extent, leading political projects. Partially and incoherently, these processes contributed to the decentralization of formerly authoritarian socialist state structures, to the privatization of formerly state-owned sectors, to the reform of welfare regimes, and to the development of various kinds of private-public partnerships. Thus, the support for Romani and pro-Roma CSOs on the one hand, and for democratic state and market reform on the other, coincided with an unprecedented transformation of state–civil society relationships and with a partial transfer of state responsibilities to existing, but most of all newly developed, civil society actors (for an extensive discussion of these transformations, see van Baar 2011a).
These complex changes in the structures, patterns, tools, and forms of governance did not involve a deregulation, but, rather, a re-regulation of government that has been accompanied by a blurring of the boundaries between state, market, and civil society (van Baar 2011a: 163–74). This has certainly been not only an outwardly driven process governed by Western actors or IGOs, but a complex process supported by various kinds of governmental actors, including local and national ones in the region. As part of these processes of state–civil society transformations, IGOs, foreign donors, and state authorities in Central and Eastern Europe have been looking for reliable Romani civil society partners with whom they could build up formal and informal partnerships.
In some cases, these emerging dialogues between state and pro-Roma or Romani civil society actors have had their roots in late socialist economic crises and the need for restructuring the socialist plan economy and reducing the costs of the then existing Roma assimilation programs. In 1984, for instance, the Hungarian authorities argued that “the integration [of the ‘Gypsies’] is restricted by our difficult economic situation . . . a consequence of which is that we must now consider the Gypsy population as playing an important role in the construction of a new consensus” (quoted in Kovats 1997: 57). Martin Kovats (1997) clarifies that allowing the Roma to play a role in socialist Roma policies was largely motivated by socioeconomic difficulties, rather than by a desire to establish Romani minority self-governance and to allow the Roma to impact political and policy developments. He also puts forward that this ambiguity has not disappeared with the fall of socialism and with the post-1989 development of important new representational structures, such as, for instance, the minority self-government system in Hungary. He states that the introduction and building of policy dialogues with tactically chosen members of the Romani minority represent state strategies to postpone the development and implementation of the socioeconomic policies that were and are still needed to improve the situation of the Roma.
Kovats’s observations on the ambivalent effects of these policy dialogues can be put into the perspective of the perverse confluence of the two political projects. State actors that have been involved in the (partial) transfer of their responsibilities to civil society actors potentially consider Romani or Roma advocacy CSOs as the relatively ideal and trustworthy partners for (assisting with) the implementation of policies. These CSOs are seen as agents who are operating in the proximity of Romani communities and who have developed knowledge and expertise about the local situation. From the viewpoint of national or international governing organizations, these features make such CSOs relatively ideal intermediaries between governments and state or suprastate institutions on the one hand, and Romani minorities and “grassroots” communities on the other. Since the 1990s, much has been expected of the “strengthening of civil society” through supporting and establishing CSOs and mobilizing or improving their “local” connections and forms of expertise. For those Romani or pro-Roma CSOs that have been approached by—or have approached—governmental offices, foreign donors, or IGOs, taking up such roles in policy delivery is most often not a question of choice and, more often than not, represents a challenge. Yet, these involvements have also had more ambivalent effects.
The governmentalization of civil society by state and international governmental actors embodies a complex attempt to loosely but effectively attach CSOs to the state and suprastate institutional frameworks of governance. These processes of governmentalization have also led to the development of so-called “quasi-autonomous NGOs” or QUANGOs. Indeed, a substantial number of new civil societal structures, and private-public partnerships in particular, are the result of how states themselves, while mobilizing neoliberal techniques of government, have established NGOs and other quasi-autonomous bodies (autonomous from the state or other donors) to carry out tasks that were formerly directly organized by state authorities. Examples of such quasi-autonomous bodies are the national agencies that have been established for Roma minorities in the Czech Republic and Romania, or the Netherlands Institute for Sinti and Roma (NISR) that existed between 2009 and 2012 (cf. van Baar 2011a: 240–41; 2014b).
How this governmentalization of civil society has taken place at the international level and how it has been articulated and promoted by various IGOs have hitherto been largely underresearched. As I have argued elsewhere (van Baar 2011a: 8–16, 163–89), the World Bank’s “good governance” and the EU’s governance agendas, for instance, are dedicated to how the mobilization of civil societal actors should contribute to new participative and deliberative forms of global and European governance and to democratizing decision-making. The European Commission (2007a: 26), for example, puts forward that CSOs could be considered as “centers of expertise” that “capitalize on their knowledge of communities by becoming trainers and advisors for mainstream providers or governmental authorities.” Within the EU, the governmentalization of civil society relates to a longer tradition of trying to bring “Europe” closer to its citizens. Particularly since the early 1990s, the EU has launched various kinds of “proximity policies” to improve participatory democracy and limit the EU’s much discussed democratic deficit(s). The desire to bring the EU closer to its citizens was one of the reasons for initiating the influential subsidiarity principle in the early 1990s:
“We affirm that decisions must be taken as closely as possible to the citizen. Greater unity can be achieved without excessive centralization. . . . Bringing to life this principle—‘subsidiarity’ or ‘nearness’—is essential if the [European] Community is to develop with the support of its citizens”2 (Council of the European Union 1992: 5).
In the context of its new governance agenda, the EU has introduced several new discourses, mechanisms, and tools that are intended to bring decision-making closer to EU citizens. Lifelong learning, activation, and the so-called “Open Method of Coordination” (OMC) are examples of what can be conceptualized as neoliberal governmental technologies of proximity:
Technologies of proximity refer to all those discourses and practices which imagine democracy in terms of positive experiences of local engagement, participation, and connection. Proximity is affirmed at the level of the citizen body: democratic life is seen to benefit from a certain closeness and connection between citizens. It is also affirmed between citizens and the formal institutions of political authority: people should feel “closer” to government. (Walters and Haahr 2005: 76)
The tools that have been developed at local, national, and supranational levels to increase the role of Romani and pro-Roma civil societal actors in decision-making can also be considered from the angle of the articulation of these technologies of proximity. Several Romani and pro-Roma activists have moved into closer collaborations with national or supranational political institutions or even into their official bodies to help foster a wide range of Roma-related development programs (dealing with issues such as social inclusion, security, participatory initiatives, empowerment, active citizenship and remembrance, community building, community policing, etc.).
This development, in which CSOs have been increasingly governmentalized in the national and supranational contexts of Roma-related policy-making, has gone together with a different perception of the role of CSOs. IGOs, but also governments, have begun to see CSOs “not so much as alternatives to government but viewed [CSOs] alongside states and markets, where they not only delivered services but also formed part of a broader ‘third sector’” (Lewis 2010: 333). This development represents a two-way process, in which, on the one hand, CSOs have become more dependent on state and suprastate actors, regarding the funding,
