Routledge Handbook of NGOs

and International Relations

Offering insights from pioneering new perspectives in addition to well-established traditions of

research, this Handbook considers the activities not only of advocacy groups in the environ-
mental, feminist, human rights, humanitarian, and peace sectors, but also the array of religious,
professional, and business associations that make up the wider non-governmental organization
(NGO) community.
Including perspectives from multiple world regions, the book takes account of institutions
in the Global South, alongside better-known structures of the Global North. International
contributors from a range of disciplines cover all the major aspects of research into NGOs in
International Relations to present:

•• a comprehensive overview of the historical evolution of NGOs, the range of structural

forms, and international networks
•• coverage of major theoretical perspectives
•• illustrations of how NGOs are influential in every prominent issue-area of contemporary
International Relations
•• evaluation of the significant regional variations among NGOs and how regional contexts
influence the nature and impact of NGOs
•• analysis of the ways NGOs address authoritarianism, terrorism, and challenges to democ-
racy, and how NGOs handle concerns surrounding their own legitimacy and accountability.

Exploring contrasting theories, regional dimensions, and a wide range of contemporary

challenges facing NGOs, this Handbook will be essential reading for students, scholars, and
practitioners alike.

Thomas Davies is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of International Politics at City,

University of London. He researches NGOs, social movements, global governance, and
transnational history. His publications include NGOs: A New History of Transnational Civil
Society and The Possibilities of Transnational Activism.
“This timely and important book provides a comprehensive and compelling look at the role of
NGOs in International Relations. Pushing against disciplinary silos, it brings together a first rate
group of scholars to reflect upon the role of NGOs in a vast number of issue areas and regions of
the world. It is essential reading for everyone interested in ‘politics beyond the state’.”
Erin Hannah, King’s University College, Western University, Canada.

“A comprehensive and timely collection of essays about the growing and crucial role of non-
state actors in world politics. Routledge Handbook of NGOs and International Relations has insights
for politicians, pundits, and the public as well as analysts of global governance. This excellent
overview provides one-stop shopping for a phenomenon that challenges the contours of our
understanding about contemporary transnational interactions.”
Thomas G. Weiss, The CUNY Graduate Center, New York, USA.
Routledge Handbook of
NGOs and International
Relations

Edited by Thomas Davies

First published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
 2019 selection and editorial matter, Thomas Davies; individual
chapters, the contributors. The material in Chapter 31 from David
Horton Smith, Alisa V. Moldavanova, and Svitlana Krasynska (eds), The
Nonprofit Sector in Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia: Civil
Society Advances and Challenges (Leiden: Brill, 2018) is
 2018 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden,The Netherlands. It is reproduced
in this volume with the permission of the authors and the publisher.
The right of Thomas Davies to be identified as the author of the
editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters,
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Davies, Thomas Richard, editor.
Title: Routledge handbook of NGOs and international relations /
edited by Thomas Davies.
Other titles: Handbook of NGOs and international relations
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2019. |
Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018046286| ISBN 9781138285507 (hardback)
| ISBN 9781315268927 (eBook) | ISBN 9781351977500
(Adobe) | ISBN 9781351977494 (ePub3) | ISBN
9781351977487 (Mobipocket)
Subjects: LCSH: Non-governmental organizations. | International
relations.
Classification: LCC JZ4841 .R69 2019 | DDC 361.7/7—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018046286

ISBN: 9781138285507 (hbk)

ISBN: 9781315268927 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo
by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK
 Contents

List of figures ix
List of tables x
List of contributors xi
Foreword by Peter Willetts xix
Acknowledgements xxvi

Introducing NGOs and International Relations 1

Thomas Davies

PART I
History and contributions 17

1 The emergence of NGOs as actors on the world stage 19

Norbert Götz

2 NGOs’ interactions with states 32

Sarah S. Stroup

3 NGOs in global governance 46

Molly Ruhlman

4 Transnational non-state politics 63

Thomas Davies

PART II
Theory and analysis 73

5 Constituting NGOs 75
William E. DeMars and Dennis Dijkzeul

6 Rationalist explanations for NGOs 90

Youngwan Kim

v
Contents

7 NGOs and post-positivism: two likely friends? 101

Jutta Joachim, Chris Nijhuis, and Andrea Schneiker

8 NGOs in constructivist international relations theory 113

Christopher Marc Lilyblad

9 The aesthetic politics of NGOs 128

Holly Eva Ryan

10 NGOs and social movement theory 138

Clare Saunders and Silke Roth

11 International NGOs in development studies 153

Helen Yanacopulos

12 NGOs and management studies 165

David Lewis

13 NGOs in international law: reconsidering personality and

participation (again) 179
Math Noortmann

14 Voluntaristics: global research on NGOs and the non-profit sector 193

David Horton Smith

15 Primary data on NGOs: pushing the bounds of present possibilities 209

Elizabeth Bloodgood

PART III
Issue-areas and sectors 221

16 Feminist politics and NGO mobilization: can NGOs degender

global governance? 223
Paulina García-Del Moral, Di Wang, and Myra Marx Ferree

17 NGOs and labour 237

Bob Reinalda

18 NGOs and human rights 251

Marc S. Polizzi and Amanda Murdie

19 Humanitarian NGOs 267

Silke Roth

vi
 Contents

20 Five generations of NGOs in education: from humanitarianism

to global capitalism 283
Will Brehm and Iveta Silova

21 The roles of the citizen sector in health and public health 297
Paul Gaist and Victoria Chau

22 NGOs and peace 315

Margarita H. Petrova

23 NGOs and the environment 329

Naghmeh Nasiritousi

24 Civil society, expert communities, and private standards 343

Alejandro M. Peña

25 An uncomfortable relationship: NGOs, trade associations, and

the development of industry self-regulation 361
Jonathan Doh, Tazeeb Rajwani, and Thomas C. Lawton

26 NGOs and global trade 370

Erin Hannah and James Scott

27 NGOs and professions 383

Raquel Rego

28 Religiously affiliated NGOs 397

Karsten Lehmann

PART IV
Regional perspectives 413

29 Transnational NGOs in the United States 415

George E. Mitchell

30 NGOs in the European Union 433

Matthias Freise

31 The non-profit sector in Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia 447
David Horton Smith, Alisa V. Moldavanova, and Svitlana Krasynska

32 NGOs in East and Southeast Asia 463

Lei Xie and Joshua Garland

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Contents

33 NGOs, democracy and development in Latin America 483

Inés M. Pousadela

34 Civil societies and NGOs in the Middle East and North Africa:
the cases of Egypt and Tunisia 505
Sarah Ben Néfissa

35 NGOs in sub-Saharan Africa: potentials, constraints and

diverging experiences 516
Hans Holmén

36 NGOs in South Asia 529

Patrick Kilby

PART V
Contemporary challenges 541

37 Democracy and NGOs 543

Sarah Sunn Bush

38 NGOs and authoritarianism 557

Andrew Heiss

39 NGOs and security in conflict zones 573

Daniela Irrera

40 NGOs and the challenge of global terrorism 587

Omi Hodwitz

41 International NGO legitimacy: challenges and responses 606

Maryam Zarnegar Deloffre and Hans Peter Schmitz

42 NGO accountability 621

Angela Crack

Index 635

viii
 Figures

21.1 Social determinants of health 299

21.2 Cross-sector partnerships 306
23.1 Cumulative admission of observer organizations 335
23.2 Constituency affiliation of admitted NGOs (as at December 2017) 336
26.1 Typology of NGOs in global trade 374
29.1 USAID support of US NGOs 418
29.2 Focus areas of USAID-supported NGOs 419
29.3 Distribution of small-sized TNGOs 424
29.4 Distribution of medium-sized TNGOs 425
30.1 NGOs and business-oriented lobbyists and their fields of activity 436
30.2 The political system of the European Union 438
30.3 The 350 members of the European Economic and Social
Committee by EU member states 439
37.1 Number of INGOs dedicated to democracy promotion 544
38.1 Adoption of pseudo-democratic institutions in authoritarian states
since 1970 560
38.2 Civil society repression and regulations 567
39.1 Total number of incidents concerning humanitarian workers
per category, 2006–16 579
39.2 Number of incidents concerning humanitarian workers per year,
2006–16 579
39.3 Number of incidents concerning humanitarian workers per
typology, 2015–16 580
39.4 Number of incidents concerning humanitarian workers per
region, 1996–2014 581
40.1 Annual number of terrorist attacks, 1979–2016 588
40.2 Annual number of terrorist attacks in regions with high levels
of terrorism, 1979–2016 589
40.3 Annual number of terrorist attacks targeting NGOs, 1979–2016 590

ix
 Tables

1.1 Number of conventional IGOs and INGOs (UIA categories A–D) 28

3.1 Types of nongovernmental participation in intergovernmental
organizations 48
19.1 Humanitarian actors in selected European countries 270
24.1 Types of international standardisation 347
29.1 Top ten country recipients of USAID assistance 417
29.2 USAID expenditures by sector 418
29.3 Distribution of large-sized TNGOs 423
29.4 TNGO projects by sector 426
41.1 The “4 Ps” of INGO legitimacy 609

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 Contributors

Sarah Ben Néfissa is Research Director in the French National Research Institute for Sustainable
Development (IRD). She is a jurist and political scientist. Her work is strongly anchored in field
surveys and has been addressing different political expressions in Egypt through various entries,
channels, and levels of analysis: votes and elections, actors and political grouping, local power,
Islamic charitable work, civil society, and informal methods of conflict resolution.

Elizabeth Bloodgood is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science
at Concordia University, Montreal. Her research focuses on nongovernmental organizations’
adaptation to political, economic, and legal institutions at the domestic and international level.
The work, funded by the Government of Canada’s Social Science and Humanities Research
Council and the Fonds de recherche sur la société et la culture of Quebec, appears in Review of
International Studies, European Political Science Review, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly,
Voluntas, Social Science Computer Review, and multiple edited volumes.

Will Brehm is an Assistant Professor at the Waseda Institute for Advanced Study, Waseda
University (Tokyo, Japan). His research interests include the intersection of comparative and
international education with International Relations and the political economy of development,
focused primarily in Southeast Asia. He also hosts a weekly podcast on education, globalization,
and society called FreshEd.

Sarah Sunn Bush is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Yale University. Her research
examines how international actors try to aid democracy, promote women’s representation,
and support elections in developing countries. She is the author of The Taming of Democracy
Assistance: Why Democracy Promotion Does Not Confront Dictators.

Victoria Chau, PhD, is a public health analyst at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration (SAMHSA) within the US Department of Health and Human Services.
Dr Chau’s work portfolio and interests centre around health equity and behavioural health. She
is a former AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC) member and has co-
taught a graduate-level course with Dr Paul Gaist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of
Public Health.

Angela Crack, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the University of

Portsmouth. She has published in various academic journals on NGO accountability and NGO

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Contributors

self-regulation. She has also examined issues of downward accountability in a major research
project, ‘The Listening Zones of NGOs’, which explores the role of language and cultural
knowledge in the communicative relationships that NGOs establish with local communities.

Thomas Davies is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of International Politics at City,

University of London. He researches and teaches on NGOs, social movements, global govern-
ance, and transnational history. His publications include NGOs: A New History of Transnational
Civil Society and The Possibilities of Transnational Activism.

Maryam Zarnegar Deloffre is an Associate Professor of Political Science in the undergraduate

programme in political science and the graduate programme in International Peace and Conflict
Resolution at Arcadia University. Her research and publications examine NGO accountability
and legitimacy, inter-NGO coordination and governance, and global humanitarian and pan-
demic governance. Dr Deloffre holds a PhD in political science from George Washington
University, an MA in International Relations from Institut d’Etudes Politiques-Sciences Po
Paris, and a BA in political science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

William E. DeMars is Professor and Chair of the Department of Government and International
Affairs at Wofford College in South Carolina. He taught previously at the American University
in Cairo, Egypt, and the University of Notre Dame. His teaching interests span African and
Middle East politics, American foreign policy, international organizations, nuclear weapons,
and the New Space Race. He has published articles on humanitarian politics, the changing face
of war in Africa, and intelligence issues. He is the author of NGOs and Transnational Networks:
Wild Cards in World Politics, and co-editor, with Dennis Dijkzeul, of The NGO Challenge for
International Relations Theory.

Dennis Dijkzeul is Professor of Conflict and Organization Research at the Social Science
School and the Institute of International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict at Ruhr University
Bochum, Germany. He was the founding director of the humanitarian affairs programme at
the School of International and Public Affairs of Columbia University in New York. He has
conducted research projects on international and local organizations in the DRC, Afghanistan,
South Sudan, and Uganda, and he has worked as a consultant for UN organizations and NGOs
in Africa, Europe, Central Asia, and Latin America. His main research interests concern the
management of international organizations (UN, NGOs, and diaspora organizations) and their
interaction with local actors in humanitarian crises.

Jonathan Doh (PhD, George Washington University) is Associate Dean of Research, Rammrath
Endowed Chair in International Business, Co-Faculty Director of the Moran Center for Global
Leadership, and Professor of Management at the Villanova School of Business. He teaches
and does research in the areas of international business, strategic management, and corporate
responsibility. He has authored or co-authored nine books, more than 75 refereed articles, and
35 chapters. He is co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of World Business.

Myra Marx Ferree is the Alice H. Cook Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-
Madison. Her recent books include Varieties of Feminism: German Gender Politics in Global
Perspective and Gender: Ideas, Interactions, Institutions (with Lisa Wade). Her current research
examines the transformations of gender politics in institutions of higher education.

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 Contributors

Matthias Freise is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Political Science and Managing
Director of the Graduate School of Politics at Münster University, Germany. His research
interests include European governance, civil society theory, and non-profit organizations.

Paul Gaist, PhD, is a Professor (adjunct) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public
Health (Baltimore, Maryland). One of the courses he designed and teaches at the School is a
graduate-level course focused on the roles of the citizen sector in improving health and public
health. Dr Gaist is the editor and co-author of the book Igniting the Power of Community: The
Role of CBOs and NGOs in Global Public Health. In addition, he leads the Behavioral and Social
Sciences Research Section of the Office of AIDS Research in the Office of the Director at the
National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, Maryland).

Paulina García-Del Moral is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and

Anthropology at the University of Guelph, Canada. Her research examines the intersection
of law, gender, and power in transnational processes in and across Latin America, Canada, and
Europe. Her choice in studying these geographical areas constitutes a focused attempt to con-
tribute to a transnational sociological understanding of the social construction of legal problems
and their implications in different social and legal-political contexts.

Joshua Garland is a postgraduate research student at the University of Exeter whose current
work focuses broadly on social movements and protest.

Norbert Götz is Professor of History at the Institute of Contemporary History, Södertörn

University, Sweden. His current work concerns transnational history, spatial imagination,
humanitarian efforts, and global civil society. He directs research projects on the history of food
aid, on regionalism in the Baltic area and the Mediterranean, and on global challenges to the
Nordic region.

Erin Hannah is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at King’s
University College at the University of Western Ontario. Her research and teaching interests
include international political economy, development, gender and trade, global governance,
global civil society, and the role of expert knowledge in global trade.

Andrew Heiss is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Public Management at the Romney Institute of
Public Service and Ethics at Brigham Young University. He holds a PhD in public policy from
the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University.

Omi Hodwitz is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology

at the University of Idaho. Hodwitz received her PhD in Criminology and Criminal Justice
from the University of Maryland, College Park, specializing in the relationship between civil
society and terrorism. Hodwitz focuses on the role of non-combatants in terrorism, counter-
terrorism strategies and tactics, security assessments, prison education initiatives, and testing
theoretical assumptions.

Hans Holmén (born 1948) is Associate Professor in Human Geography (retired). He has taught
development issues at the universities of Copenhagen, Lund, and Linköping. Since the 1980s,

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Contributors

he has researched agriculture, aid, and organizations and has been a consultant on such issues to
the Swedish Cooperative Centre, Sida, and UNSO/UNDP. Holmén has worked for a Swedish
NGO in Jordan and is the author of Snakes in Paradise: NGOs and the Aid Industry in Africa.

Daniela Irrera (PhD in International Relations, University of Catania) is Associate Professor of

Political Science and International Relations at the University of Catania, where she serves as
Deputy Dean for Research and International Affairs at the Department of Political and Social
Sciences. She is Secretary General of the Italian Political Science Association, member of the ISA
Governing Council (2010–2021) and associate editor of the Journal of Contemporary European Studies.
She has been Visiting Fellow in several universities and research centres in Europe, the US, Asia,
and Canada. She has extensively published in the areas of International Relations and EU politics,
dealing with global terrorism, transnational organized crime, civil society, and humanitarian affairs.

Jutta Joachim, PhD, is Senior Lecturer of International Relations at Radboud University

Nijmegen. Her publications include Agenda Setting, the UN, and NGOs: Gender Violence and
Reproductive Rights, (with Birgit Locher) Transnational Activism in the UN and the EU, and (with
Andrea Schneiker) Private Security and Identity Politics: Ethical Hero Warriors, Professional Managers
and New Humanitarians.

Patrick Kilby, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer and a political scientist at the Australian National
University (ANU), and convener of the Master of Applied Anthropology and Participatory
Development programme. Dr Kilby was an East West Center Visiting Fellow in Washington in
2017, and a Fulbright Senior Scholar for 2018. He has written extensively on NGOs including
the book NGOs in India: The Challenges of Women’s Empowerment and Accountability.

Youngwan Kim, PhD, is Associate Professor at the Division of Language and Diplomacy,
Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. He received his PhD in political science from the
University of Iowa in 2011. His research interests include NGOs, foreign aid, international
development cooperation, international organizations, and international law. His representative
works have been published in several journals including World Development, Development and
Change, Foreign Policy Analysis, and Disasters.

Svitlana Krasynska, PhD, is Vice President and Co-Founder of the Volya Institute for
Contemporary Law and Society. Her research focuses on civil society in Eastern Europe, infor-
mal civic engagement, transnational activism on social media, and social enterprise.

Thomas C. Lawton is Professor of Strategy and International Business at Cork University Business
School, University College Cork, and at Surrey Business School, University of Surrey and Visiting
Professor of Business Administration at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. He teaches and
researches in international business and strategic management and specialises in nonmarket strategy.
He has authored or edited eight books and more than 50 refereed articles and book chapters. He
is the Strategy Matters book series editor for Routledge and associate editor of Long Range Planning.

Karsten Lehmann is presently working as Research Professor ‘Interreligiosity’ at the University

College of Teacher Education Vienna/Krems. He is a scholar of religion as well as a sociologist.
Among other things, Lehmann’s research focuses on religion in international politics, religiously
affiliated NGOs, forms of religious plurality in Austria and Europe, the sedimentation of ‘the
Religious’ and ‘the Secular’, qualitative research methods, as well as religion and migration.

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 Contributors

David Lewis is Professor of Social Policy and Development at the London School of Economics
and Political Science. An anthropologist by training, his work been concerned with NGOs and
international development over many years. He is currently working on a new edition of his
book Non-Governmental Organizations, Management and Development.

Christopher Marc Lilyblad, DPhil, is Research Associate at the University of Oxford’s Changing
Character of War Centre. His research focuses on the constitution of non-state authority, insti-
tutions, and governance in world politics. Prior to this, Dr Lilyblad served in a variety of mana-
gerial posts with international development organizations, including the European Commission,
and continues to advise organizations implementing official development assistance, especially
NGOs, as a strategy and policy consultant. He completed his doctorate in international develop-
ment at the University of Oxford, where he attended as a Clarendon Scholar.

George E. Mitchell is an Associate Professor at the Marxe School of Public and International
Affairs (MSPIA) at Baruch College and an affiliate of MSPIA’s Center for Nonprofit Strategy
and Management. Before joining the Marxe School, he was an Assistant Professor at the Colin
Powell School at the City College of New York and a founding member of the Transnational
NGO Initiative at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. His research examines topics in
NGO and nonprofit management, leadership, and strategy, and appears in journals of NGO and
nonprofit studies, public administration, and International Relations.

Alisa V. Moldavanova, PhD (University of Kansas, 2013), is an Assistant Professor of Public

Administration in the Political Science Department at Wayne State University. Her research
areas include public and nonprofit management, inter-organizational collaboration, comparative
civil society, and ethics and sustainability studies.

Amanda Murdie is the Dean Rusk Scholar of International Relations in the Department of
International Affairs at the University of Georgia. She currently serves as editor-in-chief of
International Studies Review. Her expertise is in the area of human security and NGOs.

Naghmeh Nasiritousi, PhD, is a Research Fellow at the Department of Political Science,

Stockholm University. Her research focuses on the institutional complexity of global climate
and energy governance, issues of effectiveness and legitimacy, as well as the roles of non-state
actors in environmental governance. Her research has been published in journals such as Nature
Climate Change, European Journal of International Relations, International Studies Quarterly, Global
Environmental Politics, International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, and
Annual Review of Political Science.

Chris Nijhuis is a Lecturer at the Department of Political Science, Institute for Management
Research at Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. His research interests include
identity, foreign policy, and non-state actors.

Math Noortmann is Research Professor in Transnational Law and Non-State Actors at the
Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, Coventry University (UK). His publications
include Enforcing International Law: From Self-Help to Self-Contained Regimes and (edited with
August Reinisch and Cedric Ryngaert) Non-State Actors in International Law.

Alejandro Milcíades Peña is Lecturer in International Relations in the Department of Politics at

the University of York, UK. He researches transnational regulation and governance, state-civil

xv
Contributors

society interactions and contentious politics, International Relations theory, and Latin American
politics. He is the author of Transnational Governance and South American Politics: The Political
Economy of Norms.

Margarita H. Petrova is a Senior Research Fellow and Academic Coordinator of the Master’s
programme in International Security at Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (IBEI). Her
research focuses on international norm development, ethical and legal issues in international
security, and NGO advocacy. Her work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in the European Journal
of International Relations, International Studies Quarterly, Review of International Studies, and World
Politics, among others.

Marc S. Polizzi holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Missouri and is an
Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and Sociology at Murray State
University. His research on human rights, non-state actors, and collective action has been pub-
lished in the Journal of Development Studies and as a chapter in The Oxford Handbook of Political
Networks.

Inés M. Pousadela is a Senior Research Specialist at CIVICUS, based at the Institute of

Communication and Development (ICD) in Montevideo, Uruguay. She also works as
a researcher for OGP’s Independent Reporting Mechanism and teaches an elective class
on ‘Global Civil Society’ at Universidad ORT. Inés holds a PhD in Political Science (UB,
Argentina). Previously, she alternated academic research in Latin American Studies at American
University (CLALS), Brown University (BIARI programme), Georgetown University (CLAS),
and the University of Maryland (LASC) with independent political consultancy with NGOs and
international organizations, including UNDP and the IADB. She has multiple publications on
political representation, mobilization, participation, and accountability.

Tazeeb Rajwani is Professor of International Business and Strategy at the University of Essex.
His research focuses mainly on corporate political activity, nonmarket strategy, and trade associ-
ations. He has previously studied at the University of Surrey and the University of Nottingham,
and has a PhD from Imperial College London.

Raquel Rego is a sociologist and currently a Research Fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences
from the University of Lisbon, Portugal. Raquel obtained her PhD in 2007 simultaneously
at the Université Lille 1 (France) and at the ISCTE-IUL (Portugal). She was a member of
the Portuguese correspondent team of the European Observatory of Working Life (EurWork)
from Eurofound for several years. Her research interests are professional associations and labour
relations, among other topics. She is the author of the entry on Professional Associations in the
International Encyclopedia of Civil Society and editor of the book The Trend Towards the European
Deregulation of Professions and Its Impact on Portugal Under Crisis.

Bob Reinalda is Senior Researcher at Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands, and an
editor of IO BIO, the Biographical Dictionary of Secretaries-General of International Organizations (see
www.ru.nl/fm/iobio). He authored the Routledge History of International Organizations.

Silke Roth is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Southampton in the

Department of Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology. She is interested in the participation

xvi
 Contributors

in and the impact of voluntary organizations, social movements, and non-governmental organi-
zations. Her current research focuses on veterans’ transition to civilian life and work. She is
the author of The Paradoxes of Aid Work: Passionate Professionals and various other books, edited
volumes, book chapters, and articles in Gender & Society, Interface, Journal of Risk Research, Social
Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society, Third World Quarterly, and Sociological
Research Online.

Molly Ruhlman is a Lecturer in the Political Science Department at Towson University. Her
research studies the intersection of global governance and civil society.

Holly Eva Ryan, PhD, is a Lecturer in International Political Sociology at Queen Mary University of
London and an Economic and Social Research Council New Investigator (2018–2021). Dr Ryan’s
research sits at the intersections of social movement studies, practical aesthetics, and international
politics. It explores questions of power, representation, and resistance.

Clare Saunders is Professor in Politics at the Environment and Sustainability Institute/

Department of Politics at the University of Exeter. Her work on protest and political participa-
tion is widely published across a range of social science journals. She is currently working on a
book called When Citizens Talk Politics, with Bert Klandermans and other colleagues, forthcom-
ing in 2019 with Routledge.

Hans Peter Schmitz teaches in the Department of Leadership Studies at the University of
San Diego. He is the co-founder of the Transnational NGO Initiative at the Maxwell School
of Citizenship and Public Affairs/Syracuse University. His research interests include the gov-
ernance and accountability of international non-governmental organizations, rights-based
approaches to development, and global health issues.

Andrea Schneiker, PhD, is Professor of Political Science with a special focus on International
Relations at the University of Siegen, Germany. Her research interests focus on the role
of non-state actors in International Relations. She is the author of Humanitarian NGOs,
(In)Security and Identity and co-editor (together with Andreas Kruck) of Researching Non-State
Actors in International Security. Her research has been published in numerous peer-reviewed
journals such as Security Dialogue, International Studies Review, International Studies Perspectives,
Comparative European Politics, Millennium, Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit
Organizations, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Disasters, Global Policy, European Security,
and Contemporary Security Policy.

James Scott is Senior Lecturer in International Political Economy in the Department of Political
Economy at King’s College London. Dr Scott works primarily on trade governance, particularly
with regard to developing countries in the World Trade Organization. His most recent work
focuses on the provision of expertise to developing countries by individuals, non-governmental
organizations, and inter-governmental organizations.

Iveta Silova is Professor and Director of the Center for Advanced Studies in Global Education
at Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College. Her research and publications cover a range of issues
critical to understanding globalization and knowledge production/transfer in education. More
recently, she has been exploring the intersections of postsocialist, postcolonial, and decolonial

xvii
Contributors

perspectives in education research. Iveta is a co-editor of European Education: Issues and Studies
and associate editor of Education Policy Analysis Archives.

David Horton Smith (PhD in Sociology from Harvard, 1965) is Research and Emeritus Professor
of Sociology, Boston College, USA, and Visiting Research Professor, National Research
University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia. He is the founder and first President
(1971–1973) of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action
(ARNOVA) (www.arnova.org) and its SSCI-listed journal, NVSQ. His bio is among 139 dis-
tinguished biographees (most of them deceased) in the International Encyclopedia of Civil Society
(Anheier et al.) as outstanding nonprofit sector leaders and researchers from all nations and all of
human history. He was given the Marquis Who’s Who Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018.

Sarah S. Stroup is Associate Professor at Middlebury College in Vermont, USA. Her research
focuses on the structure, strategies, and authority of international NGOs, particularly in the
humanitarian and human rights sectors. Stroup is the author of Borders Among Activists and co-
author (with Wendy Wong) of The Authority Trap.

Di Wang is a PhD candidate of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with a focus

on LGBTQ rights, legal mobilization, and social policy. Her research has been informed by her
ten-year experience as a women’s and LGBTQ rights advocate. Using family rights as a focal
point, her dissertation investigates the globalization of LGBTQ rights, with an empirical focus
on two powerful states – China and the United States.

Peter Willetts is Emeritus Professor of Global Politics at City, University of London. He pio-
neered the study in the United Kingdom of NGOs in International Relations, and his pub-
lications include Non-Governmental Organizations in World Politics: The Construction of Global
Governance (2011), ‘The Conscience of the World’: The Influence of Non-Governmental Organisations
in the UN System (1996), and Pressure Groups in the Global System: The Transnational Relations of
Issue-Oriented Non-Governmental Organizations (1982).

Lei Xie, PhD, is Professor in Governance at Shandong University, China. Her research focuses
on global environmental governance and transnational environmental movements with par-
ticular interest in international cooperation concerning transboundary river basins. She is the
author of Environmental Activism in China (2009) and (with Shaofeng Jia) China’s International
Transboundary Rivers: Politics, Security and Diplomacy of Shared Water Resources (2017).

Helen Yanacopulos is a Professor and Department Head of Economics, Philosophy and

Political Science at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan. Her research has been pri-
marily focused on the political role of non-governmental organizations, specifically bridging
the disciplines of international politics and international development. She has examined social
justice-focused and digitally enabled networks of NGOs involved in political mobilization and
political action, transnational governance, and mediation and representation development. Her
most recent book (2015) is International NGO Engagement, Advocacy, Activism: The Faces and
Spaces of Change.

xviii
 Foreword

This Handbook of NGOs and International Relations is a magisterial work. Instead of providing
a simple set of case studies, it is organised into five sections covering all the major questions
being addressed by researchers on non-governmental organisations. They are the history of the
emergence of NGOs; how to understand NGOs through theory and analysis; the wide range of
NGO concerns and activities; the different situations in countries in each of the global regions;
and current problems faced by NGOs and civil society in general.
The reader must be cautioned: there is no common definition of what constitutes an NGO.
This is not a criticism of the Handbook. The term has been used in very many different ways.
It originated primarily to cover formal, structured, international organisations (INGOs) and
then quickly became a term to cover organisations within a single country (national NGOs or
local NGOs). The problem of the difference between NGOs and social movements became a
matter of controversy and is discussed, primarily in Chapter 10. The literature has not managed
to cope with the impact of the Internet that generated less formal group activities that raise the
question: how organised does a group have to be for it to be called an organisation? No distinc-
tions can be drawn easily between relatively permanent, web-based, advocacy networks; widely
followed group discussion forums; a set of petitioners on Change.Org; and ephemeral Facebook
or Twitter campaigns.
Part I, with its focus on history and how NGOs relate to governments and intergovern-
mental organisations, demolishes the common illusion that NGOs first became important in
global politics after the end of the Cold War. Over half a millennium ago, the intellectual
revolution of the Christian Reformation and the European Renaissance was sustained by trans-
national relations across Europe. By 1660, one of the oldest NGOs still existing today, the
Royal Society, was formed in London, as a national science academy, and appointed its first
“Foreign Secretary” in 1723, to relate to science NGOs in other countries (Poliakoff 2015). In
the nineteenth century, many European transnational advocacy networks developed and some
had as great an impact as any of the networks of the 1990s. Early academic study of International
Relations rarely mentioned the subject, but transnational NGOs did attract some attention dur-
ing the Cold War (Meynaud 1961; Keohane and Nye 1972; Mansbach, Ferguson and Lampert
1976; Pei-heng 1981; Willetts 1982). It was not NGO activity, but the sustained study of NGO
activity, that emerged during the 1990s. That said, Internet communications, slowly from the
mid-1980s, and the creation of websites, more rapidly from the late 1990s, have allowed a
greater volume and a greater intensity of transnational NGO activities. This is why NGOs in the
1980s established the first, public, Internet service providers and ensured the Internet became a
comprehensive network of networks (Willetts 2011, 84–113).
Giving proper weight to NGOs means that we should not discuss “states” as political entities.
The concept of a state is only appropriate in relation to international law. Labelling governments

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Foreword

as “states” and NGOs as “non-state actors” privileges governments and downplays the signifi-
cance of NGOs. Just two decades ago, Alan James emphasised states and dismissed the study
of NGOs, with contempt, by asserting his lack of interest in a hypothetical “International
Association of Train-Spotters” (2000, 1). The richness of the work in Part I demonstrates
how far we have moved since the academic discipline of International Relations was widely
regarded as solely being concerned with inter-state relations. Indeed, it establishes that NGOs
have existed as long as modern governments have existed and the two types of institutions have
evolved alongside each other.
Although some of the chapter authors do still refer to states rather than governments, they all
ask questions about the relations between governments, NGOs and other transnational actors –
within societies, between societies and within various types of international organisations. While
this complexity was recognised by academics in the 1990s, it was an initiative from a politician,
Willy Brandt, mobilising the support of other retired politicians and diplomats, that led to the
creation of the Commission on Global Governance (CGG 1995) and popularised the concept of
global governance. The importance of the Commission’s understanding of the concept is that,
by definition, it refers to “policy-making and policy implementation in global political systems,
through the collaboration of governments with actors from civil society and the private sector”
(Willetts 2011, 148).
The majority of international organisations are either intergovernmental organisations, com-
posed solely of governments, or international NGOs composed solely of NGOs, but I have
long argued that another challenge to orthodox thinking should be recognised. There are also
hybrid international organisations, in which both governments and NGOs have full membership
status. Some of these hybrids – such as the International Conference of the Red Cross and the
Red Crescent, and the World Conservation Union (IUCN) – are of major importance (Willetts
2011, 72–80). In Chapter 4 of this Handbook, Davies moves even further away from a state-
centric perspective, by asking us to consider transnational governance as a process that bypasses
governments and influences other actors in global society. The first major book on transnational
relations made a different challenge. Keohane and Nye (1972) not only disaggregated countries
into governments and NGOs, but also disaggregated governments into their consistent bureau-
cracies, which each have their own transgovernmental relations. They argued it is fundamental
to the study of intergovernmental organisations to recognise that semi-autonomous parts of
governments, rather than unified governments, are usually the decision-making participants.
Their elaboration of transgovernmental relations, in 1974, is one of the most important articles
ever written on global politics, but unfortunately it also has generally been ignored.
With the rise of “new” global issues in the 1970s – particularly human rights, women’s
issues and environmental concerns – it became obvious to any observer that NGOs were deeply
involved both at the country level and at the global level. However, this did not make it any
easier to bring NGOs within the discipline of International Relations. The new global confer-
ences organised by the United Nations were seen as “low politics” separate from the “high
politics” of armed conflict and security issues. Evidence of NGO activities would not persuade
orthodox academics to study NGOs. I struggled to cope with this indifference, until I realised it
was necessary to provide a theoretical framework to assert the place of NGOs in global politics.
NGOs do not have military capabilities nor do they usually have significant economic resources,
but they do exercise substantial influence. I argued for “a value-free study of values” and analysis
of how NGOs can mobilise support for their values. They can make their goals salient by four
different linkage strategies: gaining support from high-status actors; invoking widely supported
values; bargaining to create wider coalitions; and highlighting functional linkages to other issues
(Willetts 1996a and 2011, 138–41).

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 Foreword

Part II of this Handbook shows how much theory and analysis of NGOs has mushroomed
since the 1990s. The crucial turning point was the publication of Activists Beyond Borders,
by Keck and Sikkink in 1998. It is noteworthy that neither of them started as mainstream
International Relations scholars. Keck was motivated by environmental issues and Sikkink by
human rights; both were women; and both had a strong interest in developing countries. Their
work made constructivism the dominant theoretical approach in the study of the transnational
relations of NGOs. The chapters focused on theory all take constructivism as the foundation
for contemporary theorising about NGOs, even when they criticise the approach for being
too idealistic or neglecting rationalist analysis of the funding of NGOs. The benefit of the
early constructivists was not so much the emphasis on advocacy networks as moving outside
the discipline of International Relations to Sociology to use a different theoretical framework.
Analysis of mobilisation of support for values was not compatible with assumptions about objec-
tive interests, within state-centric power theory. Analysis of NGOs required using the concepts
of framing, resource mobilisation and opportunity structures, which are applicable to all types of
global actors, including governments.
The contributors do not always agree with each other. Bloodgood’s call for the systematic
collection of quantitative data is indirectly criticised by the post-positivist authors. However,
the differences are not as sharp as they would have been in the 1990s. Bloodgood explains fully
the problems with collecting data and the limitations in its coverage, while the post-positivists’
chapter moves away from insisting on the original, sweeping, anti-positivist arguments. I would
go further and argue that the epistemology of positivism does not have to be equated with the
conservatism nor with the analytical failings of state-centric realists and liberal institutionalists.
Most constructivists now are in practice positivists, deeply immersed in empirical questions,
even if they are sometimes camouflaged in anti-positivist clothes. Even the popular references
to “lived reality” can be interpreted as calling for a positivist rejection of unsubstantiated theory:
the oppression of women, for example, is both a subjective experience and part of the objective
reality that constitutes global politics.
Part II introduces other theoretical questions that need to be considered by constructivists.
The chapter on rationalism is useful in asking how economic interests are assessed, but con-
structivists would reply that non-economic values, which generate altruism, can also be pursued
in a rational manner. The choice and diffusion of values is the focus of constructivism and not
rationalism, but the optimisation of values – any and all values – can be analysed in terms of
rationality. The chapter on international law also implicitly raises the challenge whether con-
structivism could be applied to the process of new legal rules gaining increasing support until
they become accepted as part of customary international law. It might be controversial now to
assert that NGOs can have international legal personality, but before the Second World War
it was not accepted that intergovernmental organisations had legal personality. Ryan’s chapter
on aesthetic politics is important in dealing with the role of affect and emotion in communi-
cations. She analyses the deliberate utilisation of images in NGO advocacy and fund-raising.
Sometimes images in the news media can also have a major political impact on global politics as
a whole. The photographs of the Sharpeville massacre in March 1960 led to the British NGO,
the Boycott Movement, becoming the Anti-Apartheid Movement and the beginning of the
process that delegitimised the South African, racist, governmental system (Minty 1982). Such
non-verbal communication effects should also be integrated into constructivism.
Coverage in Part III of both issue-areas and sectors, including chapters on labour, health
and education that straddle the two, has the advantage of forcing the reader to acknowledge
the immense diversity of types of NGOs. One’s first reaction to the set of chapters on issue-
areas might be to say they all demonstrate the importance of advocacy networks, but there are

xxi
Foreword

differences as well as similarities. Peace and the environment have scientists as major politi-
cal actors, yet health does not, even though health questions require scientific understanding.
Despite the coverage of human rights in the UN Charter, the issue-area of human rights stands
out as not being fully accepted as part of global politics until as late as the 1970s, when it first
became possible in international diplomacy to discuss violation of the rights of individuals by
their governments. Yet, women’s rights go back to social movements over a century ago and
women’s organisations had more impact on global politics in the twentieth century than any
other set of NGOs. The next step we need is to design comparative studies between different
issue-areas to increase our understanding of the dynamics of normative change.
There are chapters on unions and on religious NGOs, neither of which like to be described
as NGOs, but in all parts of the UN system (except for unions in the ILO) they only have a
presence by becoming accredited as NGOs. They also engage on more global issues than most
other NGOs, yet assessment of their impact on issue outcomes has often been given insufficient
attention. Individually and more so collectively, the chapters in Part III illustrate how analysts
are forced to limit themselves to the study of a few types of NGOs. In the literature on issues,
a distinction is often made between advocacy NGOs (or networks of NGOs) and NGOs deliv-
ering public services, while acknowledging many do both. However, NGOs may engage in
many other types of activities – such as maintenance of group identities, empowerment of the
disadvantaged, information exchange, research, standard-setting, pursuit of sectoral interests,
maintenance of professional norms or provision of services to their own members.
Some of these different activities become evident when the focus is shifted from issue-areas
to sectors. The chapter on expert communities outlines a very wide, but neglected, field,
covering policy networks that gain legitimacy from their scientific or technical knowledge.
In the modern global economy, these networks provide a distinct form of global governance
that sets the parameters within which most of us have to work in our daily lives. Similarly,
global regulation is also undertaken by trade associations, covering a particular economic sec-
tor. They may co-operate with or be in conflict with issue-based NGOs, while themselves
being a distinct type of NGO. A chapter on the politics of global trade demonstrates how
expertise and/or a sectoral focus have made NGOs central to global trade governance at the
WTO. Another chapter points to the importance within countries of professional associations
engaging in self-regulation, usually exercising authority delegated to them by governments.
Questions arise about the extent to which professional standards are now starting to be regu-
lated by regional or global professional associations. Collectively these chapters suggest the
need to integrate the literatures on international regimes and on epistemic communities into
pluralist constructivism.
Similarly, divergences about use of the term NGO arise in Part IV, which changes the level
of analysis to NGOs within individual countries. Partly, divergences arise due to different cul-
tural, legal and political systems in different parts of the world, resulting in differences over what
types of organisations are formed. Partly, the chapter authors have different interests, with some
restricting themselves primarily to development NGOs and some including a wider range of
civil society groups. In all developing countries, there is a tendency to a varying extent, for those
opposed to the activities of NGOs, to use the label NGO as a term of abuse: an NGO is an agent
of an illegitimate foreign interest or more generally an agent of Western, neo-liberal, capitalism.
This charge can be used whether or not it is based on reality in any way.
It is striking that, in most countries discussed in Part IV, large, successful NGOs are likely
to be co-opted as agents of the government, by being subject to a variety of different types of
pressure. In the USA, the benefits of tax exemption lead charities to limit their political activity

xxii
 Foreword

and transnational NGOs are often seen as supporters of US foreign policy. In the European
Union, those on the Transparency Register have to work closely with the Commission out
of the media spotlight to gain influence, while becoming a “democratic fig-leaf for the rather
opaque political system”. In Russia, Egypt and India, the strongest method of control is to
require registration in order to be permitted to receive foreign funding. In China, NGOs must
have sponsorship from a government body. In South Asia, Islam and Hinduism are invoked to
impose cultural and religious limitations on NGO activities. In Africa, countries with authori-
tarian regimes use nationalist rhetoric to delegitimise NGOs that criticise them. However,
African NGOs that can present themselves as being community-based organisations gain
greater freedom of action. The chapter on Latin American countries appears to offer the most
vigorous examples of civil society, despite the divisions between formally organised NGOs and
more radical social movements.
The wide-ranging, but not universal, review of NGOs around the world makes evident a
surprising general acceptance that NGOs exist by virtue of their legal registration. This is not
just a feature of authoritarian and semi-authoritarian regimes. Even the Council of Europe has
adopted a “Convention on the Recognition of the Legal Personality of International Non-
Governmental Organisations”. The very idea of legal registration seems very strange in some
political cultures that emphasise the unrestricted right to unregulated freedom of association.
This point is made to emphasise that, in countries where charities have to be registered to obtain
tax benefits, there are many NGOs that are not charities. In other countries, with wider registra-
tion systems, groups will only need to register when they wish to gain legal rights, such as the
right to own property or to engage in other contracts or financial commitments. Even in the
most authoritarian societies, there will be some social groups that are not legally registered but
have sufficient cohesion and structure to be considered as NGOs.
Part V deals with a set of problems faced by NGOs that either did not exist or were not suf-
ficiently acknowledged at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Democracy was stronger
around the world and democracy promotion by NGOs was less controversial; NGOs did not
operate on such a large scale in countries with authoritarian regimes; the neutrality of NGOs
was better respected in conflict zones; they were less likely to be the targets of terrorist attacks;
and questions of legitimacy and accountability were not such paramount matters of public
debate. These problems became more intense as populist approaches grew stronger in the tra-
ditional media, on the new social media and in politics; violence against NGOs in the form of
terrorism, insurgency, government oppression and civil wars increased; and the number, the
size, the responsibilities and the visibility of NGOs grew larger.
Until the end of the 1990s, NGOs were widely assumed to be altruistic and acting in the
public interest. However, it has always been the case that no individual could reasonably sup-
port all NGOs. They do not all endorse the same values and on some issues there can be differ-
ent NGOs advocating opposing positions. For example, in the mid-1980s, both human rights
NGOs and US racist groups were among the first users of the Internet. In the mid-1990s, I was
obliged to accept the title of my book on NGOs, proposed by the Brookings Institution, would
be “Conscience of the World”, but dissociated myself from this position by using inverted com-
mas (Willetts 1996b, 11). Two decades later, many NGOs are now subject to a range of political
criticisms. They may be under attack by neo-liberals for being too progressive or by left-wing
radicals for sustaining neo-liberalism.
Growth in the size of an organisation is liable to reduce teamwork, personal interactions
and mutual trust, while increasing hierarchical authority, impersonal interactions and monitor-
ing procedures. Managerialism can be corrupting, because it causes a shift from personal moral

xxiii
Foreword

responsibility to meeting procedural requirements. NGOs may shift their priorities solely in
order to gain funds or to gain publicity. Individuals may become dishonest in reporting what
managers wish to hear rather than what actually happened. The chapters by Yanacopulos and
by Lewis in Part II suggest that NGOs must be analysed not just in terms of their advocacy, but
also in terms of their internal functioning. Lewis emphasises the need to ask different questions
about the management of NGOs from those asked about commercial organisations; notably,
NGOs should not necessarily be “efficient”. There is a fundamental contradiction between
reducing costs and increasing the quality of activities. For all NGOs, there are pressures to
reduce quality by reducing overheads such as research, reflective procedures or consultation
with stakeholders.
The general problems of when to compromise and how to limit the impact of bureaucratisa-
tion cause the specific problems discussed in Part V. How much deviation from core values is
acceptable, in the interests of mobilising wider support or gaining greater resources or main-
taining the organisation’s reputation? Should criticism of governments be modified in order
to allow activities to continue; should resources be allocated to ensuring the security of NGO
workers; is co-operation with terrorists ever justified; should work in territory controlled by
terrorists be stopped, because governments simplistically label it as collaboration with terrorists;
or is “poverty porn” acceptable as an effective way of raising funds? The worst problems arise
for operational NGOs, especially if they have wide-ranging programmes and/or large budgets.
For example, in November 2014, Save the Children gained more than £360,000 by collabo-
rating with the Financial Times, in a special edition of the How to Spend It magazine, but they
also abandoned their core value of poverty alleviation by legitimising excessive wealth. More
widely it has emerged that a range of NGOs, commercial organisations, churches and inter-
governmental organisations have ignored and suppressed information about sexual exploitation
and harassment, in order to avoid damage to their reputation. It is important to ask whether
larger NGOs are more at risk than smaller NGOs of condoning unacceptable behaviour, failing
to maintain internal accountability and losing their legitimacy. Equally, are hierarchical NGOs,
following bureaucratic procedures, more at risk of losing their integrity than non-hierarchical
NGOs, seeking to maintain professional values?
The editor and the contributors are to be congratulated for such a stimulating Handbook
that raises so many important questions and demonstrates how broad the study of NGOs
has become.

Peter Willetts
30 August 2018

References
CGG (Commission on Global Governance). 1995. Our Global Neighbourhood. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
James, Alan. 2000. “States and Sovereignty”. In Issues in International Relations, edited by Trevor C. Salmon,
1st ed. 1–24. London: Routledge.
Keck, Margaret E. and Kathryn Sikkink. 1998. Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International
Politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Keohane, Robert O. and Joseph Nye. 1972. Transnational Relations and World Politics. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
Keohane, Robert O. and Joseph Nye. 1974. “Transgovernmental Relations and International
Organizations”. World Politics, 27 (1): 39–62. doi: 10.2307/2009925.

xxiv
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Mansbach, Richard W., Yale H. Ferguson and Donald E. Lampert. 1976. The Web of World Politics: Non-
State Actors in the Global System. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Meynaud, Jean. 1961. Les Groupes de Pression Internationaux. Lausanne: Jean Meynaud.
Minty, Abdul. 1982. “The Anti-Apartheid Movement and Racism in South Africa”. In Pressure Groups in
the Global System: The Transnational Relations of Issue-Orientated Non-Governmental Organisations, edited
by Peter Willetts, 28–45. London: Pinter and New York: St Martin’s Press.
Pei-heng, Chiang. 1981. Non-Governmental Organizations at the United Nations: Identity, Role, and Function.
Westport, CT: Praeger.
Poliakoff, Martyn. 2015. “The Royal Society, the Foreign Secretary, and International Relations”.
Science and Diplomacy, at www.sciencediplomacy.org/letter-field/2015/royal-society-foreign-secretary-
and-international-relations.
Willetts, Peter (ed.). 1982. Pressure Groups in the Global System: The Transnational Relations of Issue-Orientated
Non-Governmental Organisations. London: Pinter and New York: St Martin’s Press.
Willetts, Peter. 1996a. “Who Cares About the Environment?”. In The Environment and International
Relations, edited by John Vogler and Mark Imber, 120–37. London: Routledge.
Willetts, Peter (ed.). 1996b. “The Conscience of the World”: The Influence of Non-Governmental Organisations
in the UN System. London: Hurst and Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
Willetts, Peter. 2011. Non-Governmental Organisations in World Politics: The Construction of Global Governance.
London: Routledge.

xxv
 Acknowledgements

This volume is the outcome of an international collaborative effort. The editor is immensely
grateful to the 56 contributors who dedicated their valuable time and energy in making this
volume possible. Particular thanks are due to Peter Willetts not only for the foreword but also
for his insightful comments on each of the chapters. The editor is also very grateful to the staff
at Routledge for bringing this volume to fruition, especially Emily Ross, Lucy Frederick, Lydia
De Cruz, Nicola Parkin, and Ella Halstead.
The Department of International Politics at City, University of London provided a sup-
portive context in which this volume was produced. The editor is also grateful to the Social
Movements and Civil Society Research Group at City, University of London and the British
International Studies Association’s NGO and Civil Society Working Group. Martin Ceadel
at New College, Oxford inspired the editor’s interest in this topic, and the editor is also espe-
cially grateful to his former doctoral students Holly Ryan and Alejandro Peña for stimulating
discussions.
Acknowledgements relating to individual chapters are provided within the chapters, usu-
ally in the first notes. Particular thanks are due to Qin Higley at Brill for the permission to use
the material in Chapter 31 from David Horton Smith, Alisa V. Moldavanova, and Svitlana
Krasynska (eds), The Nonprofit Sector in Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia: Civil Society
Advances and Challenges (Leiden: Brill, 2018).
The editor is especially grateful for the support of his family, and in particular his wife Erica
Sung Hwa Seo for her love, kindness, and generosity.

Thomas Davies
31 August 2018

xxvi
 Introducing NGOs and
International Relations
Thomas Davies

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are among the most prominent features of con-
temporary international life. Some of the best-known international actors on the world stage
are NGOs, with organizations such as Amnesty International, CARE, and Greenpeace being
household names in many countries. NGOs are generally understood to wield considerable
normative power, such as by advancing human rights protection around the world, and by
helping to bring about international agreements including the Treaty on the Prohibition of
Nuclear Weapons and the Convention on Cluster Munitions. Some NGOs – such as the Bill
and Melinda Gates Foundation which has over $50 billion assets (KPMG 2018, 2) – also wield
considerable economic muscle, and up to two thirds of emergency relief funds may be chan-
nelled through NGOs (Development Initiatives 2018, 48).
The significance of NGOs in world politics has been recognized in a growing body of
International Relations research, particularly since the end of the Cold War (Bello 2012). Much
of the early literature projected a glowing picture of NGOs embodying “the rise of global civil
society” that not only represented an historic “power shift” (Mathews 1997) but potentially also
“an answer to war” (Kaldor 2003) and a source of “global democracy” (Scholte 2004). In the
twenty-first century, critical perspectives became increasingly common, highlighting the deficits
in NGOs’ effectiveness (Cooley and Ron 2002), accountability (McGann and Johnstone 2005),
and legitimacy (Collingwood 2006).
A wide range of aspects of NGOs’ roles in world politics have been delineated, including
their liaison with intergovernmental organizations (Willetts 1996; Martens 2005), their roles
in transnational advocacy networks (Keck and Sikkink 1998), their contributions to interna-
tional conventions (Glasius 2006), and their participation in “politics beyond the state” (Wapner
1995). A broad array of issue-areas in which NGOs have been involved have also been con-
sidered, including the environment (Eilstrup-Sangiovanni and Phelps Bondaroff 2014), peace
(Richmond and Carey 2005), humanitarianism (Barnett and Weiss 2008), gender equality (True
and Mintrom 2001), and human rights (Korey 2001; Bob 2009), among many others. Although
there are some influential general studies of NGOs in International Relations (Ahmed and
Potter 2006; Willetts 2011), much of the existing literature has been compartmentalized, limit-
ing its focus to particular aspects and issue-areas of NGOs’ activities.

1
Thomas Davies

This volume, by contrast, aims to be the first comprehensive research handbook bringing
together insights on these diverse but complementary topics. Moreover, this volume aims to
take a broader perspective on NGOs than much existing literature by taking into consideration
the work not only of advocacy-oriented organizations such as human rights NGOs, but also
the array of specialized business, professional, and educational bodies that make up the wider
NGO community.
Whereas previous studies have often considered NGOs from within disciplinary confines,
including sociological analysis of social movement organizations (Tarrow 2005), development
studies evaluation of aid groups (Makuwira 2013), and political analysis of transnational relations
(Risse-Kappen 1995), among other perspectives including from international law (Lindblom
2005) and constructivist International Relations theory (Price 1998), this volume aims to bring
together insights from each of these and many other standpoints. This handbook further con-
siders major contemporary challenges confronting NGOs in world politics, including issues
of legitimacy and accountability, and contemporary security threats. It also intends to bring
together insights from multiple world regions, taking into consideration organizations in the
global South in addition to institutions of the global North.

Introducing NGOs
Although the term “NGO” has become a commonplace feature of contemporary discourse,
there is little agreement as to what exactly an NGO is. The term appears to have first been used
by Dwight Morrow (1919, 81), when he distinguished international organizations not set up
by states from those that were. This was also the understanding of the term when it entered
widespread use with the reference in Article 71 of the United Nations Charter to the capac-
ity of the Economic and Social Council to “make suitable arrangements for consultation with
non-governmental organizations which are concerned with matters within its competence”
(Charnovitz 2006, 351). As Willetts (2011, 31) argues, subsequent United Nations practice has
limited the organizations eligible for consideration for consultative status as NGOs to those
organizations that were not only not set up by governments, but which were also not profit-
making, not criminal, and not violent.
Originally, the term NGO referred primarily to organizations that were international in
reach (Davies 2014). In contemporary discourse, however, it is increasingly common also to
consider as NGOs non-profit non-state non-criminal organizations that are limited to single
countries or localities. United Nations practice has increasingly opened up to consideration as
NGOs in consultative status associations organized solely on a national basis (Willetts 2011, 37).
The academic literature on NGOs in International Relations, similarly, has included studies not
only of exclusively transnational organizations, but also of exclusively national organizations,
and combinations of both national and transnational associations.
In its broadest usage, the term NGO is applied to any non-state, non-profit, and non-
criminal organization, however large or small, and regardless of its field of work. In this sense, it
encompasses a vast array of actors from business associations such as the International Chamber
of Commerce, to advocacy groups such as Greenpeace, to development aid organizations such
as Oxfam, and to professional bodies such as the International Federation of Library Associations,
to name a few international examples. While some are more oriented towards service provision,
others focus more on advocacy. Although exhaustive coverage of the numerous different NGO
categories is impossible, the chapters in this volume aim to reflect this breadth and diversity.
For some, the NGO label is used in an extremely restrictive sense. This is especially com-
mon in development studies literature, where only those NGOs that are concerned with aid and

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 Introducing NGOs

development are often considered to comprise the totality of NGOs. For many from a “Global
South” perspective or from a social movements perspective, the term NGO has become a
term of abuse, referring to a particular set of North-based hierarchical and often development-
oriented organizations, leaving South-based and more horizontally mobilized groups to separate
categories such as “social movement organizations.” These disciplinary differences are reflected
in the chapters in this volume, where the authors have been encouraged to define NGOs in
accordance with the usage prevalent in their respective contexts.

NGOs and International Relations

Just as there are many ways of defining NGOs, there are also multiple ways of conceiving
the relationships between these actors and International Relations. As just discussed, NGOs
themselves are often internationally structured actors with branches in multiple countries:
some – such as FIFA – even have more member national associations than the United Nations
has member states (FIFA 2018). Whether they are organized internationally or simply on a
local or national scale, NGOs may also be significant in International Relations through their
impacts on international developments. These impacts have traditionally been considered in
state-centric terms, such as NGOs’ influence on the behaviour of foreign governments (as in
Keck and Sikkink’s (1998) “boomerang pattern”), or NGOs’ lobbying for international con-
ventions, serving as “norm entrepreneurs” (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998). Alternatively, their
influence in International Relations may be conceived in transnational terms, such as by influ-
encing the behaviour of corporations (Newell 2001) or through transnational service provi-
sion (Sperling 2009, 311–312). Increasingly, NGOs are seen as integral components of global
governance (Ruhlman 2015), working alongside states, intergovernmental organizations, and
corporate actors, including in multi-stakeholder initiatives (Peña 2016). An alternative approach
to considering the relationship between NGOs and International Relations is to reverse the
direction of investigation and to explore the impacts of International Relations on NGOs and
their local, national, and regional-level activities. Each of these ways of interpreting NGOs and
International Relations is to be found in this volume.
Having previously been marginalized in International Relations theory, NGOs have been trans-
formed from being considered just one of many aspects of transnational relations (Keohane and Nye
1972) to become one of International Relations theory’s central areas of concern in their own right
(DeMars and Dijkzeul 2015). Whereas traditional neorealist and neoliberal approaches to rational-
ist International Relations theorization neglected NGOs, more recent rationalist perspectives have
shed important light on NGOs’ international activities, as Youngwan Kim’s chapter in this volume
indicates. Given its focus on norms, constructivist International Relations theory has been one of
the most popular approaches to studying NGOs over the past three decades: NGOs are thought to
play a vital role in every stage of the norm “life cycle,” from their creation through to their adoption
and internalization (Segerlund 2010). Critical International Relations theories have also commonly
focused on NGOs: these approaches are divided between those that see NGOs as agents of eman-
cipation (Blakeley 2013), and those that view NGOs as reproducers of social hierarchies (Wright
2012). NGOs themselves have played a role in the development of International Relations theory:
for example, peace associations have helped advance theories of war and peace (Ceadel 2014),
and women’s NGOs have been important in the development of feminist International Relations
theory (Tickner and True 2018).
Both the study of International Relations and the study of the non-profit sector are extremely
pluralist disciplines, open to a wide range of methodologies and analytical perspectives. This
volume aims to reflect this diversity, and contains contributions from historical, rationalist, and

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Thomas Davies

post-positivist perspectives, among others. It aims to bring together authors from multiple related
disciplines able to shed light on NGOs in International Relations, including social movement
studies, development studies, management studies, and voluntaristics. The chapters on NGOs
in different issue-areas and world regions deploy a wide range of analytical approaches, reflect-
ing the diversity of approaches in the literature: some are case study oriented, while others are
quantitative, historical, critical, or based on mixed methods.

NGOs’ structures and networks

Scholarship on NGOs in International Relations has been developing for more than a century
(Davies 2017). Before the First World War, Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine (1912) aimed to
advance the “scientific study” of private international associations in world politics through the
data collection efforts of the Union of International Associations. Building on these efforts, Lyman
Cromwell White developed a framework in the 1930s for disaggregating the variety of interna-
tional structures exhibited among NGOs that remains useful to this day. White (1933, 31–32)
put forward a basic distinction between NGOs with an “inter-national” structure consisting of
member national and local associations, and “cosmopolitan” NGOs consisting of individual mem-
bers or supporters in many countries. The former is one of the most common structures among
NGOs, with prominent examples including Oxfam International, Greenpeace International, and
the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies: in these cases the interna-
tional secretariat provides services to the member national associations such as facilitating commu-
nication, coordination, and brand protection. Cosmopolitan NGOs are historically less common,
but notable examples include the Institute of International Law and Survival International.
White (1933, 32) also noted the existence of “super-inter-national” structures, NGOs that them-
selves consist of international NGOs, one of the most prominent of which today is Accountable
Now, which aims to provide a common accountability standard for participating international
NGOs (Accountable Now 2018). A further category consists of “composites” (White 1933, 32):
Amnesty International is an example of an “inter-national-cosmopolitan” composite, with a mem-
bership structure combining both national sections and individuals (Amnesty International 2018).
CIVICUS, on the other hand, is an example of a “national-inter-national-cosmopolitan” com-
posite, with a membership base combining individuals, national NGOs, and international NGOs
(CIVICUS 2014, 5).
Whereas White focused on disaggregating the variety of NGO structures, more recent litera-
ture on the topic has aimed to shed light on the impact of NGO structures and policies on NGO
outcomes. In one of the foremost books on the topic Wong (2014) emphasizes the significance
of centralized agenda-setting and decentralized agenda-implementation. Similar arguments are
put forward in the literature on the mobilizing structures of social movements that emphasizes
the significance of an appropriate blend of robustness and flexibility (Diani 2009).
Traditional international NGO structures such as those put forward by White have increas-
ingly been critiqued for their hierarchical nature, and even the perpetuation of North–South
asymmetries (Stavrianakis 2012). In response, some NGOs – such as World Vision – have
reformed their organizational structures to give a greater say to South-based stakeholders
(Foreman 1999). Others – such as CIVICUS and ActionAid – have relocated their headquarters
from North to South (Walton et al. 2016). At the same time, the number of international NGOs
with primary headquarters in Asia has grown from 907 in 2000 to 1,387 in 2016, and in Africa
has grown from 626 in 2000 to 760 in 2016 (Union of International Associations 2018).
Another response to such critiques has been the proliferation of social mobilizations claim-
ing to eschew hierarchical organization altogether. One of the most prominent in the second

4
 Introducing NGOs

decade of the twenty-first century was Occupy, which claimed to have “no official leaders” and
instead to be concerned with “empowering everyone to be involved and share the responsibility
together” (Occupy Together 2013). Claims to horizontality of mobilization are often exagger-
ated, however: the World Social Forum (WSF), for instance, despite aiming “not [to] constitute
a locus of power to be disputed by the participants” (WSF 2001), featured an “International
Council” which was intended to be “a permanent body . . . defining policy guidelines and the
WSF’s strategic directions” (WSF 2002).
NGOs often make links with one another that fall short of the establishment of a super-inter-
national organization. In their landmark research, Keck and Sikkink (1999, 89) considered the
activities of transnational advocacy networks, encompassing “those actors working internation-
ally on an issue, who are bound together by shared values, a common discourse, and dense
exchanges of information and services.” NGOs often play a central role in these networks, for
instance in the famous “boomerang pattern” by which “domestic NGOs may directly seek inter-
national allies to try to bring pressure on their states from outside” (Keck and Sikkink 1999, 93).
However, as Stroup (2012) has argued, the extent to which international NGOs embody trans-
national shared values and practices may have been exaggerated, given the considerable role of
national origin in their structures and advocacy work.
Between the informality of transnational advocacy networks and the formal structures of
super-inter-national NGOs are transnational coalitions, which tend to develop around particular
issues and campaigns and involve greater coordination than a network with respect to strategy
(Khagram, Riker, and Sikkink 2002, 7). Some coalitions originally focused on one short-term
goal have persisted beyond achievement of that objective: the Coalition for an International
Criminal Court, for instance, is now an enduring super-inter-national NGO after its initial
objective of the establishment of this court succeeded (Glasius 2006).
NGOs work not only with other NGOs in transnational networks and coalitions, but also
with a wide range of other international actors. The last three decades have also witnessed
considerable expansion in the number of formally organized multi-sectoral bodies combining
NGO participants with other actors such as transnational corporations and intergovernmental
organizations. A common focus for these is the setting and monitoring of common standards,
such as the reporting standards of the Global Reporting Initiative (Peña 2016).

The influence and interactions of NGOs

According to most definitions, NGOs are not only non-governmental, but also non-violent.
Since states are perceived to monopolize legitimate use of violence in the international system,
NGOs rely on other forms of power in pursuit of their goals. Although some NGOs – especially
foundations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and some development organizations
such as World Vision – have considerable economic resources to leverage, most NGOs rely
especially on the power of the persuasiveness of their ideas and the credibility of their expertise.
There is a growing literature on the ways in which NGOs wield what Carr (1939) termed
“power over opinion” in world politics. An important aspect of this, as Olesen (2011, 3) empha-
sizes, is “communicative – or framing – power,” drawing on the rich body of social movement
scholarship on this topic (Johnston and Noakes 2005). Risse (2000, 22) emphasizes that the
communicative power of NGOs is intimately connected to their “moral . . . authority.” The
persuasiveness of NGOs is also often linked to their perceived expertise on the matters with
which they are concerned (Hilton et al. 2013). A previously commonly neglected aspect of
NGOs’ capacity to persuade is their aesthetic power, including their use of images and artefacts,
as explored in Ryan’s chapter in this volume. Keck and Sikkink (1998, 22–24) argue that in

5
Thomas Davies

addition to the “symbolic politics” of framing, NGOs undertake “leverage politics” including
not only the leveraging of material resources but also “moral leverage” such as the “mobiliza-
tion of shame,” as well as “accountability politics” exposing the failures of international actors
to ensure their practices match their commitments.
Much of the earlier literature on NGOs in International Relations concentrated on NGOs’
roles as “pressure groups in the global system” (Willetts 1982), of interest on account of their
capacity to influence intergovernmental proceedings and to persuade governments to change their
behaviour. Risse-Kappen (1995) emphasized the importance of national political opportunity
structures and international institutionalization in affecting their prospects for success in this role.
Increasingly, NGOs are being recognized for their roles as political actors in their own right, set-
ting transnational standards (Peña 2016), providing services traditionally undertaken by govern-
ments (Cammett and MacLean 2014), and directly influencing the behaviour of individuals (Chen
2016). However, NGOs may also serve as channels for the projection of the power of other actors,
both governmental (Wright 2012) and corporate (Dutta 2016, 162), and may be vulnerable to co-
optation when they participate in joint projects with other actors (Huismann 2014).
There is therefore a wide spectrum of possible interactions between NGOs and other actors
including states (Brass 2016), intergovernmental organizations (Johnson 2016), and corporations
(Yaziji and Doh 2009). They may endeavour to lobby these actors (Busby 2010; Rugendyke
2007), campaign against them (Eilstrup-Sangiovanni and Bondaroff 2014), substitute for them
(Rubenstein 2015), work together with them (Brass 2016), or be co-opted by them (Banks,
Hulme, and Edwards 2015). In some cases they may even merge with them, or transform their
status from non-governmental to intergovernmental organizations, as happened with Interpol
(Fooner 1989, 51–52; UN 1996). NGOs may not only pioneer new standards (Price 1998), but
also help persuade governments, corporations, other NGOs, and/or private individuals to adopt
them, and monitor and enforce compliance of these actors with the standards (Abbott and Snidal
2009). While much of the literature has concentrated on the reformist influence of NGOs in the
setting, monitoring, and enforcement of standards, NGOs’ broader international impacts may
include a vast array of repercussions. These span from the technical, such as NGOs’ facilitation of
communication (Yanacopulos 2015), and the conservative, such as the conferring of legitimacy
to existing governance arrangements (Breitmeier 2008), through to the revolutionary, such as by
contributing to the transformation of fundamental beliefs and practices as to how international
and world society should operate (Martin 2008). According to Willetts (2011, 144), NGOs have
not only reframed debates on international issues, taken part in global policy-making, and influ-
enced the implementation of global policy, but in recent decades “have been the leading actors
in transforming the nature of global politics” from a state-centric to a “multi-centric” system.
It is important, however, to consider that NGO outcomes vary significantly (Murdie 2014),
and that NGO activities may have unintended consequences. Lake (2018) has highlighted how
some successes of “strong” human rights NGOs in “weak states” have led at the same time
to the undermining of human rights protection in other areas due to the weakening of state
institutional capacity. Davies (2007, 2014), by contrast, emphasizes the long-term deleterious
repercussions of large-scale transnational campaigns and coalitions that raise expectations of
global cooperation that fail to be met.

The wide array of issue-areas

Nine decades ago, White (1933, 11) observed that there were “literally hundreds of private
international associations dealing with practically every subject of interest to human beings” and
which “influence almost every activity of human beings.” In the contemporary era, it is similarly

6
 Introducing NGOs

claimed that the many thousands of NGOs now in existence “in effect cover all social and polit-
ical activities of all people” (Willetts 2011, 1). The array of issues in world politics with which
NGOs are concerned encompasses both traditional concerns of security and diplomacy which
have been a focus for peace associations for centuries, and the panoply of economic, envi-
ronmental, humanitarian, and social concerns of contemporary global governance. Moreover,
NGOs have sought to represent the interests of numerous sectors of society, spanning business,
professional, sport, youth, educational, health, and scientific associations to organizations pro-
moting labour, gender, national, religious, colonial, and anti-colonial concerns, among many
others. In each issue-area, NGOs have sought to shape and reshape ideas and understandings,
to represent concerned groups, to influence the behaviour of governments, intergovernmental
organizations, corporations, and individuals, and to make a difference through their own inde-
pendent projects and policies.
There is not a single issue-area of International Relations which can be fully comprehended
without reference to the role of NGOs. Even traditional concerns of security and the bal-
ance of power are thought to have been influenced by NGOs: while some have claimed that
they played a role in bringing the Cold War to an end (Evangelista 1999), others have argued
that long-term transformations in understandings of the nature of security and the purposes of
war in national policy need to be understood in the context of the slow infiltration of peace
NGOs’ ideas into states’ practices (Ceadel 1996). Moreover, NGOs have played a significant
part in challenging traditional understandings of the nature of International Relations and the
exclusivity of sovereignty, such as through promoting the recognition of universal human rights
standards (Korey 2001) and the establishment of an International Criminal Court (Glasius 2006).
Willetts (2011, 69) goes as far as claiming that “without NGOs, there would have been no
international law of human rights.” They have also been significant in the opening up of the
international agenda to previously marginalized global issues, including environmental concerns
(Newell 2000). Women’s NGOs have been particularly influential across a vast array of interna-
tional issues, often serving as pioneers of mobilization in many fields (Ferree and Mueller 2004).
NGOs are widely considered with respect to their role in the promotion of justice, whether
in terms of the broad achievement of “global justice” (Della Porta 2007), or justice with respect
to addressing gender (Joachim 2007), class (McCallum 2013), and racial (Klotz 1995) inequali-
ties. They have aimed to advance such objectives both through advocacy work in relation
to governments, intergovernmental decision-making, and corporations (Sikkink 1986), and
through their direct implementation of educational (Silova and Steiner-Khamsi 2008), health
(Gaist 2010), and social welfare projects (Lewis and Ravichandran 2008). Many of the best-
known NGOs are concerned with the provision of direct humanitarian assistance and develop-
ment projects: in this they have been considered variously as “partnering with local civil society
to promote reform, modernization, and conflict resolution” (Eberly 2008, 24), as agents of
imperialism and neo-colonialism (Petras 1999), and as exacerbators of conflict (Narang 2015).
In the global economy, NGOs are well known for their involvement in campaigns for debt
relief (Busby 2007) and addressing labour injustices (Bieler and Lindberg 2011). However,
they have also cooperated with the corporate sector in numerous joint projects and campaigns
(Ross 2012) and multi-stakeholder initiatives (Koechlin and Calland 2009). It is increasingly
common to argue that NGOs can be understood with the tools used to understand the ways
transnational firms operate (Prakash and Gugerty 2010). Some NGOs are explicitly dedicated to
advancing the interests of international business, including one of the first four NGOs to gain
United Nations Economic and Social Council consultative status, the International Chamber of
Commerce (Willetts 2011, 12–13). The boundaries between global justice activism and busi-
ness interests are also less clear than commonly assumed: even the World Social Forum, for

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Thomas Davies

instance, had roots in the business movement for corporate social responsibility in Brazil (Peña
and Davies 2014).
Given the vast diversity of NGOs, the interests they represent, the ideas they put forward, and
the projects they undertake, simple generalizations with respect to their “positive” or “negative”
influence on world politics cannot be made. NGOs include both progressive and regressive
groups (Bob 2012), they both reinforce and challenge existing hierarchies and injustices (Krause
2014), and their achievements include many failures in addition to their successes (Davies 2014).

Contemporary challenges
In contrast to the optimism of the immediate post-Cold War years, the last two decades have
witnessed growing concerns with respect to the challenges NGOs now face. In its 2018 report
on the state of civil society, CIVICUS (2018, 3) noted that “as documented by report after
report, the last few years have seen a systematic and global crackdown on the conditions for
civil society.” A rich area of recent research has explored the growth of restrictive government
policies on the activities of NGOs (Christensen and Weinstein 2013). Part of the context for this
is the apparent resurgence of authoritarian and populist forms of government in both “devel-
oped” and “developing” countries (Heiss 2017). This has been compounded by the financial
uncertainties with respect to NGO revenues following the 2008 financial crisis (Khanna and
Irvine 2018), and by the damaging repercussions of the influence of neoliberal ideology for
social welfare and social cohesion (Ismail and Kamat 2018). Recent decades have also witnessed
significant concern at the security challenges NGOs face in “failed” states and in conflict and
post-conflict situations (Irrera 2011), as well as in the context of global terrorism (Howell and
Lind 2010). Nevertheless, NGOs have endeavoured to adapt to these challenges, such as by
improving their procedures for cooperation with other NGOs and international actors (Missoni
and Alesani 2014).
Many of the challenges faced by NGOs today are of internal rather than exclusively external
origin. NGOs have been critiqued for lacking legitimacy (Collingwood and Logister 2005), for
deficits in internal democracy (Humphrey 2007), for failing to uphold high standards of transpar-
ency and accountability (Schmitz et al. 2012), for ineffectiveness and inefficiency (Cooley and
Ron 2002), for inflexibility (Hopgood 2013), and for counterproductive outcomes (Narang 2015),
among other flaws. The ways NGOs may address these problems have been a focus of significant
attention (Crowley and Ryan 2013). Some of the efforts by NGOs in this regard – including self-
regulatory initiatives such as the INGO Accountability Charter – have been criticized for their
weak and partial nature (Crack 2013). At the same time, there is growing awareness that NGOs
are far from universally progressive in their objectives (Bob 2012), and that even those that claim to
promote social justice may serve to perpetuate rather than challenge global inequalities (Stavrianakis
2012). Some NGOs are arguably victims of their own success: Stroup and Wong (2017) have
argued that there is an “authority trap” by which leading NGOs that are held in particularly high
regard face limited choices with respect to their actions in order to maintain their esteemed status
among multiple stakeholders.

The structure of this volume

Over the course of its forty-two chapters, this volume aims to provide wide-ranging coverage
of NGOs in International Relations. The opening section aims to introduce the emergence of
NGOs as actors in world politics, and the roles they play when interacting with states, with
intergovernmental and other organizations in global governance, and with non-state actors in

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 Introducing NGOs

politics that bypasses the state altogether. The subsequent section considers the insights pro-
vided by a range of theoretical and analytical approaches, encompassing not only International
Relations theories but also insights from wider fields including those concerned with the study
of development, law, management, and social movements, among others. The third part is dedi-
cated to evaluating NGOs in a range of issue-areas encompassing not only their advocacy role
in relation to the promotion of objectives including environmental protection, gender equality,
human rights, and peace, but also their roles in humanitarian, educational, and health service
provision, in standardization, and in interest representation, including of religious, business,
and professional concerns. Analysis of NGOs in different regions of the world is the aim of the
fourth section, which provides chapters encompassing both country- and regional-level studies
demonstrating the extensiveness and diversity of NGO activities around the world. The volume
concludes by considering contemporary challenges faced by NGOs in world politics, including
both aspects of the external context such as authoritarianism, conflict, and terrorism, and aspects
internal to NGOs such as their accountability practices.
In each section, the aim has been to provide coverage representative of the breadth of
research, rather than claiming to provide exhaustive coverage of all theories, perspectives,
regions, countries, issues, and actors. Variations in the understandings of the nature and influ-
ence of NGOs in each chapter reflect the broader variations in these understandings in the study
of NGOs in world politics: while some chapters emphasize narrower definitions of NGOs,
others are more expansive, and while some chapters emphasize NGOs’ progressive influences,
others are sharply critical.
The volume commences with Norbert Götz’s evaluation of the origins of the term “NGO,”
and the evolution of the actors to which the term applies since the early nineteenth century. The
subsequent three chapters consider the roles of NGOs in relation to states, global governance, and
transnational non-state politics in turn. Sarah S. Stroup’s chapter disaggregates four major aspects
of NGO–state interaction – cooperation, conflict, competition, and co-optation – and considers
the factors that influence these relationships. Molly Ruhlman’s analysis of NGOs in global gov-
ernance turns to the relationships between NGOs and intergovernmental organizations and the
explanations for the variations between different organizations. The final chapter of the first sec-
tion considers the interactions between NGOs and other non-state actors in transnational politics
that bypasses traditional interstate diplomacy altogether and that may facilitate the development of
a parallel transnational order to the interstate order among states.
The section on analytical and theoretical perspectives commences with William E. DeMars
and Dennis Dijkzeul’s consideration of what constitutes NGOs, which both critiques an array of
significant analytical works on NGOs in world politics and puts forward a practice theory-based
approach. Whereas traditional neorealist and neoliberal perspectives on International Relations
have been criticized for their lack of attention to NGOs, Youngwan Kim’s chapter elaborates
some of the insights from rationalist perspectives on NGOs, including ways in which these
perspectives challenge traditional assumptions with respect to NGOs’ motives. The subsequent
chapter on post-positivist approaches by Jutta Joachim, Chris Nijhuis, and Andrea Schneiker
evaluates how a range of these perspectives, including constructivist, post-structural, critical,
feminist, and post-colonial approaches, draw attention both to the transformative potential of
NGOs and to their limitations. Christopher Marc Lilyblad’s chapter is dedicated to what has
arguably become the most influential perspective on NGOs in International Relations, con-
structivism, and the openings that this approach provides for considering NGOs’ roles in the
world polity. The subsequent analysis of the aesthetic politics of NGOs by Holly Eva Ryan
sheds light on how the “aesthetic turn” in recent International Relations literature helps in
understanding and critiquing NGOs’ activities.

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Thomas Davies

The following chapters consider the insights from related literatures for understanding
NGOs in world politics. Clare Saunders and Silke Roth’s chapter evaluates approaches from
social movement theory in helping to explain “how, when, where, who, and why” questions
with respect to NGOs’ origins and influence. Helen Yanacopulos’ chapter considers the devel-
opment studies literature and its role in analysis of how NGOs function and can be explained.
Management studies perspectives are considered in David Lewis’ chapter, which disaggregates
these approaches and their insights into NGOs’ methods. Math Noortmann’s chapter evaluates
contrasting international law approaches to NGOs and their participation in the international
legal system. The subsequent chapter by David Horton Smith places the study of NGOs in
world politics in the context of the broader study of the voluntary sector that has developed
over the last half-century, while the second section’s final chapter by Elizabeth Bloodgood
considers the primary data available on NGOs and outlines the need for a more comprehensive,
collaborative dataset.
The chapter by Paulina García-Del Moral, Di Wang, and Myra Marx Ferree serves as a
bridge between the second and third parts, shedding light both on insights from feminist schol-
arship, and on the influence of feminist NGOs in world politics with specific reference to the
campaign against violence against women. Bob Reinalda’s chapter on labour NGOs similarly
considers both the ideational contributions of these organizations, and the evolution and impact
of labour NGOs, in this case with reference to their broad evolution since the nineteenth cen-
tury. The subsequent analysis of human rights NGOs by Marc S. Polizzi and Amanda Murdie
provides both coverage of the contrasting insights of International Relations theories and empir-
ical evaluation of these organizations’ strategies, impacts, and challenges.
Silke Roth’s evaluation of humanitarian NGOs disaggregates the range of organizations in
the sector and the ways in which they seek to achieve their objectives. The subsequent chapters,
on education NGOs by Will Brehm and Iveta Silova, and on NGOs in the health sector by Paul
Gaist and Victoria Chau, provide contrasting perspectives emphasizing respectively the close
relationship between education NGOs and neoliberalism, and the beneficial impacts of NGOs
in the health sector. Margarita H. Petrova’s chapter considers the significance of peace NGOs
since the Second World War and the opportunities provided by the Cold War and post-Cold
War contexts. Naghmeh Nasiritousi’s evaluation of environmentalist NGOs also considers the
political opportunities for NGOs, as well as their contributions to international environmental
agreements and the case study of climate change.
Across the many issue-areas with which NGOs have been involved, a growing phenomenon
is the development of global private standards, often in conjunction with corporate actors, as
explored in the chapters by Alejandro M. Peña, which provides a general evaluation of NGOs
in private standards, and by Jonathan Doh, Tazeeb Rajwani, and Thomas C. Lawton, which
focuses on trade associations. The role of NGOs in global trade more broadly is the focus of
the chapter by Erin Hannah and James Scott, which disaggregates revolutionary, transformative,
embedded, and neoliberal NGOs in this domain. Raquel Rego’s subsequent analysis of profes-
sional associations provides a typology of these associations and consideration of the challenges
that these associations face, while Karsten Lehmann’s chapter on religious NGOs considers their
influence in intergovernmental arenas. Across the chapters on NGOs in different issue-areas in
Part III, the great diversity of NGOs’ purposes, structures, strategies, and impacts is evident.
The section on regional perspectives combines chapters that focus primarily on transnational
NGOs, including those in the United States and in East and Southeast Asia, and chapters that
emphasize the activities of local NGOs, including the chapters on South Asia and Sub-Saharan
Africa. One of the most prominent features of all of these chapters is the remarkable extent of
NGO activities across world regions that is evident, even where the regulatory context is highly

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 Introducing NGOs

restrictive. The first chapters in this section, by George E. Mitchell on transnational NGOs in
the United States, and by Matthias Freise on NGOs in the European Union, place emphasis on
the political contexts for transnational NGOs’ activities. The role of the post-Cold War context
is considered in the chapter on NGOs in Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia by David
Horton Smith, Alisa V. Moldavanova, and Svitlana Krasynska, which emphasizes the insights
from locally based research collected in their recent edited volume. In their consideration of
NGOs in East and Southeast Asia, Lei Xie and Joshua Garland evaluate how despite restrictive
laws on associational activities, NGOs in these regions have made use of transnational networks
in the pursuit of their goals. Inés M. Pousadela’s chapter on NGOs in Latin America provides
broad coverage of NGOs’ contributions to democracy and development in the region, while
Sarah Ben Néfissa’s chapter on NGOs in the Middle East and North Africa aims to shed light on
NGOs in this context through evaluation of the cases of Egypt and Tunisia and their contrasting
experiences since the 2011 Arab uprisings. The final two chapters in the fourth section, Hans
Holmén’s evaluation of NGOs in Sub-Saharan Africa and Patrick Kilby’s analysis of NGOs in
South Asia, elaborate on the varied experiences of local NGOs in these regions.
The final section of this book, on contemporary challenges, encompasses both external chal-
lenges such as resurgent authoritarianism and internal challenges including NGOs’ account-
ability practices. The section commences with Sarah Sunn Bush’s analysis of NGOs’ democracy
promotion efforts, including coverage of growing restrictions on NGOs’ activities in this
domain. The relationships between authoritarian regimes and NGOs form the focus of Andrew
Heiss’ subsequent chapter, which includes coverage not only of how authoritarian regimes may
restrict NGOs, and of NGOs’ roles in opposing such regimes, but also of NGOs’ reinforce-
ment of authoritarianism. The challenges posed by contrasting security contexts form the focus
for the next two chapters: while Daniela Irrera considers the problems posed in conflict zones,
Omi Hodwitz explores those posed by terrorism and by counterterrorism measures. The final
two chapters explore the interrelated challenges with respect to NGOs’ legitimacy and account-
ability: Maryam Zarnegar Deloffre and Hans Peter Schmitz identify “4 Ps” of INGO legitimacy
centred on purpose, process, performance, and people, while Angela Crack considers NGO
accountability challenges across upwards, downwards, internal, and horizontal dimensions. In
each of these chapters, NGOs’ responses as well as the nature of the challenges are explored.

The prospects for further research

The study of NGOs in world politics is now an established field within the International Relations
discipline. This is reflected in the growing number of professional networks and organizations
dedicated specifically to this goal, such as the British International Studies Association’s Working
Group on NGOs. The broader study of NGOs has also grown significantly, with more than
sixty academic journals and more than thirty scholarly associations currently dedicated to the
subject (Smith 2016). Significant advances have been made in understanding the nature, struc-
tures, relationships, and impacts of NGOs in International Relations, but as the chapters in this
volume indicate, there remain many under-researched topics.
Bloodgood’s chapter highlights that there are significant gaps in the quantitative data avail-
able on NGOs, and more work is needed to develop data comparable across different national
and regional contexts. Qualitative primary data on NGOs is also extremely variable in compre-
hensiveness and availability: archival records of NGOs, for instance, are often far less complete
and readily available than those of public authorities (Davies 2011).
While the literature on NGO interactions with states and intergovernmental organizations is
now extensive, the exclusively transnational dynamics of NGOs and their mutual interactions

11
Thomas Davies

deserve greater attention. There remains a bias in existing literature towards a focus on large
hierarchical international NGOs headquartered in Western Europe and North America, and,
despite progress, there remains much more to be done to investigate the international politics of
NGOs from the perspective of other world regions. Issue-areas beyond dominant topics such as
the environment, human rights, humanitarian assistance, development, and peace also deserve
more attention. Although critical perspectives are no longer marginal in the study of NGOs,
there remains significant scope for their wider application.
As the chapters in this volume attest, the analysis of NGOs in International Relations has
become one of the most dynamic and diverse fields of study today. Although there is now a rich
and varied body of literature on the subject, it is hoped that this volume will help to shed light
on the many further avenues for research in this domain.

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16
 Part I
History and contributions

 1
The emergence of NGOs as actors
on the world stage
Norbert Götz

‘Non-governmental organization’ (NGO) is a technical term of international relations that had

its breakthrough with the Charter of the United Nations (UN) in 1945. It has come into wider
use through the UN system, despite the variety of meanings it carries there, although it has in
the past decades – on many informal and sometimes formal occasions – been superseded by the
term ‘civil society organization’ (CSO). Other contexts of international relations add to a con-
tradictory picture. For example, in development discourse, NGOs may be distinguished from
allegedly more radical and authentic grassroots organizations (GROs), but also, with the oppo-
site tendency, from the private voluntary organizations (PVOs) that provide aid and are run by
Western donors. When contrasted with government agencies, NGOs appear to be bottom-up
organizations and idea-driven forces for good, but when compared with voluntary associations
or social movements, they tend to be understood as technocratic tools of global governance.
In contrast to often broadly conceived ‘non-state actors’, ‘non-governmental organizations’ are
customarily restricted to the secular, professionally run, and transnationally involved segment of
civil society. However, both expressions are lexically based on a similar negation that leaves a
considerable range of alternatives. Thus, academic, business, criminal, or religious organizations
are occasionally subsumed under the term NGO.
Many authors equate NGOs with international non-governmental organizations (INGOs);
that is, they suggest NGOs are organizations based in more than one country. This contradicts
the foundational UN terminology and neglects the international agendas pursued by organi-
zations based in only one country. The same principle applied to the governmental sphere
would restrict international relations to intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), while exclud-
ing national governments themselves – an absurd thought, but one that illustrates the marginal
position mainstream international relations discourse (IR) reserves for NGOs. At the same time,
ironic acronym extensions such as GONGO, standing for ‘governmentally organized NGO’,
or QUANGO, for ‘quasi NGO’, frequently call into question the non-governmental character
of NGOs.
For all these reasons, any work on NGOs needs to make choices in regard to its study object –
principally that means choosing between a nominalistic and a phenomenological approach.
A nominalistic perspective would examine the inauguration of the term NGO at the UN

19
Norbert Götz

charter conference in 1945; take all organizations into account that might be described as non-
governmental, possibly weighing different uses according to their frequency; and insist on the
purely non-governmental quality of its object. The current chapter departs from such a perspec-
tive, shedding light on the emergence of NGOs as a term, but then tracing the phenomenon
captured by the UN charter back in time, with a brief historical overview until the present. It
thereby limits itself to such organizations formally independent of governmental or religious
authority that are engaged in moral causes and collective interests rather than profit-seeking,
and considers the relation of such organizations to any government a matter of empirical inquiry
rather than of prior definition.
Focusing thus on a particular type of organization, but applying an open perspective in regard
to time frame and government affinity, limitations of the term NGO are taken into account in
order to consider how NGOs emerged as a feature of international relations. First, ‘NGO’ is a
technical expression stemming from international law, which has gained currency in IR while
other disciplines and fields use alternative terms for the same phenomenon. Examples include
civil society, social movement organization, advocacy network, voluntary agency, think tank,
pressure group, non-profit organization, or third sector organization. Second, neither in foreign
affairs nor in IR, with their traditional state-centric perspectives, has ‘non-governmental’ been
a neutral attribute. Rather, it has wittingly or unwittingly functioned as a marker of minor
significance. This observation applies in particular to so-called realist approaches, but is also an
issue with liberal perspectives. Third, despite being well established and boosted in the past four
decades by neoliberal economics with its belief in ‘new public management’ and lean govern-
ment, the term NGO is frequently negatively perceived and remains controversial. The polemic
suggestion, both from within academia and from civil society representatives, to rename gov-
ernments ‘NPOs’ (non-people’s organizations) illustrates this point.
The following overview begins with a discussion of how the term NGO entered interna-
tional relations. It continues with a chronological sketch of the emergence of NGOs in the
nineteenth century. It then discusses the quantitative development of NGOs until today, perio-
dization issues, and major trends, suggesting a politico-economic perspective in tension with
geopolitical IR approaches.

The creation of NGOs at the UN charter conference

The term ‘non-governmental organization’ was invented during the First World War. Most
significantly, the newly founded League of Red Cross Societies used it to explain its statutes:

While it is expected that the League of Red Cross Societies will establish intimate relations
with the League of Nations it should be understood clearly that the former, being a purely
voluntary, non-political, non-sectarian, non-governmental organization, has no statutory
connection with any League of Nations or with the government.
(Mr. Davison 1919: 1)

Unlike this bold declaration, the perspective of another early user of the term, US businessman,
politician, and diplomat Dwight W. Morrow (1919: 81), foreshadowed how the concept was
introduced to the UN and official perceptions since then more widely. While broadly appreciat-
ing transnational activities, he made it clear that he would prefer to deal with IGOs. Forerunners
like this did not make the term NGO an immediate success. The interwar years gave preference
to a number of alternative expressions such as ‘private international organization’, ‘international
association’, or ‘voluntary agency’ (White 1951: 3; Seary 1996).

20
 The emergence of NGOs on the world stage

Only by the beginning of the 1940s did the word ‘non-governmental’ gain some momen-
tum in discussions related to US foreign policy and international organizations. However, while
there was a marked increase in the number of transnationally oriented associations after the
Second World War, there was no qualitative shift that would have necessitated a new termi-
nology (Chiang 1981: 33). Crucial for the change of language was rather the particular way of
framing such organizations at the founding conference of the UN in San Francisco (for greater
detail, see Götz 2008: 237–42).
In February 1945, the World Trade Union Conference (WTUC) adopted a declaration that
sought accreditation to the forthcoming UN charter conference in San Francisco with the aim
of effective trade union representation in all major UN bodies (WTUC 1945: 239). This was
later specified as ‘representation in the General Assembly, in a consultative capacity, and . . . full
representation with the right to vote, on the Social and Economic Council’ (WFTU 1945:
272). The Soviet government backed the demand, seeking to establish what was to become
the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) as a specialized agency with observer sta-
tus, rivalling the International Labour Organization (ILO) (Russell 1958: 799). The US State
Department countered this initiative by introducing a distinction ‘between inter-governmental
organizations and non-governmental international organizations’, whereby the latter ‘should
not be invited or encouraged to send representatives, but no obstacles would be placed in the
way of their voluntarily sending representatives to San Francisco’ (FRUS 1945 I: 153).
At an early stage there, the terms ‘pressure group’, ‘private organization’, and ‘unofficial organi-
zation’ were still in use instead of ‘non-governmental organization’ (UNCIO 1945 V: 153–4).
The conference documentation reveals that the expression ‘non-governmental organizations’
appeared for the first time after one of the UN Charter drafting commissions had decided to invite
a representative of the WTUC (ibid.: 206–12). When the steering committee took up the matter,
the term ‘non-governmental organization’ marked a difference between the WTUC and IGOs
such as the ILO, which had been granted status in San Francisco, serving the purpose of keeping
the former out. Thus, in his introductory statement, the US foreign minister warned that ‘nongov-
ernmental organizations would change the basic character of the Conference and moreover would
set a new precedent for conferences of this kind’ (ibid.: 208). In the discussion that followed, the
term ‘non-governmental organizations’ was used solely by opponents of admitting such bodies to
the conference and by a speaker providing background information, while those in favour used
other words. The most outspoken rhetorical counter-move to the delegitimization implied by the
term ‘NGO’ was made by the representative from New Zealand: ‘The W.T.U.C. was more than
an intergovernmental body, it was an international body’ (ibid.: 210).
Admission of the WTUC to the San Francisco conference was rejected at the meeting by a
vote of thirty-three to ten. However, 1,200 voluntary organizations had sent representatives to
San Francisco (Alger 1999: 393), and some acknowledgement of their commitment was in line
with the US government’s attempt to create a national consensus on the UN that would prevent
a disaster like the failed approval for League of Nations membership in 1920. A measure to this
effect was the granting of observer status to 160 private US organizations and the attachment
of forty-two of their representatives to the government delegation in an unofficial consulting
capacity. Drawing on such an inclusive model, a working group of consultants submitted a
proposal on the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) to the US delegation. This
proposal used the term ‘non-governmental organizations’, which had by then become part of
the conference’s language code (Robins 1971: 86–90, 102–3, 122, 216–18). In view of such a
background in the United States, of lobbying labour organizations in the allied countries more
broadly, and of external pressure from the Soviet and other governments, Article 71 of the
Charter eventually offered a compromise:

21
Norbert Götz

The Economic and Social Council may make suitable arrangements for consultation with
non-governmental organizations which are concerned with matters within its competence.
Such arrangements may be made with international organizations and, where appropriate,
with national organizations after consultation with the Member of the United Nations
concerned.

The eventual openness of US decision-makers was due to the value of NGOs in influencing
public opinion, the attempt to benefit from their tangible and intangible resources, and the wish
to gain a measure of control over their activities (Snider 2003: 377–9). Although NGO lead-
ers later noted Article 71’s ‘humble wording’ (Shestack 1978: 97) and ‘rather condescending
terminology’ (Fenaux 1978: 194), its norm-setting stipulation meant that ‘in the UN system,
all transnational actors have to accept the label “NGO”, in order to participate’ (Willetts 2002).
While the article’s codification of the involvement of private international organizations was
an advance in legal terms, it limited the inclusion of NGOs to ‘low politics’ issues as compared
to more far-reaching informal arrangements at the League of Nations. In many organs there,
private organizations had enjoyed ‘full participation exclusive of the right to vote’, similar to
the status Article 70 of the Charter grants to specialized agencies (Chiang 1981: 35–9; Pickard
1956: 24–27, 50, 72).
Today the NGO concept is not uniformly applied within the UN system. For example, in the
Agenda 21 document adopted at the 1992 UN Conference in Environment and Development
(UNCED, ‘Earth Summit’), the term ‘NGO’ carried no fewer than five different definitions.
This conceptual disarray was partly a consequence of leading activists’ dislike of the expression
‘NGO’ (Willetts 1996: 55, 61). However, despite its inconsistencies and surrounding contro-
versies, the acronym has gradually spread from the UN to societal discourse at large. At present
it is used in many different ways, often at variance with the nomenclature of international law.
Thus, the concept of ‘NGO’ may be confined to organizations concerned with sustainability
and development and to bodies focusing on peace, human rights, and cultural exchange, while
trade union bodies are frequently excluded because of their agenda related to established eco-
nomic interests. However, while the legal and administrative UN term ‘NGO’ has taken root
in political discourse more broadly, it has been on the retreat in its traditional strongholds. Most
specialized agencies and programmes in the UN system have in the past decades changed their
terminology in favour of ‘civil society (organizations)’ as the cover concept. Even the UN itself,
despite far-reaching adherence to the term ‘NGO’, prominently addresses civil society on its
website, rather than NGOs.

The emergence of global civil society in the nineteenth century

The identification of civil society organizations that pioneered cross-border agency depends,
apart from the type of borders taken into account, on the features regarded as defining for such
organizations. Various religious orders, charities, missionary bodies, and a few secular organiza-
tions have operated across these spaces for centuries and have been regarded as ‘ancient forms
of INGO’ (Davies 2013: 20–2). For unclear reasons, a comprehensive chronological list of
international organizations issued by the Union of International Associations (UIA) restricted
itself to claiming that the Rosicrucian Order (1693) and the General Conference of the New
Church (1783, this refers to the Swedenborgian Church) preceded the first IGO, the Central
Commission for Navigation on the Rhine (1816) (Speeckaert 1957: 1). This selection privileges
comparatively recent mystic sects (that may be phantasmal international agents) over established

22
 The emergence of NGOs on the world stage

churches. Meanwhile, the spiritual outreach of religious groups differs from the inner-worldly
aims of international organizations more broadly. This distinction is not denying that noncon-
formist denominations were vanguards of civil society, nor does it exclude bodies tackling prac-
tical matters such as the World Council of Churches from being a part of global civil society,
but it dismisses devotional organizations as such.
Civil society in the modern sense emerged in connection with an open public sphere that
was distinct from the state. Consequently, the origins of global civil society are to be looked
for at the turn of the nineteenth century (Keane 1988). Some of the associations at that time
advanced national or transnational networks and goals. Whereas fraternal affiliations such as the
Freemasons remained closed societies, the new type of association tended to be open to anyone
who paid the requested subscription fee. As the London Corresponding Society of 1792 exem-
plarily stipulated: ‘the number of our members [should] be unlimited’ (Stenius 2010: 30–1).
Imperial governance at odds with today’s nation-state structure of international relations
complicates the picture. Many authors suggest that the anti-slavery movement of the late
eighteenth century was the prototype of current global NGO networks (Charnovitz 1997;
Heins 2008; Hoffmann 2006; Reinalda 2009). While the case may be made, in particular in
view of innovative campaign methods, two qualifications are in place. First, until the mid-
nineteenth century, the goals of the abolitionists were largely confined to transforming the
British Empire and they did little to interfere abroad (although their lobbying contributed
to the Congress of Vienna’s declaration condemning slavery in 1815). Secondly, current
research has a deliberate bias in favour of human rights movements, largely overlooking the
prominence of long-distance charity as an issue that likewise involved people at the turn of
the nineteenth century. It was in the latter field that US independence gave transatlantic
concerns and networks, which had emerged over the eighteenth century, a post-imperial and
international character (Moniz 2008, 2016), rather than in that of the more inwardly oriented
abolitionist reform movement. The American Anti-Slavery Society came into being only
after slavery had been abandoned in the British Empire in 1833, and then adopted a similarly
domestic agenda.
Around the turn of the nineteenth century, a number of organizations emerged in the
UK that called themselves ‘The British and Foreign xy Society’ – most prominently the
placeholder stood for ‘Bible’ (1804), and later for ‘Anti-Slavery’ (1839). While these asso-
ciations included both expatriates of various backgrounds who lived in the UK and for-
eign correspondents, they did not maintain auxiliary organizations abroad. However, after
abolition in the Empire, the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society made sense only as
a promoter of a global reform programme, one paradoxically linked to the universal moral
claims from which British imperialism derived its supposed legitimacy (Heartfield 2016).
Similarly, although more peacefully, from its establishment the British and Foreign Bible
Society (BFBS) regarded the wider world as a field for the distribution of cheap Bibles and
sponsored Bible translations in many languages. The pivotal role of this society as a globally
engaged national organization with a permanent design remains largely unacknowledged,
most likely because it defies the secular and universal image of NGOs (DeMars 2005: 64).
The BFBS installed agencies abroad and propagated the establishment of independent Bible
societies in other countries, contributing financially and logistically, and becoming the cen-
tre of a loose network that early on included partner organizations in Germany, Switzerland,
Russia, Scandinavia, Holland, and France. While the endeavour began as an ecumenical
movement, controversies over which Scriptures to include in the Bibles led to its fragmen-
tation by the end of the 1820s. By the end of the nineteenth century, the British and the

23
Norbert Götz

American Bible Societies showed tendencies of dividing the world between them. However,
the movement carried on and eventually created an umbrella organization, the United Bible
Societies, in 1946 (Batalden, Cann, and Dean 2004).
During the Napoleonic Wars, the BFBS provided the social substratum for the group of
activists who initiated the first large-scale humanitarian relief effort; at the same time, key figures
of this group, such as William Wilberforce, were also luminaries of the anti-slavery movement.
The independent committee submitted £250,000 for charitable purposes to various German
states, Austrian territories, and Sweden, which were all suffering from war-related destitution.
The distribution was left to local recipient bodies composed of civil servants, clerics, merchants,
and other dignitaries. There were also exclusive women’s committees. In this way, British
donors stimulated formations of civil society abroad. They requested that benefits be distributed
according to need, and that Protestants, Catholics, and Jews be treated alike. The close interac-
tion of civil society and government that came about is evinced by a Whitehall chapel fundrais-
ing event that involved the royal family, and by subsequent action of the British parliament,
whose £100,000 grant became part of the relief effort that was distributed through voluntary
channels. The leading role German expatriates living in London had in the relief committee
illustrates the significance of national affiliations across borders for the emergence of transna-
tional relations more generally (Götz 2014).
The peace movement, for which protagonists with Quaker backgrounds played a particular
but not exclusive role, also dates back to the beginning of the nineteenth century. It emerged
almost simultaneously in the United States and in the United Kingdom, two states that had been
at war with each other between 1812 and 1815, and where reconciliatory ideas fell on fertile
ground. By August 1815 in the United States, the New York Peace Society constituted itself,
and two similar associations emerged later that year. In London, after an informal meeting in
1814 with the same purpose, the Society for the Promotion of Permanent and Universal Peace
was founded in 1816. By 1820, thirty-three peace societies existed in the United States, and
approximately a dozen in the United Kingdom. The London Society evolved quickly into a
structure of eleven local groups with 2,000 members. By 1830, peace societies had also emerged
in the Netherlands, Canada, France, and Switzerland. In the 1840s, a series of international
peace congresses commenced that provided a forum for global deliberation. The forums were
dominated by British and American activists, despite conference sites intentionally chosen on
the European continent to broaden the movement’s constituency (W. H. Linden 1987).
Peace activism included both a pacifist strand and one in favour of national liberation strug-
gles. Their tension became apparent during the Greek war of independence from the Ottoman
Empire in the 1820s (W. H. Linden 1987). Transnational solidarity at the time included human-
itarian assistance proper, and a Quaker committee limited it thereto, but ‘humanitarian inter-
vention’ with volunteer combatants like Lord Byron and lesser-known figures, money for the
purchase of weapons, and shipment of arms dominated the effort. Spreading across Switzerland,
Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and other European countries, the
philhellenic movement was active for several years (Bass 2008; Bew 2011; Klein 2000).
Nevertheless, solidarity with Greece was representative for much of the transnationalism of
the time, in particular with humanitarian objectives, in depending on the ad hoc engagement
of individuals. Committees formed around shifting issues rather than bodies with long-term
objectives remained the predominant form of organization long into the nineteenth century
(Curti 1963). Even organizations with a permanent design such as the International Shipwreck
Society, founded 1835 in Paris and quickly evolving into the first genuine transnational body
with a global structure, illustrate this point. Personal idiosyncrasies weighed so heavily on the

24
 The emergence of NGOs on the world stage

organization that it was unable to carry on when its founder was caught in scandals and irregu-
larities. At the same time, the Shipwreck Society is notable for its acknowledgement of inspira-
tion from China, showing that the creation of global civil society was a process more entangled
than is commonly acknowledged (Davies 2018).
The deficiency of transnational action during the Great Irish Famine of 1845–52 illustrates
the weakness of the temporary form of ‘NGOs’ at the time. Patterns for how to install aid com-
mittees, for fundraising, for linking up with distant intermediaries, and for public accountability
did exist. However, there was no observatory to continuously monitor food insecurity, or any
ready infrastructure for collections and the provision of aid. Thus, almost no transnational relief
came about during the first year of distress, and while a considerable, though utterly insufficient
wave of charity from all continents mitigated the disaster in the fatal winter and spring of 1847,
the aid effort ebbed out by summer that year, leaving Ireland on its own with a reluctant gov-
ernment in London for subsequent years of potato failure. The lack of permanent aid organiza-
tions allowed compassion fatigue and the changing political agenda across Europe in connection
with the political unrest of 1848 to easily disrupt aid efforts. However, an even greater problem
was that few people abroad could have imagined that a powerful government like the United
Kingdom would let a portion of its population die for its own service to the principles of free
trade and the night watchman state, and that official communication in autumn 1847 suggesting
the end of the famine drew on wishful thinking rather than on intelligence from the neighbour
island (Götz, Brewis, and Werther forthcoming a). The lack of humanitarian attention to the
Soviet Holodomor in the 1930s, the Chinese Great Leap Forward Famine in the 1950s, and
initially the Ethiopian Famine of the 1980s shows how difficult it is even for permanent organi-
zations to permeate the veil of government ignorance.
Founded in 1833 in Paris and expanding rapidly in other countries by the mid-1840s, the
Society of Saint-Vincent de Paul (SSVP) evolved into the first transnational charity organiza-
tion that realized its principal long-term objective. What became a global Catholic network
(which today engages almost a million volunteers in 150 countries) spread a model for the
local provision of relief in connection with visitation of the needy. While its branches worked
largely independently and generally owed an overhead fee to their national and transnational
umbrella organization, during the Great Famine the larger network instead supported their
Irish sister groups and enabled them to quickly expand their number. While other relief initia-
tives slackened, the SSVP spread its net of auxiliaries throughout Ireland in the latter half of
the 1840s, providing an infrastructure for the local middle class to engage with their suffering
compatriots. The case illustrates the potential of charitable structures that are more enduring
than the temporary committees of the nineteenth century, and even more than religious bodies
with their multiplicity of obligations (Götz, Brewis, and Werther forthcoming a). The SSVP
is also an example of a transnational organization based on autonomous local interventions,
something that makes IR easily overlook such organizations, despite the added value of ‘glocal’
connectivity not just for the dissemination of ideas, but also for material transfer, as the Irish
case illustrates.
The Red Cross movement, which emerged in the 1860s, was a major step forward for the
global ramification and institutionalization of NGOs. Even today the independent International
Committee of the Red Cross remains singular with its achievement of an international legal
personality, something transnational civil society continues to aspire to more broadly, and a
legal status equivalent to that of an IGO. At the same time, the Red Cross is characterized by
a closer relationship of national branch organizations with their respective government than
what is common, despite civil society’s frequently blurred demarcation from the state. While

25
Norbert Götz

the functions and activities of the Red Cross are universally mandated by the state system, its
establishment and governance are independent accomplishments (Debuf 2016: 324). Thus,
the 1863 founding conference was the initiative of a charitable association in Geneva, and it
was attended by representatives of both governments and civil society organizations, in addi-
tion to individuals. The proposals made on this occasion regarding the foundation of national
relief societies for wounded soldiers and the principles that should govern them were adopted
in the following year at a diplomatic conference and became known as the First Geneva
Convention. Its main principle was neutrality and independence vis-à-vis the nation-state
system (Boissier 1985), thus providing a paradoxical structure of remedy against the most
dysfunctional outcome of competitive practices among nation-states, namely war damages.
Notably, the Japanese Red Cross, drawing on an ethic of universal compassionate healing with
roots in both Eastern and Western ideas of the early nineteenth century, quickly became by far
the largest Red Cross society in the world, and the one that introduced peacetime relief efforts
to their repertoire (Konishi 2014).
The General Anti-Slavery Convention, held in 1840 and 1843 in London, preceded the peace
congresses of that decade and attracted more attention. They inaugurated a practice of arranging
international conferences, ‘which was to expand decade by decade almost in geometric progres-
sion’, and which was to become a basis for the creation of permanent international agencies.
Topics of the early congresses were often idea-driven, but included matters of hands-on economic
development. Thus, apart from anti-slavery and peace, themes of the conventions of the 1840s
were an evangelical alliance, temperance, prison reform, free trade, and agriculture (Maynard
1963: 220). The agendas of peace and free trade were in fact closely intertwined at the time.
From the 1830s onwards, transnational women’s networks started to emerge (Anderson
2000), and in the late 1840s the so-called Olive Leaf Societies connected to US peace activist
Elihu Burritt’s League of Universal Brotherhood might have constituted the first transna-
tional women’s organization. These societies started as sewing circles convened to raise funds
for the dissemination of peace propaganda, but they soon became forums for joint readings
and lectures (Götz 2010: 201). The experience of exclusion from anti-slavery conventions
and other early international congresses became a significant impetus for the emergence of a
women’s rights movement, first in the United States and elsewhere later (Sklar 1990). The
World’s Women’s Christian Temperance Union, founded in 1883, became the first interna-
tional organization promoting women’s suffrage (Keck and Sikkink 1998: 54), and by the end
of that decade the International Council of Women was founded as an association working
specifically for women’s rights. In the beginning of the twentieth century the International
Woman Suffrage Alliance and eventually the Women’s International League for Peace and
Freedom developed more radical feminist and transformative perspectives (Rupp 1997).
Towards the end of the nineteenth century issues of international negotiation became in
general increasingly technical, mirroring the scientific and economic advances of the second
industrial revolution, and also the emergence of professional and business organizations. In this
process, IGOs (then called ‘public international unions’) and private agencies were established
and continuously worked in their fields (Lyons 1963). Moreover, an internationally minded
proletariat and labour union movement began to emerge. The International Workingmen’s
Association was founded in 1864, but split into communist and anarchist halves in less than a
decade, to be dissolved a few years later. This so-called First International was followed by a
number of subsequent ‘Internationals’ with differing profiles (M. Linden 2004).
The end of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth century became
thus a time of marked development in the voluntary sector towards the creation of transnational

26
 The emergence of NGOs on the world stage

associations. These outnumbered intergovernmental bodies by far and functioned in many pro-
fessional fields as catalysts for the establishment of official agencies. By the 1890s, approximately
ten transnational organizations were founded each year. In 1910 a peak of fifty-one new such
organizations was reached – and not surpassed until after the Second World War (Boli and
Thomas 1999: 22). Paris, Brussels, London, and Geneva became the hubs of the transnational
civil society of the time, a status these cities maintain today. After the Second World War, New
York City emerged as another major place for the headquarters of transnational NGOs. Today,
globalization expands the networks of civil society, and cities such as Nairobi, Bangkok, and
New Delhi have become top-ranked as sites of connectivity for humanitarian and environmen-
tal INGOs (Taylor 2004). Moreover, as the significance of Penang in Malaysia for the inter-
national consumer movement since the 1970s illustrates, the Global South exerts transnational
leadership in particular issue areas (Hilton 2009: 108).
The locality bears more than geographical significance, and has political and legal implica-
tions. For example, Malaysian activist Anwar Fazal propagated more radical consumer perspec-
tives than those common in the West (Hilton 2009: 108) and has also been among the most
outspoken critics of the order of discourse implied by NGO terminology (Götz 2008: 245).
Apart from the Red Cross, transnational associations have not yet been granted the status of
subjects of international law. Thus, their legal position is exclusively conditioned by require-
ments and practices of their host nation, where they may assume a variety of juridical forms,
such as charities, foundations, not-for-profit corporations, trusts, or unincorporated associations.
Belgium is a particularly popular host country as it renders the most permissive legal conditions
for transnational associations, especially with regard to organizations based abroad (Merle 1988).

Periods and trends of the ‘NGO world’

By 1907, a documentation centre for international and transnational organizations emerged, the
Brussels-based Union of International Associations (UIA). It is today best known for issuing the
Yearbook of International Organizations, an extensive directory that seeks to provide information
on all existing IGOs and INGOs. Over the decades, this publication has been the major source
for quantitative research on INGOs and internationalism more broadly. Table 1.1 shows the
numbers of IGOs and INGOs over time (Yearbook 2017/18: 35–7), and the average annual
growth rate of the number of INGOs for the respective period. However, as a quantitative
indicator, these figures need to be interpreted with caution. Growth suggests increasing activity,
but it might as well be caused by fragmentation into smaller and less significant units (Davies
2013: 6). Moreover, for reasons of comparison over time, the table only includes conventional
international organizations and not other significant organizations such as foundations or NGOs
with international concerns that are based in only one country.
While the statistical overview of the UIA commences at the advent of the First World War,
it was the nineteenth century that saw the emergence of what were later called NGOs. English
organizations were forerunners, and other Western European and US organizations followed
suit. Political scientists and contemporary historians who portray the twentieth century as simul-
taneously representing ‘a century of NGOs’ and a US century (Iriye 1999), apart from being
overly United States-centric, fail to take the emergence of NGOs into account. The lack of
historical depth inherent in the prevalent narrative of a continuous ‘rise and rise’ of NGOs, not
just in the second half of the twentieth century (O’Sullivan 2014), but also to the apparent highs
of the present, call for a more profound understanding of how global civil society emerged, and
the ways in which it developed over time.

27
Norbert Götz

Table 1.1 Number of conventional IGOs and INGOs (UIA categories A–D)

Year 1909 1951 1960 1970 1981 1990 2000 2010 2017

IGOs 37 123 154 242 337 293 241 241 276

INGOs 176 832 1255 1993 4263 4646 5936 7752 9176
INGO average annual 3.8 4.7 4.7 7.2 1.0 2.5 2.7 2.4
growth rate (per cent)

In Michael Barnett’s influential Empire of Humanity (2011), the years 1945 and 1989 appear to be
turning points of humanitarian action, a field that includes relief and development agencies as well as
human rights organizations. His critical years illustrate the prominence of geopolitical explanations
in IR, and mirror the anachronistic presentism that governs both NGOs and the academic discourse
concerning them (Borton 2016). A closer look shows that the temporal framing Barnett employs is
as problematic as are his labels. Hence, the epoch of ‘imperial humanitarianism’, stretching from the
end of the eighteenth century until 1945, is an inadequate catchall term for a seemingly remote past.
The era of ‘neo-humanitarianism’ (1945–1989) has a tautological ring and is lopsided as a declared
offshoot of neo-colonialism. And finally, ‘liberal humanitarianism’ (since 1989) conveys a mislead-
ing picture of the contemporary scene, which is as distant from a liberal condition as the current
paradigm of ‘neoliberalism’. Barnett’s categorization suggests a progressive trajectory of voluntary
action when in fact many practitioners and observers alike oppose the increasing exploitation and
manipulation of NGOs by governments and quasi-imperial coalitions. The ‘force multiplier’ and
‘troll farm’ being the iconic NGOs of our time, the label ‘imperial humanitarianism’ fits present
attempts at global governance better than was the case even at the height of imperialism, a time
when voluntary action was thoroughly embedded in the liberal order of the day.
Thomas Davies, in his NGOs: A New History of Transnational Civil Society (2013), suggests
another threefold temporal division, with 1914 and 1939, the commencements of the two
world wars, as low points that recast NGO development. Apparently, these years have similar
geopolitical connotations as Barnett’s, but they are less myopic and emphasize cyclic patterns of
expansion and contraction rather than a linear teleology. According to Davies, the three histori-
cal waves of NGO expansion peaked at the turn of the twentieth century, around 1930, and
after 1989. However, although NGOs participated in the arrangements of UN world confer-
ences in the 1990s and the access of national organizations to the UN was relaxed in 1996, the
last peak appears chimerical as Davies emphasizes co-optation in neoliberal governance and the
emergence of highly specialized agencies while established organizations struggled with declin-
ing membership. The actual peak seems rather to have been the 1960s and ‘long’ 1970s, with
innovations such as that of NGO forums paralleling major intergovernmental conferences in
the first place, a feature introduced at the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment in
Stockholm (Götz 2011: 191). Davies does not give names to his larger periods, the construction
of which may overemphasize the interwar period, and is unconventional in not presenting the
end of the Cold War as a watershed in the history of NGOs or as the beginning of a develop-
ment resulting in an alleged current apogee or otherwise unique present.
There are more detailed timelines of NGO development. One example is Steve Charnovitz’s
(1997: 190) suggestion that sees the (very) ‘long nineteenth century’ as one of NGO emer-
gence, followed by a period of engagement from 1919 to 1934, one of disengagement until
1944, one of formalization until 1949, one of underachievement until 1971, one of inten-
sification until 1991, and one of empowerment thereafter. The varying depth in detail, and
somewhat haphazard and normative manner of identifying meaningful categories, makes such

28
 The emergence of NGOs on the world stage

a framework difficult to work with. Moreover, while this chronology does not project the
development of transnational civil society into an overall teleology, it does so for the second
half of the twentieth century. A ‘power shift’ in favour of civil society was suggested also by
others at the time Charnovitz wrote his study (Mathews 1997). However, the goodwill of the
UN Secretary-General 1992 to 1996, Boutros Boutros-Ghali (1996: 7), as well as enthusiasm
about the new world order after the end of the Cold War and the role NGOs might play in
it, has not been honoured by the experience of the past decades. The poor reception of the
recommendations of the Panel of Eminent Persons on United Nations–Civil Society Relations
(the so-called Cardoso Report 2004) illustrates that this relationship has entered a stalemate in
the twenty-first century, despite the lip service politicians frequently pay to civil society.
A principal alternative timeline resonates in many respects with the observations above, but is
based on a socio-economic rather than geopolitical reading and identifies therefore different turn-
ing points and mechanisms. It draws on a recent attempt of aligning the history of humanitarianism
with the broader development of civil society (Götz, Brewis, and Werther forthcoming b). The
argument is that politico-economic regimes that have been dominant over the past two centu-
ries profoundly shaped the ways in which NGOs work. This refers to (a) the elitist laissez-faire
liberalism of the nineteenth century, (b) the Taylorism and mass society paradigm that prevailed
from the turn of the twentieth century until the years around 1970, and (c) the ambivalent blend
of individualized post-material lifestyles, media exposure, flexible production and communica-
tion regimes, and neoliberal public management since then. In this perspective, the development
of NGOs appears as a succession of (a) nineteenth-century ad hoc efforts, (b) twentieth-century
organized operations based on planning and economics of scale, and (c) expressive action charac-
teristic of the half-century from approximately 1968 to the present. Some of the literature prefers
to see the 1930s, with the crises of those years and the breakthrough of Keynesianism, as another
juncture, but the 1930s only reinforced the positivist belief in standardized societal management
that had its breakthrough with the social engineering paradigm in the 1890s. At the same time,
the rise of international organizations after the First World War resumed a trend the war had only
suspended (Iriye 2002: 20). Ultimately, the era of the two world wars and the new global configu-
ration after the Cold War can be seen as having their geopolitical origins in the alliance policies of
the 1890s, on the one hand, and the détente and rise of the Muslim world and China from around
1970, on the other – rather than being triggers of their own. This resonates with Glenda Sluga’s
(2013) identification of the turn of the twentieth century and the decade of the 1970s as the cen-
tury’s two periods of pronounced internationalization, something that enhanced the dissemination
of new models and practices.

References
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Barnett, M. 2011. Empire of Humanity: A History of Humanitarianism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Bass, G. J. 2008. Freedom’s Battle: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention. New York: Knopf.
Batalden, S., Cann, K. and Dean, J. 2004. Sowing the Word: The Cultural Impact of the British and Foreign Bible
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Bew, J. 2011. ‘From an Umpire to a Competitor’: Castlereagh, Canning and the Issue of International
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 2
NGOs’ interactions with states
Sarah S. Stroup

For scholars of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in international relations (IR), the

subject of state–NGO relations has been unavoidable. Challenging the state-centric history of
the field, research on NGOs in IR has proceeded in two broad waves. In the 1990s, scholars
within the first wave directly challenged the dominant focus on states as actors and demon-
strated that NGOs influenced both state policy and social practice. Starting in the early 2000s,
a second wave of NGO research has taken up a broad array of topics, including the varieties of
relationships that NGOs and states can enjoy (Stroup and Wong 2016). Today, states are rarely
the sole focus of IR scholarship even as scholars recognize their central role in global politics.
For NGOs, the state can be a key regulator, a source of revenue, a target for policy change, a
partner in international action, or some mix of the above.
This chapter reviews the substantial literature on NGOs’ interactions with states, dividing
the discussion into four sections. The first tackles the analytical challenge of identifying the
populations of interest, both states and NGOs. For this review of NGO–state interactions and
influence, I cast a wide net to include both international NGOs (INGOs) and national or local
NGOs. The second section describes patterns of NGO–state interactions, drawing upon exist-
ing typologies of NGOs’ relations with other actors (Johnson 2016; Najam 2000; Stroup and
Wong 2017). Next, I explore the factors that shape these NGO–state relations. The final section
examines how and when NGOs influence state practices.

States and NGOs in international relations (IR)

In contemporary global politics, states are both relatively few in number and easy to identify.
Granted, the population of states has changed, as the marked growth and decline in the num-
ber of states over two centuries is a critical element of the international system (Fazal 2011). In
addition, the defining characteristics of states have also evolved, as revealed in the substantial
literature on the changing meaning of sovereignty (Krasner 2001; Hall and Biersteker 2002).
Still, relative to NGOs, the population of states has been fairly stable. In the twentieth century,
the number of states quadrupled (Coggins 2011), but the number of INGOs grew by as much
as sixty times (Davies 2014: 6).

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 NGOs’ interactions with states

By contrast, simply identifying the NGO population is a perennial challenge. IR scholars

tend to focus on international NGOs (INGOs), groups that are defined as independent organi-
zations, working in multiple countries, and whose primary aim is to promote common goals at
the international level. This standard NGO definition excludes certain groups (social enterprises,
national NGOs, some advocacy groups) while including actors that appear tangential to global
politics, such as the European Window Film Association. In addition, NGOs are governed at
the national, not global, level (Martens 2002), and varied definitions of NGOs, non-profits, and
charities (Stroup 2012) make it difficult to separate out INGOs in a uniform way.
NGO scholars have used several ways to delimit the population under investigation. One
practical approach is to simply rely on the rules used by existing databases on INGOs, including
the Union of International Associations Yearbook (Murdie 2014; Bloodgood 2011), the National
Center for Charitable Statistics (US), or the EU Transparency Registrar. Another strategy has
been to study NGOs by issue area (such as human rights or environmental protection) or by
strategy (such as service delivery (Büthe et al. 2012) or advocacy (Prakash and Gugerty 2010)).
The focus in IR on INGOs does not capture the full dynamics of NGO–state relations.
INGOs, active in several countries, do seek to shape the policies of states, but they are as con-
cerned with intergovernmental organizations and transnational corporations. Meanwhile, local
and national NGOs, such as the Brazilian Worker’s Party (Teivainen 2002), are partners of
INGOs and important interlocutors with their home states. In fact, many official agencies are
abandoning the strict distinction between international and national NGOs.
In short, in an era of policy interdependence, NGOs face a range of political opportunities
and overlapping authorities that do not neatly separate into domestic and international spheres
(Farrell and Newman 2016). Thus, the subsequent discussion explores the role of both local
NGOs and INGOs, drawing from comparative politics as well as IR.

Patterns of interaction
The image of state–NGO conflict is a powerful one in both popular conceptions and academic
treatments, but the actual patterns of NGO–state relations are quite varied. Cooperation might
be more likely in activities like service delivery, involving state financing of NGOs, than in
instances of NGO advocacy requiring critiques of state policy. Yet functional demands and
resource flows are just two possible drivers of NGO–state relations, and a useful typology should
describe a variety of outcomes without privileging particular explanations.
We can describe NGOs’ relations with states as falling into one of four categories – conflict,
cooperation, competition, and cooptation. These types are distinguished according to the ends
and means of the states and NGOs involved (Najam 2000; Stroup and Wong 2017). A cooperative
relationship is one in which the NGO and state share both strategies (means) and goals (ends).
A conflictual (or confrontational) relationship exists when NGOs have different goals and differ-
ent ideas of how to achieve them. A competitive relationship exists when NGOs and states share
the same goals but employ different strategies to achieve them.1 Finally, cooptation exists when
one actor’s resources are brought to serve the ends of another; here, states and NGOs will share
strategies but not goals.

Conflict
The dominant theme in early research on INGOs was conflict between states and NGOs.
Challenging the central place of the state in IR required demonstrating that the power of

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Sarah S. Stroup

the state was limited. NGO–state conflict is perhaps most clearly documented in the liter-
ature on human rights, where advocacy NGOs directly condemn state practices. Consider
the boomerang and spiral models of NGO–state interaction developed by human rights
researchers (Keck and Sikkink 1998; Risse-Kappen et al. 1999). In the boomerang model,
activists blocked by their home country government throw their concerns to external
activists, who then bring pressure from the outside on the offender government. The spiral
model expanded the analysis of this dynamic across multiple stages of domestic–international
linkages. Both begin from the premise of a repressive state unwilling to listen to the
demands of domestic NGOs, driving those NGOs to find sympathetic partners abroad
(Clark 2001; Hopgood 2006).
In general, NGO–state conflict is likely when the two parties differ over the desirability of
the ends or goals pursued by states (Johnson 2016). In addition, when states commit to legal or
normative principles but then behave in ways inconsistent with those principles, NGOs might
call states to account (Keck and Sikkink 1998). Beyond human rights, NGOs in environmental
protection, humanitarian relief, arms control, and beyond have directly challenged state prac-
tices (Carpenter 2014; Tarrow 2005; Busby 2010). In the 1970s, Greenpeace replaced “staid
conservation-oriented discourse” with “impassioned antics” to protest nuclear tests and whaling
(Zelko 2013: 4). The foundational myth of the medical relief group MSF depicts Red Cross
doctors compelled to speak out against the actions of Nigerian troops in the late 1960s (Redfield
2013). In the 1990s, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines brought together interna-
tional and national NGOS to shame states for allowing the production and use of indiscriminate
weapons (Florini 2000).

Cooperation
States and NGOs also enjoy close, cooperative relationships. The most robust treatment of
this cooperation comes from scholars of the development sector, where NGOs and INGOs
have been frequent partners in service provision and the delivery of foreign aid. In the 1990s,
Northern aid donors increasingly turned to NGOs as conduits for official development assis-
tance. Donors believed that international and local NGOs, unlike their own staff or their local
government partners, had a special capacity to deliver aid efficiently while also being accepted
as a legitimate form of support for local enterprise and civil society (Edwards and Hulme 1996;
Fowler 1991; Zanotti 2010; Brass 2016).
In the mirror image of conflict, states and NGOs cooperate when they share a commitment
to goals. If a state’s behavior is inconsistent with its principled or legal commitments, NGOs
could condemn those states, as above, but might also cooperate with the state to bring their
practices in line with those commitments. That cooperation may be more likely when states
lack the capacity (rather than the willingness) to achieve goals like poverty alleviation (Lewis
and Kanji 2009) or election monitoring (Hyde 2011). Well beyond the development sector,
then, cooperation between states and NGOs can also be robust. Since the 1980s, NGOs have
been granted increasing access to international institutions by states (Tallberg et al. 2013; Betsill
and Corell 2008; Pallas and Uhlin 2014). This NGO participation may enhance the regulatory
powers of states (Raustiala 1997). In the security arena, middle-power states interested in estab-
lishing an influential niche work with international NGOs to advance new treaties (Rutherford
et al. 2003). In her examination of international climate change negotiations, Betzold (2014)
shows that NGOs lobby both influential states as well as responsive states more likely to hear
their claims.

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 NGOs’ interactions with states

Competition
Conflict and cooperation among states and NGOs receive much more attention than the other
two relationships, competition and cooptation. While the rise of non-state actors such as NGOs
does not necessarily come at the expense of state power, there are frequent instances of com-
petition between states and NGOs. Competition in service provision frequently arises in areas
of weak state capacity. In Kenya, Haiti, and Afghanistan, international humanitarian NGOs
provide large-scale, formal, and long-term service provision (Rubenstein 2015). At the interna-
tional level, donor preferences for either bilateral or NGO aid may mean that states and NGOs
are competing for outside resources. In post-conflict settings, for example, international actors
tend to privilege either elite, state-led capacity building (Barma 2017) or “reconstruction from
below” with NGOs (Hillhorst et al. 2010).
NGOs and states can also compete as advocates, as regulators, and as authorities. At inter-
governmental organizations (IGOs), INGOs and states compete to influence the choices of
various other actors (Tallberg et al. 2013; Avant et al. 2010). For example, states and NGOs are
potentially competing sources of information on human rights conditions in Universal Periodic
Reviews of the UN’s Human Rights Council (Sweeney and Saito 2009). In working to regu-
late corporate practices in a variety of sectors (Green 2013; Auld 2014), for example, NGO-led
private standards often substitute for state regulation. Finally, NGOs and states may compete for
legitimacy in the eyes of various publics when engaging in various aspects of global governance.
Environmental NGOs that employ direct enforcement tactics against illegal fishing argue that
their actions are the legitimate enforcement of international law where states are unwilling or
unable to act (Eilstrup-Sangiovanni and Bondaroff 2014). As representatives, NGOs compete
with states as legitimate representatives of various voices. In fact, the rise of INGOs in global
governance was in part built on the idea of a “democratic deficit” at state-created institutions
(Dingwerth 2007; Dryzek 2012; Anderson 2009; Price 2003).

Cooptation
Cooptation in the NGO–state relationship receives relatively little attention within international
relations. Weak actors generally receive little attention in IR, and continued state-centrism seems
to exclude the possibility that states might serve the interests of NGOs. In the government–NGO
relationship, cooptation “is nearly always discussed as what governments try to do to NGOs, and
is a universally negative thing” (Najam 2000: 388). This makes cooptation an outcome that may
be both rare and difficult to identify. As Scholte (2002: 297) writes, civic activists can become
coopted, “even contrary to their intentions and self-perceptions.” States are unlikely to admit
their subservience to NGOs and advocacy groups (Busby 2010). Even if rare, assimilation and
appropriation within the state–NGO relationship violates many assumptions about state–civil
society relationships and demands explanation.
Cooptation of NGOs by the state has received substantial attention in comparative politics and
public administration. Government-organized NGOs (GONGOs) employ the NGO organiza-
tional form to boost legitimacy and attract outside resources (Mercer 2002; Spires 2011). Salamon
(2015) describes the “nonprofitization” of the welfare state around, as various governments out-
source welfare provision to NGOs while maintaining strict oversight and control. In IR, coopta-
tion has been taken up in several ways. It is a constant concern for NGOs whose legitimacy turns
on their independence (Steffek and Hahn 2010). For example, in the Iraq war, NGOs that worked
with the United States to ensure the “coherent” delivery of humanitarian aid were accused of being
coopted by belligerent states and sacrificing their neutrality (Stoddard 2006). In the development

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Sarah S. Stroup

sector, critics argue that the “good governance” agenda of the 1990s involved welfare provision by
coopted NGOs that reinforced processes of social control rather than empowerment (Manji and
O’Coill 2002: 579). Reimann (2006) showed that the Japanese state led the creation of an INGO
sector but often seeks to coopt the groups.
Can states be coopted by NGOs? In Bangladesh, critics of microfinance argue that NGOs
like BRAC serve as a shadow state, commandeering the repressive powers of the state as well
as the traditional power of the community (Karim 2011). In Malawi, the requirements of inter-
national donors supporting HIV/AIDS interventions direct the way in which state resources
are employed (Swidler 2006). While NGO cooptation of the state may be more likely in
post-colonial contexts of state weakness, globally powerful states may also see their resources
or institutions in service to NGOs. For example, in the United States, the State Department’s
Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor has been referred to as the “NGO inside the
building” for its support of “the NGO agenda” (Stroup 2012: 35).

Factors shaping NGO–state relations

While sustained cooptation may be relatively less common, the patterns of NGO–state
relations are as varied as the populations of NGOs and states. IR scholars have made great
strides in identifying the range of factors that shape NGO–state relations. At least four
dimensions are important – the issue area, NGO characteristics, state-level factors, and the
flow of resources.

Issue area
The above catalog of NGO activities across a range of sectors should dispel the notion that issues
like human rights promotion or environmental protection necessarily place functional demands
on NGOs that privilege certain approaches toward states. While certain strategies – like the con-
struction of transnational networks (Keck and Sikkink 1998) – may appear obviously successful,
scholarship from a variety of intellectual traditions reveals that our understanding of appropriate
and effective NGO strategies emerges through social and political processes (Neumann and
Sending 2010; Krause 2014; Watkins et al. 2012; Reimann 2006).
Across sectors, emergent issues tend to begin with confrontational condemnation of state
failure, followed by negotiation and compromise with the state (Tarrow 1994). Yet, as dis-
cussed above, cooperation may be more frequent in development, while conflict may dominate
in human rights. In environmental protection, state delegation to INGOs for enforcement of
international law is rare; instead, INGOs compete to design new private environmental regula-
tions (Green 2013). In human rights (Simmons 2009) and environmental protection (Betsill
and Corell 2008), INGOs devote substantial attention to international laws and organizations.
This leads INGOs to target certain parts of the state, favoring diplomats and externally oriented
bureaucrats over local officials.
The importance of NGOs to the state may also depend on the size of the NGO population,
which can vary by issue area and across time (Bush and Hadden 2017). The substantial popula-
tion of INGOs in international relief and development is basically unavoidable for both donor
and host states. By contrast, NGOs dedicated to global finance and security are relatively rare,
perhaps resulting from state hostility to civil society input on these issues (Price 2003; Dryzek
2012; Scholte 2013). Depending on changing norms of good practice within sectors and across
NGOs, existing patterns in state–NGO relations are subject to change.

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 NGOs’ interactions with states

NGO characteristics
Even faced with specific functional demands or the varied institutional environments described
below, NGOs can still have substantial freedom to select various approaches to states. Three
particular features of an NGO are likely to shape its strategic approach to states – its principled
commitments, its authority, and its peer influence.
NGOs are presumed to exist separate from states, but in practice, an NGO’s “non-governmental”
nature may be more or less important. In the humanitarian relief sector, independence from states
and other actors is ostensibly a foundational principle, yet some NGOs are less concerned with
defending the process by which they engage with states (Stoddard 2006), and adherence to the prin-
ciple of independence has been uneven (Barnett 2011). Some groups like MSF and the ICRC do
still choose to vocally proclaim their independence (Forsythe 2005; Redfield 2013), reflecting in part
their different principled commitments.
NGOs also vary in the authority that they enjoy, and concerns over their status may drive
them to choose particular strategies with states. Leading or gatekeeper INGOs (Bob 2005;
Carpenter 2014) tend to collaborate with states more frequently than their lesser-known peers
(Stroup and Wong 2017). Obscure NGOs with little access to policymakers may proclaim their
independence as a marker of their legitimacy and default to harsh criticism of states. The prin-
cipled commitments above might thus reflect NGOs’ pragmatic concerns about defending their
credibility (Gourevitch et al. 2012).
Finally, NGOs are subject to various pressures from their peers, which can shape their stra-
tegic approach to states (Prakash and Gugerty 2010; Raustiala 1997). Hadden (2015) argues that
NGO adoption of contentious protest tactics emerged via diffusion through NGO networks.
Alternately, Lecy et al. (2010) argue that NGOs face a segmented advocacy market, in which
various tactics appear to limited audiences. These different accounts imply more or less NGO
capacity to inform the preferences of their supporters.

State characteristics
NGO–state relations depend in large part on the particular characteristics of the state. Scholars
have identified level of development, regime type, and domestic regulatory structures as impor-
tant state features that shape the NGO–state relationship. Consider development first. Whether
differentiated as developed/developing or North/South, a state’s interaction with NGOs will
be conditioned by the types of local demands for NGOs. In poverty reduction and beyond,
Northern NGOs headquartered in industrialized democracies face opportunities for advocacy
and gather resources to send abroad, while Southern NGOs (both local and INGOs) deliver
services, promote political and social change, and build the capacity of the local government
(Lewis and Kanji 2009: 12–13). The trajectory of particular developing countries can also shape
the strategies of environmental advocates, as in Brazil (Hochstetler and Keck 2007).
Regime type also alters state–NGO relations. The sizeable comparative civil society lit-
erature documents a range of relationships between states and private associations (Salamon
et al. 2017; Anheier 2014), but democratic polities founded on principles of citizens’ self-rule
are more amenable than authoritarian states to citizen participation in private associations like
NGOs (Smith and Wiest 2005).
This could suggest that NGO–state conflict is more frequent in authoritarian settings. Groups
like Amnesty International thus focus their reporting on countries with more severe human
rights abuses (Ron et al. 2005), while environmental NGOs may shame democratic states less

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Sarah S. Stroup

frequently (Murdie and Urpelainen 2015) or face severe restrictions on their activities (Henry
2010). The spiral model of human rights change (Risse-Kappen et al. 1999) is built on the idea
of an authoritarian state initially unwilling to consider domestic NGOs’ claims. Yet regime
type is an imperfect guide for understanding any one state’s NGO relationships. Rohrschneider
and Dalton (2002) find that level of democracy has little effect on levels of NGO activity in
the environmental sector. In addition, in both IR and comparative politics, recent scholarship
has explored the frequency of cooperation between autocratic regimes and NGOs. In relation-
ships of “amicable contempt” (Heiss 2017), NGOs and autocratic states can both threaten and
support the existence of the other. In election monitoring, for example, pseudo-democratic
regimes may invite in election observers at risk of critique in an attempt to access outside
resources (Hyde 2011). Human rights NGOs selecting locations for their permanent office may
employ a “Goldilocks” logic, selecting regimes that are not too repressive but also not too open
(Barry et al. 2015). For reasons that may have more to do with the NGO than with the state,
democracy-promotion NGOs have been able to maintain their presence in autocracies through
“regime-compatible” programming (Bush 2015).
Finally, because of the great diversity of NGO–state relations across economic and political
categories, IR scholars have brought renewed attention to the institutional settings provided by
the state that help shape different “varieties of activism” (Stroup 2012). Several dimensions of
state structures shape NGO–state relations (Prakash and Gugerty 2010). For example, member-
ship in NGO-like private associations declines with higher levels of statism (the centralization
of power and dominance of the status apparatus) (Schofer and Fourcade-Gourinchas 2001).
Bloodgood et al. (2014) also find systematic differences in the regulation of NGO registry and
political and economic activity across several dozen OECD countries, with corporatist systems
more restrictive than pluralist ones. These environments shape the way NGOs approach states
and IGOs (Stroup and Murdie 2012; Andonova et al. 2017).
State approaches to civil society affect not only the composition of the NGO sector at home,
but also the states’ influence abroad. As DeMars and Dijkzeul (2015: 292) argue, the “accelerat-
ing global proliferation of NGOs today is prima facie evidence of the successful inscription of
Western pluralism on the world, as much by attraction as by projection.” Still, while democracy
may enable NGOs to set up shop and engage in external action, many other factors (discussed
below) shape the content of NGOs’ transnational activities (Hanegraaff et al. 2015).
In addition, these political environments are not immutable. At the national level, the design
and implementation of state approaches toward NGOs can be shaped by NGOs themselves
(Teets 2014). In Kenya, NGOs “have come to comprise part of the de facto organizational
makeup of the state” (Brass 2016: 3). At the global level, global dynamics can substantially alter
state–NGO relations. For example, in the 1980s, in African states weakened by structural adjust-
ment and democratic transitions, vast new spaces became available for NGOs (Fowler 1991;
Robinson 2017). More recently, NGO–state relations have been deeply affected by a wave of
civil society clampdowns (Christensen and Weinstein 2013). In Egypt, India, Russia, Ethiopia,
and beyond, states have instituted new restrictions on NGO activities, including stricter registra-
tion and reporting requirements and limits on foreign funding to domestic NGOs (Dupuy et al.
2016; Chaudhry 2016).

Resource flows
The source of NGO income plays a key role in NGO–state relations, as the partners and targets
of NGO efforts can also be the hand that feeds them. Government support to INGOs has grown
substantially over the past several decades. The privatization of many state functions and growth

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in the number of potential NGO partners have encouraged many NGOs to seek steady financial
support from states (Edwards and Hulme 1996; Mitchell and Schmitz 2014).
A substantial body of work describes how government funding affects NGOs’ strategies.
Interest in maintaining access to funds can drive INGOs to design programs more in line with
the preferences of the donor (Ebrahim 2005; Gent et al. 2015; Krause 2014). There are also
effects on the NGO relationship with host states. Reliance on official or government resources
can promote more conciliatory programming that complies with rather than challenges authori-
tarian regimes (Bush 2015). Because official aid agencies encourage NGO professionalization
and service provision, NGOs are less involved in the sort of interest mobilization and grassroots
advocacy that might challenge host states (Lang 2013; Banks et al. 2015; McMahon 2017).
Given this evidence, analysts have long warned of cooptation. Yet the effects of official aid
are conditioned by the volume of funds, the diversity of NGO income streams, and the require-
ments of donors. A growing share of official aid channeled through NGOs may reflect the
weakness of donor agencies rather than an intention to coopt NGOs (Cooley and Ron 2002;
Lancaster 2007; Dietrich 2016). Many NGOs have also cultivated a diversity of income sources
to avoid capture by specific donors (Mitchell 2014). Finally, donors can attach different condi-
tions to their support for NGOs. For example, the recently terminated Partnership Programme
Agreement in the UK offered both substantial and unrestricted support to a small group of
INGOs (Stroup 2012). Donors’ varied preferences around bypassing host states and program
design shape the financing of NGOs.
States and NGOs are not unitary actors, which complicates analysis of their relationships.
Oxfam’s advocacy division may be issuing harsh critiques of the UK Treasury while Oxfam
program officers are working closely with the Department for International Development in
the field. Ultimately, the contours of any one state–NGO relationship – conflictual, coopera-
tive, competitive, and cooptive – depend on the issue at hand, the priorities and power of the
NGO, the wealth, freedoms, and regulations of the state, and the financial ties (if any) among
the two actors.

Influence
NGOs and states increasingly interact as the size and prominence of NGOs has grown globally.
Who influences whom? The first wave of NGO research in IR documented instances of INGO
influence to critique the exclusive focus on state actors (Price 2003). These studies, critical in
opening the door to NGO researchers, also selected on the dependent variable by taking up
positive cases of INGO influence on states and IGOs. Most NGO research today instead seeks
to unpack how, when, and why NGOs shape state policy and practice.
There are three big problems in studying INGO influence: it may not exist, it is difficult
to document, and INGOs themselves may be reticent to claim credit. First, some scholars use
this to dismiss the importance of NGOs. Samy Cohen (2005) highlights the capacity of “post-
modern” states to adapt to globalization, and posits that most NGOs lack the ability or desire
to influence governments. Drezner (2008) argues that NGOs and other private actors play a
limited role at best in regulating the global economy. In some sense, these skeptical accounts
are valuable correctives to the unrealistic hopes placed in NGOs to powerfully and perfectly
represent a range of voices from a position of unconstrained independence (Dany 2012), but
most NGO research recognizes the potential if not actual influence of NGOs.
Second, as is characteristic in all research on the role of private interest groups (Hojnacki
et al. 2012), scholars of NGOs struggle to isolate the effects of NGO action in a dynamic policy
process (Busby 2010). Third, NGO access and authority can depend on a perception that they

39
Sarah S. Stroup

are apolitical or weak, leading many INGOs to downplay their influence. In service delivery,
many NGOs present themselves to their host states as meeting environmental or health needs
with precise and beneficial programs that have no broader political effects (DeMars and Dijkzeul
2015; Manji and O’Coill 2002). For other INGOs targeting powerful states, their authority
can rest on a perception that they are righteous but weak (Rubenstein 2015; Stroup and Wong
2017). It is thus possible that existing research offers a conservative estimate of NGO influence.
Other chapters in this volume offer more specific discussions of NGO influence in various
regions and issue areas. Much of the early literature on INGO influence focused on their role
as norm entrepreneurs that redefine state identify and interest (Finnemore 1996; Price 2003;
Florini 2000). We can also conceive of INGOs as entering different stages of the policy pro-
cess, including issue emergence, agenda setting, policy design, implementation, and monitoring
(Avant et al. 2010; Weiss 2016).
Carpenter (2007) has drawn attention to the role of INGOs in issue emergence and the fact
that many problems are “lost causes” (Carpenter 2014), never taken up by states or IGOs. As
the politics of INGO networks determine which issues emerge, particular INGOs frame and
then take these issues to the policy agendas of powerful states (Bob 2005; Clark 2001; Florini
2000). NGOs also design policies. In climate change, HIV/AIDS, debt relief, and global justice,
INGOs can drive policy gatekeepers to adopt moderately costly policy changes when the issues
are framed to align with existing values (Busby 2010). The NGO Article 19 used its expert and
moral authority to successfully design freedom of information laws (Berliner 2016). Global and
local NGOs have driven health policy in Malawi, Nigeria, and Senegal (Robinson 2017). In
the implementation phase, NGOs can fill capacity gaps or amplify state efforts. Joint military
and INGO action in humanitarian aid can help distribute costs and improve the human rights
and security of the affected population (Bell et al. 2014). NGOs can act as agents for state prin-
cipals in implementing health programs (Dionne 2018; Murdie and Hicks 2013) or democracy
aid (Bush 2015). Finally, NGOs may be particularly influential as monitors of state behavior.
Franklin (2008) shows that criticism can lead to short-term reduction in state repression in
Latin America. Non-democracies may be particularly susceptible to the effects of INGO sham-
ing (Hendrix and Wong 2013). In environmental protection, INGOs strategically fill govern-
ance gaps by targeting states with relatively low domestic environmental activism (Murdie and
Urpelainen 2015).
NGOs can affect various stages of the policy process at states. Two final insights from the
extant research deserve note. First, influence has no normative content – a strong influence over
states from NGOs can yield dysfunctional outcomes or bad policy. Second, a lack of INGO
influence over states may reflect not INGO weakness but rather a proliferation of possible tar-
gets for INGOs. Today, states are an (but perhaps not the) important target for NGO activity.

Conclusion
Among the many disciplinary approaches to the study of NGOs, IR scholars are particularly
well situated to understand the diversity of relationships among states and NGOs. While NGO
research took off in IR as part of a critique of state-centrism, research now reveals a much more
complex picture than critical NGOs limiting state autonomy. States and NGOs interact in an
increasingly crowded field of global governance, struggling to influence both one another as
well as the practices of intergovernmental organizations and corporations.
Research on NGO–state relations today proceeds through an exciting and diverse array of
lenses. For example, as IR takes up many other actors besides states, scholars have revisited the
fundamental concepts of power and authority, often explicitly exploring the forms of power

40
 NGOs’ interactions with states

and authority exercised by NGOs (Barnett and Duvall 2004; Avant et al. 2010). NGOs have
the ability to produce categories of meaning and draw upon their expertise and moral author-
ity. Other scholars have turned away from actors altogether and examined practices in global
politics, including those adopted or promoted by NGOs (DeMars and Dijkzeul 2015; Neumann
and Sending 2010).
These lines of inquiry, combined with continued attention to variation among NGOs, prom-
ise to reveal new dimensions of NGO–state relations. Are declining growth rates in the INGO
population (Bush and Hadden 2017) and increasing restrictions on INGO activities by host
states (Dupuy et al. 2016) indicative of larger changes in the demand for or legitimacy of NGOs?
Alternately, will expanding legitimacy of NGOs or continued demand for their services mean
that more governance tasks will be taken up by NGOs instead of states? Research on NGOs no
longer happens in the shadow of the state, but instead demonstrates how specific NGOs and
states work around, through, and over one another. The rich empirical record that has emerged
not only demonstrates the diversity of the NGO sector but also raises fundamental questions
about the role of NGOs in constraining or enhancing the power and authority of states.

Note
1 Najam (2000) refers to this relationship as one of complementarity. This is a slightly different and argu-
ably more optimistic assessment of side-by-side activity that might reflect a de facto division of labor. My
own view is that NGOs and states are more frequently viewed as substitutes rather than complements,
though this likely reflects an IR scholar’s heavier attention to regulation and advocacy rather than service
delivery.

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 3
NGOs in global governance
Molly Ruhlman

Introduction
The very concept of global governance is a puzzle. There is no central government, but a dense
web of rules and institutions stretching across an anarchic system. Without a central organ-
izer, governance is multilayered, diverse, fragmented, and interesting. The public, private, and
civil society spheres combine and collide in creative ways. As a result, diverse participants use
a mixture of norms, rules, and tools of pressure or persuasion to influence one another. Yet,
for several formational decades, the study of global governance focused on nation-states to the
exclusion of non-state actors. Global governance thus became primarily a study of state-centric
multilateralism.
A more comprehensive study of global governance is emerging, one that harkens back to a
time before the rise of state-centric IR theory, when the distinction between nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs) and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) was peripheral (Rochester
1986), and scholars wrote about an “internationalism” that was both public and private at the
same time (Davies 2017). This chapter highlights the benefits of this turn toward pluralism
(Willetts 2011), but begins by collecting what we have learned about NGOs in global govern-
ance from more traditional perspectives.
First I briefly describe the roles that NGOs have played in post-war multilateral governance
institutions, focusing on how NGOs that are older than the United Nations were impacted by
its creation. This is followed by an overview of the ways in which NGOs can interact with
IGOs, and what recent studies tell us about the evolving state of NGO–IGO relations. I then
turn to a review of scholarship explaining why rules about NGOs vary across institutional struc-
tures and time. Taking stock of what we know, I then turn to what we don’t.
Looking toward the growing edge of this research agenda, I situate accumulated knowl-
edge within a broader context of changing global governance theory and practice. Formal and
informal opportunities for NGO participation and influence have expanded, while the IGO
system itself has undergone changes that affect NGO participation opportunities. Finally, I
argue that to fully understand the impact of NGOs on global governance we need to move
away from thinking of NGOs as parenthetical and recognize the limitations of state-centric
approaches to IR.

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 NGOs in global governance

Observing NGOs in global governance

The typical storyline for describing modern global governance begins at the end of World War
II. If we start with the writing of the UN Charter, then Article 71’s invitation to the Economic
and Social Council (ECOSOC) to establish consultative arrangements with NGOs is a bold
new start to NGO participation in global governance. But according to many voluntary associa-
tions that had participated in the work of the League of Nations, Article 71 only codified what
existed as informal practice before the war (Charnovitz 1997; Pickard 1956). This is a useful
historical example to begin a review of the roles that NGOs play in the modern global govern-
ance system, and the interactive effect of rules, recognition, and expectation.
Formal rules are harder to deny than informal ones, but formal rules can also establish mecha-
nisms of control. Article 71 constrains NGOs to the institutionally weak ECOSOC, which
manages the selection process, monitors NGOs with accreditation, and occasionally suspends
or even expels NGOs – all mechanisms of control that have expanded over time (Otto 1996;
Ruhlman 2015, 46–8). ECOSOC serves as “the first hurdle for NGOs to gain access” to the
UN system (Martens 2004, 81), and the tendency of governments to use the process to exclude
particular NGOs has earned the NGO Committee the nickname “anti-NGO committee” (The
International Service for Human Rights 2017).
On the other hand, while informal practice can be easily curtailed, such as it was in the later
years of the League of Nations (Charnovitz 1997; Gunter 1977; Otto 1996; Pei-heng 1981),
formality assures recognition. The “dignity of officialdom” (Pickard 1956) begets respect. So,
while voluntary associations themselves were not new in 1945, the changing terminology and
ascendancy of the term NGO, along with the public recognition of this actor as a legitimate
sector in international politics, created the sense that an unprecedented international actor was
born (Davies 2014; Gotz 2008).
The new reputation of “NGOs” as a recognizable consultative UN partner launched private
associations onto a new path, empowered with a recognized title and global acknowledgment.
Thus, NGOs do not have to be neoteric to be newly important. Renewed public recognition
facilitated the emergence of a strong norm of NGO recognition, inclusion, and participation in
global governance processes, so that by the 1990s NGOs obtained a “taken-for-grantedness”
(Marberg, Kranenburg, and Korzilius 2016). Institutions of global governance today are
expected to share some information with NGOs, or include them in the work that they do,
and nearly all international organizations offer some means of NGO engagement in their rules
(Tallberg et al. 2014).
There are several ways that IGOs and NGOs may interact, and authors have employed many
definitions of engagement, participation, or access. To start with, there are different sorts of interac-
tion possible at each stage of the policy cycle (Steffek 2012). Further, we can differentiate between
what NGOs are allowed to do, such as listening, speaking, or deciding. The result generally looks
something like Table 3.1, although quite a range of activity remains within each category.
In addition, each of these kinds of interaction might be formal or informal, extended selectively
to small numbers of NGOs or broadly to many, and linked to an IGO’s secretariat or its assembly
of states. For example, in 2000 the UNDP Administrator, Mark Malloch Brown, created a Civil
Society Organization Advisory Committee. This Committee was an informal innovation, formed
by individually inviting representatives of civil society organizations to serve together in an advi-
sory capacity at UNDP headquarters. It increased the voice of civil society representatives, poten-
tially influencing high-level decision-making within UNDP, but the innovation was dependent
on UNDP Administrator support, which fluctuated over time (Ruhlman 2015, 114–17).
In contrast, all NGOs with ECOSOC accreditation have observation rights at UNICEF Executive

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Table 3.1 Types of nongovernmental participation in intergovernmental organizations

Decision-making Implementation Accountability

Deliberation about, and Deliberation about the Mechanisms of review
selection of, policy or means of enacting and oversight,
programming options chosen policies or process to seek
programs, and remedy for
participation in grievance
execution of tasks
Transparency Disclosure of documents Disclosure of Disclosure of
NGOs have access and records, possibly documents and documents and
to information, opportunity to attend records, possibly records, possibly
or opportunity and observe meetings opportunity opportunity to
to observe to attend and attend and observe
observe meetings mechanisms
of institutional
oversight
Voice In addition to ability to Consultation, and Ability of NGOs to
NGOs provide attend meetings, an cooperation, submit information
information opportunity to make with civil society to oversight
statements (written groups and NGOs mechanisms, and
or oral). Most robust in the field prior to report to panels,
includes membership to and during investigators, or
and right to participate implementation ombudsman
fully in discussions
Vote/Action Representatives from civil Full partnership Representatives
NNGOs participate society hold some with civil society from civil society
in decision- institutional power to or NGOs in the hold institutional
making, or hold participate in decision- implementation power to influence
institutional making, such as a vote phase. Possibly final decision of
powers similar to delegation to oversight body,
states NGOs such as a vote

Board meetings, where they can request an opportunity to make a statement. Further, at all
UNICEF Executive Board meetings a representative of UNICEF’s NGO Committee has a for-
mal opportunity to make a statement. Roles and authority may be even more equal between
NGOs and states in hybrid organizations, or public–private partnerships (Andonova 2017).
In addition to intra-institutional participation, NGOs might influence IGO behavior from
the outside, which means that even if they are entirely excluded from IGO processes, NGOs
may still impact IGO behavior. For example, NGOs may shape system norms (Willetts 2011),
shift the dominant frame (Allan and Hadden 2017), alter an IGO’s reputation or even the
standards by which IGO reputations are constructed (Belloni and Moschella 2013), or shift the
interests or behaviors of participating member-states.
This chapter, however, is primarily interested in the kinds of NGO–IGO engagement
included in Table 3.1 above. There is evidence of an expansion of each of these intra-institutional
sorts of interaction across the global governance system, although differently across issue areas.
For example, if we look just to the regime of environmental governance, which is highly frag-
mented (with more than 1,200 multilateral environmental agreements),1 we find a strong norm
of civil society inclusion, as a “permanent fixture,” in decision-making (Green 2017, 401).

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 NGOs in global governance

At the 1992 UN Conference on the Environment and Development, which drew an unprec-
edented number of participating NGOs (Van Rooy 1997), non-state actors were organized for
their contributions into nine constitutive groups. This method of organizing consultation was
inscribed in the conference outcome document Agenda 21, with language highlighting the
importance of genuine participation of stakeholders. Because of its strong statement about the
rightness of including social actors in international institutions Peter Willetts has called Agenda
21 a “charter for democracy” (2009, 75). This principle and practice of Major Group consulta-
tion then transferred to the Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD) (Bigg 2001), the
CSD’s successor, the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, and the UN
Environment Program (Morrow 2015; Ruhlman 2015).
Beyond the Major Group consultation process, NGOs are also very active outside formal
negotiations in the environment and sustainable development regimes. Side events provide
opportunities for intra-NGO community negotiations, facilitating the formation of common
goals and strategies, as well as individual NGO capacity building (Hjerpe and Linnér 2011). This
helps NGOs communicate a strategically developed frame when they participate in negotiations
with nation-states. For example, NGOs engaged in the Paris negotiations strategically shifted
their frame toward matters of justice, which helped build new coalitions with the Global South
and steer the attention of nation-states toward addressing the adverse consequences of climate
change. The shift to a justice frame pushed the conversation toward matters of loss and damage,
and made it difficult for states to set aside the subject of disparate consequences of climate change
faced by the most vulnerable (Allan and Hadden 2017).
The climate change and sustainable development regimes are good examples of arenas of
complex governance. There are no singular central sites of formal authority, but diffuse forums,
multiple venues for negotiation, and several orchestrating actors such as UNEP, the High Level
Political Forum on Sustainable Development, and the UNFCCC. The multiplicity of ways
that NGOs engage in the many processes demonstrates the importance of an expanded view of
power. NGOs wield influence even when they do not hold a vote on final outcomes or result-
ant treaties.
This is also very clear in the human rights regime. Every advance in the recognition or
protection of human rights has been ushered in with the active engagement of civil society.
Social movement organizations worked tirelessly to abolish slavery, to establish international
laws to ameliorate the brutality of war, and to expand norms and laws protecting individual
freedoms. Modern NGOs are deeply engaged in the global governance of human rights, and
the human rights regime is particularly open to NGO engagement (Tallberg et al. 2014).
NGOs are especially active in the agenda setting, implementation, and monitoring phases of
human rights governance. In comparison with the environmental regime, though, NGOs
continue to face resistance by some governments to extensive rights of participation in
decision-making. For example, just after the UNCED conference where the engagement
of NGOs increased (and the precedent to sustain participation rights for the future was
established), the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights took a different tack and largely
excluded NGOs from official discussions (Otto 1996). NGOs are persistent, though, and
utilized many tools of influence on conference proceedings even when not granted direct
participatory rights (Otto 1996).
Aware of government resistance to NGO criticism, they have wielded the weapon of over-
whelming documentation of human rights abuses to successfully push for the creation of many
expert-led (rather than state-led) mechanisms of human rights monitoring (Gaer 1995). The
resulting supervisory bodies work closely with NGOs, relying on them for much of the docu-
mentation supporting their work (Gaer 1995), while government-led bodies such as the Human

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Rights Council have been less open to NGO participation (McGaughey 2017; Moss 2010).
NGOs predicted this, which is why organizations such as Human Rights Watch proposed that
the Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review process include a special rapporteur
or panel of experts that would take NGO submissions (Sweeney and Saito 2009, footnote 14).
In contrast to the human rights regime, where NGOs are known to be especially active, the
global trade regime is seen as especially closed to NGO participation. Despite its reputation as
fully excluding NGOs from any means of participation, however, many have been active in the
WTO system (Murphy 2012). NGOs were allowed to attend ministerial conferences after the
creation of the WTO in 1995, but did not do so in great numbers until the 1999 meeting held
in Seattle, after which the WTO began to “actively engage” non-state actors (De Bièvre and
Hanegraaff 2016).
Formal opportunities to participate in the WTO system are limited, but NGOs are important
players in the process. They actively expand the trade agenda, raise capacities of governments,
and build coalitions to impact outcomes (Murphy 2012). The most direct way to participate
in the heart of decision-making is to be invited by a member-state to participate in an official
delegation (O’Brien 2000). This role of gatekeeping by member-states is powerful in dispute
settlement as well. Although the Dispute Settlement Understanding does not grant NGOs any
participation opportunities, NGOs attempt to influence dispute settlement by submitting ami-
cus briefs (Dunoff 2004). While these briefs have been generally admitted, in practice they are
only considered when adopted by a state party to a dispute (Dunoff 2004). Overall, though, the
central site of trade governance has shifted from the WTO to regional trade negotiations, where
influencing national governments becomes the primary mechanism for impact.
In general, there has been tension within the trade regime between economic principles of
trade liberalization and environmental governance goals (Esty 2001), which facilitates a cul-
ture of keeping NGOs at arm’s length. This has also been true of the other two major eco-
nomic organizations, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. While
environmental matters are inherently intertwined with trade, as is human rights with develop-
ment, these organizations are principally economic and environmental or human rights con-
cerns have not been central to organizational decision-making, or goals (Esty 2001; Sarfaty
2009). Concomitantly, the Bretton Woods institutions have had contentious relationship with
NGOs, which have rejected the environmental consequences of large-scale development pro-
jects, such as the construction of dams, since the 1980s. Efforts to improve relations with civil
society groups have often seemed reactionary, as an attempt at damage control and reputation
repair, once sustained campaigns against the World Bank and IMF became routine (Belloni and
Moschella 2013; Bräutigam and Segarra 2007).
Still, the IMF and World Bank have each taken steps to increase civil society participa-
tion, and especially transparency (Woods and Narlikar 2001), in the last three decades. In the
early 1980s the World Bank created a World Bank-NGO Committee, and began encourag-
ing greater engagement of NGOs at the local level (Bräutigam and Segarra 2007; Woods and
Narlikar 2001). The Bank established an inspection panel in 1993, which Ngaire Woods and
Amrita Narlikar called “the most powerful and unprecedented step towards greater horizontal
accountability taken by any of the international economic institutions” (Woods and Narlikar
2001, 576). The shift toward acceptance and engagement of civil society and NGOs became
especially clear at the IMF in the late 1990s. Since 1998, aiming to repair a tarnished reputation
after the Asian financial crisis, civil society organizations came to be viewed by the IMF as a
primary audience of its external communications (Belloni and Moschella 2013, 544). No formal
participation roles in decision-making have been granted, but efforts toward more transparency,
consultation, and accountability expanded.

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 NGOs in global governance

This brief, selective, tour of ways NGOs participate in global governance has been like a
flashlight in the dark. It is difficult to have a full view of the roles that NGOs play in interna-
tional institutions, or the impact that their activities have on global governance. Descriptive case
studies have informed us about the mechanisms through which NGOs may wield influence,
and the barriers to their impact, but with the deficiencies of selection bias, it has been difficult
to make broad claims about NGO engagement or systemic change over time.
Compiling data on many IGOs, or mining datasets for information on rules about NGO
engagement, throws light across the whole system of global governance. In 2007 Grigorescu
compared 70 IGOs on several measures of transparency, which offered a snapshot of public
information practices in 2004 (Grigorescu 2007). Vabulas drew on the Correlates of War
Project and offered a picture of the consultative arrangements of about 300 IGOs in 2011
(Vabulas 2013). While snapshot quantitative studies can provide initial checks on claims made
about the reasons for variation in how IGOs interact with NGOs (such as the democratic
nature of member-states, or the issue area of IGO governance), we need time series data to
evaluate whether there has been a systemic expansion of roles for NGOs in global governance,
or if the observed expansion has been unique to the few organizations that have received the
most attention.
In 2013 Tallberg, Sommerer, Squatrito, and Jönsson published their study of how IGOs
“open up” to NGOs, based on a new dataset (Tallberg et al. 2013). Their data covers the
years between 1950 and 2010 and includes 50 organizations, which were drawn as a random
sample of 182 autonomous IGOs. These 50 are then broken down into 298 subsidiary bodies
(Sommerer and Tallberg 2017). With this new data they show that international organiza-
tions have “undergone a profound institutional transformation over past decades, dramatically
expanding the opportunities for [transnational actors] to participate in global policy- making”
(Tallberg et al. 2014, 768).
They observe an expansion of formal rules allowing the participation of NGOs in the institu-
tions of global governance. But their study does not capture changes in practice, the evolution
of informal rules, the interpretation or application of rules, or engagement of NGOs in govern-
ance beyond the formal rules (Shapovalova 2016).
Of course, even in careful single case studies, it is difficult to clearly identify the power of
NGOs because “most of their influence is invisible except to immediate participants” (Willetts
1996, 54) and therefore easy to overlook (Durham 2012). Still, case studies expose a more com-
prehensive view of how NGOs are engaged in global governance, including an investigation
of informal rules, variation in the application of formal rules, and some of the subtle powers by
which NGOs influence politics. Further, though a random sampling of IGOs counters selec-
tion bias, some intergovernmental organizations are more substantively influential than others,
justifying their greater scrutiny and investigation. So, as is generally true, we need a combination
of qualitative and quantitative data to understand both the shifts in formal rules and informal
changes to see a full picture of the changes in ways that NGOs take part in global governance.
If we look at this literature as a whole, the broad large-N and deep case study investiga-
tions, we see that while formal access and formal participation opportunities have increased,
the changes are not always unidirectional toward formal direct participation of non-state actors
(Jönsson and Tallberg 2010; Liese 2010). In other words, NGOs are not becoming like states
in the ways that they participate, and influence, global governance. IGOs generally continue
to monopolize formal rules about decision-making. But other means of NGO participation in
global governance have expanded (Otto 1996).
We can see this most clearly when we look at NGO participation in global conferences.
The expansion in the number of conferences convened by the United Nations importantly

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broadened opportunities for transnational social movements and accompanying NGOs (Joachim
2016; Pianta and Marchetti 2015). While civil society has always been active inside and outside
global conferences (Charnovitz 1997), the expansion of the UN system and global confer-
ences, along with Bretton Woods institution conferences, the World Economic Forum, and
other multilateral summits, spurred new transnational movements from 1970 to the end of the
20th century (Pianta and Marchetti 2015). In these ways the creation of a UN system, includ-
ing the increased name-recognition and associated legitimacy that came with labeling NGOs
as appropriate consultative partners, and the establishment of conferences that attracted civil
society actors, created a favorable political opportunity structure for fostering new NGOs (Van
Der Heijden 2016) – even where domestic political opportunity is stifling (Reimann 2001). An
expansion in the universe of NGOs only augmented NGO power, since the power of ordinary
individuals depends on mobilizing the masses.
Taking stock of all the ways that NGOs and other voices of civil society participate in global
governance, it appears that non-state actors are more important to the institutions of global
governance than they have ever been. Their recognition, at a minimum, is now standard in
most governance regimes, and their participation is expected in many. Formal institutional rules
have shifted across the system; not equally or evenly, but broadly. Further, there are many ways
that non-state actors participate in global governance that are not captured by observations of
changing rules in formal IGOs.

Explaining variation in institutional design

While observations of an expansion in international NGO activity accumulated, attention
shifted to explaining emergent patterns. Why did some IGOs change their rules (or initially
write their rules) to allow NGOs to access information, observe meetings, or participate in
discussions, while others did not? Many suggestions had been proffered, including the increas-
ing complexity of globalization or the declining ability of governments to solve new global
problems (Benner, Reinicke, and Witte 2004), a growing power of advocacy movements
fueled by communications technology (O’Brien 2000; Tussie and Riggirozzi 2001), and shift-
ing global norms highlighting a moral imperative of civil society engagement (Thérien and
Dumontier 2009). Generally, however, these kinds of broad explanations were not as helpful
for explaining variation across institutions as they might be for explaining an overall upward
NGO participation trend.
Existing scholarship on institutional design offered an example of how to explain varia-
tion. Although rationalist accounts of the functional design of multilateral institutions did not
include non-state actor interaction as a variable, this body of work laid an important foundation
for investigation. Thus, while early NGO–IGO literature had been predominantly descriptive
(Charnovitz 1997; Weiss and Gordenker 1996; Willetts 2000), more recent work has aimed at
explanation and hypothesis testing. Many authors began explaining variation in several aspects
of non-state actor involvement in global governance, including IGO transparency (Grigorescu
2007), participation in multilateral negotiations (Bohmelt 2012), delegation to non-state actors
(Green 2017), and most especially the rules governing NGO interaction with IGOs (Nasiritousi
and Linnér 2015; Ripinsky and van den Bossche 2007; Ruhlman 2015; Sommerer and Tallberg
2017; Steffek 2010, 2012; Steffek, Kissling, and Nanz 2008; Tallberg et al. 2013; Vabulas 2013).
This work emerged when our understanding of the powers that non-state actors wield
(Betsill and Corell 2008; Keck and Sikkink 1998; Risse-Kappen 1995) intersected with schol-
arship explaining the design of international institutions (Hawkins et al. 2006; Koremenos,
Lipson, and Snidal 2003). When the accumulation of these converged, several comparative

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studies explaining (rather than describing) the “where, why, and with what consequences” non-
state actors participate in global governance followed (Tallberg and Jönsson 2010).
There are several lessons rising to the top as this research accrues. Foremost, a functional
demand for resources is proving to be a strong predictor of formal NGO participation rules
(Tallberg et al. 2014), and a comprehensive rationalist account for variation in NGO roles
across IGOs has emerged (Steffek 2012). This helps explain the variation that we see across the
policy cycle, where resource needs vary (Steffek 2010). We consistently find greater openness to
NGO participation in implementation (Shapovalova 2016) and where there are monitoring and
enforcement bodies (Vabulas 2013). Tallberg, Sommerer, Squatrito, and Jönsson (2014, 764)
find that “demand for compliance monitoring is one of the strongest predictors of [transnational
actor] access.” The primacy of the resource-exchange explanation for variation in participa-
tion rules echoes the dominance of rational-design scholarship in the broader study of global
governance.
However, it is possible that there has been an over-confidence in the resource-exchange
account, rooted in the difficulty of capturing the full impact of shifting norms. For example, the
largest quantitative study conducted on this subject so far shows that NGO protest was signifi-
cant for increasing openness before 1990, and after 1990 IGOs that had not experienced protests
expanded their own NGO participation rules when similar IGOs had been the targets of protest.
The authors point out that this raises the possibility that after 1990 non-targeted IGOs may have
taken “preventative action” (Tallberg et al. 2014, 764) to ward off possible negative reputational
impacts from NGO-led protests. In other words, the consequences of violating new inclusivity
norms after 1990, such as being targeted by protest and suffering reputational damage, may have
been influential in producing participation rule change in some organizations. Still, accumulat-
ing research tells us that resource-demand is a strong predictor of IGO-NGO engagement. But,
notably, although information is often considered to be a primary resource held by NGOs, it
does not appear that IGOs have much demand for technical information provided by NGOs.
Instead, states and IGOs are often able to gather information on their own (Bohmelt 2012;
Tallberg et al. 2014). Thus, the demand experienced by IGOs that drives increasing partici-
pation opportunities is driven by the need for other resources. As we continue to study the
resource-exchange thesis we should expand our conception of the benefits and costs distributed
to IGOs and NGOs from their interaction.
Lastly, our progress in considering the autonomy of IGO bureaucracies has helped advance
understanding of what is going on here. The states and bureaucracies of IGOs may well have
different interests in resource exchange with NGOs. Bureaucracies may see engagement of
NGOs as an opportunity to diversify their resources away from reliance on member-states
(Andonova 2017; Johnson 2014), and even as a way to press member-states for greater support
of IGO goals. This has been documented in several case studies, such as UNICEF (Ruhlman
2015), FAO (Johnson 2016), and the European Union (Montoya 2009, 2013). The presence of
a secretariat also makes delegation of multilateral environmental agreements to non-state actors
much more likely (Green 2017, 11). Further, since 1950 an increasing percent of the decisions
that have expanded formal participatory opportunities for NGOs have been ad hoc administra-
tive decisions (though the majority are still decided by states in subsidiary bodies) (Tallberg et al.
2013, 88), and there has also been a growing focus on secretariat autonomy and agency (Barnett
and Finnemore 2004; Johnson 2014).
So, while there is an accumulation of evidence about the importance of bureaucracies for
expanding the multi-sectoral nature of global governance, there remains plenty of room for
investigation of the relationship between bureaucracies, states, and NGOs in the design of insti-
tutions. IGOs have an interest in diversifying resources and reaching beyond nation-states and

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their nominal monopoly on the power of shaping and distributing global public goods, but there
are also costs to inviting additional actors to participate.
Nation-states similarly face both costs and benefits of NGO inclusion. Member-state regime
type is likely an important variable here (Grigorescu 2007; Tallberg, Sommerer, and Squatrito
2015). But there is a great deal left to be explained about the relationship between national
democracy and the role that civil society actors play in multilateral institutions. The work
reviewed in this chapter has laid a fertile ground for future research on this point. There are
several other doors of opportunity for scholars going forward, such as greater comparison of the
factors shaping formal rules and informal engagement (Shapovalova 2016), the consequences of
expanded NGO participation roles for outcomes of policy, and for perspectives of (or substan-
tive measures of) democratic legitimacy, and future exploration of the relationship between civil
society and bureaucracies.
If we focus only on formal rules of IGOs, and our understanding of IGO design primar-
ily considers the interest of nation-states as principals, then we miss much of the dynamism of
NGOs in global governance. Certainly, our recent progress in this field was built on the shoul-
ders of the state-centric models of global governance, scholarship on institutional design, and
principal–agent models. But our future progress should take advantage of the growing edge of
global governance scholarship, which pushes beyond state-centric theory.

Understanding NGOs in global governance

Studying the powers of non-state actors necessarily challenges state-centric theory, and the calls
for disassembling the stiflingly strict distinction between state and non-state, or public and pri-
vate, in favor of an actor-neutral study of authority, influence, and power are growing. Yet our
main tools for understanding the structures and processes of global governance were designed in
a state-centric era of international relations theory that emphasized the separateness of nation-
states, IGOs, and nongovernmental organizations (Koch 2016). Accordingly, IGOs and NGOs
are understood as wholly dissimilar actors. Studies of NGOs in global governance have mainly
considered whether or not they influence the central players (nation-states and IGOs), the
mechanisms by which influence might happen, and how NGOs shape the underlying norms
upon which the state-centric roots of global governance operate.
Too often NGOs have been treated as novel upstarts that only recently begun challenging the
power of states and banging on the doors of IGOs, where global governance decision-making is
managed by member-states. This dominant description of NGO–IGO relations is misleading in
two ways. First, NGOs (private voluntary associations) are not entirely new. Global civil society
and global institutions of governance emerged in the same stew of socio-economic and political
forces of the 18th century (Smith and Wiest 2012; Tarrow 2011).
While their title, public role, and position in global governance have changed in impor-
tant ways, they have always been present and important to international politics. This matters
because it shapes how we view NGOs themselves, and the impact that they can have on inter-
national relations. By thinking of them as newer than IGOs, we emphasize the centrality of
IGOs to global governance and minimize the power potential of NGOs.
Second, civil society momentum has often preceded the emergence of new multilateral insti-
tutions. Early international conferences in the 19th century were sites of extensive nongovern-
mental activity, and sometimes direct participation. For example, experts were allowed to vote
as a delegation separate from their governments at the International Sanitary Conference of 1851
(Charnovitz 1997). Further, the conferences that voluntary associations participated in often
led to the creation of IGOs (White 1949). This was true of the International Meteorological

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Organization in the 19th century (Charnovitz 1997), the International Criminal Court in the
20th century (Durham 2012), and the UN Commission on the Status of Women that led to the
establishment of the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN
Women) in the 21st century (Friedman 2003), among others. Because the innovative experi-
ments of the earliest multilateral institutions were sites of engagement for both nation-states and
civil society, “the distinction between the IGO and NGO had not yet crystallized” (Charnovitz
1997, 199). Yet, the traditional approach considers NGOs as responsive to pre-existing global
governance institutions. Instead, we might view the work of NGOs as contemporaneous, or
even as antecedent, to the creation of global governance. Willetts (2011, 153) advocates for this
reversal in primary agency by arguing that NGOs “constructed global governance” by changing
communications systems and norms that permitted institutional change.
In short, global governance has always been a mixture of organizing voluntary associations
and nation-states into communication and negotiation. In many ways, it is the emergence of
modern social movements and their resultant voluntary civil society organizations that produced
the multilateral intergovernmental organizations that form the architecture of global governance
today (Smith and Wiest 2012). But a post-war state-based governance architecture, both the
increasing use of formal treaties and the abundant creation of nation-state membership organi-
zations, dominated global governance, and IR theory, throughout the Cold War. During the
deconstruction of imperialism, states and civil society were each focused on the consolidation of
state sovereignty in the rubric of self-determination and popular sovereignty. It is not until the
later stages of the decolonization project that transnational advocacy fully shifted to embracing a
human rights agenda, and challenging governments to do better (de Waal 2015).
We might imagine global governance as a construction project in which the modern archi-
tecture is built on a foundation of a post-war alliance. Several floors of formal, state-centric
supranational structures of authority were built throughout the Cold War. Recently, though,
the primary blueprints have changed, and the construction of familiar floor plans has slowed.
The newest buildings are less reliant on a foundation of great power resources. Like modern
hurricane-resilient or “climate change-proof buildings” (World Economic Forum 2015), these
institutions are flexible, and ready to absorb varying waves of power from unexpected sources.
The chief changes to global governance institutions include at least three types of adaptions,
each of which holds important consequences for the role that NGOs may play in new institu-
tions, and in the broader system of global governance that the new institutional forms extend.
First, new institutions are more likely to be informal, and thus without a secretariat (Vabulas
and Snidal 2013). Informal institutions produce collectively shared expectations without relying
on a formal agreement (Vabulas and Snidal 2013). These kinds of institutional arrangements are
more flexible and reduce sovereignty costs, and are similar in their utility to states as soft law in
comparison to hard law (Abbott and Snidal 2000; Vabulas and Snidal 2013). Informality, like
voluntary standards, can make it easier for states to join international agreements, even if there is
domestic political resistance (Wirth 2016). It might similarly be the case that NGOs find it easier
to be influential in informal IGOs. But, instead, NGO influence may be more readily blocked
where there are no formal rules granting access, and without secretariats serving as allies, open-
ing doors for NGOs.
Secondly, private actors are sometimes at the center of regulatory authority, so that rules
and standards guiding private actors are composed and monitored by multi-actor Private
Transnational Regulatory Organizations (PTROs) (Abbott, Green, and Keohane 2016).
PTROs, or Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) (Andonova 2017, 2005), became much more
common in the 1990s and through the 2000s, especially in the field of environmental govern-
ance and sustainable development (Pattberg and Stripple 2008), where institutions are often

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described as “orchestrating” diverse actors (Abbott 2017; Gordon and Johnson 2017; Lister,
Poulsen, and Ponte 2015). Andonova has identified IGO “activism” as a reason for their rise
(Andonova 2017, 3). As the “central entrepreneurs of institutional change,” the bureaucracies
of IGOs have brought together coalitions of private businesses and civil society actors to tackle
regulatory issues (Andonova 2017, 3). This is a substantively important entrance point for NGO
participation in the politics and action of global governance, which is missed by the bulk of
studies focused on the structures of formal IGOs.
Lastly, new IGOs are increasingly created by already existing ones (Johnson 2014; Shanks,
Jacobson, and Kaplan 1996), and secretariats are almost always involved in the institutional
design process (Johnson 2014). It took years for mainstream IR theory to recognize IO sec-
retariats as influential actors in their own right, but the study of IO autonomy has expanded,
and become essential to global governance theory (Barnett and Finnemore 2004, 1999; Bauer
2016; Johnson 2014). We are now observing an expansion of international institutions in which
bureaucracies are taking part in the institutional design process; the creation of what Johnson
(2014) calls IO “progeny,” and others call “emanations” (Shanks, Jacobson, and Kaplan 1996).
Identifying who is in control of the design process matters, because nation-states and bureau-
cracies have distinct interests vis-a-vis the resulting product of institutional design. On their
own, nation-states desire mechanisms of member-state control while bureaucrats desire insula-
tion from that control (Johnson 2013). The institutional design process involves a negotiation
where neither full control nor complete isolation emerges, but with the expansion of bureau-
cracies involved in the design process, IGO insulation from state control mechanisms expands
(Johnson 2013). In order to expand insulation from member-state control, IGOs can diversify
their resources.
Engaging more closely with NGOs is one way to diversify resources, such as information,
financial resources, implementation capacities, public support, and legitimacy. For example,
NGOs have historically been granted greater formal participatory opportunities in UNICEF
decision-making than in many other parts of the UN system. Initially the role of NGOs was
linked directly with national fundraising campaigns, which granted NGOs greater negotiat-
ing leverage as they sought a formal voice in the decision-making process (Ruhlman 2015).
As another example, the Food and Agriculture Organization has strategically partnered with
NGOs in order to leverage a mobilized public opinion to push governments to support FAO
goals (Johnson 2016). Bringing NGOs into the functioning of an IGO comes with costs as well,
such as decreased secrecy and increased bargaining constraints (Vabulas 2013). But many of the
benefits of their inclusion are felt most acutely in the implementation and accountability phase,
which is largely within the purview of secretariats. These are also the phases of the policy cycle
that show more openness to NGO engagement (Tallberg et al. 2014).
In sum, to accomplish complex multilateral goals, or to collectively build global public
goods, nation-states are less often producing new formal IGOs (FIGOs) and instead establish-
ing institutions that are informal and inclusive of a variety of stakeholders (Gartner 2010).
Some have described a shift away from state-centric systems toward “regulatory pluralism”
in a fragmented system (Grabosky 2013). As transnational governance has expanded, nation-
states have been unwilling to extend sufficient authority and resources to the FIGOs that they
had created and to which they had delegated so many tasks. Thus, the multilateral FIGO
architecture built in the post-war era has been inconsistently capable of garnering global
public goods and managing transnational regulatory policy. Because the domestic model of
state-based regulation has not been effectively “transposed to the transnational level” (if it
ever could be), there has been a shift in global regulatory practice toward a multi-stakeholder
model (Abbott and Snidal 2012, 97).

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 NGOs in global governance

Consequently global governance has become primarily about “orchestrating” a diverse set
of actors, and creating mechanisms whereby one authority structure leverages the power of
another to nudge states and non-state actors toward new behavior (Abbott and Snidal 2012).
These changes have led to a variety of new ways of conceiving of global governance; what
Ruggie (2014) collectively calls “new governance theory.”
The result is a resurgence of interdependence theory (Keohane and Nye 1977), or a “new
interdependence approach” (Kahler 2016). This approach, and study of transnational govern-
ance, has deep roots in IR scholarship, but has generally operated at the margins of the field
(Roger and Dauvergne 2016). Today, though, there are many examples of a general move
toward an actor-centric, rather than state-centric, study of governance (Kahler 2016) following
the expansion of non-hierarchical multi-actor “governance experiments” (Gordon and Johnson
2017) that have proliferated in the last three decades.
In sum, the United Nations, and other institutions of the post-war liberal order, have served
as greenhouses for the growth of NGOs. Since the mid-20th century the number of NGOs,
and their recognized right of participation in conferences and institutions of global govern-
ance, has expanded. While NGOs haven’t become like states in their formal roles in FIGO
decision-making, they are extensively, and increasingly, engaged in the work of governance
through consultative engagement with secretariats, participation in conferences, partnerships in
implementation on the ground, and by holding central roles in new multi-sectoral institutions of
global governance, which are rapidly becoming the dominant form of new governance arrange-
ments (Abbott, Green, and Keohane 2016).
Still, the study of international organizations has been strongly influenced by approaches that
privilege the importance of the interests and decision-making power of nation-states, such as
functionalism, principal–agent theory, and rational design (Koch 2016). We used these tools
to build a foundation for understanding the structures and mechanisms of global governance.
This knowledge then produced a wave of scholarship explaining, from an institutional design
perspective, the variation in rules of NGO inclusion and engagement in traditional IGOs. But
progress now requires admittance of pluralist theory, where states are recognized as but one
actor among many, and where power is employed by many means of influence (Willetts 2011).

Conclusion
The post-war multilateral system of the United Nations and the European Union framed our
interest in global authorities and delegated powers. Our academic attention, accordingly, was
drawn to explaining international cooperation and the emergence of formal structures of supra-
national authority. But in fact, the golden years of formal multilateral negotiations may be
passing. Perhaps we should not see formal intergovernmental organizations and multilateral
treaty-making as the standard means of global governance, but instead as the product of a tem-
porary American-led liberal order. The post-Cold War era has seen a shift toward soft law and
complex, less authoritative, voluntary governance regimes. Accordingly, our academic attention
is shifting to studies of an attenuated power of state and non-state actors to influence through
intermediaries (Abbott and Snidal 2012; Abbott, Green, and Keohane 2016).
This is good news. Studying global governance by narrowly focusing on nation-states is
parsimonious, but “hazardous if it misses relevant non-state actors, leads research astray, or
muddles policy recommendations” (Johnson 2014, 208). Furthermore, global governance has
always been more than formal intergovernmental organizations ruled by nation-states. Informal
and complex rules have long been shaped by a multiplicity of actors (Charnovitz 1997; Davies
2014). Our awareness of this was tempered in the Cold War years, but as informal and complex

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institutions return to the forefront of global governance, our scholarship increasingly sheds its
state-centrism (Kahler 2016). This will only improve our ability to understand the roles that
nongovernmental organizations play in global governance.
This chapter has reviewed what we know so far. While voluntary associations and NGOs
by other names have always been influential in global politics, public recognition and for-
mal rights of participation have expanded (Tallberg et al. 2014). Formal rules have opened up
across the state-led governance structures, but they have not done so uniformly. NGOs have
achieved more formal opportunities to participate where they have resources beneficial to states
or bureaucracies. Meanwhile, NGOs have not waited for formal institutional access to decision-
making bodies to take action or be influential. The existence of IGOs and the expansion of
global conferences have produced beneficial political opportunity structures facilitating the pro-
liferation of NGOs themselves, and their means of leverage and persuasion. As a result, NGOs
are more abundant, and have more tools of power, than ever before.
Meanwhile, governance structures are adapting in at least three interesting ways, each of
which has the potential to impact NGO roles and practices. First, existing IGO secretariats are
influencing the design of new organizations, and encouraging new organizations to draw on a
multiplicity of resources (Johnson 2014), which NGOs can often provide. Many case studies
have noted the important facilitating role that secretariats have played for advancing the par-
ticipation of NGOs in conferences, IGO decision-making, or operations. The interactive space
between IGO bureaucracies and NGOs is an emerging and promising research subject.
Second, informality is increasingly common in both international law and organization
(Abbott and Snidal 2000; Vabulas and Snidal 2013). With less hierarchic delegation of author-
ity, informality might open greater avenues for participation of non-state actors. But we have
not studied a comparison of NGO roles in informal IGOs and FIGOs, and it is also possible that
these new kinds of flexible arrangements limit the advances in recognized rights of participa-
tion that NGOs have gained, which is often furthered by the precedent made through written
recognition (such as the UN Charter and Agenda 21 examples given above).
Lastly, there has been a striking expansion in the use of private transnational regulatory
arrangements, which integrate many kinds of actors (Abbott, Green, and Keohane 2016;
Andonova 2017). The focus of global governance research has been traditional formal nation-
state organizations engaged in broad decision-making, not the public–private partnerships aimed
at specific industries or implementation tasks. It has been hard to apply IR theory and our regu-
lar tools for understanding governance to these kinds of partnerships. Their study, therefore, has
remained on the margins on the global governance field. But as governance, broadly, becomes
more pluralistic and less hierarchical, and as our means for understanding these new governance
mechanisms grows, we should be better positioned to understand the whole breadth of actual
global governance, including private transnational regulatory organizations.
We do not know what consequences these shifts will hold for the roles that NGOs play in
global governance. There are clearly many doors open to future investigation. Just as advances in
state-centric theory expanded our understanding of the design of IGOs, and the variation in rules
governing NGOs in those institutions, the growing edge of global governance theory will help us
understand the roles that NGOs play in the newest international institutions. To do so, we will need
to continue diversifying our understanding of resources and power, and the actors that hold them.

Note
1 Data from Ronald B. Mitchell. 2002–2017. International Environmental Agreements Database Project (Version
2017.1). Available at: http://iea.uoregon.edu, accessed: 13 November 2017.

58
 NGOs in global governance

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 4
Transnational non-state politics
Thomas Davies

Introduction
Traditional approaches to the study of international relations are notorious for having adopted
largely state-centric perspectives. As Lake (2008, 41) has noted, neorealist and neoliberal
approaches are especially vulnerable to such a critique, but so too are certain variants of con-
structivism and even aspects of critical theory that are focused on deconstructing states and
their practices. Analyses of NGOs in international relations have commonly responded to this
context by highlighting the ways in which NGOs can influence the behaviour of states such as
through the “boomerang pattern” (Keck and Sikkink 1998) and by influencing intergovern-
mental decision-making (Price 1998). Approaches such as these retain the state as the central
unit of analysis in international relations, with NGOs influential to the extent to which states
change their behaviour in response to them.
A more radical approach to understanding the role of NGOs in world politics is to abandon
the state as the principal unit of analysis, and to reconsider international relations in terms of
relations that bypass states altogether (Wapner 1995; Büthe 2010). In this chapter, I identify
and discuss in turn: (i) the ways in which NGO advocacy can be influential by influencing
the behaviour of other non-state actors and of private individuals; (ii) the independent service
provision roles of NGOs; (iii) the non-state governance functions of NGOs; and in light of
this (iv) the contributions of NGOs to transnational non-state order. The chapter proceeds to
explore critiques of these aspects of transnational non-state politics before concluding by con-
sidering areas for further research.

Advocacy bypassing the state

Although states are a frequent target for NGO advocacy campaigns, attention should also be
drawn to the ways in which NGOs influence the behaviour of a much wider array of interna-
tional actors. As this section will outline, NGOs wield influence not only over corporate actors
in the economic arena, but also a broad range of wider social and cultural institutions. In so
doing, this section explores some of the ways in which power is wielded internationally through
processes and dynamics that bypass the state and its institutions.

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The role of NGOs in seeking to influence the behaviour of transnational profit-making

businesses has a history as extensive as that of NGOs seeking to influence intergovernmental
policy-making. One of the world’s oldest NGOs, now known as Anti-Slavery International,
for instance, promoted boycotts of slave-produced goods in its efforts to address the slave trade
in the nineteenth century (Heartfield 2016). In recent years, successful campaigns include
Greenpeace’s boycott campaign to end the use of ancient forest trees in Kimberly-Clark prod-
ucts, and the boycott of Fruit of the Loom that contributed towards its reversal of a factory clo-
sure in Honduras (Ethical Consumer 2016). An alternative strategy is the “buycott”, by which
NGOs actively encourage consumers to buy particular goods that meet their ethical expecta-
tions (Friedman 1999, 205).
As Newell (2001) has highlighted, the range of mechanisms by which NGOs may wield
influence over corporate behaviour is considerable, including both confrontational and col-
laborative strategies. NGOs can exert leverage over corporations not only from below, through
transformed consumer behaviour, but also from above, such as through shareholder activism.
Critical to influencing consumer behaviour are the framing efforts of NGOs targeting the brand
vulnerability of the corporation in question: Greenpeace has been a particularly effective expo-
nent of this strategy, such as in the case of its “Nestlé Killer” campaign that targeted the Kit
Kat logo and led to Nestlé invoking a sustainable palm oil sourcing policy (Aula and Heinonen
2016, 126).
Although examples such as these may seem to represent small-scale achievements, their
cumulative effect can be considerable. It may even be argued that patterns of consumer demand
may be influenced on so widespread and effective a scale that governmental and intergovern-
mental legislation on the matter may be redundant. Wapner (1995, 325), for instance, cites the
example of the EEC’s 1983 seal pelt import ban, which was introduced only after consumer
demand had already plummeted in response to a campaign by environmentalist NGOs over the
preceding decades.
One of the principal ways in which NGOs wield power over other non-state actors is
through their cultural influence, and their capacity to reframe actors’ understandings of their
values, interests, and identities. As Singh (2010, 7) has argued, cultural power may be distin-
guished from traditional instrumental conceptualizations of power by drawing attention to the
“meta power of representations” mediated by cultural industries and technology. NGOs work
to reframe values, interests, and identities both through their own websites, publications, and
other media, and by targeting wider cultural industries and technologies, as outlined for instance
in Ryan’s chapter in this volume (Chapter 9). The effectiveness of NGOs’ cultural power is
evident in transformations of public behaviour in response to NGO campaigns in the absence of
state compulsion: examples include the growth of voluntary recycling in response to environ-
mentalist activism (Wapner 1995), and cases of declining stigmatization of abortion following
International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) campaigns (IPPF 2017, 7).
Among the oldest non-state to non-state relationships is between NGOs and religious insti-
tutions. NGOs may play a role in transforming public opinion and behaviour through their
work in conjunction with religious authorities. In contemporary Europe, a common exam-
ple is cooperation between churches and NGOs to transform public perceptions of refugees
(Bekalo 2014). NGOs may also work with artistic, cultural, heritage, and educational institu-
tions to transform popular perceptions and behaviour. An example of this is the Amnesty-
Oxfam “Museum without a Home” exhibition which has toured established museums with
the aim of promoting solidarity with migrants (Amnesty International 2017). More conten-
tiously, NGOs sometimes work on joint advocacy campaigns with corporations, with examples
including the World Wide Fund for Nature’s collaboration with the Hong Kong and Shanghai

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Banking Corporation (HSBC) in climate change advocacy and education initiatives (Bulkeley
et al. 2015, 182).
Although many of the cases of the NGO role in transforming public perceptions and behav-
iour explored here relate to near-term impacts, it is important also to consider the long-term
repercussions of the cultural influence of NGOs. These may ultimately include significant effects
on state policy and practice, even in the security sector. For example, Ceadel (1996, 22) has
noted the slow “drip, drip, drip” of peace movement ideas into popular opinion and broader
political culture; in the long term, this may include impacts on government practices, such as
the transformation of ministries of “war” into ministries of “defence” as militarist ideologies lost
their legitimacy.

Transnational service provision

In addition to bringing about political change through advocacy bypassing the state, NGOs
also challenge a state-centric understanding of world politics through the provision of services
that might otherwise be undertaken by governments. As this section will discuss, this includes
not only their well-known role in humanitarian aid and development assistance, but also their
provision of wider health, welfare, and other public services. This section will further explore
NGOs’ service provision roles through their undertaking of joint projects with corporations and
other non-state actors, and their provision of services to their members.
As is well known, governments have provided international humanitarian assistance to other
states since at least the 1755 Lisbon earthquake (Hutchinson 2000, 4). The role of religious
charity in transnational humanitarian assistance, on the other hand, has a far longer history, and
over the last three centuries a vast array of secular transnational humanitarian NGOs have also
provided such assistance (Barnett 2011). With respect to broader development assistance, the aid
budgets of some NGOs in the present day exceed those of some of the world’s wealthiest states:
the greater scale of World Vision’s budget in comparison with Italian overseas development
assistance (ODA) is a frequently drawn comparison (Koch 2009, xiii). Moreover, governments
commonly channel a significant proportion of their ODA through NGOs, which are often
perceived to be more effective managers of these resources than government agencies (Besley
and Ghatak 2017, 368).
NGOs substitute for states in respect of a wide range of welfare and educational services for
their populations. The IPPF (2017, 8), for example, directly provided 145.1 million sexual and
reproductive health services worldwide in 2016, exceeding those provided by governments in
many countries. As Brehm and Silova explore in their chapter (Chapter 20), education NGOs
may also marginalize states in the provision of educational services. Tostan International is an
example of an NGO that offers its own curriculum across several countries in contrast to a state-
centric “national curriculum” model (Gillespie and Melching 2010).
NGOs also undertake transnational service provision roles in conjunction with other trans-
national actors including multinational profit-making corporations. A common phenomenon is
the undertaking of joint projects with transnational corporations. This is particularly common
in conservation projects, with examples including the launch in 2010 of a joint project between
Fauna & Flora International and BHP Billiton for the conservation of orangutans in Indonesia
(Foges 2010). WWF is a particularly common collaborator with corporate actors, undertaking
high-profile joint projects such as the HSBC Water Programme aiming towards freshwater pro-
tection in the Yangtze, Ganges, Mekong, Pantanal, and Mara (HSBC 2017). As Dutta (2016,
162) argues, “NGOs such as the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) emerge as channels for green-
washing the environmentally unsustainable actions of TNCs, often formulated in the form of

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locally sustainable projects embodying NGO–TNC partnerships”. Critiques such as these will
be explored further later in this chapter.
A further form of transnational service provision undertaken by NGOs consists of the provi-
sion of services to their own members. A large – but often neglected – category of NGOs con-
sists of professional associations, some of which are explored in Rego’s chapter in this volume
(Chapter 27). Many professional associations are specifically dedicated to providing services to
their members such as facilitating networking, providing mutually recognized or interchange-
ability of professional qualifications, delineating guidance on professional ethics, arranging
exchange programmes, and enabling information sharing. NGOs with a primarily advocacy-
oriented focus may also make a part of their activities provision of services to members, such as
information sharing, conference convening, and networking opportunities. A common purpose
of the international secretariat of an NGO is to facilitate the brand protection of its member
affiliates: one of the purposes of Oxfam International, for instance, is to set out the parameters
for member organizations to be authorized to use the Oxfam logo (Atkinson et al. 2009, 52–53).

Transnational governance
Among the many roles of transnational professional associations is the provision of global pro-
fessional standards. As this section will outline, professional standards are just one of the many
international standards developed, monitored, and enforced by NGOs. There are also “exter-
nally oriented” standards with respect to the behaviour of other actors such as transnational cor-
porations and even states, and “internally oriented standards” regulating the behaviour of NGOs
themselves. Together, these may constitute transnational governance, the exclusively non-state
component of global governance.
NGOs’ development of global professional qualifications and standards constitutes one of the
oldest features of transnational governance. The Association of International Accountants (AIA),
for instance, has aimed to provide an internationally recognized accountancy qualification since
the 1920s (AIA 2018). International accountancy standards, on the other hand, are established
by another NGO, the International Accounting Standards Board, appointed by the non-profit
International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Foundation: these standards are adopted in
166 countries (IFRS Foundation 2018).
The setting, monitoring, and enforcement of “externally oriented” standards encompasses a
wide range of sectors. In the environmental sector, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is one
of the longest-established non-governmental certification organizations, which sets, monitors,
and enforces the standards that permit profit-making companies to designate their wood-derived
products as being FSC-certified for sustainable sourcing (Rawcliffe 1998, 89). Similar initiatives
in respect of labour standards include the Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International and
its partner organization FLOCert, which respectively develop and certify the Fairtrade label
standard (Bennett 2013, 60). In some instances, NGOs develop standards that governments
are required to conform to if they are to obtain privileges offered by the NGOs: global sports
federations such as FIFA and the International Olympic Committee, for instance, set standards
which governments are expected to uphold if they are to be permitted to host events such as
the World Cup and the Olympic Games, respectively (Emery 2015).
In addition to the setting of standards for others to adopt, NGOs are increasingly turning to
the creation of self-regulatory initiatives that set, monitor, and enforce standards for their own
behaviour. As the chapters in this volume by Crack (Chapter 42) and Deloffre and Schmitz
(Chapter 41) elaborate, these initiatives are a response to growing challenges to their legitimacy,
and to questions raised – especially by donors – with respect to their accountability. Accountable

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Now is one of the best-known examples, set up in 2008 as the International NGO Charter of
Accountability to provide common accountability standards for high-profile NGOs including
Amnesty International, Oxfam International, and Greenpeace International (Crack 2018, 419).
A number of regulatory NGOs provide standards adopted by both profit-making and non-
profit-making non-state actors: the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) set up in 1997 has been
particularly influential, accumulating over 23,000 reports to its sustainability standards, which
74% of the world’s largest 250 corporations adopt (GRI 2018). Initiatives such as this are indica-
tive of the increasingly blurred boundary between the profit-making and non-profit-making
sectors of non-state activity.
The role of NGOs in the development, monitoring, and enforcement of global standards
among non-state actors may be seen as a central feature of the emergence of transnational
governance, which consists of the broader processes of transnational rule formation, adoption,
and enforcement among both profit-making and non-profit-making non-state actors. This,
alongside intergovernmental rule formation, adoption, and enforcement among states, consti-
tutes one of the core components of wider global governance (Roger and Dauvergne 2016).
Transnational governance not only operates in parallel with intergovernmental governance: as
Ruhlman’s chapter in this volume elaborates (Chapter 3), NGOs also work together with inter-
governmental organizations in processes of global governance.
Traditionally, NGOs are perceived to have a role in democratizing the intergovernmental
components of global governance through their liaison with intergovernmental organizations
and lobbying of intergovernmental congresses (Scholte 2004; Davies 2012b). However, more
work is needed on the ways in which the exclusively transnational component of global gov-
ernance may be made more democratic, since NGOs themselves often have highly centralized
decision-making structures and their decisions may reflect the preferences of donors rather than
the groups on behalf of which they may claim to speak (Banks, Hulme, and Edwards 2015).

