Beyond the inside-outside divide: fuzzy-set measurement of configurations of strategies in NGO campaigns

One of the main focal points of studies on interest groups and lobbying has been the different strategies that groups use. Despite the fact that political actions can target both the state and the market, these have not been examined together within either the literature on lobbying or social movements. Moreover, while it is now accepted that groups use combinations of inside and outside strategies, these combinations have been difficult to measure in practice. This paper develops a method for measuring configurations of strategies using principles of qualitative comparative analysis and demonstrates the method's application to 24 NGO campaigns in Italy and the UK across four issue areas: cage eggs, ocean plastics, antibiotics in farming and digital civil rights. I find that inside and outside strategies are used differently in the state and the market, and that market strategies can be used either to supplement lobbying on public policy or to directly target companies. These findings imply that it is worthwhile including market strategies in studies, as they improve our understanding of the ways in which NGOs address different audiences while lobbying.