The Internet and NGO-government relations: Injecting chaos into order

In recent years, theory building on NGO-government relations has proliferated, but it has not accounted for changes in communications technology or for the quantitative and qualitative expansion of the NGO sector. In this article we look at relations between and among government and disease- and disorder-based NGOs. We draw on cases in which we study relations between traditional NGOs and new, more radical and more exclusively Internet-based health advocacy groups. We argue that, contrary to investigating NGO-government relations in isolation, our theories must account for antecedent variables including NGO delivery of benefits to members and supporters (including informational, purposive and solidary benefits) and the motivations for organizing. After summarizing how different kinds of health advocacy organizations use the Internet to organize and provide benefits to members and supporters, we show that these variables have important implications not only for the relations between NGOs, but between NGOs and government. Specifically, we conclude that theories that distinguish between 'cooperation' and 'co-optation' in NGO-government relations may need to be adjusted to reflect the realities as they are perceived by NGOs. Copyright (C) 2002 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.