Marketing Morality
A study of how Dutch NGOs draw upon, reproduce, contest or modify the structures
of the neoliberal complex, while navigating in their institutional environment
Eva Gerritse
3351297
Utrecht University
02-04-2014
A Thesis submitted to
the Board of Examiners
in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of
Master of Arts in Conflict Studies & Human Rights
1
Name of Supervisor: Jolle Demmers
Date of Submission: 02-04-2014
Programme trajectory followed: Internship (15 ECTS) and Thesis Writing (15 ECTS)
Word Count:12,326
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Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Theory
- Structure, Agency, Structuration
- The Neoliberal Complex
Research Framework
- Conceptualization and Design
- Methodology
Case-studies
- Empirical Context: The Institutional Environment of the Dutch NGO sector
- Pax
- Cordaid
Conclusion
Bibliography
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Acknowledgements
First of all, my gratitude goes to the people at Pax and Cordaid who cooperated with my research and
introduced me to the fascinating world behind NGO fundraising and communication. Very special
thanks to Eva Ronhaar from Pax, for brainstorming with me and reading my work.
Secondly, I would like to thank Jolle Demmers, for her academic guidance and great comments, but
most of all for her personal encouragement and giving me the freedom to do this my own way.
Lastly, many thanks to my colleagues at Pax, my parents and my friends for their support throughout
this year.
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Introduction
‘The 21st Century NGO: in the Market for Change’ (Global Compact Report, 2002)
‘Aid organisations focus on marketable aid to please donor’ (Volkskrant, 2013)
‘Fond de Commerce (Commercial Enterprise)? Sexual Violence Assistance in the Democratic
Republic of Congo’ (Research Report Wageningen University, 2012)
‘Marketing Humanitarian Space: Argument and Method in Humanitarian Persuasion’ (Centre for
Humanitarian Dialogue, 2003)
‘Saying “No” to Wal-Mart? Money and Morality in Professional Humanitarianism’ (chapter in
Humanitarianism in Question: Politics, Power, Ethics, 2008)
The titles mentioned above all seem to contain a strange contradiction: they connect, directly or
indirectly, ‘humanitarianism’ - the act of ‘aiding others’ out of moral considerations – to terms like
‘market’, ‘marketing’, ‘marketable’, ‘commercial, ‘enterprise’ and ‘money’. However, when diving
deeper into this contradiction, it can be concluded that these titles form just a small selection out of a
fast-growing body of academic articles, case-studies and reports that, directly or indirectly, connects
the broad field of humanitarianism to aspects and ideas stemming from the ‘market’, or a ‘market
logic’. In other words, they are part of a broad, rising debate on ‘marketization’ in the humanitarian
sector.1
The empirical base line of this debate and of the contradiction is clear: globally, the funding pie for aid
and development is shrinking and competition among organisations is rising and this process implies
that the increasing importance of ‘surviving’ in this market might come to overrule humanitarianism’s
moral mission of addressing human needs. However, on the dynamics and consequences of this
process, the debate is quite diffuse. Some point at the advance of the for-profit sector in the field of
humanitarianism. Others analyse how non-profit humanitarian organisations, dependent on and
pressurized by increasing competition for funding, are increasingly behaving like their for-profit
counterparts, embarking on business-like strategies and are pressured to comply with the money
source.2 Connected to this last point, the debate also comprises case-studies describing the
increasing importance - and sometimes perverse consequences - of marketing strategies in the
narratives and images used by organisations in their struggle to stay attractive to, or ‘sell’ themselves
to their donors.
The main line of arguing within this debate - the trend of marketization in the humanitarian sector - can
be placed in a broader academic ‘framework’ or debate that analyses the how different levels of
society are increasingly enmeshed by an all pervasive ‘logic of the market’, in other words, by the
ideas and institutions of our current system of global capitalism: neoliberalism.3 Neoliberalism is the
institutionalized ‘idea’ of global free-market capitalism based on privatization, deregulation,
In this thesis, the term ‘humanitarianism’ encompasses the whole collection of organisations working in the field
of international aid, development, peace and transnational action in general, and is thus not confined to
humanitarian (relief) aid, as the narrow definition of this term would indicate.
2 Stephen Hopgood (2008) ‘Saying “No” to Wal-Mart? Money and Morality in Professional Humanitarianism’, in:
Michael Barnett and Thomas G. Weiss (ed.) Humanitarianism in Question. Politics, Power, Ethics. Cornell
University Press 98-123; Thomas G. Weiss (2013) Humanitarian Business. Polity Press; Alexander Cooley and
James Ron (2002) ‘The NGO Scramble: Organizational Insecurity and the Political Economy of Transnational
Action’, International Security 27 (1) 6; Joanna Macrae et al. (2002) Uncertain Power: The Changing Role of
Official Donors in Humanitarian Assistance. Humanitarian Policy Group report 12; Global Compact (2003) The
21st Century NGO. In the Market for Change.
3 The term ‘neoliberal complex’ was introduced by Jolle Demmers.
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entrepreneurialism and pushing back the state. It was globally implemented in the 1980s as an answer
to the economic crisis and an enduring global slowdown and has since become our hegemonic
‘system’ or ‘structure’ of capitalism. It is the interplay between humanitarianism and neoliberal global
capitalism that forms the central focus of this research.
Current literature on marketization in the humanitarian sector mostly argues from a resource
dependency point of view. It analyses how the sector in general is increasingly ‘enmeshed’ by a
market logic, ‘pushed into’ a certain marketable framing script or ‘restricted’ in its work and
independent agency in the struggle for a piece of the funding pie, sometimes producing dysfunctional
outcomes.4 However, there is no in-depth research yet on how exactly individual NGOs navigate
within this context. I therefore aim to investigate, from the perspective of individual organisations
themselves, how their agency, their room for manoeuvre, is affected by the structural trend of
marketization in the broad sense of the word. My thesis is constructed around the following central
research question: how and to what extent do the Dutch NGOs Pax and Cordaid draw upon,
reproduce, modify or contest the structures of the ‘neoliberal complex’, while navigating in their
institutional environment?
The first part of the thesis consists of two sections. To make the idea and the effects of a global
complex researchable, I will firstly theorize neoliberalism as a three-dimensional ‘structure’. I take
Anthony Giddens’ structuration theory as the starting point and - in order to investigate its discursive
and institutional continuities - break down the ‘structure of neoliberalism’ into three dimensions or
interpretations: an institutionalized project; a rationality or logic of practice; and as a ‘governmentality’,
constituting certain frames on war, poverty, crisis and development itself. The next section is
dedicated to the research conceptualization and design: the dissection of the theoretical layers into
workable analytical indicators.
The second part of the thesis consists of the two case-studies of Pax and Cordaid. These are two
organisations navigating within the same institutional environment of the Dutch development sector,
which in itself forms an interesting and very relevant empirical context to situate this research in.
Marketization in the sense of increasing competition for decreasing funding is getting more severe at
this very moment. This is due to global processes (cutbacks due to the crisis, increased direct
financing of Southern organisations and changing perspectives on the role of Northern organisations,
donor fatigue among the public), but also to specific developments in the Dutch context. After 2015,
the government subsidy system for NGOs will end and government funding will be subject to severe
cutbacks. Dutch organisations are now all strategizing on how to survive the ‘bloody battle for money’
that will ensue. I will explore different ‘cases’ or examples of strategies the organisations Pax and
Cordaid employ to navigate in this institutional environment and how and to what extent this navigation
draws upon, reproduces, contests or modifies the structural continuities of the neoliberal complex.
Objectives
This thesis has four more overarching objectives, which are also connected to the justification and
relevance of the research. First of all, the empirical investigation is intended to contribute to the heated
debates currently going on in the Dutch development sector, as to what influence the cutbacks will
have on organisations and their work.
Secondly, although within the case-studies I connect the empirical findings to the theory - making the
connection between ‘ideas’ and ‘evidence’ - the theoretical and conceptual framework is also meant to
stand on itself. I aim to catch, clarify and theorize the debate on neoliberalisation in the
humanitarianism sector, to provide a first theoretical, conceptual and methodological base for much-
Thomas W. Dichter (1999) ‘Globalization and Its Effects on NGOs: Efflorescence or a Blurring of Roles and
Relevance?’, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 28 (4) 38-58; Michael Edwards (1999) ‘International
Development NGOs: Agents of Foreign Aid or Vehicles for International Cooperation?’, Nonprofit and Voluntary
Sector Quarterly 28 (4) 25-37; Cooley and Ron, ‘The NGO Scramble’; Weiss, Humanitarian Business.
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needed further research. The thesis is therefore intentionally broad-based and, due to the nascent
state of this debate, of an exploratory character.
Thirdly, I aim to contribute theoretically, conceptually and methodologically to research into
representation and framing in the humanitarian field. It is crucial to investigate (in a context of
marketization, marketing and market trends) the frames and narratives organisations use in ‘selling’
themselves to their donors in campaigns and proposals, for two reasons. Firstly, development
organisations have an educating role in society. In their communication, they are the ones framing,
and thereby shaping our views of, the ‘Third World’, of development cooperation and of the role of
donor and beneficiary - of ‘us’ and ‘them’. Herein lies the ethical core of the research; an ethical core
that is even more clear in of the second reason: in their frames and narratives organisations actively
construct the ‘why’ of war, crisis and poverty and the ‘how’ of their solutions which are translated into
assistance programmes, thereby directly playing into local settings.
Lastly, I aim to contribute to the academic debate on neoliberalism and its expressions. In academic
theory neoliberalism is often taken to be a hegemonic global ‘system’ or ‘meta-logic’ and used as an
all-pervasive explanatory concept, for which the ‘evidence’, however, is often less clear. I intend to
expose, both theoretically as well as empirically, the internal complexities, varieties and
inconsistencies characterizing both neoliberalism as well as its use as an explanatory concept.
