3Strategies of Transnational Actors

International organizations represent the most common form of multilateralism. More often criticized than applauded, they nevertheless show the ability to endure and adapt, even though other institutions for cooperation, such as clubs, are on the rise. Often considered the instruments of the most powerful states, international organizations are also bureaucracies with significant influence over the international scene.

The state is defined by its territory, population, and government, as well as recognition by its equals, a model of political organization that originated in Europe in the late Middle Ages. Its universalization, owing notably to decolonization, has not led to a stabilization of the international system founded on the illusion of sovereignty. With globalization, the increased power of transnational actors is further weakening the ability of states to regulate.

The nation-state was a seventeenth-century European invention that spread to the entire world through the various waves of colonization and decolonization; seven people out of ten in the world have a colonial past, and so-called failed states testify to the difficulty of making this model systemic. Former colonial ties endure in different forms, nationality and citizenship rarely overlap, and some peoples are still hoping for a state of their own.

The term “emerging,” initially used by financial and economic actors and subsequently by political ones, serves to analyze how the various countries so described had integrated internationally. Although they share a common concern to challenge an international order which they wish to be fairer and more representative, emerging countries differ both in the courses they have followed and in their diplomatic strategies.

Based on ever greater economic and commercial integration, the European Union has become a major actor in globalization. Even though it struggles to assert itself in the diplomatic and military fields, where the large member states are reluctant to transfer their sovereignty despite the obvious decline of their influence on the international scene—particularly in the face of emerging countries—the EU’s capacity for action on these issues is becoming established, with one proviso: it is not happening via the traditional instruments of power.

Samuel Huntington’s explanation of post-Cold War tensions as a clash of civilizations had the effect of dismissing other causes and helped confine humanity within images of exclusion, fear and violence. Identity is varied and subjective; it is neither natural nor stable but a complex construction of particular compounds. Interdependence, mobility, the circulation of ideas and values, direct access to alternative models for every individual—all these now infinitely broaden the range of identities on offer.

Identity and religious entrepreneurs bring ethnic or religious referents into play in order to persuade others to subscribe to their political or social project. In so doing, they reshape the global political scene by becoming part of a system of international non-state networks which, depending on the context, lead to the fragmentation of political units and/or the internationalization of conflicts.

The notion of civil society, once it became international, refers to a variety of actors and invites us to question the uses of the expression. To talk of international civil society homogenizes and de-territorializes these actors, while their practices continue to evince inequalities, tensions and important relationships on a local and national scale. Civil society actors organize protest, participate in initiatives alongside state governments and international organizations, as well as put forward proposals.

NGOs cover a wide range of actors with varying degrees of independence, depending on the context in which they emerged and their sources of finance. This multiplicity tends to become reinforced with the emergence of new actors in the field of aid and development, whether this applies to NGOs from the Southern hemisphere or actors situated at the crossroads of the commercial and non-commercial sectors.

The convergence of innovations in information science, telecommunications and audiovisual techniques has brought global firms onto the scene which have captured the majority of markets and control the information society. For media companies and journalists, this situation is both an opportunity and a limitation. With fact-checking, data journalism, and global editing networks, new ways of working have emerged.

Multinational firms are among the most powerful actors in the global space. Their internationalization is both the consequence and one of the engines of globalization. Faced with their global strategies and transnational ways of working, states find it hard to introduce a system of governance that would offset the social and environmental consequences of their activities.

Over the course of the twentieth century, the financial markets required to finance the economy gradually freed themselves from state control to become a globalized and highly speculative place for acquiring wealth (sometimes fraudulently). Because a framework of global regulation is lacking, speculative bubbles burst with increasing frequency, giving rise to crises in succession, with profound economic and social consequences.

Cyber criminality, environmental crime, trafficking in drugs, humans, pharmaceuticals, and weapons… the actors of international organized crime constantly diversify their activities, which destroy individuals, blight societies and states, and cause breakdowns in economies. Corruption, trafficking, poverty, conflicts, and terrorism all sustain and reinforce one another.