Power & Poverty:
International development in a
globalised world
“Alternative Development”: civil society
and social movements
Week 7
Guest Lecture with Alexander Waters
alex.waters@monash.edu
Political Actors shaping the Global Regime
Convergence thinking
States and state-based
international institutions
Who makes the
rules/norms? (and
how are they made?)
IGOs
Regime
(Rules/
norms)
Global capital,
corporate entities
(networks)
Philanthropic
organizations, eg the
Gates Foundation.
Global
Economy
(TNCs)
Global
Civil
Society
Transnational civil
society agents,
social movements,
people’s
organisations etc
Overview of Week 7 Lecture
 Background on how I became interested in civil society and international
development, using the example of the Climate Justice Movement
 Define key concepts: globalisation, civil society, NGOs, social movements
 Position this week's topic in relation to older development perspectives,
particularly the State-based framework.
 Successful case studies
 Case studies where alternative strategies have failed
 Criticisms of the alternative development approach.
 Summarise and connections with next week’s topic
1) Background on how I became interested in
civil society and international development
 Alex Waters, PhD candidate at
Centre for Global Research at
RMIT University
 I study non-state political
actors; especially global
populist social movements.
My approach and why I emphasise social
movements as decisive civil society actors
 Since the fall of the Soviet Union in the
1990s, civil society has become central
to debates around international
development (NGOs).
 The social movements I’ll discuss today
represent a new category of political
actor; with millions of members and
operating at a global scale.
 They challenge old definitions of
citizenship, politics, democracy and
reframe policy debates with critical,
populist analyses of global injustice.
“Networked Society” and “Networked Social
Movements”
 I focus on Global Populist
Social Movements. These did
not emerge out of a cultural
vacuum but are part of a
trend that social movement
scholarship has been
debating since the 1990s: the
rise of the “networked
society” and with it,
“networked social
movements” (Castells 2012).
Significance of the Transition to a
“Network Society”
 We’re transitioning to a “post-property” society where sharing is the norm
 Examples of this trend include:
 Intellectual property versus freely flowing information
 Music, movies and TV shows: Strictly controlled Copyright versus free file sharing
services online
 Corporate-owned Mass Media versus social media/ independent online media
 Spending big on owning a car versus using ride sharing apps like Uber
 The ‘network’ leads to increased empowerment, political participation and
democratisation (Hughes 1993)
The “Anonymous” hacker collective as a
Networked Social movement
 In the mass media’s coverage of their actions,
the hacker collective “Anonymous” is either
ridiculed or dismissed as deviant.
 Hacked and generally undermined the authority
of some of the most powerful nation state
institutions in the world: CIA, Interpol, Chinese
government etc.
 A study from 2015 found that the network is
made up “at a minimum” 22 million members,
based on an analysis of active Facebook pages.
Climate justice defined and Naomi Klein quote
The world’s most economically
vulnerable people:
 Did not cause climate change.
 Are most likely to experience,
and least equipped to handle,
the worst effects of climate
change.
 Must be included in climate
change solutions, including
carbon projects which provide
significant and direct financial
benefits to them.
 Must be empowered to adapt to
climate change.
Case study of a civil society actor shaping the
global regime - Climate Justice Movement
 We live in a moment of
system crisis and
potentially system
transition. This is evident
from:
 Climate Change
 Austerity
 Police militarisation
Climate Justice Movement
Climate Justice Movement
Direct Actions as a way of
forcing policy changes
 The CJM has a very innovative repertoire of
‘direct actions’ where they physically intervene in
urban or natural environments to draw attention
to an issue.
 Recent examples include
 actress Emma Thompson occupying the Shell
Corporation’s London head office with a giant
polar bear.
 “Pacific Island Warriors” physically blocking coal
ships from leaving Newcastle harbour. Newcastle
City Council formally announced it is divesting from
fossil fuels within 3 months.
“Divestment” campaign explained in
cartoon form
What is “divestment”? How does it work?
http://about.gofossilfree.org.au/
What major institutions have divested from fossil fuels?
What is the Australian public’s opinion on
Divestment?
 More than 7/10 are concerned if their bank was
financing coal and gas projects and the impact of
fossil fuel projects on water and air quality, nearby
agriculture and farmland.
 More than 7/10 also said they would choose a
bank/pension fund that doesn’t invest in fossil fuels
over one that does, and that banks should have to
consider the social and environmental impact of
projects they lend money to.
 Popular opinion does not translate directly into
government policy. Civil society actors challenge
the state and advocate for social policy changes.
