The Structural Imperatives of International Advocacy Associations

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Abstract
Recent decades have witnessed a significant increase in the number of voluntary, nonprofit associations established to address solutions to major international social problems such as threats to world peace, environmental pollution, illness and disease, social injustice, and poverty. Many of these associations are based in a single country, but others are international in scope. This paper is concerned with the latter. While rapid progress in communications and transportation technology has undoubtedly facilitated the development of these associations, such organizations still face formidable barriers to effective operation including those of language and cultural differences, political separation, interferences with free trade and interchange across national borders, and remaining costs and problems of long distance communication and travel. It is the thesis of this paper that international, voluntary associations which advocate for solutions to global issues are successful when they adopt particular organizational structures and strategies to accommodate these problems. In particular, decentralized and federated structures suggest themselves as more viable for the international advocacy arena. This paper reviews relevant literature and elaborates on the theoretical expectations for successful structuring of international associations devoted to advocacy on global issues. Based on this analysis, a series of hypotheses is developed for future empirical investigation.

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