Is the iron law of oligarchy rusting away in the Third World?

World Development, Vol. 22, No. 2, 129-143, 1994 pp. Copyright 0 1994 Elsevier Science Ltd

Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved 0305-750X/94 $6.00 + 0.00

Is the Iron Law of Oligarchy

Rusting Away in the Third World?

JULIE FISHER* Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut

Summary. - This article reexamines Robert Michels’s iron law of oligarchy in relation to the proliferation of indigenous nongovemment organizations (NGOs) in the Third World in recent years. It explores the characteristics of grassroots organizations (GROs), horizontal networks between GROs, grassroots support organisations (GRSOs) and horizontal GRSO networks that reinforce democratic rather than oligarchic tendencies. Next it examines the vertical relationships between GROs and GRSOs that mitigate against interorganizational oligarchy. The article concludes that horizontal and vertical ties between NGOs reinforce the democratic characteristics of individual NGOs. The iron law, in other words, is not inevitable. This conclusion also has implications for international aid policies.

“Nothing grows from the top down.” Atherton Martin

1. INTRODUCTION

Robert Michels first defined the “iron law of oligarchy” in 1915. Since that time, social scientists have generally supported the notion that membership organizations sooner or later evolve from democratic to oligarchic control1 Oligarchy within a particular organization may be created either by established elites within the wider community or by one or more members (not necessarily community elites) who assume control at the expense of other members. Although organizational oligarchy may or may not be linked to financial corruption, corruption is usually an indicator of oligarchy.

In this paper I propose to reexamine the iron law of oligarchy by using new evidence from the growing nongovernmental movement in the Third World. This movement has been fueled by increases in the accessibility and supply of foreign assistance (voluntary as well as official), and by escalating demands for attention to human needs.

During the last two decades, two types of remark- ably similar nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have proliferated in Asia, Africa, and Latin America despite cultural and historical differences. Grassroots organizations (GROs) are locally based membership groups that work to improve and develop their own communities. Although many have been promoted and stimulated by outsiders, GROs have also become more active on their own. Faced with the deteriora- tion of their environment and increasing impoverish- ment, both traditional and newly created GROs are developing horizontal networks among themselves, usually based on geographical proximity.

Grassroots support organizations (GRSOs), the second type of NGO, are intermediary organizations that work with and channel financial support to GROs. More than 30,000 indigenous GRSOs work with GROs in fields as diverse as enterprise development, health, women’s rights, population, and environment.2 GRSOs are usually staffed by paid professionals, although they may also use middle-class volunteers. Unlike GROs, which may make profits, GRSOs are nonprofit, although some are developing for-profit support activities. In contrast to GROs, which grew from traditional organizational roots, GRSOs began to emerge in the late 1960s with the increased availability of foreign assistance. GRSOs, like GROs, are developing horizontal networks among themselves.

Some GRSOs, especially those created by women, are membership organizations, but a majori- ty are not.3 Although discussions of the iron law of oligarchy usually pertain to membership organizations, nonmembership organizations can be oligarchical and interorganizational relationships between grassroots membership groups and voluntary service organizations can be based on or evolve toward increasing domination.

*A portion of this paper was presented at the ARNOVA (Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action) Conference at Yale University in October 1992. An earlier version was published as Working Paper No. 189 of the Program on Non-Profit Organizations (PONPO) of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies, Yale University. I would like to thank Carl Milofsky of Bucknell University for early inspiration. Three PONPO colleagues, Brad Gray, Rikki Abzug, and David Bronkema, contributed important insights to the final draft. Final revision accepted: September 7, 1993.

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130 WORLD DEVELOPMENT

GROs, GRSOs and their networks, like the poverty, environment and population crises that engendered them, are having a real impact. In 1985, the Club of Rome estimated that “Southern NGOs” may involve as many as 60 million people in Asia, 25 million in Latin America, and 12 million in Africa.4 Since then, the environmental movement has grown rapidly and become involved in sustainable development, networking has accelerated, and more traditional voluntary organizations are under- taking grassroots support activities.

Is the remarkable promise of this organizational revolution likely to degenerate into self-serving behavior by the few at the expense of the many? What follows cannot fully answer the question posed in the title. Indeed, my initial answer to the question is “perhaps” or “maybe.” Although there is consider- able evidence that many, if not most NGOs are self- consciously nonhierarchical in their behavior as well as their rhetoric, the very nature of the iron law of oligarchy is that it asserts itself gradually. Perhaps the real question is not whether people can create an alternative organizational culture, but whether it can be passed on or maintained over an extended period of time. This, in turn, will depend on the relationship between participation and socioeconomic results, a topic covered in Fisher (1993).

Even a preliminary answer to the sustainability question depends on first examining GROs and GRSOs as discrete organizations, and then looking at their relationships with each other. This paper first deals with GROs and then with their horizontal networks. It next focuses on GRSOs and their horizontal linkages with other GRSOs. The vertical ties between GRSOs and GROs are the subject of the final section. My working hypothesis is that there is evidence that horizontal and vertical linkages between NGOs tend to reinforce the generally democratic organizational culture and behavior of GROs and GRSOs, and thus fend off the iron law of oligarchy. This hypothesis recapitulates, at the interorganizational level, Lipset, Coleman and Trow’s ( 1962) argument that multiple communication chan- nels within a labor union reinforced democratic decision making.

2. GRASSROOTS ORGANIZATIONS (GROs)

GROs can be roughly classified as multipurpose local development associations (LDAs), interest association (IAs) such as women’s groups or water users’ groups, and cooperatives (including precooperatives such as informal work groups or rotating credit associations).5 Although thousands of new GROs such as women’s organizations have entered the scene in the Third World, traditional organizations have also “hybridized, blended and built out-

ward . there has been reorganization rather than organization at the grassroots.“6 Traditional village councils, for example, are increasingly involved in development; water users’ associations are linking up with international donors; and rotating credit societies are assuming some of the functions of savings and credit cooperatives.

One might expect that older organizations with traditional roots would be more likely than newer GROs to be dominated by local elites. Pastoralist societies, however, often have strong nonhierarchical traditions, based on communal pasture ownership, and water users’ associations range from oligarchical to democratic. Uphoff (1986, p. 33) found that local institutions in communities where traditional norms still predomi- nated were capable of managing natural resources equitably and successfully. Stories of development assistance benefiting only the few frequently originat- ed from villages where no local organization existed before a project began, or where the existing organization was by-passed by outside donors.

