ABSTRACT
After initially emerging in parts of the West in the postwar period, in the past 25 years NGOs have also grown in number and taken root in many other parts of the world. As is frequently noted in the literature on NGOs, since the 1980s and accelerating in the 1990s, there has been an NGO “boom” in both industrialized and developing countries in all geographical regions. In this period, hundreds of thousands of NGOs have been set up in the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia. What accounts for this recent second wave and global spread of NGOs? This chapter turns to the second central question of the book and identifies some of the underlying causes behind the recent growth spurt in NGO activism and the pattern of convergence.
