The role of trust in cooperation and coordination among NGOs in the Syrian crisis. An analysis through social exchange and neo-institutional perspectives: The case of NGOs operating cross-border in northwest Syria from the Gaziantep, Türkiye hub

This case study has sought to explore and investigate the role of trust in cooperation and coordination among the international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) and local NGOs (Syrian and Turkish) operating in the Syrian protracted cross-border humanitarian crisis in Northwest Syria from across Gaziantep-Türkiye hub. It has done so through the lenses of the Social Exchange Theory and Neo-institutional Theory. Accordingly, both cooperation and coordination challenges at micro-level in dyadic inter-organizational relations and meso-level (at the level of host state, Türkiye) and at macro-level (wider political dynamics) and their impacts on the inter-NGOs cooperation and coordination have been explored. The data for the research have been collected by key informant interviewing. The findings suggest that different landmarks or so-called critical junctures in different phases of the crisis have been effective in terms of challenges in the cooperative and coordinative behaviors of I/NGOs at the three levels of analysis (micro, meso and macro) in addition to the already existing structural issues. The findings further suggest that although with the formal UN coordination mechanism in place there is more transparency and thus less negative competition among the I/NGOs, there is also a diminishing role of trust in collaborative efforts (counter to the increasing needs, their complexity and their ever-technical nature) in comparison with the initial years of the crisis when humanitarian efforts were less structured and when uncertainty regarding the future of the crisis was at its peak.