The Potential of Networks in Social Movements for Global

Equality

Bendell, J.; Ellersiek, A.; Vermeulen, P.A.M.1

Introduction

In the late Noughties2, as online social networks like Myspace and Facebook grew from

nothing to billion dollar enterprises in just a few years, enthusiasm for the potential of the

internet in transforming culture, economics, and politics grew once again. Aside from these

celebrated examples, networks could be found in many other areas of life (Goessling, 2007).

In examining how British-based Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) advocate for

changes in corporate and governmental policies affecting global inequality, it was apparent

that they were teaming up in groupings variously called coalitions, alliances, movements and,

sometimes, networks. The concept of a 'network' appears broad enough to encompass these

diverse collections of NGOs. More importantly, it is a concept that has an established

literature analysing how 'networks' function and what the benefits for participants are.

Therefore if NGOs are increasingly engaged in networks to influence public policy it may be

useful to understand how this is occurs and what are the potential benefits.

The four networks of NGOs chosen for this study are the Corporate Responsibility (CORE)

Coalition, the Trade Justice Movement (TJM), Publish What you Pay (PWYP) and the

informal network of NGOs campaigning on Sakhalin Island oil operations. Each of these

networks had a strong, sometimes exclusive, British NGO participation, and focused on

1
We thank the invaluable and detailed research assistance from Lifeworth Associate Claire Veuthey, who helped
with the survey, interviews and transcripts.
2
In the absence of an agreed name for the decade, this is one option.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/special_report/1999/02/99/e-cyclopedia/585224.stm
different aspects of inequality between 'North' and 'South' (the general terms we use to

describe the high income and low income countries, respectively). CORE focuses on

corporate accountability, TJM focuses on a mixture of trade and corporate accountability,

PWYP on corporate complicity in corruption and poor governance, and the Sakhalin Island

campaign on the rights of local communities as well as wider environmental concerns (an

aspect of inequality given the greater impact of environmental degradation on the poor).

As these NGOs are ostensibly engaged in social change, one way of developing insight into

their activities is to draw upon analysis of social movements throughout history. In addition,

the turn of the millennium witnessed the emergence of a discourse of activism that challenges

global inequalities as resulting from economic globalisation, and networks have been

identified as essential to the functioning of this activism (Diani, 2001). As the NGOs we

examine are working on global inequalities, the social movements literature and its analysis of

new global movements is a relevant conceptual context.

The term 'social network' describes a social structure made of nodes (which are generally

individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more types of interdependency or interest,

such as values or visions, or finance and friendship (Carrington, Scott & Wasserman, 2005).

Diani (1999) defines networks in the study of social movements and activism as

“relationships which connect informally - i.e., without procedural norms or formal

organisational bindings – a multiplicity of individuals and organisations, who share a

distinctive collective identity, and interact around conflictual issues” (Diani, 1999:2). For this

chapter, a 'civic network' is understood as a social structure of organisations or individuals

apparently working toward the common good, and connected by interdependencies or

interests such as campaign aims, finance, visions and values, whether recognised and

formalised by participants or not. 'Working towards the common good' is understood as

efforts supporting the universal pursuit of individual preferences, and typically involves

people and organisations that seek public goals over private profits or governmental power.

This is derived from a normative construction of “civil society” as describing a space of

progressive action, and an assumption that many not-for-profit organisations working on

public issues such as the environment, poverty and human rights are constituent nodes within

this space (Bendell, 2006).

For this chapter we synthesised insights on the promise of networks from organisational

theory and from social movement theory, before reflecting on which of these resonated with

the experience of the participants in the four networks we studied, in order to identify key

promises for civic networks in particular. The quotes from practitioners are selected from the

23 interviews undertaken with participants in the civic networks during June and July 2007. A

full presentation of the cases and findings on the role of networks in social movements and

influencing policy processes follows in subsequent chapters in this volume, with our aim here

to map out and reflect upon the main promises of networks in social movements that can be

identified from current literature.

Non-Governmental Organisations as Nodes in Counter-

Globalisation Networks.

The emergence of voluntary associations, especially not-for-profit and transnational Non-

Governmental Organisations (NGOs), and their apparent increasing influence in policy

processes is a phenomenon that has been discussed for at least two decades now in political

theory (Edwards, 2003; Wapner, 1996). Besides their numeric proliferation, these actors have

gained access to national and international decision making processes and have established

their own fora at global conferences. Operating at the local, the national and the international
level, these groups frequently establish coalitions in order to increase and facilitate

cooperation and coordination among them (Willetts, 1981). It is often argued they have been

most effective when working together to influence policy processes (Smith, 1997, 2005).

In coalitions, such as the Third World Network, the European Fair Trade Association (EFTA),

the Philippine Economic Policy Reform Advocacy (EPRA) project, or Jubilee South, they

address a very broad range of policy issues, in a transnational or in a national policy contexts,

such as in the cases of the International NGO Forum on Indonesia Development (INFID) and

the Philippine-based Freedom from Debt Coalition. Most prominent, such coalitions showed

their impact on transnational economic and environmental policy making (Nelson, 1997),

observable was this, i.e. in the negotiations towards the North American Free Trade

Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, the Uruguay round of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in

1995, and the processes towards the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) which are

put on hold (Bendell, 2004).

Beyond the prominent role of (transnational) NGOs in these coalitions, their impact has also

been ascribed to the numerous other sources of activism that they were able to mobilize

through parallel grass-root campaigns. Numerous activists shared their concerns or put

forward their own claims to be channelled through these coalitions and herewith strengthened

their negotiation power. Interpreted were these collective actions by many, as a response to

neo-liberal globalization (see for instance Ashman, 2004, Rupert, 2000). As an explanation it

is often argued that the neo-liberal paradigm dominates policy processes (Ashman, 2004,

Starr, 2000). Activists’ claims for labour and human rights, economic and environmental

justice, hence, are seen as only insufficiently or not at all considered (see for instance Della

Porta & Mosca, (2007) on the Italian global justice movement or Rosenblatt, (2004) on the

global environmental movement). Various groups of activists thus seem to recognize their

own concerns in the critiques put forward by large coalitions and join them or build their own

coalitions. Hence, coalitions often overlap and are composed of all kinds of activist groups,
among them are nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), human rights groups, community

organisations, churches, environmentalists, pro-democracy campaigners, communists, peace

groups, anarchists, farmers, indigenous people’s groups, etc.3 (see for instance Scholte, 2007).

This activism is variously grouped as the 'global justice movement' (Della Porta, 2005), ‘the

alter-globalization-movement’ (Munck, 2002), or the counter-globalisation movement

(Bendell, 2004), not opposed to globalisation per-se, but unified in their goal to represent a

counterweight to economic or ‘corporate globalisation’ (Desai & Said, 2001:51).

