Thomas Davies

• DPhil
• Reader at City, University of London

In contrast to traditional top-down perspectives, this article aims to shed alternative light on the prospects for change in global order through evaluating how perspectives offered among social movements located in the Global South consider how change can take place beyond established approaches. With reference to perspectives offered among the Gl...

This collectively authored article argues for a regional turn in the historical study of transnational activism. By considering not only pan-regional movements but also examples of borderland contexts, transregional connections and diasporic understandings of ‘region’, our discussion identifies fresh possibilities for investigating the evolution an...

Scholarship drawing from a wide array of perspectives including field theoretical and functional differentiation approaches has shed increasing light on the sectoral dimensions of world politics. In contrast to dominant approaches emphasizing hierarchy and power in relations between global fields, this article offers a novel interpretive framework...

In contrast to previous state-centric accounts, this article sheds new transnational light on the 1919 Paris peace settlement through its investigation of proposals for transnational associations’ roles in the envisaged new world order. The popularity of some of these proposals, and their perceived potential to contribute towards a more democratic,...

With the rapid rise of China and the relative decline of the United States, the topic of power transition conflicts is back in popular and scholarly attention. The discipline of International Relations offers much on why violent power transition conflicts occur, yet very few substantive treatments exist on why and how peaceful changes happen in wor...

L'International, a journal published in Paris in the 1840s that brought together an international team of intellectuals aiming to advance international studies, represents not only a forgotten milestone in the development of international studies but also provides an important case study shedding light on the challenges that need to be overcome in...

Although there has been widespread attention to the apparent rise of a transnational society of cross-border non-state actors alongside the international society of states, transnational society and international society have traditionally been treated as distinctive domains with different institutions. This article, by contrast, aims to transform...

Offering insights from pioneering new perspectives in addition to well-established traditions of research, this Handbook considers the activities not only of advocacy groups in the environmental, feminist, human rights, humanitarian, and peace sectors, but also the array of religious, professional, and business associations that make up the wider n...

Social movements are increasingly recognised as significant features of contemporary world politics, yet to date their treatment in international relations theory has tended to obfuscate the considerable diversity of these social formations, and the variegated interactions they may establish with state actors and different structures of world order...

This exploration of the evolution of the International Shipwreck Society (ISS) – a previously neglected transnational humanitarian organization that by the late 1830s had branches in every continent – casts new light on three key aspects of the development of global humanitarianism. First, that there was a secular humanitarian association with a gl...

This article proposes two models that address the neglected relationship between protests, government countermovement strategies, and democratic politics. By contrasting centrifugal and centripetal dynamics triggered by government responses to mass protest, the models theorize the link between government counterframes and opposition politics in dem...

The years immediately preceding the First World War witnessed the development of a significant body of literature claiming to establish a ‘science of internationalism’. This article draws attention to the importance of this literature, especially in relation to understanding the roles of non-governmental organizations in world politics. It elaborat...

In recent years, INGO legitimacy has been subject to growing scrutiny from analysts and practitioners alike. Critics have highlighted a backlash against INGOs in the Global South, a growing mismatch between INGO capacities and contemporary global challenges, and diminishing support for norms such as democracy and human rights that underpin INGOs’ w...

Introducing the special issue on global protest and democracy since 2011, this article surveys the key dimensions of the debate. It provides a critical overview of significant protest events in the post-2011 period and explores a range of the analytical tools that may be used to understand them, before proceeding to identify, disaggregate and draw...

This review explores the history of transnational voluntary associations, commencing with general patterns before proceeding to cover the history of different sectors in turn, including humanitarianism, science, education, environment, feminism, race, health, human rights, labor, business, standards, professions, culture, peace, religion, and youth...

Taking international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) as the key focus, this chapter outlines the history and nature of transnational voluntary associations before proceeding to evaluate the recent transformation of their organizational forms and their shifting geographical distribution. We argue that the traditional, hierarchical model of a...

In the first historical account of international NGOs, from the French Revolution to the present, Thomas Davies places the contemporary debate on transnational civil society in context. In contrast to the conventional wisdom, which sees transnational civil society as a recent development taking place along a linear trajectory, he explores the long...

This article seeks to advance understanding of strategic nonviolent action through providing a more comprehensive assessment of the factors that may contribute towards the failure of nonviolent campaigns than has been undertaken to date. It disaggregates the wide range of international and national circumstances relevant to the failure of nonviolen...

In its assessment of the origins and early development of the World Social Forum this article challenges traditional understandings of the Forum as representing ‘globalisation from below’. By tracing the intricate relations among elements of business, civil society and the Workers' Party in the first years of the Forum, this article reveals the maj...

Robert Owen, the early nineteenth-century social reformer, made a greatly more significant contribution to the theory and practice of International Relations than has hitherto been assumed. This article shows how Owen helped to develop an understudied but distinctive form of internationalist thought focusing on the role of education in the pursuit...

The pursuit of international disarmament through the League of Nations mobilized European and North American transnational civil society to an unprecedented extent in the period between the two World Wars. International non-governmental organizations, which claimed a combined membership of between one-tenth and one-half of the population of the wor...

AvThis article aims to shed historical light on the contemporary debate concerning the role of international nongovernmental organizations and intergovernmental organizations in the democratization of global governance through an assessment of the experience and political thought of the League of Nations era. After introducing the interactions of i...

Despite the challenges of the geopolitical divisions of the interwar years, the International Federation of League of Nations Societies (IFLNS) brought together associations claiming to promote the ideals of the League of Nations in forty countries. It pioneered techniques for the lobbying of intergovernmental organizations that were so extensive t...

Published by Palgrave MacmillanInternational non-governmental organisations (INGOs) are among the key actors in the transformation of development as a global public policy issue in the post-Cold War era. This chapter explores how in the past two decades INGOs concerned with development have transformed their structures and practices as well as deve...

Depuis la fin de la Guerre froide, les organisations non gouvernementales internationales (ONGI) jouent un rôle majeur dans la transformation du développement en enjeu de politique publique globale. Cet article étudie la manière dont les ONGI actives dans les champs du développement ont transformé leurs structures et leurs pratiques, mais aussi leu...

International non-governmental organisations and transnational activism are a prominent feature of contemporary world politics. This book sheds uniquely valuable historical light on these phenomena by providing an in-depth study of one of the most substantial international non-governmental campaigns ever to have been undertaken: the campaign for di...

Traditional accounts of the disastrous World Disarmament Conference of 1932–34 have placed the blame for its failure on France. Recent historians have revised this picture by describing the internal and external constraints on French policymakers and by delineating the equally obstructive policies adopted by the Anglo-Saxon countries. This article...