A growing chorus of critics have called upon transnational nongovernmental organizations (TNGOs) from the Global North to “decolonize” their practices, to “shift the power” to the Global South, and to put an end to “white saviorism” by initiating a variety of significant organizational changes. Despite these repeated calls, the TNGO sector still struggles to reform. Explanations for TNGOs’ ongoing struggles from within the field of international relations have generally centered on TNGOs themselves and the ironies and paradoxes of organizational growth and financial success. This article introduces a different argument that TNGOs’ struggles to adapt in response to their critics are the result of TNGOs’ “nonprofitness.” By virtue of being nonprofit, TNGOs are embedded in an architecture consisting of forms and norms that inherently limit the extent to which they are able to change. Using the construct of the architecture, this article provides a novel account for the challenges that TNGOs confront as they attempt to close the gap between the rhetoric and reality of inclusive and transformational socioeconomic, political, or environmental change.

中文翻译：

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理解跨国非政府组织权力的局限：形式、规范和架构

越来越多的批评者呼吁来自全球北方的跨国非政府组织 (TNGO) 将其做法“去殖民化”，将权力“转移”到全球南方，并通过发起各种形式来结束“白人救世主”重大的组织变革。尽管一再呼吁，TNGO 部门仍在努力改革。对 TNGO 在国际关系领域内的持续斗争的解释通常集中在 TNGO 本身以及组织成长和财务成功的讽刺和悖论上。本文介绍了一个不同的论点，即 TNGO 努力适应批评者是 TNGO “非营利性”的结果。由于是非营利组织，TNGO 嵌入在由形式和规范组成的架构中，这些形式和规范本质上限制了它们能够改变的程度。本文使用架构的构造，对 TNGO 在试图缩小包容性和转型社会经济、政治或环境变化的言辞与现实之间的差距时所面临的挑战提供了一个新颖的解释。