Friends of the Earth International: Negotiating a North-South Identity Award No. Award Holder: Dr Brian Doherty Other researchers: Professor Timothy Doyle Dr Clare Saunders (July 2006- June 2007) Period of Award: 01.01.06 to 30.12.08 Institution: School of Politics, International Relations and Philosophy, Keele University Report of Research Activities and Results Background FoEI is a 70 country federation of national environmental groups, each of which has equal power within the organisation. It differs from the two other large transnational environmental NGOs – WWF and Greenpeace in several ways: it has strong membership in Southern countries who have had a significant influence on its recent strategic development; it is decentralised and its key decisions are made by national groups in annual meetings rather than by an appointed board. New members have to demonstrate their prior history of campaigning on FoEI's mission before they can be accepted. In WWF and Greenpeace national groups are established as franchises of the international organization. The sovereignty of national groups makes the agreement of policy and strategy more demanding for FoEI than for other large environmental NGOs, but also more promising as a case for investigating some important questions about transnational politics and collective action. The most central of these is the debate about whether there is a global environmental movement, or whether in fact national processes remain predominant. Those who see a global environmental movement developing include advocates of the normative significance of civil society, who see the spread of INGOs and evidence increase in transnational networking as a response to global processes and the global nature of many environmental issues (Anheier et al. 2002; 2005; Edwards and Gaventa 1001; Wapner 1996) . Sceptics, however, say that there is too much difference in context, forms of mobilization and ideology between environmental groups in different parts of the globe and that this prevents common identity and action (Bob 2005; Rootes, 2004; Tarrow, 2005; Smith 2002). For the most part the existing evidence tends to support the sceptics. Large environmental NGOs such as Greenpeace and WWF are vulnerable to the criticism that they lack a popular base in Southern countries (van Rooy 2004) and there is little evidence of sustained common action by environmental groups from both North and South on global issues. This leaves FoEI as the most significant case where environmental groups from a large number of Northern and Southern countries work together on an equal basis. However, sceptics would want to know whether equal relationships are possible in practice or whether groups from the wealthier Northern countries end 1