The U.S. Foreign Policy and American NGOs

Understanding American NGOs and their role in the U.S. foreign policy requires the study of their nature and activities. The historical role of foreign assistance in promoting U.S. foreign policy goals, on the one hand, and the influence of activities and programs of American voluntary agencies in the form of foreign aid on the other hand, have made inevitable that a link established between U.S. foreign policy and American voluntary agencies. For this reason, since the World War II, these agencies have played an important role in the U.S. efforts in international development. Therefore, these agencies have been a function of U.S. policies and undergone many ups and downs. In practice, these agencies implement a job requested by the U.S. government as a part of its foreign policy. This article, which covers the beginning of the World War II to the end of the second George Bush presidency, tries to understand the link between American NGOs and the U.S. foreign policy. The findings of the research show that whenever the public budget has increased, these agencies have become more dependent on the government and thus, they have become more coordinated with the U.S. foreign policy. Also, it was shown that during the activities of these agencies, lasting about 70 years, whenever the government needed to further its policies through foreign aid, it allocated significant budget to these agencies. This has affected the performance of these agencies reflected in consistency between agencies and government.