Public interest or private agenda?: A meditation on the role of NGOs in environmental policy and management in Australia

Non-government organisations (NGOs) have come to assume an important role in environmental policy in Australia. This paper considers the institutional impacts of an enlarged and formal role for NGOs in environmental governance. To foreground the analysis that follows, the paper theorises: (i) the structural democratisation of western societies which provides the preconditions for civic approaches to environmental governance; (ii) civil society organisations as political actors; and (iii) the link between non-state associations and democracy. Against this background, the paper surveys some of the ways in which NGOs are being formally involved in environmental policy and management in Australia. The paper proceeds to identify a series of risks associated with these approaches. The paper concludes by calling for a more nuanced and critical appraisal of the role of NGOs in environmental policy so political space might be reserved for the public interest and to ensure that the democratic effects of civil society are not diminished.     

Unsettling connections: transnational networks,development and African home associations

With the transnational turn in the social sciences attention has now turned to ‘global civil society’, ‘transnational civil society’, ‘transnational networks’ and, most recently, ‘migrant’ or ‘diasporic civil society’. Claims are being made about the developmental potential of these new configurations of civil society, and the global connections forged by migrant and diaspora associational life have been reified into things called ‘networks’ for the purpose of enrolling them into development policy. In this article, we challenge the network model through an analysis of transnational Cameroonian and Tanzanian home associations. The idea of a network suggests an overly robust and ordered set of linkages for what are in effect often loose and transient connections. African home associations draw attention to the historically‐embedded and mundane ways in which forms of associational life can be ‘transnational’ outside the formalized structures and Eurocentric development hierarchies created by international NGOs and other development institutions. Although they form largely invisible connections operating outside these hierarchies, African home associations unsettle assumptions about the geography of civil society and its relationship with development. Close attention to the histories and geographies of African home associations reveals that power and agency more often lie with migrants and elites within Africa than with the transnational diaspora.     

A Faithful Alliance Between the Civil Society and the State: Actors and Mechanisms of Accommodating Syrian Refugees in Istanbul

Reception, hospitality and integration are certainly the main challenges of the contemporary world, particularly for countries like Turkey which hosts more than 3 million refugees from Syria. The aim of this article is to analyze the reception practices of civil society organizations and the nature of these bodies’ relationship with state agencies by focusing on Sultanbeyli, a peripheral district of Istanbul. Based on a fieldwork conducted in this district, we present the functioning of various state and non‐state actors in order to uncover not only the role of NGOs, but also the nature of the relations between them and the state in terms of governance of refugee reception in Turkey. We thus argue that the reception of Syrian refugees is undertaken by a “faithful” alliance between the state and certain NGOs, a partnership where civil society assumes a supporting role to the state in refugee reception.     

Invisible Barricades: Civil Society and the Discourse of the WTO

Concerns about the legitimacy and accountability of international institutions have prompted a sizable literature on the potential of civil society to help democratize global economic governance. Attention has primarily focused on the institutional factors impacting civil society participation in global governance. In this article, however, I point to the existence of yet more fundamental barriers operating at the level of discourse. I use critical discourse analysis (CDA) to analyze the discourse of the World Trade Organization (WTO), focusing on a key text in which it attempts to engage directly with the concerns of civil society, supported by a broad range of additional data sources, including documentary materials, interviews, and observation. Drawing on the case of the WTO, I argue that the discourse of global governance institutions can itself act as an ‘invisible barricade’, preventing the meaningful inclusion of civil society in policy debates and deliberations.     

