PATHWAYS TO TRANSNATIONALITY:
NETWORKS, COLLECTIVE ACTION, AND TRADE DEBATES
IN THE AMERICAS
BY
MARISA VON BÜLOW
A dissertation submitted to Johns Hopkins University in conformity with the
requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Baltimore, Maryland
January 2007
©2007 Marisa von Bülow
All Rights Reserved
Abstract
This dissertation examines the various pathways to transnationality taken by civil
society organizations challenging the negotiations of free trade agreements in the
Americas. It proposes a relational approach that focuses on the political process of
construction of ties among different types of organizations situated in different countries.
It offers a distinctive contribution to the literature on transnational collective action by
showing the relevance of Southern organizations and South-South ties in the field of
trade challengers; by considering the continuous unfolding of transnational collective
action since the beginning of the 1990s; by taking into consideration the links between
domestic and transnational collective action; and by promoting a closer dialogue between
social network analysts and scholars interested in studying collective action. The analysis
is based on a combination of social network analysis and qualitative methods. A social
network questionnaire was administered to 123 civil society organizations in Brazil,
Chile, Mexico, and the United States, and a total of 204 individuals were interviewed in
these countries and in Canada.
The main argument of this dissertation contends that the pathways to
transnationality taken by civil society organizations are best understood as the outcome of
a dynamic process of interaction with other actors. In turn, this interaction is affected by
the absence of clear consensus as to how transnational coalitions should be organized,
which claims must be prioritized, and who the targets of complaints and proposals should
be. Instead of thinking in terms of the emergence of new transnational subjects, this
dissertation argues that it is both more accurate and fruitful to think in terms of the
ii
variety of ways in which actors can arrive at similar positions by taking different routes,
and in terms of the mechanisms by which actors try to achieve common ground. Three
types of mechanisms of change in a relational context are singled out: the extension of
agendas and scope of coalition building; the suppression of issues when there is no
consensus possible; and the transformation of goals and strategies. Typologies of
coalition building modes and brokerage roles complement the analytical framework used
in this dissertation.
Readers:
Margaret E. Keck (advisor)
Mark Blyth
iii
Acknowledgments
I decided to undertake my Ph.D. studies in the United States primarily because I
wanted to work with Margaret Keck. Now I know that this was a good decision. Not only
is Prof. Keck a great scholar, but her ability to ask the questions one cannot answer, and
to irradiate energy and enthusiasm when her students are feeling most discouraged, are
qualities that transform her into a mentor, teacher, and friend, all at the same time. It is
sufficient to say that even when she was in the hospital bed with a badly broken leg, she
was still inquiring about my progress and making sure that I finished the dissertation
before having to go back to Brazil. Mark Blyth goes out of his way to help and advise,
especially in moment of greatest desperation, all the while responding to manifestations
of gratitude with a “that’s what I get paid to do.” Thank you very much anyway, for all
the help, the laughs, and the constructive criticism.
Other scholars, colleagues and friends at Johns Hopkins were amazing sources of
support during the past years. Prof. Giovanni Arrighi will always be an inspiration, as an
intellectual and as a teacher. My colleagues Ricardo Gutiérrez and Paula Duarte Lopes
not only made comments on the entire dissertation, but on the several drafts as well.
Their friendship and intellectual brilliance supported me in more ways than they can
imagine. I am also deeply grateful to Nizar, Bilgin, Luciana, Cecilia and Sumita for
taking their time to offer me wonderful insights and constructive criticism. Professors
Daniel Kryder, Diana Tussie, Jonathan Fox, Velia Cecilia Bobes, Graciela Bensusán,
Eduardo César Marques, Arnulfo Arteaga and Jack Spence also helped me with
comments, ideas, and suggestions of key contacts to be interviewed. My family and other
friends gave me the emotional support I needed, always kindly pushing me to write faster
and be less perfectionist: my mother, my sisters, Javier, Rebecca, Kédyma, Leany,
Miguel, Jocelina, thank you all for being there for me.
Along the way, I had a lot of help from extremely generous scholars who taught
me what I know about social network analysis. Ann Mische and Marc Boulay gave me
comments and very useful suggestions on the initial drafts of the questionnaire. Marc
Boulay also allowed me to sit in on his undergraduate social network analysis course at
the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Peter Marsden opened the
doors to his great graduate course at Harvard University. At Boston College, Steve
Borgatti and his amazing group of graduate students welcomed me to their meetings,
showed me that I still had a lot to learn about social network analysis, and were always
willing to help when I needed them. Special thanks go to Inga Carboni, who made the
effort to understand where I wanted to go and to help me get there, and to Renata Bichir.
I had the opportunity to present preliminary versions of this dissertation in various
fora. I am grateful to the comments and suggestions given by the participants of the
Berlin Roundtables on Transnationality, organized in Germany in January 2004, and
most especially those by Jan Aart Scholte and Boris Holzer. During the year I spent in
Cambridge, the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University not
only provided me with a desk to work, but also gave me the opportunity to present the
iv
preliminary results of the dissertation at their work in progress seminar. I thank L. David
Brown for his support and comments, and also Tiziana Dearing, Peter Dobkin Hall, and
Klara Kabadian. In July 2006, I was awarded a fellowship to spend one month at the
Center of Social Studies (CES) at the University of Coimbra. My dissertation work
profited from a lively intellectual environment and from the many comments and
criticisms offered by Boaventura de Sousa Santos and his colleagues. Finally, I presented
parts of this dissertation at meetings of the International Studies Association and the
American Political Science Association. My panel colleagues and the audience gave me
ideas and suggestions, and I am grateful to all of them.
Several other institutions supported my research. The Brazilian Ministry of
Education, through its agency CAPES, awarded me with a scholarship that paid for most
of the costs of graduate school, as well as for part of the field research. The Political
Science Department at Johns Hopkins University generously covered other costs, and the
University of Brasilia gave me a paid leave for the first four years of the Ph.D. program. I
am grateful to my colleagues at the Political Science Institute for their patience and
support. The Program on Latin American Studies at Johns Hopkins University also
helped fund my field research by awarding me with a grant to spend one month in
Mexico in August 2004. However, most of the funding that made this research possible
came from the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Award, which enabled me
to spend six months in Brazil, Chile, and Mexico.
During the field research, a few people were especially helpful. In Brazil, Maria
Sílvia Portella de Castro and Rafael Freire never denied the numerous requests for
interviews and information that I have made since well before my Ph.D. began. They will
be happy to know that I finally got to write about their efforts at building transnational
collective action within and beyond the world of labor relations. In Chile, Etiel Moraga
helped me to understand the Chilean civil society and provided me with all the contacts I
needed for the interviews. In Mexico, Maria Atilano, Héctor de la Cueva, and all the staff
of the Mexican Action Network on Free Trade gave me unrestricted access to their
documents, analysis, and opinions. In the U.S., Stan Gacek helped open many doors, and
gave me wonderful interviews; Timi Gerson did all of the above, and became a friend. I
cannot mention the names of all those who were interviewed here, but every single one
contributed in key ways to making this dissertation a better work. Other people helped by
making me feel at home, most especially Marcela Fernández and her friends and Marcela
Ríos and her family in Chile; Velia Cecilia Bobes and Gabriela Balcazar in Mexico; and
Márcio Aith, Daniela Araújo, and the little Marina in São Paulo.
As I finish this dissertation, my husband is almost as relieved as I am. Carlos
adjusted his whole life to my decision to come to the U.S., patiently supported me in my
moments of desperation, and took me away from work (but not too much). Although he
never quite accepted my seemingly unending need to do more interviews in more
countries, he understood when I had to be away. He has kept me sane and happy,
reminding me constantly that there is a life to be lived after the Ph.D. This dissertation is
dedicated to him.
v
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
List of Tables
x
List of Graphs
xi
List of Figures
xi
Main Acronyms
xii
Chapter 1 – Introduction
1
1.1 The Politicization of Trade
3
1.2 A Relational and Multilevel Approach to Collective Action
8
1.2.1 Focus on Relationships and Agency
9
1.2.1 Multilevel Field of Action
12
1.3 Methodological Choices
15
1.3.1 The Complementary Use of Network and Non-Network Data
18
1.3.2 The Boundary Specification Problem
19
1.4 Plan of the Dissertation
Chapter 2 – Collective Action in a Globalizing World
21
24
2.1 The Global Civil Society Proposition
25
2.1.1 The “Territorial Trap” Inverted
28
2.2 Transnational Approaches
2.2.1 Collective Action across Spaces
2.3 Pathways to Transnationality
34
36
40
2.3.1 Political Fields of Action
47
2.3.2 Social Networks and Coalition Building Modes
50
Affiliation and Campaign Coalition Building Modes
vi
53
Brokerage, Accountability, and Legitimacy
Conclusion
Chapter 3 – The Political Field of Trade under Construction
3.1 The Contentious and Multifaceted Nature of Trade Politics
56
59
61
63
3.1.1 The Creation of a Global Trade Regime and Civil Society
Participation
66
3.2 New Regionalism and Civil Society in the Americas
75
3.2.1 The Search for Allies in the NAFTA Region
82
3.2.2 Labor Collaboration in “Critical Support” of MERCOSUR
86
Conclusion
Chapter 4 – The Dynamics of Networks
4.1 Basic Properties of Close Allies’ Networks
93
96
97
4.1.1 Characteristics of the Actors
101
4.1.2 Relationships among Organizations
103
4.1.3 Transnational Ties
107
4.2 The Power of Labor Organizations and its Limits
4.2.1 Labor in a Relational Context
111
113
4.2.2 Between Transnationalism and “National Traps”: the problem
of location
4.3 “Our own Space”: the Rise of Rural Transnationalism
122
124
4.3.1 Rural Transnationalism in the Americas
129
4.3.2 Rural Organizations in a Relational Context
132
4.4 The Potential Roles of “Multi-Issue” NGOs
vii
138
4.4.1 NGOs as Newcomers to Trade Debates
140
4.4.2 Multi-Issue NGOs as Brokers?
142
4.4.3 “It’s not about Trade”
145
Conclusion
149
Chapter 5 – Organizational Pathways to Transnationality
152
5.1 Campaign and Affiliation-Based Coalition Building Modes
154
5.2 The Creation of the Hemispheric Social Alliance
158
5.3 Diffusion and Adaptation of National Coalition Building Strategies
167
5.3.1 The Cases of RMALC in Mexico and the ACJR in Chile:
from gateways to gatekeepers
171
5.3.2 Coalition Building in the U.S. and Brazil: Different Pathways
in a Same Country
180
Conclusion
190
Chapter 6 – The Search for Alternatives
194
6.1 Trade Policy-Making and Changing Political Contexts in the Americas
196
6.2 “Alternatives for the Americas”
206
6.2.1 The Sovereignty Dilemma
211
6.2.2 Caught between the Inside/Outside in Global Governance Debates 217
Conclusion
221
Chapter 7 – Conclusion
227
7.1 Have Trade Agreements gone too far?
229
7.2 The Duality of Networks
231
7.3 Pathways to Transnationality
232
viii
7.3.1 Campaign and Affiliation Modes of Coalition Building
234
7.3.2 The Strength of Missing Ties
235
7.4 Future Directions of Research
237
Appendix A – Research Design
242
Appendix B – Social Network Questionnaire
249
Appendix C – Lists of Interviews
259
Appendix D – Chronology of Main Trade-Related Events in the Americas
(1985-2006)
267
Bibliography
270
ix
LIST OF TABLES
Page
Table 2.1 – Transnational Coalition Building Modes
55
Table 3.1 – Selected Trade Agreements Negotiated in the
Americas (1989-2006)
79
Table 4.1 – Distribution of Organization in the Closest Allies’ Networks
According to In-degree
103
Table 4.2 – Civil Society Organizations Most Nominated by
Others as their Closest Allies in Trade
104
Table 4.3 – Density of the Networks, within and across groups of
types of organizations
106
Table 4.4 – Highest In-degree CSOs in Transnational
Network of Close Allies
108
Table 4.5 – Transnational Ties: Density of Ties within and among groups of
organizations, by type
110
Table 4.6 – Main Peak Labor Participants in the Trade Debates in Brazil, Chile,
Mexico, and the United States
114
Table 4.7 – Rural Organizations’ Participation in Trade Debates – Main
Challengers from Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and the U.S
134
Table 5.1 – Domestic Affiliation-Based Trade Coalitions in Brazil, Chile,
Mexico, and the U.S., 1991-2006
168
Table 5.2 – Organizations and Coalitions most Named as Close Allies in Brazil,
Chile, Mexico, and the United States
170
x
Table 6.1 – “Alternatives for the Americas”: main topics and proposals in two
versions (1998, 2005)
223
LIST OF GRAPHS
Graph 3.1 – NGOs Eligible to Attend WTO Ministerials
72
Graph 4.1 – Closest Allies – Brazil
99
Graph 4.2 – Closest Allies – Chile
99
Graph 4.3 – Closest Allies – Mexico
100
Graph 4.4 – Closest Allies – U.S.
100
Graph 4.5 – Transnational Ties among Highest In-degree (>5) CSOs
109
Graph 4.6 – Gateways used by Labor Federations
121
Graph 4.7 – Gateways used by Rural Organizations
132
Graph 4.8 – Gateways used by Multi-Issue NGOs
145
Graph 5.1 – Gateways used by Mexican CSOs to Reach U.S. CSOs
178
Graph 5.2 – Gateways used by Chilean CSOs to Reach U.S. CSOs
179
Graph 5.3 – Gateways used by U.S. CSOs to Reach Mexican CSOs
182
Graph 5.4 – Gateways used by Brazilian CSOs to Reach U.S. CSOs
189
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 5.1 – Timeline of Coalition Building on Trade in the Americas
157
Figure 5.2 – Members of the HSA Hemispheric Council (2005)
166
xi
MAIN ACRONYMS
ABIAIDS - Associação Brasileira Interdisciplinar de Aids
ACJR - Chilean Alliance for Just and Sustainable Trade
AFL-CIO - American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations
AFSCME - American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
AFSC - American Friends Service Committee
ALAMPYME - Asociación Latinoamericana de Pequeños Empresarios/México
ANAMURI - Asociación Nacional de Mujeres Rurales e Indígenas
ANDES - Associação Nacional dos Docentes em Entidades de Ensino Superior
ANEC -Asociación Nacional de Empresas Comercializadoras de Productores del Campo
ART - Alliance for Responsible Trade
AWI - American Welfare Institute
CAFTA – U.S.-Central America Free Trade Agreement
CAPISE - Centro de Análisis Político e Investigaciones Sociales y Económicas
CECCAM - Centro de Estudios para el Cambio en el Campo Mexicano
CEE - Centro de Estudios Ecuménicos
CEJ - Center for Economic Justice
CEJR - Center for Economic Policy Research
CLR - Campaign for Labor Rights
CEDM - Centro Ecuménico Diego de Medellín
CEMDA - Centro Mexicano de Derecho Ambiental
CENCOS - Centro Nacional de Comunicación Social
CENDA - Centro de Estudios Nacionales de Desarrollo Alternativo
CETEBES - Confederación Trabajadores Bancarios
CEPIS - Centro de Educação Popular – Instituto Sedes Sapientiae
CGT - Confederação Geral dos Trabalhadores
CIEL - Center for International Environmental Law
CIEPAC - Centro de Investigaciones Económicas y Políticas de Acción Comunitaria
CILAS - Centro de Investigación Laboral y Asesoría Sindical
CIOAC - Central Independiente de Obreros Agrícolas y Campesinos
CLOC - Latin American Coordinator of Campesino Organizations
CNB - Confederação Nacional dos Bancários
CNM - Confederação Nacional dos Metalúrgicos
CNOC - Coordinadora Nacional de Organizaciones Cafetaleras
CODEPU - Comité de Defensa de los Derechos del Pueblo
COMIEDES - Consejo Mexicano para el Desarrollo Sustentable
CONADECU - Corporación Nacional de Consumidores y Usuarios
CONIECO - Consejo Nacional de Industriales Ecologistas
CONSTRAMET - Confederación de los Trabajadores Metalúrgicos
CONTAG - Confederação Nacional dos Trabalhadores em Agricultura
CTC - Citizens’ Trade Campaign
CTM - Confederación de Trabajadores de México
CUSFTA - Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement
CUT-Brasil - Central Única dos Trabalhadores
xii
CUT-Chile - Central Unitaria de Trabajadores de Chile
CWA - Communications Workers of America
D-GAP - The Development Group for Alternative Policies
EPI - Economic Policy Institute
FAT - Frente Auténtico del Trabajo
FDC - Frente Democrático Campesino de Chihuahua
FOE - Friends of the Earth
FTA - Free Trade Agreement
FTAA - Free Trade Area of the Americas
GATT - General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
GEA - Grupo de Estudios Ambientales
HRW - Human Rights Watch
HSA - Hemispheric Social Alliance
IATP - Institute for Agricultural and Trade Policy
ICFTU - International Confederation of Trade Unions
IEP - Instituto de Ecología Política
IPS - Institute for Policy Studies
IBASE - Instituto Brasileiro de Análises Sociais e Econômicas
IBRADES - Instituto Brasileiro de Desenvolvimento
IBT - International Brotherhood of Teamsters
ILRF - International Labor Rights Fund
INESC - Instituto de Estudos Sócio-Econômicos
MAB - Movimento dos Atingidos por Barragens
MCD - Movimiento Ciudadano por la Democracia
MERCOSUR - Common Market of the South
MPA - Movimento dos Pequenos Agricultores
MSF - Médicos Sem Fronteiras/Doctors without Borders – Brazil
MST - Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem-Terra
NAFTA - North American Free Trade Agreement
NFFC - National Family Farm Coalition
NRDC - National Resources Defense Council
NWF - National Wildlife Federation
ORIT - Interamerican Regional Workers’ Organization
PACS - Políticas Alternativas para o Cone Sul
PET - Programa de Economía del Trabajo
PO - Pastoral Operária
PSI - Public Services International (ISP – Internacional do Serviço Público)
REBRIP - Brazilian Network for Peoples’ Integration
RIDES - Recursos e Investigación para el Desarrollo Sustentable
RMALC - Red Mexicana de Acción frente al Libre Comercio / Mexican Action Network
on Free Trade
SERAPAZ - Servicio y Asesoría para la Paz
SERPAJ - Servicio Paz y Justicia
SME - Sindicato Mexicano de Electricistas
SOF - Sempre-Viva Organização Feminista
xiii
SPM - Serviço Pastoral dos Migrantes
STRM - Sindicato de Telefonistas de la República Mexicana
TSMOs - Transnational Social Movement Organizations
UNITE - Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees
UAW - United Auto Workers
UE - United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers
UNE - União Nacional dos Estudantes
UNCTAD - United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
UNORCA - Unión Nacional de Organizaciones Regionales Campesinas Autónomas
UOC - Unión Obrera Campesina
USBIC - United States Business and Industrial Council Educational Foundation
USTR - United States Trade Representative
USWA - United Steelworkers of the America
USAS - United Students Against Sweatshops
WOLA - Washington Office on Latin America
WTO - World Trade Organization
WWF - World Wildlife Fund
xiv
Chapter 1 - INTRODUCTION
Studies of international relations and social movements have changed
significantly in the past decade because of efforts to address the growing relevance of
new forms of transnational collective action. We still know little, however, about the
variety of ways in which actors become transnational, and about the relationship between
transnational and national forms of mobilization. This dissertation addresses these
challenges by presenting an analysis of transnational collective action in the context of
free trade agreement negotiations in the Americas.
The general goal of this study is to analyze emerging forms of transnational
collective action that bring together a wide spectrum of civil society organizations in a
context of international negotiations. It focuses on the subset of organizations that have
challenged free trade agreements negotiated between 1990 and 2005 in four countries of
the Americas: Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and the United States. More specifically, this
dissertation aims at: a) understanding how collective action unfolds across the domestic
and the transnational arenas; b) analyzing the relationship between previously existing
social networks, and the new ties created in the context of trade debates; c) studying the
different answers provided by civil society organizations to the problems of coordination
and representation, and how these have changed (or not) through time; and d) analyzing
the mechanisms actors use in their search for common strategies and alternatives to trade
agreements.
Never before the 1990s had conditions been so favorable for cross-border
collective action among civil society organizations in the Americas. The end of the Cold
1
War opened the possibility of collaboration where it did not exist before. Other global
changes, such as the development of new communication technologies, provided a more
propitious environment for exchanges of information and ideas. At the regional level, the
transitions to democracy in Latin America, the implementation of similar neoliberal
policies in the region, and hemispheric governmental initiatives such as the Summits of
the Americas and the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) negotiations, presented
actors with a new political opportunity structure to act together. However, these
promising changes have not led to the creation of a regional version of a “global civil
society”, nor have they led to the building of progressively stronger collaborative ties
among all civil society organizations. While actors have greater incentives to mobilize
transnationally, the interpretation of what these incentives mean, and how best to deal
with them, vary greatly within and across countries.
Although there is a growing and increasingly sophisticated literature on
transnational collective action, most analyses try to understand why nonstate actors have
become so important in the international stage – the problem of origin – and what kinds
of impacts they have had – the problem of outcome. By focusing on the structural factors
that help to explain the origins of transnational action, or by focusing on the results of
action, the current literature fails to explain how civil society organizations decide with
whom to build ties, and the sustainability or perennity of such ties.
This dissertation offers a distinctive methodological and theoretical approach to
the analysis of transnational collective action. First, it studies the continuous unfolding of
collective action through time, while most of the current research on transnational
collective action has focused on case studies of successful transnational campaigns and/or
2
on case studies of protest events. Second, it looks at the full constellation of relationships
among actors, including South-South linkages among civil society organizations, as well
as the interactions among various types of organizations. There is surprisingly little
analysis in the literature about how the growing participation of actors from the South
affects the creation of frames, repertoires of contention, and organizational forms of
transnational collective action. A significant part of the literature has tended to study the
roles of Northern NGOs, and to focus on those activists that travel often and speak more
than one language. This dissertation casts a broader net, bringing into the analysis the
roles of mass-based civil society organizations from developing countries.
Third, instead of adopting a deductive type of reasoning (for example by
assuming the existence of a global civil society and then trying to prove it), this
dissertation is based on a more open-ended and exploratory approach, moving from
specific observations about the interactions among civil society organizations to broader
arguments. Fourth, it addresses the problem of explaining change in actors’ goals,
agendas, and strategies. This problem has been either insufficiently addressed, because
the literature has tended to emphasize differences between activists and their targets more
than the internal tensions among activists, or it has been explained away as a direct
outcome of changes in opportunity structures.
1.1 The Politicization of Trade
Trade negotiations have become increasingly prominent stages for the battle of
ideas over the future of globalization and global governance. The street protests during
3
the Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Seattle in 1999 are
often mentioned as a defining moment in the constitution of transnational collective
action on trade, and as a prime example of the force of an emerging “global civil
society.” What happened in Seattle is only understandable, however, in light of the
previous ten years of challenges to free trade agreements in the Americas.
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), negotiated by the
governments of Mexico, Canada and the United States between 1991 and 1993, is a more
accurate historical landmark in terms of changes in collective action related to trade. The
NAFTA debates unleashed an unprecedented process of collaboration among civil
society organizations from Mexico, Canada and the United States, the lessons of which
became a key reference for actors from other countries in the years that followed.
Furthermore, for the first time new issues – such as investment rules, environmental
protection and labor rights – were included in the negotiations of a preferential trade
agreement and became a focus of attention of civil society organizations. At the
beginning of the 1990s these topics were peripheral to the multilateral agenda, but, by the
time of the Seattle meeting, they had become part of the contentious debates at the WTO.
Finally, NAFTA was the first example of a comprehensive agreement negotiated between
highly asymmetric economies.
Thus, NAFTA inaugurated a new type of international trade negotiation,
fundamentally different from regional integration initiatives inspired by the European
experience that had been undertaken by Latin American countries between the 1960s and
the 1980s. The proliferation of regional trade agreements in the 1990s was not exclusive
to the American hemisphere, however. Virtually all members of the World Trade
4
Organization became part of bilateral or regional preferential trade agreements. By July
2005, the WTO had received notification of the entry in force of 330 regional trade
agreements, and almost two-thirds of them (206) after January 1995.1 This process has
occurred in parallel to global-level trade negotiations, creating in practice a complicated
and uneven system of global governance of trade that critics refer to as the “spaghetti
bowl” phenomenon.2
Both the amplification of the agenda and the proliferation of agreements at
different levels help to explain the increased interest in trade negotiations. Challengers of
these agreements come from a great variety of sectors and issue areas, and include those
that oppose negotiations, as well as those that seek reforms to the decision-making
processes and/or to the contents of agreements. Labor unions, environmental
organizations, human rights NGOs, consumers’ organizations, rural movements and
many others have denounced the inclusion of new issues in the agenda of negotiations,
while simultaneously pushing for the addition of others. In this context, the definition of
trade barriers, the appraisal of trade-related impacts, and the interface of trade with other
regulation areas have become major sources of contention.
In the Americas, new civil society organizations and new coalitions specialized in
monitoring trade negotiations and evaluating their impacts have emerged, both at the
national and at the hemispheric levels. Furthermore, older organizations that had not
previously been involved became important actors in trade debates in the end of the
1980s or beginning of the 1990s. The issues raised by challengers of trade agreements in
1
2
See: http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/bey1_e.htm, accessed November 11th 2005.
The term was first used in Bhagwati, 1995.
5
the hemisphere touch on the decision-making processes, the contents of negotiations, and
the mechanisms of implementation of agreements. Some of the key critiques presented by
these actors are related to: the lack of transparency during negotiations and the absence of
channels of dialogue between civil society organizations and negotiators, or the problem
of the “democratic deficit” of trade negotiations; the absence of social and environmental
issues from the agenda of negotiations; the unfair distribution of benefits and costs of the
agreements (those that benefit most are multinational corporations, while the negative
impacts are overwhelmingly felt by the most vulnerable sectors of the population); the
threat that trade agreements pose to national sovereignty and democracy, because of the
limitations imposed on the power of nationally and locally elected authorities to design
and implement public policies; and the “race to the bottom” promoted by agreements,
which act as an incentive to competition that is based on declining wages, as well as on
the weakening of environmental and labor rights legislations.3
The ties created among these challengers in the past two decades have led to the
creation of a new field of collective action, defined as a relatively autonomous political
action space that is the result of the continuous construction over time of a concrete set of
common practices, goals and beliefs. The four main characteristics of this space are: a) it
is multilevel – it spans the domestic/international divide; b) it is dynamic, in the double
sense that practices and ideas that constitute it are permanently being questioned or
reaffirmed, and that it has fuzzy and changing borders; c) it does not stand by itself, but
3
This point is further developed throughout this dissertation. For a small sample of these critiques of trade
agreements, see, for example, the publications on the website of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch
division (www.citizen.org/trade), the trade website of the American Friends Service Committee
(www.afsc.org/trade-matter/issues/), and the publications by the Hemispheric Social Alliance (especially
HSA, 2005).
6
overlaps with numerous other domestic and transnational spaces; and d) it is neither
homogeneous nor horizontal, but it is formed by civil society organizations that vary
greatly in terms of the roles they play and the power they possess. Civil society is
understood broadly as “a political space, or arena, where voluntary associations seek,
from outside political parties, to shape the rules (formal and informal) that govern one or
other aspect of social life”4 – in this case, the rules governing trade policies in the
Americas.
It is important to note, though, that for most of the organizations that are the focus
of this study, trade negotiations are not their primary concern. Challengers are embedded
in other networks and fields that may have little to do with trade. Moreover, there is
significant heterogeneity among these actors in terms of goals and strategies. Most of
them are rooted at the domestic level and prioritize domestic political change, while at
the same time pursuing transnational strategies and building transnational coalitions. This
dissertation proposes to analyze the dynamics within this field in terms of overlapping
pathways to transnationality, or multiple ways in which civil society organizations
participate in debates, actions, or processes that go beyond national borders.
4
Scholte, 2003:11. This is a working definition used to guide the research. There is a large literature that
discusses the advantages and disadvantages of many different definitions of civil society, but these debates
go beyond the goals of this dissertation.
7
1.2 A Relational and Multilevel Approach to Collective Action
The main argument of this dissertation is that the choices of pathways to
transnationality taken by civil society organizations are a product of their previous
trajectories and of opportunity structures, but, most importantly, these pathways are an
outcome of the dynamic process of interaction with other actors. In turn, this interaction
is affected by the absence of clear consensus as to how transnational coalitions should be
organized, which claims should be prioritized, and who the targets of complaints and
proposals should be. Instead of thinking in terms of the emergence of new transnational
subjects, it is both more accurate and fruitful to think in terms of the variety of ways in
which actors can arrive at similar positions by taking different routes, and in terms of the
mechanisms by which actors try to achieve common ground.
In order to develop this argument, the theoretical approach used in this
dissertation is both relational and multilevel. By focusing on relationships and
understanding how interaction may lead to the transformation of actors’ preferences, it is
possible to understand the purposive creation of a field of collective action, and to
uncover the tensions among its participants. Furthermore, through the analysis of the
interplay between domestic and transnational collective action, it is possible to think
about space in innovative ways.
The approach used in this dissertation is also interdisciplinary. It draws upon
social and political theory, as well as upon recent developments in specific bodies of
literature: the literature on transnational collective action, the literature on social
movements, and the literature on social networks, all of which have developed across
8
disciplines. The questions that I intend to answer – under which circumstances is
coalition building across difference possible, how domestic and transnational levels of
action relate to each other, and what are the impacts of interaction on actors’ goals and
strategies – are answered best by going beyond disciplinary boundaries.
1.2.1 Focus on Relationships and Agency
A relational approach assumes that behavior is intelligible and meaningful only if
analyzed from the perspective of the actors’ relationships. As Emirbayer has argued,
“relational theorists reject the notion that one can posit discrete, pre-given units such as
the individual or society as ultimate starting points”5 of the analysis. Actors are always
inseparable from the contexts within which they are embedded. Furthermore, a relational
approach “sees relations between terms or units as preeminently dynamic in nature, as
unfolding, ongoing processes rather than as static ties among inert substances.”6
From such a relational perspective, the literature on social network analysis can be
especially helpful. Methodologically, social network analysts have developed
sophisticated mathematical tools that provide precise representations of the structures of
networks and the positions of actors within them. Theoretically, social network analysis
attempts to explain behavior and social processes as the result of actors’ positions in
structured social relations, rather than as the result of actors’ attributes. This
“anticategorical imperative”7 denies the causal link between the possession of an attribute
Emirbayer, 1997: 287. Emirbayer notes that this is not a new approach, and that many previous writers –
such as Georg Simmel and Karl Marx – adopted a relational perspective in their writings. Idem, esp. pp.
282-290.
6
Idem: 289.
7
As characterized by Emirbayer and Goodwin, 1994: 1414.
5
9
– such as class membership, gender, age or political party affiliation – and an actor’s
behavior. Social network analysts do not discard categories such as race or gender, but
they only become important variables in light of the existing patterns of networks.8
Network analysis is thus incompatible with methodological individualism and with other
versions of structural analysis that do not take in consideration the relational ties between
actors. Network analysts share the view that there is no way of knowing in advance how
groups or social positions come about, and that overall relations must be analyzed in an
inductive attempt to identify behavior patterns and the groups or social strata that
correlate with those patterns. Only then can the pertinent groups be sorted and the
concrete constraints of structure on behavior identified.9
However, much of social network analysis has focused on the consequences of
network variables, rather than on the process of creation of social ties and how these
change through time.10 This bias has led networks to “take on a substantial, reified
quality, removed from the actual dynamics of interaction”,11 and at least part of the
literature on social networks has been criticized for its structural determinism.12 The
approach advocated here builds upon these sympathetic critiques of social network
analysis, and proposes to define social networks simultaneously as a precondition of
collective action – because action is affected by actors’ embeddedness in preexisting
networks – and an outcome of collective action – how actors create new linkages that in
8
See Wasserman and Faust, 1994: 8.
See Degenne and Forsé, 1999: 2-3.
10
According to Borgatti and Foster, this has been changing recently, as more network analysts have been
trying to understand networks’ causes, and not only its consequences, and as scholars have been developing
new approaches to consider change. See the discussion in Borgatti and Foster, 2003, esp. p. 1000, and also
Emirbayer and Goodwin, 1994, and Friedman and McAdam, 1992.
11
Mische, 2003: 262.
12
See Emirbayer and Goodwin, 1994.
9
10
turn constrain future action.13 This perspective moves towards an agency-centered view
of networks as the product of choices of their members and as processes of meaning
attribution,14 without ignoring structural conditions.
The central proposition in network analysis research, that an actor’s position in a
network has important social consequences, cannot be accepted a priori, but has to be
part of an analysis of how actors were able to reach that position in the first place, and
whether that position is sustainable, and why. In this dissertation, the interplay between
structure and agency is presented through an analysis of the construction of ties through
time, as the clash between the old and the new.15 By focusing on the origins of ties and
their sustainability, it is possible to avoid the bias towards structural determinism, and at
the same time the relational perspective can be underscored. Thus, instead of taking
social ties as given, I view the maps of relationships uncovered in this dissertation as the
product of contentious and dynamic processes of negotiation and transformation of
strategies, goals, and interpretations.
In order to explain the construction of ties, it is not enough simply to map interests
and projects, but it is also necessary to identify the mechanisms by which diverse actors
13
For a defense of this understanding of networks, see, for example, Diani, 2003a.
Harrison White made an important contribution to social network analysis by defining social ties as
processes of meaning attribution and shared discourse (see White, 1992). More recently, social movement
scholars have begun to advocate the centrality of the concept of network and network analysis tools for a
theory of social movements, based on an understanding of networks as both preconditions and outcomes of
collective action. See the contributions in Diani and McAdam, eds., 2003.
15
See Emirbayer and Mische, 1998. Andrew Sayer has made a similar point about agency, structure and
time: “… actions presuppose an already existing set of structures including shared meanings, though these
owe their existence to the fact that at an earlier time (t-1) people reproduced or transformed them through
their actions, which in turn were constrained and enabled by structures existing from time t-2” (Sayer,
1992: 18).
14
11
are able (or unable) to overcome their differences and construct common purpose.16
Some of the divisions among them are related to different ideological traditions that
guide their perceptions about the world. These traditions are not, however, static tools
that mechanically provide instructions for behavior. On the contrary, one of the
challenges of this dissertation is to better understand changes in prior beliefs as a result
of the negotiated relationships among actors. Similarly, the positions different actors have
in the field of collective action suggest the possibility of yielding different amounts of
power, but these are a product of their different trajectories and characteristics, as well as
an outgrowth of the relationships established. For example, the assessment of the power
of brokers offered in this dissertation is based on an analysis of the processes by which
brokers come to play these roles in their interaction with other actors, and how
sustainable they are. Such a relational approach must take into consideration the interplay
of collective action at the domestic and transnational levels.
1.2.2 Multilevel Field of Action
Perhaps the greatest gap in the literature about transnational collective action is
the lack of further theorization about the ways in which transnational and domestic
collective action relate to each other. This is mostly because scholars have focused on
trying to explain why nongovernmental actors have “gone global”, and how advocacy
organizations focus on “universal” principles and demands. Furthermore, not enough
16
For a call to shift from the search of general models to the study of mechanisms, processes, and episodes,
see McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly, 2001. These authors define mechanisms as “a delimited class of events
that alter relations among specified sets of elements in identical or closely similar ways over a variety of
situations” (p. 24).
12
attention has been paid to an important source of tensions within and among
organizations, which often find themselves squeezed between domestic pressures and
interests, and building common ground with foreign partners. This is perhaps mostly
clear in negotiations that involve the redistribution of resources, but I will argue that it is
true more generally, in most – if not all – attempts to build collective action beyond
national borders.17
This dissertation builds on recent efforts towards better understanding the ways in
which actors relate in space. The specification of mechanisms and processes such as the
“boomerang pattern”,18 “scale shift”,19 and “domestication” or “internalization”20 has
shown how organizations and individuals build strategies that traverse the local, national
and international levels. The idea of “rooted cosmopolitanism”21 is an important reminder
that actors may move beyond their localities without detaching themselves from the
social networks, interests and values of their specific place of origin.
The concept of field as a multilevel space of collective action emphasizes the fact
that collective action undergoes across the domestic and transnational arenas, but also
that civil society organizations participating in debates about (international) trade
negotiations sometimes do so strictly from within the domestic arena. The goal is not
simply to “bring the national back” into the analysis, but to better specify how collective
action takes place in the face of global governance issues. It builds on the recent debates
As Tarrow argues, “transnational activists are often divided between the global framing of transnational
movement campaigns and the local needs of those whose claims they want to represent” (Tarrow, 2005:
76).
18
See Keck and Sikkink, 1998.
19
See, for example, McAdam and Tarrow, 2005.
20
See Imig and Tarrow, eds., 2001, della Porta and Tarrow, eds., 2005, and Tarrow, 2005.
21
See Cohen, 1992 and Tarrow, 2005.
17
13
among international relations scholars about the changing relation between national
sovereignty and global governance, and, most specially, on those contributions that
criticize a linear view of history that sees the erosion of the power of nation states as
giving birth to a new cosmopolitan world order.22
The concept of “field” has been used by scholars in different ways. Its definition
as a relatively autonomous political space characterized by a set of practices and ideas
constructed by actors is similar to the notion of “multi-organizational fields” used in
organizational analysis,23 to the idea of “relational setting” proposed by Somers,24 and the
concept of field as used by Bourdieu.25 Whereas scholars have usually thought of these
domains at the domestic level, it is possible to think of them as existing within and
beyond national borders, as proposed, for example, by scholars of migration, who
advanced the concept of a “transnational social field”, defined as “… a set of multiple
interlocking networks of social relationships through which ideas, practices, and
resources are unequally exchanged, organized and transformed…”26
The definition of field used in this dissertation, as a space continuously
constructed by a bounded set of actors based on broad common goals and practices, is
more narrowly focused in its political dimension than the ones mentioned above. It is also
a more contingent conceptualization than the highly institutionalized vision of field
22
See, for example, Walker, 2006.
