Can service providing NGOs build democracy? Five contingent features
| Published date | 01 February 2023 |
| Author | Catherine E. Herrold,Khaldoun AbouAssi |
| Date | 01 February 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.1985 |
Received: 15 December 2021
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Revised: 13 February 2022
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Accepted: 17 May 2022
DOI: 10.1002/pad.1985
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Can service providing NGOs build democracy? Five
contingent features
Catherine E. Herrold
1
|Khaldoun AbouAssi
2
1
Department of Public Administration and
International Affairs, Maxwell School of
Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse
University, Syracuse, New York, USA
2
Department of Public Administration and
Policy, School of Public Affairs, American
University, Washington, District of Columbia,
USA
Correspondence
Khaldoun AbouAssi, Department of Public
Administration and Policy, School of Public
Affairs, American University, Washington, DC,
20016‐8070, USA.
Email: abouassi@american.edu
Funding information
Palestinian American Research Center, Grant/
Award Number: Research Fellowship; RGK
Center, The University of Texas at Austin,
Grant/Award Number: RGK ARNOVA
President's Award
Abstract
This article studies the role of service providing NGOs in the Middle East in pro-
moting democracy. Challenging the assumption that service providing NGOs are
apolitical, the authors argue that service providing NGOs play important roles in
promoting democracy. They do so by serving as public arenas, or spaces in which
members and beneficiaries practice democratic habits such as discussion and
debate, collective problem solving, free expression, rights claiming, and the like—all
of which contribute to the cultivation of a participatory form of democracy. Drawing
upon existing literature, interviews, and participant observation of NGOs in Egypt,
Lebanon, and Palestine, the authors argue that five features shape the role of
service providing NGOs in promoting democracy. These include: (1) organizational
readiness, or the organization's embeddedness in its beneficiary community and its
organizational capacity; (2) organizational governance, or organization's commit-
ment to participatory representation and transparency; (3) the nature of service an
organization provides; (4) an NGOs' collaboration with other NGOs and the gov-
ernment; and (5) donor risk tolerance. The article's analysis contributes to our
understanding of the varied, and often overlooked, roles of service providing NGOs,
advancing the literature on NGO‐state relations, NGO‐donor relations, and de-
mocracy promotion.
KEYWORDS
civil society, democracy promotion, Middle East, NGOs
1
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INTRODUCTION
“The role of NGOs in the politics of development is far more complex
than that proposed by the liberal democratic view, and concomi-
tantly, by those donors bent on funding NGOs in order to build a
strong civil society” (Mercer, 2002, p. 19). In making this argument,
Mercer (2002) suggests that much of the literature on civil society
adopts a normative approach to NGOs' roles in democracy building
that overlooks the diversity and complexity of the NGO sector—and
thus fails to appreciate the varied and nuanced effects NGOs may
have on democratization. Instead of tending to this nuance, much of
the literature portrays a bifurcated NGO sphere. On one side, service
providing NGOs are seen as addressing important daily needs and
development priorities but are not considered to have a role in
democratic political reform. Some scholars have argued that service
providing NGOs in fact help to entrench authoritarianism
(Albrecht, 2005; Teets, 2014). On the other side, advocacy, or human
rights, NGOs are thought to be beacons of democracy building
(Gotchev, 1998; Morayef, 2016). Much fewer in number than service
providing NGOs, they are seen as being the hardscrabble warriors for
democracy as they call out government corruption and campaign for
human rights protections.
In this article, we challenge these prevailing notions of the roles
of service providing NGOs in building democracy. By synthesizing the
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Public Admin Dev. 2023;43:80–91.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pad© 2022 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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