Main research interests:
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
Human rights
Humanitarianism
Digital activists
Social movements
Global governance
International norms and law
Networks
Organizational sociology
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
Human rights
Humanitarianism
Digital activists
Social movements
Global governance
International norms and law
Networks
Organizational sociology
NGOs and other non-state actors in global politics
My research to date has been primarily focused on the study of NGOs, contributing to the debate about the importance of the variations between NGOs.
Sarah Stroup and I recently published The Authority Trap with Cornell University Press. While many have asked about the sources and implications of the the power of international NGOs (INGOs), how power is theorized often relies on an an evaluation of the influence they have. We theorize that INGOs have authority based on audience deference. Using this framework, we argue that the more audiences that defer to a particular INGO, the more we can say that INGO has authority. However, having authority from multiple audiences means that in practice, those INGOs (called "leading INGOs") actually have less choice in the strategies they pursue. This is the fundamental lesson of the "authority trap" - authority constrains leading INGOs choices even as it gives them access to global policy-making processes. Conversely, a lack of authority enables INGOs to choose strategies more freely, but keeps them from being heard at all.
Internal Affairs, which was given the Outstanding Book Award 2014 by ARNOVA, argues that the differences in organizational structure between NGOs have serious implications for the ability of organizations to 1) make their campaigns prominent and 2) become prominent as organizations. The book has received the Outstanding Book Award from ARNOVA, the professional association for researchers of NGOs and non-profits, and it has been reviewed in numerous journals. An ongoing series of papers with Cullen Hendrix investigates both the efficacy of NGO campaigns on different regime types and the advocacy choices NGOs make based on both organizational and international structural factors. A paper with Stroup documents institutional change among major international NGOs in International Studies Review. This paper explains the factors that shape choices among independent NGOs to come together under common rules and work together. Finally, a recent article written with Emily Luxon in Global Society highlights how membership interests play a role in shaping the website content of Amnesty International and Greenpeace.
This interest in NGOs has led to research on non-state actors. Two papers with Lindsay Heger and Danielle Jung (in Journal of Global Security Studies andTerrorism and Political Violence) explores the link between hierarchy and lethality, arguing that hierarchical terrorist groups cause more casualities and fatalities if and when they attack. Peter Brown and I have a piece in Perspectives on Politics that demonstrates how Wikileaks and Anonymous fundamentally alter our understandings of transnational activism through their uses of technology. Our central claim in our most recent paper is that technologies that enable anonymity changes the way that transnational activism works by allowing "non-professionals" to gain political voice and to participate in non-typical ways.
The role of foundations in human rights
In the study of politics, we often make the distinction between state and non-state actors without much thought about why that distinction matters. Ron Levi and I (along with Julia Deutsch) are working on a project that explores the role of American philanthropic foundations on the development of international human rights. A chapter is forthcoming in Professional Networks in Transnational Governance, edited by Len Seabrooke and Lasse Folke Henriksen (Cambridge). Although commonly recognized as pivotal in developing an international human rights agenda, organizations such as the Ford Foundation, Open Society Foundation, and Gates Foundation are rarely explored as political actors themselves. Starting with Ford, we examine the internal decisions made by the foundation to fund certain types of "human rights" projects in the 1970s, but also certain types of organizations and people in their pursuit of "human rights." Because of their great wealth and relative lack of accountability, foundations can exercise a great deal of power over the human rights agenda, perhaps more so than the state/non-state distinction would imply.
Organizational structures
Danielle, Lindsay, Sarah and I organized a workshop preceding ISA 2014 called "The Organization of Non-state Actors: Varieties of Linkages between Structures and Agents" to try to bridge two gaps: 1) the "siloes" between scholars of different non-state actors and 2) scholars and practitioners working in or on non-state actors engaged in global governance. We are looking for ways to extend a research agenda that uses organizational structure as the "unifying" variable to bridge these gaps, so stay tuned!
My research to date has been primarily focused on the study of NGOs, contributing to the debate about the importance of the variations between NGOs.
Sarah Stroup and I recently published The Authority Trap with Cornell University Press. While many have asked about the sources and implications of the the power of international NGOs (INGOs), how power is theorized often relies on an an evaluation of the influence they have. We theorize that INGOs have authority based on audience deference. Using this framework, we argue that the more audiences that defer to a particular INGO, the more we can say that INGO has authority. However, having authority from multiple audiences means that in practice, those INGOs (called "leading INGOs") actually have less choice in the strategies they pursue. This is the fundamental lesson of the "authority trap" - authority constrains leading INGOs choices even as it gives them access to global policy-making processes. Conversely, a lack of authority enables INGOs to choose strategies more freely, but keeps them from being heard at all.
Internal Affairs, which was given the Outstanding Book Award 2014 by ARNOVA, argues that the differences in organizational structure between NGOs have serious implications for the ability of organizations to 1) make their campaigns prominent and 2) become prominent as organizations. The book has received the Outstanding Book Award from ARNOVA, the professional association for researchers of NGOs and non-profits, and it has been reviewed in numerous journals. An ongoing series of papers with Cullen Hendrix investigates both the efficacy of NGO campaigns on different regime types and the advocacy choices NGOs make based on both organizational and international structural factors. A paper with Stroup documents institutional change among major international NGOs in International Studies Review. This paper explains the factors that shape choices among independent NGOs to come together under common rules and work together. Finally, a recent article written with Emily Luxon in Global Society highlights how membership interests play a role in shaping the website content of Amnesty International and Greenpeace.
This interest in NGOs has led to research on non-state actors. Two papers with Lindsay Heger and Danielle Jung (in Journal of Global Security Studies andTerrorism and Political Violence) explores the link between hierarchy and lethality, arguing that hierarchical terrorist groups cause more casualities and fatalities if and when they attack. Peter Brown and I have a piece in Perspectives on Politics that demonstrates how Wikileaks and Anonymous fundamentally alter our understandings of transnational activism through their uses of technology. Our central claim in our most recent paper is that technologies that enable anonymity changes the way that transnational activism works by allowing "non-professionals" to gain political voice and to participate in non-typical ways.
The role of foundations in human rights
In the study of politics, we often make the distinction between state and non-state actors without much thought about why that distinction matters. Ron Levi and I (along with Julia Deutsch) are working on a project that explores the role of American philanthropic foundations on the development of international human rights. A chapter is forthcoming in Professional Networks in Transnational Governance, edited by Len Seabrooke and Lasse Folke Henriksen (Cambridge). Although commonly recognized as pivotal in developing an international human rights agenda, organizations such as the Ford Foundation, Open Society Foundation, and Gates Foundation are rarely explored as political actors themselves. Starting with Ford, we examine the internal decisions made by the foundation to fund certain types of "human rights" projects in the 1970s, but also certain types of organizations and people in their pursuit of "human rights." Because of their great wealth and relative lack of accountability, foundations can exercise a great deal of power over the human rights agenda, perhaps more so than the state/non-state distinction would imply.
Organizational structures
Danielle, Lindsay, Sarah and I organized a workshop preceding ISA 2014 called "The Organization of Non-state Actors: Varieties of Linkages between Structures and Agents" to try to bridge two gaps: 1) the "siloes" between scholars of different non-state actors and 2) scholars and practitioners working in or on non-state actors engaged in global governance. We are looking for ways to extend a research agenda that uses organizational structure as the "unifying" variable to bridge these gaps, so stay tuned!
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