Alternatives 29 (2004), 333-372

Taking Part:
Social Movements, INGOs,
and Global Change

Catherine Eschle and Neil Stammers*

Can social movements make a difference in global politics? That

question is, ultimately, one that only the historical practice of trans­
national 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 concep­
tualized. 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 limita­
tions of each discipline have simply been replicated by others, leav­
ing the field cluttered with incommensurable or overlapping analy­
ses, 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 the­
ory 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

♦Catherine Eschle, Department of Government, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Gl

1XQ, Scotland, UK. E-mail: [email protected]; Neil Stammers, Inter­
national Relations and Politics Subject Group, School of Social Sciences, University of
Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9SN, UK. E-mail: [email protected]

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333
334 Social Movements, INGOs, and Global Change

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 globaliza­
tion and social movements remains limited. Yet some of the most
significant problems with existing academic work traverses discipli­
nary 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 imma­
nent 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 Ale­
j a n d r o 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 move­
ment organization across borders, encourages a largely synchronie
analysis. Finally, a major preoccupation in the existing literature is a
focus on activism j u d g e d to have the potential to foster "progres­
sive" social change. We replicate this pattern, partly because of our
object of study in this article but partly because we also have a nor­
mative commitment to exploring such potentials. That said, we rec­
ognize the importance of developing an analytic framework capable

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 Eschle and Stammers 335

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 disci­
plines 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 rela­
tions between them. Most approaches to social movements in soci­
ology and politics have had "a national bias and a tendency to
ignore global or world-systemic developments," even when com­
paring activism in different countries. 2 The discipline of inter­
national 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 effec­
tive 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 chal­
lenge to these foundational ontological assumptions and the disci­
plinary 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 inter­
dependence or transnationalism. This approach pointed to empir­
ical evidence that states were being locked into a web of coopera­
tive 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 inter­
national relations and by the development of the literature on
globalization. Liberals feature strongly here, too, alongside more

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336 Social Movements, INGOs, and Global Change

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 opera­
tions of international organizations, and/or processes of global
governance.5
Although these arguments in international relations draw eclec-
tically upon a range of arguments from social and political thought,
there has been only limited attention paid to social-movement the­
ory as it has developed in sociology and politics. It is even rarer to
find awareness of the recent efforts of a few social-movement theo­
rists 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 com­
pass of resource-mobilization theory, the political-opportunity struc­
tures approach, and associated arguments about repertoires of con­
tention 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 acti­
vists 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 per­
spectives in international relations, but they use a different lan­
guage. They talk primarily of transnational social-movement orga­
nizations (hereinafter, TSMOs), transnational advocacy networks,
and the involvement of both in processes of transnational con­
tention 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

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 Eschk and Stammers 337

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 devel­
oped 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. 1 1
As we will show below, such an approach appears to have had
extensive, but largely unacknowledged, influence on recent writing
inlR.
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 a n d / o r social democratic outlook and on an em­
piricist epistemology. Pragmatists tend to emphasize formal orga­
nization and to see the interface between state and nonstate orga­
nizations 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 pragma­
tism can be discerned. O n e is more analytical: exploring the role
played by NGOs/TSMOs within international organizations and
changing global structures with an eye to assessing movement ori­
gins, impact, and effectiveness and with the ultimate aim of devel­
oping 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 democ­
ratize 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 draw­
ing 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 devel­
opment to which they give rise, paying much less attention to the

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338 Social Movements, INGOs, and Global Change

details of specific movement activism and to questions of organiza­

tion and strategy. Again, two strands of this approach can be dis­
tinguished. 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 ori­
entation: No longer national and statist, movements are now trans­
national 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 move­
ments, tending to emphasize the adaptability of the capitalist and
state system and the fact that transnational dimensions of move­
ment 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 pes­
simistic versions of the structuralist approach conclude that the
possibilities for radical transformation on a global scale are ex­
tremely 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 institu-
tionalist strategies with the reshaping and enacting of alternative cul­
tural 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 organiza­
tional 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

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 Eschle and Stammers 339

can be particularly difficult to distinguish between normative prag-

matists and Utopian transformationalists, with both talking of the
democratizing potential of NGOs and with some prominent trans­
formationalists 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 move­
ment, may be emerging. 1 6 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 theo-
rization 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 conceptual­
izations of transnational movements and the organizations associ­
ated 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 move­
ments," while IR theorists tend to invoke a variety of what could be
called stand-in concepts, including "networks of global civil soci­
ety," "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. How­
ever, lately there appears to be considerable cross-disciplinary con­
vergence around the concept of NGOs a n d / o r INGOs. 19 Of course
INGOs and TSMOs are not necessarily the same kind of organiza­
tional entity, and indeed, there are many INGOs that have no orga­
nizational 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.

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340 Social Movements, INGOs, and Global Change

The main problem with pragmatist approaches is that move­

ments 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 move­
ments 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 "cam­
paigning" NGOs. 2 0 Both of these categories could be seen as sub­
stitute labels for TSMOs. However, Willetts does not investigate the
relationship between these organizations and wider social move­
ments. 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"). 2 2
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 connec­
tions with, social movements." 2 3 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 sur.veys 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

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 Eschle and Stammers 341

battleground for the remainder of this century is associated with

an activation of cultural energies.25

O n e result of assuming such a convergence is that both formal

and informal kinds of movement activism are depicted as sharing
the same kind of structural characteristics and as operating in the
same kind of way. Now, while some TSMOs and INGOs may be
structured according to the nonhierarchical network principles
supposedly characteristic of new social movements (a point dis­
cussed at more length below), in our view some analytical distinc­
tion must be maintained between formal organizations and less
formal moments of activism. Further, as we have already pointed
out, many INGOs are entirely unconnected to social movements.
Indeed, J o h n Boli and colleagues insist that most INGOs are eco­
nomic or technical in character and tend to support and diffuse
dominant cultural norms. They point out that only a relatively
small group are associated with the "social movement sector" and
attempt to challenge dominant cultural values in the ways sug­
gested by new social-movement theory. 26 In sum, there are signifi­
cant distinctions between different kinds of INGOs, and between
INGOs and less formal kinds of activism, that are lost by the over-
enthusiastic application of new social-movement categories by
Utopian transformationalists.
Like transformationalists, structuralists acknowledge a role for
both INGOs/TSMOs and less formal, more socially embedded,
forms of activism. However, they are rightly critical of the Utopian
tendency to perceive the two as equivalent phenomena. Indeed,
many structuralists appear skeptical of the possibility that the two
might be connected in any way. A preference for the use of the ter­
minology of (I)NGOs, rather than TSMOs, enables institutional­
ized, technical associations to be taken as paradigmatic, and then
all such groups to be criticized for reproducing extant relations
and structures of power. As Craig Murphy puts it:

Our own period is also characterized by non-governmental orga­

nizations (NGOs) playing a further essential role in international
governance. Increasingly, as a consequence of neoliberal marke-
tization, the services once provided by public intergovernmental
organizations are now contracted to private, non-governmental,
often "social movement"-style, organizations. . . . [This] has
allowed donor aid budgets to remain stagnant or even fall
throughout the post-Cold War era. 27

Murphy offers an important reminder of the contribution of

many NGOs to the diffusion of neoliberal norms and practices, but

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342 Social Movements, INGOs, and Global Change

he does so by refusing to draw any distinction between NGOs and

TSMOs or what he calls "social movement"-style organizations.
Murphy's quotation marks are indicative of a skepticism that trans­
national organizations can retain any authentic, grassroots-move­
ment connections. Murphy and other pessimistic structuralists
tend to map these forms of political agency on to different levels of
analysis.

The Relationship Between Global and Local

This brings us to a second key problem: a simplified and hierar­
chical conceptualization of the relationship between global and
local. The interpretation of globalization in the literature under
review is significant here. Globalization tends to be understood as
primarily economic, technological, and/or political in its origins
and character, in contrast to the approach more widespread in
sociology that emphasizes cultural shifts and the restructuring of
space and time.28
In the literature under review, we find that the growing inte­
gration and liberalization of worldwide market relations receives
particular emphasis, along with the development of communica­
tions and transport technologies and the rapid growth of global
governance institutions above and beyond the state. These dimen­
sions of globalization, particularly the latter two, are stressed by
theorists drawing on resource-mobilization theory and the po­
litical-opportunity structures approach, as creating new enabling
conditions and sources of grievance that underpin the trans-
nationalization of activism.29 In contrast, structuralists tend to see
technological and institutional developments as reflective of a shift
in the more fundamental structures of capitalism and its class rela­
tions, pointing to continuities as well as changes, and disagreeing
over whether resistance is newly enabled or constrained.30
Whatever the emphasis, these approaches share a tendency to
characterize globalization as centripetal and homogenizing, suck­
ing econpmic and political forms "upward." This means that glob­
alization may be perceived as functioning to eradicate cultural dif­
ferences located at the local or national level, although the
theorists examined here disagree over the extent to which this is
occurring.31
One result is the tendency to assume that the less formal,
socially embedded aspects of movements are local or national in
character, and that only the more formally structured, institution­
ally oriented NGOs or TSMOs are active in global politics. This ten­
dency can be found among both structuralists and pragmatists,

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 Eschle and Stammers 343

albeit with rather different readings of its analytical and political

implications. The pessimistic structuralist characterization of eco­
nomic globalization as overwhelmingly totalizing and destructive
leads them to locate any possibility of resistance at the local level.
As noted above, INGOs are interpreted as supporting and repro­
ducing extant global power. Pragmatists have a more optimistic
view of INGO/TSMO capacity. The global level is privileged as the
source of progressive change, reinforcing the tendency to focus on
INGOs/TSMOs, rather than less formal, more socially embedded
aspects of movements.
This hierarchy of levels has been perhaps most clearly elabo­
rated by Sidney Tarrow, a key exponent of the political-opportunity
structures approach. Tarrow rightly distinguishes between trans­
national social movements and "the larger universe of international
nongovernmental organizations and elite transnational activist
networks" (these are the transnational advocacy networks of Keck
and Sikkink). However, he does so by insisting that social move­
ments depend upon interpersonal "social networks" embedded in
everyday life and "domestic" (national) societies, which help to
generate collective identities. 32 Interestingly, there is a strong par­
allel here with new social-movement theorist Alberto Melucci's
emphasis on "subterranean networks"—less visible, often latent,
connections linking activists in their everyday lives—as a key
dimension of movement construction. 3 3
Tarrow insists that such networks are very difficult to trans-
nationalize. Thus, most movement involvement in "contentious
politics" is likely to remain at the national level. The adoption of
the goals, tactics, and identities originating in movements in other
contexts should not be mistaken for the transnationalization of
movement networks, but is instead evidence of the existence of
cross-border processes like "diffusion" through which national
movements learn from each other. 34 It is only through TSMOs in
transnational advocacy networks that movements are likely to
become cross-border in form and participants in processes of trans­
national contention. 3 5
This view contrasts with that propounded by optimistic struc­
turalists and transformationalists, who insist on a broader under­
standing of what constitutes a transnational or global movement,
one that is more inclusive of localized, grassroots activism. For opti­
mistic structuralists, the contradictions inherent in globalized cap­
italism are key here, relocating resistance from nationalist, statist,
and proletarian movements to poststatist, networked movements of
all oppressed and exploited peoples. Michael Hardt and Antonio
Negri, for example, insist that some of the most important recent

