Taylor & Francis Reading

DEFAULT NGO
Non-Profit Government Organization Characteristics and Role
 NGOs can implement the global commitment to 'bottom-up' development1
 NGOs aim to establish a democratic state2 with capitalist interests.
 There is a danger of NGOs replacing the “State “free as representatives of democracy 3.
 A balanced relationship or partnership between states and NGOs can best serve the
interests of society.
 Debate on NGOs remains trapped within a theoretical framework of State versus Civil
Society, in which Left democrats and Neoliberals warn of the erosion of State Power, as a
step toward democracy.

NGOs Recent Activates

 Given expanding market economies, and shrinking states, NGOs are stepping in to respond
to the needs and demands of the poor and marginalized sections of society.
 Much of the current discussion on NGOs is caught up in addressing issues of strengthening
NGO accountability, autonomy, and organizational effectiveness.
 Community-based NGOs (CBOs) and Advocacy NGOs4 have carved a unique space for
themselves as representing the public interest therefore presenting a problem for global
capitalist institutions.

The Rise and Expansion of NGOs

 The dynamic rise of the NGO sector is seen as clear evidence of the evolution of civil
society to be able to self-regulate and self-manage its own interests.
 The expansion of NGOs is a challenge not only for advocates of the State but also for
advocates of liberal5 individualism and an autonomous private sphere.

1
An approach to international development that puts people at the centre.
2
A state governed by the rule of law, through an elected and representative government, with access to
decision-making for all social groups.
3
A government in which power and civic responsibility are exercised by all citizens through their freely elected
representatives.
4
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that are focused on specific causes.
5
A doctrine that emphasizes individual agency, equality of opportunity, and the protection of individual rights.
It restricts the state and other private economic actors, including businesses, demoeg) freedom of speech.
 Civil Society & The State in regard to NGOs
 Civil society in the Third World was seen as largely underdeveloped, and the State was
entrusted with the responsibility of promoting the common good 6
 The State is represented as corrupted by private interests; therefore, it is unable to
represent the will of the people.
 Civil society is seen as the honest broker of the people's interest.
 The NGO debate remains focused on the State and is largely silent on the issue of NGOs
and the capitalist economy.
 The tendency among NGO analysts is to disengage from the structural reality of civil
society and locate civil society as the 'third sector, separate from the market and the
state.
o Effect: It proves illusory in a rapidly expanding capitalist economy.
o Aim: Its utility is limited to allowing NGOs to make a moral claim to democracy
and justice that is disconnected from the political-economic relations of
capitalist expansion.
 NGOs are the new contributors of public interest; they pose a serious challenge to the
legitimate function of the state.
 Among the range of organized forces and institutions of civil society, NGOs are regarded
as representing the interests of the people, to the greatest extent possible.
 NGOs have come to replace other well-established political organizations.
 In relation to these organizations, it is argued that NGOs represent the interests of the
broadest swath of people, the poor and the underprivileged of society, who tend to
have no structures of representation in public affairs, except perhaps the right to vote
during election time.
 NGOs are seen to be genuine representatives of the people's will because the success of
their work depends upon the involvement of their specific constituency within a limited
geographical region.
 Donor NGOs such as OXFAM in England and SIDA in Sweden, have strong liberal
traditions.

NGOs link with UN

 The UN officially established the term NGO to describe a specific relationship
between civil organizations and the intergovernmental process.
 NGOs are a basic form of popular representation in the present-day world.
 Their participation in international relations is, in a way, a guarantee of the
political legitimacy of those international organizations.
 A crucial difference that separates the UN from the Bretton Woods institutions is
that the former UN represented the member States while the latter represented
States as well as Multinational Corporations and Banks. Each is therefore
accountable to a different constituency with different interests and priorities
that explains their different stance towards NGOs.
 UN officials acknowledge that they simply do not have the resources to fulfil
their mandate of providing relief and humanitarian services, they depend upon
the assistance of the NGO sector.

