Managerial Formations and Coupling among the State, the Market,

and Civil society: An Emerging Effect of Governance?

Author Accepted Version

The edited version of the article is published online 11 March 2014,Critical Policy Studies

Acar Kutay

acarkutay@live.com

Bergen, Norway

Managerial Formations and Coupling among the State, the Market,

and Civil society: An Emerging Effect of Governance?

By taking up the fact that some non-governmental organizations adapt to

managerialism under governance mechanisms, this article addresses an emerging

governance effect that paves the way for a particular relationship among the state,

the market, and civil society. Such relationship, defined here as coupling, is formed

and perpetuated through managerial organizational knowledge, professionalized

communication techniques, and the reflexive surveillance mechanisms inherent in

governance settings. This argument suggests that economic and market rationalities

now penetrate into wider fields of social life, notwithstanding actual and possible

contestations, resistances, and failures. I draw inspiration primarily from Michel

Foucault’s notion of governmentality in examining how coupling develops. I also

borrow from some other key social theorists, including Max Weber, Jurgen Habermas,

and Jodi Dean, to advance a critique of the contemporary influence of managerial

formations on the field of governance.

1

Keywords: governmentality; governance; civil society;

managerialism; professional communication; panoptic

surveillance

1. Introduction

Given the inefficiency of traditional hierarchical forms of

authority, governance suggests new modes of problem solving, in

which the traditional responsibilities of the state are shared

with non-state or extra-state actors in policymaking and

implementation (Fisher 2006, p. 19, Pierre and Peters 2000). It

advances a new constellation of politics that proposes

replacing sclerotic bureaucracy with a more democratic and

innovative regime by sharing sovereign power with new actors.

This concept is used in various fields and contexts in

different ways.

There is considerable elasticity in the way that governance is

used. The term is now employed in a great many settings

including international relations (global governance),

development policy (good governance), European Union studies

(multilevel or European governance), finance and management

(corporate governance), and at many levels of public policy

(e.g., urban governance). Obviously, the meaning of governance2

changes as we move from one policy area to the next.

Nevertheless, there are also continuities, certain core ideas,

assumptions and propositions which attach to the term as it

moves from one locale to the next. (Walters 2004, p. 28).

Participation is one of the core ideas, proposals, and

practices of governance, and in this context, the concept

pertains to governing society through civil society and

communities (Rose 1999, Morrison 2000, Jessop 2002, Fyfe 2005),

as well as to systematically promoting the involvement of non-

governmental organizations (NGOs) in policy processes. This

involvement is enabled through the political programs launched

and implemented by national governments and international

organizations (IOs).1 The participatory mechanisms and policies

designed to burgeon civil society are becoming common in both

the North (advanced democracies) and South (developing

countries), aiming to allocate the responsibilities of the

state to non-state actors, including market forces and NGOs

(Gaventa 2004, Fisher 2006, Mercer 2002, Swygedouw 2005).

With the objective of building effective civil societies

in the context of economic development, IOs, such as the World

Bank, the EU, (Swyngedouw 2005), and national governments,

3

often augment the norms and procedures for NGO participation in

governance. Similarly, the public policies of advanced

democracies orient to reinvigorate civil society and the

community (Putnam 1995, Anheier 2004). Anheier (2004, p. 114)

notes that ‘cooperative relations between governments and non-

profits in welfare provision have become a prominent feature in

countries such as the United States (Salamon 2002), Germany

(Anheier and Seibel 2001), France (Archambault 1996), or the

United Kingdom in the field of social services’ (Kendall and

Knapp 1996). Such cooperative relationship potentially provides

opportunities to civil society actors to engage in decision

making and policy implementation. This relationship is

therefore defined as a participatory governance practice

(Gaventa 2004, Fung and Wright 2003).

Moreover, this process is accompanied by a parallel

development—the global dissemination of managerial knowledge

and practices in NGOs under different contexts, including the

US (Salamon 1997, Weisbrod 1998, Skocpol 2003, Eikenberry and

Kluver 2004), the UK (Morrison 2000), Austria (Maier and Meyer

2011), the global South (Roberts et al. 2005), global governance

4

(Roberts et al. 2005), and EU governance (European Commission

2000).

I take up the penetration of managerialism into NGOs.

Taking into account the managerial formations in other public

and private actors of governance, I advance a theoretical

argument on the implications of managerialism for the

relationship among the state, the market, and civil society.

Managerialism does not have penetration into NGOs as its end-

goal, but is embedded in governance mechanisms that tend to

exalt certain features and standpoints of managerial knowledge

and practices. Parallel to neoliberal economic reforms, some

national governments and organizations that are oriented toward

global governance (e.g., the United Nations, the EU, and the

World Bank) have favored the adoption of managerial principles

in public administration and policymaking under the

arrangements indicated in new public management (NPM) (Bevir

2010, European Commission 2011, Kassim 2008, Head 2008).

Managerialism, as discussed in this paper, denotes two

intertwining contemporary social processes. First, frequently

associated with NPM, managerialism refers to the use and

proliferation of corporate management knowledge and practices

5

in the public sector and other segments of society, including

NGOs (Yeatman 1997, Bevir 2010). Bevir (2010, p. 71) suggests

that managerialism is the ‘commonly preferred method of public

administration in the NPM arrangements, which suggests adapting

“best practices” from the private sector with respect to

financial management, human resources, and decision making’ to

the public sector. Bevir (2010, p.71) continues on to state

that managerialism ‘encourage[s] [public sector actors] to

think of themselves as more like private sector organizations’.

The last statement is particularly important because it

highlights encouragement as an external intervention that

guides and shapes the behaviors of actors of governance (i.e.,

conduct of conduct); it also raises the issue of

subjectification as a factor that drives actors to regard

themselves as private actors.

Managerial knowledge orients toward efficiently and

effectively administrating an organization on the basis of

systemized rules, norms, formulas, and logic, which are taught

at (for example) management departments (Parker 2002).

