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The Concept of Transnational Advocacy Network: The case of the Save Darfur Coalition

The Concept of Transnational Advocacy Network: The case of the Save Darfur Coalition. Nikolaos Tzifakis , Lecturer, Department of Political Science and International Relations, University of Peloponnese. Definition/Features: Transnational Advocacy Network.

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The Concept of Transnational Advocacy Network: The case of the Save Darfur Coalition

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  1. The Concept of Transnational Advocacy Network:The case of the Save Darfur Coalition NikolaosTzifakis, Lecturer, Department of Political Science and International Relations, University of Peloponnese

  2. Definition/Features: Transnational Advocacy Network • Forms of transnational collective action: • International NGO – Transnational Advocacy Network – Transnational Coalition – Transnational Social Movement • forms of organization characterized by voluntary, reciprocal, and horizontal patterns of communication and exchange • communicative structures • political spaces • Major actors in advocacy networks may include the following: (1) international and domestic nongovernmental research and advocacy organizations; (2) local social movements; (3) foundations; (4) the media; (5) churches, trade unions, consumer organizations, and intellectuals; (6) parts of regional and international intergovernmental organizations; (7) parts of the executive and/or parliamentary branches of governments.

  3. International Aids vaccine initiative

  4. US Social Forum

  5. When do transnational advocacy networks emerge? Boomerang or spiral model

  6. How do transnational advocacy networks emerge? • Problems • Issues • Campaign Issue definition Political entrepreneurs Issue adoption Gatekeepers

  7. The work of transnational advocacy networks Typologies of tactics (1) information politics • Information creation vs. information distribution (2) symbolic politics • Frames, both what they say and what they do (3) leverage politics • Material leverage and moral leverage (4) accountability politics • Monitoring and litigation

  8. Stages of Transnational Advocacy Network Influence (1) issue creation and agenda setting; (2) influence on discursive positions of states and international organizations; (3) influence on institutional procedures; (4) influence on policy change in “target actors”; (5) influence on state behavior.

  9. Enabling conditions for the exercise of influence by transnational advocacy networks Issue Characteristics ideas about right and wrong, causes that can be assigned to the intentional actions of identifiable individuals, issues involving bodily harm to vulnerable individuals, issues involving legal equality of opportunity ActorCharacteristics Target actors: vulnerability of sensitivity Activists: moral authority Political opportunity structure Domestic vs. international

  10. Internal dynamics of transnational advocacy networks North vs. South asymmetries South vs. South asymmetries Senders vs. receiving-end activists Seed or Kernel Gatekeepers

  11. The Save Darfur Coalition 19 March 2004: MukeshKapila, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan told the BBC: I was present in Rwanda at the time of the genocide, and I’ve seen many other situations around the world and I am totally shocked at what is going on in Darfur […] This is ethnic cleansing, this is the world’s greatest humanitarian crisis, and I don’t know why the world isn’t doing more about it.

  12. The Save Darfur Coalition 24 March 2004: Nicholas Kristof, New York Times columnist: ‘The most vicious ethnic cleansing you’ve never heard of’

  13. The Save Darfur Coalition 7 April 2004: KofiAnnan, UN Secretary-General, used the occasion of the Rwandan genocide anniversary to make an appeal to the international community for action in Darfur: But let us not wait until the worst has happened, or is already happening. Let us not wait until the only alternatives to military action are futile hand-wringing or callous indifference. Let us, Mr. Chairman, be serious about preventing genocide. Only so can we honour the victims whom we remember today. Only so can we save those who might be victims tomorrow.

  14. The Save Darfur Coalition 14 July 2004: Darfur Emergency Summit

  15. The Save Darfur Coalition Members: over 180 humanitarian, human rights and religious organizations (e.g. American Evangelical Christian churches, NGOs, Jewish and African-American organizations and student unions), celebrities 2010: Facebook 1,282,339 members   Fundraising: 2004, more than $15 million 2006, $50 million adds and mobilization

  16. The Save Darfur Coalition

  17. The Save Darfur Coalition Protests

  18. The Save Darfur Coalition Frames: genocide & holocaust NesseGodin, Holocaust survivor and member of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, op-ed: As a survivor of the Holocaust, I have a special responsibility […] to the people of Darfur. […] Every time I speak about my experiences during the Holocaust, I also speak about Darfur. […] Six decades ago, the world was horrified. The world claimed that it had not known about the Holocaust. It was not true then, nor is it true now about Darfur. When are we going to learn the lessons of the Holocaust? When are we going to recognize our individual and national responsibility to put an end to genocide? When will we stop merely saying “never again” and start acting on “not this time?”

  19. The Save Darfur Coalition Frames: genocide & holocaust 14 September 2006, George Clooney, speaking in front of the UN Security Council: I'm here to represent the voices of the people who cannot speak for themselves […] So, after September 30th, you won’t need the U.N. You will simply need men with shovels and bleached white linen and headstones. In many ways, it’s unfair, but it is, nevertheless, true that this genocide will be on your watch. How you deal with it will be your legacy, your Rwanda, your Cambodia, your Auschwitz

  20. The Save Darfur Coalition Frames: genocide & holocaust

  21. The Save Darfur Coalition Slogans: “Not on our watch” and “never again”

  22. The Save Darfur Coalition International inaction

  23. UN inaction

  24. Chinese Policy

  25. Coalition’s accomplishment • September 2004 • US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, “genocide has been committed” • US Congress Resolution 467, “Declaring genocide in Darfur” • European Parliament Resolution P6_TA(2004)0012 “tantamount to genocide” • 31 March 2005, UNSC Resolution 1593, referred the case of Darfur to the International Criminal Court • 31 July 2007, UNSC Resolution 1769 (UNAMID) • 18 December 2007, US Congress Act 2271, Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act • 14 July 2008, International Criminal Court, charges of genocide • 2008, change of Chinese policy (appointment of Special Envoy)

  26. Criticism to Save Darfur • Neo-colonization (humanitarian face of War on Terror) • Simplistic representation (Arabs vs. Africans), • Fixed labels (Arabs perpetrators vs. African victims) • Insistence on military intervention • Raised attention at wrong timing and not for the most pressing cause • Inhibited peace negotiations and diplomacy

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