Social Movement Studies

Journal of Social, Cultural and Political Protest

ISSN: 1474-2837 (Print) 1474-2829 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/csms20

Transnational Movement Innovation and

Collaboration: Analysis of World Social Forum
Networks

Scott C. Byrd & Lorien Jasny

To cite this article: Scott C. Byrd & Lorien Jasny (2010) Transnational Movement Innovation and
Collaboration: Analysis of World Social Forum Networks, Social Movement Studies, 9:4, 355-372,
DOI: 10.1080/14742837.2010.522305

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2010.522305

Published online: 20 Nov 2010.

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Social Movement Studies,
Vol. 9, No. 4, 355–372, November 2010

Transnational Movement Innovation and

Collaboration: Analysis of World Social
Forum Networks
SCOTT C. BYRD & LORIEN JASNY
Department of Sociology, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA

ABSTRACT In this article we first trace the ideological development and collective framing of the
World Social Forum (WSF) as a non-hierarchical gathering for collaboration and networking within
the global justice movement. We then analyze the consequences of organizational design, thematic
resonance, and technological innovations implemented to produce more open and horizontal
collaboration. We do this by conducting two-mode network analysis of organizations that facilitated
sessions and workshops during two separate meetings (2003 and 2005) of the WSF in Porto Alegre,
Brazil. Our findings indicate that organizational affiliations were less hierarchical in 2005, but we
uncover mixed results from analyzing patterns of interaction produced by individual organizations
and groups of organizations. Finally, we discuss the implications of such macro-level innovations on
the dynamics of multi-organizational fields (collaboration, coalition building, and thematic
resonance) and the contributions of such an approach to the study of transnational organizational
networks.

KEY WORDS : World Social Forum, organizational networks, organizational innovation and
collaboration, global justice movement, transnational gatherings

Transnational social movement scholars have tended to focus their analysis on how
movement organizations engage in transnational political processes and how these
activities affect their domestic arenas. Recently, greater attention has been paid to the
political activities of transnational networks and coalitions. While we now know a great
deal about specific cases of interaction across borders, we know very little about how such
organizations innovate and affect each other at the transnational level; this is especially
true of affiliations between organizations in multi-organizational fields such as the global
justice movement (GJM).1 A fundamental debate within this movement concerns the way
in which organizations collaborate across borders on common campaigns, projects, and
other activities. GJM organizations seek to increase solidarity building and cooperation
with groups from many different countries while at the same time promoting more
democratic inclusion of a diverse set of actors. While these objectives are not inherently
conflictual, managing such transnational affiliations can produce unintended organiz-
ational consequences. This article seeks to elucidate this debate and, therefore, expand

Correspondence Address: Department of Sociology, University of California, Irvine, 3151 Social Science Plaza,
Irvine, CA 92697–5100, USA. Email: sbyrd@uci.edu
1474-2837 Print/1474-2829 Online/10/040355-18 q 2010 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/14742837.2010.522305
356 S. C. Byrd & L. Jasny

scholarship on transnational organizational processes, by examining the affiliations

between movement organizations, coalitions, and networks that collaborate during
meetings of the World Social Forum (WSF).
Drawing on della Porta, Diani, and Tarrow we prefer to think of transnational
movements as ‘networks of interaction between different actors which may either include
formal organizations or not, depending on shifting circumstance’ (Della Porta & Diani
1999, p. 16) that are ‘mobilized with constituents in at least two states, engaged in
sustained contentious interactions with power-holders in at least one state other than their
own, or against an international institution or a multinational economic actor’ (Tarrow,
2001, p. 11). While this definition is rather broad, it sufficiently encompasses the diversity
of actors and motivations present at WSF gatherings. In this sense, our analysis focuses in
on the ‘circumstances’ or contexts that affect networks of transnational movement
interaction producing varying patterns of organizational collaboration.
Organizations, movements, and activists engage each other on many levels at the WSF.
They celebrate diversity and generate solidarity; integrate struggles from the local to the
global; exchange tactics and strategies; and propose common projects and action plans.
Organizations and movements are the primary actors in the facilitation and diffusion of the
Forum process as it has expanded and grown in popularity throughout the world (Smythe
and Smith, 2008). Since its inception in January 2001, the WSF has expanded to hundreds
of regional, local, and community Forums facilitated by decentralized organizing
coalitions and organizations that may or may not follow the original organizing logic
(Glasius & Timms, 2006). Beyond the individual organizations and movements that
participate and constitute the WSF process, we contend that the Forums can be thought of
as a multi-organizational field serving as a transnational mobilizing structure that produces
a specific cultural and ideological environment within the global justice movement as well
as global civil society writ large (Osterweil, 2004; Byrd, 2005; Juris, 2005; della Porta
et al., 2006; Smith et al., 2007). Furthermore, the reflexivity between Forum translations
and incarnations in various political and cultural contexts produces a diverse and dynamic
case in which to examine the macro-organizational dimensions of the global justice
movement – especially those of organizational learning and innovation.
In this article our task is three-fold. We first trace the development of Forum organizing
logic and collective framing of the WSF as a non-hierarchical gathering for collaboration
and networking within the GJM – relating the Forum process to existing literature on
multi-organizational fields and organizational innovation and change. We then analyze the
consequences of organizational design and technical innovations as well as thematic
resonance implemented to produce more open and horizontal collaboration by conducting
two-mode network analysis of organizations that facilitated sessions and workshops
during two separate meetings (2003 and 2005) of the WSF held in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
Finally, we discuss the implications of such macro-level innovations on the dynamics of
multi-organizational fields and the contributions of such an approach to the study of
transnational social movements.

