What's Being Done On . . . Effective Networking?

Main List of Network Profiles Survey Results Sample Survey Women's Learning Partnership for Rights, Development, and Peace, Interview with Mahnaz Afkhami, President and CEO. African Democracy Forum, Interview with Hannah Forster, Chair. Graðansko Organizovanje Za Demokratiju (GROZD)/Citizens' Organization for Democracy, Interview with Milan Mrdja, Program Manager. CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, Interview with staff. Global Organization of Parliamentarians Against Corruption, Interview with John Williams, Founder and Current Chair.

The World Movement Secretariat would like to thank our interns, Mr. Jens Jungblut and Ms. Cornelia Schiller, for their assistance in assembling this installment.

"What's Being Done On…Effective Networking?" focuses on how networks emerge, how they work, and under what conditions they are able to operate most effectively.

Partly as a result of advancements in information and communication technologies (ICTs), interaction between and among individuals, states, and non-state actors, across different regions and activities, has had a sharp increase over the past few decades. These interactions are structured in terms of networks, and much of the work of civil society around the world is shaped and conducted through social networks. People working on various issues or in specific regions often connect with others to foster their efforts for change and to gain support for their goals. This is why social networks are one of the most important factors to be considered when thinking about why and how various social and political problems are addressed. Our hope is to shed some light on how networks can work most effectively to support the aims of civil society groups, particularly in the area of democracy promotion and human rights.

In this installment, we share the results of a survey we performed on this topic among a sample of World Movement participants. We also conducted interviews with leaders of five different networks – three global, one based in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and a regional one in Africa (see menu on the right). Finally, we include brief profiles of some networks suggested by respondents to our survey as well as others we have discovered. If you would like to suggest effective networks that we might add to these profiles, please send information to the world@ned.org.

What is a "Network?"

Within the democracy-promotion and human rights communities, the term "network" can be understood as an act of social organization characterized by voluntary, reciprocal, and horizontal patterns of communication and exchange, which promotes causes, principles, ideas and/or norms. Networks are essentially communicative structures within which individuals or groups share values or advocate policy changes. To influence discourse, procedures, and policy, activists or organizations may engage in and become part of larger policy communities that bring together actors working on an issue from a variety of institutional and value perspectives. Ideally, they frequently exchange information and provide mutual support to each other, generate information quickly and accurately, and use such information to pursue their goals.

The emergence of social and advocacy networks is not a new phenomenon. Such networks can be dated back to the 19th century, certainly in connection with the campaign to abolish slavery. However, due to the increase in the number of international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) committed to social change, the number, size, and professionalism, as well as the speed, density, and complexity of networks' international linkages, has grown dramatically in the last four decades. Networks seem most likely to emerge in cases where:

• Channels between domestic groups and government are blocked or hampered or where channels that do exist fail to resolve existing conflicts.
• Activists believe that networking will further their missions and campaigns, and therefore actively promote it.
• Conferences and other forms of international contact create arenas for forming and strengthening networks.

Networking in Democracy-Promotion Work

Of particular interest to the democracy and human rights community is the so-called "Boomerang Pattern," which many advocacy networks use to address conflicts with their governments. When channels between a government and a domestic organization or NGO are blocked or cannot address a conflict, the domestic organization might give the relevant information to another organization outside the country, and that organization will then put pressure on its own government or on international organizations to advocate for the domestic organization. A good example of this would be a campaign for human rights, where outside pressure forces the government to guarantee certain rights. The survey we conducted among World Movement participants supports this: many respondents mentioned building solidarity across borders as one reason they joined a network. Opportunities for networks to work in this way have increased due to ICTs.

Basically, networks are able to use the power of their information, ideas, and strategies to alter the context in which a state makes its policy. Generally speaking, the effect of networks might be termed persuasion and socialization. Our survey, for instance, indicates that building public support, influencing international organizations, and advocating change in local policies are goals that can be better carried out within a network than by an organization acting alone. The tactics used often include:

• Information politics, meaning the ability to quickly and credibly generate politically useable information and apply it where it has the most impact;
• Symbolic politics, meaning the ability to call upon symbols, actions or stories that make sense of a situation for a distant audience;
• Leverage politics, meaning the ability to call upon powerful actors to affect a situation where weaker members of a network are unlikely to have influence; and
• Accountability politics, meaning the effort to hold powerful actors to their previously stated policies or principles.

Effective Networking

For networks to communicate effectively about the importance of particular causes, or specific attempts at policy changes, they must find ways to frame and promote their ideas well. The importance of those issues that are a direct result of an identifiable individual or groups' action are easier to convey to the public for the purpose of gaining support. Network members thus often seek to find common frameworks within which to address more obscure problems – for example, by reframing the problem of patriarchy into that of violence against women. Effective networks also draw on innovative ways to generate attention and support for new issues, and help set agendas, for instance, when they provoke media attention, debates, hearings, and conferences on issues that previously had not been a matter of public debate. Regardless of how important particular issues or messages may be, however, actors in networks must be capable of transmitting those messages to the public, advancing those issues, and organizing the appropriate actions to be taken. To assess the effectiveness of networks, it is important to consider their objectives:

• Issue creation and agenda setting;
• Influence on institutional procedures;
• Influence on policy changes by states, international organizations, or private actors; and
• Influence on state behavior.

In most cases, issues that invoke moral considerations arouse strong feelings among the general public. This helps networks to recruit volunteers and give meaning to their activities. It also helps to place a matter within an international framework, because it gives to a local problem a global meaning. When assessing the issues around which networks have organized most effectively, two kinds appear most frequently: those issues involving bodily harm to vulnerable individuals, especially when there is a short, and clear, causal chain assigning responsibility, and issues involving legal equality of opportunity.

From a structural point of view, a network appears to operate best when it includes many actors, has strong connections among groups within it, and maintains a reliable flow of information. Effective networks involve reciprocal information exchanges and include activists from target countries, as well as those who are able to achieve institutional leverage. Network advocacy can be especially successful, if the targets of advocacy are susceptible either to the promise of economic benefits or to sanctions from outside actors, or if they are aware of the gap between what they profess to do, and what they actually do in practice. Governments that are most susceptible to the pressure of networks are those in countries that aspire to belong to a normative community of nations.

In sum, networks are important because they can unite individuals and organizations with common views over a vast distance and introduce new ideas and issues to the entire network community. By finding allies outside of the domestic arena, cross-border networks are able to create multiple paths through which organizations and individuals can accomplish their goals. While networks do not hold any power in a formal sense, they do have the power of information and therefore to affect policy strategically with that information. Moreover, networks are most effective when they frame their information in a way that will attract outside actors to take an interest in the network's issues and act on its behalf. Above all, networks provide a much needed space for organizations and individuals to voice their concerns and to collaborate on projects to resolve them.

Information for this summary on networks was drawn in part from the following sources:

Church, Madeline et al. Participation, Relationships, and Dynamic Change: New Thinking on Evaluating the Work of International Networks. London, 2002.

Keck, Margaret E. and Sikkink, Kathryn. Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics. Ithaca and London, 1998.

Reinicken, Wolfgang H. and Deng, Francis M. Critical Choices: The United Nations, Networks, and the Future of Global Governance. Download at: www.globalpublicpolicy.net, 2000.