NGOs and the State in an Era of Economic Liberalization
Introduction:
 Shift in economic policies imposed on national governments from
1990-2000.
 In developing countries, structural adjustment policies and
economic liberalism dicated:
o Cutbacks in health, education and social services.
o Scaling back of welfarist goals by governments.
o Change from fordism to flexible accumulation in terms of
labour markets and labour organization.
o Emergence of transnational organizations, such as the WTO,
that increasingly determined economic and trade policies.
o Re-orientation of the state to attract direct private investment,
either domestic or foreign.
o Franchising out by states of many of its social welfare
activities to independent, non-governmental organizations.
The History and Role of NGOs:
 Non-governmental organizations emerged in Latin America, Africa
and Asia from intellectuals alienated from capitalism, the state, and
existing political parties. Autonomous political force.
 The intellectual quality and morale of early NGOs was very high.
 However, between 1985 and 1995, funding for NGOs and GROs
increased by 1700%.
 Along with SAPs and the retreat of the welfare functions of national
governments, the WB and IMF placed great emphasis on ‘civil
society’ and ‘good governance’.
 NGOs and GROs were targeted as organizations that could be:
o an important counterweight to state power, improving public
participation and fostering a democratic ‘civil society’
o More efficient and dedicated development agents than the
state.
o More cost-effective deliverers of social services.
o Better agents for the dissemination of new ideas.
o More participatory and democratic than state agencies.
o Expected to address issues related to gender inequality, the
environment, sustainable development, law, political
emancipation and participation and almost every other
shortcoming that is supposed to convey some meaning to the
term ‘underdeveloped’ (Zaidi).
o At the same time, the WB and other multilateral agencies
derided national states’ abilities to deliver these ‘goods’.
Recent Critiques of NGOs:
o Provide the social cushion for those most negatively affected by the
shock therapies of SAPs and neoliberalism.
o But can only provide a band-aid approach to poverty (Zaidi).
o Disbersed and Fragmented Issues taken up.
o Many are driven by donor funding and issues, leading to
fragmentation and a patron-client relationship.
NGOs and the Architecture of Global Governance
o Have they become part of the consensual wing of neoliberal
governance? (Kamat).
o To what extent have the abrogated their critical and political roles?
o Grassroots organizations constitute part of civil society, distinct
from the state, and whose relations to the state has, in the past, been
discussed mainly in terms of domination.
o Kamat’s example of the Adivasi Sansad/Sanghatana in Maharashtra
India.
The Adivasi Sansad/Sanghatana
o The founders of the Sansad had become politicized through JP
Narayan’s idea of ‘total revolution’ based on Gandhian socialism.
o Established an Adivasi Sanghatana to free ‘tribal’ bonded labourers
in the mountainous districts of western Maharashtra.
o More generally, its goals were to create a strong sense of political
efficacy and power among th e tribals to resist and challenge state
and elite oppression.
o However, once the labourers had been freed, there was the problem
of finding them alternative employment.
o The Sanghatana then took up a dairy development project sponsored
by the World Bank.
o The Sangha was added to the Sanghatana as the developmentoriented wing of the organization; specialists hired.
Development and Depoliticization
o The dairy had demands that were far beyond the means of the
beneficiaries. Landless labourrers could not afford the fodder and
other feed, let alone the numerous injections, vaccinations and
medicines for the cow.
o The cows acquired the status of a commodity-object, able to
radically alter the fate of the adivasis.
o As the dairy failed due to its capital-intensive nature, the technical
staff suggested new schemes, e.g. poultry production, while the
social and political nature of ‘development’ was now never
questioned.
o Adivasi political activists became alienated from the technical
discourse surrounding development.
o The Sansad and its technical staff overwhelmed the more politically
oriented Sanghatana.
Conclusions
o Gramsci’s analysis of state and civil society, as imbricated in one
another, and not as separate and oppositional forces, offers a critical
point from which one can study grassroots organizations.
o Makes it possible to see them as articulated with the consent and
legitimation functions of the state, rather than as an autonomous
political tendency of civil society.
o Sonia Alvares notes a similar change in feminist organizations in
Latin America.
o Even more true of those NGOs and GROs that have emerged mainly
through donor-funding.
o The number of NGOs that have been successful in retaining their
original character is very few: e.g. Grameen Bank, BRAC, SEWA in
South Asia.