Organizing for Global Change: Changing Structures of Transnational Social Movement Organization.

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]