Civil Society and Trade Negotiations: Constructing a New Field of Action in the Americas*

Abstract

*This article analyses the process by which different civil society actors in the Americas have constructed a new field of collective action over the past twenty years. It focuses on attempts to establish new organisations on a domestic and transnational level, and thus helps provide a greater understanding of the dilemmas involved in the creation of new organisations which cross national borders. In particular, it analyses the case of the Hemispheric Social Alliance, an alliance of organisations and movements created in the mid-1990s. It argues that it is not possible to think of civil society coalitions in terms of a strict division between domestic and international levels. In addition, a view focussing exclusively on the role of states and international organisations is inadequate for understanding the increasingly complex dynamics of building up coalitions and forming preferences.

When Procedural Legitimacy Equals Nothing: Civil Society and Foreign Trade Policy in Brazil and Mexico

“…A brief analysis of CSO articulation for the negotiations of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) corroborates the perception that transnational alliances produce activism, but not necessarily influence. Bülow (2010) reports that, in 1997, civil society groups from the Americas formed the Hemispheric Social Alliance (HSA) during a FTAA ministerial meeting. Nevertheless, collective transnational action was not decisive in the process that led to dismantling the negotiations.…”