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Globalizing Issues
How Claims, Frames, and
Problems Cross Borders

Edited by
Erik Neveu · Muriel Surdez
Globalizing Issues
 Erik Neveu · Muriel Surdez
Editors

Globalizing Issues
How Claims, Frames, and Problems Cross Borders
Editors
Erik Neveu Muriel Surdez
Sciences Po University of Fribourg
Rennes, France Fribourg, Switzerland

ISBN 978-3-030-52043-4 ISBN 978-3-030-52044-1 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52044-1

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2020
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 In times of climate warming, coronavirus pandemic and increasing and
devastating inequalities we dedicate this book to all those who work to
coordinate their efforts for a world where the future generations would
experiment happier lives.
Happier lives on a planet where biodiversity and the environment would be
protected, happier lives in a world where, according to Jean-Jacques
Rousseau principle: “No citizen would be opulent enough to buy another
citizen, and none poor enough to be forced to sold him/herself.”
 Acknowledgments

We wish to thank all the participants in the ECPR Workshop in

Nottingham who gave birth to this book.
Our gratitude also goes to the University of Fribourg and to the Swiss
National Science Foundation for their generous financial support that
allowed us to organize a complementary workshop at the University of
Fribourg.
A special thanks to Alice Breathe who improve substantially several
chapters with her corrections. The final version of the manuscript also
benefited from the contribution of Lorène Piquerez.

vii
 Contents

1 Introduction: An Invitation to Explore the Processes,

Puzzles and Ecosystems of Issues’ and Problems’
Globalization 1
Erik Neveu and Muriel Surdez
The Making of Global Problems 4
Interdependency Chains and the Three Flows 6
The Global Problems Ecosystem: The Map of Actors
and Complex Interplay of Scales 8
From a Scientific No Man’s Land Toward a “Seamless”
Theoretical Frame 13
The Social Problem Construction: From a National
to a Comparative Framework 13
The Development of the Agenda Setting Approach
Within and Beyond Policy Process Studies 16
Inviting to Uphill Battles for Interdisciplinary Connections 18
References 21

Part I Globalization of Issues and Problems: Frameworks

Revisited

2 The Forgotten Guest: International Relations

and the Globalization of Social Problems 27
Elitza Katzarova and Erik Neveu

ix
x CONTENTS

Definition: What Makes a Social Problem “Global”? 31

Agency: Who Makes a Global Problem? 34
Venues: Where Are Global Problems Made? 38
The Weight of International Organizations 38
Reconnecting Research Fields 39
Diffusion: How Do Global Problems Spread? 40
Conclusion 43
References 44

3 Hepatitis B, a Global Disease? On Some Paradoxes

of the Construction of Global Health Problems 49
Maëlle de Seze
Hepatitis B: A Major Health Issue Not Constructed
as a Global Health Problem 51
Hepatitis B in the Prehistorian Age of Global Health:
An Acknowledged Health Issue 52
Main Reasons for the Fall of Scientists’ Attention
to Hepatitis B in the 1990s and 2000s 53
Characteristics of the Issue That Hindered Its
Construction as a Global Health Problem 55
Viral Hepatitis: A Multidimensional “HIV-Framed”
Global Problem 57
“Viral Hepatitis”: An Emerging Global Problem Since
2010, that Includes Hepatitis B 58
Access to Hepatitis C Treatment: The Perfect
Opportunity for Members of the Global Health Network
on HIV to Claim Ownership of the New Global Problem 59
Influence of “HIV-Framing” on Scientists, Activists,
and Health Policymakers 62
References 68

4 Issue Competition in a Globalized World: The

Causes of Cross-National Similarities and Differences
in the Issue Content of Party Politics 73
Christoffer Green-Pedersen
Policy Agenda Setting in Comparative Perspective 75
Problem Indicators and Focusing Events 76
Issue Characteristics 79
 CONTENTS xi

Electoral Appeals 80
Coalition Incentives 82
Similar or Different Party Agendas? 83
How Have Party Agendas in Western Europe Developed? 84
Agenda Setting in a Globalized World 89
References 91

5 Field Theory and the Foundations of Agenda Setting

and Social Constructionism Models: Explaining
Media Influence on French Mad Cow Disease Policy 95
Jérémie Nollet
Social World Theories Without Social Agents 96
Agenda Setting’s Implicit Theory of Action 97
Social Problems’ Implicit Theory of Action 98
Explaining the Effects of Agenda Setting and Social
Construction Through Field Theory 100
Agenda Setting and Framing as Field Effects 100
Agenda and Framing Effects as a Result
of the Relationships Between Fields 101
Case Study: The Mad Cow Crisis in France 102
A Field Theory of the “Mad Cow” Problem: Methodology 103
Agenda Setting and Framing the “Mad Cow” Problem
in March 1996 105
A Different Framing Dynamic in November 2000 109
Conclusion: A Non-deterministic Theory of Media
Influence on Policymaking 110
References 112

Part II Mapping the Actors and the Social Logics of

Issues’ Globalization

6 “Accidents Without Borders”? The Renationalization

of a Global Problem in the French Media 117
Valerie Arnhold
Methodology and Analytical Framework 119
Comparing the French Media Coverage of Chernobyl
and Fukushima: From a Global to a National Issue? 121
xii CONTENTS

From International Politics and East–West Relations

to French and Japanese Safety and Economic Concerns 122
From European and Cross-Border Conflict After
Chernobyl to a Common Response to Fukushima 124
The Disappearance of Cross-Border Conflict and the Role
of Germany in France 126
Discussion: The Role of International Cooperation
on Claims-Making and the Media Treatment of Nuclear
Accidents in France 128
Conclusion 130
References 135

7 Same Topics with Different Meanings? Social

Networks and the Trans-Nationalization of Issues
and Frames in European Public Policy Agendas 137
Franca Roncarolo and Sara Bentivegna
Introduction 137
Construction and Circulation of the Problems
in (Partially) Shared Discursive Spaces 139
The European Public Sphere as a Prototypical
Transnational Discursive Arena 139
Transnationalization, Intermedia Agenda-Setting
and Digital Platforms in the New Hybrid Media System 140
From Issues to Frames: The Contents of Public Discourse 142
Between National Agenda and International
Implications: The Brexit Referendum 144
A National Political Issue Reinterpreted
on the International Political Stage: The Italian
Constitutional Reform Referendum of 2016 146
Research Questions and Hypotheses 147
Data and Methods 148
One Issue, Multiple Frames 149
Conclusions 156
References 158

8 Claims-Making and Transnational Spaces: Contesting

the Scope of Climate Change Discourse on Twitter 163
Timothy Neff
 CONTENTS xiii

Climate Change: A Global Problem Discussed

in Transnational Spaces 164
Methodology 167
Findings 169
Topics 169
Hashtag Dynamism 172
Discursive Diversity 175
Conclusions 177
References 180

Part III Arenas and Venues: Bringing Scales, Frames and

Temporalities Back In

9 Rationalization, Privatization, Invisibilization? On

Some Hidden Dimensions of the Transnationalization
of Occupational Health and Traffic Safety Policies 187
Stève Bernardin and Emmanuel Henry
From Transnationalization to Invisibilization: A Call
for a Sociohistorical Analysis of Public Problems 188
Before Politics and Business: The Academic Genesis
of Transnational Problems 191
From Gentlemen Drivers to State Engineers: Toward
a Science of Traffic Safety 191
International Congresses and Commissions: Limit
Values Outside of Workplaces 192
When Institutionalization Rhymes with Privatization:
A Sociological Viewpoint on International Harmonization 194
Traffic Safety at the United Nations: Auto Makers
and Their Experts on the Move 194
Occupational Health and the European Union:
Ensuring Safety for Manufacturers and Employers 196
Deny or Divide: The Two Faces of Concealment
and Invisibilization of Social Problems 199
When Social Issues Disappear: Occupational Health
as a One-Way Policy 200
When Social Issues Reappear: Traffic Safety
as a Multiple-Choices Policy 202
References 206
xiv CONTENTS

10 From Global Problem Framing to Local

Policy Implementation: Swiss Bureaucrats
and the “Antibiotic Resistance” Issue 211
Muriel Surdez
Reincorporating State Professional-Bureaucrats
into the Making of Social Problems 212
How the Administrative Framing of a Global Problem
Challenged Swiss Bureaucrats 215
Beneath the Surface of National Plans 216
Antibiotic Resistance Reveals the Balance of Power
Between Federal and Cantonal Administrative Units 217
Inter-Professional Collaboration at Cantonal Level:
Divergent Priorities and Responsibilities 220
Cantonal Veterinarians: Involved, but Cautious 220
How Do Chemical Engineers Distance Themselves
from the Problem? 222
Conclusion 224
References 228

