ABSTRACT
The influence of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on global politics is increasing in size and importance, and expanding to new areas of action. These organizations, especially in the case of trans-national membership, represent political values, interests, and demands that cut across the borders of states. Furthermore, they participate in many trans-national and world-level actions and programmes, and are recognized also by policy-makers as actors in the world political system, the reserved domain of states. For this reason, it is quite safe to say that they have an impact on the transformation of the structure and processes of world politics. However, it is also safe to say that the NGOs’ effective ‘actorness’1 continues to depend on the access given to them by state governments and international organizations (IOs) to international institutions and common decision-making processes and actions.