6
Redirecting self-interested political and economic behaviour towards broader public goals of national
development and social welfare)
The NGOs and New Economic Actors
 NGOs are here to stay and are seen as legitimate participants in global policy forums.
 Governance has been viewed primarily as inter-governmental relationships, but it must now
be understood as also involving NGOs, citizen movements, multinational corporations, and
the global capital market.
 The new economic actors are adopting a formal definition for NGOs that does not
differentiate between People-oriented NGOs, Government NGOs, and Corporate NGOs. As a
result, business and industry associations are now equally a part of 'NGO representation' in
international policy forums, making it impossible for progressive NGOs to build a common
alliance against corporate interests.
 Business and Industry associations (BINGOs) are technically NGOs but represent powerful
corporate interests.
 Though the participation of BINGOs is challenged by a lobby of Public Interest NGOs
(PINGOs), the latter group is clearly at a disadvantage.
 Not only are business NGOs part of the ideological consensus on trade and economic
reform, but they also have greater access to the forums in terms of the financial resources at
their disposal.

NGOs and the Civil Society

 NGOs conventionally understood that to be part of a civil society, there must be a remaking
of state institutions and state processes.
 State and civil society serve as symbols in the struggle to define relations between the
individual and the collective, between the private and the public.
 These relations between private and public are being reconstituted through a myriad of
social, political, and economic institutions.
 State and society must support one another to manage poverty to reach welfare.
 Society tries to fulfil basic needs by implementing their local wisdom. On the other hand,
State supports the society by giving facilities and access to preserve traditions and to adapt
them to the dynamic era.7

7
State is a politically organised unity of the people, Society is a natural unity of people bound together in social
relationships:
CBO
The nature of Community-based NGOs/Grassroots Organizations
 Locally based NGOs are the more typical model of NGOs in the South and are
known as CBOs or GROs

 The legitimacy of CBOs derives from the fact that their work in a local context
requires them to develop a membership base - known as the 'target' or
'beneficiary' group in development language.

 Duty of Membership base of CBOs:

o 1) Actively participates in the various social and economic projects
managed by the CBO.
o 2) Build their relations of cooperation and trust within them,
o 3) Understand their needs and plan projects that respond to these
needs

 CBOs tend to have close and intimate working relations with men and women of
the community and local leaders.

 CBOs work with actual communities and implement development projects at the
local level.

 They are seen to be accountable to the people, however, their dependence on

external funding and compliance with funding agency targets has raised
questions about whether their accountability lies with the people or the funding
agency.

 The imposition of structural adjustment policies8 in the South with decreased
State spending has led to an exponential increase in community development,
this phenomenon is franchising the state.
 The dual policy of aid institutions undercuts the early history of NGOs as
symbolic of a thriving political culture, independent of patronage from state and
international institutions.
 The presence of numerous CBOs provides services to underprivileged
populations, and at the same time mobilizes them for their rights.
o Effect: This presents a threat to the Neoliberal agenda of Privatization.
 CBOs work with marginalized sections of society and serve as intimate witnesses
to the devastation wrought by privatization and marketization of the social and
economic sectors.
 Authors show that community-based NGOs have moved away from education
and empowerment programmes that involve structural analysis of power and
inequality and instead adopt a technical managerial solution to social issues of
poverty and oppression.

8
A set of economic reforms that a country must adhere to secure a loan from the International Monetary
Fund and/or the World Bank
History of CBOs
 CBOs emerged post-war in response to the failure of post-colonial states to
ensure the basic needs of the poor.
 The leaders of CBOs were socially conscious, middle-class citizens, many of
whom had been active in women's movements or Radical Left Movements of
the post-independence period.
 CBOs or GROs have the greatest support from all segments of the international
development community for they are seen as the main catalysts for 'bottom-up'
development.

