THE SOVEREIGN LIMITS OF GLOBAL CIVIL-SOCIETY - A COMPARISON OF NGO PARTICIPATION IN UN WORLD CONFERENCES ON THE ENVIRONMENT, HUMAN-RIGHTS, AND WOMEN

The increased visibility of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and s ocial movements at the international level invites continuing evaluati on of the extent and significance of the role they now play in world p olitics. While the presence of such new actors is easily demonstrated, international relations scholars have debated their significance. The authors argue that the concept of global civil society sets a more de manding standard for the evaluation of transnational political process es than has been applied in prior accounts of transnational activity. Further, most empirical studies of this activity have focused on a lim ited number of NGOs within a single issue-area. Using three recent UN world conferences as examples of mutual encounters between state-domin ated international politics and global civic politics, the authors dev elop the concept of global civil society to provide a theoretical foun dation for a systematic empirical assessment of transnational relation s concerning the environment, human rights, and women at the global le vel.