The Strategic Orientations of US-Based NGOs

Abstract

International studies theorists have sought to characterize the role of transnational NGOs in world affairs from a variety of bottom-up, top-down, and critical perspectives. Since transnational NGOs employ such a wide range of strategies in the pursuit of their missions, scholars often find it necessary to differentiate between different types of organizations and to predicate theoretical analyses on informal typologies. However, when these typologies are implicit or speculative scholarship risks mischaracterization and invalid generalization. This article contributes to NGO theory by deriving a formal typology of the strategies that US-based transnational NGOs employ in the pursuit of their missions. This typology provides an empirical basis for future theorization specifically accounting for heterogeneity in the strategic orientations of NGOs. Findings are based on a mixed-method analysis of in-depth interviews with more than 150 leaders of US-based transnational NGOs spanning all major sectors of NGO activity.