The Structural Transformation of Palestinian Civil Society: Key Paradigm Shifts

Abstract

This article examines the systemic process of structural transformation that engulfed multiple levels, structures and functions of Palestinian civil society in the early 1990s, whereby a large segment of the pre-Oslo mass-based movements were transformed into discrete groups of foreign-funded non-governmental organizations (NGOs). More specifically, the article explores three interrelated factors that influenced the general trajectory of civil society's structural transformation and shows how these factors are fundamental to understanding the transformation of Palestinian civil society and what went wrong in the process. These factors are: (1) ideological neoliberal globalization; (2) political, especially the Oslo process; and (3) financial, especially the conditionality of international donors. Moreover, the article comparatively identifies four opposing dimensions: the organizational agenda, relations with the grassroots, the status of politics and the production of knowledge. Collectively, they lie at the core of the structural transformation and reveal contradictory functions and roles between past and present civil society versions.

Keywords::

• Civil society
• de-politicization
• mass-based movements
• neoliberalism
• NGOs
• Palestine

Notes

¹ Al Taher Labeeb (1992) Almujta'a Almadani fi al Watan al'arabi wa Dawroh fi Tahqeeq al Demoqratiyya [Civil Society in the Arab World and its Role in Achieving Democracy] (Beirut: Center for Arab Unity Studies), p. 103.

² See, for example, A. Bishara (1995) Ay Mujtama'a madani??!!, [Which Civil Society??!!], in: Ziad Abu Amr (ed.) Al Mujtama'a al madani wa al Tahawol al democrati Fi Filastin [Civil Society and Democratic Transition in Palestinian Society] (Ramallah: Muwatin).

³ See, for example, A. Amr (ed.) (1995) Al Mujtama'a Al Madani wa Al Tahawol Al Democrati Fi Filastin; G. Giacaman (1995) Al Mujtama'a Al Madani wa Al Sulta [Civil Society and the Authority], in: M. Budieri et al. (1995) Series on Palestinian Democracy: Critical Papers (Ramallah: Muwatin); and I. Abrash (2001) Al Mujtama'a Almadani Alfilastini min Althwra ela Ta'asees AlDawla [Palestinian Civil Society from Revolution to State-building]. Available at http://www.wafainfo.ps/atemplate.aspx?id = 3827, accessed March 2, 2013.

⁴ I. Srinath (2011) Bridging the Gaps: Citizens, Organisations and Dissociation, Civil Society Index Summery Report: 2008–2011, p. 4 (Johannesburg: CIVICUS).

⁵ See, for example, K. Maithreyi (2003) Challenges before Women's Movements in a Changing Context, Economic and Political Weekly, 35(43), pp. 36–45; D. Chahim & A. Prakash (2013) NGOization, Foreign Funding, and the Nicaraguan Civil Society, Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, pp. 1–27; and R. Jalali (2013) Financing Empowerment? How Foreign Aid to Southern Ngos and Social Movements Undermines Grass-Roots Mobilization, Sociology Compass, 7(1), pp. 55–73.

⁶ B. Beckman (1993) The Liberation of Civil Society: Neo-Liberal Ideology and Political Theory, Review of African Political Economy, 58, p. 20.

⁷ T. Wallace (2003) NGO Dilemmas: Trojan Horses for Global Neoliberalism? Socialist Register, 40, pp. 202–219.

⁸ D. Craig & D. Porter (2006) Development Beyond Neoliberalism? Governance, Poverty Reduction and Political Economy (London: Routledge).

⁹ R. Khalidi & S. Samour (2011) Neoliberalism as Liberation: The Statehood Program and the Remaking of the Palestinian National Movement, Journal of Palestine Studies, 40(2), pp. 6–25.

¹⁰ S. Merz (2012) ‘Missionaries of the new era’: Neoliberalism and NGOs in Palestine, Race & Class, 54(1), pp. 50–66.

¹¹S. Hanafi & L. Tabar, The Emergence of a Palestinian Globalized Elite: Donors, Organizations and local NGOs (Jerusalem: Institute for Jerusalem Studies/Muwatin, 2005), p. 30.

¹² R. Brynen (2000) A Very Political Economy: Peacebuilding and Foreign Aid in the West Bank, pp. 6–7 (Washington DC: United States Institute of Peace).

¹³ M. Turner (2012) Completing the Circle: Peacebuilding as Colonial Practice in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, International Peacekeeping, 19(4), pp. 492–507.

¹⁴ A. Le More (2008) International Assistance to the Palestinians after Oslo: Political Guilt, Wasted Money (London: Routledge).

¹⁵ B. Challand (2009) Palestinian Civil Society: Foreign Donors and the Power to Promote and Exclude (London: Routlege).

¹⁶ Ibid, p. 87.

