Rosemary O’Leary, Editor George E. Mitchell City College of New York Hans Peter Schmitz University of San Diego The Other Side of the Coin: NGOs, Rights-Based Public Administration Approaches, and Public Administration and the Disciplines Abstract: The majority of the world’s population resides in low- and middle-income countries, where the problem of Hans Peter Schmitz is associate professor in the School of Leadership and sustainable development is among the most pressing public administration challenges. As principal actors within the Education Sciences at the University of San international development community, transnational nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) play a leading role in Diego and cofounder of the Transnational piloting a wide variety of development-focused strategies. During the past decade, many of these transnational NGOs, NGO Initiative at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. His research interests along with the United Nations, have embraced a rights-based approach (RBA) to development as an alternative to focus on the governance and effectiveness traditional service delivery. Despite the growing popularity of RBA among NGOs and other development actors, of transnational NGOs, transnationalism, surprisingly little attention has been paid to understanding the significance of RBA for public administration and rights-based approaches to development, and global efforts to address noncommu- for public managers—the “other side of the coin.” Drawing on current research in NGO studies and international nicable diseases. He received his doctorate development, this article describes several varieties of contemporary rights-based approaches, analyzes their impact on from the European University Institute in development practices, and examines the intersection of RBA and public administration. San Domenico di Fiesole, Italy, and was a postdoctoral fellow in the Human Rights Program at the University of Chicago. Practitioner Points E-mail: schmitz@sandiego.edu • The rights-based approach (RBA) to development has become a widely adopted framework that conditions civil society’s interactions with government agencies around the world, particularly in low- and middle- George E. Mitchell is assistant profes- sor of political science and affiliate of the income countries. public administration and international • RBA shifts attention from technical to political dimensions of the development process, identifies citizens relations programs at the Powell School of as rights holders and government agencies as duty bearers, and seeks to empower citizens to demand rights the City College of New York, specializing in NGO management and strategy. Before fulfillment directly from public agencies. joining the Powell School, he worked in the • With RBA, transnational nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) seek to withdraw from substitutive direct postconflict reconstruction sector in the service provision to focus instead on facilitating productive accountability relations between rights holders Middle East and was a founding member of the Transnational NGO Initiative at the and government agencies. Maxwell School of Syracuse University. • RBA strategies include advocacy and litigation, coalition building, mobilization, and awareness raising. These E-mail: gmitchell@ccny.cuny.edu strategies may be contentious or conciliatory in nature and highlight the need for more holistic, cross-level activism at the local, subnational, and national levels. • Public managers in low- and middle-income countries should embrace decreased NGO direct service provision, increased rights-based claims and interest in institutional and social capacity building, and more extensive cross-sectoral collaborations in addressing governance challenges. D uring the 2000s, Plan Guatemala, the on educating community members about how to country office of a major child-focused organize collectively and claim their own rights nongovernmental organization (NGO), in holding local and regional government officials piloted a new approach to delivering health care for accountable. the indigenous communities it had served since the mid-1980s. Instead of substituting for government During the past two decades, a growing number services, Plan Guatemala decided to give US$10 of development NGOs have adopted versions of a million to the Guatemalan Ministry of Health with rights-based approach (RBA), which has emerged a provision to assume the delivery of health services alongside “good governance” and “local ownership” to about 200 local communities for five years. As as a new buzzword in development discourse (Joshi part of the agreement, the Guatemalan government 2010; Nelson and Dorsey 2003). RBA signals a con- also pledged to take over full funding at the end of certed effort to close the gap between the previously Public Administration Review, Vol. xx, Iss. xx, pp. xx–xx. © 2015 by the project. At the local level, Plan Guatemala staff distinct human rights and international development The American Society for Public Administration. shifted away from service delivery to focus instead fields (Uvin 2004) while addressing long-standing DOI: 10.1111/puar.12479. The Other Side of the Coin: NGOs, Rights-Based Approaches, and Public Administration 1 criticisms directed toward development efforts in the Global South economic change. Public administration in this context, or “devel- (Easterly 2006). opment administration” (Brinkerhoff 2008; Gulrajani and Moloney 2012), is arguably more complex because it frequently involves While core human rights treaties adopted by the United Nations transnational and collaborative governance (Collins 2012; Emerson, (UN) offer a common focus for all RBA efforts, different NGOs Nabatchi, and Balogh 2012; O’Leary and Van Slyke 2010) between have experimented with a variety of tactics and strategies, includ- domestic public agencies, official international development ing human rights education and citizen empowerment, civil society organizations, and a variety of nonstate actors. Indeed, the growing mobilization, legal action at the national level, and lobbying for complexity of contemporary public administration has animated the adoption