Complexities and Challenges for Civil Society Building in Post-Conflict Settings

Abstract

Strengthening or even ‘building’ civil society has become a preoccupation of international development actors working in post-conflict settings. However, how to do so effectively remains a difficult and theoretically underexplored question. This article identifies two core challenges. The first is how to overcome the discrepancy between what international development actors aim to achieve in building civil society – namely the strengthening of the social contract between a state and its citizens – and strategies to achieve it that focus narrowly on local NGOs and on their roles in apolitical service delivery, leaving out the state. The second is how to take better account of the complexities of the local institutions and processes concerned, and the alternative forms of social contract that might come about. This article explores these challenges and recommends how debate and research might proceed.

Introduction

The term ‘civil society’ refers to the sphere of organised society that exists outside of government and the private sector. It covers a wide variety of actors, ranging from development organisations operating internationally to localised initiatives and traditional forms of association. It might include media, labour unions, political parties, human rights activists, NGOs, traditional and religious institutions and sports and welfare associations (Barnes 2005; Kaldor 2003).

Civil society has increasingly come to be seen as vital to peace and democracy. This development has been accompanied by the rise of ‘civil society building’ in international discourse and policy. ‘Civil society building’ is considered a key component of democratisation and peacebuilding, as it might contribute to reforming state-society relations and fostering responsive and legitimate institutions that can effectively deal with conflict (Cousens et al 2001; Woodward 2007). Over the past two decades a key question discussed in numerous NGO workshops, donor policy papers and strategy documents has thus been how to effectively strengthen civil society in post-conflict countries.

Based on a review of literature and the authors' experiences with organisations attempting to strengthen civil society in diverse post-conflict settings (Verkoren 2008; Van Leeuwen 2009), this article discusses two core challenges for international development organisations in such efforts. The first relates to the discrepancy between what they aim to achieve and their strategies to achieve it. While in their policies international development actors advance a social contract perspective encompassing civil society at large and its political roles vis-à-vis the state, in practice many interventions for civil society building instead employ strategies that focus on local NGOs and their roles in a-political service delivery, leaving out the state. A second challenge is how to take due account of the complexities of local organisations and of the processes through which governance and state-society relations take shape. In many post-conflict settings, for instance, it is often difficult to distinguish between ‘state’ institutions and ‘civil society’. In addition, Local manifestations of civil society might have different ambitions than those imagined by outsiders, while not-so-civil actors might play important roles in renegotiating ‘social contracts’, which do not necessarily conform to interveners' views of what such a contract should look like.

The article first discusses how civil society building became a critical concern for peacebuilding. It then takes stock of the aforementioned challenges, bringing together key questions that need be addressed, and concludes with recommendations for strengthening civil society building interventions.

The ‘Imagined Agent of Peace’: The Rise of Civil Society Building in Peacebuilding

The last two decades have witnessed increasing attention to the roles that civil society can play in peacebuilding. In the post-Cold War era, international peacebuilding ambitions shifted from negotiating agreements to preventing future conflicts through the transformation of societies. From this new, ambitious aim of conflict transformation, civil society was seen as representing those groups that had been marginalised in conflict or that had not taken up arms. It was assumed that strengthening civil society would contribute to the cultivation of alternative political processes and institutions to authoritatively and legitimately manage group conflicts (Cousens et al 2001: 12; Woodward 2007). In addition it was assumed that civil society could play an important role as the ears and eyes of the international community, monitoring human rights, advocating for disadvantaged groups and providing early warning (Barnes 2006). Further, civil society could build bridges between polarised groups, promoting dialogue and reconciling people (OECD/DAC 1997).

This predilection for civil society as a key actor in peacebuilding reflected its popularity in development cooperation in general. Civil society had become the ‘imagined agent of development’ (Pearce 2005), being considered more effective than – and thus an alternative to – governments in providing development needs (Crowther 2001). This counted all the more for post-conflict contexts, where state institutions had failed in providing security, accountability and basic services. There, civil society also became the ‘imagined agent of peace’. Civil society would represent the forces in favour of peace in a society, and was considered more representative and closer to the grassroots than government institutions (Van Rooy 1998: 6). Moreover, civil society would reinvigorate the state by contributing to good governance and democracy (Bebbington & Riddell 1997; Biekart 1999). Civil society organisations (CSOs) would act as a ‘watchdog’ over government officials, holding them accountable for their actions, and articulate public interests (Paffenholz & Spurk 2006).

