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Despite the international outrage over and legal prohibitions against the use of child soldiers, the practice persists. Governments and insurgents are recruiting, training, and utilizing children for war in over 30 different countries today. Even though many people consider it unethical, the tactic is powerful. Drawing from social movement theory, I argue that child soldiers are more than just an irrational creation amidst the fog of war. Rather, child soldiers are a mobilization tool that provides greater resources and bolsters a framing process that fosters increased political opportunities. When child soldiers enter the field of protest, some actors are immobilized while others are more readily mobilized. The effect has at least three significant dimensions: the creation of moral dilemmas, the amplification of recruitment, and the relocation of fear in the social system. Taken together, these three dimensions expand the possibilities of political opportunities. Beyond the tactical advantage that this strategy appears to have, there remains the question of why some social movements are willing to break a widespread cultural norm against using children in battle. I contend that SMOs use child soldiers to create disrupture, or a tear in the social system via the role of children. A brief testing of the political opportunities hypothesis is offered as well as discussion of the disrupture thesis. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Addressing domestic political challenges to overseas U.S. military bases, I examine how host governments respond to social movement pressure from below while managing alliance relations with the U.S. Additionally, in cases where social movements seemed to matter, I explore how they made a difference in outcomes. When host government elites are significantly divided regarding their perception of national security and U.S.-host state security relations, elites sympathetic to anti-base movements cooperatively engage anti-base activists. Thus a weak security consensus opens the possibility for major base policy changes by anti-base movements. Conversely, when a strong consensus regarding security relations with the U.S. exists among domestic political elites, the host government responds to anti-base pressure by either ignoring, foot-dragging, co-opting, or at best, making token concessions to anti-base groups. By providing minimal concessions, host governments are able to maintain positive relations with the U.S. while mollifying major anti-base protests. Social movements, therefore, have little effect on base policy outcomes under conditions of strong security consensus. I use two recent anti-base movement episodes, the No Bases movement in Manta, Ecuador, and the No Dal Molin movement in Vicenza, Italy, to test my theoretical argument. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A homogenized political economic globe cannot occur due to the variance in world-views between those who are powerful internationally and those who are powerful locally. Powerful international actors have the ability to diffuse institutions across the globe, but they do not have the power to see those institutions implanted into domestic arenas without modification. This is particularly true in democratic settings, where the identities and interests of substate or local groups and leaders can have direct bearing on the livelihood of state leaders and the health of the democracy itself. In such cases, state leaders must include concessions to substate actors in order to legitimize newly diffused institutions. As we see in the Bolivia case, diffusing foreign institutions into such democratic settings carries a risk, namely that granting concessions in order to appease substate actors could in turn empower these actors and provide them with a window of opportunity for remaking the domestic polity. Diffusion may make for entirely unintended consequences. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently the large and well-developed body of social movement theory has been applied to Islamic activism, providing a wealth of new theoretical and empirical tools. Recent writings on an "Islamic Reformation," progressive Muslims, and a renaissance of liberal Islam, suggest a discernable shift in the rhetoric and practices of Islamist groups and social movement theory provides us with the necessary concepts to gain leverage over this new puzzle. This paper attempts to utilize the social movement theory concept of framing processes to investigate one possible source of moderation among Islamist groups, that of competitive intergroup framing. By investigating the contests inherent in group framing processes and attempting to place these in the larger context of democratic and Islamic frames we may begin to uncover a dialectic between increasingly moderate groups and processes of intergroup frame contestation. Although many researchers have turned their attention to group moderation, most focus on political opportunity structures and rational-actor models. By looking at the framing processes of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Wasat Party in Egypt, where we would most expect to see competitive frames, we can begin to investigate a possible correlation between these processes and changes in the respective groups' strategies and rhetoric. Because the two groups have extensive interactions, have shared a large number of members in common, have had a very public exchange, and are competing with each other for public support and government recognition, framing contests are likely to be common. The moderating impact of intergroup frame contests is a useful relationship to explore both because the effect of state actions has proven difficult to causally link with Islamist reaction and because the Egyptian government has been so inconsistent and unpredictable in its relations with Islamist groups. Given these sources of complication, an in-depth study of the framing contests between two Islamist groups and the perceived changes in their tactics and rhetoric may help scholars characterize the process of moderation (or radicalization) present in the Islamist movements in many countries. As such, this paper presents interparty framing as the mechanism that produces moderation in Islamist groups. Through this mechanism, we gain added leverage on the question of moderation by pinpointing a potential mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a study that seeks to draw on preliminary findings from an ongoing case study of environmental crises in Brazil to illustrate the continued explanatory power of the dominant models of norm diffusion in international relations and political science literature. It cites the relationship between social movements and domestic NGOs on international norms. It details the boomerang model of norm diffusion and the impact of an information cascade.

