The Politics of NGOs in Indonesia

Developing Democracy and Managing a Movement

Bob S. Hadiwinata

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• Topic: Economics
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134484430
• Subtopic: International Economics
• Index: Economics

This book deals with two major issues: how Indonesian NGOs survived under Suharto's authoritarian rule; and how NGOs contributed to the promotion of democracy in the post-Suharto era. If NGOs are to change from 'development' to 'movement' in democratic post-Suharto Indonesia, they must adjust not only their management and working style, but also their very ideology. This comprehensive study will be an important book for scholars interested in Asian studies, Indonesian politics and development studies.

1 Introduction

Background

The past two decades have seen a substantial increase in the number, size and scope of the non-governmental organisations (NGOs). These organisations have established themselves in pivotal positions in the social, economic and political landscapes across the globe. In Southeast Asia, as in much of the rest of the developing world, NGOs have proliferated since the early 1980s. In Thailand, in the early 1990s it was estimated that there were 10,000 NGOs, indicating a 250 per cent increase from around 4,000 in the early 1980s (Farrington et al. 1993b: 277). In Malaysia, 14,000 similar organisations were registered under the 1966 Societies Act in the early 1990s (Clarke 1998: 26). In Singapore, the number of registered charities and social organisations grew from 656 in 1988 to 4,562 in 1994 (Clarke 1998: 26). In the Philippines, between 1985 and 1995, the number of NGOs increased by 260 per cent from an estimated 27,100 to 70,200 (Clarke 1998: 93). In Indonesia, while there is no accurate data on the exact number of NGOs, it is believed that the number of NGOs has grown significantly from 10,000 in 1996 to around 70,000 in 2000 (BPS 2000: 34).

Commentators argue that the rise of NGOs is an indication of a substantial break from the conventional wisdom that social development is primarily the responsibility of the state and the market (Clark 1991: 43–5; Hulme 1994: 253; De Janvry et al. 1995: 4; Edwards and Hulme 1997: 3–5). Falling living standards in many parts of the developing world have raised attention on immediate survival and on the alternative possibilities which NGOs can offer when the state and the market are no longer able to deliver services efficiently (de Janvry et al. 1995: 1). Many NGOs are formed as a manifestation of people’s dissatisfaction with the failure of both the state and the market to deliver welfare, public goods and jobs. Disenchanted with the state’s limited capacity to provide public services, people begin to turn their attention to agencies outside the state which are expected to provide substitutes for the state’s welfare programmes, to help the poor overcome the strains of daily economic activities, and to help them generate self-help initiatives (Hudson 1995: 292; Salamon and Anheier 1996: 2). NGOs also grow as a result of what Hansmann (1994: 21) termed a ‘market failure’, a situation in which consumers are in a poor position to judge the goods and services they are receiving. NGOs, in this context, are formed to ensure confidence that goods and services are supplied and distributed efficiently and have a high quality.

When one talks about the growing significance of NGOs, one should be able to locate where exactly NGOs settle themselves in the general context of social organisations. In modern societies, there are three clusters of organisations that carry distinct purposes. The first cluster belongs to the so-called ‘first sector’ whose purpose is to protect, secure and regulate the lives and activities of citizens. The state agencies whose main duties are, among others, to ensure citizens exercise their rights and obligations, to provide services to the people and to supply basic social securities, and these are some of the examples of this sector (Fowler 1997: 21; Turner and Hulme 1997: 52–3). The ‘second sector’ consists of the private realm whose major purpose is to make a livelihood, create and accumulate wealth. This sector includes private market-oriented agencies, namely, the business and industrial establishments (De Janvry et al. 1995: 8–9; Hudson 1995: 34; Fowler 1997: 22). The ‘third sector’ refers to the private realm whose main purpose is to pursue individual interests or tackle personal or social concerns collectively such as spiritual, social, recreational, and cultural issues (Billis 1993: 158–9; Hudson 1995: 33–4; Fowler 1997: 22). NGOs belong to this sector. As ‘third sector’ organisations, NGOs are not subject to direct political control from the political elite and are not meant to distribute profits to those who run them (Hudson 1995: 27–9). Operating outside both the state and the market, NGOs are supposed to have a certain degree of independence to determine their own policies and strategies.¹