Despite a convergence in policy discourse that civil society has important roles to play in development, democratisation and peacebuilding, different emphases are being put that reflect different analytical traditions. Building on the classic work of De Tocqueville, contemporary authors like Putnam have argued how organised groups of citizens are an indispensable element of democracy as they create trust, promote citizens' interests and foster democratic skills and civic values (De Tocqueville 1864; Putnam 1993). Such a neoliberal perspective on civil society found resonance particularly among donors and international agencies in the United States. The neoliberal perspective posits civil society to be in sharp contrast to the state, serving as a watchdog against its excesses or protecting citizens from it. An alternative perspective is offered by scholars in the traditions of Gramsci and Habermas, who underscore the active role that citizens have in shaping the character of their state and in emancipating citizens. From this perspective civil society not only scrutinises the functioning of the state, but might also question its very attributes and powers. The role of civil society then is to constantly renegotiate the mutual rights and obligations of state and citizens, critically assess dominant modes of representation and accountability, and press for alternative ways of policy making (Howell & Pearce 2001; White 2004; Paffenholz & Spurk 2006). Instead of ‘making democracy work’ (Putnam 1993), Gramscian/Habermasian civil society is about ‘making democracy happen’.

In the 1970s and 1980s, European donors and internationally operating NGOs could be seen as adhering more closely to the Gramscian/Habermasian school, by emphasising emancipation, political equality and justice. Their cooperation with CSOs in developing countries often took the form of activist solidarity work in support of marginalised groups and of campaigning for political change. Today, although European organisations still pay more attention to emancipatory perspectives than American ones (OECD/DAC 2008; DFID 2010), with the growing de-politicisation of civil society (discussed below) the Tocqueville/Putnam approach has become dominant in Europe as well.

A key concept in both traditions of civil society thinking is the social contract between the state and its citizens. The notion of a social contract captures the idea that state authority is based on the consent of citizens, who forfeit some of their freedoms in exchange for the benefits of social order through the rule of law. Particularly important in a context of conflict and state failure is the notion of a monopoly on violence, which, in the process of statebuilding, people hand over to the state in exchange for protection. Another assumption of the social contract is that citizens pay taxes in exchange for social services (Rousseau 1762; Tilly 1975). However, social contract theory is not just about a functionalistic exchange of services, rights and obligations, but also about the character of the relationship between the state and its citizens.

Social contracts differ according to context. What a social contract looks like and how it can be renegotiated, as well as the expectations people have of their state, relate strongly to the legitimacy of a state, its inclusiveness and previous history of state-society relationships (OECD 2010). Current popular ideas about ‘state failure’ do not take account of such variations. They emphasise that the legitimacy of a government is based upon the extent to which it can live up to its side of the social contract. Where it does not offer its citizens protection from harm, people no longer see a reason for the state to maintain its monopoly on violence. They might start to organise their own forms of governance, or even their own militia. If war represents a failure of the social contract between a state and its citizens, civil society has increasingly come to be seen as the sphere where this social contract can be renegotiated (White 2004; Kaldor 2003).

In the 1990s the creation and consolidation of CSOs became a core concern of peacebuilding (Barnes 2005; Pouligny 2005). International NGOs (INGOs), donor governments and United Nations agencies alike regarded CSOs as the most appropriate point of entry for working on peace and restructuring governance, or made the development of a healthy civil society the objective of their peacebuilding programmes (Van Leeuwen 2009). This concern with post-conflict civil society strengthening resulted in a lot of debate about how this could best be done. However, little conceptual thinking exists about how civil society building could realise the ambition to enhance the space for renegotiating social contracts between a state and its citizens. Such concerns about civil society building remain pertinent, even if since 9/11 there has been a renewed emphasis on the state as a key player in accomplishing institutional transformation. To many INGOs, strengthening civil society is a parallel strategy to the new ‘statebuilding’ paradigm, to ensure that top-down strategies of institution building are matched with more bottom-up approaches to press for accountability (Goodhand 2006). At the same time, recent conceptualisations of statebuilding by several European donors emphasise the political processes through which state-society relations get shaped, the importance of legitimacy and inclusiveness entailed in this, and the contribution civil society building could make (OECD/DAC 2008; DFID 2010). Thus the question of how civil society strengthening contributes to peace and legitimate governance remains highly relevant.

