In the late 1980s, Amazonian indigenous peoples captured the imagination of northern policy circles and the larger public by strategically representing themselves as the solution to the environment‐development quandary. They accomplished this in part through linkages to northern environmental and human rights organizations. The formation of such transnational networks was made possible by a uniquely favourable cultural, political and economic climate that increased indigenous peoples’international visibility. Since that time, however, the landscape has changed and constricted earlier opportunities. Salient shifts include the ideological and financial polarization of the rainforest movement, a relative absence of Amazonian issues from international mass media and, overall, a devaluing of indigenous identity. The Amazon Alliance, a coalition formed out of a 1990 meeting between Amazonian indigenous groups and northern non‐governmental organizations, is the point of departure for a larger discussion of the changing landscape of opportunities for transnational indigenous eco‐politics.

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Over the past 30 years, transnational space has emerged as a key locus of social transformation. Activist networks and movement coalitions span the globe in an attempt to build an alternative politics. Many transnational activist networks (TANs), however, are meeting sites of two very different entities-movements and organizations-and must thus contend with a crucial divide in the political arena. While social movements usually act extra-institutionally and are often bound together by strong emotions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), by virtue of their legally encoded form, often proceed within prescribed channels and must remain accountable to outside stakeholders. What happens when social movements encounter organizations? Can the tensions between social movements and NGOs be harnessed to create a lasting convergence aimed at building a more equitable democratic politics? My aim in this article is to contribute to a further texturing of our ideas of transnational space by raising some questions and concerns regarding the 'actually existing democracies' being enacted there. I focus on the tension between the more emotive aspects of mobilization and the inevitable day-to-day bureaucratic procedures meant to ensure transparent and equitable democratic practice. These two forces, though complementary parts of any well-functioning TAN, are also forces of attrition. How close they are, and how they can both focus activists' energy and grind that energy to a halt, is shown by the example of the Amazon Alliance, a network of indigenous activists and conservation, human rights and environmental justice organizations, working to protect indigenous territories and the Amazonian ecosystem.

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