DiMaggio and Powell defined an interorganizational field as “a recognized area of institutional life: key
suppliers, resource and product consumers, regulatory agencies, and other organizations that produce
similar services and products” (DiMaggio and Powell, 1991:148).
24
A relational setting is “a pattern of relationships among institutions, public narratives, and social
practices” (Somers, 1994: 626).
25
For Bourdieu, the theory of fields is related to the observation that “… the social world is the site of a
process of progressive differentiation… The evolution of societies tend to make universes (which I call
fields) emerge which are autonomous and have their own laws” (Bourdieu, 1998: 83).
26
Levitt and Schiller, 2004: 1009.
23
14
proposed by organizational analysts. In this sense, it is similar to the notion of “network
domains” proposed by White and Mische, which are defined as “specialized fields of
interactions characterized by clusters of relations and associated sets of stories”,27 but it
also emphasizes the unequal character of exchanges within the field as a site of
struggles.28
These struggles reflect differences that often follow geographical boundaries that
separate countries and regions of the world. How collective action is coordinated among
multiple sites, and how successful these efforts at coordination are, are crucial questions
that can be answered by (1) analyzing the different pathways to transnationality used by
actors to “travel” across space, and how these have changed through time; (2) comparing
the narratives and strategies that inform action at the different spatial sites; and (3)
evaluating how successful actors have been in resolving the coordination challenges that
arise from a multilevel field, through processes of institutional innovation, brokerage,
and/or diffusion.
1.3 Methodological Choices
A relational and multilevel theoretical approach requires a research strategy that
focuses on relationships among organizations at different levels of analysis and in a
variety of geographical contexts. The units of analysis in this dissertation are: (a) the ties
among civil society challengers of trade agreements within national boundaries in Brazil,
27
28
Mische, 2003: 264 and Mische and White, 1998.
See Bourdieu, 1998.
15
Chile, Mexico and the United States; (b) the cross-border ties among organizations from
these four countries; (c) the field of collective action that is an outcome of these
relationships and at the same time affects them; and (d) the relationships between civil
society challengers and other (domestic and international) actors.
From a relational perspective, the countries chosen for this study cannot be
understood as self-contained units to be compared by using the most similar or the most
different comparative methods. As will be made clear throughout this dissertation, the
structure of relationships built among civil society organizations in the four countries
studied is a mixed outcome of influences originating from beyond national borders and
the specific contexts in which they are embedded. A methodological approach that
focused on the causal powers of particular variables by comparing countries taken as
separate “cases” would be misleading,29 because it would ignore these processes of
transnational influence. Comparisons among national phenomena are used to highlight
similarities and differences, not in terms of a variable-oriented model of causality, but in
terms of mechanisms and processes that provide insights into the variety and the
transformation of collective action.
The choice of countries was based on three main criteria. First, countries had to be
involved in different regional experiences of trade negotiation, including (but not only)
the Free Trade Area of the Americas. This allows us to assess the potential impact of
previous ties, as well as variation in the collective action patterns across different kinds of
contexts. Second, at least one country had to be a developed country, because of the focus
29
World-historical scholars have made this point clearly. Tilly, 1984, argues more broadly that the results
of strict cross-national analysis may be misleading. See also the discussion in Silver, 2003, esp. pp. 25-31.
16
of this dissertation on power relations within networks. Finally, countries had to present a
diverse set of experiences of civil society participation in trade debates.
Bearing in mind these general criteria, more specific reasons informed the
selection of each country. The United States was preferred as the developed country to be
studied (over Canada) because of its importance as the main promoter of the new agenda
of free trade agreements.30 Brazil was chosen because of its involvement in both
MERCOSUR (Common Market of the South) and FTAA negotiations. In contrast to the
other countries, Brazil has not pursued bilateral free trade agreements, but has negotiated
less ambitious preferential trade agreements with other countries together with its
MERCOSUR partners.31 Civil society organizations have taken very different positions
in each of these spaces of negotiations, thus providing insights into the variety of
reactions and strategies pursued within the field of challengers of FTAs. Chile was
chosen because it was the first country in the hemisphere to pursue a bilateral agreement
with the United States after NAFTA, and negotiated several others in its aftermath,32
having also the status of associated member in Mercosur. In spite of the importance of its
30
The United States is currently involved in six regional trade initiatives (the Free Trade Area of the
Americas; the Central American Free Trade Agreement; the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
Initiative; NAFTA; the Middle-East Free Trade Area Initiative; and the Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation Forum). It is also involved in various bilateral initiatives (FTAs have been signed with
Canada, Australia, Chile, Israel, Jordan, Morocco and Singapore, and are under negotiation or waiting
ratification with the Andean countries, Panama, Oman, the South African Customs Union, and Bahrain).
See www.ustr.gov, accessed 11/1/2005.
31
For example, with the European Free Trade Association, the Southern Africa Customs Union, India,
Egypt and Morocco. Brazil has also been a long-member (since 1980) of the Latin American Integration
Association (ALADI), through which specific agreements among members are negotiated. Also, Mercosur
countries and the European Union are currently negotiation a Free Trade Agreement. More recently, Brazil
launched a new initiative for South American integration, named the South American Community of
Nations. See www.mre.gov.br, accessed 11/1/2005.
32
Besides the FTA with the United States, Chile has signed agreements with Canada, Korea, Mexico and
Central America, and an association agreement with the European Union. At the time of the field research,
it was negotiating FTAs with China and India, among others. It also is a participant of APEC and of
ALADI. See www.direcon.cl, accessed 11/1/2005.
17
trade agenda, of all countries chosen Chilean civil society organizations are the ones that
have faced the greatest mobilization and coordination challenges when trying to influence
trade negotiations. Finally, Mexico was chosen because challenger organizations
accumulate over fifteen years of experience in dealing with FTAs, and because it was the
first Latin American country to negotiate an extensive agreement with the United
States.33 Mexican actors have been particularly important in influencing trade debates in
other Latin American countries.
1.3.1 The Complementary Use of Network and non-Network Data
This dissertation uses a variety of data sources. A social network questionnaire
was applied to members of 123 civil society organizations, in order to map relationships
and positions (see the questionnaire in Appendix B). In addition, semistructured and indepth interviews were conducted with government officials, legislative representatives
and business organizations, and with key informants from civil society organizations who
had knowledge about the origins of ties among organizations, and how these ties have
changed – or not – through time. In total, 204 individuals were interviewed during field
research, between May 2004 and November 2006.34 While the interviews are the main
source of information for the dissertation, the research strategy also included participant
After NAFTA’s negotiation, Mexico has signed FTAs with the European Free Trade Association, with
Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, the European Union, Israel, Chile, Nicaragua, Venezuela,
Colombia, Costa Rica and Bolivia. The country is also a member of ALADI. Cf. www.sre.gob.mx,
11/1/2005.
34
Most of the interviews were conducted between May 2004 and September 2005. In many cases more
than one person from the same organization had to be interviewed to fill out the questionnaire, and in some
cases the same persons also gave in-depth interviews. See the lists of organizations that answered the
questionnaire and individuals that provided semistructured and in-depth interviews in Appendix C.
33
18
observation in key events and the analysis of documentation produced by the different
actors involved in the debates about trade agreements.
The use of qualitative methods in conjunction with social network data makes it
possible to pursue the dynamic relational and multilevel approach that is advocated
above. One of the most important challenges for current social network analysts is to
introduce dynamics to what are usually “snapshots” of relationships among actors. Given
the fact that in this study it was impossible to gather longitudinal data, the problem was
dealt with by introducing in the social network questionnaire inquiries about changes in
relationships over time. The semistructured and in-depth interviews also provided
information on change, and they were complemented by the available documentation and
literature review. Although Canada is not one of the countries selected for this study, the
interviews conducted there (see appendix C) had the specific purpose of gathering
information on the first campaign against a free trade agreement, which had great
diffusion impact to the rest of the hemisphere in the 1990s.
1.3.2 The Boundary Specification Problem
One of the most important challenges of a relational approach is how to move
empirically from flows of relations to specified units of analysis.35 This is known as the
methodological problem of boundary specification. Without clear-cut, natural boundaries,
limits become an analytical decision made by the researcher in light of theoretical and
methodological orientations.
35
Emirbayer, 1997: 303.
19
In this research, the rule – the criteria by which civil society organizations were
included in the study – was that national-level civil society organizations that participated
systematically in debates about free trade agreements and had mobilized to challenge
them prior to the end of 2003 (the Ministerial Meeting of the FTAA celebrated in Miami
in December of that year is the cutting point) should be included. All of them share a
critical perspective on trade agreements, meaning that they are part of the field of
challengers to trade agreements, although that does not mean that they are “anti-trade” or
“anti-globalization.” In fact, as will be seen, actors show a wide variety of perspectives
on trade, global governance, and globalization in general.
Members of 123 civil society organizations answered the social network
questionnaire in Brazil, Chile, Mexico and the United States. This “n” is not
representative of the whole set of civil society organizations involved in trade
agreements, and not even of the smaller subset of challengers of free trade negotiations. It
does, however, include the core challenger organizations in each country, as well as
representatives of the main different perspectives defended within this civil society
group. The choice of organizations occurred in three consecutive steps, which used a
combination of strategies. The first was the formulation of a preliminary list of key
organizations, based on membership lists of trade coalitions, sign-ins, and participation in
trade-related events. This list included organizations from various sectors and ideological
positions, representing broadly the spectrum of civil society actors involved in
challenging trade agreements. The second step was “snowballing” from this initial list.
Interviewees were asked if any of their closest allies in trade debates were missing.
Finally, when three different informants mentioned the same missing organization, an
20
attempt was made to include it. For a more detailed explanation of these steps, see
Appendix A.36
1.4 Plan of the dissertation
This dissertation is divided into seven chapters. Chapter 2 develops the theoretical
arguments of the dissertation that have been introduced here. Based on a review of the
literature, it proposes an analytical framework to study transnational collective action that
is based on the notions of “pathways to transnationality”; “political fields of action”;
“coalition building modes”; and on a typology of brokerage roles.
The main goal in chapter 3 is to put the object of study in its historical context. It
briefly reviews previous attempts at negotiating trade agreements in the hemisphere,
shows how current agreements differentiate themselves from these experiences and how
civil society participation and interest was much more limited in earlier efforts than it is
today. The chapter also discusses precedents of current mobilizations at domestic and
transnational levels. Finally, Chapter 3 puts the object of study in the context of the
changes in the global scenario, most importantly the end of the Cold War, the creation of
a new trade governance structure, and the main challenges facing this new structure. It is
a chapter about continuity and innovation in the process of “politicization” of trade
negotiations.
36
For a review of the advantages and disadvantages of different boundary-specification strategies, see
Marsden, 2005.
21
The following three chapters present the analysis of the efforts of trade
challengers to create social networks (chapter 4), new forms of organization (chapter 5),
and a common set of alternatives to free trade policies (chapter 6). Chapter 4 combines
social network tools and qualitative information to analyze the relationships among
challengers of trade agreements in the four countries studied. It presents an analysis of
the participation of labor, rural, and nongovernmental organizations in the construction of
the field of trade challengers, with an emphasis in explaining how these different types of
organization became prominent actors in trade debates.
Chapter 5 addresses the intertwining of domestic and international levels of
collective action by focusing on the creation of different types of trade coalitions, the
pathways to transnationality used by civil society organizations, and how collective
action is coordinated across the domestic and transnational arenas. It analyzes the
different brokerage roles played by some organizations and how powerful/weak they
have become while playing such roles, linking this to the discussion of the impacts of
new forms of organizations and institutionalization for social movement/NGO coalitions
addressing international issues.
Finally, chapter 6 is about the search by civil society organizations of alternatives
to current trade policies and trade agreements. It is about the negotiation of common
understandings of what trade agreements represent and how trade policies should be
changed. Special attention is given in this chapter to the ways in which actors position
themselves between national sovereignty claims and proposals to strengthen multilateral
institutions and supranational regulations. The conclusion reviews the dissertation’s
theoretical arguments, as well as arguments directed to a broader audience, including the
22
actors that are part of the social networks studied. It also presents considerations on how
future research can answer some of the questions that were raised throughout this
dissertation.
The methodological appendices present more detailed information on the research
design and the field research activities (appendix A), a copy of the social network
questionnaire applied to U.S. civil society organizations (appendix B), the lists of
organizations and individuals interviewed (appendix C), and a chronology that includes
the main trade-related events in the hemisphere between 1985 and 2006 (appendix D).
23
Chapter 2 – COLLECTIVE ACTION IN A GLOBALIZING WORLD
This chapter presents the theoretical framework of the dissertation. It introduces
the most important theoretical debates on collective action and globalization, and
explains how this dissertation relates to them. The first part features a critical review of
the literature about “global civil society” and the literature on “transnational relations.” I
avoid conflating the “global” and the “transnational”, because, although each of these
literatures represents a vast and heterogeneous group of scholars, I argue that they have
different basic assumptions. The second part of the chapter builds on this critical review
and introduces a framework designed to clarify some of the ambiguities in the literature,
by developing the conceptions of pathways to transnationality and fields of action, and by
differentiating among modes of transnational coalition building and types of brokerage
roles.
The academic literature on collective action beyond national borders has grown
almost as quickly as its object of study, blurring the boundaries that separate the literature
on international relations and the literature on collective action. From an international
relations theory perspective, the debates have focused on the impacts of non-state actors
in global governance, the emergence of universal values and international norms, the
roles of national states, and the changing meanings of national sovereignty. Although
these debates have flourished only in the post-Cold War context of calls for a renewal of
international relations theories, they build on previous contributions that questioned the
rigid domestic versus international divide as well as the statist ontology, two pillars of
24
Realist international relations theory.37 From a social movement theory perspective, the
debates have focused on the possibility of applying conceptual constructs designed for
the domestic level to collective action beyond borders, the constraints and opportunities
involved in launching transnational campaigns and coalitions, the outcomes of these
initiatives, and the dynamics of coalition building among different types of non-state
actors. Whereas the international relations literature has contributed to linking nonstate
collective action to macro debates about the system of international relations, the social
movement literature has focused on more micro aspects of cross-border collective action
and its impacts.
While there is a growing consensus that nongovernmental cross-border collective
action has increased in size as well as in importance, there are contentious debates as to
what it is that we are actually seeing emerge. Is it a global civil society, or is it more
accurate to talk in terms of transnational advocacy networks and global social
movements? Furthermore, why is it emerging – because of globalization, or in spite of it?
And, finally, what are its impacts – is this a good or bad trend, and for whom?
2.1 The Global Civil Society Proposition
Debates about the emergence or existence of a global civil society are quickly
becoming as contentious as debates about nationally-bounded civil societies. In fact,
there is no consensus as to what global civil society is, who is included within its
See, for example, Rosenau’s early call for the development of “linkage theory”, a systematic, sustained
and comparative inquiry of national-international linkages and overlaps, which would be constructed as
part of a dialogue among disciplines. See Rosenau, 1969.
37
25
boundaries, what its relationship to globalization is, and what its impacts on global
governance may be. I argue that the notion has been so attractive to many scholars as
well as many nongovernmental actors because of its fuzziness, and not in spite of it.38
First, the concept functions conveniently as a shorthand to refer to an exponentially
increasing number of collective action phenomena beyond national borders; secondly, it
relates to structural changes in the global political order, in a context of calls for a
renewal of international relations theories to be able to account for such changes. Finally,
global civil society has captured the imagination of those who look for a counterforce to
the dominant globalization project: what better than a Global Civil Society to face
Empire? As Kenny and Germain have argued, until very recently the notion “was at best
a minority intellectual concern. Yet now, the vision of an increasingly influential and
independent web of interlocking civic associations, campaigning organizations,
transnational institutions, and international voluntary groups, committed to debate and
struggle over the unfolding direction of the economic and political organization of the
world, is pervasive.”39
Global civil society (GCS) has been defined as “the realm of non-coercive
collective action around shared interests and values that operates beyond the boundaries
of nation states”;40 and as a “vast, interconnected, and multi-layered social space that
comprises many hundreds of thousands of self-directing or nongovernmental institutions
Anheier et al. argue that part of the attraction of both “civil society” and “global civil society” is that the
lack of a consensual definition allows different people to define them in different ways. See Anheier,
Glasius, and Kaldor, 2001:13-17.
39
Kenny and Germain, 2005:2.
40
Anheier, Glasius, and Kaldor, eds., 2005:v.
38
26
and ways of life… now found on virtually every part of the earth’s surface.”41 It is, for
these authors, part of a historically unprecedented situation, something to be encouraged
and promoted because it will lead the way to a more democratic form of globalization
based on a shared global consciousness.
The main criticisms of the “global civil society” literature have focused on its
strong normative and strategic assumptions, as well as on the lack of empirical support
for its claims. These criticisms vary from realist and neorealists’ questioning of whether
non-state actors are relevant at all,42 to more “sympathetic” criticism from a broad range
of different theoretical approaches. The latter group of critics agrees on the basic fact that
non-state actors have become increasingly relevant in world politics, but disagree on
various arguments associated with the proposition that a global civil society has emerged,
or is emerging. This sympathetic criticism targets the definition of the boundaries of
global civil society;43 the autonomous relationship between global civil society and
nation-states;44 the positive links between global civil society, globalization and
41
Keane, 2001:23-4.
For example, Anderson and Rieff, in their analysis of the potential impacts of NGOs in a post 9/11 world,
argued that, “when the stakes are really high”, what matters “is the legitimacy that comes from the capitals
of important nation states. The legitimacy of the ‘world’s peoples’, at least as conveyed by global civil
society, is merely icing on that cake, dispensable as and when necessary” (Anderson and Rieff, 2005:36).
43
Critics argue that global civil society advocates often reduce it to “the world populated by progressive
NGOs” (Kenny and Germain, 2005; see also Massicotte, 2003), which excludes, for example, actors such
as al Qaeda, defined as a “transnational uncivil actor” (Falk, 2005, emphasis in the original).
44
The definition of global civil society as an arena that is autonomous from states has been criticized most
forcefully from Marxist and neo-Gramscian perspectives (for example, see Colás, 2002; Massicotte, 2003;
Sassoon, 2005). These understand civil society and the state as two spheres in continual interaction,
mutually shaping each other (see also Chandhoke, 2002). Another source of criticism has argued that global
civil society theorists have exaggerated the extent to which nation-states have lost authority (for example,
see Halperin and Laxer, 2003). Falk has recognized that promoters of global civil society have exhibited a
tendency to proclaim prematurely the death of the state, thereby confusing their wishes and the reality of
international relations (Falk, 2005:70-1).
42
27
democracy;45 and the optimistic evaluation of the impacts of global civil society on
global governance.46
I build on the contributions of this set of sympathetic critics, and complement
them by focusing on a relatively less discussed aspect of the global civil society
approach: the strong assumptions made with respect to the changes in the spatial
configuration of collective action. The questions I focus on are: What is global about
global civil society?, and How does it relate to collective action at the local, national, and
regional levels?
2.1.1 The “territorial trap” inverted
According to its proponents, global civil society is “global” to the extent that it
lacks geographical loyalties and represents and sponsors universal ideals. As Lipschutz
has defined it, it is a domain that crosses territorial boundaries “as though they were not
there.”47 This post territorial view of action is associated with an ideational revolution,
conceptualized as the emergence of a “cosmopolitan vision”,48 of a “world civic
45
Criticism has focused on the supposedly positive correlation between the emergence of global civil
society, globalization, and democratization (for such an argument, see Kaldor, Anheier, and Glasius, 2005,
esp. p. 16). Various authors have criticized the benign view of GCS presented, pointing out the hierarchical
and conflictual relations within civil society; the problems of representation and accountability; the
domination of Northern actors in many so-called global coalitions; the concentration of activities in some
organizations (mostly those located in larger cities); and the difficulties of engaging grassroots participation
at the global level (see, for example, Munck, 2002, Halperin and Laxer, 2003, Sundstrom, 2003, Ayres,
2003).
46
While accepting the increasing importance of non-state actors in world politics, critics have argued that
global civil society advocates greatly exaggerate its positive impacts on global governance. Recent research
has introduced nuances to this positive relationship. For example, Lipschutz, one of the first to argue that a
GCS was emerging, has become skeptical of the real capacity of organizations that are a part of it to enact
structural change (see Lipschutz, 1992, Lipschutz, 2005).
47
Lipschutz, 2000:390.
48
See Falk, 2000.
28
politics”,49 or of a “sphere of shared global consciousness.”50 Global civil society is, thus,
part of a broader “cosmopolitan project”51 with which these authors associate themselves.
The same authors admit, however, that the available empirical data does not show “a
significant shift in national versus global identities across the board; rather, they point to
a slower and more diverse process that varies between as well as within countries.”52 I
will go further and argue that at least a part of the actors that make up the “global civil
society” do not see the possibility of its emergence as a necessarily positive trend. Some
wish to “deglobalize”53 the world, while others, on the contrary, want further
globalization, at least in specific arenas and issue-areas (this is discussed more
extensively in chapter 6).
Most importantly, the GCS proposition becomes less useful to understand
collective action beyond borders to the extent that it cancels out the national level of
collective action. This move relates to the assumption, in cosmopolitan global civil
society literature, that only nation-states invoke sovereignty claims, in part because those
who adhere to the “cosmopolitan project” view the erosion of sovereignty as a positive
process.54 Part of the debate has been held on strategic grounds: where is mobilization
against the negative impacts of globalization likely to be most effective? On the one
hand, cosmopolitan GCS proponents argue that the global and the subnational levels are
49
See Wapner, 1995.
See Anheier, Glasius, and Kaldor, eds., 2005:v.
51
Kaldor, 2000.
52
Kaldor, Anheier, and Glasius, 2005:10.
53
See, for example, the case for “deglobalization” made by the founding director of Focus on the Global
South, in: Bello, 2002.
54
See, for example, Kaldor, Anheier, and Glasius, 2005, esp. pp. 16 and 17.
50
29
the most effective, given the weakening of the authority and power of national states.55 In
this perspective, national sovereignty is associated with authoritarian regimes, and thus,
even if GCS actors were to focus on national sovereign claims, this would be seen as a
mistake.56 Similarly, Falk has argued that “those that emphasize global civil society are
usually motivated by a cosmopolitan vision of global democracy, while those who refrain
from employing such terminology are usually adherents of a realist geopolitics that is
dismissive of democratization situated beyond the borders of the state…”57
On the other hand, critics argue that states still hold considerable power, and thus
actions at the national and local levels are still the means of resistance most likely to
succeed.58 However, by structuring the debate in either/or terms, both sides tend to ignore
the current dilemmas of coordination actors face – how to travel across all these levels –
and the challenge scholars face – how to analyze the simultaneity of collective action at
different territorial levels.
In fact, it is not necessary to adhere to Realist geopolitics to admit that many
actors (that fall within even the narrowest definitions of global civil society) are not
willing to declare the end of the era of sovereign nation-states. In fact, actors in the North
as well as in the South may feel that they defend their country’s sovereignty more and
better than their own governments, as will be shown in the following chapters (especially
55
Idem.
For example, Karldor et al. argue that “The price that was paid for national sovereignty was the existence
of repressive undemocratic governments” and “to the extent that civil society remains wedded to
oldfashioned notions of sovereignty, the end result may not be democracy but continuing insecurity.”
Idem:16.
57
Falk, 2005:70.
58
For example, see Halperin and Laxer, 2003, Akça, 2003.
56
30
chapter 6).59 Their ultimate goal is to strengthen national states, not to weaken them.
Although Kaldor et al. admit the existence of actors that defend nation states, these are
relegated to the negative categories of “rejectionists” or “regressives”, defined outside of
the realm of global civil society.60 As Friedman, Hochstetler and Clark have recognized,
the role of non-state actors as potential legitimators of sovereign claims “is not yet well
documented or theorized.”61
The cosmopolitan move away from the national sphere is also part of a broader
rupture with what has been called “methodological nationalism.”62 According to Ulrich
Beck, methodological nationalism “equates societies with nation-states societies and sees
states and their governments as the cornerstones of social science analysis. … thus
presupposing that social action occurs primarily within, and secondarily across, these
divisions.”63 However, Beck makes two important additional arguments. First, the author
specifies that the critique of methodological nationalism should not be interpreted as an
endorsement of the thesis of the end of the nation-state. Secondly, he proposes a
distinction between methodological nationalism and “normative nationalism”, which is
Hallperin and Laxer argue that critics of what they call “globalism” from the North tend to view its
antidote as global civil society, while critics from the South tend to see the solution as greater sovereignty,
not global civil society (2003, esp. p. 3). In fact, as this dissertation shows, these different reactions to the
negative effects of globalization span the North-South divide.
60
Kaldor, Anheier, and Glasius, 2005:3-4.
61
Friedman, Hochstetler, and Clark, 2005:22.
62
The term was coined by H. Martins (see Martins, 1974). Other precedents of moving away from
“methodological nationalism” in the social sciences can be found in the Marxist tradition of political
economy studies, in the world systems literature, as well as in the dependency and developmentalism
literatures that emerged in Latin America from the 1950s onwards, all of which assumed the need to break
away from the ahistorical notion of national societies as self-contained structures. More recently and from a
different perspective, liberal institutionalists and postmodernists in international relations theories also
contributed to the critique of sharp domestic/international separations within a broad debate about the levelof-analysis problem in international relations. See, for example, Nye and Keohane, 1971; Walker, 1994;
and Ashley and Walker 1990.
63
Beck, 2003:45.
59
31
understood as the position that every nation has the right to determine itself within the
frame of its cultural distinctiveness.64 The global civil society literature, however, has not
provided the tools to go beyond methodological nationalism while at the same time
acknowledging the endurance of nation-states and taking seriously the normative
nationalist position held by many civil society actors.
The transnational campaign against the Multilateral Agreement on Investment
(MAI), usually presented as a prime example of the emergence and power of global civil
society, nicely illustrates the importance of the embeddedness of civil society actors in
national contexts. In fact, the defense of national sovereignty was at the core of the
arguments against the MAI presented by opposing actors. During the campaign, they
justified their resistance to the agreement by arguing that “the intention of the MAI is not
to regulate investments but to regulate governments,” and that “the MAI did not respect
the rights of countries… including their need to democratically control investment into
their economies.”65 Furthermore, this sovereignty framing was adapted to each country’s
reality. When anti-MAI Canadian activists Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke published
their book on the agreement in the U.S., they changed the subtitle from “the threat to
Canadian sovereignty” to “the threat to American freedom”; similarly, when U.S. and
Canadian activists visited Germany, “national sovereignty” was replaced by “popular
sovereignty” in their speeches.66
The anti-MAI campaign is not an isolated example, as will be seen later in this
dissertation, with similar stories about domestic mobilizations against trade agreements.
64
Idem.
Alternate Forum for Research in Mindanao et al., 1997.
66
Laxer, 2003:176 and 182.
65
32
In fact, the MAI and trade stories overlap, as happens with many transnational
campaigns. In Canada, the strength of the mobilization against the agreement and the
rapidity with which it spread is in part because Canadians were under the impact of the
threat by Ethyl Corporation to use the North American Free Trade Agreement’s
investment regulations against the country.67 The fact that a U.S. corporation obligated
the Canadian government to pay a fine because of domestic restrictions on gasoline
additives that were characterized as being harmful to human health provided a very clear
example of the possibility that the MAI would prevail over domestic environmental and
health regulations. The story of this campaign is thus not the story of a successful
emerging global civil society, but of the successful establishment of a link in different
countries crossing the subnational, national and global levels, built on a flexible framing
of the problem of sovereignty.
In conclusion, this dissertation accepts the critique of methodological nationalism
as proposed by Ulrich Beck, without substituting it for methodological cosmopolitanism
and without embracing the normative project of a global civil society. The main reason
for this rejection is that the GCS literature runs the risk of falling into an inverted version
of “the territorial trap.” John Agnew coined this phrase in his critique of the ontological
presumption in international relations theories that social, economic and political life are
contained within the territorial boundaries of states in contradistinction to processes
going on outside state boundaries: “Politics, in the sense of the pursuit of justice and
virtue, could exist only within territorial boundaries. Outside is danger, realpolitik, and
67
Idem:179.
33
the use of force.”68 The cosmopolitan global civil society literature, on the other hand,
tends to think in terms of the “outside”, or the global level, as the privileged space for
politics in the sense proposed by Agnew. As Milner has argued, the refusal to take into
account nationally organized politics relegates “most people, who operate within the
language, vocabulary and identity of the nation, and who understand and work for change
through the institutions of the nation-state, to the sidelines of history.”69 Less holistic
approaches to cross-border action are more useful to overcoming both the territorial trap
and its inverted version. These are to be found in the transnational relations literature.
2.2 Transnational Approaches
Scholars uncomfortable with grand narratives, such as the one on global civil
society, have preferred to speak of different kinds of “transnational relations” when
studying nonstate action across national borders. Most have also avoided exporting the
concept of “civil society”, and thus have not participated in the normative debate about
which actors are “civil” and which ones are “uncivil.” Still, this literature shares with the
GCS proponents the challenges of linking an umbrella-like concept – in this case, the
“transnational” – with the many different kinds of nonstate action beyond national
borders, 70 and of clarifying its relationship to domestic collective action.
68
Agnew, 1994:62.
Milner, 2003:207.
70
Anheier et al. argue that transnationalism understates the phenomenon of global collective action,
because “all one needs to be transnational is a single border-crossing” (Anheier, Glasius, and Kaldor,
2001:16). Also, Pries argues that the terms transnationalism and transnationalization are “in danger of
becoming fashionable catch phrases that fail to provide a tangible, additional power of explanation” (Pries,
2005:168).
69
34
“Transnationalism” was a term used in the 1960s by Raymond Aron, James
Rosenau and other international relations theorists to distinguish between the
relationships among states – international relations proper – and relationships among
other types of actors. Keohane and Nye were the ones who provided the most well known
early definition in 1971, in which transnational relations were defined as encompassing
all connections not strictly governmental: “contacts, coalitions, and interactions across
state boundaries that are not controlled by the central foreign policy organs of
governments.”71 Theoretically, the goal was to move beyond neorealists’ state-centric
framework, and to question the sharp boundaries dividing domestic and systemic levels
in international relations studies. Although many kinds of nongovernmental actors were
considered to be transnational actors, in this early literature particular emphasis was put
on the increasing relevance of multinational corporations.
In the last thirty years, research on transnationalism has broadened its empirical
and theoretical focus, becoming a vast, highly fragmented, and heterogeneous research
arena. It incorporated the role of other nonstate actors, such as NGOs, social movements,
and immigrants, and new research programs were created, spanning from transnational
cultural studies to transnational crime. This dissertation does not review the whole
transnationalism literature. It builds on the specific contributions of scholars who have
rejected “the ontological disjunction between what goes on inside and what goes on
outside the modern state”,72 without erasing all spatial boundaries at the same time. The
point of departure is the fact that, as Munck has argued, actors often “strategize and
71
72
Nye and Keohane, 1971:331.
Walker, 1994:670.
35
operate simultaneously on the local and global levels, and ‘in between’, refusing any
debilitating binary oppositions.”73
2.2.1 Collective Action across Spaces
In trying to understand the intertwining processes between the local and the global
level, some of the main research topics of transnational relations scholars have been: the
relationships between domestic and global opportunity structures and the tactics deployed
by actors;74 the new organizations created to coordinate action across levels;75 changes in
the repertoires of contention;76 the emergence of new forms of citizenship;77 and the
impacts of global issues on locally-rooted organizations.78
73
Munck, 2002:359.
One of the first systematic contributions to understanding links created among local actors from different
countries and the relationship between domestic and transnational political opportunities was the widelyquoted “boomerang pattern”, defined by Keck and Sikkink as a tactic used by domestic actors who hope to
achieve their goals by bypassing domestic channels and directly contacting international allies to bring
pressure from the outside. This tactic is mostly used when channels between the state and domestic actors
are blocked, and are available to various issues as long as their claims resonate internationally (Keck and
Sikkink, 1998:12-13). The boomerang pattern was later extended into a more sophisticated “spiral model”
(Risse and Sikkink, 1999). See also the analyses of how national and local opportunity structures influence
the strategies of transnational movements, in Tarrow and Porta, 2005 and Sikkink, 2005.
75
There is no consensus on how to name the different forms of transnational collective action. A wellknown typology differentiates them according to density of ties among organizations, from the weakest,
defined as transnational networks, to transnational coalitions, and, finally, to transnational social movement
organizations. See Fox, 2002:352.
76
The literature has focused on the interaction of local and transnational actors with international
institutions (see, for example, Fox and Brown, eds., 1998, O'Brien et al., 2000), on the analysis of
international protest events (a small sample of recent work includes Adler and Mittelman, 2004, Bédoyan,
Aelst, and Walgrave, 2004; della Porta, 2005, Kolb, 2005), and the organization of transnational campaigns
(see, for example, Keck and Sikkink, 1998).
77
There is an ample literature on this topic. See, for example, Ong’s proposal to speak of “flexible
citizenship” (Ong, 1999).
78
In a recently published book (della Porta and Tarrow, eds., 2005), three contributions deal directly with
this research question: see the comparative study about the impacts of globalization issues in organizations
located in Glasgow and Bristol (Diani, 2005a); the analysis of the impacts of transnational protest in the
organizing of ATTAC Germany (Kolb, 2005); and the study about the relationship between the
development of the global and U.S. environmental movements (Johnson and McCarthy, 2005).
74
36
In sum, there has been a sustained effort in this literature to understand how
“diffusion” 79 (of ideas, information, and/or resources) occurs in a context of transnational
collective action, and how actors “domesticate” international grievances and issues. This
process of “domestication” describes the fact that actors may face international issues
from a national – or local – perspective. Studies of the transnationalization of collective
action at the European Community level, where one would expect high levels of
transnationalization because of the integration process, have found impressive amounts of
“internalization”, and correspondingly limited examples of EU-level mobilizations.80
This is an important insight, because it shows how actors may become transnationalized,
in the sense of exchanging information across borders, of mobilizing and presenting
demands with respect to a transnational issue, while choosing to act within national
borders. Other scholars have also highlighted the fact that transnational collective action
is carried out by actors that are embedded in domestic organizations and networks. From
this perspective, cross-national variation may be explained at least in part by the
embeddedness of actors in different kinds of national networks.81
Less attention, however, has been paid to the condition of simultaneity, whereby
actors make themselves present in more than one spatial level at the same time. This is a
79
In his case study about the diffusion of the Gandhian nonviolent repertoire to the American civil rights
movement, Chabot criticizes linear and mechanicist versions of diffusion, and underscores the uncertainty
of diffusion results when studying collective action (see Chabot, 2002). Tarrow has proposed a
differentiation between three types of diffusion: relational diffusion, which transfers information among
established lines of interaction; nonrelational diffusion, which occurs among people with few or no social
ties, as for example through mass media or the internet; and mediated diffusion, which occurs through
brokers that have access to otherwise unconnected sites. Most often, these types of diffusion overlap (see
Tarrow, 2005).
80
See Imig and Tarrow, eds., 2001, Rootes, 2005. See also Fox’s analysis of the relationships between
Mexican and U.S. civil society organizations, which show limited levels of transnationalization and the
tendency of even the most active actors to “think locally to act binationally” (Fox, 2002:395).
81
See, for example, Giugni, Blandler, and Eggert, 2006, esp. pp. 11-13.
37
gap that has been addressed most directly by the turn to transnationalism in migration
studies, a literature that has not yet been fully integrated in the transnational collective
action debates. Because of the need for analytical tools to understand how migrants
increasingly participate in activities in their home and host-states at the same time,
transnationalist migrant scholars have proposed the notions of “transmigrants” and “long
distance nationalism.” Transmigrants “are immigrants who live their lives across national
borders, participating in the daily life and political processes of two or more nationstates.”82 Similarly, long distance nationalism “links together people living in various
geographic locations and motivates them to action in relationship to an ancestral territory
and its government… the concept of a people comprising a citizenry, a sovereign, a
nation and a group of solidarity remains salient, but these different embodiments are not
thought of as congruent and territorially bounded.”83
However, while this literature helps in advancing our understanding about
simultaneity, the literature on transnational relations shows that simultaneity cannot be
taken for granted, in the sense that is not necessarily sustainable through time. A greater
dialogue with other transnationalist literatures would help the transnational migration
literature better understand the similarities and differences with respect to the specific
form of transnational experiences they are analyzing.
This relates to a second gap in the transnational collective action literature. Most
empirical analysis have focused on case studies of transnational campaigns or, more
recently, protest events. While this literature has taught us much of what we know about
82
83
Schiller, 1997:158.
Wimmer and Schiller, 2002:323.
38
the dynamics of transnational collective action, its short-term approach has led to an
overly cohesive view of mobilizations. This literature does incorporate internal tensions
and conflicts more extensively than the global civil society one, but it also tends to
privilege the conflicts between activists and their targets rather than the internal tensions
among activists. Thus, recent contributions argue that actors with “flexible” and “tolerant
identities”, capable of putting aside their specific identities, have become increasingly
important in transnational collective action.84 For example, based on a research of
participants in the European Social Forum, della Porta sees a shift from single-movement
identity to multiple and “tolerant identities”, characterized “by inclusiveness and positive
emphasis upon diversity and cross-fertilization, with limited identification.”85 We still do
not know enough, however, about how actors engage in transnational collective action
while maintaining their own identities, and how goals, tactics, and interpretations of
actors change through time as a result of their interaction with actors from other sectoral
domains and countries. Furthermore, only recently have authors begun to pay greater
attention to how participation in different protest events, campaigns, and coalitions may
be linked and overlap.86
I propose that transnational collective action refers to coordinated actions led by
nonstate groups and/or organizations, which may encompass national arenas and always
cross national boundaries, mobilized around common goals and targets. This definition
relates to a broader universe of transnational collective action than most. For example, it
differs from the one proposed by della Porta and Tarrow, who use the term “to indicate
84
See, for example, della Porta, 2005; Giugni, Blandler, and Eggert, 2006 and Bennett, 2005.
della Porta, 2005: 1986.