Horizontal Innovation and Collaboration

Though many hundreds of thousands of individuals attend the Forum in some capacity, as
activists, organizational representatives, and scholars, the Forum officially operates in its
capacity as a gathering of movements, coalitions, and networks. The WSF Charter of
 World Social Forum Networks 357

Principles explicitly states that the WSF shall be a gathering of organizations and
movements from civil society:

(Article 1) The World Social Forum is an open meeting place for reflective thinking,
democratic debate of ideas, formulation of proposals, free exchange of experiences
and interlinking for effective action, by groups and movements of civil society.
(Article 12) As a framework for the exchange of experiences, the World Social
Forum encourages understanding and mutual recognition among its participant
organizations and movements, and places special value on the exchange among
them. (WSF, 2007).

Furthermore, the Forum organizational environment focuses on exchange and diffusion of

ideas and tactics as a primary driving force connecting the various participants. The Forum
achieves this objective by promoting an anti-hierarchical organizing logic, variously
termed ‘horizontalism’, ‘autonomous space’, or ‘self-organization’ by Forum organizers
and founders (Osterweil, 2004; Juris, 2005, 2008; Wood, 2009).
The World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil emerged as a transnational mobilizing
force within the global justice movement providing a space for neo-liberal resistance and
alternatives to flourish. Thus, the discursive fields and mobilizing structures created by the
WSF organizers worked to allow participant organizations and movements to find
commonality in their grievances as well as to discover differences in their strategies and
tactics in order to ultimately build larger networks of contention, which are culturally and
conceptually diverse (Juris, 2005; Tarrow, 2005; della Porta et al., 2006). Consequently,
innovative methods for diverse inclusion and democratic collaboration across borders
have paved the way for movements to integrate their struggles and reflect on collaborative
projects in an openly deliberative space. But, at the same time, such lofty objectives have
brought about adversity and tensions among participants and Forum organizers concerning
representation and organizational design.
Between the 2003 and 2005 WSFs held in Porto Alegre, Brazil, several organizational
and technological innovations came about through mutual critiques emanating from the
various organizing committees and the participant organizations and activists (Teivenan,
2007). The Forum not only grew substantially in size, but also went from being primarily
coordinated by the Brazilian Organizing Committee (BOC) and International Council (IC)
to a gathering principally self-organized by participants themselves. The shift proved
necessary for the WSF to maintain legitimacy by endorsing an anti-hierarchical or
horizontal organizational design and to promote self-organization as a means to build
greater solidarity and recognition of common cause. Essentially, this reflexive organizing
logic and form became part of the Forum’s collective action frame (Snow & Benford,
2000). The Forum process, in this sense, promotes a self-organizing opportunity
structure – as more movements and organizations participate and learn from the process,
this in turn works to perpetuate horizontal learning and a more democratized organizing
logic within the GJM. At the same time, however, such a shift could produce more
fragmentation and schism as the WSF becomes more inclusive by drawing in
organizations with radically different objectives, strategies, and tactics. In the following
section we highlight the development of Forum innovations and outline various
frameworks of organizational development that will guide our empirical analysis.
358 S. C. Byrd & L. Jasny

Horizontal and Vertical Organizing

From the beginning the WSF emerged as not only a counter-meeting to the World
Economic Forum, but was also meant to be a counter-symbol to globalized capitalism. In
building this process, the organizers were keenly aware of the failed attempts in the past to
organize movements transnationally around a diverse set of issues. One specific concern
was to create a space for exchange that had little structural intervention and was simply a
reflection of the diversity of movements in the GJM. Thus, to democratize the space, they
sought to eliminate hierarchical organizing tendencies within the WSF process. A common
diagnosis of the GJM promoted by Forum participants highlighted the danger in
organizing transnationally in a fashion that could reproduce the hierarchical structure
endemic to global neo-liberal capitalism.
While some more radical participants have viewed the shift away from large scale
campaigns and protests in the streets (Seattle-style encounters) to Forum gatherings as
troubling, others viewed the WSF in more pragmatic terms as a means to balance vertical
and horizontal organizing logics. This dispute pitted more radical participants, generally
the grassroots movements or ‘horizontals’, against the more mainstream organizations
such as NGOs, or ‘verticals’, who work within more institutionalized or conventional
political realms over the future development of the WSF. The more radical diagnostic and
prognostic framing of the Forums centers on a pre-figurative politics that sees the Forum’s
organizational environment as a field of struggle. A popular claim of Forum participants is
that ‘conventional politics’ reproduces neo-liberal, capitalist logic and to truly resist this
framework one must promote an organizational logic based on principles of self-
organization where power is diffused throughout a network of organizations, thus
democratizing the Forum and GJM from the ground-up. WSF organizers and participants
have achieved this horizontal organizing logic through a mutually reflexive learning
process whereby participatory assessments and concerns about the Forum are voiced and
corresponding revisions are implemented by the International Council.

