ABSTRACT
Even though NGOs are said to be the means of strengthening the performance of civil societies, little attention has been paid to the ways in which this happens, and we know little about how civil societies give shape to forms of accountability that, in turn, trigger performance. This chapter explores how a particular developmental form of performance and accountability functioned in a civil society context. We use the term ‘developmental accountability’ to describe how social relations and practices in remote villages in Sri Lanka were organised into a participative mode of rural development based on ‘folk Buddhist ideology.’ 1
To achieve this aim, we tell the story of Sarvodaya, the largest civil society organisation in Sri Lanka, and illustrate how the performance and accountabilities of civil society organisations are founded on the structural and ideological dynamics of the civil and political state. Our focus is specifi cally on the formative phase of Sarvodaya: we aim to explore how a particular social form of accountability functioned as a social movement without becoming a NGO. This gave shape to a performing civil society in which a particular development ideology and a civic structure framed the movement’s accountability practices and relations-hence the term ‘developmental accountability.’
