Civil Society and Development: A Critical Exploration 9781685857431

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CIVIL SOCIETY AND DEVELOPMENT

CIVIL SOCIETY & DEVELOPMENT A CRITICAL EXPLORATION JUDE HOWELL JENNY PEARCE

b o u l d e r l o n d o n

Published in the United States of America by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Boulder, Colorado 80301 www.rienner.com and in the United Kingdom by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 3 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 8LU © 2001 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Howell, Jude. Civil society and development : a critical exploration / Jude Howell and Jenny Pearce. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-55587-619-7 (hc : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-58826-095-6 (pb : alk. paper) 1. Civil society. 2. Economic development—Political aspects. 3. Developing countries—Case studies. I. Pearce, Jenny. II. Title. JC337.H68 2001 300'.9172'4—dc21 2001019004 British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. Printed and bound in the United States of America The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992. 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8

Contents

Acknowledgments

vii

1

Introduction

2

Civil Society and Development: Genealogies of the Conceptual Encounter

13

Civil Society, Democracy, and the State: The Americanization of the Debate

39

Civil Society, the State, and the Market: A Triadic Development Model for the Twenty-first Century?

63

Manufacturing Civil Society from the Outside: Donor Interventions

89

3

4

5

1

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Civil Society and Market Transition: The Case of China

123

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Civil Society Discourses and the Guatemalan Peace Process

147

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Civil Society in Regional Perspective: Sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia, and Latin America

177

Conclusion

229

Bibliography Index About the Book

239 255 267

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Acknowledgments

First, we both owe a great debt to the many people, too numerous to list individually, in China, central Asia, southern Africa, and Latin America who over the years have given so generously of their time and knowledge to help us understand the meaning of civil society in their particular contexts. We are grateful to the numerous individuals in development agencies working in the area of civil society, governance, and democratization who spent precious time with us during the summer of 1997 and in subsequent years, explaining their programs and their views on civil society. Some of these individuals have now moved on so we refer here only to their affiliations at the time of interviewing. Particular thanks are due to Jorge Landivar, Inter-American Development Bank; Charlie Reilly, formerly of the Inter-American Development Bank; Junko Chano, the Ford Foundation; William Moody, Rockefeller Brothers Fund; Jon Tomlinson and David Winder, the Synergos Institute; Caitlin Wiesen, Fernando Zumbado, Madhu Bala Nath, and Amel Haffouz, UNDP; Nancy Alexander, Bread of the World Institute; Ramon Daubon, Kettering Foundation; Thomas Carothers, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Leslie Fox; Gary Hansen, Ann Huddock, Cathryn Thorup, Michael Miklaucic, Denis Wendel, and Donald Muncy of USAID; Caroline Harper, Save the Children Fund; Chris Roche, OXFAM; Mike Edwards, formerly of the World Bank; Lisa Veneklasen and Carol Yost of the Asia Foundation; Paul Francis, Amanda Blakely, and Myra Alexander, the World Bank; and Tiffany Brown, CIVICUS. We are also grateful for the valuable comments of an anonymous reviewer, who read our text when it was in less than final form. Particular thanks are due to Julie McWilliam, who provided crucial secretarial and logistical assistance in the final draft stages. Not least, we acknowledge the contribution of Richard Duffy, whose creative presence made this episode both rewarding and fun. Jude Howell Jenny Pearce

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1 Introduction

Civil society has established itself at the beginning of the twenty-first century as a significant, even paradigmatic concept in the field of development policy and practice. Although some critics have decried the conceptual and practical usefulness of civil society for reasons of ambiguity and empirical diffuseness, it has nevertheless proved far more enduring than many of the conceptual fashions or “buzzwords” that ebb and flow in development discourse. Since the late 1980s multilateral development agencies, international financial institutions and nongovernmental organizations, environmentalists, feminists, neoliberals, social democrats, and radical grassroots activists have all, in their own and diverse ways, appropriated the language of civil society. Its appeal to such a wide institutional and political spectrum lies not least in the intellectual and political space it opens up within a context where long-standing dualistic debates about state or market paths to economic development, reform, or revolution have reached an impasse. Ironically, its diffuseness has also been a secret of its success, enabling it to be legitimately claimed by everyone. We will argue that while today’s discourses of civil society continue to draw on themes that were first articulated in the early stages of capitalist development, the concept of civil society is in the process of being reinvented in the contemporary, globalized phase of late capitalist development. The difference between the two epochs is in the range of voices that are expressed and heard in the reinvention process. While by no means inclusive of all potential voices, contemporary discussion about civil society is no longer the preserve of the white, male, property-owning elite as was the case in the late eighteenth century. However, the power behind the distinct voices remains very unequal. We identify a dominant, or “main1

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stream,” perspective and an “alternative” set of views. The leitmotiv of this distinction runs through our book, without assuming that these categories are in any sense monolithic or coherent internally. However, we suggest that if some equality is to be introduced into the reinvention of civil society, some of the fundamental differences between these perspectives must be made visible. In particular, the most powerful, “mainstream,” view, which has behind it the economic weight of large international institutions involved in development financing, must be subjected to rigorous scrutiny. On the other hand, the “alternative” vision is challenged to define its own agenda more clearly, to deal with its own inconsistencies and divisions, so that it can be an effective and confident voice, collaborating with and challenging the mainstream as it deems appropriate. It is a major purpose of this book, therefore, to explore critically the engagement of donor agencies with civil society. In doing so the book highlights the diverse normative assumptions donors make about the relationship among civil society, development, and democratization and the ways in which these assumptions become translated into the practice of strengthening civil society. This volume is thus about the politics of civil society as a normative idea guiding action. It is concerned with both the contestation of the idea of civil society and the unfolding of power relations in the process of implementing projects and programs that strengthen civil society. The constant slippage between civil society as a normative concept and civil society as an empirical reality conceals the intense, ongoing debate about its meaning and enables donors to fund “civil society” as if it is an unproblematic given.1 Our book reflects two deep concerns. First, current donor discourse and practice is in danger of reifying civil society as a natural and historically inevitable component of a developed capitalist economy. Civil society is asked to participate in a new triadic model of development along with the state and the market, in which its primary function is to counterbalance the power of the state. The model neither problematizes the relationship of civil society to the market nor does it allow for civil society to have a role in defining what kind of state there should be. Behind what is claimed to be natural, there are, in fact, many assumptions, which are seriously challenged by empirical civil societies in the real world of the twenty-first century. Second, donor attempts to operationalize the concept in the form of civil society strengthening programs threaten to reduce the concept of civil society to a technical tool and so depoliticize it in a way that paradoxically could lead to a constriction of intellectual and political space. We believe that the idea of civil society above all legitimizes the importance of such an intellectual space, where people in a myriad of different groups and associations can freely debate and discuss how to build the kind of world in which they want to live. Donors can positively reinforce the freedom,

INTRODUCTION

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equality, and autonomy of this space, or, through their financial clout, they can ensure that it merely implements their agendas and visions as efficiently as they can train their program beneficiaries to be. In alerting readers to these two dangers, the book seeks to protect the space for imagining and realizing alternatives to dominant and oppressive political and economic systems. However in providing a critical exploration of development encounters with civil society and cautioning readers of the potential dangers of programs that strengthen civil society, we do not wish to abandon the concept of civil society. We do not share the criticisms of those skeptics who denounce the concept as so vague, empirically broad, and ideologically stretched that it serves no useful purpose as a tool of theory or empirical research. Nor do we agree to abandon the concept on the grounds of an orthodox Marxist critique that reduces civil society to the class relationships of capitalism. We do agree, however, with the view that the capitalist market economy and the social relationships within it have an impact on the empirical world of civil society, creating inequalities and exploitative relationships that weaken or strengthen some groups at the expense of others. Nevertheless, a potential feature of the twenty-first-century reinvention of civil society is to recognize the distinct character of this arena of human sociability as one where power relationships not only are reproduced but also challenged. It is an arena that neither determines nor is determined, but allows debate and contestation to take place with outcomes that are contingent. It is above all an arena where the possibilities and hope for change reside. It creates an intellectual and political opening where different actors can criticize and practically address contemporary social problems. In the context of globalization, where the marginalized, poor, and vulnerable need more than ever a space to articulate and defend their interests and where we all need to discuss how our world can meet everyone’s needs, there the concept of civil society offers a space for critical thought and action.

Civil Society and Development Intersect The current enthusiasm for the concept of civil society among politicians, academics, activists, development theorists, and practitioners of all political shades has to be understood within its historical and political context. Since the 1970s gradual disillusion with the role of the state as an agent of accumulation, development, and economic redistribution has swung the ideological barometer toward a celebration of the market. The failure of many so-called third world states, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, to foster sustainable growth, the growing costs of the burgeoning welfare state in Western Europe, and the economic stagnation and political oppression characterizing

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actually existing socialist states in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and Africa all combined to reinforce the rise of neoliberalism in the 1980s. With the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s the market appeared as the triumphant winner in the longstanding state/market debate. In the political sphere the freedom of the market was consummated in the freedom of the citizen in liberal democracy, which was now vindicated as the only desirable and possible form of political organization. This euphoric celebration of capitalism and liberal democracy and its teleological presumptions was crystallized in captive phrases such as “the end of history,” coined by Francis Fukuyama (1989, 1992). With the supremacy of the market and liberal democracy proven, it was no longer necessary to imagine alternatives. The destiny of humankind had already revealed itself. Civil society entered the conceptual scene here as the force par excellence symbolizing freedom, antistatism, and the defense of democracy. With foreign policy no longer governed by Cold War imperatives, donor governments began explicitly to place governance issues on the development agenda, making human rights, democracy, and accountability conditions for aid (Moore 1993; OECD 1995; World Bank 1992). Northern donors looked to civil society as a key ingredient in promoting “good governance.” In this spirit they developed programs to strengthen and even manufacture civil society. Modernization, development, and good governance required vibrant civil societies, the natural counterpart of privatized markets and liberal democracies. For some politicians, however, support for civil society proved a useful way of cutting aid budgets and reducing public expenditure. The agenda at work here was one of minimalizing state functions and focusing on domestic rather than external priorities, especially in the United States. The resurgence of interest in civil society since the late 1980s and its intersection with development has begun to stimulate a growing body of empirical research and academic reflection, to which this book makes an additional contribution. A great deal of this reflection originates in the United States, and we draw attention to the strength of the U.S. influence on civil society thinking in mainstream development institutions. American political scientist Robert Putnam (1993a, 1993b, 1995, 1996) had a major influence on the debate through his study of civic associationalism in modern Italy. He identified social capital as the commodity that emanates from norms of reciprocity and networks of civic engagement, and he suggested that by generating a good stock of social capital, a strong civil society is what makes democratic institutions work. His work has influenced thinking in major multilateral donor institutions such as the World Bank and among bilateral donors, particularly in the United States. In a similar vein Fukuyama (1996) focuses attention on the importance of trust in providing the social lubricant of large-scale economic organization. Working out of

INTRODUCTION

5

the Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies in Baltimore, Lester Salamon and Helmut Anheier (1996, 1997, 1998, 1999) have been engaged in a long-term study of the role of the “third sector” in economic development. Their primary contribution has been to attempt to quantify and measure the rapidly expanding nonprofit sector in terms not only of its growth but also of its impact on employment, income, and service provision. Putnam, Fukuyama, Salamon, and Anheier have all in different ways given a central place to associational relations in development processes, which counterbalance the logic of state and market power. In 1996 the UK nongovernmental organization (NGO) the International Non-governmental Organisation Training and Research Centre (INTRAC) organized an international conference to reflect on the role of NGOs in civil society, drawing together practitioners from Eastern and Western Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and the United States (Clayton 1996). In the same year Chris Hann and Elizabeth Dunn’s edited collection of essays on civil society from an anthropological perspective was published. By drawing on case studies from Poland, the United States, Albania, Syria, Indonesia, and Japan, Hann and Dunn warned of the ethnocentrism of contemporary civil society debates and called for greater openness to the particular ways in which human communities create their own versions of civil society. Meanwhile, through their detailed empirical study of the rise of civil society in post-Mao China, White, Howell, and Shang (1996) highlighted the particular challenges for an emerging civil society in the context of market transition. In 1998 the Ford Foundation sponsored a three-year study of civil society and democratization in twenty-two countries in the North and South and in transitional contexts. Alison van Rooy’s edited collection of essays published in 1998 was the first attempt to draw links between civil society and development. Using the cases of Hungary, Sri Lanka, Peru, and Kenya, Van Rooy (1998: 204–206) points to some of the errors made by donors in strengthening civil society. One of these concerns the simple assumptions made about the relationship among civil society, free markets, and democracy, an issue that this book addresses in greater depth. Van Rooy (1998: 207) observes that donors can contribute best to social change when they build on pre-existing processes, an observation that the findings of this book too will further endorse. One year later Kees Biekart’s publication on European private aid development agencies in Central America marked a further step in problematizing donor interventions in local civil societies. Biekart (1999: 298–299) draws attention to the crucial issue of guaranteeing the autonomy of local civil society organizations in the context of donor dependency. He raises the additional point that reliance on donor funds can reproduce the internal relations of hierarchy and elitism within local civil society groups and render them less accountable to their mem-

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bers. In distinguishing between those donors who have a history of supporting authoritarian regimes in Central America and those that channeled funds to groups opposing such regimes, Biekart (1999: 297–301) clarifies the different purposes of donor agencies and the politics of donor attempts to strengthen civil society, a theme on which this book further elaborates.

Organization of the Book It is this engagement of development with civil society as both an intellectual ideal and a practice that forms the leitmotiv of this book. The first three chapters seek to unravel the intellectual currents informing mainstream thinking on civil society and distinguish them from what we call the “alternative” vision. The latter is by no means a homogeneous body of thinking, but we suggest that it has been shaped by a different set of intellectual questions and concerns than those that have influenced the mainstream. In this way, we aim to build our case that there can be no single, “natural” conception of “civil society” and question the right of donors to strengthen empirical civil society in the name of a single, unproblematized, and essentially normative interpretation. In Chapter 2 we explore the basis for the encounter of the concept of civil society with that of development. We show how civil society came to be valued by donors because it both highlights the problems of societies as they develop and change and because it offers an apparent solution to those problems, which, crucially, resides outside the state and which international donors could fashion into fundable programs. The concept of social capital offered a specific output that could be observed in civil society strengthening programs and made those programs more convincing to skeptics within donor institutions. However, we suggest that this concept remains intellectually unconvincing. Trust and reciprocity, like the associations of civil society, can contribute positively or negatively to a variety of outcomes. Another intellectual history has shaped an “alternative” view of civil society, which informs the community of activists and NGO members criticizing the present form of global capitalist development. When these groups talk of civil society, they are thinking of their role as agents in reimagining what development is and what it ought to be according to a distinct set of values. We suggest that in their struggles against global development as it currently exists, these groups are reinventing “civil society,” reclaiming it as a means through which capitalism’s critics and capitalism’s losers can participate in the redirecting of global change and development. Chapters 3 and 4 explore two crucial themes in the debate around civil society, one of which, civil society and democracy, is widely acknowledged as part of the debate and the other, civil society and the market, which, we

INTRODUCTION

7

argue, is left out of the debate. The assumed relationship between civil society and democracy is a major justification for donor programs aimed at strengthening civil society. We suggest that the arguments used to support this relationship rely very heavily on U.S. visions of its past that choose to ignore the negative aspects of U.S. democratic practice, such as its overseas interventionism, the power of U.S. corporate capital, and the extreme rightwing associationalism represented by racist groups or the gun lobby, for example. The idea that associationalism can play a positive role in particular contexts cannot be refuted, but these contexts have to be explored and factors such as the particular norms and values informing the associations taken into account. Translating the assumption that a strong civil society equals a strong democracy into aid programs begs the question, What kind of associations? Associations that aim to do what? An alternative set of ideas about civil society and democracy originates in a continental European tradition. This other set of ideas emphasizes the dangers of assuming that civil and political equality can compensate for the social and economic inequalities generated by capitalist market economies. It also reflects differently than other theories on the relationship between state and civil society. Rather than the latter being the only place where collectively defined aspirations can be generated, the European tradition holds that the state should play a role in promoting the common good as well. A great deal of the civil society strengthening approach of donors remains locked into a dichotomy of civil society versus the state. We would argue that there is a strong case for moving beyond this. A strong associational dynamic and a commitment to inclusive, critical debate could be the origins of what Nancy Fraser calls a “strong public” as opposed to the “weak public” of liberal thinking, which stresses the separation of civil society and the state and gives the former a mere opinion-forming and watchdog role (Fraser 1994: 132–136; Fraser 1997: 89–92). Strong publics imply arenas where associations are decisionmakers in issues of public concern and participate in policy formation not just implementation. From strong publics could come new thinking about the state and its role in development and about ways of ensuring that a developmental state is also a democratic state, a debate that needs to be reopened, after having been buried, in our view, by the emphasis on civil society. The relationship of civil society to democracy has formed the main focus of debate and writing about civil society in general and within development research and practice. As a result the dynamic between civil society and the market has remained not just unexplored but more disturbingly unproblematized. Chapter 4 seeks to redress this imbalance by unraveling the complex relationship between civil society and the market. We outline three ideal-type conceptualizations of this relationship, which vary in the extent to which they embrace capitalism as a normative ideal. The first two

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have their roots in the mainstream genealogy of civil society thinking while the third emerges out of the alternative genealogy outlined in Chapter 2. The first framework, the neoliberal approach, celebrates capitalism as the only route to economic development. The state plays a minimal role in the economy and society, maintaining domestic order and external stability, creating a legislative and regulatory environment to protect private property, guarantee economic and political freedoms, and facilitate the market. Here civil society is the self-regulating arena of the private economic individual. The second conceptualization, that of “socially responsible capitalism,” takes the market economy as its starting point but remains alert to its negative effects on social cohesion and solidarity. Civil society is neither neutral and benign nor is it merely a private sphere of interest-seeking individuals. It seeks to counter the atomizing and unequalizing tendencies of global capitalism while retaining the market principle of economic organization. In modifying neoliberalism it recognizes the myth of the self-regulating market. The market requires regulation but in a way that does not rely wholly on the state. Partnerships and dialogue among civil society, business, and government provide a new means of regulation that simultaneously injects a degree of morality into the working of capitalism. The third, “alternative,” vision of how civil society relates to the market critiques the basic principles of capitalism but looks beyond the failed promises of socialist planning. Like socially responsible capitalism it is concerned about the socioeconomic inequities and damaging social and environmental effects of unregulated market forces. More alert to the contradictions of capitalist development, it places much less faith in consensual, partnership approaches as a way of resolving these tensions. For protagonists of the alternative vision the pursuit of profit puts a limit on the extent and depth of partnership. Civil society here is the realm of emancipation, of alternative imaginations of economic and social relations, and of ideological contest. We explore how each of these visions reconciles key tensions around the assumed causality between civil society and capitalism, autonomy and dependence, individuality and solidarity, and inclusion and exclusion. Having examined the complex links connecting civil society, democracy, and the market, the book moves to Chapter 5, which focuses on donor efforts to translate the normative ideal of civil society into practice. This is an ongoing and very dynamic process, and we have continued to stay informed of the debates taking place till the time of writing. However, donors are anxious to prove the effectiveness of this new approach to development and are engaged in considerable evaluation and adaptation to new circumstances in their programs, which a book such as ours cannot capture or predict in detail. Given that the majority of donor funding for

INTRODUCTION

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civil society work comes from the United States, and given the strong influence on “civil society thinking” of U.S. reflections (we would say idealized reflections) on its past, it is worth asking whether civil society in the development context is primarily an “American project.” We also discover important differences among development agencies and between different types of development organizations, such as multilateral development organizations, international financial institutions, bilateral donors, and international (usually Northern) NGOs in the way they engage with the concept of civil society. Not all have specific civil society strengthening programs, and not all have long trajectories of working with Southern NGOs and grassroots groups. Increasingly international NGOs are using the idea of civil society as a way to challenge the harmful social and environmental effects of globalization. This exploration of donor attempts to strengthen civil society raises key issues around the historical and political specificity of the concept and its claims to universality. If donors operate with a blueprint agenda for strengthening civil society, are they in danger of misreading, underestimating, or, conversely, overestimating its potential in different cultural settings? It is to this question that we turn with the regional case studies and overviews in Chapters 6 through 8. Chapters 6 and 7 provide an in-depth focus on the particular cases of the People’s Republic of China and of Guatemala. The case of China illustrates the complex challenges facing an emerging civil society in the context of fundamental market transition and one-party Communist rule. The rapid development of market forces in the post-1978 period allows us to test the assumption abounding in the civil society literature that the market produces civil society. We trace the expansion of a new intermediary sphere in the postreform era, highlighting its rapid burgeoning in the late 1980s, its suppression in the eventful year of 1989, and its contained but persistent development in the 1990s. Notable here is the ambivalent approach of the Chinese Communist Party to this intermediary sphere. On the one hand it looks toward this new associational sphere as a way of redefining its relations with society, reimposing social order, and, in its aspiration toward “a big society, small government,” reducing the economic role of the state. On the other hand it fears the potential political challenge posed by organizing outside and beyond the state, the specter of social chaos, and the concentration of power based on private economy in competition with the partystate. The case of China raises crucial questions around the approach donors might take to strengthen civil society in a nondemocratic context of rapid economic transition. Unlike China the state in Guatemala is much less robust, emerging out of three decades of civil war in the 1990s, finally agreeing on the Peace Accords at the end of 1996. This impoverished, vulnerable economy has

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been heavily dependent on external funding for its peace and reconstruction efforts. Donors have had considerable freedom to implement civil society programs in the country. They have brought to Guatemala all of the intellectual armory of the U.S. civil society debate. Fragile and divided NGOs and grassroots organizations, which had grown out of a struggle for cultural and human rights, social justice, equitable development, and participatory democracy, found themselves implementing donor agendas around service delivery and public policy advocacy. Horizontal debate among these organizations to cultivate common purposes, their relationship with their own social base, and ultimately their radical and critical agenda have all suffered as they have focused on the funding prerequisites of donor programs. These two detailed country case studies are followed in Chapter 8 by a regional overview of the civil society debate in three different contexts, namely, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia, and Latin America. Here we tease out some of the key challenges for both donors in developing programs in these regions and those on the receiving end of such programs. These challenges concern the appropriateness of the focus on urban voluntary associationalism for a primarily agricultural region such as subSaharan Africa, where bonds of blood and kinship remain more powerful social ties than Western-style interest groups. In the case of Central Asia, we explore the doubtful outcomes of Western donor efforts to create civil society in a transition society, and the tendency to ignore the history and cultural dynamics that already exist. In Latin America, grassroots organizations have a long and often tense history in relationship to populist incorporation, clientelist mediation, and mobilization by leftist leaders for their projects of state seizure. Having gained some sense of autonomy during the epoch of military dictatorship, grassroots organizations are now facing donor efforts to encourage a politics of cooperation and partnership. which few seriously believe Latin American governments or businesspeople are ready to accept. Finally we draw together our key findings in the Conclusion and reflect on the potential pitfalls in seeking to extend the normative ideal of civil society to different historical, cultural, economic, and social settings. We caution against the depoliticization of civil society, which can arise all too readily through the technicization of the concept in development programs and projects. We note the different ideological appropriations of civil society, rendering it at once a concept used both to vindicate and to challenge the supremacy of global capitalism. In doing so we underline the politics of civil society—the ways in which civil society as a normative vision is contested, how donor interventions in local civil societies reproduce relations of power between the North and South, and how civil society itself is an arena within which power relations are worked out. In appropriating and applying the discourse of civil society, development theorists and practi-

INTRODUCTION

11

tioners have consciously and sometimes unwittingly contributed to a eulogization of the concept, which has rendered it politically neutral and seemingly natural. In this way, they have promoted one vision of civil society as the vision. In emphasizing the role of civil society as a democratic force against oppressive states, donor discourse has added to the dominant antistatist theme in civil society debates, which in its most partial renderings has reduced civil society to antistate. This has ensured that a serious debate on the problems and prospects of the developmental state has not happened, and the neoliberal critique of that state remains the uncontested paradigm. Moreover this antistate focus has detracted attention away from the despotic tendencies of corporate capital and its potentially damaging effects on civil society. Donors encourage the illusion that civil society is harmonious and that it can only ever act as a force in favor of the liberal—primarily U.S.—model of capitalist development and democracy. We try in our Conclusion to move beyond critique. We recognize that there are many individuals in donor institutions trying to turn the civil society agenda into a progressive instrument. Compared with aid programs of the Cold War years, there is much to recommend a policy approach that favors democracy, human rights, and more participatory development. However, we question whether funding of civil society organizations by large multilateral and bilateral agencies is appropriate. We doubt that they share the values of the “alternative” imaginings that we believe guide the thinking and action of grassroots organizations and many local NGOs around the globe. Such agencies could, however, contribute to creating and protecting the arena of civil society, and ensuring that the poorest and most vulnerable voices have a say within it. They could start by listening to those voices, not as a concession, or to appease or to co-opt, but because those voices have a right to be heard. They could recognize that there are major structural injustices in North-South relationships, that corporate capital has too much control over our everyday lives and choices, and that major resource transfers from the North as well as responsible government in the South are needed if the poorest people on the planet are to gain access to education, health provision, an effective legal system, and sustainable and equitable growth.

Note 1. We draw attention to a major problem we have had in writing about “civil society.” This relates to the linguistic complexity of conveying when “civil society” is being used as a normative ideal and when it is being used as an empirical phenomenon, that is, voluntary associations autonomous of the state and outside the family and the economy. We try where possible to talk of “empirical civil society” when referring to the latter, but we acknowledge the stylistic difficulty about being consistent in this approach.

2 Civil Society and Development: Genealogies of the Conceptual Encounter

Why did development policymakers, practitioners, activists, and academics turn to the concept of civil society in the last decade or so of the twentieth century? Did they do so for the same reasons and for the same purposes? Is this one of many development “fads” or is it part of a sustainable vision that could help the world to address seriously the pressing problems of global poverty, inequality, and exploitation? Our book argues that “civil society” has indeed established itself in a paradigmatic way in the field of development thinking and practice. Our purpose in this chapter is to explore the reasons why and to introduce a key argument of our book: The concept of “civil society” reflects multiple normative understandings of what ought to be the relationship among the individual, the society, and the state. It makes as little sense to claim one relationship between civil society and development as it does to claim that development itself is an uncontested “end-state” of modernization. Recognizing the diversity of meanings in historic and contemporary discourses of civil society, we argue, does not render the concept useless, as some have claimed. It means that we have to think about and discuss civil society, and that precisely is its contribution today. As argued in the Introduction to this book, this process legitimizes the importance of an intellectual space, one in which it is recognized that all individuals through their diverse associations and organizations have the right to contribute to discussions about how to organize their society, deal with its problems, and ultimately define what kind of development is required and desired. If donor civil society programs strengthen this, they are useful and relevant. If they use money and power to promote one vision over any other, they are likely to be negative and counterproductive. 13

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The Encounter The encounter between the two concepts of civil society and development began in the late 1980s. It was a time when development theory had reached what some described as an “impasse” (Schurmann 1996). The postwar “modernization” paradigm in development thinking had made assumptions about what was required for third world countries to make the transitions pioneered by the industrialized first world toward development and democracy. Among these assumptions was the centrality of the territorial and political unit of the nation-state. Both proponents and critics of the paradigm assumed that the nation-state had some role to play in the process, either in facilitating the forces, such as foreign investment, that would help bring development or in regulating these forces as a means of fostering a national industrial capacity. The relative weakness of a national entrepreneurial class in the third world meant that the state played a much greater role in promoting change than was the case during earlier industrialization. This was the historical experience of late developers for at least a century up until the late 1970s. The state was the mechanism through which some countries managed to create industrial capacity of their own. These included Germany and Japan as well as the “newly industrialized countries,” as they became known, of South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore in the latter half of the twentieth century. These basic assumptions on the developmental role of the state were challenged from all sides in the 1980s, in the wake of the international recession and the debt crisis, which acted as a watershed in thinking on development. The state, as it had taken shape in many parts of the South, came to be seen as part of the problem, not part of the solution, to the process of development. It was criticized on many grounds, ranging from lack of accountability and representativeness, militarism and authoritarianism, corruption and venality, wasteful investment and expenditure, distorting market forces, protection of uncompetitive national industries, and the creation of large-scale state monopolies. The impasse in development thinking was not broken at this stage by any new theoretical insights, but by a set of policies informed by a latetwentieth-century variant of classical economic liberalism. The radical left had no comparable set of policies to counter the influence of neoliberalism. Dependency theory had acted as a powerful critique of first world/third world relationships and the assumptions of modernization theory, but it offered little practical policy advice. Revolutionary movements in the third world had been both facilitated and weakened by the superpower conflict of the Cold War. The end of the Cold War, however, brought an end to the opportunities for revolutionary national and global change. The reforming left had always advocated an interventionist and redistributive state. It, too,

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stood on the sidelines and watched while global capitalism rendered such an option anachronistic and reinforced the neoliberal policy agenda. It was not just the state in the global South that came under attack, but also the state in Eastern and Western Europe. Much of the challenge, particularly in the South and Eastern Europe, came from peoples: workers, intellectuals, clergy, poor women, and young people, who rejected the cruelty and corruption of their governments. In Eastern Europe, first in Poland and then elsewhere, “civil society” was reinvented as a conceptual weapon in this challenge. Initially it represented a claim to the right of self-organization in societies where the totalitarian state denied the very principle. Gradually, the idea of civil society paved the way for a separation of the state from economic life and the re-emergence of market economies, but it also made clear the need for a distinct sphere of “civil society” between state and market. In Latin America, where the concept caught the imagination a little later into the 1980s, the antiauthoritarian movements were influenced by a left that looked increasingly to Antonio Gramsci rather than Marx. Gramsci also gave civil society a distinct and separate role from state and market, although his vision preserved the possibility of an anticapitalist resistance. The antiauthoritarian movements in Eastern Europe and the South, which increasingly turned to the concept, felt that civil society expressed their aspirations for freedom as citizens, their right to a voice and to representation. These were not their only objectives. Social and economic inequalities remained a major, if not the major, concern in the South. Meanwhile, economic self-management was a prominent theme initially in Eastern Europe. However, for the first time value was being given to the political sphere and democratization. This paved the way for a dialogue with Western development and financial institutions seeking a new impetus to and agency in development processes. Such institutions, in turn, were coming to value the importance of noneconomic factors in development. The debate, for instance, on the relationship between democracy and development was renewed in the 1980s. In the 1950s and 1960s under the influence of modernization theory, development was seen as a precondition for democracy. A body of literature emerged in the 1980s to suggest that democracy may be a precondition for development (Leftwich 1993: 605– 624). In fact, the evidence did not support either argument very convincingly. The importance of the particular form of the state to development is arguably less than the ability of the state to distance itself from powerful groups in society in order to promote economic change above vested interests (Leftwich 1996). However, this debate marked an openness toward new factors that might explain why societies change and how they change. Interest, for example, began to shift from structures that constrain change to agency that brings it about.

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This shift coincided with serious problems in the implementation and impact of neoliberal policies in the South. Even when such policies were formally adopted under pressure from Western institutions, they were no guarantor of economic growth and development. Africa reached the end of the 1980s after a decade of structural adjustment in worse economic shape than ever. Latin America had mostly recovered from the worst of the crisis of the 1980s, but its growth rate was still far below that of the decades before the crisis. Common to both regions and across the South was the impact of economic liberalism on the poor and vulnerable and the differential cost paid by poor women. The social impact of the new development paradigm was clearly divisive and potentially destabilizing. Social sector reform policies, influenced by neoliberalism and aimed at dismantling even a rhetorical commitment to state provision of universal welfare, began to introduce targeted programs implemented by nongovernmental organizations. This created unprecedented new relationships between donors and NGOs, which would have been inconceivable during the Cold War when NGOs were considered politicized voices of antistate opposition forces. Educated reformers and activists seeking a post-Marxist framework for their future role found their institutional home in the nongovernmental organization rather than the state (shedding its workforce) or the political party (in crisis). Opportunistic NGOs also emerged to take advantage of funding. The number of NGOs mushroomed during the 1980s as they became an instrument in the new policy agenda of many bilateral and multilateral donors. Many NGO activists were skeptical if not hostile to this agenda, but they remained concerned about the poor of their countries. At the same time, many activists had been involved in antiauthoritarian movements and embraced the concept of “civil society” as expressing a role for NGOs beyond that of implementing the donor agenda. Civil society appeared, for instance, to legitimize their protagonism as forces for democratization. By the end of the 1980s, the context was ripe for a shift in development paradigms. Policymakers sought something that would provide a more palatable mission than the individual utilitarianism of neoliberalism, while retaining its core policy tools. Gordon White (1996: 178–219) articulated this when he argued for the need to address the increasing discontent with the “tired old ‘state-market’ paradigm.” But why should this be “civil society”?

Why Civil Society? In its first encounter with development, civil society was used in a very unsophisticated way by development thinkers, practitioners, and activists.

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It often meant NGOs, for instance. Donors and NGOs used the concept quite instrumentally, but had it remained there, it might have disappeared. Since the early 1990s, however, time and effort have been invested in its meaning and importance. Even the large body of writing on civil society that has appeared has not always helped to clarify why civil society could be considered essential to development processes in the South. We would first of all emphasize the distinct intellectual roots the concept has for different organizations working in poor societies of the global South. Multilateral banks, international development agencies, governments, and, it should be noted, some international NGOs all recognize poverty and inequality as problems of today’s global economy. But these are problems, according to the large institutions, that can be solved with the right set of policies. Such mainstream civil society thinking, as we shall call it, draws on a particular history of the concept that makes it relevant to a problem-solving agenda of this type. Increasingly, this perspective appeals for partnerships in the building of a consensual approach to development among civil society, the market, and the state. It is concerned with the risk to social cohesion from the unfettered pursuit of individual gain in the market; indeed, proponents of this line of thought have begun to talk in terms of “socially responsible capitalism.” Meanwhile, grassroots movements and change-oriented NGOs look to an alternative genealogy of civil society, one that articulates a critical approach to the global economy. The “right” set of problem-solving policies is not sufficient, they would argue. Another set of values and priorities should guide the economy and the development process within it. Rather than partnership, they seek to show the embedded power relationships and inequalities that make development an often conflictual rather than consensual process. They query the extent to which the pursuit of commercial interest and gain is compatible with social and ethical responsibility to the wider society. Neither the mainstream nor the alternative approach is coherent or unified. There are multiple discourses and nuances within each one. Nonetheless, we would like to use these ideal types to explore how different concepts of civil society affect policy and practice. In emphasizing, though unfairly dichotomizing, the multiple meanings that exist, we are attempting to underline our point that the concept is normative and should be problematized rather than applied uncritically.

The Mainstream Approach The mainstream approach is influenced by discussions about the role of the individual, the state, and society that date from the ancient Greeks. But the

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rise of capitalism and industrialization injected new factors and problems. Those involved in promoting or understanding capitalist development in the South suggest that civil society may be a component necessary to any society undergoing the painful processes of economic and political change. In other words, civil society can facilitate such change while alleviating some of the pain. The reasons why civil society came to play this role can be traced to the six themes outlined below, which emerged in the course of the transition from commercial to industrial society in the West. These, we argue, still influence thinking about civil society and its potential contribution to capitalist development in the global South. A seventh theme emerged in the 1990s, that of social capital. Proponents of this concept claim to have identified the product generated through civil society, a product that is critical to economic development and democracy. The idea also brought language familiar to economists—capital—into the civil society debate. This coincided with growing interests in noneconomic and microeconomic processes as well as macrolevel economic development. Social capital enabled donors to build greater internal consensus around their civil society strengthening programs. 1. Rise of the Self-Determining Individual The liberal roots of civil society thinking, on which the mainstream approach draws, highlight its antecedents in the emergence of the individual subject freed from bonds of kinship and family. This transition took place gradually in the course of the social and economic changes in Europe that began around the twelfth century. During this period new freedoms to buy, sell, and own, as well as to make personal choices, accompanied the rise of market economies. Aspirations for political liberty and political equality grew with these changes. The theory of natural rights in the seventeenth century was a recognition of these aspirations. Individuals were deemed to have been born with rights; political society or the state was the expression of their social needs, regulating interactions that might otherwise stay in permanent conflict. Medieval visions of the ordered and essentially harmonious social order gave way in the seventeenth century to conceptualizations of humanity’s innate competitiveness and selfishness, mitigated only by its rationality. It is this characteristic only that leads humans to agree to create a social order. The emergence of a body of ideas around the individual and the social contract he enters into reflected an “ultimate divide in political philosophy,” in which love, brotherhood, and mutual aid are relegated to a secondary position (Black 1984: 158). It marked the transition, in the words of C. B. Macpherson (1962), from a “simple market economy” to a “possessive market economy.” The needs and interests of a growing class of male prop-

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erty owners and merchants became the focus of intellectual attention because “society” and “economy” were now distinct spheres outside the state, that is, with an “extra-political identity” (Taylor 1990: 107). Ernest Gellner’s work on civil society is one of the clearest expositions of the liberal position, with many implications for development practitioners (Gellner 1994). Gellner proclaims the distinctiveness of “civil society” to the Western liberal tradition. His work is an effort to distinguish “civil society” as an arena of individual freedom and pluralism from other forms of plurality based on blood and kinship. He emphasizes the “voluntary” nature of civil society, in which individuals choose to associate with one another as something totally distinct from those social bonds into which people are born. His conclusion is clear: Traditional man can sometimes escape the tyranny of kings, but only at the cost of falling under the tyranny of cousins and of ritual. . . . If we are to define our notion of Civil Society effectively, we must first of all distinguish it from something which may in itself be attractive or repulsive, or perhaps both, but which is radically distinct from it: the segmentary community which avoids central tyranny by firmly turning the individual into an integral part of the social sub-unit. Romantics feel nostalgia for it and modern individualists may loath it; but what concerns us here is that, whatever our feelings for it may be, it is very, very different from our notion of Civil Society, even though it satisfies that plausible initial definition of it. It may, indeed, be pluralistic and centralization-resistant, but it does not confer on its members the kind of freedom we require and expect from Civil Society. (Gellner 1994: 8)

For this reason, Gellner identifies the intellectuals of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment who challenged the “normal social conditions of man in the traditional world—government by fear and falsehood” as the “first Westernizers, or perhaps Northernizers” (Gellner 1994: 33). As the Dutch and the English with their relatively liberal polities showed that they could militarily defeat as well as economically outpace the military aristocracies, so “underdevelopment,” though not yet known by that name, was born (Gellner 1994: 33). The idea that civil society expresses the rupture of a society rooted in blood and kinship ties to one whose development rests on the individual freed from such ties remains controversial. Kinship ties are still powerful throughout the South; they are often a means of survival for populations caught in the very uneven process of capitalist development. Anthropologists challenge Gellner’s Western bias and “failure to investigate ethnographic particulars” (Hann and Dunn 1996: 2). And Africanist writers, such as Bayart and others (1986), question the relevance of such ideas of civil society to the African reality. Indeed, a development strategy that prioritizes support for only those associations that reflect the voluntary choice of

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individuals, rather than what they were born into, reflects one particular view of history, modernity, and ultimately normative preferences. 2. Civility, Security, and Progress “Civility” continues to be a core component of the contemporary concept of civil society just as it was in the original formulation of civil society. The latter coincided with the rise of European commercial supremacy in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Travelers brought back tales of the savages of America, Africa, and Australia, and “civility” marked the distinction between such peoples and Europeans. The French philosopher Montesquieu was particularly interested in the differences among types of society, from barbarian to monarchical, despotic to republican. His insight was that savages enjoy freedom in the sense of autonomy from absolute power. Modern liberty, however, involves security grounded in law, or civil liberty, which allows society to develop. Commerce and therefore progress is only possible where there is a regulatory framework accepted by all. Civil society makes conceptual sense, therefore, only if it is accompanied by the rule of law that is accepted by all citizens as a legitimate regulatory framework. This is a serious problem in many parts of the global South (as well as other regions of the world), where the rule of law is often absent or open to corruption and partisan influence. “Uncivil” groups who do not accept any regulatory framework proliferate. Criminal mafias and private armed groups are a feature of many societies where uneven development, weak states, and personalistic power struggles prevail. Many civil society strengthening programs are concerned therefore with reforming judicial systems as well as how pressure from organizations within society can contribute to greater civility. 3. The Rebirth of Political Virtue Within Civil Society Classical republicanism valued the idea of “political virtue” as the quality that made individuals identify their own interests with those of society as a whole. The ancient Greeks conceived the polis as the arena where men became moral beings and put the common good before their own. Montesquieu, however, identified a problem with the rise of both commerce and the rule of law. There was no incentive for the individual to retain the concept of “political virtue” (Sher 1994: 381). The rule of law provided the security the individual needed to accumulate wealth. Adam Ferguson took up this problem in the late eighteenth century. Ferguson argued that political virtue is not, in fact, abandoned when the pursuit of wealth becomes the driving force of individuals. Civil society emerges with commercial society as the highest stage of social development, part of an

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evolutionary scheme that begins with barbarism. Political virtue re-emerges with the rise of civil society in a new guise. No longer does it hold society together; political virtue now plays a role in preventing “civil society” from falling apart (Sher 1994: 398). The rebirth of virtue within civil society is thus deemed to counteract the negative tendencies of the division of labor within commercial society, namely the inequalities and corrupting tendencies unleashed as individuals pursue their own self-interest. Such problems have persisted down through the centuries. The idea that commercial society and capitalist development need not reinforce atomization and division but can instead foster a new ethical order is an ingredient of contemporary conceptualizations of civil society within the mainstream. Promoting ethical capitalism, by harnessing the private sector for philanthropic projects for example, is a growing feature of civil society thinking among development practitioners. 4. Emergence of a Public Sphere The modern state, which emerged in Europe in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, encompassed the idea of a depersonalized state authority, that is, distinct from the interests of the prince or absolute monarch. At the same time, people who previously confined their activities to the household “came together as a public” (Habermas 1992: 15). It was a moment, in the words of Hannah Arendt (1990: 46), when “mutual dependence for the sake of life and nothing else assumes public significance and where[in] the activities connected with sheer survival are permitted to appear in public.” This critical moment meant that economic life had become a publicly relevant issue. The limited group responsible for it, that is, the male bourgeoisie, Habermas (1992: 28) argues, began to use their reason publicly to claim not “rule” itself, but the right to debate and challenge the principles on which “ruling” took place, subjecting it to standards of “reason” and “law.” Feminists have pointed out how gendered this process was, in that the household remained a private sphere inhabited by women who were not expected to play a role in these public debates (Fraser 1994: 109–142). The process by which this public sphere has been democratized and broadened remains incomplete from a global perspective. It has taken the form of intense political struggles by groups excluded on grounds of gender, class, and race or ethnicity throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The principle of inclusion and equality of civil and political rights has mostly come to be accepted and is certainly an agenda of donor agencies. Meanwhile, the importance of publicity, public opinion, and public accountability are especially acknowledged in the debate on civil society among development practitioners. Additionally, the struggle for an autonomous

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public sphere was part of the challenge of antiauthoritarian movements against the state in Eastern Europe and the global South in the 1980s. 5. Reconciling the “Particular” and the “Universal” Adam Ferguson’s concern (along with other philosophers and thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment) about retaining a moral impetus as commercial society evolves was a core issue for the German philsopher Georg Hegel. Even at the beginning of the twenty-first century, it remains a critical problem in capitalist development. Hegel observed the early stages of this challenge in eighteenth-century Europe, writing against the background of the first “modern revolution,” that of France in 1789. The “estates” and “orders” that had been the mechanism of representation under absolutism were buried. In their place grew a society of individual citizens, whose freedom, Immanuel Kant had argued, was guaranteed in terms of universal rights. Hegel witnessed the enormous potential this individual freedom generated. He also saw the limitless needs, desires, and wants it unleashed, which could only be unevenly fulfilled, given the inequalities and disparities in the world. Hegel articulated one of the dilemmas of modern history, as Charles Taylor (1979: 31) has argued. He identified the two great disruptive forces which threaten the modern state. The first is the force of private interest, inherent in civil society and in its mode of production, which constantly threatens to overrun all limits, polarize the society between rich and poor, and dissolve the bonds of the state. The second is the diametrically opposed attempt to overcome this and all other divisions by sweeping away all differentiation in the name of the general will and the true society of equals.

Hegel was unwilling to sacrifice subjective freedom, which he saw as necessary to ethical life, in order to abolish the inequality he understood to accompany inevitably the growth of the market economy. While his search for ethical unity led Hegel toward the state as its highest embodiment, he built civil society into his critique as a vital moment in the reconciliation of the differences and divisions of modernity. In this way, he was the first to establish self-consciously civil society as an arena, along with the state and the market, that is at least in part integral to the infrastructure of the Western project of modernity. For Hegel, the process of ethical maturing passes through particularity, which encompasses differences and divisions. As the individual leaves the family and its ethical cohesion for a world wherein individuals pursue diverse interests for personal gain, he or she also creates new social bonds. A complex network of corporations and private associations emerges along with civil law and equal justice. Civil society is at one and the same time

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the problem (egoistic individualism of commercial self-interest) and part of its solution (social integration). The highest level of ethical life and the only truly universal one, for Hegel, is the state. In this sense, civil society would always be to some extent limited by its particularities. There is some controversy about how Hegel envisaged the latter, whether he looked back to medieval corporate doctrine and the estates of that period or forward to a conception of modern pluralities. His stress on voluntary associationalism seems to anticipate contemporary assumptions. Jean Cohen and Andrew Arato (1995: 109–110) argue that his emphasis on the role of free public participation suggests that at some level the institutions of civil society were for Hegel also the pillars of public freedom. The critical element for our genealogy, however, is that civil society became in Hegelian thought a distinct arena between the family and the state, although simultaneously the sphere of individual commercial relationships and of the new social bonds of individual economic actors. Universality can be developed through civil society, despite the atomizing potential of the commercial self-interest that shapes it. Reflecting the uneven pace of capitalist development, societies of the global South are driven by a very broad range of particularities, of which modern pluralities are only one. To what extent does Hegel’s path to universality involve the suppression of all tradition and local culture? Does the emphasis on civil society lead to an inevitable commitment to the Western logic of modernity? These are critical and complex questions, rarely problematized for development practitioners within the mainstream. Fred Dallmayr has suggested that Hegel’s concern with the reconciliation of the particular and the universal does not inevitably mean the disappearance of indigenous culture and tradition. Modern divisions can be a means by which “tradition can be imaginatively recuperated.” He argues, “Third world countries enter the path of modernization not for modernization’s sake but precisely to recover their distinctive life forms—just as Western modernity only gains meaning through encounter with the non-West” (Dallmayr 1993: 9). Many indigenous associations operating in the world today have become a strong voice in defense of traditional cultures while accepting participation in modern empirical civil societies. The extent to which these cultures can retain their particular identities while embracing a modern universalism is a question for empirical investigation and a challenge for those embedded in the alternative genealogy as well as those in the mainstream who would not consciously admit to facilitating cultural destruction. 6. Economic Development and the Problem of Social Solidarity Industrialization brought more rapid social changes to nineteenth-century Europe than anything that had occurred in the course of previous centuries.

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A new discipline—sociology—sought to understand the problems that emerged. These sociologists, such as Emile Durkheim and Ferdinand Tönnies, added new elements to the genealogy of mainstream thinking on civil society. However, they also built on themes identified by the philosophers and economists of the previous century. Nineteenth-century sociologists were particularly concerned with the contrast between the “natural communities” of pre-industrial societies and the “unnatural order” that emerged with industrialization. How to maintain social cohesion as societies industrialized and urbanized is not unlike the eighteenth-century proposition to reconcile the individual self-interest unleashed by commercial activity with the common good. The sociologists often expressed their concerns in terms of dualisms, for instance community and individualism, sacred and secular, status and social class, power and authority. The most famous dichotomy of the century is arguably that of Tönnies, who contrasted community (Gemeinschaft) and association (Gesellschaft), publishing a book on that topic in 1890. Tönnies saw Gemeinschaft as the “complete unity of human wills” apparent in family, village, and city. Gesellschaft, on the other hand, he saw as a “group of human beings which live peacefully with each other and yet are not essentially united but essentially separated,” such as could be seen in large cities, nations, and the world (Atoji 1984: 17). The former expresses instinctual needs and habit, the latter a rational instrumentality. Contemporary civil society practitioners look to strengthen the latter, not the former. This was not Tönnies’s own solution to the dualism he identified. He was an ethical socialist and belongs to that extent in our alternative genealogy. He did not advocate a return to community, either, as some of his compatriots in post–World War I Germany demanded. Instead he saw the building of a living principle of cooperativism (Genossenschaft) as holding the “most promising community-like (gemeinschaftlich) content [when compared to] associational (gesellschaftlich) development” (Atoji 1984: 18). This Tönnies observed in the cooperative movements that developed toward the end of the nineteenth century (Atoji 1984: 18). Durkheim, on the other hand, did not accept Tönnies’s assumption that Gesellschaft is a society wherein people cooperate but which lacks the community of beliefs present in Gemeinschaft. He was very interested in classifying distinct forms of social solidarity and in how these forms change between less developed and advanced societies. In clan and tribal societies, for example, Durkheim identified a low level of individuality but a cultural and moral cohesiveness. Durkheim used legal codes as an external index to measure changes in societies. Traditional societies use repressive law to punish violations of universally accepted and known moral codes. The “mechanical solidarity” of such societies contrasts with the processes of individuation and division

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of labor, which take place as societies develop. There is no longer a common universal set of accepted values in the group. A new form of solidarity can emerge, however, which Durkheim called “organic”: one that assumes difference between individuals and their beliefs and actions (Giddens 1971: 76–77). According to Durkheim, the normative bonds of organic solidarity can ultimately rectify the anomie produced by the incomplete transition from mechanical solidarity and by the disruptions of the new division of labor. Legal codes now appeal to the duties and obligations of the transgressor. Despite individuation, moral currents remain that emphasize some universal ideals of human development, and these make integration possible in modern societies. In the mid-twentieth century, the American sociologist Talcott Parsons drew on Durkheim and Tönnies in his ambitious attempt to synthesize individual action with large-scale social systems and their subsystems. Social interaction has a systemic dimension, he noted, contributing to the equilibrium of the “whole.” The societal subsystem, for instance, performs an integrative function, similar to some understandings of “civil society.” It institutionalizes the values and norms that build a consensual “whole.” In some respects Parsons echoed Hegel in identifying the ultimate reconciliation between individuation and integration within modernity. In Parsons’s case this was equated with the fulfillment and expansion of postwar American modernity, a bias that the next chapter will explore a little further in relation to assumed connections between civil society and democracy. Civil society practitioners’ growing emphasis on a form of triadic unity among civil society, the market, and the state reflects an ongoing functionalist undercurrent within mainstream thinking not so far removed from the Parsonian framework. 7. Social Capital and Civil Society: Generating Trust and Cooperation in Capitalist Economies In the 1990s, a new concept—social capital—was added to thinking about civil society. The concept focused attention on a specific output that, some suggest, is generated from civil society or the networks of civic engagement civil society encompasses. An increased stock of social capital could be realized through civil society strengthening programs. The concept has therefore been given considerable weight by development practitioners and policymakers. Controversially, this single idea claims to explain both economic and political outcomes. In this chapter we discuss how it came to be linked to economic development and conceived as the “missing link in development.”1 Chapter 3 will discuss how social capital is understood to contribute to democracy, and particularly “making democracy work” (Putnam 1993a).

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Robert Putnam (1993a) was most influential in developing the idea of social capital in the 1990s, drawing on the original use of the concept by James Coleman (1988) and the much earlier work of Edward Banfield (1958).2 Banfield’s study of Montegrano in Italy had explained the extreme backwardness of this small rural village by pointing to the “inability of the villagers to act together for their common good or, indeed, for any end transcending the immediate material interest of the nuclear family” (Banfield, quoted in Putnam 1993a: 91). Banfield’s term amoral familism was his description of a situation in which social solidarity does not extend beyond the nuclear family, to the detriment of the generalized cooperation that enables societies to progress. Without the latter, according to Banfield, it is the state that compensates for the deficit in civic solidarity and provides minimal public goods. Banfield’s theme echoes that already discussed in our genealogy, that is, the role of social solidarity in processes of economic change. However, in this case it is the predominance of family and kin rather than the pursuit of individual self-interest that complicates and in Banfield’s case retards economic progress. Just over a decade after Banfield’s 1958 study, Putnam began his work on Italy and its bifurcation between “northern civicness and southern clientelism.”3 He gathered an impressive body of evidence based on twenty years of monitoring twenty regions of Italy. He traced the impact in different social contexts of the regional reform introduced in 1970 and identified the existence of networks of civic engagement, or the density of local associational life (civil society), as the critical variable in explaining the differences in regional institutional and economic performance. Social capital, for Putnam, is the output of such civic associationalism. In other words, civil society and civic engagement produce an identifiable stock of norms, trust, and networks, an accumulation of social capital that enables development to take place. Putnam makes clear that he considers his work relevant to development practitioners: Where norms and networks of civic engagement are lacking, the outlook for collective action appears bleak. The fact of the Mezzogiorno (southern Italy) is an object lesson for the third world today and the former Communist lands of Eurasia tomorrow, moving uncertainly towards selfgovernment. The “always defect” social equilibrium may represent the future of much of the world where social capital is limited or nonexistent. For political stability, for government effectiveness, and even for economic progress social capital may be even more important than physical or human capital. (Putnam 1993a: 183)

Furthermore, Putnam writes, Working together is easier in a community blessed with a substantial stock of social capital. . . . The social capital embodied in norms and net-

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works of civic engagement seems to be a precondition for economic development as well as for effective government. Development economists take note: Civics matter. . . . Social capital is coming to be seen as a vital ingredient in economic development around the world. Scores of studies of rural development have shown that a vigorous network of indigenous grassroots associations can be as essential to growth as physical investment, appropriate technology, or (that nostrum of neoclassical economists) “getting prices right.” (Putnam 1993b: 35–42)

Development economists and practitioners have taken Putnam’s arguments very seriously. The reasons for this have been explored by Ben Fine (1999), a strong critic of the concept and skeptic about the purposes of its adoption by the World Bank and other development institutions. He roots this adoption in the emergence of a post-Washington consensus promoted by former World Bank senior vice president Joe Stiglitz. In the 1990s, Stiglitz challenged the neoliberal ideology that underpinned the so-called Washington consensus of the previous two decades and openly acknowledged the prevalence of market imperfections, drawing attention to the “microfoundations of macroeconomics” in which such imperfections are rooted. This spawned an interest in extending microeconomic principles to a wide range of areas previously left outside the considerations of traditional economics. Institutions, family behavior, customs of all kinds have come under scrutiny, reinforcing the tendency already identified of development studies and policy institutions to recognize the importance of noneconomic factors in development. The concept of trust, for instance, became the subject of a wide number of studies as one of the critical components of social capital.4 Our genealogy of themes that feed into thinking about civil society has become more focused, even microscopic. Claus Offe attributes this to the ongoing “insufficiencies of social coordination that remain even after money-driven market mechanisms, democratically legitimated law and law enforcement, and theoretically validated, systematized and formalized knowledge are combined and deployed. This is so because successful coordination depends upon cooperation, and the latter upon the presence of perceptions, dispositions, and expectations that induce agents to cooperate” (Offe 1999: 43). In other words, capitalist development still cannot resolve the fundamental tension between individual accumulation and social cohesion. The ideal of “an intelligently regulated market economy” is incomplete (Offe 1999: 43). Development economists are less inclined to accept that it is civil society per se that can reconcile this tension, but they are receptive to the language of capital as a resource for development and for relieving market imperfections. This receptivity, argues Fine, still has a lot to do with the ongoing hostility toward the idea of the developmental state and unwillingness to consider evidence on its contribution to development. Self-regulating mechanisms, not state intervention, must therefore be the starting point

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for dealing with problems of social cohesion, and social capital is the trust and cooperation generated by everyday civic interactions. Fine’s arguments question the motivation behind the interest in social capital of multilateral institutions. However, there is also a large body of criticism of the concept itself that argues that social capital is an imprecise, ambiguous, and ultimately unconvincing tool (Evans 1996; Foley and Edwards 1996; Hadenius and Uggla 1996; Levi 1996; Portes and Landolt 1996; Hariss and de Renzio 1997; Hyden 1997; Putzel 1997; Woolcock 1997; Fine 1999). A number of the criticisms in fact are equally applicable to problems in the use of the concept of civil society itself. There is a strong methodological and empirical critique particularly from Italian scholars.5 Others have questioned the assumption that social capital generates an inevitable public good. For the originator of the concept, James Coleman (1988), social capital is an unwilled outcome of institutionalized social interactions that then becomes available to individuals.6 For Putnam social capital becomes a property of groups and even nations, an evolution of the concept that has generated many problems in just how this property transfer might take place. Putnam assumes that a positive good for society necessarily results from a strong endowment of social capital that is externally “tapable,” in a way that is not defined, by society as a whole. Harriss and de Renzio (1997: 926) argue that norms of trust may be shared by those within a group or network. The ability to benefit from these norms by those outside the group is not a feature of social capital itself but of the actions of those who seek to draw on it. Often these norms are negative, including “conspiracies against the public,” such as criminal mafias (Portes and Landolt, quoted in Harriss and de Renzio 1997: 926). Doubt has also been expressed around the assumption that social capital contributes to development by providing the conditions for entrepreneurship and risk-taking. Businesspeople may reduce the risks of operating in the marketplace from imperfect information and other uncertainties by creating networks of trust. Putzel (1997: 939–949) points to the example of overseas Chinese business networks in East and Southeast Asia. However, the same example illustrates that the Chinese also excluded many indigenous groups in many lines of trade. A totally distinct interpretation of what is generated by social networks might argue that some forms of these can actually inhibit entrepreneurial culture and the kind of dynamic of accumulation those hoping to use the concept to foster development seek (Moore 1997: 287–363). Lack of attention to power and social differentiation is a major lacuna in the social capital literature and is also the root of the homogenizing conceptualization of civil society itself. How does social differentiation affect the ability of poor groups in society, who might have strong solidarity bonds among themselves, to influence the public, political sphere? There

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are many associative forms among poor women in particular but also among poor men that could be said to generate social trust and reciprocity, often of a noninstrumental kind. All societies are endowed with some social capital in the sense of forms of cooperation and trust. As Portes and Landolt (quoted in Harriss and de Renzio 1997: 928) argue: “There is considerable social capital in ghetto areas [of the United States] but the assets obtainable through it seldom allow participants to rise above their poverty.” The significant variables are those that help us to understand how action generated by solidarity bonds at the social level can be effective at the economic and political (that is, state) levels and make possible changes in favor of the poor and powerless (Evans 1996: 1124). A number of critics have pointed to the fact that Putnam’s argument contains an unsatisfactory circular logic, which has considerable implications for policymakers. (Harriss and de Renzio 1997: 924). “Norms of generalized reciprocity” give rise to social capital, which in turn generates cooperation and reinforces reciprocity. However, where societies (such as southern Italy) do not have the effective historical and cultural antecedents, their ability to develop these norms is limited. As Claus Offe (1999: 85) expresses it: “All we know from recent debates on social capital is that it thrives where it is favored by supportive local traditions—and doesn’t where it isn’t. . . . Is it conceivable that the ‘social capital’ of trusting and cooperative civic relations can be encouraged, acquired, and generated— and not just inherited?” (emphasis in original). This latest theme in the genealogy of civil society thinking by mainstream institutions and actors has not generated a very precise or conceptually coherent policy tool, but one based on a very simplistic causality. It has, however, provided development practitioners, who are not concerned with intellectual precision as such, with an instinctively appealing concept derived from a “scientific” study of northern and southern Italy. The danger is that it draws attention away from the many structural factors that underpin poverty and underdevelopment and misses or downplays the real problems. As Sidney Tarrow (1996: 396) has said in his review of Putnam’s book, If this reviewer is correct, and if the absence of civic capacity is the byproduct of politics, state building and social structure, then the causes of the malaise in U.S. cities or in Third World agriculture are more likely to be found in such structural factors as the flight of real capital, in the first case, and the instability of commodity prices and the presence of exploitative governments, in the second. In north Philadelphia and the Sahel, as in southern Italy, while the indicators of malaise may be civic, the causes are structural. If my critique of Putnam in southern Italy can be extended as far as his theory, then policy makers who attack the lack of social capital by encouraging association would be attacking the symptoms and not the causes of the problem.

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The concept of social capital fails intellectually to provide a convincing missing link in development or to measure precisely what civil society contributes to development. Like the associations of civil society, trust and reciprocity can contribute negatively or positively to a variety of outcomes. Identical associational forms do not generate identical economic or social results. Economic growth and change can disrupt networks of trust and cooperation, enhancing “economic capital accumulation for some and social decapitalization for others.”7 To suggest that there is a simple unidirectional flow is not empirically or conceptually sustainable. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that civil society remains a normative ideal for Western liberal institutions, whose translation into a neutral policy instrument for development is entirely problematic, even when couched in more focused terms around social capital. In addition, as the section on the alternative genealogy explains, it is also exposed to a normative critique from an entirely distinct tradition. Its claims to universality are simply untenable. Summary: Civil Society in the Mainstream Perspective We can summarize the previous themes and their contribution to thinking about civil society and development from the mainstream perspective in the following way: • Development and change take place through the emancipation of the individual from the tyranny of kings, cousins, and ritual. • Societies develop and commerce flourishes when individuals abandon the notion of freedom as autonomy in favor of freedom as security grounded in law. Civil law and civility itself distinguish more developed from less developed societies. • The danger that the pursuit of personal gain will end the willingness of individuals to subjugate personal greed to the good of everyone is not inevitable. • Individuals responsible for the newly distinct economic sphere acknowledge a mutual dependence for the sake of human production and reproduction. These issues are no longer private but public, a gendered division that creates a new public sphere of social interaction. In this sphere, public opinion develops as does the right to question the principles on which any government rests its right to govern. • Within this public sphere, new associational bonds are created by those limited few who occupy it. These associational bonds within a distinct and autonomous public sphere are described as “civil society.” They are the origins of new forms of social solidarity or integration that reconcile the individual pursuit of self-interest with a common or public good. Democratizing this exclusive public

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sphere has been an ongoing process since the eighteenth century. The universal right to political participation came to be recognized only in the course of struggles by poor men and women in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; extending this right in the South is part of the contemporary civil society program of donors. • Modern, industrial societies create a division of labor as well as social inequalities. They destroy remaining natural bonds and common moral codes. The threat to social cohesion from the resulting alienation, anomie, and loss of traditional solidarities can be overcome by new forms of solidarity and moral norms. These enable modern societies to synthesize individuation and integration. In this way, economic growth and social cohesion are reconciled, creating a stable social order. • Trust and cooperation in capitalist economies facilitate social cohesion. These phenomena are accumulated as stock of social capital through networks of civic engagement and norms of reciprocity cultivated within civil society. Donors can help build this stock of social capital in the South through civil society strengthening programs, thus contributing to development and as Chapter 3 will explore, also democracy.

The Alternative Genealogy The alternative way(s) of thinking about “civil society,” we argue, derive from a very distinct set of intellectual roots and reflect different themes than those of the mainstream. Alternative modes emphasize values other than those that came to predominate with the rise of capitalism and thereby contribute to a critique of capitalism that still motivates many international and local nongovernmental development organizations as well as grassroots organizations in both the North and the South. For these organizations, the definition of civil society tends to reflect agency in the building of development processes based on these alternative values. In so doing, they arguably helped to shift the meaning of the concept away from its liberal, eighteenth-century roots to a distinct and new normative content by the end of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, this shift remains largely untheorized and mostly implicit. It is composed in practice of a multiplicity of visions, and the following discussion highlights only some of its most visible components. Mutuality and Solidarity Anthony Black (1984: 44) in his study of guilds and civil society in European political thought from the twelfth century to the present makes

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the case that the distinct values represented by both concepts “flowed like red and white corpuscles in the bloodstream of medieval and Renaissance thought.” The guild of medieval Europe was among the first truly voluntary associations. It was the “seedbed of fraternity as a political belief,” a place where the individual achieved freedom by belonging and where the values of friendship, loyalty, and mutual aid were emphasized alongside the defense of the “craftsman’s” honor, the enforcement of standards of craftsmanship, and ultimately the exclusionary protection of the craftsman’s interests. The values represented by guilds, however, did not survive the rise of the values of civil society, of personal freedom and political equality. Black argues, however, that guild values did survive on the periphery, among for instance the trade unions and cooperatives that emerged in the nineteenth century. Politically they were articulated in their most extreme form by anarchism, which advocated that society should rest on the principle of mutual aid, rejecting all forms of centralized coercive authority. The alternative genealogy draws on these values, viewing the bonds of kinship and community not as a primitive and ritualistic constraint on development but rather the positive source of solidarities that should, and could, restrain the individualism and egoistic greed made rampant by capitalist development. The tension between individual freedom and community remains, however, one of the unresolved difficulties in this perspective. What happens when individuals have choices about the groups they belong to rather than are born into? The outcomes are not necessarily in favor of a “common good.” Many international and local development NGOs in search of a reconciliation of the tensions of capitalist development promote organizations that place the common good over individual accumulation. For instance, they promote cooperatives or socialized forms of economic production in the South as part of such a philosophy. The problem of all such experiments has been their survival where a competitive economic logic prevails. However, the belief that human beings can be motivated by helping each other as much as by the promise of individual gain remains an enduring motivation behind many such organizations as well as grassroots movements. Whether this sense of the benefits of community can be preserved within capitalism or whether it demands a different kind of economic logic is one of the great debates and sources of division among such groups. Class, Conflict, and Power The alternative genealogy, unlike its mainstream competitor, acknowledges the importance of social differentiation, power, and conflict in its conception of civil society. Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the eighteenth century underscored the inequalities of ownership that characterized civil society.

