This article argues that the current opposition to globalization is not a structural side effect of economic integration. Instead of assuming that globalization generates resistance, it stresses the political and interpretive processes that shape collective action. It substantiates this claim by studying the rise of an antiglobalization social movement organization called ATTAC in France. It holds that ATTAC's emergence is the product of political entrepreneurs whose actions were constrained by the ideational and organizational legacies of previous contentious episodes, particularly the December 1995 strikes. Finally, it contends that ATTAC's success stems in part from its ability to produce a hybrid discourse that marries state interventionism with participatory politics.
The study of the transnational transfer of practices and institutions generally looks at the intermediary and final stages of the process, with much less attention devoted to its initial steps. In contrast, this article theorizes the early part of the trajectory of transfer, conceptualized as the process through which local ideas and practices are turned into a “standard model,” which we term the process of standardization. Drawing upon the public policy and social movement literatures, we identify three potentially robust mechanisms as central to the process of standardization—certification, decontextualization, and framing—and apply this framework to two cases: the transnational spread of Truth and Reconciliation Commissions and the use of conditional cash transfers as a social policy instrument. We find that the key actors in shaping the content of these standards were neither the innovators nor the early adopters but intermediary entrepreneurs located at the intersection of a complex mix of state and nonstate networks.
What is 'context' and why does it matter? What are the different ways of conceptualizing the context of collective action? What are the trade-offs involved in choosing one conceptualization over another? With which explanatory strategies are these conceptualizations associated? This introduction addresses these questions and outlines the three conceptualizations of the relational context of collective action discussed in this special issue: field, space, and arena. In spite of some critiques, it argues that these three mesolevel conceptualizations depart from a purely 'movement-centric' perspective and offer promising leads for analyzing the relationship between collective action and its environment.
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