The power to promote and to exclude : external support for Palestinian civil society

Abstract

The dissertation explores international aid given by western donor agencies to Palestinian NGOs earmarked as civil society promotion. It aims to study the discourse of civil society at work, and the impact of die use of the concept of civil society both by donor agencies and recipient Palestinian organizations. The research is based on a variety of interviews with about 40 donor agencies (governmental, multilateral or non-governmental) and as many Palestinian NGOs. It explores the conditions under which NGOs have been seen as decisive actors for the support and the fostering of a stronger civil society. It analyses the (funding) mechanisms that bring donors and NGOs to work together, their interplay, and the ideational impact that the production of knowledge around ‘civil society’ has on both actors. The first part of the dissertation consists in a theoretical discussion as to why should international actors support civil society abroad, and explores the potential tension between external aid and civil society as one of the domestic venues for the definition o f autonomy. It explores various explanations of the alleged difficulties of Arab societies to develop their own civil society. It will contrast three ideal-typical conceptions of civil society in the Arab worlds - those of Sa’ad Eddin Ibrahim, Burhan Ghalioum and Azmi Bishara. The second part is a study of the historical evolutions of the categories ‘donors' and ‘NGOs'. Some emerging trends in providing funds to NGOs abroad and to civil society support will be matched with a study of associational life in Palestine since the beginning of the 20th century. The third part analyses the products of ‘civil society at work* in the past ten years. Since there has been historically a rich civil society in Palestine, it is interesting to explore the transformations caused by the massive influx of aid for civil society promotion. The two contrasting cases consist of service-oriented NGOs (active in the field o f health — older NGOs) and of value-oriented NGOs (active in the field of human rights and democracy — younger NGOs). We will look at the evolution of the interplay between international donors and these two sets of NGOs, which are increasingly dependent on agenda and funds coming from abroad. The final chapter argues that the discourse o f ‘civil society’, as promoted by international donors, as articulated and re-appropriated by local NGOs, has a triple exclusionary power. First, in political terms because of the various interpretations o f civil society in terms of political engagement; second, in sociological terms, because of the formation of a privileged middle-class; and third, in philosophical terms because o f the re-enforcement of artificial divisions such as the 'West' and the ‘Arabs' and between civil(ised) and non-civil societies.