Book Review: Jutta Joachim and Birgit Locher, eds, Transnational Activism in the UN and the EU: A Comparative Study (London and New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2009, 187 pp., £76.00 hbk)
| Author | Kirsti Stuvøy |
| Published date | 01 September 2011 |
| Date | 01 September 2011 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/03058298110400011218 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
216 Millennium: Journal of International Studies 40(1)
distribution of power. It only loosely relates power asymmetries in global electronic
network governance to other structures of domination. In order for the book to provide a
critical perspective on power and domination in telecommunications governance, it
could have benefited from more radical insights on global governance such as femi-
nist, post-colonial or even neo-Gramscian perspectives. For example, critical perspec-
tives raise the issue of co-optation that is not explored in the book. Participation of
non-dominant actors can sometimes be a form of legitimation of domination.
To conclude, Governing Global Electronic Networks benefits from the first-hand
experience of the contributors. It raises awareness of the importance of global electronic
networks in the global political economy. This book clearly addresses a gap in the litera-
ture. It also evidences the need for further analysis of the position of non-dominant actors
within the ICT governance structure.
Jean-Marie Chenou
Jean-Marie Chenou is a PhD candidate and teaching assistant at the IEPI-CRII, University
of Lausanne, Switzerland.
Jutta Joachim and Birgit Locher, eds, Transnational Activism in the UN and the EU: A Comparative
Study (London and New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2009, 187 pp., £76.00 hbk).
In International Relations (IR) scholarship, non-governmental organisations (NGOs)
have an established agency through their contributions to agenda-setting and norm-
change in international politics. In the edited volume Transnational Activism in the UN
and the EU: A Comparative Study, Jutta Joachim and Birgit Locher challenge the idea of
the autonomous agency of NGOs and their impact on international politics. Their starting
point is the structures in the international organisations that NGOs attempt to influence
and they ask how these institutions affect the strategies that NGOs employ.
In this study, 10 authors contribute with case studies that are separated into the two
parts of the book. Each section begins with an overview of the access NGOs have to the
United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU), followed by four case studies of the
policy fields of environment, human rights, socio-economic issues and security. In a
concluding chapter, the editors return to the overall research question of whether, and to
what extent, NGO strategies vary across international organisations.
The Editors assert that we know much about how NGOs affect international politics,
but seek to direct attention to how the structures of international organisations affect
NGOs. They refer to this structure as a ‘political opportunity structure’, a concept which
encompasses access points, scope of interaction, membership and rules and norms gov-
erning international organisations. NGOs are treated as a dependent variable affected by
the political opportunity structure as defined in terms of a ‘checklist’ of characteristics in
each case study. Referred to as the outside-in approach, this decision to focus on the role
of structure on NGO behaviour is not convincing considering the importance that can be
expected, and is established empirically, on the interaction between structure and agency
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