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But it was Karl Marx who advanced and developed this idea theoretically. Though many of the most active proponents of an alternative civil society perspective in development are “post-Marxist” in that they tend to downplay class per se, they in fact owe a great deal to Marx. If they do not talk the language of class, they do talk the language of inequality and social justice. Writing within the context of the rise of industrial capitalism and the struggles against it in nineteenth-century Europe, Marx looked back neither to the utopian ideals of the small rural community and the corporate, medieval guild nor forward to the producer or consumer cooperative fighting to survive in a capitalist world. He accepted modernity like many of the philosophers and sociologists of his times, but unlike Hegel or Durkheim he saw no prospect for a reconciliation of its tensions, tensions that presupposed the continuation of capitalist social relationships. For Marx, civil society is the “theatre of all history” (Marx and Engels 1970: 57). After all, civil society is where the “real relationships” of history, rather than the “high sounding dramas of princes and state” take place. While civil society has always existed, it is an arena fully realized only in social formations dominated by the capitalist mode of production and only alongside the existence of the bourgeoisie. Civil society is where the bourgeoisie exercises its social and economic power, and the state is an artificial unity that gives true freedom only to those who own the means of production. Marx’s view of civil society led him to reduce it to the structure of economic power. This in turn contributed to the left’s cynical interpretation of liberal democracy as merely an expression of that power and a tendency to instrumentalize social organization rather than value civil society as an autonomous terrain of political action.8 But the idea that civil society is an arena riven by the inequalities and exploitation generated by capitalism has survived, although in addition to class new forms of social differentiation around identity have been recognized that are not reducible to capitalism. These new forms provide the basis of a major critique of the homogenizing and harmonizing visions of civil society within the mainstream. In particular, the critique informs a rejection or skepticism toward the mainstream’s stress on consensus rather than conflict and on influence rather than power. Scholars and activists taking this position also criticize the mainstream for ignoring the structural factors that impede development and change in the South. An Arena of Challenge and Contestation The alternative genealogy owes a great deal to the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, writing in the early twentieth century. He did not really influence thinking until the 1970s and 1980s, as orthodox forms of Marxism came

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under question on the left. Gramsci was struck by the fact that while liberal democracy offered only a limited political emancipation, as Marx had argued, it had nevertheless come to be accepted by large sectors of the working class. No longer could the advanced capitalist economies be reduced to simple dichotomies between civil society (class relations and structure of capitalism) and the state. Civil society had distinguished itself as a realm in which people associate in a myriad of forms and for a variety of purposes. The intermediary and corporate bodies of the late medieval period were entirely different than the modern pluralities around workers rights and cultural interests. Modern churches had abandoned their earlier role in the state and come into civil society; political parties had emerged as the main organizational form for intellectuals (Cohen and Arato 1995: 146). Civil society was an arena in which the state attempted to persuade the exploited classes to accept the way society developed under capitalism as natural and legitimate. It tried to convince people, as well as coerce them at times, to accept and believe in the system that oppressed them. Gramsci contrasted the strong civil societies of advanced capitalism in the West with those elsewhere, notably Russia before the revolution. The former he described as “fortresses and earthworks,” the latter as “primordial and gelatinous” (Gramsci 1971: 238). The Gramscian contribution to the alternative genealogy was to give permission to the left and radical activists to reconsider the concept of civil society, which many then used to extricate themselves from Marxism yet justify remaining active in politics. Gradually, many on the left ceased to concern themselves with the fact that Gramsci was a revolutionary for whom civil society was only a strategic arena against efforts to reproduce capitalist values and ideas among the exploited. He did not see “the institutions and cultural forms of counter-hegemony as ends as well as means” (Cohen and Arato 1995: 151). Many felt they could abandon or shelve the issue of revolutionary teleology, and use instead the terrain offered by civil society for a radical project of reform through which dominant ideas and structures of power could be contested without recourse to the discredited, vanguardist political party. Agency, Autonomy, and Development Gramscian ideas fostered an interest in culture and turned attention away from structure. The rise of identity, difference, and the role of social movements in struggles for social change, rather than for political control of the state in the 1980s, had its impact on thinking about the role of civil society. New sources of agency in the form of ecological, indigenous, feminist, neighborhood, human rights, and other movements led activists to appropriate civil society in order to describe their own protagonism. While

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rejecting the mainstream’s homogenization of civil society, the alternative genealogy also made exclusivist claims that civil society represented its agency for social change. Nongovernmental organizations tended to bridge the mainstream and alternative ideas of agency. The NGO was valued by the mainstream—also in search of agency for development—for its links with the poor and grassroots organizations and became the chosen instrument of civil society for antipoverty programs. At the same time, many NGOs tried to hang on to their autonomy in order to serve as agents for change, as defined by them, and not as agents for the implementation of donor visions of development. The question of autonomy raises itself in many forms in the alternative genealogy. The idea of self-organization outside the state was a feature of the Eastern European movements. Autonomy from the state implied the right not only to challenge authoritarian tendencies but also to lobby for particular interests. Proponents of “civil society” as radical agency outside the state also could make proposals for different ways of organizing society and different models of development. But this idea often assumed much more coordination and articulation within “civil society as agency” than mostly existed. It also reflected the claim of autonomy from political parties, a form of organization that had become problematic for many opposition forces because of its tendencies to manipulate and co-opt social organization in the interests of state power. The Market, Neoliberalism, and Globalization From this alternative genealogy and the idea of civil society as agency for radical critique and change, a growing network of vociferous, organized, and globally networked challenges to the operations of the market and neoliberalism had emerged by the end of the twentieth century. One school of thought rejected the entire package of development and the “industry” associated with it in the West. These postdevelopment thinkers often used civil society as agency as the source of their critique (Escobar 1995). The Zapatista movement of Mexico sought to challenge not only the Mexican government and its suppression of the indigenous people of Chiapas, but also the process of capitalist globalization itself. From their position on the very periphery of the global economy, the Zapatistas chose the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement to launch a rebellion in the name of civil society. Increasingly networked movements against dams, against environmental degradation, in protection of indigenous rights, and against the role of specific multinationals have led some to talk about the emergence of a global civil society. International debates on the Internet and the ability to communicate with and rapidly mobilize activists in many parts of the globe are opening up new possibilities for collective action. It

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is a process that is in no way confined to the West and Western-influenced intellectuals. In many cultures and societies as distinct as South Korea, Palestine, and India, civil society is used in some form to express opposition, whether to the elites of a given country or to global capitalist development writ large. The events in Seattle in November 1999 and Prague in November 2000 drew attention to the strength and militancy of at least some of these groups in their opposition to the neoliberal agenda driving globalization and its impact on the poorest peoples and regions of the world. Seattle and Prague also highlighted the diversity and divisions among these “other” voices, both in terms of visions and strategies. Street activism contrasts with a call for dialogue. Some challenge the specific operations of the market, others capitalism itself. Some wish to take their seats in institutional spaces offered by international bodies to promote multilateral solutions to world problems. Others, fearing co-option, question the effectiveness of such spaces where fundamental values sit in opposition to their own. For all of these groups, the most common thread is the use of the concept of civil society to legitimize their right to resist the prevailing development paradigm. In so doing they have shown that the liberal meanings of this concept are now truly contested. For some, these liberal meanings have weakened civil society and emptied it of any real content and meaning; for others, civil society has enabled critical voices to occupy an intellectual space where an alternative set of values and propositions on how societies ought to develop and change can be put forward, challenging those that would otherwise dominate.

Summary: The Alternative Genealogy The following key themes, we argue, have influenced in different ways the alternative genealogy of civil society: • Values of mutual support and solidarity exist in the history of human sociability and form the basis of a challenge to the predominance of individual accumulation in capitalist development. • Inequality, class, and social differentiation are embedded in civil society and make it frequently a conflictual rather than harmonious arena of social interaction. • Civil society is a realm where dominant values can be contested. • Civil society offers an agency for such contestation in the form of grassroots movements, social organizations, and change-oriented NGOs.

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• Civil society as agency must preserve its autonomy not only from the state but also in terms of the right to put forward propositions about different kinds of development. • A critique of the market, neoliberalism, and neoliberal-driven globalization has generated a growing, globally networked activist constituency. Though this movement remains fragmented internally, it uses a common conceptual language of “civil society.” • In so doing, activists have challenged and reinvented the concept of civil society, two centuries after its original formulation. No longer does it only convey the dilemmas of a small burgeoning class of male merchants and entrepreneurs in one part of the world. The tensions of capitalist development continue to manifest themselves in the contemporary economy, now dominated by powerful multinational enterprises. Today, other groups in society are claiming the concept. It reflects a multiplicity of diverse and often diverging voices that share a wish to preserve a concern for a common humanity, undo the negative aspects of capitalist development, and promote forms of economic organization that are environmentally sustainable and socially just.

Conclusion In this chapter we identified two genealogies of thinking about civil society and development. The first we refer to as a mainstream genealogy, which dominates current discussion of civil society in development processes, and the second we call an alternative genealogy. Both are shorthand for a range of different historical influences in thinking that coalesce into broad, but distinct, visions of how society should be organized. The purpose of this chapter has been to emphasize the plurality of thinking about civil society and the significance of the new meanings it is gaining in the early twentyfirst century. These new meanings have emerged because new voices are being heard in the debate through unprecedented levels of organization and activism among women, diverse ethnic groups, and nonwhite and nonWestern grassroots movements. They have discovered that despite its particular origins in eighteenth-century Europe, the concept of civil society legitimizes and, to some extent, protects their right to challenge the present dynamic of global capitalist development, whether at the national or international level. However, this reinvention of civil society remains theoretically eclectic and confused. While it is possible to detect some of the values, normative ideals, and intellectual currents that influence the new definition, it does

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not represent a clear body of ideas that can do much more than critique and challenge. Nevertheless, such critique and challenge do make it more difficult for dominant institutions to sustain their claim that their vision of civil society is the natural and only one. Chapter 3 will show how this opposition affects donors’ attempts to enlist support from empirical civil society in the South for their agenda of state reform and democratization. It is not that Southern NGOs and grassroots organizations necessarily disagree with such an agenda, but they have other agendas and visions of their own as well. These draw on distinct understandings of democracy and the state, and on new ideas about how the common good might be arrived at and implemented democratically.

Notes 1. This is the title of Harriss and de Renzio’s article on social capital (1997), which used the title of the World Bank report, namely, Social Capital: The Missing Link? Monitoring Environmental Progress—Expanding the Measure of Wealth (Washington, World Bank, draft revised January 1997, ch. 6). 2. We do not intend a full-scale review of Putnam’s work. However, his influence on the debate on civil society, development, and democracy has been considerable, and in this, and Chapter 3, we try to outline his major contribution and convey some of the points made by the critical literature responding to Putnam’s claims. 3. R. Putnam (1993a). Italian scholars have questioned Putnam’s bifurcation profoundly as well as various aspects of his methodology. See, for example, Piattoni (1995: 160–165), Sabetti (1996: 19–44), Tarrow (1996: 389–397). 4. Francis Fukuyama’s 1996 follow-up to his book End of History was a volume entitled Trust. Whereas Putnam seems to suggest that trust is an outcome of dense civic engagement, Fukuyama suggests that it is a precondition for such engagement: “The ability to associate depends, in turn, on the degree to which communities share norms and values and are able to subordinate individual interests to those of larger groups. Out of such shared values comes trust, and trust, as we shall see, has a large and measurable economic value” (10). The confusion reflects the imprecision with which all of the terms are used. 5. See Sidney Tarrow’s article (1996: 389–397) for references to the response in Italy to Putnam’s book. 6. Ben Fine points out that Coleman is committed to methodological individualism, and that his work has generated empirical studies in the United States that seek to show how individual attainment is affected by family or other forms of microsocial networking and then interpreted in terms of individual possession (or lack) of social capital. Correlations indicate connections, for instance, between social capital and success at school, delinquency, political extremism, etc. The methodology leaps from the individual to the social without looking at how the latter is structured and reproduced (Fine 1999: 5). 7. This point is made by Jonathan Fox (1997) with respect to the potential impact of World Bank–funded projects that involve large-scale forced resettlement and disarticulation of indigenous communities, for example. 8. The reasons for this are explored in greater depth in the Chapter 3.

3 Civil Society, Democracy, and the State: The Americanization of the Debate

Chapter 2 examined the way in which civil society became a conceptual tool of development practitioners in dominant development and financial institutions as well as many large U.S. foundations. It also traced the ways in which the concept has been reinvented by grassroots movements and development NGOs as both a critique and an agency of change aimed at contesting the logic in which such institutions are embedded. This chapter examines another aspect of the debate on civil society and development: the view that a strong civil society fosters democracy, holds the state in check, and, in turn, contributes to development. Chapter 2 noted how noneconomic factors had crept into the debate on development by the late 1980s and that democracy had increasingly come to be seen as a precondition rather than an outcome of development. The most notable feature of this debate within the donor institutions is the influence of U.S. readings of its democratic past via the neo-Tocquevillian revival led by Robert Putnam and others. In policy terms, the work of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies contributes the empirical evidence for the role and growth of the “third sector” in both advanced and less developed economies and polities. Civil society, it is claimed—via the social capital or norms of trust and reciprocity generated by the social networks and associations that compose it—has an impact on the political as well as economic performance of the South.1 This chapter examines and critiques the origins of this argument. It seeks to elucidate the partial, normative, and ultimately conservative impact of the Americanization of the debate about civil society and democracy on donors. We also argue that this Americanization strengthens the ongoing antistate bias of the neoliberal policy agenda, even if the bias is 39

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more nuanced today. In this way, evidence that a developmental state might be more appropriate to impoverished regions of the South is ignored.2 In addition, civil society is only seen in terms of negative liberty and protection against the state’s encroachments. More recently, the role of “partner” of the state along with business has been added, but still assuming a watchdog function vis-à-vis the state. The possibility that through debate and active public engagement civil society could positively shape the character of the state, not just defend society from it, is not considered. This chapter will contrast the dominant U.S. view of civil society and democracy with a radical continental European tradition, in order to illustrate that the U.S. framework is in fact only one perspective in a rich and varied debate and neither the norm nor necessarily the most appropriate to the South. But, first, what are the assumptions about civil society, democracy, and the state that mainstream donors appear to be making in their civil society programs?

Civil Society, Democracy and the State: Donor Assumptions Donors start out with two implicit assumptions, namely, that democracy contributes positively toward development and that civil society is an important democratic check on the state. The debate on the relationship between development and democracy that emerged in the academic literature and policy debates of the 1980s was, in fact, inconclusive in establishing any straightforward correlations, despite some sophisticated quantitative and qualitative efforts toward that end. 3 Much of the debate was actually around the role of the state in development rather than democracy per se, responding to the critique of the developmental state that underpinned the rise of neoliberalism. The policy community was searching for tools of development practice that did not depend on such a state and that might actively foster the nonstate arena. It was seeking explanations for the failure of structural adjustment policies (SAPs) to generate desired economic outcomes. Rather than challenge the basic tenets of SAPs, some donors blamed their failure on inefficient, corrupt, and authoritarian Southern states. This led donors in the early 1990s to apply new forms of political conditionality to loans and technical assistance aimed at improving the democratic governance of Southern countries. The idea that a more democratic and accountable state could foster economic growth and development and allow the market to operate freely accorded with the thinking of the time. However, state reform programs ran into many problems, including the lack of internal interest in reform. The problem of how to overcome this led

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donors to civil society, which by the late 1980s had already been constructed as a benign arena in contrast to the malign state. Housed within civil society was a potential agency in the form of NGOs and, later, other nonstate groups. They were the ones who campaigned for human rights and against corruption and who sought to ensure that governments were accountable to society. In the wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, U.S. foundations and institutions began a serious program of “democracy building” in Eastern Europe, which strengthened the policy connections among market liberalization, civil society, and democracy (Quigley 1997). Civil society assistance could encourage external pressure on states for reform. Moreover, as the overall foreign aid budget in the United States fell during the first half of the 1990s, “Funding citizen activism seemed to hold out the promise of a low-cost way to achieve large-scale effects. Thus civil society programs grew as aid budgets shrank” (Carothers 1999: 209). Thus began the receptivity to Robert Putnam’s efforts to provide evidence of the nature of the relationship between civil society and democracy and its potential transference to the field of development. Before the publication of Putnam’s book in 1993 and subsequent articles, assumptions were already being made about this relationship but often rather crudely posing civil society against the state. Putnam and other institutional theorists and neo-Tocquevillians were able to supply an apparently more rigorous set of arguments about precisely how active associations and civic engagement contributed to democratic polities and how this facilitated economic progress and prosperity. Not all donor institutions, foundations, and individual policymakers are directly or entirely influenced by Putnam’s prescriptions. European donors, for instance, are embedded in distinct histories and cultures and have different perceptions of the role of states and social organizations. They are more likely to recognize the historical and political role of trade unions, churches, and other bodies in struggling for democratization and state reform in different parts of the world.4 Today European donors see the same potential in Southern NGOs and grassroots movements and acknowledge to some extent power differentials and inequalities and the importance of political action in reforming the state. However, the influence of Putnam’s argument is pervasive. “Making democracy work” rather than “making democracy happen” is what matters, that is, policy outcomes supersede political processes. The debt this owes to U.S. visions of its own past is explored below and is admirably summarized by Thomas Carothers in his study of democracy aid programs. U.S. donors, he argues, held to a denatured, benevolent view of civil society’s role in political life as town hall politics writ large—the earnest articulation of interests by

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legions of well-mannered activists who play by the rules, settle conflicts peacefully, and do not break any windows. This romanticization of civil society has roots in Americans’ rather mythicized Tocquevillian conception of their own society, but it entails a gross oversimplification of the makeup and roles of civil society in other countries around the world. (Carothers 1999: 248–249)

The Americanization of the Debate and Its Origins At least four major U.S. influences can be identified in the debate on civil society, democracy, and development. The first major influence is the body of ideas established by Alexis de Tocqueville in his nineteenth-century writings about democracy in the United States. The second influence emerged during the 1950s and 1960s. In the midst of the Cold War, interest focused on managing change and maintaining order and stability rather than promoting active political participation. Academic study of the role of interest groups in U.S. society acknowledged a debt to de Tocqueville, but drew on his ideas very selectively. The resulting pluralist version of elite democratic political theory addressed the mounting concern with problems of political development in the third world.5 In particular, it focused on how to avoid the dangers of mobilization and mass political participation as “traditional” societies modernized. It emphasized the third world’s unreadiness for democracy and Western political institutions as well as the problems of building a civic culture that is both democratic and managed by the elite. Robert Putnam’s 1993 book Making Democracy Work is the third key influence. It draws from the literature on civic culture, but argues that rather than an outcome of development, civic culture fosters development. Putnam represents a conscious neo-Tocquevillian revival but with the additional influence of “new institutionalism.” This body of literature makes institutions both a dependent variable, that is, shaped by history, and an independent variable, that is, affecting political outcomes. This perspective is ultimately concerned with “the conditions for creating strong, representative, effective institutions” (Putnam 1993a: 6). The fourth influence on the civil society debate is the growing body of work by the Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies and this center’s efforts to put the “third sector” on the map as a major political as well as economic force in the world today. We examine the political implications of this work in this chapter, and its economic dimensions in the chapter that follows, but first we explore more closely these four key influences. The Contributions of Alexis de Tocqueville Alexis de Tocqueville, a junior French magistrate of liberal views and aristocratic background, set out in 1831 to understand the character of the political

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order in the New World and what it could teach his fellow countrymen. Democracy had by no means gained its place in European thinking as the ideal form of government. Fear of “rule of the people” was widespread among those who exercised political power; indeed de Tocqueville admitted his own ambivalence.6 He recognized, however, that the age of aristocracy was passing in Europe and that the move toward political equality would be irresistible. The problem was managing the new political presence of the masses, in a way that guaranteed liberty. Two prospects worried de Tocqueville: on the one hand, the rise of a popular leader able to use the support of the masses to establish despotic rule; and on the other hand, the danger of the “tyranny of the majority.” In other words, how could the individual survive the emergence of an overwhelming mass consensus and its tendency to create a stultifying conformism? These were the preoccupations he took with him to America, where political equality, in the form of universal white male suffrage, had been granted in 1825 and where the working man had come, therefore, to gain equal political status to the landed gentry and merchant class. De Tocqueville’s two-volume study Democracy in America, based on his observations of democracy in New England, established the importance of free human association to a society that claims to be democratic not only in theory, but also in practice. The following four themes synthesize what is a rich and nuanced study. They give a necessarily partial outline of de Tocqueville’s contribution to the contemporary debate on civil society and democracy, but illustrate the lasting power of his insights: Reconciling liberty and equality. De Tocqueville searched for the conditions that enabled Americans to deal with the transition from a government of the wealthy few to the rise of mass society, where inequality of income and wealth would no longer be a barrier to political equality. Among these he identified the tendency of Americans to associate with one another around issues of mutual interest. This ensured that they would look to each other rather than rely on government for all tasks and that they would seek to persuade and convince each other rather than fight for the supremacy of their views in the name of the majority.7 Associations became in this way a means of protecting the individual from despotism and enabled freedom to survive. Protecting individuality. In the eighteenth century, political philosophers had looked to constitutional and institutional checks and balances against government abuse of the natural rights of citizens. De Tocqueville was interested in these, but he also highlighted the contribution of social pluralism to a similar end. This could not only check the despotism of governments but also the unintended way the “majority” in society might dominate and eliminate individuality. This he saw as a mass-based “mild” or “soft” despotism, fear of which continued to deter nineteenth-century

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European liberals from a full embrace of democracy. De Tocqueville showed how associationalism could preserve individuality from the pressure of conformity to the will of the enfranchised masses. Nurturing democratic culture. De Tocqueville wrote in revolutionary times in Europe. The masses were demanding more than equality of status or condition; they were also demanding material equality. Associationalism was a means by which people learned to argue their cause through peaceful means. It was also an “art,” which could be learned until it becomes “the mother of action, studied and applied by all” (de Tocqueville 1994, vol. 2: 11). Both large political associations and small civic associations could foster a democratic culture. Freedom of association, he argued to skeptical governments, could prevent rather than encourage revolutionary action: “Among the laws that rule human societies there is one which seems to be more precise and clear than all others. If men are to remain civilized or to become so, the art of associating together must grow and improve in the same ratio in which the equality of conditions is increased” (de Tocqueville 1994, vol. 2: 110). However, he also believed that the greater the move toward a more material kind of equality, the greater the chances for peace. The importance of public, civic engagement. Democracy as government of the people had not been considered a viable option for any large community in the Anglo-American world of the eighteenth century. The idea of the Republic, in which government was derived indirectly from the people via elections based on a very restricted franchise, was considered the best alternative. De Tocqueville emphasized how a participatory citizenry active in a multiplicity of associations could ensure defense of the citizen against despotic government but also foster active engagement rather than disengagement with politics. It nurtures, for instance, the habit and capacity for self-rule. It encourages different interests to argue with each other without any attempt to reach a collective will. A participatory citizenry did not depend on the austere classical notion of political virtue, in which citizens subordinated private gain in favor of virtuous and publicspirited concern with the needs of the political community. Instead, de Tocqueville assumed the self-interest and weakness of the isolated individual. This led him to search for forms of cooperation as a way of overcoming weakness. In the process, the individual learned the skills and developed the democratic culture outlined above. In this way, de Tocqueville claimed, the people of America really did rule. De Tocqueville’s recognition of the importance of an active citizenship is one of his main contributions to the contemporary debate within liberal thought on the relationship between civil society and modern democracy.

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Pluralism-Elitism and Political Development Theory After World War II, a political debate emerged in the Anglo-American world between radical thinkers, such as C. Wright Mills, who saw a tendency for political power to be concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, and those who emphasized the diffusion of political power (Parry 1969: 64–65). The pluralist-elitists argued that a plurality of intermediary groups in modern democracies safeguard liberty and provide a means for real participation. In this sense, they echoed de Tocqueville’s conclusions. However they were not interested in the generalized participation de Tocqueville had noted in the New England case. They argued that such groups are usually headed by a small number of leaders who filter the claims of their members. A multiplicity of elite-led interest groups could protect national elites from the direct pressure of the people and the dangers of an ill-informed “mass society” receptive to antidemocratic and fundamentalist ideologies. Competition among the elites of these groups ensured that no group absorbed another. Robert Dahl’s classic study of New Haven politics substantiated these claims (Dahl 1961). Dahl found that as social and economic diversity grew, no one group came to “rule” New Haven. Rival groups competed for power by building loose coalitions from local interest groups with the aim of securing enough “political resources,” such as votes, jobs, and information, to win office. Other studies of U.S. democracy at the time found that participation was in fact low and yet the system survived. The maintenance of stability and order in political systems was an important concern of these political scientists. Others took these same concerns to studies of political development in the third world. They noted the lack of a clearly bounded public political sphere, limited mechanisms for elite-mass mediation, and an absence of the organized interest groups that could be a source of stability. The weak public sphere, they noted, had to be protected from direct social pressure generated by the process of modernization. As organized groups emerged, they had to be socialized and gradually admitted into the political process, which eventually would become more pluralist (Cammack 1994: 357). This political development literature was pessimistic about the development of a civic culture in the third world. Such a culture was in fact a “gift of the West,” argued Gabriel Almond and Sydney Verba in their influential book The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations, published in 1963: The civic culture and the open polity, then, represent the great and problematic gifts of the West. The technology and science of the West have now already passed out of her unique possession and everywhere are destroying and transforming societies and cultures. Can the open polity

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and the civic culture—man’s discovery of a humane and conservative way to handle social change and participation—spread as well? (1989: 7, emphasis added)

Chapter 11 of Almond and Verba’s book anticipates a great deal of the contemporary U.S. debate on the relationship between interpersonal and social dynamics and the broader political environment. The authors’ study of five countries (Britain, United States, Germany, Italy, and Mexico) aimed “to offer some explanation for the phenomenon of group formation noticed by de Tocqueville and by many others since” (1989: 259). Their data led them to conclude that in Italy, Germany, and Mexico, interpersonal relationships are characterized by relatively low levels of trust. Part of the explanation, the authors argue, lies in the high degree of partisan fragmentation in those societies and the extent to which political antagonisms are carried into individuals’ personal lives. This in turn affects the political sphere, making people less willing to cooperate politically with their fellow citizens than in the United States and Britain. “In these two nations,” Almond and Verba argue, the ability freely to form groups for political activity appears to be related to the general nature of the citizens’ commitment to politics: it is “balanced” or “managed.” Americans and Britons are involved in politics, but the involvement is held within limits. . . . [This balance] is needed for a successful democracy: there must be involvement in politics if there is to be the sort of participation necessary for democratic decision making; yet the involvement must not be so intense as to endanger stability. (1989: 241)

Almond and Verba concluded that it is the balance between commitment to politics and autonomy from politics that matters, a balance that “is related to the existence of more basic social values—widespread social trust and a high evaluation of considerateness and generosity in people— and to the fact that these permeate the political system” (1989: 242, emphasis in original). Almond and Verba’s book was republished in 1989 after having first appeared in 1963, and Putnam expresses his debt to Chapter 11 of the book (Putnam 1993a: 11). Putnam, however, was to use his case study of Italy to draw the conclusion that civicness was a necessary precondition for democracy and development in the third world. In the post–Cold War world, the political, systemic danger of a critical left-wing associationalism had diminished. Western donors could promote interest groups and associations in the South without fear of instability and in the belief that they were contributing to a managed and balanced democracy, comparable to that which had proven so successful in the British and U.S. cases, and according to Putnam’s study, in northern Italy as well.

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Robert Putnam and the Neo-Tocquevillian Revival Putnam was not only concerned with the role of institutions as a dependent and an independent variable in democratic development. He was also concerned with the importance of the social context in which institutions operate. He went beyond the operation of formal institutions to explore the informal institutions and unwritten codes of behavior and patterns of trust in which formal groups are embedded. It is in these informal institutions of everyday associational life, he argued, that the social capital is generated that ultimately explains the relative performance of democratic political systems. This relative performance, as is discussed in Chapter 2, Putnam measured through the impact in different social contexts of the regional reform introduced in Italy in 1970, using quantitative and qualitative data. The final conclusion of his study was that [c]ivic regions were characterized by a dense network of local associations, by active engagement in community affairs, by egalitarian patterns of politics, by trust and law-abidingness. In less civic regions, political and social participation was organized vertically, not horizontally. Mutual suspicion and corruption were regarded as normal. Involvement in civic associations was scanty. Lawlessness was expected. People in these communities felt powerless and exploited. . . . Tocqueville was right. Democratic government is strengthened, not weakened, when it faces a vigorous civil society. (Putnam 1993a: 182)

Putnam’s influence grew in the 1990s because of the connections he made between the conclusions of his study of Italy and the decline of social capital in the United States (Putnam 1993b, 1995, 1996). Following his work on Italy, Putnam drew on time-budget surveys of “average Americans” in 1965, 1975, and 1985 as well as the annual General Social Survey to show that there had been a 25 percent drop in group membership since 1974. This is correlated with the fall in trust in political authorities and voter apathy. Together with his claims about the relevance of his conclusions to the third world, Putnam has produced an ambitious body of work, which aims at “nothing less than the correlates of democracy” (Tarrow 1996: 397), concluding that “building social capital will not be easy, but it is the key to making democracy work” (Putnam 1993a: 185). The impact of Putnam on the policy community has been huge. But how sustainable are Putnam’s arguments and what are the implications of building aid policy to the South around them? Putnam’s work has been criticized on a number of counts. Drawing on Sidney Tarrow’s summary critique we tease out the most relevant points for our discussion. First, a structural approach to the phenomena observed by Putnam might yield an alternative set of explanations.8 For instance, while Putnam acknowledges that southern Italy had a virtual semicolonial status with foreign powers

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that governed it till unification with northern Italy in 1861, he does not factor in the impact of the colonial exploitation of its economy as a reason for its institutional weakness as well as economic vulnerability. This semicolonial status did not disappear upon unification. Forcible integration into the tax system and customs union of the economically advanced north weakened further the fragile southern economy. This is a story familiar to students of the global South. The differential role of the state in both regions of Italy could be partly explained at least in terms of the “pattern of centre/periphery ties into which the new institutions were inserted” (Tarrow 1996: 395). Similarly the role of political parties in fostering secondary associations might also be a key factor behind the strong social capital in the Po Valley.9 The tendency to ignore the contribution of political parties, movements, distinct ideologies, and beliefs to institutional performance and democratic outcomes is a weakness of Putnam’s analysis but also of the policy recommendations donors have absorbed from it. It is also worth pointing out here that de Tocqueville himself might have sought other reasons than social capital to explain the malaise of contemporary U.S. democracy. He feared that the equality of condition he observed in the United States would lead to greater concern with the small intimacies of life and a willingness to entrust public affairs to bureaucrats, limit emotional risk-taking, and ultimately withdraw from public life. De Tocqueville also predicted a growing apathy toward public affairs, but suggests that its origins would lie in material complacency and “love of property” rather than a decline in civic trust and social capital: When property becomes so fluctuating and the love of property so restless and so ardent, I cannot but fear that men may arrive at such a state as to regard every new theory as a peril, every innovation as an irksome toil, every social improvement as a stepping-stone to revolution, and so refuse to move altogether for fear of being moved too far. I dread, and I confess it, lest they should at last so entirely give way to a cowardly love of present enjoyment as to lose sight of the interests of their future selves and those of their descendants and prefer to glide along the easy current of life rather than to make, when it is necessary, a strong and sudden effort to a higher purpose. (de Tocqueville 1994, vol. 2: 263)

Second, there is a very narrow view of democracy underlying Putnam’s work, which owes some debt to the pluralist-elitist literature in its concern with policy performance and outcomes rather than deepening and extending the democratic process. Putnam’s interest in effective public policy does not lead him to deny a role for the state, and he takes on the most conservative and antistate thinkers in the United States. He explicitly talks, for instance, about “the potential synergy between private organization and the

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government” (Putnam 1993b: 8). But the implications of his contribution remain conservative, with an emphasis on the consensus and stability that clearly influenced the conceptualizations of state–market–civil society cooperation and partnership that had emerged among international financial and development institutions by the late 1990s.10 Third, Putnam does not distinguish the democratic from the antidemocratic norms, values, and practices that circulate in different networks and associations. For Putnam a birdwatching society or a bowling club can contribute equally well to democracy by virtue of encouraging collaboration and association among people. However, the goals, ideas, and the nature of political engagement will determine political effectiveness, and such effectiveness might serve antidemocratic purposes. Indeed, M. Levi makes the point that the Oklahoma City bombers were members of a bowling league! (1996: 52). Similarly, as Putzel points out (1997: 943), there is no evidence that overseas Chinese business networks have been active supporters of democracy in the authoritarian societies in which they operate, such as Indonesia and Malaysia, or that the social capital they might generate in their economic transactions has any impact on the broader society. All of this reflects an idealization of American associational culture that ignores the history of antidemocratic groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan11 and that fails to problematize the unsavory aspects of U.S. democratic practice, such as its overseas interventionism or the huge weight of corporate capital in political decisionmaking.12 In conclusion, we would argue that there is no intrinsic or essential relationship between civil society and democracy. Putnam’s research findings from his Italian case do not produce convincing evidence to the contrary, given that so many other potential explanations exist for civic incompetence in southern Italy apart from civil society and social capital. The role of the state, political parties, political ideas, social structure, and colonial history are all valid factors to take into account. This does not preclude the idea that horizontal associations cut across social cleavages or even that relationships of cooperation and trust are also relevant variables to explore in particular contexts. But at the very least, there should be a cautious approach to any uncritical extension of Putnam’s proposition to the global South. Enabling the associations of the poorest and most excluded groups in society to have a say in the development of their society could be an important contribution to democratic processes in the world today, but this might not contribute to “making democracy work” as such. It might actually disrupt the smooth running of government institutions as these groups make more demands, precisely the kind of outcome that elite political theorists have sought to avoid. However, such disruption might be the only way some sectors of society can make their voices heard and ensure that their claims are listened to as much as the more powerful groups of society.

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The Johns Hopkins University Center: Building the Third Sector The final influence in the Americanization of the debate of civil society, development, and democracy comes from the Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project of Johns Hopkins University Center for the Study of Civil Society. This project, which is directed by Lester Salamon, aims to study a sector that “has only recently re-emerged from obscurity as a distinguishable social sphere with its own characteristic features” (Salamon and Anheier 1992: 148). The sector has in fact always existed, argue the authors, but it has been buried by the polarization of thinking into two large complexes or organizations: state and the market, or the public and the private. As a result, there has never been a conceptualization of the significance of this third sector. Salamon and his colleagues working internationally have set about trying to define, classify, measure, and analyze the origins of the third sector, and then assess its contribution to “social capital” and the economic and political development it fosters. The definitional questions are resolved in favor of a “structural, operational approach” that includes organizations that share five basic characteristics: formal, private, nonprofit distributing, self-governing, and voluntary (Salamon and Anheier 1992: 125). The research project has sought to address the question of what allows such organizations to develop (Salamon and Anheier 1998). It is an overtly theoretical enterprise aiming to develop a meaningful transnational body of data on the nonprofit sector and to test theories about why it varies both in scale and composition in different societies. Salamon and his colleagues have launched a new direction in U.S. political science, which has already produced a considerable number of quantitative studies of the nonprofit sector in many parts of the world. Their work has helped give a more rigorous content to the argument that the future shape of political systems is the state–market–civil society (third sector) partnership. Behind the positivistic claims of the project, however, one detects once again a normative claim, revolving around issues of stability, consensus, and legitimacy in existing political and economic systems. The third sector makes no distinctions around power, social inequality, or even the political objectives of the organizations that compose it. A peasant union is a “voluntary organization,” as is a private school or an antiabortion organization. The aim of the project is to record the growth of nonprofit organizations and register their significance for political, and as Chapter 4 discusses, economic life. Here is yet another neo-Tocquevillian exercise that does not problematize its categories and treats democracy as an uncontested endstate. Together, these four influences, de Tocqueville, pluralism-elitism, Putnam’s work, and the Johns Hopkins Center—deriving essentially from

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U.S. experiences, studies, and reflections—have shaped much of the debate and assumptions around civil society and democracy. A powerful and persuasive body of ideas has emerged that presents the relationship as something natural and inevitable, to be packaged and exported to other societies and cultures. Below we suggest that even within the Western Hemisphere, there are many other ways of looking at this relationship.

An Alternative Continental European Tradition The radical continental European discussion of civil society and democracy is not the only source of alternative visions. We have chosen it only to highlight the existence and implications of other ways of thinking about this relationship within the Western Hemisphere. The themes highlighted in this tradition, we argue, also have a particular ongoing influence on many grassroots organizations and development NGOs. We would emphasize three themes that distinguish its preoccupations from the Americanized discussion outlined above. These are the search for the “common good,” the pursuit of human emancipation, and the identification of conditions for inclusive rational-critical public debate. Taken together, these concerns challenge the assumption that a vibrant civil society, a strong democracy, and economic progress and development are conceptually or empirically connected in an unproblematic way. For many grassroots organizations and NGOs, civil society is an arena to debate and challenge the prevailing ideas of progress and development through active participation in nonformal and noninstitutionalized political spaces. Many groups do not therefore seek merely to strengthen existing democratic institutions or to defend civil society against the state, but rather to promote new forms of participation where they can have a say in deciding what form progress and development should take. Taken together, the implications of this alternative vision, we argue, point to the need for a renewal of debate on the role of the state, who should define that role and how, and the way that the state and society interrelate. Seeking the Common Good Jean-Jacques Rousseau, as pointed out in Chapter 2, was one of the first thinkers to link civil society to private ownership and hence to the inequalities that divide the human race. “The true founder of civil society,” he argued, “was the first man who, having enclosed a piece of land, thought of saying, ‘This is mine’ and came across people simple enough to believe him” (Rousseau 1994, book 2: 55). Rousseau saw democracy in terms of a process that would guarantee a “general will,” not the rule of particular

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interests. Such a “general will” alone should direct the state “according to the object for which it was instituted, that is, the common good” (1973, book 2: 182). His vision was in direct contrast to the later Tocquevillian emphasis on particular interests as the core mechanism for the defense of liberty. Particularities and pluralities were for Rousseau a danger to the preservation of a common good for all: When the social bond begins to be relaxed and the state to grow weak, when particular interests begin to make themselves felt and the smaller societies to exercise an influence over the larger, the common interest changes and finds opponents: opinion is no longer unanimous; the general will ceases to be the will of all. (1973, book 4: 147)

and When intrigues arise, and partial associations are formed at the expense of the great association, the will of each of these associations becomes general in relation to its members, while it remains particular in relation to the state; it may then be said that there are no longer so many votes as there are men, but only as many as there are associations. . . . It is therefore essential, if the general will is to be able to make itself known, that there should be no partial society in the state and that each citizen should express only his own opinion. . . . But if there are partial societies, it is best to have as many as possible and to prevent them from being unequal. (1973, book 2: 185)

Rousseau’s emphasis on the common good was driven by his observations of inequality and human misery in eighteenth-century France. The French Revolution was a social revolution in which these were the central issues. The American Revolution of the same century, on the other hand, was a constitutional and political revolution (Arendt 1990). Two different approaches to democratic theory emerge from these distinct histories. The one emphasizes limited government and associational dynamics, the other the promotion of collective well-being over and above particular interests and, if necessary, at the expense of these. Claus Offe and Ulrich Preuss have usefully summarized the distinction. Of the United States, they argue: “Whatever collective notions of happiness, salvation or the realization of any particular group’s destiny or potential may prevail; they are neither defined nor implemented through the political process, but through associative action within civil society” (1991: 144, emphasis in original). They compare this with France: “The French tradition of democratic theory is firmly tied to a collectivist notion of secular salvation through social progress, with the constitution being considered as a machinery for promoting this encompassing vision of the common good” (1991: 144).

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There are many problems with the idea of the “common good.” Controlling particular interests in its name has unpleasant implications and for some is the justification of dictatorship. By whom and how is the “common good” identified? While problematic, the idea of a “common good” remains, nevertheless, very powerful today, though not in Rousseau’s original formulation. Many social organizations and change-oriented NGOs see it as a “weapon of the weak.” Democratic forms, they would argue, which primarily protect individual and particular interests and limit participation to voting every few years, preserve the power of those already wealthy and powerful, both within state boundaries and across them. The national state, regional authority, and global institution are needed to protect and promote the common interests of humanity or enable the “weak,” or powerless, to have a voice and, at the very least, the right to the reproduction of their human life. These groups seek neither a political order “of civil society” nor the suppression of all pluralities in the name of the collective interest. But they do appear to seek the right to influence and participate in defining the universal concerns that should then be actively promoted and implemented at higher levels of governance. The Pursuit of Human Emancipation The distinction made by Karl Marx between purely “political emancipation” and full human emancipation offers an insight into the origins of much contemporary resistance to political elites and frustration with the limits of the Dahlian model of polyarchy.13 Both the French as well as the American revolutions of the eighteenth century established what Marx believed to be an essentially artificial equality within the civil and political sphere. Relationships of inequality and exploitation, the real relationships of civil society, were left intact by these revolutions, despite the fact that the social question was the driving force behind the French uprising and affected political thinking in that country. Political rights of liberty, property, and security as defined by the U.S. and French constitutions in reality created boundaries among human beings. Men (and women) were alienated from their human essence, the humanity common to all, and an artificial “citizen” was created, a political person abstracted from the authentic existence of the lived relationships of civil society. In that real world, “the true source and theatre of all history,” the class power of the bourgeoisie dominated (Marx and Engels 1970: 57). Many commentators have focused on the dangers of Marx’s reduction of “civil society” to class relationships. Civil society became in effect a theater of war, of class conflict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat and between the proletariat and the state, which was the political instrument of the bourgeoisie. Marx appealed to the working class to overcome

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the dichotomy between civil and political society in order to reunite social and political man and achieve full human emancipation. But this implied the abolition of a political sphere that for liberals is a sphere of freedom and freedom’s guarantor. The alternative would be for individuals to engage in immediate political relationships with each other, that is, with no mediating institutions. Such a vision is seen as a utopian democratic project, the implementation of which in the real world would lead only to the “rehabilitation of fanaticism,” “a fanaticism whose project was not to substitute the City of God for the Earthly City, but rather to destroy—in the name of the true City, civil society—the city of illusion, the political state” (Colas 1997: 311). These criticisms raise profound problems. Without pluralities and mediating bodies, it is argued, there is no way for deliberative democratic processes to evolve or differences to be negotiated outside of uniformly imposed rules. A lack of strong pluralities can reflect or result in totalitarian government or manipulation of opinion or populist appeals in order to rally the masses to a project determined from “above.” Few grassroots organizations and NGOs that use the concept of civil society today would contemplate a future without some autonomous political sphere. Their objective is nevertheless to seek, via new forms of participation, to overcome the limited kind of engagement in public political life offered in most liberal democracies to their citizens. These groups also seek to overcome the social and economic inequalities that prevent many from exercising formal civil and political rights. There are few organizations of the poor and exploited or working with them who would accept that civil and political rights are sufficient to guarantee a representative, democratic political order. These organizations would, however, be closer to Gramsci than Marx, in identifying civil society as an arena where associations of different kinds can both disseminate the ideas that reinforce capitalism as well as dispute them. The simple equation “vibrant civil society equals strong democracy” does not encompass the political creativity of those social organizations seeking to broaden and deepen democracy today. This is because many of these groups seek to challenge the institutionalized democracy at the core of political power rather than to strengthen it. The struggle to subject public bodies to greater popular control, to make multinational corporations accountable to the broader needs of people and planet, to make the voices of underprivileged and underrepresented groups heard in political processes contrasts with the Dahlian model of modern representative democracy or democracy as a means of regulating competition for power. The opening up “from above” of political spaces for dialogue and participation in response to this struggle does not necessarily meet these other aspirations. This is because these other goals reflect the belief that democracy should be pres-

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ent in many locations outside of the state, such as in the community, in the family, and at the grassroots of political life. It should not depend on the formal spaces that those in power agree to open up. Nor should it be about institutional practice alone. Democracy is how the debate about what kind of society we want to live in and build takes place. Even the discussion in Eastern Europe, which led to the resurgence of the concept of civil society, was not simply about society versus the state. In its early stages at least, the discussion was much richer and more profound. It was an attempt within society to reclaim the right of the people to decide how they should live. It included the search for a way to “reconcile socialist solidarity and self-management with pluralist interest representation and formal-legal political democracy” (Baker 1998: 31). Gideon Baker has argued that while the debate that emerged in Poland in the late 1970s, led by Leszek Kolakowski, Adam Michnik, and Jacek Juron, was about defining an autonomous societal sphere, this sense of the debate was never attributed to the Eastern European movements. Instead, their aspirations were interpreted as a claim for a delimited and tripartite separation of spheres as in the liberal capitalist model or the model outlined by Cohen and Arato and influenced by their commitment to a Habermasian vision.14 According to Baker, the idea of autonomy from the state was not intended to imply a commitment to indirect, parliamentary democracy but to some form of socialist democracy and participatory activism. While the economy was to be marketized, the vision was of self-managing workers’ councils in factories rather than a market based totally on individual accumulation. A minimal administrative state was envisaged alongside maximum decentralization and self-management. The same themes, argues Baker, are apparent in the Hungarian and Czech debates on civil society prior to 1989, and they represent a radical democratic vision that gradually gave way to a liberal democratic one after 1989. The social movements and grassroots organizations that have mushroomed throughout the world in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries do aspire, we would argue, to something akin to the human emancipation that Marx proposed. They aspire, that is, to activate people to participate in any space they consider appropriate, not to limit their political engagement to the institutionalized spaces of formal democracy that reflect the structure of power and inclusion or exclusion in any given society. The Conditions for Inclusive Rational-Critical Debate Recent discussion generated by continental European philosophers has focused on the conditions necessary for an inclusive and rational-critical debate on public issues to take place. The debate has been stimulated by the

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German philosopher Jürgen Habermas, whose historical study entitled The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere was first published in English in 1989 (Habermas 1992) and which posed the key question summarized by Craig Calhoun as: “What are the social conditions . . . for a rational-critical debate about public issues conducted by private persons willing to let arguments and not statuses determine decisions?” (Calhoun 1994: 1). Habermas traced the historical emergence of a bourgeois public sphere in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The significance of this sphere was that for the first time private people came together as a public and through the use of reason engaged public authorities in a debate about the general rules governing the sphere of commodity exchange and social labor (Habermas 1992: 27). In this way, citizens could enter into the public sphere and influence affairs of state as well as society as a whole, although they were not part of the state but of civil society. The public sphere of the time was elitist and bourgeois, but the elites were not all of equal status. They ranged from master craftsmen to landed gentry and nobility. However, these differences were “bracketed” and deemed not to interfere with or be relevant to the process of discourse. Such an ideal of public communication was identified by Habermas as a potential form in which the general or public interest could be rationally and critically discussed. Habermas distinguished his vision from that of de Tocqueville, who he said, “treated public opinion more as a compulsion toward conformity than as a critical force” (Habermas 1992: 133). This led de Tocqueville to argue, like Mill, that “the time has come to treat public opinion as a force that at best could serve to curb powers but that above all was itself to be subjected to effective limitation” (Habermas 1992: 134). This explains de Tocqueville’s emphasis on minority protection and guarantees against the danger posed by conformity to majority public opinion. Critical thought and freedom of expression had to be protected from public opinion itself; de Tocqueville could not imagine public opinion reached through rational and critical public discourse. Although Habermas saw a potential model in the ideal of the bourgeois public sphere, his objective was to trace its failure to fulfill that potential and its subsequent degeneration. This took place as the sphere was extended. The inequalities of civil society ceased to be “bracketed” as previous status divisions among the bourgeoisie had been. In the world of letters, rather than a public critically reflecting on its culture, a division emerged between minorities of specialists who “put their reason to use non-publicly and the great mass of consumers whose receptiveness is public but uncritical” (Habermas 1992: 175). Mass consumption of culture is the negation of an active, deliberative, and participatory politics. The strict separation of the public from the private realm that characterized the emergence of the

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bourgeois public sphere was thus gradually eroded. Instead, an intermediary layer emerges that relieves the public of the task of rational-critical debate. This intermediary layer appears very much like the civil society of the pluralist political scientists and reappears implicitly in the thinking of some neo-Tocquevillians. It is, for Habermas, composed on the one hand, of associations in which collectively organized private interests directly attempted to take on the form of political agency; on the other hand by parties which, fused with the organs of public authority, established themselves, as it were, above the public whose instruments they once were. The process of the politically relevant exercise and equilibration of power now takes place directly between the private bureaucracies, special-interest associations, parties, and public administration. The public as such is included only sporadically in this circuit of power, and even then it is brought in only to contribute its acclamation. (1992: 176, emphasis in original)

Negotiations between elites rather than rational-critical public debate is the outcome of the structural transformation of the bourgeois public sphere and competition between organized private interests. As the twentieth century advanced, government economic intervention increased along with the rise of social intervention in the form of the welfare state. Administrative control over citizens grew while citizens organized into interest groups. Large corporations took on a political role. In later work, Habermas was to speak of the colonization of the “lifeworld” by the money and power that accompanied the rise of organized capitalism. By lifeworld, he meant the world of personal relationships and communicative action. This disintegration of the public sphere, which emerged from within and outside of civil society, undermined the progressive potential of the project of modernity. Habermas nevertheless, went on to search for emancipatory possibilities within modernity, in contrast with the liberal efforts to reconcile its tensions and the postmodernist rejection of the project altogether. Through this search, Habermas has triggered an important debate about civil society and democracy and conceptions of public space. His description of the way the lifeworld has been colonized would be recognized by many activists. Indeed, it is something akin to this that motivates them to form social organizations and change-oriented development NGOs. His vision is distinct from both the republican and the civic virtue tradition with their hostility toward the pluralities of civil society, as well as the liberal idea of neutral spaces for pluralities to engage and defend society from the state. As Seyla Benhabib expresses it, Public space is not understood agnostically as a space of competition for acclaim and immortality among a political elite; it is viewed democratically as the creation of procedures whereby those affected by general

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social norms and collective political decisions can have a say in their formulation, stipulation and adoption. . . . The public sphere comes into existence whenever and wherever all affected by general social and political norms of action engage in a practical discourse, evaluating their validity. . . . Democratization in contemporary societies can be viewed as the increase and growth of autonomous public spheres among participants. (Benhabib 1994: 87, emphasis in original)

Jean Cohen and Andrew Arato (1995: 25) attempted to construct a theory of civil society influenced by Habermasian ideals and a tripartite conceptualization in which the “task is to guarantee the autonomy of the modern state and economy while simultaneously protecting civil society from state and economy and its reflexive influence over them through the institutions of political and economic society.” The debate on deliberative democracy has taken off. Liberals themselves have seized on some of Habermas’s ideas to put forward a form of liberalism that assimilates ideas of participatory dialogue and public responsibility. However they ignore Habermas’s emancipatory and critical intent (Dryzek 1996: 34). There has also been a strong feminist critique of Habermas for his failure to take on board the gendered nature of the early bourgeois public sphere and hence its limitations as a means of critiquing democracies in advanced, late-capitalist societies (Fraser 1994: 109–142). This has led to debate on the adequacy of the “bracketing” model of dealing with differences of identity and status in public discourse. The effect, it is argued, is to exclude the concerns of important members of the polity from public debate and to undermine the self-reflexive capacity of that debate: “If it is impossible to communicate seriously about basic differences among members of a public sphere, then it will be impossible also to address the difficulties of communication across such lines of basic difference” (Calhoun 1996: 459). There has been a challenge to the idea of a single uniquely authoritative public sphere in favor of recognition of a multiplicity of publics, none of which can claim superiority over another. At the same time, identity formation should be seen as part of the process of public life rather than something that can be fully settled prior to it in a private sphere. For the particular purposes of our volume, this important debate on the public sphere suggests new ways of thinking about civil society, the state, and democracy. Nancy Fraser (1994: 132–136) contrasts the conceptions of strong and weak publics that underlie the discussion on civil society and the state. The liberal bourgeois conception of the public sphere positively desires a separation of civil society and the state and promotes “weak publics,” whose role is to form opinion but not to make decisions. Strong publics are those whose discourse and practices encompass both. Self-managing institutions of different kinds could become sites of direct or quasidirect democracy coexisting with representative forms. Rather than reify

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civil society and pitch it against the state, the concept of civil society could help us to rethink democracy and the state in the context of the South. For instance, it may not be the promotion of development by the state that was the problem in the South per se. The evidence is not nearly so convincing as the neoliberals have suggested (see Chapter 4). The debate on the developmental state could be reopened. In particular, one might ask how such a state could be both democratic and developmental. What possibilities as well as what limitations does globalized capitalism impose? To what extent might associational society in the poorest parts of the world ensure that the common interests of all are guaranteed in development processes without sacrificing freedom, diversity, and democracy?

Conclusion: Civil Society, Democracy, and the Global South In this conclusion, our attention should return to the majority of the poor and exploited in whose name the debate on civil society, democracy, and development takes place. Their ability to influence either global or local political practices and processes is minimal. Claims are made that a stronger civil society will enable the poor to participate more. Yet behind the arguments put forward and turned into projects, there are normative assumptions that require unpacking and subjecting to scrutiny and critique. The most powerful of these today, the U.S. discourse, the one that dominates many donor institutions, should at least be seen as embedded in a certain kind of approach to democracy. Thus it is not a neutral, value-free approach that ought to be “exported” without question to the South as a technical solution to their complex political problems. The U.S. approach ultimately views the task of “civil society” as system maintenance, in other words, the creation or strengthening of the democratic institutions that protect the rule of law, legitimate peaceful opposition, and the expression of dissent in acceptable ways. But in many respects it is itself a deeply conservative vision wherein political stability is as important as political freedom, and protection from the state is more important than positive conceptualizations, debate, and action around how best to develop the common interests of a society. Pluralities serve to check the excesses of government. They preserve negative liberty. They defend the individual against the mass. They aggregate and articulate demands and interests ensuring that they can be defended and negotiated. They preserve a civic culture. In the other, continental European, tradition of radical reflection, theorists struggle with the way social and economic inequalities impinge on the exercise of meaningful citizenship. Pluralities can often preserve particular

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interests to the detriment of collective or public interest. They mask the source of real power and create illusions about political participation and the role of the state. By the late twentieth century, however, the left had suspended its negativity toward the idea of civil society and recognized the potential of autonomous social action as a contribution to social and political change. Civil society could be the source of a regenerated public sphere, where noninstrumental communication might potentially place the public interest on the agenda, without suppressing pluralities and differences. It could be the source of new and constructive thinking about the state and development as well as the source of critique of capitalist development. Translating this possibility into the real material world of exploitation and poverty in the South remains a considerable challenge. The liberal tradition makes us think about the importance of autonomous public political spaces. Donors within this tradition could help defend such spaces and foster the conditions for an inclusive associational life, for example by funding education, the rule of law, and economic opportunities. The radical continental European tradition leads us to the question, How do those marginalized, excluded, and exploited in the process of development themselves participate in those spaces and what could happen if and when they do?

Notes 1. James Putzel (1997: 939) is particularly critical of the way civil society and social capital are assumed to generate both political and economic outcomes. He critiques Robert Putnam’s “misguided attempt to locate a singular framework to explain both economic and political performance.” This, Putzel argues, “fails to recognize that the conditions underpinning capitalist development may not always be congruous with those favouring democratic politics.” Ben Fine, similarly, notes the spread of social capital to explain politics and the state. He sees “social capital, following hard upon the new microeconomics, as the corresponding counterpart to the political school within the developmental state literature” (Fine 1999: 13). It is about how the noneconomic, or nonmarket, makes the economic work or work better. Sidney Tarrow does not deal specifically in his major critique of Putnam’s book with the claims it makes to link together economic development, civicness, and institutional performance, but his article contains a number of points that question the way Putnam has produced such correlations in his study of northern and southern Italy (Tarrow 1996: see for example footnote page 391). For further critiques of Putnam’s work see Chapter 2 of this volume. 2. This is one of the arguments, which we consider worth taking seriously, of Ben Fine against the social capital agenda of the World Bank and other institutions. Neoliberals have prevented well-considered debate on the role of the developmental state, although the World Bank has recognized some errors in its early analysis (see Chapter 4 of this volume). The authoritarian character of the developmental state is well known. The notion of a developmental state that can overcome partial interests and take responsibility for collective goods while remaining democratic does not

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have any historical precedents. Yet it is not its authoritarian character that has mostly perturbed international financial institutions, but its economic interventionism and distortion of market forces. 3. See Ersson and Lane in Leftwich (ed.) (1996) for a review of this literature. See also Barsh (1992), Hadenius (1992), Lipset (1959), and Diamond (1992). 4. The volume edited by Rueschemeyer, Stephens, and Stephens (1992) argues that capitalist development fosters the growth of civil society by bringing about increasing urbanization, bringing workers together in factories, improving transport and communications, and raising literacy levels. The stronger organizational capacity of workers and the middle classes empowers them to change the balance of class power, weakening the landed upper classes in particular. Rueschemeyer, Stephens, and Stephens’s volume, which incorporates structural factors as well as agency, is much closer to the social democratic tradition of reforming and democratizing capitalism, in which the groups of civil society, in particular those organized around class, play a political role in that process. 5. Authors such as Lucien W. Pye, Gabriel A. Almond, Dankwart Rostow, Sydney Verba, James Coleman, and Samuel Huntington were the major figures in this literature. See Paul Cammack (1994). 6. De Tocqueville wrote, “I have an intellectual taste for democratic institutions, but I am an instinctive aristocrat; in other words, I despise and fear the crowd. In the depths of my soul, I passionately love liberty, legality, and respect for rights, but not democracy” (quoted in Touraine 1997: 85). 7. De Tocqueville wrote, “Whenever at the head of some new undertaking you see the government in France or a man of rank in England, in the United States you will be sure to find an association” (1994, vol. 2: 106). He also remarked, “In Europe associations consider themselves, in some degree, as the legislative and executive council of the people, who are unable to speak for themselves; moved by this belief, they act and they command. In America, where they represent in the eyes of all only a minority of the nation, they argue and petition” (1994, vol. 1: 198). 8. Indeed Tarrow (1996: 396) remarks that this lack of a structural approach marred Putnam’s otherwise laudable search into history for explanations: “Social scientists ignore history at their peril; but when we go to history, we must be aware that our models affect what we look for, how we interpret it, and how we conjoin it to our data. The strength of Putnam’s achievement was to go outside the comfort of his data into the less certain terrain of narrative and quantitative history; its main weakness was in the lack of a structural perspective with which to interpret what he found there.” 9. For example, civic competence was part of a conscious political strategy of the Communist Party in the Po Valley in post–World War II Italy. 10. This conservative thread is also reflected in the way Putnam, and also Fukuyama in his work on trust, extol the site of the family as the source of initial socialization. Feminists would be the first to reject such an idealization of an institution that usually embodies gender hierarchies and power relations that prohibit the participation of women in the broader public sphere. 11. Putnam (1996: 221) recognizes the antidemocratic nature of the Ku Klux Klan but does not address the implications of this. 12. This perhaps might explain the glaring omission in Putnam’s analysis of any reference to fascism and why the associational legacy of northern Italy did not prevent the rise of such an antidemocratic movement. 13. Polyarchy (literally rule by the many) was introduced by Dahl in 1953 to

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refer to modern representative democracy with universal suffrage. Polyarchic democracy he defines as a political system composed of six democratic institutions: elected officials; free, fair, and frequent elections; freedom of expression; alternative sources of information; associational autonomy; and inclusive citizenship (Dahl 1998: 85, 90). 14. See Cohen and Arato (1995). Andrew Arato was one of the first to draw attention to the Polish vision of civil society.

4 Civil Society, the State, and the Market: A Triadic Development Model for the Twenty-first Century?

Since the late 1980s the democratic potential of civil society has captured and dominated the imaginations of donors. In contrast far less attention has been given to the relationship between civil society and the market. Donor discourse on civil society tends to highlight the tensions between civil society and the state on the one hand and the state and the market on the other, while the relationship between the market and civil society is implicitly viewed as benign, harmonious, and complementary.1 In his critique of contemporary civil society theory, Robert Fine (1997: 9) deplores the loss of a critical engagement with the concept that had characterized Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment thinking and cautions against the privileging of civil society over the state and market. The antistate model of civil society in turn leads to a tendency among donors to assume rather than query the relationship between civil society and the market, so failing to explore critically the tensions and contradictions implicit in this relationship. Varty (quoted in Fine 1997: 30) presents this as a historical paradox: “Much of the historical development of the concept civil society has taken place from within the tradition of political economy yet there has been an exclusion of political economy from contemporary civil society debates.” In this chapter we explore the relationship between civil society and the market, which remains largely unproblematized and unquestioned in mainstream donor discourse. We suggest in the first two sections that two broad sets of ideas about the relationship between civil society and the market began to crystallize in the 1990s. In different ways these theories express a dissatisfaction with the socioeconomic consequences of unrestrained capitalism advocated by neoliberals and a disillusion with state-led 63

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development processes, whether of the Keynesian or state socialist variety. They are part of the paradigmatic shift toward state, civil society, and the market, the new triadic model of development. While one broad set of ideas endorses the consensual nature of the triadic unity and presumes a fundamentally positive relationship between civil society and the market, the other set highlights the essentially conflictual character of the trinity and questions the assumed mutuality of civil society and the market. We characterize the first approach as “socially responsible capitalism” and the second as “alternatives to capitalism.” These emerged out of the two genealogies in civil society thinking, namely, the mainstream and alternative versions, which we identified in Chapter 2. The terms socially responsible capitalism and alternatives to capitalism serve as a conceptual shorthand for a range of similar ideas, policies, and practices concerned with the social processes of economic production. The ideas of socially responsible capitalism have strongly influenced mainstream donor thinking since the 1990s and tend to dominate current thinking in development research and practice. Ideas about alternatives to capitalism circulate more among grassroots activists, social movements, and some nongovernmental organizations in the North and South, challenging dominant constructions of development. After first outlining the key features of these two broad approaches to civil society and the market, we then focus more closely on some of the assumptions that socially responsible capitalism makes about civil society and market relations, assumptions that dominate mainstream donor thinking. Socially responsible capitalism assumes that civil society and market economies are positively related and that civil society and the market operate as separate, autonomous spheres. Civil society thus emerges as a way of resolving the contradictions and tensions of capitalism and in particular its atomizing, unequalizing, and exclusionary effects. These effects have preoccupied political thinkers from the Enlightenment onward when civil society was first separated conceptually from the state. Contemporary experience of welfare-statism, actually existing socialism, and globalization have in turn revitalized these issues. We challenge these assumptions and argue first that capitalist development does not inevitably and naturally give rise to a vibrant, autonomous civil society. Second, we suggest that the assumed boundaries between civil society and the market are not clear-cut, undermining the acclaimed autonomy and separateness of civil society. Third, we argue that the definition of civil society as the arena of “nonprofit” weakens the political function of civil society as a critical eye on both state and market. Fourth, we suggest that market economies can undermine the cohesive and integrating dimensions of civil society, creating and reinforcing processes of social exclusion.