11 When International Indicators Disrupt Party

Competition: How Standardized School Tests
and Preferences Affect Parties’ Issue Emphasis 231
Thomas Artmann Kristensen
Indicators and Party Competition 234
PISA as an Indicator of Primary and Secondary School
Problems 235
When an Indicator Disrupts Party Competition 236
Research Design, Data, and Effects 240
The Independent Variables 241
Estimation Strategy 242
The PISA Effect on Party Attention to Education 243
Conclusion 249
References 251

12 From the National to the European and Back:

A Structural Reading of the Circulation of a Policy
Frame Across Borders 255
Matthieu Ansaloni
 CONTENTS xv

Introduction 255
The Origins of the Vision in Terms of Public Good 259
A Detour by Brussels 263
A Reversal of National Hierarchies 267
Conclusion 270
References 274

13 Global by Nature? Three Dynamics in the Making

of “Global Climate Change” 277
Stefan C. Aykut
Introduction 277
Spatial Scale: A Problem of Planetary Proportions 279
Weather Prediction, Climatology, and the Development
of General Circulation Models 280
Building a Transnational Knowledge Infrastructure 281
Forging Epistemic Communities of Climate Experts 282
Geopolitical Reach: A Problem of International
Cooperation 284
Constituting Global Governance as a Solution:
Globalization, the Nation State, and the Logic
of Collective Action 284
Putting Theory into Practice: Climate Change
as a “Common Concern of Mankind” 285
From Rio to Copenhagen: The Rise and Fall
of the Multilateral Approach 287
Thematic Scope: A Problem of Coordination Across Societal
Spheres and Policy Domains 288
The Power of Attraction of Climate Summits 289
Globalizing the Climate, Climatizing the World 290
The New Logic of Climate Governance: “Facilitating”
Public and Private Climate Action 291
References 295

14 How Do European Lobbyists Frame Global

Environmental Problems? A Case Study
of the Biofuels Lobbying Campaign Through
the Lens of a Major Agroindustry 301
Armèle Cloteau
xvi CONTENTS

Building an Interest in Response to Legislation

that Weakens the Company’s Production Model 303
A Company Left Out of the Initial Framing
of the Biofuel Problem 304
Using Recognized Problems and International Reports
to Persuade the Company 305
From an Economic Argument to an Environmental One:
Countering EU Regulators on Their Own Ground 308
A Pioneer Company Acting to Preserve Low-Cost
Vegetable Oils 308
The Social Shift of the Company’s Interest: “Something
Positive to Oppose to the [EU] Commission” 310
When an Agro-Industrial Group Became an Ally
of the Environment 312
Conclusion 315
References 318

15 Media, the Public Sphere, and the Globalization

of Social Problems 321
Daniel C. Hallin
Transnationalizing the Public Sphere? 323
Globalized Media Institutions? 326
Limitations of Media Transnationalization 327
Transnational Cooperative Journalism and Global Media
Events 329
Conclusion 332
References 333

Author Index 337

Index 349
 Notes on Contributors

Matthieu Ansaloni currently carries out his research at the French

National Agronomic Research institute (INRAE), France. Focusing on
public policies, his empirical work aims at analyzing the (re)production of
segment(s) of the economic field. He is currently writing a book (with
Andy Smith) which aims at elucidating the transformation of the French
agricultural field, internally (the continuing process of economic capital
accumulation) and externally (the decline of the agricultural field within
the economic field).
Valerie Arnhold is a Ph.D. student at the Center for the Sociology of
Organizations in Paris and a contract researcher in the “Nuclear Knowl-
edges” project at the Center for International Studies at Sciences Po,
Paris, France. Her Ph.D. dissertation proposes a sociology of nuclear acci-
dents and their government in France, in Germany and on the European
and international level.
Stefan C. Aykut is Junior Professor of Sociology at Universität
Hamburg and director of the Center for Sustainable Society Research
(CSS), Germany. His research examines the social and political dimen-
sions of the global environmental crisis. Topics include global climate
governance, energy transitions, and the use of forecasts and simulations in
policymaking. He recently published Globalising the climate. COP21 and
the ‘climatisation’ of global debates (Routledge, 2017) and Climatiser le
monde (Quae, 2020).

xvii
xviii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Sara Bentivegna, Ph.D. is full Professor of Digital Media and Political

Communication at the “Sapienza” University of Rome, Italy. Her main
research interests lie in the field of political communication, with a specific
focus on digital politics. Her current research projects concern multiple
agendas at a time of disrupted public spheres. She has published numerous
articles in national and international journals including the European
Journal of Communication, Journalism, Journalism studies, Contemporary
Italian Politics.
Stève Bernardin is an associate professor of sociology at the Univer-
sité Gustave Eiffel (UGE-LATTS), France. His current research exam-
ines the concept of ownership of public problems from a sociohistorical
perspective, with particular focus on traffic safety and the development of
autonomous vehicles. He also works on an edited book on the sociological
legacy of the late Joseph Gusfield. He recently published “Controversies
or Public Problems? Open questions and research proposals,” European
Association for the Study of Science and Technology-EASST Review, 38 (1),
2019.
Armèle Cloteau is a researcher in political sociology Laboratoire
IRISSO at the University Paris-Dauphine, PSL University, France. Her
work focuses on the participation of multinational companies in food and
environment policies at the European Union level and at the national level
in France. Combining various qualitative methods (interviews, ethnog-
raphy) with research in public and private archives, she analyzes the daily
work of interest representatives and their relationships with regulators.
She recently published (with M. Mourad) an article on food waste policies
in Gouvernement et Action publique.
Maëlle de Seze wrote her Ph.D. thesis at the University of Sheffield,
School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR), UK and at the
Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Centre européen de sociologie et
de science politique (CESSP, UMR 8209), France. She is studying the
construction of global health policies between the transnational and the
national level. Her Ph.D. focused on a global problem (viral hepatitis) that
emerged at WHO in 2010, and the public health policies to address this
problem in Senegal and The Gambia. She also has a background in public
health and epidemiology and has worked on various global health topics
such as liver cancer, HIV and coinfection between HIV and tuberculosis
or viral hepatitis.
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xix

Christoffer Green-Pedersen is Professor of Political Science at Aarhus

University, Denmark. His research focuses on party competition, agenda-
setting, and public policy in comparative perspective. He is one of the
founders of the Comparative Agendas Project (CAP) and the author of
“The Reshaping of West European Party Politics,” Oxford University
Press 2019.
Daniel C. Hallin is Distinguished Professor of Communication at the
University of California, San Diego, USA. His books include The
“Uncensored War”: The Media and Vietnam (1986), We Keep America
on Top of the World: Television Journalism and the Public Sphere (1994),
Comparing Media Systems: Three Models of Media and Politics (2004),
and Making Health Public: How News is Remaking Media, Medicine and
Contemporary Life.
Emmanuel Henry is Professor of Sociology at the Université Paris-
Dauphine, PSL University, France. He carries out a sociology of public
policies that seeks to highlight their contribution to the persistence of
social inequalities. His work focuses on the links between scientific knowl-
edge (and ignorance), expertise, and public policy in the field of public
health (mostly regarding occupational and environmental health). He
recently published Ignorance scientifique et inaction publique. Les politiques
de santé au travail, Paris, Presses de Sciences Po, 2017.
Elitza Katzarova holds a Ph.D. in International Relations and Political
Science from the School of International Studies at the University of
Trento, Italy. Her main research interest is in the field of anticorrup-
tion. She has carried out research on the OECD and UN anticorruption
efforts at the OECD archives in Paris and the UN archives in New York.
Her book “The Social Construction of Global Corruption: From Utopia
to Neoliberalism” was published by Palgrave (2018). She has worked
and given lectures at universities in Germany, Austria, Italy, Bulgaria, and
Portugal.
Thomas Artmann Kristensen is a Ph.D. student in the Department of
Political Science at Aarhus University, Denmark. His research focuses on
international indicators, party competition, political agenda-setting, and
the media. His thesis explores how the interplay of information from
indicators and the strategic or ideological preferences of political parties
xx NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

shape the issues that are on top of the political agenda, using quantita-
tive methods and data that covers multiple Western European countries,
political issues, and years.
Timothy Neff earned his Ph.D. in New York University’s Department
of Media, Culture, and Communication and is a 2019–2020 Fellow at
the Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society,
USA. His research focuses on news and social media discourse about
climate change and on the relationship between public service jour-
nalism and different forms of media ownership. He has published arti-
cles in The International Journal of Press/Politics, International Journal
of Communication, and Environmental Communication.
Erik Neveu is Emeritus Professor of Political Sciences in the research
team ARENES/CNRS, University of Rennes, France. He has developed
research on journalism and the public sphere; social movements and
cultural studies. His current research targets the construction of public
problems and especially how do they move (or not) over borders. Most
recent publication: Activists Forever? Long term consequences of political
commitment. With Olivier Fillieule (Eds), Cambridge University press,
2019.
Jérémie Nollet is an associate professor in political science at Sciences
Po Toulouse, France. His research focuses on the relation between the
media and political activities: public policies, electoral campaign, and
social movements. After studying the media coverage of the mad cow
crisis in France and its effects on public policies, he took part to a collec-
tive research on the mobilizations against the closure of a factory in a
small rural town. He currently studies the mediatization of the Yellow
Vest Movement in France.
Franca Roncarolo is full Professor of Political Science at the Univer-
sity of Turin, Italy, where she teaches public communication. She has
carried out research on the media’s role in the policymaking process;
political communication and election campaigns; styles of political lead-
ership; and forms of mediatization. She is the author of several articles
in international journals, and she has contributed to edited books on
political communication published by Palgrave, Routledge and Cambridge
University Press.
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xxi

