Transnational movements beyond the state?

The project proposes a case study designed to assess the relative significance to new social movements (NSM) of: (1) the nation-state; (2) the supranational polity of the EU; (3) international governance systems. The favoured proposition is that, in spite of developments towards political supra- and internationalization, the nation-state remains the focal point and - by implication - structural context of movement activity. This claim is contrasted with the alternative view of a trend toward the transnationalisation of NSM. To this end, two sets of rival predeictions pertaining to movement objectives, strategies and outreach, as well as state responsiveness are developed. Three preditions are derived from the assumption that the nation-stat remains the primary focus of movement activity; Three alternative predictions are based on the alternative hypothesis that NSM circumvent the state to directly target supra- and international decision arenas. The three favourite predictions foresee (1) that movement behaviour is shaped by national context; (2) that movements seeking to influence supra- and international decision-making target the nation-state for this purpose; (3) that domestic and outward state-responsiveness are only loosely coupled. The alternative predictions claim (1) that NSM direct their efforts at transnational private actors rather than states; (2) that NSM act in a similar manner across national arenas; and (3) that variation in movement behaviour is shaped by the supra- and international rather than by the national context. The European movement against genetically modified organisms and products (anti-GM movement) is selected as case in point for empirical inspection, mostly for its complexity and wide scope, spanning local, regional, national, supra- and international levels: At the local level anti-GM activists destroy field trials or create alliances with local producers; at regional level, activists ally with regional governments; at the national level, mobilized publics pressurize governments; at supranational level, the movement interferes with EU regulations and procedures, and at the international level it seeks to influence processes under the head of international organisations such as the World Trade Organisation and the United Nations. The research design covers these four vertical levels - regional, national, supra- and international - but also accounts for national variation at the horizontal level by putting five EU member states - Austria, Belgium, France, Ireland and the United Kingdom - into comparative perspective.

This project examines the influence of transnational and national contexts factors on movements that critically engage with controversial technologies, specifically, the movements against agricultural biotechnology and actors who critically engage with nanotechnology. The findings mostly confirm the expectation that movements primarily operate in the context of national publics and in manifold ways adapt to national context conditions. For example, a quantitative comparison of the anti-GM movements in Germany, France, Great Britain, Austria and Spain covering 15 years of controversy illustrates the specificity of these national movements: rather than a pan-European anti-GM wave, anti-GM movements in these countries prove highly specific in terms of intensity, temporal evolution, actors, protest methods and interaction with the state. A case study examines the cross-boundary diffusion of the radical protest method open GM-field destruction and also confirms that national contextual factors decide whether the new protest method strikes roots or fails in the new environment. Another case study empirically reconstructs how a national GM-free policy plays out in the supranational realm and analyses the interplay of science, law and politics. Regarding the nanotechnology policy field my research focused on the fact that, contrary to widely shared expectations, an anti-nano movement never occurred. This is mainly as a consequence of a lack of public responsiveness, rather than due to policy learning from the preceding GM-controversy. In cases, however, where public contention over nanotechnology occurs, processes in national arenas unfold in specific ways, as shown by a study on policy learning and transnational policy diffusion and nanotechnology debates in Germany and France.