CBOs and Left Parties

 Certain countries, grassroots NGOs have allied with Left parties9 and radical
movements to challenge the policies of international institutions.
 Countries of the South, the Leftist origins of CBOs oppose structural adjustment
policies, which may not translate into an organized movement, but it nevertheless
poses a problem for economic reform.
 The leadership of community-based NGOs typically constituted middle-class Leftists
who identified closely with the poor and were committed to social justice work at
the grassroots. In many cases, activists were conscious of the need to
'deprofessionalize' to build relations with the poor.
 The term 'operational NGOs' defines NGOs that are engaged primarily in the design,
facilitation, and implementation of developmental sub-projects. They compete with
a growing number of non-membership NGOs that have sprung up to respond to
donor enthusiasm for community-based development.
 The political and managerial approach to community development draws upon the
liberalization of empowerment wherein the poor are encouraged to be
entrepreneurial and find solutions to their livelihood needs.
 The neoliberal notion of empowerment implies a focus on the individual capacities
and needs of the poor, consequently minimizing the social and political causes of
poverty.
o How: The individual is positioned as both the problem and the solution to
poverty rather than as an issue of the state's redistribution policies or global
trade policies.
The popularity of micro-credit programmes10 among donor agencies can be understood within this
context where the state is no longer responsible for creating employment, and the poor are
expected to strengthen their own capacities toward livelihood security

9
Democratic/Liberalism (based on the idea that everyone should have equal rights and should be involved in
making important decisions, originally against the state and later against both the state and private economic
actors, including businesses.)
Republic/Conservatism/Social (a country where power is held by the people or the representatives that they
elect)
10
Common form of microfinance that involves an extremely small loan given to an individual to help them
become self-employed or grow a small business.
NGOs vs CBOs
 NGOs organize national and international campaigns for kinds of
policy/legislative changes, and in this way function more as a lobby group11,
entirely different from CBOs that seek to organize a mass base12.
 In comparison to CBOs, advocacy NGOs are better funded, professionally staffed
and housed in metropolitan centres.

Advocacy NGO

11
a group of people who band together and try to influence politicians and other individuals in public office.
They represent a vast number of companies.
12
The social support base of political parties
Advocacy NGOs link with Policy
 Advocacy NGOs do not operate locally13. They tend to be issue-based and the
constituency they represent may encompass different regions and countries.
 Advocacy NGOs have gained considerable visibility and influence within
international development policy circles. They cause concern among states and
international lending agencies on how to verify the credibility and legitimacy of
NGOs as people's representatives.
 The advocacy campaigns of NGOs have redefined Narrow policy issues such as
violence against women, to include war crimes against women and the
economic rights of women in the global economy.
 The success of advocacy NGOs has been accompanied by increased scepticism
on the part of international policy actors.
 Advocacy NGOs are located within a pluralist liberal democratic space, in which
they, like their private counterparts, represent a specialized constituency in the
Global Forum.

POLICIES AND POLITICS

Policy Actors
 Global policy actors'14 efforts to accommodate NGOs within the current reform process.
13
Meaning they do not represent a particular geographically defined community.
14
United Nations, the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation
  Policy actors incorporate the role of NGOs in ways that advance the economic agenda of
their institutions.
 The two strategies that Policy Actors entail are: (represents a trend towards the privatization
of the public sphere)
o a) pluralizing the public sphere
o b) depoliticizing the private sphere
 The way the international policy community15 addresses the issue is focused on the interests
of transnational capital16

Economic Institutions' Role in Shaping Policy

 These new economic institutions17 are dominated by a small group of Northern
ministers, academics, and consultants.
 Purpose of new economic institutions:
o 1) To enable free market18 conditions19
o 2) To ensure an efficient bureaucracy20 and a stable and peaceful
society.
 A shift in economic policy involves important cultural changes within the body of
politics.

