Paper short abstract:

Civil society is a complex category that refers to a plurality of postures, especially in the Global South. This article analyses sources of legitimacy mobilized by environmental CSOs to build advocacy strategies and rise themselves as an important actor within forest governance in Cameroon.

Paper long abstract:

Civil society is a complex category that refers to a plurality of postures and agency, with agency being defined as "the ability to operate or introduce socio-economic and political changes in the arena where actors act through a set of strategies implemented within the structures and spaces where they intervene" (Pairault, Soulé & Zhou, 2023). This paper analyses sources of legitimacy mobilized by Cameroonian environmental CSOs to build advocacy strategies and thus raise themselves as an important actor within forest governance in the context of China-Africa relations by answering the following question: How do Cameroonian environmental CSOs build their legitimacy to take part in forest governance in a context where a wide range of CSOs are competing to be heard?

To answer this question, the paper employs a qualitative research method inspired by the ‘grounded theories’ conceptual framework (Strauss & Corbin, 1994; Garreau, 2012). Using an inductive approach to draw as much as possible research findings from empirical-based research, this paper aims to generate new empirical knowledge about the different strategies mobilized by environmental CSOs to legitimate advocacy in defending local communities against Chinese actors in forest governance. This paper thus discusses the capacity of CSOs to fulfil their role as challengers of the existing power structures (Quantin, 2008) through advocacy (Morariu & Brennan, 2009: 100) toward social and environmental justice in a developing country.