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Socially Responsible Capitalism and Civil Society Up till the end of the Cold War, economic and ideological debate gravitated around the relative merits of the state or market as principles for organizing the economy. In the 1950s and 1960s Keynesian thinking undergirded the growth of welfare states in Western Europe and developmental statism in the South. By the 1970s, however, as developmental states failed to bring prosperity and economic growth to newly independent countries, and burgeoning welfare states became increasingly expensive to sustain, the pendulum swung sharply to the right. In the United Kingdom and the United States of the 1980s, the ideologies of Thatcherism and Reaganism celebrated the retreat of the state and the supremacy of market forces. In the neoliberal vision of free market economies and liberal democracies, civil society was a plurality of interest groups, symbolizing the freedoms of association and expression as well as the social energies of autonomous, rational individuals. Both market and civil society were arenas of self-regulation. However for neoliberals there was no place for civil society in the economic realm. At the most civil society, in the guise of charities and nongovernmental organizations, might address the worst forms of poverty but the prime safety net lay with “the family.” As Thatcher so blatantly expressed, “There is no such thing as society.” If there could be no society, then neither could there be a civil society. The family and the market were the key pillars of social and economic life in this most conservative rendering of neoliberalism.2 With the collapse of actually existing socialism across the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe at the end of the 1980s, neoliberalism as a normative ideal and empirical fact seemed to be vindicated. Socialism, as an alternative vision of economic and political life, was discredited, triggering the gradual dissolution of communist parties throughout the world as well as intellectual disillusion among left and radical thinkers and activists. However the continuing decline of growth rates in sub-Saharan Africa and the widening socioeconomic disparities in both the South and North led politicians, donor agencies, and academics to question the desirability of barely constrained market forces.3 This growing unease with the claims of neoliberalism soon found expression in a series of publications that drew attention to the failures of the market and paved the way for the articulation of a “Third Way” between state and market. In the UK, Will Hutton in his influential book The State We’re In expressed a deep concern for the degenerative consequences of unrestrained capitalism in the UK: “Social cohesion is deteriorating year by year. The combination of repression, poorly paid work and moral sermons offered by the right as a solution is no answer to reasonable demands for decent work and living conditions, whose erosion is indissol-

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ubly linked with the rise of crime, drugs and violence” (Hutton 1996: 323). For Hutton a new way forward was needed that tamed and democratized the market, reducing its degenerative and excluding effects and harnessing the “dynamism of capitalism to the common good.” Hutton captured this vision of an inclusive and responsible market in the concept of “stakeholder capitalism,” where both labor and capital worked together as “social partners.” Across the Atlantic the 1997 World Development Report The State in a Changing World signaled an important turning point in World Bank thinking about the role of the state in the economy, which recognized the need for some state intervention to guarantee minimum living standards and some state regulation of the market. No longer was it a matter of whether or not the state should intervene, but how. As stated in the report: “Few dispute the central role of the state in securing the economic and social fundamentals. . . . There is much less agreement, however, about the state’s precise role in regulation and industrial policy” (World Bank 1997b: 61). This effectively exposed the neoliberal idea of a self-regulating market as a hopeless fiction. In complete contrast to its previous position the World Bank now openly acknowledged the significance of state policies in the oft-cited successes of the Four Little Tigers. However, it was not just a matter of intervention, but effective state intervention: The state has much to do with whether countries adopt the institutional arrangements under which markets can flourish. Not only is the state the arbiter of rules; through its own economic activity it shapes the environment for business and the rest of the economy. For good or ill, the state sets the tone. This chapter makes the empirical case for shifting the focus of our thinking about development toward the quality of a country’s institutions and the capability of the state—for bringing institutions into the mainstream of our dialogue about development. (World Bank 1997b, chap. 2: 28–29)

On the one hand the World Bank’s refocusing on the effectiveness of the state and broader governance issues reflected an intellectual approach that steered away from any critical analysis of global capitalism and implicitly held Southern governments responsible for economic “backwardness” and “mismanagement.” On the other hand, however, it symbolized a shift away from the ideological neoliberalism that had dominated the 1980s and a move beyond futile, polarized either-or debates around the state and market. By the mid-1990s the discourse of stakeholder capitalism, social inclusion, civil society, participation, social capital, good governance, and corporate responsibility had begun to dominate policythinking in the United

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States and the UK. The Clinton-Blair vision found its most elaborate expression with the publication in 1998 of Anthony Giddens’s volume devoted to the elaboration of the “Third Way” beyond the state and market. As adviser to Prime Minister Tony Blair, Giddens’s ideas have been extremely influential on government policy, as reflected for example in the establishment of a Social Exclusion Unit. His publication has gone furthest in articulating a path that transcends welfare statism and neoliberalism and reflects most closely the spirit of the postsocialist age. Stakeholder capitalism, Giddens’s “Third Way,” social inclusion, responsible business, social capital, partnerships, and alliances form part of a new discourse for rethinking the relations among market, state, and civil society. Socially responsible capitalism proclaims not only a role for state and market in economic organization but also for civil society, thus distinguishing it from both neoliberalism and statist socialism. It regards a minimal state as insufficient to properly regulate the market and alleviate the negative social and environmental effects of the marketplace. Instead the state should provide essential public goods such as utilities, health, and education and uphold social justice through protective employment legislation, basic welfare provision, and minimum wages. Compared to the 1950s and 1960s, the late-twentieth-century vision of the welfare state in socially responsible capitalism recognized the dependencies it created in the past and its suffocating effects on the creative solidarity within society. It thus envisaged a much reduced welfare state that would continue to provide legislative protection to vulnerable groups, offer basic services on a contract basis and in partnership with charitable organizations, and respond more effectively to client needs through enhanced participation and competition. In socially responsible capitalism civil society is an intermediary sphere serving to complement rather than replace the state. Its associational life not only fosters social cohesion and democratic values but also is a site for the expression of difference and diversity, consensus and conflict. It provides a home both to the expression of private economic interests in the shape of chambers of commerce and business associations as well as the collective voices of workers in unions. Civil society offers a third route to welfare provision, which is neither private nor state. It thus relieves some of the financial burden on the state, reduces the dependency culture that state provision had inadvertently generated, and removes the profit element that characterizes contracted privatized services. By alleviating the socioeconomic inequalities created and aggravated by the market, civil society absolves the market of responsibility and also maintains the stability and reproduction of a market economy. Yet civil society not only functions as an equilibrating mechanism but also as an alternative and supplementary regulatory means to the state and market. Fair trade organizations, consumer bodies, product campaigns such

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as the campaign about footballs made by children in Pakistan, and environmental groups monitor the actions of companies to ensure that they abide by national and international policies and that they do not reap profits through exploitative, abusive, and socially irresponsible practices. Civil society serves as a watchdog on both the state and the market. Though socially responsible capitalism upholds the advocacy role of such organizations, it nevertheless seeks to avoid the confrontational tactics of the left, substituting for these a strategy of consensus politics realized in the form of partnerships and alliances. Civil society can serve as a watchdog on the market, but only as long as it respects the market principle of economic organization. Fundamental to this new discourse of partnerships and alliances are the notions of trust and social capital, which, as discussed in Chapters 2 and 3, have strongly influenced donor thinking in the 1990s. In line with this approach the World Bank, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Ford Foundation, and numerous other multilateral and bilateral donor agencies have promoted “partnerships” among civil society, government, and business. In the UK the Department of International Development has been a key supporter of the Ethical Trading Initiative, which brings together nongovernmental developmental organizations, trades unions, business, and government to formulate and implement socially responsible business practices. Furthermore, Clare Short, secretary of state for the Department of International Development, has played a key role in keeping open a critical agenda around issues of global trade and investment, labor rights, and poverty. These practical initiatives are discussed in further depth in Chapter 5. By bringing business and civil society into partnership, the socially responsible approach to capitalism seeks to make capital ethical, to inject it with a new morality, and in so doing, to reconcile the creative yet socially and environmentally destructive effects of capitalism, without however undermining the market principle of economic organization.

Alternatives to Capitalism Like socially responsible capitalism, this second broad approach of alternatives, which prevailed in the 1990s and early millennium, seeks to transcend the old dichotomies of reform and revolution, of state versus market. Taking on board the experiences of Eastern Europe, it rejects any return to Stalinist or Leninist state forms, which it views as oppressive and stifling of self-organization and grassroots initiative. It shares the concerns of socially responsible capitalism for the inequalities reaped by the market but differs in mounting a more fundamental challenge to the desirability of capitalism and even of development. While socially responsible capitalism

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takes the triadic unity of state, market, and civil society as a consensus, the alternative approach problematizes these relations, underlining the axes of conflict between nodes of the trinity. However, unlike socially responsible capitalism, the range of ideas captured under the conceptual umbrella of alternatives to capitalism remains broad, diffuse, and less coherently articulated. Though it may be unified in what it opposes, it is less united in its envisioning of an alternative. There are a multiplicity of voices within this camp, which draw on a range of philosophical traditions and ideologies such as environmentalism, ecofeminism, Buddhism, Christianity, Gandhism, anarchism, Marxism, and radical and socialist feminism. Though they all share a concern with social justice, equality, and environmental sustainability and are critical of state and market oppression, there is no common vision of how “the good life” might be otherwise organized. They find expression within some Northern and Southern nongovernmental organizations such as Christian Aid and War on Want; in campaign groups such as the World Development Movement and Amnesty International; in social movements in the North and South such as labor, environment, gender, and indigenous rights movements; and in radical action initiatives such as highway protests, destruction of genetically modified crops, and anticapitalism demonstrations. Given this multiplicity of voices, it is not surprising to find a range of positions on the desirable roles of the state, market, and civil society in the economy. Those who still endorse the need for a state seek a more decentralized and participatory state or federation of local states. Key values and notions in an “other” visioning of the state are “the local,” “the grassroots,” “empowerment,” “social justice,” and “solidarity.” Others, however, in the traditions of anarchism, Owenite socialism, and self-reliance, reject all forms of state control and advocate self-regulated and self-reliant local communities, which essentially collapse civil society, political society, and the state. In a context of globalization, where the role of national states is increasingly called into question, this lack of clarity about the appropriate and desirable role of the state in relation both to the economy and to civil society constitutes one of the weaknesses of alternative approaches to capitalism, and indeed of socially responsible capitalism. The current intellectual and political preoccupation with the concept of civil society is matched in turn by a corresponding reluctance to rethink and re-envision the role of the state in the post–Cold War era. Consequently this has thwarted creative thinking about how to link the demands of civil society actors with the state so as to bring about effective policy and social change, or in Nancy Fraser’s terms, how to turn a weak public sphere of public opinion formation into a strong public sphere of decisionmaking (1997: 89–92).

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Although these diverse groups embrace different approaches to the state, they share in common a deep concern with the sustainability and fairness of market-based growth strategies of development and a desire to find alternatives to market- and state-led growth founded on values of solidarity, mutuality, and collectivity. While neoliberals posit the state as the key threat to free markets and free politics and advocates of socially responsible capitalism recognize the dangers of oppressive states and unrestrained markets, proponents of alternatives to capitalism emphasize the destructive and oppressive dimensions of the market. Their responses to the harmful social and environmental externalities of capitalism range from demands for much tighter social regulation and monitoring of markets to experimentation with and promotion of alternative economic systems such as fair trade, mutual aid, producer and consumer cooperatives, communes, and production systems based on environmentally friendly technologies and practices. Some reject the materialism of the modern age and advocate a retreat into self-subsistent communities. A dominant strand within the alternative approach is to complement or replace market principles of economic organization based on the utility-maximizing individual with collectively rooted forms of economic interaction. In doing so supporters of alternatives implicitly restate the argument put forward by Karl Polanyi over fifty years ago that historically the market system is but one of the principles of organizing economic production and echo his concern about the socially destructive effects of capitalism.4 The alternative vision thus prioritizes the collective over the individual, the local over the central, fair trade over unfair profit, and cooperation over competition. Compared with socially responsible capitalism, the alternative conceptualization of civil society is more acutely aware of the contestation of ideas and ideological contradictions within civil society. Civil society is an arena of diversity, plurality, and difference, but it is also an arena of inequality and differential power relations, which are rooted in capitalist economies. It is neither neutral nor benign. This alternative conceptualization of civil society and market relations is more conscious of the voices of the poor over the rich, of the needs of labor over capital, and of the dangers and power of global corporations. It looks for and strategizes around the emancipatory within civil society, which it uses to challenge the dominance of the market system. However, as pointed out earlier, the alternatives to capitalism embrace a continuum of positions with regard to both the market and civil society. For some espousing the values of solidarity and mutuality, civil society is primarily an arena in which to contest the market, a space to use to challenge hegemony. For neo-Marxists such as Ellen Meiskin-Wood it is capitalism that binds the fragmented pieces of civil society and that gives coherence to the multiplicity of organizations. As such civil society cannot

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offer an alternative road to emancipation for it is a crucial, yet doubleedged, element of the superstructure of capitalism. For others civil society can provide a soil for seeding new ideas and cultivating new forms of economic organization such as the expanding and highly effective Local Exchange and Trading Scheme (LETS) in the UK or microfinance projects aimed at the empowerment of the poor throughout the South. We have sketched here the contours of two broad approaches to civil society–market relations in the post–Cold War era, both of which have found their practical expression in the activities of donor agencies. The ideas of socially responsible capitalism circulate visibly in the discourse and practices of large U.S.-based multilateral and bilateral donor agencies such as the World Bank, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and the Department for International Development (DFID), while the alternative approach surfaces more prominently in the rhetoric and actions of some Northern and Southern nongovernmental organizations, social movements, and grassroots organizations. However, in practice, elements of each approach, such as “participation,” “empowerment,” and “partnerships,” can appear simultaneously in the discourses and practices of different donors, reflecting the contestation and negotiation of meaning and the discursive fluidity of hegemonic and seemingly counterhegemonic discourses. Moreover within many multilateral and bilateral organizations and international financial institutions such as the World Bank, a neoliberal vision of free markets and minimal state intervention, in which civil society is notable by its absence, continues to circulate, contending often fiercely with socially responsible capitalism. Both these broad approaches seek in different ways to resolve some of the key tensions, contradictions, and ambiguities arising from the spread of global capitalism. These relate to the assumed naturalness and complementarity of civil society and market economies, the apparent autonomy of civil society from the market, civil society’s struggle to retain its critical function, and the atomizing and exclusionary effects of the market. In the next section we query the assumed causal relation between capitalism and civil society.

Civil Society and Capitalist Development Though donors may differ in the relative importance they attach to the role of civil society in economic and political processes and pursue different strategies for strengthening civil society, there is a general consensus that civil society contributes positively toward economic development, which in turn is taken to mean capitalist development. In their foreword to a report

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of the proceedings of a conference on the strengthening of civil society held in 1995, the heads of the Overseas Development Council and the Synergos Institute in the United States underlined this dual function of civil society: “The expectation is that promoting civil society organizations will support not only economic advancement, but also the more complex tasks of ensuring democratic political change and social justice in developing countries” (Synergos 1995: 1). It is assumed that because civil society in its modern as opposed to classical form5 emerged out of, and alongside capitalism, civil society is thus both a natural product and an integral component of a capitalist economy. Historically civil society expresses the dissolution of traditional bonds of solidarity and association and the emergence of new forms of social integration in the context of capitalist modernization. We take issue with this assumed causality and teleology and argue, first, that the emergence of an oppositional civil society in state socialism reflects a political rather than an economic logic rooted in the development of capitalism; second, that market economies do not always give birth to vibrant, autonomous civil societies; and third, that the density and dynamism of civil society is not automatically linked to the level of economic development. The proposition that market economies engender civil societies appears to be justified by both historical experience and contemporary developments in Eastern Europe and the South. Historically, civil society emerged in the context of European transition from a feudal mode of production toward an industrializing, modern capitalist economy. Civil society was a particular historical outcome of a disintegrating feudal society and the making of a new economic order centered on private capital accumulation. The social ruptures emanating from rapid economic change as well as the atomizing and polarizing effects of individual entrepreneurship deeply influenced the thinking of grand theorists from the eighteenth century onward, including Ferguson, Hegel, Marx, and Durkheim. Like Hegel, Marx linked the rise of civil society to a rapidly developing market economy and its social protagonist, the bourgeoisie.6 This integral link between civil society and capitalism appears to be vindicated not only by the historical trajectory of Western Europe but also by the contemporary experiences of existing state socialism. Indeed scholars such as Charles E. Lindblom have observed that while a market economy can underpin both democratic and authoritarian political systems, hence vibrant and highly constricted civil societies, there is no evidence of nonmarket democracies (cited in Beetham 1997: 77). Beetham (1997) deduces from this that the absence of nonmarket democracies must logically also mean the absence of civil society in nonmarket economies. Yet such a proposition is not quite correct as we shall illustrate in our discussion of first state socialism and then authoritarian capitalism.

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The ruling Marxist-Leninist parties in former socialist states such as pre-1978 China, Vietnam, and the Soviet Union either completely eliminated or sharply limited private ownership of property and directed economic development through administrative means. With state penetration of nearly all spheres of social life, civil society was severely constricted and weak, as reflected in the very limited numbers of nonstate intermediary organizations and the lack of non–state directed civil activity. In the 1950s and 1960s the tightly controlled civil societies of Eastern Europe sporadically challenged the authoritarianism of the Stalinist regimes and the dominance of the Soviet Union. As the Eastern European economies began to stagnate during the late 1970s and early 1980s, intellectuals, workers, and others began to debate alternatives and to organize, often under the shelter of the Catholic and Protestant churches or through other means. The demands for democracy during the 1980s reflected both the increasing strength of a frustrated civil society as well as the despair of system reformers in the possibility of changing the system from within. Initially these were movements that called for new forms of self-management of the socialist economy, not for market-oriented economies. The clamor for civil society, however, paralleled growing pressure for market alternatives to state planning, bolstering the notion that political and economic liberalization were intrinsically connected and marginalizing alternative reflection. If it was the case that nonmarket economies or authoritarian systems did not have civil societies because they lacked a bourgeoisie, then there would be no way to explain how political change occurred in cases such as the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, except that it was induced and mobilized from above through enlightened leadership or astute politicians, who realized that political opening was the only remaining way to maintain power. The cases of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union suggest that while democratic nonmarket economies may be nonexistent, it is very difficult to completely subdue extra-state forms of association. Nevertheless the social space for associating, organizing, and articulating different ideas about and visions of “the good life” is constricted and has constantly to be fought for. Furthermore, these cases suggest not only that civil society is an important factor in processes of democratization, but also that the social origins of civil society do not derive solely from bourgeois economic interests. Civil societies emerged not out of the vestiges of past market economies or because of the growing power of entrepreneurial interests but as a societal response to repressive political regimes. Civil society had a political logic that could not be directly linked to the growing power of an emerging bourgeoisie. Though the development of civil society in socialist states points to the noneconomic origins of civil society, a matter that is explored in much

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greater detail in Chapter 6, on the People’s Republic of China, the case of capitalist authoritarian regimes supports the proposition that capitalism does not always yield the fruit of civil society. The coexistence of successful capitalist economies with authoritarian civil or military regimes challenges the inevitability of a positive dynamic between capitalism and civil society. The case of the Four Little Tigers, namely, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and South Korea, well exemplifies this apparent anomaly. One of the crucial differences between the emergence of civil society in nineteenth-century Europe and the Four Little Tigers concerns the relationship between capital and the state. The development of industrial capitalism from the eighteenth century onward brought about fundamental changes in the structure of society, in particular creating the bourgeoisie and the working class. Faced with a state that reflected more the interests of rural landowners and the aristocracy, the emerging bourgeoisie began to seek political representation. Through the formal and informal organizations of civil society reflecting bourgeois interests such as business associations, chambers of commerce, clubs, and salons, it articulated political demands, which eventually led to the representation of propertied interests in parliament. This historical experience has underpinned the notion that capitalism gives rise to and exists in harmony with civil society. Yet this positive historical link between civil society and capitalism cannot, without much qualification, be reified into a universal maxim. In the case of the Four Little Tigers, all have experienced staggering growth rates since the 1960s yet have harbored authoritarian and, often, military regimes. Intermediary space for autonomous association was sharply limited and any organizations perceived to present a challenge to political power were repressed. Thus it seems that authoritarian governments are as compatible with capitalism as liberal democratic forms of rule. The processes of democratization that began to flourish in the mid-1980s in these countries centered around the demand for greater political space, more freedom of expression, and the right to dissent. In South Korea they also took the form of intense battles between organized labor, the state, and capital. Like authoritarian state socialist economies, authoritarian capitalist economies, too, did not provide an environment in which civil society could flourish; yet, neither could they completely destroy civil society. The key difference between contemporary market regimes with authoritarian governments and industrializing Europe in the nineteenth century lies precisely in this relationship between the state and the market. Despite neoclassical depictions of the Four Little Tigers as exemplars of the free market, a view from which the World Bank distanced itself in the mid1990s, scholars such as Robert Wade (1990) and Alice Amsden (1989) argued convincingly that the Asian Tigers owed their success not least to the facilitating role of their respective states.7 Given that the state facili-

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tates, defends, and promotes the interests of the domestic bourgeoisie vis-àvis organized labor and foreign capital, it does not need to contest with the state for a political voice. This is not to say that they do not shape the political process by providing funds to parties that promise to safeguard their interests and that there are not blurred lines between the state and business. Rather the connections between domestic capital and the state do not have to be fought for through the channels of civil society. In the recent transfer of Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China, the local business elite did not use its considerable economic powers as a bargaining chip for greater local democracy. Rather it struck a deal with the Chinese government to secure the pursuit of its own interests. Similarly in predatory regimes in sub-Saharan Africa, clientelistic ties between state officials and local business have often made entrepreneurs defenders of the status quo rather than leaders of democratic change. Where the state and domestic capital work toward the same goals, both have an interest in subduing dissenting voices that challenge the ideological fundaments of the status quo. While in nineteenth-century Europe the bourgeoisie fought through the arena of civil society to dominate the state, authoritarian developmental states substitute for a domestic bourgeoisie or create an enabling environment for domestic capital accumulation. As long as domestic capital can pursue profitmaking activities, it is ready to support whatever regime is in power. Although nonstate forms of association such as chambers of commerce may flourish within authoritarian capitalist economies, any organizations that challenge the logic of capital are barely tolerated. Trade unions, environmental groups, women’s organizations, and human rights groups struggle to emerge and to maintain a space in which to articulate alternative visions of social and economic life. Having questioned the assumed causality between the development of capitalism and the emergence of civil society, we also challenge the notion that civil society is a societal feature of economic growth. With the implementation of market reforms since the late 1970s, China has up till the mid1990s experienced staggering rates of GDP growth, averaging 8 percent annually (World Bank 1997a: 1). It has made significant strides in raising standards of living and reducing rural poverty. Compared to India and Bangladesh, however, the extent of nonstate organizations is limited (see Chapter 6 for further details). However, while Bangladesh has a vibrant civil society with a plethora of local NGOs and international NGOs, it remains one of the poorest countries in the world. Similarly, despite being the so-called world’s largest democracy and home to a multitude of local charities, NGOs, and advocacy groups, India has substantial levels of poverty and illiteracy, considerably higher than that of China. Hence we find market economies sitting comfortably alongside both liberal democratic regimes with a vibrant associational life and authoritarian regimes with

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sharply constricted civil societies. Poor market economies with pluralistic and dynamic civil society organizations contrast with dynamic developing market economies with limited civil societies. This thus challenges the assumptions that a market economy necessarily gives birth to and expands a civil society, that a flourishing civil society is an integral component of a capitalist economy, and that civil society serves as a political counterweight to the state. In other words while market economies can provide fertile soil for civil society organizations, this is not always the case.

Querying the Autonomy of Civil Society The dominance of an antistate rhetoric in much of civil society discourse has underlined the importance of an autonomous sphere of association for the preservation of civil and political rights. While the autonomy of civil society from the state has received much attention in the literature, its conceptual and empirical separation and independence from the market is assumed rather than proven. Though there is a continuing debate as to whether the market is best included or excluded from civil society, and in particular whether companies are, or are not, part of civil society, the complexities of the civil society–market axis in the tripartite consensus model remain undertheorized and unproblematized. However, the trinity of civil society, market, and state has not always dominated political thinking. Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment thinkers in the mid-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries started with a bipartite model of the state and civil-economic society. Although Hegel distinguished three spheres of family, society, and the state, it was only in the twentieth century that civil society and the economy began to be conceptually distinguished as autonomous spheres. In the neoliberal model civil society and the economy are decoupled to the extent that the material basis of civil society and the negative effects of the market on civil society are erased from view. In contrast the radical, alternative vision highlights the potential negative and destructive effects of the economy on civil society and seeks within the context of a debate dominated by antistatism to problematize this relationship. In order to understand these different emphases it is worth tracing the conceptual shift from a bipartite model, where civil and economic society are equated, to a tripartite construction, where each sphere is treated as autonomous. Both the bipartite and tripartite models enter the discursive repertoire of advocates of alternatives to capitalism, socially responsible capitalism, and neoliberals, the key difference lying in the approach to the civil society–economy nexus. In the classical rendition of civil society, where civil society and political society were one and the same, the economy was part of the household,

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and thus residual to the politike koinonia, or political life of the city-state. It was Enlightenment thinkers such as Ferguson, Smith, and Hume who began to shift the focus of civil society away from politics to economics. As Cohen and Arato indicate (1995: 90) such thinkers understood “the essential feature of civil or ‘civilized’ society, not in its political organization but in the organization of material civilization,” thus identifying civil with economic society. For Enlightenment thinkers and post-Enlightenment writers such as Hegel and Marx, civil society was deeply embedded in the rapid development of capitalism. Writing in the eighteenth century the Scottish Enlightenment thinker Adam Ferguson and his contemporary Adam Smith linked the emergence of a modern civilization, which was profoundly distinct from its feudal antecedents, with the development of commerce and manufacture and the division of labor (Barber 1991: 23–54; Ferguson 1966; Smith 1961).8 The identification of civil society with the profound process of economic change is echoed also in the work of Hegel. It was Marx who systematically linked the emergence of civil society to a particular historical stage in the development of property relations, that is, capitalist production.9 Though Hegel did not theorize social change in terms of class as Marx was later to do, he still noted the bourgeois nature of civil society and considered the incipient working class too disorganized to form part of civil society.10 In the first part of the nineteenth century therefore, economic or bourgeois society and civil society were coupled (Cohen and Arato 1995: 143). The question remains how the economic came to be separated from both the state and civil society and why this began to be reflected in donor discourse in the 1990s.11 One of the first writers to pave the way for a conceptual separation of civil society and the market was Karl Polanyi. In his strident critique of nineteenth-century capitalism Polanyi describes how a self-regulating market reduces all social relations to market economic ones: “Ultimately, that is why the control of the economic system by the market is of overwhelming consequence to the whole organization of society: it means no less than the running of society as an adjunct to the market. Instead of economy being embedded in social relations, social relations are embedded in the economic system” (Polanyi 1957: 57). However he also describes how the destructive effects of capitalism are limited by a “counter-movement” of self-protection, which uses protective legislation such as factory laws, associations such as trade unions, and other means of intervention for this purpose (Polanyi 1957: 77, 130–134).12 In this way he lays the foundations for a three-part model of civil society, state, and market.13 This tripartite model found its liberal and neo-Marxist expression in the works of Talcott Parsons and Gramsci respectively. Influenced by Hegel and his multilevel account of civil society, both writers underline the limi-

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tations of reducing explanations of contemporary society to economic and political processes and recognize the importance of social and cultural intermediations. Both theorists separate civil society from the economy and the state and give to it the role of social integration. Inspired by the work of Polanyi, Parsons develops a functional theory of modern society, which posits four autonomous subsystems, namely, the economy, polity, the integrative subsystem, and the pattern maintenance and tension management subsystem.14 Using the concept of the “societal community” rather than civil society, which did not form part of the vocabulary of sociologists at that period of time, Parsons highlights the integrating role of associations in the overall social system. In contrast to the individualism of the market and the directiveness of bureaucracy the societal community is marked by a deep mutual solidarity underpinned by a normative consensus. Though Parsons echoes pluralist tradition in attributing the influence of societal community on the state through the standard pluralist components of legislature, political parties, lobby groups, and the public, he does not develop as fully any theory for the structural mediation of societal community and economy. Although he refers in his work to the role of professional associations and fiduciary boards, he gives no place to workplace democracy, thus effectively normalizing capitalist practice (Cohen and Arato 1995: 133). While Parsons elevates U.S. society to a desirable model of postcapitalism and postsocialism, and so equates existing civil society with a normative desideratum, Gramsci approaches civil society with critical circumspect, emphasizing its functional role in reproducing capitalist relations. Like Parsons, Gramsci contributes to the conceptual differentiation of civil society from the economy, granting it autonomy and recognizing its emancipatory potential. Inspired by both Marx in his critique of capitalism and Hegel in his doctrine of corporations, Gramsci elaborates a theory of capitalist domination that extends beyond the economic to take account of new, diverse, and modern forms of association such as the modern church, trade unions, political parties, and clubs (Simon 1991: 72). For Gramsci the domain of civil society serves to reproduce capitalist domination through consent rather than coercion. It also offers a terrain where counterhegemonic forces can organize, a strategy that during the neoliberal heyday of the 1980s inspired many European scholars and activists on the left. While for Durkheim civil society could be used as an arena for regulating the market, for Gramsci it was the site on which to fundamentally challenge the hegemony of capital (Forgacs 1988: 306–339; Showstack Sassoon 1987: 134– 137). Separating the economy from civil society thus not only allowed new theoretical analysis of the reproduction of capitalist power but also opened up alternative possibilities of emancipation that did not rely solely on the capture of state power.

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Although the expansion of the social sciences in universities across Europe and the United States from the 1950s elevated the importance of social and cultural analysis, the concept of civil society was rarely evoked to understand the dynamics of power relations in capitalist societies. As outlined in Chapter 2, civil society re-entered academic and political discourse from the mid-1980s and by the early 1990s circulated prominently in donor discourse and practice, forming part of the new tripartite paradigm of development. Donors and scholars expended considerable energy on debating the scope of empirical referents that should be included within civil society, shifting from a narrow emphasis on nongovernmental organizations to a broader definition including trade unions and business associations. In doing so they made an important conceptual distinction between civil society and the market that served to consolidate the conceptual trinity and also marked a decisive break with the reductionist conceptualization of civil society and the market economy. The key distinguishing concept here was “nonprofit.” Through the criterion of nonprofit it now became possible to place organizations within the realm of either market or civil society, thus separating once and for all civil society from the economy. However there is a paradox here, for though civil society appears to reach its final destiny as a separate conceptual sphere from the market, its definition in terms of “nonprofit” reduces it to a set of economic activities. So the profit sector of the market and the nonprofit sector of civil society organizations are two sides of the same coin of “the economy.” The nonprofit sector operates as a sphere of economic activities that generates outputs in the form of schools, universities, hospitals, clinics, and soup kitchens. These in turn provide employment and income and add to the gross national product. The most comprehensive study to date of this growing nonprofit sector is the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project, which by 1999 had created an international database on the nonprofit sector of twenty-two countries, including four Central and Eastern European countries and five Latin American countries (Salamon and Anheier 1999: 3). A key finding of Salamon and Anheier’s work is that the nonprofit sector forms a major economic force in the countries under study. If this sector was a national economy, then it would be the eighth largest economy in the world (Salamon and Anheier 1999: 4). The nonprofit sector in the twenty-two countries under study employs almost 19 million fulltime equivalent paid workers, accounting for almost 7 percent of paid employment in Western Europe and 2.2 percent in Latin America. Moreover the study estimated that the time of volunteers equaled that of 10.6 full-time employees (Salamon and Anheier 1999: 4; Salamon and Anheier 1998: 217). The contribution of the nonprofit sector to economic

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life as demonstrated by Salamon and Anheier empirically validates the conceptual separation of the market economy organized around profit maximization from civil society organized around nonprofit economic activities. Another dimension to the problem of the apparent separateness of civil society from the market warrants reflection. While the market acquires its material base through processes of capital accumulation and the state generates revenue through taxation and, in some cases, through its own enterprises, civil society has no obvious source of wealth. Defined as nongovernmental, it should be materially independent of the state; defined as nonprofit, it should not accumulate capital. This leaves it in theory dependent on sources of financing from within civil society such as membership fees, donations, and service charges. Salamon and Anheier’s study is again revealing, for it illustrates the material dependency of civil society not only on service fees but also on the state and, to a lesser extent, philanthropy. In the twenty-two countries studied, fees and service charges constituted 40 percent of revenue in the nonprofit sector, government contributions formed 33 percent, and private giving 27 percent (Salamon and Anheier 1999: 11-13). Hence, while the nonprofit sector is on the one hand a sphere of economic activity, generating its own outputs and income, on the other hand its material base is linked to the state and the market, thus empirically muddying the conceptual clarity of boundaries. In the tripartite conceptual model of civil society, state, and market, civil society is autonomous, yet in existing or empirical civil societies, relations among the three nodes are blurred. Normatively, civil society is one thing; empirically, it is another. Civil society is autonomous in that it has its own logic; yet it is also derivative and dependent. This point becomes particularly relevant in the context of aid-dependent countries where donor funding provides a significant input to the activities of civil society organizations, an issue we explore in greater detail in the next chapter.

Civil Society as a Critical Eye The depiction of civil society as a sphere that is functionally, materially, and socially distinct from the state and market and the elision of this normative vision with empirical reality in socially responsible capitalism serves to obscure and ultimately depoliticize the complex relations between civil society and the market. The preoccupation with the notion of autonomy and the projection of this normative feature onto reality leads in turn to heroic attempts to precisely define and accurately measure autonomy so that it might be used as an indicator of the nature or maturity of civil society. Salamon and Anheier are pioneers in attempting to quantify and measure the extent of civil society, developing categories in which it can be cap-

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tured, measured, and evaluated. CIVICUS, a world alliance for citizen participation, is in the process of developing a civil society index and an assessment tool that can be used to measure the “health of civil societies” (CIVICUS 1999b: 16). Of all donors USAID has gone furthest in trying to develop indicators to measure the extent of civil society and to evaluate eventually the success of civil society strengthening programs and projects. In this way civil society becomes manageable. For skeptical economists in international financial institutions such as the World Bank, the process of quantification and measurement validates the notion of civil society, giving it legitimate substance and rendering it amenable to planning. This has the effect, however, of detracting attention away from the most crucial question of all, namely, why such autonomy is so important. As outlined in Chapter 2, the conceptual separation of civil society from the state was important, not only because it more accurately reflected empirical reality but also because it made possible the protection of this space to challenge state despotism. In nineteenth-century Europe the emerging bourgeoisie dominated this space and sought to protect for their own interests the autonomy of civil society vis-à-vis a despotic state. In late-twentieth-century capitalism empirical civil society includes an expanding realm of service-delivery organizations as well as organizations devoted to contesting ideas, protecting political and civil rights, and challenging global inequities. The space of civil society is inhabited by and contested by a diversity of groups for a much wider range of purposes. Domestic and global capital use civil society as a way to protect their interests vis-à-vis not only the state but also labor movements, trade unions, anticapitalist groups, and environmentalists. Welfare NGOs, charities, and self-help groups seek to protect civil society as a space within which to provide services; address the needs of the poor, vulnerable, and marginalized; and develop community-based responses to social problems. Advocacy groups, trade unions, feminists, animal rights campaigners, environmentalists, and socialists likewise seek the space of civil society to challenge the power of global capital and imagine alternative ways of organizing social and economic life. Civil society is both an arena for the contestation of world-views but also is itself an arena of contestation. Yet the emphasis in the discourse of socially responsible capitalism on the service-delivery role of certain civil society organizations weakens the notion of civil society as a moral check on the market. Though socially responsible capitalism clearly also defends the space of civil society as a way of enhancing state effectiveness, it pays lip-service only to the role of civil society as a check on the market. In contrast the “alternatives to capitalism” approach emphasizes less the nonprofit dimension of civil society and more the notion of civil society as a social space within which to reflect critically on how society organizes

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economic production and reproduction and to experiment with such ideas. It cherishes civil society as a space for checking both the state and the market. Civil society serves politically as a point of pressure on the state to provide decent basic public goods and to facilitate spaces for people to organize self-support groups and facilities. It also serves politically as a site from which to resist global capital, to hold transnational companies responsible for the environmental and social consequences of their economic operations, and to press for democratic regulation. While civil society facilitates a market economy, not least by securing in social and institutional terms its independence from the state and validating the notion of rational, autonomous individuals, it also can provide a site for regulating the market and protecting the public interest from market domination. World markets are dominated by a small number of transnational companies that transcend national borders and loyalties. These companies have frequently resisted attempts by national governments and civil society organizations to regulate their operation, the pharmaceutical industry being a case in point. Even where codes of conduct are agreed among companies, governments, and campaigning groups, the problems of independent monitoring and enforcement are so difficult that the codes become mere rhetoric. Although textile, clothing, and toy manufacturers have come under pressure to take responsibility for labor practices in their subcontracted plants in low-income countries, few have drawn up binding codes of practice that can be, and are being, independently monitored. There are many organizations in the North and South that take up the role of monitoring the market. Consumer organizations, for example, promote the interests of consumers against defective, poor-quality, and overpriced products and services, thus ensuring acceptable standards of production. Fair trade bodies such as TraidCraft in the UK seek to challenge the sectoral dominance of large transnational corporations and also ensure that the front-line farmers and producers reap more of the benefits of trade. Product campaigns such as the Nestles Babyfood Campaign target companies promoting their products at the expense of the consumer, in this case, breast-feeding mothers. Similarly labor organizations such as the Asia Monitor Resources Center based in Hong Kong, trades unions, anti–child labor groups, antislavery organizations, and campaign groups such as Labour Behind the Label seek to articulate the interests of workers and so reduce exploitative practices. Organizations such as the Equal Opportunities Commission work to disclose biases against gender, ethnicity, race, physical ability, and age in the functioning of the market. The rapid development of the Internet provides a new medium through which awareness of all these issues can be raised and campaigns speedily mounted. However, such organizations lack the resources of national governments or

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indeed transnational companies and so are constrained in how much they can achieve. As well as tackling the inequities introduced by the market, civil society organizations can also hold companies responsible for externalities. Organizations such as Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace as well as local movements such as the Chipko movement in India play an important role in drawing attention to the environmental costs of production. In 1998, 600 consumer, environmental, and development groups lobbied successfully to halt the proposed Multi-Lateral Agreement on Investment. In December 1999 a coalition of 1,200 NGOs congregated in Seattle to protest against an unfair global trading system, further trade liberalization, and a process that lacked transparency and representation. In a less combative mode consumers are increasingly opting to invest in ethically responsible companies. By November 1999, according to an article in the Guardian, ethical investment funds reached more than £2.5 billion in the UK (November 27, 1999). Some promoters of socially responsible capitalism, particularly in the U.S. context, tend to overlook civil society organizations concerned with monitoring and questioning the actions of global companies and to highlight instead the nonprofit, service-delivery dimension of civil society, or the role of civil society in maintaining the democratic accountability of the state. This tendency relates in turn to a conceptualization of the respective roles of state, market, and civil society. Socially responsible capitalism calls not for the complete withdrawal of the state from social welfare provision, but the achievement of effective state interventions. Responsibility for education, health, and social and welfare services is shared among the state; contracted, private, profitmaking agencies; and nonprofit, nongovernmental charities and organizations. In the European variant of socially responsible capitalism the historic role of the state becomes significant. Here the state has historically played a much greater role in social protection and economic regulation than in the United States. In the new European socially responsible variant the state continues to play a significant role in service provision, though one that differs from previous roles. Meanwhile in the U.S. context, socially responsible capitalism continues to legitimize a minimal role for state provision of services. The surge of interest in the growing sphere of nonprofit social welfare provision and the enthusiasm of politicians, policymakers, and donors for research that testifies to this is not accidental. It legitimizes a significant shift in thinking about the relative roles of the state, market, and civil society in addressing the socioeconomic inequities and vulnerabilities generated or reinforced by capitalism. In this context it is significant that Salamon and Anheier prefer to describe this realm of economic activity as the “non-profit sector” or the “third sector” rather than “civil society.” The former terms serve to depoliticize debate

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around the relative roles of state, market, and civil society in dealing with social and economic inequalities and questions of the public good. Furthermore, it is disturbing that donors are often using these terms interchangeably, a tendency that is likely to further reinforce the depoliticization of any discussion around the consensus model of market, state, and civil society. Moreover, by emphasizing the economic significance of this “nonprofit sector,” Salamon and Anheier (1994, 1997, 1998, 1999) expose inadvertently a further underlying rationale for this sector in socially responsible capitalism. This rationale is the function of the nonprofit sector as an alternative source of employment to the state and market, which thereby resolves the tensions emanating on the one hand from capitalism’s inability to provide full employment and on the other hand from the ineffective use of state resources. Thus, the tendency of socially responsible capitalism to reduce civil society to an economic realm of nonprofit organizations has the effect of, first, depoliticizing any debate about the respective responsibilities of the state, market, and civil society with regard to provision of basic services and full employment and, second, undermining the critical role of civil society in relation to the market.

Civil Society and the Problems of Social Exclusion and Integration In tracing the conceptual separation of civil society from the economy we can also observe undercurrents of tension and ambivalence around the atomizing impact of the market on civil society and the concomitant integrating effects of civil society on the market. The idea that civil society complements and indeed facilitates capitalist development is premised on a liberal conceptualization of the economic actor as a utility-maximizing, autonomous, and rational individual. Such economic individualism finds echoes in the political sphere where liberal theorists in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries envisioned democracy as an elitist affair, limited to property-owning (male) citizens. This notion of civil society as the associative realm of propertied individuals consolidates the economic individualism underpinning capitalist development and in this sense can be said to facilitate capitalist processes. However, in its sharp attack on the state the contemporary civil society debate ended up not only eulogizing civil society but also diluting the critical content of civil society. Yet if we look back to Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment writers, whose work has informed the different conceptualizations of civil society–economy relations, we find a constant thematization of the creative yet destabilizing impulses of market forces and their

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shaping of civil society. As discussed in Chapter 2, on the one hand the market seems to provide the material and social basis for the autonomy of civil society against the state; on the other hand it seems to undermine the solidary bonds of association, restricting the autonomy and diversity of civil society. While in contemporary debate the state is posited as the main threat to civil society and the primary source of political despotism, Enlightenment critics such as Ferguson were alert to the dangers posed by the market to public life. Ferguson observes the widening social inequalities brought about by the division of labor and commercial progress. He comments, “In every commercial state, notwithstanding any pretension to equal rights, the exaltation of a few must depress the many” (Ferguson 1966: 187). These inequalities in turn weakened the prospects for democratic government. In his words, “Whether in great or in small states, democracy is preserved with difficulty, under the disparities of condition, and the unequal cultivation of the mind, which attend the variety of pursuits, and applications, that separate mankind in the advanced state of commercial arts” (Ferguson 1966: 187). As we have discussed in Chapter 3, Marx produced a devastating critique of the illusion of freedom created by the distinction between civil and political society. The social and economic inequalities within civil society rendered the equality of civil and political rights artificial and unreal. Though the works of Ferguson, Hegel, Marx, and other eighteenth- and nineteenth-century writers point to the de facto exclusionary character of civil society, which nevertheless gave the appearance in its discourse of liberal freedoms and rights as a domain of inclusion and equality, in contemporary thinking the social character of civil society has received little critical comment. The antistate theme that dominated civil society debate in the 1980s and much of the 1990s has consolidated a depiction of civil society as a unified, benign, harmonious plurality of a people struggling for negative liberties from an oppressive state, be it socialist, authoritarian, dictatorial, or military. This conception contrasts with civil society in the nineteenth century, which served to articulate the interests of an emerging bourgeoisie against authoritarian states representing landed and aristocratic interests. In late-twentieth-century capitalism civil society is a far more complex and differentiated arena of association, where a diversity of socioeconomic interests finds expression and new social functions such as welfare provision have grown in size and salience. This complexity and differentiation makes it even harder to discern the social and economic inequalities that permeate civil society as much as they permeate the state and market. It is easy to be swept away by the appearance of plurality and diversity and miss the politics of civil society. In their very useful attempts to measure the state of the nonprofit sector, Salamon and Anheier (1994,

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1998, 1999), too, fall prey to the lure of diversity and plurality. In measuring the nonprofit sector they juxtapose a range of organizations from soup kitchens to private hospitals. In doing so they contribute to the veiling of social and economic inequalities that such organizations express. In contrast Ellen Meiskins Wood offers a trenchant critique of the uncritical embracing of civil society in contemporary thought. In celebrating the diversity and plurality of the associational realm of civil society, Wood argues that the current civil society debate has lost sight of the dynamics of global capitalism that underpin and unite these multiple, divergent parts: The capitalist system, its totalizing unity, can be conceptualised away by adopting loose conceptions of civil society or by submerging class in catch-all categories like “identity” and by disaggregating the social world into particular and separate realities. The social relations of capitalism can be dissolved into an unstructured and fragmented plurality of identities and differences. (Wood 1990: 78)

By the mid-1990s as donors gained more experience in attempting to “build civil society” and observed how the emergent civil societies in newly independent Eastern European states failed to consolidate themselves, often taking on disturbing antidemocratic characteristics, there was a growing awareness of the divisions within civil society and of the unequal power relations prevailing not just in the economy but also in civil society. The realization that there are “barriers to entry” into civil society, and that civil society is as much a captured field as the state and economy, underpins the growing interest among donors, politicians, and policymakers in the idea of “social exclusion.” In the context of unequal economic and social power, is it possible to have parity of association and participation in civil or political society? How can “the poor” and those on the margins of society find a voice in civil society? How can they finance associations and campaigns when the resources of corporate capital and privileged social groups are so much greater? Whose interests do donors promote in their civil society strengthening programs?

Conclusion Contemporary civil society debate has focused on the antistate dimension of civil society with the result that the relationship of the economy to civil society, and also, especially, to the market, has still to be problematized. Yet as long as the assumptions that donors uncritically make about the compatibility of civil society with capitalism are left unexplored, it is

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unlikely that civil society strengthening programs can yield the results that donors might wish. If market economies coexist as well with authoritarian regimes as liberal democratic ones, then what is the economic and political rationale for building civil society? If civil society emerges out of capitalist development, then the question remains whether donors should seek to build civil society in the transitional contexts wherein processes of privatization and liberalization are fragile and uneven. Should civil society function mainly as a way of compensating for market and state failures or can it also serve as a counterweight to market despotism? Whom within civil society should, and do, donors support? Chapter 5, on donors, attempts to take up some of these crucial issues.

Notes 1. Regarding the relationship between civil society and the state, a report on a conference about civil society in three Latin American countries notes these tensions as one of the key challenges to developing a trisector approach to development problems: “In most countries in Latin America, some degree of political tension exists between civil society and government” (Synergos 1996: 13). 2. See Cohen and Arato (1995: 21–26) for a discussion of two versions of what they refer to as a neoconservative model of civil society. One version of this equates civil society to bourgeois society; another recognizes the importance of culture and socialization through the values of tradition and self-reliance and the institutions of family, religion, and school. 3. Regarding growth rates in sub-Saharan Africa, see Bienefeld (1988: 68– 87), Leys (1996: 135–142), Sandbrook (1994), Toye (1993: 35), World Bank (1989, 1994). 4. Polanyi (1957: 43–57) makes the case that up till the end of feudalism in Western Europe all economic systems were organized along the principles of reciprocity, redistribution, or householding, that is, subsistence production. While markets existed, they were not the prevailing principle of economic organization. On the socially destructive effects of the self-regulating market system, Polanyi (1957) writes, “But, while production could theoretically be organized in this way, the commodity fiction disregarded the fact that leaving the fate of soil and people to the market would be tantamount to annihilating them” (131). More specifically with regard to labor, he comments, “To separate labor from other activities of life and to subject it to the laws of the market was to annihilate all organic forms of existence. . . . Such a scheme of destruction was best served by the application of the principle of freedom of contract” (163). And more generally, Polanyi argues, “Since society was made to conform to the needs of the market mechanism, imperfections in the functioning of that mechanism created cumulative strains in the body social” (201). 5. For a detailed exposition of the gradual conceptual distinction between civil society and the state from 1750 onward in European political thought, see Keane (1988: 35–72).

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6. In the words of Marx, “The word ‘civil society’ emerged in the eighteenth century, when property relationships had already extricated themselves from the ancient and medieval communal society” (Marx and Engels 1965: 26–27). He also commented that “civil society as such only develops with the bourgeoisie” (Marx and Engels 1965: 27). 7. See also Haggard (1990), Hamilton (1986), Leys (1996: 10–14), Toye (1993: 111–112), White (1987). 8. Though Adam Smith did not use the term civil society, he describes in detail in his volume The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, how the development of commerce leads to an improvement in order, government, and security. For example he writes, “Commerce and manufactures gradually introduced order and good government, and with them, the liberty and security of individuals” (Smith 1961: 433), and “It is thus that through the greater part of Europe the commerce and manufactures of cities, instead of being the effect, have been the cause and occasion of the improvement and cultivation of the country” (1961: 440). 9. In his introduction to Ferguson’s “Essay on the History of Civil Society,” Forbes (Ferguson 1966: xxv) points out that though Ferguson states that “property is a matter of progress,” this should not be interpreted to mean that Ferguson was in some sense a proto-Marxist, positing a determinant relationship between civil society and the development and structure of private property. 10. See Cohen and Arato (1995: 97). On the subject of class Cohen and Arato (1995: 110) state, “Hegel does not even feel the need to indicate and justify his exclusion from political life of the one class, direct labor, that is supposedly totally disorganized.” 11. Here we draw on and extend the genealogy of the separation of the economy and civil society traced by Cohen and Arato (1995: 117–158). 12. Polanyi (1957: 130–222) provides a detailed analysis of how the clash between the organizing principles of economic liberalism and social protection shaped social history. He argues that the measures that society took to protect itself undermined the self-regulation of the market (Polanyi 1957: 130–134). 13. Cohen and Arato (1995: 425) point out that he undermines these insights by identifying the self-defense of society ultimately with state regulation. 14. For a detailed description and explanation of these four subsystems see Parsons and Smelser (1972: 46–51).

5 Manufacturing Civil Society from the Outside: Donor Interventions

So far we have examined critically donor ideas about the relationship between civil society, democracy, and the market. In this chapter we move on to consider how donors have attempted to put some of these ideas into practice. In doing so we should bear in mind that donor agencies vary enormously in their objectives, financial sources and strength, organizational structures, administrative procedures, geographical focus, and thematic breadth of programs and projects. It is not surprising then that they also differ in the relative salience they attach to civil society. We first outline the extent of donor support to civil society and then trace the specific paths leading particular donor agencies to engage with the concept of civil society and legitimize it in specialized units and personnel. We examine three ways of operationalizing the concept, namely, institution and capacity building, forming partnerships, and strengthening the material base of civil society. In the final section we highlight some of the dilemmas and contradictions donors face in attempting to create and strengthen civil society from the outside. These include the politics of definition and choice, the politics of partnership, the instrumentalization of civil society, the politics of autonomy and dependence, and the politics of universality.

Donor Support to Civil Society The encounter of particular donor agencies with civil society and their enthusiasm for this concept has to be situated within a broader context of growing disillusion with the state as both agent of economic development 89

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and locus of justice. These political assaults on the state took place within the ideological context of the rise of neoliberalism, which celebrated the allocative efficiencies of the market and derided the state as an agency for economic growth and management. As Thatcherism prompted the rolling back of the state in the UK, a similar strategy was pursued by Mohammed Mahathir in Malaysia and Augusto Pinochet in Chile. The large U.S. budget deficit along with the pressures of globalization to restructure led the United States and Western Europe to follow suit in due course. The international financial institutions soon administered the same medicine in the form of structural adjustment programs to the ailing economies in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and the newly emerging states in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. While the market seemed to pose an effective alternative to the inefficiencies and waste of state planning, the concept of civil society began to enter academic discourse to conceptualize effective challenges to oppressive state systems. It was Eastern European intellectuals such as Andrew Arato and Vaclav Havel who revived academic interest in the concept of “civil society,” portraying the overthrow of authoritarian Stalinist states in terms of a battle between civil society and the state. In the West the hegemonic period of Thatcherism ironically also stimulated a revival of interest in the work of Gramsci and civil society. Just as Gramsci had criticized Leninist parties in the 1920s and 1930s for failing to win popular support, thus ceding the path to fascism, in the late 1980s left-wing academics, such as Stuart Hall, likewise challenged the radical left to build on individuals’ common sense and fashion a counterhegemony within the arena of civil society (Simon 1991: 14–15; Hall 1991: 114–130). As discussed in Chapter 2, throughout the 1980s authoritarian states began to fall one after another as a wave of democratization swept across Africa and Latin America, underlining the power of social movements, mass protests, and grassroots organizations to challenge oppressive rule. This antistatist sentiment took an added twist as international financial institutions began to reassess SAPs, which not only had miserably failed to stimulate economic growth in sub-Saharan countries but also had aggravated inequalities and diminished access for the poor to basic needs such as education and health (Cornea, Jolly, and Stewart 1987). While taking on board the reformist critique of giving SAPs a “human face,” international financial institutions turned their attention to the indigenous governments. Rather than faulting the tenets of SAPs, donors stressed the importance of “good governance,” emphasizing the need for democratization, accountability, and participation. This in turn put the spotlight on civil society as a critical stalwart against the authoritarian excesses of the state and as the site for the participation of individual citizens in the development process.

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This critique against aid-recipient governments also took place within a context where the “comparative advantages” of NGOs were gaining recognition among development academics and bilateral and multilateral agencies (Fowler 1988). NGOs were gradually conceived as “alternative” deliverers of social services and welfare, thus providing a solution to the incapacities of the state as well as the inequities of capitalist development. Against this background “civil society” emerged as a way of resisting authoritarian rule, asserting a new moral order, and establishing values of individual autonomy and freedom. For many donors, especially in the early 1990s, the concept of civil society was equated and so reduced to NGOs. As the collapse of socialism heralded the triumph of both liberal democracy and capitalism, the ideological rationale behind foreign policy and aid began to lose its persuasive force. This in turn paved the way for donors to reassess their aid programs and rethink their strategies and goals. As the discourse of civil society became fashionable within development circles, some donors began to set up specialized departments and units, change the names of outdated sections, appoint people with apparent expertise in this field, and devise strategies and programs for creating, supporting, and strengthening civil society. In the corridors of donor agencies we now find “civil society units” and “governance and civil society departments” as well as or instead of units dedicated wholly to NGOs. These specialized departments in turn seek to promote working with civil society in other parts of their organizations and set up projects and programs to strengthen civil society. These institutional changes mirror the growing importance of civil society in donor agendas. However, the extent of donor support to civil society is difficult to estimate and gather. This is partly because programs aimed explicitly at strengthening civil society emerged only in the 1990s, and civil society is not often used as a category in the statistics of aid agencies. Moreover support to civil society organizations is provided not only in specific civil society strengthening projects, which form part of larger democracy and governance programs, but also in other sectors such as health, environment, water, gender, and education. Despite the growing prominence of civil society in donor discourse, official aid donations to civil society remain small. Development Assistance Committee (DAC) data for 1995, for example, reveal that support to civil society projects amounted to U.S.$391 million, accounting for 0.84 percent of aid and only 9 percent of expenditure on governance (Van Rooy 1998: 58–59).1 Compared to 1991 the budget for civil society projects in 1995 had increased more than threefold from U.S.$113 million, and the number of projects rose from thirty to 440. While donors clearly gave greater attention to civil society, budgetary figures remained small, partly because of the inevitable delay in disbursements of

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funds and partly because unlike large-scale engineering works, civil society projects do not require huge inputs of capital. By far the largest provider of civil society assistance is the United States, which in 1995 accounted for 85 percent of all civil society assistance, sponsoring 335 out of 440 civil society projects (Van Rooy and Robinson 1998: 60). This assistance is channeled through a range of U.S. governmental organizations such as USAID, the U.S. Information Agency, and the quasi-governmental National Endowment for Democracy; nonprofit organizations such as the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute, and the Carter Center; and foundations such as the Asia Foundation. As the prime goal of such assistance is to promote democratization, support is directed mainly toward advocacy groups in the fields of human rights, women’s rights, environment, and electoral reform. Given the significance of U.S. aid in promoting civil society, the particular ideas about civil society, economic development, and democratization that circulate among U.S. donors and influence their operationalization of the concept are of crucial importance. They affect the ways in which the politics of civil society strengthening programs and projects are played out in specific country contexts. However civil society assistance is not confined to the United States. Multilateral agencies such as the UNDP and European Union (EU); bilateral donors such as the UK, Nordic countries, and the Netherlands; international financial institutions such as the World Bank; and German foundations such as the Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung have all taken onboard the language of civil society. In doing so, some, such as UNDP, view the creation of a dynamic and vibrant civil society as a goal in itself. For others civil society assistance serves primarily as a means to enhance aid effectiveness, promote democracy and good governance, and, particularly for the international financial institutions, achieve a consensus around structural adjustment policies. Yet not all donors have embraced the concept of civil society with such ease. While some donors have set up specific civil society units and programs, in some cases also striving to mainstream the concept, others have paid scant attention to the notion, viewing it as beyond their range of legitimate activities. Others implicitly engage with civil society without, however, explicitly restructuring their programs or declaring it as an organizational, program, or developmental objective. Against this background of donor diversity it is difficult to neatly attribute certain definitions and understandings of civil society to particular donor agencies. Often there may not be a clearly defined institutional perspective on civil society. Many donor organizations are enormous, diffuse entities, subject to different tensions, pressures, and internal interests. Their departments tend to work in parallel fashion, with minimal cross-communi-

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cation so that ideas generated in civil society units may not percolate immediately or be “mainstreamed” throughout the whole organization. Individual engagement with, and enthusiasm for, particular concepts varies and changes over time. Even within especially established civil society units or programs there may be a range of views about what civil society refers to, what it can achieve in terms of democracy and economic development, and the role of donors in creating, strengthening, and advancing it. Here we seek to illustrate both the diversity in understanding as well as some of the common threads.

Donor Paths to Civil Society In this section we trace the processes of encounter with and institutionalization of civil society described above through the cases of specific bilateral and multilateral development agencies as well as foundations. Though most donor agencies have increased their collaboration with NGOs since the 1980s, in some instances establishing specialized units and divisions, the cases presented here are selected because of their specific engagement with the concept of civil society. We are concerned, therefore, with those agencies that have established specialist civil society units, employed civil society experts, and created civil society projects and programs. We do not, therefore, examine in any depth those agencies, such as the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief (OXFAM), the Save the Children Fund, and the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development (CAFOD), that have long histories of working with local community groups, Southern NGOs, and citizens’ organizations to challenge local and global inequalities. Within our scope of attention are large multilateral agencies such as UNDP, which have had a relatively long history of working with development NGOs; international financial institutions such as the World Bank, which wield considerable influence over the macroeconomic policies of many aidrecipient countries; bilateral donors such as USAID, which are significant supporters of civil society strengthening in the South and transitional contexts, as well as the UK Department for International Development, which has gradually been channeling aid through Northern NGOs and, more recently, has set up a special Civil Society Challenge Fund; U.S. foundations such as the Ford Foundation, Kettering Foundation, and Rockefeller Brothers’ Fund; and Northern NGOs working to foster civil society such as CIVICUS, the Synergos Institute, and Pact. In addition we also examine various donor initiatives such as the Partners in Development Programme set up by the Prince of Wales Business Forum, the World Bank, and the UNDP, aimed at fostering business engagement in local development issues (Nelson 1996).