What I look for to find Social Movement
“Consequence”, “Success” or “Impact”
 Consequence for targeted cultures
 Consequence for targeted institutions
 Consequence for targeted political systems
 Increased recruitment
2) Defining Civil Society
 Civil society is a contentious and slippery subject
 At its simplest, civil society is the arena in which people come together to
pursue the interests they hold in common - not for profit or political power,
but because they care enough about something to take collective action. It
is:
 “the space of un-coerced human action”
 “the vehicle through which people take action as moral beings”
 “all organisations and associations above the level of the family and below the
level of the state”
Defining civil society
 Realm between the State and the family
 Populated by organisations that are autonomous from the State
 Organisations that are formed voluntarily; private actors that are
not for profit
 Largely excludes for-profit actors such as TNCs (with some caveats)
 Actors are often single issue-based
 The means by which groups of citizens can negotiate their interests
with the State and the Market.
What are Civil Society Organisations
(CSOs)?
NGOs
Online groups
Social movements of collective action and/or identity, which
can be online or physical
Religious communities, faith-based organizations
Labour unions and labour organizations representing workers
Grassroots associations and activities at local level
Cooperatives owned and democratically controlled by their
members
What roles do civil society organisations play in
contributing to international development?
 Watchdog
 Advocate
 Service provider
 Capacity builder
 Incubator
 Representative
 Citizenship champion
 Solidarity supporter
 Definer of standards
Global
North
(Western) Global South (Non-Western) Theories
of Civil Society
Theories of Civil Society
Origins
Universal: a stage in the history of the nation state
and industrial capitalism
Contingent: present in all societies at all stages of development,
but expressed in different forms
Structure
Three circles of state, market and civil society;
separate but overlapping
State, market and civil society all have fuzzy borders; emphasis
on inter-connections and evolving hybrids
Membership
Only formal, democratic associations qualify, cutting Traditional associations are members alongside “modern” ones;
across sectional (traditional) interests. Civil society is a associations are “uncivil” as well as civil. Civil society is an
“thing”
“arena”
Position of NGOs May be included, if they satisfy the membership
criteria given above
Always included, even where they are not membership
associations
Roles
Securing individual freedom and democracy in the
face of incursions by states. The end result is “a civil
society”
Promoting broader participation in all aspects of life, economic
and social as well as in politics. The end result is “a society that is
civil”
Policy
Implications
All societies made to fit the three-circle model, and
all civil societies should look like those in the West.
Civil society is a solution to development problems.
Focus on building the conditions in which civil societies can
shape themselves more successfully; support particular
associations within civil society. Development means tackling the
inter-locking structures of social, economic and political power
that keep people poor.
Donor Attitudes
Instrumentalist: civil society delivers
Open-ended partnership: civil society delivers its own objectives
Civil Society promotion as an
International Development strategy
 The donor nations heavily encourage the development of civil society in
recipient nations of foreign aid and development assistance.
 Part of this stems from a desire to recreate a ‘Western liberal democracy’
with “good governance”;
 this includes a plurality of political actors to keep the State in check
 protects Western economic interests by weakening nationalised industry
 However, governments in the Global South are often dictatorial; dismissive of
civil society
 To address this cooperative collective action is needed to monitor the
implementation of development agency policies more rigorously.
Civil Society and Democratisation
Democracy as an idea and value has spread significantly since
the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Civil society in some countries has been the locus of alternative,
participatory forms of governance and political organisation.
In other cases it has been marginalized or weakened.
This can come through active state repression or passive cultural
factors which prevent the population from fully adopting Western
notions and practises of what a civil society and its actors should
do.
Some questions for those interested in
further research into Civil Society
 How is civil society constituted – in response to objective changing
conditions and trends or as a means of bringing about these
conditions?
 What is the role of civil society in the social change and
development process in mediating between donors and outside
forces, and the local communities of the poor? – Is it to facilitate or
act as a participatory form of economic or social development? Or
to contribute to the establishment of “democracy” or “good
governance”?
3) Alternative Development’s relationship to
earlier perspectives (State-based framework)
 Its important to position alternative approaches in relation to other development perspectives,
particularly those which rely on the State as the central political actor (donor versus recipient
countries).
 By early 1970s:
 Growing criticisms of dominant approaches to development as failing the poorest, and
unsustainable:
 Economic focus & trickle down assumptions
 “top-down” – centralised, bureaucratic
 Technocratic
 “blue print”
 Excluded the “beneficiaries” from participating in identifying needs, setting goals, or
contributing
(Desai & Potter 2008)
Emergence of alternative &
people-centred development
 Calls for bringing social, political and environmental
dimensions into development
 Reject “blue-print” approach
 Bottom-up
 Participatory – local people involved in setting goals,
contributing to development effort, sharing in benefits
 Fit well with “Basic Needs Approach” of mid-1970s
4) Comparing the role of
different civil society actor
categories: NGOs, social
movements, State
Top-Down Participation
Established by the state
Purpose, agenda & terms of participation
controlled by the state or multilateral agencies
EG: community consultation in EIA processes,
state sponsored agricultural cooperatives
Intermediary Participation (NGOs)
 There are different categories of Professional Staff
international development
Purpose and agenda controlled by NGO’s
professional leadership and staff
organisation.
