session 20 - Transnationalism

While reading Transnational Relations and World Politics, for some reason, my mind kept drifting to the LUMS context in order to better understand the various principles of transnational relations. My application of Keohane and Nye’s theory might be imperfect but it’s still worth a shot.

For instance, LUMS can be considered analogous to the world while the four schools (SDSB, HSS, Law and SSE), as well as the admin, can be seen as the states and their respective departments are like their governments. The Student Council and other societies can be considered analogous to transnational actors. The student council and other societies allow for communication to take place between students from various schools. Collaborations on various events between different societies show how transfer of people, physical objects and finances can take place. The authors say that, ‘Some global interactions are initiated and sustained entirely, or almost entirely, by governments of nation-states’. The Law & Politics Society is one such example, which is headed by the Law Department.

The authors then list the effect of transnational interactions. First, they believe that transnational interactions bring about attitude changes which effect state policies and that new attitudes can also be fostered by transnational organisations. For instance, the student council and other societies like FemSoc brought together those who felt that the admin must form better sexual harassment policies. Pressure from these organisations influenced the admin’s decision to formulate a sexual harassment policy for future purposes. Second, international pluralism is another effect of transnational interactions. By this, the authors state that they mean the linking of interest groups in transnational structures. For instance, the student council has reserved seats for girls from SSE. It caters to the interests of girls from SSE, who wish to obtain a seat in the student council in order to influence policy making but cannot make a significant impact because they constitute a minority at SSE. The student council, analogous to a transnational actor, allows for the interests of girls from SSE to be brought to the front.

The third effect is interdependence and dependence. The authors state that states may become dependent on transnational actors particularly if they provide something good. I feel that this may not be the case in the analogy because the schools/states are too powerful and the societies are too weak to provide something substantial to the school as far as their policy making is concerned. The fourth effect is that such organisations may provide some governments instruments of influence over others. In the analogy, societies that are run by particular schools will give those schools more influence. For instance, the law and politics society backed by the Law school and the LUMS entrepreneurial society backed by SDS, are bound to have greater influence as compared to a society which is not specifically backed by a school. The student council also holds a great influence because it is, to some degree, controlled by the admin.

In the final effect, the authors state that sometimes, autonomous transnational organisations can be potential and sometimes, actual opponents of government policy. While it is unlikely that any society at LUMS will become an actual enemy of the admin (which in my opinion seems to be like a world hegemonic state), it is possible for some societies to be outraged and protest against the admin.