Transnational Non-state Actors Research Articles

Transnational Private Actors Shaping the Policy and Practice of Child Institutionalisation

We provide an overview of transnational non-state actors and their agency that shape today’s out-of-home childcare around the world, specifically institutional residential childcare. Based on existing studies and desktop research, we reveal a broad range of complexly inter-related for-profit and non-profit actors promoting diverse, often conflicting policies and practices – with ambiguous implications for children in care. We focus on secular and faith-based international non-governmental organisations, transnational companies, private regulators, and individuals. Many of them promote family- and community-based care, yet many others support orphanages and other forms of institutional care. The growing number of transnational actors in residential childcare, the emergence of private regulatory frameworks, the advance of market-based, for-profit players, and the involvement of well-resourced religious communities make the future of child institutionalisation uncertain. We discuss how this transnational agency compares with other policy fields and propose directions for future investigations of how transnationalism impacts children in care.

The Inadvertent Influence of Peacekeeping and Peace Support Operations on Ghana’s Armed Forces

ABSTRACT Ghana’s Armed Forces (GAF) have demonstrated an aptitude for tackling insecurity, professionalism, and the capacity to contribute to and support United Nations-led Peacekeeping Operations (PKOs) and African Peace Support Operations (PSOs). Displaying its preparedness to deal with emerging challenges during these missions has gained GAF recognition as an active African force involved in peace and security matters and, more broadly, peacekeeping and PSOs across the African continent. However, Ghana and, more specifically, the GAF face numerous evolving threats, ranging from transnational non-state actors and violent extremism to domestic insurgencies. This paper argues that while GAFs have built a wealth of knowledge in peacekeeping, this expertise is not reflected in a similar ability to tackle Ghana’s emerging threats since GAFs’ development has focused primarily on capabilities gained from PKOs and PSOs, impacting the forces approach when dealing with new internal threats.

The digital blender: conceptualizing the political economic nexus of digital technologies and authoritarian practices

ABSTRACT This article develops the concept of the digital blender to comprehensively address the extent to which digital technologies further authoritarian practices and power beyond the state. By focusing on the primarily commercial nature of digital technologies, and their reciprocal transformational political economic embeddedness, the digital blender allows to highlight the role of private companies in enabling practices that are detrimental to democratic values and processes, irrespective of the formal regime-type context of a given polity, and less confined by national borders. While previous discussions primarily focus on digital technologies as mere tools at the discretion of their master, this relational perspective allows for the incorporation of transnational non-state actors and dynamics in constituting and contesting manifestations of authoritarian power beyond the state. These dynamics will be illustrated and discussed in light of insights into recent incidents involving companies such as Cambridge Analytica, Meta Platforms Inc., and the NSO Group.

Why populism may facilitate non-state actors’ access to international environmental institutions

ABSTRACT This article examines populists’ relationship with non-state actors in international environmental agreements (IEAs). We ask whether populist governments favor transnational non-state actors’ access to these institutions. Using data on the design of IEAs since the 1970s, evidence is reported suggesting that populists seek to institutionalize non-state actors’ access to IEAs. To explain this relationship, we argue that populist governments likely want to reduce and undermine the influence of established elites, also in international institutions. To this end, they may want to institutionalize access of their own constituents within IEAs. The empirical implication of this claim is that institutionalized access of non-state actors in IEAs is more likely when populist governments are involved. The empirical results provide strong and robust support for our argument, and these findings contribute to our knowledge in a number of areas of environmental politics and political science in general.

Forum: New Perspectives on Transnational Non-State Actors—A Forum Honoring the Work of Thomas Risse

AbstractThis forum seeks to honor the contributions of a scholar who has greatly influenced international relations (IR) scholarship on transnational relations and constructivist research: Thomas Risse. Best known for his pathbreaking studies on the importance of transnational actors, the power of international norms and ideas in international relations, and the influence of domestic structures on international interactions, his work has significantly contributed to several interrelated research agendas within IR. The forum takes a fresh look at some of his contributions, focusing on assumptions about the nature of non-state actors, the content of human rights, and the evolution of knowledge that underpin his work. Interrogating especially some of the liberal assumptions that have informed these lines of research, we ask: are we still dealing with the same kinds of non-state actors that Thomas Risse and early constructivist research have analyzed? How has the nature of these actors changed, and how has this affected the processes and mechanisms by which they shape transnational politics? To what extent do these changes require different research methodologies? And, finally, which directions for future research on non-state actors, human rights, and constructivism emerge from these discussions?

