Civil society:Dilemmas and Caveats-12

Beyond all questions of organizational authenticity, legitimacy, and voice, there is the simple existential problem of surviving in the face of changing international funding priorities and diminishing assistance budgets.  In a context where the state is manifestly repressive and unrepresentative, development assistance increasingly gravitates to NGOs as a vehicle for raising human capacities (economic and political) and improving the quality of life.   As authoritarian rule liberalizes to allow more space for civil society, more international donor funding is channeled to NGOs, and then, at that historical moment when the transition is clearly “on” - when voters must be educated and trainers and monitors mobilized on a crash basis - the channels of funding swell into a mighty river.  Participation in civil society (separate and apart from party politics) rises, and the civic quest to build democracy reaches new heights.  Then the transition happens and the bubble bursts.  Some international donors move on to political dramas in other countries, while many transfer the bulk of their attention and investment to the now (presumably legitimate) governmental agencies of the new democracy.

This life cycle of international enthusiasm for civil society has two major consequences.  For a great many NGOs, it means extinction.  And as I will explore below shortly, for others it means a growing dependence on agencies of the state as the primary alternative source of funding.  The post-transition recession of civil society has greatly concerned democratic activists and thinkers in South Africa, where human rights and developmental NGOs, and more loosely structured, grassroots “community-based organizations” (CBOs), proliferated in the later years of the anti-apartheid struggle with the dramatic expansion of international donor support.

Immediately preceding the April [founding] 1994 elections, the sector was probably at its peak, with approximately 54,000 NGOs and CBOs, of which about 20,000 could be considered to be development-oriented.  These organizations provided a broad range of services, from educational support and training (particularly for blacks) to rural development and media services; many were involved in the promotion of human rights.  Since the elections, a significant number of NGOs, including many that had existed for a long time, have closed or drastically curtailed their operations.

And many others fell into dire financial straits.  As James and Caliguire note, it is natural that a legitimate government, more concerned with real and equitable development, will become more active in service delivery after the transition.  But the legitimacy, networks, expertise, and experience of NGOs make them important intermediaries and partners in this task, and in any case, the need for effective organization and representation of a myriad of grassroots interests does not cease with the transition to democracy.  Moreover, in many statist and communist systems, the post-transitional shrinkage of civil society is also apparent, even though economic reforms are often shrinking the state’s involvement in delivering social services.

Domestic political dynamics, flowing from what seems to be an internal life cycle of many democratic transitions, also weaken civil society.  Once the authoritarian regime disappears, the focus of political life shifts from a unifying struggle against an odious enemy to a much more dispersed and normal competition among parties and interests in the emerging democratic state.  Inevitably, civil society and especially democratizing and single-issue social movements lose their “primacy.” Political parties and more conventional interest groups take center stage, and many individuals and groups turn to more “private-regarding” concerns as “the mere advent of democracy satisfies some of the most passionate revindications of movements.”1   The euphoria of the immediate post-transition period quickly wanes, and the broad associational fronts that struggled against authoritarian rule break apart.

“What had been ‘moral political societies’ became political blocs” in Europe’s postcommunist states, and in Africa as well.2   Class and ethnic divisions once again fragmented society, and the leadership ranks (and thus operational capacities) of civil society organizations were rapidly depleted as activists were massively drawn into politics, government, and (in Europe) business.  The social inheritances of communism in Europe and neopatrimonial statism in Africa also reasserted themselves in renewed state dependence, cooptation, mistrust, and societal atomization, revealing the scarcity of social capital and “the lack of a culture of a free collective activity.”3   In fact, “preliberal,” illiberal, and uncivic cultural orientations constitute a major obstacle to democratic consolidation in much of Africa and the postcommunist world.  In both regions as well, civil society has been further hampered after the transition by the harsh economic conditions of the 1990s, which have driven people to more urgent preoccupations with the exigencies of daily survival, and have rendered African associations much more vulnerable to the compromising blandishments of domineering states.

Many of those NGOs that did not die after the transition have had to adapt their mission fairly dramatically in order to continue to function on anything like their existing scale.  Adaptation, as I have suggested, is a dimension of institutionalization and can be a healthy phenomenon: after some period, voter education becomes a less compelling priority and the autonomous public procedures for free and fair elections may become institutionalized.  At that point, civil society organizations need to tackle other challenges to deepen democracy.  But where adaptation diminishes the autonomy, shrinks the grassroots base, and dilutes the democratic zeal of the organization, it comes at a price.