Even GROs with ties to government may not always be controlled through local elites. Despite many other problems, the government-sponsored Swanirvar GROs in Bangladesh provided a forum for the disadvantaged to organize.’ Esman and Uphoff’s (1984, pp. 155, 166) broad literature search revealed that no locally established organization had become totally dominated or “spoiled’ by government connections.

Local cooperatives, however, are more likely than interest associations, local development associations, or even precooperatives to have been organized by governments and to become vehicles for local elite domination as well as government patronage.8 Whether cooperatives were originally organized by governments or other outsiders, they frequently exclude poor or landless farmers and even landed women. In Bangladesh, for example, Karim (1985-86) found that wealthier farmers inevitably dominate cooperatives if allowed to join. Unlike LDAs and IAs, cooperative structures were imported into the Third World, and this may be one reason why they are more likely to favor community elites. Uphoff (1986, p. 130) traces corruption in the Kenyan cooperatives to the imposition of foreign structures.

The mixed evidence on traditional and government-sponsored GROs also supports the notion that oligarchy may be reversible. People whose survival is at stake sometimes gain experience from the failure of elite control. The success of cooperatives promoted by the Comila Project in Bangladesh depend- ed on the farmers’ knowledge gained from the failure of elite-dominated cooperatives. The farmers working with the Chilalo project in Ethiopia, in contrast, had no past cooperative experience, and evidence of community development or use of agricul- tural extension was “almost non-existent.“9

IRON LAW OF OLIGARCHY 131

Instead of assuming that organizations are frozen into elite dominance, Moore (1966, p. 338), in his discussion of Western feudalism, argued that intermediate structures often precede democratic functions. This also implies, however, that outsiders should be careful about automatically ascribing positive values such as participatory democracy to local groups at any given moment in time.

New types of GROs, organized in response to worsening poverty, tend to be more consistently egalitarian than traditional or government-sponsored organizations, however. In Africa, for example, thousands of GROs were organized in response to the droughts of 1973 and 1985. The village of Zom in Senegal was nothing but bare rock in 1984. Thirty centimeters of topsoil were added over three years, and rice was planted on village lands. After visiting Zom, Pradervand (1988, p. 7) remarked that “Never, having spent eleven years in Africa, had I encoun- tered such determination.” This daily struggle for survival insures that this is not just an elite phenomenon. Schneider (1985, p. 168), who spent two years visiting 19 countries, attributes this “astounding apti- tude for adaptation” to the activism of followers as well as leaders.

The relative socioeconomic equality of poor urban neighborhoods often helps LDAs avoid elite domination. Squatter neighborhood associations in Latin America, for example, are far more active in self-help and lobbying for neighborhood assistance than in promoting the fortunes of individuals.lO Among interest associations, socioeconomic equality within an organization has the same effect, although many are organized in response to inequalities in the larger community. Even very large women’s organizations are often socioeconomically homogeneous. The 800 communal kitchens in Lima, for example, involve 16,000 low-income women in preparing meals for 80,000 of their family members, friends and neighb0rs.i’

Community-wide inequalities can also lead to the creation of GROs that challenge or replace existing local development associations (LDAs). In Senegal, the Associations Villegeoises de Developpement coexist with official LDAs controlled by local elites.i2 Landless groups promoted by GRSOs have become the central village organization in Bangladesh and parts of India. In Mali and Kenya, women’s interest associations (IAs) have evolved into multipurpose LDAs.

The double inequity faced by women who live in poverty is perhaps the most powerful force behind the recent proliferation of GROs. In rural Brazil the growth of the women’s movement has been “explo- sive,” according to Duming (1989a, p. 28). In Kenya there were over 16,000 women’s GROs by 1987.13

Rather than being coopted by dominant males, the success and spread of women’s organizations

seem to be exerting a centripetal pull on men in some communities. Women’s dairy coops in Andhra Pradesh and Bihar are accepting more milk from male dairy farmers as the perception grows that women’s coops are more egalitarian, effective and honest than male-dominated cooperatives. Well- established Mothers’ Clubs in Bolivia are so successful that men are moving to “women’s villages” where women control the land.14

Outsiders who include male farmers with landless women in organizing GROs not only forego these advantages, they also “virtually guarantee that the men will reap the bulk of rewards.“‘j Yet GROs organized by women from below or by outsiders as women’s groups seem able to include men at a later stage without being dominated by them. Mixed groups are less likely to revert to male oligarchy once women have had the chance to strengthen their own autonomy and self-confidence.

Worsening poverty and persistent inequality are compounded by a third powerful force fueling the creation of GROs - destruction of the environment. Yet, in contradiction to Hardin’s (1968) “tragedy of the commons,” GROs that focus on common environmental resources have been proliferating in recent years. Forest protection groups organized by Proshika, a Bangladeshi GRSO, increased from 260 in 1986 to 1,944 as of 1991.16 In addition, Brazilian neighborhood associations are increasingly involved in environmental questions.17

At the same time, equality and mutual support are also tied to individual economic advancement. Large numbers of GRSOs and international NGOs (INGOs) throughout the Third World are supporting revolving loan funds administered through locally established precooperatives or borrowers’ groups. Because borrowers’ groups are small (usually less than lo), each member can guarantee and support the individual contributions of the other members, and corruption becomes difficult.

While outsiders wrestle with the dilemma of involving elites without allowing them to exclude others, GROs sometimes find their own ways to deal with inequality. Water users’ associations in the Philippines, for example, have evolved a system in which the communal land from which the association officials earn income is located downstream. This provides an incentive for the leadership to insure that wealthier upstream farmers do not monopolize irrigation water. It also promotes main- tenance and conservation.i8

Despite all the possible factors affecting the internal equality, performance, and sustainability of GROs, the differences between communities with and without functioning GROs are probably far greater than the differences among GROs. A World Bank (1988, p. 28) study of 25 projects concluded, that “when such organizations existed, they acted as


enduring structures supporting the project-initiated activities long after project completion.”

