International Journal of Comparative Sociology

This article investigates cross-national variation in the types of locally based actors, or “receptor sites,” that connect with international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) in local contexts. Empirics center on an INGO disseminating global best practices for education in humanitarian crises to a membership of around 10,000 individuals in over 150 countries. Members reported working at a range of organizations, here conceptualized as receptor sites. Using multivariate regression, I examine cross-national differences in a subset of these workplace affiliations. Findings show that members join primarily in Western countries and in specific sites of humanitarian crises. However, they tend to be affiliated with different types of receptors in these two contexts due to differences in the underlying factors that generate INGO ties. Receptors influential in the construction of global norms (such as aid donors and universities) dominate in the Western core, where ties serve as a means for promoting cultural ideals elsewhere. In contrast, implementing organizations (such as local schools, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and governments) prevail in humanitarian crises, where ties offer access to global resources in tackling local issues. Country-level ties to INGOs are thus not always equivalent, but can capture locally variant pathways for diffusion.

Empirical tests of world society theory routinely analyze the effects of country-level linkages to international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) on countries’ policies and practices. Analysts regard INGOs as “conveyor belts” that transport cultural models and scripts to countries around the globe. We modify this mechanistic interpretation by shifting focus to the broader institutional and cultural environments in which INGOs operate. Using data for an unbalanced panel of 126 countries between 1975 and 2010, we examine the effect of INGO linkages on the distribution of political power by gender and socioeconomic status. We find that INGOs are much stronger predictors of political equality for women than for the poor, and we argue that these differential effects reflect broader world-cultural conditions. Women’s rights are highly institutionalized in world society, which enhances the effectiveness of INGOs. Socioeconomic rights discourses, conversely, are comparatively less institutionalized and more contested, especially following the neoliberal turn.

This article examines the connection between a nation’s level of civil society organizational openness and the number of domestic terrorist attacks across 167 countries from 1970 to 2010. Following the contentious politics approach, we conceptualize terrorist organizations as engaged in high-risk movement activity and sensitive to organizational opportunities that make contention more likely. Panel fixed-effects negative binomial regression models support our hypothesis that a nation’s level of civil society openness increases exposure to domestic terrorist attacks. This work connects social movement theory with the cross-disciplinary literature working to understand terrorism by offering an explanation for terrorist attacks that are rooted in the organizational opportunity paradigm. It provides us a useful tool for future work on cross-national social movements in a cross-national perspective, as well as further work on terrorist organizations.

This article argues that the ever-growing research field of welfare deservingness is in need of qualitative research. Using focus group data collected in Denmark, Germany, and the United Kingdom, we show that citizens discussing matters of social welfare make explicit reference not only to the deservingness criteria of control, reciprocity, and need but also to a number of context-related criteria extending beyond the deservingness framework (e.g. equality/universalism). Furthermore, our findings suggest the existence of an institutional logic to welfare preferences, as the focus group participants to a large extent echoed the normative criteria that are most strongly embedded in the institutional structure of their country’s welfare regime. Whereas financial need is the guiding criterion in the “liberal” United Kingdom, reciprocity is dominant in “corporatist-conservative” Germany. In “social-democratic” Denmark, it appears impossible to single out one dominant normative criterion. Instead, the Danish participants seem torn between the criteria of need, reciprocity, and equality/universalism.