(Illustration by Ben Wiseman)
Editor’s Note: In June 2015, the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society hosted its second Junior Scholars Forum. The following article covers a not-yet-published research paper presented there. To learn more about the research, readers can contact the paper’s author, Jennifer N. Brass ([email protected]).
A sizable body of research points to a connection between the strength of civil society—as measured, in part, by the presence of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)—and the level of democratic participation within a given community. Until somewhat recently, however, that research has dealt mainly with countries in the developed world. So Jennifer N. Brass, an assistant professor of public and environmental affairs at Indiana University, decided to investigate an important open question: In less developed countries, does a high degree of engagement with NGOs increase people’s likelihood of participating in political and civic activity? (Assisting Brass with this project was Mark O’Dell, a student at Indiana University.)
To help answer that question, Brass commissioned a survey of about 500 people in three districts (Machakos, Mbeere, and Nairobi) of Kenya. Drawing on those data, she analyzed the relationship between certain “civil society variables,” as she calls them—access to NGOs, use of NGO services, and attitudes toward community-based organizations and other NGOs—and respondents’ propensity to take part in political activities such as voting in national elections, engaging a public official in a “civic discussion,” and attending a protest event.
The survey took place in late 2008—a time of political upheaval and violence in Kenya. (The country had gone through a disputed presidential election at the end of 2007.) For the survey, Brass targeted three districts that shared two attributes: They had experienced low levels of political violence in 2008, and they showed similar levels of support for the incumbent regime as other, more violent districts. “It was a way to control for the bad timing of my research,” Brass says. It was also a way “to control for the ethnic politics variable,” she adds. “I wanted to focus on NGOs, not ethnicity.”
In analyzing the results of her survey, Brass found that people who reported having had contact with NGOs were more likely—indeed, as much as 47 percent more likely—to engage in a civic or political activity than those who had no history of contact with NGOs. The correlation between respondents’ reported NGO contact and their likelihood of having “raised an issue” with governmental officials, for example, was notably high. “If you’re a farmer, lots of contact with NGOs appears to make you more likely to go to, say, the Ministry of Agriculture for things that you need,” Brass explains. A similar correlation held for respondents’ likelihood of taking part in protest activity.
The link between interaction with NGOs and voting behavior, however, was not very strong. In part, that’s because voter turnout in Kenya is generally high. “A lot of single-party rulers who were in power for decades [lost power] starting in the 1990s, so in a lot of African countries, people became interested again in voting,” Brass says.
Overall, Brass’s study bears out the work of scholars who associate a strong NGO presence with robust civic participation. “It supports arguments I’ve made for a long time about the value of civil society’s contribution” to democracy, says John Gaventa, research director at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex. Gaventa cautions, however, that researchers must be “nuanced” in their approach to the subject: “If high concentrations of NGOs [did consistently] contribute to more democratic participation, then Bangladesh would be one of the most democratic countries in the world.”
Jennifer N. Brass with Mark O’Dell, “NGOs, Civil Society, and Democratic Participation: Evidence From Kenya.”
Read more stories by Adrienne Day.