Researchers from various disciplines pay attention to these expressions of collective civic

engagement and analyse activism in social movements and global activist networks (Della

Porta & Diani, 1999; Della Porta, Kriesi, & Rucht, 1999; Cohen & Rai, 2000; Scholte, 2001;

Diani & McAdam, 2003). Scholars herewith alter ‘earlier agendas for social change and

political engagement’ (Cohen & Rai, 2000:1), building upon and often combining grievance-

based explanations for activism, such as the Marxist’s concept of class-struggle with cultural

conflict or issue-based concepts of activism (Buechler, 1999; Kendall, 2005). Analytically

however, research in this field focuses more on the structural determinants for activism (Della

Porta & Diani, 2006) than on the underlying identity-related grievances and motives of

activism4. Contemporary activism in this respect is frequently labelled as constituting a

‘movement of many movements’ (Klein, 2001). The complex reality of the manifold forms of

activism summarised under this umbrella term are often described as networks, trying to

capture the phenomenon of a ‘new universalism embedded in the notion of a global social

movement’ (Munck, 2002). Networks, in this respect, are not merely seen as a vague

metaphorical concept. In fact, networks are discussed as actual entities that are made up of

3
Notably, although these groups and their claims are mostly described in red-colours, one should not forget that
their campaigns often result in mass-mobilization. Anti global capitalism critique can then also be used for the
claims of nationalistic right-wing activists, as it recently became obvious during the campaigns around the G8
summit in Germany.
4
Identity-related approaches, however, re-gained attention (see for instance Della Porta’s recent study (2006) on
social centrality, collective identity, social cleavages and class conflict of activists who took part in the European
Social Forum (ESF) in Florence, Italy, in November 2002.
very real interconnections between people and organizations that cannot be reduced to the

sum of their individual parts (Fuchs, 2005; Rosenblatt, 2004).

Current studies illustrate how networks affect single actors and their contributions to

collective action, how network patterns affect the circulation of resources both within groups

and organizations and the political system; how networks impact on the relations between

movements and elites, how they reflect upon the general configuration of collaborative versus

conflictive relations between actors in the political system, and episodes of contention in

policy processes and protest cycles (Diani & McAdam, 2003). The promises associated with

the network concept are numerous (Guigni, 1998): Networks are seen to strengthen the

linkages between diverse activists thus providing the necessary information and resource

flows for powerful concerted action; when groups form a network they may expect new

attention for their claims and enlarge their support base increasing the “power in numbers”

(DeNardo, 1985); networks also allow for a variety of new tactics and influence strategies that

are hardly possible to apply for one group alone, for instance when movements apply

orthodox and un-orthodox or radical tactics at the same time; networks are expected to

effectively combine these diverse resources, information, interests, tactics and different

‘activist traditions’ and creates new opportunities for activism. Therfore, as a 'network of

networks', the counter-globalisation movement was argued to have “managed to transform

completely the sense of historical possibilities for millions across the planet” in a matter of

only a few years (Ashman, 2004: 128).

However, in addition to providing new opportunities and potential solutions to activists, the

use of networks also raises various issues. The most important of these for activists is how

effective networks will be at increasing their impact on policy processes. Participants often

considerably differ in their world-views and the claims they make, the people they represent,

their ways of operating, and their relations to opponents. Effective collaboration may require

more than a broadly shared critique on neo-liberal politics. In this chapter we examine the
potentials and possible pitfalls of network-based activism. We do this by drawing on current

research on networks, social movements, and activism in networks, in order to develop

insights that can be helpful for activist groups. We focus on three aspects of activism in

networks that are traditionally applied in research on social movements: the organisational

aspect of activism in networks from a resource-mobilization perspective, the role of networks

in identity formation, and the relationship of networks to political opportunities.

We draw upon a more inter-organisational ‘elite’ perspective on activism and re-structuring

processes in movements through networks (Rosenblatt, 2004) than the emergence of activism

from the grassroots. Suh (2005) argues that many scholars' disregard of established activist

networks is a result of their definition of movements and activism,rather than the lesser

importance of such established groups. Often scholars require an outsider status of the

‘movement actors’, defined by their exclusion from the political institutions and

institutionalized political representation system (McAdam, 1982; McCarthy and Zald, 1977;

Tarrow, 1989; Tilly, 1984), such as McAdam and Snow (1997), in their definition of

movements “as a collectivity acting with some degree of organization and continuity outside

of institutional channels for the purpose of promoting or resisting change in the group,

society, or world order of which it is a part” (McAdam & Snow, 1997:Xviii). The subject of,

say, elite networks that act mainly ‘inside’ of those structures or combine outside and inside

structural positions of actors, by contrast, has rarely been dealt with by the scholars of social

movements (Suh, 2005). Suh (2005) argues that with respect to current activism, such as the

counterglobalization movement, we have many studies on the mobilization of political

protest, but only few on the role ‘elite’ and inter-organizational networks play. Our focus on

NGOs working through networks on issues directly related to the counter-globalisation

movement will hopefully respond to this gap in analysis on social change.

II Contextualising Current Activism on Global Inequality

Activism, in a general sense, can be described as intentional action to bring about social or

political change. Sidney Tarrow (1994) distinguishes collective activism in so-called

movements, from political parties and interest groups, as “collective challenges [to elites,

authorities, other groups or cultural codes] by people with common purposes and solidarity in

sustained interactions with elites, opponents and authorities” (Tarrow, 1994:2-3). Historically,

scholars distinguish between three main moments of collective activism. After the working-

class movements in industrial societies, one observed the rise of the so-called new social

movements, and as some argue, nowadays these movements are followed by a third

generation of collective activism, the anti- or counter-globalization movement. Scholars

compare and analyse these generations of movements from different theoretical angles,

finding similarities and differences in the identity of the actors, the culture of the movement,

the relations to its opponents, the subjectivity or objectivity of activists claims, motives and

grievances, the ways of organising activism, the political environments, the scope of their

operations and the framework for their actions (regional, national, global or otherwise).

