Professor Charli Carpenter, Associate Professor of Political Science at UMass Amherst, along with several graduate and undergraduate political science students, published new report on agenda-setting in transnational advocacy groups. Unlike current research in this area which focuses on the effectiveness of advocacy, Carpenter's research explores the process by which organizations select and promote agenda items.  According to the report, the likelihood that an organization will advocate a particular issue depends on four key factors: "1) the nature of the issues themselves, 2) the attributes of the actors concerned (both issue entrepreneurs and those organizations they seek to court as allies), 3) the broader political context, and 4) the structural relationships within advocacy networks themselves—particularly between thematic sub-networks in broader civil society."

The transnational advocacy research was supported by the National Science Foundation and by the Political Science Department, the Qualitative Data Analysis Program, the Center for Public Policy and Administration.

Professor Carpenter's teaching and research interests include national security ethics, the laws of war, transnational advocacy networks, gender and political violence, war crimes, comparative genocide studies, humanitarian affairs and the role of information technology in human security. She has a particular interest in the gap between intentions and outcomes among advocates of human security. She has published three books and numerous journal articles and has served as a consultant for the United Nations.

To read the new report, click here.