A good piece of analysis which translates Gramsci preposition is that of Seckinelgin (2001).
Seckinelgin in Civil Society as a Metaphor for Western Liberalism concludes that the usage of civil society in the specific context of development implies a normative rethinking of social relations within developing societies. This normative approach to civil society is an attempt to realign social relations within developing countries parallel to the western liberal model of social arrangements between state, market and the third sector (civil society). He arrives at this conclusion because of how international institutions especially International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and Bilateral Donors of western countries like the Department for International Development (DfID) of the United Kingdom, use the language of civil society in the context of development as a metaphor1.
He gives an analysis of two reports, one by the DfID and another by the World Bank to defend his
1 The Oxford Dictionary defines metaphor as ‘the figure of speech in which a name or descriptive term is transferred to some object different from, but analogous to, that to which it is properly applicable (Oxford English Dictionary, 1989:676).
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case. In the report by the DfID of 2000, the DfID has formulated a set of new strategies for making government work for the poor. The report sets goal for alleviating poverty in the developing world by bringing people into the development process. And one way of achieving this goal is by strengthening both global and national civil society voices in the developing nations. Churches and other faith groups, human rights and womens’ organisations grouped together as NGOs, are given as the location of these voices. The argument takes these associations and organisations as the locus as they are assumed to speak on peoples’ behalf (Seckinelgin, 2001).
The reason they opted for the NGOs is because they are newly emerging organisational forms around the world, they were thought to be more conducive, as they appear to be more reform oriented and small in size to the sorts of changes perceived to be necessary for a healthy democracy. And at the same time it is assumed that the involvement of NGOs and civil society will, in time, improve the quality of government.
Seckinelgin (2001) is convinced that the observation about the emergence of associational life as the outcome of the troubles of modern system constitute the context within which the metaphor of civil society organisations is meaningful. It is with this understanding that the language of metaphor signifies an idea of civil society where a particular form of associational civil life is the outcome of a particular judicial and political system. Therefore, it becomes much clearer that the metaphor of civil society organisations is not referring to any inspirational civil society or to one that may actually exist in developing societies (Seckinelgin, 2001). It is referring to a particular form of civil society where governments are reluctant to take part in the social realm, and it is
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identifiable with the particular associational life in which individual people need to re-establish social links. As a metaphor in the reports, it is not only assumes this particular context of separation of the social from the political implicitly, but, also as a basis of policy recommendations, it invokes the receiver to produce the reconstitute the understanding of civil society in this image (Seckinelgin, 2001).
Some scholars see these economic and financial crises as a consequence of unfettered globalisation, as a result of the working of the free and unregulated market (Rhodes and Higgot, 2000). The neo-liberal agenda had after all failed to deliver the much promised benefits of greater growth, stabilisation of financial markets, and political order. Income disparities had increased, the number of the poor had grown drastically, and people had been deprived of their livelihoods and security of life. A global economic order had been forged through globalisation without any prospect of justice, or democracy, or redistribution. And this posed problems for the defenders of globalisation. For if a system is widely perceived as unjust, it will necessarily engender resistance (Rhodes and Higgot, 2000).
The insistence of involving NGOs by some international organisations like the World Bank, IMF and other bilateral donors, is a deliberate social political process to create an organisational culture which makes developing countries to behave and think like western society. It is a civilization mission (Seckinelgin, 2002). These organisations argue that for developing nations to register development they must bring people into the development process. They insist and assume NGOs will speak on peoples’ behalf. Pearce (2004) sees that the development NGO community, found itself gaining unexpected respectability and potential funding from the world of official donors.
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Northern NGOs had to find Southern counterparts. However, Pearce (2004) argues, even at that early stage, for example in a 1992 Development NGO Conference, there were tensions within members who were urged to weigh risks as well as gains implicit in the opportunity to scale up support for wholesale economic liberalism.
The situation among development NGOs was not helped by the tensions between Northern NGOs and Southern NGOs when donors by-passed Northern NGOs and gave funds directly to Southern NGOs. Criticism of both Northern and Southern NGOs increased. Pearce (2004) talks about the negative outcome of those who chose to become “the delivery agency” for a global soup kitchen.
He suggests that the backlash had begun and that NGOs were no longer seen as offering significant advantages neither in community development nor in complex emergencies. Instead they were “useful fig-leaves to cover government inaction or indifference to human suffering”
both in complex emergencies and in economic restructuring.
Pearce (2004) like Chachage (2003a); and Shivji (2003) warn NGOs to avoid being “happy agents of a foreign aid system”. They argue that they should rethink their mandate, mission and strategies by looking towards the gradual replacement of foreign aid agendas by a broader agenda of international cooperation in which NGOs reshape the roles and seek alliances around common goals with other social and civic organisations.
After seeing that NGOs are becoming more and more like agents of the liberal economy, Chachage (2003a) and Shivji (2003) have called on NGOs to return to the role of being promoters of social change and of non-market values such as cooperation, non violence, respect for human
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rights and democratic processes, and to make these the bottom line in decisions over economics, environment, social policy and politics. Shivji (2007, p. vi) sums it up well when he reminds those who want to celebrate NGOs in Africa that:
…the transformation from a colonial subject society to bourgeoisies society in Africa is incomplete, stunted and distorted. We have the continued domination of imperialism-reproduction of the colonial mode-in a different form, currently labelled globalisation or neo-liberalism. Within this context, NGOs are neither a third sector, nor independent of the state. Rather, they are inextricably implicated in the neoliberal offensive, which follows on the heels of the crisis of the national project. Unless there is awareness on the part of the NGOs of this fundamental moment in the struggle between imperialism and nationalism, they end up playing the role of ideological and organisational foot soldiers of imperialism.