ABSTRACT
Social activists are as tied up as anyone else with ‘globalization’ in all its forms. Activists’ strategies or discourses in a local context, for instance, may be premised upon lessons learned from abroad or funded by overseas donors. Moreover, as Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink (1998) explain, activists for comparable causes may coordinate their efforts in transnational advocacy networks. These networks magnify the effect of calls for change in states in which activists are comparatively stifled, propound broadly applicable cognitive frames, collect and disseminate relevant information and organize campaigns and events. Against this implicitly transnational backdrop, activists in any setting thus face a choice of where to direct their efforts. While some choose to focus on local problems and issues, others tend to look abroad. This study explores this tradeoff for Malaysian activists.1
