3. Conclusion

PRSP conditionality is rooted in the idea that strong civil socie-
ties will push democratic and development processes forward in a pro-poor
direction. Participation is thought crucial because it is supposed to increase
the strength of civil society, enhance political performance and accountabil-
ity, broaden ownership and enhance effectiveness of the poverty reduction
strategies.

Of course donors are right to be worried about the effectiveness of the
aid they give. They have the right to ask for guarantees, and they are right
to identify governance, in the political sense of the word, as a major im-
pediment to development²⁶. They are also right that accountability, through
the ballot box, but also in a myriad of other ways that require a strong civil
society, is necessary to boost governance. In this sense, they have come a
long way in their macro-conditionalities: from purely technical-macroeco-
nomic to institutional and political. Civil society participation is undoubt-
edly a good idea, if it comes at the right moment and if administered in the
right proportions. However, the eagerness with which donors have chosen
to tackle part of the governance problems through civil society participation
leaves little or no space for the ideas put forward by scholars like Leftwich
and Huntington. Leftwich (2000:17) and Huntington (1968) caution about
strong civil societies. Both seem to agree that the strengthening of political
institutions and socio-economic restructuring should precede the involve-
ment of civil society groups. Leftwich (2000:163) goes so far as to argue
that the weakening of civil society, rather than its strengthening, may be the
necessary condition for the emergence and consolidation of democracy and
development. The direction of causality between democracy and develop-
ment and the function of civil society in this relationship remain controver-
sial issues in political science, but donors do not have such hesitations. It is
also not clear how a ‘strong civil society’ in a development context must be
understood. Are lots of organizations and associations the indicator of strong
civil societies? But what does this say about society at large? That it is
organized, active, participative and committed to these civil society organi-
zations and their points of view? The recent boom in organizations and asso-
ciations in third world countries is not unrelated to the international funding
opportunities the donor community has made available. A lot of civil society
organizations (especially NGOs) are donor-bred and fed, hence the strength
of organized civil society may be to some extent artificial and not related to
what lives amongst the people. As such, civil society organizations might be
as far away from the people as the political institutions. And to the extent
that organized civil society is the emanation of endogenous associational
forces, civil society may still be part of the problem, rather than the solution.
Recent literature points to the facts that clientelism and patronage are not
necessarily confined to the political space. Civil society might well produce
and reproduce these uncivic mechanisms (Vilas 1996; Howell & Pearce
2000:77; Woolcock 1998; Putnam 1993). So, although some external support
(financial, moral, technical assistance, political) to civil society organiza-

28 • IDPM-UA Discussion Paper 2002-05

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