TY - CONF T1 - Transnational Labor Alliances and Why Corporations Concede: Lessons from Southeast Asia T2 - International Studies Association Annual Convention Y1 - 2015 A1 - Brookes, Marissa KW - Southeast Asia KW - TLAs KW - transnational activism KW - transnational advocacy networks KW - transnational corporations KW - transnational labor alliances AB -


This paper analyzes the dynamics of transnational labor alliances (TLAs), which entail active cooperation by workers from two or more different countries aimed at altering the behavior of a transnational corporation. Unlike transnational advocacy networks (TANs), TLAs are motivated mainly by material goals and do not seek to involve the state in their conflicts with corporations. Consequently, TLAs do not follow the boomerang model (Keck and Sikkink 1998) of transnational activism. Existing theories of transnational activism are therefore inadequate for explaining the recent success of TLAs in improving working conditions and labor rights across a variety of firms around the world. This paper thus develops a theory of success and failure in TLAs by investigating the mechanisms through which TLA campaigns do or do not have an impact on corporate practices. Using original interview data and process-tracing methods of causal analysis, I compare two highly similar TLA campaigns centered on labor disputes at foreign-owned luxury hotels in Indonesia and Cambodia. I find that the Indonesia-based TLA failed while the Cambodia-based TLA succeeded because the latter directly threatened the target corporation’s core, material interests, while the former did not. The evidence suggests that while TLAs share some characteristics in common with TANs, the mechanism through which transnational activists compel a target actor to change its behavior differs in TLA campaigns.

JA - International Studies Association Annual Convention CY - New Orleans, LA L2 - eng UR - http://web.isanet.org/Web/Conferences/GSCIS%20Singapore%202015/Archive/c594f3e0-32f8-460d-b135-042b5265163a.pdf ER - TY - JOUR T1 - External Pressure and Local Mobilization: Transnational Activism and the Emergence of the Chinese Labor Movement JF - Mobilization Y1 - 2009 A1 - E. Friedman KW - China KW - labor movement KW - social movements KW - transnational activism AB -

[Excerpt] This article elucidates connections between two strategies of transnational social movements—external pressure and local mobilization—and two potential outcomes—paternalism and psychological empowerment. Application of this theoretical framework to the nascent Chinese labor movement indicates that an overreliance on an external-pressure approach results in paternalism, thereby precluding psychological empowerment for aggrieved actors and potentially inhibiting movement growth. Conversely, strategies that relegate external support to a secondary role and privilege local mobilization are more likely to result in psychological empowerment. In this study, I argue that psychological empowerment is a prerequisite for the emergence of a worker-based movement in China. Many studies of cooperation between movement actors from the global North and South have seen this relationship as essentially unproblematic. I begin to problematize the inherent power inequalities between the two sets of actors and will theorize the implications for movement emergence in Southern countries.

VL - 14 L2 - eng UR - http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/articles/754/ CP - 2 ER -