Transition, reconstruction, and decline : a portrait of NGO development in post-apartheid South Africa

Abstract

This dissertation is a contribution to the sociology of NGOs operating in post-conflict societies. The research is based on an ethnographic study of an NGO undergoing change and transition in a rapidly changing South Africa. The research was originally directed more towards models of NGO activity as a possible basis for peace building and conflict resolution drawing on earlier research conducted in Northern Ireland. However, the study shifted a good deal of its focus over time into an analysis of the challenges faced by NGOs arising from national and global processes involving interactions between NGOs, post-conflict states and international donor organisations. As such, the research is not so much a contribution to general theories of NGOs, civil society and post-conflict reconstruction as a more fine-grained study of the practical exigencies faced by one NGO on the ground. This offers middle-range theories grounded in space and time, rather than a more over-arching approach to NGOs or global civil society.