Little conceptual thinking exists about how civil society building could realise the ambition to enhance the space for renegotiating social contracts between a state and its citizens.

Inadequate Strategies of Civil Society Building

Various critics have observed how in their efforts at civil society building donor governments, international organisations and INGOs tend to focus on local NGOs and their roles in ‘apolitical’ service delivery – not on civil society at large and its more political roles vis-à-vis the state (Bebbington et al 2008). Indeed, various donors fund local civil society in highly political ways, e.g. through supporting advocacy work. Yet the point here is that while civil society building more generally is assumed to impact state-society relations, many of the strategies adopted fail to realise this. Another important tendency in civil society building among INGOs is to focus exclusively on civil society and leave out the state. The question is whether such strategies for civil society building indeed realise what they aim to achieve, namely the transformation of state-society relations.

The fact that civil society support has mostly taken the form of the creation of or support for professional local NGOs rather than of other, or less formal, manifestations of civil society might be explained by two trends. First, critical evaluations of development practice in the 1980s led donors to prioritise more professional and accountable organisations. This was at the expense of the support for more loosely organised and politically oriented exponents of civil society, such as peasant and labour movements. Second, the end of the Cold War made agencies hesitant to support ideological organisations in countries where democracy had been formally re-established (Biekart 1999). This worked to the advantage of organisations identifying themselves as or being labelled NGOs’. More locally grounded civil society groups such as churches, councils of elders or even individual activists are often ineligible for donor support. Instead, interveners establish their own organisations, or local groups adapt to the requirements of donors and become organised as NGOs (Pouligny 2005: 500). The preference of funding agencies for NGOs contributed to the dramatic growth of the NGO sector in developing countries in the 1980s and 1990s (Stoddard 2003). Establishing NGOs became a booming business. An important question then becomes whether NGOs are representative of the grassroots or speak on behalf of a constituency at all (Chandler 1999; World Bank 2009).

A related trend is donors' emphasis on service delivery rather than solidarity and the strengthening of emancipatory social movements. Donors are reluctant to support more politically oriented activities, which might jeopardise their ‘neutrality’ and their relations with host governments. This aversion to politically oriented activities contributes to the depoliticising of civil society efforts in post-conflict countries, undermining their ability to be critical of structural issues and power imbalances. Increasingly, NGOs come to act as ‘tamed’ social movements (Kaldor 2003: 86). Yet by emphasising the neutrality of NGO work, it is easily forgotten that civil society building is a highly political process. Ignoring politics does not render intervention neutral at all, but instead has the effect of reinforcing the status quo (Howell & Pearce 2001). In this connection various authors discuss the dominance of the ‘liberal peace agenda’: the specific mix of democratic governance reform, rule of law and free market-oriented economic policy that is promoted under the headings of peace- and statebuilding (Duffield 2001; Richmond 2006). From such an agenda civil society is promoted for contributing to market reform and the introduction of parliamentary democracy (Crowther 2001; Harriss 2001). Movements that used to campaign for more social governmental policies are now co-opted into the neoliberal system, providing services that were previously considered the responsibility of the state (Dagnino 2008; Pearce 2010).

This aversion to politically oriented activities contributes to the depoliticising of civil society efforts in post-conflict countries, undermining their ability to be critical of structural issues and power imbalances.

That is not to say that all international donors and NGOs ignore the fact that civil society intervention is political. Such a claim would not do justice to efforts that focus on supporting advocacy, for instance. Nonetheless, the politics of civil society strengthening is not effectively mainstreamed. Further, systematic analysis of the political and transformative roles that civil society might play in different political settings is still at an incipient stage, as will be elaborated in the next section.