Muriel Surdez is Professor in the Department of Social Sciences at the

University of Fribourg, Switzerland. Her research interest is in sociology
of professions and of public policies. She led several research projects
funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation: among the more
recent, one studies the reforms of veterinary public health and food safety
(“Cooperation and competition between professional bureaucrats. The
case of Food safety reforms in Switzerland”); the second explores how
the platform economy transforms the professions in the hospitality sector.
She recently published a paper on engineer’s political sozialisation at work
(Revue française de science politique, 2019, 3).
 List of Figures

Fig. 4.1 Party attention to macro-economic issues 1980–2015 85

Fig. 4.2 Party attention to the environment 1980–2015 86
Fig. 4.3 Attention to health care in seven countries 1980–2015 87
Fig. 4.4 Party system attention to crime and justice in seven
countries 1980–2015 88
Fig. 7.1 Change in the number of tweets devoted to the Italian
constitutional referendum, in the Italian and English
Twitterspheres, 29 November–5 December 2016 150
Fig. 8.1 Topic distribution of retweets by Twitter users from fields
of civil society and politics (percentages) 171
Fig. 8.2 Top ten communities on 30 November 2015 172
Fig. 8.3 Top ten communities on 6 December 2015 173
Fig. 8.4 Top ten communities on the final day of COP 21 174
Fig. 11.1 PISA scores 240
Fig. 11.2 Attention to primary and secondary education by country
(Note The vertical dashed lines mark the publication of
PISA results) 244
Fig. 11.3 Marginal effect of PISA score on attention to primary
and secondary education (Note Calculated based on
model 4 in Table 11.1) 247

xxiii
 List of Tables

Table 2.1 National and transnational claims-makers 34

Table 6.1 Geographical areas mentioned in newspaper articles and
TV segments about Chernobyl and Fukushima 121
Table 7.1 Links in the Italian- and English-language Tweets 151
Table 7.2 Topic solution in Italian Twittersphere 152
Table 7.3 Topic solution in English Twittersphere 153
Table 7.4 Topics and frames in Italian twittersphere 154
Table 7.5 Topics and frames in English Twittersphere 155
Table 8.1 Topic rankings in #COP21 communities 170
Table 8.2 Central Twitter account fields, cross-tabulated by topics
in retweets circulating in the communities centered on
those accounts 171
Table 11.1 Estimating parties’ level of attention to primary and
secondary education 245

xxv
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction: An Invitation to Explore

the Processes, Puzzles and Ecosystems
of Issues’ and Problems’ Globalization

Erik Neveu and Muriel Surdez

The starting point for this book was a workshop entitled “Transnation-
alization of problems and agendas: Theoretical and empirical challenges”
that took place in Nottingham during the 2017 Joint Sessions of the
European Consortium for Political Research.1 If the aim of the workshop
was a better understanding of transnationalization processes, its driver was
dissatisfaction with two specific aspects of research in this area. The ambi-
tion for this book is to transform dissatisfaction into fruitful theoretical
and empirical statements.
The first source of dissatisfaction was academia’s indiscriminate use of
the words “global” and “globalization” in relation to issues or problems,
and the major risk of oversimplification this entails. The globalization

E. Neveu (B)
Sciences Po, Rennes, France
e-mail: erik.neveu@sciencespo-rennes.fr
M. Surdez
University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland
e-mail: muriel.surdez@unifr.ch

© The Author(s) 2020 1

E. Neveu and M. Surdez (eds.), Globalizing Issues,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52044-1_1
2 E. NEVEU AND M. SURDEZ

category becomes largely meaningless when it is taken for granted. The

word “globaloney” has even been coined to suggest the emptiness of
many of its uses, as if combining the adjective “global” with any kind of
social fact magically produces a deeper understanding and testifies to the
theoretical modernity of its user. In the field of social problems studies,
the adjunction of the term “global” to certain issues since the 1990s
indicates a growing attention to issues considered to have considerable
impacts on billions of people, beyond borders (Chirico, 2018; Glynn,
Hohm, & Stewart, 1996; Mazur, 2007; Seitz & Hite, 1991/2012; Snarr
& Snarr, 1998/2012). Concurrently, it demonstrates the increasing inter-
dependency of countries in contemporary societies. From this perspective,
a successful undergraduate textbook defines two types of global issues:

First, there are those issues that are transnational ones—that is, they cross
political boundaries (country borders). These issues affect individuals in
more than one country. A clear example is air pollution produced by a
factory in the United States and blown into Canada. Second, there are
problems and issues that do not necessarily cross borders but affect a large
number of individuals throughout the world. Ethnic rivalries and human
right violations, for example, may occur within a single country but have
a far wider impact. (Snarr & Snarr, 1998/2012, p. 2)

While this type of definition points to a crucial reappraisal in social

sciences, namely the fact that problems long studied within national
social systems deserve a broader approach,2 it only tells part of the story.
Authors giving useful depictions of “the most important environmental,
economic, social, and political concerns of modern life” (Seitz & Hite,
1991/2012, cover) or “examining major problems around the world”
(Mazur, 2007, cover) compile long lists of “global issues,” from weapons
proliferation to the regulation of the atmospheric commons.3 In doing
so, they attempt to establish an objective hierarchy of problems, over-
looking the struggles around the recognition of some issues and leaving
other issues out altogether, regardless of how critical they may be for
some social actors. Textbooks are regularly re-edited to include addi-
tional chapters about “new” (though not necessarily more important or
more global) problems and the choice of issues usually appears reason-
able and coherent. Why? It is worth noting that the issues labeled as
global—islamophobia, the instability and fluidity of conjugality, or animal
abuse and well-being, for example—are selected because they have been
 1 INTRODUCTION: AN INVITATION TO EXPLORE … 3

socially defined as important, debated in TV studios or at political rallies,

and supported and challenged by spokespersons. In short, they have
already been transformed from “issues” into “social problems.” Mean-
while, other issues may have an enormous impact on particular groups
or multiple countries and yet remain under the radar, due to a lack of
voices expressing them. To go back to the first example in the definition
quoted above, the effects of industrial smoke crossing borders will only
be discussed if they are visible enough to be detected, if their negative
impacts on public health are known, if some interpretive categories such
as “pollution” or “industrial hazard” are available, and if claims-makers
challenge the situation. The existence of an “issue” is never enough in
itself. Issues do not speak. Claims-makers do.
Thus, our claim is that a political sociology of the “globalization” of
problems must explore the processes by which, among the enormous
variety of issues that are not unique to one country, some, and only
some, trigger attention, discussion, and policy action.4 Global issues are
not global in essence, waiting to be identified by clever academics. They
are the products of networks of interdependencies, of communication
systems. They gain the status of “problems” in the media and public
opinion through the cross-border actions of claims-makers. This critical
stance is not specific to global issues. It was already at the heart of the
constructivist approach to social problems as it distanced itself from a
reified perspective of problems. However, it would seem that this insight
got lost somewhere along the way to globalization.
The second source of dissatisfaction behind our collective work was
the strange absence of synergy between “the social construction of public
problems” paradigm institutionalized by Gusfield (1963) and Spector and
Kitsuse (1977) on the one hand, and the powerful agenda setting tradi-
tion deriving from the seminal research by Cobb and Elder (1972) and
McComb and Shaw (1972) on the other. Each approach has contributed
rich case studies and theoretical developments that illuminate different
aspects of the globalization of problems. The agenda setting approach
has developed impressive international comparisons (Princen, 2009) and,
more recently, has examined the influence of national agendas on each
other, questions that are underdeveloped in the social construction
approach. It has produced solid materials for understanding the interde-
pendencies between media agendas, opinions, and policies. Conversely,
social constructionists have paid much more attention to the actions,
peculiarities, and trajectories of claims-makers, as well as to the process
4 E. NEVEU AND M. SURDEZ

of news production, while the proponents of agenda setting focus on

the journalistic output. If it is too much to describe these two research
communities as being in conflict or in a state of mutual ignorance, their
relationship does bring to mind a famous French song from the 1960s:
“Je t’aime…moi non plus” (I love you…neither do I). We want to explore
the possible convergences and bridges between the social construction
and agenda setting approaches,5 as well as with other scholarly traditions
within political and social sciences that deal with globalization issues, such
as international relations, policy transfer studies, global health studies,
media studies, sociology of science, and expertise. This book can there-
fore also be considered an attempt to supply a provisional synthesis of
poorly connected research fields studying the multifaceted processes that
go into globalizing problems, agendas, and policies.

