Role of HGOs in Development

Critique the role of NGOs in development. Are they more effective as service providers or as advocates/change agents?

Barry Gilheany (c)

To answer this question fully it is necessary to arrive at a full

definition of Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and to appreciate their role in global

governance and wider global civic society. To assess their success or otherwise in

promoting development, it is also important to delineate where NGOs act as service

providers or as advocacy organisations or where the lines between the two roles can

become blurred. The essay then goes on to look at the comparative advantage of NGOs,

constraints to greater NGO involvement in UN program and the problematic issues of

accountability and transparency. It concludes by arguing for a change in mind-set among

NGOs as they deal with new global challenges and opportunities (Smillie,1997).

An NGO is generally defined as an essentially non-profit,

voluntary citizens' group organised at a local, national, or international level, and is locally,

nationally, or internationally active. The World Bank defines NGOs as 'private

organisation that pursue activities to relieve suffering, promote the interests of the poor,

protect the environment, provide basic social services, or undertake community

development. Most NGOs rely almost entirely on private donations and voluntary service

(Vedder, Ed, 2007).

The literature on NGOs emphasises their separateness from

governments, political parties, business corporations, activist groups and social

movements. However, in practice, such distinctions can be fluid. For examples, although

NGOs are independent of local and national and transnational government, they can be

financed by them or contracted to carry out tasks for them.(Vedder, Ed: p.3).

Volker Heins seeks to solve the philosophical conundrum of whether NGOs can be seen

as genuinely independent of other political or decision-making actors by defining them as

post-traditional civil associations. (Heins, 2008). He argues that that post-traditionality

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means that NGOs do not fit easily into classical definitions of the political; for example the

Weberian definition of politics as striving for a share of power or attempting to redraw

power distribution whether within the state system or between groups within a state

(Heins: p.4).

Thus, NGOs, unlike political parties, do not aspire to public office or run countries. They

are close to states and international organisations without being part of them or forces

opposed to them. A significant part of the [post-traditional nature of NGOs are that they

tend to be universalistic in outlook. They do not wish to pursue the cause of their

members, nor that of nation or social class. For them, self-interested action coincides with

interests of humanity as a whole. (Heins, p.4)This ideal of universal and impartial

benevolence of course sets NGOs up for a searching analysis of precisely this

benevolence in terms of their transparency, accountability and service delivery.

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NGOs play the following roles in global governance. They can seek the best venues to

present issues and to apply pressure. They can provide new ideas and draft texts for

multilateral treaties; they can help government negotiators understand the science behind

environmental issues they are trying to address. Development and relief groups often

have the advantage of being on the ground”and able to “make the impossible possible by

doing what governments, and sometimes Intergovernmental Organisations cannot or will

not (Karns and Mingst, Ed 2010).

Many NGOs are organised around a very specific issue area, while others are organised

to address broad issues such as human rights, peace, or the environment (Amnesty

International, The Nature Conservancy). Some provide services, such as humanitarian aid

(Catholic Relief Services) or development assistance (Grameen Bank), while many do

both. Oxfam, for example, not only provides emergency relief at times of famine, but also

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works at long-term development, helping fishermen in Asia manage water resources and

coastal environments. CAR delivers relief as well as being involved in community building

among women. Other NGOs are information-gathering and disseminating bodies

(Transparency International). Millions of small local NGOs are active at grass roots level.

Most NGOs are headquartered in the developed North (Amnesty International in London;

Oxfam in Oxford, UK) and receive funding from private donors and increasingly from and

a governments and ISOs. Others have roots in the developing countries in the South, but

receive funding for local programmes or training from international groups (Development

Alternatives with Women for a New Area [DAWN]. Some operate independently, others

are connected to counterpart groups through transnational networks or federations. For

example, Oxfam International has been transformed from a British NGO into a

transnational federation, with member chapters in Australia, Belgium, the United States,

Netherlands and New Zealand among others. Such large federated NGOs have overall

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shared goals but devolve fundraising and activities to the individual country chapters

(Karns and Mingst: pp.222-23).

NGOs are an expression of people's need for organisation, self-improvement and change.