and scale-up of successful local interventions. The a distinct research program emphasizing collaborative governance diversity of RBA and the growing evidence about its implementa- (Bryson, Crosby, and Stone 2006) and led to a redefinition of public tion present a compelling new research field for public administra- service as “new governance” (Agranoff 2005; Bingham, Nabatchi, tion, in particular for international scholarship focused on low- and and O’Leary 2005; Salamon 2002) as the institutions of govern- middle-income countries. Along with the growing popularity of ment and the processes of governance are no longer coextensive participatory institutions (Gaventa and Barrett 2012; Touchton (Stone and Ostrower 2007). and Wampler 2014) and social accountability (Brinkerhoff and Wetterberg 2016), RBA represents an important approach to One key driver of this growing complexity is the deliberate deci- enhancing citizen participation. Research focused on the effec- sion of developed countries since the 1990s to use transnational tiveness of donor-led efforts in these areas indicates that dispro- NGOs as major conduits for official development assistance (Banks, portionate attention has been paid to the demand side of citizen Edwards and Hulme 2015). Excluding European Union institu- mobilization and civil society relative to the supply side of govern- tions, 13 percent of official aid from Organisation for Economic ment policies and the structures linking citizens to public officials Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries is channeled (Brinkerhoff and Wetterberg 2016). Evidence from rights-based through NGOs, following a 91 percent increase between 2001 and campaigns, discussed here, confirms that those focused not only on 2009. At least 24 percent of official U.S. development assistance is bottom-up rights awareness and mobilization but also on questions channeled through NGOs, and recent data suggest that this propor- of state capacity and the motives of public officials are more likely to tion will continue to grow (OECD 2011). In addition, private aid produce sustainable social change. has become a major source of resource transfers, accounting for $56 billion in aid in 2010 (Center for Global Prosperity 2012). Drawing on current research in NGO and development studies, this While all developed countries transferred a total of $128 billion in article introduces the basic principles and logic of RBA, provides official development aid in 2010, this represented only 18 percent of evidence about its effects, and discusses the relevance of this strate- private flows, which includes not only private philanthropy but also gic shift for public administration research and practice. The next remittances ($190 billion) and private capital investments ($329 section provides a summary of emerging perspectives within public billion). As private resource transfers are rising, official government administration scholarship regarding the growing role of NGOs and aid is increasingly rivaled by private support. the emergence of increasingly complex governance arrangements, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. As government NGOs represent a substantial and rapidly growing economic force agencies are increasingly viewed as only one participant among in the contemporary global governance arena. Prior research has many actors shaping policy outcomes, new theoretical perspectives estimated that the worldwide annual expenditures of civil society organizations exceed $2.2 trillion and account for 5.6 percent of the are required to better understand complex patterns of transnational collaborative governance (Mitchell, O’Leary, and Gerard 2015; economically active population (Salamon 2010). Moreover, among O’Leary and Vij 2012). The discussion then turns to the rise of 40 countries for which panel data were available, growth in the civil rights-based approaches in the international development sector associety sector consistently surpassed national economic growth. On average, the sector achieved an annual growth rate of 8.1 percent well as variation in the application of RBA strategies. The article concludes with observations about the implications of rights-basedcompared with national economic growth rates averaging only 4.1 approaches for development administration. percent (Salamon et al. 2007). In the United States, between 1999 and 2009, transnational NGOs experienced more rapid growth than International Development, NGOs, and Public any other subsector, expanding 80 percent to 7,218 organizations, Administration with revenues increasing 154 percent to $29 The field of public administration recognizes billion (Roeger, Blackwood, and Pettijohn the growing significance of NGOs in public The role of NGOs in interna- 2011). The role of NGOs in international affairs (Durant and Ali 2013) and the increas- tional development will remain development will remain influential as the ing internationalization of governance around influential as the economic, economic, social, and political significance of issues such as climate change, disaster relief, social, and political significance low- and middle-income countries continues public health, human rights, and economic to grow and transnational governance chal- of low- and middle-income lenges multiply with ongoing globalization. development (Bowornwathana 2010; Koppell 2010). As developing countries continue to countries continues to grow and experience relatively high economic growth transnational governance chal- Considering the size and growth of the trans- rates, there is a growing demand for schol- lenges multiply with ongoing national NGO sector, organizational and stra- arship focused on the specific governance globalization. tegic shifts within the sector have important challenges associated with rapid social and ramifications for collaborative governance. 