Karen_A._Mingst,_Ivan_M._Arregu_n-Toft]_Essentia

Nongovernmental Organ izations 251

For CritiCal analy sis

1. NGOs are not in de pen dent actors; they
   exist by consent of host states. Explain.


2. How can NGOs use soft power? What other
   kinds of power do they have at their
   disposal?


3. How might realists and radicals justify a
   state’s opposition to foreign- financed
   NGOs?


4. To constructivists, NGOs may be the
   conduit for transmitting or socializing
   norms. How might they do so in states such
   as Kenya and in the newly in de pen dent
   states of the former Soviet Union?

Ethiopia tightened its regulations, passing a
bill that any NGO receiving more than
10  percent of its funding from abroad was
banned from activities concerning democracy,
human rights, conflict resolution, or criminal
justice. In 2015, Uganda’s parliament debated a
bill designed to, in the words of the country’s
internal affairs minister, provide greater trans-
parency and accountability. This bill would
strongly regulate NGO activity and allow the
country to punish NGOs aggressively for non-
compliance. At the same time, the minister
admitted that NGOs provided key ser vices in
health, education, and water. Even the failing
state of the Republic of South Sudan debated
a law in the same year that no more  than
20  percent of NGO staff could be foreigners.
Despite the many positive tasks under-
taken by NGOs in developing countries, they
are increasingly under intense scrutiny for

Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai planting trees in Kenya with volunteers of the Green Belt Movement.

their financial ties to foreign donors who may

support policies diff er ent than those that the

host state supports.