Those that extend beyond their own community can reach places that governments and

multilateral agencies cannot, dealing directly with the poor. Using participatory

techniques, they are often more effective and less expensive than traditional, top-down

development efforts. They have become recognised as an important element of civil

society, fostering citizen awareness and participation in development, and as part of a

new approach to governmental accountability and transparency (Smillie: p.571).

However over the last two decades, the fount of goodwill surrounding the role of NGOs in

development has come under sustained scrutiny. Throughout the 1990s large scale

omnibus evaluations were carried out by the governments of the UK, Australia, Norway,

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Finland and Sweden as well as by the UK's Overseas Development Institute (ODI)

(Smillie: p.571).

These evaluations provided mixed results. The 1995 UK study found that the majority of

projects were successful and that significant benefits were received by the poor, but that

there had been little change in the existing social or economic status quo, and that

institutional and financial sustainability had not been achieved. The Swedish study found

that the vast majority of projects in receipt of Swedish state funding. had either achieved

or well on the path to achieving their objectives. However when judged against more and

more of the nine broader criteria against which the projects were assessed, their

aggregate performance dropped progressively. The 1995 UK review found a lack of

emphasis by NGOs on evaluation of their projects (Smillie: pp.571-72).

Demands for greater evaluation of their output is just one of the contemporary challenges

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facing NGOs working in the realm of development. Jenny Pearce identifies four. First the

neo-liberalism and globalisation driven by the values of neo-liberalism (privatisation,

structural adjustment policies) has damaged the anti-poverty and anti-exploitation struggle

in the world today. The idea of NGOs as value-driven engines of change has been

seriously compromised by the decision of many to implement programmes of economic

liberalisation. As the hegemony of neo-liberalism gives way in this millennium to to the

imperatives to build a more regulated global capitalism, NGOs have to decide what

stance to take in relationship to it (Pearce, ed. 2000).

Secondly, the relationship between Southern and Northern NGOs has to evolve to reflect

the emerging global order and a more transparent debate needs to take place between

them. Some NGOs may choose to institutionalise themselves as service providers,

others on to engage in global governance debates. However, Pearce cautions that the

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survival of the NGO sector in its current form cannot be guaranteed (Pearce: p.37).

Third, NGOs must and cannot replace the state in promoting 'development'. There has

been plenty of debate on how NGOs can make the state more accountable and

responsive to the needs of the poor but less on the role of the state and should NGOs to

be the collective intermediary between the individual and the state (Pearce: p.37) In this

regard, it is important to visit the the theoretical debate over “civil society” and NGOs.

Civil society is usually held to be the collective intermediary between the individual and the

state (Whaites, 2000). Since 1990, the concept of civil society has been 'grabbed' by

NGOs as one fitting their own natural strengths. On the surface, civil society is closely

bound up with the role of local community associations, and with the indigenous NGO

sector. For Northern NGOs, this creates an intellectual association between civil society

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and local 'partner' or implementing organisation (Whaites: p.126).

Among donors, interest in civil society became tied up with the evolution of the

conditionality of aid. In the 1990s, conditionality developed a political complexion when

some donors became fixated with 'good governance'. This tendency acquired an

economic imperative with the World Bank's 1991 World Development Report in which

democracy was projected as more efficient as well as being ethically more desirable

(Whaites: p.126).

The apparent congruence between NGOs and civil society begs one vital question: what

kind of civil association strengthens civil society? (Whaites, 1996). To resolve this

dilemma, it is helpful to turn to engage with two contrasting views in political theory on civil

society. For the 19^th century American theorist Alexis de Tocqueville, civil society (in

contrast to traditional society) provides a buffer to the increased powers of the modern

state. It provides the space for society to interact constructively with the state not to

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destroy it. Hence civil society groups mobilise not on primordial attachments (ethnicity,

language and religion) but on 'small issues' that unite people across ethnic boundaries.

De Tocqueville cites the US temperance movement and Britain's anti-slavery and anti

-Corn Law movements cases in point (Whaites: p.241).

An opposing perspective is given by authors like Jean-Francois Bayart whereby all

associations and community groups are indeed elements of civil society. Bayart' s work

The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly examines societies' attempt to subvert and

control the state. He argues that it is largely inappropriate to apply Western concepts of

civil society to contexts such as Africa where primordial attachments are likely to remain

embedded for the near future. (Whaites, p.242). However evidence is emerging to

indicate that primordial attachments do shift with the currents of social change. The

example of Pakistan suggests that the development of a native bourgeoisie may foster

integrative groups based on 'small issues', even in the face of entrenched ethnic or

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religious cleavages. (Pearce, Ed, p.129).