The argument

Current studies on NGOs have been infused with either optimism or pessimism with regard to NGOs’ ability to encourage grassroots initiatives, to carry the ‘voices of the voiceless’, and to induce social and political transformations. The optimist school of thought suggests that NGOs have demonstrated the capacity to design and implement development programmes, using innovative approaches and by-passing long bureaucratic procedures, enabling them to reach the poorest members of society (Aubrey 1997: 25). Some have argued that NGOs are sources of diversity and innovation because they contribute to pluralism by creating centres of influence outside the state and by providing the means through which disenfranchised groups can organise themselves (Clark 1991: 19; Di Maggio and Anheier 1994: 179; Hulme 1994: 261). Others have noted that NGOs have the capacity to make governments more responsive, to get new issues on the public agenda, to provide low-cost services, to raise people’s awareness of their social milieu, to focus on humanitarian issues and even (in extreme cases) to overturn governments (Hodgkinson and Sumariwalla 1992: 490–1; Jorgensen 1996: 39; Trivedy and Acharya 1996: 59; Blair 1997: 29). Fowler (1997) identified four factors that have determined the strength and effectiveness of NGOs: (1) their ability to design an agenda linking vision to action; (2) their ability to achieve goals because of the commitment and determination of their staff members and leaders; (3) their capacity to mobilise necessary resources due to the presence of competent and disciplined cadres; and (4) their flexibility in maintaining relations with governments, donors and target groups.

The pessimist school of thought, on the other hand, comes out of a belief that NGOs are ‘oversold’ since their presumed strength and effectiveness may not materialise in practice (Clark 1991: 63; Aubrey 1997: 26). In the words of Annis (1987), an analyst of NGO performance: ‘… in the face of pervasive poverty, “small scale” can merely mean “insignificant”, “politically independent” can mean “powerless” or “disconnected”, “low cost” can mean “under-financed” or “poor quality”, and “innovative” can mean simply “temporary” or “unsustainable”…’. Streeten (1997: 196) argued that NGOs may describe in their statute the goal of helping the poorest, but in practice they rarely reach this group because they tend to reinforce the rule of the elite circles and put too little effort in ascertaining whether the beneficiaries are really the poorest. A study by Farrington et al. (1993a: 91–100) suggested that the participatory and empowerment rhetoric of NGOs is vulnerable, especially since most NGOs are accountable to donors, not to the beneficiaries of their work. Veltmeyer et al. (1997: 85–6), perhaps the most extreme authors of the pessimist school, argued that NGOs have a negative impact on grassroots initiatives because they tend to fragment the social constituency of popular movements and create a new strata of dependent administrators based on exogenous resources who are in direct competition with the activities of the poor.

These two schools of thought represent the current competing development paradigms with regard to the interpretations of the role of agencies in facilitating grassroots initiatives. Although there is a danger of overstating NGOs’ successes or failures in each of the schools of thought, I believe the two perspectives contain some elements of truth about NGOs’ strengths and weaknesses. The fact that NGOs are formed by concerned individuals, staffed with low-paid but committed individuals, organised on the basis of flexibility, and guided by humanitarian values (justice, equality, democracy, and so on) raises the hope that they must make a difference to the community whom they serve (Hulme 1994: 264). But, it is also important to note that NGOs may face some problems as a result of their limited resources, restricted political space, dilemmas in management, pressures from the political environment, and so on.

This study attempts to examine the ‘politics’ of NGOs in Indonesia. Although politics has been associated with the study of government and public affairs, nowadays it has come to be understood in a much broader context to include other areas of social life such as gender, race and class (Gamble 1990: 412). Politics can therefore be understood as the exercise of power and authority to influence others that occurs throughout society: from family groups and the voluntary association (clubs, professional associations, social organisations, NGOs, and so forth) to the state (Stoker 1995: 5). In this broader sense, politics, according to Leftwich (1984: 83–4), comprises all the activities of co-operation and conflict, within and between societies, whereby the human species goes about organising the use, production and distribution of human, natural and other resources in the course of the production and reproduction of its social life.

