Transnational uncivil society networks: kleptocracy’s global fightback against liberal activism
| Published date | 01 June 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13540661231186502 |
| Author | Alexander Cooley,John Heathershaw,Ricard Soares de Oliveira |
| Date | 01 June 2024 |
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https://doi.org/10.1177/13540661231186502
European Journal of
International Relations
2024, Vol. 30(2) 382 –407
© The Author(s) 2023
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DOI: 10.1177/13540661231186502
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Transnational uncivil society
networks: kleptocracy’s
global fightback against
liberal activism
Alexander Cooley
Barnard College and Columbia University of New York, USA
John Heathershaw
University of Exeter, UK
Ricard Soares de Oliveira
University of Oxford, UK
Abstract
What is the global social context for the insertion of kleptocratic elites into the
putatively liberal international order? Drawing on cases from our work on Eurasia and
Africa, we sketch a concept of ‘transnational uncivil society’, which we contrast to
‘transnational activist networks’. While the latter denotes the liberalizing practices of
global civil society, the former suggests a specific series of clientelistic relations across
borders, which open space for uncivil elites. This distinction animates a growing line
of conflict in global politics. These kleptocrats eject liberal activists from their own
territories and create new spaces to whitewash their own reputations and build their
own transnational networks. To do so, they hire political consultants and reputation
managers, engage in public philanthropy and forge new relationships with major global
institutions. We show how these strategies of reputation-laundering are neither illicit
nor marginal, but very much a product of the actors, institutions and markets generated
by the liberal international order. We compare and contrast the scope and purpose of
civil and uncivil society networks, we explore the increasing globalization of Eurasian
and African elites as a concerted strategy to distance themselves from associations
Corresponding author:
Alexander Cooley, Barnard College, Columbia University of New York, New York, NY 10027, USA.
Email: acooley@barnard.edu
1186502EJT0010.1177/13540661231186502European Journal of International RelationsCooley et al.
research-article2023
Original Article
Cooley et al. 383
with their political oppression and kleptocracy in their home countries, and recast
themselves as productive and respected cosmopolitans.
Keywords
Grand corruption, reputation-laundering, transnational civil society, transnational
uncivil society, elite politics, enablers
Introduction
In 2008, the Board of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cooperation
(UNESCO) established the UNESCO-Obiang Nguema Mbasogo International Prize for
Research in the Life Sciences for ‘improving the quality of human life’. The prize was
funded by a multimillion-dollar donation from Equatorial Guinea’s long-serving
President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who has ruled the oil-rich West African
country since 1979. Following the prize’s announcement, international civil society
groups vigorously protested the award, highlighting Obiang’s poor human rights record
and the country’s extreme corruption and acute income inequality, efforts that led to the
award’s freezing for 4 years. One representative from the anti-corruption watchdog
Global Witness argued bluntly that, ‘what Unesco is doing is laundering the reputation
of a kleptocrat with an appalling human rights record’ (Palmer, 2010). But despite this
public campaign, and internal opposition expressed by the organization’s Director
General, in 2012, UNESCO’s executive board went ahead and began to award the prize,
though Obiang’s name was removed from the official award (Erlanger, 2012). This small
victory for activists may lose sight of the bigger picture: the larger aim for kleptocrats is
not that of global branding but the creation of transnational networks of affluence and
influence.
This episode provides evidence of a countervailing force against transnational activist
networks (TANs) in contemporary global governance. On one hand, it points to how the
transnational advocacy campaign for the Obiang prize sought to improve the image of a
ruling kleptocrat and did so through the actors and institutions typically associated with
promoting international civil society. On the other hand, it demonstrates more traditional
clientelistic practices in the appointment of Obiang’s son Teodorin – himself subject to
money laundering charges in the United States and France at the time – as Equatorial
Guinea’s ambassador, the patronage of the prize itself and the contracting of the private
sector to handle the controversy that ensued (Smith, 2012). This intertwining of advo-
cacy and clientelism by authoritarian regimes points to new empirical forms of what we
term ‘uncivil society’, which challenge our notions of global civil society and transna-
tional activism.
Much of our understanding of TANs remains guided by the ground-breaking work of
Katherine Sikkink and Margaret Keck. In Activists Beyond Borders (1998), the authors
identified the principled action of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and their
transnational allies as a distinct vector in international relations, one with the potential to
disrupt and change the practices of unwilling state governments in areas, such as
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