Committee for Conflict Transformation Support |
CCTS
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The Role of NGOs, Local and International, in Post-war PeacebuildingCivil societyThe background papers relating to this paper set it within the theme of civil society. The current use of the term 'civil society' often bothers me. It is usually poorly defined and applied, often with little critical analysis, in many different and incompatible ways. The ancient Greeks started the discussion, and Van Rooy (1998) traces a shift from academic and political debates in the nineteenth century, in which civil society was considered as a notion that compared favourably to Hobbes' visions of the essential savagery of human nature, to twentieth century understanding in which civil society is defined in relation to and integral to a democratic state. She traces six distinct uses of the concept of 'civil society' by the aid industry at present:
In current debates about 'civil society' in development policy the term seems to have become a label of convenience, and to have a life independent of historical and analytical uses. It is the use of the concept of 'civil society' in policy that is my concern in a paper like this. At a Development Studies Association meeting in 2000, the head of the 'Civil Society Challenge Fund' of the British Government's 'Department for International Development' (DFID) admitted without embarrassment that she could not define what she or her Department meant by 'civil society' but that they were going to go ahead and strengthen it anyway. My concerns start specifically from the fear that 'civil society' is used in a way that ignores conflict. Attention to 'civil society' rarely acknowledges the inherent conflicts between interested parties and between social groups in any society. Civil organisations are often set up precisely to cope with and strengthen an interested party's hand in conflict with other interests. Local institutions are dynamic social structures that usually reinforce existing power relationships and the status quo. But the term in current policy is being used to emphasise an optimistic picture of responsible citizenry arguing for the common good. In such use the concept provides little opportunity for tackling conflicts within a society and amongst the citizenry of a country. Thus policy debates give the impression of increasing the potential to build peace, whilst they risk allowing other potentially conflicting forces to undermine what potential 'civil society' approaches could have. I am also concerned about moral and ethical difficulties involved, and often ignored, in promoting 'civil society'. Formal and less formal associations that fit within the description of 'civil society' include the Ku Klux Klan, the Real IRA, and paedophile networks. The term 'civil society' has strong moral overtones which effectively exclude such negative and destructive associations by default. Surely the KKK cannot be considered 'civil'? Surely paedophile networks are outside 'society'? But if the KKK is not included in debates on civil society organisations, where is it included in debates about the actual formalised, interested, associational structures that are part of society and often influential in government? One can hope that the balance of organised interest groups tips towards the positive or at least that the overall balance is neutral. Ignoring unpleasant features of society by refusing to acknowledge them, does not make them go away and is not only irresponsible, but even unethical. Debates on peacebuilding surely must deal with undesirable aspects of civil society. The term 'civil society' is also used to hide selectiveness by funders, denying the political and ideological priorities in decision-making about who to fund to do what. The term 'civil society' has been defined in a way that enables funders to appear largely apolitical, to be serving the greater good, and to hide potential ideological conflicts within the global aid industry especially when funding work in other countries, where war is still in the air. In doing so funders may avoid political controversy, but the fact remains that work at the level of local people and local organisation is highly selective and thus highly political. The realities of practical relationships post-conflict may leave no alternative to such spin, but in a seminar series such as this I hope we can afford to address this point openly. Where the concept of civil society is established as part of policy, it is followed by the practical questions of how to 'strengthen' civil society. 'Civil society' as a context for debates on NGOs seems to be in use largely as the 'collective noun' that indicates formalised associational structures, outside the control of Government, including CBOs and NGOs. Funders and international NGOs attempt to increase the number, range and sustainability of formally organised bodies and networks in any one country. But it is hard to build good practice on badly defined or undefined concepts. Which leads me back to NGOs. I will return the concept of 'civil society' to the background at this point, and concentrate on the more straightforward question of the roles NGOs and INGOs could have in peacebuilding. As NGOs are defined in direct contrast to Government organisations, it is appropriate to compare their 'role' to that played or potentially played by formal Government organisations and state structures. Looking in the other direction, towards the people of a country and informal clusters and organisations, it is also appropriate to compare NGOs with CBOs.
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