Symbolic and Instrumental Innovations

The WSF has undergone several organizational and technological innovations throughout
its growth and development (Teivainan, 2007) which include: deregionalizing the site of the
WSF away from Brazil, including the move to India in 2004; shifting to a self-organizing
structure and more open thematic consultation process; and most recently the decision to
move toward a bi-annual format (holding the WSF every two years). These innovations
have both symbolic and instrumental meaning to the Forum participants and organizers.
Deregionalizing the WSF made the gatherings more accessible and less expensive for local
activist and organizational participation (such as South Asians in Mumbai in 2004). And in
symbolic terms, by expanding the gatherings outside of South America, the innovations
helped legitimize the WSF as a truly global process. Furthermore, the move, in 2005, to self-
organization and a more horizontal organizing logic embodied innovations meant to
ameliorate tensions over representation and control over Forum events as well as increase
participatory pathways for more open collaboration.
The removal of centralized control over the program proved to be a relevant mobilizing
innovation which motivated organizations and movements to engage in more networking
and collaboration before the Forum. Technological innovations played a prominent role in
 World Social Forum Networks 359

assisting this collaboration. Movement, coalition, and network representatives and

activists could view online what other groups had proposed and join together in organizing
common sessions and workshops months before the WSF itself. Glasius & Timms (2006)
traced a substantial increase in the numbers of organizations that participated in 2003 as
compared to 2005. They also found that compared to 2003, organizational networks in
2005 produced a more even distribution of topics covered by the sessions and workshops –
the collective ‘voice’ of the WSF diversified from 2003 to 2005. Our interest here is to
evaluate these collaborative networks created in 2003 and 2005 to determine the structural
and relational consequences of these organizational and technological innovations. While
we consider the WSF to be a rather unique case in terms of both diversity and scale, we see
the following social movement and organizational literature on multi-organizational
fields, innovation, and change to be useful in guiding our analysis of the 2003 and 2005
WSF networks.

Multi-Organizational Fields and Inter-Organizational Dynamics

While a significant amount of social movement research employs network and relational
approaches, much of this analysis focuses on either organizations as attributes of
individual relations or inter-organizational ties as predictors of movement outcomes such
as resource acquisition, protest mobilization, or collective identity (Diani, 2003). We, on
the other hand, are employing network analysis to understand how field-level innovations
in organizational design and organizational learning affect patterns of collaboration and
thematic resonance at the WSF. Though our project is non-typical, we find relevance in the
following perspectives that shed light on the dynamics of hierarchy and multi-
organizational fields, innovation and change, and collective framing.
Social movement scholars affirm the importance of understanding contestation and
mobilization processes which can be fundamentally influenced by organizational
structures and activities that constrain or enable collective actions, the capacity of groups
to actually mobilize resources and recruit members, and the ability of organizations to
engage in innovation or framing of issues to increase diffusion and endorsement of their
claims or ideology (Zald & Ash, 1966; Piven & Cloward, 1979; Clemens, 1993, 1996;
Ganz, 2000; Polletta, 2002). Unfortunately, the literature on corresponding constraints and
opportunities related to transnational multi-organizational fields is lacking. In light of this
absence we see the integration of social movement perspectives into institutional and
organizational analysis as broadening the analysis of organizing processes and the
structures of fields by better understanding how path-dependent interactions and fields of
interaction become constituted around multiple, competing logics, contradictions, and
ambiguities, which lead to field-level change (Schneiberg & Lounsbury, 2008) and new
organizational forms (Rao et al., 2000). The integration enables social movement
perspectives to embrace a more contextual focus centered on how ‘limits on alternatives,
pressures for continuity, and dynamics of convergence often exercise considerable force’
(Schneiberg & Lounsbury, 2008, p. 5).
Networks or coalitions of movements and organizations may function as forces or
structures that moderate, amplify, or dampen Forum collaboration and diffusion, either by
serving as field-wide or cross-field mechanisms for mobilizing power and resources or by
working as political forces within the Forum. In the case of the WSF, organizers sought to
amplify collaboration across a diverse set of actors without consolidating power and
360 S. C. Byrd & L. Jasny

resources in a few organizations with pre-existing privileges. As a result, we expect

organizations that have been active in the WSF process from the beginning, especially the
members of the BOC and other core organizational participants, to embody the
innovations and be greater promoters of self-organization and horizontalism put forth
between 2003 and 2005 than those organizations new to the process.
Building on Michels’ (1958) and Freeman’s (1971) work, we see organizations tending
to evolve towards more hierarchical, institutional, and formalized structures over time and
that those in power tend to reproduce structures of interaction within organizations that
maintain that power. Freeman’s work examined the absence of formalized decision-
making or representative structures (such as consensus-based groups) which often produce
informal or backstage hierarchies and centralization of power. Although their focus is
within organizations and ours is among networks of organizations, this article seeks to
examine the structures of interaction among organizations in multi-organizational fields. A
parallel to this project would be to determine if certain actors in the network, or the
network as a whole, move toward more hierarchical interactions over time, and if growth
and preferential treatment in the network increase these organizational hierarchies. This
tendency in complex affiliation networks is borne out in the literature on complex systems
and organizational networks (Barabasi & Albert, 1999; Newman et al., 2006). Thus, even
though the BOC and IC effectively diminished their control over program themes and
large-scale events at the Forum, these organizations may still exhibit dominance formally
or more informally within the multi-organizational fields established (for example, by
being the most prominent collaborators).
Concerning issues of organizational power and conflict within the Forum, we draw on
Curtis and Zurcher’s (1973) initial description of a multi-organizational field as a field of
interaction bounded by the inter-organizational linkages between groups and movements
involved in movement activities. In the case of the WSF, multi-organizational fields are
established by joint activities, facilitation of sessions and workshops, and organizational
affiliations. This approach offers a framework for analyzing social spaces and fields
occupied by movement actors, where inter-organizational power dynamics can be
characterized not only by instrumental struggles over resources and influence but by
symbolic and cultural struggles as well. Klandermans (1992) further unpacks these
dynamics by delineating the adversarial (or alliance systems) from conflictual affiliations
in multi-organizational fields by acknowledging both the supportive and non-supportive
roles played by various organizations when collaborating or forming coalitions. Regarding
transnational affiliations, Riles’ (2001) examination of women’s organizations networking
around the UN conferences for women in the mid 1990s found that while complex and
intense cooperation existed with the most prominent organizations and countries within
any one network of organizations, there was little formal communication or real
collaboration. She discovered these networks to be quite stratified in reality, with larger
NGOs and countries dominating the proceedings, and smaller delegations of organizations
and countries being more isolated from the deliberations.
While the WSF process may be typically thought of as an alliance system for solidarity
and capacity building like the UN conferences, not all actors enter the process on an even
playing field. Larger NGOs and early adopters of the process may find themselves in more
privileged positions compared to smaller grassroots organizations and those that are new
to the process. Building on these perspectives, the Forum can be understood as a form of
alternative global relations, emerging as a movement or symbolic struggle to create
 World Social Forum Networks 361

