Discourse and Regulation Failures: The Ambivalent Influence of NGOs on Political Organizations

Abstract

In the last decades, NGOs have become an important participant in the work of political organizations (e.g., national authorities, the EU or the UN). This development brings many opportunities and also some challenges, including discourse failure which is one of the topics discussed in this paper. We present a case study that illustrates the interdependence of discourse failure and regulations failure. We conclude that discourse failure is frequently not merely an accidental by-product, but rather, a non-intended consequence of deliberate NGOs’ campaigns. We make particular note of probable discourse failure when campaigns attempt to deal with complex issues in an environment rife with wide-spread prejudices and where the NGO’s work is transparent. In this situation, regulation failure may be consequent upon discourse failure. We present collectively binding commitments for NGOs and binding services enforced by political organizations to prevent discourse failure. In conclusion, we argue that the field of political economy can benefit from this challenging environment if it systematically researches the interdependencies between discourses and regulations.