If it is to be accepted that it is desirable for the state to have some degree of effectiveness

at the local level (ideally under the mandate of a) democratically elected government, then

questions regarding the replacement of state provision by NGO activities become crucial.

For international NGOs have contributed significantly to situations of strong civil societies

and weak states through gap filling by taking advantage of the shrinkage of government

services resulting from structural adjustment programmes (SAPs). SAPS have tended to

emphasise the drastic reduction of fiscal deficits leading to health and education spending

and the imposition of user charges. Few NGOS have had qualms about providing

agricultural extension workers or offering training for health volunteers and traditional birth

attendants; activities that are part of the work streams of NGOs but are functions that are

nominally the responsibility of the state (Whaites: pp.133-34).

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It must be emphasised that, unless there are mitigating circumstances such as repressive

or corrupt regimes, the NGO should also seek to build up the capacity of the state as an

integral part of local grass roots work. Through supporting civil associations and building

the capacity of local state service-providers, NGOs can avoid by-passing civil society or

undermining the state. An example is the DFID funded World vision community health

project in Konpong Tralach, Cambodia where project staff worked alongside government

employees and provided training and essential equipment over five years. The project

nurtured civil associational groups such as women's health clubs and microcredit

associations balanced with greater involvement of district-level government structures with

individual communities (Whaites; p.135).

Similarly, in Brazil World Vision in its involvement with the drought-stricken community of

Jucuri had local government capacity building as central to its objectives. Government

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health workers involved with the project visited the community and worked closely with the

Farmer Association to provide basic healthcare awareness campaigns including one on

cholera. The participation of local government health workers also enabled community-

level education in nutrition to take place, with small vegetable gardens being started

individually in most homes (Whaites: pp.135-36).

To conclude, the efficacy of NGOs in development work matters less whether they provide

service delivery or advocacy/change roles than in how they meet the challenges posed by

economic globalisation, neo-liberalism and donor demands for accountability standards.

This essay has traced out a template for NGO activity in the 21^st century involving the

facilitation of greater integration between civil society and state actors. NGOs must see

macro-political change as a legitimate objective of the development project, and not just

the preserve of donors (Whaites: p.139). They must rescue the idea of global civil society

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from the priorities of donors, and develop the critical micro-macro linkages that affect the

daily lives of the poor.

Bibliography:

Heins, V.(2008) Nongovernmental Organisations in International Society. Struggles over

Recognition Basingstoke, Hants; Palgrave Macmillan

Karns, M.P. And Mingst, K.A. (2010) International Organisations. The Politics and Processes of Global Governance. Second Edition. London: Lynne Rienner Publishers

Pearce, J. Development, NGOs and Civil Society; the Debate and its Future in Oxfam, GB (2000) Development, NGOs, and Civil Society pp.15-43 Oxford:Oxfam Publishing

Peters, A, Koechlin, L. and Zinkernagel Non-state Actors as Standard Setters: Framing the Issue in an Interdisciplinary Fashion in Peters, A. et al (2009) Non-State Actors as Standard Setters Cambridge: Cambridge University Press pp.1-32

Smillie, I (1997) NGOs and Development Assistance: a Change in Mind-Set Third World Quarterly, Vol. 18, No.3, Beyond UN Subcontracting; Task-Sharing with Regional Security Arrangements and Service-Providing NGOs pp.563-577

12 Vedder, A. Questioning the Legitimacy on Non-Governmental Organisations in Vedder, V.(ed. (2007) NGO Involvement in International Governance and Policy. Sources of Legitimacy Boston; Martinus Nijhoff Publishers pp.1-20

Whaites,A. Let's get Civil Society Straight: NGOs, the State, and Political Theory in Oxfam (2000) Development, NGOs, and Civil Society pp.124-41)

Whaites, A (1996) Let;s Get Civil Society Straight; NGOs and Political Theory. Development in Practice, Vol. 6, No.3 pp.240-44

