Broken Promise of Global Advocacy

The Broken Promise of Global Advocacy addresses two key normative debates associated with the rise of transnational advocacy: whether global interest communities are biased in favor of wealthier countries; and whether the growth of global advocacy implies the emergence of a global civil society truly representative of global constituencies. The authors address these important debates using original data drawn from a large-scale project which maps all organized interests participating in two international venues: the World Trade Organizations Ministerial Conferences (1995-2017) and the United Nations Climate Summits (1997-2017). They leverage this unique dataset to carry out a systematic empirical assessment of contending views on the factors driving the rise of transnational advocacy. In doing so, the book demonstrates that cross-national differences in global interest representation largely mirror states' economic power, and that global interest communities are likely to remain dominated by organizations representing national-rather than global-interests. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars working in comparative politics, public policy, governance, international relations, and international political economy.