Do INGOs Work? An Empirical Investigation of Human Security Effects

Abstract

Amanda Murdie. (2014). Help or Harm: The Human Security Effects of International NGOs . Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, 2014. 303 pp., $60 (ISBN: 9780804791977). Do International NGOs (INGOs) really improve human security from fear and want for populations around the world? If so, under what conditions are they likely to have a positive effect? These poignant questions are addressed by Amanda Murdie in her ambitious, rigorous, and far-reaching study that cuts straight to the jugular of long-standing debates in IR over the effectiveness of INGOs. Murdie cuts through bifurcated divisions in the literature that cast INGOs as either “angels” or “demons,” to provide significant empirical evidence to answer these questions in a more nuanced way. Through a solid quantitative study, backed by qualitative assessments, Murdie finds that INGOs have the potential to be powerful providers of human security, in both the areas of service provision and human rights advocacy. However, this effect is not universal, but rather is conditioned by a number of situational factors, such as state control of corruption, the signaling strategies used by INGOs to communicate their motivations to potential donors, level of donor support, and congruency between international donor and domestic population preferences. The take-home message of the book is that INGOs do not all share the same principles … cecilia.jacob{at}anu.edu.au