2 Public Administration Review • xxxx | xxxx 2015 In particular, the widespread adoption of RBA has changed how mid-1990s began to introduce the terminology into their pro- NGOs understand their role in the development process and how gramming (Piron 2003). In 1997, UN secretary general Kofi they seek to address the root causes of poverty (Uvin 2007). Because Annan called for mainstreaming human rights throughout the this approach calls on NGOs to pay greater attention to the domes- entire UN system (Annan 1997). By 2003, all major UN agen- tic and local political context and to facilitate the empowerment of cies had adopted the Statement of Common Understanding on individuals and communities to make greater demands on public Human Rights-Based Approaches to Development Cooperation agencies, it affects public administration throughout much of the and Programming (United Nations Development Group 2014). world. Subsequently, many major bilateral aid agencies based in Europe and transnational NGOs embraced RBA principles. RBA remains The Diffusion of Rights-Based Approaches less popular in the United States, where major development actors, The diffusion of rights-based approaches in the 1990s resulted from including World Vision and the U.S. Agency for International the increasingly universal reach of human rights language coupled Development, have not explicitly adopted RBA, although they with a growing crisis of the traditional development model based on also have increasingly incorporated rights language to justify their foreign aid. The long-standing separation of the human rights and programming activities. international development sectors marking the Cold War period was increasingly abandoned as transnational NGOs and other develop- The growing popularity of RBA is evidenced in academic scholar- ment actors adopted rights language to reframe persistent poverty ship. As shown in figure 1, the number of academic articles refer- (Uvin 2004). As human rights became a dominant global concept encing RBA has increased dramatically over the past two decades, (Hilton 2012), the new language offered development actors much- even after accounting for the general rise in academic publica- needed legitimacy by framing their work with reference to universal tions pertaining to international development. The increase in standards that have been rhetorically accepted by states. academic research on RBA mirrors the growing popularity and diffusion of the practice across the development sector as schol- The diffusion of rights language into the development sector coin- ars take note of the approach and examine its opportunities and cided with the advent of the capabilities approach to development, limitations. which insisted that poverty is a result of deliberate deprivation (Nussbaum 2000; Sen 1999). The capabilities approach challenged While the Common Understanding calls for all UN agencies to use the assumptions of the development discourse, which focused human rights principles throughout “all phases of the programming exclusively on material well-being and relied on technical expertise process,” there is little consensus about what this actually means in derived from Western models of economic development. Rights- daily practice. UN agencies and transnational NGOs have devel- based approaches consolidate, institutionalize, and augment a num- oped their own versions of RBA, differing in regard to what rights ber of similar trends that have gained currency in the development to prioritize and how to advance those rights through advocacy, arena over the past decades, including the notions of participatory grassroots mobilization, or education (Gruskin, Bogecho, and governance and social accountability that have been promoted by Ferguson 2010). To facilitate some convergence with respect to what organizations such as CIVICUS and the World Bank. RBA should mean for development practice, the United Nations Development Group established in 2009 a dedicated mechanism to Persistent questions about the effectiveness of RBA (Hickey and coordinate the mainstreaming of human rights across 19 UN agen- Mitlin 2009; Uvin 2004) have not stopped its increasing promi- cies. Large development organizations have produced training mate- nence in the development sector. By the 1990s, service provision by rials as well as specific programmatic activities to increase awareness aid agencies had widely embraced participation by beneficiaries as a of RBA within their organizations. Examples include ActionAid’s key ingredient of program success. From there, it was only a small comprehensive resource guide (ActionAid 2010) and the Plan step to conclude that “rights-oriented work spoke directly to NGO Academy, a training program for staff to acquire knowledge and objectives to support participation and people-centered develop- skills related to Plan’s Child Centered Community Development ment” (Hickey and Mitlin 2009, 7). Frustration with decades of approach (Plan International 2013). unsuccessful state-led development efforts not only increased the flow of aid resources into the nongovernmental aid sector but also Principles and Application of RBA enhanced the emphasis on individual rights as a prerequisite for eco- Concepts such as social mobilization, participation, and empower- nomic development. While states gave legitimacy to human rights ment entered the development discourse long before the adoption internationally with the adoption of the Universal Declaration of of RBA, and they have constituted critical elements of the approach Human Rights in 1948, NGOs with closer ties to local communi- as NGOs have moved away from charity toward the more ambitious ties were the first to embrace rights as a framework for international goal of addressing the underlying causes of persistent poverty. What development efforts. Considering the largely state-led development distinguishes the application of such elements within RBA is that efforts in many Asian countries, for example, the rise of RBA is nei- they are no longer merely instrumental to accomplishing devel- ther natural nor uncontroversial. It has been more widely embraced opment goals but are themselves goals of program activities. For by NGOs and other development actors with a focus on advocacy instance, participation of the local population is no longer viewed as and community-based work, while many state actors view the primarily instrumental to the goals of program activities but as an approach as a potential challenge to their authority. end in itself (Cornwall and Nyamu-Musembi 2004). Early