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Theory
Structure, Agency, Structuration
In this chapter I will theorize and conceptualize the meaning of ‘neoliberal complex’ as the term that
collectivizes and problematizes all recent talk, writing and critique on ‘marketization’ in and of the
humanitarian sector. First it is important to define what neoliberalism is. Simply put, neoliberalism is an
institutionalized ‘idea’ of global capitalism, born in the 1980s as an answer to the economic crisis in
capitalist states and an enduring global slowdown, that has since become hegemonic. It has become
a global complex, also impacting the aid sector in multiple ways. To make the idea and the effects of a
global complex researchable, I conceptualize neoliberalism as a ‘structure’. Structure is a problematic
concept within the social sciences, considered as the driver of all societal life by some, denied in
existence by others. A full overview of the structure-agency debate in the social sciences falls outside
the scope of this thesis. In this research, I take structure to be a duality, as theorized by Anthony
Giddens in his structuration theory.
According to structuration theory, structure and agency are intertwined; they are mutually constitutive
in the production of systems in that agency both produces and is produced by structure. The basic
domain of social research is neither the experience of the individual actor, nor the existence of any
form of societal totality, but the duality of both in the ordering of social systems over time and space. 5
Structures are therefore defined as the rules and resources recursively implicated in the reproduction
of social systems.6 These ‘rules and resources’ become manifest and visible to us in discursive and
institutional continuities, which are intentionally or unintentionally drawn upon, reproduced, modified or
contested by purposive and knowledgeable agents. 7 ‘Structural properties in social systems may not
reproduce systems, but they shape, channel and facilitate system reproduction wherever it occurs by
providing agents with the practical awareness of the practices, relations and spatio-temporal settings
they require to participate in the reproductive process. In institutionalised systems, practices, relations
and articulations which are central to system reproduction may be regarded as structured processes:
processes, that is, which are reproducible by an indefinite number of knowledgeable agents.’ 8
Therefore, in analysing the system of neoliberalism and, central to this research, investigating how
agents act and navigate within, upon or against this system, reproducing or contesting it, one first has
to analyse the ‘rules and resources’ underpinning neoliberalism; one has to dissect the discursive and
institutional continuities which structure neoliberalism into a global complex.
The Neoliberal ‘Complex’
Neoliberalism as a system of global capitalism is a multi-dimensional complex and therefore subject to
an even complex collection of various, sometimes competing definitions and conceptualizations from
different disciplines and from different analytical, methodological and ontological positions. The
theoretical expansion of neoliberalism as a field of academic inquiry has diminished consensus on
what is actually meant by neoliberalism, making it an extremely challenging concept to work with. 9 As
stated above, guidance in analysing neoliberalism as a system is offered by structuration theory,
focusing on institutional and discursive continuities reproduced over time and space. As Harrison
explains: ‘in itself, neoliberalism does nothing; its ‘presence’ emerges through its embodiment in
discourse and practice, and only then through the effort of interpretation and critical reconstruction’. 10 I
will analyse the structural continuities by using three understandings or interpretations of neoliberalism
5
Anthony Giddens (1984) The Constitution of Society. Outline of the Theory of Structuration. University of
California Press in: Jolle Demmers (2012) Theories of Violent Conflict. An Introduction. Routledge, 119.
6 Giddens (1984).
7 Ibidem.
8 Vivienne Jabri (1996) Discourses on Violence: Conflict Analysis Reconsidered. Manchester University Press, 91.
9 Simon Springer (2012) ‘Neoliberalism as Discourse: between Foucauldian Political Economy and Marxian
Poststructuralism’, Critical Discourse Studies 9 (2) 135.
10 Graham Harrison (2010) Neoliberal Africa. The Impact of Global Social Engineering. Zed Books, 29.
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as a structure: as an institutionalized ‘project’; as a rationality or logic of practice; and as a
governmentality promulgating particular frames on war, crisis, poverty and development itself. These
interpretations, although constituted by analytical and ontological differences, should not be seen as
standing in isolation, but rather as recursive of each other. Furthermore, it is not my intention to give
an all-encompassing or exhaustive conceptualization of neoliberalism and what it ‘does’ as a structure.
Indeed, as stated, it is my aim to expose the internal complexities, varieties and inconsistencies
characterizing both neoliberalism as well as its use as an explanatory concept. The term ‘complex’
should therefore not be seen as implying the existence of an omnipresent, monolithic, external or selfreproducing ‘force’, but as a bundle of connected discourses and practices reproduced over time and
space, pointing at some sort of ‘metalogic’.11
Institutional continuities
The first, most straightforward, understanding of neoliberalism as a structure, is the institutional or
materialist interpretation. Neoliberalism is referred to as an institutionalized project of economic
reforms, policies and programs, focused on the transfer of ownership from the state or public holdings
to the private sector or corporate interests. In this sense, neoliberalism might be thought of as an
academic synonym of more straightforward terms such as laissez-faire or marketization.12 The idea
underlying these policies is that opening collectively held resources (from education to infrastructure
to, indeed, aid and development) to privatization, deregulation, market mediation and competition,
engenders greater efficiency. It is in this approach to neoliberalism that its essential ontology –
individual behaviour is guided by self-interestedness, utilitarianism and calculative rationality, which
will, through the working of the free market, eventually lead to the most optimal outcome – is
materialised and institutionalized, in the form of real-life market reforms and policies.
Concerning the aid sector, the ‘institutional’ part of the neoliberal complex would point at the
introduction and intensification of competitive tendering for renewable contracts based on ‘measurable’
performance outcomes, the emphasis on cost-effectiveness and the influx of commercial money and
for-profit service-providers into the ‘market of humanitarianism’.
This dimension points at real-life processes taking place in the institutional environment of
humanitarian organisations, and therefore at the essential contextualization of the research question.
Policies aimed at and practices revolving around a process of marketization in the aid sector will be
pointed at and analysed, but are not subject to investigation or problematization an sich, for they can
be taken as a given. The problematization lies in the question how these institutional continuities are
reproduced (or not) by individual organisations in their performances and to what extent these
institutional continuities constrain or enable organisations in their actual work. I will come back to this
below. Firstly and most importantly, investigating agency necessitates a wider interpretation of the
‘structure’ formed by neoliberalism.
Rationality or the ‘logic of practice’
The second understanding of neoliberalism adds another dimension to the neoliberal global complex,
by looking beyond its institutional or materialist features. In order to comprehend its effects,
neoliberalism has to be conceived of as more than a set of free market economic policies. Indeed, its
logic is far more pervasive.13 Authors writing in a Foucauldian tradition draw attention to neoliberalism
as a discursive formation, in the form of a ‘governmentality’ or a logic of practice.14 According to the
11
Harrison (2010) 29.
Idem, 10.
13 Wendy Brown (2006) ‘American Nightmare: Neoliberalism. Neoconservatism, and De-Democratization’,
Political Theory, 34 (6) 693.
14 See Wendy Brown (2013) ‘Homo Oeconomicus, Homo Politicus and Democracy’, overview of Neoliberalism
and the Undoing of Democracy (In progress); Calin Cotoi (2011) ‘Neoliberalism: a Foucauldian Perspective’,
International Review of Social Research 1 (2) 109-124. Stephen Gill, (1995) ‘Globalisation, Market Civilisation,
and Disciplinary Neoliberalism’, Millennium – Journal of International Studies 24 (3) 399-423.
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understanding of governmentality, power lies in knowledge production, ‘through the ensemble of
rationalities, strategies, technologies and techniques concerning the mentality of rule that allow for the
de-centring of government through the active role of auto-regulated or auto-correcting selves who
facilitate governance at a distance, through the ‘conduct of conduct’. 15 Governmentality thus
introduces regularities into realities: moral forms, epistemological structures and specific languages,
governing thought and behaviour as discursive continuities, or ‘regimes of truth’. 16 The discursive
power of neoliberalism as a governmentality shapes conformity to a market model through the
emerging of specific regimes of truth, articulating the nature and meaning of the political, the social
and the subject.
Wendy Brown builds on this conceptualization of neoliberalism as governmentality, by referring to it as
a rationality. She analyses the historical ascendancy of the neoliberal form of normative reason,
becoming a rationality through which market metrics are extended to every dimension of human life
and every social domain. This rationality promulgates the production of all human conduct through a
specific image of homo oeconomicus. It reduces the individual to human capital, forced to become
entrepreneurial on every front in order to survive, and promulgates all human institutions through a
specific model of the firm.17 For Brown, ‘neoliberal political rationality produces governance criteria
along the same lines, that is, criteria of productivity and profitability, with the consequence that
governance talk increasingly becomes market-speak’.18 She goes further by arguing that human
beings are now no longer creatures of moral autonomy or individual sovereignty, as implied by the
historic notion of homo politicus. Instead the replacement of homo politicus by the neoliberal homo
oeconomicus, subordinated by market rationality and market powers for all conduct, has narrowed
liberty down to market strategies and has subjected it to the inherent inequality of the market. It
replaces values of morality and accountability with norms of good management: effectivity and
profitability. Even more importantly, she argues, neoliberalism depoliticizes social problems: ‘as
neoliberalism converts every political or social problem into market terms, it converts them to individual
problems with market solutions.’19 This draws the attention to issues of representation within
development itself and is therefore the stepping stone to the third understanding of neoliberalism as a
structure, described in the next section.
