Money After Marriage: Domestic Liberal Settlement and Reactive Transnationalization

• In Event: Global Queer/Trans Movements

Abstract

Liberal policy settlements do not end domestic contention. Instead, settlements can redirect conflict across the global arena. This article theorizes reactive transnationalization: a resource-centered response in which organizations reallocate money and activity outward to build durable capacity in arenas where contestation remains open and favorable outcomes possible, thus reorganizing conflict geographically rather than ending it. We demonstrate our argument by investigating U.S. anti-LGBTQ+ organizations’ foreign spending following state marriage equality adoptions. Our investigation leverages a novel, large-scale dataset that links the full population of IRS Form 990 financial disclosures from 2008-2023 to state policy timing to recover trends that have largely been visible only through partial journalistic investigations. Using a difference-in-differences-in-differences design that compares anti-LGBTQ+ organizations to otherwise similar nonprofits, the analyses show that marriage equality is followed by a sustained increase in (1) foreign spending, (2) the likelihood of reporting any foreign spending, and (3) foreign spending as a share of organizational budgets. These shifts do not quickly revert, indicating a durable field-level reorientation toward transnational engagement. In cumulative terms, marriage equality is associated with roughly $2.5 billion in additional foreign spending over the subsequent decade. The findings show why the full consequences of landmark domestic settlements ultimately require a global reference frame: domestic liberalization and transnational illiberalism are intertwined through civil society infrastructures. Moreover, these findings suggest the potential for a downstream feedback loop where reactive transnationalization may ultimately dislodge the originating settlement itself.

Authors

• Kristopher Velasco, Princeton University

• Sebastián Rojas Cabal, Princeton University