Political Studies (1998), XLVI, 36±52

Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs)

and Politics in the Developing World
GERARD CLARKE
University of Wales, Swansea

The proliferation of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the developing, as

well as the developed, world, has triggered an `associational revolution'. Political
scientists, however, have made a relatively minor contribution to the contemporary
NGO literature which has evolved since the mid-1980s. This article examines some of
the main political themes addressed in the NGO literature, as well as related themes
in other political studies. NGOs, the article argues, make signi®cant contributions to
political life and to political change in developing countries, revealing a fertile, and
hitherto neglected, research agenda.

A striking upsurge is underway around the globe in . . . the creation of

private, nonpro®t or non-governmental organizations . . . Indeed, we are in
the midst of a global `associational revolution' that may prove to be as
signi®cant to the latter twentieth century as the rise of the nation-state was
to the latter nineteenth
Lester M. Salamon1
Although non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are proliferating around
the world, the phenomenon is especially signi®cant in Asia, Africa and Latin
America. In the Philippines, the number of registered NGOs grew by 148% to
58,000 between 1984 and 1993, more than twice the rate (65%) at which private
sector organizations proliferated.2 In Kenya, the number grew by 184%
between 1978 and 1987.3 By 1993, Brazil had an estimated 110,000 NGOs,
giving it the largest NGO sector in the developing world, while India, with the
second largest, had more than 100,000.4
NGOs are private, non-pro®t, professional organizations, with a distinctive
legal character, concerned with public welfare goals. In the developing world,
NGOs include philanthropic foundations, church development agencies,
academic think-tanks and other organizations focusing on issues such as

1
L. M. Salamon, `The rise of the nonpro®t sector', Foreign A€airs, 73 (1994), 109.
2
G. Clarke, `Participation and Protest: Non-Governmental Organizations and Philippine
Politics' (Ph.D. thesis, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, June 1995),
p. 305.
3 A. Fowler, `The role of NGOs in changing state-society relations: perspectives from Eastern and

Southern Africa', Development Policy Review, 9 (1991), 54.

4
J. Fisher, The Road from Rio: Sustainable Development and the Nongovernmental Movement
in the Third World (Westport, Praeger, 1993), p. 24; J. Farrington and D. Lewis, eds, Non-
Governmental Organisations and the State in Asia: Rethinking Roles in Sustainable Agricultural
Development (London, Routledge, 1993), pp. 92±3.
# Political Studies Association 1998. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main
Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
 GERARD CLARKE 37

human rights, gender, health, agricultural development, social welfare, the

environment, and indigenous peoples. Other non-pro®t organizations such as
private hospitals and schools, religious groups, sports clubs, and QUANGOs
(quasi-autonomous non-governmental organizations) are excluded.5 In the
contemporary NGO literature, NGOs are distinguished from Peoples Organ-
izations (POs), local, non-pro®t membership-based associations that organize
and mobilize their constituents in support of collective welfare goals.6 POs
include local community associations and cooperatives as well as peasant
associations and trade unions, but exclude other professional or business
associations. POs are usually regarded as a sub-category of NGO.7
A number of factors explain the proliferation of NGOs. First, non-
governmental development agencies in the industrialized world channel
signi®cant volumes of aid through non-governmental partners in the developing
world, providing a powerful ®nancial stimulus. In 1990, Northern NGOs
provided US$7.2 billion, equivalent to 13% of net disbursements of ocial aid,
or 2.5% of total resource ¯ows, to Southern NGOs and POs.8 Second,
multilateral and bilateral development agencies have followed suit. In a
neoliberal climate of disenchantment with the state, and under pressure from
member states, multilateral donors and their bilateral partners channelled
increasing amounts of funding from the early 1980s through Southern NGOs.
Since 1981, for instance, the United States Agency for International Develop-
ment (USAID) has been required by Congress to channel a minimum of 12% of
expenditure, raised to 13.5% from 1986, through NGOs.9 Third, governments
in many developing countries that were previously antipathetic to NGOs were
forced by economic recession in the 1980s to cede greater recognition and
involve them in socio-economic programmes. Fourth, in many developing
countries, large-scale social movements that once were ideologically and
organizationally cohesive, fragmented amid a shift in the themes of social
mobilization.10 Since the late 1980s, Lehmann argues, `In the place of large
formal organizations, we ®nd a myriad of small-scale dispersed movements
engaged in an enormous variety of con¯icts'.11 In turn, NGOs acquired
important roles in initiating and sustaining these myriad protest movements.

A Case of Neglect
NGOs have become important new political actors in the developing world.
Political scientists, however, have made a relatively minor contribution to the

5
Such organizations, however, especially sports clubs and religious groups, may count among the
®gures cited in the preceding paragraph, complicating attempts to document the proliferation of
NGOs.
6
See, for instance, T. F. Carroll, Intermediary NGOs: the Supporting Link in Grassroots
Development (West Hartford, Kumarian, 1992), pp. 9±11, or D. C. Korten, Getting to the 21st
Century: Voluntary Action and the Global Agenda (West Hartford, Kumarian, 1990), p. 2.
7
See Carroll, Intermediary NGOs, p. 9, or Korten, Getting to the 21st Century, p. 2.
8 Human Development Report 1993 (New York, United Nations Development Programme, and

Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 3.

9 Voluntary Aid for Development: The Role of Voluntary Organizations (Paris, Organization for

Economic Cooperation and Development, 1988), p. 84.

10
D. Lehmann, Democracy and Development in Latin America: Economics, Politics and Religion
in the Postwar Period (London, Polity, 1990), pp. 148±60.
11
Lehmann, Democracy and Development, p. 157.
# Political Studies Association, 1998
38 NGOs and Politics in the Developing World

distinct body of literature on NGOs that has emerged over the last decade.12 As
a result, important questions go largely unanswered. Echeverri-Gent, for
instance, argues that the politics of development literature provides few clues as
to why NGOs come into existence.13 More fundamentally, according to
Edwards and Hulme:
donor support for NGOs is predicated at least as much on their supposed
role in democratizing the political process as on their role in the provision of
welfare services, [yet] rarely in the literature is it made clear exactly how
NGOs . . . are supposed to contribute to `democratization' and the formal
political process.14
In the face of a NGO-triggered `associational revolution', why is there such a
weak political dimension to the NGO literature? A signi®cant explanation is the
anti-institutional bias in political science literature. As March and Olson argue,
the literature is characterized by ®ve tendencies which marginalize the role of
institutions in political life: contextualism (the polity seen as an integral part of
society and a reluctance to see it as distinct); reductionism (political phenomena
seen as the aggregate consequences of individual behaviour); utilitarianism
(political action seen as stemming from calculated self-interest rather than
obligation or duty); instrumentalism (politics viewed solely in terms of decisions
about the allocation of resources, ignoring its role in the development of
meaning around symbols, rituals and ceremonies); and ®nally, functionalism
(history determined by an ecient mechanism for reaching uniquely appro-
priate equilibria, rather than o€ering possibilities for maladaption and non-
uniqueness).15 Analysis of the political implications of the proliferation of NGOs
has su€ered from these problems, especially the reluctance to see NGOs as