In a way, this second approach also speaks of neoliberalism as ‘depoliticization’ or ‘marketization’, but
then on the level of the discursive shaping of a logic of practice. It is on this level that the disciplinary
impetus of neoliberalism flows through all domains of life. It produces power and authority (rules and
resources) even in the absence of explicitly punitive or coercive mechanisms, in this way forming a
‘structure’.20 Accompanying the discursive power of neoliberalism as a rationality is the claim that it is
underpinned by an unquestioned ‘common sense’, according to Springer quite literally, as a sense
held in common.21 In other words, it is not a magical shaping power or unitary hegemonic force, but a
pervasive logic of practice through which certain regimes of truth are, often unintentionally,
reproduced.22
This interpretation of neoliberalism is underpinned by a complicated ontology of agency, which has
interesting implications for my research. On the one hand, it seems that these authors, mostly writing
from a poststructuralist point of view, aim to introduce a more bottom-up perspective of agency, in
opposition to the political economy understanding of neoliberalism as an ideological hegemonic
project. However, as Springer argues by pointing at the discursive continuities reproduced by agents
through the ‘conduct of conduct’ often characterized by unintentionality, the existence of some sort of
Michel Foucault (1991) ‘Governmentality’ in Springer (2012) 137.
Cotoi (2011) 117.
17 Brown (2013) 2.
18 Brown (2006) 694.
19 Idem, 4.
20 Harrison (2010) 25.
21 Springer (2012) 137.
22 Jolle Demmers, ‘‘Flattering ourselves’: clicktivism and the de-politicization of peace’, forthcoming.
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hegemonic ‘metalogic’ as constraining structure is recognized. How much ‘knowledgeability’, the
central characteristic of Giddens’ purposive agent, is implied within the notion of common sense? And
what are the methodological implications hereof? Below, I will explain further how I conceptualize and
use these insights and their ontological and methodological implications in my research. First I will
introduce the third understanding of the neoliberal complex.
The politics of depoliticization
The third understanding of neoliberalism as a structure also draws attention to its discursive power as
a governmentality, but then as constituting particular narratives on war, poverty, crisis and their
presumed solutions. It therefore broadens the analysis of the neoliberal rationality from the conduct of
organisations in their own institutional environment to how this rationality penetrates framings of what
constitutes a problem (and, importantly, what not) and how this problem should be solved. In short,
how neoliberal rationality penetrates ‘regimes of truth’ within development itself.
According to Mark Duffield, writing from a global governance perspective, central to the neoliberal
development discourse is the representational transformation of parts of the global South from a series
of strategic states at the time of the Cold War, into a dangerous social body during the War on Terror
era.23 The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the bipolar system made local conflicts in the South
lose their former geopolitical strategic significance. Underpinned by the intellectual advance of the
‘new war’ paradigm in the 1990s - describing how post-Cold War internal conflicts are made up of
failure, breakdown, barbarity and illegitimacy - formerly strategic local actors turned into potential
threats. These threats needed to be contained in the name of global security. By constructing the
imagined space of the ‘borderland’ - where monstrous individuals (corrupt dictators, looting rebels) are
the cause of all evil, of which passive victims (oppressed women, hungry children) need to be
‘rescued’ - a powerful legitimation was established for the western humanitarian and military
interventionism that came with the new hierarchy of power of the post-Cold War era.24 Of special
importance in Duffield’s analysis is the statement he makes that global security, or the security of the
metropolitan states’ mass consumer societies, is now no longer viewed in geopolitical, but in
‘biopolitical’ terms. Biopolitics is aimed at changing the conduct of populations in the borderlands
themselves. Duffield specifically points at the intrinsic link between security, development and
containment. The security of global liberal governance is defended by the containment of circulation of
potentially threatening non-insured life by making them self-reliant. This containment comes to the fore
in notions like ‘human security’ and ‘sustainable development’. ‘Within this new public-private security
framework, stability is achieved by activities designed to reduce poverty, satisfy basic needs,
strengthen economic sustainability, create representative civil institutions, protect the vulnerable and
promote human rights: the name of this largely privatised form of security is development. (…) Only by
redefining security as a development problem, that is, as reducible to a series of social or
psychological imbalances relating to the economy, health, education and gender, does it become
legitimate to divide up and parcel out the borderlands as a social body to the sectoral care of a wide
range of specialist non-state and private organisations.’25 So security is redefined as a development
problem, and development as to be ‘reached’ through technical ‘market’ solutions aimed at sustaining
the power hierarchies of global capitalism. Discursively ‘depoliticized’ development is therefore
actually a biopolitical control system, constantly modulating behaviour to improve the ability of noninsured life to survive in situ by making conduct consistent with the rationalities of (neo)liberal modern
capitalism.26 This is, according to authors like Duffield, Wilson and Moore, what underlies the
23
Mark Duffield (2007) Development, Security and Unending War: Governing the World of Peoples. Polity in:
Demmers, forthcoming.
24 Demmers, forthcoming.
25 Mark Duffield (2001) ‘Governing the Borderlands: Decoding the Power of Aid’, Disasters 25 (4) 312.
26 Mark Duffield (2008) ‘Global Civil War: The Non-Insured, International Containment and Post-Interventionary
Society’, Journal of Refugee Studies 21 (2) 145-165; David Moore (2000) ‘:Levelling the playing fields &
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neoliberalization of development discourse.27 Institutionally, development as a privatised technology of
control has required a significant expansion and deepening complexity of subcontracting
arrangements, auditing techniques, partnership frameworks and global compacts aimed at the delivery
of services and the production of results – completing the circle back to the first, most straightforward
understanding of neoliberalism as a set of reforms aimed at marketization. It is through these
discursive and institutional ‘technologies of control’ that the aid network is a representative of the
global neoliberal governmentality.
The value of Duffield’s analysis of global governance’s containment of the borderlands by
development as a technology of security - of this third interpretation of neoliberal governmentality - lies
in his focus on the strategic functionality of the institutional and discursive continuities of the neoliberal
complex underlying the broader humanitarian sector. What makes his ‘meta-story’ problematic to work
with in this context is that there is little analytical conceptualization to derive from; there is little
‘evidence’. What I will take with me in developing my analysis however, is Duffield’s focus on the
politics of representation within the field of humanitarianism. His analysis implicates that, in order to
understand the workings of the contemporary aid sector and its frames, it is of paramount importance
to deconstruct and re-politicize neoliberalism’s ‘marketized-so-depoliticized’ image of reality and its
constant representational transformation of structural or political problems into depoliticized and
individualised problems to be fixed by one-size-fits-all market solutions.28 Without this deconstruction,
an analysis of how and to what extent the neoliberal complex – built upon the ideal of all-pervasive
marketization - expresses itself in the aid sector and its work, is not complete. Even more, it is this
analysis of functionality that constitutes the crucial importance of research into neoliberalization in the
aid sector. Aid organisations, pressured (or not, that is the essential question) by the institutional and
discursive power of neoliberal global capitalism in its various forms and dimensions, intentionally or
unintentionally (re-)produce certain discourses while having to ‘sell’ themselves to their donors in
campaigns and proposals. In this way, they actively construct the ‘why’ of war, crisis and poverty and
the ‘how’ of their solutions, which are translated into assistance programmes, thereby directly playing
into local settings.29 This is where the ‘tragedy of unintentionality’ ultimately bears its brunt. 30 However,
investigating how specific framings by organisations play into local realities falls outside the scope and
focus of this research. As stated, my focus lies on investigating, from a structurationist perspective,
how and to what extent the multi-dimensional pressures and expressions of neoliberalism as a
structure interact in the conduct of aid organisations themselves.
In the next section I will explain how I go about the deconstruction of the influence of neoliberal global
governance on organisations’ discursive constructions of development and how this analytical
perspective is connected to, overlaps with, contradicts or problematizes the conceptualizations found
above.
embedding illusions: ‘post-conflict’ discourse & neoliberal ‘development’ in war-torn Africa’, Review of African
Political Economy 27 (83) 11-28.
27 See Duffield (2008); Moore (2000); Kalpana Wilson (2011) ‘‘Race’, Gender and Neoliberalism: changing visual
representations in development’, Third World Quarterly 32 (2) 315-331.
28 Wilson (2011); Moore (2000).
29 Sévérine Autesserre (2012) ‘Dangerous Tales: Dominant Narratives on the Congo and their Unintended
Consequences’, African Affairs 111 (443) 207.
30 Demmers, forthcoming.
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Research Framework
Conceptualization and Design
It is now time to take the level of analysis one step down, and to rigorously explore how the
abstractions found above can be made researchable and workable in the specific setting of NGOs
working in the contemporary aid sector. It may be clear that the analysis of the effects of neoliberalism
as a structure is a multi-layered and multi-dimensional project. In this section, I will try to dissect these
intersecting layers and dimensions on a more concrete level and make them into workable indicators,
without losing eye for the methodological complexity, the variety of possible interpretations and the
dangers of tautological reasoning when trying to ‘refer back’ practices to a presumed structure.