The first set of movements analysed by scholars occured at the beginning of the 19th century

(Tilly, 1984), These usually centred around materialistic claims, such as improving wages and

the standard of living for the working class. The conceptualisation of ‘old’ in comparison to

‘new’ social movements, in theory, almost always refers to polarizing differences between the

activists’ disadvantaged (socio-economic) position via ‘the others’, defined as either concrete

opponents in or as the system itself. (Crossley, 2003). Since World War II a new generation of

movements kept scholars busy in explaining activism. These new movements, although not

separate from class-struggle, are characterised as taking a more abstract level of grievance

with social conditions (Goodwin, 2001:14). European intellectuals5 focused on symbolic

5
in particular proponents of the Frankfurt School (see for instance Friedman, 1981)
productions and cultural conflicts as the medium of these movements. They suggested that

social stress fosters anxieties over meaning and belonging that become decisive for political

mobilization. Habermas (1987:392) argued these movements emerge from “domains of

cultural reproduction, social integration, and socialization” rather than from an

“institutionalised conflict over distribution“. New social movements in this sense, are often

described as expressive, contrary to instrumental movements which are not clearly impelled

by pragmatic (economic) rationality and centred around issues of minorities rather than

specified by the dichotomy of classes, classic examples are often given by the environmental

or the women’s rights movement (Kitschelt, 1993:14) others are younger cultural movements,

such as the Vegan movement (Cherry, 2006). Key characteristics of this form of activism are

seen as a strong post-industrial orientation, middle-class activist core, loose organizational

form, use of symbolic direct actions, and the creation of new identities (Goodwin, Jasper &

Polletta, 2001). The underlying theory is often called ‘European new social movement (NSM)

theory’ and its claims are criticized by many scholars as ethnocentric, exaggerated and

ahistorical, derived from concepts of the welfare state and deeply rooted in core democracies

(Crossley, 2003). Together with the theory’s “self-limiting radicalism” (Papadakis, 1988),

these critiques give this generation of activism a strong reactionary notion. Nevertheless, the

(ongoing) debate about this generation of movements, led to a change in the perception of

collective activism.

So-called anti- or counter-globalisation movements6 are now described as a third generation

of collective activism. These movements are theoretically described as integrating concepts of

old and new social movements against a background of increased (economic) globalisation

and the parallel rise of new technologies, increasingly interconnecting diverse actors.

6
In the following discussion we will use the plural form “movements” in order to capture the multiple forms that
constitute the phenomenon of contemporary activism, although together they are frequently referred to as one
movement.
Some scholars argue that it shows a progressive resistance seeking ‘a rational reconstruction

of society’ and proclaim that it does not defend traditional relations of economic-political

fine-tuning but address fundamental change (Crossley, 2003). As Ashman (2004:151)

declares, “activism re-gained vitality” through these new movements as it “rejects the

inevitability of neo-liberalism, it rejects passivity and it affirms the necessity of resistance”,

fundamentally questioning rationality and requiring ‘system accountability’ (Crossley,

2003:287). It is therefore described as bringing back old ‘rationales’ for activism in terms of

redistributive justice, but now to a global level.

Addressing global inequalities is a key issue for this generation of activism. Changes in and

the establishment of rules and policies on a transnational and national level are thus a major

target for counter-globalisation networks (Marchetti & Pianta, 2007; Giugni, Bandler &

Eggert, 2006). The promise of these networks in addressing the North-South gap between

activists themselves has been formulated in the sense that they offer space to actors who are

usually voiceless and excluded (Woodins,2005). Networks in this respect are seen as ‘bridges’

or ‘boomerangs’, which multiply the channels of access to political national and transnational

systems by Southern actors (Marchetti & Pianta, 2007). The ‘boomerang version’ of this

promise argues that activism in networks results in an empowered political situation in which

powerless actors ‘return’ to their original local places strengthened (Tarrow, 2001; Thomas,

2002). However, others suggest there is a significant global inequality within the latest wave

of social movement itself. Bendana (2006) argues that although they may belong to the same

‘umbrella movement’, some Northern activists “contest policy”, while many Southern

activists “contest power”, and the Northern groups' agendas dominate (Bendana, 2007:8).

.Although one can ask whether single campaigns in which radical and reformist, Southern and

Northern7, groups speak for themselves might be more effective given the different

7
Notably, a dichotomy between Southern activism as motivated by socio-economic and Northern by socio-
cultural grievances is over-simplifying. Several scholars adopted NSMT to explain Southern activism (especially
for Latin America, Peet & Watts, 1996) and the other way round several studies used socio-economic rationales
as explaining Northern activism.
perspectives on certain issues, it is widely argued that much of what is new about

contemporary activism derives from its potential to align these interests (Crossley, 2003). The

effectiveness of civic networks in aligning rather than marginalising interests, and thus

reducing inequalities rather than replicating them, is therefore a key concern.

Existing Insights on Networks in Social Movements

’Globalisation’ (global market integration) as well as ‘internationalisation’ (global integration

of political institutions) (Daly, 2002) are “shifting the loci of power” (Gorgura, 2003:3) and

influencing the way activists organise to pursue their interests (Smith, 2005).

Contrary to the strict notion of grass-root activism as “spontaneous, unorganized, and

unstructured phenomena” (Morris, 2000:445), scholars of the resource mobilization school

(see for instance McCarthy & Zald, 1973, 1977), classify the organisational infrastructure of

collective activism along a continuum according to its level of organisation, from movements,

defined as being merely ‘preference structures’ anchored in populations, to social movement

organisations (such as large non-governmental organisations with their place in policy

processes; Smith, 2005) and even industries or sectors (McCarthy & Zald, 1977).

Contemporary activism, as summarised under the umbrella term ‘counter-globalization

movement’ (Bendell, 2004), assumes many forms of more or less organised collective action

and scholars eagerly suggest criteria to identify its newness especially in its transnational

dimension (see for instance Marchetti & Pianta, 2007). The main organisational characteristic

is seen as its organisation in networks (or as a ‘network of networks’, Della Porta & Diani,

2006) and its use of new media and technologies, such as mobile phones, the internet and

others8 (see for instance Le Grignou & Patou, 2004; Bennett, 2003).

8
Kavada (2003) argues the current notion of networks often serves as the ‘theoretical glue’ to tie activism in
counter-globalization movements and the internet into the same theoretical argument, so that some scholars call
contemporary activism in networks ‘internet-based movements’ or ‘electronic networks’ (Castells, 2001).
However, the use of new technologies is only one aspect of activism in networks. Terms like

‘network thinking’, ‘the network metaphor’ or ‘network perspective’ (Emirbayer & Goodwin

1994: 1414) describe a possible paradigm shift in academia, ranging from organizational

theorists, over discussions about ‘network governance’ in political studies and public

administration to foreign affairs and international relations. Influenced in particular by the

analysis of social networks, current studies use network concepts and tools to define, map,

and understand contemporary activism (Breiger, 2004). However, one has to consider that

“[N]etwork analysis is not a formal or unitary ‘theory’ that specifies distinctive laws,

propositions or correlations, but rather a broad strategy for investigating social structure”

(Emirbayer & Goodwin 1994: 1414). Nevertheless, the different approaches share some

basic theoretical assumptions. Core to a network perspective on social phenomena is the

‘anticategorical imperative’ that “[…] rejects all attempts to explain human behaviour or

social processes solely in terms of the categorical attributes of actors, whether individual or

collective” (ibid). All attributes of an organisation or an individual actor are relational,

nothing is static or taken-for-granted. For instance power in networks is not measured through

the direct attributes of its nodes, such as being an authority or the resource-richest actor.

Network analysis measures the actual position in the structure through interaction and

resource ‘flows’ that characterise a network.