My paper proposes a framework for understanding the emergence of new human rights issues, rights omitted from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) as well as those mentioned but given little prominence until lately. In recent years, groups such as the mentally and physically disabled, Third World slumdwellers, South Asian Dalits (untouchables), AIDS patients, victims of corporate malfeasance, and the world’s poor have claimed internationally- based rights. In most cases, their efforts have met resistance from governments and powerful corporate interests. Even apparent allies among major human rights NGOs have voiced misgivings about new rights, arguing that rights proliferation may cheapen their traditionally central concerns, civil and political rights. My paper argues that the construction of new human rights norms involves four phases. First, politicized groups frame long-felt grievances as rights. Why and how they do so has received little scholarly attention. Second, they seek to place new rights claims on the international agenda, chiefly by convincing gatekeepers in major international human rights organizations to adopt and promote new rights. This seldom-examined stage is crucial since a handful of powerful NGOs jealously guard a perceived human rights core and exercise significant power in certifying new rights as worthy of international action. Third, NGOs spearhead new conventions before key international bodies. Finally, whether or not formally enacted, new norms require implementation not merely in domestic law but also on the ground. Highlighting the first two phases of this process, my paper draws on theories of social movements and transnational relations to develop new insights about the political construction of new rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to answer several vital questions about al-Qaida, including: What are the organization’s goals (are they messianic or grounded in more practical political concerns)? How is the movement structured (it is really networked as some claim or not)? What are its links to the broader radical Islamic movement? What methods does the organization use, and, more importantly, not use? What are its weaknesses? In answering these questions, the essay will highlight important disagreements and identify areas for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the significance of countermovements is widely acknowledged in the social movement literature, the study of their emergence and interaction with both social movements and the state has received comparatively little academic attention. In recent years, a number of social movement scholars have highlighted this deficiency in the literature and called for a more extensive analysis of countermovements. The state is traditionally a central actor in influencing movement-countermovement dynamics; while the battles between movements and countermovements continue to directly involve the state, for instance as epitomized by legal battles brought before courts, the political competition between movements and countermovements is increasingly bypassing the centrality of the state. Nowhere is this more clearly exemplified today than by the contests being waged between movements and countermovements on the Internet. The use of the Internet by social movement and countermovement organizations highlights the interaction between opposing groups while frequently rendering the role of the state less important than in more traditionally fought movement-countermovement battles. This paper examines movement-countermovement dynamics and the role of the state using the political competition between the Native Hawaiian sovereignty movement and its organized opposition as a lens through which to view the interaction between rival parties. I question how the relationship between the sovereignty movement, its organized countermovement, and the federal government has shaped the development of the movement and its impact thus far. I begin by briefly reviewing the literature on movement-countermovement dynamics and the role of the state. Next, I document the rise of the sovereignty movement, discuss the emergence of its organized countermovement, and describe the relationship of the movement and countermovement to the federal government. In the sections that follow, I demonstrate that while an active competition between the sovereignty movement and countermovement is currently being waged on the Internet that the role of the federal government continues to remain paramount in shaping the direction and impact of the sovereignty movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT: Debates over electoral reform are pervasive in the United States. A host of key political developments of the 20th century are telling in this regard, including direct primaries, expanded voting rights, campaign finance reform, and more. This examination of public financing of campaigns in the city of Seattle, state-level term limits in Michigan, and national voter registration reform reveals, however, that electoral reform was not on the agenda of second wave feminists in the U.S. When women were involved in these policy debates, it was not typically as women but instead as members of ?good government? groups (e.g., the League of Women Voters) making ungendered arguments for change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that, while much of what is happening with some of the “Left” regimes in Latin America can only be characterized as alternative modernizations, there are more radical thoughts and practices emerging from the space of some social movement ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The place of Thomas Hobbes in the genealogy of modern political thought is debatable not least because it depends in the first instance on what one considers to be the determinants of such genealogy. Michel