As stated in the introduction, the research objective is to analyse the practices of individual
organisations to discern how they draw upon, reproduce, contest or modify the discursive and
institutional continuities of the neoliberal complex, while navigating within their institutional
environment. The ‘marketization’ of the institutional environment of the humanitarian sector - which
constitutes part of, but is not a synonym to, what I mean with ‘structure’ in this research - forms the
contextualization recent literature points at, but will also be investigated empirically in the individual
case-studies.31 The aid sector’s organizational environment is constituted by the complex of donororganisation relationships, inter-organisation relationships and the structures of contracting and
funding. Funding is the key factor here, as organizational resource dependency theory points out:
‘across organizational types, from those pursuing humanitarian to for-profit objectives, organizations
rely on and are greatly shaped by their resource contexts'. 32 It is funding that is needed to stay in the
market and, in an increasingly competitive environment, it are the donors and their interests that
become the prime movers.33 In a twisted and paradoxical way, the neoliberal logic of individual rational
calculation and utility maximization would dictate that in this case, because of the resource
dependency, organisations will abide with the donor’s interests and the ‘trends’ of the market at that
very moment, because that is, flatly stated, where the money resides. In the article ‘The NGO
Scramble’, Cooley and Ron argue that many aspects of (I)NGO behaviour can be explained by
materialist analysis of the incentives and constraints produced by the transnational sector’s
institutional environment.34 They find that organisations respond to contractual incentives and
organisational pressures much like firms do in markets. Their case-studies show how factors like
competitive tendering and renewable contracting can result in dysfunctional competition and
opportunism. For example, inter-INGO competition in the refugee camps in Goma, DRC, undercut the
collective action necessary to protest the large scale misuse of refugee aid. 35 Cooley and Ron
conclude: ‘dysfunctional organizational behaviour is likely to be a rational response to systematic and
predictable institutional pressures (…) Given the structure of today’s transnational world, organizations
may find financial considerations more pressing than liberal norms’. 36
Literature on the ‘institutional’ side of marketization of the aid sector mainly takes resource dependency theory
as the starting point. See: Thomas G. Weiss, Humanitarian Business. Polity Press (2013); Alexander Cooley and
James Ron, ‘The NGO Scramble: Organizational Insecurity and the Political Economy of Transnational Action’,
International Security 27, 1 (2002); Thomas W. Dichter, ‘Globalization and Its Effects on NGOs: Efflorescence or
a Blurring of Roles and Relevance?’, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 28, 4 (1999) 38-58; Michael
Edwards, ‘International Development NGOs: Agents of Foreign Aid or Vehicles for International Cooperation?’,
Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 28, 4 (1999) 25-37; Ann C. Hudock (2000) ‘NGOs’ Seat at the Donor
Table. Enjoying the Food or Serving the Dinner?’, IDS Bulletin 31 (3) 14-18; Angela M. Eikenberry and Jodie
Drapal Kluver (2004) ‘The Marketization of the Nonprofit Sector: Civil Society at Risk?’, Public Administration
Review 64 (2) 132-140; Michael Edwards and David Hulme (1996) ‘Too Close for Comfort? The Impact of Official
Aid on Nongovernmental Organizations’, World Development 24 (6) 961-973.
32 Eikenberry and Kluver (2004).
33 Weiss (2013) 113-121.
34 Cooley and Ron (2002).
35 Idem, 7.
36 Idem, 6, 36.
31
13
However, structuration theory, departing from a different ontology, highlights a different approach, with
possibly different outcomes.
According to structuration theory, structure is formed by actors, drawing on discursive and institutional
continuities and thereby reproducing social practices over time and space. Therefore, to investigate an
implied structure of neoliberalism, in this case one has to identify how practices of an organisation
have evolved over time. In this exploration, I will combine both the analytical concepts as well as the
methodological implications of the identified ‘parts’ of the neoliberal complex. This implies taking in an
interpretative epistemological stance, aiming to understand the organizations’ acts and practices from
within.
I will explore what pressures the organisations identify by themselves, to gain a fuller and more
specific picture of each organisation’s environment. The market pressures, effects or institutional
‘indicators’ include changes in funding structures and the extent to which organisations embark on
‘business-like’ practices like increased commercial marketing and branding – to what extent is a
market logic materially institutionalized within the organisations themselves? A second point of
empirical investigation here is the extent to which individual organisations feel they have to ‘fit in’ with
the trends or market fashions in the organizational environment formed by the donors and their
interests, both institutional and public. This leads up to the question what strategies the organisations
employ to stay marketable and attractive to their various donors. In other words, how they represent or
‘sell’ themselves and their work while raising money. The terms ‘represent’ or ‘sell’ are crucial in this
respect, because it is exactly the possibility of discrepancy between how an organisation represents
itself to the outside, and how it actually designs or implements a program and uses its resources - so
the possibility of contesting or modifying a neoliberal logic of all pervasive marketability - that is implied
by structuration theory and that could provide a different insight to the resource dependency arguing of
authors such as Cooley & Ron and Weiss. In that sense, the strategy to navigate in the neoliberal
structure can be formed exactly by this possibility of ‘internal-external’ discrepancy, or, in Foucauldian
terms, the ‘strategic reversibility of discourse’.37
Continuously intertwined with these empirical questions is the analysis of Wendy Brown’s neoliberal
logic of practice. Exploring the expression and effects of a neoliberal logic of practice necessitates
investigating the extent to which the organisations, next to materially, are discursively embedded
within a market rationality. The methodological complexity in investigating this embedding in a logic of
practice, this internalization, is that reproduction of structural continuities often occurs in a tacit and
unacknowledged, or unintentional, manner.38 It is here that the Gramscian notion of cultural hegemony
comes in with its emphasis on how difficult it is for us to see the larger picture shaping our routines
and relationships.39 Therefore, in analysing the ‘logic of practice’ empirically, I will focus on the amount
of ‘market talk’ or ‘corporate speak’ organisations incorporate in their discourses (talk, text, images)
and performances and, secondly and importantly, the extent to and the way in which they (are able to)
reflect on the ‘larger picture’ of their own (‘marketized’ or not) conduct. 40
The third interpretation of or perspective on neoliberalism as a structure stands in a complex relation
to the above, simultaneously connected as well as adding another dimension to analysis of the
neoliberal governmentality, both conceptually as well as methodologically.
As stated above, the political understanding of the neoliberal governmentality is especially important in
drawing attention to the strategic functionality (and real-life power) of representations in, by and of the
aid sector and ‘development’ itself. There is a small but growing body of literature on issues of
representation in the aid sector. One part of this literature can be categorized as case-studies of
specific assistance programmes or interventions, where the real-life, sometimes perverse,
Foucault (1991) ‘Governmentality’ in Andrea Cornwall (2007) ‘Buzzwords and fuzzwords: deconstructing
development discourse’, Development in Practice 17 (4-5) 480.
38 Jabri (1996) 93.
39 Demmers (2012) 63.
40 Jabri (1996) 95.
37
14
consequences of the use of ‘simple’ and marketable narratives in the pursuance of funds are
empirically found.41 One example is research conducted by Sévérine Autesserre. She argues that
fundraising and advocacy concerns dictate that stories that include well-defined ‘good’ victims and
‘evil’ perpetrators are more likely to resonate and to sell. In the case of violent conflict in the eastern
DRC, the international dominance of simplistic and fashionable narratives on the cause (‘conflict
resources’), consequence (‘sexual violence against women’) and solution (‘statebuilding’), hides the
complexity of this violence and eclipses the numerous alternative framings of the situation. Autesserre
argues that the dominance of these narratives - and the solutions they recommended - in guiding
action on the ground has led to perverse results. It diverted attention from other root-causes, other
groups of victims and other much-needed policy actions and and thereby led to results that clashed
with the intended purpose, notably an increase in human rights violations. 42 These case-studies of
local realities justify the importance of this research, but here I focus on the construction of images and
narratives themselves, and the neoliberal governmentality underlying these forms of representation,
which necessitates a look into another body of literature. This literature, mainly from communication
and post-colonial studies, draws attention to how humanitarian institutions, mainly in fundraising and
advocacy appeals, discursively construct and mediate relationships between donor and beneficiary,
‘us’ and ‘them’, ‘North’ and ‘South’, problem and solution, creating certain ‘regimes of truth’ through
images and narratives that sustain (or challenge) global political and economic relations. 43 For
example, Cameron and Haanstra analyse humanitarian campaigning trends from the pre-1980s
‘pornography of poverty’ (sensationalised images of starving African babies) to positive imagery of
happy and ‘empowered’ Southerners to contemporary ‘development made sexy’ (using celebrities in
campaigns and celebrating consumption as the best way to ‘aid others’). 44 Another, particular
controversial, example is the (discursive deconstruction of) the 30-minute film of the Invisible
Children’s Kony 2012 campaign. Through its use of highly marketable, simplistic frames of the
monstrous Ugandan rebel leader Kony and of how ‘we’ (young westerners) can, by one click of the
mouse, contribute to capturing the monster and rescuing ‘them’ (helpless Africans) it sustains colonial
fantasies and eclipses opportunities for more comprehensive and ultimately more efficacious
activism.45
It is in these kinds of social constructions of us-them relationships - in images and narratives - that
Duffield’s biopolitics or the hegemony of neoliberal governmentality in humanitarianism itself can
become visible and hence researchable.
The analytical connection between the different interpretations of neoliberalism as a structure thus lies
in seeing representation as an input-output system. The above-mentioned body of literature points at
how representations in the aid industry come forth out of an endlessly complex combination of
See for example Sévérine Autesserre (2012) ‘Dangerous Tales: Dominant Narratives on the Congo and their
Unintended Consequences’, African Affairs 111 (443) 202-222; Nynke Douma and Dorothea Hilhorst (2012) Fond
de commerce? Sexual violence assistance in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Wageningen University; N.
Simon Morfit (2011) ‘“AIDS is Money”: How Donor Preferences Reconfigure Local Realities’, World Development
39 (1) 64-76.
42
Autesserre (2012).
