This book suggests that our notions of civil society have undergone radical changes—including structural changes in the nature of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). Such massive structural changes greatly problematize the older liberal view of a simple split between state and civil society actors which nonetheless remains dominant in much of social and political sciences. The author argues that the naturalist and behaviorist approaches to civil society occlude the fact that citizens increasingly live within a particular and highly contestable way of imagining and constructing civil society. The book shows that changes in how civil society is conceptualized and organized around new practices, might mark radically new conceptions of the state that are ideologically neo-liberal and subtle in the ways they disempower ordinary citizens.

Governments throughout the developing world have witnessed a proliferation of non-governmental, non-profit organizations (NGOs) providing services like education, healthcare and piped drinking water in their territory. In Allies or Adversaries, Jennifer N. Brass explains how these NGOs have changed the nature of service provision, governance, and state development in the early twenty-first century. Analyzing original surveys alongside interviews with public officials, NGOs and citizens, Brass traces street-level government-NGO and state-society relations in rural, town and city settings of Kenya. She examines several case studies of NGOs within Africa in order to demonstrate how the boundary between purely state and non-state actors blurs, resulting in a very slow turn toward more accountable and democratic public service administration. Ideal for scholars, international development practitioners, and students interested in global or international affairs, this detailed analysis provides rich data about NGO-government and citizen-state interactions in an accessible and original manner.

This book investigates how nongovernmental organizations can become stronger advocates for citizens and better representatives of their interests. Sabine Lang analyzes the choices that NGOs face in their work for policy change between working in institutional settings and practicing public advocacy that incorporates constituents' voices.

Can non-governmental organisations contribute to more socially just, alternative forms of development? Or are they destined to work at the margins of dominant development models determined by others? Addressing this question, this book brings together leading international voices from academia, NGOs and the social movements. It provides a comprehensive update to the NGO literature and a range of critical new directions to thinking and acting around the challenge of development alternatives. The book's originality comes from the wide-range of new case-study material it presents, the conceptual approaches it offers for thinking about development alternatives, and the practical suggestions for NGOs. At the heart of this book is the argument that NGOs can and must re-engage with the project of seeking alternative development futures for the world's poorest and more marginal. This will require clearer analysis of the contemporary problems of uneven development, and a clear understanding of the types of alliances NGOs need to construct with other actors in civil society if they are to mount a credible challenge to disempowering processes of economic, social and political development.

Since the book was first published, NGOs have continued to rise in prominence, but our concerns have been little redressed. The new Preface and Afterword to this IPE Classic provide an up to date review of the debates on NGOs and the development sector that consolidate on this argument and look briefly at some of the reactions it has received.

The rise of neo-liberalism and the so-called Washington Consensus have generated a powerful international ideology concerning what constitutes good governance, democratization, and the proper roles of the State and civil society in advancing development. As public spending has declined, the nongovernment sector has benefited very significantly from taking on a service-delivery role. At the same time, NGOs, as representatives of civil society, are a convenient channel through which official agencies can promote political pluralism. But can NGOs simultaneously facilitate governments’ withdrawal from providing basic services for all and also claim to represent and speak for the poor and the disenfranchised? The chapters describe some of the tensions inherent in the roles being played by NGOs, and asks whether these organizations truly stand for anything fundamentally different from the agencies on whose largesse they increasingly depend.

This book investigates the impact of Western democracy assistance programs on the development of Russian women's and soldiers' rights NGOs in Russia. It argues that the normative content of assistance programs as well as the character of regional political environments fundamentally shape the influence of such programs.

Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) can make a vital contribution to public health and health systems but harnessing their potential is complex in a Europe where government-CSO relations vary so profoundly. This study is intended to outline some of the challenges and assist policy-makers in furthering their understanding of the part CSOs can play in tandem and alongside government. To this end it analyses existing evidence and draws on a set of seven thematic chapters and six mini case studies. They examine experiences from Austria Bosnia-Herzegovina Belgium Cyprus Finland Germany Malta the Netherlands Poland the Russian Federation Slovenia Turkey and the European Union and make use of a single assessment framework to understand the diverse contexts in which CSOs operate. The evidence shows that CSOs are ubiquitous varied and beneficial and the topics covered in this study reflect such diversity of aims and means: anti-tobacco advocacy food banks refugee health HIV/AIDS prevention and cure and social partnership. CSOs make a substantial contribution to public health and health systems with regards to policy development service delivery and governance. This includes evidence provision advocacy mobilization consensus building provision of medical services and of services related to the social determinants of health standard setting self-regulation and fostering social partnership. However in order to engage successfully with CSOs governments do need to make use of adequate tools and create contexts conducive to collaboration. To guide policy-makers working with CSOs through such complications and help avoid some potential pitfalls the book outlines a practical framework for such collaboration. This suggests identifying key CSOs in a given area; clarifying why there should be engagement with civil society; being realistic as to what CSOs can or will achieve; and an understanding of how CSOs can be helped to deliver.

The interaction between corporations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has become an important topic in the debate about corporate social responsibility (CSR). Yet, unlike the vast majority of academic work on this topic, this book explicitly focuses on clarifying the role of NGOs, not of corporations, in this context. Based on the notion of NGOs as political actors it argues that NGOs suffer from a multiple legitimacy deficit: they are representatives of civil society without being elected; the legitimacy of the claims they raise is often controversial; and there are often doubts regarding the legitimacy of the behaviour they exhibit in putting forward their claims. Set against an extended sphere of political action in the postnational constellation this book argues that the political model of deliberative democracy provides a meaningful conceptualization of NGOs as legitimate partners of corporations and it develops a conceptual framework that specifically allows distinguishing legitimate partner NGOs from two related actor types with whom they share certain characteristics but who differ with respect to their legitimacy. These related actor types are interest groups on the one hand and activists on the other hand. In conclusion it argues that a focus on the behaviour of NGOs is most meaningful for distinguishing them from interest groups and activists.

This open access book focuses on the role of civil society in the creation, dissemination, and interpretation of knowledge in geographical contexts. It offers original, interdisciplinary and counterintuitive perspectives on civil society. The book includes reflections on civil and uncivil society, the role of civil society as a change agent, and on civil society perspectives of undone science. Conceptual approaches go beyond the tripartite division of public, private and civic sectors to propose new frameworks of civic networks and philanthropic fields, which take an inclusive view of the connectivity of civic agency across sectors. This includes relational analyses of epistemic power in civic knowledge networks as well as of regional giving and philanthropy. The original empirical case studies examine traditional forms of civic engagement, such as the German landwomen’s associations, as well as novel types of organizations, such as giving circles and time banks in their geographical context. The book also offers insider reflections on doing civil society, such as the cases of the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong, epistemic activism in the United States, and the #FeesMustFall movement in South Africa.