3. HORIZONTAL NETWORKS BETWEEN GROs

Although GROs must also deal with issues of power and inequality in their horizontal relationships with each other, GRO networks tend to decentralize power.i9 In addition to regional networks of individual GROs, informal economic networks and more amorphous protest movements develop regional grassroots linkages not based solely on GROs. Although some networks are rooted in traditional lineage systems, new kinds of networks have proliferated rapidly in Asia, Latin America and parts of Africa in recent years. An NGO directory lists 10 in Mexico alone.20

GRO networking is often fueled by a determined blend of idealism and practicality. After a women’s group in a village in Burkina Faso received a small cereal mill from UNICEF, its members decided to pay a small amount each time they used it. The woman in charge of the mill explained that good for- tune should be shared with even poorer people. “The mill that UNICEF has given us is a father-mill: he must make a son to take his place when he is old and weary, and a daughter to give to the neighboring village. Set the price of milling so that these children can be raised.“?’

The barter arrangements that often emerge from networking can widen local markets, give the poor a vested interest in cooperation between villages, by- pass local middlemen, and buy time for microenter- prises to grow stronger before they need to compete in wider markets. Informal economic networks sometimes evolve from traditional economic ties. In Zimbabwe, for example, there are traditional work- based exchanges of seeds and skills between communities.?2 Yet economic interdependency may also emerge after regional federations are organized or during economic emergencies. In Togo the Association of Village Enterprises requires that its members produce not only enough for themselves but a surplus to share with other villages.23

Although the ebb and flow of participation may lead to fluctuation between the poles of democracy and oligarchy, formal cooperative federations, like their member organizations, seem to be more prone to corruption or elite dominance than other types of GRO networks.24 Carroll’s (1992) study of 23 Latin American GRSOs and seven GRO networks found the GRO networks as a group to be less participatory than a sample of GRSOs. Four of the seven networks, however, were cooperative federations, and two were Costa Rican regional service organizations promoted by the government with some cooperative members. The remaining network of small farmer

groups in Chile elects male and female representa- tives to a central board, and successfully involves beneficiaries in assisting member organizations.

Where internally equitable relationships do exist, however, as in one of the cooperative federations studied by Carroll (1992, p. 59) federations may provide greater economic benefits to their member cooperatives than other GRO networks. The El Ceibo federation of 35 cocoa cooperatives in Bolivia operates a small chocolate factory with a staff of 100, grosses $1.5 million per year, and controls more than half of the national harvest. Carroll attributes El Ceibo’s success to a “highly participatory style” of rotating representation on the administrative council, as well as to timely assistance from the Inter- American Foundation. Corrupt or elite-dominated cooperatives can, of course, be maintained through outside subsidy, but are unlikely to provide major economic benefits to their members.

4. GRASSROOTS SUPPORT ORGANIZATIONS (GRSOs)

The proliferation of GRSOs that began in the late 1960s was fueled by two major interacting forces - an increasing supply of foreign assistance and demands by unemployed intellectuals for both political shelter and meaningful work. This worldwide phenomenon has been stronger in Latin America and Asia than in Africa, but its remarkable consistency and appropriateness to the challenge of poverty and the failure of politics as usual further fueled its spread. As young intellectuals occupied the political space left open by ineffective or repressive govemments and weak civil societies, they began to create a new nonpartisan politics, committed to learning from and with people at the grassroots, rather than perpetuating past ideologies.

Indonesian GRSOs, for example, were formed by ex-student activists as an alternative to Marxism. Frustrated at the failure of attempts to overthrow the government in 1974 and 1978, activists began to focus on the need for bottom-up support from peasants and urban workers. Indian activism emerged from a long tradition of charitable and Ghandhian voluntary action, but challenged its welfare delivery approach. Brazilian GRSOs were founded by secular and Catholic leftists who challenged “the authoritarian traditions of relations with popular sectors typical not only of the dominant social sectors but also of the traditional left.“25

The commitment of GRSO activists to share specific knowledge about microenterprise development or resource preservation is almost always coupled to empowerment methodologies such as consciousness raising. Learning from as well as teaching people at the grassroots level is also linked to acceptance of


modest salaries and a commitment to becoming “de- professionalized professionals.“26

Although this philosophical commitment can help lessen the likelihood that GRSO leaders will become a new elite, GRSOs without even the rhetor- ical commitment to empowerment may not necessarily be opportunistic. They may themselves be less self-conscious or empowered. The late Mario Padron, a Peruvian active in the international NGO movement, observed that more than half of the hundreds of Peruvian GRSOs did not distinguish themselves clearly from the GROs with whom they work. 27

Even an explicit and self-conscious democratic ideology is, of course, no guarantee of escaping the iron law of oligarchy, as Koebele (1989) has shown in his comparative study of the Green Party in Germany and the British Social Democratic Party. Moreover, oligarchy may be interorganizational, and therefore tied to the relationship between GROs and GRSOs. Some GRSOs are headed by outright char- latans, who exploit the availability of foreign funding rather than developing supportive relationships with GROs. In Zaire, both a fictitious village group and a GRSO were promoted by a former minister for his own gain. There are also less blatant attempts to promote the fortunes of favored groups. “Planter NGOs” in the Philippine island of Negros help pre- serve an inequitable land tenure system, while extending social welfare measures.** In Latin America, GRSOs have sometimes taken over or diverted for other purposes funds allocated to women’s projects.29

Other GRSOs are honest service providers who sell their technical services to foreign donors or governments in the absence of strong grassroots linkages. A study of 12 Indian GRSOs found only one that was serious about participation.30 Korten (1990, p. 102) distinguishes between “voluntary organizations” and “public service contractors” (both of which may be GRSOs) in terms of their choice between social mission and market share.

By most accounts, however, GRSOs committed to empowerment vastly outnumber corrupt or self- serving organizations, if not service contractors.31 Corruption was “extremely rare” in the 19 country Club of Rome study, and according to Schneider (1985, pp. 188-197) “We found attention to the poor almost everywhere.” Twose (1988, p. 240) charac- terized Latin American GRSOs as ‘extremely effective’ in reaching the poor and in helping communities to rediscover ancient collective work practices. Carroll (1992, pp. 85, 141) argues that Latin American GRSOs have a strong code of ethics, a “pervading sense of mission” and emphasize “trans-

parencia” or open communication. A sample survey of Thai organizations found that 62% gave priority to the least developed areas where they were work-

ing, and most Indian GRSOs focus on neglected areas and socioeconomic groups3* Moen’s intensive (1991, p. 96) study of GRSOs in Tamil Nadu concludes that although challenging local power structures is exceedingly difficult, and GRSOs tend to be hierarchically organized, corruption is not wide- spread.