Berlin and Merleau-Ponty's conception of freedom

Critically compare Berlin's and Merleau-Ponty's conception of freedom

Barry Gilheany (c)

This essay compares notions of freedom advanced by one of the giants of 20^th century political theory -Isaiah Berlin – with those of the lesser well known French philosopher, Maurice Merleau-Ponty. It examines their seminal texts ; Berlin's – Two Concepts of Liberty (1958) and Merleau-Ponty,'s Phenomenology of Perception (1945). It discusses their dominant precepts , in the case of Berlin, value pluralism (Cherniss, 2013); and the ability to “stand out from the crowd” and in that of Merleau-Ponty; the body as subject and the location of freedom in a situation. It reflects upon the intellectual influences on both; for Berlin the inter-war Oxford Realists and the dominant contemporary liberalisms whose central concept of rational choice Berlin's value-pluralism sought to undermine (Gray, 2013). For Merleau-Ponty, the 'phenomenological' movement initiated by Edmund Husserl (Matthews, 2006) and, to a lesser extent, the existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre. Finally, the impact of each philosopher's view on freedom on politics is considered.

To take Berlin first, he unpicks the liberal package deal which automatically associates freedom and democracy (Gray: p.6). He postulates, not just as a logical possibility but a reality of history (Gray:p.7) that there may exist in authoritarian regimes a greater measure of liberty than in some democracies:

“Indeed, it is arguable that in the Prussia of Frederick the Great or in the Austria of Joseph II, men of imagination, originality and creative genius, and, indeed, minorities of all kinds, were less persecuted and felt the pressure, both of institutions and custom, less heavy upon them then in many an earlier or later democracy' (Gray: p.7)

This contention has contemporary relevance in the context of the post-despotic state of Iraq where the regime that emerged after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein is more democratic in that it has come out of unpredictable elections but that many minorities such as Christians and gays are less free and the freedom of women is much diminished due to the development of ungoverned spaces which religious fundamentalists have exploited.

Berlin's insistence that democracy and liberty can be conflictual has illustrious ancestry. The French liberal thinker Benjamin Constant (1767-1830), John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) and Mill's godson Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), thought the same. They assumed what Berlin needed to spell out: liberty is best understood in negative terms, as an absence of constraint, legal or social, on what individuals may do. At its base, Gray's essential contention is that freedom is best understood as the absence of human obstacles to living as you so desire or may come to desire (Gray: p.8). As Berlin put it in a BBC radio broadcast on Hegel in 1952:

“....... The essence of liberty has always lain in the ability to choose, because you wish to choose uncoerced, unbullied, not swallowed up in some vast system, and in the right to resist, to be unpopular, to stand up for your convictions merely because they are your convictions. This is true freedom, and without it there is neither freedom of any kind, not even the illusion of it.”(Gray:p.9).

Berlin's preference for negative over positive freedom is, at its simplest, a rebuttal of paternalism – the idea that either divinely ordained authority or authority located in a supposedly higher realm of knowledge or enlightenment can prescribe how others may live. Berlin's anti-paternalism is rooted in his value-pluralism, the theory that human values are irreducibly multiple and can generate conflicts to which there is no single correct solution. For there are times when there can be no totally satisfactory answer to every moral dilemma, whether by having the best consequences, or by obeying some ethical precept (Gray: p.10).

Berlin's philosophical beliefs are rooted in the debates between the Idealist and Realist schools in Britain in the early 20^th century.. Influenced by his Realist predecessors at Oxford, Berlin rejected Idealism's metaphysical and systemic approach to ethics; this 'Hegelian patter' (Cherniss: p.1) based ethical theory on a conception of an ordered and purposive universe and of a human telos within this larger order, conceived as transcending the ends and instincts of the 'empirical self'. This followed from their identification of duty and interest (i.e. an action is right, and thus obligatory, if and only if, it is good for the actor)(Cherniss: p.2).

By contrast, Berlin shared the scepticism of Realists towards dogma and irreverence towards authority, and their affinity with anti-extremist liberalism (Cherniss: p.5). This scepticism formed the basis of not only his opposition to Communism but to other totalatising trends in the mind 20^th century such as the social trends towards conformity and functionalism, and the rise of managerial, technocratic and scientistic doctrines in both thought and politics (Cherniss: p.87).

