Ambiguous Gatekeepers and a Potential Entrepreneur

Representing more than 600 million people worldwide and composed of eight large member organizations including (DPI) and Rehabilitation International (RI), the International Disability Alliance (IDA) is the foremost representative of disabled persons worldwide. Although I suspect IDA is the political entrepreneur most responsible for positioning disability rights on the global stage, they could also be seen as the gatekeeper. I was unable to determine the precise role of IDA because their website is currently under construction and limited information is available. In light of this, a discussion of DPI as a political entrepreneur follows.

The same year (2002) the U.S. National Council on Disability came out with a White Paper describing several factors within the disability rights and international human rights communities that led to a decline in salience and visibility of disability rights as a global issue, DPI convened its 6th World Assembly in Sapporo, Japan and produced the Sapporo Declaration.

Where the White Paper uses literature and precedent to support the need for equal rights (p. 53), a compliance mechanism (p. 55), and sees treaty adoption as securing a place for disability rights in the major human rights organizations (p. 61), the Sapporo Declaration demands

"a specific international human rights convention that is reflective on the full range of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights and that includes a strong convention-monitoring mechanism informed by the unique perspective of people with disabilities to ensure credibility, legitimacy and efficacy of the convention; Disabled people demand a voice of our own in the development of this instrument. We must be consulted at all levels on all matters that concern us" (p. 7).

The White Paper provides a rationale for treaty adoption by stating "the advantage of a treaty setting forth obligations on the rights of people with disabilities is that it will establish concrete obligations for government conduct thatwhich specifically address disability" (p. 62). The Sapporo Declaration simply urges "all UN member states to support the formulation and adoption of this convention" (p. 8). Both the clarity and strength of language in the Sapporo Declaration is indicative of political entrepreneurship. DPI has identified a lack of equal rights for disabled people as a problem and provided a solution to the problem. Next, DPI has to "shop around" to prick the interest of a gatekeeper.

The most obvious gatekeeper is IDA. Not only do they represent eight major disability organzations worldwide, but they have connections to the UN and other, larger gatekeepers. They aim to be a "spokesperson for the international disability movement in global policy matters" and facilitate "co-operation and exchanges of information among international disability organisations." Their first goal is "To identify common positions on disability issues and to lobby UN agencies together on those to which there is agreement." Certainly a convention on the rights of disabled persons fits this criteria.

However, other organizations must be considered. DPI maintains official relations with UNESCO and the World Bank. In fact, the World Bank Group's advisor on Disability and Development (2001-present), Judy Heumann, is one of the co-founders (1983) and was a co-director (1983-1994) of the World Institute on Disability, an "internationally recognized public policy center by and for people with disabilities." Furthermore, the same year the White Paper was published and the Sapporo Declaration was created, a disability and development conference at the World Bank fostered the Global Partnership on Disability and Development (GPDD). At an International Conference on Disability and Development in 2004, Heumann describes GPDD as "a good example of an informal coalition, including the Bank and more than one hundred other organizations" and states their goal is to "build and disseminate good practices in order to help countries achieve the goals of access, inclusion, and poverty reduction of people with disabilities."

Given these relationships, it is possible the gatekeeper who adopted the issue is the World Bank or perhaps a combination of IDA, the World Bank, and UNESCO. I was not able to find specific evidence of DPI "pitching" their issue, so I have constructed a possible "adoption" situation given links between organization's webpages and Judy Heumann.

Finally, the disability rights community can be fractious. The White Paper identifies one of the risks in the treaty process as the "relative degree of consensus within the broad disability community as to the key elements of a coherent and focused international campaign" (p. 68). As the definition of disability broadens, the possibility of disagreement between and among sub-populations increases.

To conclude, the political entrepreneur in the disability rights movement is a well-organized, popular international disability organization (DPI/IDA) who most likely pitched its issue to a larger international disability organization (IDA/none) and/or the World Bank or UNESCO, who adopted the issue, resulting in proliferation on the world stage. Increasing momentum from 2002 to mid-2007 resulted in the UN's adoption of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol and its entry into force.


Note: All websites were accessed September 29, 2008.