Description
Book SynopsisThis book focuses on religious fundamentalists'' mobilization efforts against abortion in three United Nations Conferences. Using U.S. Christian and Egyptian Islamic fundamentalist groups as empirical cases, this account highlights these groups'' efforts against the adoption of abortion in the 1984 Mexico Conference on Population, the 1994 Cairo conference on Population and the1995 Beijing Conference on Women. The account, which examines Northern (U.S. Christian) and Southern (Egyptian Islamists) anti-abortion networks'' participation and representation within these forums, provides a unique glimpse into their engagement within international institutions. It also explores whether Northern and Southern groups'' growing involvement in decision-making processes has lessened the inequality that historically characterized North-South relations in the international arena and compares the strategies and tactics used by these groups as they attempted to influence the debate on reproductive rights within the conferences'' PrepComs, regional forums, NGO Forums and the state-dominated plenary sessions. It also assesses the extent to which these entities were effective in influencing outcomes in these arenas and comments on North-South relations in a contemporary context. Information on these groups was obtained from interviews with leaders of the U.S. Christian and Egyptian Islamic fundamentalist groups as well as secondary sources and official U.N. documents.
Trade ReviewJane Muthumbi's book brings a careful eye to studies of global civil society by examining how religiously motivated groups in the global North and South have organized across borders to influence UN conferences focused on women and reproductive rights. Her careful analysis perceptively brings the dynamics of world civic politics into high relief, and clearly demonstrates that global civil society is an arena open to actors of all political stripes and that it often reflects existing global inequalities. Well researched and thoughtfully analyzed, this book makes an important contribution to our understanding of world politics. -- Paul Wapner, author of Living Through the End of Nature, and Environmental Activism and World Civic Politics
Table of ContentsChapter 1 1. NGO Participation and Representation in U.N. Conference Chapter 2 2. NGO Participation and Representation in the Mexico Conference on Population Chapter 3 3. NGO Participation and Representation in the Cairo Conference on Population Chapter 4 4. NGO Participation and Representation in the Beijing Conference on Women Chapter 5 5. Global Civil Society: Equal Participation and Representation among Northern and Southern NGOs?
