Transnational Civil Society: An Introduction (review)

Transnational civil society organizations, and their role in framing, transmitting and managing global norms and practices, are the subject of a growing body of literature. This lucid contribution begins with a chapter by the editors who describe their volume as an introductory account of "initiatives and movements that promote the values and goals of tolerance, equity, non-violence, and democratic participation" (pp. 3-4).

What distinguishes the book from similar literature is indeed the conscious dearth of "academic jargon"; a feature that is apparent within the book's first few chapters.

The book is divided into two parts: the first, comprising four chapters, examines the conceptual terrain of the book. Concepts of globalization, global power, civil society movements; and transnationalism are each discussed in distinct chapters by authors who represent developed and developing country perspectives. The piece by Martha Darling on the "architecture of global power" is particularly compelling. She traces world politics from the early sixteenth century, arguing that the rise of economic and political globalization is central to understanding "who really rules the world." It is with Western (European and American) expansionism that capitalism emerged as the ubiquitous mantra for generating economic growth albeit at the expense of human development, security, equality, accountability, biodiversity, and the promotion of sound economic development. Interestingly, in her concluding lines, she vests much of the corrective responsibility upon civil society actors.

This second part of the book comprises crisp accounts of six transnational movements. These include the labor movement followed by the environmental, the economic justice, the women's, the human rights, and the movement centered on peace activism. Each of these chapters begins with a historical account of the movement followed by one or two case studies that briefly highlight the strategies and tactics deployed to achieve the movements' agenda. The chapters conclude with a discussion of the movements' achievements and challenges and their likely future direction. As such, the chapters in this second part are as useful to a novice student of social movements as they are to a researcher, an activist or a policymaker keen on revisiting milestones and identifying key challenges faced by these cross-border players.

The environmental movement is among the few movements that developed to symbolize international cooperation between scientists, governments, businesses, NGOs and individual citizens. Torrance and Torrance trace its origins to 1957 when scientists from around the globe gathered under the aegis of the International Geophysical Year (IGY). Whilst the IGY saw the exchange of scientific information on the state of the Earth, it was the Stockholm conference of 1972, spearheaded by the United Nations, which symbolized the earliest demonstration of NGO contribution to transnational environmental politics. This was succeeded nearly two decades later by the Earth Summit at Rio that saw 1,500 NGOs contribute to five international agreements and organization of a parallel NGO conference which produced thirty-nine alternative treaties in different issue areas. Their [NGO] "level of participation was greater than that at any previous international conference" (p. 106). International interest waned after the Rio Summit, primarily as a result of the United States' refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol and the rise of security as a global (primarily U.S.) obsession. The authors suggest the need to further the movement by forging linkages with other global concerns and finding means to bridge grave internal divisions between the movements' Northern and Southern participants.

The Economic Justice Movement (EJM), according to Clark (p. 124), was organized primarily through the Internet, now a popular mobilizing and organizing tool used by social movements, campaigns and networks. Grounded in disappointment over the ability of electoral politics to represent their needs, the EJM has united people from across the globe to directly express their disappointment with the "selective kind of globalization in practice today" (p. 126). While its primary strength lies in its ability to identify problems and bring these to the attention of policy makers, the greatest...