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Critical Scholarship on Global Civil Society: NGO/CSO–Funder Relationships

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Angela M. Eikenberry ,
Jennifer Dodge  and
Tracey M. Coule
Angela M. Eikenberry*
Affiliation:
School of Public Administration, University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, USA
Jennifer Dodge
Affiliation:
Rockefeller College, University at Albany, Albany, USA
Tracey M. Coule
Affiliation:
Emeritus, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, United Kingdom
*
aeikenberry@unomaha.edu
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Abstract

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Introduction

This virtual issue gathers a collection of articles adopting critical approaches published in Voluntas from 2001 to 2018 that attend specifically to nongovernmental (NGO) and civil society organizations’ (CSO) relationships with funders. It pays particular attention to research that originates or is focused on countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Central and South America to highlight critical work being done on this topic beyond the more commonly studied (“Western,” white) Anglosphere and European context.

Critical scholarship has received greater attention in the field in recent years as NGOs and other civil society actors, and civil society scholars, respond to visible and disruptive environmental, social, and political challenges (see Coule et al., Reference Coule, Dodge and Eikenberry2022; Dean & Wiley, Reference Dean and Wiley2022). A key underpinning of any critical perspective is questioning “common-sense,” seemingly reified, understandings of the world; illuminating how these understandings and broader structures and processes—such as those related to politics, economics, culture, discourse, gender, and race—lead to oppression; and stimulating or taking actions to create emancipation, social transformation, equity, and justice (Agger, Reference Agger2013; Guba & Lincoln, Reference Guba, Lincoln, Denzin and Lincoln2005; Escobar, Reference Escobar2018; Keucheyan, Reference Keucheyan2013; Lee, Reference Lee1990). A main premise of critical research is that “if we know differently about society and its structures, then we are more likely to do differently” (Dean & Wiley, Reference Dean and Wiley2022, p. 12).

Regarding NGO/CSO–funder relationships, the articles included here reveal that resource dependence on government or private funders often leads to asymmetries in power relations that can influence how nongovernmental or civil society organizations operate (Ebrahim, Reference Ebrahim2001; Jakimow, Reference Jakimow2012), coopt or shift NGO accountabilities toward donors or the government rather than citizens or constituencies (Atia & Herrold, Reference Atia and Herrold2018; Chahim & Prakash, Reference Chahim and Prakash2014; Mir & Bala, Reference Mir and Bala2015), and limit NGOs’ or voluntary associations’ abilities to create social change (Atia & Herrold, Reference Atia and Herrold2018; Chahim & Prakash, Reference Chahim and Prakash2014; Vu, Reference Vu2017) or transform social policy (Rossel, Reference Rossel2016). These challenges arise largely through development discourse and the governing technologies of professionalization, bureaucratization, and upward accountability (Atia & Herrold, Reference Atia and Herrold2018; Chahim & Prakash, Reference Chahim and Prakash2014; Ebrahim, Reference Ebrahim2001; Jakimow, Reference Jakimow2012; Mir & Bala, Reference Mir and Bala2015) or government control (Vu, Reference Vu2017). Yet, some of the articles offer hope by showing that in some instances, organizations can provide a counter narrative that challenges and adapts funder discourses to suit their own needs and circumstances, and/or even spark wider change (Ebrahim, Reference Ebrahim2001; Leggett, Reference Leggett2017). NGOs might, for example, seek out alternative funding or sources of support and/or sustain “apolitical” spaces to maintain their ability to be independent, and possibly bring about longer-term or micro/individual-level change in the face of government repression (Elsayed, Reference Elsayed2018; Leggett, Reference Leggett2017).

These articles are critical in perspective in that each exhibits one or more core tenets outlined by Adler, Forbes, and Willmott (Reference Adler, Forbes and Willmott2008)—paying attention to power and knowledge, questioning taken for granted assumptions, going beyond instrumentalism, and challenging structures of domination. Many also draw explicitly on critical theories/theorists such as Chandoke, Foucault, Gramsci, and Habermas. These articles were identified as part of a larger project to understand the nature of critical global civil society scholarship in the field (see: Coule et al., Reference Coule, Dodge and Eikenberry2022; Eikenberry et al., Reference Eikenberry2023).