Transnational order
With the development of transnational governance in parallel with the intergovernmental com-
ponents of global governance, it may be argued that NGOs and other transnational actors may
be developing institutions of transnational society that parallel those of states in international
society (Buzan 2018; Davies 2017). In a similar manner to the development of mutual rec-
ognition criteria, diplomatic processes, and laws among states in international society, NGOs
in transnational society may be understood to have developed mutual recognition criteria,
diplomatic procedures, and transnational laws of their own. Moreover, just as the institutions
of international society may facilitate international order, the institutions among transnational
actors may facilitate transnational order.
Among states, mutual recognition of each other’s sovereign status is understood to be one of
the primary institutions of international society (Buzan 2004, 174). Among NGOs, there is no
equivalent to sovereign status, since states monopolize legitimate use of violence. However, just
as states have asserted “standards of civilization” in demarcating the members of international
society (Gong 1984), NGOs-of-NGOs have asserted membership criteria for participating
NGOs that may be considered to operate as “standards of civility” for transnational civil society:
the pan-NGO CIVICUS that aims to represent transnational civil society, for instance, requires
participating NGOs to adopt a set of common principles set out in its “Vision, Mission and
Values” to be permitted membership (CIVICUS 2014, 3). The NGO accountability initiatives
discussed in the previous section such as Accountable Now serve a similar function of mutually
conferred legitimacy for participating NGOs (Thrandardottir 2017, 21).

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Just as states have developed diplomatic institutions to facilitate their intercourse, so too NGOs
have developed institutions of transnational diplomacy to facilitate their mutual relations. In a simi-
lar manner to the sending by states of delegates to intergovernmental organizations, NGOs may
send official representatives to participate in the decision-making processes of shared organizations
such as the Stakeholder Council of the GRI. Another increasingly common feature of NGO–
NGO diplomacy is the creation of “external relations” departments and managers by NGOs to
facilitate liaison with other NGOs (Islamic Relief Worldwide 2017, 15), which may be considered
analogous to the creation of foreign ministries by states to facilitate liaison with other countries.
Moreover, in their development of dispute settlement procedures and common standards,
NGOs may be understood to have developed a form of transnational law in parallel to (state-
centric) international law (Halliday and Shaffer 2015). Just as states have shared dispute resolu-
tion procedures such as those of the International Court of Justice, it is estimated that there may
be more than a hundred dispute resolution mechanisms developed by transnational non-state
actors to resolve conflicts among non-state actors (Mattli and Dietz 2014, 1). As discussed pre-
viously, NGOs have also developed numerous common standards such as those of GRI and
Accountable Now: according to Deloffre (2016, 724), these serve not only regulative but also
constitutive functions for NGOs in transnational society since they “constitute their social iden-
tities, interests, and practices”.
Taken together, institutions of international society such as law and diplomacy are thought to
facilitate international order in that they sustain the advancement of the common goals of states
and enable their mutual survival (Bull 2012, 16). It may be argued that the institutions of trans-
national society elaborated here – i.e. their mutual recognition criteria, diplomatic procedures,
and shared standards – serve similar purposes for NGOs: their mutually conferred legitimacy
through shared accountability standards, for example, may help NGOs defend themselves from
challenges to their authority and in turn help to ensure the perpetuation of independent trans-
national civil society. The many institutions of transnational society and their potential repercus-
sions for transnational order are a fruitful area for further investigation.

Critiques
Given the breadth and reach of transnational non-state politics elaborated in this chapter, it is
important to cast a critical eye over its effectiveness, legitimacy, independence, and repercus-
sions. This section will consider the potential problems with transnational non-state politics in
each of these respects, before considering some of the ways in which NGOs have endeavoured
to address these problems.
The first critique relates to the scale, impact, and effectiveness of transnational advocacy that
bypasses the state. It may be argued that traditional transnational advocacy focused upon secur-
ing intergovernmental agreement upon international conventions to be enforced by states is a
far more effective route than the targeting of a particular corporation through consumer pres-
sure to change its practices: whereas the latter may change the behaviour of one corporation,
the former has the potential to result in laws adopted in many countries that may be enforced
through national legal systems with respect to a large number of corporations. On the other
hand, it may be argued that transnational non-state advocacy targeting individual corporations
may ensure that issues on which governments cannot agree to take action still get addressed,
and that even if only one corporation is targeted in a particular campaign, other corporations
may adjust their practices in order to avoid also being targeted. However, as Newell (2001, 200)
argues, “many TNCs are relatively insulated from NGO campaigns”, and successful campaigns
need to overcome significant hurdles to ensure broad-based cooperation.

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Similar critiques have been brought forward with respect to the effectiveness of NGO service
provision. The role of NGOs in humanitarian aid distribution has been the subject of especially
strong criticism. Cooley and Ron (2002, 17) note that competition among NGOs in this sec-
tor may generate “project-duplication, waste, incompatible goals, and collective inefficiencies”.
Others have gone even further in critiquing the counterproductive effects of NGOs’ humanitar-
ian assistance, claiming it may have contributed to the prolongation of famine by encouraging
dependency on aid packages (Maren 1997). Since critiques such as these proliferated in the
1990s, humanitarian NGOs have made considerable efforts to address problems of their coordi-
nation and aid effectiveness (Ronalds 2010, 83).
Given their expanding role in rule-making beyond the state through the formulation
and enforcement of transnational standards, growing questions are being raised about how
democratic such practices are. The executives of NGOs are often far less accountable to those
whom they claim to represent than the executives of democratic states are to their elector-
ates. Similarly, the basis of the claims to legitimacy of democratic states’ representatives may
be far clearer than the basis of the claims to legitimacy of representatives of NGOs. Although
initiatives such as Accountable Now are designed to address such critiques, NGOs still face
challenges to their legitimacy both from the bottom up in relation to those they claim to assist
and from the top down on account of donor pressure (Walton, Davies, Thrandardottir, and
Keating 2016).
On account of the dependence of many NGOs on funding from wealthy donors often based
in the global North, NGOs have been vulnerable to the critique that they reproduce structural
inequalities between the global North and the global South (Amutabi 2006). While this has
been considered most often in relation to NGOs’ development assistance role, a similar problem
is present in respect of transnational advocacy targeting corporations: in order to wield lever-
age over corporations, NGOs need to exert pressure through wealthy consumers and investors,
often also based in the North (Newell 2001, 200).
Rather than serving as a bulwark against neoliberalism, the expansion of NGOs may be
considered to be one of neoliberalism’s most significant features. On account of cooperating
with corporations in joint projects and in joint advocacy campaigns, NGOs have been alleged
effectively to have been co-opted by corporations (Huismann 2014). Moreover, in their provi-
sion of services in place of the state, NGOs have been considered to have effectuated a “process
of privatization by NGO” which “seems to have helped further accelerate state withdrawal from
social provision” (Harvey 2006, 51–52).
The role of NGOs in “hollowing out the state” is one of the principal ways in which the
ascent of NGOs in world politics – rather than providing “an answer to war” (Kaldor 2003) –
may be contributing towards global fragmentation through undermining states’ capacity to pro-
vide security (Gros 2012, 154). More generally, as Lundestad (2004) and Davies (2014) argue,
globalization and the growth of NGOs operate in a dialectical relationship with fragmentary
dynamics.
As we have seen, transnational non-state politics cannot be considered to be a sufficient
substitute for state action. In many ways, NGOs are indirectly dependent upon states to pro-
vide them with a facilitative legal context and a stable environment in which to function
(Kaldor 2012, 129–130). In some cases, NGOs’ dependency on states may extend further to
include direct mechanisms ranging from reliance on state funding through to operating as front
organizations. With many of the most influential NGOs being based in dominant states, it has
also been argued that rather than representing independent transnational civil society, NGOs
may instead serve to facilitate the projection of hegemonic states’ power and interests (Woods
2003, 112).

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In recent years, NGOs have made significant efforts to address critiques with respect to
their reproduction of global structural inequalities. Some have changed their organizational
procedures to give a greater say to populations in the global South (Foreman 1999), and some
have also moved their headquarters from North to South (Walton, Davies, Thrandardottir,
and Keating 2016, 2769). Over time, as Davies (2012a) notes, a growing number of South-
originated and South-based NGOs have been increasing their scope of operations and claiming
to promote less hierarchical practices than traditional Northern-dominated NGOs.

Conclusion
Transnational non-state politics involves a wide range of activities. As this chapter has outlined,
there is an exclusively non-governmental counterpart to traditional transnational advocacy focused
on states: that which involves lobbying corporations and other non-state actors. NGOs also com-
pete with states and other actors in the direct provision of services to populations. An important
pillar of contemporary global governance is exclusively non-governmental: transnational govern-
ance involves the setting, monitoring, and enforcement of global standards without the direct
involvement of states. This, in turn, may imply that NGOs and other transnational actors provide
transnational order in parallel with the international order provided by the society of states.
This chapter has also outlined the many potential problems with transnational non-state poli-
tics. These range from problems of effectiveness, accountability, and legitimacy, through to its
relationship with neoliberalism and structural inequalities in the international system. As we have
seen, NGOs have responded to these problems by redesigning their structures and practices to give
a greater voice to the global South, and by developing enhanced procedures of self-regulation.
The prospects and limitations of these responses are a rich and ongoing field for further research.
Although the literature on transnational non-state politics has expanded significantly since the
1990s, it remains under-developed in comparison with the vast literature on the roles of NGOs
in intergovernmental politics. There remain many areas that deserve greater attention, includ-
ing the repercussions of transnational governance for world order, the nature and potential of
exclusively non-state democracy, and the ways in which further political concepts traditionally
conceived in relation to states should be applied in respect of NGOs, such as power, institutions,
legitimacy, and authority. As some of the other chapters in this volume indicate, the emerging
literature on these topics is rich, but still far less advanced than analogous state-centric research.

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Walton, Oliver Edward, Thomas Davies, Erla Thrandardottir, and Vincent Charles Keating. 2016.
“Understanding contemporary challenges to INGO legitimacy: Integrating top-down and bottom-
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 Part II
Theory and analysis

 5
Constituting NGOs
William E. DeMars and Dennis Dijkzeul

Introduction
What constitutes non-governmental organizations? What makes an NGO an NGO, rather
than a transnational corporation, a state, a warlord or insurgency? How are NGOs so readily
recognizable to each other, by other actors and for researchers? International Relations (IR)
research over the past decade suggests that the conventional answer – that NGOs articulate
common norms through a common discourse – is insufficient. If the focus on NGO discourse
is misleading, then how much NGO practice do we need to notice? And what are the most
crucial NGO practices?
These questions are constructivist in their most obvious theoretical pedigree, because IR con-
structivists are centrally concerned with the genealogy and shaping of actors in world politics,
and therefore are more likely to use the word “constitute.” However, the same question is also
theoretically realist, because to constitute a social actor, or a whole category of social actors – to
bring them into being as enduring social facts – is the most profound exercise of power.1 And
finally, the same question of what constitutes NGOs is also theoretically liberal, because the
constitution of actors is reiterated and institutionalized over time, and such institutionalization
enables new forms of cooperation and conflict.
It is a particularly interesting historical moment to raise the question of what constitutes
NGOs, because a spate of recent research is re-examining a well-established conventional wis-
dom in IR scholarship on NGOs. This chapter does not aim at anything close to a comprehen-
sive survey of this new literature, but seeks instead to identify and review several of the most
distinctive and clearly alternative emerging approaches.
Why do we pose the question of what constitutes NGOs, rather than the question of what
causes NGOs to behave in a particular way, or to succeed or fail in achieving their goals?
Constitution and causation are both forms of explanation. However, probing what it means
to constitute an actor, or to constitute an entire category of actors, means seeking an explana-
tion at a deeper level than mere immediate, instrumental causation of behaviour or success. To
constitute encompasses mutual relations with other actors that bring actors into being, that hold
them in being over time and history, and that maintain or change their organizational shape.

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Constitution as explanation is less concerned with explaining micro tactics than with explaining
how things work and why they work that way rather than some other way.
Such constitutive explanation usually leads into the realm of social structure and agency.
We have found that constitutive explanations of NGOs tend to fall along a spectrum, ranging
from those that emphasize the agency of NGOs, to those that emphasize the social structure of
NGOs. The books that we review in this chapter also illustrate this spectrum. However, there
are very few approaches to agency and structure in between the two extremes; and ironically,
those at both extremes tend to share the same, flawed assumption: that actor agency must be
pitted against social structure. Either agency is narrated as a rebellion against social structure,
or social structure is portrayed as successfully dictating, repressing and limiting the agency of
actors within it. Our hunch, instead, is that agency and social structure are themselves mutually
constitutive; that social structure generates agents with agency, and agents reproduce or change
social structure. In other words, there is no agency without structure to generate it, and no
social structure that is not reproduced by agents.
In this chapter, we review seven theories that all focus on the constitution of NGOs, but
vary in the factors they propose to explain such constitution: (1) norms and representation,
(2) national origin, (3) state interests, (4) stakeholder accountability, (5) position in the NGO
hierarchy, (6) macro-historical waves and (7) hegemonic power structures. Finally, we propose
elements of a synthesis of these different explanations, based on practice and partners. In the con-
clusion, we summarize our argument and indicate several areas for further research.

Norms and representation constitute NGOs

For several decades, most IR accounts have argued or assumed that NGOs are constituted by
the norms they enforce or implement from above, and by the representative claims they articu-
late from voiceless groups below. Indeed, many IR scholars are attracted to NGO research with
the motivation to research and celebrate NGOs wielding the power of progressive norms and
ideas to transform world politics. Hence, these scholars often turn for theoretical guidance to
various forms of idealist constructivism. Such NGO studies generally fall into two forms. In
pluralist constructivist accounts, NGOs empower or speak for an autonomous society against a
repressive state, inscribing a bottom-up power arc from the grassroots. Power originates below
states, with the people, whom NGOs claim to speak for or empower. In globalist constructivist
accounts, NGOs implement or enforce global norms on states and multinational corporations in
a top-down power trajectory. Here, power originates in a realm of normative authority above
states, a realm ruled by multilateral agreements, intergovernmental organizations and interna-
tional legal decisions and norms (DeMars and Dijkzeul 2015a; DeMars 2005).
The best, and most read, articulation of this standard IR approach to NGOs is Margaret
Keck and Kathryn Sikkink’s classic, Activists beyond Borders (1998). Indeed, two decades after
its publication, the book remains the best-selling theoretical volume on NGOs, and populates
IR comprehensive exam reading lists at many top graduate programmes. It is, quite simply,
IR’s canonical text on international NGOs. Keck and Sikkink’s well-known “boomerang”
pattern of transnational advocacy networks (TANs), with their famous diagram of NGOs and
states linked through arrows, incorporates both globalist and pluralist storylines in a single
explanatory arch (13). In their boomerang model of transnational advocacy networks, “domes-
tic NGOs bypass their state and directly search out international allies to try to bring pressure
on their states from outside,” by throwing boomerangs of information, symbolism, leverage
and accountability (12). The boomerang flight originates with domestic NGOs bypassing their
state and seeking international allies, thus incorporating the representative claim of pluralist

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theory. As the boomerang circles and picks up international allies, including states and inter-
governmental organizations, it brings normative and material pressure from “above” on the
original state. In this way, the model incorporates the normative enforcement of globalist
theory. In sum, Keck and Sikkink’s model ties together the bottom-up NGO power path of
pluralist theory with the top-down NGO power path of globalist theory using the image of
the boomerang’s circular trajectory.
Keck and Sikkink also provide a sophisticated theoretical discussion of NGOs and TANs
in terms of constructivist theory, agency and structure, and norms and practices (1998, 1–6,
29–37, 209–217). The primary thrust of their argument is to establish the agency of NGOs
and TANs against the previously excessive emphasis on the established social structures of
state sovereignty (for realist theory) or liberal institutions (for liberal theory). The book has
succeeded in this goal, but perhaps too well. In their theoretical discussion, agency is attrib-
uted sometimes to principled activists, sometimes to the NGOs they run and sometimes to the
TANs that the NGOs generate. However, there is no ambiguity in their boomerang model
description and diagram; in the model agency resides clearly with the NGOs that throw and
relay the boomerangs. This is the model of NGO agency that their book has passed on to a
generation of IR students and scholars.
One of Keck and Sikkink’s major contributions two decades ago was to emphasize the
role of NGOs in creating networks with other kinds of actors. However, their crucial misstep
was to identify networks with active NGO-led campaigns. They defined transnational advo-
cacy networks as including “those relevant actors working internationally on an issue, who are
bound together by shared values, a common discourse, and dense exchanges of information
and services” (1998, 2). Similarly, they defined campaigns as composed of “members of a dif-
fuse principled network . . . [that] develop explicit, visible ties and mutually recognized roles in
pursuit of a common goal . . . [and that] also consciously seek to develop a ‘common frame of
meaning.’” (7).
This is the signature move of both pluralist and globalist views: to homogenize the actors in
the network by assuming that they must share common norms/values/principles, which they
signal visibly and publicly to each other by using a common discourse and pursuing a common
goal. We agree that NGOs do these things. However, we object to the theoretical leap that the
norms articulated by NGOs fundamentally constitute them. This leap effectively conceals any
politics that falls outside the two vertical political axes of pluralist bottom-up representation of
society against the state, or globalist top-down enforcement of global norms on the state.
We have identified several paths by which IR theory hides the politics of international NGOs
(DeMars and Dijkzeul 2015b, 289–294). The most important is to theoretically homogenize
the actors in world politics to be more amenable to theoretical manipulation. And the most
pervasive form of actor homogenization is found in pluralist and globalist accounts of NGOs,
including Keck and Sikkink’s, which confine themselves within the conventional normative
mandates and issue-areas recognized by donors, recipients and host governments. Pluralist and
globalist researchers theoretically homogenize the actors in the network by assuming that they
must all share common norms.2 Consequently, researchers stop looking for partners in the net-
work when they run out of actors that mutually recognize each other as publicly advocating the
network’s common norms. Their accounts fail to discover hidden or covert partners, partners
that are normatively deviant or the latent agendas of visible partners.3
To attempt to explain NGOs as constituted by the global, transnational norms or principles
they articulate is to portray NGO organizations and activists as wholly cosmopolitan creatures,
citizens of the world, but rooted in and shaped by no particular country or place. It is a reduc-
tionist argument that attempts to explain NGOs from a single causal source.

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National origin constitutes NGOs

Sarah Stroup’s 2012 book, Borders among Activists, is the most clear and direct challenge to the
cosmopolitanism of Keck and Sikkink’s portrayal of NGOs. Stroup audaciously argues that
both the doctors who claim to operate without borders, as well as the activists who think they
venture beyond borders, are actually more national than cosmopolitan in very specific organiza-
tional features: in their professionalization, fundraising, advocacy, research, relations with gov-
ernment and human rights issue selection.
In the strong version of her thesis she asserts, “There is no global civil society, but rather a set of
national civil societies coming into more frequent contact with one another” (Stroup 2012, 13,
emphasis added). However, she follows this with a more nuanced statement:

But if other factors – including individual leadership, domestic competition, and inter-
national pressures – all might inform the practices of any one particular INGO, national
origin limits the range of possible responses to any of these factors. INGOs are governed
by national laws; they receive the majority of their funding from nationally based donors;
they have developed advocacy strategies in response to domestic political opportunities;
and they are shaped by powerful sets of norms at home.
(2012, 14)

This is not a single-cause, reductionist argument. Stroup argues that both international environ-
ment and national origin shape or constitute each NGO, but that the national factors shape it
more decisively. In addition, in Stroup’s account national origin shapes NGOs through what
we would distinguish as both political actors and influences (government donors, national laws,
political opportunities), as well as societal actors and influences (private donors, norms).
Empirically, Stroup constructs an elaborate, structured comparison of 27 humanitarian relief
NGOs and human rights NGOs based in the United States, Britain and France, and then fol-
lows many of their operations in Iraq after the US invasion of 2003. Overall, she finds that their
respective national environments “encourage American INGOs to be cooperative professionals,
lead British INGOs to act like ‘Establishment radicals,’ and push French INGOs to be principled
protestors” (Stroup 2012, 191).
Theoretically, she relies on sociological institutionalism, but brings to it a much more astute
political sensibility than most users. Specifically, she observes and argues that the forces of organ-
izational isomorphism impose themselves more strongly on international NGOs from their own
national environment than they do from the transnational environment. This is a realist political
observation of the influence of national power. However, it is also a constructivist observation
of the power of national societies to enforce organizational isomorphism.
Stroup’s book is an essential corrective to the globalist and pluralist accounts of NGOs that
dominate IR scholarship, whose implicit claim is that NGO activists have transcended their
national origins and national organizational bases to become actors constituted entirely by their
cosmopolitan aspirations. In contrast, Stroup argues that national origin in all its dimensions
constitutes NGOs more definitively than international context.

State interests constitute NGOs

There is a superficial similarity between Stroup’s emphasis on the national environment of an
international NGO’s home country and the tenets of principal-agent (PA) theory. PA theory
is commonly applied to intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) as well as NGOs to explore
the relationships between their main donor governments as principals and the international

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organizations as agents carrying out the goals of the principals. The conceptual premise of PA
theory is that greater mission effectiveness results from subjecting the organization to strict
accountability under its state donors. According to PA theory, NGOs are constituted as agents
by the authority and policy aims of their government donor principals. Here, the concepts of
“agent” and “agency” connote subservience to, and compliance with, the mission and interests
of principals. PA theory understands that agents try to go their own way, but this is considered
“shirking,” a deviance to be monitored and corrected (Brown 2007).
There are several problems with using PA theory to understand NGOs. First, empirically,
NGOs simply do not act like subservient agents of their state donors (McMahon 2017). Real
NGOs respond to a skein of multiple political and societal partners in several countries, includ-
ing their country of national origin.4 Indeed, if state donors want compliant sub-contractors,
they are best advised to employ private, for-profit companies, such as the “beltway bandits” that
populate Washington, DC (Saldinger 2016). There are also theoretical problems, including the
reality that international NGOs suffer from the “multiple principals problem” in a particularly
severe form (Cooley and Ron 2002). This means that the major state donor for an NGO is not
the sole principal to which an NGO may be accountable, and not even the most influential
partner among all its many political and societal partners in several countries. Another theoreti-
cal issue is that PA theory is drawn from the New Economics of Organizations (NEO), which
proposes a narrowly economic conception of organizational interests. This conception does not
account well for the complex micro and macro politics of NGOs and their networks. Stroup
shares with PA theory a focus on national causation; however, her national origins approach
encompasses a much broader range of political, economic and social factors shaping an NGO.
Interestingly, another influential approach drawn from the related sociological fields of
organizational and bureaucratic theory takes precisely the opposite tack from PA theory con-
cerning the relationship of international organizations to state interests. Michael Barnett and
Martha Finnemore (2004) conceptualize IGO effectiveness as rooted in organizational autonomy
from state interests, rather than subservience to them. Autonomy allows the organization to
independently pursue its principled mandate as understood by its own experts and officials. It
is remarkable that the IR literature is split between two diametrically opposed views: one view
holds that the mission effectiveness of international organizations is enhanced by strict account-
ability to state donors, and another holds that organizational effectiveness is threatened by such
accountability and enhanced by greater independence. In one theory, NGOs are constituted
externally, by their adherence to the goals of their principals. In the other theory, NGOs are
negatively constituted by their principals in the act of throwing off state interests, or alterna-
tively, they are self-constituted, applying their independent normative and professional stand-
ards to generate and enforce norms upon other actors in world politics.
This polarization and contradiction in the literature on organizations and bureaucracies offers
a clue to deeper processes of agency and structure. This divide in the literature illustrates the dif-
ficult challenge of theorizing both structure and agency at the same time, and keeping them in
dynamic balance. In this case, PA literature privileges one narrow aspect of social structure (the
constraints of donor relations), while Barnett and Finnemore privilege a certain kind of agency
(organizational autonomy to pursue its principled mission) (Pollack 2007).
A similar theoretical polarization also plays out in the literature on NGO accountability.

Stakeholder accountability constitutes NGOs

Theories of accountability for NGOs go well beyond PA theory. However, as Cristina Balboa
(2015) demonstrates, international NGOs effectively elude all attempts at tight accountability,

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both in theory and in practice. For major theorists, full accountability would demand the strict
application of several distinct criteria and institutional enforcement mechanisms, based upon
hierarchical, supervisory, fiscal, legal, reputational, market and peer accountability. Even non-
traditional theories of accountability (such as stakeholder, contingency, rights and mutuality
theories) cannot be fully applied to international NGOs because NGO networks lack all three
necessary requirements for them to work: (1) consistent norms of behaviour, (2) sufficiently
powerful agents of accountability and (3) sufficient NGO organizational capacity to account in
all directions and to all criteria. The first missing requirement, the absence of consistent norms of
behaviour, turns out to be decisively significant. The finding of the accountability literature that
consistent norms are missing, even when NGOs operate in the same issue area and network,
falsifies both pluralist and globalist versions of idealist constructivism, as well as most applications
of sociological institutionalism. Despite the appearance that common norms function as the glue
unifying all the actors in a network, in reality actual norms are too heterogeneous to provide
the basis for actor accountability. The second missing requirement for NGO accountability, the
absence of sufficiently powerful agents of accountability, undermines the relevance of PA theory
for NGOs across the board.
In principle, a particular NGO could learn to respond accountably to all of its partners by
undertaking a thorough stakeholder analysis (the third missing requirement above). However,
to attempt to hold NGOs fully accountable to all stakeholders, Balboa argues, could “conceiv-
ably create enough veto points in the policy process to halt the process all together” (2015,
172). Indeed, the fully accountable NGO would simply perish from “Multiple Accountabilities
Disorder” or “MAD” (similar to the “multiple principals problem” discussed above). In addi-
tion, a thorough stakeholder analysis would reveal any hidden agendas or hidden partners,
whose public acknowledgement could be fatal to the legitimacy and sustainability of the NGO
network. We know from observing national crackdowns on international NGOs in Russia,
Egypt and China in recent years that the banner of “NGO accountability” can be used by states
to kill NGOs, rather than to improve them (Washington Post 2015).
Balboa draws the surprising conclusion that “any NGO that endures over time has success-
fully managed its accountability challenges to the extent of retaining those partners essential for
its survival” (2015, 178). Hence, the only accountability that is possible is already guaranteed by
the existential requirement that the NGO maintain sufficiently legitimate operational bridges
to essential partners.
From the literatures consulted so far – sociological theories, PA theory and accountability
theories – a picture is beginning to appear. It indicates that NGOs are constituted by their mul-
tiple political and societal partners in several countries, but they are not necessarily controlled or
held accountable by any or all of them. At what point does the accumulated evidence begin to
force us to consider the possibility that stubborn resistance to accountability is itself a structural
feature of the NGO world?

Position in the NGO hierarchy constitutes NGOs

Sarah Stroup joins with Wendy Wong for the provocative 2017 book, The Authority Trap. The
central argument is that organizational placement on the NGO hierarchy constrains strategic
choices for both those at the top and those at the bottom. However, the real empirical rev-
elation of the book lies elsewhere, in positing the existence of the NGO inter-organizational
hierarchy, and stunningly demonstrating its empirical reality. Defining authority as deference,
and operationally defining deference as attention, Stroup and Wong measure authority across six
indicators for three key audiences: the international public, states and other INGOs. Screening

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hundreds of international NGOs, they identify only 14 that draw strong attention from any
one audience, and only 10 that command deference from at least two audiences: Amnesty
International, Oxfam, Human Right Watch, Save the Children, Salvation Army, World Wide
Fund for Nature, the International Committee of the Red Cross, World Vision, Greenpeace
and CARE International. Moreover, these “leading authorities” tend not to lose their positions
at the top, so the hierarchy is relatively persistent.
The authors cleverly draw from several new online databases to assemble explosive data in
chapter three on the degree of dominance by leading authority NGOs. As the reality of the
steep and durable hierarchy among NGOs becomes more generally known, this exposure may
well bite back against the legitimacy of all NGOs. The public understands that transnational civil
society can be very unequal, but people count on NGOs to be the equalizers – to empower
and speak for the weak, and to enforce norms on the strong. The promise that NGOs will play
this equalizer role in transnational civil society is what Keck and Sikkink and other globalist and
pluralist scholarship implicitly convey. Whether intended or unintended, The Authority Trap is a
dangerous book. The implication that position in a persistent NGO power structure constitutes
NGOs undermines faith in NGOs as the challengers to power structures.

Macro-historical waves constitute NGOs

Thomas Davies’ 2014 book, NGOs: A New History of Transnational Civil Society, brings a histo-
rian’s sensibility and a trove of new data and storylines to inform IR students and scholars. Its
cyclical history of three waves of rise, peak and decline of transnational civil society may also
lead to more serious consideration of other macro-historical explanations of NGOs. But perhaps
most controversially, the book challenges the utopian-progressive assumptions of the NGO
world and the scholars allied with it by suggesting that contemporary transnational civil society
has been in decline since 1990, and that some NGO leaders are contributing to the decline.
In contrast with most conventional approaches, this book reveals a much wider array of
NGO issue-areas over the past 250 years, many of which have since faded. This is an antidote
to “whig history” that overstates the degree of coherence, continuity and politically progres-
sive development of transnational civil society from the anti-slavery society in 1775 to the latest
rights group today.
In addition, the book strongly challenges the Anglo-Saxon bias of some IR studies, which
assumes that NGOs originate primarily from the civil societies of the United Kingdom and the
United States (for both errors, see DeMars 2005). Davies shows that a wider range of “cosmo-
politan cities” including Paris, Berlin, Vienna and Milan provided “the infrastructure for early
international non-governmental conferences and organizations” (Davies 2014, 43).
In Davies’ account, each of the three historical waves has proceeded through phases of the
rise of transnational civil society, then a consolidation and peak, followed by a period of decline.
The decline phases of the first two waves ended with World War I and World War II, respec-
tively. The third wave, Davies argues, has been in decline since 1990, the same period that many
IR scholars and NGO leaders view as a triumphant golden age of transnational activism. The
simple juxtaposition of the two previous decline phases with the current one raises a host of
questions of causality, inevitability and tragedy.
The first long wave from 1867 to 1914 peaked in the 1890s, Davies argues, with the 1889
World’s Fair in Paris (at which was organized a Marxist Congress of the Second International)
and the transnational mobilization before and during the first Hague Conference in 1899. Davies
notes the almost inexplicable “remoteness from reality” of the European internationalists who
were planning the third Hague Conference and the third Congress of International Associations

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as World War I was looming. In 1914, the Union of International Associations (UIA) claimed
to embody “the most representative forces of the different countries in their own particular
domain” (Davies 2014, 76). Davies suggests that the utopian illusions of NGOs may not have
always been entirely harmless, as we and many others have implicitly assumed.
Davies finds several common patterns in all three decline phases: NGOs demonstrate increas-
ing “remoteness from reality”; they form larger coalitions with other NGOs; those coalitions
become the basis for making more “grandiose” claims of representing world public opinion; and
their effectiveness declines or is called into question as they form more “short-lived” NGOs on
“insubstantial” issues, become co-opted by other more powerful actors and participate in the
“fragmentation” of world politics.
The second, short wave of transnational civil society lasted only from 1914 to 1939, having
peaked and begun to decline with the World Disarmament Conference of 1932–34. Davies
(2014, 122) argues that the World Disarmament Conference not only failed to bring about
general world disarmament, but it weakened German political moderates against the Nazis by
rejecting their proposal for modest German rearmament, and it also discouraged the liberal states
of Europe from rearming in preparation for the coming expansionist threat. More tragic and
counterproductive consequences for NGO leadership are difficult to imagine.
Even when NGOs do not contribute directly to the destruction of peace and transnational
civil society, their distraction with insubstantial pet projects may render them irrelevant for
countering real threats. Davies ends the book with this challenge to contemporary leaders of
transnational civil society:

In each of the three waves of transnational civil society . . . the demise of transnational
civil society was immediately preceded by the creation of large transnational coalitions of
INGOs, claiming to speak for “the most representative forces of the different countries”
(in the period before the First World War), the “public opinion of the world” (in the
period preceding the Second World War) or “global civil society” (in the period preced-
ing the 11 September 2001 attacks). Such claims revealed detachment from the develop-
ing divisions in transnational civil society and the world’s population more generally in
each of these phases, which were ultimately to overwhelm transnational civil society on
each occasion.
(Davies 2014, 181)

The broader implication is that international NGOs in any particular historical moment are part
of something much larger, of which they are not aware, and which is not necessarily progres-
sive. The fine-grained historical data of NGO waves raises broad questions of constitution:
What constituted the new NGOs in each rise phase? What constituted the historical waves of
transnational civil society themselves? To what extent are NGOs determined by the cyclical
movement of the historical waves, or to what extent can they act creatively and responsibly?
And today, what degree of agency do we possess – not only NGO activists, but we scholars and
our students – to recover an NGO connection to global political reality?

Hegemonic power structures constitute NGOs

At the opposite end of an agency-structure spectrum from simplistic pluralist accounts that
emphasize NGO agency while almost erasing the reality of social structure, there are extreme
structuralist accounts that almost erase the possibility of NGO agency. While many structuralist
texts are theoretically opaque, Michael Barnett and Raymond Duvall (2005) make a relatively

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clear and useful distinction between two forms of “social relations of constitution,” structural
power and productive power (18–22). For Barnett and Duvall,

Scholars focusing on structural power conceive structure as an internal relation – that is, a
direct constitutive relation such that structural position A exists only by virtue of its relation
to structural position B . . . The classic examples here are master–slave and capital–labor
relations. From this perspective, the kinds of social beings that are mutually constituted are
directly or internally related; that is, the social relational capacities, subjectivities and inter-
ests of actors are directly shaped by the social positions they occupy.
(2005, 18)

For Barnett and Duvall, therefore, structural power is co-constitution of direct, internal, binary
and mutual (though extremely unequal) social relations. In contrast, productive power works
through “more generalized and diffuse social processes” (2005, 20):

Specifically, and at the risk of gross oversimplification, structural power is structural constitu-
tion, that is, the production and reproduction of internally related positions of super- and
subordination, or domination, that actors occupy. Productive power, by contrast, is the
constitution of all social subjects with various social powers through systems of knowledge
and discursive practices of broad and general social scope.
(2005, 20)

Productive power, therefore, is no less implicated with domination or violence than is structural
power. Indeed, productive power reaches much farther in its domination, because it “concerns
discourse, the social process and systems of knowledge through which meaning is produced,
fixed, lived, experienced, and transformed” (Barnett and Duvall 2005, 20). Such discourse con-
stitutes the subjectivity of all social beings, all the way through, as well as “every inter- and
intra-subjective power relation” (21; Hayward 2000, 6). If divergent identities or subjectivities
may be more or less unequal, nevertheless, they are all imposed.
At this point, we can view nearly the full spectrum of IR theory on NGO agency and social
structure, from pluralist and globalist overemphasis on agency, to Barnett and Duvall’s over-
emphasis on social structure.5 We need a theoretical balance to discern the politics of NGOs.

Towards a synthesis – practices and partners constitute NGOs

During the eight-year period of conceiving, recruiting co-authors, writing and editing our
2015 volume, The NGO Challenge for International Relations Theory, we moved steadily towards
the judgement that only a theoretical synthesis housed within a broad practice theory approach
could capture the analytical and political complexity of international NGOs. We seek a broad
practice theory that can balance agency and structure, and also overcome the large and ingrained
blind spots in the IR theory schools of realism, liberalism and constructivism (see DeMars and
Dijkzeul 2015a, 2015b).

What is practice theory?

Practice approaches may hearken back to Aristotle (phronesis or practical wisdom) and Marx
(praxis), but a distinctive “practice turn” in social theory, including IR, has emerged only
since about the year 2000 (Schatzki, Knorr-Cetina and von Savigny 2001; Neumann 2002;

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Nicolini 2013). Observers agree that “there is no unified practice approach” (Schatzki 2001, 2).
Indeed, there is no single or even leading definition of practice. AnthroBase (2018) defines
practice simply as “acts that carry their own rules / limitations / structures within them-
selves.” However, Davide Nicolini (2013, 9) allows that there is a “grand lake” of practice-
oriented approaches, whose leading concepts may be labelled variously as “practice, praxis,
interaction, activity, performativity and performance.”
Emanuel Adler and Vincent Pouliot stipulate that “practices are socially meaningful patterns
of action which, in being performed more or less competently, simultaneously embody, act out,
and possibly reify background knowledge and discourse in and on the material world” (Adler
and Pouliot 2011, 6).
Approaches to practice theory that emphasize competent or routine performances signal
some degree of grounding in the work of Pierre Bourdieu, who proposed the concept of habitus
in an attempt to apprehend “the permanent internalisation of the social order in the human
body” (Eriksen and Nielsen 2001, 159).
Power is an element of Bourdieu’s understanding of practice as embodied social order, but
is not the most pronounced element. In contrast, conflict and oppressive power are much more
prominent in practice theories that draw deeply from Michel Foucault, whose concept of dis-
cipline, while resembling habitus with respect to embodied social relations, points to structural
violence and domination institutionalized in diffuse forms of “governmentality” and “discipli-
nary power” (Postill 2010, 8).
Mapping the current use of practice theory in IR, two tendencies are in dialogue with each
other. One, led by Adler and Pouliot, draws more from Bourdieu. The other broad tendency
relies more on poststructuralists such as Foucault, and is anchored, arguably, by Iver Neumann
and Ole Jacob Sending’s 2010 book, Governing the Global Polity: Practice, Mentality, Rationality.
Neumann and Sending, in turn, rely on Barnett and Duvall’s Foucauldian approach to power.

Why is practice theory needed?

Practice theory is needed in IR for three broad sets of reasons. First, practice theory is needed
because other theories do not merely fail to understand international NGOs, but actively hide
the politics of NGOs in world politics. We have shown elsewhere that practice theory can pro-
vide a more coherent account of NGOs as institutions in world politics than offered by liberal
theory; that practice theory can reveal the power dynamics of international NGOs better than
realist theory, and that practice theory can fulfil the promise of constructivist theory to reveal
the constitutive origins and reshaping of NGOs as actors in world politics.
The second set of reasons that practice theory is needed in IR is to give us greater ability
to research and reason from the small and local to the large and transnational and back again.
International NGOs are not the only class of critical global phenomena that demand such an
approach. Such phenomena include transnational terrorism and organized crime; international
migration; climate change and possible solutions; transnational and international economic
flows of money, goods, information and people; the digital and cyber realms of communication,
culture, conflict and warfare; the changing institutional and physical shapes of states, collapsed
states, de facto states and warlords; and the loosening global grip of American military and intel-
ligence power in the face of multiple challengers who are out-playing us in the new landscape.
NGOs are the canary in the mine for the declining relevance of conventional IR theory. The
three paradigms of realism, liberalism and constructivism – and their precursors and variations –
that were serviceable during the Cold War and less so post-Cold War are no longer working.
They are far from useless, but their application is intractable and abstract.

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The third set of reasons why we need practice theory is that, well used and applied, it offers
the most promising approach for allowing us to narrate both human agency and social structure
in a relatively balanced way in the world of NGOs.

How can practice theory be applied?

Because the concept of a particular social practice, or even an international practice, is so fine-
grained, practice theory only becomes useful for understanding any particular range of phenom-
ena by identifying and positing some more specific “anchoring practices” for those phenomena.
Anchoring practices are understood as midlevel institutional practices that are embedded within
the broader international practices of world politics.6
How do we identify with confidence the anchoring practices of NGOing? We have asked
the practice question – What do NGOs do? – in a sustained way over many years and across
many different organizations, issue-areas, countries, networks and campaigns, and it has led us to
transnational partnering as the locus for anchoring practices for international NGOs. Partnering
practices are the only practices that all NGOs perform all the time, wherever they are. To
recognize this, however, an observer’s scrutiny must shift from what NGOs say they are doing
(discourse) to what they actually do (practice).
To understand NGOs deeply, we need to be able to turn our scholarly gaze, temporarily,
away from their emancipatory promises, away from the very real crying needs of people and
nature, and towards what NGOs consistently do that is distinctive to them.
In this spirit, we propose, with strong confidence, that NGOs throughout the world share
two anchoring practices (DeMars and Dijkzeul 2015a, 22–29). Rather than regard NGOs as
discrete entities, we reconceptualize NGO phenomena in terms of processes and practices of
“NGOing” (Hilhorst 2008). Accordingly, we propose that “NGOing” happens when two
anchoring practices are successfully and intelligibly performed: (1) when private actors claim to
pursue public purposes, and (2) when, by the authority so claimed, they partner with societal
and political actors in several countries (DeMars and Dijkzeul 2015a, 34–64).
NGOs make normative claims, establish and maintain partner relations, and thereby grow
networks. And they do so, inexorably and indefatigably, just by being NGOs. Hence, NGO
normative claims do not disappear from our account. They are the transnational public purposes
that provide the plausible authority and legitimacy for all kinds of other actors to partner trans-
nationally with NGOs, and through NGOs with each other.
In a crucial corollary to these anchoring practices, we argue that actors are part of a network
when they share any common partners. This differs radically from almost all other approaches to
studying NGOs and networks, which delimit the scope of network research according to the
normative issue-areas defined by NGOs themselves. Globalists and pluralists take their bearings
in the network from the normative commitments articulated publicly and recognized mutu-
ally by other members. Even those few realists who examine NGOs as strategic actors define
the scope of NGO competition for scarce resources within the publicly visible normative issue
domain (Drezner 2007; Bob 2005). For us, the fact of a direct or indirect organizational link
constitutes the network, rather than the shared normative discourse used to legitimize those
links. This allows for hidden partners – hidden from the public or even from the NGO itself –
and for partners that do not adhere to the NGO norms. In addition, we hold that each societal
and political partner of each NGO pursues some latent agenda through linking with the NGO.
It may be benign, or may conflict with the NGO’s salient agenda or with the latent agendas
of other partners. In this way, each NGO embodies both cooperation with its partners on the
salient agenda, and conflict over latent agendas. Humanitarian NGOs, for example, frequently

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have to deal with corrupt elites or vicious warlords that try to instrumentalize them for their
own economic or political interests, but are rarely open about these interests and the ways they
want to achieve them (Dijkzeul 2015).
NGOs partner and bridge heterogeneously, forming variegated and often conflictive net-
works. Conflict and asymmetric power may come into play over the transnational movement of
people, resources, norms, information or technologies. Even when a particular partner interface
is not actively conflictive, it is still potentially so, especially in war-torn societies, or closed socie-
ties with authoritarian politics that lack open institutions for political contestation.
In sum, every NGO is itself a site for power-laced encounters, a nexus of several other
cooperating and competing actors, with complex interests and agendas. Each NGO bridges
and institutionalizes both cooperation and conflict among its own societal and political part-
ners in several countries, as part of routine NGOing. NGO politics is not a pathology to be
diagnosed and cured, or a corruption to be purged. Without latent agendas, there are no
partners; without partners, there are no NGOs; and without NGOs, there are no recogniz-
able global issues. Moreover, savvy and experienced NGO professionals already know that
their organizations are shot through with conflicts between their partners’ latent agendas, and
consider finessing these tensions to be one measure of their professionalism. Social scientists
are only slowly catching up.

Conclusion: a degree of disenthrallment

Today there may be a broader range of theoretical views of NGOs than ever before, and many
more penetrating empirical studies, at least in our several decades of experience in IR NGO
studies. This chapter has reviewed a few of the most distinctive and clearly alternative emerging
approaches.
We still have the established theories of NGOs that reiterate the legitimating discourse of
NGOs themselves: In pluralism and globalism, NGOs and their activists are portrayed as cos-
mopolitan citizens of the world, roaming freely beyond borders of all kinds to challenge unjust
power structures by empowering the weak or enforcing global norms on the strong. Keck and
Sikkink’s fusing of pluralist and globalist power arcs in the boomerang model was a response to
overly structural views of NGOs that emphasized the structural power of states or international
institutions. To argue that NGOs are constituted by the representative claims they voice and the
global norms they enforce is superficially structural. However, because NGOs elude all attempts
at strict accountability to either principals, norms or communities, pluralist and globalist theo-
ries have in fact strongly emphasized the unfettered agency of NGOs as self-appointed global
representatives and norm enforcers. Many of the most interesting recent works challenge the
overstatement of NGO agency by illuminating how NGOs are in fact rooted in particular places
and power structures.
For example, Stroup challenges the cosmopolitan portrayal of NGOs by arguing that polit-
ical and societal factors in the national environments of major NGOs constitute and shape
their organizational processes more decisively than the international context that all NGOs
share. Similarly, structural factors are emphasized in other recent works that focus on NGO
embeddedness in the international NGO hierarchy, macro-historical waves of NGO rise,
peak and decline, and Foucauldian accounts of hegemonic power. All of these innovative
approaches suggest that there is much more to international NGOs than meets the eye, at
least when the eye is guided by superficial pluralist and globalist theories that reiterate the
self-legitimating discourse of NGOs themselves.

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What is it about NGOs that makes their agency, structural roots, power and practice so dif-
ficult to discern? Part of the answer is that IR theory has quite effectively hidden the politics
of NGOs, especially by theoretically homogenizing the actors in the NGO network, which
persuades researchers to stop looking for partners when they run out of actors that mutually
recognize each other as publicly advocating the network’s common norms. Our proposal for IR
theory is to bring in practice theory, follow the evidence of NGO political and societal partners
in several countries, and only then reengage with the big questions of power, institutions and
constituting actors raised by the big paradigms of realism, liberalism and constructivism. We are
convinced that many other urgent empirical questions in contemporary world politics would be
illuminated with an infusion of practice theory.
Looking closely at NGO practice, in particular at partnering with a broad set of actors that
have open and latent agendas, offers a useful antidote to misleading assumptions. Yet, many
more questions beg for more research. For example, in the decline stage of macro-historical
waves of transnational civil society, international power politics itself becomes dysfunctional,
and NGOs have rarely stemmed such a tide. How does the agency of NGOs become remote
from reality? To what extent can they provide an alternative?
As suggested above, if we hope to understand deeply the politics of NGOs, we need to learn
to turn our scholarly gaze away from their normative, emancipatory promises, and towards
their practices. To be more precise, we need to allow ourselves to be disenthralled of the
utopian visions and promises of NGOs. But to be disenthralled does not mean to be wholly
disenchanted or unadmiring of NGOs’ courageous exposing of global wrongs and often valiant,
clever and quixotic efforts to right them. As NGO scholars and students, we should aspire to
esteem NGOs enough to be willing to recognize and reveal their real politics.
A degree of disenthrallment with NGO utopias is already underway. There are growing
shelves of books that strongly critique the actual performance of NGOs in a range of particular
issue-areas (for example, Fechter and Hindman 2011; Autesserre 2014; Hopgood 2013; Donini
2012; Locke 2013). Are some NGOs increasingly remote from the realities of world politics?
Does the structural power of international NGOs reproduce social structures of emancipation
or domination for the actors they claim to represent? Can scholars responsibly ignore the ways
that IR theory and NGOs themselves collaborate to hide the politics of NGOs? Ironically, a
measured disillusionment with the automatic attribution of progressive authority to NGOs may
now be a necessary, though not sufficient, step towards a more critical and constructive engage-
ment by international NGOs with the realities of world politics.

Notes
1 It is true that many conventional realists neglect the role of NGOs in world politics. However, they do so
by inattention to what powerful actors do. In fact, the civil societies of three major hegemonic states of
the past three centuries – the Dutch Republic, the United Kingdom and the United States – proliferated
NGOs through a transnational civil society. See Reinalda 2009; Aerts 2010.
2 Ironically, rationalist NGO theories whose premises are almost the opposite of pluralism and globalism
make the same misstep of presuming the homogeneity of actors in the network. Whereas pluralists and
globalists borrow from sociology a methodological collectivism that assumes all the actors share the
same norms, rationalist theories borrow from economics a methodological individualism that assumes
all the actors share the same autonomous rationality. (See DeMars and Dijkzeul 2015a, 8–9 and 2015b,
291–294.)
3 In their case studies, Keck and Sikkink (1998) examine a wider range of politics than the boomer-
ang model would imply, including conflict within networks, counter-networks and failed campaigns.
However, many scholars have picked up from them the politically simplified boomerang model.

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4 We use the terminology of “partners,” following the official international development literature. But
we are also well aware of the irony of implying the mutuality of “partnership” in relations that are also
marked by asymmetric power, conflict and instrumentalization.
5 Note the contrast with Barnett and Finnemore’s work on the autonomy of international organizations
as discussed above.
6 On embedded practices, see Giddens 1986. On anchoring practices, see Swidler 2001; Sending and
Neumann 2011.

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 6
Rationalist explanations for NGOs
Youngwan Kim

Introduction
When non-governmental organizations (NGOs) started to emerge as one of the actors in the
world, few rationalists made a study of NGOs. Traditionally, it has been constructivists who
have paid more attention to NGOs’ power, focusing on their roles as norm entrepreneurs
and transmitters in global society (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998). Because of NGOs’ moral
and altruistic characteristics, motivations, and origins, constructivists seem to have more
appropriate tools than rationalists (Ahmed and Potter 2006). However, it is a misconcep-
tion that rationalists are not willing, suitable, capable, or likely to study these organizations.
Rationalists do have the ability to analyze NGOs as seemingly rational actors, and may even
possess better tools for examining specific aspects of NGOs. Indeed, as NGOs have gained
substantially more power and become more significant actors on the international arena, more
rationalists have begun to scrutinize NGOs in terms of their nature, behaviors, and influence
over other actors.
Rationalist NGO research takes many different approaches. Many researchers, for example,
are interested in the nature and definition of NGOs. Most NGOs have an altruistic foundation –
they are founded to help others rather than to pursue any self-interest – and therefore rationalists
are curious about the effect of this characteristic on NGOs, and whether all NGOs are rational
in pursuing their own interests (see Werker and Ahmed 2008).1 Rationalist research also raises
critical questions about NGO behavior: they are suspicious of the moral and altruistic nature
of these organizations, a misgiving based both in formal rationality and empirical observation.
Finally, some rationalist scholars study the influence NGOs have on other international actors
and how these organizations use their seemingly moral mission to achieve their own goals.
This chapter provides an overview and analysis of the rationalist understanding of NGOs,
focusing on the nature, behavior, and influence of NGOs. It reviews what the various rationalist
approaches to NGOs are, how rationalists describe NGO nature and behavior, their influence,
and what the limitations and merits of this kind of analysis are.2 I begin by describing rational-
ists’ tools for understanding NGOs. There is a common misconception that formal modeling
based on pure material interests is a rationalist approach. However, rationalist research actually
includes a much broader methodological approach to analyzing NGOs.

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Second, I provide an overview of the existing rationalist research into the nature and behav-
iors of NGOs. Rationalists focus on the survival of NGOs, an approach that is closely related to
material incentives. For rationalists, an organization’s normative mandates, missions, and visions
are not as crucial for understanding it as are the forces that enable it to survive, such as funding.
Therefore, rationalists examine private and public funding and the relationships between NGOs
and their donor states. In addition, many rationalists use empirical observation to examine the
domestic and international work of NGOs in development, relief, human rights, the environ-
ment, and other fields in both developed and developing countries.
Next, I describe the rationalist interest in understanding how NGOs influence other major
actors, thereby having an impact in their recipient countries. Traditional international relations
(IR) theories tend to focus on states; until recently, IR has not treated NGOs as a major actor
in the international arena. Rather, these theories tend to “reduce and obscure the politics of
NGOs” (DeMars and Dijkzeul 2015: 14). However, contrary to these IR theories, rationalists
have shown that NGOs have a significant influence over other major actors, including states,
IGOs (Intergovernmental Organizations), multinational corporations (MNCs), etc.
Finally, I explain the limitations and merits of rationalist NGO understandings. In spite of
the merits of these approaches methodologically, rationalists tend to forget NGOs’ essential and
crucial characteristics. In order to understand NGOs it is crucial to remember that they do not
merely pursue material interests or act for the greatest benefit, as do MNCs. Nonetheless, the
rationalist approach is a good reminder that researchers need to study NGOs objectively using
concrete evidence rather than relying on simple rhetoric.
This chapter consists of six sections, the first being this introduction. In the second section,
I explain rationalist approaches to NGOs and define rational choice theory. In the third sec-
tion, I analyze NGO nature and behavior using a rationalist approach. In the fourth section, I
explain the influence of NGOs using a rationalist perspective, while the fifth section describes
the limitations and merits of this methodology. Finally, I conclude with a projection of how a
rationalist approach can be used to study NGOs in the future.

The rationalist approach to NGOs

Before studying the rationalist understanding of NGOs, one must understand the rationalist
methodology. According to Snidal (2002: 74), so-called rational choice approaches are a “meth-
odological approach that explains both individual and social outcomes in terms of individual
goal-seeking under constraints.” Such an understanding assumes that individuals or collective
bodies are rational and act rationally to achieve their goals, whether material interests or nor-
mative goals. Rationalist approaches, in other words, address how actors behave (Snidal 2002;
Fearon and Wendt 2002). While many people consider formal modeling part of this rationalist
approach, and certainly modeling can offer important insights, rationalist study can be done
without mathematical models or other models (Schelling 1960).
We can say, therefore, that rationalists assume that NGOs are individual or collective
“rational” actors with both material interests and normative goals. These “material interests” can
be funding necessary for organizational survival, and the “normative goals,” in this case, refer
to the missions of NGOs, which are aimed at improving the current world within the realm of
development, human rights, the environment, etc. Different from expectation, including the
normative goals of NGOs is natural for rationalist approach as we discuss below.
Rationalists point out that NGOs’ dual priorities on survival (material interests) and mission
(moral goals) seem at odds with one another. This provides some dilemmas for rationalists and makes
their study of these organizations quite difficult. When rationalists study states or private firms, for

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example, it is not difficult to rationalize their behavior: survival wins over morality almost all the
time. Within NGOs, however, moral obligations are a fundamental characteristic of each organiza-
tion. If an organization fails to live up to its moral mandate, it could lose support from the private
and/or public sectors, making its mission as integral to its survival as material support. Rationalists,
therefore, need to consider both material interests and moral goals when examining NGOs.
The rationalist approach has received criticism in various ways. Traditional IR theorists often
criticize rationalist approaches in terms of originality and empirical validity (c.f. Walt 1999). They
argue that rationalist approaches do not necessarily develop existing theories or add any new under-
standings to IR. Rather, rationalists merely explain old arguments in new ways. They also cite
the difficulty of understanding mathematical modeling as another pitfall of rationalist approaches.
Constructivists also critique rationalist approaches for their assumption that all actors are rational
(Wendt 1999). Rationalists believe that actors’ identities and interests are fixed. However, others
argue that fixed preferences cannot properly address actors’ socialization and changing preferences
due to social relations. Whereas rationalist approaches consider all states to have the same identity,
constructivists treat identity as an empirical question to be tested (Hopf 1998).
The critique of rationalist approaches in general also applies to rationalist study of NGOs.3
Different from expectation, few studies of NGOs have used formal modeling to examine these
organizations, but the merit of using formal modeling is that scholars began to consider NGOs
to be rational actors by including them in formal modeling (Heins 2005). This demonstrated
a new trend. Constructivists were unwilling to acknowledge NGOs as rational actors because
they believe that NGOs do not pursue their own material interests. However, modeling shows
that this assumption is untrue and that in practice NGOs do sometimes function like rational
actors. Examining NGOs through formal models allows us to have a much broader perspective.
Today, the material interests of NGOs are receiving as much scholarly attention as their norma-
tive goals. In addition, scholars now admit that so-called “principled NGOs” can work against
their stated moral goals, becoming corrupt or malfunctioning.
In addition, in order to overcome the limitation of assuming all preferences are fixed, ration-
alist scholars are incorporating a constructivist approach into their research questions. In order
to study NGOs as completely as possible, rationalists are formalizing hypotheses regarding both
material and ideational behaviors. For example, when they study NGO aid, researchers include
both rationalist and constructivist hypotheses, questioning whether NGOs choose their site
based on operational ease or people’s need (Dreher, Nunnenkamp, Thiel, and Thiele 2012).
Although this does not perfectly address problems caused by assuming preferences to be fixed,
it somewhat deals with NGOs’ changing nature and incorporates constructivist points of view.

Rationalist explanations for NGO nature and behavior

Rationalists treat NGOs as rational entities that want to maximize their chance of survival. To
do so, the organizations need to secure private or public funding from people or states. If NGOs
have continuous support from their private members and/or governments, they can be moral
actors, fulfilling their original moral mandates without worrying about survival. In other words,
they do not necessarily have to be rational actors in this case. However, the number of NGOs
has dramatically increased while funding sources have become less ensured, meaning that sur-
vival is not a given for NGOs. Rationalists see that NGOs are now facing a competitive market.
In this new situation, funding sources can change the behavior or even fundamental nature
of NGOs. Government, or public funding can influence the nature or mission of NGOs and,
in a competitive funding market with finite resources, these organizations are sometimes will-
ing to adapt their own missions to follow donors’ wishes (Bob 2010). Private funding has less

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of an impact on NGO behavior, in large part because private donors are usually attracted by
the organization’s original values and nature. However, rationalists argue that this can change
NGO behavior as well, specifically in how NGOs have started competing for private fund-
ing by engaging with the media (Cooley and Ron 2002; Aldashev and Verdier 2010; Kim,
Nunnenkamp, and Bagchi 2016). Rationalist researchers, therefore, have found important rela-
tionships between NGO funding and nature/behavior. If NGOs are too eager to increase their
private and public funding over the short term, the search for funding will influence their
behavior, and their nature will change.
Using the assumption of rational actors, rationalists have adopted a principal–agent model to
understand the relationship between NGOs and donor states. Cooley and Ron (2002) focus on
NGOs’ organizational security and political economic aspects, applying such a model to suggest
that a liberal approach to NGOs is limited in understanding their behaviors. They argue that a
political economic approach is better for understanding NGOs’ constraints and set up a double
set of principal–agent problems that occur between donor states and NGOs and between NGOs
and recipient states. They find that agency problems, competitive contracts, and multiple princi-
pal problems lead to promoting self-interested behavior, intense competition, and poor project
implementation, and conclude that NGOs pursue material gain when interacting with states,
which may cause them to become dysfunctional.
As described earlier, rationalists attempt to understand NGOs as actors who obey rational
instincts for survival; they use game-theoretical concepts to better understand this behavior. Heins
(2005) sets up a rational game with NGOs and states: NGOs have a mixed-motive game with the
government, and the game’s set-up can be different depending on time period and countries. The
goals of the NGOs and states can be partly harmonious or partly in conflict. For example, while
the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has a preference for non-war over war,
it prefers coordination with war-making states to non-coordination; that is why the ICRC has
historically been willing to coordinate with war-making countries. Heins’ game also shows how
state–NGO relationships in the United States have changed depending on context. In the early
days of NGOs, US-based organizations tended to follow orders from the US government when
implementing projects. However, today many major US-based NGOs maintain a certain distance
from the US government. Such a distance ensures that their international activities are not com-
promised by US foreign policies and that they can work with the US government when necessary.
By researching the close relationship between NGOs and donor states, rationalists are able
to address donors’ aid provision through NGOs. Whether or not rationalist studies successfully
prove that states influence the nature of NGOs, they at least attempt to show a connection
between donor states’ intentions when mobilizing NGOs and NGOs’ actual behaviors. In this
way, rationalists attempt to prove that NGO aid delivery is significantly influenced by donor
states, a counter-argument to that of constructivists, who argue that NGOs allocate funding based
on humanitarian need rather than material concerns (Büthe, Major, and de Mello e Souza 2012).
Interestingly, rationalists come to mixed conclusions about this relationship and whether
NGOs act altruistically in helping the neediest or selfishly in targeting the most resourceful
recipients aligned with the most lucrative donors. For example, Edwards and Hulme (1996)
question whether NGOs serve as the agents of donor states. They find no empirical evidence
that donor states’ aid provision is effective at either international or local NGOs in terms of
performance, legitimacy, or accountability. Rather, receiving funding by states has a negative
impact on NGOs, compromising their activities and making them more dependent on donor
states’ funding. Edwards (1999) takes this argument one step further, arguing that NGOs in
developed countries function like the agents of donor states. Recent studies have found that this
situation has not changed in recent decades and that today NGO activities remain constrained by

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their domestic and international environments (Banks, Hulme, and Edwards 2015). Rationalists,
therefore, hypothesize that funding sources highly influence NGOs.
To test these theories, rationalist scholars use databases of official development aid. For exam-
ple, Dreher, Mölders, and Nunnenkamp (2010) examine NGOs in Sweden. Using a detailed data-
base recording NGO aid, they find that aid delivery by Swedish NGOs is not necessarily superior
to aid delivered by the Swedish government. Likewise, other studies use theoretically rational
frameworks to show that NGO aid in Switzerland is very similar to official aid from the Swiss gov-
ernment (Nunnenkamp, Weingarth, and Weisser 2009; Dreher et al. 2012). Even though Swedish
NGOs seem to be somewhat altruistic, their provision of aid is similar to that of the Swedish
government in that it does not necessarily favor the neediest recipients. Rather, Swedish NGOs
distribute aid to areas similar to those the Swiss government has already helped: NGO activity
overlaps with that of the government. This finding implies that NGOs are not necessarily pursuing
moral obligations. Although these studies do not analyze the motivation of NGOs in the choice
of areas to assist, these findings suggest a strong influence of the state on NGOs. Other rationalist
studies have examined NGOs in Germany, finding that they may favor working in lower-income
countries (Dreher et al. 2012). However, the work of German NGOs does not complement that
of the government; rather, German NGOs choose to work in an easier environment.
With the case of the United States, many rationalist studies have examined the activities and
funding of NGOs using datasets regarding NGO budgets, including public and private funding,
administrative overheads, etc. (c.f. Nunnenkamp and Öhler 2012; Nunnenkamp, Öhler, and
Schwörer 2013). The findings of such studies are mixed: on one hand, empirical analysis sup-
ports the existing constructive and normative belief that NGOs do not act purely for their own
material interest. However, on the other hand, they also illustrate that funding is essential for
NGO survival, and that therefore NGOs are strongly influenced by monetary concerns.
Kim and Nunnenkamp (2015) use NGO funding sources to suggest that their sample of the
US-based NGOs are more actively involved in Afghanistan and Iraq. They find that the US
government is often NGOs’ biggest donor, and therefore hypothesize that these organizations
often choose the operational locations based on the countries in which the US government is
interested. Although Kim and Nunnenkamp find no empirical evidence that US-based NGOs
are choosing which countries to aid based purely on government instructions, this study makes
clear that rationalists believe NGOs’ motivations are not as pure as constructivists think. Indeed,
other rationalist studies have proved that US-funded NGOs are often mobilized by the US
government. Keck (2011) empirically analyzes US-funded NGO activities in civil wars, find-
ing that they are more likely to be involved in countries where the United States is involved in
military intervention and less likely to be active in civil wars with a high number of fatalities.
This implies that NGOs are not motivated by purely humanitarian needs, but rather that they
act wherever they can gain the most material benefits from relationships with political states.
In other words, in rationalist studies of NGO behavior toward recipient states, they consist-
ently find that their activities are based on necessity and convenience, not fulfillment of a NGOs’
mission or goals. For example, Mallick and Nabin (2011) study the location of local microfinance
NGOs in Bangladesh and find that villages located far from a marketplace have less local NGO
programming. In addition, local NGOs sponsor more projects in villages with modern amenities,
such as irrigation systems. This study shows that local NGOs do not consider poverty level when
deciding where to initiate projects, but rather focus on village infrastructure and conditions, since
a better village environment provides a more sustainable opportunity for raising funds.
Fruttero and Gauri (2005) conduct similar studies on the locations of NGOs in rural
Bangladesh, arguing that both pragmatic and humanitarian concerns should be considered when
evaluating the sites of NGO operations. Their main objectives are to show whether NGOs target

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impoverished areas or whether their sites are based on the need to impress donors. Their findings
support the same conclusion as Mallick and Nabin: well-established NGOs choose to operate
in locations where other NGOs are already operating and where governments are functioning.
NGOs, in other words, focus more on soliciting donors and the success of their mission than on
the needs of people in the field. Fruttero and Gauri also find that there are small NGOs in the
areas where need is the greatest. Their findings support the material, strategic, and moral reasons
why NGOs are more apt to operate in villages; they demonstrate that material and strategic
incentives are as important as moral objectives for NGOs. Brass (2012) confirms these results; she
studies NGO location in Kenya, determining that it is affected both by convenience and need.

Rationalist explanations for the influence of NGOs

NGOs have a reciprocal relationship with other actors, including states, IGOs, and MNCs: they
are both influenced by and influence these other entities. Liberalists and constructivists were
the first to formulate the influence of NGOs over states’ behaviors (cf. Keck and Sikkink 1998;
Risse-Kappen, Ropp, and Sikkink 1999); these early studies focus on NGOs’ advocacy for
normative values – i.e., human rights, the environment, or democratization – in an attempt to
understand how the organizations have influenced governments’ decisions.
Despite this constructivist evidence that NGOs have a significant influence on government
policies, rationalists have tended to undermine their impact. Similar to the original naive rational-
ist understanding of the nature of NGOs, they did not expect NGOs to have the influence to
shape or change governments’ policies. However, once rationalists admitted that NGOs do indeed
influence other global actors, they began to approach the question of influence in a rational way.
Rationalists conclude that there must be a market for advocacy NGOs, which operate in
“competitive arenas for funds, media visibility, and support” (Prakash and Gugerty 2010: xv; see
also Johnson and Prakash 2007). The main purpose of advocacy NGOs is to influence the poli-
cies of the governments, but they tend to face the harsh environment working toward situating
themselves in this competitive market to obtain funding, media attention, and public inter-
est with limited resources. Under these circumstances, rationalists have studied why and how
advocacy NGOs are competing for scarce material and reputational resources (cf. Prakash and
Gugerty 2010). According to Prakash and Gugerty (2010), NGOs are individual or collective
rational actors, and therefore subject to collective action problems, meaning that they are moti-
vated both by normative and instrumental concerns. (However, NGOs will act more to address
instrumental or material concerns according to rationalists.) They suggest that researchers must
treat NGOs like a firm in order to truly understand their motivation and decision-making. By
doing so, we can truly understand the characteristics of NGOs.
Advocacy NGOs do not always act in the best interests of those in need, instead acting to
compete for the limited resources described above and therefore survive. For example, Bob
(2010) points out that many of the worst human rights violations do not receive crucial aid
thanks to advocacy NGOs’ rational decision-making. He considers “rights activism as a global
marketplace in which the supply of abuses interacts with the demand for rights issued by donors”
(134). Likewise, in the field of environmental activism, advocacy NGOs often shop around for
a policy venue where the policies reflect their agenda (Pralle 2010). This shopping behavior can
be related to the various levels of governmental sectors, local, regional or central governments,
or legislative or administrative levels. NGOs tend to provide information to influence these
actors. Likewise, Kim (2017) provides a rationalist explanation for how development NGOs
influence the US aid decisions, theorizing NGOs as information providers and lobbying groups
that can influence states’ decisions. For instance, US-based NGOs can provide information

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about developing countries where they have field operations and lobby for them to receive
more foreign aid from the US government. In this way, NGOs can effectively approve the con-
ditions of recipients. In all these fields, resources, policies, and external political opportunities
can influence how NGOs choose and change decision venues and policy arenas.
Rationalist analysis has found that NGOs can influence IGOs as well as states. In these stud-
ies, rationalists treat NGOs like an interest group with information, expertise, and capacity.
Information access exchange allows NGOs to influence IGOs by delivering necessary information
them (cf. Tallberg et al. 2015). In addition, some rationalists argue that NGOs with more resources
can more effectively influence IGOs’ policymaking decisions. For example, NGOs have a positive
impact on the World Trade Organization (WTO), functioning like a bridge connecting citizens
and the WTO to fortify the WTO’s capacity and improve its credibility (Esty 1998).
Finally, rationalist studies have shown NGOs also have an influence on MNCs. Rodman
(1998, 2001) demonstrates how NGOs can mobilize the public to affect MNCs. Specifically,
they have hindered MNCs from investing in states violating human rights by mobilizing con-
sumers to protest. In addition, NGOs have mobilized support among MNC shareholders and
state governments through lobbying. At other times, NGOs must compete for their influence
with other entities. Sell and Prakash (2004) show that both MNCs and NGOs act as rational
actors competing for influence over the WTO’s policy agendas. In this case, while people
expect NGOs to work quite differently than MNCs, their strategies and actions are often quite
similar to MNCs and they impose their own agenda in similar ways.

Limitations and merits of rationalist explanations for NGOs

Scholars often criticize the rationalist studies of NGOs as failing to address critical aspects of
these organizations and so failing to completely understand them. While I addressed some gen-
eral limitations of the rationalist approach in the introduction to this chapter, it is necessary to
understand how these limitations affect the study of NGOs for future productive study with the
perspective of rationalists. These limitations can be broken down into three main points.
First, and most important, rationalist studies focus too much on the material aspects of NGOs,
ignoring the organizations’ genuine or hidden motivations and overestimating the importance
of economic interest. Examining only funding data makes it appear as though NGOs pursue
public funding by donor states above all else. However, in actuality, while NGOs do pursue public
funding, the money itself does not really mobilize these organizations entirely: rationalist studies
that focus only on quantitative numbers therefore often misinterpret NGOs’ actual behaviors.
On the surface, for example, NGOs target government funding sources. However, analyzing
their activities in more depth shows that instead NGOs pursue not only public funding but
also their missions. Using other methods, such as interviews with staff from various NGOs, can
reveal other priorities besides money (Kim 2017). When public funding does not comply with
NGOs’ ultimate goals, they do not pursue them, no matter how big they are. In other words,
when rationalists analyze NGO funding and aid, they tend to ignore the real mechanism of
decision-making.
Second, rationalists assume that all actors are static, a limitation I have discussed previously
in this chapter. In the case of NGOs, that means rationalists assume all NGOs are the same and
are unaffected by interactions with other actors. They attribute a single strategic rationality to
all NGOs (DeMars and Dijkzeul 2015). However, there are an enormous number of NGOs in
the world, and each organization’s characteristics vary drastically, with differing activities, active
locations, home countries, and histories. It is almost impossible to rationally assume that these
NGOs share common characteristics. Rationalists’ use of a single rational tool is not the best

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way to analyze the diversity of NGOs that exist throughout the world. This is especially true
because, unlike states, NGOs adapt to changing circumstances. For example, many human rights
NGOs become humanitarian organizations under authoritarian regimes, switching their focus to
addressing economic issues in order to survive under the changing government (Lankov 2004).
Finally, rationality may not be the best tool with which to analyze NGOs. Although ration-
alists are well aware that NGOs work toward ideational values, they tend to focus on the organi-
zations’ political and economic interests rather than their altruistic ones. However, this added
moral dimension means that not all the behavior and identity of NGOs may be rational. For
example, people’s altruistic behavior in donating money to NGOs is not rational, nor is found-
ing an NGO devoting one’s life to something meaningful rather than economic gain. The peo-
ple who work for NGOs and sacrifice their entire lives working in harsh conditions to improve
other people’s lives are not rational. The only rational activity of NGOs, in other words, is
their pursuit of funding for survival. Rationalists focus on this issue too much, ignoring the real
nature of NGOs and jumping to conclusions about the rationality of these organizations.
Despite the limitations of the rationalist method of studying NGOs, there are also merits to
this approach. First, rationalists provide a logically consistent and precise analysis (Walt 1999).
Language often causes theories to be misunderstood, especially when addressing complex con-
cepts or ideas. Rationalism, with its reliance on numerical notation, eliminates the possibili-
ties for confusions. Indeed, even without formal modeling rationalist approaches are logically
precise: their clear rational propositions are easily understood and even verbal explanations of
rationalist approaches are much clearer than constructivist or other understandings. For exam-
ple, material interests are an easier and clearer way to explain individual or state behaviors than
discussion of norms: people understand norms differently based on their experience and knowl-
edge, while material interests are clear enough for all people to understand them almost identi-
cally. In the study of NGOs, rationalists use logical consistency and precision to clarify their
nature, activities, and influence without prejudice or illogical assumptions. Constructivists, on
the other hand, tend to glamorize NGOs, regardless of their real intention or motivation. While
most NGOs are working toward their moral goals, there are also many ill-functioning NGOs
only working for their own survival and expansion: the rationalist objective lens is a necessary
tool to help us see these organizations more clearly.
Second, the rationalist approach might provide scholars with the more useful tools to under-
stand NGOs. Because of constructivist works and general belief, we sometimes take for granted
that NGOs are moral actors. However, there is no reason NGOs should necessarily act morally,
and this assumption can be more dangerous than assuming all NGOs act rationally: this assumption
narrows the possibility of studying NGOs objectively and logically based on empirical evidence.
Rationalists’ logical consistency and precision opens up the possibility of immoral NGOs. As the
number of NGOs has increased, there are certainly many dysfunctional organizations working
for material interests, a rational choice. Indeed, many scholars, including rationalists (cf. Edwards
and Hulme 1995; O’Dwyer and Unerman 2008), have already argued for greater accountability
in order for NGOs to be more sustainable. They caution that bad decisions are possible because
all actors have the incentive to survive, regardless of their initial moral foundations.
Finally, the rationalist approach shows that the rational understanding of NGOs can be
combined with other approaches, including a constructivist one. Rationalists do not exclude
arguments that NGOs might not act rationally. Rather, they attempt to incorporate existing
beliefs and hypotheses about NGO behavior, whether rationalist or constructivist, and approach
the question from a different theoretical perspective to shed light on the real characteristics of
NGOs. For example, rationalists include constructivist hypotheses such as NGOs’ moral behav-
iors when they test their hypotheses regarding rational behaviors of NGOs (see Nunnenkamp,

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Weingarth, and Weisser 2009). As described earlier in this chapter, rationalists admit they once
underestimated the power of NGOs; as NGOs become more powerful, they tend to act more
rationally rather than altruistically, behavior that supports rationalist hypotheses. Since NGOs
demonstrate both rational and altruistic behavior, rationalist tools may be significantly useful in
helping to understand these organizations, their motivations, and their behavior.

Conclusion
The study of NGOs has suffered from several obstacles. Even after the Cold War, relatively few
scholars study this area, and it has taken more than 50 years for researchers to consider NGOs
as an important actor (cf. Nye and Keohane 1971). Theoretical understanding of NGOs was
quite limited due to the lack of scholarly interest and the fact that traditional IR theories cannot
account for NGO behavior due to their incorrect presuppositions (cf. DeMars and Dijkzeul
2015). Along with the lack of developed theories, there was also a dearth of empirical data on
NGOs compared to data from state-centric studies.
As the scholarship on NGOs increases, rationalists have begun to significantly contribute to
understandings of these organizations, using the assumption of rationality to highlight critical
points on the nature, behaviors, and influence of NGOs. According to the rationalist perspective,
if NGOs are rational actors, their ultimate goal is to increase their private and public funding,
public support, and media attention, contradicting their original moral goals. Rationalist research
on NGOs, therefore, focuses on the organizations’ funding, aid distribution, choice of locations,
and advocacy to determine whether NGOs are really pursuing their original goals. Not surpris-
ingly, rationalists have provided evidence that NGOs sometimes act rationally, not morally or
altruistically. Even though this is not surprising to rationalists, these findings have broadened
the general understanding of NGOs. In addition, as rationalists use empirical data to prove their
theories, there are a growing number of databases on NGOs that benefit not only rationalists, but
other scholars conducting research as well.
I have experienced the importance of the rationalist perspective myself, recently working as
an external evaluator for World Food Programme’s zero hunger projects, which receive multi-
bi funding from the South Korean government and have an NGO as an implementing partner
in Tanzania and Bangladesh. In my position, it seemed more effective to assume that all actors,
including an NGO, were rational; otherwise it would be hard to make an objective assessment.
However, that is not to say that other approaches to studying NGOs, including constructivism,
are biased or more positive toward NGOs. Rather, evaluators must be rational in determining
whether goals are accomplished based on a measurable outcome. Nonetheless, I cannot over-
state the fact that most NGO staff I met in the field were highly moral and working to bring
about a better world. To use rationalist tools effectively, therefore, we must balance rationality
and morality to contribute to our understandings of NGOs.
While it may seem that rationalist research has uncovered a negative side of NGOs, rationalists
have no intent of discrediting these organizations. Rather, their work positions us to better and
more deeply understand NGOs (Banks, Hulme, and Edwards 2015). Failing to consider rational
aspects of NGOs does not help us better understand their nature, behavior, and influence. After all,
all NGOs cannot be perfectly moral or rational. Their characteristics should be understood with
the mixed viewpoints of morality and rationality. For example, while many NGOs devote them-
selves to saving lives in harsh conditions, some NGOs are just eager to raise money for their own
staff and even sometimes involved in scandal. For the better understanding of NGOs, we need to
add the rationalists’ critical point of view toward NGOs. In this chapter, I attempted to show the
implications of the rationalist perspective for broadening the study of NGOs in the future.

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Notes
1 There are many different kinds of NGOs depending on how we define NGOs (see Clarke 1998;Willetts
2002). Because of the broad range of NGOs, some NGOs are not altruistic. NGOs such as professional
associations may be more oriented merely toward providing services to their own members. In this case,
NGOs do not need to be altruistic.
2 It would be almost impossible to include all rationalist NGO studies, and so I intend to focus only on
more recent and relevant literature. I also want to say that scholars included here might not be rationalist
per se, but they are included if they used rationalist tools to understand NGOs.
3 The fifth section considers both the limitations and merits of rationalist methodology in more detail.

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 7
NGOs and post-positivism
Two likely friends?

Jutta Joachim, Chris Nijhuis, and Andrea Schneiker

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have arrived as a subject of analysis in the discipline

of International Relations (IR). While still treated in a rather peripheral fashion until way into
the 1980s, there now is a burgeoning literature related to the organizations and a vast number of
topics ranging from their role in the evolution of human rights or environmental norms to their
relationship with other actors, their institutional make-up, and their power base. That NGOs
have moved from the margins to the center can be attributed to the ‘post-positivist turn’ in IR
which broadened among other things our understanding of actorness. While once tightly linked
to states, with this theoretical opening non-state actors came into view. In this chapter we will
address why and what it means to study NGOs from a post-positivist perspective. We suggest
that it is the notion of power and structure on which this perspective rests that is particularly
useful when studying NGOs. It allows us to capture their agential and transformative potential,
but also makes us aware of their biases and limitations. Before we turn to this argument and
delineate how scholarship related to NGOs has evolved, we briefly depict what we take to be
the main contours of post-positivism more generally.

Post-positivism: why and in what way ‘post’?

Post-positivism is a big umbrella term for a wide range of approaches (Lapid 1989, 239), includ-
ing constructivist, post-structural, critical, feminist, and postcolonial. While these approaches
vary in their interpretations, they share a number of epistemological and ontological assumptions.
Post-positivists seek

to open some space within modern Western theory so that voices otherwise marginalized
can be heard; that questions otherwise suppressed can be asked, that points of analytical
closure can be opened for debate, that issues and arguments effectively dismissed from the
mainstream can be seriously reconsidered and re-evaluated.
(George 1989, 273; see also Brown 1994, 214)

With this professed aim, proponents of this school of thought responded to the predominance
of the positivist paradigm throughout the Cold War period to which structural realism or liberal

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institutionalism, for example, ascribed. Post-positivists have in common that they contest, as
Der Derian put it, ‘the very language, concepts, methods and history (that is, the dominant
discourse) which constitutes and governs a “tradition” of thought in the field’ (Der Derian
1988, 189). These include, according to George, (1) a rejection of naturalism, (2) a focus on
social, historical, and cultural instead of rational and material factors, (3) a rejection of the belief
in objective knowledge, and (4) a focus on the constitutive power of language (George 1989,
272). In addition, post-positivists consider historicism as an important part of their theorizing
and research (Biersteker 1989, 264).
Post-positivists are skeptical of the idea that the ‘same kind of analysis’ could be applied to the
social and the natural sciences and that there is no fundamental difference between each (Smith
2000, 383). Nor do they share the commonly held belief of positivists that social phenomena
can be reduced to natural/material factors and that there is a ‘world out there’ that can be objec-
tively known (Hollis and Smith 1990, 46), let alone that general theories can be derived from
it that then can be applied universally across time and space (Wight 2006, 21). Instead, ‘there
is a scepticism of monological answers, totalizing theories, and disciplinary ideologies posing as
natural, self-evident truths’ (Der Derian 1988, 192) among most post-positivists. In light of their
rather clear sense of what they object to with respect to positivism, it might seem surprising
that it is much more difficult to depict what post-positivists do ‘accept’ (Smith 2000, 127) and
what is characteristic of them. However, post-positivism includes a variety of approaches, which
differ in the degree to which they adhere to what has been deemed a reflectivist epistemology.
In contrast to positivists who are mainly interested in ‘why’ questions, proponents of post-
positivism are much more concerned with ‘how possible’ questions. According to Alexander
Wendt, they problematize outcomes rather than taking them for granted (Wendt 1999, 83).
For this purpose, they draw on a broad range of hermeneutic tools not seldom from outside the
discipline. Based on the assumption that knowledge is context-bound and time-specific, post-
positivists have no interest in the formulation of universal law-like statements; instead, their
aims are more modest. They engage in so-called middle-range theorizing. Contrary to positivist
theories which privilege their way of doing research, in the eyes of Doty, post-positivism rejects
such methodological monotheism. Instead, it is premised on the assumption that there is not
only ‘one way to examine the implications of post-positivism for a specific area of investigation’
(Doty 1993, 307, nt.11). The rejection of grand theories can to some extent be attributed to the
acute awareness of post-positivists of their own limitations and subjectivity.
Many proponents acknowledge their own identitary boundaries and how they cloud or
shape the theorizing they engage in, which is why they also contest the positivist assumption
that scientists are neutral observers. While feminist scholars were among the first within the dis-
cipline to expose the gender-biases in supposed value-neutral theories, postcolonial approaches
have drawn attention to the ‘white supremacy’ (e.g., Watson 2001 or Krishna 2001) in inter-
national politics. Together they have been critical of central theoretical concepts, including that
of the rational actor which is modeled after a white male and serves as a normative standard to
which all others should strive. At the same time as post-positivists are alert of their own sub-
jectivity, many of them also are acutely aware that they are implicated in international politics
that they study.
Contrary to their predecessors, post-positivists recognize that science has an emancipatory
role to play. As much as it can contribute to change within a discipline, theorizing may have
constitutive and productive effects with respect to the actors and processes we study. The work
of critical theorists, such as Richard Ashley (1981) or Robert Cox (1981, 1983), is illustrative in
this respect. Unlike proponents of realism or liberalism which perceive International Relations
as taking place within pre-given boundaries, they presume an open-ended system in which

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social relations and identities are changing and evolving (Roach 2013, 174). By problematizing
the origins and social content of existing structures, these scholars are interested in locating the
pockets and requirements for systemic transformation by, among other things, laying bare the
structural contradictions of international institutions and hegemonic state power (see, for exam-
ple, Cox 1981, 1983). In addition to challenging the epistemological claims regarding objectiv-
ity, value-neutrality, and generalizability, post-positivists also differ from positivists because of
their social ontology. They are interested in ‘such diverse phenomena as, for example, inter-
subjective meanings, norms, rules, institutions, routinized practices, discourse, constitutive and/or
deliberative processes, symbolic politics, imagined and/or epistemic communities, communi-
cative action, collective identity formation, and cultures of national security’ (Christiansen,
Jorgensen, and Wiener 1999, 530). As already alluded to, post-positivists have much wider
notions of politics and concomitantly define actorness in much broader terms. Rather than lim-
iting it to states, post-positivists stress the role of non-state actors, corporate as well as individu-
als, engaged in social protest, victims of ethnic conflicts, or recipients of aid. Knowledge, ideas,
or identities are treated as endogenous (as opposed to exogenous) and constitutive of material
interests. Moreover, structures are not simply equated with the distribution of material resources
among the actors, but rather as being reflective of collective and shared understandings (Searle
1995; Collins 1997), the (colonial) past, and the cultural substrate in which they evolved and
that help to sustain gendered and racial inequalities or hierarchies among others.
In addition to their regulative function dimension, structures also have productive qualities
giving rise to and empowering agency, or as Barnett and Duvall posit, it ‘is the constitution of
all social subjects with various social powers through systems of knowledge and discursive prac-
tices of broad and general scope’ (Barnett and Duvall 2005, 55). Structures and actors are not
perceived as exclusive. Instead, they condition each other through structuring effects (Wendt
1992, 394) with the ‘meaningful practices, and hence, human agency . . . producing, and repro-
ducing and possibly transforming these structures’ (Barnett and Duvall 2005, 49). For example,
and as Sandra Whitworth (1994) has illustrated in her work on international organizations, the
International Labour Organization (ILO) throughout time has reinforced particular views about
women and men in the workforce. Conceiving of the male worker as the ‘norm’ (Whitworth
1994, 389), it has reproduced the assumption that ‘women are different’, not ‘real workers’, ‘and
thus not entitled to the same rights, remuneration, and obligation as men’ (Whitworth 1994,
389). And at the same time as male workers were seen as the ‘norm’ and ‘beneficiaries of this
privileged position’ (Whitworth 1994, 389), they also did not exist outside this role and were
not subject to, for example, protective legislation (Whitworth 1994, 389).
As much as the epistemological and ontological assumptions outlined above are character-
istic of post-positivist approaches, they have to nevertheless be treated with care since they
are not equally shared. In fact, depending on how much or how little proponents ascribe to
these ideas, some of them may be closer to their positivist than to their post-positivist peers
(see Christiansen, Jorgensen, and Wiener 1999, 536–537). Moreover, they figure more or less
prominently in research related to NGOs, to which we now turn.

From the periphery to the center: establishing NGOs as a

relevant subject of analysis
Since the 1990s, NGOs have played an increasing role in world politics and become an accepted
subject of study. The paralleling of these trends lends meaning to the assumption of post-
positivists related to historicity. Theorizing does not occur in a vacuum, but instead is context-
bound. The end of the Cold War confounded many state-centric and positivist theories due

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to its non-violent termination and the role civil society organizations played in the spread of
liberal ideas. The since then burgeoning literature related to NGOs is reflective of the plurality
of approaches subsumed under the post-positivist paradigmatic roof.
Especially the studies of the early 1990s are characteristic of a rather ‘soft’ post-positivism or
what now is frequently referred to as mainstream constructivism. While informed by a soci-
ological ontology, these ‘first-generation’ scholars still held on to certain positivist assump-
tions, including that of rationality on the part of the actors. The pioneering work of Margaret
Keck and Kathryn Sikkink (1998) is indicative in this respect. While the authors conceived of
NGOs as morally driven actors, they also considered them to be strategic in the advancement of
their goals (see Keck and Sikkink 1998). However, the pairing of post-positivist and positivist
assumptions figured also in the works of other scholars who at the time were particularly inter-
ested in the role of NGOs in the emergence and spread of, for example, the anti-torture norm
(e.g., Clark 2001), the international ban on gender-based violence (e.g., Joachim 2007), the
denouncing of chemical weapons (e.g., Price 1998), or the growing environmental conscious-
ness (e.g., Lipschutz 1992).
The influence of NGOs was frequently considered to be a product of both moral as well
as material leverage (Keck and Sikkink 1998, 23–24). At the same time as these organizations
persuaded governments of the appropriateness of their principled ideas, they exerted pressure
by ‘framing’ their arguments in a strategic manner. While in some cases this meant linking up
to already accepted ideas (Joachim 2007) or ‘grafting’ them onto existing norms (Price 1998),
such as, for example, human rights, in other instances it involved the politicizing of issues for-
merly perceived as technical. For example, NGOs making up the International Coalition to Ban
Landmines (ICBL) symbolically staged the effects of these weapons, by ‘placing mountains of
shoes on legislative grounds’ to draw attention to the victims and the footwear they no longer
needed because of the injuries they had incurred (Price 1998, 618). And yet, at other times
organizations strategically used information to ‘shame and blame’ those who breached interna-
tionally agreed-upon standards or they enlisted the support of like-minded states or celebrities.
The adoption of a ‘soft post-positivism’ when studying NGOs might be explained by the
then often-felt need by scholars (particularly early on) to demonstrate that it is possible to do
research with these approaches in the manner conceived by their predecessors. Ironically, this
meant living up to pre-established positivist norms that they had set out to challenge. In this
vein, authors quite frequently went to great lengths to demonstrate how and in what manner
‘shared understandings’ and ‘collective ideas’ mattered to actors and that the pressure exerted by
NGOs showed effects. In addition to setting in motion iterative or spiral-like processes (Risse,
Ropp, and Sikkink 1999) of norm acceptance, with targeted actors initially ignoring or justify-
ing their inconsistent behavior but eventually embracing the ideas promoted by NGOs (see also
Finnemore and Sikkink 1998), these organizations were also seen as responsible for institutional
or procedural changes (e.g., Joachim 2007). Although mainly concerned with their socializing
potential, scholars already also acknowledged the productive power of these organizations and
their potential to empower otherwise ‘weak’ actors which, now backed by an international
consensus, could claim their rights (e.g., Friedman 2003). Moreover, studying NGO campaigns
and international events that contributed to their visibility also created space for otherwise mar-
ginalized voices in academic debates. For example, critical and postcolonial feminist scholars
perceive the achievements of women’s and environmental groups to place their issues on the
international agenda during the United Nations special conferences in the early 1990s much less
favorably. In their eyes the organizations reproduced rather than challenged power asymmetries
between North and South and framed their issues in Eurocentric and exclusive ways (e.g., Basu
1995; Mohanty 2002).

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Furthermore and perhaps because of their overriding interest in demonstrating the power of
ideas and norms in international politics, first-generation NGO scholars fell into the same trap as
their positivist peers. They conceived of the actors they studied in a rather monolithic fashion,
leaving aside the differences that prevailed between and within them. Furthermore, also inher-
ent in these studies was often an idealized view of NGOs. They were perceived as essentially
morally good actors that ‘stand for good things such as democracy, empowerment, participa-
tion’ (cf. Stromquist 1998/99, 65), as ‘an integral component of civil society and an essential
counterweight to state power’ (Edwards and Hulme 1996, 962) or ‘as conveyor belts carrying
Western liberal norms elsewhere’ (Keck and Sikkink 1998, 211), and contributing to progress
and positive change in international politics. In the eyes of Ginsburg who reflected critically
on the subject, NGOs appeared to have ‘serve[d] as shorthand for “New Great Organizations”’
(Ginsburg 1998/99, 29) or, according to Götz, as ‘vehicles for political expectations tied to the
agenda of either social movements or neo-liberal socioeconomic doctrines’ (Götz 2008, 232).
Differences or power asymmetries between NGOs were hardly acknowledged, let alone theo-
retically problematized.

From demonstrating NGO impact and influence to

problematizing the actors
While the label post-positivist might not exactly be perceived as entirely fitting for studies of the
1990s, post-positivists nevertheless contributed significantly to NGOs becoming an accepted
field of research. They also prompted a next generation of scholars to adopt an inward- rather
than an outward-looking perspective and to dig deeper into the post-positivist tool box when
studying the organizations. Instead of conceiving of NGOs as a cause of normative change, the
actors themselves and their constitutive parts increasingly received attention. In particular, the
stylized notion of NGOs and the often-prevalent definition of these organizations as non-profit,
non-state, and neutral actors were subject to more critical reflection.
Offering a genealogy of the term, Norbert Götz finds the definition reflective of the
attempt to ‘narrow down the meaning of the NGO concept to a manageable research unit’
(Götz 2008, 234), while Aamore and Langley find it highly problematic as it ‘overplays the
consensual and coherent characteristics of Global Civil Society to the neglect of power rela-
tions, contradictions and tensions’ (Amoore and Langley 2004, 97). The way in which the
term NGO has been and still is used in scholarly writing does not reflect that the concept
is ‘an outcome of political games played by various actors, with language and conceptual
frames used as powerful tools shaping perceptions and minds, restricting and containing the
signified organizations’ (Götz 2008, 233). When it was, for example, introduced within the
UN framework, the term ‘served as an important rhetorical marker of the difference . . . [to]
intergovernmental organizations that had been given status in San Francisco, and ultimately
worked as a conceptual device to keep out unofficial organizations’ (Götz 2008, 240). To this
day, the definition of NGOs within the UN functions in this manner and as a standard based
upon which some organizations obtain privileged access to meeting rooms and documents
while others are denied consultative status. However, contestation over what constitutes an
NGO originates not only from within state institutions, but rather NGOs themselves are
implicated in this definitional struggle.
With these organizations vying for influence and confronted with competitive pressures due
to their numerical growth, identity politics over who and what constitutes an NGO has inten-
sified as well. Studying the trend of commercialization among humanitarian NGOs, Joachim
and Schneiker, for example, find these organizations engaged in an increasingly self-referential

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discourse as to who is the better, more efficient, and effective humanitarian organization
(Joachim and Schneiker 2017). In addition, adopting a post-structuralist perspective and explor-
ing the relationships between organizations engaged at the international level and local level,
scholars in recent years have drawn attention to us-versus-them dynamics between Southern
NGOs who feel increasingly estranged from their Northern peers and who in their eyes rep-
resent a privileged elite detached from the real needs of their constituents (see Friedman 2009;
Basu 1995; Mohanty 2002; Hahn and Holzscheiter 2013). Proponents of a postcolonial perspec-
tive and with a focus on environmental NGOs have arrived at similar conclusions and illustrated
the ways in which Northern organizations reproduce colonial discourses from the past (e.g.,
Athanasiou 1996; Doherty and Doyle 2006). Acknowledging that ‘some international NGOs
are making a concerted effort to be sensitive and to establish respectful links with southern
NGOs’, Dilevko, for example, asserts that ‘other international NGOs remain ensconced in a
paternalistic and hierarchical relationship model’ (Dilevko 2002, 87).
At the same time as such critical reflections have been more attuned to the diversity among
the organizations, they nevertheless have not given up on a ‘monolithic’ view of NGOs entirely.
Although more recent works pay more attention to Southern NGOs, they see them nonetheless
as similar to their Northern peers as homogeneous groups with little regard to differences among
and dynamics within them. For example, while conceiving of the environmental movement
as being composed of diverse and plural actors, Doherty and Doyle (2006) nonetheless suggest
that Northern NGOs quite often favor ‘a post-industrialist lens’ and their ‘environmentalism
challenges the excesses of the industrialist project; the rights of corporations to pollute and
degrade; and the dwindling of the earth’s resources as they are fed into the advanced industrial
machines’, while Southern NGOs distance themselves from the ‘post-colonialism as the nar-
rative frame’ and ‘descriptive of the experience of the majority of the earth’. Instead, ‘green
concerns are cast in the light of the colonizer versus the colonized; the dichotomous world of
affluence and poverty; along structuralist lines between the haves and the have-nots’ (Doherty
and Doyle 2006, 707).
However, studies which conceive of Southern NGOs not only as objects of such marginal-
izing discourses and the politics of othering are gaining in visibility. Based on two case studies,
Shareen Hertel (2006) shows that local NGOs in the South are indeed able to exert influence
independently and can make their voices heard, while Martin estimates the power of Southern
NGOs, particularly with respect to issues related to climate and the environment, to have
significantly increased over recent years (Martin 2011, 26). Moreover, individual analysis fre-
quently informed by a postcolonial perspective has laid bare how NGOs independent of their
origin themselves contribute to power asymmetries insofar as they ‘often tend to perpetuate an
identity of their constituency as particularly powerless, mute and vulnerable in order to justify
their own role as rightful representatives’, as Holzscheiter and Hahn illustrate in their study of
the cases of child labor and prostitution and drawing on the writings of Foucault (Hahn and
Holzscheiter 2013, 499). Neither are the power asymmetries and dependencies between NGOs
uni-directional. In her analysis of North American and Central American NGOs, Lister, in fact,
finds a ‘double dependence’ as the relationships that Southern NGOs (SNGOS) maintain with
those from the global North (NNGOs) depend also on the relationships that the latter maintain
with donors (Lister 2000). Although contributions of SNGOs have, in her eyes, the potential
to redress power imbalances, ‘[t]he framework and activities of the donor and the NNGO are
constructed so as to reduce the need for the resources of legitimacy and local knowledge and
thus diminish “downward” dependence’ (Lister 2000, 12).
Increasingly cognizant of the problems associated with monolithic conceptions of NGOs, in
recent years post-positivist scholars have begun to shift their focus to

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practices of resistance rather than organized efforts at collective change and suggest that
in the context of globalization we need to focus on the relationship of movements with
public spheres, modalities of power and resistance, identity formation, and their normative
penumbrae.
(Desai 2005, 320 in reference to Guidry et al. 2000)

In this respect, the structures in which the actors are embedded and which shape their behavior,
their interactions, their power, and their self-understanding have been of particular interest.

From NGOs as actors to NGOs as structures

First-generation scholars already acknowledged that a focus on the actors alone would be insuf-
ficient since the immaterial structures in which NGOs exist were deemed of equal importance.
Nevertheless, similar to the conception of actorness, theoretical thinking related to structural
dimensions and their impact has evolved since then.
In their pioneering work, Keck and Sikkink, for example, speak of transnational advocacy
networks (TANs) in which NGOs are embedded. Defined as ‘communicative structures’ and
‘political spaces, in which differently situated actors negotiate – formally or informally – the
social, cultural, and political meanings of their joint enterprise’ (Keck and Sikkink 1998, 3),
these networks ‘provide access to information’ to those involved, ‘broaden their legitimacy,
and help to mobilize information around particular policy targets’ (Keck and Sikkink 1998, 21).
Although this definition of structure at the time presented a radical departure from positivist
research in International Relations, it ignored that networks were not an even-level playing
field with information flowing freely from A to B. Instead, the actors in a network (conceived
of as a structure) possess different forms and quantities of power with some being more powerful
than others as, for example, in terms of agenda setting.
Studying the non-adoption of the issue of children born of wartime rape in TANs, Charli
Carpenter argues that some organizations act as ‘gatekeepers’ who decide whether an issue
is adopted by a TAN or not (Carpenter 2007a, 2007b, 2009) while Clifford Bob points to
the gatekeeping role of Northern NGOs, whose material and ideational resources put them
in a position to support some issues and actors, while denying the same support to others
(Bob 2005).
Rather than conceiving of NGOs (as actors) within a network (structure), scholars more
recently conceive of NGOs in terms of structure as well as arguing that the external actions of
NGOs, including their power and influence, depend – among other things – on the internal
structure of NGOs. As for human rights NGOs, Wendy Wong, studying Amnesty International
(AI) and Human Rights Watch (HRW), suggests that the credibility of these two organizations
is based on their particular internal structure defined in terms of ‘membership, funding sources
and the distribution of agenda-setting powers’ (Wong 2012, 87–88). For example, because of its
large membership base, AI can position itself credibly as a movement and a grass-roots organiza-
tion. Compared to HRW, which is not a membership organization, but consists largely of paid
researchers who target political elites instead of activists, AI’s membership provides the organi-
zation with a larger mobilizing capacity. At the same time, however, it also ‘limits its capacity
to produce generalized reports and expand the scope of its activities’ (Wong 2012, 93). While
these examples highlight that NGOs have as much agential as well as structural qualities, they
draw attention to the internal constitution of organizations and how it affects their positioning
vis-à-vis others in the wider environment, subjects which scholars have become increasingly
interested in more recently.

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In this respect, a number of studies have examined the internal make-up of NGOs and the
distribution of resources between divisions as it relates to the propensity for conflict and organi-
zational fragmentation (e.g., Hopgood 2006; Suzuki 1998; Wong 2012). Research related to
humanitarian NGOs, for example, points to existing tensions between management at head-
quarters and field staff in the local offices due to differences in values and power resources and
distinct approaches (e.g., Heyse 2006; Krause 2014; Roth 2015, 92; Suzuki 1998, 1). Whereas
the latter focus mainly on their target groups – usually populations in need – the various divi-
sions at the headquarters are often concerned primarily with public relations, project funding,
maintaining relationships with donors, and human resource management (Suzuki 1998, 4–5).
Because of their altered view and findings, students of NGOs have called into question that
these organizations are only normatively driven, but instead purported the view that they are
political actors. This assumption has also been reinforced by more recent developments.
Taking a closer look at how NGOs behave in the field and when, like human humanitar-
ian NGOs, delivering assistance to victims of conflicts of environmental disasters, studies have
found paradoxical patterns. Instead of alleviating suffering, NGOs at times may contribute ‘to
harm by doing good’ (Wood and Sullivan 2015). As Wood and Sullivan (2015) as well as others
(Coyne 2013; Terry 2002) illustrate, ‘[a]id encourages rebel violence by providing opportunities
for looting and presenting challenges to rebel authority. It potentially encourages state violence
where it augments rebel capabilities or provides rebels a resource base’ (Wood and Sullivan
2015, 736). Similar to humanitarian organizations which in light of such ‘negative externality
costs’ (ibid.) have started to acknowledge the political implications of their actions, scholars too
more readily admit that NGOs are always to some extent a reflection of and limited by the very
same structures they seek to change.
Literature concerned with the trend toward commercialization and marketization in human-
itarian NGOs speaks to that point. Pressures emanating from competition for donor money and
projects prompt organizations to behave in a firm-like fashion evaluating whether and where to
deliver aid not on the basis of need, but rather based on organizational interests, the likely rate
of success, and the likely donations it might generate (see, e.g., Cooley and Ron 2002). Because
such cost-benefit considerations might be shared only by particular units within an organization,
and but be at odds with the moral principles which still may motivate individual staff mem-
bers, they can ignite ‘a struggle . . . over the very soul of the institution’ (Albert and Whetten
1985, 272) or ‘threaten the non-profit sector’s ability to remain distinct from other sectors and
uniquely address social problems’ (Sanders and McClellan 2014, 69), as some non-profit scholars
have warned. Instead of ensuring organizational survival, marketization or commercialization
may, thus, accomplish the exact opposite. Moreover, these processes are not limited to the
organization as such, but may affect its different layers.
Having studied the motivations of aid workers, Silke Roth, for example, finds that the
self-benefit logic with which, according to Cooley and Ron (2002), organizations increas-
ingly approach decisions related to their engagement also motivates individual staff members
who conceive of their work as an ‘escape from routinized work patterns’ (Roth 2015, 60) or
seeking adventure and risks, including physical risks (Roth 2011, 159; 2015, 60). Furthermore,
marketization and commercialization also have taken hold of NGOs’ constituents and members
who no longer appear to be driven by altruism alone, but by instrumental reasoning as well,
such as expected reputational gains within their peer group or enhanced job opportunities
when being mentioned on one’s personal CV or heightened self-esteem. While changes among
the supporters of NGOs have not yet received much attention, the work of Saurugger implies
that the organizations already perceive of them differently. Rather than treating them simply as
activists, NGOs relate to their constituents as ‘check-book participants’ (Saurugger 2009, 11)

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or ‘consumers’ who buy products of the NGOs, such as T-shirts and cups bearing the organi-
zations’ logos, or gain in status by receiving appreciation for what they do from their peers or
others (Lorimer 2010; Maier, Meyer, and Steinbereithner 2016, 7).
In light of these ongoing changes inside NGOs as well as to capture their relationships with
the broader environment, individual scholars drawing on the work of Foucault have favored a
governmentality perspective with respect to these organizations, based upon which NGOs are
‘both an object and a subject of government’ (Sending and Neumann 2006, 652) or put dif-
ferently, at the same time as they contribute in the regulation of the activities of other actors,
their own behavior is subject to control. Epstein’s analysis of the contribution of environmental
NGOs to an ever more powerful global discourse condemning whale-hunting is an illustrative
example of this strand of research. He finds NGOs not only as actively taking part in the con-
struction of the anti-whaling discourse, but also as being themselves constructed in this process
by being part of a specific field of interactions (Epstein 2008). Similarly, contrasting the inter-
national campaign to ban landmines with the role of NGOs in international population policy,
Sending and Neumann show

that the self-association and political will-formation characteristic of civil society and non-
state actors do not stand in opposition to the political power of the state, but is a most
central feature of how power, understood as government, operates in late modern society.
(Sending and Neumann 2006, 651)

Exploring the spread of ‘managerialism’ among development NGOs, Cooke (2004) and Murphy
(2008), among others, suggest that being representative of a dominant understanding of devel-
opment management nurtures asymmetrical power relations between the West and the rest of
the world. Girei (2016), in turn, based on a neo-Gramscian perspective asserts that the spread of
such a mindset among local organizations can be likened to hegemonic expansion involving an
‘interplay between consensus and coercion’ (Girei 2016, 194). Finally, examining NGOs posi-
tion toward states’ reliance on private companies for the provision of security and police-related
tasks, Joachim and Schneiker suggest that the organizations, through their involvement in multi-
stakeholder dialogues aimed at establishing rules and norms for the companies, contribute ‘inten-
tionally or unintentionally . . . to the stabilization, depoliticization, and legitimization of private
security governance and an emerging neoliberal order’ (Joachim and Schneiker 2015, 13–14).
The various examples cited from the literature here suggest that akin to the notion of ‘actor-
ness’ of NGOs, research related to the structural dimensions of the organizations has changed
over time as well. It illustrates that post-positivist-inspired research is rather pluralistic and cannot
be easily subsumed under one label.

Conclusion
Perhaps because of this diversity in approaches, the research related to NGOs has come a long
way. While initial work dating back to the 1990s was still very much influenced by the positiv-
ist paradigm, especially its causal logic, it firmly established these non-state actors as a widely
accepted field of study. Embracing post-positivism more readily and fully, later contributions
reflected critically on the normative and idealist notion of actorness and drew attention to the
power structures in which NGOs were embedded, the power asymmetries prevailing between
and within them, and how these organizations contributed to their existence. NGOs were no
longer perceived as ‘forces of the good’ only, but also as instrumental, egoistic actors with at
times pathological behaviors.

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As much as research has moved away from describing and explaining what NGOs do and
toward an understanding of the actors themselves and how they are simultaneously affected by
and have an effect on their broader environment, the challenges of studying them in this man-
ner also have exponentially increased. Opening up the ‘black box’ (Heyse 2011) of NGOs and
studying these organizations with a post-positivist lens affords researchers not only access to
internal processes. Instead, it means nearly anthropological work to understand what symbols,
practices, and discourses mean while constantly reflecting on one’s own subjectivity. From the
perspective of NGOs, granting this type of access to scholars may not always be to their liking
since the findings could be conceived as counter-productive to their work or even outright
embarrassing. When viewed from the position of the researcher, pressure for tenure, getting
published, and a lack of resources may stand in the way of investing in this type of research.
Fortunately, however, there are still enough who despite such difficulties and pressures are
committed to constructivist, critical, postcolonial, feminist, or post-structuralist approaches and
contribute to the steadily growing body of post-positivist NGO research.

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 8
NGOs in constructivist
international relations theory
Christopher Marc Lilyblad

Non-governmental organizations, or NGOs, generally do not fall into the “armed” or “violent”
non-state actor category. On the contrary, most NGOs reject violence as a matter of principle.
Since contemporary NGOs clearly lack recourse to coercive practices through the organiza-
tion, not to mention monopolization, of organized violence, it would certainly be difficult
to imagine NGOs as true powerbrokers in a structural (neo-)realist world of material power
distributions and imbalances. Similarly, though some NGOs, especially those established by
private philanthropists, wield significant financial resources and corresponding leverage over
weaker states or even intergovernmental organizations (IGOs),1 the vast majority of NGOs are
not-for-profits seemingly in constant search of funding. Accordingly, NGOs are neither drivers
of complex interdependence, nor major stakeholders in international institutions optimized for
mutual economic gain. NGOs are thus often relegated to a rather marginal status in both liberal-
institutional and realist IR theory.
NGOs are, however, champions of ideas, agents for change, agenda-setters, policy advo-
cates, and norm enforcers by applying pressure in public arenas and shaming transgressors (Keck
and Sikkink 1998; Werker and Ahmed 2008; Hall and Lilyblad 2013). On the ground, NGOs
implement programmes aspiring to plethoric visions regarding the way the world ought to be,
thus often catalysing change from the bottom-up and lending the marginalized a voice. Given
their evident impact and influences, ranging from global policy fora to remote local arenas,
NGOs emerge as important actors in constructivist IR approaches seeking to understand global
political dynamics. Indeed, constructivism is broadly considered among the IR traditions that
lend most credence to the possibility of NGOs being relevant in World Politics (Ahmed and
Potter 2006; Willetts 2011; DeMars and Dijkzeul 2015).
In essence, constructivism maintains that the world is of our own making (Onuf 2013 [1987]).
The international system, including its institutions, actors, rules, authority loci, identities, or,
collectively, the agents and structures that co-constitute this system, is socially constructed (ibid.).2
Human social convention and institutions therefore do not arise from nature but are the result
of complex human interaction and this requires the acceptance of a social ontology as a premise
for further investigation (e.g. Onuf 2013 [1987]; Kratochwil and Ruggie 1986). Accepting this
premise ipso facto entails that the world we inhabit, including the structure of the contemporary
international system composed of nation-states suspended within it, is subject to change over time,

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meaning it is historically contingent and dynamic (Adler 1998; Wendt 1999). If constructivism
allows for the possibility of systemic change, then it is the actors constituting the system that are
the potential drivers of change. From this perspective, NGOs may have an impact on the evolu-
tion of an international or global system that has been more or less anchored in a state-systemic
structure dominated by nation-states at least since the post-World War II establishment of the
United Nations (UN) system. While NGOs have largely risen to their current position in the
post-war framework of a liberal international order, despite the vast spectrum of ideologies moti-
vating NGO engagement, their common denominator appears to be advocating departure from
the status quo. This leads us to a fundamental analytical question; namely: From the perspective
of constructivist IR theory, are NGOs capable of contributing to systemic change in a seemingly
static and constraining legal-rational system marked by the predominance of nation-states? While
the aim here is certainly not to offer anything resembling a comprehensive answer, the question
offers an instrumental impetus for a constructivist exploration of NGOs in IR.
To this end, I first review some of the tenets of constructivist IR theory by illustrating the
social ontology that lies at the root of constructivist notions of systemic constitution. Based
on this perspective, I then briefly revisit the constitution of prior systems in order to dem-
onstrate how the institutionalization of the sovereign-territorial states-system not only led to
the separation of “public” and “private” realms but paved the way for the very possibility of
“non-governmental” organizations. Even though the emergence of NGOs can be traced at
least to the late 18th century (Davies 2014), the third section emphasizes how systemic changes
leading to the post-World War II system attributed a more clearly articulated status to NGOs
that simultaneously recognized but also constrained the role of private, civil society actors. The
fourth section evaluates how NGOs have acquired diverse discursive and operational roles,
allowing them to play a meaningful role in contemporary World Politics. From the vantage
of post-Cold War transnational and global governance discourses, NGOs appear to have been
successful at leveraging moral authority to impact socialization processes within a global pol-
ity, thus opening possibilities for shaping incremental change. The fifth section analyzes critical
constructivist perspectives, exposing some limitations inherent to “liberal” approaches. The final
section therefore suggests that the communicative turn based on a logic of argumentation could
offer a path to reconciling this cleavage through an “agonistic” constructivist synthesis. The
chapter concludes by stating how constructivist theory and empirical NGO activities appear to
be mutually reinforcing; however, constructivism must remain wary of a priori ideological and
normative commitments to avoid obscuring the potential of its analytical lens.

The constitution of the modern international system

In order to understand how NGOs can play a systemically relevant role from constructivist per-
spectives, we must particularly distinguish its meta-theoretical approach to World Politics from
predominant neo-utilitarian traditions in IR, especially neoliberalism and neorealism. In essence,
neo-utilitarian approaches share a rationalist worldview wherein constituent actors, i.e. sovereign
nation-states, seek to meet material interests within a static, sovereign-territorial international
system. The structure of this system is treated as constant and is reified as an ahistorical ontologi-
cal given. Herein, room for autonomous manoeuvre by “units” comprising the system is con-
strained by rationalist interest calculations, meaning agency is limited by the choice-constraints
imposed by the structural reality of the system, when assuming that all actors are essentially self-
interested and aspire to “rational” behaviour. Unlike constructivist approaches, wherein interests
are constituted in the process of actor organization and identity-formation, rationalist approaches
thus impose analyst-imputed, preordained utility functions on actors, whose agency remains

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constrained since actions are dictated by a game-theoretic logic of consequences. Neo-utilitarians

therefore neglect how the system is constituted or even how their constitutive actors emerged –
it is “endowed with the ontological status of being but not of becoming” (Ruggie 1998, 863).
In other words, the states-system simply is, always was, and perpetually will be. From an a fortiori
perspective, if neo-utilitarianism cannot even accede systemically relevant roles or agency for
states, then the possibility of considering non-state actors, such as NGOs, playing such a role is
a “non-starter” (Götz 2008). Accordingly, a radically different meta-theoretical framework is a
precondition for an analytical approach that takes NGOs seriously.
The contours of such a framework emerged with the early social constructivist movement
in the 1980s. Rather than an anarchical self-help system, constructivism opened the door to
understanding the international system not only in terms of anarchy but also authority – a domain
previously reserved for “domestic” or “comparative” politics (Onuf 2013 [1987]). Early con-
structivists particularly highlighted institutional “regimes” in which norms and rules enabled and
constrained actors’ behaviour and choices (Kratochwil 1989). Rational or utilitarian courses of
action thus only became intelligible within the structural context that agents within the system
themselves created, viz. anarchy is what states make of it (Wendt 1992). As Ruggie put it, “a core
constructivist research concern is what happens before the neo-utilitarian model kicks in” (1998,
867). Rather than theorizing how the system works at a given time (in situ), constructivists sought
to explain how the system came to be in the first place and how it changes over time (ex situ).
Importantly for NGOs, the constructivist movement paved the way for revisiting the agency
vs. structure debate in IR during a period when predominant theories adopted firm structuralist
perspectives limiting the role of agency within a putatively static system. Borrowing significantly
from social theory, particularly Giddens’s structuration theory (Onuf 2013 [1987]), social systems
are never static but co-constituted by agency and structure. Herein, a recursive process takes
place wherein agents produce structures (a combination of rules and resources) that are repro-
duced by agents conforming to those structures to produce a systemic whole (Giddens 1984).
The resultant system, however, cannot exist independent of its constituent actors and is subject to
change as, during the recursive process of systemic reproduction, agents deviate from or establish
new norms and rules as structural determinants within which actions occur (ibid.). The system is
therefore never static but subject to constant reproduction or change, even though this recursive
and cyclical process is one of gradual transition and adaptation, in contrast to Marxism’s revolu-
tionary systemic upheaval and critical approaches anaemic to “problem-solving”.
Structuration theory therefore accorded a “spiralling”, co-constitutive relationship between
“micro” and “macro”, wherein neither emerges as a determinant of the other (Giddens 1984,
139). As Rosenau suggests, micro-level dynamics can have systemic repercussions because macro
structures, such as the state or the international system, depend on citizens and organizations
conforming to, or reproducing, the structures of the prevailing system (1992a). In other words, if
structures were not reproduced due to large-scale non-compliance, the structures themselves are
no longer viable (Giddens 1984; Onuf 2013 [1987]; Rosenau 1992a), meaning that citizens, civil
society, NGOs, and other “non-state” actors could no longer be ignored when accounting for
macro outcomes. However, just because the structures are social does not entail that change comes
easily. Despite attributing a greater role to agency and micro-level processes, agents neverthe-
less remain constrained by the system within which they operate at any given time (Kratochwil
1986). While scope for agent-driven change therefore clearly exists, the magnitude and impact of
micro-level agency nevertheless remain temporally and historically contingent on the prevailing
macro-level systemic context. Accordingly, attempts at differentiating between micro, plural-
ist, and bottom-up versus macro, global, and top-down approaches within constructivist theory
establish a false and oversimplified analytical dichotomy (cf. DeMars and Dijkzeul 2015).

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Sovereignty, collective identity, and public authority

The agency accorded to NGOs as private, non-state actors therefore depends on the contem-
poraneous structure of the international or global system within which they operate. As Davies
portrays, NGOs or “transnational civil society” actors can be traced back at least to the late
18th century and the so-called “rise” of NGOs is but an intensification of practices by private
actors predating the contemporary international system (2014). However, even if the constitu-
tion and practices of NGOs themselves have not changed significantly and can be traced back
to the likes of the Hospitaller Order of the Knights of St. John (ibid.), or as they are known
today, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, the contextual arena within which these organi-
zations exist has nevertheless altered dramatically over time. As most constructivists recognize,
the contemporary modern, legal-rational states-system based on the nation-state as the central
“unit” of political organization was by no means inevitable and should not be treated as constant
(cf. Wendt 1999). Indeed, two alternative ideational bases of legitimation of social organization
and political authority – ecclesiastical and sovereign-territorial identity – preceded the contem-
porary international system based on national collective identity (Hall 1999). This primacy of
national collective identity for segmenting the political realm can also be traced to the late 18th
century, corresponding with the transition from medieval feudalism to modern legal-rational
“bourgeois” society (ibid.). Recursively, this process then has repercussions on the status and
corresponding agency of NGOs themselves.
Prior to this, the modern distinction between “public” and “private” realms was not yet as
crystallized. For example, before the 17th century, it would have been common for ecclesiastical
authorities to simultaneously exercise temporal authority over territories under their jurisdiction
(Wilson 2016). Moreover, “public” authority that princes wielded over fiefdoms could not be
separated from their “private” estates, or houses, from whence they inherited the legitimacy to
rule via ancestral lineage (ibid.). Religious military orders could also pretend to “sovereignty”
absent claims to specific fixed and contiguous territories. There was no clear-cut legal distinction
between “public” and “private” realms; rather, the two were deeply intertwined, often deeply
bounded within traditional authority (Weber 1964), wherein offices were personally as opposed
to perpetually lived and trade depended on personal modes of exchange (North, Wallis, and
Weingast 2009). In retrospect, sovereignty was shared among what we would now view as “pub-
lic” and “private” actors wielding authority diffused along various intersecting and overlapping
levels and jurisdictions. This medieval system was pluralistic and heterogeneous with manifold
institutional forms exercising authority over territorial or functional domains (Spruyt 1994).
While political scientists often hail the Peace of Westphalia as the origin of the sovereign
states-system, this was rather a historical marker on a continuous path culminating in the disag-
gregation of “public” and “private” that had its origins in a religious schism (Caporaso 2000;
Benton 2010). Though oversimplified, it is sufficient to note here that one of the key terms of
resolving the Thirty Years War was the separation of religious dogma from the affairs of state-
craft, or what has been coined as the doctrine of raison d’état under Cardinal Richelieu in Louis
XIV’s France (Hall 1999). This separation of ecclesiastical identity from statecraft established the
predominance of “dynastic sovereignty”, permitting the appointment of princes to territories
where the majority of subjects did not share confessional status with their sovereign (Hall 1999,
59; Wilson 2016). Subjects no longer identified with sovereigns based on religious denomina-
tion but became subjects of increasingly autonomous states vying for equality in an early-modern
territorial-sovereign system whose “configuration remained contested” (Ruggie 1993, 163), set-
ting the stage for a modern states-system based on consolidated public authority and territorial-
sovereignty as the exclusive organizing principle (Kratochwil and Ruggie 1986; Ruggie 1993;

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Caporaso 2000). The mutual and reciprocal recognition of sovereignty entailed the relegation
of all non-territorial-sovereign actors, including private actors, to second-tier status in political
affairs, particularly those between states and, increasingly now, also empires spanning the globe.
The predominance of this territorial-sovereign status quo was, however, soon eclipsed by
a more accentuated form of political segmentation based on national collective identity that
nevertheless retained territorial-sovereignty as a systemic container. Whereas peoples of distinct
cultural, ethnic, and linguistic heritage could easily cohabitate under the sovereign rule of impe-
rial, territorial-sovereign jurisdiction, beginning in the late 18th century, nationalism emerged as
the predominant ideational force underpinning the modern legal-rational state and differentiat-
ing between “us” and “other”. Indeed, several important works have exposed how nationalism
is a very recent and temporally/historically contingent social phenomenon (Anderson 1991;
Hobsbawm 1990; Tilly 1994; Hall 1999). As Tilly suggests:

Only late in the eighteenth century did nationalism become a salient force in European
politics . . . Two centuries or so ago, however, a narrower, newer, stronger form of nation-
alism became prominent in European politics: the claim that people who spoke for coher-
ent nations – and they alone – had the right to rule sovereign states.
(1994, 133)

Accordingly, the sovereign realm now became associated with a distinct form of public author-
ity uniquely reserved for nation-states.

The creation of NGOs as a residual category

This modern nation-states system clearly differentiating between public and private spheres would
come to full fruition with the end of World War II and the emergence of the post-war order
(Ruggie 1982). It particularly enshrined the principle of “constitutive statehood” (see Erman
2013) into the international order by endowing this assembly of sovereign nation-states – and only
them – with the authority to determine the rules for admission into the club. The states-system,
like any social system, can only exist or function by virtue of constitutive rules that determine
“what counts as” a certain type of social action, behaviour, or organization (Ruggie 1998; Searle
2005). The United Nations, establishing the framework of the post-war order, now concentrated
its “collective intentionality” within an institutionalized forum that, via mutual recognition and
reciprocity, assigned certain organized collectives the new status of sovereign-territorial statehood
through speech acts (see Searle 2005), or what Claude referred to as the UN’s collective legitima-
tion function (1966). Initially reserved for a select number of states, the decolonization process
unfolding throughout the Cold War entailed that this framework would become global in scope
with nominally independent, legal-rational nation-states now covering the world political map.
The systemic framework devised under the newly established United Nations Charter had
important effects not only on the constitution of the post-war international order itself but also for
NGOs specifically. Perhaps not coincidentally, it was during this time period that the neologism
“non-governmental organization” appeared (Götz 2008, 237; Willetts 2011). While “voluntary”,
“relief”, or “advocacy” organizations had existed for centuries (Götz 2008; Davies 2014), the
development of a residual category to denote a form of organization clearly distinct from the now
crystallized public, legal-rational sphere further underscores the broader contextual change within
which such organizations operated. This new context, explicitly restricting recognition of public
authority to national states, ipso facto changed the status of “non-governmental”, private actors that
previously had more equal footing with “public” authorities.

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More fundamentally, it also reaffirmed the legal distinction between public and private or
state and non-state actors in the international arena. Particularly, by explicitly referencing “non-
governmental organizations” in Article 71 of the United Nations Charter (United Nations
2011), the post-war framework had two simultaneous though perhaps paradoxical effects. On
the one hand, it empowered NGOs by acceding a certain amount of agency within the state-
systemic structure via recognition under “consultative status” (ibid.), thus formally recognizing
and institutionalizing a category that had heretofore only existed in practice. However, it also
had a highly constraining effect by limiting NGOs to “non-governmental” and thus second-tier
status in a systemic framework clearly intended for public, territorial-sovereign state authorities
representing distinct nations. The post-war order thus simultaneously enabled NGOs through
recognition as legitimate participants but also constrained them by formally relegating their offi-
cial function to consultative or observer status. In short, they were intended to remain marginal
actors as part of a supporting cast on the world’s newly decorated stage.

Global and transnational paradigms

From a constructivist perspective, the end of the Cold War presented yet another important systemic
shift with significant implications for the actual (empirical) role of NGOs as well as epistemological
approaches for understanding this role within a context of systemic change. Following decades of sys-
temic constraint due to geostrategic stalemate and bipolar interstate rivalry in which NGOs appeared
to be rather marginal players, the transitory period beginning in the mid-1980s appears to demonstrate
bourgeoning civil society and NGO activity (Werker and Ahmed 2008). The funding allo-
cated to and implemented by NGOs during this period also began increasing dramatically (ibid., 75).
Indeed, Rosenau (1992a) discussed the role of civil society and popular movements extensively
in his treatment of the fall of Eastern European socialist regimes. Coincidentally, during this transitory
period, the IR constructivist movement also began acquiring greater recognition. The combination
of these systemic changes, along with emerging epistemological approaches for conceptualizing
and analysing them, opened the door to new IR paradigms focusing on increasingly transnational and
global processes. Herein, NGOs are not only seen as constitutive participants or observers of an
international or global system but, rather, the amalgamation of their actions would conceivably permit
them to, collectively, emerge as transformative agents.
Global governance is a particularly predominant paradigm in this regard. Though Rosenau
did not specifically use the term, he is widely credited as its progenitor (Neumann and Sending
2014) by recognizing the significance of globalization’s effects on political, economic, and social
changes, while seeing the system as a composite of interactions occurring at diverse sites and var-
iegated geographical scales, from local to global. Global governance therefore emphasized how
states are only part of a system constituted by diverse actors exercising various forms of authority
within an increasingly global system (Rosenau 1992b; Gordenker and Weiss 1995). While the
approach is not constructivist per se, it nevertheless acquired a significant number of constructiv-
ist adherents subscribing to notions of a polyarchic and polycentric system, wherein states were
only a part of the governance edifice (Friedrichs 2001; Scholte 2007). In short, global governance
(re-)opened the doors to private sources of authority, which coincided well with a constructivist
research agenda focusing on rules, norm diffusion, socialization, legitimacy, identities, etc.
The type of authority exercised by NGOs within the global governance framework is gener-
ally understood as moral authority, which Hall and Biersteker (2002) conceptually developed
as part of a tripartite typology of private authority. Such authority, unlike territorial-sovereign
states’ public authority, does not stem from coercive sources associated with a legitimate monop-
oly of violence. Rather, moral authority could be acquired from: (1) Agenda-setting, referring

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to the ability of NGOs to raise important issues in international arenas, (2) the authority of
authorship (expertise) or epistemic authority, and/or (3) claims to moral transcendence (Hall
and Biersteker 2002; Hall and Lilyblad 2013). In other words, consistent with Finnemore and
Barnett’s (2004) analytical distinction between being “in” authority vs. being “an” authority, the
authority exercised by NGOs does not derive from duly-constituted plenary authority over a
territorial domain. Rather, it stems from organizations’ expertise and recognition as an authority
within issue-specific or functional domains where private actors either acquired specific knowl-
edge or possess moral claims subjectively recognized as valid or legitimate by others (Hall and
Lilyblad 2013). Seen from the power matrix developed by Barnett and Duvall (2005), despite not
having recourse to “compulsory power” via coercive or other forms of direct leverage, NGOs
appear to exercise “productive power” (deriving from systems of knowledge and discursive prac-
tices) and, to a lesser extent, “structural power” (resource-based capacities and advantages). As
discussed below, NGOs also exercise “institutional power” when influencing actors endowed
with leverage in international organizations.
The notion of private authority also accommodated a greater role and recognition for NGOs
gaining legitimacy as purposive agents in an increasingly pluralistic global arena. Viewing global
governance as a complex mosaic of actors, institutions, and processes, Gordenker and Weiss
(1995) see NGOs as not only influencing policy but indeed contributing to systemic and institu-
tional changes, particularly with regards to the UN system. They especially point to the opera-
tional and education/advocacy roles allowing NGOs to help shape organizational, governance,
strategic, and output dimensions of World Politics (ibid., 384). This suggests that, at a minimum,
the recognition of NGOs as viable participants in international policy discourses and as coopera-
tive actors alongside IGOs in operational arenas in itself already constitutes fundamental changes
in a system previously considered exclusive to states. Taking this logic further, when NGOs
begin influencing identities and interests of other actors through socialization processes, then the
system becomes vulnerable to reflecting the changes of its constitutive actors and the institutions
they jointly establish.
Analytically distinct from global governance, transnationalism presents a further approach
closely aligned with constructivist thought. In particular, Keck and Sikkink (1998), Risse-Kappen
(1995), and others (see e.g. Risse-Kappen, Sikkink, and Ropp 1999) emphasized the ways in
which non-state actors organize themselves in pursuit of common values and shared principles
across nation-state borders. Herein, transnationalism offers a conduit for actors to share informa-
tion and resources to pressure states into conforming to norms and rules, thus shaping identities
and/or influencing the process of defining legitimate objectives and interests of states. From this
vantage, NGOs are particularly influential within domestic, regional, and international policy
levels and arenas by establishing advocacy networks that transcend the state-systemic institutional
framework by reaching beyond the statist boundaries in which a specific organization may be
located (Keck and Sikkink 1998). For example, Keck and Sikkink’s (1998) “boomerang model”
emphasizes how NGOs could leverage their influence on states that violate domestic or interna-
tional norms by applying pressure on other states and IGOs to exact norm-conforming behaviour
and corresponding policy changes. The tactics that transnational advocacy networks (TANs) use
to this end include information, symbolic, leverage, and accountability politics (ibid.), which
can have influential impacts on the process of agenda-setting, discourses at state, regional,
and international levels, institutional procedures, policy change among “target actors”, and state
behaviour. By building transnational networks and alliances, NGOs can directly pressure states
through public shaming for, say, human rights violations or indirectly by leveraging the insti-
tutional power vested in international public fora such as the UN system, thus rendering them
simultaneously “domestic” and “international” actors.

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The transnational approach also manifests itself in discourses of (liberal) norm diffusion.
Herein, the emphasis on transnationalism illustrates how universal human rights regimes are
diffused within states through NGO-led shaming, advocacy, and resultant public pressure
vis-à-vis autocratic regimes and incoherent practices among states (Risse-Kappen, Sikkink, and
Ropp 1999). Accordingly, such approaches emphasized ways in which NGOs act as agents
of transnational norm diffusion and identity-formation. Departing from the rationalist logic
of consequences, this logic of appropriateness purportedly holds states and intergovernmental
organizations accountable by pointing to transgressions of international normative and legal
frameworks as well as promoting voluntary adherence to shared principles and ideas. NGOs thus
emerge as norm entrepreneurs and knowledge brokers.
Venturing beyond the transnational approach, still others saw a reconstruction of World
Politics through the emergence of global civil society (Lipschutz 1992; Keane 2003). An early
proponent of such an approach, Ronnie Lipschutz (1992), declared that the increasingly global
networks of non-state actors were forming heteronomous imagined communities along issue-
specific functional areas that crossed state boundaries. According to Lipschutz, as state sover-
eignty continued to disperse “upwards” to supranational levels and “downwards” to subnational
areas, the global political arena was carving out new non-territorial political spaces (ibid.). This
conscious association of actors across nation-state borders could then “reconstruct, re-imagine
and re-map world politics . . . in a way that had not been the case since the medieval period”
(ibid., 391). These associations, furthermore, were not necessarily formally constituted groups
but rather epistemic communities forming a “conscious association of actors, in physically sepa-
rated locations, who link themselves together in networks for particular political and social
purposes” in areas such as the environment, development, and human rights, thus establishing
bottom-up challenges to the nation-state system (ibid., 393).
This conceptualization of global civil society also opened the door to notions of a democratiza-
tion of World Politics, wherein non-state actors could become more directly involved as eman-
cipated stakeholders in collective decision-making. Scholte (2007, 2011) is a particular advocate
of this line of reasoning, seeing global civil society as a means towards a more democratic global
governance edifice held accountable by non-governmental organizations monitoring policy dis-
courses. The pluralization of World Politics was therefore increasingly seen as a challenge to the
states-system in a post-Cold War historical epoch, giving rise to speculation on the possible struc-
ture of a non-state-centric, non-territorial future world order during this “restarting of history”,
based on civil society as an alternative form of collective identity (Lipschutz 1992, 398).

Critical perspectives of systemic collusion

These transnational networks or governance structures putatively pluralizing and democratizing
global governance, however, have also been subject to critical constructivist perspectives sug-
gesting that NGOs’ use of rhetorical resources, especially moral claims, is prone to espousing
liberal perspectives, not to mention harbouring potential biases. Indeed, many of the afore-
mentioned approaches only saw norms and rules and the actors upholding them as normatively
“good”, while neglecting the “bad” (Adler 1998, 336; Lynch 2008). Good and bad can have
multiple meanings in this sense. It can refer to the different actor types (i.e. agents) that advo-
cate, implement, monitor, and/or enforce certain norms (e.g. states, NGOs, MNCs, criminal
organizations, etc.) but can also refer to the norms and rules (i.e. structures) themselves, which
can establish incentives for behaviour resulting in suboptimal outcomes, inefficiencies, or even
outright harm. Even in cases where motives and principles are well intentioned, the outcomes
and effects can be counterproductive or have adverse consequences in relation to objectives of

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certain stakeholders, viz. Weberian differentiation between an ethic of moral conviction result-
ing in a deontological logic of appropriateness vs. an ethic of responsibility resulting in a logic of
consequences. Nevertheless, the constructivist camp appears to have been prone to assuming a
well-intentioned moral high ground and benevolence on the part of NGOs’ principle-motivated
behaviour and agency based on underlying logics of appropriateness.
This has been both a cause and consequence of a conflation between the liberal ideology
espoused by some constructivist scholars and their social constructivist epistemic frameworks or
methodologies. This is particularly evident in constructivist analyses focusing on norms and, sup-
posedly, universal principles in international or global as well as local arenas. Such international
norm paradigms are often locally reproduced by international NGOs socializing or “grafting”
certain exogenous norms within non-liberal endogenous contexts, thus generating questions such
as “whose norms matter?” (Acharya 2004) and “whose progress, whose morals?” (Erskine 2012).
The emphasis on NGOs as transnational actors, in particular, remains closely aligned with the
idealism of secular liberal universalism and cosmopolitan norms and principles claiming a priori
universal applicability and legitimacy, thus emphasizing a transcendent moral and ethical status
supposedly valid regardless of social, cultural, and historical context. Herein, global processes and
institutions derive from a macro-level paradigm associated with internationalized Western norms
diffusing institutional frameworks for states and markets, while sustaining the proliferation of socio-
cultural normative frameworks, such as human rights (Finnemore 1996). Acharya refers to such
diffusion of globalized norms as “moral cosmopolitanism”, which “ignores the expansive appeal of
‘norms that are deeply rooted in other types of social entities – regional, national, and subnational
groups’ . . . [and] view[s] norm diffusion as teaching by transnational agents, thereby downplaying
the agency role of local actors” (2004, 242). Furthermore, while the means that NGOs employ
from the perspective of TANs are similar to the conceptualization of moral authority, unlike
global governance discourses, the transnational perspective does not appear to allocate authority to
NGOs through which they become systemically relevant and emancipated actors. Rather, NGOs
remain subjugated to a state-systemic ontology wherein their role is generally confined to influ-
encing and shaping actions of more traditional operators of the states-system.
Others, meanwhile, have sought to expose the supposedly “democratizing” and “pluraliz-
ing” effects of NGO and civil society involvement in global and transnational governance pro-
cesses. As Bartelson (2013) suggests, NGO claims to legitimacy within global civil society often
derive from functionally differentiated, issue-specific groups claiming authority over such issue
domains in the absence of an actual global demos. Precisely because of the absence of an underly-
ing demos, or bounded collective, capable of bestowing legitimacy, NGOs expose themselves to
accusations of usurping authority (ibid.). The self-appointed nature inherent to their missions
begs the question whether their activities in fact reflect public or more narrowly defined private
interests of like-minded constituencies wielding resources to promote their cause. Similarly, in
contrast to the pluralistic transnational and global governance approaches above, NGOs and
civil society do not simply occupy governance functions of states in the form of zero-sum
competition but (inadvertently or not) emerge as transmitters and agents of state power and
authority (Neumann and Sending 2014). This form of alignment with state sovereignty and
authority is what Neumann and Sending refer to as liberal governmentality, wherein NGOs
act as intermediaries of government rationality and therefore reinforce, rather than contest, the
liberal state-systemic order (ibid.). Lipschutz (2008, 2013) appears to also have backtracked from
proclaiming the near-death of the state as the predominant actor in the global arena at the hands
of global civil society. Instead, his more recent writings position NGOs as actors reinforcing a
liberal hegemony through “epistemic violence” that merely promotes a “neo-liberal” status quo
as handmaidens of the state (Lipschutz 2013).

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Though deriving from different ideological perspectives, this approach would ultimately be
consistent with notions of NGO governance being little more than privatization and outsourc-
ing of state functions by other means. This is consistent with Risse’s view that “nonhierarchical
modes of steering and including non-state actors in governance complement rather than substi-
tute for regulatory activities by national governments or supranational institutions” (2011, 18).
These notions appear to be consistent with the fact that many NGOs derive substantial funding
for their operational activities from states, who thus either directly delegate their regulatory or
social service provision activities to NGOs via direct mandates or co-opt NGOs through sub-
stantial co-financing that can be employed to steer NGO activities and priorities in directions
that are then aligned with state interests and, by extension, the territorial-sovereign states-system
of which they are part. Indeed, the consultative status that NGOs enjoy in international gov-
ernmental fora also reinforces and legitimizes these institutions merely through civil society’s
participation. Hence, “private” NGO governance remains dependent on and subject to public
hierarchical steering within the state’s “shadow of hierarchy” (Risse 2011).
Rather than agents of systemic change, such accounts would emphasize NGOs’ role as agents
of systemic reproduction, preserving the architecture of the contemporary global system as well
as their position within it – a position that, as we shall recall, derived from the very international
state-systemic architecture of the post-World War II period. Indeed, this appears to be the great
paradox pertaining to NGOs: If they were actually successful in achieving their stated aims,
their raison d’être would disappear, which runs counter to notions of organizational survival,
including interests and identities embedded within the organization’s existence and its institu-
tional perpetuation. As such, consistent with constructivist tenets, NGOs and the international
system that led to their proliferation, including their collective identities and interests, appear
to be co-constitutively produced and perpetuated, entailing that organizational survival would
be closely linked to systemic persistence, rather than transformative and transcendental change.
As such, global “governance” processes associated with “private authority” nevertheless rely on
state-systemic “government” and its omnipresent “shadow of hierarchy”.

Communicative and agonistic syntheses?

However, these seemingly divergent ideological lenses should lead neither to premature aban-
donment of the possibility of a systemic role for NGOs nor of constructivist analytical insights
to this effect. Indeed, constructivism is not a theory per se but a social ontological approach and
should therefore not be ideologically charged in a prescriptive sense (Cowles 2003). Rather, as an
analytical methodology, it places emphasis on the role of ideas, including morals and ethics, and
their corresponding norms and rules socialized within and between bounded social communities.
It should not, therefore, make claims regarding the content of such rules since it recognizes their
social construction, which ipso facto entails a rejection of universal normative absolutes. In this
regard, Lynch (2008) has called for a more reflexive approach to NGOs and civil society, particu-
larly regarding ethics. Such reflexivity would suggest that the legitimacy of norms and rules that
NGOs espouse, as well as corresponding commitments to their ethical and moral underpinnings,
are necessarily subject to interpretation and contestation depending on the subjectivities and per-
ceptions of those exposed to the norms, rules, regimes, institutions, and their effects.
Indeed, it is precisely herein where the communicative turn can shed more insight on
several false dichotomies within constructivist theory, while potentially offering a synthesis
between them. Following a Habermasian approach, the communicative turn sought to over-
come the dialectic between the logics of consequences and appropriateness by following a
logic of argumentation (Risse 2000; Albert, Kessler, and Stetter 2008). Herein, analysts realize

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that the status of norms and rules, including those established by and governing NGOs, are
not observer-independent and cannot be assumed to carry a priori moral validity. Rather, the
validity of norms as a “social fact” remain observer-dependent and thus reliant on collective
intentionality, constitutive rules, sociocultural backgrounds, intersubjective understandings,
etc. (see Searle 2005). Rather than the normative absolutes within which NGOs often cloak
their activities (while not denying that the actors genuinely believe in their own subjective
worldviews), the moral and ethical considerations that substantiate or invalidate both endog-
enous and exogenous norms remain contingent on argumentative processes and reasoning
within the various fora where they stand subject to debate. In other words, whether NGOs are
trying to convince UN member states to adopt a new resolution or a local community to send
girls to school, they are seeking to persuade target audiences to abandon pre-existing norms in
favour of a new status quo by appealing to their subjectivities. Following a communicative
logic of argumentation, NGOs can thus be seen as agents of reasoning and persuasion via claims
to moral transcendence, without ascribing a priori moral or ethical validity to these claims or
their corresponding actions.
In other words, the communicative approach elucidates the role of NGOs within the inter-
national system while avoiding some of the traps inherent to the false dichotomies between
good vs. bad, liberal vs. critical, or appropriateness vs. consequences, thus establishing a less
ideological constructivist lens. Within the context of constructivist theory, then, NGOs act
as agents of plethoric ideas that resonate with their respective constituencies (donors), who
provide financial and in-kind resources enabling their activities. Within various political are-
nas, they emerge as advocates and implementers bound by neither a logic of consequences
(rationalism), nor a logic of appropriateness (generally associated with constructivism), but
rather a logic of argumentation. Since civil society, and the NGOs operating within it, already
presents a pluralistic ideological arena in and of itself, it would be overly simplistic to suggest
that it is either a question of alignment or contestation with the state and the sovereign-
territorial structure.
Accordingly, despite the fact that NGOs often coalesce and cooperate on issues of com-
mon interest, a more nuanced approach that does not treat civil society and NGOs as a unitary
or singular block could be more appropriate. In this regard, Havercroft and Duvall (2017)
refer to “agonistic constructivism” as a means of transcending the liberal-critical dialectic that
appears to dichotomize constructivist scholarship, particularly in relation to NGOs and civil
society in IR. This approach could be promising because it neither naively analyzes non-state
actors as sources of “legitimacy-generating” contestation of state authority and/or discursive
advocates of universalized dogmas, nor does it ignore the fundamental import of action, thus
overcoming a constructivist tendency to limit analyses to discursive roles and speech acts
(e.g. advocacy). Hereby, agonistic constructivism could also help overcome a key limitation
of the communicative approach’s narrow focus on discourse and linguistic performativity by
opening the door to incorporating (threats of) violence in constructivist analyses as a form
of speech act, thus offering the means of signalling and communicating both intentions and
resolve to others (ibid., 162). Herein, it is worth recalling that NGOs’ “violence deficit” in
terms of engaging in legitimate forms of coercion remains a fundamental comparative disad-
vantage of NGOs relative to states, suggesting that NGOs can be participants and agents in
governance processes but never the ultimate source of authority as principals in a sovereign-
territorial system wherein violence remains, despite all efforts to tame it, an essential element
of authority (Lilyblad 2014). As such, while agonistic constructivism is clearly in an embry-
onic phase, it offers an interesting avenue for further research regarding the agential role and
limitations of NGOs in an evolving states-system.

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Conclusion
On the surface, constructivism and NGOs appear to be strong allies in the arena of IR theory.
Constructivism offers an ontological framework conducive to understanding IR in terms of
systemic change, especially the gradual distinction of public and private realms via the institu-
tionalization of the sovereign-territorial state that provided the basis for the residual category of
“non-governmental organization”. Moreover, this framework does not foreclose avenues by
which private NGOs operating in the public sphere can emerge as agents of incremental struc-
tural changes that, over time, could agglomerate to systemic change. However, such a position
must be nuanced with the caveat that social institutions are not necessarily susceptible to change
by virtue of having a social origin since many interests and identities are heavily vested in institu-
tional persistence. Epistemologically, constructivism – by virtue of its focus on language and dis-
course, its co-constitutive epistemology, and its structurational approach – is also more conducive
to the analysis of NGOs since it offers the tools necessary to analyze, understand, and explain the
importance of NGO discourses and action in variegated political arenas, ranging from interna-
tional fora to local domains. Reciprocally, NGOs also appear to vindicate constructivist tenets by
empirically substantiating some core claims of constructivist theory. NGOs certainly have capaci-
ties to strongly influence outcomes through advocacy, agenda-setting, and monitoring based on
epistemic resources and moral authority. As transnational networks and global actors, they shape
identities, establish or reinforce norm paradigms, and generate knowledge on issues to alter poli-
cies. By looking at the world from the bottom-up to demonstrate how, in fact, authority can be
exercised in numerous and diverse sites through NGOs in a polycentric and pluralistic world,
NGOs thus further undermine notions of a static system exclusive to states.
Nevertheless, as more critical voices have pointed out, it is important not to overstate the extent
to which NGOs have assumed governance roles and authority functions of the state since “private”
NGOs remain subject to the “public” shadow of hierarchy. Nor would it be wise to overgeneral-
ize the extent to which NGOs actually contest state governance but often emerge as participants
in executing and implementing liberal international orthodoxies. Constructivism in this sense is a
meta-theoretical instrument for understanding the way in which ideas impact the construction of
social reality; however, the content of such ideas is not ideologically predetermined but remains
subject to the very pluralism and diversity that the global NGO community itself represents.
Finally, heeding the objections of critical perspectives, an agonistic and communicative
approach may ultimately offer a synthesis within the constructivist tradition. In this sense, while
the proliferation of NGOs is a derivative made possible by the changing international state-
systemic structure that, by opening spaces for participation, became conducive to private sources
of authority, the very fact that NGOs are deeply intertwined with the system in terms of iden-
tities and interests suggests that they are also constrained by the structure of which they are a
constitutive part. As such, radical systemic change could also undermine NGOs since their status
is tied to institutional persistence of the system in which they arose. The paradoxical status quo
suggests that systemic change, if it is to arise as a result of NGO agency, would be incremental
rather than revolutionary – that is, if the clock has not struck midnight by then.

Notes
1 For example, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the second-largest financial contributor to the
World Health Organization, following the Unites States government (Elias,Voorhies, and Mundel 2018).
2 Unlike preceding approaches (see e.g. DeMars and Dijkzeul 2015), the purpose here is not an attempt
at offering a taxonomy of constructivist thought, which has already been treated thoroughly by Ruggie
(1998) and Adler (1998), among others.

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 9
The aesthetic politics of NGOs
Holly Eva Ryan

Introduction
Over the last 15 years, an increasing number of scholars working within the field of interna-
tional politics have been trespassing across disciplinary confines, blurring epistemic boundaries
and experimenting fruitfully with alternative methodologies and ‘ways of knowing’ the social
world. Among these interdisciplinary excursions, a burgeoning body of scholarship on ‘aes-
thetic politics’ warrants particular attention for its endeavour to redraw the lines between the
artistic and the political by exploring new ways of thinking, seeing, hearing and sensing the
world around us. Aesthetic politics is about much more than art, or indeed the institutions,
power matrices and actors that make up the ‘art world’. It is also about the distinct types of
engagement and understanding that are fostered by artistic practice, image-making and the
ways that we can use these as a springboard for re-thinking or even re-imagining the order
of things in international politics. With this in mind, the pages that follow offer a review of
some of the distinguishing features of a so-called ‘aesthetic turn’ in international politics before
offering some arguments as to how insights and lessons drawn from this body of scholarship
can help us to critically analyse and engage with the work of non-governmental organisations
(NGOs), and in particular, the ways that NGOs use and reproduce images.

Challenging prevailing wisdoms: ‘the aesthetic turn’ in IR

The discipline of International Relations (IR) was formalised in the early 20th century, a pro-
cess hastened by the experience of total war and escalating violence, and compounded by the
fragmentation of empires and emergence of new nation-states. Many of the earliest scholars in
the tradition of IR were Western career diplomats or international lawyers trained in the arts
of conflict, calculation and conciliation. Throughout the 20th century, the discipline of IR
remained determinately ‘narrow’ both in its thematic focus on the ‘high politics’ of war and
diplomacy between nation-states, and in terms of its epistemological basis. The dominant theo-
ries of Realism and Liberalism that emerged in the wake of the two world wars and a third ‘Cold
War’ that was played out via a dangerous arms race between the US and USSR and a series of
violent proxy conflicts in the Global South eventually became unified in their commitment to
a paradigm that amalgamated influences from rationalism and positivism.

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On the one hand, rationalists tend to place a great deal of emphasis on the ideas of progress,
universality and truth. Each generation is able to advance beyond the previous one through the
exercise of human reason and a gradual accumulation of knowledge, bringing them ever closer to
an assumed truth. In pursuit of that goal, the human intellect can and must overcome the drives
of emotion; scientific knowledge can and must overcome the temptation to custom and supersti-
tion. Positivism, on the other hand, describes approaches that privilege observation, measurement
and prediction over and above other ways of ‘knowing’ and studying the social world. Positivists
rely upon the notion that it is both possible to segment or separate out facts from values and for
researchers to maintain an impartial and disinterested stance in relation to their object of study.
Things began to shift with the end of the Cold War as new issues and approaches started to
extend up through the cracks of a broken paradigm that had failed to offer an adequate expla-
nation (or prediction) of the decline and disintegration of the Soviet Union. Yet, the ‘narrow-
ness’ of IR today ‘still manifests itself not only in its resistance to theories prefixed with “post-”
but also in the rigid definitional boundaries of the appropriate subject of analysis by serious IR
scholars’ (Moore and Shepherd 2010: 299), who have exercised a notable disdain for colleagues
choosing to concern themselves with supposedly ‘secondary’ matters of gender, culture, identity
or the work of non-state actors. Nonetheless, a great deal of innovative and ground-breaking
work persists at the ever-widening margins of today’s discipline. And, around the turn of the
millennium, a shift towards ‘the aesthetic’ signalled a new phase in the search for new tools, per-
spectives and ways of understanding periods and processes of change and stasis in world politics.
The word ‘aesthetics’ comes from the Greek term ‘aesthesis’ which refers to sensory perception.
The field of aesthetic inquiry in the Western tradition has until recent years been dominated by
philosophers concerned with questions of beauty and taste in art. Philosophers have been keen to
derive standards and principles for making proper aesthetic judgements, viewing the aesthetic as an
autonomous realm of value effectively shut off from social concerns, moral considerations and/or
power relations that are encountered in everyday life. In this view, which has among its forebears
seminal works such as Kant’s Critique of Judgement and Schiller’s On the Aesthetic Education of Man,
artworks are ‘purposive without a purpose’ (Kant cited in Belfiore and Bennett 2008: 178). The
value of art is not tied to any prior function; it is to be appreciated for its own sake.
This ‘autonomist’ view (Carroll 1996, 2001; Belfiore and Bennett 2008) which tends to
place an emphasis on the formal qualities of artworks, removing them from their temporal and
social context, has increasingly been called into question in recent years. Challenges have been
mounted both by aesthetic philosophers such as Noel Carroll (1996) who acknowledge multiple
realms of value for the arts as well as by an increasing number of social scientists and art historians
who have taken up an interest in the ways that images and sounds work over individuals and
collectivities to elicit responses that have implications for social and political practice. Hence,
where some scholars still use the term aesthetics to denote an ‘autonomist’ reading, others refer to
the aesthetic as a field of knowledge through which power and resistance can operate (Rancière
2004; Panagia 2010; Bennett 2012). As Gareth White (2015) argues, these ‘heteronomous’ or
‘practical’ understandings and applications of aesthetics tend to underline the interconnection
between art, image-making and the socio-political sphere, including the ways in which artistic
expression, popular culture and embodied sensory encounters of various kinds interact with –
even alter – the prevailing landscape of power and possibility.
It is this kind of more ‘practical’ understanding which underlies ‘the aesthetic turn’ in
International Relations. As Moore and Shepherd (2010: 299) explain in the introduction to their
special issue on aesthetics and global politics, ‘Approaching the study of IR with an aesthetic
sensibility encourages scholars to pay analytical attention to affect rather than reason, judge-
ment rather than fact, sensation rather than intellectualism’. In other words, it offers scholars

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an opportunity to subvert the epistemological hierarchy in order to revisit and interrogate the
oft-neglected effects of emotion and representation in world politics.

Emotion
Few phenomena in world politics have been as central yet as underexplored as the feelings of
attachment, pain, revulsion and hope that drive political allegiances, spur fragmentation and
prompt action. Moving to fill this gap, aesthetic approaches to IR have concerned themselves
with the sensory, leading to a revitalised interest in the role of affect and emotion in world poli-
tics. As Emma Hutchison (2016: 1) puts it:

Wars are fought and the ensuing emotional, traumatic memories help to constitute and
divide societies and nations for centuries. Other forms of violence such as terrorism cause
insufferable pain and trauma for victims, families and communities . . . trauma can also
result from more incremental physical suffering such as poverty, famine and disease that
causes long-term psychological damage. Such damage occurs at the individual level, when
trauma is widespread, the damage is more far reaching as it stretches into the social land-
scape through which communities live out their lives and shape their politics.

Although the terms affect and emotion are sometimes used interchangeably, there are some
important distinctions between them. Following Brian Massumi (1995), the term affect
describes nonrationalised sensations or the corporeal, embodied quality of feeling which is both
pre-discursive and communicable (Feigenbaum et al. 2013). The term emotion, by contrast,
describes sensations or feelings that have been rationalised, checked against previous experiences
and categorised accordingly as fear, love, anger, hate or trauma, for example. Distinguishing
between affect and emotion allows scholars to illuminate how, over time, we develop linguistic
categories in order to represent, pin down and make sense of our sensory encounters as well as
why sometimes, some feelings ‘cannot be put into words’.
The work of Ty Solomon (2012) and Roland Bleiker (2009) both highlight how, at certain
historical junctures, moments of crisis or transition, individuals and social groups may experi-
ence a gap or pause in comprehension which is brought on by the lack of adequate linguistic
categories for describing and processing the phenomenon at hand. In these instances, non-verbal
responses such as painting or musical composition can enable us to work through our feelings
and express those sentiments that we cannot yet put words to. Taking artistic responses to
9/11 as a case in point, Bennett (2012: 5) argues that affect is the natural medium of aesthetics,
helping us to understand more fully ‘what art and imagery does – what it becomes – in its very
particular relationship to [political] events’.
In addition to these works, which are situated at the nexus between affect, artistic expres-
sion and international politics, are a number of scholarly contributions that angle in on specific
emotional states and their effects or influences in world politics. Victoria Basham’s study of the
everyday life of British soldiers, for example, reveals how a focus on the emotions of boredom
and joy can help to illuminate the differentially gendered norms that govern the lives of male
and female combatants (Basham 2015). Paul Saurette examines the politics of humiliation and
counter-humiliation in a post-9/11 era, taking US Foreign Policy as a case in point (Saurette
2006). Meanwhile, James Brassett’s work examining the relationship between humour, cynicism
and political practice argues that ‘[l]aughing at, subverting, or otherwise undermining aspects
of social existence can be seen as a vernacular form of resistance’ that can both shore up and

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legitimate existing political structures, or work to encourage re-vision and/or re-imagination

(Brassett 2016). Whether focused on the more slippery concept of affect or on that of specific,
named emotions, what all of these contributors tend to have in common is a shared sense of how
sensory and embodied experiences matter for world politics, representing sources and/or sites of
power to which scholars should be attuned.

Representation
In 1988, the North American political theorist Murray Edelman published Constructing the Political
Spectacle, a book which sought to critically investigate the continual reconstruction of socio-
political issues through news reporting and the corresponding creation of images or ‘spectacles’
that come to form the basis of political action and historical knowledge. In Edelman’s work,
political spectacles are described in terms of discursive and symbolic structures; interpretations of
interpretations that ‘play their parts . . . within the context of the hopes and the fears of specific
social situations’ (Edelman 1996: 89). They ‘reinforce, condense, and reify perceptions, beliefs,
and feelings that grow out of such social relations as dominance and dependency, alliance and
hostility, anxiety about threats, or anticipation of future well-being’ (ibid.). In so doing, politi-
cal spectacles, as mediated by news corporations, shrink many different worlds of possibility into
one, providing the public with a singular vision of who and what is right or salient at any given
moment. Edelman’s work is therefore predominantly concerned with processes of representation
and the ways that they can drive or reinforce particular political agendas by eliciting an emotional
response and advocating a particular course of action. The term representation refers here to
the description, framing or portrayal of someone or something in a particular way. Or, as Gillian
Rose (2016) puts it, representations are at source ‘made meanings’ that structure the ways that
we behave in our everyday lives.
Within IR, the question of representation has been taken up most ardently in Roland
Bleiker’s seminal work, Aesthetics and World Politics. In this text, Bleiker makes a distinction
between ‘mimetic’ and ‘aesthetic’ approaches to the study of world politics. He describes
mimetic views as those which seek to represent politics as realistically and authentically as
possible, aiming to capture world politics as-it-really-is. He observes that mimetic views have
dominated IR theory and describes realism as the mimetic approach par excellence in view
of its ambition to situate itself as a mirror onto the recurrent brutality, conflict and insecurity
of international politics. Against these so-called mimetic approaches, Bleiker promotes a more
nuanced aesthetic vision or approach. Aesthetic vision entails a higher level of consciousness
and sensitivity to what one sees, including an alertness to intuitions and alternative forms of
knowing that are generated through processes of creation or experimentation (Greene 1978,
1995; Barone and Eisner 2012). Moreover, it entails looking closely at the details of an event or
process but also examining it within its context, looking ‘for patterns within disorder, within
disorder, for unity beneath superficial disruption and for disruption beneath superficial unity’
(Barone and Eisner 2012: 37).
At a more basic level, aesthetic approaches acknowledge that all IR theories essentially
constitute incomplete representations of the international. They assume that there is always
a gap between a form of representation and what is represented therewith. But, rather than
ignoring or seeking to narrow this gap, as mimetic approaches do, an aesthetic vision recog-
nises that the inevitable difference between the represented and its representation is the very
location of politics, where power operates to shut down or amplify particular ways of seeing
things. Bleiker (2009) claims that some of the most significant theoretical and practical insights

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into world politics have emerged not from endeavours that ignore representation, but from
those that explore how representative practices themselves have come to constitute and shape
political outcomes. Here, he suggests that IR scholars might take a cue from artists and mak-
ers, whose aesthetic contribution emerges not from attempting to ever more authentically
depict the world (and failing), but from engaging with the process and politics of representa-
tion itself. It is with this in mind that we can now turn our attention to the image-making
practices of NGOs.

Emotion and representation in the image-making practices of NGOs

Human subject photography has long played an extremely important part in crafting and shap-
ing individual and public understanding of development issues. Half a century before Direct
Response Television Advertising (DRTV), non-profits were using photographic stills and por-
traits to document and transmit information, as well as to issue calls for action on poverty and
disaster relief. In 1942, the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief (now Oxfam) was established
as a private, voluntary committee to assist those affected by the Greek famine. The Committee’s
very first appeal featured a photograph of a troubled Greek mother and a bright-eyed but
dishevelled child with the caption: ‘Oxford’s effort for the starving of our ally’. The appeal
raised £10,700 in donations (Wynne Jones 2012), but it also set a powerful strategic precedent
for charitable interventions to follow: namely, the photographic representation of aid benefi-
ciaries as ‘victims’, in need of assistance.
A series of interdisciplinary studies from psychology, visual sociology and linguistics have
convincingly argued that NGOs and fundraising campaigns derive their persuasive appeal from
a complex interplay of verbal text, typographic features and images. Lipovsky (2016: 3), for
example, analyses photographs from a corpus of fundraising letters and highlights the significant
role played by photographic images in ‘orienting potential donors attitudinally towards the text
that follows’, helping them to overcome futility thinking by making the beneficiary visible
(or, ‘real’) and thereby predisposing individuals to make a donation. Photographs have been a
powerful tool for NGOs precisely because they are ‘assumed to be a factual record of the field’
(McEwan 2006: 232). Readily interpreted as incontrovertible snapshots of reality by the public,
photographs have the power to identify, isolate and amplify particular events ‘on the ground’ as
well as individual stories of suffering.
However, Oliver (2006: 18) echoes the late Susan Sontag in her claim that, far from being a
transparent documentary means, photography ‘is a medium freighted with a problematic power
and responsibility’. We derive our knowledge of other peoples and places from what we see
on our screens and devices. Yet, just like other forms of media, photographs are always subject
to processes of selection, encoding and careful composition or arrangement. The photographic
representations that are commissioned and disseminated by NGOs thus shape our perceptions in
important ways but only ever offer us a situated point of view. They function as partial depic-
tions, composed to reinforce a particular narrative and elicit a specific intellectual or emotional
response from an audience, namely a compassionate one.
Martha Nussbaum writes that compassion is ‘a painful emotion occasioned by the awareness
of another person’s undeserved misfortune’ (Nussbaum cited by Höijer 2004: 514). Scholars
including Kogut and Ritov (2005); Slovic (2007); and Small and Simonsohn (2007) have pub-
lished studies showing in various ways that compassion is absolutely integral to the success
of charitable campaigning, and photographs have been proven to play an important role in
prompting and reinforcing a compassionate reaction in target audiences. Static representations

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of distant victims of famine, civil war, genocide and other forms of violence carried out against
civilian populations give a discernibly human face to suffering; common compositional practices
such as a subject gazing directly into the camera tend to draw the viewer in and call on her/him
to act, albeit via non-verbal signals. Images conveying illness, pain and sadness have been shown
to evoke particularly strong compassion responses in viewers (Mercadillo et al. 2007), leading to
a proliferation of stylised photographs of ‘the global poor’, commissioned and disseminated by
NGOs for campaign purposes.
This approach to fundraising has had some unintended effects. Susan Sontag’s work sug-
gests that contrary to the aims of NGOs, our capacity to respond ‘with emotional freshness
and ethical pertinence is being eroded’ by the relentless diffusion of stylised images of pain
and suffering in our globalised world (Sontag 1977: 97). Similarly, Höijer (2004: 529) notes
a rise in something known as ‘compassion fatigue’. This is when the large number of images
of human suffering and ‘the repetitive and stereotyped character of the depictions . . . tire
the audience out’. Compassion fatigue used to be a problem that was most commonly seen
among healthcare professionals. Because their work puts them in situations where they com-
monly see or hear about ongoing and sometimes unspeakable suffering, it is not unusual to
see some of our most skilled, caring and compassionate ‘helpers’ fall victim to compassion
fatigue. However, in today’s world, where every tragedy is instantly broadcast live in living
colour directly into our living rooms (TV), laps (laptop) and/or hands (smartphone), compas-
sion fatigue is no longer unique to the medical profession. It is, rather, becoming a widespread
social phenomenon linked to globalisation processes: ‘we are inundated with graphic images
of the unimaginable suffering of millions. We can fathom the suffering of a few, but a million
becomes a statistic that numbs us’ (ibid.).
The relationship between photographic images and compassion fatigue is taken up force-
fully in Susan Moeller’s book, The Four Horsemen. This work analyses four sets of case studies,
organised around the crises represented by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse – pestilence,
famine, death/assassination and war/genocide. Moeller observes,

We have all been cued by that famous series of ads by Save the Children. You can help this
child or you can turn the page. The first time a reader sees the advertisement he is arrested
by guilt. He may come close to actually sending money to the organization. The second
time the reader sees the ad he may linger over the photograph, read the short paragraphs of
copy and only then turn the page. The third time the reader sees the ad he typically turns
the page without hesitation. The fourth time the reader sees the ad he may pause again
over the photo and text, not to wallow in guilt, but to acknowledge with cynicism how the
advertisement is crafted to manipulate readers like him – even if it is in a ‘good’ cause . . .
Most media consumers eventually get to the point where they turn the page.
(Moeller 1999: 9)

What starts as compassion soon becomes complacency.

Moreover, in recent years scholars from the fields of politics, aesthetics and post-colonial
studies have engaged variously with the ethical and practical challenges of representing aid
recipients. Some authors have criticised the voyeuristic and dehumanising potentials of photo-
graphs which capture moments of grief, pain and suffering that would ordinarily be classed as
private affairs. They question whether the quest for ongoing financial support through such por-
trayals actually undermines respect for human dignity (see Hutnyk 2004; Oliver 2006; Parvez
2011; Dolinar and Sitar 2013).

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Prominent African journalists have also spoken out against a perceived ‘white saviour indus-
trial complex’ (Cole 2012) and the ‘othering’ conventions used in ‘Western’ NGOs depictions
of the continent and its peoples (Wainaina 2005). In a now well-known essay entitled ‘How to
write about Africa’, Binyavanga Wainaina employed a scathing sarcasm to scorn the stereotypes
which tend to dominate Western media imaginaries of the continent, robbing African people(s)
of their diversity and agency:

Never have a picture of a well-adjusted African on the cover of your book, or in it, unless
that African has won the Nobel Prize. An AK-47, prominent ribs, naked breasts – use these.
If you must include an African, make sure you get one in Masai or Zulu or Dogon dress.
In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country. It is hot and dusty with rolling
grasslands and huge herds of animals and tall, thin people who are starving. Or it is hot
and steamy with very short people who eat primates. Don’t get bogged down with pre-
cise descriptions. Africa is big: fifty-four countries, 900 million people who are too busy
starving and dying and warring and emigrating to read your book. The continent is full of
deserts, jungles, highlands, savannahs, and many other things, but your reader doesn’t care
about all that, so keep your descriptions romantic and evocative and unparticular.
(Wainaina 2005: n.p.)

Reflexivity and change within the NGO sector

Amid this extremely rich flurry of critical activity, few have paused to explore how aid sec-
tor organisations have themselves responded to the challenges put to them. This response has
taken two forms – one at the macro level of governance and one at the micro level of NGO
practice. Firstly, following the global public response engendered by the Ethiopian Famine of
the mid-1980s, a number of significant steps have been taken transnationally to initiate dialogue
and action around the problems of representation. In 1985, the United Nations Food and
Agriculture Organisation, select European and African NGOs came together for the ‘Image
of Africa’ project which intended to look critically at the longer-term effects of the BBC/Live
Aid campaign on the possibilities for self-reliant development in Africa. Later, in 1989, the
European NGO Confederation for Relief and Development adopted its first ‘Code of Conduct
on Images and Messages relating to the Third World’. The Canadian Council for International
Cooperation, and The Irish Association of Non-Governmental Development Organisations
followed suit in 1995 and 2006 respectively, with codes relating to the ethics and truthfulness
of communications in fundraising. These steps towards constructing a more ethical regime
remain largely unexplored in academic writing to date, despite a growing body of literature on
global governance, norms and institutions in other issue areas (see Harman and Williams 2013;
Wilkinson and Weiss 2014). This is a notable gap since regional, non-state cooperation in the
areas of ethics and representation invites important and novel questions relating to the govern-
ability of images and emotion.
Secondly, there is considerable evidence to suggest that the last three decades have given
rise to self-conscious attempts by NGOs to break the stereotype of passivity and victimhood
magnified and fomented by earlier campaigns. Within academia, the work of Nandita Dogra
stands out as a rare and systematic attempt to trace and explain the shifting strategic priorities of
NGOs with regards to the depiction of aid recipients. Dogra illuminates an increasing number
of organisations that have consciously moved away from representative practices that amplify
need and suffering to more positive campaigning that instead offers images of aid recipients as

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self-reliant and empowered agents (Dogra 2007, 2012). In this sense, comments from Oxfam’s
former Head of Stories, Film and Photography, Kate Pattison, are revealing:

It’s [now about] presenting people in their true light as agents of their own destiny . . .
there are ways of doing it that move away from shocking sensationalism and show people’s
humanity and strength.
(Pattison 2012)

Rather than elicit compassion, these images aim to galvanise a sense of hope in their audiences.
And yet, in the same ways that compassion can quickly fade into complacency, experience and
research both tell us that unfulfilled hopes can all too quickly turn to dismay and consterna-
tion. C. Richard Snyder and colleagues offer one of the most comprehensive explorations
of hope in scholarship to date, defining it in terms of goals, pathways and agency that drive
emotional response. Snyder (2000) highlights that when pathways to an individual’s goals and
ambitions – such as her/his drive to assist another – are blocked, or when desired outcomes
fail to materialise, hope generally gives way to feelings of disappointment, which may lead to
rage, despair and finally, apathy.
Notably, the transition from ‘passive’ to ‘active’ tropes among some of the larger NGOs and
aid organisations has been paralleled by an equally interesting and somewhat divergent move
towards auto-documentary by smaller and newer organisations such as Lensational. Lensational
describes itself as a global social enterprise committed to sharing women’s stories through the
transformative power of photography and videography. Founded in 2013, Lensational has
worked with over 600 women across the developing world, furnishing them with second-hand
cameras and training, with the objective that they can document their own lived realities and
find a form of expression and voice by developing their own photographic practice.
Lensational’s approach to photography differs from the sector mainstream in that it is guided
more by concerns founded in practical aesthetics than in marketing. In other words, the organi-
sation works with a wider and more open-ended understanding of what the photograph is; and
what it can do in the lives and livelihoods of others. Recognising the multilayered nature of the
photograph and the irreducible complexity of interplay between emotion and creativity, power
and composition, Lensational attempts to put women of the Global South in the driver’s seat and
in essence, ‘see where it goes’. As they highlight:

There are so many layers to a photograph: the ability to share a story and to evoke emo-
tions; the power to expand the viewer’s field of vision; the universal language it speaks; and
most importantly, the ability to create new meanings. For each photograph there is a story
behind, one within, and one in front of the picture. And this story continues to evolve each
time the photograph is placed in a new context . . .
We also believe in the therapeutic power of photography. As many artistic expressions,
photography enables people to cope with their hardships in a way they might not be able to
express otherwise. Our community of photography students is continuously growing, and
we believe in the power of inspiration by the work and stories of like-minded women, of
women who share similar experiences, and who achieved to step out of their daily routines.
And of course it’s fun! Posing in front of the camera, immortalising happy moments, reliv-
ing memories through watching pictures – the positive sentiments related to photography
are as strong as its critical dimension.
(Lensational 2018)

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Holly Eva Ryan

Conclusion
This chapter began with a review of the extant literature on the so-called ‘aesthetic turn’ in
International Relations. It situated scholars of ‘aesthetic politics’ as part of a wider post-positivist
and reflexivist counter-movement which aims to widen the discipline of IR by exploring new
and alternative actors and terrains of political power. The chapter went on to identify some of
the ways that lessons drawn from this body of scholarship can help us to critically analyse and
engage with the visual work of non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Homing in on the
issues of emotion and representation in particular, it was possible to dissect and discuss some of
the major criticisms, challenges and developments that NGOs have faced in the area of market-
ing and campaigning in recent decades. It highlighted that whilst a recent turn towards ‘positive
messaging’ demonstrates sectoral responsiveness, learning and development, the endeavour to
modulate and mainstream ‘hope’ in fact presents rather similar challenges to that of modulat-
ing ‘sympathy’. The chapter identifies an interesting and potentially more fruitful development
in the turn to auto-documentation as practised by smaller and more localised NGOs, such as
Lensational. Taking a wider view of the social and political work that photography can do,
Lensational’s methodology paves the way for a more agent-led practice in the area of campaign-
ing as well as a more open-ended enquiry into the role of photography in the wider sphere of
development programming.

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 10
NGOs and social movement theory
Clare Saunders and Silke Roth

Introduction
NGOs are, quite literally, everywhere, even in authoritarian regimes (Willetts 2002). As we write
and you read, they are engaging in advocacy, the provision of expertise and delivery of services
and contracts, and sometimes they join coalitions in protest events. They are affecting social,
political and cultural institutions and/or delivering services at multiple scales on almost every
conceivable issue. According to the UN, an NGO is almost any private organisation that is
independent from government, does not challenge government for power (i.e. is not a politi-
cal party), and is non-profit-making and non-criminal/non-violent. NGOs therefore include
interest groups, pressure groups, lobby groups, private organisations, voluntary organisations and
umbrella groups for political parties (that do not themselves seek office) and some social move-
ment organisations (SMOs).
Thus, there is an overlap between SMOs and NGOs. Some SMOs are NGOs, some NGOs
are SMOs but not all SMOs are NGOs (and vice versa). Moreover, the relationship between
NGOs and SMOs raises important questions concerning different forms of activism, in par-
ticular ‘insider’ activism and ‘outsider’ activism. We consider NGOs as organisations which
are primarily engaged in service provision and advocacy and to a lesser extent in protest activi-
ties. NGOs tend to be involved in ‘insider activism’. They might obtain government funding
and are thus accountable to donors which might lead to de-radicalisation and co-optation
which we will discuss below (e.g. Alejandro 2006). NGOs can be both donors as well as
recipients of funding from governments and intergovernmental organisations. In the global
context, Northern NGOs can take on the role of donors and may influence the development
of Southern SMOs. This raises all manner of questions about the legitimacy of northern NGOs
to interfere in Southern affairs. Rather than conceptualising this as a ‘North–South’ (or ‘West–
East’) distinction, it is important to consider questions of accountability and donor–recipient
relations. Lewis (1998, 2015) has repeatedly pointed out that it is problematic to overlook the
commonalities of international and national third-sector organisations. NGOs and other SMOs
exist both in the Global North and in the Global South. Operational non-governmental organ-
isations that receive substantial government contracts – whether they are active domestically
or internationally – have less freedom to engage in protest for social change; nevertheless, they

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are able to engage in advocacy work. Examples include Oxfam, which engages in both opera-
tional and campaigning activity, and Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), a
humanitarian organisation providing medical emergency relief while at the same time publicis-
ing human rights violations.
In this chapter we focus on four key social movement theories that are useful for under-
standing the emergence and development of NGOs: resource mobilisation, framing the-
ory, political opportunity structures/political processes and ‘new’ social movement theory/
identity-oriented approaches. These four significant bodies of social movement theory were
developed in the 1970s and 1980s and continue to be useful, respectively, for explain-
ing the how, when, where, who and why of NGOs. Since the 1990s, social movement
research has increasingly focused on transnational activism and paid more attention to NGOs.
Furthermore, digital communication has transformed NGOs, social movements and social
movement scholarship. We discuss some of these developments within our ‘how, when,
where, who and why’ framework.
We will argue that resource mobilisation and related bodies of theory have utility in under-
standing how NGOs emerge and develop. This perspective considers resources of central impor-
tance for they determine whether and how an NGO will develop. It focuses particularly on
rationality, organisational structures and professionalisation. Resource mobilisation has synergies
to the concept of NGOisation.
Political opportunity structure (POS)/political process theory tells us about when (under which
political conditions) and where NGOs form in response to the political environment. POS approaches
are therefore particularly useful for comparative perspectives on the prevalence of NGOs. POS can
be studied at the macro-level, with respect to party systems, conventions of media reporting or
access as well as to the availability of funding from international donors. Structural funds, whether in
the context of the European Union or other regional bodies or overseas development assistance, can
provide incentives to form or transform existing grassroots organisations into NGOs which then
become accountable to their donors. POS can also be studied at the level of the global governance
networks, as well as at the meso (organisational) level. Both perspectives are important. The former
matters because some NGOs operate in a transnational context. The latter is important because
opportunities for NGOs to emerge, develop and influence vary even within a constant opportunity
structure according to the aims and objectives, status and resources of the NGO.
New social movement, identity-oriented and framing approaches can help us understand
why NGOs emerge and why individuals come to identify with others to support a social or polit-
ical cause that becomes encapsulated in an NGO. We use framing theory to show how issues
are socially constructed by NGOs, but also to illustrate how they attract adherents. The strand
of new social movement theory that we focus on in this chapter is concerned with examining
the features of society that encourage new forms of activism to emerge. We argue that today’s
challenges of globalisation represent a shift from the conditions that led to the emergence of new
social movements, even though there are some similarities. We also look at identity approaches
to see how NGOs themselves construct an identity.
The pioneers of these four approaches had particular conceptions of social movements in
mind when they generated these theories. Resource mobilisation theory, for instance, is much
more applicable to formally organised entities than horizontally networked movements, whereas
the converse could be said of new social movement theories. This means that this body of lit-
erature known as social movement theory is of varying utility at explaining NGOs. However,
in the account below, we supplement our understanding of these theories with more contem-
porary theories that relate to NGOs covering issues related to professionalisation/NGOisation,
diffusion/transnational advocacy and donor dilemmas.

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Resource mobilisation theory: the how

Resource mobilisation theory can tell us something about how social movements emerge and
develop. It stresses the importance of resources and organisation and the rationality of actors. In
terms of NGO emergence, it highlights the utility of an entrepreneur to kick-start resource genera-
tion and consequently mobilisation. Founders of the approach, McCarthy and Zald (1977: 1215), go
so far as to suggest that ‘there is always enough discontent in society to supply grassroots support for
a movement if the movement is efficiently organized and has at its disposal the power and resources
of some established elite group’. In other words, whilst grievances (in one shape or form) are con-
sidered ubiquitous, it is the injection of resources from an external source that can translate this into
a movement (or movement organisation). According to resource mobilisation theory, good leaders
and money are important. But the concept of resources has also been applied more widely to cover
non-monetary resources. Whereas formal organisations mobilise the resource of money to sustain
their organisation, informal and radical organisations mobilise volunteers to engage in direct action.
NGOs mobilise money as well as volunteers. As Bromideh (2011: 198) states: ‘operational NGOs
have to mobilize resources, in the form of financial donations, materials or volunteer labour in order
to sustain their projects and programs’.
For a movement to accelerate, a certain level of organisational density is required. As Minkoff
(1997) states, ‘organizational density is thus critical throughout the protest cycle – initially opening
up opportunities for protest and organization building’ (p. 780). ‘Easy-riders’ take advantage of
opportunities opened up by the ‘early-risers’ (ibid.). There is plenty of evidence in social move-
ment literature that new organisations have formed once other start-ups had begun (e.g. Walker
1983). Seifert and Plows (2014), for example, note how NGOs against nano-technology were
spin-off organisations from earlier campaigns against the agro-food and biotechnology industry.
One strand of resource mobilisation theory argues that organisations, as they develop, become
more pre-occupied with securing organisational survival – known as organisational maintenance –
than with achieving movement goals. Large, professional and bureaucratic organisations, regardless
of whether they have movement goals or are largely operational NGOs, must sustain themselves as
organisations, or their whole enterprise is in jeopardy. They must raise money in order to pay
for their work to be done. They then must pay for their professional campaigners, researchers,
marketing experts and tax advisors (Saunders 2013: 77). Professionalisation and normalisation
of protest issues can be seen as a good thing for gaining credibility/reputability and making
policy gains; but some activists and NGO critics worry that the trend towards professionalisa-
tion will inevitably result in the bureaucratisation and oligarchy that Michels (1959) warned us
about (Offe 1985: 187). As expressed in Michels’ most famous words, ‘who says organization
says oligarchy’ (Michels 1959). Consequently, demands of the activist core become diluted,
compromised (or, worse still, entirely co-opted); and the identity and autonomy of movement
organisations are reduced. The warning is that size and credibility with polity does not necessar-
ily equate with higher rates of success; it may just mean more compromises.
Environmental NGOs form a good case in point. In the early 1990s, UK direct activists
became disillusioned with Friends of the Earth (FoE) and Greenpeace for their lack of willing-
ness to support illegal direct action to prevent road building. FoE would have been faced with
litigation had it decided to continue to support a direct-action roads protest camp at Twyford
Down in 1992. To save itself as an organisation it was forced to pull out. In contrast, the
radical and horizontal Earth First! and Donga networks – which lacked formal organisational
structures – were not threatened by litigation in the same way for they have no status as formal
organisations and only the individuals involved could be accountable (Saunders 2013). As Van
Der Heijden (1999: 46) states, in the case of the partial institutionalisation of environmentalism:

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‘Many environmental organisations have lost their unique movement character and therefore an
important part of their strength. It is doubtful whether their strong position at some negotiating
tables will compensate for this’.
Moreover, resource mobilisation theory has strong links with organisational ecology. This
approach posits that organisations are affected by demand and supply dynamics in the context
of a competitive environment (Hannan and Freeman 1977, 1989). Many organisations can co-
exist only when demand is high and niches have been carved out. Both resource mobilisation
theory and its sister theory of organisational ecology resonate with practices within NGOs. The
UK NGO world has faced challenges of reduced donor funding, making it more difficult for
small or medium-size NGOs to compete with the larger and more professional NGOs. In the
social movements’ literature, competition and bureaucratisation tends to lead to critiques from
grassroots organisations. Fewer and smaller pots of money alongside larger and more compli-
cated grant processes and reporting requirements favour a small group of larger NGOs that have
been critiqued for uncritical adoption of policy tools, and of shutting smaller and more respon-
sive NGOs out of lucrative grant opportunities (Wallace 2003). A related process is known as
NGOisation, in which the moderate and often donor-led work of NGOs takes the sting out of
the tail of social movements by depoliticising their ideas and practices (Roy 2014).
Lang (2013: 63) considers NGOisation to be a sensitising concept and defines it as:

the process by which social movements professionalize, institutionalize, and bureaucratize

in vertically structured, policy-outcome-oriented organizations that focus on generating
issue specific, and to some degree marketable expert knowledge or services.

Professionalisation refers to institutionalised expertise, both with respect to service delivery

as well as with respect to advocacy; institutionalisation encompasses the stabilisation of the
organisations through developing routines and organization-building; which is closely related
to bureaucratization (Lang 2013). NGOisation can take on different forms and includes large
umbrella organisations with national member organisations comprising paid staff, volunteers
and donors or small organisations with only a few staff members. The causes of NGOisation
include accountability to donors, fulfilling legal-bureaucratic requirements to be eligible for tax
exemption and making careers in the sector sustainable (Lang 2013; Roth 2016). The conse-
quences of NGOisation include increased recognition and insider status, credibility with politi-
cal actions and inclusion in governmental and intergovernmental commissions (Lang 2013).
While access to resources and agenda-setting can be seen as a positive and successful outcome
of NGOisation, this can be accompanied by de-radicalisation and watering down of demands.
Critics of NGOisation thus warn that it is an expression of de-radicalisation and speak of the
“corporatization of activism” (Dauvergne and LeBaron 2014), which is associated with celebrity
involvement and branding. However, this is not to suggest that each SMO transforms into an
NGO, nor that all NGOs started out as SMOs.
Although professionalisation, bureaucratisation and competition can be painted in a negative
light, the social movements literature informs us that it is not all doom and gloom in this regard.
Professionalisation or NGOisation of one part of a movement can lead to radicalisation of another
part, to compensate. An example is the US environment movement, where the G10 – a group
of the ten largest environmental organisations – has become so institutionalised that it was widely
considered to have conceded major compromises to the detriment to the broader environmental
agenda. Consequently, the direct-action-oriented Earth First! network, with the motto of ‘no
compromise in defence of Mother Earth‘, emerged (Scarce 1990; Bosso 1995, 2005). If the major
organisations had not become so moderate, then Earth First! would not have emerged.

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Relatedly, McAdam et al. (1988) introduced the concept of the ‘radical flank effect’. This
suggests that – in the presence of more radical ‘outsider’ organisations – NGOs might be able
to exercise a degree of critique as insiders since the presence of the radical outsider makes their
previously radical demands seem considerably more moderate. Moreover, strategically acting
NGOs need not necessarily feel locked in to unhealthy relationships with their donors. Abou
and Tschirhart (2017) combine resource dependence theory and a network model to produce
a ‘strategic response model’ that specifies the options that NGOs have. These are exit, voice,
loyalty and adjustment.
Resource mobilisation theory is probably the most applicable of traditional social movement
theories for understanding the emergence and behaviour of NGOs. This concurs with Dalton’s
(1994: 10) comment that the theory is particularly useful for understanding organisations that
have a neo-corporatist structure. However, it has been criticised for being too focused on
rational action, and therefore for underplaying the meaning work of movements, encapsulated
in framing and new social movement theories, which we now discuss.

Framing theory: bridging the how and why

Framing theories provide a ‘bridge’ between identity and resource/organisation approaches and
identity approaches. Whilst institutional entrepreneurs are deemed useful for gaining legitimacy,
raising money and staff, they will fail to generate an effective and publicly acceptable organisa-
tion if they are unable to frame grievances effectively (Snow and Benford 1992: 150). Frames
are in essence all about communicating the message (or even the core elements of an identity) of
a movement to potential adherents and can be thought of as ‘programmatic stabilizers of social
forms and, therefore, also of movements’ (Rucht and Neidhardt 2002). Organisational effort is
required to select messages that have potential to resonate with an audience. The messages that
should resonate with audiences are diagnostic (i.e. what’s the problem?), prognostic (what can
we do about it?) and motivational (i.e. how do we find the right frame to motivate people to
participate?) (Snow and Benford 1992). Consequently, ‘framing processes play a decisive role
in mobilization campaigns’ (Gerhards and Rucht 1992: 572). As a domain expands (the subject
resonates with more people and more sub-categories of the issue emerge), more new social
movement organisations will form (Jenness 1995). All the while, NGOs often remain at the core
of knowledge production that helps with providing information to shape the frames. Oxfam and
Greenpeace, for example, have their own specialist research divisions.
A strand of the literature poses the chicken-and-egg dilemma. What comes first: the issue
which leads an advocacy organisation to emerge; or the organisation, which leads to con-
struction of the issue (Blumer 1986; Jenness 1995)? It is clear that NGOs do cognitive work
(Eyerman and Jamison 1991) and engage in ‘domain expansion’ (Best 1990; Jenness 1995). As
new organisations form, they contribute to framing processes that allow more potential adher-
ents to become sympathisers or participants. The NGO may provide the research expertise (e.g.
Greenpeace) (Saunders 2013) or participate in ‘issue networks’ (Sikkink 1993), which bring
together a wide range of diverse actors including policy-makers, media workers and intergov-
ernmental actors to shape the way in which issues are framed. A key aim of transnational NGOs
is to build ‘international solidarity networks’ (Smith et al. 1997), presumably around carefully
framed issues.
Many NGOs have turned towards celebrities to help them frame their message to a broad
audience. Celebrity involvement attracts a broad range of people to a cause, but it has generated
significant criticisms from academics. Gorringe and Rosie (2005: 12.3), for example, describe
Live8, the 2005 anti-poverty concert that was timed to raise awareness of poverty and climate

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change issues around the time of the G8 meeting in Gleneagles, as a ‘haemorrhaging of coverage
from poverty to celebrity’. They write about the inappropriate mixing of footage of famine-
stricken children with Madonna’s ‘superstar’ performance. Not only that, the result of the Make
Poverty History coalition’s indirect leadership was that Bob Geldof became the official spokes-
person for the campaign and gave the false impression that this Gleneagles G8 meeting was
‘the greatest G8 summit there has ever been for Africa’ (Red Pepper 2005), making the public
believe that the campaign had been entirely successful, when in fact there is still a long way to go
before poverty in Africa has been ‘made history’. While it is good news for a coalition of NGOs
to reach a wide audience, it is less positive that this should result in triviality or mainstreaming.
Similarly, fair trade marketing from NGOs has shifted from being about fairness, to quality, to
fame. Celebritisation of fair trade is viewed by Goodman (2010) to be a ‘mirror of consumption’
that reflects back famous people instead of proper engagement with deep moral issues.
Framing is important for NGOs not only at the organisational level. Barrett and Kurzman
(2004) use the concepts of ‘global frames’ and ‘global culture’ to capture the readiness of the
world for eugenics movements. They conducted a macro-discourse analysis to show that there
are broad patterns in global discourse, including a global ideology of statehood that explains the
relative stability of eugenics NGOs across the world at particular points in time.
Framing theory is useful to understand how NGOs generate messages that potentially reso-
nate with audiences. It raises some issues around the use of celebrities, and can also be applied
at the global level. But what it cannot do is account for the receptivity of decision-makers to
the demands of NGOs. And this is where political opportunity structure theory can help us out.

Political opportunities: the where and the when

Political opportunities theory is a broad body of work which argues that political conditions
for the emergence and development of social movements matter, but the theory is also appli-
cable to NGOs. According to Tarrow’s (1998) synthesis, political opportunity structure refers
to the variables that measure the presence or absence of political alliances, divisions within the
elite, tolerance of the polity to protest and repression or facilitation by the state. Drawing on
Eisinger’s (1973) work, we can simplify the theory to suggest that in a state with repression it
will be difficult to form NGOs, whereas in an open and facilitative state NGOs might be more
common (Kriesi 1995; Kitschelt 1986), providing, of course, activists or potential NGO staff
are aware of the degree of openness. Social movements arise when political parties and interest
groups (a) fail to accommodate particular interests; or (b) appear too weak to effect changes
(Rucht and Neidhardt 2002). Thus, the ‘take-off phase of movement politics’ (Offe 1989) is
considered to occur in ‘an institutional vacuum’ (Offe 1989: 182). Perhaps ironically, NGOs
themselves, if they become co-opted and fail to accommodate the interests of grassroots activ-
ists or other people in need, might help to produce that political vacuum. Similarly to what
is anticipated by political opportunity structure theory, the emergence and development of
NGOs is encouraged by the presence of access points. In the case of NGOs, these access points
include the proliferation of transnational institutions that seek legitimation through consulta-
tion with NGOs: the UN Council, for example, invites consultation with NGOs, and pro-
vides access to groups that are sometimes ignored at the state level (Keck and Sikkink 1998).
Similarly, UN conferences invite NGO participation in order to legitimise their processes and
regional intergovernmental organisations (such as Europe and the North American trading
area) also invite NGOs (Kriesberg 1997).
However, political opportunity structure does not always accurately predict the workings of
NGOs. We would probably not anticipate the emergence of NGOs in authoritarian regimes.

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Yet, in the authoritarian regimes of Thailand and Malaysia, there have been calls for greater
transparency, less corruption, reforms to democracy and free speech. This has brought together
NGOs with SMOs and political parties (Davies et al. 2016), illustrating how what we might
conceive of as a closed-opportunity structure under certain circumstances could actually invite
participation of NGOs.
One criticism of a broad-brush approach to political opportunity structure is that it would
anticipate uniform movements and NGOs within states. For example, moderate movements
are anticipated in moderate states and underground or insurrectionist movements in repressive
states. And yet the movement and NGO landscape varies within countries as much as across
them. Welsh (2001), for example, notes how the British anti-nuclear movement consisted of
moderate NGOs that sought to use constitutional means to oppose nuclear energy, as well as
other SMOs which utilised public education and direct action. As Rootes (1997: 93) suggests,
‘systems may be relatively open or closed to different kinds of issues and or groups, and this
makes global categorization hazardous if not entirely arbitrary’. Dalton (1994: 171) found that
environmental organisations’ external identity, strategies and ideologies were more important in
shaping the opportunities they faced than macro-political structures.
Thus, political opportunity structure theory might help us to identify what organisational
structures and strategies NGOs chose. NGOs need to maintain their reputations with inter-
governmental organisations, governments and other donors in order to continue securing
invitations to consultations and lucrative contract work. In this sense, we consider consultee
and contracted NGOs as ‘insiders’, in contrast to other SMOs that are ‘outsiders’. In pressure
group theory, insiders are considered legitimate and are widely consulted, whereas outsiders are
ignored. Ideological outsiders purposefully position themselves away from cooperation with
governments and intergovernmental governing bodies (Grant 1995; Saunders 2013: 105–106).
Saunders (2013) shows that ideological outsiders and insiders rarely collaborate. This might be
because ideological outsiders oppose the notion of an insider route, associating it with co-option
and compromise. It might also be because the insiders do not want to tarnish their reputations
through association with organisations that are radical, and of which their donors or state allies
might disapprove. However, this concerns only the organisational level. At the individual level,
activists might be involved in insider and outsider activism simultaneously or consecutively
participating in different organisations across the life course (Roth 2016).
Notions of POS might also be applied to international decision-making, which consists of
multiple nodal points with a variety of sets of rules, alliances, norms and approaches to take to
influence it. Thus, the ability of an NGO to ‘take advantage of openings in national, intergov-
ernmental, and transgovernmental opportunity structures varies across issues and time’ (Smith
et al. 1997). Barrett and Kurzman (2004) have made a significant attempt to operationalise
a global political opportunity structure, which accounts for similarities in movements across
the world, despite differences in national political opportunity structure indicators (whereas
national opportunity structures are used to account for differences). They look particularly
at international stability, the number of intergovernmental organisations and the agenda of
intergovernmental organisations. International stability has a variable effect on opportunities
for eugenics organisations. A greater number of intergovernmental organisations signals more
openness because there are more access points. A wider set of themes on the agenda of intergov-
ernmental organisations also signals more openness through the creation of more potential allies.
An additional opportunity structure that shapes NGOs, perhaps more so than SMOs, is
donors. In the international context, donors have significant influence on the development
of NGOs. This can be illustrated by the impact of foreign aid on women’s organisations in
Central and Eastern Europe. In the context of strengthening civil society in the post-socialist

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societies, international organisations supported women’s issues such as domestic violence

and anti-trafficking programmes (Roth 2007). However, Ghodsee (2004) pointed out that
Western donors imported ‘feminism-by-design’ and ignored the needs and interests of post-
socialist women. In order to access Western aid, local NGOs complied with donors’ interests
rather than developing their own agenda (Ghodsee 2004). However, the relationship between
donors and NGOs receiving aid is contradictory and ambivalent and there is some evidence
that aid-receiving organisations were able to influence donors and pursue activities that were
not donor driving (Roth 2007). Alvarez (1999) studied NGOisation processes in Latin America
which include a subcontracting of feminist NGOs who either advise governments or are invited
to implement them. In a reassessment, Alvarez (2009) considers how feminist NGOs in Latin
America can move ‘beyond NGO-ization’ and engage in crucial movement work.
The influence of international donors matters not only in the context of the women’s
movement. Murdie and Bhasin (2011) investigated the intended and unintended effects of
human rights INGOs on domestic anti-government protest. They distinguish different types
of human rights INGOs, which vary in their effects on protest of domestic groups. Murdie
and Bhasin (2011) found that Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch had little
impact on domestic politics despite their growing global presence. In contrast, INGOs which
have a local presence demonstrate greater commitment, which results in increased violent and
non-violent protest. Based on a comparison of Nigeria’s movement for the Ogoni People
(MOSOP) and Mexico’s Zapatistas, Bob (2001) notes that given the specialised agendas and
limited resources, INGOs are highly selective in choosing local clients. Thus local groups
that are familiar with transnational discourses and claims making and are able to frame their
issue so that it resonates with the agendas of INGOs are more likely to gain support. In
fact, Choudry (2013) argues that professionalised NGOs which oppose the World Trade
Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are disconnected from
popular resistance against neoliberalism and have little awareness of mass mobilisation against
free trade agreements (FTAs). At the same time, mobilisation against bilateral FTAs remains
isolated. Transnational advocacy and networking of INGOs thus is limited.
Political opportunity structure theory, then, is useful for understanding the ways in which
relatively open states encourage NGOs to participate. The relative openness of global net-
worked governance also encourages the participation of NGOs. Moreover, matters of donors
and place characteristics also determine opportunities that impact the shape and form of NGOs.
At the organisational level, political opportunity structure explains how and why access is
more likely for NGOs in comparison to more radical SMOs. Although political opportunity
structure theory takes into account the political environment, it does not consider the broader
socio-economic environment, which is why we now turn to an examination of new social
movement theory.

New social movement theory: the why

New social movement theory has occupied itself with trying to explain the then ‘new’ move-
ments of the 1960s and 1970s. It was broadly agreed that these movements had common fea-
tures that distinguished them from the labour movement (for a critical view on this assessment
see Calhoun 1993). As Habermas (1981: 33) suggested, ‘in short the new conflicts are sparked
not by problems of [labour and product] distribution, but by concern for the grammar of forms
of life’. However, this juxtaposition overlooks that recognition of gender and sexual identi-
ties is tied up with material interests, for example insurance and inheritance rights of same-sex
couples. New social movements were ‘new’ in three senses: they formed a new scholarly lens,

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they (presumably) contrasted with older movements and they developed as a response to a ‘new’
society that they sought to redress (but see Calhoun 1993). Here, we focus on the new society
arguments for clarity and conciseness. Although the socio-economic context has changed sig-
nificantly since this body of theory emerged, the main lesson we can take from it is that social
and political epochs give rise to particular types of movements and NGOs. This is no less true
today than it was in the 1960s and 1970s (see for example Della Porta 2015; Roth 2018).
The new social movements of the 1970s were seen as both symptoms and redressers of what
was then contemporary society. This was referred to variously as a post-industrial/programmed
society (Touraine 1981), an information society (Melucci 1996) and a late capitalistic society
(Habermas 1984). Although different scholars have varying philosophical stances in regard to
what was then contemporary society, what they have in common is a set of observations around
a reduction in class conflict, a growing tertiary sector (known as the new middle class), the
expansion and commodification of cultural consumption and leisure, new types of social protest,
an expanding welfare state (Ray 1993), increasing state surveillance, and domination of politics
and lifestyles by corporate interests (Habermas 1981). However, the recent populist movements
around the world are strong indicators that class still matters and that it needs to be approached
from an intersectional perspective (Roth 2018). The belief was that the welfare state placated
the people, despite its inability to solve environmental problems, poverty and military superflu-
ity. The state was considered handicapped due to the increasingly decentralised locus of power
that had shifted from being in the hands of the state to multiple corporate actors. The new
movements emerged, acting as magnets for the discontent that the system could not integrate.
And those involved in the movements formed new identities and alternative ways of organising
and campaigning that bypassed the state (Melucci 1994).
Undoubtedly society has changed since the days of new social movement theorising. Welfare
states have retrenched, markedly so since 2008, and intergovernmental organisations have pro-
liferated. Moreover, the growing importance of NGOs is one aspect of neoliberalism as services
that used to be provided by state actors are outsourced to non-profit organisations (see for
example Alvarez 1999; Fraser 2009; Watkins et al. 2012). This involves not only the market, but
also civil society. This has led to welfare provision through non-profit organisations at the local
and the domestic level and the involvement of NGOs in development assistance and humanitar-
ian relief (Watkins et al. 2012). Furthermore, self-help organisations such as women’s shelters
that emerged in the context of the second wave of the women’s movement to provide support
for women and their children who left abusive relationships transformed through the access to
funding through local governments. Fraser (2009: 113), for example, argues that second-wave
feminism ‘thrived’ under neoliberalism, state retrenchment was associated with enthusiasm for
NGOs and international campaigns for women’s human rights addressed violence and repro-
duction rather than poverty.
Demirovic (1998: 91) argues that although NGOs ‘partly emerged from the protest cycle
of the new social movements, they are not a social movement’. But, in line with new social
movement theories, the locus of power has become harder to pinpoint as the state finds itself
challenged by terrorism, new forms of internationalisation and regionalism, shifts in power to
supranational organisations and as power moves from the state to the market, resulting in what
Della Porta and Tarrow (2013) call ‘complex internationalism’. Another important shift relates
to technologies and online activism. A new public sphere has emerged online (Langman 2005;
cf. Habermas 1984), which has exemplified a crisis of legitimacy, including of NGOs. For
example, Oxfam is, at the time of writing, being berated across social media sites after the recent
sex scandal (see Roth, Chapter 19 of this volume). This is having a negative effect on Oxfam’s
reputation, even though some left-wing organisations and commentators are claiming that the

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UK Conservative government is using the scandal as an excuse to attack the aid budget (e.g.
Red Pepper via Facebook).
Societal trends affect the emergence, development and workings of NGOs. The processes
of colonisation of the lifeworld (Habermas 1984), in which corporate interests come to domi-
nate the way people think, feel and act, have only become more ubiquitous in the past four
decades. As Langman (2005) reports, the ‘pleasure principle’, in which people give willing
consent to consumerism, distracts people from reality. But it also encourages some to seek out
alternatives, including seeking information from NGOs that is now widely available on the
internet. The erosions of state autonomy, cultural homogenisation, environmental degradation
and poor human rights have together caused a legitimacy crisis that some NGOs have sought
to address.
Moreover, globalisation processes and funding cuts affect the workings and operational
budgets of NGOs. NGOs find themselves invited to multiple international conferences of inter-
governmental organisations, which might detract their attention from more immediate issues
and problems they could be solving (Lynch 1998). NGOs – despite being formal in and of
themselves – have tried to address the challenges of globalisation by generating new discursive
alternatives and joining horizontal networks that seek to address issues on multiple levels in
various ways. One of the most significant attempts to generate new discursive alternatives has
been the European and World Social Forums, where activists and NGO workers from across
the world have come together to try to generate a template for a better world (Teivainen 2002).
However, global inequalities are reflected in access to resources and unequal opportunities to
participate in such meetings (Siméant 2013). Despite these limitations, attempts have been made
to form horizontal coalitions, such as Make Poverty History (2005) which challenged the G8 on
multiple counts in a plethora of ways, but which arguably failed because of its over-ambitious
objective and lack of centralised leadership (Saunders and Papadimitrou 2012).
New social movement theory is also relevant to NGOs because NGOs themselves have
shaped global culture through diffusion processes. NGOs play a central role in Transnational
Advocacy Networks (TANs) which contribute to the diffusion of norms. Keck and Sikkink
(1998) illustrate the influence of TANs by discussion advocacy networks addressing human
rights, environmental issues and violence against women, whereas Boli and Thomas (1999)
note the contribution of international NGOs in Constructing World Culture (see also Tarrow
2006). Berkovitch (1999) provides a historical overview of the emergence and transformation
of the international women’s movement, starting with a discussion of the International Council
of Women, a global women’s NGO that was founded in 1888. Political opportunity structures
such as the League of Nations, the United Nations and the European Union played an impor-
tant role in the development of social movements and NGOs, including women’s movements
and women’s NGOs (Roth 2017).
Also central to the new social movements literature is the concept of collective identity,
which refers to the sense of we-ness among activists. As one of us argues in earlier work (Saunders
2008), a strong sense of we-ness can result in a strong degree of solidarity. This solidarity can
have a negative side effect of juxtaposing the ‘we’ against a ‘them’ who is actually an ally, albeit
one that works in a different way from the solidary collective. Demirovic (1998: 92) contrasts
the symbolic identity of new social movements as a collective actor with the symbolically non-
integrated corporate identity of NGOs. This process of ‘sectarian solidarity’ (Misztal 1996: 34)
can often result in NGOs being held to account by their more radical counterparts for seeking
the same goals but through more reformist means. It certainly seems as if a we–them distinction
has been generated by some Southern NGOs against their Northern counterparts, with their
charges fuelled by the seemingly unfairness of disproportionately high budget allocations being

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Clare Saunders and Silke Roth

proffered to Northern NGOs (Alejandro 2006). Environmental NGOs have also been dubbed
as a toothless or corrupted ‘them’ by radical environmental activists (Saunders 2008).
New social movement theories, then, draw our attention to features of the contemporary
socio-economic landscape and encourage us to think about how these shape NGOs as well
as NGO relations with other organisations. They also allow us to think about the notion
of collective identity, which can play an important role in shaping NGO relationships with
other SMOs.