Borgatti and Foster (2003) distinguish between four approaches of current network analysis

along two dimensions. While the first dimension focuses on the efficiency or homogeneity of

networks, the second dimension analytically focuses on explanatory mechanisms, in either a

structural or relational manner. The structural approach focuses on the structure and

configuration of linkages between actors and organisations, so-called ‘ties’ and ‘nodes’, that

are differently defined by scholars, e.g. ‘ties’ as the affiliation to certain groups, or

participation in events, and ‘nodes’ as individuals, organisations, groups, regions, states, etc.

or as in some recent applications of network analytical approaches toward activism, as

elements of speech (Diani, 2000:7). The relational approach focuses on the quality or content

of ties, their ‘strength’, as single or multiple, indirect or direct linkages between actors, and

what is transported by ties, e.g. whether they indicate conflictive or collaborative linkages,

what kind of resources flow through a network and recently also how this flow changes the

meaning of these resources and the network itself (ibid:8).

For research on movements, a network perspective offers the development of “a distinctive

theoretical argument” for activism contrary to other forms of collective action (Diani,

2000:5), especially as a social network can be seen as a “network of meaning” (White, 1992).

In its application to current research on activism, however, the network perspective shows a

‘structural bias’, meaning that the focus is on structural issues of network configurations

rather than on, for instance, the relationship between changes in the meaning of resources

when they pass different ‘nodes’ (Borgatti & Foster, 2003). These aspects of a structural bias

prevail in even in 'softer versions' of the structural perspective on networks in social

movement research, for instance, when using political process models (Diani & McAdam,

2003). Although scholars pay more attention to the issue of consensus formation than ‘hard-

core’ structuralism (Suh, 2005) they still sustain the dominance of structural accounts over

cultural and social dynamics in networks. Hence, they lack a deeper understanding of

concepts that explain the relational aspect of networks and the quality of ties (Oerlemans,

Gössling, Jansen, 2007).

One aspect that increasingly gains attention due to the transnational nature of contemporary

activist networks are different traditions of activism. Different activist traditions developed

“historically and in parallel to emergent public spheres located in specific physical and

cultural spaces” (Diani, 2003:481). Often they are defined as societies but also occur in terms

like ‘Western’, ‘the North’ and ‘the South’, and can be defined by national boundaries,

specific political structures, common cultural traits and values, etc. (Tilly, 1978; Calhoun,

1992; Emirbayer & Sheller, 1999). The boundaries of networks are thus often defined based
on nominalist criteria variously determined by scholars with different research interests in

networks and different analytical foci. This leads often to critique, formulated similar to

Bourdieu and Waquant’s (1992) remark that social dynamics, such as power, reach as far as

their effects and are not restricted to state, industries, or funding structures. Some scholars

thus see the network perspective on activism undergoing its own scale shift (Diani &

McAdam, 2003) forcing scholars to put more and more emphasises on ‘virtual ties’, and

global activism. This is challenging researchers to question their own boundaries in

recognising how networks themselves shape “schematas, logics, and frames” that influence

processes of connection and boundary definition. Clearly, therefore, the ‘flow’ of resources,

meaning, and culture through, and modification with, networks are key to understanding

activism.

Although this plethora of research on activism and networks and the strong link between

social movement and network research (Diani, 2001) provides us with valuable insights, still a

lot of those inquiries mainly focus on the phenomenon of the emergence of collective

activism (McAdam & Zald, 2005) and less on questions of movement change and

maintenance. Deriving practical implications for activists in networks, beyond the issue of

mobilization, is less often the concern of this research. Hence, it is not surprising that so far

“little of the work done made its way out of universities” (Dobson, 2001:2). However, a lot of

social movement scholars from different schools (see McCarthy & Zald, 1973, 1977; Jenkins

& Perrow, 1977; Gamson & Fireman, 1979; Morris, 1984, Kilian, 1984) argue that the

success of activism depends on activists' strategic choices. On the one hand in best mobilizing

their limited resources but also in strategically interpreting structural conditions, such as

specific policy contexts, in order to put forward their claims (McCarthy & Zald, 1977) and

strengthening “the cultural underpinning of their actions” (White, 1992:128).

Networks are seen as improving the conditions under which activists make these decisions,

conduct their operations and develop common understandings and identities. Only a few
authors, however, took upon the activist’s perspective on networks and translated these

findings into concrete guidelines (see for instance ‘Social Movements: A summary of what

works’, by Dobson, 2001; or “Doing democracy”, by Moyer, McAllister, Finley & Soifer,

2001). Some of the promises of networks frequently mentioned in this literature are: increased

access to information, expertise, and financial resources; higher efficiency through multiplier

effects, which increase the reach and impact available to member organizations, solidarity and

support; increased visibility of issues and underrepresented groups; risk mitigation; reduced

isolation, and increased credibility. There are, however, also significant risks to network

membership as well which we will discuss at the end of this chapter. Groups that are

contemplating participation in a network should therefore assess whether or not network

participation will meet their particular needs. To help with that challenge, a synthesis of the

promises and pitfalls of networks that are mentioned in literature on inter-organisation

relations (IORs) and social movements is needed.

The Promise of Networks in Relation to Different Dimensions of Social

Movements

In the following sections we analyse what literature on organisations and social movements

suggest or imply are the benefits of networks for their participants. Three classic concepts of

social movement research inform our discussion: Mobilizing structures (‘internal’ capabilities

of movements through which activists seek to organise), identity and framing, and political

opportunities (‘external’ factors which determine the structure of and build the target for

activism)... However, unlike the mainstream of these research traditions, we do not focus on

the emergence of activism but on networks that have emerged from established groupings in

civil society, the civic networks, in the context of the wider influences of counterglobalization.
Mobilization Structures and Networks

One area of focus for social movement scholars is how activists organise, with the term .

'mobilization structures' used to describe all “those collective vehicles, informal as well as

formal, through which people mobilize and engage in collective action” (McAdam, MCarthy

& Zald, 2005:3). Two general arguments for networks from this perspective are mentioned in

the literature (see Arquilla & Ronfeldt 2001): Firstly, networks facilitate exchange, what

makes them advantageous compared to hierarchical, competitive, and conflictive forms of

organising (Gray, 1989). Whether accurate or not, implicit in many peoples' understandings of

a network is that they provide everyone with an equal opportunity to share and receive

information, and where such sharing is regarded as a positive practice. Therefore the very

concept of a network is argued to enable exchange (Borgatti & Foster, 2005). Secondly,

through, this increase in flow and linkages between actors, networks are seen as changing the

resource dimension relevant for political change (Fuchs, 2005). Drawing on Arquilla and

Ronfeldt’s (2001) observation that in political processes today, “[m]ore than ever before,

conflicts revolve around ‘knowledge’ and the use of ‘soft power’” (ibid), Gorgura (2003)

proposes that networks channel these resources but also generate new forms and variations.

