Abstract
This article focuses on the humanitarian non-governmental organization (NGO) CARE, Inc., and its transformation from a temporary non-profit agency working in post-war relief to Europe, to a permanent humanitarian enterprise delivering food aid and technical assistance to the so-called ‘developing world’. It analyses CARE’s shift from its early days as an American voluntary agency delivering food and consumer products (donated by private individuals in America) to individuals in Europe to a large NGO that co-operated closely with the US government in food-aid distribution to the Global South. Its expansion and professionalization was embedded in the development of new forms of public-private co-operation in humanitarian affairs, as well as in the overall setting of an emerging competitive ‘humanitarian charity market’ in the non-profit sector. In order to expand its organization and mission CARE implemented new and innovative business strategies and fostered the increasing ‘managerialization’ of its humanitarian activities. The article stresses the economic dimension of NGO activity as one perspective (among others) that helps us to better understand the complex dynamics of the ‘rise’ of humanitarian non-state players during the twentieth century.
Highlights
In 1840 Alexis de Tocqueville published the second volume of Democracy in America
This article focuses on the humanitarian non-governmental organisation (NGO) Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe (CARE), Inc., and its transformation from a temporary non-profit agency working in post-war relief to Europe, to a permanent humanitarian enterprise delivering food aid and technical assistance to the so-called ‘developing world’
Many of the supposedly ‘American’ relief agencies had continental origins and strong transnational ties that allowed them to co-operate intensively with their partner organisations abroad.9. This evolving, genuinely international, sphere of humanitarian action serves as a background for this article which deals with the ‘rise’ of the humanitarian NGO Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe (CARE) in the wake of the even greater international-relief drive during and after the Second World War
Summary
In 1840 Alexis de Tocqueville published the second volume of Democracy in America. Comparing the political system of the United States with the French First Republic he wrote: ‘Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all dispositions constantly form associations.’ Impressed by the strong American tradition of independent voluntary action in most fields of social and political life, the French political thinker eventually stated that America, in his eyes, qualified as the ‘most democratic country in the face of the world’.1 While de Tocqueville’s testimony aimed, partly at least, to alert his compatriots to the dangers of overly centralist government administration, it eventually left much deeper imprints on American self-perception than on French discourse. Many of the supposedly ‘American’ relief agencies (like the Quakers or the Salvation Army for instance) had continental origins and strong transnational ties that allowed them to co-operate intensively with their partner organisations abroad.9 This evolving, genuinely international, sphere of humanitarian action serves as a background for this article which deals with the ‘rise’ of the humanitarian NGO Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe (CARE) in the wake of the even greater international-relief drive during and after the Second World War. CARE’s development from a temporary relief outfit founded in 1945 in New York City into a permanent humanitarian NGO working in more than 40 countries by the 1960s becomes plausible only against the backdrop of the evolution of a ‘global nervous system’ of NGOs that has exerted crucial influence on the transformation of humanitarian ideas and practice throughout the twentieth century.. It is but one example among many, but it sheds light on both macro- and micro-trends, as well as on the factors which influenced the growth of NGOs in the second half of the twentieth century
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