Policymaking and organizations that are based on managerial

knowledge and techniques have often relied on a range of

6

results, activities, and evidence that revolve around

performance (Head 2008, Milani 2009). That is, although results

and activities initially amount to technologies of performance,

they also serve as evidence of organizational performance. This

observation, which also influences NGO management, establishes

the basis for practices such as ‘strategic planning, Logical

Framework Analysis, project evaluation, and organizational

assessment’ (Roberts et al. 2005, p. 1849). Roberts et al. (2005, p.

1849) underline that managerialism has been extensively applied

in NGO operations. Although the propagation of managerialism

has been concentrated in the global South—an approach that is

claimed to affect ‘even the smallest NGOs’ (Roberts et al. 2005,

p. 1849)—commentators indicate that NGOs in the North have been

exposed to the same process (Skocpol 2003, Salamon 2002,

Eikenberry and Kluwer 2004, Maier and Meyer 2011).

The second connotation of managerialism in this paper

refers to the description of the characteristics of a social

process broader than mere transfer of corporate knowledge and

practices to other sectors; that is, ‘only personnel with

certified training are capable of accomplishing organizational

goals’ (Srinivas 2009, p. 619, Parker 2002). On this account,

7

‘the trained managers and techniques of formal organizing can

solve the persistent social problems confronted by

organizations’ (Srinivas 2009, p. 619). Thus, social progress

is made possible by the effective coordination of

organizational activity. In its second usage, managerialism is

not necessarily meant to describe a situation that is peculiar

to the contemporary era. The concept, as first advanced by

Burnham (1942), denotes a revolution-like social change that

started at the end of the nineteenth century; through this

revolution, the responsibility of social governance (including

that of firms, farms, and public institutions) was transferred

by rulers and capitalists to experts. Burnham even attempted to

explain the proliferation of managerialism within the Soviet

revolution and Nazi aggression. What is unusual in recent

developments is the tendency of economic and market

rationalities to penetrate the organization of the state and

civil society (Lemke 2002).

This argument, however, does not attempt to generalize and

verify a hypothesis about the finalization of managerial

formations among NGOs and other actors of governance on a

global level. The argument instead addresses the formation and

8

circulation of a global governmentality that aims to govern all

organizations as corporate enterprises with market norms and

values. The effects of such governmentality are necessarily

incomplete, diverse, and experienced by different sectors in

different ways (Mercer 2002, p. 10). Furthermore, the reception

and perception of managerial knowledge and practices have not

been uniform; the understanding of these concepts can ‘include

promotion, resistance, adoption, circumvention, contextual

adaptation, or some combination’ (Roberts et al. 2005, p. 1848).

In terms of a Foucault-inspired governmentality approach

(Foucault 1991, 2009), I interpret the emergence and

implementation of managerial principles within NGOs and

governance mechanisms, and the implications of the former for

the relationship among the state, the market, and civil

society. This approach is relevant to public administration and

policy studies because in this context, government (conduct of

conduct, or guidance of the behavior of individuals and

institutions) acts on public administration and policymaking,

as well as on the organizational activities of civil society

actors and the identity of the self. The Foucault-inspired

approach thus casts light upon the productive implications of

9

government, which privileges, defines, and constitutes a

particular form of state, market, and civil society

relationship. This relationship is, in this case, constituted

by managerial subjects and mediated through managerial

knowledge. Managerialism shapes and sustains such form of

relationship with performance-oriented ethics and techno-

administrative organizational techniques as it reproduces new

surveillance mechanisms in policymaking processes.

In what follows, I first assess how a governmentality

approach facilitates the critical examination of managerial

subject formations and the wider implications of such

formations for NGOs (Section 2). I focus on the conception of

civil society, productive implications of power, and the

circulation of governmentality. This approach and the three

issues explained in Section 2 inform the discussion in Section

3, which broadens the theoretical debate by concentrating on

coupling among the state, the market, and civil society as an

emerging effect of governance. The three factors that reinforce

coupling are the emergence of managerialism as a mediating

system, the spread of professional communication practice, and

10

the existing reflexive surveillance inherent in governance

mechanisms.

2. Governmentality, governance, and civil society

Governmentality offers a critical approach to a political

rationality of invoking civil society, in this regard prompting

capable and willing NGOs to involve themselves in governance

processes. It conceives of knowledge and techniques of

governance as being related to each other. This perspective

suggests the interconnectedness of a homo economicus model,

calculating man within civil society, NPM, and the techniques

for involving and organizing certain actors in civil society.2

To develop theoretical proposals in which the rationalities and

technologies of governance, as well as the implications and

actual practices of these proposals, are reflected upon, this

paper advances an argument that focuses on two complementary

approaches to governmentality.

One interpretation of a governmentality approach aims to

inquire about mentalities of political programs and is

11

therefore not primarily interested in the effectiveness of such

mindsets (Rose et al. 2006, p. 100). This assumption enables us

to problematize the ways in which the governmental rationality

of governing through civil society is inscribed in the policy

papers of IOs, national governments, and donor agencies (Giffin

and Judge 2010). It also allows us to question the ways by

which this governmental rationality is linked to a particular

form of governance. A realist governmentality theory (Stenson

2005, 2009, McKee 2009), on the other hand, does not limit

itself to the programmer’s mindsets, but considers the

implications and realizations of governmental programs and the

manner by which they are received and perceived by the actors

who are thoroughly exposed to such initiatives (Barnes and

Prior 2009). In contrast to the first interpretation of

governmentality, the second interpretation refutes the argument

that the state has become epiphenomenal.

In what follows, I focus on the three perspectives from

which we can implement a governmentality approach oriented

critical examination of the political rationality of appealing

to civil society to govern contemporary societies in the North

and South. These perspectives are those that center on a

12

critical conception of civil society, the productive

characteristics of power, and the global circulation of

governmentality. These views also inform the debate on

managerial subject formations within civil society as stemming

from coupling among the state, the market, and civil society.

