Civil Society Empowerment and Multilateral Donors

International Institutions and New International Norms

Bibliographic Data

ID12430398
AuthorsKendall W Stiles, Kendall Stiles (0000-0001-5850-3848, corresponding author)
Year1998
Volume4
Issue2
Pages199-216
Publication date1998-07-28
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueGlobal Governance A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1075-2846 • E-ISSN: 1942-6720
PublisherLynne Rienner Publishers (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1163/19426720-00402006
OpenAlexW2402204110
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited5

Since the mid-1980s, development experts have turned their attention from such conventional notions as structural adjustment and basic needs toward a new approach that emphasizes participatory, small scale, community-based development involving nongovernmental organi zations (NGOs) and grassroots associations. A good descriptor of this ap proach would be the society model. It attempts to reverse a long-standing policy of placing the recipient government at the center of the development process, focusing instead on nongovernmental actors. As David Korten puts it, 1980s saw a growing rejection of the myth that government is the sole legitimate agent for development deci sion making and the management of development resources. It is now widely accepted that civil society has an essential, if not central, role in both.' The process of translating this model into development policy has pro ceeded with remarkable speed, aided by historical coincidences and ener getic leadership in the development community. But the speed of reform itself has given rise to significant and revealing variations across multilat eral donor agencies as they rush to define concepts, agree on theoretical premises, adjust legal parameters, and adopt new operating procedures. These variations can be largely attributed to differences in the organiza tional structures, institutional cultures, and operational mandates of the agencies. This perspective contrasts with two more widely accepted approaches of recent vintage?the epistemic community and the global civil soci ety approaches?both of which emphasize the informal and spontaneous interactions among issue experts (in and out of public service) in the for mulation and development of new international norms and regimes.2 Al though these factors have been important in the elaboration of the basic outline of the civil society empowerment model, as 1 discuss in the next section, they are not sufficient to explain actual changes in development

Civil society · Government (linguistics · Grassroots · International community · Law and economics · Political science · Public relations · Sociology · Foucault, Power, and Ethics · International Development and Aid · Law · Public Administration · Religion, Society, and Development

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