12 E.g. A. G. Drabek, ed., Development Alternatives: the Challenge for NGOs (New York,

Pergamon, 1987); R. Poulton and M. Harris, eds, Putting People First: Voluntary Organizations and
Third World Development (London, Macmillan, 1988); R. Holloway, ed., Doing Development:
Governments, NGOs and the Rural Poor in Asia (London, Earthscan/CUSO, 1989); Korten, Getting
to the 21st Century; J. Clark, Democratizing Development: The Role of Voluntary Organisations
(London, Earthscan, 1991); Carroll, Intermediary NGOs; M. Edwards and D. Hulme, eds, Making
a Di€erence: NGOs and Development in a Changing World (London, Earthscan, 1992); I. Smillie
and H. Helmich, eds, Non-Governmental Organizations and Governments: Stakeholders for
Development (Paris, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 1993); Fisher,
The Road From Rio; A. Bebbington and G. Thiele, eds, Non-governmental Organizations and the
State in Latin America: Rethinking Roles in Sustainable Agriculture (London, Routledge, 1993);
J. Farrington and A. Bebbington, eds, Reluctant Partners: Non-Governmental Organizations, the
State and Sustainable Agricultural Development (London, Routledge, 1993); Farrington and Lewis,
Non-Governmental Organisations and the State in Asia; K. Wellard and J. Copestake, eds, Non-
governmental Organizations and the State in Africa: Rethinking Roles in Sustainable Agriculture
(London, Routledge, 1993); T. Princen and M. Finger, Environmental NGOs in World Politics:
Linking the Global and the Local (London, Routledge, 1994). These works are complemented by a
thriving journal- and monograph-based literature.
13
J. Echeverri-Gent, The State and the Poor: Public Policy and Political Development in India and
the United States (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1993), p. 189.
14 M. Edwards and D. Hulme, `NGOs and Development: Performance and Accountability in

the ``New World Order'' ', paper to the International Workshop on `NGOs and Develop-
ment: Performance and Accountability in the ``New World Order'' ' (University of Manchester,
27±29 June 1994), p. 4.
15
J. G. March and J. P. Olson, Rediscovering Institutions: The Organizational Basis of Politics
(New York, Free, 1989), p. 3.
# Political Studies Association, 1998
 GERARD CLARKE 39

important institutional vehicles in shaping political discourse and in mobilizing

collective interests.
Social movements theory, including the literature on `new' or `contemporary'
social movements, illustrates these problems. Generally, social movements
theory has ignored the NGO phenomenon. In a review of the predominant
literature on popular protest and contemporary social movements in Latin
America, for instance, Eckstein analyses forms of protest, the social basis of
de®ance and the impact of de®ance, but not the institutional vehicles, including
NGOs, used to articulate it.16 Most other social movements theorists repeat this
omission,17 while others are opposed to the institutionalization of social
movements that the proliferation of NGOs heralds.18
Much of the literature on NGOs has been produced by NGOs activists or by
social scientists with close links to funding agencies. As a result, the research
agenda is largely donor-driven.19 Few donors, however, are concerned with the
political complexities or dynamics of NGO action and in many cases are
anxious to ignore them. Many NGOs in the developed world (e.g. United
States-based foundations) are restricted from funding the political activities of
Southern partners, such as advocacy and campaigning. Many donors are also
reluctant to acknowledge that funding to NGOs in developing countries
frequently aimed or aims to strengthen opposition to authoritarian regimes.20
Because of the role of donor agencies in funding research, the contemporary
NGO literature21 views NGOs primarily as social development agencies,
obscuring the political character noted in earlier studies. Following the ocial
recognition of Non-Governmental Organisations in Article 17 of the 1945
United Nations Charter,22 a minor spate of books, primarily by international
relations specialists, appeared. In 1951 White, for instance, argued that inter-
national NGOs were distinct from pressure groups. While many existed to
promote the interests of particular constituencies, most international NGOs

16 S. Eckstein, `Power and Popular Protest in Latin America', in S. Eckstein, ed., Power and

Popular Protest: Latin American Social Movements (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1989).
17
A number of essays in P. Wignaraja, ed., New Social Movements in the South, Empowering the
People (London, Zed, 1993) represent an exception to this point.
18
Gunder-Frank and Fuentes, for instance, argue that institutionalization weakens social
movements and that social goods `can be pursued only through random spontaneity' (A. Gunder-
Frank and M. Fuentes, `Civil Democracy: Social Movements in Recent World History', in S. Amin,
G. Arrighi, A. Gunder-Frank and I. Wallerstein, eds, Transforming the Revolution: Social
Movements and the World System (New York, Monthly Review Press, 1990), p. 176.
19
E.g., the OECD's Voluntary Aid for Development; Clark, Democratizing Development (research
funded by Oxfam); Edwards and Hulme, eds, Making a Di€erence (funded largely by the Save the
Children Fund); Carroll, Intermediary NGOs (funded largely by the Inter-American Foundation);
Holloway, Doing Development (funded by CUSO (formerly the Canadian University Services
Organisation)) and the 1993 four-volume series by Farrington, Bebbington et al., funded by the
Overseas Development Institute.
20
Central America, parts of South America, South Africa and the Philippines represent a partial
exception. Some donors aimed speci®cally to bolster pro-democracy causes while others shied away
from supporting overt political agendas.
21 See note 12.
22 Article 71 reads `The Economic and Social Council may make suitable arrangements for

consultation with non-governmental organizations which are concerned with matters within its
competence. Such arrangements may be made with international organizations and, where
appropriate, with national organizations after consultation with the Member of the United Nations
concerned'. L. M. Goodrich and E. Hambro, Charter of the United Nations: Commentary and
Documents (Boston, World Peace Foundation, 1946), p. 224.
# Political Studies Association, 1998
40 NGOs and Politics in the Developing World

functioned as agents of international understanding and as moulders of public

opinion at a national and international level.23 Similarly, Lador-Lederer's 1963
study suggested that NGOs were more accurately seen as non-state organiz-
ations, since they were intimately involved in governmental and inter-
governmental processes.24
Inevitably, the failure of political and other social scientists to subject the
proliferation of NGOs to rigorous study, combined with the role of vested
interests in promoting research, has led to an inadequate, explicitly normative,
interpretation of NGO ideology. Liberals see NGOs as a `third sector',
remedying the institutional weaknesses of both the state and private sector in
promoting socio-economic development.25 Neoliberals, meanwhile, see NGOs
as part of the private sector, of socio-economic signi®cance mainly, delivering
services to the poor cheaply, equitably and eciently.26 To intellectuals and
activists on the left, however, NGOs carry hopes of a `new politics' that eschews
the capture of state power and the centralizing tendencies of the Marxist-
Leninist movements of which many NGOs were born, but which retains the
commitment to a structural transformation of society.27