Central to this focus is the encouragement of certain NGOs to

occupy themselves with governance arrangements, their nurturing

in terms of managerial principles, and the connection of this

process to managerial formations in other domains of

governance.

A critical conception of civil society

The participation of NGOs in governance is often associated

with the relationship among civil society, the state, and

governance settings because NGOs are considered constituents of

civil society (Mercer 2002, Giffen and Judge 2010). A

governmentality approach, however, suggests a critical

interrogation of the civil society conception that is offered

by an exogenously related trichotomy of macro sociology of the

state, the market, and civil society. The criticism of a

governmentality approach in this regard is to problematize,

13

defamiliarize, and denaturalize an ahistorical conception of claims

and the taken-for-granted truth about a civil society informed

by liberalism. Such analysis takes issue with the prevailing

prescriptive normative interpretations regarding the

participation of NGOs that conceive reinvigoration of civic

action within the scope of liberalism; these interpretations

also view such participation as categorically good and

necessarily conducive to democratization (Mercer 2002, Kaldor

2005, Anheier 2004).

Furthermore, the critique of a governmentality approach

entails examining the contradictions and contestations of the

claims and norms of civil society, as they are generated by

political programs and accordingly reflected on. For instance,

liberalism suggests the maxim of non-intervention of the state

in civil society and the strict autonomy of the latter.

Governance, however, in practice both deviates from and

reinforces this maxim. It deviates from the maxim because it

advises and fosters intervention in civil society by political

and economic means (Dean 2002), thereby dismantling the rigid

boundaries between public/private and state/civil domains

(Pierre 2000). It reinforces the maxim because the policies

14

that are targeted toward appealing to civil society promote a

liberal conception of an autonomous civil society; even this

promotion has become an end in itself, particularly in the

context of economic development (Giffin and Judge 2010).

Posited in this manner, the critical accounts of a

governmentality approach in civil society closely resemble the

thoughts of Gramsci. The Lockean political ideals of civil

society, which dominated liberal political philosophy, envisage

civil society as a realm that is functionally and ontologically

autonomous from the state and economy (Edwards 2004). In the

twentieth century, this position was critiqued particularly by

Gramsci, with his conception of an integral state, where civil

society is conceived of as an extension of the state and the

institutional infrastructure of counter-hegemony (Sassoon

2001). Neo-Gramscians (Cox 1999, Colas 2005) advanced and

applied this argument to global politics by suggesting civil

society does not, by definition, amount to a pre-determined

foundation in terms of its constituent actors or of an

underlying reasoning or autonomous ontology. From this

perspective, civil society is not a spatially and temporally

fixed phenomenon that is naturally positioned against the state

15

and economy; it does not by definition restrain the destructive

effects of political and economic power either. Rather, as

Gramsci and Gramscians suggest, civil society is a contextually

transformed and shaped concept that cannot be studied

independent of the historical context and social dynamics of a

larger background. For example, the emergence of political

parties, trade unions, and voluntary associations during the

late nineteenth century arose from the structural social

transformation driven by industrialization (Sassoon 2001).

Governmentality can therefore benefit from the Gramscian

perspective of civil society. This point of view contextualizes

and explains power relations, in which intellectual means

(e.g., ideology) are politically mobilized to gain the consent

of the masses or organized interests, thereby actualizing a

political program.

Productive power

The productive feature of government as a form of power,

broadly referring to conduct of conduct, is the second

perspective in critically examining the political rationality

of appealing to civil society. In this regard, a

16

governmentality approach analyzes the encouragement of NGO

participation in governance mechanisms in terms of the adoption

of managerial knowledge and practices. The notion of

(political) power inherent here pertains to the production and

dissemination of the ethos, mores, and technologies of a

governmentality that aims to govern through civil society. This

production and dissemination are realized by encouraging actors

to involve themselves in governance settings. This form of

power has productive implications on a global scale (Lipshutz

2005); that is, it creates, molds, and shapes without

dominating and restricting. This type of power contrasts with

disciplinary power. The latter aims to govern all the behaviors

of subjects ‘in the most continuous, homogenous, and exhaustive

manner’ (Foucault 2009, p. 66), as in the treatment of prison

inmates. Government does not aspire to manage all aspects of

subjects’ lives, but to conduct of their conduct. It entails

acting ‘on the possibilities of action of other individuals’

(Davidson 2009, p. XXII).

Under this backdrop, government goes beyond the

controlling power of political institutions over civil society;

it implies the rendering of a particular frame of participatory

17

mechanism and the articulation of a specific relationship among

the state, the market, and civil society (Swyngedouw 2005, pp.

1996–1999). Thus, the values, aims, and organizational

structures within civil society, as well as the way civil

society actors perceive and receive social reality, are not

pre-determined or inherent but are shaped through social

relations. Such shaping involves the political intervention of

governments, IOs, and donor institutions through political

programs.

As a form of power, government describes and assumes what

civil society (actors) should be, guides and activates certain

actors in accordance with a particular rationality, and

promotes managerial subject positions, thereby aiming to

effectively and democratically govern societies through

autonomous civil society actors. Government stimulates the

willingness of NGOs to involve themselves in governance

settings and conducts the abilities and skills of participants to

make sound contributions to these settings. The technologies of

this form of power include capacity-building programs, training

initiatives, and the NGO management frames implemented by

political institutions. In other words, government does not

18

take for granted that civil society is, and has always been,

there and/or waiting to be involved in governance settings; it

acts upon groups of societal institutions in such a way as to

form them. In turn, NGOs are often incorporated into governance

mechanisms as particular forms of civil society actors because they

have been subjected to a discursive field of rationalization

and material practices that a governmental rationality has

problematized and acted upon.

