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May 16, 2000
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About the speaker: Kathryn Sikkink is Professor of political science at the University of Minnesota. She serves on the editorial board of the journal International Organization and has published articles in International Organization and Latin American Research Review, among others. |
Her books include The Power of Human Rights: International Norms and Domestic Change (edited with Thomas Risse and Stephen C. Ropp); Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (with Margaret E. Keck; winner of the 1999 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order); and Ideas and Institutions: Developmentalism in Brazil and Argentina.
Rapporteur's Report
In their recent book Activists Beyond Borders, Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink make a case for the increasing importance in international affairs of transnational advocacy networks?the set of non-state actors "working together on an international issue that are bound together by shared values, common discourse, and dense exchanges of information and services." Information is essential to the definition of an advocacy network, and also to one of its principal activities?information politics, or "the ability to quickly and credibly generate politically usable information and move it to where it will have the most impact." In light of the strong connection between information and transnational advocacy networks, many analysts have argued that the information revolution is a key factor in their recent rise in influence. But while information is central to Keck and Sikkink?s analysis of transnational advocacy networks, they do not credit information and communication technologies (ICTs) with a causal role in the growth of network activism.
"Information technology is a key sustaining and accelerating factor for networks. It is not an engine; it does not drive."
In her May 16 lecture at the Carnegie Endowment, Kathryn Sikkink argued that while "information technology is a key sustaining and accelerating factor for networks?it is not an engine?it does not drive." Three findings from her research on transnational advocacy networks contradict the argument that the information revolution is the primary engine of the growth of non-state actors in international affairs. First, transnational advocacy networks are not a fundamentally new phenomenon. As early as the nineteenth century, networks waged successful campaigns for such causes as women?s suffrage and the abolition of slavery; each engaged in information politics, and each thought that technological revolutions of the time were crucial to its success. Early activists credited improvements in carriage design, postal reform, and modernization of telegraph systems, railways, and roads with their ability to form networks and communicate with contacts around the world. Such networks "were constantly exchanging information," just like today?s networks, argued Sikkink?"it just took longer to get there." As one British antislavery activist put it, "we can no longer ignore what is going on in America?it is only two weeks away."
A second reason that Sikkink does not credit the information revolution with a driving role in the growth of transnational advocacy networks is that the current wave of network activism emerged in the early 1970s, before access to computers or other advanced ICTs was widespread among activists. The international human rights network coalesced around the coup in Chile in 1973, argued Sikkink, and with this network, "the engine was not technology; the engine was new ideas, ideologies, new norms?carried by norm entrepreneurs?who worked to insert them into policy debate." Events of the period, such as Vietnam, Watergate, and the beginning of détente, all led to the increasing questioning of deference to government and encouraged the formation of transnational advocacy networks to challenge state policies. Environmental and women?s networks also emerged in response to changing norms and values, before advanced technology played any significant role in these networks? operation.
Finally, Sikkink argued that even in the era in which transnational advocacy networks have ready access to all manner of ICTs and use them extensively in their campaigns, trust built on personal contact is still the primary reason the most committed activists get involved in their work. "Once they have established this trust, often through face-to-face meetings," argued Sikkink, "then the networks can go on to sustain themselves?through email or modern communications technology?but no networks that I have studied have been initiated solely via the Internet." Participants in the recent anti-globalization protests in Seattle made extensive use of technology in organizing activities, but their campaigns are also based on a shifting coalition of long-existing networks, brought together through face-to-face contact to protest everything from corporate monopolies on seed varieties to the building of World Bank-financed dams. "If you went out and talked to any activist," argued Sikkink, "and said ?tell me about how you use technology,? they?re going to fill your ear, they have so many exciting and interesting stories? But if you say to them??how do you get involved in this issue,? then you get?a different story, a story of personal and social networks?as well as political ideas and norms and political commitment."
In conclusion, Sikkink stressed that technology cannot provide agency or impetus for the human action that sustains transnational advocacy networks. The information revolution can facilitate and accelerate such activism, but personal commitments and the motivation of principled ideas are what drive it in the first place.
"Once they have established trust, often through face-to-face meetings, then the networks can go on to sustain themselves through email or modern communications technology, but no networks that I have studied have been initiated solely via the Internet."
In the question and answer session that followed, most respondents were willing to concede that technology is an intervening rather than driving variable in the rise of transnational advocacy networks. Several argued, however, that the information revolution may have afforded them a qualitatively different level of impact. One suggested that today?s media-saturated environment has created a global consciousness of issues that makes it easy for potential activists to get engaged with any number of campaigns. Several others argued that while ICTs do not drive the creation of advocacy networks, they have afforded networks a scale of activity and degree of influence that decisively tips the balance between states and non-state actors. One invoked the example of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), where organizer Jodie Williams has said that the Internet allowed activists from around the world to work together seamlessly.
In response, Sikkink pointed to several historical examples that argue against a unique transformative role for ICTs. On the question of engagement, she noted, traditional methods such as circulating petitions have been effective for motivating activism in the past. As for the scale of activity, past campaigns did achieve impressive and consequential scale without advanced ICTs, and other technological factors, such as lower-priced airfare, have been as significant as the information revolution in the increased degree of activism. In the case of the ICBL, Sikkink argued, the information revolution played an important facilitating role, but popular impressions of the campaign overestimate the importance of Jodie Williams and her use of email. Face-to-face meetings between activists and Canadian diplomats, traditional lobbying of American politicians, and a number of other personal contacts between individuals were just as essential for the movement?s success.
Several attendees suggested that ICTs may play a different role in campaigns outside of the more traditional issue areas of human rights, women?s rights, and the environment. One noted that in a study of Internet use among DES daughters (who may suffer reproductive abnormality because of their mothers? use of synthetic estrogen during pregnancy), the anonymity provided by technology actually allowed for a level of cohesion that would have been impossible in a face-to-face network. Another mentioned the example of cooperation between environmentalists and Teamsters in recent WTO protests, suggesting that the Internet allows disparate groups to work together when their goals overlap even if they would be unlikely to gather for a face-to-face meeting. In response, Sikkink noted that advocacy networks have historically produced strange bedfellows, but she acknowledged that the Internet may have unique characteristics that are particularly suited to certain campaigns and that some issues may be more amenable to virtual networks than face-to-face meetings.
Finally, one attendee suggested that a campaign?s location may play a significant role in the success of its activism. In a study of women?s groups in Russia, she found that the Internet served more as a neutral factor?it allowed certain activists to hook into international networks but could also isolate them from their local community. In the example of Chechnya, she noted, ample information on human rights violations is available on the Web, but Russian NGOs have not been able to link with international NGOs concerned with the issue, and they have failed to create a network that could effectively pressure foreign governments and international organizations. In cases such as China and Russia, she suggested, the state clearly plays a role in limiting the effectiveness of advocacy campaigns and their use of technology.
Sikkink agreed that location was important, and that many norms, such as human rights and democracy, are regionally bound and not yet equally influential worldwide. Still, she argued, one must consider that significant change in the international system takes time. Historians have been astounded at the speed of the anti-slavery campaign which effectively abolished a 3000-year-old practice in 100 years. If it took us only 100 years to end torture, she maintained, the result would constitute a huge victory for humankind.
Report prepared by Taylor Boas