Against NGOs
A Critical Perspective on Civil Society, Management and Development

Interpretative history of development and management studies that explains how non-governmental actors acquired prominence as private actors offering market-based solutions.

Nidhi Srinivas (Author)

9781108840385, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 10 November 2022

300 pages
23.6 x 16 x 2.5 cm, 0.56 kg

'Many contemporary accounts of NGOs have critiqued them as being either 'malign actors' or 'futile players'. However, both of these characterizations miss the context within which these organizations presently operate. In this excellent book, Srinivas takes a much more nuanced approach in examining the contexts that NGOs work in by employing the key concepts and practices of Development, Management, and Civil Society. This book takes you on a critical journey through the different historical stages of global capitalism by utilizing an analysis of colonialism, modernism and financial capitalism and their relationship to International Development. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the theories, practices and actions of NGOs more specifically and International Development more broadly.' Helen Yanacopulos, Professor, The University of British Columbia

What would development look like if its practitioners and scholars were 'against NGOs,' challenging common sense about them? This book presents a critical perspective on NGOs, describing how they emerged as key agents of development over time. Through an interpretative history based on Gramscian concepts it shows how civil society organizations were gradually enlisted in development as non-state technocratic actors. The book argues that management studies and development studies emerged as commonsensical explanations for capitalist crises. Each offered complementary solutions to balance the needs of capital and society, in particular historical circumstances. These solutions also situated civil society as agents of development and vectors of management. Against NGOs fills a gap within the literature of management and development studies through its original discussion of their historical interconnections and shared themes. The book raises provocative questions on what forms of knowledge-politics can respond productively to the crises of our contemporary moment.

1. Introduction: Twinning Development and Management from a Critical Perspective
2. Colonial Development and Early Management
3. Modernization Theory and Modernist Management
4. Dependency Theory and an Alternative Technocracy
5. High Management
6. The Washington Consensus and Financialization
7. Moving past the Washington Consensus
8. Conclusion: Possibilities of Emancipation.

Subject Areas: Ownership & organization of enterprises [KJV], Organizational theory & behaviour [KJU], Management & management techniques [KJM], Business & management [KJ], Development economics & emerging economies [KCM]