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USAID Changing U.S. foreign policy objectives, government reassessment of the aid program, as well as financial imperatives prompted USAID to reassess past activities and seek alternative channels for the implementation of its programs. In reviewing its past prodemocracy work USAID concluded that too much emphasis had been placed on “supply-side” institutions such as the judiciary, on the mechanics of decentralization, and on service delivery. What was required instead was a focus on the demand side of political change, thus placing more emphasis on developing constituencies for change and on the democratic and participatory nature of institutions. This switch to an emphasis on the demand side reflected in turn the Clinton administration’s particular commitment to democracy and also its move away from the previous foreign policy doctrine of containment (Carothers 1996: 2; 1997: 115). In order to strengthen its own institutional capacity to promote democracy, USAID set up in 1994 a new Center for Democracy and Governance, which included the development of a “politically active civil society” as one of its four strategic objectives, the ultimate goal being the fostering of sustainable democracies: 2 Interest in civil society, in USAID and among other donors, reflects a growing realization that sustaining newly emerging democracies will depend on building autonomous centers of social and economic power that promote accountable and participatory governance. (Hansen 1996: viii)

So as to further and implement its civil society programs, USAID assigned responsibility for the development of civil society to a specialized officer in its large overseas resident missions. This process of rethinking in USAID was in turn influenced by significant cuts in the aid budget as a consequence of the end of the Cold War. Faced with these cuts USAID was galvanized into finding alternative channels to implement its aid policy, focusing its attention on both NGOs and the private sector as potential candidates. In line with this pragmatic attempt at maintaining budget levels, USAID not only increased the amount of developmental assistance channeled through NGOs and “people’s voluntary organizations” but also initiated a new rhetoric of partnership with business and civil society, thus allowing USAID both to downsize and maintain its programs and influence. In 1995 USAID established a New Partnerships Initiative, aimed at empowering NGOs, creating small business partnerships, and fostering democratic local governance (USAID 1997). Such partnerships contributed not only to processes of democratization but also to fostering a consensus among diverse groups about the posi-

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tive role of the market in economic growth. In this climate of change USAID thus began to engage more systematically with the concept of civil society. As already mentioned, by the mid-1990s the United States had become the most significant funder of civil society projects. The World Bank While USAID’s engagement with civil society was prompted by ideological and financial considerations, the World Bank’s encounter with the concept of civil society emerged out of a broader rethinking of state-market relations against a background of often tense relations with development NGOs. Long a keen advocate of a minimal state and free markets, by the 1990s, following the end of the Cold War, experiences of SAPs, and the increasing role of NGOs, the World Bank began to view the polarized discussions around the state and market as increasingly unproductive. The new presidency of Jim Wolfensohn was a key factor in mobilizing this shift in position, which was publicly and cogently articulated in the 1997 World Development Report. By deflecting attention away from reductionist, binary arguments around the state and market, the report emphasizes the complementarity between the state and the market. Moreover, it underlines the need to enhance the effectiveness and capability of the state so as to ensure the minimal functions a state can be expected to perform as well as foster an enabling environment for the market and civil society. Despite this ostensible shift in World Bank policy there continue to be divisions within the bank between the technocrats, who espouse the self-regulation of the market, and the governance advocates, who seek complementarity between state and market along with state reform. This revisioning of state-market relations and the concomitant paradigmatic shift to civil society was accompanied by a change in the nature of World Bank–NGO relations from one of tension and confrontation to one of greater dialogue and cooperation. The relationship between the World Bank and NGOs in the 1980s was fraught with tension and mutual suspicion. The Multilateral Development Bank campaign, which was launched in 1983, mounted a strident critique of the World Bank’s role in development, raising in particular issues around International Development Association (IDA) loans for large-scale dam construction, environmental impact, and human rights (Fox and Brown 1998: 4). In 1994 it organized the “50 Years Enough Campaign,” which again criticized the development programs of multilateral agencies, in particular the World Bank. For much of the 1980s the World Bank responded defensively to pressure from NGOs, conceding some limited space for dialogue and consultation, the establishment in 1982 of the NGO–World Bank Committee being a prime example thereof (World Bank 1996: 5). 3 As demands from NGOs for

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greater accountability on the part of the bank resonated with internal pressure for reform, the World Bank instituted channels for public grievances and for greater participation. In 1989 it established the NGO Unit, ostensibly with the goal of providing support to NGOs but also as a public relations exercise to dampen criticism of the World Bank, particularly in light of its structural adjustment programs. Since 1994 the World Bank has produced a spate of publications acknowledging the comparative advantages of NGOs and endorsing the need for greater bank engagement with NGOs (World Bank 1996, 1998; Gibbs, Fumo, and Kuby 1999). The new bank president, Jim Wolfensohn, has given added force to this engagement with NGOs, encouraging participation and consultation with NGOs at every stage of the policy cycle and urging all resident offices to install an NGO liaison officer. In the mid1990s the discourse began to shift from NGOs to civil society and was reflected in the renaming of NGO liaison officers as civil society specialists in 1995. In his speeches at the annual meetings in 1997 and 1998 Wolfensohn stressed the importance of partnerships with civil society organizations, without whom the World Bank stated it could not achieve its poverty-reduction goals (Bain 1999: 9). By 1998 almost half of all projects approved by the Board of Directors involved NGOs and most of these were local NGOs (Bain 1999: 9). Since the mid-1990s the World Bank has begun to involve civil society groups in consultations over its Country Assistance Strategies and in the Structural Adjustment Programme Review Initiative, which examines the impact of adjustment in selected borrowing countries (Clark and Dorschel 1998). By embracing NGOs in this way the World Bank signaled a change in its perception of NGOs as potential adversaries and critics to one of allies and collaborators, as well illustrated in the following statement: “There is now ample evidence that by working together, the Bank and NGOs can accomplish more than by working separately” (IBRD 1996: ii). By the year 2000 the World Bank included civil society along with government and business as key partners in the development process. This is captured in the World Bank Report, 2000: Understanding the process of development requires acknowledging both its complexity and the context in which it operates. Simple solutions— investments in physical and human capital, for instance and unfettered markets—will not work in isolation. Governments, the private sector, civil society, and donor organizations need to work together in support of broad-based development. (World Bank 2000: 30)

Yet this shift toward constructive collaboration with NGOs has not been greeted with enthusiasm by all bank members, some of whom perceive the bank to be paying undue attention to NGOs at the expense of their own interests. Government members may feel challenged by the demands

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made on them by local advocacy NGOs and prompted to question their legitimacy. Technocrats within the bank, who adhere strongly to a market approach to development and equate development with economic growth, are skeptical of the relative importance of civil society and resistant to the expenditure of bank resources on such projects. There are also divisions within World Bank staff about the desirability of engaging with NGOs, though the majority of staff are prepared to embark on a dialogue with civil society organizations on issues ranging from privatization to debt (Bain 1999: 10).4 In his survey of the attitudes of 523 World Bank professionals toward civil society, Said Eddin Ibrahim (1998:13) found that commitment to civil society was strong at the top of the hierarchy but “disjointed, lukewarm, and fickle” at middle and lower levels. When the idea of a Civil Society Fund was floated in the late 1990s, it was thus treated with some caution. For some bank staff the concept of social capital has proved more palatable, not least because for economists, who continue to dominate policy thinking in the bank, it evokes apparently similar terms such as financial capital, physical capital, and human capital. As Ben Fine (1999) cogently argues, and as discussed in relation to social capital, the current fashion for civil society among U.S. politicians, donors, and scholars has to be linked to the emergence over the past two decades of new Keynesian economics. Despite this competition between the concepts of civil society and social capital within the bank, both enable the World Bank to move beyond the stagnant polarized debate of state versus market, while retaining a strong commitment to market policies. Moreover, both furnish a way of rendering civic engagement compatible with, and even essential for, market growth in a way that avoids issues of conflict and power and detracts theoretical attention away from debate around the developmental state (Fine 1999). UNDP Compared to the World Bank the United Nations Development Programme has been much more at ease with the notion of civil society, reflecting its longer experience and engagement with NGOs. As a multilateral donor agency rather than an international financial institution, UNDP has enjoyed greater room for interacting with NGOs. 5 Already in 1975 the UNDP administrator issued guidelines on strengthening collaboration with NGOs to all its staff and resident representatives (UNDP 1995a: 2–3). Throughout the 1980s UNDP’s leading administrators continued to encourage closer collaboration with NGOs. Not only were NGOs viewed as an important way to strengthen self-reliance at the community level but also as important contributors to policy advocacy and change. After the Rio de Janeiro conference on the environment the UNDP adopted a policy in 1986 to collabo-

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rate more closely with NGOs in the fields of poverty alleviation and environmental sustainability. This commitment to working with NGOs was in turn reflected in the establishment in 1986 of a special Division for NGOs in the Bureau for Programme Policy and Evaluation. In 1988 the Partners in Development Programme was launched to provide direct support for small-scale activities of NGO and community-based organizations such as income-generation projects designed to eliminate poverty, institutional development, and basic education. This trend was further consolidated in 1990 when UNDP launched a program called Strengthening NGO/Government/UNDP Collaboration. While in the 1980s UNDP’s engagement with civil society was conceived of in terms of NGOs, by the 1990s the discourse had shifted toward civil society. The discursive shift from NGOs toward civil society was consolidated in 1993 when UNDP produced a strategy paper entitled “UNDP and Organizations of Civil Society: Building Sustainable Partnerships.” This proposed a comprehensive framework for building partnerships with civil society so as to encourage policy dialogue between civil society organizations and enhance the capacity of both civil society organizations and UNDP to work together. Slightly earlier than the World Bank, UNDP in 1996 renamed its NGO Unit as the Civil Society and Participation Unit, thus consolidating the arrival of civil society discourse. This move followed a resolution adopted in 1996 at the 51st session of the Economic and Social Committee of the UN to increase the participation of civil society in the work of the UN, an initiative that was in turn adopted by UNDP. The change in name also implied a broadening out in the scope of actors with whom UNDP would seek to engage and an attempt to foster cooperation among civil society, the private sector, and government. As part of this strategy to engage civil society, UNDP introduced a requirement that each country office appoint specialist staff to keep abreast of NGO activity and to advise the resident representatives on how to strengthen relations with civil society. DFID In the UK the then Overseas Development Administration’s (ODA’s) shift toward civil society formed part of the new post–Cold War governance agenda. This led to rising disbursements toward programs of good government. Whereas in 1995 and 1996 the then ODA expended £198.4 million on good government, this rose to £234.8 million in 1997–1998 (DFID 1998: 119). Since the late 1980s the ODA had begun to directly fund NGOs

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through the Joint Funding Scheme. With the recognition of the importance of institution-building in the context of market transition, ODA’s support to nongovernmental organizations was further bolstered. By 1997–1998 DFID expended £35.54 million through the Joint Funding Scheme, representing 24 percent of all DFID expenditure through NGOs (DFID 1998: 80). With the change in government in 1997, the new Department for International Development initiated a review of its support to such organizations. In adopting the discourse of civil society to conduct this review, DFID signaled a shift in thinking away from a narrow focus on NGOs to a broader conceptualization of the potential organizations that it might work with. The new strategy toward civil society redefined the government’s perspective toward Northern NGOs. In a speech given at a conference on NGOs in the Global Future, January 1999, which was the first public occasion when the British government discussed its new civil society strategy, Secretary of State for International Development Clare Short stressed the role of Northern NGOs as advocates for change rather than on-the-ground practitioners and as transitional rather than permanent agents.6 By redefining the appropriate roles for international NGOs the new secretary of state implied a sharper focus on and prioritization of resources toward Southern NGOs. In her words: I am particularly interested in the role of southern NGOs—many of whom are represented here today. Southern NGOs have a crucial role in helping people to realise their human rights and demand improvements in the provision of core government services such as health and education. They can help ensure greater equity in resource allocation, with resources focused on the priorities of the poor and other excluded social groups. And they have a vital part to play in ensuring that public services are made more accessible to excluded groups. (Short 1999: 6)

This orientation toward Southern NGOs formed part of a broader reconceptualization of development, which put the emphasis on demand-led, or people-led, change in contrast to supply-led or mediated change. In this vision intermediary civil society organizations are viewed virtually as transitional structures, functioning to empower and strengthen poor people to organize themselves and demand change. As reflected in her speech (Short 1999: 6), “The big challenge is to move beyond advocacy on their behalf to enable the poor to make their own demands and to demand more of state systems that so often fail to provide the services to which they are entitled.” Nine months after this conference DFID announced the establishment of a Civil Society Challenge Fund, which seeks practically to strengthen the capacity of poor people to drive the agenda for change. The fund booklet illustrates well this new approach to development:

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The Fund is about supporting work which empowers poor people, enabling them to speak for themselves, to do things for themselves and to make their own demands of those in power. It is not about supporting isolated development projects. It is about improving links between people to strengthen the demand for progress and to ensure that economic and social advances are equitably distributed globally. (DFID 1999: 1)

This emphasis on a people-led approach to development echoes both World Bank recognition that development needs to be owned by the government and people—indeed the fund report refers to the relevant World Bank report—and USAID’s shift toward demand-led rather than supply-led development and its greater commitment to democratization. Foundations For some major U.S. foundations such as the Ford Foundation and Kettering Foundation, the discursive shift toward civil society arose out of a growing concern about the decline in public participation and skepticism toward conventional politics in the United States. This was manifested in lower voter turnout, opinion polls, and falling levels of participation in civic organizations. In an attempt to stem this tide of apathy and cynicism, many foundations have sought to foster and strengthen citizens’ associations, as illustrated in the following excerpt written by David Mathews, president of the Kettering Foundation: Americans are frustrated. They see pressing problems like crime and the breakdown of the family on the rise, no matter how many programs to fight them are in place. They sense that something is amiss and feel powerless to act effectively on their concerns. More and more, they feel disconnected from the politicians and institutions that serve the public’s interest. Unbridled criticism is the result. . . . Combating today’s problems requires not only money, but enormous amount of public will and sustained energy—commodities that foundations cannot buy or even rent. It requires stronger, more inclusive, more effective associations of citizens— what is sometimes referred to as a “civil society.” (Mathews 1995: 1)

It was in this context of mounting concern about political apathy in U.S. society that Robert Putnam’s concept of social capital found fertile soil. As discussed in Chapter 3, donor agencies enthusiastically embraced the idea of social capital that overlapped with and complemented the notion of civil society. Social capital and trust provided the oil that lubricated the organizational and associational networks of civil society. Like donor agencies, foundations, too, began to establish specialized units and employ specialist staff. The Ford Foundation renamed its Governance and Public Policy Division as the Governance and Civil Society Division, reflecting both the organizational restructuring efforts by

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its new president, as well as growing recognition of the role of nonprofit organizations. As a mark of its growing interest in civil society, in 1998 the Ford Foundation sponsored a major international study of civil society in twenty-two countries, focusing on the role of civil society in processes of democratization. NGOs Promoting Civil Society The concept of civil society has appealed not only to multilateral and bilateral donors but also to Northern NGOs, which have either reoriented their language and programs to focus on civil society, such as Pact and the Synergos Institute, or set as their prime goal the strengthening and protection of civil society, CIVICUS being a case in point. Although Pact was originally founded in 1971 as a membership organization for private and voluntary organizations and NGOs, in 1992 it reconstituted itself as an independent international nonprofit corporation with the mission of contributing “to the growth of civil societies—where citizens acting together can express their interests, exchange information, strive for mutual goals, and influence government” (Pact 1996: 1). Although it is established as an independent corporation, it relies on the U.S. government for the bulk of its funding. The four key strands of its work are strengthening the organizational capacity of NGOs in Latin America, Africa, and Asia; forging coalitions and strategic alliances; building democracies; and providing expertise in grants management—activities that dovetail neatly with the broader U.S. foreign policy agenda of promoting democracy. Similarly the U.S.-based Synergos Institute is a voluntary organization working with local communities to address issues of poverty. In the 1990s it also adopted the language of civil society and, as discussed later in this chapter, focused increasingly on ways to enhance the sustainability of civil society through the creation of local foundations. Not only have existing organizations begun to adopt the concept of civil society, set up specialized structures, and appoint specialized personnel, but new organizations have emerged to promote the “cause” of civil society. CIVICUS is a case in point. Founded in 1991 and formally launched in 1993 CIVICUS is one of a very few international organizations with the prime goal of promoting and protecting civil society organizations throughout the world. Its description of itself echoes Tocquevillian notions of an international civil society that is self-regulating, voluntary, and promoting the public good. In its words: CIVICUS is dedicated to pursuing a world in which: citizen action is a predominant feature of the political, economic and cultural life of all societies; private action for the public good is expressed by a rich and diverse array of organizations operating sometimes apart and sometimes in dia-

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logue with government and business; a healthy society is one in which there is an equitable relationship amongst citizens, their associations and foundations, business and governments. (CIVICUS 1999a: 13)

Members of CIVICUS are reportedly held together by a common belief in the values of human dignity, justice, and solidarity and most importantly “in the definitive importance of autonomous citizen action, whatever form it takes” (CIVICUS 1995a: 1). As donors embraced the concept of civil society, giving it rhetorical legitimacy and institutional substance, they also faced the challenge of how to turn their ideas into practice. How do you create civil society where civil society “appears” to be missing? How do you strengthen civil society where civil society “appears” to be weak? What kind of support do donors provide? In the next section we look more closely at donor attempts to operationalize the concept of civil society.

Operationalizing Civil Society In attempting to nurture, develop, and harness the potential of civil society, donor agencies have adopted three broad approaches: institution and capacity building; partnerships and coalitions; and financial sustainability. In practice these approaches are not neatly separated from one another as developing partnerships might also require capacity-building and financing mechanisms. While institution and capacity building have a pedigree that goes back to the 1980s when some donor agencies were already beginning to realize the merits of NGOs, the latter two strategies took form largely in the 1990s. Institution and Capacity Building Institution and capacity building implies a range of activities such as fostering the emergence of new nonstate, nonprofit associations and research institutes; supporting local NGOs with funding, technical advice, and training; as well as encouraging the establishment of a legal and regulatory framework conducive to the development of nonstate organizations. The following example illustrates well the kind of activities typically covered under the umbrella of strengthening civil society organizations. In 1997 Pact set up a five-year NGO Institution Strengthening project in Mozambique, which aimed to strengthen the technical and institutional capacity of local NGOs in the northern rural areas of the country. This involved assisting local NGOs to clarify their mission, develop strategies, evaluate project effectiveness, manage resources, and develop financial

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accountability systems. Similarly in Botswana, Pact ran a five-year project between 1995 and 1999 to build the capacity of local NGOs. This involved workshops in community empowerment techniques, training in office management and accounting, and financial and technical support for an NGO revolving fund to purchase veld products and assist in setting up community trusts. However not all organizations give as much emphasis to training and mentoring. In some instances capacity building has been in practice little more than the provision of office chairs and fax equipment. In the former socialist states of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Republic donor agencies have played a key role in nurturing both the private sector and new associations. In Central Asia donor agencies such as INTRAC, USAID, Mercy Corps, and UNDP have all provided financial and nonfinancial support to new nongovernmental development agencies, attempted to promote dialogue between government and these new groups, and aimed to develop an appropriate legal framework to permit such groups to operate without fear of oppression or closure. However, the process of harnessing civil society in societies emerging from authoritarian regimes, where freedom of association and organization outside of the state was sharply circumscribed, is by no means straightforward. In Central Asia, many Eastern European countries, and China, for example, the concept of a “nongovernmental organization” is new. The founders of these new entities find that enthusiasm and charisma may only take you so far. Without a social base it is hard to establish and consolidate legitimacy both vis-à-vis the supposed beneficiaries as well as the local government. Sustaining the financial base of such organizations also meets legal and organizational challenges, as workers in such organizations lack fundraising skills and experience and face complicated and inappropriate financial procedures. Donors have also sought to strengthen the capacity of and create new institutions such as policy think tanks and research institutes that can contribute to building a consensus around economic liberalization. For example, the German Friedrich Naumann Foundation, the U.S.-backed National Endowment for Democracy, and the UK-backed Westminster Foundation for Democracy have all provided funding for the Free Market Foundation in South Africa so as to promote market policies in the South African parliament and administration. In Ghana the National Endowment for Democracy provided the Institute of Economic Affairs with U.S.$0.5 million between 1992 and 1997 to promote the role of the private sector (Hearn 1999: 23). The African Capacity Building Foundation, which was set up in Harare by a group of donors led by the World Bank, established in turn fifteen research institutes across Africa to promote neoliberal economic policies (Hearn 1999: 23–24).

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Partnerships: Toward a New Consensus The idea of partnerships is premised on the notion that there are four main actors on the development scene—the state, market, civil society, and donor agencies. Partnerships, coalitions, and dialogues are aimed at drawing these different agents together to work toward a common goal, recognizing that such cooperation has not for various reasons always happened previously or occurred without friction. It is assumed that these agents share a common vision, common interests, and common purpose. They are complementary to each other, rather than antagonistic. As one interviewee (in UNDP) stated: “Until five years ago civil society was seen as an alternative to government programs, as service-delivery. Now it is about partnership.” Several agencies have set up new partnership initiatives to foster greater cooperation among state, market, and civil society for the greater goal of sustainable development. In 1995, following the World Summit for Social Development, USAID announced its New Partnership Initiatives aimed at empowering NGOs, creating small-business partnerships, and fostering local democratic governance (USAID 1995, 1997). To achieve this it devised a three-pronged strategy, namely, to build capacity at the grassroots level, enhance the enabling environment for NGOs and small businesses, and foster partnerships between U.S. and host-country nongovernmental actors. This in turn involved capacity-building work for NGOs and local government through training in planning, evaluation, and financial accounting. It also involved developing networks such as women’s businesses, including model businesses; volunteers; and policy groups so as to spread information, strengthen horizontal ties, and integrate such organizations more fully into global processes. The World Bank, too, has sought to foster closer ties between the private sector and NGOs for the purposes of development through its Corporate Citizenship Team. In Poland, for example, it has initiated nine projects on corporate citizenship, focusing on literacy, the environment, urban regeneration, and the development of management skills. UNDP, likewise, has strategized to bring the three corners of the triangle into cooperative relationships for broader development goals. In developing its more inclusionary approach to poverty elimination in Africa it sent out a mission to five countries in 1995, which brought together over eighty NGOs, peasant groups, trade unions, women’s associations, and research institutes to discuss poverty and recommend an appropriate strategy for the UN. On the basis of the findings of this mission a program was devised to “construct and strengthen the power space” of the populations (UNDP 1995b: 2), focusing in particular on the analytic capacity and nego-

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tiating power of civil society organizations. One of the key findings highlighted by this mission was the weaknesses of civil society organizations in Africa in making the links between the macro and micro levels. In response to this UNDP devised a program to strengthen the power of such organizations to analyze, act collectively, coordinate their activities, form partnerships, and carry out advocacy work. Work on this new initiative is already under way in Zimbabwe where a program called Partnerships for Poverty Reduction has been established, drawing together NGOs, civil society, government, and residential representatives of UNDP. Similarly the idea of partnerships based on a common recognition of public and private sector roles has also become a key part of the UK Department for International Development’s new development strategy. The following extract from the new white paper illustrates this: Just as we want to develop partnerships with developing countries, the Government will seek a new partnership with the UK private sector based on a shared understanding of the role that the public and private sectors— including the commercial private sector, the voluntary sector, academic and research institutions and local as well as central government—can play in development. (1997: 2.31)

In developing a new strategy of support to civil society the DFID has reaffirmed this partnership approach. Again, in her speech at the 1999 Conference on NGOs in a Global Future, Clare Short stated, “There is clearly an important role for NGOs to build stronger partnerships with the trade union movement, the private sector and financial institutions to strengthen the ethical consumer movements to uphold basic labour and environmental standards” (Short 1999: 6). Underpinning this striving toward positive interaction among civil society, the state, and market is a shift in thinking away from positioning these three corners as diametric and antagonistic opposites. Such a shift in discourse circulates not only among multilateral and bilateral donor agencies but also in civil society organizations. In a speech at the first World Assembly, a CIVICUS board member commented on the growing acknowledgment of citizens as partners: [That change] also forces us “civil society institutions” to rethink our previous assumptions, to move out of the easy polarizations of the past in which we saw ourselves very much as anti-state, as opposing the state, and, in some areas, even trying to replace the state. . . . The emergence of citizen initiative for the public good makes us break out of this duality of either state or market, state versus market. We can have private initiative which is not for profit the same way that we can have action for the public good which is not done only by the state. (CIVICUS 1995b: 13–14)

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The same speaker also criticized the “third sector” for ignoring and even opposing the private sector. Instead of merely receiving funds, he advocated an equal partnership between business and nonprofit organizations. For CIVICUS, business can be motivated to go beyond immediate interests of profit and develop a corporate strategy that embraces a social vision. To do so requires dispelling the mutual suspicion and hostility that has characterized relations between these two sectors and recognizing their mutual interests. In this vein CIVICUS lays its hopes in business and nonprofit organizations working together “as co-equal partners,” thus overlooking the divergent material bases of the sectors and indeed the unilateral financial dependency of some civil society organizations on donations from the corporate sector (CIVICUS 1997: 2). Such aspirations are also mirrored in the diverse membership base of CIVICUS, which includes welfare organizations, foundations, philanthropic associations, religious welfare groups, and institutes for democracy as well as companies such as American Express, Levi-Strauss, and Hitachi. This assembly of diverse actors with different material bases, interests, and values marks an attempt to balance the discourse of development while steering well away from any fundamental challenge to the sources of inequality. For CIVICUS, partnerships are not only possible but also necessary. All three nodes of the triadic unity are essential to the working of the whole system. The executive director of CIVICUS, Miklós Marschall, refers metaphorically to this conceptual trinity as a “three-legged stool”: Without all three functioning properly and in the appropriate relationship to one another, the stool collapses. Or, in the case of society, democracy suffers, economic viability erodes, the vitality of communities is stifled, culture stagnates. (CIVICUS 1997: 2)

Donors have not only independently set up partnership initiatives but also have developed joint programs aimed at bringing business into development and fostering triadic partnerships. One such example is the Partners in Development Programme set up in 1995 by the Prince of Wales Business Leaders Forum, the World Bank, and the UNDP with the aims of identifying, analyzing and promoting examples of partnerships among public sector institutions, business, and nongovernmental organizations that contribute toward a process of sustainable development (Nelson 1996). Such an initiative highlights the changing pressures on companies, which are increasingly expected to be not only profitmaking but also ethical in their operations and ready to assume responsibility for social and economic externalities. To achieve these aims the program seeks to produce an inventory of corporate good practice, analyze the policies and practices of twenty leading multinational companies and assess their

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developmental impact in five emerging economies, and carry out a survey of the attitudes of key stakeholder groups toward the changing role of business in society. This program has led to a range of practical initiatives involving business in development and cooperative work between businesses and NGOs so as to promote environmental sustainability, economic development, social cohesion, community development, and emergency relief. Cable and Wireless, for example, worked with CARE International (Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe) to develop a portable communications kit for use in emergency situations. The British charity Action Aid mobilized twenty companies, both foreign and Indian, to work together with local NGOs in India. Kentucky Fried Chicken is working with Action Aid to find ways of recruiting disabled people to work in its outlets while the British insurance firm Allied Dunbar sends employees from the UK to assist NGOs in southern India with strategic planning and organizational development. The Kellogg Foundation provided start-up funding for the International Youth Foundation (IYF), which was established in 1990 to improve the lives and opportunities of children between five and twenty years old. In South Africa the IYF and Kellogg Company are working together with the Human Resources Trust to run leadership training programs for youth administrators and support programs for AIDS prevention. Ironically Kellogg South Africa and the IYF are cooperating on a children’s nutrition campaign, which includes free Kellogg breakfast cereals for children in the townships, no doubt with the dual goal of cornering the cereals market and capturing another generation of consumers loyal to the Kellogg brand. International agencies and businesses are also cooperating in a range of different ways such as providing advice and technical support to national governments on enhancing the regulatory and legal environment for the private sector; cofinancing commercial projects such as infrastructural development, commercial procurement, and contract relationships; and, much more complexly, coresourcing social and community projects. Development agencies have also formed partnerships with companies. USAID, Australian Agency for International Aid (AUSAID), and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) have provided support to business-led development organizations such as Philippine Business for Social Progress, the National Business Initiative in South Africa, and the Thai Initiative for Rural Development. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has sought the support of companies in a variety of ways, including social or cause-related marketing. For example Inter-Continental Hotels and Resorts organized its Round Up for Children campaign in all its hotels worldwide, inviting guests to round up their hotel bill with the additional sum going to UNICEF.

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The organization Pact has also begun to develop partnership programs with the business sector. In conjunction with the Prince of Wales Business Leaders Forum, it has formed three regional networks to experiment with business-NGO partnerships. Through partnership initiatives Pact hopes to strengthen the financial base of its NGO partners by drawing on the resources of business (Pact 1996: 9–10). During the 1990s there was growing pressure both in the United States and the United Kingdom for business to take greater responsibility for the social context and consequences of its activities. In the United States the Council on Economic Priorities introduced a social accountability standard, known as SA8000, which outlined a set of principles to guide companies purchasing supplies in developing countries as well as procedures for verification. Also in the United States, 85 percent of large companies have adopted voluntary codes of conduct to ensure that their suppliers observe decent labor conditions. In the United Kingdom, NGOs, companies, trade unions, and government came together in 1997 to found the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI). The ETI aims to develop and promote standards for improving the labor conditions in supply companies that trade with the UK. Current members of the ETI include NGOs such as Action Aid, the Catholic Institute for International Relations, the Fairtrade Foundation, and Women Working Worldwide; trade unions such as the Trades Union Congress and the International Confederation of Free Trades Unions; companies such as B&Q Ltd., C&A, Littlewoods, Safeway Stores, and J. Sainsbury Plc.; and government departments such as the Department for Trade and Industry and DFID, the latter being a key sponsor of ETI. Compared to consumer boycotts and international agreements on labor conditions, the ETI is distinct in that it brings key stakeholders into dialogue with each other and promotes companies, unions, government, and NGOs working together rather than in opposition to each other. Financing Current attempts by donors to develop, create, and strengthen civil society have drawn attention to an important condition for the sustainability of civil society, namely its material basis. As discussed in Chapter 4, civil society organizations can neither raise money through taxation like governments nor generate profits through capital accumulation like companies. Time and money are both crucial to the functioning of civil society. Engagement in voluntary public activity assumes surplus time and energy, which may be unevenly distributed across society in terms of age, class, and gender and across societies. Furthermore nonstate institutions also require financing to fund paid staff, offices, equipment, communications, campaign materials, advocacy, and educational work. By providing staff

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with a salary the problem of mobilizing time and energy are lessened, though most Northern NGOs continue to rely on a contingent of volunteers, who are predominantly female. In the North the growth and proliferation of voluntary organizations in the 1970s and 1980s has to be situated in the context of a buoyant economy, relative affluence, and a welfare state, which provided numerous benefits to the unemployed as well as students. For new nonstate organizations in the South, where the welfare state may be fragile or nonexistent and economic growth stagnant or negative, sources of revenue are much more precarious. Although membership fees, donations, government grants, and corporate financing provide an important source of income for Northern NGOs, the absence or small size of the domestic middle class, the low level of industrialization, and the extent of poverty in many countries of the South limit the possibilities of fundraising, rendering such organizations much more dependent on Northern support. Furthermore in many transitional societies that were permeated by the state, the notion of a nonstate organization may seem quite alien, invoking both curiosity and suspicion. Similarly the idea of donating to an organization committed to social reform might not sit easily with local cultural traditions of philanthropy. The issue of the financial sustainability of civil society and the broader context of declining aid budgets has prompted some Northern foundations and donors to investigate the prospects for domestic sources of financing, to promote the spirit of voluntary work in both their own and aid-recipient countries, to carry out research on local cultures of philanthropy, and to create and foster local foundations. The New Labour government in the UK, for example, introduced the Millennium Volunteers Scheme and the Giving Age Initiative in response to a declining pattern of volunteerism among those in the younger generations. The UN has declared 2001 the Year of the Volunteer. Margaret Bell’s chapter in the CIVICUS volume addressing civil society in the millennium highlights the vital role played by volunteers in the Sarvodaya movement in Sri Lanka and the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (CIVICUS 1999b: 31–32). She underlines the significance of volunteers to the development of civil society: “One of the strongest keys for building civil society for the future will be the deployment of competent, appropriately organized, and well-managed volunteers” (1999: 33). In her vision of volunteering, government and business work in partnership with civil society organizations, providing an appropriate policy and institutional environment and fostering corporate citizenship through activities such as employee volunteering. Although private philanthropy contributes on average only 11 percent of the nonprofit sector’s total revenue according to the work in twenty-one countries by Salamon and Anheier and associates (1999: 10–11), in contexts where the nonprofit sector is newly emerging, it can account for up to

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27 percent of total revenue, as in the case of Romania. Moreover, if volunteer contributions in time and kind are added to this, then philanthropy can be crucial for organizations in specific fields such as the environment and social services (Salamon and Anheier 1999: 13). Aware of the potential significance of private philanthropy to the financing of civil society, the World Bank, under the new presidency of Wolfensohn, developed a bank-foundation strategy to create and support country-level philanthropic foundations. Similarly the Ford Foundation has played a key role in strengthening philanthropic institutions both in the United States and developing countries such as Senegal, India, Chile, and Kenya. In the mid-1980s the Ford Foundation sponsored the first workshop on corporate philosophy in India. It supported the first professionally managed and grantmaking foundation, the National Foundation for India, as well as other local foundations such as Child Relief and You, the India Foundation for Arts, and the United Way of Vadodara. The Synergos Institute has given special attention to building sources of finance in the South so as to provide local civil societies with a financially sustainable base. In 1993 it undertook a two-year study of eight “foundation-like organizations” in the South such as Fundación Mexicana para el Desarrollo Rural in Mexico, Child Relief and You in India, and Foundation for the Philippine Environment in the Philippines. These organizations played an important role in mobilizing resources locally and externally and served as a conduit for donors and governments distributing funds to civil society organizations in the South. Bilateral donors and NGOs have strengthened such foundations by providing capital funds and pressing for debt swaps and debt reductions to be directed toward such foundations (Tomlinson 1996: 241–253). As discussed in Chapter 4, civil society in its early-twentieth-century incarnation has become an arena of economic activity, generating products, income, and revenue. Salamon and Anheier refer to this as the nonprofit sector, like a sector of the national economy. Donors have also contributed to the development of an economically active civil society through their promotion of microfinance and income-generation projects. Through training, consultants, and small cash inputs, donors encourage targeted groups such as the poor, especially poor women, to pool together savings as a way of accumulating capital or jointly start up a small business or trade. These initiatives are usually linked to other development goals such as empowerment, participation, literacy, gender awareness, and social capital. In this way donors establish civil society as a realm of economic activity. The success of such projects hinges on relations of trust and cooperation. Microcredit projects thus dovetail well with current donor enthusiasm for social capital. However the purposes and effects of such initiatives are double edged. In emphasizing the values of mutuality and solidarity, they also

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reflect the strands of thinking within the alternative genealogy outlined in Chapters 2 to 4. Yet in promoting solutions to poverty and development they form part of a broader official donor effort to promote neoliberal economic policies and establish a local consensus around these. Dilemmas and Contradictions These attempts to operationalize the concept of civil society are innovative and imaginative, promising to open up new avenues of participation for otherwise marginalized voices. They also seek to resist an essentialist, conflictual approach toward relations among market, state, and civil society, suggesting imaginations of cooperative rather than antagonistic forms of mutual engagement. To a certain extent they also implicitly recognize the multidimensionality of individuals, the plurality of their identities, the coexistence of contradictory motives and interests. Thus businesspeople may on the one hand strive for profits but also have a social conscience that can be nurtured for the “public good.” However, they also bring to the surface the dilemmas and contradictions that donors face in attempting to construct civil society from the outside. Here we focus on five particular challenges: politics of definition and choice; politics of partnerships; instrumentalization of civil society; politics of autonomy and dependence; and politics of universality.

Politics of Definition and Choice Some scholars have shunned the use of civil society, pointing to its conceptual fuzziness, ideological impregnation, and referential ambiguity. Overloaded with meanings and utilized for different purposes the concept of civil society is deemed too blunted to serve usefully as a sharp tool of analysis or as a distinct unit of investigation. Like democracy civil society is sufficiently “feel good” to be the desire of all. Yet without further definition it is like a stick of candy floss, gentle in color, sweet to the tongue, but in body like air. While academics and theorists have often been, and indeed can afford to be, less precise in their empirical rendering of civil society, donor agencies, faced with the task of developing, nurturing, and strengthening “civil society” have been forced to attempt some delineation of the concept. Without some notion of what constitutes civil society, it becomes impossible to support this otherwise amorphous sphere. Public documents, program reports, and discussions with donor representatives reveal points of convergence and divergence among donors as to how they conceive empirically of civil society.

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For all donors civil society is defined predominantly in sociological fashion as a sphere of intermediary organization, which unlike the market is “not-for-profit” and unlike the state is “nonauthoritative.” By adopting the discourse of civil society donors have been forced to think in broader terms than the traditional developmental nongovernmental organization. Though many donors recognize that civil society embraces a range of associational forms in a variety of domains such as youth clubs, human rights organizations, football clubs, and learned societies, because of the nature of their activities and their ideological perspectives they operate in practice with a narrower slice of the civil society cake. For some this has meant a continuation of former practice, working with grassroots organizations and developmental NGOs, while for others it has enabled them to extend their activities to include other organizations such as trade unions, human rights organizations, businesses, and advocacy groups. The following examples illustrate particular donor attempts to define civil society and their scope of engagement. Within USAID there are different empirical renderings of the civil society concept according to specific operational needs. The Center for Democracy and Governance unit in USAID, for example, defines civil society for operational purposes as “non-state organizations that can act as a catalyst for democratic reform,” thus excluding both orthodox servicedelivery NGOs as well as political parties that contest for state power (Hansen 1996: v). Included in its scope are labor federations, policy think tanks, business and professional associations, human rights and prodemocracy groups, environmental groups, and women’s organizations. Reflecting this partial definition of civil society the center refers to “civil advocacy organizations” rather than civil society organizations. In contrast the Africa Bureau in USAID focuses on local membership organizations and self-help groups as key constituents of civil society and therefore eligible candidates for funding (Van Rooy 1998: 57–58). The World Bank adopts a broad empirical definition of civil society to refer to a range of organizations such as service-delivery NGOs, education groups, research organizations, professional and business associations, and advocacy groups. However, as all of these are described as NGOs, there is an implicit equation between civil society and NGOs and the danger of conceptual slippage and reductionism. In contrast to the Overseas Development Administration, for whom civil society was NGOs, the new Department for International Development extended the scope of empirical referents to include trade unions, churches, and other groups. Reflecting her own background in class politics and her recognition of the contribution of the labor movement, church groups, and friendly societies to the achievement of democracy and welfare securities, Clare Short advocated a more nuanced perspective on civil society:

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If we look at our own history in Britain and ask where the political will for major reform and advance came from—the answer is what we have now come to call civil society. The churches, the trade unions, the medical profession, radical lawyers, local government, women’s groups, academics, engineers and similar groups that are spread throughout societies—all over the world. (Short 1999: 5)

Compared with USAID, DFID, under the influence of Clare Short, was much more willing to take onboard the voices of traditionally radical organizations such as trade unions. In its 1993 strategy paper UNDP gave civil society a broad definition, including organizations such as trade unions, cooperatives, service organizations, community groups, youth and women’s organizations, academic institutions, and media and church-related organizations.7 This marked a recognition not only that Southern NGOs had moved beyond their traditional service-delivery roles, venturing into policy research and advocacy and addressing broader issues around the environment, human rights, and governance but also that interactions among civil society organizations, the private sector, government, and academe had snowballed, making collaboration with civil society organizations unavoidable. While donor agencies may differ in the breadth of organizations with which they strive to operate, they all tend to define civil society in terms of long or short lists of organizations that have the effect of depoliticizing, sanitizing, and technicizing the arena of association. Underscoring such an approach is an equation of civil society with plurality per se, indeed contrasted with the assumed monolithism of the state. Yet lists tend to disguise the differential relations of power among civil society organizations, the diversity of voices and interests. Organizations are juxtaposed as though they operate on an even playing field, share similar values, seek common ideals. The World Bank marking of civil society as the site of “voice” and “participation” masks the political undercurrents and tensions among different organizations. Do we assume that the voice of antisemitic groups is as morally desirable as the voice of democratic bodies? Do we assume that these voices are given equal weight? Are donor agencies neutral to the diverse groups within civil society? This is not to say that donor agencies are not aware of potential conflict within civil society. Indeed in the World Development Report 1997 (World Bank 1997b: 114–116), the bank refers to the disparate interests and the differential distribution of power within civil society as well as the limitations of such organizations. Yet such tensions tend to be glossed over, footnoted, or referred to in clauses rather than given the attention they are due. The definitions of civil society that donors deploy contribute only partly to the process of selecting organizations to work with. Such choices are made according to a combination of factors such as the particular program priorities of donor agencies; the philosophy and values guiding donors; and

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donor perceptions of local groups with regard to their values, capacity, effectiveness, and influence. Yet not all donors make transparent the criteria they adopt to select organizations. Some, indeed, have no clear strategy for selecting among organizations, relying on the personal “feel-good” factor. This approach reflects a view of civil society as benign, as the “good guy” in the triadic unity, a view that as discussed earlier emerges out of the antistate agenda of many civil society enthusiasts. It underplays the conflict within civil society and the darker side of civil society. Some organizations, such as USAID and UNDP, have developed frameworks for guiding their work with civil society. Taking USAID as a case in point, the Center for Democracy and Governance of USAID began by conducting field studies in five countries, namely, Bangladesh, Chile, El Salvador, Kenya, and Thailand. By comparing and evaluating the results of these field studies the center devised an approach that would take account of differences in political system and culture. These efforts culminated in the publication of a document in February 1996 entitled “Constituencies for Reform,” which outlined the key goals of its future work with civil society. The Center for Democracy and Governance simultaneously developed a methodology for assessing the state of civil society and determining its scope of activities.8 In presenting this methodology the center stresses that the success of such a strategy depends on the country’s history of democratic governance and its stage in the transition to democracy, thus revealing an awareness that different polities will require different approaches, that the nature and extent of civil society is particular and local, that indeed the process of fostering a demand for political reform is highly complex, as well captured in the following quote: “The art and craft of the democracy strategist, then, lies in building and supporting coalitions of associations that are pro-reform at a particular point on the democratic path” (Hansen 1996: ix). In practice this might mean strengthening the position of marginal groups through coalition-building projects such as support to the Small Fisherman’s Coalition, the Urban Power Coalition, and an Ancestral Tribes Coalition in the Philippines. Or, it might mean encouraging people to mobilize around less-threatening issues such as the environment and gender with the hope that this might develop into a questioning of broader political issues.9 Yet there is a politics of choice. USAID’s framework gives priority to particular countries according to two criteria, namely, the possibility of achieving change and U.S. interests. The emphasis on U.S. interests highlights the continuing linkages between foreign policy and aid, in spite of the end to the Cold War. Priority countries for USAID include South Africa, Zaire, Kenya, Ethiopia, Central America, Bolivia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Egypt, and Ukraine. Thus civil society organizations are likely to be more supported in some countries rather than others according to U.S.

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foreign policy. As “U.S. interests” is also a short-hand for the promotion of a particular ideology, set of values, and vision of the “good life,” then support is likewise directed to those local civil society organizations that accord with the dominant U.S. vision of economic and political development. As illustrated in Chapters 6 through 8, the way donors select the civil society organizations to support and work with is not only politically informed, but this process also creates its own political dynamics in localized settings. All donor agencies are part of a politics of civil society and development, though USAID is one of the few agencies that has gone furthest in clarifying its purposes and criteria. The failure of other agencies to operate with such clarity not only has an impact on the effectiveness of their programs but also makes it considerably harder for local organizations to understand the nature and goals of donor agencies. By using the limited criteria of “nonprofit, nongovernmental” as the first step in selecting organizations, the values and visions of these groups are swept away. The politics of choice is removed from view. Yet while the public documents of donor institutions and the rhetoric of partnership appear to celebrate the plurality of civil society, actual practice as reflected in funding, projects, and programs suggests that processes of selection have occurred that are not accidental. For example, for international financial institutions and some bilateral donors, business associations are more welcome as partners than their trade union counterparts. With international financial institutions and some bilateral donors firmly wedded in the 1970s and 1980s to neoliberal developmental orthodoxies, it is not too surprising that the invitation implicit in the concept of civil society to work with organizations previously viewed with suspicion is not always met with great enthusiasm. Thus the neutral appearance of civil society discourse tends to mask political agendas and render ideological hegemonies and values almost invisible. This tendency to depoliticize the complex relations between civil society organizations and donors surfaces once more in the practice of partnerships, as discussed in the next subsection.

Politics of Partnerships The partnership approach is the practical expression of the consensus triadic model of state, market, and civil society, which has been at the center of mainstream development thinking since the early 1990s. It assumes shared notions of the public good, value consensus, and a common vision. When companies work together with the community, it is naively assumed that this is but for the public good. Yet for many companies such involvement may also serve as an effective marketing strategy for pushing their

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products. For foreign governments such links form part of grander foreign policy objectives. For foreign NGOs such partnerships may serve to enhance their influence within those communities and strengthen their legitimacy in the eyes of their funders back home. There is a politics to partnership. Yet the partnership approach, in its euphoric celebration of the new triadic paradigm, ends up removing the politics from the interactions of state, market, and civil society players. The particular implications of this in Latin America are discussed in detail in Chapter 8. In depoliticizing this field of engagement, the partnership approach also fails to provide a mechanism for reconciling differences, conflicting interests, and multiple visions. How are differing conceptions of the “public good” negotiated? How are conflicting interests mediated? Interestingly international donor agencies, the fourth actor, hidden from view by the triadic unity that is limited to national boundaries, assume the arbiter role. UNDP, for example, portrays itself as a broker in conflict situations, mediating between different interests, forging understanding, and making the impossible possible. In Central America it purportedly persuaded governments that were otherwise reluctant to engage with civil society to meet indigenous leaders. By assuming a neutrality that is taken for granted, however, international agencies leave unexplained the source of their authority to act as broker and reveal their relative power to decide the terms of their engagement. The appearance of neutrality serves inadvertently, or indeed intentionally, as a powerful political tool for furthering particular agendas, for the broker appears not to have any agenda of its own, to be value-free and ideologically open, and to remain beyond capture by competing discourses. The partnership approach also assumes that players enter a field of joint action on equal terms. State, market, and civil society engage as equal partners in a joint project with a common purpose. Such a view is neatly summarized in the literature of Pact. In 1996 Pact launched the Corporate Community Investment Network to promote links between business and the nonprofit sector. In the words of the Network’s director, Shirley Buzzard, [Corporate community investment] is the collaboration between businesses and communities where both sides get something they need—a winwin situation. Businesses might gain access to raw materials, agricultural products, labour, markets for goods, or increased sales of products appropriately packaged for the poor. Communities gain with the addition of new jobs, more services (such as health care or education) and access to affordable goods (such as toothpaste, soap or foods fortified with Vitamin A or iodine). (CIVICUS 1997: 4)

This “win-win” prognosis contrasts sharply with the “‘zero-sum” approach implicit in theoretical critiques of capitalist development and manifested in labor-capital conflict, NGO-state antagonism, and NGO challenges to cor-

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porate irresponsibility. By wishing away class, gender, and environmental politics, it ultimately depoliticizes a field of otherwise explosive, contradictory relations. In a similar vein the triadic representation masks the common threads of hegemonic power that are woven through the state, market, and civil society. As discussed in Chapter 4, for neo-Marxist critics, such as Wood, both state and civil society serve as arenas in which the power of capital and concomitant hegemonic ideas are reproduced and circulated.

The Instrumentalization of Civil Society Civil society strengthening programs, civil society units, advisers, partnership projects—all these attempts to operationalize and put into practice civil society—reflect the underlying “instrumentalization” of civil society. For most donors civil society is a means to an end—be that democratization, economic growth, or sustainable development—rather than an end in itself. It is thus reduced to a technical exercise of coordination, cooperation, and joint effort, depoliticized and neutralized. The World Bank, for example, in the establishment of the NGO unit and later the Civil Society Unit, as well as other initiatives to engage more closely than in the 1980s with civil society, is driven to a large extent by the grander objective of enhancing the effectiveness of the state, as seen in the following quotation from its 1997 World Development Report: “The pathway to greater effectiveness leads, first, to focusing on fundamental tasks and leveraging the state’s limited capability through partnerships with the business community and civil society” (World Bank 1997b: 3). It is argued that such partnerships not only create competitive pressures, so providing incentives to enhance performance, but also strengthen the legitimacy of state activity through participation and consensus. As stated in the 1997 report, State capability will also be improved by institutional arrangements that foster partnerships with, and provide competitive pressures from, actors both outside and within the state. Partnerships and participation in state activities by external stakeholders—business and civil society—can build credibility and consensus and supplement low-state capability. (World Bank 1997b: 78)

The creation of a Civil Society Unit as well as the promotion of partnerships through the World Bank’s corporate citizenship team are indicative of the paradigmatic shift in thinking about the state and market since the 1990s, as discussed in earlier chapters. In opting to work more closely with civil society the bank seeks not to empower civil society as such but to use civil society as a means to an end. In the words of a bank official, “If we need to strengthen NGOs, then we will do it. . . . We can capacity-build when we need to achieve an end-result.”10

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In contrast UNDP not only takes an instrumental approach to civil society but also values the strengthening of civil society per se. In the UNDP’s Civil Society Empowerment for Poverty Reduction in SubSaharan Africa program, the empowerment of civil society is an explicit goal: “The development objective for the program . . . is the empowerment of civil society in Sub-Saharan Africa” (UNDP 1995b: 3). Similarly CIVICUS exists principally for the creation, nurturing, and strengthening of civil society. The instrumentalization of civil society matters for it blunts the critical edge of civil society. As outlined in Chapter 2 civil society emerged in Western Europe as an arena for challenging state power and for reflecting critically on the way in which economic and political life is organized. In the late twentieth century civil society was reinstated as a way of articulating dissent with oppressive political and economic systems. When civil society becomes an instrument, its utility is constricted to the purposes of the user. If civil society is used by different voices to challenge the goals of donors, then the euphoria among donors for civil society subsides and civil society becomes an obstacle rather than a means to particular visions of development.11

Politics of Universality Not only is there a tendency to assume that civil society within nationstates is homogeneous in moral purpose and values, but also that there is but one civil society in the world. The triadic representation, and the consensus interpretation of this in mainstream development thinking, acquires blueprint status, even though some donors such as USAID have paid heed to relativist arguments and stressed the need for localized approaches and strategies. Yet civil society is generally understood as both a universal norm and a universal fact. Moreover, with U.S. domination of civil society assistance, this universal norm and universal fact is elided with a U.S. vision of civil society with its roots in Tocquevillian ideas of self-association. The dream and the reality become confused so that donor agencies end up projecting their vision as an established and natural truth on other societies. As Gellner (1994: 34) remarked when commenting on the authoritarian outcomes of the 1789 French Revolution, “Human society does not, it would seem, lend itself to the simple application of blueprints worked out in advance by pure thought.” Within this vision donors also take for granted that particular kinds of organizations constitute civil society. Formal organizations such as business associations, development NGOs, churches, clubs, and so on are considered part of civil society, but informal associations based on kinship belong to “the traditional,” “the backward.” For donors the prime organiza-

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tion of interest is the NGO. NGOs are viewed as a key, and indeed “natural,” component of any civil society so that where they are absent, they should be created. Many civil society strengthening programs set out to do just that, particularly in transitional societies where civil society was in the past sharply constricted. As will be illustrated in Chapters 6 through 8, organizations created from the outside often lack a distinct social constituency of support and therefore any social or political meaning for local communities. Creating NGOs from the outside also does not ensure that these groups will have a democratic content or that they will aspire to being vehicles of social and political change or even gain legitimacy in local contexts. More seriously such preconceptions can hinder understanding of the complexity of social forces that underpin processes of social and political transformation and the relative significance of different types of organization in mobilizing political support. For Hann (1996: 22–24), such universalist conceptions hinder inquiry into the multiplicity of civil societies, the diverse ways in which societies address problems of accountability, trust, and cooperation, not all of which will be expressed through the institutional forms of NGOs. In his critique of U.S. democracy aid, Carothers (1999: 248–249) points to the failure of donor agencies to appreciate the complexities of social and political life in different contexts and to ignore socially and politically significant organizations that do not neatly correspond to mainstream U.S. understanding of civil society actors: American democracy promotors have made few efforts to understand civil society on its own terms in complex traditional societies in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. They basically ignore the many layers of clans, tribes, castes, village associations, peasant groups, local religious organizations, ethnic associations, and the like as essentially unfathomable complexities that do not directly bear on democratic advocacy work. Democracy promotors pass through these countries on hurried civil society assessment missions and declare that “very little civil society exists” because they have found only a handful of Westernized NGOs devoted to nonpartisan public-interest advocacy work on the national scale.

To imagine that building civil society can be a project achievable within a five-year time frame defies historical experience.

Politics of Autonomy and Dependence The historical weakness of the domestic bourgeoisie in many sub-Saharan African countries as well as the relatively low levels of per capita income have contributed to the weak financial base of civil society and the con-

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comitant influence of donors in creating and fashioning local organizations. In Mozambique and Bangladesh, two of the poorest countries in the world, local NGOs and government are heavily dependent on external funding for their programs and activities. Similarly in the transitional contexts of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, where domestic capital is weak and liberal democratic organizations fragile, donors have played a key role in shaping civil society. The flourishing of women’s groups in post-Mao China is related partly to the support donors provided previous to the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women (Howell 1997a). Given that it is rare for donors to withdraw completely, such civil societies are critically constructed from the outside rather than from within. As will be discussed in Chapters 6 through 8, the consequences of this are vividly demonstrated in the case of South Africa. In contexts of aid dependence, the manufacturing of, and the long-term sustainability of, civil society become significant issues. External dependence on donors can easily lead to a distortion of local agendas as local NGOs competing for funding shape their planned programs and activities around the priority of donors. In countries where civil society and democratic institutions are fragile, the arrival of donors with preconceived notions about what civil society should do can end up weakening the capacity of local organizations to develop their own visions of civil society, their own understandings of how to achieve social and political change, and their own solutions to problems that are central to their lives. In some contexts the national state and donors compete to shape civil society in their image, reinforcing the conceptualization of civil society as antistate and also underlining the politics of donor interventions in civil society.

Conclusion In this chapter we traced the different routes toward civil society pursued by donor agencies. Donor organizations vary in their enthusiasm for civil society and the purposes for which they use the concept. Within agencies there can also be divisions among staff about the desirability of civil society, the expectations about what it can achieve, and the most appropriate and effective ways to work with civil society organizations. U.S. donor agencies are the largest provider of civil society assistance, hence the way they conceive of civil society and seek to operationalize it has ramifications not only for other donors but also for those parts of local civil societies that become subject to their efforts. Given that U.S. donor interest in civil society has as its prime objective democratization, then aid support to civil society is biased toward those groups that similarly promote this goal. Civil

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society assistance is thus partial, limited to supporting a discrete set of local organizations assumed to share similar values and purposes. Civil society assistance, however, is not limited to fostering democratization. It also accords neatly with a broader agenda of promoting neoliberal economic policies. Partnerships among local governments, business, and community groups; dialogues and consultations around macroeconomic policies, adjustment, and poverty reduction; and support to neoliberal economic think tanks and policy institutes all serve to forge a consensus around economic strategies of privatization and liberalization. In operationalizing the idea of civil society, donors encounter certain dilemmas and contradictions that call for a rethinking of strategy and purpose. Donor intervention in civil society creates its own politics—a battlefield of contending norms, values, and visions of how social, economic, and political life should be organized around the respective roles of the individual, collective, and state therein. There is a politics of choice that leads to insiders and outsiders, the included and the excluded. There is a politics of partnership that reinforces particular visions and norms and underplays the conflictual elements of relations within civil society and among civil society, state, and market actors. Civil society does not lend itself to external manufacturing. It cannot be created via blueprints from offices in Washington or London. Civil societies in any context have a history and must develop in tune with their particular historical, cultural, and political rhythms. Underlying the politics of universality, partnership, and choice are differential power relations, whereby donor agencies, with their financial, human, and knowledge resources, inevitably dominate interactions with fund recipients. This in turn raises the paradox that civil society organizations, which are supposed to be marked by the feature of “independence,” end up sacrificing this autonomy to various degrees through their reliance on donor funding. This becomes reflected in, one, competition among local NGOs for funding at the expense of seeking common strategies and alliances; two, the reification of “the project” and “the NGO” rather than a concerted strategy to overcome commonly identified problems; and, three, the adoption of donor priorities in an effort to sustain activity and ultimately the existence of the organization. Without careful and sensitive prior analysis of needs and the social and political context, donor intervention into local civil societies can end up distorting and weakening local processes of association and problem resolution. In Chapters 6 through 8 we look more closely at what happens when donors attempt to strengthen, or even create, civil society from the outside. We first explore in detail the cases of China and Guatemala and then provide a sketch of key issues arising in the regions of sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia, and Latin America.

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Notes 1. Recent publicly accessible DAC statistics do not reveal the amount of aid given to civil society support projects. 2. Other objectives are promoting political competition through free and fair elections, enhancing respect for the rule of law and human rights, and fostering transparent and accountable governance. 3. The World Bank did not engage with NGOs until the early 1970s, partly because the Articles of Agreement were interpreted in a restrictive fashion to limit cooperation to governmental organizations. In 1973 the Articles were reinterpreted in a way that allowed cooperation with NGOs. However, cooperation with NGOs was limited and sporadic throughout the 1970s. In 1981 formal World Bank guidelines were issued, which identified the roles that NGOs might play in bank-financed projects (see Ibrahim 1998: 32 for further details). For a detailed study of the NGO–World Bank Committee and the challenges for NGOs and the bank in policy dialogue and critical cooperation, see Covey (1998: 81–120). 4. Bain (1999: 10) identifies four different positions within the World Bank in relation to NGOs, namely, those in favor of NGOs, those ready to try working with NGOs, those who engage with NGOs under pressure from senior figures or internal reformers, and those unwilling to change. 5. As a UN agency the UNDP cannot officially finance NGOs. 6. “Firstly, the role that international NGOs can play [is] in building strong domestic constituencies for international cooperation and development. . . . A second key challenge for NGOs is to improve the effectiveness with which they lobby governments and international institutions. . . . The third, most pressing challenge for international NGOs is . . . to acknowledge, as must governments, that the role of external players should be a transitional one” (Short 1999). 7. It is interesting that the term church-related organizations is used rather than broader religious organizations, which would include mosques, synagogues, and temples. 8. This involves five key stages: first, analyzing the key obstacles to democratic political development, both systemic such as a centralized bureaucracy and sectoral such as constrained NGOs; second, devising remedies for these problems such as revitalizing local government, reforming human rights policies, or creating a more open regulatory regime for NGOs; third, identifying those civil advocacy organizations whose interests coincide with the reform agenda such as prodemocracy groups, human rights organizations, labor unions, or environmental organizations; fourth, assessing and enhancing relevant skills and resources of these organizations such as advocacy, networking, coalition building, and policy analysis; and finally, identifying the arenas and mechanisms such as media, public hearings, ombudsmen, and international courts, where civil advocacy organizations could engage effectively with the public and state and encouraging a demand for these where they are absent, weakly developed, or poorly functioning (Hansen 1996: 5–11). 9. Center for Democracy and Governance, interview by Jude Howell and Jenny Pearce, July 1998. 10. Anonymous World Bank official, interview by Jude Howell and Jenny Pearce, July 1998. 11. Tendler (1997), for example, notes how unions are often presented as obstacles to reform. She cites the World Bank’s 1995 World Development Report on workers, where private sector unions are associated with positive effects while public sector unions are criticized for opposing necessary reforms in India, Argentina, and Brazil (1997: 7, 171, fn 22).

6 Civil Society and Market Transition: The Case of China

As discussed in Chapter 4, it is often assumed that socialist states have weak civil societies because of the predominance of the party and state in social and political affairs and the absence or weakness of domestic capital. Hence by looking at socialist economies in the process of transition we can test the hypothesis that the introduction of market forces leads to the emergence of civil society, an assumption that has its historical roots in the development of capitalism in Western Europe. Further given the assumed links between economic and political liberalization we can explore the hypothesis that the expansion of the market will create the conditions for a more fundamental challenge to political power. As with the other case studies China raises questions about the transferability and utility of Western social science concepts in other historical, social, political, and economic settings. We begin by exploring how the idea of civil society has been conceptualized in contemporary Chinese discourse. We then look at empirical manifestations of civil society in the late Qing and republican periods. In the next section we discuss how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) asserted its control over society by sharply limiting the public space to organize and associate. However with the introduction of market reforms, changes in the role of the state in economic and social affairs, and the development of the private sector, new spaces for the articulation of interests began to open up. We examine here the nature of the new intermediary organizations that have emerged in the reform period. We then reflect on whether these organizations constitute a civil society, and if so, what distinctive features these have. This leads us then to the question of whether these new intermediary organizations can serve as vehicles for 123

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democratization. Finally we consider the implications of this for donors seeking to strengthen civil society.

Civil Society: An Alien Concept? Following the tumultuous events of 1989 when students, factory workers, state, and tertiary sector employees took to the streets calling for an end to inflation and corruption and demanding democracy, many China watchers began to apply the concept of civil society to describe, explain, and interpret this occasion. Writers such as Gold (1990), Ostergaard (1989), and Strand (1990) saw this upsurge of protest “from below” as indicative of an emerging civil society. With the tragic denouement on June 4, 1989, China watchers became more skeptical of such a development, emphasizing the fragility and weakness of the incipient civil society. In much of Western scholarly writing on this subject it was implied that the notion of civil society had not been echoed in Chinese theoretical texts. Indeed some scholars questioned the applicability of such a concept, which had its theoretical roots in the European Enlightenment, to a society and culture so different as China. However, the concept of civil society has been adopted by contemporary Chinese theorists both within China and among the exiled community in the United States. In his review of the Chinese discourse on civil society Shu-Yun Ma (1994) points out that the first discussion on civil society can be traced back to 1986 when Shen Yue, a Tianjin scholar, opened up a debate about the class neutrality of “townspeople’s rights.” Shen contended that the Marxist notion of buergerliche Gesellschaft had been incorrectly translated as “bourgeois society” when it should have been understood as “townspeople’s society.” As townspeople were distinguished from peasants, slaves, and serfs by virtue of their participation in the market, then whether they belonged to the bourgeoisie or proletariat was irrelevant. Conflict over private property led to the emergence of a legal system, defining individual rights and duties. In this way townspeople (shimin) were transformed into citizens (gongmin). As other scholars began to engage with this idea, the much broader issue of how to create a modern citizenry was addressed. The contempt for law and declining social ethics seemed to point to a generally weak civic awareness in China. The state thus had an important role to play in creating civic awareness among the people, which was a necessary, preliminary step in the formation of civil society. Thus in this first engagement with the concept of civil society there was an assumed harmonious relationship between the state and civil society.

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This notion of citizenry was appropriated into official discourse in 1986. With the juxtaposition of socialism with civic awareness the latter term was given a class association that Shen Yue, the early initiator of the debate, had so carefully sought to eschew. From mid-1990 onward debate on civil society petered out. The concept was revitalized at a joint SinoU.S. conference on history held at Fudan University, Shanghai, in May 1992, though with minimal impact on domestic debates. The other main source of discussion about civil society has been among the U.S.-based exiled scholars. Here the discourse echoes East European understandings of civil society as a private sphere independent of and opposed to the state. While some scholars such as Su Wei have expressed doubts about applying the Eastern European concept to the Chinese situation, others such as Su Xiaokang, creator of the controversial TV program River Elegy, have countered this by arguing that China has much more in common with Eastern Europe than East Asia. Su Xiaokang also put forward a more radical empirical interpretation of civil society that included the illegal secret societies, maintaining that these constituted an important social base for challenging state power. The Habermasian notion of public sphere has also entered the discourse of exiled dissidents. For Kong Jiesheng, an intellectual renowned for his critical reflections on the Cultural Revolution, when people gathered together in karaoke bars, qigong sessions, or taverns, they formed part of an emerging public sphere that when more formally institutionalized could provide a counterforce to the state. Based overseas, however, the influence of this exiled intellectual community on thinking and debates within China has been limited. Thus in contemporary Chinese discourse the concept of civil society has been used by mainland intellectuals in China to address issues of civic awareness and the formation of a modern citizenry. Among exiled dissidents its use has resonated more closely with the definition that evolved in Eastern Europe, namely, civil society as a source of power independent of and opposed to the state. Having explored some of the theoretical uses of the concept of civil society, in the next two sections we explore the possible empirical manifestations of civil society in China.

Historical Antecedents of Civil Society The emergence of apparently autonomous associations in the reform years and their rapid proliferation during the first half of 1989 has stimulated a debate not only about the rise of civil society but also about its historical antecedents in the late Qing and republican periods. Scholars such as Rowe

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(1993), Rankin (1993), Huang (1993), and Strand (1990) have explored the richness of associational life in preliberation China, couching their discussion in terms of both civil society and the public sphere. Though it is beyond the scope of this chapter to enter into a detailed discussion about the nature of associational life, we review briefly here the main contors of this historical exploration. In the late Qing period, that is, the nineteenth century up till the founding of the Chinese Republic in 1911, the gradual weakening of the central state opened up space for local elites to manage local economic and social affairs. In his detailed study of the nineteenth-century commercial center of Hankou, Rowe puts forward the argument that local merchant guilds played an active role in the management of local social and economic affairs, taking over some of the functions of the local Qing administration. Similarly Rankin argues that the Taiping Rebellion (1851–1864) led to a change in the balance between the state and local elites. Illustrating this with a case study of Zhejiang province she describes how local elites took over responsibility for the provision of welfare services, the construction of roads and public buildings, and the supervision of irrigation systems, thus assuming public roles. In his critical review of Rowe’s and Rankin’s accounts of local elite activism, Wakeman (1993), however, remains sceptical of the degree of local autonomy, arguing that such activity was officially sponsored and patronized from above and embedded in the complex interlinkages between the bureaucracy and local guilds and associations. In theorizing this associational activity in the late imperial period some Western scholars have sought to apply the concepts of public sphere and civil society. Yang (1989), for example, refers to the proliferation of selfregulating associations like guilds, native-place associations, surname associations, neighborhood associations, temple societies, and so on as indicative of a premodern civil society in late imperial China. Recognizing that these associations required the approval of the state and may even have enjoyed state sponsorship Yang argued that they could determine their own activities and select their own leaders and so were effectively independent of the state. Both Rowe and Rankin find it easier to locate these phenomena within a Habermasian discourse of public sphere. Habermas developed the concept of public sphere to refer to a sphere of critical, rational debate that, under the particular historical circumstances of the rise of capitalism in France, Germany, and Britain, became the locus for a political challenge to public authorities. Rankin and Rowe find the category of public sphere more useful than civil society because the concept of “public” shares meanings and ambiguities with the Chinese term gong and resonates comfortably with the related notions of official (guan) and private (si), while the term civil society is too embedded in Western history and, for Rowe, too

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inchoate to be of analytic value. The term gong became increasingly salient in the late Qing period when it was used initially to refer to the emergence of public utilities and services outside state control and later extended to cover a legitimate arena of critical debate outside the state. Rankin uses the term public sphere broadly to refer to an intermediate arena where officials and the populace engage in open public initiatives. She thus traces the existence of public spheres in China back to the late sixteenth century. Compared with the historically specific bourgeois public sphere outlined by Habermas, Rankin suggests that the late imperial public sphere was local rather than national, linked to the rise of commerce and commoditization rather than capitalism, consensual rather than confrontational, and characterized by management of local affairs rather than public discussion. While Rowe refrains from using the concept of civil society at all, Rankin identifies fragments of an incipient civil society in the post-Taiping period. The efforts to reform the ailing imperial state, the introduction of Western institutions, the development of the press, and the emergence of nationalism combined to stimulate public discussion of national affairs in local arenas and elite criticism of state officials. With the collapse of the Qing empire, the old public spheres, which were based on elite society, culture, and religion, became increasingly undermined and elements of a civil society began to flourish. Strand (1990) likewise argues cogently for the existence of a civil society in the republican period. Restaurants, bathhouses, markets, temples, and brothels served as meeting places where discussions occurred and a public space was created. The spread of newspapers and the arrival of the telephone presented new media through which ideas could be circulated. The emergence of professional associations such as lawyers’ guilds and chambers of commerce from 1903 onward pointed to the emergence of a limited public sphere. For Strand this sphere was limited because such associations reflected a mixture of dependence and autonomy, articulating social interests, yet at the same time projecting state power. Brook (1997: 19–45) echoes the findings of Rankin and Strand, basing his conclusions on one aspect of civil society, namely, voluntary and autonomous organizations. Through a survey of local sources, he demonstrates the richness of civic culture in Shanghai over the past four centuries, where voluntary organizations have formed around the principles of locality, occupation, fellowship, and common cause. Brook links the expansion of autonomous group formation to state crisis, arguing that such voluntary organizational activity not only compensates for the weaknesses of the state but serves to stabilize rather than rupture state-society relations. What is clear from this debate among social historians is that an associational sphere with some autonomy from the state had begun to emerge in

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the late Qing period. The compromised autonomy of many of these associations and their complex ties with the state inhibited the emergence of a civil society that offered an alternative locus of power challenging state authority. Elements of a civil society such as professional associations, national debate, a critical elite, and open politics developed most rapidly and profusely in the first two decades of the republic, though other characteristics of civil society such as citizen rights, legal protections, and an effective constitution limiting state power were relatively weak. As China became submerged in warlordism, civil war, and external invasion over the next two decades, the possibilities of an expanding associational sphere with democratic potential were further constricted. When the Nationalist Party consolidated its rule in 1927, social organizations were incorporated or repressed through coercion, peaceful disbandment, regulation, and new legislation. During the Anti-Japanese War period (1937–1945) the controls over civil associations tightened further. Citizens’ organizations were required to register with the Ministry of Society and be supervised by relevant government departments; membership of professional organizations became compulsory. In Communist-occupied territories the Chinese Communist Party established new forms of organizations such as peasant associations and women’s organizations. These were organizations instituted from the top, used to mobilize people for defense purposes and to provide a channel for the propagation of Communist ideology. They were the prototypes for the mass organizations that were to be established once the Communist Party came to power. Although the assumption of state power by the Chinese Communist Party in 1949 restored political stability, the constriction of private economic activity and the ideological controls over religion and acclaimed feudal practices undermined the material and social base of the late Qing and republican elements of civil society. In order to maintain its control over society and begin work on economic reconstruction, the party reshaped the intermediary sphere, eliminating, merging, or adapting organizations that appeared potentially threatening to the goals of the revolution and to the maintenance of the power of the party. Potentially hostile or ideologically undesirable social groups were banned or incorporated. Thus missionaries and foreign charities were expelled from China, and the spread of religious activity was controlled through the establishment of officially sanctioned churches and temples. Those organizations that could assist economic reconstruction were allowed to continue but subordinated to party and national interests. For example, national and local economic associations were merged in 1953 into the Federation of Industry and Commerce, thus providing a way for the party, or state, to control private entrepreneurs. However, as by 1957 the

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nationalization of private business had been completed and private entrepreneurs as a distinct class category no longer existed, the federation became redundant. Similarly peasant associations continued to exist in the 1950s, serving an important function in the process of land reform. Once land reform had been completed and landlords no longer existed, the need for such an organization petered out. Aware of the need to incorporate intellectuals, who on the one hand might underpin any challenge to the regime and on the other hand were vital for rebuilding the economy, the CCP merged four preexisting associations for scientific work into the Federation of Science and Technology. Similarly the Overseas Chinese Association was formed to mobilize the support of a potentially hostile group and in the early 1960s to provide an institutional route for attracting overseas investment. Drawing on its organizational experience in the occupied territories the party set up a limited number of organizations with a monopoly of representation for selected interests. Class, age, and gender were the key axes along which interests were recognized and organized. Echoing these organizing principles the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), the All-China Women’s Federation (ACWF), and the Communist Youth League provided the main forums for the participation of urban workers, women, and young people. As in other socialist countries these “mass organizations” served as transmission belts, communicating party policy downward to their membership and transmitting the opinions of the grassroots upward in democratic centralist fashion. Their leaders were appointed by the party-state and at higher levels were often party members themselves, leading to considerable overlap between the party-state and such intermediary organizations. The CCP’s control over society was further cemented by the tight restrictions over rural-urban and urban-urban mobility, which served to strengthen vertical ties at the expense of horizontal links. Society was mobilized from above through political campaigns organized by the party and the mass organizations. There was little political space for organization from below. Only in times of political or economic crisis, such as the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and the death of Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong in 1976 and the subsequent downfall of the Gang of Four, or during campaigns that solicited criticism, however disingenuously intended by the party, such as the 1956 One Hundred Flowers Campaign, could frustrations and grievances come to the surface. Even then the fear of political oppression and suspicion of the motives of party leaders constrained widespread expression of dissatisfaction. During the Cultural Revolution the mass organizations had to cease their activities. As part of an internal struggle against his opponents and in order to reverse a perceived process of bureaucratization Mao created the

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Red Guards, made up of young students, who traveled throughout China, spreading Mao’s words and challenging the revolutionary credentials of established party and government cadres. As the guards split into numerous factions, which began to attack each other both verbally and physically, the country fell increasingly out of central control. In response to the emerging anarchy Mao ordered the young Red Guards to be “sent down” to the countryside. Factional fighting, violence, and the top-down manipulation of the guards suggest that this type of associational activity was a far reach from a “civil” society. It was only in the mid-1970s that the Women’s Federation began to be reestablished at the provincial level and only in 1978 that both the ACFTU and the Women’s Federation could resume their activities.1 The introduction of market reforms from the late 1970s onward played a key role in the restructuring of society and the reshaping of the intermediary sphere of association, representation, and interest articulation.

