ABSTRACT
This book concerns the contribution of anthropology to the study of government, non-government (voluntary), and private sector organizations in the Third World and the West. The 1980s and 1990s have been a time of change for organizations in all sectors. The discrediting of modernization as a western domestic policy and as the basis for Third World development has been accelerated by the international reorganization of capital.1 Production has become organized on an international division of labour with competition between First and Third World sites and the introduction of new management systems. Structural adjustment in the Third World and New Right policies in the West have reduced the role of the state, moving functions over to the private sector and relying more heavily on voluntary and non-government organizations. These changes have been accompanied by questions about different styles of organizing. The western model of bureaucracy is seen to have shortcomings: it is asked in the Third World, but not yet in the West, whether it is possible to build upon indigenous methods of organizing? Despite such widespread institutional change, some aspects of organizations have proved recalcitrant to alteration. Notably this concerns gender. Initially public sector organizations, and now more private sector companies have been concerned to improve opportunities for disadvantaged categories of people, especially women, and to maximize their potential in the labour market: but why have organizations proved so difficult to change? And who is benefitting? One theme running through these programmes is ‘empowerment’. But who is empowered by empowerment? Is it principally the intended beneficiaries, people in the Third World, women and customers or clients? These questions about changing ways of organizing through indigenous management, addressing gender inequalities and empowerment of clients are the focus of the three parts of this book.
