Legitimacy of Faith-Based Humanitarian Organizations

The management of humanitarian action has become more and more important due to the increasing frequency and intensity of natural disasters and armed conflicts. Addressing humanitarian needs effectively requires the commitment and competence of all of the actors involved, including faith-based organizations whose roles and capacities are influenced by the level of their legitimacy. However, none of the existing studies on faith-based humanitarian organizations have systematically or empirically addressed the legitimacy of these organizations, and the public debate regarding these organizations continues to be anecdotal, and is driven by misconceptions and prejudices. Given this gap in the literature, this research will first determine whether and to what extent these organizations are perceived as legitimate in the countries in which they are headquartered and the countries in which they provide humanitarian assistance. Second, it will examine how different types of faith-based humanitarian organizations attempt to gain or maintain legitimacy. The main hypothesis of this research is that faith-based humanitarian organizations have a comparative advantage in gaining and maintaining legitimacy in the countries where the majority of the population are coreligionists. It also assumes that these organizations choose to comply with donor interests, while they avoid, defy or manipulate the contrasting interests of other actors in their environment. In order to test these hypotheses, this research will apply the resource dependence approach, neoinstitutionalism, transnationalism, and associational theory. It will study and compare six faith-based organizations, which are headquartered in Austria or Germany and provide humanitarian assistance in Pakistan, namely a well-established Christian organization in Austria (Caritas Austria) and its German counterpart (Caritas Germany), a well- established Muslim organization in Austria (Muslims Help Austria) and its German counterpart (Muslims Help Germany), and a Muslim migrant organization in Austria (Islamic Federation) and its counterpart in Germany (Islamic Community Mill Görüs). Together, Austria, Germany, and Pakistan provide a perfect opportunity to discuss whether Christian and Muslim humanitarian organizations are confronted with different expectations in a country mainly populated by Muslims and in a country mainly populated by Christians. In Austria and Germany, where Christianity is the dominant religion, the opportunity structures for Christian humanitarian organizations are very similar, whereas the government attitudes toward Muslim organizations vary considerably. In Pakistan, a Muslim country with ongoing humanitarian crises, Christian humanitarian organizations have experienced difficulties because they are perceived to be promoters of Western values, norms, and political agendas. Data for this research will be collected from secondary sources and in-depth interviews with representatives and members of the organizations, governmental agencies in Austria, Germany, and Pakistan, traditional humanitarian NGOs, UN organizations, the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, local cooperation partners, and beneficiaries of humanitarian aid in Pakistan.

Faith-based humanitarian NGOs are often embedded in transnational environments. Caritas, Muslims Help (MH), and the Islamic Community Mill Görü? (IGMG), for example, which were selected as case studies for this project, are headquartered in countries of the Global North but provide humanitarian aid in various crisis zones in the Global South. In these diverse contexts, faith-based humanitarian NGOs are confronted with and shaped by complex and sometimes contradictory religious and secular expectations of various actorsnot only of their own staff, volunteers, donors, and authorities in the countries in which they are headquartered, but also of the authorities, beneficiaries, and implementing partners in the countries where they provide humanitarian aid. Faith-based humanitarian NGOs are not only confronted with and shaped by expectations in their transnational organizational fields but also actively and strategically respond to these expectations in order to safeguard their funding, to access people in need, and to protect their staff in the humanitarian crisis zones. In line with their organizational interests, faith-based humanitarian NGOs bridge religious and secular elements in their humanitarian work by using normative (institutionalized scripts for action; e.g., the traditional humanitarian principles), regulatory (organizational activities in compliance with national and international laws), cognitive (cognitive capability of acting on behalf of the stated mission and of accessing the people in need; i.e., knowledge, skills, and technical expertise of staff), and output strategies (ability to show stakeholders that the organizations mission has been accomplished; e.g., through transparency and successful communication structures). In this context, organizational religiosity, which continues to influence various aspects of aid provision, such as the thematic and geographic allocation of aid and the selection of implementing partners, can be regarded as a rational decision, given that these organizations survival often depends on the financial support of their conservative religious donor base. These research results indicate that the degree to which an organization is secular or religious is always an empirical question that may change depending on the (transnational) context and is often based on pragmatic decisions made by the organizations to increase their legitimacy, and hence their resources and survival prospects.Faith-based humanitarian NGOs often operate differently from traditional humanitarian actors and do not necessarily abide by the core humanitarian principles of impartiality (to make no discrimination as to nationality, race, ethnicity, religious beliefs, gender, class, or political opinions, and to give priority to the most urgent cases of distress), neutrality (not to take sides in hostilities or engage in political, racial, religious, or ideological controversies in the crisis zones; to provide aid without favoring any side in a conflict or dispute), and independence (to maintain autonomy from donors). At the same time, the humanity principlethat is, the basic motivation behind helping those in needcontinues to be the shared link between faith-based humanitarian NGOs and traditional humanitarian actors, albeit often in a minimalist fashion. These research results suggest that the humanitarian system is increasingly fragmenting, which have important consequences for the legitimacy, stability, and effectiveness of humanitarian action.