Do European Women’s NGOs Generate Publics? Online advocacy in Brussels, the UK, and Germany

European women’s NGOs have been crucial in mobilizing for women’s rights on the supranational and national level. This paper investigates to what degree EU-level and nation-level women’s NGOs in Germany and the UK mobilize constituencies via online means. We compare the density of networking and the public interaction profiles between transnational-level networks that reach into member states (in our case the network of the European Women’s Lobby), and nationally based NGO networks rooted more in respective nation-level social movement and advocacy cultures. Utilizing network mapping tools as well as original data collected from about 100 women’s NGOs on the EU level, in the UK, and Germany, we look at the density and distribution of relationships in these networks as well as their actual use of interactive communication means as indicators of their capacity to engage publics. We find that information-focused communication is overall more prevalent than interactive mobilization tools and that UK NGOs exhibit more public engagement features than either the EU level or Germany’s women’s NGOs. We interpret the data as evidence of a more active women’s movement in the UK and as an indicator of lack of EU level outreach into member states communities of women.

Artikel präsentiert zusammen mit Prof.Dr. Sabine Lang