Conclusion
NGOs and NGOisation, internationalisation and donors raise important questions for social
movement theories. At the same time, social movement theories provide useful tools to under-
stand the how, why, when and where of NGO formation. Social movement theory can provide
pathways towards consideration of the causes and consequences of NGOisation and how NGOs
contribute to diffusion transnational diffusion processes. Given their access to resources and
powerful actors, NGOs can assume a dominant position vis-a-vis social movement organisation
with fewer resources. If they assume the role of donors themselves, they may require (or invite)
complicity from local actors which de-radicalise in the process. The study of NGOs and social
movements always includes a consideration of different tactics – insider tactics and outsider
tactics. Insider tactics including lobbying and advocacy might be the right approach for claims
making, but they also include the risk of watering down demands. On the other hand, outsider
tactics might be pure, but might not lead to any political gains. The combinations of insider and
outsider tactics, access to resources and unconstrained radicalism strengthens social movements.
In this view, the professional NGO is an important social movement organisation. However,
if there is a lack of communication between insiders and outsiders, then NGOs might seem
disconnected from social movement actors.
We have demonstrated how different social movement theories contribute to our under-
standing of NGOs, even though some of them are clearly more applicable than others.
Certainly, resource mobilisation theory is the most intuitively suited theory for under-
standing NGOs. Having said that, even new social movement theory seems useful for
understanding NGOs, with plenty of scope for relating a philosophical approach to the
current socio-political environment to the NGO landscape. In this regard, there are mul-
tiple opportunities to understand the intersection of socio-political environments with the
political economy of NGOs. Only by considering a range of theories together is it possible
to understand the how, where, when, who and why of NGOs.

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 11
International NGOs in
development studies
Helen Yanacopulos

Suffering, disease and famines: such are the stories of humanitarian appeals and one of the pri-
mary means by which many people connect and contribute to international development. When
our urge to help is ignited, the obvious place to turn is to International Non-Governmental
Organisations (INGOs) in order to make donations. Some development INGOs have become
household names, such as Oxfam, Save the Children, Action Aid, CARE or faith-based organisa-
tions such as CAFOD, World Vision or Christian Aid, to name just a few. These organisations
are international ‘charities’ that work in international development and humanitarian relief in
most continents where there is extreme poverty, primarily in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The term NGO describes a spectrum of different types of organisations working on issues of
development and humanitarian relief and can refer to a ‘one man in an office’ operation, or to an
internationally based organisation such as Oxfam with many national sister Oxfams and a com-
plex array of partner organisations. This chapter will examine how these development INGOs
are conceptualised broadly, and then their conceptualisations within international relations and
within development studies.1 To do so, the chapter primarily focuses on large-scale International
NGOs working in international development and humanitarian relief. These international actors
are complex organisations operating at different scales, frequently with different missions and
functions. Exploring how INGOs function and are explained within the international relations
and international development literature will illustrate the difficulties in explaining and analysing
this diverse set of international actors. And while the international development literature’s more
functional analysis of INGOs better captures their work, this chapter will illustrate how there are
still some gaps in how we conceptualise development INGOs.

Understanding development NGOs

Development INGOs are key actors in international development and humanitarian relief.
They are the first names people think of in order to get information about a situation they may
see on the news, to donate money to a particular emergency appeal or to purchase goods from
their local charity shops. But while this is what development INGOs are generally known for,
behind our experiences of these organisations are highly sophisticated, multinational organisa-
tions with complex systems, embedded in extensive political networks with a wide global reach.

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They operate at different scales and have a multitude of functions and different ‘theories of
change’ – a term used to describe their strategies for ways they aim to effect change.
The term development NGOs is used broadly to describe specific types of organisation that
are value-driven working in the field of international development. When we speak of NGOs
in IR, we are typically referring to the well-branded and marketed International NGOs that
are highly recognisable. These international NGOs tend to be based in the global north with
projects in more than three countries in the global south.2 Yet these international NGOs are
only a small part of the development NGO sector, as most NGOs are based in the country
where they operate in the global south. Such domestic development NGOs are also well con-
nected to the development sector, typically through their partnerships with other domestic
NGOs, with INGOs and with international donors. International NGOs historically (but not
exclusively) originated in the global north and have evolved from small church-based organisa-
tions or secular organisations responding to a particular crisis, to large international organisations
that have ‘branches’, ‘sister organisations’ or belong to federations in a multitude of countries.
However, to think that these organisations are exclusively based in the global north is deceptive.
For example, many such organisations such as Action Aid, CIVICUS and Oxfam have moved
elements of their head office functions to countries in the global south. INGOs also have long-
standing partnerships with organisations in the global south, frequently with their own offices
in the countries that they work in. And there are global south staff working in INGO offices in
the global north, and global north staff working and living in the global south. Therefore, these
distinctions, while somewhat helpful, are not clear cut, and while broad terms such as ‘south’
and ‘north’ may be somewhat misleading, when referring to INGOs, almost all have their herit-
age and loci of power in the north, which is also where their funders are based, be they govern-
ments, international institutions or individuals.
During the last three decades, most INGOs have formed their own federations; for exam-
ple, where there were eight relatively unconnected sister Oxfam organisations in the mid-
1990s, there is now a much more coordinated and centrally structured Oxfam International
with 17 sister Oxfams sitting under the Oxfam umbrella. Oxfam is not unique in this sense, as
many other INGOs have also adopted this international organising strategy. Additionally, there
has been an increase in large-scale transnational campaigns, bringing together many influential
actors, and some have had a great deal of success; and INGOs have played a significant role
within these campaigns.
To define the exact nature and role of INGOs is difficult, as the term is used to describe a
wide variety of organisations all of which have different historical trajectories, fulfil different
identified needs and have different institutional abilities and mandates. There are INGOs, for
example, which are relief and welfare agencies, those that provide technical innovation and
those which are funded to carry out public service contracts. There are also grassroots devel-
opment organisations or advocacy and lobbying groups advocating for change. However, as
Farrington and Bebbington have argued (1993: 3), part of the problem in discussing INGOs
as a broad category is that such classifications do not fully differentiate between the function,
ownership and scale of operation of the organisations.
INGOs’ funding has risen dramatically over the last three decades. Within the international
development and humanitarian relief sector, the total aid disbursed through INGOs increased
10 times between 1970 and 1985 and Keane (2003: 5) states that close to 90 per cent of all
non-governmental organisations have been formed since 1970. By the end of the 20th century,
an estimated US$7 billion of official aid and foundation funding was being channelled through
INGOs, surpassing the volume of the combined funding of the UN system of US$6 billion
(Reimann, 2005: 38). Additionally, Epstein and Gang (2006) state that between 1991 to 2002,

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the number of INGOs grew by 19.3 per cent. The publication ‘100 Top NGOs’ (Global Journal,
2013) states that according to their calculations, many of the largest INGOs are operating with
larger aid budgets than the budgets of many developing countries, and they go on to cite the exam-
ple of World Vision (one of the largest development INGOs), whose budget is greater than the aid
budgets of Italy and Australia combined, while Save the Children’s budget is greater than that of
Austria (Global Journal, 2013: 35). Thus, international development NGOs have become significant
actors in international politics.

Conceptualising development NGOs in international relations

Wendy Harcourt (2012: 3) argues that INGOs must renegotiate their political positions as
well as the ways that they work as they are increasing horizontal and multi-level connections
as a result of technological changes, where people are engaging in new political behaviours.
INGOs are not only claiming their importance, but they have a seat at the political table in
many key development situations. INGOs are key actors in international development and,
through their fundraising, awareness raising and campaigning, they are the primary mediators
of international development for the majority of people in the global north (Yanacopulos,
2015). This is an extremely powerful position to be in and in many ways, they are the face
of the development industry, constructing, mediating and representing meanings of develop-
ment. And yet, their conceptualisation within both international relations and development
studies requires refining.
Historically, INGOs have been ignored by most international relations theory. Ahmed and
Potter (2006) argue that the reason for this is that INGOs cross academic disciplinary boundaries
and many disciplines, from anthropology, geography, sociology and politics to management
studies, have some interest in INGOs. Thus, this means that they are explored from many
perspectives, but this diversity of interest also contributes to there being no one unified body
of INGO literature that can be ‘readily accommodated by mainstream theories in international
relations’ (Ahmed and Potter, 2006: 9). Additionally, as development INGOs are frequently
concerned with particularly technical areas such as health, agriculture and engineering, locating
them in one discipline is difficult as their focus may be too broadly distributed.
But DeMars and Dijkzeul (2015: 5) argue that it is the very nature of development INGOs
that makes them great candidates for bridging seven key critical divisions in world politics; they
argue that INGOs could help to contribute to conceptions and theories of international relations
and world politics as they can act as a bridge in our thinking:

•• of the state and society, and the shifting boundary between public and private;
•• within society, and between family and market;
•• between the normative and the material;
•• between the religious and the secular;
•• between agency and structure;
•• between conflict and cooperation; and
•• between the national and the international.

INGO practices produce vast networks of international institutionalization through their eve-
ryday performing of anchoring practices, as DeMars and Dijkzeul (2015: 5) state, through their
‘NGOing’. In addition, through their bridging, INGOs generate transnational power-based
encounters: ‘belying their idealist and anodyne image, transnational NGOs create the occasion
for, and often veil from scrutiny, a growing arena of complex power relationships in world

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politics. In this way, NGOs and their networks institutionalize both conflict and cooperation’
(DeMars and Dijkzeul, 2015: 5).
When we look at the broad grouping of international relations theories, starting with real-
ism, development INGOs are not considered significant actors as they are not deemed to have
a significant impact. Realists are not interested in development INGOs and realist theories are
concerned with national interests of states and international security issues. Yet INGOs are
undoubtedly key players in some forms of states’ foreign policies, being used by them (either
explicitly or through governmental donor funding) to deliver national interests abroad. When
we examine liberal theories of international relations, with their focus on interstate cooperation,
development of international norms, the influence of public opinion and the range of actors
beyond states involved in world politics, INGOs again are conspicuously untheorised. While
liberal theories might seem like a good starting point for studying development INGOs as their
aim is for a more peaceful world, the absence of INGOs is still evident. As presented by Ahmed
and Potter (2006: 10), liberal theories examine cooperative relationships as security issues, the
domain of states, do not dominate all fields of international activity. Thus, liberalism places
attention on transnational interactions outside those of the state, such as between multilateral
and sub-national actors as well as on multinational corporations. Yet, as DeMars and Dijkzeul
(2015: 9) argue, liberal theory ‘has actively discouraged INGO scholarship’. Some branches
of liberal theory are more inclusive of INGOs, even while being state-centric, such as regime
theory, which examines how interest groups and transnational coalitions attempt to solve prob-
lems, and yet they struggle to be inclusive of INGOs.
The most hopefully theoretical field that considers and accounts for INGOs as political actors
is that of constructivism. Stephen Walt and Jack Snyder (quoted in DeMars and Dijkzeul, 2015)
argue that transnationalism and NGOs are very much key in constructivist thinking where the
role of norms, ideas and values shapes world politics. Constructivism is a fundamentally idealist
theory that ‘emphasises the influence of ideas, values and discourses that shape political identi-
ties, beliefs and interests’ (DeMars and Dijkzeul, 2015: 10). In constructivist theorising, NGOs
are the more organised elements of a transnational civil society, where NGOs are seen as agents
of the voiceless who are advocating for those at various levels of government, or as DeMars
and Dijkzeul (2015: 11) summarise, as ‘transnational pilgrims in an emancipatory passage from
oppressive rule to self-regulating community’. This ideal does not radically differ from some
of the claims made by development INGOs themselves either explicitly in their literature or
implicitly in the imagery that they use in their marketing and fundraising visual representations.
Other forms of constructivism focus on global norms frequently perpetuated and influenced by
NGOs, whether these norms are focused on states and their adoption or focused on individuals
around particular issues. These globalist constructivist norms tend to be around ‘justice-based’
issues around human rights or the environment and they could be seen as the ‘UN’s extension
agents, bringing authority and order . . . portray[ing] NGOs as obediently implementing and
enforcing [organisations]’ (DeMars and Dijkzeul, 2015: 11).
The most encouraging approach to INGOs within the discipline of international relations
has been in the seminal work by Keck and Sikkink in their 1998 book Activists Beyond Borders,
and the work that followed. While Keck and Sikkink’s work is not exclusively on INGOs,
their work on transnational advocacy networks was inclusive of these actors as important within
governance processes taking place beyond the state. In their analysis, INGOs were theorised as
part of issue-based transnational advocacy networks (TANs). Their definition of TANs ‘includes
those actors working internationally on an issue, who are bound together by shared values, a
common discourse, and dense exchanges of information and services’ (Keck and Sikkink 1998:
89). Keck and Sikkink’s aim was to examine forms of activism and how TANs achieved success:

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TANs not only superseded the national realm, but also broke down the divide between domestic
and international activities, with the potential to ‘transform the practice of national sovereignty’
(Keck and Sikkink 1998: 89, 91–92). Essential to TANs was how they framed issues and created
and renegotiated norms, so that their interests came together to create a transnational network
which could garner leverage through national and international political processes and structures.
Thus, while some international relations theories, namely constructivist theories, are more
inclusive of INGOs, the majority of IR theories either do not take them into account or are very
focused on particular functional elements of INGO work. International relations, as a discipline,
has been criticised for lacking in analysis of domestic politics, and for lacking in an analysis of
non-state actors. For development INGOs in particular, this omission by many international
relations theories has meant that the work that they do is not captured in their political analysis
of how change happens and how global north and global south relations are formed and enacted.
That development INGOs work is political, whether explicitly or implicitly, is missed out in a
discipline that not only concerns itself with world order, but also political change. As Ahmed
and Potter (2006: 11-12) state, ‘Technical assistance to increase agricultural productivity, the
construction of village schools in developing countries, and efforts to immunize children against
disease do not appear political, although in the long run their effects may be’.
INGOs were more or less spared searching critiques in the 1980s, but since the 1990s –
specifically starting with the work of Edwards and Hulme (Hulme and Edwards, 1992; Edwards
and Hulme, 1995; Hulme and Edwards, 1996) – they have been criticised around their account-
ability and legitimacy, around their professionalisation and around their perceived de-politici-
sation. More recently, terms such as ‘NGOisation’ (Choudry and Kapoor, 2013) have entered
the contemporary political lexicon, critiquing NGOs as depoliticisers of social movements. The
term also stands for an over-professionalisation of the development NGO sector with critiques
highlighting their lack of alternative approaches to those of state donors. There have been accu-
sations, too, that many of the INGOs in the development sector have lost sight of their values
and mission (Banks and Hulme, 2012). While all these critiques need to be considered, and
some may indeed be valid, it is important to consider where such critiques are originating and
whether they are politically motivated. Frequently, when INGOs – and specifically the larger
INGOs – are criticised, little distinction is made between the different political visions, strate-
gies, constituencies and organisational structures within the sector. These critiques come from
not only outside the sector, but also within it. One director of a UK-based INGO interviewed
stated that ‘they [INGOs] are out of touch . . . they are afraid of being criticised as they see it as
a negative thing rather than it being helpful, something that jeopardises their brand and fundrais-
ing’ (personal correspondence).

International development theories

The idea of international development formally took hold in public discourses and in politi-
cal aims after WWII when President Truman spoke of the ‘underdevelopment’ that needed
American support (typically in geopolitically sensitive regions in the global south) in his 1949
inauguration speech. However, as Cowen and Shenton (1996) outline, the idea of progress, as is
evident in President Truman’s speech, dates back to 18th-century Enlightenment thinkers who
wanted to ‘create a “better, more just and modern society” via processes of industrialization and
democratization based on the ideas of progress, equality and freedom, and associated ideologies”
(Velmeyer and Bowles, 2017: 1). And as Kothari (2005) argues, there are clear links between
religious ideas of ‘charity’ and the ‘civilising’ of entire nations and continents and what is now
called development.

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In the post-1945 period, according to critics such as Wolfgang Sachs, the idea of ‘develop-
ment’ was created as ‘a geopolitical project to rescue countries recently liberated from the yoke
of colonial rule away from the lure of communism, and to steer them along a capitalist path’
(quoted in Velmeyer and Bowles, 2017: 1). Pioneering ideas around development as a field of
study were originally led by development economists such as Rostow (1960) with his theory
of modernisation. Development was seen in terms of ‘progress’, specifically in per capita eco-
nomic growth involving industrialisation and modernisation. Key economic factors indicating
development included a country’s increase in the rate of savings and investment, the capital
investment of the state in national industries, the nationalisation of economic enterprises in
strategic industries and sectors and an inward orientation of production, which, together with
a secular increase in wages and salaries, expanded domestic markets and the regulation and
protection of domestic markets, thereby insulating them from the competitive pressures of the
world economy, and the modernisation of production apparatus, the state and social institutions,
reorienting them towards values and norms that are functional for economic growth (Velmeyer
and Bowles, 2017: 3).
While the dominant development paradigm during the 1950s and 1960s was that of eco-
nomic modernisation, there were also social reformers who saw development as a situation of
deprivation and poverty, and the lack of fulfilment of basic needs. However, also popular during
this period of the 1960s and 1970s was dependency theory, which critiqued the modernisation
approaches adopted during this time, and this approach was embraced by not only academics
but also practitioners, particularly in Latin America. During the 1970s and 1980s, there were
social-liberal scholars who sought an alternative people-centred participatory approach to devel-
opment such as Hollnsteiner (1977) and Rahman (1984). Therefore, by the end of the 1980s,
there were differing conceptions and approaches to development: economic modernisation,
social reformists and social liberalism (Velmeyer and Bowles, 2017: 4).
It is the last two of these paradigms that was most open to including INGOs in conceptu-
alisations of development. The social reformist perspective focusing on basic needs and poverty
included development INGOs as service providers to the poor. The social liberalist approach of
the 1980s, with a focus on people-centred participation, was also more open to including NGOs
as they were seen as intermediary organisations between north and south. However, what we
see in the 1990s is the dominance of what is called the Washington Consensus – the idea that
governments in the global south had been too involved in their economies, and were thereby
part of the development ‘problem’, that state involvement needed to be reduced. The result of
these neo-liberal policies was that INGOs were frequently seen as a more direct vehicle for donor
funds to reach and impact development aid recipients. This, along with the dramatic shifts in
Eastern Europe in the late 1980s to early 1990s, frequently attributed to civil society actors, saw
a significant reconceptualisation of civil society (frequently conflated with NGOs) and the role
of non-state actors in development (McCoskey, 2009). The discourses around NGOs fit well
with other terms being used during that time (and their use continues), such as ‘empowerment’,
‘sustainable’ and ‘inclusive’ development. Velmeyer and Bowles (2017: 6) argue that these terms
and ideas were the building blocks of attempts to construct a model of alternative development,
which highlighted a need for a more inclusive form of development.
During the past few decades, there have been other schools of thought within development
studies, such as postcolonial studies and critical development studies. Critical development
theorists include Schuurman (2009), O’Hearn and Munck (1999), and Veltmeyer and Bowles
(2017), to name but a few. While alternatives to economic development thinking date back
to the 1970s, critical development critiques have become influential in the ways that develop-
ment is being conceived and practised (for more on critical development see Veltmeyer and

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Bowles, 2017). Critical development theories are inclusive of key development issues, such
as the role of gender, environmentalism, culture and class. Relatedly, postcolonial theories
have been influential in the ways that development is conceived and critiqued. As Ilan Kapoor
(2008) states, development has had a ‘relative amnesia’ about colonialism and neo-colonialism,
and other authors such as Kothari (2005), Cowen and Shenton (1996), and Crush (1995), to
name but a few, have been critical of the continuation of colonialism in mainstream develop-
ment theory and practice. Postcolonial theories go beyond conceptualisations and practices of
international development, but given the nature of the discipline and the related practices of
development practitioners, including INGOs, these critiques need to be taken even more seri-
ously within the discipline.

Conceptualising development NGOs

If we step back from these theories of development, and look at development INGOs from a
functional perspective, we see that they have two primary functions in their operations, and
while these two functions are not mutually exclusive, generally there are some tensions in how
development INGOs fulfil these roles (Yanacopulos and Baillie Smith, 2007). The broad opera-
tional functions of international NGOs consist of:

•• as ‘practice-based organisations’, frequently stepping in where governments and interna-

tional organisations cannot fulfil a role, frequently referred to as ‘service provision’; and
•• as ‘influencing organisations’ that are trying to influence other national and international
political actors around issues of poverty, inequality and development.

To examine the first of these functions, one of the primary roles of development INGOs has
been that they help deliver services to the poor in the global south. They communicate this
type of work to northern supporters and funders, and their organisational communications and
fundraising primarily conveys the message of service provision as their primary role. INGO
service delivery work is diverse, with some development and humanitarian INGOs focusing
on humanitarian relief, education, health and shelter. Most of the large INGOs, however,
have programmes that cut across many of the sectors identified in addressing poverty, both in
humanitarian emergencies and in longer-term development projects.
The second function of development INGOs, frequently boldly highlighted in their theories
of change, revolves around changing people’s lives beyond just delivering services. For example,
Oxfam (2013: 6) states that they want ‘a just world without poverty: a world in which people
can influence decisions that affect their lives’. Save the Children (2016) has a mission to ‘Inspire
breakthroughs in the way the world treats children and achieve immediate and lasting change in
their lives . . . by being the voice, the innovator, working in partnerships and achieving results
at scale’. Christian Aid (2018) aims ‘to expose poverty throughout the world; to help in practical
ways to end it; to highlight, challenge and change the structures and systems that favour the rich
and powerful over the poor and marginalised’.
Sabine Lang (2013) offers a useful way of thinking of INGOs as influencing organisations
in her book NGOs, Civil Society and the Public Sphere. Here Lang lays out two characterisations
of INGOs. In the first characterisation, she uses the analogy of ‘David and Goliath’, in which
INGOs are portrayed as poor and marginalised, but are seen as defenders of human rights,
democracy and social justice (as opposed to governments who are seen as all-powerful). In her
description of this first characterisation, Lang sees the reality of INGO/government relations
as being more complicated than this trope, where there is a co-dependency between unequals.

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The second characterisation of INGOs is what Lang terms ‘counter public’, in which INGOs
are portrayed as catalysts for civil society, organising concerned citizens and providing an alter-
native voice to that of governments. As she outlines, this idea is idealistic, as INGOs frequently
do not provide much of an alternative perspective to that of governments.
Given the functional work of development INGOs, how have different international devel-
opment approaches or paradigms tried to explain and analyse these particular types of organi-
sations? Historically, one of the key limitations in many conceptualisations of development
INGOs has been that they are grouped as one broad category of organisation when they are
actually a vastly diverse group of development actors, with different aims and ways of operating.
Some development INGOs may be only interested in service delivery, while others may be
exclusively advocacy-based organisations. Some have commercial aims, while others may work
as consultancies. Some may work only with southern partners, while others send supporter/
volunteers to countries they work in, while even others have entire operational infrastructures
in recipient countries. Some focus on particular groups, such as children, whereas others span
across all sectors. Others work extremely close to governments, obtaining their funding from
governments, following governmental political agendas, whereas others refuse to take any funds
from governments and work closely with social movements involved in resistance. And eve-
rything in between. Thus, trying to categorise and conceptualise these diverse organisations
becomes particularly difficult, even though there is some degree of similarity between them.
An additional problem is that, as previously outlined, many of these INGOs have to be
extremely aspirational in what they claim to be able to achieve in order to sustain their finan-
cial support. Michael Edwards (2008: 48–49) succinctly outlines this in what he has called
‘the elephant in the room’, stating that INGOs ‘will never achieve the impact they say they
want to achieve, because their leverage over the drivers of long-term change will continue to
be weak’. Also, since 2000, and despite eminent figures such as Kofi Annan claiming that the
21st century is ‘the era of NGOs’, the development NGO sector has come under increasing
critical scrutiny. Development INGOs in particular have been influenced by global para-
digms such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the subsequent Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs), leading development organisations to reconsider and realign
their goals to conform to broadly agreed programmes of action with a view to measurable
outcomes. Many (such as Ferguson, 1994; Banks and Hulme, 2012; Choudry and Kapoor,
2013; Yanacopulos, 2015) have argued that this has depoliticised their role in development,
leading INGOs to become more engaged with delivering development programmes than
with becoming agents of social change.
The rise of the INGO sector can – at least in part – be attributed to decades of economic
growth in the global north, as outlined by Wendy Harcourt (2012: 3). However, this has all
changed since the financial crises of 2008, to which INGOs and the development sector more
broadly have not been immune. Internationally, the large national development donors of the
past are being challenged by the so-called ‘emerging economies’ of the BRICS that are now
influencing the different development approaches and priorities. The economic situation since
the economic crisis in Europe in 2008 has impacted on the environment of INGOs in various
ways, such as their reduced ability to raise funds from individuals through fundraising cam-
paigns, as well as the increasing number of agencies competing for funding from other sources
such as governments and international organisations. Additionally, the increase in the number of
INGOs over the last few decades has meant that there is more competition for funding, result-
ing in a shrinking pie that is being cut into more pieces. This has had an impact on INGOs in a
variety of ways, from a shift in the images they use in fundraising, to a focus on short-term gains
and the relationships between many INGOs with governments and corporations.

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The rise of southern-based INGOs is significant, and they are now numerous and influential;
for example, the biggest development NGO in the world is BRAC from Bangladesh with over
100,000 employees. This shift has led not only to an increase in the capacity of southern-based
NGOs, but also to an increased requirement (whether from donors or from within the INGOs
themselves) for INGOs to work with southern partners. A programme manager for Save the
Children Denmark outlines the value-added of northern INGOs working with southern NGOs
and civil society organisations (CSOs), where ‘donors are beginning to fund southern CSOs
directly, bypassing northern NGOs altogether and putting these organisations under pressure to
reposition themselves’ (quoted in Smedley, 2014). Additionally, INGOs such as Every Child
have restructured their organisations where the INGO is no longer delivering programmes, but
raising funds for partners to do so. The CEO of the NGO Every Child explains the position of
the organisation: ‘When we asked ourselves what we thought our most effective contribution
to change might be we realised that our structure was upside down’ (quoted in Smedley, 2014).
The driving force behind such shifts has been a raised concern about the role INGOs are to play
in development; if northern INGOs are not close to the grassroots (or at least not as close as their
southern partners), then what exactly is their role in the development process?
Taking these issues into account, it is not surprising that development studies has better theo-
rised the ways that INGOs both operate and take part in international politics. However, not all
development studies theories comprehensively account for INGOs. The economic modernisa-
tion theories were completely dismissive of NGOs, as they were concerned with modernisation
being state- and market-driven. Other development theories such as the social reformists started
accounting for the work of INGOs, but mostly accounting for their service provision roles.
Social liberal theories of development which had a more people-centred and participative per-
spective again accounted for the work of INGOs, but were quite uncritical of the role of these
organisations. They focused on the ‘people-centred’ and participatory aspirations of INGOs,
but failed to account for how INGOs functioned as northern-driven organisations, and the
effects that their organisational demands had on how they operated. These INGOs’ operational
structures and their northern perspectives at best mitigated the effects of poverty with specific
individuals they worked with. However, this ‘people-centred’ approach fails to highlight and
address the systemic causes of poverty and the ‘northern gaze’ that many INGOs rely on in their
mediation of the global south to the global north.
Postcolonial theories as well as critical development theories have offered some interesting
changes in the ways that INGOs have been analysed. Postcolonial theories and critical develop-
ment theories are not the same, but have some similarities in their perspectives. Postcolonial
theories are frequently not interested in development per se, but originate from the field of
literature and art. Postcolonial theorists argue that development INGOs are part of the ‘devel-
opment/aid industry’ and are perpetuating colonial relationships of the past through modern
practices. As Sylvester (1999) argues,

Postcolonial studies is freer to criticise colonialism and creeds of progress openly . . . It can
also wander in between the colonial and postcolonial spaces of many locations in order to
point out the ways in which agents of development have been restructured and penetrated
by colonised peoples.
(1999: 717)

Many critical development thinkers have been influenced by postcolonial perspectives. The
subfield of critical development studies is a loose grouping of thinkers concerned with the
professionalisation of the sector, and also the role of INGOs in this professionalisation and

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Helen Yanacopulos

technicratisation process. They argue that there is a focus on administration over policies, of
service delivery over advocacy and of technocratic goals over systemic change. As Srinivas
(2009: 621) states,

Crucial development-related choices may no longer be exercised by the people to be

benefited, but by those intending to benefit them. Political choices may no longer be
conceived in terms of generating a shared public outcome, but rather in terms of narrower
individual ends.

And development INGOs are frequently complicit in these approaches.

But where does a critical development leave us with respect to INGOs? We could assume
that this perspective dismisses INGOs; however, generally this is not the case. Critical devel-
opment studies critically examines the agents, structures and actions of international develop-
ment, but does not write off the whole enterprise of development. What it does allow is for
a healthy questioning of the role of INGOs in international development by asking questions
of power, and asking whose interests NGOs serve and what are the consequences of INGOs’
work, and by also asking if by supporting them, other avenues of social change are closed down
(Srinivas, 2009: 618–619). Srinivas (2009: 623) argues that critical perspectives acknowledge
that ‘Successful social change generally involves a range of organizing methods and organiza-
tions, operating at multiple levels of society . . . [and] require[s] local organizing, community
level organizations that hire professionally trained staff when needed’. And if led by local organ-
ising, community-level organisations, INGOs can be part of this equation.

Conclusion
Within the academic discipline of international relations, historically, INGOs have been treated
in a cursory manner and have not been well conceptualised. Within the subsector of develop-
ment and humanitarian INGOs, the theorising is even more elusive. Given that development
NGOs are such a diverse set of organisations, with diverse functions and ambitions, theories
around them need to be inclusive of this diversity. Additionally, most development INGOs have
a clear advocacy function, and this aim and practice of advocacy needs to be included in their
theorising. Thus, a theory of INGOs needs to be inclusive of both their functionality as well as
their influence. This is not dissimilar from the ways that multinational corporations are theorised
as they may have different functions, but are also theorised around their financial power. As the
functions of development INGOs, based on values, are less easily quantifiable, and INGO power
is more based on shifting norms and influence, they are less straightforward to theorise.
Specifically, within international relations, realist and liberal schools of thought have strug-
gled to account for the ways that development INGOs operate. We have seen that there are
groups of theories, such as constructivism, that are inclusive of INGOs, but it is only the advo-
cacy and influence elements of INGO work that they account for. But what we have seen in a
growing body of INGO literature is that the other work they do, namely service delivery, also
matters as do their complex organisational structures and strategies in the influence they wield in
the world. Thus, while the focus on INGO advocacy in the study of national, international and
transnational politics is welcome and important, there is another element of INGO work that is
missing in their theorising. In this chapter, we have seen how development studies theorising of
INGOs, with its more functional analysis of these organisations and the work they do, has been
able to better capture how INGOs have been influential not only in their advocacy work but
also the influence they have in their service provision work.

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 International NGOs in development studies

Development INGOs are studied within many disciplines, not just international relations.
However, it is vital that development INGOs are taken into account within International
Relations, as they operate and have influence internationally and their roles are fundamentally
political. Development INGOs need to be acknowledged as actors in world politics as they are
taking on many familiar roles such as advocacy; their roles involve power and influence, and
involvement in transnational networks in their attempts to effect political change, not only
within countries but around specific issue areas. As DeMars and Dijkzeul (2015: 6) posit, includ-
ing INGOs is needed in all traditions in IR, and they argue that to do so

[would] enrich the realist tradition by revealing overlooked power relationships in the
transnational networks built by bridging NGOs; we bring to the liberal tradition a much
broader conception of international institutions by illuminating these transnational insti-
tutional networks; and the significance of NGO practice in world politics can bolster the
constructivist tradition’s ability to discern and explain international political change.

As previously outlined, Michael Edwards (2008) speaks of the ‘elephant in the room’ when he states
that ‘NGOs will never achieve the impact they say they want to achieve, because their leverage
over the drivers of long-term change will continue to be weak’. And yet, development INGOs
are powerful actors at both national and international levels, arguably defining the public’s views,
and consequently the policies of governments around humanitarian and international development.

Notes
1 The disciplines of development studies and international development are used synonymously within
this chapter.
2 Countries in what has been termed the global north are the economically developed societies of Europe,
North America and Australia, amongst others. Countries in what has been termed the global south are
less economically affluent, such as those in Africa, Latin America and some parts of Asia. Where global
north countries are wealthy, technologically advanced, politically stable and aging as their societies tend
towards zero population growth, the opposite is the case with global south countries (Ekedegwa Odeh,
2010: 338).Whilst these are somewhat crude terms, they are less problematic than ‘developed/developing’
and ‘first world/third world’.

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 12
NGOs and management studies
David Lewis

Introduction
Management science has paid relatively little attention to non-governmental organisations
(NGOs) and likewise the field of management proved a somewhat neglected area of scholar-
ship among researchers interested in NGOs. Management studies has mainly centred on the
for-profit business sector, and to some extent on public administration. It is only comparatively
recently that more attention has been paid to the non-profit or “third” sector family of organi-
sations. Social science scholarship has mainly been focused on the roles that NGOs play in rela-
tion to human rights, international development and environmental activism and to questions
of whether and how they are “making a difference” to these fields. This has generally been at
the expense of trying to better understand how they are constituted as organisations and how
they work. Finally, in the world of practice NGOs themselves have often had an ambiguous
relationship with the issue of management. While policy and funding pressures might have been
expected to focus attention on management issues in NGOs, these pressures have tended to lead
to the prioritisation of narrow questions of evaluation and impact than on issues of management
more generally. For all these complex reasons, the relationship between NGOs and manage-
ment is far from straightforward, and the issues require careful disentangling.
In this chapter I focus on development NGOs and consider three aspects of their relationship
with management science. First, I explore the traditional ambivalence that many development
NGOs have felt towards management and discuss the reasons for this. Second, I provide a brief
overview of the fledgling field of “NGO management” itself, and outline some of its main
concerns. In conceptualising the field, I suggest a composite approach rather than viewing it as a
distinct area of management, since its practice requires a spirit of improvisation. This requires us
to draw on ideas and practices from at least four related areas of management. Third, I conclude
by making the case for mainstream management scholars to engage more fully with the field
of NGOs than they have done before. NGO management is concerned with issues as such as
sustainability, social values, cultural diversity and public ethics that are each areas of increasing
interest to mainstream management theorists. The study of NGOs may therefore offer impor-
tant insights into management and organising beyond management’s historical focus on the
world of for-profit business in Western settings. It may also challenge some of the assumptions
made by mainstream management science researchers.
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The management science research base regarding NGOs remains rudimentary, at least com-
pared to the extent of research that pertains to the private and public sectors. Furthermore,
much of it is based on work that has been carried out by applied researchers or consultants
funded by development agencies, who tend to be more interested in efficiency and effective-
ness than in reflection and critical lessons. There are a number of practical guides and manuals
aimed mainly at NGO staff, and these contain many useful insights. Some of them engage with
some scholarly literature, but the primary aim is practical and normative. Where research has
been carried out into the internal management and organisational development of NGOs, it has
tended to be narrowly technical and prescriptive, and has paid insufficient attention to wider
context and politics (Stewart 1997). It was not until early in the new millennium that develop-
ment studies began to acknowledge the field of NGO management more fully with publication
of a “reader” that drew together a diverse collection of academic and practitioner writings on
the topic, later updated as a “companion” to NGO management (Fowler and Malunga 2010).
NGOs themselves may be reluctant to open up to scrutiny in relation to their management
arrangements, which further contributes to this limited knowledge base. As research subjects,
NGOs are not easy to get to know and may resist requests for access by outside researchers. This
may be because they simply want to prioritise doing their work “on the ground”, or because they
tend to disapprove of the idea of purely “academic” research aims. They may also be concerned
about their position as organisations vulnerable to unfavourable publicity. The result of all this is that

Typical NGO literature is largely produced by insiders, has an activist flavour, presents
simple solutions for complicated development dilemmas, depends heavily on jargon, and
perpetuates many myths about NGOs.
(Nauta 2006: 149)

This somewhat pessimistic assessment is slowly changing, as NGOs have become a more widely
recognised part of organisational worlds in most societies around the world.

NGOs as reluctant managers

Development NGOs rose to prominence during the late 1980s and were initially viewed as impor-
tant new organisational actors with potentially transformative power to change development pol-
icy and practice. NGOs could reach the poorest people with the services they needed, challenge
structural inequalities through forms of organised citizen action and advocacy, and innovate new
solutions to longstanding development problems. The research literature that emerged focused on
this potential, identifying examples of different roles NGOs were playing, drawing attention to
the diverse NGO forms in different parts of the world, their political ideologies and policy roles,
and their relationships with the state and with donors. At the same time, there were also frequent
critiques of NGOs by their detractors, who saw them as agents of privatisation, as ineffective
dilettante groups of well-meaning “do-gooders”, or as disguised “fronts” for elite interest groups.
Comparatively little attention was given to management issues. NGOs themselves turned
out to be reluctant managers, unsure about how far and at what level they should engage with
the subject. There were two main areas of debate – whether NGOs should engage with man-
agement, and if so, how NGOs should engage with management. NGOs can be described as
“reluctant managers” because it was common for them to view management as a distraction
from the work that NGOs were supposed to be doing. There are six sets of reasons that explain
why this has been the case: some financial, some ideological and some practical.
First, management was often seen as irrelevant. NGOs tend to prioritise a culture of action in
which staff are mainly concerned with “getting out there and doing something”, particularly in

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young organisations. When individuals try to mobilise people based on altruism they also prioritise
“high moral purpose” over and above professional or technical experience (Korten 1987: 155). A
second reason was ideological. NGOs attract people who are searching for “alternatives” to con-
ventional thinking. Management is associated with the undesirable mainstream and rather too close
to what Robert Chambers (1994) calls “normal professionalism”, an ideology that for development
activists prioritises the wrong things: it gives preference to rich over poor, things over people and
quantity over quality. As a result, some NGOs were observed to “actively espouse an ideological
disdain for management of any kind, identifying with it the values and practices of normal profes-
sionalism, and placing it in a class with exploitation, oppression and racism” (Korten 1990: 156).
Feminist theorists too have raised similar concerns around power and the social validation of knowl-
edge and suggest that the challenge for effective NGOs is “to achieve a kind of professionalism
shaped according to their own models and principles, rather than those uncritically adopted from
business, for-profit organizations” (Smyth 2002: 114). Management, in short, is part of the domain
of neoliberalism, and can be viewed ideologically as the driver of “managerialism” to which much
of the NGO community is opposed.
Moving to questions of resourcing, the problem of “overheads” is another issue that can lead
to a deprioritisation of management. There is considerable government and public pressure on
NGOs to use their funds primarily to work with people in need, rather than spending money
on core management costs. The “powerful public myth that development should be cheap”
(Smillie 1995: 151) has produced a tendency to take low NGO administrative overheads as a
proxy for judging NGO effectiveness. Some observers suggested this was one contributory factor
to Oxfam’s problems when in February 2018 allegations of sexual misconduct were made against
some of its staff in Haiti and elsewhere, leading to concerns about a general lack of effective safe-
guarding systems in the international NGO sector as a whole (Channel 4 2018). A fourth reason
is that when an NGO is successful, it may focus on organisational expansion at the expense of
upgrading its management systems, resulting in “unplanned growth”. During rapid growth and
change, it may find itself one step behind in its thinking about organisational responses. Most
NGOs start out as small, informal structures in which management issues could often be dealt
with on an ad hoc, informal basis, but beyond a certain size this becomes impossible.
A fifth reason is that external donor pressures can produce resentment around management.
As NGOs have grown closer to funders, they have been required to develop new accountability
systems, and their efficiency and effectiveness may be questioned. This may create strong and
unwanted “professionalising” pressures on NGOs (Smillie 1995). These may generate resent-
ment that too much of the impetus for thinking about management – as in the case of the
logical framework tool – is externally driven or even imposed. This is gradually beginning to
shift, with organisations choosing to develop their own distinctive approaches to defining and
assessing the effectiveness of NGO advocacy work, for example (Coe and Majot 2013). Finally,
a sixth reason is simply the diversity of NGO orientations, forms and structures, which makes
it difficult to build generalised insights about management. When the category of development
NGO includes small informal groups as well as large hierarchical agencies, there may be little
common ground to be found in thinking about how they are managed. Furthermore, the man-
agement challenges faced by NGOs engaged in advocacy are likely to be very different from
those primarily focused on service delivery. Each of these factors contributes to a sense in which
NGOs can therefore be characterised as “reluctant managers”.

The past: debates around NGOs and management

Once past these hurdles, there is debate about how NGOs should best engage with manage-
ment issues. These have been broadly polarised around two main positions. One position views

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NGOs as alternative sites of organising that need to be wary of “management” both as an idea
and as an ideology. A well-grounded fear exists that mainstream systems of control and trends
towards professionalisation could damage distinctive NGO values and creativity. NGOs saw
themselves as well placed to engage with new and “alternative” management practices, such as
empowerment, participation and other bottom-up approaches.
David Korten (1987) identified a set of “alternative management approaches” that he argued
should be a priority for development NGOs interested in rethinking ideas about management.
Influenced by the participatory ideas of Robert Chambers and others, these were tried to address
problems that had become apparent within the existing top-down approach. Korten (1987: 156)
spoke of “a new development professionalism”, in which

Rather than supporting central control, [these NGOs] . . . support self-assessment and self-
correction driven by a strong orientation to client service and a well-defined sense of mis-
sion. Highly developed management systems provide rich flows of information to facilitate
these self-management processes.

An example provided by Korten was the evolution within NGOs of an existing “hand-me-
down” concept of “strategic planning” (in which a specialised planning unit in the organisation
developed a largely static blueprint that was then often resisted by staff at other levels of the
organisation) into the newer idea of “strategic management”. If undertaken properly, this was
a consultative process to bring staff at all levels of the organisation into the identification and
implementation of organisational choices.
The other position constructs NGOs as heroic and well-meaning organisations trying to do
good, but generally disorganised and in need of improved organisational structures, management
tools and techniques. New ways of thinking about management can be seen as a distraction, leading
to a frustration with the way the idealism of people in NGOs, along with the growing expectations
of funders and policy makers, often seemed to outstrip NGOs’ own understanding and practice of
basic management skills. A “back to basics” view set out by Dichter (1989: 387) argued that devel-
opment NGOs simply needed to be able “to walk before they can run”. He described the case of
a young NGO in which leaders and staff were given courses in “participatory” leadership training
by a well-intentioned development organisation when in his view what they really needed was far
more basic, such as “how to set up and keep administrative, accounting, book-keeping, and record-
keeping systems”. Similarly, Michael Edwards (1999) found in a study of NGO work in South Asia
that lack of attention to “the basics” of management was an important contributory factor in the
failure of NGO initiatives, such as selecting appropriate staff and local partners, maintaining a clear
sense of purpose and goals, and maintaining good communications with clients and constituents.
Dichter’s (1989) central message was therefore that NGO management needed to start “plain”
rather than “fancy”. A preoccupation with experimental, participatory development management
styles should not be prioritised at the expense of more basic management tasks. For example,
NGOs need to understand budgeting and personnel issues; they need to analyse the markets,
legal framework and policy environment within which they operated; and they require a proper
knowledge of how to maintain relationships, information systems and assets. Without basic man-
agement, they risk falling victim to what Freeman (1973) called “the tyranny of structurelessness”,
a failure in organisational capacity in idealistic organisations that allows charismatic leadership and
individualism to dominate, leading to the subordination of organisational aims to personal agendas.
There have been a number of dedicated centres established to provide specialised and appro-
priate support to NGOs seeking to strengthen their organisational foundations. The International
NGO Research and Training Centre (INTRAC) was established in the UK in 1991. In the US,

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the Institute of Development Research (IDR) in Boston provided new work on organisational
issues for NGOs. In India the Society of Participatory Research in India (PRIA) has pursued
NGO organisational training and research agendas. By the 2000s, NGO management as a theme
became linked with, but also perhaps diluted by, renewed interest in civil society, public action
and the rise of global citizen organisations such as Civicus. Despite the overall lack of research
attention that NGO management receives, “a school of NGO management science” (Stewart
1997) did emerge in a modest way in the 1990s and continues to expand. For example, the
Feinstein International Centre at Tufts University in the US currently provides a wealth of new
research on NGO management centred on the humanitarian action field.

Conceptualising NGOs and management

The sociology of organisations first set out basic theoretical distinctions between different organ-
isational worlds. Specifically, Amitav Etzioni (1961) famously developed a tripartite basic typol-
ogy of organisational worlds based on his concept of compliance that led to the theorisation of
the non-profit or third sector as an idea. In his schema, business organisations were held together
by the common pursuit of profit and government organisations by coercive state power, while
a third sector was primarily bound by shared values. This broad “idea type” has some value, but
the picture is far more complex today. NGOs vary significantly in terms of structure, orientation
and operations, and there is increasing hybridity across all three sectors, as social businesses and
quasi-governmental agencies proliferate in today’s public policy environment.
What are the key areas of management that need to be undertaken in NGOs? As Richard
Holloway (2015) argues in a recent guide for the reflective practitioner, the main themes can be
summarised as governance, human resources, financial resources, mission competence, external
relations and sustainability. An appropriate response to these challenges requires specific knowl-
edge of particular NGOs, which vary enormously. In the field of international development,
NGOs are engaged on one or more of three basic tasks that need to be managed. These can be
summarised as: (i) delivery of new or improved services to sections of communities that are in
need; (ii) efforts to catalyse social, economic and political change processes at the level of society,
groups or individuals, including through advocacy, campaigning and education; and (iii) building
relationships that create synergies among different agencies and initiatives through partnerships,
coalitions and networks. These are not simply organisational challenges in the narrow internal sense,
but tend to be inextricably bound up with issues of organisational environmental and context.
One example is the tension NGOs experience between the pressure of external reporting
demands made by donors and governments and the need to navigate the local community-
level realities in which client needs have to be identified and met. Erin Beck’s (2017) study of
Guatemalan development NGOs explores the contradictions and ambiguities that emerge from
this: “as organisations generally accountable to external donors, NGOs face high demands for
effective management, requiring central control and meeting pre-established objectives. These
demands often run counter to the messy reality of interactions on the ground” (p. 23). The
challenge for NGOs, as she shows in her account, is to render such contradictions productive
for development. Another example is the transnational nature of international NGO advocacy
work where various categories of organisational actors each with different values, motivations
and constituencies seek to build networks based on the negotiation of shared norms and mean-
ings in order to make it possible to undertake joint action (Keck and Sikkink 1999).
All this makes NGO management an extremely complex topic. Making sense of the relation-
ship between NGOs and management studies requires a synthesis of ideas from four different fields
of research and practice – business management, public management, development management

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and third-sector management (Lewis 2014). If there is a field of “NGO management” then it is
best viewed in composite or synthetic terms.

Mainstream management
The study of management is a large and diverse field of research, with wide-ranging products
that include theoretically informed academic research, normative texts, in-depth case studies and
practical “self-help” books. Management has been characterised as “a mysterious thing in so far as
the more research that is undertaken the less we seem to be able to understand” (Grint 1995: 3).
Management has been seen as a rational science in which improvements in efficiency could
be produced by efforts to make the “right” changes to structures and processes. Early manage-
ment science ideas drew on principles from military and engineering thinking, generating a
view of management easily characterised as being mainly concerned with “planning, organiza-
tion, command, coordination and control” (Morgan 1997: 18). Theorists such as F.W.
Taylor (1856–1915), who developed the principles of “scientific management”, and Henri
Fayol (1841–1925), who built a theory of “administrative management”, each conceptualised
organisations primarily as logical machines that required systemic maintenance and that could be
improved through fine-tuning. Issues of organisational growth and efficiency have remained cen-
tral to mainstream management, which is primarily centred on the financial viability of the firm.
However, the real world of organisations, and NGOs in particular, is characterised by high
levels of contradiction and ambiguity. For example, in his study of international and local NGO
partnerships in India and Ghana, Willem Elbers (2012) discusses what he calls “the partnership
paradox” showing that partnership practices are structured by a set of rules, but with powerful
ambiguity around their meaning and application in practice. The use of chaos and complexity
theory within management has provided a more appropriate conceptual framework with which
to understand management dynamics than the rational modernist tradition. Order and disorder
exist side by side, and organisational “success” depends upon an ability to manage the “chaotic
edge” between disintegration and ossification. In the everyday worlds of organisational life there
may be very little scope for predicting how managers and organisations will behave. The con-
cept of “self-organisation” instead implies analysis of a process in which “the power, politics and
conflict of everyday life are at the centre of cooperative and competitive organizational processes
through which joint action is taken” (Stacey et al. 2000: 8).
A “critical management studies” (CMS) tradition emerged in the 1990s (Grey and Willmott
2005). This was aligned against the conservative or new right influences within management
and against what is seen as the tyranny of “managerialism”. There are three common threads
within critical management studies – de-naturalisation, anti-performativity and reflexivity (Grey
and Willmott 2005). De-naturalisation refers to the need to challenge assertions about the existing
order and its set of assumptions about “how things are” in order to avoid forms of closed think-
ing. Anti-performativity refers to the idea of challenging the assumption that management – and
other social relationships – are simply concerned with maximising outputs from inputs. Instead, it
seeks to bring more in-depth discussions of values, politics and ethics into management debates.
Finally, reflexivity draws on thinking within the social sciences that seeks to understand the role
of the observer or the position of researcher in the way in which knowledge is produced, rather
than simply taking accounts of management and organisation as objective or fixed.
With regard to NGOs, two areas of bias can be found in the wider management literature. The
first is a central concern with the management of commercial business. Not only does this bring a
focus on finances and the bottom line, it also brings a set of tools and techniques that many feel are
inappropriate to the world of non-profit value-driven organisations. Yet NGOs often make use of,

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and adapt, private sector management tools and techniques. For example, CARE uses “scenario
analysis”, a technique that reached the NGO sector some time after being developed as scenario
planning within the commercial firm setting. It is used to identify and confront unexpected pos-
sibilities in order to clarify NGO roles and objectives. In a case study of CARE’s work in Sudan,
a three-day workshop identified four alternative futures, each of which carried different levels of
risk and hazard for the NGO‘s work. These then informed a “strategic conversation” that moved
from “what will happen” to “what if it happens”. This shifted managers away from the temptation
to simply continue with a “business as usual” mode of operation towards a more proactive mode.
A second bias is mainstream management’s focus on Western ideas and models, when NGOs
work predominantly within non-Western cultures and contexts. Based primarily on US and UK
research, it continues to inform much of the neoliberal “technical” discourse of management
and development. CMS carries an explicit intention to move beyond Western management
ideas to explore other traditions, and to open up a set of reflexive methodological alternatives to
scientific, positivist management research.
Of course, command and control types of management thinking remain important to some
types of NGO work, such as humanitarian relief and emergency work in the context of natural
disasters, where logistics play a key role. But for many NGOs this type of approach tends to run
counter to the values that inform the organisation itself, which favour participation and consul-
tation, and lacks the flexibility and subtlety required by the complex situations in which NGOs
often operate. Furthermore, there is now less confidence among management theorists in these
types of traditional management ideas. Earlier rational paradigms of controlled, organised activ-
ity have gradually given way to views that place more emphasis on uncertainty, rapid change
and an absence of measurable, objective practice.

Third-sector management
NGOs are part of the larger family of so-called “third-sector” organisations that are neither part
of the government sector, nor for-profit businesses whose raison d’être is the making of money.
This third sector includes education establishments, pressure groups, religious organisations,
trade unions, recreational clubs, community self-help initiatives and charitable welfare societies.
There is now a body of academic research specialising in the third sectors of Europe and North
America (Salamon et al. 2003) and a significant part of this work is concerned with organisation
and management issues (Billis 1993, 2010; Anheier 2005). This has obvious implications for
NGO management, since almost all third-sector organisations will arguably have at least some
common management challenges.
Third-sector scholars have developed new theory, concepts and models to reflect the distinc-
tiveness of management in the sector. For example, Billis and Harris (1996: 6) suggested “exist-
ing theories developed for other sectors went so far, but not far enough”. Billis’s Weber-derived
theory of a third-sector organisation’s complex journey as it grows from the “associational
world” into the “bureaucratic world”, and the basic structural problems that result – such as a
lack of clarity around work roles during a transition towards increased task specialisation, or the
challenges of managing paid staff alongside using volunteers – is a leading example. Taking issue
with the life-cycle approach to organisational change, Billis’s work showed that there was noth-
ing inevitable about how individual third-sector organisations change, offering practical insights
into how complex organisational dilemmas and choices can be negotiated.
Charles Handy (1988) suggested that since third-sector organisations are primarily “value-
driven” organisations, this poses distinctive management challenges. People work in these
organisations from a variety of public and private motivations: a sense of altruism, an escape

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route from dominant ideologies or gaining increased public status from being a member of a
third-sector board. These assumptions drawn primarily from Western third-sector organisations
in rich-country contexts are sometimes ethnocentric, however, and may not always be true in
the case of the NGO in poor countries where foreign aid is a dominant influence. In some
societies, NGO jobs may be highly prized since a job in a foreign-funded organisation can bring
an employee significantly higher material rewards than the other forms of employment that are
available in government or private sector settings.
Another important difference from the other two sectors is that there is no clear link between
the providers of funds and the users of the services (Hudson 1999). In the private sector custom-
ers choose to select and pay for goods and services by comparing market prices, while in the
public sector people can vote officials in or out of office. This generates distinctive management
challenges such as difficulties in monitoring organisational performance, problems of managing
multiple accountabilities, the need for creating intricate management structures in order to balance
multiple stakeholders, conflicts between voluntarism and professionalism, the need to maintain
sight of the organisation’s founding values and the tendency for third-sector organisations to set
vague organisational objectives. Research on NGO accountability, the role of boards of governors
and the organisation of staffing and volunteering are all areas of management from which models
and concepts developed in the wider third sector might be applied to development NGOs.
Finally, research on the third sector has increasingly engaged with the idea of hybridity. David
Billis (2010: 3) comments on the growth of blurred boundaries between the public, private and
third sectors in the UK, and defines hybrids in the third sector as “organizations that possess ‘sig-
nificant’ characteristics of more than one sector (public, private and third)”. This is not, he argues,
simply a question of having a mix of different organisational features but is also about the existence
of “fundamental and distinctly different governance and operational principles in each sector”.
Third-sector research literature is primarily concerned with Western country contexts, and this
means that it may not map directly onto NGOs that may work in other contexts, or originate in
other societies, and may be ethnocentric. On the other hand, the contextual challenges of NGO
work do not any longer (if indeed they ever did) fit neatly into distinctions between “developing”
and “developed”, or “North” and “South”. For example, the hurricane which led to the disastrous
flooding of the city of New Orleans in August 2005, and the inability of large numbers of its poor-
est residents to take action following evacuation warnings, provide a sobering example of the way
in which the most vulnerable can be neglected even in the most “developed” of country contexts.
Furthermore, the 2013 Human Development Report talks of changes within many developing coun-
tries within a “rising south” that produces around a half of the world’s economic output, around
one third higher than 1990 (UNDP 2013). With the rise of BRICS and non-traditional donors,
the distinction around developed and developing-country contexts is increasingly open to question.

Public administration/public management

The third relevant related field of “public administration” concerns itself with the workings of
bureaucratic organisations, the challenges of decentralisation and the nature of implementation
and delivery of public services. Since the 1960s and 1970s, the field came under challenge from
mainstream management as neoliberal policies gained ground around the world, and became
transformed into “public management” (de Haan 2009). The “new public management” move-
ment drew on principles derived from the private sector and was both ideological and prag-
matic, favouring the use of markets to allocate public resources more efficiently.
Public management also emphasised the use of private sector management techniques,
downsizing and privatisation. It transformed the process of government – which came to be

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referred to more commonly as “governance” – by arguing that government itself did not need
to carry out more than a basic set of functions, and could be kept at arm’s length, simply ensur-
ing that other private and non-governmental agencies carried out specific tasks such as deliver-
ing services. Terms such as the “mixed economy of welfare” opened the door for an increased
level of public contracting arrangements in many societies, not only with business but also with
the third sector.
Influential ideas from public administration have found their way into the world of devel-
opment NGOs. For example, Albert Hirschmann’s (1970) framework based around the ideas
of “exit”, “loyalty” and “voice” as reflecting the range of people’s choices when faced with
authoritative intervention – such as a project – has long influenced thinking around the issues of
people’s participation, decision-making and policy processes. Issues of participation in projects
can also be traced back to Philip Selznick’s influential study of the Tennessee Valley Authority.
He identified these in the form of informal groupings within the organisation and in the power-
ful vested interests that existed outside the project (Selznick 1966).
Tools and techniques from the public sector have also influenced NGO work in devel-
opment. Participatory learning and action (PLA) approaches, while strongly associated with
NGOs, have longer-term roots in the public sector in South Asia, where many of these ideas
took shape among government agricultural research extension institutions (Biggs and Smith
1998). New technologies have also begun to restructure some of the relationships between citi-
zens and governments, and the limitations of new public management ideas have become more
apparent. For example, problems emerged that included fragmentation of service providers and
services, an insufficient supply of providers in many sector markets leading to insufficient com-
petition, and a lack of policy coherence due to long chains between policies and their delivery.
A shift towards more partnership and collaborative “relational” approaches to public manage-
ment has occurred, although basic elements of new public management thinking still remain
in place (Phillips and Rathgeb Smith 2011). Some now also argue that we have entered a new
phase of “digital-era governance” in public management (Dunleavy et al. 2005).

Development management
Finally, the context in which NGOs operate, and the work that they do, brings us to consider
the specialised field of “development management”. This is concerned with the organisation
of development projects, policies and international aid in the context of developing countries.
Unlike most business management science, development management focuses on the achieve-
ment of social goals outside the organisation, rather than simply on the internal objective of
making a profit. It also takes as its focus primarily non-Western contexts far from the comfort
zone of conventional management studies.
The new public management approach to administrative reform discussed above has also
dominated public policy in many developing-country contexts. It informed structural adjust-
ment aid conditionalities that were imposed by the World Bank and the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) on recipient governments in the 1980s and 1990s. It included prescriptions for
changing the way public sector management is organised, including the introduction of a “pur-
chaser/provider split” in public service provision (including the use of NGOs to provide “safety
net” programmes in countries undergoing adjustment), the increased use of agency contracting
with NGOs in order to better link performance and incentives and stronger efforts to improve
accounting transparency based on quantifiable output indicators. As these changes began to take
effect, new roles were opened up for NGOs to become involved in service provision in the
growth of “contract culture” (Turner and Hulme 1997).

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As Elbers (2012) has shown, the managerialist view that managers – as distinct from other
elements within an organisation – hold the key to positive change is open to question in the
development sector. The implication that “development can be planned and controlled as long
as the right management tools are applied” leads to the risk that “doing things right” may
become more important than “doing the right things” (p. 175). Development management
is therefore essentially political and cannot simply be reduced to a technical formula since it
requires “the diagnosis of political contexts and organisational politics more than techniques”
(Staudt 1991: 3). It is also complicated by the need to decide on and agree the development tasks
and activities that need to be managed. These cannot easily be defined, because development
is a wide-ranging, highly contested territory that includes economic growth, social welfare,
resource redistribution, political process, empowerment and human rights.
Thomas (1996) suggests that development tasks involve four distinctive elements: (i) the directing
of efforts towards external goals as well as internal organisational ones; (ii) an emphasis on influence
and intervention in social processes rather than simply using resources to meet goals directly; (iii) a
lack of agreement on exactly what needs to be done, leading to values-based debate and conflict; and
(iv) the centrality of process and continuity, and not just task. The two views of management dis-
cussed earlier (top-down, instrumentalist as opposed to participatory, unpredictable) are not therefore
mutually exclusive. In some circumstances the “command and control” variant of management is an
appropriate one, while in other situations the participatory approach makes most sense.

Issues arising from the synthesis

The earlier debates around the role of management in NGOs are still running. Those who
favour more attention to management ideas and systems still encounter colleagues who argue
that this is less of a priority than the work itself. I interviewed a chief executive in a leading
UK development NGO a few years ago who spoke of her move to the organisation during the
mid-2000s as being mainly about the overhaul of basic management systems. She was surprised
to find that the organisation had long paid insufficient attention to such basic matters as lines of
decision-making and work role descriptions. She also reported a need to create a more “profes-
sional” environment in which it was not necessary for everyone to be involved in making every
decision. Some argue that NGOs should draw on the idea of “good enough management” as
a pragmatic, flexible, improvised approach and others suggest that many NGOs still do not pay
close enough attention to the “nuts and bolts” of basic management.
Yet today there is clearer recognition among NGOs that management is important, and
continuing efforts among development NGOs to improve management practice. There is also
growing interest among management researchers to identify the distinctive features of how suc-
cessful NGOs organise and what can be learned from those that fail. The increased attention
paid to the management of NGOs has had both a positive and a less benign side. The issue of
capacity development indicated a concern that NGOs in developing countries could, with the
right kind of organisational support, strengthen their roles as development actors in providing
services, build more democratic political processes and advocate for policy change and develop-
ment rights. Yet this trend also brought the risk of increased managerialism through a prolifera-
tion of training initiatives and one-way forms of support.

The future: what can the study of NGOs teach management science?
I have reviewed the main challenges around conceptualising NGO management. Three perspec-
tives are apparent. The first is the generic management view that assumes that “management is

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management” and that development NGOs should simply strengthen and improve their man-
agement by drawing strongly on mainstream business thinking. The second is the adaptive view
of NGO management, where it is argued that while mainstream management may be relevant
to development NGOs, it cannot be applied in a straightforward way – it needs adapting in the
light of NGOs’ distinctive values, structure, culture and type of work. The third pushes further to
argue for a fully distinctive view of NGO management. In this view it is suggested that managers of
NGOs face a unique combination of challenges that are different from those encountered by other
types of organisation. Appropriate organisational responses will therefore require further experi-
mentation and research that engages with the real organisational worlds in which these organisa-
tions operate, and in ways that can generate new concepts, models and tools where necessary.
All three perspectives can therefore make potentially important contributions. In taking this
approach forward, there is need for a “composite” model of NGO management that acknowl-
edges two basic truths: (i) the continuing relative lack of available knowledge that exists of this
subject field compared to other forms of management, and (ii) the need to view NGO manage-
ment as a constantly shifting synthesis of management perspectives that is dependent on a range of
complex factors linked to context and task. Within an improvisational process of building appro-
priate practice, NGO managers can draw on ideas from four areas: business management, pub-
lic management, third-sector management and development management. The precise strategic
management mix required will necessarily depend on a particular organisation’s mission, culture
and values, and on the forces operating in its wider environment, such as the demands of donors,
or the requirements of government.
What can the study of NGOs bring to wider management science? Viewing NGOs in the
context of management science makes more visible two basic dimensions of management that
exist in tension – the expressive and the instrumental. In other words, management reflects ideologies
and values just as much as it is concerned with getting things done. For NGOs, as organisations
that claim to have social values at their centre, the need to align what is being done with how it is
being done in ways that make sense to the organisation, its funders and the people that it serves is a
paramount concern. The tensions between those who argue whether NGOs should prioritise the
work rather than the organisation of the work, or between those who argue that NGOs should
build their own value-driven version of management and those who think they should simply take
a management-is-management approach, or between those who suggest that NGOs should resist
management because of its private sector origins and those who want NGOs to become more
professional and learn from the latest business management tools and techniques – are each reflec-
tions of this basic conundrum. There are organisations that continue to express what they may see
as important social values but make little impact (but may see their role as contributing to the social
good of maintaining propagating such values within civil society), and there are organisations that
achieve their goals using methods that are seen by some as inconsistent with their core values
(such as the use of top-down logistics in responding to humanitarian emergencies). The tension
of course can never be fully resolved, but it can be a creative one. It is also one that business, as
it takes on social and environmental responsibility claims, is now also increasingly interested in
balancing, if not resolving.
Cummings et al. (2017) argue for a more historically aware reconceptualisation of the field of
management studies. They point to a number of problems. One is the dominant narrative of man-
agement itself, whose textbooks offer an over-simplified view of a slow transition from an empha-
sis on command and control towards greater recognition of social responsibility, sustainability and
participation. In fact, they argue that a more nuanced reading of management history shows that its
origins are as much linked to ideas about social and moral liberalism and the decline of slavery (cf.
Adam Smith) as they are to neoliberalism, industrialisation and control. Furthermore, rather than

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being a new idea, the concept of “sustainability” can be traced back to earlier classical management
ideas such as Taylor, where the original goals of management were not only conceptualised in
terms of “greater efficiency” as suggested today in the textbooks. Recent claims that management
is about more than simply the “mechanistic-industrial worldview” (2017: 8) based on controlling,
planning, directing and organising and should become more alert to contingency, culture, systems
thinking and sustainability have a long history – and this should be reassuring to those seeking to
strengthen the links between management studies and NGOs.
A second problem with management science has been that of ethnocentrism, and engaging
with the subject of NGOs can help to challenge this. Compared to, say, architecture or medi-
cal history, the bulk of scholarly work on management science has been narrowly confined to
the UK and US and therefore strongly lacks in geographical and cultural diversity. We need to
be more critical of “the limited, unicultural way in which we have recorded the field’s past”
(2017: 4) which is limiting because it closes down creative thinking about “what management
could be” (2017: 7). When it comes to organisational studies, what Weber teaches us is not that
bureaucracy is great, but that contingency is important since forms of organisation emerge out
of specific contexts and there is no one-size-fits-all. Finally, the emergence of ideas about “cul-
ture” in management has been naïve and prescriptive owing to the way the corporate culture
concept was haphazardly “stitched together” and tend to be overly normative rather than based
on how organisations actually are. The world of NGOs makes it possible for management sci-
ence to engage with more geographically and culturally diverse words of organising.
For example, Crutchfield and Grant (2007: 35) studied twelve successful organisations and
looked at how they went about managing their work. Their findings challenged some of the
conventional management assumptions about improving internal systems as the key to improv-
ing effectiveness:

The secret to their success lies in how high-impact nonprofits mobilize every sector of
society – government, business, nonprofits, and the public – to be a force for good. In other
words, greatness has more to do with how nonprofits work outside the boundaries of their
organizations than with how they manage their own internal operations. The high-impact
nonprofits we studied are satisfied with building a “good enough” organization and then
focusing their energy externally to catalyse large-scale change.

The study of NGOs can therefore feed usefully into wider management science, just as NGOs
themselves draw on and synthesise from other fields. NGOs will increasingly become a field in
which increased experimentation and innovation will occur in relation to management – and
therefore seem likely to attract more attention from management theorists in the future.
Despite the ambiguous relationship, concerns about management preoccupy NGOs more
and more as they seek to consolidate and build their roles in the changing global context. For
example, a recent report on international NGOs working in humanitarian settings set out key
management challenges for organisations working in the context of increased global instabil-
ity (IARAN 2017). It concludes that “INGOs need to analyse where they can optimize their
activities through restructuring, refocusing, or partnerships to increase their impact” (p. 38). It
suggests also that NGOs risk being increasingly side-lined by “more efficient, adaptable actors –
from the private sector, religious groups, local civil society and armed forces” if they do not
review governance structures and become prepared to operate over the long term. It suggests
five types of future organisational profile for international NGOs: as franchised partners, linked
through a global brand; as primarily donors, gathering funds for a cause; as direct implementer
“fire-fighters”, specialising in emergency response; as communalised resources within a wider

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network; and as service providers for hire in support of local and regional humanitarian actors.
Questions of how NGOs should best manage themselves continue to matter as NGOs struggle
to survive in a changing world of international development and humanitarian action.

Conclusion
Despite the attention that NGOs today receive, understanding about how they work as organisa-
tions is far less developed than for organisations in other sectors. Since the 1980s when NGOs
became seen as prominent actors in international development and public policy, the relationship
between NGOs and management has been debated. These days NGOs cannot easily dismiss the
importance of management for ideological reasons, since it is a diverse and varied field containing
critical as well as mainstream traditions, nor can they convincingly prioritise action and delivery
over organisation, since these are inextricably linked. Yet if there is such a thing as a sub-field of
“NGO management” this should be seen as a composite rather than a distinctive variant.
The work of Bruno Latour within the field of science studies offers a view that “redefines
organisations as assemblages of ordering practices in perpetual transformation” (Brown 2011).
Latour’s “actor network theory” (ANT) has served as a productive approach that shows how
development actors – such as NGOs – are engaged in constructing order through “political
acts of composition” (Lewis and Mosse 2006: 14). A view of NGOs as “brokers and transla-
tors” moves NGO management beyond the technical by conceptualising it as an active process
of constructing meaning as well as a system of practice. Such a perspective highlights the ways
organisations operate within a world of hybrid interests and practices, in which boundaries
between organisations and communities are rarely clear, and the messiness of everyday practices
precedes the ideas and practices of development that are represented formally.

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 13
NGOs in international law
Reconsidering personality and
participation (again)

Math Noortmann

1. Introduction
“NGOs irritate classical legal scholarship” (Dupuy 2008: 204). Pierre-Marie Dupuy’s pro-
voking opinion provides a perfect opening for a critical, interdisciplinary discussion of the
legal discourse on NGOs in international law. Non-governmental organizations are indeed
a bit of a nuisance when one tries to properly position NGOs in (the debates on) interna-
tional law. The problem is the dogmatic distinction between ‘personality’ and ‘participation’
(Shaw 2008), which mainstream international legal scholarship subscribes to in one way or
another. The few mainstream legal scholars that refuse to ignore NGOs in international law
are ‘forced’ to (1) carefully circumvent the orthodoxy of international legal personality and
adopt such tenuous concept as ‘legal status’ (Nowrot 1998; Lindblom 2005; Rossi 2010;
Ben-Ari 2013) and/or (2) adopt a soft socio-legal version of NGO participation that focuses
on roles rather than rights and responsibilities (Charnovitz 1996; Wedgwood 1999).
I will argue that that paradigmatic distinction between law and politics or between international
legal orthodoxy and socio-legal approaches is not conducive to the understanding of the thespian
complexities in international law and its supporting legal system. By separately focusing on either
(political) participation or (legal) personality, the state-oriented understanding of international law
is reinforced, which leaves little room for alternative, non-state, law-making conceptions.
In this chapter, I will critically reflect on the interconnectedness of the concepts of per-
sonality and participation. For the sake of argument, however, I will discuss the two concepts
separately; stressing the ‘political’ in international legal personality (section 2) and the ‘legal’ in
political participation (section 3).
This chapter is informed by my understanding:

(1) that what is known as international law has developed beyond Bentham’s original concep-
tualization as the law between nations,
(2) that non-state actors, including non-governmental organizations, contribute in mysterious
ways to international law as it is, and
(3) that law-makers, judges and scholars are not prevented from taking the practices and opin-
ions of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) into account when interpreting and
determining international law (see Noortmann 2001, 2015).
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This chapter is therefore not a mere iteration of the state of the art on NGOs in international
law, but seeks to contribute to the development of the discourse on NGOs in international law
and to the further conceptualization of transnational law as an all-inclusive legal arena beyond
the national and the international.
I will discuss international legal positivism’s approaches to NGOs and its alternatives in detail
in section 2 of this chapter on the politics of legal personality. In section 3, I discuss the legal
implications of participation by looking at ‘formal and informal participation’, ‘participatory
rights and obligations’ and ‘inclusive law-making’.
Throughout this chapter, I will adhere to a transdisciplinary approach, because as Julian
Webb (2006) rightly contents, “‘Law and Sociology’ is not enough” and complexity has risen
beyond that level of understanding. Transdisciplinarity distinguishes itself from interdisciplinary
approaches like law and sociology in that “theories, concepts and methods are not borrowed
from one discipline and [simply] applied to other disciplines interested in the same problem”
and that it not only crosses disciplinary boundaries but also “sectors of society by including
stakeholders in the public and private domains” (Repko 2008: 15).

2. The politics of international legal personality:

legal positivism and its counter-narratives
There is little doubt that “[I]f one tries to define the precise extent of the legal personality . . . one
enters a very controversial area of the law” (Malanczuk 1997: 91). First of all, there is a perceived
paradigmatic gap between legal positivism on the one side and alternative legal outlooks such
as the policy-oriented approach, transnational legal process and critical legal perspectives on the
other with respect to the (legal) status of non-state entities in international law. But within these
competing outlooks, there are significant differences and sometimes similarities with respect to
the question which non-state entity should be accepted as an international legal person: when,
how and for what reasons. NGOs provide the most compelling case study to demonstrate that
the debate is “riddled by controversy” (d’Aspremont 2011: i); both legally and politically.
The problem with respect to international legal personality is twofold. First of all, interna-
tional law contains “no written provisions that unambiguously determine who has legal personal-
ity” (Nollkaemper 2016: 46). And in the absence of this important source of international law,
international legal scholars can traditionally only invoke ‘international custom’, ‘general princi-
ples of law’, ‘judicial decision’ and ‘teachings of the most highly qualified publicists’ as generally
accepted foundations for their legal arguments (see Article 38 of the Statute of the International
Court of Justice).
In the prevailing and pervasive legal positivist approach to international law, NGOs are not
considered to be international legal persons or subjects of international law (Oppenheimer 1967;
Aust 2005; Shaw 2008; Lindblom 2011; Nollkaemper 2016). The study of NGOs in interna-
tional law is therefore often more socio-legal than legal, concentrating on the development of
international law and on ‘legal status’ instead of ‘legal personality’ (Lindblom 2011: 524).
Other perspectives on international law such as the policy-oriented approach (Chen 1989;
Suzuki 2015), critical legal studies such as feminism (Charlesworth et al. 1991) and third-world
approaches (Rajagopal 2003), and the concept of transnational law (Jessup 1956; Koh 1996)
challenge that traditional approach in different ways. These approaches are not always wholly
consistent in their critique of the state-centred exclusiveness of international law and related
questions of legal personality and participation. And for the purpose of a chapter on NGOs, one
must be equally critical of these alternative inter/transnational legal paradigms.

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Legal positivism: no international legal personality for NGOs . . . or?

International law’s mainstream discourse on international legal personality is still very much in
the late 18th century when Jeremy Bentham introduced the term ‘international’ and conceptu-
alized ‘international law’ as the ‘law betwixt states’ (Bentham 1781). This resulted in the long-
lasting idea that “states solely and exclusively” are the subjects of international law (Lauterpacht
1955: 19). That absolute and extreme positivistic position on international legal personality is no
longer upheld by contemporary international legal scholarship. Today’s international law hand-
books recognize in many different ways the observation of the International Court of Justice in
the Reparation for Injuries Case that: “The progressive increase in the collective action of states
has already given rise to instances of action at the international plane by certain entities which
are not states” (ICJ, 1948). As a consequence, a variety of non-state actors are introduced to the
students of international law, including intergovernmental organizations, multinational compa-
nies and armed opposition groups. The legal personality of these non-state actors is considered
under such telling headings as “other subjects”, “special cases” and “anomalies” (Wallace 2006;
Shaw 2008; Klabbers 2013).
NGOs, however, do not share the same attention. In most cases, NGOs are either utterly
ignored (Shaw 2008; Dixon 2013), or merely favourably mentioned (Klabbers 2013). Occasionally,
however, international legal personality for NGOs is categorically denied (Charnovitz 1996;
Nollkaemper 2016). But the idea that NGOs’ “legal subjectivity cannot be totally negated is truly
exceptional in international legal discourse (Hobe 1997; Hobe 2004: 103–104).
In Hobe’s opinion, roles and responsibilities cannot be decoupled, and the functions of
NGOs should be taken into account when determining the extent of NGOs’ international
legal personality (Hobe 1997: 102). The idea that international legal personality has become
a “pragmatic concept or tool” in order to determine who “exists ‘in the eyes of international
law’” (Nijman 2004: 456) is not new. In fact, legal personality is a legal fiction that makes
legal interactions between various entities possible; it provides for legal standing. The question
who has and who has not what kind of standing to enter into contracts, claim rights or be held
accountable, and under which conditions is definitely a political one. The question who deter-
mines whether a specific organization or generic group of organizations has legal personality
then becomes pertinent. Lindblom, who prefers the term ‘legal status’ over ‘legal personality’
when referring to NGOs, is very clear when it comes to the how and why of the determination
of that legal status of NGOs:

the international legal status of NGOs is the sum of all the rules and practices laid down
by states and IGOs for their interaction on the international plane with NGOs . . . ways to
strengthen the legitimacy of the state-centric system needed to be considered.
(Lindblom 2011: 514)

In that, Lindblom’s ‘legal status’ does not differ from international legal personality which “can
only be deduced from [state] practice” (Nollkaemper 2016: 46). But where non-governmental
organizations participate in intergovernmental organizations and international law with the acqui-
escence of states only, the determination of international legal personality is wholly political.
Where legal personality can be considered to be a necessity for organizations in order to
be able to enter into contractual obligations or make legal claims, legal personality is of no
importance to law-making (in the formal sense of the word) above and beyond specific contrac-
tual, i.e. consensual engagements. In many respects, international law is of a contractual nature
(notwithstanding the confusing and misleading qualification ‘public’) (Noortmann 2006). One

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could formally argue that it is up to the contracting partners (states) to determine who can enter
the circle of contractors, which would be the ultimate international legal argument.

Alternative legal paradigms: bringing NGOs back in

Legal positivism is without any doubt international law’s mainstream outlook. Its state-centred
perspective and the related (qualified) denial of accepting international legal personality for differ-
ent kinds of non-state entities has met within considerable intellectual opposition. Most notable
for the discussion on non-state entities and international legal personality are: the policy-oriented
approach, the concepts of transnational law and transnational legal process, and the critical legal
perspective. Staying within the good tradition of intellectual opposition, these outlooks are less
unified as its mainstream foil, which justifies discussing them separately.

The policy-oriented approach

The policy-oriented approach is the most intellectually sophisticated and most advanced critique
of legal positivism conception of international legal personality. Policy-oriented scholars reject
the idea that there exist “appropriate ‘subjects of international law’ (nation-states, international
governmental organizations) [which] are arrayed against ‘non-subjects’ (individuals, private
associations, political parties, pressure groups)” (McDougal 1956: 50). From its very inception,
the policy-oriented approach considered international law as an ongoing process of authorita-
tive decision-making that includes a wide range of ‘participants’. “To rely on the subject–object
dichotomy that runs through so much of the writings” is, according to Rosaline Higgins, “not
particularly helpful, either intellectually or operationally” (1994: 50). Instead of adhering to
the exclusive notion of international legal person, the policy-oriented approach refers to ‘par-
ticipants’ which reflects the policy-oriented school’s basic understanding that international law
is an all-inclusive authoritative decision-making process. Unfortunately, the first generation
of policy-oriented scholarship has not been very rigorous in including all participants in their
policy-oriented interpretation and analysis (McDougal 1956). Contemporary policy-oriented
scholars like Michael Reisman (2013), Siegfried Wiessner (2004) and Lung-Chu Chen (1989)
pay proper attention to NGOs as participants in that process of authoritative decision-making.
From a policy-oriented perspective, NGOs are appraised on the basis of a set of specific
values (respect, power, enlightenment, well-being, skill, affection and rectitude) and decision
functions (intelligence, promoting, prescribing, invoking, applying and terminating) that are
deemed essential in a participatory and policy-oriented law-making process (Chen 1989; Suzuki
2015). According to Chen, the values pursued by NGOs “extend to each of the basic values”,
but different NGOs may pursue different values (Chen 1989). Similarly, NGOs are considered
to differ in their participation in the overall decision-making process. Most NGOs perform
intelligence, promoting and invoking functions, while some play a role in application and only
very few participate in the prescribing arena (Chen 1989: 69–73). According to Wiessner, the
participatory role of NGOs, especially with regard to the application function, comes with
responsibilities in terms of legitimacy, transparency and accountability (Wiessner 2004: 99). In
this respect NGOs do not differ from states according to Wiessner (2004: 100).

Transnational law
For the purpose of this section, the transnational outlook signifies two distinct viewpoints: that
of ‘transnational law’ and that of ‘transnational legal process’ (TLP). These conceptions have in

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common that they move away from Bentham’s suggestion that there is only national law and
international law; that there is only law within states or between states. With respect to the latter,
Philip Jessup, who is credited for coining the term ‘transnational law’, opined that:

[T]he term ‘international’ is misleading since it suggests that one is concerned only with the
relations of one nation (or state) to other nations (or states). Part of the difficulty in analys-
ing the problems of the world community and the law regulating them is the lack of an
appropriate term for the rules we are discussing. Just as the term ‘international’ is inadequate
to describe the problem, so the term ‘international law’ will not do.
(Jessup 1956: 1)

Jessup saw a new set of rules emerging from the interaction between states and non-state entities.
Instead of redefining ‘international law’ as an all-inclusive area of law, Jessup proceeded to concep-
tualize another legal realm based on cross-border legal interaction between states and those non-
state entities. That conceptualization of a third, transnational legal arena is quite compelling, which
led Scott, for example, to qualify transnational law as a new legal ‘proto-concept’ (Scott 2009).
Jessup explicitly referred to NGOs to make his case: if “[o]ne considers that there are also in
existence . . . over 1,100 non-governmental organisations commonly described as international,
one realizes the almost infinitive variety of transnational situations which arise” (Jessup 1956: 4).
The actual empirical focus of the scholarship in transnational law, however, is largely on legal
transactions between states and commercial non-state entities. As such, transnational law is in
a different sense as equally exclusive as legal positivism. The disregard for NGOs is a direct
consequence of the predominant focus on cases of private law and trade disputes and corpora-
tions as their principal non-state entity (Tietje et al. 2006; Zumbansen 2006). In order to avoid
transnational law becoming a different kind of exclusive legal arena, transnational legal scholars
need to start including such non-state entities as NGOs in their analysis and interpretations of
transnational law.
Closely related to Jessup’s transnational law is the concept of the TLP. In the words of
Harold H. Koh (1996), transnational legal process:

describes the theory and practice of how public and private actors – nation states, interna-
tional organisations, multinational enterprises, non-governmental organizations and private
individuals – interact in a variety of public and private, domestic and international fora to
make, interpret, enforce and ultimately internalize rules of transnational law.

Theoretically, TLP is difficult to position as it incorporates characteristic features from different

approaches. In highlighting the interaction, TLP is clearly process-oriented and is more socio-
legal and interdisciplinary oriented. But where NGOs’ ‘interaction’ with others is considered
“to make . . . rules of transnational law”, that specific interactive political participation has more
of a transdisciplinary nature in the sense that it creates new rules of transnational law. TLP writ-
ings are not very conclusive in this respect and tend to go towards an interdisciplinary socio-
legal approach rather than a transdisciplinary politico-legal approach.

Critical legal studies

Contemporary ‘critical legal studies’ (CLS) is to be considered as a critique within international
law and not so much of a critique of international law as the policy-oriented approach and trans-
national law are. CLS comprises a number of critical legal approaches that differently address

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the intrinsic (political) biases and inequalities in the doctrines and practices of the (international)
law. CLS scholars question the “emancipatory role” of international law and explore, inter alia,
the “counter-hegemonic use of international law by NGOs” (Pureza 2005). With respect to
the ‘role’ of NGOs in the practices and doctrine of international law, feminism (Charlesworth
et al. 1991) and the ‘Third World Approach to International Law’ (TWAIL) (Rajagopal 2003;
Chimni 2006) are the most outspoken critics, but also the most critical ones when it comes to
both the role and legal position of NGOs.
TWAIL is broadly critical of the “narrowly focused” concept of NGO and argues that the
trend towards the “NGO-ization of civil society . . . severely limits its radical democratic poten-
tial” (Rajagopal 2003: 260). For that reason TWAIL scholars prefer the broader term ‘social
movement’ (Rajagopal 2003; Chimni 2006: 261). With respect to NGOs in international law,
Rajagopal (2003) is extremely clear:

In analysing ‘global’ or ‘transnational’ civil society, the role of NGOs becomes [unexpect-
edly, mn] important. This raises problematic issues concerning a western bias in the NGO
world and in the very constitution of ‘global’ spaces, including international law.

Rajagopal’s critique is not uncommon in the wider NGO discourse as NGOs are no longer per-
ceived as intrinsically good, and consequentially questioned in terms of accountability and transpar-
ency. One must also point out that the term NGO technically includes all organizations that are not
governmental and that even with the limitation that they may not pursue profit, not all organiza-
tions are properly organizations that represent broad civil society interests (environment, education,
health) but which represent singular interests (e.g. professional and corporate associations).
Feminist approaches seek in general “to expose and question the limited bases of interna-
tional law’s claim to objectivity and impartiality” (Charlesworth and Chinkin 2000). The idea
that international law is in many respects inherently biased against women springs from the fact
that international law is conceived and developed as ‘public’, ‘international’ and ‘law’ which
stands in binary opposition to the ‘private’, ‘local’ and ‘global’, and ‘non-law’. These defining
binaries are not mere inventions of scholarly feminist fetishism (but see Fellmeth 2000) or part
of a ‘Great Conspiratorial Premise’ (Teson 1992). Even if these binaries are socially constructed
and susceptible to change by critical agency, it cannot be said that these do not constitute ‘real’
social, political and legal ‘glass ceilings’.
The positive feminist attitude towards NGOs is grounded in the feminist perception of
international law’s anti-emancipatory biases and the role that (women) NGOs have played a
historical part in the feminist struggle. But feminism and NGOs is a tale of two stories. The role
of NGOs in the feminist struggle makes feminist scholars generally less critical towards NGOs
(Noortmann 1995) and the positioning of feminism as a critique within international law also
subjects feminism to the predominance of the concept of international legal personality.

Global governance and legitimacy as (legal) counter-narratives?

The socio-political discourse on NGOs is riddled with concepts like accountability, legitimacy
and (global) governance, which are touched upon in issues of (international) law.
The accountability of NGOs is increasingly discussed by academics in the social sciences and
practitioners. To the extent that the seminal works of Hulme and Edwards, and Jordan and van
Tuijl (Hulme and Edwards 1995; Jordan and Van Tuijl 2006), have set the tone for the debate,
there is little indication that ‘accountability’ was conceptualized in terms of (international) law
(Blendell 2006).

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In his monograph on non-governmental organizations in world politics, Peter Willetts

devotes a whole chapter to “the status of NGOs in international law” (Willetts 2011: 64). While
his book is mainly concerned with NGOs in global governance and their influence on global
political decisions, he concludes that “NGOs have international legal personality’ (Willetts 2011:
83). That conclusion is based on a number of different, rather empirical prepositions, such as:

1. “a few NGOs are anomalies in being equal to states”

2. “NGOs have special roles in procedures”
3. “a few high-status NGOs participate in intergovernmental committees”
4. NGOs “have legal rights alongside states in hybrid international organisations”.
(Willetts 2011: 83)

Willetts is correct in stating that “NGOs . . . are participants in the international legal system”
and “states are not the only legitimate diplomatic actors” (Willetts 2011: 83), but these observa-
tions do not inductively lead to his conclusion. His observations are exceptions in international
law, which cannot be turned into a rule of international law. Mere participation, as we will see
hereunder, is not enough to establish international legal personality and the proposition that
“all ECOSOC NGOs gain legal personality when they are accredited under the consultative
arrangements” (Willetts 1982: 83) is in my opinion simply false.
That brings us to the concept of ‘legitimacy’, which according to one definition “is bound
up with the notions of recognition and as such is more often a political matter than a strictly
legal one” (Spence 1998: 302). Erla Thrandardottir and Vincent Keating, however, have
recently argued that the “de facto legitimacy” of NGOs should be matched by “de jure legiti-
macy at the international level” and that the focus on the socio-political legitimacy of NGOs
prevents us from investigating the “potential for INGO de jure recognition in international
law” (Thrandardottir and Keating 2018: 11). De facto and de jure recognition are well-known
concepts in international law to determine the legal status of territorial entities; i.e. to determine
whether the territorial entity in question fulfils the criteria of statehood and would become, ipso
facto, a subject of international law.
Equating the (legal) status of NGOs under international law with that of states misunder-
stands the international legal relationship between states and international law as a contractual
legal system (see above). Whether the application of “charitable principals derived from English
law” (Thrandardottir and Keating 2018) works in the international arena in order to determine
which INGOs are eligible and which are not must be doubted from a legal point of view. As
I suggested elsewhere, the determination of international legal personality for NGOs (if at all)
ought to be resolved on an individual, ad-hoc, and functional basis rather than a generic template
that is used in national legal systems.

3. Participation and its legal implications: moving beyond a

socio-legal conception
‘Participation’ is somewhat of an eccentric concept in the discourse of international law. The
term was popularized by the policy-oriented approach to avoid the exclusive and discrimina-
tory term ‘subject’ and to make our intellectual inquiry into the process of decision-making in
international law more inclusive. In that sense ‘participation’ was at the same time a socio-legal,
political and normative concept. It seems that in contemporary debates in international law,
‘participation’ has lost much of its value leadenness and merely functions as an alternative for the
concept of ‘non-state actors’ (d’Aspremont 2011; Suzuki 2015). The mainstreaming of the term

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‘participation’ has in my opinion not contributed to a better understanding of the actual par-
ticipatory practices of non-state actors in general and the legal consequences of these practices.
‘Participation’ as a socio-legal concept may contribute to our understanding of the contribution
of NGOs in the process of decision-making in international law, but has no bearing on their
actuality in the making of international law or the existence of NGO rights and obligations
under general international law.
In order to bring NGOs into a discourse of legal accountability and law-making, it is nec-
essary to (1) not see all NGO participation in the international legal system as a socio-legal,
process-oriented phenomenon, and requalify some ‘participation’ as legal and (2) understand
law-making as inherently politico-legal and not just the result of a socio-legal process. In order to
do so, first of all we have to appreciate the various ways in which NGOs formally and informally
‘participate’ in the international legal system. I submit that NGOs practising international law
come with rights and obligations and can impact directly upon the making of international law.

Formal and informal participation

When discussing the ways in which NGOs participate in the international law, we must dis-
tinguish between the formal recognition of their participation and the formal regulation of that
participation by the (inter)governmental gatekeepers of the international legal system on the one
hand, and participation in the absence of such officially validated status on the other. In the latter
case, NGOs would still fall within the ambit of international law as they, in terms of the policy-
oriented approach, promote, invoke or apply rules of international law.
The first clear recognition of NGOs in an international agreement was in Article 71 of the
Charter of the United Nations, which stipulates that:

The Economic and Social Council may make suitable arrangements for consultation with non-
governmental organizations which are concerned with matters within its competence. Such
arrangements may be made with international organizations and, where appropriate, with
national organizations after consultation with the Member of the United Nations concerned.

This formal recognition and its subsequent regulation of the ‘arrangement for consultation’
departs from the informality that characterized NGO participation in the League of Nations and
the absence of a formal recognition of NGOs in the Covenant of the League. The change from
informal participation to formal recognition and regulation of NGOs by states and intergovern-
mental organizations has always been the subject of some critical questioning, which pointed
out the dangers of co-optation (Noortmann 2004), and a culture of “subservience and contract”
(Donini 1995: 437).
The recognition of ‘national Red Cross organizations’ in Article 25 of the Covenant of the
League of Nations evidenced that some NGOs are recognized more than other NGOs. That
evidence is also found in the fact that NGOs like the International Committee of the Red
Cross (ICRC), the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the
Inter-parliamentarian Union, the International Olympic Committee, the Sovereign Military
Order of Malta and the International Chamber of Commerce are recognized as “Observers”
by the UN General Assembly. That (political) status is considered considerably higher than the
“Consultative Status” awarded to (ordinary) NGOs by the UN’s Economic and Social Council.
While those observer statuses have been granted relatively recently, these ‘NGOs’ have always
been the subject of explorative legal studies with respect to their ‘legal status’ (Vedder 1984;
Gazzini 2010).

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The recognition of NGOs by intergovernmental organizations and in international agree-

ments has increased and the question as to how this affects their political and legal standing
remains pertinent. Critical examples are the general recognition of the (roles of) NGOs in art.
4.2 (consultation and cooperation) of the Agreement establishing the World Trade Organization;
art. 6.3 (assistance) and art. 6.7.f (implementation) of the landmine treaty; art. 15.2 (information)
and 44.4 (expertise of the Statute of the International Criminal Court), and the preamble (rais-
ing awareness and implementation) and art. 16 (assistance) of the arms trade treaty. On the basis
of these recognitions, NGOs can formally ‘claim’ and ‘practise’ participation; referring directly
to a stipulation in an international legal agreement notwithstanding the fact that the agreement
is one between states.
In addition to these instances of general recognition, NGOs and states may enter into specific
bilateral agreements or contracts with respect to the settling of a dispute or establishing diplo-
matic immunity. Examples are the arbitrage cases between Greenpeace and France concern-
ing the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and the so-called mixed environmental disputes, or
the diplomatic immunities arrangements between the ICRC and Switzerland or the Regional
Environmental Centre for Central and Eastern Europe and Hungary.
Where NGOs are not specifically recognized in international legal regimes, such as the
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or have not entered into specific contrac-
tual arrangements with governments, they may still invoke international rules coming from that
international regime and/or trigger international legal disputes through their activities.

Participatory rights and obligations

The debate on the rights and obligations of NGOs in international law is a peculiar mix of
dogmatic generalizations on the one hand and detailed overviews of rules and case studies on
the other. The latter can be seen as a reaction to the still dominating opinion that in order
“to ascertain the rights and responsibilities of NGOs, one has to look outside the realm of
international law” (Charnovitz 1997: 338), because “NGOs have no obligations or duties
under international law” (Nollkaemper 2016: 52).
There is increasing recognition in contemporary international legal studies, however, that
there are “organisation rights in international law” and that the “obligations of NGOs constitute
an area of law which is new and possibly still under development” (Lindblom 2011: 139, 140).
While the discourse on NGO accountability has gained considerable traction in the social and
political sciences, and the NGO community (Edwards and Hulme 1996; Jordan 2005; Blendell
2006), the development of the study of international legal accountability for NGOs not only
suffers from ‘the lack of international legal personality’ but also from a hesitance to submit the
international actions of NGOs to international legal scrutiny.
The limited discussion in international law seems to point in the direction of a clearer align-
ment of the different participatory arrangements as suggested above and sets of rights and obliga-
tions. Thus, different NGO rights and/or obligations under international law can be found in
different participatory settings: individual ‘cooperative’ agreements; specific NGO stipulations
in international treaties; and the general rules of international law.
Examples of ‘individual cooperative agreements’ include arrangements under Article 71 of
the UN Charter and ECOSOC resolution 1996/31 which lays down both the rights and duties
of NGOs which have opted into the UN’s consultative status scheme. The right to access UN
premises, issue declarations and speak in UN meetings finds its compulsory counterpart in the
obligation to “contribute to UN objectives”, “act in accordance with” and “not abuse” its sta-
tus. As such, these ‘contractual’ rights and obligations are not controversial. Controversial is

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the application as evidenced in the revoking of the Consultative Status of Christian Solidarity
International (CSI) by the United Nations in 1999. While it remains unclear whether it was CSI’s
“slave-redemption programme” or CSI allowing John Garang to take the floor in a UN meet-
ing that caused the UN to hold CSI accountable, it is clear that the decision was highly political
with legal consequences. According to the representative of Lesotho: “the NGO’s actions in
the Sudan were not at issue; it was being punished solely for what it had done in Geneva”. The
Algerian representative added: “NGOs had been given the message that they must abide by
United Nations rules”. But according to the United States: “Although we believe that inappro-
priate behaviour by non-governmental organizations should not be tolerated, we should not send
non-governmental organizations a message that they will be expelled by virtue of one mistake”.1
Only in a very abstract way could one say that these decisions are taken outside international law,
but it is also clear that this was a political decision taken by the gatekeepers of the system.
The second set of rights and obligations for NGOs can be derived from treaties that either
accord NGOs with specific roles or bestow certain rights on NGOs, without necessarily stipu-
lating specific obligations. The recognition of the explicit role of the International Committee
of the Red Cross (ICRC) in the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the recognition of the right of
NGOs to bring cases to international organizations such as the World Bank under the Inspection
Panel scheme or international human rights courts and committees are examples. The question
whether these and other rights entail corresponding obligations is a controversial one that has
not been widely discussed in international law.
The question of the existence of more general rights and obligations for NGOs under interna-
tional law is sparked by NGO actions which trigger international incidents, such as the intended
breaking of the Gaza siege by Free Gaza Movement or the attempted scaling of a Russian
Drilling Platform by Greenpeace. NGO accountability, in those cases, should not be limited to
‘upwards’ (donors, trustees, governments) and downwards (beneficiaries, partners, staff and sup-
porters) political reporting (Edwards and Hulme 1995: 9), or accountability under national law.
Considering that the NGO actions involved questions of international law, their accountability
should also have an internal legal component. The varieties in accountabilities constitute a frame-
work of multiple accountabilities, which complicated both reporting and assessment.
The apparent neglect for NGO responsibility/accountability in international legal discourse
can be understood and explained by the combination of the preoccupation with (the absence
of) international legal personality and extant normative focus on NGO rights. Considering the
NGOs’ changing role as service providers and deliverers of public goods, that neglect can hardly
be justified.
Conceptions of responsibility and accountability differ across discourse and are not easy to
reconcile. However, perceiving responsibility primarily as being legal, political or social does
not prevent the application of one particular concept of responsibility in a different field, as the
legal discourse on corporate social responsibility has demonstrated (Segerlund 2010).

Participation and law-making

Depending on the theoretical perspective (again), the question whether NGOs are international
law-makers can be answered with a categorical positivistic no or a policy-oriented yes. Legal
positivism considers the law to be made by a single authoritative act, which in international
law is the signing of a treaty or the combination of evidenced state practice and opinion which
constitutes customary international law. It is a static conception of the law that only changes
through new authoritative acts. NGOs may participate in a social-legal process that leads to
this formal law-making act, but is not law-making in and of itself. Within this perspective it

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 NGOs in international law

is perfectly possible to recognize and conclude that international NGOs have ‘influenced’ and
‘changed international law making’ (Boyle and Chinkin 2007: 93, 97), but that is still within
the traditional positivist understanding of law-making. The policy-oriented approach on the
other hand considers law to be a dynamic process of authoritative decision-making. Law is made
through an ongoing process rather than being the result of a process that is limited in time and
space. To policy-oriented scholars, international law-making is more than the written-down
outcomes of past processes and procedures; NGOs are inherently included in law-making.
But beyond or in between these theoretical extremes other positions are possible. Scholars
like Hobe and Noortmann consider the possibility of taking NGO practices and opinions into
account when determining international customary law and/or interpretations of ‘past deci-
sion’. On other occasions, the importance of the debates on law-making has been questioned
(Noortmann and Ryngaert 2010).
The question “whether other actors than states and governmental organizations can participate
in the formation of (state) practice” has so far been “little researched”, as Stephan Hobe rightly con-
cludes (2004). The reason for that might be found in Boyle and Chinkin’s reservation to Gunning’s
proposal to “modernize” customary international law and to include the practices of NGOs in
determining rules of customary international law (Gunning 1990). Such a proposal “entails consid-
erable theoretical and logistical difficulties”, according to Boyle and Chinkin (2007: 36):

which of the thousands of NGOs in existence would have this status? Which of their
myriad and diverse activities could constitute ‘practice’? Whose actions would constitute
those of an NGO? Would this equate the international legal personality of NGOs with that
of states, or IGOs? . . . NGO agendas are not necessarily produced with greater democracy
or transparency than the agendas of states or IGOs.

The questions posed by Boyle and Chinkin are baffling and to a large extent not relevant at all
for the determination of international customary law; why raise those questions with respect
to NGOs? As I concluded elsewhere, there is no reason for or obstacle against differentiat-
ing between NGOs with law-making capacities and NGOs which only influence law-making
(Noortmann 2015). But if we are to take the customary international law-making capacity of
NGOs seriously, we have to be rigorous with our determination of ‘legal opinion’ and ‘practice’
as the constitutive elements of international customary law (see Article 38 of the Statute of the
International Court of Justice). However, as the practice and opinion of some states are more
important than those of other states, depending on the rule in question, so will the practice and
opinion of some NGOs be more important than those of other NGOs.
In addition to the question of the formation of customary international law, one can also ask
to what extent the practices and opinions of NGOs must be taken into account in scholarly and
judicial interpretations of international law. With the increased participation of NGOs in ‘law-
making processes’, their opinion is increasingly recorded and becoming part of the so-called
legislative history, which must be taken into account when determining the meaning of specific
international legal documents.

4. Concluding remarks
Do NGOs matter in international law? The overall answer to that question, as shown above,
clearly depends on the disciplinary perspective that one is taking, the paradigm one is adhering
to and consequently the more or less strict doctrinal separation of legal personality from socio-
political participation. Very few approaches have moved away from that separation, as shown in

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Math Noortmann

section 2. Still fewer approaches have moved away from the idea that international law is made by
states on the basis of contract, custom and other forms of ‘explicit’ state consent. Overall, interna-
tional legal scholarship is extremely restrictive when it comes to accepting the international legal
personality of NGOs in addition to their political participation in the international legal system.
The increased participation of NGOs in the international legal system and their influence on
international law-making is well recognized. That recognition does not conflict with a positivist
conception of international legal personality and/or international law-making, because partici-
pation and influence is not limited to legal persons and law-makers. Misunderstanding, con-
fusing or blurring those concepts does not add to our understanding of the position of NGOs
in international law, legal or otherwise. The ‘international legal personality question’ is to a
large extent immaterial to the discussion on the recognition, roles, responsibilities and rights of
NGOs in the international legal system (Noortmann 2004, 2015).
In order to move NGOs from simple law-takers to sophisticated law-makers, however, one
needs to adopt a non-positivist approach to international law. The policy-oriented approach or
the transnational legal approach would be examples of a new theoretical attitude to international
law as these approaches seriously and critically question how law beyond national jurisdictions is
formed and interpreted. For that we do not need to reconsider the concept of legal personality,
which as stated above is a mere practical tool for facilitating legal relations. One might argue that
(international) NGOs should be enabled to enter into legal relations at a transnational level and
therefore we need a more sophisticated and qualified system of international legal personality,
but it is no prerequisite for the advancement of NGO influence on international law.
The ultimate question for the students of both international law and international relations is
whether the postmodern processes of globalization and transnationalization, and the non-state-
actors within those processes, can be understood within a pre-modern and exclusive Benthamian
conception of ‘international’. If not, it is time to change our approaches and terminology, which
suggests that the proper title for this chapter should have been ‘NGOs in transnational law’.

Note
1 All quotes taken from: www.un.org/News/Press/docs/1999/19991026.ecosoc5876.doc.html; see also
UN Doc. E/1999/109 and Add.(1) and ECOSOC decision 1999/268.

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 14
Voluntaristics
Global research on NGOs and the
non-profit sector

David Horton Smith

Terminology
The new term voluntaristics has been suggested as a single-word label for the nearly 50-year-
old interdisciplinary field and emergent academic disciple that involves studying NGOs (or
non-profit organizations, NPOs) and all other phenomena of the voluntary non-profit sector
(VNPS) in all human societies, past and present (Smith, 2013, 2016). The term is similar in
form to the term linguistics, referring to the study of all human languages, past and present. This
chapter will discuss the origins of voluntaristics as a field of study, its current global structure and
growth trends, and the key substantive contents of the field beyond the transnational/interna-
tional aspects reviewed in the present volume.
NGOs are but one aspect of the larger, global, interdisciplinary field of research into all
VNPS phenomena. In addition to NGOs as transnational or international associations, often
referred to as international non-governmental organizations or INGOs (Smith, Stebbins, and
Dover, 2006: 124, 230), there are also national, provincial or state, and lower territorial-
level associations in nearly every contemporary nation-state. Besides membership associations,
there are usually also other types of groups and organizations (formal groups) in the VNPS,
especially non-profit agencies (or voluntary agencies) with paid staff. Private foundations are a spe-
cial form of non-profit agency, usually with significant endowments (donated assets). Where
associations are usually controlled ultimately by their members, who elect top leaders, non-
profit agencies are usually controlled from the top down by their policy board of directors or
trustees. I have elsewhere suggested many other factors that distinguish associations as NGOs
from non-profit agencies (Smith, 2017).
In Smith (2016: 2), I noted (quoted here with permission):

Voluntaristics, although clearly a young discipline, has developed out of non-profit and
voluntary sector studies, philanthropy studies, civil society studies, third sector studies,
non-profit management studies, social and solidarity economy studies, social movement
studies, cooperatives research, self-help/mutual aid group studies, and related fields that
have emerged since 1970.

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David Horton Smith

A somewhat longer list of alternative terms for our research field is also given in Smith (2016:
2, 7). In advocating for use of the term voluntaristics, I further point out (Smith, 2016: 7; again
quoted here with permission):

Whatever term is chosen, it is argued that a one-word label for our field will help our
progress toward becoming an accepted academic discipline. Nearly all established academic
disciplines have single-word names (e.g., philosophy, physics, biology, economics), with
only rare exceptions like political science. No other one-word labels seem appropriate con-
tenders. Clearly, a one-word name for the field is only one of many factors that will move
the field toward becoming an accepted academic discipline.

History of voluntaristics
Although the label voluntaristics is very recent (Smith, 2013, 2016), relevant research in the field
goes back a few thousand years. The first question to arise is, how old are the voluntaristics
substantive phenomena? Informal volunteering (informal service volunteering), as attempting to help
or benefit people outside one’s immediate household/family with no group or organization
involved (Smith, Stebbins, and Dover, 2006: 118, 119), likely has existed for all of humans’
200+ millennia of existence. But formal volunteering, done through some group or organization,
has been much more recent in appearance (op. cit., 88), arising with the first non-profit associa-
tions circa 8,000 bc/bce.
The first non-profit groups mainly date back about 10,000 years, to the global horticultural
revolution, when many preliterate hunting-gathering nomadic tribes settled down in small vil-
lages to raise some crops and domestic animals (Anderson, 1973; Smith, 1997, 2019a). These
earliest non-profits were informal groups, specifically local leisure associations as social clubs of
adult males, termed grassroots associations (GAs).
I wrote (Smith, 2016: 9) about the earliest voluntaristics research as follows (quoted here
with permission):

The earliest form of voluntaristics research was the history of some association, with an
initial focus on such facts as the name, nature, goals, activities, leaders, and membership
of some specific voluntary association in an ancient civilization, usually in a major city
of a large agrarian society. The association described was nearly always some local, all-
volunteer, and hence grassroots association. Published research on voluntaristics goes
back at least three millennia. Nearly all of the more recent published histories of asso-
ciations draw partly on the work of earlier historians, as well as on relevant primary
historical materials.
Accounts were written of local voluntary associations in ancient Greece and Rome
(Jones 1999; Kloppenborg and Wilson 1996; Waltzing, 1895), China (Morse 1967; Ross
1976), Egypt (Shafer 1991), and Mesopotamia (Weisberg 1967), among other places. For
instance, the ancient Jewish historian Josephus, who lived in 1st-century Israel/Palestine,
under Roman hegemony and military occupation, wrote in passing about the Sicarii.
The Sicarii were an underground, revolutionary/resistance association whose principal
goal was to assassinate prominent Romans in Jerusalem so as to drive the Romans out
generally (Brighton 2009). Terrorist groups are not new. Most ancient associations were
more conventional, such as the many occupational guilds/associations in ancient Rome
(Waltzing 1895), or the religious cults (Borgeaud 1988) and political clubs (Calhoun 1970)
in ancient Greece.

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 Voluntaristics

In Smith (2016: 10–14), I further review briefly the history of voluntaristics research, includ-
ing research on non-profit agencies in recent centuries. Harris et al. (2016) recently provided a
lengthy review of the history of research on associations, from 10,000 years ago to the present,
while Harris and Bridgen (2007) review European and North American research on non-profit
service agencies since 1800. Empirical ethnographic and survey research on associations and
non-profit agencies has mainly occurred since about 1920 (Smith and Freedman, 1972). Survey
research on volunteering shows the same recency (ibid.). Research on the whole VNPS is still
more recent, occurring only since 1965 (Cornuelle, 1965; see also Smith, 2016: 12).

Voluntaristics as an organized field

In my long review article on voluntaristics (Smith, 2016: 15–16), I wrote the following about
the initial formation of voluntaristics as an organized field (quoted here with permission):

The history of voluntaristics as a formally organized field of study begins with the found-
ing of ARNOVA (www.arnova.org) by the author in 1971, as noted earlier (Smith 2003).
ARNOVA is the acronym of the Association for Research on Non-profit Organizations
and Voluntary Action. ARNOVA has been an international, interdisciplinary association
of voluntaristics researchers from the beginning. ARNOVA had about [1,300] members
at year-end [2016], the large majority being academic faculty (or graduate students) from
over 30 nations. ARNOVA holds annual conferences mainly in the USA, with [about 950]
participants in [2017]. ARNOVA publishes the first and largest (in annual page and word
count) academic journal in the field, NVSQ (Non-profit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly),
which has been listed in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) since the 1980s. NVSQ
has the highest Thomson-Reuters Journal Impact Factor [1.85 for 2016] of any interdisci-
plinary voluntaristics journal.
Since 1971, the voluntaristics field has seen the formation and growth of over 50 addi-
tional, interdisciplinary associations at many geographic levels of scope, from municipal to
global, [with national associations being most common]. ARNOVA has been the initial
model (founding model) for later voluntaristics researcher associations, particularly its inter-
disciplinary nature. Of these 50+ later associations, about 48 associations remained active
circa mid-2013 (Smith 2013).

I further note in summary (Smith, 2016: 3) that the global growth of voluntaristics includes
(quoted here with permission):

•• The formation and growth of relevant formal sections on voluntaristics topics of national or
international associations for specific academic disciplines or professions;
•• The founding and activities of the International Council of Voluntarism, Civil Society,
and Social Economy Researcher Associations (ICSERA; www.icsera.org) in 2010 by the
author – a new, global, voluntaristics, infrastructure organization, umbrella association, and
research institute;
•• The founding and worldwide establishment of relevant voluntaristics academic journals, of
voluntaristics research-information centers, of voluntaristics college- and university-based
courses, of voluntaristics undergraduate majors and undergraduate and graduate degree
programs, and of voluntaristics university departments and schools[/colleges];
•• The fast-growing research on voluntaristics since 1999 as evidenced by the publication of
relevant conference papers, journal articles, Master’s theses, doctoral dissertations, and books.

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David Horton Smith

Various graphs in Smith (2016) show that many such aspects of voluntaristics as an academic
discipline and field have been growing exponentially since about 1995.

Current global structure of voluntaristics

As a relatively young (47 years old in 2018), organized, interdisciplinary field, voluntaristics
does not yet have a fully settled global structure, such as physics and biology have. There is
thus no single global association that represents either researchers or national researcher asso-
ciations or both. Instead, there are several aspiring global associations with varying degrees of
multi-national coverage. In terms of voluntaristics individual researchers, ARNOVA is still
the largest association, with about 1,400 individual members, but only about 30 nations rep-
resented. The younger (1992) International Society for Third Sector Research (ISTR; www.
istr.org) has many fewer individual members (875), but these represent far more nations (74).
None of the other global associations is as large or represents as many voluntaristics researchers
(see Smith, 2013).
There are also several world region associations of voluntaristics researchers. Five of these are
dependent sub-groups of ISTR as Regional Networks (Latin America, Africa, Europe, Asia-
Pacific, Post-Soviet). But there are also several independent world region researcher associations
(Smith, 2013; plus personal conversation with founders of GPS, March 2018):

•• RILESS – Red de Investigadores Latinoamericanos de Economia Social y Solidaria

[Network of Latin American Researchers of the Social and Solidarity Economy] (www.
riless.org)
•• AROCSA – Association of Researchers of Civil Society in Africa (www.arocsa.org)
•• Various European associations of researchers and/or research centers:
{{ European Research Network on Philanthropy/ERNOP (www.ernop.eu)

{{ European Research Network/EMES (www.emes.net)

{{ Nordic Civil Society Researchers Network (no website)

{{ Third Sector European Policy Network/TSEP (www.kent.ac.uk/tsep)

{{ University network for Social Entrepreneurship/UNINET [Europe] (www.university

network.org)
•• GPS – Global Philanthropy Society (no website yet) [INGO with members from various
Asian countries, including at present P. D. R. China, Taiwan, Macau, and Hong Kong,
with expectations that Japan and South Korea will also be represented soon]

At the national or bi-national level, where voluntaristics researcher associations are most com-
mon (over 25 have existed; Smith, 2013), the earliest one (1978) was ARVAC, the (UK)
Association of Researchers into Voluntary and Community Involvement. A recent list of
national associations can be found on the website of ICSERA (www.icsera.org) and an earlier
one in Smith (2013). There have also been a few metropolitan or national sub-region volunta-
ristics researcher associations (Smith, 2013).
Another aspect of the global structure of voluntaristics is the growing set of over 200
Research and Information Centers/Institutes (RICS), as described in Smith (2016) and
listed under Resources on the ICSERA website. The large and growing set of core aca-
demic journals in voluntaristics is a third key aspect of the global structure of voluntaristics
(see 63 core journals in Smith, 2013, and a somewhat longer list under Resources on the
ICSERA website).

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Voluntaristics as an emergent academic discipline

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a discipline as “a branch of learning or scholarly
instruction.” But there is much more to the concept than this. Krishnan (2009) has reviewed
the literature on academic disciplines, characterizing them as having six central features. I
wrote (Smith, 2016: 52–54) the following to show that after 45 years as an organized inter-
disciplinary field, voluntaristics now qualifies objectively as a new academic discipline (quoted
here with permission):

(a) The object of study of the emerging academic discipline of voluntaristics is the range of
individual and collective human phenomena at various levels of analysis that involve rela-
tively non-coerced, free-will decisions and behaviors, based on values and belief systems
which usually involve some aspects of altruism, morality, or other higher (i.e. non-financial)
values in the eyes of the participants, whether groups or individuals (see Rothschild and
Milofsky 2006). Voluntaristics phenomena mainly involve normative-voluntary compliance
structures, not mainly remunerative or coercive compliance structures, using terminology of
Etzioni (1975). Hence, voluntaristics examines those aspects of any society which usually are
relatively distinct (a) from families/households, where kinship and close personal relation-
ships dominate exchanges and activities, and communal sharing is the norm; (b) from the
market system of exchanges, where market pricing of scarce resources is the norm (business
and commercial activities seeking to maximize profits and financial resources), and (c) from
the coercive system of exchanges and activities that characterize governments at all territo-
rial levels, where the physical control/dominance of government and government repre-
sentatives, agencies, and laws/rules control events and activities (Smith 2000: 15–32; Smith,
Reddy, and Baldwin 1972; Smith, Stebbins, and Dover 2006: 159, 237–239; Wolfenden
Committee 1978: 22–26). Levels of analysis in voluntaristics range from [global human
society,] whole individual societies, to major segments/sectors of society, to groups and
organizations (NGOs), down to individual motives/dispositions, affects/emotions, goals/
intentions, intellectual abilities, cognitions, the self, and resulting behaviors.
(b) Voluntaristics has a distinct body of knowledge, as illustrated by the set of important recent
books listed in Appendix 2. A more extensive version of voluntaristics knowledge can be
found in all of the journals, books, conference papers, dissertations and theses referred to in
relevant sections of this article.
(c) Voluntaristics has theories and concepts that organize its distinctive knowledge in various,
often alternative, ways. Examples in Smith, Stebbins, and Grotz (2016) include especially
the chapters of Parts I and IV. Other examples, listed in this article’s references, include
Anheier, Toepler, and List (2010: Selected articles on theory), Frumkin and Imber (2004),
Milofsky (2008), Pestoff (2009), Powell and Steinberg (2006: Parts I–III), Rochester
(2013), Smith (2000, 2015a, 2015b, [2015c, 2019b]), Smith, Macaulay, and Associates
1980; Smith, Reddy, and Baldwin (1972), Smith and Shen (2002), Steinberg (1997), and
Zald and Garner (1987). The extensive Dictionary of voluntaristics terms and concepts by
Smith, Stebbins, and Dover (2006) lists 1,767 concepts and defines 1,212 of them.
(d) Voluntaristics has a special terminology of technical terms, adjusted to its objects of study
(see Smith, Reddy, and Baldwin 1972: Part One; Smith, Stebbins, and Dover 2006,
described briefly just above). A planned second edition of the Smith et al. 2006 dictionary
in [2019] by Smith will add definitions of another [1,000] voluntaristics terms and concepts,
especially more recent terms.

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(e) Voluntaristics has various special research methods, although these have yet to be summa-
rized comprehensively in a single document (with McNabb, 2012, coming closest so far).
Smith, Stebbins, and Grotz (2016: Chap. 4) describes time use/time budget methodologies
and their relevance to studying volunteering. A special Bibliography of 47 Voluntaristics
Methodology references is presented below, as a second set of References, giving a sam-
pling of such documents.
(f) Voluntaristics has a variety of institutional manifestations as parts of the structure of uni-
versities in various nations, and in academia more generally. The most common examples
are voluntaristics courses and degree programs in many universities worldwide, especially
ones focused on non-profit management or non-profit administration (Section D, #9), and
also voluntaristics research-information centers, most of them based at universities (Section
D, #8). The large number of doctoral dissertations and Master’s theses that focus on vol-
untaristics topics constitutes another indicator of how this emerging discipline has been
institutionalized within universities in many nations (Section D, #12). Although still few
in numbers, the recent growth of both university departments and schools/colleges focused
on voluntaristics topics is a solid indicator of institutionalization (Section D, #10 and #11).
Considering auxiliary indicators of institutionalization, the many voluntaristics researcher
associations, voluntaristics formal sections of disciplinary and professional associations, aca-
demic journals, books, conferences, and faculty positions with titles reflecting voluntaris-
tics terms/keywords are further evidence of the institutionalization of voluntaristics as an
emerging academic discipline.

Usable knowledge for NGOs from voluntaristics

Some research knowledge in voluntaristics can be useful in understanding NGOs in international
relations. In particular, various books and book chapters review research on INGOs (e.g., Ahmed
and Potter, 2006; Boli, 2006; Boli and Thomas, 1999; Casey, 2015: Chaps. 6–9; Feld and Jordan,
with Hurwitz, 1994; Jordan, 2011; Jordan, Archer, Granger, and Ordes, 2001; Stoddard, 2012).
I will suggest four types of usable NGO research-based knowledge briefly here.

Determinants of the size of the VNPS

The prevalence of NGOs/INGOs in a contemporary nation-state is positively related to the
general (total) prevalence of associations in that society, which has received some quantitative
study. Smith and Shen (2002) presented a general theory of association prevalence developed
by Smith and tested it on archival data regarding two sets of larger (one million+ population
circa 1994) contemporary nations for two dates: 1977 and 1994, as Panel 1 and Panel 2, with
124 nations included.
Quoting from the article with permission (2002: 112):

The number of INGOs to which a nation, or people or organizations within it, belong
as collective members is available for 1977 and 1994 from the Yearbook of International
Organizations 1994/1995, Volume 2 Geographic Volume, edited by the Union of
International Associations (1995, Table 3, pp. 1682–1685). This is our dependent asso-
ciation [NGO] prevalence measure in the present study for Panels 1 and 2, respectively.
Its great virtue is that it is available and measured identically for all major contemporary
nations in our sample. It relates to national associational prevalence as a proxy, and the

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1966 version of this variable has been shown to relate closely to Interest Articulation by
Associational Groups as well as to percentage of association membership among adults (the
latter for only a small sample of nations).

When Ordinary Least Squares multiple regression analyses were performed separately on each
panel of data, the results strongly supported the Smith Association [NGO] Prevalence Theory.
For the 84 nations in Panel 1 (1977), the Adjusted R2 was a very high .889, thus explaining
nearly 89% of the variance. For the 107 nations in Panel 2 (1994), the Adjusted R2 was also very
high at .893, thus also explaining 89% of the variance. Seven of eight predictors tested were sta-
tistically significant at or below the .05 level in a two-tailed t-test of the unstandardized regres-
sion weights in both panels. Greater INGO prevalence among nations was positively predicted
by larger size of the population, more years since the latest revolution and hence experience
with democracy, more permissive political control (civil liberties), more modernization in terms
of GDP per capita and higher percentage of the relevant age cohort in secondary education,
greater number of Inter-Governmental Organizations/IGOs the nation belongs to, and more
INGO principal secretariats in the nation. Only ethno-religious heterogeneity failed to predict
INGO prevalence as predicted. In a later related association/NGO prevalence study, Schofer
and Longhofer (2011) confirmed the predictive power of five key variables from the Smith and
Shen study when using prevalence of larger domestic associations from a U.S. directory for 140
nations as their dependent variable for the period 1970–2006. Their eight predictors explained
an R2 of .73.

Crucial aspects of NGO structure and process

Smith, Stebbins, and Grotz (2016) recently edited and published a massive two-volume hand-
book with 1,414 printed pages summarizing existing research and theory about associations/
NGOs and volunteering/civic participation, with 203 co-authors from 73 birth-nations as
contributors. In Chapter 2 on theories, by Smith with Van Puyvelde (2016), Section D, II
(pp. 66–70) discusses Meso-theories of all-volunteer conventional associations. Some NGOs/
INGOs are all-volunteer associations, and the findings in this chapter are likely relevant.
More relevant to the present book, however, is Section D, III (pp. 70–72), on Meso-theories
in paid-staff conventional associations, which likely applies to many or most NGOs/INGOs
(quoted here with permission of the chapter authors):

In this section, we discuss the paid-staff association, which is a special form of [NGO] that
has natural persons or organizational representatives as members, uses the associational form
of organization, and relies on both volunteers and paid staff to reach organizational goals
(Smith 2010b). However, the theoretical literature on structures and processes in this type
of associations is most limited, compared with that on general [NGOs] (meaning non-profit
agencies) and voluntary associations (Smith 2015a, 2015b). The main goal of this sub-section
is therefore to identify the key governance issues, tensions, structures, and processes in paid-
staff associations. For a detailed discussion of internal structures and processes in all association
types and a multi-theoretical approach to associational governance, including the governance
of paid-staff associations and association leadership, see Handbook Chapters 35 and 36.
By reviewing some main theoretical perspectives on corporate governance and discuss-
ing how they can be usefully extended to analyze association governance, Cornforth (2004)
identifies three governance tensions that boards of membership associations[/NGOs] face.

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First, tension exists between representative and expert boards. Should board members act as
representatives for particular membership groups or as experts that use their professional
expertise and skills to improve the performance of the association? Second, tension arises
over conformance and performance board roles. Whereas the conformance role accentu-
ates the importance of monitoring associational performance and being accountable to
external stakeholders, the performance role emphasizes the importance of board involve-
ment in the association’s strategy and top management decisions. Since these roles require
board members to behave in different ways, how much attention should boards of direc-
tors of associations pay to these contrasting roles? Moreover, is it possible to combine
these roles without experiencing difficulties or compromising one of them? Third, there
is also a tension between monitoring and controlling managers, on the one hand, and act-
ing as a partner to them and supporting them, on the other hand. For example, if control
is excessive, intrinsic motivation may be crowded out. Too little control, however, may
increase opportunism. Since boards of associations may experience pressure to simultane-
ously control and coach their managers, to what extent should they perform each function
to improve associational performance?
Although association board members are typically elected from within the membership,
boards of associations are not without means to mitigate the aforementioned governance
tensions (Cornforth 2004: 21–26). In sum, boards can:

(1) improve the board’s competency by improving the quality of training and support available
to both current and potential board members, as well as by using co-options to fill gaps
in skills and experience among current board members;
(2) focus their attention on important board processes, such as the way in which longer-term
issues are given priority on the board’s agenda; and
(3) regularly review their relationships with the management of the association by discussing and
negotiating roles and responsibilities and by analyzing how well they are working
together to improve the performance of the association. As such, governance issues
related to board composition, board roles, and internal structures and processes in
paid-staff associations may at least be partially resolved.

Spear (2004), in contrast, investigates member influence and managerial power in mem-
bership associations. First, in examining the extent of member influence over the board, he
considers five issues: (1) proportion of users/consumers with member rights, (2) member
participation, (3) effects of association size and age on member participation, (4) coalition
formation among members, and (5) board functioning. Second, in exploring managerial
power in membership associations, he analyzes a number of internal factors (reward struc-
tures, information systems, and monitoring) and also a number of external factors (market
for corporate control, legislation and regulatory frameworks protecting members’ interests,
and the professionalization of the managerial labour market) that influence associational
governance. In sum, he finds that low member participation, lack of coalition formation,
and insufficient board control result in weak member control.
This situation is exacerbated by the absence of an external market for corporate con-
trol and weak legislation for protecting member rights, although the latter may vary from
country to country. Consequently, Spear (2004) argues that (a) there are serious questions
about the extent to which board members of paid-staff associations may be considered rep-
resentative and that (b) the managers of paid-staff associations may have more power than
their counterparts in similar-sized private sector organizations. To improve this situation, a

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number of countervailing measures are provided that reduce managerial power and develop
good board practices in non-profit associations. These include (1) regulation or voluntary
self-regulation to improve governance standards, (2) improving the board’s competency through
increased member participation and training of board members, and (3) using effective incen-
tive structures for managers (Spear 2004: 54–55).

Section D, IV (Smith et al., 2016: 72–75) of Chapter 2 reviews Meso-theories of deviant vol-
untary associations, such as theories of social movement/activist associations as Social Movement
Organizations/SMOs, which can be NGOs/INGOs. Examples are given of useful propositions
from the Zald and Garner (1987) theory of SMO growth, decay, and change. Similarly, examples
are given of useful propositions from Gamson’s (1990) theory of effective SMOs. Then several
types of hypotheses are given as examples from Smith’s general theory of deviant voluntary asso-
ciations, being presented in detail in Smith (2018). Hypotheses thus deal with the origins phase,
joining and membership, ideology, and structure and leadership, and could be applied to funda-
mentally deviant NGOs/INGOs, such as transnational terrorist groups.

Micro-theories: association[/NGO] membership, participation,

and volunteering
Section D, VI (pp. 77–78) of Chapter 2 (Smith et al., 2016) reviews the topics above, under-
standing micro-theories as applying to individuals. Although the main focus is on individual
volunteering, one can also view this type of research as applying to collective members of
NGOs/INGOs, where in fact individuals respond representing collective/organizational mem-
bers. Another way such research relates to NGOs/INGOs is in terms of the membership in and
volunteering for NGOs/INGOs in various specific countries where national member associa-
tions exist as collective members of multi-national NGOs/INGOs. The root resource of any
association at any territorial level is the volunteer commitment and effort of individual people
who are members and leaders. Hager et al. (2016) review research on recruitment of members
to NGOs generally.
Part IV (pp. 541–803) of the Handbook by Smith et al. (2016) reviews the extensive research
literature on various types of influences on individual volunteering and civic participation, all of
which can be applied to membership recruitment and participation in NGOs/INGOs. Smith’s
S-Theory (op. cit., Chap. 31; also, Smith, 2019c) is the most comprehensive summary and
overview of why people volunteer or do other prosocial behavior (see also op. cit., Chap. 2,
Section D, VII, pp. 78–82). But many other key research documents help us understand why
people do formal volunteering in NGOs (e.g., Berger, 1991; Bryant et al., 2003; Di Gessa and
Grundy, 2017; Dury et al., 2015; Musick and Wilson, 2008; Reed and Selbee, 2000; Smith
et al., 2016; Taniguchi, 2010).
In summary, INGO leaders/managers, whether paid staff or volunteers, would be wise to
find as many ways as possible to ask people, directly or indirectly, to join (become members),
volunteer actively, and/or to continue volunteering for their target INGO. The generalizations
below apply to recruitment of new INGO (e.g., national) collective or individual members
and also to recruitment/volunteering of individuals within a specific INGO at its international
headquarters (HQ) or within specific national collective/NGO members of an INGO.
Research in Russia, the USA, Canada, France, Japan, China, and various other nations has
shown for several decades that being asked is how many individuals join associations and begin
to volunteer in them (e.g., Nesbit et al., 2016). Here are 10 possible ways that NGO/INGO
leaders/managers can apply this usable knowledge:

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(1) In attracting NGO members/volunteers, the focus should be on in-person contacts, not
simply emails, website text, posted letters, mass mailings, brochures, or other mediated
communications.
(2) One good place to start in seeking new or continuing NGO/INGO members/volunteers
is for various leaders (not just one) in a given NGO to speak individually to new members
and lapsed members/volunteers (i.e., former volunteers who are no longer active) about
specific volunteer tasks or roles needing incumbents.
(3) Seeking specific individuals for specific volunteer tasks/roles via personal contact by
NGO/INGO leaders tends to work better when there is another sub-leader/manager
who can help the new/returning volunteer begin volunteering in situations where such
recruits can feel useful and valued soon after recruitment.
(4) Other research suggests that many NGO/INGO volunteers cease membership/volunteer-
ing because they do not feel properly treated and/or properly used in NGOs. Thus, keeping
existing members/volunteers in NGOs can be as important as recruiting/attracting new
ones. In fact, such positive retention practices by NGO leaders/managers can be more
efficient than recruiting new members/volunteers, who usually have to be trained and learn
how to perform their roles or tasks.
(5) So far, research on recruitment/volunteering has not clarified which modes of personal
contact yield the best attraction/recruitment results. However, more general research on
interpersonal communication and on social relationships suggests several guidelines:
(a) Using personal contact with family members of an individual to encourage member-
ship/volunteering is usually more difficult to accomplish than personal contact with
other people with nonfamily, weaker ties.
(b) In-person, face-to-face recruitment communication by NGO leaders/managers in
an informal setting is likely to be most effective. This can easily be done before or
after NGO meetings or other group events (e.g., fund-raising events, celebrations).
(c) Such recruitment communication is likely to be more effective when only one other
person, the target of recruitment, is present (or a person and his/her spouse/partner),
rather than several people together.
(d) Repeated personal communication will likely yield better results than only one-time
attempts. Persistence in persuasion often yields the best results.
(e) Personal recruitment works better when it also involves friends or relatives of the
target individual. Research shows that many people volunteer in the context of such
“significant others.” Hence, when a particular individual is especially important to
recruit, the NGO leader(s) should consider personal communication with other peo-
ple known and trusted by that target individual. This can be particularly important in
recruiting new leaders.
(f) Personal phone calls to encourage attraction/retention should follow in-person con-
tact, not to be used first or alone in most cases.
(g) E-mail contact is likely to be less effective, as are cold-call (i.e., random) letters in mass
mailings by post. However, both emails and posted letters, if personal and brief, can
be effective as follow-ups to in-person recruitment/retention attempts.
(h) Leader attempts to do mass recruitment at NGO/INGO conferences, meetings, or
other group events are not usually very effective, unless some urgency is involved
or volunteers are needed for some immediate one-day/half-day work event for the
NGO.

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(i) Recruitment/retention notices in NGO/INGO newsletters/periodicals sent by post

or e-mail to all members or given to attending members (at some conference, meet-
ing, or event) can have minor positive results, but are usually less effective than in-
person contacts as above.
( j) Recruitment notices in local newspapers or on local radio stations can also have
minor positive results, but are usually less effective than in-person contacts as above.
(6) Although in-person communication by NGO leaders/managers is optimal, especially by
top leaders, similar recruitment/retention efforts via personal contacts can also be effective
when non-leaders are willing to get involved. Achieving such non-leader involvement in
recruitment is just another kind of recruitment of volunteers, but one that is a kind of lev-
eraged time investment in the general volunteer recruitment process for the NGO. Leaders
should keep careful track of which non-leaders seem to be most involved in and successful
at volunteer or member recruitment/retention efforts (based on informal reports by the
non-leaders involved), and seek to involve such non-leaders as future leaders.
(7) Volunteers nearly always appreciate recognition for their efforts, and volunteer service
programs are often more careful to do this than are NGOs. However, NGO leaders
should also provide such recognition to their volunteers/members. One simple but effec-
tive way to do this is for leaders to systematically give in-person positive comments to
members/volunteers who have done well, whether other leaders or non-leaders. This can
be done before or after conferences/meetings or during other events/meetings, including
committee meetings or celebrations.
(8) Another simple way to give recognition to active volunteers in an NGO is by appointing
or electing them to named positions or roles in the NGO. Appointments as committee
chair or vice-chair, or simply as committee member, can encourage more and higher-
level volunteering. Some NGOs effectively use occasional recognition ceremonies as
rewards for leader and non-leader volunteers.
(9) When an NGO has one or more paid staff, it is vital for such employees to value genu-
inely and interact positively with volunteers at all levels. Employees usually need special
training/education to understand this necessity and also leader monitoring to ensure cor-
dial relations with volunteers are maintained by paid staff.
(10) NGO leaders/managers should never neglect the importance of encouraging socio-
emotional ties among their members/volunteers, because having friends, especially
close friends, among the membership is a key factor in maintaining membership and
volunteering. All NGOs need to allow time for personal contacts and informal relations
among both members/volunteers and leaders. Such socio-emotional bonding should
take place routinely before and after regular conferences, meetings, or other events and
where feasible during such activities. But NGOs need also to schedule special social and
entertainment events a few times during the year. NGO leaders particularly need to
keep the importance of socio-emotional relationships at a high priority no matter what
are the goals of the group, instrumental/task accomplishment or expressive/friendship/
emotional/entertainment activities.

The main problem here is that very little relevant research exists examining how and why
collective (organizational) members of NGOs/INGOs decide to join or exit specifically from
NGOs/INGOs. Although individual persons are clearly involved, there are also larger organi-
zational motivations and goals involved. For instance, a particular scientific NGO/INGO or

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for-profit business will usually have collective reasons for joining or leaving a multi-national
NGO as a collective national member, in addition to special motivations of individuals
involved in the process.

Micro-theories: philanthropy and fund-raising for NGOs

Research on philanthropy in voluntaristics is relevant to NGOs/INGOs, especially research on
individual charitable giving. NGOs/INGOs, like any other associations, need a certain amount
of funding to survive and function, especially because of their multi-national nature with special
communication and transportation costs. Several recent review articles discuss research on why
individuals give to charity and charitable organizations, including NGOs (for instance, Andreoni
and Payne, 2013; Bekkers and Wiepking, 2011a, 2011b; Sargeant and Woodliffe, 2007).
The conclusions of Bekkers and Wiepking (2011a: 924) were:

[E]ight mechanisms [are] the most important forces that drive [individual] charitable giving:
(a) awareness of need; (b) solicitation [some kind of contact seeking money]; (c) costs and
benefits; (d) altruism; (e) reputation [of charity/NGO]; (f) psychological benefits; (g) values
[supporting charitable giving]; (h) efficacy [of charity/NGO].

All of these mechanisms can be useful to NGOs/INGOs in raising funds. Andreoni and Payne
(2013: 19–20) show that lead (initial, large) gifts have positive effects on fund-raising for a char-
ity. These authors continue (p. 43), “Another main lesson of this review is that asking for dona-
tions is essential to understanding the strategic relationship between a charity and its donors.”
Further (p. 44), “We learned that being asked by a friend is even more powerful than being
asked by a stranger, even if it is a distant friend.”
My S-Theory (Smith, 2019c) has been tested on a large (N=2,000 random adults, over-
sampling random volunteers) national survey in Russia in 2014. My ARNOVA annual
conference papers have strongly confirmed the validity of S-Theory in predicting/explain-
ing formal and informal volunteering, as well as for charitable giving (Smith, Bekkers, and
Mersianova, 2016).

Conclusion
Voluntaristics is a fledgling academic discipline, after nearly 50 years as an organized interdisci-
plinary field (Smith, 2016). After slow initial growth, the field has been growing exponentially
in nearly all aspects since the mid-1990s (ibid.). As suggested here briefly, there are many kinds
of research on voluntaristics that constitute usable knowledge for leaders, managers, and staff
of NGOs/INGOs. In terms of NGOs as INGOs, however, there are severe limits to what we
know from voluntaristics, since most research has been done on local/grassroots associations,
and to a lesser extent on national NGOs. With regard to the latter types of NGO research, we
also only have research from a limited number of countries (perhaps 50) on the internal struc-
ture and processes of NGOs and their relationships to their sociocultural environments, with
most intense focus on major post-modern countries like the USA, Canada, the UK, France,
Germany, etc. We need a much better sampling of world regions for NGO and INGO research,
especially including more third- and fourth-world nations.
Researchers and theorists in voluntaristics, and especially in the INGO research subfield,
could be helpful in various ways in the future, especially if encouraged to focus on research

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problems that can produce more usable knowledge, such as the topics discussed here. Much
more research on INGOs is needed regarding membership and volunteer recruitment/
participation to see whether findings on local and national NGOs are also supported for
INGOs. Especially important will be further research on recruitment and participation
of collective/organizational members of INGOs, as contrasted with prior very extensive
research on recruitment and participation/volunteering by individuals in local or national
NGOs. We very much also need more research on INGO governance/boards, manage-
ment/leadership, and external relationships/collaboration, to name only a few high priori-
ties. Because of the demonstrated rapid, indeed exponential, growth of voluntaristics since
the mid-1990s, we may expect such future research on INGOs to receive more attention
in the future. The present unique NGO Handbook will likely contribute to stimulating
such research.

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Feld, W., & R. S. Jordan, with L. Hurwitz. 1994. International Organizations, 3rd edition. Westport, CT:
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Hager, M., E. Juaneda-Ayensa, F. Nogueira, M. Pstross, & D. Smith. 2016. Member acquisition and reten-
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Harris, B., & P. Bridgen (eds.). 2007. Charity and Mutual Aid in Europe and North America Since 1800. New
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Kloppenborg, J. S., & S. G. Wilson (eds.). 1996. Voluntary Associations in the Graeco-Roman World. London:
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 15
Primary data on NGOs
Pushing the bounds of present possibilities

Elizabeth Bloodgood

As interest in the study of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has grown in recent years,
the paucity of quality, generalizable data has become an increasingly clear barrier to research
advancement. Many NGO scholars have created excellent primary data sources for their par-
ticular research questions (see for example Mitchell and Schmitz 2014 and the TNGO research
project at Syracuse or Bush 2016 and optical character recognition (OCR) of NGO primary
documents). Other scholars have made use of institutional datasets on NGOs from the Union
of International Associations (e.g. Murdie and Davis 2012a; Smith and Wiest 2005) or techno-
logical tools to create data from the text of news articles (IDEAS as used by Murdie and Bhasin
2010) or links on the internet (IssueCrawler as used by Carpenter 2007). Each of these projects
has made important contributions toward developing our understanding of NGOs by opening
new empirical windows and testing new theories. But these datasets are also each bounded in
time and by specific research questions, and thus it is very difficult to combine or reuse this data
again. In order for NGO researchers to develop larger datasets that are easily integrated, we need
to collaborate on a grander scale. Aggregated and shared data on NGOs will help to place the
study of NGOs on similar empirical footing as democracy studies, conflict processes, electoral
studies, or humanitarian development, each with their own high-profile datasets (e.g. Polity,
Correlates of War, and V-Dem) that have enabled a related research community to flourish
internationally and advance community research agendas.
Systematic data across time and place as well as better national-level data are necessary to
obtain robust answers to important questions concerning NGOs’ existence, operations, and
policy impacts at the national and international level. What patterns have emerged in NGOs’
formation? When and why do NGOs die? How have NGOs’ characteristics, funding, and
activities changed over time and across countries? What are the effects of national origins on the
institutional structures, funding patterns, and activities of NGOs, domestically and transnation-
ally? What factors determine when and how NGOs function across national borders?
Current research focuses on the largest and loudest organizations, such as Greenpeace and
Amnesty International, as well as those that are dramatically politically active, such as Sea
Shepherd and MoveOn. This is partly because these are the organizations that have the great-
est authority (Stroup and Wong 2013) or influence (Raustiala 1997; Wapner 1995) in world
politics. Researchers’ focus on older, larger, richer, and more visible organizations is also a

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pragmatic decision, given limited time, resources, and the need to publish work on a category
of organizations that many dismiss as epiphenomenal (Mearsheimer 1994) or relatively unim-
portant (Kahler 2018). These large organizations, which are often predominately Western and
liberal (Bob 2012), are likely not representative of the full population of NGOs, and the sum of
the activities of all NGOs may matter more or differently than the activities of any one organiza-
tion (Bloodgood and Clough 2017).
Mobilizing new data, and applying diverse methods of analysis to these new data once they
are available, will allow scholars to address current weaknesses in the largely descriptive and
highly selective NGO literature. The vast majority of NGO research prior to 2010 consisted
of small-n, descriptive, and illustrative case studies (Risse-Kappen 1995; Wapner 1995; Clark
2001; Bob 2005; Hopgood 2006; Hertel 2006). Even more problematic, initial claims about the
moral goodness and problem-solving capacities of NGO may have been the result of selection
bias or inappropriate generalization (Keck and Sikkink 1998). As a secondary set of goals, better
data on NGOs will enable more robust social science research pertaining to NGO manage-
ment, leadership, and strategy, as well as human rights advocacy, development assistance, and
environmentalism. A more complete understanding of the range of NGO organization styles,
activities, financing, and governance styles will help moderate assumptions about the principled
nature of NGO activities (Mitchell and Schmitz 2014) and power distributions among NGOs
(Pallas 2016), while broadening the possibilities for their power, influence, and impact in foreign
policy and world affairs.
A practical push toward accountability by NGOs, defined in narrow and easily measured
ways, is also having perverse consequences, as NGOs use easily available metrics to guide their
behavior (driven by donors’ focus on financing) (Ebrahim 2005; Eckerd and Moulton 2011;
Schmitz et al. 2012; Szper 2012). This is leading to the distortion of NGOs’ goals, the prior-
itization of short-run successes (Cooley and Ron 2002; Nunnenkamp et al. 2013), and lim-
ited organizational development due to low overhead ratios (Lecy and Searing 2015; Mitchell
2013a). Prior research has been limited by, even driven by, the availability of financial infor-
mation required by government tax authorities and the lack of other substantive alternatives
for empirical study on any scale by researchers, policymakers, and NGO practitioners. This
tendency may exacerbate population ecology pressures which cause organizations to imitate
the models perceived to be the most successful (Cooley and Ron 2002), which currently are
more moderate (Bush 2016; Stroup and Wong 2013), centralized (Wong 2012), professional-
ized (Suarez 2011), and depoliticized (Bloodgood and Tremblay-Boire 2017) than the average
NGO. At its extreme, the trend may put the true diversity of NGOs at risk, producing the
demise of some organizations before we can study the full ecosystem.
This chapter will first examine the state of quantitative NGO research, based on the existing
data environment, as well as consider some of the challenges for quantitative NGO research
moving forward. Several recent technical and political developments open new possibilities that
hold out hope for the development of more collaborative and complete datasets on NGOs in
the near future.

Current quantitative NGO research

There exists a substantial and growing corpus of excellent quantitative NGO research, stem-
ming from political science, sociology, public management, and non-profit studies fields. The
research is generally based on institutional data – national tax or registry data in the case of
national research (e.g. Lecy and Van Slyke 2013) or international organization’s data from the
Union of International Associations or the European Union Transparency Register in the case

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of global or comparative research (e.g. Murdie and Davis 2012a). The Union of International
Associations provides in its annual Yearbook of International Organizations (YIO) the broadest and
most consistent coverage of international NGOs, but information is self-reported (Burger and
Owens 2010), there is substantial missing data on important organizational features (particularly
consistent information on NGOs’ budgets and financing), and it only includes NGOs operating
in three or more countries (eliminating smaller NGOs). In addition, access to the data is expen-
sive (Murdie and Davis 2012a). Scholars have turned to other data sources with the authority
to require NGOs to report their data more consistently and completely. The European Union
(EU) Transparency Register offers detailed organization-level information, but only for NGOs
which have selected to register or seek access to EU institutions (Greenwood and Dreger 2013).
Similarly, the United Nations collects detailed information on the activities of NGOs which
have consultative status with ECOSOC, but this is a limited set of generally large and influential
organizations and their financial information is not made public.
Scholars have assembled datasets on INGOs as organizations (Murdie and Hicks 2013;
Mitchell and Schmitz 2014; Lecy et al. 2012; Bush 2016), as authorities (Stroup and Wong
2017), and as networks (Carpenter 2007; Murdie and Davis 2012a; Hadden 2015), across com-
parative legal contexts (Dupuy et al. 2016; Bloodgood et al. 2013; Henry and Sundstrom 2017)
and international organizations (Tallberg et al. 2015; Hanegraaff et al. 2016).1 While this grow-
ing body of work uses innovative research designs to collect the best available data for the
authors’ purposes, there are shortcomings. In particular, the scope conditions for the findings
are uncertain and there are few ways to assess generalizability without readily available global
data. For example, Beyers, Hanegraaff, and Dür have all undertaken large surveys of NGOs’ and
other interest groups’ activities at global meetings for trade and climate change (Hanegraaff et al.
2016) and within national political contexts, namely Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark
(Beyers et al. 2008; Binderkrantz et al. 2015; Dür and Mateo 2013), in order to understand the
factors that lead organizations to choose insider versus outsider advocacy. While other research-
ers could repeat the methods devised by these authors for additional organizations or other
national and global contexts, the bias of journals against replication studies and toward posi-
tive findings means uncertainty about the publication potential for the work will likely deter
researchers from undertaking time- and effort-intensive data collection.
Several large-scale, multiyear research projects have sought to address quantitative NGO
research in innovative new ways. Columbia University currently archives websites of human
rights NGOs, national human rights institutes, and select blogs in its Human Rights Web
Archive (HRWA).2 Schmitz, Mitchell, and colleagues affiliated with the Transnational NGO
Initiative (TNGO) at Syracuse University interviewed leaders from 152 US-based INGOs on
their organizations’ management styles and challenges, networking, financing, and operational
decision-making.3 Berkhout and Hanegraaff have compiled an impressive number of national
lobbying registers to examine the strategic choices of interest groups (largely NGOs) in advo-
cacy in Europe (e.g. Berkhout et al. 2017). Dellmuth and Tallberg (2017) have surveyed NGOs
with consultative status within the UN on their advocacy activity within international organiza-
tions. Smith and Wiest (2005), as well as Boli and Thomas (1999), Murdie and Davis (2012a),
and Davies (2014), have all used Union of International Associations (UIA) data as a base to
which they can add additional measures, including geographic characteristics, counts of protest
activities, network measures, and historical organizational development, to develop transna-
tional datasets on the activities and influence of NGOs. Each of these projects was designed to
address specific research questions, however, and is necessarily limited in time by the resources
required to gather and collate the data. In addition, there is a persistent sampling bias toward
international NGOs, often larger ones with the resources to respond to scholars’ inquiries. In

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addition, these datasets all lack consistent and reliable measures of NGO resources other than
networking. While Brass et al. (2018) have published a meta-analysis of NGO studies and data
sources that may help future data analysis and collection, at this point the NGO research com-
munity lacks the capacity or a creative mechanism to aggregate information across data sources
and projects (which are often explicitly limited in time, place, or issue areas).

The challenges of quantitative NGO research

The nature of NGOs as organizations has made scholars’ efforts to obtain systematic, large-
scale data very difficult. While NGO sectors in some countries are large, vibrant, and visible,
individual organizations are more often than not small, poor, and short-lived (Brass et al. 2018).
Many organizations die, merge, or change locations before they can be recorded. The large size
of the sector, combined with the diversity of organizational forms and activities that NGOs
can undertake (national and international), and the difficulty of defining the range of relevant
organizations (defining what an NGOs is), make it very difficult to find the bounds of the popu-
lation and sample accurately (Bloodgood and Schmitz 2013).
The diversity of NGO structures and legal identities within and across countries creates prob-
lems for scholars and policymakers. Different terms are used in different countries to refer to the
same characteristic, while the same term might mean different things transnationally. NGO is
not a legal term, but can include civil society associations, cooperatives, non-profit corporations,
charities, business associations, religious orders, and trade unions in different countries. It is thus
unclear whether scholars using different lists of NGOs from different countries are comparing
the same basket of organizations. This limits not only the comparability of empirical research
across time and place, but also the basic lack of conceptual agreement on what constitutes an
NGO and the basic features and functions of this category of organizations, which can prevent
progress within the NGO research community in general.
One means to avoid problems of commensurability is to use the same survey instru-
ment, with the same categories and definitions, across all organizations. The most commonly
used INGO data comes from the Union of International Associations, which does just this.
Organizations are contacted by UIA staff and asked to fill in annual questionnaires about their
organization and activities. NGOs can also contact the UIA, now via their website (https://
uia.org/yearbook), and complete the survey. The information, however, is self-reported and
voluntary and there are limited mechanisms to guarantee the accuracy, completeness, and reli-
ability of the data submitted by individual NGOs. While staff do check forms, and can ask for
additional information, the UIA has no means to compel organizations to report. It has been
very difficult to find accurate information on NGOs’ potentially controversial activities or
aspects, in particular their financing, donors, internal decision-making structures, and outputs/
influence. NGOs have traditionally been reluctant to release this information systematically for
fear that it might be used against them. National NGO registers and tax agencies, however,
have the legal authority and enforcement capacity to make NGOs release such information in
a standardized fashion (at least at the national level).
The most authoritative data on NGOs is thus collected at the national level, where tax, char-
ity, or corporate register authorities have the ability to sanction organizations for false or incom-
plete reporting. Data are currently available from forty countries that require NGOs to register
and report information in a standardized format to an oversight body (tax authority or charity
register). Those organizations are required to register or file tax records according to their legal
status as non-profits, associations, charities, public benefit organizations, or civil society organi-
zations in a country. But each country has different categorizations and reporting requirements

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for NGOs4 and thus national sources are difficult and time consuming to combine. Lecy and
Van Slyke (2013) and Mitchell (2013b) have used US tax data from the National Center of
Charitable Statistics to examine INGO population dynamics within the US, while Phillips
(2013) has used similar data from Canada. Significant problems arise from the different report-
ing requirements for associations, charities, non-profits, and NGOs across different countries.
In some places, NGOs must report their international and domestic expenditures separately;
in other places they must separate their financing from members, donors, grants, and money-
making activities but not by source of income. The total income reported for an organization
in the United States and Canada (much less Kenya and India) can thus include very different
categories of income and may not be equivalent.
Existing quantitative work on NGOs focuses on relatively static examinations of large organ-
izations (e.g. Stroup and Wong 2017) with little sense of whether the same findings transfer
to small organizations or hold over time. Indeed, national agencies generally as a rule do not
require organizations below a certain monetary threshold to report their information (Cordery
2013). Small organizations, with budgets below $25,000, are thus not captured in official sta-
tistics. These may be the most dynamic and varied organizations, with the greatest sources of
innovation and the most grassroots expertise. These are also the organizations most likely to
fail to thrive and thus may be the shortest lived (Hannan and Freeman 1977). These are also
the organizations that lack institutional or economic capacity to document their activities and
impact, much less advertise this, extensively and so academics know the least about them.
The time- and effort-intensive nature of data collection, as well as the uncertainty over
payback for this effort, have also made studies of organizational change over time or diffu-
sion of NGO behaviors and effects difficult to find. For example, the most famous assessments
of global populations of INGOs, including their characteristics and networks, use data from
the UIA from the 1980s (Keck and Sikkink 1998; Boli and Thomas 1999; Murdie and Davis
2012b). In the ten years since the publication of this work, the vast majority of it has not been
updated, with the Smith et al. studies of INGOs using UIA data under the term Transnational
Social Movement Organizations as a notable exception (Smith et al. 2017). Political science and
sociology scholars typically rely on long-term, labor-intensive coding using large numbers of
research assistant hours. The time and resources required to collect data this way have limited
the scope and range of NGO research in political science. For example, Boli and Thomas (1999)
and Smith and Wiest (2005) use only the number of NGOs in a country from the UIA in order
to examine the nature of social movement organizations over time. Boli and Thomas had to
end their analysis in the mid-1980s given the difficulty of collecting data. Murdie and Davis
(2012a), despite their use of sophisticated statistical and social network methods, were forced
to use data from 1999 in their publications, released in the mid-2010s, due to the difficulty of
collecting more recent data. Similarly, Carpenter (2007) and Dalton (1994) limit themselves to
one issue area in order to cope with the data intensity of their projects. Tallberg et al. (2015)
limit their study of INGO access to international organizations to a survey of 900 organizations
(with a response rate of 47%) given their data demands. The TNGO project took five years,
from start to finish, and produced a dataset of 152 international NGOs via computer-aided
qualitative coding.
Ironically, while academic researchers struggle to collect data quickly enough to capture
change in NGOs and NGO populations over time, NGO populations themselves are incred-
ibly fluid and rapidly changing. A quick examination of the European Union Transparency
Register5 makes it clear that there is a high degree of turnover within NGO populations, as
organizations are created and eliminated quickly and often (Bloodgood 2011; Halpin and Jordan
2009). Over the last five years, approximately 25% of organizations do not remain in the EUTR

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from one year until the next. Change over time is thus important to assess empirically, within
organizations and within national populations, and we need a means to build datasets across
multiple countries over multiple years to allow the study of differences (and thus changes) across
countries and over time.

Promise for moving the NGO data possibility frontier forward

Political and technological developments in the last few years make a global NGO dataset,
which stretches across time and countries, achievable now in ways that were not previously
possible. First, non-profit data projects, academic and practitioner led, in the United States,6
Canada,7 and internationally,8 have led the way in developing open data standards for subsets of
NGOs (and other actors) building on Form 990 (US), T3010 (Canada), and granting data. New
organizations dedicated to data collection for the improvement of NGO/non-profit perfor-
mance and increased accountability to donors (CharityNavigator, GuideStar, BoardSource)9 are
expanding their scope both within and across countries and adding international components
to their data collection.
Second, the open government data movement, with the support of the OECD,10 has pro-
moted the release of government data to the extent that governments feel more of an obligation
than in the past. In addition to releasing the data, governments also need to establish and use
data standards for the release and there is growing interest (if not momentum) in standardiza-
tion in data releases across countries as well as individual government agencies. While it is a
mixed blessing, new government regulation of NGOs in the last ten years has meant that there
are more government registries of NGOs and more organizations are required to report more
information more regularly. It is unclear whether scholars will be able to gain access to all of
this data, however.
Third, the last few years have seen the rise of a new type of NGO, fueled by data scientists seek-
ing to use the growing availability of data from governments, corporations, social media, and the
internet. Organizations such as Data4Good, DataKind, PoweredbyData, the #GivingTuesday
movement, 360Giving, Open Data Services, the International Aid Transparency Initiative
(IATI), Global Giving, and the BRIDGE project are working to make data that might be used
to improve philanthropy, social services, and civil society more readily available and useful.11
Scholars, particularly in political science, are at risk of being left out of this movement, despite
the benefits to our research of this greater data availability and the contributions we can make
to applying this data to better understand NGOs’ operations and impacts. Building a sense of
community among quantitative NGO scholars, previously in the minority within political sci-
ence and public administration, may empower them to play a larger role in building the NGO
data ecosystem and might spur more interactions and exchanges of ideas between these research
communities.

International NGO database

I thus propose a new initiative to create a global, time-series database on NGOs building from
authoritative national data sources to the global level by linking organizations’ activities and
national reporting requirements in a rigorous and systematic way. This project, the International
NGO Database (IND), deliberately addresses specific shortcomings of the existing NGO data
environment, namely comparability/commensurability, selection bias, voluntary reporting,
and standardization. By drawing on existing national data, combined via computer software
designed by Ajah to limit costs and time and that can be used repeatedly across time, the IND

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generously funded by the Social Science Research Council of Canada can overcome collective
action problems researchers otherwise face and provide the most comprehensive global database
possible now and with the potential to expand over time.
National legal definitions of NGOs are used to identify the basic unit of analysis. NGOs
are defined as private voluntary organizations with public benefit purposes. Each organization
(national NGO or a national branch of an international NGO) will be given a unique iden-
tifying number to avoid confusion among similarly named organizations, confederations of
organizations, or international NGOs with national branches in different countries (Stroup and
Wong 2013). Related organizations (organizations in the same family) will be linked within
their entries as national branches or members of a confederation or umbrella organization. The
database will be built based on individual NGOs as the unit of analysis, with separate entries
for each combination of NGO-country-year. National tax agencies and/or charity registries
provide several types of information about NGOs, including geographic location(s), structure
of operations and governance (board, CEO), resources (budgets and staff), financing and even
donors, expenditures, activities (including political and foreign activities), issue area, website,
and networks (in the form of funding relationships with foundations or other NGOs). The
national datasets will be mapped onto a common model based on rules agreed by the team
members. The lack of commensurability between data sources (Gronbjerg 2002; Bloodgood
and Schmitz 2013) at both the conceptual and technical level requires extensive consultation
among the experts most likely to use the data to decide the best way to link data sources. The
development of software for data integration is also vital for the project. This will produce an
unbalanced panel dataset that compiles all publicly available information on NGOs in our coun-
tries, covering as many fields as are possible for as many years as are available.
Additional data is drawn from international organizations (IGOs) that make public informa-
tion about organizations with access to their decision-making forums or funding, namely the
EU and the UN. The UN’s iCOS and the EU’s Transparency Register both release standard-
ized information self-reported by NGOs to the IGO in return for access to participate in their
respective bodies and activities. IGO data provide information on geographic location(s), home
country, finances (in some cases), access to IGOs, IGO network, international activities, issues,
website, and accountability commitments. IGO data will enable us to add organizations from
countries beyond those that release systematic national data, increasing the geographic scope of
the final database.
Finally, data from NGOs’ websites themselves will be added, enabling the capture of addi-
tional indicators, including activities, governance structures, accountability mechanisms, and
network partners. Using the websites of the NGOs listed in national registries or registered with
the UN or EU, a webscraper will collect data on NGOs’ founding date, mission statement,
advocacy and/or service projects, locations, governance procedures, and networks (national
chapters and NGO partners). Information will be extracted from individual organizations’ web-
sites and placed into fields (structured) according to ontologies agreed upon by the team mem-
bers, who will create an agreed-upon set of equivalencies (conceptual and linguistic) for key
information commonly featured on NGO websites. Programmers will then create algorithms to
extract the website text related to each set of equivalencies (entities).
The IND will supply a common language for defining and measuring NGOs and a universal
sampling frame to test current hypotheses in a rigorous and systematic fashion against representa-
tive samples of NGOs transnationally. The scale and scope of the project require a large research
team, which serves as a stimulus for transnational research collaboration. Such collaboration
helps to overcome previous geographic and conceptual boundaries that have caused some lines
of scholarship to occur in parallel, while much might be learned by increased exchange of ideas.

215
Elizabeth Bloodgood

The development of the IND will proceed in stages, beginning from an asset inventory and
the development of an agreed-upon data dictionary. At each stage, documentation and data will
be made available on the project website (www.grnds.org). The descriptions of data available
currently from each country, i.e. the asset inventory, will be available by the end of 2019. The
data dictionary, which defines each field and provides means to connect across national sources,
will be available after it has been vetted and revised by the transnational NGO research com-
munity and non-profit data practitioners. The estimated release is mid-2020.
The final database holds enormous possibilities for scholars and practitioners to answer
important questions about NGOs formation, structure, funding, operation, impacts, networks,
and accountability. To what extent are NGOs nationally bounded or “footloose” international
actors (Stroup 2012)? Are NGOs likely to grow more centralized and homogenous over time in
the face of common challenges, national and international bureaucratic structures, and globali-
zation (Boli and Thomas 1999; Stroup and Wong 2013; Davies 2014)? Is heterogeneity more
conducive to effective, efficient, and robust NGOs (Stroup and Wong 2013; Hertel 2006)?
Why do organizations that start on similar footing end up with widely divergent structures,
funding portfolios, and influence (Lecy et al. 2010; Wong 2012; Stroup and Wong 2013)?
Without consistent, commensurate data across national and international levels, and over time,
these questions are impossible to answer.

Notes
1 For a more in-depth comparative overview of the types of data available and their diversity of uses, see
Bloodgood 2018.
2 http://hrwa.cul.columbia.edu.
3 www.maxwell.syr.edu/Moynihan_TNGO.asp.
4 For a discussion, see the Comparative Nonprofit Sector project at Johns Hopkins University.
5 http://ec.europa.eu/transparencyregister.
6 Nonprofit Open Data Collective, https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/how-the-nonprofit-
open-data-collective-came-together-to-work-on-irs-990-data-in-the-cloud; https://dataverse.harvard.
edu/dataverse/NIOD; https://github.com/lecy/Open-Data-for-Nonprofit-Research.
7 Ajah Fundtracker, www.ajah.ca/about; Powered by Data, https://poweredbydata.org.
8 IATI, http://iatistandard.org; BRIDGE Registry, https://bridge-registry.org/collaborative-bridge-
project-makes-big-progress-toward-sharing-crucial-information-worldwide; 360Giving, www.three
sixtygiving.org.
9 www.charitynavigator.org; www.guidestar.org/Home.aspx; https://boardsource.org.
10 G8 Open Data Charter, http://opendatacharter.net.
11 http://dataforgood.ca; www.datakind.org; www.givingtuesday.org; www.threesixtygiving.org; http://
opendataservices.coop; www.globalgiving.org.

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 Part III
Issue-areas and sectors

 16
Feminist politics and NGO
mobilization
Can NGOs degender global governance?

Paulina García-Del Moral, Di Wang, and Myra Marx Ferree

Domestic and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs/INGOs) for women’s

rights have their origins in the transnational women’s movement that emerged at the turn of
the 20th century (Ferree and Mueller 2004). Over the last 50 years, NGOs/INGOs have con-
tributed massively to the construction and travel of global norms like gender equality, women’s
autonomy, and economic independence now associated with women’s rights (Merry 2003).
Yet, as feminist IR scholars have shown, though gender equality has become a legitimate global
policymaking concern, social equity and justice remains elusive for most women and many men
as militarization, securitization, and economic globalization become dominant concerns (Tripp,
Ferree, and Ewig 2013; Runyan and Peterson 2014, 2). Can feminist mobilization through
NGOs/INGOs degender global governance, effectively challenging the historical and contem-
porary symbolic and material processes underpinning global gendered power relations (Runyan
and Peterson 2014, 256)?
To address this question, we focus on what NGOs actually are and do in practice, how they
participate in global governance, and which kinds of gains and costs can be expected when
women’s rights movements organize at least partly through this form. We begin by clarifying
what defines the NGO form and review the debate over “NGOization,” the increased profes-
sionalization of NGOs vis-à-vis grassroots organizing (Alvarez 1999). We discuss how, in the
context of neoliberalism, NGOs/INGOs mobilize and distribute social movement resources
for differently positioned women in ways that matter for (de)gendering global governance.
We consider then how NGOs/INGOs interpret and mobilize discourses on women’s rights
anchored in international law to change the global governance of gender.

Conceptualizing feminist organizing through NGOs

What are NGOs? Feminist researchers often understand them as the more firmly institutional-
ized, bureaucratically organized, financially accountable forms of organizations into which social
movements are transformed by the demands of their environments – the mix of governmental
and market-based constraints and opportunities that shape collective forms of societal action
over time (Ferree and Martin 1995). The resources on which they depend are material and
discursive, and gains depend on political opportunities: the openness of political institutions,

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the stability of elite alignments, the presence of elite allies, and the state’s capacity for repression
(McAdam 1996, 27–31). Opportunities are gendered (Ferree and Mueller 2004) and shaped
by access to influential networks and symbolic events (Joachim 2007; Keck and Sikkink 1998).
More recently, feminist scholars have questioned the notion that NGOs are non-
government, non-profit entities existing outside the state or the matrix of market logic
(Bernal and Grewal 2014a, 6–11). Instead of defining the NGO form by “what it is not,”
we view NGOs as gendered organizing forms that exist in continuity with the state (Bernal
and Grewal 2014a, 8). This conceptualization highlights the heterogeneity of NGOs in
how they are imbricated in a wide range of gendered state and neoliberal projects, legiti-
mating what is outside the state “into a legible form within a governmentality that parallels
official state power” (Bernal and Grewal 2014a, 8).
As Bernal and Grewal (2014a, 9) argue, the NGO as a gendered organizing form renders
women, who are usually defined in relation to the private sphere, as recognizable global political
subjects to states, donors, and international organizations (IOs) or intergovernmental organiza-
tions (IGOs). Consequently, NGOs simultaneously contest and uphold the gendered public/
private divide that shapes how differently positioned women engage in political action, domesti-
cally and transnationally (García-Del Moral and Dersnah 2014; Guenther 2011). This paradox
reflects neoliberalism’s changing dynamics between states and markets. As the role of the state as
a provider of public goods and services has shrunk, NGOs have stepped into such a public role
as private entities, frequently reinforcing rather than disrupting societal reliance on women’s
paid and unpaid work to do so (Bernal and Grewal 2014a, 10; Neumann 2013; Thayer 2010).
At the same time, NGOs can only be marginally possible in some political configurations.
In 2006, the Putin Administration signed into law a regulation to constrain foreign NGO
funding (Johnson 2009, 16). In 2017, the Chinese government implemented a similar law on
INGO management.1 These examples suggest that researchers cannot assume the underlying
liberal democratic global system, which has allowed INGOs to emerge and national NGOs to
flourish. States pass laws that constrain NGOs as organizations, targeting their connections with
IOs or IGOs. To date there is little research about how social movements in these countries
survive these legal constrains and state repression (but see Chua 2015; Wang forthcoming).
Repressive regimes become important sites for exploring the relationships between NGOs and
social movement organizations less deterministically.
Taking these contextual and geopolitical factors seriously is necessary to avoid idealizing
NGOs/INGOs as “capable of liberating communities and individuals from incompetent or
oppressive states on the one hand and the grip of the market on the other” (Watkins, Swidler,
and Hannan 2012, 286). By feminist organizing we understand “efforts led by women explicitly
challenging women’s subordination to men” (Ewig and Ferree 2013, 411). We further adopt
an intersectional and transnational perspective that acknowledges both the multiple positionali-
ties of individuals and organizations in hierarchies of power (Ferree and Mueller 2004, 578;
Yuval-Davis 2006), and the mutual constitution of the global and the local (Ferree and Tripp
2006; Grewal and Kaplan 1994). Throughout, our discussion highlights the diversity of NGOs/
INGOs as well as the various approaches and strategies that they employ to pursue this goal.
Some incorporate a focus on women’s empowerment as part of their work on development,
peace building in post-conflict zones, or women’s access to a variety of services. These organiza-
tions often engage in service provision in addition to other forms of advocacy, including lobby-
ing. Other NGOs/INGOs, however, may have a more explicit focus on women’s rights, as is
the case for NGO feminist organizing around violence against women (VAW) and trafficking.
The use of human rights frames and legal mobilization nationally and supranationally are often
tactics that these NGOs/INGOs employ to bring about policy gains in these areas.

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With a more realistic view of NGOs as organizations with diverse goals, constituencies, and
access to resources that are contingent on the broader political environments in which NGOs/
INGOS are located, we turn now to consider some consequences the NGO form may have.

Debating NGOization
Feminist IR scholarship on women’s rights emphasizes the influence of NGOs/INGOs on global
and therefore domestic policy, be it through their interactions with IGOs and/or their participa-
tion in transnational advocacy networks (TANs) (Friedman 2009; Friedman, Hochstetler, and
Clark 2005; Joachim 2007; Keck and Sikkink 1998; Tinker 1999; True 2003; Zwingel 2005).
This literature has considered the impact the increased professionalization of NGOs/INGOs as
producers of knowledge and expertise can have on the creation, evolution, and travel of norms
on women’s rights (Friedman 2003; Krook and True 2010; Meyer and Prügl 1999; Zwingel
2012) and the ability to hold states accountable for failing to uphold these norms (Friedman
2009; Merry 2003; Meyer 1999).
This literature acknowledges the hierarchies separating large-scale professionalized INGOs
from smaller domestic NGOs in terms of resources and access to IGOs and the state (Keck and
Sikkink 1998, 183; Tinker 1999), and the dangers of IGOs’ co-optation of feminist discourses
(True 2003). Yet, it has not fully engaged in the debate over whether professionalization entails
NGOs’ disconnect from the grassroots (but see Runyan and Peterson 2014). This debate, how-
ever, has been at the center of feminist social movement scholarship over the last two decades
(see Ewig and Ferree 2013; Ferree and Martin 1995; Ferree and Mueller 2004). At its core is the
assumption that “the grassroots” is the locus of radical social change. Although NGO profes-
sionalization may foster top-down donor–NGO relationships, and thus shape differential access
to resources for feminist organizing, we ask whether it is this professionalization that limits the
ability of feminist NGOs to challenge global gendered power relations.

NGOization and global gendered power relations

The term “NGOization” captures the controversies spurred by the increased professionalization
of women’s rights NGOs and their proliferation since the late 1990s (Alvarez 1999, 2009; Bernal
and Grewal eds. 2014; Hemment 2007; Jad 2007; Lang 1997; Lebon 1996). NGOization, how-
ever, does not refer to this proliferation but to the growing significance of “technical-advisory
activities” over “movement work” in this organizational form (Alvarez 1999, 187; Thayer 2010,
67). Technical-advisory activities grew as NGOs gained more access to the United Nations
(UN) and other IGOs, which required “professional organizational structures, action reper-
toires, and strategies necessary to address multi-level system of governance” (Della Porta, Kriesi,
and Rucht 1999, 21). In the context of transnational advocacy against gender violence, for
example, the UN relies on NGOs/INGOs to systematically document violations of women’s
rights to elaborate policy recommendations for states (Merry 2003).
Another source of professionalization in feminist NGOs was the downsized capacity for
state service provision (Bernal and Grewal 2014a). For example, Alvarez (1999) describes how
local governments, IGOs, and IOs came to expect feminist NGOs in Latin America to train
poor and working-class women to provide services previously available through state agencies
(Ewig 1999; Neumann 2013; Thayer 2010). NGOization thus formalized a mode of interaction
between women’s rights NGOs, states, and IGOs/IOs that misconstrued them as “surrogates
for [feminist] civil society” and entitled them to resources unavailable to other feminist groups
(Alvarez 1999, 183; Miller 2017).

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Paulina García-Del Moral et al.

The critics argue that the shift of feminist NGOs toward the production of expertise on
gender policies, executing civil action projects, and delivering services to women came at the
expense of sustaining an autonomous grassroots movement capable of challenging the state. In
collaborating with rather than contesting state power, feminist NGOs fail to confront the inten-
sification of social inequalities in the face of fiscal austerity and accountability imposed by IGOs/
IOs or foreign donors (Alvarez 1999, 182; Ewig and Ferree 2013, 420; Lang 1997).
Social movement scholars point to the power relations produced by NGOs having priority
access to resources for feminist organizing. Grassroots groups are less systematically structured
and may rely primarily on volunteers. Professionalized NGOs usually have paid middle-class
staff and institutionalized accountability procedures that render them legible to international
donors, making them more likely to secure funds than grassroots groups (Lebon 2013). If this
bureaucratized structure turns away volunteer activists, the gap between NGOs and grassroots
groups grows (Coe 2015). And NGOization may produce an image of professional activists
as self-interested actors prone to corruption (Tsetsura 2013). As NGOs become a dominant
organizing form, critics worry not only about women’s rights movements becoming more
bureaucratic and less radical, but also about the socio-economic estrangement among differently
positioned feminist organizations (Lebon 2013), and the co-optation of women’s rights by states
and IGOs/IOs through donor–NGO relationships (Silliman 1999).
The potential for such scenarios is stressed by feminist critiques foregrounding the inter-
section of feminist discourses with neoliberalism, global capital, and colonial/imperial logics
(Boyle and Preves 2000; Costa 2014; Darwiche 1999; Incite! Women of Color against Violence
2009; Naples and Desai 2002; Mindry 2001; Mojab 2010; Sangtin Writers and Nagar 2006;
Subramaniam 2007). According to Mojab (2010, 222), “feminists need to be cautious and criti-
cal of how the women’s rights agenda benefits from imperialist rule,” especially post-9/11. For
Mojab (2010, 222), an anti-imperialist feminist perspective reveals how donor-driven initiatives
to “build peace” and/or aid development in war or post-conflict zones are often a continuation
of imperialist projects that rely on the depoliticization of anticolonial and anti-capitalist struggles.
With a focus on the Middle East, Abdho (2010) and Tadros (2010) employ such a perspec-
tive. They interrogate domestic NGOs’ top-down implementation of Western donor-initiatives
that narrowly construe women’s empowerment as an individual matter, ignoring the structural
dimensions of gender inequality. They show how these initiatives reproduce racialized notions
of women in the Middle East who need saving by the West and leave the power of authori-
tarian regimes and their complicity in gender inequality intact. Chisthi (2010, 261) makes a
similar argument in her work on development aid in post-war Afghanistan, further claiming
that Western feminist analysis has yet to critique “the ‘imported’ regimes of masculine power
and authority” underpinning the various “ideological, political, and military agendas” of IOs,
foreign governments, and NGOs.
Likewise, Hemment (2014, 120) urges scholars “to interrogate our use of Western feminist
models and concepts in order to be responsive to local knowledge and to achieve truly demo-
cratic transnational engagements.” Hemment (2014, 138) problematizes the construction of
“crisis centers” by feminist NGOs in post-Soviet Russia as an outcome of Western donors’
initiatives that made “gender and violence a marker of development,” but remained blind to
the exacerbating effects of neoliberalism on local women’s lives. Though aware of this contra-
diction, Hemment (2014, 139) shows how crisis centers constructed women’s “self-help” and
“self-reliance” as solutions to violence, “screening out” local meanings of violence as rooted in
material inequalities and removing the expectation of state intervention. Indeed, Subramaniam
(2007) identifies how such discourses reflect the hegemony of Western knowledge and its
reproduction through donor–NGO relationships.

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The transnational impact on NGOization on the relationship between differently positioned

feminist activists is at the center of Thayer’s (2010) work. Focusing on Brazil, Thayer (2010,
130) argues that the unequal flow and distribution of funds or expertise among women’s organi-
zations not only reproduces intersectional inequalities, but also creates “a kind of parallel ‘social
movement market,’ which influences both the internal functioning of particular organizations
and their relations with allies in the [feminist] counterpublic.” For Thayer, such social move-
ment marketization threatens the autonomy of women’s rights organizations, since the finan-
cial contributions from international donors make them accountable to them as opposed to
their constituencies (Bagić 2006; Incite! Women of Color against Violence 2009; Miller 2017;
Yuval-Davis 2006). Moreover, as Heideman (2013) argues, the positionality of NGOs, their
staff, and constituents in transnational, intersectional power hierarchies affects project sustain-
ability. When NGOs and staff occupy marginalized positions within such hierarchies, they are
more vulnerable to donors’ top-down decisions and are less likely survive in the longer term,
especially when facing inevitable funding withdrawal (Heideman 2016).
Yet Heideman (2013) further found that constituents are not entirely powerless when it
comes to holding NGOs accountable. NGOs can lose their local legitimacy when constituents
perceive them to be too dependent on international funders. The relationship between pro-
fessionalized NGOs and grassroots groups is not only more complex, but transnational flows
of resources, though asymmetrical, are not unidirectional (Helms 2014). Although money and
expertise may often come from the global to the local, local actors also participate in transnational
networks and organizations (Johnson 2009; Sperling, Ferree, and Risman 2001; Tripp 2005). As
such, they are influential actors in shaping competing interests and connecting global exchanges
among actors. Against this background, some scholars have revisited the concept of NGOization.

Empowerment despite NGOization?

There are different positions among those scholars who have revisited the concept of
NGOization. Some, like Alvarez (2009), have claimed that NGOs are leaving technical-
advisory activities behind, leading to the decline of NGOization. In Latin America, Alvarez has
linked this shift to changes in the factors behind its “boom,” as well as in the “hybrid” nature
of feminist NGOs that allows the coexistence of professionalization with “movement work.”
Recently, “movement work” has come back to NGOs’ forefront, redeploying the policy gains
made through professionalized strategies to articulate new claims (Alvarez 2009, 178).
For other scholars, NGOization entails pitfalls and opportunities for feminist organizing,
depending on their socio-political contexts (Bernal and Grewal 2014; Helms 2014; Roy 2015).
For example, Guenther’s (2011, 870) analysis of NGOization in post-socialist Eastern Europe
shows that providing service and advocacy work are not inherently separate NGO tactics.
Though Guenther (2011, 877) acknowledges that professionalized NGOs tend not to challenge
the state, she highlights how they have fostered “critical countercultures and political posi-
tions” in the absence of a history of mass grassroots mobilizations in those societies. Equating
this with depoliticization obscures the significant policy gains made through professionalized
organizing, and how employment in women’s NGOs may be an act of resistance for women
being pushed back into the domestic realm. In turn, Nazneen and Sultan (2009) qualify the
impact of NGOization in Bangladesh by documenting how larger-scale NGOs may be better
able to negotiate foreign donor agendas and retain both their autonomy and feminist character
than smaller, grassroots organizations. Still suspicious of NGOs’ potential for depoliticization,
Nazneen and Sultan nonetheless identify the appeal of the alternative feminist spaces that NGOs
have created for younger women.

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Paulina García-Del Moral et al.

On their part, Asaki and Hayes (2011) illustrate how women’s NGOs in Kenya, Brazil, and
Peru support the initiatives of grassroots women. They argue for viewing grassroots women not
as “beneficiaries” or “clients” of NGOs, but as leaders who have found support through NGOs
and their resources. Lakkimsetti’s (2014) research on the reconfigured relationship between sex
workers and the Indian state in the context of the HIV/AIDS epidemic supports this finding.
INGOs and experts were instrumental in empowering sex workers at the grassroots, recogniz-
ing them as important participants in HIV/AIDS prevention projects. Legitimized as partners as
opposed to “beneficiaries” of such projects, sex workers became both entitled to resources and
empowered to make claims against the Indian state that would not have otherwise been possible.
This research suggests that it is the “overdetermined NGOization paradigm” that must be
left behind, not NGOs as a way of feminist organizing (Bernal and Grewal 2014b; Hodžić 2014;
Roy 2015). For Hodžić (2014), the NGOization paradigm is problematic because it posits a
universalist construction of opposition to the state through anti-institutional means, imagined
as mass grassroots mobilization, as the purest form of feminist resistance. Such imagined purity
ignores how grassroots movements are themselves often exclusive and abusive (Freeman 1973)
and may be homogeneous in ways that obscure the intersectional nature of gender issues (Prügl
2015). Idealization may also arise from an anti-institutionalist master narrative that sees hierarchy
as male (Ferguson 1991) and bureaucratized forms like professionalized NGOs as always harmful
for women’s rights (Hodžić 2014, 223).
In sum, there is a complex interplay of resources, opportunities, and expectations at work
as feminists organize as NGOs and establish relationships to donors. The primary focus of cri-
tique has been on the effects of resources and expertise in constraining what impact NGOs can
have, especially for marginalized women. Scholars have also shown that professionalized NGOs
can be implicated in sustaining global gendered power relations. Yet, the more positive view
also warns that the resource environments on which NGOs depend are complex and chang-
ing, providing organizations with other sets of opportunities to empower differently positioned
women and contest global inequalities. This is especially the case when considering what kinds
of effects on norms, discourses, and laws can be attained through feminist NGO/INGO work
at the transnational level.

Changing the global governance of gender

Feminist NGOs/INGOs have become transnational in their participation in a global chain
of governance, not only through flows of material resources and networks, but also through
specific efforts to alter discourses about women, gender, and rights (Miller 2017; Thayer 2010;
Watkins, Swidler, and Hannan 2012). The creation of the UN Convention on the Elimination
of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and other international and regional
treaties is a testament to this. We thus argue that feminist NGOs/INGOs have contributed to
changing the global governance of gender. Building on our discussion on NGOization, this
section reviews the feminist interdisciplinary literature on NGOs/INGOs’ role in facilitating
women’s claimsmaking in local and transnational arenas. The issue of violence against women
(VAW) is our entry point to discuss the gains of feminist NGOs/INGOs, but also the contro-
versies associated with their local implementation and/or NGO/INGO intervention.

The gains and costs of feminist NGO organizing against VAW

The recognition that women’s rights enjoy globally is the product of transnational feminist
organizing as grassroots, NGOs/INGOs, and TANs. Serving as an “unlikely godmother”

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(Snyder 2006), the UN created the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in 1946. The
CSW later sponsored three world conferences on women in Mexico City (1975), Copenhagen
(1980), Nairobi (1985) as part of the UN Decade for Women (1975–1985), and a fourth confer-
ence in Beijing (1995). While North–South tensions about what constitutes women’s empow-
erment played out at these conferences, they nevertheless operated as transnational opportunities
that legitimated the role of feminist NGOs on women’s issues (Ewig and Ferree 2013; Tripp
2006). It was in Mexico City that over 6,000 NGO representatives participated in a parallel
forum to the conference, creating a momentum for the transnational women’s rights move-
ment. Twenty years later, the attendance increased to 35,000 (Liu 2006), magnifying feminist
activists’ ability to pressure the UN and governments to address women’s concerns in the CSW
and parallel NGO forums that now happen annually. NGO participation in parallel forums,
however, is contingent on having UN consultative status that may not be attainable to resource-
poor NGOs (Merry 2003, 970).
The UN General Assembly’s adoption of the CEDAW in 1979 reflects the power of femi-
nist organizing, as does the subsequent development of other international legal instruments
that framed violence against women as a human rights issue in the 1990s (see Friedman 2003;
Joachim 2007; Liu 2006; Peters and Wolper 1995; Snyder 2006). Consisting of a preamble
and 30 articles, CEDAW defines what constitutes gender discrimination and creates binding
legal obligations for states to take measures against it. Member countries are required to submit
national reports once every four years to the committee overseeing its domestic implementation
(CEDAW Committee). To date, 188 states have ratified CEDAW, with the exception of the
United States and five other countries.
Yet, CEDAW did not include provisions to address VAW until 1992. As Keck and Sikkink
(1998) have documented, women’s rights NGOs, INGOs, grassroots groups, lawyers, femocrats,
and academics across the world came together as a transnational network to advocate for a recon-
ceptualization of human rights that would recognize the gendered politics of violence. As a result,
the CEDAW issued its 1992 General Recommendation No. 19 on VAW, followed by the non-
binding 1993 Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women (DEVAW). Moreover,
the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action (PFA) cemented the official status of women’s rights as
human rights. The PFA was supported by 189 states and constitutes “the most pro-women
agenda ever produced by the world’s governments” (Liu 2006, 924). Importantly, it identified
VAW as a “critical area of concern,” specifying steps states should take as part of their CEDAW
obligations. A year earlier, in 1994, the Inter-American Commission on Women, which is part
of the Organization of American States (OAS), created the first legally binding treaty on VAW:
the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence
against Women (Belém Do Pará Convention) (Friedman 2009; Meyer 1999).
These achievements, according to Joachim (2007, 143), are the outcome of the “dynamic
interaction of two factors: the political opportunity structure in which international women’s
organizations were embedded and the institutional and ideational resources that these organiza-
tions mobilized through time.” The world conferences that were part of the UN Decade for
Women (1975–1985) constituted the first political opportunity structure to introduce gender
and a concern with VAW to shape the human rights agenda. Despite the above-mentioned
tensions between Northern and Southern women’s organizations as well as shifting Cold War
politics, these conferences provided differently positioned women and organizations with a
platform to draw attention to the issue of VAW (see also Friedman 2003; Peters and Wolper
1995). Other UN world conferences in the early 1990s, especially on human rights in Vienna
1993, and later the Beijing conference in 1995, provided further opportunities. The resulting
emergence of transnational networks spurred the production of information and expertise on

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different forms of VAW across various national contexts and the creation of alliances within and
outside the UN, strengthening lobbying efforts that targeted UN member states as well as UN
agencies to recognize VAW as a human rights issue (Joachim 2007).
Salient here in particular is the resonance of this human rights frame through which women’s
organizations politicized VAW and mobilized an international constituency (Bunch and Reilly
1994), especially in the aftermath of the systematic use of sexual violence in the armed conflicts
in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda (Joachim 2007; Keck and Sikkink 1998). This resonance
ultimately resulted in legitimization and diffusion of this issue, and thus in its institutionalization
(Joachim 2007). Similar dynamics were at play in the OAS; indeed they were part of the same
efforts of transnational feminist organizing (Friedman 2009; Keck and Sikkink 1998; Meyer
1999; see also García-Del Moral and Dersnah 2014).
However, enforcing the CEDAW and DEVAW poses challenges for the CEDAW
Committee. First, states may not always submit reports on time, reports may be superficial,
or they may use ideas about culture and tradition as unchanging to excuse states’ short-
comings (Merry 2003). Second, only few states have ratified the 1999 CEDAW’s Optional
Protocol allowing individuals and/or NGOs to submit complaints. Last, while women’s
rights NGOs can contribute by submitting “shadow reports” documenting states’ short-
comings, the CEDAW Committee can only make non-binding recommendations to states.
But weak enforcement is less important than the role of CEDAW in “defin[ing] and nam-
ing problems and articulat[ing] solutions within a prestigious global forum” (Merry 2003,
943). Accordingly, feminist NGOs “name and shame” states for failing to address VAW at
CEDAW hearings to undermine their resistance to changing discriminatory practices (Merry
2003, 959). Nonetheless, this tactic may reproduce gendered notions of modernity and civi-
lization associated with Western as opposed to non-Western states (Boyle and Preves 2000;
Merry 2003, 2006). Furthermore, recourse to the CEDAW Committee may only be within
the reach of professionalized NGOs/INGOs.
Without explicitly addressing NGOizaiton, the work on vernacularization (Levitt and Merry
2009; Merry 2006) identifies this last point as a disconnect between professionalized NGOs
and the grassroots. Levitt and Merry (2009, 441) define vernacularization as “the process of
appropriation and local adoption of globally generated ideas and strategies.” Translators or “ver-
nacularizers” are usually national and transnational elites, who can use their privileged position
in NGOs or TANs to move from the global to the local and frame global ideas about women’s
human rights to fit local contexts (Levitt and Merry 2009, 446). While vernacularization chal-
lenges gender inequality by changing the local legal consciousness, Merry (2006, 134) claims
“grassroots groups are the ultimate target of these efforts, [but] not typically the translators.” The
corollary of this argument is that elites are better positioned to act as translators and more likely
to engage in transnational human rights advocacy. Consequently, they can better influence
global and domestic gender policymaking than grassroots activists.
The frames that women’s rights NGOs/INGOs use to encourage local claimsmaking or push
the state to act are not always welcome or ethical. Choo’s (2013) and Kinney’s (2013) work on
feminist NGO/INGO advocacy for migrant women’s rights in Asia exemplifies this. NGOs
use frames of victimization and trafficking based on the discourse of VAW as a human rights
violation to challenge victim-blaming practices that target migrant women who participate in
cross-border marriages or sex commerce in South Korea (Choo 2013). In Thailand, INGOs
use these frames to connect the rights of trafficked migrant women with the state’s interests in
national security and criminalizing trafficking (Kinney 2013, 82). In both contexts, this framing
has made services and resources available to migrant women. But in South Korea women have
often refused being framed as victims to be rescued rather than women who are taking steps to

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control and improve their own lives (Choo 2013). In Thailand, this frame puts migrant women
in a dilemma, asking them to accept that they are criminals because they are selling sex, or that
they are powerless victims of trafficking (Kinney 2013, 95). Thus, the translation of women’s
human rights into local contexts should not only entail vernacularization, but a negotiation of
identities and ethics among all the actors (Chua 2015; Ong 2011).
The predominant focus on the UN, CEDAW’s weak enforcement, or vernacularization
in the literature reviewed thus far has obscured other gains that feminist NGOs, in partner-
ship with grassroots activists and INGOs, have achieved to hold states responsible for VAW
in the Inter-American and European human rights systems (García-Del Moral and Dersnah
2014; García-Del Moral 2015; Santos 2007). Calling into question the professionalized NGO/
grassroots divide, García-Del Moral (2015, 2016b) shows how grassroots groups have used the
Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) to make claims against the Mexican state
for failing to address the killings of hundreds of women in Ciudad Juarez. In this case, the moth-
ers of murdered and missing women and other grassroots activists actively created and were
empowered by transnational ties with feminist and human rights NGOs/INGOs (García-Del
Moral 2015, 2016b). Their legal successes in the Inter-American system and their domestic
implications did not come at the expense of movement radicalism (García-Del Moral 2016a).
Moreover, grassroots feminists were able to expand understandings of state responsibility for
gender violence in international law by identifying the state’s complicity in sustaining structural
conditions that foster gender discrimination at the root of such violence.
Also obscured by the literature’s near-exclusive UN focus is the recursivity that exists between
the Inter-American, European, and UN systems, and how feminist NGOs/INGOs have taken
advantage of it in order to institutionalize women’s rights. García-Del Moral and Dersnah
(2014), for example, illustrate how the norm of state responsibility for domestic violence under
international human rights law evolved as feminists, lawyers, and activists working for NGOs/
INGOs, the UN, and regional systems employed formal legal and professionalized strategies to
combat the historical depoliticization of domestic violence as a private issue. The legal gains in
each system led the Council of Europe (CoE) that governs the European human rights system to
pass its own Convention on Preventing and Punishing Violence against Women and Domestic
Violence (Istanbul Convention) in 2011. This is now the second legally binding international
treaty on VAW. Interestingly, the European Union (EU) adopted this Convention in 2017,
strengthening the norm and likely deepening its implementation in European states.2
On the one hand, these developments echo what Conti (in progress) has called the “trans-
national state-ness” of international courts and supranational governance structures like the EU
or the OAS. Conti suggests that, as “new forms and loci of political power,” these entities may
exhibit qualities traditionally associated with states. As such, they have functioned as spring-
boards for feminist NGOs/INGOs to change the global governance of gender. On the other,
these gains are linked the “movementization of NGOs” (Helms 2014); that is, NGOs’ role in
spurring transnational feminist mobilizations that seek to empower women by changing how
they relate to states and IGOs (García-Del Moral and Dersnah 2014).
In sum, transnational feminist organizing as NGOs/INGOs has achieved international legal
gains that explicitly politicize VAW locally and globally and link women’s empowerment to the
dismantling of structural inequalities. International instruments and norms, IGOs, and interna-
tional courts are transnational spaces in and through which feminist activists, including women
at the grassroots, have contested the governance of gender. These gains are significant materially
and symbolically; however, their local deployment could still rely on frames or strategies that
may not accurately capture the complex realities of differently positioned women. This suggests
that the impact of gendered local and global changes, though mutually constituted, is not only

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context dependent (Liu 2006), but also requires that feminist NGOs attend to intersectionality
to challenge global gendered power relations.

Conclusion
Conceptualizing the NGO as a form of feminist organizing embedded in gendered state and
neoliberal projects renders impossible a universal or one-size-fits-all answer about their role in
degendering global governance. Changing the global governance of gender is only one step
toward its degendering. As Runyan and Peterson (2014, 258) argue, “degendering involves
vigilance against the too-easy answers of ‘problem-solving’ policy responses that are promul-
gated by elite decision-makers . . . rather than addressing what keeps (re)producing systemic
problems.” Empowering women through changes in international law or the creation of norms
on women’s rights can only go so far if women make claims in conditions marked by the
inequalities of neoliberalism, global capital, and/or ongoing imperialism or, alternatively, if poli-
cies based on such laws and discourses do not attend to the intersectionality of gender. These
scenarios are more likely to take place when NGOs intervene without being critical about their
own position in global gendered hierarchies and their relationship to donor or state interests.
Nevertheless, an “overdetermined NGOization paradigm” obscures how NGOs sustain the
transnational women’s rights movement. This paradigm fetishizes autonomy and the grassroots
(Bernal and Grewal 2014b, 305; Hodžić 2014, 244), ignoring the porosity between move-
ments and institutions, and neglecting analysis of other historical and geopolitical factors. It
also fails to recognize the “great diversity and fluidity in the manner in which NGOs actu-
ally operate in relation to different publics and at different scales of intervention” (Roy 2015,
111). Acknowledging this diversity is ultimately important for turning our attention from the
NGOization of feminism to what Helms (2014) has called the “movementization of NGOs.”
Such “movementization of NGOs” is evident in the ways in which NGOs have fostered
women’s empowerment through formal legal or professionalized processes to recourse to inter-
national courts and other supranational structures of global governance. The NGOization para-
digm, however, ignores grassroots women’s participation and leadership in changing the global
governance of gender through such processes.
Against this background, what are the implications of the NGOization debate for feminist IR
scholarship on women’s rights NGOs? We argue that it may complicate how feminist IR scholars
conceptualize the relationship between NGOs and multi-scalar social, political, and legal change
through the creation, travel, and institutionalization of norms. We suggest that feminist IR
scholarship can pursue the following questions in future research: if the grassroots are the locus
of radical social change and NGOs are disconnected from them, what are the implications for
the ways in which these NGOs construct norms or advocate for women’s rights? Alternatively,
if feminist IR scholarship takes the hybrid nature of NGOs seriously, how can it incorporate
a focus on their “movementization” as opposed to their technical-advisory activities? Can this
“movementization” bridge vernacularization and legal mobilization in international courts or
other supranational quasi-legal institutions? And last but not least, what is the impact of women
at the grassroots on norm construction and global and domestic policymaking?

Notes
1 http://politics.people.com.cn/n1/2016/0429/c1001-28313123.html.
2 https://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/council-europe/28130/eu-signs-istanbul-convention-13-june-2017_en.

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 17
NGOs and labour
Bob Reinalda

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and labour have been discussed as representatives of

so-called ‘new’ and ‘old’ social movements. This chapter, however, starts from a different point
of view, by comparing transnational advocacy networks and international labour during the
nineteenth century in order to show essential differences in international attitude that are relevant
for understanding labour’s later international development. The chapter also attempts to reach
beyond the European and North American assumptions and restrictions that are related to inter-
national labour. Finally, it does not restrict itself to transnational ties, i.e. relations between private
actors from several nation-states, but includes international ties, i.e. relations between NGOs and
labour on the one hand and inter-governmental organizations (IGOs) on the other.
While labour organizations within countries (political parties, trade unions and cooperatives)
are not considered to be NGOs, the international federations they create (mostly trade unions)
are seen as international NGOs. With the rise of the wage labour market in the industrial era,
it took time before labour organized internationally in the form of ‘Internationals’, in which
trade unionism was subordinate to the political movement. International labour regulation was
not on the unions’ agenda until the International Labour Organization provided an instrument
against the ‘race to the bottom’ that resulted from unlimited trade competition between coun-
tries. Unlike the transnational advocacy networks of NGOs, international trade unionism has
nationality and the coordination of national views, rather than professional issues, as the basis
for its international activism and it has a top-down, rather than bottom-up, way of working.
These differences matter when international unions and NGOs operate in the same field, with
international trade secretariats, now known as global union federations and participating in
transnational labour networks, most willing and prepared to cooperate with NGOs. The chap-
ter is arranged chronologically and covers the period from the late eighteenth century until the
present day.

Early transnational advocacy networks

The creation of issue-oriented private societies, against slavery or poverty, from the mid-
eighteenth century onwards began with small groups of citizens becoming aware of ethical and
social problems. They assumed that part of the solution was to form societies and associations

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aiming to deal with these problems (Tilly 2004; Davies 2013). Their group activities often
included appeals to local and national authorities. Once aware that several states faced similar
problems, transnational contacts such as correspondence, visits and meetings resulted in private
transnational networks. The process was assisted by the rise of the middle classes, an increase
in the number of people with the time, education and resources to take part in such activities,
and the improvement in transport and communication systems, as well as by public debates
about revolutionary developments and their aftermaths in the United States (US) (1776) and
France (1789).
Ethical arguments against slavery were expressed by concerned Quakers, Mennonites and
Methodists, as well as by people appealing to the ideals of the Enlightenment. Other arguments
were economic in nature, since, in line with Adam Smith’s new liberal ideas, the modern
economy would profit more from workers in a free labour market than from old types of labour
such as slavery. The British anti-slavery movement met with great sympathy, with 400,000
people signing petitions against the slave trade in 1791–92 and 750,000 in 1814 (Keck and
Sikkink 1998: 44). In order to stop the transatlantic slave trade by European states, the move-
ment presented 800 petitions to the House of Commons, spurring the government into pressing
for action at the Congress of Vienna (1814–15), which had to settle the end of the Napoleonic
wars, by including the issue on the agenda. The foreign secretary addressed this unusual issue in
Vienna as well as possible. The congress adopted a declaration in favour of universal abolition of
the slave trade (a first internationally agreed-upon principle formulated with the intent of chang-
ing an existing situation) and several countries that were given British compensation agreed to
abolish the trade (Reinalda 2009: 40).
During the 1830s British and American anti-slavery societies grew into widely supported
social movements. Transatlantic ties among Christian groups enabled an information exchange,
in which tactical recipes and collective action repertoires were diffused, including reference to
the Vienna declaration. In 1839 the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society was established,
aimed at changing public opinion. It organized well-attended international conferences in 1840
and 1843 and began to send delegations to Continental states and the US in order to encourage
citizens to establish more societies and to pressurize their governments. The use of informa-
tion politics (the promotion of change by publicly reporting facts) was one of the main tactics.
This public pressure was intended to hold a government to account for situations and to create
debates about causes and solutions. The resulting European and North American anti-slavery
campaign met the definition of a ‘transnational advocacy network’ as ‘a set of relevant organiza-
tions working internationally with shared values, a common discourse, and dense exchanges of
information’ (Keck and Sikkink 1998: 46).
During the 1840s the anti-slavery network inspired and supported the peace movement to
also develop transnationally by establishing national peace societies and convening international
congresses. Those advocating peace similarly found their inspiration in a critical religious con-
viction and in free trade as economic policy and they promoted the principle of arbitration as a
means for the settlement of international disputes (Reinalda 2009: 43–47).

