By Anna Ohanyan, Ph.D, Richard B. Finnegan Distinguished Professor of Political Science and International Relations, Stonehill College, Massachusetts, USA
The year 2016 produced Brexit and a rise of populism in electoral processes in both sides of the Atlantic. Exclusionary public discourse and backlash against cosmopolitanism and humanitarian values has been an associated trend of these developments. The 2016 may go down in history as a year that was momentous and watershed, yet it was simply a consequence of forces that were at work few decades prior. This was a year that tested democracies, old and new, large and small. This was a year that tested institutions, local and global. With “America first” policy positions presented by Trump administration, the very global order that the US has built with Europe in the post-WW2 period, is challenged. While many analysts had long expected a backlash against America-led liberal rules-based order to come from rising powers and alternative models of economic development, the election of President Trump and “America first” policy positions he espouses, added a new mechanism of its challenge: self-sabotage from within.[1] How global and liberal was that order? How much order was there?
In the years to come, we will all find out. Some analysts are predicting global fragmentation, others arguing that the rise of a “multiplex” world that will emerge, will not be so bad (Acharya 2014). John Ikenberry has maintained[2] that the liberal world order is a victim of its own success. Built around open trade, multilateralism, alliances, democratic solidarity and human rights, the liberal hegemonic order benefitted many countries and rising powers, who are now asking for a better seat at the table. They, the argument goes, are calling for more voice and representation, rather than the total destruction of a system that contributed to their rise.
In the years to come, whether the liberal rules-based world order developed and sustained by American hegemony will survive, and the shape it will take if it does, will be significant for the future of NGO sector. Associated democratic declines around the world will play a key role in shaping public participation and public access to governmental decision-making, of which NGOs are central instruments.
Indeed, these developments at the global stage present sets of opportunities and challenges for global civil society. For a more granular analysis of NGO role in world politics the following delineation of their specific functions will be helpful: (1) NGOs as an idea, a normative frame for how life should be; (2) an organizational form, characterized by institutional infrastructure; and (3) a mechanism of collective action.
First, as an idea, a voluntary form of collective organizing, NGOs predate the contemporary system of global governance. Most analysists will credit the end of the WW2 as the beginning of the modern structures of liberal world order, centered around the Bretton Woods institutions, and NGOs are often viewed as organizational extensions to that system. However, we often forget that NGOs as an idea as well as a method of collective organizing, predate the Bretton Woods system as well as the League of Nations. For instance, the incredible role that American missionaries played in alleviating the human suffering during the Armenian genocide in the twilight years of the Ottoman Empire, is a historical episode important for understanding the contemporary infrastructure of humanitarian NGOs. At this historical juncture, various civic groups from the United States have mobilized to deliver aid to the Armenian communities while there was no solid infrastructure at the global level to sustain such roles (Balakian 2004; Watenpaugh 2015). Similar and early examples of private organizing on a global scale can be found from all over the world, when individuals came together in groups and association to tackle a complex problem ignored by formal structures of governance.
Second, as an organizational form, NGOs will face significant constraints in terms of funding and organizational support. Up to this point, the civil society and the NGO sector in particular, played crucial roles in sustaining the institutional basis and the ideational appeal of liberalism and openness around the world. Service-sector NGOs in particular, extended the administrative reach of major international organizations, and connected them into the target communities in meaningful ways. Advocacy NGOs have been key mechanisms for implementation of human rights treaties around the world. At the same time, NGOs also faced criticisms for producing band aid solutions to structural problems of poverty and economic inequality inside and between states. Viewed as extensions of global international organizations that sustain the rules-based world order, NGOs have been embraced and challenged from Global North as well as the Global South.
Their organizational challenge is one that is tied with the prospects of global governance and rules based world order. If the current political climate for protectionism and inward-oriented politics in Western democracies persists, the global NGO sector will need to reinvent and discover new forms of engagement. The gap in governance in the developing world are great, whether in economic or political terms. The role for global NGOs is as pressing as ever.
Third, NGOs as a mechanisms of collective action, is one area that may see resurgence in the developing world, particularly as the Western democracies retrench their support for globalization of liberalism. The trend in the growth of local NGOs in the developing world is real, and exciting. The investments in the post-Cold War era in the civil society in the developing world, particularly in post-Communist Eurasia, may start to show some significant results. To this end, however, public support for the NGO sector as well as favorable tax reform to encourage philanthropic giving are necessary conditions. The concern here is with authoritarian resurgence, at least in the short term, which may be a serious push against progress of NGO sector inside states.
Technology and civic citizenship in the digital age have shown to mobilize people around the world, albeit studies on their sustained effects for civic engagement are mixed. Undermining and challenging the NGO sector by governmental authorities, best evidenced in Russia, will create conditions for higher levels of public protests in the streets – quite tangible in the digital age. The contemporary authoritarianism will soon learn the benefits of strong civil society as sustainable vehicles of social change, and buffers against revolutionary uprisings. Ironically, in many post-Soviet capitals, the NGOs, often incorrectly, are equated with street protests and revolutionary change. Regardless where one stands on these issues, NGOs remain indispensable if a rules based order, global or regional, to persist and develop.
[1] John Ikenberry made this point during the International Studies Association conference in February 2017, in Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
The article was published on the website of The Analyticon magazine.
Read the article in Armenian.