The Making of Global Problems

This book considers that issues are not global simply by virtue of existing
in several countries, in a tightly interconnected world, but as a result of
processes. It engages with three related research questions.
Firstly, it tries to clarify the category of “global problems” to enable an
academically sound exploration of the international dimension of public
problems. What can be defined sociologically as a “global problem”?
If we start from the position that issues are not global per se, that they
cannot cross borders or impact people in more than one country in and of
themselves, the answer to this question is not straightforward. In line with
the constructivist approach, we would argue that “global” is a putative
rather than an objective condition, even though some problems in certain
circumstances are more likely to become global than others. Based on
the agenda setting approach, we also assume that global issues have been
framed as such and put on the agenda of global or international organi-
zations. If problems appear to be more global nowadays, historians and
sociologists can remind us that attempts to handle social problems and
to build social policies at an international scale characterize some periods
(the second half of the nineteenth century, from 1945 onward) and insti-
tutions (such as the ILO or the WHO). The effort to define “global
problems” thus consists less in explaining how they appeared out of the
blue fifty years ago than in making sense of how some kinds of issues
came to be considered to require management across national borders,
giving birth to a new cognitive category of “global problems.” Inspired
 1 INTRODUCTION: AN INVITATION TO EXPLORE … 5

by a social history of ideas, we argue that this interpretive tool finds its
roots in major social changes.
Secondly, this volume aims to map the social actors, institutions,
processes, and trajectories that give problems global prominence. Here
the main questions are: how are issues debated across borders? How
do they find institutional relays, supports, and “translations”? When
focusing on globalizing processes, it is important to explore whether the
balance of power and the relationships between actors (international orga-
nizations, international groups of experts, states, NGOs, INGOs, social
movements, interest groups, and firms) are changing. Do states, with
their different components—ministries, parliaments, professional bureau-
crats, and regulatory agencies (Goaschino, 2019)—, still play a central
role within or alongside international organizations? What is the influence
of social movement, lobbies, NGOs, and IGOs? Globalization processes
may blur the boundaries between actors, reshaping organizations, and
producing surprising coalitions and new repertoires (such as certification
procedures) for treating problems. Among other structural changes, the
growing professionalization of social movements and their increasingly
scientific treatment of problems are invitations to revisit the map of actors,
the changing lines of their alliances, their forms of action and bargaining,
in a globalized space where the problems and their solutions are defined.
Thirdly, exploring the trajectories of global issues also involves
addressing “how the multi-leveled dimension of globalization works.”
The agenda setting approach considers various agendas and venues in
order to explore how a global problem is promoted, treated, or ignored
at the international, national, regional, or local scale. A global problem
can of course be moved from one scale to another, even if it is not always
possible to identify the countries or institutions influencing its movement.
It is important to pay attention to the scales of the analysis (does it focus
on hegemonic countries, transnational activist networks, or supranational
organization such as the European Union or Mercosur, for example?), as
well as to the complex game of scale changes played by various actors.
Considering the symbolic and cognitive dimensions of problem defini-
tion, it is particularly important to grasp the circulation and translation of
frames, considered not only as adaptations to cultural differences between
exporting and importing territories (Best, 2001), but also as the dynamics
of support building and allies enlistment (Latour, 1984). The media,
intellectuals, and think tanks all have a role to play in the production
of hegemonic or divergent visions of problems and solutions.
6 E. NEVEU AND M. SURDEZ

Interdependency Chains and the Three Flows

In his major work, The Civilizing Process (2000), Elias presented modern
societies as places of growing interdependencies or “configurations” in
which any move by one group or institution can create threats or
opportunities for others. One of the characteristics of modern capitalism
is the complexity and sheer size of these chains of interdependen-
cies. Spreading further, connecting more actors, and drawing on more
powerful resources, human action and its consequences have created situ-
ations that would easily be labeled as global problems. The production
of goods and services combines contributions from several, often distant,
countries. The constant restructuring of such chains of production also
means that factories and jobs can be relocated. Both the exploitation of
workers and children in Asian and South American sweatshops and the
destruction of rainforests for timber or soya or oil palm plantations are
consequences of these extended economic networks and have given rise
to two major global public problems: fair working conditions in devel-
oping countries and the protection of rainforests (Bartley, 2003). Global
warming under the influence of industries, deforestation, and motor
traffic is a clear example of these complex interdependencies, creating situ-
ations labeled as global problems in a dialogic process of “climatization of
the world and globalization of the climate” that Stephen Aykut explores
in his contribution (see also Aykut, Foyer, & Morena, 2017). This book
pays close attention not only to environmental issues, but also to health
issues. New practices in industrial livestock farming boosted the devel-
opment and spread of “mad cow disease” (Nollet, in this volume), the
widespread use of antibiotics in veterinary (as well as in human) medicine
has provoked the growing resistance of bacteria (Surdez, in this volume),
and the concentration of poultry in vast farms gives new proportions to
avian flu epidemics. Fast and frequent air travel and the flow of tourists
across borders and continents accelerate the spread of epidemics, as this
was very visible during the COVID 19 crisis in 2020. In a previous era,
the surge in the number of cars engendered traffic safety as a transna-
tional problem (Bernardin & Henry, in this volume). Interdependency
chains are not merely economic. They also link states that adopt policies
under the pressure of international organizations or through binding and
imitating processes. One origin of this process can be found in coloniza-
tion time with the transfer of social policy models between states (Moses
& Daunton, 2014, special issue of The Journal of Global History).
 1 INTRODUCTION: AN INVITATION TO EXPLORE … 7

These interdependencies are the basis on which claim-makers develop

the rhetoric of global problems or of foreign responsibility for the hard
times faced by their fellow citizens. But they are not sufficient condi-
tions. There are complementary social and political conditions that make
a process of problem globalization possible. The whole scheme can be
summarized as three flows (Neveu, 2017).
The first flow is material, made up of material “things,” animals and
viruses, goods and clouds, and humans, which are the “problem fodder.”
Radioactive clouds or industrial pollution are blown from Chernobyl to
Stuttgart; nuclear power plants located close to international borders
threaten neighboring countries (Arnhold, in this volume). Soya or palm
oil is transported and transformed into biofuel for cars with the inten-
tion of reducing carbon emissions in industrialized countries (Cloteau, in
this volume). The flow can also be human. Migrants crowd into unsafe
dinghies to cross the Mediterranean. Tourists fly back from far-flung
countries, bringing with them antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
As important as the first, a second flow is made up of problem and
solution definers who tackle issues, give them political importance and
resonance, and provide frames and tools for dealing with them. Reacting
to accidents, nuclear safety experts meet at the regional or interna-
tional level to define standards and to monitor compliance. Experts,
scientists, and representatives from states, NGOs, and private companies
meet at climate summits to debate the consequences of climate change
and to define “appropriate” technical and political ways to handle the
problem, including the setting of an “acceptable” temperature increase.
Lobbyists from the agri-food industry ally with representatives from envi-
ronmental NGOs to intervene in the drafting of legal texts supporting
biofuel production. Activists for global social justice organize “world
social forums,” through which they export patterns of problem defini-
tion and treatment, such as the shelters established by British feminists to
protect battered women (Roggeband, 2007).
Last but not least, a third flow is cognitive and symbolic. It is made up
of narratives, images, and analytical categories that almost take on a life
of their own. In 2015 the image of a Syrian boy’s dead body face down
on a beach did more to highlight the tragedy of migrants than many offi-
cial reports. Commented on by national and international media, pictures
of fires in Australia or in the Amazon rainforest, and maps of radioac-
tive clouds play a central role in defining the international agenda of
8 E. NEVEU AND M. SURDEZ

issues and problems in the environmental field. Data, figures, and cate-
gories are generated, especially by international organizations (Katzarova
& Neveu in this volume; Kristensen in this volume). This makes it
possible to compare national situations and forms epistemic communities
(Simonin, 2016, on the “sexworker” category disseminated by academics
and activists). Problems’ entrepreneurs define what categories are able to
structure a “reasonable” discussion, and what the right tools of action and
evaluation are. This “package” corresponds to what policy researchers call
policy frames. Developed in Brazilian cities, participatory budgets as tools
for active citizenship have been imported to many west European cities
(Burgos-Vigna, 2012) suggesting a topical case of solution’s travel, fixing
some problems of local democracy. As Berten and Leisering (2017) have
shown in their study of the poverty indicators developed by the IMF and
the ILO, the very fact of defining indicators is a “mechanism of glob-
alization” which soon produces “new constructions of social problems”
(pp. 152, 158). Monitoring tools now produce an amazing abundance
of data. Gita Steiner-Khamsi (2003) speaks of “the politics of league
tables” to define the effects of rankings. When only a few French univer-
sities scraped a place in the “Shanghai ranking” of the world’s universities
there was a flurry of public policies of which one of the funniest was
the notion that merging under-resourced universities and institutions into
giant groups would magically allow them to break into the top twenty. In
this culture of figures and objectivation, social movements and interest
groups have developed their own “watchdog” organizations and think
tanks, from Transparency International to Reporters Without Borders,
that collect data and produce rankings.

