This chapter discusses how NGOs challenge the official citizenship discourse and policy in relation to the first ‘site’ of citizenship contestation: civic organising. It focuses, in particular, on instances when acts of ‘organising’ transform the wider citizenship structure. As an ‘act of citizenship’, organising is shaped by the limitations to civil and political rights of citizenship in China. The chapter illustrates how the act of organising, which is often undertaken under many financial, political and legal constraints, allows migrant workers who set up NGOs to manifest their resolve to take action over the circumstances in which they live. By doing so, they assert the right to voice, which they are not normally granted in the public space, and the right to organise, negotiating the role and function of citizen-formed organisations in China, thereby reshaping citizenship practices.

This chapter discusses how NGOs challenge the mainstream citizenship discourse and policies in relation to the first ‘site’ of citizenship contestation: civic organising. It focuses, in particular, on instances when the act of ‘networking’ transforms the wider citizenship structure. As an ‘act of citizenship’, networking is shaped by the limitations to civil and political rights of citizenship in China, and this chapter illustrates how networking can push for new practices of activist citizenship, such as volunteerism and inter-NGO networking. Through the act of networking, NGOs challenge the limitations of the hostile environment for inter-organisational networking and assembly in China, redrafting what is regarded as ‘acceptable’ for civic interactions. The chapter reflects on the tremendous obstacles due to the constrictions of political space and the transformation in the state’s approach to foreign funding under Xi Jinping, and their consequences for NGOs’ survival.

The introduction provides a brief overview of the development of the Irish juvenile justice system, highlighting the lack of legislative and policy development throughout most of the twentieth century. It introduces the reader to the key legal and policy developments including legislation underpinning the reformatory and industrial school system, the Children Act, 1908, the Children Act, 2001 and the development of the Irish Youth Justice Service. It also explains how the book adopts a governmentality approach, examining the development of juvenile justice in Ireland from four separate perspectives: how the system itself became visible, in terms of its underlying rationalities, in terms of the technologies of government and finally in the context of the forms of childhood identity employed to govern. It finally provides a brief outline of the book itself.

Chapter 4 examines the range of rationalities that underpin the Irish juvenile justice system. By examining numerous official and unofficial reports as well as other relevant historical literature not accessed before in this context, this chapter unpicks the main governmental rationalities that occupy this space and traces the key lines of government. Recent rationalities to emerge in this regard are those of ‘community’ and ‘citizenship’. Rationalities such as social work, probation and psychology began to gain prominence in the 1960s as the dominant religious discourses began to be challenged. Although the reformatory and industrial school system has been replaced, the underlying rationality of reformation remains active within the juvenile justice field. This chapter highlights the fact that the Irish juvenile justice system is currently underpinned by a wide range of rationalities including, risk, social work, community, youth work and psy expertise.

The conclusion firstly reviews the four main lines of enquiry that have been undertaken by the book. It then highlights the manner in which the state has become enmeshed in the activity of governing children and young people. This increased governmentalisation of the state, in the context of the development of the Irish juvenile justice system, has gained significant momentum in the twenty-first century with the ‘rationalisation and restructuring’ of services and the establishment of the Irish Youth Justice Service and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs. In contrast with the state of affairs that existed from the mid-nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first century in Ireland, the state has assumed a central role in governing children and young people within the juvenile justice system. This can be seen in terms of its increased role in the areas of inspection, advocacy, diversion, detention, care and protection.

Chapter 5 examines the technologies that are employed within the juvenile justice system to govern young people. These technologies are classified as either disciplinary or pastoral. Disciplinary technologies usually involve a specific regulation of time and space. This manifests itself in some form of panoptic architecture combined with the day-to-day regulation of time. They are embodied in detention centres, reformatory and industrial schools and special care units where strict regulations govern the organisation and movement of those contained within them. Pastoral technologies, on the other hand, usually involve some element of confession and self-disclosure and entail some form of pastoral relationship with another person. They are generally found in community-based programmes such as restorative justice initiatives, crime prevention initiatives, youth projects and Probation Projects. Until the early 1970s the juvenile justice system was dominated by disciplinary technologies epitomised by reformatory and industrial schools. With the decline of the institutional model of regulation and the ascendancy of the diversionary model, pastoral technologies have come to dominate the justice system with large numbers of young people governed in ‘open’ sites within the ‘community’.