Taking Control of Regulations: How International Advocacy NGOs Shape the Regulatory Environments of Their Target Countries

Abstract

A wave of legislative and regulatory crackdown on international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) has constricted the legal environment for foreign advocacy groups interested in influencing domestic and global policy. Although the legal space for advocacy is shrinking, many INGOs have continued their work and found creative ways to adapt to these restrictions, sometimes even reshaping the regulatory environments of their target countries in their favor. This chapter explores what enables INGOs to cope with and reshape their regulatory environments by bridging international relations and interest group studies to examine the interaction between INGO resource configurations and institutional arrangements. Building on the theoretical framework in this volume, it argues that the interaction between resources and institutions provide organizations with ‘programmatic flexibility’ that enables them to adjust their strategies without changing their core mission. This argument is illustrated with case studies of Article 19 and AMERA International, and demonstrates how organizations with high programmatic flexibility can navigate regulations and shape policy in their target country, while those without this flexibility are shut out of policy discussions and often the target country itself. It concludes by exploring how the interaction between internal characteristics and institutional environments shapes and constrains the effects of interest groups in global governance.