Foucault’s reading of Hobbes, foregrounding as i ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While much has been written about the role of nonprofit, nongovernmental organizations (NPNGOs) in domestic and international policy making, they remain an undertheorized form of collective action. Questions such as why NPNGOs emerge and function, how they are structured, what strategies they employ to mitigate agency conflicts and ensure accountability, and under what conditions they influence politics, have not been systematically examined. This paper presents a synthesized perspective on these issues by drawing on three dominant literatures that study NPNGOs: political science approaches to NGO politics, social movement literature in sociology, and the multi-disciplinary nonprofit literature. We conclude that the NPNGO research program can be strengthened by active engagement with the theories of firm. As activities subsumed under the banner of corporate social responsibility increasingly drive firms' behavior, we also conclude that modeling firms as collective actors like NPNGOs is an important next step. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migration discourse in contemporary liberal democratic states is arguably characterised by a securitising nationalism, in which a territorial conception of political community is constructed as the natural foundation of a socially, culturally, economically and politically secure way of life. However, social movements based on a forging of links between citizens and non-citizens of various types increasingly challenge this territorial conception of political community. This paper draws attention to the ways in which an emphasis on citizenship and migration can foster a debate between analysts of securitisation and analysts of social movements, in order that traditional methodological and disciplinary divides can be traversed. More specifically, it argues that such a debate can contribute to the ‘bridging of divides’ in at least two ways. First, it suggests that such engagement can bridge the methodological divide between top-down and bottom-up analyses, through drawing attention to the ways in which political community is variously constructed in both ‘directions’. Second, it suggests that such engagement can bridge the disciplinary divide between sociological and political analyses, through cross-referencing socio-political practices of securitisation and socio-political practices of mobilisation. In cross-referencing our own research into citizenship and migration in the contemporary European context, we suggest that such engagement facilitates both a re-conceptualisation of citizenship as well as a problematisation of the territorial conception of political community through which a securitising nationalism thrives. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study of the interaction of global social movements and global economic institutions in 2000 concluded that their interaction could best be described as an environment of Complex Multilateralism. This paper revisits and critiques the concept after a period of seven years. The paper argues that while the five characteristics of complexmultilateralism still apply, the concept needs to be expanded and contextualized. Analysis focuses on the changing role of the state, corporate participation in governance and the apparent dilution of the influence of global economic institutions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Zapatista uprising of 1994 was a movement of firsts. It was the first movement to utilize the Internet to broadcast its message around the world. It was the first movement that went beyond regime change and sought to raise the national and international consciousness toward the plight of indigenous peoples in Mexico. Although the dialogue between the Zapatistas and the Mexican government has reached an impasse with a tentative truce in the balance, the indigenous problems remain. No longer waiting for the Mexican government, the Zapatistas engage in another first - the creation of autonomous municipalities, with the aid of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), to address their economic and social concerns. This recent merging of transnational funding with indigenous projects for self-development calls on scholars to closely examine the relationship between NGOs and social movements. Previous studies of social movements focused primarily on domestic opportunities, such as the state or society, but it is my contention that recent shifts in NGO activity have rendered the political opportunity structure (POS) used to examine social movement behavior outdated. Does the collaboration of non-governmental organizations diminish the capacity of the state? It is my contention that the global shifts in POS in some ways have liberated the state and its resources for local movements to seize, however, these changes carry the potential to undermine the state's capacity to effect policy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The genomics revolution in biology has spawned a new politics, with strikingly similar themes from California to Gujarat. The spread of biotechnology internationally continues on an accelerating curve upwards. Developmental states in China, India and Brazil promote the technology to make their agriculture competitive with that of richer nations. Equally, resistance in an international civil society escalates with the increasing number of crops, acres and farmers involved with genetically engineered organisms. Property is one strand of this contentious politics. Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) have become a flash point of mobilization of civil society against corporate globalization. Concentration of property rights in powerful multinational firms with no incentive to find solutions to problems of poor farmers in poor countries and potential for monopoly profits at the expense of poor farmers both figure prominently in the critique of genetic engineering in developmental terms. Worse, appropriation of intellectual property in biota of the global South is held to threaten poor societies for the profit of firms in the global North. This paper explores the ground realities related to these political claims. It argues that the oppositional critique reifies intellectual property ? in the form of ?patents? ? in a way that has proved inconsistent with behavior of actors on the ground in India and other countries. Property is here conceptualized as a relationship between actors; the outcome cannot be derived logically but must be investigated empirically. In the absence of the much critiqued ?terminator technology,? reverse ?biopiracy? seems not only fairly easy to accomplish, but popular in farming communities. This move by farmers puts them in conflict, objectively, with some, but not all, NGOs that claim to represent their interests. The paper will discuss outcomes from a national case study in terms of differentiations of property that make sense theoretically, from hard to soft and from common to private. It will conclude with suggestions about what the divergence of interests between farmers and NGOs means for representation and political power in rural areas. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various forms of media Images have defined power relations in the modern world. In Mass Media, Politics, and Democracy John Street (2001) articulates how the media image becomes the number one asset for a political career. In "Little History of Photography" Walter Benjamin (1931) outlines a series of responsibilities that a group has to present themselves to posterity through the photographic medium. In "Dream Kitsch: Gloss on Surrealism" (1925) and "Surrealism: The Last Snapshot of the European Intelligentsia" (1929), Benjamin emphasizes that art should avoid merging too many aspects of place and object into human consciousness. Thus, there needs to be a separation, and subsequent independence from our surroundings and related objects for us to create true freedom through political action. The academic literature on social movements theory informs us that social movements are based on claims to various types of ideas and metaphors (Keck 1995) and in part to perpetuate their own existence (Meyer 2005). Are the popular cultures that accompany social movements doomed to follow Benjamin?s (1925 and 1929) critiques of Surrealism, where an attachment to objects that symbolize political affiliations lead humanity to ignore its relations to each other? The general question will be what sort of value they place on their imagery is and how much it is subject to change. Benjamin's 1925 and 1929 characterization of Surrealism, placed into a more detailed historical context, will the more detailed point of analysis. This essay analyzes Benjamin's characterization of Surrealism in comparison with a depiction of more recent popular cultures that accompany anti-war social movements in the North American and European context and the type of imagery that they use to frame their agendum. The conclusion will compare and contrast issues surrounding Surrealism and the section on recent social movementsReferencesBenjamin, Walter. 1925. "Dream Kitsch: Gloss on Surrealism." Howard Eiland trans. In Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings: Volume 2: 1927-1934. Michael W. Jennings, Howard Eiland, and Gary Smith eds. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999.________ 1931. ?Little History of Photography.? Edmund Jephcott and Kingsley Shorter trans. In Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings: Volume 2: 1927-1934. Michael W. Jennings, Howard Eiland, and Gary Smith eds. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999: 507-530________ 1929. ?Surrealism: The Last Snapshot of the European Intelligensia. Edmund Jephcott trans. In Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings: Volume 2: 1927-1934. Michael W. Jennings, Howard Eiland, and Gary Smith eds. Cambridge: TheBelknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999.Keck, Margaret E. 1995. Social Equity and Environmental Politics in Brazil: Lessons from the Rubber Tappers of Acre. Comparative Politics (July 1995): 409-424Meyer, David S. 2005. Introduction: Social Movements and Public Policy: Eggs, Chicken, and Theory. Introduction in Routing the Opposition: Social Movements, Public Policy and Democracy. Meyers, David S., Valerie Jenness, and HelenIngram eds. .Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Street, John. 2001. Mass Media, Politics, and Democracy. New York: Palgrave ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past forty years, ?progressive? transnational social movements have emerged around such issues as human rights, the environment, and global justice. Simultaneously, there has been a huge increase in the number of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) active on these issues. In response, social scientists have begun theorizing about transnational mobilization and the growth of a ?global civil society,? with research revealing the dynamics of activism and its impacts in various policy arenas. Few scholars, however, have studied an equally important trend, the development of powerful transnational countermobilizations rooted in various ?conservative? ideologies and institutions. These countermobilizations have for example opposed the Kyoto Treaty, the Landmines Treaty, and the International Criminal Court--with considerable success on many issues. More fundamentally, in recent years conservative NGOs have challenged the legitimacy of civil society participation in international politics--even while actively participating themselves.My paper helps fill the empirical and theoretical gaps about transnational countermobilization by focusing on transnational activism concerning the control of Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW). Used in conflicts and violence worldwide, such weapons are responsible for over 500,000 deaths per year, according to United Nations estimates. For over a decade, hundreds of NGOs organized in a loose transnational network known as the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) have worked to promote a treaty controlling SALW trade. Opposing these efforts is a transnational network of gun-rights NGOs, spearheaded by America?s National Rifle Association (NRA). My paper analyzes the strategies of these contending global networks. In particular, the paper focuses on the ways in which the NRA and its global network have sought to influence states, delegitimate the United Nations process, and attack IANSA--all with the aim of stalling or defusing efforts to control small arms. More generally, the paper examines how the two networks clash with one another as they seek to influence international policymaking. For the transnational politics literature, which has focused on ?progressive? movements, such research opens a window onto extremely powerful but little-studied ?conservative? activism on the world stage. As such, it holds promise of providing a far more accurate picture of how civil society actors contend with one another and influence global public policy. In addition, the paper contributes to social movement theory. Thus far, scholars have analyzed the role of ?countermovements? only in domestic arenas. My paper extends the literature to the international level. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we argue that the heuristic framework of Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) represents a path towards models of explanation of ethnopolitical mobilization with an eye towards generalizable explanatory model-building. The CAS approach focuses attention on the analysis of critical moments of adaptation and the dynamics and recursive processes taking place across different interconnected systems (e.g. ?levels of analysis?) that produce these moments. This approach demonstrates that the relative importance of individual factors varies as a result of a never-ending process of adaptation, evolution, and co-evolution in which ethnopolitical movements, states, and the international system are simultaneously and recursively engaged with each other, affecting an ongoing change in the contextual (normative, economic, political, organizational) structures within which ethnopolitical mobilization unfolds. An emphasis on moments of phase-transition in particular may represent the most value-added of a CAS model: focusing on critical moments permits the relaxation of analyses of periods of relative stability and facilitates cross-case comparisons of comparable moments in trajectories of ethnic activism. The added value of this approach is demonstrated using illustrative examples of ethnopolitical mobilization in Europe. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world of the academe holds different views regarding scholarship and its relationships to the centers and peripheries of various power structures, as it holds different views regarding its impact: whether it should be designed within existing political structures or structurally transformational. This paper wants to explore the impact of American feminism, as part of the American postmodern thought on equality, on a world in transition where American-backed ideologies promote uncontrolled market hegemony and an emaciated ?night-watch? state which is unable to protect its citizens and residents.This paper argues that a feminist critique of equality needs to involve a state narrative both domestically and internationally. The argument is two-fold. First, it will emphasize that equality, in any of its meanings -- formal, social, or substantive -- involves state action. From formal equality ? equality in front of the law, which means being a subject of equal rights (to men), to substantive equality ? socio-economic equality -- equality involves the state directly. The state is the one which defines its terms. Women have been more successful in terms of formal equality than substantively. This incremental dual approach has not been limited to domestic systems; it has been mirrored by theoretical distinctions between formal and substantive rights at the international level as well. (see the two conventions on human rights both at the UN and European level).Next, the paper will discuss the critical paradigm needed to compel states to guaranty substantive equality from an international point of view: the discourse on substantive human rights. Any discourse involving substantive human rights requires a discussion of the role of the state as a guarantor of those rights. The state is the entity that can ensure public education, health care, and can even design the power of the different religious establishments. Furthermore, the only current mechanisms for accountability at the international level are against the state. Recently, the international human rights discourse seems to engage more the market than the state, as if there were a choice. It seems quixotic to compel the market to end violations of substantive human rights, if that means a loss of profit, without involving the state. Absent clear regulations the market (shareholders) would not stop doing what comes natural to it: making profit. Feminism cannot afford ignoring this reality if it wants to remain a relevant theory, both domestically and internationally. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International relations like domestic politics have remained under the monopoly of men. In the words of a pioneering feminist,? Representation of the world like the world it-self is the work of men, they describe it from their own point of view which they confuse with absolute truth.?(Simone de Beauvior.1953,p.161)Several scholars in the post-cold war phase have made a systematic effort to re study IR from the feminist perspective. Their discourse has synchronized with the global quest for new paradigms since the 1999s.These scholars have discussed the global events through the gender sensitive lens in order to offer an alternative view of the world from a rational and non-conflictual point of view.With a broad overview of the feminist critique of IR we will closely examine the phenomena of eco-feminism as it has gradually caught the imagination of scholars and activists all over the world. For instance, the Women?s Environment and Development Organisation (WEDO) has united 283 women?s NGOs into a caucus at the national and international level. One group of WEDO focuses on the need to develop environmental programs aimed at assisting women to become environmental resource managers. Another group approaches the issue from an eco-feminist angle emphasizing women?s unique ties to the forces of nature .While highlighting on eco-feminism we will try to illustrate with some examples from India as to how the women folk in Garhwal Himalayas have saved the large-scale deforestation of the Himalayas through the Chipko movement. Similarly some prominent social activists like Medaha Patkar and Arundhati Roy have fought a heroic battle through the ? Narmada Bachao Andolan(NBA) movement to fight against the desalination and denudation of large tractss of forest lands occupied by thousands of