A Study On The Post-Cold War Transnational Social Movements From The Perspective Of Global Governance

In the context of the further development of globalization and the end of the Cold War in the 1990s, the world has been witnessing a new wave of transnational social movements(TSMs) aiming to enhance the social, economic and environmental justice and democracy. TSMs in the post-Cold War period are characterized by globalized scope of activities, diversified social appeals, networked organizing forms and de-revolutionized objectives, with their role evolving from a subverter of international system to a participant and contributor of global govornance. Such a change of TSMs' characteristics and role both results from and embodies the transformation of international system, while TSMs, in turn, further the global transformation.The relationship between TSMs and global transformation, at least from the end of the World War II, has become the common topic of social movement theory and IR theory. But there exists a gap between interpretations on this relationship by the both disciplines, which to some extent hinders a synthetic study on TSMs. In view of this, the dissertation adopts the perspective of global governance to study contemporary TSMs. As a perspective on world politics, global governance theory is different from the traditional IR theory, since it claims that there is no hierarchy between the state and non-state actors and that both are the units of the international system. So it not only provides a reasonable path in the study of non-state actors (including TSMs), but aslo contributes to the synthesis of the both disciplinesAs a theoretical and empirical study, the dissertation first argues that TSM should be seen as a special action unit in the international system and a positive actor in global governance. Then it turns to explore the interactions between contemporary TSMs and other important international actors, such as sovereign states, intergovernmental organizations, nongovernmental organizations and multinational corporations. After the case studies of Transnational Debt Relief Movement, Anti-Dam Movement and Movement to Ban Cluster Munition, the dissertation concludes that contemporary TSMs have exerted an important and active influence on global governance, by putting forward new issues and policy initiatives, facilitating the democratization of global governance, constructing/reconstructing international norms and insititutions and contributing to the pattern evolution of global governance.And more importantly, the dissertation argues that contemporary TSMs are contributing to the erosion of the predominance of sovereign states in the international system, while promoting the non-state actors into the foreground of global governance, enhancing the plurality of the current international structure, and facilitating the reconstruction of international norm structure. In other words, contemporary TSMs also have comprehensive and profound influences on the transformation and evolution of the international system.Therefore, the dissertation concludes that the significant burgeoning of contemporary TSMs is a symbol and a result of the development of golobal governance and the transformation of international system, while contemporary TSMs help to further the development and evolotion of global governance and internatioanl system in turn. This may be the dialectical movement in the interactions between contemporary TSMs and global governance and international system.