Since 2009, International Relations scholars have researched the role of big advocacy groups in giving access to the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots in the United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW). To further these studies, the focus of this thesis is on the progress of negotiations for the 6-year period since the issue has been adopted, asking the question – How has the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots chosen to frame lethal autonomous weapons systems, and how successful has that framing been for the period of 2013 to 2019? I argue that advocates undertook a normative securitisation process to frame the existential threat lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) pose to human beings. This argument is supported by a dual method research approach of 1) semi-structured elite interviews; and 2) qualitative content analysis of reports. The findings of this research show that, while the advocacy group has not achieved success in the form of a legally binding agreement at the CCW, they have successfully developed a process of moral stigmatization of LAWS that contributes to the creation of a new humanitarian security regime.

In 2017, the far right populist, transnational movement “Generation Identity” (GI) embarked on an activist “mission” in the Mediterranean Sea to stop non-European migrants from reaching the European continent. This paper presents a study of how GI was able to do so, analysing the empowering network of support that evolved during the movement’s “Defend Europe” campaign. Its relevance arises from the globally growing assertiveness of populist actors, cooperating and shaping international politics together. However, studies on party politics and international interactions prevail in research on global populism -this paper is the first one to raise the question of how far right populist social movements interact in transnational networks. Applying a resource mobilization approach and drawing on transnational advocacy theory, I attempt to answer this question with a single case study on the German GI-branch’s networking activities during the Defend Europe campaign. The relational data collected shows that far right populists, too, engage in transnational advocacy efforts, and it appears that their populism does not visibly determine how their networks function. Rather, GI’s activism in “defensive mode” seems decisive for the movement’s transnational networking practices, limiting its possibilities to gain in political and societal influence.

The political economic pressures of development contribute to unsustainable environmental practices in developing countries, and marginalize civil society participation. This dissertation looks at the following countries where policymakers are faced with strong incentives to foster rapid economic growth. In Jamaica, the bauxite industry demands mining rights in sensitive mountainous ecosystems. In Mexico, the tourist industry demands access to construct in vulnerable coastal environments in the southeast. In inland Mexico, unregulated agriculture threatens ecosystems in the Yucatán Peninsula. Finally, tourist and energy industries in Egypt demand access for infrastructure in sensitive ecosystems in the Red Sea region. In all of the cases, the preferences of these sectors threaten to displace local communities, while creating unsustainable pressures on the environment. At the same time, the projected revenues from these sectors justify continued environmental exploitation. In response, transnational networks of environmental advocates and epistemic communities mobilized throughout the 1990s, lobbying the Global Environment Facility for conservationist projects in each country, and then lobbying governments to effectively implement the projects. This research finds that three conditions were necessary for transnational networks to influence policies associated with project implementation. First, networks must generate an internal scientific agreement on the dimensions of the environmental problem. By doing so, they can delegitimate competing arguments, strengthening their own claims. Second, networks must build social ties with policymakers in powerful agencies. Social ties increase the likelihood that policymakers will adopt the norms of the network. Third, networks must reframe the discourse on environmental management. At present, policymakers and industry argue that environmental management should be assessed by its contribution to economic development, validating only those policies that lead to sustained revenue generation. By reframing environmental management as an issue impacting the well-being of domestic populations, networks can argue for the greater participation of actors marginalized by the dominance of privileged productive sectors in resource management. Moreover, by linking sustainable resource use to the interests of domestic populations, networks can generate political capital to oppose the most unsustainable environmental practices. This research thus builds on the epistemic communities approach by highlighting the importance of democracy in knowledge building and environmental governance.