liberated or autonomous spaces of interaction (Osterweil, 2004; Juris, 2005, 2008).

Organizations and movements interacting within these spaces reproduce the organizing
logic of the Forum and at the same time learn from these interactions. Again, dominance
and power at the Forums, while not formal or instrumental, may be more subtly displayed
by organizations or networks of organizations that are more centrally located in the multi-
organizational field at large. To further complicate matters and promote tensions, many of
the organizational affiliations are cross-cutting, for example labor and environment or
women’s and religious groups. Consequently, issues of representation and power among
affiliations are conditioned not only upon macro-organizational dynamics but are also
dependent on the political culture and organizational structure of individual groups and
their technological and networking savvy.

Thematic Resonance
Regarding collective framing by organizational participants, the diversity of views,
cultures, and opinions on display at the Forum creates heterogeneous contexts in which to
understand movement and network processes. Thus, to adequately understand issue
framing processes (Snow & Benford, 2000) we must consider the embeddedness of
organizations and activists within a nested hierarchy or network (Rucht, 2004). By
viewing the Forum as a multi-organizational field where organizations introduce, contest,
and construct various thematic frames, we are able to determine which frames become
collective calls to action by analyzing thematic prominence in the network. Another
dimension of the Forums is the macro-relational constructions of collective master frames
taken up by organizations in the Forum as thematic sections such as debt relief for
developing nations, technology transfer, and global governance. Construction and
negotiation of these collective frames within the Forum are an important consequence of
the process, especially given the claim by organizers that the space be an explicitly non-
deliberative body (Smith, 2004). The open thematic consultations in 2005 introduced a
field-wide frame articulation structure allowing Forum participants to connect and align
Forum events, issue sectors, and strands of ideological codes so that they hang together in
a relatively unified and compelling way. What gives the resultant collective action frame
or one of its components resonance within the Forum is not so much the originality or
newness of its ideational elements, but the manner in which they are spliced together and
articulated, such that a new angle of vision, interpretation, or understanding is provided.
One of our interests concerns the relative similarities of these collective frames
constructed by organizational relations compared to those of the individual participant’s
issue affiliations. Scholars have found that multi-issue themes such as human rights and
social justice produce greater connectivity for coalitions and networks than do single issue
collective frames (Van Dyke, 2003; Bandy & Smith, 2005; Reitan, 2007). Chase-Dunn
and his fellow researchers (2006) evaluate individual issue linkages at the 2005 WSF by
surveying participants about what issues they are involved with – multiple issues for one
individual would produce a link between those issues. A network analysis of these
interpersonal issues linkages finds that issues of peace, human rights, global justice, and
environmentalism are central to the individual participants of the Forum. Considering that
the Forum is primarily an event engaged by organizations and movements, we evaluate
issue linkages between organizations to determine the centrality of issues between
organizations and sessions. Again, two core questions drive this analysis. First, how have
362 S. C. Byrd & L. Jasny

innovations in organizational design and technology affected organizational outcomes

(collaboration and hierarchy)? And second, what thematic issues (multi-issue or specific-
issue) have greater prominence at the World Social Forum?

Network Propositions
In order to examine the above questions we test the following three propositions by
analyzing two-mode networks of organizations that facilitate sessions at the 2003 and
2005 WSFs. The organizational innovations and horizontal learning between 2003 and
2005 outlined above should work to produce a more open space for collaboration and
horizontal networking in 2005. This in turn should facilitate more even distribution of
organizational ties between groups, decreasing heterogeneity between ties among
participants and hierarchy in the multi-organizational field as a whole. Thus:

Proposition 1(P1): network hierarchy will decrease between 2003 and 2005.
Shifts in hierarchical structure should originate in the core and spread outward to
more peripheral actors in the network. The organizational core of the network
(Brazilian Organizing Committee members and other organizations that have been
involved in the ongoing social forum process) should embody the logic responsible
for the innovations and horizontal learning and, therefore, be the primary advocates
of this logic. Late adopters (those that began participating in the WSF after 2003),
should not be entirely responsible for any shift in hierarchy between 2003 and 2005.
Thus to test this we want to examine whether the core group of organizations
decreases in hierarchy, and whether they decrease more than the network as a whole.
Proposition 2 (P2): hierarchical relations in the core will decrease between 2003
and 2005.
Proposition 3 (P3): hierarchical relations will be less prominent in the core network
of organizations (early adopters) than in the network as a whole (early adopters þ
late adopters).
Finally, to evaluate thematic prominence in the WSF networks we will examine the
linkages among thematic issues joined through organizational collaboration in common
sessions. We will examine the differences, if any, from Chase-Dunn et al.’s (2006)
findings of individual issue linkages against a network of organizational thematic issue
linkages, to determine what (if any) difference exists among individual and organizational
participation at the Forum. Following other work on coalition formation and collective
framing, we predict that multi-issue themes such as human rights and social justice will be
core to the organizational thematic networks:

Proposition 4 (P4): multi-issue themes will dominate the organizational thematic

landscape.