The Global Problems Ecosystem: The Map of Actors and Complex

Interplay of Scales
Facts matter. Following Best’s invitation to a contextual constructivism
(2008), there is no doubt that “objective” changes (the first flow
described above) encourage new visions of social problems. Issues explic-
itly perceived as being linked to supranational chains of interdependencies,
such as environmental problems, or rising inequalities, certainly reach the
top of the agenda for public opinion and policy-makers more easily in
many countries (Baumgartner, Breunig, & Grossman, 2019).
But this book posits that “issues”—even those springing from natural
or social facts, such as earthquakes, pollution, diseases, or the lower wages
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 Stridulating Organs.—When
Arthropod animals are capable of
producing a sound, the result is
nearly always obtained by
“stridulation,” that is, by the
friction of two rough surfaces
against each other. The surfaces
which are modified for this
purpose form what is called a
“stridulating organ.” Such organs
have been found in three very Fig. 182.—A, Spinnerets of
distinct Spider families, the Amaurobius similis ♀ . Much enlarged.
Theridiidae, the Sicariidae, and a, Anus; cr, cribellum; i.s, inferior
the Aviculariidae. Hitherto they spinneret; m.s, median spinneret; s.s,
have only been observed in three superior spinneret. B, Part of the 4th
leg of the same Spider, showing the
positions—either between the calamistrum (ca) on the metatarsus.
thorax and abdomen, or between
the chelicerae and the pedipalpi,
or between the pedipalpi and the first legs.
In the Sicariidae and the Aviculariidae, the sounds have been
distinctly heard and described. Those produced by the Theridiidae
would appear to be inaudible to human ears.
Westring[260] was the first to discover (1843) a stridulating organ in
the small Theridiid spider Asagena phalerata. The abdomen, where
the pedicle enters it, gives off a chitinous collar, which projects over
the cephalothorax, and has the inner surface of the dorsal part finely
toothed. When the abdomen is raised and depressed, these teeth
scrape against a number of fine striae on the back of the posterior
part of the cephalothorax. A similar organ has been since found in
various allied spiders, of which the commonest English species is
Steatoda bipunctata. In this group it is generally possessed by the
male alone, being merely rudimentary, if present at all, in the female.
In 1880 Campbell[261] observed that in some of the Theridiid
Spiders of the genus Lephthyphantes, the outer surface of the
chelicera and the inner surface of the femur of the pedipalp were
finely striated at the point, where they were rubbed together when
the palps were agitated, but though the appropriate motion was
frequently given, he could hear no sound.
 Meanwhile the noise produced
by a large Theraphosid spider in
Assam (Chilobrachys stridulans)
had attracted attention, and its
stridulating apparatus was
described in 1875 by Wood-
Mason.[262] The sound resembled
that obtained by “drawing the
back of a knife along the edge of a
strong comb.”
Subsequently certain Sicariid
Fig. 183.—Stridulating apparatus of spiders of a genus confined to the
Steatoda bipunctata, ♂ . Much southern hemisphere were heard
enlarged. A, Ridged and toothed to produce a sound like the
abdominal socket; B, striated area on
the cephalothorax; C, profile of the buzzing of a bee by the agitation
Spider, × 5. of their palps, and both sexes
were found to possess a very
perfect stridulating organ,
consisting of a row of short teeth
on the femur of the pedipalp, and
a striated area on the paturon of
the chelicera.
Pocock has recently discovered
that all the large kinds of
Theraphosidae in the countries
between India and New Zealand
are, like Chilobrachys, provided
with a stridulating organ. In these
spiders also it is between the palp
and the chelicera, and consists of
a row of teeth or spines
constituting a “pecten,” and a Fig. 184.—Chilobrachys stridulans in
series of vibratile spines or “lyra,” stridulating attitude. After Wood-
but whereas in Chilobrachys and Mason. Natural size.
its near relations the lyra is on the
palp and the pecten on the paturon, in other spiders the positions are
reversed. The lyra is a very remarkable organ, consisting of club-
shaped, often feathery bristles or spines, which lie parallel to the
surface to which they are attached, and which is slightly excavated
for their reception.
Lastly, many African Theraphosids possess a similar organ, not
between the palp and the chelicera, but between the palp and the
first leg.
Various suggestions have been hazarded as to the use of these
organs, but they partake largely of the nature of conjecture,
especially in connexion with the doubt as to the possession of a true
auditory organ by the Araneae. They may be summarised as follows.
The Theridiid spiders are among those which show most indication
of auditory powers, and the stridulating organs, being practically
confined to the male, may have a sexual significance. Chilobrachys
stridulates when attacked, assuming at the same time a “terrifying
attitude,” and its stridulating organ may serve the purpose attributed
to the rattle of the rattlesnake, and warn its enemies that it is best let
alone. If this be the case, there is no need that it should itself hear the
sound, and, indeed, there is no evidence that the Aviculariidae
possess the power of hearing. In the inoffensive stridulating Sicariid
spiders the sounds could hardly serve this purpose, and the presence
of the organ in both sexes, and in immature examples, precludes the
idea that its function is to utter a sexual call. Instead of trying to
escape when disturbed, the spider starts stridulating, and Pocock
suggests that the similarity of the sound produced to the buzzing of a
bee may be calculated to induce its enemies to leave it in peace.

Internal Anatomy.

