Interactions between the state and Non-governmental Organisations have been heightened globally. This has led to states engaging civil society more than ever before. However, tendencies to control NGOs by the state seem common in African countries. This dissertation seeks to examine relations between the state and NGOs in Botswana. Botswana is a democratic country, which has been hailed as stable and a strong state, however, civil society in Botswana remains weak. This creates a problem of a dominant state and weak civil society. The dissertation employs Najam’s theoretical framework in trying to understand the extent of state dominance in the relationship between the state and NGOs in Botswana. Najam’s theoretical framework is based on institutional interests and preferences for policy ends and means. Najam defines relationships between the state and NGOs in four ways: as cooperation, complementarity, cooptation and confrontation. The research used qualitative research methods in the form of document analysis and key informant interviews. This method was appropriate to enable the examination of policy ends and means, which entailed reviewing the organisations goals and strategies used to achieve the goals. The study uses the Women’s Affairs Department, which represents the state and government policy on gender issues and five women NGOs as subjects for study. Findings reveal that the following were important factors in the relationship between WAD and the five NGOs: NGOs lack of finance, the collapse of the Women NGO coalition, the lack of a legal framework to guide the relations between the state and the NGOs. The exit of donors on classifying Botswana as a middle-income country worsened NGOs lack of finance. This led to increased dependency on the state. The use of Najam’s framework indicated that the relations between the state and NGOs can be classified as cooperation and complementarity. This is in line with analysis according to the interviews but appeared University of Cape Town iii contradictory to the literature, which characterised the relationship as one of cooptation and control hence state dominance. While there seems to be a contradiction between what the literature and the framework suggest there is an underlying link between the two. Even though relations show cooperation and complementarity Najam indicates that this does not rule out the possibility of cooptation. He argues that cooptation relations are transitory, unstable and temporary. Cooperation and complimentary relationships could be a result of cooptation. I argue that the relationship between the state and NGOs exhibits elements of cooperation, complementarity and cooptation. Therefore, this dissertation concludes that the relationship between the state and NGOs in Botswana is characterised by state dominance to some extent.

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