Research on transnationalism has become more and more popular since the 1990s and has combined empirical results from different disciplines such as geography, economy, sociology and political science. The now edited volume by Ludger Pries is an example of the wide range of the applicability of the term “transnationalism”. Within the last 10 years, both the editor of this volume and the Routledge Research in Transnationalism series have made important contributions to the scientific debate and are well known in this field.
The now published volume aims to concentrate on one specific aspect of transnationalism that, according to Pries, has been ignored so far: transnational organizations. The volume includes eight articles, four of which discuss conceptual issues of transnational studies while the other four combine theoretical and empirical research. The main aim of the volume is to suggest that transnationalism has much to gain from the research of transnational organizations, which then would serve as a micro-macro link.
The book begins with two general introductions concerning the challenges for the transnationalism studies approach. Right from the start there is a serious concern to avoid turning “transnationalism” into another catchall concept like the term “globalization”. The first article by Ludger Pries samples the following current tasks for transnationalism research: appropriate units of analysis for transnational societal phenomena, the measurement of the real empirical extent of transnational social phenomena, the internal structures and processes of transnational social units as well as the interrelation between transnational and non-transnational societal units and the development of an adequate methodology for transnational research. However, this statement is also a confession that transnationalism research has not cared enough for these tasks in the past.
Pries goes on by defining conceptual answers to these questions, first by criticizing the absolute concept of space and the methodical nationalism that have been significant for cross national comparisons so far. Instead, he argues for conditions of the transnational unit of reference, which should be clearly distinguishable from other types and characteristics of comparable research. Therefore, he promotes a strong concept of social or societal space, among which there are three different ideal types; these are everyday life, organizations and institutions. The book now concentrates on transnational organizations as one of these ideal types.
In a second theoretical article, Sanjeev Khagram and Peggy Levitt argue for a new scholarly language and different intellectual foundations to grasp the social processes that cross and transcend boundaries. Therefore, they present an understanding of transnational studies, which is based on five intellectual foundations. Empirical, methodological, theoretical, philosophical and public transnationalism should serve as new starting points for the debate. Here, the authors argue that no single paradigm can capture the dynamics in social science but a productive conversation of these could do so. Especially within the last foundation, the normative argument of transnationalism studies becomes obvious: public transnationalism calls into question the false neutrality of much scholarship and therefore promotes the creation of space to imagine options for social transformations within politics and praxis.
Nina Glick Schiller and Ayse Cağlar approach the theoretical discussion on the transnationalism paradigm by presenting the main outcomes of a current research project. They combine the research for local and transnational incorporation with an example of religious networks as social networks and small-scale cities as “locales to obtain insights necessary to move migration research beyond the study of ethnic groups” (p. 41). Furthermore, they call for recognition of the concept of city scale as scholars concerned with neo-liberal urban restructuring have used it. According to Glick Schiller and Cağlar, migration research has not paid much attention to the different livelihood possibilities and relational inequalities that exist between the places of incorporation. The authors argue that the “factor of migration must be considered as both as [sic] an outcome of and a contributor to the scalar positioning of a city” (p. 46). In the following, they outline first results from their research in Halle (Eastern Germany) and Manchester (New Hampshire, US).
The last conceptual chapter of this volume is by Thomas Faist, who provides some critical remarks on the optimistic visions of transnational communities as a feature for international economic development. This analysis is still conceptual as it opens up a broad range of organizations and motivations that could be discussed within the given framework: this ranges from epistemic communities and the flow of knowledge over financial capital and kinship-networks to networks of businesspersons and their flow of capital. The nation-state, which is mainly regarded critically within transnational studies, cannot be completely ignored here. Faist argues that “more attention needs to be paid to how states structure transstate social spaces, for example, through the regulation of transstate migration” (p. 76).