Given the dependence of most GRSOs on foreign assistance, these common observations run some- what counter to the notion that intermediaries will siphon off funds intended for grassroots development. Korten (1990), for example, argues that many GRSOs face foreign pressure to become contractors. Large official donors have been criticized, particularly in Africa, for linking GROs and GRSOs to manipulation by their own govemments.33

In fact, the behavior of outside donors may either reinforce or undermine internal democracy. International NGOs (INGOs) are usually viewed as more supportive of empowerment and egalitarian relationships between GRSOs and GROs than official donors. Yet some official donors made it possible for GRSOs to emerge in the first place. The Peace Corps, arriving in Latin America in the mid- 196Os, brought protection from political oppression as well as assistance with community development.34 In the Philippines and Indonesia, the US Agency for International Development has funded some independent, creative GRSOs that are organizing thousands of GROs as well as having an impact on environmental policy.35 Perhaps more important than the identity of the donor is whether GRSO organizing and a clear sense of purpose precede donor contacts. The tendency of Latin American GRSO activists to engage in research, writing and reflection has helped them maintain their autonomy and the autonomy of the GROs with whom they work.

GRSOs sponsored by their own governments are probably more likely than those sponsored by international donors to engage in patronage and to favor elite groups.36 Yet even governments are not seam- less webs. In Chiapas, Mexico, a professional membership organization of government doctors is spon- soring community pharmacies, researching indigenous medicine, and planting “medical gardens” with assistance from UNICEF.37 In addition, some govemment-sponsored organizations break away from official sponsorship. When Solidarite Paysanne in Zaire achieved autonomy, it shifted from assisting officially registered cooperatives to supporting 26 village units with regional commissions on water, lit- eracy, and agriculture.38

Whatever the impact of ideology, rhetoric or commitment on maintaining egalitarian relationships within GRSOs, oligarchy is also undermined by the relatively easy access to GRSO employment, and the increasing diversity of GRSO activists. Access miti- gates against the long-term succession crisis of


charismatic leadership as new entrants join existing organizations or help create new ones.

The diversity of GRSO activists also diversifies development practice. Innovations in development are based not only on varied professional back- grounds, however, but also on three important trends - the spread of grassroots support functions to many types of nonprofit organizations, the increasingly important role of lower class and women activists and the growing number of GRSOs organized from below.

Perhaps the most striking overall trend supporting diversity is the spread of grassroots support functions among vastly different types of nonprofit organizations. While the small group of professionals that obtains foreign support and then begins to work with one or more GROs is the most typical pattern, other organizations such as churches, hospitals, charities and universities are adding grassroots support to their repertoire without necessarily giving up other functions. The Eglise du Christ in Zaire, with 12 million followers out of a population of 33 million, is working in 62 communities on health promotion, pri- mary schools and tree planting. Theatres are touring rural areas in countries as diverse as Zambia, the Philippines, Bolivia, Jamaica, India, Botswana and the Solomon Islands with messages about empowerment and development.39

Interest in participatory research and evaluation propels nonprofit research institutes and universities toward grassroots support. Although B. Smith (1990) found that many Colombian GRSOs avoid confronting local power brokers, he notes that applied research institutes run by social scientists have educational programs for workers or campesinos and act as policy advocates for these groups.@ Mayan graduates of the western branch of the University of San Carlos in Guatemala organized a network of development organizations and a Mayan research organization called CISMA (Centro de Investigaciones Socioculturales Mayas). CISMA unites local organizations with sophisticated research and computer capabilities. A recent study focused on the development implications of traditional elders’ councils.‘+’

Democratic political trends in some countries have also “democratized” the human rights movement itself, as protecting the human rights of millions of the poor begins to outweigh earlier concerns about repression against dissident intellectuals. In India, human rights groups have been moving away from support for opposition political parties and toward support for grassroots movements for some time.42 The other side of the coin is that environmental activists are increasingly concerned about human rights, and are committed to the notion that the environment cannot be sustained without sustaining its human communities. In Asia this has led to

demands for land reform, since Asian environmen- talists contend that people are better guardians of natural resources than governments or large landowners.43

This broadening and merging of human rights organizations with concern about sustainable development has, if anything, strengthened the international human rights movement. In addition to the affiliates of international human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, there are now an estimated 4,000-5,000 indigenous human rights organizations, increasingly concerned about the access of the poor to natural resources.” The African human rights movement has grown particularly fast - human rights organizations have thousands of members, and human rights are preached in schools, pamphlets and on the radio.45 This is beginning to alter the political culture within which GROs and GRSOs develop.

Although the spread of grassroots support functions reinforces the diverse professional origins of the middle-class founders of GRSOs, not all GRSO organizers come from the upper middle class. GRSOs are also founded by villagers who leave, obtain an education and return to provide financial and sometimes technical assistance for village councils. These are particularly common in Africa, but also occur in Asia and Latin America. In Tamil Nadu, six young harijan (untouchable) women col- lege graduates returned to their village and created a GRSO that has built clinics, trained widows as para- professional health workers, and organized a landless association of thousands in five districts. After a landowner raped an 1 l-year-old girl, the GRSO organized mass protests that led to his arrest.46

The growth of the women’s movement has reinforced the employment of social organizers from a wide background. At a workshop for 33 women working for 10 Pakistani GRSOs, “One participant was illiterate, some had a few years of schooling, while others had postgraduate degrees . . almost half of them were the main economic providers for their families and almost all of them . . . [were] car- rying on their work against tremendous odds, often defying societal norms.“47

GRSOs organized by women are also more likely than other GRSOs to be membership organizations with a large number of active member-volunteers, many of whom are highly trained professionals, unlikely to cede their role to a single leader.481n Bangladesh, a national association of women lawyers organized a project that traveled to 68,000 villages to teach millions of women (and men) their basic legal rights. They later organized a women’s health coalition patterned on an international family planning program and coordinated their efforts with other development agencies.

