Sociological Forum, Vol. 15, No. 4, 2000

Review Essays

Globalization, Collective Action, and Social Theory Val Moghadam1

Transnational Social Movements and Global Politics: Solidarity Beyond the State. Jackie Smith, Charles Chatfield, and Ron Pagnucco, eds. Syracuse University Press, 1997. 311 pages (including references and index) Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics. Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink. Cornell University Press, 1998. 217 pages ⫹ index.

Like economics, the social sciences have long focused on processes and institutions within single states and societies. Until very recently, ‘‘global’’ or ‘‘transnational’’ were concepts that were either alien or marginal to mainstream social-science theories. ‘‘International’’ and ‘‘world’’ were of course understood, but supranational developments could hardly be fathomed. Outside of the mainstream, dependency theory and its more sophisticated variant, world-systems theory, challenged Marxism’s emphasis on class conflicts within single societies, drawing attention to the transnational nature of capital and labor flows and the implications thereof for economic and political processes at the societal level, as well as for the reproduction of global inequalities. Back in the mainstream, theories of social movements and political protest also focused on national-level dynamics—and mainly in the West. But no sooner had these theories gained prominence in the 1980’s than new developments began to challenge some of their basic assumptions. These new developments included forms of governance and forms of activism at the global level. Globalization compels a rethinking 1

Women’s Studies and Sociology, Illinois State University. 721 0884-8971/00/1200-0721$18.00/0  2000 Plenum Publishing Corporation

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of economic, sociological, and political categories, and a reconsideration of the organizational form of contemporary collective action. The two books under review contribute in important ways to this necessary rethinking about globalization, global activism, and social theory. Although a number of journal articles have been written on the subject, these books may be rightly called pioneering. Both draw attention to the transnational nature of social movements and of advocacy networks; both contain significant empirical data; and both raise critical questions for sociology and political science. The Smith, Chatfield, and Pagnucco book comes in five parts. Parts 1 and 5 are largely theoretical, with contributions by the editors and by Louis Kriesberg, John McCarthy, and Chadwick Alger. These chapters examine social movements and global transformation, intergovernmental and nongovernmental associations prior to 1945, characteristics of the modern transnational social movement sector, the relationship between social movements and world politics, the relationship between transnational social movements and global governance, and the globalization of social movement theory. Parts 2, 3, and 4 are more empirical, organized around the themes of mobilizing transnational resources in national conflicts, generating constituencies for multilateral policy, and targeting international institutions. Essays examine the Peace Brigades International in Sri Lanka (Patrick Coy), humanitarian organizations and war in the Horn of Africa (William DeMars), the transnational strategies of a human rights organization in Latin America (Ron Pagnucco), mobilizing around the United Nations’ special sessions on disarmament (David Atwood), the limits of the transnational peace campaign of the 1980s (David Cortright and Ron Pagnucco), EarthAction International (Jackie Smith), limits to environmental activism in Europe (Dieter Rucht), interceding at the UN for the human right to conscientious objection (Michael Hovey), and the activities of the Neptune Group around the Law of the Sea Treaty (Ralph Levering). The book’s contributors are political scientists, sociologists, and historians, as well as human rights and peace activists. Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, political scientists and Latin Americanists, make their argument about ‘‘the rapidly changing configuration of world politics’’ (p. x) in six chapters. In the first, they introduce the concept of transnational advocacy networks (TANs) in international politics. In the second, they examine precursors to modern TANs. The next three chapters are case studies of TANS: human rights advocacy networks in Latin America; environmental advocacy networks; and transnational networks on violence against women. In their conclusion, they consider the implications of TANs for international society and world polity. The two books exhibit similar approaches to supranational politics