This productive form of power creates responsibility among

governance actors through the technologies of agency and

performance. As stated earlier, different usage perspectives of

governance commonly suggest making civil society (actors)

responsible for effectively solving social problems, along with

other actors of governance, including political authorities,

business groups, lobbying consultants, and academia (Pierre and

Peters 2000, Rhodes 1996, Dean 2002). Although governance

associates the incorporation of civil society (i.e., actors,

such as NGOs) in policymaking and policy implementation with

responsibility, it does not problematize how responsibility has

been or would be ascribed to actors in the first place. The

responsibilization of individuals and social groups

19

necessitates what Mitchell Dean calls calculated political

intervention that amounts to technologies of agency (Dean 2010,

p. 196). Dean (2010, p. 197) indicates that technologies of

agency are followed by technologies of performance; that is,

experts and professionals (and in the context discussed in this

article, NGO actors) are transformed into calculating entities.

As a technology of agency, responsibilization stimulates the

willingness and strengthens the ability of actors as agencies

of a presumed civil society. It envisages creating performance-

oriented subjects within a managerial organizational structure.

That is, when NGOs are driven to organize in accordance with

performance-oriented work, they are incorporated into formal

calculative regimes (Rose and Miller 1992), which are based on

the economic rationalities and practices used in the private

sector; such rationalities and practices include efficiency,

goal orientation, and (better) performance of social actors

(Dean 2010).

Circulation of governmentality

The third perspective that underlies the critical examination

of the political rationality of appealing to civil society

20

revolves around how NGOs are incorporated into governance. In

the same vein, this viewpoint centers on encouraging NGOs to

participate in governance mechanisms by adopting managerial

knowledge and practices. I have already elaborated on the idea

that civil society and its relationship with the state and the

market should not be considered fixed, fostering a conceptual

flexibility for shaping of NGOs’ behaviors. I also stated that

such action necessitates a productive idea of power—one that

does not restrain but constitute. The third standpoint

elaborates on how a governmentality that orients burgeoning

civil society and shape the behavior of NGOs is circulated.

NGO participation in governance necessitates that NGOs be

endowed with the appropriate knowledge, skills, and motivation.

A crucial dimension of government from this perspective

concerns which actors should be or can be involved in

circulating governmentality, who is allowed to guide, and the

ways in which the governing of civil societies are practiced.

The succeeding discussion focuses on at least three ways of

circulating governmentality: by direct political intervention,

via the supranational intermediaries of civil society, and

through scientific knowledge.

21

The first approach refers to the direct political

intervention of national governments and IOs that aim to

include NGOs in governance processes (Porter and Craig 2004,

Leal 2007). As previously discussed, national governments in

the North have been actively introducing programs of

cooperation with NGOs. The idea of engaging organized actors of

civil society in governance and in the adoption of managerial

knowledge is further transmitted to other locales in the

context of development by the World Bank, the UN, the EU, and

donor institutions (Ilcan and Phillips 2008); the thrust on

involvement is also spread to Eastern Europe and the EU’s

neighboring countries, under the principle of democratic

assistantship and effective governance (Rihackova 2008). The

emphasis on creating civil societies in the context of

development also deliberately pursues this ambition, including

the provision of political guidance to NGOs that will organize

and work when they become involved in governance processes

(Giffen and Judge 2010, p. ii); an example of such guidance is

the Poverty Reduction Strategies and Country Assistance

Strategy (Porter and Craig 2004).

22

NGOs, which have been willing to participate in new

governance structures, have often organized on the basis of

managerialism (Roberts et al. 2005). This tendency is attributed

to the fact that managerial practices are a prerequisite for

NGOs to obtain funding from donor institutions; they are

requirements not only for effective management, but also for

accountability. A noteworthy issue is that international and

national developmental aid agencies (African Development Bank,

Asian Development Bank, EC, UNDP, UNICEF, World Bank, CIDA,

DANIDA, DFID, Irish Aid, MFA Netherlands, NORAD, SIDA, and

USAID) are strongly engaged in formulating and dispersing NGO

management frames, such as Logical Framework Analysis, with how-to

guidelines, toolkits, and reference papers and manuals.

What this process, established in the field of

development, suggests is that within the frame of a particular

conception of civil society, IOs and national governments

privilege managerial organization in governance settings. This

privileging is becoming increasingly synchronized because of

the alignment of donor institutions for the purpose of

rendering economic development governable. National governments

and IOs have recently agreed on donor harmonization and

23

alignment following the Paris Declaration (2005) and Accra

Agenda for Action (2008) (Giffen and Judge 2010, p. ii). One of

the features of this agreement is a common approach to civil

society policies, aligning aid effectiveness policies and

practices; this approach involves the dispersion of a common

organizational knowledge.

The emphasis placed on the role played by national

governments and IOs does not, however, center (or reduce) the

subjectivity of political power on political institutions in

the sense that the mechanisms through which managerialism is

contemplated, formulated, and implemented. Thus, managerialism

is explained not only by the acts and interests of political

institutions. As Foucault argues:

It is certain that in contemporary societies the state is not

simply one of the forms or specific situations of the exercise

of power – even if it is the most important – but that in a

certain way all other forms of power relations must refer to

it. But this is not because they are derived from it; it is

rather because power relations have come more and more under

state control . . . power relations have been progressively

governmentalized, that is to say, elaborated, rationalized, and

24

centralized in the form of, or under the auspices of, state

institutions (Foucault 1982, p. 793).

As illustrated by Foucault’s statement, political institutions

are neither epiphenomenal nor the sole driving force—the unique

explanans or agents—of managerial formations. The last two

strategies of circulating a governmentality to create civil

societies and guide the behaviors of NGOs extend this point,

elaborating on how other actors also share the agency of

guidance with political institutions.

For example, some supranational intermediary and local

NGOs assume a broker role in linking grassroots actors to

international funding agencies (Roberts et al. 2005, p. 1846)

while transmitting governance norms and practices to

peripheries.3 This role is performed in at least two ways.

