Keeping Your Enemies Close? The Variety of Social Movements’ Reactions to International Organizations’ Opening Up

Abstract

Starting in the 1990s, international organizations (IOs) have created various opportunities of access for civil society to voice criticism. While international relations (IR) scholarship has increasingly addressed the resulting interaction between IOs and civil society with a focus on NGOs, we know little about the particular reactions to IOs’ opening up by social movements. This paper analyzes reactions to opening up by a transnational social movement centrally addressing IOs: the Global Justice Movement (GJM). Examining reactions by different groups of the GJM in Europe and Southeast Asia to IOs’ opening up, we demonstrate that reactions differ considerably depending on activists’ assessments of the nature of opening up. In particular, we identify four pathways of reactions on a continuum from (1) strong cooperation with IOs as a reaction to opening up, (2) temporally limited cooperation with different IOs, (3) a hybrid reaction that combines cooperation with specific IOs with a strong opposition to other IOs in reaction to their opening up, to (4) a continuous rejection of all cooperation with IOs. We show how these different reactions are shaped by activists’ perceptions of the quality of the international opening up in conjunction with national and local context factors. Furthermore, our analysis demonstrates that such perceptions can significantly change over time depending on experiences of interactions. Reactions to opening up are therefore not predictable on the basis of a movement's shape and resources only, but rather depend on a variety of factors such as the movement's perception of the IO's sincerity in a strategic and consequential interaction, as well as the movement's ideological framework and its history of interaction with institutions at other levels, especially in the domestic realm.

Civil Society at the United Nations Through the Lens of Organizational Sociology: Exclusion and Temporariness

“…Practice theory can blend document analysis with participant observation (Cornut and de Zamaróczy 2021) allowing for an epistemological shift to explore non-Western or small IOs including country offices (Holthaus 2021). Anderl, Daphi, and Deitelhoff (2021) analyze the reactions to the opening up of IOs by a transnational social movement. On the one hand, they show how reactions are shaped by activists' perceptions of the quality of the international opening up in conjunction with national and local context factors.…”

Politik auf der Straße? Zum Forschungsstand zu sozialen Bewegungen, Protest und Zivilgesellschaft

“…2021 , Vüllers und Hellmeier 2022 ) und Repression (Grimm 2022 ; Opp und Roehl 1990 ; Reinisch 2023 ; Ullrich 2014 ), das Aufkommen von Rechtsaußen-Bewegungsparteien (Minkenberg 2019 ) sowie die Rolle von politischem Aktivismus in der internationalen Politik (Anderl et al. 2021 ; Holzscheiter 2020 ). Frühere deutschsprachige Beiträge zum Stand der Bewegungs- und Protestforschung boten explizite Ratschläge an die Forschungsgemeinschaft (Koopmans 1995 ; Rucht 2011 ; Teune 2008 ).…”

“…K mata einhergehenden Vor-und Nachteile könnte die Forschung nach dem Einfluss sozialer Bewegungen auch für die AkteurInnen selbst relevanter machen. Minkenberg 2019) sowie die Rolle von politischem Aktivismus in der internationalen Politik(Anderl et al 2021;Holzscheiter 2020). Frühere deutschsprachige Beiträge zum Stand der Bewegungs-und Protestforschung boten explizite Ratschläge an die Forschungsgemeinschaft(Koopmans 1995;Rucht 2011;Teune 2008).…”

How trust is lost: the Food Systems Summit 2021 and the delegitimation of UN food governance

“…Activists ask themselves: is this institutional opening occurring in good faith, or is it fuelled by a strategy to co-opt adversaries? A movement's assessment of this question will crucially affect its reaction to institutional opening up (Anderl et al, 2021(Anderl et al, : 1278. Institutional trust is therefore of central importance for the legitimacy politics of IOs, particularly for engaging with external critics.…”

“…However, there used to be one notable exception to this trend: the United Nations (UN) food governance institutions. Particularly, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) was an exception because it credibly opened up with a plan to transform itself through dialogue (Anderl et al, 2021(Anderl et al, : 1288. Even though the FAO had been seen as an opponent rather than a partner until the food crisis in 2007-2008, the IO put serious effort into a process that was seen as credible by civil society actors, particularly farmers' movements, because its opening up was interpreted as a long-term dialogue involving fundamental discussions about the nature of food production and representation of farmers.…”