All the articles in some way pay attention to power and knowledge, showing that forms of knowledge and practice, which appear to be neutral, can reflect and reinforce asymmetrical relations of power. Atia and Herrold (Reference Atia and Herrold2018), Chahim and Prakash (Reference Chahim and Prakash2014), Ebrahim (Reference Ebrahim2001), Jakimow (Reference Jakimow2012), Mir and Bala (Reference Mir and Bala2015), Rossel (2016), and Vu (Reference Vu2017) all show how the power of funders, their discourses or regulations, and governing technologies affect NGO operations in various (mostly negative) ways. However, Ebrahim (Reference Ebrahim2001), Elsayed (Reference Elsayed2018), and Leggett (Reference Leggett2017) also show that despite such power asymmetries, some NGOs/CSOs are able to assert their own power, even if under the radar, maintaining space for future social movement action in Egypt (Elsayed, Reference Elsayed2018), or influencing social attitudes and policy, as with domestic violence in China (Leggett, Reference Leggett2017), or structural change in India (Ebrahim, Reference Ebrahim2001).

Nearly all the articles also question taken for granted assumptions within organizations and among management practices or societies more broadly. Atia and Herrold (Reference Atia and Herrold2018), Ebrahim (Reference Ebrahim2001) Jakimow (Reference Jakimow2012), and Rossel (Reference Rossel2016) all raise questions about the assumed benefits of receiving funding from government and other funders. Some question assumptions about the abilities of NGOs/CSOs to create positive social change and policies when funded by government or others (Atia & Herrold, Reference Atia and Herrold2018; Chahim & Prakash, Reference Chahim and Prakash2014; Rossel, Reference Rossel2016; Vu, Reference Vu2017). Others question the assumption that NGOs/CSOs, particularly those operating in authoritarian contexts, are not able to effect change due to funders (Ebrahim, Reference Ebrahim2001) or government control (Elsayed, Reference Elsayed2018; Leggett, Reference Leggett2017), when evidence suggests that they, in fact, can and do.

Only a few articles clearly sought to go beyond instrumentalism to challenge the view that the value of social relations in societies and the workplace are essentially instrumental or should be geared only toward profitability. Atia and Herrold (Reference Atia and Herrold2018), Ebrahim (Reference Ebrahim2001), and Jakimow (Reference Jakimow2012) do this explicitly by challenging the governing technologies of professionalization, bureaucratization, or upward accountability. Flipping the argument on its head, Elsayed (Reference Elsayed2018) also challenges critiques of social enterprise as being too instrumental, anti-political and anti-democratic, recognizing instead social enterprises’ potential for social change.

Similarly, few articles challenge structures of domination through highlighting the sources, mechanisms, and effects of the various forms of contemporary, normalized domination. Atia and Herrold (Reference Atia and Herrold2018) do so by emphasizing the mechanisms and effects of patronage and its governing technologies on NGOs in Palestine and Morocco, questioning whether patronage does any good for social change more broadly. Vu (Reference Vu2017) features the mechanisms and effects of authoritarian governance, showing how citizen-led activism, rather than NGOs, is more likely to effect change and (re)shape state–society relations in authoritarian Vietnam. Finally, Leggett (Reference Leggett2017), in her content analysis of the Feminist Voice microblog, underscores how patriarchy and the Chinese authoritarian regime contextualize NGO work.

In our assessment, the “most critical” work—that exhibits all four of Adler et al.’s (Reference Adler, Forbes and Willmott2008) tenets while also drawing on critical theories/theorists—is relatively rare among these and other critical global civil society articles in the field (Eikenberry et al., Reference Eikenberry2023). Among the articles included in this virtual issue, only Atia and Herrold (Reference Atia and Herrold2018) display elements of all four tenets and draw on Foucauldian ideas. More radical critique that exhibits multiple tenets of critical scholarship—particularly challenging structures of domination—would add to the depth of perspectives of a field that purports to be interested in social betterment.

Related specifically to future work focused on NGO/CSO–funder relations in regions outside the Anglosphere and Europe, there is opportunity for this work to be contextualized more explicitly in systems of oppressions—such as colonialism, imperialism, neoliberalism, capitalism, and patriarchy—and for more work to integrate indigenous and global south critical theories/theorists. In the face of ongoing racial, gendered, or other oppressions, critical research can help reveal unexamined assumptions and unintended consequences and make invisible systems of power and oppression, visible; repair or change these systems of power and oppression; and (re)imagine better futures toward emancipation, transformation, equity, and justice (Eikenberry, Reference Eikenberry2023).

Footnotes

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