Bringing Politics Back In

NGO action is intrinsically political and the associational revolution triggered
by the proliferation of NGOs suggests a fertile research agenda for political
scientists. Why are NGOs proliferating? What are the ideological bases of NGO
action? How, and to what extent do NGOs intervene in politics? Existing
literature allows an initial assessment of many of these questions, but in high-
lighting fundamental di€erences between NGOs in the developing world and
voluntary/non-pro®t organizations or interest/pressure groups in the developed
world, points to a signi®cant ®eld of research.
Prevailing institutional arrangements underpin NGO proliferation in many
developing countries. In India, Sethi argues, a withering of formal representa-
tive institutions has fuelled the explosion in NGO numbers. Since the mid-
1970s, political parties have increasingly dismissed signi®cant sections of the
dalits (scheduled castes), tribal groups, Other Backward Castes (OBCs), and the
poor and landless, as unorganizable, while trade unions have failed to penetrate

23 L. C. White, International Non-Governmental Organizations: Their Purposes, Methods and

Accomplishments (New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press, 1951), p. 18.

24
J. J. Lador-Lederer, International Non-Governmental Organizations and Economic Entities
(Leyden, Sytho€, 1963), p. 13.
25
See, for instance, Korten, Getting to the 21st Century, or D. Hulme, `Social development
research and the third sector: NGOs as users and subjects of social inquiry', in D. Booth, ed.,
Rethinking Social Development: Theory, Research & Practice (Harlow, Longman, 1994). Normally
attributed to W. Nielsen, The Endangered Sector (New York, Columbia University Press, 1979), the
term `third sector', however, tends to underplay the important intermediate positions between
the state and private sector occupied by organized religions, trade unions, and professional/
representative associations.
26 See, for instance, N. Upho€, `Grassroots organizations and NGOs in rural development:

opportunities with diminishing states and expanding markets', World Development, 21 (1993).
27 See, for instance, H. Sethi, `Action Groups in the New Politics', in Wignaraja, New Social

Movements in the South, or T. Rivera, `The New World Order: Problems and Prospects for the
People's Movement in the Philippines', in C. Karagdag and A. Miclat, eds, Beyond the Cold War:
Philippine Perspectives on the Emerging World Order (Quezon City, People's Training Program for
Philippine NGOs et al., 1992).
# Political Studies Association, 1998
 GERARD CLARKE 41

informal sectors of the economy.28 `Political parties', Sheth writes, `have lost
their national character, both in political and geographical terms. Their role in
inducting new groups into politics . . . has been considerably reduced. Their
ability to process issues arising in the economy has declined greatly'.29 Similarly,
in the Philippines, Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (Fight for Philippine
Democracy), the largest political party in Congress, had only 1500 members
nationwide in 1994, while the Communist Party of the Philippines, legalized in
1993 and traditionally the main mass-membership political party in the
Philippines, had only 3000 members in the late 1980s. Trade unions, with
membership equivalent to only 13% of the labour force in 1991, are equally
unable to facilitate political participation so as to anchor e€ective democratic
institutions.30 In the Philippines and India, therefore, NGOs help to ®ll an
institutional vacuum caused by the weakness of political parties and trade
unions.
In Indonesia and Vietnam, NGOs have proliferated in response to the
hegemony, rather than the weakness, of formal institutions. In Indonesia, many
NGOs oppose attempts by the state, and the ruling party, GOLKAR (from
golangan karya, or `functional group'), to monopolize interpretations of Panca
Sila, the state ideology.31 While rejecting Western-style democracy, they are
attempting to expand the limited `political space' available to institutions of civil
society.32 In Vietnam, indigenous NGOs were legalized in 1991 and are obliged
by law to adhere to the Vietnamese Communist Party programme. NGOs are,
however, increasing their autonomy from state-controlled mass organizations to
which many are loosely aliated, emboldened by state policy of Doi Moi
(Renovation).33
Like interest groups in North America or Europe in the late nineteenth or
early twentieth century, NGOs therefore strengthen civil society, by contribut-
ing to a di€erentiation of structures and an expansion in political participa-
tion.34 Two key di€erences between NGOs in the developing world and their
Northern counterparts, however, are apparent. First, while interest groups and
non-pro®t organizations in the North contend with institutional arrangements
that are deeply entrenched,35 those faced by NGOs in the developing world are
not only varied but are extremely ¯uid. Indeed, many NGOs seek not only
to transform the institutional arrangements of particular developing countries,
but as Sethi notes, `see formal democracy, where it exists, as a necessary but

28
H. Sethi, `Some notes on micro-struggles: NGOs and the state', Asian Exchange, May (1993),
p. 75.
29
D. L. Sheth, `The Politics of Social Transformation: Grassroots Movements in India', lecture
delivered at the University of Hull, Summer (1991).
30 Clarke, `Participation and Protest', pp. 322±3.
31
Panca Sila, literally `®ve pillars', stresses belief in a supreme being, humanitarianism, national
unity, democracy by consensus and social justice.
32
P. Eldridge, `NGOs and the State in Indonesia', in A. Budiman, ed., State and Civil Society in
Indonesia, Monash Papers on Southeast Asia No. 22 (Clayton, Monash University, 1990), p. 506.
33 T. T. Lanh, `The Role of Vietnamese NGOs in the Current Period', paper presented at the

Vietnam Update Conference, `Doi Moi, the State and Civil Society' (Canberra, Australian National
University, 10±11 November 1994).
34
Regarded by Huntington as two key characteristics of political modernization. S. Huntington,
Political Order in Changing Societies (Yale, Yale University Press, 1968), p. 93.
35
J. J. Richardson, `Introduction: Pressure Groups and Government', in J. J. Richardson, ed.,
Pressure Groups (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 3±4.
# Political Studies Association, 1998
42 NGOs and Politics in the Developing World

insucient condition in the long haul to social transformation'.36 Second, while

interest group theory, or rather the dominant pluralist framework, assumes that
interests in liberal democracies, especially in the United States, are relatively
organized,37 organizing the unorganized represents the very raison d'eÃtre of
many NGOs in countries such as Brazil, Chile, India and the Philippines.

