Do Transnational Organizations Promote Civil and Political Liberties? Cross-National Evidence from Southeast Asia, 1978-2002

We explore the impact of a growing presence of transnational organizations upon civil and political liberties. Building upon previous world-polity research we evaluate qualitative and quantitative evidence from Southeast Asia between 1978 and 2002. We extend world-polity research by statistically evaluating the hypothesized influence of transnational organizations upon civil and political life, net of other explanations. We also provide a qualitative case comparison of the Philippines and Thailand to elaborate upon the historical moments of dramatic shifts in political and civil liberties in each country and how they are related to the presence of transnational organizations. In both analyses we find compelling evidence that a large presence of transnational organizations is significantly associated with social change. We then extend our findings to other cases in Southeast Asia and a larger sample of Asian countries. The extension of our model continues to find strong support for world-polity hypotheses, but our discussion of the results from all of the analyses and a mapping of the current distribution of transnational organizations across cities in the region suggests that the effects are contingent upon economic growth, urbanization, and the globalization of local interests, specifically local NGOs and the state. In our discussion we offer a synthesis of the literature and theory about the role of global cities for affecting changes within nation-states and suggest a revised model for future research through analyses of both quantitative and qualitative data.