Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
integrated strategy that includes targeting the UNCSD and the specifi c
treaty organizations that are relevant to their interests.
International Institutions and Social Movements
International policy frameworks provide models of appropriate nation-
state behavior that can be leveraged by social movement organizations
and other NGOs to pressure their governments to change (Boli and
Thomas 1997; Meyer et al. 1997; Finnemore and Sikkink 1998; Frank,
Hironaka, and Schofer 2000). Although social movement scholars have
long emphasized the “outsider” status that social movements and other
nonstate actors hold vis-à-vis institutional centers of policymaking
(Tarrow 1998), recent scholarship has shown that movement groups and
nonstate actors often work on the inside of such structures (Zald 2000;
Caniglia 2001; Pellow 2007; Roberts and Parks 2007). International
institutions, in particular, are often described as being in a symbiotic
relationship with NGOs, governments, and intergovernmental organiza-
tion (IGO) personnel (Gordenker and Weiss 1995; Risse-Kappen 1995;
Willetts 1996, 2006). And nonstate actors, especially NGOs, are often
given credit for pushing nation-states toward universal standards by the
work they do inside IGOs in articulating progressive visions for the
future (Boli and Thomas 1997; Finnemore and Sikkink 1998; Caniglia
and Sarabia 2003).
There are skeptics and critics who argue that NGOs and social move-
ment groups should avoid joining forces with international institutions,
because their goals may be moderated or co-opted by policymaking
authorities (Riker 1995; Fisher 1997; Third World Network 2004;
Gordenker and Weiss 1995). Others highlight the powerful infl uence
“outsider” strategies can yield by bringing media attention to grievances
and mobilizing conscience constituents on behalf of movement goals
(Skolnick 1969; Meyers 2006; McCarthy and Zald 1977, 1987). As
David Meyers (2006) points out, however, insider and outsider strategies
can work together to move decision makers in more progressive direc-
tions than either strategy can achieve in isolation. The
radical fl ank
effect
, where protests and demonstrations outside policymaking institu-
tions serve to move decision makers toward more moderate advocates
inside policymaking institutions (McAdam 1982 Haines 1984; Jenkins
and Ekert 1986; Minkoff 1994; Meyers 2006), is equally important to
international policymaking as it has been shown to be for American
social movements.
