NGO Politics
(POL S 403a/527a)
Aseem Prakash
Winter 2025
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Class Time: Tuesday and Thursday, 1:30-3:20
Class Location: Loew 216
Office Hours: By appointment
Office: 39 Gowen
E-mail: aseem@uw.edu
Home Page: http://faculty.washington.edu/aseem
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Course Objective
Non‑governmental, non-profit organizations (NGNPOs) have emerged as important actors in local, national, and international politics. As units of collective action, they advocate policy positions and produce collective goods. They are often viewed as crucial building blocks for democracy and economic growth. NGNPOs compete and cooperate with governments and with firms. Importantly, they compete and cooperate with one another for membership, external funding, and media attention. Although they are termed as ‘non-governmental’ organizations, many of them rely on governments for much of their funding. And, some NGNPOs have highly questionable and normatively inappropriate goals. In sum, there is a scholarly need to systematically examine NGNPOs as units of collective action, and answer key questions such as under what conditions they emerge, how they structure their organization, how they function, and how they influence policy.
Several literatures study the advocacy and collective good provision functions of NGNPOs. These are:
- the NGO politics and civil society literatures in political science,
- the social movement literature in sociology, and
- the non‑profit (NP) literature in public policy/administration/management.
This course will investigate key theoretical and empirical issues raised in these literatures pertaining to NGNPO goals, strategy, politics, and efficacy. We will focus on topics that are theoretically and empirically interesting and have attracted scholarly attention.
Readings
Readings are either uploaded on Canvas or I have provided the article URL.
This is a Device Free Class
Research suggests that the use of electronic devices in class can be distracting for you and for your colleagues. Therefore, to enhance your learning experience, during the class, you are not allowed to use phones, tablets, laptops or any Internet-connectable devices. Please take notes using a pen and a notebook.
Course Expectations
This course requires active student participation. You are expected to energetically and thoughtfully contribute to class discussions in the following ways.
Writing Memos
Article memos
For every session (except when we have guest speakers), students will be assigned an article to present and critique. The discussant-presenter should prepare a two-page (single-spaced) “Article Memo” that summarizes the article, examines its strengths and weaknesses, and identifies questions it raises for future research. Please email this memo to me by Monday 1200 noon for the Tuesday class and by Wednesday 1200 noon for the Thursday class. The discussant-presenter should budget about 10 minutes for the in-class oral presentation (no PowerPoint).
Key questions memo
I expect seminar participants to review all the assigned readings prior to the class. Based on these readings for a given session, you will write a “Key questions” memo. In this memo, identify two or three questions or issues that emerge from the assigned readings, along with a rationale as to why these questions are important. Your “Key Questions Memo” should be about one-page (single-spaced) and reach me by Monday 1200 noon for the Tuesday class, and by Wednesday 1200 noon for the Thursday class.
I have divided the course into three modules with about seven class sessions for every module. You need to write 2 key question memos (for two different class sessions) from every module (this means, 6 key question memos in total).
Think of Module 1. Suppose you like readings from session 3. After reading the articles assigned for this session, think of two or three overarching questions that you believe emerge from these readings and should be covered during class discussions.
Please note: If you are assigned to present a specific article for session 3 (and therefore are writing the article memo), you cannot write a key question memo for this session.
Research Paper
Identify two NGOs and compare them on their salient dimensions such as organizational structure, advocacy or service delivery strategies, fund raising, etc. course. A one-page outline is due Tuesday, February 11 (1200 noon) and a five-page (single-spaced; excluding references and tables) research paper is due March 13 (12 noon). Please email both of them in MS Word format.
I recommend structuring your paper into sections and subsections.
Evaluation
In total, you can score 100 points. To convert this into a 4-point scale, I will simply divide it by 25.