The Ideological Basis of NGO Action

This last point raises interesting questions about the ideological basis of NGO
action. In one of the more innovative contributions to the contemporary NGO
literature, Korten distinguishes between three `generations' of NGOs, the ®rst
committed to relief and welfare activities, the second, to small-scale, local,
development projects, and the third to community organization, mobilization,
and coalition-building.38 Korten's typology, echoed in Elliot's charity-devel-
opment-empowerment typology of Northern NGO orientations,39 highlights
the main ideological orientations of contemporary NGOs and draws attention
speci®cally to `second' and `third generation' NGOs, the fastest growing
categories and the focus of the contemporary NGO literature. Relief and
welfare NGOs, the largest group in the developing world, similar in many
respects to service-oriented voluntary organizations in welfare states, engage in
charitable activities and are ostensibly non-political (e.g. the international Red
Cross/Red Crescent movement and national aliates). Development NGOs aim
to weaken the dependency engendered by `®rst generation' NGO strategies and
use activities such as primary health care programmes and agricultural
cooperatives to organize peasants at the local level, helping them to challenge
local eÂlites. Such NGOs often become involved in overt political campaigning
and in protest actions. `Third generation' NGOs, dating to the 1970s, and
inspired principally by Latin American liberation theology, focus on `conscient-
ization' (i.e. raising the critical consciousness of members) and mobilization,
leading to direct intervention in political con¯icts. Acting as catalysts, rather
than service-providers, they work with networks of People's Organizations to
replicate and multiply the local successes of `second generation' strategies, and
organize NGO-PO coalitions that underpin issue-based social movements. The
three `generations' are by no means exclusive; in practice prominent NGOs in
the developing world pursue a combination of di€erent generational strategies.
Korten underestimates, however, the breadth of ideological diversity found in
many NGO communities and the political con¯ict to which this leads.
Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, right-wing NGOs, mostly ®nanced
by landlords and other agricultural or commercial interests, funded anti-
communist vigilante gangs that terrorized `second' and `third generation' NGOs
in Brazil, Central America and the Philippines. In the Philippines, for instance,
during the late 1980s, the Sugar Development Foundation, an NGO established
by the Confederation of Sugar Planter Associations, trained anti-communist
para-military vigilantes and allocated over 75% of its revenue to the military's
36 Sethi, `Some notes on micro-struggles', p. 84. Similarly, Clark, Democratizing Development,

p. 87, argues that NGOs have evolved from the `carers' of societies to the `changers'.
37
Cf. Richardson, `Introduction', p. 11.
38
Korten, Getting to the 21st Century, pp. 115±27.
39
C. Elliot, `Some aspects of relations between the north and south in the NGO sector', World
Development, 15 (1987).
# Political Studies Association, 1998
 GERARD CLARKE 43

counter-insurgency campaign.40 Equally, many NGOs provided direct support

to left-wing insurgents, by diverting funding from European, North American
and Australian donor agencies, by providing salaried positions to underground
organizers, and, in the case of many human rights organizations, by campaign-
ing for the release of detained insurgents. Since the collapse of the communist
regimes of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, left-wing insurgencies
have withered in these countries. NGOs, in part responsible for their demise,
and acting as quasi-political parties, have therefore inherited the mantle of
radicalism (e.g. India, Thailand and the Philippines). As such, NGOs are not
only important actors in their own right, but have become important institu-
tional vehicles for other actors, such as foreign donors, industrial or agricultural
interests, religious groups, or underground movements, in articulating con¯ict-
ing ideological positions.

NGOs and Political Participation

How, and to what ends, do NGOs participate in politics? Internationally,
NGOs from both the North and the developing world have become important
actors in international organizations and fora, and wield signi®cant in¯uence in
issue-areas such as human rights or environmental protection. `Second' and
`third generation' NGOs are the most openly political. Like interest or pressure
groups in liberal democracies, they exert signi®cant in¯uence over legislation
and public policy. In India and Bangladesh, for instance, NGOs in¯uence
legislation in areas such as minimum wages, feudalism and bonded labour.41 In
the Philippines, NGOs not only in¯uence legislation and public policy but enjoy
constitutional recognition of these roles.42 In Chile, NGOs helped to restructure
left-wing opposition to the state during the mid 1970s. `NGOs', says Loveman,
novel in politics, contributed to the professionalization, . . . and sophisti-
cation of opposition political eÂlites at a time when political parties, the
labor movement, student and community organizations were suppressed by
the dictatorship. Sta€ed primarily by leftist (or, less frequently, Christian
Democratic) academics, former government ocials and professionals, they
also allowed a reconsideration of the role of the state in Chile by intellect-
uals of the left and centre.43
`The increasing emphasis on grassroots, local autonomous initiatives in the
development process', Loveman writes, represented `a dramatic departure from
the tradition of state-centred vision of the Chilean left'.44 NGO policy proposals,

40 S. Silliman, `Human Rights and the Transition to Democracy', in J. Eder and R. Youngblood,

eds, Patterns of Power and Politics in the Philippines: Implications for Development (Tempe, Arizona
State University, 1994), p. 129.
41
Clark, Democratizing Development, p. 5.
42
Article II, Section 23 of the 1987 constitution reads: `The state shall encourage non-
governmental, community-based or sectoral organizations that promote the welfare of the nation'
while Art. XIII, Sec. 15 notes that `The state shall respect the role of independent people's organ-
izations to enable the people to pursue and protect, within the democratic framework, their
legitimate and collective interests through peaceful and lawful means'.
43
B. Loveman, `The Political Left in Chile 1973±1990', in B. Carr and S. Ellner, eds, The Latin
American Left: from the Fall of Allende to Perostroika (Boulder, Westview, and London, Latin
America Bureau, 1993), p. 32.
44
Loveman, `The Political Left in Chile', p. 32.
# Political Studies Association, 1998
44 NGOs and Politics in the Developing World