86
See, for example, Diani, 2005b.
85
39
coordinated international campaigns on the part of networks of activists against
international actors, other states, or international institutions,”87 thus excluding other
forms of transnational collective action, such as transnational action oriented towards
changing domestic institutions and policies. It also differs from the definition of
transnationalism proposed by Portes, Guarnizo and Landolt, who see it in terms of
regular and sustained cross-border activities,88 thereby excluding less structured forms of
interaction. As understood in this dissertation, transnational collective action is not
necessarily sustained through time at all spatial levels. In fact, most transnational
collective action will not breed institutionalized or sustained linkages, but will instead be
made up of contingent and temporary connections among actors.
Building on this definition of transnational collective action and on the
identification of gaps in the literature that was presented, I propose an analytical
framework based on the notions of “pathways to transnationality”, “political fields of
action”, “coalition-building modes”, and brokerage roles. These supplement the
conceptual tools commonly employed to analyze transnational collective action,
specifying and enriching our understanding of this phenomenon.
2.3 Pathways to Transnationality
What will the future of transnational collective action look like? There is no
consensual answer to this question. Some scholars see a continuing tendency towards the
87
88
della Porta and Tarrow, 2005:7.
Portes, Guarnizo, and Landolt, 1999.
40
creation of transnational social movement organizations (TSMOs). In this perspective, we
are living a historical rupture with traditional patterns of collective action, similar to the
one that led to the creation of national social movement organizations during the
formation of nation-states.89 As seen above, other scholars highlight the increasingly
important role of a stratum of people engaged in both domestic and transnational
activities, with “multiple belongings and flexible identities.”90 For example, Bennett
argues that a first era of transnational activism was characterized by the dominance of
NGO-centered issue networks organizing campaigns with limited goals, while the second
(current era) is characterized by the predominance of direct activism, the creation of
dense networks of weak ties with multiple goals, and, again, “flexible identities.”91
These two different views of the future of transnational collective action have in
common an optimistic approach to a new era. While one focuses on more
institutionalized forms of organization, the other focuses on more diffuse and
individualized patterns of participation; while one focuses on the transnational level, the
other focuses on action across levels. The problem is that the empirical information
available can be used to make a case for both scenarios. Data from the Yearbook of
International Associations show a consistent rise in the number of TSMOs in the recent
decades, although this growth has slowed in the last few years.92 On the other hand, data
from recent surveys with participants in international protest events show the
heterogeneity of participants in terms of race, gender, interests, and generations, and the
89
See Smith, 2005.
See Tarrow and Porta, 2005.
91
See Bennett, 2005.
92
See Smith, 2005.
90
41
fact that they cherish diversity, inclusiveness, and lack of hierarchical organizational
forms as positive features.93
In spite of a growing awareness of the expanding universe of transnational
collective action, we still lack the vocabulary to speak about the “movements of
movements”, or “networks of networks” that are emerging, and that combine these more
and less structured forms of transnational collective action. As this dissertation shows,
actors themselves do not have clear blueprints as to which organizational forms should be
adopted, nor do they have clear and unchanging visions of what the contents of their
claims should be. I propose that the notion of pathways to transnationality helps in
understanding and describing this variation and the uncertainty that surrounds the choices
made by actors.
The expression “pathways to transnationality” refers to the routes taken by actors
to participate in debates, actions, and processes that go beyond national borders. The
word “pathways” was chosen to convey the idea that actors can arrive at similar places by
taking different routes. It is possible to think about these movements in terms of the
variety of actors’ goals and strategies along three interrelated dimensions: breadth – how
narrow or broad actors’ networks of allies are, and how narrow or broadly agendas are
defined; location – the level (domestic or international) privileged by actors; and
commitment – the intermittent or sustained presence of actors over time. Examples of
these different pathways to transnationality can be provided by focusing on two key
activities in transnational collective action: the search for coalitions, or organizational
93
See, for example, della Porta, 2005.
42
pathways, and the search for diagnosis of and alternatives to policies and/or ideas being
challenged, or ideational pathways.
In terms of organizational pathways, the breadth dimension captures the range of
alliances that actors participate in; more specifically, while some actors engage in
transnational collective action as part of issue or goal-specific groups, others build
coalitions with allies from a broad range of issue areas. Location, in turn, relates to the
extent to which actors privilege their participation in transnational organizations, in
domestic coalitions, or in both. Finally, commitment refers to the discontinuous or
sustained participation of actors in transnational coalition building efforts. It is possible
that actors engage in transnational collective action while privileging the domestic level;
that they sustain transnational relationships in short-term campaigns or protests, without
necessarily creating coalitions or becoming transnational social movements; or that actors
participate in the transnational arena indirectly, through various forms of national-level
mediation. As Sikkink has argued, while many actors privilege domestic political change,
they can maintain transnational activism as a complementary and compensatory option.94
In terms of ideational pathways, the breadth dimension captures the willingness or
the resistance of actors to expand their agendas and demands so as to include other
actors’ grievances. The location dimension refers to the targets of those claims – whether
they are domestic or foreign actors, or perhaps both – as well as to the contents of those
claims – whether they are more particularistic, designed to achieve political change at the
national level, or universal, designed to impact agendas beyond national boundaries.
94
See Sikkink, 2005: 165.
43
Finally, commitment refers to actors’ propensity to invest resources in generating a
common program at the transnational level.
These pathways constitute possible choices that are available to actors, but how
organizations decide the breadth, location, and level of commitment of its actions is
dependant on the specific issue and the context. Furthermore, actors may use different
pathways at the same time. Thus, many of the civil society organizations that are the
object of study in this dissertation use different pathways to transnationality depending on
the issue at hand. For example, U.S. environmental organizations have tended to have a
discontinuous presence in transnational trade coalitions and debates, but a much more
sustained one in environmental coalitions. In the case of labor, a few labor federations
have shown a high degree of commitment to building broad and sustained coalitions, but
that is not generalizable to all labor organizations in the Americas.
Given a similar context, variation in pathways to transnationality depends mainly
on four interrelated factors: the availability of previous contacts (a function of actors’
embeddedness in various networks, domestic and transnational); the goals, beliefs, and
strategies they have in that specific context; the availability of resources (financial and
human); and how they perceive the effectiveness of each pathway (which, in turn, is a
function of the way actors perceive domestic and international opportunity structures).
These choices are not permanent ones, though; they vary as the context changes, or as
their goals, strategies, beliefs, and/or embeddedness in networks change. Contrary to
what is assumed by most rational-choice models of collective action, choices are
“imagined, evaluated, and contingently reconstructed by actors in ongoing dialogue with
44
unfolding situations.”95 More specifically, choices can change as a result of lessons
learned, and as a result of the negotiated interaction with other actors, through three main
types of mechanisms:
a) Extension or amplification: actors broaden their agendas by adding grievances of other
actors. It implies the co-existence of issues and tactics, but not necessarily a construction
of consensus or a transformation of previous interests. It allows actors to maintain their
previous agenda and priorities while doing “multiple targeting”,96 that is, aiming at
different audiences and adversaries at the same time.
b) Suppression: actors erase or downplay certain topics, goals or tactics that are perceived
as particularistic and/or minoritarian: “we agree to disagree” is the phrase that best
summarizes this mechanism.
c) Transformation: actors change the ways in which they perceive their agendas, goals
and tactics, through the incorporation of new visions that were not present for any of
them before, and/or by conflating different agendas and goals. Conflation implies a
process of reaching a minimum common denominator: the agreement that is feasible at a
specific time-space juncture.
These mechanisms build upon the typology of frame alignment processes
proposed by Snow and his colleagues in 1986, which differentiated among frame
bridging, amplification, extension, and transformation. Frame alignment is defined as
“the linkage of individual and social movement organizations’ interpretive orientation,
such that some set of individual interests, values and beliefs and social movement
95
96
Emirbayer and Mische, 1998: 966.
Mische, 2003: 272.
45
organizations’ activities, goals and ideology are congruent and complementary.”97 The
typology proposed above is also an outcome of efforts of a group of people to fashion
shared understandings of the world; however, the results of extension, suppression and
transformation are not necessarily “congruent” and “complementary.” These negotiated
changes do not cancel out conflicts, the asymmetries of power among actors, nor do they
cancel out all differences in all relational contexts. Organizations still belong to multiple
networks at different spatial sites and social contexts, and these multiple ties do not
necessarily reinforce each other; sometimes they are contradictory pressures.
The results have been agreements that are inherently provisional and unstable, and
often ambiguous, varying depending on the specific context. Particularisms coexist –
however uneasily – with broad compromises, and nonnegotiable issues are dealt with in
different ways, but they persist. Furthermore, what for some are problems that need to be
overcome, for others are opportunities to achieve their goals. For example, some actors
see the ambiguities derived from the lack of consistency in common agreements as a
strategic tool that should be nurtured and used in their favor, and not as a problem that
needs to be overcome.98 Others, however, have attempted to minimize consistency
problems by investing in the creation of new answers to the old problems of coordination
and representation.
In this respect, the typology proposed is closer to the one developed by Ann
Mische, who defined these mechanisms “as means by which actors jockey over the
multiple dimensions of their memberships, identities, and projects in order to build
97
Snow et al., 1986: 464.
For example, the “monkeywrenching” tactics, which applies different discourses and tactics at different
sites, oriented towards the goal of stopping trade negotiations (see chapter 6).
98
46
relations with other actors.”99 The difference is that whereas Mische focuses her attention
on what she calls “conversational mechanisms”, in this dissertation these mechanisms are
seen in a broader perspective, as constitutive of the ideational and organizational
pathways to transnationality taken by actors. Thus, the mechanisms can be seen in action
through the analysis of discourses, but also through their coalition building strategies, the
tactics implemented, and the ways in which they build ties with other actors in the
political field of trade.
2.3.1 Political Fields of Action
The notion of “field” in the social sciences is most commonly associated with
Bourdieu’s theoretical framework. Bourdieu understands societies as the structure of the
distribution of the forms of power, which vary according to specific places and moments.
In order to emphasize the dynamic characteristic of this structure, he described it as a
field, “that is, both as a field of forces, whose necessity is imposed on agents who are
engaged in it, and as a field of struggles within which agents confront each other.”100 In
his conception, fields are the result of society’s progressive differentiation, they are
autonomous, have their own laws, and come in very different shapes.101
Recently, other authors have taken the notion of field to the transnational relations
literature. Levitt and Glick Schiller, among others, have proposed a “transnational social
99
Mische, 2003: 269.
Bourdieu, 1998:32.
101
Bourdieu talks about broad fields, such as the economic fields, and about much more specific ones, such
as the field of construction companies, the field of producers of airlines, the family, and so on. Although
Bourdieu spoke mainly of fields within national boundaries, he also described what he saw as the
emergence of a global economic field, formed by a set of global subfields, seen by him as structurally
subordinated to the global financial field. See Bourdieu, 2005:229.
100
47
field approach” within migration studies. Transnational social fields are defined broadly
as “a set of multiple interlocking networks of social relationships through which ideas,
practices, and resources are unequally exchanged, organized, and transformed… Social
fields are multidimensional, encompassing structured interactions of differing forms,
depth, and breadth that are differentiated in social theory by the terms organization,
institution, and social movement.”102Similarly, Kay has proposed to understand the
relationships created among labor unions during the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) negotiations as the construction of a transnational political action
field, defined as “an arena that crosses national boundaries in which social actors and
their organizations frame issues, mobilize, and contest or advocate particular policies or
practices.”103
These definitions are still in need of better specification, however. As
conceptualized above, it is not clear where these fields come from, and how they change
through time. I propose to build on them and define transnational fields as political action
spaces that exist simultaneously at different territorial scales and that are the result of
the sustained construction over time of a concrete set of common practices, goals, and
beliefs among a given set of actors. This definition emphasizes the fact that a field of
action is a political project, as well as a political outcome. It does not simply exist out
there, independent of the actors that form them and their relationships. It is made up of
“situations where organized groups or actors gather and frame their actions vis-à-vis one
102
103
Levitt and Schiller, 2004:1009.
Kay, 2004:104.
48
another.”104 Thus, it does not have “laws”, as in Bourdieu’s fields, but negotiated
arrangements that are continuously revised.
This notion of transnational fields of action is an intermediate category useful to
describe interactions among actors, situated between the ties that create a permanent
“global civil society” and the more short-lived ones that generate transnational campaigns
or protests. It is not a form of organization, but a space of encounters. Its boundaries are
flexible and its internal structure dynamic, because, following Mische and Pattison, “the
structure of the field is determined by crosscutting sets of projects that are invoked and
woven together over time amidst the ambiguities of local episodes of political
interaction.”105
It is not assumed that all transnational collective action can be subsumed within
the notion of fields of action. A transnational field of action has been created when the
following prerequisites are present:
a) There is sustained interaction among different types of actors from more than two
countries, with various levels of density in the interaction within sub-groups;
b) Actors share key broad and provisional goals, strategies, and beliefs, which are the
result of collective (and constant) deliberation and learning, and which create a general
sense of belonging to a common political project;
c) Different pathways to transnationality and forms of collaboration among actors coexist;
104
Fligstein, 2001:108.
Mische and Pattison, 2000:167. Projects are defined by these authors as “future-oriented narratives of
proposed interventions by groups or collectivities” (Idem).
105
49
d) Domestic and transnational activities overlap, and are not necessarily coherently
integrated (sometimes complementing and sometimes contradicting each other); and
e) There are rules that enable communication and varying levels of coordination.
2.3.2 Social Networks and Coalition Building Modes
Whether transnational collective action has a short-term span or is part of more
sustained relationships, the challenge of coordination among actors is a crucial one. In
fact, this challenge becomes even more important to the extent that there is an increasing
density of transnational ties and a confusing overlap of cross-border contacts and
initiatives. It is arguably greater than the challenge of building domestic coalitions,
because of geographical and cultural distances. Thus, a lot of attention is paid in the
literature to questions such as: When is transnational coordination feasible? What kinds
of organizational repertoires are most efficient?
Whereas part of the literature on collective action at the domestic level has
highlighted the positive impacts of the transformation of social movements in social
movement organizations,106 the transnational collective action literature has celebrated
the supposedly informal, diffuse, and flexible types of ties created among actors. In
reality, however, actors are confronted with a basic dilemma, between the need to ensure
the continuity and efficiency of collective action by creating rules (and asymmetries), and
the pressure to maintain horizontal relationships and respect the autonomy and equality of
106
More specifically, resource mobilization theory has seen organization as an asset for social movements,
and has argued that more resources, such as the appointment of professional staff, render social movement
organizations more visible and more capable of reaching their goals. See, for example, McCarthy and Zald,
1977.
50
participants. This is not, of course, a new dilemma.107 There is a long debate about the
merits and dangers of building organizations out of collective action. For example, in his
classic 1911 study of the German Social Democratic Party, Robert Michels equated
organization with oligarchy, and linked routinized political engagement to political
moderation. During the years that followed the Soviet Revolution, Trotskysts and
Stalinists clashed in their views about the (transnational) organization of communists.
While the former harshly criticized the bureaucratization of the Communist Party in the
Soviet Union and pointed to the dangers of communist organizations elsewhere following
the same path, Stalin and his followers emphasized the need for hierarchy, centralization,
and organizational discipline to ensure the success of the revolution.
The current debate feeds on these older discussions, and relates to the more recent
disappointment with traditional forms of hierarchical organizing in leftist organizations –
both Trotskyst and Stalinist – and the rise of so-called “new social movements” in the
1970s.108 The same unresolved questions gain new contours in the broader environment
of transnational collective action. For global civil society advocates, the focus is on the
dilemmas faced by organizations “going global.” An important issue, in this respect, is
internal democracy – for example, how different regions of the world are represented
within a global organization – and what are the impacts of globalization in organizational
arrangements.109 Although these are certainly relevant questions, the creation of global
organizations is a small part of the whole universe of transnational organizational forms.
107
For an interesting review of these debates that go back to 19 th century feminism, see Clemens, 2005.
The literature on “new social movements” argued that part of the novelty of these forms of collective
action was the (commendable) rejection of hierarchical forms of organization and centralized decisionmaking structures. See, for example, Dalton, 1994, esp. pp. 8-9.
109
See, for example, the debate in Anheier and Themudo, 2002.
108
51
Most initiatives involve the creation of coalitions of organizations and social movements,
the majority of which remain domestically-rooted.
Authors interested in understanding the internal dynamics of such coalitions have
relied on the use of “networks” as a new organizational principle that summarizes the
perceived trend towards less hierarchical and more flexible forms of transnational
collective action. This use of the term “network” builds on the difference organizational
sociologists established among network, market and hierarchy forms of organization.110
In this conception, networks are distinct from centralized hierarchies because they are
more horizontal, they have no center, no chain of command or control, and therefore are
much more flexible and adaptable than hierarchical forms of organization. This is similar
to how activists have used the term, naming many coalitions as “networks” as a way of
emphasizing their horizontality, flexibility, and internal democracy. For these authors as
well as for these practitioners, network forms of social organization represent “a superior
social morphology for all human action.”111 “Networks” have also been used to
characterize the weakest levels of formal transnational ties, in contrast to stronger ones
that form social movements.112
This dissertation does not use the notion of networks as forms of organization, for
theoretical as well as for methodological reasons. The organizational and metaphorical
uses of “network” only bring confusion to the debate, because the concept is not clearly
defined, because in most accounts it aprioristically establishes a superior form of
110
See Powell, 1990.
Castells, 2000:15.
112
See, for example, the typology proposed by Fox that distinguishes networks from coalitions and
movements. Fox, 2002.
111
52
organization, and because it turns the attention away from power relations, asymmetries,
and conflicts among actors.113 To be clear: “social networks”, as used here, refers to the
tradition of social network analysis that has been developed in the social sciences in the
last fifty years.114 Within this academic field, social networks are defined as patterned ties
among actors (individuals, organizations, or even countries). As stated in the
introduction, they are the building blocks of collective action, in the sense that collective
action is only possible given interaction among actors, but, at the same time, collective
action creates new social networks. Thus, whether transnational social networks are
horizontal or hierarchical, and whether they are flexible or not, are empirical questions.
Social network analysis tools, combined with qualitative information, help in determining
whether actors have really been successful in their efforts to build more horizontal
collaboration structures. Such efforts are part of a still unresolved tension between more
or less centralized forms of organization, and more or less institutionalized coordination
structures. These two coalition building alternatives are called here the “affiliation
mode”, and the “campaign mode.”
Affiliation and Campaign Coalition Building Modes
Table 2.1 summarizes the main characteristics of each coalition building mode.
These in reality represent the two extreme poles of a continuum of experiences that vary
from less to more institutionalized patterns of cooperation among actors from different
113
This critique has been made more in general to the turn in the sociology of organizations away from the
Weberian model of bureaucratic organization and the analysis of relationships of domination, towards an
emphasis on flexible organizations that can constantly redefine their outputs and internal structures, which
ignores tensions among actors. See, for example, Melucci, 1996, esp. p. 251.
114
For an overview of the history of the development of social network analysis, see Freeman, 2004.
53
countries. Coalition building is understood as the process of creation of “political spaces
in which differently situated actors negotiate – formally or informally – the social,
cultural, and political meanings of their joint enterprise.”115
The “affiliation mode” represents the traditional form of sustained coalition
building. This type of coalition links local-level actors with others at the regional,
national and global levels through pre-defined rules of affiliation of members. The way
the labor movement is organized is perhaps the clearest example, linking local
organizations to national structures (“central” unions or confederations), to global-level
organizations such as the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, and the
International Trade Secretariats. The second coalition building mode is the “campaign
mode”, formed by a more loosely linked set of actors united by specific goals and
strategies. A terrorist organization such as Al Qaeda is closer to this mode than to an
affiliation-based one. This type of coalition has received much of the focus of attention of
the transnational collective action literature, and has been characterized by Tarrow as
having the potential to be “the wave of the transnational future” because “their focus on a
specific policy issue, their minimal institutionalization, their capacity to shift venues in
response to changing opportunities and threats, and their ability to make short-term
tactical alliances according to the current focus of interest make them among the most
fruitful strategies for transnational collaboration.”116
115
116
Keck and Sikkink, 1998: 3.
Tarrow, 2005: 179.
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TABLE 2.1
TRANSNATIONAL COALITION BUILDING MODES
Characteristics
Boundaries
Affiliation
Defined by clear rules of
inclusion of members.
Division of labor
Functional roles formally
defined.
Brokerage roles of
coordinator, mediator, and
representative.
Set of common medium or
long-term goals and
strategies.
Domestic-transnational
linkages
Claims
Campaign
Permeable and fuzzy,
without clear rules of
inclusion.
Mix of formal/informal
definitions of roles.
Brokerage roles are
informal.
Specific and short-term
goals, common strategies
and targets.
While most of transnational collective action is probably organized around
initiatives that are closer to the campaign mode, towards which pole transnational
coalitions should move is one of the questions actors continuously have to face. Consider,
for example, the current debates about the future of the World Social Forum. When a
group of organizers of the Forum presented a proposal to “move in the direction of a
more permanent articulation”,117 the reaction of one skeptical participant was: “Why
would the representatives of hierarchical organizations create a structure of coordinated
networks, that is to say, a horizontal and decentralized one? The project (…) resembles
an attempt to create a new International – hierarchical, centralized, aspiring to represent
the totality of the social movements…”118
However, even coalitions that are self-consciously created as nonhierarchical
structures have at least a minimum degree of coordination. The case of Peoples’ Global
117
118
CUT et al., 2002.
Adamovsky, 2006.
55
Action (PGA) provides another good example. It defines itself “as a tool for
coordination, not an organization. PGA has no members and does not have and will not
have a juridical personality. No organization or person represents PGA.”119
Nevertheless, this coalition relies on rotating organizational representatives, who work
together to coordinate activities and to share information, and on an informal group that
helps with various administrative tasks. Even this “light” coordination structure has been
a source of tensions among participants.120
In sum, all transnational coalition building modes have to face difficult dilemmas
in terms of legitimacy, accountability, and power asymmetries. Arguably, these represent
an even greater challenge than in purely domestic coalitions, given the fact that the
activities of “representatives” can be harder to control (due to geographical distances and
the multiplicity of existing coalitions), that participants come from different
organizational cultures, languages, and backgrounds, and that, as a consequence, more
brokerage roles are necessary.
Brokerage, Accountability, and Legitimacy
In order to analyze power asymmetries among actors, network theorists have paid
substantial attention to the positions occupied by these actors and their patterns of
interaction. Thus, whether actors are more central or more peripheral in the structure of
social relations is an important piece of information (measured by the amount of ties a
specific organization has to others, by how close they are to other important actors,
119
See PGA, 2006.
For an interesting analysis of PGA’s internal structure and the challenges the coalition has faced to
guarantee their “nonorganizationalism”, see Wood, 2005.
120
56
and/or by how easily information and resources can reach them). Furthermore, whether
actors play brokerage roles, connecting different actors or groups of actors, is also an
important indication of how power relations are structured.
Brokers are defined in social network analysis as those actors that are in a position
to connect groups that were previously disconnected.121 The understanding of brokerage
in this dissertation builds on the social network analysis literature, but moves from a
focus on positions to processes by which brokers arrive at and sustain these positions (or
not). Brokers are those actors that are capable of connecting organizations or groups that
are separated either because of lack of access or trust, or because of other kinds of
obstacles, such as the difficulties of establishing permanent direct contact with numerous
members of a coalition.122 Building on a modified version of Gould and Fernández’s
typology,123 we can differentiate among three types of roles that brokers may play in
transnational coalitions, which are not mutually exclusive: a) Facilitators, or
coordinators: they perform the function of facilitation of internal communications and
flows; b) Mediators: actors cross “structural holes”,124 mediating between previously
unconnected actors or sites, within the coalition and/or with outsiders; c) Representatives:
121
See, for example, Marsden, 1982:202 and Gould and Fernández, 1989.
A similar definition is used in Diani, 2003b.
123
Roger Gould and Roberto Fernández identified five types of social roles that brokers may play,
according to their different positions in a social network: the local broker or coordinator mediates among
members of one group; the cosmopolitan or itinerant broker also mediates among members of one group,
but he or she originates from outside the group; the gatekeeper regulates the flow of resources or
information to his/her group; the representative regulates the flow of resources or information from his/her
group; and the liaison mediates between members of different groups, but does not belong to any of them.
See Gould and Fernández, 1989.
124
“Structural holes” have been defined in the social network analysis literature as “disconnections or
nonequivalencies between players in the arena” (Burt, 1992: 1-2) and, more simply, as “the empty spaces in
social structure” (Burt, 2005: 16).
122
57
actors who can speak and act on behalf of others, within the various spaces of a coalition
and/or in the public sphere.
Brokers can, thus, help in overcoming problems of consistency, coordination and
representation. However, because brokers also tend to accumulate more power, due to
their privileged access to information, resources, and their enhanced visibility, their
position has to be permanently negotiated and cannot be taken for granted. The key word
here is legitimacy; brokers can only be effective if they are accepted by others as such.
This relational approach to brokerage implies that it can only be understood in the context
of interaction, and that brokers cannot sustain their positions out of their own will.
Brokerage is multi-level, meaning that it may happen within the domestic level,
between the domestic and the transnational level, or among organizations or sectors from
different countries. In the case of those coalitions that approximate the affiliation mode,
specific domestic organizations are usually in charge of playing the role of “coordinators”
with respect to other domestic-level participants, as well as the roles of “representatives”
and “mediators” with respect to their counterparts in other countries. As will be seen in
the following chapters, brokers continuously face legitimacy challenges as they exercise
these political roles. This is especially true in the case of those who have the power to
regulate the flow of information and resources to and from a group.
On the other hand, coalitions that approximate the campaign mode also have to
deal with similar problems. The lack of formal brokerage roles across spatial levels does
not cancel out problems of legitimacy and accountability, and thus of power asymmetries.
In fact, as Brown and Fox have observed, “"the problems of accountability may be
58
particularly challenging within loose and fluid coalitions”,125 because of the lack of
formal control channels. Thus, strategies to reduce or eliminate decision-making and
representation functions may lead to what Melucci called “concealed leadership”, when
decision-making becomes “the exclusive responsibility of whoever, for personal interest
or because of the normal division of tasks, has followed up the problem in question.”126
Finally, the tension between more and less hierarchical forms of organization
intersects with another old source of conflicts, those between membership organizations
and nonmembership ones. Coalitions among these types of organizations have become a
common feature of transnational collective action, both in the affiliation and, more
commonly, in the campaign mode. How these tensions are resolved or not, through the
mechanisms of extension, suppression and transformation, is an important part of the
analysis about collective action on trade in the following chapters.
Conclusion
The framework proposed implies not a methodological shift from “the dominant
national perspective to a cosmopolitan perspective”,127 but a shift from macro to meso
levels of analysis that seeks to illuminate the variety of pathways to transnationality and
the mechanisms of negotiation used by actors. It implies a parallel shift to a relational
approach, thereby focusing on the relationships established among actors as a means to
understanding collective action. What is most relevant and interesting theoretically lies
125
Brown and Fox, 1998:440.
Melucci, 1996:346.
127
Beck, 2003:45.
126
59
not at the local or global levels, but at the negotiated crossroads, the routes actors may
take, and how these change through time.
This framework does not assume that transnational collective action is a new
phenomenon in all its forms. Beyond the obvious point that it does not have to be new to
be interesting and worth studying, it is important to note that the current density of
transnational linkages is historically unprecedented. This important issue was discussed
briefly in this chapter, but my understanding of it is better clarified in chapter 3, where
the object of study of this dissertation is put in a historical context, and its precedents are
reviewed.
60
Chapter 3 – THE POLITICAL FIELD OF TRADE UNDER CONSTRUCTION
This chapter is about the creation of the transnational field of challengers to free
trade agreement negotiations in the Americas. It is about continuity and innovation in the
“politicization” of trade negotiations. It puts this process in a historical context, by
highlighting its precedents as well as the new features that collective action on trade has
acquired in the last thirty years.
The main argument of this chapter is that in the mid-1970s, a fundamentally new
period began in terms of the way trade negotiations are perceived and debated globally.
More specifically, collective action on trade is unprecedented in terms of the level of
transnational collaboration achieved and the amplitude of civil society actors involved.
This change happened in parallel to increasing levels of transnational collaboration
among civil society organizations, which have grown in number and in density across a
variety of issue areas, trade being one that intersects with many others. The transnational
collective action literature has recognized that this is not an entirely new phenomenon,
and has struggled to specify what the historical precursors of modern transnationalism
are, and what they can teach us about the impacts of current collective action.
Arguably, cross-border non-state collective action goes back as far as the creation
of national borders themselves, but more immediate historical precursors of advocacy
transnationalism include, as Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink have argued, campaigns
for women suffrage (between 1888 and 1928); the movement against foot binding in
China (from 1874 to 1911); and the abolitionist movement (from the end of the 18th
61
century throughout the 19th century).128 Other precedents worth mentioning are
transnational political and ideological movements such as those led by organizations of
anarchists, communists, and socialists, faith-based movements and organizations, and
labor collaboration that crossed national borders before and after Marx and Lenin’s
famous call for the workers of the world to unite.129
In order to differentiate current transnationalism from the past, Keck and Sikkink
call the advocacy networks they study “modern”;130 similarly, Sidney Tarrow speaks of a
“new transnational activism”,131 and Peter Waterman talks about “new
internationalisms.”132 This dissertation takes a similar approach, by highlighting the novel
aspects of transnational collective action on trade, without ignoring its precedents.
Although at least some of the actors studied in this dissertation come out of previous
transnational experiences, “they tend no longer to define themselves in terms of these
traditions or the organizations that carried them.”133
The first part of this chapter considers the contentious and multifaceted nature of
trade debates, reviewing briefly what is not new in collective action on trade. It analyzes
the process of creation of a global regime on trade and the reactions of civil society
organizations. The second part of the chapter takes this debate to the Americas. It puts the
new wave of regional trade agreements in a historical context by comparing them with
previous integration attempts in the region. The cases of the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) and of the Common Market of the Southern Cone (MERCOSUR)
128
See Keck and Sikkink, 1998, especially Chapter 2.
See Marx and Lenin, (1847) 1998.
130
Keck and Sikkink, 1998.
131
Tarrow, 2005.
132
Waterman, 1998.
133
Keck and Sikkink, 1998:15.
129
62
illustrate the variation in reactions of civil society organizations within and across
regions, the (limited) relevance of previous transnational ties, and the different dynamics
of social interaction that each negotiation process helped to generate.
3.1 The Contentious and Multifaceted Nature of Trade Politics
The trade policy arena has historically been a contentious one. This is clear
whether we think of the Boston Tea Party in the 18th century, the mobilizations against
the Corn Laws in Britain in the 19th century, or the debates about the Free Trade Area of
the Americas in the 21st century. It has also been a multifaceted arena. Given the potential
impacts of trade negotiations on productive systems, on the labor market, on prices, on
technology development, and so on, decisions about trade policies have always been a
part of broader economic and political debates about development models and the role of
the state. Although only recently actors and scholars have paid greater attention to the
interfaces between trade and other policy arenas, such as the environment, food safety, or
human rights, these had not been completely ignored in the past. Furthermore, because of
the fact that gains from trade are unevenly distributed and potentially have wide impacts,
the moral implications of trade have always been an inseparable part of trade debates.134
In her book about “the lost history of public protests to shape globalization,”
Susan Aaronson mentions several instances in the past in which trade was linked to “nontrade” issues. For example, the United States, Britain, Australia, and Canada banned
traded goods made by convict labor (in the case of the United States, as early as 1890); in
134
For a recent review of these debates and the proposal of a liberal theory of just trade, see Garcia, 2003.
63
1880 European countries banned meat from the United States, based on food safety
arguments; signatories to the Berne Convention of 1905 banned trade in phosphorus
matches; and the Fur Seal Treaty of 1911 regulated the hunting and importation of
seals.135
Governments acknowledged the link between international trade competitiveness
and labor rights officially in the 1919 Preamble to the Constitution of the International
Labor Organization (ILO), which stated: “the failure of any nation to adopt humane
conditions of labour is an obstacle in the way of other nations which desire to improve
the conditions in their own countries.” Although the ILO never had the necessary tools to
effectively enforce this principle, it recognized, since its foundation, the need to promote
a balance between competitiveness and respect for labor rights, which was in fact one of
the motivations behind its creation.136 The Chairman of the Labor Commission in charge
of writing the ILO Constitution was Samuel Gompers, at that time head of the American
Federation of Labor (AFL). Other early debates also involved civil society organizations.
For example, some of the negotiations on international regulations that linked trade and
environmental issues had the participation of conservationists and naturalists, who
lobbied state officials at the domestic as well as at the transnational level.137
However, perhaps the best-known instance of early transnational collective action
related to trade did not deal with trade in goods, but with trade in persons: the
transnational abolitionist movement that lasted from the end of the 18th century
throughout the 19th century. It brought together activists in Europe and in the Americas,
135
See Aaronson, 2001:43-46.
See the official history of the ILO in: ILO, 2006.
137
Aaronson, 2001:45.
136
64
who engaged in intensive dialogue and collaboration. Interestingly, in that historical
context the link between human rights and trade that the abolitionist movement made did
not contradict free trade policies; on the contrary, it was reinforced by a vision that slave
economies pursued what in today’s language would be characterized as “unfair” trade.
How could sugar producers who used free labor compete with slave-owning producers in
Brazil and in Cuba? A second point worth mentioning is that, much the same way as with
current protests about trade, it is hard to understand that transnational movement without
taking into consideration how it was built based on previous connections, most
prominently the transnational religious ties between England and the United States.138
This brief review of precedents shows that trade has never been a purely
economic issue; that trade debates have never been limited exclusively to the
establishment of tariffs and quotas; and that it has sparked transnational alliances at
specific moments, around specific issues. In spite of these precedents, however, as early
as about thirty years ago international trade had been an issue of interest mostly limited to
government officials (the Executive powers and, in some countries such as the United
States, the legislative arenas as well), to international organizations (in the 20th century),
and – unevenly through time – to those directly involved in manufacturing tradable
products: farmers, business owners, and workers. Other civil society groups, such as the
environmentalists, mostly became interested in trade negotiations indirectly, through the
filter of specific issues such as the trade in furs, or the protection of a specific animal
species.
138
Keck and Sikkink explain that the backbone of the movement in the United States and in Britain was
formed by Quakers, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Unitarians, who drew on a tradition of transatlantic ties
that originated from before American independence. See Keck and Sikkink, 1998:44.
65
Furthermore, until after World War II no global rules existed to regulate
international trade. The creation of a global trade regime has changed dramatically the
way in which international trade negotiations are carried out, it raised the profile of these
negotiations, and gave civil society organizations a specific international target around
which to mobilize. For many of the actors studied in this dissertation, the World Trade
Organization (WTO), created in 1995, has come to symbolize all that is wrong, not only
with trade negotiations, but with globalization in general.
3.1.1 The Creation of a Global Trade Regime and Civil Society Participation
The Bretton Woods Conference of 1944 proposed the creation of an International
Trade Organization (ITO) to establish rules for multilateral trade. However, it never
passed the U.S. Senate, and, instead, a much weaker organization, the General Agreement
on Trade and Tariffs (GATT), became the institutional framework for global negotiations
between 1947 and 1994.139
For most of the history of the GATT, groups of business organizations were
almost the sole non-state actors that followed its activities closely. Other sectors – labor
and rural organizations – focused their attention mainly at the domestic level. In spite of
the fact that non-governmental organizations participated in the conference that drafted
the ITO Charter and that this document included a provision for consultation and
139
For an analysis of the failure of the International Trade Organization, see, for example, Diebold Jr., 1993
(1952).
66
cooperation with NGOs, deliberations under the GATT were secretive.140 Moreover,
during its first three decades, developing countries considered the GATT mainly as a
forum controlled by developed countries. Although countries like Brazil and Chile did
become members early on, developing countries in general felt that the United Nations
Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), created in 1964, was the appropriate
institutional channel to discuss trade policies and to voice their demands for a “New
International Economic Order” (NIEO).141
Through the interface between trade and development, a few civil society
organizations gained an early interest in the GATT and UNCTAD negotiations. One of
them was GATT-Fly, an ecumenical coalition created in Canada in 1973 that was named
after its desire to become a “bug” flying around governments, campaigning for trading
prices that would benefit developing countries. However, it focused less on monitoring
these international organizations and more in direct action work on poverty and human
rights projects in Southern countries, as one of its participants explained: “… ‘we came to
realize that it wasn’t enough to convert the powerful, but rather we needed to begin
trying to empower the powerless… we realized that changing the price of sugar wasn’t
enough…and that unless sugar workers in Brazil had the freedom to organize and
freedom from repression, they weren’t going to benefit’ ”.142
The realization that siding with developing countries’ governments in demanding
fairer prices for agricultural commodities was not necessarily going to bring effective
140
See Charnovitz, 2000.
For different analysis of what the calls for a New International Economic Order represented, see, for
example, Murphy, 1984; Doyle, 1983; and Krasner, 1985.
142
Dennis Hewlett, one of the participants of GATT-Fly, quoted in the article by Laurie, 1990.
141
67
results in terms of poverty helps to explain the very limited interest of many civil society
sectors in trade negotiations during this period. Furthermore, most of civil society
organizations’ transnational linkages and solidarity initiatives in the Americas between
the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s focused primarily on the issues of human rights abuses
in the dictatorships that plagued many Latin American countries.
