Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T18:30:21.218Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

NGO Influence in International Organizations: Information, Access and Exchange

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2015

Jonas Tallberg ,
Lisa M. Dellmuth ,
Hans Agné  and
Andreas Duit
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

While there is broad consensus that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) sometimes succeed in influencing policy making within international organizations (IOs), there is much less agreement on the factors that make NGO lobbying effective. This article makes two contributions to this debate. First, the determinants of influence among NGOs active in different IOs, issue areas and policy phases are examined. The analysis builds on original survey data of more than 400 NGOs involved in five different IOs, complemented by elite interviews with IO and state officials. Secondly, the article advances a specific argument about how the strategic exchange of information and access between NGOs and IOs increases NGO influence in IOs. This argument, derived from theories of lobbying in American and European politics, is contrasted with three alternative explanations of NGO influence, privileging material resources, transnational networks and public opinion mobilization, and the broader implications of these results for research on NGOs in global governance are explored.

Type
Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 48 , Issue 1 , January 2018 , pp. 213 - 238
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Department of Political Science, Stockholm University (emails: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]); Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University (email: [email protected]). Earlier versions of this article were presented at the Joint Sessions of the ECPR, Antwerp, 10–15 April 2012; the Joint Sessions of the ECPR, Mainz, 11–16 March 2013; the Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, San Francisco, 3–6 April 2013; and the Annual Meeting of the Swedish Political Science Association, Stockholm, 2–4 October 2013; as well as workshops and seminars organized by Copenhagen Business School, European University Institute, Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionales, Lund University, Stockholm University and Zeppelin University. For helpful comments and suggestions, we are particularly grateful to Jan Beyers, Elisabeth Bloodgood, Thomas Conzelmann, Dirk De Bièvre, Andreas Dür, Liesbet Hooghe, Thomas Risse, Theresa Squatrito, Jens Steffek, Robert Thomson, Anders Uhlin, and to the editor and three anonymous reviewers of BJPolS. The research for this article was funded by the European Research Council (Grant 200971-DII) and Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (Grant M2007-0399:1-PK). Data replication sets are available at http://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/BJPolS and online appendices are available at http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1017/S000712341500037X.

