NGO Advocacy Strategies in Environmental Governance of China’s Belt and Road Initiative: A Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA)

• In Event: Nonprofit Governance, leadership and strategies

Abstract

NGOs’ influence strategies are of long-standing interest to scholars in political science and international relations (e.g., Baumgartner et al., 2009; Dellmuth and Tallberg, 2017; Kollman, 1998). Existing studies show that two broad sets of strategies, often termed inside and outside strategies, offer competing paths to policy change (Binderkrantz, 2008; Dür and Mateo, 2013; Tallberg et al., 2018). Research on environmental advocacy has focused on NGO advocacy strategies in the national or international environmental arena, such as high-level climate negotiations or environmental policy adoption by transnational institutions (Rietig 2011; Fox and Brown 1998). A few studies have examined environmental advocacy in authoritarian contexts, where states might operate according to different incentive structures, and effective advocacy may take different forms (Li et al. 2017; Farid 2019). However, no studies thus far, to our knowledge, have examined NGOs’ advocacy strategies targeting an authoritarian regulatory regime’s global activities.

In this study, we examine NGOs’ efforts to promote environmental governance within China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a largely state-directed project by an authoritarian party-state. Environmental advocacy takes place at BRI project sites in host countries of Chinese investment, in the global North, and within China itself. To unpack factors associated with NGOs’ environmental advocacy, we conducted seventy-six in-depth interviews with diverse actors in China’s BRI, including INGO executives (56), Chinese NGOs (11), host country NGOs (1), consulting companies (2), Chinese government officials (1), and scholars (5) in 2019-2023.

Drawing on environmental advocacy, social movement, and interest group literature, we examine how domestic and global political opportunity structures and organizational factors, such as regulations, NGO forms, norms, and reputation, combine to affect NGOs’ use of insider and outsider advocacy strategies. A fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) is used to analyze 42 NGOs’ efforts to greening global China. Our findings reveal that several combinations of causally relevant factors lead to NGOs’ varying use of advocacy strategies. Our study highlights how civil society actors navigate the complex political and organizational environment as they seek to shape responsible environmental behavior of an increasingly globalized China.

References

Selected References
Baumgartner, F. R., Berry, J. M., Hojnacki, M., Leech, B. L., & Kimball, D. C. (2009). Lobbying and policy change: Who wins, who loses, and why. University of Chicago Press.
Betsill, M. M., & Corell, E. (2008). Introduction to NGO diplomacy. In NGO diplomacy: The influence of nongovernmental organizations in international environmental negotiations, 1-19.
Binderkrantz, A. (2005). Interest group strategies: Navigating between privileged access and strategies of pressure. Political studies, 53(4), 694-715.
Dellmuth, L. M., & Tallberg, J. (2017). Advocacy strategies in global governance: Inside versus outside lobbying. Political Studies, 65(3), 705-723.
Dür, A., & Mateo, G. (2013). Gaining access or going public? Interest group strategies in five European countries. European Journal of Political Research, 52(5), 660-686.
Farid, M. (2019). Advocacy in action: China’s grassroots NGOs as catalysts for policy innovation. Studies in Comparative International Development, 54(4), 528-549.
Hadden, J. (2015). Networks in contention. Cambridge University Press.
Li, H., Lo, C. W. H., & Tang, S. Y. (2017). Nonprofit policy advocacy under authoritarianism. Public Administration Review, 77(1), 103-117.

Authors

• Hui Li, University of Hong Kong

• May Farid, University of Hong Kong