Civil Society Marches Toward Global Governance

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Tue Jan 11 08:06:39 PST 2000


At 02:53 AM 1/11/00 -0500, Yoshie wrote:
>What do you think of the promotion of ideas of and international "aids" for
>"civil society" in the Eastern European countries (before and after the
>fall of socialism)? How do your remarks upon religion square with your
>thought on "civil society," in that churches and other religious orgs may
>be thought of as "social proximity organizations" par excellence in the
>period when unions and other secular left orgs are weak? (These aren't
>rhetorical questions -- just a sequel to my offlist query.)

The issue of western aid to eastern european "civil society" has been researched by Janine Wedel in her book _Collision and Collusion_ and my views on the subject are very similar to hers. My own research on the subject will be published soon by Plenum/Kluwer. In short:

1. There is a substantial "information gap" between donors and recipients - the practical implication of that gap is that even well intended aid often ends up in the wrong hands. Oftentimes, the aid is awarded to those organizations that are well versed in English and ngo-speak or those who know how to write grant proposals, but which do not necessarily can deliver the results.

2. Both donors and recipients have their own agendas that may differ form the official aid politics. It is often the case that Eastern European activists use ngos as springboards to advance their personal careers, for example by procuring western grants and contracts. The donors, otoh, often promote their own political agenda regardless of the needs of the recipinets society. According to Wedel, the US is much worse in this respect than Western Europeans. US-ers tend to avoid working with the recipient contry governments, which naturally pushes them them toward shadowy figuers of "civil society" (read: impostors, profiteers and gangsters) and promote narrow ideological agendas (such as privatization of SOEs) which do not resonate well with the aid recipients.

3. "Social proximity organizations" are often used as a vehicle of intriducing technological/organizational innovations, especually in the areas of health care and human services. The main reason for using this organizational form is to build trust relationship necessary for marketing professional commodities. This is probably the best (from left's point of view) usage of this organizational form in Eastern Europe.

4. The Roman Catholic Church is quite active in the "civil society" field, but its role vary considerably. On the one hand, it creates and opertates organizations serving genuine social needs, such as hospice care, substance abuse, poverty alleviation etc. Even in more controversial areas, such as anti-abortion activism, Church-affiliated orgs tend to provide some form of service (shelters, income support) in addition to mere propaganda. On the other hand, there are Church-affiliated organizations devoted solely to political purposes, promotion of faith, fighting secularism etc. But in general, th emain propaganda vehicle is the church itself (i.e. its sunday services and religious instruction) whereas its "civil society" appendages tend to serve genuine social needs.

5. The main political mobilization vehicle are still unions and political parties, and they also maintain considerable clout. Poland has tro main union federation, the one that emerged from the "company unions" under central planning and currently affiliated with the center-left coalition, and the one affiliated with "Solidarity" which has its won political coalition (center-right). The problem is, however, that labels "left" and "right" are generally meaningless in the EE context. The so-called leftists are often liberals, politically, economically, and culturally. The so-called rightists are often very strange bedfellows, keynesianists, neo-liberals, nationalists, trade unionists, cultural conservatives. Religious fundamentalists tend form a separate camp - their main mobilization vehicle are ecclesiastic organizations (churches + appendages).

In sum, social proximity organizations (human service and health care providers, civic associations, unions, political parties etc.) are tools to promote the agendas of different interest groups, mainly occupational groups and professions, but also political elites and the church. Their role cannot and should not be viewed seprately from the interest groups their represent. In that respect they are akin to Gramsci's concept of "organic intellectual" - i.e. knowledge workers whose main "value" lies in their allegiance to different social classes. Some of those organizations are more or less aligned with the interests of the working classes (including professionals) and for that reason they are "good" from the Left's point of view. Other are aligned with the elite, business or reactionary forces and they are "bad."

wojtek



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