In addition to the focus on ‘neutral’, professional NGOs, another important tendency in civil society building is to focus exclusively on civil society and leave out the state. Intervening organisations fear for their neutrality when working with state actors. Or they even consider, in the Tocquevellian tradition, that a strong civil society requires limiting the powers and attributes of the state (Hewitt de Alcantara 1998). The tendency to treat civil society in isolation from state institutions contrasts with the Gramscian perspective in which civil society co-produces state institutions through constant debate and negotiation. But also from a Tocquevellian tradition it is problematic: civil society cannot fulfil its role of watchdog over the democratic process unless functioning (local) state institutions are present and represent a minimum of economic and political power.

Although the indispensability of state is also increasingly realised within the donor and INGO community, a connection between ‘statebuilding’ and ‘civil society building’ is rarely made. The emerging statebuilding agenda does not adequately address the notion of state-society relationships. Although some donors have come to consider legitimate state institutions and state-society relations as essential for statebuilding (OECD/DAC 2008; DFID 2010), mainstream statebuilding discourse pays little attention to how citizens might contribute to democratic governance. Instead of political reform, or ‘governance’, the statebuilding agenda is mainly concerned with establishing functioning state institutions, or ‘government’ (Chesterman 2004). Once again, ‘making democracy work’ is a more popular perspective than ‘making democracy happen’.

However, in contexts where democracy is by no means established, where various institutions compete for authority and where governments lack capacity and legitimacy, a ‘making democracy work’ perspective hardly seems appropriate, as discussed below. While the aim of civil society building is to strengthen the social contract between state and society, the strategies to achieve it often focus on the financial contract between local and international NGOs. Instead of governance reform, support for local civil society often takes the form of institution building. Instead of contributing to a redefinition of citizenship, strategies for civil society building avoid politics. Far from making aid apolitical, such interventions help to reinforce existing power structures. It has been rightly asked whether international NGOs lose their relevance if their focus of intervention does not engage with political agendas (Bebbington et al 2008).

While the aim of civil society building is to strengthen the social contract between state and society, the strategies to achieve it often focus on the financial contract between local and international NGOs.

Local Realities of Civil Society and Alternative Social Contracts

A key challenge for international development organisations in strengthening civil society therefore is how to ensure that it contributes to local capacities and creates a space for the redefinition of a social contract. But this social contract might not match up to what they imagine. A second challenge is how to take better account of the complexities of the local institutions and processes concerned and the alternative forms of social contract that might come about. Two aspects of this are discussed below. First, there is a contrast between ideals and realities of civil society. Second, while there is increasing awareness of the different political orders developing in post-conflict settings, the practices of civil society building remain oriented towards promoting a Western model of state-society relationships.

Contrasting ideals and realities of civil society

Many initiatives to support the peacebuilding work of local organisations are based on idealised perceptions of civil society. Civil society is often associated with the ‘shared vision’ of a local population opposed to the machinations of regional or national power politics. In line with this, CSOs tend to present themselves as non-partisan, apolitical forces trying to reconcile warring parties. Yet such images of civil society overlook the political nature of CSOs' involvement in conflict and peace. Members of CSOs might have substantially different visions, partisan biases and political connections. Often there are strong (historical) linkages between civil society and formal politics. As Crowther (2001) indicates, ‘civil organisations are often set up precisely to cope with and strengthen an interested party's hand in conflict’ (for more examples see Uvin 1998; Hilhorst 2003; Paffenholz 2010).

There are countless experiences of outside supporters that have been frustrated because local partners turned out to be politically biased, unreliable, primarily serving the interests of their staff or even being as bad as the despised governments they were supposed to counterbalance. This might persuade interveners to search for gems among the rubble, identifying the ‘good’, non-partisan and legitimate organisations from the ‘bad’ ones that lack legitimacy among the people they claim to represent, or are deeply involved in conflict politics. However, neither of these two extremes exists in reality. In practice it is impossible to establish the ‘true nature’ of a civil society organisation. A civil society representative might be sincerely concerned about the suffering of indigenous people while also being concerned about personal (financial, emotional, political) interests. An organisation's partisan interests, or past affiliation with guerrillas, for example, does not rule out the possibility that it can make a real contribution to peace. Hence the definitive civil society does not exist, and to understand how it works and develops we need to look at the multiple realities it represents (Hilhorst & Van Leeuwen 2005). Too easily, intervening parties might be eager to partner with organisations that seem to uphold what are deemed acceptable principles, i.e., that match theirs. However, those organisations that have high ‘local legitimacy’, with strong local ties and constituencies and high popular support, need not be the same as those that have high ‘international legitimacy’, living up to international standards of human rights, gender equity, neutrality, inclusiveness and non-violence (Fierens 2005).

