Transnational networks of weak actors: NGOs influence in climate policy planning networks in Southeast Asia

• In Event: Environmental Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 12: Environmental Movements & Activism

Abstract

In the face of the urgent need to reverse course on fossil fuel production, scholars have found climate action obstructed by an array of tools, tactics, and strategies. To date, more research has been conducted on climate obstruction in the Global North. This paper investigates climate obstruction in Southeast Asia. We build on methods and findings of two related research projects. Fifteen years ago, Jackie Smith and her colleagues built a longitudinal dataset of civil society organizations or non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and traced the growth of transnational social movement organizations (TSMOs) in areas like human rights and the environment. They argued these TSMOs had the potential to build counter-hegemonic power. More recently, Bush and Hadden (2025) have expanded and extended Smith et al.’s research by examining the organizational ecology of all international NGOs (INGOs) to argue that we are in a period of INGO decline. Fewer new organizations are being established, especially in issue areas already populated by a significant number, as they view the playing field as too competitive. To probe these contrasting perspectives in the environment and climate area, we first build a preliminary social network analysis (SNA) of the policy planning network in Southeast Asia. After constructing a dataset of INGOs, we examine network structure and density in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. Second, we build a dataset of domestic NGOs in Indonesia. Third, based on qualitative interviews with a purposive and snowball sample of 14 NGOs, we illuminate the processes of influence and cooptation in the policy planning process. We find that policy making was opened to moderate NGOs in the 2004-14 period (of President SBY) and the first few years of President Joko Widodo’s (2014-24) administration. Over time, however, the already limited influence of NGOs in the face of fossil fuel oligarchic power, declined.

Authors

• Paul K. Gellert, University of Tennessee-Knoxville

• Carl Lewelling, University of Tennessee-Knoxville