Advocacy Organizations and Collective Action

by Edited by Aseem Prakash , Mary Kay Gugerty

• ISBN13: 9780521198387
• ISBN10: 0521198380
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-01-17
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Advocacy organizations are viewed as actors motivated primarily by principled beliefs. This volume outlines a new agenda for the study of advocacy organizations, proposing a model of NGOs as collective actors that seek to fulfill normative concerns and instrumental incentives, face collective action problems, and compete as well as collaborate with other advocacy actors. The firm analogy is a useful way of studying advocacy actors because individuals via advocacy NGOs make choices which are analytically similar to those that shareholders make in the context of firms. The authors view advocacy NGOs as special types of firms that make strategic choices in policy markets which, along with creating public goods, support organizational survival, visibility, and growth. Advocacy NGOs' strategy can therefore be understood as a response to opportunities to supply distinct advocacy products to well defined constituencies as well as a response to normative or principled concerns.

Author Biography

Aseem Prakash is Professor of Political Science and the Walter Family Professor for the Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington, Seattle. Mary Kay Gugerty is Associate Professor in the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington, Seattle.

Table of Contents

List of figures and tables	p. ix
Notes on contributors	p. x
Preface	p. xv
Acknowledgments	p. xvi
Advocacy organizations and collective action: an introduction	p. 1
The institutional environment and advocacy organizations	p. 29
The price of advocacy: mobilization and maintenance in advocacy organizations	p. 31
Acting in good faith: an economic approach to religious organizations as advocacy groups	p. 58
Institutional environment and the organization of advocacy NGOs in the OECD	p. 91
Advocacy tactics and strategies	p. 131
The market for human rights	p. 133
Brand identity and the tactical repertoires of advocacy organizations	p. 155
Shopping around: environmental organizations and the search for policy venues	p. 177
International advocacy and market structures	p. 203
The political economy of transnational action among international NGOs	p. 205
Advocacy organizations, networks, and the firm analogy	p. 229
Shaping civic advocacy: international and domestic policies toward Russia's NGO sector	p. 252
Toward a new research program	p. 281
Rethinking advocacy organizations? A critical comment	p. 283
Conclusions and future research: rethinking advocacy organizations	p. 295
Index	p. 308
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