Cut from a Different Cloth? Comparing Democracy-Promoting NGOs in Ghana and Indonesia

Abstract

This study compares donor-sponsored non-governmental organizations (NGOs) promoting democracy in Ghana and Indonesia. Starting from the idea that democracy and civil society are context-specific phenomena, we explore the question of what context-specificity means for individual NGOs. While donors and researchers alike stress the importance of context, context-specificity remains an ill-defined and elusive concept. Our study contributes to the debate by (1) constructing a framework which defines context-specificity at the level of organizational characteristics and (2) analysing to what extent NGOs in Ghana and Indonesia actually conform to this definition of context-specificity. Because Ghana and Indonesia represent very different contexts, we maximize the chances of finding differences in organizational configuration. Our fieldwork data from Accra and Jakarta only partly confirm this expectation. Although the mission statements echo national differences, we find remarkable similarities in terms of strategies, structures, and resources. These similarities lead us to conclude that the NGOs operate quite independently from their national contexts. In the discussion, we relate our findings to the debate on donor support to NGOs.