Nongovernmental Organ izations 247refugees (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) and women and children (UNICEF),
among others.
During the 1970s, as the number of NGOs grew, vari ous groups formed networks
and co ali tions, and by the 1990s, these NGOs were able to mobilize the mass public
effectively and influence international relations. A number of factors explain the
remarkable resurgence of NGO activity and their increased power as actors in interna-
tional politics. First, the issues NGOs have seized on have been increasingly viewed as
interdependent, or transnational; states cannot solve these issues alone, and their solu-
tions require transnational and intergovernmental cooperation. Airline hijackings
during the 1970s; acid rain pollution and ocean dumping during the 1970s and 1980s;
and global warming, land mines, and the AIDS epidemic during the 1990s are examples
of issues that require international action and that are “ripe” for NGO activity. Some
have been increasingly viewed as human security issues, an argument many NGOs have
promoted.
Second, global conferences became a key venue for international activity beginning in
the 1970s, each designed to address one of the transnational issues— the environment
(1972, 1992, 2012), population (1974, 1984), women (1975, 1985, 1995), and food (1974,
1996, 2002). A pattern emerged when NGOs began to or ga nize separate but parallel
conferences on the same issues. These create opportunities for NGO representatives not
only to network with each other and form co ali tions on specific issues but also to lobby
governments and international bureaucrats. In some cases, those linkages between the
governmental and nongovernmental conferees enhance the power of the latter.
Third, the end of the Cold War and the expansion of democracy in the former
communist world and developing countries have provided an unpre ce dented po liti cal
opening for NGOs into parts of the world previously untouched by NGO activity.
Fi nally, the communications revolution also partly explains the newly prominent
role of NGOs. First fax technology, and then the Internet, e- mail, Facebook, and
Twitter have each enabled NGOs to communicate with core constituencies, build co ali-
tions with other like- minded groups, and generate mass support. They can disseminate
information rapidly, recruit new members, launch publicity campaigns, and encour-
age individuals to participate in ways unavailable two de cades before. NGOs have ben-
efited from these changes and have been able to capitalize on them to increase their
own power.
functions and roles of ngos
NGOs perform a variety of functions and roles in international relations. They advo-
cate specific policies and offer alternative channels of po liti cal participation, as
Amnesty International has done through its letter- writing campaigns on behalf of
victims of human rights violations. They mobilize mass publics, as Greenpeace did in