Religious NGOs in the United Nations: Mediators or Polarizers?

跨国非政府组织在文献中通常被视为原则性的行为者，帮助制定和实施普遍的全球规范（如人权、民主或可持续发展），从而为全球治理做出应有的贡献。拟议的研究项目审查这一期望，重点放在一组非政府组织谁插入基于宗教的规范方向的政策目标的制定和谈判的背景下，全球治理。首先，我们要探讨宗教非政府组织参与联合国系统是否会妨碍或促进就政策目标和战略达成一致。第二，我们要问，为什么RNGO选择以合作或对抗的方式行事。为了回答第一个问题，我们将分析RNGOs和联合国机构在四个政策领域的关系，一方面反映了联合国议程的中心计划目标，另一方面RNGOs积极参与：宗教自由，国际刑事司法，以色列-巴勒斯坦冲突和生殖权利。RNGO和联合国机构之间的关系将被分类为合作，互补，增选，或对抗，以确定这些不同类型的分布模式或集群。从新兴的矩阵，我们将选择反映关系的变化，以进行深入的启发式案例研究，使我们能够产生的假设，为什么RNGOs合作或选择对抗行为的RNGOs。这种归纳的方法来回答第二个问题是必要的，因为到目前为止，对全球治理中的RNGO的研究很少。关于宗教和政治的一般文献只提供了一个广泛的研究方向，侧重于宗教规范、原则和解释模式，这些都是制定政策目标和战略的工具包。就宗教非政府组织而言，它们的行动主要以宗教道德和正义观念为指导。我们试图假设宗教伦理的模式或配置通常会导致追求特定的政治目标和战略。

Transnational NGOs are generally regarded in the literature as principled actors who help to set and implement universal global norms (such as human rights, democracy or sustainable development) and thereby make desirable contributions to global governance. The proposed research project scrutinizes this expectation by focusing on a group of NGOs who insert religion-based normative orientations into the formulation and negotiation of policy goals in the context of global governance. We want to explore, first, whether the participation of religious NGOs (RNGOs) in the UN system hampers or facilitates the agreement on policy goals and strategies. Second, we ask why RNGOs choose to act either in a cooperative or in a confrontational manner. In order to answer the first question, we will analyze the relationships between RNGOs and UN-agencies in four policy fields which on the one hand reflect central programmatic goals of the UN-agenda and in which on the other hand RNGOs are actively engaged: Freedom of religion, international criminal justice, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and reproduction rights. The relationships between RNGOs and UN-agencies will be categorized as co-operation, complementarity, co-optation, or confrontation in order to identify patterns or clusters in the distribution of these different types. From the emerging matrix, we will choose RNGOs which reflect the variance of relationships in order to conduct in-depth heuristic case studies that allow us to generate hypotheses why RNGOs co-operate or choose confrontational behavior. Such an inductive approach to answering the second question is necessary given the scarcity of research on RNGOs in global governance to date. The general literature on religion and politics only provides a broad direction for research by focusing on religious norms, principles and schemata for interpretation which serve as tool kits for the formulation of policy goals and strategies. In the case of religious NGOs, their actions are predominantly guided by religious ethics and conceptions of justice. We seek to hypothesize which patterns or configurations of religious ethics typically result in the pursuit of specific political goals and strategies.