adopters of rights-based approaches included Oxfam From a rights-based perspective, the underlying causes of poverty International (Holcombe 2010) and CARE, which in the are primarily political in nature and typically stem from unequal The Other Side of the Coin: NGOs, Rights-Based Approaches, and Public Administration 3 Notes: Data were obtained from Google Scholar. To account for the general increase in relevant academic publications over time, the figure displays the number of arti- cles referencing “rights-based approaches” as a percentage of the number of articles referencing “international development.” The searches were limited to the exact phrases as they appeared anywhere in the articles; “patents” and “citations” were excluded from the search. Figure 1 Scholarly Articles Referencing “Rights-Based Approaches” as a Percentage of Those Referencing “International Development” Table 1 RBA Strategies and Conditions Effectiveness Contentious Conciliatory National level, targeting government Advocacy and litigation: Presence of human rights laws Capacity building: Political will to engage with local communities combined with complementary social mobilization and civil society in collective forms of governance Subnational, targeting social groups Coalition building: Advocacy capacity and legitimacy of Capacity building: Ability of civil society groups to organize civil society groups collectively Local, targeting individuals and Community-based mobilization: Capacity of local com- Awareness raising and public education: Capacity of local com- communities munities to make effective rights claims munities to organize collectively power relations (ActionAid 2010, 11). RBA conceptualizes peo- particular development challenge. The fourth step focuses on the ple living in poverty not as “what they are, but what they have relationship between rights holders and duty bearers and asks what been made” (Gready 2008, 742). RBA shifts attention away from capacities both sides lack in developing a more productive account- simply increasing wealth and development and places emphasis on ability relationship. Why are rights holders not claiming the rights the more equal distribution of resources (Cornwall and Nyamu- they have? And why are duty bearers either unable or unwilling to Musembi 2004). The imperative of inclusion requires a particular fulfill their role and contribute to rights realization? Based on this focus on the least advantaged (Rawls 1971) and the most vulnerable analysis of situation and actors, a rights-based intervention develops populations (Howe 2012). Central to RBA is the accountability specific strategies, which may include litigation, capacity building, relationship between individual rights holders and the government and community-based mobilization. as the main duty bearer bound by legal obligations under domestic and international laws. International human rights treaties iden- Rights-based strategies may target the national, subnational, and tify government agencies as the principal duty bearers and put the local levels and can be contentious or conciliatory in nature. During onus on public officials to engage in “human rights administration” the past decades, NGOs have experimented with distinct venues (Montgomery 1999). and tactics in accomplishing societal change through rights mobi- lization. As table 1 illustrates, the most prominent efforts include The implementation of RBA typically starts with a situational filing claims in courts, building the capacities of governments and analysis that accomplishes several distinct goals (UNCT Vietnam domestic civil society actors, awareness raising, and community 2009). First, it seeks to identify the social and political root causes organizing. While each of these approaches comes with specific of a condition such as persistent poverty. Second, it names the key advantages and challenges, recent experiences with implementing rights holders and duty bearers. The third step identifies applicable RBA all suggest that success depends critically on deploying multi- domestic and international human rights laws as they pertain to a ple strategies across different levels. 4 Public Administration Review • xxxx | xxxx 2015 RBA and Public Administration: Opportunities and specific form of RBA used in domestic court cases depends on the Challenges accessibility of courts, legal traditions, and the ability of litigants to Recent experiences with RBA implementation offer important mobilize for the implementation of a favorable judgment (Gauri lessons for public managers in developing countries who may find and Gloppen 2012, 488). themselves increasingly targeted by litigation, advocacy, and capac- ity-building efforts. Early experiences with these RBA strategies and While many litigants relying on this legal approach have won signif- their use by transnational NGOs provide important insights into icant victories in the courts, a core challenge emerges in subsequent how the relationship between key development actors may change struggles in ensuring that government officials and public manag- as a result of the reframing of persistent poverty as a violation of ers dedicate appropriate resources to compliance with a ruling. In human rights. Some of these lessons are also relevant for developed the Indian case, the Supreme Court’s 2001 decisions made school countries, especially in contexts in which minority populations con- feeding a legal requirement, but years of social mobilization were front significant adversity and discrimination and have rights claims required to push Indian states to actually allocate more resources that remain unfulfilled. in compliance with the court ruling. Subsequently, some courts have required the creation of roundtables and deliberative pro- Litigation and Advocacy: Mobilizing International and cesses that bring together officials with rights claimants, while the Domestic Law Supreme Court established a new office in charge of independently Failure of the government to deliver on its obligations is not only monitoring the implementation of its decisions. Years of litigation a violation of rights but also typically results and advocacy also changed the perceptions from deep-seated inequality