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)

This research contributes to gaps in the international relations literature explaining the emergence of transnational advocacy networks. Specifically, this research contributes to understanding TAN emergence due to a gap in institutional approaches to casualty recording in conflict and why actors join TANs. This TAN is particularly worthy of investigation because casualty records measure the scope of violence in a conflict and are often highly politicized and contested. Existing explanations of TAN emergence can be organized into three broad categories of analysis: sociological, political, and economic. The earliest explanations align with a sociological explanation for TANs as a mechanism for changing international norms. Social movement theorists account for TANs as a mechanism for civil society to challenge power structures. While other researchers suggest TANs should be treated like interest groups, and their emergence stems from an economic need for material incentives. This research extends the economic category of analysis and argues that actors join TANs for non-material, intangible incentives. Intangible benefits include knowledge, methodologies, data, or access to data sources. This research utilized a qualitative case study method to test all three categories of existing explanations using surveys, interviews, and archival records. Testing not only investigated hypotheses relating to the three categories of existing theories but also produced findings describing facilitators of TAN emergence, temporally-bound intangible benefits, and the types of intangible benefits available to actors. TANs are important to international politics because they influence norms, shape policies, and function as a bridge for local actors with the international community. This research produced findings with central themes about why resource-poor actors may spend their limited resources to join TANs. Further investigation into the intangible benefits available to actors joining TANs in settings other than conflict may provide greater insight into the value of intangible benefits to collective behavior. / Doctor of Philosophy / While body counts are generally presented as a measure of accountability or to raise awareness about civilian deaths in the public sphere, body counts are fiercely contested and highly politicized. This occurs during the conflict and decades after a conflict is resolved. Civilian body counts serve as political apparatuses for states and political actors to negotiate, challenge, and produce security narratives. Because of this politicization, the number of civilian casualties in violent conflict is not fully known, and their deaths' impact on the overall state's security is not well understood. While International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and human rights laws provide protection for civilians in conflict, documenting casualties is not addressed. International law does not prescribe methods for recording casualties; therefore, there is a gap in how international institutions approach accounting for casualties. In the early 2000s, facilitated by ICTs, civil society began to fill this gap by documenting casualties and collaborating across boundaries. This research traces the emergence of a Transnational Advocacy Network (TAN) that appeared in 2009 to collaborate on recording conflict casualties. This study produced five findings and contributes to understanding how ICTs facilitate TANs and identifying intangible benefits available to actors at network events that motivate their participation. Intangible benefits include knowledge, methodologies, data, or access to data sources. This research is worthy of investigation because TAN development is poorly understood yet they influence international politics by shaping norms, policies and linking local communities with international organizations.

abstract: Since the 1988 uprising, a transnational advocacy network has formed around the issue of democracy and human rights in Burma. Within this transnational advocacy network, personal narratives of trauma have been promulgated in both international and oppositional news media and human rights reports. My thesis critically analyzes the use of the trauma narrative for advocacy purposes by the transnational advocacy network that has emerged around Burma and reveals the degree to which these narratives adhere to a Western, individualistic meta-narrative focused on political and civil liberties. Examining the "boomerang" pattern and the concept of marketability of movements, I highlight the characteristics of the 1988 uprising and subsequent opposition movement that attracted international interest. Reflecting on the psychological aspects of constructing trauma narratives, I then review the scholarship which links trauma narratives to social and human rights movements. Using a Foucauldian approach to discourse analysis, I subsequently explain my methodology in analyzing the personal narratives I have chosen. Beyond a theoretical discussion of trauma narratives and transnational advocacy networks, I analyze the use of personal narratives of activists involved in the 1988 uprising and the emergence of Aung San Suu Kyi's life story as a compelling narrative for Western audiences. I then explore the structure of human rights reports which situate personal narratives of trauma within the framework of international human rights law. I note the differences in the construction of traumatic narratives of agency and those of victimization. Finally, using Cyclone Nargis as a case study, I uncover the discursive divide between human rights and humanitarian actors and their use of personal narratives to support different discursive constructions of the aid effort in the aftermath of the cyclone. I conclude with an appeal to a more reflexive approach to advocacy work reliant on trauma narratives and highlight feminist methodologies that have been successful in bringing marginalized narratives to the center of human rights discussions. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Social Justice and Human Rights 2011

