and Cross-Border Interaction
2.4 RECONFIGURING THE INTERNATIONAL DOMAIN
2.4.4 De‐ and Re‐rooting Transnationalism
Yanacopulous (2005, 94) builds upon Keck and Sikkink’s model but suggests more attention be paid to variations in the strength of networks (cohesion) and resource environments in which different TANs operate. Different networks operating on different issues in different locations and time periods have different resources available to them. Uncertainty about resources, resource scarcity or competition may produce different network structures and impacts on their success. (Yanacopulous 2005, 98.) Carpenter (2007, 644, 658), in turn, would update the model by including the question of issue emergence and adaptation, which she considers as precursors to effective normative and policy change. Carpenter argues that politicking and bargaining within the network are more important determinants of issue selection than objective attributes of an issue or preexisting normative frames or pressure from media or real world events. Hertel (2006) concurs that the dynamics within TANs are more complex than recognized in the simple boomerang pattern. Members within the network may actually use contentious tactics against themselves, including blocking the campaign’s progress and backdoor deals, depleting their scarce resources (ibid., 265–266).
2.4.4 De‐ and Re‐rooting Transnationalism
“[T]he terms transnational and transnationalism are used so vaguely and indistinctly that they are likely to become ‘catch‐all and say nothing’ terms”
(Pries 2008, 1). Once limited to the political economy, the study of transnational relations has been broadened to include contentious international politics (Tarrow 2001, 4). Young (1997) predicts greater power for transnational regimes consisting of non‐state actors in the global governance system, whereas several others view the new world of transnational politics in more contentious, social‐
movement terms (Guidry et al. 2001). O’Brien et al. (2000) foresee global social movements reaching across transnational space to challenge multilateral economic institutions, in so doing producing something akin to a ‘global civil society’ (Wapner 1996; Kaldor 2003; Kaldor, Selchow & Moore 2012) or a ‘world polity’ (Boli & Thomas 1999). Tarrow (2001) rejects all of the above for they fail to adequately distinguish the difference between transnational social movements, international NGOs, and activist networks, nor do they satisfactorily specify their relations with each other or with states and international institutions.
Within this context, the issue of ‘scale‐jumping’ has to be addressed. It refers to a process whereby civil society groups bypass their respective national levels and directly petition or lobby international institutions for support. Tarrow (2001, 15–16) explains that international institutions serve as a magnet; they offer resources, opportunities, and incentives for actors in transnational politics. They serve as a kind of a ‘coral reef,’ helping to form horizontal connections amongst activists with similar claims across boundaries. Beneficial as such, this leads to an obvious paradox: international institutions are created by states, yet they can
be the very arenas in which transnational contention is most likely to form against states. As international institutions, the European Commission being a prime example, seek autonomy in order to mediate among the interests of competing states, they can provide political opportunities for weak domestic social actors (ibid.; Imig & Tarrow 2001). As internationalization proceeds, horizontal and vertical relations between state and non‐state actors operating at international, national, and subnational levels generate networks of formal and informal institutions. They may pose threats to sovereignty, but more importantly they open up “an opportunity space into which domestic actors can move, encounter others like themselves, and form coalitions that transcend their borders” (Tarrow 2005, 25).
The determination to reject the old nation‐bounded research perspective, which necessitated thinking in “clearly differentiated oppositions” has led to a new “both/and” logic of methodological cosmopolitanism (Beck & Sznaider 2006, 18). This allows simultaneous examination of similar phenomena from different analytical angles or levels (e.g., local, national, transnational, and global), and includes the idea of plurality of personal identities and social roles across nation state borders (ibid.). Even if undoubtedly applicable, one must, however, be aware of its flipside. Taking all in at once may easily lead research to become all‐inclusive and decontextualized. Even though transnational flows discount a nationally separated border both from above and below, they concede a “more locally contextualized manner to the interconnections and asymmetries that are promoted by the multi‐directional flow” (Iwabuchi 2002, 17).
Transnationalism is surely a process that is evolving within different societal levels and involving a diverse set of actors. Collectively, they produce a transnational operational space that is evidently more virtual than it is geographically bound. While such nonterritorial entities formed by transnational CSO networks have certainly weakened state sovereignty, we should, however, not jump from here directly to globalization and to what has been referred to as a global civil society. Tarrow (2005) makes an often‐neglected argument that “even if globalization is commonly credited for inciting transnational activism, it is not the source of transnational activities.” Instead, Tarrow suggests, it is necessary to focus on internationalism as structures through which globalization is mediated, and its relation to transnational collective action: “while globalization provides incentives and themes for transnational activism, it is internationalism that offers a framework, a set of focal points, and a structure of opportunities for transnational activists” (Tarrow 2005, 3).
Tarrow (2005, 42) notifies that, for the most part, transnational actors remain
‘rooted’ in local conditions, concerns and the “social networks…, resources, experiences, and opportunities that place provides them.” They have the ability to “shift their activities among levels, taking advantage of the expanded nodes of opportunity of a complex international society,” but most are still committed to and embedded in their localities, particularly national or state‐level
conditions, which ultimately shape their approaches to international opportunities (ibid., 43). Similarly, Prokkola (2011) has revealed that while programs, such as INTERREG (see subsection 4.4.1), emphasize the development of functional, harmonious cross‐border regions, at the local level where these programs are implemented it is the state border which determines the norms and spatial organization of the CBC practices, whereby also cross‐
border networks are sparse compared with their national counterparts.
Tarrow (2005, 5, 9, 33) identifies “six processes of transnational contention”;
i.e., ways in which activists approach internationalism in pursuit of their interests, that vary in their degree of local‐global integration: 1) global framing, 2) internalization, 3) diffusion, 4) scale shift, 5) externalization, and 6) coalition forming. The first two, global framing and internalization, are the least integrated and denote the strategic co‐optation of global themes or ideas in essentially domestic conflicts and the broader influence of international pressures on national arenas, respectively. In the middle, diffusion implies cross‐border replication of claims and tactics, while scale‐shift represents attempts to ‘move’
claims from one site or level to another. Finally, the greatest integration occurs in externalization and in coalition forming, which comprise the projection of claims vertically and horizontally, respectively, to international institutions and groups with common cause. (Ibid.)
Figure 12. Six processes of transnational contention. Adopted from Tarrow (2005, 33)
Tarrow (2005, 33) offers a two‐dimensional grid reproduced in Figure 12, whereby the x‐axis “consists of the degree to which a particular issue is of primarily domestic or international importance” and the y‐axis “the extent to which [an issue] brings activists out of their domestic context into transnational space.” These six processes are complex, and in practice they seldom occur alone or can be found in pure form. “Transnational activism,” he concludes, “… is more like a series of waves that lap on an international beach, retreating repeatedly into domestic seas but leaving incremental changes on the shore”
(ibid., 219).