Starting with the Kennedy Round of trade negotiations (1964-1967), members of
the GATT began a progressive process of expansion of the negotiating agenda, which had
been, up until then, limited to reductions of tariffs. The Tokyo Round (1973-1979)
introduced the negotiation of non-tariff barriers such as subsidies, national procurement,
and health and regulatory standards, and the Uruguay Round (1986-1994) subsequently
deepened this trend and broadened even more the agenda. This expansion of the scope of
the negotiating agenda of the GATT coincided with the transitions to democracy in Latin
America, and with a greater awareness on the part of civil society organizations of
international negotiations and their domestic impacts. The new role of the GATT
represented a “wake-up” call to many, whereby “what had been sort of an apathetic
attitude towards trade agreements quickly became a central issue.” 143
In the United States, one of the first organizations (beyond labor, rural
organizations and business) to answer the wake-up call was Public Citizen, a consumer
rights organization. Again, the justification for it was the extension of the agenda into
what were up until then domestic public policy arenas:
143
Interview with John Dillon, representative of the Ecumenical Coalition for Economic Justice to the first
Canada-Mexico Encuentro (organized in Mexico City in October of 1990), Toronto, September 2004.
68
“The original thing that actually did it was food issues. I went to a hearing in
Congress on pesticides. My job was to say that the decent but not great bill was
weak – because the opponent from the chemical company would testify that the
bill was ridiculously strong. The bill would thus be positioned as a compromise.
So, I said it was an outrageous bill, too weak, and the business guy, I think he
was from Monsanto, simply said: ‘Well, you can’t do what’s in this bill, not
under the Codex Alimentarious, you simply are not allowed’. Like two months
later, I was working on a bill on beef labeling, something totally untrade
related, theoretically. At a hearing, a Congressman argues that it’s ridiculous
that we don’t have rule of origin labeled on beef, that we don’t know what state
or country it is from, and I said: ‘Consumer labeling on origin is a great idea,’
and then someone from the cattlemen’s beef association or a similar industry
group said ‘you can’t do that, not under the GATT sanitary and phitosanitary
protocols.’ And I said to myself: ‘why the fuck do the industry guys we are
fighting keep talking about trade agreements?’... People thought I was crazy
when I started snooping around about whether this new generation of ‘trade’
deals posed a threat to basic environmental, health and safety regulation,
because up until then trade only dealt with tariffs and quotas. Trade agreements
had never dealt with domestic regulations. But in fact, the new agreements
contained terms that provided a really powerful backdoor attack on almost
everything we had been doing, on environment, consumer rights, safety.”144
144
Interview with Lori Wallach, Director, Global Trade Watch, Public Citizen, Washington D.C.,
September 2005. Other organizations working on food safety issues also point to the discussions about a
69
Perhaps the issue that best symbolized the possible regulatory impacts of this
expanded agenda was the tuna-dolphin dispute between Mexico and the United States,
nicknamed by critics as the “GATTzilla ate Flipper”145 moment in global trade
governance. This case was brought by Mexico against the United States because the U.S.
Marine Mammal Protection Act set dolphin protection standards that were valid not only
for its fishing fleet, but also for countries exporting fish caught in the Pacific Ocean to the
United States. Since Mexico did not meet the protection standards, the U.S. embargoed
all tuna imports from that country.146 Although the dispute panel ruling against the U.S.
in 1991 was not enforceable under the GATT rules,147 it sparked a discussion about the
relationship between trade rules and domestic (and extra-territorial) environmental
regulations that remains part of the debates about the global governance of trade. It also
coincided with the proliferation of new regional-level negotiations; most prominently
among these were the negotiations of a Free Trade Agreement that involved the U.S.,
Mexico, and Canada.
Thus, when the World Trade Organization (WTO) was created in 1995, a much
wider group of civil society actors from developed and developing countries alike had
come to the conclusion that trade negotiations had to be closely followed, at the domestic
as well as at the global level. The greater powers of the WTO and its expanded
new law on food labeling in the U.S. Congress in 1990, and the subsequent complaints by the European
Union that it represented a trade barrier, as the moment in which they began to follow international trade
negotiations. See Silverglade, 1999.
145
For an example of the use of this terminology and a critical analysis of the case, see Wallach and
Woodall, 2004, esp. chapter 1.
146
For a more detailed description of this case, see WTO, 2006.
147
Under the GATT dispute settlement rules, a report was only adopted if there was consensus among all
members. Under the new WTO Dispute Settlement Body, on the contrary, rulings are automatically
adopted, and a consensus is required in order to reject them.
70
membership,148 in comparison with the GATT, helped to justify this attention. Not only
did this new permanent organization continue the expansion of the agenda to other policy
areas, but it also gained new regulatory powers, through the creation of a more efficient
and stronger dispute settlement mechanism than the one that existed under the GATT; the
extension of the Trade Policy Review Mechanism, which, under the GATT, was limited
to reviewing members’ policies on goods trade, and under the WTO also reviews public
policies on services and intellectual property; and the development of a set of mandatory
codes.149 The transition from the GATT to the WTO represents the culmination of the
process of creation of a global trade regime, with established sets of rules, rights and
practices that changed the interaction dynamics between nation-states, non-state actors,
and multilateral trade negotiations.
The increased scrutiny of trade negotiations and the critiques about the lack of
transparency and accountability made during the Uruguay Round of the GATT led
governments to include a provision that allowed for the consultation and cooperation with
non-governmental organizations.150 In 1996, the General Council decided to allow NGOs
to attend the bi-annual WTO Ministerial Conferences, after going through an
accreditation process. Graph 3.1 presents the evolution of participation in the six WTO
Ministerials that have been organized since 1996. It is based on official lists of NGOs
accredited by the WTO to participate in each Ministerial, and it includes business
organizations, labor unions, consumer organizations, environmental groups, academic
148
The GATT was originally signed by 23 countries; in its last meeting in 1994 it had 128 signatories. As
of December of 2005, the WTO had 149 members.
149
See Williams, 2005, for an analysis of the WTO’s new powers.
150
See Charnovitz, 2000 and Wilkinson, 2005, for an analysis of the relationship between the WTO and
NGOs.
71
institutions, development NGOs, and human rights NGOs. It is clear from the graph that
the interest of NGOs in participating has grown exponentially through time. While only
108 were accredited to participate in the Singapore Ministerial in 1996, almost ten times
more – 1066 – were accredited to participate in the Hong Kong Ministerial in December
of 2005. This growing trend is only interrupted momentarily by the Doha Ministerial, in
2001, but that can be explained mostly by the fact that there were greater obstacles to
travel there (if compared to the meeting organized in Seattle, for example), and also by
the fact that it happened only two months after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in New York
and in Washington D.C., and not because of a decrease in interest.151
GRAPH 3.1
NGOs Eligible to Attend WTO Ministerials
1200
Number of NGOs
1000
800
Total
600
From the South
From the North
400
200
0
1996
1998
1999
2001
2003
2005
Year of Ministerial
Source: own elaboration, based on lists of NGOs eligible to attend Ministerials provided by the
World Trade Organization (www.wto.org/english/forums_e/ngo_e/ngo_e.htm, accessed March 1,
2006).
151
See Wilkinson, 2005:170.
72
Graph 3.1 also shows that most of the organizations eligible to attend WTO
Ministerials come from developed countries, but there is a tendency of this gap to
narrow: while in Seattle in 1999 the relative participation of organizations from
developing countries reached its lowest level – 15.85% of the total –, in Doha (2001) it
increased to 23.28%, in Cancun (2003) it was 25.82%, and, finally, in Hong Kong (2005)
it reached 41.19% of the total number of NGOs. It remains to be seen whether this
tendency will continue in the future, especially if future Ministerials are organized in the
North (with greater obstacles in terms of distance and the financial resources for Southern
organizations to participate), but the significant increase in the participation from
developing countries is an indication of the increased pluralism of the set of civil society
organizations interested in trade debates.152
Beyond their place of origin, there is also great heterogeneity in this group of civil
society organizations with respect to the positions advocated. As other authors have
argued, the traditional description of contention between two antagonistic sets of actors,
protectionists and free traders, does not reflect the reality accurately, simply because it
oversimplifies and distorts the debate.153 Other dichotomies, such as pro and anti-free
trade, or pro and anti-globalization, suffer from similar limitations. In terms of their
support or opposition to the WTO, civil society organizations are roughly divided at least
four groups: a) those who support global agenda of negotiations in general; b) those who
are critical of some aspects of the WTO but are broadly supportive of the notion of a
152
The fact that the WTO headquarters are located in Geneva and that most of the negotiations between
Ministerials are held in that city also restricts the ability of Southern organizations that have scarce
resources to follow-up on these negotiations.
153
See the arguments in Aaronson, 2001, Destler and Balint, 1999, Kelly and Grant, 2005.
73
multilateral organization that regulates trade liberalization; c) those that are highly critical
of the WTO but seek to engage with it and with member states in an effort to bring about
change; and d) the so-called “abolitionists”, who argue that there is no solution other than
extinguishing the WTO and creating something new in its place.154 Even this last group,
however, does not present its position in “anti-free trade” terms.
In this context, the scholarly attention, which has traditionally focused on the role
of labor, capital, states and international organizations, has become insufficient to analyze
the coalition building dynamics around trade. The increased politicization of trade
debates makes theories in the political economy literature that try to explain the
formation of domestic coalitions based on factor endowments incomplete, at best.155
Similarly, explanations of collective action on trade that are based on the self-interested
reactions of actors ignore the role of values, ideologies, and the impact of social relations
in the constitution of interests. Without considering these, it is hard to understand the
heterogeneous groups of actors that have come together to influence trade negotiations,
and the variety of positions that co-exist within the same categories. The cases of
NAFTA and MERCOSUR illustrate the different pathways to transnational taken by
actors during the early period of construction of the transnational political field of
challengers of trade agreement in the Americas.
154
For a more detailed discussion of these groups and what separates them, see, for example, Wilkinson,
2005; Williams, 2005; and Said and Desai, 2003.
155
For example, Rogowski’s model purports to explain domestic coalitions based on the different factor
endowments across countries. The three factors he takes into consideration are: labor, capital, and land. See
Rogowski, 1989. Midford argued that Rogowski’s model failed to make adequate predictions, but limited
his critiques to the way factors are measured, not going beyond the basic model (see Midford, 1993).
Similarly, Hiscox contributed to the sophistication of the model by focusing on the impacts of interindustry
factor mobility to better understand variation in coalition-building; in the analysis presented about the
passage of NAFTA in the U.S. Congress, the author does not even mention the participation in the debates
of groups other than labor, farm, and business (see Hiscox, 2002, especially pp. 69-70 for the analysis of
NAFTA debates).
74
3.2 New Regionalism and Civil Society in the Americas
At the end of the 1980s, the Americas became an important laboratory ground for
this new chapter in the history of trade politics. Debates about regional trade agreements
were not, however, new to the region. The idea of free trade between the United States
and Canada was over a century old when the two countries signed their free trade
agreement in 1989. Similarly, the history of Latin America is punctuated by failed
attempts to fulfill what many saw – at least rhetorically – as its “historical calling,” that
is, to become integrated as only one country. However, the first round of attempts at
integration in the 19th century – some of which included the United States – fell under the
weight of geographical distances, the power of caudillos (local strongmen), and the
different interests of the subregions.156
A second round of attempts to integrate the region began in the 1950s, as part of a
development strategy that aimed at industrializing Latin America. Between the 1950s and
the mid-1980s, the United States and Latin America pursued antagonistic trade policies.
While in the United States the post Second World War inaugurated a period of trade
liberalization, in Latin America this was a period of protectionism. Both of these
strategies were influenced by the Cold War. While in the U.S. free trade was perceived as
an important part of its anticommunist strategies, in Latin America protectionist policies
were considered a key tool in reaching autonomous economic development.
There is a very big literature that discusses this “historical calling” and the causes of the ultimate
fragmentation of Latin America in several countries after the wars of independence. See, for example,
Furtado, 1976 (esp. the first part); Lambert, 1968; and Bethell, ed., 1985.
156
75
The technical justifications for Latin America’s protectionism were provided by
the Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), which, based
on a critique of classic trade theory inspired by Keynesianism, argued that the
specialization of the region in primary products was detrimental to its development
because of the tendency of the terms of trade of these products (in relation to
manufactured products produced by developed countries) to deteriorate through time.
This critique led the ECLAC group to propose autonomous development policies based
on a strong role of governments in promoting the industrialization of the countries of the
region, through the extensive use of protectionist measures. This development model,
known as the import-substitution industrialization (ISI) strategy, became dominant in
Latin America between the decades of the 1950s and 1970s.157 The many regional
integration initiatives dating from this period158 were considered an essential part of it,
because greater regional integration would provide incipient industries with access to the
larger markets they needed. In spite of the progress of some initiatives in liberalizing
trade in the region,159 by the end of the 1970s negotiations were stalled.160
157
For the most important documents outlining the import-substitution industrialization strategy and its
interface with regionalization in Latin America, see CEPAL, 1949, CEPAL, 1959, and Prebisch, 1964. For
a review of ECLAC’s economic and political thought in its first fifty years of history, see Bielschowsky,
1998.
158
In 1960 Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua launched the Central American Common
Market (later joined by Costa Rica); also in 1960 Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador,
Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela signed the Montevideo Treaty that created the Latin
American Free Trade Association; in 1969 the Andean Pact was signed by Bolivia, Colombia, Chile,
Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela; and in 1973 the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM)
was established by Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago (and later expanded to Antigua,
British Honduras, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Montserrat, St.Kitts/Nevis/Anguilla and St. Vincent).
159
Most notably in the case of the Central American Common Market (CACM). The intra-CACM trade
increased by 40% between 1960 and 1962.
160
There is a big literature on these initiatives and why they failed. See, for example, Urquidi, 1993.
76
If we compare the U.S. and Latin America, civil society participation varied
considerably during this period. Even if most Americans remained oblivious of trade
negotiations, labor and business organizations did participate actively in the debates
promoted by Congress.161 In Latin America, however, trade negotiations remained a
black box, accessed almost exclusively by a small circle of national bureaucrats and
international organization officials.
In the mid-1980s, a third round of integration attempts began in a very different
context. Trade policies of the United States and Latin America converged, and a new
wave of agreements was negotiated within an ideological framework given by neoliberal
economic imperatives. Under the leadership of the United States, this “new regionalism”
consisted mainly of the negotiation of agreements with the limited goal of creating free
trade zones, but these agreements incorporated a wide number of negotiating provisions
in new issue areas. In fact, as shown in Table 3.1, from the Canada-U.S. Free Trade
Agreement in 1989 to the Central America Free Trade Agreement negotiated recently,
the list of issues considered by countries in this type of agreement has expanded
considerably.
In this context, the traditional understanding of free trade areas in regional
integration theory as the first phase of trade liberalization in an ever-widening process
that would lead to the formation of a customs union, a common market, and eventually an
economic union,162 is not useful anymore. Free trade agreements negotiated in the 1990s
161
Aaronson argues that "from 1945 to 1979, most Americans simply did not care about trade policy. It
was not the stuff of headlines, front page news, or sixty-second sound bites. Trade policy was made in
Washington and in Geneva by a relatively small circle of government officials, trade unionists, business
leaders, and academics...” See Aaronson, 2001:85.
162
For an early differentiation of integration stages and integration theorization, see Balassa, 1961.
77
liberalize trade at the same time that they have specific elements of domestic policy
harmonization that are typical of the formation of a customs union or of a common
market, while at the same time excluding freedom of movement of labor, and limiting the
creation of supra-national authorities to those needed for dispute settlements.163
The exceptions to this trend are a few South-South initiatives, some of which are
new, such as the Common Market of the Southern Cone (MERCOSUR), and some that
are older, such as the Andean Community and the Caribbean Community. All of these
maintain the ambition to follow the European Union example, and rely, if not on the
economic reasoning, at least on the political reasons advocated by ECLAC to justify
Latin American integration as a way of strengthening the region’s autonomy and political
power in the international system. More recently, governments from South America
launched the negotiations to create a South American Community of Nations.164
The first of the new wave of free trade agreements signed was the Canada-U.S.
Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA), negotiated between May of 1986 and October of
1987. During this period, the agreement was hotly debated in Canada, where a broad
cross-sectoral coalition of civil society organizations mobilized in opposition to the
negotiations. The Pro-Canada Network, created in 1987, was the first trade coalition
formed in the Americas in opposition of a trade negotiation, and it brought together an
163
For a comparison of old and new regionalisms in Latin America, see Devlin and Giordano, 2004.
This initiative was launched in December of 2004 during the third Summit of Presidents of South
America, in Cusco, Peru, by the governments of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador,
Guiana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
164
78
unprecedented variety of sectors: women organizations, faith-based groups, labor unions,
environmentalists, artist groups, and human rights organizations.165
TABLE 3.1
SELECTED TRADE AGREEMENTS NEGOTIATED IN THE AMERICAS
(1989-2006)
Agreement
and date of entry
into force
Can.U.S.
FTA
1989
NAFTA
1994
G-3
1995
Goal
Free
trade
area
Free trade
area
Free trade
area
Members
(as of 2006)
Canada
U.S.
Canada
Mexico
U.S.
Colombia
Mexico
Venezuela
ISSUES:
Tariff
Elimination
Common
External
Tariff
Rules of
Origin
Technical
Barriers to
Trade
Investment
InvestorState
Dispute
Settlement
Services
Migration
Intellectual
Property
Rights
Public
Procurement
Dispute
Settlement
Labor
Environment
Mexico
-Costa
Rica
FTA
1995
Free
trade
area
CanChile
FTA
1997
Mexico
-Chile
FTA
1999
U.S.Chile
FTA
2004
CAFTA
2006
Free
trade
area
Free
trade
area
Free
trade
area
Free trade
area
Costa
Rica
Mexico
Canada
Chile
Chile
Mexico
Chile
U.S.
Costa Rica
Dominican
Republic
Guatemala
Honduras
Nicaragua
U.S.
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
SA*
SA
X
SA
SA
X
*SA: Side Agreement.
Sources: Table adapted from Devlin and Giordano, 2004: 150; OAS Foreign Trade
Information System; www.aladi.org; www.ustr.gov.
165
For a detailed analysis of the debates about the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement in Canada and the
process of creation of the Pro-Canada Network, see Bleyer, 2001 and Ayres, 1998.
79
This debate remained, however, mainly a domestic one. Canadian activists did try
to reach out to U.S. civil society organizations, but they failed to convince them of the
importance of the agreement. As John Dillon explains, Canadian organizations relied on
their previous ties to their institutional equivalents in the U.S.:
“We simply used historic relations… like in any human endeavour, one goes
with the networks that one is familiar with. So with the obvious links, CLC and
AFL-CIO, environmental movements as you know are international, so they
would talk to each other, and for research groups like us, the Institute for Policy
Studies (IPS) and Development-GAP were in many ways our national allies that
we knew from other work.”166
These attempts were frustrated, however, as John Cavanagh, director of IPS, recounts:
“In the mid-1980s I began to receive calls from Canadian groups saying
‘there’s this terrible thing being proposed, that will be the CUSFTA. We want to
come to the U.S., have meetings about it. Can you convene people?’ So they
would come, these big delegations of Canadians, and I would try to convene
people, and nobody was interested … I spent a great deal of time being
embarrassed.”167
Around the same time that Canadians were traveling to the United States to find
partners to fight against CUSFTA, in South America some of the labor organizations that
would later on become key actors in the Common Market of the Southern Cone
(MERCOSUR) negotiations were also looking for partners in other countries. However,
166
Interview with John Dillon, representative of the Ecumenical Coalition for Economic Justice to the first
Canada-Mexico Encuentro (organized in Mexico City in October of 1990), Toronto, September 2004.
167
Interview with John Cavanagh, Director of the IPS, Washington, 20 th July 2004.
80
trade was not yet in their agenda, even though Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay had signed
agreements to reduce tariffs in 1986. The primary goal of organizations that formed the
Coordination of Southern Cone Labor Centrals that same year of 1986 was to push
transitions to democracy forward, especially in Paraguay and in Chile, and not a lot of
thought was given to the agreements signed. They had the support of the International
Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) and of its regional organization, the Inter
American Regional Organization of Workers (ORIT), which were interested in gaining
more presence in the region.168
Between the end of the 1980s and the launching of the NAFTA and MERCOSUR
negotiations in the beginning of the 1990s, an important change happened, that led to
increased interest on the part of civil society organizations in both regions. In spite of the
coincidence in time, the logics that explain this common tendency are different. In North
America, change is linked to the existence of the CUSFTA precedent, to the early alarms
sounded by U.S. and Canadian civil society organizations on the GATT negotiations, and
to the widespread fears of the potential negative impacts of an agreement involving
countries with such disparate economic capabilities. In South America, change is linked
to the new opportunities of participation that were brought about by the transitions to
democracy, to the need to find new development strategies, and to the precedent of
increased regional collaboration among labor organizations that had created the
Coordination of Southern Cone Labor Centrals.
168
At that time, the only ICFTU affiliate in the region was the Argentinian CGT. Interview with the
Secretary General of ORIT, Víctor Báez Mosqueira, Belo Horizonte, December 2004.
81
NAFTA and MERCOSUR constitute the most important trade initiatives in the
beginning of the 1990s in the Americas, because they represent two very ambitious but
different negotiating logics that are part of the same regional integration impetus. The
stories of these two early experiences allow us to consider the origins of ties among civil
society organizations, and to compare the narratives and strategies that inform action on
trade at different spatial sites. They also illustrate the fact that regional negotiations such
as NAFTA and MERCOSUR do not automatically create regional civil societies. Later in
the decade, civil society organizations involved in these two negotiations became key
actors in trying to find common ground with respect to the proposed Free Trade Area of
the Americas (FTAA).
3.2.1 The Search for Allies in the NAFTA Region
In 1990, when the idea of including Mexico in the Canada-U.S. free trade area
was made known, Canadian civil society organizations once again called John Cavanagh
at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington. This time, he succeeded in bringing
together two strands of organizations that had up to then worked on separate tracks:
environmental and agriculture groups that had become recently interested in the GATT
negotiations, and labor, human rights, and religious groups, that had worked together on
debt-related issues and/or on peace negotiations and human rights in Central America
during the 1970s and 1980s.169 By then, interest in trade was already growing because of
the extended agenda debated at the global level, and because NAFTA was the first
agreement to be negotiated with a developing country, which represented a great source
169
Interview with John Cavanagh, Director of the IPS, Washington, 20 th July 2004.
82
of anxiety for various sectors in the United States. As Brooks and Fox have argued,
“NAFTA put a specifically brown face on the perceived trade threat”170 (emphasis in the
original).
The support given by sectors of the U.S. civil society to the U.S. government’s
Cold War policies in Latin America had created a general distrust in the region.171 Thus,
when U.S. organizations looked for allies in their challenges to the NAFTA negotiations,
many actors felt as though they were beginning from scratch:
“I will never forget our first meeting without the Canadians. We sat there and
said: ‘OK, who knows people in Mexico?’ And basically we did not know
anyone in Mexico. I knew some Canadians… it was shocking. Here we were, in
1990, and with some of the best non-profits in the country, and people didn’t
know anything about our two neighbors.” 172
The fact is that there were previous ties among actors in the three countries, but
these were mainly limited to a relatively small group of organizations and individuals in
specific issue areas that, at least until then, had not been trade-related until then. Of the
organizations interviewed for this dissertation in Mexico and the United States, less than
one third had previous contacts of any kind with organizations in the other country173.
The most institutionalized pre-NAFTA links that existed were those among labor
organizations that shared membership in the International Confederation of Free Trade
Unions (ICFTU). A second network existed around organizations that were working on
170
Brooks and Fox, 2002:4, note 7.
See the analysis of the impacts of this lack of trust on the first encounters between U.S. and Mexican
civil society actors, in: Idem.
172
Interview with John Cavanagh, Director of the IPS, Washington, 20 th July 2004.
173
See Appendix I for the list of organizations interviewed.
171
83
human rights issues and democracy in Latin America, and it brought together faith-based
organizations, human rights organizations, and groups of exiles. A third network was
constituted by organizations working on development and debt issues in Latin America, a
fourth one linked organizations in Mexico working on immigration issues with latino
groups in the United States,174 and, finally, a fifth involved a variety of forms of
collaboration among labor organizations that were not linked to the national peak
organizations.175 There were also a myriad of contacts among organizations on the U.S.Mexico border,176 and more informal relationships among academics, friends, and
political leaders from the three countries.
The first network turned out to be a deterrent, instead of a facilitator, in this first
effort of relationship-building, because of the strong disagreements among the
organizations. The Mexican Labor Confederation (Confederación de Trabajadores de
Mexico – CTM) decided to support the NAFTA negotiations, in spite of many attempts
by their counterparts in the United States and in Canada to convince its leadership
otherwise. In this context, the less institutionalized links among other labor organizations
proved to be more fruitful. Most importantly, the Confederation of National Unions
(CSN) in Québec had a long-standing relationship with a small independent Mexican
organization, the Labor Authentic Front (Frente Auténtico del Trabajo, FAT), which
174
Interview with Juan Manuel Sandoval, Seminario Permanente de Estudios Chicanos y de Fronteras,
Mexico City, August 2005.
175
For example, some independent unions from the auto sector in Mexico had solidarity ties with United
Auto Worker locals in the United States that were doing opposition to the UAW national leadership.
176
Some of the oldest ties in the border of Mexico and the U.S. were between the American Friends
Service Committee, a Quakers-founded organization from Philadelphia, and border groups working on
community development and immigrant and maquila worker rights since the 1930s. Also, during the
Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement negotiations, a group of labor, environmental, and ecumenical actors
created Common Frontiers, a Canadian organization that investigated the impacts of the maquiladoras in
the Mexican Northern border on Canada. When the NAFTA negotiations began, they had established
relationships with different groups on the border. See Ayres, 1998:123.
84
became the only Mexican labor organization to side with the other Mexican, Canadian
and U.S. organizations in their critique of NAFTA.177
Other types of ties also were fertile. The Canadian faith-based groups, some of
which had been debating trade since GATT-Fly was created in the 1970s, had an
important role in activating previous ties. Their relationships in Mexico, however, had
been built in the context of their work on human rights and peace negotiation processes in
Central America, and not trade. In the early 1990s, when they were changing their agenda
to focus on economic issues in Mexico, they reached out to a former Jesuit who gave
Marxism classes to Guatemalan exiles in Mexico City on Saturday mornings during the
1980s, and that a member of the Canadian Jesuit Center used to take.178 This former
Jesuit had also begun to shift agendas and to work on NAFTA, and in fact became one of
the key participants in the debates about trade in Mexico.
This mix of previous formal and informal ideological, religious, and categorybased ties allowed organizations to establish initial contacts to talk about NAFTA in the
three countries. When Presidents Carlos Salinas de Gortari and George Bush formally
announced that they would begin negotiations, in June of 1990, groups of organizations
from the three countries were already meeting among themselves. Inspired by the
Canadian experience of coalition building, by 1991 Mexicans and Americans had
structured their own coalitions, dedicated to educating and mobilizing around NAFTA
(for a detailed analysis of these coalitions, see chapter 5).
177
For a detailed and largely sympathetic history of the FAT and its international connections, see
Hathaway, 2000.
178
Interview with Joseph Gunn, Director of Social Affairs at the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops,
Ottawa, September 2004.
85
Even among organizations that had a similar approach to the negotiation of
NAFTA, however, consensus and trust were illusive. While Canadian organizations
opposed the negotiations, Mexican organizations disagreed, arguing that the best strategy
would be to propose changes to the agreement.179 The most difficult disagreements,
however, were over the framing of their discourses to domestic and transnational
audiences, a difficulty that reflected the disagreements between more nationalist and
more internationalist ideologies and strategies. Many U.S. and Canadian organizations
chose a domestic strategy that alienated potential friends, especially in Mexico, because
this strategy was based on a nationalist discourse that often “…failed to even consider
how their harsh and categorical criticisms sounded to the people of Mexico”180 (this point
is further discussed in chapter 6).
3.2.2 Labor Collaboration in “Critical Support” of MERCOSUR
In the literature on trade and civil society in the Americas, most attention has been
paid to NAFTA and its lessons, but the case of the Common Market of the Southern
Cone (MERCOSUR) is also important, for three main reasons: for the first time, a group
of civil society organizations built and sustained transnational ties to try and influence a
regional integration process in the Southern Cone; differently from NAFTA, labor
organizations decided to support the agreement (albeit critically); finally, and again,
differently from what happened in North America, labor and business organizations were
179
See the overview of the debates within the Mexican Network of Action on Free Trade between 1991 and
1993, in RMALC, 1993.
180
Prepared for the Conference on Labor, Free Trade and Economic Integration in the Americas: national
labor union responses to a transnational world, 1994:121.
86
able to open spaces of participation in an unprecedented way in the history of trade
negotiations in Latin America.181
Civil society organizations from the MERCOSUR countries stood against a new
political and economic background as negotiations began. The mid-1980s were
characterized by the transitions from military dictatorships to democracy, and thus by a
greater opening for the participation of civil society organizations in public debate. At the
same time, the 1980s are known in all of Latin America as “the lost decade” in terms of
economic progress. This context of political transition and economic crisis helped build a
basic consensus among labor unions, one that was also shared by many government
officials and business representatives: that a Southern Cone integration process could
bring more development to the region, could help consolidate the newly reborn national
democracies, and could strengthen the political and economic positions of the region in
the international system.182
This consensus, however, was not automatic. Even though there were previous
ties among actors in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay, at first organizations that
became interested in the MERCOSUR had difficulty finding allies. As one of the main
As early as 1991, the three governments approved the participation of “the private sector”, defined as
the representatives of organizations “with direct interest in any of the phases of the process of production,
distribution and consumption” (article 29 of the Internal By-Law of the Common Market Group) as
observers in the preparatory meetings of the negotiating subgroups. Labor and business representatives also
participate in the tripartite Social-Laboral Commission that was created as an outcome of the MERCOSUR
Social-Labor Declaration of 1998. Furthermore, civil society organizations divided in business sector, labor
sector and “diverse” sectors constitute the Economic and Social Consultative Forum established as part of
the official institutional structure in 1995.
182
Maria Sílvia Portella, an advisor to CUT/Brazil for MERCOSUR since 1991, argues that one of the
motivations of labor organizations participating in the MERCOSUR debates was to strengthen the
transitions to democracy; this challenge, parallel to the economic challenges that came with neoliberal
reforms that were being implemented in different rhythms in the four countries, provided labor
organizations with a common agenda. See Portella de Castro, 2002.
181
87
advisors to the Brazilian Central Única dos Trabalhadores (Workers Unified Central –
CUT) for MERCOSUR recalls:
“The embryo of the MERCOSUR labor network was formed during the
dictatorships, because Uruguayan exiles created a labor coordination that
functioned in my office in São Paulo…. In 1982, we sent a labor mission to
Uruguay, there were seventeen of us… to protest against the lack of freedom of
association. It was my first international experience and the first experience for
most of those involved, and everybody who went still remembers it … I think it
was the first MERCOSUR political action. In Argentina we could not do the
same; we did not have the same political relationship. The political exiles that I
met from Argentina in Brazil were not from labor unions, they were from
political parties. Even so, through them I was able to get the first contacts with
labor unionists, to find people with whom we could establish… more permanent
and trustworthy relationships”.183
In the new context of democratization, there was a shift from transnational work
that emphasized human rights and democracy, and that tied together human rights
activists, pro-democracy actors, and militants in political organizations that opposed
dictatorships, to transnational work on a broader agenda that included trade agreements,
and that brought together a set of actors that did not necessarily overlap consistently with
these previous networks. In 1990, the Coordination of Labor Centrals of the Southern
Cone (CCSCS) successfully made the change in its priorities, from the defense of
Interview with Maria Sílvia Portella de Castro, CUT-Brazil’s consultant, Washington D.C., January
2005.
183
88
democracy and the fight against authoritarian regimes, to Southern Cone regional
integration. The “critical support” position that its members arrived at in 1991 meant
support for the overall project of regional integration, but not for the specific integration
model advocated by the governments of the region.184 Indeed, these labor organizations
have come to present themselves as “the true defenders” of Latin American
integration.185
This position was not reached without tensions and debate, however, both within
national labor movements and among the organizations themselves. The need for regional
integration has been part of the discourse of the labor movement in Latin America for a
long time, defined as a means of achieving greater autonomous development for the
region. It is exactly the inverse of the framing used by the Canadian Labor Congress and
by the Mexican FAT, which portrayed NAFTA as a threat to national sovereignties. In
the MERCOSUR case, labor organizations have defended that the integration process has
to go beyond free trade in order to be an effective means of guaranteeing less dependence
for the region. Supporting MERCOSUR, however, meant supporting a process with no
guarantee that unions would be heard, or have any kind of influence. It also meant
supporting a process that was seen by others as “neoliberal” and thus beneficial only to
big corporations.
Regional integration became a part of the Coordenadora’s agenda in late 1990, and in December 1991 it
issued its first official declaration on MERCOSUR, signed by eight labor organizations from six countries:
the Brazilian CUT and CGT; the Bolivian COB, the Chilean CUT, the Paraguayan CUT, the Uruguayan
PIT-CNT and the Argentinian CGT. Neither Bolivia nor Chile are members of MERCOSUR, but labor
organizations from these countries are members of the Coordenadora and their countries have participated
in some of MERCOSUR’s activities as observers. This declaration reproduced the position at which the
labor organizations had arrived at the national level, that is, it criticized the way the process was being
handled but simultaneously reaffirmed the confidence in the potentials of the integration for the
development of the region (broadly defined to include social and cultural aspects).
185
See Smith and Healey, 1994:84.
184
89
PIT-CNT, the Uruguayan national labor organization, was probably the first to put
MERCOSUR in its agenda, to affirm its critical support, and to demand a seat at the
negotiating table.186 Even in this case, however, an important minority argued that
MERCOSUR could not be changed from within because of its “neoliberal logic”, and a
general vote on the organization’s critical support stance won by a small margin the
proposal to fight against the agreement.187 This debate happened within the CUT/Brazil
as well, but with a weaker opposition to the MERCOSUR project. Thanks to PIT-CNT
and CUT/Brazil’s previous linkages, PIT-CNT’s position had an influence on CUT’s first
reactions to MERCOSUR.188 Both, however, denounced the antidemocratic character of
the negotiations, the privileging of trade negotiations in detriment of productive,
technological and social issues, and the fact that the integration model proposed benefited
mainly transnational corporations. Thus, the labor organizations argued that not even
national business representatives were being properly consulted before the negotiations.
The consequences of the process for the workers were clear for these actors: the loss of
jobs; the worsening of working conditions; further threats in terms of rights
flexibilization; and deregulation of collective relations.189
In Argentina, the main national-level labor organization, the Confederación
General de Trabajadores (General Workers’ Confederation - CGT), was the first to
propose the creation of a negotiating group specialized in labor issues with the
186
See Portella de Castro, 1994.
Interview with Álvaro Padrón, PIT-CNT, Montevideo, Uruguay, November 1999.
188
See Portella de Castro, 1994.
189
See 1991. Later, the other Brazilian labor organizations – Confederação Geral dos Trabalhadores
(CGT/Brazil) and Força Sindical (FS) – also decided to participate.
187
90
participation of labor organizations.190 Its first reactions to MERCOSUR reflected the
preoccupation with the asymmetries between Argentinian and Brazilian wages and labor
costs in general, and thus it demanded from the beginning the harmonization of the labor
law.191 Only in the case of Paraguay did the national labor organizations, led by the
Central Unitaria de Trabajadores (Unitary Workers’ Central - CUT/Paraguay), demand
the temporary exclusion of the country from MERCOSUR. This position was based on
the asymmetries between Paraguay and the other countries and the absence of protective
measures to prepare its economy to compete with its neighbors. Even in this case, though,
it estimated that in general terms MERCOSUR was a positive process.192
A second group participating in the MERCOSUR debates is formed by the
Christian democratic unions gathered around the long-existing Central Latinoamericana
de Trabajadores (CLAT), affiliated to the World Confederation of Labor. This
organization has affiliated unions from the four MERCOSUR countries, but it is less
powerful and active than the Coordination. A few other civil society sectors have
participated in MERCOSUR negotiations in a less sustained way, and without creating
common transnational spaces.193
It is ironic that the one process that had the most ambitious integration agenda and
that opened limited but important spaces for civil society participation did not capture the
190
Interview with Maria Sílvia Portella de Castro, consultant, CUT-Brazil, January 2005.
See CGT, 1992.
192
See Secretaría de Integración de la CUT/Paraguay, 1994.
193
The partial exception to that are Uruguayan consumers’ organizations, which have participated in a
sustained way but mostly at the domestic level. See Padrón, 1998. For some time, women’s organizations
became involved in the negotiations for the creation of a Specialized Women’s Meeting, and environmental
organizations went to the Environmental Subgroup meetings, but this participation was not sustained. More
recently, rural organizations have begun to participate more actively and to coordinate positions with their
counterparts.
191
91
attention of a more diverse set of civil society groups. This lack of interest by
organizations whose counterparts in North America were at this point highly involved in
the NAFTA debates, such as environmental organizations, is partly due to the haunting of
past failures of Latin American integration initiatives. On the one hand, few really
believed that MERCOSUR would succeed, and the fact that recurrent crises have led to
successive postponements of integration goals give these skeptics at least some reason.