Who Can Help People with HIV/AIDS in Africa? Governance of HIV/AIDS and Civil Society

This paper locates NGOs dealing with HIV/AIDS problems in sub-Saharan Africa into the larger governance context within which they function. This aims at a theoretical shift to assess the aspirational characteristics for the agency of NGOs that are used to legitimate contracting out implementation of internationally designed HIV/AIDS policies to these organizations. The paper interrogates the nature and impact of the governance structure on NGOs and then looks at the implications of this for HIV/AIDS. The questioning is based on a juxtaposition of the perspective of international policy fora in relation to civil society organizations with the way NGO work is perceived by the people at the receiving end of the policies. The paper suggests that as part of the international governance structure, NGOs are limited within the policy frameworks created by this structure. Furthermore, due to their organizational characteristics, NGOs lack capacity to establish sustainable long-term interventions relevant for sociocultural change as perceived by people themselves.     

The role of local government bodies in European policy-making

Since the publication of the White Paper on European governance, COM (2001) 428, the Commission has stressed that ‘people increasingly distrust institutions and politics or are simply not interested in them’, registering the growing gap between the EU and European citizens. In this context, the European institutions have been promoting several initiatives with the aim of facilitating participation in the European decision-making process. The paper will focus on: (1) the relationship between local governance and participation in the European Union; in this frame, the European institutions tried to start a dialogue with local authorities (see the role of the CoR) and the actors of civil society (through both the European Economic and Social Committee and the Transparency Policy); (2) the consequences either in the theoretical field or in practice. On one hand, the initiatives carried out have created the basis for a new model of multi-level governance and ‘participative democracy’; on the other hand the demand for wider participation produces a continuous growth of lobbying by the actors of civil society, whose regulation appears rather difficult notwithstanding the important efforts made through the European Transparency Initiative.     

NGOs, ‘Straddler’ Organisations and the Possibilities of ‘Channelling’ in Indonesia: New Possibilities for State–NGO Collaboration?

The Badan Keswadayaan Masyarakat (BKM—Board for Community Self-reliance) are organisations established by the state as implementing agents of a community-driven development programme in Medan, Indonesia. Members are elected from the local population, but they continue to be supported by, and associated with the state. They are therefore ‘straddler’ organisations: organisations that span the state–civil society divide. This paper seeks to answer two questions. First, can BKMs’ positioning between the state and civil society facilitate new forms of state/non-government organisations (NGO) collaboration, and if so, what is the nature of partnerships established through such collaborations? We find that straddle organisations offer a way for NGOs to collaborate with the state in the achievement of development objectives. Second what is the possibility and desirability of arrangements in which NGOs ‘channel’ funds to BKMs as a means to ensure the sustainability of the latter? We argue that while there is considerable promise in such arrangements, these should be designed around a model of ‘working together’ rather than merely ‘channelling’.     

The new geography of global civil society: NGOs in the world city network

Recent research on the geography of NGOs in Global Civil Society yearbooks has emphasized a north-west European bias. This has been taken to imply that global civil society is but a pale geographical shadow of the power concentrations in global economy and governance. Using an interlocking network model and data on 74 global NGOs with offices across 178 cities, NGO connectivity values for cities show that there is a ‘global South’, especially sub-Saharan African, geographical bias. Nairobi is the most connected world city with respect to NGO activities. This marked contrast to recent received wisdom implies a diffuse network power relationship. To the extent that global NGOs reveal the new geography of global civil society in a space of flows, these results support a positive interpretation for NGOs contributing to an emancipatory global agenda.     

Robert Nisbet and the Problem of Community

The article traces the importance and development of the concept of ‘community’ in Robert Nisbet’s sociological theory. Community and voluntary associations were key components of his view of civil society, because they stood between the individual and the state as bastions of personal liberty against authoritarianism. This idea was taken from Alexis de Tocqueville’s analysis of America democracy and developed by Nisbet as a critique of modern America. The article examines the conservative underpinnings of Nisbet’s sociology and compares his perspective on civil society with the idea of civil religion in J-J Rousseau and Robert Bellah. Nisbet’s perspective is criticised because not all voluntary associations have beneficial effects on civil society. The article considers how far his views on authority and community are still relevant and concludes by making a distinction between ‘sticky societies’ that are hard to join and difficult to leave and ‘elastic societies’ that are easy to join and cost-free to leave, and asks whether community is possible when the Internet has transformed sticky relationships into elastic, thin and dispersed relationships.     

