Practising organizational autonomy at the community level: evidence from advocacy projects in Uganda and Vietnam

Gutheil, Lena
Externe Publikationen (2023)

in: van Wessel, Margit / Tina Kontinen / Justice Nyigmah Bawole (eds.), Reimagining civil society collaborations in development: starting from the South, London: Routledge, 281-295

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003241003-24
Open access

Organizational autonomy is assumed to be a crucial prerequisite for well-functioning civil society organizations (CSOs). While the literature largely concentrates on how donors and governments constrain professional CSOs’ autonomy, this chapter focuses on sub-national organizations’ day-to-day engagement with the state and with the intermediary organizations that are funding them. By comparing how a Ugandan CSO and a provincial chapter of the Women’s Union in Vietnam practise autonomy, the chapter shows that autonomy, in itself, has no set value. Practising autonomy is relational, changes over time, and can take on different meanings. The observed relationships with state authorities were not exclusively constraining; they also enabled the organizations to implement politically sensitive projects at the community level. The chapter thus proposes that scholars and practitioners pay more attention to modes of collaboration at the intermediary–sub-national level nexus. This could, among other things, enable actors to capitalize on the advantages provided by adaptive management approaches.

Über die Autorin

Gutheil, Lena

Ethnologie

Gutheil

Weitere Expert*innen zu diesem Thema

Baumann, Max-Otto

Politikwissenschaft 

Bergmann, Julian

Politikwissenschaft 

Dang, Vy

Politikwissenschaft 

Erforth, Benedikt

Politikwissenschaft 

Fiedler, Charlotte

Politikwissenschaftlerin 

Friesen, Ina

Politikwissenschaft 

Hackenesch, Christine

Politikwissenschaft 

Janus, Heiner

Politikwissenschaft 

Keijzer, Niels

Sozialwissenschaft 

Koch, Svea

Sozialwissenschaft 

Leininger, Julia

Politikwissenschaftlerin 

Li, Hangwei

Politikwissenschaft 

Lorch, Jasmin

Politikwissenschaft 

Löpelt, Sarah

Internationale Beziehungen und Nachhaltigkeitspolitik 

Mross, Karina

Politikwissenschaftlerin 

Nowack, Daniel

Politikwissenschaftler 

Olekseyuk, Zoryana

Ökonomie 

von Haaren, Paula

Entwicklungsökonomie 

Wingens, Christopher

Politikwissenschaftler