Transnational networks and civil society: the circumstances of success for policy contestation

• Autor(a) principal: Giovanna Buttrós de Oliveira
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da USP
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.11606/D.101.2021.tde-28042022-153406

What are the circumstances which allow for a civil society network contestation to be successful in changing international policy? What is the role of specific civic actors within these networks? Studies about transnational networks have often focused on impact and effectiveness how a policy can be altered, how a countrys international relations are influenced but these analyses are still to some degree state-centric. They focus on the national and international conditions which allow for the success or failure of transnational civil society campaigns. My intention, with this dissertation, is to focus on the interaction between civil society and states, and the conditions within civic actors and networks which allow for a campaign to be successful. My focus in on the Brazilian civil organization FASE (Federation of Organizations for Social and Educational Assistance), which lent its expertise and contacts to Mozambican civil society in the contestation of the trilateral cooperation project ProSavana. The research questions ask: What are FASEs internal, fundamental characteristics which allow for impactful transnational contestation? How has FASE contributed to the No to ProSavana campaign? The spiral model and boomerang effect, explored within the literature of transnational civil society, provide a fruitful methodology, as well as several hypotheses. The boomerang effect relates to the domestic civil society bypassing the state in order to acquire transnational support in their struggle, allowing for a contestation from below and from above. The spiral model is a five-phased process, with the success of each phase being depended on the gathering of information, relevance to the international agenda, strengthening of domestic civil society, and continuous pressure on the state. These frameworks are relevant when considering ProSavana and the attention gathered during the last ten years, as these three States Brazil, Japan, and Mozambique tried to justify and implement their controversial model of agriculture in the African countrys underdeveloped lands. Evidence presented here, provided by reports, news articles and interviews, suggests that the strength and quality of FASEs role in the first steps of the contestation and assembly of the network can be explained by its institutional complexity and expertise, granted by its 60 years of existence. Its participation in the No to ProSavana network was important to strengthen Mozambican civil society claims, which allowed for the significant end of ProSavana in 2020.