Too easily, intervening parties might be eager to partner with organisations that seem to uphold what are deemed acceptable principles, i.e., that match theirs

The roles of civil society also differ according to the context. For instance, in so-called fragile states, civil society might come to play core roles in providing state functions. A challenge in such settings is not to obstruct the development of incipient state authority, nor to forget the roles civil society might have to play in advocacy for good governance, even if populations see service delivery as the first priority (Dowst 2009). On the other hand, in states, that have strong capacity, but lack political will or that are even repressive, civil society might have a key role in advocacy and state reform, rather than in service provision (DFID 2005). However, it is precisely in such settings that space for making contentious claims might be reduced (Tilly 2003). Further, the political context might change over time, with important implications for possible transformative roles for civil society (Tarrow 1998). Finally, history and culture also influence how citizenship might be (re)defined and what forms social mobilisation might take (Leach & Scoones 2007). Some places have a long tradition of civil organisation and activism, while in other areas hardly any forms of civil organisation are present.

Understanding civil society in context requires investigating the origins and roles of those organisations and initiatives that are called, or call themselves, ‘civil society’. The format of an NGO is just one among a variety of ways in which citizens organise and represent themselves. At the local level there might be more indigenous forms of organisation involved in renegotiating power and authority, including religious and ethnic movements and local traditional institutions. In order to engage effectively with indigenous manifestations of civil society, more knowledge is necessary about how they develop, acquire legitimacy and maintain their own forms of accountability.

Alternative forms of public authority

Debates on civil society building are often dominated by an idea that contrasts civil society and the state as two entirely different actors with a clear distribution of roles. Underlying the aspirations for civil society building lingers the model of a Western state with an effective bureaucracy that provides for the wellbeing of its citizens, yet in most post-conflict settings this scarcely applies. Often the formal state is hardly present at all, or lacks capacity and legitimacy. This does not imply that there are no forms of public authority. In many such situations alternative institutions develop to take care of governmental tasks such as the provision of basic security, conflict resolution or even taxation. These might include arrangements established by people themselves, supported directly or indirectly by the warring parties or by outside aid agencies, by remnants of state organisations, or – frequently – by a mixture of these (for examples see Hohe 2005; Lund 2006, Menkhaus 2007; Vlassenroot & Raeymaekers 2008). In various (post-)conflict settings (former) militias play important roles in the provision of security and basic services, which gains them popular support and legitimacy. In such contexts, Western traditional notions of social contract might not apply. Where the state is hardly present, social relationships might be considered more important than the obligations as a citizen (Boege et al 2009: 6ff.). Arrangements of governance might be based more on social patronage and clientelism than on a bureaucratic logic. For local citizens such practices of governance need not be illegitimate by definition: they might represent a logic of their own, or even a different kind of social contract, in which those with power offer favours in exchange for loyalty. Such local forms of public authority might be deeply rooted, and in conflict situations they might be what people fall back on.

Underlying the aspirations for civil society building lingers the model of a Western state with an effective bureaucracy that provides for the wellbeing of its citizens, yet in most post-conflict settings this scarcely applies.

Statebuilding efforts by the colonial and post-colonial authorities have often resulted in ‘hybrid political orders’, in which customary forms of order and governance do not exist in isolation from the state, but permeate and interact with each other (Boege et al 2009). For long, analysts of African political systems have analysed how patrimonial relationships might linger under a thin layer of formal bureaucracy. Many local institutions find themselves in the ‘twilight zone’ between state and non-state (Lund 2006).

Although researchers and practitioners increasingly recognise such alternative forms of authority, still little is known about how they interact and develop legitimacy and authority. Nonetheless, intervening parties all too often seem to assume they have to start from scratch, with local institutions either having been destroyed by or even having caused conflict. Patronage networks are often conceived in narrow terms as corruption that needs to be countered. However, patronage might have local legitimacy if it contributes to the access to services, enhances security or maintains social stability (OECD 2010).

