11 - CONCLUSIONS: AGENCY, NETWORKS, AND COLLECTIVE ACTION

Summary

The dynamic contours of transnational collective action are the result of the continuous negotiation and reappraisal of choices made by actors, as they become part of new networks and react to changes in political contexts. These processes of negotiation and reappraisal happen within as well as among civil society organizations (CSOs) and inside as well as outside national boundaries. Their outcomes cannot be predetermined from a set of economic or political structures. Although structural analysis of the forces of globalization or capitalism can help in explaining the increased relevance of transnational collective action, they give us few clues on why CSOs differ in the ways in which they seek to be a part of a globalizing world, and how these pathways vary through time.

The agency-centered approach used in this book spotlights dimensions of transnational collective action that we cannot ignore if we want to understand how and why civil society's repertoires of contention are changing. In these conclusions, I will highlight two, whose importance has been asserted repeatedly throughout the book: (1) the national, or domestic, dimension, and (2) the asymmetry dimension, both of which I regard as constitutive of transnational collective action. These dimensions became visible because of the focus of the research on the relational and political embeddedness of CSOs, that is, the importance given to the analysis of actors' networks and their dynamic relationships, and the relevance attributed to the specific political contexts in which they build coalitions, define their goals, and articulate their frames.