Abstracts Political Science

LGBTI rights and NGOs in international relations: how NGOs use the international system to affect domestic policy-making in majority Catholic countries

by Helen Karen West

This research is intended to expand the knowledge on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) rights at the international level, how LGBTI non-governmental organisations (NGOs) use international channels to advance the cause domestically, with a focus on countries that have a strong presence and influence of the Catholic Church. Academia has investigated the formulation of so-called new rights (Bob, 2009), their rise to international recognition, and the role played by international NGOs in allowing these rights into the international agenda. There has also been research into the transnational networks of the opposing side (Bob, 2013) and how the human rights framework is adopted (Bob, 2019). In this thesis, I would like to identify how specialised LGBTI INGOs facilitate access to international channels to local NGOs. I will argue that by accessing transnational networks and utilising international NGOs to access United Nations’ (UN) channels, local NGOs have a better chance of influencing domestic policy change in majority Catholic countries. I will utilise the spiral model of human rights change developed by Risse et al. (1999; 2013) to identify stages of recognition and implementation of LGBTI rights domestically. I will argue that it is necessary to consider an additional actor to predict outcomes more efficiently: The opposition, in this case, the Catholic Church and affiliated organisations, and its transnational network. I will also argue that how LGBTI NGOs and the opposition use their transnational networks to their advantage is also a crucial variable that influences outcomes. Oppositions’ and LGBTI transnational networks invest in supporting domestic efforts as every country matters in the global balance. With this study, I seek to provide helpful insight into influencing domestic policies in countries with a strong opposition to allow LGBTI organisations a better chance to succeed in their work and further the academic dialogue.