Tiina Kontinen

Realistic evaluation as an avenue to learning for development NGOs

The rise of evidence-based policy-making has created pressures on the evaluation activities of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). In tandem with the demands from outside, NGOs themselves have improved their evaluation activities due to their own desire to learn. This article was motivated by the reflections of Finnish development NGOs on their need to elaborate new approaches. The NGOs have particularly searched for alternatives to the Logical Framework Approach (LFA), as they have found its measurability demands not to be applicable to their work. This article considers the possibilities of realistic evaluation providing a potential alternative approach. The attempt of realistic evaluation to integrate the concept of mechanism into the identification of programme theory increases the depth of the analysis. In addition, we suggest that the value dimension in NGOs’ work should be taken into account as a part of realistic evaluation.

Rethinking Civil Society in Development: Scales and Situated Hegemonies

The new development agenda formulated through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is rich with issues such as women empowerment, inclusive society, environment and decent work that have been high on the agenda of civil society actors. However, civil society itself gets only a scant attention among other implementing bodies. We argue for nuanced investigation of civil society in the context of SDGs, and its rethinking in the arena of development research, and propose an approach that pays attention to situated hegemonies at different scales, and engages with empirical complexities in a non-normative tone. We illustrate the proposed agenda by reviewing literature on local organizing, established organizations, and networks and alliances especially in the contexts of South Africa and Tanzania. In conclusion, we suggest that paying attention to situated hegemonies at different scales provides a fruitful framework for discussing civil society in both development research and practice in the threshold of new global development era.

Growth Into Citizenship: Framework for Conceptualizing Learning in NGO Interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa:

This article develops a theoretical framework for analyzing adult learning in projects aiming to strengthen citizenship implemented by nongovernmental organizations, especially in the contexts of sub-Saharan Africa. On the basis of a review of international development research, we suggest that a new framework should address the need for a conceptualization of learning as a gradual process and for capturing the gap between ideal models and everyday experiences of citizenship. We argue, building on John Dewey’s philosophy, for a framework of growth into citizenship, and introduce the notions of learning as reorganization of habits and the method of democracy as an avenue for learning as novel contributions to this field.

Strengthening Institutional Isomorphism in Development NGOs? Program Mechanisms in an Organizational Intervention

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in international development struggle between being actors in the mainstream or representatives of alternatives to it. However, many NGOs all over the world align with the mainstream and are increasingly similar to each other. This homogenization results from institutional isomorphism, which is affected by their aspirations to be legitimate vis-á-vis the international field. Consultancies are among the main practices to promote normative isomorphism, but little is known about their micro-level dynamics. Drawing on the notion of program mechanisms in realistic evaluation, we scrutinize how external facilitators in organizational development processes enable normative isomorphism. As a result of analysis of interventions in three Finnish development NGOs, we identify program mechanisms of convincing, embedding, and consolidating. Our findings show how organizational development activities contribute to the direction of change toward normative isomorphism and argue that a detailed analysis of intervention mechanisms would be useful for self-reflection in any field of activity.

Citizenship, Civil Society, and Development: Interconnections in a Global World

Does citizenship matter for development research? Do development policy and practice promote certain normative registers for how people should make sense of their social relations and, in particular, how they relate to public authorities? What are their responses? These questions remain important in order to better understand the interconnections between citizenship, civil society, and development in the contemporary global world. During the last decade or so, citizenship has attracted growing interest across social sciences and, in particular, among political scientists, sociologists, and anthropologists (cf. Holston, 2009; Isin, 2002; Isin & Turner, 2002). By and large, the scope and content of the concept remain open although it is acknowledged that it encompasses the issues of political membership, the distribution of rights and duties, and a legal status. In an important way, citizenship can be viewed as an aspect of state formation which is under the enormous strain of contemporary globalization. The accelerated flows of people, capital, ideas, and technologies certainly open new deliberative spaces by stretching the limits of possible action. However, these opportunities play out unequally and create new differences between people based on, for instance, social position, age, gender, ethnicity, expertise, geographic location, and global connectedness. Indeed, contemporary globalization implies lasting effects on the ways in which people, both individually and collectively, experience and relate to their social environment, including public authorities. In this sense, the notion of citizenship as a form of social belonging and political membership is currently challenged and reconstructed in a myriad of ways. Journal of Civil Society Vol. 8, No. 4, 327–331, December 2012