National and transnational non-state actors: Strategic dimensions and regional security threats to CPEC

China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a ‘flagship Project’ of China’s wide-ranging and most advanced scheme of development initiated under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The project ranges from investment to infrastructure development in various sectors with an investment of $62 billion in Pakistan. However, the existential fact is that this project is not only restricted to economic growth and trade linkages. It has more strategic dimensions and arguably a strategic instrument in the hand of the Chinese to exponentially increase its influence from the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea. It is, undoubtedly, rapidly changing the regional apparatus in general and South Asia in Particular. This change on one side is creating space for multiple opportunities not only for Pakistan but at the same time offering bounties to regional countries, but on the other hand security threats and asymmetrical propaganda is on the rise against the CPEC. The most significant aspect which is being neglected in this scenario is the ever-increasing activities of non-state actors which are operating surreptitiously in Pakistan as well as its neighborhood. The presence of ISIS, Baloch insurgency, and TTP are a potential threat and their close nexus and support from inside and outside the country have substantially been proofed. Thus, the current research is divided into two parts. The first part argues that the CPEC project is no doubt a security-oriented, geopolitically, and strategically driven endeavor but predominantly linked with economic growth and regional connectivity. The second part deals with the potential threats to the CPEC posed by the national and transnational non-state actors.

Faith-Based Transnational Actors and Peacebuilding: An Analysis of the Role Of Nahdlatul Ulama in Afghanistan’s Peace Process

After the end of the Cold War, the idea of peacebuilding has been central to the main narrative within the study of international peace. For a significant period, the narrative was dominated by liberal and secular approaches which put state as the primary actor in peacebuilding processes. Nevertheless, many cases show that non-state actors, in particular faith-based transnational actors, might have contributed significantly to the conflict transformation mechanism through their faith-based peacebuilding activities. This article explores the modification that Rüland, von Lübke, and Baumann have made on Lederach’s concept on peacebuilding, which categorises peacebuilding processes into two dimensions: conflict evolution and crisis intervention. The first dimension of conflict evolution focuses on the identification of the root causes of the conflict and its development, while the second dimension is more concerned with the management of conflict and its transformation, as well as its impacts to the peace establishment process in certain areas. Referring to the Indonesian Nahdlatul Ulama’s involvement in the Afghanistan peacebuilding process, this article shows how the model offered by Rüland, von Lübke, and Baumann can well explain the opportunity transnational non-state actors have to contribute significantly to promote the establishment of peace in conflict areas.

Threats at Home and Abroad: Interstate War, Civil War, and Alliance Formation

AbstractIn the current era, many of the military threats that state leaders face come from domestic and transnational nonstate actors. Military alliances are recognized as an important policy strategy to counter military threats, but existing research has primarily been focused on threats from other states and has difficulty uncovering a consistent relationship between external threat and alliance formation. We argue that this discrepancy arises from the failure to recognize that many threats are not external to the state. We contend that alliance formation is motivated both by external threats from other states and by internal threats that make civil conflict more likely. Moreover, we argue that leaders design alliance obligations differently when faced with internal threats. An empirical analysis of alliance formation from 1946 to 2009 shows that while external threats motivate the formation of defense pacts, internal threats encourage the formation of consultation pacts. Internal threats with the greatest potential for internationalization also encourage the formation of neutrality/nonaggression pacts. This research deepens our understanding of how states design security policies to deal with the threats posed by nonstate actors, a salient concern of leaders in the twenty-first century, and helps us to understand the variety of alliance obligations that we observe.

