The Emergence of a Transnational Advocacy Network: International Election Monitoring in the Philippines, Chile, Nicaragua, and Mexico

In this paper I question the existence of a global civilsociety, suggesting that what we have witnessed in recentyears is the emergence of myriad transnational advocacynetworks (TANs). I illustrate this claim by looking at arecently novel area in world politics: the internationalmonitoring of elections (IEM), a practice which I claim haspartially redefined state sovereignty. This paper takes formas follows. In the first section I present a conceptualdiscussion on world civil society and TANS , and suggest anunexplored way in which emergent norms might be adoptedinternationally. In the next four sections I follow theevolution of the IEM TAN. Thus, the second section dealswith the foundational 1986 Philippine case; the thirdsection with the 1988 Chilean plebiscite; the fourth withthe 1990 Nicaraguan elections, and the fifth with the 1994Mexican electoral process. I conclude in the sixth sectionby evaluating the usefulness of the path of norm-diffusion,and by discussing how the practice of non-state actors hascontributed to the redefinition of both state sovereigntyand the international system