Selling Civil Society

Abstract

To what degree can Western countries “purchase” civic engagement and participation in less developed countries that do not share the Western liberal tradition? Drawing on interview data as well as internal documents, this article looks at the effects of Western and international assistance on building civil society and, hence, democracy in Russia by focusing on the Russian nongovernmental organization (NGO) community. Although Western assistance has provided tangible equipment and training for NGOs, overall funding designed to facilitate the growth of civil society has had unintended consequences. Institutions, interests, and incentive structures impede successful collective action toward building a civic community by encouraging both funders and NGO activists to pursue short-term benefits over long-term development. The result is the creation of patron-client ties between the international donor and the Russian recipient rather than horizontal networks of civic engagement among Russian NGOs and their domestic audience.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place: International NGOs and the Dual Pressures of Donors and Host Governments

“…Foreign donors enhanced NGO organizational capacity by providing substantial funding, equipment, and practical training. However, these efforts ultimately weakened the sector, as recipient NGOs linked themselves to foreign donors in patron-client relationships (Henderson 2002). Instead of a strong grassroots civil society with robust and independent NGOs, donors created a market-based "professionalized realm of NGOs, inaccessible to most local groups and compromised by its links to a neoliberal vision of development" (Hemment 2004, 215).…”

Inledning

“…När denna artikel skrivs förbereds nya tillägg till § 6, artikel 2 av den federala lagen "Om icke vinstdrivande organisationer" (nr 7-FZ) för behandling i parlamentet efter en offentlig debatt som förts mellan Justitiedepartementet, President rådet för utveckling av det civila samhället och mänskliga rättigheter, ombudsmän för mänskliga rättigheter från olika regioner, Kommittén för medborgarinitiativ (ledd av Aleksej Kudrin), Klubben av NGO-jurister och många andra (se http://president-soviet.ru/documents/read/432/, hämtat 1 mars 2016). det civila samhället och agendor som inte bara saknar lokal representation utan också motverkar lokala intressen ( Henderson 2002;Sundstrom 2005). Tillgången till statliga medel beror i sin tur på förbindelser med de styrande eliterna och förskjuter de medborgerliga aktiviteterna mot tillhandahållande av sociala tjänster på bekostnad av andra alternativ ( Ljubownikow & Crotty 2014).…”

Arctic Social Indicators

“…The number of such organizations has been used as an indicator of democratization, though not without criticism (Fisher, 1997;Henderson, 2002;Mercer, 2002). In the Arctic, it appears that NGOs work predominantly in the environmental sphere, although also in the indigenous rights sphere.…”