While civil society has a centuries-long history, recent decades have
witnessed a clear upsurge in civil society activity and interest in this most elusive of
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concepts. Indeed in 1994, the starting point for this study, one commentator
(Salamon) famously declared that the upsurge in organized voluntary activity evident globally amounted to an “associational revolution”. Defining civil society is
problematic in part because of the myriad of institutions and movements that it is said to comprise, including: nonprofit organisations, nongovernmental organisations, voluntary organisations, community organisations, the third sector, the independent sector, social movements, religious movements, social networks and charities.
Although frequently understood as a space outside of the confines of the state and the market, the degree to which different civil society organisations interact with or rely on the state and market also differ substantially. Unsurprisingly given the diversity of usages of the term civil society, there is also a significant diversity in the roles performed by so-called civil society organisations. Together with colleagues and based on findings from 17 countries, Salamon (2000) hypothesized that five roles were particularly likely and appropriate: service-provision, innovation, advocacy, expressive and leadership development, and community building and democratization.
NGOs form a prominent part of civil society as reflected by the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to a coalition of NGOs in 1997 and an individual NGO just two years later. Although accurate data on the number of NGOs is difficult to obtain, a 2000 (Economist) estimate suggested that there were more than 30,000 active international NGOs, and a 2005 study (Union of International Associations in Werker and Ahmed, 2008) put the number at over 20,000. While, like civil society itself, the definition of NGOs is problematic (e.g. Martens, 2002), NGOs are frequently characterised as the subset of civil society that engages in international development activities (Werker and Ahmed, 2008). The more specific definition offered by Vakil (1997, p. 2060) of NGOs as “self-governing, private, not-for-profit organizations that are geared to improving the quality of life of disadvantaged people” is adopted here because it well describes the relief and development NGOs that are the subject of this research.
Based on a review of classification schemes Vakil (1997) identified and described six possible NGO orientations, which overlap substantially with the roles identified by Salamon, Helms et al. (2000). Firstly, a welfare orientation refers to the provision of basic services based on a charity model. Secondly, a development orientation refers to efforts to improve the capacity of a community to provide for its
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own basic needs. Thirdly, an advocacy orientation refers to efforts to influence policy or decision-making. Fourthly, development education refers to educating citizens in the developed world about development issues. Fifthly, a network orientation refers to efforts by NGOs to channel information and assistance to other NGOs and individuals. Finally, and without need for additional explanation, comes a research orientation. While Vakil’s overview reveals possible options for relief and development NGOs, and implicitly makes a case for the usefulness of NGOs in a variety of roles, it says little about the degree to which they actually practice
different roles or the factors that lead them to adopt these roles. To understand this requires one to revisit the changing terrain of international development thinking and resultant patterns of aid distribution. Note that from this point forward unless otherwise stated all references to NGOs should be understood to refer to relief and development NGOs.
As already described, current approaches to development thinking are peppered with ideas that were originally conceived of as alternative development.
While NGOs were originally at the vanguard of alternative development, it has been suggested that they moved towards a broad accommodation with mainstream
neoliberal approaches to development during the 1980s (Bristow, 2008). A primary reason for this was the availability of funding. During the 1980s the growth of official development aid to NGOs outstripped almost fivefold the growth in ODA itself (Fowler, 1992). A major reason for this upsurge in NGOs’ financial fortunes was the emergence from the 1980s onwards of “new public management” (NPM).
NPM is associated with the notion that governments should dedicate their energies to
“steering not rowing” (Osborne and Gaebler, 1992) and is broadly understood as a cluster of ideas and ensuing regulatory practices that apply private sector and business approaches in the public sector (Denhardt and Denhardt, 2000).
Commentators have, however, pointed out that there has been a considerable variation in the ways in which NPM has been adopted (Hood, 1995) and that different models of NPM exist (Ferlie et al., 1996). Managerialism, which may be linked with NPM, has been described as entailing “advocacy of formal rational management, corporate strategic plans with specified objectives as well as internal and external accountability systems oriented towards the measurement of efficiency and effectiveness” (Parker and Lewis, 1995, p. 212) . While managerialism predates the emergence of NPM, it has come to be so strongly associated with it that
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separating out the exact components of each of these contested concepts is
problematic. For the purposes of this thesis, therefore, the term managerialism will be used as an umbrella term for the series of ideological and regulatory changes oriented towards the reform of public administration that occurred from the 1980s onwards. Of particular relevance to NGOs in this context was the view that private sector management was inherently more efficient than public administration as this led to a range of government activities being transferred to private and ‘third’ sector actors, such as NGOs. The rapid expansion of the NGO sector is regularly
associated with this “downsizing of the state” (Roberts et al., 2005, p. 26).
A second reason for the greater popularity of NGOs as channels for official aid during this period related to the emerging emphasis on democracy as a necessary precursor to economic growth. Liberal democratic theory envisages a strong civil society as strengthening the state’s capacity for good governance by ensuring legitimacy, accountability and transparency (Mercer, 2002). NGOs, according to much development thinking, were supposed to act as “a counterweight to state power by opening up channels of communication and participation, providing training grounds for activists promoting pluralism and by protecting human rights” (Hulme and Edwards, 1997, p. 6). In a definition that brings together both the supposed efficiency and democratising character of NGOs, Dichter (1999, p. 43) has summed up their perceived comparative advantages during this period as follows:
they [NGOs] are innovative, nimble, and flexible; adjust quickly to change and to local differences; and operate close to those they wish to benefit (because they are able to listen and interested in listening). Their services (when they provide them) are lower in cost and more cost-effective, their staffs and leaders are highly motivated and altruistic, and their independence of commercial and governmental interests puts them in position to pressure for change on those interests
While the implications of managerialism for the emergence of specific types of NGOs accountability will be discussed in Chapter 3, for now it is sufficient to say that the dual imperatives of contracting out of service provision associated with managerialism, and democratisation theorizing were largely responsible for the exponential growth in available funding for NGOs that emerged during this period and for the vastly increased engagement of NGOs in large scale government-funded activities.
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