Paper short abstract:

NGOs are often said to enable the neoliberal roll-back of the state, yet civic associations may temporarily assume certain state functions precisely in order to disrupt, rather than ensure, the smooth unfolding of governance-as-usual, forcing state intervention in the process.

Paper long abstract:

Civil society’s intervention in public governance is largely understood by scholars to be deeply implicated in the neoliberal rolling back of the state as, by assuming some of the latter’s functions, associations fill the service provision gap that institutions have left behind. But what happens when the state was 'absent' to begin with, in Fordist-Keynesian terms, or inhabitants object to authorities’ modes of governance? What is the role of civil society then? Inverting the analytical starting point, this paper seeks to analyse NGOs’ statecraft as they intervene in institutional practices that are deemed inappropriate for public institutions and damaging for the public good.

To do so, the paper examines the work of a small Lebanese NGO who secured the reopening of Beirut’s largest publicly owned park, Horsh Beirut, and protected it from large-scale real estate development. While campaigners worked to raise awareness about the Horsh’s predicament, the NGO also actively contributed to the creation of a roadmap for its reopening, in some ways doing the municipality’s job. However, this ‘stepping in’ for the state did not facilitate the state’s disengagement but, rather, it forced a positive kind of - limited - interventionism which promoted the public's good to a much greater extent than before. In taking stock of the NGO’s motivations, strategies, and practices, the paper ultimately argues that civic associations may temporarily assume certain state functions precisely in order to disrupt, rather than ensure, the smooth unfolding of governance-as-usual.