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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

transnational actor salience, international relations, NGO, non-governmental organizations

College

Family, Home, and Social Sciences

Department

Political Science

Abstract

My study focused on exploring the conditions under which non-state actors (NSAs) play important roles in international relations (IR). This field is known as transnational relations, the study of interactions between non-governmental organizations or individuals that influence world affairs as they act across national borders and states or other transnational actors (TNAs). Counted among these actors are multinational corporations (MNCs), international activist groups, terrorist organizations and drug cartels. Although two of the three central schools of international relations theory agree that states are the primary actors in IR (Baldwin 1993, 9), these organizations obviously play important roles in international politics. My goal was to create a theoretical space for transnational actors in this field. Admittedly, states are the primary actors, since all other actors must conform to their structure (Krasner 1995, 258). However, some NSAs, even as they conform to state structures, affect state actions in important ways. I hypothesized that two conditions would allow these actors to play an important role in IR, such that their actions would induce policy shifts within states. First, I theorized that globalization would magnify a TNA’s ability to act and the effects of its actions. Second, TNAs that can alter a state’s security or economic situation (for better or worse) would be those most relevant to the state.

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