Transnational Social Movements, International Nongovernmental Organizat

Transnational Social Movements, International Nongovernmental Organizations and Our State-centric WorldThe 1999 Seattle protests brought the apparent proliferation of anti-globalization grassroot sociopolitical movements into the blaze of the world stage. Transnational social movements (TSMs), international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), as well as the loose transnational activist networks (TANs) that contain themall these came to be seen as an aggravated and no less potent backlash thats directed at the powerful states and increasingly towering economic IGOs such as the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank. In the domain of a function of international relations, some regard this as a prophetic watershed event that signals the weakening and perhaps even collapsing of the state-centric system of international relations, while numerous others insist that Seattle is but an eventually insignificant episode in the book of globalization and state power, as evidenced by the Doha suc cess.This paper attempts to predict two questions that are at the heart of this dispute Do TSMs and INGOs have any real power in todays international political arena against the tralatitious view of state dominance? And, if the answer to the previous question is yes, then does such a change merit a fundamental revision of the state-centric pose of international relations?My answer to these two questions is threefold First, I assert that TSMs and INGOs can and have posed substantial normative challenges to state hegemony, most ordinarily the notion that the state enjoys a monopoly on representation of its citizens and their interests. Furthermore, TSMs and INGOs that employ the use of violence (particularly terrorism) breach the conventional notion that states... ...edArjomand, Said Amir. Irans Islamic Revolution in Comparative Perspective. World Politics, Volume 38, complete 3 (1986. 4), 383-414.Griffith, William E. The Revial of Islamic Fundamentalism the Case of Iran. Intern ational Security. Volume 4, Issue 1, 1979, 132-138.Khashan, Hilal. The New World Order and the Tempo of war-ridden Islam. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. Volume 24, Issue 1 (1997. 5), 5-24.OBrien, Robert, et al. Contesting Glboal Governance. Cambridge, 2000.G. Hossein. Legitimacy, Religion, and Nationalism in the Middle East. The American Political Science Review, Volume 84, Issue 1 (1990. 3), 69-91.Tarrow, Sidney. Transnational Politics Contention and Institutions in International Politics. Annual Review of Political Science, 2001.4. Weaver, Mary Ann. The Real Bin Laden. The New Yorker, January 24, 2000.