A humanitarian NGO deliberately modeled itself on a right-wing US think tank.

Evidence

Despite the stated aims of LSF to provide a forum ‘free of ideological presuppositions’, its attacks on Third Worldism and the NIEO intersected with the agenda of Reaganite neoliberals, who had become increasingly concerned that the new nations were vilifying ‘the West’ and the free enterprise system’. Philippe Laurent, then Executive Director of MSF Belgium, recalls a meeting in which Malhuret explained his proposed organisation as a ‘war machine’ that would combat Third Worldism and ‘fight for neoliberal ideas’. Malhuret’s model, Laurent recalls, was the Reaganite US think tank the Heritage Foundation. Both Malhuret and Brauman visited the Heritage Foundation, and while they both later reflected that it was too far to their right, there was nonetheless a disconcerting similarity in the two groups’ responses to the NIEO. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 424

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader literature on NGO co-optation by neoliberal networks (see also the history of the Heritage Foundation’s role in exporting Reagan-era policy). — connects to: A Norwegian anti-forced-marriage NGO’s book shaped EU Council of Europe policy directly — Sherene Razack, Casting Out: The Eviction of Muslims…, 258
• SEED: Angle: the Heritage Foundation as template for ‘humanitarian’ advocacy — how think-tank tactics migrated into NGO campaigning under a professedly apolitical banner.

Broader Connections

• A Norwegian anti-forced-marriage NGO’s book shaped EU Council of Europe policy directly #exemplifies (0.72) — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 258