Together these arguments give reason to assume that networks build ‘new grounds’ for

resource mobilization (Diani, 2000). This impact of networks concerns not only relations with

external actors, such as governmental bodies, but also internally, between network members.

We will first elaborate on the internal aspect.

Network Coordination and Governance

Civic groups have unique resources and missions that let them participate and also define

their potential ‘role to play’ in a network. Rosenblatt (2004) identifies three types of
participant in activist network. People-, resources- and solution oriented groups, each with its

own set of optimal strategies and organizational structures. Although groups internally often

focus on more than one orientation, Rosenblatt (2004) argues, in line with network research

on social movements (Diani, 2005), that networks are much more effective when, at the level

of the single participants or network units, expertise is further developed and specified. These

units then represent for the organisation of a network significant ‘modules’ which can be

rearranged and restructured in order to come up to the specific requisitions of the respective

goal or network campaign (Rosenblatt, 2004). This form of organising in networks then

comes close to what is in network research often discussed as ‘bounded autonomy’ (Kickert,

1994:266). Bounded autonomy in this sense refers to the capabilities of networks to mobilize

participants in a way that although the network benefits from the combination of different

strengths, single identities are kept and the identity of the network does not confound the

goals and principles of individual participants (Diani, 2000). So argues one participant in the

networks we studied that the network-benefit for her organisation simply derives

“from the fact that you have got different organisations with different strengths,

[… our strengths] compared with other organisations which may have more of a

‘think tank’ or journalistic style [...] by working together I think we have been

much more effective”.

Bounded autonomy in networks thus addresses issues of coordination and strategic formation

without compromising the single group’s needs and identities. While social movement

research in this respect explains why and how particular movements and activism emerge, the

questions we faced in our work with NGO networks pointed towards the mutual strategic

alignment and integration of existing groups into larger movement structures. Rosenblatt

(2004) describes this process in the environmental movement and emphasises that, through
organising in networks, groups enter a next phase of movement evolution and have to think

‘the movement’ as a whole so it can be more powerful and more effective. This process in

networks, compared to ‘traditional’ organisations, faces actors with the question of how to

guide and influence the behaviour of other actors in networks in the absence of hierarchy.

Issues of steering and control in networks are discussed among management scholars rather

than in the literature on movements9. In this literature an array of steering and control

mechanisms are proposed, formal and informal in nature, that enable network governance

ranging from outcome control (e.g. goal setting and evaluation, performance monitoring,

rewarding, etc.), to behavioural control (e.g., planning, procedures, rules, norms and

regulation, etc.), and social control (e.g., boundary setting processes through member

selection, and trust building, or peer evaluation) and institutions.

The application of those mechanisms, however, first of all requires a common objective or

goal of a network. Compared to networks in the business world where common goals are

defined through profit-orientation and network effectiveness that can be measured through

concrete output variables, such as patents for innovation networks (Provan & Milward, 2001)

this definition appears to be much more difficult for activist networks. Goals and objectives of

activist networks and their outcomes are multi-layered and complex (McCright & Dunlap,

2003). However, some research on this issue puts forward indicators for success and

evaluation of activist networks, in terms of leadership, professionalization and formalization

(positively linked to success by Staggenborg, 1988, Gamson, 1999, negatively by Piven &

Cloward, 1979), network strategies (and here especially distinguishing disruptive and

reformist strategies, as discussed by Gamson, 1999; Fowler & Shaiko, 1987; Milbrath, 1970;

Metz, 1986), the scope of goals and objectives (Mirowsky & Ross (1981), or the level of

identification of activists with the movement’s goals and identity (Dunlap & McCright, 2003).

9
for a recent review on network literature see for instance: Oerlemans et al., (2007)
However, the recognition of being part of something bigger, either defined as the network

itself or as a movement in terms of coordination and network governance is less explicit in

our discussions with activists. While we found evidence for coordinated diversification within

participant organisations, sending their experts to the network, we found less evidence for

such joint coordination at the network level. One factor facilitating strategic formation in a

movement is its density or the linkages it shows between networks (Diani, 2000). Although

geographically proximal, only a few respondents actually perceived their organisation as part

of a movement that goes beyond their direct partners. While some of the networks possess an

internationally oriented ‘action plan’ and are members of global policy issue oriented

networks, coordination mechanisms among national groups were merely described as

‘advisory boards’, compromised of national and regional representatives that ‘keep an eye’ on

national policy developments and the interventions of single groups and networks.

Coordination efforts in the sense of a transnational movement thus remain on a more advisory

level with informal exchange but no formalised coordinating structures or mutual strategic

adjustments between networks. Strategic commonalities emerge rather than being proactively

identified and addressed by national or issue networks. One respondent frames this process as

follows:

[…] then it became clear that this was going to be a big issue, it wasn’t just

isolated to the UK. It was an important one in many different countries. And there

was a whole wave of corporate responsibility movements, NGO coalitions and

campaigns on these developmental and CSR projects.

The recognition of being a part of a larger movement in this respect is not a starting point for

establishing civic networks but rather an outcome of network activity. Due to them mainly

consisting of established actors one respondent summarised their specific challenge as

“building the idea of a social movement” among organisations that are established in their

field of expertise and contrasts with the initial challenges faced by grass-root mobilization that

often builds the focus of social movement research (Rosenblatt, 2004).

On the network level itself two different organising and coordinating paradigms were

identified: More punctual collaboration and campaigning and ongoing research and policy

development. The former dominates the way the networks operate. Mainly consisting of

‘campaigning NGOs’, network participants were described as strongly ‘action’ and ‘outward’

oriented, hence, less resources were allocated by the networks to ongoing in-depth research

and investigation. This led some respondents to put forward their concern about a lack of

investment of resources into continuous “background policy work” that gives the network’s

claims credibility:

“I’m worried that they [future campaigns] won’t have the bite they had in the past

because they won’t have that solid research background.”

One reason was mentioned to be the general attitude of participants to first serve their own

organisational needs. Engagement thus was described as more or less cyclically depending on

the organisations priorities and the fit of the overall agenda of the network to these. Hence,

coordination efforts and resources contributed to the network were limited and often remained

at the stage of punctual commitment and establishment of organisational structures only in

terms of steering committees for single campaigns.

Some future steps in the direction of more permanent structures for network coordination,

however, were proposed, often along with an expected growth of a network. Important issues

for this process of organisational integration were the establishment of the network as a

‘separate entity’, mainly in terms of membership of the board and decision-making structures

but also through a membership fees, administrative reporting functions, and annual reports.
Besides this necessity of building mechanisms that help steer a network, several respondents

frequently put emphasises on the importance to “keep the ground free of administrative

pressures”, and continue to build “specific alliances around certain areas”. Further the

question of how far permanent structures in terms of steering committees also allow for

continuous policy work is questionable as resource scarcity was mentioned to be the major

obstacle to the development of a working core in the networks. The need for this kind of work

and organising structure was mentioned, however, in order to build a strong basis which

develops substantial knowledge and resources upon which single groups and the steering

committees can draw.