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and solidarity. Both underscore the obvious fact of the proliferation of transnational organizations, and Keck and Sikkink cite Jackie Smith’s data on the growth of international organizations to underscore their point. Both books set out to show how nonstate actors interact with each other, with states, and with international organizations (Keck and Sikkink), and how international nongovernmental organizations promote institutional and policy changes in the international order (Smith, Chatfield, and Pagnucco). Jackie Smith and some of her colleagues approach their subject matter from the perspective of established social movement theory. Hence the chapters, and especially the theoretical chapters, are replete with concepts such as transnational social movement organizations (TSMOs), transnational social movement industries and sectors, transnational mobilizing structures, and so on. (Of these terms, I have always found social movement industry to be awkward and strange.) There is considerable classification and categorization of the types, membership cohorts, and activities of TSMOs. Keck and Sikkink are cognizant of social movement theory, make good use of the concept of ‘‘framing,’’ and refer to organizations and individuals within advocacy networks as ‘‘political entrepreneurs who mobilize resources like information and membership and show a sophisticated awareness of the political opportunity structures within which they are operating’’ (p. 31). (Again, I consider it odd that activists are likened to entrepreneurs.) Keck and Sikkink nevertheless deliberately term their subject matter ‘‘networks’’ rather than social movements. This is partly in deference to activists and their own terminology, and partly in recognition of the fluidity of global advocacy organizations. As we know, however, the concept of ‘‘networks’’ is sociological. Both books, therefore, demonstrate the efficacy of the sociological perspective, while also suggesting new research questions in an era of globalization. Inevitably, some important questions are not raised, and some movements and organizations are not considered in these books. To begin with, the books are about what may be called ‘‘globalization from below,’’ but they do not discuss ‘‘globalization from above’’—the neoliberal economic policy environment and the growing power of international financial institutions and trade organizations that have triggered collective responses from consumer, labor, environmental and feminist groups. Global integration of markets and the adoption by governments of harmful economic policies are key aspects of globalization, and they have been challenged in significant ways by the movements and networks that think and act both locally and globally to challenge the hegemony of corporate capital. Two manifestations of these ‘‘antisystemic’’ or ‘‘counterhegemonic’’ movements may be mentioned: the dramatic protests in Seattle in November 1999—during the

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WTO Ministerial Conference that was supposed to launch a ‘‘Millennial Round’’ of world trade negotiations—and the protests against the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Washington D.C. in April 2000. As valuable as the case studies are in Transnational Social Movements and Global Politics, the transnational women’s movement and feminist organizations are conspicuous by their absence. In the Keck and Sikkink volume, a chapter is devoted to the transnational campaign around violence against women. This important movement has been very effective internationally, and the authors are to be commended for including it in their volume. However, the discussion is rather excessively America-focused, over-emphasizing the catalytic role of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University. To be sure, the Center’s director is dynamic and internationally connected, but other individuals and networks in the United States and especially around the world paved the road to the 1990’s consensus on women’s human rights and the triumph at the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993. In particular, mention should be made of two transnational feminist networks: Women, Law and Development, and Women Living Under Muslim Laws. Nor is it entirely accurate to assert that the issue of violence was more effective in mobilizing women than was the issue of economic inequalities (p. 171). In fact, the world’s women first mobilized precisely around economic development issues during the United Nations’ Decade on Women (1975–85), and several well-known and established transnational feminist networks remain focused on issues of development assistance, trade policy, and neoliberal economic policies. These include the networks Women in Development Europe (WIDE) and Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN). Both networks monitor and criticize the European Union’s development assistance and trade policies with Africa, Caribbean, and Pacific countries, international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and the newer World Trade Organization. Indeed, WIDE prepared a position paper on gender and world trade for the NGO Forum in Seattle, and was represented by a Finnish ecofeminist who has long been opposed to globalization. Another transnational feminist network, the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), has prepared position papers on world trade. The two books under review also pay insufficient attention to local– global linkages, and to the ways that TSMOs and TANs target both states and global institutions. Here the activities of transnational feminist networks (TFNs) are especially instructive. The TFNs I have mentioned above are composed of individual activists or women’s groups rooted in local communities and national contexts. They determine their own priorities

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but come together globally (e.g., at annual congresses or regional meetings) to work out a common agenda, including a vocabulary and a set of strategies to accomplish their objectives. The targets of their advocacy and activism are simultaneously local structures, national governments, and global institutions. TFNs reflect the interplay of the local and the global and bridge the divide in an innovative organizational form that eschews nationalist preoccupations and is premised on commonality and solidarity. As such, TFNs, which emerged in the late twentieth century, have taken the form that the workers’ movement was supposed to take in the early twentieth century, but didn’t. The strength of both books lies in the documentation of transnational social movements and advocacy networks as change agents—even while the case studies describe limitations faced by some movements and their organizations. Kriesberg notes that by transmitting information, TSMOs aid the diffusion of ideas and practices and facilitate mobilization for movement goals. ‘‘They also help diffuse norms and values about participation in policymaking and execution and serve as constituencies for other NGOs and for IGOs, thus fostering democratization’’ (p. 14). For Keck and Sikkink, too, TANs engage in ‘‘information politics, symbolic politics, leverage politics, and accountability politics’’ (p. 16) with the objective of changing norms and standards. These are early days in globalization studies, and future research will clarify outstanding issues, as well as certain concepts. For example, what is the difference between ‘‘transnational civil society’’ and ‘‘global civil society’’ (Keck and Sikkink, p. 33)? What are the organizational similarities and differences across TSMOs and TANs? Will transnational movements and networks generate new methods of data collection and analysis? For now, the two books provide valuable insights into nonstate actors and activism. One can only endorse Keck and Sikkink’s concluding sentence: ‘‘Our initial research has suggested that networks have considerable importance in bringing transformative and mobilizing ideas into the international system, and it offers promising new directions for further research’’ (p. 217).