Abstract
NGOization makes a timely contribution to the growth of ongoing debate about the role of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). It elucidates the contestations that the NGOs provoke in order to bring social transformations across the world. This edited volume situates the complexities of NGOs in various countries in relation to their highly specific social, political and economic contexts. Many NGOs have sprung up to counter the effects of neoliberalism. Yet, the book’s main argument is that to become effective agents of change, NGOs need to realign their relationship with the state and the private sector. On the other hand, this book also argues that NGOs tend to challenge the interests of state and private sector entities in order to promote social changes. These arguments, hence, illustrate the essence of the book – dealing with contestations and debates about the ideals of NGOs and understanding their roles to ‘reconceptualize resistance against capitalism and colonialism’ (p. 2).
The editors chart a theoretical framework of NGOization grounded in Gramsci’s idea of co-existence between state and civil societies, a space where NGOs do not necessarily exist. NGOs operate from a space of their own to address the struggle between capitalism and the interests of people. But this space becomes murkier when their ideals collide with the interests of big corporations. The strength of the book lies in its ability to illustrate how the authors navigate this contested space through social movements and conflicts highlighted in the chapters that embody the process of NGOization. In doing so, they have not only raised an awareness about how the NGOs work but also have drawn up an uncanny portrait of their structural weaknesses.
The book’s first chapter begins with the colonial roots of Western domination of the land and rights of indigenous people that signal a power struggle between poor and rich. The chapter then focuses on the intervention of Conservation International (CI) to challenge the violation of rights and intrusions of imperialism. Instead, Choudry discovers that the organization served the interests of multinational corporations by engaging in questionable practices that enabled CI to gain debt write-off from the state and other benefits from the private sector industries at the expense of ‘social and environmental injustices’ (p. 33). The conflicted role of CI in Chapter 1 highlights the need to understand the uneasy alliance between the NGOs and the private sector.
What follows next is the ‘anti-industrial development displacement’ movement in India (p. 47). This chapter blames the NGOs for ‘taking half-hearted stands’ against powerful state agencies. Kapoor claims that the failure of NGOs to engage with social injustices stems from their inability to understand local communities. But the blame does not fall on the NGOs alone. Chapter 3 directs our attention to the words of the United Nations (UN) charter that promotes friendship and equal rights among countries and theirs citizens. Lack of clarification from the UN about how to achieve these outcomes opens up opportunities for NGOs to step in. But they remain ineffective. Venne claims: ‘The goal of the NGO is to … ensure that their staff are paid…. This is a goal of the colonizer…. We continue to live in colonial states’ (p. 93).
The next two chapters focus on this prevailing colonial sentiment. In South Africa, the Democratic Left Front (DLF) was formed to counter the effects of the economic crisis. While some saw DLF as a legitimate force to advance a social agenda, others remain sceptical. The Philippines saw the rise of NGOs in the 1970s and 1980s due to the need for their socio-economic welfare projects. Highlighting the paradox of NGOs, the book criticizes the NGOs for merely providing services for government and private businesses.
Chapters 6, 7 and 8 describe the humanitarian projects that are increasingly rising in the wake of recent natural disasters and socio-political unrest. In an aftermath of a tsunami in Tamil Nadu, NGOs such as SNEHA successfully negotiated their campaign for service delivery due to timely engagement with the communities. The neo-Balkanisation case in Serbia in Chapter 7 offers a more politically charged perspective of NGOization. The NGOs work within a complex political environment where some are seen as instrumentally loyal to the ideals of dialogues with citizens while others are connected to ‘donor demands’ (p. 181). The NGOs in Kyrgyzstan illustrate a critical role of NGOs because they are a part of the ‘UN’s peace-building policy’ (p. 203) primarily driven by aid. Kim and Campbell argue that the structure of peace-building policy does not always lend itself to the optimal delivery services as NGOs constantly grapple with funding constraints. Finally, the book ends with an account of the role of NGOs within the food system in Canada. Put in a larger context, the authors argue that the biggest challenge for the NGOs and the private sectors is to collectively understand the need for market economy and ‘social transformation’ (p. 224).
This rather engrossing book highlights a series of problems of the NGO sector that prompts us to question our prevailing assumptions. In the process, it portrays a rather gloomy picture of NGOs whose ideals are to challenge an uneven power struggle between capitalism and people interests. The book argues for the collaboration between NGOs and neoliberal institutions (and state) yet we do not see a critical engagement with how to charter that course. Perhaps a critical analysis of Gramsci’s source of power, as originating from ‘consent rather than force’, could have complimented the book’s arguments? The account of this book is bound to be a critical research material for academic researchers, social scientists, students and development practitioners.