1 Friends of the Earth International: Research Access and Global Order in Globalising SMOs Brian Doherty and Timothy Doyle Keele University ESRC Non- Governmental Public Action Programme –

– USA, Sweden, UK and France 2006 – 70 Countries, 1,200 staff; 1.5 m ‘members’ – strong Southern representation – more than half the groups A federation – Secretariat in Amsterdam One country, one vote Part NGO – part action network – contrasts with Greenpeace, WWF

3 FoEI Overall Strategic Plan: agreed in Abuja, October 2006

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5 Methodologies for SMOs: Research Access in Multi-Modal Structures -Using Northern/Southern dichotomy in methodological terms. -North wanting ‘to own story.’ Controlling academic access. Organisational hierarchy based in Amsterdam. Centralised. Non-democratic/bureaucratic.

Methodologies of Power: The South Power in more grassroots democratic terms; Concept of Regions challenging Centre; Concerns for researchers as activists; not ‘just academics’; Access through regional, democratic nodes Participant Observation – access to Australian and Malaysian nodes. Funding opportunities.

Geocentric Metanarratives Construction of Order into Geopolitical regions. Western Liberal democracy: Nation- state, Region as ‘Four Corners’ Concepts of Pluralist Democracy Geocentrism of the North (Centre versus Periphery)

Public Sphere Constructed in Post- Structural Manner NSM frame may be more appropriate in post-industrial societies. Questions of appropriateness of NSM models outside of Europe (challenge to Chester et al). ‘In other words, emerging world order is not as placeless as those who are fascinated by the time-space compression of globalization would like to imagine (Chaturvedi and Painter 2007: 388).