First, these intermediaries are encouraged to act as

interlocutors that transmit and disperse rationalities and

norms of governance, endeavoring to shift the interests of

civil society for the purpose of justifying and normalizing

governance (Ilcan and Phillips 2008, Stone 2002, Carrol 1992,

World Bank 1995). Intermediary NGOs are then expected to render

governance structures visible, knowable, and intelligible, and

25

to convey political rationalities to encourage people within

civil society to engage in new governance arrangements. Second,

these intermediary NGOs often adopt the managerial principles

themselves in the first place before contacting other local

NGOs (Roberts et al. 2005, p. 1849). They therefore facilitate

the global dissemination of this hegemonic managerial subject position

in their organizational bodies, manifesting a prototype

organizational model for governance; that is, they function as

corporate enterprises endowed with economic rationalities.

Open Forum, a supranational civil society initiative that

emerged after the Accra Agenda to promote an effective civil

society strongly illustrates how an intermediary organization

receives and perceives the role of being an agency of conduct

(www.openforum.com). Open Forum aims to advance NGO

effectiveness and attempts to foster shared principles and

frameworks of NGO management through the toolkits and

guidelines (among others) recommended by the EU (European

Commission 2004) and the World Bank (2006). The Forum defines

the roles of NGOs (according to its terminology CSO) in the

governance of development policies thus:

26

As development actors, CSOs enjoy significant trust by the

public and local stakeholders. Most CSOs practice high

standards of management and probity. CSOs are, also,

continuously responding to legitimate calls to improve their

accountability and transparency practices. They have done so by

strengthening oversight by elected Boards of Directors, ongoing

transparent dialogue with program partners, clear

communications with constituencies, accessible program reports

and external financial audits, compliance with government

regulatory oversight, and through a variety of CSO-managed

Codes of Conduct and transparency mechanisms. CSO

accountability mechanisms must also address the multi-

directional nature of their accountabilities, often in both

donor and developing countries – first to primary stakeholders,

but equally to peers, partners, public constituencies, public

and private donors. (Bermann-Hermans and Murad 2012, p.79).

This definition provides clear insight into what is at stake in

terms of involving NGOs in governance settings via managerial

knowledge, as well as in establishing trust and enhancing

accountability and transparency via managerial practices. The

influence of the emphasis on clear communication and

accountability mechanisms is problematized in the next section.

27

Before proceeding with the third approach to circulation of

conduct, I note that similar messages regarding the

internalization of managerial practices as observed in the Open

Forum definition can be found in the toolkits and guidelines of

similar intermediary NGOs that work in the fields of

development and global or European governance.

The last approach to circulation of governmentality draws

upon scientific knowledge—a perspective that, in turn,

reinforces the roles of science and scientists. These entities

obtain an authoritative voice within managerial formations. For

instance, following the publication of the White Paper on

Governance (European Commission 2001), the EU funded several

framework programs for civil society and governance research.

These programs afforded the scientific community the

opportunity to serve as stakeholders of governance and

encouraged scientists to engage in dialogue with policymakers

by supporting the policymaking process with scientific

evidence. Scientists, however, have not merely provided

evidence for policymakers, but have also engaged in formulating

ideas about the means for reinforcing civil society and

guidance of NGOs; they have achieved this goal by participating

28

in NGO seminars and conferences in Brussels, as well as

preparing commissioned toolkits and strategies for capacity

building.

Consequently, political intervention does not directly act

on the subjects whose behaviors are to be shaped, but through

brokers of conduct and political programs. In this process,

political power acts on the processes through the agencies of

scientists and intermediary NGOs. The scientific community and

NGO networks, which are part of the assemblage of governance,

are empowered to attain a master-like position vis-à-vis subjects,

whose behaviors are shaped. Through this position, governance

at a distance (indeed a considerable distance in terms of

global governance) is possible. In turn, the capacity-building

and empowerment activities of states and civil society actors

(those specifically aiming to disperse a particular

organizational management style) constitute crucial techniques

given that these activities normalize and actualize managerial

formations within new governance arrangements.

To conclude, a Foucault-inspired governmentality approach

facilitates the critical examination of NGO participation in

governance with its conception of civil society and power, as

29

well as its focus on the global circulation of conduct. In its

current form, governmental rationality invokes civil society

and therefore encourages NGOs as it shapes their organizational

structures in terms of managerialism. Central to this argument

is that this process indicates the dramatic transformation of

civic actors into corporate and enterprise entities that are

oriented to act and think in accordance with economic

rationalities. The succeeding section theoretically broadens

this debate by focusing on the influence of managerial subject

formations on the relationship among the state, the market, and

civil society.

3. Managerial subject formations and coupling among the state,

the market, and civil society

In this section, I attempt to problematize the tendency of

contemporary governmental rationality to promote managerial

subject formations within civil society in the context of NGOs

concentrating on coupling among the state, the market, and civil

society in the organizational terms of managerialism and in the

functional terms of social regulation. Coupling here is used

closer to the manner by which it is referred to in system

30

theory (Maturana 1975). It implies the engagement of a given

phenomenon (in this case, civil society) with either its

environment (system of governance) or another phenomenon

(managerialism). The concept of coupling suggests co-evolution,

in which interacting systems reinforce for one another a

relationship of reflexively generated transformation. That is,

the coupling of the state, market, and civil society under such

rationality leads to subject formations in civil society,

thereby bringing about NGO participation in governance.

Managerialism emerges as a medium of coupling given the

proliferation of performance indicators, as well as

rationalities of corporate organization and administration in

each constituent in the governance system.

I should note that I am neither offering a new

interpretation of system theory nor attempting to integrate

system theory with a Foucauldian account. Instead, I find

recourse in the vocabulary of system theory as I elaborate on

the effects of contemporary governmental rationalities on the

conceptualization of the state, the market, and civil society.

My focus is on subject formations, for which coupling offers a

heuristic tool that evaluates the fields of congruence between

31

the state, the market, and civil society and the fields in

which their previously prescribed roles and functions merge.