Article Memos: 30 points (15 points per memo * 2 memos)
Key Questions Memos: 30 points (5 points per memo * 6 memos)
(if you are assigned 1 article memo, please submit 2 additional key question memos, 8 memos in total)
Class Participation: 20 points
Research Paper: 20 points
Total: 100 points
Class Schedule
Session 1
Tuesday, January 7
What is Civil Society?
1. Salamon. 1994. The Rise of the Nonprofit Sector. Foreign Affairs, 73, 109–122. CORINNE
2. Chandhoke. 2002. The Limits of Global Civil Society. ALICIA
3. Johnson and Prakash. 2007. NGO Research Program: A Collective Action Perspective. Policy Sciences. 40(3): 221-240. CHAYSE
Session 2
Thursday, January 9
The Spread of Civil Society
4. Reimam. 2006. A View from the Top: International Politics, Norms, and the Worldwide Growth of NGOs. International Studies Quarterly. 50: 45-57. JORDAN
5. Salamon and Anheier. 1998. Social Origins of Civil Society. Voluntas. 9: 213-248. JARED
6. Langohr. 2004. Too Much Civil Society, too Little Politics: Egypt and Liberalizing Arab Regimes. Comparative Politics: 181-204. SUMAIYAH
Session 3
Tuesday, January 14
Problematizing Civil Society
7. Chambers and Kopstein. 2001. Bad Civil Society. Political Theory. 29 (6): 837-865. Anna
8. Morfit. 2011. AIDS is Money”: How Donor Preferences Reconfigure Local Realities. World Development, 39(1), 64-76. Makayla.
9. Hearn. 2007. African NGOs: the new compradors? Development and Change. 38(6): 1095-1110. Ava Robertson
Session 4
Thursday, January 16
Variations in Civil Society
10. Haddad, 2017. Analysing State–Civil Society Associations Relationship: The Case of Lebanon, Voluntas. 28:1742–1761. Marianna
11. Aiyede, 2017. Civil Society Efficacy, Citizenship and Empowerment in Africa, Voluntas. 28:1326–1345. Lauren Church
12. Jafar .2007. Engaging Fundmaentalism. The Case of Women's NGO in Pakistan. Social Problems 54(3): 256-273. Natasha
Session 5
Tuesday, January 21
National Styles of Civil Society
13. Rikmann and Keedus. 2013. Civic Sectors in Transformation and Beyond: Preliminaries for a Comparison of Six Central and Eastern European Societies. Voluntas. 24: 149-166. Jonah
14. Archambault, Priller, and Zimmer. 2014. European Civil Societies Compared: Typically German–Typically French?. Voluntas. 25: 514-537. Daniel
15. Ahmad. 2007. Careers of NGO-field workers in Bangladesh. Nonprofit Management and Leadership. 17(3): 349-365. Emma
Session 6
Thursday, January 23
Guest Speaker: Christianna Paar
NGOs under Authoritarianism.
16. Vietnam’s environmental NGOs face uncertain status, shrinking civic space: https://news.mongabay.com/2023/02/vietnams-environmental-ngos-face-uncertain-status-shrinking-civic-space
17. Georgia is sliding towards autocracy after government moves to force through bill on ‘foreign agents’: https://theconversation.com/georgia-is-sliding-towards-autocracy-after-government-moves-to-force-through-bill-on-foreign-agents-228219
18. NGOs and Authoritarianism, Andrew Heiss: https://www.andrewheiss.com/research/chapters/heiss-ngo-ir-2019/heiss-2019-ngos-authoritarianism.pdf kayla
19. Authoritarianism Goes Global, Alexander Cooley: https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Cooley-26-3.pdf Daniella
Session 7
Tuesday, January 28
Bottom Up or Top Down?
