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Alexis De Tocqueville Early Comparative Nonprofit Scholar PAD6836 Lecture 7 University of North Florida Master of Public Administration program Course syllabus PAD 6836 Comparative public administration Nonprofit management source Comparative nonprofit manager of the week Alexis de Tocqueville early comparative nonprofit scholar De Tocqueville may be the first person to write systematically about the involvement of civil society in American public policy. His 1835 Democracy in America included the oft-quoted passage (in Book I, chapter 12; see also Book II, chapter 5): “In no country in the world has the principle of association been more successfully used or applied to a greater multitude of objects than in America. Besides the permanent associations which are established by law under the names of townships, cities, and counties, a vast number of others are formed and maintained by the agency of private individuals.” More or less random opening thoughts! American unexceptionalism. At the risk of sounding obsessed about this American exceptionalism stuff, I read a lot of similar naïve exaggeration in the nonprofit sector, as well. For many Americans: Born in the USA. The nonprofit sector was born in the USA. de Toqueville may be right that the extent of the use of nonprofits in the US in the 1830s was, indeed, exceptional. The concept of non-governmental, nonprofit (i.e. non-business) organizations did not originate in the US, though. They existed in Australia from the start of the country (JSTOR source), from the Middle Ages in France (source), and to at least 1601 in the United Kingdom (source). Taught to the world by the USA. Occasionally you’ll read a discussion of NPOs in the rest of the world which seems to imply that in the 1960s, American NPO leaders travelled the world and sewed the ground with NPOs. Lester Salamon’s “The rise of the nonprofit sector” is a good example (source). As in America, so for the rest of the world. The reality is much different, as reflected in the first part (pages 44-7) of the paper of mine you’ve been asked to read. As in Page 1 of 8 PAD6836 Lecture 7 Brazil, in much of the world people have been organizing since time immemorial, outside of government, and with non-profit goals. NPO v. NGO v. etc. For some people an NGO (non-governmental organization) is international (an example) or foreign, while an NPO is domestic. This is an artificial distinction. In Canada, as we’ll see, the term ‘voluntary organizations’ is used a lot, as is the ‘social sector’. In Brazil the acronym ‘ONG’ is most often used (organizações não-governmentais), but the term ‘organizações sem-fins lucrativos’ (literally: organizations without lucrative – profit -- ends) is also used (and a quick google search shows 20 times more hits for the latter than the former). Critical in global governance! As I argued in lecture one, page 7, our global village is ungoverned in a formal sense: there is no government. As a result, global governance is a cobbled together affair, featuring various actors: National governments United Nations and its agencies UNESCO, WHO, UNDP, UNICEF, UNEP, etc. International Governmental Organizations (IGOs) IOC, ECOWAS, IMF, IOTC, ILO, ICAO, NATO, la francophonie, etc. Global markets: Multi-National Corporations, trade, and consumers International non-governmental org’s (INGOs) Red Cross, AI, MSF, Oxfam, etc. International Non-governmental Coalitions (ICBL). The critical nature of NPOs in global governance is illustrated in the graphic at right. I’ll explain. Functions of INGOs. Policy advocacy (e.g. Greenpeace) IGO interaction: UN: 3290 INGOs have consultative status IMF-World Bank: ‘over 1000 participated’ at 2009 IMF-IBRD meeting in Istanbul Development assistance (Oxfam, Ford Foundation) Cultural exchange/development Professional and global elite coordination Etc. (pretty much same as within the US) Gnarly accountability challenges. Logistics: Communicating with stakeholders in diverse countries. Electing officers with members in diverse countries. And so: iron law of oligarchy. Representing folks to whom ‘accounting’ is difficult: Page 2 of 8 PAD6836 Lecture 7 Political prisoners (Amnesty International) The poor (Oxfam) Ecosystems and/or critters (Greenpeace) And so separating leadership political preferences, from the pragmatic needs/desires of stakeholders. Extent. The extent of NPO involvement in a sample of countries is shown in Table 2. Note that, with reference to de Tocqueville’s assertion that 1830s America used ‘associations’ more than anyone else, little has changed. Table 2 Recent trends (outside the US). Civil society compared1 ‘Fourth wave’ (or is it fifth wave?) of Civil liberties Civic engagement democratization permits greater activity for G7+ NP advocacy groups. US 1 60 Civic groups have brought down Australia 1 59 governments! Canada 1 54 France 1 31 Brazil (twice), Poland, Philippines, etc. Germany 1 43 Much NPO involvement in the ‘Arab Italy 1 26 Spring’. Japan 2 26 Civic revolutions in the US (i.e. civil rights, Sweden 1 39 women’s