This section therefore attempts to locate the participation of

NGOs in governance within a larger context of the interplays

between the constituent actors of governance and the

rationalities and technologies that guide the behavior of these

actors. The following discussion underscores at least three

factors that reinforce coupling, the process that entangles

managerialism, instrumental–formal rationalities, and social

regulation in a subject formation (i.e., managerial civil

society). These factors are managerialism as a mediating system

of coupling, professional communication, and surveillance.

Managerialism as a mediating system for coupling

I define the proliferation of managerialism in civil society as

the coupling of civil society with public administration and

market forces at a global scale. It relates to an old but

unresolved debate in social theory. This debate includes

Weber’s remarks on the iron cage of bureaucratic rationality

and Habermas’ admonition of the colonization of the lifeworld.

32

To begin, Weber first addresses the perils of the

proliferation of bureaucratic rationalities in wider domains of

social life (DiMaggio and Powell 1983). According to him,

instrumental–formal rationalities, as well as problem solving

with systemized rules and norms without regard for persons,

replicate the value rationalities of traditional society

(Kalberg 1980). Bureaucracy then takes over the normative and

administrative responsibility of governing societies from

religion and dynasties in favor of the self-regulation of

societies. This process was inescapable for humanity, but what

was problematic for Weber was the weakening of social

interactions and value rationalities because of the spread of

bureaucratic technocratic solutions into wider societal

domains. This process then eventually eroded the need for

intimate social interactions and the need for value repertoires

of a community for governance and social reproduction,

resulting in the dominance of technocratic–administrative

rationalities. That is, to my mind, the ethos and mores of a

given polity are de-substantialized by the dominance of

technical–formal procedures that assume the responsibility of

not only governing society, but also socially integrating

33

structurally differentiated systems (state, economy, culture,

science, law).

Weber’s pessimistic views have been influential on social

theory, but not immune from critique. Marcuse (1972) criticized

Weber’s ideas, stating that capitalist rationalities were

interpreted in a Hegelian sense as though these rationalities

were the march of Reason. Weber thus did not mention a

universal reason, but a particular reasoning driven by the

rationalities of capital accumulation. This reasoning is formed

by social interactions and practice. Marcuse’s second

contention was that perfectly rational bureaucracies will not

suffice to entrench self-regulating societies because, in

Weber’s theory, society is guided and directed by an irrational

element in the final instance: a charismatic leader who

represents national interest.

The current dynamics of the spread of technical–

administrative rationalities may, however, be conceived

differently from both Weber’s iron cage thesis and Marcuse’s

view; that is, conceiving this process in terms of capitalist

logic. On the basis of Weber, formal rationalities of

bureaucracy spread to larger domains of social life as an

34

unavoidable historical necessity. The proliferation of

corporate management knowledge as the knowledge of public

administration reveals the fact that what the bureaucrats

attend to in their reasoning is a particular form of knowledge

that is derived from the context of corporate management, but

not a universal reasoning; this knowledge is strategically

selected to govern governance (Jessop 2007). This process is

widely captured by the debates on NPM and new managerialism.

Within the scope of NPM, the knowledge of administration

used in contemporary governance arrangements has been derived

from the context of corporate governance. NPM also derives

values, such as efficiency and effectiveness, from the market

domain. Yet this perspective does not necessarily imply that

the political has been subject to the capital logic, or that

the superstructure has been determined by the economic base, as

Marcuse’s criticism of Weber goes. The superstructure can be

argued as decomposed in new governance, with politics and

administration being separate from each other. In this case,

the base (economics) does not determine the superstructure

(politics), but couples with it by transferring the mode of

organization and social values (effectiveness and efficiency)

35

from the domain of economy to the domains of political

organization and polity formation. This transfer then shapes

and transforms social and political composition. What I contend

is that in this process, managerialism emerges as a mediating

system, coupling the organizational techne of governance, co-

forming the organizational mentalities of the public sector and

corporations, as well as the mentalities of the associations of

civil society. Similar to bureaucratic rationalities,

managerialism is based on instrumental–formal rationalities,

with the suggestion of managing all aspects of social life with

systemized expert knowledge, regardless of individual and the

entity being managed. Managerialism, in this regard, enables

the governing of governance given that the art of government is

reduced to the management of ‘things’. In turn, the

administration of an IO and an NGO in any country can be

undertaken on the basis of similar knowledge. As a result, an

expert can easily shift jobs within the nodes and sectors of

governance (public administration, think tanks, NGOs, IGOs)

because of the universally applicable features of management.

36

Professionalized communication

The professionalization of communication is the second factor

that reinforces the coupling process. Communication is a key

concept in social theory in terms of understanding the dynamics

of social formations and social transformations. Habermas’

action-systemic approach, which originated from Parsons and

Luhmann, conceives of society in terms of differentiated

systems (state and bureaucracy, society, economy), each having

its own functions (governance, social reproduction, and value

regeneration and production, respectively). The central concern

for Habermas has been to depict how these systems are

integrated and how society is reproduced, transformed, and

continued into succeeding generations without domination. In

this account, interactions and feedback mechanisms or

communication between systems and a common communicative space

(e.g., the public sphere) are regarded as elements essential to

enabling integration. To Habermas (1987), when money and power

penetrate the lifeworld of civil society (as what happened

during the twentieth century), the authentic values of society

are colonized by non-communicative means of power and money.

37

Money and political power are quantifiable media—they are non-

communicative; therefore, they fail to entangle structurally

differentiated systems. Habermas (1975) thus argues that the

dominance of bureaucratic and economic mentalities in society

causes legitimation crises. The coupling of the state, the

market, and civil society through the mediating system of

managerialism in a Habermesian account can then be viewed as

non-communicative because managerialism paves the way to

distorted communication by colonizing the lifeworld of civil

society.

