On the Origin of Hybrid NGOs: NGOs, the State, and Femicide in Latin America

• In Event: Women's Movements and Organizations

Abstract

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Mexico and Guatemala have mobilized for decades against state failures and impunity in response to violence against women and femicide. While NGOs advanced women’s rights substantially in the 1990s and 2000s, they also evolved to provide services that would ordinarily be the purview of the state. Current scholarship takes it as a “given” that NGOs in many developing countries have evolved toward this hybrid form, continuing traditional advocacy while also providing wide-ranging services to victims and the state. We provide a much-needed explanation of “NGO change,” which we conceptualize as shifts in goals, strategies, and tactics that change their functions. We argue that NGO change is driven by: a) the context, b) state behavior, c) the needs of victims, and d) available resources. We exemplify these processes by analyzing NGO actions to end impunity in femicide cases in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico and Guatemala City, Guatemala, highlighting tensions and implications for the rule of law.

Authors

• Shannon Drysdale Walsh, University of Minnesota Duluth

• Veronica Michel-Luviano, John Jay College-CUNY