The Transnational Institute (TNI) of Policy Studies:
- carries out radical informed analysis on critical global issues
- builds alliances with social movements
- develops proposals for a more sustainable, just and democratic world. More
The Transnational Institute (TNI) was established in 1974 as an international network of activist researchers (“scholar activists”) committed to critical analyses of the global problems of today and tomorrow. It aims to provide intellectual support to movements struggling for a more democratic, equitable and environmentally sustainable world.
Over almost 40 years, TNI has gained an international reputation for:
- carrying out well researched and radical critiques – sometimes against the grain – of current pressing global problems
- anticipating and producing informed work on key issues long before they become mainstream concerns, for example, our work on food and hunger, third world debt, transnational corporations, trade, and carbon trading
- Supporting and enhancing social movements’ work for economic and social justice worldwide
- naming outstanding TNI fellows from many countries and backgrounds whose scholarship, analysis and research have inspired and educated generations of activists and whose writings continue to provoke debate
- building alternatives that are both just and pragmatic, for example developing alternative approaches to international drugs policy and providing support for the practical detailed work of public water services reform
- influencing policy makers thanks to its research and its direct links and engagement with mass movements, particularly those most affected by current global economic and social policies
- remaining non-sectarian and able to bridge different political tendencies, thereby helping build coalitions of social movements that span regions and continents
TNI’s Projects
TNI works on a wide range of interlinking issues. The constant interaction between fellows and projects gives TNI a unique, broad and informed perspective and enables a cross-disciplinary approach to complex global problems.
TNI’s work currently includes:
- Leadership as a respected global voice on drugs policy, promoting a pragmatic approach to tackling illegal drugs based on harm reduction principles.
- Supporting a dynamic international network involved in building participatory, public sector water as the best way to achieve the goal of water for all
- Confronting the dogma of trade liberalisation, which like financial liberalisation has led to increased inequality, and helping to construct regional alternatives, such as the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, based on regional cooperation and solidarity
- Analysing and exposing the democratic dangers posed by the concentration of corporate power and proposing new legal frameworks of accountability for transnational corporations.
- Engaging with democratic innovations and experiments undertaken by social movements, progressive political parties and governments worldwide helping to empower communities to gain control over their lives and environment
- Drawing together and analysing the links between the different elements of the systemic crisis —financial, environmental and social.
TNI Work areas
Agrarian Justice
TNI’s Agrarian Justice project brings together research and analysis on political struggles in rural areas around access, control and ownership of resources and land, as well as on international agrarian movements struggling against dispossession and working to construct alternatives.
Alternative Regionalisms
Part of the Economic Justice, Corporate Power and Alternatives Programme, TNI’s Alternative Regionalisms project believes that socially just and environmentally sustainable alternatives to the current model of corporate-led globalisation will need to emerge at a regional level – in addition to the more usual civil society focus on local and national solutions.
Burma Project
Burma has been exposed to some of the longest running armed conflicts in the world. Ethnic nationality peoples have felt marginalised and discriminated against. TNI has developed a unique expertise on Burma’s ethnic regions. TNI’s work on drugs and conflict in Burma brings together its long-term work on international drugs policies, and its in-depth research on the regional drug market in Burma and neighbouring countries.
Corporate Power
The Corporate Power project is part of the Economic Justice, Corporate Power and Alternatives Programme. TNI’s Corporate Power project seeks to develop analysis and proposals on how to dismantle corporate power. It plans to bring about a People’s Treaty on the operations of TNCS that will include a call for an International body that can impose binding legal obligations on TNCs and end corporate impunity for ecological, economic and social crimes.
Democratising Europe
Democratising Europe is part of the Economic Justice, Corporate Power and Alternatives Programme. Over the last 10 years, TNI has exposed the flaws of the European Integration model and called for ‘Another Europe’ – rooted in economic, social and environmental justice.
Drugs and Democracy
TNI’s Drugs & Democracy programme has been analysing trends in the illegal drugs market and global drug policies. It has gained an international reputation as one of the leading drug policy research institutes and as a serious critical watchdog of UN drug control institutions.
Environmental Justice
The Environmental Justice Project is part of the Economic Justice, Corporate Power and Alternatives Programme. TNI’s emerging work on the corporate expansion into air, water and nature as a whole builds on work dating back to the early 1990s on the privatisation of nature, more recent work on critiquing carbon trading, and current work on land and water grabbing. It also links closely to TNI’s new programme on corporate power and accountability.
Peace & Security
TNI’s Peace and Security Programme brings together cutting-edge analyses of critical conflicts such as the war in Afghanistan and its regional implications and is pioneering research on the little-publicised spread of new security infrastructure in Europe and worldwide.
Public Services & Democracy
The Public Services and Democracy Project (formerly known as ‘New Politics’) is part of the Economic Justice, Corporate Power and Alternatives Programme and seeks to improve public services and strengthen democracy by empowering workers and citizens to take back control of our economic and political institutions.
Trade & Investment
Part of the Economic Justice, Corporate Power and Alternatives Programme, TNI’s Trade & Investment Justice project plays a critical role in challenging the European Union’s ‘free’ trade and investment policies. Together with partner organisations and networks in Africa, Asia and Latin America as well as Europe, TNI provides analysis, supports the development of campaigns and the strengthening of networks, and puts forward alternatives to corporate-driven EU trade and investment policies.
Water Justice
Water Justice project, run jointly by TNI and Corporate European Observatory is engaged in the work of building viable alternatives to water privatisation, focused on how to reform public water systems in order to make the human right to water a reality for everyone.
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