NGOs and Civil Society


The Role of Transnational Advocacy Networks in Reconstituting International Organization Identities
Susan Park
Seton Hall Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations
Volume 5, Number 2
Summer/Fall 2004

 

Introduction

International relations scholarship recognizes the important role that non-state actors play in areas such as human rights, the environment, poverty, and development. Constructivism has proved a welcome lens through which to view the actions and ideas of non-state actors, characterized here as transnational advocacy networks. This article argues that constructivism can provide a framework that goes beyond analyzing the strategic aims of such actors to understand the influence they have on the formation of international governmental organization's (IO's) identities. While transnational advocacy networks have had policy victories and defeats in campaigns against IOs, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the interest here is to question how IO identities are reshaped or reconstituted by interactions with transnational advocacy networks. Understanding IO identities is important in explaining why IOs operationalize their mandates in certain ways and not others. As such, it is posited that transnational advocacy networks shape the social structure within which IOs exist. These networks interact with and influence IO identities and therefore behavior. The first section establishes the importance of understanding IO identities. The second section establishes the role of transnational advocacy networks in world politics. The final section then analyses how transnational advocacy networks reshape and reconstitute IO identities through micro-processes of socialization. A constructivist framework provides a means of understanding IOtransnational advocacy networks interaction, giving insight into why IO identities internalize new norms.

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