Alimentary System.—The alimentary canal of the Spider is

divided into three regions, the “stomodaeum,” the mid-gut or
“mesenteron,” and the hind-gut or “proctodaeum.”
The Stomodaeum consists of the pharynx, the oesophagus, and
the sucking stomach. As we have said, the mouth is to be found
between the rostrum and the labium. It opens into the pharynx, the
anterior wall of which is formed by a chitinous plate on the inner
surface of the rostrum, sometimes called the palate. As the inner
surfaces of the rostrum and labium are practically flat, the cavity of
the pharynx would be obliterated when they are pressed together,
were it not for a groove running down the centre of the palate, which
the apposed labium converts into a tube, up which the fluids of the
prey are sucked. In the Theraphosidae there is a corresponding
groove on the inner surface of the labium.
At the top of the pharynx, which is nearly perpendicular, the canal
continues backwards and upwards as a narrow tube, the oesophagus,
passing right through the nerve-mass, which embraces it closely on
all sides, to the sucking stomach. At the commencement of the
oesophagus is the opening of a gland, probably salivary, which is
situated in the rostrum.
We now reach the sucking
stomach, which occupies the
centre of the cephalothorax. It is
placed directly over a skeletal
plate, the “endosternite” (Fig.
185, e), to which its lower surface
is connected by powerful muscles,
while its upper wall is protected
by a hard plate or “buckler,”
which is similarly attached to the
roof of the cephalothorax in the
region of the “fovea media.” The
walls of the stomach are not
themselves muscular, but by the
contraction of the muscles above
mentioned its cavity is enlarged,
and fluids from the pharynx are
Fig. 185.—Diagram showing the
anatomy of the cephalothorax of a
pumped up into it.
Spider. The right alimentary The canal thus far is lined by
diverticulum has been removed. a, chitin, like the exterior of the
Aorta; c, left diverticulum with body, and forms a sort of
secondary caeca; e, endosternite; oes, complicated mouth-apparatus.
oesophagus, descending to the mouth;
s, sucking stomach; sh, dorsal shield of The Mesenteron lies partly in
sucking stomach. the cephalothorax and partly in
the abdomen. The thoracic
portion, shortly behind the
sucking stomach, sends forward on either side a large branch or
“diverticulum,” from each of which five secondary branches or
“caeca” are given off (Fig. 185). Of these the anterior pair sometimes
join, thus forming a complete ring; but usually, though adjacent, they
remain distinct. The other four pairs of caeca curve downwards,
protruding into the coxae of the legs, where they often terminate, but
sometimes (Epeira) they continue their curve until they meet,
though they never fuse, under the nerve-mass. Behind the origin of
the diverticula the mesenteron continues as a widish tube, and
shortly passes through the pedicle and enters the abdomen, where,
curving slightly upwards, it proceeds along the middle line till it ends
in the proctodaeum.
In the abdomen it is surrounded by a large gland, the so-called
liver, and is dilated at one spot (Fig. 186) to receive the ducts from
this gland. The fluid elaborated by this large abdominal gland has
been shown to have more affinity with pancreatic juice than with
bile.
The Proctodaeum consists of a short rectum, from the dorsal
side of which protrudes a large sac, the “stercoral pocket.” At its
origin, the rectum receives the openings of two lateral tubes which
reach it after ramifying in the substance of the liver. These have been
called “Malpighian tubules,” but their function is unknown.
Loman[263] has shown that they open into the mid-gut and not into
the rectum, and there is reason to believe that true Malpighian
tubules homologous to those of Insecta are absent in Arachnida,
where their place seems to be taken by the coxal glands, which are
considered to be the true excretory organs. In most spiders they open
near the third coxae. Like the stomodaeum, the proctodaeum has a
chitinous lining.
Vascular System.—The earlier investigations on the circulation
of the blood in Spiders were made by direct observations of the
movements of the blood corpuscles through the more or less
transparent integuments of the newly-hatched young.
[264]
Claparède’s results were arrived at by this method. It is
invaluable for demonstrating roughly the course taken by the blood,
but in these immature spiders the blood-system has not attained its
full complexity, and other methods of research have shown the
spider to possess a much more elaborate vascular system than was at
first suspected.
 The tubular heart lies along the middle line in the anterior two-
thirds of the abdomen, sometimes close up against the dorsal wall,
but occasionally at some little distance from it, buried in the
substance of the liver. It is a muscular tube with three pairs of lateral
openings or “ostia,” each furnished with a simple valve which allows
the entrance, but prevents the exit, of the blood. It is contained in a
bag, the “pericardium,” into which the ostia open. Both heart and
pericardium are kept in place by a complicated system of connective
tissue strands, by which they are anchored to the dorsal wall of the
abdomen. Eight arteries leave the heart, the principal one, or “aorta,”
plunging downward and passing through the pedicle to supply the
cephalothorax. Besides this, there is a caudal artery at the posterior
end, and three pairs of abdominal arteries, which proceed from the
under surface of the heart, and the ramifications of which supply, in
a very complete manner, the various organs of the abdomen. The
heart is not divided up into compartments. The anterior aorta passes
through the pedicle, above the intestine, and presently forks into two
main branches, which run along either side of the sucking stomach,
near the front of which they bend suddenly downwards and end in a
“patte d’oie,” as Causard[265] expresses it—a bundle of arteries which
proceed to the limbs (Fig. 185). Where the downward curve begins, a
considerable artery, the mandibulo-cephalic, runs forward to supply
the chelicerae and the head region. We have omitted certain minor
branches from the main trunks which supply the thoracic muscles.
The nerve-mass receives fine vessels from the “patte d’oie.”
 Fig. 186.—Diagram of a Spider, Epeira diademata, showing the
arrangement of the internal organs, × about 8. 1, Mouth; 2,
sucking stomach; 3, ducts of liver; 4, so-called Malpighian
tubules; 5, stercoral pocket; 6, anus; 7, dorsal muscle of sucking
stomach; 8, caecal prolongation of stomach; 9, cerebral ganglion
giving off nerves to eyes; 10, sub-oesophageal ganglionic mass; 11,
heart with three lateral openings or ostia; 12, lung-sac; 13, ovary;
14, acinate and pyriform silk-glands; 15, tubuliform silk-gland; 16,
ampulliform silk-gland; 17, aggregate or dendriform silk-glands;
18, spinnerets or mammillae; 19, distal joint of chelicera; 20,
poison-gland; 21, eye; 22, pericardium; 23, vessel bringing blood
from lung-sac to pericardium; 24, artery.

There are no capillaries, but the blood is delivered into the tissues
and finds its way, by irregular spaces or “lacunae,” into certain main
venous channels or “sinuses.” There are three such in the
cephalothorax, one median and the others lateral, considerably
dilated in front, in the region of the eyes, and connected by
transverse passages. By these the blood is brought back through the
pedicle to the lung-books. In the abdomen also there are three main
sinuses, two parallel to one another near the lower surface, and one
beneath the pericardium. These likewise bring the blood to the lung-
books, whence it is conducted finally by pulmonary veins (Fig. 186)
back to the pericardial chamber, and thus, by the ostia, to the heart.
The Spider’s blood is colourless, and the majority of the corpuscles
are “amoeboid,” or capable of changing their shape.
Generative System.—The internal generative organs present no
great complexity, consisting, in the male, of a pair of testes lying
beneath the liver, and connected by convoluted tubes, the “vasa
deferentia,” with a simple aperture under the abdomen, between the
anterior stigmata.
The ovaries are hollow sacs with short oviducts which presently
dilate to form chambers called “spermathecae,” which open to the
exterior by distinct ducts, thus forming a double orifice, fortified by
an external structure already alluded to as the “epigyne.” The eggs
project from the outer surface of the ovary like beads, connected with
the gland by narrow stalks, and it was not at first clear how they
found their way into the interior cavity, but it has been ascertained
that, when ripe, they pass through these stalks, the empty capsules