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344 Social Movements, /NGOs, and Global Change

struggles, from the intifada to the Zapatistas, may be "focused on

the international relations own local and immediate circumstances
[but] they all nonetheless [have] posed problems of supranational
relevance . . . [they] leap vertically and touch immediately on the
global level." 36 Others have emphasized the connections of such
local struggles to transnational mobilizations. Writing from a
Utopian transformationalist perspective, Leslie Paul Thiele offers
the following definitional criteria:

A social movement may be considered transnational in two

senses: first if it has [a] multinational membership and organiza­
tional structure: and second, if its concerns and allegiances are
explicitly global rather than solely national or local. . . . Many
smaller peace and environmental groups exemplify the second
sense of transnational. . . . [They] share information, tactics and
a culture of art, music, literature and activities with their inter­
national counterparts [as well as an] orientation to global citi­
zenship and stewardship.37

This is to move away from an insistence that it is cross-border

organization that defines a movement as transnational or global.
Thiele is insisting that orientation, identification, and activism are
also key to evaluating whether "social" or "subterranean" networks
embedded in everyday life and specific localities can still be con­
sidered part of processes of global contention. Further, he claims
that such activism can have a global impact. In contrast to Hardt
and Negri's structuralist emphasis on problems posed by local
groups for the "new figure of imperial capitalist regulation," Thiele
points to the potential of such movements to induce long-term
changes in "the worldviews and life-styles of the general public as
much as influencing policymakers. . . . The political significance of
this social osmosis should not be ignored." 38
Scott Turner makes a similar argument when he defines global
civil society in terms of small-scale movement activity that is ori­
ented "toward general transformation of public consciousness,
which in*turn affects the parameters of legitimacy within which tra­
ditional institutions must operate." 3 9 Turner's examples of such
activity focus on Third World protests against logging, ranging
from Filipino farmers "fasting for trees" to Buddhist monks wrap­
ping trees in their order's saffron robes. 40
These are important acknowledgments of the contribution of
less conventional, more localized moments of movement activism to
global politics. However, they are marred in their structuralist for­
mulations by a lack of concrete detail and, not unrelatedly, by the
tendency to analyze activism in terms of an underlying functionalist

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 Eschle and Stammers 345

logic. More significant for our analysis here is the problem with
Utopian formulations, which are notable for downplaying the enor­
mous diversity of organizational forms, strategies, and goals of
movements worldwide.
There is a strong tendency to depict all movements and TSMOs as
pursuing a settled, progressive global agenda, one closely linked for
Utopian transformationalists to claims of the new social-movement
type. Such claims are frequently tempered by brief asides on the
differences between movements, with some recognition of the more
conventionally materialist, instrumentalist, development-oriented,
and occasionally militaristic strategies of some groups, particularly
those from the South. 41 Nonetheless, such differences are largely
seen as appropriate contextualizations of new social movement pol­
itics, rather than a deviation from them. Indeed, some Utopian
transformationalists ultimately represent diverse groups as con­
stituting a single, unified movement of the new social movement
variety.42
The uncritical universalization of assumptions from new social-
movement theory is compounded by the accompanying interpreta­
tion of globalization as homogenization/integration, with the conse­
quent neglect of cultural differences and of particularist, reactionary
movement tendencies. In effect, Utopian transformationalists carve
out a role for the less formalized, more localized, aspects of move­
ment activity at a global level through making the highly contentious
assumption that the supposed new social-movement form and its
associated emphasis on cultural orientation is now applicable to
movements worldwide.

Instrumental and Expressive Dimensions of Movement Activism

The third problem we wish to identify is closely related: It is the
tendency to privilege either the instrumental or the expressive
dimension of movement activism and to ignore the relationship
between the two. The instrumental dimension involves the articu­
lation of concrete strategies and demands, frequently aimed at
powerful institutions and intended to produce specific material
effects upon social relations. The expressive dimension is oriented
toward the construction and reconstruction of norms, values, iden­
tities, and lifestyles inside a movement and in the wider social and
cultural milieu. 43
It is clear that the focus of pragmatists on TSMOs both feeds off
and reinforces an emphasis on the instrumental dimension of
movement activism. Insofar as TSMOs are directly engaged in activ­
ity of the pressure-group type—campaigning, lobbying, negotiating,

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346 Social Movements, INGOs, and Global Change

and so on—they will be pursuing concrete demands through inter­

state organizations. The narrow conceptualization of globalization
as primarily economic, institutional, and technological in nature
also mitigates against recognition of the implications of expressive
movement activism. Tarrow's extension of the political-opportunity
structures approach demonstrates these tendencies clearly. His def­
inition of a transnational social movement involves "sustained con­
tentious interaction with powerholders in which at least one state is
either a target or a participant," and he is principally concerned
with the opportunity structures afforded by states, international
organizations, and "international institutions."44 Thus, the instru­
mental aspects of movements are privileged.
This is not to say that pragmatists entirely ignore the expressive
dimension. For example, the Commission on Global Governance
sees NGOs in global civil society as helping to disseminate a new
"civic ethic" encompassing universal values meant to encourage a
more cooperative mode of politics.45 Tarrow recognizes expressive
activism as a key "internal" dynamic necessary to help a TSMO
mobilize resources or take advantage of a political-opportunity
structure. He is also increasingly incorporating an analysis of move­
ment-framing strategies, which chimes with an emphasis in other
recent pragmatist efforts to globalize the political-opportunity
structures approach. The focus here is on how and why activists
succeed in framing issues in ways that mobilize others, create coali­
tions, and challenge dominant cultural understandings.46
Arguably, most frame analysis provides a rather limited
approach to culture, reducing it to another instrumental strategy
of movements. Some pragmatists have focused explicitly on "non-
institutional efforts to change social beliefs, values or practices,"
hinting that the relationship between TSMOs and transnational
social movements must be significant on this point and that the
"deep politics of shaping individual thinking and action . . . clearly
occupies much, if not most, social movement energies."47 Yet the
bulk of pragmatist analysis pays little attention to the detail or
meaning of this kind of movement activism or to how it may effect
change on a global scale.
There is a noteworthy convergence among some pragmatists
and Utopian transformationalists in terms of the role of culture in
globalization processes. There seems to be a shared view that cul­
ture, in the sense of values and lifestyles, will largely follow eco­
nomic, institutional, and technological processes and become
increasingly homogenized worldwide.48 Among pragmatists, this
escapes close study, but is surely to be considered a good thing,
reflecting "frame alignment" among TSMOs and INGO elites. In

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 Eschle and Stammers 347

contrast, Utopian transformationalists imply a sharp divide between

what they depict as the technocratic values and culture of inter­
national political and economic institutions and the progressive or
emancipatory values and culture assumed to be articulated within
and by global civil society. This view is probably reinforced by the
importing of assumptions from new social-movement theory. Thus
it is not surprising that Utopian transformationalists like Falk,
Thiele, and Turner should pay significant attention to the expres­
sive dimension of movements, as evident in the excerpts quoted
above. The problem with their analysis is that it downplays the sig­
nificant cultural differences between movements worldwide. What
is more, the instrumental strategies pursued by movements (in­
cluding so-called new movements) and the instrumental and tech­
nocratic orientation of many nonmovement INGOs tend to dis­
appear from view.
Pessimistic structuralists, on the other hand, interpret the cul­
tural dimensions of globalization in terms of a process of imposed
Westernization in which INGOs are implicated. "Authentic" cultural
life remains located in local communities where it may be de­
fended by social movements. It is only here that the expressive
dimension of activism may raise interest. For example, Stephen Gill
characterizes "the new counter-movements" evident at Seattle and
beyond as "seekfing] to preserve ecological and cultural diversity
against what they see as the encroachment of political, social, and
ecological mono-cultures associated with the supremacy of corpo­
rate rule." 4 9 This is certainly an orientation of some groups in­
volved in activism against neoliberal elements of economic global­
ization, but is not true of all of them, and it downplays the
possibility, noted by more optimistic structuralists and Utopian
transformationalists, of cultural-ideological affinities that may bind
diverse "antiglobalization" activists together. 50
Of course, structuralists of all varieties have a strong inclina­
tion toward privileging the material dimensions of globalization
and thus the instrumental demands and strategies of resistance
movements. This is hardly surprising given the Marxian under­
pinnings of their framework. For example, in a recent shift toward
optimism, Robert Cox gives an account of "growth in civil society
coming about as a reaction to the impact of globalization." The
movements he cites map closely on to those struggles identified by
Hardt and Negri as the most important of recent times, and all are
depicted as centering on material interests: strikes in France and
South Korea; riots provoked by rising food and transport prices in
the Philippines; the Zapatistas' armed revolt against the Mexican
state; and self-help, self-reliance community organizations in
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348 Social Movements, INGOs, and Global Change

Africa.51 The expressive dimension of movement activism and its

potential to contribute to global change has again disappeared
from view.

