The use of social networking sites (SNS) has become widespread in a variety of non-profit and social justice contexts. While before Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund would need to organize mail-in campaigns, now all it takes is a tweet, a Facebook wall message or a YouTube video to spark a movement.

Using insights gained from 10 years of empirical research in the field of environmental policy, as well as my experience as a power social media user, and drawing from the body of work of the sociology of networks, I posit that successful environmental activism campaigns are founded on the basis of a strong understanding and modeling of the
behaviour of participants in SNS.

Drawing from case studies I have analyzed in the past 10 years (and focusing on cases that have used social media in the past 24 months) I offer some general conclusions into how we can model the online behaviour of transnational environmental activists.

Global warming protest outside Washington Park (Photo: Pembleton/Flickr)

Citizen participation in North American environmental policy-making has had some ebbs and flows, with an increase in participation in some of the CEC’s strategies and programs. Two mechanisms were specifically designed to allow for citizen participation within the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (NACEC or CEC for short). The first mechanism is the Joint Public Advisory Committee (JPAC), a tri-national advisory board comprised by citizens from all three countries, and from varied backgrounds (industry, academia, non-governmental organizations).

The second one is the Citizen Submission on Enforcement Matters programme (CSEM), based on Articles 14 and 15 of the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC). This mechanism provides civil society organizations with the opportunity to play a “whistleblower” role. Any concerned citizen from any of the three countries can prepare and present a submission to the CEC Secretariat denouncing a country for failing to comply with its own environmental laws (NACEC 2001). The CEC Secretariat’s Office of Submissions on Enforcement Matters reviews the submission and assesses whether the submission actually warrants a response from the concerned country.

In this talk, I will provide an overview of a tri-national, collaborative project that examines CSEM. Our objective in this research project is to develop an empirical basis on which to explore the theoretical and applied aspects of civil society involvement on environmental policy-making. We focus on (amongst other aspects), how ENGOs use a trinational policy reform (CSEM). The CSEM is a mechanism built into the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation, designed to avoid “races to the bottom” and “pollution havens”. In theory, this type of institutional reform should empower civil society organizations to hold nation-states accountable.

We were particularly interested in undertaking an independent assessment on three key aspects. First, are citizen claims an effective mechanism to influence domestic environmental policy enforcement? Second, does this mechanism provide an opportunity for ENGOs to come together and form transnational advocacy networks? And third, what (if any) are the tangible impacts of the CSEM mechanism? As we have conducted our research, these objectives have had to be adapted and modified. I will offer preliminary results of our collaborative effort and suggest the direction that our project will take in the foreseeable future.

Powerful and boisterous cross-border mobilizations of environmental activists trumping projects that may have negative environmental effects have offered anecdotal evidence that civil society may possibly influence the way in which industry behaves and/or policy is made.

In two of my research projects, I have investigated the mechanisms used by ENGOs to exert pressure on national (domestic) governments. In Pacheco-Vega 2005a and 2005b, I proposed two mechanisms of pressure transmission. A first-order pressure transmission mechanism is a direct action by agent A specifically designed to change the behavior of agent B. An example of first-order pressure transmission mechanism would be direct lobbying of governments by civil society organizations. This is a direct mechanism.

A second-order pressure transmission mechanism is an indirect action, whereby agent A puts pressure on agent B so that in turn B can try to change the behavior of agent C. An example of a second-order pressure mechanism would be a civil society organization asking an international institution (e.g. the World Bank) to put pressure on a national government. This is an indirect mechanism.

The definition of influence is complex, however. Who influences whom to do what? This question makes us wonder whether we can really measure influence. Betsill and Corell (2001, 2008) have offered a framework to measure influence that is based on measuring outcomes (i.e. whether the influenced agent does change behavior or not) and analyzing what information does the influencing agent make available.

Interestingly, in the realm of social media, I have found something similar to what Arts and Mack (2003) found in regards to ENGO. Arts and Mack indicate that ENGOs are influential if they are perceived as such. When the target agent perceives the actor as being capable of exerting influence, and acts upon that perception, Arts and Mack say that influence has occurred. I argue that this self-perpetuating mechanism is actually one of the main elements that underlie the creation of influence in social media. Whether this self-reinforcing mechanism works in the realm of international and domestic environmental politics remains to be seen.

One of the important insights I have gained in my empirical research on ENGO influence in domestic and international environmental politics is that successful ENGOs will adapt and change their strategies to influence specific agents (industry actors or governments) depending on how receptive the influenced agent will be. This adaptive capacity enhances the ENGO’s influence and allows it to gain ground vis-a-vis the government agent, ground that it wouldn’t otherwise be able to gain.

References

Pacheco-Vega, R. (2005). Democracy by proxy: Environmental NGOs and policy change in Mexico. Environmental Issues in Latin America and the Caribbean. A. Romero and S. West. Dordrecht, The Netherlands, Springer Publishers.

Pacheco Vega, R. (2005). Assessing indirect environmental consequences of NAFTA: Transnational coalitions formation and pollutant release and transfer registries. Trading Justice: NAFTA’s New Links and Conflicts, Memphis, TN, Center for Research on Women, University of Memphis.