Emergence of New Intermediary Organizations Following the death of Mao Zedong in 1976 and the subsequent downfall of the Gang of Four, a fundamental rethinking of economic strategy became possible in China. Deng Xiaoping and other advocates of economic reform were able to consolidate their power at the 13th Plenum of the 11th Central Committee in December 1978 and launched a new package of economic reforms that differed radically from past practice. These reforms have sought a shift away from central, state planning toward an increasing reliance on market forces. This has involved the gradual liberalization of prices, the decollectivization of agriculture, and the promotion of the domestic private sector in both rural and urban areas. In order to upgrade technological levels and enhance export performance the reformers not only expanded foreign trade links but also permitted the introduction of foreign direct investment for the first time since Liberation, setting up four Special Economic Zones in Fujian and Guangdong provinces in 1979 as an initial way to experiment with this radically different strategy. Over the past two decades China has experienced spectacular GDP growth rates, averaging at 11.8 percent per annum between 1990 and 1995.2 Changes in industrial strategy, ownership systems, and price reform have contributed to the high industrial growth rates, which averaged 14.2 percent per annum between 1990 and 1995. The emergence of township and village enterprises in the rural areas gave new impetus to the process of industrialization. Such enterprises accounted for two-thirds of rural output value in 1996 and employed over 131 million people, almost one-third of the rural workforce.

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By the late 1990s China had become the tenth largest trader in the world and was the main recipient of foreign investment among so-called developing countries. Over 300,000 foreign direct investment contracts had been agreed by 1998, of which half were actually in operation. The diversification of ownership systems had sponsored the rise of over 800,000 private enterprises, employing over 6 million people, and 28 million selfemployed households, with a labor force of 55 million.3 These changes in the economy have in turn contributed toward a restructuring of the social fabric, greater social differentiation, and increased mobility. There is a process of class formation, or rather class reformation. A new domestic bourgeoisie is in the making, composed of an expanding group of private traders, private entrepreneurs, and Chinese managers in foreign companies as well as Chinese owners of overseas businesses. Parallel to this is the diversification and fragmentation of the working class.4 While in the prereform era a state-owned worker held an enviable position in the urban economy, enjoying the securities of a permanent job as well as numerous privileges such as housing, schooling, and medical assistance, in the post-Mao period increasing competition from private companies, joint ventures, and township and village enterprises as well as the innumerable difficulties in reforming the state sector have combined to make many state-owned enterprises increasingly unprofitable. The acceleration of state enterprise reform from 1993 onward created a new layer of laid-off workers, labeled euphemistically as “stepped down from work” (xiagang). By the end of 1998 there were 8.57 million workers laid off from state and collective enterprises (Department of Population 1999: 441). Between 1996 and 1998 the number of workers in state enterprises fell from 112.4 million to 90.58 million (Department of Population 1999: 3). For all state workers the introduction of employment contracts at least formalistically, if not yet in practice, undermines their permanent status, and along with housing, pension, and welfare reforms, casts a shadow of insecurity over the future. Most employees in foreign-invested enterprises are rural migrant workers, hired on contracts of between one and three years. As well as adjusting to urban life they have also to become accustomed to the fast pace of factory work and the frequent long hours demanded by their employers. Unaware of their labor rights and the role of trade unions they are particularly vulnerable to exploitation. In many township and village enterprises around the major cities, rural migrant workers from inland China likewise provide the main source of labor, working in sweatshop conditions. Thus the structure of the working class is becoming increasingly differentiated, with workers in enterprises of different ownerships and in different loca-

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tions facing diverse conditions of employment. As continuing restructuring leads to further downsizing and bankruptcies and China’s imminent entry into the World Trade Organization threatens to intensify these processes, the growing pool of redundant and unemployed workers will rise, making much harder the task of mobilizing around common interests. Aware of the importance of intellectuals to the process of modernization the reformers acted quickly to officially reclassify them as members of the working class, thus elevating their social and political status. Despite ongoing censorship and repression in China, the intellectual climate is much more open than previously. The availability of translated foreign texts about the works of Jean-Paul Sartre, Michel Foucault, and Milton Friedman point to considerable relaxation in the control of ideas. Over the past two decades they have not only reclaimed their historic role of voicing grievances as witnessed in the dramatic year of 1989, but they have also resumed an advisery role to government, formulating policy options, carrying out policy-related research, and providing advice. With the opportunities to travel and study abroad intellectuals in the reform period are much more aware of international affairs and have begun to engage with foreign texts and contribute to intellectual debates at a global level. After Tiananmen some of them have also formed the core of the overseas dissident groups that press for democratic change in China. As well as the fragmentation of the working class and the elevated position of intellectuals, we also witness the emergence of new marginalized groups such as beggars, sex workers, and a new stratum of urban and rural poor made up of impoverished state workers and the elderly. At the same time the reform period has bred its own young generation of consumers, with higher expectations, greater opportunities to travel both abroad and in China, and a keener interest in pursuing monetary rather than political interests. Back in the rural areas the promotion of specialized households, engaged in activities such as transport provision or poultry breeding has spawned a new layer of relatively rich households. In some parts of China, particularly in the coastal areas or around major cities, village residents have left farming for trade and industrial production, leaving the tilling of land to the elderly, women, or hired migrant labor from inland areas. Eager to find employment young men and women from rural areas have also migrated to the wealthier, eastern coastal provinces. In both rural and urban areas physical and social mobility have increased, leading to a less rigidly stratified and more fluid society. With the relaxation of residential controls rural people have taken advantage of the opportunity to work in the cities. This encounter with urban life and exposure to the outside world through consumer goods, foreign enterprises, and foreign cultural imports has broadened the horizons of rural residents. With new avenues of employ-

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ment in the private sector the importance of membership of the Communist Party as a prerequisite for upward mobility has lessened, though it still remains an influential factor. With the development of market forces, other channels, sources of power, and influence have become available, including money, wealth, and overseas connections. While in the prereform era the central government sought to redistribute wealth from more prosperous industrial areas to poorer, often inland, regions, in the post-Mao period economic arguments about comparative advantage have been crucial in shaping regional growth trajectories and contributing toward a growing regional income differentiation. The establishment of Special Economic Zones in the southeastern provinces of Fujian and Guangdong and the concomitant policy privileges with regard to foreign exchange retention, foreign direct investment, and trade was but one policy that sought to activate the potential advantages of these areas in terms of overseas Chinese connections, geographical position, and industrial base. As a result the gap in per capita incomes between coastal and inland areas has widened. In 1994 the average wage in Guangdong was almost double that in Inner Mongolia, at Rmb7,117 and Rmb3,675 respectively (1 Rmb = U.S.$9–10; State Statistical Bureau 1995: 113). Since the mid-1980s resentment among leaders of inland areas over the policy privileges enjoyed by coastal provinces and cities and their growing prosperity has become expressed in demands for similar benefits to attract foreign capital, for a removal of these benefits from coastal areas, and for a redistribution of wealth. From the above we can see that the social landscape in transitional China is much more fluid, open, and differentiated. The rigid state-imposed categories of class, residence, and political status have become increasingly diluted as economic relations have become more complex. Greater social differentiation, in particular the process of class reformation, has in turn given rise to new needs, different types of grievances, and new interests. A worker in an ailing state-owned enterprise may be concerned by delays in payment of wages or the uncertainty of pension rights, while for a rural migrant worker in a foreign-invested enterprise immediate issues might revolve around availability of dormitory accommodation, excessive working hours, and workplace safety. A private trader or entrepreneur will seek to maximize profits but minimize involvement of the government and party, particularly where this is extractive. For many female employees discriminatory employment practices where women are the first to be dismissed and the last to be employed will be a prime concern. For those tilling the land the relative prices of final products and inputs such as chemical fertilizers will be an important issue. Thus in the context of a semireformed economy and an increasingly diverse and differentiated social structure the range of needs, grievances,

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and interests that the party has to address has spiraled. This has given rise to two key changes in the intermediary sphere, namely, the reform of existing mass organizations and the emergence of new intermediary associations. Faced with increasing diversification of interests and grievances in the reform era these old intermediary institutions have adapted their working style, their activities, and their structures in various and sometimes imaginative ways. For example the All-China Federation of Trade Unions has set up legal departments to assist workers with contractual issues and to deal with labor disputes. 5 The All-China Federation of Women has conducted research into discrimination against women in the workplace, has pressed for legislation to protect women’s interests, and has expanded its international networks, particularly through hosting the Fourth World Conference on Women (Howell 1996, 1997a). Although they have tried to extend their institutional reach to include workers in foreigninvested enterprises, rural female migrants, and new entrepreneurs, they have not been able to keep pace with the rapid social changes, leaving an institutional vacuum in the intermediary sphere. In this space there have emerged a range of new intermediary organizations, articulating the manifold new interests, representing the voices that the mass organizations have not been able to reach, and providing a vehicle for developing social and professional bonds. These new intermediary organizations began to take off from the mid1980s, reaching a peak in 1988 and 1989. They included trade associations, learned societies, professional associations, sports clubs, welfare organizations, women’s organizations, and even foreign nongovernmental organizations. These varied in their size, their origins, their sources of financing, their political propensities, their types of activity, and their membership, suggesting a diversity and complexity of association that was absent in much of the post-Liberation years. Although there was no system of national regulation until 1989, they tended to be regulated in an ad hoc manner at sectoral or local levels and were often established under the umbrella of a state department. After the tragic denouement of the democracy protests, the party-state clamped down on all new groups that were perceived as politically threatening. In October 1989 the Ministry of Civil Affairs issued document no. 43 requiring all new social organizations to register. In order to register an organization needs to append itself to a government body or an official association, which can then act as its guardian and protector within the bureaucratic system. In this way the party was able to reassert its control over the intermediary sphere. While all of those organizations that were deemed politically threatening were prohibited, associations and groups operating in business, professional, welfare, and cultural spheres were not only permitted to continue their activities but also encouraged to do so.

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In hosting the Fourth World Conference of Women as well as the NGO Forum in 1995 the Chinese government relaxed the space open to women’s groups to organize. This conference provided a context wherein unregistered women’s groups were tolerated and government departments were more ready to act as the supervisory unit for women’s associations. However, in the autumn of 1996 the Ministry of Civil Affairs and Ministry of Public Security issued new directives aimed at rectifying financially irregular social organizations, which required social organizations to register with the Ministry. In November 1998 the Ministry of Civil Affairs issued revised regulations on social organizations, which introduced stricter requirements for registration. As a result of this rectification the number of social organizations decreased from 220,000 in 1998 to 170,000 in 1999.6 Though the tightening regulatory framework makes the process of registration more complicated, people continue to organize in ways that bypass the regulations or require less formalities such as affiliating with another association or forming networks. Although the Chinese government has tightened the regulatory framework governing social organizations, it is also actively encouraging those social organizations that implicitly facilitate the processes of system reform. Aware that the success of state enterprise reform is crucially linked to reform of the health, education, and welfare provision, the government has promoted welfare and charitable organizations as well as community services. In this way it can accelerate enterprise reform in a way that limits the burden on central and local governments. While in the 1980s the rise of social organizations reflected new social and economic interests arising out of market reform, in the 1990s the number of social welfare organizations addressing the darker side of economic reform expanded and is likely to increase even further over the next decade. The party’s awareness of the growing importance of such intermediary and community-based welfare groups is reflected in its endorsement of the NGO research center, which was launched in 1998 in Qinghua University. In the summer and autumn of 1999 two major conferences on NGOs were held in China, again signaling official support for an intermediary sphere of social organizations. While the CCP recognizes the usefulness and significance of a realm of semiautonomous and autonomous associations that provide services to its members and the broader community, it is still reluctant to accept the growth of advocacy groups or organizations that challenge the party’s power or the process of economic reform. Thus the Chinese government promotes certain social organizations because they perform useful functions both for the partystate and the market, an issue that we examine more closely in the next section.

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Nature and Functions of New Social Organizations The expansion of the intermediary sphere and multiplication of organizations, both registered and unregistered, in the reform period would seem to point to the rise of a civil society. But, as noted already, civil society is a slippery term that has ambiguous connotations and is appropriated for diverse ideological purposes. As there is a diversity of criteria used to define its scope and boundaries, what it empirically refers to remains contested. Given the strong involvement of the state in the economy and society in China, the top-down nature of participation, and the limited space for nonstate organization, the features of autonomy, spontaneity, voluntariness, and self-regulation seem to be pertinent indicators for assessing the nature and development of civil society in China. Taking these four indicators as our starting-point we find that intermediary organizations in China can be divided into four broad categories along a continuum of state domination and autonomy. Positioned at one extreme are the mass organizations, followed by registered organizations, then not yet registered organizations and, at the other extreme, illegal organizations.7 The mass organizations are the least autonomous, bottomup, spontaneous, and voluntary of all the intermediary institutions. As discussed previously their staff are appointed by the state and are usually party members. As transmission belt organizations they have both to implement party directives as well as to reflect the views of their members, functions that can be contradictory and lead to divided loyalties. Although in the reform period some of their leaders have sought to give greater priority to their members’ interests and operate more independently, the party continues to exert a considerable influence over their goals, activities, and resources. Next along the continuum come the registered organizations that can be subdivided into official, semiofficial, and popular organizations. Official registered organizations are those that have been set up and sponsored by the state. They include the China Association of Science and Technology and the Overseas Chinese Association. Semiofficial organizations earn their title because leaders are both appointed by the party-state and selected by members, funding comes both from the party-state and members, and their goals are shaped both from above and from below. Examples include trade and production associations such as the Cement Association and the Poultry-Breeding Association; professional bodies such as the Lawyers’ Association, the Enterprise Management Association, and the Mayors’ and Vice-Mayors’ Association; cultural and sports associations such as the Football Fans Association, the Karaoke Association, and so on. They are semiofficial precisely because they perform a number of functions that are of benefit to the party-state, as will be discussed later in this chapter.

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More independent than the semiofficial organizations are the popular organizations, whose leaders emanate from the membership; these groups determine their own goals and activities and rely on their own sources of funding. Examples here include many cultural and sports associations such as the Volleyball Association, Photographic Association, Calligraphy Association, and some Qigong associations and women intellectuals’ associations. The greatest limitation on the development of these bodies is the need to raise funding. In between the registered and illegal organizations is a limbo of organizations that are not registered but are tolerated by the party-state. This may be because they are facing difficulties in registering, or they are intending to register, or because they have failed to register. The informal associations proliferating in the late 1980s, for example, salons of intellectuals, belong to this realm of unregistered bodies. One organization that experienced difficulties in registering is the Green Environmental Association. Its founders sought to publish an environmental newsletter and raise environmental issues in schools and universities. Its obvious superordinate government department would have been the National Environmental Protection Agency. However this agency had already founded its own association, namely the National Environmental Protection Association. Moreover, there were already several other environmental associations such as the Wild Animal Association, China Environmental Scientific Study Association, and the Environment Literature Research Society. As the 1989 and 1998 regulations permit only one organization for each interest, the Green Environmental Association was advised to find a name that would distinguish it from rival groups in order to circumvent this regulatory restriction. During the period in which it awaited an outcome it continued to operate but with an ambiguous official status. Other organizations in this limbo-like category include those women’s groups that emerged in the months ahead of the Fourth World Conference on Women. These were tolerated because the party-state needed to demonstrate some nongovernmental activity for the NGO Forum and to prohibit them would have been politically too costly (Howell 1997a). Similarly some Christian churches operate openly without formal registration but always under threat of being forced underground. In the rural areas, too, there has been a resurgence of associations, including prerevolutionary types formed along clan, lineage, or religious lines. These include brotherhoods, local cliques, local place associations, and Buddhist and Daoist religious groups that function openly beyond the reach of local government. Finally there are the illegal organizations, which in most countries would not seek legal status, such as the triads and secret societies and those that would prefer recognition but are considered too politically threatening. These include underground political organizations, prodemocracy groups,

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the China Christian Association, autonomous trade union organizations, human rights groups such as the Human Rights Voice Organization, and antiforeign groups such as the NGO Association for Demanding Indemnity from Japan. This category is probably the most autonomous, spontaneous, voluntary, and self-regulating precisely because they have to work at the greatest distance from the party-state. However their illegal status also puts a limit on the expansion of their activities and their effectiveness as political counterweights. Again, the party-state has tolerated and even encouraged this proliferation of associations because these groups perform a number of functions that are useful to the party-state. Trade and business associations, for instance, provide a vehicle for coordinating sectoral policy, for regulating the market, and for bringing together otherwise atomized market actors. Officials from a range of government departments may be represented in the leadership of semiofficial trade, sectoral, and business associations. This crossdepartmental communication facilitates the development of a coordinated state policy toward a particular industrial sector and the private economy. For example the China Collective Construction Enterprise Association was welcomed by the party-state, which found it difficult to manage this complex and sprawling sector composed of a multitude of small-scale enterprises. Similarly the associations provide an institutional means for regulating the market and maintaining social and legal order. For example the China Pharmaceutical Industry Association, China Poultry Association, and China Bee Products Association advocated the regulation of prices so as to minimize undercutting among members and reneging on contracts. Associations also provide additional structures through which the party can disseminate policy, particularly to new socioeconomic groups such as self-employed workers and private entrepreneurs and traders, who lie beyond the traditional reach of the ACFTU and the Women’s Federation. Consumers’ associations play an important, supplementary role in regulating the quality of products in the market. By raising awareness of pollution and focusing on particular cases of environmental damage, environmental protection organizations provide another channel for putting pressure on companies that flout government regulations. The power of large stateowned enterprises may be too great for government environmental bureaus to take on alone. Hence the more popular bodies along with media pressure can provide an additional tool to foster compliance with environmental regulations. In the context of state attempts to withdraw from the microeconomy, associations can take on some of the functions of superordinate departments. For example the Shenyang Taxi Drivers Association runs training courses as a precondition for obtaining driving licenses, thus performing an

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important filtering function for local government. These associations also provide a mechanism for resolving conflicts among members and between members and the state. For example the Shenyang Taxi Drivers Association mediated between taxi drivers and the district government when the latter imposed higher taxes on the drivers without consulting them first. Finally, the role of social organizations as welfare providers has become increasingly relevant since the 1990s as the government struggles to reform state enterprises and institute a new system of health care, pensions, social security, and social welfare. Some associations have taken on welfare functions. For example the Self-Employed Laborers’ Association used membership fees to help out members who were in financial difficulties or to provide funds for funeral expenses, tasks that would have otherwise fallen to a work unit. There is also an increasing number of welfareoriented organizations such as Project Hope, the China Charities Federation, and the Disabled Persons Federation. From the point of view of members there are also positive gains to be made through connections with the party-state such as access to resources that are still managed or mediated by the party-state and personal connections that can be used to facilitate business plans or resolve disputes.8 The existence of an association can raise the status of unestablished professions or trades such as accountancy, law, and private entrepreneurs. These groups can also defend members’ interests against both the state and the market. For example the Entrepreneurs’ Association in Shenyang negotiated on behalf of an unprofitable enterprise and obtained the assistance of local government agencies. The Cement Industry Association in Xiaoshan intervened with the local Commodity Price Bureau to secure a higher official price for cement, which had fallen below the costs of production. Other benefits to members include the provision of technical and managerial training and advice, the fostering of overseas links, and access to foreign funds and business contacts. To what extent does this new array of organizations amount to an emerging civil society? From the above categorization of different organizations we find that they are linked to the state in varying degrees, hence their room for maneuver and independence cannot be taken for granted. On the one hand they have emerged in those spaces opened up by the market and the changing relationship of the party-state to the economy and society. On the other hand some of the organizations have been sponsored from above, provided with resources, and given encouragement in their activities. There is thus a dual impetus in the emergence of civil society in China, namely, from the party-state and from the market.9 Some of the organizations that emerged in the turbulent year of 1989, such as the Autonomous Students’ Federation and the Autonomous Workers’ Association, did challenge the political authority of the party-state and the legitimacy of mass

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organizations. As such bodies have an antistate agenda, they are similar to the associations that undermined party rule in Eastern Europe and approximate most closely contemporary conceptions of civil society. However, the complex intertwining of intermediate social organizations with the partystate puts a question mark over whether these organizations belong within the boundaries of a distinct institutional sphere and the extent to which this sphere can be described as autonomous from the party-state. As discussed in Chapter 2 the notion of self-regulation has long been cited by authors such as de Tocqueville as typifying associations belonging to civil society. In the case of the official and semiofficial associations in China, there is evidence of some self-regulation but also a considerable degree of state determination of goals and activities. The greatest self-regulation is found among popular organizations, tolerated associations, and illegal organizations. It is also noteworthy that no overarching association regulates the activities of these new institutions. On the contrary, the government’s Ministry of Civil Affairs has taken on the task of registration, supervision, and monitoring. Indeed since 1989 the party-state has attempted to regain control over the intermediary sphere through a process of incorporation, sponsorship, toleration, and prohibition. By permitting only one organization per interest, the 1989 Ministry of Civil Affairs regulations laid out a corporatist structuring of intermediary organizations, which granted recognized social groups a monopoly of representation. In the case of the mass, official, and semiofficial organizations the party-state has supported their emergence through the appointment of staff and the provision of resources such as offices, funding, and political support. By tolerating the existence of certain organizations the party-state attempts to define the boundaries of the permissible. Such organizations provide a good marker against which to judge whether the party-state encroaches on or expands the boundaries of the intermediary arena. Finally by spelling out which organizations are not permissible the party-state stakes clearly the limits to self-organization. In these different ways we see a process of institutional reordering, an attempt by the party-state to redefine its relations with the economy and society and to reestablish control, particularly in the wake of the events of 1989 in Tiananmen Square. Thus we can observe the emergence of elements of civil society, elements that are loosely arranged and fragmented, with no self-conscious participation in a larger project or sphere. As of yet the plethora of new associations adds up to less than the sum of its parts. With the party-state putting increasing pressure in the 1990s on mass organizations and the new associations to find their own sources of funding, those that manage to raise funds are likely to develop a stronger and more independent identity. However given the continued presence of the party-state in many

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aspects of social and economic life and the ongoing concern with issues of stability, it is unlikely that these new institutions will be allowed to step too far out of line. Those that do threaten party-state power will be quickly prohibited.

Civil Society and Democratization As outlined in Chapter 3 many authors and contemporary observers have viewed civil society as an important, if not essential, ingredient in the process of democratization. To what extent then can the expanding intermediary arena in post-Mao China provide the organizational basis for a democratic challenge to political authority? We argue that the new social organizations could potentially contribute toward such a process, but this would be contingent on the conjuncture of various economic and political factors. Moreover in the wake of Tiananmen those organizations with a democratic agenda or that challenged party-state authority have been forced underground, setting sharp limits on their capacity to organize. The new associations in the post-Mao era have all been formed around narrow, specific interests. For example professional and occupational groups such as lawyers, academics, and entrepreneurs strive to promote their particular concerns; cultural and sports groups such as poetry societies and football fan clubs organize around specific activities; and welfare organizations such as the Disabled Persons’ Federation take up the specific interests of disabled people. As in other societies the focus on a narrow, particular interest distinguishes such groups from political parties, which aggregate disparate interests. Where new parties such as the China Democracy Party have tried in the late 1990s to establish themselves, they have been speedily forced underground. In order to minimize any challenge to party-state power, detailed regulations issued by the Ministry of Civil Affairs in the early 1990s prohibited the organization of associations along religious, separatist, or gender lines. This mandate thus officially prohibited the formation of Tibet or Xinjiang independence groups; Christian, Buddhist, or Islamic associations apart from the officially recognized ones; and the rise of independent representative women’s organizations. In the case of the latter those women’s organizations that were set up before 1989 were required to register as secondary organizations under a larger body, though there has been some regional variation in the application of these regulations. Thus the Women’s Journalist Association became a second-level association under the Journalists Association. Furthermore the new Ministry of Civil Affairs regulations prohibited the formation of national associations with branches, thus trying to limit the power of any particular organization.

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From reports of the events of 1989 it seems that these new interest organizations did not provide the basis for collective action. On the one hand factory workers and state employees joined in the street protests through their units and locations of residence. Trade union cadres who supported the students’ cause organized around their identity as ACFTU employees. Thus older institutions of social and economic order such as the work unit or mass organization provided the organizational premise for collective action (Strand 1990; Walder 1989). On the other hand the energy created through the student protests spawned a plethora of new collectives expressing support for the students, articulating particular grievances, and in some cases challenging the political authority of the party-state and its mass organizations. For example the Beijing Autonomous Workers’ Federation called for the creation of a union independent of the party, thus implicitly challenging the legitimacy of the official trade union to represent workers and highlighting the limitations of the monopolistic mass organizations. Thus although new socioeconomic interests created new identities, new grievances, and new social bonds, the preexisting, post-1978 formal associations that might have formed to articulate these preferences did not provide the vehicle for protest organization. Despite the clampdown in the post-Tiananmen era, organizations with explicit democratic agendas or demands for a pluralization of the channels of representation have continued to surface but have been quickly suppressed. For example Liu Nianchun, an activist in the League for the Protection of Workers, was detained by the Public Security Bureau in 1995. Similarly Liu Jingsheng, a founder of the Free Labor Union of China, was sentenced to fifteen years in prison in July 1994. In 1998 Zhang Shanguang was sentenced to ten years in prison after attempting to register the Shu Pu County Association for the Rights of Laid-Off Workers (China Labour Bulletin 1999: 3–5). In 1999 founding members of the China Democratic Party in several Chinese cities were arrested. The post-Tiananmen level of suppression continues to keep a tight lid on organization around democratic issues. Though prodemocracy groups operate in sharply limited and dangerous circumstances, it is unlikely that the officially registered organizations such as the Entrepreneurs’ Association or Lawyers’ Association or Photographic Association will provide the seeds of a democratic challenge to the partystate. Not only do they not have an explicit democratic agenda, but internally they do not appear to be seeking alternative ways of structuring their organizations to enhance participation in decisionmaking processes. What is lacking within these organizations is a Habermasian critical public sphere where opinions about public affairs are voiced, creating a momentum for political change. It might be argued, however, that narrow sectoral interests have historically provided the essential ingredient for radical political change. For example in nineteenth-century Britain it was organization

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around particular interests such as the newly emerging industrial bourgeoisie and later the trade unions and women’s movement that provided the impetus to systemic political change and eventually democracy. In the context of a partially reformed economy, however, there are sufficient overlapping interests and interlocking ties between the party-state and the registered associations to preclude the development of the sharp sense of otherness that underpins political challenge. However under certain circumstances, as in the case of Tiananmen, that otherness can be activated. Many of the more independent research institutes that flourished in the late 1980s, providing advice to senior party leaders and striving to distance themselves from party control, were closed after Tiananmen, or key scholars were criticized, transferred, or demoted. Though intellectuals may continue to privately discuss and write about issues of democracy, any explicit calls for a change of government are likely to meet with immediate suppression. Moreover the reluctance of many intellectuals to seek alliances with other groups such as peasants or workers is likely to present an ongoing obstacle to the strengthening of any such demands. The failure of students in Tiananmen to ally with workers’ groups was an important factor in the downfall of the movement. Overseas dissident groups are also unlikely to be a source of democratization in China. Indeed it is party policy to weaken any challenges to its power by exporting its dissidents abroad. Moreover some of these overseas democratic groups have elitist visions of democracy exclusive of the peasantry, who are deemed “not yet ready” for democracy. In brief the current intermediary sphere of mass organizations and registered intermediary organizations is unlikely to provide the organizational basis for democratic ideas and demands. At the ideological level intellectuals and worker leaders such as Han Dongfang are the most likely social forces to demand and develop the concept of democracy. However it will require an economic or political crisis, as in the case of Tiananmen, for such ideas to find a wider audience. Under such circumstances a civil society imbibed with a democratic spirit could emerge. Hence it cannot be automatically assumed that the emergence of an associational sphere organizing around narrow, economic, professional, literary, or other interests will translate into a site for democratic change. What is more apparent is the need to recognize the diverse nature of civil societies and to acknowledge the importance of autonomy in pluralizing the sites of power.

Implications for Donor Agencies Compared with aid-dependent countries such as Bangladesh or Mozambique multilateral and bilateral agencies and foreign nongovernmental organizations play a minimal role in the Chinese economy and the

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provision of welfare. With renewed membership in the UN in 1971 and the restoration of diplomatic ties with the United States in 1972, China became more involved in multilateral institutions and international affairs. While in the first three decades after Liberation China has been more of an aid-donor than an aid-recipient, since 1978 it has become a major receiver of aid. Already by 1988 China was the largest recipient of World Bank loans, a position that it retains at the turn of the millennium. Furthermore foreign nongovernmental organizations such as the British Save the Children Fund, Oxfam, Médecins sans Frontières, Friedrich-Naumann Stiftung, the International Republican Institute, the Ford Foundation, and the Sasakawa Peace Foundation have begun to operate in different provinces in China (Howell 1995). While most of these run welfare-oriented projects, some such as the Ford Foundation, the FriedrichNaumann Stiftung, and the International Republican Institute have been engaged in promoting research, organizing exchange programs, and mounting training in areas such as legal reform, gender issues, civil service reform, governance, and civil society. The former ODA, for example, set up training programs for young civil servants as part of its broad good governance program. The Japanese Sasakawa Peace Foundation gave some support to the NGO Research Centre at Qinghua University in Beijing. Ahead of the Fourth World Conference on Women many foreign organizations such as the UNDP, the British Council, and the Ford Foundation supported the formation of joint projects and the development of nonstate women’s organizations. Thus although donor activity is relatively limited, some of the activities are focused indirectly on strengthening civil society by working with social organizations judged to be nongovernmental. However, very few donors have specific civil society strengthening programs or projects in China. This is not least because most donors maintain that China does not have a civil society and that most social organizations are effectively state run and sponsored, though this chapter has argued that relations with the state are considerably more complex than this. The lack of projects is no doubt also related to the fact that USAID, one of the largest supporters of civil society programs, does not operate in China. One of the few agencies to have a civil society program is the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), a bilateral agency. In 1997 it set up a Civil Society Support Programme with a small annual budget of Canadian $200,000. It has supported the Women and Children’s Psychological Counseling Center in Yunnan, the Participatory Community Development and Nature Conservation, and a volunteer training program for a Cancer Rehabilitation Club in Shanghai. Its concern is to foster the development of civic consciousness, to promote agents of change, and enhance public participation. Although there are currently very few donor

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programs aimed explicitly at strengthening civil society, the restructuring of urban social welfare provision in China as well as the ongoing reform of the state point to a continuing expansion of social welfare organizations. These are likely to attract increasing donor support in the future. The Chinese government will welcome the resources donors can bring to support service-delivery NGOs and to develop a third sector, a term that has gained currency in China since the two 1999 NGO conferences. However the Chinese Communist Party is likely to watch carefully and hinder donor support to advocacy organizations. Given the growing room for donor intervention in social welfare service delivery and the difficulty of keeping separate service-delivery and advocacy functions, we can expect points of tension in the future between the government and donors.

Conclusion The case of China highlights the need to place discussions about civil society and proposals to strengthen civil society in their particular historical, economic, political, and cultural circumstances. In a transitional economy where the state continues to play an important role in economic and social affairs and where the structure of society is undergoing change, the boundaries between the state, market, and elements of civil society are by no means clear. The crisscrossing ties between actors in civil society, the market, and the state complicate the notion of autonomy and attempts to identify the agents of change within civil society. While the boundaries of civil society, the identities of its actors, and the degree of autonomy cannot be easily or automatically determined, it is nevertheless clear that the existing amalgamation of formal associations do serve in varying degrees to regulate the state and regulate the market, whether or not they add up to a coherent civil society. The case of China also shows us that we cannot assume that autonomy from the state or antistateness necessarily translates into demands for democracy. The postTiananmen reordering of state-society relations points to an intermediary sphere with some autonomy from the state, which can negotiate particular interests vis-à-vis the state and the market, provided these do not directly challenge the legitimacy of the party to rule. Hence it demonstrates the need to think in terms of multiple civil societies existing across time and space, with diverse purposes, varying degrees of autonomy, and different political implications. In strengthening civil societies donors have first to be clear about their own expectations to avoid disappointment and also recognize the limitations of any attempt to give civil society a purpose for which it is not structurally or politically equipped.

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Notes 1. Delia Davin (1976: 57, n. 8) notes that an attempt was made to revive the ACWF in the early 1970s. According to Kay Ann Johnson (1983: 195), the ACWF was resurrected up to the provincial level in 1972 and 1973. 2. Summary of World Broadcasts, FE/2544 S1/1 24.02.96. 3. Self-employed households can employ a maximum of six people (Summary of World Broadcasts, FE/W0525/ WG/11, 18.02.1998). 4. For a more detailed discussion of the changing nature of China’s working class and their conditions of employment see Howell (1997b), O’Leary (1998), and Hebel and Schucher (1999). 5. For a detailed discussion of changes in the All-China Federation of Trade Unions see Chan (1993), Howell (1997c), and O’Leary (1992). 6. Private communication to authors, February 2000. For a detailed statistical coverage of the growth of social organizations between 1978 and 1992, see Pei (1998). 7. Shue (1994) argues for a continuum of associations with state-dominated ones at one extreme and relatively autonomous ones at the other. Unger (1996) and Pearson (1994, 1997) also highlight the complex relations of autonomy and dependence that characterize Chinese associations. 8. For further details of associations seeking practical assistance from the state see Wang (1994). 9. Similar processes are evident in the case of Vietnam, which like China has undertaken economic reforms with minimal change in the political system. Vietnam’s new sphere of “NGOs” displays similar characteristics of sponsorship by and dependence on the state. For a detailed case study of Vietnam see (Gray 1999).

7 Civil Society Discourses and the Guatemalan Peace Process

The global revitalization of interest in civil society reached Guatemala in the 1990s through two routes. On the one hand, activist groups struggling to open safe public spaces for political discussion and action after decades of armed conflict used it to express their “popular” and civilian identity against that of the military who dominated their society.1 Civil society became shorthand for their agency and protagonism in the struggle for “real” democracy and a just socioeconomic order. However, it was adopted in quite a superficial way with little discussion or debate around its meaning and complexity. On the other hand, the international financial and development institutions began in the 1990s to incorporate “civil society strengthening” into their portfolios in a systematic way (Pearce 1998). They shared an assumption that strengthening civil society would contribute both to a sustainable peace process as well as to the urgent tasks of economic modernization and political liberalization facing postwar Guatemala. The subject of this chapter is the relationship between the radical civil society discourses of activist groups and the liberal democratic ones of international institutions in the Guatemalan peace process, or discourses from “below” and from “above.” We point to the dangers and problems implicit in external civil society building and the way the discourses from “above” and “outside” can marginalize and even supplant aspirations from “below.” Ultimately, we argue, this has negative implications for the deepening and strengthening of democratic processes. We identify six particular dangers. First, that of depoliticization. The institutional logic of donors leads them into a “project” focus inappropriate to highly complex sociopolitical processes. Second, the instrumentalization of organizations around 147

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donor priorities and requirements. In turn, recipients have learned to instrumentalize the donors, without developing their own accountability to a social base. Third, donor claims to neutrality, for what is in fact a highly prescriptive, normative, and ultimately political intervention around a Western liberal agenda of capitalist modernization. Fourth, the fostering of vertical donor-recipient relationships that depend on funding to the detriment of horizontal relationships among civil society organizations and that contribute indirectly to further fragmentation and competition. Fifth, we note the predisposition toward “consensual” approaches that ignore the underlying conflicts and power inequalities that prevent these. Finally, there is the impact of the contradictions and competition among donors and the resulting confusion among recipients. We argue in this chapter, therefore, that there is a serious tension between donor objectives and the real sociopolitical world in which Guatemalan social movements, organizations, and NGOs operate. While the latter need to enhance their effectiveness and ability to achieve goals, they also need to develop their own agenda and retain their social and political legitimacy. This is a complex process in Guatemala and does not easily accommodate donor requirements and time scales. Donors can have a negative impact when they try to make it do so. This chapter begins by analyzing the different moments in the encounter of activist movements with the concept of civil society. The second section focuses conversely on the discourses around civil society circulating within multilateral and bilateral development and financial institutions in Guatemala and the dilemmas and problems of translating them into practical projects. We assess the impact this process has had on activist organizations committed to implementing the peace agreements in Guatemala, deepening democratic practices, and attempts to encourage equitable development.

Civil Society and the Guatemalan Peace Process: Discourses from “Below” This section is divided into three parts. The first part traces the encounter of activist movements with the idea of civil society. They invested a loosely defined “radical democratic” meaning into the concept, which corresponded to deeply held aspirations among a significant sector of the organized Guatemalan population. We draw attention to two key variants in this encounter: the one, which we call “radical popular,” influenced by beliefs rooted in the history of the country’s leftist movements, and the other, which we call “radical cultural,” shaped by the rise of indigenous consciousness and movements in the 1980s and 1990s. The second part exam-

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ines how the idea of civil society became institutionalized during the peace process in the form of a Civil Society Assembly and the politics that surrounded this. In the third part we analyze the factors that inhibited the transition of the radical democratic idea of civil society into a practical project for postconflict Guatemala. New Forms of Activism and Their Discourses of Civil Society The concept of “civil society” met with an extraordinary reception among the people who had in different ways resisted and challenged military rule and oligarchic power in Guatemala. The revival of the concept reached Guatemala in the latter half of the 1980s, following the election of Vinicio Cerezo, the country’s first civilian ruler in three decades, albeit under military tutelage. There is little evidence that the concept reached Guatemala through any theoretical literature, as there was little access to this literature in the repressive climate of Guatemala. Guatemalan opposition groups formulated their own meaning of civil society in the process of using it. This reflected the Guatemalan context. After the election of Cerezo in 1985, state–civil society relations tended to become the major point of struggle, rather than the revolutionary goals of transforming the entire economic as well as political edifice on which the country had been built. As Guatemalan social scientist Edgar Gutiérrez writes, “Human Rights and Civil Society were the banners which rallied the Guatemalan left from the trenches to the hazardous struggle of the first ten years of the democratic transition” (Gutiérrez 1997: 21). The shift in focus reflected the emergence of new kinds and forms of social activism and popular organization.2 Some of the newer radical popular organizations still remained close to the political leadership of the guerilla movements that had led the revolutionary struggle and had coalesced in the Unidad Revolucionario Nacional Guatemalteca (Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity), known as the URNG. Others, however, distanced themselves from this leadership. The gradual erosion of the ideological certainties that had shaped individuals’ thinking, and the possibility of a revolutionary outcome, that is, the overthrow of the Guatemalan state and the ruling class, had a considerable impact on these organizations. The URNG lacked a political project for the postconflict situation capable of holding the organizations together, and its legacy of militaristic praxis was considered inappropriate for the new context. This divided and fragmented organizations operating in a political environment that was still hostile and created a political vacuum that weakened the collective impact of the organizations. Leaders and organizers in the urban areas became more distanced from their grassroots supporters and from the rural communities who had borne the brunt of state violence.

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The concept of civil society filled the vacuum during the protracted period of peace negotiations, creating some common identity at the rhetorical level at least and legitimizing the right of social organizations to come together and comment on the negotiations. By identifying a distinct sphere of social interaction, civil society also raised the issue of autonomy, not just from the state but also from political party and armed movement. This is rarely discussed openly, however. Contemporary Guatemalan public culture and discursive practice remain deeply affected by the prolonged atmosphere of secrecy in which the population has lived. The popular organizations, nevertheless, are deeply committed to a radical democratic vision of the future. The groups that we refer to as “radical cultural” profoundly challenged the guerilla movements in terms of their neglect of the ethnic dimensions of oppression and exclusion in Guatemala.3 The preparations beginning in 1987 for the international celebration of 500 years of resistance to the Spanish conquest scheduled for 1992 played a key role in stimulating new organizational expressions among the indigenous population. Some of these remained close to the popular organizations in that they shared their broader goals; others, known as cultural Mayan groups, focused their efforts on cultural-linguistic issues and the preservation of what they called the Mayan world view. In 1990 two new coalitions of Mayan organizations were set up: Majawil Q’ij and the Guatemalan Council of Maya Organizations (COMG). Some 300 Mayan organizations, many small, local groups, had appeared by the mid-1990s and gradually grouped themselves under thirteen umbrella organizations (Spence 1998). These organizations generated a radical cultural vision that shared some premises with popular groups but challenged others. The idea of a radical cultural vision should not, however, imply a unity or harmony among the Indian groups. They were in fact deeply divided on how to achieve their goals and what it might mean to be part of a Guatemalan nation. Deep rifts left over from the counterinsurgency war hindered the pursuit of common goals. Such rifts tended to widen after the worst years of violence were ended. Who represented the “indigenous people” became a particularly controversial question. There was confusion, for example, over the role of elders and the role of the new organizations that sought to influence policies in the wider society. Other factors complicated the prospects of the radical cultural vision forging a common understanding among the indigenous peoples of Guatemala or creating shared meanings with the radical popular movements. Experiences of refuge in Mexico and the postwar search for livelihoods there and in the United States had eroded cultural identities, particularly among the younger generation. Efforts to defend that identity became more urgent and problematic. Some Indian organizations refused to take

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part in alliances with “popular civil society” organizations, which were felt to subordinate the cultural to the political agenda. Underlying the radical cultural perspective were the disaggregating figures on poverty and inequality in Guatemala, which revealed the extent to which the indigenous majority was disproportionally affected by the war. Racism and social apartheid continued to exist long after the conflict had ended. Nor were white and ladino elites prepared to acknowledge publicly their responsibility for crimes against the indigenous population during the war or ensure that perpetrators were brought to justice. This hardened the position of many indigenous organizations toward the government and even toward the URNG, which many felt inadequately acknowledged its failure to address the ethnic question in its politics and practice. The relationship of the indigenous groups with a radical cultural vision to the concept of civil society was profoundly ambivalent. On the one hand civil society held out a promise of freedom as it does for the popular sectors; on the other hand it is not clear how associations now visibly trying to influence the state in the public political sphere relate to the communal structures of indigenous villages. Indian people, accustomed to powerlessness, often make pragmatic calculations in these circumstances. If the concept is useful and enables them to achieve things, they will adopt it superficially, convincing outsiders that their perceptions are more shared than is the case in reality. The Politics of Civil Society and the Peace Process The tendency of radical organizations to concentrate their efforts on issues of democracy and human rights grew in the course of the prolonged negotiations over the peace process. International donors of all kinds played a critical role in promoting this shift and helped preserve fragile spaces for organization among the population. The extent to which these organizations themselves influenced events has, however, tended to be exaggerated. In May 1993, in the midst of a political-institutional crisis, President Jorge Serrano announced he was going to suspend Congress, the Supreme Court of Justice, and the Constitutional Court and was evidently seeking to prolong his time in office beyond his constitutional mandate. There were a number of factors that prevented Serrano’s move, including an elite civilmilitary consensus against it and the readiness of the Constitutional Court to act and declare the presidential decree unconstitutional. Most observers, particularly the press, also noted the mobilization of popular social organizations against Serrano and the threat of a return to unconstitutional and authoritarian politics. This has gone down in history as a significant intervention by civil society (Córdova 1996: 147). Civil society was credited with a serious challenge to the unaccountable, corrupt, and

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elitist political institutions. It was now a concept that not only offered a conceptual tool to radical voices moving away from traditional left leadership, but it was also in the process of reification as the “force” for such change, that is, it had come to mean agency. This “reinvention” of the concept by international observers and the Guatemalan popular movement and its allies, together with the appropriation of the concept for the movement’s struggle, helped to provide momentum and a sense of protagonism. By the time peace talks were finally resumed under UN mediation, Guatemala’s popular organizations had won a legitimate space to voice their views on the content of an eventual agreement. European NGOs, many of whom had long been involved in solidarity work and support for popular organizations in Guatemala, played an important role in supporting these organizations in the struggle for an equitable peace. In 1994, the Civil Society Assembly, or ASC (Asamblea de la Sociedad Civil), was set up under the auspices of the framework agreement for the peace talks. It was responsible for feeding proposals into the talks and was chaired by Bishop Rodolfo Toruño Quezada until 1995. It comprised ten representatives from eleven social sectors invited to participate—the powerful association of private sector interests, CACIF (Comité Coordinador de Agrupaciones Agrícolas, Comerciales, Industriales, Financieras), refused on behalf of the business sector.4 European aid agencies played a critical role in supporting the organizations within the ASC, as Biekart (1999: 271) points out: “Virtually all organizations participating in the ASC were dependent on support from private aid agencies. The same was true for Indian organizations, who would not have been able to participate at the national level without private foreign aid. Without this support many alliances in the ASC would not have been able to meet, to travel and to elaborate proposals.” The ASC was seen as a front for the organized left by CACIF, the government, and the armed forces. Undoubtedly and inevitably the URNG used it and tried to subordinate the organizations within it to its politicaldiplomatic negotiating strategy. However, the ASC was a location of the organized and radical sectors of Guatemala, only some of whom responded to URNG leadership and many of whom questioned that leadership. In many respects, the ASC represented more radical opinion than the URNG, and this in turn divided the URNG. There were considerable divergences between them on the socioeconomic aspects of the peace accords and on punishment for human rights abuses, for example (Palencia 1997). Organized business, meanwhile, exerted strong pressure on the government and military from outside the assembly as well as through long-established social and political networks to ensure that its fundamental interests were not challenged by, for example, agreements on land and tax reform. Despite its dynamism and the receptivity of many international institutions to the idea that civilian voices should feed into the peace process, nothing

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altered the structure of socioeconomic power and the differential influence that gave certain sectors on public policy. The URNG was increasingly making the pragmatic calculation that its ability to influence the political future would of necessity imply compromises to ensure that the military and economic elites accepted a peace agreement. The ASC was given a year to come up with consensus documents on the substantive themes of the peace process: refugees and the displaced, human rights, indigenous rights, socioeconomic reforms, and the need to strengthen civilian rule over the military. The ability of the ASC to really shape the accords was limited. The one exception, the Indigenous Accord, was arguably more of a result of action taken outside the assembly than within it.5 In this accord, Guatemala was formally recognized as multilingual, pluricultural, and multiethnic. By the end of 1995, the ASC’s influence was clearly waning. Bishop Quezada had resigned as chair at the beginning of that year, concerned that the URNG was associating itself too closely with the ASC and that this would compromise the church. The decline and ultimately demise of the ASC has many explanations, not all of which are relevant to this chapter (Krznaric 1999; Palencia 1997). In these years prior to the signing of the peace accords, the ASC had considerable symbolic importance, particularly internationally, representing the voices of the “victims” of Guatemala’s repressive governments and the activists who had struggled on those victims’ behalf. International attention, however, exaggerated the strengths and underplayed the weakness of these organizations. The next subsection will examine the real fragility that characterized them and the problems faced by those seeking to build on the radical content of popular movement aspirations in the postaccords years. Radical Popular and Radical Cultural Visions of Civil Society After the Peace Accords The popular meaning of civil society did not develop into a practical project for postconflict Guatemala because of a number of inhibiting factors. These included factors internal to the popular and indigenous organizations of the country, such as theoretical confusions, the ambivalence of the left toward democracy, the conceptual tension between “community” and “civil society,” the fragmentation and division of empirical civil society, and the inability to steer a course that retained the popular utopian vision while remaining practical and effective. However, other inhibiting factors originated in donor agendas. Once donors recognized the fragility of the sector, they began to address what they identified as its “institutional weaknesses.” Donor projects and civil society building programs were tailored to their assumptions about the problems of empirical civil society, to their prerequi-

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sites for funding, and around their meanings of the concept. In the process, they were able to establish the liberal democratic meaning as the only realistic option around which to organize, and they were able to shape and reshape organizational life through funding and political priorities. Theoretical confusions. Theoretical debate within Guatemala during the 1980s and 1990s was limited for a number of reasons, including the need to devote political energy to pushing forward the transition itself. The university had been cut off from outside influences and theoretical literature during the first half of the 1980s; political science and sociology departments had been closed. Students who sought a radical politics turned to classical Marxist texts or orthodox interpretations of them, such as the writings of the Cuban Marxist Marta Harnecker. As orthodox Marxism came under challenge in the late 1980s, there was very little theoretical leadership available within Guatemala. Civil society filled the vacuum, but it was not used in conjunction with the debate, for instance, around Gramscian ideas, which had informed the use of the concept in Brazil and elsewhere in Latin America. 6 In Guatemala civil society expressed the yearning, the aspirations of the people in a conceptually ill-defined way that could not easily shape a political platform, and in which radical democratic ideas, themselves unclear, became more and more confused with the liberal democratic ideas that had begun to gain prominence internationally. The mobilization against Serrano was widely interpreted as the recognition by civil society of the value of liberal democracy: “All civil society sectors (despite their opposing views) suddenly realized the value of democratic institutions” (Biekart 1999: 169). Essentially, the popular movement was ill prepared theoretically to deal with the clear and strategic alternatives that would be offered after the accords were signed. Radical ideas did not disappear after the signing of the accords, but they became easily diluted in the encounter with others and the need to engage with the political system as it was in order to secure implementation of the accords. An eclectic mixture of radical and liberal democratic ideals emerged. But appeals for cooperation and solidarity, and a profound disquiet with regard to the neoliberal model, are still apparent. Writing in early 1997, Rokael Cardona Recinos (1997: 96) asked the question, Can Guatemalan civil society flourish? He concluded, Civil Society . . . must organise itself to create and consolidate a democratic culture which makes national unity possible within socio-cultural diversity. That begins from the smallest territorial units of the State, up to the most universal ones that allow a true national identity to be created on the bases of mutual respect, cooperation and social and intercultural solidarity. The new political leadership of Civil Society must include in its objectives a profound struggle against the savage neoliberalism which is lived today in Guatemala.

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The ambivalence of the left toward democracy. Underlying the confusions are core, unresolved problems about the idea of democracy among the Latin American left in general as well as in Guatemala itself. The Latin American left has justified its ambivalence toward democracy in terms of the failure of representative democratic practice throughout Latin America. As Jorge Castañeda (1994: 327–328) puts it: “Even in the best of cases there was a lack of content in the scarce, ephemeral instances of democratic rule in Latin America. The stage show of elections, separation of powers, a free press, and competing political parties and labour unions masked an entrenched elite, the exclusion of millions, and the marked narrowing of meaningful options in a continent where existing choices did not seem to work.” Actually practiced representative democracy in Latin America “neither proved its worth nor delivered the goods” (Castañeda 1994: 335). Social and economic equality, not democracy, became the objectives of the Latin American and Guatemalan left and, in the name of that objective, the left suspended the development of democratic practices within its own organizations, while armed movements scorned and rejected the democratic process as a whole. The discourse of a participatory democracy as an alternative to representative democracy was often the counterproposition of the left in Latin America. The Cuban revolution and later the Nicaraguan revolution both talked in terms of this alternative as more appropriate to the building of a revolutionary and egalitarian society. No one on the Latin American left was prepared to criticize the failure of the Cubans to live up to the ideal, when they had made so many advances in health and education and were so besieged by U.S. hostility. Within Central America, the Nicaraguan experience rekindled the interest in alternative visions of democracy. However, the fight for survival of the Sandinista project against U.S. efforts to destroy it, together with the antidemocratic tendencies within the project itself, meant that these ideals were implemented only very partially. The defeat of the Sandinistas at the ballot in 1990 and revelations of how the leadership sought to safeguard its own economic and political interests did not diminish grassroots belief in the ideal. But it did contribute to the growing alienation between the activists and revolutionary leadership of the left. Radical democracy was neither a theory nor a praxis for revolutionary leadership. As the transition toward elected civilian government advanced in Guatemala, it remained therefore simply an abstract aspiration among grassroots activists. Little thinking was invested in practical and workable forms of participatory democracy as an alternative national political demand. The tensions surrounding practicing democracy with an uneducated social base and peasant world view were never acknowledged.7 Only later did activists begin to explore these issues in relationship to “local government” (Arancibia, Marin, Pearce, and Prado 1999).

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“Community” and “civil society.” Ideas of participation and collective purpose were reinforced in Guatemala by appeal to “community.” Community organization had been strong in rural Guatemala long before national organizations began to emerge. “Community” also acted as a strong conceptual tool of resistance to the individualizing logic of the market economy. Such ideas of community have been reinforced by the growth of indigenous consciousness and its appeals to the Indian world view and traditional forms of village organization. However, the integrity of the Guatemalan Indian community has been under assault since at least the 1950s, either through commercial activities, through Catholic Action, or through repression and the dislocations of war. Since the 1980s the Guatemalan state has extended its efforts to incorporate Indians through various economic programs within Indian communities (Smith 1990: 230– 258). It is difficult to argue that “community” can in an empirical, unambiguous sense be counterposed to civil society, although the ideal it conceptualizes is in tension with it. “Community” is also an ill-defined idea, and one that has acted as a defense from external encroachment rather than a proposition for the future. “Modernity” promises improvement and change to poor and indigenous communities, but delivery is uncertain. At the same time, indigenous leaders are aware that it can undermine the fragile and fragmented Mayan identities in formation. Evidence does not suggest that these leaders reject “modernity” as such; they mostly seek the benefits of social and economic progress but at the same time they wish to ensure that change positively contributes to livelihoods and does not foment a rampant consumerism and individualism that will destroy values of solidarity and mutual support. The radical cultural vision was reinforced by the failure of “modernity” to deliver what indigenous communities need and in a way that enables them to reduce its negative impact. The historic absence of the state in many rural areas of Guatemala and the failure of the rule of law to function makes it difficult for indigenous communities to envisage either a state or a legal system that would offer support and protection. The appeal to customary law like the appeal to “community” feels a safer, familiar, and more culturally affirming option. While some indigenous groups never accepted the popular discourse of civil society as appropriate to them, it was even more difficult for them to come to terms with the rise of liberal democratic ideas of civil society, which mostly implied an integrationist approach to the indigenous question. Programs of “civil society strengthening” that developed in the postaccord years therefore created considerable confusion and varied responses. On the one hand, they offered a new language of incorporation of the Mayan and ladino poor into the Guatemalan nation as citizens with rights and encouraged them to play a role in shaping public policy. On the

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other hand, they required acquiescence if not acceptance of the neoliberal package of individual accumulation, economic liberalization, and global competitiveness, all ideas that threatened “community” as understood by the Mayan and popular movements and that few believed could benefit the impoverished majority of the country. The differences in perspective echo to some extent Mahmood Mamdani’s observations with respect to Africa when he referred to the “theoretical impasse between modernists and comunitarians, Eurocentrists and Africanists” (Mamdani 1996a: 3). He argues, The modernists take inspiration from the East European uprisings of the late eighties; communitarians decry liberal or left Eurocentrism and call for a return to the source. For modernists, the problem is that civil society is an embryonic and marginal construct in Africa; for communitarians, it is that real flesh-and-blood communities that comprise Africa are marginalized from public life as so many “tribes.” The liberal solution is to locate politics in civil society, and the Africanist solution is to put Africa’s age-old communities at the center of African politics. One side calls for a regime that will champion rights, and the other stands in defence of culture. The impasse in Africa is not only at the level of practical politics. It is also a paralysis of perspective. (1996a: 3)

Mamdani’s “perspectives in paralysis” conveys something of the difficulty of engagement between the Mayan cultural vision and that of donors. Fragmentation and division. Gutiérrez (1997: 84) describes the rapid emergence of associations and organizations in Guatemala during the second half of the 1980s and the 1990s as “a contagious dynamism. [Civil society] is practically in everything. Political parties, as forms of representations in the State and of diverse social interests have exhausted their role as part of the old institutional system, along with trade unionism.” Nor was this dynamism concentrated only in organizations attempting to influence the state, defend sectoral positions, or promote political views. Cultural, educational, and research centers emerged. There were twenty environmental organizations in the country recorded in 1996, many of them working at the local rather than national level (Holiday 1996: 31). A profound skepticism existed among many organizations about the political party as an instrument for change in Guatemala. The rise of local civic committees as an alternative to the national party was an expression of this, alongside the rise of new movements and associations. However, despite their many negative features in Guatemala, political parties and traditional trade unions had at least provided some means of articulating disparate visions and had drawn out some of the unifying elements. Despite the apparent “dynamism,” there was in fact an underlying weakness and lack of common purpose among the organizations beyond that highlighted by the peace process. Foreign donors rather than real social

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processes were behind a great deal of the growth, which was mostly urban based and divorced from grassroots organizing in rural communities and rural consciousness. The real weakness of the organizations was acknowledged by some intellectuals; Cardona Recinos (1997: 94), for example, wrote in 1997, The balance of thirty-six years of armed conflict is pathetic for our country: a Civil Society totally disarticulated and massively impoverished, lacking national leadership and without immediate perspectives of organizing itself on a large scale in order to participate around an alternative, progressive and democratic political project in order to give it authentic social sustainability to peace building.

Thus fragmentation and division rather than cohesion and unity characterized the civil society of the 1990s. The concept of “institutional weakness” and the rise of the “project.” By the mid-1990s, international observers had begun to acknowledge the fundamental weakness rather than extol the virtues of empirical civil society in Guatemala. Multilateral, bilateral, and private international donors began to develop programs aimed at strengthening the organizational components of civil society. Institutional weakness was identified as one of the serious problems. Arguably this focused on the wrong problem. More damaging to the ability of Guatemala’s radical popular and cultural movements to influence Guatemala after the peace process has been the theoretical vacuum and lack of political strategies. The absence of a tradition of tolerance of dissenting opinion and dialogue aimed at producing common aims and shared meanings contributed also to the problems and weakened the ability of the organizations to direct international cooperation toward a clearly defined agenda of their own. Kees Biekart (1999: 208) has traced the changing role played by private European donors as they shifted from the “solidarity aid” of the conflict years, in which support to organizations opposing authoritarian rule and oligarchic power structures was unconditional, to the emergence of a “culture of tighter requirements and depoliticized criteria.” This rested on an analysis of the problems facing Guatemalan civil society, which included lack of training; lack of organizational autonomy, management, and decisionmaking capacities within community groups; and poor communication, negotiation, and coordination between the state and civil society (Palencia 1997: 33). International NGOs as well as multilateral donors began to request improved evaluations, monitoring, administrative efficiency, greater self-sufficiency, and increasing professionalism. These objectives would become a central feature of the systematic “civil society

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strengthening” offensive of all donors after the signing of the Peace Accords, but they had influence even before the accords were signed. Multilateral and bilateral donors had far less knowledge of, experience of, and commitment to grassroots movements and organizations in Central America than the European private donors that Biekart discusses. The legitimacy of the European donors, however, made it easier for them to influence the grassroots organizations. Biekart discusses the effects this had on popular organizations in Guatemala. Among these is the tendency of private aid to reinforce hierarchy and weaken the internal accountability of local organizations despite the stated objective of the civil society building programs of making organizations strong and accountable. This is due to the donors’ tendency to reinforce elitist and centralized leadership through personal relationships with them, especially when they headed “successful” organizations. Competition among private donors for such “successful partners,” particularly in periods of financial pressure, generated short-term thinking, top-down planning, and demands for quantifiable outputs as well as—paradoxically—overfunding for some organizations. Local organizations found it hard to resist these pressures given their dependence on external resources. The institutional strengthening and capacity-building programs of even the most progressive private aid agencies, therefore, often contributed to the reverse of the intended outcomes. From the point of view of the radical democratic and cultural project it led to a growing “project” mentality at a time when it could be argued that the most urgent tasks lay in encouraging a vibrant and inclusive political discussion within the popular and indigenous movements about the present limitations and future possibilities of the “popular” project. Between utopia and pragmatism: the absence of a middle course. As popular and cultural organizations confronted the postaccord situation, they found themselves facing a new source of division and fragmentation. International donors had made “civil society strengthening” a central feature of their programs by 1996 (see discussion later in this chapter), and this had a compelling logic. It was practical in the sense that it put the emphasis on concrete strategies of building capacity within Guatemalan NGOs and other organizations to influence the local and national state at a time when the transition to democracy was still fragile and the implementation of the Peace Accords was not guaranteed. It also provided resources for individuals and organizations that had few prospects of economic survival in the postwar Guatemalan economy, where the state bureaucracy was being dismantled not expanded. In addition it expressed real aspirations for a greater say in political life, for deepening democratization, and for pre-

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venting human rights violations. These objectives could also appeal to the population at large, not just its organized minority, who did not want utopian, revolutionary visions but real possibilities for improved living standards and an accountable government free of corruption and military influence. Those groups that continued to resist the total package on offer found themselves increasingly marginalized, regarded as stuck in the past and unable to adapt to the new conditions. Those who accepted the donor package had to fight to hold onto their own way of thinking and action and were often too confused about this to survive for long. Alternatively, they were drawn gradually into accord with donor thinking, with very uneven results. With so many dilemmas and difficulties involved in implementing the Peace Accords and in defending and widening democratic spaces, few groups found time and energy to invest in their own radical democratic project in a way that would enable them to engage with the donor agenda, remain in tune with the majority of the population, and retain and develop their own political positions, adapted to the new historical moment and relevant to the population as a whole. They were unable to develop a middle course between their utopian visions and a depoliticizing pragmatism.