Yet because some GROs initially reject feminist


demands, middle-class women have also been pushed to take account of the survival needs of the poor. The Second Latin American Feminist Encounter held in Peru in 1982 prodded Peruvian feminists to establish ties to poor urban women, initially by setting up community kitchens and milk distribution networks. Peru Mujer, one of the organizations that grew out of this movement, promotes urban gardens and training in weaving and marketing as well as legal changes benefiting women.49 Unidad Feminina in Colombia has created the Asociacion Colombiana de Promotion Artesanal, which has developed a comprehensive strategy for reviving crafts in low-income areas.*O

Women who organize GRSOs tend to be particularly sensitive to the need to simultaneously undermine gender and class hierarchies. The Kenya Water for Health Organization (KWAHO) led by Margaret Mwangole, had developed over 100 water-related projects for women by 1987.j’ A Bolivian organization called CIMCA (Capacitation Integral de la Mujer Campesina) uses pictures for training that are directed not against men, but against rigid gender roles. As a result of the training, men are sharing responsibility for gathering firewood. In Querarani, each office of the local Asociacion Familiar Campesina, is jointly filled by husband and wife teams, in harmony with the traditional dualism of Andean culture. Twenty trainees have been elected to leadership councils in provinces where CIMCA has been working. Four campesinas have been elected to offices on the executive committee of the departmental federation representing several hundred thousand small farmers5*

Increased awareness of the crucial role of women in development often has a more diluted impact on GRSOs not led by women. GRSOs of all types in Tamil Nadu are directing most of their programs toward women, and Moen (1991, pp. 57-58) found none that focused solely on men. Moen notes, however, that it is as if male development workers are saying “India will be saved by women in their spare time.” Male development workers have trouble relat- ing to women as professionals and women professionals are often dependent and not assertive.

A final factor reinforcing the heterogeneity of GRSOs is that many are created from below, either by GRO networks that create their own GRSO, to be considered in section 6 below, or in reaction to top- down development projects. The Rural Women’s Advancement Society in West Bengal was organized in 1980 by women in an IL0 (International Labour Office) camp for environmental refugees from deforestation. The organizers hired technical assistance, but continued to direct the organization themselves, promoting group enterprises for sustainable forest products. They challenged the middlemen and by 1982 were represented on a marketing agency board.

The group now owns 350 forested acres, including trees for silk worms. They have also organized other groups “like a wave” and act as arbiters in village disputes within a large area.53

5. HORIZONTAL NETWORKS AMONG GRSOs

Formal networks of GRSOs resemble umbrella or apex organizations in the developed countries. The GRSOs and other organizations that belong to informal networks, on the other hand, tend to communicate directly with each other rather than through a coordinating organization. Formal networks are more likely to have paid staff and hold annual meet- ings, whereas informal network members generally interact in the field or through computers. Both types of networks may be regional or national, specialized or multisectoral. Informal networks are less common in Africa than in Asia or Latin America, because GRSOs themselves are newer and more likely than their Asian or Latin American counterparts to remain closely tied to voluntary and official foreign donors.

International donors tend to concentrate their assistance on the more formal, easily recognizable GRSO networks, thus strengthening any oligarchical tendencies that umbrella organizations may have to siphon off foreign assistance rather than strengthening ties among GRSOs. Informal networks are not always as visible as formal networks, nor are their innovative approaches to coordination always under- stood by outside donors. Informal networking often evolves as organizations discover they have good reasons to cooperate. Informality helps circumvent police repression and the risk of hegemony while preserving diversity and the autonomy of member organizations.

There are two general types of informal networks - service networks and support movements. Service networks may be large or small, but they are consistently homogeneous, involving mainly GRSOs and perhaps one other member of a different type such as a foundation. Service networks decentralize power and enable GRSOs to exchange and promote each other’s professional capacities. Support movements are large, heterogeneous, often amorphous systems of communication including GRSOs, universities, charities, GROs, and some individuals such as jour- nalists or professors interested in grassroots development.

Service networks can help overcome problems such as the dilution of the idea of centering development around women. The women who founded Unity for Social Action in Bangladesh are training the staff of other GRSOs in gender relationships.54 Service networks can also strengthen internal management. In the case of Pradan in India a colle- gial management style not only grew out of previous


informal networks, it also led to an awareness that founding a service network would strengthen other activities. With a staff of only 38 professionals, Pradan is able to train new staff members through three-year field consultancies with other organizations.55 This training not only provides them with project skills, it also builds networking into Pradan when they return.

Support movements are more likely than formal or even service networks to include GROs and/or GRO networks. Support movements also tend to include individual professionals and university departments. Like grassroots movements, support movements are generally more amorphous than federations or consortia. Unlike grassroots movements, however, support movements include GRSOs as members.

Support movements are often very large and heterogeneous, making it difficult for any one group to control the others. Lokayan, an Indian support movement, holds workshops for its 2,000 individual and organizational members. Lokayan publications are designed to “end the isolation of various movements for change.“56 As a well-established network, Lokayan has some of the characteristics of more formal networks, including a paid staff, and regional coordinators for those areas not covered by GRSO members. In some states new organizations and movements have come into existence through the network’s participatory research on topics such as deforestation. An organizational dialogue with the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) pro- duced a permanent working group of women activists. One observer remarked that

“It is through this process that a conventional researcher like me has been exposed to stirrings at the grassroots and to collaboration between activity-oriented intellectuals and intellectually-oriented activists.“57

Other support movements are more specialized.

The Centro de Cultura Luiz Freire in Brazil, a network for GRSOs and other public interest groups, supports legal aid for the poor, alternative education programs, and a network of human rights GROs in Northeast Brazil that combat landlord exploitation.

Despite their diversity, informal networks that evolve out of the needs of their member organizations are probably more likely than formal networks to be based on a shared philosophy of participatory development, identified as important to network success in studies carried out by PACT.58 Yet because it is sometimes difficult for informal networks to obtain foreign assistance, a kind of “survival of the fittest” may be occurring that insures the sustainability of the networking process, if not individual networks.5y

Formal multisectoral consortia, organized and

financially supported “from above” by governments or foreign donors, may be more oligarchical over the long run6” Individual GRSOs also develop out of the availability of foreign assistance, yet their direct work with GROs tends to insulate them from the bureaucratic diversion provided by money. Although some formal consortia are organized by GRSOs themselves, an additional layer of bureaucracy but- tressed by international donors can easily become a financial funnel without member services or two- way communication with member organizations. Power dispersion from the international to the national level does not inevitably cascade down to the GRSO and GRO levels. Outside financial support can also discourage additional networking and lead to competition instead of collaboration between GRSOs.

