Taking Part: Social Movements, Ingos, and Global Change

Eschle, Catherine and Stammers, Neil (2004) Taking part: social movements, INGOs and global change.Alternatives, 29. pp.335-374. ISSN 0304-3754

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Taking Part: Social Movements, INGOs, and Global Change.
by Catherine Eschle , Neil Stammers
Can social movements make a difference in global politics? That question is, ultimately, one that only the historical practice of transnational social movements will answer. But is that answer likely to be heard or understood by analysts, even if it were to ring in the air around them? We think not, unless there is a fundamental shift in the way the transformative agency of social movements is conceptualized. In this article we try to substantiate this claim through a critique of existing approaches to the study of transnational social movements. We argue that the attention given to transnational social movements across several different academic disciplines has failed to generate the intellectual and disciplinary synthesis needed to understand their potential. On the contrary, the limitations of each discipline have simply been replicated by others, leaving the field cluttered with incommensurable or overlapping analyses, concepts, and jargon.
Investigation of the relationship between social movements and global change is relatively new. Only in the last decade or so has a distinct literature on this topic emerged. Debates in the theory of international relations about the role of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and movements have clustered around the notions of global civil society and global governance. At the same time, a more unified body of work has emerged from politics and sociology that attempts to globalize existing approaches to social movements. These two branches of enquiry frequently focus on similar kinds of movement activism and organization. They have both been influenced by arguments about globalization and been given increasing impetus in the last few years by the wave of high-profile activism opposed to processes and institutions associated with neoliberal aspects of economic globalization.
For the most part, cross-disciplinary engagement on globalization and social movements remains limited. Yet some of the most significant problems with existing academic work traverses disciplinary divides. These problems include a simplified and simplistic conceptualization of movements and organizations; the privileging of either instrumental or expressive dimensions of movement activism; an assumption of a hierarchical relationship between global and local domains of politics; an underdeveloped awareness of the dangers of bureaucratization and oligarchy in movement organization and, conversely, of the potentialities of movement-based contributions to democratic praxis. In responding to these problems, the ultimate aim of this article is to point toward a more holistic, complex and critical understanding of movement activism and its potentially transformative role in global politics.
There are certain things that this article--constructed as it is as a critique of contemporary academic literature in IR, politics, and sociology--does not try to do. It offers neither an empirical case-study of movement activism nor a detailed interrogation of activist representations of the movements of which they are a part. This is not because we see such analyses as unimportant. We draw briefly on some activist texts and depictions of movements to help make our argument and, indeed, believe that activist representations of themselves and the world are a vital source of knowledge that can have constitutive power. However, what we offer here is an immanent critique of the concepts used in academic literature. Further, much of our discussion is concerned with how to conceptualize social-movement activism in terms of geographical space, and we do not attend to the historical, diachronic dimension of such activism. Again, this is not because we deem it unimportant. As Alejandro Colas argues, movement agency needs to be evaluated in the context of "changes and continuities in the structures and processes of social life through time." (1) However, our focus here on contemporary literature, and its difficulties in conceptualizing movement organization across borders, encourages a largely synchronic analysis. Finally, a major preoccupation in the existing literature is a focus on activism judged to have the potential to foster "progressive" social change. We replicate this pattern, partly because of our object of study in this article but partly because we also have a normative commitment to exploring such potentials. That said, we recognize the importance of developing an analytic framework capable of analyzing "regressive" movements. At least some elements of our proposals for analytical reconstruction are indeed relevant to the study of social movements in general.
Our argument will be elaborated in three main parts. The first will review the existing academic literature, outlining the distinctive disciplinary trajectories of debate before cutting across the disciplines to delineate pragmatic, structuralist, and transformationalist approaches. The second part will analyze key problems with each of these three approaches and detail their different manifestations. The third part will provide suggestions for analytical reconstruction.
An Overview
The relationship between movement activism and global change has long been neglected because of the separation of the study of social and political interactions within states from the study of relations between them. Most approaches to social movements in sociology and politics have had "a national bias and a tendency to ignore global or world-systemic developments," even when comparing activism in different countries. (2) The discipline of international relations was purposely established to study "global or world-systemic developments" conceived narrowly as interstate relations. From the dominant view, only states are capable of effective agency in global politics; activities inside states and nonstate actors are largely seen as irrelevant. Together these disciplinary biases have helped to obscure the possibility that social movements might be affected by, and effect, processes of global change.
