Human Rights and Transnational Advocacy Networks

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Murdie ◽  
Marc Polizzi
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Transnational Advocacy ◽  
Local Data ◽  
Network Characteristics ◽  
Transnational Advocacy Networks ◽  
Advocacy Network ◽  
Political Networks ◽  
Human Rights Advocacy ◽  
Global And Local ◽  
Future Work

Human rights advocates have been argued to be working as part of a larger “network” of actors supporting the respect and security of individuals. However, until recently, much scholarship in this area has used “network” as a synonym for “connected actors” instead of examining the network characteristics of advocacy actors and the ways in which the nature of the advocacy network could influence human rights outcomes. This chapter examines the growing literature that focuses on human rights advocacy using network theory and methodologies. It outlines both global and local data collection efforts and the state of the literature and addresses how this literature has drawn on the larger political networks literature. It concludes with a call for future work on how the network characteristics of advocacy actors influences both which human rights issues receive international attention and whether this attention translates into improvements in human rights practices on the ground.

The Ties that Bind: A Network Analysis of Human Rights International Nongovernmental Organizations

2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Murdie
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Network Analysis ◽  
Nongovernmental Organizations ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Structural Characteristics ◽  
Transnational Advocacy ◽  
Advocacy Networks ◽  
Network Characteristics ◽  
Transnational Advocacy Networks ◽  
International Nongovernmental Organizations

Much scholarship concerning human rights international nongovernmental organizations (HR-INGOs) focuses on the central role they play within transnational advocacy networks. Despite this theoretical focus on networks, there has been scant empirical attention on the characteristics of the HR-INGO network or on whether the network characteristics of a HR-INGO matter for its advocacy output. Introducing a new relational dataset on 681 HR-INGOs, this article finds that the HR-INGO network is somewhat like a public good and that the organizations who utilize it benefit in terms of their international advocacy output. Other findings focus on how the structural characteristics of organizations can influence their propensity to connect to each other and how ‘free-riding’ can limit the benefits organizations receive from the network.

The (co)evolution of human rights advocacy: Understanding human rights issue emergence over time

2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Baekkwan Park ◽  
Amanda Murdie ◽  
David R Davis
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Causal Process ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
Advocacy Network ◽  
Human Rights Advocacy ◽  
Human Rights Norms ◽  
Rights Issue ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Rights Issues ◽  
Over Time

How does the discussion of human rights issues change over time? Without advocates adopting a human rights issue in the first place, international ‘shaming’ cannot occur. In this article, we examine how human rights discussions converge and diverge around new frames and new issues over time. Human rights norms do not evolve alone; their prevalence, framing, and focus are all dependent on how they relate to other norms in the advocacy community. Drawing on over 30,000 documents from dozens of human rights organizations from 1990 to 2011, we provide a temporal overview and visualization of the ebb and flow of human rights issues. Using our new dataset and state-of-the-art methods from computer science, our approach allows us to quantitatively examine (a) how new issues emerge in the advocacy network, (b) the relationship of these new issues to extant human rights advocacy and information, and (c) how the framing and specificity of these issues change over time. By focusing on the process by which a new issue gets incorporated into the work of advocates, we provide an empirical assessment of the first step in the causal process connecting shaming to improvement in human rights practices.

Transnational Human Rights Networks: Significance and Challenges

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Peter Schmitz
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Transnational Activism ◽  
Transnational Advocacy ◽  
Advocacy Networks ◽  
Amnesty International ◽  
Transnational Advocacy Networks ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
New Type ◽  
Global Affairs

Transnational human rights networks refer to a form of cross-border collective action that seeks to promote compliance with universally accepted norms. Principled transnational activism began to draw sustained scholarly attention after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and the creation of a new type of information-driven and impartial transnational activism, embodied in organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Scholarship on transnational human rights networks emerged during the 1990s within the subfield of International Relations and as a challenge to the state-centric and materialist bias of the field. In their 1998 book Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics, Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink describe the key role that transnational human rights groups play in global affairs. Focusing on rights-based activism, Keck and Sikkink show how transnational advocacy networks (TANs) can influence domestic politics. The concept of TANs is dominated by the purposeful activism of nongovernmental organizations and driven by shared principles, not professional standards. A number of studies have challenged the core assumptions about the effectiveness of principled human rights activism, arguing that international support plays no significant role compared to the autonomous efforts of domestic activists. One way to overcome these challenges and criticisms is for the transnational activist sector, as well as other types of non-state actors, to move beyond the principles/interests dichotomy and take a closer look at the internal dynamics of participant NGOs.

scholarly journals The "Super-Network": Fostering Interaction Between Human Rights and Climate Change Institutions

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 32
Author(s):  
Andrea Schapper
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Transnational Advocacy ◽  
Climate Regime ◽  
Institutional Interaction ◽  
Youth Groups ◽  
Transnational Advocacy Networks ◽  
Human Rights Regime ◽  
Policy Fields ◽  
Paris Climate Agreement

This article contributes to understanding unique forms of actor constellations and their tactics in fostering institutional interaction. It explores interaction processes between the human rights and the climate regime, and more specifically, the incorporation of human rights in the 2015 Paris climate agreement. During the Paris negotiations, an inter-constituency alliance comprised of environmental movements, human rights organizations, gender activists, indigenous peoples’ representatives, trade unions, youth groups and faith-based organizations successfully lobbied for the incorporation of rights principles into the new climate instrument. I argue that this alliance can be grasped as a "super-network", a network above several individual transnational advocacy networks (TANs), that works across policy fields and uses information, symbols and stories, as well as accountability and leverage politics to foster interaction between a source institution (human rights regime) and a target institution (climate regime). By employing a package approach, which reiterates a core message of common principles individual networks have agreed on, the "super-network" changed the practices of governments in international negotiations and fostered inter-institutional interaction. Empirically, my research is mainly based on expert interviews and participatory observations at the strategic meetings of TANs at three different climate negotiations in Warsaw (2013), Paris (2015) and Bonn (2017), including follow-up skype interviews with key experts between 2013 and 2020.

Dueling incentives

2012 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 445-458 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dara Kay Cohen ◽  
Amelia Hoover Green
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Public Awareness ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Transnational Advocacy ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Advocacy Organizations ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Human Rights Advocacy ◽  
Information Politics ◽  
Policy Agendas

Transnational advocacy organizations are influential actors in the international politics of human rights. While political scientists have described several methods these groups use – particularly a set of strategies termed ‘information politics’ – scholars have yet to consider the effects of these tactics beyond their immediate impact on public awareness, policy agendas or the behavior of state actors. This article investigates the information politics surrounding sexual violence during Liberia’s civil war. We show that two frequently-cited ‘facts’ about rape in Liberia are inaccurate, and consider how this conventional wisdom gained acceptance. Drawing on the Liberian case and findings from sociology and economics, we develop a theoretical framework that treats inaccurate claims as an effect of ‘dueling incentives’ – the conflict between advocacy organizations’ needs for short-term drama and long-term credibility. From this theoretical framework, we generate hypotheses regarding the effects of information politics on (1) short-term changes in funding for human rights advocacy organizations, (2) short-term changes in human rights outcomes, (3) the institutional health of humanitarian and human rights organizations, and (4) long-run outcomes for the ostensible beneficiaries of such organizations. We conclude by outlining a research agenda in this area, emphasizing the importance of empirical research on information politics in the human rights realm, and particularly its effects on the lives of aid recipients.

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