The NGOization of Social Movements in Neoliberal Times

Drawing on theories in politics, sociology, gender and feminist studies, and social movement studies, this book compares and contrasts NGOized feminist organizations and informal street feminist groups in Belgium and Romania in order to understand the transformation of modern and contemporary feminist movements. Chapters trace the development of this NGOization process and its entanglements with neoliberal modes of governance and techniques and proposes an historically and empirically grounded analytical model to studying the NGOization of feminist movements as a multidimensional process. By analyzing the NGOization process through a cross-national comparison based on very different cases, the book disentangles the links between institutionalization, professionalization, bureaucratization and precarization and brings clarifications concerning the outcomes associated with them, such as demobilization, depoliticization, co-optation and burn-out. This book places the NGOization offeminist movement organizations within the specific context of relations between the state and the market in neoliberalism.

This book will be of interest to scholars and researchers across Gender & Feminist Studies, Social Movements, Sociology, and Politics.

Author Biography

Alexandra Ana is a Marie Sklodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellow at Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium, working on resistance to anti-gender movements and politics, within a decolonial framework and from a comparative perspective. In 2023, she won a National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS) postdoctoral scholarship with a project titled “Strange bedfellows and unholy alliances: the role of coalitions in conservative movements”, based on a comparative study between the UK, France and Romania. She previously taught gender, urban, visual and general sociology at Sciences Po. Her recent publications focus on feminist movements, coalitions and resistance.