Hojman notes, represented a `fundamental component' of the programme

adopted by the Alwyin administration in 1990.45 Even in Africa, where obstacles
to NGO in¯uence are greater than in Asia or Latin America, NGOs with other
civil associations have played a `vital role in [the] process' of political change.46
NGO in¯uence over public policy in the developing world, however, di€ers
from that wielded by interest/pressure groups in the developed world. If we
think in terms of Lowi's distinction between redistributive, distributive and
regulatory policy areas,47 interest groups exert in¯uence primarily in the
distributive and regulatory areas,48 while `second' and `third generation' NGOs
are primarily concerned with redistributive areas. While interest group theory
assumes that activity focuses on issue areas where costs and bene®ts can be
limited to small numbers of people and are likely to be signi®cant,49 NGOs
focus on macro-political issues where bene®ts are likely to accrue to large
sectors of the poor and the marginalized. Unlike interest or pressure groups,
NGOs are not usually membership-based.
Beyond attempts to in¯uence public policy, NGOs are also distinct from
interest or pressure groups. Since NGO proliferation in many countries is
linked, as noted above, to the weakness of party-political systems, NGOs often
duplicate the roles of political parties. In Chile, for instance, NGOs helped
Popular Economic Organizations (Organizaciones EconoÁmicas Populares) and
Self-Help Organizations (Organizaciones de Auto-Ayuda) to contest the 1992
local elections and subsequently to participate in local government structures.
In Brazil, NGOs and POs supported the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT,
Workers Party) and its candidate Luis Inacio Lula da Silva (`Lula') in the 1990
Presidential elections. In North-East Brazil, where rural inequality is highest
and where NGOs and POs are well organized, Lula won almost half the vote.50
Similarly, in the Philippines, NGOs sit alongside political parties in local
government structures created under the 1991 Local Government Code and
have actively participated in election campaigns, including the 1992 Presidential
and the 1995 local and Congressional elections.
In important respects, however, NGOs e€orts are not only focused on the
state, but aim to empower bene®ciary communities, and build institutions that
challenge local, religious or commercial eÂlites. Indonesia's largest NGO, for
instance, Yayasan Bina Swadaya (Community Self-Reliance Development
Agency), had, by the late 1980s, organized 17,000 local groups directly or
indirectly, strengthening the autonomy of local communities vis-aÂ-vis local
military, political and agricultural eÂlites.51 Similarly, one of India's largest

45
D. E. Hojman, `Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and the Chilean transition to
democracy', European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 54 (1993), 7. NGOs based
in academe played a key role in this respect.
46
N. Chazan, `Engaging the State: Associational Life in Sub-Saharan Africa', in J. Migdal,
A. Kohli and V. Shue, eds, State Power and Social Forces: Domination and Transformation in the
Third World (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 276.
47
T. Lowi, `American business, public policy, case-studies and political theory', World Politics,
16 (1964), 677±93.
48 G. K. Wilson, Interest Groups (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1990), p. 11.
49 J. Q. Wilson, ed., The Politics of Regulation (New York, Basic, 1983).
50
E. Sader and K. Silverstein, Without Fear of Being Happy: Lula, The Worker's Party and Brazil
(London, Verso, 1991), p. 142.
51
`Cooperation with NGOs in Agriculture and Rural Development' (Manila, Asian Develop-
ment Bank, August 1989), Vol. 1, p. 131.
# Political Studies Association, 1998
 GERARD CLARKE 45

NGOs, Action for Welfare and Awakening (AWARE), based in Andhra

Pradesh, had formed almost 200 village organizations, bringing 23,000 hectares
of land under cultivation and mobilized a volunteer force of 25,000 by the late
1980s, directly challenging the interests of powerful local landowners.52 In
Bangladesh, estranged from the state under the authoritarian regimes of
Presidents Zia (1975±81) and Ershad (1982±90), NGOs developed autonom-
ously to become a virtual parallel state capable of reaching 10±20% of the poor
(i.e. roughly 13±26 million people).53

NGOs and Other Institutions

`In many societies', Migdal argues, `attention to struggles in [society's] multiple
arenas [of domination and opposition] may explain far more than easy
assumptions about uni®ed bodies like states and social classes'.54 Relationships
between NGOs and other institutions reinforce Migdal's point and suggest that
NGO communities have become important new arenas of political contestation.
In some cases, institutions feel threatened by the proliferation of NGOs. In
India, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)) regards foreign-
funded NGOs as agents of imperialism and has called on the Indian govern-
ment to strengthen regulation of their activities.55 In the Philippines, the
Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) has traditionally been ambivalent
about relations with supportive NGOs and in 1992 clamped down on NGO
links amid growing party disunity.56 Radical social movements generally feel
that NGOs are agents of capitalism and Western political and cultural values
throughout the developing world, articulating an agenda set by multilateral,
bilateral and nongovernmental donors.57
Catholic church hierarchies have felt similarly ambivalent. During the 1970s,
the Catholic Church was a major force behind the proliferation of NGOs,
especially `second' and `third generation', in Latin America, the Philippines, and
parts of Africa. From an early stage in their proliferation, however, the Vatican
became concerned about their impact. The Ponti®cal Commission for Latin
America (CAL), for instance, monitored support from European and North
American Catholic aid agencies to NGOs and POs in Latin America.58 During
the harshest years of authoritarian rule, church support, or the lack of it, for
NGOs, especially human rights organizations, embroiled it in bitter political
debate. In Chile, the church-sponsored NGO, the Committee of Cooperation
for Peace (COPACHI), opened oces in 22 of Chile's 25 provinces, and repre-
sented over 13,000 victims of the Pinochet regime. Under pressure from the
government, the hierarchy closed COPACHI in 1975, but established a new

52`Cooperation with NGOs', ADB, Vol. 1, p. 84.

53
Human Development Report 1993, p. 92.
54
J. Migdal, `The State in Society', in Migdal et al., State Power and Social Forces, p. 9.
55
A. Brosch, `The Discourse of Non-Governmental Organisations and the Political Economy of
Development in India' (M. A. thesis, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of
London, 1990), p. 27. See also P. Karat, Foreign Funding and the Philosophy of Voluntary
Organisations: A Factor in Imperialist Strategy (New Delhi, National Book Center, 1988).
56 Clarke, `Participation and Protest', pp. 155±61.
57
See, for instance, R. Kothari, `NGOs, the state and world capitalism', Economic and Political
Weekly, XXI, 50 (13 December 1986).
58
E. Poulat, `The Path of Latin American Catholicism', in D. Keogh, ed., Church and Politics in
Latin America (Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1990), p. 11.
# Political Studies Association, 1998
46 NGOs and Politics in the Developing World

