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NGOs and Social Movements. A North/South Divide?

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Summary.
This paper examines those contemporary agencies broadly termed non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) and social movements. Emphasis is placed on political differences in
approach, and the paper poses the question of how such differences coincide with geographical
distinctions between the North and South. Differences in approach are also a product of
different types of analysis and different strategic proposals, although among many NGOs and
social movements there is a broad belief in the need to change the existing global political and
economic order. While some NGOs and social movements will contest policy, others will
contest power—as a result of their differing analysis of phenomena related to globalization.
Such divisions are evident, for example, in the Jubilee 2000 movement, where NGOs focus
largely on specific goals for countries demanding debt forgiveness; the Jubilee South
movement, more tied to social organizations, insisted on the illegitimacy of all debt and
demanded debt cancellation and debt repudiation. In the area of international trade,
distinctions may be identified between the “market access” reformers mostly in the North and
those, primarily in the South, demanding the end of the export-oriented development model. A
key question posed in this paper is whether social movements (mass resistance) can absorb and
reorient NGOs, or whether we are witnessing the “NGO-izaton” of movements and politics.
Many such tensions and coincidences are reflected in the World Social Forum (WSF). The paper
discusses the politics of the WSF and examines the debate around its future. Attention is given
to the educational dimension of the WSF’s processes, as well as to the challenge it poses to
existing political cultures and models. The paper points to the WSF’s rejection of politics
organized exclusively around the nation-state, while at the same time leading actors in the
forum continue to place considerable importance on the same notion of the state. NGOs and
social movements are also examined in relation to the broader challenge of transforming WSF
spaces into a broad movement linking actual situations of resistance all over the world to WSF
processes. Will the WSF become more than a simple space or “supermarket of ideas”, able to
articulate new modes of action and alliances capable of confronting the global power structure?
The paper seeks to transcend the ritual denunciations of neoliberalism and, in so doing, it
argues that the WSF is contributing to a growing awareness of a new movement, or movement
of movements, and also that it is contributing to the effort to move beyond fragmented local
struggles, as well as beyond simple and often simplistic negations of neoliberalism in its
economic, military and sociocultural dimensions.

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Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

Civil Society and Social Movements Programme

No. Panggil

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Penerbit

Geneva : United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD)., 2006

Deskripsi Fisik

Civil Society and Social Movements Programme Paper Number 22 June 2006

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

10208178

Klasifikasi

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Tipe Isi

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Tipe Media

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Tipe Pembawa

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Edisi

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Subjek

ILMU SOSIAL

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

agus

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