43 See for example: Kalpana Wilson (2011) ‘‘Race’, Gender and Neoliberalism: changing visual representations in
development’, Third World Quarterly 32 (2) 315-331; Lilie Chouliaraki (2010) ‘Post-humanitarianism: Humanitarian
communication beyond a politics of pity’, International Journal of Cultural Studies 13 (2) 107-126; Nandita Dogra
(2007) ‘‘Reading NGOs Visually’ – Implications of Visual Images for NGO Management’, Journal of International
Development 19 161-171; Lisa Ann Richey and Stefano Ponte (2008) ‘Better (Red)™ than Dead? Celebrities,
consumption and international aid’, Third World Quarterly 29 (4) 711-729; Graham Harrison (2012) ‘Campaign
Africa: Exploring the Representation of Africa and Its Role in British Identity’, BJPIR 1-20; John Cameron and
Anna Haanstra (2008) ‘Development Made Sexy: how it happened and what it means’, Third World Quarterly 29
(8) 1475-1489; Anne Vestergaard (2011) Discourse and Suffering. Humanitarian Discourse in the Age of
Mediatization. Copenhagen Business School; Jolle Demmers, ‘‘Flattering ourselves’: clicktivism and the depoliticization of peace’, forthcoming.
44 Cameron and Haanstra (2008).
45 Demmers, forthcoming; Amy C. Finnigan (2013) ‘Beneath Kony 2012: Americans Aligning with Arms and Aiding
Others’, Africa Today 59 (3) 136-162.
41
15
political, organisational and media-logical pressures.46 This can be termed the ‘input’ side of the
representational system. As outlined above, I investigate the input side of representational
considerations, by taking one specific conceptualization of these pressures - marketization in the
broad sense, as outlaid above - as the central starting point. How and to what extent are the
organisations pressured by a market logic (according to which survival in the market is the prime
objective) in their production of certain narratives on developmental issues? To what extent is the way
the organisation frames a certain conflict, crisis or developmental issue subject to this logic that
dictates that the story first of all has to sell, to the public or the institutional donor? This draws attention
to marketing concerns and the (strategic) use of buzzwords, issues that will be empirically investigated
in the case-studies.
The third understanding of neoliberalism as a structure is used to complement the input analysis by
investigating the neoliberal logic within the ‘output’, so within representations and discourses on
development themselves. What are the implications of neoliberal globalisation - and the accompanying
focus on the de-politicized individual, market and global capital as the base of all developmental
problems and solutions - for the classic triangle of diagnostic, prognostic and motivational framing and
for constructions of us-them divides? How are these images politically functional and socially
meaningful in the context of neoliberal globalisation? To what extent has this dimension of neoliberal
governmentality penetrated the discursive resources and repertoires organisations draw upon in the
images and narratives used to attract donors? And in the design and implementation of the actual
assistance programs?
I am conscious to the dangers of tautological reasoning inherent to this question. This is one of the
most profound critiques on the academic use of neoliberalism and of structure in general. 47 Must a
‘hegemonic’ neoliberal governmentality or market rationality be presupposed or looked for? And again,
there is the possibility of internal-external discrepancy, which adds another complicating research
dimension to this investigation. However, as stated in the introduction, the research is meant to be
exploratory, asking open questions. I will not try to solve all contradictions and analytical difficulties,
but instead, throughout the findings in the case-studies, name and problematize them, to show the
inherent complexity of research into structure and agency.
Methodology
In the case-studies on organisations working and navigating within the institutional environment of the
Dutch humanitarian sector, I investigate the peace-organisation Pax (formerly known as IKV Pax
Christi) and the development organisation Cordaid.
In order to answer the research question, I used a methodology consisting of multiple data collection
techniques. First of all, at both organisations I conducted interviews with staff from program,
communication and fundraising departments, to gain as broad a view as possible. As this is an open,
exploratory research for which I am mainly interested in how organisations reflect on their own
conduct, the interviews were open-ended and conversational. The central question I brought forward
at the beginning of each conversation was how the organisation - as a whole and from the perspective
of the interviewees’ respective departments - ‘deals’ with increasing competition and a decreasing
funding pie.
In the data analysis and the design of the case-studies, I used the conducted interviews in two ways.
First of all, the interviewees told me about their own work and the strategies their organisation uses in
order to receive funding. In this way, I received factual information on the ‘material’ practices and
strategies the organisation employs in navigating within its institutional environment. Secondly, to
investigate the second structure of the neoliberal complex, the ‘logic of practice’, I used the interviews
to deconstruct the discourses or ‘talk’ interviewees employed in reflecting on their work and on the
organisations’ practices. This two-folded methodology was also used in analysing texts, such as
46
47
Demmers, forthcoming.
See Harrison (2010).
16
annual reports, policy documents, articles and published interviews. I gathered factual information
from these documents as sources, and at the same time used them to conduct discourse analysis,
discerning how and to what extent the organisation draws upon ‘market speak’ in communicating this
information. To investigate the third dimension, I analysed the organisations’ public fundraising
strategies by discursively deconstructing the texts and images used on websites, brochures and other
campaign material.
In my investigation of Pax, the research methodology was complemented by participant observation in
the form of a four-month internship at the Extractives & Conflict department. I attended several internal
strategy meetings, one of which was entirely dedicated to how the organisation plans to ‘survive’ after
2015. Furthermore, I participated in or overheard informal conversations on this subject, also in
situations where the ones present were not aware of my research and I was treated as a colleague. In
this way, I was able to gain deeper insight into the possible use of internal-external discrepancy as a
strategy in fundraising, and to a certain extent circumvent the fact that for an organisation the research
subject can be uncomfortable to discuss with ‘outsiders’.
At Cordaid, I did not have the methodological benefit of internal participant observation. On the one
hand, compared to the investigation at Pax, this is a limitation to the research. On the other hand, I
explore the research subject on different analytical levels. Therefore, in the case-study on Cordaid I
have focused primarily on those analytical levels (organizational practices, external communication
and representation) that don’t necessitate ‘a view from within’. Moreover, it might even be interesting
to analyse the difference in the kind of ‘answers’ one gets when analysing how an organisation
presents itself to the outside and when ‘going intern’. From this perspective, the limitation can also
lead to valuable insights.
17
Case-studies
Empirical Context: The Institutional Environment of the Dutch NGO sector
As stated in the introduction, the institutional environment in which the two case-study organisations
are placed, is formed by a general decrease in the total availability of funds, and - connected to that
trend - increasing competition between organisations. 48
One important change currently taking place in the Dutch NGO sector (the institutional environment of
the case-study organisations) is the ending of the Second Co-financing System
(Medefinancieringsstelsel, MFS II) in 2015. The MFS is the Dutch government’s subsidy system for
Dutch non-governmental, civil society organisations working in the field of development cooperation. It
was designed in the early 2000s and introduced in 2007 as part of a longer-term trend of increased
development funding through the private sector. In 2015, the second MFS (2011-2015) is going to end
in its current form. It is not yet made specific what form a prospective new financing system is going to
take, but it is clear that the current budget will decrease substantially, with at least fifty percent. 49
Although each organisation has its own specific constellation of funding sources and the dependency
on government subsidies differs per program and although the general decrease in available funds is
due to multiple factors, it is the ending of MFS II in 2015 (the subsidies of which have always
constituted a considerable part of the organisations’ budget) that at this very moment pushes all
organisations into thinking about and acting upon (new) strategies and practices. These are strategies
to increase marketability, ‘sell’ themselves and raise funds in what is expected to become a ‘bloody
battle for money’.50 It is this run-up to post-2015 that therefore forms an interesting empirical context
and case-study in which to place the question how organisations act and navigate within, reproduce or
contest the discursive and institutional continuities of the neoliberal ‘complex’.
Pax
Pax, formerly known as IKV Pax Christi, works on different themes in the field of conflict, peace and
security in the Netherlands and in conflict areas around the world. The organisation is financed mostly
by government subsidies, a range of institutional and some commercial funds, and for a smaller part
by private donations.51 At an internal strategy meeting in October 2013, the director of Pax held a
presentation called ‘The long and winding road to 2016’. During this presentation, he informed the
organisation about the upcoming severe cutbacks in government funding, and the ‘bloody battle for
money’ that is going to ensue.
Profiling at the Extractives department
As came forward from strategy meetings and interviews with the public and institutional fundraising
department, Pax’ most important ‘selling devise’ towards donors is actively presenting itself as a
specialized niche-organisation. During an internal strategy meeting of the Extractives & Conflict
department of the Fragile States team, it was discussed what range of issues could be packaged and
should be taken on under the theme ‘extractives’, in the context of decreasing funds. In practice and
‘on the ground’ the organisation increasingly encounters issues which fall outside the narrow focus
implied by the word ‘extractives’, but which are integrally intertwined with extractive industries, like
conflicts over land or other natural resources. Or there are conflicts between local communities and
(multinational) companies working in other sectors, like wood or crops. The question was whether to
broaden the theme and the focus, internally or externally. One of the arguments brought forward was
that externally the theme should be framed broader, and deliberately vague, as ‘international
48
Confirmed by all the interviewees at both organisations.
Figures as presented at internal strategy meeting Pax, 11 november 2013.
50 Jan Gruiters, director of Pax, in a presentation at internal strategy meeting, 11 November 2013.
51 Interview with Eva Ronhaar, institutional fundraiser at Pax, 24 September 2013.
49
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economic dimensions of conflict’. This would enable the department to take on broader issues arising
from the ground up, which - considering Pax’ central mission to work from a ‘human security’
perspective - are deemed necessary to work on. A counter-argument was given that a narrow,
focussed theme in the form of a buzzword like ‘extractives’ or ‘conflict resources’ would have more
impact, as it strengthens Pax’ profile of an organisation strong on, and specialized in, certain niches.
