Advocacy Organizations and Collective Action
Edited by
Aseem Prakash and Mary Kay Gugerty
University of Washington, Seattle
Cambridge University Press, 2010
Hardcover and Paperback
http://www.cambridge.org/gb/knowledge/isbn/item5634710/?site_locale=en_GB
Advocacy organizations are viewed as actors motivated primarily by
principled beliefs. This volume outlines a new agenda for the study of
advocacy organizations, proposing a model of NGOs as collective actors
that seek to fulfill normative concerns and instrumental incentives, face
collective action problems, and compete as well as collaborate with other
advocacy actors. The firm analogy is a useful way of studying advocacy
actors because individuals via advocacy NGOs make choices which are
analytically similar to those that shareholders make in the context of
firms. The authors view advocacy NGOs as special types of firms that make
strategic choices in policy markets which, along with creating public
goods, support organizational survival, visibility, and growth. Advocacy
NGOs' strategy can therefore be understood as a response to opportunities
to supply distinct advocacy products to well defined constituencies as
well as a response to normative or principled concerns.
Reviews
"This book brings together a top-flight team of scholars to address the
factors that help shape the advocacy activities of international NGOs.
Complementing previous research but starting from a different perspective
than most, the chapters show that leaders of NGOs must establish their
organizations' individual identities, maintain their memberships, and
worry about survival. Advocacy strategies are influenced, then, by these
concerns as well as by the moral convictions of their members. An
important contribution sure to inform as well as provoke."
---- Frank R. Baumgartner, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
"Prakash and Gugerty have assembled an unusually innovative and
imaginative set of essays on interest group advocacy. This important
collection advances the field with its emphasis on organizational
behavior."
---- Jeffrey M. Berry, Tufts University
"Rather than characterizing advocacy organizations by their distinctive
ideals and the intentions of their members, the contributors to this
important new volume ask what can be learned by exploring the similarities
with profit-oriented firms and collective action projects. The result is a
collection of rich, theoretically-engaged case studies that significantly
advance our understanding of the structure and strategies of advocacy
organizations while generating compelling new questions about norms and
shared values."
---- Elisabeth Clemens, The University of Chicago
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Advocacy Organization and Collective Action: An Introduction
Aseem Prakash and Mary Kay Gugerty
Part 1: The Institutional Environment and Advocacy Organization
Chapter 2: The Price of Advocacy: Mobilization and Maintenance in Advocacy
Organizations
McGhee Young
Chapter 3: Acting in Good Faith: An Economic Approach to Religious
Organizations as Advocacy Groups
Anthony J. Gill and Steven J. Pfaff
Chapter 4: Institutional Environment and the Organization of Advocacy NGOs in
the OECD
Elizabeth A. Bloodgood
Part II: Advocacy Tactics and Strategies
Chapter 5: The Market for Human Rights
Clifford Bob
Chapter 6: Brand Identity and the Tactical Repertoires of Advocacy
Organizations
Maryann Barakso
Chapter 7: Shopping Around: Environmental Organizations and the Search for
Policy Venues
Sarah B. Pralle
Part III International Advocacy and Market Structures
Chapter 8: The Political Economy of Transnational Action among International
NGOs
Alexander Cooley and James Ron
Chapter 9: Advocacy Organizations, Networks, and the Firm Analogy
Jesse D. Lecy, George E. Mitchell and Hans Peter Schmitz
Chapter 10 Shaping Civic Advocacy: International and Domestic Policies towards
RussiaοΏ½s NGO
Sarah L. Henderson
Part IV Towards a New Research Program
Chapter 11: Rethinking Advocacy Organizations? A Critical Comment
Thomas Risse
Chapter 12: Conclusions and Future Research: Rethinking Advocacy Organizations
Mary Kay Gugerty and Aseem Prakash
**************************************************************
Aseem Prakash
Professor, Department of Political Science
Walker Family Professor for the College of Arts and Sciences
39 Gowen Hall, Box 353530
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195-3530
206-543-2399
206-685-2146 (fax)
aseem@uw.edu
http://faculty.washington.edu/aseem/