Non-State Actors 'Under Color of Law:' Closing a Gap in Protection Under the Convention Against Torture

The prohibition against torture is one of the most universally accepted principles of international law. Yet, the world is experiencing a global restructuring that poses a serious threat to international efforts to prevent and protect against torture. The rise of powerful transnational non-State actors such as gangs, drug cartels, militias, and terrorist organizations is challenging States’ authority to control and govern their territory. Many of these non-State actors commit torture with alarming impunity. This global power restructuring is testing the ability of U.S. laws to protect those fleeing torture, especially in light of the fact that State actors (as opposed to private or non-State actors) are the primary subject of most of our international and domestic torture jurisprudence. In the U.S., those seeking protection against deportation under the Convention Against Torture (the “CAT”) must establish a likelihood of torture at the instigation of or by consent or acquiescence of a public official acting in an official capacity or other person acting in an official capacity. For example, if an individual faces torture by a police officer or other government official for non-lawful purposes, this person must not be returned to that particular country. CAT protection is still warranted even if a private actor (such as a gang member) will likely torture the individual as long as the torture is done with the actual knowledge, consent or acquiescence of a state actor, such as a police officer. However, what is meant by “other person acting in an official capacity” such that torturous acts by non-State actors fall under Torture Convention protection remains unclear under U.S. CAT jurisprudence. In other words, to what extent might actions by non-State actors become “State-like” such that the CAT should apply. What if private actors are de facto controlling certain areas of a country untouchable by State actors? Or, what if non-State actors’ authority and presence are so significant and intertwined with State authority such that torture is occurring with impunity? Indeed, for the latter scenario, the applicant may establish CAT eligibility by showing a State actor’s acquiescence or consent. However, such cases are difficult to prove if the State excuses its inaction on its inability to protect victims from harm perpetrated by private actors. This is particularly true under current U.S. jurisprudence on government acquiescence, in which some federal courts have found that a mere inability to protect victims is not enough to meet acquiescence to the torture. This article identifies a major chasm in U.S. CAT jurisprudence that allows individuals to be deported back to countries where they face likely torture. This article argues that resolving failures in U.S. CAT acquiescence jurisprudence addresses part of the problem as it relates to torture by private actors. However, this is only half of the bridge across the chasm. The other half requires a look at when non-State actors are acting State-like such that they should fall within the separate CAT provision of “other person acting in an official capacity.” While many aspects of the CAT has been litigated, clarified, and developed through case law since the U.S. ratified the CAT, the question of whether and when a non-State actor can be deemed an “other person acting in an official capacity” under the CAT within the United States jurisprudence lacks scholarship or case law. We make the novel argument that courts and agencies should apply factors employed in civil rights claims (also known as 1983 claims) to assess whether a non-State actor can act in an official capacity or under color of law. Doing so will help fill a critical gap in U.S. CAT protections, and thereby prevent the refoulement of individuals facing likely torture.

Peaceful Borders and Illicit Transnational Flows in the Americas

This article introduces an analytical framework to explain the coexistence of peaceful borders and illicit transnational flows as evidenced by drug trafficking, human trafficking and smuggling, weapons trafficking, and terrorism in the Americas, a region characterized by international peace, domestic peace, and regional integration. Under the assumption that peaceful relations among neighboring countries enable the incursion of transnational nonstate actors across their borders, the article poses this main question: Under which conditions might peaceful borders enable illicit transnational flows? There is much more variance in the incidence of these illicit transnational flows across borders than in the existence of international peace. The article examines two major variables: the degree of governance and institutional strength of the bordering states; and the prevalent socioeconomic conditions of the bordering states.

The Structure of Coordination: Transatlantic Policy Networks and the Mobilization of Business and Civil Society

AbstractExternal policy networks resolve two collective action problems in EU external relations: engaging nonstate actors from the EU and its partner countries in transnational policymaking and converting this engagement to feedback for policymakers. We use formal network analysis to understand the relationship between network structure and collective action by transnational nonstate actors. Our empirical focus is on the Transatlantic Business Council and the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue networks, which engage business and consumer advocacy organizations in transatlantic economic policymaking. We find that both are highly centralized around EU and US government institutions, with relatively low, but rising, levels of interaction among nonstate organizations. This structure helps increase engagement by giving organizations opportunities to interact with government institutions, learn from their peers, and, for some, to exercise power. It also helps EU and US institutions harness policy feedback, especially from nonstate actors that have frequent interactions with their peers.

Civic Space: Shrinking from the outside in?

