Civil society in Canadian development policy: Between democratic development and market liberalization

In the 1990s a new international development assistance paradigm emerged, conditioning economic aid on political restructuring. Within this "new orthodoxy" civil society in developing countries became a panacea, a universal means to achieve the twin goals of neoliberalism: democratic development and market liberalization. This thesis seeks to challenge the prevalent linking of civil society with processes of democratization in the developing world first by exploring civil society’s conceptual premise, and then by locating its use by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) in the dynamic interrelation s of society, the state and the market. By arguing that civil society is more valuable as ideal-type than as an ‘actually existing’ social category, and by contextualizing the reification of civil society in neoliberal development politics, this thesis problematizes the discursive application of civil society as means to ensure the equitable distribution of development benefits.