Workers’ protest and social ideas

Before the industrial era forms of collective action by lower classes were riots, insurrections and
uproars, often as a result of deprivation, such as hunger and unfair treatment, and sometimes
inspired by religious or political ideas. Actions were mostly spontaneous and impulsive and often
violent, but also included petitions addressed to authorities. Leadership remained restricted and,
given the personal repercussions, dangerous.

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Collective action during the industrial era included both actions by workers and ideas about
labour’s desired position in society, with organizations as instruments to create change. The
French Revolution and its aftermath led early French Socialists, among them Henri de Saint-
Simon, to ‘visualize an industrial society wherein equality of economic opportunity would
prevail and wherein no man would be able to live off the labor of his fellows’. The majority
of them believed it necessary ‘to present a plan for social salvation, begin to experiment on a
small scale, interest powerful men in its development, and extend it to the masses’ (Laidler 1948:
45). The success of the Industrial Revolution in the United Kingdom increased the wealth of
the manufacturers, but left the workers with unemployment, misery and starvation. This gave
rise to numerous groups of working men who clashed with the government, which did not
tolerate violent upheaval (the Luddite protests were suppressed through force and trials) and in
1819 passed acts to stop public agitation. As a pioneer of the cooperative movement, British
industrialist Robert Owen tried to show that good labour conditions and wages were consistent
with business success, believing that the combination of work and social life could transform
the nature of capitalism.
During the first half of the nineteenth century the democratic movements in favour of work-
ers’ rights and women’s rights did not grow into transnational advocacy networks. National
developments included publications (e.g. favouring women’s rights), Saint-Simonist experi-
ments, reform movements (such as Chartism), early forms of trade unionism and revolts (e.g.
in 1848), but there were no societies cooperating across borders with shared values, a common
discourse and an exchange of information. The call of two German Socialists in a manifesto
they had written at the request of a German workers’ organization in London, and published
there in 1848 – ‘Working men of all countries, unite!’ – thus was premature. The International
Association, founded in London in 1855 by Continental refugees and British Chartists, was
a first organizational attempt, but it dissolved in 1859, due to political differences between
Democrats, Socialists and Anarchists (Lehning 1938).

The First International of 1864

Workers began to act transnationally during the 1860s. Workers from France and Germany
were among the visitors at the London World Exhibition of 1862 (Reinalda 2009: 147–148).
Looking for workers’ support, the French government had enabled 750 working men to travel
to the exhibition, where they met representatives of British trade unions. German workers met
with politically engaged German emigrants. Making use of these new contacts, British trade
union leaders, a delegation of French workers and representatives of Polish and German workers
in 1864 founded the International Working Men’s Association, which later became known as
the First International. A Central Council was established, consisting of representatives from the
countries, to set up national committees in their capitals and to investigate the conditions and
needs of workers by means of international congresses.
A German emigrant, who had just finished an extensive study of the rise of modern capitalism,
set himself up as a strategist on the commission that had to draw up the articles of association and
a programme. He explained the International’s objectives in an Inaugural Address, ending with the
same call as the Communist Manifesto of 1848, cited above. The address urged workers to organize,
with the aim of winning political power so as to achieve the working class’s emancipation and
a Socialist reorganization of society. The International convened a number of international con-
gresses, which supported the already emerging foundation of trade unions and political organiza-
tions by workers. However, both congresses and Central Council meetings were characterized by
fierce differences of opinion about the purposes and methods to be used. These political frictions

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became worse, as the International in essence was an association of people and not a federation
of organizations. During debates only a few people, rather than the delegates of local or national
organizations, imposed their views. Karl Marx was not averse to sharply criticizing those political
currents he disapproved of and showing them in a bad light by using negative qualifications such as
‘utopian’ and ‘impractical’. Within the Central Council he pushed what he believed was a sound
doctrine, if necessary by intrigue. In 1872 he countered the substantial Anarchist influence by his
proposal to transfer the Council’s seat to New York. The congress agreed and the International
in effect ceased to exist.
While NGOs had used the term ‘international’ since the 1830s (Davies 2013: 30), the First
International succeeded in bringing the word ‘International’ into the dictionary, in the sense
both of joining together internationally and of a political threat (due to its support of the Paris
Commune uprising of 1871). It distinguished itself from transnational advocacy networks, such
as the anti-slavery and peace movements, which urged people at grassroots level to establish
transnational relations to exchange ideas and to learn from each other’s experience. All such
bottom-up elements were lacking in the International, which was dominated by a few leaders.
Unlike the International, both the peace movement and the women’s movement developed
into transnational and international actors (Reinalda 2009: 148–153). The International League
for Peace and Freedom (ILPF) of 1867, which also attracted many workers, relied primarily
on an enlightened middle class and favoured Liberal reforms of the economy and the separa-
tion of church and state. It promoted debate and transnational ties among its members and
laid the foundation for international action by parliamentarians in favour of arbitration, which
eventually contributed to the creation of the Permanent Court of Arbitration by the inter-
governmental Hague Peace Conference of 1899.
The ILPF allowed women to participate in, and speak at, its congresses. Marie Goegg-
Pouchoulin felt encouraged to establish the International Alliance of Women (IAW) in 1868
and, as IAW president, was the first woman to address the ILPF congress and to become ILPF
treasurer. Both events were unprecedented feats. Goegg-Pouchoulin’s effort during the same
year to also contribute to debates within the First International failed, since the International
was not convinced of the necessity of paying particular attention to the position of women. The
IAW marked the beginning of transnational ties between women’s organizations in several fields
(e.g. prostitution and women’s suffrage) and actions resulting in international conventions (e.g.
against trafficking in women, 1904).

The Second International’s national orientation (1889–1914)

The Second International of 1889 did not develop into a transnational advocacy network
either and remained a fairly slight Socialist actor. It showed itself by organizing international
congresses every few years, had no secretariat or executive body and the resolutions adopted
at congresses were not binding. Its core consisted of European parties, with weak representa-
tion from India, Japan and the US. The Bureau that was established in 1900 served mainly
as a clearinghouse for information and correspondence. The strongest signal given by this
International was the arranging of an international demonstration on 1 May 1890 in favour of
the eight-hour working day, a demand addressed to both employers and governments, thus
laying the foundation for the international Socialist tradition of May Day, with its strong con-
notation of ‘international solidarity’.
Congresses, however, were dominated by differences of opinion, with two main issues: the
transformation from capitalist to Socialist production and property relations and participation
in parliamentary and legislative work. The national political systems provided the main context

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for these debates, because most workers were still excluded from existing suffrage arrange-
ments. The theoretical debates were dominated by the Germans, with the French as their main
opponents, and included the ‘revisionist’ question of whether capitalism could be transformed
gradually, if it was not abolished at once. The creation of international trade (union) secretariats
in the 1890s and an international secretariat of national trade union federations in 1901 showed
the same organizational weakness and national orientation as the Second International, which
also kept responsibility for all political and policy aspects of international trade unionism.
The Second International’s main characteristic was that it internationalized the internal con-
troversies of its member parties, rather than affecting its member parties through common
policies or bringing about joint action against governments or at inter-governmental level. This
made the Second International a reflection of the development of its individual member parties,
as was painfully demonstrated in August 1914, when a majority of national parties opted for
national defence and the International proved incapable of being a guarantor against war, as it
had always promised.

The International Association for Labour Legislation (1900)

That governments became interested in international labour regulation was not a consequence
of the international labour movement, although the mere fact of workers organizing nationally
and internationally contributed to the process. It rather was brought about by socially engaged
employers, economists and lawyers, as well as an international NGO based on their ideas.
The first to argue for international labour legislation was Robert Owen, who had concluded
that modern industrial capitalism was creating an international problem which could be solved
multilaterally by setting the legal limits of the normal working day for the industrial classes of
Europe. In 1818 he travelled to the diplomatic follow-up conference after the Congress of
Vienna in Aix-la-Chapelle in order to explain his views to the governmental representatives.
However, he was ahead of his time, as these representatives did not understand him and took
him for an eccentric (Lyons 1963: 136). In 1833 British entrepreneur Charles Hindley reached
the same conclusion as Owen and so did French economist Jérôme Blanqui in 1840. During
the 1840s experts argued that reforming labour legislation internationally might help avert revo-
lution, while during the 1850s the benefit of associations in improving social conditions was
acknowledged.
Governments became more aware of the social dimensions of their national economies,
due to the increasing pace of modern industrialism and the mounting pressure of international
competition. In 1877 Switzerland’s government publicly announced the possibility of con-
cluding a series of treaties with other states in order to harmonize factory legislation, but, when
exploring this in 1881, met with unwillingness. During the 1880s the idea of international
labour legislation became more widely accepted and the Swiss government prepared a confer-
ence in May 1890, but saw its plans upset by the German emperor who managed to organize a
conference in Berlin in March 1890. The Swiss had further-reaching ideas than the Germans,
such as a convention and a monitoring bureau, but most governments supported the German
proposals. The Berlin conference received wide publicity and the very fact that an official
diplomatic conference had gathered on the issue implied that governments were taking labour
regulation more seriously.
The thread was taken up again in 1897, when an international trade union congress on labour
protection asked the Swiss government to invite other states to consider setting up an inter-
national labour office. Almost simultaneously a group of lawyers and economists from France,
Germany and Switzerland drafted the statutes of a government-oriented international NGO.

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The resulting International Association for Labour Legislation (IALL) of 1900 had national
sections and an office in Basel. The IALL decided to limit its immediate objectives regarding
international conventions to two widely recognized issues (night work for women and the use
of industrial poisons), enabling the Office to investigate them and make recommendations to
governments. Governments appreciated the IALL’s expert work and sent more official observers
to its conferences. The adoption of the first two international labour conventions at a diplomatic
conference in 1906 (and the preparation of more conventions) resulted from both Swiss dip-
lomatic expediency and changes in domestic politics in several countries as a result of election
outcomes. Other government-oriented international NGOs in the field of labour concerned
social insurance (1889), occupational diseases (1906) and unemployment (1910).

The tripartite International Labour Organization of 1919

In 1919 the IALL’s work was continued by the tripartite International Labour Organization
(ILO) in Geneva, consisting of governments, trade unions and employers. That trade unions,
which had virtually not been involved in the IALL’s activities, now embraced the idea of inter-
national labour regulation resulted from three developments during the First World War: the
recognition and inclusion of labour in national political systems, the turnabout within interna-
tional trade unions which made them a proponent of international regulation, and governments’
fear of revolution.
With labour representatives gaining positions in government and governments adopting
social policies during the war, ‘class collaboration’ took precedence over ‘class struggle’, also
reflecting the political split between ‘reformist’ and ‘radical’ labour activism. European labour
parties and trade unions began to comprehend the social disturbances resulting from open econ-
omies and the remedy of internationally coordinated national agreements with regulations for
the labour market and systems of social insurance. Such national compacts required international
coordination in the form of a regime with common standards, to prevent unfair competition
and a ‘race to the bottom’. International trade union contacts and conferences during the war
resulted in a detailed programme of labour demands and the wish to influence the peace nego-
tiations in Versailles, with the Americans not being in favour of state intervention as the major
difference between European and American unions. Governments’ fear of radical social changes
as a result of the revolutionary events in Russia in 1917 contributed to the social concession
of institutionalized international labour legislation at Versailles, with governments hoping that
moderate labour organizations would not choose the revolutionary model, while the increase in
unionization during and immediately after the war in almost every industrialized state gave the
trade union movement political momentum (Windmuller 1980: 29).
The origin of ‘tripartism’ was a British idea, set out by the Fabians in 1916. In the ILO it
became a formula with two governmental representatives, one trade union representative and
one employer representative. This gave governments a voice equal to that of the combined
social partners, but avoided situations in which national legislatures would reject conventions
adopted by a two-thirds majority without governments agreeing. The ILO continued the prac-
tice of international labour conventions, started in 1906, through the adoption by a qualified
majority of international agreements in the form of conventions and recommendations. From
1919 to 1939 the ILO adopted sixty-seven conventions and sixty-six recommendations. Taken
together, these conventions and recommendations are known as the International Labour Code.
International trade unions in their role as ILO participants were relatively weak partners,
due to the lack of cooperation between them and the division of labour between interna-
tional confederations of national federations and international trade secretariats. While the

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confederations took care of major international policies in general, the latter concentrated
on more practical objectives for their trades. The choice made in 1901, in line with previous
developments, to make nationality rather than the profession the basis of international trade
unionism was not discussed in 1919. As a result, international unions remained focused on the
coordination of national views, with national unions mainly interested in their political and
representative functions.
Trade unions represented at the ILO embodied ‘blue’- rather than ‘white’-collar workers and
most workers’ organizations had difficulty in reaching beyond the industrialized states or indus-
trialized areas elsewhere, while colonialism also set limits to their activities. The strong antago-
nism between Communist and Social Democratic trade unions implied another weakness. In
1919 Russian Bolsheviks established the Communist International (known as Comintern or
Third International), which during the 1920s developed into a ‘world party’ with national
sections in several states that had to execute unconditionally the instructions of the Moscow
Executive, including in the field of trade unionism. The Second International continued as the
Labour and Socialist International from 1920 and was the Comintern’s main opponent.
The new relations forged in 1919 did not leave any room for the IALL. Governmental repre-
sentatives and trade unionists engaged in the Versailles negotiations simply took over the work-
ings and expertise of the IALL, without thanking this predecessor very explicitly. The ILO was
enabled to take over the libraries of both the IALL and the international association on unem-
ployment, so from the start the ILO had a significant database at its disposal. The significance of
the IALL as an ‘epistemic community’ was continued by another, differently composed group
of experts, now located within and around the ILO. What was left of the IALL and the NGOs
on social security and unemployment merged in 1925 to form the International Association for
Social Progress. Its influence was limited. Another labour NGO, the International Cooperative
Alliance, had to wait until 1948 before it could represent consumers’ interests within the ILO.

International women’s NGOs and labour

International women’s NGOs had been successful in lobbying the Versailles negotiations,
because, as a result of their pressure, all positions under or in connection with the League of
Nations would be open equally to men and women. These women’s organizations had also
lobbied the ILO, the League’s specialized agency, from the start, arguing for the relevance of
female experts in delegations, female ILO staff and close relations with women’s NGOs. The
ILO attached weight to its relations with the international women’s movement, although the
relationship was less strongly institutionalized than the one with trade unions and only of a
consultative nature.
This consultative status, however, would not be an impediment to influencing the ILO with
ideas other than those of the unions. While labour organizations focused mostly on the special
protection of women, during the 1930s international women’s NGOs pressured for the idea of
equality between women and men, within the League of Nations on the legal status of women
and within the ILO on equal pay and treatment. The ILO had mainly instigated conventions
and recommendations for the special protection of women, but NGOs like the International
Federation of Business and Professional Women and Open Door International succeeded in
applying sufficient pressure for the idea of equality to gradually gain acceptance. Pressure over
equal pay grew steadily and in 1937 the ILO recognized for the first time that discrimination
against women existed and decided that the status of women must change. The ILO thus
became an actual supporter of women’s equal right to paid work, full opportunity in education
and recognition of women’s civil and political rights (Riegelman Lubin and Winslow 1990: 48).

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The ILO qualified its special protection of women workers in 1939 by pointing out that the
welfare of all workers should be safeguarded.

Labour in the non-Western world

The first ILO conference in Washington DC in 1919 was attended by delegations from thirty-
nine countries. All European states were represented, with the exception of the Central Powers,
Communist Russia and the hitherto unrecognized Baltic states. Most Latin American states
were represented. Asia had delegates from China, India, Japan and Siam; the Middle East from
Persia. In addition to India two British dominions, Canada and South Africa, were represented.
Given the entry of several states during the 1920s, the ILO gained a fairly universal membership.
The definition of ‘labour’ by historians has remained narrow due to its focus on industrial-
ized Europe and the wage-earning industrial working class (Berger 2017: 394–395). Trade
unions were the most direct defence organizations of industrial workers, with working-class
parties in many parts of Western and Central Europe achieving impressive electoral results and
German Social Democracy becoming the model of a well-organized party. Apart from unions
and parties European labour united friendly societies, cooperatives and a whole range of unor-
ganized, spontaneous forms of working-class protest, including food riots, factory occupations
and other rebellions. Labour was furthermore characterized by its strong emphasis on education,
an intense orientation towards the future and its maleness, given the overwhelming majority of
pioneers, representatives and members were men.
For the movements representing working people outside Europe, often under conditions of
colonialism, Stefan Berger (2017: 397–405) uses the concept of ‘subaltern’ workers, with the
boundaries between wage and non-wage labour and between free and unfree labour remaining
far more blurred in the Global South than in the industrializing West. Such subaltern work-
ers were not restricted to the wage-earning industrial labour force, but included other kinds
of workers in an economy that triggered vast processes of migration in increasingly globalized
world markets and produced migrant labour on a hitherto unprecedented scale.
Although representatives of the European labour movement travelled to the imperial and
colonial areas to encourage the building of labour organizations along lines that looked familiar
to their Western experience, conditions in the non-Western colonial habitats were different and
influenced the characteristics of the local movements. This was even true for the US, where the
American ‘frontier’ and the idea of basic social equality regardless of class (the ‘American dream’)
contributed to major differences between European and US labour movements. Europeans
also brought the traditions of their labour movements to the white settler societies of Latin
America, with ensuing strong revolutionary traditions, including Marxist and Anarchist vari-
ants. However, the strong economic and political influence of the US as a regional hegemon
also resulted in control of Mexican and Caribbean trade unions by US unions. The Australian
workers’ movement regarded Australia as a better, less class-ridden, version of Europe, in which
white workers (their point of reference) had the same rights and obligations as everyone else. Its
social reformist agendas included the introduction of social insurance, unemployment benefits
and workers’ safety legislation, making Australia, together with New Zealand, a pioneer of the
welfare state.
Japan became an early modern industrial society and a colonizing state in Asia, establish-
ing itself as ‘the West’ in ‘the East’ through its Western-style trade unionism and a Japanese
Socialist party that had multiple links with the West. However, strong religious and social ties
kept Japanese workers bound to their agrarian origins and a feudal system that was used for the
control of workers eventually resulted in tame company unions and a management style that

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emphasized harmony and partnership. China ignored the advances of Western imperialism as far
as possible, but became a semi-colonial space with the rise of a waged industrial class in its indus-
trial heartlands and regional variations in the development of labour movements elsewhere.
Comintern influence resulted in the rise of Communism in the interwar period, while a power-
ful merger of class and national discourses played a role in the Chinese civil war, from which
the Communist party emerged victorious in 1937. The Indian labour movement also focused
on the salaried industrial work force in small industrialized pockets of the vast Indian economy.
It was strongly influenced by Marxism and also saw a merger of Socialism and nationalism.
However, there was a huge sector of informal and unorganized labour in the Indian economy,
in which working women, tradesmen and labouring classes also tried to organize.
The labour movements in the late Ottoman empire showed a tradition of left-wing political
activism and unionism in the most industrially advanced areas, while the small labour move-
ments in the Islamic world based on salaried industrial workers were mostly secular in character.
With regard to most sub-Saharan African countries Berger (2017: 403–404) speaks of ‘an inter-
mittent development’ of industrial working classes and their organizations, with terms such as
‘kinship’ and ‘community’ far more powerful in explaining developments than working-class
formation and proletarization, and social networks more important than formal trade unions.
Resistance among non-industrial and non-salaried groups of workers included slave labourers,
which in practice could not be easily transformed into wage labourers. Differences in Africa
furthermore were related to the colonial subjection and division of Africa, particularly between
British, French and also German traditions.

Uniting workers with different skin colours

An original answer to the question of how labour should react adequately to the strong inter-
nationalization of capitalist interests after 1919 was given in Edo Fimmen’s book Labour’s
Alternative (1924). Fimmen was secretary of the largest international trade secretariat, the
International Transportworkers Federation (ITF). Having developed from a local to a national
movement, trade unions should now understand that a struggle conducted within national
limits was becoming more and more inadequate. Given the internationalization of capital and
its division of labour on an international scale, trade unions should unite under international
trade secretariats rather than an international confederation of national federations, according to
Fimmen, who thus proved to diverge from the general trend. It was not the national perspective
that should come first, but the international one, which in his eyes was as yet purely European
in scope. The ITF therefore had to become a truly global organization with Continental secre-
tariats, organizing all workers of the world, whatever their origin or skin colour.
The ITF thus began to expand its activities to other continents and to integrate Latin
American and Asian trade unions into the ITF. This global model of organization put the
ITF ahead of other unions. It was important because of both its geographical scope and its
conscious, and remarkably early, effort to unite workers with different skin colours. While
Fimmen was arguing that the ITF should organize all workers, be they white, brown, black
or yellow, Western shipping companies began replacing European crew with cheaper labour
from Asia, which caused many sailors to speak about the ‘yellow peril’ of Asian sailors. The
ITF tried to combat this racism, and in 1928 Fimmen noted that white workers often felt more
solidarity with other white people than with fellow class members whose skin had a different
colour. He argued against such contempt and stressed that the European labour movement
had to pay attention to the life and labour of the workers in the colonial countries (Reinalda
1997: 120–121).

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In order to further transform the ITF and prepare regional secretariats outside Europe,
Fimmen travelled to North Africa, Canada, Japan and China. Since 1931 the Japanese had tried
to act as a sub-secretariat, but were hampered by political circumstances. Being too critical (the
seafarers’ union did not approve of the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and the attack
on China in 1937), the Japanese government compelled the union in 1939 to withdraw from
the ITF, which put an end to the ITF’s regional work in Asia. The plans for an Australasian
conference also had to be abandoned because of the outbreak of the Second World War in
1939. The Latin American contacts, however, supported the ITF in continuing its trade union
activities during the war, but it was not until 1949 that the ITF could establish a sub-secretariat
in Cuba and a regional information office in India. By that time, however, it was no longer
an anti-colonial strategy that moved the ITF across borders in order to devote attention to the
needs of workers in countries with ‘coloured’ populations, but rather the Cold War.

The Cold War and after

During the process of establishing the United Nations (UN) in 1945, the Soviet Union had a low
opinion of the ILO and it was largely because of Soviet resistance that the ILO did not become
a specialized UN agency until May 1946. The Soviet Union also felt that freedom of association
and violations of that right, an issue brought up in the debate about human rights, should come
under the remit of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) rather than of the ILO.
The merger of the major pre-war international confederation and international Communist
trade unions into the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) in 1945 was based on the
expectation that the old relations would no longer prevail after the war. This ‘unity movement’
supported the Soviet Union in its opposition to the ILO, because a majority within the WFTU
endorsed the Soviet Union’s foreign policy, which also made the WFTU an important factor
in the emerging Cold War between ‘East’ and ‘West’. When it was given consultative status at
the UN, it proposed setting up a commission within ECOSOC to investigate violations of trade
union rights. Whereas the WFTU limited itself to violations in the non-Communist world, the
US trade unions, which had begun to play an international role from the late 1930s onwards and
now sided with the US government, drew attention to Eastern Europe as well. The US trade
unions, in turn, also appealed to the UN, but in this case to the Commission on Human Rights,
and submitted that the ILO should investigate trade union rights violations.
Based on the agreement between the UN and ILO, ECOSOC ruled that the ILO was the
appropriate agency. The ILO then placed freedom of association on the agenda, which resulted
in two robust ILO conventions on freedom of association (number 87, 1948) and the right to
organize (number 98, 1949), including two special bodies to monitor compliance. The ILO,
whose authority had been challenged by the Soviet Union, thus emerged as the winner. The
conflict also showed that there were two tendencies within the WFTU which were difficult to
unite. This led to a split in 1949, with the WFTU becoming the organization of the Communist
states (and some Communist-led unions in the West) and a new International Confederation
of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), with ‘free’ deliberately included in the name. The ICFTU
became the main trade union actor within the ILO, emphasizing the freedom of trade unions
as a feature of democracy and using it as an example in the ideological debate between East
and West, which gave certain ILO conventions added weight. However, like in the pre-war
situation, international labour was seriously divided and politically tied to the respective major
Cold War actors. Robert Cox (1977) discussed this situation as one of US hegemony, in which
neither the ILO nor the ICFTU enjoyed a stable relationship with US global power, while the
Global South (‘Third World’ at the time) was not an alternative counter-hegemonic force.

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In the context of decolonization both internationally oriented trade unions and NGOs saw
the issues of development assistance and human rights as parts of processes of emancipation
meant to further economic and social progress, or in the case of dictatorship (as in Latin America)
to restore democracy and independence of labour and civil society organizations. Examples of
labour’s continued relevance are the emergence of powerful independent labour movements
during the economic expansion of the so-called ‘newly industrializing countries’, such as South
Korea and Taiwan, since the 1970s, the leading role of independent black trade unions in the
anti-apartheid movement in South Africa since the mid-1980s, the rise of an industrial work-
ing class in China, including large waves of strikes and labour unrest, and, more recently, the
upsurge of militancy among low-wage and often undocumented immigrant workers in the US
(Silver and Karatasli 2015: 133–136).
The end of the Cold War weakened the ILO’s human rights regime severely, since the need
to remind Communist states to respect those rights no longer existed. States from the South,
referring to specific cultures and traditions, furthermore argued that human rights could be of
different importance in one continent than in another. As industrializing states, they did not
have an urgent need for social rights in the field of labour, which they regarded as obstacles to
their development opportunities imposed on them by the industrialized world. Profound tech-
nological changes require a more flexible trade unionism in the twenty-first century, including
a shift in emphasis towards ensuring the employability of workers and continuous training and
skill upgrading. But, whereas labour in the industrialized world is employed in companies and
enterprises at the very frontier of technological progress and global economic leadership, the
situation in many Southern states is quite different, because labour is employed in less favourable
conditions (Jose 2002).

Transnational labour networks

When NGOs provided support to labour-oriented international campaigns, the NGO–union
alliance showed certain tensions. While NGOs added legitimacy by referring to their specific
values and norms, or responded more quickly than large unions to requests for assistance from
workers, unions felt that NGOs were ‘less understanding of what it takes to organize workers
to achieve sustainable change’ (Gordon and Turner 2000: 254). In the field of human rights
common interests existed between unions and NGOs, as many prisoners of conscience are
trade unionists, but relationships with environmental NGOs were somewhat tenuous because of
‘abiding union concerns that expenses incurred by employers to improve environmental protec-
tions could threaten jobs’ (Gordon and Turner 2000: 89).
Unions furthermore referred to the smaller membership and lesser representativeness of
NGOs, but there were also processes of learning when unions began to understand that they
had to work with far less traditional NGOs in broad alliance strategies, such as in campaigns
against child labour in and beyond the ILO and when pushing for non-trade values and ‘social
clauses’ within the World Trade Organization (WTO). Drawing public attention to transna-
tional corporations and their cheap sub-contracting in Asia, including the violation of labour
rights, is another example. Such strategic alliances, ‘described as social-movement unionism’,
require a view looking towards, or from, the South that recognizes ‘the heterogeneity of the
labour conditions’ and ‘the breadth of coverage and vision needed by workers’ organizations’
(Munck 2002: 126). NGOs, in turn, questioned the unions’ representativeness in the informal
sector or showed that prohibition of child labour may be an element in combatting ‘the race
to the bottom’, but also reinforced the developed world’s competitive advantages, with adverse
consequences for developing countries.

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During the 1980s and 1990s a new form of linkages among labour or labour-related activists
emerged that tended to take ‘the form of transnational advocacy networks’ in favour of retain-
ing or regaining labour rights. Referred to as ‘transnational labour networks’ (TLNs), they often
have convenors that are not connected to unions, place much emphasis on non-financial and
non-contract issues and are not organized as hierarchical organizations but in the more flexible
network form (Kidder 2002: 269–270).
Workers organize in this way because they have the same transnational corporation employ-
ers and common issues, which result from the globalization of production and its consequences
for worker participation and representation, or because unions suffer from the impact of inter-
national trade regimes, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and the European
Union’s single market, decisions by the WTO and austerity measures by international financial
institutions. Networks with other social movements are formed when issues are complex and
expertise can be combined. Some networks are formed outside unions because of problems
within unions, often related to issues being discussed from the perspective of workers and their
families rather than from the perspective of union goals. When women’s networks are engaged,
they emphasize testimonials and exchanges that integrate personal, community and work-site
experiences, rather than discussing the work realm in isolation. These networks are motivated
to empower participants and seek to build long-term solidarity by constructing new collective
identities (Kidder 2002: 271).
Transnational linkages of other social movements and institutions may support the emer-
gence of TLNs. Network forming around principled issues, such as corporate responsibility
and economic justice, may be aided by both moral and financial support of religious and other
organizations (Kidder 2002: 291). Relevant elements of TLNs are recognition of unions, the
role of unconventional groups, such as farmers, contacts between grassroots workers groups and
exchanges of ideas. Transnational contacts present different movements with the opportunity
to adopt similar discourses, strategies and tactics. Unions that engage see that their networks
become deeper and more diverse due to the overlap with other movements and also find that
their traditional ideas expand and that new ways of mobilization become available (Fonow and
Franzway 2011; Burgmann 2016). Within TLNs international trade secretariats are now known
as ‘global union federations’.

Labour and NGOs: conclusion

Whereas the anti-slavery, peace and women’s movements emerged in the nineteenth century
as bottom-up transnational advocacy networks, labour developed its own international form,
in which certain individuals, parties and countries controlled organizations top-down, without
much interest in international labour regulation. International regulation was promoted by an
international NGO with a non-working men’s background, the IALL, which in 1919, after
a turnabout by international trade unions during the war, was replaced by the tripartite ILO,
with international unions as participants. International coordination in the form of a regime
with common labour standards (expressed in ILO conventions and recommendations) helped
to mitigate social disturbances resulting from open economies and to prevent unfair competi-
tion between states and a ‘race to the bottom’. In spite of their weaker institutional status,
international women’s NGOs succeeded in changing ILO ideas about women (from special
protection to equality). The labour movement’s model, based on the wage-earning industrial
working class of industrialized Europe, was also transferred to the colonies, although work there
had a different form, given the blurred boundaries between wage and non-wage and between
free and unfree labour (Berger’s subaltern workers). However, the ITF’s global and anti-racist

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strategy, which tried to deal with these differences, remained exceptional within international
trade unionism.
The ILO’s function as a bulwark against the ‘race to the bottom’ continued after the Second
World War, but with labour trapped in the ideological debate between East and West and in
the North–South divide. Unions remained relevant also when the Cold War’s end weakened
the ILO regime. Cooperation between international unions and NGOs on several issues was
strained, due to the different worlds to which they belonged. However, against the background
of globalization of production and further trade liberalization since the 1980s, which in fact
reinforced the ‘race to the bottom’, a new form of linkages, very similar to transnational advo-
cacy networks, emerged, with global union federations cooperating with grassroots worker
groups and NGOs in so-called transnational labour networks.
Labour, regarded as one of the oldest classic social movements, was fairly political, in the sense
of raising issues concerning state power with the intention of changing the balance between
powerholders and powerless through mass mobilization, organization and public pressure. The
movement was radical, extensive and persisting and, in certain parts of the world, succeeded
in being incorporated into national systems. Its main interpretation referred to processes of
‘proletarization’ (with capitalism encouraging polarization between bourgeoisie and proletariat)
and ‘emancipation’ (as a struggle of being set free from social, political and legal restrictions).
Late-twentieth-century social scientists changed the interpretation when they noted that the
increase in participants in social movements did not come from the workers, but from social
and professional groups that had more discretionary time available. Attention shifted towards
interactions between ‘traditional’ and ‘new’ actors and between institutionalized systems of
interest representation and less conventional forms of action (Della Porta and Diani 1999: 10).
Some added doubts about the continued existence of the working class in what was called ‘post-
industrial’ society and agreed that class struggle was of decreasing relevance. Instead, they associ-
ated with ‘new’ social movements and their transnational networks and international NGOs that
were concerned with social dimensions other than class, such as gender, ethnicity and lifestyle,
and with more general issues, such as human rights, environment and peace. Working-class
organizations were seen as having ‘sold out’, neglecting the ‘truly dispossessed’ and actively
excluding women, racial/ethnic minorities and immigrants ‘in order to protect the interests of
a privileged labor aristocracy’ (Silver and Karatasli 2015: 134). However, labour should not be
neglected, given the role of working-class actors in older and more recent protest movements,
such as Occupy and the Arab Spring, as well as the existence of the transnational labour net-
works discussed above.

References
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Burgmann, V. (2016) Globalization and Labour in the Twenty-First Century, London and New York:
Routledge.
Cox, R.W. (1977) ‘Labor and Hegemony’, International Organization 31(3): 385–424.
Davies, T. (2013) NGOs: A New History of Transnational Civil Society, London: Hurst & Company.
Della Porta, D. and M. Diani (1999) Social Movements: An Introduction, Oxford: Blackwell.
Fonow, M.M. and S. Franzway (2011) Global Union Networks, Feminism, and Transnational Labor Solidaruty.
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papers/global-union-networks-feminism-and-transnational-labor-solidarity.
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Jose, A.V., ed. (2002) Organized Labour in the 21st Century, Geneva: International Institute for Labour
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D. Della Porta and M. Diani, eds, The Oxford Handbook of Social Movements, Oxford: Oxford University
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 18
NGOs and human rights
Marc S. Polizzi and Amanda Murdie

In early 2018, many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were focused on the particu-
larly egregious situation in Burma/Myanmar. In the Rakhine state, Rohingya Muslims were
tortured, killed, and raped by security forces. Anyone critical of the government risked arrest
and prosecution. Hundreds of thousands of individuals were displaced as villages were burned
and thousands killed. In no uncertain terms, the situation was a human rights emergency.
Human rights NGOs from all areas of the world responded to the emergency; some organiza-
tions sent relief, while others spoke to the media, to intergovernmental organizations, and on
legislative floors about the situation. Many organizations tried to document the abuses, even
relying on satellite images of the destruction. Others called on outside governments and the
United Nations to respond (Amnesty International 2016/2017; Human Rights Watch 2017;
Ponniah 2017).
In fifty years, will history remember the Rohingya people? Will we see this as a successful
case of NGO involvement and human rights improvement? There are many past human rights
success stories. Improvements after the Arab Spring in human rights conditions in Tunisia,
growth in de jure LGBGTIA+ rights in the United States, and the eradication of the death
penalty in many countries around the world have all been attributed to the efforts of NGOs
(Mathias 2013; Van Hüllen 2013; Asal, Murdie, and Sommer 2017). More broadly, the work
of human rights NGOs was essential in the creation of many of the treaties and government
institutions designed to help protect human rights at the international and domestic levels.
However, human rights improvement is a long and iterative process. There are powerful cases
where, even with the efforts of committed advocates, the world has failed to respond in ways
that limit atrocities and improve human rights conditions. Nonetheless, many human rights
NGOs persist, often tirelessly working in the name of a world where the full enjoyment of
human rights is a reality.
This chapter focuses on the study of human rights NGOs in International Relations. We
focus first on the definition of these organizations and the variation that exists within the sector.
We then briefly outline how existing theoretical approaches in International Relations have
approached human rights NGOs. After that, we focus on the tactics and strategies that NGOs
have used in the pursuit of human rights improvement and then focus on what recent empiri-
cal scholarship has found about their impact. Finally, we address what we see as the coming

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challenges in this area, both for advocates on the ground and for International Relations scholars
interested in studying this dynamic NGO sector.

Defining human rights NGOs

Human rights NGOs are generally thought of in a very encompassing way in International
Relations: any non-governmental organization with a human rights-related mission statement
can be classified as a human rights NGO. There are many different rights outlined in the United
Nations’ (UN) Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR): everything from the right
to marriage and culture to the right to be free from torture and political imprisonment. These
rights have been further codified in binding international and regional human rights treaties.
Since all of these protections are classified as human rights, organizations can focus on a wide
variety of rights and still fit within this broad conceptualization of a human rights NGO.
Within the broadly defined human rights issue areas, there is much variation in the NGO
field. We highlight five dimensions on which organizations vary. First, organizations can focus
predominately on “negative” or “positive” human rights (Nickel 1987, 14). Negative rights are
rights that simply require restraint from governmental or non-governmental actors in order to
be fully enjoyed. They are sometimes thought of as a “right from” something instead of “right
to” something. For example, enjoying your right to freedom from torture requires governments
and non-governmental actors to refrain from using torture. Positive rights, however, are com-
monly thought of as requiring mainly government provision; the rights to food or health care
would be positive rights in that basic food provision and social services would require govern-
ment provision and regulation. Many economic, social, and cultural rights can be categorized
as positive rights.
We can see human rights NGOs currently working on both positive and negative rights. For
example, when Human Rights Watch issues calls against prisoner abuses in North Korea, this
is advocacy concerning negative rights. On the other hand, positive human rights organizations
like Housing Rights Watch work predominately on issues about the right to housing. Although
organizations focus on both categories of rights, the majority of human rights organizations still
focus predominately on negative rights. Based on Cold War divisions, the United States and
other Western countries often focused on negative political and civil rights. Positive economic,
social, and cultural rights were sometimes incorrectly seen as part of a communist or socialist
regime (Whelan and Donnelly 2007). In some ways, this division helped to encourage many
Western NGOs, including those that worked in developing countries, to focus mainly on nega-
tive rights. These rights were championed by powerful donor countries that could bring funds
and attention to these issues.
Relatedly, the “naming and shaming” or “shaming and blaming” techniques human
rights NGOs are known for are thought to work best when there is a clear causal chain
from victim to abuser (Roth 2004). The early focus on shaming by many human rights
NGOs could have reinforced the focus on negative rights, especially rights where govern-
mental actors were identified as the abuser. It is much harder to “shame” about a positive
right like the right to food; the causal chain is much murkier, and the abuse may be seen
as passive on the government’s part instead of active in nature. For example, a lack of the
full enjoyment of the right to food in Bangladesh could be due to government actions but
is also likely linked to a lack of development within the country and a history of colonial
exploitation. This murkier victim-to-abuser chain may have made human rights organiza-
tions more likely to focus on negative rights.

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A division of labour among various NGOs could be another factor that contributed to the
predominant focus on negative rights by many human rights NGOs. Development and human-
itarian NGOs focused on providing goods and services to affected populations in insecure envi-
ronments. As such, they were often aiding in the provision of economic rights. Many minority
rights NGOs focused on securing cultural and social rights. Although these organizations could
be thought of as human rights NGOs in the sense that they are focusing on human rights issues
broadly, they often do not self-identify in this way. More recently, however, predominately
service provision development and humanitarian organizations have often adopted a “rights-
based” or “multi-mandate” approach that incorporates more human rights framing in their
programming. The utility of this multi-mandate approach is often debated by NGOs; although
it can help in raising attention to an issue, some fear that it could limit access to affected popula-
tions and may make governments leery of all NGOs, even those that try to be politically neutral
and only provide services during humanitarian disasters (Slim and Bradley 2013).
Related to this dimension, human rights organizations use a variety of tactics that can be broadly
divided into two categories: either advocacy-based or service-based. Advocacy tactics focus on
changing public opinion, behaviour, and policies about a specific human rights issue. Service tactics
focus on the provision of goods and services about a specific human rights issue. Although a variety
of advocacy and service tactics are undertaken to improve both negative and positive rights, there
has been a historical connection between advocacy and negative rights, on one hand, and service
and positive rights on the other.
Third, a very critical dimension on which human rights organizations vary concerns whether
they are largely domestic or international. Domestic organizations focus on a specific country
or subnational region. International organizations, conversely, can be broadly defined as any
organization that is international in scope; in practice, however, in line with the Yearbook of
International Organizations, the common sourcebook for NGOs, international is often limited to
organizations that are focusing on three or more countries at the same time (UIA 2018).
There are many ways in which domestic and international organizations are different.
Generally, domestic organizations are often thought of as more limited in funds but more con-
nected to the populations they are working for. International NGOs may be better funded,
often subcontracting projects to domestic organizations. International NGOs may also be better
connected to intergovernmental organizations and have more professional capacity, including
full-time staff with training in fundraising and public relations. Because of their connections
and capacity, international NGOs may be able to command a larger media footprint about a
specific issue; they may also be able to act as “gatekeepers” about an issue, ultimately influenc-
ing which human rights issues receive international attention (Carpenter 2014). Although our
theoretical framework for how human rights NGOs improve human rights conditions concep-
tualizes international and domestic NGOs as transnationally “networked” in a largely principled
manner, many scholars have argued that domestic–international relationship are often strained
(Cooley and Ron 2002; Bob 2005). Domestic NGOs may struggle to get the attention of their
international counterparts and feel that their work is overshadowed by the desires of a few large
organizations (Murdie 2014a). Conversely, international NGOs may feel like domestic NGOs
are “free-riding” off of their cultivated brand and efforts. These issues may be heightened when
funds are constrained.
The domestic–international division among human rights NGOs is echoed in another cat-
egory of division among the sector: organizations based in the global North or those based
in the global South. Regardless of whether they are international or domestic in orientation,
organizations in the global South often lack the resources that organizations in the global

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North have. This can mean that global South organizations are unable to attend conferences
and intergovernmental meetings, limiting their voice in the collective human rights agenda.
Because of a lack of domestic funding streams, global South organizations could be beholden
to the desires of foreign donors, an issue of increased concern now as many governments
are restricting the use of foreign funds by civil society (Carothers and Brechenmacher 2014;
Dupuy, Ron, and Prakash 2016; Pandya and Ron 2017).
On the flip side, organizations in the global North are often criticized for their lack of deep
connections to the communities they are trying to influence. Recently, many global North
organizations, including Amnesty International, have dramatically changed their organizational
structure to have more offices in the global South. These efforts are often designed to help
increase local community support and legitimacy (Moorhead and Clarke 2015).
Finally, there are divisions between secular and religious-based human rights organizations.
Although the majority of human rights organizations are secular, there are many religious
organizations from a variety of faith backgrounds. These organizations often differ in their fund-
ing sources, their source of legitimacy, and their view of specific rights. Religious organizations
may have limited contact with other human rights organizations (Murdie 2014b).

Theoretical perspectives
International Relations theories regarding the work and effectiveness of human rights NGOs
sit within a larger paradigmatic debate on the efficacy of non-state actors in the international
system broadly. This debate can largely be divided amongst realists and constructivists. While
the former contests that states are the primary actors at the international level, thereby leaving
little room for non-state actors, constructivists argue NGOs sit within a larger international civil
society community that can construct and alter ingrained international norms. This debate has
evolved over time, with a greater emphasis on empirically driven studies that focus on the effects
of NGO activities.
Realist scholars argue non-state actors hold less sway in the international system than state
actors. As Waltz (1979) famously writes, “So long as the major states are the major actors, the
structure of international politics is defined in terms of them” (94). This elevated status is a func-
tion of characteristics possessed solely by states, namely sovereignty. Countries have sovereignty,
or recognition of the international community and unique control over a territory and popula-
tion in that state’s possession (Hocking and Smith 1990). Non-governmental organizations, on
the other hand, possess none of these characteristics. Perhaps the most important trait held by
states is what Weber described as the monopoly of legitimate coercive power (Weber 1946). In
this view, states are the most effective actors in the international system because, in this anarchic
world, states are the ones powerful enough to enforce decisions.
Constructivists rebuke the realist dismissal of human rights NGO effectiveness. From the
constructivist lens, the norms of behaviour, perceptions of specific actors, and the way in which
states view the condition of anarchy are all a function of social constructions. These construc-
tions result from the values and customs of the actors in the system, and, as values change over
time, so too does the conceptualization of international norms; just as they are constructed, they
can be deconstructed and rebuilt to reflect these altering principles. One of the main functions
of human rights advocates, according to constructivists, is to alter these international norms to
reflect stronger human rights protections (Keck and Sikkink 1998).
Finnemore and Sikkink (1998) termed this change to social norms as the “norms life cycle.”
This process occurs in three stages: norm emergence, norms cascade, and norm internalization.
In each stage of the process, new and different types of actors become crucial components in

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fomenting social change, utilizing new techniques to assimilate social norms into the system.
As Finnemore and Sikkink outline, the first stage is dominated by issue advocates, oftentimes
known of as norm entrepreneurs, who gather and disseminate information on the issue with
the aim to prioritize their issue on the global agenda. Second, when these campaigns are suc-
cessful states and international organizations are pressured to at least debate the issue if not fully
transform domestic and international laws to reflect this new norm. At this stage, state actors
are focused on enhancing the legitimacy of their institutions and minimizing reputational costs
attached to going against popular opinion, whereas norm entrepreneurs are largely motivated
by altruism and ideational commitment. In the final stage, socialization processes enhance the
following of the new or altered norm to the point of habitual following due to the norm’s inter-
nalization by a variety of actors. This is not to say that all actors perfectly follow this new norm,
but this norm has been institutionalized to the point where strong negative reactions are elicited
by the international community if a state were to abandon these principles.
A clear example of this process in practice is Amnesty International’s global Campaign Against
Torture, which expanded acknowledgement of physical integrity rights abuses globally and was
instrumental in the passage of the UN Convention Against Torture in 1984. Shortly after the
founding of Amnesty International in 1961 by British lawyer Peter Benenson, AI began its work
aiming to free “prisoners of conscience”: those imprisoned based on political or religious beliefs.
In 1973, AI launched a large-scale international Campaign Against Torture by utilizing their
growing grassroots membership. These efforts brought human rights violations into the inter-
national spotlight, incorporated human rights concerns into the global agenda, and pressured
states and the United Nations to take steps to solidify these norms through formal institutions
and rules (Clark and Danyi 2014). One year after the formation of AI, the campaign to free pris-
oners of conscience had grown from six to 210 which were outlined in Amnesty’s first annual
report in 1962. By 1964, AI received NGO consultative status with the UN Economic and
Social Council (Clark 2001). After years of continued growth, Amnesty’s efforts to end torture
had resulted in the passage of CAT through the United Nations. AI was able to participate in
the drafting process. The dedication of Amnesty International, through a rigorous campaign
built around the development and expansion of these norms, had led to the formation of formal
institutions aimed against the use of torture.
In the final stage of the norms life cycle, these new norms are internalized, becoming almost
automatically followed. In the case of Amnesty’s campaign, the strengthening of norms against
the use of torture is demonstrated by the expansion of universal jurisdiction. Chilean dictator
Augusto Pinochet had risen to power in 1973 through a military coup, deposing the demo-
cratically elected government of Salvador Allende. Following years of torture, mass arrests and
detentions in the National Stadium, executions, and forced disappearances of anyone dissenting
against the military regime, international pressure led to the democratization process in 1990.
However, the Chilean government was unable to punish Pinochet for his crimes due to inter-
nal protections drafted during the transitional process. The efforts of internalized norms against
torture, coupled with international legal protections granted by CAT, resulted in the arrest
of Pinochet in London under direction of the Spanish courts (Amnesty International 2014).
Without the efforts of international advocacy groups, such as Amnesty International, these
developments might not have occurred.

Universalism vs. cultural relativism

While the debate between realists and constructivists outlined above highlights disagreements
over the ability for the international community to punish abusive regimes, there is another

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debate surrounding the types of rights that should be protected. What should decide which
rights should be prioritized above others? Are there foundational rights that supersede others,
and therefore should be protected by the international community? While some consider these
protections to be universal, others contest this assumption based on cultural relativism.
Critical and postcolonial scholars argue against the common justification of universal rights
based on Western interpretations of their development. Ingram (2008) interprets the work of
Hannah Arendt and her interpretation of the “right to have rights.” Based on Ingram’s analy-
sis, the use of power has been an important aspect in the protection of human rights. States,
international organizations, and non-governmental organizations all use the construction of
rules, both de jure and de facto, to ensure the promotion and implementation of these princi-
ples. While “human rights as a matter of fact developed in the West . . . This was not . . . due
to any particular features of Western culture” (Donnelly 2013, 106). At the same time of the
Enlightenment and the foundational principles of natural laws, which would become the basis
of later conceptualizations of human rights, the Western world used violence and hierarchical
social structures to justify international war in the name of religion, slavery, and imperialist
empires abroad. These scholars contest that the justification of universality should be based on
the assumptions of cohesive Western traditions, as if the West had a monopoly on the founda-
tions of human dignity.
According to these scholars, the main issue is that the use of clouded neo-imperialist
interventions can be justified in the name of protecting human rights. Belief in wholly
Western constructions also ignores the rich development of the foundations of our modern-
day human rights conceptions that paralleled the formation of Enlightenment natural laws.
Grovogui (2006), for instance, counters the Western exclusivity with an analysis of the
Haitian Revolution, which developed enforceable standards of human dignity similar to
conventional notions of human rights. Moreover, Amartya Sen argues these universality
proponents insist on the primacy of certain rights (notably civil and political rights) over the
defence of economic, social, or cultural ones (2004). This line of reasoning not only critiques
the accuracy of Western universal claims, but also sees the realization of universally agree-
able standards as the only way to avoid neo-imperialist crusades masked as defence of human
rights (Grovogui 2006).

Tactics and strategies of human rights NGOs

Organizations use a variety of strategies to improve human rights standards. According to the
theoretical literature, NGO-led improvements in government protection of bodily integrity
rights often occur in a “boomerang” model that begins and ends with efforts by domestic advo-
cates (Brysk 1993; Keck and Sikkink 1998; Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink 1999). In this model,
domestic NGOs first try to pressure a repressive regime from within the state. If these efforts
are unsuccessful, the domestic NGO sends “boomerang” message outside the country to inter-
national advocates, typically led by international NGOs. These international advocates try to
increase pressure on the repressive regime in two ways. First, international NGOs draw negative
attention to the abusive regime by “shaming” the state for its actions. This shaming can lead to
further punishment to the abusive state. Second, international NGOs send back the “boomer-
ang” to the affected domestic population by providing logistical and material support to domes-
tic NGOs so as to heighten domestic pressure on the state. According to the later “spiral model”
of human rights change, this combination of increased domestic pressure and international
attention can start a process whereby the state first tries to appease the advocates with “tactical

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concessions”: small changes, like the adoption of a human rights treaty, that are designed to
deflect attention and appear to be progressive (Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink 1999). If the pressure
continues, especially at the domestic level, these tactical concessions can lead to further changes,
which may eventually lead to the internalization of human rights norms.
There are many tactics that human rights NGOs use that are in line with the general
framework of the boomerang and spiral models. Organizations often try to increase domestic
capacity for protests, sit-ins, letter-writing campaigns, and other forms of largely nonviolent
resistance (Murdie and Bhasin 2011). If organizations are not able to be involved within the
country, the resources in neighbouring countries can still help mobilizing efforts in repressive
regimes (Bell, Clay, and Murdie 2012; Bell et al. 2014). Further, as mentioned above, some
organizations focus on “shaming” advocacy. In general, shaming involves the collection and
promotion of information about human rights abuses, often to an international audience. In
line with the boomerang model, this shaming is intended to bring international pressure to a
repressive regime.
Beyond the tactics outlined in the boomerang and spiral models, organizations use a
number of tools to effect change. First, many organizations are involved in human rights
education; these organizations are trying to build awareness about what human rights are
and what remedies exist. Some organizations are trying to change opinions as to whether
a certain right should be protected; we have seen this recently when human rights groups
try to build awareness about LGBTIA+ rights or when groups try to change opinions about
early child marriage (Asal, Murdie, and Sommer 2017). Perhaps because the boomerang
model concerns mainly issues of bodily harm (i.e., negative rights) where there are gov-
ernment remedies, the extant literature has often missed this critical step in the process of
human rights change. In order to get individuals to mobilize about human rights, NGOs
first have to convince individuals that (a) they have rights and (b) these rights are currently
not being fulfilled.
Additionally, organizations often use courts and legal rulings as conduits for human rights
change (Sikkink 2011). NGOs can provide amicus curiae briefs, legal aid to victims, and expert
testimony at trials (Shelton 1994). They can also help in advocacy for and capacity to carry out
transitional justice mechanisms (Arthur 2009). Further, NGOs have been major drivers in efforts
for new human rights treaties, both at the regional and at the global level. For example, NGOs
were critical in recent efforts for the creation of a treaty on business and human rights (Bernaz
and Pietropaoli 2017).
This overview of the tactics used by NGOs in the promotion of human rights is far from com-
plete. Organizations are continuously innovating. Some organizations have used comedy, video
games, concerts, and sporting events to increase awareness and build support.1 Organizations
are also continuously updating how they collect information on abuses. The use of social media
applications and satellite images is now a routine part of how some human rights organizations
collect information (De Vos et al. 2008).
Regardless of the tactic used, we want to reiterate that the main theories of human rights
NGOs do not see these organizations as effective by themselves (Keck and Sikkink 1998; Risse,
Ropp, and Sikkink 1999). Instead, NGOs are thought to improve human rights through a
collective transnational advocacy network (TAN). Although NGOs may be critical actors of
TANs, it is the combination of their collective work and the work of concerned individuals,
third-party governments, and intergovernmental organizations that is theoretically supposed to
improve human rights conditions (Keck and Sikkink 1998; Lake and Wong 2009; Murdie and
Davis 2012a).

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Influence of human rights NGOs

For many years, empirical accounts of human rights NGOs were almost exclusively qualita-
tive in nature. We have learned many things from these studies but, as Risse (2002) points out,
there were concerns about selection of the dependent variable; many of the studies only looked
at cases where NGO advocacy had been successful rather than the full universe of advocacy
campaigns. More recently, there has been an explosion of quantitative studies of many related
questions concerning the impact of human rights NGOs. By and large, these studies show that
human rights NGOs can influence human rights outcomes; often this effect is conditional on
certain structural factors.
Some of the first cross-national studies of the effects of NGOs on human rights focused
empirically on counts of all international NGOs within a country. These studies found that
international NGOs are often associated with better human rights practices in the countries
where they are located and that they are a necessary condition for human rights treaties to be
associated with human rights outcomes (Hafner-Burton and Tsutsui 2005; Landman 2005;
Neumayer 2005). Later studies focused on information and reports produced by NGOs.
Although Hafner-Burton (2008) found that the count of Amnesty International background
reports and press releases are not associated with improved human rights, Franklin (2008)
found that reports by NGOs in Latin America were associated with improved human rights
when the state is dependent on foreign capital. Murdie and Davis (2012a) later found that
shaming by multiple human rights organizations works when it is combined either with (a) a large
presence of human rights organizations domestically involved in the country or (b) shaming
and attention by international organizations and third-party states, in line with the theoreti-
cal framework of Keck and Sikkink (1998). Murdie (2014b) also found that shaming works
best in democracies and in countries that are economically vulnerable to international pres-
sure. Conversely, Hendrix and Wong (2012) found that shaming by Amnesty International
is associated with improved human rights only in authoritarian regimes. Recent studies
have also found that shaming can help reduce the onset and severity of mass killings and
genocides (Krain 2012; DeMeritt 2012).
There have also been a growing number of studies concerning how human rights NGOs
influence international actions; many of these studies concern the crucial intermediary steps
in the boomerang model. For example, Barry, Clay, and Flynn (2013) find that shaming can
reduce foreign direct investment. Peterson, Murdie, and Asal (2018) find that shaming can
also affect trade. Concerning state behaviour, Murdie and Peksen (2013, 2014) have found
that shaming can influence decision making about sanctions and humanitarian interventions.
Finally, scholars are beginning to understand how human rights NGOs affect domestic
populations. We know that domestic NGOs can heighten protest mobilization (Murdie and
Bhasin 2011). We also know that the information these organizations produce is associated
with changing human rights opinions (Davis et al. 2012; Ausderan 2014). Some of the most
interesting research in this area currently is using original surveys and experimental methods.
For example, McEntire, Leiby, and Krain (2015) found that the specific framing tactic used
by human rights NGOs can influence whether people mobilize in the United States. Bracic
(2016) found that previous experience with minority rights NGOs influences how individuals
cooperate in Croatia and Slovenia. Another critical line of research in this area examines public
opinion in the global South towards domestic and international human rights NGOs (Ron,
Golden, Crow, and Pandya 2017; Guarrieri 2017). For example, Guarrieri (2017) has found
that the opinions of individuals towards the United States influence opinions towards NGOs;
although not all organizations are aligned with the United States and many often criticize the

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human rights abuses of the United States, organizations could be negatively affected by the idea
that NGOs are US-biased.

Contemporary challenges for human rights NGOs

Human rights NGOs operate in an environment where they are often facing powerful govern-
mental actors that do not want abuses brought to the spotlight and can restrict their access to
the country in many ways. Additionally, NGOs can be working on behalf of multiple actors,
including both their donors and the populations they are trying to help. Further, NGOs are
often operating in an environment where there is organized civil society opposition. Although
there are many challenges that human rights NGOs face in our current political environment,
we highlight these three issues as particularly important for practitioners and future International
Relations scholarship.

Authoritarian closing of associational space for human rights NGOs

An emerging trend among hybrid regimes is the closing of organizational space for NGOs
to operate. Following the third wave of democracy in the 1980s–1990s, many of these states
found the transition stalled in the next two decades which resulted in emerging hybrid regimes.
Fearing expanded accountability channels and space for civil society to foster, many of these
regimes’ leaders worked to pass deterrents and constraints on the dissemination of information
to prevent the diffusion of mass movements in neighbouring regions. Koesel and Bunce (2013)
refer to this phenomenon as “diffusion-proofing.”
Examining the colour revolutions of post-Soviet states and the Arab Spring uprising, Koesel
and Bunce find that the leaderships of China and Russia are making efforts to control access to
information, frame uprisings in a negative light, and use other forms of soft power to draw sharp
and negative comparisons with the uprising state. Moreover, these leaders couple these policies
with actions to demobilize civil society, closing organizational space, and coercing opposition
groups to disband.
One of the more famous examples of this is under Russian President Vladimir Putin. In 2006,
the Russian government passed a law addressing NGOs operating in Russia. “On Introducing
Amendments into Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation” or, as it is commonly
referred to, the Russian NGO Law, expanded state control over these organizations, infringing
upon the privacy of leaders and members alike (Kamhi 2006, 34). The law expanded registration
requirements of each founder and member, forcing organizations to present birth certificates if
founders are deceased. Amnesty International quickly condemned the law, stating that “the law
is unduly burdensome, diverting resources from substantive programs, while using a regulatory
framework that can be arbitrarily applied, has key provisions which lack a precise legal defini-
tion, and sanctions that are disproportionate.”2 Organizations must also produce annual reports
giving detailed accounts as to the source and use of foreign donations.
This law was expanded in 2012 under the “foreign agents” law (“On Amendments to
Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation regarding the Regulation of the Activities of Non-
profit Organizations Performing Functions of a Foreign Agent”). Labelling such organizations
as functions of “foreign agents” works to further increase the operational costs of such groups’
operations, but also represents the cultural debate waging between the human rights community
and authoritarian governments.
Human rights advocates have received pushback for their efforts, contesting that many of
these groups reflect the Western values of their home country. Certain rights, cultural relativists

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contest, do not represent universal norms and are instead a social construction of the beliefs,
morals, convictions, and culture of the respective society. As such, Western states that produce
norms against, say, female genital cutting cannot place these same standards upon another soci-
ety with divergent traditions and standards.
While some rights have been contested by well-intentioned activists in the global South,
authoritarian leaders obfuscate the use of cultural relativism in an effort to protect laws that
close associational space for opposition groups. Russian leaders, for instance, exploit “tra-
ditional values” as the main avenue to adapt cultural relativism arguments in such a way as
to prevent associational space for opposition and civil society broadly (Horvath 2016). As
Horvath mentions, the term “human rights defender” (pravozashchnitik) has “become almost a
term of abuse, laden with xenophobic connotations . . . [and] routinely vilif[ying] the human
rights movement as a kind of Trojan horse: a seemingly innocuous vehicle for infiltrating
foreign values into the national polity” (2016, 868–869). Such rhetoric aims to divide the
domestic base, diffusing support for opposition groups in a way that minimizes their collec-
tive impact on the state.
This phenomenon is not unique to the Russian Federation. Actions taken by authoritarian
leaders, such as observed in Putin’s Russia, serve to minimize organizational space for NGOs to
operate. With their space minimized, it can be difficult – or even impossible – for human rights
advocates to pressure the state “from below” or even to develop crucial international ties that
provide necessary resources for sustained mobilizations (Brysk 1993; Keck and Sikkink 1998).
A much-needed area of future research concerns how human rights NGOs can function in
areas of closing civil society space, where there have been heavy restrictions on how NGOs
can receive foreign funding and their operations. Our empirical understanding of what leads to
these changes is just beginning (Carothers and Brechenmacher 2014; Dupuy, Ron, and Prakash
2016; Pandya and Ron 2017).

Accountability
With an increasing role for NGOs in the international arena, particularly in the directing of
money to needy regions, questions are raised about what – if any – accountability mechanisms
exist to prevent abuse of power by these increasingly important international actors. Brown
et al. (2008, 25) estimate that more money is being funnelled through NGO networks than
the United Nations or the World Bank. Financial contributions by donors is the primary
source of support for these organizations (Khieng and Dahles 2015). Other material pressures
resulting from an increasingly crowded international civil society incentivize organizations to
prioritize issues that will draw the most attention of the public, the donor community, and
warrant actions of states and IOs.
Before we can address these questions, we must first think about how we conceptualize
accountability for this community. Democratic accountability theories focus on the actions of
elected officials and representative institutions (Weber 1946; Przeworski, Stokes, and Manin
1999). These models suggest enhanced accountability mechanisms such as cooperative respon-
sibility by public agencies (Behn 2001) or enhanced transparency of actions and information
to the public (Dunn 1999). Many scholars utilize a principal-agent model to understand this
accountability. By enhancing oversight by the governed (the principal), public agencies (the
agents) are held responsible for their performance.
Similarly, non-governmental organizations serve as the principals, using donor (agent) funds
to achieve some normative objective (Ebrahim 2003, 814). Indeed, as this funding increases,

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and the donor becomes a larger stakeholder in the performance of the NGO, “excessive con-
ditionalities or onerous reporting requirements [can be] attached to funding” (Ebrahim 2003,
814). As Ebrahim notes, as the number of stakeholders increases in terms of important donors, so
too does the pressure of competing agendas.3 This competition can blur responsibility as well as
place undue burden on material and human resources to achieve these ever-increasing account-
ability requirements. With increasing calls for financial transparency and accountability (Ryan
et al. 2014; Schmitz, Raggo, and Vijfeijken 2012; Verbruggen, Christiaens, and Milis 2011), this
stakeholder problem is most likely amplified.
The demand for increased accountability of activities is not unwarranted. Notable financial
scandals within the NGO community represent a complete lack of effective accountability
mechanisms (Trussel 2003; Krishnan, Yetman, and Yetman 2006; Trivunovic 2011), which
may lead to poor performance of programmes and theft through accounting manipulation.
These cases threaten the relationship between human rights NGOs and existing/potential
donors as well, with the problem being most severe among nascent organizations trying to
develop their own reputation.
Beyond financial accountability, questions about the agenda-setting power of these organi-
zations can become problematic for smaller organizations with little or no associational power
at the international level. The crowding of global civil society has led to greater competition
among these organizations for a seemingly limited pool of resources. Consequently, some
issues – particularly more complex issues – become ignored by the human rights regime.
Carpenter (2011) outlines the case of weapons norms and transnational advocacy networks’
structures. As Carpenter finds, chemical weapons have been a mainstay of the international
arms-control networks, moving to the point of norm internalization, as demonstrated by inter-
national shock and outrage at the use of chemical weapons by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad,
first in August 2013 in the capital Damascus and again in April 2017 in Khan Sheikhoun.4
On the other hand, similarly catastrophic thermobaric weapons (or fuel-air explosives) that
“create fireballs over large areas and kill through suffocation and burning . . . have not been
condemned by humanitarian law organizations” (Carpenter 2011, 70). Carpenter finds that
the decision-making processes of the network explain issue salience. Certain powerful organi-
zations can act as agenda-setters, engaging in “agenda vetting” that legitimizes certain issues
while refusing to adopt others (Carpenter 2011, 7). Such actions are a function of increased
competition with the human rights regime.

Opposition movements
An emerging critique on the scholarship of human rights NGOs and issue activism is the failure
to recognize conflicting movements aimed at countering the work of human rights activists.
Constructivist scholars analyse the actions of “issue entrepreneurs” aimed at establishing new
norms, such as LGBTQIA+ rights or protections for ethnic minorities, but these studies often
neglect analysing the work of rival advocates that aim to protect existing norms or work to
generate rival ones (Bob 2005, 214; Koenig 2008).
These rival organizations utilize similar tactics to human rights NGOs such as lobbying
efforts, media campaigns, and litigation. Bob’s analysis of Sweden’s restrictions on anti-gay hate
speech provides an in-depth case study of this process (Bob 2005). Opposition groups combat-
ted the enactment of such laws as infringing upon religious freedoms of those with deeply held
religiously based opposition to homosexuality. These groups generate frames aimed to counter-
act the progress of activists promoting pro-LGBTQIA+ norms.

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Similarly to the formation of transnational activism pushing for global human rights norms,
these right-wing movements transcend national borders. Domestic right-wing activists seek
assistance from the international community, providing them with resources necessary to sus-
tain momentum. Moreover, foreign activists with the same objectives fear the continued loss of
ground and the diffusion of similar laws in their own countries. Even in cases of the softening
or signs of “evolving norms” can create such effects (Bob 2005, 61–63).
The expansion of these types of movements presents a new area of development in the lit-
erature. Whether this movement sustains itself, presenting a credible roadblock to human rights
advocacy, is itself worthy of analysis. Furthermore, showing the full process of implementation
of these new norms develops a more complete picture of the norms life cycle. As in the social
movement literature, alternative frames compete with – and in some cases derail – sustained col-
lective action. These counter-movements help us understand when human rights NGOs fail or
when the norms life cycle fails to internalize and institutionalize these new norms.

Conclusion
International Relations scholarship has examined human rights NGOs for some time. Recently,
there has been a plethora of new work that empirically evaluates how NGOs operate and where
they influence opinion, policies, and behaviours. Some of this work has shown us the power
of advocacy and non-state actors more generally. As this research area grows, more scholarship
should examine whether the funding environment and issues of accountability could limit the
success of human rights NGOs. Moreover, perhaps due to their past success, NGOs are often
being restricted in the very repressive countries where their advocacy is needed the most. Future
work should focus on how these restrictions could complicate our existing understanding of
these important actors.
Beyond physical restrictions to NGO access in repressive regimes, there is a concerning
trend by authoritarian leaders to frame advocates’ efforts as foreign intervention in domestic
culture. This rhetoric is a growing area for future research, as it delves into the development
of human rights standards and the process by which these rights are practically protected. In
the same vein in terms of competing frames in the construction of norms, the development of
the global right-wing has shown the obstacles faced by norm entrepreneurs in institutional-
izing standards.
Human rights NGOs have had much success in the past century. Future success can be high-
lighted by theoretically informed research about the important new developments.

Notes
1 See, for example, www.theesa.com/article/digital-witness-symposium-explores-human-rights-video-
games.
2 MosNews. 2006. “Amnesty International Urges Putin to Review NGO Legislation.” July 5. Found on
NCSJ, Advocates on Behalf of Jews in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States and Eurasia, “Russian Civil
Society Examined, as G-8 Looms”; see www.ncsj.org.
3 In addition to donations from corporations, HROs receive foundation grants and government transfers,
and sometimes engage in commercial activities such as membership or service fees in order to provide
the material foundation they need to stay solvent in their activities (Froelich 1999; Anheier 2014). Given
the nature of their activities, and in a desire to remain as impartial and legitimate as possible, many HROs
restrict governmental transfers (O’Dwyer and Unerman 2008).
4 BBC News. 2017. “Syria chemical ‘attack’: What we know.” April 26. Available at: www.bbc.com/news/
world-middle-east-39500947.

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 19
Humanitarian NGOs
Silke Roth

Defining humanitarianism and NGOs

The meaning of ‘humanitarian’ action and organisations is ambiguous and ‘elastic’. A nar-
row understanding means providing relief in crisis situation such as natural disasters or vio-
lent conflicts, providing shelter, food, access to water and medical assistance. More broadly
conceived, humanitarianism aims at transformation and addresses the root causes of poverty
and conflict, providing education, building capacity and aiming at sustainable development.
Humanitarianism is defined by neutrality and impartiality, assisting those in need regardless of
their religion, nationality or any other characteristic (for an overview see Barnett and Weiss
2008; Barnett 2011).
Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are a type of third-sector organisations (the other
two sectors being the public sector or state and the private sector or market). Such organisations
vary in size and composition. They might have a small number of staff and many private donors
who are not active in the organisation. In some NGOs unpaid volunteers work alongside
paid staff members. NGOs employ national and international staff. Lewis (2015) highlights the
similarities between international NGOs and domestic third-sector or non-profit organisations
which might be active as service providers (supporting communities in crisis situations through
the provision of water, food, shelter etc.) or as advocacy groups (bringing humanitarian issues
on the public agenda) or both.

Historical and political context

The emergence and transformation of humanitarian NGOs reflects historical and political
developments. Humanitarian NGOs are shaped by and reflect modernisation processes includ-
ing colonialism, capitalism, violent conflict and neo-liberalism.
Humanitarianism is deeply rooted in religious and imperial traditions and colonialism has
been justified by the ‘humanitarian argument’ to civilise presumably less enlightened people
(Lester and Dussart 2014). Colonial institutions, in particular those regulating race and ethnic-
ity, resulted in ethno-racial stratification between European settlers and colonial administrators,
local elites, privileged racial ethnic groups and indigenous populations. Such deeply rooted

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divisions underpin contemporary social conflicts and violent confrontations such as the geno-
cide in Rwanda in 1994, as well as attitudes towards refugees, other migrants and citizens who
belong to ethnic minorities. In France as well as in Britain, the formation of development
NGOs was informed by colonialism as well as de-colonialisation (Ryfmann 2011; Slim 2011).
Christian missionaries played an important and ambivalent role during and after colonialism.
Education was primarily a means of evangelism and missionaries were unable to cure the diseases
introduced by colonial settlers (Etherington 2005). Rather than improving living conditions,
missionaries were ‘handmaidens of colonialism’ (Maxwell 2005). However, the relationships
between Christian missionaries, colonial administrators and settlers and indigenous populations
were complex and contradictory (Stanley 1990). Faith-based NGOs – not just Christian –
continue to play an important role in humanitarianism, as I will discuss below.
The emergence of capitalism was accompanied by the development of a new humanitarian
sensibility in Europe that combined a higher level of conscientiousness with the confidence of
having the capacity to act on behalf of human suffering and injustice (Haskell 1985a, 1985b).
However, British industrialists who were involved in the abolitionist movement were not con-
cerned about labour exploitation in their own country (or enterprises). Moreover, the Slave
Compensation Commission reimbursed the slave-owners in the British Empire – not the for-
merly enslaved – and had significant consequences for the economic development of Britain
(Hall et al. 2014). Abolition and the emergence of capitalism are thus closely intertwined.
Similarly, the rise of NGOs since the 1980s is an expression of neo-liberalism insofar as aid is
provided by the third sector rather than by the public sector (Watkins et al. 2012).
Violent conflicts play a central role in the creation of humanitarian NGOs and humanitari-
anism. The battle of Solferino (1859) led to the formation of the International Committee of
the Red Cross. In response to the First and Second World Wars humanitarian NGOs such as
the Save the Children Fund, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in 1933, Oxfam in
1942 and CARE in 1945 were founded. These non-governmental organisations were initially
involved in relief work, but some of them later on included development activities, as I will
discuss below. The Biafra war led to the foundation of Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) in 1971
and a new type of humanitarian organisation. Davey (2015) provides a nuanced account of
the emergence of sans-frontierisme which is related to the French Left’s support and its disil-
lusionment with anti-colonial independence movements, which in turn were informed by the
acknowledgement of complicity and resistance during Nazi occupation. MSF’s concern with
publicising human rights violations became influential far beyond France. Furthermore, since
the 1970s a number of Muslim aid organisations have emerged to counter the influence of
Christian and secular NGOs. The end of the Cold War was followed by an increase in complex
emergencies in many regions of the world and humanitarian activities became more frequent.
In the next section, I will distinguish different types of NGOs.

Types of humanitarian NGOs

Humanitarian NGOs vary with respect to their mandate, their independence from govern-
ments, their relation to religion, in size and nationally.

‘Pure’ vs. multi-mandated NGOs

The label ‘humanitarian’ is attached to a wide range of aid organisations. Whereas ‘pure’
humanitarian organisations focus solely on relief, multi-mandated organisations encompass
broader objectives which include development and peace-building as well as the protection of

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human rights and the promotion of democracy (Weiss 2012). National differences regarding the
division between development and humanitarian NGOs can be noted. In France, the division
appears to be more pronounced (Ryfmann 2011). However, in British NGOs the priorities
between relief and development objectives are also debated (Slim 2011).

Dunantist vs. Wilsonian NGOs

NGOs also differ with respect to their relationship to the state. French NGOs representing the
‘Dunantist’ tradition emphasise their independence from and voice criticism of government
policies (Davey 2015). Being supported by many small, private donors allows these NGOs to
eschew financial support from the state which might compromise their position. In contrast,
NGOs in the US tend to rely more heavily on government funding. Such NGOs represent
the ‘Wilsonian tradition’, meaning that they tend to align themselves with US foreign policy
(Stroup 2012). During the war in Afghanistan, Colin Powell (2001) infamously referred to
NGOs as ‘force multipliers’ who supported US troops by ‘winning hearts and minds’. British
NGOs also tend to rely more on state funding than French NGOs (Stroup 2012).

Secular vs. faith-based NGOs

Secular and faith-based humanitarian NGOs represent a continuum rather than distinct catego-
ries and need to be distinguished by religious identity. Secular Christian NGOs have more in
common with other secular NGOs whereas militant Christian NGOs are more like militant
NGOs of other faiths (Benedetti 2006). Faith-based organisations and missionaries have played
an important role since the earliest states of humanitarianism and churches still take on significant
responsibilities both as donors and as local partners of international aid organisations. The recent
proliferation of faith-based organisations is related to the growth of the Christian right in the US,
the increase of political Islam, the rise of identity politics and decline of communism, and the
support of diaspora communities for humanitarian and development assistance (Barnett and Stein
2012; Tomalin 2012). Faith-based NGOs include some of the largest as well as smaller organisa-
tions. World Vision, Tearfund and Medair are Christian aid organisations of different sizes and
mandates. Islam has a long tradition of charitable giving. However, the fairly recent emergence
of Muslim humanitarian NGOs is related to increasing oil revenues and the spread of communi-
cation technology which supported solidarity efforts for Muslim victims of conflicts and natural
disasters (Petersen 2012a). The emergence of Muslim relief organisations was a reaction to the
work of Christian and secular Western aid agencies and sought to prevent evangelism and the
spread of Western values. Muslim organisations contribute to the diversification of humanitar-
ian NGOs (Benthall 2008; De Cordier 2009; Benthall 2011; Barnett and Stein 2012) and reflect
different generations of Muslim aid, each tied to a different political context (Petersen 2012b).

Larger and smaller NGOs

NGOs differ considerably in size and since the 1990s, the eight dominant international NGOs
are Oxfam, MSF, CARE, Save the Children, World Vision CISDE (a coalition of Catholic
development NGOs), APDOVE (an association of European Protestant Development organi-
sations) and Eurostep (coalition of European secular NGOs) (Donini 1995). The size of these
NGOs is reflected in their budgets.
In 2015, NGOs received 87% (US$ 5.7 billion) of the humanitarian funding that was given
by private donors. This amount represented 60% of the direct humanitarian assistance given to

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NGOs (US$ 9.5 billion overall in 2015) (Global Humanitarian Assistance Report 2017, p. 70).
In 2016, the vast majority of international humanitarian assistance went to northern international
NGOs (US$ 3.7 billion or 85%) whereas southern international NGOs received only 1.6%,
national NGOs 1.4%, international affiliated NGOs 0.3% and local NGOs 0.2%. In addition
to the big INGOs, there is also a multitude of smaller NGOs. Natural disasters and conflicts
such as the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean and the Haiti
earthquake of 2010 attracted large numbers of small, often newly formed organisations driven by
a strong humanitarian impulse (Stirrat 2006; Schuller 2012). They included national and inter-
national NGOs, often funded and run by individuals, usually serving a single purpose and active
only in one region or even village. Such small organisations can be highly valuable and efficient
by drawing on the expertise of health professionals or familiarity with a region. However, a lack
of coordination, as well as a lack of adequate knowledge, can significantly undermine aid efforts
(Schuller 2012).

National and regional differences

A survey published in 2014 identified 1,725 humanitarian actors in 30 European countries
which included 1,278 NGOs, 169 faith-based organisations, 27 organisations associated with
the Red Cross Movement and 22 other non-profit organisations (EUPHRA-Hamareport 2014,
p. 11). The distribution of registered humanitarian actors varies greatly across Europe, as Table
19.1 illustrates.
Not only the number, but also the character of NGOs varies across European countries.
Humanitarian NGOs in the United Kingdom tend to be multi-mandated, include a number
of faith-based organisations and emerging diaspora groups (HAMap Country Profile United
Kingdom n.d.). In Norway, about 30% of humanitarian assistance is channelled through several
large NGOs (HaMap Country Profile Norway n.d.) The French humanitarian sector has become
increasingly professionalised, and humanitarian assistance is primarily provided by NGOs which
receive public funding. However, Médecins sans Frontières (discussed in more detail below)
is financially independent from the state, relying on private support (HAMap Country Profile
France n.d.). Germany comprises mostly small and medium-sized NGOs which mostly focus on
development and only to a small extent on humanitarian projects (Koddenbrock 2016). Italian

Table 19.1 Humanitarian actors in selected European countries

Country No. of registered humanitarian actors % of total European humanitarian actors

United Kingdom 261 20.93

Italy 183 10.61
Luxembourg 150 8.70
Switzerland 138 8.00
Finland 121 7.01
France 90 5.22
Norway 36 2.09
Germany 35 2.03
Sweden 26 1.51
Czech Republic 13 0.75
Greece 12 0.70
Iceland 8 0.46
Latvia 7 0.41

Source: EUPHRA-Hamareport 2014, p. 10.

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humanitarian action is shaped by a missionary and colonial past and the involvement in decolo-
nisation processes. Faith-based organisations, in particular Caritas Italiana, play a very important
role in providing emergency relief in Africa and Latin America. Secular NGOs are particularly
involved in the Middle East and North Africa as well as in Eastern Europe (Albania, Kosovo)
(HAMap Country Profile Italy n.d.).
Compared to their European counterparts, US NGOs are more professionalised and pay
higher salaries, whereas in the UK and France voluntarism plays a stronger role (Stroup 2012).
French and UK NGOs differ with respect to the involvement of expatriates and local staff. The
main French NGOs emerged around professions (medicine, nutrition) and tend to send a large
proportion of expatriates overseas. In contrast, British NGOs such as Oxfam which focuses on
poverty reduction, Save the Children which specialises in children’s rights and ActionAid which
promotes education seek to involve and develop local staff (Braumann 2011).
Humanitarianism is not restricted to ‘Western’ (European, North American, Australian)
actors. Indeed, the vast majority of humanitarian assistance is provided within the countries in
which crises are occurring and in neighbouring countries (Farah 2003), for example Turkey
providing aid for the victims of the Syrian crisis. Humanitarian actors in Eastern Europe, Asia,
Africa and Latin America have wrongly been characterised as ‘new donors’ which overlooks aid
provided by socialist countries during the Cold War as well as South–South solidarities, includ-
ing the support provided to anti-colonial independence movements. However, these solidarities
and aid do not necessarily fit the conception of ‘humanitarianism’ as neutral and independent
or distinct from development (Binder and Meier 2012). In non-Western societies, governments
and faith-based organisations as well as Red Crescent and Red Cross societies play an important
role as humanitarian actors. The NGO sectors in Japan and Indonesia are growing and 9% of the
493 NGOs which signed the International Committee of the Red Cross Code of Conduct are
from East Asia (O’Hagan and Hirono 2014, p. 414). Turkey has also been exposed to humani-
tarian needs for centuries and became increasingly active in Eastern Europe and the Middle East
since the 1990s while excluding Kurdish refugees (Lopera 2017). Non-Western donors which
prefer involvement on the regional rather than global level ‘may be closer to the needs voiced
by affected governments than Western counter-parts’ (Binder and Meier 2012, p. 1144), and
can teach Western donors ‘how to take host governments more seriously’ (2012, p. 1147).
However, discussing the involvement of Argentina, Brazil and Chile in providing humanitarian
assistance to Haiti, Burges (2014) concludes that South–South cooperation is not necessarily
superior to Northern interventions in the Global South.

Portraits of selected NGOs

The following portraits represent different types of humanitarian NGOs and reflect the devel-
opment of humanitarianism.

International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and International

Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) and Red Crescent
The battle of Solferino (1859) led Henry Dunant to initiate the formation of the International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) which is associated with the emergence of the modern
concept of humanitarianism (Redfield and Bornstein 2011). Founded as a Swiss private organi-
sation (Forsythe 2005), having a specific mandate under international law and primarily relying
on government funding, the ICRC is not an NGO (Lowe 2015). However, the organisation
plays a central role in the development of modern humanitarianism, and provides support for

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and impacts on NGOs. Initially, the ICRC was concerned with providing medical relief to
wounded soldiers and thus was closely tied to militarism. Over time its mandate expanded to
visiting ‘security prisoners’ (Forsythe 2005) long before the founding of Amnesty International.
In addition, after the First World War, the ICRC became involved in supporting refugees and
reconciling family members that had been separated through political conflicts.
Despite the fact that ‘Dunantist’ principles include neutrality and independence, the rela-
tionship to states has varied over the course of the existence of the ICRC. From its beginnings
until the end of the First World War, the Red Cross was subordinated to national militaries
(Lowe 2015). In the inter-war period, it became more independent. However, it continued to
cooperate with states and balanced cooperation and autonomy in order to access and support
individuals in need. Infamously, in the 1940s the ICRC did not publicise the knowledge of
atrocities committed in Nazi concentration camps due to the conviction that the credibility of
the organisation and access to the camps depended on neutrality and discretion (Forsythe 2005).
The ICRC needs to be distinguished from the International Federation of the Red Cross
(IFRC), an association of National Red Cross societies that was founded in 1919 in the after-
math of the First World War. The national organisations provide relief in domestic and interna-
tional disasters. Initially strongly associated with Christian values, since 1983 the Federation also
includes the Red Crescent societies which were established in Muslim countries. In the early
1990s the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies and the Steering
Committee for Humanitarian Response initiated a Code of Conduct in order to improve the
delivery of aid (Walker 2005).

Save the Children

Save the Children is one of the oldest and largest humanitarian organisations and was founded in
1919 in the United Kingdom in response to the suffering of children caused by the First World
War and the Russian Revolution (Gnaerig and MacCormack 1999). In order to secure support
for the humanitarian activities, the founders stressed the support for innocent children, thus depo-
liticising the public image of the organisation (Baughan and Fiori 2015). Under the patronage
of the ICRC (discussed above) the International Save the Children Union with members in 40
states in the British Empire and Europe was officially founded in the following year in Geneva. In
1988 the federation renamed itself Save the Children Alliance (Gnaerig and MacCormack 1999).
Save the Children is a multi-mandated organisation focusing on children’s lives and fighting
for children’s rights. The organisation responds to humanitarian emergencies, launches global
campaigns (for example against child marriage), promotes health and nutrition, delivers educa-
tion programmes, is active in child protection, advocates child rights governance and seeks to
end child poverty. Save the Children is active in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, North
America and Latin America. Despite the depoliticisation of Save the Children, the organisation
pursues political solidarity in its programmatic work and campaigning (Baughan and Fiori 2015).

World Vision
Founded in 1950, World Vision (WV) is the largest evangelical agency and one of the 10
largest international non-governmental organisations (King 2012, p. 924). WV was founded
as a ‘missionary support organisation’ in the context of the Korean War and provided emer-
gency resources to Korean hospitals, schools and orphanages (King 2012, p. 927). In 1953,
the founder introduced the concept of ‘child sponsorship’ which raised the necessary funds for

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missionary orphanages and which was adopted by other agencies (King 2012, p. 928). Bornstein
(2001) identifies the child sponsorship programmes as paradoxical and ambiguous because they
‘both elide and reinforce differences of poverty and wealth between sponsors and recipients and
within local communities’ (p. 606).
Word Vision has focused on addressing hunger since the 1970s. In response to the 1984
Ethiopian famine, the income of the organisation increased by 80% in one year (King 2012,
p. 937). Like other evangelical relief and development organisations, WV continued to grow
throughout the 1980s, increasingly relying on federal funds and gaining consultative status with
the UN (King 2012, p. 937). It is one of the largest multi-mandated humanitarian NGOs and
in 2016, the budget had grown to over US$ 2.7 billion. The growth of the organisation can be
explained by professionalisation and adopting a Christian identity which permitted collaboration
across ‘ecumenical, interreligious, and even secular divides’ (King 2012, p. 938).

Médecins sans Frontières

Compared to other humanitarian NGOs, there is a much broader scholarly literature discussing
MSF. The organisation received the Nobel Prize in 1999 and has a charismatic and media-savvy
leadership. Moreover, the NGO has a research centre and provides researchers access to the
organisation (for example Heyse 2007; Fassin 2012; Redfield 2013; Fox 2014). A number of
former MSF volunteers have published their memoirs (for example Olson 1999).
Founded in 1971, Médecins Sans Frontières represented a new type of humanitarian organi-
sation that felt constrained by humanitarian law insisting on impartiality and neutrality. Bernard
Kouchner and his co-founders of MSF interpreted the situation in Biafra as genocide (Terry
2002) and felt that it was necessary to not only provide aid but expose what was going on dur-
ing the Biafran war (Rieff 2002). The organisation adopted the principle of témoignage – the
duty to bear witness (Davey 2015). MSF engages in advocacy work, highlights neglected crises
and criticises inadequacies of the aid system. In 1999, for example, MSF started campaigning for
lowering the price for HIV/AIDS treatment; in addition the NGO calls for research on medi-
cines to treat malaria and neglected diseases such as sleeping sickness and kala azar (Fox 2014).
Financial independence from state support allows the organisation to set its own agenda and to
be critical of governmental and intergovernmental organisations.
MSF sections differ and occasionally are in conflict (Siméant 2005). Some sections (includ-
ing MSF France) are operational and are sending teams overseas. Other sections (including
MSF-UK) are not operational but involved in fundraising, advocacy, public education and
volunteer recruitment and thus support operational sections financially (Stroup 2012). Some
sections are comfortable accepting government funding, whereas others rely on private dona-
tions (Sondorp 2011). Stroup (2012, p. 4) argues that ‘CARE, Oxfam and MSF resemble other
charities from their home countries more than they do humanitarian relief groups around the
world’, reflecting the regulatory environment (for example tax advantages), political opportuni-
ties, material resources and social networks. In 2011, MSF South Africa, MSF East Africa, MSF
Brazil and MSF Latin America became members of the MSF Federation (Fox 2014).

Islamic Relief
Islamic Relief was founded in Birmingham in the UK in 1984 as one of several new Muslim
organisations responding to the famine in the Horn of Africa (Petersen 2012a, p. 133). Today
the largest Islamic humanitarian NGO and operational in countries around the world, its

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country offices are in Europe (Germany, Sweden), Asia (Bangladesh, Malaysia), Africa (Mali,
South Africa) as well as in the United States and Australia.
Like other Muslim humanitarian organisations, it can rely on donations of individuals and is
thus financially independent from government support. However, since 9/11 Islamic Relief’s
budget has grown and the organisations has received grants from institutional donors (DfID,
ECHO, UN agencies) (Petersen 2012a, p. 138). The organisation attributes its growth – not just
in budget, but also in staff and programmes – to its Muslim identity (ibid.). That does not hinder
the organisation cooperating with secular and Christian faith-based organisations.

Comparison
These five exemplary organisations illustrate how the founding of NGOs responds to dis-
asters and conflicts but also to each other. The founders of MSF felt that the approach of
older humanitarian organisations was inadequate; the creation of Islamic Relief is a reaction
to the activity of secular and Christian humanitarian organisations in the Islamic region. The
five organisations are not only different from one another; they also share some similarities.
For example, Save the Children and World Vision, a secular and a faith-based organisation,
share a focus of children – innocent victims of conflict, poverty and disaster. MSF and Islamic
Relief can rely on the funding of individual private donors which makes these organisations
independent from state funding. Each of these organisations has developed a brand identity to
compete on the NGO market. These five NGOs represent ‘behemoths’ (Swidler and Watkins
2017) which can be contrasted with countless small NGOs which might only include a few
founding members, concentrate on one village, orphanage or school and focus on one issue
only. Whether ‘behemoths’ are actually more efficient than ‘butterflies’ (Swidler and Watkins
2017) is questionable. Furthermore, what starts out as an initiative of individuals might evolve
into a global brand. In the next section, I turn to the organisational characteristics of humani-
tarian NGOs.

Inside the black box – how do humanitarian NGOs work?

The growth of the humanitarian aid sector since the 1980s is associated with increased budgets
and personnel as well as professionalisation and standardisation processes. In fact, Siméant (2005)
compares the internationalisation of NGOs to the expansion of multinational corporations. The
transformation of NGOs into ‘complex transnational bureaucracies’ includes the adoption of
strategic planning and strategic management, the adoption of internal staff guidelines, recruiting
staffers with a background, the professionalisation of human resources departments and paid
staff becoming more of a standard (Stroup 2012; Oelberger et al. 2017). In this section, I will
address how NGOs decide on operations and how they are affected by and respond to increased
security threats. Furthermore, I will address the adoption of standards and how they are dissemi-
nated. Finally, I will turn to the NGO workforce.

Who are the beneficiaries?

Aid recipients are frequently referred to as ‘beneficiaries’. However, a closer look at the
decision-making processes of humanitarian NGOs raises the question of what role ‘needs’ play
in decisions about operations and the allocation of resources. Or rather: whose needs play a
role in the decision to deploy. Koddenbrock (2016) lists a number of factors that influence the

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decision-making of humanitarian NGOs in addition to the needs of the population that shall
be served: organisational identity; changing programme priorities; national differences; being
present in the appropriate number of countries (not too many, not too few); donor prefer-
ences and media attention; security conditions (more about those below); infrastructure; ‘added
value’; access to the population; and whether the state is strong or weak (p. 88). Humanitarian
NGOs are accountable to their donors, which means they are constrained in how they can
spend their funds, and compete with other agencies for private donations and public grants.
Krause (2014) therefore argues that humanitarian agencies produce projects which are ‘relatively
independently of beneficiaries’ needs and preferences’ (p. 4). Similarly, Swidler and Watkins
(2017) characterise the intersecting projections of donors, brokers and aid recipients as ‘fevered
imaginations’ (p. 19).
Of course, providing medical assistance, education, food and shelter is tremendously impor-
tant and aid organisations and their staff work in challenging conditions. The point is whether
the aid that is provided is the aid that is needed and whether those most in need of it are the
ones that obtain the aid or those which are most easily reached or in other ways advantaged.
One obstacle to providing aid can be the security situation, to which I turn next.

Why are humanitarian NGOs and their staff attacked?

It seems strange that those who offer humanitarian assistance face significant threats including
kidnapping and death. Why attack the helpers? While aid workers have disappeared and died
during missions throughout the 20th century (Fast 2014), since 1990 and particularly since 2001
incidents involving kidnapping and killing have steadily grown (Stoddard et al. 2011). Between
1997 and 2013, attacks on national staff have increased while they have somewhat decreased
for international staff. The two groups also face different risks: national staff are more likely to
be killed whereas international staff are more likely to be kidnapped (Stoddard et al. 2011).
Hammond (2008) interprets the violence against humanitarian workers as ‘performative acts’
that send messages of insecurity and disregard of the humanitarian principle.
At the beginning of the millennium, humanitarian organisations responded with the adop-
tion of measures to mitigate these risks (van Brabant 2010; Schneiker 2018). This included
developing security systems and employing security advisors (Bruderlein and Gassmann 2006),
shifting tasks from international to national staff and ‘bunkerization’ (Duffield 2012). Such meas-
ures result in an increased distance between international aid workers from the local popula-
tion and can be counter-productive by undermining trust. Fast (2014) therefore argues that a
professionalisation of security measures might undermine the humanitarian project and that
more attention needs to be paid to internal factors such as how the behaviour and programme
of international aid organisations might contribute to the insecurity of aid. In contexts such
as Afghanistan, Iraq and Kosovo, Muslim aid organisations appear to be better integrated into
the relief community and experience fewer attacks than Western aid organisations (de Cordier
2009). Thus, aid organisations which are perceived as respecting the local context appear to be
more secure than those who are seen as being associated with military forces and/or disregarding
local customs and ignoring local needs.

How to improve the delivery of aid?

Discussions on how to improve the delivery of humanitarian relief go back to the late 1980s
(Minear 1988), but the Rwanda Crisis of 1994 which drew an immense number of NGOs

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to the country led to a critical evaluation of emergency assistance and the development of
standards for the delivery of humanitarian assistance (Buchanan-Smith 2003). Further crises
(for example the Asian tsunami or the earthquake in Haiti) led to similar critical assessments. A
number of networks and organisations which survey and support professionalisation processes
seek to improve the delivery of aid emerged: the Active Learning Network for Accountability
in Humanitarian Action (ALNAP), the Humanitarian Practice Network (HPN), Enhancing
Learning and Research for Humanitarian Assistance (ELHRA), the International Humanitarian
Studies Association (IHSA) and Professionals in Humanitarian Assistance (PHAP), to name just
a few initiatives (Walker 2004; Walker and Russ 2011).
These debates resulted in the Code of Conduct initiated by the International Federation
of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the Steering Committee for Humanitarian
Response (Walker 2005) and the Sphere project and handbook. Both of these initiatives, the
Code and the Sphere handbook, have been criticised for their bias towards Western INGOs
which risks undermining local NGOs (Hilhorst 2002, 2005). In addition, there is so far little
evidence that the promotion and adoption of these codes and standards have actually had an
impact of the performance of aid organisations (Crack 2016) and rigorous assessments of the
impact of aid are needed (Koddenbrock 2016; Swidler and Watkins 2017). Swidler and Watkins
(2017) suggest that small ‘butterfly’ donors might have a bigger impact on communities than the
projects of the behemoth organisations.
Since the 1990s, humanitarian studies programmes have been established, primarily in
English-speaking countries and at North American and European universities, though a core
curriculum seems to be missing (Rainhorn et al. 2010; Walker and Russ 2010). The European
Union supported the creation of the Network on Humanitarian Assistance (NOHA), an inter-
university multidisciplinary European master’s degree in international humanitarian action
(Walker and Russ 2010). In addition to university-based courses, international humanitarian
organisations are engaged in distance learning (Bollettino and Bruderlein 2008). However,
rather than academic knowledge, applicants appear to lack experience, for example how to
deal with stress and how to apply techniques and methods in the field (Gonzalez et al. 1999).
Placements which are offered by some NGOs as well as ECHO’s volunteer programme
(EVAC) seek to remedy this by providing opportunities to gain field experience (Walker and
Russ 2011).

Who works in humanitarian NGOs?

Given the diversity in size, mandate and identity, humanitarian NGOs differ widely in their
structures and thus career opportunities. International humanitarian organisations com-
prise head offices which might be based in Geneva, London, New York, Johannesburg,
Nairobi or Bangkok. Larger organisations have regional offices which oversee operations
as well as field offices. International staff can be based at head offices, regional offices and
field offices. At regional and field offices, expatriates are supported by national staff. In
fact, the vast majority of humanitarian aid workers are national staff whereas the majority
of those in leadership positions tend to be Western expatriates (Roth 2015). National staff
serve as brokers which connect international donors with local beneficiaries (Swidler and
Watkins 2017).
Humanitarian organisations include paid staff as well as volunteers. Who is paid and who is not
paid depends on the character of the organisation and on the position within the organisation.

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In general, the pay of international staff tends to be much higher than the pay of locally hired
staff which can contribute to tensions within the organisation (McWha and MacLachlan 2011).
Unpaid positions can play a crucial role in aid worker careers as they allow people to gain field
experience. In particular, smaller NGOs offer limited career opportunities; furthermore, the
jobs tend to be project based, which leads to a high turnover. It is not unusual for aid workers to
move between aid organisations (Damman et al. 2014; Korff et al. 2015; Roth 2015; Oelberger
et al. 2017). Paid and unpaid aid work represents meaningful work (Taylor and Roth 2019).

Not-so-distant suffering
Humanitarian action tends to be associated with the concern for ‘distant strangers’ (Boltanski
1999) rather than with the needs of marginalised groups present in high-income countries.
In this regard, Fassin (2012) represents an important exception as he frames the suffering and
exclusion of unemployed people, asylum seekers and undocumented immigrants in France
as humanitarian crises. Furthermore, the majority of aid to refugees and internally displaced
persons (IDPs) has always been provided within the country and neighbouring countries
(Farah 2003), whereas international aid organisations have only provided a small propor-
tion of support. Furthermore, the aid provided by aid organisations and donors is dwarfed
by remittances (Driffield and Jones 2013). Thus, humanitarian aid is primarily provided by
neighbours, family members and other communities rather than by foreigners motivated by
media appeals – and adventure.
The ongoing refugee crisis in Europe challenges the notion that humanitarian crises take
place elsewhere, in regions affected by poverty, disasters and conflict. The attempts of people
from the Middle East and Africa to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean Sea and the
camps in Italy, Greece and France do not seem to fit into the framework of the humani-
tarian NGO sector. Dependence on government funding might be one factor explaining
why not many Northern aid agencies seem to be involved in providing assistance. As long
as most European governments seek to prevent migration and refuse to accept refugees,
government-dependent NGOs might jeopardise their revenues. Italy and Greece, the coun-
tries most affected by the Financial Crisis of 2008, carry a far higher burden and assist those
who have survived the perilous journey across the sea whereas other governments give
in to right-wing populism. Furthermore, the current refugee crisis reveals the racism and
racialisation that underpins the humanitarian sector – after all, many humanitarian NGOs
were formed and dealt with European refugees after the First, Second, Cold and Yugoslav
Wars, but seem to be less engaged to provide relief to this refugee movement. At the time
of writing this chapter, MSF highlighted the refugee crisis as the ‘greatest displacement
crisis since World War Two’ on its homepage and is involved in search and rescue mis-
sions on the Mediterranean Sea, which resonates with activities in its early history rescuing
Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees (Davey 2015). Oxfam supports refugees in camps in
Jordan and Libya as well as providing support in Italy, Serbia and Macedonia. Cuttitta (2018)
distinguishes between humanitarian NGOs which depoliticise and those that repoliticise
migration and border policies in the context of search and rescue (SAR) missions in the
Mediterranean Sea. Such life-saving SAR missions stabilise the status quo as long as they do
not challenge the political context which requires humanitarian assistance. MSF combines
the saving of lives with a critique of the political context that makes humanitarian interven-
tion necessary and thus repoliticises SAR missions; in contrast Save the Children tends to

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maintain a neutral political profile and is thus engaged in depoliticising humanitarian work
(Cuttitta 2017, endnote 8). As noted above, MSF tends to be financially independent from
public support to a much greater extent than other humanitarian NGOs which is reflected
in its state-critical stance.
Access and use of digital communication is another recent development that has changed
the relationship between those who offer and those who receive (or are meant to receive)
humanitarian assistance. Digital communication plays a significant role in traditional aid
organisations which use websites and social media to inform the public about their activi-
ties in order to elicit donations. In addition, new forms of digital humanitarianism (Meier
2015) emerged that involve crowd-sourced activities which might undermine the role of
traditional organisations. For a critical assessment see Roth and Luczak-Roesch (2018). This
might involve a shift from ‘collective’ to ‘connective’ action (Bennett and Segerberg 2012)
and thus result in networked (Tufekci 2017) humanitarian action which involves diaspora.
Both digital activism and the current refugee crisis minimise the distance between donors
and beneficiaries.

Conclusions
Humanitarianism and humanitarian NGOs have always been embedded and shaped by
power relations and inequality related to capitalism, colonialism and racial stratification.
While impartiality and need are stressed in order to solicit funding and donations from
private and public donors, the reality of the aid sector demonstrates a multiplicity of
motives, not least the reproduction of NGOs and their workforce. Moreover, while some
NGOs rely on private donors, many NGOs receive government funding and are thus less
independent. They thus vary in their critical stance towards governments. In addition to
service delivery, many NGOs seek to influence the government and the private sector
to support humanitarian initiatives through funding, research or legislative change. The
sector of humanitarian NGOs is incredibly diverse and complex and goes far beyond the
large Western NGOs which are well known thanks to branding and the use of multiple
media. In addition, humanitarian NGOs have emerged in all world regions, bringing in
new voices. Although the ‘behemoths’ receive the most media attention, they represent
only a small number of humanitarian NGOs (albeit with gigantic budgets); the vast major-
ity of humanitarian NGOs are small – and only known to their beneficiaries and donors.
Professionalisation does not necessarily mean that an organisation only includes paid staff.
Trained professionals might carry out humanitarian assistance as unpaid volunteers. While
humanitarian professionals represent a highly qualified – paid and unpaid – workforce,
what seems to matter for the delivery of humanitarian assistance is to what extent the
programmes meet the needs of the intended beneficiaries rather than the organisational
reproduction of humanitarian NGOs.
Future research should pay more attention to smaller NGOs, especially non-Western NGOs,
and compare humanitarian NGOs that are active in the Global South with third-sector organi-
sations active in the Global North. Research must address power relations and inequality within
humanitarian organisations, paying attention to the intersection of race, class and gender and
how it reflects involvement in the organisation, the programmes and priorities of humanitar-
ian organisations, and how they are perceived by beneficiaries. Furthermore, it is important to
understand how digital humanitarianism changes the work of humanitarian organisations and
aid relations.

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 20
Five generations of NGOs
in education
From humanitarianism to global capitalism

Will Brehm and Iveta Silova

Introduction
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in education are as diverse in their activities as they
are wide in their geographic reach. Some NGOs deliver educational content within their own
non-formal school settings, similar to mainstream schools but typically outside the authority
of ministries of education. Others operate inside public schools, providing additional teaching
and learning services, scholarships, and/or infrastructure improvement. Still other NGOs focus
on capacity development in and out of schools for teachers, administrators, policymakers, and
families. Teacher labour unions or federations can also be considered NGOs especially when
part of transnational advocacy networks. Found in nearly every country worldwide, NGOs in
education are, collectively, a non-organized, diverse, and, at times, influential group, ranging in
size, type, and political orientation. They can impact the practices of non-formal, formal, and
technical education as well as education policymaking locally, nationally, and globally.
Meliorism is the general metaphysical predisposition of many NGOs in education. The logic of
meliorism is, at least since the 1990s, typically situated within a human rights discourse, advancing
Western liberal ideals – including an emphasis on individual rights – as the universal goal. While
meliorism emanated through the educational work of Christian missionaries during colonial times,
today – in the more secular era – NGOs in education purport that not only is human progress
possible but also there exist universal rights that transcend any and all legal rights of nation-states.
In this context, many NGOs in education aim to advance, promote, and protect education as a
human right. The belief that NGOs must act to protect human rights, especially if/when nation-
states do not, has been called an “interventionist approach” to humanitarianism that “is increas-
ingly understood to be nonpolitical and ethically driven” (Chandler, 2001, pp. 678–678). At an
extreme, it may be interpreted as colonialism by another name.
Historically, the merging of education NGOs and human rights occurred during the
1993 United Nations World Conference of Human Rights where over 800 NGOs attended
(UNHCR, n.d.). The conference, held in Vienna, aimed to develop monitoring mechanisms to
ensure all member states worked towards the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR),
which was first ratified by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1948 in response to
World War II. By the 1990s, human rights were believed to be the international normative

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and legal framework that would advance a tolerant global society, even acting as the ration-
ale for military intervention (e.g., in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to end human right
abuses against Kosovo Albanians in 1999). By the 1990s, human rights were a common global
discourse; “you couldn’t escape it” (Cmiel, 2004). The Vienna conference was a “key driver”
bringing “non-liberal states into the human rights regime” (Dunne & Hanson, 2009, p. 67). It
also provided NGOs in education a raison d’être.
Despite their ameliorative intentions, NGOs are not without controversy. Controversy can
come through the way in which NGOs are funded. Does money from philanthropic donors,
grants, or the state influence what NGOs do? Do short-term funding cycles create a precari-
ous financial environment for NGOs providing essential services such as education in low-
income countries? Other controversy emerges through the way in which NGOs are staffed.
How are local staff members treated compared to international staff members? To what extent
does an NGO rely on international volunteers? Still other controversy can be found in the
organizational structure. Is the NGO registered and in compliance with state laws? Perhaps
the main controversy of NGOs in education revolves around their implication in the decline
of state-provided schooling. By offering services typically organized by the state, are NGOs
undermining the notion of a public education or are they providing essential services that the
state cannot provide?
Cutting through both the activities of NGOs and their controversy is the power of neoliberal
capitalism in contemporary education. Neoliberalism is a

political project carried out by the corporate capitalist class as they felt intensely threatened
both politically and economically towards the end of the 1960s into the 1970s. They des-
perately wanted to launch a political project that would curb the power of labour.
(Harvey, 2016)

Over the following decades, the national and global capitalist classes have slowly retooled
societies as capitalism became dominant. In education, this has resulted in a political economic
restructuring that has promoted, to list but a few outcomes, individualism, self-realization,
competitiveness, decentralization, managerialism, and student-centred learning (Carney, 2009).
Teacher unions were slowly undermined and new ways of deskilling teachers were found with
every technological innovation (Apple, 1982, 2003). Public education, as a result, was under-
mined by various privatization practices, to which NGOs contributed, perhaps unknowingly
(Silova & Steiner-Khamsi, 2008). Today, despite their do-gooder intentions, many NGOs
are both the product and producer of neoliberalism (Bernal & Grewal, 2014; Wallace, 2009).
Many in the transnational capitalist class have subsequently become the patrons of NGOs
or have started their own, including Bill Gates’ Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, George
Soros’ Open Society Foundations, and Mark Zuckerberg’s Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, to
name a few.
Despite promises of responding to local needs, some education NGOs have, in fact, been co-
opted, to various degrees, by powers that are actively undermining education as a public good.
This occurs by reducing and changing the role of the state in education, furthering privatization,
and bestowing legitimacy on actors advancing global capitalism, such as the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank. The most egregious
examples of such co-opting are some (supposed) grassroots and local movements that claim to
speak for the powerless but in fact further the interests of the powerful. They are not grassroots
social movements at all, but rather a form of astro-turf – manufactured movements that support
the neoliberal global education agenda (Cave, 2015).

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This is not to say that every NGO furthers neoliberal capitalism; in fact, there are some that
actively lobby against it (see Ismail & Kamat, 2018 who detail the complexity of NGOs vis-à-vis
the neoliberal state). NGOs that actively mobilize labour movements (in education, that is pri-
marily teachers) are usually a counterforce to the spread of neoliberalism. Although their num-
bers are small, these types of NGOs do exist and have had notable outcomes. However, such
NGOs have had difficulty within some nation-states where labour unions have been brutally
repressed in the era of neoliberal capitalism and within a global discourse that blames teachers for
low student achievement measured on standardized examinations. The rise of an authoritarian
neoliberalism in the post-global financial crisis era has further changed the political landscape in
which NGOs on the political left operate (Ismail & Kamat, 2018).
In this chapter, we detail the emergence of NGOs in education and the main debates around
their involvement, and then discuss two extremes: NGOs that have been co-opted by neolib-
eralism and those that actively fight against it. The point of presenting extremes is to show the
broad scope of education NGOs’ work and discuss the complexity of the contemporary NGO
landscape, suggesting not that all NGOs are one or the other but rather that there is a complex
spectrum. More fundamentally, the goal of this chapter is to highlight the contradiction within
neoliberal capitalism that, on the one hand, people and institutions can reproduce a system
unknowingly, while, on the other hand, fighting against global capitalism often means doing
so from within the system. We conclude the chapter by questioning the meaning of the public
good of education vis-à-vis NGOs and whether it can exist, in new forms, not only within
global capitalism but also within the contemporary moment of reactionary nationalism.

Five generations of NGOs

The emergence of NGOs in education is difficult, if not impossible, to pinpoint universally. In
South Africa, NGOs provided educational services to black and indigenous people who faced
severe discrimination after the 1909 South Africa Act passed the British Parliament, which
presaged apartheid in 1948 with the election of the National Party (Mazibuko, 2000). In Latin
America, NGOs in education began to appear in the 1950s, first spreading the then-popular
Liberation Theology through Catholic churches, and later supported by the United States and
its affiliated philanthropic organizations, such as the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, in
efforts to advance its national interests through soft power (Pineda, 2013). The US involvement
in Latin America was under the guise of supporting citizens repressed by national leaders who
opposed various US policies and practices. In China, although “social organizations” have been
found since the Sui (581–618), Tang (618–907), and Song (960–1279) Dynasties and mission-
ary NGOs have been present throughout European colonialism (e.g., Harrison, 2008), it was
only since the 1990s, when the country began to integrate into the global market economy, that
education NGOs promoting human rights emerged (Zhang, 2003).
Given the complex history, it is helpful to think of the background of NGOs in education
through a heuristic rather than in specific detail in one context. David Korten’s (1987, 1990)
work on the “generations of NGOs” offers a valuable starting point, since it spans the 1950s
through the 1980s when what we might call “modern” NGOs emerged (Degnbol-Martinussen
& Engberg-Pedersen, 2003). He identifies four generations of NGOs. The first generation is
focused on relief and welfare. These are NGOs that provide support to people in acute need,
such as indigenous groups in South Africa aforementioned or populations recovering from
natural or human disasters. Such humanitarian support, delivered through NGOs, may include
education, but usually focuses on immediate needs such as food and shelter, the basics for sus-
taining life in emergencies. First-generation NGOs include large numbers of religious charities,

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usually Christian missionaries (which have historical legacies dating back to the colonial era).
Today, many Christian-affiliated NGOs provide educational services to populations believed to
be in need or poor (e.g. Caritas Internationalis, Hope International, World Vision, and others).
Second-generation NGOs are what Cardelle (2003), reading Korten, labelled “technocratic
and developmentalist.” These NGOs aim to build the capacity of target communities through
so-called proven solutions so they do not, in the long run, require humanitarian assistance from
outsiders. Education plays a particularly important role in second-generation NGOs because it
is the educational process that will, it is believed, lead to sustainable human and social devel-
opment. It is precisely here where the ameliorative tendencies of NGOs in education clearly
emerge. It is also where the challenge to the state arises: either the state cannot provide or pro-
vides inadequate schooling. NGOs step in to help. This help manifests typically by NGOs from
the Global North (or organized by people from the Global North) that perceive the education
of a targeted group of people from the Global South as inadequate or absent for the desired
development. A new technical solution provided by the NGO is believed to be the remedy
to the identified social ill, but it is rarely scaled to the whole national population. An NGO
may open its own school to provide specific training on some desirable skills (e.g., computers,
English language, etc.) or may partner with an existing public school to undertake “capacity
development” (e.g., teacher training, classroom construction, etc.).
It is within the second generation of NGOs where the “development expert” was born
(Parpart, 1995). This expert is believed to be able to provide the right technical solution to a
given development problem. Although these experts rarely work for small-scale NGOs such
as those found in the second generation, the logic behind their perceived need derives from
second-generation thinking – that there is a technocratic solution, absent politics, to any prob-
lem of development that only a qualified expert can ascertain, similar to the ability of a medical
doctor to diagnose an illness. As we will see below, the role of the development expert expands
in future generations.
The third generation of NGOs that Korten (1987, 1990) identifies looks beyond small-scale,
local solutions to problems, aiming their effort instead on large-scale, national, and interna-
tional structures. These NGOs try to change policy and governance of the education sector,
both nationally and internationally. This generation of NGOs emerged most prominently in
the 1990s alongside the human rights discourse. In the 1990s, it was a common refrain that
states were unable to meet the international norm of attaining universal basic education, which
emerged inside the United Nations in the 1960s and became a keystone of global education
governance after the 1990 Jomtien World Conference on Education for All (Rose, 2007, p. 1;
see also Mundy & Murphy, 2001). NGOs working at the level of policy and governance were
legitimated by the United Nations, thus spurring the growth of third-generation NGOs. Soon,
some NGOs found a seat at the national decision-making table of education policy (Edwards
& Brehm, 2016), while others began to influence large donors, such as the Open Society
Foundations (Silova & Steiner-Khamsi, 2008). Development experts quickly found lucrative
consultancy work worldwide, creating a perceived world devoid of context where evidence-
based research could provide supposed universal solutions (Brehm & Silova, 2011).
The fourth and last generation of NGOs that Korten (1987, 1990) briefly describes are those
NGOs that coordinate activities through local, national, and global networks. This can include
very large NGOs such as Education International, the federation of teacher unions that began in
1993, as well as smaller NGOs that serve as umbrella organizations in one country. The NGO
Education Partnership in Cambodia is an example of a smaller NGO that is part of the fourth
generation, since it coordinates a network of many education NGOs within Cambodia, is con-
nected to international groups such as the Global Campaign for Education, and actively seeks

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to influence national policy making (Edwards, Brehm, & Storen, 2018). The main difference
between third- and fourth-generation NGOs is the leveraging of a network to influence action,
connecting to social network theories that gained popularity in the 1980s and 1990s (Castells,
1996; Deleuze & Parnet, 1987). Important in these networks are certain development experts
who act as central nodes of power by transmitting various ideas (known as “best practices”), or
what Nambissan and Ball (2010) call a “policy entrepreneur” (see also Ball, 2012).
After three decades, Korten’s theorization is still relevant to a certain extent. In education,
there are still NGOs that provide humanitarian assistance; those that aim to build the capacity of
schools and teachers; others that want to influence policy; and, most recently, growing networks
of NGOs (and experts) that coordinate action globally. Nevertheless, the four generations miss
much of the last 30 years, namely the rise and dominance of neoliberal capitalism. It is therefore
important to update Korten’s heuristic with a fifth generation of NGOs. These are NGOs that
have fully embraced or actively fight against neoliberalism, working through public–private
partnerships, multi-stakeholder partnerships for education, and/or anti-capitalist social move-
ments. Some embrace new trends in capitalism, from “Big Data” and e-learning to platforms,
and help construct modern childhood and schooling (Wells, 2015). Teach For America and
its global network, Teach For All, for instance, have created alternative teacher certification
courses, supposedly deregulating teacher education but, in fact, requiring the state to issue
emergency certifications in order to profit (Lahann & Reagan, 2011; Friedrich, 2016). Similarly,
Bridge International Academies is a for-profit school network operating in many low-income
countries that relies on standardized curriculum delivered by untrained teachers who use tablets
(Riep & Machacek, 2016).
Another feature of fifth-generation NGOs beyond the focus on profit and/or re-defining
public space (Popkewitz, 1998) is the embrace of philanthrocapitalism – the marriage of phil-
anthropic organizations with corporate business practices (Klonsky, 2011). Such endeavours
have resulted in spectacular failures, such as the US$100 million donation by the founder of
Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, to Newark, New Jersey public schools (Russakoff, 2015). On a
smaller scale, the combination of philanthropy and capitalism has created, in the Global North
at least, the mistaken belief that one’s conspicuous consumption can actually help those who are
impoverished. Case in point: Bono’s Product (Red), launched at the 2006 World Economic
Forum in Davos, which was embraced by companies like Apple, American Express, and
Motorola, encouraged companies to sell various products using the discourse of humanitarian-
ism. Product (Red) is the epitome of neoliberalism: “a lean network solution to aid financing,
takes funds from consumption – not taxation. It is an individual effort, the result of consumer
power – not of collective/public will” (Richey & Ponte, 2008, p. 724). Beyond consumption,
the neoliberal logic has also altered the concept of volunteering in this fifth generation, turning
it into a profitable enterprise for NGOs in education and a site where neoliberal subjects are
made (Vrasti, 2013).
The five generations outlined above are a heuristic device to help understand NGOs in
education. The demarcations between generations are not firm; any one NGO can simultane-
ously exhibit elements of the various generations described. Additionally, demarcations are not
static. An NGO can change its approach at various times and in different contexts. Reading
across the generations, however, it is possible to distil some of the main debates when it comes
to NGOs in education. The first is the issue of the state. Is the role of the state in education
being subverted by NGOs? Clearly, first-generation NGOs are not usurping the state outright.
Emergencies show the limits of state assistance, opening space for NGOs to provide humanitar-
ian support, including educational services. However, as the generations progress, subversion
becomes increasingly likely even if not the intent of the NGO. In the most extreme cases, such

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as Bridge International Academies, profit motives in education require fifth-generation NGOs to

dispossess the state from providing certain social services, such as education. Although payment
can still – and likely must – come from the state, the role of the state in education is changed
because of fifth-generation NGOs.
It is also possible to locate issues around grassroots mobilization. To what extent do NGOs
represent the needs and desires of local populations? Such mobilization is, by definition, politi-
cal, making some NGOs uncomfortable (because such mobilization could undermine rela-
tionships with ruling powers/parties) and others susceptible to unknown agendas, such the
global education reform movement’s focus on choice and competition (Sahlberg, 2016), by
large donors. In an environment where education is perceived as a universal and transhistorical
human right, discussions over NGOs and politics are marginalized (Ferguson, 1994) but not
completely absent (Bailey, 2015). Overall, the five generations provide a way to differentiate
which NGOs are furthering global education governance as a neoliberal project and, if so,
how. In order to examine this last point in more detail, the next section of the chapter explores
two extreme cases – an NGO that furthers the neoliberal project and one that actively fights
against it.

Co-opted by global, platform capital: the PAL Network

Education NGOs have become, to various degrees, conduits through which neoliberalism
spreads. Roy and Cusack (2016) called NGOs “missionaries of the ‘new economy’” (p. 55) and
Ismail and Kamat (2018) called NGOs “a pillar of the neoliberal state” (p. 4). By embracing
tenets of competition, choice, standardization, and using corporate business models, “the public
sphere [has been] reclaimed by the private sector” (Kamat, 2004, p. 167). Instead of working
for systemic change,

the proliferation of NGOs has not reduced structural unemployment or massive displace-
ments of peasants, nor provided livable wage levels for the growing army of informal
workers. What NGOs have done is to provide a thin stratum of professionals with income
in hard currency who are able to escape the ravages of the neoliberal economy that affects
their country and people and to climb within the existing social class structure.
(Petras & Veltmeyer, 2001, p. 129)

On top of the class conflict identified by Petras and Veltmeyer, NGOs have also embraced new
features of global capitalism. One such feature is the rise of platforms, wherein new business
models provide the software and hardware on which other businesses can operate (Srnicek,
2017). Data, extracted from increasingly surveilled users, become the raw material on which
labour is done (e.g., data analytics for advertising on Facebook), providing ways to profit espe-
cially as networks grow: “the more numerous the users who use a platform, the more valuable
that platform becomes for everyone else” (Srnicek, 2017, p. 45). In education, data can take
many forms, the most common being assessments to measure learning outcomes. Although edu-
cational data companies have been controversial (see the case of InBloom; Bulger, McCormick,
& Pitcan, 2017), NGOs have begun to embrace platform capitalism while using the discourse of
earlier generations of welfare, humanitarianism, empowerment, and liberation. An exemplar of
this type of NGO in education is the People’s Action for Learning (PAL) Network.
The PAL Network consists of NGOs that assess the learning outcomes of over one mil-
lion children in literacy and numeracy. Begun by a Pratham NGO in India in 2005, the PAL
Network has expanded to NGOs in 14 countries across three continents. The Network provides

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what it calls “citizen-led assessment,” meaning a group of volunteers administer literacy and
numeracy assessments in the homes of children. These one-on-one assessments, the Network
claims, measure outputs rather than the inputs of education, potentially providing governments
with useful information on quality (or lack thereof). Target interventions could then be made
based on the evidence of the assessments.
The PAL Network has turned what is effectively a household survey into a product per-
ceived by many to be essential for education policymaking. It does this through a carefully
constructed discourse that combines accountability and transparency with empowerment and
progress. It advocates its assessments as a way to hold governments accountable for the educa-
tion it delivers. By assessing the outcomes of learning (e.g., the ability to read or write), it offers
a simple way to judge the quality of education. By making the results public, it gives informa-
tion to citizens who can hold their government accountable for the social service provided. On
top of these neoliberal discourses of accountability and transparency, the Network embraces
meliorism by emphasizing the power of community involvement in education. The use of
community members as data collectors supposedly empowers individuals to take part in educa-
tion development in their local environment. The discourse of empowerment is reminiscent of
second-generation NGOs.
Although the Network comprises a group of NGOs from the Global South, something it
champions on its website using the term “South–South cooperation,” institutions from the
Global North at the heart of global capitalism provide support and legitimacy. The Network,
for instance, partners with the World Bank and UNESCO, displaying their logos prominently
on its website. Many of the national NGOs that are part of the Network receive funding from
the World Bank too. The US-based think tank, Brookings, meanwhile, champions the NGOs
that are part of the PAL Network: “even in the face of daunting challenges and an uncertain
future, ambitious goal setting, collaboration and the effective use of evidence can deliver impressive
results in a relatively short amount of time” (Winthrop, Matsui, & Jamil, 2013, emphasis added).
Why would the World Bank, UNESCO, and Brookings champion a network of Global
South NGOs? The answer can only be because the Network shares the same goals, vision, and
practices of these Global North institutions. The neoliberal rhetoric of the Global North has
been fully internalized by NGOs of the Global South. As such, the Network converges with
Global North discourses of “schooling without learning” (World Bank, 2018) and of a “global
learning crisis” (UNESCO, 2013; WDR 2018) – the rhetorical devices that turn the Global
South into the Other of the Global North (Silova, 2018). The Network is seen as providing
the evidence to prove these discourses correct; hence, the Network is crucial for Global North
organizations advancing neoliberalism. More importantly, by providing a quantifiable diag-
nosis of the “global learning crisis,” the World Bank, UNESCO, and Brookings will have an
easier time selling solutions to Global South governments. Interestingly, the PAL Network also
proposes solutions based on the analysis of its own reports, suggesting its ambition to inform
national and global policymaking.
Notwithstanding the potential benefits of a network of Global South NGOs, the PAL
Network has not only been co-opted by neoliberalism but also operates like a platform, a new
feature of global capitalism. It produces raw assessment data that then can be used by large
financial institutions such as the World Bank to justify additional loans to governments and
offer particular (neoliberal) education solutions. The Network relies on volunteer work that is
piece-wage just like an Uber-driver: hired (or not?) for only the time it takes to conduct the
assessment. As Marx (1990) wrote, “piece-wage is the form of wages most in harmony with
the capitalist mode of production” (pp. 697–698) because the capitalist has no other social
or economic obligations (e.g., health care or retirement benefits) to the labourer other than

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the wage paid for hours worked. Once harvested, the data undergoes a process of intellectual
labour – that is, analysis – by full-time employees of the Network (as well as others such as
World Bank staffers, since the data is made public) who then present findings and solutions to
government agencies and international donors. Here there is a clear class division between the
survey collectors and the data analysts. The PAL Network gains in market share as governments
adopt its proposed recommendations to the supposed learning crisis. Monopolistic tendencies
increase as the network grows internationally, similar to the OECD’s PISA test. All of these
neoliberal tendencies, however, are glossed over by their emphasis on grassroots assessments,
using rhetoric such as citizen-led and empowerment.
The PAL Network offers a window into the complexities of fifth-generation NGOs. The
Network gains power by producing ever more educational data – relying on cheap labour and
(re)producing class divisions among labourers – that can effectively be used by large interna-
tional development agencies lobbying governments to reform education systems in particular
ways. Data collected, moreover, is described in ways that conjure a particular form of citizen –
one who knows about the social services in his or her community, but who leaves change to
others – and defines education in particularly narrow terms through the outputs of a standard-
ized test. The PAL Network, in effect, mirrors the paradox of neoliberal democracy: “while
symbolically expanding opportunities for democratic participation, it produces antidemocratic
effects” (Nygreen, 2017, p. 57).

Resisting neoliberalism in education: Education International

This is not to say that every NGO furthers neoliberal capitalism; in fact, there are some that
actively lobby against it. For example, Ismail and Kamat (2018) theorize NGOs as “part of the bal-
ance of class forces that impact oppositional politics at national and international levels,” directing
attention to how NGOs in different contexts become a part of the project of resistance to neo-
liberalism (p. 5). This has become more evident in the era after the global financial crisis of 2007–
2008 where austerity policies and reactionary nationalism have mobilized anti-capitalist resistance
coalitions trying to articulate a post-neoliberal vision. In the area of education, such resistance is
clearly visible in the work of NGOs that actively attempt to mobilize labour movements – teachers
and teacher unions – as a powerful counterforce to the spread of neoliberalism aiming to address
the rapidly worsening conditions of teachers’ work, promote their professional status, and support
the professional freedoms of teachers and education employees.
One of the most active international networks operating against the neoliberal political pro-
ject is Education International – a global federation of teacher unions that represents more than
32 million trade union members in about 400 organizations in 175 countries and territories
worldwide (Education International, 2016). Education International was formed in 1993 as
a result of a merger of the International Federation of Free Teachers Unions and the World
Confederation of Organizations of the Teaching Profession.1 By merging forces, Education
International set out to strategically promote “both the expansion of trade unionism among
teachers and the development of a unified, professional vision of global educational issues”
(Mundy & Murphy, 2001, p. 108). Although the central concern of teacher unions histori-
cally has been the establishment of international standards on the status of teachers, Education
International has shifted its priorities to address issues related to “the threat to teachers, and
to public education more generally, posed by austerity and the new policy agenda” (Mundy
& Murphy, 2001, p. 108). At Education International’s founding congress in 1993, its then-
general secretary, Fred Van Leeuwen, explicitly articulated Education International’s work as a
“battle with neoliberalism,” promising to mobilize forces in order to target the “international

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education crisis . . . [as marked] by austerity measures in the South and by neoliberal schemes
in the North, put forth to destroy free compulsory education and replace it with some form of
fragmented semi-public or private system” (quoted in Mundy & Murphy, 2001, p. 108).
Similar to other third-generation NGOs working in the area of education, Education
International frames its work within the human rights discourse, assuming universality of
Western liberalism (for a critique see Hopgood, 2013). In fact, the adoption of the human rights
discourse – and the universal and expansionist logic associated with it – has enabled Education
International to build its transnational advocacy networks, justifying its global reach. For exam-
ple, Education International’s Barometer of Human and Trade Union Rights report (2018) states
that “education as a right is interrelated with other human rights whose fulfilment depends
on it.” It further argues that access to education, as well as quality of learning, depend on
“the political will of those who have the power to provide or deny this fundamental human
right.” In contrast to many NGOs that attempt to substitute or supplement government’s efforts
in ensuring the right to education, Education International’s strategy is thus oriented more
towards advocacy, holding accountable those individuals and institutions whose actions hinder
the right to education guaranteed by national and international law. In other words, Education
International’s work is geared towards explicitly challenging the (neoliberal) status quo in the
area of education – building on human rights discourse – and holding the powerful to account.
However, non-governmental networks such as Education International have had difficulty
within some nation-states where labour unions have been brutally repressed, where freedom
of speech and press are limited, and where the overall economic conditions undermine the
right of children to receive free, quality education. As Education International (2018) describes:
“some governments still deny education to the majority of their citizens; some deny education
to certain groups; while others demand a single accepted interpretation of information and
call it education.” In such contexts, challenging the status quo is much more difficult, requir-
ing teachers and their unions to mobilize in strategic and innovative ways. In 2016, Education
International’s activities ranged from capacity building for teacher union members, to monitor-
ing major international trade and investment negotiations and agreements (such as Trans-Pacific
Partnership and Trade in Services Agreement), and to commissioning research on priority issues
(such as privatization of public education), exposing and holding accountable market actors
who seek to transform public schools into profit-making business enterprises (see Education
International’s annual report, 2016). In 2016, for example, Education International joined forces
with the Uganda National Teachers’ Union (UNATU) to produce a report entitled Schooling the
Poor Profitably (Riep & Machacek, 2016), documenting the impact of the commercialization and
privatization of education in Uganda, where Bridge International Academies established 63 pri-
vate for-profit schools, since February 2015, with an estimated 12,000 fee-paying students. The
report revealed that Bridge International Academies in Uganda are actually undermining the
accessibility of quality education for all, as well as infringing upon the sovereignty of the Ugandan
state. Following the release of the report, Uganda’s High Court ordered the immediate closure
of Bridge facilities, claiming that these schools provided unsanitary learning conditions, used
unqualified teachers, and were not properly licensed. Similarly, Education International worked
with the Kenya National Union of Teachers, East African Centre for Human Rights, and
Global Initiative for Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights to produce a report on the Bridge
International Academies in Kenya, leading to the closure of 10 Bridge schools in Busia County
for failing to meet education standards (for more, see the Global Initiative for Economic, Social,
and Cultural Rights, 2017).
By mobilizing education stakeholders at national and international levels in the struggle against
neoliberalism, Education International uses its networks to give national teacher unions greater

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leverage in pursuing their goals (reminiscent of a fourth-generation NGO). As Keck and Sikkink
(1998) explain, belonging to such a transnational advocacy network creates “a boomerang effect,”
whereby diverse groups of stakeholders – within and across national settings – communicate,
share information, and exchange resources as they work together to influence policy through
common networks. As illustrated in the examples above, these transnational advocacy networks
function by employing information politics (e.g., commissioning research on Bridge International
Academies), symbolic politics (e.g., framing privatization of public education as a threat to educa-
tion rights), leverage politics (e.g., calling on a stronger actor such as Education International to
leverage the work of national teacher unions), and accountability politics (e.g., holding Bridge
International Academies accountable through court action). As Mundy and Murphy (2001)
argue, such transnational advocacy networks link domestic and international groups in collective
protests against neoliberal education policies, situating Education International’s current forma-
tion within the fifth generation of NGOs.
Yet, Education International’s ambitious agenda and extensive geographical reach – while
undeniably contributing to its political legitimacy – also contain an inherent risk of assuming
a universalist stance that leaves no space for alternatives beyond Western modernity and its
Left-leaning variations (Silova, Rappleye, & Auld, forthcoming). As Hopgood (2013) convinc-
ingly argues, the global discourse of human rights is “intimately tied to the export of neolib-
eral democracy” (p. xii), highlighting its ameliorative nature and historical predisposition to
pursuing “a civilizing mission” across the world. Indeed, the discourses on human rights and
democracy regularly intersect in Education International’s publications. For example, Education
International’s website concludes the description of the organization’s history with the follow-
ing paragraph:

As never before, the defense of the right to education has been joined with the defense and
exercise of trade union rights to give EI and its member organisations the capacity to better
represent all workers in the education sector and a seat at the global education policy table.
Bringing together those enabling rights has also boosted the effective promotion by educa-
tion unions of the culture, process and practice of democracy.
(Education International, 2017)

Clearly, Education International is interested in securing its own “seat at the global education
policy table,” even if this means participating in and therefore maintaining the neoliberal status
quo against which Education International claims to protect teachers and teacher unions. In
this context, “to speak in the name of Human Rights is to put the neutral, objective, and uni-
versal ahead of the partial and subjective. It is to become The Authority” (Hopgood, 2013, p. 6,
emphasis in the original). Education policies based on such abstract universalisms – whether stem-
ming from the political Left or Right – tend to run the risk of focusing on their own (narrow)
versions of “best policies and practices,” while marginalizing other, non-Western alternatives that
aim to foster greater equality.

Conclusion
While political scientists have viewed transnational non-governmental actors as marginal to
state-based power politics until about 1990s (Mundy & Murphy, 2001), this is certainly no
longer the case. As this chapter has illustrated, in addition to grassroots initiatives some NGOs are
now forming powerful transnational networks to directly engage in education policy and prac-
tice within and across different national contexts. While raising questions about the long-term

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capacities and representativeness of these new advocacy movements, many scholars have gone
so far as to describe them as “the harbingers of ‘global civil society’” in education, pointing to
“a redemptive, semiautonomous political space in which popular organizations come together
to create and participate in institutions of global governance” (Mundy & Murphy, 2001, p. 90).
Worldwide, NGOs have been increasingly seen as playing an instrumental role in the collec-
tive effort of ensuring access to quality education for all, whether complementing, correcting,
or substituting governmental efforts in the provision of public education. In this context, their
work has been generally geared towards technical aspects of education reforms – providing
assistance in the development of education standards, implementing new learning assessments,
or transferring “best practices” – thus depoliticizing education.
Yet, NGOs are far from apolitical organizations. Using two examples of current fifth-
generation NGOs, operating on extremes of the political spectrum, this chapter has illustrated
that NGOs can act as both the conduit and obstruction to neoliberal education policy and
practice. On the one hand, the PAL Network appears to contribute to advancing neoliber-
alism through its interdependency and alignment with the Global North logic of a “learn-
ing crisis” and its embrace of “big data” as the main mechanism for education reform. The
Network has even adopted new features of platform capitalism, suggesting a new area of
future research. On the other hand, Education International was a fourth-generation NGO
that morphed into a fifth generation. It uses its growing network of teacher unions and fed-
erations worldwide to resist neoliberal policies and practices. Despite its successes, Education
International has had to resist neoliberalism from within a system of universal ideals using a
discourse closely aligned to that of “best practices.” For Education International, the struggle
against neoliberalism must come from within the global capitalist system. While effectively
mobilizing Left-leaning education stakeholders against neoliberal education reforms, such a
universalist approach simultaneously neglects other alternatives to neoliberalism.
In an era marked by both Right and Left political dissent in many countries worldwide,
“serious prospects of an alternative to neoliberalism herald the possibilities of systemic change”
(Ismail & Kamat, 2018, p. 7). This could mean a sixth generation of NGOs is upon us that
would have serious consequences for the meaning of the public good of education. Education
in this nascent post-neoliberal era will need to be re-politicized. No longer will narrow under-
standings of quality based on standardized assessments of outputs be enough for citizen empow-
erment. Similarly, no longer will unquestioned assumptions of Western ideals as universal and
transhistorical be enough to advance the complexity of everyday life in communities world-
wide. NGOs will continue to play an important role in education for the foreseeable future.
Just like previous generations, however, the work of future NGOs in education will be marked
by diversity and complexity. Embracing the politics of NGOs in education is arguably the most
pressing issue going forward.

Note
1 International teacher unions have a longer history, dating back to the World Federation of Techers
Unions founded in 1946 (Coldrick & Jones, 1979).

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 21
The roles of the citizen sector in
health and public health1
Paul Gaist and Victoria Chau

The role of NGOs and CBOs – the role of the citizen sector
There is a moral imperative to alleviate human suffering, regardless of where it occurs.
Unfortunately, while understood and appreciated by most, all too often that call to action goes
unheeded. This can be due to lack of awareness or objectively collected data; competing interests
and priorities; limited resources; perceived lack of solutions; and/or even deliberate negligence
and denial. All too often the suffering not only continues, it spreads and is perpetuated. This
human strife and suffering often is a product of many health and public health challenges in the
world today. Left unabated, unaddressed, such challenges generally will not improve; they will
continue and exacerbate, leading to even more crisis, suffering, and consequence. We do not
have to look any further than the recent outbreaks of Ebola, Zika, war, and violence in many
parts of the world; water contamination and other environmental health threats near and wide;
drug and alcohol addictions; and more – and they all happen “somewhere” – in communities,
villages, towns, cities, countries, often coupled with the fear and possibility of local and global
threat and devastation. Yet there is much to be hopeful about, in no small part the important
and primary roles that community-based organisations (CBOs) and non-governmental organi-
sations (NGOs) take on and serve in the vanguard, pushing back against these local and global
challenges, both now and in the future. NGOs and CBOs are a growing force in public health
and provide voice to the community; they act both directly and indirectly on public health
through addressing social determinants of health, and they are showing the way forward as they
improve their tools and approaches and innovate through partnerships and strategic planning.
For this chapter, CBOs and NGOs will be collectively referred to as the “citizen sector.”
CBOs and NGOs include a whole host of organisations that generally are independent of the
government or state. There is a spectrum of groups and organisations under the labels of “NGOs”
and “CBOs”. Groups such as, but not limited to, faith-based organisations (e.g., Catholic Relief
Services (CRS); the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC); the Jewish Federations of North
America), trans-national health service organisations (e.g., the International Committee of the
Red Cross (ICRC); Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders; the World Health
Organization (WHO)); local health service organisations (e.g., Whitman-Walker Health in
Washington, DC; Healthcare for the Homeless (HCH) in Baltimore, MD; Alliance in the

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Ukraine), and many others that are included within this sector are referenced as CBOs/NGOs
(CRS, 2018; HCH, 2018; ICRC, 2018; Jewish Federations of North America, 2018; MCC,
2017a; Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders, 2018; Whitman-Walker Health,
2018; WHO, 2018). And the citizen sector is interchangeably referred to as the civil society sec-
tor, the social sector, and the non-profit sector. At their core, these organisations are committed
to the call of that moral imperative and they rise to the challenge of that call with their specific
missions, skills, and reach.
The purpose of this chapter is to convey in short order the role of the citizen sector (NGOs
and CBOs) in addressing health and public health issues, as well as to touch on the wide range
of health and public health issues NGOs and CBOs are taking on in the world today. In addi-
tion, this chapter presents a way forward that is being embraced by many; namely, the trend and
the need for the citizen sector to partner, problem solve, collaborate, and cooperate not only
with each other, but also across sectors so that more coordinated and “complete” responses can
be planned and implemented. To help convey and illustrate the chapter objectives, a few select
examples of specific areas of effort will be highlighted.
Collectively, the citizen sector is focused on calling attention to, challenging, addressing, and
solving root health and public health problems affecting their communities. It is often the
NGOs/CBOs that pull the curtain back and bring the spotlight in, focusing attention on
the issue at hand, collecting the needed information, articulating the problem, and working
towards a solution or solutions. They champion their communities, serving as the clarion
call and guardian, giving voice and empowerment to those who often have no organized
voice or power on their own. Often this is done when the need is great, and the resources
are few.
Health and public health-oriented NGOs/CBOs are focused on protecting and improving the
health and the quality of life of the members, the citizens, of their community or communities of
focus. Whether they are localised health and public health issues, such as water contamination or
lack of health services in a town or city, or issues that transcend national boundaries such as infec-
tious diseases, it is the citizen sector that is often first to ring the alarm bell and first to answer the
call to action. NGOs/CBOs are essential health and public health leaders and stakeholders, repre-
senting their communities and providing and delivering key programmes and services. They work
through community organising, education, information gathering, research, leadership develop-
ment, community empowerment, political advocacy, and the development of sound health and
public health policy. They work through their constituency, the members of the community that
are most affected or potentially affected by the health and/or public health issue of focus, whether
it is HIV prevention, malaria control, water and sanitation issues, lack of health services, violence,
or environmental health.

Citizen sector’s expanding roles in health and public health

The health of the public – of the individual and of the community – encompasses a range of
issues in the world today beyond what many might presume or expect. The citizen sector runs
the gamut, employing skills to undertake problem identification, information gathering and
analysis, research, programme development and implementation, as well as programme and
policy advocacy. The range of issues that come under health and public health is vast and range
from the very local to the global. This section presents a lens through which to view this work
and highlights only a few examples along this spectrum to present the overriding point that the
citizen sector is ubiquitous in its reach and impact with respect to health and public health issues
and concerns.

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As stated, the cornerstone of CBOs and NGOs is the community. The power of the
community is harnessed by the drive to address a problem within a specific community that
has yet to be articulated and/or resolved. Many such problems and issues are commonly
connected to either health or public health. From CBOs and NGOs that work towards
improving direct services to health care, to those that strive for equity in education, or those
that rebuild homes from natural disasters, these organisations all directly or indirectly seek to
improve the health and well-being of individuals and/or populations. Public health’s wide-
spread reach covers a multitude of topics and continues to penetrate communities globally
through the citizen sector.
The range of topics that intersect and contribute to the health of an individual or population
can essentially be described through the Social Determinants of Health (SDOH). The SDOH
are the social, economic, and physical conditions that affect where people are born, live, work,
play, and age (HealthyPeople.gov, 2017). The United States Department of Health and Human
Services’ Healthy People 2020 (HP2020) Initiative identifies five key areas to the SDOH: edu-
cation, economic stability, neighbourhood and built environment, health and health care, and
social and community context (see Figure 21.1).

Neighborhood
and Built
Environment

Economic Health and

Stability Health Care

SDOH

Social and
Education Community
Context

Figure 21.1 Social determinants of health (HealthyPeople.gov, n.d.)

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By applying a SDOH framework, an issue or need can be viewed through a holistic lens in
which there are multiple levels, systems, and factors that affect the health of a person and/or popu-
lation. Through a SDOH framework, these five key areas must be considered when attempting
to improve a person’s or population’s health. These five key areas often may be represented at
the macro level as structural or systemic factors, which include criminal justice, social services,
education, public transportation, and health systems, which are often all interrelated. When
considering and working towards solving a health problem, the inclusion of macro-level fac-
tors such as these systems allows for structural inequities to be visible – a crucial component to
understanding and achieving health.
What follows are selected topics and examples of the work of CBOs and NGOs that at
first glance may not appear to relate to health. However, through a SDOH lens one can see
the intersectionality of topics that compose the diverse range of public health. Through these
selected topics and examples, a new and important view of health and public health and the
many connected and interrelated links to it is presented.
The selected topics cover early childhood education and literacy, environmental health, food
insecurity, built environment, mental health, technology, and globalism. Framed by these few
topics, a snapshot of CBOs and NGOs from the US and around the world is offered. A snapshot
and a view underscoring the many, possibly not readily evident, roles NGOs and CBOs have
in improving health and public health. Taken together, it is an exemplar to understanding how
central these groups and the citizen sector as a whole are to public health, whether in the local
or global health context.

SDOH area: education

Literature on the SDOH has typically shown that those with higher levels of education have
better health (Ross and Wu, 1995). Because of this, CBOs and NGOs geared towards improv-
ing education directly and indirectly strive for better health. An example of this occurring in
multiple low- and middle-income countries is Room to Read, an NGO based in San Francisco,
California in the US. Room to Read is a globally recognised leader in increasing literacy and
quality education among children and youth, particularly girls, in 10 low-income countries
in Africa and Asia (Room to Read, 2017a). Since its inception in 2000, Room to Read has
expanded and accomplished remarkable feats – 19,884 schools/partners, with 9.9 million chil-
dren who have benefited from the Literacy Program, 1,300 children’s books published in 19
languages, and more than 20.6 million books distributed – all through partnerships with local
communities, especially local governments (Room to Read, 2017b, 2017c). Additionally,
Room to Read has trained 8,703 teachers and librarians in the year 2015 alone, and has had over
47,000 girls participate in their Girls’ Education Program (Room to Read, 2017c). A case study
of Room to Read from the Brookings Institution highlights the unique nature of this initiative,
in that it is one of the most successful and well-funded NGOs in the US, with a budget that
exceeds more than 50 million US dollars annually (Alexander, Kwauk, and Robinson, 2016).
Room to Read’s quality work has given them the opportunity to be invited to actively engage
in policy discussions on literacy and education for multiple governments, including invitations
to rewrite textbooks used countrywide in Cambodia (Alexander, Kwauk, and Robinson, 2016).
Sixty per cent of Room to Read’s funds are provided by investors, giving this NGO a strong
financial foundation alleviating the need for multilateral and bilateral grants (Alexander, Kwauk,
and Robinson, 2016). This investor-base continues to be committed to supporting this NGO
because of the clear impact demonstrated by both quantitative and qualitative data (Alexander,

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Kwauk, and Robinson, 2016). Room to Read is a notable NGO internationally, driven by
the need for communities to be able to provide quality education to all children in hopes of
fostering their growth, setting the foundation for maximising their potential as they become
productive and healthy adult citizens. Through their work to increase literacy among children,
particularly girls, they are instrumentally providing them with the foundation and opportunity
needed for a healthier trajectory in life.

SDOH area: economic stability

An NGO focused primarily on gender equity in low- and middle-income countries in the
economic arena is Mahila Housing SEWA Trust (MHT). As seen with Room to Read, when
people are without education, their economic opportunity and stability is lessened; this is com-
monplace among low- and middle-income countries. Environmental health is the sector of
public health that focuses on reducing risk to individuals and/or populations due to environ-
mental toxins, hazards, or exposures (Davies, 2013). Addressing economic stability by promot-
ing environmental health is illustrated through the work of MHT, an Indian NGO serving
India, Nepal, and Bangladesh, whose mission is “to organise and empower women working
the informal economy to exercise their rights as equal citizens to secure better habitat, envi-
ronment, and basic services” (MHT, 2017). MHT serves geographically diverse populations
of South Asia, both urban and rural, through many programmes and initiatives all rooted in
community empowerment and capacity-building. With established programmes spanning sev-
eral environmental health topics such as water and sanitation, energy and climate change, and
housing and land issues, MHT acknowledges the importance of the environment in affecting
the health of populations. Noteworthy to this NGO is its approach to solve economic insta-
bility locally through prioritising housing among a specific subset of the citizen sector – the
women – who traditionally do not have an empowered role or voice within these traditionally
paternal societies.
The driver for this NGO – women’s equity – shapes how economic stability is reached
within these South Asian communities. MHT leverages the strengths of community through its
women, by equipping them with technical and social skills to develop its community’s infor-
mal economy through the help of community-based organisations. For example, the Karmika
School of Construction Workers trains women to be skilled construction workers, empowering
them to earn more (80% of women who were trained reported increased incomes), and obtain
more skilled construction positions such as masons; 30% of women who were trained reported
becoming masons and 20% of women who were trained reported becoming helpers to masons
after receiving training (MHT, 2017). Because of this training programme, associated improve-
ments in women’s health and mental health have been achieved such as increased confidence
while in the workplace and perceived higher status within one’s family, and lower incidences
of sexual harassment of women at the workplace have been reported by women trained in the
construction programme (MHT, 2017). The Karmika School of Construction Workers is just
one of MHT’s programmes that this South Asian NGO employs to empower women and
improve health while providing economic stability.
Another form of economic instability is food insecurity. Although obesity often leads to
significant and debilitating adverse health outcomes including Type 2 diabetes, hypertension,
and heart disease (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2017), the most relevant food
issue worldwide is food insecurity. Food insecurity is the inability consistently and reliably
to access affordable foods that are healthy and of nutritious value. Though a ubiquitous issue

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worldwide, solutions to food insecurity often depend on the social and community context.
In the US, food banks are the most notable community-based entities that lead the mission to
end food insecurity. One example of a food bank that tackles food insecurity through innova-
tive strategies while considering a SDOH framework is Rochester’s Foodlink. Foodlink is a
member of Feeding America, a coalition of US food banks that work to end food insecurity in
the US (Foodlink, 2017). Foodlink serves several counties in New York, and solves problem
situations through the translation of research and the development of innovative solutions.
For example, Foodlink decided to provide apple slices instead of whole apples to schools since
many of the whole apples were being discarded, uneaten by the children. While this may seem
a small and possibly inconsequential change, based on gathered data, it had a large positive
impact. Foodlink, equipped with a commercial kitchen that can cut a high volume of fruit,
decided to cut the whole apples they had been providing schools and to replace their delivery
as sliced apples. This simple switch in the composition of the apple resulted in an increase in
apple consumption by students (Sacharow, 2017).
Foodlink also leads other programmes to promote healthy eating and access, such as their
Curbside Market and BackPack Program. The Curbside Market is a mobile farm stand that
partners with local farmers to provide fresh produce to communities where access to fresh
produce is scant. And to increase access, the Curbside Market accepts a wide range of payment
from cash, debit, and social welfare programmes such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance
Program (SNAP) and Women Infant Children (WIC) programme, and Senior Farmers Market
Nutrition Program (FMNP) checks. In 2016, more than 340,000 lbs. of fresh produce were sold
(Foodlink, 2017). The BackPack Program provides backpacks filled with easy-to-prepare and
nutritious food for children to bring home for weekends and holidays when schools are not in
session (and children are not fed by schools). The BackPack Program’s impact includes provid-
ing almost 69,000 bags of food across 80 schools in New York (Foodlink, 2017). Collectively,
through these innovative programmes, Foodlink works towards improving health through
ensuring sufficient and nutritious food is provided to families in need. Past research (as cited
in Jyoti, Frongillo, and Jones, 2005) indicates that poorer academic performance in school
(Alaimo, Olson, and Frongillo, 2001; American Psychological Association (APA), n.d.) and
adverse health outcomes are associated with children’s food insecurity (Alaimo et al., 2001;
APA, n.d.; Ashiabi, 2005; Cook et al., 2004). Through their efforts dedicated to ending chil-
dren’s hunger, Foodlink indirectly improves children’s success at school.

SDOH area: neighbourhood and built environment

Those who are living in food-insecure environments often are experiencing poor neighbour-
hoods and unhealthy built environments. Though environmental health is commonly associ-
ated with climate change, toxic waste and dumping, water and sanitation, and other similar
hazardous environmental exposures, another significant component to environmental health
is the built environment. The built environment is the human-made physical environment –
buildings, parks, and other human-made spaces – in which people live, work, and play. An
integral piece to the SDOH is the need for safe places to live and play. Thus, in this sense,
neighbourhood and the built environment are interwoven. Two examples of CBOs which
address this issue are SBP and KaBOOM!.
SBP is a CBO headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana in the US Created in 2006 shortly
following the devastating impact Hurricane Katrina had on the New Orleans community,
SBP (formerly The St. Bernard Project) is well established and recognised in the US as a CBO

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focused on increasing resiliency and recovery for communities and families affected by natural
disasters (SBP, 2017). Over time, SBP has expanded in staff, capacity, and geographic reach.
Most compelling with SBP is their ability to see a problem, and mobilise a community, through
establishing community and national partnerships, as well as leveraging existing resources in
a meaningful way. SBP partners with AmeriCorps (a three-month to one-year federal public
service programme for young adults) to temporarily employ AmeriCorps members to meet
SBP’s mission “to shrink time between disaster and recovery” (SBP, 2017). These AmeriCorps
members, who are often from the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC),
are trained and gain the skill set to become client case managers, volunteer coordinators, and
construction site supervisors that manage volunteers who have come from all over the US
and the world to rebuild affordable homes from various natural disasters in seven US states.
Since launching in 2006, over 1,300 homes have been rebuilt through the collaboration and
service of SBP staff, volunteers, corporate partners such as Toyota, and federal and community
partners (SBP, 2017). SBP understands the importance of having a home, and the emotional,
mental, physical, and financial burden and loss of losing a home on families. Through their
five-intervention approach – “rebuild,” “share,” “prepare,” “advise,” and “advocate” (SBP,
2017) – they not only rebuild healthy and safe homes at low costs through partnerships, they
also give homeowners and businesses the tools to prepare for future natural disasters in order to
build resiliency skills. With a new home, homeowners who are recipients of SBP programme
can rebuild the pieces to their life starting with the built environment – where their house and
neighbourhood become the foundation for living a healthy life.
The importance of the built environment is often discussed in the context of having healthy
and safe places for children to play. Many low-income urban areas are lacking parks and green
spaces for children to safely play and get their exercise. One example CBO that strives to increase
play among children in poverty in the US is KaBOOM! (KaBOOM!, 2017a). KaBOOM!’s
efforts to improve the built environment for children living in poverty is most often seen in
their building of playgrounds in neighbourhoods where playgrounds are scarce or nonexistent,
or their transformation of spaces into creative spaces for play in urban settings. KaBOOM!’s
initiative, Build It with KaBOOM!, generates community ownership by enrolling community
volunteers to build a playground in one day (KaBOOM!, 2017c). Since it began, the impact
of KaBOOM! has been significant across the US – over 3,000 playgrounds built and over
17,000 play spaces improved (KaBOOM!, 2017c). KaBOOM!’s Play Everywhere and Playful
City USA encourages cities to actively invest in play spaces for children in their communi-
ties (KaBOOM!, 2017b, 2017c, 2017d). Through these initiatives, KaBOOM! motivates a US
national discussion on the importance of play for children. Knowing that play is fundamental
to children’s development and health, KaBOOM! is innovatively changing the way we think
about creating space and shaping the environments in disadvantaged neighbourhoods and com-
munities. These playgrounds and play spaces promote physical exercise and create opportuni-
ties for children to have positive social interactions, two cornerstones essential for physical and
mental health and long-term healthy life development.

SDOH area: health and health care

KaBOOM! promotes healthy living in children in the form of play by overtly promoting
physical health – and with subtlety, mental health. Many CBOs and NGOs focus directly on
providing health services to individuals and/or populations, but fewer international CBOs
and NGOs centre around bettering the mental health of those living in low-income nations.

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Sangath, an NGO based in Goa, India, was formed in 1996 to address a community need –
to provide health-care services to those in the community with developmental disabilities or
mental health problems (Sangath, 2017). Sangath, as with all CBOs and NGOs that are long-
lasting, has grown over the years and changed with the times. Like many institutions, Sangath
initially focused its efforts on clinical services, aligning with a medical model of thought.
However, due to low follow-up rates, they adapted their approach to include a more holistic
model that aligns with the SDOH framework in order to address the treatment gap. The treat-
ment gap describes those living with developmental disabilities and mental illness that are una-
ble to receive treatment or health care due to several social, economic, physical, and individual
conditions and factors. Because of this, Sangath implements multidisciplinary interventions that
include solutions that address the social, psychological, and medical barriers to care. Of utmost
value to Sangath is its use of community health workers (CHWs) to provide health services to
the community in need. Significant research globally has shown that there is a severe work-
force capacity deficit in the mental health field, especially for low- and middle-income coun-
tries (LMICs) (WHO, 2017a, 2017b). Additionally, the World Health Organization (WHO)
has declared that mental health problems account for the greatest burden of morbidity in the
world (WHO, 2017a). Thus, Sangath addresses the mental health treatment gap and workforce
capacity issues that plague low-income nations through implementing evidence-based inter-
ventions supported through research, and through cross-sector collaboration that promotes
participatory methods in its work.

SDOH area: social and community context

The SDOH inherent to all organisations within the citizen sector is the social and community
context. A key factor to the social and community context is civic participation. The citizen sec-
tor is named such for its makeup of and mission for citizens. Two examples of the citizen sector
in the social and community context through the use of technology and globalism are Ushahidi
and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).
Understanding the importance of the social and community context to solve health prob-
lems is well depicted through the NGO Ushahidi. Ushahidi is a technological organisa-
tion that was formed during political and civil unrest due to an election in Kenya in 2008
(Ushahidi, 2017). The founders of Ushahidi, which means “testimony” in Swahili, cre-
ated a crowdsourcing tool to map citizen reports of violence. Since the initial application
of Ushahidi’s crowdmapping, Ushahidi continues to advance this crowdmapping tool and
the technological world to empower citizens and the citizen sector to anonymously report
violence and abuse. Such data and communications provided to public officials fosters dia-
logue that is reflective of community needs. Because of the trauma inflicted from violence
and abuse, Ushahidi is an example of providing a voice to those who are suffering from the
adverse health effects of violence and abuse by providing a community and global platform
for people to act and to be heard. In order to heal from trauma, it is first important to rec-
ognise the trauma. Ushahidi is leading the way in empowering citizens to speak up for their
health and well-being.
One of the ultimate threats to health and public health is the global threat of nuclear pro-
liferation with the devastation to humanity resulting from just one country’s use of its nuclear
arsenal, coupled with the potential chain reaction from other countries that could result. The
International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) is a coalition of non-governmental
organisations in over 100 countries promoting adherence to and implementation of the United

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Nations nuclear weapon ban treaty (ICAN, 2017). This global effort was inspired by the tremen-
dous success of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which more than two decades
ago played an instrumental role in the negotiation of the anti-personnel mine ban convention, or
Ottawa Treaty. Since its founding, ICAN has worked to build a powerful global groundswell of
public support for the abolition of nuclear weapons.
ICAN believes that discussions about nuclear weapons must focus not on narrow concepts of
national security, but on the effects of these weapons on human beings globally – our health, our
societies, and the environment on which we all depend for our lives and livelihoods. By engag-
ing a diverse range of groups and working alongside NGOs such as the International Committee
of the Red Cross (ICRC) as well as like-minded governments, it has helped reshape the debate
on nuclear weapons and generate momentum towards elimination. ICAN was awarded the
2017 Nobel Peace Prize for its “work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian con-
sequences of any use of nuclear weapons” and for “ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-
based prohibition of such weapons” (Nobelprize.org, 2017). ICAN now has 468 partners in 101
countries (ICAN, 2017).

The way forward: cross-sector partnerships, problem solving,

coordination, and cooperation
While an NGO or CBO can accomplish much on its own, it can find itself limited in its reach,
resources, impact, and sustainability. Given the increasing complexities of many of the health
and public health issues in the world today, along with our increasingly better understanding
of the factors and elements contributing to this complexity, health and public health-oriented
NGOs/CBOs are forging new ways forward to overcome their limitations as well as to amplify
their strengths and contributions. Networking and/or developing partnerships, within the citi-
zen sector and external to it, is important where there is a need to build coalitions, exchange
and share resources, create efficiencies, and avoid unnecessary duplication of services or other
efforts. NGOs are seeking new and effective ways to maximise their impact by making use
of the power and ideas of all those who can make a difference: governments, companies, the
media, and NGOs.
This includes the need to increasingly develop and perpetuate cross-sector partnerships,
problem solving, coordination, and cooperation to garner the involvement of all key stake-
holders and to develop approaches that will have increased impact and sustainability (see
Figure 21.2).
When considering health and public health issues from a within-sector, cross-sector, or
mixed-sector philosophy and approach, it is important to consider who should be engaged and
at the table. Typically, when addressing health and public health issues, stakeholders needed at
the table include the following:

•• The groups within the citizen sector that are established pertaining to the issue(s) at hand,
and who are well connected and respected in their communities;
•• The health professional community, including, but often extending beyond, decision mak-
ers from the hospitals, clinics, and experts from other health and public health-focused
entities in the community;
•• The members of the impacted community or communities themselves (this representation
may come from the citizen sector groups, but it can also include individuals from the com-
munity who have knowledge or lived experience with the issue(s) of focus);

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Public
lic
Health
Hea

Figure 21.2 Cross-sector partnerships (Gaist and Chau, 2018)

•• The research community, usually represented by academic institutions and/or research

centres;
•• The educators and other peer leaders from the community of focus;
•• The business and/or industry communities;
•• The non-health sector entities such as those in housing, planning, transportation, food and
agriculture, and others;
•• The policymakers, whether that be key politicians and/or their staff members; and
•• The funders which may be government entities, foundations, or specific donors.

And depending on the issue and the need:

•• The other stakeholders who may be less established, but who nonetheless may be able to
inform, influence, and/or contribute to the discussions towards resolution and solutions; and
•• The media.

The following are two case examples where such within-sector and cross-sector partnerships,
problem solving, coordination, and cooperation is taking hold.

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Case example 1: Mennonite Central Committee addresses public

health needs during the Syrian war

(Contributed by Dr Rolando L. Santiago, the head of Santiago Consulting and the

Former Executive Director of the Mennonite Central Committee US)

In a sunny, walled courtyard in Tyre, Lebanon, a boy of about 10 cups his hands in front of
his face, imagining in them a little bird waiting to hear what he most misses about his home
back in Syria. “All my toys,” he whispers in Arabic. Then, with a shy smile, he flings his
arms wide, releasing the imaginary bird into the sky with a wish that the bird will fly over
his old home and say hello to his toys.
(Martens, 2017)

So begins a story about Mennonite Central Committee’s (MCC’s) support of a trauma healing
programme in southern Lebanon. MCC is a global, faith-based NGO that strives to share God’s
love and compassion for all through relief, development, and peace (MCC, 2017a; Epp Weaver,
2016). It is grounded in nearly 500 years of history in the Anabaptist Christian peace-making
tradition. In health care, MCC’s activities seek to improve the health and well-being of vulner-
able populations (MCC, 2017b; Good, 2016).
In 2016, MCC’s trauma healing programme met the psychosocial needs of over 200
Palestinian refugee children aged 7 to 12, and their families, who had fled war-torn Syria.
The programme was run by MCC’s partner in Lebanon, the Popular Aid for Relief and
Development, an independent grassroots organisation (Martens, 2017). MCC’s support of
public health efforts in the midst of the Syrian war is part of MCC’s largest humanitarian relief
effort in its history. It raised $34.6 million from March 2011 through March 2016 for this con-
tinuing effort (Espenshade, 2016). It’s practically impossible for MCC to address public health
needs during a humanitarian crisis like the Syrian war without relying on partnerships with
other civil society, religious, governmental, and academic institutions. The story that follows
illustrates these partnerships.
Syrian refugees began to settle in the town of Yater in southern Lebanon soon after the
Syrian civil war broke out in 2012. Yater’s system of pipes for delivering water to homes was
severely damaged in the Lebanon-Israeli war of 2006. Neighbours created a makeshift system
of water lines suspended from electrical poles, and powered by about 80 pumps. The system
was dangerous and fragile. It required constant repairs after storms or heavy winds. It drew
water from a single well. It also did not hold enough water for every household in town. The
water had to be rationed and rotated among neighbourhoods. Water was less accessible with the
arrival of the refugees, a recipe for conflict (Pierson Lester, 2017).
The Development for People and Nature Association (DPNA), a Lebanese independent
NGO and MCC partner, sprang into action to prevent conflict (DPNA, 2017). It organised the
community to build a system of underground pipes that provided consistent access to water.
However, without connecting the new underground lines to the government-run water sys-
tem, the community was unable to meet the water needs of the town population as it grew
with the influx of refugees. To make it worse, the townspeople had not paid their water bills
since 2006. DPNA took two years to mediate a solution with the Lebanese government. Rami
Shamma, a DPNA staff member who had studied at the Summer Peacebuilding Institute of
Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) in Harrisonburg, VA, helped mediate an agreement with
the government.

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Another public health project illustrates how MCC collaborates with other organisations
to address health-related needs in the midst of the Syrian war. For the last six years, MCC
partnered with the Forum for Development, Culture and Dialogue (FDCD) and the Canadian
Foodgrains Bank (CFB) to feed about 6,000 families in the town of Deir Attieh in Syria (CFB,
2017; Enns and Enns, 2017; FDCD, 2017). The FDCD is an organisation based in Beirut that
offers workshops, conferences, and dialogue sessions to enable society to approach conflict in a
non-violent way. The CFB is a partnership of 15 church and church-based agencies that work
together to end global hunger (CFB, 2017). The town of Deir Attieh doubled in size when
people fled other parts of Syria such as Raqqa, Deir Ezzor, and Aleppo. The FDCD worked
through smaller community-based organisations and an Islamic charity to distribute food to
both Christian and Muslim residents (CFB, 2017; Enns and Enns, 2017).

KEY MESSAGE MCC’s partners in health-related projects during the Syrian war are often deter-
mined by the nature of the health need, the expertise that the partner brings to meet this need,
the effectiveness of the partner, the location where the partner functions, and foremost, the trust
that the partner has established with the populations it serves and with other partners. The trust
between MCC and its partners is often built over many years through a mutual commitment to
non-violence, peacebuilding, and interfaith dialogue.
MCC’s ability to identify and engage partners for both simple and complex public health pro-
jects grows out of historic partnerships with other Christian church networks such as the Syrian
Orthodox Church, Fellowship of Middle East Evangelical Churches, Middle East Council of
Churches, Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East, and Union of Armenian
Evangelical Churches in the Near East (Loewen, 2016). MCC has cultivated these partnerships
for a long time, especially since the late 1940s in response to the Palestinian refugee crisis in the
Middle East (MCC, 2017c).
The MCC has realised and learned that engagement of a wide variety of partners in the
religious, citizen public, academic, and private sectors is essential to addressing complex and
intractable public health needs.

Case example 2: Healthy Parks Healthy People US

(Contributed by Ms Diana Allen, Chief, Healthy Parks/Healthy People,

US National Park Service, Office of Public Health/Health Promotion Branch)
The citizen sector is often most innovative and productive when diverse partnerships are in
play to meet a common goal among stakeholders. An example of this is the Healthy Parks
Healthy People US programme, a US National Park Service (NPS) programme modelled from
Parks Victoria, Australia and the Healthy Parks Healthy People global movement, which focus
on health promotion through five principles: “forging new partnerships,” “providing access,”
“enhancing and protecting,” “reaching diverse, multicultural audiences,” and “contributing to
the advancement of science” (Healthy Parks Healthy People Central, 2017; NPS, 2017). Since
its inception in 2011, the Healthy Parks Healthy People US programme has used national,
state, and local parks as a driver to encourage active and healthy living among Americans. This
has been accomplished through partnerships with the citizen sector, as well as the private, aca-
demic, and public sectors (i.e., leaders in business, health care, research, science, foundations,
advocacy groups, etc.). These partners are important sources for funding and resources, and
also for enthusiasm, inspiration, imagination, practical ideas, and collaboration. For example,

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community health groups, medical care providers, and insurers working with Healthy Parks
Healthy People US promote healthy lifestyles (i.e., healthy diet, physical activity, stress relief,
and making environmental and social connections) through “forging new partnerships.” They
also support changes to the built environment to promote healthy park visits and access to parks,
provide “park prescriptions” (i.e., patient referrals to local parks and trails), support research, and
provide internship and fellowship opportunities in parks.
One example of a promising practice initiated from Healthy Parks Healthy People US and
developed through these new partnerships is Park Rx, a national park prescription initiative led
by the National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA), the Institute at the Golden Gate,
and the US NPS (Park Rx, 2016). Park Rx is an initiative that has physicians literally refer
patients to parks as a prescription to improve their health, operating in tandem with citizen
sector organisations like the NRPA and the Institute at the Golden Gate who organise park-
centred health events. The Park Rx initiative continues to grow through these multidisciplinary
partnerships often led by the citizen sector. For example, in 2011, there were two park prescrip-
tion programmes in the national parks. That number has now grown to 16 in national parks,
and 23 case studies in local, state, and national parks. Also, over 11,000 people celebrated Park
Rx Day on 26 April 2017 during National Park Week. This involved more than 60 sites across
the country, with events in 30 states, Washington DC, and Puerto Rico. Activities included
guided walks and hikes, yoga, exercise classes, kayaking, and other family-friendly games, as well
as health screenings and discussions (Allen, 2017).
Park Rx is just one initiative of the Healthy Parks Healthy People US programme that
encourages innovation and experimentation through the power of partnerships. The Healthy
Parks Healthy People US programme has led to a burgeoning movement, with a vast array of
promising practices established with support from partners and interest groups all across the
country. Collectively, these partnerships are bringing together legions of people, from all walks
of life, to enjoy their parks as places to have fun and derive health benefits. Integral to the success
of this programme are the partnerships with the citizen sector as well as health-care providers,
insurance companies, university medical schools, and government agencies.
Additional projects and programmes that align with Healthy Parks Healthy People US’s
remaining four principles and that have been identified for national expansion in collaboration
with partners include the following:

•• “Enhancing and protecting” – Volunteerism vacations that engage families and community
groups in meaningful projects in parks, offering them both healthy outdoor activities and a
sense of pride in helping to improve the park experience for themselves and others.
•• “Providing access,” “Reaching diverse, multicultural audiences,” and “Contributing to
the advancement of science” – Citizen science projects about the outdoors and parks that
engage students from low-income Hispano/Latino families and that culminate with a field
trip for these students and their families to a nearby national park.
•• “Enhancing and protecting” and “Reaching diverse, multicultural audiences” – Team-based
volunteer days that deepen the connection of NPS employees to their local communities.

In the coming years, further traction and momentum for park-based programming are being
encouraged that emphasise working with local communities or national partnerships, and establish-
ing programmes by, for, and with diverse populations to ensure that parks and public lands realise
their full potential as a health resource; and that the co-benefits of conserving biodiversity and pro-
moting human health are well recognised and communicated. The citizen sector through its CBOs
and others from the community involved in this sphere will continue to be integral to its success.

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Other partnership examples

Aligned with the Healthy People Healthy Parks US philosophy and consistent with the cross-
sector approach is the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). IUCN is a
non-profit membership Union composed of both government and civil society organisations
(IUCN, 2018). It provides public, private, and NGOs with the knowledge and tools that enable
human progress, economic development, and nature conservation to take place together. It pro-
vides a neutral forum in which governments, NGOs, scientists, businesses, local communities,
indigenous peoples groups, faith-based organisations, and others can work together to forge and
implement solutions to environmental challenges, including environmental health challenges.
Its ability to convene diverse stakeholders and provide the latest science, objective recommen-
dations, and on-the-ground expertise drives IUCN’s mission of informing and empowering
conservation efforts worldwide. Currently, over 1,100 registered NGOs are members and part-
ners of the IUCN network (IUCN, 2018).
These are just a few examples of the way forward, namely embracing a cross-sector philoso-
phy and approach that promotes the coming together of stakeholders, cutting across health and
public issues, forming new and productive partnerships, and working collectively with all skill
sets and perspectives brought together to solve problems, leverage resources, and implement
sustainable solutions.
To briefly cite but a handful more who are embracing this philosophy, using tools and
approaches that are proving valuable in the pursuit of better health in their communities:

1) Better strategic partnering of clinical medicine and public health: The West Virginia
University Health Center, led by Dr Clay Marsh, Vice President and Executive Dean
for Health Sciences, is bringing the citizen, business, academic, and government sectors
together to better address the opioid epidemic that has taken hold in their West Virginia
communities. By meshing and partnering the clinical medicine sphere with the public
health and multi-sectoral partners and perspectives, they are creating more holistic and
coordinated community and client-centred programmes and approaches (West Virginia
University Health Sciences, 2018);
2) Teaching organizations to partner and collaborate: The Institute for Public Health
Innovations (IPHI; Washington, DC), led by Mr Michael Rhein, President and CEO, is
not only embracing the way forward; its purpose is to serve as the convener for others and
to show them how to successfully use this approach to improve health and public health
in their communities. IPHI is a non-profit resource that works across sectors to build part-
nerships and cultivate innovative solutions to improve health and well-being for people
and communities. Many CBOs and coalitions are effective because they have trust-based
relationships with specific populations and communities, or they have expertise in specific
health areas. IPHI is helping community partners leverage those strengths while offering
a broad set of capabilities and relationships that enables work across sectors towards more
comprehensive, collaborative, and cost-effective public health approaches (IPHI, 2018);
3) Bringing diverse interests to the table: The National Forum on Heart Disease and Stroke
Prevention, led by Mr Jon Clymer, Executive Director, is bringing coordinated care to
heart attack, stroke, and other heart disease-affected individuals. As just one of its many
projects, in California the Forum has brought cross-sector partners to the table to develop
a seamless, coordinated system of services and care for cardiac patients, and through its
successful implementation is achieving community-level gains in heart health outcomes
(National Forum on Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention, 2018); and

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4) Utilizing strategic financial and program planning for growth, resiliency, and sustainability:
Banyan Global, led by Ms Meghan Smith, President and CEO, is adapting business and
finance skills to working with the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors to achieve
positive health outcomes in low- and middle-income countries (Banyan Global, 2018).

In summary
As stated in the book Igniting the Power of Community: The Role of CBOs and NGOs in
Global Public Health, “the key to a good life is good health” (Gaist, 2009). The organisa-
tions within the citizen sector are the sentries, the guardians, the “bell-ringers,” and often
the first (and sometimes the only) responders to the health plights of individuals in their
communities and to the public health threats and opportunities at the community level and
beyond. A myriad of organisations in the citizen sector are recognising that the pathways
to good health and public health are made clearer through holistic views and approaches,
where multiple levels, systems, and factors (the social determinants of health or SDOH) are
recognised, accounted for, and/or addressed.
And as this is happening, more needs to be done. The work of improving models and
approaches, skills and techniques, partnership, stewardship, reach, and impact is never complete.
As the world changes, as challenges emerge, and as the roles and opportunities of the citizen sec-
tor take hold and potentiate, so does the need to continually study the sector, to conduct sector
and organisation-focused evaluations and research. Management and partnership skills need to
be learned, improved, and appropriately applied. And the philosophy of health and public health
in all endeavours needs to be continually integrated and operationalised.
When it comes to the health and public health of our communities, of our world, there can-
not be complacency; there must be action fuelled by the citizen sector and achieved through
within-sector and cross-sector partnerships, problem solving, coordination, and cooperation.
And when such partnerships with other stakeholders and actors just do not seem to garner the
attention and support needed to raise the visibility and/or to address the health and public issue
at hand, then the citizen sector will rely on strategic activism and radical action that awakens,
employs, and empowers the biggest resource there is – our communities, ourselves.

Note
1 The authors acknowledge Ms Diana Allen; Mr John Clymer; Dr Clay Marsh; Dr Therese Miller;
Mr Michael Rhein; Dr Rolando Santiago; and Ms Meghan Smith for their valuable thoughts and
input on this chapter as well as for all the important work they continue to do to improve health
and public health in their communities of focus.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this chapter are those of the authors. No official endorsement by
the US Department of Health and Human Services, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration, the National Institutes of Health, or the US National Park Service is intended or should
be inferred.

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 22
NGOs and peace
Margarita H. Petrova

There are various definitions of peace, and respectively, NGO activities that would fall within
a broad framework of peace-seeking – from nonviolent resistance of war and refusal to use
force, efforts at ending or making war less probable, and curbing armaments, to building up
the legal and institutional frameworks that would outlaw war and provide conflict resolution
mechanisms, to an encompassing view of positive peace that ensures people live with dignity in
a just society (Cortright 2008: 6–8). This chapter looks narrowly at NGO antiwar and disarma-
ment efforts and focuses on the post-WWII period, although peace and disarmament NGOs
have a long history going back to the 19th century and a sizable literature thereof exists (Cooper
1991; Charnovitz 1997; Lynch 1999; Laity 2002; Davies 2007, 2014; Pugh 2012). It examines
the effects of NGO activities in relation to the domestic and international political opportu-
nity structures in which they unfold. Effectiveness is evaluated by the extent to which NGOs
achieve their proclaimed goals. These include concrete policy changes, but also more broadly
changing societal attitudes by educating the public, reframing issues, influencing public opinion,
and generating media attention.1
I argue that the end of the Cold War was a watershed moment that opened new opportuni-
ties for NGO mobilization at the international level and transnationalization of their networks.
NGO strategies moved away from largescale protest and grassroots mobilization toward elite-
level lobbying and norm advocacy. Finally, whereas during the Cold War norm development
in the disarmament field depended on superpower negotiation, from the 1990s there has been
a trend toward establishing legal norms banning conventional and nuclear weapons without the
great powers, yet aiming at binding the latter to the international norms created by the treaties.

1945–1960s: elite lobbying and the rise of antinuclear NGOs

The first antinuclear efforts aimed at preventing the use of nuclear bombs against Japan and
the eventual dismantling of existing weapons and vesting authority for nuclear energy in an
international agency. They started with the Frank Report and a petition against the use of the
bombs by some of the scientists working on the Manhattan Project in the two months prior
to the atomic bombings. In 1945, they led to the establishment of the Federation of American
Scientists and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. As information about the effects of the

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Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings trickled in, fear of the new weapons spread among the pub-
lic and gave a boost to the scientists’ advocacy. Eventually it influenced American policy with
the Acheson-Lilienthal plan for the destruction of atomic weapons, the creation of a system to
monitor that no weapons are developed, and an Atomic Development Authority to control
fissile material for peaceful purposes. However, the hardening of the American position in the
Baruch plan (envisioning destruction of US weapons only after international controls had been
established and no UN Security Council veto on enforcement procedures) and Soviet rejec-
tion thereof doomed the scientists’ attempt to establish international controls on nuclear energy
(Wittner 1993: 59–64). Where their efforts bore some fruit was in educating the public and
spurring aversion to nuclear weapons that constrained the US from using them in the Korean
War (Tannenwald 2007; Wittner 2009: 32–34). However, the window of opportunity to curb
an impending arms race closed with the escalation of the Cold War, which legitimated the
pursuit of nuclear weapons for national security purposes and made the work of activists in the
early 1950s difficult amid accusations of their having communist links (Wittner 2009: 49–50).
In the mid-1950s, the political opportunities for the scientists’ movement improved after
the death of Stalin and the end of McCarthyism in the US (Tannenwald 2007: 158; Evangelista
1999: 25). Antinuclear sentiment was reinvigorated with the testing of hydrogen bombs, espe-
cially after radiation fallout over the Marshall Islands and a Japanese fishing boat in 1954. In
1955, Bertrand Russell issued a manifesto for the abolition of nuclear weapons and peaceful
resolution of all conflicts endorsed by Einstein and other prominent scientists that catalyzed
renewed scientist activism (Evangelista 1999: 31). In 1957, the first Pugwash conference on
science and world affairs among scientists from the West, East, and nonaligned countries was
organized. One of the signatories of the Russell-Einstein manifesto and 1954 Nobel laureate in
chemistry, Linus Pauling, also launched a scientist petition to end nuclear testing. In the US,
one of the main antinuclear organizations, the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy
(SANE), was set up by prominent figures calling for the suspension of nuclear testing. Physicians
for Social Responsibility, Council for a Livable World, and Women Strike for Peace were cre-
ated in the next few years to work for a test ban. In 1957 in the UK, a National Council for the
Abolition of Nuclear Weapon Tests was established and grew into the Campaign for Nuclear
Disarmament (CND). Both SANE and CND became large organizations with numerous local
chapters in the US and UK, respectively. In the UK, grassroots mobilization underpinned the
annual Easter marches between London and Aldermaston (the site of the Atomic Weapons
Research Establishment some 50 miles away) that gathered tens of thousands of people between
1958 and 1963 (Wittner 1997: 47–51; Meyer 1990: 140–141). In the US, advocacy remained
targeted mostly at the elite level and aimed at creating media and public attention. To that end,
SANE involved Albert Schweitzer, philosopher, missionary, and receiver of the 1952 Nobel
Peace Prize, in the cause of stopping nuclear testing. Engaged in more contentious activi-
ties, Women Strike for Peace held demonstrations and Non-Violent Action against Nuclear
Weapons organized numerous direct actions against test sites in the US and the Pacific Ocean
that gained media publicity, but had limited public support (Wittner 1997: 30–33, 54–57).
Ultimately, NGO mobilization contributed to the adoption of the 1963 Partial Test Ban
Treaty (PTBT), although pressure from nonaligned countries and great power interests pushed
in the same direction. Apart from stoking public apprehension about and opposition to nuclear
testing, NGOs directly facilitated the negotiations of the treaty with SANE’s founder, Norman
Cousins, acting as an intermediary between Kennedy and Khrushchev when the negotiations
stalled (Wittner 2009: 109–110). More broadly, NGOs in that period shifted the discourse on
nuclear weapons from national defense toward consideration of their radioactive, health, and
environmental effects. They also elevated the public salience of the issue and made governments

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consider the impact of their national decisions on world public opinion, thus circumscribing
their freedom to use nuclear weapons (Tannenwald 2007: 161–162).
Overall, during this period well-known scientists and public figures were key in the anti-
nuclear movement. Individuals played important roles in American and British NGOs, as well
as in establishing transnational relations between American and Soviet scientists and prominent
citizens (Evangelista 1999: 32–35). The social status of the leaders of the main NGOs facilitated
their access to policymakers and influenced their choice of tactics (Tannenwald 2007: 160).
Thus the story of the movement in its early post-WWII years is to a large extent about the dedi-
cated efforts of prominent persons, especially scientists, in raising public awareness and curbing
the dangers of nuclear weapons. The award of the 1962 Nobel Peace Prize to Pauling in 1963
upon the PTBT coming into effect speaks to that.
However, with the PTBT and the Nonproliferation Treaty following in 1968 – steps to
limit the fallout and spread of nuclear weapons that allayed public concerns – the antinuclear
movement lost steam and was largely overtaken by the institutionalization of arms control in the
US and the Soviet Union, leading to the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks and the 1972 ABM
treaty. The proponents of arms control formed an epistemic community of scientists concen-
trated in RAND, MIT, and Harvard in the US that spread transnationally through the Pugwash
conferences (Adler 1992; Evangelista 1999: 165, 193–233; Meyer 1990: 66–67). Arms control
came to occupy the middle ground between disarmament proponents who could see it as “a first
step toward disarmament” and conservatives clamoring for more weapons (Adler 1992: 125).
It became key in stabilizing superpower relations and avoiding nuclear war, without, however,
challenging the status quo. In the same period, public interest got absorbed by the Vietnam War.

The anti-Vietnam War movement: between respectability

and radical politics
The Vietnam War engendered widespread and diverse opposition, which has been studied
by historians,2 much less so by social movement scholars and political scientists (McAdam and
Su 2002: 696–697), and has received close to nil attention in IR. The study of NGOs and
transnational activism in IR started in earnest later, in the early 1990s, focusing mostly on the
transnational dimension of the phenomenon or comparative case studies in different countries
from this more recent period (Risse-Kappen 1991, 1995; Keck and Sikkink 1998). Despite
its mostly domestic, US focus,3 the Vietnam antiwar movement was one of the most massive
mobilizations of antiwar sentiment driven by different NGOs. The movement had several
strands – the “new left” comprising student groups, the “old left” associated with the Trotskyist
Socialist Workers Party, and liberal organizations including Americans for Democratic Action
and antinuclear groups, such as SANE and the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)
(Cortright 2008: 157). Their tactics differed widely – from the student protests organized by
Student Peace Union and Students for a Democratic Society, to mass demonstrations of the
“old left”, to the liberal wing’s lobbying Congress and working through party structures, espe-
cially by challenging President Johnson in the presidential primaries of the Democratic Party
in 1968 (Cortright 2008: 157–160; Chatfield 2004: 491–492; Katz 1983).
After President Nixon came to power with plans for escalating military operations, the
opportunities for working through existing institutional channels narrowed and the contentious,
protest actions of the peace movement grew (Katz 1983). In the fall of 1969, the liberal part of
the movement organized the Vietnam moratorium movement to interrupt work and a march
in Washington D.C., seen as “the largest mass volunteer actions in American history” (quote
in Cortright 2008: 161). The number of people avoiding the draft also kept increasing. War

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opposition spread among war veterans and active-duty servicemen, with the Vietnam Veterans
Against the War, set up in 1967. Growing numbers of veterans joined rallies and organized
their own actions, such as public soldiers’ testimonies of atrocities committed in Vietnam, lob-
bying, and protests. The veterans’ involvement provided legitimation to the antiwar movement
(Cortright 2008: 165–166), while draft resistance, desertion, and even lethal assaults on officers
by subordinate troops undermined the US warfighting capacity from within.4
It is difficult to say which organizations and strategies exerted most pressure on policymak-
ing toward negotiations and ending the war. Taking protests as a proxy for movement strength
misses other contributions, especially by its liberal wing that toward 1969 saw protests as inef-
fective and shifted toward grassroots mobilization and influencing congressional elections (Katz
1983; Lefkowitz 2005). Indeed, Mueller (1973: 24) conjectured that “the war might have been
somewhat less popular, had the protest not existed.” Similarly, Chatfield (2004) argued that
radical protesters could be easily dismissed by the Johnson and Nixon administrations as fringe
elements and even accused of promoting Soviet interests. In contrast, liberal organizations that
garnered support among members of the Democratic Party and congressmen presented a more
formidable force. Katz (1983) also highlighted the respectable politics of the liberal movement
that sought to attract middle-class support, but found it had little impact on policy. McAdam
and Su (2002) show the contradictory and limited policy effects of the movement, which tried
to combine disruptive politics to generate media and public attention and at the same time
appear committed to democratic politics. Liberal organizations influenced the Democratic
Party, but also split it, because the movement remained an elite, intellectual endeavor alienated
from the working class that made up part of the party’s constituency (Walzer 1973). In contrast,
for Cortright (2008: 159) each part of the movement contributed to the eventual withdrawal of
US forces from Vietnam. Outsider pressure had to be mobilized together with insider lobbying
to make a difference on a foreign policy issue over which the military-industrial complex held
sway. The movement affected concrete decisions, such as instituting the draft lottery and limit-
ing congressional funding for the war. Arguably, Nixon’s position on the war gradually softened
over his terms in office and ultimately the antiwar organizations’ position in favor of immediate
withdrawal of US troops was closer to the outcome of peace negotiations than Nixon’s precon-
ditions (Lefkowitz 2005: 19–21).
Despite the uncertain or gloomy evaluations of concrete movement outcomes, its enduring
effect was in shaping future US policies and military thinking. In Walzer’s words (1973: 26),
it “made the waging of the war morally costly . . . [and] began . . . the long process of setting
limits to what governments can do and to what men must bear.” Years later this resulted in
the 1984 Weinberger (also Powell) doctrine requiring that troops be sent to war only as a last
resort, backed by public and congressional support. Although American intervention in Central
America and proxy wars did not end,5 costly wars of choice were largely avoided till the 2003
Iraq war.

1970–1989: weapons politics under Cold War constraints

International Humanitarian Law and conventional weapons

The Vietnam War also spurred major developments in international humanitarian law (IHL)
and led to some weapons restrictions. The link of these developments to the antiwar movement
was indirect – mainly through the visibility of napalm use, raised by some organizations, includ-
ing the International War Crimes Tribunal initiated by Bertrand Russell in the UK (SIPRI
1978), and the media. The issue attracted significant attention at the UN General Assembly

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and eventually made its way, together with fragmentation weapons, small caliber projectiles,
and landmines, onto the agenda of the diplomatic conferences on the Additional Protocols to
the Geneva Conventions, before being considered in a separate forum that resulted in the 1980
Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW). Some American NGOs, such as the
AFSC, undertook action against fragmentation weapons and organized protests at manufacturer
sites. However, these efforts remained local and only a small part of the larger antiwar move-
ment without undertaking a weapon-specific campaign (Prokosch 1995). Napalm use received
much wider attention and for many became a symbol of the atrocities perpetrated in Vietnam
and a rallying cry for the peace movement (Neer 2013: 152–153).
In the diplomatic arena, the organizations working for weapon restrictions from a humani-
tarian perspective were mainly the ICRC and SIPRI, urged along by a number of nonaligned
states led by Sweden. Early attempts by the ICRC in the 1950s to restrict the use of “uncon-
trollable,” including nuclear, weapons within an IHL framework were unsuccessful, because of
opposition by the nuclear powers (Kalshoven 1971). During the Cold War the consent of the
great powers remained a necessary and limiting element of any agreements toward restricting
conventional weapons, while NGO input was confined to expert legal views at the diplo-
matic level. Nevertheless, the adoption of the 1977 Additional Protocols and the 1980 CCW
strengthened the humanitarian principle of civilian protection and laid the basis for NGO advo-
cacy on prohibiting indiscriminate weapons in the 1990s (Cottrell 2009).

Nuclear disarmament
During this period, different types of NGOs worked for nuclear disarmament employing dif-
ferent strategies. The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) and the Pugwash movement car-
ried out scientific research, dissemination, and advocacy. Physicians for Social Responsibility and
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) educated the public in
talks highlighting the health effects of nuclear weapons and catastrophic consequences of their
use. Religious groups such as AFSC focused on lobbying activities in Washington, while the
Ploughshares movement engaged in civil disobedience and symbolic acts of witnessing against
arms manufacturers and nuclear bases. Greenpeace was founded in 1971 and its attention-grabbing
actions, such as trespassing and sailing ships into testing areas, generated significant media coverage.
The Greenham Common women’s protest camp in the UK provided a catalyst for similar camps
by women’s groups across Europe and the US. However, the most focused effort of the period
was the US Nuclear Weapons Freeze campaign (NWFC) advocating a bilateral freeze on the test-
ing, production, and deployment of nuclear weapons by the US and the Soviet Union. In Europe,
mass antinuclear movements emerged in response to NATO’s plans to deploy intermediate-range
nuclear forces (INF) in five NATO countries (Wittner 2003).
Reagan’s presidency both narrowed the institutional channels open to peace organizations
and, by its bellicose rhetoric and actions intensifying the arms race, created conditions for mobi-
lization of the peace movement. NWFC grew quickly. Successfully inserting a freeze resolu-
tion on the ballot in local and congressional elections, by 1982 it had become “the largest
electoral mobilization for peace in US history” and organized a large peace protest drawing
about a million people (Cortright 2008: 145). Yet, the popularity of the movement did not
result in goal achievement. After politicians picked up the issue, NWFC focused on lobby-
ing congressmen. As a result, Congress passed a watered-down version of the freeze resolu-
tion and NWFC continued down the path of routine politics by throwing its weight behind
the 1984 Democratic Party presidential candidate who endorsed the freeze. After his defeat,
NWFC dissipated, while Washington-based groups reoriented their lobbying toward distinct

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weapons systems or a comprehensive test ban. Thus, the American fragmented domestic politi-
cal structure curbed NWFC’s ability to reach its policy objective. It offered multiple points of
access to divergent societal interests, but prevented anyone from gaining the upper hand. Under
Reagan’s administration, NWFC had difficulty competing with military-industrial interests pro-
moted by conservative appointees. Navigating between opposing political interests in Congress
diluted the campaign message, while the movement itself became coopted in institutionalized
politics (Meyer 1990).
In contrast to NWFC that aimed at the political mainstream by demanding a bilateral, US
and Soviet, freeze, the European campaigns focused on preventing NATO’s INF deploy-
ment and saw unilateral disarmament by European countries as a first step in disentangling
Western and Eastern Europe from their dependence on the superpowers. It also sought to link
disarmament to human rights promotion and connected with civil society groups in Eastern
Europe (Kaldor 1982: 780–781).
The chances of NGOs translating mobilization into policy impact depended in large part
on the domestic political structures they faced. In the US, the fragmented structure hampered
direct policy impact, but NWFC nevertheless left its mark by pushing the Reagan administra-
tion toward engaging in arms control through public opinion and Congress (Meyer 1990). In
Germany, working within a corporatist domestic structure, disarmament organizations managed
to embed their ideas in new and traditional political actors, such as the Green Party and the
Social Democratic Party. Working through a consensus-oriented political process, the move-
ment reoriented German foreign policy against nuclear modernization of NATO forces in
Europe and toward a general conciliatory policy vis-à-vis the Soviet Union (Risse-Kappen
1991; Meyer 1999). In other corporatist domestic structures, such as the Netherlands and
Denmark, where multiparty systems and proportional representation provided access, the peace
movements affected government policy by slowing down missile deployment (Cortright and
Pagnucco 1997: 165–168).
Although there was a degree of coordination between organizations in the US and Europe
and cooperation between Western and Eastern activists, NGO campaigns remained largely
focused on their domestic settings. The European protests against NATO’s INF deployments
exerted pressure on US foreign policy via alliance politics (Knopf 1993), but there was little syn-
ergy between the American and Western European campaigns (Cortright and Pagnucco 1997).
Where transnationalism mattered was in establishing connections between Western and
Eastern scientists in the Pugwash conferences and later among physicians in IPPNW. These
connections led to the antinuclear movement’s most important policy impact when Gorbachev
came to power in the Soviet Union and relied on the transnational movement of scientists and
physicians for his new thinking ideas, including on nuclear arms control and overall defense
postures. Then the Soviet state-controlled domestic structure allowed Gorbachev to implement
those ideas from the top. Thus, the most important, albeit indirect, effect of disarmament NGOs
was in peacefully ending the Cold War (Evangelista 1999).6

After the Cold War: norm-building without the great powers

The 1990s represented a golden era for NGOs with their numbers rapidly increasing as new
opportunities for NGO action opened, funding sources increased, and a norm favoring the
engagement of NGOs in democracy promotion and development assistance got established
(Reimann 2006). Political opportunities for NGOs also increased in terms of access to domestic
and especially international institutions (Tarrow 2001). NGO participation in UN conferences
and negotiation processes improved, partly as a result of NGO efforts themselves. Globalization

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and technological developments, such as the Internet and email, also catalyzed NGO activities,
reach, and coalition-making (Davies 2014: 124; Nye 2011). Finally, the end of the Cold War
relaxed the constraints on independent policy pursuits by middle-sized Western states, creating
the conditions for partnership with NGOs and norm-making without the great powers.
In addition to these general trends, IR work focused on the interconnection between
international and domestic political opportunities for NGO advocacy. In their “boomerang
model,” Keck and Sikkink (1998) highlighted how local NGOs, faced with blockages in
their domestic structure, link with international NGOs to mobilize international pressure from
above against their unresponsive governments. Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink (1999) explored
further the mechanisms through which NGOs reshape domestic political opportunities in an
interactive “spiral model” of international norm diffusion. Moving beyond external constraints
and opportunities, scholars have studied the impact of NGOs’ internal structure and position
in larger advocacy networks on issue emergence and campaign success. Wong (2012) empha-
sized the role of centralized decision-making (and decentralized implementation) for the suc-
cess of NGOs working on human rights and weapons issues. Carpenter (2011, 2014) argued
that “gatekeeper” NGOs (connected to many nodes or linking isolated nodes in a network)
push normative change in the weapons field more successfully than large grassroots campaigns.
Others have focused on the NGOs’ use of different discursive mechanisms, such as persua-
sion (Deitelhoff 2009; Price 1998a) or rhetorical entrapment and positive enticement (Petrova
2016, 2019), in influencing international negotiations and state positions on issues such as the
ICC, landmines, and cluster munitions.

(Il)legality of nuclear weapons?

The end of East–West antagonism and reductions in nuclear weapons and military budgets
appeared to offer the ultimate peace dividend. Fears of nuclear war receded and no longer
animated disarmament activism. The Conference on Disarmament became deadlocked and
the 1995 Review Conference of the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) indefinitely extended the
treaty in exchange for a pledge by the nuclear-weapons states to reduce nuclear weapons. From
the social movements of the 1980s, disarmament refocused toward institutionalized, elite-level
approaches and sought to push the nuclear powers toward disarmament indirectly by work-
ing with interested states and strengthening legal and social norms against nuclear weapons
(Tannenwald 2007: 349).
The major initiative in the 1990s was the World Court Project, pursued by the International
Peace Bureau, IPPNW, and the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms
(IALANA). Those organizations worked with nonaligned states, and against opposition by the
US and other nuclear powers, to secure resolutions by the World Health Organization and the
UN General Assembly asking the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for an advisory opinion
on the legality of using nuclear weapons. The campaign mainly lobbied government officials.
However, it also gathered about four million citizens’ “Declarations of Conscience” to use as
evidence of “the dictates of public conscience” that should be considered in evaluating the
legality of means of warfare according to the Martens Clause in IHL and brought survivors
of the nuclear bombings and tests to testify to the court (Dewes and Green 1999: 69–70;
Tannenwald 2007: 353–354).
Although the ICJ Advisory Opinion left the possibility that nuclear weapons be used in
ultimate self-defense, it added to their delegitimization (Tannenwald 2007) and gave a boost
to NGOs. Activists engaging in direct action against military installations successfully used the
Opinion for their legal defense. The Abolition 2000 NGO network was launched with the

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goal of securing a nuclear weapons convention by 2000, while in 1998, the IPPNW, IALANA,
IPB, and WILPF, among other NGOs, established the Middle Powers Initiative to work with
middle-power governments to put pressure on nuclear-weapons states to eliminate nuclear
weapons (Dewes and Green 1999: 74–75). Following the ICJ Opinion and the conclusion of
the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996, most NGOs focused their advocacy within the
NPT forum and on government lobbying. Thus the initiatives of the 1990s became institu-
tionalized at the international level and the movement for a nuclear weapons convention went
on, but largely lost steam in the next 10 years when the US and Russia bilaterally or unilater-
ally reduced their nuclear weapons, without, however, considering their elimination. Public
opinion remained supportive of a nuclear-free world, but nuclear disarmament provoked little
interest (Wittner 2009: 217).

Humanitarian disarmament: to conventional and back to nuclear weapons

At the advocacy level, interest shifted from weapons of mass destruction to conventional weapons,
killing and mutilating people in conflict and post-conflict situations. In the late 1980s, antiperson-
nel landmines drew attention as UN agencies and relief organizations moved to assist populations
in the wake of conflicts in Cambodia, Mozambique, and Angola (Cameron et al. 1998; Hubert
2000; Rutherford 2011). Among the first organizations to run into the landmine problem were the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation,
Handicap International, and demining organizations, such as Mines Advisory Group. Human
Rights Watch (HRW) also become aware of the issue in its work in Central America and Asia.
NGOs focused on the humanitarian impact of the weapons on civilians and, using the IHL prin-
ciples of distinction and proportionality, argued that their humanitarian costs far outweighed their
military utility (Price 1998a; Rutherford 2000; Petrova 2018). This discursive shift toward humani-
tarian disarmament underpinned NGO efforts for weapon prohibitions in the 1990s and 2000s.
Whereas in the past, the ICRC was the main organization promoting weapon regulations
on humanitarian grounds (Mathur 2017), in the late 1980s and early 1990s, HRW branched
into IHL-related work in Central America (Neier 2012). And with the success of the landmine
campaign, new organizations became important players in humanitarian disarmament, including
the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), Mine Action Canada, Landmine Action
UK, and Handicap International. Organizations traditionally involved in peace and disarmament,
such as WILPF and Pax Christi, became active on the new issues of banning landmines and later
cluster munitions, or the creation of the ICC. Service provision organizations, such as Oxfam and
Save the Children, also engaged in advocacy to ban landmines and cluster munitions.7
A couple of trends related to the NGOs’ international political opportunity structure
emerged. First, NGOs moved toward international-level campaigning and lobbying policymak-
ers at the expense of grassroots mobilization and disruptive tactics. For example, the landmine
campaign had a grassroots component and enjoyed public support, but compared to prior dis-
armament campaigns, it concentrated more on the elite level. The same aspect was even more
pronounced in the campaign against cluster munitions. This reflected an understanding that
well-placed political allies were key to NGO success rather than mass mobilization (Nash 2012:
134–135). The IR focus on NGO advocacy networks instead of social movements captures that
distinction between routine and contentious politics (Tarrow 2001: 11–12), with the former
becoming predominant in the post-Cold War disarmament field.
The landmine campaign brought about talk of “new diplomacy,” characterized by partner-
ships between NGOs and likeminded middle-sized states, reshaping international politics (McRae
and Hubert 2001; Cooper, English, and Thakur 2002; Rutherford, Brem, and Matthew 2003).