On the other hand, the fact that MERCOSUR was proposed as a future common market,
in the tradition of old regionalist initiatives, and not merely as the creation of a free trade
area, gave labor organizations a horizon of many years of negotiation in delicate issues
such as labor mobility, a process they felt they could not be excluded from. This,
however, requires from civil society organizations a considerable amount of resources,
both financial and human, to enable them to participate in a meaningful way in meetings
organized in four different countries. The absence of financial resources to travel to the
meetings and the understanding that the governments of the region were not interested
and could not find consensus on a significative agenda with civil society participation
were the main reasons given by environmental organizations to justify their very limited
participation.194
Part of the explanation for the lack of broader participation can also be found in
the traditional difficulties of labor organizations to cooperate with non-governmental
194
A few civil society organizations from Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay have participated in the subgroup
in charge of discussing environmental policies, but not in a sustained or coordinated way. From Brazil, the
most active participants have been the CUT/Brazil, the National Industry Confederation (CNI), World
Wildlife Fund/Brazil, and, for a limited period, there was a representative from the Brazilian Forum of
NGOs and Social Movements for the Environment and Development. From Argentina, the CGT, Natural
Resources and the Environment Foundation (FARN) and the Vitae Foundation participated in a few
meetings, as well as the Eros Foundation and CLAES from Uruguay. See von Bülow, 2003:99-100.
92
organizations. As will be seen in the next chapters, even now, when Brazilian civil
society organizations from a great variety of sectors have incorporated trade agreements
to their agendas, MERCOSUR remains a distant topic for them. Finally, a labor approach
to MERCOSUR was feasible, in spite of important differences among labor organizations
from the four countries; a broadening of participation would threaten consensus and
expectations. This position changed, however, when negotiations towards a Free Trade
Area of the Americas began, as the next chapter will show.
Conclusion
Civil society organizations that are participating in debates about trade agreements
have not invented transnationalism. Collective action around trade in the Americas is
new, however, because of the unprecedented density of transnational ties, the scope of the
agenda, and the multiplicity of pathways used by actors to participate in the debates
simultaneously at the domestic and at the international levels. The expansion of the
agenda of multilateral trade negotiations and the creation of a global trade regime
represented an important change in the way civil society organizations perceive the
opportunities and threats posed by trade agreements. Furthermore, the creation of the
WTO provided them with a clear single target to focus on. While these changes help to
explain the rapid increase in the politicization of trade agreements, they are not sufficient
to account for the variety of reactions to trade agreements.
A lesson from the analysis of the first attempts to create transnational trade
networks is that the activation of previous ties created around one issue is not necessarily
93
successful when the agenda changes. Although there were relationships of trust and
friendship established between groups of organizations in the South and North American
countries, this was not enough to create collaboration on trade. Previous ties are
important, but not a sufficient condition to create new transnational collective action. A
second lesson is that the activities of actors need to be understood in the specific social
and political context that informs their perception of the opportunities and threats of
regional trade agreements. Global changes, such as the end of the Cold War, and
domestic changes, such as the transitions to democracy in the Southern Cone countries,
affect actors’ answers to whether they should participate in the trade debates, and with
whom.
Finally, a third lesson is related to the importance of social interaction in shaping
actors’ interests and beliefs. The examples of diffusion in the NAFTA case – for
example, the emulation of the Canadian experience of coalition building in Mexico and in
the United States – and in the MERCOSUR case – the influence of PIT-CNT’s position
on MERCOSUR in the internal debates of the Brazilian CUT – show the importance of a
relational approach to understand the dynamic character of civil society participation in
trade debates. These lessons put emphasis on the agentic capacity of actors, without
however ignoring structural factors. They also underscore that in order to understand the
multiplicity of pathways chosen by actors to participate in the trade debates, a relational
theoretical framework that takes into consideration the construction of interests is more
useful than one that assumes interests as given. The next chapters will further develop
these arguments.
94
Chapter 4 – THE DYNAMICS OF NETWORKS
Civil society organizations from Brazil, Chile, Mexico and the U.S. have been the
key building blocks of the transnational field of collective action studied here. The goals
of this chapter are to present an analysis of how these actors relate to each other, within
and across national settings, and how these relationships have changed through time. The
analysis is based on a combination of qualitative information and social network data
gathered in a questionnaire answered by informants from 123 civil society organizations
(CSOs) in the four countries. Although this is not a representative sample, it does include
the subset of those actors that were most active in challenging trade negotiations up until
the end of 2003.195
The findings from the analysis of the social network data suggest that
relationships among challengers of trade agreements in the four countries share a set of
important characteristics: a) they involve a broad variety of types of organization and
interests; b) although no single category or organization dominates the networks, actors
differ considerably in terms of their positions as well as in terms of who they are
connected to; and c) most participants are well established organizations that are rooted at
the domestic level and participate in many transnational initiatives, which confirms the
relevance of both the national arena of collective action and of overlapping ties.
The second part of the chapter addresses the problem of change in these networks
by analyzing how organizations came to occupy the positions mapped before. It focuses
195
See Appendix A for more details about the research design, Appendix B for the questionnaire, and C for
the list of individuals and organizations interviewed.
95
on three types of organizations: labor unions, NGOs, and rural organizations. Based on
qualitative information from interviews, document analysis and participant observation,
as well as on additional data from the social network questionnaire, it shows how actors
have become embedded in new sets of relationships, and how pathways to
transnationality vary within countries and across types of organizations. While labor
unions, rural organizations and NGOs are important actors in all four countries, the
amount of resources invested in trade-related activities, the issues prioritized, and the
scope of coalition building efforts vary considerably within each country as well as
within each of these three groups of organizations. Efforts to find common ground for
collective action have relied on combinations of the three types of mechanisms defined in
chapter 2: extension, suppression, and transformation of agendas and tactics.
4.1 Basic Properties of Close Allies’ Networks
Most national actors challenging trade negotiations have at least some level of
interaction among themselves, ranging from exchange of information to co-participation
in coalitions. Thus, relying on data from affiliation networks (for example, lists of
organizations affiliated with specific coalitions), or general data about relationships
among individuals or organizations, would have yielded a very dense, and thus
uninformative, social network. Instead, CSO informants were asked more specific
questions about their relationships. The first network question was: Who are your
organizations’ closest allies in the trade debates, the ones you talk most often to? The
answers resulted in four square matrices (one for each country) of organizations by
96
organizations, which are presented in the form of sociograms of close allies’ networks in
graphs 4.1 through 4.4.196
The ties portrayed in the sociograms are based on perceptions of intensity of
relations of the actors being interviewed at a specific moment in time. As Marsden
argues,197 one central question in social network analysis is whether a researcher seeks to
measure actually existing social relations, or social relations as perceived by the actors.
While studies of diffusion processes, for example, may profit more from the first option,
studies that seek to analyze relationship-building, such as this one, will profit more from
data that is based on perceptions. Each of the sociograms corresponds to one country, and
each node in the graph represents one civil society organization. A line links
organizations if one identified the other as a close ally in trade debates.198 The shape of
nodes varies according to the different types of organizations, and the size of the nodes
varies according to the number of times the organization was identified by others as a
close ally. Because of lack of space, acronyms or name reductions were used in the
graphs (for the full names of organizations, see Appendix C).
196
Actor-by-actor matrices were manipulated using the social network analysis software UCINET, and the
sociograms were produced using NetDraw (Borgatti, Everett, and Freeman, 2002. Ucinet for Windows:
Software for Social Network Analysis, Analytic Technologies, Harvard, MA.).
197
See Marsden, 1990.
198
These are “directed graphs”, meaning that the direction of the tie, represented by the arrows, is an
important part of the information provided, because ties were not necessarily reciprocated. The absence of a
line does not indicate an absence of relationship, but only the absence of a “closest ally” type of
relationship. Informants were allowed to name as many organizations as they wanted, which explains the
variation in the number of organizations nominated by each.
97
GRAPH 4.1 – CLOSEST ALLIES - BRAZIL
ANDES
UNE
SOF
CGT
PO
CNM
Caritas
PACS
ForçaS
CEPIS
MST
CUT
Unafisco
CNB
CONTAG
IBRADES
MAB
MPA
INESC
FASE
SPM
WWF
InstEqüit
Oxfam
ActionAid
ISP
IBASE
MSF
ABIAIDS
Types of Organizations: Labor (■), Environment (▲), Rural (●), NGOs, foundations and think tanks (▼),
Faith-based (◊), Business (◘).
GRAPH 4.2 – CLOSEST ALLIES – CHILE
LOM
DerDig
VivoPositivo
Consumers
RIDES
CONADECUS
FundTerram
ACJR
Oxfam
ColProf
CONSTRAMET
CUT
Participa
IEP
UOC
CENDA
PET
CETEBES
CODEPU
ANAMURI
PastTrab
CEDM
SERPAJ
98
GRAPH 4.3 – CLOSEST ALLIES - MEXICO
ALAMPYME
FDC
CNOC
STRM
CTM
Oxfam
CIOAC
MCD
MujeresD
CILAS
ANEC
SME
CONIECO
UNORCA
FAT
CentroPro
DECA
CENCOS
SemChicanos
SERAPAZ
Greenp
FHBoll
GEA
CEMDA
MujeryMA
CIEPAC
CECCAM
CAPISE
CEE
COMIEDES
Types of Organizations: Labor (■), Environment (▲), Rural (●), NGOs, foundations and think tanks (▼),
Faith-based (◊), Business (◘).
GRAPH 4.4 – CLOSEST ALLIES – UNITED STATES
Partners
CWS
Oxfam
AFSC
USCCB
GE
FreedomHouse
CEJ
Esquel
WOLA
CenterConcern
D-GAP
CIEL
Maryknoll
NRDC
IATP
IPS
Earthjustice
CEPR
FOE
AFL-CIO
Defenders
PubCit
ILRF
SierraClub
AWI
NWF
EPI
NFFC
CLR
RuralCoal
USWA
UNITE
AFSCME
IBT
HRW
USBIC
CWA
99
UE
UAW
USAS
4.1.1 Characteristics of the Actors
The most striking common characteristic of the four close allies’ networks is the
diversity of actors, in terms of the types of organizations, internal organizational forms,
and their agendas in the trade debates. The data confirms the observation in Chapter 3
that collective action on trade has changed significantly in the past decades, becoming an
increasingly plural field of collective action. To visualize this diversity, nodes were given
different shapes according to six different types of organizations: 1) labor unions, labor
federations and other types of organizations working primarily on labor issues in relation
to trade; 2) environmental organizations; 3) rural organizations (landless workers and
small farmers organizations, as well as NGOs specialized in rural issues); 4) other NGOs
(including development, human rights, women’s organizations, and consumer rights’
NGOs), research organizations, foundations, and think tanks; 5) faith-based
organizations; and 6) business organizations.
All of these types are present in the four networks, except for business
organizations, which were not identified as close allies by Brazilian interviewees.199
These networks are also a mix of member-based (one-third of the total) and non memberbased organizations (two-thirds), varying from tiny NGOs and think tanks to
organizations with millions of members. This diversity is better understood if we take
into consideration the specific characteristics of the field of collective action on trade. It
199
The Brazilian General Labor Confederation (CGT) did identify the National Confederation of Industry
(CNI) as one of its closest allies because of the collaborative relations established in the context of
MERCOSUR activities; however, nodes were only included in the sociogram when they were named by at
least three organizations (see Appendix A for a more detailed explanation). There are many ties linking
Brazilian CSOs that are challenging trade negotiations and business organizations, but these are mostly
antagonistic relationships. Interviewees explained, however, that in other transnational arenas, such as the
World Social Forum, there are collaborative ties between specific business organizations and many of the
civil society organizations that appear in the Brazilian close allies’ network.
100
is different from other arenas of transnational collective action, such as environment or
human rights, which are made up largely of organizations that specialize in these issues.
Trade challengers’ relationships were constructed through a process of activation of
previously existing relationships and resources, and CSOs went through a process of
internal organizational adaptation to include trade in agendas and missions, at different
levels of priority. Thus, participants belong simultaneously to multiple and often
overlapping networks, trade being only one among them.200
Furthermore, CSOs represented in each graph are among some of the largest and
most important civil society organizations in each country. This, again, shows the
relevance that the issue of trade has gained among a very diverse set of organizations.
Although a few international non-governmental organizations are present in the
networks, notably the domestic and regional offices of Action Aid, Oxfam International,
Oxfam America and Oxfam GB, most of the organizations operate at the domestic level.
Only fourteen of the 123 organizations surveyed can be considered to be part of an
international organization, although most are members of international coalitions. This
finding gives empirical support to a central argument of this dissertation: that the most
relevant and theoretically interesting activity lies at the negotiations across scales, rather
than at the local or global levels.
200
The only exception is the Chilean Alliance for Just and Responsible Trade (ACJR), an organization
dedicated to following and influencing trade negotiations. It is important to consider, however, that the
ACJR was initially founded to be a coalition, a common space in which Chilean CSOs would discuss their
goals and strategies on trade debates, and only shortly before the interviews were conducted it became an
autonomous organization (see Chapter 5).
101
4.1.2 Relationships among Organizations
With regard to the patterns of relationship among all actors, the four networks also
share similarities. First, the different sizes of nodes portrayed in graphs 4.1-4.4 indicate a
highly asymmetrical distribution of responses as to who are CSOs’ closest allies. This
distribution is a three-tiered one in the four countries, based on the number of times
organizations were nominated by others as their closest allies (in social network terms,
their “in-degree”) (see Table 4.1). The first tier is of the largest nodes, those that were
identified as closest allies by over half of the organizations; the second is of the
intermediate-sized ones, named by over 20 but under 49% of the participants; and the
third is of the more peripheral ones, the smallest nodes, which are those organizations
that were nominated by less than 19% of the network.
TABLE 4.1
DISTRIBUTION OF ORGANIZATIONS IN THE CLOSEST ALLIES’
NETWORKS, ACCORDING TO IN-DEGREE
Percentage of total
possible nominations
received
 50%
20 – 49%
 19%
Country, number and % of organizations in each group
Brazil
Mexico
U.S.
Chile (n=23)
(n=29)
(n=30)
(n=41)
3 (10.3%)
1 (4.3%)
2 (6.7%)
3 (7.3%)
10 (34.5%)
10 (43.5%)
16 (53.3%)
17 (41.5%)
16 (55.2%)
12 (52.2%)
12 (40.0%)
21 (51.2%)
This uneven distribution suggests that a few organizations are crucial references
among trade challengers; others are less central but still play important roles; and a third
group is viewed as much more marginal. Only one Chilean organization was nominated
by more than 50% of the respondents. In the case of Mexico, a greater number of
102
organizations fall in the second, intermediary, group. These differences indicate that the
distribution is more asymmetrical in Chile than in Mexico.
TABLE 4.2
CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS MOST NOMINATED BY OTHERS AS
THEIR CLOSEST ALLIES IN TRADE
(by country, in-degree, and type of organization)
COUNTRY
Brazil
Chile
Mexico
United
States
Civil Society Organization
CUT (Unified Workers’ Central)
MST (Landless Workers’
Movement)
FASE (Federation of Organisms for
Social and Educational Assistance)
ACJR (Chilean Alliance for a Fair
and Responsible Trade)
ANAMURI (National Association
of Rural and Indigenous Women)
CUT (Unified Workers’ Central) –
Chile
DECA-EP (Equipo Pueblo)
FAT (Authentic Labor Front)
CILAS (Center for Labor
Investigation and Consulting)
AFL-CIO
Public Citizen
IPS (Institute for Policy Studies)
Friends of the Earth
Indegree*
21
19
15
Type of
organization
Labor Federation
Rural workers
movement
NGO
14
NGO
9
9
Rural womens’
organization
Labor Federation
18
17
14
NGO
Labor Federation
Labor NGO
26
23
20
Labor Federation
NGO
NGO
20
Environmental
Organization
* In-degree counts the number of times each organization was nominated by the others as one of
their closest allies in trade-related activities. Its maximum value is equal to the total number of
organizations in the network, minus one (because an organization cannot nominate itself), so its
value can range from zero (in all four networks) to 28 (in the case of Brazil), 22 (Chile), 30
(Mexico) and 40 (U.S.).
Table 4.2 lists the civil society organizations that were most often identified by
others as close allies in each country, corresponding to the largest nodes located around
the center of sociograms 4.1 through 4.4. The list includes a mix of membership and non103
membership organizations. No single organization dominates the networks, but Table 4.2
shows that three types of organizations have high in-degree centrality: labor federations,
NGOs, and, in Brazil and Chile, rural organizations.
A second common characteristic of the networks mapped is the difference in
density of ties. In Table 4.3, organizations were partitioned in blocks according to the
different types of organizations,201 and the density of ties (the proportion of all possible
ties that are actually present) was measured within each block and among all blocks for
the networks in the four countries. The numbers in bold indicate densities higher than the
overall network density. This information should be interpreted cautiously, because the
absence of organizations (e.g., business in Brazil), or the very small number of cases
(e.g., business in Mexico, Chile and in the U.S., or environmental organizations in Brazil,
and faith-based organizations in Mexico), limits the possibility of comparisons and the
conclusions that can be derived from them.
However, at a general level two interesting pieces of information are worth
noting. First, the highest proportion of ties is found usually within the groups of
organizations, rather than across them. Second, there are some important exceptions to
this trend. Most notably, the domain with most ties to other types of organizations is the
one made up of “NGOs, foundations and think tanks”. Since this is the most internally
heterogeneous group, including NGOs with multiple agendas along with foundations and
think tanks mostly devoted to research, the fact that it has ties to many other types of
201
Repeating the division in graphs 4.1-4.4, organizations were partitioned in six non-overlapping groups:
labor, environment, multi-issue NGOs/foundations/think tanks, faith-based, rural, and business.
104
organizations is not surprising. Section 4 of this chapter disaggregates this group and
analyzes the roles played by specific organizations.
TABLE 4.3
DENSITY OF THE NETWORKS,
WITHIN AND ACROSS GROUPS OF TYPES OF ORGANIZATIONS*
COUNTRY
Brazil
Chile
Mexico
United
States
Types of
Organizations
Rural
Labor
Environment
Faith-based
NGOs/ think
tanks/Found.
Rural
Labor
Environment
Faith-based
NGOs/ think
tanks/Found.
Rural
Labor
Environment
Faith-based
NGOs/Foundati
on/think tanks
Business
Rural
Labor
Environment
Faith-based
NGOs/think
tanks/Found.
Business
Rural
0.5833
0.1250
0.0000
0.4000
0.3636
AVERAGE DENSITY
Labor Env.
Faith NGOs
0.1250 0.0000 0.1000 0.4318
0.2143 0.0000 0.0500 0.1250
0.1250 -0.0000 0.1818
0.0750 0.0000 0.7500 0.1818
0.1250 0.0000 0.1091 0.4364
Bus.
------
0.0000
0.5000
0.0000
0.1667
0.2500
0.0000
0.5000
0.0667
0.2000
0.2000
0.1667
0.4000
0.1667
0.0000
0.2000
0.1667
0.3333
0.0000
0.5000
0.2000
0.1000
0.2000
0.1000
0.1000
0.2556
------
0.4667
0.2333
0.2500
0.0000
0.2273
0.2333
0.5500
0.0000
0.4000
0.4182
0.2917
0.1000
0.6667
0.3750
0.2273
0.0833
0.0000
0.0000
0.0000
0.2273
0.0909
0.2000
0.0227
0.2727
0.2909
0.0000
0.2000
0.0000
0.0000
0.0455
0.0833
1.0000
0.1667
0.1250
0.1333
0.4167
0.3000
0.1667
0.4318
0.1250
0.1667
0.2500
0.1250
0.1250
0.1250
0.2143
0.0750
0.1563
0.0000
0.0000
0.1500
0.0000
0.1500
0.0500
0.1364
0.3333
0.2431
0.2813
0.1833
0.2500
0.5000
0.0000
0.0000
0.0000
0.0000
0.0833
0.3333 0.3333 0.2500 0.0000 0.1667 --
*Numbers that are higher than the total average density of the network in bold.
In sum, the relational data displayed in the close allies’ networks suggest that
many challengers of trade agreements have ties that go well beyond linkages to the same
types of organization, but, at the same time, these ties tend to be concentrated on a
105
relatively small number of labor, rural and nongovernmental organizations. The next
section applies the same basic network measures – in-degree centrality and density – to
cross-border ties among CSOs from Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and the United States.
4.1.4 Transnational Ties
Most challengers of trade agreements have some kind of relationship with
organizations in other countries, ranging from exchange of information, to comembership in transnational coalitions.202 In order to gather data on trade-related
relationships among organizations from the four countries studied, informants were asked
to indicate how close or distant they were from some of the most prominent organizations
in other countries with respect to goals and strategies in trade debates (see the
questionnaire in Appendix B). They were also prompted to name other organizations with
which they have close trade-related ties. Whenever informants defined their relationships
with other civil society organizations as “very close” or “close”, a tie was drawn between
them.
As in the domestic networks, the data show a high concentration of ties
connecting a small number of organizations in each country. Table 4.4 lists the nine
organizations that were identified as being close by over 10% of the CSOs in other
countries, and Graph 4.5 shows the sociogram of relationships among those that were
nominated over five times. As in domestic-level networks, these include different types
202
At the time of the interviews, one third of the 123 organizations from Brazil, Chile, Mexico and the U.S.
had trade-related ties with civil society organizations in every one of the other three countries; almost half
had ties with organizations in only one or two; and the remaining had no ties, or were unable to answer the
question.
106
of organizations, portrayed in different shapes in the graph. On the other hand, there are a
few differences between the domestic and the transnational networks that are worth
noting.
TABLE 4.4
HIGHEST IN-DEGREE CSOs IN TRANSNATIONAL
NETWORK OF CLOSE ALLIES (> 10%)
Organization
MST
PUBLIC
CITIZEN
CUT
AFL-CIO
ACJR
FAT
UNORCA
IEP
IBASE
Type of Organization
Rural Movement
Consumer Rights
NGO
Labor Federation
Labor Federation
Trade NGO
Labor Federation
Rural Organization
Environmental NGO
NGO
In-degree (%)*
23.4
21.95
Country
Brazil
U.S.
21.27
20.73
19
17.2
16.12
14
12.76
Brazil
U.S.
Chile
Mexico
Mexico
Chile
Brazil
* Given the different number of organizations interviewed in each country, it is more accurate to present
this information in terms of the percentage of total possible ties.
First, there is a greater salience of rural organizations from the four countries.
Whereas at the national level these were highly central organizations, at the transnational
level this prominence is even clearer. Second, at the transnational level ties among
environmental organizations are more visible.203 These differences indicate that at the
transnational level relationships among similar types of organizations are more important
than at the domestic level. The differences in the ways the data was collected for the
203
At the right upper corner of graph 4.5, we can see the linkages among three environmental NGOs from
Chile, the U.S. and Mexico, as among the most nominated. With the exception of Friends of the Earth,
these were not among the most nominated organizations at the national level. However, because
transnational ties follow more closely sectoral affinities, environmental organizations tend to play a more
important role as national gateways to similarly-minded environmental organizations from other countries.
107
domestic and the transnational networks may have an impact these different results, 204
but in both cases actors were prompted to name other organizations, thus reducing, even
if not eliminating, the possibility that informants forgot to name other allies.205
GRAPH 4.5
TRANSNATIONAL TIES AMONG HIGHEST IN-DEGREE (> 5) CSOS
(Size of Nodes by In-degree, Shape by Type of Organization)
ANAMURI
NFFC
FOE
UNORCA
IEP
MST
CEMDA
IBASE
PubCit
ANEC
FASE
IATP
FAT
CUT
AFL-CIO
ACJR
CUTChile
Types of Organizations: Labor (■), Environment (▲), Rural (●), NGOs, foundations and think tanks (▼)
Finally, it is important to note that most of the more central CSOs come from the
three Southern countries, and not from the United States, indicating the increased
relevance of Southern organizations and South-South ties in trade debates (see Table 4.4).
204
The information was collected through the presentation to interviewees of a much more limited roster of
organizations from the other countries, but an effort was made to include different types of organizations,
and organizations with different agendas and ideological positions on trade.
205
For a review of the problems and advantages of different survey and questionnaire methods in social
network analysis, see Marsden, 2005. See Appendix A for a more detailed explanation of the methods used
in this dissertation, and Appendix B for the questionnaire applied to U.S. CSOs.
108
These findings run counter to the analysis found in much of the transnationalism
literature, which focuses overwhelmingly on the ties among Northern organizations,
and/or on North-South ties, making South-South relationships invisible.
The data on density of ties by types of organizations, displayed in Table 4.5,
strengthen the argument that belonging to the same type of organization may play a
greater role as source of explanation for close ties at the transnational level than at the
national level. This is especially true in the case of rural organizations, which have a
much higher density of international ties than the other types of organizations.
TABLE 4.5
TRANSNATIONAL TIES: DENSITY OF TIES WITHIN AND
AMONG GROUPS OF ORGANIZATIONS, BY TYPE
Types of
Organizations
Rural
Labor
Environment
Faith-Based
NGOs
Rural
Labor
Environment
Faith-Based
NGOs
0.195
0.009
0.008
0.004
0.032
0.011
0.059
0.004
0.002
0.018
0.012
0.006
0.083
0.000
0.011
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.024
0.001
0.015
0.011
0.008
0.003
0.035
The networks of close allies presented above show that relationships tend to
concentrate in a small number of organizations, specially at the transnational level, with a
myriad of other organizations occupying more peripheral positions; that labor unions,
rural organizations and NGOs tend to be in central positions; that differentiating among
types of organizations helps in visualizing patterns of relationships, indicating, for
example, that at the transnational level rural organizations tend to develop trade-related
close ties only with other rural organizations; and that South-South ties are an important
part of transnational relations established among civil society organizations. However,
109
these data are “snapshots” of relations, and in order to understand how actors came to
occupy their positions in these domestic and transnational networks, and how these have
changed through time, we must move from the primarily descriptive use of centrality and
density measures to analysis of the dynamics of interaction. As Mische has argued, this
requires that “we view the topographical maps produced by formal techniques as the
result of many local, contingent, and intersecting relational processes.”206 The remainder
of this chapter analyses the processes by which labor unions, rural organizations and
NGOs came to occupy central positions in the networks mapped above.
4.2 The Power of Labor Organizations and its Limits
Arguably, labor organizations are the backbone of any attempt to influence trade
policies: they have more access to financial and human resources than many other civil
society organizations; they have a membership that, in general terms, perceives itself as
being directly affected by trade agreements; and they have greater capacity to mobilize
than other actors, many of which are not membership organizations. Furthermore, as
argued in chapter 3, unions have been involved in debates about international trade for
many decades, and some of the most contentious disagreements over the benefits or
harms of trade liberalization have concerned its impact over labor markets. Thus, not
surprisingly, the relevance of labor issues and the centrality of labor organizations
emerge as a common pattern in Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and the United States.
206
Mische, 2003: 265.
110
On the other hand, labor organizations have traditionally had weak collaborative
relationships with other types of organizations and with labor in other countries.
International relations of labor movements are still characterized by intra-sectoral
diplomatic relationships, and the relative weakness of international relations secretariats
in comparison with those in charge of domestic affairs. Sustained collaboration between
workers from the North and the South that compete for scarce jobs and investments is
especially difficulty to produce. Despite more than a century of rhetoric about labor
internationalism, labor organizations retain deeply national roots. This being true, their
current centrality in domestic and cross-national trade protest networks represents an
interesting puzzle. 207
Still, not all labor organizations had the same positions in the networks mapped.
Labor organizations that have adopted a critical position with respect to trade agreements
have done so by taking different pathways to transnationality, in terms of the breadth of
alliances and claims (having to decide whether to build close relationships with non-labor
actors and incorporate their demands or not); the levels of commitment (how much
organizational energy and resources should be spent) and their location (whether to try to
influence trade negotiations at the domestic level and with domestic allies, and/or to do
so at the transnational level).
207
Part of the centrality of national labor federations in graphs 4.1 to 4.4 of the previous chapter is due to
the fact that some of the organizations included in the networks are their affiliates. Even if we exclude
those, however, labor federations would still be among those most nominated by other types of civil society
organizations as their main allies. Given that labor federations are not homogenous organizations, it made
sense to include at least a few key labor unions in the initial roster of organizations interviewed, some of
which are independent, and some of which are affiliated to national federations, but do not necessarily
share the same perspective on trade negotiations.
111
4.2.1 Labor in a Relational Context
According to the variations in labor federations’ goals and strategies, it is possible
to differentiate three different positions in the trade debates: unions that participate in
domestic and transnational networks and that have built a diverse array of trade-related
ties with other types of organizations at both levels (the Brazilian Workers’ Labor Central
(CUT-Brazil), the AFL-CIO, and the Authentic Labor Front (FAT) in Mexico); unions
that have only a subregional presence, and that have scarce trade-related ties with other
types of organizations at the domestic and transnational levels (the other two Brazilian
federations, CGT and Labor Force, as well as the Chilean CUT); and the isolated case of
the Mexican CTM, which has a domestically-oriented approach to trade debates, while at
the same time maintaining its regional and global diplomatic ties (see Table 4.6).
Studies of labor transnationalism have struggled to explain how and why labor
organizations engage – or not – in transnational collaboration. Most authors take as their
independent variables structural differences among labor organizations.208 Generally
speaking, these authors have not explored the impact of labor organizations’ relations
with other actors. Transnational action is seen ex post as the product of a single
previously taken autonomous decision, as though organizations existed in closed bubbles.
Thus, while Dreiling and Robinson can successfully explain the variation of union
strategies over NAFTA,209 their arguments cannot explain how very different types of
unions developed a common position vis-à-vis MERCOSUR, or how labor’s positions
208
For example, Anner argues that differences of industrial structure, state institutions and practices, and
labor ideologies explain the variety in form and frequency of labor transnationalism in the Brazilian auto
sector (Anner, 2003). Others, such as Dreiling and Robinson, emphasize the differences among business,
social movement, and social unionism when explaining the variation of Canadian and U.S. unions’
reactions to NAFTA (see Dreiling and Robinson, 1998).
209
Idem.
112
have converged towards the opposition to the Free Trade Area of the Americas. While
past trajectories and networks remain relevant, the argument here is that labor
organizations have become embedded in a new environment of relationships in the
1990s, and this new environment has an impact on the goals and strategies pursued by
them, including how they approach free trade negotiations.
TABLE 4.6
MAIN PEAK LABOR PARTICIPANTS IN THE TRADE DEBATES IN
BRAZIL, CHILE, MEXICO, AND THE UNITED STATES
COUNTRY
Peak labor
federation
Members
(in millions)
International
labor
organization
membership
BRAZIL
CHILE
MEXICO
U.S.
CUT
CGT
FS
CUT
FAT
CTM
AFL-CIO
7.3
3.9
1.7
0.4
n.a.
n.a.
13
ICFTUORIT
ICFTUORIT
ICFTUORIT
Early
challenger
of
NAFTA,
participates
in the
Campaign
against the
FTAA.
In favor of
NAFTA,
changed its
position,
and now is
against the
FTAA.
Not active
participant
in the
Campaign
against the
FTAA.
Early
challenger
of NAFTA,
participates
in the
Campaign
against the
FTAA.
ICFTUORIT*
CCSCS**
ICFTUORIT
CCSCS
ICFTUORIT
CCSCS
ICFTUORIT
CCSCS
Position in
trade
debates
Critical
supporter of
Mercosur;
participates
in the
Campaign
against the
FTAA.
Critical
supporter of
Mercosur;
against the
FTAA, but
not active
participant
in the
Campaign
against the
FTAA.
Critical
supporter
of
Mercosur;
no clear
position
on the
FTAA.
Internal
division
during the
U.S.-Chile
FTA talks.
Against the
FTAA, but
not active
participant
in the
Campaign
against the
FTAA.
Role in
domestic
trade
coalitions
Founder of
the
Brazilian
Network for
Peoples’
Integration.
--
--
--
Founder of
the
Mexican
Action
Network
on Free
Trade.
--
Founder of
the Alliance
for
Responsible
Trade.
Active
participant
YES
NO
NO
NO
YES
NO
YES
in the HSA
***
* International Confederation of Free Trade Unions – Inter-American Regional Organization of Workers.
** Coordination of Southern Cone Labor Centrals. *** Hemispheric Social Alliance
Sources: interviews; IBGE, 2002:103-104; www. afl-cio.org (average 2004 membership); Ensignia,
2005:2.
113
As argued in the introduction, never before the mid-1990s were conditions so
positive to hemisphere-wide collaboration among civil society organizations. Labor is a
good example.210 Hemispheric collaboration among labor organizations was delayed
either because of organizational and technological difficulties,211 or because of the lack of
a minimum basis of consensus to construct a common agenda during the Cold War.212
The current convergence of major national peak labor organizations of the hemisphere on
opposition to free trade agreements would not have been possible in the past.
Labor organizations in the Americas became more interested in debates about the
links between trade liberalization and labor rights around the end of the 1980s and
beginning of the 1990s. This coincidence in time did not lead, however, to a coincidence
in goals or in strategies. As explained in chapter 3, while labor organizations in North
America – with the important exception of the ones linked to the Labor Congress in
Mexico – decided to oppose the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), labor
organizations in the Southern Cone gave the project of the Common Market of the South
(MERCOSUR) their “critical support.” The two parallel tracks only converged during the
discussions about labor’s stance towards the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).
The agendas and coalition building strategies developed since then draw upon the
previous learning experiences; while the arguments against the FTAA and the politics of
CUT-Brazil’s former Secretary of International Affairs has gone even farther and argued that, in spite of
previous instances of cross-border labor collaboration, it is only now, with the process of globalization and
technological progress, that it is really possible to speak of labor internationalism. See Jakobsen, 1999:234.
211
The first attempts at hemispheric collaboration date from the end of the 19 th century, but were shortlived.
212
During the Cold War previous initiatives fell under the ideological polarization between “free
unionism”, sponsored in the hemisphere mainly by the AFL-CIO, and unions that were linked to the
communist-led World Federation of Trade Unions. A third nonaligned group existed, but its transnational
activities were often limited to diplomatic exchanges. Furthermore, unionism in Latin America was stifled
by the military dictatorships that dominated the region between the 1960s and the 1980s.
210
114
allying with other civil society organizations originated in the experience of NAFTA, the
creation of a consensus-based transnational space and the attempts to develop alternative
proposals also build on the MERCOSUR experience.
Both of these experiences have been frustrating for labor, in no small part because
national governments have mostly ignored labor’s demands. Organizations in the
Southern Cone were successful at guaranteeing their participation in regional integration
institutions, but, fifteen years later, this participation has produced very little effect on
integration policies.213 Neither NAFTA’s Labor Side Agreement, nor MERCOSUR’s
Social-Labor Declaration and Commission, led concrete results in terms of better
compliance to labor rights. On the other hand, these experiences helped generate
important shifts in relationships among organizations. As an AFL-CIO official explains:
“NAFTA was very significant in that the old Cold War definitions of trade union
alliance - with whom we should work - were no longer viable. It put down a
kind of practice dogma, if not an explicit dogma, that the only real partner in
Mexico was the CTM, and that even that partnership, the only way it could be
maintained, was on a very superficial diplomatic basis. The challenge of
NAFTA completely overturned that premise. In point of fact, as a result of the
NAFTA challenge, we developed more substantive relations will all of our trade
union partners in Mexico, including, but not limited to, the CTM, the CROC
[Revolutionary Confederation of Workers and Campesinos], the CROM
213
See Jakobsen, 1999. For an even more negative evaluation of the participation of labor in the Andean
integration see, for example, Pardo, 1998.
115
[Regional Workers’ Confederation of Mexico] and the UNT [National Workers’
Union].”214
The weakening of the AFL-CIO alliance with the Confederation of Mexican
Workers215 (CTM) and the reformist pressure of newly affiliated organizations made it
possible to change the role of the most important hemispheric labor organization – the
Inter-American Regional Workers’ Organization (ORIT) – in the debates about trade
agreements in the Americas.216 As shown in Table 4.6, all of the main labor actors in
trade protests in the four countries studied are affiliated to the ORIT at the regional level,
and to the ICFTU at the global level. While ICFTU is not the only global-level labor
organization, it has emerged as the strongest one in the post-Cold War era.217 Similarly,
ORIT is not the only hemispheric labor organization,218 but it has become by far the most
representative and powerful, especially after the decision of several important previously
nonaligned labor organizations, such as the Brazilian CUT, to join.219
214
Interview with Stan Gacek, Assistant Director for International Affairs, AFL-CIO, Washington, D.C.,
October 2004.
215
In the beginning of 1998, three years into NAFTA, the AFL-CIO president made a historic trip to
Mexico, the first trip of a U.S. labor federation president to that country in seventy-four years. During this
visit, George Sweeney made a point to talk to the whole spectrum of Mexican labor organizations,
including independent ones such as the Labor Authentic Front (FAT) and the then newly-created National
Union of Workers (UNT), thus officially ending the exclusive relationship it had nurtured with the CTM
during the Cold War.
216
One consequence of these internal shifts in ORIT was the change of its headquarters from the CTM
building in Mexico City to Venezuela and, more recently, to São Paulo, Brazil.
217
For a more general analysis of the ICFTU and its post Cold-War role, see, for example, Myconos, 2005,
esp. chapter 5.
218
Another organization is the CLAT (Confederación Latinoamericana de Trabajadores – Latin American
Workers’ Confederation), but its membership is much smaller, and it is limited to Latin America. Its
affiliates have been active in the MERCOSUR and Andean Pact negotiations. Since 2001, there have been
debates about the unification of CLAT and ORIT, at the regional level, and of ICFTU and WCL at the
global level.
