Transnational Advocacy in the Digital Era: Think Global, Act Local
Nina Hall
288 pages, Oxford University Press, 2022
Digital advocacy organizations are distinct from many traditional NGOs, such as Oxfam or Greenpeace. Most NGOs engage in advocacy campaigns based on long-term commitment to a cause, and where expert staff drive campaigns. Meanwhile, digital advocacy organizations use digital analytics to identify the most salient issues of the day and rapidly mobilize large memberships to put pressure on politicians. Digital advocacy organizations seek to harness “networked power” and can rapidly start campaigns on new issues while dropping old campaigns which gain less support. Digital advocacy organizations operate in a globalized world and frequently tackle transnational problems, however, they do so by focusing on national targets. This new generation of activists has formed a strong transnational network, yet still, sees the state as the locus of power.
The excerpt below from my recently published book introduces readers to digital advocacy organizations including groups such as MoveOn.org (United States), GetUp! (Australia), and Campact (Germany). All these organizations use email, online petitions, and social media to rapidly mobilize supporters, and are having an impact on local, national, and international decision making. While scholars, such as David Karpf, have documented the impact of individual organizations in their national context, none have traced how activists around the world have adopted and adapted this distinctive model of digital organizing. Digital advocacy organizations now operate in more than 20 countries—from South Africa to Sweden; Poland to New Zealand—and claim more than 20 million members worldwide. The book draws on: participant observation of digital advocacy organizations in Australia, Austria, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, Poland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom; descriptive statistics of their campaigns; and more than 100 interviews with digital activists.—Nina Hall
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On 12 August 2017, white supremacists gathered on the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, for a ‘Unite the Right’ rally. Protestors on the left also turned out to protest against the far-right rally. The day turned violent when a supporter of the ‘Unite the Right’ demonstration drove his car into the counter-protestors, and killed one of them. In the immediate aftermath, President Trump claimed that ‘both sides’ were to blame, and refused to condemn the racism and violence of the far right (Merica, 2017). Trump’s stance was widely criticized and many chief executives who sat on two White House business advisory councils were urged to leave their positions. In the United States, MoveOn and Color of Change, both digital advocacy organizations, launched a campaign urging Indra Nooyi, chief executive officer (CEO) of PepsiCo, and other business leaders to resign. Meanwhile in Sweden, Skiftet, another progressive digital advocacy organization, also launched a rapid-response campaign demanding that Swedish-born 3M Chief Executive, Inge Thulin leave his position on a presidential business advisory council. Hundreds of Swedes, prompted by Skiftet, sent emails to Inge Thulin highlighting that Trump had ‘failed to properly condemn right-wing extremists and Nazis’ (Mittelman et al., 2017). These efforts added to wider public pressure in the United States and, following a number of resignations, the two councils rapidly collapsed.
Although Skiftet and MoveOn are far apart geographically, these organizations share a lot in common. They both campaign via email, online petitions, Twitter, Facebook, and viral videos. They complement online actions with offline marches, demonstrations, and vigils to push for change. They are members of a growing group of digital advocacy organizations, which are permanent institutions with professional staff. MoveOn, for instance, has been campaigning since 1998. Skiftet, a Swedish digital advocacy organization, which emulated MoveOn, hass been active since 2014. Many digital advocacy organizations large memberships: MoveOn, Campact (in Germany), and GetUp! (in Australia) all have over 1 million members. Their longevity distinguishes them from important, but sporadic social movements such as Indignados in Spain or Occupy Wall Street in the United States (Gerbaudo, 2012; Tufekci, 2017).
Digital advocacy organizations are recognized as influential actors by the media, politicians, and some academics. In 2016, GetUp, an Australian digital advocacy organization, was named by the Australian Financial Review as one of the top ten actors with ‘covert power’ in Australia. Campact in Germany has powerfully mobilized public opinion against the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) (Bauer 2016 b). MoveOn was one of the ‘leading advocacy organizations’ mobilizing people against the Iraq War in the United States (Busby, 2010; Heaney & Rojas, 2007). Meanwhile, Leadnow, a digital advocacy organization in Canada, helped to unseat Prime Minister Stephen Harper in the 2015 Canadian federal election (Vromen, 2017).
This new model of advocacy organization has spread around the world from the United States to Europe, Australasia, Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Nineteen digital advocacy organizations claim to have a total of over 20 million members. In 2021 there were organizations in: Austria (#aufstehn), Australia (GetUp!), Canada (Leadnow), Germany (Campact), Hungary (aHang), Ireland (Uplift), Israel (Zazim), Italy (Progressi), France (le Mouvement), New Zealand (ActionStation), Netherlands (De Goede Zaak), Poland (Akcja Demokracja), Romania (De.clic), Serbia (Kreni Promeni), South Africa (Amandla), Sweden (Skiftet), Switzerland (Campax), UK (38 Degrees) and the United States (US) While political communications scholars have studied the emergence of these organizations in their national contexts, few have focused on the transnational dimensions of digital advocacy and what this new model of advocacy means for international relations (Chadwick & Dennis, 2016; Karpf, 2012; Vromen, 2017).
