Jolly Roger meets the state: independent enforcement, resource dependence and Sea Shepherd

Abstract Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are increasingly engaging in independent enforcement, either authorized by or in cooperation with state enforcement agencies. While existing scholarship has documented the breadth of their activities—from investigating human rights violations and environmental crimes, to litigating alleged perpetrators—a theoretical gap remains in understanding what motivates NGOs to enter such partnerships and what trade-offs these arrangements entail. Drawing on resource dependency theory, this article argues that NGO–state interaction in enforcement contexts differs from that typically found in policy-making. Rather than mobilizing states to act, NGOs pursue cooperation for a rather more self-interested reason: to enhance their own effectiveness as enforcers. These arrangements are also less prone to power asymmetries, as the organizations' cognitive, material and symbolic resources help shield them from state control and the risk of ‘mission drift’. Sea Shepherd, a transnational NGO dedicated to the conservation of marine wildlife, serves as an illustrative example of these theoretical claims. After two decades of acting as self-proclaimed ‘vigilantes’ and ‘pirates at sea’, enforcing international law in a confrontational manner, Sea Shepherd began cooperating with state authorities. The organization entered into ‘ship-rider agreements’ with African national governments and its members were licensed as maritime police in Italy.