220 Governance and Education
practice that is experienced as ‘help’ and ‘assistance’ and leads to ‘good decisions’ and
‘development’. Alternatively, one could also try to define extension more descriptively
in terms of what people who call themselves extensionists actually do, which fre-
quently might not correspond with normative definitions (see also Röling and Kuiper,
1994). When taking a closer look at what extensionists do in practice, one might, for
example, discover in some cases that their work has little to do with ‘help’ but rather
with imposing technologies and/or enhancing state control over farmers (e.g. Fergu-
son, 1990). Along these lines, it was recognized during the 1980s that extension
could not just be regarded as ‘help’ and ‘being in the interest of the recipient’. It was
realized that extension is in many ways also an intervention that is undertaken and/or
paid for by a party who wants to influence people in a particular manner, in line with
certain policy objectives. Thus, it was realized that there was often a tension between
the interest of the extension organization (and/or its funding agency) and the interest
of recipients such as farmers. Government extension services could, for example, aim
at increasing the production of export crops, while farmers would be more interested
in other issues or crops. In this more descriptive conception of extension, there needed
at least to be a partial overlap or link (see Röling, 1988) between the interests of clients
and extension organizations, otherwise people would obviously not be willing to
change (unless they were forced/persuaded to by other means than just extension
messages). In line with such views new definitions of extension emerged:
Extension is helping behaviour consisting of – or preceding – the transfer of informa-
tion, usually with the explicit intention of changing mentality and behaviour in a direc-
tion that has been formulated in a wider policy context. (Van Woerkum, 1982, p39,
translated by the authors)Extension is a professional communication intervention deployed by an institution to
induce change in a voluntary behaviour with a presumed public or collective utility.
(Röling, 1988, p49)The phrase added by Röling on ‘presumed public or collective utility’ is important,
because it was used to distinguish extension from other forms of communication –
intervention such as:
- Commercial advertising, where the goal is to sell products in the interest of a
limited group (salesmen, shareholders). - Political propaganda, where the goal is to influence people’s ideological beliefs
and/or perceptions of reality in order for some to gain or maintain power. - Public relations, where the goal is to manage one’s own reputation or public
image.
At the same time, this phrase exemplifies that these definitions still contain norma-
tive elements. After all, it is more or less implicit in Röling’s definition that exten-
sionists should not be involved in, for example, trade, advertising or political