Chile is another instance of a civil society that had an intense romance with the international donor community and then was jilted after the transition.  For international donors with limited and even declining budgets, the impulse to withdraw is even more powerful in “upper-middle-income” countries like Chile because the assumption is that political repression is the main obstacle to a vibrant civil society, and once the lid of authoritarianism is lifted the country ought to be rich enough to support its own NGOs.  The problem in such countries (including prominently Argentina as well) is that these countries are weak in the social capital and sense of public-spiritedness that enables civil society organizations to raise substantial funds from the private sectors of their own countries.  Moreover, many of the most important NGOs represent women, youth, informal workers, the poor, ethnic minorities, and others who collectively tend to lack the material resources to sustain collective organization on a large scale.  Thus, NGOs often decide that they must turn to the state to survive.  Chile’s PARTICIPA evolved from a focus on citizenship education and participation to a wider range of strategic goals concerned with youth, local development, social integration, and public sector training.  When international funding for these programs (primarily from the U.S. Agency for International Development) dried up, PARTICIPA began to secure contracts from its own government to continue these types of efforts.  Now, “PARTICIPA’s role as an implementing agent of government policy may limit its role as a critic of those policies.  Time will tell whether the survival of the institution alters its role as an independent agent of social change.”4    As major international funding dries up for civil society organizations in South Africa, they face a similar dilemma.  Many are already evolving in a similar direction, with possibly greater dangers to autonomy given the proclivity to corporatist relations of both government and many civil society leaders, and given as well the constraining hangover of “repressive policies, laws, and structures inherited from the old regime.”

There is no easy answer for this dilemma of international dependence.  My own view is that civil society organizations are likely to have more space to act independently and define their own agendas when their financial dependence is on foreign donors than on their own government, especially when that international dependence is dispersed among a number of different donors (public and private) from many different countries.  In that case, no established democracy or donor organization is in a position to dictate an agenda, and the loss of one large grant does not threaten the survival of the organization.  For that reason, and because NGOs in most developing and postcommunist countries are unlikely to be able to raise from their own societies in the near future anything like the funding they need to perform the democracy-building functions they are capable of performing, on the scale of which they are capable of acting, international donor priorities and strategies need to be rethought.  Relative to the massive aid that flows to government programs and agencies, international donor funding for civil society is a small trickle.  A modest shift in the balance between state and civil society, coupled with a reconsidered willingness to remain engaged longer with the civil societies of some more advanced developing countries, could make possible very substantial continuing investments in building the civic infrastructure of democracy.

Without question, civil society makes its deepest, most organic and sustainable contribution to democracy when it cultivates a significant base of financial support among a broad and indigenous constituency.  Beyond the greater autonomy it confers, this is true for two additional reasons.  When members give money voluntarily to an organization, they are more likely to feel some sense of identity with it and ownership of it.  Ironically, perhaps, this is particularly true for members of modest means who are only able to give in small amounts (as opposed to upper middle-class Americans who write checks to dozens of organizations a year).  When such financial donations are combined with broad grassroots organization and participation, they are likely to produce a particularly strong membership commitment and demand for democratic control.  This is why a mass-membership campaign is a shrewd long-run tactic for organizational development.  In the case of the Zimbabwean human rights organization, Zimrights, the annual dues of thousands of members account for only a small portion of the total budget, but they generate a widely dispersed base of committed supporters around the country.5   Beyond the depth of commitment that is generated, raising indigenous financial contributions - in amounts large and small - creates cultural norms of cooperation, trust, reciprocity, and public-spiritedness; it generates social as well as financial capital.  This is why international support for civil society organizations should increasingly focus on strategies to encourage and institutionalize this giving.  Matching funding provides one potential method: if an NGO can honestly say it will receive five or ten dollars in international support for every dollar it raises locally, that sharply increases the incentive of the organization to raise locally and of local donors (large and small) to give.  (It also increases the efficacy of small donors who can see that their contributions are being multiplied to much larger effect).  As we see in Chapters 8 and 9 on promoting democracy, other methods of assistance are now seeking to build endowments (in part again with matching or challenge grants) for the most pivotal democracy-building civil society organizations, and to help motivate and assist major owners of private wealth to create, contribute to, or develop philanthropic trusts as a way to leave an enduring legacy for their society.  Efforts by the Ford Foundation and the Asia Society to strengthen and professionalize private philanthropy in emerging democracies constitute one of the most significant and potentially long-lasting forms of aid to civil societies.

(To be concluded)

The gates to the year 2000 open onto the new millennium

-Annick Bianchini, France

To welcome in the new millennium, all the communities in France have been invited to cross the threshold of the year 2,000 together. Preparations are underway in the various regions as well as in the French Capital, Paris, writes Annick, the author of this story.

The 31st December 1999 is indeed an exceptional date, which everybody wants to mark in some way or other. It is a date that makes people dream and think about building the future. To celebrate moving into the new era, the French are invited to jointly go through ephemeral artistic "gates to the year 2000". In the first second of the new millennium, the public will thus go through one gate to the other, with their friends and families. All over France, in each community, from Dunkirk to Peripignan, mayors have been asked to use their inventiveness and imagination. With poetical, baroque, futuristic and playful ones, there will be as many different gates as towns. The gate, which can be symbolized by a ring, a sphere, or an archway made of plants, will be an invitation to infinite discovery and follows the tradition of important rites of passage. Each individual will be personally involved in the celebrations through his own manner of going through the gate and taking part in the events.

