of NGOs should adopt more coherent and eVective policies. The evidence for that
proposition is, to put it mildly, mixed at best.
Much of the literature on transnational civil society begins from a diVerent
starting point that disagrees with the basic premise of Olson’s argument and
Mathews’ fears. Not only are independent groups not necessarily bad for policy,
they can be downright good for both policy-making and society. The creation
of ‘‘social capital’’—relations within and among civic groups—promotes both
economic growth and political stability (Putnam 2000 ).
In Foreign Policy, Simmons ( 1998 ) pointed out the multiple ways NGOs
inXuence national governments, multilateral institutions, international corpor-
ations, and societies. They inXuence agendas—forcing leaders, policy-makers,
and publics to pay greater attention to various topics. They help to negotiate
outcomes, designing treaties and facilities agreements. They confer legitimacy,
promoting or restricting public support for issues and institutions. They can
help to implement solutions and push governments and other actors to abide by
their commitments. But the result of NGO involvement is not foreordained. NGOs
can sometimes improve domestic and international governance by drawing on
their expertise and resources, grassroots connections, sense of purpose, and
freedom from bureaucratic constraints. But they can also distort public opinion
with false or inaccurate information, lose their sense of purpose by growing larger
and more bureaucratic, or lose their organizational autonomy by increasingly
relying on state funding.
Florini ( 2000 ) drew on the scholarly literature to aim at a policy-making and
activist audience, taking a largely empirical approach to address three questions:
‘‘How powerful is transnational civil society? How sustainable is its inXuence? How
desirable is that inXuence?’’ The book drew together six case studies written by
authors, mostly scholars, who had actively participated in the networks they were
describing and thus could bring detailed inside knowledge to bear. Some of its
authors are among the long list of authors of book-length case studies that have
detailed how the growing phenomenon of transnational ties among citizens’
groups work in practice with regard to speciWc issues (Khagram 2004 ; Clark
2001 ; Evangelista 1999 ; Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink 1999 ; Lipschutz 1996 ; Wapner
1996 ).
This literature argued strongly that the answer to the most fundamental ques-
tion—do INGOs and other types of transnational civil society connections matter
to the conduct of international aVairs—was a resounding ‘‘yes.’’ Some went on to
consider the conditions under which they matter. The best known of such works is
Keck and Sikkink ( 1998 ), which focused on international advocacy networks and
argued that they are most likely to emerge around issues when channels of
communication between governments and peoples are blocked, activists believe
that networking will help them get better results more quickly, and various forms
of international contact facilitate the creation and strengthening of networks.
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