The Social Construction of Global Health Priorities: An Empirical Analysis of Contagion in Bilateral Health Aid

Donors of development assistance for health typically provide funding for a range of disease focus areas, such as maternal health and child health, malaria, HIV/AIDS, and other infectious diseases. But funding for each disease category does not match closely its contribution to the disability and loss of life it causes and the cost-effectiveness of interventions. We argue that peer influences in the social construction of global health priorities contribute to explaining this misalignment. Aid policy-makers are embedded in a social environment encompassing other donors, health experts, advocacy groups, and international officials. This social environment influences the conceptual and normative frameworks of decision-makers, which in turn affect their funding priorities. Aid policy-makers are especially likely to emulate decisions on funding priorities taken by peers with whom they are most closely involved in the context of expert and advocacy networks. We draw on novel data on donor connectivity through health IGOs and health INGOs and assess the argument by applying spatial regression models to health aid disbursed globally between 1990 and 2017. The analysis provides strong empirical support for our argument that the involvement in overlapping expert and advocacy networks shapes funding priorities regarding disease categories and recipient countries in health aid.

Theorizing NGO Mediation in Global Governance

This theoretical chapter summarizes how scholars in international relations and comparative politics have conceptualized the roles of NGOs in global governance and offers a new approach for studying NGO mediation. First, it surveys literatures on transnational advocacy networks, INGOs, and global governance institutions. Next, it introduces the concept of NGO mediation and incorporates insights from scholarship on regime type, state-society relations, and domestic social movements to enhance our insights into how NGOs mediate between domestic and global levels of governance. NGO mediation involves adapting and translating global governance norms and principles to domestic contexts. We identify three common mediation challenges and link these challenges to features of the domestic political context. Finally, the chapter previews the book’s argument and describes our research design.

The Dynamics of International Norms Diffusion: The Study of Women Activists in Bali

Artikel ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis pendekatan aktivis-aktivis perempuan di Bali dalam mendifusikan norma global kesetaraan gender. Aktivitas mereka berhadapan dengan adat budaya Bali yang patriarki. Dengan menggunakan metode kualitatif berjenis fenomenologi, penelitian menggambarkan pengalaman aktivis perempuan di Bali dalam ruang transnasionalisme. Penelitian ini menemukan bahwa upaya untuk mendifusikan norma dari ranah global ke ranah domestik dan lokal, tidak terjadi secara linear. Ratifikasi Konvensi mengenai Penghapusan segala Bentuk Diskriminasi terhadap Perempuan oleh Pemerintah Indonesia pada tahun 1984, tidak berarti bahwa norma kesetaraan gender dapat menyebar dan terinternalisasi dalam masyarakat secara otomatis. Aktivis dalam gerakan perempuan memiliki peran yang penting dalam mempromosikan pentingnya hak-hak perempuan. Mereka melakukan adaptasi agar norma kesetaraan gender pada level global, mendapatkan penerimaan di segmen tertentu dari budaya Bali. Pilihan strategi dalam difusi norma oleh para aktivis perempuan di Bali adalah hasil interaksi antara identitas pemahaman mereka terhadap budaya lokal, interaksi dalam jaringan advokasi internasional serta penggunaan kesempatan politik baik yang berasal dari ranah internasional maupun domestik. Pengalaman berinteraksi langsung dengan aktivis gender di negara Barat menimbulkan gagasan kreatif untuk mengadopsi praktik perjuangan gender yang telah berhasil di luar negeri untuk diterapkan di level lokal.Kata-kata kunci: norma global, difusi, glokalisasi, gerakan gender, transnasionalismeThis article aims to analyze the approach of women activists in Bali in diffusing global norms of gender equality. Their activities deal with patriarchal Balinese cultural tradition. Using a qualitative method of phenomenology, the study describes the experiences of women activists in Bali in the space of transnationalism. This study finds that efforts to diffuse norms from the global to the domestic and local domains do not occur in a linear fashion. Ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women by the Government of Indonesia in 1984 does not mean that gender equality norms can spread and be internalized in society automatically. Activists in the women’s movement have an important role in promoting the importance of women’s rights. They make adaptations so that the norms of gender equality at the global level gain acceptance in certain segments of Balinese culture. The strategy choices in the diffusion of norms by women activists in Bali are the result of the interaction between their identity and understanding of local culture, interaction in international advocacy networks and the use of political opportunities both from the international and domestic spheres. The experiences of interacting directly with gender activists in Western countries give rise to creative ideas to adopt the practice of gender movement that has been successful abroad to be applied at the local level.Keywords: global norms, diffusion, glocalization, gender movement, transnationalism

Exploring Transnational Advocacy Networks for Environmental Sustainability

This study aims to explore papers and assess how they have been addressing TAN features to understand better and explore a structure for the effectiveness of transnational advocacy networks (TANs) for environmental sustainability. Based on data collected, papers on the thematic of transnational advocacy networks for the environment were selected and explored to understand better what features are shown and under what light. Transnational advocacy networks for environmental issues are common in the literature, as the topic draws the attention of nongovernmental organizations. Many of the papers explore at least one of three pillars among the results, and frequently more than one is brought up into theoretical and empirical discussion. These results highlight specific features among each of the characteristics, building a framework so that TANs may have a path to structure their activities to achieve their goals more effectively. Further studies may advance this knowledge in practice. This study seeks to contribute to the existing literature from a theoretical perspective, integrating and exploring the dimensions of transnational advocacy networks and considering a possible structure to improve their results.

# AstraZeneca vaccine disinformation on Twitter

We analyzed 50,080 tweets about # AstraZeneca in English from 2021. We found that the news most common in the frequently retweeted tweets abound in negative information, and in many cases come from media sources well-known for disinformation. Also, we found that RT, a Russian state-sponsored news website, as well as Al Arabiya, a Saudi-owned news website, are frequently retweeted with information about the vaccine. Our analysis identified large coordination networks involved in political astroturfing and vaccine diplomacy in South Asia but also vaccine advocacy networks associated with European Commission employees. Our results show that Twitter discourse about # AstraZeneca is filled with disinformation and bad press, and may be distributed not only organically by anti-vaxxer activists, but also systematically by professional sources.HighlightsMost commonly retweeted media news links abound in negative informationWell established disinformation media sources are retweeted moreState coordinated networks are active in # AstraZeneca astroturfing

TRANSNATIONAL EXPERTISE AND EXPERIENCE NETWORKS AND RUSSIA'S ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES

This article offers an analysis of why Russia has been struggling to implement the environmental policies adopted by the government. While Transnational Advocacy Networks (TANs), much discussed in the Constructivist scholarship and concerned with forces behind normative and behavioral change, do indeed have an independent effect on the adoption of environmental laws, they act predominantly through inter-governmental channels, not necessarily impacting on society itself. This partly explains why norms get adopted but may end up not getting implemented. Based on the existing literature on TANs, the authors’inquiry establishes the fact that, to be successful in facilitating implementation, transnational networks can operate not only in the capacity of Advocacy Networks for the adoption of norms, but also as what the authors of this article previously chose to refer to as Expertise and Experience Networks, primarily aiming to aid norm implementation. Countries can be affected by TANs but not by TEENs, which might account for the paradoxical situation in Russia regarding norm implementation. The difference between the two only becomes apparent in cases when they do not operate simultaneously.