References

Anderson, Kenneth. 2000. The Ottawa Convention Banning Landmines, the Role of International Non-Governmental Organizations and the Idea of International Civil Society. European Journal of International Law 11 (1):91–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Austen-Smith, David. 1993. Information and Influence: Lobbying for Agendas and Votes. American Journal of Political Science 37 (3):799–833.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baumgartner, Frank R., Berry, Jeffrey M., Hojnacki, Marie, Kimball, David C., and Leech, Beth. 2009. Lobbying and Policy Change: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bennett, W. Lance, and Segerberg, Alexandra. 2013. The Logic of Connective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Betsill, Michele M., and Corell, Elisabeth. 2008. NGO Diplomacy: The Influence of Nongovernmental Organizations in International Environmental Negotiations. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Beyers, Jan. 2004. Voice and Access. Political Practices of European Interests Associations. European Union Politics 6 (1):2011–2240.Google Scholar
Beyers, Jan, and Kerremans, Bart. 2007. Critical Resource Dependencies and the Europeanization of Domestic Interest Groups. Journal of European Public Policy 14 (3):460–481.Google Scholar
Binderkrantz, Anne. 2005. Interest Group Strategies: Navigating Between Privileged Access and Strategies of Pressure. Political Studies 53 (4):694–715.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloodgood, Elisabeth. 2010. The Interest Group Analogy: International Non-Governmental Advocacy Organizations in International Politics. Review of International Studies 37 (1):93–120.Google Scholar
Bloodgood, Elisabeth. 2011. The Yearbook of International Organizations and Quantitative Non-State Actor Research. In The Ashgate Research Companion to Non-State Actors, edited by Bob Reinalda, 19–33. Farnham: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Bouwen, Pieter. 2002. Corporate Lobbying in the European Union: The Logic of Access. Journal of European Public Policy 9 (3):365–390.Google Scholar
Brown, L. David, Ebrahim, Alnoor, and Batliwala, Srilata. 2012. Governing International Advocacy NGOs. World Development 40 (6):1098–1108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Busby, Joshua. 2010. Moral Movements and Foreign Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chalmers, Adam W. 2013. Trading Information for Access: Informational Lobbying Strategies and Interest Group Access to the European Union. Journal of European Public Policy 20 (1):39–58.Google Scholar
Clark, Ann M. 2001. Diplomacy of Conscience: Amnesty International and Changing Human Rights Norms. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Cooley, Alexander, and Ron, James. 2002. The NGO Scramble: Organizational Insecurity and the Political Economy of Transnational Action. International Security 27 (1):5–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Council of Europe. 2011. NGO Database. Available from http://ngo-coe.org/, accessed 12 December 2011.Google Scholar
Crombez, Christoph. 2002. Information, Lobbying and the Legislative Process in the European Union. European Union Politics 3 (1):7–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dai, Xinyuan. 2002. Information Systems in Treaty Regimes. World Politics 54 (4):405–436.Google Scholar
Deitelhoff, Nicole. 2009. The Discursive Process of Legalization: Charting Islands of Persuasion in the ICC Case. International Organization 63 (1):33–65.Google Scholar
Della Porta, Donnatella, and Tarrow, Sidney, eds. 2005. Transnational Protest and Global Activism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Dür, Andreas. 2008. Measuring Interest Group Influence in the EU: A Note on Methodology. European Union Politics 9 (4):559–576.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dür, Andreas, and de Bièvre, Dirk. 2007. Inclusion Without Influence? NGOs in European Trade Policy. Journal of Public Policy 27 (1):79–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dür, Andreas, and Mateo, Gemma. 2013. Gaining Access or Going Public? Interest Group Strategies in Five European Countries. European Journal of Political Research 52 (5):660–686.Google Scholar
Eising, Rainer. 2009. The Political Economy of State-Business Relations in Europe: Modes of Interest Intermediation, Varieties of Capitalism and the Access to EU Policy-making. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Fox, Jonathan, and Brown, L. David, eds. 1998. The Struggle for Accountability: The World Bank, NGOs, and Grassroots Movements. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Green, Jessica F. 2010. Private Authority on the Rise: A Century of Delegation in Multilateral Environmental Agreements. In Transnational Actors in Global Governance: Patterns, Explanations and Implications, edited by Christer Jönsson and Jonas Tallberg, 155–176. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gulbrandsen, Lars H., and Andresen, Stein. 2004. NGO Influence in the Implementation of the Kyoto Protocol: Compliance, Flexibility Mechanisms, and Sinks. Global Environmental Politics 4 (4):54–75.Google Scholar
Haas, Peter M., ed. 1992. Knowledge, Power and International Policy Coordination. International Organization, Special Issue, 46 (1).Google Scholar
Hall, Richard L., and Deardorff, Alan V.. 2006. Lobbying as Legislative Subsidy. American Political Science Review 100 (1):69–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanegraaff, Marcel, Beyers, Jan, and Braun, Ceelesta. 2011. Open the Door to More of the Same? The Development of Interest Group Representation at the WTO. World Trade Review 10 (4):1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Helboe Pedersen, Helene. 2013. Is Measuring Interest Group Influence a Mission Impossible? The Case of Interest Group Influence in the Danish Parliament. Interest Groups and Advocacy 2 (1):27–47.Google Scholar
Hojnacki Marie, David C. Kimball, Baumgartner, Frank R., Berry, Jeffrey M., and Leech, Beth M.. 2012. Studying Organizational Advocacy and Influence: Reexamining Interest Group Research. Annual Review of Political Science 15 (9):379–399.Google Scholar
Joachim, Jutta. 2003. Framing Issues and Seizing Opportunities: The UN, NGOs, and Women’s Rights. International Studies Quarterly 47:247–274.Google Scholar
Keck, Margaret E., and Sikkink, Kathryn. 1998. Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Keck, Margaret E., and Sikkink, Kathryn. 2002. Transnational Advocacy Networks in International and Regional Politics. International Social Science Journal 51 (159):89–101.Google Scholar
Khagram, Sanjeev. 2004. Dams and Development: Transnational Struggles for Water and Power. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Khagram, Sanjeev, Riker, James V., and Sikkink, Kathryn, eds. 2002. Restructuring World Politics: Transnational Social Movements, Networks, and Norms. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
King, Gary, Tomz, Michael, and Wittenberg, Jason. 2000. Making the Most out of Statistical Analyses: Improving Interpretation and Presentation. American Journal of Political Science 44 (2):341–355.Google Scholar
Klüver, Heike. 2012. Informational Lobbying in the European Union: The Effect of Organisational Characteristics. West European Politics 35 (3):491–510.Google Scholar