and discrimina- of state obligations, shifting from a simple tion. Legal mobilization has emerged as one Failure of the government to expectation to provide food (“fulfillment”) to major strategy in efforts to change the behav- deliver on its obligations is demands that the government put policies in ior of the government as the main duty bearer. not only a violation of rights place that prevent food insecurity in the first These efforts typically invoke explicit legal but also typically results from place (“protection”). While the fulfillment of commitments based on accession to interna- the right to food only requires that govern- tional human rights treaties or national consti- deep-seated inequality and ment agencies provide an adequate supply, the tutional provisions. In particular, court cases discrimination. protection from food insecurity requires more and advocacy claiming social and economic substantial interventions aimed at altering the rights in response to economic deprivation social and political conditions that cause food have increased significantly over the past two decades (Langford scarcity in the first place. 2009). In 2013, the Indian parliament passed the National Food Security Litigation is a core tactic of RBA that has arguably escaped the Act, which put into law many of the demands of the Right to Food attention of public administration scholarship. Although public campaign. Although more than a decade of mobilization has led to administration has traditionally been reluctant to fully accept important improvements in the food supply, the campaign had to the significance of law to administration (Lynn 2009), courts can address additional challenges of corruption and weak state govern- nevertheless play an important role in the management and execu- ment capacities (Kishore, Joshi, and Hoddinott 2014). Regular tion of public policies (Wise and Christensen 2005) and feature surveys conducted by the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi show prominently in many RBA campaign strategies (Gauri 2013). that government agencies and public managers have expanded ser- Legal strategies are particularly attractive in the human rights area vices over time and have become more responsive to local demands, because RBA focuses attention on the treaty obligations of states but progress varies greatly across Indian states and depends crucially as well as constitutional provisions. However, early experiences on the social mobilization of those entitled to the new government with RBA-based legal strategies also reveal significant challenges, programs (Drèze and Khera 2015). Litigation has proven to be including weak or corrupt justice systems, difficulties for the most an important rights-based strategy, but hopes of seeing immedi- disadvantaged in accessing courts, and recalcitrant government ate changes after favorable court rulings have rarely materialized officials who may simply ignore court decisions (Joshi 2010). quickly. Once courts endorse rights for underserved populations, Examples of court-focused RBA efforts demonstrate that such sustained mobilization is required to address other roadblocks, strategies are promising, but only when combined with comple- including uncooperative government officials, corruption, and weak mentary efforts, including bottom-up citizen mobilization, special administrative capacities. investigations, or legislative action. The success of constitutional litigation depends on the simultaneous deployment of a broader Building Capacities of the Government as the Primary Duty social mobilization strategy (Gauri and Brinks 2008; Yamin and Bearer Gloppen 2011). A less contentious but also less common RBA strategy target- ing the national level focuses on lobbying and collaboration with Some of the most important court cases based on rights-based government officials to scale up successful program activities or to constitutional litigation include the Right to Food campaign in increase the capacity of the bureaucracy to fulfill its obligations to India during the 2000s (Birchfield and Corsi 2009); the use of citizens. Such a strategy is appropriate when contentious legal action courts to secure access to antiretroviral drugs in South Africa, Brazil, or “naming and shaming” strategies would be counterproductive and elsewhere (Singh, Govender, and Mills 2007); and the right to because the situational analysis implicates a lack of capacity rather health litigation in Colombia (Yamin and Parra-Vera 2009). The than a lack of political will. For example, a joint review by CARE The Other Side of the Coin: NGOs, Rights-Based Approaches, and Public Administration 5 and Oxfam of their own RBA experiences notes that contentious and Vyas-Doorgapersad 2014). Scholars have argued that technical strategies “have the potential to make villains and adversaries— assistance should move beyond service delivery to focus on reducing instead of potential partners—out of duty-bearers” (Rand and aid dependency, consistent with a rights-based approach. Twinning, Watson 2007, 21). which pairs local institutions with foreign counterparts, has been offered as an alternative model to traditional technical assistance, Collaborative approaches to working with and an extensive literature has chronicled its duty bearers often involve efforts by NGOs to progress (Beisheim and Liese 2013; Bontenbal scale up their health, sanitation, and educa- Public managers should work 2013; Jensen et al. 2007; van Ewijk et al. tional programs through direct engagement with NGOs early on in their 2015). Despite an initial conceptualization with public agencies. This strategy simulta- campaigns to ensure that appro- of capacity building as an apolitical, technical neously highlights the demand for specific exercise, researchers have come to understand priate resources are in place to services from the bottom up and the strength- that capacity building is fundamentally a ening of government capacities to meet those enable the sustainable delivery political process (Grindle 2006). expectations. For instance, Plan International of government services by pub- has worked across a number of developing lic agencies. As targets of capacity building, public manag- countries to standardize birth registration as a ers can expect RBA to place more responsibil- key component of effective government plan- ity on their own agencies as NGOs empower ning in the areas of health and educational services (Apland et al. rights holders to demand more public services from government. 