Mapping contested terrain : mobilization and representation in transnational advocacy campaigns

• Main Author: Balasubramanian, Priyanjali
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2009
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/12703

This paper identifies two blind spots in the literature on Transnational Advocacy Campaigns TACs): an overemphasis on the external political impacts of TACs and the lack of conceptual clarity on key analytical constructs such as mobilization and representation. These problems leave the internal dynamics of TACs under-theorized and prevent scholars from categorizing TAC constituencies beyond geographic and class-based dichotomies (for example: North-South, core-periphery). To address these limitations, the paper presents a typology that distinguishes TAC constituencies based on observed levels of mobilization and representation. Using two online TACs as case-studies, the paper demonstrates the feasibility of the typology and challenges the prevailing assumption in the TAC literature, which conflates the quantity of mobilization with the quality of representation. Overall, the paper pursues an integrated research approach that draws on the comparative method and international relations scholarship in its examination of advocacy in contemporary transnational politics.