Borders among Activists: International NGOs in the United States, Britain, and France

4. Reconciling Global and Local

4 Reconciling Global and Local Against those who would argue that INGOs have developed shared practices and norms through participation a global community of humanitarian or human right activism, the preceding case studies have revealed marked divergence in the core strategies and structures of some of the largest and most transnationally active organizations. National origin plays a critical role in determining how INGOs raise funds, embrace professionalism , engage in advocacy, relate to governments, and choose issues. In short, national origin determines how INGOs approach the work of human rights activism and humanitarian relief. Globalization may have increased the frequency of interaction among these organizations, but it has not transformed INGOs into members of a global sector or global civil society. In this final chapter, a side-by-side comparison of the INGOs studied earlier will show that national origin shapes organizational practices in different ways, according to the particularities of the sectors in which the INGOs operate, but that the organizations respond to those pressures through practices and norms established in their home countries. 190 Chapter 4 Ultimately, a complete account of the role of national origin must also explore how national origin interacts with other factors that shape organizational practice. In the introduction, I suggested that pressures from the global environment, leadership, and competition among organizations might also shape organizational strategies and structures. One way to understand the relative importance of national origin is to look at a particular event where human rights and humanitarian INGOs were all active—the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. As we will see, the six INGOs largely followed national patterns. The conflict in Iraq offers at least three advantages for understanding varieties of activism. First, the broad facts of the Iraq conflict were well understood by all parties: Saddam was a nasty ruler, and President Bush was launching a precedent-setting preemptive war. Second, because the United States was a belligerent, even human rights and humanitarian groups that wanted to stay out of politics had a hard time doing so. The politicization of aid required some form of INGO advocacy and a reexamination of INGO relationships with government authorities. The political stakes may have been particularly high for American-based INGOs, but generally , no organization had the option of sitting on the sidelines and each was forced to express a position more or less consistent with past organizational practice. Finally, if the proponents of global convergence are right and INGOs are increasingly shedding the baggage of their national origin, it should be in more recent settings that we should find evidence of that growing similarity. The Iraq invasion is not necessarily representative of all humanitarian or human rights crises, but it is neither the first nor the last time that the United States has been a belligerent in a conflict. Finally, the story of this book may not be one that humanitarian and human rights practitioners want to hear, and their ultimate goal—to create meaningful and positive change in the lives of individuals worldwide—is a laudable one. In conclusion, therefore, I explore the issues of stability and change at INGOs and offer recommendations to practitioners hoping to overcome national differences to create globally powerful organizations. National Origin across the Sectoral Divide Long before INGOs aspired to be global activists, they were national NGOs that had an international focus. In its home environment, each Reconciling Global and Local 191 organization faced a particular set of regulations, a certain pool of material resources, an established pattern of relating to government officials, and a unique constellation of social networks. These 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. Throughout the six major cases of this study and the dozen supplementary cases, national patterns are readily apparent in two important areas of organizational practice—advocacy and professionalization . In other areas of organizational practice, the effects of national origin interact with the particular demands of humanitarian or human rights work. American, British, and French INGOs approach the task of advocacy in very different ways. American organizations regularly turn to insider lobbying strategies and largely reject grassroots activism. True, legal regulations prevent American charities from using government funds for advocacy or from prioritizing political activity, but the law is not the only mechanism at work. American INGOs do not see themselves as fundamentally political actors...