6. VERTICAL NETWORKS: THE TIES BETWEEN GRSOs and GROs

Although the commitment to bottom-up development and social heterogeneity help explain how many GRSOs have generally maintained their democratic organizational culture for more than a decade, an even more important reinforcing factor is their continuing interaction with GROs. This relationship, like other top-down-bottom-up interactions, has been described by McClelland (1970) as influencing people to build capacity to act on their own behalf and by Korten (1983) as the “central paradox of development.” The need to “learn-teach-learn” from the poor while maintaining what Martinez (1987, p. 172) calls “the necessary professional distance in relation to the grassroots group” is a difficult balancing act. Without directing the process of planning, outsiders can sometimes assist the process by foreseeing consequences such as the long-term indebtedness of villagers who decide to build a new water system. This advisory rather than supervisory relationship with GROs has spread to a number of countries in recent years.

Increasingly, this relationship includes “process documentation” that allows GROs to avoid blueprints determined by outsiders and involves them in pro- gressively more autonomous interviewing, data gathering and data analysis about their own communities. In Chile, for example, unpaid data gatherers from GROs tied to two GRSOs helped plan and create a practical manual on revolving loan funds that was distributed to 100 other organizations.6’

There is, of course, evidence that vertical linkages of all kinds (whatever their function) have an independent impact on development.h2 In Esman and Uphoff’s (1984) study, local organizations with horizontal and vertical linkages had the highest overall


performance ratings, although horizontal linkages were the more powerful of the two explanatory vari- ables .

Field level officials, when confronted with an active [GRO], begin performing their duties better, keeping office hours more regularly, making requested visits to the field, coming up with suggestions of possible higher level assistance.63

Linkages, in other words, decrease the possibilities for hidden corruption, and increase the possibilities for learning.

Although linkages can strengthen many types of governmental and nongovernmental organizations, GROs and GRSOs have some particular comparative advantages that complement each other. According to an Inter-American Foundation study of the organizations they have funded, GRSOs have the capacity for

organizational, economic or technological innovation, as well as for rapid response to unforeseen opportunities. Yet membership organizations (GROs) have the potential (albeit often unrealized) to have a much deeper, and potentially more far-reaching social impact.@

GRSOs may have the greatest grassroots development impact and therefore long-term interest in providing services that strengthen GROs as membership organizations.

GRSOs also ally themselves with GROs against the intrenched inequities in the larger society. Bolivian GRSOs have helped unemployed tin miners cope with structural adjustment by organizing food buying cooperatives. Stallholder and hawker cooperatives in Indonesia obtain legal and political protection as well as capital from GRSOS:~~ GRSOs in the Dominican Republic help coffee farmers export coffee directly and by-pass middle men.66

With the protection of middle class outsiders, GROs are more apt to challenge local injustice. BRAC (Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee) interviewed the landless in 10 Bangladesh villages, and recorded land grabs, unfair loans, and bribes as a way of mapping corruption. Single events were not news to the poor, but as the numbers added up, they became intensely interested and BRAC used this interest as an organizing vehicle for landless groups.

GROs, on the other hand, provide GRSOs with the principle means of accomplishing their objec- tives, and the raw material of development needed to insure flexibility and innovation. Linkages with GROs also tend to prevent GRSOs from becoming “narrow and exclusionary” service providers.67 Although GRSOs provide technical and sometimes financial assistance to GROs, what is consistently striking about nongovernmental vertical linkages, is the strong impact that GROs have on the continuous rethinking about development that occurs within

GRSOS.~* GRSOs are, therefore, more likely than other outsiders to deal successfully with the “central paradox” of development. In addition to their wide- spread commitment to participatory development, strengthened by previous contact with GROs, they seem to be more consistently committed than other outsiders to seeking out existing GROS.~~ When GRSOs (or other outsiders) work with an established GRO, the “central paradox” may have less validity, at least when linkages are first established.

Because GRO empowerment is a core goal of GRSOs, the “central paradox” often reasserts itself as relationships between GROs and GRSOs mature. Indeed, GRSOs can sometimes be quite heavy hand- ed in their pursuit of equality. The Water Council Movement, founded by Gram Fourav Pratishthan, a GRSO in a drought-prone area of Maharashtra, only provides assistance for group irrigation plans that include the landless. Because the landless receive the same water share as members who own land, they acquire a bargaining chip within the organization.70 Where local vested interests are strong and inequality extreme, a GRSO may vastly scale up its program by promoting alternative GROs. BRAC’s sponsorship of landless organizations in Bangladesh is a good example.

On the other hand, such initial heavy handedness need not necessarily undermine communitywide oli- garchies only to replace them with dependency on GRSOs. Practical methods of promoting GRO sustainability are beginning to emerge from the commitment to local empowerment. The Association of New Alchemists (ANAI) in Costa Rica only provides credit to groups after intensive empowerment training and the accomplishment of tasks not dependent on external input. Success is measured by ANAI’s own ability to back away.” And the Six S Association, which works in several countries in West Africa, only assists GROs that have created regional networks.72

The most powerful innovation sustaining an egalitarian organizational culture in GRO-GRSO linkages, however, is the creation of GRSOs from below by GRO networks. This pattern is surprisingly wide- spread in Mexico, where it has become a rational defense against the finely developed art of govemment cooption. Some such GRSOs are now over 30 years old. In Indonesia, Bina Swadaya, a network of close to 20,000 LDAs in eight provinces, grew out of a horizontal farmers’ movement organized in the 1960s. Bina organizes village cooperatives and promotes local savings plans. It has also trained family planning workers for the Indonesian govemment.74

Among the other examples are a farmers’ association among the Tiv in Nigeria built on traditional rotating credit arrangements. It has created 200 base centers that provide technical assistance, grouped in


eight regional and one national council.75 In the eastern lowlands of Bolivia, an Indian federation (CIDOB) provides organizational and technical support to consumer and credit cooperatives, as well as to subsistence farmers. Although timber companies have been logging in the region since the 1950s the group runs its own logging company which avoids clear cutting.

