development. One such source is the Union of International Associations, which
since 1950 has published an annualYearbookproviding data on the number of
formally constituted INGOs whose members, funding, and oYcers comes from at
least three countries. For lack of alternatives, UIA numbers are widely used by
authors tracking the development of ‘‘transnational civil society,’’ ‘‘global civil
society,’’ ‘‘transnational society movements,’’ and other variants. But as Sikkink
and Smith ( 2002 ) point out, there are signiWcant problems with using the UIA data
as the basis for analyzing transnational civil society as a political institution. The
data omit the informal but politically signiWcant connections that tie groups and
individuals together across borders, meaning that at best the data capture a subset
of the sector. Second, the UIA does not distinguish among the many types and
purposes of INGOs, conXating advocacy groups that have a direct impact on global
politics and social change with professional associations, service providers,
research organizations, and religious groups that may or may not play a part in
eVorts to bring about social change. However, by carefully mining the data to select
the subset of INGOs relevant to a discussion of political institutions, Sikkink and
Smith ( 2002 ) were able to show a signiWcant trend: a nearly sixfold increase in the
number of social-change INGOs from 1953 to 1993 , with a particular jump in the
last decade of that period. They argue that such a trend is indicative of the broader
development of transnational civil society, even if the data do not allow scholars to
document the overall size of the phenomenon.
4 WhetherandWhenTheyMatter
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In the 1970 s, the international relationsWeld saw a major debate on ‘‘transnational
relations’’—that is, regular interactions across borders involving non-state actors
(Keohane and Nye 1972 ; Keohane and Nye 1977 ; Rosenau 1980 ). Some of the
literature, particularly the contributions from Keohane and Nye, posed useful
questions about the (signiWcant but not dominant) roles of non-state actors in
what was still assumed to be a strongly state-based system. They cited examples
from multinational business, NGOs, revolutionary movements, trade unions,
scientiWc networks, and international cartels to argue that while states remained
central, such factors as growing interdependence among nation states, the rise of
economic and environmental issues alongside military topics on the global agenda,
and advances in transportation and communication technology, had made it
possible for a wide array of non-governmental entities to play an increasingly direct
role in global policy-making. Others argued more strongly for a society-based
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