Local human rights organizations (LHROs) are key domestic and transnational actors, modifying, diffusing, and promoting liberal norms; mobilizing citizens; networking with the media and activists; and pressuring governments to implement international commitments. These groups, however, are reliant on international funds. This makes sense in politically repressive environments, where potential donors fear government retaliation, but is puzzling elsewhere. We interviewed 263 LHRO leaders and key informants from 60 countries, and conducted statistically representative surveys of 6180 respondents in India, Mexico, Morocco, and (...) Nigeria. Based on these data, we believe LHRO funding in non-repressive environments is shaped by philanthropic logics of appropriateness. In the late 1990s, transnational activists successfully mainstreamed human rights throughout the international donor assistance community, freeing up development money for LHROs. Domestic activists in the global South have not promoted similar philanthropic transformations at home, where charitable giving still focuses on traditional institutions. Instead, domestic rights activists have followed the path of least resistance toward international aid, a logic of outcomes produced by variations in global logics of (philanthropic) appropriateness. (shrink)

Local human rights organizations (LHROs) in the global South are increasingly keen to raise funds from cocitizens and local businesses to diversify their funding, to increase their political legitimacy, and to bolster their resilience to fluctuations in international donor trends. This concern with local funds has assumed new urgency today following the global governmental crackdown on foreign aid to domestic civil society. This article focuses on the potential for local human rights fundraising in Mumbai, one of India’s most important economic (...) centers, as well as a hub of social movements and human rights organizing. Like other governments, India has launched a crackdown on foreign aid to local NGOs. Interviews with a representative sample of Mumbai’s LHRO leaders indicate that they depend on foreign aid, worry about government regulation, and are keen to raise funds from the city’s booming corporate sector. Our representative survey of 1,680 adults living in Mumbai and its rural environs, however, shows that LHRO fundraising among Mumbai businesses could pose an acute reputational challenge. While Indian human rights groups do enjoy some public support in Mumbai, the public’s trust in these groups is statistically associated with greater mistrust in local businesses. LHRO leaders in Mumbai face a critical dilemma: The city’s booming corporate sector presents a tempting fundraising target but any attempt to access these funds risks undermining the local rights sector’s reserves of public support. (shrink)

Human rights organizations have grown exponentially across the globe, particularly in the global South, and the term human rights is now common parlance among politicians and civil society activists. While debates about human rights are waged in elite circles, what do publics in the global South think about human rights ideas and the organizations that promote them? -/- Drawing on large-scale public opinion surveys and interviews with human rights practitioners in India, Mexico, Morocco, and Nigeria, Taking Root finds that most (...) people are in fact broadly supportive of human rights discourse, trust local human rights groups, and do not view human rights as a tool of foreign powers. However, this general public support isn't grounded in strong commitments of public engagement, money, or local ties to the human rights sector. Publics in the global South do donate to charitable causes and organizations but rarely give to local rights groups, and these organizations must instead seek aid from foreign sources. -/- As the most informative and comprehensive account of public perceptions of human rights available across several regions of the world, Taking Root challenges a number of accepted truths held by human rights supporters and skeptics alike. (shrink)