chapter 45 - advocacy networks and international society Flashcards
what are global networks
transnational voluntary, reciprocal and horizontal exchanges of information and services
organized around shared values and discourses
their agility and fluidity make them appropriate to historical periods characterized by rapid shifts in problem definition
where are transnational value-based networks most useful?
where one state is relatively immune to direct local pressure and linked activists elsewhere have better access to their own governments or to international organizations
linking local activists with networks can have a boomerang effect: curves around local state indifference and repression to put foreign pressure on local policy elites
what strategies do transnational networks have?
- information politics: reliable information + dramatizing facts
- symbolic politics: using symbolic events to publicize issues
- leverage politics: threat with sanctions or leverage if the gap between norm and practices remains too large
- accountability politicsw
what do transnational activist networks need to do to inspire action?
they need to innovate: identify social issues as problematic, assign blame and come with a solution
in what stages can transnational networks be effective?
- framing debates and getting issues on the agenda
- encouraging discursive commitments from sates and other policy actors
- causing procedural change at the international or local level
- affecting policy
- influencing behavior changes in target actors
what influences succes/influence of transnational networks?
the nature of the issues and the networks, rather than the domestic or international structures per se
- issue characteristics:
- actors characteristics
issue characteristics
- influence on success of transnational networks
issues that transnational activist networks address often challenge traditional notions of state sovereignty -> states often want to block them
success of activist network depends on characteristics of the issues they raise
- for states to act, the values in question must coincide with the national interest or must not be too costly to address (-> part of the work of networks is to transform the states’ idea of national interest)
- network issues are all in their general form issues around which sustained mass mobilization are unlikely (transnational networks must transform diffuse agreement into action, to do this they must frame their ideas in larger belief systems and real life contexts, challenge: needs to resonate transnationally (aka many different cultures etc.)
*liberalism contains a subversive element that plays into the hands of activists: it can provide opportunities for activists to expose the gap between discourse and practice = effective organizing tool
actors characteristics
- influence on success of transnational networks
networks are more effective where they are strong and dense : dense identity defined by principles, goals and targets + strength in structural relationships among the networked organizations and individuals
- the voice of the network is the result of dialogue, it isn’t the voice of an individual actor within the network + it isn’t the sum of all voices
- stronger actors in the network often drown out the weaker ones
another determinant of effectiveness = characteristics of the targets: how vulnerable are they to material and moral leverage
- countries/companies most sensitive to pressure are those that care about their international image
Bull and the English school of IR
- international system not as anarchy but as international society
- states conceive themselves to be bound by a common set of rules in their relations with one another and share in the working of common institutions
- neo-medievalism (which fits with the writers): non-state actors begin to undermine state sovereignty
- strong focus on a society of states
- central insight: overlapping authority and multiple loyalty
- issued two challenges: documenting the extent and nature of changes (empirical) + specify what kind of alternative vision of international politics might modify or supplant the centrality of interactions among sovereign states (theoretical)
world polity theory + criticism Keck and Sikkink
- John Meyer, John Boli, George Thomas
- international society is the site of diffusion of world culture (constitutes the characteristics of states)
- vehicles for diffusion: INGOs and IOs
- see no meaningful distinction between transnational actors espousing norms + reinforcing existing institutional power relationships and those that challenge them (authors disagree: different actors = different goals)
- eliminate the struggles over power and meaning to normative change (writers disagree: see this as crucial)
- proces of change: something is unthinkable -> something becomes obvious/naturalized -> rapid spread of the norm
- see IOs and INGOs as carrying and spreading Western norms (writers disagree: networks are sites of cultural and political negotiation, often initiated by western ideas)
transnational networks and sovereignty
- the state is still the predominant actor
- sovereignty is eroded only in clearly delimited circumstances: exhaustion of domestic remedies
- cosmopolitan community can bring pressure to bear at stages of the domestic process, but the state is still in charge
!activists in the north tend to see the erosion of sovereignty as a positive thing
! activists in the south recognize fragility of sovereignty and worry about further weakening: doctrines of sovereignty and nonintervention main line of defense against foreign influence
- issue of sovereignty is deeply embedded in the issue of structural inequality
transnational network threatening sovereignty e.g. sovereignty over resources threatened by international action on the environment
Tarrow’s strong globalization thesis
+ criticism
- sees structural forces inevitably pulling the world into even more tightly knit global process
criticism Keck and Sikkink: there is nothing inevitable about globalization: it is the composite of thousands of decisions which could have been decided otherwise
what is the problem of much of IR theory?
doesn’t have a motor of change, at least not a motor that can explain current international changes
liberal IR theory
compelling explanation of change
- individuals and groups in domestic and transnational society as primary actors
- individuals and groups determine the preferences of states and thus also the outcomes of international politics
- significant emphasis on the domestic regime type (determines who the government represents)
- structural liberalism: collapse of foreign/domestic distinction
liberalists argue that individuals are driven by self-interest and risk-aversion (so change in preference must have been caused by changes in context leading to different self-interest or risk)
- Keck and Sikkink: individuals and groups are primarily motivated by principled ideas and aren’t risk-averse
network theory
model for transnational change through which the preferences and identities of actors engaged in transnational society are sometimes mutually transformed through their interaction with each other
- individuals and groups influence the preferences of their own states via representation, but also the preferences of individuals and groups elsewhere
- mutual constitution international identities
- links constructivist belief that international identities are constructed to empirical research tracing the paths through which this process occurs, and identifying the material and ideological limits to such construction