However, the last few decades have seen an increasing challenge to these foundational ontological assumptions and the disciplinary division of labor associated with them. In IR, for example, we find a marked growth in literature on nonstate actors in the context of a sustained assault on realist hegemony. There have been two main waves of argument here, the first emerging in the 1970s and early 1980s in the form of liberal theorizing of interdependence or transnationalism. This approach pointed to empirical evidence that states were being locked into a web of cooperative as well as conflictual relations. A range of actors operating inside and across states became the legitimate focus of enquiry. (3) This approach is currently undergoing a revival, (4) coinciding with a second wave of interest in nonstate or transstate actors that has been highly influenced by postpositivist interventions into international relations and by the development of the literature on globalization. Liberals feature strongly here, too, alongside more radical voices. This second wave has a common concern with NGOs and/or social movements, frequently locating these actors in a newly emergent realm of global civil society, and granting them a key, if contested, role in processes of global change, the operations of international organizations, and/or processes of global governance. (5)
Although these arguments in international relations draw eclectically upon a range of arguments from social and political thought, there has been only limited attention paid to social-movement theory as it has developed in sociology and politics. It is even rarer to find awareness of the recent efforts of a few social-movement theorists to overcome their national bias and extend their frameworks to the global level. (6)
This latter tranche of work has largely sought to extend the compass of resource-mobilization theory, the political-opportunity structures approach, and associated arguments about repertoires of contention and framing. Resource-mobilization theory examines the availability of social resources and the capacity of entrepreneurial movement organizers to access these. The political-opportunity structures approach adds a concern with changes in the political context, particularly shifts in patterns of access, realignments within the polity, divisions within existing elites, and lessons movements learn from one another as evident in the spread of repertoires of action. More recently, attention has been paid to the frames activists develop to mobilize supporters and that may aim ultimately to challenge dominant paradigms in society. (7) Most efforts to globalize these social-movement theories are closely aligned with liberal perspectives in international relations, but they use a different language. They talk primarily of transnational social-movement organizations (hereinafter, TSMOs), transnational advocacy networks, and the involvement of both in processes of transnational contention that take advantage of the new political opportunities made available by international organizations and regimes and that involve the development of transnational frames and multilevel action repertoires. (8)
The difference in language between liberal-oriented approaches in the different disciplines may have functioned to obscure cross-disciplinary affinities, although a few social movement theorists have recently recognized overlaps with debates in international relations. (9) Further, it should be noted that analyses of framing, with their emphasis on ideas, ideology, and culture, may explicitly move beyond a liberal framework. (10)
Some limited attention has also been given by sociologists to the global applicability of new social-movement theory. This approach posits that deep structural change in the nature of modernity has produced movements that are diffuse in form, broadly cultural in orientation, and aiming to constrain state and economic power rather than to gain control over it. While these arguments developed within and about a specifically European context, it has also been argued that structural change has occurred globally, that movements exhibiting these distinctive traits are found in other parts of the world, and that they can stretch across state borders. (11) As we will show below, such an approach appears to have had extensive, but largely unacknowledged, influence on recent writing in IR.
In what follows, we group the contemporary literature on social movements and global change into three main perspectives that cut across disciplinary divisions. It should be stressed that these are ideal-type categorizations, pitched at a level of generality that will not capture the nuances of individual theorists. The first approach is pragmatic in its orientation. This is work that builds on a broadly liberal and/or social democratic outlook and on an empiricist epistemology. Pragmatists tend to emphasize formal organization and to see the interface between state and nonstate organizations as the basis of political life: the appropriate arena for democracy and the source of social change through the shaping of state policy. Conditions of globalization are understood to be embedding states into networks of cooperation with each other and with INGOs or TSMOs. Perhaps two main versions of pragmatism can be discerned. One is more analytical: exploring the role played by NGOs/TSMOs within international organizations and changing global structures with an eye to assessing movement origins, impact, and effectiveness and with the ultimate aim of developing better concepts and better understanding within academia. The other is more overtly normative and political in its orientation. It is particularly concerned with the need to restructure and democratize international organizations and thus to improve processes of global governance. INGOs or TSMOs are valued for their capacity to render interstate negotiations more inclusive and transparent. (12)
The second approach could be labeled structuralist. Often drawing from Marxist traditions, it also connects to some ecologist and poststructuralist arguments. It is characterized by an assumption that the emergence, orientation, and outcomes of movement activism are fundamentally shaped or determined by deeper social structures, processes, and institutions. Consequently, this approach tends to focus primarily on those structures, processes, and institutions as sources of change and on the large-scale trends in movement development to which they give rise, paying much less attention to the details of specific movement activism and to questions of organization and strategy. Again, two strands of this approach can be distinguished. The first is optimistic in outlook, emphasizing that structural changes in capitalism and the state system associated with globalization have induced a shift in movement form and orientation: No longer national and statist, movements are now transnational and "anti-systemic," with the capacity to enhance the propensity of the system to crisis and collapse. The second version of structuralism is more pessimistic in its predictions for movements, tending to emphasize the adaptability of the capitalist and state system and the fact that transnational dimensions of movement organizing are likely to be fragmented or co-opted into that system. Some pessimists turn to movement activism in a national or local context as the more likely source of resistance. By definition, such activism is likely to be nonuniversalizable. Thus more pessimistic versions of the structuralist approach conclude that the possibilities for radical transformation on a global scale are extremely limited. (13)
The third approach cuts across what is beginning to resemble a familiar polarization between reformist engagement with the system and revolutionary challenge or withdrawal. This approach could be labeled transformationalist. Adherents draw on a range of traditions, including liberalism and neo-Gramscianism, but also anarchism, ecology, feminism, poststructuralism, and social-movement theory. Transformationalists emphasize the emancipatory potential of social movements and their organizations globally, drawing attention to the ways in which movements may combine materialist and institutionalist strategies with the reshaping and enacting of alternative cultural norms, values, and lifestyles. This latter form of activism may be aimed primarily at changing attitudes and practices within global civil society or an equivalent, but it is also perceived to be central to what movements are about and to have potentially transformative and democratizing effects on international institutions.
