Virtual Recourse

In Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink’s Activists Beyond Borders they argue that advocacy networks build “new links among actors in civil societies, states, and international organizations,” multiplying “the channels of access to the international system.”

This article provides an interesting set of observations on the transformation of the global system to provide individuals with recourse beyond their sovereign states and direct access to the international community. International advocacy networks do this by framing issues to attract attention and encourage action and promoting norm implementation by pressuring target actors.

The process of an actor within an intransigent state using the international community to put pressure on that state is known as the boomerang model, shown in the diagram below:

One of the biggest transformations of this model has been caused by the internet and globalization.

Virtual Boomerang

The role of overseas NGO’s advocating on behalf of human rights victims around the world is increasingly being supplanted by virtual advocacy. Websites like Twitter, Change.org and Avaaz create a digital community of activists who can pressure states and corporations. [1] Rodriguez-Garavito points out that the weakness of internet-based advocacy “is the obverse of its highly disruptive and oportune power, that is, its inability to sustain collaboration over time and transform disruption into lasting influence.”

The danger with digital advocacy is that it trades the expertise and experience from traditional NGOs for the twitting of a mass of uninformed, transiently passionate westerners. Johanna Herman, Research Fellow at the Center on Human Rights in Conflict, outlines the issues that this creates: “millions of people tweeted their support, but for different reasons. There was no easy solution and no obvious next steps in either case for the international community.”[2] (#BringBackOurGirls, #Kony2012). It’s not surprising that these campaigns have been decried as a superficial extension of white guilt or the sham empathy and groupthink.  

This leads to an important question: does the virtual boomerang detract from the effectiveness of traditional advocacy?

Ultimately, I side with Johanna Herman in concluding that: “we should be optimistic that a new space has been created which provides an opportunity for education and a platform for action. For issues to do with international affairs, international justice and human rights that can seem far away, social networking provides the opportunity to make them feel real and closer to home.”[3]

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[1] Cesar Rodriguez-Garavito, “Multiple boomerangs: new models of global human rights advocac ,” OpenDemocracy, 21 January 2015. (Accessed online 28 March 2015 https://www.opendemocracy.net/author/c%C3%A9sar-rodr%C3%ADguezgaravito)

[2] Johanna Herman, “Hashtags and Human Rights: Activism in the Age of Twitter,” Newsweek, 11 December 2014, (Accessed online 28 March 2015, http://www.newsweek.com/hashtags-and-human-rights-activism-age-twitter-290950)

[3] Ibid.