My aim in writing this book is three-fold. First, I want to understand how the same form of advocacy organization emerged in such different contexts. What drove the global spread of digital advocacy organizations? Second, I want to contribute to international relations (IR) theories of advocacy, which have typically focused on larger international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), such as Oxfam and Greenpeace, or transnational advocacy networks focused on particular issues, such as climate change, human rights, or land mines. I ask: to what extent do digital advocacy organizations require new IR theories of advocacy?
Third, I explore if and how digital advocacy organizations campaign transnationally. After all, many scholars have suggested that the internet would enable more frequent transnational networking and mobilizing (Keck & Sikkink, 1998). Some have even suggested that digital technology could create a ‘global civil society’ as ‘many transborder civic activists regard themselves as world citizens in addition to (or even more than) national-state citizens’ (Scholte, 1999, p. 16). The underlying logic in these arguments is that faster and cheaper international communications will lead to greater international solidarity and more frequent transnational collective action.
Digital advocacy organizations would seem an obvious case for transnational campaigning. The organizations in this book share common progressive values and operate in a highly connected, globalized world, where issues spill over borders. They can easily communicate across borders and share campaign material, thanks to email and social media. In addition, they are all part of a transnational network, the Online Progressive Engagement Network (OPEN). Through this network, digital activists meet frequently in person, and exchange online, to share new technologies, skills, and tactics. They have developed deep relationships through regular summits, staff secondments, and the sharing of campaign failures and successes. In this book, I examine how, when, and why they campaign collectively on transnational issues.
The Argument
This book advances two main theoretical arguments. First, digital advocacy organizations challenge some IR theories of advocacy. These organizations gain power and authority from mobilizing members rapidly—offline and online—rather than wielding expertise over a given issue. They campaign often in rapid response mode, jumping from one issue to another, depending on their members’ concerns. In contrast, most traditional NGOs are committed to a particular issue, and gain power and authority based on their knowledge of that issue.
Second, I argue that digital advocacy organizations regularly collaborate transnationally, but rarely campaign collectively at the same time, on the same issue, with the same target. Rather, these organizations share financing, tactics, technology, and messaging to enhance their own national campaigns. They focus on mobilizing national publics to put pressure on national decision-makers because they view the state as the most powerful actor on the global stage. They have developed new forms of digitally distributed transnational campaigns and campaign at the same time, on the same issue, but with different—national—targets. I outline these two arguments here in more depth.
The Power of Digital Advocacy Organizations
IR scholars have often argued that NGOs’ power derives from their expertise and authority on an issue (B. B. Allan, 2017; Haas, 1990; Stroup, 2012). Most NGOs are focused and committed to a particular set of issues; for example, Greenpeace focuses on the environment and Amnesty International on human rights. Campaign decision-making is typically top-down, as professional staff determine which causes to focus on. NGOs regularly engage in agenda-setting and awareness-raising to educate the public and decision-makers on new issues (Keck & Sikkink, 1998). They exchange their specialized knowledge to gain access to international organizations and decision-makers (Tallberg et al., 2015). NGOs often engage in lobbying: seeking meetings with decision-makers to directly influence them. There are many other strategies NGOs may engage in: monitoring government’s follow-through on international agreements, ‘naming and shaming’ governments that do not keep their promises, litigation, or direct enforcement (where they take the law into their own hands) (Eilstrup-Sangiovanni & Bondaroff, 2014; Murdie & Urpelainen, 2015; Princen, 1995; Setzer & Brynes, 2019). NGOs can inform public opinion and mobilize ‘moral movements’ to put pressure on their respective governments (Busby, 2010). All of these strategies involve NGOs committing to their particular causes over a sustained period, and building up a degree of expertise on this issue. IR has not examined how the digital era has changed the strategies, and power, of advocacy organizations.
In contrast, digital advocacy organizations build networked power by mobilizing people rapidly online and offline (Hall et al., 2020). They have membership lists numbering in the hundreds of thousands, even millions. They can quickly aggregate their members’ preferences and rapidly set up new campaigns thanks to email, social media, and digital analytics (Fraussen & Halpin, 2017). They have expertise in rapid response and digital advocacy, rather than substantive expertise on the cause for which they campaign. Hence, they can easily switch campaigns to new breaking issues because they do assign staff to a single issue.