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According to activists, “such a partnership [wa]s a new kind of ‘superpower’”8 and the Nobel
committee awarded the ICBL and its coordinator Jody Williams the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize,
praising the landmine process as “a model for similar processes in the future.”9 Indeed, in the fol-
lowing years, this kind of partnership advanced a host of initiatives in the broad field of human
security, including the ICC statute, the 2000 Optional Protocol on child soldiers, the Kimberley
Protocol on conflict diamonds, and the cluster munition ban (Krause 2008; Brem and Stiles 2009;
Garcia 2011).
Second, past disarmament campaigns focused on the two superpowers. The latter’s actions
were ultimately indispensable for disarmament. In the post-Cold War period, NGO advocacy
took a roundabout route. In the face of resistance to stronger international norms by the big mili-
tary powers, NGOs chose to forge ahead with developing new norms (Brem and Stiles 2009) in
the expectation that, once established, they would gradually bind the big powers. Codification of
new legal norms was coupled with efforts to stigmatize behavior that did not comply with them.
This strategy allowed fast normative development, but also raised criticisms that the new norms
were largely irrelevant – binding only for countries that never go to war. As in the preceding
cases, it can be said that NGO campaigns failed to produce immediate policy effects where it mat-
tered most (Davies 2014: 160–161). Moreover, according to critics, banning indiscriminate, low-
tech weapons has indirectly legitimized high-tech Western militarism and limited the scope of
disarmament (Beier 2011; Cooper 2011). However, the NGO strategy succeeded in stigmatizing
the use of landmines (Price 1998b, 2004; Bower 2015, 2017), and more recently, cluster muni-
tions (Petrova 2018). In both cases, the weapons have become controversial, their use has been
widely condemned, and the US has been in de facto compliance with most treaty provisions.
Finally, the success of the above campaigns depended on depoliticizing the issues and NGO
distancing from the total disarmament and peace agenda (Carpenter 2014; Nash 2012). Yet,
the less ambitious path of banning concrete weapons, such as landmines and cluster munitions,
ultimately offered a template for stigmatizing nuclear weapons as well. Whereas engaging the
great powers for decades had only led to limited weapons reductions, prohibiting nuclear weap-
ons without the participation of nuclear-weapons states became a bold step toward eliminating
their menace. On the template of the landmine campaign, a new organization, the International
Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), was launched by IPPNW, Australia in 2007
with the idea to set a worldwide network of organizations to work for a treaty banning nuclear
weapons. It incorporated NGOs traditionally focused on nuclear disarmament, such as CND in
the UK and WILPF, and later others, such as Pax Christi, the Nobel Women’s Initiative set up
by Jody Williams, and Article 36, related to the landmine and cluster munition campaigns, that
proved pivotal in reorienting the campaign from a nuclear weapons convention including the
nuclear powers toward a treaty without them.
ICAN emerged at a time when political opportunities for nuclear disarmament seemed to
open up. In 2007, former secretaries of state George Shultz and Henry Kissinger, former defense
secretary William Perry, and Senator Sam Nunn published a letter urging the US to work for the
elimination of nuclear weapons (Lewis 2017). President Obama pledged to work for a nuclear-
free world during and after his presidential campaign. In 2008, the UN Secretary General called
upon nuclear-weapons states to “undertake negotiations on effective measures leading to nuclear
disarmament.”10 In 2009, President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in the expecta-
tion that bold deeds would follow his words. In 2010, the ICRC President also called for an
international treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons. The 2010 NPT Review conference focused the
energies of NGOs and governments looking for action toward nuclear disarmament. However,
the conference closed without a meaningful disarmament breakthrough, with the START treaty
negotiated earlier between the US and Russia remaining the only significant step forward.

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This lack of progress redirected NGO and government energies from 2013 on toward a new
process focused on the humanitarian consequences of incidental or purposeful use of nuclear
weapons, pushed along by Austria, Mexico, South Africa, and initially Norway (Borrie 2014).
In December 2014, it culminated in a pledge by the Austrian government calling upon states
to “fill the legal gap for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons.”11 In 2016, a UN
General Assembly resolution recommended negotiations for a nuclear ban treaty, which was
eventually adopted in July 2017 with the votes of 122 states. ICAN served as the NGO partner
pushing the issue forward, relying on testimonies by survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and
nuclear testing and direct lobbying of government officials, eschewing mass protests and outsider
strategies. For its efforts, it received the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize.
The practical effects of the new treaty are still to be seen, as not only nuclear-weapons
states, but all NATO countries and those relying on a “nuclear umbrella” opposed it. It has
also raised concerns about polarizing further relations between non-nuclear-weapons states
and nuclear-weapons states and weakening the NPT regime (Müller 2017). However, the
treaty fits in the larger trajectory of delegitimizing (nuclear) weapons through the creation
of legal and normative stigma (Tannenwald 2007) and has already contributed to changing
the discourse on nuclear weapons and led to disinvestment in nuclear weapons producers
(Acheson 2018).

The peace movement and the 2003 Iraq War

The prospect of war against Iraq triggered possibly the largest peace protests in history on 15
February 2003 (Cortright 2008: 172). In contrast to the peace movement during the Vietnam
War, they were also transnational in scope and organization, illustrating the change from
largely domestic-based NGO work to transnational campaigns. In the US, three organizational
strands come together – Act Now to Stop War and End Racism was an anti-imperialist coali-
tion, the United for Peace and Justice brought together grassroots organizations focusing on
social justice, and the centrist Win Without War engaged in online mobilization and congres-
sional lobbying (Cortright 2014: 497). The overall campaign was heavily influenced by the
global justice movement and the world social forums that spread after the 1999 Seattle protest
against the WTO (Verhulst 2010: 10–13; Tarrow 2015: 191). Arguably, the “war on terror-
ism” context following 9/11 and the Bush administration’s conservative and unilateral politics
shrunk the activists’ political access and opportunities for action within institutional channels.
The resulting mass protests even led some journalists to declare that the antiwar movement
had become a world “superpower.” Yet, it failed in its direct objective of preventing the war.
After the war started, the “rally ’round the flag” effect kicked in, opportunities for protest
shrunk, and by 2006 the movement largely dissipated into campaigning on other issues and
in the US entered institutionalized politics by supporting the Democratic Party in congres-
sional elections and Obama’s presidential campaign (Tarrow 2015: 193–195; Cortright 2014:
498–499; Heaney and Rojas 2011, 2015). In other countries it may have strengthened the
domestic position of political actors opposed to the war; for example, Gerhard Schroeder’s
reelection in Germany or Turkey’s denial of US overflights (Cortright 2008: 172–173). Yet it
is difficult to estimate the add-on effect of the organized movement. According to Cortright
(2008), the antiwar movement and the UN reinforced each other in opposing the war and this
was the movement’s main effect – delegitimizing the war by withholding UN Security Council
approval. Ultimately, Cortright credits the antiwar movement with the “Iraq syndrome” and
backlash against US interventionist policies. Although one needs to separate the movement
influence from other factors, the case shows again that NGOs have achieved moderate or few

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policy changes in the fields of disarmament and peace, respectively, but have exerted stronger
influence over broader norm developments and societal attitudes.

Conclusion
Domestic and international political opportunities mediate NGO influence on peace and disar-
mament issues. However, NGOs have also managed to reshape public attitudes toward war and
the permissibility of particular weapons, and to gradually change the political opportunities in
which they operate. During the Cold War, peace and disarmament organizations were diverse,
broad-based, relying on grassroots mobilization, and when faced with closed domestic structures
used mass protests or sought roundabout ways to foster disarmament by establishing transna-
tional epistemic communities of scientists and physicians in the West and the East. During this
period, in the US, liberal organizations also pursued “respectable” politics, lobbying politicians,
and promoting moderate positions, such as the bilateral freeze in the 1980s. Although they
often failed to reach their immediate objectives, NGOs still restrained state policies, spurred
international treaties, such as the PTBT, and contributed to stigmatizing nuclear weapons and
aggressive war. Their biggest, if indirect, achievement was in creating the ideational premises
and transnational links that made the end of the Cold War possible.
As organizations gained access to policymaking, they became more professionalized and less
radical – a trend intensified by the opening of new international opportunities after the end of
the Cold War. A more permissive security environment refocused NGO efforts toward the
creation of international legal norms in partnership with middle-sized states. While their specific
goals became more circumscribed (norms without formal great power support), NGOs’ broader
objectives remained to indirectly bind the great powers, especially the US, to the new norms.
The success of NGOs in the post-Cold War period was facilitated by their humanitarian refram-
ing of weapons issues and partnership with middle-sized states. NGOs used “naming and sham-
ing” to stigmatize indiscriminate weapons and pressure states to comply with the new norms.
Importantly, through their advocacy NGOs gained better access to international institutions and
participated actively in treaty-making, campaigning for ratification, and later monitoring treaty
compliance. As a result, they have widened the political opportunities at the international level
and used them to push new legal developments related to humanitarian disarmament and exert
pressure from above on states resistant to them.
Thus, NGOs have become not only agenda-setters working through states and international
intuitions, but also active participants in security governance. More research remains to be done
on the ability of NGOs to influence non-state actors, such as banks, business companies, and non-
state armed groups – recent targets of NGO campaigning on humanitarian disarmament. Attention
should also be paid to larger questions about how NGO professionalization affects the ability of
civil society to pursue a more comprehensive peace agenda and the impact of norm-creation with-
out the great powers on the strength and stability of the international legal and normative orders.

Notes
1 Goals may also be organizational, such as increasing membership, funding, or position vis-à-vis other
NGOs without necessarily contributing to an organization’s policy goals.
2 Chatfield (2004) provides an overview of the historical literature.
3 Antiwar protest formed part of the 1960s student movements in Western Europe, but there were few
transnational connections. Actions inspired by the American antiwar movement were launched in the
UK and Australia, for example. See Ellis (2014), Piccini (2016).
4 On the antiwar movement of soldiers and veterans, see Cortright (2005), Moser (1996), Hunt (1999).

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5 Intervention in Central America energized peace organizations on a smaller scale (Smith 1996).
6 The 1985 and 1995 Nobel Peace prizes of IPPNW and the Pugwash Conferences on Science and
World Affairs, respectively, recognized their roles in bridge-building between the West and the East.
7 Davies (2014: 162) notes the general trend toward homogenization of NGO activities and advocacy by
previously service-oriented organizations.
8 Jody Williams, “Nobel Lecture,” 10 December 1997, www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laure
ates/1997/williams-lecture.html.
9 “Press Release – Nobel Peace Prize 1997,” www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1997/
press.html.
10 “Press Release, SG/SM/11881-DC/3135,” 24 October 2008, www.un.org/press/en/2008/sgsm11881.
doc.htm.
11 “Pledge presented at the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons,”
www.bmeia.gv.at/fileadmin/user_upload/Zentrale/Aussenpolitik/Abruestung/HINW14/HINW14_
Austrian_Pledge.pdf.

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 23
NGOs and the environment
Naghmeh Nasiritousi

Introduction
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have long been recognized as crucial actors in global
environmental politics. With their involvement in issues such as biodiversity and conservation,
desertification, transboundary air pollution, and climate change, NGOs have become significant
actors on the global stage (Betsill and Corell 2007; Finger and Princen 1994). The burgeoning
literature on NGOs has highlighted their different roles in global environmental politics. For
instance, they have been described as “agitators for environmental action, architects of govern-
ance solutions, and entrepreneurs for new sorts of initiatives” (O’Neill 2014: 26). Similarly, Betsill
(2015: 251) describes NGOs involved in climate change governance as “activists raising aware-
ness and calling for action; as diplomats working with governments to craft climate policies; and
as governors developing new mechanisms for steering society towards a low-carbon future”.
More generally, Nasiritousi (2016: 2) describes their roles as “shapers of information and ideas,
brokers of knowledge, norms and initiatives, and doers of implementing policies and influencing
behaviours”.
What all these accounts of NGO activities in the environmental field have in common is
that NGOs are political actors with important roles to play in the governance of environmental
issues (see also Burgiel and Wood 2012). What is sometimes not adequately highlighted, how-
ever, is the diversity in the types of actors that make up the NGO community seeking to address
environmental issues. With some of the literature on the roles of NGOs mainly focusing on
describing influential NGOs that work for the public good, it is often easy to forget that NGOs
come in many shapes and sizes. Nasiritousi (2016) criticizes the often rosy view of NGOs in the
literature and points out that different types of NGOs fulfill various roles to different extents.
This chapter examines NGOs that play a role in addressing environmental issues. While
NGOs work at many levels, from the local to the global, the focus in this chapter will be on
those that work at the international level. The definition of NGOs used in this chapter will thus
be broad and follow the approach adopted by the UN when admitting observer organizations
(see section below on Major Groups). The aim of the chapter is to provide an overview of cat-
egories of NGOs in this field, and to outline the range of approaches adopted by such NGOs,
the strategies used, and their influence. Hence, the chapter discusses the plurality of NGOs

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involved in global environmental governance and the main paths through which they seek to
influence outcomes. While the chapter examines NGOs involved in the area of environment
and sustainable development in general, its empirical focus will be on NGOs that work in the
realm of climate change governance.
The remainder of the chapter proceeds as follows. The next section outlines milestones
in international efforts to address sustainable development and negotiate multilateral environ-
mental agreements, and provides an overview of NGO involvement at these events. Next, the
different types of NGOs are discussed, highlighting the diversity of NGOs and in general terms
describing the range of approaches adopted by such NGOs. Subsequently, a more detailed
analysis of the roles of NGOs in global climate change governance will be provided, with a
discussion of NGO strategies used and their influence. The final section concludes with a dis-
cussion about the implications of greater NGO activities for the legitimacy and effectiveness of
global environmental governance and explores future research avenues.

A history of global environmental governance and the roles

of NGOs therein
Environmental problems, such as biodiversity loss and air pollution, can have both local and
global effects. While human activity has always impacted on the environment, technological
advances since the Industrial Revolution and processes of globalization have contributed to
multiplying and amplifying those effects. The twentieth century thus saw an acceleration in the
scale and scope of environmental problems (O’Neill 2017). Given the transboundary nature of
many environmental problems, international cooperation has been necessary to address them.
Environmental problems such as climate change, acid rain, and stratospheric ozone depletion
are transnational in nature, meaning that even powerful countries cannot take unilateral action
to address such problems (O’Neill 2017). Consequently, international cooperation on environ-
mental issues has taken many forms.
One important form of international cooperation is through the signing of multilateral envi-
ronmental agreements (MEAs). In fact, researchers have coded over 1,280 MEAs that states have
devised to tackle environmental problems (Mitchell 2018). NGOs have played a prominent role
in many of these processes – from raising awareness of environmental issues and getting them
on the international agenda, to influencing outcomes, implementing decisions, and monitoring
state commitments (Raustiala 1997).
One of the first milestones in global environmental governance was the 1972 UN Conference
on the Human Environment in Stockholm, Sweden. Attended by 113 countries and over 250
NGOs as observers, this conference laid the foundation for modern global environmental gov-
ernance (Willetts 1996). This was also a key moment for NGOs for several reasons. First, NGOs
had been enlisted as experts even in the preparatory phase of the conference, thus having the
chance to influence documents that set the scene for the conference. Second, forty-seven coun-
tries included NGOs as part of their official delegation, thereby providing those NGOs with
new insights into interstate negotiations. Third, the conference included a parallel open forum,
the Environment Forum, where NGOs could more freely express their views and highlight
causes. Such discussions proved to be important, as for example through this space the issue of
whaling was pushed onto the diplomatic agenda of the official conference (Willetts 1996).
This model of state-NGO engagement at the international level has since been adopted at
other multilateral environmental conferences, even though certain states have been suspicious of
NGOs and have sought to curtail their activities in environmental negotiations (Willetts 1996).
At the follow-up summit to the Stockholm conference that took place twenty years later – the

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Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992 – NGOs had mobilized to make sure that their
voices were not left out of the summit: 2,400 NGO representatives attended the Earth Summit
as observers (which gives them participation rights but no negotiation or decision-making
rights) and 17,000 attended the parallel NGO Forum in what has been described as “a water-
shed moment in NGO engagement in international environmental policy discussions” (Burgiel
and Wood 2012: 127). The sheer number of participating NGOs was in stark contrast to how
international meetings were conducted in other policy areas, such as in international trade and
security (O’Neill 2014). This event has been said to mark the beginning of “the participatory
turn of global environmental governance” (Bäckstrand 2006: 470) whereby the participation of
NGOs became seen as integral to the legitimacy of international environmental cooperation.
NGO involvement became a cornerstone of the documents that the Earth Summit gave rise to,
including the Rio Accords and Agenda 21 (Bäckstrand 2006).
NGO participation continued to grow in the two succeeding UN sustainable development
conferences. At the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South
Africa, there were 8,000 NGO representatives. While this summit did not produce any major
treaties, agreement was reached on smaller-scale initiatives known as “Type II partnerships”
where NGOs joined forces with governments and other actors to implement initiatives (O’Neill
2014). Similarly, the Rio+20 Conference in 2012 attracted thousands of NGO representatives.
At this conference, NGOs were actively involved in trying to influence the outcome document
“The Future We Want”, as well as organizing side-events and events outside the conference
in what has been described as “an extraordinary trade fair of political, social, technological and
commercial ideas” (Vidal 2012). NGOs were also involved in the more than 700 voluntary
commitments for sustainable development that were registered in connection with the Rio+20
conference as a way to spur action on sustainable development (Ramstein 2012). NGOs con-
tinued to stay engaged in the processes that originated at Rio+20 and which in 2015 led to
the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its seventeen Sustainable
Development Goals (Kanie and Biermann 2017). Through extensive consultations, the world
now has seventeen universal goals and 169 specific targets for achieving sustainable develop-
ment. As part of this agenda, NGOs have been recognized for playing an important role in
implementing, monitoring, and reviewing actions toward sustainable development (UN 2015).
What this historical overview of NGO involvement in the key summits of global environ-
mental governance shows is that NGOs have become an integral part of global environmental
governance. Whereas at first only NGOs with particular expertise were invited in the run-up to
the 1972 Stockholm conference (Willetts 1996), both the number and types of NGOs quickly
grew for subsequent meetings. In fact, the recognition at the Earth Summit in 1992 that sustain-
able development can only be achieved through the engagement of a broad set of actors meant
that a system was drawn up to organize interactions with different types of NGOs. NGOs thus
came to be organized into “Major Groups”, as a way to categorize organizations with broadly
similar interests. The next section outlines the Major Groups and discusses other ways of differen-
tiating those NGOs that are involved in addressing issues of the environment at the global level.

Similarities and differences between NGOs in global

environmental governance
The Earth Summit’s Agenda 21 recognizes the importance of NGOs to address sustainable
development and categorizes them into nine Major Groups. These are: Women; Children
and Youth; Indigenous Peoples; Local Authorities; Workers and Trade Unions; Business and
Industry; Scientific and Technological Community; Farmers; as well as a general category called

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Non-Governmental Organizations.1 This list provides an indication of the breadth of interests

represented by the NGO community attending UN environmental conferences. Within the
different categories, there are also a heterogeneous set of organizations often with a conflicting
set of priorities or interests. For example, there are secular organizations and religious organiza-
tions, organizations that prioritize economic development and those that prioritize nature con-
servation, those that support local solutions and those that support global solutions. What most
of these NGOs have in common, though, is that they are advocacy organizations, working to
further their particular cause (O’Neill 2014).
This thus means that even within a constituency such as environmental NGOs, that to the
outside might appear relatively homogenous in their causes, there is great variation in the poli-
cies that they advocate. An example is on the topic of conservation, where there have been con-
flicts between some conservation NGOs and other environmental NGOs on the most preferred
policies for protecting wildlife, and in particular on whether and how to work with local com-
munities (Duffy 2013; Chapin 2004). More broadly, there have been significant disagreements
between “light green” and more radical environmental NGOs on how to relate to current
power structures and dominant discourses (Dauvergne and LeBaron 2014).
Except for their differing causes, the differences that set NGOs apart include resources, strate-
gies, size, level of professionalization, membership base, and access to policy-makers. For exam-
ple, large Northern NGOs have a different level of capacities compared to grassroots NGOs
from the South (O’Neill 2014). Well-known NGOs such as the World Wide Fund for Nature
(WWF) or Greenpeace have several decades’ worth of experience of working on environmental
issues and therefore have access to well-established networks with policy-makers and other key
actors. They both have a considerable membership base and sizeable funds. These NGOs can
therefore afford to send their representatives to several international environmental conferences
each year. They tend to have chapters in different countries and can thus work on multiple
issues at the same time. Smaller grassroots organizations, in contrast, do not have the same access
to resources and therefore their presence at global conferences tends to be more limited – with
participation going up when the conference is located in close proximity to where those groups
are based, so that local groups can more easily travel to the conference (Nordang Uhre 2013).
Moreover, the range of approaches that different types of NGOs employ differ. Depending
on how their agendas align, NGOs can choose a collaborative or confrontational approach
when targeting other actors (Rietig 2016). NGOs that have local governments or businesses as
their members more often rely on insider strategies compared to, for example, youth groups
or environmental NGOs that also rely on outsider strategies such as protests and demonstra-
tions. The former generally have a closer relationship with policy-makers and thus focus their
activities on lobbying (Betzold 2013). In contrast, at Rio+20 youth groups, environmental
NGOs and indigenous groups staged a demonstration when they felt that they had exhausted
the insider strategies available to them (Watts 2012). While most NGOs seek to employ both
insider and outsider strategies, some prefer not to participate at the official meetings but instead
make their voice heard at alternative conferences, such as the People’s Summit organized in
conjunction with Rio+20. At the other end of the spectrum, some NGOs are invited to sit on
the official government delegations, thereby gaining access to negotiations that are closed to
observers. However, countries tend to enforce strict guidelines on what such NGOs can and
cannot say; those NGOs thereby lose much of their independence while they sit on the delega-
tion (Nasiritousi and Linnér 2016).
This difference in which NGOs participate at the official events of course plays a part in deter-
mining which NGOs can influence the official outcome documents. Influencing the text gener-
ally requires extensive cooperation with one or more state delegations (Betsill and Corell 2007).

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The chances for this go up if NGO representatives know the issues well, speak fluent English
(the main negotiating language) and are versed in the technical language of the proceedings, and
have a good working relationship with negotiators, all of which is associated with Northern pro-
fessional NGOs. Smaller NGOs can, however, increase their impact by joining larger networks
of NGOs (O’Neill 2014). Such an example is the Climate Action Network (CAN) which is a
worldwide network of around 1,000 NGOs from over 100 countries working to address climate
change.2 By joining forces, smaller NGOs can contribute to influencing policies through the
wider network that share a common goal. Thus by working together and thereby representing
more actors, networked organizations can wield greater influence than individual organizations
(O’Neill 2014).
Participation in international environmental policy processes is, however, only one way in
which NGOs seek to influence global environmental governance. Some target other inter-
national bodies, such as multilateral financial or trade institutions like the World Bank or
the World Trade Organization, to seek to green the activities of such bodies (Gutner 2012).
Another strategy is to work directly with large companies to green their business practices, such
as the pioneering partnership between the Environmental Defense Fund and McDonald’s in
the 1990s that reduced the fast food company’s packaging waste (MacDonald 2012). Another
type of cooperation with companies is the setting up of certification schemes that seek to drive
sustainability in sectors such as timber and fish. Well-known examples of this are the Forest
Stewardship Council (FSC) and the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). In these cases NGOs
(such as WWF which has been a key actor in both schemes) have deemed that interstate coop-
eration has not produced adequate governance instruments for protecting valuable resources and
thus have set up their own initiatives to promote sustainable practices. This type of activity is a
more direct, but costly, way of influencing global environmental governance as it requires sus-
tained multi-stakeholder cooperation. Its effectiveness is also not a given as it builds on volun-
tary participation, and being a market-driven form of environmental governance it is susceptible
to being accused of greenwashing (see e.g. FSC-Watch 2011).
These latter examples show how NGOs may also engage in what Wapner (1995) calls “poli-
tics beyond the state”, whereby they target actors other than state actors. Notably, by raising
awareness and changing practices, NGOs have been successful in highlighting sustainability
issues to the broader public. Groups such as Zero Waste Europe have, for example, contributed
to raising awareness of the concept of the circular economy and the damaging effects of plastics
on the environment.3 By changing attitudes about acceptable practices, NGOs can support shifts
in the environmental impacts of consumption and production patterns. The tactics for doing so,
however, differ. In particular, conflicts have emerged between different environmental NGOs
in how they approach the corporate sector, specifically on whether they choose collaboration
or confrontation. WWF has, for example, been criticized on the grounds that they work too
closely with corporations and that they thereby shy away from calling out unsustainable prac-
tices (Dauvergne and LeBaron 2014).
In sum, there is a considerable breadth of NGOs that work on issues of the environment and
they do so at multiple sites and in many different ways. Having outlined the general contours
of NGO involvement in global environmental governance, the next sections turn to a more in-
depth examination of their different roles in global climate change governance.

NGOs in global climate change governance4

Governing climate change represents a defining challenge for the twenty-first century. Climate
change has been depicted by scholars as a wicked problem, meaning that the problem resists

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resolution because of its complex nature and lack of simple solutions (Levin et al. 2012;
Hoffmann 2011). Because the issue of climate change includes discussions about other political
domains, such as energy, finance, food security, and health, it has attracted the involvement of
a myriad of actors that “are operating across various scales, in different regions, and are seek-
ing to mobilise a wide range of discourses, tools, techniques and practices in order to govern”
(Bulkeley et al. 2014: 38). The defining features of global climate change governance are thus
that it includes a range of actors, requires cooperation across multiple levels, and is transnational
in scope. The governing of climate change therefore represents a microcosm of wider global
environmental governance (Green 2013). Moreover, relevant for the purposes of this chapter,
NGOs have had important roles to play in climate change governance from the start.
While the history of climate change science dates back to the 1800s, it was not until the
latter parts of the twentieth century that this problem reached the international political
agenda. Environmental as well as research-oriented NGOs, such as the Beijer Institute, the
Environmental Defense Fund, the World Resources Institute, and the Woods Hole Research
Center, were instrumental in placing climate change onto the international policy agenda
(Betsill 2015). Through the organization of conferences where policy action to address the
emerging consensus on climate change was called for, such NGOs managed at the end of the
1980s to prompt the international community to come up with a policy process to address
climate change. In 1988, the World Meteorological Organization and the UN Environment
Program set up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in order to provide
policy-makers with an assessment of the science on climate change.5 The IPCC allows for
NGOs “qualified in matters covered by the IPCC” to participate in its sessions.6 Currently there
are eighty-seven NGOs accredited, among which include such disparate organizations as the
Third World Network, Wetlands International, and the World Coal Institute.7
Having succeeded in raising awareness of the climate change problem, NGOs also got
involved in the policy process to address the issue. At the Earth Summit in 1992, the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was opened up for signa-
tures. Being tasked to formulate an international policy response to address climate change, the
UNFCCC has turned into a key venue where the multilateral (state-centric) and the transna-
tional (including NGO) arenas meet (Bäckstrand et al. 2017; Lövbrand et al. 2017; Betsill 2015).
The UNFCCC conferences are thus important for global climate change governance both in
terms of the significance of the decisions negotiated and in terms of serving as a platform for
the exchange of views and ideas amongst a range of stakeholders. The conferences offer NGOs,
who are accredited with observer status, the opportunity to lobby negotiators to influence cli-
mate change policy (Hanegraaff 2015; Betzold 2014). They also provide a platform for NGOs
to showcase their own initiatives in the field of climate change at exhibits and side-events and
to network with other stakeholders (Schroeder and Lovell 2011; Hjerpe and Linnér 2010).
The UN climate change conferences have thus been described as “messy political sites, where a
multitude of actors come together to exchange ideas and knowledge, benchmark climate per-
formance, build interpersonal relationships, organize resistance and propose policy alternatives
in parallel to, and in view of, the interstate negotiations” (Lövbrand et al. 2017: 581).
Indeed, this international environmental regime is considered to be one of the most open
to NGO involvement in terms of allowing a multitude of NGOs to attend its conferences and
having relatively generous rules for NGOs on access to documentation, making statements,
submission of written input, and consultations with the presiding officers and the Executive
Secretary. The Secretariat also has an NGO-liaison section, which can be viewed as a sign of the
deep engagement with NGOs (Nasiritousi and Linnér 2016; Depledge 2005). At the first con-
ferences, particularly environmental NGOs, business and industry NGOs, and research NGOs

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 NGOs and the environment

participated and sought to influence policy-makers. Over time, however, both the number
and range of participating NGOs grew, with NGO representatives at times outnumbering state
delegates (Lövbrand et al. 2017; Depledge 2005). In fact, interest from the NGO community
to participate in UNFCCC conferences has grown so much that the UNFCCC introduced
a quota system for observer access to the conferences after COP 15 in Copenhagen in 2009.
Figure 23.1 shows the growth of admitted observer organizations throughout the over twenty
years of international climate change negotiations under the auspices of the UNFCCC.
NGOs attending UNFCCC conferences are organized into nine constituencies with diverse
but recognizable interests that mirror the Major Groups. These are: Business and industry
NGOs (BINGOs), Environmental NGOs (ENGOs), Farmers (F), Indigenous peoples organi-
zations (IPOs), Local government and municipal authorities (LGMAs), Research and independ-
ent NGOs (RINGOs), Trade union NGOs (TUNGOs), Women and Gender Constituency
(WGC), and Youth NGOs (YOUNGOs) (Nasiritousi et al. 2016a). Figure 23.2 shows that
ENGOs, RINGOs, and BINGOs still make up the majority of NGOs accredited to the
UNFCCC. YOUNGOs have increased rapidly in recent years, albeit from a very low level.
The non-affiliated category includes NGOs that do not wish to be part of a constituency or
groups that do not fit within the established categories, such as faith groups.
Within the constituencies there is a wide range of actors with different interests. The busi-
ness community, for example, ranges from groups that are opposed to international regulations
to groups that see business opportunities in stricter climate policies (Betsill 2015). This exam-
ple highlights conflicts in the NGO community over the policy response to climate change.
Nasiritousi et al. (2014) found that views on the most effective solutions to address climate
change diverge more between groups of NGOs than between NGOs and state actors. This could
also be seen in the split of the environmental NGOs into a more radical faction in 2009 with
the emergence of Climate Justice Now! and Climate Justice Action that emphasize the need for
structural changes in the global economy and the need to bring justice to the victims of climate
change (Betsill 2015; O’Neill 2014). Overall, recent years have seen a growth in the plurality of

2500

Intergovernmental organizaons 126

Non-governmental organizaons 120
2000
110
105
103 104
93
1500 88
85

2133
1000 74 2001
68 1866
1650 1732
64 66 1516 1595
51 55 1295 1383
47 49 51
500 47 951
34 35 736 766 844
30 474 477 496 530 590 637
14 18 277 339 374
163 196
0

Figure 23.1 Cumulative admission of observer organizations

This figure shows the cumulative admission of observer organizations – intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) – from UNFCCC conference of parties (COP) 1 in 1994 to COP 23 in 2017.
Source: UNFCCC.

335
Naghmeh Nasiritousi

IPO 2.7% NA 9.6%

BINGO 13.5%
F 1.0% BINGO: Business and industry non-
WGC 1.5% governmental organisaon
YOUNGO 3.4% ENGO: Environmental non-
governmental organisaon
TUNGO 0.7% LGMA: Local government and
municipal authories

RINGO: Research and independent

non-governmental organisaon

TUNGO: Trade Unions non-

governmental organisaon

YOUNGO: Youth non-governmental

organisaon

RINGO 25.0% WGC: Women and Gender

ENGO 41.2%
F: Farmers

IPO: Indigenous peoples organisaon

NA: Non-affiliated

LGMA 1.6%

Figure 23.2 Constituency affiliation of admitted NGOs (as at December 2017)

This figure shows the constituency affiliation of admitted NGOs to the UNFCCC as at December 2017. The
constituency groups are: Business and industry NGOs (BINGOs), Environmental NGOs (ENGOs), Farmers (F),
Indigenous peoples organizations (IPOs), Local government and municipal authorities (LGMAs), Research and
independent NGOs (RINGOs), Trade union NGOs (TUNGOs), Women and Gender Constituency (WGC), and Youth
NGOs (YOUNGOs). NA in the figure refers to non-affiliated. Source: UNFCCC.

NGOs attending the UNFCCC conferences, with those focusing on, for instance, human rights,
social justice, peacebuilding, and poverty increasingly participating (Hadden 2015).
In sum, the constituencies vary in size, resources, and approach to climate diplomacy. They
encompass a wide range of actors with varying interests and views, and different capabilities to
promote these interests with authority. To understand the roles of these actors in global climate
change governance, it is thus important to examine the range of approaches adopted by NGOs,
the strategies used, and their influence in international climate diplomacy. This would only
reveal part of the story, however, as many more NGOs are engaged in global climate change
governance outside the UN process (Nasiritousi et al. 2016b; Betsill 2015). The remainder of
the chapter therefore examines how NGOs are involved in global climate change governance
both as observers at the UNFCCC and beyond the international climate change negotiations.

NGOs in climate diplomacy and beyond

The literature has identified three broad paths through which NGOs can influence policy out-
comes despite lacking legislative powers. First, NGOs can play a role in shaping policy out-
comes by carrying out tasks mandated to them by states or by partnering with states to carry
out governance activities. Second, NGOs can try to influence state policy through lobbying or
advocacy. Third, NGOs can be entrepreneurial through independent action on the ground, for
example by forming transnational governance initiatives with other non-state actors (Nasiritousi

336
 NGOs and the environment

2016; Bulkeley et al. 2014; Green 2013). The area of climate change governance offers many
examples of NGOs trying to pursue these paths.
For example, forty-six NGOs have partnered with states and intergovernmental organiza-
tions to join the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) with the aim to reduce short-lived
climate pollutants. Such NGOs include the Bellona Foundation and the C40 Cities Climate
Leadership Group.8 Another example of NGO involvement in a state-led climate change initia-
tive is the NDC Partnership, which is a coalition of countries and international organizations
that seek to drive ambitious climate action by mobilizing support for effective implementation
of climate goals. This Partnership is hosted by the World Resources Institute and has ICLEI –
Local Governments for Sustainability as an associate member.9 By partnering with states and
intergovernmental organizations, NGOs obtain the opportunity to develop voluntary initiatives
and contribute to implementing policies. This type of engagement, however, usually requires
particular competencies or resources and is therefore not a path that is open to all types of NGOs.
Examples of the second type of path through which NGOs can influence policy outcomes
are numerous. Both at the international climate change negotiations and beyond, many NGOs
seek to lobby policy-makers and influence other actors through advocacy. Lobbying and advo-
cacy take place at many levels (i.e. local, regional, international) and involve a range of strategies.
According to Keck and Sikkink (1998), strategies range from information politics (i.e. generation
and dissemination of relevant information), symbolic politics (i.e. the use of symbols and narratives
to connect with various audiences), and leverage politics (i.e. putting pressure on or allying with
stronger actors), to accountability politics (i.e. monitoring actions and holding actors to promises
made, for example through naming and shaming tactics).
An example of NGOs employing all of these tactics is the coalition of NGOs that advocate
for the need to hold much of the remaining reserves of fossil fuels in the ground to prevent
catastrophic climate change. Through the Big Shift Global campaign, NGOs such as Oil Change
International, Friends of the Earth, 350.org, and Christian Aid have disseminated information
to policy-makers and the media on why fossil fuel subsidies need to be phased out as soon
as possible.10 Their campaign has been boosted by the news from the World Bank Group at the
One Planet Summit in 2017 that they will take a number of steps to strengthen climate action and
drive decarbonization, including ending finance toward upstream oil and gas by 2019.11 Moreover,
Carbon Action Tracker has popularized the term carbon bubble, which refers to the investment
bubble that would burst if the world accepts that much of the world’s fossil fuel reserves must be
kept in the ground in order to adequately address climate change (Nasiritousi 2017; Ayling and
Gunningham 2017). This has contributed to putting a focus on carbon risk amongst policy-makers
and financial institutions (see e.g. Bowen and Dietz 2016). Furthermore, through a global divest-
ment campaign, NGOs such as 350.org have been instrumental in challenging the fossil fuel sector
both politically and financially by organizing protests and campaigns that have led to 831 institu-
tions fully or partially divesting from fossil fuels to an approximate value of $6 trillion.12 Finally,
sprung out of opposition toward plans by the Norwegian government to expand oil exploration
in the Lofoten area, NGOs have taken the Norwegian government to court for breaching their
climate change obligations and rallied over 220 actors from fifty-five countries around the Lofoten
Declaration, calling for a managed decline of the fossil fuel sector.13 Although losing the court
case, the NGOs struck a partial victory when Norway’s government recently announced that oil
exploration at Lofoten will be banned until at least 2021.14 These examples show that by working
on many fronts and together with different actors, NGOs can have an influence in framing discus-
sions and decisions and thereby contribute to addressing climate change.
It is worth keeping in mind, however, that since NGOs’ views often diverge, they can
“lobby for either side of a cause” (O’Neill 2014: 41). A notable example of an NGO that

337
Naghmeh Nasiritousi

worked to undermine climate change action was the Global Climate Coalition (GCC), a well-
funded American-based NGO supported by many large corporations, including several major
oil and gas companies. This NGO (active 1989–2001) lobbied both at the domestic and interna-
tional levels to prevent strong climate change policies and launched a campaign that branded the
Kyoto Protocol as unfair to American businesses. Such actions influenced the US Congress and
eventually led to the US withdrawing from Kyoto, thereby weakening international coopera-
tion on climate change (Downie 2014). According to Betsill (2015: 256), “working simultane-
ously at the international and national levels allows NGOs to invoke the ‘boomerang strategy’
and put pressure on states from above and below”. More generally, studies have found that
influence by NGOs at multilateral climate change negotiations requires consistent engagement
by NGOs and that NGOs tend to be more successful in raising issues and shaping the agenda
than having their positions reflected in the official agreements (Betsill 2015; Downie 2014).
The third path through which NGOs can influence outcomes is by taking entrepreneurial
action by establishing their own forms of climate initiatives together with other transnational
actors. This type of activity thus does not rely on working with or influencing states, but has
instead been described as “agency beyond the state” (Betsill 2015: 257). An example of such an
NGO initiative is the Science-Based Targets Initiative, which is a collaboration between CDP,
World Resources Institute, WWF, and the UN Global Compact and works with companies
to set science-based targets for emission reductions.15 Another notable example is the GHG
Protocol, which is the world’s most widely used standard for greenhouse gas accounting and was
developed by the World Resources Institute and the World Business Council on Sustainable
Development.16 Focusing on cities, ICLEI’s GreenClimateCities program offers local govern-
ments a framework for pursuing urban low-carbon development.17 These cases highlight how
NGOs can fill gaps in global climate change governance to address issues that states have failed
to address or have not adequately responded to.
The realization that NGOs fulfill multiple roles has prompted the UNFCCC to seek to engage
NGOs beyond being mere observers at the conferences. The UNFCCC’s Global Climate Action
framework launched in 2016 together with the Non-State Actor Zone for Climate Action
(NAZCA) and the International Cooperative Initiatives (ICI) portals aim to catalyze and support
climate action beyond states.18 Such orchestration efforts have, however, been criticized on both
effectiveness and legitimacy grounds (Chan et al. 2018; Bäckstrand and Kuyper 2017). Some of the
problems with these types of voluntary initiatives are that they are difficult to follow up on and lack
accountability mechanisms. In addition, there is a skewed distribution of initiatives geographically
which means that the people most vulnerable to climate change are less likely to directly benefit
from such initiatives (Chan et al. 2018). More generally, Bulkeley et al. (2014) found many of
the transnational initiatives to be in line with a dominant liberal environmentalist ideology with
an emphasis on market governance. An over-reliance on voluntary initiatives thus risks leading
to a marketization of governance and the strengthening of already strong interests (Bulkeley et al.
2014). The enhanced role of NGOs in the work of the UNFCCC has also brought new conflicts
between different groups of NGOs to the fore. In particular, a coalition of NGOs is urging the
UNFCCC to establish a conflict of interest policy to limit the influence of businesses such as fos-
sil fuel companies whose business interests conflict with the aims of the UNFCCC (UNFCCC
2017). So far UNFCCC member countries have resisted introducing such a policy on the basis
that the business constituency is important for the work of the UNFCCC.
The examples above show that NGOs have influenced global climate change governance in
different ways. It also shows, however, imbalances in the strength of different NGOs, where par-
ticularly well-resourced NGOs are more successful in making a mark. Beyond the issue of resources,
Nasiritousi et al. (2016b) showed how the different NGO constituencies have comparative

338
 NGOs and the environment

advantages in different governance activities. Finding distinct governance profiles for each constitu-
ency, the study showed, for example, that influence and action seem to be most associated with
BINGOs and somewhat with LGMAs, ideas and expertise with RINGOs, and awareness raising
and representation with ENGOs and IPOs. These governance profiles correspond well with the
governance profiles of the Major Groups that participated in the Rio+20 conference, indicating that
they are not limited to the field of climate change (Linnér et al. 2013). An implication of this is that
different types of NGOs may cooperate with other categories of NGOs in order to achieve greater
impact across the policy cycle. The trend toward partnerships in global climate change governance
may reflect this insight.
Taken together, NGOs can affect outcomes by contributing with ideas, raising awareness,
shaping discussions, influencing decisions, implementing policies, and normalizing actions. For
instance, some of the initiatives that started as non-state actor experimentation for climate action
(Hoffmann 2011), such as the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), have now developed into
international cooperative initiatives that are highlighted by the UNFCCC as important gov-
ernance arrangements (Hjerpe and Nasiritousi 2015). Thus by writing reports, participating
in awareness-raising activities, launching educational and media campaigns etc., NGOs may
influence how issues are perceived and discussed. Through lobbying for particular solutions or
through demonstrations or protests, NGOs can seek to put pressure on policy-makers and other
actors to influence outcomes. Finally, by forging partnerships and launching their own govern-
ance initiatives, NGOs can seek to steer society toward a particular cause. In sum, this implies
that authority is increasingly shared between states and non-state actors in global climate change
governance and that NGOs engage in governance activities that are broader than merely seek-
ing to influence the negotiating text of intergovernmental meetings.

Conclusion
This chapter has shown that NGOs are important actors in global environmental governance.
NGOs contribute to global environmental governance in different ways and to different degrees
by offering knowledge and expertise, moral arguments and new ideas, and by taking action on
implementing policies and assuming the role of stakeholders. The approaches used by NGOs, and
ultimately their influence, depend in some part on their resources and their comparative advan-
tages in terms of, for example, expertise, access to policy-makers, or the ability to join networks.
The overall landscape of NGOs involved in global environmental governance is hence character-
ized by plurality, inequality, and contradictions. NGOs pursue different causes to varying degrees
of success which raises important questions about the implications of the growing participation by
NGOs in global environmental governance for issues of legitimacy and effectiveness.
With the growing prominence of NGOs in global environmental governance, a key ques-
tion that this chapter highlights is whether this development strengthens already strong actors
or whether it provides opportunities for marginalized voices to be heard. The results from
Nasiritousi et al.’s (2014) study indicate that mainstream voices dominate at the climate change
conferences but that the plurality of actors ensures that some marginalized perspectives are heard
that otherwise would risk being left out, perhaps showing that these two scenarios are not mutu-
ally exclusive. Further empirical work is, however, required to better understand the implica-
tions of the involvement of NGOs in global environmental governance on the legitimacy of
evolving governance arrangements.
Another important issue that remains unresolved is the implications of the growing participa-
tion by NGOs in global environmental governance on environmental outcomes. The additional
ideas, knowledge, and resources that NGOs bring to the table arguably contribute to enhancing

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Naghmeh Nasiritousi

environmental outcomes. On the other hand, the high degree of contestation within the NGO
community (Betsill 2015; Nasiritousi et al. 2014; Duffy 2013) means that NGOs do not all pull in
the same direction. While this may benefit global environmental governance in terms of adding to
the plurality of voices, the high degree of contestation may also mean that different NGO efforts
undermine each other, thereby reducing overall effectiveness. This is thus an issue where further
empirical work is required. Given the considerable participation of NGOs in the contemporary
global environmental governance landscape, the question concerning their effectiveness is not a yes
or no issue. Instead of asking whether NGOs can contribute to effective global governance, it is
necessary to examine how and under what conditions they can do so (Green 2013). As shown by
Nasiritousi (2016), institutional arrangements that govern NGOs’ participation in international affairs
are important for setting the terms for which NGOs can participate effectively and with what effect.
As the world is facing increasingly pressing environmental challenges that the international system
is ill-equipped to handle, the role of NGOs in global environmental governance is likely to grow.
Hence, as NGOs play a more active role in global environmental governance, how these actors
interact with other actors in the international system will be of continued interest to policy-makers
and scholars. Future work should focus on analyzing the implications of the growing role of NGOs
in this field and continue to map the conflicts and power structures within the heterogeneous NGO
community. The patterns of cooperation and contestation that NGOs engage in ultimately add to
the complexity of the international system. The way in which greater NGO engagement will impact
on the political landscape in the long term is thus an important question for future studies.

Notes
1 https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/mgos, accessed 16 January 2018.
2 www.climatenetwork.org/about/about-can, accessed 16 January 2018.
3 https://zerowasteeurope.eu/about.
4 This and subsequent sections draw on Nasiritousi (2016).
5 www.ipcc.ch/news_and_events/docs/factsheets/FS_what_ipcc.pdf, accessed 16 January 2018.
6 www.ipcc.ch/organization/organization_procedures.shtml, accessed 22 January 2018.
7 www.ipcc.ch/apps/contact/interface/organizationall.php, accessed 22 January 2018.
8 http://ccacoalition.org/en/partners, accessed 22 January 2018.
9 http://ndcpartnership.org/partners, accessed 22 January 2018.
10 http://priceofoil.org/2017/12/11/one-planet-sign-on-letter-stop-funding-fossils, accessed 29 January 2018.
11 www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2017/12/12/world-bank-group-announcements-at-one-
planet-summit, accessed 29 January 2018.
12 https://gofossilfree.org/divestment/commitments, accessed 29 January 2018.
13 http://priceofoil.org/2017/09/07/the-lofoten-declaration-a-new-bar-for-climate-leadership, accessed
29 January 2018.
14 www.ft.com/content/027cb250-f9d2–11e7-9b32-d7d59aace167, accessed 29 January 2018.
15 http://sciencebasedtargets.org/about-the-science-based-targets-initiative, accessed 29 January 2018.
16 www.ghgprotocol.org/about-us, accessed 29 January 2018.
17 www.iclei.org/activities/agendas/low-carbon-city/gcc.html, accessed 29 January 2018.
18 http://climateaction.unfccc.int, accessed 30 January 2018.

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 24
Civil society, expert communities,
and private standards
Alejandro M. Peña

The problem with an apolitical standpoint is rather that it does not stay clear of politics.
(Soderberg 2008, p. 18)

Introduction
The value of transnational civil society is generally understood in terms of its positive contribution
to processes of international agenda-setting, cooperation, and regulation. Within the political sci-
ence and international relations literatures, civil society actors, such as NGOs, social movements,
and advocacy networks, have been commonly portrayed as moral and principled agents, often act-
ing in support of universal and cosmopolitan values and rights, the defence of global public goods,
and more inclusive mechanisms of global governance (Simmons 1998; Prakash & Gugerty 2010).
This perspective has supported references to NGOs as ‘the conscience of the world’ (Willetts
1996), linkages between transnational advocacy networks, democratisation, and the spread of
human rights (Risse & Sikkink 1999), and views of counter-hegemonic social movements as
expressions of ‘bottom-up’ globalisation (Falk 1997). The very chapters of this book indicate the
continuing prevalence of this perspective, with NGOs discussed in relation to peace, humanitarian
aid, human rights, the environment, women’s rights, development, and democracy. As expressed
by John Dryzek (2012, p. 105), for its supporters, ‘Global civil society promises everything that
established centres of power lack: openness, publicity, civility, inclusiveness, a broad variety of
values, a potentially wide range of participants, contestation, and reflexivity’.
This chapter will problematise this positive normative perspectivism, exploring NGO activ-
ity in relation to standardisation, a domain where civil society actors have had a long and illus-
trious role but where this role does not necessarily match the view of NGOs as inclusive moral
actors.1 At the same time, the chapter aims to review the activities of NGOs in areas of norm-
making often secluded from public politics, but that have become pervasive, if not fundamental,
for the operation and governance of global affairs.
Until the 1980s, the ‘world of standards’ and standardisation was considered a narrow
field involving faceless engineers and bureaucrats working in obscure institutions such as the
International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), unworthy of the interest of political

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scientists (Mattli & Büthe 2003; Loya & Boli 1999). While technical standards are, quite pos-
sibly, one of the most ubiquitous mechanisms that ‘regulate and calibrate social life by ren-
dering the modern world equivalent across cultures, time, and geography’ (Timmermans &
Epstein 2010, p. 70), the issues, actors, and processes involved in standardisation were consid-
ered peripheral to world political affairs.2 This perception progressively changed as the century
came to a close, in light of thickening of interdependences associated with the end of Cold
War politics, including the expansion of transnational corporations and the consolidation of
transnational networks of social activism (Rosenau & Czempiel 1992; Ruggie 2004; Keohane
& Nye 2000). Authors like Boli and Thomas (1997, p. 183) underlined the paradox of the
academic exclusion of this domain of civil and political action, by highlighting that about two
thirds of the number of INGOs in existence by 1988 were technical, economic, and scientific
bodies involved in standardisation and rationalisation activities. The question of standardisation,
moreover, became linked with the erosion of what Keohane and Nye (2002, p. 223) called
the ‘club system’ of economic governance, as non-state actors challenged the monopoly state
bureaucrats from developed countries had enjoyed over international rule-making (Risse 2007;
Hall & Biersteker 2002; Strange 1996).
In the following two decades, the landscape of global governance changed dramatically, as
intergovernmental regimes and frameworks mutated into ‘regime complexes’ (Alter & Meunier
2009) that included or co-existed with an array of private governance and standardisation ini-
tiatives dealing with varied aspects of trade, production, and socio-environmental governance:
from labour conventions and corporate social responsibility (CSR) guidelines, to standards
on financial reporting and investment, product sourcing, fisheries, paper and palm-oil pro-
duction, and internet protocols, among many others (O’Rourke 2003; Pattberg 2005; Hertel
2006; Vogel 2008; Clapp 2003; Fransen 2012; Bartley 2003; Bartley 2011; Gereffi et al. 2001;
Sahlin-Andersson & Djelic 2006; Abbott & Snidal 2001; Davis et al. 2012; Orsini et al. 2013).
Though the number of standards in existence cannot be calculated (ISO alone has published
over 21,000), the Standard Map Database of the International Trade Centre (a joint agency of
the UN and the WTO) refers to over 230 ‘standard systems’ in the field of sustainability gov-
ernance alone (ITC 2015), each of which comprises distinct coalitions of NGOs, firms, and
international organisations collaborating with each other.
This proliferation and de facto (and often de jure) acceptance of standards as instruments of
global governance makes standardisation an interesting domain to nuance the international
activities of NGOs beyond (liberal) normative preoccupations. This is because standards have
a central particularity; they are voluntary, meaning that their diffusion and uptake hinge to a
large extent on the legitimacy attributed to them by promoters and users, not on the penalties
imposed by governments. But this legitimacy has two faces: one more instrumental, the other
more political. At first hand, standards are technical regulatory instruments intended to recon-
cile expectations, lower transaction costs, and enhance efficiency, meaning that their legitimacy
depends on how well they manage to do this. However, standards are highly political: not
only do they serve as ‘a guide of behaviour and for judging behaviour’ (Abbott & Snidal
2001, p. 345), but they can have important distributional consequences for firms, states, and
individuals (Büthe & Mattli 2011). In this manner, their legitimacy depends on who benefits
and who loses (and by how much). Albeit the two rationalities are not exclusive, and historically
had been somehow moderated with the humanist ‘savoir’ often found among the promoters of
international technical cooperation (Higgins & Hallström 2007, p. 688; Murphy 1994), the role
of civil society actors in international standardisation is framed in an ambivalent manner, oscil-
lating between supportive views that see standards as more inclusive governance mechanisms
than state- and market-based ones, and opposing stances where these are symptomatic of the

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privatisation of global regulation and the sidelining of democratic representation (Murphy &
Yates 2011; Scholte 2004).
This chapter revises the role of civil society actors and NGOs in this domain and fleshes
out this ambiguity and its implications. For this, the argument follows three lines of analysis,
respectively: (i) the ideal-type functions NGOs can play in alternative models of standardisation,
(ii) the historical participation civil society actors and NGOs have had in diverse standardisation
initiatives and fields, and (iii) the increasingly blurriness of the NGO–private boundary associ-
ated with this participation. The next section thus provides a conceptual typology to guide
the more empirical narrative developed in the following two: the first examining the modern
emergence of international standardisation initiatives, and the early interactions between move-
ments of engineers and diplomats, and the second relying on more contemporary initiatives to
explore how the role of NGO actors conflates with the multi-sectoral and exclusive character
of epistemic communities. The fourth section concludes.

Standardisation, legitimacy, and civil society: a typology

I propose a simple typology of different standardisation models drawing on two views of legiti-
macy. These typologies are not rare in the standardisation literature, and multiple authors have
resorted to Fritz Scharpf’s (1999) distinction between ‘input’ and ‘output’ legitimacy to con-
ceptualise the authority of standards as soft norms, and the contribution of different types of
actors (Börzel & Risse 2010; Büthe 2010a; Mena & Palazzo 2012; Botzem & Dobusch 2012;
Hahn & Weidtmann 2016; Risse 2006; Drezner 2007). I will not innovate significantly here,
as I will rely on these two established concepts to link standardisation models with NGO and
civil society participation.
In general terms, input legitimacy refers to the credibility and authority of the actors and
procedures behind the production of decisions and rules, while output legitimacy considers the
actual operation and effectiveness of these in terms of solving coordination problems and/or
meeting expectations. While in relation to public governance, the central concern of Scharpf’s
original text, this underlined the difference between governance by the people and governance
for the people, in relation to standardisation these categories have been redirected towards what
Auld, Renckens, and Cashore (2015) denominated a ‘logic of empowerment’ and a ‘logic of
control’, in view of the inclusivity and openness of standard-setting institutions, and the regula-
tory effectiveness of standards in terms of credibility, applicability, and functionality.
Across this literature, in general, the contribution of civil society organisations is gener-
ally presented through a deliberative-democratic argument. This argument poses that greater
civil society participation in governance initiatives narrows the democratic deficit and enhances
political and social legitimacy in spheres where principles and mechanisms of popular sover-
eignty are not possible, while promoting democratic values and practices of consensus, trans-
parency, fairness, and accountability (Bernstein 2004; Koenig-Archibugi & MacDonald 2012;
Fung 2003; Keohane & Nye 2002). Hence, as moral actors primarily concerned with normative
adequacy and performance, NGOs keep standardisation honest, guaranteeing that ‘whoever
governs must be held accountable against international legal standards of human rights, the rule
of law, and democracy’, and enhancing sensitivity for the distributional consequences and social
externalities produced by regulatory processes and outcomes (Börzel & Risse 2010, p. 128).
Consequently, more inclusive norm-setting arrangements (input legitimacy) are expected to
produce more socially accepted norms (output legitimacy), which will better reflect interests,
mobilise support, deter opponents, resonate culturally, and travel across borders, all aspects
assumed to be conducive to uptake and compliance (Espach 2009; Dobusch & Quack 2013).

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Alejandro M. Peña

This argument tends to consider that the ‘enforcement’ of private norms and standards rests
mostly on indirect non-coercive social mechanisms, such as reputational threat, peer-pressure,
public opinion, and normative change, embedded in institutional arrangements such as third-
party certification (Bartley & Child 2014; Gilbert et al. 2011).
Less attention has been paid to the contribution of NGOs to the technical side of legitimacy,
even if the linkage between technical adequacy and regulatory effectiveness is more straightfor-
ward than in the political case: the regulatory efficacy of standards follows from the knowledge
of the actors involved in norm design, and the proper consideration of supply and demand-side
requirements and factors.3 Appropriateness here does not necessarily mean democratic participa-
tion, but the inclusion of competent actors, so that effective application follows design processes
that maximise knowledge input while avoiding political or culturally motivated deadlocks and
impractical or utopian considerations. NGOs and civil society actors can contribute to this,
inasmuch as they provide expert advice during norm-setting, or deliver complementary roles
supporting implementation. NGOs, particularly those with the capacity to support international
initiatives, are thus treated as knowledge-actors, members of a transnational technocratic com-
munity promoting a rational-humanistic view of global regulation and ordering (Meyer 2000,
p. 246; Meyer et al. 1997) that accepts that

scientific knowledge becomes socially validated as truth, the power that is used on behalf of
this truth acquires social legitimacy, instrumental rationality becomes deeply institutional-
ized, and efficient practices rather than good practices become the natural order of things.
(Adler & Bernstein 2004, p. 301)

The first question lingering behind this dyadic distinction of legitimacy is whether it is
possible to reconcile civil society’s role in standardisation with a balance between fairness
and expertise. This has been a driving concern in the transnational governance literature,
and the reason for the attraction many scholars in this field feel for Habermasian models
of dialogic politics (Börzel & Risse 2010; Bernstein 2004; Risse 2000; Barnett & Duvall
2004). Habermas carved an extrinsic location for civil society that avoided ‘the bad alter-
native of either economic liberalism or étatism’ (Cohen & Arato 1992, p. 131) and linked
this domain with a procedural and normative domain of social action based on notions of
comprehensibility, truthfulness, and rightness. In this model, civil society comprised the
institutional embodiment of a deliberative and pluralistic ‘lifeworld’, while communica-
tional action hedged politics against the instrumentality of state and economic actors (Risse
2006; Habermas 1984; Habermas 2008). However, a noted problem with Habermasian lib-
eral rationalism is that it risks sacrificing the societal on the altar of rationality: a perfectly
rational dialogic politics ultimately specifies basic requirements for political interactions and
norm-setting mechanisms to meet in order to be legitimate. By default, this makes certain
arguments, interests, and identities problematic, raising the problem that certain regulatory
commitments and arrangements may not only be undemocratic and exclusive, but also irra-
tional (Mouffe 2000; Chambers & Kopstein 2001).4
An alternative but less comfortable position – but one that this author sympathises with but
that cannot be sufficiently developed in this chapter – is to distinguish two incommensurable
governance logics operating transversally to both standardisation efforts and civil society par-
ticipation: one normative, aimed at establishing authoritative rules; another technical, aimed
at learning and problem-solving (Kerwer 2004, p. 201). Contra Habermas emerges then the
shadow of Luhmann, posing that modern society is divided into functionally differentiated

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systems or fields, each striving to establish their own conditions of legitimacy according to their
own functional logic (Peña 2015; Lash 2003; Luhmann 1997). In this case, it would not be
convenient to speak of ‘civil society’, assuming a homogenous normative perspective, but rather
of civil societies, manifesting themselves differently in different domains of social action. These
domains would possess structurally different mixes of input and output legitimacy requirements,
making them more or less suitable to the different regulatory models, with differential balances
between expert and representative roles by civil society, state, corporate, and technical actors
(Denardis & Raymond 2013).
On these ideas, it is possible to draw a 2x2 typology of standardisation models consider-
ing the primacy attributed to political and technical requirements in both input and output
legitimacy. For the former, this would mean a greater consideration of either political repre-
sentation or technical competence criteria. For the latter, it would mean the prioritisation of
either distributional fairness or of functional efficiency rationales. As presented in Table 24.1,
this results in four models of governance and standardisation: namely, state-based regula-
tion, representing intergovernmental regimes and multilateral frameworks (such as those
promoted by the UN or the OECD), pure technical standardisation, and two intermedi-
ate models that I refer as public standardisation (where technical suitability is validated by
political authorities) and multi-stakeholder standardisation (where distributional fairness is
addressed by the inclusion of affected and qualified parties). Across these types lies a spec-
trum of trade-offs resulting from the encounter of political and functional logics and their
corresponding benefits and downsides. In practice, these tensions and trade-offs are contex-
tual and issue-specific. In principle, the general hypothesis is that the more standard-setting
initiatives seek political input legitimacy by broadening participation and trying to incor-
porate fairness considerations, the higher the chances coordination problems may emerge,
lowering output effectiveness. Simultaneously, the more exclusive and technocratic these
initiatives are, the higher the chances of reaching technical consensus at the expense of
silencing or marginalising alternative visions and normative positions (Bernstein 2004,
p. 151; Drezner 2007, p. 70). I propose that the contribution of NGOs to standardisation
can be matched with these trade-offs according to four archetypical roles: as consultants to
intergovernmental bodies widening social representation, as societal/technical representa-
tives in instances of public and multi-stakeholder regulation, and as exclusive knowledge-
actors in technical standardisation.
In the following section, the chapter develops these models, roles, and tensions historically,
illustrating the variety of civil society actors and NGOs involved in standardisation initiatives
since the early 20th century and their relationship with state and corporate actors across different
regulatory domains.

Table 24.1 Types of international standardisation

Input Legitimacy
Political Technical

Output Political State-based regulation (NGOs Multi-stakeholder standardisation

Legitimacy as consultants) (NGOs as technical representatives)
Technical Public standardisation (NGOs Technical standardisation (NGOs as
as society representatives) expert regulators)

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Alejandro M. Peña

Engineers, industrialists, and diplomats: the (re)organisation

of technical governance
The involvement of civil society groups with technical standardisation responded to the
strengthening intertwinement between science, industry, and central technologies behind
the second industrial revolution, from electrification and communications to industrial
organisation, metallurgy, and transport.5 As part of this, associations of engineers and
scientists became organised into national and international societies seeking to promote
knowledge exchange and cooperation across the industrialised world, which, by way of its
imperial reach, influenced the rest of the globe (Murphy 1994; Charnovitz 1997; Headrick
1988). Some of these technical associations had markedly professional (and civil) origins,
as was the case of the British Standards Institution (BSI), which followed an initiative by
London’s Tower Bridge designer Sir John Wolfe-Barry and resulted in the formation of
the British Standards Committee (BSC) in 1901. Others included corporate elements, as
was the case of the American Engineering Standards Committee (AESC), created in 1918
by professional engineering societies seeking to coordinate standardisation activities taking
place within industrial firms (Loconto & Busch 2010).
These ‘epistemic communities’ – often bringing together scientists, aristocrats, business lead-
ers, and diplomats, the most cosmopolitan individuals of the time – were central for the organisa-
tion of many of the international technical conferences taking place since the mid-19th century,
and the creation of the first International Public Unions (IPUs), the predecessors of modern
international organisations. Hence, these efforts resulted in the creation of bodies such as the
International Telegraphic Union (ITU, 1865), the International Union of Railway Freight
Transportation (1893), and the International Association of Labour Legislation (IALL, 1900),
the predecessor of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), among others. Certainly, the
shadow of the state – and of business – was never far away, not only as the work conducted by
technical societies complemented ‘intergovernmental work on weights and measures, money,
banking transactions, and various areas of public administration’ (Murphy & Yates 2009, p. 11),
but also because inventors and commercial developers also had major stakes in standard-setting
processes (Büthe 2010b). This presented problems, as state and private actors could collude to
maintain (and profit from) standard heterogeneity, and support minimal forms of international
compatibility to prioritise national and sectoral preferences (Spruyt 2001).
The tension between these two aspects, national interests and technical considerations,
and the increasing politicisation of technical negotiations represented a disquieting develop-
ment for technical groups advocating a civil and often technocratic vision of international
norm-making. These tensions were evident from the start: the founding meeting of the ITU
resulted in both a formal international treaty, signed by attending diplomats, and a separate
règlement, signed by experts (Reinsch 1907, p. 583). In other spheres, civil society actors man-
aged nonetheless to create specialised bodies that excluded governments. The most repre-
sentative of these was the International Electro-Technical Commission (IEC), founded in
1906 by electrical engineering associations, and generally referred to as the oldest technical
standard-setting body in existence. The IEC’s model involved ‘civil’ expert groups voluntar-
ily participating in specialised and decentralised sub-committees setting standards over highly
technical questions (Murphy 2015; Büthe 2010a), so that in the words of Paul Agnew (1928,
p. 14), first secretary of the AESC, each technical subcommittee was ‘essentially a miniature
industrial legislature organized upon a subject basis instead of upon a geographical basis’. The
IEC can be considered the pioneer organisation representing the transnational ‘deliberative

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technocratic’ model that would influence later governance initiatives, from the ISO (created in
1947), the standard-setting agency par excellence,6 to sustainability reporting guidelines, such
as the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), and the decentralised networks behind the Open
Software Movement (Soderberg 2008; White 1999).
These technical communities shared a strong cosmopolitan ethos based on the universality
of scientific knowledge and on the ecumenical benefits technical standardisation carried for
societal and economic progress. Scholars have highlighted the techno-progressive spirit behind
the ‘evangelical engineers’ promoting bodies such as the EIC and ISO – two organisations that
could be characterised as NGOs of NGOs, at least in their origins. The groups saw themselves as
part of a global movement that was ‘practical, internationalist, modest, democratic, and process-
oriented’ (Murphy & Yates 2009, p. 14). Relevantly, this practical orientation was considered
rational but also apolitical, differentiating them from more idealistic and purist technical groups,
but also from ideological actors, while making them more receptive to new ideas, and more
flexible than intergovernmental bodies to respond to new challenges and developments.7
The space for civil-technical norm-making would narrow dramatically following WWI
and the Soviet Revolution, as labour governance and industrial standards became tightly
coupled with matters related to inter- and intra-state stability (Murphy 1994; Silver 2003).8
While bodies like the IEC managed to successfully defend its civil society character from the
encroachment of state interests, most IPUs did not. In this regard, the creation of the League
of Nations formalised the nationalisation of global regulation, centralising the organisation
of technical conferences and the activities of many international associations and confer-
ences, and the sanctioning of international norms and recommendations. In this sense, in
the early 20th century the brief spring of technical standardisation came to a sudden stop,
displaced by a state-centric global governance architecture that would remain in place for
the next 50 years. In this second period, the role of civil society and technical actors in
international standardisation changed: civil society and technical groups, formerly core pro-
moters and norm-entrepreneurs, became peripheral consultants to be granted or denied
access to official international fora, such as the United Nations Economic and Social Council
(ECOSOC) (Charnovitz 1997).9 A good example of this is the ILO. While predecessor enti-
ties, such as the IALL, were led by legal experts, economists, and Christian social leaders, the
ILO was re-founded as a corporatist institution revolving around a tripartite assembly inte-
grated by governments, trade unions, and business representatives.10 The corporatisation of
labour governance, which granted labour a seat in international negotiations, simultaneously
excluded other civil society groups previously active in promoting labour-related norms,
from women’s organisations to religious and radical social movements. More technical agen-
cies like ISO also experienced the nationalisation of their initial civil society membership, as
many developing states centralised industrial normalisation in purposely created governmen-
tal agencies and institutes, with the consequence that by the 1980s most ISO members were
state-sanctioned bodies (Murphy & Yates 2009, p. 21). In this manner, distinct from the
corporatist ILO and the technocratic IEC, ISO came to represent a middle ground between
state-centred and technical models of standard-setting – what in Table 24.1 is called the
‘public standardisation’ model – as experts remained central but participation was structured
around national delegations supervised by official bodies.11
The secondary position of NGOs in global governance lasted well until the 1960s and 70s,
albeit some civil society groups could influence developments in two areas with contrasting
mixes of political and technical legitimacy (Charnovitz 1987, p. 258). The first was human
rights, where some civil society organisations inputted to the intergovernmental negotiations

349
Alejandro M. Peña

resulting in the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966, as well as to
other initiatives dealing with world heritage, decolonisation, and refugee matters. The other was
nuclear and chemical weapons. Here technical expertise allowed networks of nuclear scientists,
organised around groups such as the ‘Pugwash movement’, the International Conferences on
Science and World Affairs, and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)
to influence the position of core states on the design of nuclear control regimes and conventions
on chemical and biological weapons (Matousek 2010; Robinson 1998).
Across these initiatives, the universal character of technical knowledge was a strong
source of legitimacy for actors working in different social domains. However, although
this character possesses a certain civil ethos, expert epistemic communities did not neces-
sarily meet the conventional distinctions separating NGOs from other type of organisations
and sectors. Thus, when referring to nuclear arm controllers, Adler (1992, p. 112) consid-
ered: ‘They were one community, yet they were everywhere: dispersed among government
bureaus, research organizations and laboratories, profit and non-profit organisations, uni-
versity research centres, and think tanks’. This consideration is far from trivial, as the public
model that relegated NGOs to a secondary role within international norm-making would
start to unravel in the 1980s and 90s, in the process obscuring distinctions between public,
private, and civil society actors.

Beyond NGOs? Multi-stakeholder standards and ‘communities

of governance’
The spread of private and multi-stakeholder initiatives, ranging from unilateral codes of con-
duct to multi-stakeholder certification schemes and public–private partnerships, followed a
wave of civil society and media campaigns in the 1980s and 90s against the practices of large
corporations, and the recognition of the limited impact of intergovernmental frameworks
such as OECD’s ‘Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises’ (1976), the ILO’s ‘Tripartite
Declaration of Principles concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy’ (1977),
and the failed code of conduct for international business initiated by the United Nations
Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) (Bartley 2003; Peña 2018; Hale &
Held 2011; Rubin 1995). Contrary to intergovernmental and public models, these hybrid
initiatives saw coalitions of firms, NGOs, academics, labour, and occasionally state actors,
adopting a technical standardisation model to deal with issues exceeding industrial and tech-
nical matters, on the basis that ‘standard organizations promise technical expertise without
political entanglement’ (Timmermans & Epstein 2010, p. 80; O’Rourke 2003; Nadvi &
Waltring 2004; Pattberg 2005; Sahlin-Andersson & Djelic 2006; Bernstein & Cashore 2007;
Vogel 2008; Abbott & Snidal 2009). The notion that NGOs and business needed inclusion
in global governance regimes was somehow institutionalised with the launch of initiatives
such as the UN-led Global Compact in 2000,12 set to align corporate behaviour with uni-
versal principles of human rights, labour, and environmental protection (Kell & Ruggie
1999), and with the growing involvement of ISO in ‘“soft” standards with significant public
relevance’ (Clapp 1998, p. 302), first in the area of environmental governance and later in
the field of CSR.
However, as new multi-stakeholder initiatives started to engage with issues of significant
social and political relevance, establishing a balance between technical competence and political
participation became increasingly complicated (Mayer & Gereffi 2010; Vogel 2010; Murphy
2015). This complication extended to civil society, as these initiatives could include more con-
ventional advocacy NGOs motivated by principled beliefs, official sectoral associations acting

350
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in representation of specific constituencies, such as trade unions and consumer groups, tech-
nical and professional networks and associations, and an expanding array of GONGOs and
BONGOs, government and business-organised NGOs (Abbott & Snidal 2009, pp. 60–61). In
these schemes, the role of NGOs as such can no longer be established in an isolated manner:
rather, NGOs became part of complex and multi-layered networks, or communities, of gov-
ernance, where they could occupy more insider (usually technical) positions, or more outsider
(political) ones, depending on the rules that govern the system in question (Prakash & Gugerty
2010, p. 299).
In this chapter, I propose that this position depends to a substantial extent on the level of
technical closure (or political openness) of the subject matter targeted by a given initiative.
Hence, when this subject matter is open to political scrutiny and public debate, civil society
actors can more readily wield political legitimacy to gain access and voice in international fora,
although in practice, this is expected to favour resourceful and highly institutional NGOs, usu-
ally well connected with elite institutions. Now, as the technical character of the issue accentu-
ates, the access/institutionalisation trade-off reverts, with political representation giving way to
technical competency considerations. This reduces the opportunity for wide-spectrum NGOs
to get involved, but also lowers institutional barriers, benefiting more informal and specialised
groups to gain access, such as expert associations.
This political/technical balance can be illustrated by looking at the type of civil society
actors involved in multi-stakeholder initiatives emerging in this period. On the one end, for
example, we find the board of the Global Compact, a ‘high-politics’ initiative promoting very
general norms and benchmarks for organisations to follow in their activities. Its governance
board is composed of CEOs from leading global firms, high representatives of international
business and trade union federations, and civil society representatives. The latter, however,
are very high profile, of the like of the Managing Director of Transparency International, the
Director General of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (former World
Bank), the President of Imagine Africa International (former Secretary General of Amnesty
International), and the chairperson of Ethos Institute of Enterprise and Social Responsibility
(an influential business-backed Brazilian NGO). When we move towards more specialised
initiatives, like the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), which states that its mission is to
provide ‘science-based’ standards for sustainable fishing, the technical character of the actors
involved becomes evident. Still, the MSC’s stakeholder council (in 2017) includes individuals
associated with international NGOs like the World Wide Fund (WWF), the Pew Charitable
Trust, and the Nature Conservancy,13 but its technical advisory board includes experts
associated with the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, the International
Seafood Sustainability Foundation, the Indian Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute,
the Institute of Baltic Sea Fisheries, the Forest Stewardship Council (one of the first and most
recognised private certification bodies), and individuals attached to private or public research
institutions (MSC 2017).
Furthermore, technical and exclusive orientations were noted to be reinforced by an endog-
enous identity developing among those participating in transnational governance, an identity
characterised not so much by sectoral belonging as by normative orientation and organisational
knowledge. Hence, individuals and bodies involved in transnational governance initiatives
have been noted to emphasise an ideology focused on values of transparency, inclusiveness,
and deliberation, plus a preference for multi-sectoral norm-setting structures and market-based
implementation mechanisms (Pattberg 2006, p. 725).14 On this basis, some scholars started
to discuss standardisation as a separate domain of transnational action that surpasses private/
non-private distinctions, using categories such as ‘global public policy networks’ (Benner et al.

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Alejandro M. Peña

2004), ‘organisational field’ (Dingwerth & Pattberg 2009), ‘transnational communities of prac-
tice’ (Bartley & Smith 2010), or ‘sustainability networks’ (Ponte & Cheyns 2013). In this sense,
the technical-laden character of standardisation, plus the development of a technocratic multi-
sectoral identity, has blurred the classic separation between NGOs and non-NGOs, and the
manner in which legitimacy is inputted into these schemes. Participation in these networks is
often heavily predicated on the possession of exclusive knowledge resources: insider experi-
ence in standardisation processes and bureaucracies, professional and peer recognition, and
organisational capacity to boot – which again has favoured well-resourced service-providing
Northern NGOs (Benner et al. 2004, p. 199; Ponte & Cheyns 2013; Boström & Hallström
2010; Pattberg 2005).15
Thus, while in intergovernmental governance and public standardisation the outsider
identity of NGOs actors supported arguments about a normative civil society contribution,
with NGOs emerging as sectoral advisors or societal advocates, in multi-stakeholder and tech-
nical initiatives, the role of NGOs and civil society groups is more ambivalent, as some elite
NGOs can exploit their social representative credentials while simultaneously wielding their
technical competency to marginalise groups considered exogenous and illegitimate.16 For
critics, this makes private and multi-stakeholder standardisation a sphere suffering from the
problems of ‘NGO-isation’, with transnational harmonisation conflating with technocratic,
bureaucratic, and neoliberal rationalities promoted by elite international organisations and
transnational firms (Fransen & Kolk 2007; Kerwer 2005). In this sense, it could be consid-
ered that standardisation, as a logic of governance, reveals the extent to which conventional
definitions of civil society were crafted according to political-normative views of the state
and the economy, at least in the tradition of Anglo-Saxon political philosophy (Rucht 2011).
However, when approaching civil society from the direction of functional expertise, and
the notion of epistemic communities, a strict separation between civil society, state, and the
economy can no longer be sustained, questioning the characterisation of NGOs as inclusive
non-instrumental actors.
The functioning of standardisation in two different technical domains serves to illustrate this
ambiguity further: international accounting standards and internet governance. The first is an
interesting case because, while accounting practices affect the interests of very powerful actors,
these standards have been developed largely by a non-profit organisation, the International
Accounting Standards Board (IASB), which has managed to retain a significant degree of auton-
omy (Perry & Nölke 2006; Porter 2005; Botzem & Quack 2009). But the IASB achieved
this autonomy by becoming a highly technocratic and exclusive body: originally formed by
(Anglo-American) professional associations, and for a period operating on a multi-stakeholder
format, since 2001 it has mutated into a technical standard-setter run by a 15-member board
without any form of democratic accountability or regional representation (Botzem & Dobusch
2012, p. 751). This is possible partly because of the tight institutional coupling that exists in this
field between professional bodies, national regulatory agencies (from core countries), and the
‘Big Four’ accounting firms (PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG, Deloitte, and Ernst & Young),
who are essentially the sole purveyors of finance and knowledge (and thus of input legitimacy)
for regulatory agencies. This tight coupling between experts and practitioners has reinforced a
highly autonomous, homogenous, and transnational expert culture, insulating the IASB from
external interference while facilitating the displacement of national professional and regulatory
bodies (Botzem 2005; Porter 2005).
The case of internet governance is similar albeit it underlines the political/technical duality
cutting across civil society configurations. Moreover, this is a field where core regulatory activi-
ties are led by hybrid multi-sectoral institutions, such as the Internet Engineering Task Force

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(IETF), the Internet Activities Board (IAB), the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers (ICANN), and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), where civil, corporate,
and public distinctions agencies and competencies intertwine in complex forms (Denardis 2009;
Murphy 2002). The IETF is perhaps the most intriguing of these bodies: the principal developer
of internet protocol standards, it started activities as a group of computer scientists, research-
ers, and academics supported by the US government, but has since evolved into an open and
unincorporated ‘community’ (this is how it defines itself) with no formal membership or condi-
tions of entry (IETF 2017a). Its pragmatic and technocratic regulatory philosophy was famously
synthesised in 1992 by David Clark, chair of the IAB, who stated: ‘We reject: kings, presidents,
and voting. We believe in: rough consensus and running code’ (Denardis 2009, p. 47).17 This
philosophy aims for a norm-setting process that is ‘as short and simple as possible without sac-
rificing technical excellence, thorough testing before adoption of a standard, or openness and
fairness’ (IETF 2017b).18
The IETF’s vision and set-up reflect the input/output legitimacy trade-off at play as stand-
ardisation becomes increasingly technical. For scholars such as Denardis (2009, pp. 208–210),
this body constitutes one of the best instances of ‘democratic’ standardisation available: it is
knowledge-based, deliberative, transparent, and open, certainly more so than public standard-
setters such as ISO or ITU which scrutinise participants according to institutional and national
membership. At the same time, the IETF is an extremely technocratic body. Active participation
requires mastering knowledge in a field where, as with the case of accounting standards, there is
significant overlap between the community of governance, ‘high-tech’ knowledge institutions,
and the activities of IT and internet giant firms.19 In practice, this imposes very high barriers to
entry for most individual and organisational actors while reinforcing a tight and homogeneous
collective identity: in the case of the IETF, mostly US-centred, with no representation of users,
and characterised by the libertarian ethos enshrining freedom and efficiency common among
programmer communities (Coleman & Golub 2008).20
In these two highly technical and closed-off domains, we can see how technical and politi-
cal legitimacy emerge as orthogonal categories, irrespective of sectoral belonging. These two
examples point towards very different assessments of the contribution of NGOs to governance
arrangements, and raise questions about the relevance ‘NGO’ as a category has for illuminating
pertinent aspects of standardisation and governance: it is hard to see NGOs in a ‘pure’ manner
when we are confronted with nested networks involving experts, international bureaucracies,
NGOs of sorts, corporate actors, and state offices and regulators. At best, then, if we accept
epistemic communities as a civil society category, we could say that non-state actors continue
to occupy central roles in the development and promotion of international standards, wielding
substantial influence in a diversity of fields. Instead, if we maintain more political and liberal
definitions of civil society, the picture is less positive: the more technical certain fields become,
the more limited the capacity outsider NGOs have to wield influence as social advocates, and
the higher technical identities would displace representative concerns.

Conclusion
This chapter has discussed the role of civil society actors and NGOs in different moments and
initiatives of technical standardisation. It has done so through a framework that considered four
archetypal roles played by NGOs, posing the idea that NGO participation can entail a com-
bination of political and technical legitimacy inputs. On this basis, the chapter indicated that,
while civil society organisations have had an active history in promoting and supporting differ-
ent formats of international and transnational regulation, their role and character have changed,

353
Alejandro M. Peña

accommodating the general orientation of states and international institutions, and the degree
of politicisation/technocratisation of specific themes and arenas. Accordingly, the chapter ques-
tions the dominant liberal normative treatment of NGOs and their contribution to international
governance, nuancing this according to the tension between two logics at play within modern
society. This tension hides strong contradictions that perhaps only become starkly evident in
the extreme, in instances of high technocratisation or high politicisation, instances where the
conventional (liberal) normative/participatory role attributed to civil society blurs. For instance,
let’s go back to the case of the IETF. This community, in principle highly rational, transpar-
ent, and democratic, treats the inputs of its participants as individual contributions: even when
most of the experts work for powerful stake-holding organisations, their opinions to the forum
are not considered to represent organisational or sectoral interests, but apolitical and individual
technical opinions. In a rather Huxleyan fashion, this reminds us that just as in a totalitarian
environment there is little space for politics and individual freedoms, in an ideal world of pure
technical expertise and rationality, there is little space for participatory claims, cultural identities,
and normative disagreements.
In a little-known article (at least according to his later standards), a young Robert Putnam
(1977) assessed the rising ‘technocratic mentality’ found among elites in both capitalist and com-
munist societies.21 Optimistically, Putnam observed that ‘although the future belongs to the tech-
nically trained, it needs not belong to the technocrat’ (Putnam 1977, p. 409): not only did nothing
indicate that experts would concur with each other on the substance of policy, but more impor-
tantly, this technocratic turn coincided with a visible secular tendency towards more responsive
governance, political equality, and mass political participation. Putnam was not wrong: both tech-
nical knowledge and political participation have advanced and now exist as structuring dimensions
of contemporary (capitalist) society, more than he could have ever imagined. But whether these
tendencies are aligning or diverging remains an open and pressing question, in an era marked by
the growing pervasiveness of highly complex expert systems and organisations, the unforeseen
political applications of technology, and troublesome grassroots reactions against the authority of
elites and technocrats. As a recommendation, scholars of civil society should leave aside axiomatic
and orthodox positions to pay greater attention to the rapidly evolving interface between politics,
technology, and the economy; to changing values, identities, and interests stemming from new
civil society spaces, to regulatory demands and technological advances shaping social interactions,
and to the rapidly developing ‘knowledges’ civil society actors require to have participation, voice,
and influence in non-conventional spheres of political action.

Notes
1 To be true, assessments about ‘bad’ civil society exist, though they are scarce (Chambers & Kopstein
2001; Bob 2012; Prakash & Gugerty 2010).
2 In the words of Boli and Thomas (1997, p. 182): ‘This is the core of world culture: technical, functional,
rationalizing, highly differentiated . . . and peculiarly invisible’. As pointed out by Star and Lampland
(2009, p. 11), perhaps a reason for this neglect is that standards are boring, appearing fixed and neutral,
and often associated with routine background infrastructures.
3 This dual model is of course highly simplistic. In addition to cultural and expertise questions, standards
can be set de facto by market dynamics (Grindley 2002).
4 Habermas struggled to incorporate this possibility, distinguishing between emancipatory ‘offensive’ and
particularistic ‘defensive’ social movements (Ray 1993, p. 62).
5 Spruyt (2001) provides a relevant analysis of standard-setting in pre-modern contexts. This is com-
plemented by Charnovitz’s (1997) analysis, which situates the emergence of NGO involvement in
international governance in the late 18th century, in relation to issues such as slave trade, workers’ soli-
darity, peace, and free trade.

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 Civil society and expert communities

6 ISO currently coordinates hundreds of national standards committees involving around 100,000 participants.
7 ‘The division of labour across technical committees reflects the functional differentiation of the world
in which standards may be needed and it points to the specific expertise relevant to the field. The
inclusion of representatives of all stakeholders and the ideal of decision by consensus help assure that
standards are legitimate, and hence, widely adopted. The voluntary nature of standards produced assures
that they would not impede innovation; inventors and entrepreneurs are spared the rigidity of autocratic
regulation’ (Murphy & Yates 2009, p. 15).
8 Scientific internationalism historically developed in tension with scientific nationalism, given the obvi-
ous crossovers between physical sciences and military applications, but also due to the very logic of
competition embedded in scientific activity (Stroikos 2018).
9 This included NGOs as different as the International Federation of Trade Unions, the International
Commerce Chamber (ICC), an early promoter of industrial standardisation and international trade, and
the Rotary Club, to name a few.
10 This reflected both the European post-war paradigm of ‘national welfare capitalism’, and the jealousy of
post-war governments to commit to international rules over sensitive questions such as labour (Standing
2008, p. 356).
11 This logic has been indicated to generate some problems, as participants were expected ‘to represent a
national point of view while at the same time as an expert he or she was expected to be an objective
individual’ (Hallström 2004, p. 70).
12 Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan (1998, p. 134) actively promoted this agenda, considering
that NGOs and firms had become an ‘operational partner’ of international organisations.
13 Alongside representatives from the Australian government, the Norwegian Fishermen’s Association, and
Carrefour, among others.
14 This ‘pragmatic’ identity shares commonalities with that of the early evangelical engineers behind initia-
tives such as ISO.
15 This even led to the formation of meta-governance bodies, networks of multi-sectoral standardiza-
tion bodies, International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labelling (ISEAL), working to
normalise the production of standards over certain issues. ISEAL’s full members include the Fair Trade
International, the FSC, the MSC, the Rainforest Alliance, and the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil,
among others (Fransen 2015).
16 Boström and Hallström (2010, p. 54) noted that long-term involvement in multi-stakeholder organ-
isations could generate ideological and identity conflicts among civil society actors, due to clashing
demands and logics.
17 This was said during a conflict when part of the IETF community opposed the introduction of a stan-
dard developed by ISO, considered by IETF members as an intrusion by a ‘politicised’ body.
18 Rough consensus means that decisions do not consider majority rules but rather a general sense of
agreement/disagreement by a group convenor, while running code points to rapid user uptake.
19 For example, current IETF Working Group leaders include the Director of Network Technology for
Time Warner, leading engineers in Cisco, Microsoft, Google, and Huawei Technologies, and senior
researchers at Bell Laboratories and Trinity College Dublin, among others.
20 This spirit is also colourfully summarised in the phrase by Richard Stallman, father of the Open Source
Software movement: ‘Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept you
should think of free as in free speech, not as in free beer’ (GNU 2018).
21 Interestingly, he highlighted a difference between experts trained in natural and technical disciplines,
who understood their roles in terms of ‘apolitical expertise’, felt animosity against the political process,
and were relatively insensitive to conflicting social interests and issues of distributive justice, and those
trained as social scientists, more inclined to affirm the reality of social conflict and the importance of
social justice, and to assume markedly political stances as policy advocates.

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 25
An uncomfortable relationship
NGOs, trade associations, and the
development of industry self-regulation

Jonathan Doh, Tazeeb Rajwani, and Thomas C. Lawton

Introduction
Previous chapters acknowledged the increased prominence of non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) in the global economy. In this chapter, we discuss how a specific form of NGO – the
trade or industry association – emerged as an actor in international relations, representing often
diverse interests in specific contexts (Rajwani, Lawton, and Phillips, 2015). Recent studies
have highlighted how collective action through trade associations impacts business and society
more broadly, through their influence on public policy, industry structure, and the nature
of competition (Lawton, Rajwani, and Minto, 2017). The consequent interactions between
trade associations and other forms of NGOs can be conflictual, collaborative, or both. One
mechanism – and outcome – of these interactions is the emergence of private regulatory agree-
ments: standards, codes, and other arrangements through which industry and trade association
participants commit to social, environmental, and other goals, often at the urging of and with
the support of non-business NGOs. For instance, NGOs like Friends of the Earth and Oxfam
became trade association partners to align interests in support of or against specific government
policies, standards, legislation, and positions. Despite these interactions and influences, with
non-business NGOs serving as agents for sharing information with industry (Rajwani et al.,
2015), researchers have devoted little attention to understanding their relevance and how they
relate to the development of private self-regulation.
In the spirit of this Handbook, we consider trade associations to be a category of NGO,
even if they contain for-profit members. This is in line with UN practice, where one of the
first four NGOs it recognized was the International Chamber of Commerce. Consequently,
these trade associations have members that are usually composed of companies – or national
industries in the case of international associations – or individuals that are interested in
socio-political issues. They can also encompass non-profit or non-governmental structures
(Rajwani et al., 2015); for instance, the Christian Music Trade Association or the Southeast
Asian Council for Food Security and Fair Trade. The benefits of joining a trade associa-
tion include increased social capital through membership networks; access to knowledge,
advice, and expertise; expanded societal engagement and citizenship; and problem sharing
(Lawton et al., 2017).

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In this chapter, we explore the increased interactions between NGOs and trade associations,
especially as they relate to the development of private self-regulation. We begin by surveying
the growth and emergence of NGOs and their interactions with business. We then describe the
role and relevance of trade associations in public policy-making and self-regulation. We then
turn our attention to the interactions between NGOs and trade associations generally, and spe-
cifically, in the development of self-regulation.

Emerging relationships between NGOs and business

NGOs have emerged as critical stakeholders in the global economy. NGOs such as Greenpeace,
Save the Children, and the World Wide Fund for Nature provide direct services to various
groups and interests, while also interacting with government and business to initiate or change
policies and programs in response to social and environmental needs (Teegen, Doh, and Vachani,
2004). One estimate puts the number of NGOs globally at more than 10 million. Eight global
NGOs (World Vision International, Oxfam International, Save the Children International, Plan
International, Médecins Sans Frontières, CARE International, CARITAS International, and
ActionAid International) had combined revenue of more than US$15 billion in 2015 (author
calculations).
Corporations increasingly encounter NGOs as expectations grow for companies to
improve the social and environmental impacts of their business activities through corpo-
rate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. These encounters can be confrontational or col-
laborative in nature. In some instances of confrontation, these encounters take the form of
campaigns in which NGOs target companies through public statements, proposed boycotts,
protests, or other means. These campaigns can be highly effective if other stakeholders, such
as senior management, shareholders, and workers, become concerned about the impact of
NGO pressure (Yaziji and Doh, 2009). Campaigning groups have been key drivers of inter-
governmental negotiations, ranging from the regulation of hazardous wastes to a global ban
on land mines and the elimination of slavery.
Simultaneously, NGOs and corporations are also developing more collaborative and positive
relationships on the assumption that these connections can yield benefits for both the corporate
and NGO participants and the general welfare of the populations of concern to the NGO (Doh
and Teegen, 2003). These relationships provide corporations with access to different resources,
competencies, and capabilities than those that are otherwise available within their organization or
that might result from alliances with for-profit organizations (Hess et al., 2002; Rondinelli and
London, 2003).
In response to both pressures for change and opportunities for collaboration, many businesses
are broadening their global role to include making positive contributions to social and envi-
ronmental concerns within the specific scope of their own operations and also more broadly.
These actions frequently put businesses in contact with national and local governments, inter-
national intergovernmental organizations, other companies, and NGOs. Increasingly, busi-
nesses have chosen to collaborate through trade associations with other firms in their industry,
supply chain, or geography to pursue public policy and societal initiatives, putting them in
direct contact with NGOs.

The nature of trade associations

Boléat (2003) suggests that there are three important common characteristics of trade associa-
tions. First, they are member-based organizations whose members are usually other organizations

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(for-profit, non-profit, or non-governmental), not individuals. Second, they provide govern-

ance and a supportive structure that is representative of their members. Third, they act in the
common interest of their members. Boléat (1996, 2003) also provides a fourth characteristic that
is frequently seen in larger associations: they act as a representative or collective body, engaging
with government regulators and policy-makers, the media, and other opinion formers. Boléat’s
first three characteristics are commonly observable and generic features of trade associations.
The fourth is more variable and contestable as it begins to capture not only nature or form, but
also activity and influence.
Some trade associations, such as the Confederation of British Industry or the U.S. Chamber
of Commerce, exist to represent all sectors of business in a country. More usually, trade associa-
tions represent businesses within a particular sector or industry (May et al., 1998; Tschirhart,
2006). Also known as industry groups and industry associations, they are voluntary associations
that combine characteristics of business groups, business interest associations, and interest asso-
ciations (Carney, 1987; Rajwani et al., 2015; Lawton et al., 2017).
Building on Lyon and Maxwell (2004), we define trade associations as multi-member
meta-organizations to which member companies donate money or pay a membership sub-
scription to sustain the association for the greater benefit of the members, the industry, and
society more broadly (see Rajwani et al., 2015 and Lawton et al., 2017). This definition is
purposely broad to cover the diversity of trade associations that exist, such as the American
Car Rental Association, the European Steel Association, Canada’s Venture Capital and
Private Equity Association, and the Australian Retailers Association. When the members of
an industry adopt a unified interest in specific governmental action (or inaction), the trade
association can amass and unite tremendous resource with the purpose of influencing gov-
ernmental outcome (De Figueiredo and De Figueiredo, 2002). At other times, it will focus
on the industry and the needs of members.
In political science, collective action theorists have observed that common interests do
not necessarily produce collective action (Olson, 1965), particularly when free riders are
prevalent. As Drope and Hansen (2009) note in their work, there has been little interest
in or emphasis on the relationship between business collective action and patterns of mar-
ket structures. Yet their work on the political activity of trade associations found evidence
supporting the logic of collective action. More specifically, they argue that “concentrated
industries are more likely to have politically active associations than more competitive indus-
tries” (Drope and Hansen, 2009: 303). The important role of trade associations was first
noted by Bentley (1908), who highlighted the influence of trade associations on politics.
Subsequent studies tended toward exploring how associations help to facilitate exchange and
cooperation among member firms (Olson, 1965; Streeck and Schmitter, 1985; Granovetter,
1995; Barnett et al., 2010). Consequently, research has tended to emphasize member firms
rather than trade associations as the primary unit of analysis (Keister, 1998). The political
science literature has acknowledged the importance of trade associations and their interests
(Pijnenburg, 1998; Richardson, 2000). What is clear from existing political science and man-
agement research is the lack of common understanding as to the nature, purpose, and influ-
ence of trade associations.
From an institutional perspective, the over-riding purpose of organizational collective action,
such as trade associations, is to attempt to change the rules of the game in the collective’s
favor (DiMaggio, 1988; North, 1991). Intended outcomes include favorable rules and norms
on tax, employment practices, environmental impact, and research and development subsidies
(Lawrence, 1999). This concurs with King and Lenox’s (2000) and Lawton and McGuire’s
(2003) findings on industry collective action to manage self-regulation. Tucker notes that trade

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associations often have a self-regulatory function, embodying shared values, articulating com-
mon norms, and coalescing around common interests such as lighter regulation, easier market
access, or a more positive media profile (2008: 3). Building on Streeck and Schmitter’s (1985)
concept of private interest government, Tucker (2008) argues that collective reputation man-
agement is a key reason why companies form or join a trade association. Streeck and Schmitter
(1985) describe it as an attempt to maximize the overlap between the specific interests (categoric
good) of particular groups such as business lobbies, and the broader interests (collective good)
of society. The policy bargaining that occurs between public and private interest government
helps to define this overlap. Inherently, this involves a close relationship between interest asso-
ciations and governmental or regulatory authorities and a significant level of policy input from
the private interest government actors (Streeck and Schmitter, 1985).
The concept of private interest government implies a partnership between government and
other agents of the state and business and their trade association proxies. Such partnerships
are neither geographically restricted nor western-centric in nature. See, for example, Park’s
(2009) discussion of the historical cooperation between business associations and government
in the Korean cotton industry. The notion of policy partnership (Mazey and Richardson, 1993;
Lawton, 1996; Green Cowles, 2001; Green Cowles et al., 2001) emerges from Richardson and
Jordan’s (1979) neo-pluralist model of the policy community. They view policy-making as an
obscure process, where traditional boundaries between government and interest groups become
blurred. Policies are created and controlled through what is described as a myriad of intercon-
necting, interpenetrating organizations. This, however, has not been widely recognized in the
management literature. Trade associations often facilitate the interface between government and
industry, enabling the building of mutually beneficial public–private policy partnerships or the
construction of more effective self-regulatory regimes.
In the case of socially oriented initiatives such as industry self-regulation, one benefit to
collective action through trade associations is the avoidance of free-rider problems. That is, by
jointly agreeing to a series of standards and commitments across a group of companies, firms
create a fair and even competitive playing field in which no firm bears the burden of costs and
investments that are not borne by others.

Firm–NGO collective action through trade associations

Scholarship on collective action has explored questions such as: when do individuals or organi-
zations choose to combine resources to achieve some common goal? And, under what condi-
tions might they contribute resources to projects and activities that transcend the interests of the
parties and provide some broader social or economic impacts?

Theories of collective action and private regulation

Prakash and Potoski (2007) and Potoski and Prakash (2009) proposed a framework for analyzing
voluntary coordination among firms designed to generate broader social goods that draws from
the economic theory of clubs. They define participation in such institutional clubs as conferring
benefits on the members that are not exclusive or rivals; that is, association with a club does
not diminish the value others receive from their association. Given the increasing proliferation
of such collective action, whether via industry trade associations or cross-sectoral collabora-
tion among companies, governments, and NGOs, they point to the somewhat counterintuitive
nature of these combinations, given that the benefits for firms are at least opaque and potentially
illusory. The fact that participation in such institutional clubs confers benefits on the members

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that are not exclusive or rival provides some of the underlying logic for their proliferation. They
suggest that the club approach can help scholars to understand why firms join clubs, why some
are more successful than others, and how policy-makers can design such clubs to generate the
maximum positive impact.
Potoski and Prakash (2009) emphasize the broad reputational, legitimacy, and brand affilia-
tion benefits that motivate some firms and other organizations to form these voluntary arrange-
ments. Such arrangements allow a firm to affiliate – and benefit from – the reputational and
legitimacy benefits that accrue to participating organization who commit to providing social and
economic benefits. The empirical analyses in Potoski and Prakash’s work (2009) explore and test
various questions related to when and how these voluntary programs are assembled, and what
makes them more or less successful from the perspective of benefits accruing to the participants
and to the external social and economic recipients. The authors suggest that the interests, con-
tributions, and potential benefits of three groups of organizations are determinative of the form
and outcome of these arrangements:

firms that produce social externalities beyond legal requirements and receive the exclud-
able branding benefits that the program offers; program sponsors that establish the pro-
gram and create mechanisms to ensure participants follow the program rules; and firms’
stakeholders who value the externalities that the participating firms generate and reward
them for doing so.
(Potoski and Prakash, 2009: 21)

In chapters that explore labor conditions, the diamond, shipping, and accounting industry, and
others that focus on NGO participants, a range of experiences have been reported that shape
and influence these arrangements.
A related set of studies have explored the conditions under which companies collaborate
with governments and/or NGOs (see Doh and Teegen, 2003; Hess et al., 2002; Rondinelli and
London, 2003). Sometimes termed social partnerships, collaborative social initiatives, and social
alliances, relationships between NGOs and companies comprise an exchange of complemen-
tary resources not unlike those that occur in other types of alliances among private sector firms
(Pearce and Doh, 2005).
Consistent with the club theory perspective, the growing body of research on cross-sector
social interactions (CSSI) argues that cross-sector collaboration between non-profit NGOs,
governments, and private companies can generate value for the participants and broader ben-
efits for society (King, 2007; Plowman et al., 2007). This value creation process results from
the combinative capabilities that arise when organizations from different sectors contribute and
integrate their complementary resources.
This research has theorized around the motivations, dynamics, processes, and outcomes
of these interactions, but also identified the natural tensions, frictions, and conflicts that arise
(Mair and Martí, 2006; Teegen, Doh, and Vachani, 2004). Some of this work has classified
these collaborations as having a staged progression along a collaboration continuum; that is,
from philanthropic and transactional to integrative relationships (Austin, 2000; Seitanidi and
Ryan, 2007).
One challenge in successful cross-sectoral collaborations is how to best learn and codify
learning on an ongoing basis, given that these relationships “must rely on strategic criteria that
can both effectively utilize the firm’s existing competencies in intra-sector . . . alliances and
develop the new skills needed to make cross-sector . . . alliances succeed” (Rondinelli and
London, 2003: 63). The successful impact and survival of these collaborations is greatest when

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partners accept adaptive responsibilities and co-design mechanisms for delivering effective
solutions to social problems (Seitanidi and Crane, 2008). As collaborations grow progressively
more intensive (Rondinelli and London, 2003) or engaged (Austin, 2000), early successes
hinge on partners’ ability to select “the right partner”, their willingness to develop acceptable
procedures for cooperating, and their ability to judge relational risks (i.e. the ability of partners
to predict with confidence what the potential outcomes of the alliance will be based on past
experience; Hardy et al., 2005).

Trade associations and NGOs: the concept of industry self-regulation

Trade associations serve both as advocates for the interests of their members to external audi-
ences such as government policy-makers and broader social stakeholders, as well as providing
“club” goods and services to their members (such as group insurance). Increasingly, however,
they also engage in private regulation (Prakash and Potoski, 2007) alone or in conjunction with
governments and NGOs, an activity that has characteristics of both the external advocacy role
and the internal club role.
As trade associations continue to assume roles and responsibilities that were previously the
domains of the state and/or non-profit organizations, their influence, responsibility, and scru-
tiny will grow. In this final section, we summarize some of the actual initiatives among trade
and industry associations and NGOs designed to construct self-regulatory regimes. We do not
intend to provide a representative sample of these initiatives, but rather some stylized examples
of this private regulatory role. We include a model that outlines the potential role and participa-
tion for both participants and beneficiaries.

Responsible care
This was one of the first self-regulatory initiatives promulgated by a trade association in the
United States. According to the American Chemistry Council (ACC), since 1988, responsible
care has helped ACC member companies enhance their performance, discover new business
opportunities, and improve employee safety, the health of the communities in which they oper-
ate, and the environment as a whole.

GHG protocol
Through the work program of the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Management Working Group, the
World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) works with member compa-
nies to support the implementation of GHG management and reporting practices, and position
member companies at the forefront of business in reducing its climate impact. The primary focus
area is the further development and implementation of the GHG Protocol, and partnership with
World Resources Institute that works with businesses, governments, NGOs, and other stake-
holders to develop credible and effective tools for companies to tackle climate change.

Forest Stewardship Council and Sustainable Forestry Initiative

The Forest Stewardship Council is an international non-profit, multi-stakeholder organization
established in 1993 to promote responsible management of the world’s forests. It was founded
primarily by NGOs. The related Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) is a forest certification
standard initiated by forestry companies.

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 An uncomfortable relationship

RTRS
The Roundtable on Responsible Soy (RTRS) is a multi-stakeholder initiative involving the
mainstream soy industry, including soy producers and traders, and geared toward responsible
production that does not harm nature or people. As a form of trade association, the RTRS
increasingly transcends their role as providers of club goods, and advocates for specific political
interests. Increasingly, the RTRS engage in self-regulation as a substitute for or complement to
traditional public policy. This self-regulation may also spill over into the provision of public/
collective goods in the form of improved social and environmental performance that has broader
societal benefits.
With all of these examples of self-regulatory initiatives, challenging questions remain about
private regulation displacing formal government policy, the potential “charade” of self-regulation
as a means to avoid sanction or circumvent more rigorous externally enforced regulation, and
the conflicting roles of trade associations. More broadly, loose collectives of companies and tem-
porary collaborative arrangements with governments/NGOs challenge traditional conceptualiza-
tions of trade associations as formal, static organizational forms.

Conclusions
In this chapter, we explored the growing interface between NGOs and business, particularly
trade association intermediaries. This relationship has not always been comfortable, as the pro-
tagonists started out from very different places, with contrasting strategic intent and stakeholder
expectations. However, increasingly these have converged, as NGOs, firms, and trade associa-
tions have worked together to develop industry self-regulation across a range of sectors.
Moving forward, these interactions and outcomes need to be further explored. Firstly, an
area worth investigating is networks in developing self-regulations in trade associations. This
will be worth examining in relation to individual, teams, and organization network levels to
understand the different relationship types in creating positive and negative social influence.
Secondly, future research could explore the significance of transparent and non-transparent
trade associations and how they act responsibly and irresponsibly in their different approaches.
Finally, future work may consider the ways in which trade associations establish legitimacy,
reputation, and status over time. The findings of further research may challenge some of the
assumptions and misunderstandings around the purpose and role of trade associations in the
world economy.
With the increasing incidence of private regulation co-developed by NGOs, companies,
and trade associations, we anticipate that cooperative arrangements among these three group-
ings will continue to grow. This may result in greater scrutiny and oversight, and heightened
expectations on these partnerships to ensure that they are concurrently meeting the needs of
their participants and delivering on broader societal interests.

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 26
NGOs and global trade
Erin Hannah and James Scott

Introduction
The relationship between NGOs and the global trade system has been, at times, both fraught and
the subject of significant attention. Almost from the moment of its creation, the World Trade
Organization (WTO) was subject to protest from civil society. This was most visible when vio-
lence erupted onto the streets of Seattle at the 1999 WTO Ministerial Conference, but that clash
was just a punctuation in a longer relationship that has been characterised by fractiousness and
conflict. Large-scale NGO coalitions have mobilised against numerous aspects of the global trade
system, including: the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) agreement, its impact
on the availability of HIV/AIDS drugs (Thomas, 2002) and its relationship to ‘biopiracy’ (Arewa,
2006); the General Agreement on Trade in Services and its implications for publicly owned water
companies (see www.gatswatch.org); the Agreement on Agriculture and how it impacts food
security (Hansen-Kuhn, 2011); and many more. The WTO’s highest decision-making forum,
the biannual ministerial conference, has become a site of regularised civil society theatre.
And yet, this conflictual interaction between segments of civil society and the world trade
system is only the most visible part of a much more complex relationship between the WTO
and NGOs. The high-profile clashes can blind us to a more nuanced understanding of the role
of NGOs within global trade governance, in particular through encouraging a perception that
NGOs only influence international politics through protest and grassroots-based advocacy of
a socially progressive agenda. This is exacerbated by much of the theoretical debate within
global governance, which serves to reinforce these perceptions. However, the characterisation
of NGOs as protest and advocacy groups acting as external agents on trade governance belies
both the range of organisations that engage with the global trade system and the ways in which
many have become ‘insiders’ to the system. All too often the theoretical lenses that we bring to
studying international political economy, though useful in explaining parts of the interaction
between NGOs and the trade system, can also serve to narrow our perceptions and impede
richer understanding.
This chapter sets out a different approach, constructing a typology of NGOs across four cat-
egories of organisation: neoliberal, embedded, transformative and revolutionary. It thereby ena-
bles us to see the range of NGOs that engage with the global trade system and, by disaggregating

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across the typology, to understand how each type seeks to exert influence within international
trade politics. It also allows us to explore how some NGOs are becoming part of the fabric of
trade governance rather than acting upon it from an external, independent position. Indeed, we
identify NGOs that are becoming quasi-official parts of the trade governance landscape, tasked
and funded by states to perform specific functions that enable trade governance to proceed more
smoothly. Before we get to this, however, we review the literature on NGOs in the global trade
system and the insights that have been generated therein.

What the literature says

The centrality of NGOs in global trade governance has long been recognised. Scholars have
identified three main ways in which to conceive of NGO agency in this field: (i) the role played
by NGOs in democratising and enhancing the legitimacy of the WTO; (ii) how NGOs engage
in advocacy and normative agenda-setting in global trade governance; and (iii) how the engage-
ment of NGOs with the global trade system is constrained by dominant ideologies and prevail-
ing power dynamics that they are largely unable to question, disrupt or subvert. We look in turn
at each of these three strands in more detail.

NGOs, democracy and legitimacy

NGOs are often assumed to be conduits for democracy and social justice, representing the
concerns of global citizens and communicating these to those in power (Steffek, Kissling and
Nanz, 2008; Erman and Uhlin, 2010; Archibugi and Held, 2011).1 Most often associated
with the cosmopolitan liberal tradition, NGOs are seen in a positive light as agents of change
that can contribute to overcoming the democratic deficit within trade governance, mitigat-
ing the tendency for trade deals to be negotiated in a secretive manner by an unrepresentative
elite (Hopewell, 2015). Key proponents hope that the greater involvement of NGOs ‘could
inject values and voice that bolster the moral and democratic legitimacy of global governance’
(Scholte, 2007: 305) – a widely shared aim given the opposition to the WTO regime that
erupted in Seattle in 1999. Giving NGOs a voice in the processes of the WTO is argued to
be a means of broadening the range of opinions and trade perspectives represented, ensuring
greater focus on concerns beyond those of elites and business groups and generating a more
democratically legitimate trade system (Ostry, 2001; Williams, 2011).
Five channels have been identified for this improvement to trade governance to take place.
First, NGOs help to inform the public through disseminating information and focusing public
attention on key areas of concern. Second, NGOs create opportunities and forums for informed
citizens to contest and debate policies with those in power. Third, NGOs can help to give voice
to marginalised groups that are otherwise overlooked but which may suffer from trade policies.
Fourth, NGOs help to bring transparency to the major institutions of global governance as they
push for access to information and subsequently communicate this to their networks. And fifth,
some NGOs are able to bring crucial issues to public attention through media campaigns, help-
ing to put pressure on decision-makers to respond to public concerns (Hannah, 2016).
The so-called Battle in Seattle of 1999 did much to shape the relationship between NGOs and
the WTO. NGOs and other members of global civil society took to the streets to resist the WTO
and denounce a global economic system that was seen to be exclusionary and unfair, and pro-
ducing profound inequalities, environmental destruction and social dislocations worldwide (Gills,
1997; Wilkinson, 2005). In response, and in an effort to stem off a legitimacy crisis, the WTO
set in motion an institutional strategy designed to engage NGOs that sought, simultaneously, to:

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1 promote public understanding of the benefits of trade;

2 dissipate civil society hostility towards the WTO and the multilateral trade agenda; and
3 preserve an arm’s-length relationship between WTO members and civil society groups.

Elsewhere, we take stock of the changing dynamics of WTO–NGO relations since 1999
(Hannah, Scott and Wilkinson, 2017). We show that while the mode of engagement has
remained constant – manifest most obviously through the organisation and arrangement of the
Public Forum and NGO attendance at ministerial conferences – the institutional strategy has
evolved from neutralising critical voices to shoring up the legitimacy of the WTO itself. We
also show that the critical character of global civil society has been blunted by its interaction
with the WTO, with radical NGOs, in particular, having retreated from engagement over time
(Hannah, Janzwood, Scott and Wilkinson, 2018). Consequently, the WTO’s engagement with
NGOs is in serious need of reform if it is to render multilateral trade governance more demo-
cratic, transparent, accountable and responsive to the needs of the world’s poorest and most
marginalised people.

Advocacy and normative agenda-setting

NGOs are widely identified within the constructivist literature as playing a role in global
normative evolution, particularly as early advocates of new norms and as enforcers of new
standards (Keck and Sikkink, 1998; Clark, Friedman and Hochstetler, 1998). As noted else-
where in this book, through this function NGOs are able to affect the policy preferences of
even great powers. As Chayes and Chayes put it,

for all but a few self-isolated nations, sovereignty no longer exists in the freedom of states
to act independently, in their perceived self-interest, but in membership in reasonably good
standing in the regimes that make up the substance of international life.
(1995: 27)

The complex of norms and socially demanded modes of behaviour form a powerful constraint on
the naked pursuit of self-interest and NGOs play an important role in policing those standards.
Within global trade, normative agenda-setting by NGOs has been identified within
transnational NGO advocacy and the major public campaigns waged by such networks on
aspects of the WTO’s remit (Wilkinson, 2005; Williams, 2011). Some scholars evaluate
the impact of formal NGO inclusion vis-à-vis the submission of amicus curiae briefs to the
dispute settlement process and NGO participation in WTO proceedings, public sympo-
sia and consultations with the WTO secretariat (Van den Bossche, 2008; Piewitt, 2010).
Scholars have also assessed NGOs’ influence over the WTO agenda on a number of issues,
including trade and health (Sell and Prakash, 2004; Hannah, 2011), the environment (Esty,
1998), labour standards (O’Brien et al, 2000); and development (Wilkinson, 2005). The
potential for NGOs to facilitate the construction of global social contracts between global
citizens and the WTO has also received some attention (He and Murphy, 2007).

Structures of power
Critical scholars working from neo-Gramscian, post-structuralist and critical constructiv-
ist perspectives have explored the constraining effect of deep-seated structures of power and

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entrenched ideas. In pioneering constructivist work, John Ruggie (1975) used the concept
of the ‘episteme’ to understand how ideas are entrenched within the international system.
Epistemes are defined as

intersubjective knowledge that adopts the form of human dispositions and practices . . .
[encompassing] the way people construe their reality, their basic understanding of the
causes of things, their normative beliefs, and their identity, the understanding of self in
terms of others.
(Adler and Bernstein, 2005: 296)

In many regards, the concept of epistemes is similar to neo-Gramscian Robert Cox’s concept of
intersubjective meanings, or ‘those shared notions of the nature of social relations which tend
to perpetuate habits and expectations of behaviour’ (Cox, 1996: 98). Epistemes constitute the
deepest level of the ideational world. They endow certain privileged actors with the authority
to determine valid knowledge or to reproduce the knowledge on which an episteme is based
(Hannah, 2011: 181; Hannah, Scott and Trommer, 2015).
These conceptual frameworks have been applied to the WTO by a variety of scholars.
Matthew Eagleton-Pierce (2013) uses the work of Bourdieu to examine ‘symbolic power’
in the global trade system, exploring how particular discourses are used to re(produce) social
and political orders. He examines the struggle between orthodox and heterodox views on
trade policy and how trade discourse provides a ‘conventional wisdom’ that reinforces the
orthodoxy. Hopewell (2017), Tucker (2014) and Strange (2013) draw from post-structuralist
approaches to understand the interaction and discourses employed between NGOs, the WTO
secretariat and national delegates and how these reinforce patterns of inclusion and exclusion.
Certain NGO concerns and ideas are treated as credible and appropriate, while others are con-
structed as unacceptable. These studies explore the extent to which NGOs are able to resist
power asymmetries within the global system and what forms of knowledge NGOs are able to
bring to the discussion.
In neo-Gramscian analyses, NGOs play a central role in resisting the neoliberal order and
laying the foundations for a counter-hegemonic bloc that might replace the existing power
structures (Gills, 1997). That said, such analyses also highlight the process of transformismo that
can occur when critical voices interact with core international organisations such as the WTO,
through which criticism is progressively blunted by the assimilation of the critics’ language into
official discourse, giving the appearance of shared aims and analyses between the organisation
and the critical NGO (Paterson, 2009).
Clearly much has been written about the role of NGOs in global trade, some expecting posi-
tive impacts and others more sanguine. These three strands of research encapsulate the broad
contours of how the extant literature characterises NGO agency and the interaction between
NGOs and the global trade system. Each strand highlights important aspects of the behav-
iour of NGOs and the different roles that they adopt. These valuable insights notwithstanding,
NGOs are seen almost exclusively as a set of actors that achieve impact by acting upon other
actors, particularly states and international organisations. Much of the literature highlights the
role played by NGOs in resisting the dominant neoliberal order, though there is considerable
variance across the literature in how successful this is considered to be depending primarily on
the theoretical tradition adopted. It is our contention that this misses important dimensions of
the role played by NGOs today. To bring greater clarity to the full spectrum of NGO activity
within the global trade system, we employ a different approach.

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A typology of NGOs in global trade

NGOs are often assumed to be agents of resistance within global politics, pushing against the pur-
suit of ever greater liberalisation and the expansion of corporate-friendly governance. However,
upon closer inspection it becomes clear that this is true of only a section of the large number
of internationally active NGOs working in the field of global trade. One way of understanding
the full range of NGOs and their aims is through a stylised typology of resistance (see Hannah,
Ryan and Scott, 2017, from which the following draws). We can consider a conceptualisation
of NGOs ranging from those that have greatest antipathy to the current order and want to see
radical change, through to those that seek to further the neoliberal restructuring of the global
system, with various gradations between these poles. One such typology is outlined in Figure
26.1, in which that range is split into four ideal types: Neoliberal NGOs, Embedded Liberal
NGOs, Transformative NGOs and Revolutionary NGOs. As ideal types, it is expected that
real organisations will not fit perfectly into the categories, and in fact organisations are found to
straddle across categories over time and across issue area. Nonetheless, by exploring each type in
more detail, as we do below, we get a better sense of the range of NGOs involved in the global
trade system and their actions therein.

Revolutionary NGOs
Revolutionary NGOs seek to challenge the epistemic foundations of global trade. That is, they
reject some of the fundamental underlying assumptions and normative beliefs about how trade
works and what global trade rules should be based on. For example, such organisations may
seek to replace the neoliberal order with an ecologist one, or a system that privileges local pro-
duction over any trade integration. Such organisations are now perhaps rare, but the category
of ‘revolutionary NGO’ is a useful tool as one end of the typology. As an abstract ideal-type it
helps us both to give order to complex phenomena and to ascertain progress towards the goal
of ‘change’ in global trade governance. They tend to seek to influence the global trade system
through the provision of analysis and information, particularly drawing from grassroots experi-
ences of marginalised communities, but also utilise direct action as a means for increasing pres-
sure on decision-makers.
This category is particularly relevant when considering the global trade system, as it was the
WTO Ministerial Conference in 1999 that propelled the ‘anti-globalisation’ movement to the
fore when thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Seattle. The story of the Seattle
confrontation and the collapse of the Ministerial Conference is well known and need not be

Embedded Transformative Revolutionary

Neoliberal NGOs
Liberal NGOs NGOs NGOs

Figure 26.1 Typology of NGOs in global trade

Source: Adapted from Hannah, Ryan and Scott, 2017: 751.

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recounted here in detail (see, among many others, McMichael, 2000; Rhagavan, 2000; Bayne,
2000). In brief, a large coalition of civil society actors sought to disrupt the Seattle WTO meet-
ing through mass demonstrations. These turned violent and the streets surrounding the min-
isterial meeting descended into running battles between protestors and the police. This chaos
contributed to, though did not in itself cause, the collapse of the WTO meeting. There was
sufficient fractiousness within the meeting to have almost certainly led to the collapse, as numer-
ous developing countries resisted attempts by the rich countries to launch a new round of nego-
tiations and demanded that attention should instead be focused on fixing the inequities of the
Uruguay round agreement that had created the WTO. The Conference came to a halt when
many African countries walked out, refusing to continue to take part in a process that largely
excluded their voices. While this outcome was, hypothetically, likely regardless of the protests,
the demonstrators certainly emboldened the delegates resisting the push for a new round.
Those protesting were a broad coalition of NGOs, involving many mainstream organisations
but also including numerous more radical organisations that sought to overturn, rather than
reform, the WTO system. The label of ‘anti-globalist’ was something that even early on was
opposed by many involved, who wanted to see a different type of, rather than no, globalisation
(Starr and Adams, 2003). This fact subsequently led to the emergence of ‘alter-globalisation’
rather than ‘anti-globalisation’ as the term favoured by such organisations. Nonetheless, there
were also groups that pushed for a wholesale rejection of much of the fundamental basis and
assumptions behind the WTO. These included indigenous movements that wanted to be able
to choose as communities not to engage in orthodox development strategies; groups seeking
to defend or rebuild local economic institutions, demanding the right, for example, to prevent
the expansion of corporations (particularly the likes of Wal Mart and other major retailers);
and movements for radical local autonomy and a delinking from globalisation, such as the
Zapatista movement of Mexico (Starr and Adams, 2003). Such organisations rejected aspects of
the underlying episteme of the WTO, particularly concerning the importance of markets and
the aim of expanding trade, making them revolutionary in the typology described here.
These organisations are no longer actively engaged with the multilateral trade system and
have stopped attending WTO events. This is for a variety of reasons. The terrorist attacks of
11 September 2001 changed public perceptions of protest activities, the long stagnation of
the WTO’s Doha round of negotiations ensured that little was taking place in the multilateral
forum, and other areas that emerged such as climate change and austerity took over as the focus
of radical civil society attention. However, the events of Seattle remain a formative moment
in NGO engagement with the trade system – and indeed of civil society’s engagement with
globalisation more broadly – and led to measures being undertaken by the WTO to manage
relations with NGOs in a less antagonistic fashion (Hannah, Scott and Wilkinson, 2017).

Transformative NGOs
This category perhaps contains many of the organisations that most typically spring to mind
when thinking of NGOs operating in the field of global trade. It encompasses those that want to
inspire significant change in the pattern, practice and policies of trade governance, typically in a
direction that prioritises sustainable developmental or environmental concerns, but, pace revolu-
tionary NGOs, in a manner which works within the boundaries of the basic principles on which
the WTO is founded. The typical mode of pursuing this change is through the provision of
expert knowledge, aimed at both the broad public and trade diplomats, but these organisations
also engage in fomenting public pressure on politicians through campaigns and direct action.
Transformative NGOs thus strategically leverage their position as experts in trade analysis and

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produce new knowledge and ideas aimed at significantly altering ways of thinking or doing in
global trade. They challenge prevailing power asymmetries and conventional wisdom concern-
ing, for example, the relationship between trade and development, and resist co-optation by
more powerful organisations such as the WTO. These NGOs are often involved in developing
counter-narratives around trade that unsettle orthodoxies favoured by the most powerful.
Some prime examples of transformative NGOs in the field of global trade are members of
the Our World Is Not For Sale (OWINFS) network. The network is focused on ‘fighting the
current model of corporate globalization embodied in [the] global trading system. OWINFS is
committed to a sustainable, socially just, democratic and accountable multilateral trading system’
and is dually involved in organising protest and advocacy around the WTO and generating and
disseminating analysis and commentary on ongoing trade negotiations.2 OWINFS is now the
main organiser of political mobilisation at WTO ministerial conferences. Members also partici-
pate as insiders advocating for policy change at various platforms organised by the WTO and
member states at the annual Public Forum and ministerial conferences. OWINFS is also the
main convener of critical NGO panels at WTO Ministerial Conference side events.
Another example includes the global coalition of NGOs that mobilised against water services
liberalisation in the context of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) negotia-
tions. For example, Hannah (2016) takes stock of the role of transformative NGOs in shaping
the European Union’s (EU’s) position in the negotiations. With the creation of GATS, services
were shifted out of the purview of national regulatory regimes to market-based rules in the
international trade regime and the EU’s requests for water services liberalisation, particularly
water for human use – the collection, purification and distribution of natural water – in devel-
oping and least developed countries, sparked widespread outrage and condemnation among
NGOs. Many believe that liberalising water services and opening up water markets to foreign
competition constitute full frontal attacks on democracy and basic human rights. The NGO
campaign adopted a multi-pronged strategy involving grassroots mobilisation, public demon-
strations and rallies, petitions and reports on the potential negative impact of services liberalisa-
tion on public services, environment and democracy. In so doing, NGOs educated the public
and policymakers alike about the potential, adverse implications of water services liberalisation,
gave voice to broader societal concerns about proposed trade deals, and successfully mobilised
widespread resistance to water services liberalisation at the municipal, national and EU levels.
Likewise, Matthew Eagleton-Pierce (2015) has shone a light on how certain northern-based
NGOs have shifted from being radical outsiders (revolutionary NGOs) to reformist insiders
(transformative NGOs) to protest, critique and reshape the purpose of global trade since the
1980s. Applying a Bourdieusian lens, Eagleton-Pierce develops a conceptual framework for
studying the gradual emergence of certain NGOs as ‘critical technicians’, knowledge produc-
ers who are seen by those in a position of power to have a credible voice in trade policy but
who also advance alternative trade policy strategies that are informed by their social critique of
contemporary capitalism centred around notions of global social justice debates. Through a con-
scious process of learning and adapting to global trade orthodoxy, Eagleton-Pierce shows how
such NGOs open inroads into the global trade policy elite and successfully advance a critique
from within.
Farther afield from the multilateral trading system, scholars have examined the role of trans-
formative NGOs in shaping preferential and regional trade agreements. Silke Trommer (2014),
for example, traces the involvement of a network of West African global justice NGOs, local
NGO and movement platforms, and trade unions in the negotiations for an Economic Partnership
Agreement with the EU. She finds that once NGOs adopted a strategic advocacy decision to
present themselves as trade experts and convey their positions in technical trade language, they

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gained access and influence over the negotiating process. Similarly, Del Felice (2014) also finds
that certain NGOs deliberately try to break ‘the barriers between legal-technical and popular
texts’ in order to gain access to policymaking and to be viewed as legitimate by those in power.
Indeed, she observes that activists consciously and purposely reproduced the established ways of
communicating inside the technocratic sphere of trade negotiations, while aiming to politicise
the issues through more provocative language in the broader public debate. Both Trommer and
Del Felice find that NGOs that adopt such instrumentalist strategies have difficulty maintaining
autonomy and resisting co-optation. This is where transformative NGOs begin to blend into the
next ideal-type – embedded NGOs.

Embedded NGOs
One further step away from the most revolutionary organisations lies embedded NGOs, among
which are to be found some of the most influential NGOs working within global trade. Hannah
(2014), drawing from the influential work of Polanyi (1944) and Ruggie (1982), characterises
these NGOs as being those working to address global injustices through empowering low-
income countries, particularly through providing trade-related expertise situated within an
embedded liberal agenda that seeks to reconcile the global market economy with social, devel-
opmental and environmental concerns. They offer a particular type of status-quo-preserving
insider critique that aims not to disrupt or transform, but rather to build and maintain a socially
embedded, liberal international economic order. Their strategy to gain influence is primarily, as
with other groups, the provision of knowledge, but this is directed far more to those in positions
of power – trade negotiators, civil servants and politicians – rather than to the public at large.
Embedded NGOs are less likely than transformative NGOs to engage in fuelling broad public
movements, working instead in close connection to those in power.
One example of such an embedded NGO in the world of global trade is the International
Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD). This is an NGO that was created in the
aftermath of the Uruguay round of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotia-
tions in order to provide technical support to developing countries and enable them to participate
in trade and environmental negotiations. Though recently and rather suddenly closed, ICTSD
came to play a semi-official role in this regard. It was funded primarily by states, with Denmark,
the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the UK identified as multi-year and core donors (ICTSD,
2018). ICTSD provided a huge amount of expert analysis to developing countries, without
which they find it difficult to participate in trade negotiations. Developing countries felt stung
by the outcome of the Uruguay round, in which many lacked the technical capacity to follow
the negotiation process (and were not invited to the small group meetings anyway), resulting in
an agreement that was largely written by the rich countries and which was consequently highly
unfavourable to the interests of the developing world (Finger and Nogues, 2002). After the crea-
tion of the WTO, they were more forthcoming in preventing the expansion of the agenda into
new areas on which they lacked sufficient information. The consensus principle of the WTO
means that all member states have a veto (although in practice the less powerful would find it all
but impossible to wield that veto if acting alone). When less developed states feel that they are not
in a position to participate in negotiations through lack of technical knowledge they have collec-
tively blocked negotiations, as occurred in the 1999 Seattle Ministerial Meeting or more recently
with the blocking of negotiations on the Singapore Issues.3 ICTSD formed part of the solution to
his problem, providing expertise in a neutral fashion on items on the trade agenda (see Hannah,
Ryan and Scott, 2017). As such, for a number of years it acted as an integral part of the trade
system, enabling that system to function properly and facilitating improvements in governance.

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Similarly, a German development organisation, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES), has emerged
as an embedded NGO working to smooth the functioning of the multilateral trade system. It
has developed a long-term partnership with the WTO to deliver a programme of outreach and
training to civil society, primarily within the developing world but also in key other regions
such as Eastern Europe. This partnership has provided resources for the WTO’s external rela-
tions department to hold training events jointly with FES both in Geneva and around the
developing world. These sessions are designed for NGOs and media organisations as a means of
providing information on what the WTO does, where the negotiations stand and how the trade
system functions. For example, in April 2014 one such event was held in Geneva concerning
‘Challenges and Potentials for Post-Soviet Countries’ as these countries joined the WTO (FES,
2014a). More regular meetings have been held in a similar vein, the most recent being the East
Africa and Multilateral Trade Regional Dialogue, held in Nairobi in November 2014, which
aimed at enabling participants ‘to better understand the WTO and its role in the international
trading system’ through providing ‘a platform for in-depth and critical discussion of the multi-
lateral trading regime and its consequences for development in East Africa’ (FES, 2014b). This
event was the latest in a regular series of such meetings that have been undertaken with a view
both to increasing the capacity of civil society in developing countries and encouraging them to
engage with WTO matters. These meetings started early on following the WTO’s creation and
have been organised on a regional basis to access as many developing countries as possible, with
recent such dialogues being held in Jakarta (2013) and Egypt (2009), while other years see events
in Geneva targeted at journalists from Sub-Saharan Africa (2012) or Latin America (2011).4 The
aim of this joint programme of events is to provide both an introduction to what the WTO is
about and a platform for more critical voices to comment.5
Trademark East Africa (TMEA) is another embedded NGO; a not-for-profit, aid-for-
trade organisation, established with the aim of increasing economic growth and prosperity
in East Africa through increased trade. TMEA uses official development assistance provided
by several key donors, including the UK, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands,
Norway and the United States, to build partnerships with local organisations and imple-
ment innovative projects aimed at promoting cross-border trade.6 For example, the TMEA
Women and Trade programme was begun in 2015 and is funded by $4.5 million USD from
the Netherlands. The programme is aimed at promoting trade facilitation and cross-border
trade by identifying and addressing the existing gender-based constraints that limit women’s
ability to participate in cross-border trade. In partnership with local NGOs, TMEA seeks to
train women traders, increase their knowledge of East Africa Community border and export
procedures, and support women traders to form and register regional cooperatives. The pro-
gramme also engages border customs officials in policy dialogue and capacity development
with the aim of adopting a cross-border trade charter.7 The purpose of these micro-interventions,
and capacity building and knowledge transfer, is to deliver aid-for-trade in ways that enhance
the competitiveness of East African entrepreneurs and support trade as a driver of economic
growth and prosperity.
The role of such embedded NGOs suggests that it may increasingly be more useful to look
at international organisations through the lens of function rather than form. These NGOs are not
performing the kind of roles that traditionally we associate with NGOs in global governance,
outlined at the start of this chapter. They are integral to the processes of global governance,
rather than acting on it from an external position, and could be said to look more like IGOs
in the governance functions they perform. The embedded NGO category suggests the need to
rethink old theoretical assumptions.

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Neoliberal NGOs
There are, as noted above, prevalent assumptions about what type of actors NGOs are within
global trade, portraying them all too often as necessarily ‘progressive’ and committed to broader
social and environmental values. This is, however, problematic (see Edwards and Hulme, 1996;
Hannah, 2016). To account for the full range of NGOs in global trade governance we must also
recognise and create analytical space for the often-overlooked organisations that are committed
to furthering the neoliberal agenda and corporate-led globalisation. Such NGOs support the
trade liberalisation agenda and the deepening of global rules that facilitate corporate expansion
and cross-border flows.
A prevalent section of this group is formed of influential free-market think tanks, including
the Adam Smith Institute (UK), American Enterprise Institute (US), Free Enterprise Institute
(US), Institute of Economic Affairs (UK) and Fraser Institute (Canada). Such organisations
provide analysis and policy papers that feed into trade negotiations in line with the free-market
principles underlying the global trade system. Neoliberal NGOs do not simply support the
WTO and are at times critical of its rules and procedures (e.g. Sally, 2008). The WTO, of
course, is not an unequivocally free-trade organisation, most notably sanctioning billions of dol-
lars annually in agricultural support. Naturally, neoliberal NGOs support reform of this market
interference and support WTO movement in that direction (for example, Glauber, 2018).
Businesses also directly form groups to advance their interests, most notably through the vari-
ous national and international chambers of commerce and through sector-specific confedera-
tions such as the Confederation of European Union Food and Drink Industries and the Dairy
Farmers of Canada. Such business groups form a growing component of civil society groups
engaging with the WTO through the Public Forum, both as attendees and as panellists (Hannah
et al., 2018: 130, 136). The most prominent is the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC),
representing six million businesses from around the world, which has advocated a deepening
of the trade agenda into so-called twenty-first-century issues such as investment, trade facilita-
tion and services, framed around the desire to encourage global value chains (ICC, 2013). Such
organisations engage with elements of a progressive trade agenda, such as environmental pro-
tection, but this is approached exclusively through the advocacy of market-based solutions and
greater trade integration (e.g. ICC, 2013: 9–10).
Neoliberal NGOs, like embedded NGOs, tend to operate primarily through the provision
of knowledge and expert analysis. This is usually targeted chiefly at those in positions of power,
such as politicians and the media, rather than towards the ‘grass roots’. Such organisations often
enjoy a revolving door with politics and senior civil service positions. Perhaps unsurprisingly
given this increasing intertwining of business interests with political structures, combined with
the general ideological shift towards neoliberalism within many states, neoliberal NGOs have
been highly effective at setting the global trade agenda. That said, more critical NGOs in the
groups examined above have shown an increasing ability to block aspects of that agenda.

Conclusion
This chapter has sought to map the universe of NGOs operating in the field of global trade. While
the examples are certainly not exhaustive, the objective was to provide a more thorough account of
the conceptual terrain occupied by NGOs than is often portrayed in the global governance literature.
Indeed, conventional wisdom tends to treat NGOs as agents of grassroots, normative change and as
conduits for democracy and social justice acting upon the states and institutions of global governance.

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Even the range of more critical perspectives sees NGO activity as primarily tied with oppo-
sition to global governance and its neoliberal elements. While tremendous insights have been
made over the past twenty-five years by examining the democratic, normative and transformative
dimensions of NGO agency in global governance, these approaches offer only a partial under-
standing of the relationship between NGOs and global trade governance. In order to fill the gap,
we offered a typology of NGOs in the field of global trade – neoliberal, embedded, transformative
and revolutionary – showcasing the variegation of activities often neglected in the extant literature
on NGO and global governance. In so doing, we shine conceptual light on the idea that NGOs
are often part of the fabric of global trade governance, operating from within the halls of power,
and sometimes to cement dominant ways of thinking and doing. Contrary to conventional wis-
dom, NGOs are not always agents of resistance and normative change in global trade governance.

Notes
1 In fact, the assumption that NGOs represent the interests of the ‘grass-roots’ is problematic, as will be
explored in more detail below.
2 http://notforsale.mayfirst.org/en/about.
3 The Singapore Issues – so called because they were provisionally introduced to the WTO agenda at
the 1996 Singapore Ministerial Conference – consisted of trade facilitation, government procurement,
investment and competition policy. All but trade facilitation were subsequently dropped from the agenda
in 2004 when many developing countries refused to negotiate on them.
4 For details, see the FES events archive at www.fes-globalization.org/geneva/events_archive.htm.
5 Based on observation by authors of Nairobi 2014 regional dialogue.
6 For details see www.trademarkea.com.
7 Details of the TMEA gender and trade projects are available here: https://gender.trademarkea.com.

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 27
NGOs and professions
Raquel Rego

Introduction
Professional associations apparently still remain a neglected research object in the social sciences
(Carr-Saunders and Wilson, 1933; Freidson, 1986; Halliday, 1987; Greenwood et al., 2002)
despite being possibly the oldest, most financially autonomous, professionalised, varied and one
of the faster-growing contemporary non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
When Robert D. Putnam (2000) wrote the famous book Bowling Alone, in which he states
that America has been losing association members, the only exception seemed to be professional
associations. In Putnam’s own words: ‘Here at least, it seems, we find welling up unstaunched
in the late twentieth century America’s Tocquevillean energies’ (2000: 83). According to this
political scientist, the number of professional organisations has doubled in the last four decades,
here referring to the latter half of the twentieth century. This furthermore means that one
encounters not only more associations but also higher rates and levels of membership. The high
level of association representativeness turns them into powerful interest groups.
With their origins in the medieval craft guilds according to some authors (Krause, 1996),
many professional associations now perform an influential role on behalf of the public interest
(Halliday, 1987). As the formal organisation entitled to act on behalf of the respective profes-
sions, professional associations establish, sustain and alter the official frameworks for professional
activities (Freidson, 1986). Nevertheless, their contributions to modern societies reach beyond
their monopolies over given areas of work and are now in fact ambiguous (Halliday, 1987), as
professions pursue ‘simultaneously altruistic and egotistic goals’ (Jarausch, 1990: 219). In fact,
the ‘profession’ word is reserved to particular groups of occupations performing technical tasks
in the public interest, with prestige and high qualification levels, with legal protection and
regulated by a professional association with sanctioning powers (Wilensky, 1964); doctors and
lawyers are the first to come to mind. Thus, in this sense, we may state that professions contrib-
ute towards improving knowledge and comfort/security levels, while also taking advantage of
such knowledge through, for example, creating deadly machines (Jarausch, 1990). In this sense,
as Carr-Saunders and Wilson point out: ‘The establishment of a right relationship between
knowledge and power is the central problem of modern democracy’ (1933: 485).

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Together with trade unions, professional associations are the most important NGOs, sup-
ported by their own fee revenues and engaging more full-time employees and volunteering
according to the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project (JHCNSP) (Salamon,
2003). Thus, professional associations are the least dependent NGOs (Smith et al., 2016) and
thus we may conclude that professional associations rank among the most professionalised NGOs
worldwide throughout the period of what the JHCNSP team term the ‘global associational revo-
lution’ (Salamon et al., 2003: 1). We would note that this unprecedented comparative research
project, implemented in the early years of this century, involved more than forty countries within
the aim of assessing the economic weight of nonprofit organisations around the world.
In this chapter, we discuss the variety of professional associations, particularly referencing the
most important types, the self-regulating bodies, and the international professional associations
as organisations with an increasingly prominent role in regulation. We then highlight some of
the contemporary challenges professional associations face: the emergence of new professional
associations based on interprofessional interactions, the role of supranational governance agen-
cies in professionalisation, the difficulties raised by international labour organisations and the
consequences of new public management to professional surveillance.

Professional associations
Despite the disbelieving perspective of Harold L. Wilensky (1964), the development of both
knowledge and qualified people contributed towards increasing not only the semi-professions
but also the professions, and consequently raised the number of professional associations. In his
article ‘The Professionalisation of Everyone?’, one of the most frequently quoted papers in the
field of sociology of professions, the aforementioned American author considers this trend more
of a ‘sociological romance’ (1964: 156). Furthermore, he maintains that very few occupations
would ever achieve professional authority even while accepting the existence of deviations from
the historic process themselves explained primarily by power struggles and striving for status.
In fact, while the typical process for what get termed the established professions involve profes-
sionalisation processes going through several stages and culminating in the launching of a profes-
sional association, this has never prevented other forms of ‘social closure’ (Freidson, 1986). The
results include the existence of various types of professional associations, some ‘hybrid’ in type.
In practice they border more closely on other types of associations, such as business organisations
or trade unions (Wilensky, 1964; Burrage and Torstendahl, 1990; Smith et al., 2016).
There are, indeed, different motivations driving the founding of professional associations, hence
also explaining why they display considerable variety even though the boundaries of professions
remain stable. In fact, we may easily identify professional associations with different legal forms,
regional natures and ‘sub-craft’ compositions, among other criteria (Carr-Saunders and Wilson,
1933). This diversity has in many cases been determined by historic causes (Sokolov, 2015) and fea-
sibly constitutes a key reason why monographs accounting for the history of one specific professional
association proliferate to a far greater extent than comparative studies on professional associations.
The scarce literature on professional associations primarily refers to the Anglo-Saxon context
to the detriment of other regions of the world. There is scant research on dictatorial countries,
for instance. One of the few studies on these contexts belongs to Welfel and Kamusch (2012).
It focuses on the psychologists and reaches the conclusion that wherever governments are auto-
cratic and dictatorial, and economies are unstable, the psychologist profession largely remains
invisible and without any formal governmental recognition. At the same time, the models of
psychological practices in the United States and Western Europe seem to generate the dominant
forces in ethical standards, for instance.

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Although we may encounter everything from dining clubs to learned societies among the pro-
fessional association types, the most prominent is the professional association with self-regulating
powers. The state is driven to delegate its regulatory function because of the clientele profile and
the characteristics of the services provided, which are complex and deal with human lives and assets.
Thus, the regulated professions, such as doctors, lawyers and engineers, among others, are organised
through associations with their missions spanning controls over access to and exit from the market,
market competition and organisation, and its payment system (Moran and Wood, 1993).
The state engages more in the regulation of certain activities than others in keeping with
considerations as to the valuations and costs attributed to the respective activity. This means the
state usually supervises the health sector, for instance, because of the high risk that unqualified
practitioners will cause severe and costly harm to human lives (Moran and Wood, 1993). How
the state does or does not delegate regulatory authority to professional bodies and turns them
into organs of the state depends on the national political structure (Moran and Wood, 1993),
the profession and the particular national history (Carr-Saunders and Wilson, 1933; Moran and
Wood, 1993; Rego, 2013).
The regulatory role that professional associations play in our societies leads to their occasional
classification alongside other types of associations, such as trade unions and business or employer
organisations. This broader group of NGOs has been classified as occupational-economic asso-
ciations (Smith et al., 2016).
However, there should be no confusion of professional associations with trade unions or
business/employer organisations. On the one hand, professional associations control access to
a specific profession and the professional standards thereafter, focusing on the development of
tasks based on complex knowledge. Thus, their mission does not extend to addressing economic
development. On the other hand, trade unions, for instance, focus on the relationship between
the employee and the employer, and deploy collective bargaining to jointly decide alongside
employer representatives on issues such as wages and working conditions; consequently, their
relations with the management of the work organisation are structural to their actions. In sum,
professional associations may perform self-regulating functions in professional markets based on
expertise, while trade unions or business/employer organisations are key players in the regula-
tion of labour markets in democratic societies focusing on labour relations.
In practice, professional associations may verge on trade unions and long-standing interactions
lead to mutual influences (Alexander, 1980), even while these relationships between professional
associations and trade unions can be viewed as incompatible. It is the respective occupation that
determines the differences between these two types of organisations (Hovekamp, 1997), with
some occupations mixing missions while others keep them separate. In fact, both professional
associations and trade unions hold the potential to affect the occupational status and promote
internal unity, for instance (Hovekamp, 1997).
The incompatibility of professional association and trade union missions is reflected in legal
terms. For instance, the capacities of trade unions, such as the right to strike, fall beyond the
scope of professional associations and their abilities, such as authorising individuals to prac-
tise the profession through enrolling in the association, which cannot be performed by trade
unions (with a few exceptions). Considering this incompatibility has long been pointed out in
the literature, we may note how some authors relate this to the different sociological compo-
sitions of memberships or the social status enjoyed (Alexander, 1980) but we should also be
aware that individuals may be affiliated to both types of associations. Doctors, for instance, are
increasingly working as employees rather than independent professionals and are thus com-
monly registered in a professional association with self-regulating power and simultaneously
affiliated with a trade union.

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Self-regulating bodies
The diversity of professional associations extends to self-regulating bodies. While in professional
associations without self-regulating powers, membership especially represents a sign of peer
recognition, a means of sharing the profession’s identity, of accessing professional knowledge,
networking and returning diverse tangible benefits, professional associations with self-regulating
powers first and foremost represent access to the professional market.
Considering the professional self-regulating bodies in particular, we may find different patterns
across countries. In any case, actually within the same country, and especially over the course of
time, some occupations may hold a self-regulating association which does not fit with the model
otherwise prevailing in the country. As Moran and Wood state: ‘There is no single “model”
of regulation – and the pattern in any one country is certainly not the only model’ (1993: 19).
Regulation thus constitutes a political process that does not only rely on technical matters but
rather results from negotiations ongoing between occupational group representatives and the state.
As Moran and Wood (1993) also say, ‘Regulation is political’ (1993: 27). And what seems espe-
cially relevant is that those professional associations with self-regulating powers and memberships
play important political roles in keeping with how they represent the established professions. They
have to be consulted before the state decides. This is the case, for instance, in the implementation
of new sector policy or on setting up a new self-regulating professional body (Rego, 2013).
In fact, we may add there are two broad ways of organising professional regulation through
professional associations: independent self-regulation and state-sanctioned self-regulation
(Moran and Wood, 1993). We would note that one might also mention state-administered
regulation as a third professional regulation type but such cases broadly encapsulate the simple
registration of low-qualified occupations, such as taxi-drivers, thus engaging neither profession-
als nor professional associations.
While independent self-regulation remains rare, found for instance in sporting associations,
state-sanctioned self-regulation is widespread. This practice nevertheless reveals complex behav-
iours that interrelate with state configurations, the dominant role of universities or client influ-
ences, for instance (Brock et al., 2001). While in Anglo-Saxon countries, such as the US or the
UK, professional association boards may be composed of professionals and other experts with
non-collegiate functioning, in other countries, for example in Western and Southern European
countries, Canada or Brazil, professional associations imply membership, thus simultaneously
incorporating regulative and representative functions (Rego, 2013).
Within this scope, we may note that, aware of how the diversity in professional standards
might generate obstacles to circulating within the single market, the European Union set up
an online platform providing information on the requirements for professional registration in
another country, specifically detailing, whenever the case, the professional associations respon-
sible. On this European-regulated professions database (http://ec.europa.eu/growth/tools-
databases/regprof), we find, for instance, that the UK leads the way as the most important host
country, representing 25% of all migrant professionals, with doctors the most mobile profession
in this European region.
Now, the fact that professional association membership is mandatory in some countries
for accessing professional markets usually leads to the high representation rates that turn these
organisations into powerful mobilisation actors. In fact, ambiguous interests may lead this par-
ticular type of professional association to be an obstacle to political decision-makers (Rego,
2013). Furthermore, these professional associations with self-regulating power and based on
membership usually enjoy a great level of prestige. Hence, we may state that behind any self-
regulating professional association there usually is an occupational group leveraging pressure to

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achieve that legal status (Rego, 2013). Despite the significant number of occupational groups
applying such pressures, the number of professional bodies usually remains low in order to
maintain the social status of members having passed competence tests, thus contributing to the
association’s own prestige (Carr-Saunders and Wilson, 1933).
In this sense, professional associations, in particular those with self-regulating powers, cannot
be considered as neutral even while this is their formal designation. Arab countries, for instance,
despite only scarce research being available, do provide evidence on how the relationship with
the state varies according to regime (Moore and Salloukh, 2007). Additionally, Konrad H.
Jarausch (1990) sets out a good historic example of the engagement of lawyers with the Nazi
regime when detailing the Bar’s direct line to the Ministry: ‘Perhaps the most dramatic concep-
tion of professionalism in the twentieth century was the evolution of German professionals from
internationally respected experts to accessories to Nazi crimes’ (1990: vii).
Questioning the ‘broader altruism ethos’, Mike Saks (1995) considers that professional group
strategies may serve their own interests at the expense of the public interest and demonstrates
this with the case of the British medical profession’s reception of acupuncture for more than
a century. Saks conveys how self-interest reflects the most plausible argument for the two-
centuries-long rejection of acupuncture in Britain.
Self-interest may also lead to professional incompetence getting covered up. As Louise
Fitzgerald explains:

Professions may act as self-interest groups who have negotiated with the state to control and
set entry standards; thus maintaining status and income and excluding others. Self-regulation
may lead to a lack of transparency which may hide poor performance by some individuals.
(2016: 192)

In the same sense, Eliot Freidson (1986) had already noted that few professional associations
either deploy the infrastructures or indeed even search for violations, never mind going on to
implement effective sanctions. One must note that ethical surveillance must imply sanctions
which, in some cases, necessarily lead to the compulsory exiting of the professional market. In
fact, the ethics code is the tool for guiding not only access to the respective profession but also
performances, regulating relations with clients and among professionals.

International professional associations

In the 1990s, Julia Evetts (1995) addressed for the first time the role of international professional
associations as possibly evolving to become self-regulating organisations in the future. According
to the British author, the internationalisation of professional regulation was becoming a signifi-
cant issue and we should not only consider the trend towards deregulation in national markets,
but also the reregulation ongoing at an international level. However, very little is currently
known about efforts to develop transnational professional communities and deal with such con-
temporary challenges (Wrede, 2012).
By definition, international professional associations reach beyond national barriers and it
thus comes as no surprise that they broadly appeared around the mid-twentieth century in con-
trast with the mid-nineteenth-century origins of national professional associations in Western
societies. However, they seemed to experience an important surge both in numbers and espe-
cially in significance towards the end of the twentieth century (Evetts, 1995). They are made up
of the national professional associations with which they negotiate their responses to processes
of internationalisation (Evetts, 1995; Faulconbridge and Muzio, 2011).

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One illustration of these organisations is the European Federation of National Engineering

Associations (FEANI) (www.feani.org), founded in 1951 and representing thirty-four countries.
This European professional association has been awarded a certificate, the EurIng, since 1987.
The EurIng was praised by the European Commission that held it up as a model for other
groups. This stipulates at least seven years of education and training, plus experience and the
agreement to observe the professional code of conduct. In fact, as Evetts (1995) demonstrates,
the EurIng is an attempt to prevent international disputes and disagreements over the minimum
acceptable levels of education, training and experience.
A more recent example comes with the European Federation of Geologists (EFG) (http://
eurogeologists.eu), founded in 1986 and today representing twenty-six countries. This European
association has also been provided the European Geologist certification, the EurGeol, since
2011. The EurGeol implies the holder has achieved not less than eight years of suitable academic
training and a level of professional experience, skill and competence to perform tasks within the
scope of accepted professional practices. This also means that the holder undertakes to continue
with education and training and to demonstrate a personal commitment to keeping up to date
and informed within this professional working sphere. This title, which stems from a bottom-up
initiative, not only overcomes the diversity prevailing among European member states but also
enables professional mobility worldwide.
We might also stress other international professional association initiatives, such as the agree-
ment on the ‘European lawyer’ statute, a common professional standard implemented by the
Council of Bars and Law Societies in Europe, or the provision of continuing professional educa-
tion, such as the continuous professional development system run by the International Union
of Architects (Faulconbridge and Muzio, 2011). However, as Allsop et al. (2009) detail through
evidence for four professions, there are differences among professions in the level of transna-
tional harmonisation. In this sense, while professional associations play an important role in
promoting the mobility of engineers, professional associations seem to have encountered serious
barriers as regards psychologists (Allsop et al., 2009).
The European Union set up and runs the Transparency Register (http://ec.europa.eu/
transparencyregister), a European database of lobbyists that currently lists a total of 11,629
entrances, half of which belong to the category of ‘In-house lobbyists and trade/business/
professional associations’. We would also point out that this database also includes national
professional associations, such as the British Association of Chartered Certified Accountants
and the German engineers’ organisation Verband Beratender Ingenieure. This database does
seem to contribute to proper assessments of professional association influences over the
European Commission, which from an analytical point of view provides clear evidence that
professional associations are not only assuming roles of advocacy but also actively lobbying.
Although still only playing consultative and advisory roles, international professional associa-
tions are increasingly actors in the institutionalisation of new professional jurisdictions and in
the reregulation of professional service markets (Evetts, 1995). According to Evetts (1995),
there are three main reasons for international professional associations attempting to raise their
influence, especially as regards the European level. First, considering the tensions between
national and supranational jurisdictions, to guarantee their influence, national bodies now
have to put emphasis on international professional associations. The limitations of suprana-
tional normative frameworks leave the ground open for direct negotiations between profes-
sional representatives, thus under the auspices of international professional associations, the
standardisation of working practices is taking place. Furthermore, while European directives
are perceived as intrusive to national jurisdictions, agreements produced by fellow profession-
als at international professional associations are more likely to produce consensus, especially

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when they derive from experienced professional practitioners, those Terence C. Halliday
(1987) called the ‘elite’ professional associations.
While this internationalisation of professional associations is obvious in the European context,
it is no less important at the global level. In this sense, one could consult the professional asso-
ciations registered on the database of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social
Affairs. In fact, among the 5,000 NGOs, with both national and international structures, there
are also professional associations registered with a consultative status by its Economic and Social
Council (http://csonet.org). The Union Internationale des Architectes (UIA – http://apaw.uia-
architectes.org), for instance, founded in 1948, in Paris, was accredited to the Economic and Social
Council of the United Nations in 1949, when there were only ninety organisations registered
(Vago, 1998). This international professional association had, just a few years earlier, succeeded
in gaining UNESCO recognition of architecture as similar to heritage. Furthermore, in its fifti-
eth anniversary commemorative book, the UIA was already planning to wield influence within
the framework of the World Trade Organisation (Vago, 1998). We may also put forward other
possible examples. These would include the Association of Medical Doctors of Asia (AMDA –
www.amdainternational.com), launched in 1984, in Japan, with the aim of providing professional
humanitarian support in disasters, and today counting professionals from India or Indonesia among
its board members; or Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF – https://rsf.org), founded in the same year,
driven by the desire to defend the free press around the world and playing an important role in
denouncing the assassination of journalists. While first set up in Paris in 1985, the RSF today has
offices not only in Europe but also in the US and Brazil. These cases illustrate how professional
associations also tend nowadays to assume an international scale, deploying expertise in the service
of a cause that extends beyond national boundaries, including the defence of fellow professionals.
Professional associations are reacting to globalisation, assuming new roles with transnational
dimensions. This reveals how professional associations now need to be considered as potentially
attaining international dimensions and capabilities as part of a broader shift towards transnational
markets and international divisions of labour (Evetts, 1995). In fact, when professional asso-
ciations provide standard conditions for international mobility, for instance, we may therefore
affirm ‘that the nation-state is no longer the only scale at which access to the profession or pro-
fessional standards are controlled’ (Faulconbridge and Muzio, 2011: 142).
As Greenwood and others (2002) stress in their highly quoted paper ‘Theorizing Change:
The Role of Professional Associations in the Transformation of Institutionalized Fields’, profes-
sional associations play an important role in reproducing rules and assuring compliance but also
in building upon older institutional practices, endorsing innovations and shaping their diffusion.
In this sense, professional associations seem particularly sensitive to market pressures and their
role correspondingly changes and evolves over time (Greenwood et al., 2002), with globalisa-
tion certainly providing an important driver of change.

Contemporary challenges
Globalisation has been subject to widespread analysis as regards business corporations, the enter-
tainment industries, communications and the arts; but its significance for professional services
has received less attention. Nevertheless, professional service markets are increasingly interna-
tional in keeping with the advance of globalisation. At the same time, knowledge development
is driving different professionals to work together on problem-solving in complementary ways
(Laffin and Entwistle, 2000). Other contemporary phenomena might also be highlighted, such
as the growth of technology for accessing information, but globalisation and interdisciplinarity
arguably represent the two most important drivers of the new challenges facing the professions.

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These challenges stir the debates around the ‘deprofessionalisation’ of professions (Freidson,
1986; Brock et al., 2001). Some authors argue that the professions have lost power, in the sense
they are now trailing and no longer leading (Laffin and Entwistle, 1999). This is happening
not only because of rising levels of client education and greater questioning of authority but
also because other occupations are eating into and undermining the monopolies held by the
established professions. In this new stage of the debate, contrary to that put forward by Freidson
in the 1980s, there are different conditions for professionals to apply pressure over allocating
resources and balancing the lack of power due to the standardisation and routinisation of knowl-
edge. This ‘proletarisation’ of professionals (Brock et al., 2001) has now advanced further in the
international context and shaken the power boundaries of professional associations.
While some authors draw attention to the ways some professional associations seem to be
reacting, by adopting merger and alliances strategies, or by more closely adopting pressure
group-type behaviours, others point out how they are unable to regulate transnational work
effectively (Adams, 2017). Moreover, the debate also highlights how the absence of profes-
sional control facilitates professional misconduct even while some critics already consider that
professional associations are failing to protect the public from professional misconduct at the
national level (Adams, 2017). The case of accountants who have been held responsible for the
2007–2008 crisis from the United States to Nigeria would seem quite evident (Bakre, 2007;
Adams, 2017).
Therefore, we here highlight four contemporary challenges that, although not having the
same impact across professions and countries, do constitute strong trends shaping professional
associations as the representatives of professions: the international transdisciplinary associa-
tions which are spilling over not only national but also disciplinary boundaries, and providing
standards for emerging problems; global corporations which bring together professionals from
distinct nationalities and academic fields, among other facets, providing their own ethical con-
trols; supranational governance agencies oriented towards problem-solving, sometimes running
against the interests of professions and their associations; and finally, the new public manage-
ment, which underlines the proletarisation thesis of professions, has advanced in the wake of the
recent global financial crisis.

Interprofessional associations
A new trend is currently emerging from the perception that knowledge production should be
more closely oriented towards problem-solving and extends beyond disciplinary and subject
boundaries. This ‘revolution’, as Laffin and Entwistle (1999) term it, corresponds to a cross-
fertilisation of disciplinary fields, thus to a decline in the disciplines themselves. This trend
undermines the exclusionary strategies of the professions as they may become considered to be
overly distinctive, based only on their ‘exclusive knowledge’ (Freidson, 1986). We may expect
also this revolution to lead to a weakened role for professional associations as self-regulating
bodies. This contributes to the idea that policy makers and the public in general no longer find
professional claims of altruism or disinterest as credible as they once did (Laffin and Entwistle,
1999). In fact, as Laffin and Entwistle say, based on the British case: old exclusionary strategies
fail because professional jurisdictions are now overlapping and ‘worryingly for the professions,
policy makers increasingly see them as part of the problem rather than its solution’ (1999: 213).
Invariably, the case of healthcare professions clearly illustrates these oncoming institutional
changes. This is the case with teamwork, taken for granted in health but actually needing
improvements in order to be effective and overcome status inequalities. In some contexts, man-
agers, social care professionals and clinicians interact in which we may highlight the conflictual

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relations between managers and doctors, whether due to policy changes or to their different
objectives within organisations (Fitzgerald, 2016), and in any case detrimental to overall perfor-
mance standards (West and Markiewicz, 2016).
Furthermore, a different situation challenges the very core of doctors’ power. In fact, inte-
grated perspectives of human beings and a problem-solving orientation are leading to convening
different fields of expertise, which may trigger clashes between traditional professional bounda-
ries. Although this new approach might lead us to focus on new occupations, such as when
considering biosecurity or food safety issues (Wrede, 2012), we here focus on the role played by
competing professional associations of a new kind.
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) illustrates this inter-
vention of interdisciplinary professional associations. The WPATH is an interdisciplinary pro-
fessional and educational organisation devoted to transgender health that replaced the Harry
Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association in order to assume a clearer advocacy
mission in 2007 in defence of transgender people. The WPATH assembles professionals from
diverse fields: medicine, psychology, law, social work, counselling, psychotherapy, family stud-
ies, sociology, anthropology, sexology, and speech and voice therapy, among others. Its mission
is to promote evidence-based care, education, research, advocacy, public policy and respect in
transgender health, in order to promote a high quality of care for transsexual, transgender and
gender-nonconforming individuals internationally. One of the most important outputs of its
actions is the publication of the Standards of Care and Ethical Guidelines, under publication
since 1979. The WPATH maintains that medical and other barriers to gender recognition for
transgender individuals may harm physical and mental health, and particularly oppose those
medical requirements that act as barriers to those wishing to change their legal sex or gender
markers on documents, including requirements for diagnosis, counselling or therapy, puberty
blockers, hormones, any form of surgery, or any other requirements for any form of clinical
treatment or letters from doctors.
What the WPATH case conveys is how, despite the scarce research evidence on professional
interaction (Fitzgerald, 2016), professional associations have to deal with other NGOs, with
some composed of different fields of expertise while also pursuing knowledge goals as well as
regulation in addition to experiencing pressures from supranational agencies.

Supranational governance agencies

Globalisation implies the relevant actions of supranational actors and also extends into profes-
sional fields (Evetts, 1995; Wrede, 2012). In fact, we may say supranational governance actors
are performing a role in professionalisation. Two examples emerge of how these organisations
have begun to challenge nationalistic assumptions (Faulconbridge and Muzio, 2011).
The World Health Organization (WHO) has long been promoting task-shifting in keeping
with the normalisation of knowledge and the lack of resources in some countries and regions.
Task-shifting means tasks get moved from highly qualified workers to less qualified workers in
order to make more efficient use of the scarce human and financial resources available (WHO,
2008). Triggered by the HIV epidemic and its treatment, as well as maternal and new-born
health in poor countries, task-shifting aims to achieve greater equity in access to healthcare
through the decentralisation of services to communities, but this does not happen without the
resistance of some professional associations.
We must note that the delegation of professional functions often occurs informally by shift-
ing or sharing tasks and responsibilities. Nevertheless, it is important to normalise these arrange-
ments through regulatory and educational reforms, not only for the reduction of risks for those

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the practitioners serve but also for the protection of the practitioners themselves. Therefore, the
enacting of appropriate requirements necessarily engages already existing actors in the field, the
professional associations among them. We may point to several examples demonstrating how
the creation of a new cadre precedes the engagement and at least the consultation of all stake-
holders. In fact, only the involvement of the different actors guarantees cooperation and the
effective implementation of public policies (WHO, 2008; McCarthy et al., 2013).
A second example comes from the European level. The European Commission (EC) has
been responsible for developing a number of legal frameworks that regulate aspects of profes-
sional projects, including the Directive on Professional Qualifications (2005/36/EC). Through
common economic regulation, the EU seeks to establish a single market in professional ser-
vices and qualifications within the scope of advancing to a political union, such as through the
European Professional Card (EPC) introduced in January 2016 (http://europa.eu/youreurope/
citizens/work/professional-qualifications/european-professional-card/index_en.htm). The EPC is
an electronic procedure to facilitate the recognition of professional qualifications within
European countries, thereby promoting mobility and already covering nurses, pharmacists,
physiotherapists, mountain guides and real estate agents.
Therefore, we may say that interactions between national and supranational actors, rather
than national or supranational actors operating in isolation, henceforth need to be at the centre
of analytical attentions (Faulconbridge and Muzio, 2011).

International professional services firms

Another contemporary phenomenon interrelates with the growth in international work
organisations. These organisations bring back to the debate the focus on the conflict between
professionals and bureaucratic work that marked the first stage of the study of professions in
organisations back in the 1950s. After having moved into a larger concept of professions that
embraced not only highly qualified occupations and considering the market positions of the
professions and the professional organisations per se (Hinings, 2006), bureaucratisation has
returned. In fact, as Bob Hinings states: ‘The death of bureaucracy is much overstated, but new
organizational forms are emerging that emphasize knowledge acquisition, use, and dissemina-
tion, together with flexibility and autonomy in organizational working’ (2006: 418).
New experts are emerging and commercialising their services in international markets with-
out any formal system of scrutiny for their practices, raising risks in keeping with the lack of
transparency that enables monitoring and trust. Therefore, these increasingly narrow fields of
expertise do not deploy any specific mechanisms for certification and/or legitimation (Furusten
and Werr, 2017). Indeed, while professionals in smaller organisations are more embedded in
institutionalised routines, professionals in larger organisations are the least likely to participate in
the training and other post-certification activities provided by national professional associations
(Greenwood et al., 2002). Hence, there is an uneven distribution of the influence of professional
associations that becomes still more complex when approaching multinational entities.
Some authors argue that a new archetypal professional organisation is now emerging (Brock
et al., 2001) and that this requires a new theoretical approach in order to integrate this new
kind of organisation into the debate on professionalism (Evetts, 2009). As Brock et al. sus-
tain: ‘Institutional boundaries between professions, long protected by statute and tradition, have
weakened as governments deregulate professional services and firms move to take advantage of
new business opportunities’ (2001: 10). The expansion of international professional offices in
engineering, architecture, accountability, law and other fields, even in the health sector as Brock
et al. (2001) observe, has evolved and raised important challenges in recent decades given how

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these became the primary locus of professionalism. In fact, these organisations are now driving
new combinations of professionalism and managerialism.
Evetts (2009) argues that we are observing a shift from ‘occupational professionalism’ towards
‘organizational professionalism’. This organisational professionalism emerges in association with
hybrid logics such as management functions simultaneously incorporating traditional expertise
(Furusten and Werr, 2017). The global professional service firm is asked to adopt global standards
of professional practice with their work drawing on the expertise of cross-border multidiscipli-
nary teams (Faulconbridge and Muzio, 2011). Their clients are corporations and not individuals
aiming to maximise their interest (Rogers et al., 2017). The large professional firms are ‘a vehicle
for the sustained interaction between different national varieties of professionalism and the rescal-
ing of the mechanisms of the control of production of and by producers’ (2017: 143). The global
organisation or commercialised professionalism is enabling the global values and skills required
to perform as a global corporate professional. In this sense, especially in supranational corpora-
tions, the firm’s own definition of ethics may take precedence, leading to situations in which the
regulation of production by producers potentially occurs outside the orbit of any one national
professional regime (Faulconbridge and Muzio, 2011). In sum, traditional mechanisms of peer
supervision have become less relevant and often impractical (Rogers et al., 2017).
Although national regulatory roles are not suppressed, and one could expect international
professional associations to play an important role in balancing the tensions between the local
and global definitions of standards of practice, what is certain is that the situation inside inter-
national professional service firms is complex. As Faulconbridge and Muzio (2011) describe,
there are ‘multi-scalar sources of power and legitimacy inevitably complicat[ing] theoretical
understandings of processes of professionalization’ (2011: 147). The portrait by these authors of
the contemporary professional is quite expressive:

an Australian lawyer working in the Brussels office of a New York law firm on a contract
for a Japanese client with a German counterpart, which is governed by English common
law, but in which disputes are to be referred to the International Chamber of Commerce’s
International Court of Arbitration in Paris.
(Faulconbridge and Muzio, 2011: 146)

New public management

This last reference often also contributes to the ‘deprofessionalisation’ thesis associated with the
idea that professional powers are on the decline (Freidson, 1986; Moran and Wood, 1993). The
evidence correspondingly presented often revolves around the medical profession and highlights
how doctors are situated between power and pressure when working as dependent workers.
Pressures have seemed to mount in keeping with the generalisation of education and conse-
quent consumer demands (Chiarello, 2011), but especially due to organisations oriented by
principles of efficiency that condition professional decision-making autonomy.
As Moran and Wood (1993) noted in the 1990s, the archetypical free, independently work-
ing professional is becoming less common. Doctors often work in hospitals and other healthcare
system structures. Furthermore, a doctor working in a hospital in principle has less in common
with a private doctor than a private doctor with a private lawyer (Burrage and Torstendahl,
1990). In fact, the professional type, whether free-profession, capital profession, state profes-
sion, academic profession or political profession (Burrage and Torstendahl, 1990), forms a link
between political actions and social structures that explains why some argue professions need
analysing in relation to a wider social context.

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These professionals may have to deal with challenges to their professional autonomy, in
particular impacting on those publicly employed and not the entire extent of the occupational
group. The so-called ‘corporate rationalizers’ (Burrage and Torstendahl, 1990), who are dif-
fusing the new public management model (Fitzgerald, 2016), when intending to bring about
economies in resource usage address their attentions towards professional practices because both
professionals and their practices are costly. This paradigm strives for efficiency, promoting com-
petition between services, output controls, thrift in the allocation of resources and the decen-
tralisation of services, among other strategies (McLaughlin et al., 2002).
While the challenges to professional power remain highly path-dependent, they do tend to
interlink with public policies and the privatisation of healthcare and education. The involve-
ment of patients and public organisations’ representatives, inclusively on the board of professional
associations, also constitutes an identifiable trait of this managerial style. As regards the actions of
professionals, new public management seems to raise problems between managers and doctors,
for instance, with one of the solutions found involving ‘role merging’, thus a ‘hybrid medical
manager’ with its consequent impacts on boundaries and accountability (Fitzgerald, 2016).
Although developed in Britain and the United States, the new public management model has
spread to become one of the dominant management paradigms of North America, Australasia
(Evetts, 2009; Connell et al., 2009) and other regions of the world, advocated in conjunction
with a neoliberal ideology (Connell, 2009) and supranational governance agencies such as the
World Bank, the IMF and the OECD (McLaughlin et al., 2002). Considering how associ-
ated this paradigm is with privatisation and the marketisation of the public services and, at the
very least, its origins stem from ideas around a minimal state, it has evolved since its first forms
towards different models, such as community governance (McLaughlin et al., 2002) and social
entrepreneurship (Connell et al., 2009). In fact, this paradigm first emerged in the 1980s under
Margaret Thatcher, a period in which labour market deregulation advanced, before expand-
ing across different continents in the 1990s, as McLaughlin et al. (2002) identify. The per-
spective also recently achieved salience in European countries due to the IMF’s conditionality
policy during the financial crisis triggered in 2008. In these contexts, public services become the
residual system, the second-best choice for those unable to afford the real thing (Connell et al.,
2009), and intra- and inter-profession competition rises, thereby also jeopardising peer coopera-
tion and the relationship of trust with patients (Evetts, 2009).

Conclusion
Professional associations constitute one of the fastest-growing NGOs. The main reason for
this derives from the growing number of professions and occupations, as a result of increases
in education, wishing to influence their respective fields. In fact, the most common type of
professional associations operates a self-regulating role that transforms these organisations into
important public services providers, controlling access to a professional field as well as handing
down the guidelines for good professional performance standards, which they are then expected
to supervise and control.
However, their influence reaches beyond their particular professional field whenever they
hold membership association status. The double statute of representation and regulation turns
these organisations into powerful institutions in conjunction with the state. They not only
ensure peer control processes but also exercise their powers in the face of other occupations that
may nevertheless call into question the boundaries of their fields.
Taking into consideration the impact of globalisation on the service sector, not only has the num-
ber of international professional service firms increased but international professional associations

394
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also now play a more salient and diversified role. While international professional associations seem
to encounter limitations on their ethical vigilance over professionals due to tensions in the differ-
ent jurisdictions which intersect in the international context, they have also been performing an
increasing role in certification and lobbying. In fact, the provision of international certification by
these organisations proves a facilitating role for mobility. Simultaneously, international professional
associations also develop important lobbying roles within the scope of supranational governance
agencies, in particular influencing public policies and guidelines.
While the new public management has already built up over some decades, it nevertheless
seems set to remain a central question for research into the foreseeable future alongside other
important and productive areas on professional associations. We would here stress two other
potentially particularly productive areas for future research on NGOs and professions: on the
one hand, the positioning of national professional associations on the regulation of international
services; on the other hand, the development of competing organisations across different levels
of the professional field. Encouraged by an integrated view and driven by problem-solving, in
particular supranational public agencies and interdisciplinary NGOs may end up jeopardising
the monopoly of professional associations.

Funding
This text received support from the FCT project UID/SOC/50013/2013 – SFRH/
BPD/108014/2015.

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 28
Religiously affiliated NGOs
Karsten Lehmann

1. Introduction: a new and controversial field of analysis

Throughout the last two decades, international non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
have developed into an object of vibrant debate. Among those NGOs, organizations that
are described as ‘religious’, ‘faith-based’ or ‘spiritual’ – either by the protagonists inside
the organizations and/or by others from outside the organizations – are subject to particu-
lar discussions. The majority of these organizations (for a start simply labelled as ‘religious
international NGOs’ (RINGOs)) present themselves as a distinct group that provides an
emphasis on ethics or values as well as a particular access to the grassroot level (Bent 1986;
Mshana 2004).1 But there are also critics highlighting that the mere presence of RINGOs
in international relations questions the ‘wall of separation’ between religion and politics and
that they jeopardize some of the most important accomplishments in international politics
(Favret-Saada 2010).
Almost in parallel, academics have started to scrutinize the assumptions that form the
basis of these disputes. On the one hand, scholars underline the long tradition as well as
the heterogeneity of the NGOs in question – first with regards to the overall NGO land-
scape and second with regards to the internal structures of the respective organizations
(Shah, Stepan & Toft 2012; Toft, Philpott & Shah 2011). On the other hand, present
research makes the point that the (self-)descriptions of these NGOs lead to disarray and
that descriptors such as ‘religious’, ‘faith-based’ or ‘spiritual’ do not provide a resilient basis
to understand the role of NGOs in international relations. In other words: an increasing
group of scholars raises the question to what extent the identification of a particular group
of NGOs as RINGOs helps to better understand the role of NGOs in international relations
(Fitzgerald 2011; Hurd 2008).
The chapter at hand first provides an introduction to those discussions as well as an exem-
plary sketch of the developments of RINGOs in the field of international relations. For this
purpose, it focuses on a two-fold argument:

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• First, it supports the point that NGOs that are (self-)described as ‘religious’, ‘faith-based’
or ‘spiritual’ are increasingly present in international relations. They are highly diverse and
have changed significantly over time.
• Second, it argues that a ‘critical approach’ to religion is necessary to understand the activi-
ties of these NGOs: analyses have to go beyond the level of (self-)descriptions to work
towards an analytic concept that grasps the political dimension of the RINGO category.

To make this argument, the present chapter proposes to systematically distinguish between the
notion of ‘religious international NGOs’ (as a category of practice) and the notion of ‘religiously
affiliated NGOs’ (as a category of analysis). For one thing, this distinction will help us to grasp
the complex social processes that form the basis of the identification of a specific group of
NGOs that is labelled as religious. It also highlights the internal social process of affiliation that
stands at the basis of this distinction.
The text starts with general references to the complex construction of NGOs and religions
(section 2). In section 3, it presents three central topoi of the present-day academic debates on
the role of RINGOs in international relations. The next section adds empirical observations
dealing with different generations of NGO networks in the context of the UN (section 4). The
chapter ends with the proposal to use the notion of ‘religious affiliation’ as an analytic category
to better understand RINGOs in international relations (section 5).

2. Complex construction of NGOs and religions

The following considerations are not the place to sum up the multi-fold debates on the social con-
struction of reality in any sufficient way (Berger & Luckmann 1966; Schnettler 2006; Knoblauch
2014; Keller 2013). To adequately understand the following discussions, it is, however, helpful
to start from Rogers Brubaker’s (2012, 1–8) general distinction between ‘categories of practice’
and ‘categories of analysis’. This distinction – along with similar distinctions such as first/second-
order categories or emic/etic categories (Claus & Marriott 2017; Opgenoorth & Schulz 2010;
Hendry 2016; Bowie 2006) – puts a particular emphasis on the multi-fold layers of the social
construction of reality and invites us to have a closer look at the power relations that form the
basis of these constructions.
This helps to get a better idea of the complexity of the notion of the ‘non-governmental
organization’. The contributions to the introductory sections of the present handbook have
once again made it very clear that the category of the NGO started out as an administrative con-
cept that increasingly turned into a normative self-description as well as an analytic category.2
And this becomes even more challenging as soon as one takes into account that many NGOs
have a normative agenda that tends to emphasize aspects such as their joint ethical foundation
or their homogeneity as a group of organizations (Batliwala & Brown 2006; Boli & Thomas
1999; Stickler 2005).
Willetts (2011, 30f.) proposes two distinct strategies to deal with this situation: (a) a formal
and narrow strategy – in Willetts’ case based upon a definition of NGOs that refers to the formal
status of organizations officially accredited to the UN – or (b) a wide and generic definition that
will form the basis of the following considerations:

NGOs are any organized groups of people that are not direct agents of individual govern-
ments, not pursuing criminal activities, not engaged in violent activities, and not primarily
established for profit-making purposes.

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What is more central to the present contribution, though, is the fact that ‘religion’ is also
a highly contested notion (Masuzawa 2005; Taylor 1998; Davie 2013; Kehrer 1988). As a
category of practice, ‘religion’ stands at the centre of a diverse semantic field. Within the
context of European languages, this field includes notions such as ‘spirituality’, ‘faith’ and
‘Weltanschauung’ that underline individual(ized) dimensions of religion; whereas notions such
as ‘church’, ‘order’ and ‘community’ emphasize the multi-fold societal dimensions of religions
(Lüddeckens & Walthert 2010; Berger, Hock, Klaus & Klie 2013).3 Meanwhile, in the con-
text of international relations, the notions of ‘faith’ or ‘faith-based’ are increasingly substituted
for ‘religion’ or ‘religious’ – thus prioritizing the individual dimension of religion in quite a
problematic way.
The following considerations start from a differentiated understanding of Burkhard
Gladigow’s rather traditional and narrow concept of religion that tries to integrate these two
strands and is grounded in a specific reading of Clifford Geertz’s (1966) classic definition of reli-
gion as a system of symbols. Religion shall be defined as (Gladigow 1988, 34f.):4

a system of symbols that is characterised by its bearers with reference to undeniable, collec-
tively binding, and authoritatively given principles.

In a context such as international relations, however, one has to keep in mind that these systems
of religious symbols are constructed on three analytically distinct (yet interdependent) levels:
(a) the micro-level of individual spirituality, (b) the meso-level of religious organizations or
movements and (c) the macro-level of general discourses (Lehmann & Jödicke 2016). Taken
together, such a concept helps to identify religion as a complex socio-cultural phenomenon in a
political context such as international relations. In this sense, the definition serves as an analytic
tool to further assess three major topoi of the present-day debates on RINGOs in the context
of international relations.

3. Major topoi of the present-day debates

One of the interesting things about the present-day debates on RINGOs is the fact that they
are dominated by three distinct – yet entwined – groups of scholars: authors with a background
in the field of development, in the field of international diplomacy (with a particular focus on
international organizations) and in the field of international relations, politics or globalization.
The discussions among these three groups of scholars can be structured around three topoi:
first, the topos of the concept of RINGO; second, the topos of impact; and third, the topos of
internal differentiation (Lehmann 2010, 2011). Each of these topoi will now be presented in
greater detail.

First topos: the concept of RINGO

It is only since the events of the late 1960s/mid-1970s (Civil Rights Movement, Iranian
Revolution, visit of Pope John Paul II to Poland, emergence of the New Christian Right in the
USA etc.) as well as the late 1990s/early 2000s (fall of the Berlin Wall, terrorist attacks in New
York City, Tashkent, Madrid etc.) that we can see an increasing interest in the entanglements
of religion and international politics and thus in RINGOs.5 And this new trend is embedded
into fundamental analytical shifts such as the increasing prominence of a culturalist approach to
international relations (Krücken & Drori 2009; Huntington 1996) or the ‘resurgence of religion’

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debates inside sociology and the academic study of religions (Berger 1999; Riesebrodt 2014;
Riesebrodt 1990).
In the course of this new interest, it is possible to distinguish three strands of RINGO
definitions: Marshall (2013a, 3, 5) stands for the dominant strand of present-day definitions
of RINGOs that start from a rather traditional concept of religion and underline the internal
complexity of religions:

This book focuses on one dimension of the world’s religions: the formal institutions that
are specifically dedicated to governing religious communities and especially those institu-
tions that operate across international boundaries, and thus that take international forms . . .
‘Religion’ broadly refers to ideas and beliefs, elaborate schools and theology, a vast array
of institutions, and practices that shape daily lives from the moment they begin until their
final hours . . . [The] diversity of religious beliefs and institutions, even within congrega-
tions, not to speak of tendencies multiplied on the global level, must be well appreciated as
context for the discussion here.

Throughout the last decade, this type of definition has seen criticism from a second strand of
scholars, dominated by the so-called ‘critical approach’ to religion. The majority of its pro-
ponents have a background in a particular tradition of the academic study of religions that is
highly indebted to the ‘cultural turn’ in social and cultural studies. In a poignant discussion with
Katherine Marshall, Philip Fountain (2013a, 2013b) has made this point (Fountain 2013a, 23):

In these texts [e.g. Marshall (2013b)], religion is imagined and produced as an object with
certain inherent characteristics: it is transcultural, and ahistorical, clearly identifiable and
distinctive. It is substantive and essentialist . . . [In contrast,] I argue that the myth of reli-
gious NGOs is a political discourse that facilitates certain kinds of intervention. Its import
therefore lies well beyond ‘mere’ academic debates.

Fountain presents an approach to RINGOs that challenges the very notion of religion as an
analytic category by emphasizing the political agenda that forms the basis of this category.6
In order to adequately understand RINGO activities (he argues), one has to take the socio-
cultural processes into consideration that have led to the usage of this category and to critically
assess, for example, the respective processes of inclusion and exclusion. Fountain argues that
any study of RINGOs has to treat religion as a socio-cultural phenomenon, thus opposing a
‘sui generis’ concept that is primarily associated with the so-called ‘phenomenology of religion’
(McCutcheon 1997; Wiebe 1998; Taylor 1998).
In the midst of these debates, an interdisciplinary group of scholars from the University of
Kent have most recently presented an intermediate position, which takes the social setting of
the UN as an example to better understand the construction of RINGOs (Carrette 2017, 7–8):

[T]he central finding of this book is that we understand religious actors at the UN through
processes of the institution and that religious groups inside these processes reveal how these
actors are both ‘invisible’ and ‘visible’ at different strategic points. It establishes how religion
becomes part of what I will call ‘chameleon politics’, the emergence and disappearance in
procedures and processes, tactics and strategies of the UN system.

To put this in a nutshell, Jeremy Carrette and his colleagues add a three-fold argument to the
discussions: first, they make the point that it would be misleading to neglect the empirical

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observation that there is a group of NGOs that use the descriptors ‘religion’, ‘spirituality’ or
‘faith’ to position themselves in international relations. At the same time, they argue, however,
that – second – the usage of these descriptors does not necessarily provide those organizations
with transcendent characteristics. RINGOs rather are very much influenced by the very context
they are working in. Actually, Carrette et al. push this point even further and argue – third –
that RINGOs use this particular ambivalence as a strategy to work in international relations.
These debates on the concept of RINGO show that it is by no means self-evident that
RINGOs form a coherent group of organizations or movements. The notion of RINGO as
a category of practice is a highly complex one with fuzzy edges that are subject to contesta-
tions. Unfortunately, these highly sophisticated theoretical debates so far have had only marginal
impact on the empirical discussions of the other two topoi. The majority of present-day analyses
focus on case-studies and mapping enterprises that start from an emic category of RINGOs,
based upon the (self-)description.

Second topos: impact of RINGOs

Until today, the topos of ‘impact of RINGOs’ has primarily been approached by scholars that
analyse two contexts, where this category is a particularly established one – the context of devel-
opment and the context of international organizations.7 In contrast, discussions on the role and
impact of religions in international politics to a great extent omit the role of NGOs in general
and RINGOs in particular. And scholars in the tradition of the ‘critical study’ of religion also
tend to neglect the question of impact in their analyses. Correspondingly, the following consid-
erations focus on RINGOs in international organizations and development.
Among the authors that work on RINGOs in international organizations, scholars such as
John Nurser (2005) and Jeffrey Haynes (2014) – primarily on the basis of detailed case analyses –
highlight that the (self-)descriptions of RINGOs have long served as a stumbling block for their
activities in the field. They also stress that the complexity of international organizations makes it
very difficult to assess ‘impact’ in the first place. For example, there are very different narratives
on the influence of RINGOs on the early United Nations that range from the assessment that
they played an integral role in the set-up of the UN to the perception that they had but a minor
impact in a state-dominated field (Korey 1998).
This contextual distinction is a highly important one. Samuel Moyn (2012, 2015) and Karsten
Lehmann (2016) have made the point that any assessment of the impact of RINGOs on inter-
national organizations also has to consider the impact these organizations have on RINGOs.
Dealing with early human rights discourses in two Christian NGOs, Lehmann has argued that
these RINGOs underwent a development from ‘church diplomacy’ to ‘civil society activism’
that can be interpreted as an increasing impact on the UN context of those RINGOs. Samuel
Moyn adds a wider dimension to this debate, underlining the more general impact of human
rights discourse on NGOs as well as the role RINGOs played in the very establishment of
human rights discourses in Europe and the United States of America.
As far as the impact of RINGOs in the field of development is concerned, we can rely
on more general analyses. The most extended studies have so far been undertaken by the
World Faiths Development Dialogue/WFDD at Georgetown University’s Berkeley Center for
Religion Peace and World Affairs (Marshall 2007; World Faiths Development Dialogue 2018)
and the ‘Religions and Development’ Programme at the University of Birmingham (Rakodi
2014). In addition to those two big groups of researchers, the last decade has also seen an
increasing number of individual publications by authors that analyse the national and regional
role of RINGOs in the field of development (Bornstein 2005; Leurs 2012).

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So far, this increasing field of scholarship has come up with three main results:

• First, the studies highlight that the protagonists inside the RINGOs frequently see them-
selves embedded in wider religiously affiliated networks that shape their activities in differ-
ent ways. In almost all cases, RINGO representatives underline that these affiliations have a
significant influence on their recruitment strategies, their core activities and their forms of
resource allocation (Deneulin & Banon 2009).
• Second, comparative analyses highlight the influence of the wider cultural contexts on the
ways RINGOs shape this field of activities. Empirical studies propose that the strength of
civil society, the socio-economic situation etc. are central to answer the question of influ-
ence. The impact of the very same RINGO varies in different contexts (Flanigan 2010).
• Finally, the existing research underlines the multi-fold ways in which RINGOs are active
in the field of development. Most scholars suggest that development work is hard to under-
stand without the ongoing commitment and impact of RINGOs on development activi-
ties, and that this field is – at the same time – highly diverse.

In sum, research on the impact of RINGOs is restricted to specific fields of activities as well
as initial case analyses and mapping enterprises. Analyses highlight the presence of a group
of NGOs that is (self-)described as religious in the context of international organizations and
development. They underline the complexity of the field as well as the diversity that makes it
difficult to properly assess impact. The future will have to see more comparative analyses as well
as analyses that highlight the power processes that constitute this field in its diversity.

Third topos: internal differentiation of RINGOs

During the last decade, scholars have invested quite some effort into constructing typologies of
RINGOs. Most of these typologies start from detailed analyses of interviews, participant observa-
tions or administrative documents. Wider surveys and historical analyses are still the exception
rather than the rule (Bush 2007, 2017). Together, the existing typological reflections underline
three dimensions of RINGO activities: (a) with regards to their religious affiliations, (b) with
regards to their concrete day-to-day activities and (c) with regards to their general fields of activities.
As for the general fields of RINGO activities, a first important impulse for typologi-
cal reflection is associated with the work of Gerard Clarke. Clarke (2006, 840) identified
five specific thematic emphases of what he describes as faith-based NGOs in international
politics:

• faith-based representative organizations

• faith-based charitable or development organizations
• faith-based socio-political organizations
• faith-based missionary organizations
• faith-based radical, illegal or terrorist organizations.

Besides the fact that the category of ‘faith’ highlights – as indicated above – the individual level
of RINGOs in a very specific (and sometimes problematic) way, Clarke’s typology helps to
make the point that RINGOs do differ with regards to the explicit emphasis they put on specific
activities. On the one hand, RINGOs work in very diverse fields. On the other hand, these
fields affect their concrete activities as well as the ways in which they present ‘religion’.

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As far as the concrete day-to-day activities are concerned, Julia Berger (2003, 16) has offered
a typology of RINGOs that highlights four general dimensions of their activities, thus underlin-
ing that these activities cannot exclusively be explained by the religious dimension:

• the religious dimension

• the organizational dimension
• the strategic dimension
• the service dimension.

This forms the basis for the third typological approach that focuses on religious affiliation:
scholars such as Marie Juul Petersen and Jeremy Carrette/Hugh Miall have been looking at the
religious traditions RINGOs are affiliated with (Petersen 2010). These research groups under-
line the structural differences between NGOs affiliated with specific religious traditions as well
as the influence of religious affiliation on their thematic outlook in the context of international
relations (Carrette & Miall 2017; Carrette 2013; Carrette & Trigeaud 2013). So far, however,
we do not have sufficient empirical data to be in the position to construct typologies based upon
religious affiliation.
In total, these multiple typological efforts point in two directions: first, they add yet another
dimension of heterogeneity to the debates. Second, they hint towards the formative power of
religious affiliation in the field. To further substantiate this, the following section will now look
at three specific cases of RINGO networks in the context of the UN.

4. Networks of RINGOs in the context of the UN

The UN offers a unique space for empirical analyses on the role of NGOs in international
relations:

(a) The UN has been among the first political institutions that have started to formally
introduce the concept of the NGO into international politics (Willetts 1996). At the
moment, UN regulations differentiate between three types of NGO consultative status:
general status, special status and the so-called roster – each of them offering specific
privileges to the respective NGOs within the UN system. The procedures of the UN
foresee, however, no formal differentiation with regards to fields of activity. In other
words: there are no formal categories for ‘religious’, ‘peace’ or ‘development’ NGOs
(United Nations 2011).
(b) At the same time, it can be argued that the UN has developed into a unique working
environment – at least for a specific type of NGOs that target a global, politico-diplomatic
audience (Martens 2005; Kennedy 2007; Normand 2008; Herbert 2003). Certainly, the
UN provides no formal role of decision-making for NGOs, because this is perceived as
a prerogative of the states. The UN offers, however, a stage for NGO activities insofar
as NGOs participate in UN consultations and have the opportunity to present their own
agenda. In this sense, NGOs are firmly embedded into the UN as well as specific types of
discourses associated with it.

The following sections will present three networks of NGOs that are formally accredited to the
UN and that position themselves with references to the semantic field of ‘religion’ – using the
descriptors ‘religion’, ‘church’ and ‘spirituality’:

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Karsten Lehmann

• the Committee of Religious NGOs at the United Nations (CRNGO)

• the Church Center for the United Nations (CCUN)
• the NGO Committee on Spirituality, Values and Global Concerns (CSVGC)

All these networks bring together NGOs that are (self-)described as RINGOs – even though
the analyses will show that the different networks attract specific groups of RINGOs. In addi-
tion, the above criteria deliberately exclude two types of NGOs: first, NGOs that are dealing
with religion without formal religious affiliation (e.g. the NGO Committee on Freedom of
Religion or Belief: www.unforb.org) and, second, NGOs that have no formal affiliation but
are dominated by individual protagonists with an explicit personal religious commitment (e.g.
Family Research Council: www.frc.org).8

Committee of Religious NGOs at the United Nations (CRNGO)9

For the present argument, CRNGO is probably the most interesting RINGO network in the
context of the UN insofar as its protagonists explicitly use the descriptor ‘religious’ to present their
organizations. In this sense, CRNGO is a loose network of RINGOs formally situated in the
context of the UN. It has met regularly since 1972 – with new and stronger commitment since the
1990s. The CRNGO website helps to specify the activities of its members in three ways.
First, the website gives a general description of the network’s activities that also use ‘spiritu-
ality’ and ‘ethics’ as general descriptors and underlines that the members of CRNGO see their
particular strength in the pursuit of peace and respect:

The Committee of Religious NGOs at the United Nations is a coalition of representatives of

religious, spiritual and ethical non-governmental organizations who exchange varying points
of view and are dedicated to the pursuit of peace, understanding and mutual respect.10

Second, the CRNGO website documents that the committee holds monthly meetings of NGO
representatives between September and June. In addition, the committee organizes what the
UN jargon describes as ‘Side-Meetings’ or ‘Side-Events’ in the context of the UN. In other
words: CRNGO is closely integrated in professional NGO activities. In particular, it is com-
mitted to the ‘World Interfaith Harmony Week’11 – an official UN observance initiated by
Abdullah II of Jordan and formally adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2010.
Third, the CRNGO website provides a list of 37 member organizations (dating from
30 October 2015) – most of them formally affiliated to a specific religious tradition. These
RINGOs can be divided into five groups:

• NGOs that are linked to different branches of Christianity (e.g. the catholic order Maryknoll,
the catholic lay organization Pax Christi International or the protestant denomination of
the Salvation Army)
• NGOs that are exclusively affiliated to Hinduism and work in the field of peace and
humanitarian aid (e.g. Anuvat Global Organization or the Bharat Sevashram Sangha)
• NGOs that are attributed to Reform Judaism (e.g. the International Council of Jewish
Women, the World Union for Progressive Judaism and the Women of Reform Judaism)
• NGOs that represent particular segments of smaller religious traditions (e.g. the Baha’i
International Community, the Federation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America or
the International Mahavir Jain Mission)
• NGOs of an explicit interreligious character (e.g. the United Religions Initiative, the
Temple of Understanding or the Parliament of the World’s Religions).

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These observations open an interesting perspective on the ways in which the category of ‘reli-
gion’ is substantiated among RINGOs in the context of the UN. CRNGO presents itself as a
network of formal representatives of RINGOs that are characterized by their affiliation to spe-
cific segments of religious traditions (with a bias towards Christianity). In most of the cases, these
RINGOs stand for the more liberal strands inside their religious traditions (which is also mir-
rored in the self-description of the committees). CRNGO expands the descriptor of ‘religion’
towards ‘interreligious’ organizations (in terms of membership) as well as ‘spiritual’ organizations
(in terms of the overall self-description).

Church Center for the United Nations (CCUN)12

The most obvious difference between CRNGO and CCUN is the fact that CCUN uses
‘church’ as the central descriptor for its activities. In addition, CCUN is a very specific network
insofar as it is centred around a 12-storey building that was commissioned in the early 1960s by
what is now called the ‘United Methodists Women’. The building is decisively situated at the
corner of 44th Street and First Avenue just opposite the UN’s headquarters in New York City
to provide a space for NGOs that cooperate with the United Nations.
In a web-article (posted on 14 August 2013), Mary Beth Coudal – former staff writer for the
United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries – characterizes the initial idea behind the
Church Center in the following way:

The idea for the center was ecumenical, arising from conversations within various mainline
denominations and dialogues through the National Council of Churches. But the physical
building, the Church Center for the United Nations, is a visible testament to The United
Methodist Church’s leadership and United Methodist Women’s commitment to put faith,
hope and love into action.13

Today, three primary groups of NGOs use the Church Center as an office space:14

• The largest group consists of NGOs that have – in the widest sense – an explicit Christian
affiliation (e.g. the Ecumenical UN Office of the World Council of Churches or the
Ministry at UN of the Presbyterian Church USA).
• In addition, CCUN also attracts so-called interreligious groups with an explicit interest in
the work of the UN (e.g. Religions for Peace or the Temple of Understanding).
• The smallest group of NGOs at CCUN is composed of those that have an active inter-
est in the peace and human rights work of the UN but are not formally affiliated to any
religious tradition (e.g. Amnesty International – United Nations Offices, Global Policy
Forum, International Service for Human Rights).

In addition to the provision of office space, the Center also serves as a physical space for internal
meetings and public events. These meetings and events are not restricted to those organizations
that have offices in CCUN. They are, however, dominated by organizations that fall within a
similar spectrum of Christian affiliation, interreligiosity, human rights and peace activities. In
early 2017 the activities inter alia included:

• a meeting supporting the 62nd meeting of the Commission of the Status of Women
• a weekly Ecumenical Community Prayer and Meditation
• an awarding reception of the ‘Global Ambassador Peace Award’.15

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Compared with CRNGO, CCUN thus documents three further aspects of RINGO networks
within the UN context: first, it underlines that there are differences between the descriptor
‘religion’ and ‘church’. Second, CCUN shows that the fields of peace and human rights seem
to be perceived as congruent with the activities of the other RINGOs. Third, CCUN illus-
trates the existence of different levels or circles of networks around the physical space of the
centre: (a) a narrower circle of formal co-presence at the centre and (b) a circle of more general
cooperation on topics such as peace and human rights.

NGO Committee on Spirituality, Values and Global Concerns (CSVGC)16

CSVGC is the youngest UN-related network of RINGOs that will be presented in this text.
Originally, this committee was established in Geneva in 2002 (this initiative is no longer active).
In 2004, a parallel Committee was founded in New York City, and this committee forms the
basis of the following considerations. Formally speaking, the New York branch of CSVGC is
a sub-committee of the ‘Conferences of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the United
Nations’ (CoNGO) that consists of NGOs that are formally affiliated to the UN’s ‘Economic
and Social Council’ (ECOSOC) as well as the UN’s ‘Department of Public Information’ (DPI).
On its website, CSVGC characterizes its main aims in a way that brings together classic
wordings of the UN Charter (e.g. ‘peoples of the world’ or ‘universal principles’) with the idea
of ‘spiritualty transcending the boundaries of religion’:

Infused with a foundation of spirituality and values which are universal in nature, transcend-
ing the boundaries of religion, ethnicity, gender and geography, the Committee is resolved
to help bring about a culture in which we, the peoples of the world, can address together
our common global concerns in a positive, holistic and transforming way and live together
in peace with one another, thus realizing the core objectives and universal principles stated
in the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.17

The interesting thing about this self-description is the use of the descriptors ‘spirituality’, ‘values’
and ‘global concerns’ in the context of the CoNGO: on the one hand, CSVGC integrates NGOs
that use these descriptors into the much wider formal frame of the CoNGO. On the other hand,
the members of CSVGC explicitly integrate these concepts into the work of the CoNGO. This
two-fold integration is also reflected in concrete working groups of CSVGC that are called: Culture
of Peace; Eco-Spirituality; Health, Transformation and Spirituality; Sacred and Transcendental Arts;
Spiritual Council for Spiritual Challenges; and Spiritual History of the United Nations.18
In light of this, it is helpful to have a closer look at the list of the 35 RINGOs that were
present at the formation of the committee:19 apart from a small number of overlaps, the mem-
bership of CSVGC is dominated by organizations and movements that are neither members
of CRNGO nor have they offices in the Church Center.20 The present Executive Council
Members and Officers are, for example, associated with organizations that describe their activi-
ties in the following way:

• the UPF – Universal Peace Federation: the US-based international branch of Sun Myung
Moon’s Family Federation for World Peace and Unification inter alia organizing leadership
conferences and regional peace initiatives21
• the ATOP – Association for Trauma Outreach and Prevention ‘Meaningfulworld’: an
NGO promoting the advancement of knowledge about the consequences of traumatic
events with offices in Canada, the US, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Pakistan22

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 Religiously affiliated NGOs

• the BSS – Bharat Sevashram Sangha: an NGO from India focusing on social welfare23
• the Tribal Link Foundation: a US-based NGO working for the empowerment of indig-
enous people24
• the IISD – International Institute of Social Development: an NGO to ‘build a better
world’ and play a contributive role in the vision of ‘one earth one family’ with headquar-
ters in the US25
• the NES – National Ethical Service: a US-based NGO dedicated to promoting and
enhancing the highest principles at the United Nations, the American Ethical Union and
the Culture of Peace worldwide26
• the SMCSD – Sukyo Mahikari Centers for Spiritual Development: a spiritual and com-
munity service organization with headquarters in Japan teaching the transmission of light
energy that purifies the spiritual aspects of people and all things.27

This list illustrates that the descriptor ‘spiritual’ adds NGOs to the discussion that can be speci-
fied by three features: first, these are RINGOs that scholars of religion would position in the
wider context of ‘new religious movements’ or the ‘spiritual revolution’ (Heelas & Woodhead
2005; Höllinger & Tripold 2012). Second, the NGOs active at CSVGC include neither human
rights nor peace NGOs without explicit religious affiliation or interreligious NGOs. Third,
CSVGC is the only network here that formally connects its members via the CoNGO to the
wider NGO community.
This brings us back to the debates that served as the starting-point of the present considera-
tions as well as the notion of ‘religious affiliation’ as a concept of analysis.

5. Significance of the analysis of religiously affiliated NGOs

Taken together, the above observations should underline the significance of ‘religion’ as a basis
for NGO mobilization within the context of the UN. There are an extensive number of NGOs
that use descriptors from the wider semantic field of ‘religion’ to characterize their activities. It
would be a mistake to neglect these organizations in the analysis of international relations.
At the same time, the RINGO networks further substantiate the significance of the theoreti-
cal debates that have been summarized in sections 2 and 3:

• First, they underline the complexity of the construction of RINGOs in the field. The
notion of RINGO – as a category of practice – is used by various NGOs and in a variety
of different ways.
• Second, the above observations suggest that the field of RINGO activities is characterized
by a process of expansion. Those NGOs that are (self-)described as religious, faith-based or
spiritual are no longer dominated by Christian denominations or specific strands of other
religious traditions.
• Third, the previous sections highlight an interesting friction in the present-day dynamics.
Almost all the RINGOs use the notion of ‘spirituality’ to describe their activities. On top
of this, CSVGC is adding a distinct set of RINGOs to the picture.
• Fourth, there seem to be fuzzy boundaries between ‘religious’ and ‘secular’ NGOs. NGOs
such as the International Peace Institute or Amnesty International are perceived as at least
compatible with the other RINGOs.
• Finally, all of this has consequences for the discussion on the impact of the RINGOs. In
the context of the UN all these diverse organizations use the formal status of the NGO to
get access to the UN. This affects the way they work within this particular context.

