Opposition in Global Governance: An Introduction

Since the end of the Cold War, civil society organizations (CSOs) have increasingly targeted international organizations (IOs) and other global governance institutions (GGIs). Sometimes this has taken the forms of mass protests expressing grave critique or outright refusal, as was the case with the demonstrations against the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1999, subsequently referred to as the Battle of Seattle, and similar protest events directed against economic globalization in the years that followed. At other occasions civil society actors have formed campaigns to influence GGIs in a particular area. An example is the Global Campaign for Decent Work and Rights for Domestic Workers which, in 2011, succeeded in having the International Labour Organization (ILO) adopt its Domestic Workers Convention. Besides, a large share of political engagement is of a slow and continuous character, as when CSOs strive to affect policy by participating in consultations and lobbying individual staff members. A broad range of CSOs, for instance, participate in more or less frequent consultations concerning overarching policies as well as specific projects of multilateral development banks. These varied examples show how organized civil society activism is not restricted to the local and national political arenas, but increasingly target GGIs as well. They also demonstrate the different forms this activism takes.