Activists beyond borders

Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink examine a type of pressure group that has been largely ignored by political analysts: networks of activists that coalesce and operate across national frontiers. The targets of these networks may be international organisations or the policies of particular states. Historical examples of such transborder alliances include anti-slavery and woman suffrage campaigns. In the past two decades, transnational activism has had a significant impact in human rights, especially in Latin America, and advocacy networks have strongly influenced environmental politics as well. The authors also examine the emergence of an international campaign around violence against women. The conventions of the nation-state have shaped our contemporary understanding of the process and politics of social movements. Keck and Sikkink sketch for the first time the dynamics of emergence, strategies, and impact of activists from different nationalities working together on particular issues. This eagerly awaited work will alter the way scholars conceptualise the making of international society and the practice of international politics.

Transnational advocacy networks build new links among actors in civil societies, states and international organisations, and thus multiply the channels of access to the international system. They 'blur the boundaries between a state's relations with its own nationals and the recourse both citizens have to the international system, and hence are helping to transform the practice of national sovereignty'. This book contrasts four historical forerunners to modern advocacy networks with three contemporary cases where transnational organisations are very prominent, identifying several common characteristics:

• Centrality of values or principled ideas.
  
• The belief that individuals can make a difference.
  
• The creative use of information.
  
• The employment by non-governmental actors of sophisticated political strategies in targeting their campaigns.

Transnational advocacy networks are characterised by voluntary reciprocal and horizontal patterns of communication and exchange, and can include international and domestic research and advocacy organisations, local social movements, foundations, the media, churches, trade unions, consumer organisations, NGOS, etc. or even part so the executive or branches of government. They have emerged for many years, but by a proxy measurement of the number of NGOs - we can see that they have exploded in the last 50 years. Strategies for policy influence are listed as:

• The boomerang pattern: where NGOs are trying to influence State A, but are blocked, and so pass information to NGOs in State B. These NGOs influence State B, which then influences State A. They may also enlist an intergovernmental organisation to help influence state A.
  
• Political entrepreneurs: activists who care enough about an issue that they are prepared to incur significant costs to act and meet their goal. Participation in transnational networks has become and essential component of the collective identities of the activists involved, networking part of their common repertoire.
  
• The growth of international contact: increased air travel and easier communication has simplified personal contact between activists. Cultural shift has created a kind of global public across the world, lots of exchanges and new internationalism in last few years.

How do transnational advocacy networks work?
They must use the power of their information, ideas and strategies to alter the information and value contexts within which states make policies. A typology of network tactics:

• Information politics: the ability to quickly and credibly generate politically usable information and move it to where it will have most impact.
  
• Symbolic politics: the ability to call up on symbols, actions or stories that make sense of a situation for an audience that is frequently far away.
  
• Leverage politics: or the ability to call upon powerful actors to affect a situation where weaker members of a network are unlikely to have influence.
  
• Accountability politics: the effort to hold powerful actors to their previously stated policies or principles.

Under what conditions to advocacy networks have influence?
There are five types or stages of network influence:

• Issue creation and agenda setting.
  
• Influence on discursive positions of states and international organisations.
  
• Influence on institutional procedures.
  
• Influence on policy change in 'target actors' - states, international organisations or companies.
  
• Influence on state behaviour.

Different categories of transnational networks can be separated by their motivations:

• Those with instrumental goals (eg. transnational corporations and banks).
  
• Those motivated primarily by shared causal ideas (e.g. scientific groups or epistemic communities).
  
• Those motivated primarily by shared principled ideas or values (transnational advocacy networks).
  

(From the publisher)