When entrepreneurs or managers hire the right experts, it is usually assumed to be a top-down process. But if GROs federating with each other are the entrepreneurs, then the notion of hierarchy is stood on its head when they hire their own experts. Since a functional definition of hierarchy is determined by who works for whom, a bottom-up hierarchy, while challenging existing class structures, is not a contradiction in terms.76 Also challenged by these patterns is the notion that outside linkages necessarily increase GRO dependency.77

Some GRSOs created from below are fully self- supporting. Jatun Pukara in Potosi, Bolivia, unites 17 communities producing quinua, wool and wheat; trains community leaders, and uses the profits from excess village crops to reinforce and consolidate new organizations. The Committee for Development Action. a regional training center in the Bamba- Thaialene area of Senegal, links three different ethnic groups and 16 villages and is funded by a per- centage of the profits from a communal field.7R

Because of their origins, the simultaneous need to maintain egalitarian values while creating more formal organizations appears to be almost taken for granted by those who create GRSOs from below. AIDESEP (The Inter-Ethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Jungle), organized as a grassroots protest movement in 1980, groups two- thirds of the 300,000 Indians in the Peruvian Amazon, and represents hundreds of GROs. AIDESEP lobbies for land titles, but refuses capital for development that could create a potential source of power over local communities. Contributions are channeled directly to local groups.79

7. CONCLUSIONS

(a) GROs and their networks

Traditional GROs and those sponsored by governments may or may not be dominated by elites. Yet they often gain experience from failure, and can reconstitute themselves along democratic lines. Although traditional GROs may or may not be oli- garchically controlled, GROs established more recently “from below” tend to be more consistently democratic in their internal behavior.

Although the iron law of oligarchy may assert itself over time, several factors reduce its inevitabili-

ty. These include the socioeconomic homogeneity of some communities and, paradoxically, the creation of alternative organizations that challenge inequalities in other communities. Gender inequality is a particularly important force behind the creation of GROs, although Western feminist demands are generally less relevant to poor women than urgent survival needs. Survival needs also promote the creation of environmental GROs focusing on common resources, while pushing individuals to advance themselves economically through small group soli- darity and support.

Finally, in contrast to Michels’s theory, the fact that GROs are membership organizations appears to support rather than diminish internal democracy. Not only can GROs build on the initial enthusiasm and voluntary activism of their members, they have also developed creative approaches to combining collective and individual advancement that help sustain grassroots activism over the long run. Interestingly enough, outside assistance to GROs through GRSOs in the form of revolving loan funds or entrepreneurial grants has helped strengthen this individual/collective overlap.8”

Although GRO networks do not consistently reinforce democratic relationships, the economic advantages of barter among GROs tends to decentralize power, provide new opportunities for participation and build a vested interest in equitable collaboration. The ability to communicate beyond local boundaries and learn what others have achieved makes acceptance of elite domination less likely.

(b) GRSOs and their networks

Despite some exceptions, GRSOs have a generally positive reputation that has not been significantly undermined by increasing international support. At the very least, they contribute to the overall growth of the voluntary or independent sector and to the strengthening of civil society. At best, they play a more specific role in strengthening democratic decision making at the grassroots level and in supporting GROs as membership organizations.

A number of factors reinforce the tendency of GRSOs to continue focusing on empowering the poor. Among these are the diverse origins of their founders, and the important role of women within the overall movement. Women’s membership GRSOs seem to be particularly suited to integrating middle-class and low-income members and to mobi- lizing women professionals. In addition, the idea and practice of grassroots support is spreading beyond the standard GRSO, founded by a small group of idealistic professionals. GRSOs, in other words, turn up in unexpected places, increasingly benefit from member-volunteers, and are challenged to con-


tinue learning about development by their ties to GROs.

Still at issue, however, is the sustainability of democratic practices within GRSOs. Although the thousands of remarkable individuals who created them, beginning in the early 197Os, may not be training others to replace them, the lack of formal barriers to GRSO employment and the diversity of new activists tend to mitigate against the succession crisis. The ability of a US NGO called Ashoka to find mostly young “public sector entrepreneurs” in the Third World suggests the pool of potential talent is ample. Whether this potential is being sufficiently linked to the now middle-aged leaders who created GRSOs all over the world remains to be seen. On the plus side, informal GRSO networks often support alternative management styles. They also offer an alternative to the tendency of some formal umbrella organizations to siphon off donor funding.

The autonomy as well as accountability of GRSOs ultimately depends on their success in implementing the philosophy of participatory development and empowering people at the grassroots level. What Uphoff calls this “troublesome circulari- ty” means that local institutional development “is not something that can be promoted in neat, sequential fashion . . increased capacity of intermediate level institutions is to be welcomed so long as they do not stifle local institutions . .” (1986, p. 227). The ideology of empowerment is often reinforced by the working relationships‘ with autonomous GROs that are already organized.

The numerical impact of NGOs as well as their total numbers in many countries, imply that they are building a vested interest that could sustain popular participation in development. Since vested interests usually sustain inequitable institutions for many years, creating vested interests among the poor may be equally sustainable. In addition, most of the organizations with the largest numerical impact on beneficiaries focus on income, the core of vested interests among any group.

What is most striking about the phenomenon of networking is the contrast between authoritarian political superstructures in most countries and innovative cooperation among NGOs. Although NGO networks harken back to traditional, deeply rooted cultural practices, they also provide the expanding space needed to create a new political culture.

Ironically, in the United States, the cultural ethic of competition, so useful in the private economic sphere, may make broad-based cooperation among social change organizations more difficult than in the Third World.

Whether oligarchy is an iron law or, as Fox and Hernandez (1989) suggest, merely a “tendency”, there are strong countervailing forces arrayed against it among Third World NGOs. While there can be no final resting point between the poles of democracy and oligarchy, the growing number of relationships among NGOs appear to be strong and complex enough to reinforce nonoligarchical relationships within and between individual organizations. Oligarchy, in other words, is more likely to thrive in darkness, in secret and in isolation.

Whatever the long-term sustainability of horizontal and vertical NGO networks, or what Brown (1990) calls “bridging organizations,” their emer- gence necessitates a reexamination of outside assistance, even among those international NGOs, official donors and governments already attuned to the NGO phenomenon. Outsiders have already managed to support innovations that help create intraorganiza- tional democracy. Yet they have been less successful in recognizing and supporting the very interorganizational linkages that can help sustain intraorganiza- tional democracy over the long run.

