Transnational Actors in the era of Complex Interdependence and Globalization

Abstract

Of particular importance for International Relations (IR) are transnational actors (TNAs) that wield considerable influence on politics across borders, such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs), multinational corporations (MNCs), religious actors, terrorism rebels, criminal actors, and diasporas and ethnic actors. ‘Transnational’ is a frequently mentioned key word in International Relations (IR) today, to denote in a simplifying manner an organization working beyond state boundaries and acting independently from traditional state authorities. The scholarly recognition of such actors occurred relatively late in the field and advanced with the acceleration of globalizing economic, political, cultural and social processes. This paper emphasizes that despite the appearance of transnational actors (TNAs) as a topical and palpable concern for academics and practitioners alike, questions of conceptual vagueness and relational indeterminacy remain, and the continual proliferation of these entities lends urgency to more scholarly attention on these agents. This paper views transnational actors (TNAs) as political, social, cultural and economic agents or groups which operate trans-societal and/or trans-governmental across borders in pursuit of their goals, to a certain degree independently from domestic governmental considerations. This paper further stresses that the subject of International Relations (IR) originally covered simply the relations between states. Economic bodies and social groups, such as banks, industrial companies, students, environmentalists, and women’s organizations, were given secondary status as non-state actors. It opines that this two-tier approach has been challenged, particularly by the effects of globalization. First, ambiguities in the meaning given to ‘a state’, and its mismatch with the contemporary world, result in it not being a useful concept. Greater clarity is obtained by analyzing inter-governmental and inter-society relations, with no presumption that one sector is more important than the other. Second, governments are losing sovereignty when faced with the economic activities of transnational companies and the violent threat from criminals, terrorists and guerrillas. Third, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) engage in such a web of global relations, including participation in diplomacy, that governments have lost their political independence. This paper concludes that events in any area of global policy-making have to be understood in terms of complex systems, containing governments, companies, and NGOs interacting in a variety of international organizations.

Keywords: Transnational, Transnational Actors, Transsocietal Relations, Transnational Agents, Transnational Relations, Transnational Organizations, International Relations, International Organizations, Political Actors