Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 16th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview Main Conference Theme Author(s) Herrington Bryce College of William and Mary Williamsburg United States Herrington J. Bryce is sole author Title Institutionalizing the role of NGOs as instruments of civic engagement in the governance process File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Abstract This paper creates a theoretical framework that recognizes the growth and intervention of NGOs in the public policy process throughout the world and internationally, the concern for trust in government, and the assertions that civic engagement is both a encouraged by trust in government and contributes to trust in government. The paper formalizes definitions, links, limitations, and other parameters that make this connection. It is intended that through the results of this paper, we shall have a better framework for espousing the potential utility of NGOs and civic engagement through them in increasing trust in government inside of any reasonably democratic country (even those in transition) and therefore contribute to its efficiency and responsiveness. This is not an ideological paper. It is not an empirical paper. It is grounded in logic and immense review of the literature. Because of this approach, it is not localized in any one country or system of government. This paper is a reflection or direct representation of a paper prepared for and delivered at the 7th Global Conference of the UN on reinventing government, specifically the section on building trust in government through civic participation, and on a similarly prepared paper for the International Political Science Association (Section on Structure of Governments), Seoul, Korea, 2007. It draws conceptually from the author's Players in the Public Policy Process: Nonprofits as Social Capital and Agents ( Palgrave Macmillan 2005) but is not a replication of that argument as well as the author's previous direct involvement in Eastern European Countries including Russia, Estonia, Georgia, Poland and others.
