ABSTRACT
In Chapters Four and Five, I examined the arguments about culture and the
Soviet legacy and how these were seen as barriers to democracy building. In
this chapter, I consider the impact that Western donors1 have had on
democracy building and civil society development in Armenia. Academics
have examined how the policies, discourses and practices of donors have
affected the definitions of concepts of civil society and democracy, the
framing of problems and the reification of certain topics, discourses and
project types over others (Abramson 1999; Adamson 2002; Akiner 2004; Bruno 1997; Ghodsee 2004; Hann 2004; Helms 2003; Hemment 2004, Hen-
derson 2003; Howell and Pearce 2002; Ishkanian 2003, 2004; Kay 2004;
Mandel 2002; McMahon 2002; Mendelson and Glenn 2002; Richter 2002;
Rivkin-Fish 2004; Roy 2004; Sampson 2002; Wedel 2001). Some have iden-
tified the tendency among donors to downplay their role and, at times, to
obscure their impact on local processes and developments. For instance, as
Jude Howell and Jenny Pearce argue,
Interestingly international donor agencies, the fourth actor [the state,
market and civil society are the other three actors], hidden from view by
the triadic unity that is limited to national boundaries, assume the
arbiter role . . . The appearance of neutrality serves inadvertently, or indeed intentionally, as a powerful, political tool for furthering parti-
cular agendas, for the broker appears not to have any agenda of its
own, to be value-free and ideologically open to remain beyond capture
by competing discourses. (Howell and Pearce 2002: 116)
The desire to appear neutral, value free and ideologically open is driven by
the desire, as discussed in Chapter One, to depoliticize and technicize inter-
ventions. Even before the current backlash against democracy building,
donors sought to play down their role in order to avoid accusations of
interventionism. The aim, however far from reality it may be, is to appear as
supporters of local initiatives and processes, not instigators. As the head of one large foundation working in the post-Soviet countries said during a
conference in New York, ‘We don’t control the impact or work of the NGOs.
All we can do is make sure they do what they said they will do in their grant
application . . . and we don’t organise civic movements. We only give grants to NGOs that might be part of civic movements’ (14 April 2007). While at a workshop held in Washington, DC, a representative from a bilateral agency
argued that academics should not exaggerate the role played by donors and
should consider donors’ actions as one of many factors that have affected
democracy building in the former Soviet region (7 December 2007). Clearly,
the outcomes of democracy building projects are affected by multiple fac-
tors; however, the tendency that appears to be emerging among some
donors (in particular American ones) to argue that donors have not had as
significant an influence as once presumed obscures the power of donor agencies in shaping the discourses, agendas, policies and practices of local
civil society organizations. Armenian NGO leaders and members I inter-
viewed and, as I have demonstrated in previous chapters (see Chapters
Two, Three and Four), often complained about the impact of donor agen-
cies on shaping agendas through their funding priorities and policies, as
well as unexpressed preferences for particular NGOs or individual NGO
leaders (i.e. favourites) over others.