never presenting any external rupture.
The palpal organs have already been described. The spermatozoa,
when received by them, are not perfectly elaborated, but are
contained in little globular packets known as “spermatophores.”
Nervous System.—The Spider’s central nervous system is
entirely concentrated in the cephalothorax, near its floor, and
presents the appearance of a single mass, penetrated by the
oesophagus. It may, however, be divided into a pre-oesophageal
portion or brain, and a post-oesophageal or thoracic portion.
The brain supplies nerves to the eyes and chelicerae, while from
the thoracic mass nerves proceed to the other appendages, and
through the pedicle to the abdomen. The walls of the oesophagus are
closely invested on all sides by the nerve-sheath or neurilemma.
Sense-Organs.—Spiders possess the senses of sight, smell, and
touch. Whether or not they have a true auditory sense is still a matter
of doubt. Since sounds are conveyed by vibrations of the air, it is
never very easy to determine whether responses to sounds produced
near the animal experimented upon are proofs of the existence of an
auditory organ, or whether they are only perceived through the
ordinary channels of touch. In any case, the organs of hearing and of
smell have not yet been located in the Spider. M‘Cook considers
various hairs scattered over the body of the spider to be olfactory, but
from Gaskell’s researches upon allied Arachnid groups it would seem
that the true smelling organ is to be sought for in the rostrum.
Eyes.—Spiders possess from two to eight simple eyes, the external
appearance and arrangement of which have already been briefly
explained. They are sessile and immovable, though often so placed as
to command a view in several directions. In structure they are
essentially like the ocelli of Insects. Externally there is a lens,
succeeded by a mass of transparent cells, behind which is a layer of
pigment. Then come the rods and cones of the retina, to which the
optic nerve is distributed. A comparison of this with the arrangement
in the Vertebrate eye will show a reversal of the positions of the
retina and the pigment-layer. The lens is part of the outside covering
of the animal, and is cast at the time of moulting, when the spider is
temporarily blind. It is stated, however, that the eyes do not all moult
simultaneously. There is often a considerable difference between the
various eyes of the same spider, especially with regard to the
convexity of the lens and the number of rods and cones.
Though most spiders possess eight eyes, the number is sometimes
smaller, and in some groups of eight-eyed spiders two of the eyes are
sometimes so reduced and degenerate as to be practically
rudimentary. As might be expected, Cave-spiders (e.g. Anthrobia
mammouthia) may be entirely sightless.
Touch.—The sense of touch would appear to be extremely well
developed in some spiders, and there is reason for believing that the
Orb-weavers, at all events, depend far more upon it than upon that of
sight.
Among the hairs which are distributed over the spider’s body and
limbs, several different forms may be distinguished, and some of
them are undoubtedly very delicate sense-organs of probably tactile
function.
Spinning Glands.—Spiders vary greatly in their spinning
powers. Some only use their silk for spinning a cocoon to protect
their eggs, while others employ it to make snares and retreats, to
bind up their prey, and to anchor themselves to spots to which they
may wish to return, and whence they “drag at each remove a
lengthening chain.”
All these functions are performed by the silk-glands of the Orb-
weavers, and hence it is with them that the organs have attained
their greatest perfection. We may conveniently take the case of the
common large Garden-spider, Epeira diademata. The glands occupy
the entire floor of the abdomen. They have been very thoroughly
investigated by Apstein,[266] and may be divided into five kinds.
 On either side of the abdomen
there are two large “ampullaceal”
glands debouching on “spigots,”
one on the anterior, and one on
the middle spinneret; there are
three large “aggregate” glands
which all terminate on spigots on
the posterior spinneret; and three
“tubuliform” glands, two of which
have their orifices on the
posterior, and one on the middle
spinneret. Thus, in the entire
abdomen there are sixteen large
glands, terminating in the large
fusulae known as spigots. In
addition to this there are about
200 “piriform” glands whose
openings are on the short conical
fusulae of the posterior and
anterior spinnerets, and about Fig. 187.—Spinning glands. A,
400 “aciniform” glands which Aciniform; B, tubuliform; C, piriform
debouch, by cylindrical fusulae, gland.
on the middle and posterior
spinnerets. Thus there are, in all,
about 600 glands with their separate fusulae in the case of Epeira
diademata.
The great number of orifices from which silk may be emitted has
given rise to the widespread belief that, fine as the Spider’s line is, it
is woven of hundreds of strands. This is an entire misconception, as
we shall have occasion to show when we deal with the various
spinning operations.
A few families are, as has already been stated, characterised by the
possession of an extra spinning organ, the cribellum, and the orifices
on this sieve-like plate lead to a large number of small glands, the
“cribellum glands.”
Respiratory Organs.—Spiders possess two kinds of breathing
organs, very different in form, though essentially much alike. They
are called respectively “lung-books” and “tracheae.” The
Theraphosae (and Hypochilus) have four lung-books, while all other
spiders, except Nops, have two. Tracheae appear to be present
almost universally, but they have not been found in the Pholcidae.
The pulmonary stigmata lead into chambers which extend
forwards, and which are practically filled with horizontal shelves, so
to speak, attached at the front and sides, but having their posterior
edges free. These shelves are the leaves of the lung-book. Each leaf is
hollow, and its cavity is continuous, anteriorly and laterally, with the
blood-sinus into which the blood from the various parts of the
Spider’s body is poured.
The minute structure of the leaf is curious. Its under surface is
covered with smooth chitin, but from its upper surface rise vast
numbers of minute chitinous points whose summits are connected to
form a kind of trellis-work. The roof and floor of the flattened
chamber within are connected at intervals by columns. The
pulmonary chamber usually contains from fifteen to twenty of these
leaves, and the two chambers are always connected internally
between the stigmata.
The tracheae are either two or four (Dysderidae, Oonopidae,
Filistatidae) in number, and their stigmata may be separate or fused
in the middle line. Each consists of a large trunk, projecting
forwards, and giving off tufts of small tubes which lose themselves
among the organs of the abdomen, but do not ramify. In the tracheae
of Argyroneta[267] a lateral tuft is given off immediately after leaving
the stigma, and another tuft proceeds from the anterior end.
Histologically the main trunk of the trachea is precisely like the
general chamber of the pulmonary sac, and differs greatly from the
trachea of an insect.
Cephalothoracic Glands.—In addition to the generative glands
and the so-called “liver” which occupy so large a portion of the
abdomen, there are, in Spiders, certain glandular organs situated in
the cephalothorax which call for some notice. These are the coxal
glands and the poison-glands.
The COXAL GLANDS are two elongated brownish-yellow bodies,
situated beneath the lateral diverticula of the stomach, and between
it and the endosternite. They present four slight protuberances which
project a short distance into the coxae of the legs. The glands appear
to be ductless, but their function is thought to be excretory. They
were first observed in the Theraphosae.
All Spiders possess a pair of POISON-GLANDS, connected by a narrow
duct with a small opening near the extremity of the fang of the
chelicerae. The glands are sac-like bodies, usually situated in the
cephalothorax, but sometimes partially (Clubiona) or even entirely
(Mygale) in the patura, or basal joints of the chelicerae. Each sac has
a thin outer layer of spirally-arranged muscular and connective
tissue fibres, and a deep inner epithelial layer of glandular cells. The
cavity of the gland acts as a reservoir for the fluid it secretes. The
virulence of the poison secreted by these glands has been the subject
of much discussion, and the most diverse opinions have been held
with regard to it. The matter is again referred to on p. 360.
 CHAPTER XIV
ARACHNIDA EMBOLOBRANCHIATA
(CONTINUED)—ARANEAE (CONTINUED)