Las restricciones a las ONG y otras entidades que promueven las libertades civiles han causado alarma sobre el espacio cívico cada vez más reducido establecido en sus regímenes internos. Sin embargo, debido a que la mayoría de los campamentos en las sociedades civiles del mundo no son molestados (de hecho, muchos están creciendo) y debido a que las fuentes de restricción no domésticas a menudo desempeñan un papel decisivo, existen razones para repensar los problemas y preguntar cómo y para quién los espacios civiles adquieren forma. En este artículo exploratorio, se llama la atención sobre las fuerzas puestas en movimiento desde los niveles centrales y transnacionales que afectan a los espacios cívicos: la titulización, las limitaciones al trabajo organizado, la comercialización de actores transnacionales no estatales, la desvinculación ciudadana impulsada por la reducción del Estado y las redes sociales. Como se ha problematizado en la mayoría de los escritos políticos, activistas y académicos, las fuerzas externas que afectan al espacio cívico para los campamentos de emancipación a menudo se ignoran, a pesar de que resultan más susceptibles a la contrarrestación externa que los regímenes represivos. Estas cuestiones esperan una investigación y discusión más profundas.

Framing the Narrative: Female Fighters, External Audience Attitudes, and Transnational Support for Armed Rebellions

Female combatants play a central role in rebel efforts to cultivate and disseminate positive narratives regarding the movement and its political goals. Yet, the effectiveness of such strategies in shaping audience attitudes or generating tangible benefits for the group remains unclear. We propose and test a theory regarding the channels through which female fighters advance rebel goals. We argue that female fighters positively influence audience attitudes toward rebel groups by strengthening observers’ beliefs about their legitimacy and their decision to use armed tactics. We further contend that these effects directly help them secure support from transnational nonstate actors and indirectly promote state support. We assess our arguments by combining a novel survey experiment in two countries with analyses of new cross-national data on female combatants and information about transnational support for rebels. The empirical results support our arguments and demonstrate the impact of gender framing on rebel efforts to secure support.

Transnational non-state actors as “alt agents” of public diplomacy: Putin’s Russia versus Open Russia

This paper argues that non-state actors (NSAs) that challenge their respective states can claim a stake in their country’s public diplomacy by introducing and promoting narratives that (a) disrupt the official state-supported narratives and (b) present a more complex picture of their country-of-origin to the foreign publics. To conceptualize this type of engagement with foreign audiences, this project proposes the term “alternative agents” or “alt agents” of non-state public diplomacy. The paper combines Kelley’s (Agency change: diplomatic action beyond the state, Owman & Littlefield, London, 2014) framework of diplomatic capabilities of NSAs with Miskimmon et al. (Strategic narratives: communication power and the new world order, Routledge, New York, 2014) concept of strategic narratives to develop the definition of alt agents of public diplomacy. Using the case study of the transnational movement Open Russia, the paper illustrates how the work of alt agents aimed at connecting with foreign constituencies in order to achieve their political goals might look like in practice. The paper contributes to the scholarship on non-state public diplomacy by engaging with the relatively unexplored question of the role of adversarial non-state actors in public diplomacy, and the dynamic of their engagement with foreign stakeholders.

When elites and outlaws do philanthropy: on the limits of private vices for public benefit

In the last decade, elitist philanthropy exploded in certain parts of the West and so did philanthropy of outlaw motorcycle clubs. The question is, under what conditions does philanthropy become an effective strategy of legitimization of one’s power in society? Neoliberalism did not only result in extreme inequality, weakening of the state, and emergence of increasingly disillusioned population, but also enabled philanthropy to become an effective strategy of legitimization of the informal power of both billionaires and criminal organizations alike. Philanthropy became instrumental both to image management in face of crises of reputation and to the insertion of these transnational non-state actors into governance. The destructive effects of neoliberalism allowed both groups to grow, and to reproduce and accelerate the very conditions in which they thrive, thus further weakening the state and fuelling inequality. The argument counters popular narratives about how private vices and greed can serve public benefit.