Democratic and Oligarchic Dynamics

The fourth and final problem we wish to highlight concerns the
lack of attention to the dynamics of oligarchic and democratic pos­
sibilities in movement organization and activism. Although this
may be expected from structuralists, it is a startling omission from
the work of normative pragmatists and Utopian transformational­
ists, with its heavy emphasis on the democratic character and role
of social movement activism and TSMOs/INGOs.
Normative pragmatists support current moves to enable an
enhanced role for NGOs within the United Nations, and in inter­
national financial institutions, on the basis that NGOs make such
institutions more democratic. They broaden representation and
render interstate negotiations more accountable, as well as more
functionally effective.52 However, most pragmatists are working
within the liberal pluralist model of democracy in which it is
assumed that groups compete in an open system to gain influence
over policy, thus helping to aggregate interests and disperse power.
This model has been heavily criticized in the context of national
politics, with critics pointing to the imperfect nature of such com­
petition given the structural advantage of powerful economic inter­
ests. More generally, liberal democracy has long been criticized for
its limited, procedural character and the extent to which formal
political equality obscures asymmetries of power in the wider social
context. It is not at all clear that the extension of liberal democracy
into structures of global governance would tackle such problems. It
is also important to recognize that the space allocated to INGOs in
pragmatist schemes for extending democracy is frequently rather
limited. For example, the Commission on Global Governance rec­
ommends the establishment of a Forum for Civil Society within the
UN structure, but this turns out to be a discussion body with no
legislative powers and no formal input into the rest of the United
Nations.53
Utopian transformationalists are aware of the limitations of for­
mal, representative democracy and of an exclusive focus on the
incorporation of INGOs into international institutions. They want to
allow a role for nonformal movement activism and for more partici­
patory elements of democracy. Dianne Otto makes this clear in her
account of a "postliberal conception of cosmopolitan democracy."
This would involve "the formation of regional and international

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 Eschle and Stammers 349

democratic assemblies and crossnational referenda"; localized

social movement resistances to the concentration of power; "net­
working, which operates horizontally and co-operatively, [as] an
alternative to hierarchical institutional structures"; and mecha­
nisms within the United Nations "which are inclusive of a diversity
of formal and informal NGO formations, which encourage the
building of global perspectives from local participation, and which
foster open debate and criticism." 54 Otto's is one of the more
developed transformationalist formulations of democracy. None­
theless, it pays only superficial attention to the extensive theoreti­
cal literature on participatory democracy, and the precise role of
movements and their organizations remains sketchy.
Perhaps most importantly, in our view, there has been little
attention paid by either pragmatists or transformationalists to the
question of oligarchic and democratic dynamics within movements
and their organizations. Particularly important here is the extent
to which INGOs/TSMOs necessarily encounter problems of oli­
garchy and bureaucratization. Initially identified by Max Weber
and Roberto Michels, these are widely recognized as common orga­
nizational trajectories, if not exactly iron cages or laws. Dieter
Rucht outlines their consequences for TSMOs:

[A] declining performance in relation to organizational re­

sources, and a loss of initiative and emphasis particularly among
the rank and file. . . . [C]hanges in structure tend to be accom­
panied by changes in ideology . . . [whereby] some organizations
. . . become more interested in the international relations own
maintenance and growth than in the original goal for which they
were set up. A related aspect of this is the threat of an instru-
mentalization and commercialization of the movements' aims . . .
[and the possibility of] co-option and deradicalization.55

A trend in this direction finds confirmation in parallel claims

about movements being "NGO-ized" and INGOs/TSMOs becom­
ing professionalized and institutionalized. 56 We would suggest that
this trend is a serious constraint upon the democratic potential of
INGOs/TSMOs. Indeed, it ought to be considered whether the
incorporation of formal democratic procedures within INGOs/
TSMOs, officially required as a precondition of being granted con­
sultative status at the United Nations, actually functions to legiti­
mate oligarchy and to help it work more effectively.
It has been pointed out that an oligopoly of INGOs is currently
emerging: A handful of "operational" INGOs have become "market
leaders," dominating interactions with the United Nations and
functioning to stifle diversity as other NGOs are forced to adopt

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350 Social Movements, INGOs, and Global Change

similar practices and management styles if they are to survive. 57 In

sum, there seems to be a strong likelihood that INGOs and TSMOs
will become increasingly integrated into elite structures of power
over time, detached from the control of their memberships and
from potentially broader movement constituencies.
One challenge to the above argument is found in references to
the proliferation of network forms of organization. Normative
pragmatists and Utopian transformationalists frequently assume
that both social-movement type mobilization and INGOs are
increasingly taking a network form. 58 Assumptions from new social-
movement theory may be at play again here, along with the influ­
ence of more general claims about the ascendancy of the network
form as a key organizational feature of globalization in the con­
temporary era. 59 The network form involves an apparent flattening
of hierarchies so that authority and legitimacy flows more horizon­
tally and interactively, rather than vertically in a pyramidical com­
mand structure. Further, it is suggested that networks are "lighter,"
less bureaucratic, more flexible and mobile than traditional orga­
nizational forms. There are also strong hints that the network form
is inherently more egalitarian and democratic. 6 0
However, there is also a good deal of confusion. The notion of
network as invoked by Keck and Sikkink describes patterned inter­
actions between INGOs, state agencies, and international institu­
tions, and there is no necessary implication here that INGOs them­
selves will be organized according to network principles. When
others describe INGOs as networks they are often referring to the
emergence of coalition or umbrella groups of national NGOs that
d o n o t have a single center dictating policy. 61 Lack of hierarchy
between associated national organizations does not necessarily
imply a lack of hierarchy within those organizations. Further, as
Peter Waterman points out, networks can include vertical as well as
horizontal relationships among "unequals and unalikes." "Net­
works also have different architectures, such as the star, the wheel
and the web . . . implying differential influence and control." 6 2
There is little detail in this literature of the type of network form
that INGOs/TSMOs are adopting and little concrete evidence that
we are seeing the dissemination of more horizontal and equal
forms of organization. Thus it is far too soon to conclude that the
bureaucratic and oligarchical tendencies identified above are dis­
appearing.
Perhaps the most important lacuna in the literature we are dis­
cussing is the lack of attention to the possibility of networks be­
tween more formally structured organizations and less formal
dimensions of movement activism. We suggest below that the

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 Eschle and Stammers 351

democratic construction of such networks might militate against

oligarchic tendencies in TSMOs. However, although we think that
democratizing possibilities of the network form need to be investi­
gated further, it should be noted that network relations do not of
themselves guarantee any equality of power and influence.
Christoph Gorg and Joachim Hirsch, who are closely aligned with
the pessimistic structuralist approach, make this point:

Present discussions surrounding network and governance . . .

reduce democracy to its functional achievements in increasing
the 'national competitive ability'. . . . In this sense, 'political par­
ticipation' has relatively little to do with emancipation or plural
control of power . . . [but] is basically understood as an economic
efficiency resource.63

Certainly, much of the current praise of supposedly democratic

network relations within and between INGOs is expressed in terms
of their functional utility for service delivery, and this needs to be
understood in the context of neoliberal policies of cutting back
state capacity. Recognition of the ways in which INGOs are thus
compromised has led many pessimistic structuralists to reject the
possibility of there being any significant democratizing potential in
global movement organizations. However, Gorg and Hirsch insist
on the need for INGOs to strive for autonomy from state struc­
tures. What is particularly interesting is their suggestion that "the
democratic significance of NGOs depends o n the existence and
development of social movements," particularly democratic move­
ments at the national and regional level, seen as necessary to pre­
vent INGOs "from evolving into elitist-bureaucratic and quasi-state
formations." 6 4 We disagree with the hierarchy of levels implied
here, but agree that the conceptual distinction between NGOs and
movements, and the character of the relationship between them,
are crucial for assessing global democratic possibilities. The next
section of this article begins with an effort to establish this con­
ceptual distinction more precisely.

Toward Reconstruction

Transnational Social Movements and TSMOs

As we have seen, the concepts of social movement and TSMOs
deployed in the existing literature are frequently impressionistic
and ungrounded in social-movement theory. Those commentators

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352 Social Movements, ¡NGOs, and Global Change

who draw on existing literature to offer more precise definitions

do so in a rather narrow and limited way when set against the wider
range of possibilities within the field of social-movement studies.
There is extensive debate but little consensus in this field
about what social movements might be. As Mario Diani points out,
"even an implicit, 'empirical' agreement of the use of the term is
largely missing."65 Diani has developed a synthetic concept of
social movement that sheds some light on the problems dogging its
global application. For Diani, a social movement is defined as "a
network of informal interactions between a plurality of individuals,
groups and/or organizations, engaged in a political or cultural
conflict, on the basis of a shared collective identity."66
The first point to note here is Diani's insistence that "social
movements are not organizations, not even of a peculiar kind."67
Thus a clear analytical distinction needs to be maintained between
organizations and the network of informal interactions that consti­
tutes a social movement. Even if an organization adopts a network
structure internally, this does not mean it can be seen as equivalent
to a social movement. Of course, as Diani makes clear, organizations
may well be part of a movement. Indeed, he argues that "bureau­
cratic interest groups and even political parties" can be social move­
ment organizations.68 But he also insists that a social movement
need not give rise to any formal organizations at all. This is an
important corrective to the version of resource-mobilization theory,
prevalent in globalized accounts, that sees movements as largely cre­
ated by and dependent upon formal organizations.
More problematically, in our view, Diani's definition also im­
plies that a social-movement network could comprise a network of
interactions linking only formal organizations. We take the view
that social movement networks must necessarily encompass infor­
mal groups and extrainstitutional activism. Although the signifi­
cance of these may vary in different movements, or at different
phases in the life of a movement, the implication of our argument
is that when symbolic activity, lifestyle innovations, informal
groups, noninstitutional articulations of collective identity, and
popular protests have disappeared, then a movement no longer
exists. Thus an informal network of interactions linking only for­
mal organizations without significant grassroots participation in
processes of contention is not a social movement. It is more closely
aligned to Keck and Sikkink's notion of a transnational advocacy
network.
This indicates the need for precision in the different ways in
which the term network is being deployed. We are distinguishing
here between

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 Eschle and Stammers 353

1. a network of informal interactions linking formal organiza­

tions (a transnational advocacy network);
2. the flattening of hierarchies within organizations that none­
theless remain formally constituted (a network organiza­
tion); and
3. a network of informal interactions that ties together infor­
mal groups and individuals, and sometimes formal organi­
zations, in struggles for social change on the basis of a
shared identity (a social movement).

