Power and counter-power, NGOs in history

We know Michel Doucin well for having had him as an interlocutor in various functions held at the Quai d’Orsay, as secretary general of the High Council of International Cooperation (Hcci) and as a partner when he supported groups of Sciences-Po students interested in international relations and the role played by NGO. Michel Doucin, between two responsibilities took the time to write a thesis, then write THE NGO : the counter-power ?an extremely precious book which with historical and legal looks, with an approach as a political scientist, addresses the questions that association activists are constantly asking themselves: the question of the identity of the identity of NGOthat of their legitimacy and their effectiveness. How is it indeed that such modest actors compared to the various powers in place-that of States, that of multinationals, that of the media-sometimes manage to do “ move the lines ? »»

The long history of NGO : Powers and counterpowers

First of all Michel Doucin places the NGO In a long history, that of the humanitarian workers of which he does not hesitate to see the origin in the hospital orders which accompanied the crusades, but also that of the defenders of civil and political rights, naturalists and solidarists … This chapter does not trivialize the NGOhe rooted them in historical fights. “” What we call today NGO has been one of the construction of modern states He said to us (p. 108). The activities of associations have constituted “ stimulation to build a secularized public service attentive to all categories making up the nation ».

Talking about counter-power is of course talking about power, but it is doing it by relying on the powers constituted and instituted. Four chapters are thus devoted to the relations of NGO With international organizations, with states, with multinational firms and the press. These chapters show the aspect “ David facing Goliath Which characterizes the work of NGO : their relative opportunism and weakness, which allow all mobility, the tip of relying on the World Economic Forum to create a World Social Forum, a counter-Davos. But they also show the complicities: the NGO also know how to be useful in powers, or even participate. In multiple actors, variable geometry alliances play an important role. International organizations, which are only on paper on intergovernmental organizations, have thus been able to give their own space that their authorities hardly allow them. As for journalists, who seek to avoid official words, the diversity of sources, speeches and debates, which are born from this game between powers and counter-pillars, is blessed bread.

The complex identity of NGO

But a counter-power must also have an identity, a clean existence, it cannot be content to rely on the powers of other actors or “ predate ». He must be responsible, to say on behalf of whom he is talking about and for which he acts. “” Militancy must respect representative democracy. Otherwise it is the power of lobbies, active minorities, various groups ; And then, who contrasts, who is responsible ? “, Recalls Samy Cohen. To which Michel Doucin replies: “ It is from the double idea, affirmed by the media, that they (the NGO) are, on the one hand, the fighters of justice and equity in the name of a system of shared values, and that they embody, on the other hand, a whole part of the political imagination of the peoples that the NGO have built legitimacy which responds to that elective States ». But the NGO cannot be content to embody a collective imagination – to which all the players in the communication aspire -, they must refer to clearly displayed values ​​and be experts of the questions dealt with. Michel Doucin therefore insists on the relationship with the scientific environment: “ Researchers and practitioners volunteer a counter-expertise which is an instrument of counterweight in a world where knowledge has become an instrument of power “And to show with Habermas that” Almost all the main themes launched in the international public debate in recent years have been by experts engaged in collaboration with civic initiatives ». One could prolong and show that most diplomatic advances owe something to the action of NGO : Animation of the public debate and orientation of negotiations go hand in hand. But to do this, you have to invent “ New citizen tools “, Which is a” Another way to participate in the life of the world city ».

THE NGO are in direct contact with powers: this relationship is sometimes a dance, sometimes judo. They occupy the mythical space of the Agora, “ the space where divergent interests of groups and classes meet », An essential space for democracy. Michel Doucin takes the opportunity to give new meaning to the old notion of “ civil society Who has been the subject of debate since the origin of philosophy and which we use to justify any decision. Civil society is now identified with the non -governmental space where public debate is organized, with a modern agora, with civic breathing. It is not a collection of poorly defined and poorly organized actors, but the scene where they interact.

As we will have understood, Michel Doucin takes seriously the NGO And gives them an eminent place in the movement of history. He recognizes them an essential strength and difference from other actors: the affirmation of an ethics. “” If they have acquired such an influence, it is because they reintroduce ethical and moral requirement in public intervention ». The breaches of this requirement therefore affect the NGO At the heart of their identity. Hunting for these shortcomings, as the news has offered us seriousness in recent times, must therefore be relentless.

An uncertain future

Concluding on some hypotheses for the future, the author asks a question: “ And if all this belonged to the past ? Do we not assist a collapse of the multilateral system built in the aftermath of the second world conflict under the blows of an economic and hegemonic military power and a violent return of the religious ? »Do we not enter an era of insecurity and fractures in which civil society, this space of freedom and debate may be padlocked ? The coexistence of a “ system centered on states with a multicenter system, just as powerful »Is it a stable and lasting state ? THE NGO Will they succeed in keeping this power to defend and animate a non-governmental space ? And to conclude, as a message, on the ethical and moral requirement and on the coincidence between NGO and the aspirations of the citizens of the world.