20. McFarland and Thomas. 2006. Bowling Young: How Youth Voluntary Associations Influence Adult Political Participation. American Sociological Review. 71(3): 401-425. Megan Hassi
21. Brass, 2012. Blurring boundaries: The integration of NGOs into governance in Kenya. Governance 25.2: 209-235. Paige
22. Reckhow, Sarah and Downey, Davia and Sapotichne, Joshua.Governing Without Government: Nonprofit Governance in Detroit and Flint (October 26, 2018). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3273190 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3273190
John
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Session 8
Thursday, January 30
Social Capital
23. Wollebaek and Selle. 2002. Does Participation in Voluntary Associations Contribute to Social Capital? Non-Profit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly. 31(1): 32-61. Adam
24. Dolšak. 2017. Bowling Together: Mobilization of Collective Action by Environmental NGOs. Non Profit Policy Forum. 8(1): 25–44. MARIANNA
25. Brass, Harris, & MacLean. Does electricity demobilize citizens? Exploring access to the grid, political participation and democracy in Africa, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 81, 2021. Theresa
Session 9
Tuesday, February 4
Advocacy Strategies
26. Weed. 1993. The MADD queen: Charisma and the Founder of Mothers against Drunk Driving. The Leadership Quarterly. 4(3): 329-346. Mia
27. Ron, Ramos, and Rodgers. 2005. Transnational Informational Politics: NGO Human Rights Reporting. International Studies Quarterly. 49: 557-587. Belle
28. Guo and Saxton. 2014. Tweeting Social Change: How Social Media Are Changing Nonprofit Advocacy. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly. 43(1): 57-79. Austin
Session 10
Thursday, February 6
Enduring puzzles
29. MacLean, L.M. Exhaustion and Exclusion in the African Village: The Non-State Social Welfare of Informal Reciprocity in Rural Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire. St Comp Int Dev 46, 118–136 (2011). Ayden
30. Scurlock, R., Dolsak, N. & Prakash, A. Recovering from Scandals: Twitter Coverage of Oxfam and Save the Children Scandals. Voluntas 31, 94–110 (2020). Navjeet
31. Hwang, H., & Powell, W. W. (2009). The Rationalization of Charity: The Influences of Professionalism in the Nonprofit Sector. Administrative Science Quarterly, 54(2), 268-298. Christine
One page outline is due
Session 11
Tuesday, February 11
NGOization
32. Nezhina and Ibrayeva. Functioning of Civil Society Organizations in Kazakhstan. Voluntas. 24(2): 335-358. Fiona
33. Chahim and Prakash. 2014. NGOization, Foreign Funding, and the Nicaraguan Civil Society. Voluntas. 25(2): 487–513. Lauren Williams
34. Mohan. The disappointments of civil society: the politics of NGO intervention in northern Ghana. Political Geography 21.1 (2002): 125-154. Chloe
Session 12
Thursday, February 13
Faith-based Nonprofits
35. Bielefeld and Cleveland. 2013. Faith-based Organizations as Service Providers and their Relationship to Government. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 42(3): 468-494. Zhong
36. Amirkhanyan, Kim, and Lambright. 2009. Faith-based Assumptions about Performance: Does Church Affiliation matter for Service Quality and Access?. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly. 38(3): 490-521. Aurora
37. Borchgrevink. 2017. NGOization of Islamic Charity: Claiming Legitimacy in Changing Institutional. Voluntas; published online. Eva
Session 13
Tuesday, February 18
Norm Conflict
38. Cloward, 2015. Elites, Exit Options, and Social Barriers to Norm Change: The Complex Case of Female Genital Mutilation. Studies in Comparative and International Development. 50(3): 378-407. Lauren church
39. Dupuy, Ron, and Prakash. 2016. Hands Off My Regime! Governments’ Restrictions on Foreign Aid to Non-Governmental Organizations in Poor and Middle-Income Countries. World Development. 84: 299–311. Alicia