The network relations involved in the constitution of a social-

movement course through and link together the nonformal, extra-
institutional activism of diverse individuals and groups, and they
may also connect such activism to the institutionally oriented
activism of formally structured organizations.
The key question here is whether and how such networks can be
considered transnational or global. The definition above implies
that there is no necessary distinction in organizational form between
social movements in general and transnational social movements.
There may, however, be a question of organizational reach, with
transnational networks stretching across borders to link activists in
different states. We see no particular reason why such networks
should be so much more difficult to forge than national networks,
particularly if Tarrow's apparently a priori assumption of national
cultural cohesion is jettisoned. After all, even national networks can­
not rely on face-to-face relationships but must, to adopt a phrase
from Benedict Anderson, be "imagined." The globalization of com­
munications and transport technology has made it increasingly easy
for people from different geographical locations to meet up, com­
municate, and "imagine" or construct commonalities and identities
across borders. Problems of differential access and influence due to
economic, political, and cultural disparities are hardly unique to
transnational relations although they may well be more acute.
In this context, it is interesting to note that Tarrow's sharp dis­
tinction between domestic social networks and transnational advo­
cacy networks is refuted by Keck and Sikkink. They insist that
INGOs operating within transnational advocacy networks are fre­
quently underpinned by diffuse interpersonal connections, forged
through processes of exile and exchange and through international
conferences. 69 In other words, Keck and Sikkink believe that net­
works of informal interaction can "upscale," stretching across state
borders. The extent to which such networks thereby retain a sub­
terranean, socially embedded quality remains open to dispute.
What is clear is that the study of transnational social movements

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354 Social Movements, ¡NGOs, and Global Change

and TSMOs needs to pay much closer attention than it has thus far
to the networks linking together activists in different geographical
locations and in different kinds of groups.

The Relationship Between Global and Local

The theorization of social movements in a global context can be
further fleshed out by a richer and more complex understanding
of the ambiguities of globalization. More specifically, we want to
argue in favor of a multidimensional, multicausal, and "inter-
sectional" understanding of globalization. Such an approach insists
on the intertwining of economic, political, technological, and cul­
tural relations of power on a global scale. These multiple processes
are likely to intersect with each other in complex, context-specific,
highly uneven, stratified, and unpredictable ways: thus there is no
single underlying motor or direction to globalization. Attention is
focused on the rising density and stretching of social relations
across the globe; the reshaping of space and time; and the role of
consciousness, reflexivity, and agency.70
One implication of this approach is that the analysis of trans­
national opportunity structures should not be limited to a focus on
the narrowly political realm of interstate institutions, but should
encompass broader shifts in other kinds of social relations and
structures.71 Another implication is the need for sensitivity to the
tension between homogenizing and fragmenting tendencies and
the emergence of diverse hybrid cultural forms.
Most importantly for our purposes, the multidimensional
model of globalization implies a complex and open-ended relation­
ship between localized activism and global processes. We should
stress at this point that we are very much aware that vast asymme­
tries of relations and structures of power suffuse the global and
local, ensuring that some global institutions and ideologies are
enormously preponderant in influence in many contexts. However,
we are seeking an analytic formulation of the relationship between
the global*and local that does not make an a priori assumption
about the totality and impact of such power.
Two insights seem significant here. The first is the argument
that the local and the global can be seen as mutually constitutive,
with localities playing an active role in shaping the impact and
reception of global processes as well as being shaped by them. This
has been described by Roland Robertson as "glocalization" and
receives particular attention in anthropological and feminist
accounts.72 The second is an extrapolation of Anthony Giddens's
arguments about accelerating "time-space distanciation," which

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 Eschle and Stammers 355

implies the disembedding of social relations from their familiar

local contexts and their reembedding in altered forms in new con­
texts, bringing previously separated traditions and activities into
new proximity. 73
All this enables us to go beyond Keck and Sikkink's recognition
that globalization enables movement networks to extend across
state borders. The idea of glocalization implies that locally situated,
territorially bounded movements are potentially both objects and
subjects of global processes. The long-standing slogan "Think glob­
ally, act locally" goes some way toward capturing the nature of the
involvement of these kinds of movements in global politics, but
does so by separating abstract consciousness of the global from
concrete action that remains locally expressed. The approach to
globalization advocated here implies that locally situated actors
may not only think globally but act globally, because global
processes are manifested in local spaces and can be, at least par­
tially, shaped and redirected there. It should be added that a global
consciousness is highly likely to be accompanied by efforts to forge
relationships with activists elsewhere, so that many apparently local­
ized movements may actually be connected to broader, trans­
national movement networks. 74
The notion of disembedding complicates things further. It
means that the "diffusion" of movement identities, goals, and tac­
tics may not be due simply to their detachment from domestic
movement networks and mimicry elsewhere, but to the trans-
nationalization of networks themselves. Further, it is not sufficient
to assume that networks stretch only across neighboring state
boundaries or follow in the wake of the physical movement of peo­
ple, as Keck and Sikkink imply. There may be sharp spatial discon­
tinuity apparent as networks reemerge in disparate locations,
bringing physically distant people into new relations of affinity.
Little detailed study has as yet been paid to such discontinuous
networks, to our knowledge. But there is suggestive evidence point­
ing in this direction emerging from literature by and about activists
in the so-called antiglobalization movement. 75 The key role of large
gatherings receives much emphasis in this literature, in the wake of
Seattle and subsequent demonstrations and conferences held in
diverse geographical locations: from Prague to Porto Alegre. The
impression given is that such events are key locations for often-
disparate activists to recognize commonalities and participate in
processes of collective identity and goal formation, which are then
diffused to new national locations when activists return home. 7 6
Commonalities may also be reinforced when large gatherings are
held simultaneously in several locations throughout the world, in

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356 Social Movements, INGOs, and Global Change

designated global days of protest. The key role of the internet in

helping to coordinate such protests and in constructing networks
of transnational solidarity that do not rely on face-to-face contact
has been much remarked upon—along with the exclusions that
this may bring with it. 77 Further, recent commentary on the move­
ment has criticized the emphasis on large-scale protests as func­
tioning to privilege young, white, rootless, middle-class activists and
has argued instead for the need to recognize and strengthen a
more pluralized and socially embedded identity in terms of links
between, diverse, local community struggles. 78
In sum, there appear to be complex, contested, stratified, ter­
ritorially discontinuous, socially embedded movement networks
underpinning this movement.

Instrumental and Expressive Dimensions of Movement Activism

Analyses of the relationship between the global and local with

regard to social movements is further complicated by the need to
acknowledge both the instrumental and expressive modes of
activism. We believe that, to adapt the work of Jean Cohen and
Andrew Arato, movements typically have dual faces and adopt a
dualistic strategy. Cohen and Arato elaborate this model with
regards to Western feminist activism: Feminist movements contest
the norms and structures of male dominance pervading civil soci­
ety, but they also challenge the ways in which these inform the
structuration of the subsystems in general and social policy in
particular. . . . The dual logic of feminist politics thus involves a
communicative, discursive politics of identity and influence that
targets civil and political society and an organized, strategically
rational politics of inclusion and reform that is aimed at political
and economic institutions.79

Cohen and Arato insist that the legislative and judicial suc­
cesses that have resulted would have been impossible or much
more limited without the accompanying struggle to reconstruct the
norms and.practices in society more generally. Further, they argue
that a dualistic strategy maps to some extent on to a dualistic orga­
nizational logic. In terms of second-wave feminism, this meant that
"two branches" of the movement emerged, with instrumental
strategies pursued by longer-standing interest groups and expres­
sive strategies emphasized by "younger" grassroots groups. How­
ever, Cohen and Arato are keen to emphasize the complexity of
the relationship between the two branches of feminism and, in par­
ticular, to critique the widespread notion that such movements

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 Eschle and Stammers 357

become increasingly formalized, institutionalized, and instrumental

in character over time. They insist that activists have crossed the
organizational divide in both directions. "Nor has learning on the
part of activists entailed a one-directional shift from expressive to
instrumental rationality . . . learning has occurred on both sides
and in both directions." 80
This can be mapped onto our understanding of transnational
social movements outlined above. We have distinguished between
the informal, grassroots groups/subterranean networks that are
intrinsic to any movement and the formal organizations or TSMOs
that may or may not be associated with them. Cohen and Arato's
analysis implies that TSMOs typically face national and inter­
national institutional structures and tend to pursue instrumental
strategies, while informal grassroots groups/subterranean networks
are typically embedded in more localized and everyday social rela­
tionships and tend to pursue expressive strategies. However, we can
also expect to see some combination of instrumental and expres­
sive strategies pursued by both branches of a movement. Continu­
ity and feedback between these dimensions of the two branches is
likely to be provided by the communicative, interpersonal, and
informational linkages of a transnational movement network
within which both formal and informal groups are embedded. Fur­
ther, it may be the case that the instrumental demands of informal
groupings are potentially "thickened" by the movement network
and activities of the international relations of TSMOs, in the sense
that they are thus likely to have a more direct and effective impact
upon international institutions. Conversely, the expressive dimen­
sions of TSMO activism could be potentially "thickened" by their
articulation outward through the movement network and into
informal, grassroots modes of activism, because they are thus enter­
ing deep into the noninstitutionalized world of everyday social
relations and tapping into more diffuse, long-term processes of
change.
This argument remains general and abstract. However, it offers
a necessary analytic corrective to the pragmatist focus on TSMOs
and their instrumental strategies and the pessimistic structuralist
dismissal of such strategies. It also enables a more complex ren­
dering of the transformationalist insistence on the importance of
grassroots, expressive activism. There is clearly a need for more
concrete studies of the complex network relationships linking the
two branches of transnational social movements and the strategic
use in both of instrumental and expressive strategies for global
change.

