The global-local nexus: NGOs and the articulation of scale

Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), such as Greenpeace, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Pax Christi, Oxfam and Amnesty International, have become effective political players at different governance levels: local, regional, national and international. In addition, they have contributed to the construction of multi-level governance practices as well as to a re-articulation of scale. They have done so, among others, by 'thinking globally, acting locally'; re-conceptualising local issues into global ones (and vice versa); bringing local interests to international negotiating tables; and building up 'glocalised' networks. In this paper, three cases to illustrate these claims will be presented: (a) the Biodiversity Convention; (b) the human rights regime; and (c) the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). As a general conclusion, the effects of these non-state, de-territorialised and 'glocalised' practices on the role and authority of the nation state will be (shortly) assessed. It will be claimed that we do not observe a 'general retreat of the state', but issue-specific re-definitions of its role and authority.