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Wednesday, January 26, 2011

NGO's: the trojan horse for market, corporate and state power?

 David Harvey in his book A Short History of Neoliberalism:
The rise of advocacy groups and NGOs has...accompanied the neoliberal turn and increased spectacularly since 1980 or so. The NGOs have in many instances stepped into the vacuum in social provision left by the withdrawal of the state from such activities. This amounts to privatization by NGO. In some instances, this has helped accelerate further state withdrawal from social provision. NGOs thereby function as "Trojan horses for neoliberal globalization."
 Mike Davis in The Planet of Slums:
Third World NGOs have proven brilliant at co-opting local leadership as well as hegemonizing the social space traditionally occupied by the Left. Even if there are some celebrated exceptions--such as the militant NGOs so instrumental in creating the World Social Forums--the broad impact of the NGO/"civil society revolution"...has been to bureaucratize and deradicalize urban social movements.

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