Collective development projects in Palestine: Propagation of the neoliberal vulgate and normalisation of domination

Sbeih Sbeih (1)

1 IREMAM - Institut de Recherches et d'Etudes sur les Mondes Arabes et Musulmans

In the aftermath of the creation of the Palestinian Authority in 1994, a multitude of actors began to carry out collective projects for cooperation in development under the aegis of international donors. The analysis of a World Bank-funded project illustrates how the scheme became a power network, producing both the managerial standards and the mechanisms needed to apply them among aid recipients. This contributed to transfiguring development into a dominant belief, based on a neoliberal and post-conflict reading of Palestinian society. In the name of coordination for "good governance", this network-building process constitutes the framework for interaction of aid recipients, while building a new social space: the "world of development". While the adherence of local actors to this belief has resulted in their internalisation of rational norms, it has also led to a new way of perceiving social reality. As a result, a new value system was established. A new social hierarchy was created in the "Palestine of Donors", with international donors at the top of the ladder. While the article is based on the Palestinian case, it addresses a global theme, that of instrumentalisation of "civil society" by international organisations whose purpose it is to establish a market economy in countries dependent upon development aid.

Mots clés: NGOs; Palestine; project; governance; network; development aid

Domaines: Sociologie

Sbeih Sbeih. Collective development projects in Palestine: Propagation of the neoliberal vulgate and normalisation of domination. Civil Society Review, 2018. ⟨hal-01899526⟩