Organizational Data and Methodology

By comparing the 2003 and 2005 Forums held in Porto Alegre, we seek to understand how
organizational innovations affect patterns of collaborative behavior. Network data from
the organizations participating in both World Social Forums were obtained from tying
 World Social Forum Networks 363

individual organizations to the sessions they sponsor and in which they participate. In
network theory, this data structure constitutes a two-mode network, with organizations and
the respective sessions as the two different modes. In order to apply many of the tools of
social network analysis, this information is transformed into a one-mode network tying
organizations to other organizations (Wasserman & Faust, 1994). This is obtained by
multiplying the matrix of organizations by sessions with its transpose of sessions by
organizations. In the product, two organizations are linked if they both sponsored the same
session in the original organization by session matrix. While this tie does not necessarily
imply time spent collaborating, it does signal common goals and support. We then conduct
one-mode analysis of organizational ties on two-mode network data of sessions and
organizational participants to test P1, P2, and P3. Finally, we convert the two-mode
affiliation network (organizations and sessions) to a one-mode network of session linkages
(by multiplying the same two matrices we used before, the data and its transpose, but in
reverse order) in 2005 to determine thematic prominence in the network to test P4.
To test these propositions we selected those organizations that were part of either the
Brazilian Organizing Committee (BOC) or the International Council (IC). This sample
was then further reduced to only those organizations common to both years for examining
propositions two and three. By strictly controlling the size and membership of this
grouping we can test how the interactions of these key players change over time. Table 1
displays the numbers of sessions each sample participated in and the number of
organizational session collaborators. The combined samples for each year represent the
total number of sessions participated in by both the BOC and IC. Sessions were proposed
in one of 11 session themes and each session represents only one theme (see Table 4 for a
list of themes). While this sample of organizations does not encompass the entire network
we contend that it is sufficient to understand the effects of organizational design shifts on
multi-organizational fields established at the WSF.2
Centrality measures have a long history in network analysis and are arguably the most
useful tool for understanding the structure of the network as a whole as well as the role of
individual organizations. Anheier and Katz (2006) have displayed how analysis of
centrality measures of Forum inter-organizational links, in this case linkages between
organizations who participate in common sessions, can reveal not only inequality in the
entire network structure, but also how certain organizations may serve in positions that
facilitate connectivity among certain issue sectors or by joining two disparate networks.
Degree centrality investigation represents the relative prominence of an organization or
theme. In the organization network, the degree of one organization is the number of other

Table 1. Descriptive statistics (organizational collaborators and sessions) for 2003 and 2005
samples.

2003 2005
Sessions Collaborators Sessions Collaborators
Brazilian Organizing Committee 21 78 72 432
International Council 63 213 150 491
Combined Samples* 74 251 195 861

*Column numbers do not add up because of shared sessions between the BOC and the IC members.
364 S. C. Byrd & L. Jasny

organizations it has co-sponsored or facilitated sessions with. In the theme network, it is

the number of other themes present in the same session.
Propositions one through three (P1, P2, P3) specifically address changes in hierarchical
structure within the networks over time, which demands that we investigate the structure
of these networks beyond simple degree distributions or network centrality measures.
Since the networks at our two time points are of different sizes, we must find a measure
that is not dependent on the size of the network. If we were to limit the samples only to
those organizations present at both time points, we might miss exactly the structural
changes we are testing for. To determine inequality among inter-organizational links, we
calculate Snijders’ (1981) heterogeneity index. There are several different statistics that
measure group degree centralization (Wasserman & Faust, 1994). We use the H index for
two reasons: first, it is dimensionless, which allows for the comparison of networks of
different sizes. Second, it is conditioned on the total number of organizations and the entire
set of links between those organizations.3 Where the standard network centralization
scores measure the difference between the most central actor and the rest (Freeman, 1978),
the H index is based on the centrality scores of all the actors. Since our hypotheses are
premised on the relative centrality scores of groups of nodes, the standard degree
centralization could miss some of the action by concentrating only on the most central
node. Like the standard network centralization measure, the heterogeneity index is 0 when
all links among organizations are the same (or the network is regular) – the larger the
index the more hierarchical the structure of the network (Snijders, 1981; Stokman &
Berveling, 1998). Calculating the heterogeneity index for all samples in 2003 and 2005
reveals the extent to which the multi-organizational fields are separated into uneven levels
of organizations, some of which may be well connected while others are isolated from the
network core.4 Larger H index scores in 2005 than 2003 would counter the assertion that
the shift in organizational design produces a more ‘horizontal’, less hierarchical, network
with less inequality in the ties between organizations. A smaller H index in 2005 would
mean that the links are more evenly distributed between all organizations in the network.
To further illustrate how hierarchies can vary over different types of organizations and
networks, we produce a ranked list of the top twenty most prominent organizations,
networks, and coalitions at each gathering. Rankings are based on normalized degree
centrality (number of links with other organizations divided by the total number of links).
Ego network graphs (all the organizations connected to one organization) of two of the
most prominent organizations in 2005, Central Workers Union in Brazil (CUT) and the
Brazilian Institute for Social and Economic Analysis (IBASE), are constructed to examine
the patterns of connectivity between the two very different organizations. The diagram,
while not part of our statistical examination, gives a visual representation of two very
different affiliation networks at the 2005 WSF. The organizational rankings and ego
networks give a more refined understanding of our macro-organizational analysis.
For testing propositions P1, P2, and P3, we start by converting the two-mode affiliation
matrix (organizations and the sessions they facilitate) to a one-mode matrix of
organizational linkages for each year. For testing proposition P4, we convert the two-mode
matrix to a one-mode matrix network of session linkages, and then take the matrix algebra
product of the session linkage matrix with the theme £ session matrix to get theme
linkages. Thus, two themes are linked when those two different thematic sessions are
linked by an organization that participates in each of the sessions (organizations link
sessions, and sessions link themes). Analysis of degree centrality of Forum events and
 World Social Forum Networks 365