Third Sector Social Policy Research in Australia: New Actors,New Politics

Human service NGOs have become central actors in contemporary welfare states. The broadening of the role of NGOs in Australia as both providers of the human services that are an integral part of the welfare state and as lobbyists or advocates and agents of social change has been widely acknowledged; however, this paper focuses on a recent deepening of the role of human service NGOs in the Australian welfare state by exploring an additional dimension of their growth. Based on a recent study, it is evident that there has been increasing involvement by human service NGOs in the production of social policy knowledge through ‘policy research’ activities. The research mapped policy research activities, policy research infrastructure and policy research resources in human service NGOs, and also captured NGO policy researchers’ perceptions of the rationales and motivations driving NGOs in this direction. It was clear that this shift is based on strong beliefs that researchers located within human service agencies are best placed to produce the kind of knowledge that should form the basis of social policies responding to human need. Other drivers identified by policy researchers suggest, however, that the inclusion of third sector organizations in policy processes cannot simply be understood as the ‘opening up’ or ‘democratization’ of social policy processes to include Third Sector participants. The motivations for human service NGOs moving into social policy knowledge production in Australia are thus complex and diverse. Drawing on the findings of our study, Researching the Researchers, this paper reflects on the implications of this reconfiguration of welfare state politics. Who produces the knowledge that influences, moulds, and even determines the allocation of resources for the delivery of human services, and how this knowledge is produced have been ongoing concerns in social policy scholarship. We suggest, that in the case of human service NGOs in Australia, entry into the field of social policy research can be understood as a reconfiguring of the democratic system of policy determination. It may also be one in which the NGOs become ‘experts’ on citizens’ needs through research practices that are fundamentally less, rather than more inclusive, of the subjects of social policy. The implications of a possible shift in power to influence and in some cases determine who gets what in the welfare state is of deep concern in relation to future models of social protection and ultimately the redistributive and democratic processes of nation states. This paper seeks to question the often-unquestioned ascendancy of the third sector in welfare and asks whether this shift is in keeping with the democratic process and whether it is the best way to determine and satisfy human need.     

Constraining Is Enabling? Exploring the Influence of National Context on Civil Society Strength

This article analyses the influence of national context on civil society strength based on four key dimensions: level of democracy, political stability, rule of law and economic development. Whereas existing studies mainly focus on Western and post-communist countries, we explicitly include developing countries in our analysis. We use associational membership as proxy for civil society strength and include data of 53 countries. Rule of law, economic development and (to a lesser extent) political stability emerge from our multilevel regression models as the main factors affecting civil society membership. Unlike previous studies, we show that these relations are quadratic instead of linear. This means that where existing theories predict a drop in memberships in developing countries, we find a rise. In other words, harsh conditions actually strengthen civil society in terms of membership levels. We argue that this could be the case because reasons for CSO membership are essentially different in the developed and in the developing world. Contrary to theoretical assumptions, democratic rights do not appear critically important for civil society membership.     

Civic Sectors in Transformation and Beyond: Preliminaries for a Comparison of Six Central and Eastern European Societies

The paper presents a comparative analysis of the recent developments in the civil societies in six Central and East European (CEE) countries: the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. Focusing on the level of civil society organizations (CSO), it first discusses the changes in their role as social actors and co-operation within the civic sector itself. Second, it examines the process of civic–public sector partnership consolidation, and third, some of the more recent challenges that the civic initiatives in these countries are facing. It aims to highlight the diversity of patterns of civil society development in the region and argues for a reassessment of its ‘weakness’ thesis.     

