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Abstract
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) undertake a considerable amount of work to create the space in which to operate and in which to exercise their own form of governance. This work does not reside purely within ‘textual’ artefacts but also within NGO discursive practices on a daily basis to different audiences. It resides in how they choose to position themselves in relation to other players in what can be a crowded and highly politicized environment. This article argues that much of this work is captured by a broader conception of legitimation in rendering the exercise of power and influence acceptable to others. This is informed by a Bourdieuian conception of ‘capital’, including social and symbolic capital, on which NGOs are particularly well-positioned to draw. NGOs' ambiguous location, between the ‘public’ and ‘private’ spheres, affords them greater creativity in this process. This article examines how one form of capital, that of government relations, is used by NGOs to legitimate their presence in one district in Tanzania in the particularly fraught domain of land rights. It concludes that different positioning with regard to local government offers different opportunities but also works in tension with other forms of legitimation.
Acknowledgements
Support for this research was provided by the Economic and Social Research Council studentship programme and the Tanzanian Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH). The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the editor as well as Jana Hönke, Gerhard Anders, Pete Kingsley and P. Trent Olsen for their valuable comments on drafts of this article. My deep gratitude is extended to the NGO, government and village representatives who opened their doors willingly, offering companionship, advice and support along the way.
Notes
1. Weber's renowned three-part typology of the legitimate use of (state) force holds there are charismatic/traditional/rational-legal sources of legitimacy belief (Weber, Gerth, and Mills Citation1970, 79 [1918]). In the language of practice theory, they constitute different forms of legitimation capital.
2. Tripp traces the exponential growth in the 1990s from 224 NGOs in 1993 to over 8000 by 1997 (2000, 199–200), which has levelled off at over 9000 today.
3. A notable recent exception is Mercer and Green's examination of ‘interstitial work’ between the global and local by civil society organizations (Citation2012).
4. Bourdieu defines economic capital as material wealth directly convertible into money or property (Citation1986, 242); social as relationships of acquaintance and recognition linked to membership in a group (248) and symbolic as prestige, or recognition ‘as legitimate’ (Citation1990, 118). His cultural capital is also relevant in part but remains outside the scope of this article.
5. When, for example, presented with the different ‘frames of legitimation’ that had emerged during fieldwork, the Programme Coordinator of Advocates International (AI) exclaimed ‘Yes, we do! We do do that!’ (Interview, 1 June 2013).
6. Collingwood makes a similar point whereby such a comparison ‘fails to recognize the extent to which states themselves consistently fail to meet liberal democratic standards of representation, accountability and transparency’ (Citation2006, 452).
7. ‘NGOs, in theory at least, derive their legitimacy from the claim that they serve or represent sections of the public’ (Crewe and Harrison Citation1998, 5).
8. ‘Performing effectively and accounting transparently are essential components of responsible practice, on which the legitimacy of development interventions ultimately depends’ (Edwards and Hulme Citation1995, 6).
9. Theorists have challenged the NGO (civil society)/market division (Allen Citation1997; Tvedt Citation1998; Ferguson Citation2006) but my point is rather to highlight fluidity between the two.
10. For a good overview, see Bjerk Citation2010.
11. Mamdani himself is highly critical of the oversimplified dualisms that characterize and dehistoricize social science and Africanist scholarship (1996, 20, 186). Clearly, the condition of his dualistic conception of the state is that it is adequately historicized in its ‘specifically African form’ (Mamdani Citation1996, 286). For Mamdani, Tanzania was the ‘paradigm of political stability’ in post-colonial Africa (Citation2001, 32).
12. Tripp traces the exponential growth in the 1990s from 224 NGOs in 1993 to over 8000 by 1997 (2000, 199–200), which has levelled off at over 9000 today.
13. These are pseudonyms. Tanzanian law defines an international NGO as one that is established outside mainland Tanzania (NGO Act Tanzania Citation2002 Preliminary Provisions), although many NGOs local to the district are dependent on overseas funding, which blurs the line in practice.
14. In the last UNDP Human Development Report Tanzania ranked 152 out of 187 listed countries.
15. Tanzania was ranked 82 in Transparency International's 2001 corruption ranking, slipping to 116/178 in 2010 although recovering to hover around the 100 mark (out of 176) in 2011–2012. Data available from http://www.transparency.org/research/cpi
16. As Venugopal and Yilmaz (Citation2010) point out, LGAs collect only about 5% of public revenue (Bagamoyo managed almost 6% in 2011–2012) but are responsible for 20% of public spending. Typically district councils continually petition for resources up the chain, which are partially fulfilled (Bagamoyo has received around 60% of its projected budget in the last few budget cycles) and main funding priorities are set centrally.
17. The DC is directly appointed by the president and is his representative at the district level – a ‘state guy’. The District Council has both an elected and bureaucratic component, the latter being divided into the relevant government ministries (e.g. education, welfare and community development) and as such is the administrative and financial hub for district developmental work. Contrary to Hoffman and Robinson (Citation2009), the District Executive Directors do not report to the DC but have their own reporting line within the Prime Minister's office.
18. 77% of NGOs in Bagamoyo have registered since Kikwete's tenure in 2005. This figure is based on a list of 63 ‘active’ NGOs, 43 of which have a known registration date, 33 of those registered in 2006 or after. A multilaterally funded health institute also was established in 2005 (for which the decision preceded his inauguration but its continued expansion still offers political capital). A large-scale, World Bank-funded social security scheme was one of only three districts nationwide to pilot the scheme from 2008. A $11bn, Chinese-invested international port was signed by the Chinese Premier in April 2013, set to eclipse the container capacity of Dar and Mombasa combined.
19. See, for example, Glassman's (Citation1991, Citation1995), Fabian's (Citation2007) and Watson's (Citation1982) historical overviews of Bagamoyo from its heyday to ‘neglected backwater’.
20. There are around 9000 NGOs registered in Tanzania, giving an average of 70 per district and making Bagamoyo almost twice the national average.
21. ‘National’ NGOs are defined by the NGO Act Tanzania Citation2002 as being operational in at least two districts.
22. For example, 75% of Bagamoyo wards do not have a health centre, which is well below the national average (District Development Plan, 1). The adult HIV prevalence rate is 9.5% (District Development Plan, 2), above the national rate of 5.1% (UNDAIDS Citation2012). A recent national education study conducted by Uwezo (Citation2012, 60) ranked Bagamoyo well into the lower half of attainment levels (70/126), particularly in English and Mathematics (98 and 77, respectively), offset by an inevitably stronger showing in Swahili, which is the mother tongue.
23. This ethnographic data were gathered in 12 months over an 18-month period between 2012 and 2013. This involved interviews and discussions with over 30 NGOs, as well as fieldnotes from shadowing a selected group of six NGOs on field activities. I also spent a total of six weeks in two village locations, unattached to any NGO.
24. Interview with Country Director, 11 December 2012.
25. Interview with Programme Coordinator, 10 October 2012.
26. Fieldnotes during VPI monitoring visit to Kitawe, 22 November 2012.
27. Interview with Country Director, 11 December 2012.
28. Interview with AI Programme Coordinator, 6 December 2012.
29. Senior District Council staff member, 15 August 2012.
30. Interview with AI Project Coordinator, 1 June 2013.
31. Interview, 29 May 2013.
32. Discussion with local women's group leader, June 2013.
33. Interview with AI Programme Coordinator, 1 June 2013.
34. Interview with AI Programme Coordinator, 1 June 2013.