NGO in its place, the VicarõÁa de la Solidaridad (Vicariate of Solidarity) which

achieved even greater impact. In Argentina, however, where repression was
greater and where an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 people `disappeared' between
1976 and 1983, the Church hierarchy, traditionally close to the military, failed to
establish an equivalent of Chile's VicarõÁa, drawing it into bitter con¯ict with
other Argentinian human rights NGOs.59
Church hierarchies had every reason to fear the impact of church-sponsored
NGOs, for such NGOs became important pillars of the `popular church' during
the 1970s and 1980s. Chile's VicarõÁa provided important support to the
country's base Christian community movement and sponsored a large network
of community organizations.60 Between 1975 and 1980, the VicarõÁa helped over
1 in 60 of Chile's population.61 In the Philippines, the National Secretariat for
Social Action (NASSA), the ocial development agency of the Philippine
hierarchy, launched a Basic Christian Community±Community Organizing
(BCC±CO) programme in 1975 and by 1980, BCCs, feared by the military as
`practically . . . an infrastructure of political power in the entire country', were
active in one-third of dioceses.62 With the withering of the authoritarian state,
however, hierarchies have clamped down further on supported NGOs. In
November 1992, for instance, the Vicariate of Solidarity, the largest indigenous
human rights NGO in the developing world, closed after losing hierarchical
support. The Philippine Catholic hierarchy has also dealt harshly with Church
NGOs perceived as left-wing or supportive of radical movements, and has
censured NASSA, formally launching a rival Basic Ecclesial Community (BEC)
programme in 1991.63
Political parties vary in their attitudes. In the Philippines, India, Brazil and
Chile, political parties ®ghting eÂlite interests have welcomed the logistical
support NGOs provide on the ground. In other countries, however, NGO
organizing e€orts pose direct challenges to political parties and provoke
confrontation. In Malaysia, for instance, UMNO Baru (the New United Malay
Nationalist Organization), the dominant partner in the ruling coalition, derives
support mainly from rural Malays and opposed NGO e€orts to organize in
rural villages throughout the 1980s. Similarly, in Bangladesh, where the
in¯uence of village elders in rural villages is declining, fundamentalist parties
such as Jamiat Islami bitterly resent NGOs, especially those promoting the
empowerment of women.
Governments and state agencies have been the most a€ected by the
proliferation of NGOs and the early 1990s have witnessed a dramatic trans-
formation in government-NGO relations. During the 1970s and 1980s, relations
between NGOs and governments were generally tense throughout the develop-
ing world. In India, the government tried to coopt NGOs, through the Council
for the Advancement of People's Action and Rural Technology (CAPART)

59
See, for instance, E. Mignone, `The Catholic Church, Human Rights and the ``Dirty War'' in
Argentina', in Keogh, Church and Politics in Latin America, and E. Mignone, Witness to Truth: The
Complicity of Church and Dictatorship in Argentina (New York, Orbis, 1988), and their denuncia-
tion of the Argentinian hierarchy.
60 B. H. Smith, `The Catholic Church and Politics in Chile', in Keogh, Church and Politics in

Latin America, p. 331.

61
Smith, `The Catholic Church and Politics in Chile', p. 330.
62
Clarke, `Participation and Protest', p. 145.
63
Clarke, `Participation and Protest', pp. 143±9.
# Political Studies Association, 1998
 GERARD CLARKE 47

established in 1986. In the Philippines in 1989, three years after the fall of the
Marcos dictatorship but amid renewed ®ghting between government forces and
communist insurgents, `dozens of activists involved in lawful non-government
organizations' disappeared or were killed, according to Amnesty Inter-
national.64 In Malaysia, Prime Minister Dr Mahatir Mohamad condemned
foreign manipulators using a worldwide network of NGOs to promote popular
causes in developing countries throughout the late 1980s, and branded foreign-
assisted NGOs as `thorns' in the government's `¯esh'. As a result, NGO activists
featured prominently among those detained in a 1987 wave of arrests.
Malaysia's NGOs, however, fought back. SUARAM, the country's main
human rights NGO, was formed in response to the 1987 arrests, NGOs gleefully
appropriated Mahatir's `thorn in the ¯esh' euphemism,65 and in 1992, Mahatir
called a truce with the environmental NGOs that provided some of the most
e€ective opposition to his Barisan Nasional (National Front) government.66
NGOs had secured broad support among Malaysia's burgeoning middle-class
and the media, environmental NGOs had achieved signi®cant legitimacy in
international fora, and government ministries had begun to involve NGOs in
implementing socio-economic programmes.
Similar factors promoted government overtures to NGOs throughout Asia,
Africa, and Latin America in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In many cases,
overtures addressed major weaknesses in governmental capacity. `Nongovern-
mental organizations have become an important force in the development
process, [mitigating] the costs of developing countries' institutional weaknesses',
the World Bank argued in 1991,67 and bilateral and multilateral donors
pressured governments to forge links with NGOs. The Indian government's
seventh Five-Year Plan (1985±1990) sought to channel Rs2 billion (US$150
million) through NGOs and gave NGOs three main roles in promoting rural
development: linking government programmes and bene®ciary communities,
mobilizing local resources, and organizing local communities to ensure the
accountability of village-level ocials.68 As the Asian Development Bank notes,
the plan was underpinned by clear strategic objectives:
The government, recognizing on the one hand the positive reputation
of NGOs and on the other, the problem of local vested interests and the
limitations of its own bureaucracy, has called upon NGOs to help create a
`countervailing force' amongst the poor via the organization of bene®ciary
groups.69
By the early 1990s, the countervailing force had developed signi®cant muscle.
An estimated 15,000 to 20,000 NGOs were actively engaged in rural develop-
ment and annual NGO revenue from abroad, Rs9 billion (US$520 million), was
64
`The Philippines; A Summary of Amnesty International's Concerns', ASA 35/02/90 (London,
Amnesty International, May 1990), pp. 3 and 5.
65
See Gurmit Singh K. S., A Thorn in the Flesh (Selangor, 1990).
66
B. Eccleston and D. Potter, `NGOs and the Environmental Politics of Deforestation in Asia',
paper presented to the Association of South-East Asian Studies in the United Kingdom
(ASEASUK) annual conference (London, 28±30 March 1994).
67 World Development Report 1991: The Challenge of Development (Washington DC, The World

Bank, and Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 135.

