Questions: Transnational Actors and Advocacy Networks
2 questions to test your understanding
Score: 0 / 2
Question 1 Short Answer
What is the 'boomerang pattern,' and under what domestic conditions does it become especially relevant?
Think about your answer, then reveal below.
Model answer: The boomerang pattern occurs when domestic activists blocked by their own government connect with international networks, who then pressure that government from outside through foreign states, international organizations, and public shaming. It is most relevant when civil society is repressed, when the government is unresponsive to domestic pressure, or when state-society channels are closed.
Keck and Sikkink's boomerang model is important because it explains why international human rights advocacy matters even in closed political systems. It shifts attention from state-to-state pressure to the triangular relationships between domestic civil society, international networks, and foreign governments.
Question 2 Short Answer
A transnational advocacy network successfully pressures a state into signing a treaty banning cluster munitions. Identify which of the four advocacy network tools (information politics, symbolic politics, leverage politics, accountability politics) each of these tactics exemplifies: (1) publishing detailed reports on civilian casualties from cluster munitions, (2) framing cluster munitions as indiscriminate and cowardly weapons, (3) tying cluster munitions use to arms export licensing from donor states, (4) naming and shaming states that signed but continue to stockpile.
Think about your answer, then reveal below.
Model answer: (1) Information politics — documenting factual evidence. (2) Symbolic politics — framing the issue in morally resonant terms. (3) Leverage politics — connecting the issue to the material interests of powerful actors. (4) Accountability politics — holding states to commitments they have already made.
These four tools are analytically distinct but work together in practice. Successful advocacy campaigns typically deploy all four: establish the facts, frame them morally, connect them to powerful interests, and then hold signatories accountable over time.