Eleventh Global Studies Conference

Abstract

This paper contributes to the empirical and theoretical debate over the role of international organizations in shaping domestic policies and institutions including civil society organizations. The research asks why is it that several semi-authoritarian and hybrid regimes in the African great lakes region, primarily Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Rwanda, have agreed to fulfill civil society and NGOs’ demands related to the legal rights of Internally Displaced Persons while they have continually suppressed other sections of civil society organizations (e.g. those working against female genital mutilation and freedom of press). It is argued that strong regional and inter-governmental institutional framework of the African Union and limited statehood has enabled a forceful entry and presence of international human rights organizations and institutions. The case study confirms the validity of the wider literature on political opportunity structures and the structural, normative, and institutional power of international/intergovernmental organizations in effecting domestic policy change. This paper attends to the dynamics of institutional, rhetorical, and legal-political choices for addressing contemporary human rights discourse in the global south.