Description: Building Transnational Networks tells the story of how a broad group of civil society organizations came together to contest free trade negotiations in the Americas. Based on research in Brazil, Chile, Mexico, the United States, and Canada, it offers a full hemispheric analysis of the creation of civil society networks as they engaged in the politics of trade. The author demonstrates that most effective transnational actors are the ones with strong domestic roots and that "southern" organizations occupy key nodes in trade networks. The fragility of activist networks stems from changes in the domestic political context as well as from characteristics of the organizations, the networks, or the actions they undertake. These findings advance and suggest new understandings of transnational collective action.
Review Quotes: "Von Bülow has masterfully integrated network-analytic techniques with qualitative interviews to chart the historical coalescence and dissolution of transnational ties among social movement organizations contesting free trade negotiations in the Americas. Resisting the current tendency toward triumphalism about 'global civil society', she pays nuanced attention to ambiguities, asymmetries, tensions, and fragilities in an emerging transnational field. This innovative and compelling study contributes not only to our understanding of transnational coalition building, but also to a dynamic theory of social networks that is attentive to agency and meaning-making as a constitutive dimension of social ties."
Ann Mische, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey