A framework for understanding civil society in action

Abstract

The past 30 years have seen a proliferation in the use of the phrase ‘civil society' linked to international aid, resulting in the creation of official donor ‘civil society departments’. At the same time there has been growing understanding that international development has become commercialised into the ‘aid industry'. The result is an explosion of ‘aided', globalised and tamed civil society at the expense of the naturally occurring, local, less predictable and more politicised‘unaided' variety.

Un cadre pour comprendre la société civile en action

Au cours des 30 dernières années, on a assisté à une prolifération de l'utilisation de l'expression « société civile » liée à l'aide internationale, ce qui a abouti à la création de « services société civile » parmi les bailleurs de fonds officiels. Dans le même temps, on s'est rendu compte de manière de plus en plus claire que le développement international a été commercialisé jusqu'à devenir une « industrie de l'aide ». Le résultat en est l'explosion d'une société civile « aidée », mondialisée et domptée aux dépens de la variété « non aidée » locale, moins prévisible et plus politisée, qui survient naturellement.

Uma estrutura para compreender a sociedade civil em ação

Nos últimos 30 anos tem havido uma proliferação no uso do termo “sociedade civil” conectado com ajuda internacional, resultando na criação de “departamentos da sociedade civil” de doadores oficiais. Ao mesmo tempo, tem havido um entendimento cada vez maior de que o desenvolvimento internacional tem se tornado comercializado dentro da “indústria da ajuda”. O resultado é uma explosão de sociedade civil “ajudada”, globalizada e domesticada às custas de uma variedade “que não recebe ajuda”, que ocorre naturalmente, é local, menos previsível e mais politizada.

Un marco para entender la sociedad civil en acción

En los últimos 30 años se ha usado ampliamente la expresión “sociedad civil” en el contexto de la ayuda internacional, lo cual ha dado pie a la creación de “departamentos de sociedad civil” en las agencias donantes. Paralelamente, cada vez está más extendida la idea de que el desarrollo internacional se ha mercantilizado en la “industria de la ayuda”. El resultado es el crecimiento vertiginoso de una sociedad civil “auxiliada”, globalizada y domesticada, en detrimento de otra menos “auxiliada” pero arraigada localmente, menos predecible y más politizada.

Keywords:

• Aid
• Civil society

Notes

Thanks are due to Alan Fowler for this insight.

Collier's analysis assigning his Bottom Billion to sub-Saharan Africa and a number of familiar failing states is challenged by a new way of looking at the data (Sumner 2010) that suggests that as many if not more very poor people live in middle income countries, several of which (e.g. Brazil, India) have large populations failing to gain from the recent growth and which suffer from continued severe inequalities.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John Beauclerk

John Beauclerk is a development practitioner with over 30 years of NGO management experience at community, provincial, regional and national levels in Peru and the Congo (with Oxfam UK), in Pakistan, Mongolia and Europe with Save the Children (Norway and UK), and then with INTRAC in Central and Eastern Europe. He has written on his fieldwork with indigenous groups and has contributed to previous publications on civil society. <[email protected]>