Publication Date
Summer 2011
Document Type
Article
Abstract
Transnational advocacy networks (TANs) receive increasing attention in international relations, but little has been written so far about the initial formation of networks and the ways concerned organizations or individuals build a transnational coalition. Difficulties of group mobilization pose a particular puzzle: Why do actors in one country organize around an issue in another country, especially when the resolution of the issue apparently benefits only local actors? When do national/international groups become active and how do local actors facilitate their mobilization? In this paper I argue that in order to get support from international organizations, local groups acting as entrepreneurs will frame the issue in a way attractive to the international organization. I apply concepts of interest group formation and mobilization to the case of the transnational advocacy network that formed in response to near-extermination of black-necked swans in the Carlos Anwandter Natural Sanctuary in southern Chile after the opening of a pulp mill in 2004.
Recommended Citation
Christina Kiel, “How Transnational Advocacy Networks Mobilize: Applying the Literature on Interest Groups to International Action,” Josef Korbel Journal of Advanced International Studies 3 (Summer 2011): 77-101.