This dissertation reveals the long-term implications of Transnational Advocacy Networks (TANs) on domestic environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) in India. It asks two questions: i. what opportunities and challenges do Indian NGOs face while addressing environmental issues within a transnational framework? ii. in what ways can southern domestic activists reduce the challenges of TAN neocolonialism and Indian state repression? It argues that TANs fail to leverage indigenous interests in the global South and that TAN activity increases Indian activists’ exposure to state repression. Existing transnational relations literature downplays the neocolonial side of transnationalism in favour of the short-term benefits of international recognition and material and financial aid. Drawing on over 50 research participant interviews and print documents collected over the course of six-months in New Delhi and Bengaluru, the research teases out the everyday lived experiences and histories of domestic activists in TANs. It analyzes how certain traditional rural-based advocacies that adopt a Gandhi-based approach such as the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) and Pathalgadi movements reject transnational alliances with international NGOs for fear of dominance and oppression, while urban-based advocacies that receive material and financial security from abroad such as Greenpeace India, ActionAid India, and Amnesty International view TANs as a boon for the Indian environmental advocacy sector. The research argues that Indian environmentalists would benefit if they shifted away from TANs towards a ‘global solidarity’ model that incorporates intersectionality between movements and South-South Transnational Advocacy Networks (SSTANs). / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The objective of this study is to understand the logic of popular mobilization in Sao Paulo (Brazil) and New Delhi (India) and to explain why subaltern groups use their political freedoms to mobilize on some issues and not on others. More specifically, the study attempts to address a puzzle: Why do the popular sectors not mobilize to make claims for health when the vast majority of the urban poor experience severe health deficits? My contention is that the nature of public discourse determines both the emergence of popular movements and the issues on which they engage in claims-making. Competing ideas about what democracy is and what it ought to be, the meaning of social justice, and the relationship between democracy and social justice, constitute the 'raw materials' around which mobilization frames are created. The empirical evidence presented in this study supports my claim that the nature of public discourse is crucial for democratic deepening from below. / Based on extensive field research in low-income communities in Sao Paulo and New Delhi, my study explains the differences and similarities in the political actions of the urban poor. In India, the near-absence of a public discourse on health accounts for the lack of mobilization by subaltern groups to seek improvements in their health situation. In contrast, I find that there has been a tradition of public discourse on health in Brazil since the 1970s when "external actors" such as doctors and progressive Church officials became engaged in social causes and contributed to the emergence of health movements. However, since Brazil's transition to democracy, this public discourse has fractured, becoming more receptive to "new" health issues such as violence, even though "old" health problems continue to persist. While the popular sectors experience the dual burden of "old" and "new" health problems, they are perceived to be the cause of many "new" health hazards like violence rather than its victims. The disengagement of "external actors" from "old" health issues and the widespread perception that the popular sectors are themselves to blame for the "new" health problems has inhibited popular mobilization for health in democratic Brazil.

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