One of the concluding remarks was ‘it is clear that we shouldn’t focus solely on extractives, perhaps
only in the marketing’.52
Although there were no final decisions made, the discussion shows that the organisation is conscious
about the possibility of a strategic reversibility of discourse - of a strategic use of discrepancy between
internal and external diagnostic and prognostic framing. In its external profiling, the Extractives &
Conflict department acknowledges a ‘market logic’ that dictates that the story has to sell. And in order
to sell, Pax will have to profile itself as a specialized niche-organisation by using up-to-date,
fashionable buzzwords like ‘extractives’ or ‘conflict resources’. Buzzwords that imply a quite simple
and clear (and therefore marketable) interpretation of what are often extremely complex, multi-issue
conflicts, in which the extractive industries have very complex, not so ‘black and white’ roles. So here
the organisation is internally struggling with being pushed into a certain discursive structure, on which
it is, however, able to reflect.
The Horn of Africa proposal
Pax used an interesting ‘selling’ strategy in its response to the September 2013 Foreign Affairs’ call for
proposals for the formation of a 2014-2016 thematic partnership on ‘Protracted Crises’. It is here that
the organisation was able to sell itself to the donor by making a strategic discursive translation, not in
the representation of its own work, but by successfully ‘counter-framing’ the donor’s discourse.
In the call’s policy framework, ‘protracted crises’ were diagnosed as ‘those environments in which a
significant proportion of the population is acutely vulnerable to death, disease and disruption of
livelihoods over a prolonged period of time. The governance of these environments is usually very
weak, with the state having a limited capacity to respond to, and mitigate, the threats to the population,
or provide adequate levels of protection’. Several policy goals were formulated, one of which stated:
‘taking away the causes of chronic instability in the Horn of Africa, that contribute to
underdevelopment, humanitarian need, piracy, radicalisation and migration streams in this region (…)
In fragile and conflict situations, before an effective contribution can be delivered to sustainable
development, a situation of security and stability needs to be created’. 53
It was furthermore formulated that ‘the organisations that want to be considered for the partnership,
are working in the field of humanitarian aid / structural poverty reduction in the priority regions referred
to above and have a minimum experience of five years in the field of humanitarian aid.’ 54 In this
statement and in the rest of the policy framework it is implied that the ‘solution’ to protracted crises lies
in humanitarian aid.
After this call came out and Pax heard about it, the organisation started up a lobby process with
Foreign Affairs, arguing that its prognostic framing of protracted crises was too narrow. According to
Pax, insecurity and instability are not ‘solved’ by providing humanitarian aid and nowhere in the
Foreign Affairs’ definition of protracted crises it comes forward that the work Pax does, is not suited to
reach the policy goals. It therefore lobbied for the strategic partnership being opened up to peace
organisations, in which it was successful.
52
Emphasis mine. Minutes internal strategy meeting Extractives & Conflict Department, 1 November 2013.
Beleidskader Strategische Partnerschappen Chronische Crises (Policy Framework Strategic Partnerships
Protracted Crises) - Besluit van de minister voor Buitenlandse Handel en Ontwikkelingssamenwerking van 27
september 2013, nr. MinBuZa-2013.272653, tot vaststelling van beleidsregels en een subsidieplafond voor
subsidiëring op grond van de Subsidieregeling Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken 2006 (Strategische
partnerschappen chronische crises 2014-2016).
54 Idem.
53
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So by actively arguing against and strategically reversing the donor’s narrow diagnostic and especially
prognostic framing of protracted crisis, the organisation was able to ‘sell’ itself, without compromising
on its own narrative, both internal as well as external.
At the moment of writing, the Africa team of Pax is working on the refinement of the program proposal
for this strategic partnership. In an informal conversation one of the program officers stated: ‘we have
to find compromises between the words and formulations every link in the tender process uses, both
within the organisation as well as at donor level. But at the same time, we need to keep our
formulations deliberately vague, in order to be able to do what we want to do’. 55
Using words in a strategic way is part of how the organisation can employ discursive translation as a
strategy. Another more general example was given by the institutional fundraiser: ‘Suppose a donor
wants to do something with gender and we are doing peace-work in for example Ituri. We could then
make a translation, by stating that working on gender is actually part of working on democratisation,
which it is.’ According to the fundraiser, making these kinds of translations has become more
important during the last years, exactly because of the decreasing availability of funds. ‘Depending on
the kind of organisation you are, you can stay yourself, as long as you make a good translation at the
level of fundraising, not at the level of the project design. It is not only a bad thing, because we are
forced to explore new possibilities and break new grounds … fundraising has become much more
creative really’.56
Communication and marketing
When analysing the public communication and fundraising strategies of Pax, one can discern another
way in which the organisation, while navigating its institutional environment, struggles with a structure
dictating an all-pervasive market logic.
In an interview with the public fundraiser of Pax, we discussed the organisation’s strategies behind
fundraising among public donors and its marketing and external communication strategies. She stated
that the marketing and communication strategy behind public fundraising in general is all about
keeping it simple and concrete, but that ‘peace’ is a difficult concept to explain in simple, concrete
terms: it is difficult to sell. ‘What the organisation actually works on in conflict areas, is hard to explain
to the larger public (…) Within communication, terms like ‘in this context’ just don’t work. You don’t use
those kind of words.’
One of the ‘solutions’ for this problem, is that the organisation builds it main marketing strategy around
communicating values towards the Dutch public. The organisation’s main slogan, launched together
with the new name, is ‘Pax. Peace. Are you in?’ and the website invites you to leave behind your own
message on what peace means to you, so you can design your own ‘peace poster’. 57 This
communication strategy can be analysed in several ways. On the one hand, by focussing on
communicating more abstract values like an equal society, justice and reconciliation, Pax can
circumvent the fact that, in terms of content, its work is difficult to sell to the general public. In other
words, it can circumvent a market logic that would dictate that an organisation needs to use certain
simplified narratives or frames in order to sell itself and raise funds. The public is addressed as
‘change agent’, not primarily as a donor. However, the fact that the organisation insists on not
compromising on content - resisting the tendency to let the representation of its work be entirely
guided by marketing concerns - also makes it hard for Pax to stay visible in the market and enlarge its
public support base.
This last point also became clear in the interview with the public fundraiser. After the interview, we
reflected on the conversation and I asked her whether she had any further remarks considering the
topics we had discussed. She remarked: ‘I find it interesting to talk about these issues in this way,
because for me it’s so natural. I’m always thinking: what’s going to be our legacy proposition, what is
55
Informal conversation with program officer.
Interview with Eva Ronhaar.
57 actie.paxvoorvrede.nl/vredesboodschap.
56
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the new communication concept, etcetera. I’m constantly thinking in terms of marketing and
communication. What scores? What brings in the money? However, to be honest, I don’t think my
work here is marketing. Not at all actually. Too soft, there is no real knowledge. As a marketer, you are
kind of an intruder, a stranger, here. Pax still has a long way to go.’ 58
The interviewee -the marketer- was able to place herself outside, and reflect on, her own work within
the organisation and on the ‘larger picture’ of the organisation’s conduct, materially as well as
discursively, which she looks upon as not (yet) really guided by a marketing logic.
Conclusion
In an informal conversation on my research into Cordaid’s reorganisation into business units in its
‘struggle for survival’ (see case-study two), a program officer said: ‘isn’t a neoliberal approach like that
clearly outdated? It would be very interesting if, in your research, you could find organisations that do it
differently, that can find an alternative … That would be the most interesting aspect’. A similar remark
was made by one of the program leaders when I asked whether he recognized the statement that a
market logic is advancing that dictates that an NGO nowadays has to ‘sell’ itself as in the corporate
world: Yes I do, but I will ignore it as long as I can. However, we are not yet putting enough effort in
thinking about alternative solutions. If you find the solution for us, we will definitely employ you.’ 59
These and similar statements made in interviews and informal conversations show that the
organisation is struggling with what it reflectively recognizes as a ‘market logic of practice’ descending
on the sector. Sometimes the organisation feels forced to comply and in other cases it can find an
alternative strategy. In the case of the profiling at the Extractives & Conflict department, the
organisation feels the need to comply with a marketing logic dictating that simple buzzwords sell
better, but at least considers using a strategy of internal-external discrepancy of framing. Thereby it
places itself outside an all-pervasive market rationality. In the second case, the Horn of Africa
proposal, the organisation was able to ‘sell’ itself, not by adjusting its own frames, but by successfully
contesting the frame used by the donor. Here it used its own narrative and its own profile as the
organisation specialized in conflict and peace as its main strategy and strength. The tension between
feeling the need to comply with a marketing logic and finding alternatives is also visible in its public
communication strategy. On the one hand, it follows marketing trends of branding (Pax. Peace. Are
you in?), but by focussing on values and trying to involve the public as individual change agents
instead of primarily as donors, it can find an alternative to the use of simple, ‘marketable’ narratives.
Overall it is interesting to note that, in a way, it is not just despite, but exactly because of the pressure
of marketization - of increasing competition over decreasing funds - that the organisation develops and
displays more creative agency in its fundraising strategies. Where in general Pax is struggling with the
‘neoliberal complex’, in certain cases it is able to open up new possibilities and alternatives, as a
knowledgeable agent actively modifying the structures it is in other ways shaped by and manoeuvring
within.
Cordaid
Cordaid (Catholic Organisation for Relief and Development Aid) is one of the largest Dutch
development organisations. It works on structural poverty reduction and relief and is publicly most
known through its charity brands Memisa (health care), Microkrediet (microcredit), Kinderstem
(children’s care), Mensen in Nood (relief and reconstruction) and Bond zonder Naam (underprivileged
people in the Netherlands). Cordaid used to be financed mainly through a combination of Dutch
government subsidies and individual donations, with institutional funds and partnerships with
corporate donors becoming more important.60 From the individual donations, the simple ‘mother-and58
Interview with Sabita Ribai, public fundraiser at Pax, 4 October 2013.
Informal conversations.
