Between cunning states and unaccountable international institutions: Social movements and rights of local communities to common property resources

The paper analyses the new architecture of global governance which is characterised by unaccountable international institutions and scattered sovereignties. It examines the dilemmas of civil society actors (social movements and NGOs) involved in protecting the rights of local communities through strategic issue-based alliances with the state or the World Bank, whose legitimacy they question in other contexts. The cunning state remains a central actor in selectively transposing neo-liberal policies to the national terrain and capitalises on its perceived weakness in order to render itself unaccountable to its citizens. The argument draws on empirical material from India around conflicts over the patenting of genetic resources, biodiversity conservation, forced displacement and privatisation of common property resources. It cautions against attributing homogeneity to the state whose logic of action may differ at the federal and regional level; it delineates the shifting contours of the boundary between the public and the private as well as the growing entanglement between civil society and state; and it unpacks civil society to show that there is little in common between advocacy networks involved in a politics of contention and powerful NGOs rendering expert advice to states and international institutions.