Theoretical reflections of new institutionalism in development

Get Complete Project Material File(s) Now! »

The UNIAP: A new model for co-ordination?

The Greater Mekong Subregion is an ethnically diverse, agricultural-based region comprised of Cambodia, the Yunnan Province of Southern China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam. Despite recent economic growth, poverty is widespread and the region is marked by significant diversity among and within the different nations (see Chapter 5). Urban and rural disparities, marginalised ethnic minorities, high levels of internal and cross-border migration, and weak governance in border regions present significant risk factors for human trafficking, and each represents a significant factor in the human trafficking experienced in the region. The literature confirms that countries in the Greater Mekong Subregion experience trafficking differently as sites of recruitment, trafficking destinations, and trafficking routes (see Chapter 5).

An institutional understanding of a coordinated response to human trafficking

In recent years, human trafficking has received a vast amount of interest from governments, intergovernmental organisations, international donors, nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), and the media. At a time when the UN has taken on differing issues and expanded mandates, human trafficking has become one of the most complex and pressing challenges facing the international development community. However, developing effective anti-trafficking interventions has been a learning process, and the results of this process have not been widely accepted as productive. Anne Gallagher (2001), former advisor to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, comments that “attempts to deal with trafficking, migrant smuggling, and related exploitation at the national, regional, and international levels have been largely ineffective” (p. 997).

Framing an institutional understanding of collaboration in complex interagency settings

The primary purpose of this thesis is to gain a deeper understanding of international coordination, particularly in its institutional construction. Institutional problems are not, in general, at the forefront of thinking in the human trafficking field, even in terms of coordinated interventions. Rather, practitioners are expected to get on with the task at hand. Coordination is assumed to be a ‘good thing’, and obstacles encountered as just something to overcome. These factors, coupled with the relative newness of the field, suggest there is an analytic deficit. This is compounded by the tendency for researchers and practitioners to under-theorise the design and implementation of collaborative interactions within and between international organisations in development fields more broadly (Brinkerhoff, 2002a 2000b; Lister, 2000; Lowndes & Skelcher, 1998).

Institutional ethnography as a sociological mode of inquiry

The research presented in this thesis is an institutional ethnographic analysis, which is a sociological mode of inquiry that explicitly aims to reveal the workings of institutional structures and processes through the experiences, realities, and practices of people (Smith, 2005). Pioneered by Dorothy Smith (1987, 1990), institutional ethnographies reveal how forms of power and complexity are implicit, but not often recognised, in social relations. Her institutional ethnographic research examines the standpoints of women to illustrate how their lives are mediated through complex “ruling relations”, or the combination of organisational and institutional arrangements as governing structures (Smith, 1999). More recently, Smith has argued that institutional ethnography is equally suitable for different institutional settings (e.g. Smith, 2005).

UNIAP – a case study

The UNIAP was one project in particular that captured my attention as I began to frame my thinking for a PhD thesis on coordination in the development field. It was created in order to foster a strategic and coordinated approach across the region and was associated with key initiatives globally to confront human trafficking. It sat astride many of the key tensions and multi-scalar political relations that I would need to investigate in my study. Having one’s research interests sparked is one thing; finding a way to gain access to the sources needed to carry out the research is another. Here, human contacts are the key. During my tenure with the UN, I became acquainted with the project manager of the UNIAP.

Table of contents :

• Chapter
• Introduction
• Chapter
• Reconceptualising the development field: Insights from Pierre Bourdieu
• Chapter
• Theoretical reflections of new institutionalism in development
• Chapter
• Development, governance, and institutional reforms
• Chapter
• The human trafficking field in the Greater Mekong Subregion
• Chapter
• Negotiating a field of misunderstanding and uncertainties
• Chapter
• Phase II and the COMMIT Process: Reckoning with the realities of the field
• Chapter
• Contributions, implications, and conclusions: Building platforms for coordination
• References

GET THE COMPLETE PROJECT
What is the added value of coordination?An institutional analysis of the United Nations’ response to national and regional coordination of human trafficking in the Greater Mekong Subregion