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358 Social Movements, ¡NGOs, and Global Change

Democratic and Oligarchic Dynamics

The character and dynamics of network relationships are also cru­
cial for considering the potential of movements to contribute to a
shift toward a more democratic world order. The argument above
indicates that TSMO instrumental strategies are likely to con­
tribute most effectively to such a shift when they remain connected
via social movement networks to informal grassroots groups and
their typically more expressive strategies. However, we have also
argued that TSMOs, and more broadly INGOs, remain subject to
tendencies toward bureaucratization, oligarchy, and assimilation.
This highlights the limitations of pragmatist proposals for democ­
ratizing global governance that simply argue for more extensive
institutional involvement for INGOs.
At the same time, there needs to be attention paid to the inter­
nal constitution of INGOs. Here normative pragmatist arguments
about changes in formal voting procedures may provide a start but
do not go anywhere near far enough. We would suggest that it is
also essential to construct and maintain democratic relationships
between the different organizational forms of movements if
TSMOs are to be "inoculated" against the dangers of oligarchy. As
Cohen and Arato put it, the "answer to the Michelsian dilemma"
lies in a recognition of the plurality of different kinds of groups
within civil society "and in the possibility of a new type of relation­
ship between them . . . involving] a critique of democratic funda­
mentalism typical of collective actors based in civil society and a cri­
tique of democratic elitism typical of those based in political
society." 81 To translate this into the language used in this article,
there needs to be a reconceptualization of the kinds of democracy
possible within and between the formal organizations, informal
groups, and subterranean networks involved in transnational social
movements.
We can provide only pointers here to such a reconceptualiza­
tion. We would start by insisting that grassroots modes of democ­
racy should not be too hastily dismissed as "fundamentalist." After
all, they have as yet received only fleeting attention in the global
literature, in the form of some rather sweeping generalizations
from Utopian transformationalists. Indeed, there seems to us to be
an urgent need for a more systematic recovery of participatory,
informal, group-based modes of democracy and a more critical
attempt to apply them to global politics. As well as a body of work
in political theory that could be useful here, 8 2 there is a literature
generated by movement activists. Current mobilizations against
neoliberal elements of globalization offer some examples, with a

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 Eschle and Stammers 359

strong normative emphasis on the need for enriching and global­

izing democracy apparently taking two main forms: campaigns to
make the workings of the global economy, and particularly inter­
national financial institutions, less secretive and exclusionary; and
efforts to structure the movement on a devolved and consensual
basis, in part involving the adaptation of anarchist modes of self-
organization. 8 3 Arguably, these two democratic projects and the
links between them are still being worked out.
The lessons of second-wave, Western feminism may be instruc­
tive here. The influence of anarchism is again evident, feeding into
more radical strands of feminism through their links with the New
Left and given a specifically feminist spin on the grounds that for­
mal, representative modes of democracy had functioned histori­
cally to delegate women's voice to men and to evacuate women
from the public sphere. Thus the widespread practice developed in
the 1970s and 1980s of organizing in nonhierarchical groups, with
activities divided equally between participants and decisions taken
through inclusive dialogue that was expected ultimately to gener­
ate consensus. This movement model of democracy was sometimes
advocated in "fundamentalist" ways and has been the subject of
much criticism among feminists. Indeed, it appears to have encour­
aged a turn among some feminists toward more conventional rep­
resentative, institutional models of democracy and the inclusion of
women within these. It is interesting to note, however, that many of
these feminist representative schemes incorporate a participatory
element. For example, they may insist on the inclusion of women's
caucuses in representative institutions or call for a more active,
engaged version of citizenship. 84 Further, other feminists have
retained an insistence on the need for a participatory basis to
movement organization and have sought to develop a more work­
able and inclusive participatory model, most notably through aban­
doning the requirement of total consensus, specifying the conditions
of inclusive dialogue and accepting some voting and delegatory
mechanisms. 85 In other words, just as the feminist movement has
strategically combined instrumental and expressive strategies, so it
has sought to balance representative and participatory modes of
democracy.
These feminist debates have also been extended to global move­
ment relationships. Increased awareness of the global scope and
multidimensional character of relations and structures of power has
encouraged the proliferation of transnational feminist movement
networks and TSMOs and the redoubling of efforts to construct
these in a democratic form, enabling different groups of women
worldwide to have a voice. It is in this context that commentators

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360 Social Movements, INGOs, and Global Change

have emphasized the emergence of a distinctively nonhierarchical

network form of feminist TSMO. 86 Further, there is a growing fem­
inist literature on the notion of "transversal politics." This is a ver­
sion of coalition building based on the recognition that all partici­
pants speak from a specific material location, giving them a distinct
but always partial perspective. Different perspectives need not be
lost or renounced in the process of seeking agreement on specific
political issues, but should, rather, be respected, voiced, and heard.
Hence, agreement should be sought through a process of open,
participatory, and empathetic dialogue. A notable example of this
strategy can be found in the efforts of feminist peace activists to
build strategic solidarities between women on different sides of
ethnic conflicts. 87
Another relevant development is the increased awareness in
many sectors of feminism of the racialized, class, national, and
geopolitical hierarchies that stratify the movement on a global
scale and that have distorted agenda setting. Proactive efforts to
tackle such hierarchies can be seen in feminist mobilization against
the North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA) and associ­
ated economic processes. This involved the organization of tri-
national meetings in Mexico and the publication of newsletters in
Spanish and English, while Canadian groups sponsored the partic­
ipation of Mexican women activists in a joint tour to oppose free
trade and recruited more women of color to their memberships
and executives. 88 T h e key challenge for such activists now may lie
in the construction of more democratic relationships between fem­
inist activism and the newly crystallized, worldwide movement
against the neoliberal dimensions of globalization. 89
It seems to us that these ongoing efforts point to an emergent
model of democracy emphasizing the importance of open and par­
ticipatory dialogue and of accompanying efforts to counter the
multiple forms of coercive and hierarchical power by which such a
dialogue may be constrained. This model has implications beyond
feminism and resistances to economic globalization. It provides
lessons for the ways in which TSMOs and transnational movement
networks of a wide range of orientations could be constructed on a
more democratic basis. Further, it offers an important, if as yet
underdeveloped, alternative to the dominance of formalized, lib­
eral, representative models of democracy in arguments about global
governance.
Without implying that such formal models should be aban­
doned altogether, we want to stress their profound limitations, par­
ticularly given that they are based on a view of politics as limited
to state, and at best interstate, institutions and do little to constrain

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 Eschle and Stammers 361

oligarchic, elite rule. O u r sketchy conceptual reconstruction of the

relationship between social movements and global change, then,
ultimately has far-reaching implications. Taking transnational social
movements seriously requires and enables the development of
more expansive and imaginative understandings of what transfor­
mative politics might look like in a globalized world.

* * *

This article has sought to illuminate the relationship between

social-movement agency and global change. It has drawn attention
to the emergence of a distinct body of work on transnational social
movements and INGOs. It has identified three main approaches in
this literature (pragmatic, structuralist, and transformationalist)
and explored problems in the ways that each of these deal with the
core concepts of transnational social movements and TSMOs; with
the relationship between the global and the local; with instrumen­
tal and expressive dimensions of activism; and with the democratic
and oligarchic potentials of movements and their organizations.
In the final section of the article, we put forward some tenta­
tive proposals for conceptual reconstruction. First, we argued for
a network concept of social movement, one stressing the centrality
of informal modes of activism in the everyday and the need to
maintain an analytical distinction between this and more formal
social-movement organizations. Second, we claimed that social-
movement networks can be conceived as transnational in scope
and global in orientation if a multidimensional analysis of global­
ization is adopted, along with a recognition of the mutually consti­
tutive relationship between the local and the global and the impact
of processes of disembedding. Third, we insisted that the formal
organizations and grassroots activism involved in transnational
social movements are likely to combine instrumental and expres­
sive strategies in complex ways in their pursuit of global change.
Finally, we urged recognition of the oligarchic tendencies facing
TSMOs and identified mitigating strategies in the form of efforts to
construct the network relationship between TSMOs and less formal
dimensions of movement activism on a more democratic basis.
Such strategies also indicate ways in which global politics more
generally could be made more inclusive and participatory.
These efforts at conceptual reconstruction of the relationship
between social movements, INGOs, and global change fit best with
what was described earlier as a critical transformationalist approach.
We believe that movements do have the potential to contribute to
emancipatory change in global politics because of their distinctive

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362 Social Movements, INGOs, and Global Change

capacity to combine transnational networks with socially embedded

grassroots activism as well as instrumental and expressive strategies
for change. However, we would stress that not all movements live
u p tó this potential: They face pressures toward oligarchy and
assimilation and they are suffused internally by the vast global
asymmetries of power that also shape the world more generally.
Further, the significant substantive and organizational differences
within and between movements need to be acknowledged, partic­
ularly on a worldwide scale. Much research still needs to be done
on identifying and assessing those elements within and among
movements that can contribute most to progressive processes of
global change.
This article has been concerned largely with existing academic
literature on movements, but we believe that further theoretical
insight is more likely to be gained from study of the fertile ground
of movement praxis. Indeed, it seems to us that the critical trans­
formationalist approach must be rooted in praxis, rather than
abstraction.
Conversely, such an approach raises issues for activists about
appropriate strategy and organization. This article has particularly
urged the need for the construction of democratic relationships
between formal and informal modes of activism in transnational
movement networks. Such relationships are likely to be crucial if
the world is to be changed for the better and if movements are to
play a positive role in that change.

Notes

1. Alejandro Colas, International Civil Society: Social Movements in World

Politics (Cambridge, U.K.: Polity, 2002), p. 18. For a general discussion of the
diachronic dimension of movement activism, see Neil Stammers, "Social
Movements and the Challenge to Power," in Martin Shaw, ed., Politics and
Globalisation: Knowledge, Ethics, and Agency (London: Routledge, 1999).
2. Valentine Moghadam, Transnational Feminist Networks: Collective
Action in an Era of Globalization," International Sociology 15, no. 1 (1995): 57.
3. For example, Robert Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Transnational
Relations and World Politics (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1972); Richard W. Mansbach, Yale H. Ferguson, and Donald E. Lampert,
The Web of World Politics: Non-State Actors in the Global System (Upper Saddle
River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1976); Peter Willetts, ed., Pressure Groups in the
Global System (London: Pinter, 1982).
4. For example, Thomas Risse-Kappan, ed., Bringing Transnational
Relations Back In: Non-State Actors: Domestic Structures and International Insti-
tutions (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
5. For example, Marlies Glasius, Mary Kaldor, and Helmut Anheier,
eds., Global Civil Society Yearbook 2002 (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