40. Berry. 2014. Did We do Good? NGOs, Conflicts of Interest and the Evaluation of Short-term Medical Missions in Sololá, Guatemala. Social Science & Medicine. 120: 344-351. Austin
Session 14
Thursday, February 20
Accountability
41. Prakash and Gugerty. 2010. Trust but Verify? Voluntary Regulation Programs in the Nonprofit Sector. Regulation & Governance 4(1): 22 – 47. Megan Hassi
42. Hielscher, Winkin, Crack, and Pies. 2017. Saving the Moral Capital of NGOs: Identifying One-Sided and Many-Sided Social Dilemmas in NGO Accountability Voluntas. 28:1562–1594. Jonah
43. Sanzo-Pe´rez, Rey-Garcia, lvarez-Gonza´lez. 2017. The Drivers of Voluntary Transparency in Nonprofits: Professionalization and Partnerships with Firms as Determinants. Voluntas. 28:1595–1621. Daniel
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Session 15
Tuesday, February 25
Resource Dependence
44. Ostrander. 2007 The Growth of Donor Control: Revisiting the Social Relations of Philanthropy. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly. 36: 356. Adam
45. Vincci. 2017. ‘Shopping for Change’: World Vision Canada and Consumption-Oriented Philanthropy in the Age of Philanthrocapitalism. Voluntas. 28:455–471. John
46. Verbruggen, Christiaens, and Milis. 2011. Can Resource Dependence and Coercive Isomorphism Explain Nonprofit Organizations’ Compliance with Reporting Standards?. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly. 40(1): 5-32. Paige
Session 16
Thursday, February 27
Volunteering
47. Tonurist and Surva. 2017. Is Volunteering Always Voluntary? Between Compulsion and Coercion in Co-production. Voluntas. 28: 223–247. Emma
48. Schwingel, eran-Garcia, McCaffrey, Gálvez, and Hawn. 2017. More Than Help? Volunteerism in US Latino Culture. Voluntas. 28(1): 162–183. MARIANNA
49. Lee and Moon. 2011. Mainstream and Ethnic Volunteering by Korean Immigrants in the United States. Voluntas. 22(4): 811-830. Christine
Session 17
Tuesday, March 4
Charity Markets
50. Stride and Lee. 2007. No Logo? No Way. Branding in the Non-Profit Sector. Journal of Marketing Management. 23 (1-2): 107-122. Jared
51. Sargeant and Woodliffe. 2007. Building Donor Loyalty: The Antecedents and Role of Commitment in the Context of Charity Giving. Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing. 18(2): 47-68. Belle
52. Keller and Shaw. 2010. NPO Branding: Preliminary Lessons from Major Players. International Journal of Nonprofit Voluntary Sector Marketing. 15: 105–121. Theresa
Session 18
Thursday, March 6
Foundations
53. Anheier and Leat. 2013. Foundations; What Rationales. Jordan
54. Bartley, 2007. How Foundations Shape Social Movements. Social Problems. 54(3): 229-255. Fiona
55. Quinn, R., Tompkins-Stange, M., & Meyerson, D. (2014). Beyond Grantmaking: Philanthropic Foundations as Agents of Change and Institutional Entrepreneurs. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 43(6), 950-968. Corinne
Session 19
Tuesday, March 11
Foundations in International Context
56. Micinski. 2017. The Changing Role of the Ford Foundation in International Development, 1951–2001, Voluntas. 28:1301–1325. Daniella
57. Shieh. 2017. Same Bed, Different Dreams? The Divergent Pathways of Foundations and Grassroots NGOs in China, Voluntas. Chayse
58. Hilton, 2018. Charity and the End of Empire: British Non-Governmental Organizations, Africa, and International Development in the 1960s. The American Historical Review, 123(2): 493–517. Ayden
Session 20
Thursday, March 13
NGOs and Climate Change
59. Coxcoon. 2024. Are local climate assemblies politically representative of the macro-public they represent, and does this matter? Environmental Research Communication. Ava
60. Foxe et al. 2024. Varieties of climate activism: assessing public support for mainstream and unorthodox climate action in the United Kingdom. Environmental Research Communication. Navjeet
61. Ostareck et al., 2024. Radical climate protests linked to increases in public support for moderate organizations. Nature Sustainability. Kayla