219
After years of internal debate, in July of 1992 CUT-Brazil finally decided to give up its international
nonaligned position and affiliated with the International Confederation of Free Labor Unions (ICFTU) and
to its regional arm, ORIT. Not coincidentally, this decision was taken after the end of the Cold War and the
beginning of the MERCOSUR negotiations, when CUT felt that it could change ORIT’s and ICFTU’s
116
During the Workers of the Americas Forum organized by ORIT in parallel to the
Belo Horizonte FTAA Ministerial Meeting, in 1997, for the first time representatives of
other kinds of social movements were invited to participate in an ORIT-organized event
of that size.220 A final declaration signed jointly by ORIT, NGOs and social movements
organizations turned out to be the first step towards the creation of the Hemispheric
Social Alliance (HSA) and the formulation of a broad agenda on trade negotiations (see
chapters 5 and 6). Until then, ORIT’s demands, presented to the FTAA negotiators in the
previous Ministerial Meetings, had been specifically labor-related: the creation of a Labor
Forum (as counterweight to the already existing Business Forum), and the creation of a
working group on social and labor issues.221
Labor leaders from CUT-Brazil, the AFL-CIO, and the FAT have justified their
decision to seek links with other CSOs as a way of achieving better results in a context of
diminished labor power. These new links also presuppose making change in labor’s
particularistic agendas:
“Many labor unions still think that they are the main actors of revolutionary
change. This is false, labor unions have less and less power. We think that the
specific labor agenda has to be converted in a public interest agenda, and we
have not been able to do this conversion.”222
traditionally anticommunist agenda and Northern-dominated decision-making processes from within. For
an overview of the changes in CUT’s international relations policies and an official justification of its
decision to affiliate to the ICFTU and ORIT, see International Relations Secretariat/CUT 1992. For an
analysis of the internal debates that preceded the decision, see Costa, 2005, esp. pp. 538-566.
220
See CUT, 1997.
221
Idem.
222
Interview with Antonio Villalba, National Coordinating Committee, FAT, Mexico City, August 2004.
117
One of the most active AFL-CIO participants in the trade debates goes further in
justifying the extension of labor unions’ agenda and coalition building practices as a way
of changing other actors’ perceptions about labor organizations’ practices:
“The weakness of labor unions in the trade debates is that everybody assumes
that it is entirely self-interest that motivates you, so they can dismiss that. When
you are working with religious organizations, the human rights organizations, it
adds credibility… The labor movement in the U.S. is too small and too weak to
carry a lot of political debates if we are isolated, and we recognize that… We
want other people to understand that labor groups can play a progressive role
in international trade discussions…”223 “We have focused more and more of
our work on issues like investment, services, intellectual property, all these
things that may not have a huge impact on the U.S., but do have a huge impact
on developing countries…In Seattle [during the 1999 WTO Meeting], the press
reported that what we were for was only focused on workers’ rights, and they
characterized it as sort of the anti-developmental agenda.224 We realized that we
needed to be more aggressive and more public about the fact that our critique
on trade is not just about labor standards.”225
However, not all labor organizations accept the argument that broader alliances
and extended agendas are an imperative of new times. As Anner and Evans have pointed
out, the level of engagement in the construction of the Hemispheric Social Alliance varies
223
Interview with Thea Lee, Assistant Director for International Economic Policy, AFL-CIO, Washington
D.C., August 2004.
224
Gould et.al argue that, although labor provided the bulk of the funding for protests in Seattle, it
primarily participated in labor rallies and labor marches, and its rhetoric was almost exclusively focused on
wages, job loss, and other labor issues. See Gould, Lewis, and Roberts, 2004: 93.
225
Interview with Elizabeth Drake, Public Policy Analyst, AFL-CIO, Washington D.C., August 2004.
118
widely among ORIT affiliates, and several important ones are not active participants (see
Table 4.6).226 As argued before, the Mexican CTM, the Brazilian Força Sindical, and the
Chilean CUT have not been as active as CUT-Brazil, FAT and the AFL-CIO. Debates
about the scope of labor’s alliances were a key source of contention among labor
organizations in the 1990s, and remains an unresolved issue in some cases, as the General
Secretary of ORIT explains:
“We had to overcome a lot of resistance. There was a lot of confusion about the
definition of civil society. Many argued that it was only NGOs, but there’s also
rural movements, etc. This was the first obstacle. Bill Jordan, the CIOSL
Secretary, argued: ‘what are social alliances worth, if NGOs are only the dog
and its owner?’ We had to fight that. The second obstacle was the fear that
labor unions would loose their identity. The third was the attitude that social
alliances are all right, but the labor movement must lead them. In 1998 was
when we had most difficulties. Today, no ORIT affiliate questions the validity of
social alliances. However, some do not put them in practice.”227
The Secretary General mentions the difficulties faced in 1998 because of the
Summit of the Americas held in Chile that year. While ORIT affiliates such as CUT
Brazil, the Canadian Labour Congress and the AFL-CIO were, together with Chilean
NGOs, trying to organize a joint Peoples’ Summit in parallel to the official meeting, the
local ORIT affiliate, CUT-Chile, rejected the idea. In the end, two events were organized
simultaneously, the Labor and the Peoples’ Summit:
226
227
See Anner and Evans, 2004: 42.
Interview with Víctor Báez, Secretary General of ORIT, Belo Horizonte, December 2005.
119
“It was very problematic for us in ORIT, because we were trying to forge a
broader alliance, what became [known as] the ‘social alliance’. We thought it
was very important, very strategic… but it was difficult, because CUT was our
main host.”228
The different views on the breadth of coalition building are reflected on the
answers given by representatives of labor federations when questioned who they would
contact to get in touch with allies in order to plan parallel events to a FTAA Ministerial
Meeting in another country (see the questionnaire in Appendix B). While all respondents
argued that they would use labor’s diplomatic channels (ORIT), those organizations most
committed to the creation of broader alliances – the AFL-CIO, CUT-Brazil, and FATMexico – also said that they would coordinate their actions with other kinds of civil
society organizations through trade coalitions (see Graph 4.6).
Accommodations like this present labor with a dilemma. The extension of issues
and agendas allows labor organizations to maintain relationships with many
heterogeneous actors at once,229 but at the cost of simplification of demands, diminished
visibility of their own agenda, and greater complications in negotiating common actions.
Based on this extended agenda, the provisional agreement reached by ORIT and other
actors has been an all-out opposition to the FTAA, to be maintained even if labor’s
particularistic demands were met. This allows CSOs to present a joint critique of free
trade agreements at the transnational level, but restricts their autonomy.
228
Anonymous interview with one of the participants, October 2004.
For the importance of this mechanism in coalition building among heterogeneous actors, see Mische,
2003.
229
120
GRAPH 4.6
GATEWAYS USED BY LABOR FEDERATIONS
CUT-Brazil
CTM
CGT-Brazil
AFL-CIO
Trade Coalitions
ORIT
CUT-Chile
FAT
 Labor Federations
 Gateways used to contact allies in the other country to organize a trade event
Source: Interviews with representatives of labor organizations in charge of trade issues (see Appendix C).
4.2.2 Between Transnationalism and “National Traps”: the problem of location
Debates about how labor rights and trade should or not be linked exemplify the
tensions originating from the transformation of demands in order to accommodate
different visions. In spite of perennial South-North differences over the introduction of
labor clauses with strong enforcement mechanisms in trade agreements, the most
important labor organizations in the Americas have reached a consensus on the issue.230
Many in the South as well as some in the North see labor clauses as safeguarding and
In its XIV Congress, in Santo Domingo in April of 1997, ORIT decided to support ICFTU’s campaign
for the inclusion of social clauses in trade treaties. See ORIT, 1997.
230
121
protectionist tools rather than labor solidarity initiatives.231 Because of these
disagreements, advocates of labor clauses have shifted their emphasis from the
application of sanctions to the creation of incentives, thus avoiding the charge of
protectionism and diminishing the potential cost of sanctions for workers in the targeted
country (see the analysis of the Hemispheric Social Alliance proposal in chapter 6). This,
however, remains a fragile consensus.
Given the relevance of the U.S. Congress in trade decision-making processes,
U.S. labor representatives are constantly asked to present legislators with criteria that
trade agreements would have to meet to be acceptable. Although rhetorically the AFLCIO has broadened its agenda and transformed the contents of the labor clause proposal,
if there were the opportunity to negotiate what remains its key demand – the inclusion of
enforceable provisions to protect core labor standards in future trade agreements – that
consensus would be in peril, as a Brazilian CUT representative admits:
“If Kerry [the Democratic Party presidential candidate during the 2004 U.S.
elections] had won, with regard to the trade issue it would have been very
complicated for us… I think it could have created a conflict with the AFL-CIO
on the social clause. Because even if CUT has agreed to a social clause, we
have gone beyond that in our internal debate … Today we are in favor of the
contents of a social clause, but we think that introducing it in a trade agreement
is not at all sufficient [to gain our support for it].”232
This is, for example, the argument of one of CUT-Brazil’s advisors to Mercosur. See Portella de Castro,
1996. For a similar position, advocated by Brazilian business, see Pastore, 1997. For the objections to the
social clause proposal raised by Indian trade unionists, see Hensman, 2001.
232
Interview with Rafael Freire, CUT-Brazil’s International Relations Secretariat, São Paulo, May 2005.
231
122
Thus, organizations often stumble on national pressures, or what the same labor
leader called “national traps”:
“We try to find common programmatic issues that take us away from the
national trap… To be frank, sometimes we talk about unity, but the weight of the
national vision is very strong. … What we try to do is that in a given conflict the
national standpoint does not take precedence. And when we cannot reach an
agreement, then we try and say: ‘On this issue, it’s each organization on its
own’.”233
The endurance of the tension between reaching consensus at the transnational
level and autonomy at the domestic level is also illustrated by demands for the protection
of specific sectors. For example, the demands by U.S. unions to adopts restrictions on the
entrance of steel in the U.S. market generated a conflict with its overseas allies:
“If there is the threat of closing my plant in São Paulo and generating new jobs
in Canoas [another Brazilian city], our reaction will be:‘fuck Canoas’. The
union that does not respond like that is in trouble. We understand that.
However, the continuation of this political attitude will eventually lead to defeat
of the whole labor movement. That is what we told the U.S. Steelworkers… the
solution is not to close the U.S. borders to steel imports, but to ask what a U.S.
union can do to generate development in Brazil… for each 1% of rise in
Brazil’s GDP, there is a 4% of increase in steel consumption….”234
233
Idem.
Interview with Fernando Lopes, General Secretary of the National Confederation of Steelworkers
(CNM-CUT), São Paulo, March 2005.
234
123
In sum, there is a tendency among ORIT affiliates in the hemisphere to maintain
an all-out opposition to new trade agreement negotiations, and to justify this opposition
on a broad set of complaints and demands that go well beyond labor’s particularistic
agenda. Simultaneously, though, labor organizations maintain agendas of their own at the
national levels, with different priorities across countries. Even among those organizations
that are most committed to building broad transnational coalitions (such as the AFL-CIO,
CUT-Brazil, and FAT-Mexico), the consensus among them remains fragile.
4.3 “Our own Space”: The Rise of Rural Transnationalism
September 10, 2003 - A group of rural organizations from around the world
promoted the International Peasants’ March, to protest the fifth World Trade
Organization Ministerial Meeting, which was opening that day in the tourist paradise of
Cancun, in Mexico. The delegation of Korean farmers led the March, among them the
former president of the South Korean Federation of Farmers and Fishermen, Lee Kyung
Hae. To the astonishment of most protestors, as the March clashed with the Mexican
police, Hae took a knife out of his garments and killed himself, while holding a placard
that stated “The WTO Kills Farmers.”
Mr. Lee’s action dramatically exemplifies the huge variations in repertoires of
contention now typical of global protests against multilateral institutions, but the point I
wish to make is that the Cancun events showed the visibility that a group of rural
organizations had gained in trade-related protest. These rural organizations represent
small farmers from both developed and developing countries that see trade negotiations
124
as a great threat to their survival. The literature on rural movements has acknowledged
the novelty of rural transnationalism and its increasingly high profile in events such as the
WTO meeting in Cancun.235 Precedents of cross-border collaboration exist, but these
were rarely long-lived or global in scale.236 One of the main Brazilian Landless
Movement (MST) leaders agrees: “It is very striking that only now farmers are starting to
achieve a degree of worldwide coordination, after 500 years of capitalist
development.”237
Cancun also showed that, hand-in-hand with their increased organizational and
mobilization capacity, rural organizations refused to negotiate their agendas and
strategies in light of other civil society organizations’ participation. Instead, organizations
affiliated to Vía Campesina, a global coalition of small farmers’ groups created in the
beginning of the 1990s, opted to promote an exclusive forum – the International Farmers
and Indigenous Forum – and an exclusive march, centered on its own demands. Because
Vía Campesina (VC) organizations in Mexico sent the largest contingent of protestors to
235
This literature points to the crisis sparked by the rapid liberalization of global agricultural trade in the
1980s as the main impetus for new transnational organizing. See, for example, Desmarais, 2002, Edelman,
2003, Edelman, 2005. However, as early as December of 1980 there was an international farmers’ protest
at the GATT ministerial session held in Brussels. These, in turn, were influenced by campaigns waged in
the 1970s, such as the Nestlè boycott. Ritchie, 1996: 499.
236
For a review of these previous cross-border initiatives, see Edelman, 2003, esp. pp. 185-194. The
International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’
Association (IUF) was founded in 1920, merging three international trade secretariats that, in turn, existed
since before the First World War. However, until after the 1950s its membership was mainly European. For
the history of the IUF, see Rütters and Zimmermann, eds., 2003. The International Federation of
Agricultural Producers (IFAP) exists since 1946, but, once more, its membership comes mainly from
developed countries. Among its thirteen founding members, only two (India and Rhodesia) came from
developing countries; furthermore, since 1946, all Presidents of IFAP have come from developed countries.
See http://www.ifap.org/en/about/history.html#founding, accessed September 16, 2006.
237
Stédile, 2002: 99.
125
Cancun, many believed that it was entitled to lead and to occupy center-stage.238 As the
coordinator for North America explained:
“In November 2002 we made a commitment, that for Cancun we would create a
rural-indigenous space, and we would not work through the NGOs. We wanted
our own space, open to everybody, not submitting ourselves to others.”239
Since its foundation, the relationship between VC affiliates and NGOs has been
extremely ambivalent: while NGOs helped to create this new organization,240 there is a
history of distrust fueled by what rural leaders perceived as illegitimate attempts to speak
on their behalf. As a consequence, Vía Campesina affiliates sought to distance
themselves from “the paternalistic embrace of well-intentioned NGOs.”241
The most central rural challengers of trade agreements in the networks mapped
above are those affiliated to Vía Campesina: the MST in Brazil, ANAMURI in Chile, the
NFFC in the U.S., and UNORCA in Mexico. Since its foundation, Vía Campesina (VC)
has identified multilateral trade negotiations as one of its main priorities, and its main
demand has been the end of negotiations around the Agreement on Agriculture at the
WTO. It also advocates changes in other negotiating areas, most importantly those that
touch on issues of biotechnology, biodiversity, and food safety. More broadly, it
promotes a conceptual change in how agriculture is debated, from the “food security”
As one of the members of an organization close to Vía Campesina argued: “Vía Campesina does have
mobilization capacity, it is not an NGO, and thus they have to be the main actors.” Interview with Ana de
Ita, CECCAM, Mexico City, August 2004.
239
Interview with Alberto Gómez Flores, UNORCA, Mexico City, August 2004.
240
During its constitutive conference in 1993, there were a lot of tensions between the Paulo Freire
Foundation, the Dutch NGO that helped organize the conference and served as the Technical Secretariat of
Vía Campesina during its first year, and the rural organizations. In a meeting in 1997, there was a partial
opening of Vía Campesina to NGOs that would collaborate with the movement on the latter’s terms. See
Desmarais, 2003.
241
Idem, pp. 117-130 and 155-157.
238
126
frame to the “food sovereignty” one. Vía Campesina understands food sovereignty as the
right of peoples and countries “to define their agricultural and food policy, without any
dumping vis-à-vis third countries.” 242
Not all trade agreement challengers agree with these demands, however. Other
rural organizations, not affiliated with Vía Campesina, espouse supporting the developing
countries grouped in the G-20243 in their argument that trade rules set by the WTO are
unfair. Furthermore, these organizations disagree with Vía Campesina’s decision not to
participate in any dialogue, claiming that this position is neither sustainable nor effective.
Thus, CONTAG-Brazil and other affiliates of the IUF244 supported the G-20’s call for a
reduction of developed countries’ subsidies, while at the same time demanding special
treatment for small-scale agriculture producers in developing countries.245
When Oxfam International released the Report “The Rigged Rules of Trade”, in
2002, it opened a global controversy about the links between trade liberalization and
poverty reduction, and, more specifically, about the impacts of agricultural subsidy
policies.246 In one of its most debated passages, Oxfam International stated that: "In itself,
trade is not inherently opposed to the interests of poor people. International trade can act
242
Sundstrom, 2003. This frame was first used as a demand by the Vía Campesina in the mid-1990s, in
exchange for the idea of “food security” used in multilateral arenas such as the Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) meetings, which referred to a situation in which all people at all times have access to
adequate and nutritious food. In contrast, “food sovereignty” is intended to be a broader frame, “… which
considers food a human right rather than primarily a commodity, prioritizes local production and peasant
access to land, and upholds nations’ rights to protect their producers from dumping and to implement
supply management policies.” (Edelman, 2005: 339).
243
The G-20 is a coalition of developing countries that acts within the WTO, opposing the protectionist
agricultural stance of the European Union and the United States.
244
IUF is the International Union of Food, Agriculture, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied
Workers’ Association.
245
Interview with Luís Facco, CONTAG, Brasilia, April 2005.
246
For example, see the debates between Oxfam International and the Executive Director of the NGO
Focus on the Global South (Bello, 2002, Oxfam, 2002a and Bello, 2002) and with the Indian activist,
Vandana Shiva (Shiva, 2002 and Twyford, 2002).
127
as a force for good, or for bad. (…)The real challenge is to make trade contribute to
poverty reduction by changing the institutions, rules, and policies that marginalize the
poor (…)'Globaphobes' offer something radically different. Behind the banner of
'national sovereignty' they propose a retreat from trade in favour of increased 'selfreliance'. Perhaps unsurprisingly, such thinking is more attractive to political
constituencies of the rich world, where globalisation is increasing insecurity, than in
developing countries.”247 The Report advocated improving market access for agricultural
exports from poor countries by focusing on the unfairness in the scale and nature of
developed countries’ subsidies.248 Although the debate about agricultural subsidies is
often portrayed as a South-North dispute, as in Oxfam’s Report, actors in both regions
have defended measures to support guaranteeing developing countries greater market
access.
For affiliates of Vía Campesina, however, the debate about agricultural subsidies
and market access is a “trap”, much like the debate about national jobs is a “national
trap” for labor organizations. Vía Campesina’s ability to bring together a broad group of
rural organizations from developed and developing countries thus involves respecting the
autonomy of its members to set priorities and make alliances at the domestic level,249
while simultaneously sponsoring a nonnegotiable set of demands at the global level that
247
See Oxfam, 2002b: 24.
Idem, esp. chapter 4.
249
For example, while the MST in Brazil prioritizes the issue of land property and agrarian reform, the
National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC) in the U.S. prioritizes the issue of commodity prices, and both
advocate in favor of domestic protections.
248
128
leaves very little room for negotiating agendas with other sectoral domains.250 As one of
its affiliates in Mexico explained:
“There is no debate about trade because we share the same position [within Vía
Campesina]. For us it is clear that countries have the right to subsidize their
agriculture, but they also have the right to close their borders. The issue of
market access is a trap.”251
4.3.1 Rural Transnationalism in the Americas
At the beginning of the 1990s, transnational ties among rural organizations in the
Americas were weak, and the knowledge of other countries’ realities was scarce.252 Trade
had already become an important issue for rural organizations, especially because of the
GATT negotiations and Mexico’s unilateral liberalization,253 but it was not part of a
cross-border agenda. A few binational exchanges among rural organizations began right
before NAFTA, in the context of the U.S.-Mexico Diálogos Project and other initiatives,
which were strengthened further with the trinational negotiations.254
Although actors involved in these early collaboration efforts emphasize that, for
the first time, organizations from the three NAFTA countries collaborated on the basis of
similar problems and sought common solutions,255 the obstacles were similar to those
discussed above for labor transnationalism. Most notably, the affiliation of Mexican
For more details about Vía Campesina’s proposals, see Vía Campesina, 2002, available in
www.viacampesina.org.
251
Interview with Víctor Quintana, Frente Democrático Campesino de Chihuahua, over the phone,
November 2005.
252
See Hernández Navarro, 2002; Brooks and Fox, 2002: 42.
253
Mexico became a GATT member in 1986.
254
In November of 1991, rural and environmental organizations from Mexico, the U.S. and Canada held
the first Trinational Exchange on Agriculture, Environment, and NAFTA in Mexico City (see the
Chronology of Events in Appendix D).
255
See Lehman, 2002: 169.
250
129
organizations such as the National Peasants Confederation (CNC) to the then in power
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), as well as the great organizational fragmentation
in both Mexico and the U.S., limited the possibilities of broad transnational coalitionbuilding to oppose negotiations or to try to influence them.256 Unlike the case of labor,
however, the absence of a prior history of ideological clashes made it easier for actors in
the three countries to find counterparts with whom to share information about the
negotiations, even if this did not lead to sustained processes of transnational coalition
building.257
While labor organizations already had a regional organization when MERCOSUR
negotiations began, rural organizations had to create one: the Coordination of
Organizations of Family Producers of MERCOSUR (Coordinadora de Organizaciones
de Productores Familiares del MERCOSUR - COPROFAM). This small farmers’
coalition, founded in 1994, brought together organizations from the MERCOSUR
member countries – Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay – as well as from Peru,
Chile and Bolivia. Its general position resembles labor’s “critical support” of the
integration process. Its goals have been to press for policies that help small farmers
negatively affected and to design common strategies to strengthen family-based
agricultural production. 258 Vía Campesina affiliates in the region, such as the MST in
256
See Hernández Navarro, 2002: 153-154 and Lehman, 2002: 172.
One interesting exception is the transformation of a small farmers’ coalition headquartered in the U.S.,
the Rural Coalition, in a binational organization. In 1992, Rural Coalition organized its Assembly in El
Paso, Mexico, with the goal of finding out more about Mexican reality and the possible impacts of
NAFTA. Since then, Mexican and U.S. organizations have been part of its Board of Directors. Interview
with Lorette Picciano, Executive Director, Rural Coalition, Washington D.C., October 2004.
258
In 2004, the MERCOSUR governments agreed to create a specific institutional space for the debate of
small farmers’ policies with participation of rural organizations - the Specialized Meeting on Family-Based
Agriculture (Reunión Especializada de Agricultura Familiar – REAF).
257
130
Brazil and ANAMURI in Chile, do not participate in it, though (see Table 4.7). The same
year that COPROFAM was created, rural organizations founded the Latin American
Coordination of Rural Organizations (Coordinadora Latinoamericana de Organizaciones
del Campo – CLOC). This initiative had less to do with regional trade negotiations,
however, than with the coming together of organizations during the 500 Years of
Resistance Campaign, which culminated in 1992.259
Thus, when FTAA talks began, a new scenario in terms of transnational
organizations representing farmers’ interests in trade negotiations was in place (Vía
Campesina, the International Federation of Agricultural Producers-UITA and IUF at the
global level, and COPROFAM and CLOC at the regional level), but no organization
functioned at the hemispheric level. This proliferation of new coalitions was a product of
the increased transnationalization of rural workers’ collective action, but also reflected
profound disagreements on how to move forward in trying to influence multilateral trade
negotiations, which have prevented the creation of a unified coalition. These
disagreements have been felt more strongly at the WTO level than at the hemispheric
level, where challengers of trade negotiations affiliated to the various organizations share
the decision to oppose the FTAA negotiations. As is also the case of labor, this broad
consensus has allowed actors that would not normally be together to join hands in
specific contexts.
259
Interview with Geraldo Fontes, MST International Relations Secretariat, São Paulo, March 2005 and
with Francisca Rodríguez, ANAMURI, Santiago, Chile, May 2005. This Campaign was launched by a
broad coalition of Latin American rural, indigenous and faith-based organizations (among others), to
protest the commemorations of the anniversary of the “discovery” of the Americas.
131
4.3.2 Rural Organizations in a Relational Context
The ties among organizations mapped in graphs 4.1-4.5 show the high profile of
rural organizations affiliated to Vía Campesina. However, the relational data also shows
that there are differences between the embeddedness of rural organizations at the
domestic level, and their transnational ties. At the transnational level, rural organizations
have the highest intra-group density (see Table 4.5). Accordingly, graph 4.7 shows that,
when asked how they would contact organizations in other countries to organize their
participation at an event parallel to a future FTAA Ministerial meeting, most answered
that they would use rural coalitions (and, most prominently among those, Vía
Campesina), and not trade coalitions, as their privileged gateways.
GRAPH 4.7
GATEWAYS USED BY RURAL ORGANIZATIONS
MST
CLOC
ANAMURI
CIOAC
NFFC
CONTAG
MPA
Trade Coalitions
VÍA CAMPESINA
UNORCA
UITA
RC
ANEC
FDC
MAB
Others
CNOC
 Rural Organizations
 Gateways used to contact allies in the other country before an FTAA meeting
Source: Interviews with representatives of rural organizations in charge of trade issues (see Appendix C).
132
At the domestic level, however, rural organizations’ collective action on trade has
been conducted very much in collaboration with other types of organizations, through comembership in national trade coalitions and campaigns, or in more informal ways. Some
of these ties are old ones, such as those linking rural organizations and church groups.260
Thus, the relationships between rural organizations challenging trade liberalization and
other organizations have been a lot more complicated and heterogeneous than the account
about the Cancun protests might have implied. The links between Oxfam offices in the
hesmisphere and rural organizations is a good example of how interaction can lead to
changes in agendas and strategies.
Oxfam offices in the Americas have diminished their efforts to engage with
governments to reform regional trade policies, and instead have put out statements
against free trade negotiations. Thus, these offices have distanced themselves from
Oxfam International’s position, as one of its officials explains:
“We [at Oxfam America] have taken a position against the FTAA and against
the Central American Free Trade Agreement. There was an internal discussion
… but we were pushed to that point because so many of our close allies and
partners were at that position.”261
260
For example, sectors of the Brazilian Catholic Church have been involved in mobilizations for agrarian
reform in Brazil for decades, and they played an important role in the creation of the MST. See, for
example, Comparato, 2001, esp. pp. 114-115, and Carter, 2004.
261
Interview with Stephanie Weinberg, Oxfam America’s Trade Policy Advisor, Washington D.C., June
2004.
133
TABLE 4.7
RURAL ORGANIZATIONS’ PARTICIPATION IN TRADE DEBATES – MAIN CHALLENGERS
FROM BRAZIL, CHILE, MEXICO AND THE U.S.
COUNTRY
Rural
Organization
International
organization
membership
Position in
trade debates
Role in
domestic
trade
coalitions
BRAZIL
CHILE
MEXICO
U.S.
MST
CONTAG
ANAMURI
ANEC
UNORCA
CIOAC
NFFC
RC
VC*
CLOC**
COPROFAM***
IUF****
VC
CLOC
VC
VC
VC
CLOC
VC
--
Active in
Campaign
against the
FTAA
Active in
MERCOSUR
and in Campaign
against the
FTAA
Was against
U.S.-Chile
FTA, active
against the
FTAA
Was against
NAFTA,
less active
against the
FTAA than
in
demanding
renegotiation
of NAFTA.
Was against
NAFTA,
less active
against the
FTAA than
in
demanding
renegotiation
of NAFTA.
Active in
REBRIP’s
working
group
on
agriculture.
Active in
REBRIP’s
working group
on agriculture.
Was against
NAFTA,
less active
against the
FTAA than
in
demanding
renegotiation
of NAFTA.
Member of
RMALC.
--
--
--
Was
against
NAFTA
and is
against
the
FTAA.
Member
of
Citizen’s
Trade
Campaign
Was
against
NAFTA
and is
against
the
FTAA.
--
Active
participant in
YES
YES
YES
NO
NO
NO
NO
NO
the
HSA*****
* Vía Campesina ** Latin American Coordinator of Campesino Organizations *** Coordinator of Orgs. of Family Producers of MERCOSUR
****International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF)
*****Hemispheric Social Alliance Sources: official websites of the organizations and interviews.
134
As a result, while Oxfam International and Vía Campesina cannot join forces at
the global level, Oxfam offices in Latin America and in the U.S. have worked closely
with VC affiliates. As in the case of labor, however, this common position implies the
suppression of perennial disagreements over strategies and over key issues like the use of
subsidies in developed countries.
In the U.S., a couple of months before the Cancun meeting, a broad coalition of
rural organizations, labor unions, religious, environmental and development
organizations signed a joint statement calling for changes in U.S. agricultural policies at a
domestic and international levels. The statement endorsed a set of principles that trade
policy-makers should follow, centered around the need to pay family farmers a fair price
for their products.262 Nonetheless, U.S. agricultural subsidies remain a source of
contention. While some of the organizations that have challenged trade negotiations
criticize them, the National Family Farm Coalition argues that it is the depression of
prices that is really the root of the problem, making subsidies necessary for the survival
of farmers.263 Also, perennial tensions between fair prices for farmers versus cheap food
for urban people or cheap raw materials for food and fiber manufacturers have not been
solved.264
There are also differences worth noting in the prominency of rural organizations
in close allies’ networks in the four countries. Whereas in Brazil and in Chile rural
organizations were among the most frequently nominated close allies of other trade
agreement challengers, in Mexico and in the U.S. they occupy less central positions.
262
See FARM AID et al., September 7, 2003.
Interview with Katherine Ozer, NFFC Task Force on Trade, Washington D.C., October 2004.
264
Edelman, 2003: 215.
263
135
Furthermore, other actors nominated rural organizations more often in the first two
countries than in the latter two. Difficulties for coordinating action in Cancun were
exacerbated by the inter-organizational conflicts in Mexico, the lack of mobilization
capacity on the part of other actors (such as Mexican labor), and the previous history of
clashes between rural organizations affiliated to Vía Campesina and the national trade
coalition, the Mexican Action Network on Free Trade (RMALC).
Complaints about RMALC have been similar to the complaints directed by Vía
Campesina at NGOs in general, most importantly that it purports to speak in the name of
rural workers (see Chapter 5 for a more detailed analysis about RMALC’s role). When an
international event such as the WTO meeting happens, these domestic tensions spill over
to transnational relations among organizations and impact on the ability of actors to
achieve common ground. This does not mean, though, that collaborative relationships
between rural organizations and other types of organizations have been totally absent in
Mexico. On the contrary, these have been constructed in the context of specific
campaigns at the domestic level. The case of the liberalization of corn under NAFTA
rules provides a good example.
For most Mexican rural organizations, one of the key demands since the late
1990s has been the renegotiation of the agrarian chapter of NAFTA, and specifically
taking white corn265 and beans out of the trade liberalization calendar.266 The negative
265
Yellow corn is imported mostly for animal feeding, while white corn is used in the food industry to
make “tortillas.”
266
The Movement “El Campo no Aguanta Más” (which would translate as something like “The Rural
Sector Cannot Take it Any Longer”) succeeded in temporarily unifying the broad range of rural workers’
organizations in Mexico, around demands that included the renegotiation of the calendar of agricultural
products liberalization under NAFTA and changes to Mexican rural policies. Not coincidentally, this
136
impact of imports on small producers and the contamination of native species by U.S.
genetically modified corn led to unprecedented collaborative efforts among rural,
indigenous, and environmental organizations.267 In 1999, these organizations launched a
campaign against transgenetic contamination that linked the NAFTA provisions directly
to the local impact on rural and indigenous communities in Mexico. We can see from the
graph of the Mexican network of close allies (see graph 4.3) that environmental
organizations such as GEA and Greenpeace and rural organizations such as UNORCA,
the rural NGO CECCAM, and ANEC, mentioned each other as close allies. Those ties
reflect the collaboration on this campaign. Although this is an example of an issue linking
the impacts of a multilateral trade agreement to local communities’ environment and
economic well-being, it likewise shows the difficulties of taking broad-based domestic
collaboration to the international level. When the Mexican allies petitioned the North
American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) to investigate the
contamination of maize fields, U.S. organizations did not join in. As the Director of
Greenpeace-Mexico explained:
“What happens in the U.S. is that the campaign against GMOs is very
fragmented. The corporations are very strong and there are GMOs all over the
place. I think it is very difficult to propose a transnational alliance as strategy.
Maybe some U.S. agricultural groups would agree, because of the problems
initiative flourished in 2002, after the new Farm Bill was approved in the U.S. in May and a few months
before the nine-year transition to liberalization in rice, soybeans, wheat and various other products ended.
267
Although corn is subject to a longer transition period (fourteen years) than other products, Mexico has
issued import licenses that are not required under the NAFTA rules, and this has resulted in a dramatic
increase of U.S. exports. With the full liberalization of corn trade in January 1, 2008, it is expected that
U.S. exports to Mexico will increase even more. See the data in the report produced by the U.S.
Department of Agriculture, in Zahniser and Coyle, 2004.
137
they face to commercialize GMOs, but, even in this case, they would be weak
allies.”268
In sum, rural organizations have increasingly occupied spaces in trade debates, by
creating new transnational organizations, and rallying organizations from developed and
developing countries around the idea of food sovereignty. Challengers of trade
agreements remain, however, divided between those affiliated to Vía Campesina and
those that are not, which reflects differences in goals and strategies that go beyond
agricultural trade debates. At both global and hemispheric levels, discussions about the
use of agricultural subsidies and the role of the WTO are extremely divisive, and are
suppressed in efforts to build common agendas. The minimalist consensus to work jointly
against the FTAA allows many of these actors to work together, while differences
reemerge periodically. At the domestic level, broader alliances are possible around
specific campaigns, such as the one around corn in Mexico. At the transnational level,
rural organizations affiliated to Vía Campesina have engaged less than labor
organizations in the construction of broad coalitions to challenge trade negotiations, and
have resisted incorporating other actors’ grievances.
4.4 The Potential Roles of “Multi-issue” NGOs
Besides labor and rural organizations, among the most frequently named actors in
the close allies’ networks are several non-governmental organizations. Those that occupy
268
Interview with Alejandro Calvillo, Director of Greenpeace-Mexico, Mexico City, August 2004. It is also
interesting to note that, while Greenpeace-Mexico was very active in this campaign, Greenpeace in the U.S.
did not have a campaign on GMOs.
138
the most central positions share a key characteristic: all have participated in trade debates
from a multi-issue perspective. This distinguishes them from NGOs that take a
specialized look at trade agreements – for example, Doctors Without Borders has worked
specifically on the impacts of trade agreements on access to medicines, and Human
Rights Watch has focused on the interface between labor rights violations and trade
agreements. The most prominent of these multi-issue NGOs are: in Brazil, the Federation
of Organs for Social and Educational Assistance - FASE, the Institute of Socioeconomic
Studies – Inesc, and Alternative Policies for the Southern Cone (PACS); in Mexico,
Peoples’ Team - Equipo Pueblo; in Chile, the Chilean Alliance for Just and Responsible
Trade - ACJR and the Center of National Studies on Alternative Development - CENDA;
and, in the U.S., Public Citizen, the Development Group for Alternative Policies (DGAP), and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) (see Table 4.2 and graphs 4.1-4.4).
The centrality of these organizations is surprising if one considers that, in
comparison with labor and rural organizations, they have very little mobilization
capacity. They do not represent specific constituencies affected by trade agreements, nor
do they seek to do so. Furthermore, as seen above, many organizations still resist working
with NGOs.269 On the other hand, it is precisely because these actors do not owe
allegiance to specific constituencies and because they have a broad approach to trade
agreements that they can develop close alliances with a variety of types of
organizations.270 They are not constrained by diplomatic limits, as labor and rural
269
On the often hostile relationships between labor organizations and NGOs, and how these may be
overcome, see the contributions in Eade and Leather, eds., 2005. On how similar tensions were also present
during the process that led to the creation of the Pro-Canada Network in the mid-1980s, see Huyer, 2005.
270
Density results showed that they tend to nominate as their closest allies other NGOs from the same
group at least as much as other types of organizations (see table 4.3).
139
organizations often are, nor are they constrained by a specific mission or agenda.
Furthermore, they have invested in building the organizational capacity to participate in
policy debates from a variety of entry points. Given the specific characteristics of
collective action on trade, which is a highly technical arena that extends over many issue
areas, the effects of which are hard to evaluate fully, the analytical skills of these NGOs
are powerful tools.
4.4.1 NGOs as Newcomers to Trade Debates
In general terms, NGOs are newcomers to trade debates. Most only began to pay
consistent attention to trade negotiations in the 1990s, and, in the case of Brazilian
organizations, only around the end of that decade.271 Many U.S. and Mexican NGOs
became active on trade during the NAFTA debates, but, in the Southern Cone, regional
integration processes did not have the same appeal. MERCOSUR remained under the
radar for most Brazilian CSOs that were not labor or rural organizations, in spite of the
occasional and short-lived participation of consumers, women’s, and environmental
organizations.272 For some, MERCOSUR was a “neoliberal project” that would only
benefit corporations;273 for others, it was yet another attempt at Latin American
271
There are a few exceptions, however. The Brazilian NGOs PACS and Ibase, for example, followed the
debates about GATT negotiations in the mid-1980s.
272
However, Inesc organized a few seminars on MERCOSUR in the 1990s, focusing mostly on getting
parliamentarians involved in the regional integration debates. On the scarce NGO participation in the
debates about environmental policies in MERCOSUR, see von Bülow, 2003, esp. pp. 99-100, and
Hochstetler, 2003.
273
Interview with Marcos Arruda (General Coordinator) and Sandra Quintela (Programs Coordinator),
PACS, Rio de Janeiro, March 2005.
