Nonprofit Advocacy Under a Third-Party Government Regime: Cooperation or Conflict?

Abstract

Objective. In this article we examine the NPO's commitment to be involved in advocacy activities and the strategies which they rely on to fulfill this expressive role. We question whether the close (financial) relationship between governments and NPO's in Flanders, especially defined in terms of service delivery, will stifle the NPO's advocacy or rather creates new opportunities for giving NPO's a voice in the development of new public policies as well. Method. Using data from a recent large-N survey of Flemish private nonprofit suppliers in four social welfare areas we will conduct multivariate regression analysis to determine which factors could help us to predict the NPO's advocacy behavior. Results. In general, Flemish NPO's indicate a rather low commitment to their advocacy role. However, once NPO's become politically active they rely on a variety of different strategies, especially by utilizing their insider contacts with policy makers and by joining forces into coalitions with other organizations. Conclusion. Our findings suggest that under third-party government regimes NPO's advocacy does not necessarily have to be seen as something conflictual.Instead, advocacy may lead to further cooperation as NPO's become increasingly recognized by governments for their capacity to enrich public policy making from a grassroots perspective.

Liquid advocacy: Social welfare advocacy in neoliberal times

“…Their findings indicate that organisations adopt softer forms of advocacy in response to a neoliberal institutional order, while refraining from engaging in radical forms of advocacy. Similarly, Verschuere and De Corte () found that organisations in Belgium also use softer advocacy activities that do not challenge the government. Under the regime of neoliberalism, then, social welfare advocacy is market‐driven and focuses only on partial, short‐term and palliative gains.…”

Strategic Management in the Welfare State: Practice and Consequences — The Case of Flanders

“…This could be attributed to the functioning of various sectoral umbrella organizations in Flanders in which NPOs voluntarily chose to collaborate for adjusting their point of views and to translate these ideas into political claims. As Flemish government has gradually recognized these umbrella organizations as legitimate mouthpieces, NPOs are once more enabled to give input for enriching the policy making process (Verschuere and De Corte, 2013). As a result, we are able to argue that Flemish government relies on a range of formal and informal channels of information exchange to give NPOs a voice in the process of setting its strategic goals and developing new policies.…”

“…After all, there is empirical evidence that maintaining close relationships with government has a negative impact on the NPOs' capacity and willingness to perform a radar function and thereby raising a critical voice to advocate for the interests of their clients and constituents (Child and Gronbjerg, 2007;Nicholson-Crotty, 2007;Schmid, Bar, et.al., 2008). Still, a recent study on the advocacy behavior of Flemish NPOs found little evidence to support such resource dependence framework (Verschuere and De Corte, 2013). NPO managers were hereby asked to indicate the relative share of efforts (time, staff, money, etc.)…”

“…It opted to gradually incorporate the private nonprofit sector, which has raised significant size in Flanders due to historical processes of pillarization. As a result, many NPOs nowadays receive more than half of their total budget from public funding by Flemish government (Verschuere and De Corte, 2013). We hereby address two particular questions.…”

Advocacy Compromised: How Financial, Organizational and Institutional Factors Shape Advocacy Strategies of Civil Society Organizations

“…Studies investigate the link between such factors and different aspects of CSO advocacy activities, e.g. the strategy preferred (Onyx et al 2010;Verschuere and De Corte 2015), the intensity of advocacy activities (Schmid et al 2008), the aims of advocacy (Balassiano and Chandler 2010;Garrow and Hasenfeld 2012;Mosley 2012;Nicholson-Crotty 2007) as well as the relative influence of advocacy on policy-making (Schmid et al 2008).…”