Berlin develops an original and distinctive strand of liberalism that that goes against the grain of conventional Anglophone liberal thought. Whether expressed in the works of Rawls and Dworkin, Hayek or Nozick or earlier in Kant, Mill, Locke or Hobbes the foundation stone of contemporary liberalism is rational choice for the optimum promotion of general well-being. In Berlin's agonistic liberalism, however, the value of freedom derives from the limits of rational choice. Agonistic liberalism posits a liberalism of conflict among inherently competing goods and is based on the radical choices that we have must make among incompatibilities, not rational choice. Further it denies that the structure of liberties appropriate to a liberal society can be derived from any body of principles, since the choice among conflicting liberties often comes down to a choice among incommensurables (Gray: pp.44-45).

To turn to the central dichotomy in Berlin's concept of liberty; that between positive and negative liberty;Berlin endorsed the 'liberal' view that the ' minimal meaning' of liberty was the 'absence of restraint'. Freedom was in the first instance freedom against; liberty is liberty from'. Social or political freedom meant absence of 'interference or oppression, whether deliberate or not' by others. Liberty was thus ' in its primary sense a negative concept. (Cherniss: p.188).

However, Berlin did not posit an absolutely 'negative' concept of freedom. He often conflated freedom as non-interference with the ability to do as one wished. The passage quoted from his 1952 BBC radio broadcast clearly articulates the 'positive' aspects of freedom: making choices for oneself, and living a life based on convictions one experiences as one's own (Cherniss: pp.188-89).

Berlin attempts to reconcile the possible conflict between “negative” and “positive” concepts of freedom by introducing another dichotomy: between 'humanistic' and 'non-humanistic' , conceptions of liberty. The 'non-humanistic' conception was anti-empirical, anti-individualist, the antithesis of liberalism. It viewed individuals as part of a greater whole; and defined by their function in relation to this entity or ends. It saw liberation as an act of 'collective self-sacrifice' on behalf of a wider entity be it nation, class, religion, ideology or the pursuit of power for its own sake. By contrast, the 'humanistic' view combined a conception of the individual as 'an empirical being in time and space' pursuing his own goals for whatever reason with a Kantian view of individuals as the 'sole source of morality' who should never be sacrificed for some higher cause (Cherniss: pp.201-02).

Introducing the 'humanist' and 'non-humanistic' cleavage leads to Berlin's views on how the state can impact on freedom within society. Berlin's political theory centres

on a liberal programme of protecting civil liberties, limiting interference, and insisting of the sanctity of certain areas dedicated to private life (Cherniss: p.203). His account of 'basic' liberty was closely allied to opposition of grand designs on individual thought and behaviour. He feared that through the use of social pressure, cultural regulation and technological means of persuasion and control, the authorities would render the end of personal freedom (Cherniss: p.199). Throughout his work he condemned:

“every enactment which has sought to obstruct human liberty and vivisect [sic] human society into a single harmonious whole, in which men are intended to be devoid of any degree of individual initiative'. Such a 'tight well-built system 'might produce happiness – but it was likely to be too cramping; in any case, it was not clear[...] that happiness is the sole value which men seek” (Cherniss: p.199).

While, as an anti-Communist liberal, he rejected the arguments, often used by Marxist regimes to nullify political freedom, that possessing formal legal and political rights without material resources was not 'true' freedom; he did not want his account of liberty to legitimise laissez-faire and consequent economic inequality and poverty. He acknowledged that advocates of 'economic freedom' were highlighting serious deficiencies in society.

Berlin's imagining of the social world as constituted by intrinsic conflict rather than natural harmony made him as sceptical about free-market as well as Communist nirvanas. Accordingly he supported the post war Atlee Welfare State with its 'mixed economy' and he rejected what would now be called the neo-liberal state with its free-market fundamentalism.

Berlin never fully reconciled the tensions between the positive and negative dimensions of liberty. His doctrine of value-pluralism helps to explain how his view on liberty, even negative liberty, contains competing and incommensurable liberties such as those between liberty and equality, freedom of information and privacy and equality of opportunity and outcome. There is also the form of incomparability among values known as cultural pluralism – the view that human values are always specific to particular cultural traditions and cannot be the objects of any sort of rational assessment or criticism. Berlin's value-pluralism incorporates all three levels of conflict in that he accepts the inevitable incommensurabilities in each of them (Gray: pp,79-80). It is through value pluralism that Berlin articulates his opposition to any perfectionist or teleological political theory or design.

