ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the emergence of non-governmental organizations (NGO) and intergovernmental organizations (IGO) as part of changes in the international system of states. The chapter argues that during the last two centuries NGOs and IGOs co-evolved by constituting networks in which they engaged in a two-way instrumentalization and the idea of popular sovereignty regards the will and consent of the people as the source of all political power and of a state's legitimacy. NGOing in the sense of establishing private organizations with public purposes, the anchoring practice of DeMars and Dijkzeul, therefore is older than often thought, as in its national form it dates back to the late eighteenth century and in its international form to the early nineteenth century. NGO attendance at Vienna and later multilateral conferences confirms the "representative" and "secular sanction" claims of DeMars and Dijkzeul, because, when bridging the national and international levels, NGOs speak for the people they claim to represent and invoke international norms.
