DISAPPOINTMENT RECONSIDERED:
CIVIL SOCIETY’S EFFORTS FOR BETTER GOVERNANCE
by James Manor
Many people in many countries who have worked in civic associations for better governance have been sorely disappointed with the results. The same can be said of some who study these efforts, and of some in international agencies that support them.
This sense of disappointment is justified and even helpful, up to a point – infosar as it inspires realism within civil society. But if it runs to excess, it can do serious damage – undermining morale and further work to promote open, responsive governance. So it needs to be examined carefully.
On close inspection, many of these feelings of disappointment turn out to be exaggerated. If we use realistic yardsticks to gauge civil society’s potential, then things look less gloomy. And if we look in detail at what has actually been achieved, we often find that civic associations have made more headway than many people recognise – often in unexpected ways, as by-products of their campaigns.
Why Such Disappointment?
At the core of much of the disappointment, especially in less developed countries, is the discovery that efforts to promote better governance have fallen far short of political transformation.
Civic associations often achieve only modest changes in government policies and practices. Or changes only occur on a narrow front – within one government department, on a single issue, or in one part of a country. Sometimes gains are only temporary. Governments adopt changes only for a time to ease popular pressure, and then revert to their bad habits. Often the diverse coalitions that develop within civil society to address a burning issue disintegrate once a government makes minor concessions.
These problems are often pernicious, but if we adjust our perceptions a little, we can find reasons for guarded optimism.
Realistic Yardsticks
Many campaigns for better governance are inspired by the extraordinary transformations that civil society has helped to produce in a few countries. The astonishing success of Solidarity in Communist Poland galvanized civic associations across the world to press for more open, accountable and responsive government. So did the success of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, and the more recent transformations in places like Nigeria and Slovakia – in which civil society always loomed large.
When civic activists in many other countries compare their more modest achievements with these dramatic triumphs, they often feel like failures. But they are using inappropriate yardsticks to measure their achievements. They need to recognise that thoroughgoing transformations are extreme rarities in politics -- and that in many cases, it is incremental change and not transformation that is needed.
The surprising thing about the last twenty years is not how few political transformations occurred, but how many. In any comparable period since 1945, far fewer closed political systems were thrown open than in this recent period. To expect a lot more such rarities to occur anytime soon is thus unrealistic.
The more gradual changes that have recently occurred in many countries should be seen not as surprising and disappointing, but as normal. We should expect them, not be too disappointed, and try to build on them.
It is also true that most of the governments that civic associations encounter around the world are not as oppressive as those which yielded to breathtaking transformations. They may be overcentralized, complacent, corrupt, domineering, or largely incapable. But with some vile exceptions, they are usually less ghastly than nightmares like Abacha’s Nigeria or apartheid South Africa.
They usually offer at least modest openings for civil society. Most of these governments now face pressures from development agencies and international civil society to become more responsive. And these regimes are not monolithic. At least some powerful people within them see sense in more open government, and know that similar governments elsewhere have benefited -- politically and developmentally – from openings.
Even when civil society organisations find themselves confronted by seriously vile regimes, they need to remember that transformations elsewhere did not happen overnight. Solidarity in Poland suffered many years of repression before it succeeded. The anti-apartheid struggle took far longer. In Slovakia, even the collapse of the Soviet Union did not bring a swift end to autocracy – nearly a decade of toil by civil society was needed before a more open regime could come to power. In all of these cases, activists had to live with small, incremental advances and plenty of reversals before transformations could occur.
If we measure small advances not against hopes for dramatic changes in governments, but against the more depressing situations that existed before the advances were made, it will be easier to maintain morale.
Recognising the Value of Incremental Gains
When small advances are achieved by civil society they usually have greater value than a cursory glance would indicate. These gains occur both within governments and within civil society.
Even small changes acquaint people in governments with the business of making accommodations. When they experience this for the first time, as is often true, it prepares them psychologically for similar actions in the future – an important gain. Such things usually occur because powerful people in government who favour more openness have joined forces with others like them. The links that they establish tend to persist beyond any single episode, and make further change more likely. And even if changes are short-lived, there are almost always some people in government who discover value in them. That increases the number of advocates for change within regimes.
Most of these gains are often largely invisible to activists in civil society, but they almost always happen. This should be recognised, since it will ease activists’ disappointment at modest advances.
Within civil society, even modest successes in campaigns for better governance produce lasting benefits. Activists in civic associations acquire new skills, and better understandings of how governments operate and of what will work in encounters with them. They gain in self-esteem and self-confidence. The organisational strength within individual associations usually increases, no matter what the outcomes of campaigns. And even when links between different civic associations do not survive the end of a campaign in which they joined forces, the contacts and shared experiences make it easier to revive them on future occasions.
Even disappointments have their uses. When governments refuse to give much ground, or when they fail to deliver on promises, frustrations are felt not just in civil society but among the wider population. This prepares the ground for further, often more potent campaigns for change.
Finally, there is plenty of evidence that civic and self-help organisations can achieve remarkable things in systems that are a long way from outright transformations. This was true even before the late 1980s when in many countries such organisations emerged in strength.[1] It is far truer today.
[1] See for example, A.O. Hirschman, Getting Ahead Collectively: Grassroots Experiences in Latin America (Pergamon Press, New York, 1984) especially chapter six.