Civil Society and the Peace Process: Discourses from “Above” This volume traces the emergence of the civil society discourse among mulilateral and bilateral donor agencies and the evolution of the new policy agenda linking civil society to democratization as well as economic development. The freedom to implement the donor agenda through funding programs varied considerably in the South. In Central America in general and Guatemala in particular, the war recovery and reconstruction process gave international development and financial agencies considerable leverage. For our purposes, therefore, this case study offers a particularly good opportunity to assess the impact of their interventions. The evolution of multilateral donor conceptions of civil society in Guatemala went through a number of stages, influenced by events and processes in the Central American region as a whole. Particularly important was the impact of international efforts to resettle refugee populations between 1989 and 1994, a process that focused international donors’ attention on the region as never before (UNDP 1998: 15).8 Multilateral donors, particularly the UNDP, UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and the European Union, helped win some local political legitimacy for NGOs within Central America during this process, as the UNDP (1998: 109) has written: “The United Nations and its specialized programs have,

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among other things: acknowledged the legitimacy of Central American civil society organizations by including them in the dialogues at the end of the internal conflicts. Until then, many of these organizations were considered to be merely ‘facades’ of insurgent groups.” These donors came to appreciate and value the organizational dynamic in Central America. But at the same time they also tried to change it, to encourage adoption of accounting procedures, regular reporting, and evaluation, which was necessary for Western donor funding. The UNDP (1998: 109) evaluated this subsequently in the following terms: The determination of important donors to assign special political value to their links with civil society in Central America allowed those organizations to have access to funds that otherwise would have been accessible only to government agencies. Besides the direct benefits derived from the access to new and often abundant resources, international support also implied gradual but obligatory refining of the organizations’ programmatic priorities, capacity for the development and implementation of projects, mechanisms to construct national and international networks, and internal administrative processes. All of this unified and strengthened the entities and gave them a new sense of political direction.

The second section of this chapter explores the way different donor agencies conceptualized their engagement with civil society in the period prior to the signing of the Peace Accords and in the years afterward when the implementation of civil society strengthening became more systematic. Donor Civil Society Thinking and the Guatemalan Peace Process: Beyond NGOs The years 1994–1996 coincided with intense activity by many donors in their thinking about “civil society.” Some of this remained in head offices. But in Central America, the discussions were taken up actively in many of the regional field offices. A number of reform-minded professionals and technocrats, often with experience working in NGOs during the conflict years and unwilling or unable to get employment with governments, had taken up jobs with multilateral institutions in the 1990s. The UNDP and its independent operational arm, the United Nations Development Programme/Office for Project Services (UNDP/OPS), known as UNOPS,9 which had played a significant role of its own in microregional efforts at postwar reconstruction, began to integrate the idea of civil society participation into their local economic development programs in the poorest areas of the region.10 The UNDP, like other donors, had to make significant organizational shifts to accommodate a move from governmental aid programs to nongovernmental ones. It launched its pilot Partners in

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Development in the early 1990s, which created the possibility of directly funding nongovernmental, private sector, or community-based organizations, providing a selected number of UNDP offices with funds for this purpose. Guatemala participated in this and in the second phase of the program launched in late 1994. The idea of NGOs as merely implementing agencies gradually began to change, and resources were divided among three sectors including human rights groups and indigenous organizations as well as development NGOs (Russell 1998: 2). Prior to the Peace Accords in 1996, therefore, the UNDP had begun to broaden its understanding of civil society and its relationships in Guatemala. The UNDP came to see civil society as an agency essential to the implementation of its vision of sustainable human development in Central America. First, democratic governance, successful insertion into the global economy, regional integration, and the fight against poverty would not be realized “satisfactorily or credibly without the active involvement of civil society” (UNDP 1998: 21). Second, “a coherent and active civil society” was seen as vital to the agenda of creating a rights-based state. Civil society organizations were seen as social advocates, aspiring to influence the direction of public affairs and thus transform the political systems of the region (UNDP 1998: 19–20). In many ways, civil society came to be seen as a preferable alternative to the discredited and collapsing political parties in the region. Precisely because it lacks the ideological coherence and electoral machinery of parties and is marked by organizational and thematic fragmentation, “civil society requires consensus-building spaces, or else it will remain isolated from political decision-making” (UNDP 1998: 17). Critical to the UNDP vision, therefore, was that civil society should be enabled to influence the political sphere. In this thinking, the UNDP’s emphasis in Central America was on the vertical relationships it could facilitate between the sphere of civil society and the political sphere. It was much less interested in the horizontal spaces that could have facilitated dialogue among the organizations of civil society and encouraged them to clarify where shared norms, values, and meanings lay and what, ultimately, they wanted to use the political sphere for. The Inter-American Development Bank was also very active in these years with respect to civil society. Enrique Iglesias, at its helm, was committed to the reform and modernization of the state in Latin America and the promotion of more equitable development in the region. A special civil society unit was set up within the IDB. It was nonoperational but contributed to building the vision.11 Member governments were persuaded by Iglesias to make civil society strengthening a central objective of the Eighth Replenishment of Capital agreed in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1994, and a significant increase in lending for social objectives was agreed. Important voices in the IDB saw this as an opportunity to “catalyse a new

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relationship between the state and civil society and to collaborate in the strengthening of the latter” (Yriart 1994: 30). This plan was not seen as simply the subcontraction of social services to civil society, but one in which civil society could potentially be involved in the complete cycle of the project, including design and evaluation. In addition, the IDB put considerable stress on the potential economic role of civil society.12 A series of consultations took place in Latin America in the wake of the Guadalajara agreement. In Central America, a regional conference on Civil Society Strengthening in Central America, Panama, and the Dominican Republic was held in Costa Rica in November 1995. William Reuben Soto, the director of an important regional NGO based in Costa Rica, the Latin American Development Fund (FOLADE), raised concerns about the implications of financing civil society. In words that he underlined in his paper, Reuben Soto (1995: 34) warned, “The financing must aim to strengthen civil society, not to alter the fundamental nature of its organizations, converting them into appendices of the State or into private initiatives dominated by the market.” In Guatemala, a meeting was organized in Panajachel in October 1996. The meeting, titled Participation of the Organizations of Civil Society in the Programs and Projects Financed by the IDB in Guatemala, brought together “civil society organizations” (CSOs), that is, NGOs, foundations, environmental groups, universities, base groups, unions, and professional associations together with the public sector (central, departmental, and municipal governments and executive agencies), the private sector, and the IDB. The following month the Ad-hoc Committee of the CSO-IDB Coordination Instance (Instancia) was established, charged with taking forward the recommendations of the meeting. These focused on the institutional strengthening of CSOs, opening spaces for dialogue with the government, and strengthening the IDB commitment to finance the initiative (Instancia de Coordinación OSC-BID 1997). The IDB helped create in this way a reference group of NGOs and other civil society organizations. It did remain, however, an IDB creation, dependent ultimately on the funding opportunities provided by the IDB to local organizations, and it is these that attracted them to the initiative. The IDB’s own preoccupation with the funding dimensions of its civil society strengthening work reflects the dilemmas of implementing Iglesias’s grand vision through an external donor institution like the IDB, still dominated by economists and technocrats and beholden to reluctant and suspicious governments. The United States Agency for International Development had, as discussed in Chapter 5, devoted considerable attention in the early 1990s to its post–Cold War agenda. Civil society came to play a major role. USAID conducted a series of field studies in five countries in 1994 to explore

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issues around donor investments in civil society and democracy promotion. One of these took place in El Salvador and influenced some of the thinking that would be applied to Guatemala. USAID’s report on the field studies, published in early 1996, tried to address some complex issues of implementing a civil society program and measuring its impact. In particular, it tried to develop a strategic and tactical logic to USAID programs in this area. It differentiated, for instance, between different stages of the transition to democracy: pretransition, early transition, late transition, and consolidation, acknowledging that this is an uneven process rather than a linear progression (Hansen 1996). On the basis of the report, a series of recommendations were made on donor strategy to ensure the focus and rationale of the aid: USAID continued to promote political reform, particularly in the early phases. USAID changed its terminology from civil society organizations, used in an earlier draft, to civil advocacy organizations, in order to “highlight the activist and public interest nature of the organizations USAID seeks to support with democracy funds” (Hansen 1996: vi). The “art and craft of the democracy strategist” was seen as “building and supporting coalitions of associations that are pro-reform at a particular historical moment in the democratic path” (Hansen 1996: vi). The prime strategic objective was to contribute toward a more inclusive and responsive democratic process in the countries involved. A framework was drawn up to trace the intermediary steps toward this goal and to assist in the gathering of evidence of progress in each country. The Guatemala office was particularly active in developing a program on the basis of the new thinking after the Peace Accords were signed in 1996.13 In early 1997, USAID/Guatemala consulted with various sectors through focus groups and then submitted the Advocacy Project (Proyecto Incidencia) as one part of its four-year democratic strengthening project for Guatemala. The tender was won by a Washington-based organization, Creative Associates, which began work in January 1998. USAID’s civil society approach was therefore quite clearly defined before the Guatemalan accords were signed, and involved an emphasis on strengthening the “advocacy” capacity of organizations, that is, their ability to affect public policy. Its mental image of such organizations, however, seemed to reflect U.S. ideas of the “pressure group” rather than the politicized, social organizations of Guatemala struggling for political change in a situation where they had very little power. The World Bank’s conceptualization of civil society remained very weak in the early 1990s and was in practice confined to NGOs. The main area in which it saw a role for NGOs was in targeted poverty alleviation and service delivery. In most countries this was made possible through NGO participation in “social investment funds.” In Guatemala, such a fund

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was not established until 1994. Its conception was widely criticized by Guatemalan NGOs for its focus on infrastructure and services rather than the productive activities desired by local communities as a means of increasing income (Parish et al. 1996; CIDECA 1996). A great deal of suspicion existed within the radical NGOs toward the fund, known by its Spanish acronym as the FIS, and it tended to be the larger NGOs who worked with it.14 Under the presidency of James Wolfensohn, the World Bank began to put greater and broader emphasis on partnerships with civil society organizations. After 1994, the bank’s attention to this area became more systematic. The replacement of NGO-liaison officers with civil society specialists located in Bank Resident Missions after 1995 reflected the shifting emphasis. Often the individuals selected for the new positions had prior experience in the NGO sector of their particular countries (Bain 1999). Nevertheless in Central America there was mutual suspicion, difficult to overcome, between the bank and radical NGOs. In 1997 the bank organized a consultation with civil society in El Salvador that confirmed the mutual ignorance of the other’s culture as well as the unrealizable expectations on both sides.15 In effect, the agendas of the politicized organizations seeking radical social change and the World Bank were very divergent, although there were NGOs prepared to develop the kind of institutional identity desired by the bank. In the meantime, the Bank struggled to find a direction for working with civil society in Guatemala, where mistrust and fragmentation among civil society organizations was greater than in El Salvador. This general overview of how, on the eve of the Guatemalan Peace Accords, a number of major external donors had come to conceive of “civil society strengthening,” reveals the diversity of approaches among them. A common thread might be the view that in some sense civil society was an instrument in achieving a broader set of objectives defined by the donors. This included their wish to encourage collaboration rather than conflict between civil society organizations and the modernizing Party of National Advance (Partido de Avanzada Nacional, or PAN) government of the time. Lessons from El Salvador and Nicaragua had taught the importance of forcing local elites to contribute to the postwar reconstruction process. In Guatemala, the oligarchy paid fewer taxes than anywhere else in the Western Hemisphere. Civil society was conceived mostly in terms of agency, therefore, to help pressure government and elites to fulfill obligations to the donor community and to citizens. Funding was about making “it” a more effective agent for the purposes chosen. Most of these purposes such as accountable government, human rights, human-centered development, and poverty alleviation were uncontroversial and the intentions benign. However, few of the organizations had started out intending to become an instrument in the projects of external donors. One NGO argued

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that there ought to be “involvement in the definition of development strategies at the national (country) level” (CIDECA 1996: 20). The Dilemmas and Dangers of Implementation: Postaccord Guatemala The financial leverage of international institutions in the wake of the signing of the final Peace Accords was considerable. The IMF and World Bank Consultative Group agreed to cover almost 75 percent of the U.S.$2.6 billion estimate of the implementation of the Peace Accords, channeling donations and loans from a range of major European and multilateral financial institutions. The years 1996–2000 were critical in Guatemala in terms of international efforts to “build civil society.” For local organizations that had struggled over the previous fifteen years to open and consolidate democratic space, the possibilities opened by the new direction of donors had profound implications. We explore three key problems emerging with the case of civil society strengthening in postaccord Guatemala, namely, implementation problems arising from intra- and interinstitutional divisions, the relationship between donors and recipients in the process of implementation, and the limits of external intervention. Problems deriving from institutional divisions. The previous section outlined the extent to which some of the donor agencies had advanced in the 1994–1996 period in their thinking on civil society. Much of this thinking was not yet accepted, however, throughout the donors’ individual institutions. Proponents of a civil society focus in the IDB and the World Bank had yet to convince their technocratically minded colleagues. Critics of the civil society approach within each institution could point to the “soft” and vague character of assumptions about civil society strengthening work. These arguments grew in the course of implementation, and forced greater attention to the measurable indicators of progress in what was a distinctly qualitative and deeply political process. Multilateral institutions faced not only the divisions within their head offices but also the problems of persuading field offices to take the agenda seriously and develop a means of implementing it. This often brought them into tension with the national government, and forced a narrowing of the civil society work to areas considered less politically controversial. In addition to intrainstitutional problems, there was very little interinstitutional communication among donors to coordinate efforts or develop shared perspectives. While all shared the discourse of civil society strengthening, there were still substantive differences among them as to its ultimate purpose. A tension existed, for instance, between the view that the modern-

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ization of the state and public policy reform was the critical process and the emphasis on public advocacy and citizen participation. State reform was a fragile process in postwar Guatemala. The Party of National Advance (PAN) government represented a modernizing impetus within the Guatemalan elite and as such had the support of some progressive intellectuals. However, conservative and antidemocratic voices remained powerful both within the party and among the Guatemalan business and landowning sector as a whole. The popular sector, meanwhile, had no confidence in the ruling elite’s willingness to accept real change. Modernizers in the government wanted a “civil society” prepared to trust their intentions while they gradually opened spaces for citizen voices. The most active citizens, however, had too little confidence in the process to invest such faith. One manifestation of these tensions took place over the indigenous issue. Donor civil society programs usually included a strong component of Indian projects with indigenous organizations, but donors took different views on the complex debate about the role of the cultural movements. Many indigenous organizations were in the process of affirming indigenous identity and rediscovering cultural traditions while seeking recognition and redress for the abuses committed against them in the past. Social apartheid, racism, and impunity for perpetrators of crimes against the indigenous constituted the experiences of many Indians. There was a sense that the Indian people had won very little as a result of their struggle. For many Mayan organizations, the building of a multicultural society involved not only the mobilization of indigenous peoples but also growth in their organizational strength in order to ensure that the white and ladino elite accepted the new reality. Many donors wished to help them turn “demands” of the government into proposals to enable them to have a voice in public policy formation. USAID’s advocacy program was an example of such an approach. However, others believed that the multicultural agenda was divisive, and that “interculturalism” was the only way to ensure that Guatemalan society grew together in its struggle for democracy. According to that perspective, donor attention to the capacity for strengthening “advocacy” among indigenous groups could potentially undermine intercultural understanding. The tension between the approaches was mostly expressed in the funding preferences of donors, though rarely in public debate. In fact, the debate is a profound and complex one, and it could be argued that by avoiding it among themselves, donors contributed to the entrenchment of positions within Guatemala. A tension also existed between those donors who saw civil society as a means and those who saw it as an end as well as a means. Not all individuals within donor institutions were instrumentalist about the idea of civil society, but they had to persuade their skeptical colleagues that there was

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an instrumental agenda. Economists still dominated the World Bank and had to be convinced that a civil society component in programs would further the ultimate objective of economic liberalization and growth. In the UNDP, by contrast, “civil society strengthening” expressed its commitment to human-centered development and was instrumental in achieving that vision. This difference enabled some to claim a morally higher ground over others, increasing mutual suspicion and competition. These institutional differences meant that Guatemalan organizations were faced with a spectrum of donors who differed within and among themselves (sharing a common terminology of civil society but not a common program strategy around it). A coherent approach to civil society strengthening was lacking and aid recipients had to find their own way through the multiple requirements and approaches, toward which some became quite cynical. Implementation and the donor-recipient relationship. The UNDP and USAID made serious efforts to systematize their understanding of civil society organizations in Guatemala. The UNDP commissioned a major study of its Guatemala office program with civil society organizations (PNUD-Guatemala 1997). Creative Associates International (1998), charged with implementing the USAID advocacy program in Guatemala, conducted over eighty interviews with civil society organizations in preparation for the launching of its work in early 1998. These studies pointed to a number of significant and telling problems. A major “problem” identified by the UNDP study, for instance, was the politicized nature of counterparts. Resentment over who managed to participate in projects and who was excluded also became politicized. This was a particularly problematic issue given the fact that the URNG was no longer privileged among the organized sectors of Guatemala’s population, but it was still influential. It was also attempting to make its transition into a force in the political arena; support among the popular organizations would be important. It is difficult to see how donors could avoid being caught up in political processes. The political battle in Guatemala was entirely legitimate. The first part of this chapter outlined the confusions that overshadowed the emergence of a shared “popular project” in Guatemala. These confusions would only be overcome in the process of political struggle and debate. In that sense, responsible donor funding had to accept and work within the contours of the debate, not shape those contours to accommodate “projects” or divide the beneficiaries further through selective funding. Another problem identified by the UNDP study was the fundamental differences in donor-recipient objectives. Different donors, as has been discussed, reached their understanding of civil society work with different

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degrees of clarity. Even the most lucid had difficulty in communicating their objectives to counterparts. NGOs consulted in the UNDP report mentioned previously felt that the “institutional strengthening” work of the UNDP, which was part of the “civil society” approach, had not been communicated to them properly: The programme began without creating the conditions for an interrelationship between parts and counterparts. The vacuum in understanding and communication prevented the definition and maintenance of a common vision on institutional strengthening. . . . The mechanisms of selection and approval of projects revealed in practice that there were different visions of “institutional strengthening.” The form in which this phase was implemented led to a loss in the global impact of the project. The processes of execution and evaluation were characterised by emphasis on formal arrangements linked to financial operations. There was a lack of a followup strategy (strengths, weaknesses and correctives) on the quality of impact. (Holiday 1997: 9)

Guatemalan NGOs ended up with a sense that the formal bureaucratic procedures of accounting and reporting mattered more than the quality and nature of the process they were engaged in. And in a sense, it is difficult for donors not to give priority to what at the end of the day enabled them to justify their disbursements. A conclusion of the UNDP consultation suggested that it should “adjust its rhythm to that of the Civil Society Organizations (or at least be sensitive to their internal processes)” (Creative Associates International 1998: 10). The time frame of donors and of recipients was different. Local Guatemalan organizations were often engaged in multiple activities; their lives were not centered on one project. Their concerns were the broader changes they could bring about not the project cycle per se. While donors might be justified in seeking to make recipients accountable for the funding, it was difficult for local organizations to accept the “project straightjacket” in what was still for many an essentially ongoing political struggle for democracy and development. The extent of the differences between the motivations and institutional logic of donors and their counterparts is also apparent in Creative Associates’ analysis of civil society in Guatemala prior to implementing the USAID/Guatemala advocacy project. The report identifies multiple difficulties among the organizations with which the project hopes to work, including the fact that they do not use or understand the term advocacy: The interviews indicate that there is no clear understanding of the concept of “advocacy.” The concept of “lobbying” perhaps is a little better known, but in practice the experience of the organizations is even more limited. There are incipient efforts to get to know the legislative process, present

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proposals and monitor the legislative agenda, to mention a key terrain for advocacy work. But in many cases, the organizations of civil society are in the process of consolidating their structures and operation and the conditions are still lacking to enable them to monitor public policy, develop alternative proposals and dialogue about or lobby in favor of these new initiatives. (Creative Associates International 1998: 2)

Among the difficulties was the fact that government still considered the appropriate spaces for debate to be the Parity Commissions (Comisiones Paritarias) established under the Peace Accords to ensure their implementation, but which were still felt by most popular organizations to be inadequate for the purpose. Government representatives had, for instance, much greater capacity to influence outcomes than civil society organizations whose representatives were unpaid and often less informed and educated than the government officials. One of the fundamental differences between a donor such as USAID and the popular organizations and NGOs of Guatemala was that USAID still had a vision of democracy that the Guatemalan organizations had not yet accepted. This vision was essentially pragmatic and involved making institutions more representative and accountable, that is, “making democracy work.” For many Guatemalans, there was a profound distrust in the very nature of those institutions. They were still seen as representing the structures of socioeconomic as well as political power that Guatemalans had struggled but failed to change over previous decades. Many organizations expressed to Creative Associates International their belief that the government was neither receptive nor open to dialogue. In that context “advocacy” implied some acceptance of the legitimacy of institutions, which they were not ready to give. Nor did “advocacy” as promoted by the donors stress the issues that the local organizations felt really mattered. This was the conclusion of an evaluative document on advocacy work produced by the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) and the Guatemala team of Creative Associates: “Relatively few advocacy efforts are related to the most felt needs of the sectors whose interests Civil Society Organizations claim to represent, such as socioeconomic demands, access to land, work and basic services such as health, education, housing etc.” (Documento de Insumo 1999: 2). The limits of external intervention. External donors felt they were helping Guatemala’s popular organizations in shifting their identity from part of a “popular movement” to a civil society sector.16 Two critical political events in 1999 highlighted the complexity of encouraging such a shift and the ongoing weakness of those seeking to deepen the Guatemalan peace process after years of financial support from external donors. In May

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1999, the referendum on constitutional reforms that would have ratified and institutionalized the changes agreed in the Peace Accords resulted in their rejection by a turnout of only 20 percent of registered voters. Later in the year, the governing PAN party was voted out of office, with the right-wing Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG) voted in. The founder of this party was Efrain Ríos Montt, the army general who, as president of the republic in the early 1980s, was responsible for the worst massacres of the civil war against the indigenous population. These events drew attention to the uneven and complex process of change in Guatemala. The donors sought to strengthen the capacity of national NGOs and popular organizations in order to influence public policy and create a “civil society sector.” In the hinterlands of the country, residents focused on a different set of concerns. Here, for instance, the rise of the price of electricity in the wake of privatization was of much more significance than constitutional reform, and, for many poor rural communities, totally undermined the 50 percent rise in access to electricity that the PAN government had provided but which they could then not afford. The government and the opposition URNG were deemed representative of an elite, albeit on different sides of the political spectrum. The FRG campaigned on an antielite, authoritarian but populist platform. The Creative Associates Project in Guatemala is one of the most innovative and progressive of donor efforts in Guatemala. Already, in the wake of the defeat at the referendum, it had recognized the need to build a stronger coalition of organizations to feed popular demands into the political parties and monitor the electoral process. It tried to build an electoral lobbying coalition of thirteen organizations that would forge a more horizontal coordination among them. However, the project reflected a logic and set of aspirations for Guatemala that was distinct from the complex real political world of the country and the competing value systems within it. The groups themselves, as we have seen, had no united or clear agenda of their own. A number of key and influential individuals within the sector opted to join the FRG government after the election. In addition, as Creative Associates International point out in their evaluation, many of the organizations themselves lacked experience of democratic life within their own structures. In the rush for donor funding, however, and because they were seen as agents of the national democratization process, there was no impetus for them to address this problem. Creative Associates International found that their own leverage gradually diminished as some partners came to use the funding available for their own purposes, adopting the appropriate language that international cooperation encouraged but with no meaningful practice. Sectoral organizations among women and indigenous groups, for instance, began to compete with each other for influence and

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leadership in the course of building the electoral lobbying coalition rather than building a common project based on mutual respect (Creative Associates International 1999: 36). In the circumstances, it was exceedingly difficult for “projects” to be successful in terms that USAID and other donors might wish. “Civil society strengthening,” which operated on the basis of preconceived outcomes, ran serious risks of failure in its own terms. In the process it drew organizations around it artificially because of the funding offered. The expectations of donors reflected norms and prescriptions about democracy that were assumed to be universal, but that in Guatemala most recipients still challenged. For them, democracy was built on a bedrock of extreme inequality and deprivation and, when linked to liberal individualism, clashed with their strong cultural and political commitment to community and solidarity. But even these latter values began to diminish as organizations, particularly those based in Guatemala City, moved away from the grassroots and the political dynamics of the past and lost touch with processes in the rural hinterlands. And as they did so, the authoritarian right began to increase its appeal to a disaffected and impoverished majority.

Conclusion This chapter has been structured in two sections in order to highlight the gap between the discourses of civil society of the radical popular and cultural organizations and movements of Guatemala and those of multilateral and bilateral donors who have played a significant role in the critical decade of the 1990s. International donors have helped preserve and expand fragile political spaces in Guatemala, but many of the organized voices among the poor of Guatemala know that this comes as part of a package that includes the country’s deeper integration into the global capitalist economy. Most organizations remained profoundly unconvinced that this could bring an end to poverty and inequality in their country, and most accepted donor funding with a great deal of ambivalence. Nor did they believe that Guatemala’s landed and business elites had seriously embraced socioeconomic equity and citizen participation. However, they also lacked a clear project of their own. Their roots among the poorest sectors of Guatemala’s population needed deepening and extending. External donor funding encouraged them to focus on influencing the state rather than improving their communications with their own grassroots. In the process, some of the political elan and dynamism of the past diminished. It would be unfair to suggest that the civil society strengthening approach of external donors is entirely negative. The post–Cold War shift

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in the thinking of Western donors away from the antidemocratic bias of the past was a positive development. Many progressive professionals have made efforts within donor institutions to ensure that the civil society approach is better thought out, while taking on the task of convincing their technocratically minded colleagues that it can achieve outcomes that fit the respective institution’s mandates. From the institution’s point of view, the ultimate danger is that the approach will in fact fail to deliver these. This chapter has suggested that they are probably right to fear such failure. It is very difficult to see how any donor intervention could be sufficient to deliver the kind of outcome that has taken generations to emerge in other societies. The very expectation that donors could achieve such outcomes reflects the ahistorical naiveté implicit in the process. Many projects are likely to “fail” in donor terms. Others may “succeed” but in the process contribute to reducing the political dynamism of grassroots activism significant in recent Guatemalan history, institutionalizing it in ways that bring greater stability at the expense of building a representative and legitimate democratic opposition in tune with the needs of the country’s poor majority.

Notes Thanks to Megan Thomas and Kees Biekart for comments on this manuscript and to David Holiday for invaluable help in discussing the themes of this chapter. 1. “Popular” in Latin America means of and with the poor sectors of the population. 2. Human rights was a major rallying point for many new organizations, such as the National Coordinator of Widows of Guatemala (CONAVIGUA), the Mutual Support Group for the Relatives of the Disappeared, known as the GAM, the Council of Ethnic Communities “Runujel Junam” (CERJ), and the Relatives of Prisoners and Disappeared of Guatemala (FAMDEGUA). There was also organizational vitality among the refugee and internally displaced populations. The Permanent Commissions of Representatives of the Guatemalan Refugees in Mexico (CCPPs) became increasingly outspoken after Esquipulas 11 in 1987. The Council of Displaced of Guatemala (CONDEG) was formed in 1989, and the Communities of Population in Resistance (CPR) dared to become public for the first time in 1990. Nongovernmental organizations were also revitalized by the new context; many had had to operate virtually “underground” and others in exile. As individuals returned from exile under the Cerezo presidency, they began to set up a new generation of NGOs, while those that had worked in semiclandestinity began to reappear. A huge number of service and development NGOs appeared with diverse agendas; it was estimated that by the early 1990s there were at least 400 NGOs operating in Guatemala (Holiday 1996: 34). Many of the small NGOs remained committed to a radical development agenda, while some used legal and other skills to support the popular cause, such as the Myrna Mack Foundation, the Center of Legal Action and Human Rights (CALDH), and the Human Rights Office of the Archbishopric (ODHAG).

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3. Well over half of Guatemala’s population is composed of twenty-two distinct ethnic groups, who have never been considered citizens in Guatemala and have suffered systematic oppression by the ruling, white, and ladino (mixed white and Indian) oligarchy. 4. The sectors were political parties, business associations (represented by CACIF), religious groups, unions and popular organizations, academics, cooperative members, entrepreneurs, community organizations and professionals, Mayan peoples’ organizations, women’s organizations, journalists, development NGOs, research centers, and human rights protection and promotion centers. See Palencia (1997). 5. For instance, the National Indian Coalition, COPMAGUA, denied repeated requests to be at the negotiating table itself and organized two massive public marches in October and November 1994. 6. For a discussion of the use of the concept of “civil society” in Brazil see Cohen and Arato (1995, chap. 1). 7. We owe this point to Megan Thomas. 8. The International Conference on Central American Refugees (CIREFCA) was first convened in May 1989 by the United Nations, and it brought together the UNDP and UNHCR in an attempt to link emergency relief and development in postconflict Central America. 9. UNOPs has its own profile in Central America and would not see itself as purely operational. It was responsible for the Development Programme for Displaced Persons, Refugees, and Returnees in Central America, known as PRODERE and the post-PRODERE Programme for the Promotion of Sustainable Human Development at the Local Level in Central America, known as PROGRESS. This aimed at creating local planning processes based on consensus building between civil society actors. 10. UNDP like UNOPS was keen to open up spaces for dialogue among governments, the private sector, and civil society organizations. It convened a number of regional meetings, such as the First International Conference for Peace and Development in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, in October 1994. This was notable for many observers for “bringing together the first direct, active incorporation of civil society and the international cooperation community into one forum with the Central American Presidents, without intermediaries” (Solis 1998: 110). The same year, the UNDP began to implement at the regional level an emerging policy on consensus building. Leaders of social and productive sectors, including some highlevel business leaders, came together in El Tirol in Costa Rica, demonstrating in the words of the UNDP that “such diverse actors could establish common visions and lines of action, while at the same time asserting their contradicting views and proposals on some issues” (Wilson Campos 1998: 114). 11. See section on Latin America in Chapter 8. 12. The economic role of civil society was given particular importance by the Inter-American Development Bank, in the form of support for microenterprise as well as the more usual social services: “The hope is that the participation of civil society serves to expand the entrepreneurial base, to generate employment in poor sectors and improve the basic housing, health and education services, through its own actions and as a fruit of its influence. The achievement of these objectives will generate a great confidence in civil society as an actor in the problems of socio-economic development” (Yriart 1994: 31). 13. Sharon Van Pelt, USAID, Guatemala City, interview with Jenny Pearce, August 1997.

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14. The radical local NGOs saw the FIS as an instrument of a yet deeply mistrusted government that had not allowed them onto the FIS Executive Council, which was directly appointed by the president. They nicknamed it Fondos Imposible a Sacar (Funds Impossible to Access). Suspicions also existed toward the motivation of the World Bank itself, which provided the funds. While in the end some agreed to participate, they nevertheless remained cynical. 15. Mario Marroquin, World Bank, Guatemala, interviews with Jenny Pearce, August 1997 and August 1998. 16. This is expressed for instance, in the conclusions of a Creative Associates document: “The 1999 political campaign shed further light on the ongoing development of civil society identity. In the recent past, many organizations saw themselves as part of the movimiento popular (popular movement), or the pueblo, as NGOs or as sector or issue-specific organizations. In recent years they have come to be referred to as civil society organizations (international cooperation has played a significant role in introducing this terminology), a term that implies an identity and certain type of political role” (Creative Associates International 1999: 26).

8 Civil Society in Regional Perspective: Sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia, and Latin America

In designing and implementing civil society strengthening programs donors implicitly assume that the concept of civil society can be transposed to “other” cultural, political, and economic contexts. Even though donors readily acknowledge the European and American roots of the concept, this historical specificity is not taken to undermine the universal claims of much Western social science. Neoliberalism and liberal democracy operate with the assumed universal categories of the abstract individual; the autonomous, rational citizen; and the utility-maximizing economic agent. The universality of such notions seems in turn to be vindicated by the apparent supremacy of neoliberal democracy as evidenced in the decline and refutation of the chief ideological contender of socialism. In this chapter we explore the challenges of applying the concept of civil society in different cultural, economic, and political contexts. We uncover the paths civil society has trodden as a normative concept, an analytic category, and a practical force. We examine the themes dominating the debates around civil society and the way civil society has become a global concept. We consider donor efforts to manufacture civil society from the outside, the influence of donors on the shape of civil society, and especially the dangers of inhibiting indigenous growth. In order to address these issues we focus on three regions, namely, subSaharan Africa, Central Asia, and Latin America, all of which have been at the receiving end of donor civil society programs and projects. Given the limitations of space we can only sketch the key tendencies and issues emerging in these regions. Through an overview of sub-Saharan Africa we examine the particular challenges of applying the civil society concept in a context where domestic markets are weakly developed, the democratic 177

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nature of the state is fragile, and many countries are dependent on foreign aid. Central Asia allows us to focus on the context of market transition, the development and sustainability of civil society in postsocialism, and the particular role donors have played in creating civil society. Finally, the overview of Latin America provides an opportunity to explore how donors have responded in a region with a strong history of associational life. Here again we find donor agencies playing a crucial part in shaping the agenda of civil society, shifting its more active associations away from contesting power relationships to partnership and cooperation.

Sub-Saharan Africa In constructing a civil society agenda in sub-Saharan Africa donors have drawn on theoretical conceptualizations of civil society that have evolved in the cultural, political, and historical context of Western Europe. They have brought with them certain assumptions about the nature of the state, its relationship to civil society, and the links of civil society to processes of democratization and economic liberalization. These assumptions in turn have been informed and shaped by the works of Africanist scholars, who up till the late 1980s were primarily concerned with the nature of the state and state-society relations rather than civil society per se. The concept of civil society was neither deployed in theoretical explanations nor used as a starting point for empirical research. While domination and autonomy were key concepts permeating this extensive literature, the mutually beneficial interactions between state and society received little attention. For writers such as Goran Hyden, the failure of the state was the central problem. Hyden attributed the ineffectiveness of the state to its degree of autonomy and separation from society, this dissonance deriving from its colonial heritage and consequent embodiment of external values, norms, and structures (Hyden and Bratton 1992; Harbeson, Rothchild, and Chazan 1994: 10). Other scholars pointed to the domination of the state by society, or vice versa, as the key obstacle negatively affecting performance. In contrast to both of these approaches, writers such as Chazan (1988) underscored the fluid and complex interdependence between state and society, but did not extend the analysis beyond the discussion of the two separate variables of the state and society to embrace the notion of civil society. It was against the background of democratic protests during the late 1980s that Africanists began to engage with the concept of civil society and reassess the validity of past theories about social and political change in sub-Saharan Africa. Understanding the nature of civil society in sub-Saharan Africa requires us to explore the historical, cultural, and political context that has

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shaped and defined associational life, politics, and social relations. The historical trajectory of state formation, the ambiguous relationships of the state to society—in some contexts hegemonic, overpowering, and highly personalized, yet in other instances ineffectual, alienating, and volatile— and the communal and ethnic features of associational life have significantly molded the evolution of civil society in ways that challenge donor assumptions and call into question the potential success of civil society strengthening programs. This section outlines the historical evolution of the state and civil society in sub-Saharan Africa over three distinct historical periods, namely, colonialism, postcolonial independence, and democratic transition. With this historical backdrop we examine closely donor attempts to strengthen civil society and the operational and conceptual challenges they encounter in doing so. Historical Formation of State and Civil Society in Sub-Saharan Africa Colonialism. The first historical moment in the shaping of civil society in Africa came with colonial rule. Without any secure sources of revenue and under pressure from the metropolis to be self-financing, the colonial state in Africa cajoled local people into wage labor through taxation and brute force (Young 1988: 37). By carving up territory into distinct spheres of influence and subjugating diverse societies to external political domination, colonial powers were able to fragment and reconstitute the fabrics of preexisting societies and reconstruct the physical boundaries of political order. The colonial state in sub-Saharan Africa sought to justify its rule through a paternalistic discourse of civilizing modernization and racial superiority. Using missionaries and anthropologists to invent and classify ethnic categories and unify languages, the colonial rulers not only extended their hegemonic control but also reshaped the structure and consciousness of African society. Colonial rule was marked by repression and domination, aimed at extracting rather than distributing resources. Mamdani (1996a) identifies two distinct and complementary types of rule, namely centralized and decentralized despotism, that shaped the formation of civil society, the anticolonial struggle, and the nature of the postcolonial state. While centralized despotism instituted a single legal order derived from European law, which by virtue of its racial marking turned urban Africans into subjects but not rights-bearers, decentralized despotism imposed customary authority over a tribally differentiated peasantry. Civil society under colonialism was racialized and exclusionary. Though white settlers, as rights-bearers, were able to organize themselves in formal groups such as farmers’ associations and professional bodies and informal groups such as sports and country clubs, the colonial

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authorities provided little space for urban indigenous people to formally organize. Although there was some tolerance of group activity under the umbrella of the church, colonial corporations, and ethnic associations, most African associations were regarded as potentially subversive and kept under tight surveillance (Young 1994: 38). By incorporating tribal chiefs into local state structures and legitimizing their rule through a semimythologized customary authority the colonial authorities preempted the formation of a rural civil society based on the notion of rights-bearing citizenship. In the twilight, post–World War II years of colonialism the surveillance of African associations relaxed, providing the space for a cohesive nationalist challenge to colonial rule. Out of the brutality of the colonial labor system and a racially marked state and civil society, grew the seeds of an African civic life that centered around mitigating the effects of harsh labor controls, challenging colonial rule, and preserving local African traditions (Maina 1998: 41). In the absence of oppositional political parties, resistance to colonial rule developed on an intricate web of formal and informal institutions, which, though not described as such, constituted the organizational essence of civil society. For example migrant populations engaged in mining and industry in Kenya, Zambia, and South Africa formed unions that later constituted a pivotal institutional base for challenging colonial power. In Tanzania and Kenya professional associations such as teachers’ associations and law societies provided a core of resistance activity (Chazan et al. 1988). Independent churches and schools likewise provided a space where alternative ideologies and the building-blocks for an organized challenge to colonial rule could emerge. Resistance was not only organized through the modern social divisions of class and ideology but also through ethnic and tribal cleavages. For example, the Mau-Mau struggle in Kenya was a significant challenge to colonial rule, reaping its strength from the solidity of clan ties and loyalty to age groups (Maina 1998: 142). Burial societies and various communitybased organizations took on the political function of arenas for the expression of anticolonial political demands (Makumbe 1998: 306–307). Just as the historical forces of capitalism and modernization shaped the emergence of civil society in Western Europe, so too the historical context of colonialism and anticolonial struggle molded states, societies, and civil societies in sub-Saharan Africa. The making of civil society after independence. Upon independence the new African rulers inherited states and civil societies that had already been shaped by the histories of colonialism and anticolonial struggles. As new African states took on a developmental role, they retained and expanded the inherited colonial administrative structures, creating new

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sources of power and influence through the bureaucracy, parastatals, and state cooperatives. Political domination, personal authority, and predatory rule became the hallmarks of postindependence politics in many African countries. In predatory states such as Zaire, Zambia, Malawi, and Zambia, the state became a source of personal material enrichment for the political class, a booty to be ransacked and distributed among networks of clients bound by kin, tribal, or personal ties (Chazan et al. 1988; Lewis 1992: 4; Von Doepp 1996; Bayart, Ellis, and Hibou 1999; Jackson and Rosberg 1982). Such patrimonial states retained the customary structures of authority at the local level, weaving urban and rural populations together through clientelist threads that tended to aggravate ethnic divisions. In Botswana, for example, the government sought to incorporate rural society through the village kgotla, using it as an arena for consultation and for legitimizing customary authority (Holm and Molutsi 1992: 75–96). In contrast to this revised version of decentralized despotism other postcolonial states, in the name of development or revolution, sought to transcend ethnic and tribal differences through the construction of a unified national identity and pseudo-participatory structures (Mamdani 1996a: 289–291, 1996b: 148–150). Yet in deracializing and detribalizing state power the new postcolonial rulers intensified their administrative hold over local authorities and their extraeconomic coercive powers over the peasantry. In so doing they deepened the gulf between urban and rural areas. In Marxist-Leninist states such as Angola and Mozambique the ruling party extended its central grip by establishing mass organizations, discrediting traditional institutions, and fostering loyalty along ideological lines (Chazan et al. 1988: 140–142). Inspired by modernist visions and armed with top-down plans for accelerated development Jomo Kenyatta in Kenya, for example, sought to incorporate the rural areas through the self-help harambee movement (Barkan 1992: 185). Postindependence rule thus reproduced the decentralized and centralized modes of despotism that had characterized colonial rule (Mamdani 1996a, 1996b). As new African leaders consolidated their power, they also implicitly redefined the landscape of civil society. The deracialization of the state got under way with affirmative policies of Africanization, spilling over into the organizational folds of civil society. Though civil society continued to bear the marks of racial privilege and power, policies of localization and investment in education led to the gradual Africanization of some white associations, the Kenya Farmers’ Association and the Law Society of Kenya being cases in point (Maina 1998: 145). As the state took upon itself the tasks of modernization and nation building, the organizations of the anticolonial struggle became incorporated into political society, demobilized, or disbanded. Driven by messianic visions of development or revolution or corrupted by the lure of personal

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wealth, postcolonial leaders had little tolerance for opposition. The civil society that had grown out of a resistance to colonial domination soon withered under the weight of political repression. Against this background of political repression, the top-down mobilization of society in developmentalist and revolutionary states and the erosion of indigenous, urban civil society, informal groups, and activities and networks such as burial societies, mutual aid groups, weddings, and funerals continued as a subterranean force for association. These provided sources of solidarity and communion along ethnic, tribal, and clan lines and offered a potential base for political expression. Riven with class, ethnic, and gender divisions, the Christian Church and its related denominational variants formed a crucial part of the associational landscape in many subSaharan countries, constituting not only a forum for spiritual communion but also a sanctuary for secular resistance in regimes such as Kenya where oppositional politics were sharply constricted. With the growth of the informal sector and the expansion of markets under structural adjustment programs, new, more autonomous, spaces for association emerged that were not beholden to state patronage or control. The promotion of structural adjustment programs in sub-Saharan Africa led to growing faith in the market sector as an integral component of an effectively functioning economy and political order. It was within this context of structural reform that the concept of civil society emerged, reinforcing the notion of a private sphere, yet in its crudest form becoming reduced in meaning to the market (Harbeson et al. 1994: 9). Marketplaces, trade networks, and informal credit groups provided an alternative space for the expression of dissatisfaction with unaccountable and predatory rulers, for social bonding, and for spontaneous and organized challenges to the repressive regimes. In Botswana, for example, the growth of a new market bourgeoisie stimulated the development of political parties and interest groups (Holm and Molutsi 1992; Molutsi and Holm 1990). Similarly in Ghana the growth of the informal sector and the emergence of new entrepreneurial elites not dependent on state resources likewise created a space for greater associational life (Chazan 1992: 130). In the absence of welfare provision and in the context of predatory rule subaltern groups created their own networks of survival, involving illicit trade, smuggling, and various informal economic activities (Fatton 1991: 85–86; Azarya and Chazan 1998: 123– 128). As structural adjustment programs encouraged private organizations to take on responsibility for welfare services, NGOs began to proliferate in many sub-Saharan African countries, adding yet another layer to the complex archaeology of associational life. New spaces opened up that offered alternative visions of development, avenues of employment for professionals outside the state, and an institutional basis for reflecting on and practi-

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cally addressing issues around poverty, participation, and welfare. In apartheid South Africa external assistance via governments, NGOs, and peoples’ organizations gave crucial support to civic organizations, women’s groups, trade unions, and student movements in their resistance to apartheid. In other contexts donors focused on the development of NGOs as alternative service providers. These structural changes in the economy, the perceived failure of the state to deliver economic development, and the spread of NGOs all contributed to the wave of democratization in the late 1980s. Democratic transitions. The disintegration of the socialist states in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and the popular demands for democratic change unleashed a wave of political unrest across Africa (Huntington 1993). Growing tension between the developmental aspirations of newly independent states and the realities of patrimonialism, state despotism, and ethnic privileges led to explosions of protest across subSaharan Africa. Widespread calls for political change by students, workers, church groups, dissenting media, and NGOs challenged the authority of one-party, one-man, and military governments, leading to regime transition and the introduction of competitive party elections. For example, in Zambia civic groups such as trade unions, churches, student groups, and business associations formed the Movement for Multi-Party Democracy to seek democratic political change. In Mali after the president had ordered the killing of democratic protesters in March 1991, the army seized power and announced democratic elections in 1992 (Lancaster 1991–1992: 155). In Benin, civil servants, teachers, and traders demonstrated, calling for democracy and an end to corruption (Gyimah-Boadi 1996: 119). This led to the holding of a National Conference at which Mathieu Kérékou was stripped of power and later lost again in presidential elections to Nicephore Soglo, a former World Bank executive director (Lancaster 1991–1992: 153–154; Riley 1991: 16–17). This tide of political upheaval, inspired in many instances by various societal forces, seemed to demonstrate the existence of a civil society in Africa, reinforced the interpretation of civil society as an antistate force, and stimulated a spate of academic research into civil society in Africa. While Africanist literature had focused on state-society relations and on associational life as premised on ethnic and regional affiliations, the collapse of authoritarian regimes across Africa triggered research into civil society, encouraging case studies of particular associations, analyses of popular protest, and reflections on the prospects for civil society and democracy (Lanegran 1995; Bratton and de Walle 1992; Agbaje 1990; Allen 1997; Fatton 1991, 1995; Makumbe 1998; Monga 1995). The “discovery” of civil society and the enthusiasm for its analytic dissection rein-

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forced the construction of civil society as the moral site for challenging amoral and/or despotic rule and as the repository of the good pitted against the evil. As Lanegran (1995: 106–108) warns, such emphasis on the antistatist role of civil society obscured, however, the intermeshed relations and mutual cooperation between state and civil society. Yet in the course of the 1990s these democratic transitions proved not to be enduring. As some newly democratic regimes faltered, yielding to renewed military, personalistic, or authoritarian forms of rule, the euphoria for civil society abated and doubts about its solidity, sustainability, and democratic potential surfaced more prominently. In lieu of celebrating civil society as a fait accompli, researchers, policymakers, and donors focused attention on ways to consolidate and sustain civil society, enhance its democratic content, and support its engagement with the state. Donors and Civil Society With the collapse of Soviet socialism and political upheaval across Africa in the late 1980s and early 1990s, donor agendas began to focus explicitly on governance issues. Strengthening civil society was seen as a crucial ingredient for ensuring the accountability and transparency of governments and for sustaining democratic regimes. As the largest funder of civil society assistance programs and as a significant donor in countries such as Ghana and South Africa, U.S. agencies such as USAID, National Endowment for Democracy, and the U.S. Information Agency have played a key role in supporting civil society organizations concerned with democratization. In line with this, USAID, unlike other donors, has appointed specialist democracy advisers to its missions in Africa (Hearn 1999: 8). Indeed, donor action coupled with internal movements contributed significantly to transitions to multipartyism in Kenya and Malawi (Crawford 1997: 32–38). Uganda became an exemplary case for demonstrating the benefits of public sector reform, civil service reform, and greater accountability and transparency in government.1 For governments reluctant to introduce democratic political reform, donors have not only to varying degrees restricted and even suspended aid, but also concentrated their efforts on nurturing civil society. Following the Kenyan government’s repression of prodemocracy protestors in 1990 and its continued resistance to multiparty elections, donor governments suspended program aid in November 1991, placing Daniel Arap Moi under considerable pressure to liberalize politically. Within a month Moi had amended the constitution to permit multiparty elections. The Kenya African National Union (KANU) ruling party won a majority of seats in the first multiparty elections in December 1992, and Moi remained as president (Waller 1995: 117–120). As opposition groups and outspoken critics con-

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tinued to be harassed, donor agencies, especially those that had adopted a hard line toward Moi such as Sweden, the United States, Canada, and Denmark, directed their support increasingly toward urban-based civil society groups, particularly those focusing on human rights, law, and governance (Maina 1998: 154–155). How then have donor imaginations of civil society and democracy shaped practical programs to foster and strengthen civil society? What institutional forms have donors promoted and how fragile are these? To what extent are donors really building civil society and what are the practical and political consequences of these efforts? With their emphasis on urban, formal associations, their selection of a limited number of NGOs for funding, and their effective control over agendas, donor agencies have played a significant role in the shaping of civil society in the post–Cold War era. In supporting the creation and development of organizations such as women’s groups, credit associations, law societies, business associations, and local developmental NGOs, donors have defined civil society as an arena of formal and modern associations, distinct not only from a venal, inefficient state but also from an amorphous array of informal and primordial associations. Compared with kin, ethnic, or age-based groups, “modern” organizations are deemed to transcend in purpose and action any primordial attachments; mobilize people around common interests of a professional, economic, or welfare kind; and draw people out of the private and into the public. This conceptualization of civil society derives in part from an implicit, modernist assumption that primordial forms of association not only typify tradition, backwardness, and the irrational but also thwart the formation and effectiveness of interest groups that could push for state accountability (Holm and Molutsi 1992). By identifying communal, ethnic, and tribal associative ties as features of premodernity, many Africanists concluded that these both reflected and contributed to the weakness of civil society. In doing so, not only did they overlook the fact that seemingly modern organizations, too, were permeated by tribal and ethnic divisions (Gyimah-Boadi 1996: 129) but also that family, tribe, and clan-based associations may also be the locus of social and political change. Both Kasfir (1998: 5–6) and Maina (1998: 144) argue cogently that conceptualizations of civil society that restrict themselves to formal organizations exclude less formal ways of associating from analyses of political and social transformation. In a context where state politics constrain formal association, informal gatherings such as funerals and weddings provide significant occasions for political exchange and the reassertion of social and political identities. In Kenya, for example, the NGO Coordination Act and the Societies Act have stringent requirements for registration, making association through formal organizations far less appealing than “high trust”

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organizations such as family, clan, and tribe. For Maina the tendency of scholars and donors to exclude from the definition of civil society any associational activities along tribal, clan, and kinship lines leads to a very limited view about the democratic potential of such organizations and the potential forces of social and political change within a society. As Maina (1998: 160) writes, “Civil society is contextual, and the forces both of class and of kinship can animate its capacity to fight for and help root democracy. There can be no a priori assumption that only civil society based on non-kin ties can serve democracy.” However Gyimah-Boadi (1996: 129) is less optimistic about the democratic potential of kin-based and religious groups. He argues that not only are such ascriptive and nonsecular groups by definition exclusionary but also that they tend to be illiberal, subscribing to patriarchal, hierarchical, and generally undemocratic values. The liberal-democratic imagination of civil society, which permeates civil society programs in Africa, posits an arena of autonomous, rational individuals brought together through a common nonprimordial interest. Robert Fatton (1991), however, argues that the Western notion of civil society, based on the abstract, autonomous individual, is irrelevant in Africa, where the personal is so bound up with communal identities along kin, clan, and ethnic lines. Instead, if civil society is to be useful as an analytical tool for understanding contemporary African politics, it has to be reconceptualized to embrace collective identities of a primordial and modernist nature. In his words, Simply put, that autonomous agentic individual freed from communal, ethnic and class loyalties is nowhere to be found in Africa. The conception of civil society to which that individual gives rise has little analytical value for the study of African politics. By privileging the imaginary “free, self-determining individuality” of a mythical citizen, it becomes an alien construct forced unto an “invented” Africa; an intellectual hallucination of a triumphalist liberal fin de siecle. Thus, if civil society is to be a useful heuristic tool in deciphering contemporary African history, it has to be conceptualised as the realm of collective solidarities generated by processes of class formation, ethnic “inventions” and religious “revelations.” (1991: 72–73)

In a similar vein Kasfir (1998: 5–7) argues that in privileging formal organizations that meet particular organizational and societal criteria, donors risk supporting groups with weak social bases, hence a minority of interests and demands. The key point emphasized by Kasfir, Maina, and Fatton is that in operationalizing a particular version of civil society, that is, a Western liberal-democratic conceptualization thereof, donors not only deethnicize, declass, and detribalize civil society but ultimately fail to locate strategic social forces for political change. Moreover their perception of socially and politically relevant political forces does not coincide with

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those of many Africans for whom the “primordial public realm” may be more significant than certain organizational forms (Kasfir 1998: 6–7).2 The tendency to write out of existence the primordial features of apparently “modern” institutions leads to a distorted understanding of the social dynamics of political processes. To insist on sharp divisions between civil society and the state is to underplay the importance of patronage and ethnicity in shaping civil society and state relations. Both Maina (1998: 159) and Kasfir (1998: 8) found that church-based opposition to and support of the Moi regime were organized along ethnic lines. By overlooking the ethnic, tribal, and political fissures within civil society, donors reinforce the notion of a harmonious civil society pitted against a coercive, clientelistic state and so fail to capture the transformative potential of informal associations and the cohesive effects of tribe, ethnicity, and family. The historical weakness of the domestic bourgeoisie in many subSaharan African countries as well as the relatively low levels of per capita income have contributed to the weak financial base of civil society and the concomitant influence of donors in creating and fashioning local organizations. In Mozambique, for example, one of the fifteen poorest countries in the world, local NGOs and government are heavily dependent on external funding for their programs and activities. Given that it is rare for donors to withdraw completely, such civil societies are critically constructed from the outside rather than from within. The consequences of this have been most vividly demonstrated in the case of South Africa. During the apartheid era donors played an important role in supporting and strengthening civic organizations in South Africa.3 In postapartheid South Africa bilateral, multilateral, and nongovernmental donors have switched their support to the new democratic government, leaving not only a crisis of direction but also one of funding for the once vibrant civic groups (Wilmot and Caliguire 1996: 61–62; Gyimah-Boadi 1996: 125; Hearn 2000: 3).4 In the context of aid dependence, the manufacturing of and long-term sustainability of civil society become significant issues. External dependence on donor funding not only raises questions about the sustainability of civil society but also crucially about its autonomy and self-definition. Through capacity building, financial auditing requirements, reporting procedures, and proposal preparation, donors play a powerful role in shaping not just the developmental agenda but also the direction and raison d’être of civil society. By setting up local branches, Northern NGOs reproduce organizations in their own image, creating virtual clones, whose priorities, interests, and structures are externally shaped. As donors command the resources, they also consciously or unwittingly shape the priorities, promote certain values, and cultivate particular institutional forms such as projects and microcredit groups. The processes are in turn invigorated as local NGOs and groups formulate proposals around the perceived

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interests of donor agencies, adding a gender dimension here, inserting environmental issues there, and adopting donor discourses of empowerment, participation, sustainability, and income generation to lend credence to their proposals. As donors suggest revisions, they further stamp their priorities, values, and visions of development on the proposals, underlining the normative effects of their power. Maina (1998: 150) cites interviewees from two organizations in Kenya, who perceived the process of proposal revision as an exercise of power that enabled donors to shape the purpose and nature of development projects. Who sets the civil society agenda in turn becomes increasingly complex as governments and donors vie for influence, creating proxy organizations and shaping priorities through promises of funding. Civil society in many African countries has become a battlefield, where state and donors contest each other for hegemony. A key challenge for donors in strengthening civil society lies in identifying individuals and organizations with whom to form partnerships. With frequent staff turnover, limited inroads into society, especially in rural areas, and limited program budgets, donors have tended to concentrate on a finite number of urban organizations. Charisma, command of the English language, social ease with Westerners, and class have been important influences on donor choice of partner organizations and individuals. In his survey of the five main democracy and governance donors in Kenya, namely, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), USAID, Danish International Development Assistance (DANIDA), Ford Foundation, and NORAD, Maina (1998: 160) found that just four local organizations cornered the bulk of funding.5 Similarly in her study of foreign aid and civil society in Ghana, Uganda, and South Africa, Hearn (1999: 5) found that donor support focused on a core of twenty national organizations in each country, all of which were concerned with governance issues. This privileging of urban-based groups centered around human rights, law, and democracy was matched in turn by a neglect of rural economic organizations such as farmers’ groups and community-based organizations.6 Maina (1998: 166) points out that while the Kenyan government has resisted urban middle-class demands for constitutional government, it has given way to the protests of tea, coffee, and dairy farmers, who have effectively used their economic leverage to extract concessions from the Kenyan state. In overlooking such rural economic organizations, donors miss an opportunity to link urban and rural groups and dig deeper roots in society. By focusing on formal organizations that fit into particular normative criteria, donors not only work with a very limited range of organizations but also overlook many other formal organizations and informal associational activities that play a role in shaping political and economic life. Kasfir (1998: 5, 13) argues that in concentrating on particular types of for-

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mal organizations, donors support the more wealthy and educated groups in society and effectively exclude the poor and marginalized from visions of change.7 In a similar vein Hearn (1999: 5; 2000: 13) concludes that donor civil society programs in Ghana, South Africa, and Uganda serve to strengthen African elites who share donors’ interests in economic liberalization and procedural democracy. By focusing attention on urban, elite nongovernmental organizations and associations that engage with the state, scholars and donors risk overlooking the role of local peasants’ and women’s groups in broader processes of political and social transformation (Tripp 1998: 84; Tripp 2000). The conceptual trinity of market, state, and civil society has found expression in donor support for privatization, deregulation, and the promotion of business asssociations. UNDP, Ford Foundation, and the World Bank have supported programs promoting business involvement in the community as well as the formation and development of business, professional, and trade associations. In South Africa the United States donated U.S.$1 million in 1997 to the Free Market Foundation to promote marketoriented policies in the South African parliament and administration (Hearn 1999: 6). In Ghana USAID and the World Bank played a pivotal role in organizing a National Economic Forum in 1997, which broadened the range of actors involved in the discussion of economic policymaking (Hearn 1999: 6). Given that companies and traders require licenses from government, the close, influential relationships between business and government as well as the opportunities for rent seeking do not create a favorable environment for sustaining partnerships with community organizations with rather different interests. Moreover, as illustrated by the cases of Nigeria in West Africa, Kenya in East Africa, and Zimbabwe in Southern Africa, it should not be assumed that indigenous or foreign capital will provide a force for democratic change. This overview of the emergence of a civil society debate in subSaharan Africa raises crucial issues about the nature of state-society relations, specific historical and cultural contexts, and the dangers of distinguishing sharply between “traditional” and “modern” forms of organization. Donor attempts to foster and strengthen civil society highlight the problems of applying Western liberal-democratic notions of the individual to other contexts, the dangers of imposing agendas and structures, and the challenges of sustainability with regard to nongovernmental organizations reliant on donor funds. Furthermore there are clear problems with assuming that business, communities, and local governments share enough common ground to make partnerships economically effective, as well as democratic, experiences. In the next section we explore the emergence of civil society in Central Asia and the effect of donor intervention in a postsocialist context.