¹⁷ R. Brynen (2000) A Very Political Economy: Peacebuilding and Foreign Aid in the West Bank, p. 187 (Washington DC: United States Institute of Peace).

¹⁸ J. De Voir & A. Tartir (2009) Tracking External Donor Funding to Palestinian Non Governmental Organizations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip 1999–2008 (Ramallah: Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute–MAS).

¹⁹ For further explanation about statehood vs. Liberationist strategies see, for example, S. Tamari (1988) What the Uprising Means, Middle East Report, 152, pp. 24–30.

²⁰ See, for example, D. McDowall (1990) Palestine and Israel: The Uprising and Beyond, p. 110 (Berkeley, University of California Press); and S. Tamari (1991) The Palestinian National Movement in Transition: Historical Reversals and the Uprising, in: R. Brynen (ed.) Echoes of the Intifada: Regional Repercussions of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, pp. 17–18 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press).

²¹ Challand, Palestinian Civil Society, p. 20.

²² I. Jad (2004) The NGO-isation of Arab Women's Movements, IDS Bulletin, 35(4), pp. 34–42.

²³ J. R. Hiltermann (1993) Behind the Intifada: Labour and Women Movements in the Occupied Territories, p. 173 (Princeton: Princeton University Press).

²⁴ S. Hanafi & L. Tabar (2004) Donor Assistance, Rent-seeking and Elite Formation, in: M. H. Khan, G. Giacaman & G. Amundsen (eds) State Formation in Palestine. Viability and Governance during a Social Transformation, p. 224 (London: Routledge Curzon).

²⁵ A. A. Jamal (2009) Barriers to Democracy: The Other Side of Social Capital in Palestine and the Arab World (Princeton: Princeton University Press).

²⁶ S. Abdel Shafi (2004) Civil Society and Political Elites in Palestine and the Role of International Donors: A Palestinian View, EuroMeSCo Working Paper, 33, p. 5. Available at http://www.euromesco.net/euromesco/media/paper33_final.pdf

²⁷ Å. A. Tiltnes, J. Pedersen, S. Sønsterudbråten & J. Liu (2011) Palestinian Opinions about Governance, Institutions and Political Leaders: Synthesis of Results of Fafo's Opinion Polls in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, 2005–2011, FAFO-paper. Available at http://www.fafo.no/pub/rapp/10130/10130.pdf, accessed 3 August 3, 2013.

²⁸ R. Khalidi (2010) Palestinian Identity: Construction of Modern National Consciousness (New York: Columbia University Press).

²⁹ See, for example, L. Taraki (1990) The Development of Political Consciousness among Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, 1967–1987, in: J. R. Nassar & R. Heacock (eds) Intifada: Palestine at the Crossroads, pp. 53–71 (New York: Greenwood Press).

³⁰ E. Kuttab (2008) Palestinian Women's Organizations: Global Cooption and Local Contradiction, Cultural Dynamics, 20(2), p. 103.

³¹ Challand, Palestinian Civil Society.

³² P. Johnson & E. Kuttab (2001) Where Have All the Women (and Men) Gone? Reflections on Gender and the Second Palestinian Intifada, Feminist Review, 69, p. 25.

³³L. Taraki, The Development of Political Consciousness, p. 64.

³⁴ See, for example, E. Said (1994) Culture and Imperialism (New York: Vintage Books); and B. Ashcroft, G. Gareth & H. Tiffin (1998) Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies (London and New York: Routledge).

³⁵ The 1990s witnessed intensive organizations of donors-promoted conferences, seminars and publications aimed to redefine the meaning of civil society in the Palestinian context. This included topics such as the role of civil society in democratization, civic education, state-building and peacebuilding, among others. For further details, see Challand, Palestinian Civil Society.

³⁶M. Al-Maliki, H. Ladadweh & Y. Shalabi (2007) Mapping Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (Ramallah: MAS).

³⁷ Challand, Palestinian Civil Society.

³⁸ S. Hanafi (2009) Donor Community and the Market of Research Production Framing and de Framing the Social Sciences. Paper presented at the conference of the Council of National Associations, March 23–25, 2009; Taipei, Taiwan.

³⁹ Challand, Palestinian Civil Society, p. 109.

⁴⁰ K. Nakhleh (2011) Globalized Palestine: The National Sell-out of a Homeland (Ewing Township, NJ: The Red Sea Press).

⁴¹ M. Al-Maliki (2011) Researching in an Unsuitable Environment: The Palestinian Case, in: R. Heacock & E. Conte (eds) Critical Research in the Social Sciences: A Transdisciplinary East-West Handbook, p. 208 (Ramallah and Vienna: The Ibrahim Abu-Lughod Institute of International Studies).

⁴² Challand, Palestinian Civil Society, p. 121.