movement) mirrored in many UK 1 57 developing countries, with this… …often more ‘global’ (not American BRICs led or inspired) than we think. Brazil 2 29 NPOs used to deliver ‘foreign aid’, often China 6 21 India 3 28 supply this directly (northern NPOs finance Russia 5 22 work delivered through southern NPOs). Accountability booboos. Sundry financial shenanigans. Amnesty International and the death penalty. Greenpeace and Brazil. MSF and Yank-bashing in Afghanistan? Representation issues: The ‘Battle for Seattle’ and various civil society initiatives. Class issues: well-educated rich folk ‘leading’ NPOs working for rural poor. Northern urban HQs for southern rural development ‘Organizações da astrôturfa’ Sources of legitimacy for ‘northern’ NGOs. Modesty, or avoiding "the practice of advocacy as... it disempowers Southern communities" (Hudson, p. 414). In other words, don't act illegitimately (claim to be 1 Sources. Civil liberties: Freedom House, Freedom in the World Report 2012. The score is a 1-7 scale, with 1 = free. Civic engagement: Gallup. The score is a 0-100 index, with higher numbers indicating greater civic engagement. Page 3 of 8 PAD6836 Lecture 7 speaking on behalf of the global poor, if you do not), and you won't be seen to be illegitimate. Seems fair enough, but others disagree: Institutional survival -- a sort of "I exist, therefore I am legitimate" approach. Given that the organization has been able to get grants from rich world donors for decades, surely, surely it can be seen to be a legitimate advocate for people in poor countries? Resort to international treaty. Organizational, especially "formally democratic structures" (p. 414). Links with the South. Sort of a "I once ate a tamale in Cancun, therefore I feel the pain of the global poor!" approach. Some perspectives on nonprofits in Brazil (c’est moi) International literature has a narrow focus. Figure 3 Narrow focus in third sector research International literature ahistorical (or ‘northern creation’). Great sophistication in Brazil, with no ‘northern’ links, all well before the ‘associational revolution’ of the 1960s. Associações de moradores (residents associations) from at least 1950s. Professional associations (from the mid-19th century). Relations with the state. Anti-state. By most accounts, in Brazil there has been a leftist, anti-state bias in much of this research, justifiable or no. Granted, today after nearly a quarter century of social democratic and labor governments, you’d hope this would be changing. Cooperation. …and it has (been changing). Cooptation. Another dimension of this relationship is cooptation, as ‘Organizações da astrôturfa’ (astroturf ‘grassroots’ organizations) have been formed to siphon money intended for NGOs. Other groups can be captured by powerful interests. Dense social networks. The most interesting part of this research for me was how NPOs become part of dense social networks. They create social capital, get the job done, and provide an independent voice in the public policy process. Canada and the ‘Voluntary sector’ Comparative numbers. When looking at the ‘Imagine Canada’ data, keep in mind that Canada’s population is close enough to 1/10th that of the US. The Canadian ‘voluntary sector’ looks a lot like ours (or ours looks a lot like Canada’s!). Page 4 of 8 PAD6836 Lecture 7 A ‘coordinated ask’. At the end of her short article, Dagnino refers to the important of a ‘coordinated ask’ which, more broadly, means that government and the nonprofit sector should work together more closely from a planning perspective. Offloading. This is especially the case given government’s tendency to ‘offload’ the provision of public (especially social) services to nonprofit agencies (see Hall and Reed 2008). At worst, government just gets out and leaves private NPOs to pick up the service. Contracting. At best, government shuts down the public agency once providing the service, pockets the (short term) savings, then uses a portion of this to contract with a NPO to provide the service. I see at least two problems with this: Hard contractual barrier. Contracting imposes a hard contractual barrier between the funder (we the people) and the social services we want provided. When provided within government, presumably an elected leader could get on the phone with an agency head and, after some study, implement a change. Contract language can make this more difficult. Offloading compassion. Too much of the savings that come from offloading services comes out of the hide of social service workers: pay can suffer, as well as benefits and job security. What ‘we the people’ are looking for then in the providers of social services, to some extent, is for people who care more about the ‘least among us’ than we do, and so are willing to donate from their potential earnings what we are unable to pay in taxes. The voluntary sector initiative! But getting back to a ‘coordinated’ ask (or coordinated anything else, for that matter), Canada embarked on just such an effort with the Voluntary Sector Initiative.
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