68
`Cooperation with NGOs', ADB, Vol. 1, p. 57; Brosch, `The Discourse on Non-Governmental
Organizations', p. 16.
69
`Cooperation with NGOs', ADB, Vol. 2, p. 30.
# Political Studies Association, 1998
48 NGOs and Politics in the Developing World

equivalent to 25% of ocial development assistance to India.70 When Indian

government contributions were added, annual income of Indian NGOs, roughly
Rs10 billion was equivalent to 10% of the government's anti-poverty expend-
iture.71 Similarly in Chile, budget constraints forced the Alwyin administration
to subcontract agricultural support services to NGOs and through collabora-
tion with NGOs the government's Institute of Agrarian Development (INDAP)
planned to quadruple from 25,000 to 100,000 the number of peasant farmers
receiving technical and other assistance.72 In the Philippines, government
overtures to NGOs have been more signi®cant. In January 1993, President Fidel
Ramos called for a `strategic alliance' with business, labour and NGOs/POs to
`bring down the old economic order', and reform-oriented ministries are
working closely with NGOs: The Department of Agrarian Reform, for instance,
is working with NGOs to implement an ambitious redistributive agrarian
reform programme, especially in the creation of Agrarian Reform Communities
(ARCs) based on collective land ownership awards; the Department of
Environment and Natural Resources is working with NGOs to tackle illegal
deforestation and promote community reforestation; and the Department of
Health is working with NGOs in promoting family planning and in imple-
menting community health care schemes.73

NGOs and Democratization

Perhaps the most important question raised by the proliferation of NGOs
concerns their contribution to political change, and to democratization. Writers
o€er contending positions. Hirschman, for instance, argues that it is impossible
to prove a connection between the withering of the authoritarian state in Latin
America and the rise of NGOs and grassroots social movements.74 Similarly,
Sanyal argues that `the political impact of bottom-up [NGO] projects has been
. . . less striking than their economic impact'.75 As solidarity groups, Sanyal
suggests, NGOs and POs fail in pressuring local eÂlites or local government.
Their main success is to enforce discipline and compliance among bene®ciaries
or members, especially in the repayment of credit.76 Finally, in one of the ®rst
detailed studies of NGO politics in a developing country, Fowler argues that
Kenya's NGO community is unable to hasten fundamental political change,
because of its fragmentation, competitiveness, and unrepresentative structure.
In general, Fowler argues, NGOs are more likely to maintain the status quo
than to change it.77

70
Farrington and Lewis, Nongovernmental Organizations and the State in Asia, p. 92.
71Farrington and Lewis, Nongovernmental Organizations and the State, p. 93.
72C. Kay, `The Agrarian Policy of the Alwyin Government: Continuity or Change?', in
D. E. Hojman (ed.), Change in the Chilean Countryside: From Pinochet to Alwyin and Beyond
(Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1993), p. 28.
73
See G. Clarke, `Non-Governmental Organizations and the Philippine state, 1986±1993', South-
East Asia Research, 3 (1995), 67±91.
74 A. O. Hirschman, Getting Ahead Collectively: Grassroots Experiences in Latin America

(New York, Pergamon, 1987), p. 98.

75 B. Sanyal, Cooperative Autonomy: The Dialectic of State-NGOs Relationship in Developing

Countries [sic], Research Series 100 (Geneva, International Labour Organisation, 1994), p. 40.
76
Sanyal, Cooperative Autonomy, pp. 40±1.
77
A. Fowler, `Non-Governmental Organisations and the Promotion of Democracy in Kenya'
(Ph.D. thesis, University of Sussex, December 1993).
# Political Studies Association, 1998
 GERARD CLARKE 49

Fowler is undoubtedly correct in highlighting problems faced by African

NGOs,78 but evidence from other regions suggests that NGOs do make
signi®cant contributions to political change. In Thailand, for instance, NGOs,
especially those concerned with human rights, played an important role in the
demonstrations of May 1992 which led to the collapse of the National Peace-
Keeping Council led by Gen. Suchinda Kraprayoon. Gohlert argues that
`. . . there is no sector in Thai society . . . more closely identi®ed with and
committed to political democracy and economic development for all than the
private voluntary organizations'.79 In Chile, NGOs played a signi®cant role in
the restoration of democracy in 1990, drafting policy proposals adopted by the
Alwyin government, improving government service delivery by acting as
subcontractors, and supporting local organizations during election campaigns
(see above). As Hojman explains:
A relatively higher degree of urbanization, a stronger political culture and a
larger and more in¯uential middle-class were all both cause and con-
sequence of the fact that before 1973, democracy survived for longer and
civil society was more developed [than any other country in Latin America].
This is a virtuous circle. A stronger civil society and middle sectors before
1973 meant that after the 1973 military coup the development of NGOs was
more substantial which itself meant that after the democratic transition in
1990 civil society emerged more vigorously than elsewhere in Latin
America.80
NGOs similarly aided the restoration of electoral democracy in the Philippines
and continue to aid its consolidation. Through participation, they help to build
pockets of eciency within government agencies, provide strategic partners for
reform-oriented ministries, ®ll voids in the government's social service delivery
role, and help the executive to circumvent Congress, the traditional bastion of
eÂlite interests, to forge direct ties with the population. Similarly, through
protest, NGOs strengthen the state, by aggregating and moderating political
demands and by providing channels distinct from Congress through which
disputes can be negotiated and dissipated.81 At the same time, `second' and
`third generation' NGOs in the Philippines have moved since 1986 from an
emphasis on `high politics', uni®ed and systematic opposition to the Marcos
dictatorship, and to the state in general, to `low politics', organizational
expansion, programme development, issue-based campaigning and a new
openness to the state,82 echoing changes in other parts of Asia, Africa and Latin
America.

78
Concurring, Bratton argues that African NGOs are constrained by internal social con¯icts
caused by non-kinship-based groups, desperate shortages of trained NGO workers, and a highly
politicized institutional environment (M. Bratton, `Non-governmental Organisations in Africa',
pp. 92±3).
79 E. W. Gohlert, `Thai Democracy and the May 1992 Crisis: The Role of Private Non-Pro®t

Organizations', paper presented to the Western Conference of the Association for Asian Studies,
(Tucson, University of Arizona, 23±24 October 1992), p. 2.
80
Hojman, `[NGOs] and the Chilean Transition to Democracy', p. 21.
81
Clarke, `Participation and Protest', p. 328.
82
Clarke, `Participation and Protest', p. 221.
# Political Studies Association, 1998
50 NGOs and Politics in the Developing World

