The Real World of NGOs

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs), in contrast to many official development agencies, have often been seen as the saviours and sources of hope for an otherwise disappointing development process. Dorothea Hilhorst offers an empirically rooted and theoretically innovative understanding of the internal workings, organizational practices and discursive repertoires of this kind of organization. Her evidence and insights lead to a different picture of NGOs from that prevailing in the literature. Her model of NGOs, as organizations which often have several different faces, fragmented and comprising fluctuating social networks, should be helpful to understanding not just these bodies, but official development agencies too.

This work is outstanding for the way in which it opens up new theoretical and empirical understandings of the nature and functioning of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) involved in development... [It] sets out to as the following questions: Why do certain social actors form organizations which they call NGOs? How do they represent what it is to be an NGO? What practices does being a member of such an organization entail? And how do they legitimize what they say and do vis-a-vis clients, donors and constituencies?... This highly original study is the first time that such a detailed analysis of the everyday practices and social dynamics of an internationally oriented NGO has been achieved' - Professor Norman Long, Wageningen University 'A coherent and compelling alternative approach to the study of development policies and practices [which] deserves a readership well beyond development studies' - Gerd Baumann, University of Amsterdam

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