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 Eschle and Stammers 363

2002); Commission on Global Governance, Our Global Neighbourhood

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995); Ronnie D. Lipschutz, "Recon­
structing World Politics: The Emergence of Global Civil Society," Millen-
nium 21, no. 3 (1992): 389-420; Roger Coate et al., "The United Nations
and Civil Society: Creative Partnerships for Sustainable Development,"
Alternatives, 21, no. 1 (1996): 93-122; Craig Murphy, "Global Governance:
Poorly Done and Poorly Understood," International Affairs 76, no. 4
(2000): 789-803. Although it was not produced in the disciplinary location
of international relations, see also Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri,
Empire (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000) for a distinctive
take on similar themes, one that has been much discussed by IR scholars.
For a similar depiction of two stages of debate in international relations,
more particularly with regard to NGOs, see Paul K. Wapner, Environmen-
tal Activism and World Civic Politics (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 1996), pp. 11-12. Colas offers overlapping categorizations, focusing
more centrally on civil society, in Colas, note 1, pp. 10-15, 140-147.
6. There is some discussion of nonglobal social-movement theories in
Matthias Finger, "NGOs and Transformation: Beyond Social Movement
Theory," in Thomas Princen and Matthias Finger, eds., Environmental
NGOs in World Politics: Linking the Local and the Global (London: Routledge,
1994); Martin Shaw, "Civil Society and Global Politics: Beyond a Social
Movements Approach," Millennium 23, no. 3 (1994): 650-654; R. B. J.
Walker, "Social Movements/World Politics," Millennium 23, no. 3 (1994):
669-700; Christine Chin and James H. Mittleman, "Conceptualizing Resis­
tance to Globalization," in Barry K. Gills, ed., Globalization and the Politics
of Resistance (Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave, 2002), pp. 35-36. There is a brief
examination of recent efforts to globalize political-opportunity structures
theory in Colas, note 1, pp. 77-78, and in Craig Murphy's conclusion to
his edited volume Egalitarian Politics in the Age of Globalization (Basingstoke,
U.K.: Palgrave, 2002), pp. 208-209.
7. Taken together, these approaches are often characterized as consti­
tuting a North American social-movement tradition. For a classic, early
statement of resource-mobilization theory, see J o h n D. McCarthy and
Mayer N. Zald, "Resource Mobilization and Social Movements: A Partial
Theory," American Journal of Sociology 82, no. 6 (1977): 1212-1241. Perhaps
the most influential exponent of political-opportunity structures theory is
Sidney Tarrow, in Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Poli-
tics, 2d ed. (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1998). For an
early development of frame theory, see David A. Snow et al., "Frame Align­
ment Processes, Micromobilization, and Movement Participation," Ameri-
can Sociological Review 51 (1986): 464-481.
8. For example, Jackie Smith et al., Transnational Social Movements and
Global Politics: Solidarity Beyond the State (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University
Press, 1997); Jackie Smith and Hank Johnston, eds., Globalization and Resis-
tance: Transnational Dimensions of Social Movements (Lanham, Md.: Rowman
& Littlefield, 2002) ; Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists Beyond
Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Uni­
versity Press, 1998); Donatella délia Porta and Hanspeter Kriesi, eds., Social
Movements in a Globalizing World (Basingstoke, U.K.: Macmillan, 1999).
9. Delia Porta and Kriesi briefly namecheck IR authors associated with
transnationalism, global governance, and global civil-society perspectives in
their introduction to délia Porta and Kriesi, note 8, p. 14. See also Tarrow's

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364 Social Movements, ¡NGOs, and Global Change

discussion of global civil-society theory in "From Lumping to Splitting:

Specifying Globalization and Resistance," in Smith and Johnston, eds.,
note 8.
10. This is evident, for example, in the introductory discussion in
J o h n A. Guidry, Michael D. Kennedy, and Mayer N. Zald, eds., Globaliza-
tions and Social Movements: Culture, Power and the Transnational Public Sphere
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000).
11. An oft-cited classic new social-movement-theory collection is the
winter 1985 issue of Sodal Research 52, with articles by many key exponents.
See also Alberto Melucci, Nomads of the Present: Social Movements and Indi-
vidual Needs in Contemporary Society (London: Radius, 1989). Melucci takes
on board the impact of globalization to some extent in both this text and
his later Challenging Codes: Collective Action in the Information Age (Cam­
bridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1996). New social-movement
debates are explored, although not endorsed, in Robin Cohen and Shirin
M. Rai, "Global Social Movements: Towards a Cosmopolitan Politics," in
their edited volume Global Social Movements (London: Athlone Press,
2000), pp. 4-7.
12. Of course, analytical pragmatists, too, tend to have a normative
interest in the success of the movements they study and to be imbued with
values of pluralism and participation. Nonetheless, they tend not to be
overtly normative in terms of the declared focus of the IR research. See,
for example, Keohane and Nye, eds., note 3; Risse-Kappan, note 4; Tarrow,
note 7; Keck and Sikkink, note 8; délia Porta and Kriesi, note 8; Leon Gor­
denker and Thomas Weiss, "Pluralizing Global Governance: Analytical
Approaches and Dimensions," in Gordenker and Weiss, eds., NGOs, the
UN, and Global Governance (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1996), 17-47;
Willetts, introduction and conclusion to Willetts, note 3; and also Willetts,
T r a n s n a t i o n a l Actors and International Organizations," in J o h n Baylis
and Steve Smith, eds., The Globalization of World Politics, 2d ed. (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 356-383. Willetts moves toward a more
explicitly normative concern with the capacity for democratization in
"From Consultative Arrangements to Partnership: The Changing Status of
NGOs in Diplomacy at the UN," Global Governance 6, no. 2 (2000): 1 9 1 -
212. Normative pragmatist elements can also be found in Commission on
Global Governance, Our Global Neighbourhood; in several of the essays in
Smith et al., eds., note 8; and in Barbara Adams, "The People's Organisa­
tions and the UN—NGOs in International Civil Society," in Erskine
Childers, Challenges to the United Nations: Building a Safer World (London:
Catholic Institute for International Relations, 1995), pp. 176-187. Perhaps
the strongest statement of normative pragmatism can be found in Eliza­
beth RiddellJ)ixon, "Social Movements and the United Nations," Inter-
national Social Science Journal 144 (1995): 289-303.
13. We use the structuralist label with some misgiving, given that some
authors included here have relatively complex understandings of the rela­
tionship between structure and agency that grant movements some con­
stitutive power. Nevertheless, the label accurately conveys the overriding
focus on context a n d / o r "underlying" forces. The more optimistic version
of this approach can be found in the work of world-systems theorists, as
with Giovanni Arrighi et al., Anti-Systemic Movements (London: Verso,
1989) ; and Samuel Amin et al., Transforming the Revolution: Social Movements
and the World System (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1990). See also Hardt
and Negri, note 5. The more pessimistic version of the structuralist

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 Eschle and Stammers 365

approach includes much neo-Gramscian IR writing; most prominently,

Robert Cox, Production, Power, and World Order (New York: Columbia Univer­
sity Press, 1987), pp. 368-395, and "Democracy in Hard Times: Economic
Globalization and the Limits of Democracy," in Anthony McGrew, ed., The
Transformation of Democracy? (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1997), pp. 64-66;
and Stephen Gill, "Globalisation, Market Civilisation, and Disciplinary
Neo-Liberalism," Millennium 24, no. 3 (1995): 404-410—reprinted in Gill,
Power and Resistance in the New World Order (Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave,
2003). Other examples of pessimistic structuralism include Christoph
Gorg and Joachim Hirsch, "Is International Democracy Possible?" Review
of International Political Economy 5, no. 3 (1998): 585-615; Mustapha Kamal
Pasha and David L. Blaney, "Elusive Paradise: The Promise and Peril of
Global Civil Society," Alternatives 23, no. 4 (1998): 417-450; and Murphy,
note 6. There also seem to be elements of pessimist analysis in Cecelia
Lynch, "Social Movements and the Problem of Globalization," Alternatives
23, no. 2 (1998): 149-173.
14. Utopian transformationalists include Richard Falk, "The Global
Promise of Social Movements: Explorations at the Edge of Time," Alterna-
tives 12, no. 2 (1987): 173-196; Lipschutz, note 5; Dianne Otto, "Non­
governmental Organizations and die United Nations System: The Emerging
Role of International Civil Society," Human Rights Quarterly 18 (1996):
107-141; Leslie Paul Thiele, "Making Democracy Safe for the World: Social
Movements and Global Politics." Alternatives 8, no. 3 (1993): 273-305; Wap-
ner, note 5. Utopian transformationalist elements are evident in R. B. J.
Walker's One World/Many Worlds: Struggles for a Just World Peace (Boulder:
Lynne Rienner, 1988), and in Manuel Castells's treatment of social move­
ments in Castells, The Information Age, vol. 2: The Power of Identity (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1997). However, the work of Castells and Walker also has a criti­
cal dimension, including a sensitivity to the differences between and within
movements. Two other works that bridge our categories are Colas, note 1,
and Leslie Sklair, Globalization: Capitalism and Its Alternatives (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2002). The former has a critical-transformationalist insis­
tence on the power relations stratifying social-movement activism, their
interconnections with the state and capitalist system, and their demon­
strated transformative capacity in particular contexts. The latter draws on
sources ranging from political-opportunity structures theory to human-
rights discourses in order to sketch out the complex strategies, constraints,
and possibilities for countermovements to globalization. Yet both have a
limited view of culturally oriented activism and an overriding concern to
outline the potentialities for socialism in the context of the underlying
forces of globalized capitalism, which points to affinities with optimistic
structuralists. Peter Waterman, who pays close attention to the difficulties
and potentialities of constructing solidarity across borders, and between
movements, fits more comfortably into the critical-transformationalist cat­
egory. See, for example, his Globalization, Social Movements, and the New
Internationalism, 2d ed. (New York: Continuum, 2002). The introductory
chapter of Guidry, Kennedy, and Zald, note 10, 1-32, with its emphasis on
the interrelations of power, culture, and the global/local relationship,
pushes the North American social-movement-theory tradition in a critical-
transformationalist direction.
15. Richard Falk, in Predatory Globalization (Cambridge: Polity Press,
1999), has moved toward an explicit endorsement of a market system and
for the need to reclaim the state, esp. in his chaps. 8, 9. Ronnie Lipschutz

