Abstract'Partnership' is a buzzword for agents delivering policy solutions, funding and implementation strategies for effective international development. We call such an ensemble of policies and practices the 'partnership discourse'. We explore the value of the term 'partnership' in international development with an empirical focus on the African context and issues of equality in relations between international and national non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that are routinely characterized as partnerships. The results of our research in Uganda indicate that a hiatus exists between the rhetoric and reality of such partnerships. Partnerships on the ground reproduce relations of inequality characterized by subordination and oppression. The retroductive explanation we offer for such an emergent picture is to recast partnerships not as neutral management tools, but as political processes actualized in a terrain that is contested and uneven. Our theoretical contribution is to develop a political theorization of interorganizational relations that allows us to explore the social consequences, specifically on inequality, associated with the partnership discourse. Our substantive contribution is to elaborate the value of the term 'partnership' in the international development domain. Its value is to smooth over antagonism and co-opt dissent by proposing a solution to effective development that is both ethically and managerially good.

Over the last decade, development management thinking, tools and practices have gained a prominent position in international development. In response to recent calls to problematize development management, this article, drawing on 14 months of empirical work with a Ugandan NGO, illuminates the spread of managerialism in the indigenous NGO sector and explores whether and how management thinking and practice have shaped the work and the role of NGOs in international development. This research shows how development management orthodoxy narrows the possibility for NGOs to engage in transformative practice and in social change agendas, while it wittingly or unwittingly supports the expansion of the political and cultural hegemony of western donors.

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In the past decade, much research has critically addressed the Westocentric character of management knowledge, highlighting its role in the reproduction of global and historical inequalities and power asymmetries between the west (especially Anglo-American contexts) and the rest of the world. Many of these revealing critiques have predominantly taken a theoretical orientation. This article addresses this gap, focusing on the search for methodologies and research practices sensitive to these critiques and committed to supporting efforts to decolonise management knowledge. More precisely, on the basis of my empirical work in Uganda as an organisation development advisor and researcher, this research illustrates and reflects on the challenges I faced in the field and how I addressed them in my effort to decolonise my methodological approach. In this sense, this article provides an empirically-grounded example of how it is possible to take into account sensitivities coming from postcolonialism, critical management and critical development studies, intellectual streams usually known for their alleged distance from research practice and practical action.

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