Book Review - Non-Governmental Organizations in World Politics: The Construction of Global Governments
Written by: Peter Willetts,
Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon, 2011,
ISBN 9780415381253, 224 pp,
Reviewed by: Sue Thompson, Asia-Pacific Civil Military Centre of Excellence
Peter Willetts has written an informative textbook on the role non-governmental organisations (NGOs) play in the realm of global policy-making. He examines a variety of these organisations, their structures and activities and the history of their participation in the post-Second World War international system, claiming that they have developed increasingly important global roles that have contributed to the world shifting from a state-centric to a multi-actor system. The book is part of the ‘Global Institutions Series’ that attempts to provide information on international organisations and important issues in global governance.
The author is an authority on NGOs and he has consulted an extensive range of literature and covered a lot of ground to produce an overview of the international non-governmental institution. He pays careful attention to the complex relationships with other international institutions and tries to highlight the significance of a large NGO presence on the world stage.
The book begins with a definition of an NGO and encompasses the many varieties of such organisations, concluding that a definition can only be employed in broad terms, as ‘there is no such thing as a typical NGO’ (p. 31). Succeeding chapters outline NGO participation in global policy-making, their interaction with the international legal system and global communications. It ends with a study on the impact of NGOs on global politics.
The account is heavy with detail of the many different organisations that fall within the category of an NGO as well as the structure of the United Nations (UN). This is especially so in the first two chapters where it is hard to wade through the mass of information provided to ascertain the author’s claim that NGOs are important in the global decision-making process. As the book continues, this claim becomes clearer as discussion moves away from the UN to other international networks, providing a coherent account of NGOs place in the contemporary world. In particular, the chapter on the Internet highlights the work that NGOs have done in pursuing political agendas through effective communications networks.
However, the dense information in the first part of the book does serve a purpose. The aim of the series is to provide ‘comprehensive, accessible, and informative guides’ and the extent of the descriptions of NGOs and the UN structure is indeed informative and necessary as it provides a historical perspective for their evolution. Willetts points out that it was the UN that created the term ‘Non-Governmental Organisation’ and the painstaking process of trying to understand the various UN articles and committees that the author documents is important in setting the scene for the rest of the book.
In revealing the significance of NGOs on world politics, the book also assesses their role in mainstream international relations theory. Willetts stresses that to understand world politics since the creation of the UN, one must consider the influence that NGOs have had on governments and vice versa.
This book lives up to the publisher’s description that it is a comprehensive overview of NGOs in world politics. It covers a lot of ground and provides extensive and detailed information. The level of detail could potentially cause some readers to lose sight of some of the main objectives; however, what is striking about this book is that it comprehensively maps out how complex the relationship is between NGOs and the contemporary international system.