Again, two strands to this approach can be identified. Much of the transformationalist literature has a rather utopian bent, insofar as it tends to depict movements and INGOs as beyond power, as organized in similar ways, and as pursuing essentially progressive goals. However, a more critical transformationalist approach is also emerging, which is more sensitive to the substantive and organizational differences within and between movements and to problems of power and oligarchy. (14) We hope to have contributed to such an approach in this article.
It must be stressed that the boundaries between pragmatism, structuralism, and transformationalism are fluid and shifting. It can be particularly difficult to distinguish between normative pragmatists and utopian transformationalists, with both talking of the democratizing potential of NGOs and with some prominent transformationalists shifting recently toward a more conventionally liberal acceptance of the need for institutional cooperation with the state and market systems. (15) There has also been some movement recently among structuralists, with a shift from pessimism to optimism in the light of the increasing prominence of movement activism against neoliberal elements of economic globalization and the consequent hope that a more generalizable, and genuinely anticapitalist movement, may be emerging. (16) So we stress again that our categories should be understood as simplified ideal-types, intended to highlight the cross-disciplinary ways in which certain problems in the theorization of movements and global change manifest themselves. The next part of this article discusses four such problems.
Key Problems
Transnational Social Movements and TSMOs
The first problem centers on the opaque and confused conceptualizations of transnational movements and the organizations associated with them. The task of disentangling these conceptualizations is complicated by inconsistent or contradictory terminology. (17)
For example, political scientists and sociologists tend to use the labels "transnational social movements" or "global social movements," while IR theorists tend to invoke a variety of what could be called stand-in concepts, including "networks of global civil society," "the multitude," and "social forces." (18) Furthermore, whereas several political scientists and sociologists use the term TSMOs, theorists in international relations have talked rather of interest groups, pressure groups, and transnational activist groups. However, lately there appears to be considerable cross-disciplinary convergence around the concept of NGOs and/or INGOs. (19) Of course INGOs and TSMOs are not necessarily the same kind of organizational entity, and indeed, there are many INGOs that have no organizational or substantive links to movements. It is specifically the TSMO subset that is the main focus of interest for most political scientists and sociologists attempting to globalize social-movement theory. It is also the focus of much international relations work in this area. So, notwithstanding these terminological differences, generalizations can be made about the ways in which movements and their organizations are misconceptualized.
The main problem with pragmatist approaches is that movements are reduced or subordinated to the formal organizations associated with them. TSMOs/INGOs are frequently the exclusive focus of study to the neglect of less formal, extra-institutional kinds of movement activism or indeed to the consideration of movements themselves. This can be seen, for example, in the work of interdependence theorist Peter Willetts, which has moved from an emphasis on "promotional pressure groups" to a focus on "campaigning" NGOs. (20) Both of these categories could be seen as substitute labels for TSMOs. However, Willetts does not investigate the relationship between these organizations and wider social movements. Rather, the main thrust of analysis remains the impact of groups on state policy making and on interstate institutions. (21) A similar dynamic is evident in the work of Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, which focuses on the integration of NGOs, state agencies, and international institutions in "transnational advocacy networks" (a particular kind of network distinguished by "the centrality of principled ideas or values motivating their formation"). (22)
Again, the NGOs under discussion are clearly organizations closely associated to social movements. Keck and Sikkink claim that examining the role of NGOs in transnational advocacy networks "helps both to distinguish NGOs from, and to see their connections with, social movements." (23) Yet, in fact, their study makes no attempt to explore this relationship. Even in pragmatist work with a declared focus on movements, as in the volume edited by Jackie Smith et al., entitled Transnational Social Movements, we find an overwhelming focus on TSMOs and their relation to other formally structured organizations. (24)
In contrast, utopian transformationalists tend to neglect the distinctive characteristics of TSMOs/INGOs and to describe such groups in terms more usually reserved for less formal kinds of movement activism. More specifically, it is the so-called new social movements that provide the template for understanding TSMOs and INGOs. For example, an influential early article by Richard Falk surveys groups ranging from Greenpeace to the Sanctuary movement and concludes they are converging on a "new politics," involving

repudiation of war and technologies of violence as inevitable
instruments of social conflict; adoption of identity patterns and
affinities that arise from shared commitments;... coalitions and
support activities in transnational arenas and networks; a refusal
to regard access to state power as the prime stake of political
activity ...; an emergent awareness that the decisive political
battleground for the remainder of this century is associated with an
activation of cultural energies. (25)