407
Karsten Lehmann

To better understand these phenomena, the author proposes to use the concept of ‘religious affili-
ation’ as a starting-point for further analyses: as has already been argued at the end of section 2, any
analysis of religion in the context of international relations seems well advised to use a rather nar-
row concept of religion that helps to identify specific socio-cultural fields. Here, the author finds
Gladigow’s concept of religion helpful that conceptualizes religion as a system of symbols that is
(a) characterized by its bearers with reference to undeniable, collectively binding and authoritatively
given principles, and (b) constructed on the three analytically distinct (yet empirically interdepend-
ent) levels of individual religiosity, religious organizations/movements and general social discourses.
On this basis, the concept of ‘affiliation’ helps us to move away from all-too-simplistic,
generic concepts of RINGOs. It underlines that there are NGOs that – on the meso-level –
uphold (a) explicit references to systems of religious symbols in their self-description as well as
(b) formal links to all types of organizations and movements that make explicit references to
systems of religious symbols. These processes are, however, analytically distinct from individual
beliefs and the constructions of general discourses – for example, the human rights discourse or
the development discourse.
In sum, the concept of religious affiliation proposes to grasp these NGOs as a group of NGOs
that is distinct yet highly heterogeneous and with only fuzzy boundaries to other groups of
NGOs. Such an approach opens up new fields for discussion. To name but two:
First, it directs our attention to the fact that these processes of affiliation are highly complex
ones that cannot properly be understood without taking the underlying power structures into
consideration. One has to keep in mind that affiliation is a multi-layered, social process that has
to be achieved or imposed. Analyses have to keep these processes in mind while dealing with
RINGOs.
Second, the idea of religious affiliations puts particular emphasis on the ways in which affili-
ation is constructed. In the context of the UN, this is frequently done by formal representation.
The RINGO activities at the UN are almost exclusively undertaken by professionals that know
how to manoeuvre in a context such as the UN. It would be a mistake to identify their activities
with the activities of specific religious communities. They are affiliated with these wider bodies.
All of this asks for further empirical and systematic research: in the context of international
relations, the analyses should place further emphasis on the specific ambiguities that are char-
acterizing this field. On this basis it would be interesting, for example, to learn more about
their position in existing NGO networks as well as their influence on political decisions. More
generally speaking, future analyses have to further investigate the processes that lead to religious
affiliation in the first place. For example, there is an urgent need to include classic demographic
categories in the typologies.

Acknowledgements
The author wants to thank his colleagues Prof. Dr Eva Spies (Bayreuth), Prof. Dr Jeffrey Haynes
(London) as well as Dr Thomas Davies (London, and the editor of this volume). They have all
provided highly valuable comments on earlier versions of this chapter.

Notes
1 To take the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA) of the World Council of
Churches (WCC) as but one example: www.oikoumene.org/en/what-we-do/ccia (13.1.2018); http://
archived.oikoumene.org/en/who-are-we/organization-structure/consultative-bodies/international-
affairs.html (13.1.2018).

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 Religiously affiliated NGOs

2 See the first two chapters in this volume by Davies and Götz.
3 And this becomes even more complex as soon as one takes a global stance to look at the multiple levels
of the semantics of religion (Beyer 2006; Casanova 2009).
4 The original German text states:‘unbezweifelbare, kollektiv verbindliche und autori­tativ vorgegebene Prinzipien’.
See also: Gladigow 2005.
5 Among the classics in the field: Thomas 2005; Petito and Hatzopoulos 2003; Haynes 2007b.
6 See also: Fountain and Feener 2017; The Religious Studies Project (ed.), NGOs Series https://reli
giousstudiesproject.com/tag/ngos-series (13.1.2018).
7 Among the first publications in the field: Benthall and Bellion-Jourdan 2003; Ghandour 2002; Haynes
2007a.
8 In addition, the above criteria exclude all those NGOs that are not formally accredited to the UN (e.g.
most national and regional NGOs) as well as state actors (e.g. the Holy See or the Organization of
Islamic Cooperation (OIC)).
9 https://rngos.wordpress.com (13.1.2018).
10 https://rngos.wordpress.com/about (13.1.2018).
11 http://worldinterfaithharmonyweek.com (13.1.2018).
12 Facebook site of the Center: https://de-de.facebook.com/church.center.un (13.1.2018).
13 Mary Beth Coudal, ‘A Jewel for Peace, The Church Center for the United Nations turns 50’, http://
web.archive.org/web/20131028005646/http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umw/response/articles/item/
index.cfm?id=1198 (13.1.2018).
14 Unfortunately, the United Methodists Women have not been able to provide me with an up-to-date
list of the NGOs active at the Church Center. The following considerations are based upon an intense
web-search that produced 28 NGOs with offices in the building.
15 www.facebook.com/church.center.un (13.1.2018).
16 http://csvgc-ny.org (13.1.2018).
17 http://csvgc-ny.org (About Us) (13.1.2018).
18 http://csvgc-ny.org/working-groups (13.1.2018).
19 Unfortunately, CSVGC has not been able to provide me with an up-to-date list of its members. The
website gives, however, the affiliation of the Executive Council Members and Officers as well as a list of
the founding members in 2004.
20 There is only one NGO that is officially linked to all three networks described above: The Temple of
Understanding. Some RINGOs are members of two of the networks (e.g. Pax Christi International
and the Baha’i International Community). In most cases, however, the above networks stand for distinct
segments of RINGOs in the context of the UN.
21 www.upf.org (13.1.2018).
22 http://meaningfulworld.com/association-for-trauma-outreach-and-prevention (13.1.2018).
23 www.bharatsevashramsangha.net (13.1.2018).
24 https://www.triballink.org (13.1.2018).
25 http://iisd-ngo-us.org (13.1.2018).
26 http://nationalserviceaeu.org (13.1.2018).
27 www.sukyomahikari.org (13.1.2018).

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 Part IV
Regional perspectives

 29
Transnational NGOs in the
United States
George E. Mitchell1

The United States has played a significant role in the development, growth, and nurturing of
the global transnational NGO (TNGO) sector, both through its domestic policies and through
its international engagement abroad. Throughout the twentieth century, and particularly after
World War II, the domestic social, legal, and financial environment, coupled with US foreign
policy imperatives, have contributed to a favorable setting for TNGOs. This chapter provides
an overview of the historical context, funding environment, and accountability architecture
for TNGOs in the United States, and describes specific attributes of US TNGOs and of the
sector overall.

The US environment
The United States played a formative role in the early development of the modern TNGO
sector. Indeed, one of the earliest known usages of the term ‘NGO’ is attributed to the US
State Department during the negotiations surrounding the United Nations Conference
on International Organization in 1945, which itself took place in the United States in San
Francisco, California (Götz 2008).2 In 2017, US-headquartered TNGOs comprised 32 percent
of all TNGOs with consultative status with the UN’s ECOSOC.3 The United States has been
home to more TNGOs than any other country (UIA 2003/2004).
Public policy in the United States has actively sought to encourage a vibrant charitable
sector, which has proven to be very conducive to the flourishing of TNGOs in the United
States. Throughout the twentieth century and beyond, the United States has employed the
voluntary sector as a vehicle for relieving itself of burdens that might otherwise fall to govern-
ment, strengthening social safety nets, promoting domestic economic stability, supporting US
foreign policy objectives abroad through official development assistance, and improving the
efficiency of public service delivery through competitive contracting to private organizations.
Private philanthropy has also been a major contributor to the vibrancy of the sector, with many
prominent philanthropists and several large foundations shaping the sector’s character over time.
Despite these favorable circumstances, the sector has also faced, and continues to face, significant
challenges at home and abroad. Nevertheless, the US TNGO sector continues to expand as
organizations grow and change in a complex and dynamic environment.

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George E. Mitchell

Political and financial environment

Government policy has been a major catalyst in the development of the US TNGO sector. Amid ris-
ing taxes stemming from the introduction of federal income taxation in 1913 and the fiscal demands
of US entry into World War I, the Revenue Act of 1917 subsequently established an individual
income tax deduction for donations to public charities as a means of encouraging private philan-
thropy (Arnsberger et al. 2008). Decades later, in the aftermath of World War II, the European
Recovery Act of 1947, or ‘Marshall Plan,’ created a vast program to facilitate the rehabilitation and
reconstruction of Europe. This enterprise helped to establish the identity of the United States as a
premier provider of foreign assistance and promotor of international development.
The Internal Revenue Act of 1954 created the modern institution of the tax-exempt ‘501c3’
public charity, which is the legal persona generally adopted by TNGOs in the United States.
Postwar international norms establishing international development as a moral and practical
obligation (Chabbott 1999), conducive domestic fiscal policy, and the imperatives of post-
war relief and recovery all catalyzed growth in the US TNGO sector throughout the postwar
period. The ‘international’ subsector of US public charities continues to experience relatively
high rates of annual growth. Between 2003 and 2013, the number of TNGOs in the United
States grew by 19.3 percent (from 5,283 to 6,305 organizations), with combined annual rev-
enues growing by 49.7 percent in real terms to $32.4 billion (McKeever 2015).4
The international development norm strengthened during the Cold War as foreign assistance
became an instrument of foreign policy to maintain the balance of power between the West and
the Soviet Bloc. The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 created the US Agency for International
Development, which became a major provider of international development assistance to devel-
oping countries beyond Europe (Brinkerhoff 2008).
Later, in the context of the New Public Management (Haque 2009) of the 1980s and 1990s and
a movement in the United States aimed at ‘Reinventing Government’ (Osborne 1993; Williams
2000), multiple US administrations introduced initiatives to downsize and decentralize govern-
ment and improve efficiency by outsourcing public services to private for-profit and non-profit
organizations. In accordance with this ‘New Policy Agenda,’ NGOs increasingly became inter-
mediaries in traditionally bilateral aid chains (Edwards and Hulme 1996). The rapid growth in the
US TNGO sector and the reliance of the US government on TNGOs in the delivery of foreign
assistance required coordination across the US TNGO community, eventually leading to the crea-
tion in 1984 of the alliance organization InterAction. InterAction remains the largest such alliance
in the United States. It plays a prominent role as a convener, thought-leader, and standard-setting
organization that broadly represents the US TNGO community (Mitchell 2014e).
The New Policy Agenda of the 1990s coincided with the global geopolitical transforma-
tion that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. By 1991, the United States had asserted
the George H. W. Bush administration’s vision of a ‘New World Order,’ which was forcefully
demonstrated by American leadership in the Gulf War. In the wake of the US-led coalition’s
rapid and decisive military victory, the United States emerged as a global hegemon and pre-
sumptive guarantor of international stability. But the decades of the 1990s and 2000s introduced
new and unforeseen challenges. ‘Failed states’ emerged in the vacuum left by the demise of
the Soviet Union and the collapse of bipolar stability. US-based TNGOs became important
providers of humanitarian aid in the wake of ethnic conflicts in the Balkans, Rwanda, and
elsewhere, and became providers of ‘technical assistance’ to help formerly socialist states adapt
to global capitalism and integrate into the newly transformed international system. Billionaire
Hungarian-American investor George Soros’s Open Society Foundations are among the many
US-based philanthropic institutions that played an important role in supporting social and eco-
nomic transitioning in the post-Cold War period, and his organizations remain active in Europe

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 Transnational NGOs in the United States

and globally. Soros’s Foundation to Promote Open Society reported total assets of USD $7.3
billion and annual expenses of USD $435 million in 2015.5 In 2017 Soros disclosed transfers to
the Open Society Foundations totaling an additional USD $18 billion (Gelles 2017).
Although the United States has long enjoyed a strong tradition of institutional philanthropy, the
philanthropic ecosystem expanded and transformed markedly throughout the 2000s and 2010s. In
2000, for example, Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda Gates, merged their pre-
existing foundations to establish the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.6 In 2010, Bill and Melinda
Gates joined Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett to announce the ‘Giving Pledge,’ initially a
US-oriented initiative that became global in 2013.7 Billionaires sign the pledge to commit their for-
tunes to philanthropy. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is supported by contributions
from the Gates and Warren Buffet, reported over USD $40.4 billion in assets in 2015 and USD
$4.7 billion in annual expenditures.8 These and other foundations have become significant sources
of support for many TNGOs, as well as many other types of recipients working in areas such as
democracy promotion and global health. Other prominent foundations based in the United States
that fund international development, human rights promotion, or related activities include the
Ford Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the United Nations Foundation, the
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the Rockefeller
Foundation, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, among others (Salazar 2011).
The philanthropic landscape in the United States continues to evolve as newer generations
of social entrepreneurs experiment with impact investing and other innovations that blur the
lines between traditional philanthropy and business enterprise. In 2015, for example, Facebook
cofounder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan announced their intention to commit
99 percent of their estimated USD $45 billion fortune to advance social causes. Although they
chose to sidestep traditional 501c3 philanthropic vehicles in favor of a limited liability company
(Levine 2015; Hrywna 2016), their announcement is emblematic of a vibrant entrepreneurial
culture in the United States supportive of the missions of many TNGOs.
More than a half-century after the establishment of USAID, the US government still remains
an important supporter of international development and of the TNGO sector broadly. In 2013,
the United States in total channeled USD $6.3 billion in official development assistance (ODA)
through NGOs, representing 23 percent of all US bilateral aid (OECD 2015).
USAID’s aggregate budget figures suggest its general priorities. As shown in Tables 29.1 and
29.2, the top country recipients of USAID assistance have included Afghanistan, Ethiopia, and
Pakistan, while its top sectoral priorities have included population policies and reproductive
health, emergency response, and basic health (USAID 2017).

Table 29.1 Top ten country recipients of USAID assistancea

Country Expenditures (USD millions)

Afghanistan 1,263
Ethiopia 802
Pakistan 652
Syria 570
South Sudan 551
Jordan 478
Kenya 460
Nigeria 361
Uganda 341
Liberia 315
a
Statistics describe the 2016 fiscal year in nominal dollars (USAID 2017).

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George E. Mitchell

Table 29.2 USAID expenditures by sectora

Sector Expenditures (USD millions)

Population Policies and Reproductive Health 5,240

Emergency Response 3,301
Operating Expenses 1,641
Basic Health 1,365
Government and Civil Society 1,262
Agriculture 1,237
Basic Education 793
Other Multisector 638
General Environmental Protection 520
Conflict, Peace, and Security 409
a
Statistics describe the 2016 fiscal year in nominal dollars (USAID 2017).

In 2014, USAID provided USD $2.3 billion in support to US NGOs, representing about 8
percent of supported NGO revenues. Figure 29.1 displays USAID support trends over time and
Figure 29.2 displays the distribution of supported activities by sector. USAID support generally
only accounts for a relatively modest proportion of supported NGOs’ total revenues.9
As a percentage of the federal budget, US government spending on foreign assistance has
remained modest over time, alongside relatively adverse public attitudes about foreign aid. In public
opinion polls majorities of Americans consistently report that the US spends too much on foreign
aid, while dramatically overestimating the percentage of the US federal budget that they believe
foreign aid constitutes. Although foreign aid comprises less than 1 percent of the federal budget,
most Americans place the percentage at about one-quarter (Kaiser Family Foundation 2014).

$4.0 14%

$3.5 12%
$3.0
10%
$2.5
8%
$2.0
6%
$1.5
4%
$1.0

$0.5 2%

$0.0 0%

USAID support of US NGOs Percent of supported NGO funding

Figure 29.1 USAID support of US NGOsa

a
Monetary values are shown in constant 2014 US billions of dollars. Source: USAID VOLAG reports 2000–2016.

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 Transnational NGOs in the United States

Environment
Capacity Building
3%
5%
Economic Growth
6%

Health
Civil Society 36%
7%

Education
11%

Agriculture
13% Humanitarian
Assistance
19%

Figure 29.2 Focus areas of USAID-supported NGOsa

a
Chart displays data for all USAID-supported NGOs in 2014. Source: USAID VOLAG reports 2000–2016.

Environmental challenges
As much as TNGOs benefit from the US government’s global engagement, the events of
September 11, 2001 marked a turning point in state–civil society relations in the US and abroad.
The George W. Bush Administration’s global ‘War on Terror’ appeared to prioritize US national
security interests over many other traditional US foreign policy goals related to human rights and
democracy promotion (CIVICUS 2012). As the United States’ priorities shifted, foreign govern-
ments likewise perceived a window of opportunity to push back against civil society to stymie
or reverse significant gains that had been made in the period between the end of the Cold War
and 9/11. More recently, the Donald J. Trump administration’s 2018 budget proposal requested
a 28 percent cut to the Department of State and USAID, the elimination of funding for various
climate change initiatives, and significantly reduced funding for multilateral development banks
including the World Bank (OMB 2017). Moreover, rising ethnonationalism and anti-globalism
in the United States and Europe has contributed to a backlash against conventional norms of
US-backed liberal internationalism established at Bretton Woods in the aftermath of WWII.
Many US TNGOs and other global civil society organizations around the world now face grow-
ing skepticism and resistance. In Hungary, for example, George Soros and his Open Society
Foundations have come under attack by the state, state-controlled media, and groups such as
Operation Stop Soros (Dunai 2017).

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George E. Mitchell

Skepticism about the TNGO community within the United States comes from many quar-
ters. In particular, many practitioners point to the 2010 Haiti earthquake as a watershed moment
for public opinion about the TNGO sector. The severity and proximity of the humanitarian crisis
shined a spotlight on the substantial and enduring TNGO presence in Haiti, only to raise serious
questions even years later about the effectiveness and fiscal propriety of organizations work-
ing there—and elsewhere around the world. Presented with an opportunity to demonstrate its
effectiveness, legitimacy, and relevance to the US public and to the world, the TNGO commu-
nity largely failed to deliver, instead incurring accusations of financial mismanagement (Sullivan
2015), poor coordination, operational ineffectiveness, unintended negative consequences, and
even ‘humanitarian neocolonialism’ (Córdoba 2010; Schuller 2012; Schuller and Morales 2012).
The broader sense of dysfunction and skepticism symbolized by the scandals and backlash follow-
ing the 2010 Haiti earthquake response continues to reverberate throughout the sector. Many
NGOs have initiated significant organizational change processes in response to these and many
other longstanding challenges to their traditional models of operating (Ronalds 2010).

Accountability architecture: legal and cultural context

In the United States, TNGOs are typically registered as ‘public charities.’ This designation
exempts organizations from taxation and enables donors to make tax-deductible contributions
in accordance with section 501c3 of the Internal Revenue Code. For this reason, public chari-
ties are often referred to as ‘501c3s.’ The 501c3 designation is extremely broad and many
very different types of non-profit organization fall within it, including hospitals, schools, and
religious organizations. Of the 293,103 reporting public charities in the US in 2013, 6,305, or
about 2.2 percent, identified themselves as ‘international’ (McKeever 2015).10 Much of what
is known about the US non-profit sector is derived from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
Form 990, which certain non-profits must file with the IRS and make available for public
inspection. However, only about 35 percent of non-profits file the more extensive versions of
the form, and so very little is known about the vast majority of much smaller organizations for
which detailed information is not readily available.
TNGOs in the United States typically incorporate under state laws that provide addi-
tional state-level tax advantages for organizations that receive exemption under section 501c3.
Although these laws vary by state, the existence of the federal exemption requirements provides
a degree of national uniformity to the TNGO’s legal persona. In the US, the IRS has become
a de facto TNGO regulator in its capacity to administer the federal tax code and require public
disclosures through the Form 990. The United States has no federal regulatory body specifically
empowered to oversee the TNGO sector.
As ‘public charities,’ TNGOs in the United States exist in a legal and social context that
emphasizes fiscal stewardship and organizational trustworthiness. Mandatory financial disclo-
sures in the Form 990 are rigorously scrutinized by funders, information intermediaries, and
so-called ‘watchdog’ organizations. Many of these stakeholders are concerned with identifying
possible improprieties in organizations’ cost structures that could be construed as diversions of
resources toward purposes other than direct spending on current programs. Although legally
TNGOs have significant latitude in their spending practices, social norms enforced by infor-
mation intermediaries (such as Charity Navigator, the Better Business Bureau-Wise Giving
Alliance, and various other websites and media organizations) and funders effectually pressure
organizations to minimize overhead (the ratio of fundraising and administrative costs to total
costs), and minimize accumulated reserves and officer compensation, among other practices
(Mitchell 2015b, 2016).

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 Transnational NGOs in the United States

The IRS, state regulators, information intermediaries, and the various other online and
media organizations in the United States that surveil TNGO spending practices are influential
in the US philanthropic ecosystem. These institutions collectively comprise the overarching
accountability architecture for TNGOs, mainly for financial accountability to donors (Schmitz,
Raggo, and Vijfeijken 2012) and for conformity to sectoral norms that establish appropriate
financial benchmarks against which TNGOs are judged alongside other non-profits (Mitchell
2014b, 2016). As a relatively small subsector of public charity that typically fundraises at home in
support of distant programs, TNGOs tend to be scrutinized more for fiscal propriety than for the
substantive impact of their programs abroad. A few organizations attempt to evaluate TNGO
impact, such as ImpactMatters and GiveWell, but these initiatives operate on a relatively small
scale. For example, of the many thousands of TNGOs registered in the United States, GiveWell
only recommended nine in 2017.11
Some US TNGOs choose to subscribe to various ‘accountability clubs’ offering global
standards or codes of conduct that articulate specific norms and principles, such as The Global
Standard for CSO Accountability and Sphere (Gugerty, Sidel, and Bies 2010; Gugerty 2009;
Tremblay-Boire, Prakash, and Gugerty 2016). Domestically, InterAction members are required
to self-certify compliance with InterAction’s private voluntary organization (PVO) Standards,
which provide guidelines for governance, transparency, finances, marketing and fundraising,
management, and programs.12 TNGOs can also voluntarily provide information about their
impact through online platforms such as GuideStar Platinum.13 The US TNGO accountability
architecture as a whole appears to be gradually deemphasizing the historical reliance on cost
ratios in favor of an approach intended to enhance the visibility and accessibility of impact-
related information (Ogden et al. 2009). Charity Navigator is the largest and most popular
information intermediary in the United States and is known for its ratings and rankings of non-
profits based on numerical scores derived from IRS Form 990 financial disclosures. It launched
a ‘results reporting’ initiative several years ago, and more recently launched a collaboration with
GuideStar, GlobalGiving, Classy, and ImpactMatters to display information related to impact
alongside their conventional ‘star’ ratings.14 Although the domestic accountability architecture
for NGOs continues to evolve in this direction, the extent of such change is critically limited
by the unavailability of underlying data. At the federal level, TNGOs in the United States
are not legally required to collect or report information about their impact, and donors are
generally averse to funding activities that represent overhead or indirect costs (Marudas 2015;
Weisbrod and Dominguez 1986; Posnett and Sandler 1989; Callen 1994; Khanna, Posnett,
and Sandler 1995; Tinkelman 1998, 1999; Khanna and Sandler 2000; Okten and Weisbrod
2000; Tinkelman 2004; Marudas and Jacobs 2004; Tinkelman and Mankaney 2007; Jacobs and
Marudas 2009; Gordon, Knock, and Neely 2009; Kitching 2009; Marudas 2004), such as those
attendant to monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning. Indeed, impact-oriented
philanthropy represents only a small fraction of charitable giving in the United States (Hope
Consulting 2010).
Relative to other countries, the cultural environment in which TNGOs exist in the United
States is characterized by norms of efficiency and pragmatism (Stroup 2012), and appears to
preferentially reward organizations that substantially provide direct services relative to those
that pursue more abstract strategies involving transformative political activism (Mitchell 2014d).
For example, US-based TNGOs have been comparatively slow to adopt more overtly political
strategies such as rights-based approaches (RBA) to development (Schmitz and Mitchell 2016).
Domestically, US-based TNGOs are prohibited from political campaigning, which is defined as
explicitly supporting or opposing candidates for political office. Lobbying to influence legisla-
tion is permitted but restricted to an ‘insubstantial part’ of an organization’s activities.15

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George E. Mitchell

The legal restrictions on lobbying also tend to reinforce a notion that ‘excessive’ politi-
cal behavior on the part of TNGOs registered in the US as public charities is inappro-
priate. Although general advocacy is legally permissible without limitation, the sensitivity
toward lobbying appears to exert a ‘chilling effect’ throughout the sector. In interviews, many
US-based TNGO leaders downplay their organizations’ political activities, preferring instead
to emphasize the ‘apolitical’ dimensions of their organizations’ work (Mitchell 2014d). There
are other types of entity in the United States that are permitted to lobby without limitation
and to electioneer, but these entities receive less advantageous tax status and are perceived
differently by the public. Thus, for legal as well as cultural reasons, many US-based TNGOs
maintain at least a rhetorical aversion to politics, even if they and their foreign affiliates are
clearly engaged in some degree of politically relevant activism at home and abroad. There
are of course exceptions to this pattern, but overall, domestic conditions in the US can make
overt politicization challenging.
However, reform efforts in 2017 attempted to alter the domestic legal environment for US
public charities, including TNGOs. In response to a campaign led by a coalition of conserva-
tive Christian evangelical organizations, Donald J. Trump signed an executive order intended
to direct the IRS to avoid taking ‘adverse actions’ against non-profits, especially churches, for
violating the so-called ‘Johnson amendment’ – the provision of the Internal Revenue Code
that prohibits 501c3s from electioneering. Subsequent tax bills included language to effectually
repeal this provision. These reform initiatives have met with overwhelming opposition from
the US non-profit community, which fears that weakening the restriction against electioneer-
ing will politicize non-profits and erode public trust in the sector (O’Neil 2017; McCambridge
2017; Editors 2017; Wagner and Bailey 2017; Colinvaux 2017).

Sectoral and organizational attributes

Many of the world’s largest and most influential TNGOs and global TNGO ‘families’ are based
in, or have a substantial presence in, the United States. However, most of the sector consists
of relatively small organizations. Analysis of IRS disclosures allows for a basic financial descrip-
tion of the US TNGO sector, although information about organizations’ programs, goals, and
effectiveness is sparse. Nevertheless, some basic descriptions are possible.

Sectoral attributes
Resource distribution within the US TNGO sector is extremely unequal, with a small minor-
ity of organizations receiving the vast majority of the sector’s total revenues. On a scale of zero
to one, in which zero indicates perfect equality and one indicates perfect inequality, the Gini
coefficient for the US TNGO sector is approximately 0.94. The level of inequality peaked at
0.95 in 2009 during the ‘Great Recession,’ although annual growth in the overall number of
organizations remained consistently positive throughout 2006–2010. Table 29.3 ranks the larg-
est TNGOs in the United States (with average annual total revenues over USD $100 million) by
average annual total revenues.16 For completeness, Figure 29.3 summarizes the statistical distri-
bution of ‘small-sized’ TNGOs and Figure 29.4 summarizes the distribution of ‘medium-sized’
TNGOs. These distributions are drawn from the population of 501c3 public charities in the
United States designated as international and do not accurately reflect the presence of foreign
affiliates in global TNGO families.17 Many global TNGO families are composed of multiple
subnational, national, and regional affiliates with separate legal personas under the laws of the
various host governments.

422
Table 29.3 Distribution of large-sized TNGOsa

Organization Total revenues (USD millions)

Food for the Poor Inc 1,108.81

World Vision 1,056.48
Nature Conservancy 1,041.66
International Committee of the Red Crossb 1,005.34
Americares Foundation Inc 953.49
Feed the Children 897.00
University of Western Ontario Foundation Inc 801.56
Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere Inc – CARE 641.18
Jewish Agency for Israel 550.32
Plan International Inc 484.00
Brother’s Brother Foundation 445.29
International Relief and Development 428.79
Academy for Educational Development Inc 410.26
Compassion International Incorporated 397.96
Save the Children Federation Inc 361.04
MAP International 336.67
Population Services International 332.08
Operation Blessing International Relief and Development Corporation 320.19
Family Health International 310.08
Samaritan’s Purse 309.58
Institute of International Education Inc 290.71
International Rescue Committee 274.46
United Israel Appeal Inc 273.63
Direct Relief International 260.32
CHF International 248.88
American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Inc 248.03
ChildFund International USA 219.08
PATH 218.59
Mercy Corps 209.27
Catholic Medical Mission Board Inc 204.65
Partnership for Supply Chain Management Inc 203.44
William J. Clinton Foundation 178.96
Clinton Health Access Initiative Inc 173.70
Doctors Without Borders USA Inc 172.53
Management Sciences for Health Inc 170.52
Christian Aid Ministries 159.28
United Nations Foundation Inc 155.61
Fundacion de la Universidad del Valle de Guatemala 151.54
The National Cancer Coalition Inc 148.66
American Nicaraguan Foundation Inc 146.54
Pact Inc 144.84
JSI Research & Training Institute Inc 143.53
Children International 136.47
Kingsway Charities Inc 134.13
Interchurch Medical Assistance Inc 132.98
Asia Foundation 129.63
National Endowment for Democracy 124.34
National Democratic Institute for International Affairs 121.42
Sightsavers International Inc 119.57
The Carter Center Inc 116.52
Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening 116.26
Food for the Hungry Inc 114.56

(continued)
George E. Mitchell

(continued)

Organization Total revenues (USD millions)

World Learning Inc 110.46

ACDI VOCA 109.66
Hadassah Medical Relief Association 109.49
Islamic Relief USA 106.17
International Medical Corps 105.98
American Hospital of Paris 100.06
a
Statistics represent average annual (nominal) total revenues (inclusive of any government contributions) over the
period 2006–2010 and are presented in USD millions for convenience of display. Data are obtained from the National
Center for Charitable Statistics core public charity data files for the respective years. Selected organizations are those
designated as ‘international’ according to the National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities ‘major group 12’ classification
with average annual total revenues exceeding USD $100 million. Note that the list of organizations is based on IRS
Form 990 records for ‘international public charities.’ Organizations may be included that are not US TNGOs from an
international relations perspective.
b
Although the International Committee of the Red Cross is not a US TNGO but “a private association formed under
the Swiss Civil Code,” it is included because it files a Form 990 with the US Internal Revenue Service. See: https://
www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/misc/5w9fjy.htm.
1,500

1162
1,000
Number of TNGOs

759
714
500

442

327
265
190
142
100 106 88 80
73 66 48 55
43 41 31 41
0

0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0

Total revenues (USD millions)

Figure 29.3 Distribution of small-sized TNGOs

Although basic financial data describing larger TNGOs in the United States are widely avail-
able, information about the substantive activities of TNGOs is rarer as they are not required
to systematically disclose information about their impact to the public. Nevertheless, some
TNGOs voluntarily reveal such information. For example, InterAction provides some incom-
plete data for a subset of its member organizations. These organizations are most active in India

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800
762
600
Number of TNGOs
400
200

108
57
30 23 20 26
13 11 11 11 4 5 6 5 2 4 3 2 4
0

1 20 40 60 80 100
Total revenues (USD millions)

Figure 29.4 Distribution of medium-sized TNGOs

(151 projects), Bangladesh (106 projects), and Kenya (93 projects), and their most common
sectors of activity include health, education, and agriculture.18 Table 29.4 displays the full dis-
tribution of projects among reporting InterAction members. However, these distributions are
probably not representative of any broader population.
Although still not statistically representative of the sector as a whole, the Transnational
NGO Initiative’s interview project remains one of the most detailed studies of the US
TNGO sector to date.19 The combined revenues of sampled organizations account for
approximately two-thirds of the sector’s aggregate revenues. The research consisted of face-
to-face interviews with over 150 TNGO leaders across all major areas of activity. The
interviews covered a variety of topics, including organizational strategies and obstacles and
effectiveness, among many others.

Organizational attributes: strategies and obstacles

TNGOs in the US employ a variety of strategies in the pursuit of their missions. When asked
to describe their organizations’ missions, US TNGO leaders are most likely to discuss capacity
building and technical assistance (55 percent), direct service delivery (53 percent), and pub-
lic education (50 percent). Arguably more politically transformative strategies, including more
explicitly ideational activities, are comparatively less common. Less than one-third (31 percent)
of leaders counted advocacy among their strategies, and grassroots mobilization is even more
uncommon (19 percent). Moreover, despite the centrality of ideational power and information

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George E. Mitchell

Table 29.4 TNGO projects by sectora

Sector Projects

Health 1,025
Education 609
Agriculture 558
Economic Recovery and Development 489
Water Sanitation and Hygiene 332
Protection 321
Human Rights, Democracy, and Governance 217
Humanitarian Aid 160
Food Aid 145
Conflict Prevention and Resolution/Peace and Security 102
Disaster Prevention and Preparedness 101
Social Services 76
Gender 60
Other 60
Capacity Strengthening for CSOS (General) 56
Environment 56
Shelter and Housing 28
Refugee Resettlement 14
Animal Welfare 11
Communications/Technology 10
Energy 9
Construction 7
Transport/Infrastructure 3
Mining and Extractive Resources 2
Trade 2
Forestry 2
Debt Relief 2
a
Statistics are based on self-reported data from 111 members of InterAction. Data include cross-listed projects.

politics in TNGO scholarship (e.g. Risse 2013; Keck and Sikkink 1998), neither research (13
percent) nor compliance monitoring (5 percent) are particularly prominent strategies as reported
by TNGO leaders. These results are broadly consistent when TNGO leaders are directly asked
whether their organizations are involved in specific categories of activity. While most lead-
ers affirm that their organizations provide direct aid and services (80 percent), only minorities
agreed that public mobilization (20 percent), advocacy (28 percent), or compliance monitoring
(12 percent) are primary organizational activities.
Although some materialist accounts of TNGO behavior portray funding as a principal objec-
tive of TNGOs (Cooley and Ron 2002; Bob 2005), NGO leaders report funding as their
primary obstacle (73 percent). Leaders’ understandings of organizational behavior appear to
be consistent with a logic of ‘principled instrumentalism’ in which TNGOs are constrained
optimizers that attempt to maximize long-term impact given their principled commitments and
dynamic budget constraints (Mitchell 2014c). This poses a challenge for US-based TNGOs,
however, because domestic norms construe fundraising expenditures intended to relax future
budget constraints as diversions of donor resources away from current programs. TNGO leaders
frequently lament the difficulty of obtaining the unrestricted funding required to maintain core
infrastructure and support organizational growth, capacity, and resilience, as donors generally
prefer to restrict their funding to current programs (Queenan, Allen, and Tuomala 2013). The

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 Transnational NGOs in the United States

dilemma is exacerbated by patterns of organizational surveillance in the United States in which

an organization’s immediate fundraising expenditures, administrative expenditures, and reserve
accumulations are rigorously monitored, whereas the substantive results of TNGO spending are
usually not widely observed or reported.

Organizational attributes: effectiveness

When asked to define organizational effectiveness, most TNGO leaders (82 percent) describe
‘outcome accountability’ and a minority describe ‘overhead minimization’ (Mitchell 2013).
Under the outcome accountability conceptualization, leaders believe that their organizations are
effective when they achieve the goals that they promised to achieve, while under the overhead
minimization perspective, leaders associate effectiveness with low cost ratios such as the over-
head or indirect cost rate.
TNGO leaders were also asked to describe the attributes of peer organizations that they
regarded as particularly effective. In their responses, leaders stressed the instantiation of sound
principles or strategy (45 percent), grassroots approaches (27 percent), large organizational size
and resources (26 percent), being collaborative (24 percent), singleness of focus (23 percent),
campaigning abilities (23 percent), funding and fundraising prowess (21 percent), global scope
or large scale (20 percent), and quality people (20 percent). Moreover, TNGOs with leaders
who value similarities with peer organizations, grassroots approaches, diverse strategies, dedica-
tion, professionalism, and distributed organizational structures enjoy significantly higher reputa-
tions for organizational effectiveness (Mitchell 2015a).
Since TNGOs may rely upon ideational power to exert influence, a TNGO’s reputation for effec-
tiveness can significantly contribute to its authority. Reputations for effectiveness are especially impor-
tant in the information-scarce environment in which TNGOs operate, where credible, objective
information about organizational impact is rarely available. Moreover, reputation can also be instru-
mental for shaping patterns of collaboration, which in turn can influence organizational legitimacy
(Mitchell 2014a). In the United States, larger, older, more highly visible organizations, organizations
adopting hybrid strategies, and organizations headquartered in locations other than Washington, DC
tend to have higher reputations for organizational effectiveness (Mitchell and Stroup 2016).
The difficulties of defining and measuring organizational effectiveness have proven to be par-
ticularly recalcitrant challenges for the TNGO community. Many organizations have sought to
demonstrate their relevance and legitimacy through improved monitoring, evaluation, account-
ability, learning, and transparency initiatives, not only at the program level but at the agency
level as well. Many larger US TNGOs have experimented with agency-level measurement
(ALM) systems designed to aggregate information about programmatic impact to the organi-
zational level. Historically, these efforts have often focused on producing highly aggregated
‘count’ or ‘reach’ data and have yielded mixed results. For example, Mercy Corps’ Mission
Metrics initiative created a system of highly aggregated metrics to measure organizational-level
results, but the system was discontinued after three years because of its unclear value rela-
tive to its implementation costs.20 Efforts to evaluate the effectiveness of specific interventions
also face difficulties. For example, the International Rescue Committee undertakes rigorous
research to examine the impact and cost-effectiveness of many of its programs and interven-
tions, but the resulting knowledge can raise challenging questions about the appropriate role
of cost information in programmatic decision making, the tension between immediate and
long-term informational needs, and what to do when major interventions are determined to
be largely ineffective.21 While many US-based TNGOs maintain a rhetorical commitment to

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George E. Mitchell

impact measurement (Mitchell 2014e), the implementation of this commitment will remain a
core challenge for many organizations for the foreseeable future.

Conclusion
The US environment has provided fertile ground for the growth of the TNGO sector.
However, the apparent favorability of the domestic US environment may also be, ironically,
a constraint on the future relevance and impact of US TNGOs. The domestic accountability
architecture principally focuses on organizations’ financial characteristics, more so than the
substantive impact of their programs, offering incentives for TNGOs to prioritize the former
over the latter. In practice this can create dilemmas for organizations. For example, critical
investments that increase long-term organizational impact may be avoided if they would
increase short-term overhead rates (Mitchell 2016). This feature of the environment may be
conducive to the continued financial success of the US TNGO sector but may also limit the
sector’s ability to more fully realize its global aspirations.

Notes
1 The author thanks Amanda Stewart for her research assistance in the preparation of this chapter.
2 The language of Article 71 of the UN Charter enshrined the term, providing that ‘the Economic and
Social Council may make suitable arrangements for consultation with non-governmental organizations
which are concerned with matters within its competence’ (Willetts 2002; UN 1945).
3 In 2017, ECOSOC acknowledged 790 ‘international’ NGOs with headquarters in the United States
out of 2464 ‘international’ NGOs with consultative status. See: http://esango.un.org/civilsociety/
displayAdvancedSearch.do?method=search&sessionCheck=false.
4 Statistics are based on the numbers of 501c3 public charities registered with the internal revenue service
and designated as ‘international’ according to the National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities.
5 Data are obtained from the Foundation to Promote Open Society’s 2015 IRS Form 990-PF.
6 See: www.gatesfoundation.org/Who-We-Are/General-Information/Leadership/Executive-Leadership-
Team/Bill-Gates.
7 See: https://givingpledge.org/About.aspx.
8 Data are obtained from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s 2015 Form 990-PF.
9 Revenue diversification is one of many strategies that US NGOs employ to mitigate resource depen-
dence (Mitchell 2012).
10 The classification scheme for the National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities was developed by the US
Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the National Center for Charitable Statistics.
11 See: www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities.
12 As of 2018 the Interaction Standards are under revision to include impact, among other changes.
13 For more information, see: https://learn.guidestar.org/platinum.
14 For more information, see: www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&cpid=5510&fro
m=homepage.
15 Lobbying cannot be a ‘substantial part’ of an NGO’s activities as defined by two legal tests: the ‘sub-
stantial part’ test and the ‘expenditures’ test. According to the latter, smaller organizations can spend a
maximum of 20 percent of their tax-exempt expenditures to influence legislation through lobbying,
with the allowable percentage decreasing with organizational size. For larger NGOs, lobbying may
not exceed a fixed cap of USD $1 million. Penalties for transgression include excise taxes and loss of
tax-exempt status. Organizations electing to undertake lobbying must notify the IRS to declare their
activity and demonstrate that it falls within the acceptable legal limits.
16 Data are obtained from the National Center for Charitable Statistics Core Public Charity data files for
2006–2010. Statistics are based on five-year averages to control for annual variations. Data are derived
from IRS Form 990 records for ‘international public charities.’ Organizations may be included that are
not US TNGOs from an international relations perspective.
17 The list is derived from a legal or ‘juridical’ classification of entities and thus includes some organi-
zations that may appear to be inconsistent with the standard sociological definition of the NGO in

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international relations. For a general discussion of sociological and juridical definitions of NGOs, see:
Vakil (1997).
18 Data are self-reported from 111 of InterAction’s 191 members. See: https://ngoaidmap.org.
19 Data are obtained from the Transnational NGO Interview Study and reflect a sample of international
organizations evaluated by Charity Navigator (see: www.maxwell.syr.edu/Moynihan_TNGO.asp,
www.charitynavigator.org). This population accounts for approximately two-thirds of the US TNGO
sector by revenues, but may not accurately reflect the wider population of all 501c3 international public
charities recognized by the IRS. For more information, see: Hermann et al. (2010).
20 However, the process usefully identified learning opportunities for measurement and evaluation.
Interview with Barbara Willett, Director of Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning at Mercy Corp,
August 6, 2014.
21 Interview with Jeannie Annan, Director of Research and Evaluation at the International Rescue
Committee, October 27, 2014.

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 30
NGOs in the European Union
Matthias Freise

Introduction
Since the Treaty of Rome came into force in 1958, non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
have played an important role in the process of European integration. In the course of the deep-
ening and widening of the integration process, the number and activities of NGOs in Brussels
have grown constantly over the decades. The consensus-oriented decision-making procedure
presents them with numerous institutionalized and non-institutionalized channels for agenda
setting, interest representation and advocacy, and via the Economic and Social Committee, they
are institutionally integrated in the political system of the European Union.
Currently, the European Union is primarily an economic and legal community aiming to
realize a common market that includes a single currency and fundamental market freedoms
(McCormick 2017: 58). In the beginning, this goal was pursued mainly through so-called nega-
tive integration in the sense of the common dismantling of national rules such as domestic cus-
toms duties and other trade barriers. Later on, elements of positive integration complemented
the activities of the European Union and its predecessor organizations. This means that the
European Union is harmonizing the legal frameworks of its member states and is introducing
a wide range of uniform standards such as industrial norms, environmental requirements and
health and safety regulations at work (Scharpf 1999: 49). This has significant implications for
many policy fields, and from treaty to treaty, the responsibilities of the European Union have
been extended. In the Lisbon Treaty (the current constitutional basis ratified in 2007), additional
policies have been communitized by transferring national sovereignty rights from the govern-
ments of the member states to the European level where decisions are made in a complex supra-
national procedure shaped by extensive negotiations (Pollack 2015: 37).
Although in 2016 the British citizens decided with a narrow majority to leave the European
Union and the European currency was troubled during the recent financial and fiscal crises, the
EU is still very attractive for most of its members. Founded by six member states in 1958, it has
grown with the eastward enlargement to encompass 28 member states.
Today, beyond the common market and trade policy, the European Union has far-reaching
competences in agriculture, fisheries, energy policy, environmental policy, consumer protec-
tion, research and development, and cohesion policy. In addition, more and more aspects of

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justice and home affairs as well as foreign policy are affected by European regulation. This also
holds true for many social policies, although they mostly belong to the area of responsibil-
ity of the member state governments. Through this enormous increase of responsibilities, the
European Union is widely affecting the process of policy-making in its member states and plays
an integral role in almost all home affairs decisions (Wallace/Pollack/Young 2015).
This strong influence in domestic affairs has led to public criticism of the democratic legiti-
macy of the European Union (Wimmel 2009). Indeed, the EU’s political system is not reaching
the democratic standards of nation states. Although the competences of the European Parliament,
the only directly elected institution of the EU, have been upgraded over the years, the EU still
lacks substantial elements of democratic participation (Hix/Follesdal 2006). For instance, there
is no real electoral contest in relation to the political leadership at the European level, and
the citizens cannot decide about the basic direction of the EU policy agenda. Furthermore,
the unsatisfactory accountability of the European Commission is criticized, and the process of
decision-making is so complex that most European citizens do not understand how the EU
works (Fossum/Pollak 2015: 35).
The European Commission has acknowledged this problem and, with its White Paper
on European Governance (2001), initiated a consultation regime that bestowed on NGOs a
more prominent role in the process of EU policy-making by opening venues of interest rep-
resentation. In particular, NGOs representing values and social rights have profited from the
change in procedures, and at the time of writing more than 3,000 NGOs are registered in the
European Transparency Register, most of them engaged in agenda setting, advocacy and inter-
est representation.
The following sections introduce a taxonomy of NGOs in Brussels, explain the importance
of NGOs in the political system of the European Union, illustrate the functions of NGOs in the
integration process and discuss democratic challenges of the system of interest representation in
the European Union.

NGOs in Brussels
Most academic contributions relating to NGOs in the European Union focus on these organi­
zations as a part of the ramified system of interest representation (e.g. Greenwood 2011; Wolff
2013; van Schendelen 2013). In this context, NGOs are attributed to the organized civil soci-
ety, which influences the process of decision-making by lobbying particularly the European
Commission and the European Parliament. However, even now, there is no generally accepted
definition of NGOs in European integration research. A reason for this might be the very
broad understanding of civil society that is used in the documents of the European Union (Pitz
2015: 60). Therein, essentially all organized non-state entities are categorized as part of civil
society. Traditionally, these are the social partners (trade unions and employer’s associations);
however, business-oriented organizations such as chambers of commerce, business federations
and even in-house lobbyists of companies are also considered as NGOs in various EU docu-
ments (Freise 2008).
In a communication on the role of NGOs in international development policies, the
Commission has specified four basic criteria organizations have to fulfil to be classified as NGOs:
(1) They have to be established voluntarily by citizens seeking to promote their concerns, values
or identities; (2) they are organized around the promotion of an issue or the interests of a par-
ticular segment of society; (3) they are autonomous from the state; and finally, (4) they do not
aim to maximize profits (Tanasescu 2009: 67).

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This definition is very similar to the concept used by the United Nations Economic and
Social Council and has been further refined for the purpose of the European Transparency
Register, introduced in 2011. The voluntary lobbyist registry is operated jointly by the European
Parliament and the European Commission1 and covers six different kinds of interest groups:
(1) Professional consultancies, (2) trade/business/professional associations, (3) NGOs, (4) think
tanks and academic institutions, (5) organizations representing churches and religious communi-
ties and (6) organizations representing local, regional and municipal entities. The registry pro-
vides information on staff numbers of the registered organizations, the legislative proposals they
have attempted to influence and the amount of EU funding they have received. By registering,
the lobbyists gain easier access to the European Parliament and can benefit from a number of
information services of the European Commission.
However, there is no legal obligation to register for lobbyists active in the EU. Hence, it is very
likely that many more actors are engaged in the area of interest representation in Brussels, particu-
larly business interests. Furthermore, a study published by Transparency International in 2015 has
shown that up to 50 per cent of the entries include incorrect data (Ariès 2015). Nevertheless, the
register is currently the most comprehensive data source available on NGOs in the EU.
In October 2017, approximately 11,500 organizations were listed in the register. Some 3,000
of them are categorized as NGOs, of which some 900 run an office with at least one employee
in Belgium ‒ a strong indicator for direct activities in Brussels. In addition, some 30 churches and
religious-oriented NGOs and roughly 120 academic think tanks are registered. In contrast, more
than 2,600 business-oriented interest groups with a Belgian office, together employing 6,000
people, are listed in the register. In terms of staffing and financial resources, industrial interest
groups are considerably better equipped than their counterparts from the NGO sector (Frantz/
Martens 2006: 105).
A closer look at NGOs in Brussels reveals many different kinds operating in the system
of European interest representation. The largest groups by far are so-called umbrella umbrellas.
These are NGOs founded as federations for national (and sometimes subnational) umbrella
associations, on whose behalf they represent interests in the institutions of the European Union.
By way of some examples:2 The European Cancer Patient Coalition represents 40 national
cancer self-help federations from all 28 EU member states and many other European and non-
European countries. The European Anti-Poverty Network is a platform of 31 national networks
of voluntary organizations and grassroots groups within the member states of the EU and of 13
European organizations whose main activities are related to poverty and social exclusion. The
European Cyclists’ Federation serves as the European umbrella of 62 national cyclists associations.
It is active, inter alia, in the fields of cycling tourism, the economy, health and environment, urban
mobility and road safety. Today, hundreds of such umbrella umbrellas are present in Brussels and
concentrate particularly on the highly communitized policy areas that are within the regulatory
competence of the European Commission, which is the central target of their lobbying activities.
The same holds true for national umbrella organizations that have their own offices in Brussels.
They form a second, much smaller group of NGOs in Brussels. Since the membership in umbrella
umbrella associations demands a high level of readiness to compromise, a number of large and
financially strong national umbrella organizations have developed a twin-track strategy of interest
representation. On the one hand, they open their own representative offices in Brussels. On the
other hand, they become members of the European federation that corresponds to their interests.
A typical example is the German Caritas, one of the largest German welfare associations. While it
runs its own office in Brussels, it is also a member of Caritas Europe, which opens other channels
of access to the European institutions, for instance the Social Platform, a coalition of the largest

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European rights- and value-based NGOs working in the social sector. Most of the national
umbrella organizations with their own representation offices are from the most populous mem-
ber states of the European Union (Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the UK).
A third category of NGOs in Brussels are the EU units and liaison offices of international non-
governmental organizations (INGOs). Greenpeace, Save the Children International, Oxfam, World
Vision, Amnesty International, Transparency International, Robin Wood and many more INGOs
are represented in Brussels. Particularly in the environmental, agricultural, fisheries and consumer
protection policy areas, they are important sources of expertise for the European Commission,
which consults them extensively. Furthermore, they serve as influential agenda setters.
Finally, church and church-related organizations and think tanks are other specific types of NGOs
in the political system of the European Union. While the former, such as the European Jewish
Association, the Hindu Forum of Europe and the Consilium Conferentiarum Episcoporum
Europae (Council of European Bishops), fulfil predominantly the function of interest representa-
tion, think tanks conduct research and try to influence the political agenda in Brussels. Typical
examples of such think tanks are the Centre for European Policy Studies and the German political
foundations, among them the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.
Most of the NGOs represented in Brussels are established as voluntary associations under
Belgian law. However, this is not mandatory and other legal forms such as the foundation are
used by NGOs, too. In regards to the fields of activity, most NGOs in Brussels indicate that
they focus on the communitized policy areas that fall under the jurisdiction of the community
method. Figure 30.1 illustrates the number of NGOs with offices in Brussels for the most rele-
vant policy fields of the European Union and compares it with business-oriented interest groups
listed in the Transparency Register (multiple self-attributions possible).

Trade 1241
219
Regional Policy 770
267
Humanitarian Aid 276
241
Foreign and Security Policy and Defence 461
191
Food Safety 712
189
Fisheries and Aquaculture 302
103
Environment 1553
353
Employment and Social Affairs 1007
394
Consumer Affairs 1202
221
Competition 1381
167
Climate Action 1122
257
Agriculture and Rural Development 667
218
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800

All other European interest groups with a Belgium office European NGOs with a Belgium of fice

Figure 30.1 NGOs and business-oriented lobbyists and their fields of activity
Source: European Transparency Register (09/25/2017)

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 NGOs in the European Union

NGOs in the political system of the European Union

To understand how NGOs are integrated in the political system of the European Union, basic
knowledge of the specific construction of the EU’s polity is essential. The European Union has
been described as “the most complex democratic system in the world” (Schmitter 2000: 13),
and indeed, the EU’s governance architecture is shaped by a number of unique features which
cannot be found in political systems of nation states.
First of all, the European Union lacks a distinct centre of power usually found in the presi-
dent’s or prime minister’s office in presidential and parliamentarian systems. Instead, the treaties
of the European Union have installed a system of strong institutional interdependence in the
processes of legislation and policy implementation (Peterson/Shackelton 2012: 8). In the com-
munitized policy fields, the European Commission has the exclusive right to initiate legislation
(directives and regulations). Furthermore, it ensures compliance with EU law in the member
states and can launch infringement procedures against the member states, which are decided by
the European Court of Justice (Hix/Høyland 2011). In addition, the Commission manages the
EU’s relatively small budget and allocates funding (e.g. agricultural and cohesion funds).
However, compared to national governments, the Commission lacks the typical instruments
of executive power for policy implementation: It has neither police nor military forces, and
the administrative body of the European Commission is very small. In 2017, the Commission
employs about 32,000 staff to administer policies affecting half a billion people.3 Hence, the
European Commission has more of a coordinating function in the implementation of European
legislation (Peterson 2012). The bulk of policy implementation is carried out by the admin-
istrations of the member states, which are represented by their governments in the European
Council and the Council of Ministers.
The European Council is the committee of Heads of State and Governments of the member
states. Officially, it is not embedded in the legislative process but serves as an overarching insti-
tution that seeks compromises and gives impetus for the further development of the European
integration process. By contrast, the Council of Ministers in its 10 different topical configura-
tions plays a central role in the legislative process: It is the first chamber in the bicameral leg-
islative process and makes decisions about Commission-proposed initiatives in a co-decision
procedure with the European Parliament (the second chamber). The Council of Ministers is the
more powerful of the two chambers, since it decides in the last instance on the revenue side of
the budget and since, ultimately, the members of the Council are the ones executing European
law in their countries.
The European Parliament is the only institution in the political system whose members are
directly elected by the citizenry (Shackelton 2012). In relation to communitized policies, it is
as powerful as the Council of Ministers and can block legislation. Furthermore, it elects the
members of the European Commission and is able to initiate a vote of no confidence against
them. However, it cannot nominate the members of the Commission, that being the role of
the Council of Ministers. In contrast to the political systems of democratic nation states, nei-
ther the Council of Ministers nor the European Parliament can initiate legislation. As noted
previously, this competence is reserved for the European Commission exclusively. Figure 30.2
gives an overview of the functioning of the political system of the EU.
In this complex polity, the European Commission, European Parliament and Council of
Ministers form a kind of “magic triangle of legislation” (Wessels 2013) which is shaped by a
maximum degree of mutual dependencies and which requires permanent cooperation among
the institutions. This effect is intensified by the spirit of the Luxembourg Compromise, which
was reached in 1966 in the European Economic Community (an EU predecessor). The core

437
Matthias Freise

Heads of elect /constitute

State/Government

National Parliaments elect National Governments

European Court of appoint constitute

Central Bank Auditors
President President

European Court European

appoint European Council
of Justice Commission
initiates
approves/controls formulates principles
President § Legislation §
(Directives and Regulations)
European
Parliament Council of Ministers
decides influence decides

Economic and Social Committee of the

Committee Regions
elect
Interest Groups (NGOs, Trade Unions, Employers’ Associations, Companies etc.)

Citizens of the Member States

Figure 30.2 The political system of the European Union

Source: Author’s illustration.

statement of this agreement was that the European Union considers so-called “vital interests”
of the member states and avoids majority decisions whenever possible (Nedergaard 2007: 168).
Although each of the subsequent treaties extended the possibility of qualified-majority deci-
sions, such decisions have been taken very rarely. Instead, the political system of the EU can be
described as a “veritable consensus generating machine” (Bickerton 2012: 31) which takes into
account as many perspectives as possible and which has developed a number of specific proce-
dures, such as package solutions and compensation payments to satisfy all stakeholders affected
by its political decisions. For this reason, the political system of the EU is dependent on the
input of interest representation of all kinds, and it has created a number of institutionalized and
non-institutionalized channels of influence for NGOs and other lobbyists (Michalowitz 2007).

The European Economic and Social Committee

The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) is a formal body that represents social-
economic interests within the political system of the European Union. It was introduced in
the Treaty of Rome in 1957. In 1993, the Council of the Regions (CoR) was established as a
second consultative body for representing the regional authorities and municipalities. Today,
both the EESC and the CoR share more or less the same rights to be heard and adopt opinions
on European legislation. However, they have no decision-making powers.
The EESC is the heritage of the corporatist tradition of the six founding members of the
European Economic Community (Jeffrey/Rowe 2012: 361). Corporatist systems are shaped
by the institutionalized involvement of relevant societal and economic groups in the process of
policy-making and are a typical feature of the so-called Rhine capitalism. The key concern of

438
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this economic order is increasing the legitimacy and efficiency of governing through the inclu-
sion of central societal actors (Schmitter 1985). Following this logic, the Lisbon Treaty assigns
the EESC advisory functions for the Parliament, the Commission, the European Council and
the Council of the European Union (Council of Ministers). Its members consist of three dif-
ferent groups: (1) representatives of employers’ associations, (2) representatives of trade unions
and other organizations of the employed and (3) representatives of civil society organizations,
notably in socio-economic, civic, professional and cultural areas.
The EESC and CoR each has 350 members, with membership distributed according to the
size of the member states. France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom delegate 24 mem-
bers each while Malta, Cyprus and Luxembourg as the smallest countries have five seats each
(see Figure 30.3). The members of the EESC are nominated by the national governments for a
term of five years. Because of its tradition as a social-economic advisory body, representatives of
trade unions and employers’ associations as well as of producers, farmers, carriers and craftsmen
dominate the committee. However, since the beginning of the 2000s, national governments
have increasingly nominated representatives of various social NGOs, particularly from the social
economy and from advocacy organizations for vulnerable groups. For instance, the Disabled
Peoples’ Organizations of Denmark, the Italian Association of Social Cooperatives, the French
National Union of Family Associations and the Czech Caritas are currently represented in the
EESC. Furthermore, representatives of consumers associations have a large share of the 111
EESC members assigned to group 3.4
According to the Lisbon Treaty (Art. 304), the EESC must be consulted by both the Council
of Ministers and the Commission in 18 specified policy fields, among them free movement of

9 members
Croatia
Denmark
Finland
Ireland
Lithuania 7 members
12 members Slovakia Latvia
Austria Slovenia 6 members
Belgium Estonia
Bulgaria
Czech Republic
5 members
Greece
Cyprus
Hungary
Luxembourg
Netherlands
Malta
Portugal
Sweden

24 members
France
Germany
15 members Italy
Romania 21 members
UK
Poland
Spain

Figure 30.3 The 350 members of the European Economic and Social Committee by
EU member states
Source: Author’s compilation.

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Matthias Freise

labour, internal market, economic and social cohesion, social policies, environment, employment,
equal opportunities, and public health. Furthermore, optional consultation by the Commission, the
Council or the Parliament in other areas is possible. In practice, the European Commission submits
its draft legislation to the EESC, which forwards them to one of its seven thematically specialized
sections. The members of these sections try to agree on a joint opinion, which is then submitted for
approval by the plenum. The opinions that are ultimately adopted are passed on to the Commission,
the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament.
However, the right to submit opinions does not necessarily mean that those opinions are
taken into consideration or even read by the European institutions (Jeffrey/Rowe 2012: 365).
Consequently, the influence of the EESC on policy-making in the European Union is deemed
in scholarly literature to be peripheral, and over the years, there have been a number of ini-
tiatives proposing its abolition (Eisele 2008). In particular the legitimacy of the appointment
procedure of the members by the national governments is disputed (Jeffrey/Rowe 2012: 366).
On the other hand, some authors argue that the EESC has strengthened the deliberative qual-
ity of decision-making in Europe. Indeed, particularly in policy areas related to labour market
issues and social economy, the institutions have occasionally acted on suggestions submitted by the
committee (Pitz 2015; Smismans 2000). In 2004, the EESC set up a Liaison Group with “repre-
sentatives of the main sectors of European organized civil society”. Composed of both representa-
tives of the EESC and 21 members of civil society umbrella organizations such as the European
Youth Forum, the Platform of European Social NGOs and the European Volunteer Center, the
Liaison Group acts primarily as an exchange body, facilitating dialogue between the EESC and
selected civil society organizations. It also organizes hearings and seminars in cooperation with the
European Commission with the objective of promoting greater influence of NGO interests in the
policy-making process.
Nevertheless, the development of alternative channels of influence for interest representa-
tion, such as the social and civil dialogues (discussed below) and the establishment of an exten-
sive lobbying scene in Brussels, has definitely curtailed the EESC’s influence. Furthermore, the
expansion of the Parliament’s rights has reduced the committee’s function as a representative
body (Jeffrey/Rowe 2012: 380).

Social and civil dialogue and the European consultancy regime

The social dialogue and the civil dialogue are institutionalized procedures of including NGOs and
other voluntary organizations in the negotiation process in various European policy areas. The
social dialogue is the elder concept, and in the working routines of the European Commission,
it plays a much more important role (Obradovic 2005). It is regulated in Articles 151 to 156 of
the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Therein, the EU and the member states
agree on the social dialogue as a component of the European social model that gives the social
partners (representatives of management and of labour) the opportunity to contribute actively in
the design of European social policy. The dialogue takes two main forms: a tripartite dialogue
involving governmental authorities and a bipartite dialogue between the European employers’
and trade union organizations. Such dialogues take place at cross-industry level and within sec-
toral social dialogue committees. Particularly regarding questions concerning the social rights of
workers, working conditions, industrial safety, employment policy and social inclusion, the social
partners have far-reaching participation rights.
A cross-industry social dialogue committee (SDC) of currently 66 European trade unions and
sectoral organizations representing employers’ associations meets three or four times a year. In
practice, the social dialogue is organized as a consultation process. In a first step, the commission

440
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submits its draft legislation from the field of social and employment policy to the SDC. In
the event that the committee announces its intention to open negotiations, the Commission
suspends the legislative process and waits to determine whether the social partners are able to
agree on a joint statement. If the social partners negotiate a joint position, the Commission can
and usually does adopt it for further legislative action (Pitz 2015: 61). This procedure has given
strong influence to the social partners, and in the past, a number of European directives and
regulations, for instance, on occupational health and safety of hairdressers (2016) and on inclu-
sive labour markets (2010), have been significantly influenced by the SDC.
The social dialogue is a typical example of European governance that involves many negotia-
tion partners. The European Commission outsources the legal phrasing to the affected stakehold-
ers who are interested in a compromise solution and announces that it will introduce its own draft
legislation in case the social partners cannot agree on a joint position. Thereby, it exerts pressure
for the parties to come to agreement. As a result, the social dialogue is very effective and can
achieve a high degree of legitimacy among the stakeholders (Scott/Trubek 2002: 4). However,
since the economic crisis that began in 2008, this social dialogue has lost bargaining power and
been sidelined, as member states increasingly made decisions on crisis measures and intervened
in wage policy without consulting the social partners. Against this background, the Commission
undertook several attempts to re-launch and strengthen the social dialogue, especially in the new,
post-crisis economic governance.
In the Treaty of Lisbon, the member states obliged the European Union for the first time to
“maintain an open, transparent and regular dialogue with representative associations and civil
society” (Treaty on European Union, Art. 11). This so-called civil dialogue was already being
used by the Commission before the Lisbon Treaty came into force. However, Article 11 was
an innovative feature of the treaty text and enshrined the principle of participatory democracy
as a supplement to the primacy of representative democracy (Pitz 2015: 86). Consequently, the
European Commission has broadened its consultation activities in recent years and has made
them more transparent. Today, the civil dialogue includes a variety of procedures such as public
hearings of interest representatives of affected parties and committed civil society organizations,
targeted consultations with registered interest groups, the consideration of written statements
of interest groups on European policy-making and publicly accessible internet portals. The
concrete arrangement of the civil dialogue is different in each directorate-general (the policy-
specific subdivisions of the Commission) (Quittkat/Kohler-Koch 2013).
However, every directorate-general has set up regular meetings with key interest groups,
among them NGOs, that represent the largest possible number of members in as many mem-
ber states as possible. In this context, alliances of NGOs play an important role. For instance,
the Green Ten is a platform of the largest environmental NGOs in Europa. The Social
Platform serves as an umbrella of large social NGOs based in Brussels. And the Civil Society
Contact Group brings together eight large rights- and values-based NGO sectors (culture,
environment, education, development, human rights, public health, social and women) and
coordinates exchange with the European institutions that favour these NGOs in their con-
sultation procedures.
A very common instrument the Commission uses to initiate a consultation process is green
and white papers. Green papers are discussion documents announcing the Commission’s inten-
tion to start a legislative initiative. They invite all stakeholders to submit recommendations – an
option that is extensively used by interest groups. White papers are the next iteration follow-
ing green papers and include the Commission’s concrete suggestions for legal language. Again,
interest groups have the possibility to submit position statements and proposals for modifica-
tion (Quittkat 2013: 65). Recent examples of this kind of consultation regime are the green

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paper on “Building a capital markets union” (European Commission 2015) and the white paper
“Towards more effective EU merger control” (European Commission 2014).
In summary, both social and civil dialogue are parts of the European consultation system,
which has expanded over recent years. The social dialogue is more narrowly and clearly defined
and guarantees specific rights to the social partners. The civil dialogue addresses civil society
more broadly and is used in most communitized policy areas, although with different intensity.
This has led to a very specific mode of operation characteristic of most NGOs in Brussels.

NGO activities in Brussels

Hartmut Kaelble (2007: 217) has described the NGO sector in Brussels as a “silent civil soci-
ety”. With this term, he is referring to the fact that NGOs in Brussels relatively seldom use
instruments of public protest or resistance. Instead, most European NGOs concentrate on their
role within the European consultation system. Protest actions such as the campaigns against the
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Comprehensive Economic and
Trade Agreement (CETA) that the European Commission negotiated with the United States
and Canada are major exceptions. The day-to-day work of most NGOs in Brussels is character-
ized by other activities.
In particular, umbrella umbrella NGOs fulfil monitoring functions on behalf of their members.
Since the European legislative process is extremely drawn out and the European institutions
usually act outside the national perception, these NGOs keep track of the policy process in
Brussels and report possible impacts of European legislation on the national legal frameworks
to their members. These early warnings are often the basis for cross-level lobbying: While the
NGOs in Brussels concentrate their activities on the European Commission and increasingly on
the European Parliament, the members in the states contact the national governments, which
are represented in the Council of Ministers (Charrad 2009). For instance, the European Region
of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) monitors all
legislative initiatives of the European Union that might affect the concerns of their members in
49 countries.
Furthermore, NGOs provide expertise for the European institutions, serve as advocacy organi-
zations and conduct agenda setting. Since the staff of the directorates-general is very small and
the European Commission has a smaller research service than most national governments do,
the Commission’s civil servants are dependent on external support. As business representatives
lobby it continuously and have considerable financial means, the Commission tries to take into
account civil society interests by consulting NGOs that are recognized as experts and derive
a high degree of legitimacy from their broad membership. Hence, NGOs in Brussels invest
significantly in establishing and cultivating their reputation and legitimacy. For instance, every
month the European unit of Greenpeace submits dozens of opinions and statements, mostly
based on their own comprehensive research, relating to legislation in the areas of agriculture,
climate and energy, fisheries and oceans, forests and toxic pollution. Similar activities are carried
out by many NGOs in Brussels, and the European Commission even provides financial support
to certain NGOs so that they can maintain European offices when no other civil society actors
are available to provide expertise and advice. For instance, ILGA has received EU grants over
several years to establish and operate its office.
Such support is hardly altruistic. Not only do NGOs provide the European Commission their
expertise, they also are involved in supervising the implementation of Commission policies in
the member states. Most European legal acts are directives that oblige member states to achieve
a particular result without dictating the means to achieve it. The implementation of directives

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is carried out by the national governments in a process that can take several years (Falkner
et al. 2005). Hence, supervising this process is very difficult for the European Commission
which is dependent on feedback from the member states regarding compliance with European
law. In this context, many NGOs in Brussels serve as watchdogs on the Commission’s behalf
and report infringements that the European Commission’s own supervisors might never have
unearthed alone. Based on the information provided by the NGOs, the Commission can initi-
ate a range of sanctions against the member states, including the infringement procedure at the
European Court of Justice, which can impose fines against the member states. A good example
of the workings of this watchdog function is the directive against human trafficking, which
was adopted in 2011 by the European Union but was implemented only reluctantly by many
member states. After a number of reports submitted by human rights NGOs active in this field,
the Commission started several sanction procedures and was able to accelerate implementation
in most member states.
From the perspective of communication science, NGOs also fulfil the function of policy medi-
ation on behalf of the European Union. The EU’s political system is so complex that national-
level media hardly cover European politics. Indeed, a number of studies have shown that the
European Union plays at best a secondary role for national journalists who are oriented towards
specific news factors like closeness, personalization and immediacy (for an overview see Statham
2010). Hence, a number of NGOs have become important mediators. Because the European
Parliament has no clear opposition or government factions, reporting from the plenary hall
is often unattractive. Instead, journalists prefer interview partners from NGOs for illustrating
European politics (Frantz 2014). In this way, NGOs are contributing to the public visibility of
the European Union.
Separate from the Brussels system of interest representation NGOs are playing an increasingly
important role in the implementation of European policies. This began in the 1990s when the
European Commission engaged NGOs in the course of the PHARE Democracy programme,
which was designed to build up civil society structures in the post-communist countries in
Central and Eastern Europe with the aim of strengthening democracy. Many NGOs, particu-
larly human rights NGOs, women’s associations, environmental groups and other advocacy
groups, were funded from this programme (Pridham 2005). Since the eastward enlargement,
the Commission has been supporting many other NGO activities, particularly through devel-
opment cooperation. Furthermore, the Commission has entrusted European humanitarian aid
NGOs to provide services such as the operation of refugee camps in Greece and Italy. In its
2015 budget, the Commission reported some 1,600 contracts with some 900 NGOs and an
overall volume of 1.24 billion Euro.5
This amount is probably much larger since NGOs also profit from the European cohesion
policy and the structural funds that the European Union is administering together with the
member states. The aim of these programs is to reduce regional disparities in income, wealth
and opportunities. Typically, the structural funds comprise more than 40 per cent of the EU
budget. In many countries, NGOs are involved in the implementation of measures financed by
European resources. For instance, the European Social Fund is widely used for active labour
market policies for disadvantaged groups in the member countries that are cooperating with
social NGOs (Bachtler/Mendez 2013).

Outlook and critique

NGOs in the European Union fulfil important functions. In particular, they are discussed as
possible sources of the legitimacy that the European Union is notoriously lacking since they

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open channels of participation and deliberation. Hence, to follow up on the recommenda-

tions of the White Paper on European Governance (2001), the EU designed and implemented
a new consultation regime that has lowered the threshold for NGO access and has ascribed
NGOs a more prominent role in EU policy-making. Especially, NGOs representing the val-
ues and rights-based sector have benefited from the change in procedures and the European
Commission’s financial support (Quittkat/Kohler-Koch 2013).
Case studies of various EU legislation procedures have shown that NGOs in Brussels can
indeed affect policy outcomes and thus serve as credible ambassadors for European Union citizen-
ship (Warleigh 2011). However, the European Union is still characterized by a system of biased
representation: Business-oriented lobbyists are much more active than public benefit-oriented
NGOs and have significantly more resources at their disposal. In addition, interest groups from the
old and populous member states in North and Western Europe are overrepresented, while NGOs
from small and/or Central and Eastern European countries continue to be more observers of than
participants in European governance (Charrad 2009).
From the perspective of democratic theory, the non-transparent procedure for selecting
members of the Economic and Social Committee by the member state governments is problem-
atic. A closer look at the composition of the EESC as of 2017 shows that many member states
have selected rather tame representatives of the national civil society sector. This particularly
holds true for many Central and Eastern European countries, whose governments currently
lean towards populism and authoritarianism (Schenkkan 2017). In these cases, NGOs serve as
extended arms of the governments more than as independent monitors and representatives of a
pluralist civil society.
A similar lack of transparency holds for the criteria the European Commission applies for
involving NGOs in its consultation procedures. The success of interest representation by NGOs
is highly dependent on their access to fast-changing and issue-specific policy coalitions, which
are controlled by few actors (Warleigh 2011).
Finally, particularly umbrella umbrella NGOs are often challenged to agree on a single joint
position for all of their members. Only when they manage this are they able to become involved
in the process of negotiating policy. Organizations such as Lobby Facts6 report that business
lobbyists dominate the system of interest representation. For sure, NGOs can counterbalance
this disparity somewhat. However, in the end they are often a democratic fig leaf for the rather
opaque political system of the European Union.

Notes
1 The register is available online at http://ec.europa.eu/transparencyregister.
2 For all examples of NGO activities in this chapter, the websites of their Brussels offices have been consulted.
3 For comparison: The city government of Hamburg, Germany with its 1.8 million inhabitants employed
a staff of 60,800 people in 2017.
4 Data taken from the EESC’s website at www.eesc.europa.eu.
5 The EU’s budget is documented at http://ec.europa.eu/budget/index_en.cfm.
6 See https://lobbyfacts.eu for documentation of recent lobby activities in Brussels.

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 31
The non-profit sector in Eastern
Europe, Russia, and Central Asia1
David Horton Smith, Alisa V. Moldavanova,
and Svitlana Krasynska

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the fifteen newly independent states
have followed a range of sociopolitical trajectories – landing a smaller minority on the path
toward democracy in the European Union (EU), while leaving the majority in a variation
of hybrid regimes. Understandably, civil society/non-profit sector (NPS) developments in
these independent countries have likewise taken different turns along those trajectories,
showcasing varied levels and kinds of non-profit institutionalization, civic engagement, and
citizens’ collective influence on their states. Importantly, however, while hundreds of thou-
sands of voluntary organizations of different kinds have emerged in the post-Soviet region
since 1991, contrary to popular expectations and despite significant Western aid efforts, this
development has not resulted in the achievement of healthy and robust civil society/NPS,
nor any sweeping democratization in the region.
What do we know about civil society and non-profit organizations (NPOs) in the region thus
far? And what impact did the last quarter-century have on civil society in these diverse countries
with their common totalitarian past? And why did the seeming growth in the quantity of formal
NPOs not bring about the much-anticipated qualitative democratic and civil society/NPS out-
comes? In this chapter, we endeavor to answer these questions by reviewing previous scholarship
about the region produced by Western scholars, followed by a summary of our recent survey vol-
ume of papers on the topic by scholars from the region itself (Smith, Moldavanova, & Krasynska,
2018). We term the region as Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia (EERCA) to emphasize
our contemporary focus and the great contextual diversity present in this region.

Approaches and terminology

The research, methodology, and publishing approaches and standards in the EERCA region
often differ from those in the West. We also note divergences in theoretical approaches
employed by EERCA scholars. For instance, local scholars often provide lengthy analyses of
laws and regulations governing voluntary organizations in EERCA as being crucial factors in the
development of the NPS, something that is rarely emphasized in the USA, with the exception
of tax-exemption laws and their effect on donor behavior. Conversely, in the EERCA region,

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where bureaucracy and corruption are associated with relatively high tax-noncompliance in
society (Picur & Riahi-Belkaoui, 2006), the tax-exemption laws are far less relevant. The crea-
tion and imposition of restrictive and burdensome regulations on NPOs along with their selec-
tive application in the courts of law in the EERCA region have been linked with government’s
attempts to suppress non-profit activity and free association.
The terminology used to describe the NPS/civil society and its institutions/organizations
in EERCA also often differs from terms used in the West. For example, the distinctions
among NPOs, non-profit agencies, voluntary (membership) associations, and other com-
mon forms of voluntary activity (Bowen et al., 1994; O’Neill, 2002; Salamon et al., 1999;
Salamon et al., 2004; Smith, 2000, 2015b, 2015c; Smith, Stebbins, & Dover, 2006; Smith,
Stebbins, & Grotz, 2016) are not as pronounced in the region. Regional scholars often use
such terms as NPO, NGO (non-governmental organization), and CSO (civil society organi-
zation) as nearly synonymous terms. However, the dictionary of non-profit terms by Smith,
Stebbins, and Dover (2006) describes significant distinctions among them and also among
many related terms.
Smith (2015a, 2015b, 2017a, 2017b) has recently emphasized clear definitional distinc-
tions between voluntary associations, which are, in the West, controlled from the bottom up
by their members, and non-profit agencies, which are structured like corporations or govern-
ment agencies in terms of power, from the top down, with the board of directors and/or
top executives holding almost total power over paid employees and any volunteers in a
volunteer service program (VSP) (as a special volunteer department). By definition (Smith,
Stebbins, & Dover, 2006), non-profit agencies (with paid staff, and often with no VSP) and
voluntary associations are both NPOs. However, scholars from the EERCA region often
use the terms NPO or NGO mainly to refer to non-profit agencies, not making the more
nuanced distinction advocated by Smith and many others (Smith, 2017a, 2017b; Smith,
Stebbins, & Dover, 2006).

The geographic scope and its significance

The geographic region covered in this chapter comprises fifteen countries that share geographic
borders, historic communist legacies, certain cultural norms, and at least some experience
with democratization processes that led to the establishment of NPOs in the region, popu-
larly, albeit often erroneously, labeled as NGOs. The error lies in the fact that many NPOs
in the region, especially in more authoritarian contexts, are not genuinely non-governmental,
although the term NGOs is frequently used, nonetheless. We generally prefer the term non-profit
organizations/NPOs over non-governmental organizations/NGOs in our chapter, because NPO
status is easier to verify than genuine NGO status. There are often still links of NPOs to the
national government that make genuine NGO status rarer in the EERCA region than in the
West, and in some cases nonexistent.
One of the most significant challenges is the blurred boundaries between the non-profit and
other sectors in society, especially in regard to NPOs being non-governmental in any genuine
sense in certain authoritarian contexts. In totalitarian regimes (strong dictatorships), there are
essentially no non-governmental organizations. In authoritarian regimes (weaker dictatorships),
there are usually some genuinely NGOs, but mainly or solely at local and sometimes provincial
levels, with national associations being mainly monitored and controlled by the national gov-
ernment (e.g., Smith with Zhao, 2016). In significantly but partially democratic regimes and
in strong democracies (Barber, 1984), genuine NGOs can and do exist, but are more clearly
independent of the government in strong democracies.

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That being said, the countries in the region also demonstrate notable differences in the
extent of democratic developments and geopolitical involvements, as well as NPS dynamics,
offering a good case for comparisons (Ekiert & Kubik, 2014). To illustrate, the three Baltic
countries – Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania – having joined the EU, have made greater advances
in democratic transition than most of the other countries included in the region (Kamerāde,
Crotty, & Ljubownikow, 2016). Overall, these three countries also provide a more favorable
legal and social environment for NPOs and other forms of associational and voluntary activity
(Auers, 2015).
Russia, on the other hand, has made fewer advances in supporting the development of its
civil society/NPS. For instance, a recently adopted foreign agents law imposes restrictive regula-
tions on foreign-funded organizations, targeting human rights groups especially (Christensen &
Weinstein, 2013). The law requires NPOs receiving funding from abroad to register as foreign
agents, prompting a wave of governmental inspections and the initiation of administrative cases
against them (Human Rights Watch, 2014). Additionally, assembly rights have been increas-
ingly restricted, with greatly heightened penalties for unsanctioned public protests.
Belarus, popularly called Europe’s last dictatorship (Bennett, 2012), has likewise experienced
meager democratic advances since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Thus, the country sub-
stantially restricts the activities of its NPOs. Furthermore, Belarus, as well as Russia, has made
the list of “The Twenty-Five Worst Sham Constitutions” for lagging in upholding constitu-
tional rights of their citizens (Law & Versteeg, 2013), including rights pertaining to public free
association, voluntary associations, and free assembly.
While Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan have experienced waves of popular pro-democracy
protests in the past decade and a half, these countries have had pointedly varied outcomes.
Ukraine has seen two massive protest movements – the Orange Revolution in 2004 and,
most recently, Euromaidan of 2013–2014. The country is currently undergoing significant
geopolitical transformation processes. Furthermore, Ukraine has demonstrated both advances
and regressions in the political and legislative environment for the NPS in the same time
period. Georgia, after the 2003 events, known as the Rose Revolution, has undergone sub-
stantial changes, creating closer alliances with the EU. However, there also have been regres-
sions toward authoritarianism in those developments, affecting the country’s NPS. Finally,
Kyrgyzstan, which witnessed the Tulip Revolution, has proved to be the least successful of the
three in terms of democratic and NPS development. While cooperation between the country’s
government and NPS has generally increased with the establishment of public watch councils
in 2011 (Djanaeva, 2013), a recently proposed (albeit not accepted by parliament) law targeting
foreign-funded NGOs has raised concern for the country’s NPS actors (International Center
for Not-for-Profit Law, 2014).

The state of knowledge about the NPS in the EERCA region

Over seven decades of the Soviet regime have had a lasting effect on the emerging NPS
and civil society institutions in the EERCA region. During the Soviet era, the political
and legal environment greatly hindered non-profit and civic activity, especially that which
diverged from Soviet ideology (Swanson, 1974; Williams, 1975). Associational activity was
closely monitored by the government, which severely restricted, eliminated, or even out-
lawed certain types of activity, especially political advocacy now undertaken by a multitude
of NPOs and associations (Swanson, 1974). During the late 1980s, however, “a myriad
of informal groups and associations” emerged in the region (Brovkin, 1990: 233; White,
1999). Subsequently, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in late 1991, even more

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growth of non-profit agencies and associations has taken place, especially up until 1999 (see
Ambrosio, 2013; Gill, 2015).
Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the number and variety of NPOs in the EERCA
region have risen significantly. Such developments paralleled the expansion of the necessary
legislation and taxation codes that allowed the creation of a framework for non-profit fundrais-
ing activity and other crucial operations. During the early stages of its renaissance, the NPS in the
region has lacked capacity and professionalism, given its prior seven decades of being constricted
under the USSR. However, because of the influx of foreign funding and numerous technical
assistance programs, non-profit agencies, volunteer associations, and non-profit foundations in
the region have developed greater organizational and managerial capacity, as well as greater skills
in securing foreign and domestic funding for their programs. As a result, the NPS has become
an important economic and social actor, capable of producing some social change. At the same
time, numerous structural, legislative, and institutional obstacles in different countries of the
region have been preventing further professionalization and improvement of the overall effi-
cacy of the NPS. Some of these concerns include the sector’s financial viability, accountability,
community engagement, and independence from foreign funding and national governments.
In addition, there has been increasing resistance to the NPS and democratization in Russia,
Belarus, and several Central Asian countries since 1999 (Ambrosio, 2013; Freire & Kanet, 2012;
Gill, 2015; Ljubownikow, Crotty, & Rodgers, 2013; Vanderhill & Aleprete, 2013).
Along with typical pressures for any NPS, the region’s NPOs face unique challenges that
are not as salient in the Western context. Such challenges include an inherent lack of resources
and skills needed to organize and obtain funding, paucity of private funding, challenges with
government–non-profit cooperation, substantial dependency on foreign funding (Sundstrom,
2006), an often-restrictive legislative framework, and the general lack of leadership skills neces-
sary to collaborate with other social actors (Anheier & Salamon, 1999; Regulska, 1999). Hence,
although the NPS has expanded significantly since the mid-1990s in the EERCA region, and
the expertise of non-profit agencies and voluntary associations continues to grow (Bridge 2004;
Toepler & Salamon, 2003; Wallace, Pichler, & Haerpfer, 2012), the aforementioned challenges
in the institutional environment are major inhibitors of non-profit activity in this part of the
world. Moreover, despite their growing numbers, non-profit agencies and voluntary associa-
tions in Central and Eastern Europe have lower rates of institutional survival compared to their
Western counterparts (Toepler & Salamon, 2003).
Some of these tendencies have been researched in Western non-profit scholarship, and the
body of literature dedicated to the region’s NPS continues to grow. However, there are few
insights by local scholars, with insider knowledge of the region and countries of the region avail-
able to the Western scholars, practitioners, and policymakers via publications in English. While
most of the existing literature on the subject is available in languages other than English, it has
not been translated to make it available to the wider Western audience. With our latest volume
(Smith, Moldavanova, and Krasynska, 2018), we begin to fill this apparent gap by providing
access to locally produced non-profit research from the EERCA region.

Distinctiveness of the NPS in the EERCA region

Non-profit scholarship produced in the Western context is, without a doubt, potentially very
useful in guiding the development of the NPS in the EERCA region. However, scholars
of the NPS point out some important distinctions in the operational environment and the
substantive aspects of the NPOs’ activity in the region. Studies of the NPS in these EERCA
countries are few; nevertheless, they contribute to a more nuanced understanding of ideas in

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different social and political contexts (see Chapter 16 of Smith, Moldavanova, and Krasynska,
2018). In fact, some scholars argue that Western theoretical frameworks dealing with the NPS
(Portes 2000; Putnam, Leonardi, & Nanetti, 1994) have, at best, very limited applicability in
developing countries (Rose-Ackerman, 2001). We discuss this tendency by drawing also on
literature in the larger post-communist area of Central and Eastern Europe, highlighting the
following key topics:

Volunteering
Western research on volunteering often links active involvement to issues of resource avail-
ability, both in terms of time and money (Wilson, 2012; Wilson & Musick, 1997). However,
in the Central and East European context, there is evidence that, while improving economic
conditions and individual well-being lead to greater individual willingness to donate money and
goods to charity, they do not always translate into a greater willingness to volunteer one’s time
and skills (Regulska, 1999). This makes sense in the context of a developing economy, since
improved financial well-being often results from people working more than one job. Therefore,
wealthier people in a developing context simply may have little available time to volunteer. This
explanation is useful for understanding the low levels of volunteering by retired people in the
EERCA region: in the Western context, retirees often have both time and financial resources
to dedicate to volunteering; therefore, they are among the most active population segments in
volunteering (Nesbit et al., 2016). By contrast, in developing democracies with deteriorating
social security systems, those of retirement age are often forced to continue working to earn
extra income. Therefore, they often have less time and energy for volunteer work. However,
a wealth of empirical research on many nations suggests that available time is relatively unim-
portant as an influence on formal volunteering, while psychological variables have huge predic-
tive importance in multivariate analyses (Smith, 2015a; Smith with Sardinha et al., 2016), as
S-Theory states (Smith with van Puyvelde, 2016).
There are important distinctions in voluntaristics scholarship (NPS and voluntary action
research; see Smith, 2016) between service program volunteering and associational volunteering (Smith,
Stebbins, & Dover, 2006: 24, 209, 244). Unlike the North American and Western European
situation, in the EERCA region volunteering is far more likely in associations than in VSPs.
VSPs (or simply, volunteer programs; Smith, Stebbins, & Dover, 2006: 244) are a very recent
historical development, mainly arising in the past century (see Harris et al., 2016). VSPs are
volunteer departments or units of larger, parent organizations, such as NPOs, businesses, or gov-
ernment agencies. By contrast, voluntary associations have a 10,000-year history, and have been
present in every society studied that is more complex than a small, nomadic, hunting-gathering
band (Harris et al., 2016; Smith, 1997).

Foreign funding
Another important feature of the NPS in the EERCA region is significant reliance on foreign
funding by NPOs and the lack of successful domestic fundraising efforts (Sundstrom, 2006). In
most of these countries, where markets are often unstable and social security systems are unreli-
able, internationally funded NPOs, especially non-profit agencies rather than associations, are
often seen as providing more stable employment opportunities (Mattes, 2003; Rose-Ackerman,
2001). When people begin to think of foreign-funded non-profits as desirable career options
with more or less stable wages in a foreign currency, they are less likely to think of such
NPOs, usually non-profit agencies, as places for civic engagement. When NPOs are primarily

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viewed as an economic engine, then economic, financial, and self-serving motivations are likely
to crowd out altruistic motivations of people’s engagement with the sector (Fiorillo, 2011;
Smith, 2017a, 2017b). However, if the NPO has a VSP, volunteers can still get involved for
altruistic reasons. Formal associations and non-profit agencies in the region that are heavily
sponsored from abroad are often viewed as top-down, rather than bottom-up, grassroots-style
organizations, such as the millions of all-volunteer associations that characterize civil society in
the United States and Western Europe (Petrova, 2011; Smith, 2015a, 2017a, 2017b; Wallace,
Pichler, & Haerpfer, 2012).

Political non-profits
NPOs in the region are often used for political purposes, as in Western nations. Some of the major
NPOs in the region are still sponsored by the state (such as communist mass organizations;
Chao, 1952; and government-organized NGOs or GONGOs; Smith, Stebbins, & Dover, 2018)
or used by powerful politicians to achieve their personal goals. A number of scandals in former
communist countries, where state-dominated NPOs were privatized by their managers and used
as tax shelters, have diminished the reputation of the NPS and worsened public perceptions
(Rose-Ackerman, 2001).

Trust
Another important contextual factor is the impact of social trust on the development of the NPS.
For instance, reliance on personal networks and a sense of particularized, rather than generalized,
trust are prominent features of post-communist countries (cf. Howard, 2003). Rose-Ackerman
(2001) argues that, in the Western understanding, if a society has a high level of social capital,
its citizens are more likely to trust each other and to express trust in public institutions and the
market. However, in the post-Soviet context, the link between trust in people and trust in state
institutions is very weak or absent, and the virtually nonexistent trust in governmental institu-
tions is instead based in the Soviet past, not in democratic accountability (Rose-Ackerman,
2001). Such factors all complicate formal associational involvement and volunteering, VSP vol-
unteering, and the overall resilience of the sector (Aasland, Grødeland, & Pleines, 2012; Dinello,
2001; Iglič, 2010; Kaminska, 2010; Paxton, 2007; Rose-Ackerman, 2001; Smith, 2015a; Smith
with Sardinha et al., 2016).

Civic engagement
Another way to address the issue of trust in the EERCA region has been to tackle it through
the educational system and through family upbringing. Previous research has demonstrated that
early socialization through the family and educational institutions is important for encourag-
ing civic engagement (Flanagan et al., 1998; Smith & Wang, 2016; Torney-Purta & Amadeo,
2011). At the same time, educational systems and educational cultures in the Eurasian context
are often based on old communist principles, and they tend not to encourage personal responsi-
bility for societal problems (Koshmanova & Ravchyna, 2010). The development of democratic
dispositions and a sense of personal responsibility were not part of the agenda in former com-
munist states. Instead, the state attempted to achieve homogenization by minimizing differences
between individuals (Flanagan et al., 1998). Therefore, even today, the existing social stereotypes
combined with the authoritarian and very slowly reforming educational system (Koshmanova
& Ravchyna, 2010; Torney-Purta & Amadeo, 2011) hamper the development of individual

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predispositions toward taking personal responsibility and engaging actively in civic associations.
Much research has shown recently that psychological factors that differ among individuals can
explain much of the individual variation in levels of formal volunteering, contrary to the com-
munist ideology of individual homogeneity (Smith, 2015a; Smith with Sardinha et al., 2016).

Informal activity
Informal support and help from family members and immediate friends, now often termed infor-
mal volunteering in the West (Einolf et al., 2016), has long historical roots in societies with high
survival motives and in rural settings (Bridge, 2004). However, such support may not always
translate into greater community participation and a stronger NPS in the EERCA regional
context. On the contrary, particularized trust has been found to decrease general levels of social
tolerance, thus discouraging pro-social behavior and civic engagement (Iglič, 2010). In the
EERCA region, social networking in all social and political dimensions often takes the form
of small networks of close friends and family, rather than as engagement with strangers and
in public affairs at large (Aasland, Grødeland, & Pleines, 2012; Chavis, 2013; Dinello, 2001;
Kaminska, 2010). Overall, the dominance of informal networks in virtually all spheres of public
life can lead to a lack of transparency and lower levels of engagement in formal NPOs, especially
associations (cf. Howard, 2003, for a similar conclusion).
At the same time, informal activity is a fact of life in the post-communist region, and espe-
cially so in post-Soviet countries (Aliyev, 2015; Einolf et al., 2016; Ledeneva, 2006; Smith,
Never, Abu-Rumman, et al., 2016), and scholars suggest that the NPS, including formal
NPOs, can coexist quite successfully with prevalent informal institutions (Böröcz, 2000). More
recently, scholars have begun to consider contextual conditions of informality and its role in the
development of civil society (see Einolf et al., 2016). They also have suggested some alternative
approaches to assessing and understanding the NPS in the region. Some of these approaches
include focusing on interactions among NPS actors and inputs and outputs of NPS initiatives,
as opposed to merely relying on official metrics that take into account formal organizations, as
well as including informal economic activity in the sector’s assessment (Böröcz, 2000; Ekiert &
Kubik, 2014; Einolf et al., 2016; Krasynska, 2015; Leskinen, 2014).

Comparative perspective
Generally speaking, several tendencies describe the NPS in the EERCA region. First, there
are low levels of associational involvement, volunteering, and generally less formalized par-
ticipation by citizens in community affairs, as compared to most Western contexts (Howard,
2003; Kaminska, 2010; Plagnol & Huppert, 2010; Rose-Ackerman, 2007; Smith, Never, Abu-
Rumman, et al., 2016; Wallace, Pichler, & Haerpfer, 2012). Low levels of associational involve-
ment in formal organizations seem to be pervasive across all former communist countries (see
Howard, 2003; Smith, Never, Abu-Rumman, et al., 2016). For instance, a study by Wallace,
Pichler, and Haerpfer (2012) compares participation in voluntary associations over the period
1995–2005 in the new EU member states with the post-communist Eastern Europe and the
former Soviet countries that have not joined the EU. The study finds little difference between
these two groups of countries, both of which have much lower associational involvement levels
when compared to Western Europe and the United States (Wallace, Pichler, & Haerpfer, 2012).
In some cases, the unwillingness to join existing associations results from negative pub-
lic perceptions regarding the effectiveness of such institutions and their ability to produce
change or influence governmental decisions (Bekkers et al., 2016; Kaminska, 2010). Moreover,

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considering the poor economic performance of many countries in the region, formal volunteer-
ing seems in part to be a necessity imposed by economic hardship, rather than merely an indica-
tor of civic engagement or altruism (Rose-Ackerman, 2007). However, the central importance
of psychological variables in explaining formal and also informal volunteering, even in Russia,
must never be ignored (Smith, 2015a; Smith with van Puyvelde, 2016; Smith & Wang, 2016;
Smith with Sardinha et al., 2016).
Additionally, particularly low rates of formal volunteering in Eurasia can also be explained
partly by the absence of a civic infrastructure to encourage volunteering, and also a lack of incen-
tives and opportunities for formal volunteering (Wilson, 2012). The literature review of Nesbit
and colleagues (2016) shows that both meso-context (organizations, institutions) and micro-
context (significant others, interpersonal relations) opportunities significantly influence formal
volunteering. Although the NPS in the region is growing rapidly (Toepler & Salamon, 2003;
Voicu & Voicu, 2009), the number of formal and informal civic associations remains very low
compared to the Western democracies (Smith, Never, Abu-Rumman, et al., 2016; Stafetska,
2005; Stratēg̓iskās Analīzes Komisija Latvijas Universitāte, 2005; Toepler & Salamon, 2003).

Intra-regional variations
It is important to mention that, despite many contextual similarities, there are important intra-
regional variations in the levels of associational engagement, social trust, social networks, and
social capital among countries in the EERCA region (Aasland, Grødeland, & Pleines, 2012;
Coffé & Van Der Lippe, 2010; Dinello, 2001; Kamerāde, Crotty, & Ljubownikow, 2016;
Petrova, 2011; Plagnol & Huppert, 2010; Rose, Mishler, & Haerpfer, 1998; Rose-Ackerman,
2007; Wallace, Pichler, & Haerpfer, 2012). These differences can be attributed partly to the fact
that communism was experienced in different ways across the region – and various countries
also had distinct historical experiences with the demise of communism – subsequent transitional
regimes, democratization processes, and, in some cases, countries’ reversals to authoritarianism
(Ambrosio, 2013; Coffé & Van Der Lippe, 2010; Freire & Kanet, 2012; Ljubownikow, Crotty,
& Rodgers, 2013; Vanderhill & Aleprete, 2013).
Wallace, Pichler, and Haerpfer (2012) discovered variations in associational membership
across countries in Central and Eastern Europe in 1995–2005; whereas there was a dramatic
decline in participation levels in Romania, there was a small rise in participation in Slovenia,
Moldova, and Ukraine, and in Bulgaria participation remained at the same low level (Wallace,
Pichler, & Haerpfer 2012). Dinello (2001) also provides an illustration of intra-regional differ-
ences by comparing variations in the role of social networks in Hungary and Russia. In Hungary,
social networks were used to enhance the transition to free market institutions, while in Russia
personal networks were used to capture the market (Dinello, 2001). Therefore, despite contex-
tual similarities, there are important EERCA intra-regional differences.

Impact of the communist past on the post-Soviet NPS in

the EERCA region
The context for non-profit activity is greatly shaped by historical and cultural factors, and the
influence of the past is particularly significant in post-communist countries (Anheier & Salamon,
1999; Coffé & Van Der Lippe, 2010; Flanagan et al., 1999; Howard, 2003; Kamerāde, Crotty,
& Ljubownikow, 2016; Plagnol & Huppert, 2010; Regulska, 1999; Rose, Mishler, & Haerpfer,
1998; Rose-Ackerman, 2001; Toepler & Salamon, 2003). For instance, Howard (2003) argues
that three major factors explain weak civil society in the post-communist context in Eastern

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Europe: (1) a sense of distrust of any kind of public organization; (2) a general satisfaction with
one’s own personal networks, accompanied by deteriorating relations within society overall;
and (3) disappointment in post-communist institutional developments. In many cases, the com-
munist past appears to be so powerful that it overshadows both institutional factors (such as
membership in the EU) and sociodemographic factors (such as the rising level of education and
income) conducive to the development of associational membership, social capital, and inter-
personal and social trust (Aasland, Grødeland, & Pleines, 2012; Kaminska, 2010; Rose, Mishler,
& Haerpfer, 1998; Wallace, Pichler, & Haerpfer, 2012).
Scholars generally acknowledge that the state-structured and forced volunteering prevalent
in the communist era diminished people’s intrinsic motivation to willingly volunteer their time
(Kaminska, 2010; Plagnol & Huppert, 2010; Voicu & Voicu, 2009). Moreover, participation in
religious organizations, which is an important factor commonly associated with higher rates of
volunteering (Cnaan et al., 2016; Wilson, 2012), was, for ideological reasons, rare in the offi-
cially atheistic communist countries (although private religious belief often persisted). Hence,
Central and Eastern European states inherited serious structural and cultural obstacles to formal
volunteerism and civic engagement. Quantitative research on most (100–140) world nations
indicates that voluntary association prevalence/frequency is substantially influenced by civil lib-
erties and democracy (Schofer & Longhofer, 2011; Smith & Shen, 2002; Smith, Never, Mohan,
et al., 2016), which were minimal or nonexistent in the Soviet Union (Swanson, 1974).
At the same time, there is evidence in the volunteering research literature that skills and atti-
tudes gained from participation in state-controlled associations, including the Communist Party,
appear to be useful for ongoing civic participation/formal volunteering in a more democratic
system (Letki, 2004). This is consistent with research in Western nations, especially the USA,
on service learning, which is often mandatory social service (pseudo-volunteering; cf. Smith et al.,
2018), that nonetheless results in greater genuine adult volunteering years later (Jacoby, 2003;
Smith & Wang, 2016). Unsurprisingly, some forms of voluntary work, such as group-oriented
ecological activism, appear to be more prominent and better organized in the post-communist
context, as compared to individual acts of charity, such as assisting the needy or displaced mem-
bers of society (Flanagan et al., 1999).

The broader significance of research from the

EERCA region
The brief review just given discusses some of the general trends and observations, as well as empirical
research findings, about the NPS, the state of associations, non-profit agencies, and volunteering in
the EERCA region. These findings were mainly produced by Western scholars, and usually cover
only English-language publications. The insights gained from Western scholarship are very valuable
for understanding the role and significance of the region’s NPS. However, many Western academ-
ics, including those cited here, present mainly an outsider’s point of view. Thus, for objectivity, it is
important to supplement such inquiry with exposure to research produced by local EERCA non-
profit scholars in their native languages that has not been previously published in English. The latter
is the main purpose of our edited volume (Smith, Moldavanova, & Krasynska, 2018).
That volume presents the qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the EERCA region’s
NPSs; the evolving relationships between civil society and the state; and the idiosyncratic
expressions of the region’s community and civic engagement represented by informal, cultural,
and faith-based institutions, as well as volunteering; along with formal organizations, all of these
various forms of civic expression constitute varieties of the NPS and attempts at civil society in
the region.

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Chapters included in the first part, entitled “Nonprofit Organizations: Nonprofit Agencies
and Voluntary Associations,” provide a general overview of the NPS in the region, roles that
the NPS plays in society, levels of citizen support of and participation in the NPO activities,
and the historical developments and evolution of the NPS. Yulia Bidenko (2018) opens our
edited collection with some comparative research featuring the development of the NPS in the
two neighboring countries of Belarus and Ukraine. Her analysis highlights the importance of
domestic political processes in shaping the sector’s capacity, roles, and functions, suggesting that
historic legacies of Soviet domination are just one factor in shaping democratization efforts, as
evidenced in the two countries’ divergences and similarities in democratic outcomes. Similarly
to Bidenko, Rūta Žiliukaitė (2018) observes the persistent lack of general civic engagement by
examining NPO participation in Lithuania. She conveys that while the number of NPOs has
been on the rise, citizen engagement with these organizations remained relatively unchanged.
She explains these developments by the persistence of Soviet historical legacy, in addition to
a range of individual and sociodemographic variables. Analogous dynamics were observed by
Tardea and Chobanu (2018), in which they provide an overview of the NPS in Moldova while
comparing NPO activity and civic engagement in Moldova to those in other developing and
developed countries. They conclude that the NPS in Moldova is relatively underdeveloped
and lacks active citizen engagement. Ekaterina Ivanova (2018) takes a different approach in her
investigation of the relationship between the state, business, and NPSs, by focusing on Russian
professional and business associations and the role they play in society. She concludes that, while
the formation process of this non-profit subsector is still in development, Russia’s business and
professional associations are highly multifunctional and advocacy-oriented, and are significantly
shaped by the Russian state. Shorena Sadzaglishvili and Mariam Kartvelishvili (2018) expand
upon the topic of intersection of governmental, business, and voluntary sectors by discussing
corporate social responsibility (CSR) trends in Georgia, a country where the governmental sec-
tor is generally seen as the main provider of social services. They suggest that CSR practices are
underdeveloped in the country, citing legal and institutional shortcomings as key obstacles in
the development of CSR. The contributions in this part of the volume collectively confirm the
general lack of mass engagement in formal NPOs, and highlight the tensions as well as potential
collaborative opportunities among the non-profit, business, and governmental sectors.
Chapters included in the second part, “Government–Nonprofit Relations,” analyze the complex
relationships between NPOs and the state, and how those relationships are evolving over time.
Several contextual factors appear to influence the relationship dynamics between non-profits and the
state, as attested by our volume contributors, including the development of legislative frameworks for
non-profit activity, non-profit fiscal regimes, and other regulations, as well as the nature and quality
of government–non-profit collaboration in providing social and human services. This second part
begins with Evija Kļave (2018), who presents research about Latvian NPOs’ participation in the
policy-planning process, featuring the case of EU governance documents. The author identifies a
number of structural and collaborative barriers that inhibit a more effective involvement of NPOs
in the governmental policy-planning process. Echoing the Latvian experience, Mikko Lagerspetz
(2018) discusses NPO–government cooperation, noting that governmental officials often see both
businesses and NPOs as public service providers, thus increasing competitive pressures. The author
concludes, however, that competition for funding pushes Estonian NPOs to adopt practices heavily
grounded in efficiency at the expense of other public values and their own missions, further leading
to the decline of public trust in them. Mikhail Minakov (2018) examines a rather drastic example
of a shift in government–civil society relations in the aftermath of a popular uprising in Ukraine
(Euromaidan 2013–2014). While the government generally became more receptive to the needs
of citizens as a result of NPOs’ increased engagement in the political process after Euromaidan, the

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author’s conclusions provide a cautionary tale of situations when the NPS’s takeover of the
traditionally governmental functions may potentially undermine a country’s sovereignty. Medet
Tiulegenov (2018) conveys Kyrgyzstan’s experience with the NPS’s increased participation in public
policymaking as the result of the popular revolts in the country in 2005 and 2010. The author con-
cludes, however, that while Kyrgyz NGOs are now more actively engaged in the process of political
debate and monitoring governmental activities by participating in public oversight councils, there are
continued challenges with regard to accepting NPOs as social players. Vladimir Osipov (2018) exam-
ines the development of global social movements, suggesting the case of Armenia shows significant
interdependence between geopolitical factors and internal dynamics of the NPS in a given country.
This finding justifies a supportive role of external actors (such as EU or United Nations (UN)) in
helping domestic NPSs to properly develop, consolidate, and gain capacity and recognition.
Finally, Part 3 of the volume, “Informal Civil Society and Volunteering,” is dedicated
to informal NPS institutions that are quite prevalent and powerful in the EERCA region
yet continue to be understudied by Western scholars of the region. It also features research
on volunteering. Dainius Genys (2018) examines the scope of power and formation of NPS
boundaries in Lithuania. While Genys’ analysis reveals a generally low level of public trust in
civic institutions and the NPS’s general lack of capacity to exercise its power, informal asso-
ciation, cooperation, and resource mobilization present in the country have the potential to
increase the capacity and effectiveness of the NPS and civil society in achieving goals. Fuad
Aliyev (2018) discusses the potential of the traditional institution of waqfs, which are histori-
cally rooted in Islam. Waqfs have significant potential to function, the author suggests, as de
facto non-profit credit unions in alleviating poverty in Azerbaijan. The chapter shows that
cultural and religious traditions can be powerful actors in fostering the development of local
philanthropic institutions in non-Western contexts. Similarly, Azamat Temirkulov (2018)
uses the case of Kyrgyzstan to analyze a centuries-old aksakal institution that serves as a mech-
anism of dispute resolution in local communities of Central Asia and the Caucasus. While
there have been recent changes in the Kyrgyz legislation to provide greater formal authority
to aksakals, this institution is still inherently community-based and informal, which often
creates tensions between aksakals and local government institutions, with the former often
prevailing in community dynamics through their informal authority. Finally, the contribution
by Tamara Nezhina, Kseniya Petukhova, Natalia Chechetkina, and Ilziya Mindarova (2018)
features the results of research on volunteer recruitment and retention in Russian NPOs.
The study expands the existing knowledge on managing young volunteers, and shows how
values of a particular society (in this case, Russian society) could be capitalized on in order
to increase levels of NPO participation and overall citizen engagement. Notably, one of the
authors’ surprising findings was the prevalence of “informal and spontaneous” volunteering
among Russian youth. This finding led the authors to subsequently expand their typology of
youth volunteering. This part of the book suggests that there are contextually distinctive non-
profit and civil society institutions that can be grounded in cultural, historic, and religious
traditions, as well as contemporary developments, such as the proliferation of social media.
The concluding chapter of the volume written by the editors provides an overview of the
general themes, lessons learned from this collection of research articles, the larger interpretive
intellectual contexts of this volume, as well as a discussion of potential directions for future
research. The volume promotes the non-profit scholarship produced in the region that has
previously received little attention in the Western world. It also advances the growth of the
global interdisciplinary field and emergent academic discipline of voluntaristics (philanthropy,
civil society, third sector, and voluntary NPS studies; Smith, 2013, 2016) by integrating regional
academics more closely into the global network of voluntaristics scholars.

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Note
1 This is an edited extract from David Horton Smith, Alisa V. Moldavanova, and Svitlana Krasynska,
“Overview of the Nonprofit Sector in Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia,” Chapter 1 in David
Horton Smith, Alisa V. Moldavanova, and Svitlana Krasynska (eds), The Nonprofit Sector in Eastern Europe,
Russia, and Central Asia: Civil Society Advances and Challenges (Leiden: Brill, 2018). The material is repro-
duced here by kind permission of the authors and Qin Higley at Brill. The editing of the extract was
undertaken by Thomas Davies with the assistance of the authors.

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 32
NGOs in East and Southeast Asia
Lei Xie and Joshua Garland

Introduction
East and Southeast Asia have an extensive civil society and NGOs sector. In the decade begin-
ning at the end of the 1990s, there was a tide of NGOs mushrooming in policy arenas con-
cerning the environment and human rights. There has also been a boom in the number of
multinational NGOs operating or headquartered in the Asia-Pacific region (Glasius et al., 2002;
Union of International Associations, 2010). By the end of 2013, there were over 500,000
registered NGOs in China. Among them, those registered between 1988 and 2013 account
for the majority of groups (Tai, 2015). The number of international NGOs (INGOs) has also
significantly grown in many Asian countries, including in Vietnam where it has been estimated
that fewer than 10 existed in the late 1980s, rising to almost 500 registered INGOs in 2000 (van
Phuc et al., 2002; Luong, 2006). Even in China where the political system is restrictive, the
presence of international NGOs is similarly high with it being estimated that by 2005 there were
about 3,000 to 6,500 INGOs within the country. These groups are often found to work in the
social, educational, or health service sectors, as well as on environmental, women, and migrant
worker issues which represent some of the key areas of interest in this region (Weller, 2006).
As Asian countries are greatly linked to and affected by the global structures of political
economy, and as some of these societies experience democratization, the nature of transnational
activism in the region is also affected (Jemadu, 2003). Compared to when they were first set
up, in the last decade the NGO sector has further expanded, and more organizational develop-
ment and inter-group coalitions have emerged. The articulation and interaction of NGOs with
national political authorities has also become increasingly complex.
With this context in mind, this chapter analyzes the development and influence of NGOs in
Southeast Asia and East Asia with particular reference to the case of China. We aim to provide
a comparative account of NGO networks, strategies, and issue foci, focusing explicitly on the
differences within and between the environmental, labor, and women’s rights movements wit-
nessed in East and Southeast Asian nations. To this end, in the next section the legal frameworks
regulating NGOs are analyzed to help better understand the political contexts in which NGOs
are located. The third section focuses on the organization and impacts of the three specific
transnational movements mentioned above. In the fourth section, a comparison between the

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movements and the various national contexts in which they operate is made to understand the
key differences found across transnational activism in Asia. Conclusions are then drawn in the
fifth section.

The legal context for NGOs and transnational networks

Asian countries in general have shared the feature of developing strict legal frameworks to regu-
late domestic and foreign NGOs. These have impacted upon NGOs’ organizational develop-
ment, means of creating impact, and on the outcomes of their activities, as will now be discussed
with especial reference to the Chinese example.

Legal constraints on domestic NGO advocacy

Among all Asian nations, China represents the one that has developed the strongest legal frame-
work through which to regulate the NGO sector (Xie, 2002). Advocacy organizations, which
are prominent actors in social movements in western liberal contexts, are significantly restricted
in China. Although it has been argued that NGOs have achieved a degree of associational
autonomy in expanding the organizational space between state organs and enterprise (Ma and
Zhang, 2009), they are still constrained by the restrictive legal environment. Fearing the collec-
tive action that NGOs may attempt to mobilize, the Chinese authorities have shown an increas-
ing concern with respect to the development of voluntary groups. As a result, the NGO sector
has experienced changes in the regulatory framework in modern China over the past decades. In
the last three decades, for instance, restrictions on associational activities have been strengthened
and state authorities remain the key actors that control the administration of NGOs. They are
particularly strict in the registration of voluntary organizations: for this, a dual supervising mech-
anism is utilized in order to control the growth of voluntary groups and organizations, requiring
each NGO to find a governmental entity as its “mother-in-law” institution. At the same time,
these civil society actors remain under the regulation of the Bureau of Civil Affairs (BCA).
States’ regulation of NGOs elsewhere in this region is also generally very strong, and this
NGO–state relationship affects NGOs’ activities. Given that space for advocacy is often lim-
ited in the region, a large proportion of NGOs emerge around service provision instead (Kim,
2015). That said, some argue that service provision and NGOs’ advocacy functions are not
mutually exclusive, but can rather exist simultaneously alongside one another (Kim, 2015).
Either way, service contracting could be seen as a means to enhance NGOs’ legitimacy and aid
in the development of good relations with a government. Such contracting, however, still heav-
ily depends on a government’s primary political agenda.

Regulation of foreign NGOs: the Chinese case

In recent years, the Chinese central government has further tightened regulation over inter-
national NGOs, which are intentionally distinguished from domestic NGOs. A specific legal
framework has been developed to regulate this type of group. In 2017, the Overseas NGO
Management Law was promulgated. This law can be seen as having a particular focus on advo-
cacy groups, the registration and supervision over which differ from the foundation of service
provision organizations, and it empowers the public security departments of the State Council
to enforce regulation of NGOs on the provincial level. Hence, regulation of overseas NGOs
is clearly being strengthened as such activities concern security authorities which is not the
case in regulating domestic NGOs. It would seem that the regulation of international NGOs

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is considered to be a national security measure that should be directly supervised by the state’s
public security authorities. This law was approved on 28 April 2016, coming into effect in
January 2017, and applies to “foreign NGOs carrying out activities within mainland China.
‘Foreign NGOs’ as used in this law refers to not-for-profit, non-governmental social organiza-
tions lawfully established outside mainland China, such as foundations, social groups, and think
tank institutions”, according to its second article. This is a rather wide-ranging and loose defini-
tion. Several articles indicate that the law is designed to restrict the activities of “foreign NGOs”.
This is particularly evident in Articles 5 and 13 in the new Overseas NGO Management Law.
To elaborate, in Article 5 it is stipulated that NGOs are prohibited from endangering China’s
“national unity”, “ethnic cohesion”, or “public order and morality”. Article 13 seems to be
designed to target INGOs that have headquarters in one country (typically a western nation)
which functions as an executive power over their branches abroad. At the same time, Article
13 seems to serve to prevent a foreign-funded NGO office being set up in China and from
making any inroads in Chinese politics, particularly where it is accountable to a legal entity
registered abroad (such as to its headquarters or parent organization). In this article, such groups
are excluded from participating in domestic politics and policy-making debates on the grounds
that this could facilitate the representation of a foreign entity’s claims within the domestic pol-
ity. This helps to demonstrate how rising powers are increasingly viewing international civil
society as a potential national security threat. Consequently, the state strongly controls the links
between domestic and international NGOs, particularly on issues such as human rights and
women’s rights.
The organizational and operational procedures of INGOs are also affected. INGOs are
required to employ Chinese citizens as at least half of all staff members (Article 35), and there
is the possibility that cooperation and networking between Chinese and international NGOs
may be obstructed (Article 38). A few articles are more explicitly restrictive, including through
the banning of INGOs from fundraising within mainland China (Article 26), as well as through
Articles 28–32 of the law which stipulate somewhat restrictive controls regarding international
funding and membership rules for foreign NGOs in their relations with domestic organizations,
extending to their domestic registration as well. Furthermore, Article 32 declares that:

Units and individuals in mainland China must not accept retention, funding, agency, or
covert agency to carry out foreign NGOs’ activities in mainland China, from foreign NGOs
that have not registered a representative office or filed to carry out temporary activities.
(Law of the People’s Republic of China, 2016, italics added)

The dynamics of NGOs in this context

It is clear from the above that NGO–state relations represent a complicated issue in Southeast
and East Asian countries. Here, state authorities are commonly strong and have played a signifi-
cant role in influencing NGOs’ organizational development, strategies, and impacts. As such,
NGOs are constrained in their areas of work, although a vast array of NGOs have still been
identified working on social issues, education, human rights, women’s rights, and the environ-
ment. However, because of the potential challenges their activities may pose to government,
NGOs are mostly encouraged to work in certain areas of the social, educational, and health
service sectors (Weller, 2006, p. 127).
Given this context, it is argued that in Asia transnational networking and coalition-building
constitute one of the most effective strategies for NGOs. Transnational activism comprises
political activities that involve non-state actors and take place outside formal political arenas

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(Piper and Uhlin, 2004). The networks involved may enable the bypassing of the state or the
challenging of the principles upon which state action is based (Riker, 1995). They may involve
a fluid process of associational coalitions (Wu, 2011), and the organizational structures or strate-
gies of a network may have a notable influence on the efficacy of its work and the outcomes it
can achieve (Riker, 1995). Networks are usually used for disseminating information and sharing
resources. Shared resources, experiences, knowledge, and awareness have been significant in the
new transnational networks which have been built around contemporary issues such as gender
inequality, human rights, and the environment (Pongsapich, 1998).
One approach for transnational work to be developed is by financing local NGOs and asso-
ciations, with more funding and NGO activity of this nature being witnessed in Asia since the
1980s (Gilson, 2011). When this tide of international funding began, slight variations emerged
among the different national contexts as, by providing this funding, foreign donors are likely
to have had an impact on domestic NGOs’ foci and agendas. Nevertheless, and as noted previ-
ously, states control the links between domestic and international NGOs (Devasahayam, 2010),
so transnational activist networks remain weak in comparison to the power of state and capitalist
interests (Piper and Uhlin, 2004).

NGOs and transnational movements

Transnational activism in East and Southeast Asia has exhibited some complex characteristics
(Hildebrandt, 2013). Environmental, labor, and women’s movements represent three major
areas where transnational activism has been most visible in the past few decades. In this section,
NGOs’ activities, actors, networking, and strategies are discussed for each movement, beginning
with the environment. The analysis focuses on comparing experiences in China with those in
selected Southeast Asian countries.

The environmental movement

Issues
Environmental governance is one of the areas which has seen a proliferation of NGOs respond-
ing to the diverse range of environmental concerns present in East and Southeast Asia. As wit-
nessed in western societies, conserving nature and protecting animals have been key features in
the mobilization of environmental NGOs (ENGOs) and environmental movements. Similarly,
environmental concerns are often shown more prominently among the middle class, which has
demonstrated a particular emphasis on conservation commonly witnessed among early envi-
ronmentalists (Cotgrove and Duff, 1980). Among groups in Southeast and East Asia, collective
action has been mobilized to protect endangered species and to protest against hydropower
development over large rivers.
However, the complex social, political, and economic developments in Asian nations have
fostered a diverse set of foci for this environmentalism. Among the issues that environmental
NGOs are committed to, many focus on responding to environmental change, with air and
water pollution being the two issues that have attracted the most attention within this. Other
environmental issues, such as ocean conservation and pollution-linked threats to health and
livelihoods, have also attracted notable attention from NGOs (Xie, 2009; Johnson, 2010, 2013;
Holdaway, 2013). In contemporary Asian cities, waste management is another distinct area
of concern that has resulted from increasing urbanization and the particular challenges this
poses, with municipal waste (MW) being produced at an unprecedented speed. Consequently, a

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rapidly growing number of NGOs working on promoting waste management have been set up
in response, with facilitating behavioral change being identified as one of the key aims for their
activities (Xie, 2015). In China, there are also increasing concerns among environmentalists
around political articulation. As these societies have commonly lagged behind in environmental
management, the political systems have been similarly weak in adopting effective environmental
policy instruments, including the incorporation of the public in policy processes. Beyond the
above, environmental groups also focus on advocating environmental justice and a rights-based
defense of individuals’ environmental welfare, linking in to ideas of environmental identity
which stems from citizens’ increasing awareness of rights and how these relate to the need to
protect the environment. Indeed, environmentalists have engaged in place-protective activities
within their local communities in which middle-class homeowners constitute the majority of
protestors (Johnson, 2010). The key rights claims here focus on environmental welfare provi-
sion by government, promoting public behavior change as well as legal protection against state
misdeeds (van Rooij, 2006).
In the past decades, economic growth boosted by the rapid exploitation of natural resources
has posed challenges to the realization of sustainable development in the region. With the devel-
opment of neoliberal economies, Asian countries are closely incorporated into the global system
where national interests and international investors have contributed to an acceleration in their
exploitation of natural resources. The problems that arise have become a rather complex inter-
connection of issues, incorporating land rights, human rights, livelihood insecurities (Nesadurai,
2013), and empowerment (Lamb et al., 2017; Cheyns, 2014). For instance, opposition against
dam construction and land grabbing has been a key area in which environmental activists work.
In Southeast Asia, interconnected concerns have been developed around palm oil-related land
expansion, as seen prominently in Indonesia, Cambodia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. In such
disputes, indigenous communities and landowners not only protest against large-scale interna-
tional corporations, but are also confronted by national governments whose actions can impov-
erish local communities, including through establishing institutional arrangements that facilitate
and support states or large-scale corporations in their control over land (Nesadurai, 2013; Borras
Jr and Franco, 2011). As such, activism around palm oil draws on interconnected political argu-
ments that see the biofuel solution as a manifestation of multiple crises relating to biodiversity loss,
climate change, the agribusiness model, energy policy, neoliberalism, and capitalism (Pye, 2010).

Actors
As has been seen in developed societies, the dynamics between humans and the natural environ-
ment are complex. The development of ENGOs which engage with some of these complexities
has led them to become one of the most active groups within civil society in East and Southeast
Asia. Depending on the specific environmental issues of interest, different actors can be identi-
fied within environmental campaigns.
In China, for instance, domestic NGOs gained international connections and, as their finan-
cial situation became more secure, capable key figures and staff members of previous groups
established new organizations (Xie, 2009). In this, international NGOs have had a strong impact
in terms of assisting Chinese voluntary groups with their financial and organizational capacity
building, so that there is now an increasing density of linkages between local NGOs and INGOs
(Morton, 2008; Zusman and Turner, 2005). Apart from providing funding, they also facilitate
knowledge-sharing around management and project monitoring for domestic Chinese NGOs.
In this, localized international organizations have more chances to cooperate with Chinese
ENGOs than those that do not have local personnel.

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In contrast, in Southeast Asian countries actors mobilized in environmental movements

enjoy a greater extent of diversity, as demonstrated by the social groups involved. Differentiated
social classes have also been found among campaigners, including farmers, independent peas-
ants, and migrant workers (Pye, 2010). These social groups can further differ significantly in the
roles they play in such campaigns, with each social group raising varying concerns and issues in
their struggles, as has again been seen regarding palm oil plantations. Case studies focusing on
Indonesia’s experiences of palm oil indicate that peasant activists have played a significant role
in developing broader frames that link campaigns against palm oil to those of climate justice,
while also developing close interactions with various thematic movements at the global level
(Pye, 2010; Borras, 2008). This is held to be achievable in part because peasants are financially
less attached to land and politically not as influential compared to other social groups involved
in movement campaigns.

Networks
As in other policy sectors, Asia’s environmental NGOs have been active in trying to develop
transnational ties with international actors. For this, the environment is an issue area where
NGOs have usually been able to find more space for organizational development and to pro-
mote their claims across many societies, including those in Indonesia and China.
In China as elsewhere, transnational environmental NGOs have flourished over the past
several decades. Since the early 1990s, opposition was raised against the Chinese state’s building
of the Three Gorges Dam – the world’s largest dam project. As much as US$24-billion was
required to invest in the project that generates renewable power to sustain the country’s demand
for energy. This is not to mention the negative social-environmental impacts this project has
had, including the displacement of approximately 1.2 million people. On this issue, transnational
activism was witnessed occurring outside China, particularly among environmentalists from the
US and Canada, and was targeted directly at international investors with the development held
to be endangering some of the principles behind human rights and environmental protec-
tion (Lee, 2013). In the years since, transnational activism has seen an increasing setting-up of
INGO chapters in China, and particularly of those working on environmental issues that have
regional and global impacts (for instance, the National Reform and Development Commission
and World Resources Institute from the US, Greenpeace from the EU). These groups usu-
ally interact directly with government (Wu, 2011), building links with authorities while also
pursuing opportunities to work at the grassroots level. As such, they are arguably more effec-
tive in achieving their goals as they have consolidated their networks and links with important
domestic (i.e., state) and grassroots partners. In general, transnational networks can help produce
shared identities and promote common understandings of issues. Domestic NGOs, therefore,
strategically adopt environmental norms and advocate for domestic policy debates by incorpo-
rating issues from not only the national level, but also from the other levels of work influenced
by international NGOs, such as on global levels (Kollman, 2007).
The role that transnational networks play largely depends on individual campaigners and
domestic NGOs. In single-issue campaigns, transnational activists are more likely to have a
positive impact upon movement development. For instance, on issues specifically concerning
hydropower, transnational networks have complemented domestic environmental NGOs by
representing local voices at the global level (Piper and Uhlin, 2004). In contrast, when issues
adopted in campaigns are interconnected with various thematic global movements, an increas-
ingly diverse range of frames have been adopted by activists which makes friction and a diver-
gence of claims, activities, and goals more likely to occur within transnational networks.

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Strategies
Compared to the environmentalism which has developed in western Europe and North America,
we can see similarities in NGOs’ strategies to influence policy changes in East and Southeast
Asian countries. Lobbying and advocacy constitute a major part of this work. Resource mobi-
lization theory is enlightening when analyzing NGOs’ mobilization and outcomes. Broadly,
under this approach the attainment of resources, widely defined, is seen as being crucial to
movements, with those which hold greater resources and which are able to use them effec-
tively through formal organizational structures being arguably more likely to be influential
in (environmental) governance (McCarthy and Zald, 1977). In China, NGOs’ relations with
government could be conceptualized as representing a key resource that facilitates their adaption
to the country’s specific political structure and subsequently influences the opportunities they
may potentially have to advocate for change (Xie, 2009; Gaudreau and Cao, 2015). In different
issue areas, advocacy activities have been recognized particularly where public participation is
required in policy processes. However, as found in the privatization of water and the forming
of water prices (Zhong and Mol, 2008), state-led public participation, achieved via NGOs as a
channeling force, has reflected the various problems found in broader state–society relations and
has not always resulted in improved policy outputs. Moreover, in the Chinese context where
environmental governance is dominated by top-down policy processes, such state-led partici-
pation remains restricted in the extent to which it can fully represent local interests (Mao and
Zhang, 2018).
In Southeast Asia, movement development has been significant across various levels. At local
levels, for instance, many NGOs have pursued multifaceted individual and collective actions,
including through sharing environmental knowledge to raise awareness and help create experts
to guide debates about environmental problems (Laungaramsri, 2017). Among those involved
in environmental struggles, legal approaches adopted for and by indigenous communities have
increasingly turned to the civil courts to rule on their land claims (Nesadurai, 2013). At national
and global levels, notable challenges exist for movements which attempt to influence govern-
ment policies when directly questioning the governance of natural resources, or in situations
when conflicting economic and political interests are involved (Bryant, 2001; Simpson and
Smits, 2018). In systems where political restrictions exist, such as in Myanmar and Thailand,
access to government has proven to be a useful resource when opposing policies on the exploi-
tation of hydropower and large-scale energy projects (Bryant, 2001; Simpson and Smits, 2018).
Apart from in areas where large infrastructure projects are planned, NGOs have managed to
work with government and realize their targets. Owing to increasing environmental challenges
and the impacts of environmental activism, political authorities have started to adopt more
dynamic approaches to dealing with environment-related behavior and concerns as part of
a larger set of political calculations, including through greater citizen engagement in climate
change (Simpson and Smits, 2018). NGOs are also involved in transnational networks that
advocate multi-stakeholder governance. In these ways, domestic campaigners have proved able
to generate impacts at national and global levels (Pye, 2010).

The labor movement

Issues
In East and Southeast Asia, since economic integration has strengthened, labor migration has
become a regional issue and has never featured more prominently within the region than it does

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today. Consequently, over the past few decades there has been a rapid growth in the number
and geographical spread of labor movements in Southeast and East Asia. These are linked to the
colonial legacies where export-oriented development was established, tying the region to global
markets (Ford, 2013).
Since the 1990s, the Asian economic crisis has dramatically influenced the context in which
a growing number of international migrants have begun to spread from poorer to more indus-
trialized countries in East Asia. Globally, there are currently 20.2 million immigrants originating
from ASEAN countries. Among them, more than a third remain in the region (ILO, 2015;
Harkins et al., 2017). The diversity and significance of migration flows has, therefore, grown
exponentially (Kaur, 2009).
Migrant workers’ issues broadly concern workers’ general welfare, insufficient pay, job
insecurity, unreported workplace injuries, under-deployment, forceful repatriation, and
employer kickbacks for hiring and contract renewal. Abuse of female migrant workers’ rights
is also a visible problem, and has become an increasing problem for those who are involved
in domestic work. In such an environment, sexual exploitation and other abuses commonly
occur. This situation reflects the lack of labor protection that exists in the region, the absence
of safe and legal migration opportunities, and gaps in the protection of workers’ other employ-
ment rights.
In China, the emergence of labor movements differs across geographical locations as well.
In affluent regions of the country, such as in Special Economic Zones where China’s light and
labor-intensive industrial sector is located, these movements are more focused on labor processes
and rights abuses, including living conditions and managerial and workplace abuse (Chen, 2003;
Friedman and Lee, 2010). Industry in these areas mostly relies on migrant workers who have
engaged in disputes with factory owners in Hong Kong (HK), Taiwan, and South Korea, as well
as with multinational corporations. These workers represent a distinct peasant group working in
urban industries. Their hukou (administrative residential) status remains “peasant”, significantly
distinguishing them from urban workers. Within disputes, they are observed to be increasingly
adopting legal measures to defend their interests, particularly after the passage of the Labour
Contract Law in 2008 (Wong, 2011). This law aims to clarify workers’ rights, providing bet-
ter legal support in workplace disputes. Issues that are commonly pursued include demands for
better working conditions and workers’ legal entitlements. Given their foci and activities, these
labor movements have been suggested to contribute to legal reform and to the raising of social
demands for legal justice (Franceschini, 2014).

Actors
The labor movement represents a divided camp that sees fragmented interests represented
by a number of NGOs and unions. The term “migrant worker NGOs” refers to grassroots
groups composed of former and intending migrant workers and migrant workers’ families.
These NGOs differ significantly from “migrant labor NGOs” which is a term commonly used
to describe limited-membership advocacy organizations composed primarily of middle-class
activists who advocate on behalf of migrant workers (Ford, 2006). Migrant worker NGOs are
important actors in the labor movement. However, like other types of NGOs, these too have
had to come to terms with dramatic changes in the political landscape, particularly as they are
dependent on external funding and strongly influenced by donors’ interests.
Furthermore, among migrant labor NGOs, strong competition has also led to increased
complexity in the sector which has so far resisted underlying changes that have been reshaping
community-based migrant labor organizations and unions (Ford, 2004). As a result of weak

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organizational development, the political climate has also led to increased fragmentation in the
migrant labor NGO community (Ford, 2006). With a stronger focus being placed on improv-
ing organizational development, migrant labor NGOs are criticized for not being efficient in
representing workers’ interests (Ford, 2004), and particularly of those who are employed in
export-led industries.
Among all labor organizations, trade unions are key representatives of employees when
negotiating labor contracts. In collective bargaining, trade unions primarily aim to improve
workers’ material interests, such as through pay raises and better working conditions. Trade
unions are, however, criticized for not demonstrating an interest in migrant issues. According
to Ford (2004, 2006), in the Indonesian case overseas migrant workers remain a low priority
for domestic trade unions primarily because they are employed outside the country where local
unions have no influence and have little desire to become involved.
In most Southeast Asian countries, trade unions are also strongly controlled by the state
with some having no autonomy given the influence exerted by the central government. With
limited space for developing freedom of association these groups are faced with constraints in
their daily development, many of those in Indonesia remaining weak even after the ban on
independent unions was lifted in the Trade Union Law (2010) (Juliawan, 2011). In Indonesia,
trade unions have been limited in their bargaining power with which they can attempt to
effectively represent workers’ interests, including around work insecurity (Hauf, 2016). They
are also faced with organizational contexts where employees have very little knowledge of
trade unions, especially among the unskilled workforce in the export factory or home-based
work sectors. States dominate trade unions in Southeast Asia by restricting their advocacy
activities (Weiss, 2004) and by regulating their development in order to let enterprise operate
without disruption (Kelly, 2002).
In China, the state apparatus has developed numerous approaches to contain opposition
within the labor force. Empirical research indicates, for example, that space is allowed for grass-
roots NGOs to develop, particularly where they help to mitigate tensions between workers
and their employers (Zhang and Smith, 2009; Franceschini, 2014). Labor NGOs (LNGOs),
which are the equivalent of worker support centers in western countries, have emerged to assist
individual workers in taking on some of the labor protection tasks (Howell, 1995). Most of the
LNGOs are concentrated in South China, where the global supply-chain manufacturing hub
is located. LNGOs provide legal assistance to workers when they are defending their interests.
However, migrant workers’ associations have been found to lack autonomy under the restric-
tive political regime in China (Froissart, 2006), and often act as means for political stabilization
under the rule of the Party state (Friedman and Lee, 2010). As a result, these organized bodies
are not always found to be successful in representing workers’ interests or promoting an agenda
in their favor (Chen, 2009; Ding et al., 2002). Apart from organized groups, in areas where
industrial sectors are concentrated, individuals have also been mobilized. Collective actions
organized by laid-off workers from state-owned enterprises (SOEs) represent one of the suc-
cessfully mobilized campaigns. In the years since 2015, individual labor activists have also built
a nationwide network which has demonstrated the potential to mobilize nationwide collective
actions (Chan, 2018).

Networks
Many of the labor migration campaigns in the region do not operate autonomously, but instead
take place within networks. Based on different geographical areas, there are two types of net-
works that play a significant role in Southeast Asian migrant workers’ movements.

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One of these types is regional networks that include both the source and destination coun-
tries, and have played an important role in coordinating collective action. The migrant worker
problem has also been labeled as a local issue which brings more opportunities for the migrant
workers’ movement (Lyons, 2009). However, because of restrictive political systems, migrant
workers’ NGOs can only become active in certain countries. For instance, in richer contexts
such as Hong Kong, advocacy has been better organized to include a wider range of labor issues,
such as women’s rights and part-time workers’ rights. Hong Kong has thus become a hotspot
for coordination among migrant NGOs (Hsia, 2009). Here, resources have been provided for
migrant organizations, including systematic training, sponsorship for organizers from source
countries to work in Hong Kong with other migrant organizations, and through ensuring that
the representatives of grassroots migrant organizations are part of the decision-making bodies
of NGOs.
The labor movement in Southeast Asia is also incorporated into transnational activism net-
works that extend to the global level. Within this second type of network which has a global
reach, enterprise and consumers are important parts. The links between these levels and actors
are exemplified in the impact of national campaigns promoting labor rights on global union
and corporate practices through customer pressure (Hauf, 2016). Another international aspect
is the involvement of intergovernmental actors, including the ILO, OHCHR, and UNESCO.
These actors have provided opportunities for migrant movement activists in Southeast Asian
countries to advocate for the adoption of international conventions to improve the situation of
migrant laborers. In policy advocacy at the global level, international coalitions bring together
the cross-sectoral scope of migrant labor NGOs and the organizing experience and capacity of
unions (Ford, 2006).

Strategies
In Southeast Asia, where organized labor has retained a higher degree of autonomy than in
China, the migrant labor movement has adopted various strategies to create impact. Here, an
increasing number of protests have successfully mobilized industrial workers who have taken to
the streets in large numbers to challenge state and business interests (Bermeo, 1997; Neureiter,
2013). However, large-scale strikes and mass demonstrations have also sometimes had the nega-
tive effect of resulting in violence (Hauf, 2016; Juliawan, 2011). Such protest forms have also
been limited to workers as it remains difficult to mobilize wider citizens’ support for migrant
worker issues. Labor organizations have found it hard to develop partnerships with a fragmented
middle class in these societies (Rodan and Jayasuriya, 2009). Nevertheless, it is predicted that
radical protests will continue to play a more central role within social struggles around the future
development of society.
Chinese labor NGOs, on the other hand, are scattered and lack coordination. With a clear
goal of curbing the organization of collective action, the state has developed strategies that
actively disincentivize participation. This makes Chinese labor activism rather weak and may
not, therefore, fully fit common definitions of a “movement” which displays certain scale and
independence in the organization of collective actions (Diani, 1992). That said, across China
coordinated actions have still seen the involvement of several hundred thousand participants
(CLB, 2012). The goals of these activities differ, ranging from general labor rights to protesting
against specific and unsatisfactory arrangements put in place for laid-off workers (Lee, 2007;
Cai, 2006).
In this context, labor NGOs in China have developed tactics to influence political authori-
ties. They are found to “resist through accommodation”, which means that these NGOs engage

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in efforts to cope with the challenges posed by the state and the market as they change over time
(Jakimov, 2017). However, as workers have been found to be more inclined to organize and
participate in collective action when their own subsistence is threatened (Chen, 2000), the state
has conferred individual rights while restricting collective ones as a means to limit the incen-
tives for protest by raising the costs of participation (Chen, 2016), reducing the likelihood of its
occurrence. Nevertheless, Chinese labor NGOs are so fragmented and disconnected from their
supposed constituency that it would be an overstatement to depict them as an important force
contributing to legal reform or raising social demands.

Women’s rights movements

Issues
Gender inequality is a common issue for women’s movements in Southeast Asian countries and
China. Generally speaking, those identified in Southeast Asia have a slightly broader range of
foci, bridging gender inequality with wider human rights concerns. There is particular attention
to the domestic sphere, as may be perceived in strict Muslim societies where daily activities,
interaction in the community, and family rules shape women’s social positions and gendered
roles. Regionally, women migrants’ rights have also been a focus of attention, revealing the gen-
dered context, particularly where government policies have shown visible weaknesses regard-
ing female houseworkers’ issues, such as in Indonesia and Malaysia (Piper and Uhlin, 2004).
Embedded in the wider social and economic contexts, there is a lack of government protection
of the well-being of migrants with gendered implications. From this perspective, women’s
inequality also represents a broader transnational issue in the region.
Similarly, China’s women’s movement has placed its emphasis on gender inequality.
Women’s inequality can be perceived as being deeply rooted within Chinese society, as it has
been claimed that according to Confucian culture women must obey men. Such ideas have
been present in Chinese society for about 4,000 years and, as a consequence, gender inequality
is widely spread throughout many aspects of social and political life. This has resulted in gender
disparity in occupation, educational levels, and income (Li, 2000). To illustrate this point, men
are more likely to occupy the most desirable jobs and their participation outside the home is
higher than that of women. Men also have better educational opportunities. However, concerns
over gender inequality have remained more narrowly defined in China than in Southeast Asia
and its implications for human rights have not been incorporated so extensively into the agenda
of China’s women’s movement.

Actors
In Southeast Asia, there is a mixture of NGOs that work toward empowering women. In these
countries, women have traditionally been obliged to conform to strict gender roles as mothers
and grandmothers. However, with an increase in movement activism in the region, women’s
involvement has been recognized in different protests, such as those around land grabbing,
forced evictions, civic activism, or struggles over gender itself (Nightingale, 2006). Land grab-
bing and forced evictions in particular have created an activist movement among women, with
women having different social roles, rights, and opportunities when large-scale land transfers are
made (Behrman et al., 2012, p. 51). For instance, many women ran businesses that benefited
from tourism, but over the best part of a decade many have lost their livelihoods and homes
to land transfers. NGOs have helped women to become empowered through facilitating their

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involvement in protest (White and White, 2012). For this, women protestors have drawn on
their gender roles in society, as mothers and grandmothers, to legitimize concerns about the
future of their families and communities. Women have been at the forefront of these cam-
paigns with many becoming effective community leaders and human rights advocates as a result,
for instance in Cambodia (Brickell, 2014). These activities can have wider positive effects as
housewives have become more involved in their local communities and have had more time
to collectivize, for instance (Lamb et al., 2017). However, such practices have also risked rein-
forcing the unequal gendered positions that often exclude them from politics in the first place
(Einwohner et al., 2000).
In promoting women’s rights when resisting religious extremism in Southeast Asia, a broader
range of actors are involved. On Islamism, for instance, these include not only Muslim women’s
groups, but also progressive scholars and intellectuals, wider civil society organizations, non-
Muslim women’s groups, human rights groups and movements, inter-faith coalitions, and, to a
limited extent, political parties. This wide range of actors reflects the ways in which women’s
inequality represents and speaks to some of the broader structural injustices that are rooted in
legal regulations and religious beliefs. Gender inequality, therefore, represents a daily struggle
for many in Southeast Asia (Brickell, 2014).
In comparison, China’s organizational forces are mainly constituted by a smaller range of
NGOs. Within this, government-organized NGOs (GONGOs) have played a significant role
in China. These are one of the major social organizations that have been established since 1949
to act as a belt linking government and the mass of the population. In recent decades, greater
autonomy has been seen in these groups, with women’s GONGOs playing a significant role in
promoting empowerment. One of the notably influential organizations within this has been the
All-China Women’s Federation (ACWF).
As a country, China has a strong recent history of engaging with women’s issues. In 1995,
Beijing held a global conference that promoted the UN’s flagship gender equality docu-
ment, the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action being adopted by 189 countries.
Further, in 2007 China joined the Global Fund to fight AIDS, placing a particular focus
on the vulnerabilities of women, girls, and sexual minorities in the fight against the disease.
In the past few years, therefore, mainstreaming women’s empowerment in international
development has also gained momentum. It is suggested that the Beijing government has
increasingly leveraged its foreign policy resources, extending to funding, political commit-
ments, and high-level events with the UN, on this issue as such deeds are likely to promote
China’s publicity as a responsible global actor in the international community. Therefore,
women’s GONGOs also work proactively on the international stage. They facilitate edu-
cational experiences in the context of expectations and mandates for increased access and
equity for girls and women.
However, China’s women’s movement has still been restrictively controlled by the gov-
ernment, including through this dominance of government-organized NGOs (Howell, 1996;
Jacka, 2010). With key women’s organizations being state-organized NGOs, these GONGOs
have to maintain organizational links with the government while at the same time engaging
with advocacy, including that which may challenge the former (Tsimonis, 2016; Liu, 2006).
As a result, they focus on select issues relating to women’s inequality, such as domestic vio-
lence and family planning. Moreover, they have to adopt particular tactics when campaign-
ing on issues that may seem to be sensitive to central government, such as when linking the
government’s economic policy as one of the root causes contributing to women’s inequality
in China.

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Networks
In Southeast Asian countries, women’s transnational networks have enjoyed a slightly higher
level of freedom to promote social change. Advocacy on the international level for domestic
policy shifts is a key focus recognized within the women’s movement in the region. Specifically,
such advocacy aims at raising governments’ awareness and promoting structural changes ben-
efiting women. Broad networking activities also exist among major regional movements, with
overlap present between the various international coalitions organized around development
issues, global financial architecture, food security, and global social justice. However, many
networks remain rooted in their own national struggles and must respond to their particular
political contexts (Caouette, 2008).
However, as is seen in the labor and environment movements in parts of Asia, states still
strongly control the links between domestic and international NGOs on issues such as human
rights and women’s rights. The effects of advocacy by transnational networks also differ. Some
suggest that within state boundaries transnational activist networks on women’s rights have
shown a weaker character when compared to the power of states and capitalist interests (Piper
and Uhlin, 2004). On the regional or national level, they have shown a limited influence over
states, especially those that have not committed to democracy and human rights. In comparison,
norms articulated at the global level, through global instruments and institutions, have compara-
tively greater power to procure change (Renshaw, 2017). Again, this reminds us that different
possibilities for advocacy activities exist depending on the levels at which actors operate (be
this local, national, regional, and/or international), each level demonstrating varying political
contexts and offering a different range of political opportunities to which activists and NGOs
can adapt.

Strategies
Both direct action and advocacy activities have been seen in Southeast Asia’s women’s move-
ment. At the local and national levels, women’s protest has centered on exposing injustices
and inequities to national and global audiences, highlighting the gender ideals denied to
them in their daily lives. However, as mentioned above, negative effects from such mobi-
lization may also be seen. For instance, NGOs’ gendered mobilization strategy is found to
have imposed pressures upon women (Chan, 2016; Lindquist, 2010), and risks reinforcing
the unequal gendered positions that often exclude women from politics in the first place
(Einwohner et al., 2000).
On women’s issues, transnational networks have enjoyed a slightly higher level of freedom to
promote change than on other issues that are deemed politically more sensitive. At regional and
international levels, transnational networks have also developed rights-based advocacy. They
aim to raise central government’s awareness of international conventions and promote policy
reform on migrant workers’ and women citizens’ rights (Renshaw, 2017). Such activities have
included litigation measures, promoting state behavior change, and civic activism. With the
assistance of international actors, local NGOs have also collected information that is effective
in generating boomerang effects on national governments (Renshaw, 2017). It has been argued
that in the long run, such activities have the potential to result in substantive policy shifts,
although institutional changes have not yet occurred.
As stated previously, as key women’s organizations in China, GONGOs have to maintain
organizational links with the government while conducting advocacy that may challenge state

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policies (Tsimonis, 2016; Liu, 2006), focusing largely on issues such as domestic violence and
family planning. Some assess China’s women’s movement as having made significant progress
in promoting women’s rights in the country (Kaufman, 2012). However, the implementation
of an international participatory agenda is not sufficient to achieve the goal of changing gender
relations if institutional factors in local government are not tackled (Jacka, 2010). At the same
time, it is also argued that cultural factors prevent the Chinese from being actively involved in
transnational activism networks, including a distrust toward international actors and uneven
development within the NGO community (Hildebrandt, 2012).
Initiating empowerment projects has provided another important way of generating impact.
These are broad activities that range from education to microfinance programs provided for
women (Al-Shami et al., 2016). Local activist groups realize that the promotion of gender
equality is further tied to other global problems such as persistent poverty, with women being
disproportionately afflicted by such deprivation.
In Southeast Asia, existing social structures prove to be an influential factor which impacts
upon women’s empowerment (Kabeer, 2012; Al-Shami et al., 2016). Microfinance programs
aim to produce direct benefits by providing training and financial assistance for women. As part
of this, local NGOs have developed close links with communities and have helped women to
become involved in starting their own businesses, gradually gaining financial independence and
enabled to leave their homes to deal with their businesses, or to visit their relatives (Holvoet,
2005; Kato and Kratzer, 2013). Studies of urban Muslim communities from Malaysia indicate
that microfinance is an effective tool for women’s empowerment, with positive results for
gender equality socially and economically (Al-Shami et al., 2016). It has been noted, however,
that the impacts of microfinance vary from one context to another because of demographic and
socioeconomic differences (Hulme, 2000; van Rooyen et al., 2012).
In the Chinese context, on the other hand, established institutional constraints can prove
to be obstructing influences on empowerment projects. Women’s education is one example
of an area where women’s NGOs have attempted to promote change through practical and
experimental projects, including through building links with international and global NGOs
to promote innovative ways of training women in leadership. For instance, the NongCun
Scholarship was designed to anchor girls’ educational development in an egalitarian participa-
tory model, in which each party could trigger future initiatives. However, given the predomi-
nance in China of well-established educational routes, such practices are resisted by students,
parents, and local teachers. Instead of seizing such opportunities, established routes toward suc-
cess through key high schools and university entrance exams remain the preferred means of
advancement (Seeberg et al., 2017).

A comparison of NGOs in China and Southeast Asia

Asian societies are experiencing rapid economic and political changes, with transnational
activism being influential in the development of domestic activities, including through the
environmental, labor, and women’s movements. Asian NGOs are increasingly engaging with
transnational networks, which have played a significant role in linking with domestic actors
to influence national governments (Pye, 2010). However, with state authorities continuing to
dominate over these societies (Loh and Ojenda, 2006; Caouette, 2008), NGOs have developed
varying degrees of autonomy in their choice of strategies and their interactions with transna-
tional networks.
With regards to the range of issues that NGOs work on, it seems that those in Southeast
Asian countries have shown a broader range than those in China. In each thematic movement,

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there are no clear-cut boundaries. Cases of land-grabbing campaigns in Southeast Asia have
demonstrated complex interconnections, incorporating interlinking issues of the environment,
women’s rights, and migrant workers’ rights into their claim-making. This reflects the com-
plex social, economic, and environmental changes these societies are experiencing which have
resulted in inequality and injustice among different social groups.
In Southeast Asia, NGOs have also shown a broader range of movement strategies than
those found in China, including direct action, lobbying, and advocacy. On issues such as the
environment, migrant workers, and women’s rights, large-scale collective actions have been
mobilized, sometimes with the involvement of transnational networks. In particular, the labor
and women’s movements have shown a strong focus on forming transnational links, hence more
activities have been organized on national, as opposed to local, levels.
In contrast, China seems a particularly narrow space for NGOs to operate in given the lim-
ited political opportunities and active constraints on their potential influence. In the case of the
environmental movement, slightly more options are available than with the other two areas
of political activism considered in this chapter. In this case, NGOs have displayed a combined
strategy to impact upon government authorities, which differs little from their counterparts
in western Europe and North America (Middleton, 2016; Haddad, 2017). However, while
some space is available for NGOs to conduct lobbying and advocacy, China’s NGOs show a
reluctance to engage in outward protest. As such, among all strategies adopted, filing lawsuits
and involvement in advocacy toward national government prove to be common options. The
adoption of these strategies demonstrates that movement networks remain an important source
for introducing the ideas around and knowledge of international norms.
In Southeast and East Asia, NGOs’ work has been developed at different levels of govern-
ance, including at local, national, and/or regional levels. With regards to the political outcomes
of transnational social movements, they have commonly produced only limited impacts on
formal political space (Collins, 2008; Gerard, 2014; Chavez, 2017) and in influencing policy
change (Ghimire, 2011). However, transnational activism has succeeded in influencing govern-
ments to review policy processes, and both local communities and government authorities have
become increasingly aware of the issues raised by NGOs. These are suggested by some to be
necessary steps in preparation for further institutional changes in the near future (Chavez, 2017).
It is also noticeable that domestic NGOs in Southeast and East Asia have gradually developed
their own character in terms of organizational development and movement dynamics, including
in response to the differing relationships between domestic NGOs and transnational networks.
In some issue areas, such as on the environment, domestic NGOs in Southeast Asia have taken a
greater lead in efforts to develop transnational activism. Here, they have displayed a more proac-
tive role when interacting with transnational networks and have shown strong initiative when
trying to contextualize the knowledge and expertise brought by international actors. In com-
parison, in other issue areas domestic NGOs in Southeast Asia appear less proactive and more
reliant on international NGOs for developing their agendas and strategies for achieving desired
outcomes. In China, where the political system imposes more constraints upon the emergence
and operation of NGOs, transnational activism appears disjointed with limits to the connections
that can be formed with international networks. As a result, NGOs have developed tactics to
work with government to bring about change in the issue areas they are concerned with.

Conclusions
With Asian countries’ increasing involvement in the global economy, transnational activism is
predicted to become more prominent in various policy arenas. Compared to earlier experiences,

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Lei Xie and Joshua Garland

such social activism has progressed significantly over the last two decades. However, strong
political restrictions remain in these societies. These countries have developed complex admin-
istrative procedures to regulate the organization and operation of autonomous NGOs. In conse-
quence, these NGOs have turned to transnational activism in efforts to bring about institutional
changes, including through the adoption of combined strategies and tactics with other groups
and issue areas, as well as through the promotion of national or local perspectives within trans-
national networks (Pye, 2010).
Taking the above into account, there appear to be several areas that are worth examining in
future research. Located in their distinct sociopolitical and economic contexts, Asia’s NGOs have
been influenced both by global activism as well as national or local identities. However, domes-
tic NGOs have shown increasing autonomy in developing their agendas and in the adoption of
strategies and tactics (Pye, 2010). It is noted that various social groups exist and partake in move-
ments, reflecting the interconnected social, economic, and political conditions in which they exist.
Therefore, apart from focusing on domestic NGOs’ links with international actors, interactions
among different domestic groups also warrant attention. As part of this, attention ought to be
placed on the dilemmas facing domestic NGOs’ development and organizational structures, includ-
ing around the effects of competition with other NGOs and of the coalitions deliberately formed
among these groups. This competition, for example, potentially obstructs the formation of collec-
tive action and may prove to hinder the links between domestic NGOs and transnational activists.
In conclusion, state–society relations are a key factor in NGO development in Southeast
and East Asia. NGOs have developed strategic approaches to access governments, such as by
providing services and complementing governments by representing local interests. More atten-
tion is required to understand the dynamics between governments and NGOs, however, espe-
cially those that are influenced by transnational networks. Key questions going forward would
therefore seem to be: what policy areas and processes can be identified that formally recognize
NGOs’ involvement, and what roles do NGOs play within these? And what are the implica-
tions of such participation, particularly as Asian countries become increasingly incorporated into
existing global economic and political systems?

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 33
NGOs, democracy and
development in Latin America
Inés M. Pousadela

While categorized as a middle-income region, with most of its countries and territories falling
into the middle-income category, Latin America is highly heterogeneous, with countries rang-
ing from the western hemisphere’s only low-income country, Haiti, to high-income economies
such as Chile; from heavily indebted poor countries such as Bolivia, Honduras and Nicaragua, to
rising powers like Brazil, the world’s seventh largest economy. Most of its countries, including
those with the highest incomes, are also internally heterogeneous and highly unequal. Despite
experiencing high economic growth over the past decade and achieving impressive declines in
poverty and significant declines in inequality during the 2000s and early 2010s (roughly com-
pensating for their deepening in the 1980s and 1990s), Latin America continues to be the most
unequal – although by no means the poorest – region in the world. While poverty went down
by about 30%, inequality levels (as measured by the Gini coefficient) dropped from 0.54 in 2000
to 0.5 in 2010. Even the most equal country in the region, Uruguay (0.41), would qualify as
very unequal by OECD standards.1
Most countries in the region are procedurally democratic – that is, they regularly hold
elections that are mostly adjudged to be free and fair. Many, however, still bear the marks
of their past authoritarian experiences. Most of them also suffered from chronic political
instability throughout the 20th century, and many had authoritarian regimes (often led by
the military) in the 1960s and 1970s – and in some cases, well into the 1990s. Starting in
the late 1970s, the region took part in the so-called “third wave” of democratic transitions
(Huntington 1991), with countries (re)democratizing as early as 1978 (Dominican Republic)
and as late as 1993 (Paraguay) and 2000 (Mexico). Despite a few short-lived interruptions
over the decades that followed, elections eventually became the only game in town almost
everywhere. The routine alternation of elected governments was accompanied by novelties
such as the election of several women, a former trade union leader and an indigenous activist
to the highest executive office.
As noted by Oxhorn (2001), however, third-wave transitions in Latin America were peculiar
in that they saw political rights granted in the absence of universal civil rights and in a context of
declining social rights. Democracy therefore survived, if not thrived, in environments character-
ized by deep social inequalities disproportionately affecting women, youth, indigenous peoples,

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rural populations and Afro-descendants; high social conflict; mounting citizen security issues;
and increasing distrust in politicians, political parties and democratic institutions more generally.
Democratic experiences fell short of citizens’ expectations and human rights violations persisted
in democratic contexts, due to actions by both state agents (the military, the police) and private
entities (criminal organizations, corporations, paramilitary groups). As a result, fear of authori-
tarian reversals was largely replaced with concern with the quality of democratic governance,
bringing to the forefront human rights issues as well as issues of representation, participation,
accountability and responsiveness – all of them largely affecting civil society’s actions and pros-
pects, and setting the ground for NGO activity in the region.

Civil society and NGOs as contentious conceptual objects

Broadly speaking, a non-governmental organization (NGO) is any not-for-profit, voluntary
citizens’ group organized at the local, national or international level. In that wide definitional
sense, “NGO” would be just another name for a civil society organization (CSO). In the con-
text considered in this chapter, however, the term NGO is commonly reserved for a specific
kind of CSO: legally recognized, formal and structured, often generously funded, comprising
technical experts and professionals and carrying out programs and projects, usually aimed at pro-
moting democratic governance and/or the social and economic development of least favored
groups. Although they can use voluntary work, NGOs in this sense are not structured around
it, and are rather led by professional teams and made up of professional activists. As pointed out
by Sorj (2007, 2010), NGOs emerged as the typical 20th-century vehicles for the representation
of causes and the promotion of public debate – trade unions and political parties – declined.
NGOs differ from pre-existing organizations representing specific constituencies in that they
“promote social causes without a mandate for those that they claim to represent” (Sorj 2007:
133), therefore building their legitimacy in the moral force of their arguments rather than their
representative character. NGOs are not typically membership organizations (which makes fund-
ing an issue) and usually lack a stable and homogeneous social base; with few exceptions, they
do not exert direct pressure through mobilization, and are therefore more reliant on the media
to promote their agendas.
The NGO label is dated and, at least in Latin America, it carries an extra amount of mean-
ing. First and foremost, there were no NGOs in the narrow sense in Latin America before the
1980s, when the term, along with the reality it designated, first spread across the region. In fact,
the term “civil society” itself also made a comeback in the region in the 1980s – both were the
creatures of (re)democratization.
Both terms, and the NGO label even more so, are the objects of contention. As Roitter
(2004) points out, academic concepts may diverge from the ways these are appropriated by
social actors. And in many countries in the region, the term NGO is increasingly avoided,
as organizations fitting the description would rather call themselves CSOs. When the name
is still used, it often entails a contentious meaning, denoting a critical stance toward the
named object. Many organizations, and particularly grassroots ones, even if legally recog-
nized, reject so-called “NGO culture” as mainstream, pro-establishment, technocratic and
not socially sensitive – if not as complicit with the neoliberal state’s retreat from its social
and regulatory obligations.
Disputes around names are also disputes for meaning. As democratic transitions largely over-
lapped with market reforms, the acritical revindication of civil society has, as some have warned,
often led to a depoliticized “naïve apology of the market” (Lechner 1994). From the 1990s

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onwards, many in the region have viewed the top-down promotion of an institutionalized,
malleable, NGO-ized civil society (or, worse, “third sector”) as a form of “controlled inclusion”
aimed at isolating and taming social movements.
Over the past decades, a critical literature opposing civil society, seen as centered on reg-
istered, professionalized and well-funded NGOs, to the more confrontational and disruptive
social movements developed in the region. From this perspective, NGOs are budding bureau-
cracies intent on continuing to exist regardless of their actual impact on the communities they
work with or whose interests they claim to represent, and therefore prone to co-optation by
whoever owns the resources that they need to survive. In contrast with the budding NGOs of
the 1960s, seen as playing a supporting role to popular politicization, the increasingly profes-
sionalized and depoliticized NGOs of the 1980s and 1990s came to be seen as growing at the
expense of, and a replacement for, radical social movements.
NGOs and social movements’ logics certainly diverge: while NGOs claim to act on behalf
of constituencies or their rights, social movements embody the right of those groups to be
present where decisions are made (McKeon 2009). And while NGO practitioners usually
see their activities as supplementary to those of social movement activists, and may even
see themselves as part of a movement, activists belonging to radical social movements often
criticize them as functional to the global, capitalist world order (Souza 2013). This, however,
does not exclude the possibility of synergic relationships between the two: as pointed out
by Esteves, Motta and Cox (2009), while there is a tension between officially approved ver-
sions of popular political participation (“consultation”) and attempts by people to participate
in politics on their own terms, such as through protest and direct action, it is also true that
alongside mainstream NGOs that antagonize social movements there are also “non-compliant
NGOs” who cooperate with them, leading to great successes in terms of policy change and
the advancement of their causes.

Origins and development of modern NGOs in Latin America

Broadly defined as the sphere of voluntary association located outside the family, the
state and the market, civil society in Latin America is dynamic and diverse. It comprises a
vast variety of heterogeneous groups of all sizes and degrees of formalization. Advocacy,
research and consultancy NGOs working on various issues coexist with social movements,
trade unions, peasants’ and students’ organizations, and faith-based, cultural, recreation and
service-providing organizations, along with countless informal and local groups engaged in
a wide variety of activities.
While the modern NGO is a recent development, its predecessors date back to the early his-
tory of the region. Ever since independence days there were faith-based philanthropic organiza-
tions focusing on health, education and the attention of orphaned children and older people. In
the 19th century many of the functions fulfilled by these organizations were taken over by the
state, but some of them persist today.
Long before nation-states consolidated toward the late 19th century, numerous public good
and mutual help institutions formed, particularly in the areas of social welfare, education and
culture – some of which started to decline as states began to play a more active role in public
health and education. Between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the first modern workers’
organizations emerged in the countries that industrialized earliest, and employers’ organizations
were founded as well. Women’s organizations, neighborhood associations, immigrants’ mutual
help, cultural organizations and libraries, cooperatives, professional associations, social and sports

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clubs and charity organizations, often linked to the Catholic Church (and, to a lesser extent, to
other congregations), also proliferated. And so did, soon afterwards, student organizations and
federations: the first congress of Latin American university students took place in Montevideo,
Uruguay as early as 1908. As of the 1950s, trade unions had fully developed in the more indus-
trialized countries of the region, and large union federations were already in place.
The available regional-level literature and a variety of country studies agree on placing the
origins of modern civil society as we know it in the second half of the 20th century, in the
context of development processes and critical reactions to them; democratization processes and
the institutionalization of human rights at the regional level, and the development of the social
sciences (Cáceres 2014). A leap forward took place in the 1960s and 1970s, when various sup-
port institutions, institutes, study and research centers, scientific foundations and cultural organi-
zations proliferated in country after country. As a result of university reforms in the late 1960s,
multidisciplinary study centers were also established (Delamaza 2009).
While some traditional charity organizations remained so, others turned into, and many
others were founded as, development NGOs, including a number devoted to forming social
leaders through popular education and promoting the organization of peasants, workers, stu-
dents and the urban poor. In the initial stages, typical NGOs would also include those pro-
viding leadership and community training, technical assistance, legal advisory and agricultural
credit, social work youth organizations, community radios and other alternative communi-
cations projects. Soon after, they would widen their agendas to address emergencies (e.g.
through food distribution) and additional aspects of capacity building (e.g. skills in production,
commercialization or microcredit). As NGOs specialized in urban issues were established,
particularly in countries like Brazil, Mexico and Peru, the concept and practice of local citizen
participation were introduced under a “radical” format (Cáceres 2014). It was common at
the time for activist NGOs to hold a double activism, both social and political. Development
NGOs also sought to exert influence on public debates by disseminating research findings and
critical reflections through periodic publications.
Strongly mission-oriented, devised as support tools for nascent social movements and bring-
ing along a politicized notion of development, many NGOs maintained links with and received
support, including funding, from like-minded development agencies and Northern NGOs.
These links prioritized affinity and trust over planning, management and reporting require-
ments, therefore allowing local NGOs enough flexibility to operate, and often included solidar-
ity actions in Northern countries.
In sum, contemporary NGOs originated and developed in a period of high social and politi-
cal effervescence, in contexts of rapid urbanization, internal migrations, cultural secularization
and, in some cases, civil wars (as in Guatemala and El Salvador), internal armed conflict (as in
Colombia and Peru), struggles against authoritarian regimes (such as the Somoza dictatorship
in Nicaragua) and (re)democratization processes. The ideological context of the early years, in
turn, was shaped by the specter of the Cuban Revolution (1959), the religious renewal brought
by the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), the notions of emancipatory participation put
forward by radical scholars, researchers and educators such as Paulo Freire, and – particularly in
Central America – the reformist, anti-communist efforts undertaken by the US-driven Alliance
for Progress. In this context, many NGOs radicalized their discourse and aligned with revolu-
tionary social and political movements or operated as links between the elites and the popular
sectors (Garretón 2002).
In the 1970s, dictatorships ruled over much of South America, civil wars raged in Central
America and guerrilla movements made strides here and there. Throughout the region,

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organized workers and students were violently repressed. As pointed out by Fernandes (1994:
21), however, “community work escaped controls, and thus it managed to expand under the
most violent regimes, as in Pinochet’s Chile”. Not surprisingly, this era saw the development
of a dense network of popular and grassroots organizations. Neighborhood associations grew in
number and prominence, and took on numerous local issues, including water, garbage collec-
tion, children care, schooling and food. In several countries, networks of local women formed
to cater to local social needs. The Liberation Theology strand of the Catholic Church identified
the struggle against poverty and underdevelopment with anti-imperialistic and anti-capitalist
struggles, and advocated a preferential option for the poor, thereby playing a key role in spread-
ing so-called Church-based communities. These formed a movement that achieved nationwide
influence in some countries, notably Brazil, El Salvador and Mexico. In the case of Chile, the
role of the Catholic Church as a shield against state abuses also shaped early human rights NGOs
(Delamaza 2009).
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, the NGO sector was also boosted by internal conflict,
notably in Central America. In Guatemala, as internal displacement became massive, many
NGOs specialized in humanitarian work. As repression against them increased, many NGOs
entered the realm of non-governmental diplomacy in international forums, denouncing system-
atic human rights violations and seeking humanitarian aid for the displaced population (Becerra
Pozos et al. 2014).
An additional boost came in the form of natural disasters, including the 1972 earthquake
in Nicaragua and the 1976 earthquake in Guatemala. NGOs played a big part in coordinating
work and channeling reconstruction aid. Similar effects were observed in the aftermath of the
Mexico City earthquake of 1985 and after Hurricane Mitch in Honduras and Nicaragua in
1998. In the case of Mexico, the quantity of international resources pouring in after the earth-
quake gave NGOs new capacity, visibility, negotiating power and influence (CEMEFI et al.
2011); social mobilization also increased as neighborhood associations fought post-earthquake
relocation plans (Avritzer 2006).
In the 1970s and 1980s, then-called “new social movements” (Touraine 1978), structured
around issues, also emerged. These included many present-day indigenous, peasant and landless
people’s organizations. As theorized by Bobes (2002), the emergence of social movements led
to the establishment of a more plural and democratic public sphere, by retracing the boundaries
between state and society and redefining citizenship and inclusion criteria – that is, by redefining
the symbolic horizon of politics. As a result, democracy became something more than electoral
procedures – it became inseparable from the existence of a dense web of associations formed at
the margins of the state and a plural public space not controlled from above.
The first “classic” human rights organizations, focused on torture, arbitrary detentions and
the search for disappeared people, were founded in the late 1960s and 1970s; the rapid consoli-
dation of human rights NGOs throughout the region was, in turn, the main development of
the 1980s. Women’s rights agendas also gained visibility in the 1980s: although women’s and
feminist movements had a long prior history in the region and women had gained spaces in
social movements and left-wing activism in the 1970s, these had not been particularly receptive
to gender agendas (and had been outright hostile to gay rights) or, for that matter, to any other
agendas, including environmental ones, that could be considered as “distractive” from the “pri-
mary contradiction”, that of class. Similarly, gay rights, later known as LGBTTI, organizations
began timidly as early as the 1960s and 1970s in some countries, but had limited to no space in
many contexts marked by the logic of class struggle. They were boosted in the 1980s and 1990s
both by national democratization processes and the global AIDS epidemic, but their influence

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in policymaking only became more visible in the 2000s and 2010s. By then, gender and queer
studies had become legitimate areas of academic work, feeding into the policy process.
A new wave of women’s rights and feminist organizations came to life as countries democra-
tized and became more integrated into global networks and processes, including the landmark-
ing United Nations’ world conferences of the 1980s and 1990s. They formed an increasingly
diversified movement that also included research institutes, professional associations and, in
some countries, women’s groups within unions and political parties. Eventually, this led to the
placement of various “women’s issues” (sexual and reproductive rights, equal pay, gender-based
violence) on the public agenda.
The first environmental organizations questioning current development patterns and not
easily classified on the left–right ideological spectrum were also born in the 1970s and 1980s.
Smaller, poorer, less urbanized and industrialized countries lagged in terms of civil society devel-
opment and density, as described in Pimentel (1997) for the Dominican Republic; however,
in those cases too the origins of modern NGOs are dated between the late 1970s and the mid-
1980s. That was also the case in Nicaragua, although here, as in other politically polarized coun-
tries, the organizations created in the 1980s and 1990s were characterized by limited autonomy
from the ruling party (Cáceres 2014).
Since the 1980s and 1990s, within the “dual transition” process to democracy and market
economics, as well as in the flawed democratic contexts that ensued, NGOs – and civil society
more generally – have played a variety of roles in promoting better democratic practices (trans-
parency, accountability, citizen participation, gender equality, etc.) and supplementing state
action, and even stepping in when the state retracted in key areas, notably health, education,
poverty reduction, and community and rural development.

NGOs and the struggles for democracy and human rights

As theorized by Avritzer (2006), civil society formed throughout the region in reaction to
some form of authoritarian state. NGOs and social movements played prominent roles in the
opposition to dictatorships and other forms of authoritarian rule in the 1970s and 1980s, and in
the subsequent restoration (or first-time establishment) of democracies. In Argentina, a para-
digmatic case, the first modern human rights organizations formed in the 1970s, under the last
military dictatorship (1976–1983) and even earlier. In the beginning, the trend was for small
groups of relatives of missing/detained persons (such as the world-famous Mothers of Plaza
de Mayo) to form; later on, more formal organizations, including research centers like CELS
(1979), were founded.
In much of Latin America, the ascent of civil society in the 1980s represented a new phe-
nomenon rather than a restoration: the emergence of forms of collective action that sought
to exert influence rather than seize power was quite a novelty. In some countries more than
others, and in large measure because of the work of human rights organizations, the human
rights discourse established new legitimacy criteria for politics. Notably, as issue-based advocacy
organizations multiplied, the human rights language became a political lingua franca, used not
just by “classic” human rights NGOs, but also by other NGOs and social movements demand-
ing specific rights in a variety of areas, from housing to gender identity.
According to Keck and Sikkink (1998: 92), in the late 1990s the region had

more domestic human rights NGOs than other parts of the third world. A 1981 directory
of organizations in the developing world concerned with human rights and social justice

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listed 220 such organizations in Latin America, compared to 145 in Asia and 123 in Africa
and the Middle East. A 1990 directory lists over 550 human rights groups in Latin America;
some countries have as many as sixty.

The expansion of the sector took place in the region at the same time as human rights norms
and standards globalized and international human rights mechanisms, forums and institutions
developed. In this context, a new generation of specialized and professionalized NGOs took
over from their missionary and activist predecessors, formed wide regional alliances and devel-
oped strong links with international networks.
In Latin America as elsewhere, there were strong top-down incentives – increased funding
and political access, along with the rise of a pro-NGO norm – for this to happen (Reimann
2006): formal NGOs flourished as funding from international cooperation sources poured in
during democratization processes and, in Central American countries ravaged by civil war, dur-
ing peace processes. In Chile, for instance, the highest growth rates of NGOs were observed
in the 1980s, supported by international cooperation and solidarity initiatives toward Chilean
exiles both by European bilateral official cooperation and non-governmental cooperation
toward churches, unions and other groups (and, later in the decade, by US support for democ-
ratization). A new generation of professionals with experience of activism prior to the coup,
who had been fired from state positions, expelled from universities and persecuted by the dicta-
torship, found safe haven in NGOs (Delamaza 2009). In Guatemala, as the peace process took
off in 1986, an explosion of international aid fueled the growth of the sector, and countless
grassroots organizations and NGOs, subsequently organized in coalitions and networks, were
established to advocate for a wide range of rights (Becerra Pozos et al. 2014).
Engagement in international forums further fueled the multiplication of NGOs and the inter-
nationalization of their agendas. There are currently 493 Latin American NGOs with ECOSOC
consultative status.2 At the regional level, the Organization of American States (OAS) has also
established various spaces for CSO participation in its political bodies. As of June 2015, 465
organizations were registered with the OAS,3 and hundreds more enjoyed consultative status
with specific OAS mechanisms – for instance, human rights and women’s rights organizations
have such status with MESECVI, the mechanism for follow-up on the implementation of the
Belém do Pará Convention.4
The relationship with international cooperation sources shaped the NGO sector as we know
it, as cooperation agencies sought local partners that were “able to formulate projects, moni-
tor their execution, and give account of their finances”, therefore promoting the establishment
or consolidation of “legal entities, with minimal administrative structure and congenial goals”
(Fernandes 1994: 37). As a result of these relationships, the newly established sector became
increasingly segmented around constituencies and issues. The pragmatic logic of NGOs was
reinforced by the fact that funding typically went to specific projects rather than to the organi-
zations themselves.

Governance, accountability and trust

As analyzed in Peruzzotti and Smulovitz (2002), the human rights NGOs that emerged under
authoritarian rule in countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Peru established
a new form of rights-oriented politics dedicated to protecting the autonomy of civil society
against the exercise of discretionary power by the state. Countless NGOs organized around
accountability issues emerged throughout the region covering a broad agenda ranging from

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environmental to consumers rights. According to Peruzzotti and Smulovitz, the main focuses
for these organizational networks have been citizen security and police violence; judicial auton-
omy and access to justice; electoral fraud; and government corruption. They have embraced
ample repertoires of action, including the development of monitoring tools, filing legal claims,
working with media to expose wrongdoing, and promoting citizen education and social mobi-
lization. As analyzed by López Pacheco (2012) for Colombia, human rights NGOs became
major social accountability actors using a broad range of tools, including focused humanitarian
peacebuilding interventions in conflict zones. In doing so, they also succeeded in activating
institutional accountability mechanisms and institutions.
NGOs have played a key role in developing legal instruments to improve access to justice
(some of which were eventually incorporated into national constitutions) and in promoting
the establishment of institutions and mechanisms to monitor specific state institutions like local
governments, the judiciary or Congress – such as the veedurías ciudadanas in Colombia.
NGOs have also played an electoral accountability role, promoting democratic norms
through the observation of elections, across the region (Lean 2012). Election monitoring is
usually carried out by wide and diverse NGO coalitions and relies on large numbers of trained,
unpaid volunteers.
With international election monitoring on the rise, domestic election observation began
to be promoted in the early 1990s by international organizations, international NGOs and
aid agencies. Over time, election monitoring programs evolved from basic poll-watching to
“integral” observation, encompassing the entire process before, during and after election day.
Domestic election monitoring NGOs and networks had a key democratizing role in Mexico
and Peru. In the former, NGOs first coalesced around the promotion of free elections through
comprehensive observation in 1993 (Avritzer 2006). In the latter, a massive, multidimensional
non-partisan observation project was conducted on occasion of the 2001 elections, covering
every aspect of the process including an audit of the voter registry, massive civic education
efforts on the media, the promotion of an agreement among contenders around the principles
of a civil campaign and election-day observation carried out by thousands of trained volunteers
nationwide.
While it never replaced international observation, domestic monitoring eventually became
widespread: since 1998, various civic networks have monitored national election processes in
18 Latin American countries, and in 2000, electoral observation organizations from 14 countries
in the region formed a collective observation platform known as the Lima Agreement (Acuerdo
de Lima). In between elections, most electoral observation NGOs work on related issues such as
election reform, civic education and government transparency, including monitoring of public
spending.
Additionally, NGOs and other CSOs across the region have worked to address threats to
basic civic space freedoms. Where protests have been violently suppressed, NGOs have pushed
for the elaboration of regional standards and monitoring mechanisms for the policing of protest;
where journalists have been attacked and killed, NGOs have launched protection initiatives;
where human rights defenders have been assassinated, NGOs have also pressed for the estab-
lishment of protection programs and then monitored their implementation, and as the newly
established programs have failed to stop the killings, NGOs have proposed reforms to make
them more effective; where the freedom of expression has been hindered by criminal defama-
tion laws or the arbitrary distribution of state advertising, CSOs have organized campaigns for
legal change (CIVICUS 2016).
Over the past decade, NGOs have played a key role in promoting open government ini-
tiatives and pushing for the introduction of Access to Information legislation throughout the

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region. Such laws have so far been passed in Mexico (2002), Panama (2002), Peru (2002),
the Dominican Republic (2004), Ecuador (2004), Honduras (2006), Nicaragua (2007), Chile
(2008), Guatemala (2008), Uruguay (2008), El Salvador (2010), Brazil (2011), Colombia (2014),
Paraguay (2014) and Argentina (2016).
As they pushed for enhanced accountability by public office holders, and increasingly by
private actors as well, the legitimacy of NGOs themselves came into question. According to the
Edelman Trust Barometer (2018), trust in NGOs currently ranges from 57% in Brazil to 71%
in Mexico. Transparency International’s 2013 Global Corruption Barometer, the latest available
edition containing disaggregated information about perceptions of corruption in NGOs for 11
countries in the region, showed a proportion of respondents who felt that NGOs were corrupt
or extremely corrupt ranging between 20% in Uruguay and 53% in Venezuela. In Uruguay,
along with Argentina (22%), Chile (32%) and Colombia (37%), NGOs were seen as the least
corrupt sector, in contrast with political parties, seen as the most corrupt (with numbers rang-
ing from 48% in Uruguay to 81% in Colombia).5 Typically higher than that of political parties,
Congress, the police and the judiciary, but increasingly lagging behind that of other actors,
and notably of religious bodies, the reputation of NGOs in the region seems to have declined
over the years. This appears to be the result of factors such as the impact of corruption scandals
affecting few NGOs but damaging to the sector as a whole; and the presence of “fake” NGOs
linked to politicians and used to channel public funds toward partisan activities. Growing doubts
regarding the transparency of NGO practices and the perceived lack of consistency between
discourse and practice have prompted many Latin American NGOs to adopt voluntary account-
ability commitments and to take on a more active role in the development of a global standard
for CSO accountability.6

Peacebuilding and regional integration

With a few exceptions in the 1980s, peacebuilding issues have not ranked high in the agenda of
Latin American civil society, and NGOs tackling these issues tended to focus mostly on limiting
the political role of the Armed Forces. Civil society also worked, in border zones and capital cit-
ies, to overcome potentially conflictive situations between various sets of neighboring countries,
but their influence was limited; their work did not sustain in the long term and failed to produce
wide and stable civil society networks at the national, regional or sub-regional level. They also
focused more on conflict resolution, particularly at the community level and in the anglophone
Caribbean (e.g. in Jamaica), than on conflict prevention, and this work usually remained in the
hands of religious organizations. The most significant initiatives in this thematic area arose in
post-conflict situations in Central America (particularly in Guatemala) and in contexts of persis-
tent internal conflict, such as Colombia (Serbin 2005).
According to Bejarano (1999), civil society started playing a bigger role in so-called second-
generation peace processes (that is, those initiated in the early 1990s), and most notably in
the cases of Guatemala, Colombia and Mexico. However, this participation remained limited
to creating a context more conducive to peace, for example through peace education, rather
than having an actual effect in terms of stopping violence and bringing warring parties to the
negotiating table. In fact, civil society work was consistently aimed at “widening the center”
to seek negotiation and make the use of force morally impossible. In Mexico, for instance,
this happened through actions such as solidarity caravans, observation missions, community
reconciliation mediation, national citizen consultations, civilian peace camps in conflict hot-
spots, community reconciliation campaigns, peace education, the organization of visits by
international human rights organizations, national peace demonstrations, and lobbying with

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national institutions and international mechanisms with a peace, human rights and indigenous
peoples’ rights mandate.
Later studies such as Alther’s (2006) emphasize the role of NGOs, largely faith-based and/
or pacifist in orientation, to encourage and support peace communities in Colombia, in col-
laboration with local partners and working within communities and engaging with national
and international institutions. According to this analysis, NGOs often played a role in the
community’s initial decision and/or provided support if it opted to become a peace com-
munity. Most organizations involved in the decision-making phase were national NGOs such
as REDEPAZ (National Network of Initiatives for Peace and Against War) or the Catholic
Church, while international NGOs prevailed among those providing subsequent support. More
recent accounts emphasize NGOs’ focused humanitarian peacebuilding interventions in conflict
zones, involving direct assistance to victims, the promotion of dialogue and the implementation
of alternative initiatives to strengthen democracy and promote peace, and eventually playing
a role in the peace negotiations (Manrique 2014). According to López Pacheco (2012), as the
conflict in Colombia deepened, NGOs played a mediating role by speaking on behalf of victims
based on their legal expertise. As a result, organizations of victims’ relatives became more cen-
trally articulated within a space created by human rights NGOs.
According to Serbin (2005), at the regional level opportunities for civil society participa-
tion in peacebuilding and conflict prevention increased in the 2000s. Spaces opened in inter-
governmental forums, and notably in the UN, with its Global Partnership for the Prevention of
Armed Conflict (GPPAC), whose 2005 global conference was organized by civil society. At the
regional level, potential for involvement increased since the OAS’ 3rd Summit of the Americas
(2001). Although civil society actors have typically found it difficult to address security and
defense issues, from 2002 onwards some NGO networks have been active in mapping potential
armed conflicts and civil society actors that could help prevent them; and in pushing the issue at
the regional level, into the agenda of the OAS General Assemblies, the Summits of the Americas
and in the Committee on Hemispheric Security of the Permanent Council.
Another point of entry for these (and other) issues have been regional integration and coor-
dination mechanisms – the Association of Caribbean States, the Central American Integration
System (SICA), the Andean Community and Mercosur. However, civil society influence has
remained consistently low within integration processes, despite the establishment of multiple
spaces for civil society participation (ALOP 2009; Santos Carrillo 2013; Luna Pont 2016).

NGOs and the Washington Consensus

Partially overlapping with the democratization wave, the region experienced a transition toward
market economies, guided by the principles of the so-called Washington Consensus, including
the de-regulation of the job market, the privatization of social protections (notably retirement
funds and health coverage), a retreat from universalist policies, which were replaced by focus on
the poor, and decentralization and the transfer of policy functions to subnational units (provin-
cial and/or municipal governments, depending on the country), often without the transfer of
concomitant resources and capacities (Soldano & Andrenacci 2005). Not surprisingly, the 1980s
became known as Latin America’s “lost decade”, characterized by the debt crisis, economic
adjustment and deindustrialization, slow growth and increasing unemployment and poverty,
both of which continued to increase even as growth eventually resumed.
In this context, new NGOs emerged to provide for social needs, largely supported by inter-
national cooperation funds. Rather than replacing the professionalized human rights NGOs of

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the 1980s, this new wave of professional, even technocratic, NGOs came to coexist alongside
the former.
CSOs in the region increasingly strived to fill the gaps that neither the state nor the market
had been able to fill – or that they in fact created. In this context, multilateral banks – and the
international community more generally – adopted the language of “citizen participation” and
“state-civil society partnerships” and conferred increasing roles in social policy implementation
on CSOs, often as a specific condition for funding. This resulted in states introducing a civil
society participation component in their policies, often involving the participation of the poli-
cies’ beneficiaries themselves (Arcidiácono 2011). Several foundations also established programs
for “civil society strengthening” in the region, including the Ford Foundation, the Friedrich
Ebert Foundation and various governmental or para-governmental US organizations, including
the US Information Agency (USIA), the US Agency for International Development (USAID)
and both the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the National Republican Institute (NRI)
(Arcidiácono 2011).
Notably, international financial institutions claimed to value civil society’s ability to provide
information about social demands and needs, and to effectively implement government policies
aimed at responding to them, with minimum operational costs. A key idea, as emphasized by
Esteves, Motta and Cox (2009), was that of the “ownership” of reforms, which could only be
achieved through the involvement and participation of local populations in development pro-
jects. Close to the local communities and equipped with the necessary knowledge and expertise,
including “proven” methodologies for community participation, NGOs were viewed as the
best available implementers of such projects.
Civil society involvement was thus articulated in a language that borrowed heavily from the
1970s vocabulary of grassroots organizing, with its emphasis on participation, popular education
and community empowerment. But these terms were now depoliticized, centered on techni-
cally defined projects dominated by donors’ agendas, and narrowly local. In this context, critics
viewed the rise of NGOs as a tool of neoliberal hegemony – the mirror image of the decline
of social movements. NGO cooptation became a widespread phenomenon, and many NGOs
were created specifically to satisfy donor or funders’ demands (Esteves, Motta & Cox 2009).
On the basis of the analysis of 32 NGO directories in 24 countries, Fernandes (1994) concludes
that the most crowded categories of NGOs in the 1990s were training/consultancy, education,
research and health –with some countries, such as Bolivia and Guatemala, where the proportion of
the latter was particularly high. According to additional research carried out by Navarro (1994) in
Chile, Costa Rica and Venezuela, in the early to mid-1990s seven sectors – education, health, child
nutrition, housing, rural and urban community development, and the environment – accounted for
78% of CSOs. Not surprisingly, the “vigorous economic force” of the non-profit sector, in terms of
wealth creation, employment and the mobilization of volunteers, was seen by many as a cause for
celebration (Roitter, Rippetoe & Salamon 1999).
Soon afterwards, NGOs began to be seen as a “partner” in promoting development and
reducing poverty not just for the state but for the private sector as well (Fiszbein & Lowden
1999). Since the 2001 launch of the United Nations’ Global Compact, further strengthened
by the G20 decision to enlist Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) toward the achievement
of the Millennium Development Goals, collaboration between CSOs and private companies
increased in the region. Nevertheless, it remained a budding phenomenon, with partnerships
typically staying in the philanthropic phase – structured around cash or in-kind private dona-
tions in response to CSOs’ requests – or in the transactional stage at most, without ever becom-
ing “strategic alliances” (Austin et al. 2005).

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It is worth noting that a rigid distinction between service-delivery NGOs fueled by eco-
nomic liberalization and advocacy NGOs stemming from democratic struggles is difficult to sus-
tain. Democratization and the retreat of the state overlapped, and in many countries jointly gave
birth to an autonomous civil society that had not existed in the past. In Mexico, for instance,
as the debt crisis erupted in 1982 and a massively destructive earthquake hit the capital in 1985,
citizens organized to address the issues that the government was unable to respond to. Lacking
access to public resources, these organizations prospered thanks to international cooperation
and solidarity from Northern NGOs. As a result, an autonomous NGO sector formed by the
1990s that was able to address a wide range of issues, from food and housing to indigenous and
environmental rights, citizen participation and democratic governance.
As service-delivery NGOs mushroomed throughout the region, a new wave of organizations
addressing the social consequences of the Washington Consensus policies also emerged under
the form of radical, ideological social movements using a wide range of methods, from lobby-
ing, dialogue and negotiation to mass protest and confrontation. However, NGOs tended to
stay in the more institutional end, away from the more contentious tactics embraced by social
movements.

Funding patterns and the reshaping of civil society

As a result of the two processes described, the number of CSOs in the region exploded.
Regardless of widely differing baselines, relative sizes and levels of dynamism, the sector grew
exponentially throughout the region. Reliable numbers are difficult to come by and disaggre-
gated data for the NGO subsector are typically unavailable, but the results of civil society map-
ping efforts undertaken in several Latin American countries all point in the same direction. In
Chile, close to 240,000 CSOs were counted in the most recent survey, amounting to a 120%
increase when compared to an estimate from one decade earlier (Centro UC 2016). With 40.5%
of its organizations created between 1991 and 2005, Chile’s not-for-profit sector has become
one of the biggest relative to the country’s population. In tiny Honduras, between 8,000 and
10,000 organizations were counted in the early 2000s (Cruz & Espinoza 2003), while approxi-
mately 3,000 registered NGOs (out of 17,000 associations, including churches, neighborhood
associations and others) were found in Guatemala (Becerra Pozos et al. 2014).
While growing in size, the composition of civil society has markedly changed due to shifts in
funding patterns. Although official development aid (ODA) from OECD countries has increased
exponentially in absolute terms since the 1960s, the region’s share of global aid decreased from
roughly 20% in 1960 to around 12% in 2011 (after reaching its lowest point in the 1980s and
somewhat increasing in the 1990s).7 As elsewhere, the bulk of international cooperation funds
flew toward governments; an extremely small proportion went directly to domestic CSOs.
Newer forms of development cooperation, including South–South initiatives, followed the
same pattern.
According to civil society sources, international cooperation funds allocated directly to CSOs
are usually small, involve complex procedures and tend to lack continuity. Whenever bigger
amounts are involved, they typically concentrate in a handful of larger NGOs. During the 1980s
and 1990s much of the aid was channeled through INGOs located in OECD countries; nowadays,
many INGOs manage their own programs in recipient countries, consequently reducing access to
funding by domestic NGOs. In some countries, particularly in the Southern Cone, international
cooperation funds are increasingly channeled through local and federal governments, which in
turn sub-contract with CSOs to deliver social programs (Pousadela & Cruz 2016).

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International funding typically takes the form of projects supported by donor countries’
embassies or government agencies, foundations from donor countries (sometimes linked to
political parties) and special programs funded by multilateral organizations. Faith-based organi-
zations are also supported by their international affiliates. Although each cooperation agency
follows their own procedures and has its own thematic (as well as geographic) funding targets,
much of the available resources ends up being directed toward service delivery and emergency
assistance for poor populations, along with capacity development for local actors.
CSOs in many countries in the region have recently experienced discontinuities in funding
due to both structural processes and critical junctures. First and foremost, several countries in
the region are now categorized as middle – or even high – income, with funds flowing dispro-
portionately toward the remaining low- and lower-middle-income countries. Second, many
OECD countries, including the Nordic ones, are starting to prioritize funding to other regions
of the developing world and therefore designing “exit strategies”, notably from countries in
Central America. Third, as economic recession hit important bilateral donors, and particu-
larly Spain, operations in several countries closed and fund transfers toward the rest decreased.
Reductions in European bilateral aid had a particularly strong impact on CSOs and networks
promoting human rights and democratization. Lastly, whatever funding is still directed toward
civil society in the region, the number of CSOs currently pushing for their share is many times
higher than it was just a couple of decades ago.
Although international cooperation continues to be the main source of funding for civil
society in the region, levels of dependence appear to be lowest in the Southern Cone and
highest in the Andes, Central America and parts of the Caribbean. CSOs in the region have
also increasingly become recipients of domestic government funds – a portion of which comes
indirectly from international aid sources – a trend that seems to be deepest in countries where
international cooperation has traditionally been lowest, and distinct sub-regional patterns have
emerged depending on the relative weight of foreign assistance, government funds and private
donors on CSO resources (Pousadela & Cruz 2016).
Most countries in the Andes and Central America, as well as Paraguay in the Southern Cone,
still receive considerable international cooperation funds, some of which are channeled through
local CSOs. This type of funding applies mostly to projects on democratic governance, human
rights, food security, emergency response, poverty alleviation, education, health and the envi-
ronment. International cooperation agencies often fund CSO activities in areas that domestic
states do not; sometimes, they also support CSOs that lack access to government funds because
their governments either discriminate against them for ideological reasons or view them as com-
petitors for international funding rather than potential allies.
While government funds still represent a small contribution to CSO resources in countries
that retain priority status for international cooperation agencies, they have become a major
source of income for CSOs in the Southern Cone, and particularly in Chile and Uruguay,
which receive the lowest proportions of international cooperation funds. As pointed out by
Delamaza (2009) for the Chilean case, as the country democratized and the civil society elite
migrated to the government, international cooperation came to be channeled through the state,
and CSOs were forced to seek a relationship with the public sector, which focused on the
implementation of social programs.
Unlike traditional international cooperation, domestic states tend to focus their links with
CSOs on social services delivery. Indeed, most of this government funding is earmarked for
social projects in the areas of health or poverty alleviation and/or targeted at children, youth or
women. As a result, the composition of the sector has shifted: the share has increased of CSOs

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that act as social service providers, implementing public policies without typically having a say
in their conception and design, to the detriment of more vocal advocacy NGOs and networks.
Penetration of private funding of CSOs, in turn, is highly uneven in the region. It is gener-
ally still very low, with few exceptions like Colombia and Venezuela, where foreign funding
was historically limited and domestic funding from private sources was established earlier. In
Colombia, the density of corporate foundations is among the highest in the region. Many
of these foundations, however, run their own social and economic development programs –
only in selected areas, such as peacebuilding, do many Colombian CSOs receive private sec-
tor support. While official development aid to Colombia increased sharply since 1999, most
of it went not to civil society but to government efforts to fight drug-trafficking guerrillas
and eradicate crops.
Lastly, in countries like Argentina, Brazil and Mexico CSO funding is more mixed. In the
latter, CSOs have long acquired experience in collaborating with the state, while maintaining
ties with several corporate foundations both foreign and domestic. In Brazil, a majority of CSOs
have access to some sort of government funds, either at the local, state or federal level; how-
ever, government funding is not prevalent, and members’ contributions are the main resource
for a sizeable number of CSOs, while corporate funding is also relevant and growing, fueled
by several recently established foundations. Still, donations to third parties (including CSOs)
appear to be a key investment strategy for just a small minority of Brazilian private foundations
and companies.
The consolidation of these funding patterns has carried consequences in terms of inter-
nal civil society role differentiation, fragmentation and CSO lifespan and rotation; differential
impact on organizations focused on advocacy and service delivery; and the potential erosion of
CSO autonomy and advocacy capacity.

Policymaking and advocacy networks

In principle, participation of NGOs in public policymaking can take place at all stages of the
policy cycle. In the diagnosis phase, NGOs equipped with expert and on-the-ground knowl-
edge help identify needs and design solutions; in the programming phase, they contribute to
prioritizing needs to address; in the implementation phase, they manage projects, carry out
activities and provide services; and in the evaluation phase, they assess the efficiency, efficacy
and transparency of resource use, and measure results and impacts. At each stage, levels of
involvement range from information to control, through consultation, decision, delegation and
association (Canto Chac 2008).
In practice, the bulk of NGO participation in the region takes place through state-sponsored
mechanisms, and secondarily through the work of advocacy networks and social movements
(Monje & Urzúa 2005). Within those mechanisms, NGO participation in the policy process
is more prevalent in the implementation phase than in the design and monitoring/evaluation
phases; as a result, it typically takes the form of “collaboration” rather than “influence” (Cunill
Grau 1995; Roitter 2004; Rofman 2007; Arcidiácono 2011). In fact, as noted by Rofman
(2007), it has become common for social program implementation to decentralize and include
civil society actors, while policymaking and funding decisions tend to stay centralized and in
state hands.
In a context of increasingly scarce funding for advocacy, a majority of resource-hungry
NGOs throughout the region are increasingly engaging in competition for public contracts
to implement government programs or projects, most of which continue to be designed with
little or no civil society participation. The empirical study conducted by Rofman (2007) in

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the Buenos Aires metro area showed that most social programs do not involve civil society
actors; among those that do, most involve participation by individual beneficiaries; only in
a minority of cases are CSOs involved, and these only play a role in the implementation
phase. In turn, the impact of these interventions is usually difficult to assess given the lack of
systematic periodic evaluations based on measurable performance indicators (Ferrer Monje &
Urzúa 2005).
Beyond service delivery, however, advocacy NGOs and other CSOs that produce knowl-
edge feeding into public decision-making tend to perceive their own influence on policymak-
ing as being greater than acknowledged by much of the literature, as well as spread more widely
along the policy cycle (Smulovitz & Urribarri 2008).
Since the 1990s, civil society advocacy agendas have evolved in tune with global trends.
Coalitions, alliances, national federations and thematic networks of NGOs formed in every
country in the region around the rights of children, women, sexual minorities, migrants and
indigenous peoples, among others. New generations of human rights movements aimed at
granting full personhood and citizenship to specific groups that had suffered systemic discrim-
ination and/or exclusion consolidated and articulated their claims in the very same human
rights language learned in the course of anti-authoritarian struggles. Women’s rights, and
specifically sexual and reproductive rights and gender-based violence, came to be placed
among the top items on the human rights agenda from the 2000s onwards. Gender networks
were particularly effective in shaping gender mainstreaming and other gender equality public
policies. LGBTTI rights networks scored major victories with the recognition of same-sex
marriage, through either legislative votes or judicial rulings, in Argentina (2010), Brazil and
Uruguay (2013), Colombia (2016), Costa Rica (2018) and 12 Mexican states plus Mexico
City. In 2012, Argentina also passed one of the most progressive gender identity laws in the
world (Pousadela 2013).
NGOs and NGO coalitions, both domestic and transnational, formed around countless
issues, including election monitoring, democratization and the promotion of an enabling envi-
ronment for civil society, peacebuilding, migration, racism, local and rural development, food
security, debt, equitable trade, free trade agreements, poverty and exclusion, climate change,
cultural diversity, community participation, international cooperation, access to information,
communications policies, drug trafficking, crime and insecurity. As elsewhere, advocacy net-
works have resorted to varied repertoires of actions: signature collection campaigns to get
decisions revoked, public statements, press releases, mobilization, creative protest, support
for affected communities, networking, norm creation and promotion, monitoring of treaty
implementation, denunciation of noncompliance, and interaction with regional and universal
human rights mechanisms.
In several countries, civil society coalitions took part in constitutional processes and pushed
for the institutionalization of participation and social control mechanisms either in constitu-
tions or through legislation, including participatory budgeting, policy councils, citizen coun-
cils, concertation tables, and other monitoring and accountability mechanisms (Avritzer 2006;
Dagnino, Olvera & Panfichi 2006). NGOs and other CSOs subsequently played relevant roles
within many of those mechanisms. According to some assessments of participatory budgeting,
for instance, while institutional design overall tends to promote a kind of citizen participation
that is more consultative than deliberative, participation tends to be more substantial when
CSOs play more significant roles (UNICEF 2013; Montecinos 2014).
In post-transitional contexts, NGOs also played prominent roles in the search for truth and
justice, leading (notably in Brazil, Colombia, Paraguay and Uruguay) to the establishment of
truth and justice commissions (Garretón 2002); later on, a number of NGOs in several countries,

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and notably in Argentina, focused on the politics of memory; that is, on the struggles around the
meaning of the past (Jelin 2002, 2017).
In Central American countries plagued by gang violence, numerous CSOs increasingly spe-
cialized in violence, security and youth issues to try and steer government away from the crimi-
nalization of marginal youth. In mid-2002, a number of these CSOs formed a transnational
coalition, the Central American Coalition for the Prevention of Youth Violence (CCPVJ)
(Álvarez & de la Torre Oropeza 2008).
Around issues such as free trade negotiations, multi-stakeholder coalitions formed in countries
across the region, including domestic and international thematic NGOs and NGO networks
(including those formed around indigenous and environmental rights), social movements, trade
unions, foundations and research centers, academics and journalists opposed to free trade treaties
(de la Torre 2005; CEMEFI et al. 2011; Raventós Vorst 2018). Many such coalitions converged
in the Hemispheric Social Alliance (HSA), a transnational advocacy network formed in 1997
against the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (Saguier 2008). Spanning from Canada
to Chile, the HSA led the convening of successive Summits of the Peoples, starting in Santiago
de Chile in 1999.8 Similarly, an advocacy coalition of Latin American CSOs and networks on
migrants’ rights formed within the framework of the World Social Forum on Migration, a space
that evolved out of the World Social Forum.9
As extractivism made advances in the region, environmental and indigenous rights have
gained prominence on the agenda, and transnational activist networks formed around them. Out
of local socio-environmental conflicts caused by the development of extractive projects various
transnational indigenous coalitions emerged, including the Andean Coordination of Indigenous
Organizations (Coordinadora Andina de Organizaciones Indígenas) analyzed by Paz Herrera (2016).
Environmental and indigenous rights networks have tended to maintain tenser relations with
governments than other issue-based coalitions, regardless of governments’ ideological leaning, as
they typically campaigned against profitable infrastructure projects or exploitation agreements.
Starting in 2012, NGOs from several countries in the region participated in lengthy and intense
negotiations resulting in the Escazú Agreement, also known as “Agreement on Principle 10”.
Adopted by 24 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean in April 2018 and open for sign-
ing since September, the agreement guarantees access to information, participation and access to
justice in environmental matters and will be binding for the countries that ratify it.10
Many Latin American NGOs have also played prominent roles in promoting the develop-
ment of a global normative infrastructure, as is the case with the ongoing process to develop
a binding treaty on transnational corporations and human rights.11 Latin American NGOs and
social movements have participated in this process through the Treaty Alliance, a global coali-
tion of several hundred CSOs (Martens & Seitz 2016). Latin American human rights NGOs also
played a major role in establishing the World Social Forum.
Having themselves been instrumental in the process of developing international regimes,
NGOs have consolidated within these as specialized actors. At both the regional and global lev-
els, Latin American NGO networks have routinely converged with social movements in global
social forums, starting in 2001 in Porto Alegre, Brazil, as well as in social summits, starting in
2006 in Cochabamba, Bolivia (ALOP 2008). As a result, even though quantitatively small, the
advocacy segment of the NGO sector has become increasingly aware of its own importance in
creating and maintaining a vital human rights infrastructure and putting into motion available
accountability mechanisms, and has begun to gain assertiveness in reclaiming a seat at some
tables to which it had not traditionally been invited, including economic forums like the G20,12
where it has increasingly challenged privileged access by the private sector, concomitant to the
exclusion of civil society.

