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Social Movements 129

In fact, and despite the spectacular high - profi le protests at G8 summits
over the last decade, it seems that social movement activity directly target-
ing IGOs in order to bring about change is relatively rare. Jackie Smith
argues that, in the case of activity specifi cally centered on the UN, it has
actually declined in recent years (Smith, 2008 : 97 – 8). This is also some-

what surprising given, as we have seen, the significance of NGOs and
INGOs in global governance at every scale. As Margaret Keck and
Katherine Sikkink have shown, transnational advocacy networks, which
are made up of professional organizations and expert individuals, are
certainly active internationally (Keck and Sikkink 1998 ). However, the
relationship between these networks and those of social movements is
inherently hard to assess. Whilst, as we have noted, use of new media
technologies may make virtual participation in both types of networks
quite easy, there tends to be mutual suspicion between those who engage
with elite organizations and grass - roots activists. Members of NGOs,
especially at the international level, tend to be treated with suspicion by
movement activists as lacking awareness of realities, as na ï ve about the
possibilities of bringing about change “ from above, ” and as uncreative
with regard to political possibilities. By the same token, activists tend to
be seen as undisciplined and ineffective by members of professional politi-
cal organizations (see Bennett 2005 : 215 – 16). In this respect, members of
global social movements are true to the values of social movements devel-
oped much earlier: social movements not only deliberately differ from
interest groups and political parties in style and organization, but they
are committed to creating new forms of political action that give greater
emphasis to informal and inclusive ways of participating, contesting “ offi -

cial ” definitions of events and processes, and, in the process, remaking
the identities, not just of those directly involved, but of everyone. The
main difference is that, whereas in the past, it tended to be assumed that
“ everyone ” lived in nation - states, in the case of global social movements,
as we shall see in chapter 5 when we consider democracy and global civil
society, the inequalities and injustices of the way in which the planet as
a whole is governed may be as much in question as anything else.

Notes

1 It is worth noting here that at least some of the theoretical differences between

RMT and NSMT are related to the national contexts in which they were
formulated and to national differences in social movement activity. Historically,