Conceptualizing the Power of Transnational Agents: Pragmatism and International Public Spheres

Abstract

What power is available to non-governmental organizations and social movements to influence international decision-making? Not only have formal international organizations proliferated in the last century, but international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) and social movements have as well. Theories and approaches exist to explain the origins of international organizations and their operation in world politics, but the origin and role of INGOs and social movements is undertheorized by comparison. Can we make a claim about INGOs similar to that Ian Hurd makes about international institutions: that international politics is “carried out using tools derived from or controlled” by these actors? (2005, p. 496) This chapter argues that the existing literature on INGOs needs both bridging and augmentation to answer this question. Openness to an alternative idea of international relations as a social science will be required as will a conceptual tool that can demonstrate the unique nature of power that these non-state actors wield in world politics. To these ends, an idea of pragmatist social science and the concept of international public spheres (IPSs) will be introduced and developed. It is difficult to trace these transnational actors and their effects in world politics. Their influence is constructed through diffuse networks of intersocial relations within and between states. Also, their ‘interests’ are not defined by the agendas of states or by bureaucratic culture so much as by a principled concern with the welfare of individuals and associated groups who are themselves seldom heard or seen in international decision-making. Neither the subjects – individuals – nor the normative nature of their interests is easy to chart within realist, neo-realist, liberal or neo-liberal approaches. However, two literatures, with little, if any, regular contact or exchange, are engaged in this kind of activity: constructivism and normative theory. My central argument is that those who study INGOs and social movements must recognize that international norms, the foundation from which these actors are able to leverage power, are at once facts and values that require sociological as well as moral-philosophical investigation. However, neither constructivism nor normative theory has a demonstrated ability to provide this breadth of analysis. Can we bring these literatures together to gain a fuller picture of the power available to these actors? Are they compatible? I will argue that while they are not incompatible, their