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

在印度，非政府组织已经成为公民协会的主要形式，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，特别是何时和为什么某些印度非政府组织改变其政治战略，包括要求权利或政策改变的诉讼。资源能力，加上在政治进程的决策和政策执行舞台上的政治包容性较低，正在塑造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战略的决定的差异，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。这项调查将提供非政府组织的资源可获得性、它们所采用的策略以及非政府组织与国家和捐赠者的关系的数据。通过对非政府组织在印度的法律激进主义的考察，拟议的项目将有助于在非西方背景下研究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。该项目还将产生重大而广泛的影响，促进关于贫穷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。它将通过在学术界以外的广泛传播来做到这一点。它还将有助于理解如何建立政治机构，允许充分和平等地接触国家，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.