Civil society or ‘comprador class’, participation or parroting?

Abstract

This article critically looks at the interfaces between the ideal notions of civil society and participation within the remit of Bangladesh’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) formulation process. On the one hand, the idea of civil society has been likened to a renaissance and is often considered to be the most likely route out of development ‘problems’, particularly in the poor countries. Dominant development discourses have scripted the liberal interpretation of civil society as the only game in town. However, on the other hand, as a consequence of growing criticism on the failure of top-down development approach in the late-1960s, and throughout most of the 1970s, there was a sudden upsurge of interest that ordinary citizens might have a part to play in the development process. A generalized consensus took shape that people’s participation in projects is an important component of development programmes and a means to their success and hence participation has turned out to be a ‘new paradigm’ of development. The PRSP framework, that precepts a romantic marriage between civil society and participation, was foisted by two major International Financial Institutions (IFIs) as a condition of further debt and other development assistance for all poor countries. Participation from ‘all relevant stakeholders’ including civil society was trumpeted as a significant policy shift from previous development prescriptions of these IFIs. This article presents observation from 36 semi-structured interviews with civil society representatives including key people who prepared and finalized the PRSP of Bangladesh and the review of six daily national papers (September 2004 to October 2005). This piece argues that, in theory, participation can be manifested as the ‘key’ for development, but in practice, participation can be an iron hand in a velvet glove. Participation can turn into parroting and often resemble similar views that are ‘expected’ and required to validate external framework. Moreover, through such process of mainstreaming participation, an interest group within the civil society can emerge who has the technical knack of producing development policy according to donor recipe with some flavour of participation. This work therefore asks whether civil society and participation should be used as technologies of social control or as anti-hegemonic and anti-clientelistic forces in order to empowering marginalized members of the society.

Climate change policy-making process in Kenya: deliberative inclusionary processes in play

“…process (Bradshaw and Linneker, 2003;Kamruzzaman, 2012). In some cases it can be mainly benefiting selfish needs of the few elite in power and at the same time exalting unjust systems in society.…”

How donors support civil society as government accountability advocates: a review of strategies and implications for transition of donor funding in global health

“…Both are, in theory, a way to incorporate the voices of traditionally excluded populations into policy decisions and hold governments and donors accountable. Many authors discuss, however, that merely creating space does not necessarily result in meaningful participation, and that efforts must extend far beyond [61][62][63][64]. Donors often support CSOs' engagement in invited spaces, often a less controversial or politically charged form of engagement, but should also support engagement in claimed spaces, which are often messier but equally important, particularly where governments are not receptive to formal civil society engagement ( [33], p. 15).…”

Meeting development goals: evidence from the Civil Society Education Fund

“…Some authors claim that global advocacy networks and NGOs widen the space of democracy to the extent that they are committed to human rights (Dryzek 2010;Tandon and Brown 2013), and particularly to the right to education (Gaventa and Mayo 2009), in a more reflexive and creative way than public organisations. However, other experts blame these agents for lack of democratic control and for exercising subtle forms of domination beyond the official spaces of policy engagement (Kamruzzaman 2013).…”