But even if intervening organisations acknowledge such alternative forms of public authority, they encounter new challenges. Particularly in post-conflict settings, such local institutions do not operate in isolation, but compete for authority and legitimacy with each other or with the central government and its local representation (Hohe 2005). While during conflict non-state actors might fulfil the social contract on the state's behalf, after conflict the state might try to re-appropriate or reassert its authority. Development organisations' efforts to strengthen local forms of authority easily feed into such local struggles for power. A difficult question in such settings is the extent to which alternative forms of public authority should be acknowledged by the state and assigned state responsibilities. Acknowledgement might contribute to their authority and legitimacy, but their affiliation with the state could erode their local standing. In a similar way, reforming local institutions to make them live up to international human rights and expectations of gender equity might increase their international legitimacy, but might undermine their local legitimacy (Van Leeuwen 2009). This reality of legal pluralism and hybrid forms of authority sheds a different light on civil society strengthening. If the aim is to build a social contract, then the question is, between which entities: who represents society and who represents the state? If the distinction between state and society cannot so readily be made, what does this imply for accountability, legitimate governance and the idea of a social contract?

What is clear from this discussion is that the notion of a social contract as developed in Western political philosophy and experience – based on consensus between political authority and society – might not be useful in many post-conflict settings. In such settings, the relationship between rulers and ruled might primarily be understood in terms of coercion. Social contracts might be based on patronage relations that possess local legitimacy and offer important benefits to local people, but that also tend to be opaque and exclusive. Starting conditions are then not very conducive to peacebuilders' aspiration of a ‘social contract’ in which governance is founded not on coercion or personal connections, but on the convergence of expectations and actions between rulers and ruled.

If the distinction between state and society cannot so readily be made, what does this imply for accountability, legitimate governance and the idea of a social contract?

From New Ideas to New Intervention Practices

This article has critically examined the practice of civil society building after war and the evolving debates on this practice. Ironically, while one challenge is that civil society building is largely based on idealised and Western images of the nature of civil society and its role in politics, another is that these images are only partly realised. In practice, international actors often fail to support the political role of civil society in (re)negotiating and transforming the social contract between citizens and the state due to the dynamics of the aid system. In part the overshadowing of this political role can be attributed to the dominance of Tocquevellian understandings of civil society at the expense of Gramscian/Habermasian ones. We have suggested that the latter, which emphasises the emancipatory nature of civil society and its role in co-creating the character of their state, might be more appropriate where the state is unable or unwilling to govern legitimately and effectively.

Against this background, how can civil society be built so that it truly transforms and strengthens the social contract between a state and its citizens and takes better account of how governance is actually organised at the local level? In contemporary discussions among policy makers and development practitioners, there are three potential ways forward in dealing with the challenges identified above: a shift from a focus on strengthening organisations towards transforming governance and state-society relations; a concern for re-politicising the development agenda; and a trend away from a preoccupation with Western models of the social contract towards acknowledgement of the diverse forms that public authority in post-conflict settings might take. For each of those issues we identify priorities for further research.

From a focus on capacity building to a concern with the social contract and state-society relations

It is slowly dawning on many practitioners that in the process of building civil society, forms of civil organisation other than formally established NGOs are bypassed. A central reason behind this ‘NGO-isation’ is INGOs' preoccupation with legitimising themselves by demonstrating effectiveness. Scaling down ‘NGO-isation’ is possible only when capacity building of local civil society groups is accompanied by a degree of trust in the organisational formats that emerge locally. At the same time, international agencies might need to explore alternative ways of relating to local civil society, shifting from a focus on supporting organisations financially towards a revival of solidarity partnerships in which local groups are supported in reclaiming and renegotiating political space.

Strengthening civil society might also require connecting local groups both horizontally (bringing groups with similar aims in contact with one another) and vertically (providing access to donors and forums for lobbying). Another contribution could be to provide the ‘ammunition’ for civic action in the form of information (e.g. on legislation) and skills (lobbying and other ways of civic action). Yet to renegotiate social contracts and reform relationships of governance, civil society needs access to public information and opportunities to convene and voice opinions and grievances, and to dialogue with the government (World Bank 2009). Such enabling factors strongly depend on the nature of the state. It is at this point that peacebuilding and statebuilding agendas converge: both are currently shifting from a focus on capacities and institutional set-up to a focus on state-society relationships. European donors in particular increasingly acknowledge that effective statebuilding requires a focus on state legitimacy and state-society relations, and thus on civil society and citizen engagement, to make the state responsive to society. The challenge now is to better integrate and streamline efforts at statebuilding and civil society building (Interpeace 2010; DFID 2010).

