September 24 - December 3, 2001

Since the early 1990s, changes in the international system have brought citizens of the world closer together through economic and cultural globalization, new institutions of governance, and transnational forms of collective action, revealing and possibly increasing international inequalities. Of these trends, it is the "globalization" thesis that has received the largest amount of attention, with somewhat less work on international governance, and very little systematic work on transnational contention. The empirical methods developed in study of contentious politics over the last three decades has not been used to understand the processes and effects of transnational contention. The cost has been to collapse nearly all forms of transnational contention into a reflex of economic globalization; to underspecify the role of states and international institutions; to work from generic concepts like "global civil society;" and to ignore important variations in the actors and mechanisms of transnational mobilization.

This research workshop on transnational contention shifts ground, regarding globalization as a background variable, while focusing centrally on transnational mobilization, defined as the mobilization of social or political actors from more than one society on behalf of common goals against other actors, states, or international institutions. We suspect that would-be transnational mobilizers face acute collective action problems that they can overcome by seeking access to the resources, opportunities, and incentives offered by third-party states and international institutions. As this occurs, there is a shift from domestic social movement contention to the more contained strategies of transnational umbrella groups and federations. Thus, rather than responding in lock-step to "globalization," transnational activists adapt to the political opportunities and constraints of third-party states and international institutions to represent the interests of those they claim to represent. This project combines a research program exploring these issues with a workshop bringing in top scholars in the field.

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"The World Bank Inspection Panel: Lessons from the First Five Years," and "Vertically Integrated Policy Monitoring: A Tool for Civil Society Policy Advocacy"
10:00 am - 153 Uris Hall

Jonathan Fox
University of California, Santa Cruz
Associate Professor
Latin American and Latino Studies

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"The International Trade Union Campaign for Core Labor Standards in the WTO"
10:00 am - 153 Uris Hall

Mark Anner
Department of Government
Cornell University

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"When Networks Blind: Human Rights and Politics in Kenya"
10:00 am - 153 Uris Hall

Hans Peter Schmitz
Syracuse University
Assistant Professor
Department of Political Science

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"Transnationalism, Ethnic Politics, and Indigenous Activism in Latin America: Opportunities, Constraints, and Contradictions"
10:00 am - 153 Uris Hall

Deborah Yashar
Princeton University
Assistant Professor
Department of Politics and International Affairs

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"Globalization and Political Contention: Transnational Organization, Shifting Identities and Solidarity Building," and "Changes in the Transnational Social Movement Organization Sector in the Post-Cold War Era: A Preliminary Analysis"
10:00 am - 153 Uris Hall

Jackie Smith
State University of New York, Stony Brook
Assistant Professor
Department of Sociology

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"Rooted Cosmopolitans: Transnational Activists in a World of States"
10:00 am - 153 Uris Hall

Sidney Tarrow
Cornell University
Maxwell M. Upson Professor of Government and Sociology