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Politics without bureaucrats? Western European NGO campaigns in the state and the market

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2020

Francesca Colli Open the ORCID record for Francesca Colli [Opens in a new window]
Francesca Colli*
Affiliation:
Leuven International and European Studies (LINES), KU Leuven, Parkstraat 45, Leuven, Belgium
*
Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) play an important role in the representation of citizens' interests towards policymakers. However, they increasingly run their campaigns not only against policymakers, but also against corporations. While the choice among strategies has been examined either in the state (targeting policymakers) or in the market (targeting companies), the choice between the two remains unexamined. Moreover, conventional studies of advocacy have failed to comparatively assess how groups combine strategies. This study fills these gaps, examining when NGOs target their campaigns at (a) the market, (b) the state and (c) both. It examines 24 NGO campaigns in the UK and Italy using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis. Three main findings emerge. First, structural factors – especially the openness of the market – are most important in determining which target an NGO chooses. Second, campaigns that combine strategies tend to be either market- or state-oriented. Finally, high resources are the factor that pushes NGOs to combine strategies across the market and the state.

Keywords

Interest groupslobbyingQCAwestern Europe
Type
Research Article
Information
Italian Political Science Review / Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica , Volume 51 , Issue 1 , March 2021 , pp. 67 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © Società Italiana di Scienza Politica 2020

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