The Ethics of Insurgency

In the latter half of the twentieth century, lasting memories of two world wars and astonishment over the power of nuclear weapons left both policymakers and scholars of war largely preoccupied with the possibility of a catastrophic World War III. Instead, however, the face of war since 1945 has been that of regionally limited small wars and insurgencies fought with conventional weapons. Many of these conflicts began as armed rebellions against colonial regimes, but often later evolved into armed conflicts between and among various subgroups seeking control of state government. Such conflicts have usually been asymmetrical, with the party holding the reins of state power using aircraft, artillery, and armored vehicles, while those fighting against the regime have been limited to weapons that individuals can carry, such as automatic rifles, mortars, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, and improvised weapons of various sorts. The asymmetries have also typically gone deeper, with the fighters on the former side wearing uniforms and those on the latter often not; those on the former side making use of fortified bases and those on the latter side protecting themselves by blending in with the civilian population. Further, there have frequently been asymmetries in how each side has fought, with the militarily weaker side relying on stealth tactics, deception, and attacks against nonmilitary targets of more general public value, including direct attacks on people protected as noncombatants under the laws of war. The particular range of tactics classified as terrorism begins at this point, with the specific, direct, and intentional targeting of noncombatants. Such attacks not only have been the means of choice for transnational nonstate actors, including al-Qaeda and the self-styled Islamic State, but have also been used to considerable effect in local civil wars.

The Origins of African Alliances - Examining Security Cooperation in Sub-Saharan Africa Against Threats from Transnational Non-State Actors: The Case of Boko Haram

Security cooperation against Boko Haram has lacked substance, this despite the growing lethality of the terrorist group in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger. Why? This dissertation examines the collective behaviour of Lake Chad Basin Commission – LCBC countries (Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger) and more broadly Sub-Saharan African countries against transnational non-state actors such as Boko Haram (in the case of LCBC countries). By linking the security behaviour exhibited by most Sub-Saharan African countries (like the LCBC countries) to the ramifications of the post-colonial political order, I find that decolonization legacies play a role in threat identification and alliance choices in Sub-Saharan Africa. As a result, African efforts to cooperate against such threats as Boko Haram have been marred by the lack of trust among the different political regimes and their disparate interests and priorities in connection to the postcolonial political arrangements. This dynamic emerges out of a path-dependent survivalism common to Sub-Saharan Africa; African countries which are unwilling and often unable to cooperate with each other are so because of the exigencies of their histories, mostly evident in the presence of the same political regimes as well as the entertainment of close links with former colonial countries.

Filling a Leaking Bathtub? Peacekeeping in Africa and the Challenge of Transnational Armed Rebellions

ABSTRACTThis research addresses the issue of transnational civil wars and United Nations peace operations in Africa and seeks to understand what is wrong with the current practices of international peacekeeping and why they underperform when confronted to transnational non-state actors. Based on a dynamic approach to armed conflicts and quantitative data, this paper finds that the current international peacekeeping practices are inadequate in the African context where porous borders and competing weak states dominate. It argues that border control should become a primary concern of every peace operation deployed in Africa.

Finance for achieving low-carbon development in Asia: the past, present, and prospects for the future

Finance has become a crucial agenda in climate change negotiations in recent years. Meanwhile, multilateral negotiations on climate change as a whole are making meager progress, and increasingly observed are activities by national governments and transnational non-state actors. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how investment towards low-carbon development could be materialized in Asia. A thorough review of current financial assistance for developing countries in Asia was conducted, and the amount of funding proved to be relatively modest to achieve the aim. We then examined financial policy instruments that could be implemented in the region. We estimated that USD125–149 billion per year would be needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the region by 2035. We also estimated that more than a half of this amount of funding could be achieved by public sector if several key policy instruments were agreed upon and enacted at regional and national levels in Asia. The role of private sector investment was also found to be indispensable in fulfilling all the long-term investment needs related to climate mitigation in the region.

Transnational organisations and security

The fields of international relations and criminology analyse security from different directions, but both have had a dominant focus on states and state agencies until recently. Even as they looked at a wider range of actors as security providers, an important category of security actors has not been analysed so far – ‘non-violent’ transnational organisations. Transnational non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and transnational corporations (TNCs) are not security organisations per se, but the strategies these transnational non-state actors pursue in response to violence affect security for both themselves and the societies in which they operate. We argue here that security at the local level is an outcome of interactions among diverse actors including transnational organisations and call for a research agenda focused on how transnational actors choose their response to insecurity and how those choices affect security governance.