Role of Liberalism in the Society and State

 The promotion of liberal democracy21 goes hand in hand with the institution of
market economies in the current policy context.
 Liberalism promotes self-determination for the individual, protecting the
individual from state and societal regulation.
 Democracy involves the state and its people actively constructing public
institutions and a public sphere that guarantees welfare.

15
Broad group of people and governments of the world responsible for policy making
16
Transnational capitalism refers to the sum of all the relations between economic agents whether they are
state or private, and they must crossma state borders.
17
They deal with money or with managing the distribution of money, goods, and services in an economy. Eg)
Govt organizations, banks, and investment funds.
18
An eeconomy without government intervention or regulation. Buyers and sellers arrive at prices based only
on supply and demand.
19
Policies that strengthen trade liberalization and the private sector globally
20
A system of government
21
A system of government in which people consent to their rulers, and rulers, in turn, are constitutionally
constrained to respect individual rights.
  An active civil society based on liberalism does not equal a democratic civil
society.
 The disjuncture between the two agendas of neoliberalism and democratization
is best revealed by the ways in which CBOs and advocacy NGOs are positioned
within the new policy agenda.
 The new economic actors draw upon the liberal notion of democracy with its
moral claim to pluralism and autonomy.

The ideology of Depoliticization in order to reach the pinnacle of

Development.
 We need to establish the shift from Broad-based Political Education and
Organization of the poor to providing social and economic inputs based on a
technical assessment of the capacities and needs of the community.
 Livelihood security is a matter of optimal utilization of the abilities and resources
that one possesses.
 Neoliberalism has an approach to empowerment.
 As the capacity of poor people is strengthened and their voices begin to be heard,
they become clients who are capable of demanding and paying for goods and
services from government and private sector agencies. We reach the far end of the
continuum when these clients ultimately become the owners and managers of their
assets and activities.

The Public Interest In relation to Privatization and Liberation

 Privatizing the notion of public interest is an integral part of the New Policy Agenda currently
in force in most countries of the world.
 The New Policy Agenda is seen to comprise two principal strategies.
 a) marketization22/privatization of economic and social sectors (such as
health and education)
 b) democratization of civil society
22
A process of entering transforming to a free market
  Privatization concentrates power and resources rather than diffuses them, and
democratization implies the diffusion of political power.
 Within the neoliberal framework, Democracy is re-defined as the free and full expression of
each specific constituency, with little regard for the uneven relations of power that
characterize the different interest groups.
 Market imperatives of privatization and deregulation are assumed to be non-negotiable, and
Corporations, Advocacy NGOs and Governments are expected to negotiate the interests of
their constituency to the extent possible.
 Instead of Pluralization of forces, the scope of NGO activity is restricted to managerial and
administrative tasks.
o Nature: directed at improving the capacity of the poor to compete in the
marketplace.
o Effect: operative at both levels, privileging the interests of the individual or specific
group over the well-being of the general.
 NGOs are being re-inscribed in the current policy discourse in ways that strengthen
liberalism and undermine democracy.
 The World Bank, an important player in the global reform process, it advances a similar
pluralist approach to global policymaking.
 Further, it raises the disquieting question that if neither the state nor NGOs represent the
public good, then who does?
 An effective trade liberalization and privatization policy requires a minimalist state and a
dynamic civil society.
 To stimulate private capital investments and establish transnational market relations, it is
necessary to divest from the state as well as minimize state regulation of the private sector.
 The pluralization of the global policy forum by multiple interests constitutes a privatization
of the public sphere and delegitimizes any notion of the public interest.
o Effect: Not only is the state decentred as the legitimate representative of the public
interest, but equally, civil society's multiple divergent private interests are accorded
legitimacy and prominence.
o
Brief Abstract: PUBLIC INTEREST23|NGOs24|NEOLIBERAL ERA25
Policy debates on NGOs exemplify the conflict between liberalism (private/individualism) and social
(public

23
Well-being of the public.
24
bridging the gap between governments and citizens, particularly in the provision of basic services.
25
Capitalism