The NGOization of Civil Society in Sierra Leone—A Thin Dividing Line between Empowerment and Disempowerment

Abstract

In the contemporary literature on “civil society”, the concept is usually used in a nonproblematized way, making it equivalent with thenongovernmental organization (NGO) sector and taking for granted the implicit assumption that NGOs by definition stand for the public good. This chapter intends to challenge this position, by examining the workings of the NGO sector in postwar Sierra Leone under the conditions of Project Society, looking at civil society as a broader field of social practices capable of producing and preserving social capital. The argument is developed in two symmetrical sections. The first one describes how NGOization has been realized in Sierra Leone and how it brought about Project Society. It describes Project Society as the dysfunctional outcome of NGOization—a process of formalization and bureaucratization of organizations as a means of their control, rather than a simple form of redistribution based on a particular structure connecting social actors in a special way. The second section shows an array of more or less structured social practices, as well as types of informal and formal voluntary organizations embedded in local social history, demonstrating a remarkable democratic potential, thus filling the role of civil society. The comparison does not intend to suggest that “traditional” institutions are necessarily more democratic or more “civil” than “modern” ones. Rather, it points to the hybrid and syncretic character of contemporary Sierra Leonean civil society—including civil society organizations (CSOs) and local NGOs—calling attention to its double nature, oscillating between the possibilities of sclerosis and of emancipation.

1. This chapter is based on field research undertaken between 2009 and 2011. Its statements, therefore, have to be regarded as observations documenting the recent past. In accordance with the partial conclusions of the text, Project Society is in full transformation in Sierra Leone. NGOs’ importance in the national economy is decreasing and projects cede the place to a more aggressive neoliberal type of capitalist development, under increasing state control.

2. This research was supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation, as well as by the European Union and the State of Hungary, co-financed by theEuropean Social Fund in the framework of TÁMOP-4.2.4.A/2-11/1-2012-0001 ‘National Excellence Program’.