Change we can believe in? Honduran President Porfirio Lobo greets a schoolboy while
inaugurating the school year in Tegucigalpa on February
1, 2010. As under his predecessor, CMS teacher positions have been doled out as political favors.
security committee) were formed be- cause the state required the commu- nity to form a committee to obtain certain benefits. In some cases, orga- nizations obtained legal standing to act autonomously of other organiza- tions (e.g., to sign contracts), but they remained de facto community sub- units of state entities. This raises the question of whether these are really civil society organi- zations at all. Political scientists have long held that the state can help foster civil so- ciety, especially in resource-scarce ar- eas, but it is another thing altogether for state-sponsored organizations to be the only game in town. Definitions of civil society typically include a provi- sion that organizations remain at least “relatively autonomous” from the state. In CMS communities in Honduras and Guatemala, however, most organiza- tions do not meet the “relative auton- omy” condition. When state-created organizations
gain insider access for their demands,
their relationship to the state makes it
difficult for them to hold governments
accountable. Strengthening democracy from below requires grassroots
efforts to ensure public accountability. Increased demands on government without public accountability
can also reinforce clientelism. If community organizations do not work
together to change how government
distributes resources, state institutions will continue to allocate funds
along nontransparent and/or partisan
lines, while public goods provision remains perilously low.
As a result of CMS, communities may
have become more fragmented. Many
communities separated from their former villages to obtain CMS schools, either because the government would
not give two schools to one—albeit
dispersed—rural community or because residents of the initial village
did not prioritize a school. This separation likely undermined the capacity of communities to act collectively.
With limited autonomy, a restricted
scope of action and strong odds against
no magIC bullets
CMS, then, is not a magic bullet for strengthening civil society. All the same, these programs
offered parents training in how to
participate in organizations and, to
a lesser extent, how to seek help for
their communities. That has vanished
with CMS’ demise in Guatemala. PRONADE provided training and technical
support to parents several times each
year. President Colom’s first minister
of education, Ana de Molina, replaced
collective action, parents in these remote, rural communities sit on the
sidelines of national, and even local,
debates about the policies that affect
them. They mostly remain on society’s
margins with their hands outstretched
for whatever small items (e.g., zinc for
their roofs) politicians may bring them.