themes will allow us to distinguish between central and marginal themes as well as which
themes may serve as master frames within the global justice movement (Anheier and Katz,
2006). By evaluating the salience of issue themes such as trade, peace and justice, and
technology, we will be able to evaluate the organizational strength between interconnected
issues and the extent to which the network itself amplifies certain themes more than others.

Findings
Hierarchy and Horizontalism
In short, we find support for proposition P1: the network as a whole changed from 2003 to
2005 to reflect a more horizontal, less hierarchical structure in collaborative sessions.
While P2 was supported – heterogeneity among core organizations (reduced sample)
decreased – P3 was not supported: hierarchical relations among core organizations
decreased less than the network as a whole. Table 2 shows basic network statistics of
density and mean degree, and also the heterogeneity index which we use to test
propositions P1, P2, and P3.
The decrease in hierarchy for the entire network (combined) and core (reduced) samples
between 2003 and 2005 gives strong evidence in support of proposition P1 and P2. We
interpret this to mean that the linkages between organizations in 2005 were much more
evenly distributed than in 2003, and we see a clear relationship between these results and
the organizational innovations that were implemented and horizontal learning between the
gatherings. Thus, the shift towards self-organization and decentralized planning of the
Forum produced a more horizontal and open design for organizational collaboration.
Although we cannot tease out a direct correlation, we contend that organizational
innovations and learning between the Forums increased the amount of collaboration
without increasing heterogeneity between organizational affiliations. Such significant
increases in on-the-ground collaboration prove to be a testament to the usefulness of online
or virtual collaboration and exchange before the 2005 Forum and most likely between the
2003 and 2005 gatherings. This finding stands in stark contrast to much of the
organizational and network literature predicting an increase in hierarchical relations
developing over time in complex systems of interaction.
The H index in our case proves to be a very useful measure of hierarchy and
heterogeneity between organizational affiliations in GJM networks. Application of the
index could be extended to any field (multi-organizational or otherwise) of interaction and
exchange over time or between events of different scale (8 or 800) and actors

Table 2. Network measures for density, mean degree, and heterogeneity index for samples in 2003
and 2005.

Network Density Mean Degree H Index

Combined Network 2003 .088 21.94 5.54
Combined Network 2005 .015 13.05 2.03
Reduced Network 2003* .116 7.21 4.06
Reduced Network 2005* .096 5.62 3.19

*The reduced network represents the core of organizations that were present at both the 2003 and 2005
WSFs.
366 S. C. Byrd & L. Jasny

(organizations, issues, or individuals). We see this method as opening up valuable inquires

into the processes of coalition formation, the planning of mobilizations and other
activities, and other relational fields where the distribution of affiliations matters.
Like the network as a whole, the core organizations in the reduced network exhibit less
hierarchical structure in 2005 than in 2003. However, they still form a more hierarchical
network in 2005 than the overall network. Therefore proposition P3 is not supported. This
may indicate that the organizational design shifts and horizontal learning decreased
inequality across the network as a whole but there exists an uneven exchange of links
between core participants and new participants – organizations that entered the network in
2005. The finding makes sense in light of the shear increase in the number of sessions and
organizational collaborators (three and a half times the number in 2003) from 2003 to
2005, and the decrease in hierarchy for the reduced sample (the 63 organizations that are
common in both networks). Core, early adopting organizations may have taken advantage
of their prominence within the network to reach out to other groups, bringing them into the
fold as collaborators. The expanding size of the network created the possibility for growth
in inter-organizational ties, and the reduced H index score shows that organizations took
advantage of this opportunity to create a more horizontal, inclusive structure rather than
maintaining the hierarchal organization displayed in 2003.

Organizations, Networks, and Thematic Resonance

The BOC members, especially the Brazilian Central Workers Union (CUT), Landless
Workers Movement (MST), ATTAC, and IBASE, are very prominent actors in these
networks (see Table 3). In 2003, five out of the eight BOC members are in the top 20
organizations in degree centrality, and in 2005 there are six. Clearly, the BOC members
are collaborating with many other organizations as well as bringing new organizations into
the network. In fact, their prominent role may actually work to facilitate the spread of the
network not only within the scope of these two Forums, but also to other Forums in other
regions of the world and to other organizations who may replicate the process elsewhere.
Although, we did not track new entries versus old entries into the network, we can say that
out of the 432 organizations that the BOC members collaborated with in 2005, at least 346
of those collaborators were not members of either the BOC or IC (432 – 86 IC members
¼ 346 organizations), and out of the 491 organizations the IC collaborated with, at least
405 organizations were outside of the IC and BOC.5 Remember that the BOC has only
eight members and the IC has 86. Thus, the BOC brought many more non-core
organizations into the network per organizational member than did the IC.
Conceptualizing horizontality and anti-hierarchical organizational designs as producing
decreases in network centralization measures, as we did in propositions P1 through P3,
may be problematic for a network such as the WSF. We find that in the case of the WSF,
open collaborative designs may actually produce more heterogeneous exchanges as new
organizations enter the network and work with more established members, but that the
design may also decrease hierarchy by connecting isolated or disconnected organizations
and by more evenly distributing organizational linkages among participants. The latter
process would be in line with the innovations driven by the WSF organizing logic
implemented between 2003 and 2005.
Other interesting findings to note are the rankings of organizations, networks, and
coalitions in Table 3. The most obvious difference between 2003 and 2005 is the rise in
 World Social Forum Networks 367

Table 3. Normalized degree centrality measures for top 20 actors in 2003 and 2005.