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Central Asia With the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the subsequent economic collapse of the former Central Asian republics, international donor agencies began to provide financial and technical assistance to the newly founded states of Central Asia. It was within this economic and political context that the notion of civil society was introduced to Central Asia and given sustenance. Central Asia presents an interesting case of a nascent civil society, which is fragile, fragmented, and strongly influenced by the international donor community. It illuminates well both the important contributions of external agents to the development of civil society as well as some of the pitfalls of “making civil society from the outside.” In this section we first provide some background information on the emergence of independent Central Asia in the early 1990s. We then explore the encounter of Central Asia with donor imaginations of civil society and go on to discuss key issues around attempts to strengthen civil society from without. Background For centuries the Eurasian steppe has been an arena of contestation between Russians and Turkic ethnic groups from Central Asia.8 Genghis Khan and his descendants held sway over Eurasia from the twelfth century onward until their defeat by the Russians in 1480. However, it was not until the mid-eighteenth century, when revolutionary changes in transport and technology took place, that Russia finally gained military prowess over its Central Asian neighbors. The expansion of the Tsarist Empire in the nineteenth century led to Central Asia’s subjugation. Like other colonial powers Tsarist Russia justified its rule in Central Asia in orientalist terms, which positioned Central Asia as the backward, inferior, barbaric, and superstitious other and itself as the superior bearer of civilization (Malik 1994: 1–5). Despite Russia’s military prowess, Russian peasant colonization from the mid-eighteenth century onward coupled with attempts to undermine local elites through the imposition of Tsarist administrative and political structures onto the authority of clan elders and Muslim clerics continued in the Tsarist period, forming the social basis for local revolts against Tsarist rule at the end of the nineteenth and start of the twentieth century. Following the Communist takeover of power in 1917 the Central Asian Soviet republics became part of the economic and political logic of the Soviet Empire, consolidating and intensifying a process that had already got under way during the Tsarist era. Soviet policy toward Central Asia continued to be grounded in an orientalist perspective of assumed cultural and ethnic superiority. The creation of separate Central Asian republics

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between 1924 and 1936 was based on artificially drawn boundaries, which were insensitive to ethnic groups and as a consquence left large numbers of people outside their acclaimed national republics.9 Hence there are large Tajik minorities in Uzbekistan, Uighur minorities in Kazakhstan, Uzbek minorities in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan as well as a substantial majority of Russians in Kazakhstan. Through social engineering, language, and education policy and scientific propaganda, the new Soviet government sought to undermine the influence of Islam and discredit Muslim clerics and clan leaders (Blank, 39–64, in Malik 1994). By promoting the Latinization of Muslim languages the Soviet leaders sought to undermine Muslim unity and pave the way for eventual Russification. During the Soviet period the Central Asian republics became woven systematically into the complex political and economic web of the USSR. By cultivating a network of loyal party supporters in Central Asia, Soviet leaders sought to stabilize its political and ideological control and weaken any potential resistance based on national and or religious aspirations. Central planning in Moscow shaped not only economic policy within republics but also the texture of interrepublic trade. Providing raw materials such as cotton, agricultural products, coal, and minerals to more advanced Soviet republics, Central Asia imported in turn machinery, consumer products, and technical expertise. In this way Central Asia’s process of industrialization became crucially dependent on and subordinated to the grander schemes of the Soviet center. With the collectivization of pastoralism, agriculture, and trade, the opportunities for private entrepreneurial initiative were sharply limited, rendering the state increasingly important as a route to power, status, and economic wealth. As in other socialist state systems, the Communist Party attempted to dominate most aspects of society and in turn severely limited the expansion of civil society. By establishing mass organizations under the leadership of the Communist Party, such as the women’s federations, Communist youth leagues, young pioneers, and trade unions, the Soviet Communist Party sought to configure a particular vision of civil society based on socialist values, a secular world view, Leninist styles of organization, and collective economic structures. This imagination of civil society sat uncomfortably with the social reality of the Central Asian republics where religious values, traditions, and institutions were part of the everyday weave of society. Moreover it was a modernist image of civil society that equated the spiritual with the backward and religious ritual with feudal superstition, and which counterposed all of this with the progress promised by science and materialism. Although there was little political space for any unofficial associational activity, religion provided a normative framework and focal point for regime resistance. The Soviet state vacillated between religious tolerance,

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as between 1922 and 1923, when religious revival in Central Asia led to the mushrooming of mosques and madrasas, and periods of repression, when religious activity and institutions were restricted (Blank 1994: 39–64). Although the institutional architecture and ideology of the Communist Party was reproduced across Central Asia, religion continued to be a strong force of social cohesion and a framework of norms, values, and beliefs. Recognizing the impossibility of prohibiting religion by fiat, Soviet leaders sought to control religious activities by establishing official state authorities for different religions, thereby undermining competing “illegal” structures and leaders. In the late 1970s Islamic revivalist groups began to surface in the Fergana Valley of Central Asia. Some drew inspiration from the reformist Jadidist movement, which flourished in the late nineteenth century and was later crushed during the first decade of Soviet rule. Some sought to educate young people in Islam with the goal of creating a land of Islam, embracing Central Asia and the Muslim world. They gave rise to illegal schools of religious instruction, which printed and distributed their own literature. Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost prepared the way for nationalism in Central Asia, which found expression in demands for language rights, political autonomy, and religious resurgence. In November 1988 students in Uzbekistan demonstrated against the dominant position of the Russian language and demanded the promotion of Uzbek. A year later these demands had broadened out to include ecological and economic issues (Goodman 1994: 77–94). Civil rights groups, cultural institutes, writers’ groups, and environmental organizations spread across the former Soviet republics, including Central Asia. Environmental degradation fostered strong protests in many countries, especially in Uzbekistan. However, the development of these movements was hampered by the lack of organizational skills and political strategizing. In Kazakhstan these environmental groups were the most effective, not least because the broader concern with environmental issues enabled differences between Russians and Kazakhs to be overcome (Goodman 1994: 87). The unofficial group NevadaSemipalatinsk was the only joint Russian and Kazakh group to protest nuclear testing. Nationalist demonstrations centering on linguistic independence were most pronounced in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. In Uzbekistan the nationalist group Birlik, which was also strongly influenced by Islam, gathered strength within the climate of perestroika. In protest against violent state response to demonstrations in the Fergana Valley, Birlik led an unofficial rally in the heart of Tashkent. Though these groups fed on nationalist sentiments, they were not the main factor bringing about political independence. The failure of the antiGorbachev coup in August 1991 and the subsequent disintegration of the Soviet Union at the end of the year were the prime triggers to political

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independence in Central Asia. Incumbent leaders declared independence either to preserve their own power and resist further pressure for reform from Moscow or, as in the cases of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, to preserve and hasten processes of reform that might be endangered by political instability in the Soviet center (Grant 1994: 56–57). The new political groups, which had been fermenting in the Gorbachev period, were fundamental ingredients in the process of political liberalization across Central Asia during the 1990s. Development of Civil Society in Post-Soviet Central Asia The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 marked a watershed in the history of the Central Asian republics, paving the way for political independence and electoral contestation of power. With the introduction of electoral competition new political parties arose across Central Asia, some emerging out of social movements and issue groups, some driven by reformist former Communist Party members, and some by groups of individuals with political visions and ambitions. The agendas of the new parties had in common a rejection of the past but differed as to how they combined nationalist, democratic, religious, or free market aspirations. Political competition opened up space for new political actors, for the realignment of old elites, and for more active civil engagement in public affairs. The process of democratic transition unfolded unevenly across Central Asia. Although President Askar Akaev has increasingly consolidated his presidential powers at the expense of the legislature, Kyrgyzstan is still widely considered the most liberal and democratic of the Central Asian states (Anderson 1996; Pryde 1995). In Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan the former Communist rulers have managed to retain power by paying lip service to the process of democratization. Although new political parties formed in all Central Asian states, continuing control of the mass media by the former Communist Party, electoral manipulation, and restrictions on fielding candidates constrained political competition, especially in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan. In Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan the Communist Party was renamed respectively as the Democratic Party and the National Democratic Party, though with little substantive change in its style and membership. In contrast to President Karimov of Uzbekistan the new president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, has kept an arm’s length relationship to the reformed Communist Party, since renamed as the Socialist Party. Inspired by democratic opposition in other Soviet republics, democratic organizations and parties such as the Democratic Party of Tajikistan and Rostokhez began to form in Tajikistan in the early 1990s. Simultaneously new Islamic groups such as the Islamic Renaissance Party began to call for

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an Islamic state or for religious freedom in the context of a secular state (Makhamov, 198–202, and Atkin, 203–226, in Malik 1994). Resistance by Tajikistan’s hard-liners to emerging opposition took the form of repressive and violent measures, manipulation of the 1991 presidential elections, which temporarily kept Rakhmon Nabiev in power, and shifting opportunist alliances. Compared with Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan’s early years of independence have been marked by continuing political instability and regime fragility. Central Asia’s process of nation building and regime change occurred against a broader complex of competing international interests in the region. The new leaders of Central Asia are keen to forge new political alliances, gain access to new trade routes, and find outlets for their products. Eager to extract oil in Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, uranium in Tajikistan and Kazakhstan, and vast mineral resources in most of Central Asia, foreign companies are a significant force for political stability in the region and favorable bilateral relations. The United States, Western Europe, and Russia are concerned about the growing and competing influence of different Muslim countries such as Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan on Central Asia and the prospects of an Islamic challenge to secular rule (Rashid 1994: 207–231). Home to vast supplies of strategic nuclear missiles, Kazakhstan is of key geostrategic interest to Western powers, who fear nuclear proliferation in the region and particularly among nearby aspiring nuclear powers such as Pakistan and India. For China good relations with Central Asia are vital if it is to keep in check the armed ethnic uprising among the Uighurs in Xinjiang, Southwest China, which borders with Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan. As Central Asia struggles to find its distinct political and international identity, restructure its economy, and shape its evolving civil society, external economic, geostrategic, and political factors will continue to wield considerable influence over these processes. The disintegration of the Soviet Union not only set in train processes of political liberalization and democratization, albeit uneven, but also undermined the fragile basis of the economies of the former republics. The ability of Central Asia’s leaders to steer a course through the crisis varied considerably. President Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan and President Akaev of Kyrgyzstan have been the most ardent advocates of free market economies and democratization in the region. With the proliferation of new nationstates and national borders, the mutual economic interdependence guaranteed indirectly by the Cold War and directly by interrepublican trade agreements began to lose its rationale. Although the new states could now choose with whom to trade and what to trade, they were no longer able to rely on past sources of crucial inputs, nor could they maintain existing export markets, let alone break into global trade. Across Central Asia

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industries came to a rapid halt, resulting in a sharp growth in unemployment, plummeting GDP growth rates, financial deficits, and declining standards of living (Cevikoz 1994). Although the demise of central planning opened up the way for market forces, few people had sufficient capital or entrepreneurial drive to establish private industries. Moreover the lack of a legislative framework and appropriate market institutions hindered the growth of the private sector. With the breakdown of the Soviet Union, the comprehensive system of social welfare, education, and health likewise began to crumble. In the past the state had played a major role in the provision of social welfare to targeted vulnerable groups such as war veterans, orphans, the poor, the disabled, mothers of more than ten children, the widowed, and the elderly. Moreover there were significant monetary transfers from Moscow to the Central Asian republics in support of social welfare provision, health, and education. In some republics more than half the population enjoyed some form of allowance. With the collapse of the union these transfers gradually petered out, affecting negatively the sustainability of the old social welfare system. Simultaneously the economic crisis led to rapid impoverishment, putting further pressure on the shrunken pot of welfare resources. In Kyrgyzstan, for example, almost 40 percent of households and 45 percent of individuals were classified as poor in a multipurpose survey carried out by the World Bank in 1993 (Falkingham and Ackland 1994: 2).10 It was against this background of radical political transformation, economic collapse, and increasing poverty that international financial institutions and donor agencies began to provide assistance to Central Asia. Initially foreign nongovernmental organizations such as the Save the Children Fund, Mercy Corps, Dutch InterChurch Aid, and Médecins sans Frontières and multilateral donors such as UNDP, UNICEF, and European Union/Technical Assistance to Community of Independent States (EU/TACIS) provided emergency relief in the form of clothes, sugar, flour, and shelter. As donors became more familiar with the particular challenges of transition, their attention shifted from humanitarian aid to longer-term development. There is now an active donor presence throughout Central Asia, though this is more marked in some states than others. More ready to embrace political and economic liberalization, Kyrgyzstan has become the largest recipient of loans on a per capita basis among the Central Asian states. It was the first country in the Commonwealth of Independent States to agree to IMF standby arrangements. It is also home to a relatively large number of international donor agencies, both governmental and nongovernmental. Kazakhstan, too, has attracted considerable donor interest, not least because of its nuclear arsenal, uranium reserves, and other mineral resources. In

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contrast the ongoing conflict in Tajikistan as well as the more authoritarian regimes of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan have overshadowed the growth of a development sector. In order to stabilize the region politically and promote the development of market forces, Western governments have sought to reduce the immediate negative impact of economic transition and foster the private sector through privatization and liberalization measures. Assuming civil society to be a key pillar of both the market economy and liberal democracy donor agencies have sought to strengthen the emerging civil societies in Central Asia. Donor efforts to promote a particular version of civil society, namely a liberal democratic one, are informed by a broader picture of regional politics where external forces compete for influence in the region. The main bilateral donor in the region providing support to NGOs is the United States. Of particular concern to Western powers is the growing influence of and competing rivalries among Muslim countries such as Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan as well as Turkey with its pan-Turkic ambitions in the region, all of which threaten the economic, geopolitical, and ideological interests of the West. By promoting civil society Western governments hope to stabilize the new but fragile democratic states in the region. Though perestroika created the political context for the emergence of environmental groups, civil rights organizations, and religious resurgence in the late 1980s, political independence provided the political environment within which civil society could flourish in the 1990s. Though civil society in post-Soviet Central Asia is more diverse, pluralistic, and vibrant than in the Soviet period, its complexity, potential for growth, and room for maneuver vary across the five republics. It is difficult to estimate the exact numbers of nongovernmental organizations as registration criteria sometimes give wide berth to the term. Some registered organizations are offshoots of government purposefully set up to access foreign funds; some organizations are not registered for various reasons or are in the process of registering; and some may be registered but nonoperational. By 1998 Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan laid claim to over 7,000 registered nongovernmental organizations, of which 4,500 were in Kazakhstan, 1,500 in Kyrgyzstan, 800 in Turkmenistan, and 270 in Uzbekistan. In the case of Kazakhstan, for example, only 700–800 of the officially registered organizations are considered to be NGOs that are separate from government, nonprofit, and intermediary (Mellon 1998: 7). In the post-Soviet period the civil society landscape consists of the relics of the old mass organizations and a diversity of new social organizations. The old Soviet organizations comprise the trade unions, women’s leagues, young pioneer organizations, and associations of soldiers’ mothers, which were created to promote specific ideological and political objectives.

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While some of the old social organizations, such as the Women’s League of Kyrgyzstan, attempted to transform themselves through substantive changes in their activities and approach, taking on a quasi-governmental character, others changed only in name and eventually ceased to function. Some of the new social organizations emerged under the influence of glasnost, focusing on democracy, human rights, and environmental issues, while others have arisen since independence. Many of the new social organizations were started by individuals from the urban elite, whose reputation and informal links with government officials enabled them to establish and promote their organizations and whose self-confidence and imagination garnered the support of donors eager to find partners to work through and with. Environmental degradation has rallied many critics and young activists across Central Asia, taking organizational shape in groups such as Karaganda Ecological Center (Ecocenter) in Kazakhstan, Association for Ecological Pure Fergana, NGO Unity for the Defense of Aral and Amudariya and Aral SOS in Uzbekistan, and Ecological Educational School in Tajikistan. With the decline of state provision of welfare services, new service delivery organizations have developed. In order to promote particular cultural, social, and professional identities and interests, new membership organizations have flourished. These include farmers’ associations; women’s groups such as the Business Women’s Association of Uzbekistan; cultural associations like the Silk Road Association in Uzbekistan, which was set up in 1997 by a group of scientists to protect Uzbek cultural heritage; and consumer associations such as the Association of Northern Kazakhstan Organizations for the Protection of Consumers’ Rights. The postindependence civil society landscape also embraces the religious activities, mosques, madrasas, and churches, which rapidly spread in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and southern Kyrgyzstan. These not only challenged the secular world view of Soviet socialist ideology but in some instances formed the basis of Islamic political parties that called for an Islamic state. With the arrival of international donor agencies this process of opening and bottom-up initiative received a significant boost. The U.S. donor agenda has tended to prioritize support to environmental, human rights, and democracy groups. In contrast multilateral organizations such as the World Bank, UNDP, and UNHCR and European agencies such as EU/TACIS, Novib, and Hivos have given particular emphasis to NGOs addressing issues of poverty alleviation and participation. Some foreign nongovernmental NGOs such as the UK-based INTRAC and USAID-funded Counterpart Consortium have focused specifically on developing the capacity of local nongovernmental groups through training programs, workshops, and mentoring. Some local organizations grew out of training programs sponsored by donor agencies, the Society for the Protection of

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Patients’ Rights formed by doctors in Turkmenistan being a case in point.11 Encouraged by the U.S. Republican Institute, schoolteachers founded the Turkmen Youth Center Dialog in 1993 to provide civic education. As the concept of an NGO became more established and legislative frameworks governing these new organizations took form, by the mid1990s a second generation of nongovernmental organizations began to develop in those states with more vibrant civil societies such as Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. Inspired and often supported by the new nongovernmental organizations, these second-wave organizations replicated their structures and practices, breaking into new areas of activity and extending beyond capital cities into other conurbations and rural areas. Yet new social organizations still tend to be concentrated in the capital cities and urban centers of Central Asia. Most NGOs in Turkmenistan are in Ashgabad. In Kazakhstan the majority of NGOs are based in Almaty, but there is also NGO activity in other urban centers such as Kostanai, Astana, and Kyzlorda (Mellon 1998: 8). Although most NGOs in Kyrgyzstan are located in the capital city, Bishkek, compared to the other Central Asian states the regional spread of these new organizations has been much wider, embracing rural centers. The NGO Alga focuses specifically on developing women’s organizations at village level. Government attitudes toward nongovernmental organizations are an important variable accounting for the regional unevenness in the development of civil society. Kyrgyzstan has the most favorable legislative framework governing nongovernmental organizations. In Kazakhstan the process of registration is both costly and bureaucratic and certain legislative requirements continue to inhibit the development of a civil society. Legislation prohibiting more than three people organizing without police authorization as well as the legal requirement that an official from the Ministry of Internal Affairs or the police attend any formal meeting of a social organization contributes toward an unfavorable context for the development of NGOs (INTRAC 1999: 23). Local NGOs together with parliamentarians and international bodies are working on a new draft of NGO law. However, without government recognition of the potential role of NGOs in welfare provision, advocacy, or developing civil society, this is unlikely to become a top priority. Though NGOs find ways to work around these constraints, the power still lies with government to act against a social organization it considers undesirable. In Turkmenistan the Ministry of Justice passed a Law for Public Organizations in 1993, after which point an increasing number of social organizations registered. Since 1995, however, it has been increasingly difficult for more autonomous organizations to register, not least because the frequent changes in registration procedures have rendered the process complicated. The unfavorable legal framework in Uzbekistan has led many

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organizations to operate without registering, so that the number of registered organizations understates the extent of nongovernmental activity. In 1998 a group of NGOs drafted a new NGO law but, as in Kazakhstan, without strong government backing this is unlikely to be taken seriously or given priority. Key Issues While in the Soviet period civil society in Central Asia was sharply constricted, in the post-Soviet era it has breathed fresh life. Though civil society has developed unevenly across Central Asia, with Kyrgyzstan claiming the most pluralistic and vibrant civil society, in general it remains fragile, constrained to varying degrees by restrictive regulatory and legislative frameworks, and dependent on donor support and funding. The international donor community has strongly influenced the shape, form, and direction of civil society, strengthening groups that accord with its goals and creating new organizations where nongovernmental partners cannot be found. These characteristics raise important issues around the internal development and sustainability of new civil society organizations, their legitimacy, and the social rootedness of new organizations reliant on donor support. For most new social organizations in Central Asia the key challenge has been survival in a context where the legislative framework governing nongovernmental organizations is new, and often constraining, and where national and local government officials are suspicious of their purposes and activities. Establishing themselves as functional organizations has required rapidly accumulating new managerial, technical, and administrative skills. Local support organizations such as Center Interbilim in Kyrgyzstan and Casdin in Kazakhstan as well as international support organizations such as INTRAC and Counterpart Consortium have played a major role in strengthening the internal capacity of individual organizations as well as the overall cohesion of an emerging nongovernmental welfare and advocacy sector. Given that the concept of a nongovernmental organization is new, defining the role of such organizations in a Central Asian context and developing new practices, particularly in the approach to members and beneficiaries, is a considerable challenge. Though the possibility of organizing autonomously and the relative newness of a nongovernmental sector present many opportunities for grassroots initiatives, dependency on donor funds and support is likely to skew the development of civil society. As donor agencies have their own particular agendas and interests, local organizations that propose projects in these areas are more likely to receive funding. As a result many nongovernmental organizations in Central Asia respond to the priorities and interests of donor agencies rather than defining their own institutional identity. Organizations

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that are more successful in attracting donor funding can end up with a patchwork of tenuously related projects such as microcredit, women’s empowerment, and environment, reflecting a donor—rather than locally driven—agenda. By operating on a project-to-project basis, NGOs fail to develop program initiatives that are either internally coherent or complementary of governmental sectoral reforms. When the Kyrgyzstan NGO Forum received funding from the U.S. National Democratic Institute to focus on democratization, it changed its name to the Coalition for Democracy and Civil Society and ceased to function as a coalition body for NGOs. The sustainability of many of these new organizations hinges not only on obtaining financial resources but also on their ability to gain legitimacy as effective, uncorrupt, and indigenous organizations among government officials, business groups, beneficiaries, and potential donors in society. With new social organizations dependent on donor agencies for direction, support, and finance, their main stamp of approval comes from the outside. However, if they are to reduce their dependence on donor support and raise funds locally, they need to develop constituencies of support among government officials, business, and the public.12 Establishing favorable and enabling legal frameworks is an important first step in recognizing their legitimate status and role and their relationship to government. Minimizing corruption, too, is essential for gaining a reputation of probity for the nongovernmental sector. Although Kyrgyzstan’s relatively favorable legal environment has encouraged a rapid expansion in the registration of NGOs, some have proved not to be genuine, registering instead for the purposes of tax exemption or other motives. Whether local NGOs are socially sustainable hinges not least on the public’s perception of their effectiveness, probity, and legitimacy and their ability to recruit and retain staff and volunteers. In transitional societies where the state played a pivotal role in the past in planning economic life and shaping social relations, the concept of a nongovernmental organization is new and unfamiliar for both NGO workers as well as their target beneficiaries. This means that the role of NGOs, their relation to government, their distinctive operational style, their legal position, and their recruitment and remuneration practices all are in the process of being defined. In the absence of significant alternative sources of funding, external donor agencies wield considerable influence over local NGOs in shaping their organizational structures, accounting practices, and priorities. Given the legacy of top-down, mobilizational styles of organizing, both the staff of social organizations and the members or beneficiaries may not expect processes of feedback, accountability, or participation in decisionmaking processes. While donor support has played a key role in sustaining and strengthening new NGOs and fostering participatory approaches, the

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process of developing distinctive local structures, styles, and agendas requires more than the lifetime of a project. The founders of, and workers in, new social organizations tend to come from urban, professional backgrounds. With weak links to their members and beneficiaries they are guided by their own perceptions of needs and problems. Furthermore as donors find it easier to deal with professional leaders and representatives, who command English and Russian and are at ease with Western Europeans and North Americans, they implicitly reinforce the urban and elitist tendency of civil society. If the emerging civil society organizations are to become more than urban-based, elitist groups speaking or working on behalf of members or beneficiaries, then a more internally democratic and participatory approach is called for, which involves consciously breaking with approaches, attitudes, and behaviors associated with Soviet top-down styles of mobilization. Although donor agencies have played a key role in introducing needs analysis and participatory methods to Central Asia, with varying degrees of success, the implementation of such ideas in practice remains weak. Without a rethinking of working practices and urban-rural relations, organizations risk being perceived as elitist, unrepresentative, and ineffectual. To give but one example, the failure of NGO coalition organizations in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan to harness support from their members has critically weakened their credibility among members and government officials and rendered them virtual empty shells. The dominance of donor thinking in the shaping of civil society in Central Asia is crystallized in the adoption of the term nongovernmental organization into local vocabularies and also in the conceptual elision of civil society with, and its reduction to, this particular form of organization. Among many donors the presence and extent of NGOs serves as an indicator of the degree of democratization. There are two immediate problems here. First, this conceptual association creates a belief and expectation that NGOs are, and will be, internally democratic and that they will form an explicit part of a process of democratization, though in reality the local NGO may conform in neither shape nor purpose to these expectations. Second, this fixation with a particular model of an NGO detracts attention from other local processes of democratization that may not take the institutional form of NGOs. Social movements, for example, constitute forms of collective action that can have democratic purposes. In the late 1980s Kazakhstan was home to active labor, ethnic, and environmental social movements, which played a historic role in democratization processes and the shaping of civil society. By focusing on NGOs as the main alternative vehicle for social welfare delivery or as channels of grassroots participation and empowerment, there is the danger that local practices and ways of organizing similar functions

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are overlooked and underestimated. As highlighted in an evaluation of INTRAC’s capacity-building work in Central Asia some rural and semirural NGOs had started their work in isolation “without knowing that we were NGOs” (INTRAC 1999: 10). Upon encountering donors these local initiatives soon transformed themselves into NGOs and formally registered their activities. This adaptation thus underlines the discursive power of the NGO concept, which endows an activity with visibility and legitimacy. Donor assessments that focus on the notion of formal organization, and, in particular, the institutional manifestation of an NGO as conceived in the North and South, run the risk of underestimating the extent of civil society and delegitimizing existing local practices and ways of providing community support, ensuring accountability, and voicing political demands. The old mass organizations including trade unions, membership groups such as farmers’ associations, and women’s groups have received relatively little donor support. Similarly predetermined donor conceptions of how civil society organizations could and should relate to government can inhibit the development of civil society by pushing a dominant imagination of this relationship and proceeding at an unrealistic and impractical pace. The tendency to present nongovernmental organization as an alternative to or an oppositional force to government can reinforce government suspicion of such organizations. In Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan government wariness of NGOs has limited cooperation to areas where external donors have a strong interest such as the environment or HIV/AIDS (Mellon 1998: 10). In pervasive states such as Uzbekistan, where the mahalla system of local governance dominates social, economic, and political life, there needs, for strategic and practical reasons, to be different imaginations of the government-NGO relation that take into account deep government wariness of nongovernmental activity and the power of social hierarchies and relations that intersect with government structures.13 Finally, with donors promoting a liberal democratic version of civil society and at a pace consistent with project and program planning, there is a real danger that civil society never quite becomes rooted in Central Asia, either in its liberal democratic form or otherwise. By assuming that civil society can be neatly added to a transitional society and that it can thrive within a fragile market economy and democratic polity, donors underplay the historical processes that give shape to particular forms of civil society, some of which may be permeated with apparently contradictory modernist and traditional tendencies. In casting religious, spiritual, and cultural values as essentially traditional, and therefore antithetical to a modern, liberal, and secular civil society, opportunities for forming alliances with reformist elements in religious groups are lost. Similarly a failure to fully grasp the salience of ethnicity in associational life can also lead to an unrealistic

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assessment of the cohesiveness of civil society and the potential constraining power of ethnic identities. Moreover, insofar as such a project of civil society becomes part of a broader global political agenda, then external realignments and shifts in balance of power can seriously threaten its viability. External support is rarely sufficient to sustain local civil societies. To conclude, in the Soviet period the development of civil society in Central Asia was subject to two main competing tendencies. The first represented an externally imposed, top-down restructuring of society in accordance with a particular vision of socialism, which embraced secular values, encouraged solidarity along class lines, and proclaimed a modernizing, progressive, and anticapitalist mission. Beneath the surface of socialist architecture lay a second tier of organization and social relations, which were founded on religious values and traditions, intersected in complex ways with official socialist structures, and constitutive of resistance to Soviet rule. By the 1980s political overtures in the Soviet Union further complicated the terrain of civil society, as democratic, environmentalist, and nationalist forces began to organize through, as well as separately from, the existing official and unofficial structures. In the post-Soviet era civil society continues to be significantly shaped from the outside. Western governments push a liberal-democratic, modernist agenda of civil society, which complements the active promotion of market forces and privatization. Simultaneously external Muslim groups in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan promote forms of solidarity and social organization around Islam, which in turn encompasses different visions of state-society relations ranging from an Islamic state to religious freedom and tolerance in a secular state. The extent to which the external conceptions of civil society resonate with indigenous values, aspirations, and practices will be crucial in determining their influence on the shape and sustainability of civil society in Central Asia. In the final section, we explore the political dynamics of implementing donor civil society strengthening programs in Latin America.

Latin America Social sector reform was one of the main driving forces behind the decision of multilateral and bilateral donors to channel funds through Latin American NGOs in the 1980s. NGOs were seen as appropriate vehicles for targeted welfare for the “victims” of structural adjustment. As private, nonstate organizations, they fit well with the new policy agenda of decentralization and privatization. At the same time democratic transitions throughout the region led academics and policymakers to debate the changing nature of state-society relations, and interest expanded from NGOs to the

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broader arena of associational life. It was suggested that the political polarization of the past was giving way to new spaces for state-society dialogue and potential partnerships in antipoverty programs. This in turn could strengthen citizenship participation in policymaking and enhance the prospects for urgent institutional reform. The translation of these ideas into civil society strengthening programs in the course of the 1990s coincided with donor acknowledgment that stark inequality in wealth and resource distribution continued to blight the region’s society and economy and was an ongoing source of potential instability. The World Bank produced a major study of inequality and human capital formation in the region in 1996, which highlighted the fact that income inequality in Latin America has been the highest in the world in the postwar decades. In addition, this persistent lack of equality, added to mediocre growth, has produced 50 million more poor in the region over the last twenty years, the highest increase in absolute terms during the twentieth century (Londoño 1996). The emphasis on building partnerships between the state and civil society and the market represented a bid by external donors to encourage dialogue to address these problems. Dialogue, it was hoped, would replace the street protests, political mobilization, and contentious politics that had characterized the region’s recent past. This regional overview asks whether donor emphasis on building partnership in their civil society strengthening programs reflects the reality of changing state-society relations in Latin America and discusses the responses of “beneficiary” organizations to donor programs. We will begin by summarizing some key features of Latin America’s associational history and state-society relations, in particular the changes that took place in the 1980s and how they have been analyzed by donors and others. We will then explore the empirical and conceptual roots behind the shift among donors from NGOs to broad civil society strengthening. Finally we will look at the problems of translating the latter into programs and in particular the problematic nature of the assumption that such programs must involve a partnership among the state, the market, and civil society. Associationalism and the State in Historical Perspective This section outlines some key features of the state-society relationships in Latin America as they evolved since independence in the early nineteenth century. It tries to explain the origins of contemporary arguments that these relationships underwent substantial change in the 1980s and 1990s. Civic spirit and the postcolonial state. Among de Tocqueville’s very few references to Latin America was one that used it as an example of how constitutional forms could not take root where the population lacked

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the habits to make them work: “The Mexicans were desirous of establishing a federal system, and they took the Federal Constitution of their neighbors, the Anglo-Americans, as their model and copied it almost entirely. But although they had borrowed the letter of the law, they could not carry over the spirit that gives it life” (de Tocqueville 1994, vol. 1: 167).14 De Tocqueville was not entirely pessimistic about the future of the region however. “At some future period, which may be more or less remote, the inhabitants of South America will form flourishing and enlightened nations,” he stated. This was because they had the “same Christian laws and usages as we have; she contains all the germs of civilization that have grown amid the nations of Europe or their offshoots added to the advantages to be derived from our example: why, then should she always remain uncivilized?” (de Tocqueville 1994, vol. 1: 427). Undeterred by the Eurocentric arrogance of these remarks, some recent Tocquevillian historians of Latin America have begun to retrace the postcolonial history of Spanish America and to unearth the early history of a civic spirit that surfaced in the course of the struggle for independence from Spanish rule (Foment 1998). Carlos Foment, for example, a pioneer historian in this field, has questioned the view that the region simply drifted from three centuries of colonial domination into new forms of postcolonial authoritarianism in the nineteenth century. He has argued that in the course of challenging colonial rule, activists and supporters of anticolonial movements surfaced from family, friendship, neighborhood, and parish networks, previously submerged by colonial tutelage and domination. They generated a sense of civicness and disseminated it outside their circle, leaving a legacy in the postcolonial society long after the movements themselves had disappeared. This legacy fed into the prodemocratic groups and electoral reform clubs that after 1860 began to challenge authoritarian officials and practices. Foment’s work and other studies of the nineteenth century public sphere in Latin America are a welcome antidote to the caricature of the region as entirely militaristic, authoritarian, and chronically unstable. The fact that these features were in tension with an emergent liberal, dialogic, and civic culture, with the outcome contingent, requires explanation. However, it also remains the case that the struggle for state power within each national space, by which the monopoly of armed force and a centralized state apparatus was established, was resolved mostly through warfare rather than political competition. The result was the victory of a strong, centralizing, executive power over rivals.15 Eric Hobsbawm, in his overview of patterns of change in the world in Age of Capital, has explained the failure of political liberalism in Latin America in terms of the retarding influence of the region’s backward rural hinterlands:

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The liberals were an educated urban elite in a rural continent, and in so far as they had genuine power it rested on unreliable generals and on local clans of landowning families which, for reasons which often had only the remotest connection with John Stuart Mill or Darwin chose to mobilise their clients on their side. Socially and economically speaking, very little had changed in the backlands of Latin America by the 1870s, except that the power of landlords has been strengthened, that of peasants weakened. . . . Latin America in the third quarter of the nineteenth century took to the road of “westernisation” in its bourgeois-liberal form with greater zeal and occasionally greater ruthlessness, than any other part of the world outside Japan, but the results were disappointing. (Hobsbawm 1975: 148)

Liberal ideas remained alive for certain social groups and the call was often heard for universal rights and suffrage, but they were weak voices against the imperative of the times. This included responding to opportunities to profit from the emerging world economy, not through industrialization but through the export of primary products. Such a route favored modernizing landowners and exporters and enabled them to shape the process of state centralization, secularization, and modernization, and this was the core of the “liberal” project as it emerged from the late nineteenth century onward. The resulting disparities between city and countryside, distinct territorial poles of development and the class, ethnic, and gender segregations associated with them, have had a profound and lasting impact on Latin American political life and socioeconomic development. By the early twentieth century as economy and society evolved, pressure for political inclusion emerged with different degrees of strength. Workers’ movements, influenced by anarchist and socialist ideas brought by immigrants from Southern Europe, contributed to these demands. But it was the emerging urban middle classes rather than workers who were most critical to the limited and uneven democratization that did occur in the early twentieth century, although they took advantage of the workers’ mobilizations to push their own demands (Rueschemeyer, Stephens, and Stephens 1992). Their limited but significant political gains were eroded, however, in the 1930s in the wake of the crisis of the export-led economic model. The restructuring of Latin American economies in subsequent decades involved various efforts at “inclusion from above,” which would have a deep impact on the region’s associational life. Populism, corporatism, and autonomy. Associative life in Latin America has been deeply affected by the political phenomena of populism and corporatism. These two ways in which the state came to confront the rapid rise of a mass urban population, many of them displaced from a rural sector unable to provide land and livelihoods, span political regimes in different parts of South America from the 1930s to the 1960s. In turn these

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were challenged by armed radical leftist and political movements aimed at seizing state power in the name also of the organized rural and urban poor. These movements were defeated at different moments over the subsequent two decades and military governments of a new bureaucratic type came to power in the region from the 1960s to 1980s. A distinct phase in Latin American associational history began as a response to these military governments, which, unlike most predecessors, emphasized suppression rather than incorporation of potential social opposition. Without either left or right efforts to control them, new kinds of social organization emerged, and the issue of movement autonomy was placed on the Latin American agenda. Neither populism nor corporatism constitute fully fledged political systems identifiable throughout the region at a given point in time. They reflect elements visible to varying degrees in a number of regimes that emerged in Latin America from the 1930s onward. Populism describes efforts by the state to mobilize a domestic constituency to push the import substitution model of industrialization between the 1930s and 1960s, particularly immediately after World War II. It involved building an alliance among the urban masses, organized labor, and the state, headed often by a charismatic political figure. The best known example is Juan Peron in Argentina. The state administered welfare to its supporters and facilitated or restricted social organization through patronage, tax exemptions, and other mechanisms. One study of the role of NGOs and philanthropy in Latin America suggested that this pattern of state-society relations encouraged people to delegate their rights to the state, a kind of “regulated citizenship” in the phrase of Brazilian sociologist T. Dos Santos (Landim and Thompson 1997: 344). Some forms of populism shifted from direct appeal to the targeting of an undifferentiated “masses” in order to incorporate representatives of different social groups. Corporatism was first identified by Philippe Schmitter as a feature of the regime of Getulio Vargas in Brazil in the 1930s and 1940s (Schmitter 1971). He studied the way the state came to control and regulate interest groups and defined it as a system of interest representation. This launched a vibrant debate on the corporatist tendencies of the Latin American state, its efforts to “structure” group politics in contrast with the liberal pluralist notions of autonomous, freely interacting, and competing groups (Collier 1995: 137). Some have tried to see this as a specific Hispanic legacy, reflecting a cultural predisposition toward hierarchy, authoritarianism, and organic societal relationships (Wiarda 1981). Others have linked the concept to moments in the region’s economic development and efforts to forge certain forms of state-societal relationships conducive to a particular strategy of capitalist modernization. It has also been noted that corporatism was primarily a feature of state relationships with labor

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unions, rather than a generalizable phenomenon. Business groups often enjoyed informal access to governments and could circumvent the statestructured spaces. The debate is complex, but it is evident that various forms of state cooption, control, and regulation were the strategy of most governments during these decades. Within this strategy, political mediators played a major role. The clientelistic pattern of local and national politics in which local political party bosses offered free alcohol, jobs, and medical aid in return for votes ensured vertical integration from towns and villages within state strategies centrally defined “from above.” This did not preclude the rise of challenges “from below.” But these challenges were rapidly absorbed into the radical left political projects that spread throughout the region in the 1960s and 1970s. In these postwar years, control of the state was the platform for launching either socialist or capitalist modernization and industrialization. Building an alliance to defeat the conservative landed and other opposition proved a significant task. The left mobilized “from above” as much as the populist right and suffered the same tension between mobilizing and controlling, shaping an associational culture also. The radical left, however, tapped into the material interests of the poor in a way that was very different to the demagogy of populism. For instance, it often encouraged selflearning and thought in a way that was less controlling than mass appeals to symbolic meanings and leadership cults aimed at semiliterate people. The radical Catholic Church and the widespread interest in adopting and adapting popular education methodologies are examples of such experiments. The rural and urban poor were taught to read at the same time that they were taught to understand a political and economic order that failed to meet their most basic needs. Many Latin American NGOs were born out of the left’s concern to bolster political consciousness and build for itself a base of support (Carroll 1992; Pearce 1997). International NGOs were drawn into this agenda as the political situation in the region polarized. More conservative international NGOs and governmental donors, such as USAID, attempted to counter the radicalization process, funding progovernment and pro–United States organizations. In short, all forms of collective organization during these years were politicized and polarized. The Cold War played a considerable role in this process. The military governments that took power in the 1960s and 1970s in the Southern Cone of Latin America saw all such organization as antithetical to the technocratic and depoliticizing solution they had to the region’s social and economic problems and designed to halt the rise of leftist movements. These bureaucratic-authoritarian regimes, as they have been called (O’Donnell 1973), banned political parties as well as trade unions and other associations and even public meetings. Within the bowels of

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these military governments, however, new forms of social resistance emerged, this time without the political leadership of the past, many of whom had been killed, imprisoned, or exiled. As the only institution to remain intact under military government, the church frequently acted as the most reliable protective umbrella to the new forms of organization, such as the soup kitchens organized by Chilean women in the shantytowns of Santiago or the human rights committees and organizations of the relatives of disappeared and imprisoned activists. New social and political concerns emerged that led people away from the traditional state-centrism of political life and in the process began to emphasize autonomy and new forms of participation. In the absence of party political leadership, these new organizations and movements centered on neighborhood rather than workplace and on public rather than wage goods, were led often by women rather than men, and began to reopen and reshape the public space. Brazilian sociologist Leonardo Avritzer suggests that there was a dual challenge from Brazilian social movements during the military governments of the 1960s to the 1980s. They challenged the tradition of clientelistic intermediation and “they substituted the ideas of concession by the idea of publicly made political claims” (Avritzer 1998). Many leftist intellectuals sensed a change in social organizational forms in the course of the struggles for democratization and turned to the work of Antonio Gramsci and his conceptualization of civil society.16 The Brazilian Francisco Weffort suggests that civil society was a necessary discovery of the epoch: The discovery that there was something more to politics than the state began with the simplest facts of life of the persecuted. In the most difficult moments, they had to make use of what they found around them. There were no parties to go to, nor courts in which they could have confidence. At a difficult time, the primary resource was the family, friends and in some cases a fellow worker. What are we talking about if not civil society, though still at the molecular level of interpersonal relations? In a situation of enormous ideological perplexity, the discovery of civil society was much less a question of theory than of necessity. (Weffort 1989: 348)

The left began to engage seriously with the idea of democracy. A schism began to emerge, however, between those who came to accept liberal democracy as the inevitable outcome of political transition and those who clung to hopes for greater participation and radical democratic change throughout society and economy. The former began to accept the inevitability of economic restructuring and a shift to market-led development. The purists continued to resist neoliberalism, to critique the market, and call for redistributive justice as a precondition for “real” democracy. At the same time, there were still those who clung to old-style forms of leftist organiz-

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ing, particularly in countries where the armed struggle had played a significant role. Their ability to shape political transitions was often limited as a result. An overarching question was whether the women who had played leading roles in social activism under authoritarian rule would hang onto political roles in the transition to democracy. International NGOs, solidarity organizations, and U.S. foundations offered considerable financial support in these years to intellectuals and professionals thrown out of the universities as well as to activists defending human rights and supporting democratic struggles. Externally funded nongovernmental development and human rights organizations and private research centers enabled opposition forces to survive dictatorship.17 A spectrum of institutions neither controlled by the state nor subject to markets emerged, but these were dependent on external funding. They often worked closely with the activists and organizers at the grassroots during these years. Under the dictatorships, unity was forged around the antiauthoritarian cause. Growing differences over the political objective of democratization struggles were concealed. As democratic transitions took place throughout the region in the 1980s, many movement activists felt that they were politically displaced and their agenda ignored as former—usually male—leaders resumed authority in the newly revived political sphere. Political parties in the region, however, were almost everywhere in crisis of some kind, apart from Chile with its particularly long history of party politics. The NGO emerged as arguably the strongest societal institution, now torn between loyalty to grassroots movements and the role it was offered by external donors in their new policy agenda. Donors and Civil Society This section explores the encounter between NGOs and external donors during the implementation of structural adjustment programs in Latin America in the 1980s. It then looks at the different ways intellectuals and policymakers have constructed their analyses of changing state-society relations in the region. Finally it explores how this influenced the donor shift in focus from NGOs to civil society strengthening programs. The donor-NGO encounter. The steps that led up to the donor embrace of “civil society” as a conceptual tool for their programs in Latin America began during the 1980s when structural adjustment policies and neoliberalism were adopted throughout the region in response to the debt crisis and the economic problems that underlay it. As any commitment to state welfare programs was abandoned, donors and some governments approached NGOs as cost-effective ways of implementing targeted (i.e., limited) antipoverty programs (Bebbington and Thiele 1993; Angell and

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Graham 1995; Reilly 1995; Pearce 1997). Many radical NGOs were persuaded that they could develop participatory and democratized forms of community welfare and development. Other opportunistic NGOs emerged to take advantage of the funds available.18 The number of NGOs grew dramatically in these years.19 The politicized NGO community that had emerged in the context of the Cold War and with close ties to the left found itself in a serious dilemma. The generalized crisis of socialist ideas and movements left many individuals searching for a role and identity. They could no longer organize around the model of state-led socialist development. Their involvement in democratization struggles had given them a sense of protagonism and a new vocabulary around citizenship and rights. Many sought to move on from the “privilege of denunciation to an emphasis on the proposal and an interest in influencing the country’s politics” (Patron 1999: 178). New institutional and public spaces had opened up with the return to civilian rule, such as parliaments, municipal governments, and public meeting places. This suggested new political opportunities and practices and a shift away from street protest and semiclandestine activity. Most NGOs did not embrace neoliberalism, but they came to accept a role in the implementation of programs for its “victims.” This was initially conceived by donors as a servicedelivery role. But gradually, and often as a result of pressure from NGOs, they came to be seen by some donors “as innovators for state policies; as active participants in the formulation, financing, and implementation stages; and as vehicles for greater citizen participation” (Rutherford 1997). The NGOs themselves often spoke in the name of “civil society” and this encouraged donors to talk of civil society programs when what they still meant was service delivery and privatized welfare through NGOs. By the early 1990s, it was clear to donors that many NGOs still lacked the levels of efficiency and institutionalization that could make them the technical instruments for policy implementation they required. NGO capacity building became a funding theme for donors. Many NGOs retained a critical stance toward their governments when donors were attempting to build a rapprochement. They viewed the democratization processes in the region as deeply flawed. Governments still represented the interests of the elites and engaged in authoritarian and clientelist practices. Ethnic discrimination, gender inequality, social crime, political violence, ongoing impunity for the human rights crimes of the past, and overt and huge disparities in wealth and opportunity discredited the democratization processes for many people in the region. Voter apathy and disenchantment with government were growing throughout Latin America. After the initial euphoria at the return to civilian rule, donors began to accept that social inequality remained a major problem for Latin American development and democratization, and that institutional reform was a pre-

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requisite if governments were to build legitimacy, eradicate corruption, and promote a more equitable form of development. Donors began to focus on how NGOs might be encouraged to play an advocacy role and persuade and pressure governments in the region to respond to citizens’ demands for reform. They also began to shift their conception that NGOs were the only instrument for this. They began to question the legitimacy as well as effectiveness of some NGOs and to talk of the broader “civil society.” NGOs, in the meantime, began to confront their own crises of identity. The easy phase of donor funding in Latin America had been phased out and aid budgets were declining.20 They had lost credibility and legitimacy among many grassroots organizations for accepting the initial service-delivery role that donors had allocated them rather than challenging the neoliberal policy framework. These organizations were increasingly questioning the role of the professionals who spoke in their name. Dependency on the declining sources of external funding remained high however, and donors were able to play a critical role in trying to build what they came to call the “civil society sector” in Latin America. They did so on the basis of an analysis that state-society relationships were in the process of profound change in the region, and that it was possible to overcome the polarization of the past and build serious partnerships among civil society, the state, and the market. Civil society was accorded a critical role as advocate of institutional reform, policy change, and government accountability. Reconceptualizing state-society relationships: A shift in the balance. The period of authoritarian rule created a watershed in Latin American associationalism that became apparent as each country of the region returned to elected civilian government. For the first time associationalism could claim a life of its own, relatively independent of party, state, and clientelist mediation. However, the depth, strength, character, and implications of this change varied enormously across the region. In addition, the lack of political articulation, the impact of economic liberalization, and a loss of clear focus for action had left it weak and fragmented. Intepretations of the character of the change become themselves political when translated into externally funded programs, particularly programs that reached beyond the NGO to a broad conceptualization of “civil society.” Was the epoch of social movements and collective action over in Latin America, to be replaced by depoliticized interest groups operating in the institutionalized spaces made available to them “from above”? Or had collective action taken new forms but remained committed to radical change? Responses to these questions form the assumptions that donors chose to make in their civil society strengthening programs. Mainstream academic literature on democratic transition and consolidation had tended to see “civil society” as a temporary mobilizing force—

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the “populace” on the streets—that helped bring about the democratic transition. This literature was informed by its focus on elite pacts, institutions, and stability (O’Donnell and Schmitter 1986).21 It promoted the idea that civil society would (and should) withdraw once democratization was achieved and convert itself into institutionalized groups that could strengthen the stability of the new order. By the early 1990s, O’Donnell (1994) acknowledged that the democratization process in Latin America was seriously flawed by the persistence of particulars in Latin American political life, such as clientelism, but he did not focus on the arena outside the state as a potential active component in challenging these practices (Pearce 1997). Other writers did study the character of this arena, in particular the role of social activism, social movements, and “subaltern politics,” not just the more privileged NGO sector. Sidney Tarrow locates social movements in the realm of contentious politics (Tarrow 1998). 22 Collective action becomes contentious when “it is used by people who lack regular access to institutions, who act in the name of new or unaccepted claims, and who behave in ways that fundamentally challenge others or authorities” (Tarrow 1998: 3). Democratization in Latin America opened up public spaces and granted freedom to organize without fear of repression. However, it did not necessarily make it easier for the poor, semiliterate populations, marginalized on grounds of race, ethnicity, or gender, to influence either public policy or the broad development aims of the society, in other words, to act as a strong rather than weak public (Fraser 1994). Some social movement theorists did argue that social movements were beginning to “expand the boundaries of institutional politics [and] resignify the very meanings of received notions of citizenship, political representation and participation, and, as a consequence, democracy itself” (Alvarez, Dagnino, and Escobar 1998: 1). Other authors, however, began to talk of the disappearance of the “new social movement.” Andrés Thompson, for instance, writing about Argentina, claimed: “The new social movements which had emerged during the previous decade [1976–1983] tended to disappear, leaving behind a wide array of organizations concerned with youth, women, human rights and neighbourhoods” (Thompson 1997: 401). The argument appears to center on the extent to which social movements had transformed into more institutionalized associational forms, with greater access to public policy channels and willingness to use them. Some insights into this are provided by Leonardo Avritzer’s study of voluntary associations in Brazil. He suggests that these are the contemporary form of institutionalization of the claims of social movement actors. He and a number of colleagues have traced their extraordinary growth in numbers and character in Brazil.23 But Avritzer finds that the nature of the claims they make remains primarily collective and transformatory rather than self-inter-

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ested and material. His research found that in a survey of 311 respondents from 159 voluntary associations in the Belo Horizonte and São Paulo, over 36 percent put working for some form of social change as their main motivation for participation. Self-interested motivations around improving material conditions were low on the list (Avritzer 1998). These voluntary associations, argues Avritzer, preserved and legally institutionalized the two main elements introduced by social movements during the previous decade: autonomy and the concern with democratic forms of participation. There has not only been a change in the pattern of association in Brazil, but also a change which took place at the societal level in a tradition of making material claims through political mediators, in accepting forms of fusion between state and society and in being favourable to unipersonal forms of political leadership. In all . . . cases there has been a renewal of a democratic potential at the civil level, the question being how this democratic potential can be utilized to broaden the existing democratic arrangements in the country. (Avritzer 1998: 17)

The Brazilian experience cannot be generalized across South America. In Chile, the strength of political parties continued to limit autonomy and participation in the societal arena (Oxhorn 1995); in Mexico, historic traditions of clientelism between the single dominant political party and the poor remained deeply embedded in cultural norms as well as political practices (Fox 1994). 24 In Colombia, the struggle for autonomous, civilian social organizing continued to cost the lives of social leaders and activists. Even in Brazil, the range of social movement politics remained extensive, with the landless peasant movement continuing to engage in mobilization politics and land occupations, even when urban associations tried to find new means of influencing those with power. However, it does suggest a possible explanation for the ongoing vibrancy of associationalism in Latin America despite the problems it continued to face. Movement leaders were adapting to new contexts. They were attempting to access a new range of resources and opportunities, taking advantage of the political spaces that opened up as a result of their own pressure and changes in the national and international political context. They were attempting, in other words, to pursue their change agendas in new ways while not abandoning the old forms. As Tarrow has pointed out, movements do not only contend nor is contention limited only to movements. But he observes, Despite their growing expertise in lobbying, legal challenges and public relations, the most characteristic actions of social movements continue to be contentious challenges. This is not because movement leaders are psychologically prone to violence but because they lack the stable

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resources—money, organization, access to the state—that interest groups and parties control. (Tarrow 1998: 5)

Social movements, voluntary associations, and even many NGOs working with them, on the whole remained deeply political organizations in posttransition Latin America, concerned with the overall direction of their society as much as particular policy issues. What we would call empirical civil society in Latin America was indeed going through complex transformations whose ultimate impact on politics and democracy in the region remains to be seen. We have not discussed here the many changes also taking place among business associations and between them and the state. Donors have begun to take an interest in this sector, but their main funding focus has been associations of the poor or those working with them. They observed that change was taking place among social movements and voluntary associations and that they were relevant actors along with NGOs. They aim to strengthen these organizations but at the same time direct them toward an agenda of institutional reform in Latin America in the context of economic liberalization. How did donors conceptualize these empirical organizations of civil society and design their programs to strengthen them? And what impact has this had on the ability of these organizations to maintain and pursue their own transformatory goals? Large external donors tend not to disaggregate the civil society arena and explore its complex dynamics and interactions. What matters to them is the perceived role of the whole, albeit an internally pluralistic whole. This whole is referred to as the civil society sector, or the nonprofit or third sector. Their objective is to forge greater harmony within it and among it, the state, and the private sector. Partnership in public policy formation is seen as a sign that the previous epoch of antagonism among the sectors is over. The removal of the overpoliticized, contestatory element in associational life is viewed as enhancing the democratic process. In its place, the state and business have to listen to organized citizens, capable of articulating demands for integrity and accountability in public institutions. Toward civil society strengthening programs. Lester Salamon and Helmut Anheier have recognized what they call a “duality” in the character of Latin American associationalism. They see this as a problem to be overcome so that the sector can fulfill its “true” function: In a sense, two separate nonprofit sectors exist in this region—one of them composed of more traditional charitable organizations and other agencies linked to the social and economic elite and the other associated with the relatively newer forms of grassroots organizations and so-called “non-governmental organizations” (NGOs) that support them. (Salamon and Anheier 1999: 17)

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The authors conclude that the second of these is gaining ground over the former. They put forward four strategies for overcoming the duality. The first consists of making the “sector” a reality, and even the concept of civil society helps create a sense of belonging to a whole. The second is capacity building: “Latin America is ripe for a major nonprofit sector capacity-building campaign to bring the less formal part of the region’s civil society sector more fully into a position to operate on a par with the more traditional part, and with partners in government and the business sector.” A third recommendation is to seek ways of overcoming ongoing strains between the nonprofit sector and the state, in which links with the business sector can offer a counterweight to dependence on the state. Finally, the authors call for more progress in bringing nonprofit organizations into the process of public policy formulation and implementation. The authors want grassroots movements and NGOs to have greater capacity (equal to more privileged groups) to influence the public arena. Armed with de Tocqueville, Putnam, and Salamon and Anheier, and the rapidly growing body of country studies from the Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project, external donors have tended to agree that Latin America is “ripe for major non-profit capacity building” and for the promotion of partnerships and concertatión.25 These are the two major components of civil society strengthening initiatives in the region.26 Donors and Civil Society Strengthening The final section looks at the way donors have tried to put civil society strengthening into practice and explores the problems inherent in the concept of partnership, which donors have identified as a major objective of their programs. Quantification, categorization, and mapping. The development of civil society strengthening programs was preceded by efforts to quantify the emergence of the “sector.” A paper prepared by the Inter-American Development Bank in 1997 based on official government registries of nonprofit organizations found national country data available for only Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic. Extrapolating from these to Latin America as a whole (excluding Cuba and Haiti), the authors estimated a total of 667,600 organizations in Latin America or 1.47 per 1,000 inhabitants (Schearer and Tomlinson 1997: 9). 27 This does not include unregistered, informal grassroots organizations, which the authors estimate could number at least 350,000. Altogether, they suggest there could be as many as one million civil society organizations active in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Johns Hopkins Nonprofit Sector Study of Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru (part-funded by the IDB)

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produced an interesting breakdown of the field of activities of organizations registered in each country in 1995 in order to meet its criteria of “nonprofit.”28 The predominance of educational aims is apparent: 44 percent have this objective, while only 7 percent are development-oriented organizations. Consultation and national dialogue. “During the hard economic crises of the 1980s, Latin America was quietly undergoing an opening-up, building a consensus in favour of consultation and dialogue” (InterAmerican Development Bank 1994b). The IDB under its president Enrique Iglesias played an important role in legitimizing civil society as a “partner” in efforts to place poverty and social inequality at the heart of poststructural adjustment development policy in Latin America. Many Latin American governments remained reluctant to acknowledge the idea of an autonomous societal arena, and the IDB could not proceed without their agreement and collaboration. In Guadalajara in April 1994, Iglesias persuaded governments to agree to the largest increase in resources in the IDB’s history, in which poverty alleviation and social inequity were the major targets and civil society a major means for achieving them (Inter-American Development Bank 1994b). From the beginning, the IDB linked the strengthening of civil society to the modernization and reform of the state. A State and Civil Society Reform Unit was set up at the end of 1994 within the bank, usually referred to as the Civil Society Unit. It was assumed that the development of the third sector (defined as private, not-for-profit organizations with a public purpose) had become a desirable objective for the state (Oliveira 1997: viii).29 The promotion of legal reform to ensure that groups had access to government officials was encouraged by the IDB. A conference was held in Buenos Aires in October 1995, sponsored by the IDB and UNDP, on the regulatory context of civil society in South America. The IDB faced complex problems of how civil society organizations could participate in its projects. Some had hoped that it might create a special fund for civil society, which would facilitate direct funding to civil society organizations. This did not happen. Instead, the bank aimed to develop mechanisms through which such organizations could access their mainstream loans (Reilly 1997: 29–66). This avoided the risk that such organizations would access only a small source of funds that would quickly dissipate among them all. It also required dialogue and agreement between civil society organizations and the governments to whom the IDB made loans, around an antipoverty agenda. The civil society initiative of the bank was always subject to the IDB’s fundamental imperatives as a development bank. The case for involving civil society had to be accepted by skeptical national governments, IDB country representatives, and the technocrats in

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the bank in Washington. They needed persuading that it would improve the bank’s efficiency. This instrumental argument was put in a draft document from the Civil Society Unit, in an attempt to persuade the skeptics to develop a serious program incorporating the civil society dimension into mainstream bank lending: The Civil Society Program builds on the comparative advantage of the Bank which efficiently moves capital through dialogue and operations with member governments. The program builds on the hypothesis, gaining increasing acceptance throughout the region, that effective flows for sustainable human development will henceforth rely to a much greater degree on the participation of for-profit and not-for-profit organizations in the member countries. The Unit is helping the Bank explore with governments the hypothesis that, besides small project facilities and occasional concessional loans, partnerships between governments and organized citizens can improve the management and application of ordinary capital operations of the Bank. State reform and citizen participation can contribute to “business as usual” (and, we will argue “better business”) of the Bank, rather than constituting a drain on its resources or remaining a token concessional activity. (Reilly et al. 1996: 2–3)

Between 1994 and 1996 the IDB, in collaboration with a number of U.S.-based organizations involved in civil society strengthening, organized a series of important encounters in Latin America, aimed at exploring potential partnerships. An initial conference in the wake of the Guadalajara meeting was organized in September 1994 in Washington on the role of civil society in complementing the state and market in national, social, and economic development. Both UNDP and USAID participated. In the meantime, two other U.S.-based organizations, the Synergos Institute and CIVICUS, began dialogue with civil society organizations in the region. CIVICUS sponsored a regional conference in Rio de Janeiro in October 1994 and in December 1996 jointly organized with Synergos a consultation in Washington with Latin American social leaders. A Latin American Social Leaders Working Group on Civil Society was formed and a strategic objective identified: Based on the experiences in each of their countries, the group unanimously agreed that a greatly strengthened civil society, working in partnership with government and the business sector, is essential to successfully address regional poverty and social development in the decades ahead. In addition, they determined that the assistance and resources needed to strengthen the sector must be provided by both private civil society organizations and public sector agencies. The groups concluded that, in order to facilitate such joint action in countries of the region, national dialogues were needed among civil society representatives, national government representatives, the IDB and other donor agencies. (Synergos Institute 1996: 1)

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The Synergos Institute and CIVICUS also organized consultations in South America (Brazil, December 1995; Colombia, October 1995 and March 1996; and Mexico, January 1996). These were half funded by the IDB. A further conference organized by the Latin American Association of Promotion Organizations (ALOP) brought together representatives from Central America and the Dominican Republic in Costa Rica in November 1995. In 1996, additional consultations took place also in the Englishspeaking Caribbean, Guatemala, and Venezuela. Problematizing partnership. The outcomes of these consultations are illustrative of the great difficulties of assuming that the Latin American state and business sector were seriously open to partnership with an autonomous and diverse civil society. The most active elements within the latter, many of whom came out of leftist movements, had not accepted that such a shift had really taken place. Many were unwilling to continue implementing or to support antipoverty programs that did not allow them to challenge the causes of poverty. They were more pragmatic than in the past and participated actively in the national dialogues. But reports of each consultative process reveal the many problems that remain in the real world of Latin American politics. The Brazilian and Colombian cases offer good examples of this complexity. The Brazilian consultation took place in the most positive environment in terms of the attitude of the state. The country’s intellectual president was very familiar with the discussion on civil society (Cardoso 1989). Ruth Cardoso, his wife, also a sociologist, presided over a federal government antipoverty program, Comunidade Solidaria. This aimed at creating a partnership among federal, state, and local governments and civil society; the Government and Civil Society Council included representatives of twentyone civil society organizations (Landim 1997: 67–106). However, many of these organizations and ABONG, the NGO coordinating body in Brazil, had serious criticisms of the inadequacy of the program and its failure to tackle seriously the social problems of the country. Important social leaders, such as Herbert de Souza, who had promoted the antihunger mobilization in the early 1990s, had withdrawn from the council after a year. The level of distrust persisted in the consultations (Landim 1997: 92). There was an undercurrent of tension between the expectation that “civil society” would deliver services and its inability to do so on the mass scale necessary. In addition, many wanted to prioritize the advocacy work that they considered an essential part of their existence but which brought them into frequent confrontation rather than partnership with the government. The Colombian consultation was felt to have taken place in a more favorable context than would have been conceivable in the past. The 1991 constitution had formally at least opened spaces for greater participation of

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civil society in the planning of local, departmental, and national development: “[The] Constitution recognises that a strong civil society is a fundamental pillar in the creation of a more democratic, participatory order” (Synergos Institute 1996: 4). There is no mention, however, of the real world in which Colombian grassroots organizations and NGOs operate, in particular the absence of the rule of law and the high levels of violence against social activists and those NGOs that focus on human rights and community empowerment. The distinctions between “assistential” (that is, concerned with charitable assistance to the poor), developmental, and empowerment associations of civil society matter considerably in this real world, determining access to state institutions, degree of autonomy from patronage systems, and the ability to occupy a public space without fear (Gaviria, Alvarez, and Castillo 1998: 119–144).30 There were some positive outcomes to the consultations, particularly in terms of “softening” government attitudes toward voluntary associations, legitimizing them, and encouraging mutual understanding. The Mexican Senate, for example, convened a subcommittee on the “New State-Civil Society Relationship.” However, the capacity of the Mexican political system, still dominated by a hegemonic single party, to absorb and politically disarm its critics is legendary. The impact of this party’s electoral defeat in 2000 remains to be seen. In drawing conclusions from the consultation process as a whole, Enrique Valencia Lomeli identified four limitations (Valencia 1997: 269– 283). The first is the relative novelty of the idea of partnership between CSOs and government, in particular, the lack of systematization and evaluation of the participation of CSOs in social policy and implementation. Second, he points to the ongoing mistrust within governmental departments but also within some CSOs. He argues that rather than explore their own limitations, many of the latter prefer to remain mostly critical of the development role of governments. Third, he identifies real tensions among CSOs themselves and their great heterogeneity and lack of consensus. With which CSOs should the government enter into dialogue? While the plurality of CSOs is part of its richness, its also raises serious problems of representation. Finally he points to the complex realities within states. Most governments lack a common policy toward CSOs, and while decentralization has taken place, this is not through the adoption of a clearly defined national policy. Different ministries adopt different positions, and in the Colombian case, for example, despite constitutional advances, the ministry responsible had still not implemented the law that was designed to stimulate and regulate citizen participation. For these reasons and many others, the Civil Society Unit of the IDB had great difficulty proving its case and moving from a marginal position within the bank with no implementation role. This was despite efforts to translate the consultations into a practical program of incorporating civil

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society into the bank’s antipoverty priorities (Reilly et al. 1996). However, the ongoing problems of poverty, exclusion, and social violence have remained serious concerns for bilateral and multilateral donors, together with the institutional crises, endemic corruption, and ineffectiveness of the state in Latin America. They cannot abandon civil society. An active, campaigning citizenry remains a critical weapon in the reform of the state. Development processes need effective implementation mechanisms, delivered by organizations dedicated to the antipoverty agenda. How can donors maintain their links with governments and win the trust of those governments’ critics? How can NGOs and grassroots organizations take advantage of the spaces donors encourage them to occupy, while retaining their own agenda, and thus their legitimacy with the poor and marginalized populations they speak for? Is the assumption justified that state-society relationships in Latin America have shifted sufficiently for serious dialogue to take place between representatives of each?

Conclusion Changes have taken place in the relationship between state and society in Latin America. There is evidence of an unprecedented associational dynamic in society, among the poor and middle sectors with change agendas of all kinds. Unlike in the past, this is more autonomous from political leaders, party bosses, and state structured spaces. It is less concerned with taking state power and more with influencing the direction and priorities of government and making it accountable. This is partly a reflection of the crisis of political parties in many countries of the region. The left has been particularly affected in this sense, as the revolutionary ideologies around which it mobilized in the past are no longer credible for many poor people in delivering real changes in their daily lives. In addition, the cost of struggling for them was huge in terms of loss of life and trauma. No one wants a return to the violence of previous decades, which left scars on the collective memories of many Latin Americans and continues to blight the lives of those living in the countries and regions where conflict continues, such as Colombia, northeastern Brazil, and southern Mexico. Those who continue to act in the public arena have sought to use existing opportunities and spaces even if they do not guarantee macrolevel transformations. Local, municipal initiatives are particularly dynamic today (see Arancibia, Marin, Pearce, and Prado 1999). This does not mean that they have abandoned a transformatory agenda or political struggle. But there is a palpable desire for concrete changes and realizable goals in the short to medium term. In short, we can with some confidence argue that there is a notable “democratic potential at the civil level” (Avritzer 1998) in Latin America today.

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However, the reality remains very complex, both within empirical civil society and in its ability to influence the formal political arena. Dynamism and activism is not the same as strength, capacity, and real power. The sector of empirical civil society in Latin America we are discussing remains fragile, fragmented, and disarticulated. Its strategic objectives are unclear. It cannot abandon the politics of contention while power structures in the region remain so weighted against it. In addition, the vast numbers of unorganized people in the region remain vulnerable to populist appeals of all kinds, a resurgence of which is also notable in the region in the early twenty-first century. International donors have brought to this situation a set of assumptions and propositions of their own. They have wanted to strengthen democratization processes and the building of mechanisms for citizen participation and government accountability. Building sustainable democratic processes is now considered by donors to be associated with urgent tasks of poverty alleviation and development. More controversial and less acceptable to many grassroots organizations and their NGO allies is the linking of these ends with neoliberal economic restructuring and the integration of the region into the global economy. The critique of neoliberalism and the way it has driven globalization continues to grow in Latin America among many social organizations and NGOs. They sense that while governments and donors might grant them a role in welfare and service delivery, they resist any real challenge to the economic policies at the macrolevel or the local structures of power that underpin them. They see donors as part of the power structure of a global economy from which the majority derive few benefits. They also sense that were they to challenge seriously the wealth and power of Latin America’s upper classes, both governments and donors would rapidly abandon ideas of partnership and dialogue. In order to translate the idea of civil society strengthening into policy and practical programs, donors have to “bracket off” the difficulties of the real world. It could be argued that this is the only way anything could be achieved. In other words, donors have to “act as if” partnership and concertación are possible. In so doing, they encourage pragmatic collaboration around concrete goals, out of which better understanding and mutual engagement might emerge. The hope is that over time, governments and civil society organizations will learn to work together. However, while they “bracket off” the power relations of the real world, donors also use their funds to reshape associational forms so that they will come to play the parts allotted them in the drama. These reflect a script written mostly in the United States. In order to ensure that governments will trust NGOs and grassroots movements, these have to become less “critical” and less “political.” In order for technocrats within donor institutions to be convinced that these organizations can “deliver” services

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effectively, they have to be trained and professionalized. In order to become effective advocates at the public level, the shift away from contestation has to be encouraged. There are many opportunistic organizations who accept uncritically this “capacity-building agenda.” There are others who recognize the danger to a newly discovered value of autonomy. This danger is that they convert into externally dependent pressure groups, increasingly divorced from their own social base. Some donors do recognize this risk. In addition their ability to fund their civil society programs is not infinite in the context of the decline in aid budgets generally. This has led them to search for a philanthropic tradition among the Latin American business sector. They are also exploring the potential role of Southern grantmaking foundations in civil society strengthening, and see greater potential for this in Latin America than elsewhere (Draimin and Smillie 1999). However, there is insufficient evidence that the Latin American business sector as a whole has shifted its mentality to put an ethical agenda before a commercial one, although some are more receptive than others. There are limits to the impact of any external donor on a society’s development. But there is evidence from Latin America that efforts by donors to strengthen civil society while employing a teleology derived from U.S. experiences can actually be negative. An important volume of reflections from Latin America, based on nine country case studies of institutional strengthening and development NGOs, suggests that Latin American NGOs feel they have put their change agenda at risk by succumbing to donor agendas (Valderrama and Coscio 1998). In brief, we would question the desirability of donor civil society strengthening in Latin America and its ability to fulfill its objectives. In general large multilateral donors do not share the change objectives and values of the grassroots movements of Latin America and their NGO allies, except on a limited range of issues. By encouraging “partnerships” in poverty alleviation and funding capacity-building programs to turn them into “effective” partners acceptable to governments, donors separate them from change objectives and accountability to their own social base. Latin American grassroots organizations and NGOs need support in developing their own agendas and strategic objectives, not in implementing those of external donors. This undoubtedly includes internal discussion about their own commitment to democratic practices and ethical norms.

