Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: IR-scholars have paid increasing attention to the role of non-state actors in international relations. It is striking that all these works presuppose an understanding of the political environment as either a ?one-? or a ?two-level game?. In fact, up to now little research exists which moves beyond a traditional level-understanding of the political and international space. This is surprising since NGOs as well as states increasingly engage in what has been identified as a multi-level environment, i.e. a new type of space where opportunities for influence not only exist at the national or the international level, but also below at the local and inbetween at the regional level. Starting from the notion of a multi-level environment, our paper addresses three main issues: (1) First, we seek to determine how the presence of a multi-level setting for policy-making has altered collective action on the part of non-governmental organizations. Put differently, we ask how NGOs navigate in a context which Sidney Tarrow (2002) has referred to as ?complex internationalism?. How do they decide - and based on what criteria - which venue they will pursue, on which level they will organize and in which institution they will try to mobilize support for their issues? (2) Second, we are interested in the effects of varying institutional contexts on NGOs. We therefore explore how different institutional settings change the strategies of non-governmental actors. How do they change the norms and issue frames that NGOs promote? And, how does variation in the institutional context affect the potential for agency, that is, the ability of NGOs to alter the formal and informal institutional rules? (3) Third, we want to contribute to middle-range theorizing by probing the explanatory power of alternative approaches to the study of international organizations combining elements of constructivist IR with concepts developed in the social movement literature. Our theoretical framework assumes that the (1) the political opportunity structure in which NGOs are embedded and which captures the broader institutional context determines both (2) the mobilizing resources NGOs will draw on as well as (3) the frames they will develop to convince others of the legitimacy of their proposals.