THEORIZING THE EMERGENCE OF TRANSNATIONAL MOVEMENTS: THE SWEDISH ANTI-BOMB MOVEMENT.

The article proposes a conceptual scheme designed to analyze transnational social movements as process originating in national settings and becoming transnational through a series of strategically-driven actions in the context of Swedish anti-bomb movement. It is opined that transnational social movements (TSMs) are as old as movements themselves. It is observed that many TSMs originate specifically in a national context, suggesting that they become transnational through a step-like process in response to variations in political opportunity. In this process, the movement becomes transnational in certain of its aspects before it does so in others. This implies that movements are complex multidimensional entities and, that their, constituent aspects have some degree of autonomy in their manifestations. In this context, it is noted that the Swedish anti-bomb movement in the late 1950s and early 1960s challenged the intention of a collectively powerful array of actors within the Swedish security elite to arm the military with an arsenal of tactical atomic weapons.