Humanitarian Alert: NGO Information and its Impact on US Foreign Policy

Two opposing images of humanitarian NGOs challenge efforts to understand their role in international relations. Do they function as autonomous - and influential - non-state actors in pursuit of their own value-driven agendas? Or do they serve merely as the paid agents of national governments, providing a service delivery function in line with those nations’ foreign policy goals?

Stoddard proposes a third view: that humanitarian NGOs, even those dependent on their home government for most of...