Transnational Social Movements, International Nongovernmental Organizat

Transnational Social Movements, International Nongovernmental Organizations and Our State-centric World The 1999 Seattle protests brought the apparent proliferation of anti-globalization grassroot sociopolitical movements into the limelight of the world stage. Transnational social movements (TSMs), international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), as well as the loose transnational activist networks (TANs) that contain them—all these came to be seen as an angry and no less potent backlash that's directed at the powerful states and increasingly towering economic IGOs such as the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank. In the field of international relations, some regard this as a prophetic watershed event that signals the weakening and perhaps even collapsing of the state-centric system of international relations, while many others insist that Seattle is but an eventually insignificant episode in the book of globalization and state power, as evidenced by the Doha success. This paper attempts to address two questions that are at the heart of this dispute: Do TSMs and INGOs have any real power in today's international political arena against the traditional view of state dominance? And, if the answer to the previous question is yes, then does such a change merit a fundamental revision of the state-centric model of international relations? My answer to these two questions is threefold: First, I assert that TSMs and INGOs can and have posed substantial normative challenges to state hegemony, most commonly the notion that the state enjoys a monopoly on representation of its citizens and their interests. Furthermore, TSMs and INGOs that employ the use of violence (particularly terrorism) breach the conventional notion that states... ...ed Arjomand, Said Amir. â€Å"Iran's Islamic Revolution in Comparative Perspective.† World Politics, Volume 38, Issue 3 (1986. 4), 383-414. Griffith, William E. â€Å"The Revial of Islamic Fundamentalism: the Case of Iran.† International Security. Volume 4, Issue 1, 1979, 132-138. Khashan, Hilal. â€Å"The New World Order and the Tempo of Militant Islam.† British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. Volume 24, Issue 1 (1997. 5), 5-24. O'Brien, Robert, et al. Contesting Glboal Governance. Cambridge, 2000. G. Hossein. â€Å"Legitimacy, Religion, and Nationalism in the Middle East.† The American Political Science Review, Volume 84, Issue 1 (1990. 3), 69-91. Tarrow, Sidney. â€Å"Transnational Politics: Contention and Institutions in International Politics.† Annual Review of Political Science, 2001.4. Weaver, Mary Ann. â€Å"The Real Bin Laden.† The New Yorker, January 24, 2000.