Klüver, Heike. 2013. Lobbying in the European Union: Interest Groups, Lobbying Coalitions and Policy Change. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Levine, Sol, and White, Paul E.. 1961. Exchange as a Conceptual Framework for the Study of Interorganizational Relationships. Administrative Science Quarterly 55 (4):581–601.Google Scholar
Liese, Andrea. 2010. Explaining Varying Degrees of Openness in the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). In Transnational Actors in Global Governance: Patterns, Explanations, and Implications, edited by Christer Jönsson and Jonas Tallberg, 88–109. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lowery, David, Poppelaars, Caelesta, and Berkhout, Joost. 2008. The European Union Interest System in Comparative Perspective: A Bridge Too Far? West European Politics 31 (6):1231–1252.Google Scholar
Lowery, David, and Gray, Virginia. 2004. Bias in the Heavenly Chorus: Interests in Society and Before Government. Journal of Theoretical Politics 16 (1):5–30.Google Scholar
Mahoney, Christine. 2007. Lobbying Success in the United States and the European Union. Journal of Public Policy 27 (1):35–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
March, James. 1955. An Introduction to the Theory and Measurement of Influence. American Political Science Review 49 (2):431–451.Google Scholar
Martin, Lisa L., and Simmons, Beth A.. 2012. International Organizations and Institutions. In Handbook of International Relations, edited by Walter Carlsnaes, Thomas Risse and Beth A. Simmons, 326–352. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Mayer, Peter. 2008. Civil Society Participation in International Security Organizations: The Cases of NATO and the OSCE. In Civil Society Participation in European and Global Governance: A Cure for the Democratic Deficit?, edited by Jens Steffek, Claudia Kissling and Patrizia Nanz, 116–139. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
McCarthy, John D., and Zald, Mayer N.. 1977. Resource Mobilization and Social Movements: A Partial Analysis. American Journal of Sociology 82 (6):1212–1241.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKay, Amy. 2012. Buying Policy? The Effects of Lobbyists’ Resources on their Policy Success. Political Research Quarterly 65 (4):908–923.Google Scholar
Mitchell, George E., and Schmitz, Hans Peter. 2014. Principled Instrumentalism: A Theory of Transnational NGO Behavior. Review of International Studies 40 (3):487–504.Google Scholar
Moravcsik, Andrew. 2004. Is There a ‘Democratic Deficit’ in World Politics? A Framework for Analysis. Government and Opposition 39 (2):336–363.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murdie, Amanda M., and Davis, David R.. 2012. Shaming and Blaming: Using Events Data to Assess the Impact of Human Rights NGOs. International Studies Quarterly 56 (1):1–15.Google Scholar
O’Brien, Robert, Goetz, Anne-Marie, Scholte, Jan Aart, and Williams, Michael. 2000. Contesting Global Governance: Multilateral Economic Institutions and Global Social Movements. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Organization of American States. 2011. Civil Society Registry. Available from http://www.oas.org/en/ser/dia/civil_society/registry.shtml, accessed 12 December 2011.Google Scholar
Pfeffer, Jeffrey, and Salancik, Gerald R.. 1978. The External Control of Organizations: A Resource Dependence Perspective. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Prakash, Aseem, and Gugerty, M. Kay, eds. 2010. Advocacy Organizations and Collective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Raustiala, Kal. 1997. States, NGOs, and International Environmental Institutions. International Studies Quarterly 41 (4):719–740.Google Scholar
Risse, Thomas. 2012. Transnational Actors and World Politics. In Handbook of International Relations, 2nd Edition, edited by Walter Carlsnaes, Thomas Risse and Beth A. Simmons, 426–452. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Rogelberg, Steven G., Conway, James M., Sederburg, Matthew W., Spitzmüller, Christiane, Aziz, Shanaz, and Knight, William E.. 2003. Profiling Active and Passive Nonrespondents to an Organizational Survey. Journal of Applied Psychology 88 (6):1104–1114.Google Scholar
Rubin, Donald B. 1976. Inference and Missing Data. Biometrika 63 (3):581–592.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schattschneider, Elmer E. 1960. The Semisovereign People. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.Google Scholar
Sell, Susan K., and Prakash, Aseem. 2004. Using Ideas Strategically: The Contest Between Business and NGO Networks in Intellectual Property Rights. International Studies Quarterly 48 (1):143–175.Google Scholar
Sikkink, Kathryn. 2002. Restructuring World Politics: The Limits and Asymmetries of Soft Power. In Restructuring World Politics: Transnational Social Movements, Networks, and Norms, edited by Sanjeev Khagram, James V. Riker and Kathryn Sikkink, 301–317. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Steffek, Jens, and Nanz, Patrizia. 2008. Emergent Patterns of Civil Society Participation in Global and European Governance. In Civil Society Participation in European and Global Governance: A Cure for the Democratic Deficit?, edited by Jens Steffek, Claudia Kissling and Patrizia Nanz, 1–29. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Tallberg, Jonas, Sommerer, Thomas, Squatrito, Theresa, and Jönsson, Christer. 2013. The Opening Up of International Organizations: Transnational Access in Global Governance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tarrow, Sidney. 2005. The New Transnational Activism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Truman, David. 1951. The Governmental Process: Political Interests and Public Opinion. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Uhre, Andreas Nordang. 2014. Exploring the Diversity of Transnational Actors in Global Environmental Governance. Interest Groups & Advocacy 3:59–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Union of International Associations. 2011. Yearbook of International Organizations Online. Available from http://www.uia.be/yearbook-international-organizations-online, accessed 12 December 2011.Google Scholar
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. 2011. Integrated Civil Society Organizations System. Available from http://esango.un.org/, accessed 12 December 2011.Google Scholar
Weiss, Thomas G., and Gordenker, Leon, eds. 1996. NGOs, the UN, and Global Governance. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.Google Scholar
West, Stephen G., Taylor, Aaron B., and Wu, Wei. 2014. Model Fit and Model Selection in Structural Equation Modeling. In Handbook of Structural Equation Modeling, edited by Rick H. Hoyle, 209–231. New York: Guilford.Google Scholar
Willetts, Peter. 1997. ‘The Conscience of the World’. The Influence of Non-Governmental Organizations in the UN System. Washington, DC: Brookings.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Tallberg et al Dataset

Dataset

http://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/P4JTOD
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Tallberg supplementary material

Appendix

Download Tallberg supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 106.1 KB