The creation of domestic trade coalitions in the Americas is an interesting example of transnational diffusion of new organizational formulas that sought to provide answers to problems of coordination, representation, mobilization, and knowledge production. In spite of the important differences among civil societies in the hemisphere, similar initiatives were diffused across national boundaries. The Mexican and the U.S. trade coalitions founded at the beginning of the 1990s were mirror images of the Action Canada Network that had been created earlier (see Figure 7.1). These, in turn, influenced the coalitions later created in the South of the hemisphere. For example, when debates about the need to create the national chapter of the Hemispheric Social Alliance (HSA) began in Brazil at the end of that decade, the way in which those involved in initial discussions framed their goal was “to create a Brazilian RMALC” (the Mexican Action Network on Free Trade). The experience of coalition building in the only developing country in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) region was a key reference for the founders of the HSA chapter in Brazil, more so than the geographically closer experience of the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR), which, as explained in the last chapter, had not generated sustained coordination across different civil society sectors in the 1990s.

The dynamic contours of transnational collective action are the result of the continuous negotiation and reappraisal of choices made by actors, as they become part of new networks and react to changes in political contexts. These processes of negotiation and reappraisal happen within as well as among civil society organizations (CSOs) and inside as well as outside national boundaries. Their outcomes cannot be predetermined from a set of economic or political structures. Although structural analysis of the forces of globalization or capitalism can help in explaining the increased relevance of transnational collective action, they give us few clues on why CSOs differ in the ways in which they seek to be a part of a globalizing world, and how these pathways vary through time.

The agency-centered approach used in this book spotlights dimensions of transnational collective action that we cannot ignore if we want to understand how and why civil society's repertoires of contention are changing. In these conclusions, I will highlight two, whose importance has been asserted repeatedly throughout the book: (1) the national, or domestic, dimension, and (2) the asymmetry dimension, both of which I regard as constitutive of transnational collective action. These dimensions became visible because of the focus of the research on the relational and political embeddedness of CSOs, that is, the importance given to the analysis of actors' networks and their dynamic relationships, and the relevance attributed to the specific political contexts in which they build coalitions, define their goals, and articulate their frames.

When civil society organizations (CSOs) enter the realm of international relations, they make a decision that is fraught with uncertainty. Not only is there no blueprint for going global, but doing so requires skills and resources that are scarce for most actors. Different choices are available, and which is the best may not be obvious. The results often are ambiguous because actors become neither local nor global, and sometimes are both. This book is about the uncertainty and ambiguity that permeate collective action across different scales. It offers an analysis about when, and how, actors choose among multiple possible pathways to transnationality.

In 1969, James Rosenau called for the development of a linkage theory, supported by a research agenda on national-international flows of influence. The absence of such a theory was, according to the author, due both to the lack of communication between those who specialize in national politics and those who specialize in international relations, and to the radical revision of the standard conception of politics that this theoretical approach would entail (Rosenau 1969a: 8–10). Twenty-five years later, another prominent international relations scholar, Robert B. J. Walker, made a similar appeal to understand the politics of connection across spatial boundaries and the politics of movement, which should consider the changing contexts of political action through time (Walker 1994).

Three types of interviews were conducted for this study, most of them between May 2004 and August 2008, with actors from Brazil, Canada, Chile, Mexico, Peru, the United States, and Uruguay (see Table A1). Structured interviews using a social network questionnaire were done with informants from 123 civil society organizations (CSOs) from Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and the United States (listed in Tables A2 through A5). Semistructured and in-depth interviews were held with other civil society informants, government officials, parliamentarians, legislative staff, and international organization officials. Their names, affiliation, and the date and place of the interview are listed in Table A6, with the exception of interviewees that requested anonimity.

In many cases, more than one person from the same CSO was interviewed to answer the social network questionnaire. In other cases, individuals were interviewed more than once, and, sometimes, the same individuals were interviewed in more than one organization, as they switched jobs over the years. That is why the total number of questionnaires is different from the number of individuals interviewed in Table A1. The number of semistructured and in-depth interviews with CSOs is also different from the total number of interviews, which includes those undertaken with government officials, parliamentarians, legislative staff, and international organization officials (listed in Table A6).

Over the past 100 years, what were similar village communities in these Akan regions of Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire have become very different. The informal institutions of reciprocity have changed and continue to be transformed. These great transformations were not the same in the two regions, however. The different legacies of state formation in political administration, social service provision, and agricultural policy have stimulated variations in the quantity of help exchanged, extent of participation in reciprocal exchange, and structure of social ties involved in informal social reciprocity. The parameters of social exclusion and inclusion have been redrawn in different ways. And as a consequence, the local hierarchies of political power have also changed.

These transformations of reciprocity are about connection and disconnection, inclusion and exclusion, with critical consequences for citizenship and democracy in rural Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire. In this chapter, I explore the contrasts in indigenous meanings of citizenship and everyday political practices at the village level in these two regions. Then, expanding the focus, I look at how these surprising differences in village political cultures and practices shape the ways village residents participate in politics at the national level. This analysis sheds light on why Ghana has become an economic and political success story, whereas the former “miracle” of Côte d'Ivoire has become mired in ethnoregional civil conflict.

Before proceeding, it is important to qualify my claims.

Recruitment of Research Assistants

Because I was unable to find research assistants who were fluent in English, French, and the Akan dialects of both fieldsite regions, it was necessary to use two different sets of research assistants in Ghana versus Côte d'Ivoire. In Ghana, my two research assistants were recruited in Accra and traveled with me to the fieldsite region. In Côte d'Ivoire, my two research assistants were recruited in the regional capital and only traveled out to the villages from there. I found many advantages to the latter recruitment strategy. While the Ivoirian assistants had less prior academic and research experience and required more intensive training and supervision, the job was a greater relative opportunity for them – both in terms of financial remuneration and work experience – so they maintained a high level of enthusiasm throughout the fieldwork. Their morale was further bolstered by the fact that they could easily go home on the weekends to their families. Finally, while the Ivoirian assistants did not originate from the fieldsite villages, their surnames were more familiar and so they were not considered to be as foreign as my Ghanaian assistants.

Sampling Strategy

I limited the sample size to 100 adults in each village for two reasons. First, with n=100 in each village, I was able to use statistical analysis to explore intravillage variation as well as the variation between the two regions in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire.

In much of Africa, the meaning of reciprocity within the family, friends, and village community is quite openly and regularly discussed in the course of daily life. In Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire, reciprocity appears often as the subject of a Sunday sermon or the theme of a provocative bumper sticker in bushtaxis, “tro-tros,” and buses. Perhaps because the informal institutions underpinning support to families and communities are under such pressure and are in the process of being contested, they are frequently at the center of stories, gossip, jokes, and even tales of witchcraft. This chapter uses interpretive qualitative methods to analyze these public elements of popular discourse in combination with transcriptions of informal interviews, focus group discussions, and survey interviews. I explore how the meaning of reciprocity has narrowed and become more market-oriented in recent years but in surprisingly different ways for the village residents of culturally similar regions of Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire.

INFORMAL INSTITUTIONS OF RECIPROCITY AT THE VILLAGE LEVEL: WHAT IT MEANS TO HELP

At the village level, the informal institutions of reciprocity might be defined more simply and accurately as whether and how people help each other over time. But even the very notion of “help” was different for people in various economic, social, and cultural contexts. While respondents immediately and frequently referred to monetary assistance, many local people in both the Ghanaian and the Ivoirian regions mentioned a variety of nonmonetary helps that were considered equally (and sometimes more) important.