In this article, I consider these systemic interactions

not necessarily as taking place among pre-defined systems. That

is, coupling in itself may be regarded as a form of systemic

communication; thus, the systems are constituted, revised, and

re-shaped because of and during their communicative

interactions. Furthermore, communication is related to the

productive and regulative interpretation of power (Detel 2005);

as Ball (2000) suggests, a crucial aspect of power is that it

is not rendered possible without communication. Governmental

rationalities are then translated into practices to the extent

that they are transmitted, made visible, and received. From

38

this perspective, the non-communicative means of Habermas,

markets, and political power also communicate; they couple with

one another and with civil society in terms of governance. For

the purposes of the argument in this article, what merits

attention is the circulation of managerial knowledge and practices

and their internalization—what Lipshutz calls the expanding

neo-liberal regime of governmentality (2005). The Foucault-

inspired interpretation of communication between systems

therefore sheds light on the processes of the political conduct

of civil society; this conduct is formed through the

interactions of political institutions, academics, and NGO

networks. Communication is therefore the key factor in subject

formations.

Furthermore, a possible effect of this coupling is the

double process of the decoupling of ‘communication as an

abstraction’ of systemic necessity for functionally

differentiated systems (such as that used by Luhmann) from

‘communication as praxis’, an activity (often conducted by

professionals) based on systemized predefined norms and

practices. This effect may be defined as the reification of

communication (Chari 2010). On this account, managerial

39

features affect not only the organizational structure of NGOs,

but also their media of interactions (or communication as

praxis) with other stakeholders and the public. These media

comprise Internet communication technologies, including vivid

websites, newsletters, position papers, and electronic

notifications, which help represent and convey the message of

the actors of governance (Dean, Anderson, and Lovink 2006). To

contribute to governance and compete with other interest

groups, NGOs are also required to learn to use professional

communication strategies or recruit experts who hold these

skills (Maier and Meyer 2011, Ruzza 2004, Sauregger 2006). A

component of these strategies is the use of approaches akin to

PR and marketing. This component implies that ‘undistorted

communication’ within governance settings is possible with the

application of sophisticated verbal skills and highly qualified

visual illustrations.

This process has implications for the conceptualization of

the interactions among the state, the market, and civil

society. According to professional PR, communication becomes an

action in itself that entails systematic expert knowledge about

conveying a message independent of its content. That is, the

40

practices and knowledge of communication emerge as a technical

concern. In other words, the current emphasis on professional

communication renders communication in itself a profession and

communication that is akin to PR–marketing techniques. In turn,

the craftsmanship of communication is associated with knowing how

rather than knowing what. This leads to abandoning a sense of human

agency and context to the extent that the very act of

communicating becomes an object of performance and technical–

administrative practice that mechanically articulates

information under attempts at an organizational management that

prioritizes technique over substance.

Panoptic surveillance

Another factor that reinforces the coupling of the state, the

market, and civil society is surveillance mechanisms that have

emerged because of new governance. Surveillance reinforces

reflexive subject formations, i.e., observation helps the

observer and the observed assume like identities: those of

managerial–performance-oriented actors. These identities are

related to at least two concerns—accountability and

transparency.

41

First, the symbiotic relationship between technologies of

performance and managerialism renders surveillance possible

through mechanisms such as auditing, reporting, and attempts at

communicating through PR. As argued from a Foucault-inspired

perspective, these technologies do not only help document

outcomes of management, but also set a cognitive frame whereby

individuals relate to social phenomenon by interpreting and

processing social realities as calculable things. Such

association is carried out through the use of managerial

organizational strategies. Therefore, inscribing the methods

for satisfying objectives and representing ‘results’ create a

mental framework that structures actors’ relationship with

social reality. Thus, the mentality that underlies performance

management, along with other communications, aims to make

performance visible, thereby rendering audit and surveillance

possible.4

Second, the current interest in participation is further

related to the debates that surround transparency and

publicity. NGOs monitor policymaking processes and therefore

facilitate transparency in the governance system, or as Keane

(2009) suggests, NGOs monitor democracy. This monitoring of

42

political authorities also brings in a form of surveillance and

reflexive subject formation. Some commentators have addressed

the disciplining instruments in contemporary organizational

relations by drawing on the concept of the Panopticon advanced

by Bentham and Foucault (McKinley and Starkey 1998); this

concept alludes to the disciplining gaze of inmates in

penitentiaries (Foucault 1977). Although surveillance preserves

the main features of the traditional Panopticon, it differs

from it in certain aspects under the perspective of governance.

It preserves because guards (in the traditional Panopticon),

evaluators, and experts (in governance mechanisms) are also

subjected to the disciplining effects of the knowledge inherent

in administration processes. It differs because the gaze

performed by the traditional Panopticon aim to discipline and

control all the possible actions and behaviors of those

observed (e.g., prisoners, patients, and students). By

contrast, the system of governance subjectivizes, disciplines,

and governs the comportment of governance actors by placing the

entire mechanism under scrutiny of the constituents of the

system. This approach, however, has a subjectivizing impact. To

illustrate, governance ascribes NGOs a controlling role of

43

directing a critical gaze toward policymaking processes. In the

name of transparency, some elements of policy processes (agenda

setting and policy implementation) are accessible to NGOs, but

not all of them can follow political processes and messages.

Thus, some groups are encouraged, empowered, trained, and

sponsored to perform this task. The emergence of NGOs around

governance settings therefore exerts reflexive disciplining

implications—agents continue to be subjectified as they engage

with political power. In other words, being ‘in touch with’ the

political system and performing the task of following the

process reinforce subject formations.

Furthermore, surveillance, rendered possible within

governance, is exerted on free agencies, empowered in the first

place to calculate their actions, present their goals, and then

document their achievements in a calculable manner. The

contemporary Panopticon is positive and productive, as opposed

to being a negative and restraining gaze, given that the

agencies are initially required to perform and sustain the

performance identity in order to be audited. Bentham (1995) and

Foucault (1977) suggest that traditional surveillance by an

inspector is made possible with the ‘most effectual

44

contrivances for seeing without being seen’ (Flint 2012).

Governance, however, proposes a mechanism for the visibility of

its constituents—donors, auditors, stakeholders, researchers,

and the state, in this paper—to enable transparency,

accountability, and publicity. This visibility is provided and

sustained via performance indicators and communication tools.

