The Transnationalization of Social Movements: Trends, Causes, Problems

Abstract

Analogous to the shift from local to national social movement activity that began centuries ago (Tilly 1984), today we are witnessing a gradual shift from national to transnational movement activity (Smith, Pagnucco and Romeril 1994). In an analytical perspective, this trend toward the ‘transnationalization’ of social movement activities may be divided into two aspects, as laid out in the introduction to this volume. On the one hand, transnationalization affects national and subnational movements. Most chapters in this volume have dealt with this first perspective. On the other hand, we have witnessed the growth of transnational social movements that tend to focus on transnational problems and/or problems in a particular country, as exemplified by several other chapters in this volume.

I wrote an earlier version of this chapter as a Sawyer Fellow at the Advanced Study Center at the International Institute of the University of Michigan. I am grateful to organizers of the seminar ‘Social Movements and Social Change in a Globalizing World’ for providing me with this opportunity Thanks also to Hanspeter Kriesi, Donatella della Porta and Jackie Smith for comments on earlier versions of the chapter and to Miguel Glatzer and Paul Statham for providing editorial assistance.