组织如何更广泛地参与政治进程，特别是何时以及为什么某些印度非政府组织改变其政治策略，包括诉讼要求权利或政策变化。资源能力加上政治进程中政策制定和政策执行领域的政治包容性较低，形成了非政府组织的法律行动主义。为了解释非政府组织将诉讼作为追求组织目标的政治策略的决策差异，该项目将使用从位于新德里的非政府组织收集的横断面调查数据。该调查将提供非政府组织的资源可用性、使用的策略以及非政府组织与国家和捐助者的关系等数据。通过对印度非政府组织法律活动的考察，该项目将有助于研究非西方背景下的印度政治和民主制度的运作。此外，该项目将有助于正在进行的关于加强印度不同形式的政治参与和建立可行的民主机构的讨论。该项目还将通过促进关于贫困和不平等程度高的新兴民主国家如何建立致力于加强社会正义和民主治理的政治机构的辩论，产生实质性的更广泛的影响。它将通过在学术界之外的广泛传播来实现这一目标。它还将有助于理解如何制定政治制度，允许充分和平等地进入国家，以加强问责制。

In India, NGOs have emerged as the dominant form of civic association, and they mediate between social groups and the Indian state by facilitating government action. This project examines how NGOs partake in the political process more generally and specifically when and why certain Indian NGOs change their political strategies to include litigation to demand rights or policy changes. Resource capacity in conjunction with low levels of political inclusion in the policy-making and policy-implementing arena within the political process are shape NGOs' legal activism. To explain variation in NGOs' decision to use litigation as a political strategy to pursue organizational goals the project will use cross-sectional survey data collected from NGOs located in New Delhi. The survey will provide data on the NGOs' resource availability, the tactics they employ, and the NGOs' relationship with the state and donors.Through the examination of NGOs' legal activism in India the proposed project will contribute to the study of Indian politics and the workings of democratic institutions in a non-western context. Furthermore, this project will contribute to ongoing discussions about enhancing different forms of political participation in India and building viable democratic institutions. This project will also have a substantial broader impact by contributing to debates on how emerging democracies with high poverty and inequality build political institutions committed to enhancing social justice and democratic governance. It will do so via broad dissemination beyond the scholarly community. It will also contribute to understanding how to craft political institutions that allow for adequate and equal access to the state in order to enhance accountability.