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366 Social Movements, INGOs, and Global Change

is a contributor to Coate et al., note 5, which has a more institutional focus

than his previous work. However, note also the marked turn toward pes­
simistic structuralism in Lipschutz's paper "Global Civil Society and Global
Governmentality: Or, The Search for Politics and the State amidst the Cap­
illaries of Power," presented at "The Politics of Protest in the Age of Glob­
alisation" conference, University of Sussex, September 26-27, 2002.
16. For example, Stephen Gill, T o w a r d a Postmodern Prince? T h e
Battle in Seattle as a Moment in the New Politics of Globalization," Millen-
nium 29, no. 1 (2000): 131-140, reprinted in Gill, note 13. For crossover
activist/academic texts aimed at strengthening the antisystemic, anticapi-
talist dimension of activism against neoliberal globalization, see Emma Bir-
cham and J o h n Charlton, eds., Anti-Capitalism: A Guide to the Movement, 2d
ed. (London: Bookmark, 2001); J o h n Holloway, Change the World Without
Taking Power: The Meaning of Revolution Today (London: Pluto, 2002); Alex
Callinicos, An Anti-Capitalist Manifesto (Cambridge: Polity, 2003).
17. We note in passing the increasing use of the terminology of "resis­
tance" in literature on global activism. Found most frequently in struc­
turalist texts (such as Gill, note 13; Gill, note 6; and in chapter 3.3, "Resis­
tance, Crisis, and Transformation" in Hardt and Negri, note 5), this
terminology has also found its way into the high-profile pragmatist text of
Smith and Johnston, eds., note 8. Clearly an acknowledgment of the
impact of oppositional activism against neoliberal aspects of the global
economy, the use of this terminology raises significant questions about
conceptual genealogy and political implications that are beyond the
purview of this article. Useful investigations are offered in Chin and Mit-
tleman, note 6, and Guidry, Kennedy, and Zald, note 10, pp. 17-19.
18. For obvious examples of social-movement terminology, see Smith
et al., eds., note 8, and Cohen and Rai, note 11. Note Colás's insistence on
international, rather than global or transnational, in International Civil Society,
note 1, pp. 75-83. The term networks in global civil society is in Lipschutz,
"Reconstructing World Politics," note 5, p. 393; the phrase the multitude is
in Hardt and Negri, note 5; social forces is in Barry K. Gills, "Globalization
and the Politics of Resistance," introduction to Gills, note 6, p. 8.
19. The abbreviation TSMOs is used in Smith et al., Transnational
Social Movements, note 8; Smith and Johnston, eds., Globalization and Resis-
tance, note 8; délia Porta and Kriesi, Social Movements in a Globalizing World,
note 8; Tarrow, "Beyond Globalization," in Tarrow, note 7. The phrase inter-
est groups is used in Keohane and Nye, eds., note 3; pressure groups is in Wil­
lens, note 3; activist groups is in Wapner, note 5. INGOs is used in more
recent work by Wapner and Willetts as well as in that by other pragmatists
such as Keck and Sikkink, della Porta and Kriesi, and Weiss and Gordenker;
transformationalists such as Otto; and structuralists such as Gorg and
Hisch, Hardt, and Negri, Murphy, and Pasha and Blaney. This convergence
in terminology may be partly explained by the fact that the United Nations
uses the concept of (I)NGOs and has played a much-remarked role as a
focus and sponsor of NGO activity and of research on this topic.
20. See Willetts, "Pressure Groups as Transnational Actors," in Willetts,
note 3; also pp. 299, 302, 307 of "Transnational Actors," Willetts, note 12,
and NGO examples used throughout "From Consultative Arrangements to
Partnership," note 12.
21. This last point is perhaps controversial, given that many liberals in
IR, including Willetts, have been highly critical of statism in international
relations. Indeed, their work has been attacked by realist critics on the

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 Eschle and Stammers 367

grounds that it focuses on social interactions and neglects the state. How­
ever, it seems to us that this distinction between statist (realist) and society-
centered (liberal) approaches was always overdrawn. The impact of non-
state actors upon the state and international organizations remained a
central conclusion of much liberal work, including that of Willetts, and
has been strongly restated in recent interdependence work; for different
judgments on this issue, see Wapner, note 5, pp. 11-12; and Risse-Kappan,
note 4, pp. 5, 14-*15.
22. Keck and Sikkink, note 8, p. 1.
23. Ibid., p. 6.
24. It is worth noting that the concept of "transnational mobilising
structures" used in the volume by délia Porta and Kriesi, eds., note 8 (see
esp. pp. 17-21, 206-215) appears to be a broadening of terminology, but
still involves a focus on the growing web of TSMOs, the relations between
them, and the resources they wield. A more promising shift is signaled in
Smith and Johnston, note 8, which includes analyses of localized move­
ments, mass protests such as that at Seattle in November 1999, and "the
dynamics of transnational contention." These analyses still frequently
emphasize the role of formal organization and its relation to the political
system, but they also involve attention to the relationship of such organi­
zation to movement constituencies; the role of networked, extra-institu­
tional groups; and the theorization of movement activism in terms of
dynamic processes and interactions.
25. Falk, note 14, p. 191.
26. John Boli and George M. Thomas, "INGOs and the Organization
of World Culture," in their edited volume, Constructing World Culture: Inter-
national Nongovernmental Organizations Since 1875 (Stanford, Calif.: Stan­
ford University Press, 1999), esp. pp. 34-46. Falk and other Utopian trans­
formationalists insist briefly that it is specifically emancipatory movement
actors they are interested in; however, no theoretical space is made for
other kinds of movements and the distinction is lost in the ensuing gener­
alizations about movements, NGOs, and global civil society.
27. Murphy, note 5, pp. 795-796.
28. This argument is developed at more length in Eschle, "Globalising
Civil Society? Social Movements and Global Politics from Below," in Pierre
Hamel et al., eds., Globalizing Social Movements (Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave,
2001). For examples of this economic-political emphasis from the struc­
turalists, see Gill, note 13, or, more briefly, Lynch, "Social Movements and
the Problem of Globalization," p. 150. For an example from the pragma-
tists, see Tarrow's use of the term interdependence in his "Beyond Globaliza­
tion," note 19, p. 2. For an example from the transformationalists, see
Falk, note 15, chap. 8. There are some exceptions, where, for example,
attention is paid to the role of culture and particularly to the spread of
consumerism, such as Sklair, note 14, or to the homogenization of values
and lifestyles. We return to this point later.
29. For example, Tarrow, note 19, pp. 8-9; Smith et al., eds., note 8,
esp. pp. 10-13, 56-69; délia Porta and Kriesi, introduction to délia Porta
and Kriesi, note 8; Guidry et al., note 10, pp. 1-3.
30. For example, Gorg and Hirsch, note 13, pp. 587-593; Colas, note
1, p. 149; Hardt and Negri, note 5.
31. See, for example, the rejection of a "strong" globalization thesis that
global social and political interactions are already significantly integrated
and that the continuance of this process is inevitable, in Tarrow, note 19,

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368 Social Movements, INGOs, and Global Change

pp. 1-2, and Keck and Sikkink, note 8, p. 213. Note also Hardt and Negri's
insistence that empire has no center but is rather based on networked
forms of power and authority.
32. Tarrow, note 19, p. 5, and Tarrow, note 7, pp. 184-189.
33. Melucci, note 11, chap. 3.
34. For more on cross-border diffusion, see David Snow and Robert D.
Benford, "Alternative Types of Cross National Diffusion in the Social
Movement Arena," in délia Porta and Kriesi, note 8, pp. 23-39; Marco G.
Guigni, "Explaining Cross-National Similarities Among Social Move­
ments," in Smith and Johnston, note 8, pp. 13-29.
35. Tarrow, note 19, pp. 6-10; Tarrow, note 7, chap. 11. Tarrow's posi­
tion on this may be softening. In Tarrow, note 9, he argues that concepts
like social networks, just like political opportunities, are not "inherently
domestic" (p. 238). While he still insists that "much of transnational
activism is rooted in domestic . . . networks," arguably a stronger kind of
relationship between the two is implied by the "dynamic, interactive frame­
work" developed here. Further, he also argues for more attention to the
"social appropriation of domestic institutions and organizations for trans­
national purposes" and assesses movement "framing" of the globalization
issue (pp. 243-244), thus pointing to ways in which domestic networks may
still be considered as participating in processes of transnational contention.
36. Hardt and Negri, note 5, pp. 54-55. Their claim is that such move­
ments are nonuniversalizable, "incommunicable" across borders, so not
transnational in form but nonetheless globally constituted and constitu­
tive. In contrast, Sklair's analysis in Sklair, note 14, chap. 10, points to the
complex ways in which local struggles make "transnational connections"
(p. 280). The common thread in optimistic structuralist accounts is that
the antisystemic potential residing historically in socialist internationalism
is being drastically reshaped to include new constituencies in diverse local­
ities. Cf. Colas, note 1.
37. Thiele, note 14, p. 280.
38. Ibid., p. 281; Hardt and Negri, note 5, p. 55.
39. Scott Turner, "Global Civil Society, Anarchy, and Governance:
Assessing an Emerging Vzidiaigm" Journal of Peace Research 35, no. 1 (1998):
29-30.
40. Ibid., pp. 35-36.
41. See, for example, Falk, note 14, p. 174; Turner, note 39, pp. 33,
35-36.
42. See, for example, the influential article by Marc Nerfin, "Neither
Prince nor Merchant: Citizen. An Introduction to the Third System,' IFDA
Dossier 56 (1986): 14.
43. For further discussion of these categories, see Stammers, note 1.
44. Tarrow, note 19, pp. 3, 5, 8-9.
45. Commission on Global Governance, note 5, pp. 41-75.
46. Tarrow, note 9, pp. 243-244. Framing is also discussed in Smith
and Johnston, note 8; and in Guidry, Kennedy, and Zald, note 10.
47. Smith et al., "Social Movements and World Politics," in Smith et
al., note 8, pp. 70-73.
48. See brief mentions in Cohen and Rai, note 11, pp. 8-9; and Lip-
schutz, note 5, pp. 398-399; and lengthier analysis in the Commission on
Global Governance, note 5, pp. 46-75.
49. Gill, note 13, p. 133.
50. See, for example, Amory Starr, Naming the Enemy: Anti-Corporate
Movements Confront Globalization (London: Zed Books, 2000). Starr identifies
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 Eschle and Stammers 369

