International Religious Non-governmental Organizations, Faith-based Development Assistance

International religious NGOs are now playing a more active role in offering international development aid, supplementing the conceptual framework for this theme and making sovereign nations no longer the sole player in this area. Backed by overwhelming social capital, World Vision (WV), the largest faith-based NGO worldwide, becomes a typical case to depict the trend of international development aid. The dissertation endeavors to have a discussion on WV's organizational framework and government sponsorship and its implication to international development aid and American foreign policies.The dissertation is comprised of five chapers.The first chapter deals with form and evolution of international development aid plus definition setting and brief introduction to major religious NGOs worldwide. Chapter Two functions to show a panorama of World Vision with its church background, service areas, program features and sponsorship from United States and other developed countries.The latter three chapters serves as logical crux of the dissertation. Chapter Three focuses on WV's close relationship and full participation to American government system, thus leading to a formula of influence on foreign policies which can be concluded as World Vision exerts impact on international development aid and American foreign policies through internationalization of local governance and re-formation of identity. Consequently, the fourth and fifth chapter analyses the two channels of influence respectively from the perspective of state-civil society interaction mode and WV's Southward Evangelization Movement. It can be argued that World Vision provide assistance to American foreign policies and becomes a pilot for foreign intervention of U.S.government.Recent development witnesses an increase of funding for such international religious NGOs as World Vision, which promises a even better participation to global governance. It can be better understood the performance and core values of development programs conducted by religious NGOs.A fair judgment should be made here. On one hand, emergency relief and development programs brought by religious NGOs do provide public goods to target countries, and evangelization promotes cultural exchange and offers hope for those in despair. However, on the other hand, religious NGOs and the programs they conduct can give rise to internationalization of local governance and re-formation of identity inevitably, which facilitates U.S.government to achieve global strategy.