Civil society organizations and managerialism: On the depoliticization of the adaptive management agenda

Abstract

Motivation: In the last decade, a movement formed around making aid delivery more adaptive, relying on principles such as context sensitivity, flexibility, and ownership. The approaches seem promising for civil society organizations (CSOs) to fulfil their mission of fostering social transformation. While several donor agencies have started engaging with such approaches, the authors hardly see their political implications in practice. Purpose: The article aims to provide evidence on an adaptive project and demonstrate how the social transformative and political nature of adaptive development management is rendered technical and depoliticized in practice. Methods and approach: We use a case study of a development programme based on a social transformative policy framework that is implemented through CSOs in Uganda and Vietnam. Data were collected by means of interviews, participant observation and document analysis. Findings: We find that, in practice, the social transformative policy framework is competing with managerial logics. We compare this process with the depoliticization of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, finding striking similarities. By using practice theory, we show how managerialism remains the dominant paradigm in the civil society aid sector, fuelling the "anti-politics machine." Policy implications: The article shows that policy frameworks do not always work as intended. Donors should therefore not only change policy frameworks, but also start addressing institutional and operational requirements.

Aid Unchained: Examining Development Project Management Practices at Aid Chain Interfaces

“…Another research strand takes concrete concepts or buzzwords (such as aid effectiveness, adaptive management or ownership) that dominate international fora as a point of departure and dissects their workings (e.g., Brown, 2020; Cornwall and Eade, 2010; Gutheil, 2023; Keijzer and Black, 2020). Hasselskog (2022) traces, for instance, how discussions around ownership are increasingly about technical aspects such as procurement, public financial management and results management instead of domestic agenda setting, thus depoliticizing the ownership principle.…”