The four following theoretical-empirical chapters cannot keep up with the distinctness of the conceptual chapters. The empirical case studies contain transnational humanitarian NGOs, social movements such as the women movement, organizations in education and European work councils. Although all four try to refer to the empirical standards mentioned by Pries in the first chapter, only one of them can really satisfy this. One reason might be that none of the chapters really uses own empirical material but literature from the research on organizations within each specific field. In addition, because of the lack of transnational studies in the field of organizations, all articles first need to define the transnationalism aspect in each case.
Although all these articles open new perspectives on possible fields of research, more than a single chapter in one book is needed to develop a transnational perspective on organizational features. The linkage between the micro and the macro unit of research was not found here.
Therefore, the book leaves a few questions unanswered on a broader basis besides the individual cases. When do transnational organizations emerge? How do these organizations stabilize? Why are some organizations more successful in terms of financial support or membership than others?
In general, the starting point for all the articles is the idea that a border transcending social space or social field exists and that there is a need for a scientific description of this social space. Much empirical research and theoretical thinking already backs up this starting point. However, on a micro-level there are only a few options for social scientists to answer the question why this transnational social space comes into being: migration and economic interest might be the two most important ones. From this point of view, it is one feature of the volume to broaden the horizon by linking other motives and reasons to the transnationalism discourse, such as value-based action of the religious movements or the transnational humanitarian NGOs. Unlike in the contribution by Thomas Faist to this volume, the reflection on action and motivation in this book review focuses on transnationalism from below.
Nevertheless, the reflection on different kinds of action and how these constitute different kinds of organization was not the primary focus in this volume. So the following remarks should be regarded as complementary statements underpinning the need for additional thinking about the micro foundation of transnational organizations. My question is whether it would not be of any relevance to focus more on the individuals’ perception of an organization and why it should have an impact on one's own life. This does not mean that the author is promoting any kind of methodological individualism here. Nevertheless, a better understanding of the senses of action that construct these organizations could serve to develop parameters for a cross-organizational comparison. Starting from this, one might gain a better insight into the rationale behind the membership rules and structures. Alternatively, one might obtain an idea of whether there are rationales at all in these organizations and if so to which end.
In the following, there is a presentation that discusses the narrow reflection on individual motivation in transnational organizations. It is taken from the description of two specific kinds of organization as they are presented in the second part of the book concerning the chapters on transnational organizations in education and transnational social movement networks. The examples should underpin the argument for a better reflection on the sense of action, in particular the distinction between profit and non-profit organizations. Within each case study there is a master narrative of motivation for each type of organization (profit versus non-profit) but still the opposite rationale within each sub field is possible. Within the social movement, the feminist network is presented in much detail. As presented in the text the transnational women's networks started out of the UN Decade for women as non-profit oriented. Nevertheless, the chapter results in stating that feminist networks create and circulate knowledge without providing any information about the economic character of this fact. Indeed, there might be some profit organizations even in this field such as cultural entrepreneurship in music and literature. They also constitute transnational networks.
On the other hand, the entire next chapter concentrates on the organizations in education that use the circulation of knowledge for private purposes. Private schools or fully commercial online educational enterprises are two examples among others. However, among these transnational organizations in education there are also some non-profit organizations, such as the educational advocacy organizations. Both chapters could reflect on the different impacts that the possible rationales might have on transnational organizations. Unfortunately, this distinction is neither reflected within the given chapter nor within an overall summary on the empirical case studies. This is a remarkable point because researchers in transnationalism have stressed that they do care for the specific power structures within each social field.
At the end of this book review we should return to the starting point of this volume and answer the question of how to do research that already acknowledges the tasks for transnationalism research. The editor of this volume has already presented in brief such a description. However, he emphazised different ways of making sense of each individual's actionFootnote 1, depending on one's own understanding of the surrounding social space. Taking this in mind Pries uses an adapted model of Popperian cosmology for the explanation of the different spheres of being that need to be taken into account to understand living with the new transnational complexity.
Nevertheless, Rethinking Transnationalism is pushing forward the discussion in transnationalism studies. Although not convincing in all parts of the book, the volume gives insight into current desiderata and on how to make use of the concept beyond the migration studies.
