Transnational Normative Struggles and Globalization: The Case of Indigenous Peoples in Bolivia and Ecuador

Abstract

Since the 1990s, the indigenous rights movement has catapulted from resource-poor, local activists to global activists. The rise of transnational indigenous rights movements has paralleled and interfaced with significant structural developments at the international and state-systemic level, raising questions about the interplay between global and local politics as arenas of social change. To trace these transnational networks to the articulation of norms supportive of indigenous claims, we examine two cases of transnational indigenous activism and domestic responses in the Andean region of South America. We find that the additional dimension of domestic and transnational mobilization that first contests existing international norms, such as neoliberalism and individual rights, and then seeks to diffuse normative changes at both the domestic and international levels provides new insight about norm formation, transformation, and diffusion in international politics in favor of anti-globalization and community equality norms on local, national, and global levels.