Power & Limits of NGOs

Since the end of the Cold War, a virtual army of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) from the United States, Britain, Germany and elsewhere in Europe have flocked to Central and Eastern Europe and Eurasia. These NGOs are working on such diverse tasks as helping to establish competitive political parties, elections and independent media, as well as trying to reduce ethnic conflict. This text assesses the impact of these international efforts to build democratic institutions. The case studies presented here provide a portrait of the mechanisms by which ideas commonly associated with democratic states have evolved in formerly communist states, revealing conditions that help as well as hurt the process.