Offers fascinating and important insights into the impact of intra-organizational dynamics on international politics. It deserves to be read widely by scholars and students interested in NGOs, advocacy networks and organizational theory.
Angela M. Crack
Voluntas
Political scientist Wendy Wong's Internal Affairs offers an important empirical approach that focuses on the organizational structure of internationally oriented NGOs all headquartered in the global North to explain why they, and the issues that they do promote, are not equally influential in terms of their impact on human rights.... [Wong] examines a variety of transnational campaigns as a separate unit of observation for comparative analysis, enabling her to independently assess the political salience of the ideas that these organizations sponsor.
John G. Dale
American Journal of Sociology
What makes a human right relevant on the world stage? Is it its inherent moral value? Or is its relevance a product of marketing, funding, or the magnetic capabilities of a charismatic leader? Internal Affairs suggests we turn our attention to the structural design of NGOs in order to understand what distinguishes those human rights issues that are championed as international concerns from those that barely make a ripple. At the crux of this well written and easily assignable text stands the notion that the success of a rights-campaign hinges on its structure. The book will be a valuable contribution to the scholarly libraries of anthropologists, political scientists, and international relations experts, while also serving as an indispensable tool for rights-based practitioners.
Erica Bornstein
Human Rights Quarterly
Wong's prose is clear and well organized, her evidence carefully presented, and her argument compelling. Researchers in political science, international relations, sociology, anthropology, and public policy, as well as those engaged in human rights activism will welcome the theoretical and substantive contributions of Internal Affairs.
Mobilization