This thesis examines how the relationships between women, inside and outside the international women's organization for professionally working women – Soroptimist International – is informed by proximity and distance, which orientates the organization in the direction of a multiculturalism informed by imperial feminism. Focus lies on the organizations use of terms such as “sister” and “professional woman”, and the imagined benefits and responsibilities of being a soroptimist. The thesis is centered on interviews with members from Soroptimist International Sweden, which is seen as a microlevel of the international organization. By interviewing members and comparing the statements with some of the official documents produced by the organization, I also examine the relation between policy and practice. Drawing on the affect theories of Sara Ahmed regarding emotions and bodily orientation; postcolonial perspectives on transnational feminism, sisterhood and solidarity; and anthropological perspectives on transnational women's network, I argue that the orientation of Soroptimist International is informed by white middle-class heterosexual women. When working for women's rights as human rights it is furthermore based on a UN discourse, which also orientate the organization in a universally western way. Furthermore, I also show how the network of Soroptimist International is end oriented, which means that its information and knowledge exchange is centered around its members and the expansion of the network, instead of advocacy making on behalf of women that are non-members. This leads to the conclusion that if Soroptimist International wishes to reorient away from its feminist imperialist and multiculturalist elements, it needs to engage with a praxis-oriented solidarity concept. This means obtaining a multifaceted communication between its local and global levels, as well as seizing the many different partial perspectives existing inside as well as outside the organization.

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This study is concerned with the concept of internationalisation as a tool for disadvantaged minorities to affect change in their situation. This phenomenon has been studied widely with respect to authoritarian regimes and later on with liberal Western democracies. The current study has focussed on the state of Israel and the situation of its Palestinian Arab minority to investigate the origins and purposes of internationalisation, the extent to which these efforts have achieved the objectives that were set, and whether this process is in any sense capable of achieving them. The analysis shows that the internationalisation process whereby the Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel sought to reclaim their rights by invoking the support of the international community has emerged in the 1950s. It came to be perceived as necessary because internal legal and political processes were understood to be insufficient to achieve any redress for their grievances. The Arab leadership in Israel articulates internationalisation as a strategy designed to invoke the norms of democracy to question the conduct of successive Israeli governments, and counter the narrative offered by them on the world stage. The internationalisation strategy is seen to undergo a profound transformation from public memoranda, to civil and legal advocacy by invoking international conventions and treaties and finally to personal diplomacy. The results show that it is not a zero sum game; it is an especially effective method in different ways and with varying degrees of success. It created an extension of the critique of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories to its Palestinian minority. Using the international law in the modality of legal advocacy to compel the Israeli state to adhere to the commitments it had made by acceding to an international convention, proved more effective than mere political pressure. Another factors such as the nature of the claims, geopolitical circumstances, global momentum, and domestic politics are crucial as well for the success of the internationalisation. Yet, Israel’s response varied in particular cases to minimise external critics, and its respect for the international law was uttered by utilitarian justification to protect its reputation. The application of the social constructivist boomerang-spiral model to the process of internationalisation is deemed to be a particularly effective instrument to explore both the potential and the limits of the process of compelling the Israeli state to conform to internationally supported norms. The results of this study demonstrate that the construction of the state’s identity as a Jewish and concerns over national security are potentially in conflict with the egalitarian democratic norms that it claims to be governed by. The implications of these two elements for the operation of the Israeli state has resulted in a failure to fully integrate its Arab citizens. The Nation-State Law of 2018 reinforces the legal and systematic discrimination against the Palestinians in Israel and explains why internationalisation has not been successful. 443 It is the first comprehensive investigation into a selected series of case studies that document international appeals made by Israel’s Arab elite due to three chronological periods: 1948-1979, 1992- 2013 and 2015 onwards. On a theoretical level, it is the first time that the spiral model has been tested in the context of Israel and its Arab minority. This can serve as a strategic information source for Arab MKs, NGOs and Israeli decision makers.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is one of many nonprofit, nongovernmental organizations that work to defend press freedom and the safety of journalists in Latin America. Based on qualitative interviews with employees at the CPJ, open surveys with journalists who have been helped by the CPJ, historical archive research, and informal participant observation, this study shows that organized domestic and international nongovernmental groups can and do make improvements on behalf of journalists and press freedom in Latin America. The CPJ's activities raise issues and place them on the agenda, and they influence discourse, policy, institutional procedures, and state behavior. Effectiveness at these levels is conditioned upon the involvement of local press groups, target audiences, the issues addressed, the credibility and authority of the CPJ, and the organization's connections within the worldwide press freedom network. This case study helps fill a significant gap in the research on transnational advocacy and its influence, and provides a foundation upon which to further explore the roles of advocacy networks in the international community.