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 NGOs in Latin America

Preliminary conclusions on the impact and value

of Latin American NGOs
The quantification of NGO impact on legislation and policymaking is disputed (Armony 2004;
Serbin & Fioramonti 2008). While noting a significant difference between influence during
the policy process and influence over outcomes, Risley (2015) concludes from a series of case
studies that civil society has sometimes been able to influence policy in the agenda-setting,
formulation and adoption phases, mostly thanks to successful framing strategies and alliances.
Additionally, numerous authors emphasize NGOs’ ability to monitor public policies, at least
in specific areas (Delamaza 2009), and document cases of NGOs engaging in successful cam-
paigning and advocacy (Jenkins 2006) on issues such as health and education policy, freedom
of information legislation, women’s sexual and reproductive rights, LGBTTI rights, citizen
participation in urban planning, poverty and children’s rights, among others (Díez 2010; Acuña
& Vacchieri 2007; Gaventa & McGee 2010; Risley 2015; Pousadela 2013, 2016; González
Bombal & Garay n.d.).
Although more research is required to measure the impact of specific NGO campaigns and
interventions, it is difficult to overestimate the role of Latin American civil society regarding
both development and democracy in the region. On one hand, Latin American NGOs have
consistently worked for decades in supplementing insufficient state action in the social domain:
this has been key in a region that has nonetheless remained the most unequal in the world. On
the other hand, and even in contexts of decreasing funding for advocacy work, Latin American
NGOs have not failed at those tasks at which civil society is truly irreplaceable. As imperfect
democracies took root in the region, in large part as a result of civil society struggles, Latin
American NGOs quickly understood that not even the most democratic of states is sufficiently
equipped to control itself, and so NGOs undertook the task of guarding rights and freedoms.
In that role, they set out to impose limits and demand explanations, monitor compliance with
states’ obligations, report rights violations, assist victims and seek reparations. They have done
so in contexts that are sometimes very hostile to civil society work: as documented by the
CIVICUS Monitor (2017), more than half of people in the Americas live in countries with
either obstructed or repressed civic space – that is, where the core freedoms of association,
expression and peaceful assembly are severely compromised. The context is particularly hostile
for a specific subset of civil society activists and organizations: according to Global Witness
(2018), Latin America is the deadliest region in the world for environmental, indigenous and
land rights defenders. In 2017, almost 60% of the worldwide murders of these activists were
perpetrated in the region, with Brazil leading the body count, followed by Colombia, Mexico,
Peru and Honduras.
Even so, NGO work in Latin America is being deployed at all levels, from local to global.
And at every level, civil society has discovered the value of coalition work. Collaborative
work has come to be seen as an opportunity to pool and maximize resources; exploit com-
plementarities and avoid duplications; increase institutional capacity through reciprocal learn-
ing and sharing good practices; extend coverage and reach previously unattended arenas;
and reinforce legitimacy through the appearance of wider stakeholder representation, among
other benefits.
Thematic and issue-centered advocacy networks have formed at the national, sub-regional
and regional levels, and Latin American NGOs participate in various global networks that are
active within international forums and institutions, and most notably (but not exclusively) within
the United Nations system. At the hemispheric level, transnational advocacy networks are also
active within the Organization of American States and its various human rights mechanisms.

499
Inés M. Pousadela

Through this work, Latin American NGOs are playing a key role in shaping the regional and
global human rights architecture, creating higher standards and holding the powerful account-
able, governments and corporations alike.
More research remains to be done on the resourcing and sustainability of NGOs – what
resources NGOs need to do their work at every step of their life cycle, where these resources
are available, and what NGOs need to do and are doing to get hold of them. Latin American
governments are not particularly fond of funding their critics, and it does not look like the trend
toward the retreat of international cooperation funding for Latin American advocacy NGOs
will reverse anytime soon. In this context, service-providing NGOs will continue to proliferate
and compete for state resources to implement government policies, while the field of advocacy
NGOs will keep thinning out. The consequences of this shift in the composition of civil society
are incalculable. While the distinction is not as rigid as it may sound, as many advocacy NGOs
also provide invaluable services to populations, and both types of NGOs have done great work
aimed at fostering democracy and development in the region, it is still true that some NGO func-
tions can in principle be performed by other actors, public and private, and others simply cannot.
A functioning state can and should provide basic public goods – civil society is not irreplaceable in
this realm. However, nobody can replace civil society in its watchdog role. Historically, absolutist
states became liberal ones as they recognized a power outside themselves – that of civil society –
and accepted that its existence, and the rights that it upheld, constituted limits to the exercise of
state power. It is therefore the dynamics of advocacy NGOs, and particularly of those placed at
the forefront of contemporary struggles for rights in the region, that our attention – and that of
funders – needs to turn to for the foreseeable future.

Notes
1 World Bank, World Development Indicators: Distribution of Income or Consumption, at http://wdi.worldbank.
org.
2 Cf. http://csonet.org.
3 Cf. www.oas.org/en/ser/dia/civil_society/registry.shtml.
4 Cf. www.oas.org/en/mesecvi/civilsociety.asp.
5 See Transparency International, Global Corruption Barometer 2013, at www.transparency.org/gcb2013.
6 See Accountable Now, Global Standard for CSO Accountability, at https://accountablenow.org/future-
accountability/global-standard; and Rendir Cuentas, www.rendircuentas.org.
7 See http://datos.bancomundial.org.
8 See www.asc-hsa.org/node/10.
9 See http://fsmm2018.org/posicionamiento-de-organizaciones-y-redes-de-sociedad-civil-de-latinoamerica-
en-el-marco-del-foro-mundial-sobre-migracion-y-desarrollo-2017.
10 See www.cepal.org/en/subsidiary-bodies/regional-agreement-access-information-public-participation-and-
justice.
11 See www.business-humanrights.org/en/binding-treaty.
12 See https://civil-20.org/about-c20.

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 34
Civil societies and NGOs in the
Middle East and North Africa
The cases of Egypt and Tunisia1

Sarah Ben Néfissa

For a long time, political and social science academics have wondered whether civil societies
existed in Arab countries, mainly because of the longevity of authoritarianism and the charac-
teristics of the States’ founding pacts in this region (Droz-Vincent 2004). Indeed, all over the
Arab world, authoritarianism has been embodied in a social State, which puts redistribution and
equity as one of its main legitimacy sources, be it in monarchies or in republics (Kienle and
Louër 2013). Social rights have been put at the core of the pacts between States and societies.
Restricted political and public freedom seemed to be the price to pay for the State’s interven-
tionism on the social level. The fact that political opposition was mainly dominated by Islamist
parties has consolidated this perception. The latter have conquered large sectors of benevolent
organizations within so-called civil society and sometimes within the middle-class labor unions,
as in Egypt.
However, advocacy NGOs – that were in a logic of change rather than assistance, espe-
cially regarding human rights – were led by leftist militants and not by Islamists (Ben Néfissa
2000). They were the ones who contributed, during the 1990s and 2000s, to the recovery of
the expression “mujtamaa madani” – meaning “civil society” – by the societies of the region
to turn it into an active body of change in large parts of the Arab societies (Ben Néfissa 2013).
The “Arab Spring” was the sign of a crisis of these founding pacts in the region, mainly because
of neoliberal policies. It also showed the mutations within the public sphere of those countries
seen in the impact of social movements, the mobilization of civil society and the ending of the
monopolization of the media space. This phenomenon affected all the countries of the region
(Morocco, Algeria, Yemen, Syria, Bahrain, etc.). However, the quest for democracy, free-
dom and social justice revealed by the “Arab Spring” took place in an extremely unfavorable
regional context, unlike in other parts of the world. The main regional actors have favored
the Islamist political powers, the Muslim Brotherhood and/or salafists. The latter have pur-
sued their struggle to depoliticize freedom struggles within the Arab world and to turn them
into identity issues against “otherness”, be it the West, Christian or atheist, the Shia neighbor,
the Copt, or even a citizen who is not Muslim enough because he still lives in the jahiliyya
(pre-Islamic ignorance). Moreover, authoritarian regimes in the region have been fundamen-
tal accomplices in this de-politicization process, which has transformed social and political

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demands into identity struggles. Apart from the noticeable exception of Tunisia, which seems
to have succeeded in its democratic transition, the other countries from the area are experienc-
ing nationalist and populist reactions, especially in Egypt, whereas other states have collapsed,
giving birth to armed conflicts and civil wars between communities, religions and various
militias. Political language has been replaced by violence and communitarian, sectarian, tribal
or ethnic discourses. This language and political identity crisis has common points with the
ideological crisis on a worldwide scale, mainly because of globalization, neoliberalism and the
general “political representation” crisis even though it has important differences, primarily on
account of the region’s own internal specificities. To this extent, the analysis of the civil socie-
ties from the two Arab countries which started the Arab Spring – Tunisia and Egypt – and later
had different journeys is extremely significant.
Egyptian civil society is currently experiencing the backlash of a strenuous political tran-
sition and its involvement in a merciless fight against post-Moubarak-era political actors.
Some even talk about the “disappearance” of Egyptian civil society because it cannot coun-
terbalance the securitarian policy currently undertaken by the new regime. Tunisian civil
society seems in a much better shape even if it really emerged only after the 2011 revolu-
tion with freedom of expression and publishing, and the right to organize demonstrations.
The aim of this chapter is to analyze the specific configurations of the civil societies of
these countries which launched “the Arab Spring”. They are marked by significant politi-
cal breakdown as well as important political splits, Islamists/non-Islamists, which feature
across Middle Eastern societies. Where Egypt has chosen the repressive path against the
Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, branded as a “terrorist organization”, Tunisia has chosen a
“historic compromise” which is a middle path. The difference between those two political
paths has major impacts on civil societies. In Egypt, civil society organizations (NGOs, trade
unions and associations) are under control and social and political protest are continuously
diminishing. It is noticeable that the powerful Egyptian media system has become its enemy
after having been its main ally before the 25 January 2011 revolution. This is not the case
in Tunisia. However, two years after the parliamentary and presidential elections in 2014,
Tunisian civil society seems destabilized by the consequences of the complex political for-
mula which resulted from them. The agreement between yesterday’s enemies, Nida Tunes
and Ennahdha, looks more like a personalized alliance than a real strategic and institutional
link that both parties can live with. It is feeding a trust crisis throughout the Tunisian politi-
cal class and mostly it is weakening the state and blocking the economic and social reforms
that the country needs, as shown by the pursuit of demonstrations in the streets. And if civil
society needs a democratic state in order to flourish, it also needs a strong state representative
to communicate with.

Egyptian civil society and the renewal of authoritarianism in

the name of the war on Islamic terror
In Egypt, all of the political actors of the 25 January revolution, all across the political spectrum,
are paying the price for the chaotic political transition. If the Muslim Brotherhood have fallen
in their own trap (Ben Néfissa 2015b), non-Islamist political elites and revolutionary youth
groups are currently paying the price for the “abnormal” 30 June coalition that they undertook
with the political, administrative and military forces and the old regime, in order to get rid of
the Muslim Brotherhood (Ben Néfissa 2015c). The same can be said about civil society. It is
currently experiencing the backlash against its enrolment (intentional or forced) in the political
game after the 25 January revolution and 3 July 2013.

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This has not always been the case. From 2004, Egypt witnessed a series of social and politi-
cal protests that – to some extent – foreshadowed the 25 January 2011 revolution. The phe-
nomenon was supported by a myriad of NGOs and diverse groups but also by a process of
de-monopolization of the media sphere, including independent media, political talk shows on
satellite television channels and social media. Also, between Moubarak’s ousting on 11 February
2011 and 30 June 2013, Tahrir Square was nearly always full (Rougier and Lacroix 2015). This
state of political fluidity halted on 3 July 2013 when the coup d’état took place against the first
president elected by universal suffrage, Mohamed Morsi, a member of the Egyptian Muslim
Brotherhood. The media became the herald of a new authoritarianism and of an exacerbated
nationalism, all in the name of the war against “Islamic terrorism”. Any other voice of dissent
could therefore not be heard. Civil society organizations and more specifically human rights
NGOs were divided by a political schism after 3 July. The same could be said regarding trade
unions. NGOs who wanted to maintain a certain degree of independence were put under great
scrutiny from the security apparatus. Social and political protest still had a voice, but it became
more and more difficult to express it. There was a clear decline in protests because they took
place in a context of tight scrutiny from the security apparatus and public opinion that regarded
them negatively. Therefore, it is surprising that those who lost the most in the aftermath of
3 July are the ones who still protest: mainly the political base of the Muslim Brotherhood and
some parts of the revolutionary youth. And yet, they rapidly realize that there’s an ultimate red
line newly drawn by the new regime: taking to the streets has become forbidden.

Political protests and the streets’ outlawry

Apart from the brutal dispersal of the two Muslim Brotherhood sit-ins during the summer of
2013, the new securitarian policy of the regime has been embodied by the necessity to obtain
authorization for any protest or demonstration. This has challenged the main achievement of
25 January, the conquest of “the streets” as a means of social and political expression. Some
sectors of the young revolutionary activists wanted to defy the new law by organizing an
unauthorized demonstration. This resulted in them being sent to prison. A complaint was filed
against this law.2 On 3 December 2016 the High Constitutional Court maintained the obliga-
tion to inform the public authorities before organizing a demonstration. However, it declared
that the decision of authorizing or forbidding a demonstration should be made by the judiciary
and not the executive.
A 2014 report,3 dedicated to human rights in Egypt, counted 1,515 demonstrations during
this year: 821 were conducted by the Muslim Brotherhood, 307 were organized by student
movements, 287 were linked to social and work issues, and about a hundred were staged by
far-left movements and non-Islamist revolutionary movements.4
Social protests are less harshly reprimanded than political ones and police forces mainly attack
demonstrations in major cities that may lead to the occupation of major squares or roundabouts.
It is not surprising, therefore, that this led those who still organize demonstrations – mainly the
Muslim Brotherhood – to choose small streets of medium cities or villages to march in, in order
to avoid the arrest of their members, usually at night. Also, these are mostly short demonstra-
tions, to avoid the arrest of their members. The new Egyptian regime has developed a fear that
Tahrir Square could once again be full. This seems unlikely, though, and it would be unwise to
think that it is solely due to the new securitarian tightening. Social movements are operating in
an environment where public opinion is tired of the social and political unrest that ensured the
25 January revolution. Also, the major upheavals that other countries in the region, especially
Libya, Yemen and Syria, have gone through have fed the perceived need for order and stability

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as expressed by the election, in 2014, of a president from the armed forces. This demand for
order and stability is also a construct of the Egyptian media which has undergone considerable
changes. From an ally of political and social protests, it has become a foe (Ben Néfissa 2014).

Media and social movements: the end of an era

The Egyptian “media confluence” (Tourya 2012) has considerable fire power. It is no exaggera-
tion to say that the media actors made a fundamental contribution to the liberalization of the
Egyptian public space, long before the 25 January 2011 revolution (Benaziz 2015). Likewise,
they were crucial in the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood does not
have a significant presence in this area which is, historically, a ground for leftists, Nasserists
and so-called liberal or civil forces. But, since 3 July 2013, the Egyptian media space has been
marked by the return of journalists close to Moubarak’s old regime and the voice of journal-
ists and intellectuals of the 25 January revolution is less and less audible. Today, media actors
have become the heralds of an exacerbated nationalism and of a “fully securitarian” discourse
in the name of the war against “Islamic” terrorism and foreign powers’ interference, be it the
United States, Qatar or Turkey. This new media configuration has been constructed thanks to
a set of repressive administrative tools and laws: blocking independent or critical news outlets
on the internet, the creation of a Superior Council for media Regulation, businessmen close
to the regime and to the security apparatus allowed to set up television channels, forbidding
the remaining critical television shows, etc. Even the journalists’ union, whose autonomy has
always been more or less respected, has been under scrutiny from the security apparatus. It had
been raided by police forces in order to arrest two journalists who went to seek refuge inside
its headquarters following the protests against the transfer of Tiran and Sanafir islands by the
Egyptian government to Saudi Arabia. The penultimate president of the union, Yehia Qallach,
was replaced during the last elections by someone close to the regime. It is therefore not surpris-
ing to see Egypt ranked 161 in the 2017 world freedom of the press ranking, which measures
the degree of freedom journalists have in around 180 countries.

Civil society organizations under control

If Islamic charities linked to the Muslim Brotherhood are undergoing a complete dismantlement
by the security apparatus and the ministry of social affairs, other NGOs, in particular human
rights NGOs, are undergoing a wave of domestication.
For a long time, the political and social impact of human rights collectives in Egypt was
not very perceptible, at least internally. But the few years preceding the 25 January revolution
showed that their role was reinvigorated, as proven by their continuous growth in numbers
despite very restrictive legislation against them. This multiplication resulted in an enlargement
and a specialization of the themes tackled: workers’ rights, victims of torture rights, judicial
support in human rights matters, unions’ support, farmers’ rights, social and economic rights,
prisoners’ defense, pensions’ rights, justice independence, personal rights, defense of social secu-
rity, the right to a habitat, elections’ control, etc. These groups called out the government by
their actions and by publishing studies, specific reports on their websites or in articles published
in newspapers. Lawyers contested, in courts, several judgments taken by administrative courts.
The most significant example of their efficiency is how civil society got organized for workers’
and unions’ rights. Indeed, the Centre for Trade Union Workers Service had an important role
in supporting workers in one of the most important industrial groups in the country and thus
got around the absence of real autonomous trade unions.

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One of the main resources used by these collectives led by “rooted cosmopolitans” (Tarrow
2007) was the call to international public opinion. But, nowadays, the call to international pub-
lic opinion is not legitimate anymore in Egypt because of the development of an exacerbated
nationalism, mainly orchestrated by the media, but not exclusively. The inability to make inter-
national public opinion accept the 3 July coup has favored the social impact of the media ham-
mering against foreigners and foreign interference. It is in this context that the domestication of
human rights NGOs has to be comprehended. Some of them have decided to close; others to
delocalize their activities. The old legislation (Ben Néfissa and Clément 2007) on associations
had been applied in a relatively gentle and mild manner during the years preceding the revolu-
tion. The majority of NGOs were registered as civil and non-commercial partnerships or law
firms in order to escape the restrictive legislation. The Moubarak regime closed their eyes to
such legal tricks. It is not the case nowadays. A new law on associations and NGOs was voted
in by parliament in May 2017. The text limits NGOs’ activities to the strict perimeter of devel-
opment and social issues and any infringements could cost up to a five-year prison sentence.
NGOs cannot undertake any fieldwork or polls without the prerequisite authorizations and
cannot “cooperate in any possible way with international organizations without a prerequisite
agreement”. The text mentions the creation of a “National Authority” including members of
the security services, intelligence services and the army in order to manage any issues related to
foreign funding or the activities of foreign organizations based in Egypt.
The current difficult political transition and the securitarian policy have also made life difficult
for the labor movement. One of the main demands of the 25 January revolution was the right
to found independent labor unions. The demand appeared in 2007 and it aimed to counterbal-
ance the Egyptian labor federation – under control of the Egyptian State and administration –
which was not representative enough of the labor movement. The legalization project was
reactivated just after the revolution but it was blocked by the old army administration as well
as by the Muslim Brotherhood. It was not activated even when the leader of independent
unions, M. Kamel Abou Eita, became labor minister in M. Hazem El Biblaoui’s government.
Therefore, political disruption also divided the leaders and the labor movement.5 In November
2017, a law project was presented to the parliament with the aim to legalize the independent
labor unions which was created de facto after the revolution. This law project, in fact, imposes
on them a minimum of affiliations to be legalized. It actually institutionalizes the Egyptian labor
federation, under government control, as the only recognized labor union in the country. The
text forbids independent labor unions to any foreign aid and restricts financial autonomy. It
imposes restrictive elective criteria for executive committees. Therefore it is not surprising that
the current drastic economic and social reforms taken by the new regime, with noticeably the
devaluation of the Egyptian pound and the new pricing policy, have not led to any major social
or political protests.
President Sissi prepared himself for a second term in 2018 while his popularity plunged not
only because of the economic and social reforms aforementioned but also because of his failings
in the security area and in the war against terror. But it is also clear that his popularity has suf-
fered from his securitarian agenda and the tight control on civil society.

Civil society and the “historic compromise” issue in Tunisia

The different parts of the Tunisian civil society are considered – quite rightly – as the main
actors of the political pacification in the country and the resulting successive compromises.
But when analyzing the Tunisian situation, it is also important to include the regional fac-
tor. The 3 July coup d’état in Egypt which unseated the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed

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Morsi considerably modified the power balance in Tunisia. In some ways, it pushed Ennahdha’s
Islamists to make a compromise during the period in which the post-Ben Ali Tunisia endured
its most important crisis, during the summer of 2013. This crisis had two main aspects: (i) the
second assassination of an MP of the constituent assembly, Mohamed Brahimi, an opponent of
political Islam;6 and (ii) the fact that the constituent assembly took nearly three years to write
the constitution instead of one year. Responding to the call of MPs who were not members of
the Troïka,7 a long sit-in was organized at “Le Bardo Square” in Tunis. Indeed, it is the quartet
formed by the General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT), the Tunisian Union for Industry,
crafts and commerce (UTICA), the lawyers guild and the Human Rights League (LDH) that
played a go-between role between the two political parties. This enabled the nomination of a
technocratic government and the acceleration of the constitution’s drafting (Ben Néfissa and
Ferjani 2013). The same thing could be said when Youssef Chahed’s government was formed in
2016, which followed Hamadi Essid’s government, composed after the presidential and legisla-
tive elections in 2014 and 2015. This government gained legitimacy from the Carthage accord
signed by political parties and also by UTICA and UGTT.

Tunisian civil society and political transition

The positive role of the quartet – which earned a Nobel Prize – reflects the role of civil
society since Ben Ali’s ousting in January 2011. Long before the ANC’s election, the “High
Authority for the realization of the objectives of the revolution, political reforms and demo-
cratic transition”8 had adopted a series of reforms that have paved the legal and political path
toward the flourishing of a Tunisian civil society. The main reforms were: laws to liberalize
associations and political parties, new press laws, new authority to organize elections (ISIE), a
new electoral law adopting proportional votes, and insuring parity between men and women,
as well as representation of diverse parts of the country.
This “power of the civil society” took form rapidly with the creation of a myriad of NGOs
and collectives which benefited from the new liberal legislative framework.9 They regrouped
in various activities at the local level (Tainturier 2017) as well as on the national stage. Multiple
actors engaged in the voluntary sector. Ennahdha’s Islamists rapidly engaged in social work
and charities in order to develop their electorate. The other actors of the spectrum engaged in
“advocacy” in order to monitor the political transition process but also to keep an eye on the
Islamic political actors within the process. While the latter benefited from Qatari and Turkish
funds, the others were backed by European and international actors who were interested in
the democratic transition in Tunisia. Two NGOs were particularly active in the political and
electoral fields: El Bawsala10 which was in charge of monitoring and controlling the activities of
MPs of the NAC and currently the parliament; and the Tunisian association for the integrity of
democracy and elections (ATIDE)11 which monitored the transparency of the electoral process.
In the justice field, the Tunisian watchdog for the independence of the judicial authorities12
engaged in a struggle for a real separation of powers and to counter the interference of the exec-
utive in nominating and revoking judges, etc. These examples are far from being unique and the
reality is that the international agenda on good governance was internalized by Tunisian elites.
One of the major issues – at the heart of the activities of a part of the Tunisian civil society –
was to monitor the drafting of a new constitution. This task was handed to the NAC that
was dominated by Ennhada’s Islamists. The main purpose was to avoid the latter introducing
articles that could hinder personal and individual rights in the name of Islam but mostly that
would harm the legal gains for Tunisian women. That’s why a network of NGOs was created,
like “Lam el-Chaml” and Doustourna or “Hraier Tunes” (free, independent women), created

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on 13 August 2013, on women’s day. The new Tunisian constitution does not mention Islamic
law. This demonstrates the results of the compromise between the various political actors after
the 14 January 2011 revolution. It could be said that the current Tunisian constitution is the
result of the work of the ANC MPs, as much as the result of the dialogue that took place
between the latter and “the street” and the civil society, especially the UGTT (Yousfi 2015)
with its 750,000 members. Quite simply, it is Tunisia’s largest civil society organization capa-
ble of using its clout when negotiating. Even if the national hierarchy was linked to Ben Ali,
it is local structures, mainly the ones in universities, that regained legitimacy when they sup-
ported the insurrection between 17 December 2010 and 14 January 2011. Ennahdha’s numer-
ous attempts to harm it all failed.13 The strikes organized by the UGTT all over the countries
had a tremendous effect during the political crisis aforementioned.

The compromise’s stake from the 2014 elections

Two years after the parliamentary and presidential elections in 2014, Tunisian civil society
looked in a worse shape than before, noticeably because of the top alliance between yesterday’s
enemies, Ennahdha and Nida Tunes. While Nida Tunes won the majority at the parliament
and its founder was elected President of the Republic on an anti-Ennahdha agenda, a tactical
alliance14 was arranged at the top of the State between the founder of this party, Béji Caïd el-
Sebsi and the founder of the Ennahdha Party, Rached Ghannouchi. However, this “historic
compromise” looked more like a personal alliance than a real and strategic one that both parties
were comfortable to live with. It actually fed a confidence crisis with the political class in gen-
eral. It also fed a general disappointment with the revolution’s impacts on social issues such as
unemployment, territorial inequalities and improving living standards. Some did not hesitate to
talk about an authoritarian restoration15 and of Ben Ali’s old regime reformulated by economic
elites linked with Nida Tunes and Ennahdha.
This historical Tunisian compromise – which the whole world has hailed – had some
political ulterior motives from both political formations. First of all, it relied on an agreement
between both leaders to counter the rise of terrorist activities in the country16 and to ensure
political stability. The development of terrorist activities in Mont Chambi, the terrorist attacks
in Bardo in the heart of Tunis and those of Sousse in 2015 caused a tight securitarian agenda
symbolized by the declaration of a state of emergency and a new law against terrorism (approved
by a vast majority of the People’s Assembly) and against money laundering,17 which was criti-
cized by some human rights organizations. In order to counter the development of terrorist
activities linked with salafi jihad, a tight control on illegal mosques was made. Even if this18 is
faced with some resistance from Ennahdha’s political base, it actually fits with Ennahdha’s new
“low-profile” strategy, and the long-term conquest of the Tunisian society via cultural and
ideological means, mainly in the associations, schools and in the media. The grassroots conquest
of the labor movement (UTAP, UGTT and UTICA) in order to enlarge its economic and
political base was the second phase of this policy. It is worth mentioning that during its congress
in 2017, Ennahdha declared that from then on, there would be a separation between politics and
religion. Also, the fact that some ministries were managed by Ennahdha members shows that the
Party wished to become a real governing party.

Civil society between political actors and social movements

This alliance at the top of the State between yesterday’s enemies is not really contradic-
tory because a political struggle still takes place within civil society via the non-profit

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organizations (Tainturier 2017), the media and the labor organizations. If freedom of expression
and publishing has been the main conquest of post-revolution Tunisia, the media sector is
now witnessing a profound crisis because of its instrumentation by political actors during
the transitional period as well as by economic and financial actors. The regulatory authority
of the Media, the High Independent Authority for Audiovisual Communication (HAICA),
does not seem to command consensus, its views are not respected and it is currently experi-
encing very strong internal dissent.
The same could be said about the “Truth and Dignity”19 committee presided over by
Sihem Ben Sedrine. It was supposed to establish the responsibilities regarding the Ben Ali
regime’s exactions, but the organization witnessed internal political rifts. In addition to the
fact that several of its members quit, it was also challenged by the law on economic reconcili-
ation which was voted through to establish an ad-hoc reconciliation committee with most
of its members nominated by the government: a direct challenge to the “Truth and Dignity”
committee.
Freedom of association is one of the biggest gains of the Tunisian revolution and it is even
possible to talk about an “associative boom”. The 2017 associations’ directory listed 20,954
associations.20 A substantial portion of those (4,585) is dedicated to schools, followed by cul-
tural associations (3,937), then sports (2,305), followed by development (2,134). A majority of
the associations are linked with Ennahdha which engages in charities around the family and in
koranic schools which are direct competitors to the ones under the ministry of religious affairs.
The need to oversee those associations’ funding21 has been highlighted by the ex-minister in
charge of relations with institutional bodies and civil society.22 He denounced “fake charities”
and emphasised the juridical vacuum regarding foreign funding of associations and the diffi-
culty for the State to oversee this.
In addition to the control of the charities in Tunisia, labor unions and employers’ organiza-
tions are also at stake when it comes to political struggles. For example, the Tunisian Union
for Agriculture and Fishing (UTAP) has quickly fallen under Ennahdha’s influence. It is an
organization that’s not really representative of small farmers. However, it defends the interests of
516,000 large farms and fishing corporations that represent its core membership thanks to bank
loans and State subsidies. This has not been the case for UGTT and UTICA and the renewal of
its political direction shows the new political balances within those organizations.
But, even more important than the political struggles, civil society seems overwhelmed by
social phenomena which harm its mediating role between civil lobbies and political power:
mainly the growth of the informal economic sector and smuggling as well as the development
of radical and dissident social movements. Social movements never really stopped during the
first transitional period because social issues were the main detonator of the Tunisian revolu-
tion. They persisted during the first part of the transitional period and gained momentum
after the 2014 elections. Nearly every economic sector in the country is concerned. To this
extent, the long social conflict in the mining region of Gafsa is significant. Unemployed work-
ers blocked the production of phosphate inside factories of the Gafsa Phosphate Company
(CPG).23 This led, among other things, to the stoppage of production within the Tunisian
chemical phosphate transformation group situated in Gabès. If eventually the extraction of
phosphate resumed, CPG has to be in cessation of payment so that the administrative work-
force start working again. Unemployment and work conditions are not the only causes of
social movements24 in Tunisia. Access to potable water has also become an important issue. But
more surprising is the outbreak of some violent social movements in the south of Tunisia that
provoke police forces to leave the area, like in Fawar in May 2015; also, the “where’s the gas?”
campaign, which was pioneered by leaders of the League for Protection of the Revolution

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and which was quite violent. Entire regions such as Ben Guerdane, Medenine, Sidi Bouzid,
Meknassy, Gafsa, and Kasserine have all revolted against their “economically abandoned” sta-
tus. A tendency toward insurgency has appeared, often manipulated by local mafias linked to
trafficking. It puts face to face the State and citizens who have nothing to lose except misery
and contempt toward them, and they have been facing that for decades. In most of the other
disenfranchised regions, the situation is explosive because the demands of work and dignity
have not been met yet.
The management of these conflicts is far beyond the capacity of the powerful UGTT which
can manage to only partially control social movements in the public sector. UGTT is torn
between its desire to stay close to its base and on the other hand to maintain its role of arbitrage
in social and political life. Thus, it has been facing critics regarding its growing politization
and “a class consensus” concluded with political forces, against the interests of workers. Some
parts of the base, controlled by leftist movements such as the Popular Front, want UGTT to
defend workers even more. For the business circles, on the contrary, UGTT is considered as a
hindrance to economic growth because of its support for bureaucracy. It is true that UGTT is
strongly opposed to any ideas of budget cuts or privatizations whereas salaries in the public sec-
tor represent 14% of the GDP which is among the highest percentage worldwide.
Other strong points of the Tunisian civil society that should be highlighted are the struggle
against corruption, the role of the media and of lawyers. This is what pushed Youssef Chahed’s
government to react, with the arrest of several corrupt businessmen in May 2017, but more
importantly, with the creation of a National Institution Against Corruption presided over by
Chawki Tabib, an ex-lawyer.25 However, and paradoxically, his report has fed the loss of confi-
dence of the population toward political and administrative authorities, and generally speaking,
toward the Tunisian democratic process.

Conclusion
The regional situation, especially in Libya, Syria and Yemen, as well as the rise of ISIS, have been
unfavorable to the two countries which initiated the “Arab Spring”. It seems obvious that the cur-
rent state of civil society and democracy in Tunisia is much better than in Egypt. For Tunisia, one
of the main obstacles to democratic consolidation is the weakening of the State institutions while
civil society has gained more freedom. This country has had access to representative democracy
right in the middle of its crisis (Rosanvallon 2000). However, both societies urge for the freedom
and democracy demands that were expressed in 2011 as well as for the need for a social State that
mends social inequalities. Yet such demands are hard to reconcile with globalization that ques-
tions the State’s intervention in the economy and stresses the State’s impotence in managing the
economy within its own borders. In addition to numerous citizen initiatives, Tunisia has expe-
rienced a “cultural” revolution within the artistic scene thanks to new productions emerging in
theatre, music, cinema, etc. The new found academic freedom has also contributed to the rise of
a new generation of social and political science researchers. This cultural revolution is driven by
a new generation of Tunisians who do not hesitate to question Tunisia’s most persistent social
and religious taboos. Egypt also witnesses a similar will to question religious taboos and traditional
religious institutions. The phenomenon seems to be a regional one. A grassroots secularization
movement seems to have taken over from the “authoritarian secularism” practiced by some Arab
regimes. The latter is resulting from the concern of certain citizens with the different religious
actors’ behavior, be it “moderate” Islamist or jihadi. The “Arab Spring” showed an authority crisis
in all its many aspects, including in the religious field. ISIS’ behavior encouraged an “exit” process
from religion: fewer people practicing on a daily basis, fewer women wearing the veil in some

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neighborhoods, freeing of discourse including a tendency to break Islam’s most persistent taboos,
and the rise of people declaring themselves atheists or converting to Christianity.

Notes
1 Ben Néfissa 2015a.
2 Le Centre égyptien des droits sociaux et économiques et le Centre de soutien à l’Etat de droit.
3 Arab Network for Human Rights: www.anhri.net.
4 Ex 6 April movement, the revolutionary socialists, Dostour Party youth and youth linked to presidential
candidate Hamdeen Sabahi.
5 Fatima Ramadan and Amr Adly, Low-Cost Authoritarianism: The Egyptian Regime and Labor Movement
Since 2013, http://carnegieendowment.org/2015/09/17/low-cost-authoritarianism-egyptian-regime-
and-labor-movement-since-2013.
6 The second assassination after Chokry Belaïd who was also a member of Popular Front, a left-wing party.
7 The Troïka was composed mainly by Ennahdha, and two other political formations: Ettakatol and The
Congress for the Republic.
8 An institution formed by representatives from all around the political spectrum and presided over by the
renowned Tunisian lawyer,Yadh Ben Achour.
9 décret-loi no. 88 du 24 novembre 2011.
10 www.albawsala.com.
11 www.atide.org.
12 www.webdo.tn/tag/observatoire-tunisien-de-lindependance-de-la-magistrature.
13 Attacks against UGTT were numerous and varied: encouraging new labor organizations but mainly
unsuccessful attempts to intimidate UGTT managers. The high point was the attempt to storm the
UGTT Headquarters by the Revolution Defense Leagues on 4 December 2012.
14 Nida Tunes won the elections but did not have the absolute majority at the assembly.The new constitu-
tion requires a parliamentary regime and the left-wing parties represented at the assembly refused to
form an alliance with Nida Tunes.The alliance with Ennahdha was the result of this situation which was
worsened by divisions within Nida Tunes. At the time of writing, Ennahdha held the majority.
15 Stemming Tunisia’s Authoritarian Drift Crisis Group Middle East and North Africa Report No. 180, 11
January 2018.
16 Tunisie: violences et défi salafiste, Rapport Moyen-Orient/Afrique du Nord No. 137, 13 février 2013.
17 Critics of this text regret that capital punishment is required for a series of crimes whereas Tunisia has
not had any death penalty executions since 1991. They also condemn too much discretionary power
given to police forces such us keeping a suspect for as long as 15 days without giving him the right to
see a lawyer, or the simplified use of wiretaps. Human rights’ defenders think that the term “terrorist” is
too vague and that it could lead to liberticidal drift.
18 The ban of a salafist meeting in May 2013 in Kairouan marked the break-up between Ennahdha and
the salafists, mainly with Ansar-al-Charia, which has since been labeled as a terrorist movement.
19 Created at the end of 2011 in order to shed light on the multiple human rights violations during the
last decades, IVD also has a mission to rehabilitate the victims and compensate them. The investigation
went from July 1955 to the end of 2013.
20 www.ifeda.org.tn/stats/francais.pdf.
21 http://fr.slideshare.net/jamaity_tn/la-socitciviledansunetunisieenmutation-rapport-pnud.
22 Kamel Jendoubi: Pour un nouveau compromis historique autour de l’Etat, www.leaders.com.tn/
article/17302-kamel-jendoubi.
23 From an economic point of view, the Gafsa mining region, just like tourism, is an important source of
revenue.
24 Another example of the new force of the Tunisian civil society is the original experience of the defense of
the Jemna Oasis Association. Thanks to this association, inhabitants of the oasis managed to capture lands
that had been abandoned, legally. They have cultivated the land in order to grow and sell dates. The asso-
ciation has quickly shown significant results regarding employment, acquisition of agricultural equipment,
hospital equipment, school management, a new sports hall and a center for handicapped people.
25 He published a “Livre Noir” of the corruption where 21% of the complaints are linked to ministries and
which gives details of 9,027 corruption cases, among which 958 have been filed by the head of the govern-
ment, 140 concern public biddings and 1,789 are about financial corruption and economic crimes (50%).

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References
Ben Néfissa, S. 2000. “NGOs, Governance and Development in the Arab World: Discussions Paper”,
Management of Social Transformations (Unesco-Most), 46, pp. 1–32.
Ben Néfissa, S. 2013. “Pour un renouvellement du questionnement sur la société civile égyptienne”, Revue
Politique et Sociétés 32(3), pp. 159–176.
Ben Néfissa, S. 2014. “Confluence médiatique et protestations sociales avant la Révolution du 25 janvier
en Egypte: interrogations”, in M. Oualdi, D. Pagès-El Karoui, C. Verdeil (eds.), Les ondes de choc des
révolutions arabes, Beyrouth, Presses de l’IFPO, pp. 143–161.
Ben Néfissa, S. 2015a. “Globalized Modernity, Contestations and Revolutions: The Cases of Egypt and
Tunisia”, in Breno Bringel and José Mauricio Domingues (eds.), Global Modernity and Social Contestation,
Thousand Oaks, CA, SAGE Studies in International Sociology.
Ben Néfissa, S. 2015b. “La chute historique des Frères musulmans égyptiens: Erreurs politiques, blocage
idéologique et bureaucratisme organisationnel”, in Anna Bozzo and Pierre Jean Luizard, Polarisations
politiques et confessionnelles, RomaTrE-Press, pp. 99–127. http://ojs.romatrepress.uniroma3.it/index.
php/PPC.
Ben Néfissa, S. 2015c. “Les mouvements protestataires et la scène politique égyptienne après le 3 juillet
2013”, Recherches internationales 104, pp. 89–103.
Ben Néfissa, S., and F. Clément. 2007. Rapport sur la liberté d’association en Egypte: La liberté d’association
dans la région euro-méditerranéenne. Réseau euro-méditerranéen des droits de l’homme (Français, Arabe,
Anglais).
Ben Néfissa, S., and C. Ferjani. 2013. “Tunisie: acteurs, enjeux et dynamiques d’une transition qui n’en
finit pas!” Délégation aux affaires Stratégiques, 3.
Benaziz, B. 2015. “Le journal Al-Dostour/Al-Tahrir: Apogée et déclin d’un journal privé”, Revue Tiers-
Monde 222, pp. 31–48.
Droz-Vincent P. 2004. “Quel avenir pour l’autoritarisme dans le monde arabe?”, Revue française de science
politique 54(6), pp. 945–978.
Kienle, E., and L. Louër. 2013. “Comprendre les enjeux économiques et sociaux des soulèvements arabes”,
Critique internationale 61, pp. 11–17.
Rosanvallon, P. 2000. La Contre Démocratie: La politique à l’ère de la défiance, Paris, Seuil.
Rougier, B., and S. Lacroix. 2015. L’Egypte en Révolutions, Paris, PUF.
Tainturier, T. P. 2017. Associations et révolution au “village”: le cas de Tozeur en Tunisie, Thesis CNAM, 16
May.
Tarrow, S. 2007. “Cosmopolites enracinés et militants transnationaux”, Lien social et Politiques 58,
pp. 87–102.
Tourya, G. 2012. Les Médias arabes: Confluences médiatiques et dynamiques sociales, Paris, CNRS Éditions.
Yousfi, H. 2015. “L’UGTT, une passion tunisienne”: Enquête sur les syndicalistes en révolution 2011–2014,
Tunis, Édition Med Ali/IRMC.

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 35
NGOs in sub-Saharan Africa
Potentials, constraints and diverging
experiences

Hans Holmén

Introduction
Since the 1980s, sub-Saharan Africa has seen a veritable boom of NGOs1 and their numbers are
still increasing. In many camps – especially in the West – this has been accompanied by great
enthusiasm about their abilities to speed up development and, particularly, to reach the poor and
vulnerable groups in society and, hence, to include more people in the development process.2
NGOs were seen as closer to the grassroots, as more democratic, effective and empowering
than state-led projects or bilateral aid programs. With hindsight, it is clear that this enthusiasm
was often naïve and founded on assumptions rather than on experience. NGOs were largely
unknown at the time and their advantages were merely potential, not yet realized advantages.
After more than 30 years of NGO activities, it is still often the case that more is believed than
known about NGOs in sub-Saharan Africa.
The reasons are many. The sub-continent is large, diverse and far from static. Vast areas
are sparsely populated with widespread poverty. Peripheries are large and, in the aftermath of
structural adjustment (with weakened governments, deteriorating transport infrastructure and
dismantled extension services) expanding, many smallholders withdraw into self-sufficiency and
subsistence production (Hydén 1995; Leysens 2006). At the same time other, more accessible,
areas are becoming increasingly integrated with the rest of the world. In these areas labor is
becoming more diversified, a new middle class is emerging (Bjerström 2013) and land that used
to be ‘communal’ is increasingly being privatized (Holmén 2015). These different environments
present quite different challenges and potentials for successful organization-building for devel-
opment. This is often overlooked in NGO literature. Whereas much writing on NGOs in the
sub-continent treats them as one-of-a-kind, the organizational landscape is complex and varied
with different environments fostering organizations with quite diverging roots, ambitions and
modes of governance (Holmén 2010). Many NGOs do not do development work but direct
their activities to relief and charity work, some work with governments, while others oppose
them or at least try to stay independent.
While enthusiasm with NGOs as development vehicles remains strong in the West, critiques
about their role(s) and performance are increasingly aired from African sources. This is not to
deny that NGOs in sub-Saharan Africa sometimes perform well and that success-stories have

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been told, but the ‘NGO approach to development’ has proved to be less of a panacea than is
often assumed. This chapter aims to highlight differences and to shed light on why accomplish-
ments vary so much. To do this, it is important to highlight the importance of context.

Civil society in sub-Saharan Africa

NGOs (also called civil society organizations) are often seen as representing ‘civil society’ and
believed to fulfill the same role as CSOs in other parts of the world. In the West, it is claimed,
society is strong when CSOs are strong, and democracy is strong when civil society is strong.
In the West, ‘civil society’ is commonly used to distinguish a third sector in society, separated
from the political and the private business sectors (where the former is backed by coercion and
the latter aims at utility maximization). Civil society, in contrast, is believed to be based on
voluntariness and solidarity (see e.g. Weinberger & Jütting 2001). At the very basic level civil
society is made up of individuals and households but mostly the term refers to entities beyond
the household, namely organizations. This means a kind of formalization of ‘civil society’,
which many NGOs and NGO-advocates have been quick to appropriate, thereby assuming the
role as spokesmen for ‘civil society’. However, NGOs do not represent the entire civil society.
They represent smaller or larger special-interest groups within civil society. This ‘NGO-ization
of civil society’ has implications when NGOs assume the role as change-agents also in Africa.
Civil society in sub-Saharan Africa is often depicted as weak with weak organizations, which
has enticed many Western NGOs to conclude that it needs to be strengthened. This, in my
opinion, is a gross misunderstanding. Civil society in sub-Saharan Africa is not only stronger
than what is often assumed, it is also different from that in the West. Hence, the role(s) and
potentials of CSOs ought to be somewhat different. In a Western context, definitions of ‘civil
society’ commonly exclude family, kin or clan and preserve ‘civil society’ for groups that go
beyond family and bridge or cut across primordial ties (see e.g. Putnam 1993). This makes sense
in a society or culture that is centered on the individual. In this sense, ‘civil society’ belongs
to modernity. In much of sub-Saharan Africa, where poverty is widespread and other forms of
social protection are absent or near-absent, family, kin and clan make up the constituent ele-
ments in society. Hydén (1995) calls this the ‘economy of affection’. The economy of affection,
says Hydén, centers on support and interaction among structurally defined groups such as kin,
community or religion. It is often reciprocal but seldom egalitarian, often involving a relation-
ship with a patron. The economy of affection is pre-modern and often preservationist.
Civil society in sub-Saharan Africa has often been idealized. Pimbert (2004) points out that
it rests upon a long tradition of mutual aid and self-help institutions. These (e.g. wealth and
risk-sharing mechanisms, labor exchange gangs, seed banks), however, are often latent ‘proto-
organizations’ or coping-devises, only to be mobilized in case of need. They have seldom been
a trampoline for change. African civil society is also believed to be democratic (Salzer 2003)
and socially harmonious (Cracknell 2000). The proverbial: ‘when there is a problem, we (all)
sit under a tree and talk until we reach a consensus’ is a perfect illustration. Harmony and
democracy are ‘natural’ characteristics because African civil society is ‘soundly rooted in non-
materialistic cultural traditions’ (Ebiem 2015). As such it is often held to be superior to modern,
capitalistic, modes of association. Such idealizations, however, overlook the inequality, oppres-
sive social hierarchies and discrimination that also exist in real-world civil society. Traditionally,
African societies have developed strong institutions militating against individual wealth-seeking
and hostility to economic change (Platteau 2000). And the ‘democracy of consensus’ often turns
out to be the ‘democracy of the lords and the chiefs’ (Mana 1995: 24).

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The ‘economy of affection’ is present everywhere in sub-Saharan Africa but more so in

remote than in accessible areas. To the extent that development can be defined as economic
growth and structural change, the organizations that it fosters would have limited ability to
function as change-agents, and less so in peripheral locations (Holmén 2010). This has implica-
tions for NGOs when they come to organize grassroots for development, especially since NGOs
sometimes prefer to go ‘beyond the mountain’ to assist those they perceive to be most in need
(Practical Action 2005; Bawole & Hossain 2015). Perhaps one should preserve the label NGO
for those organizations that aim to transform Africa – often introducing foreign ideas – and use
CSO for those who emphasize African values and ways of doing things?

Different origins of African NGOs

Civil society in sub-Saharan Africa is almost as old as mankind. During colonial rule, the ‘econ-
omy of affection’ was to some extent supplemented by groups and charity organizations run
and initiated by churches and, later, by liberation and civil rights movements. After the end of
World War II, some relief organizations that were originally oriented toward war victims in
Europe gradually extended their activities also to Africa. They were mostly engaged in charity
work and disaster relief and did not primarily aim for social and economic change. Following
independence, their numbers increased somewhat. Also domestic groups and organizations,
some of which had been part of the liberation struggle, made claims on the new governments
and/or demanded access to public office. They generally had no outspoken development objec-
tives and were often seen with suspicion and/or were co-opted into patronage structures. The
economy of affection survived.
The real boost in organization-building came with neoliberalism and the imposed structural
adjustment reforms in the 1980s and 1990s. Among other things, the effect was (a) that Africa
was opened up for foreign competition and (b) aid was reduced and was now partly bypass-
ing governments instead to be allocated to NGOs. The number of NGOs, both foreign and
domestic, grew rapidly, some of them simple fortune hunters. Others were more serious about
their ambitions but, lacking experience, they faced problems when trying to shift from relief
to development. Some Western NGOs (INGOs) hesitated while others were quick to seize
the opportunity.

Regional experiences
With varying degrees of success CSOs and NGOs (and INGOs) in sub-Saharan Africa engage
in a wide range of activities, ranging from education, health-care and child nutrition over
water and sanitation projects, micro-credit schemes, natural resource management, agricultural
extension and income diversification, to advocacy and lobbying. On a macro scale, the regional
effects of this ‘NGO-ization of development’ were far-reaching, at least initially, where West
Africa appears to have been quite successful (according to the literature) whereas the experience
in eastern and southern Africa was more problematic.
In eastern and southern Africa, rather than being a response to a felt need, this was a forced
birth and many NGOs were hastily set up in order to make use of the new opportunities. Many
were well intentioned but lacked necessary skills and capacity. Others were ‘bogus-NGOs’ or
one-man-NGOs, without progressive ambitions but with the sole purpose to tap into the new
financial flows suddenly available. Overall, the NGO sector was weak with little impact and of
little avail to the poor. Tales of elite-capture have been common. Also, being part of structural

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adjustment (with accompanying ‘government bashing’), they were often, rightly or wrongly,
perceived as confrontational. Governments overall looked at NGOs with suspicion and control
attempts were commonplace. Some governments set up GONGOs (government-controlled
NGOs) in order to maintain control and secure access to changing aid flows. In Zimbabwe,
politically linked quasi-NGOs such as the President’s fund, Child Survival (under the patronage
of the President’s wife) and the Zimbabwe Development Trust (under the tutelage of Senior
Minister Joshua Nkomo) dominated the scene (Muir 1992). A love–hate relation emerged
where governments accepted and sometimes appreciated NGOs as service providers filling the
gap left by a retreating state but were less appreciative when they tried to influence (or ‘interfere’
in) politics. In Kenya, former President Moi threatened to de-register NGOs since they ‘lacked
the mandate to lobby’.
Although there are exceptions (see below), the NGO sector in eastern and southern Africa
remains weak, hampered by a lack of resources and often with no true grassroot contacts. Not
only has the growth-rate of NGOs been high, so is their death-rate and many are short-lived. In
2008, the Malawi’s Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security database on farmer organizations
listed 2,175 organizations. Of these, only 22 (1 percent) were classified as ‘sustainable’, whereas
1,032 were classified as ‘non-sustainable’. For the remaining 52 percent the status was less clear
(MAFS 2008).
The NGO explosion in West Africa had a different origin and, initially, a different
impact. One reason was the Sahel drought in the 1970s, which forced people to experi-
ment with new forms of organizations while governments were unable to solve the crisis
or reach out with relief programs. Another reason was the prevalence of weak governments
throughout the region which left considerable room for self-mobilization, especially in
rural areas. Hence, the founding of some important CSOs and NGOs preceded structural
adjustment and, therefore, they were not expected to assume the role as watchdogs. West
African NGOs generally have emphasized their professional rather than their political roles
(Holmén 2010). When structural adjustment was imposed by IFIs – later than in eastern
and southern Africa – many had already developed their routines and modes of operation.
Some farmers’ movements like FONGS and CNCR in Senegal have been recognized as
spokesmen for the country’s rural population and have become influential in policy dia-
logue while defending government sovereignty in adjustment negotiations with the World
Bank. These organizations, and the regional NGO-network ROPPA, are, together with
the Naam movement (originating in Burkina Faso, later expanding to encompass at least
nine countries) and the Kuapa Kakoo association of cocoa-growers in Ghana, frequently
described as success-stories. A circumstance contributing to their success has been ‘flexible
funding’ (i.e. external financial support with no strings attached) enjoyed by e.g. Naam and
ROPPA, something that rarely if ever occurred in other parts of Africa. The literature has
found a number of ‘NGO-paradises’ in West Africa and Toulmin and Guéye (2003: 33)
contend ‘throughout West Africa, a range of producer organizations (POs) have established
themselves and strengthened their position’.
Besides these showcases, however, and contrary to the above quotation, the CSO/NGO
sector is commonly defined as weak: lacking skills, resources and ambitions. GONGOs and
NGOs with close ties to politicians or senior officials are common. Several governments, while
implementing SAPs, have maintained control over strategic export crops such as cocoa and
cotton. Being part of governments’ divest-programs, restructured major irrigation schemes in
Ghana and Burkina Faso (both in the literature described as success-stories) as well as ‘liberal-
ized’ cotton production in Mali were to be based on cooperatives and farmers’ associations.

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They have all been too hastily implemented and lack resources and management skills and some
are highly exploitative. Growth in the number of NGOs/CSOs has been impressive. However,
many NGOs in the region are urban-based and run in a top-down manner with little grassroots
contact. Some are fakes, created just to obtain aid money. The two showcases Kuapa Kakoo in
Ghana and Naam in Burkina Faso need some special attention.

Kuapa Kakoo
In 1992 the government of Ghana decided to partially liberalize the cocoa market. A number of
leading farmers, including a visionary farmer representative on the Ghana Cocoa Board, seized
the opportunity to establish a cocoa producers’ cooperative – Kuapa Kakoo – with members
in 22 villages. Having overcome initial bureaucratic hurdles, by 2006 it had grown to involve
more than 40,000 farmers in over 200 villages. Having begun as a producers’ organization (PO)
that sold its produce to the Cocoa Board, its activities have since expanded to encompass a
farmers’ union (buys cocoa from member farmers); a trading arm (for cocoa exports); a credit
union (provides credit and banking services); and a farmers’ trust (provides funding for commu-
nity projects). Kuapa Kakoo is a major shareholder in the UK-based Day Chocolate Company.
It has also invested in a wide range of non-commercial projects to improve the livelihoods of
individuals and communities, for example a health-care program, social services, schools and
nurseries (Tiffen et al. 2004).

Naam
Triggered by the Sahel drought in 1973, the Naam movement and the Six S, a support
organization, were formed in 1976 by a former extensionist and teacher and a French
development worker. Six S (Se Servir de la Saison Sèche en Savane et au Sahel – ‘Using the
dry season in the savanna and the Sahel’) was based on the idea of using the dry season
(which could last up to nine months) when labor was idle to promote village efforts to
cope with immediate difficulties by way of installing soil and water conservation measures
that would improve agricultural production in the coming wet season. Later, activities
were extended into a wide spectrum of activities such as natural resource management,
village shops and mills, roads, schools, libraries, theaters and football. The movement grew
rapidly and by the turn of the millennium, it included hundreds of thousands of small
farmers in nine countries in West Africa.
The Naam bases its approach on an ancient, traditional association, Kombi Naam, a com-
mon village-age cohort composed of young people with highly cooperative characteristics. Its
aim is to foster moral qualities such as solidarity and cooperation among the young and at the
same time accomplishing socially useful tasks for the village, for example carrying out construc-
tion work and harvesting and to organize festivals. Traditionally, such groups provided a sort of
practical schooling in the working of society but they never assumed the role as change-agent.
The movement’s success is partly explained by its investment strategy. Every Naam investment
should have two children – a ‘son’ and a ‘daughter’. One of them (the son) is used for mainte-
nance or a new investment in the village. The other (the daughter) is saved to be used for invest-
ment in another village. Thus, by working at the grassroots level and honoring traditional rules
about sharing and reciprocity, Naam has been able to mobilize large number of small farmers, to
introduce novelties and, to some extent, to improve communal life (Toborn 1992; Lecomte &
Krishna 1997; Uemura n.d.). However, while Naam built its initial strength on its ability to root

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innovative projects in indigenous institutions, these customs also included strong hierarchical
components. So when the strongman decided to move on to do other things, the major part of
the movement collapsed (Hårsmar 2004).

The importance of context

The above two examples illustrate a common but often overlooked circumstance – that organi-
zations tend to mirror their contexts more than they shape them (Holmén 2010). Organizations
are created for different purposes. They act and react according to possibilities and obstacles that
they confront, not because they are exposed to some kind of allegedly superior rationality or
because they are empowered to do things differently by some external supporter.
Bernard et al. (2005: 1) propose that ‘formal village organizations (VO) can be classified into
market-oriented (MO) and community-oriented (CO) organizations, with the former aimed at
supporting entrepreneurship and rising members’ incomes while the latter are oriented at the pro-
vision of public goods for the community’. They further suggest that ‘an MO’s economic perfor-
mance . . . is constrained in communities with strong sharing norms . . . In some cases, the pressures
to share are so high that no MO can emerge’. While this is likely to be the case, the location of
these villages will have a bearing on the options and constraints encountered. The geographical
aspects of this problematic should not be overlooked. It is not primarily a question of inherently
conservative communities and other inherently more progressive communities. They are not static.
Well-connected and more diversified areas simply offer more opportunities than do isolated areas.
In a remote locality it would not make much sense to opt for market-oriented production because
the market is too unreliable.
Significantly, the more outward-oriented producer organization Kuapa Kakoo was
established in the southern, more developed and accessible parts of Ghana whereas the
more community-oriented and preservationist CSO, the Naam movement, was found in
more peripheral and less densely populated environments. This is a common pattern that
repeats itself throughout sub-Saharan Africa. In Zambia, an out-grower scheme for fruit
and vegetables collapsed in 2004 and was restructured by its farming members into a coop-
erative union for vegetable growers, LACCU, which then successfully built relations with
input suppliers, sought out replacement markets (domestic as well as export), expanded its
membership and improved profitability (Hopkins et al. 2005). The success is partly due to
proximity to the capital and the comparatively well-developed road and transport infra-
structure. Partly, it is also explained by high and diversified skills among members. In the
area, middle/younger-aged people from the city as well as retired civil servants have begun
to engage in farming. LACCU’s executive committee contained ‘a retired banker, a retired
human resource manager and a certified accountant who specialized in giving credit to
farmers’ (ibid.). There are many examples of apparently successful market-oriented POs in
eastern and southern Africa. They are all located in accessible areas and engage in cash-crop
production, sometimes for export, but avoid staple-crops (Holmén 2010).
This is in stark contrast with more peripheral areas where preconditions are less favorable.
Michael (2004: 72f), reporting from Tanzania, found that local CSOs engage in ‘caring for
the sick, disabled and elderly with varying degrees of success. However, these local welfare
organizations commonly lack any engagement with the wider issues of underdevelopment . . .
[and] the credit and business sector . . . is . . . very small’. In Kenya a multi-sector development
program was initiated by a foreign aid agency in 1997 in a dry and remote area with low agricul-
tural potential and widespread poverty. The aim was to create a participatory and democratically

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controlled development, initiated, owned and controlled by the participants. All in all, 111 vil-
lage communities (with a population of 180,000 inhabitants) took part in the program and by
2004 a total of 840 projects had been implemented, an average of eight projects per community
or about 100 projects per year. The majority of these projects, 61 percent, were community-
oriented whereas only 29 percent were income-generating. Market-oriented projects were even
fewer with only eight projects in trade – one per year or one per 14 villages! A savings and credit
component was added in order to accelerate income-generating activities. However, members,
not too keen on repaying loans, sold their products outside the scheme with severe financial
consequences, thus depriving the association of its core function, which soon came to a standstill
(KDDP 2004).
Cleaver (2005) describes how different environments in Kenya impact on which type of
organization can be found where:

The type of organization predominating varied from village to village; the more marketized
southern agricultural villages displayed greater individualization of social life, labor was
hired rather than collective, membership of clubs and associations was largely for produc-
tive purposes such as livestock rearing or managing irrigation water. In the pioneer villages
to the north of the district, where people settled in order to pursue mixed agricultural and
pastoralist livelihoods, associational life revolved much more around reconstructed versions
of ‘traditional’ collective labor arrangements, singing and dancing groups, and public events
such as rainmaking.
(2005: 901)

For analytical reasons it is important to point out the differences in impact of nearness and
remoteness. In the real world, however, many areas and locations fall somewhere between these
extremes. Thus, it is a question of relative nearness. Remoteness does not exclude market-
orientation, but it makes it less likely to occur. Also, it is often not a clear-cut difference
between market or community-orientation. As the example of Kuapa Kakoo shows, this pro-
gressive PO also pursued a range of community-objectives, a circumstance that no doubt made
its simultaneous orientation toward market and individual gain more acceptable in the various
localities. The ‘economy of affection’ does not preclude development, but imposes certain costs
which, from a capitalistic perspective, may seem dysfunctional.
Bernard, de Janvry and Sadoulet (2005) studied 281 villages in Burkina Faso, which were
home to 647 village organizations (VOs), 327 of which were community-oriented (CO)3 and
320 market-oriented (MO). They found a strong resistance to commercialization and, particu-
larly, to individualization in the area. They also found that COs were more evenly distributed
across villages than MOs and that a large village has a greater probability of having an MO than a
small village and a village with social homogeneity has less chance of having one. This indicates
that accessibility had a stronger influence than ‘community conservatism’ since larger villages are
likely to be better connected to roads, markets and so on. In other words, ‘the spatial variable
is a strong determinant for which type of organization we are likely to find where’ (Holmén
2010: 176).
Also here, most MOs had found it necessary to include community-activities, which on
the one hand limited their economic efficiency but on the other hand made their market-
orientation more acceptable to fellow-villagers. More important, from a development assistance
point of view, is that ‘the impact of an external partner on the way decisions are effectively
taken in the organization is limited’ (Bernard et al. 2005: 24). It was much easier for (I)NGOs to

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find resonance for ‘participatory democracy’ in COs than in MOs, which, the authors contend,
‘requires more leadership’ (ibid.). ‘Even though external partners press for more participatory
forms of governance, the most efficient cooperatives are those with strong leadership’ (ibid.).
This is probably a misunderstanding. The two types of VO require different types of leadership,
not necessarily more. COs have bonding purposes and typically deal with issues of general con-
cern, i.e. undertakings with a public-goods character, which traditionally have involved a wide
range of stakeholders built on consensus arrangements. Hence, it is no wonder that COs find it
easier to accommodate NGOs coming to teach them ‘participation’. They practice that already.
MOs, on the other hand, are of a bridging nature and are established in order to deal with the
outside world and to engage with entities of which their members normally have little experi-
ence. Such arrangements often demand quick decisions and give less room for ‘sitting under a
tree and talk until a consensus is reached’. This, however, is not to say that COs are less effective
than MOs. The two types of organization have different purposes and their effectiveness should
be judged by different criteria.

Crowding out
This emphasis on context highlights a common dilemma facing NGOs (from the city)
and INGOs (from abroad) entering a location to help with development. Korten (1980)
stressed that there is not one model to follow, nor one set of key-factors that promises
success. Instead he emphasized flexibility and the importance of an ‘organizational fit’, i.e.
how well an organization fits in the context or environment where it operates. Such an
organizational fit often seems to be absent, for various reasons. On the one hand, even if
local organizations have been ‘spontaneously’ formed, INGOs and NGOs often find few,
if any, suitable partners to cooperate with and therefore set up their own LOs and often
choose to ‘do development’ themselves, at least for the time being. However, externally
originating organizations are criticized for ‘not having a good grasp of the larger socio-
political and economic milieu in which they [enter]’ (Nega & Schneider 2014; Kleibl &
Munck 2017). Instead, they tend to follow their own modes of operation.
NGOs (often financially supported by an INGO or a foreign donor) dominate the scene. In no
small proportion this is because they have a much stronger economic position than do their local
counterparts. In Uganda, for example, around 80 percent of total NGO funds come from interna-
tional grants (ID21 2007). In Kenya the corresponding figure is 90 percent (Maclean et al. 2015).
INGOs and externally financed NGOs pay much higher salaries than do government institutions
or locally financed CBOs which makes them attractive to the more capable and resourceful staff,
particularly those with an education (Nega & Schneider 2014). This has led to a severe brain-drain
from public authorities to NGOs (thus further weakening the state) as well as from indigenous
organizations to externally financed NGOs and INGOs.4 Also, since foreign funds are distrib-
uted selectively and tend to favor the already well connected, those that receive funding have an
advantage in domestic competition over those NGOs that have to rely on domestically mobilized
resources. This advantage is further strengthened as some (I)NGOs supply subsidized inputs to
‘beneficiaries’ and/or pay them to attend meetings – what Macleod (2015) calls ‘the tyranny of
per diems’. Those without external links – the real grassroots organizations – tend to be ‘crowded
out’ by the well connected.
By default more than design, this has created new forms of dependency among African
grassroots and their indigenous organizations. It is well known that ‘he who pays the piper
also calls the tune’ and this has far-reaching implications for NGO performance, strategies and

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empowerment. Donors’ and INGOs’ fears of elite-capture (of projects and finances), the exist-
ence of bogus-NGOs (with the sole purpose to siphon off aid money) and incidences of embez-
zlement and/or lax control of NGO budgets have increasingly led to demands for remote
control over ‘local’ activities. Supported NGOs have ‘to cope with increasingly complex proce-
dures for reporting and impact assessment’ (Mueller-Hirth 2012: 652). Inevitably, donors’ ideas
and priorities take precedence over locally felt priorities (Jasor 2016; van Rinsum 2014). This
has profound implications for empowerment of beneficiaries since INGOs and donors prefer
to finance projects, but do not generally fund core functions or ‘institutional capacity’ of the
NGOs with which they work. The result is that groups or projects seldom survive the funding
period (e.g. Nega & Schneider 2014).
Some areas have few or no NGOs whereas other areas have attracted a mass of competing
NGOs and INGOs. This creates confusion at grassroot level with a lot of duplication of groups
and projects where each NGO is preoccupied with its own agenda (Amutabi 2006) and farm-
ers sometimes ‘belong’ to a number of groups of projects run by different NGOs, each with its
own guidelines and implementation procedures (Kaarhus & Nyirenda 2006). Grassroots have
developed a relaxed attitude toward INGOs. In some areas, ‘so many little projects have come
and gone for so long that farmers joke about just waiting for the next project or group to join’
(Bingen 2003: 11).
With financial support comes foreign agenda-setting and reports abound that externally sup-
ported NGOs are not only ‘driven by donor agendas’ (Bertone 2000), they are ‘treated as
sub-contractors and not as equals’ (Chowdhury et al. 2006: 5). INGOs and supported NGOs
need to show quick results and have little time to investigate local needs and capacities by way
of participatory approaches. Instead they have often been found to be weak on participation.
They enter an area with preconceived ideas about what is needed. They prefer to do what they
believe is good for the people (Oyugi 2004) and ‘capacity-building’ (a strong legitimizing buz-
zword among INGOs) is often reduced to ‘a bluff’ (James 2014).
Crowding out and dependence on foreign agendas takes many forms. One is that NGOs
are often perceived to ‘deliver’ development, rather than as mobilizers for development. It
is also not uncommon that INGOs help African NGOs to write project applications, thus
further aligning local ‘initiatives’ with donor preferences (de Sardan 2005). Another is that
many African NGOs find themselves pressured to assume roles they are not so keen to per-
form, to hold governments to account, for example. INGOs’ favored strategies emphasize
policy influence and advocacy and ‘politically oriented NGOs tend to be donor driven’
(Kelsall 2001: 136; Duhu 2005; James et al. 2005). A further illustration of this growing
dependence syndrome: I have been teaching ‘development studies’ for African master’s stu-
dents in Sweden and Italy and when I asked what they were most keen on learning, the
answer was not empowerment or capacity-building but ‘how to write a project proposal’.
They understood that, in order to receive funding, proposals must be aligned with contem-
porary fads in the donor community. Another illustration: a few years ago I was invited to
the European Investment Bank’s (EIB’s)5 annual ‘Civil Society Seminar with EIB’s Board
of Directors’. Some 20 representatives of ‘African’ NGOs were present, almost all of them
white. I asked what mandate they had to speak for Africa. None bothered to answer. They
were more interested in lobbying the EIB that it should add a gift component to the projects
funded – a gift that, no doubt, was to be channeled through the (white) INGOs present at
the meeting.
In many cases, the result is that ownership and initiative is being removed from the supposed
beneficiaries of NGO-led development aid and is instead placed in the hands of foreigners.

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Increasingly, African organizations have been lured to chase money rather than mobilizing
indigenous resources. Not uncommonly, an attitude reminiscent of the Melanesian ‘cargo cult’
has emerged. Groups and organizations are indeed being created but they are ‘lying idle until
an NGO comes to cultivate [them]’ (Bierschenk et al. 1999: 428). Not even the once success-
ful Naam movement has been spared (e.g. Schweigman 2003) and folk-humor has altered the
meaning of Six S, which now reads: Se Servir de Sous Suisse Sans Soucis (‘How to spend Swiss
funds without remorse’). What we witness is a major incentive distortion.

Concluding remarks
As this chapter has shown, the organizational landscape in sub-Saharan Africa is diverse with
both progressive and preservationist CBOs/NGOs, with success-stories but also with failures.
With half the population eking out a life below the poverty-line, Africa needs to increase
productivity and to diversify its economy. Aloo (2000) writes about an emerging ‘new breed
of NGOs’ that is ‘more professional’. And Holmén (2010) found a number of successful and
economically viable producer organizations, often in well-connected areas with proximity to
markets and comparatively well-developed transport infrastructure. They are of a bridging kind
and tend to have a commercial orientation. They are often created on local initiative and have
among their members and founders better-than-average skills and contacts and tend to cater
(though not exclusively) for the better-off segments of society. So far they represent a minority
of African organizations. Besides these, there is a huge periphery and a large number of bond-
ing CSOs which sometimes fulfill important functions at grassroot level, but seldom function
as change-agents.6 The overall impression is, however, a story about weak and resource-poor
domestic organizations crowded out due to overwhelming competition from external ‘support-
ers’ and local initiatives subordinated under foreign agendas. Long-term capacity-building –
which should be the objective of INGOs and donors – appears often to be sacrificed on the altar
of short-sighted service-delivery and the INGO competition for market-shares.
One can look at this from two sides: from outside or from within. The USAID’s ‘CSO
Sustainability Index for Sub-Saharan Africa 2015’ recently concluded that NGOs, while seri-
ously underfunded (more foreign money is needed), ‘make vital contributions in areas such as
advocacy and service provision’ (USAID 2017: xv). Of a quite different opinion are a large
number of African researchers. They find that ‘the NGO approach to development’ – as it
has evolved – ‘weakens African civil society’ (Duhu 2005), that it is largely a failure (Zaidi
1999; Aloo 2000; Amutabi 2006) and that it represents a neo-colonialist project (Shivji 2006;
Nolutshungu 2008). Hence, Africa must liberate itself from its liberators and seek indigenous
solutions (PAPF 2008). My own conclusions are two: (a) if development is to be sustainable, it
must come from within, and (b) we should listen to these African voices and take their message
seriously. Not only do they see things westerners often are unwilling to see – it is also, after all,
their future that is at stake.

Notes
1 The label NGO is here used to depict domestic organizations (often of urban origin) that assist or
help forming local (LO) or community-based organizations (CBOs). INGO (international or northern
NGOs) refers to foreign NGOs active in Africa. Both NGOs and INGOs are intermediary organizations
which, although they claim to be mobilizers, often tend to be links in a delivery chain.
2 I limit the discussion in this chapter to organizations with a development purpose (e.g. education, mobi-
lization of own resources, technological innovation, productivity enhancement, product diversification)

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and largely exclude relief and advocacy-oriented NGOs (such as Amnesty International, Médecins Sans
Frontières, Transparency International).
3 COs had never engaged in market-oriented activities, a rather harsh limitation.
4 One estimate suggests there are ‘three times more staff working in INGOs in Malawi than in local
NGOs’ (see Macleod 2015: 1).
5 The EIB finances projects in developing countries on a commercial basis. It is thus not a ‘donor’ in a
traditional sense.
6 For example, the West African network of farmers’ associations ROPPA, which has earned accolades for
forwarding the interest of small producers and the logic of family farms, deliberately sets itself apart from
efforts to promote more forward-looking entities like commercially oriented POs and commodity-based
groups or networks (see e.g. Bingen 2003).

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 36
NGOs in South Asia
Patrick Kilby

Introduction
NGOs in South Asia are as diverse as the countries of the region. The term ‘NGO’ covers
a wide diversity of not-for-profit entities ranging from large educational institutions to small
grassroots NGOs in a community. What they have in common is a broader community purpose
based on a set of values shared by their governing members and supporters, rather than a profit
motive, or being an instrument of government, as the source of their motivation (Lissner 1977;
Kilby 2011). There are of course grey areas where industry NGOs advocate for their for-profit
members, and many government statutory authorities share common elements including values,
much like an NGO. For this chapter I will mainly focus on local NGOs in South Asia, which
are values based, and dedicated to the social development of their communities. Of course, this
still includes a vast spectrum of NGOs ranging from those that are more activist and built around
social movements for transformational change across communities; or are more locally based
around improving family and community welfare and livelihoods; while others have a strong
religious base for their values, and seek to see these values adopted more broadly. Of course, this
naturally leads to values conflict, and while NGOs seldom attack each other directly, they often
seek support government or other patrons to limit the reach of those NGOs that do not share
their values. The other key element for a values-based NGO is credibility, and so NGOs need
to establish some relationship with government or other powerful actors, and have a strong local
community base to achieve some level of credibility. At the most basic level this involves some
form of regulatory agreement with government, but if NGOs are to have a broader influence
then the relationship often involves funding.
This chapter will focus on the development of local NGOs in the countries of South Asia,
and only look at international NGOs working in these countries to the extent they include local
NGOs, or locally registered counterparts, whereby international NGOs ‘spin off’ local autono-
mous counterparts as part of confederation arrangements. The chapter will look at the develop-
ment and current situation of NGOs in each of the four major countries of South Asia (India,
Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka), their regional interactions and their links to international
organisations. It will also briefly touch on the situation in Nepal and Bhutan where the develop-
ment of local NGOs is more recent, and there has been relatively little research.

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Overview
South Asian NGOs have a range of histories but for those countries that now make up what was
British India up until partition in 1947, Bangladesh, Pakistan and India, their NGOs have their
origins in the social reform movements of the mid-19th century, and the independence move-
ment in the 20th century. The Societies and Registration Act of 1860 in British India was the
first legal framework for NGOs in the region (Nair 2011; Kilby 2011), which became an early
source of their legitimacy. In Nepal and Bhutan, the relevant feudal monarchies restricted the
formation and activities of NGOs until the late 20th and early 21st century (Kaul 2008; Ulvila
and Hossain 2002), while in Sri Lanka NGOs are also a more recent phenomenon. The largest
NGO, Sarvodaya, was formed as a social movement in the 1950s, with a strong focus on village
organising around services for local communities (Goodhand 1999; Walton 2008). A broader
cohort of NGOs then developed largely based around religious identity – Buddhist, Hindu,
Islam and Christian (Orjuela 2005). The other key feature is that they have remained national
rather than regional in their focus, and in the case of India, NGOs have remained largely sub-
national, with few truly national NGOs (Kilby 2011).
NGOs of South Asia, through their various histories, have had to face challenges to their
legitimacy. In all cases, they have had to defend themselves against hostile governments, and
at times other radical social movements. NGOs have the challenges of accessing resources for
their work, which for some has been from foreign funding, and others by fee-for-service, or as
is the case for most religious-based NGOs, local philanthropy. While most service NGOs are
able to fund their work from local sources, many advocacy NGOs, particularly those around
human rights, social issues and the environment, depend on foreign funding for the bulk of their
resources. This becomes a source of tension, a point that will be returned to later in the chapter.
Foreign funding has included from donor governments as well as international organisa-
tions such as the World Bank and UNDP and others, which at times have used local NGOs
to advance their policy interests in a particular country. These interests might be around: social
inclusion; gender justice and the advancement of civil and political rights; democratic govern-
ance; and liberal values more broadly, all of which may challenge local values and norms. For
example, the World Bank has used NGOs for Natural Resource Programmes in South Asia, and
UNDP for advancing the rights-based development agenda (Kilby 2011; Cammack 2017). In
the 2010s, local NGO legitimacy is being debated by both government and in the media across
South Asia, as it is elsewhere. The rise in nationalism and a rejection of a Western-driven liberal
consensus across the region presents a real threat to local NGOs, their legitimacy and in some
cases their survival (Rutzen 2012).
This attack on NGO legitimacy is a global trend supported, for example, by Public Choice
Theory, which argues that NGOs, rather than being public interest organisations advocating for
the needs and rights of a broader public, are in fact self-interest organisations run by an unaccount-
able few, seeking rents from the governments and others (Johns 2000, 2005). The Theory chal-
lenges the notions of NGOs being values-based public benefit organisations working for the public
good, however defined (Thompson 2016; Staples 2008; Lissner 1977). Public Choice Theory
comes from a libertarian philosophy around the individual having a primary voice only through
their elected representatives. This view was bluntly articulated by the Chief of a Bangladesh par-
liamentary standing committee, when he stated that ‘Freedom of expression is applicable for the
citizen, not for any organisation. NGOs are inferior here’ (Sengupta 2016, p. 1). There is some
merit in the argument as many smaller NGOs in South Asia are locally based family affairs riddled
by nepotism, but ironically these are not the ones that come under attack, which are generally

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those larger local NGOS with a broader supporter base that have more legitimacy, and thus pose
a threat to other established political forces.
In South Asia this growing sense of nationalism is largely driven by religious identity being
linked to a national identity whether it be Hindu, Buddhist or Islamic, and with it a clear rejec-
tion of the liberal values being adopted and advocated by many secular NGOs and supported
and funded by international organisations and Western governments (Burlet 1999; Jafar 2007;
Walton 2008; Jamal and Baldwin 2017). This is compounded by the fact that secular NGOs,
unlike their religious counterparts, do not have a natural local philanthropic funding base, and
so are dependent on fees for services, local government contracts or foreign funding (Ghaus-
Pasha, Jamal and Iqbal 2002). Only the foreign funding provides any real space for resourcing
advocacy, but that is often driven to varying extents by the agenda of the funding agency, which
often reflect what are seen as Western liberal values.
At a broader political level, the rise of the Global South in international relations, led by
China and the BRICS1 countries, has added a new dimension to the challenges for local NGOs,
especially those that are seen to be promoting Western liberal values. These can be in the form
of civil and political rights, rather than values based on economic and social rights (that have
emerged from the South), which service delivery NGOs ostensibly deliver (Jamal and Baldwin
2017; Sahoo 2013; Öjendal and Antlöv 1998). One response has been a tightening up and add-
ing punitive measures to the increased regulation of both local and foreign NGOs across South
Asia. This is particularly the case in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh for those local NGOs
receiving foreign funding (Bornstein and Sharma 2016; Walton 2008); while in Pakistan the
focus has been on foreign NGOs with branches operating inside the country (Jamal and Baldwin
2017). The following sections analyse the situations across the countries of South Asia.

India
India is not only the largest country in South Asia but also has the most complex NGO land-
scape. NGOs have a long and rich history that goes back to ancient times when, as with the
other major empire of the time, China, the provision of social welfare was through voluntarism
and local organisations (Simon 2013; Kilby 2011; Jakimow 2010; Krebs 2014). This was fol-
lowed in the early years of the British colonial rule when the idea of India as a unified state
emerged. British missionaries set up local branches for welfare services from around 1810, the
local bourgeoisie followed suit from around 1820 and by the 1840s a social reform movement
had emerged. Rural self-help groups were established in the 1860s, and local activist groups
resisting British colonial rule were led by the Indian National Congress movement that was
registered initially as an NGO in 1885, to later become a political party (Sen 1999; Sheth and
Sethi 1991). British India was among the first countries to have its own NGO regulation with
the Public Trust and Societies Registration Act of 1860, which gave a framework for NGOs
to establish both legitimacy and credibility (Sheth and Sethi 1991). The independence move-
ment, the work of Mahatma Gandhi and the Quit India movement from the 1920s gave a much
stronger political and advocacy focus for Indian NGOs. This support for NGOs was formally
recognised in the independence constitution of 1948, and early Indian national governments
were generous in their support. While government funding of NGOs has continued ever since,
there has also been increasing government hostility over the past 50 years to NGO advocacy
using foreign funds, and this has become more marked in the 2010s. Periods of antagonism,
cooperation and state control at a national level have existed for most of the 200 years that
NGOs have been active in India.

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In the 2010s the Indian NGOs have been under increased scrutiny, like their counterparts
globally. This is not new; the first intense scrutiny of NGOs post-independence was under
the first Indira Gandhi government, which blamed NGOs in part for her downfall in 1967. In
1976 on her return to power Indira Gandhi passed the Foreign Contributions Regulation Act
(FCRA), which was to ensure that ‘foreign funds were used for purposes consistent with the
sovereignty of the Indian Republic’ (Kilby 2011, p. 15). There was a feeling in government that
many NGOs’ foreign funds were being sourced from foreign powers, including the CIA, which
has been known for using and building up NGOs for its own purposes, the most prominent
being the Asia Foundation in the 1950s (Blum 1956; Warner 1996; Dahl et al. 1967). Since
the 1970s the FCRA has been amended many times to more tightly control NGO advocacy
(Jalali 2008), the most recent being in 2010, when NGOs were required to renew their FCRA
registration every five years, and meet more stringent reporting requirements (Agarwal 2012;
Bhat 2012).
Under the Narendra Modi government since 2014 NGO regulation has taken another
turn. Under the slogan of ‘minimum government maximum governance’ (Ruparelia 2015,
p. 755), the Indian government has attacked both conservative and more activist international
NGOs. Both Compassion, an evangelical US-based Christian NGO sponsoring children, and
Greenpeace, an environmental activist NGO, have been expelled from India or had their for-
eign funding curtailed (Barry and Raj 2017), while the Gates Foundation-funded and highly
esteemed Public Health Foundation of India was also banned from receiving foreign funds
(Sharma 2017; Ruparelia 2015). In the case of Greenpeace, it was through environmental activ-
ism having been seen as a threat to rapid industrial development (Deutsche Welle 2015). In the
case of Compassion its evangelical Christian focus was seen as a threat to Hindutva, the philoso-
phy of Hinduism being the sole national religion (Jaffrelot 2013). In all, 20,000 NGOs have lost
their registration with 1,000 NGOs in 2017 alone being barred from receiving foreign funds,
and a further 3,000 have been asked to please explain why they should not be barred (Sharma
2017; Bornstein and Sharma 2016). This represents nearly half of those NGOs receiving foreign
funds. This is the largest crackdown in the history of FCRA and NGO regulation in India. It
also has an effect on their relationship with international organisations, acting as a deterrent to
them pursuing closer linkages.
This existential threat to NGOs has the effect of changing the NGO culture in India. While
in the 19th century Indian NGOs were mainly service oriented, with some advocacy against
the cultural extremes of oppressing women, the first half of the 20th century saw NGOs
falling into either left-wing radical, nationalist or service delivery organisations (Kilby 2011;
Sen 1999), with the latter being the only group recognised by the colonial government. The
second half of the 20th century, with increased regulation particularly from the 1980s, saw a
decline in radical activist NGOs and a rise in NGOs advocating for various forms of human
rights and environmental concerns. This was at a time of a rapid increase in state and donor
funded service delivery, either directly or indirectly in the guise of self-help programmes, such
as microfinance and other community-based income generation programs. In the 21st century
the Indian state has been much more aggressive in corralling local NGOs into a generally
government-funded service delivery model, and restricting any voice they may have and links
they may develop with international organisations.
There are often clear sanctions on any advocacy to go with any breach of the domestic fund-
ing conditions they may have, particularly if that involves criticism of national programmes. It
also prohibits any foreign-funded work with all levels of government down to the local gov-
ernment at panchayat level. Contract restrictions on how local government funding is used,
together with FCRA restrictions, mean that local NGOs are caught in a bind when it comes to

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advocacy. The role of international organisations and INGOs has been more sharply defined as
supporting service delivery, and the language of rights is rapidly disappearing, as is any rights-
based advocacy by local NGOs (Bornstein and Sharma 2016). This follows a global trend of
questioning the role of NGOs in advocating for changes to government policy, particularly if
this advocacy was foreign funded.
Hindu religious organisations and associated NGOs are largely exempt from these restric-
tions partly because they are favoured by the BJP ruling party and so avoid scrutiny, and partly
because they are able to source funding from local philanthropy and through non-resident
Indians whose donations are exempt from FCRA foreign funding rules. Those NGOs are also
both supportive of the state and supported by the state as part of a broader crackdown on secu-
lar and other non-Hindu religious NGOs, mainly Christian and Islamic (Gupta 2016; Stepan
2015). The largest Hindu religious NGO is the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which
was founded in 1925 to ‘strengthen‘ the majority Hindu community, and is the main patron
of the BJP ruling political party (Frykenberg 2016). The RSS with millions of supporters at
home and abroad is able to capture foreign funds through its international offshoot the Hindu
Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), which seems to be immune from the FCRA regulations (Bhat
2015; Zavos 2015; Scroll.in 2014). The upshot of these changes is that Indian secular NGOs are
at an existential moment, when their only option may be to ‘lay low’ and wait for the political
winds to change.

Bangladesh
While Bangladeshi NGOs share a common history with their Indian counterparts as part of
British India up until partition in 1947, Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan in 1972
led to a unique process of NGO development. The nascent country’s lack of a strong regula-
tory framework and a difficult time economically for the new country in the 1970s, which
soon came under a military government that promoted some neoliberal reforms, led to a rapid
growth in local NGOs (Karim 2016). A small number of these grew to dominate the NGO sec-
tor nationwide, and were seen as a credible alternative to the government in providing services
in many sectors including health and education (White 1999; Karim 2016). While interna-
tionally these NGOs were well regarded and supported, especially by international organisa-
tions, many gained a poor reputation for dominating the local communities with a hierarchical
supply-driven model that came to ‘resemble feudal zamindars more than modern development
agencies’ (Stiles 2002, p. 839). At the same time, the government was encouraging Islamisation
as a way to ‘court petro-dollars from the Middle East’ (Karim 2016, p. 5), which was to put
further pressure on these large NGOs.
The Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, which is now known simply as BRAC, the
largest NGO in Bangladesh and arguably globally, was started as a small rehabilitation project fol-
lowing the independence war. Fazl Ahmed, a former multinational oil company executive, who
was forced to leave during the Bangladesh independence war, returned to rebuild his shattered
country, by starting a small NGO working on one district. BRAC is now a major global NGO
ranked number one in the world by NGO Advisor, operating in 14 countries. It has 100,000
staff employed in Bangladesh alone, and is a major provider of both health and education services
across the country, as well as microfinance and small-scale credit (Mannan 2015). The story of
BRAC is important because it has set the style for other Bangladeshi NGOs, and enabled a rela-
tively small number of very large NGOs to dominate the scene. Because of this positive reputa-
tion they are well funded by foreign donors including international organisations, many of which
are generally sceptical of government capacity (Lewis 2004; Chowdhury et al. 2013). The other

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important institution that has also influenced the NGO scene in Bangladesh is the rise of the
Grameen Bank. It is not an NGO as such but rather an independent bank established by a gov-
ernment ordinance that in many respects acts like an NGO. Under the leadership of Muhammad
Yunus, like BRAC, the Grameen Bank grew from the mid-1970s to be a household name, and
the flag bearer of microfinance and the associated credit-led approaches to poverty alleviation,
through loans to poor women.
As in India, there has been a backlash against NGOs in the 1990s into 2000s by both gov-
ernment and other, mostly religious, conservative forces rejecting secular liberal approaches
to national development (Stiles 2002; Bornstein and Sharma 2016). This is in part because in
the 1990s NGOs increased their profile in the public sphere, whereas in the 1980s they kept
a relatively low profile (Lewis 2004). In 1992 after a report critical of an NGO, Gonoshahajjo
Sangstha (GSS), the government revoked the licenses of a number of the major NGOs: the
donor backlash was immediate and so intense that the government had to reverse its deci-
sion within a matter of days, and endure the associated humiliation (Karim 2016). Also in the
1990s, religious conservatives were pushing back against the large secular NGOs, and exerted
their influence by physically attacking both BRAC and the Grameen Bank facilities (Ulvila and
Hossain 2002; Lewis 2004). A decade later Proshika, which has a similar trajectory as BRAC
from the mid-1970s, also fell foul of the government imprisoning its leader and curtailing its
foreign funding. This time, however, there was little backlash from the donors (Lewis 2004;
Stiles 2002). In 2007, the major NGOs supported a military-backed caretaker government,
which took power following a coup, the upshot of which was that in 2009 when the Awami
League political party won the election in landslide it instituted a crackdown on NGOs for their
perceived political activities around the coup, and earlier (Karim 2016).
In 2011 the Awami League government removed Muhammad Yunus as head of the Grameen
Bank following tax avoidance and donor funding scandals (Burke 2011; Karim 2016). In 2013
the government sacked the independent Board members and took full control of the Grameen
Bank, thus bringing it under the full purview of the government, and thwarting any ideas that
Yunus may have had of setting up an alternative political force based around the women bor-
rowers of the Bank (Kallol 2013; Karim 2016). In 2016 the Foreign Donations (Voluntary
Activities) Regulation Act, based on the Indian FCRA of 2010, was passed, curtailing NGO
capacity to speak out on public policy issues, by threatening to suspend or cancel the NGOs’
registration (Sidel 2016). Part of this stems from the ideological positions within government
that freedom of speech as set out in the constitution only applies to citizens but not to NGOs
(Sengupta 2016), but also the active political role that NGOs took in the early 2000s.
While there have been arguments that NGOs are too close for comfort with donors (Edwards
and Hulme 1996), and this has been arguably the case in Bangladesh in the past, the more recent
moves for government to regulate NGOs away from any role in public policy and for donors to
largely go along with this present a challenge on a new level, which NGOs are largely power-
less to challenge. In this respect Banks, Hulme and Edwards (2015), in their revisiting of the
Too Close for Comfort thesis, tend to overstate the role of the NGO relationship, with the
donor in setting the development agenda away from local communities. It is now the nation
state that is the driver in keeping local NGOs away from their communities much more than
the ubiquitous donor.

Pakistan
NGOs in Pakistan also had their origins in British India, but had a much less fostering environ-
ment in the 1950s and 1960s when there were a series of military governments. The result has

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been that the NGO space is dominated by local religious NGOs. Secular NGOs involved in
development or other socially based work are seen as illegitimate and dominated by their donor
funders (Bano 2008a, 2008b; Ghaus-Pasha, Jamal and Iqbal 2002). There is, however, a set of
foreign-funded service delivery NGOs, the Rural Support Programme NGOs, led by the Aga
Khan Foundation (AGF), an Islamic-based NGO with close ties to government, which can
avoid being labelled secular or liberal even though its work is not religious in its focus (Mirza,
Begum and Rind 2017; Sheikh et al. 2017). This is a particular international organisation,
together with IFAD, that has credibility and acceptance in Islamic states.
It was in opposition to the General Zia ul Haq’s regime in the 1980s that NGOs in Pakistan
developed and were supported by foreign donors. Their popularity, however, was to be short
lived as Pakistan found itself in the middle of the Cold War followed by the War against
Terror, to the point that foreign-funded NGOs (with the exception of the AGF) were linked
to Western liberal and anti-Islamic ideologies. As with the other large countries of South Asia,
Pakistan’s religious NGOs have played an important part in social and to some extent its politi-
cal life. They are seen to be more credible than secular NGOs, which have a reputation of being
supported by Western agencies more so than in other parts of South Asia.
In Pakistan, unlike in India and Bangladesh, it is not the government that is central in regu-
lating and mediating local NGOs voice and advocacy, but the broader society that takes on
this role. There is a perception of the West as being in a broader anti-Islamic conflict against
Pakistan, and foreign-funded local NGOs invariably get caught up in it, and so they avoid the
term NGO (Bano 2008a; Jamal and Baldwin 2017). The Pakistan Government from 2016 has
also increased the regulation of international NGOs operating Pakistan. They now have to
nominate specific regions and fields, and if appropriate, the local NGOs they will work with
prior to receiving funding approval, which is then governed by a three-year MoU (Dutt 2015).
The Government has also intimidated foreign NGOs; for example, Save the Children Fund
Pakistan was closed down for a period, and its expatriate staff expelled in 2015 (BBC 2015; Dutt
2015). This has implications for how international organisations can operate in Pakistan and
how they relate to local NGOs. This is particularly pertinent in the context of a rising China’s
influence in Pakistan, and its own (China-led) international organisations such as the AIIB
(Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank) and the Silk Road Fund that deliver the capacity for it
to dominate the region. These new international organisations show little interest in working
with NGOs, unlike the World Bank and other UN agencies.

Sri Lanka
In Sri Lanka, as with the other larger countries of South Asia, the role of NGOs has also been
tied up with national identity, and a strong religious overlay. While there is a large diversity of
NGOs in Sri Lanka, those with the resources for development or other community work are
invariably supported by foreign donors. The first major NGO to be set up in Sri Lanka was
Sarvodaya in 1958, which was built on a mix of Gandhian and Buddhist philosophises (Walton
2008). This link to spiritualism and the national religion has meant that it has generally grown
and thrived until more recently when its legitimacy came under scrutiny through a number of
government enquiries (Walton 2008). Apart from Sarvodaya a number of secular NGOs devel-
oped in the 1980s in response to the neoliberal experiments of the time, and the withdrawal of
government services from many sectors to be replaced by NGOs (Hulme and Sanderatne 2016).
This led to credibility issues as many NGOs were seen as ‘post-box NGOs’ without strong links
to local communities, or even to the government, so that similar to Pakistan, the term NGO
quickly developed a bad reputation (Walton 2008).

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Added to this, the ongoing conflict with the Tamil Tigers, which lasted over 20 years,
and a brief but bloody insurrection by the JVP youth movement in the late 1980s (Moore
1993), led to heightened levels of security and hostility to any NGOs displaying an anti-
government sentiment, or supporting the peace movement. These secular NGOs were seen
as ‘a corrupting influence on Buddhist society’ (Walton 2008, p. 141). By the mid-2000s
the term NGO was not in favour, and while many NGOs used the term in relation to
donors, domestically they avoided it (Hertzberg 2015). Sarvodaya, for example, called itself
a social movement rather than an NGO (Walton 2008). By the mid-2010s the hard-line
President Rajapaksa created ‘his own brand of competitive authoritarianism’ (Stepan 2015,
p. 133; Athukorala and Jayasuriya 2015), and cracked down further on NGOs (Walton 2016;
DeVotta 2016) with support from the fundamentalist nationalist Buddhist organisations the
Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) and Sinhala Ravaya (Athukorala and Jayasuriya 2015; Stewart 2014).
In 2014 the government banned NGOs from holding press conferences or putting out press
releases, and had to register with the government, and have all of their work for the forth-
coming year approved (Dibbert 2014; Ministry of External Affairs 2014; Awadhoot 2017).
The advent of the more liberal and inclusive Sirisena government in 2015 has seen some
weakening of the influence of the Buddhist nationalists, and an easing of the rhetoric against
NGOs with increased use of the term ‘partners’. However, many of the draconian regula-
tions of the Rajapaksa regime still remain (Sri Lanka Brief 2017), and the Justice Minister
within the governing coalition has been calling for further regulation, thus forestalling any
easing of the rules (Bandara 2017; Athukorala and Jayasuriya 2015).

Nepal and Bhutan

Both of these countries have been, up until recent years, absolute monarchies with Nepal
moving to a constitutional monarchy in 1990 and a ‘shaky’ democracy since 2006 (Karkee and
Comfort 2016), while Bhutan moved to a constitutional monarchy in 2008. In Nepal NGOs
have been under attack by the leftist JVP for being part of the process of neoliberalism and glo-
balisation led by international organisations such as the World Bank, and have been subject to
JVP militant attacks as a result (Ulvila and Hossain 2002). The regulatory framework for Nepal
that has been put in place by the government is a controlling one, but in Nepal’s case this has
been to decentralise NGO regulation to the local level, so NGOs come under the purview
of, and are effectively controlled in what they do, by local government (Spotlight 2014). On
top of this there is a code of conduct in place prohibiting NGOs from receiving aid directly
from donor countries: funding has to go through a government agency, and from there to local
government to direct expenditure (Hutt 2006). The advent of a communist-led government in
late 2017 does not augur well for improvements in NGO freedoms, given the basis of support
for both NGOs and the communist parties are very much at a local level, where they compete
for constituents.
In Bhutan, as part of its peaceful shift to democracy, the government has outlawed NGOs
being involved in politics (Kaul 2008), but the Civil Society Organisations Act of 2007 does
allow nascent NGOs to form and develop (Dorji 2017). The question, which is not clear, is the
official interpretation of what is politics, and whether Bhutan will follow its neighbours, and
narrow the definition of politics to include any discussion of policy. There is some sensitivity
in these policy discussions following Bhutan being accused of ethnic cleansing following ethnic
friction between two groups in the 1990s. The government puts a high priority on ethnic har-
mony ahead of liberal notions of human rights (Yangden 2016).

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Conclusion
This brief summary of the state of NGOs in South Asia, while by necessity fairly cursory, high-
lights some trends that are emerging in line with the broader international trends around the rise
of authoritarian states. Part of this process includes an intentional delegitimising of NGOs across
the range of South Asian national governments. The political focus is increasingly on national
and sometimes ethno-religious identity, and perceptions of threats of foreign interferences via
foreign funding of local NGOs including that of international organisations. Across South Asia
all of these trends are clearly visible but with local variations.
The influence of ethno-religious nationalism is clearly evident in India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan
and to a lesser extent Bangladesh. In all of these countries a religious-based national identity is
promoted by either fundamentalist religious sects whether they be Buddhist, Hindu or Islamic;
or through strongly nationalist NGOs with a religious base such as the RSS in India, the BDS
in Sri Lanka or any number of quasi political-religious groups in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Part
of the backlash is not only about ethno-nationalism but also against the neoliberal-influenced
international governance regime led by the World Bank and OECD-DAC. Invariably inter-
national and local NGOs with donor funding have been supporting this neoliberal agenda to
varying degrees and, with the exception of more fundamentalist religious NGOs in the region,
have not pushed back against it. This has left them exposed to accusations of being agents of
foreign powers.
As these countries of South Asia become more autonomous economically and less dependent
on Western aid and influence, with alternative sources of patronage from China and to a lesser
extent the Middle East, each of the countries for slightly different reasons are limiting the influ-
ence of foreign donors on their local NGOs through tighter regulation, while at the same time
limiting the access of internationals NGOs. Likewise, with the exception of BRAC, few South
Asian NGOs have spread beyond their own borders, and they have been reluctant to develop
regional NGO groupings, probably due to the strong international rivalry in the region and
quite different ethno-religious traditions. The 2010s have seen a sea change in NGO–state rela-
tions in the region with a stronger regulatory framework consciously excluding them, and their
international counterparts and supporters, from having a strong voice in government policy and
social justice issues.

Note
1 Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

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White, Sarah C. 1999. “NGOs, civil society, and the state in Bangladesh: The politics of representing the
poor.” Development and Change 30 (2): 307–326.
Yangden, Mende Thuji. 2016. “Dethroning Prince Charming: Problematizing human rights in the world’s
last Shangri-La.” Senior Thesis, International Affairs Department, New York: Skidmore College.
Zavos, John. 2015. “Digital media and networks of Hindu activism in the UK.” Culture and Religion
16 (1): 17–34.

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 Part V
Contemporary challenges

 37
Democracy and NGOs
Sarah Sunn Bush

Since the end of the Cold War, many states and international organizations (IOs) have devoted
increased effort to promoting democracy in the developing world. NGOs have played an impor-
tant role in this trend, both as advocates of democratization around the world and as agents
that help implement the policies of states and IOs in this area. The post-Cold War democracy
promotion enterprise has had many critics, including those who point out the inconsistency
if not hypocrisy of the states and IOs that engage in democracy promotion (Robinson 1996;
Brownlee 2012) and the mixed records of their most prominent efforts (Carothers 1999; Paris
2004). Yet others have noted the successful application of democratic conditionality in the case
of the European Union (EU) (Vachudova 2005) and even urged the United States and other
Western governments and IOs to embrace democracy promotion more fully in their foreign
policies (McFaul 2010).
This chapter focuses on the role of NGOs in democracy promotion, documenting their
successes and failures. Both international and domestic NGOs are included in the review. To
understand this topic, the chapter begins by describing the growth of NGOs working in this
issue area since the 1980s as well as the backlash to their work during the twenty-first century.
Then, it discusses the impact of NGOs in two domains of democracy promotion: (1) foreign
aid programs designed to support democracy and good governance, and (2) efforts to monitor
states’ performance in terms of democracy. I consider both NGOs’ successes and challenges,
including as a consequence of authoritarian countries’ recent efforts to subvert the activities of
NGOs. After reviewing the role of NGOs in promoting democracy within states, the chapter
then briefly considers the role of NGOs in promoting democracy within institutions of global
governance. Finally, the chapter concludes by suggesting directions for future research in inter-
national relations related to NGOs and democracy.

Democracy promotion and NGOs: historical context

Democracy promotion is not a new phenomenon. American presidents dating back at least to
Woodrow Wilson have expressed a rhetorical commitment to supporting democracy abroad,
though they have disagreed about the best tactics to use (Smith 1994; Monten 2005; Bouchet
2013). During the Cold War, German political parties set up the stiftungen (foundations), which

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were political party organizations that sought to support their sister parties in countries such as
Spain and Portugal. Those organizations are thought to have played a meaningful role in several
countries’ democratic transitions (Pinto-Duschinsky 1991) and continue to promote democracy
today around the world.
Yet it was during the 1980s and 1990s that American and European governments – as well
as some prominent IOs – began devoting more effort to democracy promotion. This shift
was a result of both an embrace of democracy as a “world value” that ought to guide foreign
policy decision-making and a demand for international assistance from many countries that
were undergoing democratic transitions (McFaul 2004–5). Consequently, states and IOs began
to allocate more financial resources to democracy promotion and expanded their efforts glob-
ally. Prominent private foundations, such as the Open Society Institute (now Open Society
Foundations) funded by George Soros, were also created to funnel money to civil society actors
interested in advancing democratic change.
This context created new opportunities – both financial and political – for NGOs to work
in the realm of democracy promotion. As a result, many new organizations were founded that
were dedicated to the goal of supporting democracy. At the same time, existing organizations
that worked in other fields (e.g., development) began to incorporate democracy promotion into
their activities. To illustrate the growth of the NGO sector in the field of democracy promo-
tion, Figure 37.1 presents data on the total number of NGOs in the world with “democracy”
as one of their subject areas. The data come from the Yearbook of International Organizations,
which collects data on internationally oriented NGOs (or INGOs), which it defines as NGOs
that work in at least three countries.1 As the figure shows, there was tremendous growth in the
number of NGOs working on democracy during the 1980s and 1990s. In contrast, the number
of new foundings has slackened off in the twenty-first century.2

80

60
Number

40

20

0
1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020
Year

Figure 37.1 Number of INGOs dedicated to democracy promotion

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 Democracy and NGOs

Many NGOs that play prominent roles in the democracy promotion field – sometimes
termed the “democracy establishment” or the “democracy bureaucracy” (Melia 2006; Bush
2011) – were founded during the field’s period of growth immediately before and after the end
of the Cold War. These NGOs have networked with each other through conferences sponsored
by groups such as the World Movement for Democracy, International Institute for Democracy
and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), and the Community of Democracies. With time,
the field has become more professional and bureaucratic (Bush 2015).
The U.S. government has historically provided more funding than any other government
for democracy promotion. As such, the growth in NGOs focused on democracy promotion in
the United States was particularly significant. There, the National Endowment for Democracy
(NED) was created in 1983, which is a unique organization that is privately governed and
incorporated but receives its funding via an allocation from Congress. Several NGOs that are
guaranteed to receive grants from the NED each year (as well as receiving grants from other
funders) were created at around the same time: the International Republican Institute (IRI), the
National Democratic Institute (NDI), the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE),
and the American Center for International Labor (now the Solidarity Center). These organiza-
tions were designed to loosely represent the interests of various constituencies in U.S. democ-
racy promotion – the Republican and Democratic Parties for IRI and NDI, respectively, and
business and labor for CIPE and the Solidarity Center. Other significant American NGOs that
were created in the 1980s outside the NED “family” included the International Foundation for
Electoral Systems (now simply IFES) and the Carter Center, both of which have historically
focused on electoral assistance within the realm of democracy promotion.
Parallel organizations have been established in Europe and beyond, though the institution-
alization of democracy promotion outside the United States has happened somewhat more
recently. Organizations loosely following the NED model include the Westminster Foundation
for Democracy in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy,
and the European Endowment for Democracy across the EU countries. It is worth noting,
however, that these organizations have somewhat more formal relationships with their govern-
ments than the NED does with the U.S. government. Prominent European NGOs include
Electoral Reform International Service (ERIS), which supports free and fair elections in a way
that resembles IFES, and PartnersGlobal (now Partners for Democratic Change), which works
with civil society to manage some of the societal conflicts that accompany democratization.
A further interesting development has been the growth of prominent democracy promotion
NGOs in countries that were formerly the targets of democracy promotion, such as Poland and
Serbia (Petrova 2014; Pospieszna 2014).
As the number of NGOs working in democracy promotion has grown, the field has faced
new challenges. First, as the field has become denser, NGOs have faced an increasingly com-
petitive funding environment. This trend is typical of many fields of NGOs in the world today
(Cooley and Ron 2002). Second, a growing number of countries have implemented restric-
tions that make it difficult for foreign NGOs and foreign-funded NGOs to register and operate
legally within their borders (Christensen and Weinstein 2013; Dupuy et al. 2016; Chaudhry
2016; Heiss 2016). Elsewhere, I have argued that both dynamics have had significant conse-
quences for the strategies of NGOs working in this area and thus perhaps for democratization
(Bush 2015). In particular, these trends have encouraged NGOs to focus on activities that are
less confrontational and more likely to generate tangible, quick wins – what I call a “tamer”
approach to democracy promotion. Whereas NGOs may have been more inclined to support
dissident groups in the early days of democracy promotion, they are more likely now to focus
on more technical activities such as improving local governance. Although such activities differ

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considerably in how directly they confront the status quo in a country, they both fall into the
general category of “democracy assistance,” the subject to which I now turn.

NGOs and democracy assistance

Democracy assistance is a type of foreign aid. I define it as “aid given with the explicit goal of
advancing democracy overseas” (Bush 2015: 4). Democracy assistance is channeled through
multiple mechanisms, including through governments giving aid directly to other governments.
However, and as with other types of foreign aid (Dietrich 2013), NGOs play a meaningful role
in the delivery of democracy assistance.
International NGOs – which are generally NGOs that are headquartered in North America
and Europe (i.e., not the countries that are the targets of democracy promotion) – play a dual
role in democracy assistance. On the one hand, they are recipients of democracy assistance. State
governments and IOs give funding to these NGOs in the forms of grants and contracts to sup-
port overseas programming. For example, an international NGO such as IFES might receive a
grant from the U.S. government to support a program in Africa that is designed to train election
administration officials in best practices for clean elections. On the other hand, international
NGOs are donors for democracy assistance. These organizations themselves give out grants to
smaller organizations, often domestic NGOs. For example, an international NGO such as NDI
might seek to support women’s political participation by making grants to several women’s
organizations that are based in Latin America.
As that example suggests, domestic NGOs – which are generally NGOs that are head-
quartered and work in the countries that are the targets of democracy promotion – are also
active in democracy assistance. Many observers have cautioned that NGOs are not synonymous
with civil society and often represent narrow constituencies or avoid political issues (Jad 2004;
Hawthorne 2005; Irvine 2018). Moreover, in authoritarian countries, governments may be
able to coopt the civil society sector, including through the creation of “government-organized
NGOs” (GONGOs) that help them entrench their rule (Jamal 2007). Nevertheless, giving
funds to domestic NGOs is often a core element of international aid for civil society and for
democratization more generally (Carothers and Ottaway 2000).
The literature on the impact of democracy assistance has reached mixed conclusions.
Quantitative studies that estimate the effect of democracy assistance on countries’ levels of
democracy are generally positive, finding that democracy assistance – of which aid given
through NGOs is a part – is associated with more democracy, on average (Finkel et al. 2007;
Scott and Steele 2011; Gibson et al. 2015). However, qualitative studies of the same topic tend
to reach more pessimistic conclusions (Carothers 1999; Zeeuw 2005; Brown 2006; Burnell
2011; Carapico 2013). The divergence may result from scholars using different yardsticks to
assess success or dealing in different ways with inferential challenges such as the non-random
selection of countries when it comes to the allocation of democracy assistance.
The specific literature on the effectiveness of NGOs in democracy assistance also paints
a complicated picture. Research on this topic is primarily qualitative, and much of it has
focused on dynamics in Central and Eastern Europe. Studies of the Colour Revolutions
in countries such as Serbia and Georgia suggest that foreign aid can encourage opposition
parties to unite and NGOs to mobilize successfully when dictators have attempted to steal
elections (Beissinger 2007; Mitchell 2009; Bunce and Wolchik 2011). In fact, it may be the
success of NGOs in democracy assistance in these cases that has prompted the rise of restric-
tions on foreign NGOs and foreign-funded NGOs, which have diffused especially in the
years following the Colour Revolutions.

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Outside these cases of electoral revolutions, NGOs have had some other wins, though they
have not always been complete victories. Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom found that Western donors’
efforts to support Russian NGOs succeeded in the domain of soldiers’ rights because they drew
on a universal norm against bodily harm. In contrast, their efforts to support women’s rights
NGOs were less successful, despite significant financial investments, because the norm of gender
equality did not resonate locally in the same way (Sundstrom 2005). More generally, researchers
have found that Western assistance in Russia managed to succeed at professionalizing certain
aspects of civil society through providing training and resources for NGOs while still failing
at the ultimate goals of supporting democracy and public policy change through civil society
(Henderson 2002; Mendelson and Glenn 2002).
In addition to the lack of resonance of some of the norms advanced by democracy promot-
ers, several further explanations have been given for some of the challenges faced by NGOs.
Many relate to the political economy of foreign funding for civil society. When Western donors
provide financial support for domestic NGOs, new types of individuals often become attracted
to the NGO sector (Gugerty and Kremer 2008). Such changes do not necessarily improve the
effectiveness of civil society organizations, though they may change their orientation (e.g., how
likely they are to adopt contentious political tactics). NGOs that rely heavily on foreign funding
for their survival tend to become more oriented toward the issues that donors prioritize (e.g.,
women’s rights), which can have the unintended consequence of disconnecting them from the
very societies that they purport to represent (Henderson 2002; Ishkanian 2008). These dynamics
can result in surprising similarities in organizational forms in domestic NGOs interacting with
democracy promoters in such diverse contexts as Ghana and Indonesia (Kamstra and Schulpen
2015). At the extreme, NGOs may even take advantage of foreign donors’ lack of knowledge of
the domestic context to use democracy assistance for corrupt purposes (Wedel 2001).
These dynamics play into the “taming” of democracy assistance that I referenced above.
Less confrontational approaches to democracy promotion often promote the survival of NGOs
engaged in democracy assistance since they are less likely to prompt a backlash by host govern-
ments. In circumstances where it is more difficult for foreign donors to observe the operations
of local NGOs, the NGOs are more likely to pursue tame activities that are compatible with
incumbent governments. My case studies of democracy assistance in Jordan and Tunisia sup-
port this conclusion (Bush 2015). In this way, the activities of NGOs can sometimes undermine
funders’ goals of promoting democracy overseas.
This discussion suggests that NGOs play an important but flawed role in democracy assistance.
We have several examples of successful NGOs and several examples of unsuccessful ones. As I
suggest in the conclusion, future research might do more to try to reconcile or explain the mixed
findings in the literature about the effectiveness of NGOs, paying greater attention to the compar-
ative politics of NGOs active in this issue area. But before considering how that goal might be best
accomplished, I now turn to another area where NGOs are active in the domain of democracy
promotion within states, which is in monitoring states’ democratic performance (Wedel 2001).

NGOs and democracy benchmarks

Ranking and rating (i.e., benchmarking) states is an increasingly common phenomenon in
world politics (Broome and Quirk 2015; Cooley 2015; Kelley and Simmons 2015; Kelley
2017). These performance evaluations generally assess whether states are meeting international
laws and norms and have been shown to have significant power and authority. When raters turn
their attention to evaluating how democratic states are, benchmarks can serve as an important
component of democracy promotion.

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Ranking and rating states’ levels of democracy is what IR scholars would call a “complex
regime,” which is to say that multiple actors – including states, IOs, and NGOs – perform
overlapping and competing functions (Keohane and Victor 2011). In this way, the domain of
ratings and rankings is similar to that of democracy assistance, in which multiple donors often
fund similar programs in the same target countries. Some international NGOs are active in both
domains, such as Freedom House, which receives grants to do democracy assistance work over-
seas and is also an influential rater of countries’ levels of democracy.
One important area in which NGOs assess democracy is through election observation.
Though elections are not synonymous with democracy, they are widely understood as a sign
of its health. Inviting international election observers has become a norm such that monitors
are present at most elections in the world today (Kelley 2008; Hyde 2011). Election observ-
ers issue reports after elections that assess the extent to which the elections meet international
standards. These reports have significant influence in world politics. They are used by citizens
to assess election quality and have been cited as a focal point in organizing post-election protests
(Tucker 2007; Hyde and Marinov 2014).3 They are also used by states and IOs when evaluating
countries’ progress in terms of democracy and thus have had significant ramifications in terms
of everything from diplomatic statements to foreign aid. Finally, they are used as an indicator of
the effectiveness of democracy assistance.
The same election will often be monitored by multiple observer groups, including both
international and domestic NGOs (Kelley 2009b). It is often the case that international NGOs
provide support to domestic NGOs serving as election monitors as a democracy assistance strat-
egy. Well-known international NGOs that are active in this area include the Carter Center,
IRI, NDI, IFES (historically), and outside the United States, organizations such as the Asian
Network for Free Elections (ANFREL).
Election observer groups vary tremendously in their quality. Some election observers, such
as the Carter Center, have taken concrete steps to ensure that they are able to detect fraud
when it occurs (Hyde 2012).4 These measures include sending missions with more individual
observers, staying in the country for more time around elections, and using techniques such as
the parallel vote count to verify election results. Thanks to these strategies, high-quality election
observer NGOs such as the Carter Center tend to gather better information and be more critical
than other organizations (Kelley 2009a). Some of the NGOs involved in election observation
that are lower-quality may simply lack the capacity to be as comprehensive as the higher-quality
NGOs, but it is also important to note that they may lack a sincere interest in uncovering elec-
tion fraud. Indeed, there is a phenomenon of observer groups such as the Observer Mission
of the NGO Forum of the Organization of Black Sea Economic Cooperation in Azerbaijan,
which has been invited to monitor flawed elections there because the government knows that
it will issue positive reports afterwards. Christopher Walker and Alexander Cooley call such
groups “zombie” election observers.5
High-quality election observers have been an important democratizing force in the
world. They can draw international attention to elections, making it costlier for politicians
to cheat, and they can also change the incentives of the local officials who may be interested
in committing malpractice by being present at polling stations. Indeed, although election
observers have biases and limitations in terms of their capabilities, they are associated on
average with higher-quality elections and more turnover, which is an indicator of how easy
it is for politicians to hold onto power fraudulently (Kelley 2012). Case studies further sup-
port this finding, including experimental analyses of elections in Armenia and Indonesia that
demonstrate that when election observers are present at polling stations, there is less fraud
(Hyde 2007, 2010).

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Despite these positive effects, however, election observers have also had some more negative
consequences. In some cases, election observers are present even at elections of quite poor qual-
ity. High-quality election observers like the Carter Center are less likely to accept invitations to
monitor such elections because they do not want to contribute to flawed elections’ legitimacy
and need to preserve their own reputations (Hyde 2012). In contrast, adding legitimacy to
flawed elections may be the precise goal of less scrupulous election observers like the “zom-
bie” groups referenced above. A study I conducted with Lauren Prather in Tunisia found that
observers that scholars do not regard as high-quality can cause the public to perceive an election
as more credible, suggesting that the strategy of inviting low-quality election observers could
pay off for incumbents (Bush and Prather 2018).
Even the missions of high-quality election observers may involve some negative unintended
consequences. Research suggests that observers’ presence has encouraged autocrats to change
their survival tactics, transferring fraud from one polling station to another and moving from
overt forms of cheating to subtler manipulations that are more difficult for observers to docu-
ment (Ichino and Schündeln 2012; Simpser and Donno 2012). Such manipulations may be more
detrimental to democracy and governance in the long-run than ballot box stuffing. As such, it
seems fair to conclude based on the literature that some NGOs engaged in election observation
have made important contributions to democratization in the developing world, but that their
effectiveness varies considerably with both the type of NGO and the political context.
Election observers’ reports are not the only way, however, that NGOs promote democ-
racy through assessments. Several NGOs have also influenced world politics through evaluat-
ing countries’ overall levels of democracy. The most prominent example of this phenomenon
comes from the American NGO Freedom House, which produces several annual reports that
evaluate how democratic countries are. Their main rating is the Freedom in the World report,
which has evaluated countries’ overall levels of democracy (“free,” “partly free,” and “not free”)
and assigned them ratings on seven-point scales since 1972. Freedom House also produces
influential annual ratings of related concepts, such as press freedom and internet freedom, and
publishes special annual reports on levels of democracy in the post-Soviet region (the Nations
in Transit series).
The Freedom House ratings have been shown to have significant power in world politics.
They influence U.S. government decisions about where to allocate foreign aid, serve as impor-
tant benchmarks for evaluating the effectiveness of that aid, and help audiences – including jour-
nalists, risk ratings agencies, civil society organizations, and pension funds – assess the level of
freedom around the world. They are also used as a resource for action in world politics, whether
by helping activists spur their government to reform in the wake of disappointing ratings or
by giving governments cause to celebrate in the wake of positive ones (Bradley 2015; Bush
2017). These observations suggest that the Freedom House ratings have had a substantial posi-
tive impact on democracy in the world. However, the ratings also have their critics, especially
those who note flaws in the ratings’ methodology or point out that the ratings have tended to
be biased in ways that favor countries that are U.S. allies (Bollen and Paxton 2000; Mainwaring
et al. 2001; Munck and Verkuilen 2002; Steiner 2016). As we saw in the domain of election
observation, evaluating democracy is a subjective and deeply political exercise, and thus a pro-
cess that is open to multiple approaches (Giannone 2010; Kurki 2010).
Indeed, Freedom House is not the only private actor that engages in assessing countries’
levels of democracy.6 As with the case of election observers, NGOs and IOs that produce
assessments of countries’ levels of democracy often disagree over the meaning of democracy
and which countries should be evaluated favorably (Gunitsky 2015). Creating new ratings can
have the dual purpose of advancing democratization globally by drawing attention to good and

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bad performers and helping to enhance NGOs’ reputations and brands by establishing them
as thought leaders (Cooley 2015). For example, the Economist Intelligence Unit has recently
developed a democracy index that seeks to use a broader conceptualization of “democracy”
than Freedom House. Similarly, the Mo Ibrahim Index of African Governance is an indicator
of “quality of governance” that includes “participation and human rights” as one of its core
categories. Especially as the number of competing assessments of democracy expands, it will be
increasingly important for NGOs active in this domain to take steps to enhance their credibility,
similar to what we have seen in the domain of election observation.

NGOs and democracy within global governance institutions

Thus far, I have considered the role of NGOs in promoting democracy within states. However,
NGOs also play a role in promoting democracy within global governance institutions. Though
a complete review of this literature is beyond the scope of this chapter, I briefly explore some
of its key insights before concluding.
A common criticism of contemporary IOs is that they are lacking in democratic legitimacy.
Although the extent to which the EU and other IOs really suffer from a “democratic deficit”
is debated (Moravcsik 2002; Keohane et al. 2009), there is a fairly widespread perception that
global governance institutions are insufficiently accountable and representative. Although these
worries about global governance are not new, they seem to have gathered particular steam in the
current era of globalization (Kaldor 2008; Davies 2012). As always, how one defines democracy
is a core issue.
Regardless of whether allegations of a democratic deficit are well founded, they have
raised important challenges for IOs that seek to maintain social legitimacy. Thus, at least
partially to assuage concerns about their lack of democratic accountability, IOs have increas-
ingly “opened up” to global civil society as represented in the form of NGOs (Tallberg et al.
2014; Ruhlman 2015).7 The inclusion of NGOs in the activities of IOs holds promise for
democratic accountability in several ways, such as through NGO monitoring of and report-
ing on the activities of IOs (Scholte 2004) as well as through NGOs providing IOs with
information about the preferences of citizens (Steffek et al. 2008). For example, the Universal
Periodic Review (UPR) process within the UN Human Rights Council deliberately draws
on the work of NGOs in terms of its documentation of countries’ human rights performance,
and NGOs have worked together around the UPR to lobby governments to do more to
respect human rights (Milewicz and Goodwin 2018). At the same time as some NGOs pursue
“insider” tracks of influence around IO negotiations and meetings, other NGOs prefer to take
a different tack, preferring a more radical, “outsider” approach. Jennifer Hadden shows how
even NGOs with a similar overall goal – combating global climate change – were sharply
divided over what approach to use around the 2009 UN Climate Change Conference in
Copenhagen (Hadden 2015).
In contrast to many of the NGOs described above that are active in the areas of democracy
assistance and democracy benchmarks, the NGOs that are most active in contributing to the
democratization of global governance institutions are generally not explicitly oriented toward
issues related to democracy. Instead, the NGOs that participate in IO meetings are environmen-
tal groups, women’s groups, and so on. In other words, they contribute to an overall democra-
tization of global governance as a byproduct of their specific efforts at influencing IOs’ policies
or cooperating with IOs on programs. Indeed, much of the literature on how NGOs participate
in and influence IOs suggests that these organizations behave like interest groups, drawing
analogies between NGOs and more familiar actors from comparative politics such as lobbyists

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and firms (Sell and Prakash 2004; Prakash and Gugerty 2010; Bloodgood 2011; Mitchell and
Schmitz 2014; Tallberg et al. 2018).
Although many observers are hopeful about the democratizing potential of including
NGOs within the structure of global governance institutions, others are more pessimistic.
Some of the main questions that have been raised relate to whether NGOs truly represent
global civil society, similar to the concerns noted above in the section on the role of NGOs
in democracy assistance. Especially in the case of IOs that are composed of democratic states,
it is not clear that NGOs do a better job of representing the public than do governments’
democratically elected representatives. Related critiques observe that the inclusion of NGOs
can reinforce existing inequalities within IOs. For example, the NGOs that tend to have
the most power in transnational movements tend to be wealthier and more often from the
global North (Hughes et al. 2018). Finally, research by Jonas Tallberg and coauthors notes
that IOs are careful to protect many policy areas from NGO influence and underlines the
considerable variation in openness to NGO influence across IOs (Tallberg et al. 2014). Thus,
it is important not to overstate the democratizing potential of current global governance
arrangements, while at the same time we should recognize that these arrangements continue
to be adapted.

Conclusion
With the end of the Cold War, states and IOs have devoted more attention to promoting
democracy in the developing world. As explained above, NGOs have played an important
role in this major shift in world politics. Both international and domestic NGOs have been
active in the areas of democracy assistance and monitoring and reporting on states’ democratic
performance. In both domains, NGOs have had meaningful successes, but they have also been
criticized for failing to live up fully to their goals and for insufficiently managing negative unin-
tended consequences. NGOs have also played a role in ongoing efforts by global governance
institutions to incorporate civil society actors.
Despite being an area of lively research, there are several open questions about democracy
and NGOs that merit more attention. I explore three such areas here. First, to assess the effec-
tiveness of NGOs in the realm of democracy promotion, it will be worthwhile to devote more
attention to the comparative effects of NGOs. Scholars have increasingly noted the diversity
among NGOs active in world affairs, exploring how variables such as nationality and funding
environments shape the strategies and behaviors of NGOs (Stroup 2012; Stroup and Murdie
2012; Bush 2016; Bloodgood and Tremblay-Boire 2017). Given the diversity of NGOs (not to
mention other actors) that are active in the field of democracy promotion, a welcome next step
in the literature would be to compare the effects of different types of NGOs at delivering aid,
deterring fraud, and so on. There is a nascent literature that is starting to pursue such analysis for
the case of election observation, but much more research could be done in this vein for other
aspects of democracy promotion (Daxecker and Schneider 2014; Bush and Prather 2018). For
the states, IOs, and private foundations that fund the activities of NGOs, such research would
provide much-needed policy guidance.
Second, future research could explore the legitimacy of NGOs in the area of democracy
promotion. Surveys of global publics generally indicate that NGOs are viewed more posi-
tively than many other actors in world politics, including states and IOs (Gourevitch and Lake
2012). Yet many people believe that NGOs have a negative influence on their countries
because of their links to powerful states and IOs (Guarrieri 2018), and there is some cause to
worry that prominent NGO financial scandals could be worsening the legitimacy of the overall

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organizational form.8 Given the importance of public perceptions for NGO effectiveness in
the realm of democracy promotion (not to mention in other areas), scholars might do more to
understand the sources of attitudes both toward NGOs generally and toward NGOs with spe-
cific characteristics related to membership structures, funding, and so on. Such analysis could
then be tied to behavioral outcomes, such as individuals’ willingness to cooperate with NGOs
or receptivity to the information contained in NGOs’ reports.
Finally, future research would benefit from more attention to population dynamics among
NGOs engaged in democracy promotion. IR scholars have recently used insights from popula-
tion ecology to understand historical trends in growth and death rates among NGOs as well
as other actors in world politics (Dupuy et al. 2015; Abbott et al. 2016). Such analysis raises
interesting questions for NGO scholars, such as how to delineate the boundaries between the
population of NGOs engaged in democracy promotion and the population of NGOs engaged
in other activities, such as human rights protection or development. Understanding how NGOs
in the democracy promotion arena cooperate or compete with NGOs in related fields is a
promising direction for more exploration.

Notes
1 This search was performed using the online version of the Yearbook of International Organizations
(accessed on January 29, 2018).
2 Note that INGO foundings across a number of sectors have slowed in the twenty-first century due to
changes in resources and other population-level dynamics (Bush and Hadden 2018).
3 Consequently, election observers often have further consequences for domestic politics in terms of voter
turnout, opposition boycotts, and election violence (Beaulieu and Hyde 2009; Kelley 2011; Brancati
2014).
4 Generally speaking, higher-quality election observer groups have signed the 2005 Declaration of
Principles for International Election Observation (available at www.cartercenter.org/resources/pdfs/
peace/democracy/des/declaration_code_english_revised.pdf, accessed January 30, 2018).
5 See Christopher Walker and Alexander Cooley, “Vote of the Living Dead,” Foreign Policy (online),
October 31, 2013 (available at http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/10/31/vote-of-the-living-dead, accessed
May 29, 2017).
6 Of course, there are also many democracy indicators that have been developed by academics rather than
NGOs, such as Polity.
7 Note, however, that it is unclear that such measures are successful at increasing the social legitimacy of
IOs (Dellmuth and Tallberg 2015).
8 It remains unclear, however, whether negative attitudes toward foreign countries such as the United
States actually spill over into negative attitudes toward the initiatives of NGOs engaged in democracy
promotion (Bush and Jamal 2015).

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 38
NGOs and authoritarianism
Andrew Heiss

In January 2017, China’s new 2017 Overseas NGO Law came into effect, restricting the rapidly
growing community of international NGOs (INGOs) by requiring that all foreign NGOs be
monitored and overseen by a Professional Supervisory Unit – typically a government ministry
or government-run NGO. The law also imposes strict requirements on the issue areas foreign
NGOs can address, limiting them to education, technology, sports, poverty alleviation, and
other non-contentious issues. In debates over the law, the Chinese Communist Party identified
INGOs as direct threats to national security and designed the law to limit Western influence
and insulate China’s domestic NGO sector from foreign values, allowing the government to
“better protect China from perceived external threats to its sovereignty and social stability”
(Shieh 2017).
China’s anti-NGO law is part of a larger global trend of closing civic space in authoritar-
ian regimes. Crackdowns and restrictions on NGOs have increased in frequency and severity.
In 2015, Russia passed its Undesirable Organizations law, giving the government the ability
to blacklist any foreign or international organization and force them to shut down. In May
2017, Egyptian president Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi signed legislation that had sat in draft form since
the 2011 uprising, imposing harsh jail sentences for any foreign NGO undertaking political
activities or operating without paying a substantial registration fee. Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan,
Myanmar, Cambodia, Bahrain, Hungary, and other authoritarian regimes have passed similar
restrictive NGO laws in recent years. In its 2017 report on global civic space, CIVICUS found
that only 3% of the world’s population lives in open societies with minimal restrictions on asso-
ciational activity, with the majority living in countries with obstructed or repressed civic space
(CIVICUS 2017).
Despite this increasingly closed space for global civil society, international NGOs continue
to operate in authoritarian regimes, even in countries that have become more hostile. As of
May 1, 2018, over one thousand foreign NGOs have gained either permanent or temporary
official legal status in China under the provisions of the 2017 Overseas NGO law, including ten
that work on labor issues and many others that deal with other potentially contentious issues
(Batke 2018). More curiously, since the 1990s, China has strategically invited dozens of Western
NGOs to set up offices locally, specifically to provide policy guidance and technical govern-
ing expertise (Wheeler 2013). Greenpeace – one of the most radical and outspoken INGOs in

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environmental advocacy – has offices in Beijing and has helped draft laws related to renewable
energy and other environmental issues (Teets 2014). Though the 2017 law emphasizes the
national security risks of foreign NGOs, consulting with INGOs is a regular policy practice for
the Chinese government. Despite their public pronouncements that NGOs are threats, authori-
tarian regimes around the world allow them and rely on them.
This presents a perplexing phenomenon. Authoritarian restrictions on domestic and inter-
national civil society have increased over the past decade, but authoritarian states continue to
allow – and even invite – NGOs to work in their countries. Though the services and advo-
cacy provided by NGOs can challenge the legitimacy and power of authoritarian regimes, the
majority of autocratic states allow NGO activities, and NGOs in turn continue to work in
these countries in spite of the heavy legal restrictions and attempts to limit their activities. This
chapter examines the theories about and the experiences of domestic and international NGOs
working in authoritarian countries. Each of the countries discussed in this chapter have been
classified as autocracies by Geddes, Wright, and Frantz (2014) at some point since 1990. Some
cases have democratized between 1990 and 2018, but the relationship between state and civil
society is still shaped by the country’s authoritarian legacy. The review is premised on the theory
of authoritarian institutions: dictators delegate political authority to democratic-appearing insti-
tutions in order to remain in power and maintain stability. After providing a brief overview of
authoritarian institutionalism and balancing, I discuss how domestic and international NGOs fit
into authoritarian stability-seeking calculus. I then look at three forms of state–NGO relation-
ships in the context of authoritarianism and explore how autocrats have addressed and regulated
international NGOs in particular. Finally, I conclude with suggestions for future research on
NGOs and their relationship with and role in authoritarian regimes.

Authoritarian institutions
Despite the popular image of all-powerful dictators who exert total control over their countries,
authoritarians are often precariously positioned and run the risk of regime collapse or overthrow.
A growing literature in comparative politics argues that authoritarianism is a dynamic form of
governance, with rulers engaging in constant legislative, constitutional, and institutional reforms
as part of a complex multi-level game played by the regime, elites, opposition forces, interna-
tional actors, activists, and social movements (Stacher 2012, 31). Autocrats must carefully balance
external actors and institutions to remain in power (Levitsky and Way 2010), and failure to do so
can lead to regime collapse (Heiss 2012; Svolik 2009). Ultimately, the persistence or collapse of
authoritarian regimes depends on the quality and management of their institutional restraints and
rivals (Brownlee 2007, 202), and if “rulers counter [threats to their rule] with an adequate degree
of institutionalization, they survive in power” (Gandhi and Przeworski 2007, 284).
Political institutions lie at the core of modern authoritarianism and autocracy. As such,
throughout this chapter, I use an institutional definition of authoritarianism. Autocracy is not
the opposite of democracy – autocracy occurs when an executive achieves power through
undemocratic means, when a democratically elected government changes the formal or infor-
mal institutions to limit competition in the future, or when militaries prevent electoral com-
petition (Geddes, Wright, and Frantz 2014). An autocrat interested in maintaining power over
their population without turning to absolute totalitarianism can either outlaw opposition to
their policies through political repression, or improve the popularity of their policies by manu-
facturing political loyalty and creating a veneer of popular consent (Wintrobe 1990; Gandhi and
Przeworski 2006), and autocrats carry out both strategies by navigating and manipulating the
institutional landscape in their states. However, interacting with external institutions is often

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fraught with risks. Though coercive institutions like the military and secret police forces are
instrumental for maintaining state authority, finding the right balance of repression is difficult.
Civilian authoritarian regimes often rely on strong militaries for legitimacy and coercion, but
as regimes face economic hardship, popular unrest, or political instability, those militaries can
emerge from their barracks to overthrow the failing state and install new civilian authorities
(Cook 2007), as most recently seen in the military’s interventions against both Hosni Mubarak
and Mohamed Morsi in post-2011 Egypt. Internal police forces, deputized by autocrats to
prevent coups against their regimes, pose a similar dilemma: secret police agencies that are too
powerful could potentially stage their own coup against the autocrat, but forces that are too
weak – and thus unable to revolt – are also unable to exercise coercive authority over the popu-
lation and are thus ineffective at preventing popular coups (Greitens 2016). Striking the right
balance of coercion is difficult and failure to do so can lead to regime collapse.
Because it is infeasible to rely solely on violent oppression to maintain power, autocrats have
increasingly allowed for a degree of institutional dissonance and competition to manufacture
popular consent and loyalty (Brumberg 2002). Today, dictatorships don “democratic garb”
(Brownlee 2007, 25) and mimic democratic institutions to ensure their survival, offset domestic
pressure, and boost their international reputation (Kendall-Taylor and Frantz 2014; Gandhi and
Przeworski 2007). As seen in Figure 38.1, most authoritarian regimes hold competitive elec-
tions (Levitsky and Way 2010) and allow for multiparty legislatures (Blaydes 2011), and many
have empowered an independent judiciary (Ginsburg and Moustafa 2008) and use independent
central banks to set monetary policy (Boylan 2001).1 While these reforms – many of which are
hallmarks of democratization – appear momentous to outsiders, these democratic-appearing
institutions are designed to increase regime stability and longevity. For example, Egypt has held
competitive parliamentary elections for decades, but not with the purpose of giving citizens rep-
resentation in government. Instead, regimes have used elections to dole out patronage to politi-
cians who proved their loyalty through competitive elections, thus mediating (or prolonging)
distributional conflict between lower elites who could theoretically oppose the regime (Blaydes
2011). Dictators create pseudo-democratic institutions to control the severity of the threat that
elites pose to authoritarian stability. Parties, judiciaries, elections, and reforms are allowed, but
they are kept weak and “dependent on the regime to ensure that they do not develop any real
power or autonomy” (Frantz and Ezrow 2011, 7).
However, this devolution of control to democratic-appearing institutions – many of which
can be actively opposed to the regime – creates a challenging competitive dynamic. If the
political institutions in a regime are competitive enough, opponents and activists can use them
as a means for obtaining actual power within the government (Frantz and Kendall-Taylor
2014). Under this form of competitive authoritarianism, there is genuine competition for
power through elections, though the playing field is generally skewed toward the incumbents.
Political competition under authoritarianism is often “real but unfair” (Levitsky and Way
2010, 5) – but still real.
Efforts to influence, control, or diminish opposing institutions can often backfire. State-
sponsored labor unions were some of the most active anti-government protesters in Egypt and
Tunisia in the 2011 uprisings (Beinin 2011), and opposition parties like the Muslim Brotherhood
used competitive parliamentary elections to their advantage and regularly won large proportions
of seats (Wickham 2002). These groups’ political success allowed them to more effectively
mobilize popular support against the regime and was a major factor in the Muslim Brotherhood’s
victory in the 2012 Egyptian presidential election. Dictators can permit nationalist anti-foreign
protests to credibly signal their intentions during international crises and in effect use popular
anger to increase regime stability in the international arena. However, these protests can spin out

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100%

75%
Percentage of autocracies

50%

25%

0%
1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Regularly scheduled elections on course Multiple parties allowed

Civil society organizations allowed

Figure 38.1 Adoption of pseudo-democratic institutions in authoritarian states since 1970

of control as opposition elites co-opt the protests, thus backfiring and destabilizing the regime
(Weiss 2013). Initiatives to increase authoritarian legislative accountability to the public can also
backfire – legislators in authoritarian regimes who are legally required to disclose their political
activities and finances become less outspoken about the government and are less likely to be
reelected or receive regime patronage, and are thus more likely to keep their activities hidden
(Malesky, Schuler, and Tran 2012).
Today, authoritarian adoption of ostensibly democratic institutions has become standard
practice, and while elections, political reforms, protests, and legislative politics all appear to push
countries toward democratization, autocrats have instead used these institutions to maintain
stability. This strategy of institutional balancing carries significant risks, though, and can inad-
vertently challenge autocratic power. The key for authoritarian survival is thus striking the right
balance of institutional independence and control.

NGOs and authoritarian institutions

NGOs and other civil society organizations have become yet another democratic-appearing
institution that authoritarians can use to enhance regime stability, and associational life has
become a common feature of autocratic rule. Figure 38.1 shows the growth of autocratic allow-
ance of civil society since the 1970s: by 2015, more than two-thirds of authoritarian coun-
tries permit citizens to associate in civil society organizations, following trends similar to other
pseudo-democratic authoritarian institutions. Empowering NGOs allows autocrats to expand
their control over society and take advantage of the services and expertise provided by these
organizations, but doing so also runs the risk of allowing these organizations to destabilize the
regime. NGOs in authoritarian regimes are political wildcards (DeMars 2005) and autocrats
watch them closely. Much of the uncertainty about the role of NGOs in authoritarian politics
is rooted in the ambiguity of the relationship between civil society and government in general.
Ahmed and Potter (2006) provide a helpful typology of three forms of NGO–state relationships:

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 NGOs and authoritarianism

NGOs can collaborate and reinforce, oppose, or substitute for state power. Below, I explore
how the dynamics of authoritarian institutional politics color each of these relationships.

NGOs as collaborators and reinforcers of authoritarian power

The idea that NGOs and civil society support and collaborate with governments was first made
popular by De Tocqueville and later championed by Putnam, Leonardi, and Nanetti (1994).
This view sees groups of citizens actively engaging with the government to advocate for reform,
rights, change, or other services. The vibrant associational life that grows out of this engagement
forges links that cross social boundaries – bowling clubs, parent/teacher associations, neighbor-
hood groups, volunteer organizations, and other non-profit groups tend to include members
from multiple social strata, thereby breaking down vertical social boundaries and increasing
social trust. This associational life increases civic engagement, embeds norms of reciprocity into
society, and helps improve democratic governance – in other words, civil society ultimately
strengthens and bolsters the state.
The dictator’s goal of using democratic-appearing institutions is not ultimately to improve
democratic governance, but to improve authoritarian stability. Tocquevillian NGOs at first
do not appear to fit well into this authoritarian stability-seeking calculus. However, Antonio
Gramsci offers a bleaker view of civil society’s role in supporting the state and allows us to see
that civil society under authoritarianism has a different purpose than it does under democracy.
Gramsci argues that NGOs and civil society actually contribute to “a more subtle and sophisti-
cated form of state power,” one that “serves as an outer perimeter of defense for a hegemonic
state” (Cook 2007, 7, 143). The state can exert control over NGOs to more deeply insinuate
itself into society by distorting the networks that civil society organizations create. Instead of
allowing for horizontal networks of civic engagement, authoritarian states work to ensure that
formal civil society organizations are vertically linked to the state’s central authority.
For example, in post-Oslo Palestine, hundreds of new associations and NGOs appeared
in the wake of the new peace process, but access to resources was limited by these organiza-
tions’ connections to Yasser Arafat’s ruling Palestinian National Authority (PNA). Palestinian
civic associations that supported the PNA received more funding from the government and
national donors. As such, many Palestinian association leaders built vertical networks linking
their organizations to the state, rather than with members of the communities they served. In
one instance, a sports club in Ramallah transformed into a community office connected directly
to the PNA, allowing its members to access medical assistance and other unrelated benefits from
the government. The PNA successfully insinuated itself into society and transformed civil soci-
ety’s horizontal networks of reciprocity to vertical patronage networks (Jamal 2007).
Laws regarding the allocation of NGO funding can also influence the shape of crosscutting
networks in authoritarian states. The legal environment of post-Soviet Russia siloed the bur-
geoning democracy aid sector and stifled its growth. Henderson (2003) shows how in the early
1990s, foreign donors interested in democratization flooded Russia’s civil society sector with
aid, which provided hundreds of NGOs with valuable equipment and training and increased
their organizational capacity. At the same time, however, competition for democratization aid
changed the nature of these organizations. Similar to Palestinian non-profits aligning themselves
with the PNA to secure funding, foreign aid to Russian NGOs created the unintended con-
sequence of creating patron–client ties between international donors and Russian recipients,
strengthening vertical ties rather than the horizontal networks necessary for a more robust and
socially responsive civil society sector. Instead of a strong grassroots civil society, foreign democ-
ratization aid in post-Soviet Russia – enabled by laws that shaped the distribution of foreign

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funds – helped created a “professionalized realm of NGOs, inaccessible to most local groups and
compromised by its links to a neoliberal vision of development” (Hemment 2004, 215). This
effectively allowed the Russian state to contain the side effects of democratization aid and neuter
NGOs that could potentially destabilize the regime.
Russia has continued to regulate its civil society sector in a way that has linked it more
closely to the state and moved it away from its intended constituents. In 2004, Vladimir Putin
established the Public Chamber, a public funding mechanism for distributing funds to all civil
society organizations. Subsequent anti-NGO laws passed in 2006, 2012, and 2015 strengthened
the new office and shaped it into one of the only legitimate means for domestic NGOs to
obtain financial support, linking civil society directly to autocratic state authority (Flikke 2015).
Russian NGOs now often act as “the agents of [state-determined] social policy, not the influ-
encers of it” (Crotty, Hall, and Ljubownikow 2014, 1264), and the civil society sector appears
to be an extension of the state.
NGOs frequently support and reinforce authoritarian state power in more overt ways,
with civil society organizations providing governments with technical and political expertise.
Often this capacity building is sorely needed – humanitarian NGOs dealing with disaster relief,
refugee assistance, poverty alleviation, and development provide critical services throughout
the world. In many countries, NGOs are the main provider of public goods. For instance,
in 1999, NGOs provided 40% of health services in Zimbabwe (Ahmed and Potter 2006,
63). Authoritarian states regularly encourage these kinds of NGOs in order to take advan-
tage of their funds and expertise. From 2004–2016, China partnered directly with foreign
NGOs to enhance service delivery, education, disaster response, and environmental protec-
tions throughout the country – as mentioned previously, even highly contentious Greenpeace
has an office in Beijing. However, while the work that humanitarian NGOs do is important,
Jennifer Brass (2016) argues that in more repressive and corrupt countries, NGO-based service
provision prolongs and props up bad governments by lending them legitimacy. Governments
will often invite foreign NGOs into their countries or establish domestic NGOs to help with
specific projects and then take credit for their work. In Kenya, Brass finds that citizen percep-
tions of government quality improved when NGOs provided services, since citizens “expected
exceedingly little from their government, so they tended to be pleased to receive any services
at all, regardless of the source” (Brass 2016, 27).
NGOs can thus simultaneously improve state capacity and bolster the international legiti-
macy of authoritarian countries. NGOs can be a powerful tool in authoritarian stability-seeking
calculus, particularly when the legal environment restructures horizontal civil society networks
into direct links with the state (Marzouk 1997). This type of institutional co-optation transforms
NGOs into “mediators between the people’s demands and the administration’s offers” (Néfissa
2005, 8) and allows authoritarian regimes to remain in power longer.

NGOs as opponents to authoritarian power

In contrast to the notion that civil society grants legitimacy to authoritarian governments, oth-
ers have argued that civil society stands in opposition to the state. The deeper social connec-
tions formed by participating in associational life can allow members of these organizations to
“stand up to city hall” (Jamal 2007, 4), to pursue their community self-interests, or to help
maintain moral order and social norms. In this view, civil society organizations act as watchdogs
against the government, providing members of society with a vehicle for popular mobilization.
Furthermore, these organizations help citizens overcome collective action problems inherent
in standing up to repressive regimes, since civil society “helps to back trust whenever there is a

562
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sufficient number of citizens who feel vengeful enough to work towards exposing publicly the
illegal acts or malpractices of both private and state agents” (Platteau 2000, 308).
Accordingly, NGO activities in authoritarian countries can have real, measurable effects
on domestic politics and pose significant risks to regimes that allow them to operate. At times,
domestic civil society organizations can organize citizen action and mount direct opposition to
the state. As autocratic governments in Latin America in the 1980s banned political parties and
removed officials with leftist views, for instance, former state employees “founded private think
tanks and other organizations that came to serve as the nucleus of opposition to military rule”
(Ahmed and Potter 2006, 65). Similarly, the 2011 uprisings in the Middle East were largely
facilitated by domestic civil society organizations. In Egypt, union workers in the Nile Delta,
university students, youth organizations like the April 6 Movement, and prominent regional
human rights NGOs held regular protests and directly challenged the state in the years prior to
2011, setting the stage for the dramatic collapse of former president Hosni Mubarak’s regime
(Heiss 2012).
Importantly, the ability of NGOs to successfully stand up to the state depends largely on
their power relative to the state. As I discuss later, autocrats tend to engage with civil society
on their own terms and work to ensure that the NGOs they allow to operate in their country
contribute to regime stability. Today authoritarian governments are generally much more effec-
tive at limiting the political power of NGOs and other civil society organizations through harsh
legal restrictions. NGOs that pose a danger to the balance of authoritarian institutions are far less
likely to be allowed to operate freely.
Because of this, scholarship has turned to look at the role of international civil society as a
bulwark against recalcitrant states, since these organizations tend to enjoy greater operational
freedom by working from abroad. Countries that receive negative evaluations in human rights
reports and press releases from international NGOs see a marked reduction in foreign direct
investment inflows (Barry, Clay, and Flynn 2013) and tend to respond with better compliance
to international human rights norms (Murdie and Davis 2012). Murdie (2014) concludes that
international NGOs focused on service provision and human rights advocacy have improved
human security outcomes in authoritarian regimes, providing more access to water and increased
adoption of human rights norms. Human rights shaming campaigns by international NGOs can
also dictate the allocation of international aid to recipient countries. When INGOs highlight
government abuses in countries with more limited influence in global affairs, donor agencies are
more likely to channel their aid to domestic NGOs and condition their aid on improvements in
human rights, thus forcing repressive countries to engage in unwanted domestic policy reform
(Dietrich and Murdie 2017). NGOs – both domestic and international – thus pose a legitimate
threat to authoritarian stability and dictators must balance out their influence.

NGOs as substitutes for authoritarian power

Finally, when autocrats are unable to balance the institutional challenge posed by civil society,
they run the risk of ceding responsibility for public service provision and even losing a degree of
political control over their countries. Because they often play a critical role in providing social
services, close networks of development NGOs and INGOs in countries with weak national
governments can marginalize the state and become substitutes to political and economic power.
The case of Kenya is instructive. As international aid agencies increased their work in East
Africa in the 1990s, donors preferred to channel their money through NGOs, since they saw
civil society as less corrupt and more reliable than Kenyan authorities. Large donor agencies
began to require that governments work directly with NGOs to receive any funding. However,

563
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the regime resisted these efforts, and in 1997 President Daniel arap Moi warned that NGOs
involved in education were a “threat to the security of the state” (Brass 2012, 215). As domestic
and international NGOs gained more legitimacy and received greater funding, they posed a
growing threat to the stability of Moi’s authoritarian rule. Moi lost the 2002 presidential elec-
tion to opposition leader Mwai Kibaki, who embraced the powerful NGO sector wholeheart-
edly as a means to both enhance his regime’s stability and to collect international aid funds.
Under Kibaki, NGOs became part of the regime’s social service apparatus, and today NGOs
throughout East Africa and other authoritarian states “sit on government policymaking boards,
development committees, and stakeholder forums; their strategies and policies are integrated
into national planning documents; and their methods of decision making have, over time,
become embedded in government’s own” (Brass 2012, 218). In contrast to Russia’s takeover of
the NGO sector with the Public Chamber system, in Kenya and elsewhere NGOs have exerted
much more agency and have had control over how they influence government policy.
NGOs have substituted for authoritarian state power in many other countries, often with
negative consequences. In many instances, states with fewer resources or with weak government
capacity purposely “cede responsibility for the provision of basic services” (Bratton 1989, 569)
to better-funded NGOs in an effort to maintain political stability. Doing so, however, deeply
entrenches the economic and social power of these NGOs, and “no incentive is ever provided
to them to promote the kind of changes which would ultimately reduce their dependency on
foreign donors” (Martin 2002, 12). In other countries, NGOs attract skilled workers by offering
higher salaries, which allows them to siphon off the most skilled public sector employees and
further weaken state capacity (Ahmed and Potter 2006; Chege 1999). In Zambia, development
NGOs have been far more successful than the government in providing social services and pub-
lic infrastructure (Ahmed and Potter 2006, 66), which in turn has led to the “steady erosion of
state [political] hegemony and credibility” (Ihonvbere 1996, 196).
In more extreme cases of authoritarian state weakness or collapse, NGOs can even replace
the political authority of the state. In Haiti, where NGOs provide 80–90% of the state’s health
and education services, large foreign organizations have parceled out the country into spe-
cific demarcated territories. Given the reach of the NGO sector, the national government has
“ced[ed] near sovereign control to these NGO ‘fiefdoms’” (Schuller 2012, 6) and exerts little
political influence in those regions. In South Asia, the Bangladesh Rehabilitation Assistance
Committee (BRAC) runs tens of thousands of schools, hospitals, and other social services and
has become a powerful parallel political force that often rivals the government (Ahmed and
Potter 2006; Haque 2002; Stiles 2002). In these cases, regimes have lost control over the balance
of political institutions and have become supplanted by the civil society sector, which in turn has
weakened their hold on political power within their states.

International NGOs and legal restrictions on civil society

International NGOs pose a unique challenge to authoritarian political stability. Dictators face
a more limited array of policy choices for controlling foreign organizations in their countries.
While it may be easy for an autocrat to harass domestic activists or incorporate local NGOs into
formal governance structures, it is far riskier to do the same to foreign activists or aid work-
ers, since international NGOs often have the legal and political backing of their home states.
Accordingly, autocrats must tread carefully when dealing with these organizations. Relying on
non-state actors as part of stability-seeking institutional balancing is fraught with risk. As seen
previously, NGOs – both domestic and international – have real effects on domestic politics and
policies and pose significant risks to the regimes that allow them to operate.

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 NGOs and authoritarianism

States today confront a complex mix of actors and issues on the international stage, where
activists, bureaucrats, legislators, judges, firms, civil society organizations, intergovernmental
organizations (IGOs), media organizations, and foreign states interact and influence domes-
tic policy and behavior (Linos 2013; Slaughter 2004). Similar to their domestic counterparts,
international NGOs can exert particularly acute pressure on authoritarian regimes, especially as
they work in concert with foreign governments and domestic NGOs to pressure and shame
states that behave poorly (Kelley 2017; Kelley and Simmons 2015). Domestic NGOs that are
restricted, blocked, or co-opted by their government will turn to allies in the international
NGO community who then lobby their home states to convince international organizations to
put high-level pressure on the offending regime, thereby creating an opening for the original
domestic civil society organizations to advocate for policy changes. This movement of advocacy
power follows a boomerang pattern, moving from domestic NGOs to INGOs to foreign states
and international organizations to domestic NGOs again (Keck and Sikkink 1998).
With repeated boomerang-like pressure from domestic NGOs and international NGOs,
responses to individual issues can evolve into human rights norms, resulting in the institu-
tionalization of new policies and practices within an offending state. Risse and Sikkink (1999)
describe this process of norm socialization as a spiral, or a sequence of repeated boomerang
effects. Domestic actors repeatedly turn to INGOs and transnational networks for help in their
advocacy and slowly wear down the state. Initially the state denies the accusations of repres-
sion and claims that foreign human rights norms are invalid, but with repeated domestic and
international pressure, the regime will begin to make concessions to the human rights network.
Continued pressure helps formalize these concessions into actual legislation, and as politicians
adhere to these policies they internalize the human rights norms that underpin the policies, thus
resulting in long-lasting reform.
Autocrats facing spiral-like advocacy from INGOs and the international community must
think carefully about how to respond in order to maintain their domestic institutional bal-
ance. For repressive regimes, ceding too much ground to international human rights advo-
cacy can empower local dissidents and activists and threaten stability, while not ceding enough
ground can pave the way for international shaming and economic sanctions. Authoritarian
states engage with international civil society selectively depending on rational calculations of
how that engagement might be beneficial to the regime. Autocrats tend to follow international
norms on their own terms and allow INGO activities only when doing so “allows the regime
to shore up its authority and legitimacy and to deflect international pressures” (Hawkins 1997,
407–8). Autocrats can use international NGOs to stabilize and reinforce their political power at
home. As discussed previously, because competition for foreign patronage created an absence of
strong links between Russian advocacy groups and the public, the Russian state has been able to
restructure the civil society sector so that only NGOs that “work on issues that align with the
national interest” receive funding and support (Henderson 2010, 254), short-circuiting interna-
tional spiral pressure and silencing domestic advocacy movements.
Dictators can also respond to international pressure in more roundabout ways that appear to
acquiesce to human rights norms but still provide the regime with control over the influence
of international NGOs. For instance, Kelley (2012) finds that since election monitoring has
become a global norm, most authoritarian governments – even those that fully intend on cheat-
ing and manipulating their elections – permit election-monitoring INGOs as a way of appearing
credible and democratic to peer nations. In 2000, international aid agencies pressured Robert
Mugabe to allow Western election monitors to observe the Zimbabwean presidential elec-
tions. Mugabe assented to their demands, but also invited dozens of regime-friendly monitoring
NGOs who endorsed his electoral landslide as fair and legitimate. Russia followed a similar

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strategy in its 2008 presidential elections, inviting election-monitoring NGOs that were based in
other autocratic states. These “zombie” NGOs provide autocrats with a facade of international
legitimacy (Walker and Cooley 2013). Even if large INGOs like the Carter Center condemn
authoritarian elections as biased and unfair, dictators with control over domestic media can use
glowing NGO reports to “spin the story to the domestic audience and to friendly governments
in their regions” (Kelley 2012, 55).
However, because autocrats are rarely able to completely control and balance all rival insti-
tutions, these strategies for dealing with international NGOs have the potential to backfire.
While countering objective monitoring NGOs with reports from friendly organizations does
provide regimes with substantial international reputational benefits, the presence of high-quality
monitors still makes it more difficult to cheat and is associated with better election quality,
fewer violations of electoral law, and more incumbent turnover (Kelley 2012, 124). Rulers in
competitive authoritarian regimes can and do lose elections monitored by international NGOs.
To offset the risks and reap the rewards of allowing NGOs in their countries, dictators
expand and contract the legal environment for civil society in response to threats to regime sta-
bility. Authoritarian regimes tend to crack down on NGOs in response to domestic instability,
civil unrest, coups and protests in neighboring countries, and other threats to institutional bal-
ance (Heiss 2017). The type of crackdown dictators impose on NGOs takes a variety of forms,
though, and the decision to restrict NGOs is tied directly to political considerations. Chaudhry
(2016) finds that states resort to violent crackdowns when NGOs pose immediate threats to
stability, but that doing so leads to international condemnation and increased domestic unrest.
When the threat from NGOs is less immediate, states instead turn to legislation, which enables
rulers to more carefully regulate civil society and balance their potential destabilizing influence.
This trend aligns with other research on NGO regulations in OECD countries: Bloodgood,
Tremblay-Boire, and Prakash (2014) argue that NGOs face more restrictive regulations in
countries where they pose more of a threat to the political order. Incorporating domestic and
international NGOs into authoritarian stability-seeking calculus poses definite threats to regime
safety and legal restrictions help regulate those risks.
Restrictions on NGOs have increased in both autocracies and democracies since the 1990s,
but in different ways. Panel A in Figure 38.2 shows the prevalence and severity of NGO
registration laws in ninety-eight countries from 1990–2013.2 Both types of regimes require
NGO registration – nearly three-fourths of autocracies have had formal registration require-
ments for decades, while democracies began increasing registration requirements in the early
2000s. Stricter registration requirements do not necessarily make life more difficult for NGOs,
though, and this increase in NGO laws in democracies is likely attributable to the routiniza-
tion of NGO–government relations (Chaudhry and Heiss under review). This is apparent in
Panel A: NGO registration has become substantially more burdensome in autocracies than in
democracies. Autocrats have passed dozens of restrictive laws aimed at limiting the scope of
foreign-connected NGOs and incorporating domestic NGOs into the state. Panel B highlights
the contrast of the severity of NGO regulations across regime types. The overwhelming major-
ity of democracies impose almost no restrictions on civil society organizations working in their
countries. Autocracies, on the other hand, are much more heterogenous in their treatment of
NGOs, with most imposing moderate restrictions.
Most authoritarian legal restrictions on civil society today target the funding of domestic and
international NGOs from international aid agencies and foundations. Autocrats have turned to
anti-NGO legislation – and foreign funding laws in particular – for multiple reasons, including
increased nationalism and xenophobia, counterterrorism policies, and a “wider questioning of
Western power” (Carothers 2015, 9; see also Carothers and Brechenmacher 2014). Fears of

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Figure 38.2 Civil society repression and regulations
Andrew Heiss

foreign influence in domestic politics underlie all these factors, and the decision to limit the
space for NGO funding and advocacy is tied directly to concerns of regime stability and insti-
tutional balance. For instance, Dupuy, Ron, and Prakash (2016) find that autocrats are more
likely to adopt laws that restrict foreign funding to NGOs in response to increased aid flows
from foreign donors, but the likelihood of legal restrictions on NGOs nearly doubles if foreign
aid flows increase during competitive elections where regimes are most politically vulnerable.
These anti-NGO restrictions are often effective and states are able to limit INGO influence in
their countries. In the wake of its 2012 Foreign Agents law and 2015 Undesirable Organizations
law, which granted the government broad authority to expel NGOs it deemed threatening,
dozens of organizations have been shuttered and ejected from Russia. Similarly, Dupuy, Ron,
and Prakash (2015) find that in response to anti-foreign funding laws passed in 2009, most
domestic human rights NGOs in Ethiopia either closed down or rebranded and changed the
issues they addressed.

Conclusion
The ongoing constriction of civic space in China, Russia, Egypt, and elsewhere represents a
broader trend of how authoritarian states relate to and regulate civil society organizations in
their countries. Dozens of autocratic countries have imposed similarly harsh restrictions and
NGOs will likely continue to face worsening legal environments in the future. Civil society,
and NGOs in particular – institutions foundational to democratic governance – have become
increasingly important for authoritarian stability. Like other democratic-appearing political
institutions, NGOs behave differently in authoritarian contexts. Authoritarianism can force
civil society organizations to pursue vertical linkages with the state rather than horizontal net-
works with society, thus strengthening the state. This close connection and subservience to
the state can often effectively handicap NGOs in authoritarian states. At the same time, NGOs
can act as opponents to authoritarian power, protecting human rights, promoting political
reforms, and posing serious challenges to authoritarian institutional balancing. Under other
circumstances, NGOs can even tip the scales of authoritarian balancing and supplant auto-
cratic political and economic authority. Working with international NGOs adds an additional
dimension to stability-seeking calculus, and autocrats have responded to this new challenge
with restrictive anti-NGO and anti-foreign NGO regulations.
The dynamics of domestic and international civil society under authoritarianism is a bur-
geoning field ripe for additional research. Many important questions remain unanswered and
deserve more attention. I briefly expose three future avenues below. First, while there is sub-
stantial research describing the conditions under which authoritarian states restrict civil society,
it is unclear whether anti-NGO regulations achieve their goal of maintaining regime stability.
More attention should be given to the relationship between domestic political stability and legal
crackdowns on NGOs – do these laws actually help autocrats balance out other rival institutions
and remain in office longer? Chaudhry (2016), Heiss (2017), and others have started to examine
this question, but more work remains to be done.
Second, the definition and treatment of NGO restrictions has thus far been somewhat incon-
sistent due to limitations of data. Some studies (Christensen and Weinstein 2013; Dupuy, Ron,
and Prakash 2016) look at the passage of laws themselves and categorize them according to the
restrictions they impose on advocacy, entry, and funding. Analyzing only de jure laws, however,
misses the on-the-ground de facto implementation of those laws, and the two do not always
match. Until 2017, Egypt’s civil society sector was regulated by Law 84 of 2002, which gave the
government substantial latitude in how it could relate to NGOs. Under the provisions of this

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2002 law, the Egyptian government was able to selectively expel or allow NGOs to operate.
Research that only counts laws does not account for this enforcement flexibility. Newer sources
of data, such as the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) dataset (Coppedge et al. 2018), include
observed measures of civil society repression instead of laws and can be useful for examining the
effects of the actual implementation of anti-NGO regulations. This improved data is not a pana-
cea, though. It is exceptionally difficult to distinguish between laws that target domestic NGOs and
international NGOs. With the exception of China’s 2017 Overseas NGO Law, which explicitly
targets international organizations, most authoritarian laws regulate both types of NGOs. V-Dem
does not distinguish between domestic and international NGO repression, nor do most other
data sources. Future research needs to disentangle these layers of authoritarian NGO regulations.
Third, what do these anti-NGO laws do to NGOs themselves? How do these laws change
organizational behavior and programming? NGOs must balance their normative principles
against the instrumental need of organizational survival. NGOs face a tradeoff between mis-
sion and money and must pursue both simultaneously (Heiss and Kelley 2017) – they must
“instrumentally pursue their principled objectives within the economic constraints and political
opportunity structures imposed by their external environments” (Mitchell and Schmitz 2014,
489). When legal environments are limited and restricted, NGOs face a strain on their stated
mission, vision, and values. This strain is particularly acute for international NGOs, which must
debate whether to (1) make concessions to authoritarian demands (and potentially compromise
their values) to maintain access to the country and carry out their mission, or (2) honor their
vision and values, disobey or avoid authoritarian restrictions, and run the risk of expulsion from
the country. Exploring how NGOs resolve this existential debate and work around civil soci-
ety restrictions is worthwhile, and results from these future studies will enable NGOs to better
respond to the ongoing expansion of anti-NGO laws in authoritarian states.

Notes
1 Data comes from Coppedge et al. (2018). Regime type is based on V-Dem’s “Regimes of the world”
index. I consider all closed autocracies and electoral autocracies as “autocracies”; all other regime types
are “democracies.”
2 Data for Panel A comes from Christensen and Weinstein (2013), and data for Panel B comes from the
“CSO repression” variable in Coppedge et al. (2018), averaged over 1990–2016. CSO repression is
measured on a 0–4 scale, with 4 representing the most democratic and open civil society (i.e. no repres-
sion) and 0 representing the most restricted civil society (i.e. complete repression and liquidation of civil
society). Regime type is determined the same way as in Figure 38.1.

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 39
NGOs and security in
conflict zones
Daniela Irrera

The influence exerted by NGOs in several policy fields has increasingly grown and diversified.
This is true not only in those issues which are traditionally associated with an organised civil
society – that is to say, human rights, development, and environment – but also in respect to
the most sensitive fields, dealing with security and humanitarian action, in which states and
intergovernmental organisations’ (IGOs) preferences are stronger and more dominant. The per-
ception of security has gradually changed in the last decades, in parallel to the changing nature
of conflicts and crises which require more sophisticated policy responses and tools, as well as
more competences.
When it comes to NGOs deployed in countries affected by conflicts, it is essential to
understand how their roles and performances are rapidly changing and adapting. International
Relations scholars and practitioners have extensively investigated and discussed the topic of
NGOs and security in conflict zones, by producing several analyses and trends. The debate has
been vastly dominated by the logistics and the legal and moral constraints that NGOs face in a
troubled context. At the same time, a significant lack of empirical analysis and the fact that the
topic has been mostly assessed by media and humanitarian agencies justifies the need for further
and deeper research, also in respect to the theories on crisis management and conflict resolution.
The chapter is based on a theoretical framework which combines the scholarship on the
NGOs’ roles in the humanitarian system with the more recent contributions on conflict trans-
formation and transboundary crises. It aims at analysing how, in the current phase of world
politics, changes in security and conflicts are affecting NGOs’ performances and, in particular,
at replying to the following research questions:

1 How are NGOs reacting and adapting to the current changes in security and conflict?
2 What are the main features of such adaptation process?
3 Are NGOs’ performances in line with the general transformations affecting the humanitar-
ian system?

The chapter consists of three parts. In the first one, a discussion on the state of the art is presented,
focused on (a) the changes in the nature of crises, and (b) in crisis management. The theoretical
overview deepens both aspects, by listing the debate about natural and human-made disasters;

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complex emergencies; the transboundary crises; integrated missions; and established and new mech-
anisms. The second part offers an analysis of NGOs and their performances in conflict zones, their
adaptation to the transformation in crisis management and conflict transformation, their established
and new roles, and how this impact the relations with states, in the context of intergovernmental
organisations, particularly at UN and EU level. In the third part, the theoretical reflections on secu-
rity are used to highlight the most important challenges NGOs have to face in the field, particularly
moral issues (i.e. how to remain independent and neutral), legal issues (i.e. accountability), political
(i.e. legitimacy), and practical issues (i.e. relations with the military). Lastly, some preliminary con-
clusions are summed up, in order to launch future research perspectives.

Understanding the changing nature of security and conflicts:

a theoretical overview
The challenges posed by security conditions in conflict zones to humanitarian workers are
a sensitive topic that have always attracted International Relations scholars. The increasing
involvement of NGOs in conflict management in various areas of the world and the continuous
number of attacks and casualties which affect their work have made the issue more and more
important not only for its logistics aspects, but also for its political and ethical implications.
Some scholars have attempted to make quantitative investigations, based on data regarding
the type and number of incidents involving humanitarian personnel (Sheik et al., 2000). Some
others have focused on the notion of insecurity, describing the mortality of humanitarian work-
ers as a policy and philosophical consequence of the ways humanitarian action is conceived and
applied in the current global political system (Fast, 2007). This trend has also allowed many
authors to concentrate on the contextual – that is to say, the external factors which explain vio-
lence against NGOs – or to understand why some organisations are more targeted than others,
or why some countries or areas are more dangerous (Slim, 1997; Bush, 1998, Beasley, et al.,
2003; Duffield, 2014).
Even though it is surely a very specific topic, NGOs’ performances in conflict zones need to
be analysed in a broader perspective which deals with transformations occurring to security on
a global and regional level. Coherently with the aims of this Handbook, this chapter intends to
offer a wider and timely reflection on such theoretical trends which can apply to a wide variety
of conditions and organisations.
Given that in the existing phase of world politics, security institutions and policies are under-
going a process of change, and the analysis of the relations among NGOs and institutions in
humanitarian actions is simply one aspect of a very sophisticated and multifaceted system, the
chapter provides a theoretical framework which combines the scholarship on the NGOs’ roles
in the humanitarian system with the more recent contributions on conflict transformation and
transboundary crises.
International Relations scholars have extensively debated the ways through which the global
political system has tried to provide security by managing emergencies and assisting people. This
has produced a set of policies which are the result of interactions between governmental and
nongovernmental actors and in a flow of various competences and tasks, and this is essential to
understand, firstly, how the shifting nature of crises and conflicts has been investigated, using
definitional efforts to identify the most operational notions; and secondly, the establishment of
innovative and more sophisticated tools and mechanisms, which require additional competen-
cies, abilities, and expertise. Both aspects of the humanitarian system are important for clarifying
how security conditions in conflict zones are becoming crucial for NGOs, as a result of external
and internal factors.

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As for the first one, the shifting nature of crises and conflicts, many changes have been made
within the world governmental system to act more collectively, by implementing and adapt-
ing traditional and new instruments, trying to avoid the exposure of masses of people to the
consequences of crises.
The ‘classical humanitarianism’, expressed in the book Memory of Solferino by the Red Cross
founder, Henry Dunant, was based on the fact that civilians were considered as the first una-
ware target of violence and they had a right to be protected by being provided with neu-
tral and independent help. This approach, formally endorsed by the UN General Assembly
in the Resolution 46/182, is at the basis of the Red Cross Movement. Traditional principles
of humanity (to be addressed to the most vulnerable, wherever they are), neutrality (without
engaging in hostilities or taking sides), and impartiality (without discrimination) have charac-
terised the humanitarian system, especially since the end of the Cold War, through a process of
re-definition and management of the ethical, legal, and moral consequences and challenges of
humanitarian crisis response (Warner, 2013).
Principles have been developed and shaped over the decades, but have also promoted more
interactions within the humanitarian system, involving a wide variety of actors, including
NGOs, in order to adequately tackle the shifting nature of emergencies and crises.
International Relations scholars have widely investigated the implications of armed conflicts,
natural disasters and contemporary crises by using the notion of complex emergency to refer to
any humanitarian crisis in a country or region caused by the total or considerable breakdown
of the official authority, requiring a response that goes beyond the mandate or capacity of a
single actor. Such emergencies may be associated with ethnic conflict, human rights abuse,
food insecurity, mass population movement, and/or displacement (Natsios, 1995; Attinà, 2012).
Collective responses are needed to relieve human suffering and providing security to the system
policies, but more importantly to avoid the costs of duplication and overlapping. Additionally,
preliminary measures, like the preparedness and prevention of emergencies and the reinforce-
ment of states’ resilience, are required (Attinà, 2015).
Scholars who have widely analysed the notion of crisis have also offered a broader frame-
work for understanding how new kinds of crises may impact policies. Crisis is generally used to
label an event that marks a phase of disorder in the apparent ‘normal’ development of a system
(Boin et al., 2005; Saurruger and Terpan, 2016). Therefore, it is something which implies the
re-establishment of a condition of order upon a disturbing disorder (Boin et al., 2005).
Crises can take several forms and affect different dimensions in a given context, but for cer-
tain, its spatial dimension is never limited to a single domain or issue. More recent analyses on
the notion of ‘transboundary crisis’ stressed the existence of problems that plays out across one
or many types of boundaries (Boin et al., 2013). If a complex emergency describes the shifting
process occurring in the humanitarian system and implies the need to shape policies accordingly,
a transboundary crisis better expresses the complexity of the reality and, more importantly, its
practical implications (Irrera, 2018).
The major categories of human-made and natural disasters, whatever forms they may assume,
definitively cross many boundaries. The management and resolution of such crises, first, require
a wide range of actions, mediators, and resources, and secondly, imply long-term effects that
can lead to new forms of political and social organisation and to re-shape the present security
conditions.
The second feature to be considered in this chapter deals with the fact that the shifting nature
of security and the diversification of crises have contributed to modifying even the main assets
of crisis management. Scholars have first concentrated on military missions and interventions as
vital components of humanitarian aid. In particular, the analyses on the rising of interventions

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during and after the Cold War have tried to explain how military operations have gradually
developed a civilian dimension, which includes new tasks and new personnel (Jakobsen, 2002).
Another factor that explains the diversification of crisis management tools and the involvement
of more states would be the spread of democracy. Quantitative research has demonstrated that
the number of non-democratic countries participating in operations is growing, but the demo-
cratic ones are the majority. The existence of a democratic political regime increases the pro-
pensity of a state to be involved in solving a crisis elsewhere. It is in the interest of democratic
states to act, as part of the multilateral system, but also for strengthening its own security dimen-
sion (Lebovic, 2004; Daniel et al., 2012). Other research has focused on the relevance of tasks
which are assigned to operations, as a consequence of the diversified nature of crises, including
military, political, civil, administrative, and police ones (Attinà, 2013).
Finally, research on peace operations has highlighted the nuances in the mandates and assign-
ments, from traditional peacekeeping to the ones defined as complex missions, because of the
multifaceted structure (Diehl and Regan, 2015).
Therefore, crisis management is changing in its more exploited and meaningful tool. Scholars
and practitioners have used the label of peace support operation and integrated peace mission to name
all-important forms of multilateral intervention for peace, security, and stability, which compre-
hend all developments of peacebuilding and related conflict resolution measures.
Investigations on the management of natural disasters and transboundary crises have added an
ampler analytical tool. If crises are marked by high complexity and uncertainty, with regard to
the problem encountered and the solutions and consequences, innovation in the actors involved
and tools employed is required (Saurugger and Terpan, 2016).
The transboundary dimension produces effects that usually distress multiple sectors, groups,
or countries and play out across one or many types of boundaries. Therefore, it implies a politi-
cal dimension, since policymakers are expected to reduce uncertainty and develop norms and
practices to resettle the conditions, despite the fact that it may not always be clear which poli-
cymakers are responsible and should intervene (Boin and Rhinard, 2008; Boin et al., 2013).
Summing up, current developments of crisis management involve the use of distinct
resources, structures, and/or standard operating procedures devoted to addressing situations
identified as a crisis. Meanwhile, transboundary crisis management implies the implementation
of strategic activities thought to be effective in responding to crises in order to limit the impact.
Contributions offered by different scholarships are functional for the purposes of what is sus-
tained in this chapter, through the main research questions, and are an efficient framework for
explaining what is happening in conflict zones when security conditions deteriorate too much
to allow NGOs to continue their work.

NGOs in the humanitarian system: issues and practices

The theoretical framework has highlighted major changes in the global and regional context,
but also the fact that this bring for NGOs deployed in the field a mixture of traditional humani-
tarian tasks, innovative duties as well as additional risks. Scholarship on humanitarian NGOs has
contributed to understanding of these developments. Internal factors, dealing with the nature
of the organisations, their approach to conflicts and humanitarian interventions, and the level
of propensity to cooperate/coordinate with other actors (international and local ones), play a
relevant role and should be combined with the abovementioned external factors.
The biggest problem humanitarian NGOs experienced over the years was – and still is –
the extreme heterogeneity of their category, and this causes vagueness (Tendler, 1982). It
is true that under the label humanitarian, many identities and tasks are listed, but the ways

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NGOs are classified reflect their ideologies and political approaches towards security and cri-
ses and this may be useful for evaluating their impact, also in practical terms. There are also
various levels through which NGOs interact with the humanitarian system. Operational and
campaigning NGOs exercise actions through different methods. Operational NGOs partici-
pate directly in crises by mobilising human, financial, and material resources; carrying out
projects and programmes; and offering expertise and advise. Campaigning NGOs participate
indirectly by seeking for the wider public support to operations, and also by fund-raising
on a smaller scale (Willetts, 2001). Stoddard (2003) has sustained that three types of NGOs
can be distinguished according to identity attributes. The Wilsonian-type organisation, so
named after the American President Woodrow Wilson’s ideas, accepts the principles of
cooperation and multilateralism as practised by governments and international institutions.
The Dunantist-type organisation, so named after Henry Dunant, adheres to the principles
of impartiality, neutrality, and independence. The faith-based type organisation acts in har-
mony with religious principles.
In order to develop a more comprehensive typology of NGOs, two organisational attrib-
utes have been merged; that is to say, the NGO’s identity and principles of action, and the
NGO’s approach to conflict management and humanitarian intervention (Irrera, 2013). By dis-
tinguishing NGOs along with their approach towards crisis management, including propensity
to work with local partners and/or international institutions, the following typology is created
and applied here to understand NGOs’ performances and roles:

1 The pragmatist Wilsonian NGOs, marked by higher propensity to coordinate with other
actors, within the multilateral approach, to highly politicised missions;
2 The principle-centred Dunantist NGOs, linked to the idea that conflict management
should, in any case, respect the basic principles of humanitarianism;
3 The solidarist NGOs, more focused on the root causes of conflicts;
4 The faith-based NGOs, specifically characterised by religious principles, like charity and
compassion values.

These NGO traits translate into a richness of roles and tasks which mark the whole humanitarian
process before, during, and after the crisis and are essential for understanding their performance.
Thus, preventive action and mediation, traditional relief and assistance, and the increasing long-
term peace builder capacity drive several specific roles. Within the humanitarian system, NGOs
have increased and professionalised their roles, but always in parallel with other relevant actors.
Their performances should, therefore, be contextualised and read in the broader framework of
relations with international and regional organisations and states.
The innovation process shaping the humanitarian system started within the UN, settled
by global events and dominated by donor governments. NGOs began supporting UN peace
efforts in the 1990s, and adapted to the change humanitarian missions encountered in their
aims and methods in the following years. Within the EU system, humanitarian NGOs had to
face the variable of political integration and suffered a lack of institutionalisation, but at the
same time, they also had several chances to grow and develop bottom-up initiatives. Within
the framework of Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), in particular, the unique
approach developed by the EU made of a separate civilian framework for crisis management,
there was more room for NGOs to interact in the building up of policies, instruments, and
operational experience.
What emerges from current scholarly debates is a complicated analysis of how states,
international organisations, and NGOs need each other to enrich responses with more

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competences and expertise to legitimise actions and to sustain multifaceted programmes

and interventions.
The roles of NGOs in the humanitarian system are also marked by ambiguity. Rubenstein
labels them Samaritans, describing a condition in which they have to face several ethical and
legal predicaments and deal with state affairs (Rubenstein, 2015). Even though their place in
the system is not under question, it is not always (and not everywhere) clear and, in reality, the
provision of aid continues to be a top-down and rigid matter.
Scholars have also stressed how, facing contemporary challenges, the humanitarian system is
moving towards a marketplace style, in which aid and assistance are provided by various actors
(including NGOs), according to the demand and supply law. Spearin sustains that in this system
an ideational side should be considered as well, with states more likely to use private security
companies, because they are less concerned with neutrality and impartiality issues and NGOs
more focused on ‘hearts and minds’ activities (Spearin, 2008). Another affirms that NGOs can
sometimes follow this economic dynamic, ‘selling’ the aid they can provide, like multinational
actors to their donors, acting as entrepreneurs towards their recipients (Bob, 2005).
The ways through which the system has been shaped and currently performed make NGOs
a very controversial actor, inescapable because of their competences and expertise but often very
uncomfortable for a variety of reasons.

NGOs and security in conflict zones: actual trends and

practical implications
The roles played by humanitarian NGOs in conflict zones can be very difficult and troublesome.
So far, scholarship has stressed external factors, mainly dealing with the context of insecurity, the
worsening and diversification of conflicts themselves, and security setting. However, the variety
of tasks developed by humanitarian NGOs, the increasingly diversified roles they are playing,
and the set of sophisticated relations they have put in place emphasise the existence of internal
factors. The combination of both should be considered in the analysis of present conditions, but
also for further research.
The difficulties related to conflict zones are not always empirically measured because of a lack
of reliable or universally accepted data. The incompleteness of data and the consequent inaccu-
rate reflection of the issue is also due to poor knowledge on the level, causes, and consequences
of exposure to violence (Fast, 2007; Sheik et al., 2000; Barnett, 2004).
While bombings, kidnapping, and murder draw the attention of media and public opinion
concerns, other issues, like rape, sexual harassment, armed robbery, or individuals caught in
the crossfire, are often registered only in the NGO report to headquarters and remain under-
reported. This does not allow, for example, the assessment of the causes of incidents, beyond
the exposure. Some other analysts complain about the difficulty in finding accurate and com-
parable statistics, particularly by international agencies (Van Brabant, 2000; Sheik et al., 2000;
Fast, 2007).
The Report compiled by Humanitarian Outcomes1 presents data taken from the Aid Worker
Security Database over the period 2006–16 and, even though it cannot be considered ultimate
for the abovementioned issues, it is among the most reliable sources and allows some reflections,
which are helpful to reply at least to the first two questions; that is to say, understanding how
NGOs react to the decreasing security and shape their performances accordingly. Figure 39.1
presents the number of victims among aid workers in aggregate terms, including all categories
of workers.2 Data are disaggregated per year in Figure 39.2.

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 NGOs and security in conflict zones

1520

833
752

91

International NGO staff Local NGO staf f UN staff ICRC staff

Figure 39.1 Total number of incidents concerning humanitarian workers per category, 2006–16
Source: Stoddard, Harmer, and Czwarno (2017), Aid Worker Security Database, https://aidworkersecurity.org.

206

176
157 156
148 148
141 137
132 129
110 107 110
102 98
91 86
77 71
61 55 65 67 61
55 58
39 35
46 44 47 44 46

10 10 14 16 12
4 5 9 5 3 3

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
UN staf f International NGO staff Local NGO staff ICRC staf f

Figure 39.2 Number of incidents concerning humanitarian workers per year, 2006–16
Source: Stoddard, Harmer, and Czwarno (2017), Aid Worker Security Database, https://aidworkersecurity.org.

As the data demonstrate, incidents concerning aid workers are frequent and increasing, in
parallel to the increasing of conflicts and crises. The timeline considered here is not ample, but
sufficient to give an overview of such process. Comparing different categories, it is clear that
NGOs’ workers are most exposed to violence, with local ones even more so. Additional data

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Daniela Irrera

2020

176 263 168 208 169 163 112 124 71

48 50

2015 2016

Figure 39.3 Number of incidents concerning humanitarian workers per typology, 2015–16
Source: UN OCHA, World Humanitarian Data and Trends 2017, http://interactive.unocha.org/publication/
datatrends2017.

provided by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs report
not only that incidents to aid workers have increased in the last two years, but they have also
diversified in their methods.
The most interesting element, which can be seen in Figure 39.3, is the fact that, while the num-
ber of kidnappings and releases has decreased in 2016, the arrests and detentions have immensely
boosted, revealing the exposure to arbitrary procedures by local police and officers, other than to
violence and attacks. Data should obviously be contextualised and analysed within the specific con-
texts of conflicts and in respect to local governments and actors. To address this, some additional
features should be considered. The perpetrators of violence are the first one. According to the
Report, when violence is attributed to state actors there may be two types of victims: (1) deliberate
and targeted attacks by the host state, and (2) incidents of crossfire of the host state and/or interven-
ing powers, which may cause accidents and collateral damage (Stoddard et al., 2017).
Clearly, aid workers may fall victim to attacks by perpetrators that target all civilians, or may
be affected by terrorist events which attack hotels, markets, and other crowded spaces. However,
this is a minor cause and as Wille and Fast (2010) sustain, compared to other categories, humani-
tarian agencies are more likely to be the victims of targeted attacks in specific countries, depend-
ing on the level of violence of conflicts and the presence of the so-called non-state armed groups
(NSAGs). When violence is attributed to these, it is usually deliberate and humanitarian workers
are the main target. Data provided by the Global Terrorism Database on the regions in which
incidents to aid workers have occurred since 1996 can provide more insights.
Figure 39.4 refers to terrorist and violent attacks3 which had NGOs and humanitarian agen-
cies as the main target. Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia constitute the regions in which more
events have been reported. This is confirmed by academic works and agency reports which have
extensively investigated case studies, like Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and Sri Lanka, among oth-
ers. Groups like Taliban, Al-Nusra, Al-Qaida, ISIS, and Al Shabaab have been the most active
and the most responsible for attacks against organisations.

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 NGOs and security in conflict zones

1
1

North America South America South Asia South East Asia Sub-Saharan Africa

Figure 39.4 Number of incidents concerning humanitarian workers per region, 1996–2014
Source: Global Terrorism Database, 2017.

When it comes to the second feature, the motivations of violence, the collusion with the
‘enemy’ is the most claimed argument. According to the research done for the preparation of the
Report, the majority of NSAGs do not consider aid agency members as spies. However, they
may still suspect them of colluding with political actors, particularly because they are financially
sustained. The association of aid agencies and workers to an opposing party has serious implica-
tions and is normally used to justify strikes and violence against them, and also among the local
population. This particularly happens in those cases in which NGOs are strongly perceived as
‘implementing partners’ of states and international organisations, rather than neutral actors. They
are therefore seen as ‘outsiders’ within international organisations; that is to say, a huge UN hybrid
bureaucratic system which needs a set of nonbureaucratic supporters (Heins 2008). The main
consequence (and problem) is that this perception may generate confusion in the roles which are
played in the field. As noted by Glad (2012), armed opposition groups, especially in high-risk
areas, tend to consider the UN as a party to the conflict and to bring NGOs in their fight. The
attacks suffered in the last year by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Afghanistan may be read
as an example of such confusion. A second consequence is that many NGOs increasingly fear
that association with UN peacekeeping or highly politicised missions can damage their image
as neutral actors, producing a decrease in their security. Religious transgression and violation of
local codes are also claimed to justify violence, but as a secondary cause (Stoddard et al., 2017).
Finally, the third feature is the level of preparation and awareness aid workers should be pro-
vided with. As stated in all manuals and documents prepared by experts, in conflict zones, and
particularly where NSAGs are present and operational, humanitarian NGOs should be aware
of the risk of lethal attacks, and increase the preparation of humanitarian workers, knowledge,
and awareness as preliminary crucial steps (Lloyd Roberts, 2005; Stoddard et al., 2017). This has
gradually developed and diversified over the years, shifting from training on basic knowledge
on logistics and skills, to the inclusion of political and strategical considerations. This complex

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process of adaptation has led NGOs to be more aware of the fact that working in conflict zones
also means being ready and able to interact with a variety of actors (international, national, legal,
or illegal) which are inevitably essential for managing different aspects of the conflict. However,
it has also worsened additional controversial issues; that is to say, moral, legal, and political
dilemmas. There are two internal factors which are the result of these developments in how
NGOs approach and face the conflicts and which can impact their security.
The first factor is related to international norms and principles and is both legal and ethical.
NGO workers benefit from protected status, which is accorded to all humanitarian aid organi-
sations under international humanitarian law; that is to say, the Geneva Conventions of 1949
and their Additional Protocols of 1977, to name the most important and established. One of
the main achievements in global politics has been the wide acknowledgement of this, but it is
likewise widely known that one of the consequences of the ‘new’ conflicts is the fact that, in
practice, state and non-state actors have repeatedly violated this norm, with the clear majority
of aid worker attacks unpunished (Stoddard et al., 2017). Additionally (and even worse), the
international protection is mostly used by NSAGs to justify their violence. NGOs’ deference to
international humanitarian law, in fact, is considered – and presented to local populations that
NSAGs aim to represent – as a guarantee of political involvement and lack of neutrality; in other
words, as a sign of collusion.
Claiming the (necessary) international protection and remaining neutral is one of the most
striking dilemmas for NGOs. This primarily affects the adherence and coherence of princi-
ples (first of all, the ‘do no harm’ principle) in their tasks in the conflicting parts, but also in
the identification of logistics (transport, food, shelter, etc.) which would not bias their work
and would not cause them to be perceived as biased. As Goodhand points out, humanitarian
actors (including intergovernmental agencies, but also NGOs themselves) should devote more
time and efforts to the development of a solid ethical framework, which allows them to adapt
principles to very diversified conflict settings, like Afghanistan, Iraq, Liberia, and Sri Lanka
(Goodhand, 2000). Strengthening NGOs’ ethical framework to reach their humanitarian needs
and goals and, at the same time, trying to avoid manipulation is an indirect cause of violence.
The second factor is related to the controlling of security and safety in the field. Scholars
have stressed the distinction between security and safety, for identifying the main cause of vio-
lence and the nature of threats. Security deals with (but is not limited to) robbery, aggressive
crowds, landmines, aerial bombardments, artillery fire, ambush, crossfire, and hostage taking.
Meanwhile, threats to safety are mainly consequences of accidents, driving, or health issues,
including sexual ones (King, 2004; Barnett, 2004; Fast, 2007).
Fast (2007) adds another relevant distinction, between ambient insecurity, referring to an
indiscriminate condition of violence in a given country or region, and situational insecurity,
which is rather due to a specific condition involving a specific organisation. This distinction is
much more explanatory for the purposes of the analysis in this chapter and coherent with the
qualities of NGOs described in the previous section.
Despite the fact the conditions of ambient insecurity can hardly be changed or modified, and
because they are also dependent on local factors and other individual actors, depending on their
specific nature, their approach to conflicts, and their humanitarian ‘style’, NGOs are more likely
to intervene on situational insecurity, ameliorating or worsening it. In some cases, organisations
can develop a capacity of control over some areas or fields and/or determine explicit restric-
tions or implicit constraints (Wood, 2006). Therefore, while they are far from ambient security,
some performances can impact situational security (or safety) and make workers more likely to
be exposed to violence.

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 NGOs and security in conflict zones

The third factor concerns the dilemma between the civilian and military dimension; that is
to say, the relations NGOs inevitably have with the international or national military troops
deployed over the same territory. It is also a direct (and coherent) consequence of how NGOs
have adjusted their performances in line with the general transformations affecting the humani-
tarian system.
As described in previous paragraphs, the changing nature of conflicts has produced a change
even in the traditional tools of peacekeeping and peacebuilding. Integrated missions and civil–
military cooperation have requested more involvement on the part of NGOs, but also created a
controversial debate on the suitability of interact with military forces, deployed in the field, both
on a wider ethical side and on a more practical one.
Those missions, which are specifically conceived for achieving civilian goals or which are
the result of large coalitions and benefit from high international legitimacy, can create a bet-
ter protected environment, from which NGOs can value as well as work more proficiently.
Empirical research has demonstrated that the reality may be quite complicated and that working
on the same conflict in the same territory has pushed NGOs to oscillate among a wide variety
of interactions with military force, going from no contact at all, to advice and technical support,
until there are some forms of dialogue and coordination. It is true that any contact, even for only
fulfilling practical tasks or on an occasional basis, can alter an NGO’s approach and make them
more visibly associated with the enemy parts. However, the necessity to continue their work in
safe conditions is one of the reasons for establishing such informal or sometimes formal practices
of cooperation, depending, most of the time, on local conditions and on personal relations with
individual officials.
The final factor which will be discussed at the end of this chapter, to sum up the main find-
ings and replies to questions, is the last resort or the biggest form of adaptation to local condi-
tions without undermining their mission; that is to say, the practices established by NGOs in
those cases in which local conditions are so difficult and bad that their humanitarian work is no
longer allowed. In October 2017, the International Committee of the Red Cross announced a
significant reduction of its personnel in Afghanistan, following a series of violent attacks (BBC, 9
October 2017). This is an example of specific practices developed by NGOs over the last years,
in facing the decrease in security. While a complete suspension of activity is a drastic decision
which may impact the organisation performance and the humanitarian work already provided,
a reduction is a practice which has become more common to several NGOs. Scholars have ana-
lysed how, far from being a mere practical decision, reduction is a shift in the approach which
may cause political and ethical issues.
Stoddard, Harmer, and Renouf (2010) use the term remote management to name an opera-
tional response to insecurity, which involves the drastic reduction of international and some-
times national personnel from the field, transferring larger programme responsibilities to local
staff or local partner organisations. The variety of implications it may produce is quite large.
On one hand, it affects one of the most important added values aid workers may provide, the
direct monitoring of project implementation and coordination with similar ones. On the other,
it requires the consideration of several unforeseeable variables, like the criticality and sensitive-
ness of the programmes, the feasibility of technical aspects, and the expertise and availability
of local partners (Stoddard, Harmer, and Renouf, 2010). In the short and long term, remote
management can also affect the relations with donors and the coordination mechanisms with
international organisations and agencies.
Even this last practice is clearly a side, inevitable, and (probably) unintended effect of how
the humanitarian system and the crises it has to face are changing.

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Daniela Irrera

Crucial actors in a changing world

At the end of this analysis, the topic of security of conflict zones and the implications this has for
NGO work is an extremely urgent one. The media always report on attacks launched against
humanitarian workers in various conflict areas. Many NGOs decide to continue, despite the seri-
ousness of their working conditions, while some others sometimes prefer to reduce their com-
mitment. The humanitarian system is facing a huge dilemma. On the one hand, the increasing
complexity of conflicts and crises requires additional efforts and more civilian expertise, while on
the other humanitarian workers appear as more and more vulnerable and exposed to more risks.
What is sustained here is that the current conditions in which NGOs operate are a mixture
of external and internal factors, which are basically due to the changes in security and conflicts.
Therefore, in parallel to external factors, due to the changes in global security, in the effects of
contemporary conflicts, and in the tools and competences to tackle, the likelihood that NGOs’
workers may be exposed to violence is also due to a series of internal ones, related to their own
humanitarian identity and approach which influence their performances.
Among the big community of aid workers, NGOs remain the most controversial. On the
one hand, they are provided with competences and expertise the humanitarian system cannot
do without. On the other, they bring a very heavy legal, ethical, and political burden. The
same applies to NSAGs responsible for violence. In their view, NGOs are helpful actors which
may facilitate their cause and alleviate people’s needs. However, their (sometimes) ambiguous
performances and the hybridity of their nature and tasks make them look like worrying parties.
Despite the visibility of attacks in media reports, problems encountered by NGOs in conflict
zones remain an under-researched and undervalued issue, which deserves more attention from
scholarly and political points of view.
As for the first one, the topic clearly requires more empirical and theoretical research, even
though scholars from the International Relations and Security Studies community have greatly
contributed to investigating the causes and consequences of violence attacks and their correla-
tion with the most striking contemporary conflicts. More comparative analysis as well as broader
research are needed to sustain knowledge and highlight its developments.
As for the second one, the strengthening of security conditions for NGOs, as well as for other
aid workers, should enter the political agendas of international and regional organisations and be
part of debates on conflict management and external interventions. Additionally, it should become
a concern for all major humanitarian agencies and NGOs themselves to promote a broader and
collective reflection on the actual preparation of workers and the dynamics of mission tasks.
This is clearly a problem which cannot be definitively solved and which is part of the game.
The more conflicts diversify, the more NGOs will be needed and requested. The more NGOs
are involved in the field, the less secure their working conditions will be. Far from being totally
neutral or totally distant from political constraints, this is an additional manifest aspect of the
controversial and relevant role NGOs play in contemporary world politics.

Notes
1 Humanitarian Outcomes is a team of consultants and former aid workers, aiming at providing advice to
agencies and governments. The Aid Worker Security Database (AWSD) is one of their projects. It is used
in this chapter as a reliable and non-political source.
2 In AWSD, major incidents include killings, kidnappings, and attacks that result in serious injuries. ‘Aid
workers’ are the employees and associated personnel of not-for-profit aid agencies (both national and
international). This includes NGOs, ICRC, the UN agencies belonging to the Inter-Agency Standing
Committee on Humanitarian Affairs (FAO, OCHA, UNDP, UNFPA, UNHCR, UNICEF, UN-Habitat,

584
 NGOs and security in conflict zones

WFP and WHO), plus IOM and UNRWA. This does not include UN peacekeeping personnel, human
rights workers, election monitors, or advocacy organisations. https://aidworkersecurity.org/about.
3 According to GTD, a terrorist attack is ‘the threatened or actual use of illegal force and violence by a non-
state actor to attain a political, economic, religious, or social goal through fear, coercion, or intimidation’.

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 40
NGOs and the challenge of
global terrorism
Omi Hodwitz

Introduction
The attacks on the United States on 11 September 2001 (9/11) changed the face of terrorism
and counterterrorism. They reshaped narratives surrounding security and society, created a
climate of fear and suspicion, vilified particular communities and their representatives, and
generated a backlash effect that was felt in many sectors of civil society. This chapter focuses
on non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the challenges they face in the age of global
terrorism. The chapter begins with a brief introduction to contemporary terrorism. This is
followed by a discussion of specific challenges, including those that (1) originate from terrorist
organizations and (2) originate from counterterrorism measures. The former revolves around
issues of NGO safety and security. NGOs are at increased risk of violence as terrorists seek
to acquire NGO resources, question their neutrality, and view them as competitors for con-
stituent support. Regarding counterterrorism measures, many of these have hindered NGO
operations through the creation of legal hurdles, discriminatory practices, and administrative
and donor uncertainty.

Global terrorism today

Discussions of terrorism usually begin with a definition. This is an act of necessity; no universal
definition currently exists and different nations and interested parties attach their own meaning
to the concept. Areas of disagreement arise around issues of definitional exclusivity: for example,
should state-sponsored terrorism, insurgencies, and criminal activities carried out by extremist
organizations be included in discussions of terrorism? For the sake of simplicity, this chapter
uses a definition that is common among academics and researchers. Specifically, terrorism is the
intentional use of violence or threat of violence by non-state actors aimed at achieving a politi-
cal, social, economic, and/or religious goal (LaFree & Dugan, 2007). Terrorist acts are carried
out with the intention of intimidating or coercing a larger audience and they fall outside the
parameters of international humanitarian law.

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Omi Hodwitz

In addition to a definition, discussions of contemporary terrorism also tend to begin with the
9/11 attacks, despite the fact that terrorism has been a pressing issue for some time. Rapoport
(2004), for example, posits that there were four waves of terrorism dating back to the end of
the 19th century. The first wave originated with anarchists in Russia, followed by anti-colonial
and New Left terrorism. Rapoport suggests that the fourth and most recent wave is religious in
nature, beginning in 1979 and inspired by the Iranian Revolution. While there is tremendous
value in exploring the earlier waves of terrorism, the task of this chapter is to focus on contem-
porary challenges; therefore, we will direct our attention to the fourth wave of terrorism with
an emphasis on the post-9/11 period.
Within the definitional and temporal boundaries described above, modern-day global ter-
rorism has a number of notable characteristics. First, terrorism trends have fluctuated dra-
matically over the last several decades. As illustrated in Figure 40.1, annual counts of terrorist
attacks remained relatively consistent until 2011 when they rose dramatically to peak in 2014
before beginning a decline.1 Second, as illustrated in Figure 40.2, much of the increase in
recent years has occurred in four regions: the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia,
Southeast Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa.2 Together, these trends suggest that terrorism is more
prevalent now than it was in previous decades and tends to be localized to specific regions.
It is important to note that, in 2016, the highest number of attacks occurred in Afghanistan,
Pakistan, Iraq, India, and Yemen; areas that also experience high levels of conflict and pov-
erty. This becomes particularly relevant when discussing NGOs in light of the fact that a
great deal of humanitarian and human rights work also takes place in these conflict-ridden
and impoverished areas.

