Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies Volume 15 Issue 1 Article 10 Winter 2008 Rethinking NGOs: The Economy of Survival and Global Governance Marc Abélès Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris Follow this and additional works at: https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/ijgls Part of the Civil Law Commons, and the International Law Commons Recommended Citation Abélès, Marc (2008) "Rethinking NGOs: The Economy of Survival and Global Governance," Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies: Vol. 15 : Iss. 1 , Article 10. Available at: https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/ijgls/vol15/iss1/10 This Symposium is brought to you for free and open access by the Law School Journals at Digital Repository @ Maurer Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies by an authorized editor of Digital Repository @ Maurer Law. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Rethinking NGOs: The Economy of Survival and Global Governance MARC AB LtS* ABSTRACT This articleexplores the concept of "globalpolitics," an evolving set ofsystems that undermine our traditionalview of government. These underlying systems, including Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), exert great influence on the power and actions of nation-states. Thus, while current global politics are largely dependent on the actions and strategiesof nation-states,nation-states are not the only actors at work. The article arguesfor a view of global politics that takes these other systems, particu- larly NGOs, into account. INTRODUCTION Since the end of the 1980s, I have done anthropological fieldwork in transna- tional institutions and organizations including the EU Commission and Parlia- ment, and more recently in a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) called Oxfam. This paper presents NGOs as part of what I call "global politics." When we look back over the last ten years, the remarkable conjunction of two phenomena is striking. On one hand, transnational organizations have partly taken charge of a certain number of the key elements of governance in areas as diverse as the economy, the environment, and the rights of man. On the other hand, a battlefront has developed that targets these new powers. This means there is a dual displacement in both governmentality and resis- tance. In reality, what characterizes the present is the emergence of a new political stage set with its own specific figures and challenges whose true place can be * Professor, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris. This is a lightly edited ver- sion of a presentation delivered at the Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies Symposium on Democracy and the Transnational Private Sector, Indiana University School of Law-Blooming- ton, April 12, 2007. Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies Vol. 15 #1 (Winter 2008) ©Indiana University School of Law INDIANA JOURNAL OF GLOBAL LECAL STUDIES 15:1 gauged when confrontations occur, like those that marked the WTO meetings and the G7 summits. Davos, Switzerland and Porto Alegre, Brazil have become the symbols of the political displacement. The increasing power of the transnational on a planetary scale is only the tip of the iceberg. Deep down, what is at issue is the very meaning we give today to the business of politics, and our perception of the political dimension that is radically changing. This article argues that political displacement is the consequence of a global redefinition of the meaning and aims of political action. This redefinition not only has a cognitive dimension, but also shows up in ways of acting, in organizational and institutional constructions, in the position of issues that will be a focus for public debate, and in the construction of the type of site where this debate will happen. This theory is heavy with consequences; it effectively implies that the emergence of a new, transnational stage is the effect rather than the cause of a profound transformation of our relationship to politics. This means that, in research, the institutional process must give way to an investigation of our perception of politics. It is here that the dis- placement, whose most visible effects we have spotted, is really happening. The thesis of my argument is that the political displacement, i.e., the weaken- ing of the state, reflects the rise in power of political representation that puts the preoccupations of life and survival at the heart of political action, while the issue of the city and the relationship of the individual to sovereignty are relegated to the background. The displacement of issues finds another expression in a simple ques- tion that we all ask: "What will our world consist of tomorrow?" It is this funda- mental anxiety that not only alters our relationship to politics but also determines the space that can be allocated to this activity and the new sites in which it is best exercised. My last book' argued that the issue of survival has currently become the focal issue in our democracy, where living together harmoniously (convivance) has been an issue for several centuries. In this context we can better understand the spe- cific role of NGOs as protagonists in transnational public space. The goal of this paper is to point out the specific link between the rise of NGOs as part of the recon- figuration of the transnational sphere of powers and the growing importance of new forms of governmentality focused on the economy of survival. The entrance of NGOs as protagonists in transnational public space caused many interrogations and criticisms concerning the legitimacy of this type of organi- zation, including skepticism about their ambition to open a new political space. The main question addressed to NGOs refers to their legitimacy. Are they, in the final analysis, the instrument of a self-proclaimed elite, a kind of "militant jet set"? When 1. MARC ABfLiS, POLITIQUE DE LA SURVIE (2006). RETHINKING NGOs we raise the problem of NGOs' representativeness, we are forced to acknowledge that their decisions are made by individuals who have not been elected. During in- ternational negotiations, they deal with government representatives who wield power as a result of democratic procedures. The NGO leaders themselves can only find their legitimacy in the universality and cogency of the cause that they defend. They are self-proclaimed spokespeople of "civil society," a term whose usage is often unclear, both in regards to what it covers and whether its use intentionally flattens a universe whose diversity is then reduced to a standardizing expression. A discourse unified behind consensual slogans (e.g., the fight against poverty, the reduction of the greenhouse effect, and fair trade) diffuses a non-critical definition of "the gen- eral interest" and "universal goods." NGO leaders also implicitly refer to the exis- tence of a community that would be the fruit of globalization. NGOs answer this criticism concerning their legitimacy by presenting sev- eral arguments. The first relates to their proximity to the ground. They are di- rectly confronted with humanitarian crises and poverty. It is their work in the field that makes them the essential spokespeople of groups which, without them, would be abandoned to destitution or precariousness. Another argument relates to their detachment compared to the often political motivations controlling gov- ernmental action. They are not pledged to any established order. NGOs also argue that they have a true capacity of expertise. Their action is haloed by technical le- gitimacy. Such an argument implies a reinforcement of the power of experts by the counter-evaluations that they bring. We are witnessing a "privatization" of the international regulation among NGOs. Regarding the environment or finance, on questions of debt or of ethical trade, the standards are discussed between con- sultants and actors of the commercial private sector without political arbitration. Paradoxically, in these debates, we undoubtedly lose sight of the essential. The influence of NGOs and the audience that they gather among citizens are due to the fact that through them we hear the echo of an entire rejected humanity, those who seem abandoned on behalf of modernity. According to the striking expression of the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, one of the most profound effects of globalization and the new conflicts that it produces, such as "peaceful" research of profit on a global scale, is to reduce a mass of humans to the state of pure waste, to wasted lives.2 These human beings lost their quality as citizens to be no more than "naked lives,"3 populations shunted between clandestineness and refugee 2. ZYGMUNT BAUMAN, WASTED LIVES: MODERNITY AND ITS OUTCASTS 6-7 (2004). 3. GIORGIO AGAMBEN, MEANS WITHOUT END: NOTES ON POLITICS 20-21 (Vincenzo Binetti & Cesare Casarino trans., Univ. of Minn. Press 2000). INDIANA JOURNAL OF GLOBAL LEGAL STUDIES 15:1 camps. But all these people are truly there and they do not cease knocking on the doors of the universe of the rich to be generally rejected with a violence of which we are aware. And the place that NGOs occupy in public space depends foremost on the actions that they carry out to ensure their survival. One can certainly dispute criticisms of NGOs that highlight their lack of democratic legitimacy by stressing that the authorities who claim to be the most democratic-parliaments and governments-are shown to be quite slow in react- ing to human rights violations or to the serious attacks on the planet's ecological integrity. Without NGOs and their transnational activism, laxity could have pre- vailed. Moreover, we would have undoubtedly never seen far-reaching initiatives like the Conference of Rio, which put the question of sustainable development on the agenda. The end of the twentieth century will be remembered for the pro- gressive rise to power of a broad movement that came to counterbalance the most harmful effects of globalization.