three main strands in the movement: those seeking contestation and reform
(which includes universalist human rights and peace groups); those pursu­
ing globalization from below (in which she places socialist internationalists
and the new kind of internationalism pursued by the Zapatistas); and those
seeking delinking, «localization, and sovereignty (which includes groups
ranging from anarchists, to small businesses, to religious nationalists). It is
the last strand that Starr favors as offering the most effective ideological pos­
sibilities for resistance, but it is noteworthy that other strands include pro­
ponents of avowedly Westernized, universalist frameworks. Starr herself
downplays the role of expressive activism against corporate power and
neoliberalism, relegating culture and identity to a strategic resource for
those more concerned with fundamental economic issues and insisting that
cultural resistances are most likely to be constructed effectively within tradi­
tional cultures (pp. 160-170). Her eclectic attempt to rework a Marxist
account of corporate globalization is avowedly structuralist, but her attention
to the empirical detail of movement activities and to questions of strategy,
organization, and goals moves her work beyond a structuralist approach.
51. Robert Cox, "Civil Society at the Turn of the Millennium: Pros­
pects for an Alternative World Order," Review of International Studies 25, no.
1 (1999): 13-25; Hardt and Negri, note 5, p. 54. The depiction of resis­
tances to neoliberal globalization given in these accounts is notably nar­
rower than that given by Starr. It maps closely on to crossover activist/aca­
demic texts aligned with a more orthodox Marxist perspective. See, for
example, Bircham and Charlton, note 16.
52. For example, Adams, note 12, pp. 178, 184-185; Commission on
Global Governance, note 5, pp. 32-37, 254-260; Riddell-Dixon, note 12,
p. 291.
53. Commission on Global Governance, note 5, pp. 32-35.
54. Otto, note 14, pp. 134-135.
55. Dieter Rucht, "The Transnationalization of Social Movements:
Trends, Causes, Problems," in della Porta and Kriesi, note 8, p. 218; see
also Hans Gerth and C. Wright Mills, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology
(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970); R. Michels, Political Parties (New
York: Free Press, 1962).
56. For example, Sonia E. Alvarez, "Advocating Feminism: The Latin
American Feminist NGO 'Boom,'" International FeministJournal of Politics 1,
no. 2 (1999): 181-209; David S. Meyer and Sidney Tarrow, "A Movement
Society: Contentious Politics for a New Century," in Meyer and Tarrow,
eds., The Social Movement Society: Contentious Politics for a New Century (Lan-
ham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), p. 20.
57. Antonio Donini, "The Bureaucracy and the Free Spirits: Stagna­
tion and Innovation in the Relationship Between the UN and NGOs," in
Weiss and Gordenker, eds., note 12, pp. 88-92.
58. We have seen above that Tarrow refers to social networks and that
Keck and Sikkink talk about transnational advocacy networks, while Marc
Nerfin insists that networking "reflects better the nature and goals" of
what he calls "third system associations and movements," a claim echoed
in Ronnie Lipschutz's description of "networks in global civil society."
59. For example, Castells, The Information Age, vol. 1: The Rise of the Net-
work Society, 2d ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), and Hardt and Negri, note
5. However, note the reminder from Peter Waterman that "networking is
both the oldest and the most common form of human social relationship,"
in his "Social Movements, Local Places, and Globalized Spaces: Implica­
tions for 'Globalization from Below,'" in Gills, note 6, p. 143.

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370 Social Movements, INCOs, and Global Change

60. Keck and Sikkink, note 8, p. 8; Moghadam, note 2, pp. 78-79;

Nerfin, note 42, p. 18; Otto, note 14, p. 135.
61. It is in this sense that the concept of network is used within the
United Nations: see Gordenker and Weiss, "Pluralizing Global Gover­
nance," pp. 23, 25-28; and it is the predominant sense of the term in
Moghadam, note 2.
62. Waterman, note 59, pp. 144. Similar concerns are articulated by
Jeremy Brecher et al. Globalization from Below, 2d ed. (Cambridge, Mass.:
South End Press, 2002), pp. 86-90, this time from a more concrete preoc­
cupation with the strategy of the movement against the neoliberal elements
of globalization. Brecher et al. point to the reproduction of inequalities
within North-South networks and to organizational difficulties in social-
movement actions with a network form, as well as to the problem of co-
opted NGOs. However, such concerns do not lead these authors to aban­
don the network form. Waterman urges the replacement of "network
babble" with "network analysis," and Brecher et al. argue that activists need
to develop a more open, transparent, and democratic network involving
stronger links between NGOs and grassroots activists. Both arguments res­
onate with our proposals below.
63. Gorg and Hirsch, note 13, p. 596.
64. Ibid., p. 607.
65. Mario Diani, "The Concept of Social Movement," in Kate Nash,
ed., Readings in Contemporary Political Sociology (Oxford: Basil Blackwell,
2000), p. 155.
66. Ibid., p. 165 (emph. in orig.).
67. Ibid., p. 166.
68. Ibid., pp. 165, 167.
69. Keck and Sikkink, "Transnational Advocacy Networks in the Move­
ment Society," in Meyer and Tarrow, note 56, pp. 219-221.
70. Widely cited formulations of this approach in politics and sociol­
ogy include David Held et al., Global Transformations (Cambridge: Polity
Press, 1999), esp. the introduction; Held, Democracy and the Global Order:
From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford
University Press, 1995); and Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Moder-
nity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990). These can fruitfully be read in con­
junction with a growing feminist literature giving "intersectional" accounts
of globalization, such as Marianne Marchand and Anne Sisson Runyan,
eds., Gender and Global Restructuring: Sightings, Sites, and Resistances (Lon­
don: Routledge, 2000); Signs 26, no. 4, special issue (2001); and Feminist
Review 70, special issue (2002). Feminist accounts have a distinctive focus
on pervasive transnationalized racial and gender hierarchies. Their gen­
eral emphasis^on power relations is an important corrective to a discourse
that tends to characterize the multiple dimensions of globalization in
more pluralist terms as social realms or fields.
71. There is some sign of this broadening of the political-opportunity
structures approach, in terms of attention to recent shifts in the macro-
economic context. See, for example, Gregory F. Maney, "Transnational
Structures and Protest: Linking Theories and Assessing Evidence," and Jef­
frey Ayres, "Transnational Political Processes and Contention Against the
Global Economy," both in Smith and Johnston, note 8, at pp. 31-50 and
191-205, respectively. However, note that this adds an interest in economic
structures to an existing focus on political institutions: This approach thus
remains locked within the narrower economic-political view of globalization.

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 Eschle and Stammers 371

72. Roland Robertson, "Glocalization: Time-Space and Homogeneity/

Heterogeneity," in Michael Featherstone et al., eds., Global Modernities
(London: Sage, 1995). Feminist accounts strongly favor studying the oper­
ations of globalization in specific local contexts because of their normative
commitment to exposing how apparently abstract, gender-neutral processes
are embedded within material, gendered social relationships. It is through
an emphasis on embodied agency within particular localities that women
are made visible as sites and sources of globalization. See, for example,
Saskia Sassen, "Toward a Feminist Analytics of the Global Economy," Indi-
ana Journal of Global Legal Studies 4, no. 1 (1996): 7-41; Carla Freeman, "Is
Local: Global as Feminine: Masculine? Rethinking the Gender of Global­
ization," Signs26, no. 4 (2001): 1007-1037.
73. Giddens, note 70, pp. 21-29. Giddens limits his discussion to
money and expert systems, but his argument can be extended to include
other disembedding mechanisms.
74. The implications of the mutual constitution of the local and global
for theorizing movements are developed in Guidry et al., note 10, pp. 7-16.
Waterman reformulates "Think globally, act locally" differently, arguing for
a new slogan: "Think globally, act locally; think locally, act globally. To
which I would like to add: 'Think dialectically; act self-reflexively.'" See
Waterman, note 59, p. 148.
75. Many such activists reject the antiglobalization label, insisting that
it falsely defines the movement as local a n d / o r protectionist. In other
words, it implies a global/local dichotomy, where "the enemy" is global
and resistance is local. It has been argued instead that the movement
involves the construction of an alternative kind of globalization, "from
below"—one that is based on more humane, just, and democratic inter­
connections between people on a worldwide scale. See, for example, David
Graeber, "The New Anarchists," New Left Review 113 (Jan.-Feb. 2002): 63;
Naomi Klein, Fences and Windows: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Glob-
alization Debate (London: Flamingo, 2002), pp. 77-78; Kevin Danaher and
Robert Burbach, "Making History," introduction to Danaher and Burbach,
eds., Globalize This! The Battle Against the World Trade Organization and Cor-
porate Rule (Monroe, Me.: Common Courage Press, 2000), pp. 7-11.
76. Large mobilization events are emphasized, for example, in J o h n
Charlton, "Action!" in Bircham and Charlton, note 16, pp. 342-385; and
in Alexander Cockburn, Jeffrey St. Clair, and Allan Sekula, Five Days That
Shook the World: Seattle and Beyond (London: Verso, 2000).
77. For example, Starr, note 50, p . xiii; Kathleen Staudt, Shirin Rai,
and J a n e L. Parpart, "Protesting World Trade Rules: Can We Talk About
Empowerment?" Signs 26, no. 4 (2001): 1251-1257; Klein, note 75, pp.
16-18.
78. For example, Chris Dixon, "Finding Hope after Seattle: Rethinking
Radical Activism and Building a Movement": www.zmag.org/dixonseattle.
htm (no date given; visited February 1, 2001).
79. Jean L. Cohen and Andrew Arato, Civil Society and Political Theory
(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992), pp. 549-550.
80. Ibid., p. 558.
81. Ibid., p. 561.
82. Some diverse examples of relevant theory include Ernesto Laclau
and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Toward a Radical Democ-
racy (London: Verso, 1985); Paul Hirst, Associative Democracy: New Forms of
Economic and Social Governance (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994); Benjamin

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372 Social Movements, ¡NGOs, and Global Change

Barber, Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age (Berkeley: Uni­
versity of California Press, 1984).
83. For example, Danaher and Burbach, note 75; Graeber, note 75,
pp. 70-72; Brecher, et al., Globalization from Below, note 62, pp. xi, 71-72,
84-90. See also World Social Forum, "World Social Forum Charter of Prin­
ciples" (2002), www.forumsocialmundial.org.br/main.asp?id_menu=4&cd_
language=2 (visited December 15, 2002).
84. For a survey of recent developments in feminist democratic theory
that make this point about the incorporation of participatory modes, see
Judith Squires, Gender in Political Theory (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999),
chaps. 6, 7; see also Catherine Eschle, Global Democracy, Social Movements,
and Feminism (Boulder, CO): Westview Press, 2001), chap. 3.
85. This analysis is developed at more length in Eschle, note 84, chap. 4.
86. Moghadam, note 2.
87. Nira Yuval-Davis, Gender and Nation (London: Sage, 1997), pp.
129-130; Cynthia Cockburn "The Women's Movement: Boundary Crossing
on Terrains of Conflict," in Cohen and Rai, eds., note 11, pp. 51-58; and
Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and
Empowerment, 2d ed. (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 245-249.
88. Christina Gabriel and Laura Macdonald, "NAFTA, Women, and
Organizing in Canada and Mexico: Forging a Feminist Internationality,"
Millennium 23, no. 3 (1994): 549-554, 558-562.
89. Eschle, "'Skeleton Women': Feminism and the Anti-Globalization
Movement," Signs, forthcoming winter 2004/2005.

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