No Country Left Behind? Performance Standards and Accountability in US Foreign Assistance

The accountability movement in public policy hails a new programme for US foreign assistance – the Millennium Challenge Account established in 2004 with the aim of ‘picking winners’ for grants among developing countries based on their demonstrated quality of governance. This article uses the MCA's own rating system to dispute its claim to know in advance which countries are best positioned to meet major development goals. High governance scores alone bear little or no relationship to growth in national income or decline in poverty. Attempting to measure public‐policy performance limits the range of choice available to policy‐makers, and may inadvertently limit true performance.     

‘Education for All’ in Cambodia: Democratic Educational and Children’s Empowerment Global Values Facing State Patronage

Among countries in Southeast Asia, Cambodia hosts the most NGOs per inhabitant and is particularly influenced by international education policies. To this extent, Cambodia constitutes a pertinent fieldwork location for reflection upon the role of global governance of education in the ‘global South’. Grounded in long-term fieldwork in a village and primary school, and multi-sited fieldwork with education technocrats and functionaries at the national and provincial levels, this article examines the cooperation between the state and the ‘global-politic’ in the way that it is polarised around the development of the policy ‘Education for All’ (EFA) in Cambodia. I argue that the global actors in education are promoting a kind of ‘moral economy’ of education and that their different programmes, however diverse they may be, are underpinned by common democratic and empowerment values. These values remain fairly ‘silent’, buried beneath technocratic demands, and clash with the informal economy of patronage grafted onto the Ministry of Education. This is an informal economy to which I give some empirical depth. I defend the fact that this moral confrontation is part of the context in which a paradoxical situation has emerged and that some light needs to be shed on this paradox in a country where the post-colonial state of education agrees, to a certain extent, to delegate part of its sovereignty for the benefit of the ‘global-politic’ of education.     

Assessing NGO Empowerment in Housing Development Frameworks: Discourse and Practice in the Philippines

Amid the rise of democratization movements since the 1980s, many governments in developing countries have proactively introduced the ideas of decentralization and devolution into the policy arena. In the pursuit of democratic planning processes where civil society is encouraged to be a part of the formal decision-making system, articles advocating the empowerment of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been included into a series of legislations. This shift was soon reflected in housing development frameworks for the poor, leading to the formulation of a new approach called "enablement." The Philippines' experience for the last two decades follows this line of development. Filipino NGOs are now prescribed as a catalyst to add further dynamism to the improvement of substandard living environments. Empirical findings of this study exemplify that NGO empowerment has been increasingly accelerated by the combination of NGOs' self-endeavors and governments' initiatives. By utilizing the paradigm shift under the enablement approach, NGOs are engaged in the attempt of alliance-formation and network-building to expand their influence. Contrary to ideals, however, NGO empowerment may reveal some adverse effects such as excessive dependency on NGOs and distorted representation by NGOs. Moreover, the professionalization of NGOs is an additional factor which generates hierarchization at the grass-roots level. This study suggests that further research analyze the depth and width to which NGO empowerment has been penetrated in order to precisely capture the processes and consequences resulting in disempowerment.     

Characterising civil society and its challenges in post-apartheid South Africa

Since South Africa’s transition to democracy, civil society has been considered a critical component of new inclusive “democratic” societies, acting to ensure human rights for all. Government and donor agencies require the incorporation of this sector within project documents and programmes. However, is civil society merely a loosely defined term used to satisfy the requirements of project proposals and interests of the state, donors and big business, while not directly addressing the concerns of citizens subjected to macroeconomic risks (e.g. industrial pollution, unemployment and service delivery)? Since the transition, it is mainly established civil society organisations that have become well resourced and who have developed collaborative relationships with the state and industry, which has eroded their accountability to and support from the marginalised communities they claim to serve. Can such organisations then claim to be part of an “authentic” civil society striving for inclusive development? By reviewing contemporary and historical literature on civil society, and through empirical work, this paper argues that there has been a shift in the conception of civil society since the transition, with established forms of support for the grassroots remaining doubtful. Civil society has not effectively engaged with the grassroots to project their concerns about macroeconomic risks, largely due to integration into government/donor institutions. Fragmentation within the grassroots arena has also limited coherent actions against dominant groups. Although civil society can support the grassroots to address their concerns through formal activities, for example, by employing legal strategies, there is no guarantee of success. Connections between an “authentic” civil society and coherent grassroots actions engaging in a combination of strategies (formal and informal) will be required to achieve true democracy.     