Identity building in networks

While some networks form with the intention of being sustainable in the long run, the

majority of the networks we experienced were very loose arrangements that form again and

again in response to a very specific policy issue or stimulus and are designed to be time-

bound. In order to ensure that they are being responsive to their members’ needs, however,

networks must assess all elements of their functioning, internally as well as externally. If a

network no longer meets the needs of its members, it jeopardises their commitment,

participation will drop off, and the network will cease to exist (Diani & McAdam, 2003). As

we discussed before, evaluation and success of activist networks are difficult to identify

(Giugni, 1998) and feelings of mutual identification and solidarity to a shared goal and a long-

term perspective on change is in particular needed for the time-consuming campaigning and

lobbying in policy processes. Identity building and trust, however, help to bond actors

together, strengthen a networks’ coherence, secure its persistence and build “the basis of a

shared collective identity” (Diani, 2000:13), even though specific campaigns are not taking

place or do not show the expected impact on policy outcome (Rupp & Taylor, 1987; Melucci,
1996). The identity-related argument of networks, as some argue (Diani & McAdam, 2003), is

thus as important an aspect for activism as the sustainability of its organising and governance

structure. Sociologists have turned to collective identity to fill gaps between resource

mobilization and political process accounts of the emergence, trajectories, and impacts of

activism (Poletta & Jasper, 2001). Collective identity, however, has been merely treated as an

alternative to structural explanations, alternative to ‘given’ interests in the claims of people to

mobilize and participate in networks, and as an additional explanation, to instrumental and

rational accounts for the tactical choices activists make (ibid).

Beyond the continuous creation of incentives to join and engage in a network, effective

activism in networks is only possible through the development of cultural commonalities.

Castells elaborates on the issue of identity in his book ‘The Power of Identity’ (1997) and

concludes that a common spirit and collective identity are needed internally as well as

externally in networks but that each network has it own identity, logic of social control

through inclusion and exclusion and architectures of space and flow. Three important

elements of identity building in networks are, on the one hand, the selection of members as

often pre-conditioning some degree of commonalities, and on the other hand, process-related

mechanisms, such as learning and trust-building through interaction and feedback (Diani, &

McAdam, 2003), and finally, the development of shared guidelines and memoranda of mutual

understanding (Rosenblatt, 2004).

Member selection was loosely organised in our cases. This loose handling of ‘entry barriers’

to a network typically describes the practices of civic networks as the primary goal is to

generate support and resources from all kinds of organisational and societal backgrounds

(Diani & McAdam, 2003). However, some limitations were mentioned. Firstly, while some

networks also integrate loosely committed groups as peripheral sources of support for specific

campaigns and actions most of the networks required a certain level of commitment. If this

was not given this was mentioned to lead to an exclusion of the respective group, in particular
for refusing to take over responsibilities within campaign steering committees but also more

general commitment to the network. Mainly however, decisions of inclusion and exclusion

were based on budget requirements and less in terms of identity-related criteria, difficulties,

and conflicts.

Related to the actual process, working in networks was generally seen as encouraging and

motivating, especially for ‘experts’ who normally work in relative isolation on specific issues

in their own organisation.

“If there are others – counterpoints or colleagues in other organisations that you

can come together and meet with regularly, it does form a sort of basis for

encouragement, shared enthusiasm for what you are doing, as well as a

reaffirmation of purpose, in a sense.”

Learning is often mentioned to contribute to a shared identity in networks (Bonner, Kim,

Cavusgil, 2005). In our cases, however, learning was seen as a result of general interaction,

without formalising learning, feedback, or evaluation processes. Through the joint effort in a

network different ‘branches’ of traditionally rather separate groups exchange information,

perception and inform each other about opportunities for intervention. Learning in networks,

hence, was described as forcing members to “think outside of your institutional box” and

representing a challenge especially to more established - so called 'inside groups' (Scott, 2003)

- with their links to powerful institutions. Networks bring together conventional practices of

policy influence as well as emergent and often more radical practices of intervention and as

some of our respondents argued working together in network and “getting people out of their

comfort zone in the NGO community was really, really important.” Learning then results from

exchange in networks, e.g. through the tensions that arise by combining the needs of different

groups in a network.
Learning through networks happens horizontally, developing cohesion out of fragmentation

and divided groups; and vertically, connecting less powerful (often local) groups to powerful

groups, authorities, agencies, and funders (Purdue, 2007). On the one hand 'inside groups' are

often established and well-known among the relevant parties in the policy process and the

broader public and give a level of credibility to the network. On the other hand so-called

'people organisations' (Rosenblatt, 2004) often put forward more radical approaches in order

to satisfy their broad activist base, e.g. through media and publicity. Working together in

networks requires from both sides to compromise and mutually adopt new practices and

approaches to policy change. In networks interviewees reported inside-oriented groups joining

campaigns that werenot in line with the traditional message they would give to, policy makers

and corporations. 'Grassroot' oriented groups in turn are urged by established groups to adopt

their approaches to the joint message the network wants to communicate in the policy process.

On the one hand such interaction can be viewed as leading to compromise or creating of

intellectual and strategic incoherence (Bennett, 2003),, which discuss further below. On the

other hand, this interaction can enable realisation of cultural commonalities and develop a

shared identity within the networks. As one network participant said,

“[Working through the network] provides numerous learning opportunities,

especially when you work with traditionally rather disparate actors. Then you

have people with different experiences and bringing different perspectives, and

that makes for lots of learning and a better outcome, generally.”

Besides the learning opportunities between inside and outside groups, contestation between

Northern and Southern groups are frequently mentioned in the literature on contemporary

activism to lead to special tensions but also offer new identity-building potential (Crossey,

2003). While our networks were mainly busy with targeting national policies, we expected
however, that the transnational impact of those policies (in the sense of ‘actions in particular

countries with a global significance’ as described by Marchetti & Pianta, 2007:11) would lead

to a stronger direct involvement of also Southern groups in the network. This was, with the

exception of one network, however, not the case. Although almost all networks show links to

Southern groups and some report the issues they work on in the North as interesting for

Southern groups as well, Northern-Southern correspondence mainly remains on the level of

Northern NGOs “bringing [Southern] case-studies forward” in order to get “convincing

material to back up” their claims. Except this role of Southern NGOs as sources of

“credibility and advocacy” for Northern NGOs, only one network emphasised the importance

of mutual exchange, active membership of Southern NGOs, and learning between these

groups and thus ownership and control of its outcomes also for Southern groups.