60 Interview with Simone van Hamond, director Marketing & Fundraising Cordaid, on 1 October 2013.
59
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child’ programs could be funded, while the more complex, technical or political programs were funded
through government subsidies.61 However, with the severe cutbacks in government subsidies, new
funding sources and new funding strategies have to be designed. As René Grotenhuis, former CEO of
Cordaid, stated in a 2012 interview: The business model of being dependent on government subsidies
is no longer sustainable.62
The Business Units
On January 1, 2013, after more than a year of reorganisation, the development organisation Cordaid
officially became a ‘social enterprise’. As stated in its mission: ‘adroitly and efficiently, we strive for
social profitability for all world citizens. Cordaid invests in social impact in a transparent and innovative
way. Our effective methods yield proven results’. 63
Grotenhuis states: ‘We aim to strengthen Cordaid’s entrepreneurship. We are looking for people who
have the capacity to think in terms of business development, who can develop funding strategies, are
proficient in relationship management with accountants, financers and who have communication skills.
Those are the new qualities.’64 In October 2013, Simone Filippini became the new CEO. In the
introductory article on Cordaid’s website, Filippini stated that she aims to approach the non-profit
sector from a business perspective. The article stated: ‘it is this business approach that makes Filippini
especially suited for the position of general director of the social enterprise Cordaid’. 65 The 2012
Annual Report states that in the development of funding strategies, Cordaid needs to ‘explore new
markets’, and use its ‘unique selling points’ in presenting and profiling itself in these markets.66
The organisation now consists of eight autonomous ‘business units’, which are intended to become
financially self-sufficient by raising their own funds. The units are responsible for their own product
development and have to compete independently with other organisations, with for-profit consultancy
firms and even with each other, as there is some overlap between the work of the different units: ‘Each
unit has its own profit- and loss-account. Although making profit is not the goal, depending on these
accounts it is decided which units are viable and which are not’. 67 According to the organisation’s
multi-annual strategy, flexibility, efficiency and innovation, crucial in a competitive market environment,
can only be ensured by a structure in which the different ‘enterprise components’, although working in
synergy, have sufficient autonomy.68
In these practices and statements, a clear institutional and discursive deployment of a market, or
‘corporate’ rationality at organisational level can be discerned. Market metrics govern both the
workings and policy vision of the organisation as well as the language used to reflect on these
workings.
As subsidies are decreasing, units that are not able to raise money through public fundraising have to
search for other complementing funding sources. According to the former program manager of the
Extractives Business Unit, the provision of consultancy services will become one of the most important
sources of funding for this unit, as subsidies are decreasing and ‘the product’ is too complex and
61
Idem.
Cordaid CEO René Grotenhuis: Cordaid in transition (video recording):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_3axsK51eo.
63 Cordaid’s mission statement: https://www.cordaid.org/nl/over-ons/missie/.
64 Selma Zijlstra, ‘Cordaid wordt internationaler en flexibeler – tientallen banen verdwijnen’, Vice Versa online, 11
July 2012: http://www.viceversaonline.nl/2012/07/cordaid-van-keurslijf-naar-co-worker/
65 ‘Nieuwe CEO Cordaid’: http://www.cordaidmicrokrediet.nl/actueel/nieuws/nieuwe-ceo-cordaid/.
66 Cordaid Annual Report 2012, 10:
http://www.cordaidjaarverslag.nl/media/medialibrary/2013/06/Annual_Report_Cordaid_2012.pdf
67 Interview with Eelco de Groot, senior advisor and former program manager Extractives Business Unit at
Cordaid, 14 January 2014.
68 Cordaid Annual Report, 9.
62
22
technical to ‘sell’ to the public donor. 69 In partnership with and financed through companies (corporate
donors), other NGOs or governments, the Unit can deliver consultancy services in the form of
research, facilitating projects and meetings or implementing agreements. On partnerships with
corporate donors in general, the director of Marketing & Fundraising stated: Companies are less
interested in pure philanthropy, and we work with them on a ‘what’s in it for you’ basis. They are
looking for a partnership that fits naturally with their own business or visibility. We see this co-creation
process as a positive development, as it is based on a win-win model’.70
The Extractives program manager admitted that, internally, the increasing importance of funding
through the delivery of consultancy services caused tensions as consultancy funding isn’t independent
money: ‘It’s not that we cannot take in a critical position. We can certainly negotiate and integrity is
essential. But basically we have to listen to and supply according to the money source … You don’t
bite the hand that feeds you’. According to the program manager, this ‘multi-stakeholder approach’ fits
within the new trends in Dutch development cooperation policy, which is increasingly focused on
entrepreneurship and investing, and on consensus-seeking public-private partnerships: ‘The times of
activism and of the leftist ideological ‘grand narratives’ are over. The new generation sees that
capitalism, although a social kind of capitalism, has won.’ However, when I asked further about the
donor-driven orientation inherent to the consultancy funding, the interviewee reacted slightly
defensive, arguing: ‘We don’t really see an alternative. I mean, do you have the magic stick?’ 71
These remarks imply that the interviewee is conscious of a market logic dictating that one has to
comply with the market trends (in this case donor requirements), and which to a certain extent restricts
this particular unit’s room for manoeuvre in designing or implementing programs. The strategies that
are chosen to survive in the market are located within an entrepreneurial logic of practice, which the
interviewee reproduces discursively and to which he, reflexively, does not see an alternative.
‘Marketized’ solutions and communication
As stated in the research approach, the structural continuities of the neoliberal complex can be
investigated on different levels, depending on which interpretation of the ‘structure of neoliberalism’
one takes as the analytical ‘lens’. In the following case on the framing of developmental causes and
solutions, I will take the third dimension of the structure of neoliberalism - the ‘depoliticizing’ discursive
structure that constitutes particular frames on war, poverty, crisis and development - as the analytical
viewpoint.
Entrepreneurship and investment are among the central focus points within Cordaid’s Conflict
Transformation program. In the 2012 Annual Report on the conflict transformation program in South
Sudan, it is stated: ‘Conflicts tend to flare up when people are robbed of their future. Microcredit can
help people get to work, produce food, earn money, maintain their families and send their children to
school. Microcredit can also help avoid conflicts, particularly in rural areas. South Sudan hardly
produces anything itself, it has to import almost everything. After 30 years of war, people have lost the
entrepreneurial spirit. By the time farmers could harvest their crops they’d been plundered again or
burned, which is very counterproductive when it comes to investing in the future. But now there are
plenty of opportunities. (…) Giving men and women access to microfinancing stimulates both cohesion
and stability in South Sudan. In the case of group loans people serve as guarantors for one another;
they support each other in the event of illness, a death or any other misfortune. Loans made to groups
of farmers result in the exchange of knowledge, improved products, lower costs and good pricing.
Indirectly, they also lead to solidarity and communal spirit, by transforming conflict relationships into
69
Interview with Eelco de Groot.
Interview with Simone van Hamond.
71 Interview with Eelco de Groot.
70
23
cooperative relationships. There’s still a very long way to go, but by supporting fledgling MFIs Cordaid
is contributing to the country’s future.’72
From this specific text, one can deconstruct quite ‘marketized’ narratives. Conflict is diagnostically
framed as being caused by a lack of economic opportunities and can be prevented or avoided by
providing individuals with microcredit, in order for them to regain an ‘entrepreneurial spirit’. It is through
the individual’s subjection to the workings of the market that conflict relationships can be transformed
into ‘cooperative’ relationships - relationships of instrumental exchange, so following the logic of the
market – which forms the base for cohesion and stability.
This narrative on conflict transformation and poverty reduction in general is also carried out by the
external communication and fundraising strategies of Cordaid Microcredit, the charity brand which
raises funds for the Entrepreneuring Business Unit, has also published a magazine named Quote Top
100 Micronairs. Surviving through entrepreneuring.73 This magazine was based on and co-produced
by Quote magazine, the monthly magazine that lists Dutch millionaires and celebrates ‘business, cars,
money, fashion, luxury & more’, in short, the capitalist lifestyle. 74 The Quote Top 100 Micronairs
introduces to the reader the ‘micronairs’, individual entrepreneurs in development countries that are
supported by Cordaid Microcredit. Like in the normal Quote Magazine, there’s also a list of the newest
‘gadgets’, but now for micro-entrepreneurs in development countries. The key message is that not only
an entrepreneurial logic, but also a capitalist lifestyle can be reconciled with poverty reduction in the
development world.75 There is no information on the structural causes of poverty, only on the
solutions, presumed to be lying in individual entrepreneuring, both ‘here’ as well as ‘there’.
The fundraising strategies of the brands are based on similar discursive scripts. The website of
Cordaid Microcredit is constructed as a webshop, where the potential donor can choose from a list of
individual small entrepreneurs from development countries. According to the slogan, you can ‘pick
your favourite entrepreneur’ and place him or her in your shopping basket. In this way, you do an
investment in this person’s business plan. The donor is constructed as an investor, who can, by a few
clicks of the mouse, fill his shopping basket with entrepreneurs and, according to the website, ‘help
eradicate poverty in the world’.76 On the website of Cordaid Memisa, the organisation’s charity brand
through which money is raised for health care, the individual donor is primarily addressed as a
consumer. The main slogan on the website’s homepage is ‘Every two minutes, somewhere in the
world a mother dies during pregnancy or during delivery (…) A good deal for mothers here, a safe
delivery for mothers there’.77 This second part refers to the brand’s webshop ‘Help Mama shop’, where
the donor (addressed as to be Dutch mothers) can buy children’s items or even items for a baby
shower, a share of which goes to Memisa.
