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It revisits the author’s earlier argument about NGOs as either progressive force or neoliberal tool, updating it with attention to how NGOs are embedded in interactions between global and local dynamics. The discussion analyzes NGO growth since 1980, neoliberal privatization effects, shifting NGO strategies toward depoliticized service delivery, and NGO roles in sustaining inequality. 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It treats this as the central issue guiding the journal discussion.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"Why does the author argue that the NGO sector reinforces unequal development?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"The paper argues that rapid NGO expansion since 1980 aligns with neoliberal privatization and limiting government, and that funding incentives can lead NGOs to become apolitical and focus on service delivery. It also states NGOs can delegitimize the state and thereby sustain poverty and inequality.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"How does the author explain differences in NGO and civil society performance across places?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"The paper emphasizes local specificity: NGOs are embedded in diverse webs of civil society relationships and face different political and social conditions. It notes that conflict or post-conflict contexts can raise risks for civil society representatives, making outcomes highly dependent on local context.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},600540,1792885902,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":34,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":19,"language":139,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":143,"read_time":52},962090893581,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_276721f389ce27ea32af1340a28f341c","NGOs, Civil Society, and Development: Is There a Third Way?  \nSteven J. Klees  \nUniversity of Maryland  \nForwamy,o”re trefanrrinageocea,ereandhapsrieencipltaeslkof yocpoialliticiansorganiz, acaatioemicsother, antha oththeersStaot aan“tdhitrh market (Giddens, 2000). Most of this discussion about a third way for development focuses on the roles that can be played by NGOs and other elements of civil society. The overarching question that guided this journal issue,“Are NGOs Overrated?”relates very closely to whether there really is a third way.  \nFor this paper, I was asked to reflect on the paper I wrote ten years ago (Klees, 1998) in response to that same overarching question. While that paper, entitled “NGOs: Progressive Force or Neoliberal Tool?,” did not discuss the idea of a third way, it was implicit in the examination of NGOs as a progressive force for development. Looking back on that paper, I find that the main points still apply today. However, what I find missing from that paper is the ways in which NGOs are embedded in the “dialectic of the global and the local.”[1] Below, I discuss both what was in that earlier paper and some of what was missing from it.  \nIn Klees (1998), I made five principal points. First, I began with underlining the progressive promise of NGOs, mostly drawing on my personal experience where I consistently found local NGOs to be innovative organizations in touch with the grassroots and led by committed social activists. At their best, NGOs empowered individuals, communities, and nations to face, resist, and transform the unequal relations of neoliberalism.  \nHowever, most of my paper was about the other side, how the NGO sector has been an integral part of a system that reinforces unequal development. This brings me to my second point: the incredibly rapid expansion of NGOs since 1980 has been the consequence of the neoliberal focus on privatization and curtailing government.  \nThird, as a consequence, the nature and environment of NGOs has changed drastically. Cooperation among NGOs was often replaced with cutthroat competition for funding. To get funding, NGOs became apolitical, and service delivery was emphasized over advocacy. NGOs thus became the new temp workers of development, useful to national and international agencies for specific tasks but easily discarded as circumstances changed and consequently limited in their ability to challenge development practice.  \nFourth, I argued that despite NGOs’ good efforts and intentions, rather than contributing to sustainable poverty alleviation, at a systemic level, they contribute to sustaining poverty. This argument sees neoliberalism (again, without bad intentions) as reproductive of the social order in the sense that its structures and policies maintain poverty, inequality, and marginalization. NGOs, chiefly by contributing to the delegitimization of the State, are part of that reproductive apparatus.  \nFifth, NGOs which are dedicated to progressive social change are in an incredibly difficult position. Resources are scarce and, when available, come with many strings attached. NGOs try to remain true to their own agenda by a variety of strategies: not taking money from those agencies they  \n© 2008 Current Issues in Comparative Education, Teachers College, Columbia University, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Current Issues in Comparative Education, Vol. 10(1/2): 22-25.  \nSteven J. Klees  \ndisagree with; not depending too much on one funding agency; and playing agencies off against one another.  \nDespite my belief that these five points hold true today, I think it important to elaborate and embed them in ways that offer a better look at the dialectical workings of the local and the global. Below, I consider some of these issues.  \nLocal Specificity  \nWhile global forces are key, how things play out depends very much on the specific nature of local circumstances and context. An important part of that is that NGOs are embedded in a web of relationships with ot","cbCaidIeX7kfA5Jo","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaidIeX7kfA5Jo","pdf",167305,"English","# NGOs and the Third-Way Question\n## Revisiting the Author’s Earlier Arguments\n# Local Specificity\n## Civil Society Networks and NGO Types\n## Context-Dependent Performance\n# Global Forces\n## Neoliberal and System-Level Drivers","[{\"question\":\"What overarching question does the paper connect to the idea of a third way?\",\"answer\":\"The paper links the question “Are NGOs Overrated?” to whether there is really a third way in development. It treats this as the central issue guiding the journal discussion.\"},{\"question\":\"Why does the author argue that the NGO sector reinforces unequal development?\",\"answer\":\"The paper argues that rapid NGO expansion since 1980 aligns with neoliberal privatization and limiting government, and that funding incentives can lead NGOs to become apolitical and focus on service delivery. It also states NGOs can delegitimize the state and thereby sustain poverty and inequality.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the author explain differences in NGO and civil society performance across places?\",\"answer\":\"The paper emphasizes local specificity: NGOs are embedded in diverse webs of civil society relationships and face different political and social conditions. It notes that conflict or post-conflict contexts can raise risks for civil society representatives, making outcomes highly dependent on local context.\"}]","NGOs, Civil Society, and Development: Is There a Third Way? | PDF",1792090893]