chapter 34
...................................................................................................................................................INTERNATIONAL NGOS
...................................................................................................................................................ann florini
1 Introduction
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From tanks in the streets of Seattle in 1999 to untold millions of anti-war protestors
thronging cities throughout the world in 2003 , a new type of political institution has
captured widespread attention, both popular and scholarly. After the 2003 protests,
theNew York Timesreferredtotheriseofa‘‘secondsuperpower’’inworldaVairsinthe
form of mobilized citizens able and willing to work together across borders in a
common cause. A growing literature has examined in detail many such cases, from
the international campaign to ban landmines to the misnamed ‘‘anti-globalization’’
movement to such visible organizations as Greenpeace and Amnesty International.
But this new type of political institution is hard to deWne and to describe.
Governments are legally constituted entities, and their natures, mandates, and
sources of legitimacy are the subject of a rich theoretical literature. The parts of
the private sector that are politically inXuential tend to be legally deWned businesses,
whose management and rights and responsibilities are likewise covered in a sub-
stantial literature. Social movements, non-governmental organizations (NGOs),
and other citizens’ groups constitute a much more amorphous set of politically
inXuential institutions, identiWed more by what they are not—governments or
proWt-seeking entities—than by what they are.
As this amorphous ‘‘third sector’’ and its thickening web of cross-border ties rose
to international prominence in the 1990 s and thereafter, a scholarly literature began