2003 2005
Organization nDegree Organization nDegree
CUT* 4.133 Action Aid 3.765
Christian Aid 3.467 IBASE* 3.052
CAFOD 2.933 CUT* 2.427
Friends of the Earth 2.933 MST* 1.904
FASE* 2.933 ATTAC* 1.642
Alternatives , 2.800 Paulo Freire Institute 1.497
REDES* 2.400 OXFAM 1.424
Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance , 2.400 Social Watch 1.235
IBASE* 2.267 DAWN , 1.206
PACS , 2.133 Alianza Social Continental , 1.163
Africa Trade Network , 2.133 Focus on the Global South 1.134
Via Campesina , 2.133 FASE* 1.017
Marcha Mundial das Mulheres , 1.867 Via Campesina , .988
CMT , 1.867 ALOP , .930
Focus on the Global South 1.733 Plataforma Interamericana de Direitos .930
Humanos ,
Jobs with Justice 1.733 InterAction , .887
CARITAS 1.733 CIVICUS , .887
ATTAC* 1.600 REDES* .872
Inter Press Service 1.600 Inter Press Service .799
Global Exchange 1.600 EURALAT .785

*Brazilian Organizing Committee Members.

, Regional or Transnational Network/Coalition.

prominence of transnational aid organizations, especially ActionAid International. Having

not appeared in the top twenty in 2003, ActionAid rose to the highest organization in
degree centrality in 2005. ActionAid International is a large NGO from South Africa with
offices in Rio de Janeiro, Bangkok, Nairobi, and Brussels, and has projects in over 50
countries. ActionAid was instrumental in utilizing the Forum to not only physically
connect with its satellite organizations all over the world but to also meet with their
campaign and project collaborators from other countries. The WSF served as an
opportunity for them to train and educate organizers, network with other organizations,
and build larger campaigns and projects in common cause with Forum participants.
We also discover that transnational and regional coalitions and network organizations
play an important and prominent role at the WSF (six out of the top 20 organizations in
2003, and seven in 2005). Coalitions and networks may use the Forum to not only connect
with member organizations from various countries, but also to recruit new organizations
and promote their campaigns and activities. One such transnational coalition of
subsistence farmers and agricultural workers, Via Campesina, has been instrumental in
utilizing the Forum to expand their network and promote their campaigns and programs.
Work by della Porta et al. (2006), Smith et al. (2007) and Juris (2008) finds that
transnational coalitions and networks function as diffusion mechanisms spreading the
Forum process to various regions of the globe. Thus, the prominence of these groups of
368 S. C. Byrd & L. Jasny

organizations in the Forum’s multi-organizational field provides further evidence of their

importance in the WSF process as it has expanded to more regional and local gatherings.
Figure 1 displays ego networks of the two most prominent BOC members, CUT and
IBASE. These ego networks are a graphical representation of all the other organizations
with which CUT and IBASE are affiliated, as well as the affiliations among the other
organizations that are connected in the network. The upper half of CUT’s ego network is
dominated by other unions and union affiliates that are separated from the bottom half of
the network by the absence of affiliations (except for three other groups who are not
unions). The IBASE ego network is more integrated with most organizations, having
multiple affiliations to others in the network. By simply looking at these graphs we cannot
comment on the structure and function of these ego networks and their effects on the entire
network, but we can demonstrate that different organizations approach collaboration and
coalition work in ways that produce very different structures of interaction. While this may
appear obvious, the differences in the structures of interactions, and their ramifications for
the network as a whole, is not well understood in this specific context, nor in the literature
about multi-organizational fields more broadly. We contend that examination of these
various combinations of structural patterns and organizational attributes (labor versus
social justice) are crucial for understanding social forum dynamics and the structure of the
global justice movement as a whole.
Regarding proposition P4, we find that human rights, economic justice, and social
justice are central and prominent issues in the organizational/session networks, but that
peace and environmentalism are more peripheral themes (see Table 4). The top three
issues, human rights and an egalitarian world, social justice, and economic justice,
dominate the thematic landscape while issues of environmental sustainability and peace
are more peripheral. Thus, organizational/session issue linkages differ from the individual
issue linkages, but not significantly. Peace and the environmentalism are ranked seventh
and eighth in the list, below socialization of knowledge and indigenous sovereignty and
rights. Clearly, multi-issue themes are more conducive to promoting transnational
collaboration among organizations and movements. Although we do not examine the
individual sessions in this article, we do find from the data that many of the most

Figure 1. Ego networks for CUT (enlarged node left) and IBASE (enlarged node right) in 2005.
 World Social Forum Networks 369

Table 4. Normalized degree centrality measures for collective issue themes.