In governance, inspection is therefore de-centered and

multiperspective, dispersing the evaluating gaze between

different actors. Furthermore, inmates were traditionally

isolated from the outside world and could only communicate with

their superintendent(s) (Flint 2012, p. 827). Governance,

however, suggests continuous communication between and within

actors because surveillance is made possible by the

communication of performance (Dean 2005, Dean et al. 2006). In

the traditional Panopticon, guards were also subjected to the

disciplining influence of the underlying ideas of the

administration; the distinction between the observer and the

observed in governance is blurred or entangled in

organizational terms because constituents of governance use the

same managerial knowledge techniques, such as goal orientation

and performance-oriented action. The contemporary Panopticon is

45

not external to the behavior of the unit of observation—

including NGOs. This Panopticon can be defined as reflexive

given that the constituents of a system can observe one

another. Coupling among the constituent units of governance is

created through intra-systemic surveillance or the

hermeneutical reflection of each unit on the basis of evidence

derived from managerial performance-oriented feedback.

In sum, this section has theoretically examined the

coupling of the state, the market, and civil society as a form

of governmentality through the medium of managerialism.

Coupling denotes the relational, procedural, and reflexive

features of social transformation, and the three aspects

discussed here (managerialism, professional communication, and

Panoptic surveillance) aim to encompass these features. The

elucidation of these factors is an attempt to reflect on a

current social process by inquiring about the circulation of

ideational and practical frames about the organization and

management of governance. Such organization and management are

exercised (i.e., through NPM) by the spread of trained

managers, the use of PR tools as expert instruments for

46

communication in governance, and the examination of the

underlying Panoptic features of governance.

4. Concluding remarks

This article has elaborated on the ways by which a governmental

rationality has linked participation with managerial knowledge

and practices in the context of governance and NPM. Several

implications of incorporating civil society organizations into

governance processes have been outlined. First, the strategy of

involving NGOs in governance entails an understanding of a

certain type of state/society relationship. Second, the

procedures and formal structures through which NGOs have been

integrated into the institutional settings of governance foster

the formation of new civil society subjects who are willing and

able to participate in societal governance. Third, civil

society engagement in governance often elicits the

professionalization of NGOs and their adaptation to

managerialism. Fourth, the functional differentiation between

the state, the market, and civil society is blurred at an

organizational level because of their coupling through

managerialism.

47

These arguments do not pretend to be exhaustive; thus,

several other effects of this process can also be observed. For

example, one can argue that as ‘officializing strategies’

(Bourdiue 1977), ‘false activities’ (Zizek 2007), or a ‘new

ideology’ (Cooke and Kothari 2001), the argument on

participation may symbolically misdirect the interests and

desires of people by creating a fantasy that they can initiate

change by participating in managerial formations or becoming

entrepreneurial individuals. One can also argue that managerial

participation stigmatizes antagonism and conflict. The latter

implies that social issues can be resolved with necessary

technical intervention and expertise—an ideal that has been

practiced through managerialism. Civil society involvement is

considered a way of politicizing governance settings in that

political authorities aim to balance the influence of business

interests (Kaldor 2005, Keane 2008). Yet, the paradox is that

under the NPM, the means of politicization (in this case, NGOs)

have in fact been incorporated into governance settings in a

de-politicized manner. De-politicization here refers to

stabilization and the elimination of the possibility for

contention, resistance, and critique that can potentially

48

emerge from within civil society. NGO participation in governance

in this regard suggests that engaging politically sponsored

NGOs in decision-making structures is a ‘good’ and ‘right’

approach to mobilizing collective action, as opposed to less

predictable and threatening modes of action, such as protests,

informal gatherings, or spontaneous reactions (Leal 2007).

However, the implementation and implications of these ideas and

practices, and their failures and resistances to them, diverge

globally (Roberts et al. 2005).

Acknowledges

This paper has benefited from the generous comments of the two anonymous reviewers. The usual disclaimers apply.

Notes

49

1 Following Mercer (2002, p. 6) ‘[t]he term “NGO” is understood here

to refer to those organizations that are officially established, run

by employed staff (often urban professionals or expatriates),

supported by domestic or international funding, and are relatively

large and well-resourced. NGOs may be international organizations or

they may be national or regional’. The term covers a variety of

organizations ‘with respect to scale, size, purpose, staffing,

funding, and operations’, ‘including Community-based Organizations

(CBOs), International NGOs (INGOs), Government-run NGOs (GONGOs),

Donor-organized NGOs (DONGOs), Advocacy NGOs (ANGOs), National NGOs

(NNGOs), Social Movement Organizations (SMOs), and most broadly,

Civil Society Organizations (CSOs)’ (Kamat 2004, p. 172). In this

work, NGOs are not considered synonymous to the concept of civil

society, which would be a misleading conflation. Rather, they are

conceived as part of civil society, among other actors and spaces,

such as media, trade unions, universities, and workplaces.

2 This re-composition of the ethics of the self and mode of

governance prioritizes style and quantifiable characteristics over

content and value commitments (Bevir 2010, Hajer 2009).

3 From a Gramscian view, the manipulation of NGO interests encourages

the dispersion of the hegemonic discourse on governance, as well as

the necessary knowledge for restructuring capital accumulation; that

is, reinforcing neo-liberalism through the devolution of the

responsibilities of the state through public–private partnerships and

supporting integration in global capitalism with trade and foreign

direct investment arrangements. In Gramscian reading, therefore,

these networks help maintain political integrity and stability vis-à-

vis any popular discontent in such context given that governance has

been confronted with problems in governing. Incorporating NGO

participation into new governance mechanisms is an attempt to

integrate them into the historical bloc, where they are defined as

the constituents of the new establishment.

4 An important note is that this process does not naturally lead to a

necessary colonization; some may have treated reportage merely as an

act performed to satisfy donors. For instance, the ATTAC, which

received financial support from the Commission, played an active role

against the European Constitution’s referendum in France in 2005.

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