Acknowledging the politics of civil society building

There is increasing recognition among donors and international NGOs that civil society building is a political process. For instance, various organisations are reconsidering the shift they made in the 1990s towards prioritising professional organisations to the detriment of reform-minded organisations.

Empowerment (or emancipation) of vulnerable groups entails more than giving technical capacity building to help groups become professional NGOs. It also requires advocacy and support to groups trying to claim political space and redress unfair political structures, i.e., to become political. In this connection, some development practitioners have high hopes of rights-based approaches to development, which might serve to legitimise an active role in reforming public authority (Gready & Ensor 2005).

The question remains how to understand the balance of power and political dynamics within society. For sure, this requires greater efforts in identifying who is representing which groups and interests and how different groups renegotiate state-society relationships. It also requires acknowledging the limits of outside support to such processes.

Engaging with different kinds of social contract

Finally, more knowledge is needed about the meaning of civil society in different places and about state-society relations at the local level, exploring not only different forms of public authority, but also notions, trust, beliefs and expectations that people have of their state (Pouligny 2010). More research is needed into the diverse ways in which public authority evolves, or the different ‘trajectories of citizenship’ (Cornwall et al 2011), from the extreme case of Somaliland, where in the absence of a state an endogenous process of ‘statebuilding-from-below’ developed, to Cambodia where regular elections mask the reality of a one-party state based on extensive networks of patronage. Which factors influence the extent to which a state is responsive to society? In what ways do people relate to the state, and how does this constitute some sort of social contract?

OECD (2010) urges interveners to focus on the different ways in which legitimacy is gained, for instance not only through effective service delivery, but also through inclusiveness of decision making, creating a sense of community, taking religious and cultural norms and conventions seriously, and acknowledging international norms and expectations. To do this, interveners need a detailed understanding of how legitimacy comes about locally, and how different sources of legitimacy might be mutually enhancing or conflicting (OECD 2010).

While statebuilding currently emphasises the national level, state-society relationships might be more easily renegotiated at the local level, where leaders and citizens interact more closely. Local leaders often enjoy some legitimacy due to their effectiveness in dealing with local disputes or providing development services. Again, such local negotiations might work out differently than expected. For instance, many donors now promote decentralisation, as this is seen to enhance accountability, democratisation and statebuilding from below. Yet decentralisation often is an ambiguous process, and its contribution to empowerment and participation of local people and downward accountability of state actors is questionable (Agrawal & Ribot 1999). Decentralisation might also strengthen the hegemony of the central state, bypass existing local institutions (Smoke 2003), or even fuel conflict by reordering local power relations (Suzuki 2005).

While statebuilding currently emphasises the national level, state-society relationships might be more easily renegotiated at the local level, where leaders and citizens interact more closely.

The crucial question that remains is whether it is at all possible to realise the ambition of civil society building from outside. Can civil society and social contracts ever be ‘built’, or can they only emerge from endogenous, spontaneous processes of state formation? And can external actors play any meaningful role in such processes without undermining local capacities and processes? Authors such as Diamond (1992) have pointed to the importance of development and the emergence of an economic middle class that might (re)negotiate a social contract. That implies not only partnering with actors other than the ‘usual suspects’ of civil society building strategies, but also a more limited role for outsiders in the local emerging of civil society.

That in turn points to the directions that future research and debate might take. The idea of a social contract between state and citizens provides a valuable entry point for thinking about post-conflict civil society strengthening. But the approach needs to be open-minded and culturally sensitive, with an acceptance that such a contract might take very different forms. After all, states and civil society both take different forms in non-Western, post-conflict countries than they do in the West. Such open-mindedness might also imply more limited roles for Western donors in building civil society, to the benefit of locally emerging forms of public authority and new social contracts in the making.