While Berlin rejects any attempt to limit basic liberty whether through 'determinist ' accounts of ideology and history or by well-intentioned programmes to shape human destiny, the account of freedom given by the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty appears to circumscribe liberty by his belief that;

“Our body and our habits give a shape to our life which is neither freely chosen nor deterministically imposed” but that ...”it is precisely because of the motivations inherent in our existence and our past that we can stand back and make a free choice of a new future” (Baldwin, Ed, 2004).

Before critiquing this notion of freedom it is necessary to refer to the intellectual influences on this rather less well known but almost equally influential contemporary of that French philosophical icon – Jean Paul Sartre.

Although Marcel Merleau-Ponty (1908-61) had appeared to have been forgotten about in scholastic circles, there has been a revival of interest in him particularly in his writings on mind and consciousness (.Matthews, 2006). The most telling influence on his intellectual development was the 'phenomenological' movement initiated by Edmund Husserl (b.1859) (Matthews: pp.4-5).

Although phenomenology, like all schools of thought, evolved over time, certain elements remained constant. One was the emphasis on human subjectivity. Knowledge and awareness of the world are always someone's knowledge and awareness, as both Descartes and Kant had reminded us. Husserl saw the concept of phenomenology as that of clarifying the essences of the concepts used in the various forms of awareness of the world around us, including the natural sciences. As part of the 'natural attitude', we naturally take for granted the objective existence of things of which we are aware, and seek more knowledge about them. But to do that means enquiring into what exactly it is that we are investigating. e.g. what is meant by 'consciousness' in psychology. To discover that, we need to dispense with the objectivist assumptions of the natural attitude and concentrate on our own subjective consciousness; of how things appear to us (hence 'phenomenology' from the Greek word 'phenomena' meaning 'appearances') (Matthews: p.60).

Merleau-Ponty saw phenomenology, in his Phenomenology of Perception (1945) as combining a form of subjectivism with objectivism, both realism and idealism. There is an he objective or actually existing world that is independent of our experience, which our experience must reach out to if it is to be an experience at all. This is the basic premise of objectivism: even to talk of our own personal experiences of the world requires us to be able to arrive at a universalist point of view by comparing experiences with other subjects. But what is mistaken about this version of objectivity dominant since the Scientific Revolution of the 16^th and 17^th centuries is that there is a 'stand-alone' world, independent of any single experience or indeed of experience at all. The truth in subjectivism or idealism is that the concept of an experience without a subject, and without a perspective, is meaningless (Matthews: p.93).

Merleau-Ponty begins his account of freedom by agreeing with Sartre's contention that freedom must 'be in a situation'. Human beings can only make genuine choices if they have to choose between valid alternatives. But these alternatives must not themselves be chosen, otherwise we face the absurdity of an infinite regress; I can choose only because I am in a situation defined by x,y and z. With his account of 'being-in-the-world, Merleau-Ponty conceptualises freedom in more concrete terms, as the routine making of choices in a world we did not create. Human beings are thus sited in a more genuinely 'existentialist scenario; in concrete situations that restricts their freedom (Matthews: pp.93-94).

To sum up Merleau-Ponty's conception of freedom:

'What then is freedom? To be born is to be born of the world and to be born into the world. The world is always constituted but never completely constituted; in the first case we are acted upon; in the second we are open to an infinite number of possibilities. But this analysis is still abstract, for we exist in both ways at once. There is, therefore, never determinism and never absolute choice' (Baldwin, Ed: p.230)

At the heart of this being-in-the-world situation is temporality. Being-in-the-world is actively engaging with the world, acting on one's situation to change it, but only in ways in which the unchosen character of the situation will allow. (Matthews: p.100). We are embodied subjects, our past choices are 'sedimented' in our body, in the same way that past geological changes constitute part of the Earth today. For example addicts have formed particular habits of response and behaviour which continue to influence their present actions as they are sedimented in brain pattern activity which governs their addiction to their drug of choice. The addict may be free to give up but needs to bolster this by finding ways of breaking their cycle of addiction (Matthews: p.101).

