Recent years have seen a burgeoning of research on transnational networking and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Pamela Martin's book makes several contributions to this literature through comparative analysis of transnational interactions by Amazonian Indians, particularly Ecuador's indigenous peoples. Much of this activity occurred in the 1990s as the Amazonian region came under intensive pressure from multinational oil corporations, with attendant environmental, social, and cultural disruptions.

The book begins with a lengthy theory chapter discussing a wide variety of concepts from the literatures on social movements, transnationalism, and the state. A historical chapter follows, placing the politicization of Ecuador's Indian population in the larger context of the international indigenous rights movement and, more interestingly, Ecuadorian politics. Martin, following Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink's “boomerang model” (Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics, 1998) shows in some detail the historical blockages to domestic political participation that encouraged Ecuador's Indians to transnationalize their issues.

At the core of the book are two empirical chapters on transnational advocacy networks and social movements among indigenous groups. Vibrant transnational advocacy networks have developed in the region, both as a result of Indian organizations' reaching out to a more responsive international sphere and of NGOs' seeking of clients in the Amazon. By means of several brief case studies of individual campaigns, Martin indicates that indigenous groups are no longer simply reacting to government policies and incursions by multinational corporations (MNCs). Rather, over the 1990s, the groups on which she focuses have become more proactive, identifying future threats and acting to avert them. In addition, in pursuit of their goals, some indigenous groups no longer link with northern environmental NGOs but instead negotiate directly with MNCs.

According to Sidney Tarrow (Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics, 2d ed., 1998), transnational social movements involve sustained interactions among groups sharing common identities and goals across national borders—making them relatively rare phenomena. Martin claims that two overlapping but distinct movements have developed in a seemingly improbable locale and among an unlikely constituency: first, the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations in the Amazon Basin (COICA) involving only South American groups; and second, the Coalition for Amazonian Peoples and their Environment, also involving COICA but including NGOs in Europe and North America. While one may quibble with the idea that these movements are distinct, Martin convincingly argues that the Amazonian indigenous groups have indeed transnationalized their movement(s) across several countries. They interact frequently by e-mail, by phone, and in person; they have developed a common indigenous identity supplementing and in some senses transcending more particularistic identities; and they frame their cause in common, environmental terms.

One of the most significant findings in the book concerns the role of multinational corporations. Most of the literature on transnational networking has focused on cases in which local movements target MNCs (or states). In the Ecuadorian Amazon, Martin shows, MNCs form a key part of the transnational networks themselves. Indigenous groups often negotiate directly with MNCs on environmental, economic, and social issues, sidestepping and transcending the state (which, in any case, is often weak or absent in these regions).

The consequences of transnational networking are another area slighted in the literature thus far. Martin does not focus on the state structures that others have seen as critical to determining network impacts. She does show, however, that transnational networking and pressure have led to improvements in MNC practices and policies, largely without the state's intervention. Just as interesting, she touches on the feedback effects of transnational networking, the ways in which indigenous groups have been changed by their interactions with NGOs and MNCs. Here, Martin argues that these groups have moved from unskilled, sometimes violent, tactics to a more peaceful, professionalized, and effective advocacy-based approach, modeled on that used by their NGO patrons and MNC interlocutors. The book also alludes to the influences of earlier transnational actors, especially missionaries, in giving certain indigenous groups the initial educational and material resources that later flowered into the formation of the earliest indigenous movements in Ecuador. More troubling, as the author argues, is that transnational relations are today leading to competition and jealousies among indigenous groups. Paradoxically, transnational networking by individual Amazonian groups may inhibit more cohesive movements spanning indigenous groups within states. This provocative hypothesis deserves examination in other settings as well.

While there is much to praise in The Globalization of Contentious Politics, there are also some concerns. Despite its admirable comparisons among Amazonian indigenous groups, networks, movements, and campaigns, the book misses an opportunity for more detailed comparison of Ecuador's Amazonian and Sierra indigenous groups. The latter, far larger in population, are, according to Martin, much less involved in transnational networking. Explaining this would go far to answering an important puzzle: why some groups gain support while other seemingly similar ones do not. The book includes some suggestive material, based on the differential timing and degree of networking by the various Ecuadorian groups, but the issue is not directly addressed. While Martin did not set out to write such a book, the short one she did write would have benefited from more detailed description of the campaigns and transnational interactions involved. A product of lengthy research largely among Amazonian Indian organizations in the region, the book includes brief excerpts from dozens of interviews and primary documents. More of this rare and fascinating material could have been deployed, both to provide greater support for Martin's arguments and to enliven the presentation. Unfortunately some of the book needed additional revisions, with too much theoretical exegesis in Chapter 2, often mechanistic explication of hypotheses and indicators, extensive repetition, and editorial errors that sometimes cause confusion (e.g., pp. 37, 72, 77).

Overall, however, Martin has done an excellent job. Her book is an important contribution to the literature on transnational contention, particularly useful in graduate-level classes.