2005 Combined Sample

Session Issue Themes nDegree
Human Rights and an Egalitarian World 38.70
Social Justice 22.10
Economic Justice 19.96
Socialization of Knowledge and Technology 9.32
Indigenous Sovereignty and Rights 8.77
International Democratic Order 8.49
Defending Diversity and the Environment 7.95
Peace and Demilitarization 6.14
Communication and Media Rights 3.88
Ethics and Spiritualities 3.75
Arts and Resistance Cultures 1.75

prominent sessions, such as with the United Nations People’s Assemblies, contain cross-
sector affiliations with organizations from many different countries.
These findings bring into question the role of frame articulation and elaboration in
multi-organizational fields where individual participants may differ from organizational
actors. This difference from the individual issue network and the organizational may be
due to high proportions of individual participants being highly educated, affluent, and
from developed countries (Reese et al., 2006), compared to the organizations, at least in
the core, that are mostly southern NGOs and grassroots networks that are targeting issues
of importance to the global south. Again, while this article concerns the macro-
organizational level of analysis, an examination of inequalities among organizations and
individual activists and how they are related to discursive processes in multi-
organizational fields could help clarify our understanding of how meaning generation
and the social construction of global problems unfolds.

Conclusion
In the case of the World Social Forum, we find evidence that organizational design shifts
meant to produce a more horizontal, anti-hierarchical, and open collaborative framework
find positive results in a network analysis of two-mode matrix data of sessions and
organizational participants in 2003 and 2005. The Forum as multi-organizational field
innovates between meetings, and organizations internalize the WSF principles, learning
from their experiences, to produce less hierarchical relations between organizational
collaborators. We contend that this shift produced a more open and horizontal space for
organizational exchange, networking, and coalition building. The core, early adopting
organizations are the most centralized and connected in the network, but their role may be
best characterized as network brokers bringing in new organizations and integrating
isolated actors. Individual organizations may play very different roles in 2003 compared
with 2005, and some may play a mostly participant role rather than brokering and
integrating other organizations or sessions.
This research sheds light on an important aspect of global civil society relations – the
relationship between organizational innovations in multi-organizational field and
370 S. C. Byrd & L. Jasny

individual organizational behavior. This relationship highlights tensions encompassing

representative structures, such as equivalence of exchange, power discrepancies, and
communicative strategies. Large gatherings of organizations such as the WSF may find
that a more open and self-organized framework facilitates network growth and integration
across a wide diversity of themes and organizational cultures. We see the implications of
this work extending well to issues related to global democracy formation and the
interpenetration of movement actors within institutional fields. Furthermore, connectivity
and heterogeneity among affiliations are dependent on scale and the growth of new entries.
Thus, smaller Forums or assemblies may find that an elaborate self-organizing structure
and consultation process may be beyond their logistical and resource capacity. However,
our research here suggests that if groups remain engaged in the process those obstacles
may be overcome through organizational learning and innovation.
We find that individual and organizational networks differ in their issue centrality.
Human rights, economic justice, and social justice frames play a prominent role in the
organizational/session networks, but peace and environmentalism do not. The prominence
of these social justice and human rights issues highlights the primary concerns of southern
global organizations. It is not clear from this analysis how these organizational collective
action frames are transported by Forum participants back home to their domestic
organizations in the US, Europe, Asia, or Africa or if environmental issues are
incorporated in the human rights and social justice sessions. Further research could
conduct content analysis on the individual sessions and trace framing processes from
region to region, to determine how such organizational logics translate in different
contexts. Furthermore, we hope this research will help to guide inquiries into how
organizational designs and logics affect organizational behavior, especially relationships
between organizations in multi-organizational fields such as the global justice movement
or, more generally, in global civil society.

Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Collective Behavior and Social Movement Workshop in
2007. Assistance and funding for this research were provided by the Department of Sociology and the Center for
Organizational Research at the University of California, Irvine as well as the Kroc Institute for International
Peace Studies and the Center for the Study of Social Movements and Social Change at the University of Notre
Dame. For helpful comments we are grateful to two anonymous reviewers from this journal, Elizabeth Smythe,
Jackie Smith, Ellen Reese and the UCI workgroup on social network analysis; especially Carter Butts and
Katherine Faust.

Notes
1. We use Global Justice Movement (Della Porta et al., 2006) to represent the diversity of organizations working
globally for education, economic, environmental, political, social, and even familial justice.
2. The IC and BOC samples represent approximately ten per cent of the total organizations at each forum – over
700 organizations participated in 2003 and over 2,000 organizations in 2005.
3. This measure examines the variance in the degrees of the number of networks. This could not be calculated
from the variance of the degree distribution because that variance is dependent on the size of the network. In
other words, in a network of 10 nodes, the degree distribution could vary between 0 and 9 – in a network of 5,
only between 0 and 4. Snijders’ H index calculates the appropriate correction in order to compare the variance
between networks of different sizes.
 World Social Forum Networks 371

4. While not reported in these results we started by comparing degree distributions of the 2003 and 2005
networks. We find that while there are many more organizations in 2005 compared to 2003, that the
distribution of organization degrees is nearly identical.
5. The role of the BOC is obviously heightened by their connections to other organizations throughout Latin
America, although many of the new organizations that the BOC collaborate with are not from Latin America.

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Scott C. Byrd is a Ph.D. student in Sociology at the University of California, Irvine. His
research and writing have appeared in Globalizations, Mobilization, and the Journal of
World-Systems Research. His areas of research and writing are social movements,
organizations, globalization and the environment.

Lorien Jasny is a Ph.D. student in Sociology at the University of California, Irvine. She
works in Professor Carter Butts’ ‘Networks, Computation and Social Dynamics Lab’ at
UC-Irvine. Her areas of study are social networks, political sociology, and methodology.