Non-State Actors

Background

Although states remain the most important actor on the international stage, the emergence of non-state actors such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs), international organizations, and transnational corporations are gaining prominence with increasing influences on global affairs. It is important to move beyond the state-centric perspective and consider the roles of these non-state actors.

As China expands its international engagement, its overseas projects inevitably encounter non-state actors in host countries such as local communities and NGOs. Responses of these actors to Chinese projects and their interactions with Chinese actors may affect the projects’ implementation. On the other hand, China’s non-state actors are also playing a growing role in the country’s participation in global issues such as infrastructure development, sustainability, and poverty alleviation.

Liu, X., Bennett, M.M. Going out and going green: Chinese NGOs within Green BRI knowledge production

incoming

Liu, X., Wang, R. Y., Hu, Z., Ge, Y., Huang Y. 2022. How do non-governmental organizations influence China’s investment projects in Cambodia? A geosocial analysis. Human Geography(人文地理), (02), 57-66+157. Link

This paper investigates the roles of Cambodian NGOs in the suspending the Chay Areng hydropower dam project through a geosocial lens. It contends that local and international NGOs in Cambodia play a crucial role in negotiating the implementation of China’s infrastructure project. Although they adopt various strategies and pursue divergent interests, their efforts converge to mobilize networks and resources to suspend the project.

Liu, X., Ge, Y., Hu, W., Huang, Y., Ma, T. 2019. Spatial impacts of the geopolitics of non-state actors and the formation pathways. Progress in Geography(地理科学进展), 38(11): 1735-1746. Link

This article examines the geopolitical impacts of non-state actors. After clarifying major categories of non-state actors, the article unpacks their geopolitical influences on security, institutions, and imaginations in international spaces and explores how they are able to achieve these influences. It is argued that non-state actors sometimes act as the challenger or extension of states or governments, but their power can also transend traditional national border and territory.

Liu, X., Wang, R. Y., Ge, Y. 2018. Roles of international non-governmental organizations in global environmental politics: A critical geopolitical perspective. Human Geography(人文地理), 33(5): 123-132. Link

This paper reviews the development and basic characteristics of critical geopolitical research and emphasizes that examining the role of INGOs could improve our understanding of the decision-making mechanism of international public affairs. It integrates key geopolitical concepts of scale and power to provide a useful framework for analyzing INGOs. Pointing out the limitation of state-centrism as well as the emerging influence of INGOs in addressing global environmental issues, this paper illustrates the main strategies of INGOs by unpacking their roles in three spatial scales (i.e., global, national and local) and three power dimensions (i.e., decisional power, discursive power and regulatory power).