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Competition and strategic differentiation among transnational advocacy groups

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Abstract

Why do some transnational advocacy groups adopt radical, confrontational tactics whereas others focus on ‘inside’ lobbying and information provision? Why do some advocacy groups appeal to large global audiences while others approach decision-makers behind closed doors? Bringing together interest group studies and population ecology theory, this article examines how population ecological dynamics affect strategic specialization among transnational advocate groups. I argue that increasing resource competition resulting from ‘organizational crowding’, along with the introduction of new legal and technological tools has led to growing strategic differentiation among transnational advocates, and has prompted a strategic division of labor whereby some groups (mainly larger, well-established and resource-rich groups) specialize in gaining political access and media attention, while others (mainly smaller, less established groups) focus on developing ‘niche’ agendas and strategies including, inter alia, radical protest, monitoring and enforcement, and litigation. I illustrate my argument with quantitative data and comparative cases from the realm of transnational environmental conservation advocacy.

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Notes

  1. I omit the combination ‘confrontational inside strategies’ which entails an internal contradiction.

  2. I ruled out using a questionnaire to collect data due to likelihood of a low response rate which would prevent me from analyzing the full population and might introduce sample selection bias.

  3. http://guides.ll.georgetown.edu/InternationalEnvironmentalLaw.

  4. Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters.

  5. The legal standing of NGOs was confirmed in a landmark ruling in May 2011 by the European Court of Justice (Trianel C-115/09).

  6. Section 475(7) of the EPBC Act.28.

  7. WWF gets one-third of its revenue from government and corporation grants (www.worldwildlife.org/about#).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Cambridge, 7 West Road, Cambridge, CB3 9DP, UK

    Mette Eilstrup-Sangiovanni

  2. Robert Schuman Centre, European University Insitute, Florence, Italy

    Mette Eilstrup-Sangiovanni

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  1. Mette Eilstrup-Sangiovanni
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Correspondence to Mette Eilstrup-Sangiovanni.

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Appendix

Appendix

DATA and coding criteria

The population

Tables 2, 3 and 4 contain a list of transnational environmental conservation advocacy groups ordered by Founding Year (Table 2) and Size (Tables 3, 4). The tables include only group that operates on a global level and whose focus on environmental conservation (animal rights groups with no conservation focus are thus excluded). In line with this Special Issue’s focus on political advocacy, I also exclude radical or extremist environmental groups (such as Earth First!) whose embrace of deadly violence against persons means they cannot be seen to engage in political advocacy as defined here. To be included, an organization must be currently active and have a functioning Web site.

To build as complete as possible a picture of the overall population I have used searches of the Yearbook of International Organization (online database) as well as web-links between individual advocacy organizations in order to identify all relevant organizations.

Data

The data used to code individual entries have been gathered from the Yearbook of International Organizations (online, 2018) and from individual organizational Web sites, Facebook profiles and Linked-In pages, as well as from secondary academic literature.

Individual strategies coded

A:

Awareness raising and information-dissemination

CER:

Certification

COR:

Direct cooperation with companies

CPB:

Capacity building

DA:

Direct Action/Civil Disobedience

DIV:

Divestment campaigns

EDU:

Education and training

GOV:

Close cooperation w. specific governments

IM:

Independent media

IO:

Close cooperation w. specific international organizations

L:

Direct lobbying of governments or international organizations

LAW:

Legal advocacy or consulting

LIT:

Litigation

MON/ENF:

Monitoring and enforcement activities

P:

Protests, rallies, marches, banner-hanging, etc.

PCP:

Practical conservation projects w. local/global stakeholders

PE:

Petitions

PR:

Press conferences, media advertisements

R:

Research and scientific evidence

SMC:

Social media campaigning

TECH:

Development and implementation of high-tech conservation tools

Organizational size

Large:

> $20 mill. annual revenue, OR > 30 staff, OR > 20 offices worldwide

Medium:

>10 staff, OR > $10 mill. annual revenue

Small:

< 10 staff, OR < $10 mill. annual revenue

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Eilstrup-Sangiovanni, M. Competition and strategic differentiation among transnational advocacy groups. Int Groups Adv 8, 376–406 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41309-019-00055-y

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