2014). When Plan International adopted RBA, the recognition of Public managers should work with NGOs early on in their cam- a birth by the state became a key step that previously was viewed as paigns to ensure that appropriate resources are in place to enable largely irrelevant to Plan’s activities in local communities. the sustainable delivery of government services by public agencies. While capacity building and technical assistance predate the rise of The identification of community needs based on birth registration RBA, a growing focus on beneficiary entitlements means that gov- and local mobilization provides a basis for the collaborative capac- ernment capacity is developed as a means to enhance rights enjoy- ity building of local and regional authorities. Past lessons of scaling ment of those in greatest need. The long-standing focus on “good up effective interventions suggest that frontline staff first seek out governance” includes a more explicit recognition of human rights favorably disposed local officials and organize sustained platforms principles, such as inclusion, participation, and accountability. (e.g., task forces) to bring together relevant authorities from local governments, the religious community, and other community Building Capacities of Domestic Civil Society leaders. Effective scale-up efforts have relied on facilitating visits of RBA strategies often seek to improve the accountability of state already successful community interventions, regular reporting on institutions by coupling governance strategies with efforts to progress, media involvement, and the identification of “champions strengthen domestic civil society. Because RBA requires that exter- at different levels—officials, politicians, staff of NGOs, or members nal actors transfer substantial control over programs and outcomes of professional associations” (Kar and Chambers 2008, 65). External to the local level, strengthening independent collective actors at resources are no longer used to substitute for absent government the domestic level represents a crucial ingredient of sustainable services but to support learning across administrative units, as well social change. Many development actors have understood RBA as as in temporarily financing new government services in education, requiring not only increasing rights awareness among citizens and health, and other rights-relevant areas. government officials but also facilitating collective action in the form of mobilized civil society groups. Such groups can serve dif- A key challenge to capacity building as an RBA strategy is that it ferent functions, acting as vehicles for demanding government ser- does not automatically lead to the empowerment of rights holders. vices (collective claim making), platforms for collective democratic Because these activities often rely on a combination of technical deliberation (collective decision making), and means of increasing expertise and access to decision makers, they have limited potential the ability of citizens to collectively govern on their own (collective to move beyond the elite level unless parallel efforts to mobilize governance). rights holders are put in place. While often included under rights- based rhetoric, such collaborative arrangements may not explicitly Oxfam America’s engagement with Maya community organizations rely on rights claims from below but may be part of a nascent trend in Guatemala represents a typical program focused on advancing of governments mimicking NGOs and their practices (Brass 2012). rights through strengthening domestic partners. Working with Similar to the case of litigation and advocacy, experiences with RBA a network of indigenous groups organized as Defensoría Maya, capacity building suggest that isolated and short-term interventions Oxfam began in the 2000s to support a program called Overcoming are least effective. Racism, which focused on ending centuries of inequality involv- ing the majority of indigenous peoples living in Guatemala. The Because capacity building and the provision of technical assistance project established Defensoría Maya offices to provide legal support have long been viewed as principal tasks of public administration to individuals, facilitated local and regional deliberations about (Weber and Khademian 2008), the addition of a rights-based com- the recognition of an indigenous justice system, and worked with ponent offers opportunities to increase the voice of rights holders in the Guatemalan government on developing national policies to defining priorities and identifying means of developing governmen- address issues of racism and discrimination. Oxfam’s evaluation of tal capacities. Technical assistance is among the primary components the program activities highlights a number of important successes, of capacity building (e.g., Christensen and Gazley 2008; Haruna in particular, shaping government policies and forging “alliances 6 Public Administration Review • xxxx | xxxx 2015 between various Mayan groups” (Rand and Watson 2007, 60). A and other NGOs lobbied the government to adopt social protection more traditional needs-based approach would have been limited to laws for home workers. By 2008, the first national convention on service delivery and would have given local groups much less control home-based work ended with officials from the Ministry of Labor over the goals and the execution of program activities. accepting the need for specific protections for home-based workers. Although ActionAid played an important role by framing the issue In Bolivia, international donor support for the Fundación Jubileo of home-based work in terms of rights, RBA ultimately transferred enabled the organization to address extreme poverty through most of the responsibility for mobilization and activism to the “advocacy interventions . . . consistently directed toward policy local organizations, allowing transnational NGOs to remain in the