Digital advocacy organizations have an organizational model which is very distinct from most conventional NGOs. It involves devolving decision-making to members, who decide what issues and campaigns should be prioritized. These members then give legitimacy and force to campaigns through their actions. In the words of a digital activist, their power operates like a current: ‘It is made by many. It is open, participatory, and peer-driven. It uploads, and it distributes. Like water or electricity, it’s most forceful when it surges. The goal with new power is not to hoard it but to channel it’ (Heimans & Timms, 2018, p. 8). In contrast, digital campaigners argue that: ‘Old power works like a currency. It is held by few. Once gained, it is jealously guarded, and the powerful have a substantial store of it to spend. It is closed, inaccessible, and leader-driven. It downloads, and it captures’ (Heimans & Timms, 2018). The binary distinction between new and old power is somewhat simplistic. However, it underscores a core difference between more traditional NGOs (where decision-making power is in the hands of professional staff) and digital advocacy organizations (which seek to create a participatory, member-driven form of power).
This book illustrates how digital advocacy organizations have harnessed the internet to build up collective power and advance progressive policies. In doing so, it contributes to debates on the power of NGOs and advocacy actors in global governance. A wide range of scholars have examined the power of non-state actors in specific issue areas, including: climate change politics (B. B. Allan, 2017; J. Allan, 2021; Hadden, 2015; Hadden & Bush, 2020); trade politicization (Bauer, 2016; Bièvre & Poletti, 2017; Eliasson, 2019; Kay & Evans, 2018; Siles-Brügge, 2017; Siles-Brügge & Strange, 2020); and global migration and refugee governance (Bradely, 2020; della Porta, 2018; Hall, 2017; Rother & Steinhilper, 2019; Tennant & Wolff, 2018). This book examines how digital advocacy organizations have contributed to the wider climate, anti-free trade, and refugee movements. It explores why they have been successful at mobilizing people in some cases, but not in others. IR scholars have much to learn about the impact of ‘people-powered’ movements in global governance.
Transnational versus National Advocacy in the Digital Era
The digital advocacy organizations I study have all the right ingredients for forging transnational campaigns. First, they share common progressive values and concerns about international issues such as climate change, refugees, trade agreements, and conflict. Second, they have created a strong transnational network, OPEN. They meet regularly in person and there is an extremely high level of trust between activists, which I observed over five years of studying them. Organizations in this network frequently share funding, staff, technology, strategies, and campaign messaging. They are highly invested in seeing their sister organizations around the world succeed.
Digital advocacy organizations also share the same mode of advocacy: digitally based, multi-issue, member-driven, and rapid-response. They can easily and quickly share tactics, strategies, and technologies at low cost. It is easy for GetUp in Australia to share emails, online petitions, Facebook videos, or tweets with other organizations within this network. IR scholars may expect them to campaign collectively transnationally, especially if they are blocked domestically (Sikkink, 2005).
Despite being part of a transnational network and operating in a globalized and digital era, I find that digital advocacy organizations almost always target the nation state. They frequently campaign on international issues, but rarely target international institutions. Digital advocacy organizations regularly exchange ideas with international allies, but rarely run campaigns with them. This is because digital activists see the nation state as the most important political actor. They derive their power from mobilizing citizens to put pressure on national decision-makers.
Digital advocacy organizations are part of a broader shift away from advocacy focused on international summits towards ‘digitally distributed’ campaigns. These campaigns occur on the same day, but with different, national or local targets. For example, Campact, GetUp, MoveOn, and other digital advocacy organizations have partnered with 350.org and #FridaysForFuture, to help mobilize millions for global days of climate action. Experienced campaigners have suggested that ‘directed network campaigns’, which have a centralized structure and plan and mobilize a broad network to implement campaigns, are most likely to succeed in creating change because they ‘successfully marry new power with old power’ (Heimans & Timms, 2018; Mogus & Liacas, 2016, p. 6). Digital activists use digital platforms to amplify their messages, broaden mobilization at the domestic level, and, most importantly, diffuse new organizational forms. IR has much to learn about the myriad ways protest can go transnational and what role digital technology plays in this (della Porta & Kriesi, 1999; Tarrow, 2005; Tarrow & McAdam, 2005).
This book also contributes to broader debates in political communications, social movement, and political science. Digital advocacy organizations are part of a much broader trend of digitalization of advocacy and politics (Castells, 2012; Farrell, 2012; Fung et al., 2013). The book explains the global diffusion of a specific form of digital advocacy organization, as well as tactics, and decision-making practices. It offers rich comparative evidence of the differences amongst digital advocacy organizations across the globe, and their evolution over time. This is needed, given that much of the existing political communications scholarship has focused on particular organizations within their national contexts (Karpf, 2012, 2016; Vromen, 2017); exceptions include (Hall, 2019; Vaughan, 2020).