140
integration that was doomed to fail; finally, NGOs resented the fact that channels for civil
society involvement were restricted to a capital-labor corporativist logic.274
Nonetheless, previous linkages, created over other issues and in other
transnational spaces – such as the participation in U.N. conferences throughout the 1980s
and 1990s, or the transnational activism on human rights during Latin America’s military
dictatorships275 – were in part available to be reactivated when trade became a relevant
issue for these organizations. Furthermore, NGOs were not newcomers to debates on
macroeconomic issues and global governance. Since the 1980s, many NGOs had been
working jointly with social movement organizations on issues such as foreign debt and
the impacts of policies promoted by international institutions, most notably the World
Bank and the International Monetary Fund. These ties were both domestic and
transnational.276
In the NAFTA countries, NGOs had a key role in the debates on the trade
agreement and in constructing the coalitions created to challenge it. In the U.S., NGOs
participated actively in the creation of the Alliance for Responsible Trade (ART) and the
Citizen’s Trade Campaign (CTC) (see Chapter 5). However, there were differences
among the three countries with respect to the kinds of NGOs that became involved and
their levels of engagement. For example, the Canadian women’s movement was actively
involved in the trade debates; this was not true either in the U.S. or in Mexico.277 In the
274
Interview with Iara Pietricovsky, coordinator, Inesc, Brasilia, April 2005.
These transnational activities are well documented in the academic literature. See, for example, Keck
and Sikkink, 1998, esp. chapters 3-5 and Friedman, Hochstetler, and Clark, 2005.
276
For example, the relationships between FASE in Brazil and D-GAP in the United States originated in
the context of debates about structural adjustment policies.
277
For an analysis of women’s groups actions from the CUSFTA to the FTAA debates, see, for example,
MacDonald, 2005.
275
141
U.S., environmental NGOs were key actors during the NAFTA debates, but the interface
between environment and trade had a much lower profile in the other two countries.
Roles differed; some NGOs became key mediators across different types of organizations
and national borders, while others gained influence due to their analytical and
organizational skills. The next two sections presents examples of both.
4.4.2 Multi-Issue NGOs as Brokers?
As explained in chapter 2, brokers are actors that are capable of connecting
organizations or groups that are separated because of lack of either access or of trust, or
because of other kinds of obstacles, such as the costs of maintaining permanent direct
contact with numerous members of a coalition. Some multi-issue NGOs have played
different brokerage roles at the domestic and international levels, among actors in the
network and between challengers of trade agreements and other actors. For example,
organizations such as FASE in Brazil and the D-GAP in the U.S. have played roles of
mediators, coordinators and representatives, being the headquarters of the secretariats of
domestic trade coalitions (see a more detailed analysis of these brokerage roles in chapter
5). These roles differ from those played by other multi-issue NGOs, which have different
organizational profiles and strategies in trade debates.
Some Brazilian NGOs became part of trade debates through their previous
connections to labor. Before the Belo Horizonte FTAA meeting of 1997, CUT’s
Secretary of International Affairs contacted FASE (an old ally that in the beginning of the
1980s had helped to create the labor federation) to discuss the creation of a domestic
coalition of organizations focused on trade, one that would function as the counterpart of
142
other domestic trade coalitions and as the national chapter of the Hemispheric Social
Alliance.278 The Secretariat of the Brazilian Network for the Integration of the Peoples
(REBRIP) has been headquartered at FASE since then (see chapter 5). Although FASE
had followed MERCOSUR negotiations previously, before 1997 it had not had a
prominent role in trade debates.
The Development-GAP headquartered the Secretariat of the U.S. Alliance for
Responsible Trade (ART) for many years. There are other similarities between the two
organizations. Both are well-established NGOs with broad relationships with various
types of civil society organizations in their countries and abroad, working on issues
related to development, poverty, and democratization of international organizations. As
the person in FASE in charge of REBRIP explained, their ability to play brokerage roles
reflects the organization’s emphasis on broad-based coalition building:
“We don’t do anything [that is trade-related] as FASE… There is a group of
NGOs in Brazil that knows its roles and limits, and that does not want to
represent or take the place of social movements… That doesn’t mean that there
are no problems, though… Of course, when you participate in the working
group on agriculture of REBRIP, for example, on the one hand you have
Contag, the MST and Fetraf [membership organizations], which represent
millions of workers, and on the other you have FASE and Inesc [NGOs], which
do not represent anyone. Of course these organizations have different weights
and roles. But I think that after decades of working together, we now have the
278
Interview with Fátima Mello, International Relations Coordinator of FASE and Executive Secretariat of
REBRIP, Rio de Janeiro, March 2005.
143
maturity to recognize each organization’s role… This is FASE’s prime
commitment in terms of its relationships with others: we privilege the
participation of social movements in all we do. We are against articulations
exclusively among NGOs.”279
The relatively low profile that D-GAP and FASE have had in trade coalitions as
autonomous actors helps to reduce the resistance to the idea that NGOs may play
brokerage and leadership roles. This resistance was clear, for example, when REBRIP
discussed whether to send a representative to follow global trade negotiations in Geneva,
and unions opposed sending someone from the NGO that had made the proposal. In the
end, the compromise reached was to send two representatives, one from a labor union
(CUT’s Steelworkers Confederation) and another from the NGO (Inesc).280
Graph 4.8 shows that almost all multi-issue NGOs would go through trade
coalitions to contact challengers of trade agreements in other countries in preparation for
an official FTAA meeting. Only one – the Chilean CEMDA – would use other channels,
but, as will be seen in the next chapter, Chile’s case is different because it became the
only of the four countries without a domestic trade coalition. In sum, NGOs are more
likely to successfully play brokerage roles among trade challengers when a) they
approach trade from a multi-issue perspective; b) they are willing to coordinate collective
action, while at the same time not attempting to speak for others, or to occupy center
stage; c) they have good previous relationships with the main member-based
organizations in the country; and d) they have good relationships with key international
279
280
Idem.
Interview with Fernando Lopes, Secretary-General of CNM/CUT, São Paulo, March 2005.
144
actors, or are actively pursuing them. Not all multi-issue NGOs have wanted to play
brokerage roles, though, as the next section shows.
GRAPH 4.8
GATEWAYS USED BY MULTI-ISSUE NGOs
FASE
PACS
Others
PUBLIC CITIZEN
IPS
CENDA
Trade Coalitions
Other NGOs
ACJR
INESC
D-GAP
DECA-EP
 Multi-issue NGOs
 Gateways used to contact allies in another country before an FTAA meeting
Source: Interviews with representatives of multi-issue NGOs in charge of trade issues (see Appendix C).
4.4.3 “It’s not about trade”
The growing number of issues that are currently seen as being “trade-related”
reflects not only the broadening of the official agenda, but also the increased involvement
of multi-issue NGOs that are capable of linking trade agreement negotiations to a great
variety of topics, and of providing a unifying rhetoric.281 Issues such as investment rules,
281
Gould et.al argue that NGOs such as Public Citizen and Global Exchange were the ones focusing on
corporate globalization in general and thus providing a unifying rhetoric in the Seattle protests, while labor
145
public services, food safety and intellectual property, for example, have become more
relevant, and have shown great potential for organizing across different types of
organizations. This agenda also allows NGOs to deny the label of “protectionists” while
mobilizing against free trade agreements, because, after all, “it’s not about trade.”282
The Washington-based Public Citizen, the Mexico City-based DECA-Equipo
Pueblo and the Brasilia-based Inesc provide good examples of the agenda-setting role of
multi-issue NGOs. Unlike D-GAP and FASE, these NGOs have participated in the trade
debates as more autonomous organizations, with specific demands and strategies of their
own. Their network centrality is explained more by the specific skills they bring to the
field, than to the internal brokerage roles played in trade coalitions. The case of Public
Citizen provides a good example.
Global Trade Watch was created in 1995 as one of Public Citizen’s six internal
divisions, thus setting trade as one of the organization’s priority areas of action. With a
12-person staff at the end of 2006,283 Global Trade Watch stands out of one of the
organizations that have invested most heavily in hiring human resources specialized in
trade negotiations.284 Most of these resources have focused in lobbying in the U.S.
Congress. Since the Legislative branch has significant influence over trade policies (see
chapter 6), lobbying is a key activity for U.S. trade agreement challengers. The marriage
of expertise in various trade-related issue areas, strong organizational capability, and
and environmental actors were focused in their own specific agendas. See Gould, Lewis, and Roberts,
2004: 93-94.
282
This is the title of a book chapter written by the Director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. See
Wallach, 2004.
283
www.citizen.org/trade, last accessed 8 October 2006.
284
ORIT, for example, a much larger organization, only has five staff members following trade
negotiations. Interview with Víctor Báez, ORIT Secretary General, Belo Horizonte, December 2004.
146
deep knowledge about the workings of Congress, make Public Citizen one of the most
important actors in the field of trade challengers, in the U.S. as well as at the hemispheric
level. Out of 122 organizations in the four countries studied, 41 (almost 34%) mentioned
Public Citizen as a close ally. As one union leader explained:
“If I wanted to know some specific question of the more minute detail of NAFTA
or WTO or the FTAA, I would call Lori [Lori Wallach, the Director of Global
Trade Watch] and she would shoot at me, she would be able to answer the
question. It’s an incredible resource to have.”285
Interestingly, many of those who said that Public Citizen is one of their
organization’s closest allies also stated that they do not agree with many of its strategies
and arguments. In part, this contradiction is a matter of personal differences among
individuals, but it is also a reflection of other disagreements, which are made more
explicit given Public Citizen’s aggressive and pragmatic approach to lobbying U.S.
officials. As one of the interviewees explained:
“During one of the fast track debates, Public Citizen did focus groups, which
showed that the issues to focus on were food safety, drugs, and trucking. We [in
ART] totally disagreed with that approach. I understood that these were issues
that resonated with a lot of Americans, and the goal was to stop fast track, and I
think that they were very cautious in the way they worded their statements, but…
a step loose from them, those arguments became pretty anti-Mexican.”286
285
Interview with Christopher Townsend, Political Action Director and International Representative,
United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers (UE), Arlington, Virginia, October 2005.
286
Anonymous interview, Washington D.C., September 2005.
147
Accordingly, when asked what is the greatest difficulty in the relationships with
organizations in the South, Public Citizen’s then coordinator for the FTAA answered that
the main difficulty is to explain the strategies that have to be implemented in order to win
votes in Congress, or stop negotiations.287 The case of the campaign against the entrance
of Mexican trucks in the U.S. after NAFTA is a good example that shows that not only
labor, but also NGOs, may fall in “national traps”:
“The Mexican trucks problem is a nightmare for us. Our position has been that
it has to do with environmental laws… If you are letting trucks in without
making Mexican standards as high as U.S. standards, that means that the U.S.
environmental law is being trumped by a trade treaty. But the way the Mexicans
view it, is that it’s a very xenophobic, racist initiative, that we don’t want
Mexicans in the U.S.”288
For Public Citizen, their choice of allies and frames has to do with the differences
between short-term goals while lobbying in Congress, and long-term goals when building
transnational coalitions:
“I think a lot of organizations in terms of frame one and frame two. Frame one
is labor and environmental standards, or development funds in the FTAA,
winning the specific Congress battles. But frame two is your global perspective,
what you want the world to look like… frame one is who would you fight the
battle with, versus who you want to win the war with.”289
Interview with Timi Gerson, Public Citizen’s FTAA Coordinator, Washington D.C., May 2004.
Idem.
289
Idem.
287
288
148
With over ten years of experience in following trade negotiations, Public Citizen
has made changes in its activities and attitudes that are at least in part a result of
interactions with allies in Latin America. It has become more careful with the wordings
of its statements, and has invested in hiring staff that speaks Spanish to be able to find
allies in the region and to better defend its choice of strategies.290 However, the role
played by Public Citizen in the U.S. remains a good example of the difficulties in
overcoming the conflicts between privileging domestic change and engaging in
transnational collective action (this point is further discussed in chapter 6).
Conclusion
By combining social network data on relationships among civil society
organizations and qualitative information on how these relationships have changed
through time, this chapter has showed how actors have become embedded in a new
relational environment through their participation in collective action on trade. A good
example of these changes is provided by the ties between U.S. and Latin American civil
society organizations. We can be confident that CUT-Brazil would not have identified the
AFL-CIO as a close ally in the 1980s, nor would Public Citizen have been considered a
close ally by so many organizations in Brazil, Chile, and Mexico – in the first case,
because of the ideological clashes of the Cold War period; in the second case, because
these relationships simply did not exist. Perhaps even more importantly, this chapter
290
Idem.
149
showed the relevance of South-South ties in close allies’ networks of trade challengers,
and the increasingly important role played by Southern organizations in the field of trade.
This chapter also showed that actors are still being impacted by past trajectories,
institutional logics, and social networks. Labor federations, rural organizations, and
multi-issue NGOs have dealt with a common challenge: to be able to engage in dialogue
across types of organizations and national boundaries, while at the same time maintaining
their autonomy and their previous identities. This challenge has been approached through
changes in the contents of agendas and coalition building strategies, but the results are
fragile arrangements that have to be constantly renegotiated. Good examples of these
dynamics are: the transformation of the attitudes and positions of Oxfam’s offices in the
Americas; the suppression of clear references to the problem of agricultural subsidies in
statements signed by coalitions; the extension of labor federations’ agendas to include
other civil society organizations’ issues, such as environmental concerns; and the
transformation of the contents of the labor clause proposal to make it acceptable to
Southern critics.
Finally, this chapter showed how the participation of similar types of
organizations varies according to the scope of their alliances, their level of commitment
and the location from which they act. Instead of taking labor organizations as a
homogenous group with clear and permanent interests, it showed how labor federations
are differently positioned in networks, and what these different positions mean in terms
of their pathways to transnationality. The same is true of multi-issue NGOs. Some play a
key role of internal brokers, facilitating communication among CSOs within and across
national borders, while others have more disruptive agenda-setting roles and become
150
central actors because of specific skills that they bring to the field. Finally, rural
organizations affiliated to Vía Campesina have resisted building broad-based alliances at
the transnational level, although that is not true in specific contexts within the countries
studied. These differences in pathways are explained in greater detail in the next chapters,
which focus on two central tasks for trade challengers: the creation of coalitions, and the
elaboration of alternative proposals to free trade policies.
151
Chapter 5 – ORGANIZATIONAL PATHWAYS TO TRANSNATIONALITY
While chapter 4 mapped ties among civil society challengers of free trade
agreements and analyzed how their relationships have changed through time, this chapter
focuses specifically on the process of institutionalization of these ties through the creation
of domestic and transnational coalitions. As trade agreements entered the agendas of an
increasingly wide spectrum of organizations in the 1990s, there was a glaring lack of
blueprints available to actors for achieving this task. Previous arrangements were in the
main specific to categories or types of organizations, such as international labor and
religious organizations, with scarce intersections among them. The result of efforts to
create broader spaces has been the emergence of new organizational forms, which build
upon and extrapolate from pre-existing ones, and represent different organizational
pathways to transnationality.
In spite of the dearth of ready-made recipes for coalition building, actors did have
visions of what coalitions should look like, and of what kinds of alternatives were
unacceptable to them. Nonetheless, the outcomes of the search for organizational
pathways to transnationality were not predetermined; different answers to the problems
of coordination and representation were possible in specific time-space junctures, always
subject to future negotiated changes. Coalition building among trade agreement
challengers is thus best understood as a dynamic process of creation of “political spaces
152
in which differently situated actors negotiate – formally or informally – the social,
cultural, and political meanings of their joint enterprise.”291
The literature on transnationalism has highlighted the difficulties of sustained
coalition building, and the rejection by actors of pyramidal organizations. It has placed an
emphasis on the tendency for transnational collective action to be organized loosely,
preferably around campaigns that have a limited life span, and in which agreements are
narrowly targeted and temporary. This chapter seeks to remedy the current absence in the
transnationalist analytical toolbox of concepts to account for the kind of “messy”
collective action that is neither a campaign nor a short-lived protest event. This gap in
turn leads to the need to understand better how current organizational pathways to
transnationality represent different balances between past organizational forms and the
creation of new ones.
In order to capture coalition building dynamics, this chapter tells the stories of the
creation of hemispheric and national-level trade protest coalitions between 1991 and
2006. It argues that actors have built coalitions that are embedded in previous social
network structures and organizations, but that these are changed through the creation of
new ties and efforts to balance power internally; through the diffusion of successful
experiences and their adaptation in new environments; and the creation of coordination,
representation, and mediation brokerage roles that link the local, national, and
transnational levels.
291
Keck and Sikkink, 1998: 3.
153
5.1 Campaign and Affiliation based Coalition Building Modes
Coalition building around trade has not been a linear and progressive process, by
which organizations are created and strengthened at the domestic level, only to, at a
second stage, spill over into the transnational arena (see Figure 5.1). It has been a more
chaotic process of institutionalizing relationships simultaneously at the domestic and
transnational levels. In all cases, these initiatives have had to face the challenge of
sustainability. Some coalitions did not survive;292 others were transformed, in attempts to
deal with new challenges. Looking at how these processes have unfolded since the
beginning of the 1990s helps us to understand the opportunities and obstacles of
transnational coalition building.
Trade coalitions have co-existed with a variety of other transnational coalitions,
many of which proliferated after the 1980s.293 The goal of trade challengers has not been
to replace these pre-existing coalitions, or to compete with them, but to create
intersecting spaces for organizing common collective action specifically related to trade
negotiations. Thus, in 2005 a national peak labor federation such as the AFL-CIO
discussed trade-related goals and strategies simultaneously in the Hemispheric Social
Alliance (HSA), the Continental Campaign against the Free Trade Area of the Americas
(FTAA), the Stop CAFTA Coalition (against the U.S.-Central America Free Trade
Agreement), and in specific international labor arenas; similarly, many gender and human
292
The Action Canada Network, and, as will be discussed later on in this chapter, the Chilean Network for
Peoples’ Integration, are two examples of trade coalitions that no longer exist.
293
In their research on Latin American regional organizations (which they called “regional networks”),
Korzeniewicz and Smith identified nearly three hundred of them. This number would be even higher if the
whole hemisphere had been included. See Korzeniewicz and Smith, 2003: 13.
154
rights NGOs participated in trade coalitions, while at the same time maintaining their
participation in other domestic, regional, and global initiatives. This pluralism is an
answer to the rejection of forms of organization with rigid membership rules that
characterized much of transnational collective action in the past. As one of the Chilean
founders of the HSA explained, there was a general agreement on the need to define rules
of coexistence that would allow for effective and plural transnational collective action,
but without creating new hierarchies and exclusionary organizations:
“We had in common this critique, that is related to the construction of a new
subject, that we needed to work in an efficient way, linking the international
with local impacts, but without these false, modernist representations of large
conglomerates, and [the creation of] representations that are often fictitious.”294
However, there was no generally accepted model to be adopted. The variety of
types of coalitions created reflects different visions of what actors think transnational
collective action should look like, what their role should be in it, and to whom they wish
to be allied. More specifically, they propose different balances between the seemingly
contradictory organizing principles of equality and effectiveness. These range from
coalition building that grants great autonomy to members through less hierarchical
structures, the campaign mode on which the transnational collective action literature has
focused most of its attention, to more ambitious projects of collective action through the
creation of sustained affiliation based coalitions, which have clearer membership
boundaries.
294
Interview with Coral Pey, Executive Director, Chilean Alliance for a Just and Responsible Trade
(ACJR), Santiago de Chile, June 2005.
155
Both of these answers to the collective action problems of coordination and
representation are present in the multi-organizational field of trade,295 at the domestic and
the transnational levels. Initiatives such as the Continental Campaign against the Free
Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and the Stop CAFTA Coalition are closer to the
campaign mode, and the Hemispheric Social Alliance (HSA) best exemplifies the
affiliation mode (see Figure 5.1). Coalition modes are themselves internally
heterogeneous; for example, affiliation based coalitions range from the more traditional
forms of hierarchical organization linking the local to the global level (such as labor
organizations have), to more flexible alliances such as the HSA. The case of the
Hemispheric Social Alliance is a specially interesting one, because it is an example of
innovation in transnational coalition building. Its members seek to create long-term
collaboration between previously existing organizations and new organizational forms,
by creating rules for coordination and representation while at the same time maintaining a
decision-making process based on consensus. However, as will be argued in the next
section, the HSA has only been partially successful in its goal to create an open and
horizontal transnational coalition.
By proposing the concept of “multi-organizational field”, Curtis and Zucher called the attention of social
movement scholars to the relevance of multiple affiliations of members of social movement organizations
to explain collective action. They argue that such a field “suggests that organizations in a community
setting approximate an ordered, coordinated system” (see Curtis and Zurcher, 1973: 53); contrary to this
understanding, the use of the concept in this dissertation does not assume either order or coordination.
295
156
FIGURE 5.1 - Timeline of Coalition Building on Trade in the Americas
DOMESTIC
YEAR
TRANSNATIONAL
1986
Creation of the Coordination of Southern
Cone Labor Centrals (CCSCS)
Creation of Pro-Canada Network, later
renamed Action Canada Network (ACN)
 1987
Creation of Common Frontiers, Canada
 1988
Creation of the Mexican Action Network on
Free Trade (RMALC), the Quebec Coalition
on Trilateral Negotiations, later renamed
Quebec Network on Continental
Integration (RQIC), and the U.S.
Mobilization on Development, Trade, Labor
and the Environment, later renamed
Alliance for Responsible Trade (ART)
 1991
Creation of U.S. Citizens’ Trade Campaign
(CTC)
 1992
Creation of the Chilean Network for Peoples’
Integration (Rechip), later renamed Chilean
Alliance for a Just and Responsible Trade
(ACJR)
 1994
Creation of the Brazilian Network for
Peoples’ Integration (REBRIP)
1997 
1998 
1999
Launching of national-level chapters of the
Campaign against the FTAA in Argentina,
Brazil, Mexico, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador,
Uruguay, and other countries
Launching of the idea of creation of the
Hemispheric Social Alliance (HSA)
during FTAA Ministerial Meeting
First Peoples’ Summit in Santiago
First meeting of the Hemispheric
Coordination of the HSA; launching of the
International Gender and Trade
Network (IGTN)
2001 
Second Peoples’ Summit in Québec;
I Hemispheric Meeting Against the FTAA
in Havana.
2002
Launching of the Continental Campaign
against the FTAA; II Hemispheric
Meeting Against the FTAA in Havana.
Launching of Stop CAFTA Campaign.
2004 
III Hemispheric Meeting Against the
FTAA in Havana
2005 
IV Hemispheric Meeting Against the
FTAA in Havana; Third Peoples’ Summit
in Mar del Plata
2006 
V Hemispheric Meeting Against the
FTAA
157
5.2 The Creation of the Hemispheric Social Alliance
The Hemispheric Social Alliance (HSA) is a transnational coalition of civil
society organizations formed by eighteen “national chapters” and fifteen “regional
members” (see Figure 5.2). It has undergone four phases: the first, between the launching
of the proposal to create the Alliance in Belo Horizonte in 1997 (see Figure 5.1), and the
first meeting of the Coordination in March of 1999, was a phase of discussions about how
the HSA would function, and of putting together the main demands presented to national
governments (mostly related to the FTAA negotiations); between 1999 and January of
2002 was a period of consolidation of the HSA, ending with the launching of the
Continental Campaign against the FTAA and a change towards an oppositional stance on
the negotiations; 296 between 2002 and the Miami Ministerial Meeting at the end of 2003,
the FTAA remained the main topic in the agenda, and national chapters mobilized
together with the Continental Campaign in opposition to the agreement; and, finally,
since the beginning of 2004, because the FTAA negotiations became stalled, the coalition
entered a new phase, progressively broadening its agenda to focus on global-level
negotiations and other regional agreements, while at the same time linking these
negotiations to issues such as foreign debt and militarization.
296
Before the 2001 Québec Summit, the HSA documents displayed lists of demands, most notably
demands related to the need to have greater access to the decision-making process and to information on
the progress of negotiations, and demands to broaden the scope of these negotiations to include a social and
environmental agenda. See, for example, the declaration signed by many of the same CSOs that
participated in the Hemispheric Social Alliance (RQIC et.al, 1997), and the joint declaration by unions and
NGOs issued during the Third Trade Ministerial Meeting in Belo Horizonte in 1997 (ORIT et.al, 1997). At
the Québec Summit, the HSA launched its new catchphrase: “The HSA says NO to the FTAA; other
Americas are Possible.” See Korzeniewicz and Smith, 2003: 67.
158
The HSA does not unite the whole universe of civil society organizations that
have been challenging trade negotiations, but it does bring together some of the main
actors in the associational milieu of the transnational field of trade (see Figure 5.2).297
Most of its members are located somewhere on the center-to-left of the ideological
spectrum, united by a common critique of free trade policies and a negative assessment of
the consequences of trade agreements. The hemispheric – and not Latin American –
character of the HSA is, in itself, a novelty in terms of transnational relations in the
region. As one of the participants argued:
“There is a rupture with the Latin Americanist vision that we cannot make an
alliance with Northern movements, and this is very important, it is a
contribution of the Hemispheric Social Alliance… we are in a different era, it is
not anymore ‘the ones in the South fight, those in the North show solidarity’.
The fight is now on both sides…”298
While there are many instances in the past of transnational collaboration among
these actors, the HSA innovates as a plural organization that seeks to be a sustained
coalition that is based on common goals and principles. It incorporates organizations and
coalitions through their participation in national HSA chapters, and/or in regional
organizations. Many of these existed prior to the HSA’s creation. Because of its broad
membership, reaching across various civil society sectoral domains as well as the NorthSouth divide, it has been considered an example of “the possibility of broader alliances
297
As will be seen below, important exceptions are those organizations that participate in the Continental
Campaign against the FTAA but are not members of the Hemispheric Social Alliance, such as Public
Citizen in the United States, or ecumenical organizations in Brazil, and the conservative organizations that
challenge free trade negotiations but do not participate in these initiatives.
298
Interview with Héctor de la Cueva, Director, CILAS, Mexico City, August 2004.
159
built around the larger issue of democratising economic governance.”299 There are,
however, many challenges and ambiguities in the functioning of the HSA, which threaten
its sustainability.
The HSA is defined by its members as an “open space”, a “forum of progressive
social movements and organizations of the Americas, created to exchange information,
define strategies and promote common actions, directed at finding an alternative and
democratic development model.”300 It does not collect fees from its members, but,
instead, raises funds from international foundations and NGOs to pay for a small
organizational structure and for publications.301 On the one hand, this avoids criticism of
bureaucratization, and diminishes the dependency on members that have more access to
financial resources; on the other, it limits the amount of activities that the HSA
Secretariat can perform, 302 and it creates dependency on actors from outside the
coalition.
In terms of its organizational structure, it does not conceive itself “as an
organization with structures and hierarchies of any type, but as an ongoing process under
construction,” but it admits the creation of “minimum and flexible coordination instances
at the hemispheric, regional, national, local, sectoral levels.”303 It does not have its own
office spaces, nor does it have permanent staff, but it does have a rotating Secretariat, a
299
Anner and Evans, 2004: 40.
See http://www.asc-hsa.org, accessed March 1 2006.
301
For example, the publication of various versions of the document “Alternatives for the Americas”, in
Spanish, Portuguese and English, has been funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation,
the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Solidago Foundation.
302
For this criticism by Canadian participants in the HSA, see Koo, 2001: 44.
303
See http://www.asc-hsa.org, accessed March 1 2006.
300
160
Coordination, and, most importantly in terms of decision-making, a Hemispheric Council
(see Figure 5.2).304 Its decision-making is by consensus among all participants.
In spite of the emphasis on horizontality and consensus, the HSA is not an “open
space” accessible to all. Its dual affiliation rule generates greater flexibility than more
hierarchical organizations, but it does separate those who can become members from
those who cannot. Individuals and single organizations cannot directly apply for
membership, and thus actors that are not members of regional coalitions, and/or do not
wish to become members of national chapters, are in practice excluded. Of the 123 CSOs
interviewed in Brazil, Chile, Mexico and the U.S., fifty-five – almost 45% – did not
participate in the HSA when they answered the questionnaires. Although this is not a
representative sample, it does indicate that an important part of the field of trade
challengers remains outside the HSA. Even in the case of those who are members of
national chapters and/or regional organizations affiliated to the HSA, the level of
commitment to transnational coalition building vary, as the section on labor organizations
argued in Chapter 4.
Furthermore, there are still open debates about rules for participation. As one
participant explains:
“There are questions which will come up about the legitimacy of certain
participants. We have had some of that discussion with regard to the Cuban
Workers’ Central, about whether it should be a part or not of the HSA. In my
own opinion, I don’t think that the inclusion of the more officialist organizations
304
Initially, the intention was to create a more sophisticated organization, with hemispheric-wide thematic
working groups, but only two have been active: the group in charge of monitoring the FTAA negotiations,
and the Gender Committee. Interview with Gonzalo Berrón, HSA Secretariat, São Paulo, April 2005.
161
from Cuba has been that much of a detriment to the process, but of course the
big question becomes: will officialist organizations in Cuba be as critical of the
FTAA once the embargo is lifted and Cuba is included in the FTAA?”305
Since its creation, members of the HSA have made conscious efforts at balancing
power asymmetries, but in its first phase the “NAFTA ‘Veterans’”, as Foster calls the
Mexican, U.S. and Canadian national chapters, were at the core of HSA activities.306 In
the composition of the Coordinating Group created in 1999, there was a balance between
North and South, and between national chapters and regional organizations.307 At first,
the Secretariat was lodged with the RMALC in Mexico, and then it moved to REBRIP, in
Brazil.
However, the HSA has also been criticized for not being “as hemispheric as the
name suggests.”308 Spanish is the organization’s de facto language, which guarantees that
Spanish-speaking Latin American participants will not have to face the language barrier.
On the other hand, for Portuguese, English and French-speakers, this can be an
exclusionary factor. This is somewhat less of a problem for those Brazilians who have
grown accustomed to participating in Mercosur arenas, but it is probably a greater
challenge for others. It is certainly a problem in English and French-speaking countries,
305
Anonymous interview, Washington D.C., October 2004.
See Foster, 2005: 221.
307
The members of HSA’s Coordinating Group are: Common Frontiers (Canada); the Quebec Network on
Hemispheric Integration (RQIC); the Alliance for Responsible Trade (U.S.); the Mexican Network Action
on Free Trade (RMALC); the Brazilian Network for Peoples’ Integration (REBRIP); the Civil Initiative for
Central American Integration (ICIC); the Regional Inter-American Organization of Workers (ORIT); and
the Latin American Confederation of Rural Organizations (CLOC).
308
Massicotte, 2003: 121.
306
162
and in the case of indigenous peoples’ organizations.309 While some U.S. CSOs now have
staff that speaks Spanish and/or Portuguese, many others do not, and that effectively
limits their participation in meetings and phone conferences, as a U.S. representative in
the HSA argues: “…all HSA meetings are in Spanish, so English-speakers don’t even
think about going… Yes, language was a big issue.”310 In practice, the result is a
tendency for the same individuals, those that have the language skills and/or come from
the most resourceful organizations, to attend meetings and participate in conference calls.
The launching of the Continental Campaign against the FTAA, in the beginning
of 2002, was an opportunity for those who could not – or would not – participate in the
HSA to become part of the field of challengers of trade agreements through different
organizational pathways. It differed from the HSA in terms of its breadth, the level of
commitment asked of participants, and the need for brokers. In spite of the fact that the
Campaign was created by the HSA, it progressively became larger than the Alliance, and
gained its own life. Two overlapping groups of civil society organizations participated in
the Campaign, but not in the HSA: those with previous grievances with key founding
members of the Alliance,311 and those that did not wish to commit to the creation of an
affiliation-based transnational coalition. Many (but not all) of the organizations in the
latter group privileged the participation in the domestic chapters of the Campaign rather
than the creation of sustained transnational relationships with challengers from the other
countries.
309
For example, Canadian participants raised the problem of exclusion of indigenous peoples because of
language obstacles. See Koo, 2001: 58.
310
Interview with Karen Hansen-Kuhn, ART Secretariat and D-GAP, Washington D.C., September 2005.
311
At the time the decision to launch the Campaign was made, in 2001, there was resistance by some actors
in Latin America to participate in the HSA because of the presence of ORIT as one of the key founding
organizations (see chapter 4). Interview with Gonzalo Berrón, HSA Secretariat, São Paulo, April 2005.
163
In terms of its breadth, the Campaign welcomed the participation of CSOs,
members of political parties, parliamentarians, and individuals in general that shared the
common goal of stopping the FTAA negotiations. It also created a Coordinating Group, a
Secretariat, and national chapters, but with more flexible participation rules. The
Continental Coordination was composed of two representatives of movements,
committees, chapters or platforms per country, and two from each continental or regional
network, but at the domestic level and during the hemispheric meetings, participation was
open to all. Between 2001 and 2005, the most important meeting spaces for the
Campaign were the hemispheric meetings against the FTAA that were organized in Cuba
(see Figure 5.1). Its most important decision was to organize public consultations about
the FTAA in every country, in which people would vote in ballots, or would sign
declarations, against the agreement. Each national chapter of the Campaign had
autonomy to decide in which way it would organize the consultation, but the general goal
was to use it as a means to raise broad popular awareness about the negotiations and the
potential negative impacts of the FTAA.312
In spite of this greater openness to participants, its focus on popular education and
grassroots mobilization, the Campaign cannot be characterized as an “open space” either.
It faced many of the challenges of the HSA, namely the language obstacles, and the lack
of resources to finance local grassroots participation in international meetings.
Furthermore, while for some holding annual hemispheric meetings in Cuba is an
additional way of motivating activists, because of its importance as the “Mecca”313 for
312
313
See Klotz, 2002.
Interview with Gonzalo Berrón, HSA Secretariat, São Paulo, April 2005.
164
activists who come from leftist traditions, for others it represents an obstacle. For
example, many U.S. CSOs have not been to Cuba, as one of the U.S. organizations that
did send representatives explained:
“Having it in Cuba means it is incredibly hard to get the high level figures from
the groups that have political capacity in the U.S. I am talking about the really
important million-number unions and main progressive environmental and farm
groups. I think that a lot of these groups might be reticent to go to these
meetings just given the travel stunts you have to pull to avoid getting hit by the
U.S. travel laws.”314
The greatest source of fragility of this coalition building mode, however, is its
narrow focus on a single agreement, the FTAA. As negotiations became stalled in 2003,
mobilization declined, both at the transnational315 and, as will be seen in the next
sections, at the domestic levels.
314
Interview with Lori Wallach, Executive Director, Global Trade Watch, Public Citizen, Washington
D.C., September 2005.
315
In the first hemispheric meeting held in Cuba, in 2001, there were about 800 participants; this number
grew in the following editions, but declined in 2005 to about 400 participants.
165
FIGURE 5.2 – MEMBERS OF THE HSA HEMISPHERIC COUNCIL (2005)
HEMISPHERIC SOCIAL ALLIANCE
NATIONAL
CHAPTERS
REGIONAL
MEMBERS
Autoconvocatoria
no al ALCA
(Argentina)
Interamerican
Regional Organization
of Workers
Latin American
Congress of Rural
Organizations
Interamerican
Platform of Human
Rights, Democracy
and Development
Consumers
International
Jubileo South
Continental “Grito
de los Excluídos”
Latin American and
Caribbean
Continental Student
Organization
Public Services
International
Coalition Pro
Justice in the
Maquiladoras
Andean Labor
Consultative
Council
Latin American
Network Women
Transforming the
Economy
International Gender
and Trade Network
Sustainable Southern
Cone Project
Latin American
Council of Social
Sciences
Continental Front
of Comunal
Organizations
Cuba Chapter
Alliance for Responsible
Trade (U.S.)
Bolivian Movement
against the FTAA
Colombian Network on
the FTAA and the FTA
Caribbean
Economic Research
Center – Dominican
Republic
Chilean Action for a Just
and Responsible Trade
Brazilian Network for
the Peoples’ Integration
Ecuadoran Conf.
of Kichua
Nationality
Peoples
Peru Chapter
Common Frontiers
(Canada)
Québec Network on
Continental
Integration
Civil Initiative for
Central American
Integration
Central American
Popular Block
166
Paraguayan Popular
Consultation
Mexican Action
Network on Free
Trade
Redes – Friends of
the Earth Uruguay
Venezuela Chapter
5.3 Diffusion and Adaptation of National Coalition Building Strategies
The creation of domestic trade coalitions in the Americas is an interesting
example of transnational diffusion of a new organizational formula that sought to provide
an answer to the problems of coordination, representation, and knowledge production. In
spite of the important differences across civil societies of the hemisphere, a very similar
organizational formula was diffused, and at the same time adapted to the specific national
environments. The Mexican and the U.S. trade coalitions founded in the beginning of the
1990s were mirror images of the Action Canada Network that had been created before
them (see Figure 5.1), and these, in turn, influenced the coalitions created in the South of
the hemisphere. For example, when debates about the need to create a trade coalition
began in Brazil at the end of that decade, the explicit goal of those involved in initial
discussions was to “create a Brazilian RMALC” (the Mexican Action Network on Free
Trade).316 The experience of coalition building in the only developing country in the
NAFTA region became a key reference for a group of Brazilian challengers of the FTAA,
more so than the closer experience of the Mercosur, which, as explained in the last
chapter, was mostly limited to the participation of labor.
These coalitions were created with very specific goals in mind: to fill the need for
coordination in collective action on trade within civil society, to be political spaces for
interaction across ideational, sectoral, and national boundaries, and to translate the
technical language of trade agreements to civil society actors. Their main common
organizational characteristics are: a) they are affiliation-based (civil society organizations
316
Interview with Fátima Mello, REBRIP Secretariat, Rio de Janeiro, May 2005.
167
and civil society coalitions are members, although in some cases individuals also are
allowed to participate); b) they are multi-sectoral; c) decision-making is made by
consensus; d) there is an internal division of labor, whereby specific individuals and/or
member organizations are in charge of internal coordination and external representation
functions; and e) they are thematic, i.e., they are focused on trade agreement negotiations.
