Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 29 Jul 2022).

Introduction: Development, Management, and Civil Society -- from a Critical Perspective -- Colonial Development, Colonial Management -- Modernization Theory, Development, Management -- Dependency Theory and an Alternative Management -- High Management, the Short Reign of Shared Common Sense -- The Washington Consensus and Financialization of Management -- Moving Past the Washington Consensus -- Conclusion: Possibilities of Emancipation.

What would development look like if its practitioners and scholars were 'against NGOs,' challenging common sense about them? This book presents a critical perspective on NGOs, describing how they emerged as key agents of development over time. Through an interpretative history based on Gramscian concepts it shows how civil society organizations were gradually enlisted in development as non-state technocratic actors. The book argues that management studies and development studies emerged as commonsensical explanations for capitalist crises. Each offered complementary solutions to balance the needs of capital and society, in particular historical circumstances. These solutions also situated civil society as agents of development and vectors of management. Against NGOs fills a gap within the literature of management and development studies through its original discussion of their historical interconnections and shared themes. The book raises provocative questions on what forms of knowledge-politics can respond productively to the crises of our contemporary moment.