Conclusion
`The problem [in modernizing countries]', Huntington wrote in 1968, `is not to
hold elections but to create organizations. In many if not most modernizing
countries elections serve only to enhance the power of disruptive and often
reactionary forces and to tear down the structure of public authority'.83 Since
the mid-1980s, the restoration of electoral democracy in many parts of the
developing world has made a more substantial contribution to political
stability, but political organizations, as March and Olson note, remain vitally
important. As this article has argued, a correlation exists between the prolifera-
tion of NGOs and political change in Asia, Africa and Latin America since the
mid-1980s. NGOs have played a signi®cant political role in engendering
stability in transitional societies, by providing socio-economic assistance to
sectors weakened by structural adjustment policies and cutbacks in government
expenditure, by sustaining and aggregating political participation amid the
withering of socialist movements, and by providing direct linkages between
governments and local communities.
In the developing world, counter-mobilization in response to short-comings
in state performance in promoting economic development and in mobilizing
broadly-based popular support represents the most signi®cant aspect of NGO
action. Much the same argument can be made about interest/pressure groups
and voluntary organizations in welfare states. In much of the developing world,
however, the `duality of state strength', to use Migdal's phrase, where states
seem able to penetrate society extensively yet `are unable to implement goal
oriented change',84 increases their strategic signi®cance. The strategic nature of
NGO counter-mobilization roles is enhanced by the low rates of membership
among political parties and trade unions in much of the developing world.
NGOs play a vital role in facilitating political participation through their
involvement in issue-based social movements and through their support to
People's Organizations (POs).
The relationship between NGO proliferation and democratization, however,
is ambiguous. Two fundamental propositions, one De Tocquevillian and one
Gramscian, are evident: the former that NGO proliferation strengthens civil
society and hence democracy by improving interest articulation and repres-
entation;85 the latter that NGO proliferation simply institutionalizes existing
patterns of political contestation, between civil society and the state and within
civil society itself, adding an additional dimension to struggles which remain
fundamentally class-based.86 This article ®nds signi®cant support for both
propositions.
83Huntington, Political Order, p. 7.
84J. Migdal, Strong Societies and Weak States: State-Society Relations and State Capabilities in
the Third World (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1988), pp. 8±9.
85
`There are no countries', De Tocqueville wrote in 1835, `in which associations are more needed
to prevent the despotism of a faction or the arbitrary power of a prince than those which are
democratically constituted' (Alexis De Tocqueville (trans. Henry Reeve), Democracy in America
(Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1947), p. 243.
86 According to Gramsci, `The massive structures of modern democracies, both as State

organizations and as complexes of associations in civil society, constitute for the art of politics as it
were the ``trenches'' and the permanent forti®cations of the front in the war of position: they render
merely ``partial'' the element of movement which before used to be ``the whole'' of the war etc.'
(Q. Hoare and G. Nowell-Smith, eds, Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci
(London, Lawrence and Wishart, 1971), p. 243.
# Political Studies Association, 1998
 GERARD CLARKE 51

Turning ®rst to the `de Tocquevilleian proposition', evidence suggests that

NGOs are playing important roles in consolidating democratic reforms in
countries such as Brazil, Chile, Thailand and the Philippines. As a general
proposition, the paper suggests that political parties have failed to keep pace
with the changing character of interest articulation as social structures become
more heterogeneous as a result of economic change and as political interests
become more diverse. The result has been an institutional vacuum in which
NGOs and POs have thrived. In each of these countries, political parties have
been unable to formulate e€ective positions on new issues such as human rights,
environmental conservation, demilitarization and minority rights, as political
discourse has evolved. This institutional vacuum is exacerbated by the
ideological crisis unleashed by the collapse of the former Soviet Union,
drastically weakening left-wing movements and their ability to represent the
traditionally class-based interests of marginalized groups. The proliferation of
NGOs in Thailand and the Philippines, for instance, accompanied and preceded
the marginalization of the Communist Party of Thailand (CPT) and, more
recently, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). In this sense, NGOs
were indirect bene®ciaries of state repression of left wing movements, but the
eclipse of the CPT and CPP was due in no small part to internal doctrinal
struggles. In turn, a number of factors enabled NGOs to ®ll or partly ®ll this
vacuum, including access to foreign funding, e€ective coordination through
loose coalitions, good links to communities through POs or Community-Based
Organizations, issue-based specialization and corresponding ideological ¯exi-
bility, government openness to NGO proliferation, and support from sections
of the media and academia.
Turning to the `Gramscian proposition', evidence also suggests that the
voluntary or NGO sector in countries such as India, Thailand, the Philippines
and Chile has become a new `trench' or `permanent forti®cation' in a `war of
position' waged between dominant and subordinate classes through the critical
juncture of the state. The ability of NGOs to become embroiled in political
struggles depends in large part on the regulatory framework governing NGO
activities de®ned by the state. To the extent that civil society expands as the state
makes autonomous social forces increasingly subject to rules that are primarily
of its design, NGO proliferation strengthens the state and the social forces that
primarily bene®t from its power. Equally, to the extent that NGO proliferation
correlates with the decline of militant social movements in Thailand and the
Philippines, NGOs contribute to the demobilization of anti-state pressure,
again strengthening the state.
Beyond these propositions, however, the proliferation of NGOs throughout
the developing world poses important questions for democratization theory and
other Western paradigms. In contrast to nonpro®t organizations and interest/
pressure groups in liberal democracies, most of which seek legislative or policy
change but accept the fundamental legitimacy of the prevailing institutional
arrangement, `second' and `third generation' NGOs, the focus of this article,
seek a root-and-branch overhaul of political institutions and thorough-going,
redistributive, reform in countries such as India, the Philippines and Chile. In
countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia or Vietnam, however, NGOs eschew
Western-style liberal democracy. As such, key tenets of liberal democracy
underpinning interest/pressure group theory are inadequate in understanding
the type of strengthened civil society that NGOs seek. Neopluralist literature
# Political Studies Association, 1998
52 NGOs and Politics in the Developing World

views interest and pressure groups as relatively autonomous, with strategy

e€ectively controlled by members through relatively democratic structures.
NGOs are generally non-membership organizations, however, and decision-
making processes are complex, with in¯uence often exerted by a range of
institutions including business interests, religious groups, foreign donors
(governmental, nongovernmental or multilateral), underground or insurgent
movements, political parties, partner POs and governments.
An `associational revolution' is underway in the developing world, and as
Salamon suggests in my opening quotation, its political impact will prove
extensive and profound. Proliferation throughout the developing world in the
last two decades has made NGOs important political actors, intermediary
institutions that constitute a new layer of civil society, transforming its overall
structure. NGOs have had a signi®cant impact on politics under a variety of
regime conditions, but the existing socio-economic basis to the contemporary
NGO literature masks the political signi®cance of NGO proliferation and leaves
important questions unanswered. Political scientists in years to come therefore
face an interesting challenge in documenting and conceptualizing the role of
NGOs in the `associational revolution', a revolution which is fast becoming one
of the most signi®cant political developments of the late twentieth century.

(Accepted : 1 June 1996)

# Political Studies Association, 1998