Roue de Claude Krespin

A festive rite of passage: Numerous artistes are involved in all the festivities, in order, according to Catherine Trautmann, the minister of Culture, to "approach the third millennium with an open and creative spirit", while, at the same time, seizing this new opportunity to bring art closer to the general public. Architects and designers, dancers, musicians, plastic artists, landscape designers, men and women from the theatre, from the street theatre and from the circus as well as directors and choreographers will be invited, for one night's entertainment, to mark these lasting works with their joyful, popular view of beauty. In Paris this event will take place along the historical perspective extending from the Louvre musem through the Arc de Caroussel and Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe. The gates will be symbolized by light contructions at the entrance to the Champs Elys'ees, straddling the adjacent streets. On the stroke of midnight, 24 Ferris wheels, lined up along the axis of the Champs Elys'ees, will start to revolve in the  direction of the slope of the avenue, like a huge sparkling waterfall.They will be 60, 30, 24 or 16 meters high with hanging baskets orcabins and will be broadcast by Mondiovision. They are asymbol of time that moves on and eternally starts up again. These hoops of light are an ideal display for the artists who have chosen to decorate them and give them movement and life. The landscape designer Jacques Simon has thus thought of wrapping a wheel up in a huge green cobweb which will unravel producing a bouquet of country smells. The wheel, designed by the plastic artist Jean-Luc Vilmouth, will bear messages from all over the world lit up in letters. The theatre designer Gilles Rhode will create a music wheel. The film director Helene Guetary is thinking of decorating her wheel with the flags of the 185 nations of the world, in a great poem in peace. The musician Louis Dandrel's wheel will, for its part, pick up "the sound of the world, the stars and the earth" which it will restore with the noise of the crowd.

The energy of the crowds will drive the wheels: The architect Patrick Bouchain is in charge of running and co-ordinating the operation. "The most important thing is to participate", as indicated by scenario drawn up by the Mission for the year 2000 in France, an international organization, placed under the authority of the ministry of Culture and presided over by Jean-Jacques Aillagon, "for , it is the energy of the crowd which will drive the wheels. It is its noise which, at midnight, will set the wheels rotating, and it is the dispersal of the crowd in the morning which will bring them to a halt".

When the lit-up counter on the Eiffel Tower displays "000", a special firework display, created by chemists at the Ruggieri-Lacroix company, will be launched. Its purpose will be to light up the figure "2000" for a second and a half in the sky. Several town such as Paris, Toulouse, Lyons, Perpignan, La Rochelle, Meaux and Pointe-a-Pitre have acquired this show called "Prelude to the year 2000".

Crossing over into the year 2000, symbolized by sharing, the link between uman beings and solidarity, will, on the 31st December 1999 turn France into a place of Utopia, play and dream. But it will also be an exceptional event which will overturn roles and values for all, as Catherine Trautmann pointed out, "the future is something to be built and not to be submitted to".

South Asian Perspective
Sharif to be tried under Anti-terrorism law

Kathmandu: Pakistani media reports have it that the trial of deposed Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on possible criminal conspiracy and hijacking charges will last a maximum of seven days.

In Pakistan, trials of such cases under the Anti-Terrorism Law are to be concluded, reportedly within seven days. The Anti-Terrorism Law was, to recall, brought in by Sharif several years ago to speed up justice in an attempted crackdown on terrorism. The law appears to be tried on the person who brought it into force.

Formal charges are expected to be filed against Sharif, his brother and five former aides on this Saturday when the prosecution presents a charge sheet to Anti-Terrorism Court Judge.  The judge could ask for pleas on the same day or on December 6. In either case, the trial would start on the next working day-it is guessed.

The allegations against Sharif, his brother and others come from an incident on October 12 when attempts were allegedly made to divert a plane bringing army chief General Pervez Musharraf and 200 other passengers to Karachi from Sri Lanka.

 Hours after the sky-high drama, Musharraf overthrew the Sharif government talking over mobile telephone while being in the sky itself.  Attempted murder charges may also be laid say sources, but the hijacking is the most serious allegation because it can carry a death sentence.   In the meanwhile,  Sharif told reporters that he is innocent and made pleas for a fair and open trial, but the judge dismissed accusations that the trial would not be open, saying the media and international observers would be in the court.

Interesting enough, diplomats from the United States, Germany and the Netherlands have attended some of the preliminary court sessions.

Pakistan has once in the past executed a former Prime Minister, hanging Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1979 during the regime of the last military ruler, General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq, on a disputed conviction of conspiring to commit political murder.

Vajpayee is serious on n-talks with US

Kathmandu : India and the United States are holding their most serious dialogue over nuclear non-proliferation in half a century and it is starting to show results, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was quoted as saying.

"Our dialogue since the summer of last year has been the most serious and substantive engagement between India and the US since independence (in 1947)," the Press Trust of India (PTI) quoted Vajpayee on Sunday as saying.

India carried out a series of nuclear test explosions in the summer of 1998 and thereafter entered into marathon arms control talks with the US, which had sharply criticized the testing.

The US Deputy Secretary of State, Strobe Talbott, and Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh, have led the talks aimed at reconciling India's security interests with the US non-proliferation concerns.

Mr Talbott and Mr Singh ended another round of talks in London this month and are due to meet again in next January.

 Another Indian local news agency quoted Mr Vajpayee as saying that his government was working to build consensus on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) but public opinion could be affected by the refusal of the US Senate to ratify the accord.