Chapter 13 Review Questions Answer Key

1. Introduced into the development discourse by Robert Chambers and Robert Putnam, “social capital” has, since the 1990s, become a contentious topic of debate. Strongly supported by the World Bank as the “missing link” in analysis of the development process, social capital is difficult to define. Its ambiguity suggests it is more a metaphor or heuristic device than backed by empirical fact. Supporters of this approach suggest that the accumulation of social capital based on norms of trust and reciprocal exchange can produce public goods and empower the poor to act on their own behalf. Critics point out that this framework doesn’t concern itself with the structure of economic and political power, and the dynamic workings of the capitalist system. Within this framework empowerment is understood as changing oneself rather than changing the system. Finally, social capital is too convenient a concept for the powerful to use to politically demobilize efforts towards radical change. [p. 232]

2. The concept of “development” was reinvented in 1948 evolving beyond its origins in Enlightenment ideas of progress. The new development paradigm emerged in the context of (1) the post-War institutions, including the IMF, the World Bank, and the GATT, (2) the developing Cold War, and (3) national independence movements seeking freedom from colonialism. In light of these realities international cooperation became the dominant paradigm for development, based on foreign aid, nation-building, capitalist industrialization and modernization. Development was seen as a tool to ensure that post-colonial countries were not enticed by the promises of communism. Development became a technical process where the state was the central actor. The state strove to increase the rate of savings and productive investment, invest the savings in new technologies and industrialization (modernization), redistribute market-generated income, and offer financial and technical assistance for countries in the South. This model of development was widely successful during the “golden age of capitalism” until the early 1970s. [pp. 230-1]

3. The emergence, growth, and strengthening of civil society in the 1980s can be understood by analysis of five variable but persistent trends. Globalization had an ambiguous impact as it allowed both invasive pressure of global markets into previously protected societies, but also the emergence of interest-based “transnational communities.” Democratization has, in some instances, supported participatory or “democratic” forms of political organization, while in others civil society has suffered from citizen’s withdrawal from active engagement in politics. Privatization allowed a growth in multinational corporations’ involvement in the provision of public goods, strengthening private actor civil society, but challenging grass roots civil society organizations influence. Decentralization of development called for a partnership approach with civil society which increased civil society influence, but also undermined is the ability to support radical political critique. Economic liberalization allowed special interest groups greater influence on decision-makers in some circumstances and catalyzed the formation of many grassroots self-help groups to mitigate the negative impacts of the retreating welfare state. Inclusionary state activism included social movements organized and led by peasants, Indigenous communities, and landless rural workers, which brought about the demise of neoliberalism as an economic doctrine and replaced it with a more inclusionary form of development based on the need to bring the state back into the development process. Finally, deregulation in the 1980s that reversed regulatory approaches of market forces by states. [pp. 228-30]

4. Anti-globalization movements have taken markedly different forms in the Global North and South. In the Global South leadership of the anti-globalization movement has fallen mostly to the landless and peasant workers and Indigenous communities. Their resistance is to the neo-liberal policies of economic liberalization being implemented by their governments, often under pressure from international lending organizations such as the World Bank and IMF. In the Global North the resistance is centred in urban middle-class communities and is highly critical of the agenda of corporate capital. Major international summits including the G8 and the WTO ministerial meetings have been flashpoints in Northern countries of the anti-globalization movements. What both the North and South share is a desire for “another world” where globalization is ethical and based on building solidarity rather than economic liberalization. [pp. 228, 235]

5. There are two major conflicting theoretical perspectives on NGOs’ role in development. The first sees NGOs as an alternative platform for development that is participatory, empowering to marginalized populations, and can support sustainable environments and livelihoods. The second sees NGOs as a Trojan horse for global capitalism, with NGOs acting as unwitting agents of US imperialism. Scholars more critical of NGOs involvement in development see them as agents that, while limited distributing resources to alleviate poverty, also attempt to instil respect for capitalism and democracy in rural communities that might otherwise join social movements engaging in confrontational politics and direct action against governments. The poor are encouraged by NGOs to empower themselves rather than attempt to change the power structures in which they are constrained. [p. 232]

6. We can break the concept down into three sectors: (1) A complex of associational-type organizations (associations formed for a common purpose, such as environmental protection, to advance the status of women, or to promote development or respect for human rights). The anti-globalization movement in the North is an amalgam of such organizations. For the most part, they are located in the cities and are middle-class-based. (2) Community or grassroots organizations, making up the “popular sector” of civil society. The Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) in Brazil is an example of this type of civil society organization (CSO). (3) Private-sector interest groups or profit-oriented organizations. This sector includes the capitalist economic enterprises and multinational corporations that until the 1990s were excluded because they were seen as a large part of the problem. [p. 235]

7. Until 1980 or so, many political scientists (and economists, for that matter) in both liberal and conservative traditions subscribed to the notion that democracy was not necessarily conducive to economic development—that authoritarianism provided a better agency. In the 1980s, however, there was a sea change in this idea, leading to widespread calls for democracy and good governance in the form of a more participatory form of politics and development. To establish an appropriate institutional framework for these developments (also to reduce fiscal pressures on governments), the World Bank argued for the need for a policy of administrative decentralization, with a partnership approach to both local governments and civil society. [p. 229]