positions and public management” (Murray 2014, 3). RBA-based background. By helping to organize a group of marginalized and support by Oxfam Great Britain contributed to a local campaign isolated citizens, ActionAid provided an opportunity for individuals that focused on establishing a system of civil society monitoring of to experience the positive effects of making collective rights claims government agencies in the capital of La Paz. The evaluation of this and created a basis for other forms of collective action. The case also campaign highlights the core contribution of Fundación Jubileo illustrates the need for multilevel approaches, combining awareness in bringing together a range of civil society groups based in La Paz raising at the individual level, the creation of collective action at the and designing a consultation process acceptable to both civil society subnational level, and the direct targeting of the national govern- and municipal governmental actors (Murray 2014, 34). Backed by ment to enhance legal protections. Oxfam Great Britain’s “own quiet advocacy work” (Murray 2014, 21), the foundation has become a crucial civil society actor that Oxfam’s recent push to more systematically evaluate its organi- has allowed external groups to take a back seat and avoid possible zational effectiveness has produced important insights into its controversies about the legitimacy of external interventions. long-standing efforts to enhance citizens’ voices and influence policy from the bottom up. These evaluations typically highlight important A number of international NGOs, however, are reluctant to engage short-term successes with regard to greater awareness of rights, but with civil society actors, especially if they perceive their particular they find limited evidence that knowledge of rights actually empow- strength in working directly with local communities and if they ers those targeted by the program activities (Oxfam Great Britain prefer to avoid contentious politics between civil society and the 2014). A comprehensive review of Plan International’s program state. When Plan International adopted RBA, it generally avoided evaluations produced similar results, showing that creating more “naming and shaming” advocacy and did not develop a dedicated awareness about rights at the local level is but one important step strategy focused on engaging with domestic civil society groups in in giving individuals and communities the tools to make effective many of the countries in which it operated (Bruno-van Vijfeijken, claims. Gneiting, and Schmitz 2011). Instead, it chose to focus its attention on local communities and their capacities to engage more effectively RBA emphasizes grassroots community involvement at all levels in accountablity relationships with local and regional governmental of planning, implementation, and evaluation. Public participation entities. has been shown to promote more sustainable government capacity (Woodford and Preston 2013) and contribute to more efficient and Awareness Raising, Empowerment, and Community-Based effective public service provision (Neshkova and Guo 2012). The Activism idea of public participation (Bryson et al. 2013), citizen participa- RBA efforts at the local level focus on awareness raising and tion (Roberts and Fagernäs 2004; Rose and Omolo 2013), partici- empowerment, specifically in creating capacities for individuals and patory governance (Fischer 2012; Gonçalves 2014), or coproduction communities to become their own rights advocates. In communities (Frieling, Lindenberg, and Stokman 2014) is not new, and much with high levels of inequality, RBA additionally requires that NGOs literature has been devoted to its understanding in public admin- take sides with the most disadvantaged community members. Many istration and related fields. Indeed, the New Public Management observers argue that awareness raising and public education about emphasized citizen empowerment as a means of improving public rights should primarily be seen as a “long-term driver of societal service delivery (Brinkerhoff 2008). In the development context, change” (Gauri and Gloppen 2012, 496) because it focuses on empowerment has shown its potential as a more effective approach transforming the consciousness of individuals about their own rights to advancing citizen well-being than traditional technical assistance with still limited attention to how such awareness raising can be strategies (Friis-Hansen and Duveskog 2012). This form of civil translated into effective local rights claims. society capacity building has received less direct attention in public administration, and its consequences for public managers are not A typical example of transnational NGO activities in this area is fully understood. ActionAid’s efforts to empower more than 20 million home-based female workers in Pakistan (ActionAid 2010, 123–30). In 2005, Additionally, scholars of domestic public administration have ActionAid Pakistan decided to address the situation of home- discovered that transnational NGOs with local capabilities can based women producing garments and other goods. ActionAid act as intermediaries to help improve citizens’ capacities to engage staff offered spaces for these women to meet and provided training with government. Although not specifically citing RBA, prior in communications and negotiations, as well as other basic skills research has identified this pattern in the aftermath of Hurricane needed to organize as a group and attain better prices and work- Katrina in the United States (D’Agostino and Kloby 2011), where ing conditions. Over time, these local organizing efforts resulted in transnational NGOs played an active role in relief efforts amid the the formation of self-sustaining local organizations and a national administrative failures of official government agencies (Eikenberry, coalition representing home workers. At the same time, ActionAid Arroyave, and Cooper 2007). The Other Side of the Coin: NGOs, Rights-Based Approaches, and Public Administration 7 In addition to direct community engagement, collaborations with protocols for consultation and constructive conflict management NGOs have been identified as critical to building government resulting