ABSTRACT
Non-governmental organisations are largely a phenomenon of the 1980s. Development NGOs, and a discourse surrounding their activities, date largely to the 1970s though it was only in the 1980s that these phenomena acquired real momentum. Yet as chapters 1 and 2 also noted, NGOs have roots stretching back to the late nineteenth century and much of the political significance of the NGO phenomenon only becomes apparent when related to this long history. In this respect, Korten’s typology of three ‘generations’ of NGOs or NGO strategies (1990: 115-27) represents an important contribution to the NGO literature. Despite this strength however, Korten’s typology, especially the first and second ‘generations’, is based on a primarily socio-economic interpretation of NGO activity that reflects the focus of the broader literature. In the Philippines, however, as in South-East Asia as a whole, NGOs and their antecedents, civic and political organisations, have a long record of participation in politics. In turn, the contemporary political roles of NGOs and the political context to those roles becomes more apparent when situated in this historical context.