8. Recourse to the notion of civil society, and the construction of a civil society discourse, take different forms. There are three different traditions in the use of the term, each associated with a particular conception of civil society. One of these, associated with a mainstream form of political science in which politics and economics are treated as analytically distinct systems, can be labelled liberal. The liberal tradition is fundamentally concerned with “political development”—establishing a participatory form of politics and “good,” i.e., “democratic,” governance. Civil society, from this standpoint, is rooted in the Anglo-American tradition of liberal democratic theory in which civic institutions and political activity are essential components of “political society” based on the principles of citizenship, human rights, democratic representation, and the rule of law. On the ideological spectrum, liberals see civil society as a countervailing force against an unresponsive, corrupt state and exploitative corporations that disregard environmental issues and human rights abuses. The second tradition, rooted in a more sociological view of the state, society relation is similarly concerned with the form of politics but sees civil society as a repository of popular resistance to government policies and the basis of a “counter-hegemonic” bloc of social forces engaged in a process of contesting state and other forms of class power. It is based on a radical ideology—a shared belief in the need for transformative change. Civil society is thus seen as a repository of the forces of resistance and opposition that can be mobilized into a counter-hegemonic bloc. The third tradition is associated with governmental and intergovernmental programs of international cooperation for development. In this tradition, civil society is viewed as an array of social organizations representing “stakeholders” in a process of economic development, a strategic partner in the war against global poverty waged by the World Bank and other international development associations and agencies such as GAC (Global Affairs Canada). Here, civil society is generally viewed as an agent for a participatory and inclusive form of development and a strategy designed to empower the poor. Proponents share a liberal ideology in terms of seeing in civil society the beneficial effects of globalization for democracy and economic progress. On the other hand, conservatives who hold this view of civil society see non-governmental organizations (NGOS) as “false saviours of international development” (Kamat 2003). The entire project of cooperation for international development (technical and financial assistance to poor, developing countries) is seen as misbegotten, more likely to result in stifling initiative than as a catalyst for improving the quality of people’s lives. [p. 226]

9. A consideration is that civil society or non-governmental organizations are generally issue-oriented rather than class-based in their actions, raising questions as to whether to include social movements in the concept of civil society. Social movements are generally concerned with disputing state power—with bringing about a change in government policies or in governments themselves (albeit in a different way—mobilizing the forces of opposition and resistance rather than participating in elections). In contrast to social movements, civil society in the form of NGOs is generally concerned with more specific interest group issues such as the environment, empowering women, human rights, development education, disaster and other forms of relief or emergency aid, or poverty alleviation. Some of these issues also are targeted by social movements, which is to say that it is possible to mobilize forces for change around these issues. The distinction we make between social movements and non-governmental organizations applies to the development process rather than to the political sphere. In this context, NGOs are fundamentally concerned with bringing about improvement in the socio-economic conditions of a defined or targeted population by means of policy development or institutional reform. Social movements, in contrast, tend to have a more confrontational approach in challenging directly the holders and agencies of economic and political power. [p. 227]

10. The type of organization encompassed by the notion of civil society is not the only issue. Social organizations generally take one of three forms: (1) associations or associational (sharing an organizational objective); (2) communities or community-based (held together by social bonds and a culture of solidarity, a shared sense of belonging); and (3) interest groups or class-based organizations (defined by a pursuit of economic interest or political power), such as multinational corporations within the private sector of the economy and labour unions. The size and strength of civil society in this organizational context are usually measured in terms of the number of “active” formally constituted social organizations, the density of the resulting social fabric, and the networks that bring people together to act collectively to achieve or to pursue their shared goals and common objectives. A major factor here is the degree to which people rely on governments as opposed to their own social organizations and networks to achieve their goals and objectives. Thus, from the 1940s to the 1970s, with the growth of the welfare and development state (in which governments assumed primary responsibility for both welfare and development), many societies increased their reliance on the government, with a corresponding weakening of civil society. In the 1980s, in a new context involving the insertion of many countries into the system of global capitalism (see discussion below on this “seismic shift”), there was a general retreat of the state, resulting in a corresponding growth and strengthening of civil society. [p. 228]

11. The search for a new development paradigm acquired a particular vigour in the 1980s with the turn toward a “new economic model” prioritizing the free market. Proponents of the new paradigm visualize development as community-based and localized, reaching beyond the state and the market into the localities and communities of the rural poor. The goal in this context is to advance development that is human in form, sustainable in terms of the environment and livelihoods, socially inclusive and equitable, people-led and participatory—i.e., initiated “from below” or from within civil society. Another feature of this paradigm shift is a concern with empowering the poor—increasing their capacity to act for themselves by mobilizing their “social capital,” the one asset that the poor are deemed to have in abundance. From the beginning, development economists had formulated the theory that development was based on capital accumulation and advanced by increasing the rate of savings and productive investment. Here “capital” was defined purely in economic terms—money invested in the design of new technology, the purchase of labour power, and the transformation of natural resources into commodities or tradable goods. However, within the framework of the new paradigm, society’s productive assets (“capital”) were also conceived of in social terms—that is, as the norms, institutions, and organizations that promote trust and cooperation among persons in communities and in the wider society. Initially advanced by several sociologists (notably James Coleman and Pierre Bourdieu), this notion of social capital was elaborated by leading development scholars such as Robert Chambers and Robert Putnam. [p. 232]