As is true for individuals, societies have freedom only in a situation. For example, Westerners live in societies based on representative democracy and market economics and on the hegemony of scientific world-views (Matthews: p.124) These are our reference points; we cannot forget about science though religious fundamentalists may choose to suppress this knowledge. Thus the decisions we take are constrained by the trajectory that our society has followed. Also social sciences cannot provide causal explanations in the manner of the natural sciences, for instance by automatically correlating one's economic situation to membership of a particular political party (Matthews: p.125). For this is what 'objectivists' do, thinking of Marxism as 'scientific socialism' with its requirement to discover the 'laws of historical change' and the agents of social change (Matthews: p.131).

How then can we win back freedom concretely, letting go of these fixed points of acquired experience? (Dorfman: 2007). In his analysis of proletarian revolution and its three participant characters – the factory worker, the itinerant journeyman and the tenant-farmer, Mercel-Ponty sees it as motivated by a spontaneous 'thrust of freedom' neither explicit or chosen (Dorfman: p.146). He appears to deny the possibility that the revolution occurs independently of the subject's will:

“ It is not at all necessary that at any single moment a representation of revolution should arise … It is sufficient that the journeyman or the farmer should feel that he is on the march towards a certain crossroads, to which the road trodden by the town labourers also leads. Both find their journey's end in revolution, which would perhaps have terrified the had it been described and represented to them in advance.” (Baldwin: p.221).

Merleau-Ponty does acknowledge the role of agitators because 'they crystallise what is latent in the life of all productive workers'. The role of agitators does beg the question of whether without them 'workers would still be captive to the passivity of their lives?' Is not

the act of crystallisation exactly the kind of, what Merleau- Ponty calls, the kind of “radical reflection” that is needed to achieve freedom? (Dorfman: p.147).

An answer to this question is found in the his assertion that humans are both born of the world and into the world. Freedom is therefore the movement and oscillation between actively constituting the world (the all objective) and passively accepting it as already constituted (the pre-objective) .

Merleau-Ponty discusses the assumption to power of Napoleon Bonaparte in France in 1799 after a decade of revolutionary ferment and states that:

“Nothing can so order it that, in the France of 1799, a military power 'above classes' should not appear as a natural product of the ebb of revolt, and that the role of military dictator, should not here be 'a part that has to be played' … freedom modifies it [history] only by taking up the meaning that history was offering at the moment in question.” (Baldwin, ed. pp.225-26).

In conclusion, both Isaiah Berlin and Maurice Merleau-Ponty refuted determinism in their respective conceptualisations of freedom. Both abhorred the descent of the Soviet Union into totalitarian nightmare although Merleau-Ponty was sympathetic to humanistic forms of Marxism while Berlin strongly advocated liberal welfarist governments of those of Roosevelt's New Deal and Atlee's Welfare State. Being an historian of ideas, Berlin was influenced rather more by empiricism while Merleau-Ponty's work reflected the imprint of the rather more dense concept of phenomenology. Berlin was rather more prescriptive in delineating zones of 'basic liberty' and his work reflected a visceral horror of schemas be they Communism, managerialism and drives towards efficiency and conformity. Yet he valued the autonomy of each individual to forge their own life projects and destinies. Merleau-Ponty did not see human beings as passive objects of scientific laws of history but as active subjects free to make decisions within the constraints imposed by the societies in which they lived. Natural or societal limitations on the capacity of individuals to act are, by contrast, rarely made explicit in Berlin's work. But both, from their distinctive perspectives, have contributed greatly to the corpus of scholarship around political freedom.

Bibliography

Baldwin, T. , Ed.(2004) Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Basic Writings London: Routledge.

Cherniss, J.L. (2013) A Mind and Its Time. The Development of Isaiah Berlin's Political Thought Oxford: Oxford University Press

Dorfman, E. Freedom, Perception and Radical Reflection pp.139-151 in Baldwin, T. (2007) Reading Merleau-Ponty. On Phenomenology of Perception London: Routledge

Gray, J. (2013) Isaiah Berlin. An Interpretation of His Thought. Woodstock, Oxon: Princeton University Press

Matthews, E. (2006) Merleau-Ponty. A Guide for the Perplexed London: Continuum