Learning requires managing psychological dynamics, trust, defensiveness, and conflict

(Purdue, 2007), and an openness and flexibility to reframe issues (Gray, 2003). Reflection

through network processes can offer a way to step-by-step tackle differences no matter how

deeply engrained they are in the cognitive frames of activists. Mindell (1995) argues that

while anger is an energizing source for inter-group learning and identity building, fear and

despair are not. A trustful network culture is thus required if network members do not want to

settle for half-hearted commitment to their cause. Learning in networks, related to identity

building, thus consists not mainly of processes acquiring information and technical skills from

other network members, but undergoing an internal change, create new knowledge and

develop greater reflexivity in a network.

Essential for learning is an understanding of various dynamics specific to each network

through thorough evaluation. Evaluation mechanisms, however, were barely found among the

four networks we examined. Often our inquiry was mentioned to be the first ‘external

evaluation’ of the networks. Because learning emerges along the process rather than being

systematically initiated and evaluated this often leads to limitations to learning effects in
networks. A lot of network members complained about a lack of reflection and analysis on

how the network works, saying that “[…] there haven't been a great deal of creative

learning” and “it [the network] is been very much operationally focused and not reflective

into what has worked and what hasn't”. These statements are in line with Bennett’s (2003:17)

more sober observation that “[w]hile networks can reduce the costs and conflicts often

associated with bringing diverse players into issue and protest campaigns, they also may

harbor intellectual contradictions that ultimately limit the growth of ideological or even

intellectually focused movements. Rather than pushing toward ideological commonalities,

activist networks then more often function as pragmatic information exchanges and

mobilization systems”. Further research is required on issues of identity-building and learning

in activist networks. Given discussions about the representativeness of civic networks

(Marshall, Hardwicke, Gharib, Fisher & McKee (1999) and their accountability (Bendell,

2006), this research should go beyond the emergence of activism and focus on the processes

of re-organisating movements as they evolve and network with established groups in civil

society.

Framing – discursive network politics

Networks often create and share knowledge items, such as reports, data, tools and ideas. Such

expertise, loosely gathered in the numerous subunits of a network can lead to an impressive

pool of resources potentially available to activist networks (Diani, 2000). However, networks

do not only gather but also analyse, bundle, and direct these resources and present them in a

way that is not determined by the filters of other groups such as political parties and

corporations. Framing is as essential part of this process. For example, ATTAC France,

presented “together, on one singular page, different issues like Commander Marcos, the ‘Mad
Cow disease’, human rights in Tunisia, and the Danone employees” (Le Grignou and Patou

(2004:58). While this array of concerns and events might create an impression of no direction,

several studies show how activist networks have been able to strategically arrange such

elements to jointly establish a ‘mobilization frame’ of global exploitation and resistance, “for

proselytizing to generate broad support for normative change within, across, and outside

government channels’’ (Price, 1998:617). Sell and Prakash (2004) for instance, identified a

range of different strategies through which networks grafted new normative frames onto

existing ones and succeeded in producing normative and substantive changes in policy

outcomes. Frames are ‘‘specific metaphors, symbolic representations and cognitive clues used

to render or cast behaviour and events in an evaluative mode and to suggest alternative modes

of actions’’ (Zald, 1996:262). Because agenda setting involves both the provision of

information and of normative frames, it is argued to crucially influence policy debates and

ultimately, policy outcomes (see for instance Snow, Rochford, Worden, & Benford, 1986).

Given that most policy debates feature competing agendas, it is important to cleverly apply

frames to translate information into knowledge (Comor, 2001). Rochefort and Cobb (1994:15)

thus argue that for a activist network’s agenda to resonate, it should not only identify a

problem and offer a solution, but also consider the broader context of policy processes in

which it can be placed. In this sense, it has been argued for some time that groups are

embedded in networks of larger social processes, which they influence, and which also

influence them (Granovetter, 1985, 1992). Recognising this can help activists to bridge links

between different levels of analyses, relating to different types of organisational entities

within the policy process and beyond: to projects, regional and country programmes,

government policies and actors outside of those processes but potentially valuable for putting

forward their claims.

In order to approach these diverse actors, however, different frames are needed that take

social dynamics into account. Creating external enemies through framing an issue, for
instance, can create a unity of purpose (Purdue, 2007). Strategic framing, that assigns blame

to one group while enabling other, is numerously mentioned as constituting the basic

repertoire of activist strategies. As Keck and Sikkink (1998:27) note: “[P]roblems whose

causes can be assigned to the deliberate (intentional) actions of identifiable individuals are

amenable to advocacy network strategies […]”. Change in the behaviour of a targeted actor is

most likely when activists present a situation in a way where the targets compliance with

activists’ claims will bring about positive change (Perrow, 1998), while also benefiting the

target themselves (e.g. through ‘first-mover’ advantages Sirsly & Lamertz, 2007; Rosenau,

2005), whereas negative consequences are expected by the target from a non-response, due to

the likely actions of the activists, the media, the wider public, or other constituencies to

which the targeted group shows dependencies (McAdam, 2001)10.

The creativity of framing thus lies in finding ‘intentionalist frames’ within which to address

some elements of structural problems and, depending on the issue, link them together.

However, even when linkages between these frames give a complementary image of ‘the

enemy’ and thus often help to develop internal bounding through frames, those frames can

also deflect from internal problems rather than solving them. While internally multi-faceted

frames can constitute discrepancies or commonalities between groups, externally however,

frames should be focused and strategically applied to the targeted recipients relevant to

influence the outcome of the policy process and those relevant to the solution proposed by the

activist group. For activist groups this often implies different frames for internal and external

communication in a network. Sell and Prakash (2004) give an example of how activist

networks can apply different frames for different target groups and on different levels of the

policy making and implementation process, in their case around the issues of HIV, drugs, and

patenting. Their approach included several strategies and frames: Firstly, networks aimed at

10
Important is here that the difference between the party that analyses the political environment and offers these
frames to a targeted party (opportunity) should be different to the party that is considered to coerce the change
attempts (threat) (McAdam, 2001) thus offering again more strategic space for networks than for single groups.
discouraging powerful targets from penalizing governments that supported the network’s

claim. Secondly, groups reiterated in policy-relevant international forums ‘empowering

frames’ in terms of governments’ ultimate rights to issue compulsory licenses thus strengthen

institutions that can control the targeted groups. Thirdly, they built alliances with the generic

pharmaceutical industry, actors relevant to their solution, and connected those producers to

local recipients and the respective local governmental officials. Fourthly, they sought to

mobilize international donors to purchase generic drugs in large numbers and make them

available to the respective countries.

This example shows the complexity of framing towards a broad variety of externally relevant

groups and potential supporters of the network’s cause but also highlights the network benefit

in political discourses as being credibly much more flexible than single organisations (Suh,

2006). This is key because solution to complex problems such as global inequalities require

actions from different organisational sectors such as business and government, and each

employs different rationales for action. Networks allow their participants to support the

creation and communication of the various rationales to various target groups, when doing so

themselves, they could appear too inconsistent and even incomensurate.