EG: Oxfam, national development and
 Today I am dealing with the
environment NGOs, Grassroots Support
“Bottom-Up participation”>>>
Organisations
Bottom-Up Participation
 It’s important to briefly compare Community–Based Organisations
and contrast civil society
Purpose, agenda & terms of participation
organisations and NGOs though. controlled by members
EG: grassroots organisations
World Bank (2002) Empowerment and Poverty Reduction Sourcebook
Critiques of NGOs
 Global South Critique NGOs and the Western role in development generally as
 demobilizing,
 undemocratic,
 prone to elite co-optation
 “New Colonialism” dynamic of grateful/obedient recipients and benevolent donors.
Providing welfare and development services that should be provided by the state
 Bureaucratic, wasteful of funds and resources that are meant for the poor (eg luxuriously
high wages/benefits for Western NGO workers in the midst of abject poverty.)
Critiques of NGOs
 Paternalistic – promote their own rather elite values, ideologies and agendas
 Key role in global development industry which is perpetuating inequality etc…
 Who are they accountable to?
 Upward accountability to funders
 Downward accountability to poor beneficiaries
 The close working relationship with government – where NGOs seek state
funding, becoming co-producers of welfare, development and security – also
raises issues about autonomy and political positioning.
NGOs and Social Movements
Are NGOs a positive factor in the development process? Whose
interests do they primarily represent – those of the donors and
guardians of the Western-led order or those groups that are
socially excluded, marginalised and poor?
Is it possible for development NGOs to support or facilitate selfdevelopment of the poor outside the program of international
co-operation without serving as strategic partners of the
development associations and without any funding from them?
5) Successful case studies and the
Globalisation of Civil Society
 Drawing on what we learned in week 4,
globalisation involved:
 Faster, more efficient, cheaper transport of
people and goods
 Communication and information technology
 Consolidation of national economic markets
into a more integrated global market with
reduced trade barriers
 Neoliberal order: Transnational corporations
(TNCs) and globalisation of
production/consumption systems
Globalisation of Civil Society
Neoliberalism provokes
greater inequality,
greater reaction and
resistance, globally
Quote on inequality and
resistance to Neoliberal
globalisation from this
week’s reading – citing a
report by the UK Ministry
of Defence.
Anti-Neoliberal reaction: the
Global Justice Movement
Where did they come from?
The Networked Society Leads to
Networked Social Movements
 New communications technologies, especially the internet
facilitated this process within the internationalist faction of each
movement.
 Over a period of decades, the movements really start to coalesce
around the issue of Global Justice (North-South frame) in the late
1990s, which has evolved into Climate Justice in the mid-2010s.
 Unlike older “cultural issue” movements, the GPSMs combine
cultural, symbolic, material and social demands (Milani 2007).
Case Study: World Social Forum
‘Another World Is Possible’
"an opened space – plural, diverse, non-governmental and nonpartisan – that stimulates the decentralized debate, reflection,
proposals building, experiences exchange and alliances among
movements and organizations engaged in concrete actions towards
more solidarity, a more democratic and fairer world....a permanent
space and process to build alternatives to neoliberalism."
The World Social Forum provides an alternative to the World Economic
Forum. This emphasis on priorities – social versus economic - is crucial
to understanding how civil society shapes the global regime.
Comparing the World Social Forum and
the World Economic Forum
World Social Forum
World Economic Forum
Production of wealth and social
reproduction;
Civil society and the public arena;
Addressing the backlash against
globalization;
Business and non-governmental
organizations;
Can technology alleviate poverty?
The company and the public;
Access to wealth and sustainability;
Political power and ethics in the new
society;
How can civil society have access to the
decision-making processes?
Inequalities and the new information
technologies;
Social responsibility of the private sector
and taxing financial flows;
Is another world possible?
How can globalization deliver the goods?
Seizing the global digital opportunity;
The shape of the 21st century corporation;
The evolution and the benefits of
economic globalization.
Question on globalisation
 What is the best way to advance the interests of the socially
excluded, marginalised and poor – by joining and encouraging the
poor to join alternative globalisation movements or to serve as
strategic partners of overseas development associations/more
formal actors like NGOs in their ‘war on poverty’?
