Social Science Research Council

Prepared for the dissertation workshop “Globalizing the Caucasus and Central Asia” organized by the Eurasia Program of the Social Science Research Council,

April 20-22, 2002 - Berkeley, CA

In the 1990s, Western donors active in the countries of the former Soviet Union all professed a deep commitment to building a strong “civil society.” Among these donors are philanthropic foundations, bilateral aid agencies, and multilateral lending organizations. They pursue a spectrum of ends – social, political, and economic, with varying emphases – but over the last decade each has come to view civil society as a means to achieve them. What explains the rise and successful institutionalization of the idea of civil society at different donor organizations? And how do different donors understand civil society?

In practical terms donors’ support for civil society involves funding for nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). In conventional accounts, post-Soviet countries present a particular challenge because social life under totalitarianism is seen as having been completely invaded by the state, and the creation of civil society – i.e. of a vibrant NGO sector – is viewed as urgent for the successful democratization of this vast region. As a result, in the 1990s the impetus for reviving civil society in the former Soviet Union came from abroad: the West has defined it as one of the main projects for its involvement in the region. Both the idea of civil society and the nongovernmental (also known as voluntary, third, independent, or nonprofit) sector are distinctly Western phenomena, which is to say that they have institutional arrangements typically found in Western societies and are rooted in the Western liberal intellectual tradition. Although this point is quite self-evident, its implications have not yet been analyzed in the existing research on donor involvement in the former Soviet Union. We can ask: What are the mechanisms of donors’ engagement with host societies? How do recipient NGOs understand what donors are trying to do? How do they – viewed by donors as the part and parcel of the emergent civil society – understand civil society? What are the strategies used by these NGOs? In other words, it is time, for theoretical and practical reasons, to develop a better understanding of the process of mutual cultural interpretation that takes place between donors and recipients and organizational practices emerging in the post-Soviet NGO sector as a result of the donor-recipient interaction.

Therefore, in addition to discovering the origins of the idea of civil society at major donor organizations, one should examine donors’ attempts to guide social change in the former Soviet Union traced from the point of origin to destination. While donors have and project a voluntaristic view of their ability to effect the desired change, it is particularly important for scholars to place more analytic emphasis on cultural, organizational and structural factors motivating and constraining donors’ programs and actions.

Since most Western donors today have civil society programs, it is also very important to investigate how they differ from one another. Existing literature on civil society funders devote most of their attention to development agencies and very little of it to major U.S. philanthropic foundations, even though the latter are increasingly prominent in this area. At the same time, when foundations are mentioned, their civil society programs are presumed to be quite similar to those of development agencies, while the question of differences and similarities between philanthropic and development donors in fact begs for an empirical investigation.

These questions are addressed in my study, which examines the civil society programs of three major U.S.-based donor organizations – a private philanthropic organization (the Soros Foundation), a bilateral donor (the U.S. Agency for International Development), and a multilateral financial institution (the World Bank) – operating in the two post-Soviet countries of Russia and Kyrgyzstan. It investigates how society-wide cultural categories shape donor and recipient conceptualizations of civil society and are reflected in their respective organizational practices. Comparison of Russia and Kyrgyzstan shows how donors interact – in similar or dissimilar ways – with two very different post-Soviet societies.

The study is the first in-depth examination of the civil society programs of three different donors within a single study. Although the research is guided by a theoretical framework derived from cultural and organizational sociology, it brings together several literatures that are rarely considered jointly but which are all critical for a better understanding of donor activities in the 1990s. The study contributes to sociology by showing that donors are important agents of global cultural and organizational diffusion. Its analysis of the process of transmission of Western ideas to the post-Soviet societies is useful for scholars of the post-Soviet transition. It makes a contribution to the fields of philanthropy, nonprofit studies and development by comparing different paradigms of donor engagement with civil society.

SUGGESTIONS ON TEACHING A COURSE “CENTRAL ASIA IN THE 20TH CENTURY - A SOCIOLOGICAL APPROACH”

· A sociological course on post-Soviet Central Asia in the 20th century should enable students to learn about and reflect on the major developments in Central Asia since the late 1800s and to master the fundamentals of sociological analysis. It should also introduce students to a rich interdisciplinary literature that is relevant for the study of the region.

· Although the Central Asian states were part of the Soviet Union during most of the 20th century, it is important to begin with an introduction to different Central Asian societies before the Bolshevik arrival in order to make students aware of the pre-Soviet social patterns, which can be observed later during both the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. For instance, introductory sessions can analyze differences between nomadic and settled societies.

· An analysis of the Soviet period should place particular emphasis on the Bolshevik “revolution from abroad,” creation of the Central Asian republics, and the social and cultural impact of Soviet industrial and development policies.

· Several classical sociological texts can be introduced toward the middle of the course, after students have gained familiarity with the region. Works of Weber, Durkheim, and Marx could be particularly helpful for their historically informed insights on the family, religion, and sources of power in society, and become a springboard for discussing major issues confronting Central Asia in the 1990s (e.g., the disintegration of the Soviet welfare state and massive impoverishment, household survival strategies, Islam (political and otherwise), domestic and international dimensions of the political economy of Caspian oil).

· A discussion of the post-Soviet period can serve as a segue to the concluding comparative section, focusing on such issues as colonialism, nationalism, and development, and inviting students to analyze their pertinence for the study of Central Asia