Both charity brands employ clear marketing strategies in addressing the public donor. The donor is
addressed on an individual basis, and is asked to buy, invest or consume something as. Through this
act he or she will support an individual in a development country, and, presumably, ‘help eradicate
poverty from the world’. The motivational drive is sought in consumerism, which adheres to the main
device of the Cordaid brands’ fundraising strategy, that ‘giving has to be fun’. 78 According to Cordaid’s
Marketing & Fundraising director, ‘people don’t want to see poor, hungry children anymore. But we still
have to simplify development cooperation in addressing the public, there is no alternative.’ 79 In this
case, clear marketing strategies are employed that equate ‘giving’ or ‘doing good’ to ‘fun’, in the form
of feel-good investing, buying or consuming.
72
Cordaid Annual Report, 38.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/117493672/Top-100-Micronairs.
74 Quote Magazine.
75 http://www.scribd.com/doc/117493672/Top-100-Micronairs.
76 www.cordaidmicrokrediet.nl
77 www.cordaidmemisa.nl
78 Annual Report 2012 Public version.
79 Interview with Simone van Hamond.
73
24
Conclusion
As came forward in the two cases discussed above, Cordaid is actively designing strategies in order to
‘survive’ in its increasingly competitive institutional environment. Its policy vision and (external)
profiling are clearly situated within an entrepreneurial logic of practice, both materially as well as
discursively. Market metrics - expressed in the use of terms like efficiency, investment, social
‘profitability’, innovation, win-win models, business units - are, at least at corporate level, governing
organisational strategy and also the talk the interviewees employed in the conversations. However, it
was also reflexively stated that ‘there is no real alternative’. Here, the organisation clearly draws upon
or at least sees itself pushed into a structure that dictates an all-pervasive market logic. In the case of
the framing of conflict and poverty, of its causes and solutions and of donor and beneficiary, there is
also a market logic governing its discursive rules and resources, on different analytical levels. In the
specific texts and statements I explored, the ‘why’ of conflict and poverty and the ‘how’ of their solution
are based on a neoliberal discursive structure. There is no explanation of the structural causes of
poverty and the focus lies on individualized, marketized, entrepreneurial solutions. Especially in the
example of Quote magazine, the systemic connection between the ‘western’ capitalist lifestyle and
structural poverty in the development world is left out of the diagnostic framing. Capitalism is left
depoliticized. Furthermore, the donor is constructed as either a consumer or an ‘investor’, which are
both framings of the neoliberal individual, the homo oeconomicus. As I was not able to research the
framing strategies from the perspective of internal-external discrepancy, I can’t determine to what
extent and in what way the organisation reflects on these discursive strategies. However, it can be
concluded that there is a clear market logic guiding representation in communication towards the
public and it is also on this analytical level that the organisation reproduces the ‘marketized’ structural
continuities it is shaped by.
25
Conclusion
In this thesis, I have investigated how and to what extent the two Dutch NGOs Pax and Cordaid
working in the peace- and development sector draw upon, reproduce, contest or modify the structures
of the neoliberal complex, while navigating in their institutional environment.
Pax and Cordaid are navigating within the same institutional environment, which is becoming
increasingly competitive as the main source of funding (Dutch government subsidies) will be severely
reduced after next year. Both organisations are actively strategizing on how to ‘survive’ in this market.
It is difficult and at the same time not my main intention to draw generalized or comparative
conclusions from this specific research. First of all, the two organisations differ from each other in their
field of work. Cordaid is a classical development organisation and more aimed at cooperation with
different stakeholders, where Pax has a stronger advocacy and ‘watchdog’ perspective, and therefore
has a stronger urge to position itself as independent. The outcomes of the research into how the two
organisations navigate, profile and position themselves in their institutional environment are therefore
difficult to compare. Furthermore at Pax I was able to collect in-depth information from an ‘internal’
point of view, where at Cordaid this was less the case. Because of this difference in research
methodology, the emphasis in both case-studies lies on different kinds of data and on different
analytical levels. However, the research was meant to be exploratory and to ask open questions,
exactly in order to show the multiple interpretations and analytical levels of the debate on
marketization in the humanitarian field.
That said, there are several general points of interest to derive from the empirical research. Both
organisations acknowledge and recognize the ‘logic of the market’ embarking on their room for
manoeuvre. In its organisational performances and discourses, Cordaid draws upon and reproduces
the institutional practices as well as Wendy Brown’s market rationality or ‘entrepreneurial’ logic of
practice, as its main strategy to survive in the market. On the analytical level of (external)
communication, the organisation also reproduces neoliberal governmentality’s representational
transformation of structural problems, of ‘us’ and ‘them’, into depoliticized problems with individual
‘market’ solutions (entrepreneurship for ‘them’, investing and consuming for ‘us’).
In the case-study of Pax, I found that the ‘strategic reversibility of discourse’ is indeed one of the ways
in which an organisation can circumvent or modify the market logic that would dictate that the
organisation has to comply with all the ‘market trends’ – the buzzwords among the institutional donors
and the public marketing strategies of ‘keeping it simple’. The strategic reversibility of discourse
expresses itself in the use of ‘internal-external discrepancy’, where the organisation might use
buzzwords as “fuzzwords”. They can strategically use the vagueness of ‘fashionable’ thematic terms
(‘gender’) in order to fit the word to the norms and work, instead of the other way around, thereby
retaining room for manoeuvre and displaying the possibility of creative agency. 80 And by addressing
the public as civilian or ‘change agent’ (so actually as a homo politicus), instead of primarily as donor
for who giving has to be fun, the organisation consciously takes the risk of being less visible or
‘marketable’. However, in taking this risk it clearly contests the neoliberal rationality that marketability
is the highest good.
Interestingly, both organisations display the ability to knowledgeably reflect on their own conduct by
asking whether - on the longer term and in a global context of decreasing funding and increasing
competition - there are alternatives to the ‘rules and resources’ of the neoliberal complex. This is an
open question, which invites for much-needed further research. However, the structurationist
perspective of this research, theoretically implying that actors draw upon and reproduce structures, but
are also able to modify, contest and thereby change them, has offered a new perspective to the
Andrea Cornwall (2007) ‘Buzzwords and fuzzwords: deconstructing development discourse’, Development in
Practice 17 (4-5) 480.
80
26
nascent debate on marketization in the humanitarian sector, a debate that until now was mostly
characterized by resource dependency arguing.
Another objective of this thesis was to contribute to research into framing and representation in the
humanitarian field. Interesting to mention in this context and in the context of the search for
alternatives is an initiative by Vice Versa, a Dutch professional journal on development cooperation.
Vice Versa, together with the Dutch development organisation Wilde Ganzen, initiated ‘Reframing the
Message’; a debate on the structural factors underlying contemporary representations in the
humanitarian sector and on how to re-frame issues of peace and development in a context where the
fundraising aspect of campaigns is increasingly important. 81 The debate calls upon NGOs to critically
investigate their own representation strategies, how they frame war, crisis, poverty, development, ‘us’
and ‘them’, and the ethical aspects of these representations in an increasingly marketized context.82
This debate is, through its reflective character, an example of a contestation of the structural
continuities of the neoliberal complex. NGOs are called upon as knowledgeable actors who not only
have the creative agency, but also the moral responsibility to reflect on the connection between
institutional pressures, their own representations and the objective of achieving structural change in
the global system. The Quote Top 100 Micronairs magazine, in which not only the capitalist lifestyle is
reconciled with structural poverty reduction but in which there is no connection made between exactly
the capitalist lifestyle ‘here’ and structural poverty ‘there’, is an example of a case where some
reflection might be in place.
Moreover, the ultimate responsibility for NGOs lies in the local contexts where they implement their
programs. As stated before, this is where the ‘tragedy of unintentionality’ ultimately bears its brunt. In
‘selling’ themselves to their donors through the use of ‘marketable’ stories, organisations actively
construct the ‘why’ of war, crisis and poverty and the ‘how’ of their solutions, which are translated into
assistance programmes, thereby directly playing into local settings. The outplay of marketization on
local settings - through discursive framings translating into institutional practices - is another crucial
area where further research (in the form of case-studies) should focus on.
However, representation in the humanitarian field is a two-sided coin, as these representations are
meant to appeal to ‘us’, the public. In the neoliberal complex, the citizen - the homo politicus - is
replaced by the ‘consumer subject’. This subject, for whom above all giving has to be ‘fun’, finds
meaning in the marketized and individualized world by consuming the depoliticized and personalized
solidarity feeling of aiding distant ‘others’. 83 This is also an interesting point for contemplation and for
further research. It is also in this light that my last research objective must be placed. As an
overarching goal, I have tried to ‘re-politicize’ the global neoliberal governmentality. By naming and
problematizing the internal complexities, varieties and inconsistencies of neoliberalism and its use as
an explanatory concept, I have contributed to the academic quest to uncover and reflect on
neoliberalism’s structural continuities and expressions in society. By doing this from a structurationist
perspective, I have shown that, as Foucault argues, no discourse is guaranteed.84 The ‘larger
conversation’ I have hoped to contribute to is much needed if we, in Springer’s words ‘want to hasten
the pace at which neoliberalism may recede into historical obscurity, to be replaced with a new
discourse, a novel representation that we can hope produces a more egalitarian society.’ 85
81
http://www.viceversaonline.nl/dossiers/reframing/
http://www.viceversaonline.nl/2014/02/waarom-communiceren-wij-met-donateurs-en-niet-met-wereldburgers/
83 Jolle Demmers, ‘‘Flattering ourselves’: clicktivism and the de-politicization of peace’, forthcoming.
84 Michel Foucault (1990) ‘Governmentality’, in Simon Springer (2012) ‘Neoliberalism as Discourse: between
Foucauldian Political Economy and Marxian Poststructuralism’, Critical Discourse Studies 9 (2) 142.
85 Idem.
82
27
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30