Case study: Brazil’s Landless Worker’s
Movement
“There is no economic or social reason that impedes every Brazilian from having access o land,
work, dignified housing, quality public schools, and food. But we need the courage to change
our government, rethink economic policy and challenge the profits of the powerful.”
 Grassroots movement of rural workers and peasants to bring about land reform through
direct collective action.
 They occupy land that is not in productive or social use and thus subject to expropriation
under the 1988 constitution.
 Includes 60 food cooperatives, a complex of small agricultural industries based on local
production, 1,000 schools, 2,000 teachers and 50,000 students, and an organisation to
provide its members alternative education and health services.
Cleveland Model example from the
global north
 Cleveland – rust belt industrial city, devastated when abandoned
by anchor employers, jobs shipped overseas – 50% children below
poverty line.
 Community left behind still has many resources, uses a diversity of
alternative development approaches emphasising civil society to
rebuild.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_kLye_6VBc
6) Case study where alternative strategies have failed: The Red
Cross and Reconstruction after the Haiti earthquake disaster
 Haiti is among the very poorest countries in the
world.
 In 2010 an earthquake resulted in a severe
humanitarian crisis.
 The American Red Cross quickly raised $500 million
in donations, however built only 6 (six) houses.
Some NGOs as ‘creatures of a Neoliberal
(development) framework’
 The Red Cross and other NGOs are
not alone in giving into competitive
pressures of being in the global
market and prioritising economics
and image over social need.
 All institutions today are
systematically measured in ways
dictated by the market
 This reflects the “cultural
hegemony” of Neoliberal thought
7) Criticisms of the alternative
development approach
 Civil society lacks the financial resources of the State and the private sector
 Civil society lacks the centralised coordination and organisation of the State
 Social movements are not institutionalised; they can emerge quickly but can’t be
relied on to implement a development program over the long term.
 Alternatives are unrealistic / utopian, not dealing with the realistic means and
ends of poverty eradication.
 In countries where Civil Society is still weak outside interference has an impact on
the development and composition of civil society. New conflicts may emerge
when select sections of the population are supported and their interests favoured
above others: just like the State and private sector, the imperialism inherent in
North-South relations can become evident.
8) Summary of what we’ve learned today
 State, private sector and civil society political actors seek to pull and shape the regime in
different directions.
 Defined key concepts: globalisation, civil society, social movements
 Positioned this week's topic in relation to older development perspectives, particularly the
State-based framework.
 Successful case studies: World Social Forum, Climate Justice Movement, Brazilian Landless
Peasants Movement.
 Case studies where alternative strategies have failed
 Red Cross in Haiti disaster reconstruction
 Criticisms of the alternative development approach.
Final thought: there’s no such thing as
being “politically neutral”
 In democratic countries like Australia, we have a
responsibility to use the rights our ancestors struggled for;
to be active participants and citizens in shaping the
regime, rather than passive spectators.
 Politics is in a constant state of evolution. Neoliberalism is
not an eternal natural order but was made by organised
human beings with plans, and can therefore be unmade
in the same way.
 Social movements play a critically important role in
holding powerful institutions to account, sometimes even
overthrowing structures of injustice and setting a
‘prefigurative’ example for the rest of society (the
“politically agnostic”) to follow.
Next Week: Education and Development
 Bruce will be back in week 8 to give the lecture on education and
development
 This builds on what we’ve learned over the last 2 weeks about
community development, participatory theories and alternative
approaches.
References & Further reading
Alperovitz, G., Speth, J. & Guinan, J. (2015) New System Project Report: New Political-Economic Possibilities
for the Twenty-First Century, The Next System Project, 1:4-21.
Castells, M. (2012) Networks of Outrage and Hope. Cambridge: Polity Press
DCDC (2007) Global strategic Trends 2007-2036, See:
http://www.cuttingthroughthematrix.com/articles/strat_trends_23jan07.pdf
Hughes, E. (1993) (ed. 2001) The Cypherpunks Manifesto: Crypto Anarchy, Cyberstates, and Pirate Utopias,
ed. Peter Ludlow. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Klein, N. (2014) This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, pp. 17-24. London, Penguin UK.
Pratt, N. (2004), Bringing politics back in: examining the link between globalisation and democratization,
Review of International Political Economy, Vol. 11, No. 2, 331-336.
Steger, M. (2009) Globalization: a very short introduction, pp. 6-11, Oxford University Press Oxford; New York.
Steger, M. B., Goodman, J., & Wilson, E. K. (2013). Justice globalism: Ideology, crises, policy. London: SAGE
Publications Ltd. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781446270080
World Civil Society website - http://www.worldcivilsociety.org/pages/1/en/presfor.htm
The Rules website - http://therules.org/