This book is concerned with the question of how NGOs survived under different social and political contexts. During Suharto’s government, when the society suffered from serious political constraints and the powerless were too afraid to challenge the powerful, NGOs were forced to adopt strategies and approaches that conform to the political conditions set out by the state. However, since the mid- 1990s, when Suharto’s political legitimacy was beginning to wane, some NGOs attempted to facilitate grassroots resistance by conducting the pro-democracy campaigns. In the post-Suharto era, the role of NGOs in facilitating the political transition to democracy becomes more significant. Many NGOs conducted activities to facilitate the formation of a strong civil society. This book covers mainly the period between 1990 and 2001 when Indonesian NGOs began to exert influence on the process of grassroots empowerment² and the strengthening of civil society.³ Its main purpose is to examine how complex sets of relationships among various kinds of associations, the state agencies, communities and individuals have had an impact on a specific area at a specific time and how NGOs respond to particular social and political contexts in order to ensure their survival. This raises the following questions: How do NGOs adjust to specific circumstances? How do NGOs contribute to the promotion of democracy? How do NGOs sustain their operation in different political situations? And what is the impact of particular social and political contexts on NGO activities?

Defining NGOs

Many have attempted to classify and define non-governmental organisations, though to nobody’s great satisfaction. Some observers loosely group NGOs under an assortment of headings such as ‘voluntary organisations’, ‘non-profit organisations’, or ‘intermediary organisations’ carrying out various social activities. But this grouping seems to cover too much. It can include hundreds of types of organisations within the society ranging from political action committees to sports clubs. Applying these terms as a general nomenclature for NGOs will force someone to put an international charity organisation such as Oxfam and an exclusive sports club into a single category, since both of them are created voluntarily, carry out non-profit social activities and sometimes play intermediary roles. Such umbrella terms also fail to make a substantial differentiation between political groups demanding the overturn of authoritarian regimes and local neighbourhood associations providing support for the elderly, women, children and the disabled.

Some other observers try to solve this problem by refining the concept of NGOs through the introduction of various specific terms. Carroll (1992), for example, introduced the term ‘grassroots support organisations’ (GSOs) — namely a civic developmental entity which provides services and support to local groups of disadvantaged rural, or urban, households and serves as an intermediary institution in establishing links between the local people and governments, donors and international financial institutions — which can be differentiated from ‘membership support organisations’ (MSOs). While MSOs represent (and are accountable to) their base membership, GSOs have no members (Carroll 1992: 11). Both GSOs and MSOs, according to Carroll, can be distinguished from ‘primary grassroots organisations’ (PGOs) by scope, level of complexity and function. A PGO, he argued, is the smallest aggregation of individuals or households that are regularly involved in joint development activities, while GSOs and MSOs tend to serve, represent and co-operate with one or more PGOs in various development activities (Carroll 1992: 11).

Carroll’s attempt to diversify NGOs into several groups does not seem to reduce the complicated nature of NGOs. While one can accept the differentiation between GSOs/MSOs and PGOs, many would equate GSOs with MSOs without further explanation because the two organisations often operate under the same philosophy of self-help and the same organisational framework. The differences between these two types of organisations are in fact subject to local variations. In some societies, especially in Latin America and the Philippines, one can see a clear distinction between GSOs and MSOs; but in other parts of the world, people tend to see them as overlapping organisations working under the same pri...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Rethinking Southeast Asia
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations and acronyms
• 1 Introduction
• 2 NGOs, community development and social movements
• 3 The social and political settings
• 4 NGOs in Indonesia: strategies and approaches
• 5 Development, empowerment and professionalism: the case of development NGOs
• 6 Building constituencies and institutionalising a movement: the case of women's NGOs
• 7 Developing democracy through a local network: the case of the Yogyakarta NGO Forum
• 8 Conclusion
• Glossary
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index