from claim making. capacity (Farazmand 2009; Plummer 2013). Although some NGOs may be reluctant to collaborate with public agencies for fear of Fourth, for some public agencies, RBA implies a shift in organi- compromising their independence and legitimacy and will actively zational culture and discourse. Public sector managers may have seek to preserve their autonomy in collaborative arrangements unspoken assumptions about citizens that are incompatible with (Mitchell 2014a), NGOs and governments have much to gain from RBA, exhibiting a benevolent but problematic form of paternal- collaboration. As NGOs shift away from substitutive needs-based ism that directly contradicts RBA’s commitment to genuine citizen service delivery strategies toward empowering rights-based advocacy empowerment. Reorienting organizational culture is an intricate and strategies, public managers will come into more frequent and direct complex process (Schein 2010; Weick 2001), but cultural change contact with NGOs and their beneficiaries. Public managers would may be necessary for public agencies to work effectively with civil do well to improve their understanding of NGOs’ perspectives and society actors adopting an RBA framework. attitudes toward collaboration to avoid potentially alienating key stakeholders, causing NGOs to adopt unnecessarily contentious Finally, public managers should understand how their own politi- tactics. cal context and the pressures acting on other development actors condition opportunities and vulnerabilities under RBA. Table Implications for Public Managers 1 identifies several conditions under which public agencies may As NGOs and other prominent development actors continue to be particularly vulnerable to RBA strategies or especially able to adopt rights-based approaches, public managers must adapt in order benefit from the opportunities produced through RBA. In addi- to maintain effective relationships in the development process. First, tion to these considerations at the national, subnational, and local this means that public managers need to be aware of the universal levels, other environmental characteristics may influence the ability human rights framework and have a working knowledge of relevant of NGOs and other development actors to successfully imple- national legislation, constitutional provisions, and international ment rights-based approaches. For example, although many NGOs laws. Managers must understand that they may be held individu- actively pursue strategies to maintain operational independence ally accountable by local communities for respecting and protecting from influential donors (Mitchell 2014b), some major institutional human rights. RBA politicizes governance activities that manag- actors in international development have been reluctant to adopt a ers may regard as technocratic and far removed from the realm of right-based approach, potentially limiting the willingness of some human rights enforcement, but effective public management will NGOs to pursue RBA strategies. Nevertheless, given the broad require officials to recognize the political context in which claim- diffusion of RBA discourse within the transnational NGO and ants are articulating their demands and to accept the legitimacy of international development communities, a critical awareness of RBA human rights entitlement. and its implications is likely to promote mutual understanding and facilitate intersectoral collaboration even in the absence of explicit Second, RBA does not recognize resource constraints as a genuine RBA strategy. obstacle to human rights enforcement. Under RBA, claimants’ demands often entail redistributive policies that may require real- The lessons derived from the application of RBA in develop- locating resources away from politically powerful agencies, such as ing countries are also broadly relevant to public management those addressing security, tax collection, or commerce, to agencies in economically developed countries. In the United States, for that fulfill rights, such as those dealing with health, education, or example, rights awareness and claim making operationalized the environment. Redistributing resources from politically powerful through advocacy, legislation, and litigation at the local, state, agencies to weaker ones will require change champions and coali- and national levels were all essential components of the Human tions for change. Managers can often find allies among NGOs, Rights Campaign’s successful efforts to enact nationwide mar- academics, and epistemic communities that may be able to offer riage equality. Within the field of public administration, vari- social, political, economic, and technical assistance in support of ous governmental initiatives find parallels with RBA as well. In rights realization (Brinkerhoff and Crosby 2001). Public officials particular, the growing prominence of the public value approach will need to develop not only moral but also political arguments in public administration expands the role of citizens from clients as they attempt to correct fiscal inequalities underpinning human or customers to “co-creators” while emphasizing the role of rights violations. government as a “convener” and “collaborator” (Bryson, Crosby, and Bloomberg 2014, 446). The growing use of open innovation Third, RBA requires a deeper level of com- approaches “to invite citizens to crowd- munity engagement than traditional models source and peer produce solutions to public of governance. Successful public managers Public officials must also culti- management problems” (Mergel 2015, 599) must adopt a facilitative governance stance, vate relationships with relevant represents one such example of applying solicit and listen to public input, engage in civil society actors and establish the basic principles of RBA. Similar to RBA deliberation, develop institutionalized feed- applied in the development context, we do back processes, and implement mechanisms protocols for consultation and not yet know whether these new practices for handling complaints and redress (Kroll constructive conflict manage- sustainably enhance rights enjoyment over 2013; Torfing and Triantafillou 2013). 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