Annual Terrorist Attacks

18000

16000

14000

12000

10000

8000

6000

4000

2000

Figure 40.1 Annual number of terrorist attacks, 1979–2016

588
 NGOs and the challenge of global terrorism

Regions with High Concentrations of Terrorist Attacks

8000

7000

6000

5000 Middle East and North Africa

South Asia
4000
Southeast Asia
3000 Sub-Saharan Africa

2000

1000

Figure 40.2 Annual number of terrorist attacks in regions with high levels of terrorism,
1979–2016

NGOs and terrorism

Similar to global trends in terrorism, attacks targeting NGOs have increased in recent years.
As illustrated in Figure 40.3, rates fluctuated unpredictably until 2007 when incidents rose
dramatically. In the decade leading up to 2007, there were approximately 16 attacks targeting
NGOs per year; in the decade following 2007, this number increased by nearly 300 percent
to an average of 45 attacks per year. Hoelscher and colleagues (2015) note that there are two
likely reasons for this: first, there is an increase in the number of NGO employees and volun-
teers in the field which increases the absolute number of attacks and, second, a small number
of countries are driving the overall increase in attacks, where both the absolute number and
the averages are trending upwards. Fast (2010) confirms that the absolute number of NGO
representatives has been increasing but posits that, absolute numbers aside, the global rate of
violence against NGOs has been escalating since 2007. In other words, ‘the number of vic-
tims relative to the estimated total number of aid workers (the attack rate) continues to rise’
(Humanitarian Outcomes, 2014).
Fast’s (2010) position is supported by empirical research. Evidence suggests that attacks tar-
geting NGOs are not randomly distributed; an increase in these incidents does not simply
reflect the fact that there are more workers in the field who may inadvertently get caught in the
crossfire of an ongoing conflict. Murdie and Stapley (2014) demonstrated that, as the number of
NGOs increases, so too do terrorist attacks targeting them. However, this relationship is isolated
to human rights organizations, not humanitarian NGOs, suggesting that extremist groups are
selective in their targeting choices. Hodwitz (2018) found that, in Afghanistan and Somalia, an
increase in specific NGO activities, including media and campaign work, led to an increase in
terrorist attacks targeting NGOs, suggesting that attacks on NGOs are an intentional response
to NGO efforts. In other words, these studies suggest that specific NGOs engaged in specific
work elicit a targeted violent response.

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Omi Hodwitz

Annual Terrorist Attacks Targeting NGOs

90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

Figure 40.3 Annual number of terrorist attacks targeting NGOs, 1979–2016

The increase in attacks targeting NGOs is likely the result of a number of factors. First, as
terrorist groups grow and evolve, they require more resources, some of which can be supplied
by civil society, thus making NGOs an appealing target. Second, concerns regarding NGO
neutrality and independence from government and military bodies have become more promi-
nent post-9/11, giving terrorist groups reason to challenge NGO intentions and motives. Third,
NGOs often work with and advocate for the same constituents that terrorist organizations pur-
port to represent and support, creating a potentially competitive dynamic. Each of these factors
has contributed to an environment of charged political animosity, putting humanitarian and
human rights workers at increased risk of political violence.

NGOs as resources
There are a number of ways in which a terrorist organization can use NGOs as a means to
acquire resources and replenish depleted supplies. In many circumstances, NGOs are the unwill-
ing recipients of direct physical violence, such as when terrorists raid aid distribution sites and
kidnap workers for ransom. In other situations, NGOs may be threatened but not experience
physical violence, such as when they are forced to pay a terror tax in order to access and operate
in a conflict area. Regardless of whether the interaction results in violence, these scenarios place
NGO workers at risk, hinder operational capabilities, and redirect much-needed support from
displaced and impoverished populations to extremist groups.
Arguably one of the more debilitating threats to the NGO functionality in conflict areas
consists of attacks on their aid and supplies, often the sole purpose of their presence in a spe-
cific region. Since 2000, the majority of humanitarian aid has been directed to areas marked by
political conflict; areas also inhabited by terrorist and rebel organizations (Global Humanitarian
Assistance, 2013). In these regions, refugee camps and aid stations are often equipped with large
quantities of materials, including food, vehicles, money, and medicine. Terrorist organizations

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in these regions, whether due to a shortage of goods and materials or simply a desire to stockpile
supplies, will engage in a variety of techniques in order to acquire these resources. NGO sites
become attractive targets and, as such, have been the subject of looting and targeted attacks.
A Yemeni official, for example, reported that extremist groups had carried out at least 48 raids
on humanitarian aid and relief sites in the country in 2017 alone (Asharq Al-Awsat, 2017).
Along the same lines, Syrian officials report that rebels loot aid sites and then sell the supplies to
Syrian civilians for inflated prices (Press TV, 2016). In addition to the loss of resources, NGO
workers and civilians at these locations become vulnerable targets and may be subject to physi-
cal violence as terrorist groups seek to commandeer key resources. Wood and Sullivan (2015)
found that the introduction of aid to an area doubled terrorist violence directed at civilians and
an increase in pre-existing aid led to a 25 percent increase in terrorist attacks.
In addition to looting and raids, terrorist organizations have found other ways to cull resources
from NGOs. Although terrorists use a number of tactics, NGO workers are subject to more
kidnappings than any other kind of attack. According to the Global Terrorism Database (2018),
there were 290 politically motivated kidnappings of NGO workers and affiliates between 1979
and 2016 and at least one quarter of these were paired with a ransom demand. In many cases,
these demands involved millions of U.S. dollars, making payment an unlikely outcome and
increasing the chances that captives would be killed. Khalil Rasjed Dale, a British member of
the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), provides a ready example. He was kid-
napped in January 2012, in Quetta, Pakistan, where he was managing a health program for the
ICRC (International Business Times, 2012). The Tehreek-e-Taliban claimed responsibility for
the incident and demanded a ransom of $30 million USD. Khalil Rasjed Dale was killed when it
became apparent that the ransom was not going to be paid. His story is not unique; similar inci-
dents involved Kayla Jean Mueller and Peter Kassig, both from the United States, and Heinrich
Wolfgang from Germany, to name but a few. While many of these kidnappings may not result
in payment, enough end in an exchange of funds to make it a lucrative tactic. As such, many of
the largest terrorist organizations, such as the Islamic State, Al-Shabaab, and Boko Haram, have
used it as a method of acquiring finances and other resources.
Taxes and payments are a final means by which terrorist organizations can access NGO
resources. NGOs are often subject to a terror tax. In order to ensure safe passage through a
contested region or to operate in a terrorist-controlled area, NGOs are required to pay rebel
groups. Jackson and Giustozzi (2012) report that NGOs in Afghanistan are taxed 10 percent by
the Taliban. Al-Shabaab has set up a similar system of revenue collection in Somalia. As one
Al-Shabaab collector noted,

We also want resources and they [NGOs] are among the few available resources. We don’t
charge them [the] same, some we charge 30 per cent, 25 per cent, 20 per cent, 15 per cent
and 10 per cent. The difference is based on trust of what they tell us, how long they have
been working with us, how much we can depend on them when it comes to voluntary
contribution and how we trust them not spying [on] us or related to our enemies.
(Humanitarian Outcomes, 2014, p. 15)

NGOs may also be required to supply extremist groups with medical assistance, food, shel-
ter, vehicles, and occasionally hire selected terrorist members. A failure to do so can result
in violence directed toward NGO representatives. In the words of one Taliban commander,
attacks against aid agencies are carried out because ‘they didn’t accept our rules and regu-
lation, they didn’t pay our tax, they came to our areas without permission’ (Jackson &
Giustozzi, 2012, p. 15).

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NGO neutrality and independence

NGO workers are at risk when their neutrality is questioned. Historically, many NGOs have
been able to access conflict areas because they were believed to be impartial parties in an ongo-
ing political dispute. However, a series of factors have called into question the independence of
NGOs, resulting in the belief that these organizations are politicized or manipulated by govern-
ment and military forces.
Both government and non-governmental representatives contribute to the blurred lines
between NGOs and government organizations. Many NGOs accept government funding,
often without establishing conditional boundaries on its use, thus giving the impression that
their work is part of the donating government’s agenda (De Torrente, 2004). During the
Iraq War, for example, NGOs were advised to emphasize their ties to the Bush administra-
tion if they wanted to secure U.S. funding and many complied (Fast, 2014). In areas such
as Afghanistan, the government is administratively weak and unable to provide the services
needed by the citizenry and, oftentimes, although NGOs attempt to distance themselves from
those in power, NGOs will step in and provide support where the state has failed, effectively
ensuring the government remains in a position of power (Narang & Stanton, 2017). In these
circumstances, it can appear that NGOs are supporting the government. In many cases, inter-
actions between NGOs and the military have increased, including the provision of military
escorts for NGO workers in conflict areas, thus giving the impression that NGOs are working
with the military. In addition, many international NGOs originate in countries that provide
troops to coalition forces that counter terrorism and, thus, are assumed to share the values and
ideals of their home governments.
These tenuous links between NGOs and political entities are exacerbated by government
actions and statements. In 2001, United States Secretary of State Colin Powell stated that
‘American NGOs are out there serving and sacrificing on the front lines of freedom. NGOs are
such a force multiplier for us, such an important part of our combat team’ (as cited by Ly, 2007,
p. 181). In 2009, Richard Holbrooke, the United States envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan,
stated that NGOs supplied 90 percent of the intelligence on the Taliban (Fast, 2010). In some
areas, the aid emblem on delivery packages is replaced with a state flag and a nationalist dec-
laration (Ly, 2007). In Afghanistan, military forces have occasionally disguised themselves as
aid workers, distributing pamphlets that stated that supplies and support would be provided in
exchange for information about the Taliban (Terry, 2011).
These measures have tarnished the reputation of NGOs, giving terrorist groups the impres-
sion that NGOs are indistinguishable from the government or military. As one Taliban com-
mander stated when discussing NGOs, ‘when we became convinced that our support for them
resulted in benefits for the current government and Americans, we started opposing them’
(Jackson & Giustozzi, 2012, p. 24). In the same set of interviews, another commander decried
‘even a small child can see that such NGOs are American spies and only working against the
Taliban’ (p. 16). A former social affairs officer for Al-Shabaab (AS) reported that the group

believes that all NGOs work for spying agencies and it is AS policy to make it difficult for
NGOs to work in AS controlled area. They say they are here for humanitarian purpose but
what they are actually doing is spying, measuring the land and reconnaissance.
(Humanitarian Outcomes, 2014, p. 13)

These sentiments and others like them suggest that terrorist organizations view NGOs as active
and willing participants in a political game and, as such, deserving recipients of violent action.

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NGOs as competitors
Terrorist organizations are inherently competitive entities; their survival depends on it. In order to
endure, these organizations rely on a number of factors, including the support of a constituency or
local population. The public provides recruits, material support, and bargaining power and, in many
cases, the organization purports to exist in order to advocate for a disadvantaged or oppressed com-
munity. A failure to win or maintain the support of the population can lead to the demise of a terror-
ist group, as is evident in the downfall of a number of terrorist organizations (Cronin, 2009). Scholars
have noted that one of the primary rivals for constituent support is other terrorist organizations,
leading groups to use increasingly violent means of political expression as organizations vie to present
themselves as the more formidable ally (Bloom, 2004). Suicide bombings, for example, increased in
the Palestinian region and in Sri Lanka as rival terrorist organizations sought to outbid each other for
constituent support. However, terrorist organizations are not the only competitors; NGOs present a
less visible but potentially equally threatening challenger for public support and allegiance.
There are a number of ways that NGOs challenge terrorist organizations. On one level,
human rights NGOs offer a nonviolent and effective advocacy alternative for oppressed constit-
uents. History indicates that a nonviolent strategy is more likely to succeed than a violent one;
communities that struggle for autonomy, territory, and cultural and religious freedoms are more
likely to accomplish their goals if they align themselves with advocacy NGOs than with terrorist
groups (Chenoweth & Stephan, 2011). If the public is aware of this, NGOs become a legitimate
rival for constituent support. In addition, human rights groups may advocate for reconciliation
and, if the public attends to this message, this will threaten terrorists’ ability to mobilize the
population. Finally, advocacy groups may actively campaign against terrorist organizations, sign-
aling a zero-sum game between themselves and extremists. Amnesty International, for exam-
ple, often campaigns against terrorist groups they accuse of committing war crimes (Amnesty
International, 2017). As such, human rights organizations are viable contenders for constituent
support and this can lead to a violent response from terrorist groups.
On another level, humanitarian organizations often provide aid and services that reduce
citizen dependencies on rebel groups (Narang & Stanton, 2017). As mentioned previously,
oftentimes weak governments cannot provide all of the services required by a population and
NGOs may fill these gaps. This bolsters the legitimacy and strength of the government, reduces
citizen dissatisfaction, and decreases incentives for constituents to support terrorism. Within this
context, attacking NGO workers is an appealing strategy if it will cause NGOs to withdraw,
remove their support and services, inflict hardships on the constituents, and, ultimately, increase
support for terrorist organizations. As one former Al-Shabaab commander put it, a group will
‘believe the aid organisations work against them by creating segments of society that do not
need AS at all’ (Humanitarian Outcomes, 2014, p. 14).

NGO responses to threats and violence

In the face of escalating violence, NGOs have responded in a number of ways. The least dis-
ruptive response is the ‘soft acceptance approach’, whereby NGOs emphasize the humanitarian
nature of their activities while attempting to forge relationships with violent groups. Critics
suggest that this strategy is unlikely to be successful, positing that ‘aid organisations are being
attacked not just because they are perceived to be cooperating with Western political actors,
but because they are perceived as wholly a part of the Western agenda’ (Stoddard et al., 2009,
p. 6). These scholars point out that NGOs that attempt to disassociate themselves from a politi-
cal agenda continue to be victims of political violence.

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Many organizations have hired security advisors or risk management specialists and have
increased the security of their compounds and their staff members. On-site NGO workers now
undergo field-security training, with an emphasis on skills such as spotting anomalies, observing
neighborhood changes, and interpreting relatively innocuous events as points of potential danger
(e.g., a car accident on the side of the road could be an opportunity for a car-jacking) (Duffield,
2012). Increasing security may also mean retreating into Green Zones (heavily defended com-
plexes of embassies and United Nations facilities) and heavy fortifications, including razor wire,
entrance tunnels, and blocked roads: a process of ‘bunkerization’ (2012, p. 477). Unfortunately,
increased security often consists of a military presence, which can further exacerbate perceptions
that NGOs are working in partnership with the military. In addition, retreating behind walls
and adopting a risk-sensitive interpretation of contextual cues can hinder NGOs’ abilities to
integrate and build relationships with local communities.
Select NGOs have also downplayed their local profile, minimizing their visibility to terrorist
groups. This may involve adopting a more discreet presence, limiting travel in conflict areas, and
keeping worker numbers low. Following the Iraq War, for example, NGOs uniformly adopted
a culture of limited visibility in Iraq in order to avoid being targeted. According to the NGO
Coordination Committee for Iraq (NCCI), this was met with limited success; attacks contin-
ued but, likely due in part to an attempt to remain invisible, these attacks went underreported
and undercounted (Zwitter, 2010). In addition to impacting the accurate tracking of violence
directed toward NGOs, minimizing presence also limits the ability of these organizations to
operate at their full capacity.
International NGOs may introduce remote management as they subcontract some of their
tasks to local NGOs (Stoddard et al., 2010). The organization will transfer some of its respon-
sibilities to local groups, operating from afar while also removing some portion of its on-site
membership in order to keep them out of harm’s way. Most, if not all, of the major interna-
tional NGOs have engaged in some form of remote management, some on a temporary basis
and others as standard operating procedure. While this minimizes the harm directed toward
international staff, it has a number of shortcomings. First, it can be difficult to return to on-
site programming once remote management has been implemented. Second, it increases the
chances that terrorist groups shift their perceptions of bias and competition from international
organizations to local organizations. Lastly, the quality of the services and aid provided and the
efficiency and accountability of the NGO program can be compromised during and after a
switch to remote management.
Finally, many NGOs have been forced to withdraw from conflict areas when faced with
diminished staff safety. The ICRC, an organization renowned for its neutrality and impressive
humanitarian efforts, provides a ready example of this outcome. At the end of 2017, the ICRC
closed two offices and downsized a third following several attacks in Afghanistan during the
previous year (ICRC, 2017). In 2015, the ICRC was forced to withdraw from its humanitar-
ian compound in South Sudan after the compound was raided and staff members were threat-
ened (ICRC, 2015). The year prior, the ICRC withdrew staff members from Libya after one
member was executed (The Guardian, 2014). In 2013, the ICRC pulled staff from Afghanistan
following a suicide attack on their Jalalabad compound during which one staff member was
killed (Radio Free Europe, 2013). The ICRC is not the only NGO forced to respond this way;
Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), the Danish Refugee Council (DRC), and Oxfam, to name
but a few, have all withdrawn from areas with high levels of terrorism due to concerns for staff
safety. Withdrawal is an extreme measure that may protect NGO workers, but debilitates any
further NGO efforts in the area and devastates local populations who rely on NGO support.

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NGOs confronting terrorism

As described above, many NGO responses to terrorism have been designed to secure workers
and facilities, but civil society has also directly and indirectly confronted terrorism in order to
protect the general public, destabilize politically violent groups, or seek peaceful resolutions to
terrorist campaigns. One aspect of this involves simply fulfilling an organizational mission: these
groups deliver aid and services to areas and communities that have been ravaged by terrorist
attacks, thus offsetting the effects of terrorism. Humanitarian organizations like Mercy Corps
and Oxfam provide support to terrorist-stricken regions like Somalia and Syria despite the risk
imposed by local terrorist groups. This improves the lives of the impacted citizenry and dimin-
ishes the consequences of political violence.
Human rights organizations also actively campaign against terrorist organizations in order to
turn public opinion against these groups. Through lobbying efforts, demonstrations, and educa-
tional initiatives, groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch seek to mobilize
the general public and put pressure on the government to address the grievances underlying ter-
rorist movements, to crack down on political violence, and to engage in diplomacy and negotia-
tions when appropriate. Also, as mentioned previously, human rights organizations can offer an
attractive alternative for oppressed constituencies who are seeking allies. Historically, nonviolent
organizations have been effective at gaining freedoms and autonomies for communities pursu-
ing recognition, liberation, and grievance resolution (Chenoweth & Stephan, 2011). Terrorist
organizations may purport to represent these same communities. By advocating for oppressed
persons, human rights organizations are contributing to the destabilization of terrorist groups by
offering an effective and nonviolent alternative to terrorism and, thus, shifting the allegiances of
a constituency away from militant groups.
Lastly, NGOs may become involved in peacebuilding, a process that focuses on establish-
ing and sustaining peace by addressing underlying causes or grievances. Peacebuilding involves
conflict reduction or resolution through contact and cooperation, addressing prejudice, rec-
onciliation practices, mediation, and related activities. 3P Human Security and similar NGOs
have become involved in a variety of peacebuilding activities, including mediation work with
terrorist groups, sending militant members who have taken part in successful peaceful resolu-
tion processes to areas to serve as mentors and teachers for groups that are considering media-
tion, and offering non-violence and mediation trainings to religious and academic authorities
in conflict areas (Boon-Kuo et al., 2015). Although still rare, NGO-led peacebuilding activities
are increasing.
In sum, one of the more pressing contemporary challenges faced by NGOs is real or threat-
ened physical violence at the hands of terrorists. Terrorist organizations are dramatically escalating
their attacks targeting NGOs, fueled by a number of factors, including a desire to acquire NGO
resources, distrust concerning NGO neutrality, and perceptions that NGOs are competitors.
Terrorist attacks on NGO targets have been debilitating for civil society. They have depleted
NGO resources and caused NGOs to withdraw from conflict areas. In addition, attacks have
resulted in hundreds of deaths and injuries. NGOs have responded by advertising their impartial-
ity, securing their workers and their facilities, or withdrawing or hiding their presence in conflict
areas. They have also responded by campaigning against terrorist organizations, campaigning for
oppressed constituencies, facilitating peacebuilding activities, and delivering support to commu-
nities affected by terrorism, all the while increasing the risk posed to NGO workers. Perhaps it
is no surprise then that, in 2010, the Australian Council for International Development ranked
humanitarian aid worker as one of the most dangerous careers in the world.

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NGOs and counterterrorism

Terrorism certainly creates challenges for NGOs, but so too do counterterrorism efforts.
Following 9/11, there was a notable shift in the field of international and domestic coun-
terterrorism policy and practices. A number of restrictions, guidelines, and regulations were
altered, introduced, and implemented, many of which directly or indirectly targeted NGOs.
These restrictions were based on the assumption that NGOs are particularly susceptible to being
manipulated by terrorist organizations and, therefore, are in need of additional monitoring
and control. Authorities feared that extremist groups would hide behind NGOs or use them
to funnel funds into violent campaigns (Hayes, 2017). As such, international bodies, including
the United Nations (UN) and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), introduced a series of
recommendations and regulations designed to eliminate terrorist affiliations with NGOs. The
new restrictions affected NGOs in a number of ways, including inserting legal roadblocks that
encumbered timely progress, limiting access to donors and financial services, and hindering
operations on the ground.

The United Nations

The United Nations (UN) Security Council’s counterterrorism resolution 1373 is particularly
relevant for NGOs and other civil society members. Resolution 1373 was implemented follow-
ing 9/11 and requires all nations to introduce laws that criminalize terrorism and the support of
terrorism, including freezing the assets of any party that commits terrorist acts or is associated
with terrorist groups and individuals (United Nations, 2001). Resolution 1373, however, has
been criticized on a number of fronts, including definitional ambiguity and unrealistic compli-
ance requirements. Regarding the former, Resolution 1373 fails to provide a specific definition
of terrorism, instead allowing states to implement their own definition. As noted by the UN
Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Counterterrorism,
the freedom to define terrorism holds ‘the potential for deliberate misuse’ and can result in leg-
islation that may ‘target civil society, silence human rights defenders . . . and criminalize peaceful
activities’ (Emmerson, 2015). In Brazil, for example, new counterterrorism legislation defines
terrorism as acts motivated by ‘political extremism’ which opponents view as a means by which
to target legitimate protest activities (Human Rights Watch, 2015). In Peru, President Garcia
passed a law requiring all NGOs and donors to register with a government agency which critics
believe is an attempt to immobilize NGOs (Howell et al., 2008).
In addition to definitional ambiguities, Resolution 1373 also sets potentially unattainable
compliance standards. Under the resolution, states are required to create laws that prohibit the
financial support of terrorist activities directly and indirectly. In order to be in compliance with
these laws, NGOs are obligated to verify that all potential partners and affiliates are free from
terrorist ties. However, there are hundreds of lists of designated terrorist organizations and indi-
viduals, many of which are populated with armed opposition groups and government entities.
It can be an insurmountable and costly burden for NGOs to access and crosscheck these lists to
ensure that they are not in violation (Hayes, 2017).

Financial Action Task Force

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which is responsible for devising rules regarding ter-
rorist financing, is a lesser-known but equally important body in counterterrorism initiatives.
Following 9/11, the FATF codified UN Resolution 1373 in a series of recommendations for

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states and financial institutions (FATF, 2012). The FATF recommendations for addressing ter-
rorist financing include such measures as freezing assets, creating mechanisms to report suspi-
cious activities, and reviewing the regulations for entities at risk of being abused by terrorists,
including non-profit-organizations (NPOs). Recommendation 8 specifically addresses NPOs,
identifying them as particularly vulnerable to exploitation and prescribing a number of measures
to combat abuse; these include supervision and monitoring of NPOs, gathering of information
on NPOs, and active investigations of NPOs. Banking and financial institutions that fail to com-
ply with FATF recommendations can be fined, have their banking licenses revoked, and may
face criminal prosecution. Similar to Resolution 1373, the FATF recommendations have been
criticized on a number of fronts, including the state use of Recommendation 8 to target and
silence NGOs and the fact that overly cautious financial regulations have hindered the ability of
NGOs to operate effectively.
More than 190 countries are now obligated to implement FATF recommendations and
are reviewed on a rolling basis to ensure compliance (Hayes, 2017). For developing countries,
aid and investment opportunities are contingent on compliance ratings. However, legislative
reform is often shielded from public scrutiny and the use of compliance ratings can push through
measures that have been criticized by human rights advocates. In addition, researchers have
found that states have failed to limit their regulatory measures to the intended target: a small sub-
set of the non-profit community particularly vulnerable to terrorist financing (Hayes & Jones,
2015). Instead, states have produced broad legislation that extends beyond high-risk NGOs,
encompassing instead a broad swathe of civil society members, potentially immobilizing them.
Cambodia, for example, implemented a law requiring that all NGOs register with the govern-
ment and maintain political neutrality (United Nations, 2015). Uganda passed a bill in 2015 that
gave the government the power to disband NGOs and imprison their members; this has raised
concerns among a number of NGOs, including LGBTQ groups that fear they will be subject
to targeted scrutiny due to state intolerance of homosexuality (News 24, 2015). Both countries
implemented these legislative changes after receiving poor compliance ratings from the FATF.
Faced with criticism, the FATF released a ‘Best Practices’ guide for addressing the potential
abuse of NGOs in 2015 and, in 2016, further clarified the meaning of NGO ‘vulnerability’ to
terrorist financing; however, it remains to be seen how these additional guidelines will affect
state regulatory practices (FATF, 2015, 2016).
The FATF recommendations have influenced legislative measures but have also had a direct
impact on the financial community and their dealings with NGOs. The FATF requires that
financial institutions monitor the activities of their customers in order to detect terrorist financ-
ing. As the number of groups and individuals designated as terrorists increases, so too has the risk
of inadvertently doing business with them. Financial institutions have responded by engaging in
risk analyses of current or potential clients, oftentimes applying stringent guidelines that exceed
FATF recommendations (Metcalfe-Hough et al., 2015). This results in the denial of services to
organizations with a risky profile, including NGOs working with specific communities and in
conflict areas. Compliant NGOs have to engage in costly and time-consuming administrative
measures in their financial dealings, although compliance does not guarantee successful transac-
tions. In addition, as a result of FATF expectations, banking institutions have delayed financial
transactions for unwarranted periods of time. When financial transactions are delayed due to
an investigation, often the NGOs are required to bear the cost of the investigation (Pantuliano
et al., 2011). Financial institutions have also refused to open accounts for new clients and have
closed pre-existing accounts, often without warning or without giving a reason. In 2015, the
Bank of America closed the account of Syria Relief and Development after which the NGO
transferred its account to Wells Fargo (Barry & Ensign, 2016). Before long, Wells Fargo also

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closed the Syria Relief and Development account, resulting in a four-month delay in the pay-
ment of NGO employees. In 2015, HSBC closed the account of the Islamic Relief Worldwide
after blocking donations coming in and payments going out (Mandhai, 2016). An advocacy
group called the Charity and Security Network surveyed a number of humanitarian NGOs in
2013 and found that more than half of the respondents reported delays or denials in international
transactions and approximately 15 percent faced account closures (Barry & Ensign, 2016). Many
of the NGOs affected by Recommendation 8 are small charities that do not have the financial
reserves necessary to survive an interruption in donations.
In addition to implementing oftentimes insurmountable administrative hurdles, UN and
FATF regulations have hindered the abilities of NGOs to provide humanitarian aid in areas
marked with political or cultural strife. In many conflict areas, banned organizations control the
territory and NGO access is contingent on paying a fee. For example, as mentioned previously,
humanitarian organizations in Afghanistan not only have to register in order to access Taliban
territory, but also pay a tax and, oftentimes, goods delivered to the civilian populations in these
areas can be diverted to extremist groups (Jackson & Giustozzi, 2012). Both the payment of
a terrorist tax or entry permit and the diversion of goods to local groups constitute providing
material support. This puts NGOs attempting to deliver aid in a difficult position; they can
either continue in their work and risk criminal prosecution or discontinue their work in areas
with a heavy terrorist presence.

Differential impacts of counterterrorism initiatives

The effects of counterterrorism initiatives have not been uniformly felt within the NGO sector.
Smaller local NGOs find the new hurdles particularly costly and prohibitive. Screening potential
beneficiaries, donors, and partners, meeting banking standards, applying for exemptions, and com-
plying with administrative expectations are unachievable goals for many NPOs. In addition, donors
and foundations have begun to prioritize low-risk partners, such as large international NGOs, and
service delivery over political work, to the detriment of small organizations and advocacy groups
(Howell et al., 2008; Mackintosh & Duplat, 2013). As a consequence, large service-oriented NGOs
that are amenable to regulation and better able to communicate using discourse compatible with
counterterrorism regulations are more likely to receive donor attention and funding.
Religiously oriented NGOs have also faced disadvantages and, in some cases, discrimination,
in the name of counterterrorism. Many of the political attacks in recent years have been framed
by terrorists as part of a holy war in the name of Islam. This has led to unfounded suspicions
that religiously based NGOs may have potential affiliations with terrorist groups. Christian
and Jewish NGOs are forced to go to extremes to demonstrate their neutrality in politics and
religion (Macrae & Harmer, 2003). Muslim organizations, particularly those based in Western
nations, have been intensely scrutinized, their reputations damaged, and a number have had
their assets frozen and operations halted (Metcalfe-Hough et al., 2015; United Nations, 2009).
In the United States, for example, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and
the Benevolence International Foundation both had their assets frozen following 9/11 (Sidel,
2011). In some cases, the heads of Muslim organizations have been charged with providing
support for terrorist activity because of their links to organizations in extremist regions that are
under suspicion. In addition, private donors have decreased their funding for fear of the conse-
quences of being affiliated with a Muslim organization (Pantuliano et al., 2011), and others have
been reluctant to open new charities (Billica, 2006).
NGOs have also been differentially affected based on where they are headquartered. NGOs
originating in the United States have, for example, felt the impact of domestic restrictions more

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severely than those from the United Kingdom. In the United States, counterterrorism initiatives
were historically distinct from the regulation of NGOs; however, following the attacks in 2001,
a number of measures were passed that amended previous legislation, pairing NGO regulation
with counterterrorism, accusing NGOs of ‘being a significant source of alleged terrorist sup-
port’ (US Department of the Treasury, 2002, p. 2) and signaling that NGOs had the potential
to threaten national security (Bloodgood & Tremblay-Boire, 2011). The new approach adopts a
prosecutorial stance and is based on aggressive surveillance, increased penalties, and the removal
of legal defenses such as a lack of knowledge and intent.
Similar to the United States, the United Kingdom amended and increased counterterrorism
measures following 9/11, but maintained the perspective that ‘the majority of the charities in
this country are legitimate . . . and have no involvement in terrorism’ (Home Office and HM
Treasury, 2007, p. 4). Legislative changes focused on increasing the power of the pre-existing
Charity Commission, an independent regulator of charities in England and Wales, and a priority
was placed on preventative surveillance (Bloodgood & Tremblay-Boire, 2011). Comparisons
between the two countries illustrate that, while regulation and subsequent NGO behavior have
changed in both cases, the change has been notably less severe and less reactionary in the UK.
National responses to specific NGOs, such as Interpal which has operations in both countries,
illustrate this difference. The United States alleged that Interpal was linked to Hamas and pro-
scribed its activities (Sidel, 2011). Shortly after, the United Kingdom opened a formal investiga-
tion of Interpal and froze its assets. Upon finding no evidence to support US allegations, the
UK unfroze the accounts and closed the inquiry. When requested, the US failed to produce
evidence linking Interpal to Hamas but continued to proscribe Interpal activities.
In the years following 9/11, US-based NGOs have responded to increased surveillance and
decreased funding with defensive caution (Foundation Center, 2008; Guinane et al., 2008);
meanwhile, UK-based charities have actively engaged in the British legislative process and with
the Charity Commission (Bloodgood & Tremblay-Boire, 2011, p. 149). NGOs in both loca-
tions report uncertainty about counterterrorism measures, fearing the ‘shadow of the law’ (Carter
et al., 2008, p. 167). NGOs in the US and the UK simply do not know how the measures will
be applied and enforced, whether they will be targeted, and how they are expected to respond.

NGO responses to counterterrorism

Confusion and uncertainty surrounding counterterrorism measures have led to a variety of
NGO responses. In practice, very few NGOs have been prosecuted for supporting terrorist
organizations, but a handful of successful convictions, such as the Islamic Relief Organization
in the Philippines or the Holy Land Foundation in the United States, have led NGOs to alter
their behaviors for fear of potential repercussions (Hayes, 2017). While regulations are intended
to increase transparency and accountability, they have in some cases had the opposite effect as
NGOs hide their relationships with designated groups and individuals in order to protect them-
selves from prosecution. The fear of prosecution has also prevented many NGOs from forming
a united front in opposition to ambiguous and extreme counterterrorist measures. Many organi-
zations are reluctant to even discuss these initiatives and to share information with other NGOs.
Whereas some NGOs have gone silent, others, such as Doctors Without Borders and
Legal Defense Fund, engage in mild forms of resistance. These acts of defiance include
refusing to compare and verify organizational employees against government lists of des-
ignated terrorists and refusing to sign grant contracts that include anti-terrorist certifica-
tions (Bloodgood & Tremblay-Boire, 2011). A limited number of NGOs, such as Human
Rights Watch, have also engaged in vocal opposition by hosting protests, drafting press

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releases, and writing op-ed articles. Although these activities have not, as of yet, resulted in
notable backlash, these organizations run the risk of punitive government response, includ-
ing forced changes in tax status, fines, and even imprisonment.
A number of NGOs have responded to counterterrorism regulations by moving operations
to less risky regions or communities and engaging in self-censorship of their advocacy work.
For example, in 2014, NGOs reported that they failed to deliver aid to Palestinians hiding
in Hamas-run sites or to provide support for the rebuilding of Hamas-run schools for fear of
violating US counterterrorism policy (Metcalfe-Hough et al., 2015). The Charity and Security
Network has documented a number of NGO-led peacebuilding activities that have been halted
or redirected because some of the participating groups or individuals were on the US terror list
(Boon-Kuo et al., 2015). These include projects that would have supported the travel of listed
members to share their experiences of successful peacebuilding with other groups, non-violence
training for religious school teachers, and dispute resolution training for Gaza students. In addi-
tion, a number of NGOs have completely withdrawn from areas such as Syria, Pakistan, India,
and Sri Lanka due to concerns that their operations would violate counterterrorism regulations.
Some NGOs have acquiesced by engaging in such activities as stringent vetting procedures
of staff members, beneficiaries, and other allied partners. While this has ensured compliance, it
has also increased levels of distrust in the NGO community. This distrust has been magnified
by events that indicate partner vetting practices may lead to increased government surveillance.
Leaked Snowden documents, for example, reported that USAID provided data to intelligence
agencies in order to comply with the law and vet potential organizational partners; this data was
then used to expand a terrorist database (Hayes, 2017). In this case, an NGO became an active
participant in intelligence-gathering.
In response to banking regulations, some NGOs have been forced to adopt unorthodox
financial practices, such as bringing large cash sums into conflict areas. This activity has been car-
ried out under the assumption that banking institutions are unreliable and inconsistent (Metcalfe-
Hough et al., 2015). This practice puts NGO workers transporting cash at an increased risk of
attack, thus threatening their safety and decreasing the likelihood that the funds will reach the
intended destination.
While most NGOs have focused on compliance or noncompliance, some NGOs have sought
clarity through legal channels. There are a number of instances of NGOs instigating court chal-
lenges to clarify ambiguous regulations, such as the meaning of material support, probable cause
as grounds to freeze an organization’s assets, and potential violations of due process (Bloodgood
& Tremblay-Boire, 2011). A great deal of uncertainty stems from the overlap between volun-
tary compliance and formal provisions and court challenges are designed to lend some clarity
to these ambiguities. Most of these challenges have been sought by groups that are founded by
lawyers (e.g., the American Civil Liberties Union) or by NGOs that have been targeted for dis-
solution under counterterrorism regulations.
In addition to litigation, NGOs may also choose to work with regulatory agencies and
legislators to create or revise counterterrorism policy (Bloodgood & Tremblay-Boire, 2011).
Through a variety of measures, including testifying before government or active lobbying, the
organizations engage in collaborative practices with the end goal of creating mutually benefi-
cial and realistic regulations. Cooperation between civil society and regulators is more com-
mon in countries with institutionalized means of NGO participation. In Canada, for example,
the Voluntary Sector Initiative creates opportunities for partnerships between NGOs and the
government. As a result of initiatives like this, NGOs, including Amnesty International, the
Canadian Red Cross, and the Muslim Council of Montreal, have participated in the creation of
counterterrorism legislation following 9/11.

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With the exception of participation in legislative process, NGOs have found counterterror-
ism policy to be an impediment at best. NGOs have had to modify behaviors and practices in
order to hide from or comply with regulations. These responses put their operational capabili-
ties, their legal standing, and their communities at risk.

Concluding remarks
As we settle into a post-9/11 world, NGOs continue to face a great number of terrorism-related
challenges, including increased legal uncertainties, discrimination, administrative hurdles, and
threats to safety and security. The extent, severity, and lived reality of these challenges have
been identified but not thoroughly explored by the research community. Government, legal,
and academic scholars have paid limited attention to the relationship between NGOs, terror-
ist violence, or counterterrorism measures. This absence of research ensures that NGOs are ill
protected from political violence and state interference.
There are two branches of future research that scholars could pursue that may facilitate the
safety, security, and unencumbered operations of NGOs. One area of study involves determin-
ing how to protect NGO workers from terrorist attacks while still allowing them to carry out
their organizational duties. Does a soft acceptance approach, for example, have an impact on
violence directed at an NGO? What security measures are most effective in thwarting raids on
aid centers and NGO offices? What measures are most effective at establishing and communicat-
ing NGO independence and neutrality? The relationship between NGO activities and terrorist
violence is underexplored and, as a consequence, evidence-based best practices to ensure NGO
safety and integrity are limited, at best.
Counterterrorism policies offer a second area of future study. It is both the responsibility
of the government and the academic community to examine and compare the objectives and
consequences of regulations and initiatives. Policies, once implemented, should be assessed for
effectiveness and, if found wanting, altered or eliminated. Unfortunately, little is known about
the effectiveness of these policies; they have not been subjected to the level of scrutiny to which
many initiatives are exposed. First, researchers need to ascertain how NGOs are affected by
these initiatives. As it currently stands, there is a notable dearth of information on the impact
on NGOs and their responses to counterterrorism laws, likely due to fear of prosecution and
a resulting lack of transparency. Once the effects on NGOs are established, researchers need
to explore whether these policies are curbing terrorist financing and support. If the research
community can establish these two metrics, counterterrorism initiatives can be assessed in their
entirety, including both their costs and benefits. Failing to carry out these necessary measures
of assessment ensures that NGOs are controlled by blind policies, or measures whose effects are
unknown and may be causing more harm than good.
Counterterrorism policies and terrorist violence pose near insurmountable challenges for
NGOs in this age; however, there are several developments that suggest that the weight of
these burdens may be lifted in the future. First, physical risk to NGO workers in conflict areas
may be stabilizing or subsiding. As illustrated in Figure 40.3, attacks targeting NGOs reached
an all-time high in 2013 and then began to decline steadily. We can hope this trend contin-
ues, perhaps signaling a diminishing interest on the part of terrorist organizations in target-
ing NGOs for political reasons or material gains. Second, select governing bodies have begun
publicly recognizing the hardship that NGOs face in the age of counterterrorism. A number
of administrations have made commitments to work with NGOs in navigating these hurdles.
In 2013, for example, the Obama administration launched the Stand with Civil Society cam-
paign which had three primary goals: promoting laws and policies that supported civil society

601
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while also complying with international standards, coordinating a response to unnecessary

restrictions, and identifying innovative ways to support civil society (The White House, 2014).
Along similar lines, the European Union created the European Endowment for Democracy in
2013, a democracy support organization, and, in 2016, ‘recognised the essential role of CSOs
[Civil Society Organizations]’ and opined that ‘a more strategic engagement with CSOs should
be mainstreamed in all external instruments and programmes and in all areas of cooperation’
(European Union Committee, 2016). While these gestures do not provide a panacea solution
to the problems NGOs have encountered in this age of global terrorism, they do suggest a shift
in the perspectives of organizations and administrations alike, one that might move NGOs away
from the precarious position they currently occupy, freeing them to fulfill their specific man-
dates in a manner that does not put them at physical or legal risk.

Notes
1 The data used in this chapter comes from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) provided by the
University of Maryland. An observant reader will note that 1993 is missing; the University of Maryland
inherited the GTD from Pinkerton Global Intelligence Services, who misplaced this year of data during
an office move.
2 The rates of terrorism in these four regions dwarfed other regions, making them difficult to detect.
Therefore, for the sake of discernibility, Figure 40.3 only includes these four regions. Middle East
and North Africa include Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya,
Morocco, North Yemen, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Yemen, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates,
West Bank and Gaza Strip, Western Sahara, and Yemen. South Asia includes Afghanistan, Bangladesh,
Bhutan, India, Maldives, Mauritius, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Southeast Asia includes Brunei,
Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, South Vietnam,
Thailand, and Vietnam. Sub-Saharan Africa includes Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi,
Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti,
Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast,
Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria,
People’s Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Rhodesia, Rwanda, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra
Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zaire, Zambia,
and Zimbabwe.

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 41
International NGO legitimacy
Challenges and responses

Maryam Zarnegar Deloffre and Hans Peter Schmitz

Introduction
In 2010, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Port-au-Prince, Haiti, killing an estimated 220,000
people, injuring even more, and rendering 1.5 million people homeless. The American Red
Cross raised nearly US$500 million for its humanitarian response to this earthquake, but subse-
quently faced public criticism about the use of these funds. Journalists were unable to substanti-
ate the organization’s claims to have helped 4.5 million people and built hundreds of homes, and
criticized the program’s high administrative costs, the deployment of inexperienced staff, and
the lack of consultation with Haitians on projects (Sullivan 2015). In early 2018, revelations that
Oxfam’s country director and several male employees exploited Haitians for sex as the organi-
zation was supporting survivors of the earthquake in 2011 stunned the aid world. The scandal
exposed an organizational culture that put concerns about brand and donations ahead of being
fully transparent about allegations of sexual misconduct (Edwards 2018).
Both scandals involve broader debates about International Non-Governmental Organizations’
(INGOs) legitimacy. In the case of the Red Cross, the organization misrepresented its achieve-
ments and used inappropriate procedures, whereas the Oxfam scandal exposed gaps between the
moral claims of INGOs and their behavior on the ground. Such reckoning is not unusual for the
sector, and took place on many occasions, including after the Biafra war in the late 1960s and
the Rwanda genocide in 1994. In each of these cases, questions about the behavior of individual
NGOs turned into a legitimacy crisis for the sector overall (Klarreich and Polman 2012; Schuller
2012; Terry 2002).
INGOs face regular legitimacy challenges because many of them claim to stand for human
rights, abide by principles such as impartiality, and pursue fundamental social or political change.
In claiming the moral high ground, INGOs are vulnerable to intense scrutiny by a wide range of
stakeholders, including governments, constituents, their own staff, peers, and the general public.
Challenges to INGO legitimacy have increased over time as the goals of these organizations
become more ambitious and political. Many development aid groups have shifted their atten-
tion from less controversial service delivery to engage in more advocacy (Lindenberg and Bryant
2001). INGOs have also become more visible actors as a result of their significant successes in
shaping global governance. In pledging to work for social progress and transformation, INGOs

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face backlash not only from those benefiting from the status quo, but also those expecting these
groups to deliver on their grand promises. INGOs’ oft-rehearsed strategy of holding others
accountable has led their critics to call on these organizations to also become more transparent
and accountable. At the same time, these organizations have experienced significant growth and
professionalization, which has undermined their comparative advantages of being innovative,
nimble, and grassroots-focused. Observers see these organizations as “too big to fail” and with a
shifting focus toward survival (Walton et al. 2016), rather than pursuing their original missions
(Bush 2015).
The critiques directed at INGOs have led to greater self-reflection (BOND 2015; Green
2015), but also to specific measures designed to enhance INGO legitimacy in the eyes of their
stakeholders (Rusca and Schwartz 2012). Some of these measures are taken collectively, while
others are taken by each organization as part of regular organizational and strategic change
processes (Lux and Bruno-van Vijfeijken 2012). We argue in this chapter that the growing
focus on INGO legitimacy reflects not only increased demands for demonstrating outcomes
and impact, but also for yielding greater control to supporters and constituents. Debates about
INGO legitimacy are best understood as intimately linked to how various stakeholders view the
basic purpose of organizations and the sector overall.
The first part of this chapter elaborates how INGO legitimacy challenges are ultimately
tied to questions about their basic purpose. The second part introduces the “4 Ps” model of
legitimacy practices focused on purpose, people, practices, and performance (Deloffre n.d.).
The model offers an attempt to conceptualize legitimacy in a way that enables empirical
analysis across disciplines. The third section provides insights into some recent sector- and
organizational-level efforts by INGOs focused on addressing legitimacy challenges in the four
areas identified. We conclude that INGOs cannot neglect legitimacy issues since doing so will
put them at greater risk for co-optation by states and corporate actors who are capable of con-
trolling access to resources and venues. If INGOs only “depend on acceptance by dominant
groups and powerful decision-makers . . . they will function to sustain rather than challenge
the structures of power” (Gutterman 2013: 391; see also Jaeger 2007).

The link between INGO legitimacy and purpose

INGOs are non-profit organizations routinely working across borders but often headquartered
in developed countries of the Global North. They are “any organized group of people that are
not direct agents of individual governments” and do not pursue criminal, violent, or primarily
profit-making activities (Willetts 2011: 31). For the purposes of this chapter, we focus primar-
ily on INGOs with a high public profile and authority (Stroup and Wong 2017), and draw on
more well-known examples of legitimacy crises in the sector.
INGOs are legally established in their country of origin and subject to national laws in coun-
tries where they work, but do not hold any formal legal status at the international level (Martens
2002). INGOs are independent actors with their own governing structures and accountability
practices, which means that their legitimacy is negotiated as part of a complex web of depend-
encies, including governments granting access, donors providing resources, and peer organiza-
tions offering networking opportunities. Legitimacy is deeply embedded in social relationships,
and contingent upon an actor’s perceptions of another actor, rule, or institution. We thus use
Suchman’s definition of organizational legitimacy as a starting point for how we conceptual-
ize INGO legitimacy – “a generalized perception or assumption that the actions of an entity
are desirable, proper, or appropriate within some socially constructed system of norms, val-
ues, beliefs and definitions” (Suchman 1995: 574). Legitimacy is closely linked to but clearly

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separate from accountability. Accountability refers to how an INGO reports on and answers for
its actions (Rubenstein 2014), which is a way of turning “its power into legitimate authority”
(Balboa 2015: 161). While accountability involves discreet actions by the organization toward
its stakeholders, legitimacy is a quality accorded to or withheld from the organization by those
same stakeholders. Accountability practices can be central to maintaining legitimacy, but we
show below that legitimacy perceptions emerge from a complex and often chaotic web of social
interactions (Moore 2014).
Legitimacy is a three-legged stool supported by legal recognition, a set of shared norms,
and “actions expressing consent” (Beetham 2013: 38). On all three counts, INGOs face regu-
lar challenges simply because they lack legal status at the international level, work across cul-
turally diverse contexts, and do not have a coherent, dominant constituency (Yanacopulos
2015: 50; Thrandardottir 2017). Businesses have owners or shareholders, while governments are
responsible for a defined population. INGOs typically face fewer requirements associated with
legal status, they frequently work on culturally sensitive issues (e.g., women’s empowerment
or immigrant rights), and they often face conflicting stakeholder demands (e.g., donors look
for efficiency, while clients desire effectiveness). While governments and businesses may face
similar legitimacy challenges, INGOs cannot rely on elections or profits as a baseline measure
of legitimation (Rubenstein 2014). If they fail to recognize and manage the legitimacy issues
associated with their presence and purpose, then INGOs face the prospect of diminished trust
and authority.
The good news is that global trust in NGOs remains relatively stable at slightly above 50
percent over time. The sector has for years edged out business as the most trusted institution
in the general population and the informed public, while media and government remain well
behind (Edelman 2018). This trust is mainly based on a combination of two assumptions the
public makes about non-profits: First, the non-profit sector addresses some of the most difficult
social and political problems in the world. The general public supports INGOs because they
promise action on issues such as global poverty, environmental destruction, and human rights
abuses. Second, they do so with very limited financial reward as non-profits in most countries
cannot benefit their owners and operate under the non-distribution constraint (Valentinov
2008). Public trust in the non-profit sector derives from legal regulations limiting profit and
wrongdoing, but also from the fact that these groups take on social issues not addressed by
governments and markets.
Increasing demands on INGOs have created persistent legitimacy challenges, however.
It is no longer sufficient to base legitimacy claims on the non-distribution constraint or
being the only sector addressing neglected local and global problems. Donors’ and the
public’s understandings of INGOs, their roles, and responsibilities have changed, and they
now demand INGOs demonstrate results and effectiveness (Mitchell 2013). At the same
time, local partners and affected populations apply “bottom-up” pressure and demand that
INGOs relinquish more control over program planning and implementation. These shift-
ing understandings of legitimacy produce questions regarding the purpose, practices, and
structures of INGOs.

The “4 Ps”: legitimacy dimensions

INGO scholars draw on different disciplines to establish dimensions of legitimacy. Based on the
sociology of organizations (Suchman 1995), scholars focus on four primary types of non-state
organizational legitimacy: regulatory, pragmatic, normative, and cognitive (Lister 2003; Walton
2008). The idea of unique dimensions of legitimacy is today widely established, although specific

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labels may vary. Brown’s (2008) analysis of transnational civil society identifies six categories:
regulatory, associational, performance, political, normative, and cognitive. Pallas et al. (2015)
hold that INGOs typically make distinct claims focused on democratic, moral, and technical
legitimacy. Our approach here is to provide an overarching framework for these dimensions of
INGO legitimacy by organizing them under the “4 Ps” (Deloffre n.d.) that emphasize the ways
in which stakeholders shape perceptions of legitimacy.
The “4 Ps” of INGO legitimacy express a concern for purpose, performance, processes, and
people. When considering purpose, we focus on the mission of INGOs and ask: legitimate for
what? INGOs pursue goals and activities that fit more or less with broad social understandings of
what is their appropriate role. A focus on processes asks legitimate how? and refers to the proce-
dures used by INGOs to conduct their work and whether these procedures conform to legal and
social standards. Performance is based on how well an INGO fulfills its stated objectives and how
efficient it is in doing so. Finally, the emphasis on people highlights questions of representation
and participation. To whom does the organization feel accountable and how does it facilitate the
participation and involvement of different stakeholder groups?

Table 41.1 The “4 Ps” of INGO legitimacy

Focus of Legitimacy challenges Responses to legitimacy Examples

legitimacy challenges

Purpose – Cognitive shifts; Adapt to shifts in cognitive Adoption of rights-based

for what? incomprehensibility; understandings; conform approaches; Amnesty
new entrants; to new external norms International’s shift to
hypocrisy establish regional offices;
ActionAid and Oxfam
moving headquarters to
South Africa and Kenya,
respectively
Process – Violations of non-profit Develop voluntary Emergence of Accountable
how? status; criminal codes of conduct, Now (formerly: INGO
behavior; ethical ethics or standards; Accountability Charter)
dilemmas; violation third-party audits; and Core Humanitarian
of professional financial reporting; Standard Alliance
norms; lack of capacity-building
capacity
Perfor- Ineffectiveness; Reduce overhead; increase InterAction’s use of visual
mance – inefficiency monitoring and mapping of member
how evaluation; issue annual projects
well? reports
People – to Opportunistic decision- Transparency measures, CHS Alliance; Greenpeace’s
whom? making; poor including providing MobLab; complaint
responsiveness; information regarding mechanisms/hotlines in
low participation/ outputs and outcomes; humanitarian aid sector
inclusion establish mechanisms
of “downward
accountability”;
expansion of supporter
involvement using social
media

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The issue of purpose emphasizes cognitive, moral, and recognition legitimacy (Suchman
1995; Brown 2008; Collingwood and Logister 2005; Brinkerhoff 2005). Cognitive legitimacy
accrues when an organizational sector, its goals, and its objectives are taken for granted as
part of the cultural fabric of society (Suchman 1995: 582). For example, the notion of charity
and the humanitarian imperative to relieve human suffering exists in most major religious and
philosophical traditions. As the definition of who counts as “human” expanded after WWII,
the act of providing humanitarian assistance to all humans worldwide became a social norm
(Finnemore 2003). INGOs conform to this prevailing architecture of social norms to rationalize
and justify their purpose and actions publicly. We now expect INGOs such as Médecins Sans
Frontières (MSF) or Oxfam to provide humanitarian assistance wherever calamity might strike
(Calhoun 2008). Cognitive legitimacy focuses on what organizations represent, not what they
do or how they do it. Purpose legitimacy is expressed in being recognized by governments and
other actors, including securing consultative status in intergovernmental organizations or form-
ing partnerships with other actors (Collingwood and Logister 2005).
Process legitimacy includes an emphasis on regulatory, normative, and procedural (through-
put) issues. Regulatory legitimacy requires compliance with national laws and regulations
including the legal requirements of designations such as tax-exempt status. Since INGOs are
often incorporated in one country but work in others, they are beholden to the domestic laws
of both their home and host countries. Furthermore, although they do not have formal legal
standing in the international system, INGOs often voluntarily embrace international standards
such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a basis for their advocacy and service
delivery (Brown 2008; Ossewaarde et al. 2008). Normative legitimacy means that an organiza-
tion embodies or conforms to widely held social or professional values and norms (Deephouse
and Suchman 2008: 53). This may include adopting specific professional norms (e.g. transpar-
ency) or structures (e.g. accountability officers) that signal compliance with best practices about
how to actually run an INGO.
Performance legitimacy emphasizes how well an INGO meets its stated goals and objec-
tives (Brown 2008; Pallas et al. 2015). Delivering on goals generates external recognition for
the purpose of the organization. Performance indicators might measure the short-term outputs,
such as how many people were reached or what services and expertise were provided (Suchman
1995: 578). But many INGOs today want to be assessed on more than outputs, and increasingly
emphasize medium- or long-term outcomes defined as actually accomplishing the original goals
and mission (Lecy et al. 2012). Such an emphasis on outcomes has led to a growing focus on
measurement and evaluation (M&E) and the rise of theory of change frameworks in the sector
(Mitchell 2013). For example, Oxfam America began in the early 2000s to develop more sys-
tematic program evaluation efforts and added by 2004 M&E specialists to all its program areas
(Ng 2010).
As INGOs grow and become increasingly sophisticated in assessing their impact, they often
face challenges with regard to their democratic accountability or people legitimacy. INGOs
may be successful in scaling up their efforts and global presence, but such success frequently
degrades their ability to be responsive to local needs and be viewed as credible representatives
of the communities they claim to help (Balboa 2018). Professionalization and growth may be
favored by institutional donors, but it may also undercut an INGO’s capacity to adequately
respond to the needs and interests of staff, partners, peer organizations, or local communities
(Lister 2003; Brown 2008). In response, INGOs may adopt complaint mechanisms or establish
democratic procedures of member input in decision-making. INGOs have adopted a variety
of measures to increase their people legitimacy, including relocating their headquarters and
operations to the Global South, systematically transferring skills, knowledge, and resources,

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gradually withdrawing from service delivery to permit local actors to take over these roles,
or enhancing participation in all stages of program planning, implementation, and evaluation
(BOND 2015). For example, ActionAid moved its headquarters from London to Johannesburg
in 2004, Amnesty International established eleven regional offices, and Family for Every Child
decentralized its operations to become a member-led alliance. In addition, many INGOs have
embraced a rights-based approach to development (Schmitz and Mitchell 2016) or have made
citizen empowerment downward accountability a key strategic goal (for details, see Crack,
Chapter 42 of this volume).

INGO legitimacy challenges: purpose, process, performance, people

This section draws on previous work by one of the authors (Deloffre n.d.) that defines and
delineates INGO legitimacy problems. In addition to an overview of legitimacy problems, we
also provide examples of INGO responses to challenges regarding their legitimacy.

Purpose-related challenges to legitimacy

Deloffre suggests four main types of purpose-related legitimacy problems: cognitive shifts –
INGOs unable to conform to existing norms and models because cognitive understandings have
changed; incomprehensibility – mismatch between societal perceptions and INGO legitimacy
claims; new entrants – new INGOs work to gain recognition from the field; and hypocrisy –
mismatch between INGO rhetoric and actions.
Humanitarian and development INGOs initially embraced a charity model of serving the
needy. For example, Oxfam was founded in 1942 as the Oxford Committee of Famine Relief
with the goal of delivering food supplies through to enemy-occupied Greece during World
War II. French INGOs like Doctors of the World (MdM) and Doctors without Borders (MSF)
were founded during the international response to the famine in Biafra, Nigeria. Over time
these ad hoc, primarily grassroots organizations became institutionalized and embraced by major
aid agencies and international institutions as a solution and “magic bullet” (Edwards and Hulme
1995) to persistent poverty. The 1980s and 1990s were marked by challenges to the basic
purpose of the sector. The charity model faced increasing backlash because it did not address
the root causes of humanitarian crises and complex emergencies, often fueled and exacerbated
conflicts, and disrupted local economies and networks (Deloffre 2016). These new understand-
ings of the role of humanitarian aid shifted emphasis from mere “good intentions” to sustained
questions about outcomes and impact.
Paradoxically, as INGOs gained greater recognition and acceptance, often as equal part-
ners with governments and international institutions, they also faced growing challenges to
their legitimacy (Lewis and Kanji 2009). Moving closer to established government agencies and
becoming recipients of aid flows led to organizational growth, new dependencies (Caldwell
2015), and contributed to anxiety that INGOs were “too close for comfort,” losing their grass-
roots origins and being coopted by states’ foreign policy interests.

Process-related challenges to legitimacy

Debates around purpose and mission fundamentally shape INGO behavior and action. Process
legitimacy problems arise from the way INGOs work and may include violations of non-
profit status, criminal behavior, ethical dilemmas, violations of professional norms, and lack
of capacity (Deloffre n.d.). To take one example, perennial debates regarding whether and

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how to use images of the poor to fundraise for humanitarian causes represent a central ethical
dilemma about what constitutes an appropriate means to an end. INGOs use photos of help-
less, suffering, and distraught women and children in fundraising materials to elicit emotional
responses and effectively raise funds. This practice, often referred to as “poverty porn,” is not
without controversy.
During the international response to the 1984 Ethiopian famine, World Vision achieved
notoriety for a series of fundraising documentaries it produced, which broadcast images of infant
burials and feeding centers. While effective in raising funds and the profile of the organization,
the documentaries faced sustained criticism for being “poverty porn” and offering simplistic
solutions to complex problems. Andrea Cana from the World Council of Churches stated at the
time, “They appeal to emotions. They make people think that donating blankets will take care
of the problem, when the solution is really much more complex” (Cervantes 1986). Although
many INGOs have reevaluated how they use images in their fundraising, the constant gap
between humanitarian needs and financial capacity ensures that poverty porn remains prevalent.
As recently as 2017, groups such as Comic Relief and the Disasters Emergencies Committee
(DEC) were criticized for perpetuating stereotypes of impoverished populations and offering
simplistic messages about poverty and development (McVeigh 2017). Process legitimacy prob-
lems might emerge from this type of scenario where ethical principles conflict with the capac-
ity requirements of INGOs, or these organizations may find themselves unable to reconcile
conflicting demands from a wide range of stakeholders. These legitimacy issues can be further
exacerbated when the public start asking questions about the effectiveness of these groups.

Performance-related challenges to legitimacy

INGOs face a complex array of choices and competing demands when trying to maintain or
enhance performance-related legitimacy. These challenges have become increasingly pertinent
as donors and the public require evidence of positive impact rather than “good intentions.”
Performance legitimacy problems thus often concern ineffectiveness and inefficiency (Deloffre
n.d.). Notably the meaning and assessment of being “efficient” or “effective” have changed over
time. The rise of ideas such as philantrocapitalism and strategic philanthropy shows an increas-
ing pressure to apply business-like measurements to the non-profit sector (Edwards 2008).
Charity Navigator, and other external watchdog organizations mostly operating in the United
States, have advanced low overhead spending as a primary measure of organizational efficiency.
However, there is widespread acceptance that a singular focus on overhead spending limits non-
profit capacities and their ability to deliver on the claimed mission to promote human rights,
eradicate poverty, or protect the environment (Lecy and Searing 2015). For INGOs, achieving
efficiency and effectiveness are not necessarily compatible goals.
For instance, in the opening example of this chapter, the Red Cross partnered with local
and international NGOs to provide needed services in areas where it lacked expertise. The Red
Cross formed these partnerships to leverage existing capacities and improve program effective-
ness. However, these partnerships also increased administrative and overhead costs, which con-
tributed to financial inefficiency and is incompatible with donor expectations (Sullivan 2015).
Critiques of the Red Cross’ performance therefore included allegations of failures to deliver
promised services and charges of inflated overhead expenses. As a result of pressures to control
overheads, many organizations have undercut their own capacities to effectively deliver on
mission or develop learning capacities central to strategic adaption (Lecy and Searing 2015).
While INGOs realize efficiencies in outsourcing program operations to partners, doing so also
requires processes for ensuring and monitoring program quality, which increases administrative

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expenses. The experience of the Red Cross is then representative of broader legitimacy chal-
lenges faced by the sector that are to a significant extent due to organizations’ inability to effec-
tively explain what they are doing, how they operate, what their impact is, and why donations
are not a waste if they go to administrative costs.
Balboa (2018) shows that many environmental INGOs begin their work at the global scale,
garnering support through global fundraising efforts, and influencing global decision-making.
As they achieve legitimacy at the global level, they acquire the authority to implement decisions
at the local scale, which grants them additional legitimacy at the global level for being represent-
ative of the local communities and resources. This work at the local level translates to enhanced
fundraising capacity, but also generates a “paradox of scale”: organizations enhance their stand-
ing at the global level, but undermine their ability to create lasting change on the ground.

People-related challenges to legitimacy

Deloffre (n.d.) identifies several possible causes for people-related legitimacy problems: oppor-
tunistic decision-making – where the INGO prioritizes organizational interests over stakeholder
interests; poor responsiveness – where the INGO is not responsive to stakeholder interests; and
low participation – where the INGO does not seek input from main stakeholders in decision-
making. Typically, these issues are understood to raise accountability questions, in particular
whom the INGOs claim to represent, how they engage with stakeholders, and in what ways
they accomplish goals of meaningful participation and empowerment (see also Crack, Chapter
42 of this volume). “By what authority” (Slim 2002) INGOs make claims matters because they
neither rely on elections as a form of democratic legitimacy, nor are they selling goods directly
to individual customers in a competitive marketplace.
As INGOs pursue their missions they interact with a broad range of stakeholders, including
donors, local populations, host governments, the public, peer groups, and staff. In a transnational
context, legitimacy issues arise because INGOs are often more responsive to donors than those
they claim to serve. Donors may push for limiting overhead or measurable outcomes, but poli-
cies implementing these goals have long been questioned because they may undermine long-
term effectiveness and a capacity to respond to local communities (Ebrahim 2010).
Poor INGO responsiveness to local communities remains a persistent critique. The case of
Invisible Children (IC) is representative of how INGOs struggle to translate authentic support
from donors into appropriate strategies at the local level abroad. IC began in 2004 to engage
in grassroots mobilizing and awareness raising about violence in Northern Uganda and mainly
targeted high schools and college campuses. It released the Kony 2012 video online, which was
both a major success in raising funds and led to backlash against the policies advocated by IC.
Critics challenged its advocacy for military action, limited attention to root causes of violence in
the region, and a lack of input from those affected by the violence (Cole 2012).
Voices of the Global South increasingly demand real control over participation in program
planning and implementation. For example, Degan Ali, executive director of Adeso, a Kenyan-
based non-governmental organization, is the founder of a movement of NGOs demanding
reform of the international humanitarian system and, in particular, devolution of power to local
NGOs (Wall 2016).

INGO responses to legitimacy challenges

How have INGOs responded to challenges to their legitimacy? Broadly speaking, INGOs have
often struggled to act collectively to address legitimacy crises. With a few exceptions, these

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responses have also been reactive, rather than anticipatory and strategic. As explained below,
when external watchdogs started to disclose financial information about U.S.-based non-profits
in the late 1990s the sector adapted by seeking to meet standards of low overheads. When
Charity Navigator – after much criticism – started shifting attention from overheads to ask-
ing non-profits for information about their effectiveness, the vast majority of organizations in
the sector were again unprepared and unable to offer systematic information about project-
and organizational-level outcomes and impact. The picture emerging from how INGOs have
sought to enhance their legitimacy is both uneven and marked by a tendency of waiting until
it is inevitable to take some action. There are also clearly leaders in the sector that have consist-
ently pushed the envelope on legitimacy questions long before outside pressure could no longer
be ignored. Although we refer to some examples of sectoral leadership in the subsequent discus-
sion, these leaders are not representative of the sector overall.

Responses to purpose-related legitimacy challenges

Many INGOs in the humanitarian and development sectors have embraced a rights-based
approach (RBA) as a response to legitimacy challenges to their basic purpose (Deloffre 2010).
Based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 and its associated conventions,
RBA allows INGOs to legitimate their efforts by evoking globally accepted norms (Schmitz and
Mitchell 2016). Even if organizations have not explicitly embraced advancing human rights as a
core objective, they have shifted to a more complex understanding of their purpose. For exam-
ple, World Vision’s mission today contains not only references to religious values, but also to
the need to address “deep-seated and often complex economic and social deprivation” (World
Vision International 2017). Widespread claims to advance the resilience of local communities
in an era of climate change also represent INGO efforts to address root causes of vulnerability
(Gaillard 2010).
In the case of human rights groups, such as Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch,
the core legitimacy issue addressed in recent decades has been the neglect of social, economic,
and cultural rights. In efforts to gain support in the Global South, many major advocacy groups
made efforts to look beyond civil and political rights. In some cases, such shifts took place along-
side profound organizational change aimed at elevating voices from outside the Global North.
For example, Amnesty recently opened ten regional offices to create a presence “closer to the
ground” which would allow not only for greater responsiveness to local audiences, but also an
enhanced capacity to re-think purpose and strategies. Similarly, many environmental NGOs
have moved beyond a narrow focus on conservation, and have re-defined their purpose follow-
ing sustained criticism from local communities (Larsen and Brockington 2017).

Responses to process-related legitimacy challenges

Since the 1990s INGOs have founded numerous voluntary standards to self-regulate their
behavior. These standards represent ways in which INGOs maintain process legitimacy by
signaling to their supporters that they not only comply with existing laws and regulations
but also are keen to exceed accountability and transparency standards. These initiatives also
serve the important purpose of defining and formalizing standards that both enhance account-
ability to peers and establish professional principles, norms, and rules for behavior. In this
way they elicit voluntary compliance while sanctioning non-conforming behavior through
reputational and social mechanisms (Deloffre 2016). For example, in response to the “poverty
porn” dilemma discussed previously, several INGOs adopted informal standards for responsible

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use of images in fundraising and media communications. Furthermore, the tenth principle of
the 1994 Code of Conduct for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement
and NGOs in Disaster Relief requires that disaster victims be depicted as dignified individuals
rather than hopeless victims.
Many collective efforts, including Accountable Now or Core Humanitarian Standard
Alliance (CHS), which is discussed in the next section, serve the purpose of establishing trans-
national standards to guide INGO actions and institutionalize professional norms. Accountable
Now was founded in 2008 as the INGO Accountability Charter by ten INGOs establishing self-
policed accountability standards beyond the existing local legal requirements, and now oper-
ates as an independent entity reminding INGOs about the need for regularly improving their
accountability practices. Accountable Now’s 2016 report to its members highlighted a recent
study which found “that only three out of 40 CSOs responded with an appropriate answer to
a complaint test within three weeks” (Accountable Now 2016). The report also noted several
areas where its members should improve their policies and practices including impact measure-
ments and unequal power relations within partnerships. As INGOs accept greater scrutiny of
their behavior, they are likely to face continued criticism and a persistent public discourse about
their shortcomings.
Beyond narrow accountability practices, the rise of the human rights framework and
repeated humanitarian crises, including the Biafra-Nigeria war in the late 1960s and the
Rwandan genocide in 1994, have generated much debate about the basic norms govern-
ing the process of humanitarian action. While neutrality and impartiality define traditional
humanitarian interventions as pure charity designed to secure access to conflict zones, some
INGOs engaged in more overt political advocacy as a way of distancing themselves from
the perceived failures of the past. For individual organizations, these debates create more
controversy (O’Brien 2004), but also offer an expanded menu of how to legitimize their
actions within the broader context of humanitarian norms established by the International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Responses to performance-related legitimacy challenges

INGOs have responded with a mix of pushback and compliance to the rise of overhead-focused
watchdogs such as Charity Navigator. Similarly, the more recent growing push for documenting
measurable outcomes and evidence about a return on (donor) investment has led to expanded
efforts to communicate more than just human “feel-good” stories to stakeholders. The core
challenges INGOs and other non-profits face in this regard include how to generate knowledge
about their effectiveness and the costs associated with measuring outcomes, especially long-term
impact or advocacy efforts. Randomized-controlled trials (RCTs) can offer answers in some
areas but have limited applicability for many INGOs focused on broad social or policy change.
As a result, many INGOs are today able to quantify who is affected by their work, but still strug-
gle to systematically capture what difference their efforts make.
InterAction, the main umbrella organization representing the humanitarian and develop-
ment sectors in the United States, began in 2008 to develop the idea of mapping projects of
its members. The first such map was generated in 2011 and tracked the NGO presence after
the 2010 Haiti earthquake. While innovative, this approach only visualized presence, with-
out providing more detailed data on the effectiveness of the included projects. Subsequently,
InterAction has generated additional maps about the work of its members, but such collective
efforts remain an exception and the majority of organizations have developed their own strate-
gies of demonstrating results and effectiveness. While there are many more joint efforts in the

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area of accountability, performance assessment has not attracted much collective action mainly
because it is a key area where individual organizations can compete and distinguish themselves.
Individual NGOs have long used overhead and other performance-related metrics to signal
their trustworthiness to donors. For example, Charity:water was founded in 2006 with the
promise of channeling 100 percent of donations to the cause, and has recruited “angel inves-
tors” to pay for overhead spending. While this approach says nothing about the effectiveness of
an organization, it does respond to well-documented donor aversion to pay for organizational
capacity (Gneezy et al. 2014). All major INGOs have increased their spending on monitoring
and evaluation as well as expanded their capacities to track outcome and impact. For example,
in 2005 Oxfam established a new department on evaluation, learning, and accountability. More
recently, it also decided to put all its program evaluations and research reports online for pub-
lic access. Ten or fifteen years ago, INGOs rarely reported program failures for fear that these
admissions would adversely affect fundraising. It is much more common today to find INGO
annual reports mentioning struggles in the implementation of activities, which enables organi-
zational learning.

Responses to people-related legitimacy challenges

INGOs can change perceptions about their legitimacy by becoming more representative as well as
more responsive, especially to those they claim to serve. Responses to people-related legitimacy chal-
lenges have taken two primary forms: voluntary standards and digital platforms. In the humanitarian
sector, the CHS Alliance was formed in 2014 through a collaboration of several related initiatives –
HAP International, People In Aid, and the Sphere Project, which were founded in the mid- to late
1990s following humanitarian crises in Somalia, Rwanda, and Kosovo. The CHS Alliance’s Core
Humanitarian Standard on Quality and Accountability is centered on the communities and people
affected by crisis to improve the quality and effectiveness of humanitarian assistance.
The CHS Alliance advances commitments intended to improve process legitimacy by link-
ing it to people legitimacy. The standards create opportunities for meaningful participation
by crises-affected populations by developing complaints procedures for providing feedback on
INGO activity, as well as establishing a right to receive a response to that input. A recent report
finds mixed results. At the process level, the CHS Alliance standards still reflect power imbal-
ances in the sector; initiatives are mostly developed by aid providers with little consultation
with aid recipients and affected communities lack information necessary to hold aid organiza-
tions to account. At the people level, these accountability initiatives in the humanitarian sector
have increased empowerment among participants who are more willing to demand account-
ability from duty-bearers (CHS Alliance 2015: 12). Follow-through on these demands remains
weak; however, INGOs struggle to be responsive to complaints from project participants
(CHS Alliance 2015: 13). On balance, although these initiatives have improved accountability
practices, they have prioritized process rather than people legitimacy. In this sense, measures
designed to enhance legitimacy may inadvertently reinforce existing power inequities and the
very distrust they were designed to eliminate (Keating and Thrandardottir 2017).
Many INGOs have begun to use digital tools to address questions of people legitimacy and
engage more directly and meaningfully with their membership. For example, Greenpeace’s
MobilizationLab (MobLab) has worked since 2011 to innovate how the organization advances
its environmental mission. MobLab represents an answer to the failures of traditional staff-led
campaigning and shifted to a new model of supporter-led organizing. The fundamental shift in
perspective meant that INGO staff no longer viewed their external audiences as mere potential
constituents or supporters, but as partners and even leaders. Digital tools then not only accelerate

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communication between an organization and its stakeholders, but actually give ownership over
topics and campaigns to individuals who use their social networks in recruiting more supporters
and enhance the effectiveness of activism by increasing the quantity and the quality of engage-
ment. Expanding popular support for campaign causes through digital tools can then play a key
role in enhancing the legitimacy of INGOs (Hall and Ireland 2016).

Conclusions
This chapter has offered an overview of INGO legitimacy challenges as well as an analysis of
how these organizations have responded collectively and individually. We see many INGOs
increasingly caught between two contradictory trends: on the one hand, INGOs have increas-
ingly gained recognition and support from society at large and more established actors, such as
the United Nations, governments, and the business sector. On the other hand, this increased
visibility and engagement with INGOs has produced a greater number of critics – including
academics, political opponents, or those that see these groups not deliver on promises – who
challenge the basic purpose and existence of the sector.
A key challenge for INGOs and their leaders today is when and how to align the four
legitimacy dimensions presented here. If they fail to do so, different legitimacy pressures will
exacerbate tensions and the observed lack of coherence. For example, INGOs may emphasize
efficiency and reduction of overhead costs to the detriment of investing in their strategic capaci-
ties and stakeholder engagement. Or they may focus significant attention on the legitimizing
power of international norms and donors, but neglect developing relationships with local com-
munities (Balboa 2014). INGOs have to understand not only the different demands of each
legitimacy dimension, but also their interactions and trade-offs.
In our view, this is also a key area for future research. Our discussion highlights a number
of paradoxes that result from competing demands on individual INGOs and INGO collectives.
Furthermore, our analysis suggests the importance of examining legitimacy in longitudinal con-
text for two reasons. First, historical analysis helps tease out how social contexts and legitimat-
ing audiences interact to (de)legitimize INGO practices such as “poverty porn.” Second, our
discussion shows how solving legitimacy problems in one time period (i.e. adopting RBA after
failed humanitarian interventions in the 1990s) creates new legitimacy problems in subsequent
eras (i.e. demands to devolve power to NGOs in the Global South). We believe that the 4 Ps
framework provides a useful analytical tool to enable investigation of legitimation processes
across units of analysis and time.
While the sector has significant innovative capacity based on the continuous emergence of
new groups, the resulting fragmentation undermines its capacity to act proactively and collec-
tively in shaping external perceptions of its legitimacy. INGO legitimacy issues are ultimately
about the very purpose of the sector. The existence of government or private enterprise has
certainly not gone unquestioned, but the level of doubt about INGOs (or non-profits more
generally) is more prevalent than in other sectors and it is often generated from inside the sec-
tor. There is persistent skepticism that these groups can actually deliver on promises as well as
questions about whether donors supporting these groups are ultimately really interested in see-
ing their missions accomplished (Seibel 1996). The sector continues to assure the public that
“something is being done,” but struggles to demonstrate sustainable success and rarely pushes its
donor base in the Global North to understand how their consumer or environmental behavior
directly contributes to the problems these groups address. With broad mandates and many stake-
holders, any efforts to address the legitimacy crisis point toward a need to define more clearly
the fundamental purpose of the sector and its organizations.

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Deloffre and Schmitz

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 42
NGO accountability
Angela Crack

Accountability is a word that does not have a direct translation in many of the world’s languages,
and yet it is a concept that is inescapable in the NGO sector. Regularly intoned by organisa-
tions as being a touchstone principle in their work, accountability has acquired a ‘taken-for-
granted’ status of a principle to which all NGOs should aspire. Donors attach more importance
to information disclosure than ever before, and contemporary discourse about aid emphasises
the right of recipients to demand answerability from aid providers. This was underlined by the
intense backlash experienced by Oxfam GB when claims surfaced about the sexual exploitation
of Haitian women by fieldworkers. Oxfam was lambasted for not disclosing full details to the
UK’s Department of International Development (DFID), having poor safeguarding procedures
and failing to ensure that the perpetrators were not subsequently employed in humanitarian
work. DFID threatened to withdraw Oxfam’s funding, and thousands of people cancelled their
subscriptions in outrage at their ‘lack of accountability’ (Edwards 2018). Rarely discussed in the
sector just a few decades ago, NGOs now risk reputational suicide if they fail to demonstrate
high standards of accountability.
This chapter outlines the different dimensions of NGO accountability through the analytical
lens of stakeholder theory, which is the most common frame used by practitioners and scholars.
It focuses on the practical issues of implementing accountability by identifying different mecha-
nisms and procedures associated with each set of stakeholders. It also serves as an introduction
to areas of theoretical contestation in the academic literature. It is structured in six sections.
The first section discusses the emergence of the accountability agenda from the end of the Cold
War. Subsequent sections examine upward accountability, downward accountability, internal
accountability and horizontal accountability. The chapter concludes by reflecting on directions
for future research.

The emergence of the accountability agenda

The ‘accountability agenda’ refers to the increased profile of accountability issues in the NGO
sector since c.1990s, and the drivers behind various initiatives to enhance NGO accountability.
It is helpful to consider the emergence of this agenda in the context of factors that fuelled the
proliferation of (especially service provision) NGOs since the end of the Cold War (Edwards

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and Hulme 1995). Major donors boosted foreign aid funding for NGOs, arguing that they
were more likely to be efficient at delivering results, and less corrupt, than state actors. This
neoliberal discourse was primarily promoted by the US and UK, which are among the world’s
largest bilateral donors, and have significant agenda-setting power in international organisa-
tions and multilateral aid agencies. It reflected their ideological commitment to ‘roll back the
state’, based on the conviction that the private sector provides better outcomes than public
actors (Crack 2013a). The electorate also became increasingly vocal in their protests about the
mismanagement of aid, which was popularly attributed to corruption of state officials in devel-
oping countries (Bauhr et al. 2013). However, NGOs were not just blindly trusted by donors
to deliver results; they were expected to measure their performance against key indicators and
provide evidence that they had achieved intended outcomes. This approach was inspired by the
New Public Management (NPM) model which was transforming the public services in donor
countries (Goetz and Jenkins 2002: 80). In accepting state funding, NGOs had to commit to
transparency in their use of funds, and had to demonstrate that taxpayers’ money was spent
responsibly. Therefore, the accountability agenda arose against a backdrop of neoliberal mana-
gerialist discourse (Edwards and Hulme 1996).
The agenda has been latterly propelled by the impact of persistent scandals. Lurid tales of
‘NGO sleaze’ emerged over the years, including financial impropriety, inflated salaries for
CEOs, mismanagement and sexual abuse of aid recipients (Gibelman and Gelman 2004). The
bad publicity tarnished the image of NGOs as trustworthy actors. Accountability measures are
invoked as responses to periodic crises of credibility that threaten to damage public perceptions
of the sector (Gourevitch et al. 2012).
But it would perhaps be excessively cynical to regard the accountability agenda as entirely
driven by the political interests of donors and organisations keen to protect their ‘brand’. As will
be seen, some have argued that there is compelling evidence that NGOs pursue the agenda partly
because of their conviction that they have a moral duty to their stakeholders to be accountable
(Deloffre 2016).
The accountability agenda is shaped by complex configurations of motivations, relation-
ships and mechanisms. Debates revolve around two fundamental questions: (a) to whom should
NGOs be accountable? and (b) what should they be held accountable for? These questions
are inherently controversial, but the settled view in the NGO sector is that accountability is
relational, and involves responsibilities to multiple stakeholders (Ebrahim 2003; Edwards and
Hulme 1995; Gray et al. 2006; Najam 1996). The stakeholder approach conceptualises NGO
accountability relationships as multidirectional: upwards, downwards, internal and horizontal.

Upwards accountability
Upwards accountability refers to the accountability responsibilities that NGOs have in their
relationships with donors and governments. These responsibilities mainly fall within two cat-
egories: financial and legal accountability.
NGOs are said to have an obligation to be financially accountable to their donors. ‘Donors’
are technically any person or organisation that donates money to NGOs, although the term is
most commonly used to refer to major institutional donors (e.g. states, international organisa-
tions). Donors are deemed to have the right to information about how their money is spent; and
it is usual practice for institutional donors to award grants with conditions attached regarding
transparency about expenditure. This can range from a fairly minimal approach (e.g. provid-
ing an end-of-project financial report) to a more information-intensive approach (e.g. regular
reports that assess interim outcomes against key performance indicators).

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Such donors expect NGOs to submit a funding application that details how the organisation
plans to meet all the donor’s objectives within a specified time frame, with a clear strategy for
monitoring and evaluating performance. Often this is detailed in a ‘logical framework’, or ‘log
frame’. Supporters of the log frame argue that it enhances professionalism across the sector by
encouraging tight focus on objectives and responsible fiscal management. It wards against waste
and inefficiency and prevents ‘project drift’ by promoting strategic thinking. It is argued that
NGOs will be dissuaded from making inflated claims and unfeasible promises if they are kept
under pressure to provide an evidence base.
The log frame has been widely derided by sceptics who see it as emblematic of a tech-
nocratic and inflexible approach informed by NPM precepts (Mawdsley et al. 2005). It is
said to be divorced from the complex, messy reality of social change, which cannot be ade-
quately assessed by abstract standardised indicators or within the short lifespan of a project cycle
(Wallace et al. 2007). Grant applicants may be tempted to minimise the appearance of uncer-
tainty in their plans to increase their chances of success in the intense competition for funds.
Critics also charge that the pressure to deliver against a results-based framework can engender
fear among NGOs that they are likely to be ‘punished’ by the donor for admitting failures,
which is particularly acute if the NGO is heavily dependent on the donor for funds (Bornstein
2006). This leads to a ‘sweep it under the rug’ problem, despite donor/NGO rhetoric about
the importance of reflecting on failures to assist ‘organisational learning’ (Ebrahim 2005). In
addition, practitioners report concerns about how the bureaucracy associated with rigorous
reporting mechanisms distracts them from devoting time to work regarded as more closely
aligned with their mission (Crack 2016). Finally, scholars warn that governments could lever-
age upward accountability for political purposes, i.e. to create a more pliable and docile NGO
sector that is less likely to criticise the authorities (Ebrahim 2003; Najam 1996).
Legal accountability is another facet of upward accountability. NGOs are, of course, expected
to follow the laws of their home countries and the countries within which they operate. These
include NGO-specific laws and regulations (Bloodgood et al. 2013). For example, NGOs in
England and Wales can register as charities with the Charity Commission, to gain preferential tax
status. In return, they have to abide by charity law, including providing detailed information on
their activities each year. The Commission takes enforcement measures in cases of malpractice
or misconduct. Those in favour of a robust regulatory regime for NGOs argue that the sector
has long been plagued by corrupt outfits engaged in money laundering, embezzlement and other
criminal activities. There are a number of disparaging nicknames for such organisations, such as
‘briefcase NGOs’, denoting NGOs that only exist on paper (Dicklitch 1998: 9). Regulations can
help to enhance donors’ confidence that money given in good faith is handled responsibly.
However, in countries where civil liberties are fragile, regulations may be designed to make
it very difficult for organisations to operate. Recent years have seen a rise of restrictive legisla-
tion around the world seemingly intended to outlaw and intimidate organisations that promote
progressive values or that are critical of government (Rutzen 2015). Civic spaces are being
shrunk at an alarming rate. CIVICUS (2017) has made the claim that only 3% of the world’s
people live in countries where fundamental civic freedoms are fully respected. In countries as
diverse as Hungary, Israel, Russia and Ethiopia there has been a crackdown on foreign-funded
NGOs, which can be interpreted as a sop to nationalist sentiment and a sinister attempt to insu-
late governments from criticism of their human rights record (Dupuy et al. 2015; International
Center for Not-for-Profit Law 2016). In short, legal accountability can be used by the authori-
ties to suit their own nefarious ends, rather than the public interest (Dupuy et al. 2016).
A frequent topic of debate in the literature is the extent to which NGO behaviour is moti-
vated by cost-benefit rationality as opposed to the values enshrined in their mission. NGOs are

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often accused of prioritising upward accountability over the demands of their ‘beneficiaries’ and
of having a relationship with their donors that is ‘too close for comfort’ (Banks et al. 2015).
NGOs have been portrayed as instrumental actors that pursue organisational survival and regard
‘the cause’ as a secondary consideration. They pursue opportunities to acquire funds and attract
media attention (Bob 2005; Cooley and Ron 2002). They observe fluctuating donor fashions
to capture funds, even if these are disconnected from their missions and from what is deemed
important at the grassroots (Edwards and Hulme 1995). According to this perspective, NGO
self-interested behaviour is not dissimilar to firms in the profit sector. Others defend the dis-
tinctiveness of NGO behaviour even whilst acknowledging the tendency for upwards account-
ability to dilute attention to the cause. These scholars view NGOs through a constructivist lens,
arguing that their behaviour is distinguished by the values that inform their constitution and
practices (Rothschild and Milofsky 2006). They argue that values such as voluntarism, service
and charity are distinct from the profit sector, and can shape NGO behaviour in significant ways
(Claeyé 2014: 26). There is not a sharp division between these two perspectives; the difference
lies in the emphasis. Both agree that financial imperatives exert a powerful pull on decision-
makers inside NGOs.
The NGO sector contains vast inequalities in influence, resources and capacity – particularly
between the global North and the global South. Development studies scholars have highlighted
concerns about the subordinate position of Southern NGOs (SNGOs) vis-à-vis Northern
NGOs (NNGOs). In an aid chain, SNGOs will receive institutional funds channelled through
a NNGO partner. The NNGO adopts the position of donor in this context, and the SNGO is
subject to NNGO accountability demands. According to the resource-dependency perspective,
the heavy reliance of SNGOs on Northern funds will compel them to accept donor preferences
and abide by bureaucratic accountability procedures, even if these are time-consuming and
culturally inappropriate (Chambers and Pettit 2004; Wallace et al. 2007). However, others have
cautioned against simplistic characterisations of an ‘aid chain’ and suggested that SNGOs can
find creative ways to exert a significant measure of autonomy in a funding relationship. SNGOs
can escape the more stifling aspects of upwards accountability if they have sufficient organisa-
tional capacity, resourceful personnel and local sources of income (Elbers and Schulpen 2011;
Olawoore 2017). Brehm (2004) finds that Southern NGOs with the greatest capacity for action
in a partnership exist in countries where overall aid dependence is low.

Downwards accountability
Downwards accountability is used to describe the accountability responsibilities that NGOs have
towards the people and communities that they represent and serve (typically called ‘beneficiaries’,
especially by humanitarian and development NGOs). Downwards accountability, little heard of
before the 1990s, has now become an established part of NGO discourse and donor rhetoric.
It places beneficiaries squarely at the heart of the NGO’s mission and grants normative power
to the demands of communities to play a full role in the design and implementation of projects.
Organisations have their own unique definitions of what they understand downward
accountability to entail, but generally these seem to converge on the following factors:
(a) being answerable to communities for actions/inactions; (b) enabling communities to partici-
pate in decisions about NGO activities that potentially affect them; (c) enabling communities
to have input in monitoring and evaluation processes; and (d) an obligation on NGOs to reflect
on ‘lessons learned’ as a result of community interaction. The notion of downwards account-
ability has its roots in theories of ‘people-centred development’ and ‘rights-based development’
(Eade 1997; O’Leary 2016). These theories argue in favour of a move away from a ‘top-down’

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approach to aid towards an approach that empowers the grassroots by enabling people to be
agents (rather than subjects) of their own development (Uvin 2007). It seeks to uphold the
dignity of recipients of aid. Practices and policies of downward accountability are far more
developed in humanitarian and development work compared to advocacy, partly because of
this intellectual heritage.
Organisations attempt to implement downwards accountability at strategic points in the
project cycle. ‘Needs-based assessments’, which solicit feedback from potential beneficiaries
about their preferences on aid and services, are conducted at the beginning of an interven-
tion to inform project design (and can be a prerequisite of grant applications to institutional
donors). Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and ‘outcome measurement’ activities conducted
throughout the life of the project often include consultation with communities, although
practice is varied (Benjamin 2013). Mechanisms of downward accountability include consul-
tation with community ‘gatekeepers’, village assemblies, social audits, workshops, role-play,
text messaging, crowdsourcing initiatives and so on. The ways in which NGOs seek feedback
could depend on donor demands, the research capacity of the NGO (fieldworkers may not
have specialised training) and the funding for such activities, which tends to be limited in a
time of squeezed administrative budgets. It will also depend on the characteristics of the ben-
eficiary population. Development NGOs have long experimented with ‘rural appraisal’ tech-
niques for poor communities, designed to enable the most disadvantaged members of society
to meaningfully participate in decision-making (Chambers 1994). Good practice dictates that
specially tailored participatory techniques are required for vulnerable and marginalised groups
(e.g. children, women-at-risk, illiterate persons) to enable them to ‘speak and be heard’. This
will require attention given to the spaces within which beneficiaries participate (are they child-
friendly? Can women speak out without being inhibited by the presence of men, and/or the
fear of reprisals from power holders in their community?), as well as the medium through
which beneficiaries participate (e.g. can non-textual and culturally appropriate forms of par-
ticipation be created for illiterate populations?).
Self-regulatory initiatives such as Accountable Now have promoted complaints mechanisms
to allow people to ‘blow the whistle’ when they encounter abuse or malpractice, rather than
wait to be consulted at a scheduled time in the feedback cycle (Accountable Now 2014).
Anonymity is key if aid recipients fear the possible consequences of speaking out. Complaints
mechanisms are not widespread, but NGOs have experimented with suggestion boxes and
mobile phone technology to enhance their accountability.
Proponents of downward accountability argue that it helps to tilt the power balance towards
beneficiaries who have too long been regarded as objects of charity and denied the right to
shape decisions that impinge upon their lives (Hickey and Mohan 2005). The most vulnerable
beneficiaries may not have the luxury of choice in boycotting aid, particularly if the NGO con-
cerned is the only service provider on the ground. They therefore lack both ‘voice’ and ‘exit’
accountability (Hirschman 1970). Feedback and complaints mechanisms, advocates argue, are
an imperfect means to compensate beneficiaries for their relative powerlessness.
Critics of downward accountability charge that it too often fails to live up to its ideals in
practice. Participation exercises can be tokenistic, self-serving measures to convince donors
that aid projects meet the needs of the poor (Leal 2007). Questions can be phrased in a lead-
ing way to validate decisions that have already been taken by the NGO about the design of
the project, or to prompt a positive response to evaluation questions. The power structure in
the donor–NGO–beneficiary relationship is such that the latter will be at a disadvantage unless
unusual conditions prevail (Andrews 2014). The subject, timing and purpose of any consultation
will be established by the NGO/donor, and designed to address the donor’s priorities (typically

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determining whether a project has achieved ‘impact’ and delivered ‘value for money’). The
methodology and data collection process are in the control of the NGO, as are the analysis
and presentation of results. In other words, the narrative about consultation is established by
the NGO and likely to be motivated by fear of displeasing the donor (Krause 2014). In this
context, suggest critics, it would be naive to expect the ‘beneficiary voice’ to have meaningful
effect. It is far more likely that the consultation exercises will be an empty ritual, useful only in
lending a false sheen of credibility to development projects. Ironically, such ‘participation’ may
be a particularly pernicious form of disempowerment, if a project is portrayed as legitimised by
‘beneficiaries’ who have been effectively muffled by the structural conditions of the consultation
(Cooke and Kothari 2001).
Critical development scholars have questioned the use of the term ‘beneficiary’. They argue
that it is suggestive of a neocolonial mindset, rooted in missionary times where ‘natives’ were
thought to be in need of Westerners who could ‘save’ them from poverty, pestilence and poor
governance (Manji and O’Coill 2002). It implies that beneficiaries will actually ‘benefit’ from
interventions by NGOs, and so any conversation between communities and NGOs regarding
the evaluation of a project is framed in terms of an assumption that aid is inherently a ‘good
thing’ for those who receive it (Crack 2013b). Critics are sceptical of downward accountability
initiatives, arguing that activities take place within a framework redolent with the history of
colonial exploitation, which implicitly patronises aid recipients and validates the role of the
NGO. Some humanitarian and development actors have been experimenting with different
terms in acknowledgement of these criticisms, such as ‘intended beneficiaries’, ‘stakeholders’,
‘affected populations’ and ‘people and communities’.
Postcolonial scholars are not convinced that changes in terminology indicate that NGOs
are departing from ‘business as usual’. They argue that NGOs are a pernicious instrument of
Northern ‘soft power’, which are used by governments to extend control over former colo-
nial territories through foreign assistance (Hoffman 2000). The expansion of Northern-based
NGOs into the global South has depended on assumptions that indigenous populations cannot
be trusted to run their own affairs. NGOs exploit these assumptions for their own benefit. For
example, fund-raising campaigns use dehumanising pictures of impoverished people (usually
infants) to emphasise their helplessness. These depictions of the ‘foreign other’ are used by
NGOs to construct their identities as ‘rescuing heroes’ (Hanchey 2016). According to the post-
colonial critique, then, the relationship that NGOs have with aid recipients is deeply embedded
in patterns of international power and informed by historical discourses of colonialism. It is not
therefore impossible for aid recipients (whatever the NGO chooses to call them) to hold NGOs
accountable in meaningful ways.

Internal accountability
Another part of the accountability relationship web is internal accountability (or lateral account-
ability). Internal accountability refers to the responsibilities that an NGO has as its mission and
to the people that are part of the organisation, including staff, volunteers and members. It also
refers to the obligations of the governing body and the executive body.
Christensen and Ebrahim (2006), in their discussion of an organisation’s relationship with
staff and volunteers, point to several examples of relevant accountability mechanisms, including
staff meetings, performance appraisals and training opportunities. Initiatives such as ‘People in
Aid’ (now subsumed into CHS Alliance), which promoted good practice in human resource
management, have helped to raise expectations in the sector about how staff/volunteers should
be treated. However, NGOs have recently faced fierce criticism for their failures to address

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bullying, sexual violence and discrimination. The exposé of sexual misconduct of Oxfam staff
in Haiti encouraged hundreds of aidworkers to go public with stories about their experience of
sexual harassment and abuse from managers and co-workers. DFID and other donors demanded
that NGOs implement immediate improvements in their policies and safeguarding procedures,
including increased protection for ‘whistleblowers’ (Edwards 2018). The incident, labelled the
sector’s #metoo moment, heightened awareness of how organisational culture can enable abuse
of power, and undermine internal accountability.
NGOs are the ‘organizational expression of their members’ ethical stance towards the
world’, but accountability to members tends to be overlooked in the literature (Rothschild and
Milofsky 2006: 137). For the membership, efforts to incorporate their views in designing policy
strategy can help to foster a sense of inclusion and belonging. AGMs, branch meetings, national,
regional and international forums and conferences all count as part of internal accountability.
Some NGOs consult their membership about the strategic direction of the NGO, although this
is atypical. Actual practice varies widely depending on the structure and the resources of the
NGO. Amnesty International has perhaps the most developed system of membership consul-
tation and participatory decision-making for an organisation of their size; although even here
concerns have been raised about the prioritisation of accountability to powerful stakeholders
(O’Dwyer and Unerman 2008). A downside of membership consultation is that it can hinder
an organisation’s ability to respond to fast-moving events, because it is hampered by laborious
(and resource-intensive) decision-making procedures.
An organisation’s ability to meet its multiple accountability responsibilities is in large part
determined by how it is governed. Many NGOs contain a governing body (e.g. Board of
Trustees) and an executive body (e.g. CEO and senior management). The former is tasked
with exercising oversight of the latter. The board defines the mission of the organisation and
determines its overall strategic direction. It scrutinises the financial accounts and is responsible
for ensuring compliance with laws and regulations. It is responsible for ensuring that the organi-
sation fulfils its duties to stakeholders. National charity law and regulations usually stipulate that
a strong internal governance and management structure needs to be in place before an organisa-
tion can be registered. There is extensive guidance on best practice in NGO governance, which
is available from official regulatory bodies and independent organisations such as BoardSource
and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NVCO).
Good governance guidelines advise that board members should be recruited according to
their skillset. Each member should provide expertise deemed necessary for the board to do its
job effectively. The board should maintain a professional distance from the staff and not be afraid
to ask tough questions about management and performance. However, nepotistic and poorly
functioning boards exist in all regions of the world, particularly in countries with high levels of
corruption. Smillie and Hailey use evidence from South Asia to argue that ‘many NGO boards
act more as rubber-stamp cheering sections than as the policy formulation bodies so beloved
of non-profit management literature’ (2001: 108). Likewise, Tandon identifies several modes
of governance prevalent in South Asia, in addition to the ‘rubber stamp’ model. These include
‘family boards’ that operate with the informality and trust that are typical of family-run busi-
nesses (Tandon 1995: 55). This (usually patriarchal) set-up undermines efficiency and account-
ability. It can be difficult for such boards to provide an unbiased and balanced perspective on
how the organisation can meet its long- and short-term challenges. Evidence suggests that
diversity in board composition, which can provide a broad range of viewpoints, can improve
organisational performance (Mori et al. 2015).
NGO boards face more difficult governance challenges than their corporate counterparts.
The former has to attend to a more diverse range of stakeholders than the latter. NGO boards

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are tasked with promoting the mission as well as the financial health of the organisation, whereas
boards in the profit sector have a narrower focus on profit maximisation (notwithstanding com-
mitments to corporate social responsibility). Large international NGOs (INGOs) with a federal-
ised structure face particularly daunting challenges because their governing bodies are composed
of representatives from several national-level member organisations. A balance has to be struck
between ensuring that the internal policy process is efficient, and ensuring that representation
in decision-making is perceived as fair. INGOs tend to allocate the distribution of votes and
seats on the executive according to geographic forms of representation. However, most INGOs
originated in the global North and so historically there have been fewer national-level member
organisations from the global South that can participate in decision-making. Instead, Southern
states have tended to host country offices that are poorly funded relative to the rest of the
organisation. INGOs have therefore often faced accusations that their governance and structure
does not reflect the international composition of the organisation. Critics charge that this is det-
rimental to internal accountability, since decision-making procedures do not enable the organi-
sation to fully take into account the views of all members. INGOs like Amnesty International
and Oxfam have responded to these criticisms by radically overhauling their governance and
financing mechanisms to rebalance power towards members in the global South. Some NGOs
have also attempted to enhance inclusiveness by inviting members of stakeholder communities
to sit on governance boards and form advisory panels (Brown et al. 2012). Of course, the extent
of the representativeness of such appointees can be called into question.
The theorisation of NGO governance has been underdeveloped compared to the literature
on corporate governance (Coule 2015). Little consensus exists over what constitutes perfor-
mance for NGO boards (Boeteng et al. 2016). Debate on the functionality of NGO boards
revolves around agency theory and resource-dependency theory (Callen et al. 2010). Agency
theory focuses on issues that arise when boards attempt to hold the executive accountable
in conditions of asymmetric information (Miller 2002). Agency theorists advise that it is the
responsibility of the board to ensure that management’s interests do not undermine the organi-
sation’s interests (for example, by inflating running costs to levels that threaten the organisation’s
ability to meet its strategic goals). Resource-dependency theory focuses on how organisational
behaviour is shaped by the need to acquire resources that ensure its survival (Malatesta and
Smith 2014). According to this perspective, the function of the board is to increase revenue and
diversify streams of income, in order to reduce resource dependency. Miller-Millesen (2003)
and Callen et al. (2010) suggest that both of these approaches can be complementary in evalu-
ating NGO board functionality, as they capture different, but equally valid, aspects of board
performance.

Horizontal accountability
Horizontal accountability (sometimes termed ‘peer’ or ‘mutual’ accountability) describes the
responsibilities that NGOs have to work with their counterparts to raise accountability stand-
ards across the sector. The mechanisms through which NGOs have sought to do this are vari-
ously called self-regulation initiatives, peer regulation initiatives, standards and accountability
‘clubs’. A ‘code of conduct’ tends to refer to self-regulation initiatives that are entirely voluntary
and include no formal means of verification. ‘Certification initiatives’ denote a form of self-
regulation whereby the performance of the NGO is monitored and formally assessed (e.g. by
an independent party). If the NGO is found to be adhering to its commitments, it is awarded
a certificate of verification. Horizontal accountability has led to the proliferation of regulatory
regimes all over the world (Bies 2010; Gugerty 2008).

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Humanitarian NGOs have spearheaded self-regulation initiatives, prompted by the tragedy

of Rwanda, where the mismanagement of the aid camps in Goma arguably led to the perpetu-
ation of the conflict (Walker and Purdin 2004). Perhaps the best known is the Sphere Project,
established in 1997 by a consortium of leading aid agencies. It provides a freely download-
able and immensely detailed set of guidelines for aidworkers about the recommended mini-
mum standards in humanitarian response. It is available in a growing array of languages, and is
amended and updated in consultation with numerous stakeholders (Sphere Project 2011). The
Sphere Project does not have a formal monitoring and compliance procedure. This contrasts
with initiatives with a certification option such as the CHS Alliance (see Deloffre and Schmitz,
Chapter 41 in this volume, for further details).
Initiatives specifically targeting development or advocacy organisations are scarce. This may
be partly because it is arguably easier for humanitarian NGOs to identify their beneficiaries
and produce standards based on quantifiable outcomes (e.g. number of vaccinations). This is
far more problematic for a development NGO that is seeking to ‘empower marginalised com-
munities’, or an advocacy NGO that exists to ‘raise awareness’ about an issue. How can indi-
cators be developed to assess whether these nebulous goals have been achieved? One notable
initiative that has attempted to bridge this divide is Accountable Now, which proclaims to be
the only global multi-sectoral initiative. Member organisations are required to submit annual
reports every year detailing their performance against 12 Accountability Commitments, which
are assessed by an Independent Review Panel (Accountable Now 2016).
Monitoring and sanctioning mechanisms vary widely. Data collected by Trembley-Boire
et al. (2016) suggests that the most robust procedures are more likely in initiatives that are
focused on fund-raising, provide certification and have greater longevity. Stringent monitor-
ing and sanctioning is also more likely if initiatives are based in a single country and in a non-
OECD country.
Self-regulation has been welcomed as an important development in the way NGOs seek to
be accountable, encouraging greater professionalism and higher expectations of stakeholders,
which drives up NGO performance. There is evidence that NGOs experience an increase in
public support after joining robust regulatory initiatives (Feng et al. 2016). Enthusiasts argue that
they lend greater force behind beneficiaries’ demands for NGOs to be answerable for their con-
duct. They also provide opportunities for NGOs to share learning. Although imperfect, it could
be argued that self-regulation can deliver a ‘good enough’ solution to accountability deficits that
cannot otherwise be easily resolved (Emergency Capacity Building Project 2007). It provides at
the very least a means for stakeholders to wield the sanction of reputational damage, since the
initiatives could be used to shame organisations that do not honour their commitments.
There is, however, substantial doubt about whether self-regulation initiatives are actually
effective in enhancing NGO accountability. Practitioners complain that they impose an onerous
bureaucratic burden on organisations, which struggle to keep up with constantly shifting report-
ing requirements (Crack 2016). Small organisations may not have the time or resources to com-
pile complicated reports measuring their performance against a variety of indicators. Likewise,
organisations from the global South (especially those that speak minority languages) may not
have the capacity to participate. International, high-profile organisations find it relatively easier
to demonstrate compliance, and they can exploit the opportunity that self-reporting provides
to portray themselves in a positive light (Dhanani and Connolly 2014). Such large NGOs may
not have the highest standards of accountability in practice, since small grassroots organisations
with strong roots in the community can have very effective ‘bottom-up’ accountability (Awio
et al. 2013). Nonetheless leading NGOs have the capacity and skills to meet the administra-
tive requirements. Thus, self-regulation can solidify the power imbalance between large/small,

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Northern/Southern organisations, if adherence to standards is regarded uncritically by donors as

the only benchmark of credibility.
Sceptics raise questions about whether self-regulation can actually enhance the reputation
of an NGO. Jepson (2005) argues that a formal ‘audit approach’ to accountability is unlikely
to improve perceptions of NGO authenticity and integrity. He recommends that organisations
develop accountability regimes that are aligned to their historic roots in social movements.
Similarly, Keating and Thrandardottir (2017) argue that the more NGOs try to boost their trust
by engaging with the accountability agenda, the more they may erode the social base of trust
between NGOs and individual donors. This paradox arises because the accountability agenda is
premised on misguided rationalist assumptions of what constitutes trust.
There have been criticisms of the ways in which standards apply uniformity on organisations
that are very distinct in their missions, objectives and operations. Multi-sectoral standards such
as Accountable Now presume that all organisations can be evaluated the same way. However,
humanitarian, development and advocacy NGOs have very different considerations to weigh
in devising an accountability approach that is appropriate to the specific context within which
they work (Crack 2017). McGee (2013) notes that standards can be ambiguous on the identity of
accountability claimants when they incorporate a very dissimilar and disconnected group of actors.
A subject of growing interest in the literature is the question of what motivates NGOs to
join self-regulation initiatives. One school of thought is ‘club theory’, informed by princi-
pal–agent theory, which interrogates the issues that arise in NGO–stakeholder relationships
characterised by competing interests. ‘Accountability clubs’ are a way for stakeholders (or
principals) to ensure that the NGO (or agent) is abiding by its commitments. This will particu-
larly be in the interests of stakeholders should the NGO have an incentive to ‘cheat’, and if it
is not possible to monitor the NGO any other way. Clubs provide a reputational signal about
agents to principals. A strong signal will be sent to principals if the standards, monitoring and
enforcement procedures are robust, and the club is perceived as credible. Club theories argue
that NGOs join clubs in the expectation that membership will be advantageous. For example,
it could help to maintain or increase donor funding, and/or pre-empt the threat of government
interference and new forms of restrictive regulation (Gugerty and Prakash 2010). Agents can
also gain from positive ‘network effects’ from club membership, and enhance perceptions of
their trustworthiness through their association with other organisations generally assumed to
be credible (Prakash and Potoski 2006: 33).
An alternative interpretation is offered by the constructivist approach, which emphasises the
influence of social identities and shared norms in shaping forms of self-regulation. Although
constructivists do not deny the presence of self-interest, they are interested in how NGOs
are incentivised by concern for shared values, and opportunities to engage in social learning.
Deloffre, for example, interprets the emergence of self-regulation post-Rwanda as the outcome
of collaboration between NGOs and donors ‘that created a feeling of mutual engagement and
commitment to defining collective accountability practice’ (2016: 22). The insights of club
theory and constructivism are not mutually incompatible, and can be blended to produce multi­
faceted accounts of NGO behaviour (Crack 2017).

Conclusion
This chapter has provided an overview of the different dimensions of NGO accountability, and
the practical problems they entail. Accountability is popularly conceptualised as relational –
but relationships are not always harmonious. The needs and preferences of different
stakeholders can conflict, putting NGOs in an acutely difficult position as they negotiate

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competing demands. Take the hypothetical example of a development NGO funded by a

donor that wants human rights education to accompany service provision in a community
that has strong attachment to traditional values. The community may welcome the services,
but be hostile to messages that challenge societal norms. If the NGO prioritises accountability
to the donor, and delivers the education activities, it could be accused of ignoring the com-
munity voice and failing to be downwardly accountable. The situation in reverse would be
unsatisfactory for the donor. Accountability can be a zero-sum game.
This chapter has also outlined notable contributions to the literature on accountability from
multiple disciplines. The research agenda has moved rapidly in recent years, but there are still
important gaps in knowledge. Further research is needed in the following areas:

• The sector persistently struggles with the challenge of moving away from donor-focused
accountability mechanisms to an accountability approach that empowers the grassroots
(Ebrahim 2003; Murtaza 2012). It is crucial to explore how donors/NGOs can foster part-
nerships that uphold downward accountability (Burger 2012).
• Case studies on individual organisations have produced rich insights (Awio et al. 2013;
O’Dwyer and Unerman 2008; Walsh 2016) but the research agenda could be usefully
advanced by comparative studies to assess the consequences of different accountability prac-
tices across countries and NGOs of differing sizes and resources (Schmitz et al. 2012).
• The club theory literature would benefit from more data on how funding decisions are
made by donors, to determine what constitutes a strong signal (or if any other considera-
tions come into play). Constructivists could explore how social learning is promoted (or
inhibited) by different accountability practices.
• Network analysis could be exploited to investigate how the diffusion of norms and
practices between NGOs and stakeholders influence engagement with self-regulation
(AbouAssi 2015).
• Although communication is central to accountability, little attention has been paid to issues
of language. As observed in the introduction, ‘accountability’ is an Anglophone concept,
as indeed are many NGO ‘buzzwords’. Interpreting key concepts associated with account-
ability poses complex challenges to NGOs working in a multilingual environment. Future
research on downward accountability could reflect on the ways that power is encoded in
language (Footitt et al. forthcoming).

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Environmental Regulations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rothschild, J., and Milofsky, C. (2006). The Centrality of Values, Passions, and Ethics in the Nonprofit
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Rutzen, D. (2015). Civil Society Under Assault. Journal of Democracy, 26(4), 28–39.
Schmitz, H. P., Raggo, P., and Bruno-van Vijfejken, T. (2012). Accountability of Transnational NGOs:
Aspirations vs. Practice. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 41(6), 1175–1194.
Smillie, I., and Hailey, J. (2001). Managing for Change: Leadership, Strategy and Management in Asian NGOs.
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Sphere Project (2011). The Sphere Handbook: Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Humanitarian
Response. Available at: www.sphereproject.org/handbook.
Tandon, R. (1995). Board Games: Governance and Accountability in NGOs. In M. Edwards and
D. Hulme (Eds.). Beyond the Magic Bullet: NGO Performance and Accountability in the Post-Cold War
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Uvin, P. (2007). From the Right to Development to the Rights-Based Approach: How ‘Human Rights’
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Development in Practice, 26(6), 706–718.

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Locators in italics refer to figures

abolition 23, 238, 268 governance 47, 54, 58; human rights 254–255,
abuses 95, 304, 470, 625, 627 259; legitimacy 607, 611; management studies
acceptance 50, 104, 611 176; Middle East and North Africa 508, 510,
access (access points) 105, 143–144, 225, 385, 474; 511–513; post-positivism 103–107; rationalism
global governance 47, 55; human rights 351, 91–92, 96–98; security 574–578, 580–582;
362; legitimacy 607, 615; sub-Saharan Africa self-regulation 364; social movements 140, 142,
519, 522; see also locations 147; states 35; transnational 64; see also partners
Access to Information 490 Adam Smith Institute 379
accountability 1, 25, 621–622, 630–631; Adler, Emanuel 84, 350
authoritarianism 560; civil society 345, administration 162, 172–173
352; constituting NGOs 76, 79–80, 86; advocacy 52, 78, 147, 442, 518, 593; constructivism
constructivism 119; democracy 550; 119–120; East and Southeast Asia 464, 469;
development studies 157; downwards environmentalism 336–337; global trade
624–626; education 289, 291; EERCA 450; 371–372; human rights 253, 273; Latin America
environmentalism 338; EU 434; feminism 496–498; management studies 162, 167, 169;
226–227; global terrorism 594, 599; history rationalism 95, 98; South Asia 531, 533; states
and contributions 56, 66; horizontal 628–630; 37, 39; transnational 63–65; US 425–426
human rights 259–261, 275; internal 626–628; aesthetic politics 128–130, 135–136; emotion
international law 182, 184, 186–188; Latin 130–131; image-making 132–134; reflexivity
America 489–491, 498; legitimacy 607–608, and change 134–135; representation 131–132
613–614, 616; management studies 167, 172; Aesthetics and World Politics 131
members 626, 628; present possibilities 210; affect 130, 131
rationalism 93, 97; social movements 141; affiliates 596
TNGOs, USA 420–422; upwards 622–624; Afghanistan 35, 94, 226, 269, 588–589, 594;
see also effectiveness, organizational security 581, 583
Accountable Now 66–67, 69, 615, 625, 629, 630 Africa 134, 143, 245, 300
accounting standards, international 352 Africa, sub-Saharan 516–517; civil society 517–518;
Acheson-Lilenthal 316 context 521–523; crowding out 523–525; NGOs
Action Aid 154, 611 origins 518; regional experiences 518–521
Active Learning Network for Accountability in Aga Khan Foundation (AGF) 535
Humanitarian Action (ALNAP) 276 agency 53, 93, 103, 134–135, 173; constituting
Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in NGOs 76–77, 79, 82, 85; constructivism
International Politics 76, 156 114–115, 118
actors: accountability 622, 630; aesthetic politics agency theory 628
129; authoritarianism 565; civil society Agenda 21 331
345–346, 351; constituting 76–77, 85; agendas: aesthetic politics 131; constituting NGOs
constructivism 113–114, 120–121; democracy 85–86; constructivism 118; education 284, 288;
548, 550; development studies 154–156, environmentalism 332; EU 434, 442; global
158, 160; East and Southeast Asia 467–468, governance 50; global terrorism 593; global
470–471, 476; EERCA 457; environmentalism trade 371–372; human rights 254, 261, 273;
334–335; EU 444; feminism 227; global international law 189; Latin America 486, 489;

635
Index

NGO emergence 25–26; post-positivism 107; Association of Research into Voluntary and
rationalism 95; social movements 141, 145; Community Involvement (ARVAC) 196
sub-Saharan Africa 524 Association of Research of Civil Society in Africa
agents 80, 118–119, 121, 123, 135, 156, 160 (AROCSA) 196
agriculture 26, 155, 157, 518, 520 asymmetries, power 105–106, 109
Ahmed, Shamima 155–156, 157–560 Atomic Development Authority 316
aid 25, 92, 93, 103, 518 atrocities 272
aid, humanitarian see humanitarianism attachment 130
aid recipients 134, 158 audiences 37, 81, 123, 142–143, 549, 566, 616;
Aid Worker Security Database 578 aesthetic politics 132–133, 135
aid workers 578–580; see also staff Australia 244
aksakal 457 authenticity 131
Al-Shabaab 591 authoritarianism 37–39, 144, 259–260, 546,
Aldermaston 316 557–558, 568–569; collaborators and reinforcers
All-China Women’s Federation (ACWF) 474 561–562; Egypt 506–509; institutions 558–560;
alliances 131, 143 NGOs 560–561; NGOs as opponents 562–563;
allies 76–77, 144, 322, 595 NGOs as substitutes 563–564; reforms 558;
altruism 108, 255, 387, 454; management studies restrictions 564–568
167, 171; rationalism 90, 93–94, 97 authority 68, 108, 156, 345, 575; authoritarianism
Alvarez, Sonia E. 145, 227 559, 561, 565; constituting NGOs 76, 80,
ambiguities 169, 170, 560, 596, 600, 630 85; constructivism 115–119, 121, 123; global
American Anti-Slavery Society 23 governance 48, 55, 57–58; legitimacy 607–608,
American Chemistry Council (ACC) 366 613; states 37, 40
American Engineering Standards Committee Authority Trap: Strategic Choices of International
(AESC) 348 NGOs, The 80
American Enterprise Institute 379 auto-documentary 135
Amnesty International (AI) 37, 67, 107, 145, 209, autocracy 38, 558
272; global terrorism 593, 595; human rights autonomy: accountability 624; civil society 352;
254–255, 258; legitimacy 611, 614 constituting NGOs 79; East and Southeast Asia
Angola 322 476; EU 434; feminism 227; global governance
AnthroBase 84 53, 56; human rights 272; Latin America 494;
anti-nuclear movement 144, 315–317 professions 394; social movements 140, 147
anti-performativity 170 Awami League 534
anti-slavery 23–24, 26 awareness raising 155, 257, 333
anti-trafficking 145 Azerbaijan 457; see also Eastern Europe, Russia,
anti-Vietnam War movement 317–318 and Central Asia (EERCA)
anti-whaling 109
apathy 135 backlash 324, 506, 534, 621; democracy 543, 547;
applicability 121 global terrorism 587, 600; legitimacy 607, 611;
appropriateness 36, 104, 120, 121, 123, 346 US 419–420
Arab Spring 505 BackPack Program 302
Argentina 488, 489, 496, 497, 498 Balboa, Christina M. 80, 613
argumentation 123 Balkans 416
Armenia 457 Bangkok 27
arms 24, 34, 128, 187, 261 Bangladesh 36, 94, 98, 301, 425, 533–534
art 129 Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee
Article 71 of the United Nations Charter 21–22, (BRAC) 161, 533, 564
118, 186, 187 banking 597
artworks 129 Banyan Global 311
Asia 245, 247, 300, 463–478, 529–537 bargaining 56
assessments 289, 290, 550, 625 Barnett, Michael 28, 79, 82–83, 103, 119
assets 596–597, 598 Barrett, Deborah 143, 144
Association for Research on Non-profit barriers 351, 353
Organizations and Voluntary Action behaviour: NGOs 92–95; organizations 108
(ARNOVA) 195–196 behaviours 155, 344, 606
Association for Trauma Outreach and Prevention Beijer Institute 334
‘Meaningfulworld’ 406 Beijing 229, 474

636
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Belarus 449, 456; see also Eastern Europe, Russia, Bulgaria 454; see also Eastern Europe, Russia, and
and Central Asia (EERCA) Central Asia (EERCA)
Belém Do Pará Convention 229 bunkerization 594
Belgium 27, 211 bureaucracy 141, 513, 623
benchmarking 547–550 business associations see trade associations
beneficiaries 624, 625–626 Burkina Faso 519–520, 522
benefits 94, 244, 349
Bentham, Jeremy 181, 183 Cambodia 322, 597
Bernard, Tanguy 521, 522 Campaign Against Torture 255
Bharat Sevashram Sangha (BSS) 407 Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) 316
Biafra 268, 273 campaigning 132, 134, 136, 139, 146, 155, 169,
bias (unbias): accountability 627; authoritarianism 272–273, 322, 324–325, 421, 474, 499, 577,
566; constituting NGOs 81; constructivism 595, 616
120; democracy 548–549; EU 444; global Cana Andrea 612
terrorism 594; human rights 259, 276; Canada 24, 201, 468
international law 184; management studies Canadian Council for International Cooperation 134
171; NGO emergence 23; post-positivism 102; capacity (capacity building) 37, 49, 96, 450,
present possibilities 211; rationalism 98 524, 562
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation 284, 417 capitalism 158, 239, 241, 249, 267–268, 284–285,
Billis, David 171, 172 287–290, 376, 416
biodiversity 330 Carbon Action Tracker 337
Bleiker, Roland 130, 131–132 carbon bubble 337
Bloodgood, Elizabeth A. 38, 566 Cardoso Report 29
Bob, Clifford 95, 107, 145, 261 careers 277
Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) 536 Caritas 435
Boléat, Mark 362–363 Carpenter, Charli 107, 213, 261, 321
Boli, John 147, 211, 213, 344 Carrette, Jeremy 400–401, 403
Bolivia 498 Carter Center 548–549, 566
boomerang model 34, 119, 321, 338, 565; Catholicism 25
constituting NGOs 76, 86; human rights celebrities 142, 143
256, 258 Centre for Trade Union Workers Service 508
borders 22 Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) 319
Borders among Activists: International NGOs in the certification 350, 629
United States, Britain, and France. 78 Chambers, Robert 167, 168
boundaries 102, 120, 457, 575–576, 592 Chan Zuckerberg Initiative 284
Bowling Alone 383 changes 37, 51, 113–115, 118, 129, 134–135, 160,
brand vulnerability 64, 172 176, 610
branding (brands) 141, 157, 176, 274, 365, 550, characteristics, NGOs 37
606, 622 charities 27, 33, 132, 171, 512; accountability
Brass, Jennifer N. 95, 212, 562 623–624; development studies 153, 157; global
Brazil 160, 227–228, 486, 489, 496–498, 596 terrorism 598–599; legitimacy 611, 615; public
Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa 420, 422; religious 65
(BRICS) 160, 172, 531 Charity and Security Network 600
Bretton Woods 50, 52, 419 Charity Commission 599, 623
Bridge International Academies 291 Charity Navigator 421, 612, 614, 615
bridging 155 Charity:water 616
Britain see United Kingdom (UK) Charnovitz, Steve 28–29
British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society 23, 238 Charter of the United Nations (UN) 47
British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) 23–24 child labour 247
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) 134 children 106, 157, 271, 518, 532; citizens
British Empire 23 300–303, 307; Latin America 493, 495
British Standards Institution (BSI) 348 Chile 489, 493, 494, 495
Brookings Institution 289, 300 China 463–464, 476–478, 531, 535;
Brussels 27; NGOs in 434–436, 442–443 authoritarianism 562; constituting NGOs 80;
budgets (budgeting) 65, 94, 168, 155, 213, context and networks 464–466; development
269, 418 studies 160; education 285; environmentalism
Buenos Aires 497 466–469; feminism 224; human rights 259;

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Index

labour 245; labour movement 469–473; cognitive legitimacy 610

NGO emergence 25; voluntaristics 201; Cold War 1; accountability 621; aesthetic politics
women’s rights 473–476; see also Brazil, 128–129; civil society 344; constituting NGOs
Russia, India, China and South Africa 84; constructivism 117–118; democracy 543,
(BRICS) 545; feminism 229; global governance 55;
Chinese Great Leap Forward Famine 25 human rights 252, 268, 271; labour 246–247;
Christian Action Research and Education (CARE) NGO emergence 29; peace 316, 318–325;
171, 268 post-positivism 101, 103; rationalism 98;
Christian Aid 159, 337 security 575–576; US 416
Christian Solidarity International (CSI) 188 collaboratives (collaborations) 173, 365–366,
CHS Alliance 616, 629 427, 496
Church Center for the United Nations (CCUN) collective action, 95, 181, 215, 238–239, 262,
404, 405–406 361, 363–366, 464, 466, 472–473, 488,
circular economy 333 562, 616
citizen sector 297–298, 310–311; economic collusion 581, 582; critical perspectives 120–122
stability 301–302; education 300–301; Colombia 490, 491, 497
expanding roles 298–300; health and healthcare colonialism: accountability 626; aesthetic politics
303–304; Healthy Parks Healthy People US 133; development studies 158–159, 161;
308–309; Mennonite Central Committee East and Southeast Asia 470; education 283;
307–308; neighbourhood and built environment feminism 226; human rights 267–268, 271;
302–303; social and community context labour 243–244; post-positivism 106; South
304–305; way forward 305–306 Asia 531; sub-Saharan Africa 518
citizens 37, 115, 160, 434, 550; authoritarianism Colour Revolution 546
561, 563; global terrorism 593, 595 Columbia University 211
Civicus (CIVICUS) 154, 169 combatants 130
civil society 24, 27, 48, 343–345, 353–354, commensurability 212
484–485; (re)organization 348–350; beyond commercialization 108
NGOs 350–353; global 27; Latin America Commission for Sustainable Development
494–496; sub-Saharan Africa 517–518; (CSD) 49
typography 345–347 Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) 229
Civil Society Organisations Act 536 Committee of Religious NGOs (CRNGO) 404
Civil Society Organization Advisory Committee 47 Committee on Spirituality, Values and Global
civil society organization (CSO) 19, 161, 421, Concerns (CSVGC) 404, 406–407
448, 484, 489–498, 517–521, 525, 602, 615 Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) 577
civilians 575, 580, 583, 584 communications: aesthetic politics 134; citizens
clans 517 304; constituting NGOs 84; EU 443; global
class see social class governance 52, 55; human rights 278;
Classy 421 management studies 168; social movements
Climate Action Network (CAN) 333 142; voluntaristics 202–203
Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) 337 communism 26, 158, 245, 316, 454–455
climate change 49, 65, 84, 106, 419, 550, 614; Communist International (Comintern) 243
citizens 301–302; environmentalism 330, Communist Manifesto 239
333–336; social movements 142–143; states communities: accountability 624–625; civil
34, 40 society 351; constructivism 120, 122; East
Climate Justice Action 335 and Southeast Asia 474; education 286; global
Climate Justice Now! 335 governance 49; global terrorism 594; human
clubs 171, 364–365, 630 rights 254; Latin America 493; legitimacy
co-optation 28, 225, 226, 546, 565, 611 610, 613; management studies 169; states 36;
coalitions: civil society 350; constituting NGOs sub-Saharan Africa 517, 520; see also expert
82; development studies 156; East and Southeast communities
Asia 465–466; EU 444; global governance communities of governance 350–353
50, 56; Latin America 489, 497; management community health workers (CHWs) 304
studies 169; peace 321; religion 404; social Compassion 532
movements 143, 147; South Asia 536 compassion (compassion fatigue ) 25, 132–133,
codes, local 581 135, 577
coding 213, 323 compatibility, international 348
coercion 109, 123 competences 578, 584

638
 Index

competency 347 constitutions 75–76, 510–511

competition: accountability 623; authoritarianism constitutive statehood 117
559; constructivism 121; democracy 545; Constructing the Political Spectacle 131
development studies 158, 160; education 288; Constructing World Culture 147
global terrorism 590, 594; human rights 261; constructivism 75, 76, 84, 95, 104, 122,
labour 242; management studies 173; 156, 254
post-positivism 108; professions 394; constructivism, international relations theory
rationalism 92–93; self-regulation 364; social 113–114, 124; critical perspectives 120–122;
movements 141; states 33, 35; sub-Saharan global and transnational paradigms 118–120;
Africa 518; transnational politics 69 modern system 114–115; NGOs as residual
complacency 133 category 117–118; sovereignty, identity and
complaints 616 authority 116–117; synthesis 122–123
completeness 212 consultation 49, 50, 440–442; European 440–442
complex emergency 575 consumerism 147
complex internationalism 146 consumers 68, 109, 133, 287, 351, 393, 439;
compliance (noncompliance) 447; accountability transnational politics 64, 69
629; authoritarianism 563; civil society 345; context: accountability 630; aesthetic politics 131;
constituting NGOs 79; global governance authoritarianism 544; citizens 302; civil society
53; global terrorism 596–597; legitimacy 614; 347; constructivism 116–117; data 211; East
management studies 169; US 426 and Southeast Asia 464–466; education 290;
compromise 36, 144, 269, 569 feminism 227; human rights 275; legitimacy
conduct, codes of 134, 272, 276, 350, 421, 536, 628 608; management studies 172; rationalism 93;
conduits 34 religion 401–402; security 574–575, 580; social
Confederation of European Union Food and movements 139; South Asia 549; sub-Saharan
Drink Industries 379 Africa 521–523; TNGOs, USA 420–422
Conference on the Human Environment 330 contracts 138, 154, 181, 187, 443, 496, 531,
conferences 81, 229, 254, 545, 627; 546, 599
environmentalism 330, 332; global governance contradictions 169, 170
49, 51–52, 54; NGO emergence 26, 28–29; control 22, 56, 345, 519, 564, 626; social 36, 50
see also named conferences convenience 94–95
confidence 513 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
conflict: aesthetic politics 128; class 288; Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)
constituting NGOs 84–86; democracy 545; 228, 230
development studies 155–156; feminism 226, conventions, international 1, 3, 68, 240, 242,
230; global terrorism 588; human rights 268, 472, 475
272, 277; Latin America 491; legitimacy 611; Cooley, Alexander 69, 93, 108, 548
management studies 172; peace 322; post- cooperation: citizens 305–306; civil society 348;
positivism 108; rationalism 93; social movements constituting NGOs 85; development studies
146; South Asia 536; states 33–34, 36 156; East and Southeast Asia 467; global
conflict zones 573–574; crucial actors 584; issues governance 57; global terrorism 600; human
and practices 576–578; overview 574–576; rights 272; security 576–577; self-regulation
trends and implications 578–583 363; states 33–34, 36; transnational politics 68
Congress of International Associations 81 cooperatives 193, 212, 237, 244, 378, 485, 493,
Congress of Vienna 23, 241 519, 523
connectivity, global 25 cooptation 33, 35–36, 39, 69
conscience, prisoners of 247, 255 Copenhagen 229
consciousness 131 coping 135
consensus 109, 345, 347, 438, 517 corporate social responsibility (CSR) 344, 350,
consent, popular 559 362, 456, 493
conservation 65; oceans 466 corporations, transnational 3, 5–6, 33, 64–70,
consistency 97 75–76, 91, 95–96, 106, 120, 156, 162, 183,
constituting NGOs 75–76; disenthrallment 86–87; 214, 247, 274, 333, 338, 344, 350, 362, 375,
hierarchy 80–81; macro-historical waves 81–82; 389–390, 393, 467, 470, 498
national origins 78; norms and representation Correlates of War Project 51
76–77; power structures 82–83; stakeholder corruption 144, 226, 490–491, 547, 563,
accountability 79–80; state interests 78–79; 622, 627
synthesis 83–86 Cortright, David 318, 324

639
Index

cosmopolitanism, moral 121 Davis, David 211, 213, 258

Costa Rica 493, 497 de-naturalisation 170
costs (expenditure) 54, 56, 259, 421, 575, 615, 622 death (killing) 275
Council of Ministers 437, 440, 442 debt relief 7, 40, 426
Council of the Regions (CoR) 438 Decade for Women 229
counterterrorism 587, 596–602 decision-making: accountability 625, 627–628;
Cowen, Michael 157, 159 authoritarianism 564; constructivism 120; EU
Cox, Laurence 485, 493 434, 440; global governance 48–51; legitimacy
Cox, Robert 102, 246, 373 610, 613; rationalism 95–96; transnational
credibility: accountability 622, 626; politics 67–68
authoritarianism 565; civil society 345; Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against
democracy 549–550; rationalism 96; social Women (DEVAW) 229, 230
movements 140–141; South Asia 535; states 37 decolonization 350
credit 520–522, 534 deliberation 351, 444
crime, organized 84 Deloffre, Maryam Zarnegar 66, 68, 611, 613, 630
crises: authoritarianism 559; citizens 307; DeMars, William E. 38, 155–156
development studies 154, 160; East and democracy 551–552; assistance 546–547;
Southeast Asia 467; EU 441; feminism 226; benchmarking 547–550; constructivism 120;
financial 290; global governance 50; human democratic deficit 35; EERCA 448–449; EU
rights 273; Latin America 492, 494; Middle East 443; global governance 54; global governance
and North Africa 512; professions 394; security institutions 550–551; global trade 371–372;
574–575; sub-Saharan Africa 519; US 420 historical context 543–546; human rights
critical development theories 159–162 269; international law 189; rationalism 95;
critical legal studies (CLS) 183–184 security 576; social movements 144; South
critical management studies (CMS) 170 Asia 536; states 38, 40; sub-Saharan Africa 517;
Critique of Judgement 129 transnational politics 69
critiques 68–70, 157, 158 democracy, Latin America 483, 499–500; civil
cross-sector social interactions (CSSI) 365 society 484–485; funding patterns 494–496;
crowdmapping 304 governance, accountability and trust 489–491;
crowdsourcing 304, 625 human rights 488–489; origins and
cultural relativism 255–256, 260 development of NGOs 485–488; peacebuidling
cultures: aesthetic politics 129; constituting NGOs 491–492; policymaking and advocacy 496–498;
84; development studies 159; management Washington Consensus 492–494
studies 176; Middle East and North Africa 512; democratic deficit 35
post-positivism 103; social movements 147; democratization 67, 255, 450, 484, 494–495,
transnational politics 64–65 497, 545
Curbside Market 302 demonstrations 472, 507–508
cynicism 130 Denmark 211, 377
density, organizational 140
Dairy Farmers of Canada 379 dependency 69, 131, 158, 523, 593
Dalton, Russel J. 38, 142, 144, 213 depoliticization 109
Danish Refugee Council (DRC) 594 deprivation 158
data 209–210; accountability 626, 629; despair 135
challenges to research 212–214; citizens 302, detentions 487
304; democracy 544; education 288–290; development 91, 120, 146, 402, 443, 467, 512
global governance 51; global terrorism 600; development assistance 65
international database 214–216; legitimacy 615; development, international see development
moving forward 214; quantitative research studies, international NGOs in
210–212; rationalism 96, 98; reliability 212; development, Latin America 483, 499–500; civil
religion 403; security 578–580; US 424, 427 society 484–485; funding patterns 494–496;
Data4Good 214 governance, accountability and trust 489–491;
databases 33, 81, 94, 388–389; international origins and development of NGOs 485–488;
214–216 peacebuilding 491–492; policymaking and
DataKind 214 advocacy 496–498; Washington Consensus
datasets 51, 211 492–494
Davies, Thomas Richard 28, 69–70, 81–82, development management 173–174
116, 211 development studies, international NGOs in 153,

640
 Index

162–163; conceptualising 155–157, 159–162; downwards accountability 624–626

international development theories 157–159; dumping 302
social reforms 158; societies 155; understanding Dunant, Henry 269, 271, 575, 577
NGOs 153–155 Dupuy, Pierre-Marie 179, 568
dialogue, civil and social 440–442 Duvall, Raymond 82–83, 103, 119, 123
dictatorship 448, 546
differences, national and regional 270–271 e-learning 287
diffusion-proofing 259 Eagleton-Pierce, Matthew 373, 376
dignity, human 133 Earth First! 140, 141
Dijkzeul, Dennis 38, 155–156 Earth Summit 22, 331, 334
diplomacy 67–68, 322, 336, 399, 401, 487, 595 East African Community (EAC) 378
diplomats 348–350 Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia
Direct Response Television Advertising (EERCA): approach and terminology 447–448;
(DRTV) 132 communism 454–455; distinctiveness of
disappearances (disappeared people) 487 NPS 450–454; geographic scope 448–449;
disappointment 135 knowledge 449–450; research 455–458
disarmament 320, 321, 322–324 Ebrahim, Alnoor 261, 626
disaster relief 132 Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) 21–22,
disasters 277, 285; environmental 108; natural 270, 47, 185, 187, 211, 246, 255, 349, 406, 415
487, 575 Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) 376
discipline (Foucault) 84 Edelman Trust Barometer 491
discrimination 230, 231, 243, 285, 517, 598, 627 education 283–285, 292–293; authoritarianism
disease 130, 157, 310, 474 564; citizens 300–301; constructivism 119;
disenthrallment 86–87 development studies 159; East and Southeast
displacement see migration Asia 473–474, 476; Education International
disputes 50, 68 290–292; EERCA 452; five generations of
dissonance, institutional 559 NGOs 285–288; human rights 257, 268, 271,
distribution: civil society 344; environmentalism 273; Latin America 490, 493; management
338; global governance 54; NGO emergence studies 169, 171; PAL network 288–290;
24; professions 392; rationalism 98; social professions 390, 393–394; public 273, 319;
movements 145; states 40; US 422, 423, South Asia 533; sub-Saharan Africa 518;
424, 425 transnational politics 65
distrust 476, 600 Education International 290–292
diversification 518 Edwards, Michael 93, 157, 168, 534
diversity: aesthetic politics 134; data 210, 212; effectiveness 1; accountability 629; civil
development studies 155; East and Southeast society 345; constituting NGOs 79, 82;
Asia 468; feminism 224; labour 248; democracy 546–549; East and Southeast
management studies 176; rationalism 97; Asia 468; EERCA 453; environmentalism
sub-Saharan Africa 516 333, 338; legitimacy 608, 612–613, 615,
domination 87, 131 617; management studies 167; organizational
donations 108, 132, 140, 204, 259, 273, 274–276, 427–428; states 36; transnational politics
416, 493, 496, 533, 598, 606, 613, 616 68–69; US 420
Donga 140 efficiency: accountability 627; EERCA 450;
donors: accountability 622–626, 630; aesthetic global terrorism 594; legitimacy 608, 612;
politics 132; authoritarianism 563; constituting management studies 167; professions 394;
NGOs 78–79; constructivism 123; democracy US 416
547–548; development studies 154, 157–158, Egypt 38, 80, 505–509, 513–514, 559, 563
160; education 284, 288; feminism 226–227; Elbers, Willem 170, 174
global terrorism 596, 598; human rights 254, elections (electoral assistance) 490, 510–511, 534,
259–261, 269, 271, 275; Latin America 495; 545, 548, 559, 565
legitimacy 607–608, 613, 616; management elites: authoritarianism 558–560; constituting
studies 167, 176; post-positivism 106, 108; NGOs 86; feminism 224, 230; management
rationalism 93, 95; security 577, 583; social studies 166; post-positivism 106–107; social
movements 141–142, 144–145; South Asia 532, movements 140, 143; sub-Saharan Africa
534–536; states 39; sub-Saharan Africa 524; 518, 524
transnational politics 66–67, 69; US 421, 426 emanations 56
double dependence 106 emancipation 87, 102, 156, 184, 239

641
Index

embedded NGOs 377–378 European Anti-Poverty Network 435

emergencies, complex 268, 574, 611 European Cancer Patient Coalition 435
emigrants 239 European Commission (EC) 392, 434, 437
emotion 130–131, 132–134 European Court of Justice 437
Empire of Humanity 28 European Cyclists’ Federation 435
employment (unemployment) 492, 512 European Economic and Social Committee
empowerment (disempowerment): accountability (EESC) 438–440, 444
626; aesthetic politics 135; authoritarianism 560; European Federation of Geologists (EFG) 388
citizens 304; civil society 345; constructivism European Federation of National Engineering
118; development studies 158; East and Associations (FEANI) 388
Southeast Asia 467, 476; education 289–290; European NGO Conference for Relief and
feminism 224, 226; Latin America 493; Development 134
legitimacy 611, 613, 616; management studies European Parliament 437, 440
168, 174; post-positivism 104; states 36; sub- European Research Network on Philanthropy/
Saharan Africa 524 EMES 196
encounters, sensory 129, 130 European Research Network on Philanthropy/
enforcement 53, 66 ERNOP 196
engagement 47, 50, 55, 561, 630; civil 452–453; European Transparency Register 434–435
societal 361 European Union (EU) 147, 433–434; NGOs
engineering 155 and EU politcs 437–442; NGOs in Brussels
engineers 348–350 434–436, 442–443; outlook and critique
English see United Kingdom (UK) 443–444; political systems 437–442;
Enhancing Learning and Research for Transparency Register 210
Humanitarian Assistance (ELHRA) 276 evaluation 421, 427, 616, 624
Ennahdha 506, 510–512 evaluators 98
entrepreneurs 140, 142, 336, 338, 417; norm 90, events 131, 132, 224
120; see also named entrepreneurs Every Child 161
Environmental Defense Fund 333–334 Evetts, Julia 387–388, 393
environmental protection 36, 350; see also evictions 473; see also palm oil
environmentalism exchange programmes 66
environmentalism 1; constructivism 120; expansion 28, 167
democracy 550; development studies 156, expatriates 23, 24, 271, 276
159; East and Southeast Asia 466–469; EU expectations 47, 55, 168, 362, 474; accountability
443; global governance 48, 55; labour 247; 626, 629–630
Latin America 488, 493; post-positivism 104, experience 276–277
106; rationalism 95; self-regulation 362; social expert communities 343–345, 353–354; (re)
movements 140–141, 144, 147–148; South Asia organization 348–350; beyond NGOs 350–353;
532; states 34–35, 37, 40; transnational politics typography 345–347
64; see also governance, environmental expertise 96, 119, 270, 286, 361, 442, 627;
environments 91, 94–95, 109, 516, 583, 590; authoritarianism 560, 562; civil society 351–352;
international 78 feminism 225–227; global trade 375–377;
equality 223, 239, 243, 292, 354, 474, 476, 488, security 577–578, 583–584; social movements
497, 547 141–142
Esteves, Ana Margarida 485, 493 exploitation 28, 470, 520, 626
Estonia 449, 456; see also Eastern Europe, Russia, expression, artistic 129
and Central Asia (EERCA) expression, freedom of 512, 530
ethics: accountability 627; aesthetic politics
133–134; constructivism 121–123; legitimacy failure 36, 168, 287
612; professions 384; security 582; transnational fairness 143, 345, 346, 364
politics 64, 66; see also religion faith-based NGOs 269; see also religion
Ethiopia 25, 38, 134 families 517
ethnic conflicts 575 family planning 474, 476
ethnocentrism 172, 176 famine 25, 130, 132, 133, 273
ethnonationalism 419 farmers (farming) 519, 520, 521
eugenics 143 Fast, Larissa 275, 580, 582, 589
EurGeol 388 fatalities 94, 490
European and World Social Forums 147 Federation of American Scientists (FAS) 319

642
 Index

federations 66, 154, 237, 242, 245, 248, 283, 293, friction, ethnic 536
434–435, 486, 497 Friedrich Ebert Foundation 493
feedback 443 Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) 378
feelings 130 Friends of the Earth (FoE) 140, 337
fees 23, 25, 384, 530, 531, 557, 598 Fruttero, Anna 94–95
Feinstein International Centre 169 functions 159, 548
feminism 26, 145–146, 167, 488; conceptualizing funding 38; accountability 622; authoritarianism
223–225; global governance 228; international 564, 566; citizens 308; constituting NGOs
law 180, 184; NGOization 225–228; post- 78; constructivism 118, 122; democracy 545;
positivism 102, 104; VAW 228–232 development studies 154; East and Southeast
Fernandes, Rubem 487, 493 Asia 467; education 284; EERCA 450–452;
Fimmen, Edo 245, 246 global terrorism 598–599; human rights 269,
finance: global 36; micro 94; see also microfinance 277; Latin America 489, 494–496; post-
Financial Action task Force (FATF) 596–598 positivism 107–108; rationalism 92, 94–96,
financial communities 597 98; social movements 141, 147; South Asia
Financial Crisis 277 530–531, 535–536; states 39; sub-Saharan
financial resources 56 Africa 519, 523–524; transnational politics 69;
financial schemes 518 US 419, 426
Finnemore, Martha 79, 119, 254–255 fundraising 56, 78, 142, 204, 426, 465, 577;
First Geneva Convention 26 accountability 626, 629; aesthetic politics
First International 239–240 132–134; development studies 155–157,
fishing 35, 512 159–160; human rights 253, 273; legitimacy
flexibility 55, 171, 523 612–613, 616; NGO emergence 25–26
Food and Agriculture Organization 56, 134 funds: accountability 623; citizens 300;
food security (insecurity) 25, 301–302, 575 environmentalism 332; feminism 227; global
Foodlink 302 terrorism 596, 600; human rights 253, 273;
Ford Foundation 285, 493 Latin America 492; management studies 172;
Foreign Assistance Act 416 South Asia 532; states 39
Foreign Contributions Regulation Act
(FCRA) 532 Gafsa Phosphate Company (CPG) 512
Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) 66, 366 gatekeepers 40, 50, 107, 253, 321, 625;
Forum for Development, Culture and Dialogue international law 186, 188
(FDCD) 308 Gates and Warren Buffet 417
fossil fuels 337 Gaza 188
Foucault, Michel 84, 106, 109 G8 143
foundations 5, 27, 193, 215, 415, 417, 436, 465, G10 141
486, 493, 543–544, 566, 598; see also named gender equality (inequality) 1, 102, 104, 129–130,
organizations 145, 301, 466, 473; development studies 159;
Four Horsemen, The 133 Latin America 487, 497
four Ps 608–611 General Agreement on Trade in Services
fragmentation 130, 471; global 69 (GATS) 376
framing 5, 64, 104, 131, 139, 142–143, 230, 258, General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
292, 325, 337, 499 (GATT) 377
France 23, 24, 187, 201, 241, 268–269, 270 General Anti-Slavery Convention 26
franchise partners 176 General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT) 510
Frank Report 315 generalizability 103
Fraser Institute 379 generalization 210
fraud 490, 548 Geneva 26, 27
Free Enterprise Institute 379 Geneva Convention 188, 582
Free Gaza Movement 188 genocides 258, 270, 273
free speech 144, 291 Georgia 449, 456; see also Eastern Europe, Russia,
free trade 25, 26, 498 and Central Asia (EERCA)
free trade agreements (FTAs) 145 Germany 23–24, 82, 94, 241, 270, 320, 378
freedom 549, 593; civic 623; of association 512; Ghana 170
of expression 512, 530; of speech 534 Ghana Cocoa Board 520
Freedom House 549 GHC Protocol 338
Freidson, Eliot 387, 390 GiveWell 421

643
Index

Giving Pledge 417 understanding NGOs 54–57; variation in

Gladigow, Burkhard 399, 408 institutional designs 52–54
global capitalism 283–285, 292–293; Education Governing the Global Polity: Practice, Mentality,
International 290–292; Five generations of Rationality 84
NGOs 285–288; PAL network 288–290 Government-Organized NGOs (GONGOs) 19,
global civil society 1, 22–27, 78, 82, 120, 35, 351, 452, 474–475, 519, 546
371–372, 550–551 governmentality, liberal 121
Global Climate Action 338 grafting 121
Global Climate Coalition (GCC) 338 Grameen Bank 534
Global Compact 351 Gramsci, Antonio 561
global fragmentation 69 grants 141, 546
global governance see governance, global grassroots 39, 76, 213, 225; development studies
Global North 69, 550; accountability 624, 154, 161; feminism 223, 227, 231; social
628; development studies 154–155, 157, movements 139–141, 143
160; education 286–287, 289; human rights grassroots associations (GAs) 194
253–254; legitimacy 607, 614; post-positivism grassroots organizations (GROs) 19
106–107; social movements 138, 147 Great Irish Famine 25
Global Philanthropy Society (GPS) 196 Greece 24
Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) 67 Green Zones 594
Global South 69–70, 106, 531; accountability Greenham Common 319
624, 626, 628–629; aesthetic politics 128, 135; Greenhouse Gas (GHG) protocol 366
development studies 154, 157–159; education greenhouse gases 338
286, 289; human rights 253–254, 260, 271; Greenpeace 319, 332; authoritarianism 562; data
labour 244, 246; legitimacy 610, 613–614; 209; EU 442; international law 187–188;
social movements 138, 147 legitimacy 616; self-regulation 362; social
global terrorism 587–589, 601–602; movements 140, 142; South Asia 532; states 34;
counterterrorism 596–601; NGOs 589–595; transnational politics 64
responses 599–601 Greenpeace International 67
Global Terrorism Database 580, 591 GreenClimateCities 338
global union federations 248 Guatemala 169, 487, 489, 491
GlobalGiving 421 GuideStar 421
globalism 77–78, 80–83, 86 Gulf War 416
globalization: aesthetic politics 133; constructivism
118; democracy 550; environmentalism 330; Habermas, Jurgen 145, 346
global governance 52; labour 248; NGO Haerpfer, Christian 453–454
emergence 27; peace 321; post-positivism 107; Hague Peace Conference 81, 240
social movements 147; states 39; transnational Haiti 35, 420, 564, 606, 615
politics 69 Handicap International 322
goals: accountability 629; aesthetic politics 135; Hannah, Erin 376, 377
climate 337; constituting NGOs 77; data 210; Harcourt, Wendy 155, 160
democracy 547; development studies 160, harm 120, 257
162; education 289; global governance 49–50; #GivingTuesday 214
legitimacy 610, 612; management studies 168, #metoo 627
174; NGO emergence 23; post-positivism 104; healing 26
rationalism 91–92, 96–98; social movements health 297–298, 303–304, 310–311; coordination
140, 147; states 33–34; transnational politics 68 305–306; East and Southeast Asia 466;
Gonoshahajjo Sangstha (GSS) 534 economic stability 301–302; education
governance 23, 169, 173, 347, 352 300–301; expanding roles 298–300; healthcare
governance, communities of 350–353; Latin 133, 155, 159, 270, 393, 394; Healthy Parks
America 489–491; supernational 391–392; Healthy People US 308–309; Latin America
technical 348–350; transnational 66–67 493; Mennonite Central Committee 307–308;
governance, environmental 329–330, 339–340, neighbourhood and built environment
350; climate change 333–336; climate 302–303; policies 40; social and community
diplomacy 336–339; history 330–331; NGOs context 304–305; South Asia 533; sub-Saharan
331–333 Africa 518; transnational politics 65; way
governance, global 35, 46, 57–58, 184–185, forward 305–306
550–551; gender 228–232; NGOs 47–52; Healthy Parks Healthy People US 308–309

644
 Index

hegemony 82–83, 121, 194, 226, 246, 493, 564 Wilsonian 269; Education International
heritage, world 350 290–292; Five generations of NGOs 285–288;
hierarchies 80–81, 103, 122, 130, 256, 533; ICRC and IFRC 271–272; Islamic Relief
feminism 224–225, 227–228; sub-Saharan 273–274; Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)
Africa 517, 521 273; national and regional differences 270–271;
High Independent Authority for Audiovisual NGOs’ size 269–270; PAL network 288–290;
Communication (HAICA) 512 pure vs multi-mandated 268–269; Save the
history: NGOs 19–29, 81–82, 103; voluntaristics Children 272; secular vs faith-based 269;
194–195 security 577; states 34–35, 40; suffering
HIV/AIDS 36, 40, 228, 273, 391, 474, 487 277–278; transnational politics 65, 69; workings
Hobe, Stephen 181, 189 274–277; World Vision 272–273
homosexuality 261, 597 humiliation 130
Honduras 487, 494 humour 130
Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Hungary 419, 454; see also Eastern Europe, Russia,
(HSBC) 64–65, 598 and Central Asia (EERCA)
Hong Kong (HK) 470, 472 hunger 98, 238, 273, 302, 308
hope 130, 135 Hurricane Mitch 487
horizontal accountability 628–630 hybridity 48, 169, 172, 393, 584
home countries 96 hydropower 468
host countries 27
hostility 131, 531 ideals 238–239
hosts 39, 66 ideas 122, 156
housing (homes) 301, 303 identities 64, 92, 129, 274, 468, 535;
Housing Rights Watch 252 accountability 626, 630; civil society 351–353;
Howard, Marc Morjé 454–455 collective 147–148; constructivism 116–120,
Hulme, David 93, 157, 184, 534 122; post-positivism 103, 105; security
Human Development Report 172 576–577, 584; social movements 140, 144–146
human dignity 133 ideology 8, 121, 143–144, 167–168, 338, 351,
human resource management 108 394, 449, 453
human resources 169 image-making 132–134
human rights 1, 251–252; authoritarianism Image of Africa 134
563, 565; challenges 259–262; civil society images 129, 131, 134, 160, 612
350; constituting NGOs 78; constructivism impact 68, 95, 362, 472, 549, 577, 626; global
119–121; data 210; definitions 252–254; terrorism 598–599; legitimacy 611–612,
democracy 550; development studies 156; East 615–616; post-positivism 105–107; RINGOs
and Southeast Asia 465–466; NGO emergence 401–402
23, 28; environmentalism 336; EU 443; ImpactMatters 421
global governance 49, 55; global terrorism impartiality 184, 577, 578, 615
589, 596–597; influence of NGOs 258–259; imperialism 7, 23, 28, 55, 245
Latin America 487–489, 497–498; legitimacy implementation 351, 443; capacities 56; project 93
614; management studies 174; Middle East incentives 95, 120, 173, 454, 548, 593
and North Africa 508; peace 320; rationalism inclusivity 345, 351
91, 95–96; religion 401; security 575; social incomes see resource flows
movements 145, 147; South Asia 532, 536; independence 26, 68, 79, 272–274, 507, 577;
states 34, 36–38, 40; tactics and strategies global terrorism 590, 592; states 35, 37
256–257; theoretical perspectives 254–255; India 38, 160, 228, 245, 424, 588; citizens 301,
universalism vs. relativism 255–256 304; management studies 169–170; South Asia
Human Rights Council 35, 49–50, 550 531–533; see also Brazil, Russia, India, China
Human Rights Watch (HRW) 50, 107, 145, 252, and South Africa (BRICS)
322, 595, 614 Indian National Congress 531
Human Rights Web Archive (HRWA) 211 Indonesia 468, 471, 473
Humanitarian Outcomes 578 industrialists 348–350
Humanitarian Practice Network (HPN) 276 industry associations see trade associations
humanitarian relief (needs) 37, 78, 94, 146, industry groups see trade associations
153, 159 inefficiencies 120, 612, 623
humanitarianism 1, 28, 85, 108, 283–285, inequalities (unequal) 69; constituting NGOs
292–293; context 267–268; Dunantist vs 81; democracy 550; development studies 159;

645
Index

feminism 226, 230; post-positivism 103; social International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear
movements 147; sub-Saharan Africa 517; Weapons (ICAN) 304, 323
transnational politics 70; US 422 International Campaign to Ban Landmines 34,
influence 39–40, 49, 64, 95–96, 105–107, 159 104, 109, 305, 322–323
informality 55, 58 International Centre for Trade and Sustainable
information: accountability 628; constituting Development (ICTSD) 377
NGOs 76, 84, 86; constructivism 119; International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) 186,
democracy 548; East and Southeast Asia 466; 361, 363, 379
EU 435; global governance 53, 56; global International Committee of the Red Cross (Red
terrorism 592, 599; human rights 255, 257, Cross) 271–272, 322; global terrorism 594;
259; legitimacy 616; management studies 168; international law 186–188; legitimacy 612,
post-positivism 107; rationalism 95–96; social 615; NGO emergence 25–26; rationalism 93;
movements 142; US 421 security 583; states 37
information: access to 490; freedom of 40; sharing International Council of Voluntarism, Civil
47, 66 Society, and Social Economic Research
infrastructure 25, 94, 454 Associations (ICSERA) 195
input legitmacy 345–347 International Council of Women 26, 147
insecurities 467, 582 International Court of Justice (ICJ) 181, 321–322
insiders 144, 351, 376, 550 International Covenant on Civil and Political
Institute for Public Health Innovations Rights 350
(IPHI) 310 International Criminal Court 5, 7, 55, 187
Institute of Development Research (IDR) 169 International Electro-technical Commission (IEC)
Institute of Economic Affairs 379 348–349
institutionalization 75, 141 International Federation of Red Cross and Red
institutions: authoritarian 558–560; design Crescent Societies 186, 271–272, 575
variations 52–54; religious 64 international humanitarian law (IHL) 318–319
insurgency 513 International Humanitarian Studies Association
intentionality, collective 117 (IHSA) 276
Inter-Parliamentary Union 186 International Institute of Social Development
InterAction 416, 421, 424, 615 (IISD) 407
interaction patterns 33–36 International Labour Code 242
interactions 47, 52, 574, 577, 582, 624 International Labour Organization (ILO) 21, 103,
interdependence 33, 57, 113, 437, 457 242, 246–247, 349, 472
International Confederation of Free Trade Unions international law see law, international
(ICFTU) 246 International League for Peace and Freedom
interests 64, 78–79, 96–97, 108, 156, 332, (ILPF) 240
363–364; constructivism 119, 121–122; social International Monetary Fund (IMF) 50, 145,
movements 143, 145, 147 173, 394
intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) 19–20, International NGO Research and Training Centre
26–28, 33, 35, 38–40, 46–47, 51–58, 78, 91, (INTRAC) 168
95–96, 119, 181, 189, 199, 215, 224–226, 237, international non-governmental organizations
335, 378, 573; see also named organizations (INGOs) 19, 27–28; see also thematic entries
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and named organizations
(IPCC) 334 International Olympic Committee 186
internal accountability 626–628 International Organization for Standardization
Internal Revenue Service (IRS) 420 (ISO) 349
internally displaced persons (IDPs) 277 International Physicians for the Prevention of
International Accounting Standards Board Nuclear War (IPPNW) 319
(IASB) 352 International Public Unions (IPUs) 348
International Aid Transparency Initiative international relations theory xix–xx, 3–4; see also
(IATI) 214 thematic entries
International Alliance of Women (IAW) 240 International Rescue Committee (IRC)
International Association 239 268, 427
International Association for Labour Legislation International Save the Children Union 272
(IALL) 242 International Shipwreck Society 24–25
International Association of Lawyers Against International Society for Third Sector Research
Nuclear Arms (IALANA) 321 (ISTR) 196

646
 Index

International Transportworkers Federation management studies 168, 175; post-positivism

(ITF) 245 102–103, 106; see also expertise
International Union for Conservation of Nature Koddenbrock, K 274–275
(IUCN) 310 Korean War 272, 316
International War Crimes Tribunal 318 Korten, David C. 168, 285, 286, 523
International Woman Suffrage Alliance 26 Kothari, Uma 157, 159
International Workingmen’s Association 26 Kuapa Kakoo 520
internationalization 29, 146, 387 Kurzman, Charles 143, 144
internet 146–147, 549 Kyoto Protocol 338
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Kyrgyzstan 449, 457; see also Eastern Europe,
352–353 Russia, and Central Asia (EERCA)
internet governance 352
Interpal 599 labour 140, 237, 248–249, 253, 350; child 106;
interviews 96, 425, 443, 592 Cold War 246–247; early TANs 237–238; East
intuitions 131 and Southeast Asia 469–473; First International
investments 158, 258, 520, 563, 615 239–240; International Association for
investors 69, 300, 467, 468, 616 Labour Legislation 241–242; non-Western
Invisible Children (IC) 613 244–245; protests and ideals 238–239; Second
Iraq 94, 324–325, 588 International 240–241; skin colours 245–246;
Ireland 25 standards 66; transnational labour networks
Irish Association of Non-Governmental 247–248; tripartite international labour
Organizations, The 134 organization 242–243; women 243–244
Islamism 505, 506–509, 510–511 labour unions see trade unions
Ismail, Feyzi 288, 290 Labour’s Alternative 245
issues 36, 40, 174 landmines 109, 187, 305, 319, 321–323, 362;
see also weapons
Japan 36, 201, 244, 315, 389 Lang, Sabine 141, 159–160
Japanese Red Cross 26 languages 97, 130, 135, 333, 450, 455
Joachim, Jutta 105–106, 109, 229 Latin America 145, 158, 258, 285, 483–484,
jobs 108, 172 499–500, 563; civil society 484–485;
John Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector democracy and human rights 488–489;
Project (JHCNSP) 384 feminism 225, 227; funding patterns 494–496;
Jomtien World Conference on Education for governance, accountability and trust 489–491;
All 286 labour 245–246; origins and development
journalists 443, 508, 549; see also media of NGOs 485–488; peacebuilding 491–492;
junctures, historical 130; see also events policymaking and advocacy 496–498;
justice 7, 156, 223, 257, 324, 490, 497, 508; Washington Consensus 492–494
environmental 335, 467–468; global 40, 49; Latvia 449, 456; see also Eastern Europe, Russia,
social 159, 336, 371, 376, 475, 505, 537 and Central Asia (EERCA)
law, international 179–180, 189–190; alternative
KaBOOM! 303 legal paradigms 182–184; global governance
Kamat, Sangeeta 288, 290 and legitimacy 184–185; legal personality
Karmika School of Construction Workers 301 xxi, 25, 180, 185; legal positivism 181–182;
Keck, Margaret E. 76–77; constituting NGOs 81, NGOs’ rights 187–188; participation 185–189;
86; constructivism 119; development studies scrutiny 187
156; education 292; environmentalism 337; law-making 188–189
feminism 229; human rights 258; Latin America laws 224, 255, 284, 449, 509, 582; accountability
488; peace 321; post-positivism 104, 107; social 623, 627; legitimacy 610, 614; transnational
movements 147 politics 67–68
Kenya 95, 228, 291, 304, 425, 519, 521–522; Le Bardo Square 510
authoritarianism 562–563; states 35, 38 leaders 140, 202, 228, 259, 425, 614, 616
kidnapping 275, 580, 590–591 leadership 168, 210, 434, 450, 523; human rights
Kim, Youngwan 94, 95 273, 276; social movements 143, 147
knowledge 83, 142, 225, 310, 361, 581, 610; League of Nations 20, 21, 47, 147, 186, 349
aesthetic politics 129, 131–132; civil society League of Red Cross Societies 20
346, 348–349, 352–353; constructivism League of Universal Brotherhood 26
119–120; East and Southeast Asia 466–467; learning 346, 421, 427, 616, 629

647
Index

Lebanon 307 London Society 24, 27

lectures 26 London World Exhibition 239
Lecy, Jesse D. 37, 213 longevity 559, 629
legal paradigms 182–184 looting 591
legal personality xxi, 25, 179–190 low politics 22
legal positivism 181–182 loyalty 173, 558, 559
legislation 64, 103, 450, 565–566, 599–600; EU Luhmann, Niklas 346–347
437, 441; labour 241–242, 244 Luxembourg Compromise 437–438
legitimacy 1, 606–607; accountability 623;
aesthetic politics 131; authoritarianism 559, McDonald’s 333
562, 564–566; challenges 611–613; civil Mahila Housing SEWA Trust (MHT) 301
society 344–347, 350–353; constituting NGOs maintenance, organisational see survival
85; constructivism 116, 118–119, 121–123; Make Poverty History 143, 147
democracy 549–550; development studies 157; Malawi 36, 40, 519
environmentalism 331, 338; EU 440–443; four Malaysia 144, 473
Ps 608–611; global governance 52, 56; global management 170–171; development 173–174;
terrorism 593; global trade 371–372; human professional 393–394; public 172–173; remote
rights 254–255; INGO responses 613–617; 583, 594; third-sector 171–172
international law 181–182, 184–185; Latin management studies 165–166; conceptualising
America 491; links with purpose 607–608; 169–170; development 173–174; future
Middle East and North Africa 511; people 174–177; issues 174; mainstream 170–171;
609–610; performance 609–610, 612–613; past debates 167–169; public administration
post-positivism 106–107, 109; process 609–610, 172–173; reluctant managers 166–167;
611–612; public access 616; purpose 607–608, third-sector 171–172
609–610; rationalism 93; self-regulation 365; managerialism 170
social movements 142–143, 146–147; South managers, reluctant 166–167
Asia 530–531, 535; states 35, 37; transnational mandates, multi- 270, 272
politics 66–69; US 420, 427 mapping 615
Lensational 135 Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) 351
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex marketing 135, 156
and asexual (LGBTQIA) 261, 487, 497 markets (marketization) 108, 146, 224, 244;
Lesotho 188 development studies 155, 158; management
leverage 58, 64, 76, 104, 119, 160; education studies 168, 172; rationalism 92, 95
287, 292 Marshall Islands 316
liaison 67–68, 334, 436 Marshall Plan 416
liberalism 75, 84, 95, 128, 156, 175 Marx, Karl 83, 240, 289
Libya 507, 594 meaning 135
Lima Agreement 490 Medair 269
limitations, rationalist explanations 96–98 Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) 34, 37, 268, 277,
Lipschutz, Ronnie 120, 121 581, 594
literature 79, 546, 550, 558; global trade media: accountability 624; aesthetic politics
371–373 132–134; authoritarianism 566; citizens
Lithuania 449, 456, 457; see also Eastern Europe, 306; human rights 251, 253, 261, 277; Latin
Russia, and Central Asia (EERCA) America 484; legitimacy 608; Middle East and
Live Aid 134 North Africa 507, 509, 512; peace 316; press
Live8 142 536; rationalism 93, 95, 98; security 578, 584;
lobbying: authoritarianism 565; democracy 550; self-regulation 364; social movements 142;
East and Southeast Asia 469; elite 315–317; US 421
environmentalism 332, 336; EU 434–435, mediation 595
440, 444; feminism 224; global terrorism 595, meliorism 283, 289
600; human rights 261; peace 318–320, 324; membership 67, 107, 332, 439, 465, 484;
rationalism 95–96; self-regulation 364; sub- accountability 627, 630; self-regulation
Saharan Africa 518; transnational politics 67; 362–363; voluntaristics 201–204
US 421–422 memory 498
locations 94–96, 98, 120, 258, 521; see also context Memory of Solferino 575
Lofoten 337 Mennonite Central Committee 307–308
log frames 623 mental health 303–304

648
 Index

Mercy Corps 595 mutual aid 517

merits, rationalist explanations 96–98 Myanmar 251, 469
messages 142, 275
Mexico 145, 231, 375, 486, 489, 491, 496–497 Naam 520–521
Mexico City 229, 487 Nairobi 27, 229, 378
microfinance 36, 94, 476, 532–534 napalm 318–319
migration (migrants) 64, 84, 86, 230–231, 244, Napoleonic Wars 24
277, 386, 470, 575 Nasiritousi, Naghmeh 338–339
military (military forces) 176, 275, 437, 491, 506, National Center for Charitable Statistics 33
508, 534, 559, 563, 574–576, 583, 592, 594 National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 160, 493 (SANE) 316
Mines Advisory Group 322 National Endowment for Democracy (NED) 545
mining 512 National Ethics Service (NES) 407
missionaries 268, 283, 286, 531 National Forum on Heart Disease and Stroke
missions 91, 95, 96, 121, 157, 169, 425 Prevention 310
Mitchell, George 211, 213 National Institution Against Corruption 513
mobilization 39, 107, 142, 248, 472, 484, 562; National Red Cross 272
conceptualization 223–225; education 288, 291; nationalism 117, 158, 245, 507–9, 531, 566
global governance 228; NGOization 225–228; needs 94–95
peace 316, 322, 324; US 425–426; VAW negotiations (renegotiation) 36, 52, 55, 56, 155, 169
228–232 neo-Gramscianism 109, 372–373
MobilizationLab (MobLab) 616 neo-utilitarianism 114–115
modelling (models) 34, 54, 91–92, 97, 257, neoliberal NGOs 10, 374, 379
345–347; see also named models neoliberalism 28, 69–70, 114, 145–146, 167, 175,
modernisation 158, 161 223, 226, 232, 284–293, 379, 467, 506,
Moldova 454, 456; see also Eastern Europe, Russia, 518, 536
and Central Asia (EERCA) Nepal 301
monarchy 536 Nestlé 64
money 84, 108, 140, 141, 171, 227 Netherlands 23–24, 211, 377
monitoring 66, 392, 550, 597, 612; accountability Network on Humanitarian Assistance
623–624, 629; global governance 49, 53; Latin (NOHA) 276
America 490, 497; US 421, 426–427 networks 1, 66, 196; accountability 630;
monitoring and evaluation (M&E) 625 authoritarianism 561; civil society 351–352;
Montevideo 486 constituting NGOs 77, 80, 85–87;
moral authority 118 constructivism 119–120; data 211; development
moral cosmopolitanism 121 studies 153, 155–157; East and Southeast
morality (morals) 23, 108, 129, 210, 345, 606, Asia 464–466, 468, 471–472, 475; education
622; constructivism 119–123; rationalism 92, 286–287, 290–291; EERCA 453, 455;
94, 97–98 environmentalism 332–333; feminism 224,
Moran, Michael 386, 393 227–228; human rights 276; labour 248;
Morrow, Dwight W. 2, 20 Latin America 489–490; legitimacy 611,
Morsi, Mohamed 507, 559 617; management studies 169, 177; NGO
motivation 94, 96, 108, 171, 365, 455 emergence 23, 27; peace 322; post-positivism
Motta, Sara 485, 493 107; RINGOs in UN 403–407; self-regulation
Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People 361; social movements 140–142, 145, 147; states
(MOSOP) 145 36–37; see also named networks
MoveOn 209 Neumann, Iver B. 84, 109, 121
Mozambique 322 neutrality 26, 35, 103, 615; global terrorism 590,
multilateral environmental agreements 592, 597–598; security 577–578, 582
(MEAs) 330 New Delhi 27
multilateralism 46, 577 New Orleans 172, 302–303
Multiple Accountabilities Disorder (MAD) 80 New Public Management (NPM) 622
multinational corporations see corporations, New York 27, 240
transnational New York Peace Society 24
Murdie, Amanda 145, 211, 213, 258, 589 Newell, Peter 64, 68
Muslim Brotherhood 506–507, 508 news corporations 131; see also media
mutual accountability 628 NGOization 141, 145, 157, 184, 225–227, 352, 517

649
Index

NGOs: A New History of Transnational Civil Society Organization of American States (OAS) 229–231,
28, 81–82 489, 492
NGOs, Civil Society and the Public Sphere 159 othering 106, 134
Nicaragua 487 Ottoman Empire 24
Nida Tunes 506, 511 Our World Is Not For Sale (OWINFS) 376
Nigeria 34, 40, 145 outcomes 50, 102, 135, 160, 365, 444;
9/11 130, 324, 419, 587–588, 596, 599 accountability 622, 629; constructivism 115,
Nobel Peace Prize 305, 317, 323 120; education 284, 289; environmentalism
non-governmental organizations (NGOs): 332, 336; legitimacy 610–611, 613, 615–616;
contemporary challenges 8; contraction public 162; rationalism 91, 98
28; definitions 2–3, 33; emergence 19–27; output legitimacy 345–347
expansion 28; influence and interactions 5–6; outsiders 144, 351, 376, 550
international relations 3–4; issues 6–8; periods outsourcing 35, 122, 146, 416, 441, 612
and trends 27–29; structures and networks 4–5; overheads 167, 210, 420, 427, 612
UN Charter conference 20–22; see also thematic Overseas NGO Management Law 465
entries and named organizations Owen, Robert 239, 241
Non-profit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly (NVSQ) 195 ownership 524, 617
Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) 321 Oxfam International 39, 167, 268, 322, 616;
Nordic Civil Society Researchers Network 196 accountability 627–628; development studies
norm building, post Cold War 320–325 154, 159; global terrorism 594–595; social
norm entrepreneurs 3, 40, 120, 255, 349 movements 142, 146; transnational politics
norms 156, 363–364, 561, 610; constituting 66–67
NGOs 76–77, 80, 86; constructivism 115, Oxford Committee for Famine Relief 132; see also
118–123; life cycle 254; post-positivism Oxfam International
103–104, 109; shared 630; soft 345 ozone depletion 330
Norway 270, 337, 377
nuclear disarmament 319–320 pain 130, 133
nuclear energy 316 Pakistan 534–535, 588
nuclear testing 34 PAL network 288–290
Nuclear Weapons Freeze campaign (NWFC) 319 Palestine 561
palm oil 467, 468
Obama, Barak 323–324 Panel of Eminent Persons on United
objectives, moral 95, 172 Nations-Civil Society Relations 29
objectivity 103, 184 papers, white and green 441–442
obligations 187–188 Paris 27, 49, 81
observers, electoral see elections Park Rx 309
observers (observer status) 21, 47, 102, 118, 186, parks 308–309
332, 335–336 Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) 316
occupation 507 participation 201–204; accountability 624;
oceans 466 civic 304; development studies 161; East
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner and Southeast Asia 472; environmentalism
for Human rights (OHCHR) 472 333; EU 440, 444; global governance 52;
official development assistance (ODA) 65, 378, international law 180, 185–189; Latin America
417, 494 493, 497; legitimacy 613, 616; management
Oil Change International 337 studies 168, 171, 173, 175; participants 182,
oil exploration 337 592; social movements 147; sub-Saharan
Olive Leaf Societies 26 Africa 524
Open Data Services 214 participatory learning and action (PLA) 173
Open Society Foundation 284, 286, 416–417, partners: citizens 308; constituting NGOs 77,
419, 544 79–80, 83–87; development studies 161; East
openness 53, 56, 143, 144, 145, 223, 345 and Southeast Asia 468; education 289; EU
opportunities see political opportunity structures 434; feminism 228; franchised 176; global
opposition movements 261–262 governance 52; global terrorism 596, 600;
order, transnational 67–68 international law 182; legitimacy 608, 610, 616;
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and management studies 168; security 577, 581,
Development (OECD) 214, 284, 347, 394, 583; South Asia 536; states 33
483, 537 Partnership Programme Agreement 39

650
 Index

partnerships 287, 339, 493; citizens 303, 305–306, 288; global terrorism 593; human rights 253,
309–310; development studies 154, 159; 259; post-positivism 108; security 575; self-
global terrorism 594, 600; legitimacy 612, 615; regulation 362; states 33, 36, 40
management studies 169–170, 173; peace 321, positivism 90–98, 129; legal 181–182
323; self-regulation 364–365 post-positivism 101–103, 109–110; impact,
patterns, emergent 52, 84 influence and actors 105–107; NGOs actors to
peace 24, 26, 65, 315, 576; anti-Vietnam War structures 107–109; NGOs analysis 103–105
movement 317–318; Cold War constraints Potoski, Matthew 364–365
318–320; post-Cold War 320–325; public Potter, David M. 155–156, 157, 560
awareness 317; public pressure 120; rise of poverty 94, 106, 133, 303, 336, 516, 588, 611;
antinuclear NGOs 315–317 aesthetic politics 130, 132; development studies
Peace of Westphalia 116 153, 158–159, 161; human rights 271, 277;
peace process 489 Latin America 492, 495; social movements
peace-building (peace building) 224, 226, 336, 142–143, 146; states 34, 37
583, 595, 600 poverty porn 612
peacekeeping 576, 581, 583 Powell, Colin 269, 592
peasants 468, 470 power: accountability 625–626, 628–629; aesthetic
peers 37, 306, 346, 393, 427, 565, 628; legitimacy politics 129, 131; asymmetries 105–106, 109;
606–607, 610, 614; post-positivism 106, authoritarianism 558, 563–564; constituting
108–109 NGOs 75–76, 78, 82–83, 86; constructivism
Penang 27 119; development studies 154–155; East
perceptions 40, 64 and Southeast Asia 465; EERCA 457;
performance 93, 172–173, 261, 302, 345; environmentalism 332; EU 437; feminism
accountability 622–623, 628; legitimacy 224–227; global governance 49, 51–52, 54–55,
609–610, 612–613 58; global trade 371–373; human rights 256;
Permanent Court of Arbitration 240 legitimacy 608, 613, 615–616; post-positivism
personality, legal xxi, 25, 179–190 103–105, 107; professions 390, 393; rationalism
perspectives 161, 175; comparative 453–454 98; religion 398; social movements 146; states
persuasion 58, 123, 132 35–36, 38; transnational politics 63–64
Peru 228, 486, 489, 596 PoweredbyData 214
Peruzzotti, Enrique 489–490 practice theory 83–86
philanthrocapitalism 287, 612 practices 83–86, 103, 189; corporate 35; state 65
philanthropy 204 Prakash, Aseem 95, 96, 364–365, 566, 568
philosophers 129 press see media
phosphate 512 principal-agent (PA) theory 78–79, 93, 630
photographs (photography) 132, 133, 135; see also principals, multiple 79
images principles 120, 129; multiple 93; shared 119
Pichler, Florian 453–454 prisons 26
Pinochet, Augusto 255, 487 Private Transnational Regulatory Organizations
planning 486 (PTROs) 55
plastics 333 private voluntary organizations (PVOs) 19, 421
Platform for Action (PFA) 229 privatization 38, 122, 166, 284, 291–292, 394,
platforms 287, 288, 304 469, 492
Ploughshares 319 problem sharing 361
pluralism 46, 57, 76–77, 80–83, 86 problem-solving 210, 305–306, 346
police agencies 559, 580 processes 199–201, 609–610, 611–612; global
policy cycles 47, 53, 56, 339, 496–497 governance 47; policy 40
policy-makers (policymaking) 65, 96, 142, 306, Product (Red) 287
437, 536, 564, 576; EU 440, 444 457, Latin Professionalisation of Everyone, The 384
America 488, 496–498 professionalism 167, 629
political opportunity structures (POS) 6, 52, 58, professionalization 78, 225, 273–275; development
97, 139, 143–145, 147, 224, 229, 315, 322, 569 studies 157, 161–162; legitimacy 607, 610;
political scientists 27, 116, 292, 317 social movements 140–141
pollution (pollutants) 337, 466; air 330 Professionals in Humanitarian Assistance
popular culture 129 (PHAP) 276
populations: accountability 626; citizens 301, 307; professions 383–384, 394–395; associations
constituting NGOs 82; data 213; education 66, 435, 384–385; contemporary challenges

651
Index

389–390; international associations 387–391; rage 135

international services firms 392–393; raids 590–591, 601
interprofessional associations 390–391; Rainbow Warrior 187
professionals 288, 489; public management randomized-controlled trials (RCTs) 615
393–394; self-regulation 386–387; supernational ranking see benchmarking
governance agencies 391–392 Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) 533
profit 65–66, 169, 173, 184, 287–288, 291, rating see benchmarking
607–608, 628 rationalism 90–91, 129; approach 91–92; influence
progeny 56 of NGOs 95–96; limitations and merits 96–98;
prosecution 599 NGO nature and behaviour 92–95
Proshika 534 realism 75, 84, 128, 156, 254
prostitution 106, 240 reality 398
protests (protest movements) 53, 244, 259, 318, rebels 108, 591
442, 449, 507–508, 548, 559, 596; labour recessions 495
238–239; social 103; see also thematic entries reciprocity 117, 520, 561
Public Choice Theory 530 recognition 117, 141, 186, 203, 595, 610–611;
public education 273, 319 global governance 47, 52; mutual 67
public health 297–298, 303–304, 310–311; recruitment 203, 273, 457
economic stability 301–302; education Red Cross see International Committee of the
300–301; expanding roles 298–300; Healthy Red Cross (Red Cross)
Parks Healthy People US 308–309; Mennonite Red de Investigadores Latinoamericanos de
Central Committee 307–308; neighbourhood Economia Social y Solidaria (RILESS) 196
and built environment 302–303; social and reflexivity 122, 134–135, 170
community context 304–305; way forward refugees 277, 278, 307, 350, 443
305–306 Regime Theory 156
Public Health Foundation of India 532 registration 38, 259, 534, 536, 566, 567, 596
public interest 95, 383, 441 regulations 35, 58, 158, 186, 242, 447;
public international unions see intergovernmental accountability 623, 627–629; East and Southeast
organizations (IGOs) Asia 464–465; global terrorism 596–600; global
public management, professional 393–394 trade 385, 392; legitimacy 610, 614; South Asia
public opinion: civil society 346; constituting 531–534, 536
NGOs 82; development studies 156; NGO rehabilitation 416, 533
emergence 22; global governance 56; global relationships 155, 202, 532, 545, 577, 607; global
terrorism 595; peace 322; security 578; terrorism 594, 599; management studies
US 418, 420 168–169; professions 385, 391
public-private partnerships (PPPs) 48, 55, 58, 287, relativism, cultural 255–256, 260
350, 364 reliability 212
public purposes 85 relief, humanitarian 24, 25, 26, 251
public recognition 47 religion: constructivism 116; development
public relations 108, 253 studies 155, 157; East and Southeast Asia 474;
public services 65, 172, 376, 394, 415, 563, 622; EU 435–436; global terrorism 598; human
see also education, public health rights 254, 256; Latin America 486–487,
public spaces 287, 303, 487, 508 491, 495; NGO emergence 23; management
public sphere 23, 124, 146, 288, 487, 505 studies 171; Middle East and North Africa
public support 56, 98, 593, 629 512; security 577, 581; South Asia
public trust 422, 456–457 531–533, 535; sub-Saharan Africa 517;
Public Trust and Societies Registration Act 531 see also Catholicism; Islamism
public visibility 443 religious international NGOs (RINGOs)
Pugwash 316, 317, 319, 320, 350 397–398; analysis 407–408; concept 399–401;
Putin, Vladimir Vladimirovich 224, 259, 562 construction 398–399; impact 401–402;
Putnam, Robert, D. 383, 561 internal differentiation 402–403; UN networks
403–407; see also named organizations
qualifications 66, 392 remote management 583, 594
questionnaires 212 reporting: accountability 623, 629; aesthetic
politics 131; democracy 548–550; feminism
racism 167, 245, 277, 497 230; global terrorism 597; international law
radical flank effect 142 188; Latin America 486; legitimacy 608;

652
 Index

management studies 169; social movements revolutionary NGOs 6, 10, 194, 242, 374–376,
141; South Asia 532; states 38; sub-Saharan 486, 506–507
Africa 524 revulsion 130
representations 131–134, 156 righteousness 40
repression 76, 143, 224, 487, 558–559; education rights-based approach (RBA) 614
285, 291; states 34, 36 Rio de Janeiro 331
reputations: accountability 629–630; risks 108, 275, 563, 584
authoritarianism 559, 566; civil society 346; Risse-Kappen, Thomas 119, 122
democracy 549–550; EERCA 452; EU 442; Risse, Thomas 258, 321, 565
global governance 50, 53; global terrorism 592, Rockefeller Foundation 285
598; human rights 255; Latin America 491; Rofman, Adriana 496–497
post-positivism 108; self-regulation 364–365; Rohrschneider, R. 38
social movements 140, 144; South Asia 533, roles 48, 159, 179, 363, 371, 524, 608; security
535; US 427 577, 581; voluntaristics 202–203
research: challenges 212–214; citizens 306; Romania 454; see also Eastern Europe, Russia, and
constituting NGOs 78, 84; constructivism Central Asia (EERCA)
118; democracy 546; EERCA 455–458; NGO Ron, James 69, 93, 108, 568
emergence 27; EU 436; global governance 53; Room to Read 300
global terrorism 589, 597; Latin America 488; Rosenau, James N. 115, 118
management studies 171; post-positivism 105; Roth, Silke 108, 278
quantitative 210–212; rationalism 91; security Roundtable on Responsible Soy (RTRS) 367
576, 584; social movements 142; states 39; Ruggie, John Gerard 115, 373, 377
US 426 rules 67, 256, 363, 607; constructivism 115,
researchers 92–93, 95 117–120, 122–123; global governance 47,
resistance: aesthetic politics 129; education 290; 51–52, 55; post-positivism 103, 109
EU 442; feminism 227; global governance 49; Rural Support Programme 535
global terrorism 599; management studies 168; Russell, Bertrand 316, 318–319
post-positivism 107; social movements 145; Russia 23, 38, 80, 160, 201, 226, 547;
sub-Saharan Africa 522 authoritarianism 561–562, 565; EERCA 449,
Resolution 1373 596 454, 456–457; human rights 259–260; labour
resource-dependency theory 158, 628; see also 242–243; see also Brazil, Russia, India, China
dependency and South Africa (BRICS); Eastern Europe,
resource flows 33, 38–39 Russia, and Central Asia (EERCA); Soviet
resources: citizens 308; constituting NGOs 86; Union
constructivism 115, 119–121, 123; democracy Russian Drilling Platform 188
547; East and Southeast Asia 466, 469; EERCA Rwanda 230, 270, 275, 416, 629
450; environmentalism 332; feminism 225,
227; financial 169, 544; global governance S-Theory 204
53, 56; human rights 261; legitimacy 610, safe-guarding 167
613; management studies 174; mobilization safety 582, 594
140–142; natural 467, 518; NGO emergence Sahel 519, 520
22; NGOs as 590–591; post-positivism 108; salaries 271, 564
professions 391, 394; rationalism 95–96; San Francisco 21
security 577; self-regulation 365; social sanctions 212, 259, 443, 532, 565, 629
movements 147; states 35–38; sub-Saharan Sangath 304
Africa 519–520, 525; transnational politics 65 Sarvodaya 535
responsible care 366 Saurugger, S. 108–109
responsibility: aesthetic politics 132; Save the Children 133, 155, 159, 161, 268,
constructivism 121; EERCA 452; feminism 322, 362
231; human rights 260–261; international law savings 158
188; legitimacy 608; management studies 175; scandals 534, 606, 622
security 583 Scandinavia 23
restrictions 38, 533, 545, 563, 564–568, 596 Schmitz, Hans Peter 66, 211
retention, staff 202–203 Schneiker, Andrea 105–106, 109
retirees 451 scholarship (scholars) 52–53, 96, 104, 546,
Review of Public Personnel Administration 563, 575
(ROPPA) 519 Scholte, Jan Aart 35, 120

653
Index

schools 157, 512; see also education social constructions 122

Science-Based Targets Initiative 338 social insurance 244
Sea Shepherd 209 social liberalism 158, 161
Seattle 374–375 social media 146, 214, 257, 278, 457, 507, 609
Second International 240–241 social movement theory 138–139, 145–148;
secretariats 56, 58, 241 framing theory 142–143; political opportunities
secular NGOs 269, 407 143–145; resource mobilisation 140–142
security 36, 40, 275, 498, 508, 536, 573–574; social relations 83, 84, 92, 103, 131, 373
citizen 490; crucial actors 584; human 323; Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) 195
issues and practices 576–578; national 316, 465, social structures 76, 77, 82, 85
599; overview 574–576; trends and implications socialism 118, 239–240, 243, 252, 317
578–583 socialization 92, 114, 118, 119, 255, 452, 565
self-assessment 168 Society for the Promotion of Permanent and
self-censorship 600 Universal Peace 24
self-correction 168 Society of Participatory Research in India
self-esteem 108 (PRIA) 169
self-help 146, 171, 226, 517, 531, 532 Society of Saint-Vincent de Paul (SSVP) 25
self-organisation 170 soft law 55
self-regulation 66, 361–362, 366–367, 614, soft power 259, 285, 626
625, 629, 630; emerging relationships 362; soldiers 130, 272
professional 386–387 Solferino 268, 271–272
self-reliance 134, 135, 226 solidarity 64, 147, 240, 248
self-reporting 212 Somalia 589, 591
Sending, Ole Jacob 84, 109, 121 Sontag, Susan 132–133
Senegal 40, 519 Soros, George 284, 416–417, 419, 544
sentiments 130 South Africa 160, 285, 331; see also Brazil, Russia,
September 11, 2001 see 9/11 India, China and South Africa (BRICS)
services (service provision) 177, 253, 494, 519, South Asia 529, 537, 580, 588, 627; Bangladesh
532, 564, 624; feminism 224–225; international 533–534; India 531–533; Nepal and Bhutan
professional 392–393; states 34–35, 37, 40; 536; overview 530–531; Pakistan 534–535; Sri
transnational politics 65–66 Lanka 535–536
sewing circles 26 South Korea 98, 230, 470
shaming 40, 119–120, 252, 256–258, 563, 565, 629 South Sudan 594
shareholders 64, 96 Southeast Asia 463–464, 477–478; comparison
sharing 520 476–477; context and networks 464–466;
shelter 159 environmentalism 466–469; labour movement
Shenton, Robert 157, 159 469–473; women’s rights 473–476
shipping (companies) 245 Sovereign Military Order of Malta 116, 186
shirking 79 sovereignty 32, 55, 67, 77, 254; constructivism
Sikkink, Kathryn: authoritarianism 565; 114, 116–117, 120
constituting NGOs 76–77, 81, 86; Soviet Holodomor 25
constructivism 119; development studies Soviet Union 21, 128–129, 246, 316, 320, 416,
156; education 292; environmentalism 337; 450; see also Russia
feminism 229; human rights 254–255, 258; Special Economic Zones 470
Latin America 488; peace 321; post-positivism spectacles, political 131
107; social movements 147 Sphere Project 276, 629
skills 286, 450, 594, 610 spies 581, 592
skin colour 245–246 spiral model (spiralling) 34, 38, 115, 256–257, 565
slavery 23, 49, 64, 175, 238, 256, 362 spirituality see religion
Slovenia 454; see also Eastern Europe, Russia, and sponsors 365
Central Asia (EERCA) sport 66, 186, 512
Smith, David Horton 193–195, 448 Sri Lanka 535–536
smuggling 512 St. Bernard Project (SBP) 302–303
Smulovitz, Catalina 489–490 stability 144, 416, 507, 511, 559–561, 576;
Social and Economic Council 21 authoritarianism 563–566, 568; economic
social class (class) 146, 159, 242, 249, 284, 288, 301–302
290, 513 stabilization 109

654
 Index

staff 142, 168, 172, 253, 276, 284, 465; Sullivan, Christopher 108
accountability 626–627; global terrorism 594, Superior Council for Media Regulation 508
600; legitimacy 606, 610 supplies 590–591
stakeholders 49, 109, 172, 261, 334, 420, 564; suppression 448, 490
accountability 622, 627–630; citizens 306, surveillance 599; state 146
310; civil society 350–353; constituting NGOs survival: accountability 624, 628; authoritarianism
79–80; constructivism 120–121; education 559; democracy 549; development studies 97;
287, 291; EU 438, 441; legitimacy 606–608, EERCA 450; feminism 227; legitimacy 607;
612–613, 615, 617; self-regulation 362, 365 post-positivism 108; rationalism 91–92; social
Standard Map Database of the International Trade movements 140; sub-Saharan Africa 524;
Centre 344 transnational politics 68
standards 79, 104, 129, 242, 288, 347, 386, 421, sustainability 141, 158, 227, 247, 286;
548; education 290; global 67; human rights environmentalism 331, 333; global governance
256, 260, 276; professional 66; public 349 49, 55; management studies 169, 175–176;
standards, private 343–345, 353–354; rationalism 94, 97; transnational politics 66–67
accountability 628–630; beyond NGOs Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 160
350–353; legitimacy 610, 614–615; (re) Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) 366
organization 348–350; transnational politics Sweden 94, 261, 319, 330, 377
68–69; typography 345–347 Switzerland 23, 24, 94, 187, 241–242
stasis 129 symbolism 76
statehood, constitutive 117 synethese 122–123
states: factors shaping relations with NGOs 36–39; Syracuse University 211
influence of NGOs 39–40; interaction patterns Syria 261, 307, 507
with NGOs 32–36, 40–41 Syria Relief and Development 597–598
statism 38
status: citizens 301; East and Southeast Asia 470; tactics 37, 119, 148, 253, 256–257, 317, 322, 333,
education 290; global terrorism 600; human 337, 472–473, 543
rights 273; labour 243, 246; Latin America 489; Taiwan 470
legal 180, 181; legitimacy 607–608; Middle Taliban 592
East and North Africa 513; peace 317; post- Tallberg, Jonas 51, 211, 213, 550
positivism 105, 109; professions 387; security Tanzania 98, 521
582; social movements 140–141; states 37–38 Tarrow, Sidney 143, 146
Stebbins, Robert A. 199, 448 taxation 416, 450, 590–591, 598, 623
Stockholm 28, 330 Taylor, Frederick W. 170, 176
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute teachers 284, 287, 290–292, 300, 476, 595, 600
(SIPRI) 350 Tearfund 269
Stoddard, Abby 577, 583 technical governance 348–350
Strategic Arms Limitations Talks 317 technicratisation 162
strategic response model 142 technology 52, 64, 86, 146, 155, 173, 321
strategies 49, 144, 256–257, 315, 332, 337, Temirkulov, Azamat 457
425–427, 465–466 temperance 26
strikes 316, 385, 472, 610 Tennessee Valley Authority 173
Stroup, Sarah S. 78, 80, 86, 273 tensions 175, 277, 347, 348
structures 79, 115, 226, 363, 576, 610; terminology 19, 21, 22, 27, 47, 212, 626;
development studies 155, 161; post-positivism voluntaristics 193–194
103, 105–107; voluntaristics 196, 199–201; terrorism 84, 130, 146, 511; definition 587;
see also social structures Islamic 506–509; NGO responses 599–601
sub-Saharan Africa 580, 588 terrorism, global see global terrorism
subordination 224 text, verbal 132
subsidies 337, 363, 512 Thailand 144, 230–231, 469
subversion 287 theft 261
success 95, 108, 140, 176, 321–323, 325, theory of change 610
518–520, 623 think tanks 379, 435, 436
Sudan 171 Third Sector European Policy
suffrage 26, 240–241, 507 Networks/TSEP 196
Sukyo Mahikari Centers for Spiritual Third World Approach to International Law
Development (SMCSD) 407 (TWAIL) 184

655
Index

Thirty Years War 116 Tremlay-Boire, Joannie 566, 629

Thomas, George M. 147, 211, 213, 344 Tribal Link Foundation 407
Thrandardottir, Erla 185, 630 tripartism 242
threats 131, 275, 593–594 Trump, Donald J. 419, 422
Three Gorges Dam 468 trust (distrust) 275, 392, 591, 608; accountability
350.org 337 622, 627, 630; authoritarianism 561–562;
3P Human Security 595 EERCA 452, 455; Latin America 486, 489–491
tolerance 143, 453 trusts 27, 308
torture 255, 487, 508 trustworthiness 616, 622, 630
Tostan International 65 truthfulness (truth) 134, 497
trade associations 361–364; collective action Tucker, Andrew 363–364
364–366; industry self-regulation 366–367 Tufts University 169
trade disputes 183 Tunisia 505–506, 509–514, 559
trade, free 25, 26, 498; see also free trade Tunisian Association for the Intergrity of
agreements (FTAs) Democracy and Elections (ATIDE) 510
trade, global 50, 370–371, 379–380; literature Tunisian Union for Agriculture and Fishing
371–373; typology of NGOs 374–379 (UTAP) 512
Trade Union Law 471 Twyford Down 140
trade unions 26, 171, 239, 241, 242–243, 244, typography 132
471, 509
Trademark East Africa (TMEA) 378 Uganda 597
trafficking 230–231, 443, 513 Uganda National Teachers’ Union
training programmes 301, 547, 581 (UNATU) 291
transformative NGOs in global trade 375–377 Ukraine 449, 454, 456; see also Eastern Europe,
transnational advocacy networks (TANs) 76–77, Russia, and Central Asia (EERCA)
107, 147, 225, 257, 292; constructivism 119, umbrellas, umbrella 435, 442, 444
121; development studies 156–157; labour understandings 103, 129, 468
237–238, 240 unfairness 147
transnational corporations see corporations, Union of International Associations (UIA) 22, 27,
transnational 33, 82, 210, 211–212
transnational labour networks (TLNs) 247–248 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) see
transnational law 182–183 Soviet Union
transnational legal process (TLP) 182–183 unions see trade unions
Transnational NGO Initiative (TNGO) 211 United Bible Societies 24
transnational NGOs (TNGOs), USA 415; United Kingdom (UK) 39, 81, 147, 377, 433,
accountability and context 420–422; challenges 599, 622; human rights 268–270; labour 239,
419–420; environments 416–419; goals and 242; management studies 168, 176; NGO
strategies 425–427; operational effectiveness emergence 24–25, 27; professions 386, 394
427–428; revenues 422; sectoral attributes United Methodists Women 405
422–425 United Nations (UN) 19–21, 147, 187, 211, 225,
transnational non-state politics 79; advocacy 246, 596; constructivism 114, 117–118; human
63–65; critiques 68–70; governance 66–67; rights 251–252, 255; RINGOs 403–407
order 67–68; public behaviour 64; repercussions United Nations Conference on Environment and
68; scale 68; service provision 65–66 Development (UNCED) 22, 49
transnationalism 119, 120, 320, 334 United Nations Conference on the Human
transparency: accountability 622; civil society 345, Environment 28
351; education 289; EERCA 453; European United Nations Conference on Trade and
Union (EU) 444; global governance 50, 52; Development (UNCTAD) 350
global terrorism 599; human rights 260–261; United Nations Convention on the Law of the
international law 182, 184; Latin America Sea (UNCLOS) 187
490–491; legitimacy 606–607, 614; United Nations Educational, Scientific and
management studies 173; Middle East and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) 289,
North Africa 510; professions 392; social 389, 472
movements 144; US 427 United Nations Framework Convention on
Transparency Register 33, 388 Climate Change (UNFCCC) 334–335
trauma 130, 304 United Nations International Children’s
treaties 34, 49, 55, 188, 251 Emergency Fund (UNICEF) 47–48

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United States Agency for International knowledge for NGOs 198–204; organized field
Development (USAID) 417, 493 195–196; size 198–199
United States of America (US): accountability 622; volunteering 201–204, 451, 452–453
aesthetic politics 128, 130; constituting NGOs volunteers 172, 226, 276, 303, 493, 626;
81; democracy 545, 549; East and Southeast education 284, 289; social movements
Asia 468; education 285; environmentalism 140–141; see also Eastern Europe, Russia, and
338; global terrorism 598–599; human rights Central Asia (EERCA)
258–259, 269; international law 188; labour
242, 244, 246; legitimacy 615; management waafs 457
studies 168–169, 176; NGO emergence 21, 24, wages 158, 239, 289, 385, 451
26; professions 394; rationalism 93–94; states Wallace, Caire 453–454
36; voluntaristics 201; see also transnational Wapner, Paul 64, 333
NGOs (TNGOs), USA war damages 26
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) warfare (war) 49, 84, 94, 130, 256, 307, 535;
252, 283, 614 labour 241–242
Universal Peace Federation (UPF) 406 wars, world see World War I; World War II
universalism 121, 255–256 Washington Consensus 158, 492–494
universality 129, 256, 291, 349 waste 69, 466–467; toxic (hazardous) 302, 362
University Network for Social Entrepreneurship/ water supplies 65, 301, 307, 512, 518, 520, 563
UNINET 196 Watkins, Susan Cotts 275
University of Birmingham 401 we-ness 147
University of Kent 400 weak states 35, 36, 40
uprisings see protests weakness 143, 160, 230–231, 517–519, 564,
upwards accountability 622–624 592, 593
Uruguay 377, 495, 497 weapons 24, 34, 104, 261, 323; nuclear (atomic)
Ushahidi 304 304–305, 316, 321–322
Weber, Max 121, 171, 176, 254
vagueness 576 websites 215, 278
values 40, 64, 93, 108, 119, 129, 182; welfare 35–36, 65, 174, 521, 531
development studies 156–157 welfare state 146, 244
values, shared 156, 169, 239; see also transnational well-being 131, 299
advocacy networks (TANs) West Africa 518–520
Van Der Heijden, Hein-Anton 140–141 West Virginia University Health Center 310
Venezuela 493 whaling 34, 109
vernacularization 230–231 white saviour industrial complex 134
Versailles 242 white supremacy 102
victims 103, 108, 130, 132–133, 230–231, 269, Willetts, Peter 55, 185, 398
274, 335, 492, 499, 508, 518, 578, 580, Wilson, Woodrow 269, 543, 577
589, 615 women 103, 135, 184, 378, 625; citizens 301;
videography 135 democracy 547, 550; East and Southeast Asia
Vienna 229, 284 465, 472–477; EU 443; labour 240, 243–244,
Vietnam Veterans Against the War 318 248; Latin America 495; Middle East and North
Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation 322 Africa 510–511; NGO emergence 24, 26;
violence 67, 304, 472, 613, 627; aesthetic rights 26, 487, 497; social movements 144–147;
politics 130, 133; constructivism 113, 118, South Asia 532, 534
121, 123; domestic 474, 476; feminism Women Strike for Peace 316
225–226, 230–231; global terrorism 590, Women’s International League for Peace and
593–594; human rights 256, 275; Latin Freedom 26
America 490, 498; post-positivism 104, 108; Wong, Wendy H. 80, 107, 258, 321
security 574, 579–580, 582, 584; Wood, Bruce 386, 393
social movements 145–147 Wood, Reed M. 108
violence against women (VAW) 228–232 Woods Hole Research Center 334
vision, aesthetic 131 workers 103, 142, 245–246, 248, 362, 513, 600;
voluntarism 172, 271, 531, 624 migrants 477; subaltern 244
voluntaristics 193–194, 204–205; emergent World Bank (World Bank Group): education
discipline 197–198; global structure 196; 284, 289; environmentalism 333, 337;
history 194–195; intra-regional variations 454; global governance 50; international law 188;

657
Index

management studies 173; professions 394; social World Vision 155, 269, 612
movements 145; sub-Saharan Africa 519; World War I 20, 27–29, 81–82, 128, 242, 268,
US 419 272, 349, 416, 610
World Business Council for Sustainable World War II 21, 27–28, 47, 81–82, 128, 157,
Development (WBCSD) 366 246, 268, 283, 518; constructivism 117, 122
World Conference on Human Rights 283 World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) 65,
World Council of Churches 23 332, 333
World Court Project 321 World’s Fair (1889) 81
World Disarmament Conference 82 World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance
World Economic Forum 52 Union 26
World Faiths Development Dialogue
(WFDD) 401 Yearbook of International Organizations 27, 33,
World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) 253, 544
21, 246 Yemen 507, 588
World Food Programme (WFP) 98 youth 7, 300, 331–332, 335–336, 457, 498,
World Health Organization (WHO) 321, 391 506–507, 536, 563
World Professional Association for Transgender Yugoslavia 230
Health (WPETH) 391
World Resources Institute 334 Zambia 521, 564
World Summit on Sustainable Development 331 Zapatistas 145, 375
World Trade Organization (WTO) 50, 96, 145, Zero Waste Europe 333
187, 333; see also trade, global Zimbabwe 519, 565
World Trade Union Conference (WTUC) 21 Zuckerberg, Mark 284, 417

658