Global Links, Local Roots: Varieties of Transnationalization and Forms of Civic Integration

In a rapidly changing society such as post-socialist Hungary, are civic organizations that are connected to transnational flows of information, resources, and partnership more likely to be disconnected from their membership base, from other civic organizations, and from other organizations outside the civic sector? Do transnational interactions come at the expense of domestic integration? To answer these questions, the authors conducted a survey of 1,002 civic associations in Hungary in 2002. We identify seven varieties of transnationalization and we distinguish three forms of domestic integration—participation, embededdness, and associativeness. Our findings indicate that civic actors do not face a necessarily forced choice between networks of global reach and those of domestic integration. Many Hungarian civic organizations, in significant numbers, do engage in transnational interactions while simultaneously integrated with their membership base, other civic organizations, and/or other non-civic organizations. In fact, the richest and most encompassing patterns of integration go hand in hand with the deepest and most encompassing patterns of transnationalization. These and related findings indicate that it would be mistaken to assume that transnationalization is necessarily accompanied by the domestic uprooting of civic organizations, whether as cause or as consequence.