Introduction

Abstract

Non-governmental public actors have at times played a pivotal role in bringing down unpopular and oppressive regimes, changing government policies and corporate practices, and challenging basic social injustices. Non-governmental anti-slavery campaigners in the United Kingdom were critical to the abolition of slavery in the nineteenth century; trade unions have been central to ensuring basic rights for workers; feminists have been the driving force in many countries for women’s right to vote and monitoring gender equality; environmental groups have pushed arduously for the protection of the earth’s resources; and development-oriented non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have spearheaded campaigns against world poverty and pioneered new developmental practices. Over the past three decades the spread of the internet, new communications technologies and affordable means of international travel have facilitated the rapid sharing of information and created new opportunities for organising and campaigning across borders. Non-governmental public actors in the so-called advanced, industrialised North and ‘developing’ South have increasingly joined forces to lobby multilateral institutions on global issues such as climate change, environmental damage and world poverty. They have put pressure on transnational corporations to reduce pollution and improve working conditions, and have cajoled national governments into addressing issues of social injustice, inequality and marginalisation.