aboriginals in India. END ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on insights from social psychological literature on identity formation and on social movement and contentious politics literature, this paper will look at elite strategies to achieve popular mobilization in polarized societies through perceptions of collective identity. Interactions involving communication are never as simple in the real world as they are posited to be in the theoretical world. Elite appeals for mobilization are not an exception. Strategies to mobilize a constituency, particularly through references to shared normative structures, should be expected to have varied effects empirically. However, in the way many analyses treat elite strategies to foster mobilization, these are quite often assumed to be effective: if messages are framed to resonate, elites will successfully mobilize their target population. The starting point of this paper is therefore to take into account that the social processes behind mobilization are more complicated than is often described. As a result, the argument developed is not as an overarching explanation of these tactics but focuses instead on some believed to be the more optimal ones. It is posited that if appeals are framed appropriately, there will be mobilization. In other words, the paper looks at what the effective mechanisms, or linkage rules, are to turn a population?s collective identity and cognitive background into appeals that can plausibly justify action, even violence, against another group and lead a constituency to a state of mind conducive to mobilization, or what could be called ?felt mobilization.?The framework focuses on three main strategies. The first is selecting. It involves activating collective forms of affiliation over individual ones, particularly political identities that suit political entrepreneurs? goals, and, in doing so, selecting elements from the group?s shared background that can construct a ?resonating? mobilization narrative. The second is opposing, or fostering antagonistic intergroup relations, both procedurally by collapsing the lines of inter-group competition so that a zero-sum environment is created and by developing binary schemas of categorization between groups. The final strategy is simplifying. Elites simplify interpretations of the situation and environment, both by globalizing categories and identities, extending them unequivocally to all members of a group, and by delegitimizing or silencing competing interpretations. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper delineates a research project on explaining the influence of NGOs in global environmental politics. The purpose of the study is to explain the differences in power among environmental NGOs, by examining the importance of various power resources at NGOs' disposal. Theoretically, the project draws on various sources such as social movement theory, interest group research and liberal constructivist IR theory to find potential explanatory factors for NGO influence. The factors suggested in earlier research are incorporated into theoretical perspectives, of which two are discussed at some length in the paper. First, a pressure perspective stressing the importance for NGOs to make concrete contributions to the political processes and pressuring governmental officials. Crucial explanatory factors in this perspective are the political skill, finances and membership of the organizations. Second, the status perspective emphasizing various forms of authority- such as moral authority and political legitimacy. Compared to the bulk of NGO research, my study takes a slightly different approach to the problem. Instead of, as most research, process tracing in single case or small-n studies, I apply a large-n approach relying on statistical research techniques. The advantage with such an approach, I claim, is that it allows us to compare the importance of different power resources both within and across various contextual circumstances believed to affect the relative importance of certain resources. Having outlined the research problem and presented the theoretical perspective, a section on operationalisations closes the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decade there has been much debate within IR/political theory about the nature and status of knowledge with much of the tension revolving around the conflicting positions of so called ‘modernist’ and ‘postmodernist’ scholars. This paper aims to critically evaluate the insights of both these approaches to knowledge in light of feminist theory and the practices of one social movement, that is, the women’s reproductive rights movement. The paper argues that any understanding of the nature and sources of knowledge claims deployed within movements needs, on the one hand, to draw from both these perspectives ? rather than choose between them ? and, on the other, to reach beyond them. More specifically, it argues that we need to learn from feminist theory and explore different sources of knowledge which include, but are not limited to, reason. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transnational citizens groups have been important counter-hegemonic forces in global political arenas. Moreover, the forces that propel global economic and political globalization have also contributed to growing numbers of transnational linkages among those who would challenge existing configurations of power, producing a vibrant and dynamic transnational social movement sector. This paper uses data from the Yearbook of International Associations to explore changes in the structures of transnational social change organizations as well as in their ties to global political institutions over recent decades (1973-2003). It relates changes in the sector to both domestic political and ideological contexts as well as to broader changes in the global institutional and economic environment. Particular attention will be paid to the question of why, during the 1990s, did transnational social change associations tend to organize more frequently within the particular geographic regions of the global North or South than across this North- South divide? I will also investigate whether we find important variations in the geographic and ideological orientations of groups with links to the UN system and to global financial institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]