The Globalization and Development Reader: Perspectives on Development and Global Change, 2nd Edition

28 Transnational Advocacy Networks in International Politics (1998)

Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink

World politics at the end of the twentieth century involves, alongside states, many nonstate actors that interact with each other, with states, and with international organizations. These interactions are structured in terms of networks, and transnational networks are increasingly visible in international politics. Some involve economic actors and firms. Some are networks of scientists and experts whose professional ties and shared causal ideas underpin their efforts to influence policy.¹ Others are networks of activists, distinguishable largely by the centrality of principled ideas or values in motivating their formation.² We will call these transnational advocacy networks.

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Despite their differences, these networks are similar in several important respects: the centrality of values or principled ideas, the belief that individuals can make a difference, the creative use of information, and the employment by nongovernmental actors of sophisticated political strategies in targeting their campaigns.

… More than other kinds of transnational actors, advocacy networks often reach beyond policy change to advocate and instigate changes in the institutional and principled basis of international interactions. When they succeed, they are an important part of an explanation for changes in world politics. A transnational advocacy network includes those relevant actors working ...