Las Madres and Local Bridges
It was 1978. Argentinians had been suffering under a brutally repressive and morally bankrupt military dictatorship for two years. The “Dirty War” was at its peak. Despite its political troubles, the nation was preparing to host one of the most prestigious international competitions, the World Cup. To many, the tournament seemed an implicit acceptance by the international community of the Videla regime and its human rights abuses.
Less than eight miles from the Estadio Monumental, where the hosts played their first match, a group of women held a silent vigil. Every Thursday for more than a year, these women—las madres de los desaparecidos, the mothers of the “disappeared”—marched on la Plaza de Mayo with pictures of their murdered children. Remarkably, despite being labeled as subversive by a state which killed its citizens almost indiscriminately, the Mothers were never forced underground. The struggle of Las Madres highlights the benefits and protective powers of Transnational Advocacy Networks (TANs), and the role of international organizations as local bridges between citizens with grievances and powerful state actors.
A product of globalization, Transnational Advocacy Networks (TANs) are comprised of agencies, organizations, governments, media groups, etc. that work toward a common cause (environmental issues, human rights, etc.). They provide their members with a host of benefits. When a group, organization, or individual is absorbed into a TAN, they are given the resources and the organizational intelligence to further their cause. TANs introduce groups to new types of technology and the latest best practices regarding social movements and revolutions.
TANs are especially critical in states where the population is repressed. In any given network, there may be multiple paths between any two nodes. Democracies provide direct paths between citizens and the state via free and fair elections. Sometimes, as in the case of military coups, this path is destroyed—these new regimes limit freedom of speech or the right to vote—but other, longer paths remain. So while Las Madres could not directly interact with the Argentine state, they turned to their connections to human rights organizations. These organizations, in turn, placed pressure on governing bodies like the United Nations and powerful states like Britain and the U.S., who, in turn, pressured the Videla regime to behave more humanely. Keck and Sikkink (1999) refer to this phenomenon as the “boomerang pattern,” and it saves lives. No longer able to silence whatever opposition emerges against them, repressive regimes must instead answer for their sins. Where domestic pressure fails, international pressure is sufficient. Through this extended path, even the cruelest regimes are made accountable.
Sources:
Bosco, Fernando J. (2002). Place, space, networks, and the sustainability of collective action: the Madres de Plaza de Mayo. Global Networks, 1.4, 307-329.
Keck, M. E. & Sikkink, K. (1998) Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell University Press).
Keck, M., & Sikkink, K. (1999). Transnational Advocacy Networks In International and Regional Politics. International Social Science Journal, 89-101. Retrieved September 10, 2015.