Angolan civil society organisations: political reformists vs political confrontationists

Vidal,  Nuno

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.2/2978

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Vidal, Nuno

Abstract(s)

There are currently in Angola two main opposing strategies/perspectives assumed by CSOs towards the government: the reformist a constructive engagement approach believing that the government can be progressively reformed from within, accepting a flexible agenda towards donors, and a technical, pragmatic and not too politically assertive agenda on democratisation and poverty alleviation; the confrontationist. rejecting constructive engagement as a form of cooption by the government and a way of perpetuating neo-patrimonialism, standing for independent agendas towards donors, based on the strict defence of political and economic human rights and transparency in public resources management. Both claim to be better serving the interests of the communities and more effective on democratisation and poverty alleviation, mutually accusing of indirect/unintentional contribution to the maintenance of authoritarianism and neo-patrimonialism. This paper intends to assess: 1) the contextual factors conditioning the adoption and implementation of CSOs strategies (reformist and confrontationist); 2) the impact of each strategy on communities, in favour of democratisation and poverty alleviation, or unintentionally supportive of authoritarianism and neo-patrimonialism. In conclusion, the paper argues that although hardly assumed, then 2008 electoral process and electoral results represented a cruel reality that stroke both sides of the civil society divide: their long and passionate quarrels and disputes on reformism and confrontationism made all sense to them and to their international partners but hardly any to the majority of the Angolan society. ‘Their’ civil society is mainly urban, donor influenced, strongly extraverted, the product of a segment of an elite, coming out of the disaffection socio-political ranks of the MPLA (Vidal 2007), that quickly assimilated and interiorized development thinking perspectives, strategies and disputes but lacks a symbiosis with the majority of people consciousness and daily logics, therefore with a very limited capacity for significant change on the regime or society as a whole.