Good Governance as Managerialism: Rationalisation and International Donors in Vietnam's Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Sector

Donors’ appreciation of their relationship with Vietnam as a ‘mature development partnership’ requires explanation. Drawing on Rural Water Supply and Sanitation policy, the article argues that the success of donor collaboration with Vietnam is based on Vietnamese political culture coincidentally aligning with a managerialist ‘world culture’, presently extant in the form of neoliberal ‘good governance’ development orthodoxy. The article shows that Vietnam ‘delivers’ rationalised development policy to international donors through its system of state administration and planning, the implementation of target‐oriented planning and the role of statistics in the policy process. The strength of the ‘darling’ partnership is explained in relation to this cultural dimension of legitimacy creation through the performance of rational development planning and administration.     

South African NGOs and the public sphere: between popular movements and partnerships for development

This article examines the widespread notion that post‐apartheid democracy can be deepened and civil society strengthened by NGO activities in the sphere of public debate and participation. I focus on a number of interrelated processes which I argue may compromise NGOs' ability to expand the public sphere: first, donors' overwhelming focus on NGOs as the sole representative of civil society may contribute to a homogenous and institutionalised public sphere; second, the tendency for NGOs to be drawn into partnerships with government bodies and corporate sponsors casts doubt on their ability to open up spaces for critical public debate. By directing attention to popular movements as potentially offering a site for the production of critique, NGOs' relationships to such movements are examined. It is argued that attention must be paid to the processes of NGO‐isation and reformism by which NGOs themselves come to define what civil society should be and may consequently contain counterpublic spheres.     

The politics of NGO development in China

Since the beginning of reform in the late 1970s, the non-governmental sector in China has burgeoned. This paper analyses its development. It begins by examining competing theories regarding the political impact of the NGO sector. Political scientists employing pluralist or civil society approaches suggest that the development of NGOs is an important force in creating pressures for democratisation. In contrast, those employing a corporatist framework seek to illuminate the mechanisms which the state can use to limit and control the political impact of NGOs. The paper also examines the advantages and disadvantages of close state involvement for the impact of NGOs on socio-economic development. It explicates the legal and regulatory framework for NGOs in China in order to illustrate the ways in which the state seeks to preempt and coopt the formation of autonomous organisations, lending support to the corporatist interpretation. The paper includes case studies of NGOs based on interviews with representatives of NGOs and regulatory organs, published documents and press reports. It places China's contemporary experience with non-governmental organisations in context by comparing it with associational life in traditional China, in developing countries in general, and in communist countries in particular. Finally, the paper analyses the significance of the economic reforms and the impending political succession for NGO development.The author is a graduate student in the Department of Political Science at the University of Michigan. This article was first drafted while she was an intern with the Ford Foundation in Beijing. Peter Geithner, Michel Oksenberg, Craig O'Neill and an anonymous reviewer made helpful comments on earlier drafts. The views expressed in the article are the author's and do not necessarily reflect those of the Ford Foundation.     

Politics,Plurality and Problemsheds: A Strategic Approach for Reform of Agricultural Water Resources Management

Starting from the assessment that past efforts at reform in agricultural water management in developing countries have achieved very little, this article argues that a fundamental change is required in the approach to policy and institutional transformation if the present deadlock in the internalisation of ecological sustainability, human development/poverty alleviation and democratic governance into the ‘core business’ of water bureaucracies is to be overcome. ‘Social engineering’ approaches need to be replaced by ‘strategic action’ approaches that acknowledge the inherently political character and the plurality of actors, institutions and objectives of water management — a perspective operationalised here around the notions of ‘problemshed’ and ‘issue network’.