This network promise was recognised by partcipants in the networks we studied. One network

participant described the network benefit in the sense that frames applied by the network

offered her organisation a degree of freedom they cannot anticipate when working alone:

“[…] the way the issue was framed by the network allowed us to be able to

publicly state that we are maintaining an independent position. [Even though we

as an organisation follow the strategy to collaborate with the targeted groups,] in

the network we are also addressing a more fundamental and possibly quite

challenging approach to [the targets] in terms of policy change.”

Political Opportunities and Networks

Traditionally, political opportunity structures are seen as the opportunities and constraints that

confront activism by the structures of institutional politics, on the one hand the level of

responsiveness to activists’ claims and on the other hand the level of repression of activism in

a political system (Tilly, 1978). Drawing on the works of political process theorists (Tilly,

1978; McAdam, 1982; Tarrow, 1983), mainly European scholars have compared numerous

national political settings and their influence on activism (see for instance Kriesi, 1988,

Kitschelt, 1986; Kriesi, Koopmans, Duyvendak & Giugni, 1995, Tilly, 1986). Since then

scholars have been re-defining the concept due to the transnational activities of networks and

the increasingly dynamic relations to other actors than national governments (see for instance

Marchetti & Pianta, 2007). Although scholars found national policy settings to influence

transnational activism in contemporary networks (Giugni, Bandler & Eggerts, 2006), activism

is no longer argued to be simply a matter of repressed groups fighting the state (Goodwin,,

Jasper & Polletta, 2001). Instead, scholars situate activism in a dynamic relational field in

which beyond the state (ibid), interests of allies, opponents, together with the openness of the

public to change, the existence of supporting groups and elites (Joppke, 1993) all influence

the emergence, activity and outcomes of activism (Goldstone, 2004).

Networks, in this respect, are not simply exposed to a political environment of opportunities

and constraints offered by those groups. Instead, activists themselves can create opportunities

by expanding the political sphere that is applicable to them, by creating ties to other national

political systems, the international political system, and international civil society and market

systems (McAdam, McCarthy & Zald, 2005). By influencing frames of political community

and responsibility, activists actually shape these structural changes (Suh, 2001). In addition,

although ‘objective’ changes in the political environment build the basis for dynamics of
contestation, those have to be interpreted by the network as opportunities or threats before

they become reason enough for action. Hence, not only the objective effect these changes

have on power relations enables activism but on the networks' interpretation of them

(McAdam, McCarthy & Zald, 2005). . In a network the same event or intervention can be

interpreted by some as an opportunity and by others as a threat, and an exchange of views

may change them. This exchange of perceptions in networks can create new opportunities and

open up potential for intervention beyond those of single efforts, or as one respondent put it:

“When NGOs work on their own they work within a fixed political framework of

what matters to them, what falls into their responsibility and – first, what they think

is possible to change. Take for instance [organisation XY] - they have the lens of

international human rights law. There is no responsibility in international human

rights law on companies, no legal responsibility. That’s why they see all issues

through the lens of the nation-state and that’s why exchange is so important. It’s all

interwoven.”

McAdam and colleagues (2005), drawing on Ross (1977), argue that errors in the attribution

of cause, and therefore fault, are more likely when actors or organisations work isolated than

in groups. Explanations for ones own situation in terms of grievances, concerns, or

dissatisfaction with how a policy process develops or with its outcomes, are in single groups

more frequently seen as a function of one's own deficiencies rather than a feature of the

surrounding system. Only ‘system attributions’ and thus critiques, they argue further, afford

the necessary rationale for a network’s activity (ibid), or as one of our respondents put it:

“[…] collecting different opinions and experiences around an issue we want to

give the overall picture and clarify once and for all that company law and
 accountability is not a concern of a few niche-NGOs but a widely shared system

critique.”

Through networks, activists are able to proactively scan the political landscape (Rucht, 1999)

in order to develop system rather than individual critique and thus establish a background of

rationality for their claims, e.g. pointing toward differences in policy settings and transfer

solutions from one policy setting to another through analogous interpretation and framing.

Such perspectives then have to pay close attention to the cultural traditions, ideological

principles, institutional memories, and political taboos that create and limit the single

organisation’s perception of political opportunities in order to successfully link individual

perceptions to the ‘master frame’ of the network that animates challenging the dominant

political structures and processes.

Situations in which activism is actively repressed through elite intervention, intended to

demobilize activists can then in fact produce opposing effects of increased contestation by

other activists tied together through a network (see for instance Koopmans, 1999). In this

sense, scholars extended the cost-benefit oriented approach of mobilization theorists and

argued that relational opportunities enable activists to take advantage of a situation through

action even when intervention was intended by opponents to repress this action (Goldstone,

2004).

Making use of networks: Conclusions and implications for practice

An analysis of literature on networks and social movements, complemented by our interviews

with participants in UK based networks, highlights a number of promises from networking for

social action. First, groups can draw on a variety of resources and expertise. Second, groups in

networks can more easily develop and share consensus on political opportunities and thus
increase the efficacy of their strategic actions, compared to single organisations-. Third, the

repeated engagement of groups in networks can facilitate the development of collective

identities and thus facilitates a strategic and more powerful mobilization of collective action..

Fourth, networks facilitate membership recruitment for strategic action, thus uniquely

combine the strength of established as well as grass-root radical groups. . By taking the clash

of different activism traditions of different groups in networks seriously, a network

perspective steps closer to explaining the dynamics and mechanisms that facilitate and hinder

consensus formation and action between groups than other theories that often remain on

macro structural explanations of activism (Suh, 2005).

However, research taking a network perspective on activism does not sufficiently explain how

consensus and mobilization among disparate actors in networks occur. Although useful for

analysing activist networks, findings that indicate that individuals who are integrated in dense

networks and linked by close ties are more likely to develop an idea of solidarity and are

prone to mobilize in collective action (see for instance Snow et al., 1986), are not sufficient in

order to inform activists on strategy and identity building in networks. As we illustrated by

quotes taken from our cases of civic networks, activist networks often consist of established

actors with strong organisational identities that seem to dominate ‘shared’ network agendas

and are often only loosely connected to each other through intermittent campaigns. How those

networks form consensus and develop a common identity in the political system, still needs to

be explained. Thus we argue for more research on civic networks and, in line with McAdam

and Snow (1997), recognise that all promises of networks put forward by scholars from

various theoretical fields should be cautioned by a realisation that “[…] networks are only

information conduits and bridges that channel the diffusion of movement activity” (McAdam

& Snow, 1997:172). As such, a network perspective can facilitate rather than determine the

processes in and outcomes of civic networks. In future, not only do the promises of networks

described here require testing, more study on the pitfalls of networks in social action is
needed to ensure that a fashion for networking, and apparent set of benefits from networks, do

not blind us from potential problems from a variety of perspectives, both organisational and

political.
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