Abstract

Over the last decade, social movement research has begun to acknowledge the relevance of the national, regional and local political contexts for collective action and to compare their relative impact on mobilization and its outcomes across countries. In this article, the authors stress the necessity, given a globalizing world, to analyze social movements within an international context. Starting from the general observation that the various processes of globalization are reflected in the mobilization by social movements, the article focuses on both the consequences of globalization on national social movements as well as the emergence of sovranational actors and protest campaigns. In the first part of the article, the analysis focuses on the effects of the changing global context on the mobilization within the national contexts in terms of cross-national diffusion of social movement repertoires and the effect of the international context on national political opportunities for protest. The second part deals instead with mobilization beyond the nation-state, looking in particular at the interaction between international governmental organizations and transnational social movement organizations. The effects of globalization on the forms of unconventional participation are discussed in the conclusion of the article.