Despite the remarkable similarities among NGOs in different parts of the Third World, the time for “feel good” generalized discussions of “North-South partnership” is past. Country-specific field research on “who is doing what where” is an urgent necessity, given the global need for sustainable development. Internationally supported field research on NGOs and their networks that used local consultants would have two important consequences. First, it would enhance international appreciation for what is already occurring in the Third World and lessen the subtle paternalism that still pervades discussions of management assistance or “capacity building.“81 Second, it would tend to discourage hasty “umbrella funding” and contribute to a creative reexamination of voluntary and official aid policies. A guiding principle of this reexamination should be finding ways to strengthen ties between and among organizations rather than creating new organizational layers over them.

NOTES

1. Democracy is defined here as broad member 3. Fisher (1993). chapter 4. participation in decision making, and is not, as in political systems, necessarily dependent on elected represen- 4. Schneider (1985), p. 300. At that time, there were tatives. approximately 3.5 billion people in the low-income and

lower middle-income economies, according to the World 2. Fisher (1993), chapter 4. Bank (1984, pp. 218-219).


5. Esman and Uphoff (1984); Uphoff (1986). See Fisher 3 1. See, for example, Langer ( 1985). (1993). chapter 4, for further discussion.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

Annis (1988), p. 21.

Ali (1986); Esman and Uphoff (1984), p. 91.

Adams (1986).

32. Tongsawate and Tipps (1985), p. 54; Muttreja (1990), p. 11; USAID (1989), p. 12.

33. Fowler (1990).

34. GRSOs were also protected by the Catholic Church. Reilly (1989), p. 17; Lanim (1987), p. 32.

Karim (1985-86). p. 33. 35.

See Fisher (1977) and (1984). p. 75. 36.

Diaz Albertini (1990), pp. 49,5 1. 37.

Ba (1990). 38.

Wanyande (1987). This increased from approximately

Cotter (1988).

Schneider (1985) and Clark (1991), p. 81.

Lopezllera Mendez (1988), p. 132.

Rouille D’Orfeuille (1984); IFDA (1986), p. 77.

Various sources, but see, for example, Malamah 5,000 groups in 1980. See World Bank (1980), p. 167. This 39. should be compared to a population of approximately five million women ages 1544 in Kenya as of 1988. Many women’s GROs however have very large memberships. Present estimates are that the number of Kenyan women’s groups exceeds 20,000.

14. Presentation given by Amy Baker, University of Illinois, Association for Women in Development Conference, Washington, DC, 1989.

15. Duming (1989a). p. 19.

16. Uphoff (1986), p. 276; Uphoff (1992); Messerschmidt (1987). D. 381 and Khan (1991).

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

. . .

Landim (1992).

F. Korten (1983). pp. 193-194.

Fox and Hemandez (1989), p. 10.

Lopezllera Mendez (1988).

Lecomte ( 1986). p. 2 1.

Sawadogo (1990), p. 66.

IRED (1986), p. 26.

Fox and Hemandez (1989, p. 15) focus on the ebb and flow of participation.

25. Landim (1987), p. 34.

26. Esteva (1987).

27. Interview, Lima, Spring, 1989.

28. Goertzen (1991); telephone interview, Josephine Atienzas, International Institute for Rural Reconstruction, June 29.1992.

29. Yudelman (1987), p. 182. 56. IFDA (1984), pp. 37-50.

Thomas (1989).

40. B. Smith (1990), p. 243.

41. C. Smith (1990), pp. 80-81

42. Schneider (1985), p. 178; IFDA (1989a). pp. 69-70; Brundtland Bulletin (1991), p. 34.

43, Interview with Philip Gain of the Coordinating Council for Human Rights in Bangladesh, April, 1991. See also Rush (1991).

44. The estimate is from Thoolen (1990), p. 2. Although these are obviously distributed unevenly in the Third World, their impact on the 80 or more low and low middle-income countries is worthy of serious attention.

45. Peterson (1991).

46. Fatima (1984), p. 47.

47. Khan (1987), p. 12.

48. Fisher (1993).

49. IFDA (1987). pp. 69-70

50. Goff (1990)

5 1. United Nations, Non-governmental Liaison Service (1987), p. 34.

52. Healy(l99l),p. 26

53. Talk given by Monoshi Mitra, Association for Women in Development Conference, Washington, DC., 1989.

54. ASHOKA (1989), p. 141.

55. Interview with Vijay Mahajan, July, 1989

30. Cited in Fowler (1988). 57. Sheth (1983), p. 11


58. Stremlau (1987), p. 221. 70. Deshpande et al. (1986).

59. Perhaps because GRSOs themselves emerged fairly 71. Carroll (1992), p. 217.

recently in Africa, there are fewer informal networks in Africa than in Asia or Latin America. 72. Six S stands for the French initials of “Making use of the

dry season in the Savannah and Sahel.” It is an international 60. Some formal networks such as the Association yet indigenous NGO, founded in Africa, with a fundraising for Development Agencies in Bangladesh (ADAB) are branch in Geneva. assisting their member organizations to coordinate field activities. 73. Lopezllera Mendez (1988). p. 34.

61.

62.

63.

64.

6.5.

66.

67.

swartz (1990), p. 12.

Montgomery (1972).

Esman and Uphoff (1984). p. 259.

Fox and Butler (1987), p. 4.

Clark (1991), p. 175; Eldridge (1988) p. 17.

74. IFDA (1989b), pp. 15-23.

75. Uphoff (1986), p. 216.

76. I am indebted to my husband, Richard Peck, for this idea.

77. See, for example, Esman and Uphoff (1984).

78. Carroll (1992). p. 26. Duming (1989b). p. 61; Clark (1991).

79. Rush (1991), p. 55. See Kramer’s (1981, p. 284) description of US non-

profit organizations.

68. Fisher (1993), chapter 8.

80. For a discussion of Trickle Up’s entrepreneurial grants see Leet and Leet (1989).

81. David Cooperrider of Ohio State University uses the 69. The “strongest” GROs may emerge from terrible adver- phrase “appreciative inquiry.” For a discussion of the need sity and may not necessarily represent the better-off poor. for reciprocal “capacity building” by using comparative Fisher (1993), chapter 2. advantage see Fisher (forthcoming).

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Documents

Is the iron law of oligarchy rusting away in the Third World?