HABITS—ECDYSIS—TREATMENT OF YOUNG—MIGRATION—
WEBS—NESTS—EGG-COCOONS—POISON—FERTILITY—
ENEMIES—PROTECTIVE COLORATION—MIMICRY—SENSES
—INTELLIGENCE—MATING HABITS—FOSSIL SPIDERS

EARLY LIFE OF SPIDERS.

Ecdysis or Moulting.—Spiders undergo no metamorphosis—

that is to say, no marked change of form takes place, as is so often
the case among Insects, in the period subsequent to the hatching of
the egg. This fact, by the by, is a great trouble to collectors, as it is
generally extremely difficult, and sometimes quite impossible, to
identify immature specimens with certainty.
But although unmistakably a spider as soon as it leaves the egg,
the animal is, at first, in many respects incomplete, and it is only
after a series of moults, usually about nine in number, that it attains
its full perfection of form.
Until the occurrence of its first moult it is incapable of feeding or
spinning, mouth and spinning tubes being clogged by the membrane
it then throws off. It is at first pale-coloured and less thickly clothed
with hairs and spines than it eventually becomes, and the general
proportions of the body and the arrangement of the eyes are by no
means those of the adult in miniature, but will be greatly modified by
unequal growth in various directions. It speedily, however, attains its
characteristic shape and markings, and after one or two ecdyses little
alteration is to be noticed, except increase in size, until the final
moult, when the spider at length becomes sexually mature.
The first moult takes place while the newly-hatched spider is still
with the rest of the brood either in or close to the “cocoon” or egg-
bag. M‘Cook[268] thus describes the conclusion of the operation in the
case of Agelena naevia:—
 “While it held on to the flossy nest with the two front and third
pairs of legs, the hind pair was drawn up and forward, and the feet
grasped the upper margin of the sac-like shell, which, when first
seen, was about half-way removed from the abdomen. The feet
pushed downwards, and at the same time the abdomen appeared to
be pulled upward until the white pouch was gradually worked off.”
The later moults are generally accomplished by the spider
collecting all its legs together and attaching them with silk to the web
above, while the body, also attached, hangs below. The old skin then
splits along the sides of the body, and the animal, by a series of
violent efforts, wriggles itself free, leaving a complete cast of itself,
including the legs, suspended above it. For a day or two before the
operation the spider eats nothing, and immediately upon its
completion it hangs in a limp and helpless condition for a quarter of
an hour or so, until the new integument has had time to harden. It is
not unlikely that the reader has mistaken these casts for the
shrivelled forms of unlucky spiders, and has had his sympathies
aroused, or has experienced a grim satisfaction, in consequence—an
expenditure of emotion which this account may enable him to
economise in future.
Limbs which the animal has accidentally lost are renewed at the
time of moulting, though their substitutes are at first smaller than
those they replace. On the other hand, the struggle to get rid of the
old skin sometimes results in the loss of a limb, and the spider is
doomed to remain short-handed until the next ecdysis.
Until the last moult the generative apertures, which are situated
under the anterior part of the abdomen, are completely sealed up.
Their disclosure is accompanied, in the case of the male, by a
remarkable development of the last joint of each pedipalp, which
becomes swollen and often extremely complicated with bulbs,
spines, and bristles. A mature male spider may at once be
distinguished by the consequent knobbed appearance of its palps;
and the particular form they assume is highly characteristic of the
species to which the spider belongs.
The number of moults, and the intervals at which they occur, no
doubt vary with different species. In the case of Argiope aurelia,
Pollock[269] has found that the female moults nine times after leaving
the cocoon, the first ecdysis occurring after an interval of from one to
two months, according to the abundance or scarcity of food. The
subsequent intervals gradually increase from about a fortnight to
something over three weeks.
Behaviour of the Newly-hatched Spider.—The mode of life
of a spider just freed from the cocoon will of course vary greatly
according to the Family to which it belongs.
The Epeiridae are the builders of the familiar wheel or orb-web.
Spiders of this Family usually remain together on friendly terms for a
week or more after leaving the nest. Most of the time they are
congregated in a ball-like mass, perhaps for the sake of warmth, but
upon being touched or shaken they immediately disperse along the
multitudinous fine lines which they have spun in all directions, to
reassemble as soon as the panic has subsided. Such a ball of the
yellow and black offspring of the large Garden-spider, Epeira
diademata, is no uncommon sight in the early autumn, and the
shower of “golden rain” that results from their disturbance is not
likely to be forgotten if it has ever been observed by the reader. This
harmonious family life only continues as long as the young spiders
are unable to feed—a period which, in some of the larger species, is
said to extend to ten days or a fortnight.
Individual life then commences, and each member of the dispersed
group sets up housekeeping on its own account, constructing at the
first attempt a snare in all respects similar, except in size, to those of
its parent.
Of course the young Spiders have not migrated far, and a bush
may frequently be seen covered by the often contiguous nets of the
members of a single brood. This, as Dr. M‘Cook thinks, is the true
explanation of some of the cases of “gregarious spiders” which
Darwin[270] and other naturalists have occasionally described, though
social spiders exist (see Uloborus, p. 411).
Very similar habits obtain among the Theridiidae, or line-
weaving spiders, a familiar example of which is the pretty little
Theridion sisyphium, whose highly-irregular snare may be found on
any holly bush during the summer months.
The Lycosidae, or Wolf-spiders, which chase their prey instead of
lying quietly in ambush to ensnare it, are exceedingly interesting in
their treatment of their young. The cocoon, or bag of eggs, is carried
 about on all their expeditions,
attached beneath the abdomen,
or held by the jaws, and the
young spiders, on escaping from
it, mount on the mother’s back,
and indulge vicariously in the
pleasures of the chase from this
point of vantage. The empty egg-
bag is soon discarded, but the
brood continues to ride on the
mother’s back for about a week,
dismounting only to follow her as
she enters her little silk-lined
retreat in the ground.
During this time they appear to
require no food, but they at
length begin to disperse, the
mother gently but firmly
removing such individuals as are
Fig. 188.—A, Pardosa sp. ♀ , with
young on the abdomen; B, young
disposed to trespass upon her
Pardosa detached; C, outline of the maternal solicitude longer than
Spider with young removed. (From the she considers desirable.
living specimen.) Many young spiders of various
Families proceed immediately to
seek new hunting-grounds by the aid of the wind, and become for the
time being diminutive aeronauts. This habit was observed by the
earliest British araneologist, Martin Lister,[271] as long ago as 1670,
and has been alluded to by many writers since his time.
The topmost bar of an iron railing in spring or early autumn will
generally be found peopled with minute spiders, and if the day be fair
and the wind light, the patient observer may be rewarded by a
curious and interesting sight.
The spider seeks the highest spot available, faces the wind, and
straightens its legs and body, standing, so to speak, upon its toes, its
abdomen with its spinning tubes being elevated as much as possible.
Streamers of silk presently appear from the spinnerets and float
gently to leeward on the light current of air. The spider has no power
to shoot out a thread of silk to a distance, but it accomplishes the
same result indirectly by spinning a little sheet or flocculent mass
which is borne away by the breeze.
When the streaming threads
pull with sufficient force the
animal casts off, seizes them with
its legs, and entrusts itself to the
air, whose currents determine the
height to which it is carried and
the direction of its journey. The
duration, however, is not quite
beyond the spider’s control, at all
events in calm weather, for it can
furl its sail at will, hauling in the
threads “hand-over-hand,” and
rolling them up into a ball with
jaws and palps.
This curious ballooning habit of
young Spiders is independent of
the particular family to which
they belong, and it is remarkable
that newly-hatched Lycosidae and
Aviculariidae, whose adult
existence is spent entirely on or
under the ground, should
manifest a disposition to climb
any elevated object which is at
hand. Fig. 189.—Young Spider preparing for
The “Gossamer,” which so an aerial voyage. (After Emerton.)
puzzled our forefathers, is
probably no mystery to the
reader. It is, of course, entirely the product of Spider industry,
though not altogether attributable to the habit of ballooning above
described. Only a small proportion of gossamer flakes are found to
contain spiders, though minute insects are constantly to be seen
entangled in them. They are not formed in the air, as was supposed
long after their true origin was known, but the threads emitted by
multitudes of spiders in their various spinning operations have been
intermingled and carried away by light currents of air, and on a still,
warm day in spring or autumn, when the newly-hatched spider-
broods swarm, the atmosphere is often full of them.
They rise to great heights, and may be carried to immense
distances. Martin Lister relates how he one day ascended to the
highest accessible point of York Minster, when the October air
teemed with gossamer flakes, and “could thence discern them yet
exceeding high” above him. Gilbert White describes a shower, at least
eight miles in length, in which “on every side, as the observer turned
his eyes, he might behold a continual succession of fresh flakes
falling into his sight, and twinkling like stars as they turned their
sides toward the sun.” The ascent of a hill 300 feet in height did not
in the least enable him to escape the shower, which showed no sign
of diminution.
The mortality among very young spiders must be exceedingly
great; indeed, this is indicated by the large number of eggs laid by
many species, an unfailing sign of a small proportion of ultimate
survivors. We shall have, by and by, to speak of some of their natural
enemies, but apart from these their numbers are sadly reduced by
the rigours of the weather, and appreciably also by their tendency to
cannibalism. A thunderstorm will often destroy a whole brood, or
they may perish from hunger in the absence of an adequate supply of
insects minute enough for their small snares and feeble jaws. In the
latter case they sometimes feed for a time on one another, and it is
even said that two or three of a brood may be reared on no other food
than their unfortunate companions.
The large and handsome Garden-spider, Epeira diademata, has
been known, when well fed, to construct six cocoons, each containing
some hundreds of eggs, and some species are even more fertile, while
their adult representatives remain stationary, or even diminish in
number.
Spider-Webs.—Some account has already been given of the
external and internal spinning organs of Spiders. Within the body of
the animal the silk is in the form of a gummy fluid; and this, being
emitted in exceedingly fine streams, solidifies as it meets the air. It
cannot be shot out to any distance, but the animal usually draws it
out by its hind legs, or attaches it to a spot, and moves away by
walking or allowing itself to drop. It has some power of checking the
output, and can stop at will at any point of its descent; but the
sphincter muscles of the apertures are but weak, and by steady
winding the writer has reeled out a hundred yards of the silk, the
flow of which was only then interrupted by the spider rubbing its
spinnerets together and breaking the thread.
There is, of course, no true spinning or interweaving of threads in
the process, but parallel silken lines are produced, varying in number
according to the special purpose for which they are designed, and
sometimes adhering more or less to one another on account of their
viscidity and closeness.
The silk is utilised in many ways, serving for the construction of
snares, nests, and cocoons, as well as for enwrapping the captured
prey, and for anchoring the spider to a spot to which it may wish to
return.
Spiders may be roughly distinguished as sedentary or vagabond,
the former constructing snares, and the latter chasing their prey in
the open. We will first consider the various forms of snare, beginning
with that characteristic of the Epeiridae.
The Circular Snare.—This familiar object, sometimes spoken of
as the orb-web or wheel-web, is always the work of some spider of
the Family Epeiridae.
The accuracy and regularity of form exhibited by these snares has
caused their architects to be sometimes called the geometric spiders.
The ingenuity displayed by them has always excited the admiration
of the naturalist, and this is increased on closer observation, for the
snares are in reality even more complex than they appear at first
sight.
The first care of the spider is to lay down the foundation threads
which are to form the boundary lines of its net. If the animal can
reach the necessary points of attachment by walking along
intervening surfaces the matter is comparatively simple. The
spinnerets are separated and rubbed against one of the points
selected, and the spider walks away, trailing behind it a thread which
it keeps free from neighbouring objects by the action of one of its
hind legs. On reaching another desirable point of attachment the line
is made taut and fixed by again rubbing the spinnerets against it. By
a repetition of this proceeding a framework is presently constructed,
within which the wheel or orb will ultimately be formed.
 The process of fixing and drawing out a line can be conveniently
watched in the case of a Spider imprisoned in a glass vessel, and it
will be seen, by the aid of a lens, that a large number of very fine lines
starting from the point of attachment seem to merge into a single
line as the Spider moves away. This has given rise to the prevalent
and very natural idea that the ordinary spider’s line is formed or
“woven” of many strands. This, however, is not the case,[272] for the
fine attachment-lines are not continued into the main thread, but
only serve to anchor it to the starting-point.
As has been said, the spider can throw into play a varying number
of spinning tubes at will, and in point of fact those used in laying
down these foundation-lines are either two or four in number. The
spider, however, often finds it necessary to strengthen such a line by
going over it afresh.
Every one must have noticed that orb-webs frequently bridge over
gulfs that are clearly quite impassable to the spider in the ordinary
way. They often span streams—and Epeirid spiders cannot swim—or
they are stretched between objects unattainable from each other on
foot except by a very long and roundabout journey. When this is the
case, the animal has had recourse to the aid of the wind. A spider of
this family placed on a stick standing upright in a vessel of water is
helpless to escape if the experiment be tried in a room free from
draughts. With air-currents to aid it, silken streamers will at length
find their way across the water and become accidentally entangled in
some neighbouring object. When this has happened, the spider hauls
the new line taut, and tests its strength by gently pulling at it, and if
the result is satisfactory, it proceeds to walk across, hand-over-hand,
in an inverted position, carrying with it a second line to strengthen
the first. This is exactly what happens in nature when a snare is
constructed across chasms otherwise impassable, and it may be
imagined that the spider regards as very valuable landed property
the foundation lines of such a web, for, if destroyed, the direction or
absence of the wind might prevent their renewal for days. They are
accordingly made strong by repeated journeys, and are used as the
framework of successive snares, till accident at length destroys them.
A single line which finds anchorage in this way is sufficient for the
purposes of the spider. It has only to cross over to the new object,
attach a thread to some other point of it, and carry it back across the