Guilty as Perceived: How Opinions About States Influence Opinions About NGOs

Why do some people believe that NGOs have a bad influence on their country? Building on the world polity literature, I hypothesize that opinions about Western actors affect opinions about the influence of NGOs because NGOs can act as vehicles for the diffusion of Western culture. Using Pew Research survey data, I find that the more unfavorable respondents’ opinions are of the United States, the European Union, and the United Nations, the more likely they are to believe that NGOs have a bad influence on their country. While previous research finds evidence that a mechanism of “guilt by association” exists between opinions about states and opinions about IGOs (Johnson, The Review of International Organizations, 6, 57–84, 2011), this manuscript expands on these findings by investigating the relationship between opinions about states and opinions about NGOs. This research has important implications for NGO effectiveness because opinions about NGOs can affect the willingness of local populations to work with such organizations.