Conclusion of Regional and Country Case Studies The regional case studies in the book highlight some of the problems arising when donors implement civil society projects and programs in particu-

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lar contexts with diverse histories, cultures, colonial legacies, state structures, and economic potential. The case of China points to a number of fundamental problems in investing an inevitable teleology into empirical civil society. In a context where the party-state continues to dominate social life, albeit in a less direct and oppressive fashion than in the prereform period, the development of civil society is constrained. Civil society organizations have to maintain working and positive relations with the party-state so as to minimalize interference and protect their space to operate. Thus although the market can stimulate the emergence of civil society, the case of China also points to the role of the state in fostering a more autonomous intermediary sector, especially where this takes on functions that might otherwise be carried out by the state. Given China’s semicolonial history and the subsequent legacy of distrust that shadows China’s dealings with Western governments, donors can less easily exert influence on domestic social relations than they can in more aid-dependent countries. As the United States is the largest funder of civil society projects and USAID does not operate in China, then it is not surprising that the number of explicit civil society strengthening programs is low. The Chinese government has resisted using the concept of civil society and has carefully translated the term nongovernmental organization so as to avoid any political connotations of opposition to the party-state. Chinese intellectuals, too, have expressed frustration with the inadequacy of Western social science terms for explaining and describing processes of social change in China. The notion of the third sector, though still a Western term, is likely to be far more appealing to the party as it is devoid of any political ambiguities and neatly dovetails with the party’s goal of “a small government, big society.” The point is that civil society does not automatically gain social relevance and meaning as an explanatory or descriptive concept, even though it may in fact adequately describe certain empirical formations. The concept has first to be owned before it can have any political significance. In contexts where donors have a significant influence on civil society organizations, then the issues of local ownership and autonomy become paramount. In postconflict Guatemala donor agencies played a key role in mediating the peace process and supporting diverse civil society organizations. Yet the idea of civil society long predated the arrival of donors in peace building. Civil society had already been deployed as an idea that articulated aspirations for a civilian and democratic state committed to social and economic justice. This local vision was never theorized but had distinct components to the Western liberal one. Once donors began to back their vision with dollars, however, the local vision was fragmented before it had time to develop. Competition and division among urban-based organizations was fomented at the same time as old forms of political articulation

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collapsed. Local organizations looked vertically upward to donors, weakening their downward ties with their social base and horizontal links with other like-minded groups. The tendency was to the depoliticization of the activist community and their conversion into institution builders, whose ability to impact on either democracy or development in Guatemala remained limited. In this instance donor support for civil society had the inadvertent effect of derailing and inhibiting the development of local visions of civil society. Similarly in postsocialist Central Asia and sub-Saharan African countries some civil society organizations are heavily dependent on donor funding, and in some cases, even owe their existence to donors. Donor imperatives and preconceptions lead them to select and favor partnerships that most mirror Western models and guarantee some measurable results. In the case of many sub-Saharan African countries this leads donors to cast organizations based on kinship or ethnic ties as “traditional,” “backward,” and inimical to civil society, as unsuitable for partnerships. In this way they overlook the social relations that lubricate processes of empirical institutional development and social change. In turn local groups dependent on donor funding begin to mimic donor rhetoric and shape their activities and programs around donor objectives. These processes end up weakening the capacity of groups to develop their own goals and objectives, their own vision of achieving social change. As illustrated in the case of Central Asia the new civil society groups are tenuously linked to local societies, especially to rural communities. The norms and values they express have not emerged out of deep local experiences. Their lack of rootedness and donor dependence raises crucial issues about their financial sustainability and long-term viability. In the case of Latin America, donor emphasis on concertación or partnerships with government and the private sector can have a negative impact on agendas to deepen democratization. In particular it can reduce activism and limit the critical dimension so essential to such an agenda. Latin America has a long history of strong associational life, which reflects the deep divisions in a region characterized by stark inequality. Battles over the region’s development path have been bloody. The civil society agenda of donors coincided with the defeat of national state-led development and the weakening of social and political organizations linked to this path. Initially the NGO sector grew rapidly and exponentially as a channel for social funds. By the 1990s the idea had grown that a strong civil society could both push further processes of democratization still flawed by vestiges of corrupt and clientelistic policies and promote a new agenda around issues of socioeconomic equality and human rights. As the most “Western” of the regions of the South in its postcolonial history and culture, Latin America is the most receptive to the political

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ideas in which civil society is embedded. But it also has strong roots in the alternative genealogy outlined in Chapter 2. Its own deep polarizations are reflected in the fragmentation and identity crisis that many NGOs experience. As funding declines and donors become stricter and more rigid in their criteria for choosing partners, some local NGOs are increasingly torn as to whether to accept donor funding and on what terms. Those with a strong commitment to social change and a strong desire to maintain an indigenous and political agenda for achieving it are reluctant to accept the partnership path offered by donors. In the end civil society programs enter on a historically and socially formed stage where contested visions of social change are enacted. The role of donors is likewise historically and socially situated.

Notes 1. For a review of the influence of donors in Ugandan contemporary political economy and civil society, see Olaka-Onyango 1998. 2. Ekeh (1998: 87–109) makes a similar argument, referring to “two publics” in Africa: one is a primordial public, which is moral, and the other is a civic public, which is amoral. 3. For example the United States provided U.S.$338 million in aid between 1985 and 1993, all of which went to NGOs, mainly to fight apartheid (USAID/ South Africa 1995: 1, quoted in Hearn 1999: 9). 4. In 1997 52 percent of USAID support to South Africa went to the South African government, but USAID continued to support civil society organizations that served as watchdogs on the government, such as the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (Hearn 1999: 10). 5. These were the Kenyan Human Rights Commission, the Centre for Governance and Development, the Research and Civic Awareness Program, and the International Federation of Women’s Lawyers. 6. Hearn (1999: 10) makes a similar point. She cites the example of the U.S.supported project Enhancing Civil Society Effectiveness at the Local Level in Ghana, which is one of a very few donor projects to focus on rural civil society. 7. Olaka-Onyango and Barya (1997) also point to the way donor support of civil society excludes a large part of actually existing civil society. 8. For a general introduction to the history and politics of Central Asia see Allworth (1989). 9. Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan became union republics in 1925, Tajikistan in 1931, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in 1936. 10. The government’s own figures estimated 35 percent of the population as poor in 1989, rising to 80 percent in 1993 (see Howell 1998: 133). 11. The doctors had undergone a training program with Counterpart Consortium and decided to set up the group so as to better identify patients’ needs and protect their interests. 12. Bailey (1999: 104) makes a similar point with reference to Brazil. He suggests that the process of fundraising would push the organization to broaden its constituency, legitimize its work publicly, and also bring out changes in the attitudes of society.

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13. The mahalla is a form of local territorial and religious government in urban and rural areas. The mahalla is headed by a committee of elders. It runs local affairs, supports religious schools, ensures adherence to Shariat law functions, and deals with economic matters such as irrigation and housing (Spolnikov 1994, in Malik 1994: 105). 14. Contemporary historians of the political landscape of the early nineteenth century have echoed de Tocqueville. Cf. Anthony Pagden: “Bolivar’s mistake was to have hoped, despite himself, that men could be made into citizens by the force of constitutional arrangements alone. But constitutions (pace Rousseau) can be made compelling only when some form of civil society is powerfully present” (Pagden 1990: 151). 15. Chile is an exception to the general pattern, insofar as liberal currents succeeded in modifying authoritarian government structures and establishing political party competition and a constitutional political system by 1870. Nevertheless power remained politically centralized, elitist, and exclusionary in social terms. 16. For a more detailed discussion of the influence of Gramsci on civil society thinking see Pearce (1997) and Baker (1998). 17. One study has sought to show that these private research centers played an important role in extending pluralism both to higher education and to society in general. Along with evidence of the rise of broader nonprofit organizations, the author argues that corporatism began to give way to pluralism in Latin America (Levy 1996). 18. Bebbington and Farrington (1993: 202) refer to the new type of NGO as “non-politicised yuppie NGOs . . . rooted in the economic displacement of middle class professionals from both public and private sectors.” 19. The Inter-American Foundation identified 11,000 NGOs in Latin America and the Caribbean by the early 1990s (Carroll 1992: 2). 20. It was the beginning, wrote Mariano Valderrama, of the vacas flacas (thin cows), “accompanied by a crisis of NGO identity” (Valderrama 1997: 59). 21. See J. Pearce (1997) for an analysis of the debate on civil society in the democratic transition and consolidation literature. 22. “Contentious politics occur when ordinary people, often in league with more influential citizens, join forces in confrontations with elites, authorities, and opponents” (Tarrow 1998: 2). 23. Avritzer’s study, and that of other colleagues of voluntary associations in the major cities of Brazil (São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Belo Horizonte) by decade since the 1940s, found that whereas 596 were created between 1941 and 1950, 3,588 were created between 1971 and 1980, and 6,658 were set up between 1981 and 1990. Neighborhood associations particularly increased in number after the mid-1970s. Some associations entirely new to these cities emerged in this period too. Of the associations of health professionals in São Paulo, 92.5 percent were created after 1970, as were 76 percent of lawyers’ associations in Rio de Janeiro (1998). 24. See also entire edition on Mexico of the journal Sociedad Civil, 1997. 25. Concertación is the process of getting parties to agree on common proposals and action. 26. This chapter focuses much more on the theme of “partnership” in civil society strengthening programs. The case study of Guatemala analyzes in more detail the problems of the capacity-building agenda of donors. 27. Schearer and Tomlinson used the international classification of nonprofit organizations developed under the auspices of the Johns Hopkins Comparative Non-Profit Sector Study as the basis for their understanding of the programmatic

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fields of efforts of civil society, and a broad definition of nongovernmental nonprofit interest groups derived from that study. 28. These are organized, private, self-governing, nonprofit distributing, and voluntary (Salamon and Anheier 1998: appendix). 29. This assumption had to be made in order to take the initiative forward; the reality as most recognized was much more complex. 30. The authors of this study identify 145,177 organizations in Colombia’s 1,007 municipalities. Of these 62 percent are assistance oriented, characterized by paternalist structures and insertion into the traditional clientelist pattern of Colombian political life. Only 12 percent fall into the “empowerment” category.

9 Conclusion

This book set out to explore critically the way civil society has entered development thinking, policy, and practice as a paradigmatic concept of the twenty-first century. It has traced the historical path leading to the encounter between the ideas of development and civil society in the late 1980s and how donors have translated these into development policy and programs. In doing so it has interrogated the normative assumptions donors make about the relationships between civil society, the state, and the market and examined the translation of these normative assumptions into practical efforts to strengthen civil society. Through detailed studies of Guatemala and the People’s Republic of China as well as summary reviews of subSaharan Africa, Central Asia, and Latin America the book has underlined not just the historical and cultural specificity of empirical civil societies but also the importance of thinking politically about civil society. In this concluding chapter we first draw attention to the key findings of the book and then consider the implications of these findings for those who wish to engage both theoretically and practically with the concept of civil society.

Key Findings Competing Normative Visions of Civil Society The first key finding is that there are competing normative visions about the role of civil society in relation to the state and market both among donors and within the societies where donors are operating. The paradigmatic shift away from the duality of state and market toward a triadic 229

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model of state, civil society, and market is now generally accepted. However there are different positions regarding the desired relations between the three nodes of this conceptual trinity. We identified two broad positions encompassing what we refer to as “mainstream” and “alternative” approaches, neither of which, we emphasized, is homogeneous or entirely consistent. The first of these, the mainstream approach, had by the dawn of the twenty-first century established a commitment to socially responsible capitalism. Although this contrasts in significant ways with the ideological neoliberalism of the 1980s, it continues to uphold the free market as the fundamental principle of economic organization. For neoliberals the state’s role should be minimal, democratic, guarantee the individual rights of property, and protect negative freedoms. The “invisible hand” of the market is the prime principle of economic organization. Civil society, if it has a role, offers an equivalent societal invisible hand, whereby a moral order emerges from unwilled and self-regulating social interactions. The mainstream discourse that we argue has mostly displaced this extreme form of neoliberalism recognizes that a more proactive and visible hand might be needed to guarantee socially valued outcomes. This should not be an interventionist state. However, the state does need to take on basic minimal functions; it also ensures a regulatory framework that not only facilitates capital accumulation but also minimizes the negative effects of such accumulation on the environment and equity. In this scenario civil society is granted a key role. It is conceived as a sphere of active citizens, keeping a check on the transparency and accountability of the state and seeking solutions to common social problems together with the private economy. It even contributes to the economy through a myriad of nonprofit, income, and employment-generating activities. It generates the social integration that is endangered when individuals are given total freedom to pursue their self-interest and personal gain. The second normative vision of civil society, coined here as the alternative vision, argues that there is a basic mistrust of the assumed harmony among state, civil society, and market. This vision comprises a myriad of different critiques of development as growth, urbanization, and industrialization, of capitalism as the only route to economic development, and of the state as the prime authoritative agency of social and political order. In this vision civil society reflects a much broader intellectual and political space where alternative routes to economic prosperity and social justice can be explored. Here civil society is premised not on the notion of a utilitymaximizing, abstract (male) individual but on a recognition of the social nature of humankind, collective identities and goals, and solidarity. This second vision, we suggest, is a reinvention of the idea of civil society by peoples who did not participate in its original formulation in the late eigh-

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teenth century and who now challenge many of its premises and the influence they have had on thinking about development ever since. These different normative visions of civil society have deep historical roots in Western European political thought. They are reflected in the ways different donor agencies as well as individuals within development institutions engage with civil society. As discussed in Chapter 5, we note a shift within the World Bank from a neoliberal position toward the state and market to a triadic consensus model, which through the practice of partnerships strives toward responsible forms of capitalism. Still within this vision we detect variants, reflecting divergent histories of democracy and state intervention in the economy. Among NGOs there are also differences in the way they approach socially responsible capitalism. For those with civil society programs such as CIVICUS, the state is seen as the prime threat to civil society. For those that do not have specific civil society projects or that have long traditions of working with Southern groups espousing similar values, then civil society is a way also to challenge global capitalism through fair trade and debt reduction campaigns. The Politics of Civil Society The contestation of different normative visions discussed above underlines the politics of civil society discourse. The discourse is not neutral. Nor is it the case that empirical civil societies are internally devoid of power relations. Different social actors use the language of civil society, appropriate and adjust its meanings and empirical referents as part of a broader process of negotiating, and challenge power relations. When donors seek out partners to work through or to support, they are implicitly making political judgments about the location of these groups in processes of social and political change, their agendas, and their relations to other groups and actors in society. Yet the relations between donors and the groups supported are not premised on a basis of equality. Donors are usually better resourced and provide the material means for local groups to pursue some of their activities and goals. This material imbalance, as discussed in Chapters 5 to 8, can create relationships of dependency, whereby organizations receiving donor funding lose sight of their raison d’être and fashion their programs and objectives to donor requirements. In contexts where the alternative sources of finance for local NGOs and grassroots groups are limited, the pressure to compromise on purpose and means can be hard to resist. Although funding for civil society forms only a minute part of overall aid budgets and aid may make only a small contribution to a country’s gross domestic product, the impact of donor support on the budget of a local organization, or even sector, may be highly significant. It is well known that NGOs in many transitional countries and aid-dependent

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countries rely predominantly on donor funding as their lifeline of support. Donors thus can play a significant role in shaping the character of service provision and the development of civil society. Neither donors nor their partner beneficiaries should lose sight of these power relations. Distinguishing Civil Society as a Normative Concept and Empirical Reality Donors tend to elide civil society as a normative concept and civil society as an empirical reality. This elision is rooted in the notion that civil society is somehow socially neutral and beyond contestation. Yet, as discussed above, donors have their own normative visions about what civil society should look like, what it should do, and what it can achieve. Through programs of support and strengthening, donors deliberately and unwittingly project these visions onto the receivers of their funds. By failing to recognize these normative visions, donors do not properly analyze or appreciate the complexity of diverse empirical civil societies or the specific dynamics of local processes of social change. Once a rich and useful concept, civil society becomes a technical instrument for the implementation of donor agendas as if they were neutral in content and effect. Moreover, in seeking organizations to strengthen, donors start out with preconceived notions of what constitutes a civil society organization and develop high expectations about what such groups should do and could achieve. Donors are not alone in confusing the normative with the empirical. Local NGOs and grassroots organizations, too, have often elided these usages. But in failing to clarify their own normative visions of civil society, they have limited their ability to challenge donor agencies with different agendas and values. As a result they have not always ensured that civil society remains a useful concept for the articulation and realization of their own visions of social change. The elision of the normative and the empirical also becomes particularly problematic when trying to operationalize civil society. As discussed in Chapter 5 the assumed commonality of interests and purpose among state, civil society, and market in the consensus triadic model is quickly undermined once civil society groups begin to challenge the inequities reaped through private accumulation. International and local groups that campaign for changes in global economic relations soon confront the powers of transnational corporate capital and the cozy relation that such companies enjoy with national governments. Normatively state, market, and civil society should be able to function together in a way that enhances the overall public good. Empirically there can be considerable conflict among all three nodes of the trinity.

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Civil Society as a Local and Historical Process The regional and country case studies in the book highlight some of the problems arising when donors implement civil society projects and programs in particular contexts with diverse histories, cultures, colonial legacies, state structures, and economic potential. We draw attention to the dangers when donors ignore these contexts and assume that complex historical processes can be replicated by external donor interventions. The dangers range from depoliticizing voices for change; creating local organizations in the Western image but that lack local roots and legitimacy; and ignoring local organizational forms that do not fit Western schemas and models; to underestimating the importance of local ownership and autonomy. Overall, we detect in donor programs a lack of humility toward different cultural forms and practices and conversely an overestimation of what Western history and culture has to offer. Unveiling the Power of the Market Much of current discussion about civil society as well as donor funding has centered on the relationship between civil society and democratization. Moreover the process of democratization is debated primarily in relation to the state. In contrast there has been little attention given to the relationship between civil society and the market. Nor has the role of civil society in democratizing global economic relations and workplace practices been given serious attention. Salamon and Anheier’s work on quantifying and measuring civil society has served very usefully to reveal the economic role of the nonprofit sector. However it does not address the material inequalities that underpin civil society organizations or the role of such groups in alleviating poverty or reproducing patterns of economic and social hierarchy.

Implications of Key Findings The Need for Transparency Given that there are competing normative visions of civil society in Western European political thought and hence among donor agencies, it is imperative that donors make explicit their visions of civil society. This implies making transparent their notion of what constitutes civil society and the assumptions they make about the relations among civil society, democratization, and economic development. Similarly, there are also competing normative visions about democracy, social justice, development, and

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equality and different analyses and beliefs about how to achieve these, which may or may not draw on the concept of civil society. Donors need also to clarify their own visions and make explicit their assumptions about what and how civil society can contribute to processes of democratization and economic development in their own societies. In this way they can ensure that donor support for their own activities strengthens rather than weakens or distorts their own agendas. Recognizing the Politics of Civil Society If civil society is to function as an arena where values, ideas, government policies, and corporate actions are publicly contested, then we need to recognize that civil society is not a site of harmony, homogeneity, and conformity. There is a politics of civil society, which involves struggles over who legitimately participates in civil society, which ideas become dominant, the purposes of civil society, and how it relates to state and market actors. Donors need to recognize their own role as actors in the drama of civil society. They are not neutral players; nor can they act as impartial referees. They enter the scene in a historical and social context. Their contemporary intervention forms part of a longer historical trajectory of intervention, which has often been violent, exploitative, and oppressive. In many instances the same Western governments that now call for democracy and civil society kept in power authoritarian, military, and oppressive rulers, supporting counterinsurgency movements and turning a blind eye to blatant violations of human rights. Donors thus need to understand and be open about the historical preface to their civil society agendas and the factors conditioning their support for certain selected organizations within civil society. Distinguishing the Normative and the Empirical The tendency to elide the normative with the empirical could risk a sharp swing away from the current euphoria for civil society toward a deep disillusion. For donors and those on the receiving end of civil society projects and programs it is important that a pragmatic approach is taken to the capacity and potential of civil society. This in turn underlines point one above concerning the need for transparency and analysis regarding both the normative vision as well as actual capacities and social realities of existing civil societies. A failure to properly understand actually existing, or what we call empirical, civil societies means that donors may form partnerships with groups that are not central to processes of social and political change or that may be reinforcing existing patterns of power relations. Conversely

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they may overlook organizations formed along ethnic, kin, or clan principles as equivalent to tradition and backwardness that may play a role in achieving social justice and equality. At the same time they may fail to see the way apparently modern organizations are impregnated with primordial and clientelistic relations in similar ways to the central and local states or the market. Thinking Local The diversity and particularity of civil societies point to the need for donors to move beyond blueprints for realizing normative visions of civil society. There is an urgent need for contextualized political and social analyses that can properly inform donor interventions and the responses of civil society groups to donor approaches. This will require deconstructing the fetishisized notion of the NGO as the prime organizational vehicle for and manifestation of civil society and recognizing in turn that any form of organization is constituted by particular social and historical relations. There may be different associational ways of arriving at similar goals of social justice, equality, and probity. Forms of association have to be culturally and socially embedded. It also means recognizing the political role of aid in the host country and the broader historical role of Western governments. Such an analysis requires, too, a recognition that donor agencies are diverse in origin and purpose. Some international nongovernmental donors may have a long trajectory of working closely with local organizations espousing similar values and goals, supporting such groups in times of political oppression and in contrast to their own governments. Others may have a different past, perhaps not engaging at all with community groups or activists or supporting military and oppressive regimes. Thinking Aloud About Civil Society, Inequality, and Poverty The consenus trinity model of state, market, and civil society unquestioningly assumes a positive link between civil society and economic development, read capitalism. It is time the debate shifted toward exploring more critically the links between civil society and capitalism. Whom does civil society represent? How can the voices of the poor and vulnerable be articulated in civil society? What, if any, are the material preconditions for this? How can civil society act as a check on global corporate capital? It has long been recognized that there is a fundamental contradiction in a liberal democratic market economy between political and economic equality. Civil society has been much celebrated as a force for restraining despotic states, but

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we need to think much more strategically about how civil society can also be a force for holding despotic markets to account both locally and globally. The particular challenges for civil society to do so will in turn be shaped by the specific relations between central and local states and capital. Rethinking the State Attention to civil society has tended to replace further thinking about the role of the state in development. It is assumed that global economic logic has undermined both the idea of the nation-state and the developmental state. The authoritarian and corrupt nature of the developmental state appears to have rightly discredited it forever. However, while no one would seek a return to that particular model of the developmental state, we are nevertheless faced with a lack of evidence that weak states or noninterventionist states are less corrupt or more able to generate equitable growth. We argue that it is time to reopen the debate on the role of the state in development. Civil society potentially offers a new way of thinking about it. This concept encourages us to ask how engaged, active, and strong publics might not just defend citizens from the state, but also participate in thinking and debating the common good for a given society and how a democratic state could play a role in promoting it. Working with Civil Society Multilateral development organizations, international financial institutions, Northern NGOs, and bilateral aid agencies have all appropriated the discourse of civil society. Many of these have set up or are thinking of setting up civil society strengthening programs and projects. We contend that not all donor agencies are suited to this task. In particular it is suggested that international financial institutions and multilateral development organizations should focus their efforts on providing opportunities and fora for dialogue with civil society organizations. This means increasing the accessibility of civil society groups to negotiations of international treaties such as trade agreements, WTO rounds, Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAIF) discussions, environmental agreements, and so on. Strengthening civil society is not the same as working with civil society. Some Northern NGOs have relatively long and consistent histories of cooperating with local groups espousing similar values and goals. Such cooperation predates the arrival of explicit civil society strengthening programs and indeed such NGOs themselves do not have such explicit programs. We suggest that civil society strengthening is best carried out by organizations that have a historical record of promoting progressive values and goals in their own and host communities.

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Protecting the Space for Critical Reflection and Action Finally, and perhaps most important, we emphasize the political importance of protecting and fostering an understanding of civil society as an intellectual and associational space in which to reflect openly and critically and to experiment with alternative ways of organizing social, economic, and political life. Donor civil society strengthening programs, with their blueprints, technical solutions, and indicators of achievement, run the risk of inhibiting and ultimately destroying that most important of purposes of civil society, namely, the freedom to imagine that the world could be different. We hope that our book goes some way toward defending and widening this space.

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Index

Accountability, 14, 90, 119, 159 Action Aid, 107, 108 Activism: associative, 52; civil society and, 34, 149–151; collective, 35, 142; grassroots, 1, 64; in Guatemala, 149–151; neoliberalism and, 37; participatory, 55; radical, 69, 147; social, 60, 149, 213, 220; street, 36 Afghanistan, 194, 196, 203 Africa, sub-Saharan, 225; anticolonial struggle in, 180; associationalism in, 178, 182; centralized rule in, 179; civil society in, 10, 118, 177, 178–189; clientelism in, 75; colonialism in, 179–180; decentralized despotism in, 179, 181; decline of growth rates in, 65; democratic protests in, 178; democratization in, 90; domestic bourgeoisie in, 187; domestic markets, 177; donor agencies in, 184–189; exclusionary civil society in, 179; foreign aid dependency in, 178; growth in, 3; nongovernmental institutions in, 182; patrimonialism in, 183; per capita income in, 119, 187; political change in, 178; political unrest in, 183; postindependence, 180–183; predatory regimes in, 75; public in, 226n2; state formation in, 179–184; structural adjustment in, 90, 182 African Capacity Building Foundation, 103 Africanization, 181 Agencies: bilateral, 143; development, 1, 9, 16, 107; international, 107, 116;

multilateral, 1, 92, 93, 143; specialized units in, 93, 94, 96, 100 Aid: accountability and, 4; budgets for, 4; democracy and, 4; foreign, 178; foreign policy links, 114; human rights and, 4; ideological rationales for, 91; policy, 47; solidarity, 158 Almond, Gabriel, 45–46 Amnesty International, 69 Anarchism, 32 Angola: mass organizations in, 181 Anheier, Helmut, 5, 80, 83, 84, 85, 109, 110, 215 Anomie, 25 Antistatism, 4 Arato, Andrew, 58, 62n14, 77, 87n2, 88n10, 90 Arendt, Hannah, 21 Argentina: nongovernmental institutions in, 216; populism in, 207; social movements in, 213; unions in, 122n11 Asia Foundation, 92 Asia Monitor Resources Center, 82 Associationalism, 4; civic, 26; communal features, 179; ethnic features, 179; individuality and, 44; rightwing, 7; role of, 7; urban, 10; voluntary, 10, 23 Association(s): business, 67, 74, 112, 118; civic, 44; civil, 128; cultural, 141; grassroots, 27; guilds, 32, 126; indigenous, 23, 150, 151; informal, 118, 137; integrating role of, 78; kinship, 118, 185; native-place, 126; neighborhood, 126; nonprofit, 102; nonstate, 75, 102; occupational, 141;

255

256

INDEX

peasant, 128, 129; political, 44; primordial, 185, 186; private, 22; professional, 112, 127, 128, 134, 141, 180; as protection for individuals, 43; secondary, 48; self-regulating, 126, 139, 140; sports, 141; surveillance of, 180; trade, 134; voluntary, 32, 213, 227n23 Authoritarianism, 14, 103, 212; decline of, 90, 183; postcolonial, 205; resistance to, 91; Stalinist, 73 Autonomy: commitment to, 46; guarantees for, 58; from state, 35, 55 Avritzer, Leonardo, 213, 214, 227n23 Banfield, Edward, 26 Bangladesh: civil society in, 75; nongovernmental institutions in, 75, 120; nonstate organizations in, 75; Rural Advancement Committee, 109 Biekart, Kees, 5, 6, 158, 159 Black, Anthony, 31–32 Blair, Tony, 67 Bolivar, Simon, 227n14 Bolivia, 114; nongovernmental institutions in, 216 Botswana, 103; clientelism in, 181; market bourgeoisie in, 182 Brazil, 154, 226n12; civil society in, 214; corporatism in, 207; military rule in, 209; nongovernmental institutions in, 216; partnerships in, 219; social movements in, 209, 214; unions in, 122n11; voluntary associations in, 213, 214, 227n23 Cable and Wireless, 107 Capital: accumulation, 30, 36, 72, 80, 108; domestic, 75, 81, 123; foreign, 75; formation, 204; global, 81; social, 4, 25–30, 47, 48, 66, 67, 68, 97, 100, 110 Capitalism: alternatives to, 64, 68–71, 81; authoritarianism and, 74; challenges to, 36, 68–71; civil society and, 71–76; class relations of, 3; destructive effects of, 70, 77; development of, 1; ethical, 21; industrial, 33, 74; neoliberalism and, 8; reinforcement of, 54; rise of, 18, 33; socially responsible, 8, 64, 65–68,

70, 71, 80, 81, 83, 84; stakeholder, 66, 67; unrestrained, 63, 65 CARE International, 107 Carter Center, 92 Catholic Action, 156 Catholic Fund for Overseas Development, 93 Catholic Institute for International Relations, 108 Central Asia, 225; civil society in, 10, 190–203; Communist Party in, 191; democratization in, 193; donor agencies in, 103, 196; environmental degradation in, 197; ethnic minorities in, 191; gross domestic product in, 195; industrialization in, 191; influence of Islam in, 191, 192, 194; nationalism in, 192; nongovernmental institutions in, 103, 196, 198, 199, 200, 201; political stability in, 194; post-Soviet, 193–199; private sector in, 196; repression in, 192; Soviet policy toward, 190, 191; Tsarist rule in, 190, 191; unemployment in, 195 Cerezo, Vinicio, 149 Chambers of commerce, 67, 74 Change: agendas for, 99; constituencies for, 94; economic, 15, 18, 26, 30, 77; political, 18, 60, 94, 178; poverty and, 99; social, 5, 23, 34, 35, 60, 77, 214; social solidarity and, 26 Child Relief and You, 110 Chile: authoritarianism in, 227n15; philanthropic institutions in, 110; political parties in, 214, 227n15; state role in, 90 China, 224; All-China Federation of Trade Unions, 129, 134; All-China Women’s Federation, 129, 130, 134; Anti-Japanese War period, 128; associationalism in, 126, 127, 128; challenges to political authority in, 139–140; civic awareness in, 124, 125; civil society in, 5, 9, 73, 74, 123–145; class in, 131; Communist Party in, 128, 129, 145; Communist Youth League, 129; control of organizations in, 128, 129; Cultural Revolution, 129; democracy protests in, 132, 134, 142, 143; democratiza-

INDEX

tion in, 141–143; donor agencies in, 143–145; economic reform in, 130, 131, 146n9; exiles from, 125; Federation of Science and Technology, 129; Gang of Four in, 129, 130; gender discrimination in, 133; gong in, 126, 127; Great Leap Forward, 129; gross domestic product in, 75; historical antecedents of civil society in, 125–130; illegal organizations in, 136, 137–138; intermediary organizations in, 130–135; investment in, 131, 133; marginalized groups in, 132; market transition in, 123–145; mass organizations in, 129–130, 136; nationalism in, 127; Nationalist Party in, 128; nongovernmental institutions in, 103, 144; nonstate organizations in, 75; Overseas Chinese Association, 129, 136; per capita incomes, 133; poverty in, 75; private sector in, 123, 131, 133; Qing period in, 123, 126, 127, 128; registered organizations in, 136; religious groups in, 137; socialism in, 73; social organizations in, 135, 136–141; Special Economic Zones in, 130, 133; state involvement in, 136; Taiping Rebellion in, 126; townspeople’s society in, 124; in United Nations, 144; warlordism in, 128; weakening of central state in, 126; Western institutions in, 127; women’s groups in, 120 Christian Aid, 69 CIVICUS, 81, 93, 101, 102, 105, 106, 118, 218, 219 Civil society: activism and, 34, 52; alternative view, 2, 6, 7, 31–37, 230–231; as “American project,” 9, 92; as antistate force, 183, 184; autonomy of, 37, 76–80, 81, 85, 150; bourgeoisie in, 33, 53, 74, 88n6; capitalism and, 71–76; in China, 5; community and, 156–157; competing normative visions of, 229–231; contestation in, 81; as critical eye, 80–84; cultural differentiation in, 177–226; defining, 31, 64, 111–115; democracy and, 7, 39–60, 141–143;

257

depoliticization of, 2, 10; development and, 3–6, 13–38; diversity in, 70, 85, 86; dominant values in, 36; donors and, 2, 89–93; elitism and, 5; empirical, 23; ethnocentrism and, 5; European tradition and, 51–59, 60; financing, 108–111; globalization and, 35–36; as historical process, 233; homogenizing conceptualization of, 28, 35; ideological contradictions in, 70; index, 81; inequalities of ownership and, 32; institutionalization of, 93–102; instrumentalization of, 117–118; integration and, 84–86; as intermediary sphere, 67, 112; as local process, 233; mainstream view, 1–2, 17–31, 230; market and, 7–8, 9, 35–36, 63–87; meanings of, 16–17; modernization and, 4; multiplicity of, 119; need for transparency and, 233–234; neoconservative model of, 87n2; neoliberalism and, 35–36; as normative concept, 13, 232; operationalization of, 102–111; outside influences, 89–121; partnerships with, 104–108, 115–117; plurality in, 70; political repression and, 73; politics of, 64, 231–232, 234; postindependence African, 180–183; power and, 32–33; private ownership and, 51; protection from state, 58; regional perspectives, 177–226; reinvention of, 37; rule of law and, 20; security and, 20; self-determination and, 18–20; self-regulation in, 65, 139, 140; social capital and, 25–30; social exclusion and, 84–86; socially responsible capitalism and, 64, 65–68; sources of financing, 80; state and, 7, 39–60; strengthening, 5, 7, 147, 159–160, 215–216; triadic development model, 2, 63–87, 229–231; universality and, 23; U.S. influence on, 4, 39–60; voluntary nature of, 19, 20; as watch-dog, 68; welfare provision and, 67; Western notions of, 19, 186 Civil Society Challenge Fund, 93, 99, 100 Class: civil society and, 33; differentia-

258

INDEX

tion, 36; entrepreneurial, 14; exploitation, 34; landed, 61n4; middle, 61n4; political struggles and, 21; power, 61n4; reformation, 131, 133; relations, 34, 53; working, 34, 53–54, 61n4, 74, 131 Clientelism, 10, 181 Clinton, Bill, 67 Cohen, Jean, 58, 77, 87n2, 88n10 Cold War: end of, 4, 14; foreign policy and, 4; U.S. interests and, 42 Coleman, James, 26 Colombia: civil society in, 214; nongovernmental institutions in, 216, 220; partnerships in, 219–220; social movements in, 220 Colonialism, 179–180 Communism, 9 Conference on NGOs in a Global Future (1999), 105 Corporate Community Investment Network, 116 Corporatism, 206–210, 227n17 Corruption, 14, 20; campaigns against, 41 Council on Economic Priorities, 108 Cultural: cohesiveness, 24 Culture: associational, 49; civic, 45, 59; democratic, 44; dependency, 67; indigenous, 23, 150, 151; mass consumption of, 56 Dahl, Robert, 45, 61n13 Danish International Development Assistance, 188 Democracy: aid and, 4; challenges to, 54; civil society and, 7, 39–60; defense of, 4; deliberative, 58; demands for, 73; development as precondition for, 15; direct, 58; domination and, 43, 44; fear of, 43; general will and, 51–52; indirect, 55; institutionalized, 54; intermediary groups in, 45; liberal, 4, 33, 34, 65, 75, 91, 154, 177; parliamentary, 55; participatory, 10; polyarchic, 61n13; quasidirect, 58; radical, 155; representative, 58, 61n13, 155; requirements for, 14; social capital and, 47; socialist, 55; transition to, 159 Democratization, 117; autonomous pub-

lic spheres and, 58; civil society and, 2; as donor goal, 92; European perceptions of, 41, 59–60; evolution of, 54; processes of, 54 Deng Xiaoping, 130 Department for International Development, 71, 93, 98–100, 105, 108, 112, 113 de Tocqueville, Alexis, 42, 43, 45, 48, 56, 61n6, 61n7, 140, 204, 205, 227n14 Development: agencies, 1, 9, 16, 107; assistance, 94; capitalist, 1, 6, 8, 18, 19, 22, 27, 36, 60n1, 61n4, 64, 71, 84; civil society and, 3–6, 13–38; community, 107; economic, 5, 8, 23–25, 71, 89, 107; equitable, 10; financing, 2; global, 6; infrastructural, 107; institutions, 15; Internet, 82; market-based strategies, 70; nation state and, 14; noneconomic factors in, 15; nongovernmental institutions, 93, 118; organizational, 107; policy, 1; political, 42, 45; as precondition for democracy, 15; requirements for, 14; rural, 27; social solidarity and, 23–25; state role in, 3, 14–16; sustainable, 106, 117; theory, 14; third sector in, 5; triadic model, 2, 63–87, 229–231; uneven, 20 Development Assistance Committee, 91 Dominican Republic, 219; nongovernmental institutions in, 216 Donors: agendas of, 153; bilateral, 9, 71, 92, 93; choices of partner organizations, 188, 189; civil society and, 2, 216–221; coalition building by, 114; democratization and, 92; dependence on, 5, 119–120, 187, 199, 200, 210; diversity of, 89, 92; funding preferences, 167; goals, 148; governance issues and, 4; ideology promotion by, 115; institutional logic of, 147; international, 159; market forces and, 65; multilateral, 71, 92, 97, 158, 160; neutrality, 148; partnerships with, 104–108, 115–117; political conditionality and, 40; priorities, 113, 114, 148; private, 158; reassessment of goals, 91; rights agendas of, 21; socially responsible

INDEX

capitalism and, 64; support for civil society, 89–93; United States, 41–42 Durkheim, Emile, 24, 25, 33, 72, 78 Dutch InterChurch Aid, 195 Eastern Europe: antiauthoritarian movements in, 15, 22; civil society in, 55, 73; collapse of socialism in, 65; democratization in, 15, 41; donor agencies in, 103; economic selfmanagement in, 15; economic stagnation in, 73; nongovernmental institutions in, 103; political change in, 73; self-organization and, 68; structural adjustment in, 90 Economic: alternative systems, 70; change, 15, 18, 26, 30, 77; development, 5, 8, 23–25, 71, 89; diversity, 45; equality, 15, 54, 85, 155; freedom, 8; growth, 16, 30, 65, 75, 97, 109, 117; individualism, 84; intervention, 57; liberalization, 14, 16, 88n12, 103, 157, 178; modernization, 147; organizations, 4–5, 67, 71, 87n4; power, 33; production, 64, 70, 82; redistribution, 3; reform, 130; self-management, 15; stagnation, 3; transition, 9, 123 Economy: capitalist, 2, 25–30, 34; global, 16; household, 76–77; market, 7, 8, 15, 18, 22, 55, 65, 72, 80, 82, 156; nonmarket, 73; political, 63; private, 9; socialist, 73, 123 Elitism, 5, 45–46 Environmental: conferences, 97–98; degradation, 197; groups, 112; organizations, 1, 68, 81, 83, 157–158, 192; protection, 138; sustainability, 98, 107 Equal Opportunities Commission, 82 Ethical Trading Initiative, 108 Ethnicity: biases, 82; political struggles and, 21 European Union, 92; Technical Assistance to Community of Independent States, 195 Fairtrade Foundation, 108 Familism, amoral, 26 Ferguson, Adam, 20, 22, 77, 85, 88n9 Fine, Ben, 27, 38n6, 60n1, 60n2, 97

259

Foment, Carlos, 205 Ford Foundation, 5, 68, 93, 100, 110, 144, 188; Governance and Civil Society Division, 100–101 Fourth World Conference on Women (1995), 120, 135, 137, 144 France: common good in, 52; revolution in, 22, 52 Fraser, Nancy, 58, 69 Free Market Foundation, 103 Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung, 92 Friedrich Naumann Foundation, 103, 144 Friends of the Earth, 83 Fukuyama, Francis, 4, 5, 38n4, 61n10 Fundación Mexicana para el Desarrollo Rural, 110 Gender: awareness, 110; biases, 82; discrimination, 133; equality, 211; hierarchies, 61n10; political struggles and, 21; poverty and, 16; rights, 69, 92 Germany: donor agencies in, 92, 103; group formation in, 46; industrialization in, 14 Ghana: donor agencies in, 103; informal sector in, 182; National Economic Forum, 189; nongovernmental institutions in, 189; rural society in, 226n6 Giddens, Anthony, 67 Globalization, 9, 35, 36, 64, 69 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 192 Gramsci, Antonio, 15, 33–34, 54, 77, 78, 90, 209 Greenpeace, 83 Guatemala, 219, 224–225; activism in, 149–151; ambivalence toward democracy in, 155; authoritarianism in, 151; CACIF in, 152; Civil Society Assembly in, 152, 153; civil society in, 9, 10, 147–173; community in, 156–157; Creative Associates in, 170, 171; dependence on external funding, 10; discourses from “above,” 160–172; discourses from “below,” 148–160; donor agencies in, 151; donor agendas in, 153–154; donor-recipient relationship in, 168–170; ethnic oppression

260

INDEX

in, 150, 174n3; fragmentation in, 157–158; indigenous representation in, 150, 151, 156, 167; institutional divisions in, 166–168; institutional weakness and, 158–159; limits of external intervention in, 170–172; Mayan organizations, 150; nongovernmental institutions in, 10, 169; organizations in, 157–158; Partido de Avanzada Nacional in, 165, 167, 171; Peace Accords (1996), 9; peace process in, 148–160; political environment in, 149; popular organizations in, 149, 150, 152; popular sector in, 167; post–Peace Accord, 153–160, 166; private sector in, 163; state-society relations in, 149; Unidad Revolucionario Nacional Guatemalteca in, 149, 153, 171; United Nations in, 160 Guilds, 32 Gutierrez, Edgar, 149 Habermas, Jürgen, 21, 56, 57, 125, 126, 127 Hall, Stuart, 90 Han Dongfang, 143 Havel, Vaclav, 90 Hegel, Georg, 22, 23, 25, 33, 72, 77, 78, 85, 88n10 Hobsbawm, Eric, 205 Hong Kong: authoritarianism in, 74; civil society in, 74; economic growth in, 74; industrialization in, 14 Human Resources Trust, 107 Hume, David, 77 Hyden, Goran, 178 Identity, 33; cultural, 150; formation, 58; national, 181; plurality of, 110; in public discourse, 58; rise of, 34 Iglesias, Enrique, 217 India: Child Relief and You, 110; Chipko movement in, 83; civil society in, 36; Foundation for Arts, 110; nongovernmental institutions in, 107; nonstate organizations in, 75; philanthropic institutions in, 110; poverty in, 75; unions in, 122n11; United Way of Vadodara, 110

Industrialization, 14, 24, 191, 207, 208; “unnatural order” and, 24 Institute of Economic Affairs, 103 Institutions: building, 102–103; democratic, 4, 61n6, 61n13; dependent variables, 42; development, 15, 147; financial, 1, 9, 15, 90, 92, 93, 147; formal, 180; global, 53; informal, 47, 180; international, 1, 2, 9, 90, 92, 93, 147; liberal, 30; market, 195; multilateral, 28, 144, 166; nonstate, 108; participatory nature of, 94; political, 152; self-managing, 58; social context of, 47; traditional, 181; Western, 16, 30, 127 Inter-American Development Bank, 71, 162–163, 174n12, 216, 217; Civil Society Unit, 217, 218, 220–221 International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, 108 International Development Association, 95 International Nongovernmental Organisation Training and Research Centre (INTRAC), 5, 202 International Republican Institute, 92, 144 International Youth Foundation, 107 Internet, 82 Investment: foreign, 131, 133; wasteful, 14 Iran, 194, 196, 203 Islam, 191, 192, 194 Italy: civic competence in, 61n9; civil society in, 47–48; colonial exploitation in, 48; group formation in, 46; institutional weakness in, 48; unification of, 48 Japan, 5; industrialization in, 14 Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies, 39, 42, 50–51, 79 Juron, Jacek, 55 Kant, Immanuel, 22 Kazakhstan, 191, 192, 193, 226n9; donor agencies in, 195–196; geostrategic interest of, 194; Karaganda Ecological Center, 197; market economy in, 194; nongovernmental institutions in, 196, 198

INDEX

Kellogg Foundation, 107 Kenya, 5, 114, 226n5; civil society in, 180; democratization in, 189; donor agencies in, 188; multipartyism in, 184–185; NGO Coordination Act in, 185; philanthropic institutions in, 110; self-help movements in, 181; Societies Act in, 185 Kenyatta, Jomo, 181 Kettering Foundation, 93, 100 Kolakowski, Leszek, 55 Kong Jiesheng, 125 Kyrgyzstan, 191, 193, 226n9; civil society in, 199; donor agencies in, 195; market economy in, 194; nongovernmental institutions in, 196, 198, 200; poverty in, 195 Labor: anti-child, 82; conditions, 108; division of, 25, 31, 77; federations, 112; movements, 81; organized, 75, 82; rights, 131; social, 56 Labor controls, 180 Latin America, 225–226; ambivalence toward democracy in, 155; antiauthoritarian movements in, 15; associationalism in, 178, 204–210, 212, 214; authoritarianism in, 205, 212; bureaucratic-authoritarian regimes in, 208; capacity building in, 216; civil society in, 10, 87n1, 178, 203–221; clientelism in, 10, 208; corporatism in, 206–210, 227n17; democratization in, 90, 213; donor agencies in, 178, 210–216; growth rates in, 16; historical perspective, 204–210; import substitution in, 207; industrialization in, 207, 208; institutional reform in, 211–212; military regimes in, 10, 208; modernization in, 208; nongovernmental institutions in, 208; nonprofit sector in, 216; partnerships in, 219–221; pluralism in, 227n17; political movements in, 207; populism in, 206–210; postcolonial states, 204–206; poverty in, 219; resistance movements in, 209; social movements in, 209, 213, 214, 215; statesociety relations in, 212–215; structural adjustment in, 16, 203, 210

261

Latin America Association of Promotion Organizations, 219 Latin America Development Fund, 163 Liberalization: economic, 14, 16, 103, 157, 178; market, 41; political, 194, 205; price, 130; trade, 83 Lindblom, Charles, 72 Malawi: multipartyism in, 184; as predatory state, 181 Malaysia: state role in, 90 Mali: democratization in, 183 Mao Zedong, 129, 130 Market: allocative efficiency of, 90; capitalist, 7; challenges to, 36; civil society and, 7–8, 35–36, 63–87; distortions, 14; domestic, 177; domination, 82; economy, 18, 22, 55, 72, 80, 82, 156; environmental effects of, 67; export, 194; facilitation of, 8; forces, 65, 130; free, 4, 65; imperfections, 27; inequalities, 68; liberalization, 41; monitoring, 70; oppression, 69, 70; partnerships with, 104–108; power of, 233; reform, 75, 123, 130, 135; regulation, 82, 138; self-regulating, 8, 65, 66, 77, 87n4, 88n12; state regulation of, 63–87; transition, 9, 178; transnational companies in, 82; unrestrained, 70 Marschall, Miklós, 106 Marx, Karl, 15, 33, 34, 53, 54, 72, 77, 78, 85, 88n6 Médecins sans Frontières, 144, 195 Mercy Corps, 103, 195 Mexico, 150; Fundación Mexicana para el Desarrollo Rural, 110; group formation in, 46; nongovernmental institutions in, 216; partnerships in, 220; Zapatista movement in, 35 Michnik, Adam, 55 Mills, C. Wright, 45 Modernization: capitalist, 148, 208; civil society and, 4; economic, 147; emancipatory possibilities of, 57; paternalistic discourse of, 179; state, 217; theory, 14, 15; of traditional societies, 42 Moi, Daniel Arap, 184, 185, 187 Montesquieu, Charles, 20 Movements: antiauthoritarian, 15, 16,

262

INDEX

22; armed, 150; environmental, 34, 35; feminist, 34; grassroots, 36; guerrilla, 149, 150; indigenous, 34, 148; labor, 81; local, 83; neighborhood, 209; networked, 35; popular, 157; resistance, 209; revolutionary, 14; self-help, 181; social, 34, 64, 69, 71, 90, 213, 215; Zapatista, 35 Mozambique, 102; mass organizations in, 181; nongovernmental institutions in, 120, 187 Multi-Lateral Agreement on Investment, 83 Multilateral Development Bank, 95 National Democratic Institute, 92 National Endowment for Democracy, 92, 103, 184 National Foundation for India, 110 Nazarbaev, Nursultan, 193 Neoliberalism, 1, 4, 14, 15, 177, 209; activism and, 37; antistate bias of, 39; capitalism and, 8; civil society and, 35–36; developmental state and, 60n2; free market and, 65; as normative ideal, 65; rise of, 40, 90; Southern policies of, 16 Netherlands: donor agencies in, 92 New Partnerships Initiative, 94 Nicaragua, 155, 165 Nigeria: democratization in, 189 Nongovernmental institutions, 1, 54; as alternative service-deliverers, 91; change-oriented, 36, 53, 57; civil society–promoting, 101–102; comparative advantages of, 91; development, 51, 57, 93, 118; donor agency collaboration with, 93–102; empowerment of, 94; funding for, 102, 108–111; governmental attitudes toward, 198; growth of, 16; international, 9, 31, 122n6, 158, 208; legitimacy of, 212; local, 31, 102; Northern, 9, 69, 71, 99, 101, 109, 187; opportunistic, 16, 211; organizational capacity–strengthening, 101, 102–103; programs targeted by, 16; relations with business, 107; relations with the World Bank, 95–97; second generation, 198; service-delivery, 112; Southern, 69, 71,

99; sustainability, 200; technical capacity of, 102; welfare, 81; yuppie, 227n18 North, the: civicness in, 26; monitoring organizations in, 82 North American Free Trade Agreement, 35 Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, 107 Offe, Claus, 27, 29, 52 Oppression: challenges to, 90; ethnic dimensions, 150 Organization(s): advocacy, 68, 81, 92; antislavery, 82; autonomous, 5, 127; charitable, 67; citizens’, 128; civil rights, 196; civil society, 83, 108, 164; community-based, 98; consumer, 82, 83; development, 107; economic, 67, 71, 87n4; environmental, 1, 68, 81, 83, 112, 138, 157–158, 192; fair trade, 67, 82; feminist, 1; formal, 50, 118; government, 92; grassroots, 10, 31, 51, 54, 71, 90, 158; illegal, 136, 137–138; indigenous, 167; instrumentalization of, 147–148; interest, 141, 142; intermediary, 123, 130–135, 136; labor, 82; local, 120, 169; mass, 129, 136, 142, 196; multilateral, 9, 197; nongovernmental, 134; nonprofit, 50, 79, 92; nonstate, 102, 109, 136; political, 77; popular, 137, 149, 150, 152; private, 50, 182; prodemocracy, 142; radical cultural, 148, 150, 151, 153–160; radical popular, 148, 149, 153–160; registered, 128, 135, 136; self-governing, 50; semiofficial, 136; service-delivery, 81; social, 33, 36, 53, 57, 128, 150, 151, 196, 197, 201; traditional, 189; umbrella, 150; voluntary, 50, 94, 101, 109, 127; welfare, 134, 139, 141, 145; women’s, 112, 128, 134, 135, 141 Overseas Development Administration, 72, 98, 112 Oxford Committee for Famine Relief, 93 Pact, 93, 101, 103, 108, 116; Corporate Community Investment Network,

INDEX

116; NGO Institution Strengthening Project, 102 Pakistan, 194, 196 Palestine: civil society in, 36 Parsons, Talcott, 25, 77, 78 Partnerships for Poverty Reduction, 105 Partners in Development Programme, 93, 106 Patrimonialism, 183 Peron, Juan, 207 Peru, 5; nongovernmental institutions in, 216 Philippines, 114; Business for Social Progress, 107; Foundation for the Philippine Environment, 110 Pluralism: elitism and, 45–46; social, 43 Poland, 5; civil society in, 15, 55, 62n14; donor agencies in, 104 Polanyi, Karl, 70, 77, 78, 87n4, 88n12 Policy: Africanization, 181; aid, 47; of containment, 94; development, 1; dissemination, 138; foreign, 4, 91, 94, 101, 114; formation, 7; implementation, 7; neoliberal, 16; neutral, 30; outcomes, 41; public, 10, 48; think tanks, 112 Political: associations, 44; change, 60, 94, 178; competition, 122n2, 193, 205; decisionmaking, 49; development, 42, 45; economy, 63; emancipation, 34, 53; equality, 7, 18, 43; freedom, 8; institutions, 152; liberalization, 205; liberty, 18; oppression, 3; organizations, 4, 77; participation, 42, 60; parties, 48, 180; philosophy, 18; power, 45, 54; process, 41, 52, 54; repression, 73, 182; resistance, 180; revolution, 52; rights, 21, 53, 54, 76, 81, 85; society, 54; stability, 59, 128; virtue, 20–21 Politics: of autonomy and dependence, 119–120; of civil society, 231–232, 234; commitment to, 46; consensus, 68; contentious, 213, 227n22; of definition and choice, 111–115; democratic, 60n1; engagement with, 44; of partnership, 10, 115–117; subaltern, 213; of universality, 118–119 Polyarchy, 53, 61n13 Populism, 206–210 Poverty, 219; alleviation, 98, 197;

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diminished access to basic needs in, 90; gender and, 16; global economy and, 16; political influence and, 59; rural, 75; voluntary organizations and, 101 Power: attention to, 28; civil society and, 32–33; class, 61n4; competition for, 45, 54; distribution of, 113; economic, 33; market, 233; personalistic, 20; political, 45, 54; preservation of, 53; relations, 61n10, 70, 113; social, 33; sources of, 60 Preuss, Ulrich, 52 Prince of Wales Business Forum, 93, 106, 108 Product campaigns, 67–68, 82 Protests: mass, 90 Public: apathy of, 48; commodity exchange and labor in, 56; concept of, 126; conspiracies against, 28; debate, 57; discourse, 56, 58; engagement, 44; gendered nature of, 58; good, 28, 30, 51–53; life, 58; opinion, 56, 69; policy, 10, 48; separation from private realm, 56–57; spaces, 57, 60; sphere, 21–22, 56, 57, 127, 147; strong, 7, 58, 69; weak, 58, 69 Putnam, Robert, 4, 5, 26, 28, 29, 38n2, 38n3, 39, 41, 42, 46, 47–49, 60n1, 61n8, 61n10, 61n11, 61n12, 100 Reaganism, 65 Recession: international, 14 Reform: economic, 130; electoral, 92; institutional, 204, 211; judicial, 20; lack of interest in, 40; land, 129, 152; legal, 217; market, 75, 123, 130, 135; price, 130; public sector, 184; social sector, 16; socioeconomic, 153; state, 40, 41, 131, 167; tax, 152; unions and, 122n11 Relations: civil society/market, 63–87; class, 3, 34, 53; commercial, 23; development and democracy, 40; donor-recipient, 168–170; economic, 8; exploitative, 3, 53; individual, 23; interpersonal, 46; power, 61n10, 70, 79, 113; property, 77; social, 8, 77 Republicanism, 20 Reuben Soto, William, 163

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INDEX

Rights: animal, 81; citizen, 128; civil, 21, 54, 76, 81; to debate, 21; gender, 69; human, 4, 10, 41, 92, 112, 122n2, 138, 153, 173n2, 197; indigenous, 69, 153; labor, 131; natural, 18, 43; political, 21, 53, 54, 76, 81, 85; social, 85; universal, 22; women’s, 92; workers’, 34 Ríos Montt, Efrain, 171 Rockefeller Brothers’ Fund, 93 Round Up for Children campaign, 107 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 32, 51, 52, 53 Salamon, Lester, 5, 50, 80, 83, 84, 85, 109, 110, 215 Sasakawa Peace Foundation, 144 Saudi Arabia, 194, 196, 203 Save the Children Fund, 93, 144, 195 Sector: development, 196; informal, 182; market, 182; nonprofit, 5, 79–80, 83, 84, 85, 86, 109, 110, 216; popular, 167 Sector, private, 103, 123, 196; regulatory environment for, 107; unions in, 122n11 Sector, public: unions in, 122n11 Sector, third, 5, 83; building, 50–51; growth of, 39; as political force, 42; role of, 39 Senegal: philanthropic institutions in, 110 Serrano, Jorge, 151, 154 Shen Yue, 124, 125 Short, Clare, 68, 99, 105, 112–113 Shu-Yun Ma, 124 Singapore: authoritarianism in, 74; civil society in, 74; economic growth in, 74; industrialization in, 14 Smith, Adam, 77, 88n8 Social: activism, 60, 149, 213, 220; apartheid, 167; bonds, 19, 22; capital, 4, 6, 18, 25–30, 38n6, 47, 48, 60n1, 60n2, 66, 67, 68, 97, 100, 110; change, 5, 23, 34, 35, 60, 77, 214; cohesion, 8, 24, 27, 28, 31, 65, 107; contract, 18; decapitalization, 30; democracy, 1; differentiation, 28, 32, 33, 36, 131, 133; diversity, 45; equality, 7, 8, 15, 31, 54, 85, 155, 217; equilibrium, 26; ethics, 124; exclusion, 64; inclusion, 66, 67; inte-

gration, 23, 78, 230; interaction, 25, 28; intervention, 57; justice, 10, 67, 69; labor, 56; movements, 34, 64, 69, 71, 90, 213, 215; networks, 28, 39; order, 9, 18; organizations, 33, 36, 53, 57, 139, 150, 151, 196, 197, 201; pluralism, 43; power, 33; progress, 52; reform, 16; regulation, 70, 135; relations, 8, 77; resistance, 209; rights, 85; services, 91; solidarity, 23–25, 26, 30; systems, 25; trust, 46; values, 46; welfare, 83, 145, 195 Socialism, 8, 64; collapse of, 65, 91, 183; statist, 67, 72 Society: bourgeois, 77, 87n2, 124; commercial, 20, 22; feudal, 72; of individuals, 22; industrial, 24, 31; mobilization of, 182; political, 54; pre-industrial, 24; structural change in, 74; townspeople’s, 124; traditional, 24, 42; transitional, 109, 119; tribal, 24; urban, 24 Sociology, 24 Soglo, Nicephore, 183 South, the: aid policy to, 47; antiauthoritarian movements in, 15, 22; authoritarianism in, 40; civil society and, 19, 20, 39, 59–60; clientelism in, 26; developmental statism in, 65; donor requirements of, 40; kinship ties in, 19; monitoring organizations in, 82; norms of trust in, 39; rule of law in, 20; socioeconomic inequality in, 65; structural adjustment in, 40 South Africa, 114; civil society in, 180; donor agencies in, 103; National Business Initiative, 107; nongovernmental institutions in, 182, 187 South Korea: authoritarianism in, 74; civil society in, 36, 74; economic growth in, 74; industrialization in, 14 Soviet Union: civil society in, 73; collapse of, 65, 194; donor agencies in, 103; political change in, 73; socialism in, 73; structural adjustment in, 90 Sri Lanka, 5; Sarvodaya movement in, 109 State: authoritarian, 90; autonomy, 35, 55, 136, 178; change and, 14; civil

INDEX

society and, 7, 39–60; dependency culture and, 67; depersonalized, 21; developmental, 3, 14–16, 40, 60n2; domination, 136, 178; economic role, 9, 57, 66, 89, 123; facilitating role of, 74–75; failure of, 178; formation, 179; generation of revenue by, 80; as highest level of ethical life, 23; industrial capacity and, 14; intervention, 14, 66; market and, 63–87; modernization, 217; monopolies, 14; oppression, 69, 70; partnership with, 40, 104–108; patrimonial, 181; planning, 130, 191, 195; political control of, 34; power of, 2; predatory, 181; protection from, 40, 44, 58; provision of services, 67; redistributive, 14; reform, 40, 41, 167; regulation, 88n13; role of, 3, 8, 48, 60, 69, 83; totalitarian, 15; weak, 20; welfare, 3, 57, 64, 65, 67, 83, 109, 210 Structural adjustment, 16, 90, 182, 210; failure of, 40; reassessment of, 90; victims of, 203 Su Wei, 125 Su Xiaokang, 125 Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, 188 Synergos Institute, 72, 93, 101, 110, 218, 219 Taiping Rebellion, 126 Taiwan: authoritarianism in, 74; civil society in, 74; economic growth in, 74; industrialization in, 14 Tajikistan, 191, 193, 226n9; Democratic Party in, 193; regime fragility in, 194; repression in, 194 Tanzania: civil society in, 180; mass organizations in, 181 Tarrow, Sidney, 29, 47, 49, 60n1, 61n8, 213 Taylor, Charles, 22 Thailand: Initiative for Rural Development, 107 Thatcherism, 65, 90 Theory: democratic, 52; dependency, 14; development, 14; modernization, 14, 15; of natural rights, 18 Tönnies, Ferdinand, 24

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Trades Union Congress, 108 Trust, 6, 38n4, 61n10; civic, 48; concept of, 27; decline in political authority, 47; forms of, 29; generating, 25–30; importance of, 4–5; interpersonal relations and, 46; norms of, 28, 39; notions of, 68; patterns of, 47; reciprocity and, 30; social, 46; social capital and, 27; social cohesion and, 31 Turkmenistan, 193, 226n9; Democratic Party in, 193; Law for Public Organizations, 198; nongovernmental institutions in, 196, 198 Uganda: public sector reform in, 184 UNDP. See United Nations Development Programme Unidad Revolucionario Nacional Guatemalteca, 149 United Kingdom: Department for International Development, 68, 93, 98–100, 105, 108, 112, 113; donor agencies in, 92, 98–100, 103; group formation in, 46; Local Exchange and Trading Scheme, 71; New Labour government, 109; Overseas Development Administration, 72, 98, 112; unrestrained capitalism in, 65 United Nations: Children’s Fund, 107; Year of the Volunteer (2002), 109 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), 68, 92, 93, 97–98, 103, 104, 105, 113, 114, 116, 118, 160, 161, 162, 168, 197, 217, 218; Bureau of Program Policy and Evaluation, 98; Civil Society and Participation Unit, 98; Division for NGOs, 98; Office for Project Services, 161; Strengthening NGO/Government/UNDP Collaboration, 98 United States: associational culture in, 49; budget deficit in, 90; decline of social capital in, 47; donor agencies in, 71, 72, 92, 93, 94–95, 100–101, 103; donor funding from, 8–9, 92; foreign aid budget, 41, 94; group formation in, 46; influence on civil society, 4, 59; interests in Cold War, 42; interventionism of, 49; negative

266

INDEX

democratic practices, 7; political decisionmaking in, 49; revolution in, 52 United States Agency for International Development (USAID), 71, 81, 92, 93, 94–95, 103, 107, 114, 144, 163–164, 167, 168, 184, 188, 197, 208, 218; Africa Bureau, 112; Centre for Democracy and Governance, 112, 114; New Partnershp Initiatives, 104 United States Information Agency, 92 Urbanization, 24, 61n4 Uzbekistan, 191, 192, 193, 226n9; legal framework in, 198–199; nongovernmental institutions in, 196 Vargas, Getulio, 207 Verba, Sydney, 45–46 Vietnam: civil society in, 73; economic reform in, 146n9; nongovernmental institutions in, 146n9; socialism in, 73 War on Want, 69 Western Europe: development of capitalism in, 123; welfare states in, 65 Westminster Foundation for Democracy, 103

Wolfensohn, Jim, 95, 96, 110, 165 Women: poverty and, 16; public participation and, 61n10 Women Working Worldwide, 108 World Bank, 4, 68, 71, 81, 92, 93, 103, 110, 112, 204; Civil Society Fund, 97; Civil Society Unit, 117; Corporate Citizenship Team, 104; Country Assistance Strategies, 96; indigenous communities and, 38n7; relations with nongovernmental institutions, 95–97, 122n3, 122n4; social capital agenda of, 60n2; structural adjustment and, 95–97; Structural Adjustment Programme Review Initiative, 96 World Development Movement, 69 World Summit for Social Development (1995), 104 Zaire, 114; as predatory state, 181 Zambia: civil society in, 180; Movement for Multi-Party Democracy, 183; as predatory state, 181 Zhou Enlai, 129 Zimbabwe: democratization in, 189; nongovernmental institutions in, 105; Partnerships for Poverty Reduction, 105

About the Book

Incorporated into the lexicons of academics, policymakers, and grassroots activists, of multilateral development agencies and local NGOs alike, “civil society” has become a topic of widespread discussion. But is there in fact any common understanding of the term? How useful is it when applied to the South, and what difference does it make to bring the concept into the debate on development? Howell and Pearce explore the complex relationships among civil society, the state, and the market in the context of democratic development. Drawing on case studies from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, they also unravel what is meant by development agencies—bilaterals, multilaterals, NGOs, and international financial institutions, with their diverse approaches and agendas—when they refer to the urgent need to strengthen civil society. Jude Howell is fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. She is author of China Opens Its Doors: The Politics of Economic Transition (1993) and coauthor with Gordon White and Shang Xiaoyuan of In Search of Civil Society: Market Reform and Social Change in Contemporary China (1996). Jenny Pearce is professor of Latin American politics in the Department of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford. She is the author of Promised Land: Peasant Rebellion in Chalatenango, El Salvador (1985) and Colombia: Inside the Labyrinth (1990).

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