TABLE 5.1
DOMESTIC AFFILIATION-BASED TRADE COALITIONS IN
BRAZIL, CHILE, MEXICO AND THE U.S., 1991-2006
Country
Brazil
Chile
Mexico
United
States
Trade Coalition
REBRIP – Brazilian Network
for Peoples’ Integration
ACJR – Chilean Alliance for a
Just and Responsible Trade
RMALC – Mexican Action
Network on Free Trade
ART – Alliance for
Responsible Trade
CTC – Citizens’ Trade
Campaign
Period of
activity
Number of
Members*
Affiliated
to the HSA
1999 - …
38
YES
1995 - 2004
Not membershipbased anymore
YES
1991 - …
16
YES
1991 - …
32
YES
1992 - …
19 (plus affiliated
state coalitions)
NO
Sources: Official coalitions’ websites, last accessed October 31, 2006: www.citizenstrade.org;
www.art-us.org; www.RMALC.org.mx; www.REBRIP.org.br; www.comerciojusto.cl.
* These are approximate numbers, based on estimations made by the secretariats of the coalitions
themselves. The numbers of members fluctuate through time, and often some of those listed as members
are not active participants.
Beyond these common characteristics, however, there are many differences in the
internal functioning of these organizations, in how they are embedded in previous
networks, and in how they participate in trade debates. Faced with similar obstacles and
challenges, actors have reacted in different ways.317 The cases of the national coalitions
317
The difficulties are similar to those of other types of coalitions, such as the balancing of power to avoid
having the members with most resources dominate the coalition, and the tensions arising from the need to
provide resources for the coalition, while at the same time assuring the survival and autonomy of member
168
created in four countries – listed in Table 5.1 – show three different outcomes of coalition
building efforts: crisis and the dissolution of the coalition (the case of Chile); crisis and
an ongoing process of restructuration (the case of Mexico); and domestic divisions (the
cases the United States and Brazil). With the exception of CTC, the others are the
national chapters of the HSA.
Table 5.2 lists the coalitions and organizations that were among those most named
as close allies in trade-related activities by the 123 CSOs interviewed in Brazil, Chile,
Mexico and the United States. The data suggests that domestic coalitions such as
RMALC, REBRIP and ART are important references to challengers of trade negotiations
in the other countries. The fact that a Mexican coalition was the one most identified as a
close ally underscores the point made in the previous chapter, about the importance of
South-South ties and the space occupied in trade debates by Southern organizations.
However, in order to understand the meaning of these ties, it is necessary to complement
this information with a qualitative analysis of the processes of coalition building. The
next sections of this chapter focus first on the cases of RMALC and the ACJR, and then
on the cases of domestic coalitions in the United States and in Brazil.
organizations. There is a large literature on coalition building that raises these issues. See, for example,
Staggenborg, 1986: 384-385.
169
TABLE 5.2
ORGANIZATIONS AND COALITIONS MOST NAMED AS CLOSE ALLIES
IN BRAZIL, CHILE, MEXICO, AND THE UNITED STATES
(by in-degree, country, and type of organization)
RMALC (Mexican Action
Network on Free Trade)
MST (Landless Workers’
Movement)
Mexico
In-degree
(%)*
29.03
Brazil
23.4
Public Citizen
U.S.
21.95
CUT (Unified Labor Central)
Brazil
21.27
AFL-CIO (American
Federation of Labor –
Congress of Industrial
Organization)
ACJR (Chilean Alliance for
Fair and Responsible Trade)
U.S.
20.73
Chile
19
FAT (Authentic Labor Front)
Mexico
17.2
UNORCA (National Union of
Regional Farmers’
Organizations)
REBRIP (Brazilian Network
for Peoples’ Integration)
ART (Alliance for
Responsible Trade)
IEP (Political Ecology
Institute)
Ibase (Brazilian Institute of
Social and Economic
Analysis)
Jubilee South Campaign
Mexico
16.12
Brazil
15.95
U.S.
14.63
Chile
14
Brazil
12.76
Brazil
11.7
Organization
Country
Type of organization and trade-related
affiliations
Trade coalition; national chapter of the
Hemispheric Social Alliance.
Rural Workers’ Organization; regional
coordinator for Via Campesina in South
America; member of REBRIP.
NGO; member of Citizens’ Trade
Campaign.
Labor Federation; secretariat of the HSA
and co-secretariat of the Continental
Campaign against the FTAA; member of
ORIT and ICFTU.
Labor Federation; member of ORIT and
ICFTU; member of ART.
Former Chilean Trade Coalition;
national chapter of Hemispheric Social
Alliance.
Labor Federation; member of UNT
(which is a member of ORIT and
ICFTU); member of RMALC.
Rural Organization; regional coordinator
for Via Campesina in North America.
Trade Coalition; national chapter of the
Hemispheric Social Alliance.
Trade coalition; national chapter of the
Hemispheric Social Alliance.
Environmental NGO; member of
Sustainable Southern Cone Project.
NGO
National Secretariat of the Jubilee South
Campaign; national secretariat of the
National Campaign against the FTAA;
co-secretariat of the Continental
Campaign against the FTAA.
* Because of the different sizes of networks in each country, it is more accurate to present in-degree values
in terms of percentages of the total possible number of nominations.
170
5.3.1 The Cases of RMALC in Mexico and the ACJR in Chile: from gateways to
gatekeepers
When the Mexican Action Network on Free Trade (RMALC) was created, in
1991, it was thought of as a short-term meeting space, with a life span that was linked to
that of the debates over the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
negotiations.318 Fifteen years later RMALC still existed, although, by then, it had a very
different organizational and political profile. While during its first years RMALC was
administered by volunteers and temporarily occupied part of the space of the offices of
the Labor Authentic Front (FAT), in 2005 the coalition had six paid staff,319 and occupied
a larger portion of the FAT building in Mexico City, on a permanent basis. In spite of this
greater organizational capacity, RMALC has become less powerful than it was in the
beginning of the 1990s, in terms of its ability to bring together a broad spectrum of actors
across Mexican civil society. It has fewer active members than it did before,320 and fewer
of those are member-based organizations.
The Chilean Alliance for a Just and Responsible Trade (ACJR) never had as many
members as RMALC, and was never as relevant in the field of trade challengers as its
Mexican counterpart. However, it was a space that brought together Chilean CSOs that
challenged the U.S.-Chile Free Trade Agreement and other negotiations, and it played a
key role in the first stages of creation of the Hemispheric Social Alliance.
318
Interview with Bertha Luján, former Executive Coordinator of RMALC, Mexico City, August 2005.
Interview with Maria Atilano, Executive Coordinator of RMALC, Mexico City, August 2004. Only in
1995 RMALC got its first fax and computer, hired its own secretary, and was able to diminish its financial
dependence on the FAT. See Massicotte, 2004: 255.
320
It started with forty-two affiliated organizations; this number raised during the NAFTA debates to over
one hundred, and is now close to sixteen (see table 5.2).
319
171
In spite of their importance, both RMALC and the ACJR were in crisis at the end
of the 1990s, and seemed doomed to disappear. The sources of these crises were similar:
both had to face criticism from civil society organizations for lack of transparency and
accountability in decision-making, complaints of issue ownership, internal power
struggles, lack of participation of key member-based actors,321 and accusations that
coalitions were becoming NGOs controlled by a few individuals.
After a bitter process of discussions, in 2004 the ACJR ceased to exist as a
coalition but kept the same name and was refounded by a small group of individuals as an
NGO. Given the absence of a national chapter of the Continental Campaign against the
FTAA, it remained the only Chilean organization that monitored trade negotiations and
that produced analysis and demands on a consistent basis. It is this role of information
diffuser and knowledge producer that explains the centrality of the ACJR in the Chilean
sociogram mapped in Chapter 4, and not the coordination and representation roles that a
coalition would be expected to play. While the option of becoming an NGO has also been
raised as a possible solution to RMALC’s crisis, Mexican organizations have preferred to
promote a negotiated restructuration process that aims at reestablishing its political role
as a coalition of organizations.
In spite of the differences in state-civil society relationships in Mexico and in
Chile, in both cases the close ties between key CSOs and the political parties in power
affected coalition building attempts negatively. Some of the largest labor and rural
organizations, for example, preferred to use their direct channels with government
321
As seen in the last chapter, labor organizations in Mexico and in Chile were divided with respect to the
positions on NAFTA and the U.S.-Chile FTA, respectively. Rural organizations with close ties to the PRI
in Mexico and the Concertación administration in Chile were also absent in RMALC and the ACJR.
172
officials, negotiating their support to trade agreement negotiations, and/or an ambiguous
position, in exchange for specific sectoral demands. In general terms, RMALC and the
ACJR had difficulties in sustaining the participations of member-based organizations,
and were most successful in attracting NGOs and researchers, most of them from the
capital cities, Santiago de Chile and Mexico City.
Few civil society organizations in both countries have staff dedicated to following
trade agreements, in contrast with better financed organizations in the United States. For
most, trade is a marginal issue in their agendas, and participation in trade debates varies
according to the official calendar of negotiations. Critics of RMALC argue, however, that
the lack of participation is not due to the lack of interest of its members, but rather to a
centralization of activities in a handful of individuals that decide and speak in the name
of others. As one of RMALC’s most active participants explains, the weakening of the
coalition has happened at the same time that its agenda has broadened:
“RMALC functions less and less as a network of organizations… At the same
time that its agenda has broadened and its prestige has increased, there is a
phenomenon of diminished participation of RMALC members directly as
RMALC, which has created an ever smaller working team that is more and
more overwhelmed by too ambitious an agenda.”322
Those Mexican organizations who still think of it as a strategic political space see
RMALC’s greatest strength not as the gateway to international contacts, but more as a
domestic site of production of knowledge. As is also the case of the ACJR, it remains the
322
Interview with Héctor de la Cueva, Director, Center for Labor Research and Consulting (CILAS),
Mexico City, August 2004.
173
most important organizational reference for CSOs looking for a critical analysis of trade
agreements and their impacts, one that goes beyond the technical language of trade
negotiators and translates issues in terms that civil society organizations and their
members can easily understand.323 Furthermore, RMALC’s Coordinating Group keeps
the coalition alive, even when trade negotiations become stalled and most of its members
turn to more pressing issues. Its knowledge production skills, however, have contributed
to solidifying RMALC’s profile as an NGO, or as a research institution, and not as a
coalition.
Differences among participants become explicit when there is a representational
role that needs to be fulfilled at the transnational level. For example, when the
Hemispheric Council of the Hemispheric Social Alliance met in 2005, it had resources to
pay for only one representative of the national chapter to attend. The dilemma in this case
was: who should go, someone who has been most closely following the debates in the
agenda of that specific meeting, or someone new, that will go to learn? Moreover, should
it be someone from an NGO, or from a member-based organization? Those who argued
that the person following the issues in the agenda should go were criticized for claiming
issue ownership; those who argued that someone new should go were, in turn, criticized
for creating efficiency problems. As one of the persons involved in this debate argued:
“We were sent an e-mail from someone who thought [s/he] was the adequate
representative, because [s/he] was following that specific issue. I was very
323
Several of the Mexican interviewees highlighted the important intellectual role of RMALC in
knowledge production. Since it was founded, RMALC has had a key role in diffusion of information about
trade negotiations and in making critical analysis of trade agreements accessible to civil society
organizations, in Mexico as well as in other countries. Between 1991 and 2003, RMALC published or coedited twenty-three publications, besides numerous popular education materials and bulletins. See
Massicotte, 2004: 289.
174
critical of it, because there are other organizations that have been following the
issue as well, and we are not stupid.”324
This example gets to the inability to expand participation in the coalition, a
challenge that has been acknowledged, by participants and critics alike, since RMALC
was founded.325 A strategy designed to broaden participation was to create parallel spaces
for coordination, oriented towards specific issues or events, like the Mexican Committee
of the Continental Campaign against the FTAA, the Committee of Mexican Citizens on
the European Union-Mexico Agreement, and the Coordination of the Peoples’ Forums, in
preparation for the WTO protests in Cancun. However, these spaces are provisional, and
have been subject to the same kind of centralizing tendencies. There are also tensions
between groups located in Mexico City and those outside of the capital, who complain
about lack of accountability and lack of access to decision-making processes.326 This
inability to decentralize power in the organization has led to great skepticism about its
capacity to change, even though in 2004 a new, broader provisional committee was
created to oversee RMALC’s restructuring. As one of the participants of the provisional
expanded committee explains, there is a risk of reproducing previous mistakes:
“They [the core leadership of RMALC] are called the ‘Four Fantastic’… We
[the individuals participating in the expanded provisional coordination] have to
be careful that we do not become the ‘Eight Fantastic’. I have talked to people
324
Anonymous interview with a member of a Mexican civil society organization, Mexico City, August
2005.
325
For a description and analysis of the various attempts to improve RMALC’s functioning, see Massicotte,
2004, esp. pp. 316-332.
326
Interview with Víctor Quintana, adviser, Frente Democrático Campesino de Chihuahua, over the phone,
November 2005.
175
that say: ‘there has been talk for a long time about opening and democratizing
RMALC, and nothing ever changes’.”327
In order to capture the ability of these organizations to play brokerage role of
coordinator between the domestic and the transnational levels, Mexican CSOs were asked
how they would reach out to U.S. organizations in the case of a trade event being
organized in that country.328 Almost half of those that answered said they would contact
counterparts through RMALC. However, only one of them would use RMALC as the
exclusive gateway. Most would directly contact specific U.S. counterparts, and/or use
other brokers, such as the Hemispheric Social Alliance secretariat, regional-level sectoral
organizations, and other Mexican organizations (see graph 5.1). As two of RMALC’s
members explain, there has been a multiplication of transnational ties, and a diminished
dependence on RMALC as the single gateway to reach out to organizations in other
countries:
“At first maybe the door was RMALC, but now we have a series of relationships
that have been built. … The process has spilled over to other issues, people
became specialized, bilateral contacts were made. Now there are other levels of
relationship.”329
“RMALC has contacts and a considerable weight at the international level, but
does not really bridge the national and global levels. They make the contacts,
327
Interview with one of the participants of the expanded RMALC committee, Mexico City, August 2005.
The question was: “Suppose the next Ministerial Meeting of the FTAA will be held in the United States
and you need to discuss a strategy for participating in it with U.S. organizations. Do you: a) get in touch
with them directly; b) get in touch with them through coalitions such as RMALC; c) get in touch through
other Mexican organizations; d) get in touch through regional coalition; e) don’t know.” Respondents could
choose more than one option. See the questionnaire in Appendix B.
329
Interview with Brisa Maya, CENCOS, Mexico City, August 2005.
328
176
but the information is not shared. … thus we do not feel represented by it, and
do not consider it useful. You begin to build ties by yourself…”330
GRAPH 5.1
GATEWAYS USED BY MEXICAN CSOs TO REACH U.S. CSOs
CNOC
MCD
CENCOS
COMIEDES
SME
MujeresD
FAT
RMALC
CAPISE
Other brokers
CTM
CIEPAC
SemChicanos
CILAS
GEA
Oxfam
DECA
CIOAC
UNORCA
ANEC
Direct ties to U.S. CSOs
CECCAM
STRM
CEE
FHBoll
CentroPro
CEMDA
FDC
 Civil Society Organizations
 Gateways used to contact allies in the U.S. before an FTAA meeting
Source: Interviews with representatives of civil society organizations (see Appendix C).
While this fragmentation represents a challenge for RMALC (and the HSA), it
also indicates a vitality of the field of trade that did not exist before in Mexico. As one of
the founders of RMALC explains:
“There is a positive side to this, which is that the range of organizations
involved in trade issues has broadened. It is still far from ideal… the most
330
Anonymous interview with a participant, Mexico City, August 2005.
177
important national movements react to the local and national agendas, very
rarely do they react to the international agenda, or make the connection
between the national and the international agenda… In spite of this, though,
there has been a growth of what was before something that was very centralized
in the RMALC, and that now incorporates many other organizations.”331
When asked the same question, the majority of Chilean CSOs answered that they
would contact U.S. counterparts not through the ACJR, and not directly, but through
other brokers, such as regional sectoral organizations or other Chilean organizations (see
Graph 5.2).
GRAPH 5.2
GATEWAYS USED BY CHILEAN CSOs TO REACH U.S. CSOs
VivoPositivo
ColProf
SERPAJ
CETEBES
UOC
Consumers
DerDig
CUT
Direct ties
Other brokers
RIDES
CENDA
CONSTRAMET
IEP
ANAMURI
CODEPU
CONADECUS
CEDM
ACJR
 Civil Society Organizations
 Gateways used to contact allies in the U.S. before an FTAA meeting
Source: Interviews with representatives of civil society organizations (see Appendix C).
331
Interview with Héctor de la Cueva, CILAS, Mexico City, August 2004.
178
In spite of RMALC’s and the ACJR’s crisis, both were among the most
nominated organizations by the CSOs interviewed in the other countries (see Table 5.2).
This gap between the perceived roles of RMALC and the ACJR at the domestic and at
the transnational level is acknowledged by other domestic actors, which feel that they
have gone from being gateways to becoming gatekeepers of international contacts (and,
as a consequence, of information and funding originating from other countries).
In sum, RMALC and the ACJR are still influential in terms of their capacity to
produce and diffuse knowledge and information about trade negotiations. The expertise
of individuals that have for many years been following trade negotiations closely (in the
case of RMALC since 1991, and in the case of the ACJR since 1994) is a source of
legitimacy and respect. They also profit from their status as the national chapters of the
HSA. However, their capacity to play the brokerage role of representative at the
transnational level and of mediator between the transnational and domestic levels has
become greatly weakened in the past years. This situation puts in jeopardy the roles
assigned to them as national chapters of the HSA.
In Mexico, the weakening of RMALC is cause and consequence of a greater
multiplication of ties, but this has also been a positive process of creation of new direct
transnational ties. In Chile, however, the tendency is for the ACJR to be replaced by other
brokers, which have a segmented approach to trade debates. However, because of the
absence of a national chapter of the Continental Campaign against the FTAA in Chile,
the ACJR remains the only organization that has maintained a continuous focus on trade
agreement negotiations and a sustained effort to present demands and alternatives to
negotiators.
179
5.3.2 Coalition Building in the U.S. and Brazil: different pathways in a same country
When U.S. challengers of NAFTA began to meet to find common ground on
strategies and goals in the beginning of the 1990s, they divided themselves in three main
groups, which became the Alliance for Responsible Trade (ART), Citizens’ Trade
Campaign (CTC), and a looser group of civil society organizations that had a more
ambiguous position with respect to the agreement and finally supported it after Bill
Clinton assumed the Presidency in 1993. While there have always been overlaps between
ART and CTC’s memberships and agendas, they represent two fundamentally different
ways of participating in the trade debates.
ART is a heterogeneous coalition of groups that includes the AFL-CIO, church
groups, development NGOs, family-farm organizations, women’s groups, and
environmental NGOs; CTC has a similar membership profile, bringing together
important labor unions, such as the United Steelworkers of the Americas, environmental
organizations, and some grassroots organizations, but with much less of a presence of
church groups. The main differences between the two relate to their chosen strategies,
which, in turn, reflect different visions of what collective action on trade agreements
should be. While ART has invested much of its resources in building ties with
organizations in Latin America, and presents itself as advocating “a consciously
internationalist position on trade”,332 CTC has focused on coordinating efforts to change
trade policies by lobbying U.S. decision-makers.
Because of these differences, CTC has criticized ART for not being sufficiently
pragmatic (or “strategic”, as the word is used by CTC members), and thus inefficient,
332
http://www.art-us.org/about_art, November 14, 2006.
180
while ART has criticized CTC for having a narrow, short-term view of change, one
which alienates international partners. ART was one of the founders of the HSA and has
been the U.S. national chapter of the coalition since it was created. As a consequence of
its internationalism, ART is much better known among its Mexican, Brazilian and
Chilean counterparts than CTC (hence its absence from Table 5.2); on the other hand,
CTC is better known in the U.S. Congress and among government officials at the federal,
state and local levels, than ART. For CTC, building transnational ties is not a priority.
These are left for members to do by themselves,333 and/or for ART to do, as the head of
Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch explains:
“When I start saying to my union friends: ‘The folks in Costa Rica want to know
why they don’t know your name’, they say: ‘Isn’t there someone who does that?
There are all these church groups that are doing all that, right?’ So there is a bit
of a disconnect between the U.S. domestic work and the transnational work done
regarding hemispheric trade issues by CTC and by ART which sometimes
confuses our Latin American allies, who don’t realize who does what. (…) For
instance, when I am at a World Social Forum meeting in Brazil, someone from
Central America might ask what I think of a particular document – which I don’t
know about because it is a broad statement being created as part of the
solidarity process. I send that person to someone from ART. If someone from
ART would get asked about what the Democratic leadership strategy is about a
Latin American FTA, they would send the person to someone in CTC.”334
333
334
Interview with Larry Weiss, Executive Director of CTC, over the phone, September 2005.
Interview with Lori Wallach, Global Trade Watch, Public Citizen, Washington D.C. September 2005.
181
When U.S. organizations were asked how they would contact Mexican civil
society organizations if an important FTAA negotiation meeting was being held in
Mexico, from the total of twenty-nine organizations that answered, almost half (thirteen)
responded that they would use ART and CTC to coordinate contacts; other organizations
chose to sidestep national coalitions and directly contact Mexican organizations (sixteen),
and/or to contact them through other brokers, such as other U.S. organizations (see Graph
5.3). Among those who said they would rely on national trade coalitions, there was a
clear preference for ART over CTC.
GRAPH 5.3
GATEWAYS USED BY U.S. CSOs TO REACH MEXICAN CSOs
PublicCit
NRDC
UE
RuralCoal
USAS
CEJ
FreedomHouse
NWF
UAW
Direct ties with Mexican CSOs
CIEL
NFFC
UNITE
Defenders
GE
Earthjustice
IBT
IATP
D-GAP
CTC
SierraClub
Other brokers
Oxfam
WOLA
CenterConcern
CEPR
AFSCME
ART
AFL-CIO
FOE
CLR
IPS
 Civil Society Organizations
 Gateways used to contact allies in Mexico before an FTAA meeting
Source: Interviews with representatives of civil society organizations (see Appendix C).
182
Even though ART has not faced a crisis such as the one faced by coalitions in
Mexico and Chile, its role as broker between the national and the transnational level on
trade issues has also weakened. This is both a result of the creation of direct ties among
organizations across borders, and of the dissatisfaction of CSOs that feel that both ART
and CTC exclude them from decision-making processes. Since the NAFTA negotiations
in the beginning of the 1990s organizations that characterize themselves as “grassroots,
base-building organizations”, located outside the “Beltway”, have consistently
complained about being “neglected and undervalued by the other major sectors involved
in trade campaigns.”335 In part, this is a matter of availability of resources. When there
are funds, representatives of organizations are able to go to Washington D.C. (or to
Mexico City) and participate in meetings, or, on the contrary, organizations based in D.C.
are able to reach out to organizations located elsewhere.336 However, by itself, lack of
resources does not explain the absence of many of these organizations from the
coalitions. It is also a matter of power struggles, in terms of who has access to resources,
and who gets to define goals and strategies, as is clear from a document produced by the
U.S. organization Grassroots Global Justice, which is worth quoting at length:
“Some of our challenges arise from disagreements about who should drive the
strategies and tactics of a campaign – the D.C. organizations that are counting
votes on Capitol Hill or the grassroots organizations that work year-round to
hold their elected officials accountable. While it is helpful for NGOs to
335
Grassroots Global Justice, 2005.
For example, the Alliance for Responsible Trade hired a “grassroots coordinator” who operated out of
Chicago, but this initiative ended because of absence of funds. Interview with Karen Hansen-Kuhn, ART
Secretariat, Washington D.C., September 2005.
336
183
communicate with grassroots organizations about specific targets and key
districts, grassroots organizations should then be given the resources and
political space to assess what are the best strategies and tactics to move their
elected officials. This has not been the case, instead we have seen NGOs enter
our communities with resources and their own plan… There is also a perceived
lack of respect for the day-to-day base-building work of permanent grassroots
organizations that create infrastructure for a short-term campaign on a specific
issue, which the NGOs can then take advantage of.”337
On the other hand, for local grassroots organizations it is very difficult to sustain
action on trade when it is not a high topic in the local or national political agendas, due to
lack of time and resources in general, as well as due to a different understanding of what
mobilizations related to trade are trying to accomplish. For these organizations, trade
agreements are part of a broader agenda and broader goals, and should not be treated
separately from them. Thus, when ART tried to incorporate these organizations in its
Steering Committee, “some joined and then were not terribly active.”338 Mobilizations
have been reactive, so when there is an agreement in Congress to be voted on, collective
action escalates.
For the HSA, the division between ART and CTC, and the absence of important
civil society groups from both, represent a crucial challenge. The fact that key
organizations represented in CTC, such as the Sierra Club and Public Citizen, are not part
337
338
Grassroots Global Justice, 2005.
Interview with Karen Hansen-Kuhn, D-GAP, Washington D.C., September 2005.
184
of the HSA, represents an important gap, which is partially filled by the participation of
some of these actors in the Continental Campaign against the FTAA:
“For instance, when we hear from our partners: ‘Why aren’t the Teamsters,
Public Citizen, why aren’t they members of the HSA?’ [I answer that] ‘There
are no individual memberships to HSA, only country-based coalitions are
members, and there are different coalitions in this country, and the one you
have [as the HSA national chapter] is not the one that has those groups.’ The
Continental Campaign has made it easier, it is broader, and has a different,
more campaign-oriented model, and that was a useful thing, because it gave us
a place, a space, to talk about common strategy in the hemisphere.”339
In contrast with the other three countries, in Brazil collective action on trade
became an important part of civil society organizations’ agendas only after the Free
Trade Area of the Americas negotiations had begun, in the second half of the 1990s. A
domestic trade coalition, the Brazilian Network for Peoples’ Integration (REBRIP), was
only formally created in 2001.340 In spite of being latecomers, Brazilian CSOs quickly
became extremely important among trade agreement challengers, especially in the
context of anti-FTAA protests, as well as in the context of creation of the Hemispheric
Social Alliance. Thus, five out of the ten organizations most named by their counterparts
in the other three countries as close allies are Brazilian (see Table 5.2). This would have
been unthinkable if the data had been collected before 2001. The rapid rise of Brazilian
339
340
Interview with Lori Wallach, Global Trade Watch, Public Citizen, September 2005.
Interview with Fátima Mello, REBRIP Secretariat, Rio de Janeiro, March 2005.
185
organizations also meant increasing complexity in the transnational field of trade
challengers, as one participant explains:
“You had the international ‘Jet Set’, which included Lori Wallach, Walden
Bello, Martin Khor, Vandana Shiva, Oxfam and Action Aid. …This Jet Set was
very functional, few people, it works well, even if they have their disagreements.
But when you have a Brazilian network that has roots, a connection with the
base, and an organization such as Contag that says ‘listen, my dear, I represent
nine million workers and have three thousand unions in my base’, well, things
change… I think that people feel bad when they see the capacity of a Southern
network, that is not a one-person organization…They are not used to the
contradictions typical of a big network. Within Public Citizen it is easy to be
coherent, if two people agree, you have done it. Now you go and try to get an
agreement within REBRIP!”341
While REBRIP was in its beginnings an emulation of RMALC, as explained
above, it was created in a very different context than its Mexican counterpart. First, its
creation was parallel to that of the Hemispheric Social Alliance, and thus it was born as
part of a hemispheric-wide debate about collective action on trade agreements, a
mediating space of negotiation and coordination of meanings and positions not only at
the domestic level, but also between the domestic and the transnational levels. Second, by
the time REBRIP effectively became active, it was clear that the RMALC experience
could not and should not be replicated in Brazil, but that it had to be adapted. This was so
not only because the Mexican (and hemispheric) context was different from the Brazilian,
341
Anonymous interview with a participant, Rio de Janeiro, April 2005.
186
but also because RMALC was, by then, weakened by diminished participation and
legitimacy problems.
REBRIP’s participants sought to avoid these problems by creating an affiliationbased structure that relied less on the role of intellectuals formulating trade analyses, and
more on opening channels for the incorporation of previously-existing key civil society
organizations. While RMALC’s attempt at creating internal working groups was not
sustainable, in REBRIP’s case thematic working groups have been important to secure
the participation of some of the most important civil society organizations in the country.
The example of the Working Group in Agriculture is a good one, because it unites key
member-based organizations that would not normally collaborate among themselves
(such as the MST and CONTAG), together with international NGOs (like Oxfam and
Action Aid). REBRIP’s members have also been aware that there needs to be an internal
balancing of power, if the coalition is going to avoid the problems that have plagued its
Mexican and Chilean counterparts. As one CUT participant explains, it is not easy to find
equilibrium between large membership-based organizations and NGOs:
“There is the risk of REBRIP being transformed into an NGO, given the
strength of the NGOs in it, but it depends a lot on the participation of the social
movements. For example, if we [CUT] participate with a low profile, there is a
greater risk of a more NGO-face; if we participate with too high a profile, the
alliance explodes.”342
Of the national chapters of the HSA in the four countries analyzed here, in the
first years of the 2000s REBRIP had become the one with greatest capacity to bring
342
Interview with Rafael Freire, CUT-Brazil’s International Relations Secretariat, São Paulo, May 2005.
187
together civil society organizations. It is not, however, the single meeting space for trade
challengers in Brazil, and it does not unite all trade agreement challengers. The launching
of the National Campaign against the FTAA, in 2002, brought together an even broader
group of civil society organizations around the goal of defeating the agreement, including
some that do not participate actively in REBRIP, such as church groups, independent
labor unions, individuals, and members of political parties, both at the national level and
in a myriad of local “popular committees.” These local committees could be created at
the initiative of any individual, with or without an organizational affiliation.
However, both REBRIP and the National Campaign against the FTAA avoided
creating organizations with their own offices and staff, but built instead on previously
existing ones. Thus, REBRIP’s Secretariat is located in a long-standing Brazilian NGO
(FASE), and the Campaign’s Secretariat is located in the Jubilee South Campaign
headquarters. The Brazilian chapter of the Campaign is an especially good illustration of
the overlap between previous social networks and trade protest ones. The Jubilee South
Campaign was created in the beginning of the 1990s to mobilize for the cancellation of
the foreign debts of developing countries; in Brazil, this Campaign is an early example of
the construction of a multi-sectoral campaign-based coalition. In 2000, its members
organized a popular referendum on the foreign debt, in which approximately six million
people voted.343 In 2002, members of the Jubilee South incorporated the fight against the
FTAA negotiations in their agenda, treating it as a continuation of its previous efforts.
343
See www.jubileubrasil.org.br, accessed on November 19, 2006.
188
In September 2002, approximately ten million people voted in a new referendum,
this one to show the strength of popular opposition to the FTAA negotiations.344 Brazil
was, by far, the country in the hemisphere that was able to mobilize most people in the
referendum. However, it also highlighted differences among participants of the
Campaign, especially between CUT, other national-level CSOs and political parties that
were engaged in the campaign of Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva, and organizations such as
the MST, progressive Catholic groups and independent unions. The organization of the
referendum only one month before the presidential elections in 2002 led to disagreements
between those who were afraid that the radical opposition to the FTAA would
“contaminate” and negatively influence Lula’s candidacy, and those who wanted to
pressure Lula to make a clear commitment to excluding Brazil from the FTAA
negotiations if elected. 345
When asked how they would reach allies in the case of an FTAA meeting held in
the United States, Brazilian organizations were divided. Few (only four out of twentyseven that answered the question) would only contact U.S. organizations directly, but
also only a few would make contact exclusively through REBRIP (only two), without
also going through either the National Campaign Against the FTAA, and/or other
brokers, such as other Brazilian organizations. Similar results were obtained when the
question was asked about the gateways used to reach out to Chilean and Mexican
organizations. They suggest that, as in the other countries, Brazilian challengers to trade
344
According to the Jubilee South Campaign, 10,149,542 people voted in 41,758 poll locations scattered all
over the country, and over 95% voted in favor of Brazil leaving the negotiating table. Idem.
345
The exclusion of Brazil from the negotiations was not a part of Lula’s campaign promises, although the
candidate’s discourses maintained a critical tone with respect to the agreement.
189
agreements reject trade coalitions as their single gateway, and tend to also rely on direct
ties, or on the direct ties that other allies have. However, in the case of Brazil there is a
greater tendency for other types of gateways to be used in addition to trade coalitions,
and not instead of them.
GRAPH 5.4
GATEWAYS USED BY BRAZILIAN CSOs TO REACH U.S. CSOs
INESC
FASE
ABIAIDS
MSF
IBASE
CUT
SPM
REBRIP
CONTAG
PACS
Direct ties with U.S. CSOs
ActionAid
InstEqüit
CNM
CGT
ANDES
ISP
IBRADES
Cáritas
Other brokers
UNE
MPA
CNB
Campaign Against the FTAA
PO
Oxfam
CEPIS
Unafisco
SOF
MAB
MST
 Civil Society Organizations
 Gateways used to contact allies in the U.S. before an FTAA meeting
Source: Interviews with representatives of civil society organizations (see Appendix C).
Conclusion
The privileged focus of the transnationalism literature on short-term campaigns or
events was very important to understand the new dynamics of cross-border collective
190
action emerging in the 1990s. Because of this emphasis on episodic collective action,
however, it provided few clues as to how these emerging forms overlapped, or
intersected, with previously existing collective action. The efforts at coalition building
analyzed in this chapter underscore the relevance of adopting a longer-term perspective,
one that allows us to understand how new organizational forms are embedded in
previously existing ones.
In spite of the different dynamics of coalition building in the four countries, there
are similar patterns and challenges worth highlighting. First, in terms of the scope of
participants, in all countries there are actors that complain about their exclusion from
existing affiliation and campaign-based coalitions. In some countries – Mexico and Chile
– this has led to a profound crisis of domestic trade coalitions, but the same problem has
been raised by actors in Brazil, in the U.S., and in hemispheric initiatives. A general
unsolved question is how to provide effective channels to the participation of
organizations from outside the major urban areas, especially local-based organizations
with small budgets. 346 Although this problem has not been ignored by the participating
organizations, no good solutions have been found yet. This is a well-known coalitionbuilding challenge, but it is even harder to address when multi-level collective action
around a complicated issue is involved, as in the case of trade. Most organizations in the
networks mapped in the previous chapter are headquartered in large urban areas, and they
are the ones that have greater access to funding, information, links to allies in other
countries, links to trade negotiators, and to legislative authorities.
346
In the Argentinian case, Herkenrath, 2006, found similar complaints made by civil society organizations
located outside the Buenos Aires area.
191
Second – and related to the previous point –, the social network data and the
qualitative information show that there is a tendency for fewer organizations to rely
exclusively on domestic trade coalitions when planning transnational collective action.
As seen in the previous chapter, labor, rural and environmental organizations tended to
answer that they would reach out to their institutional equivalents in the other country
and/or to international organizations such as the Interamerican Regional Organization of
Workers or Vía Campesina. This chapter showed that this is a broader tendency, which
affects all actors in the transnational field of trade. To the extent that trade coalitions are
replaced by others, this tendency puts into question not only the potential survival of
these coalitions, but also the whole structure of brokerage across the local, national, and
hemispheric levels that has been set in place. It also indicates a tendency for actors to shy
away from sustained transnational coalition building on trade. However, if other
gateways are used in addition to trade coalitions, this suggests a positive process of
multiplication of ties. The variety of organizational pathways to transnationality created
by trade challengers is an indicator of the vitality of the field, but it is also evidence of the
lack of consensus among actors of how transnational collective action should look like.
Third, there is a general tendency for collective action to remain reactive,
following the cycles of official negotiations, in spite of efforts at building affiliation
based coalitions that aim at establishing permanent relationships. Fourth, in all four
countries the relationships between CSOs and the political forces in power affected
coalition building processes, although in different ways. In Mexico and Chile, but to a
lesser extent also in Brazil and the U.S., CSOs were divided with respect to how they
should relate to government officials. In all countries some CSOs negotiated privileged
192
treatment directly with government officials, and/or downplayed their criticism of
agreements being negotiated. The next chapter takes a closer look at these relations in the
four countries, by presenting an analysis of the impacts of different domestic political
environments on the ability and the need for actors to present alternative proposals to the
free trade policies they are challenging.
193
Chapter 6 - THE SEARCH FOR ALTERNATIVES
All civil society challengers of trade agreements have been confronted with the
question: if not this trade agreement, then, what? This is true both for organizations that
have prioritized lobbying decision-makers, and for those that have prioritized street
mobilization and popular education, and it is true for those who act mainly at the
domestic level, as well as for those building transnational coalitions. The question comes
from parliamentarians, government officials, the media, and from other civil society
organizations.
However, no single answer has been provided. Given the ideological
heterogeneity and the organizational fragmentation that characterize the field of
challengers of trade agreements, this is not surprising. It has been easier to find common
agreement to oppose negotiations. There have been, however, attempts at building a
common understanding of what an alternative to current free trade negotiations should
look like. As in the case of coalition building analyzed in the last chapter, there is no
broadly-accepted blueprint to be followed. Instead of assuming that labor will defend
labor interests, rural organizations will defend rural workers’ interests, Brazilians will
defend Brazil’s interests, and so on, this chapter shows that what are perceived as the
most appropriate ideational pathways vary among actors belonging to the same types of
organizations and countries, and that these visions are amenable to changes in their
interaction with other actors.
As the literature on the role of ideas has emphasized, in situations of uncertainty,
such as the period of ideological turmoil that followed the end of the Cold War, actors
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engage in efforts to understand the challenges they face, and the way actors perceive their
interests and how to achieve them are more amenable to change.347 This is not an
argument about the end of ideologies; it is an argument about how previous responses to
the impacts of trade liberalization, from demands for protection of specific industrial
sectors to going back to state-led developmentalism, had become largely inadequate in
the political and economic context of the 1990s.348 It is also an approach that sees the
development of visions of alternatives as the product of processes of negotiation among
actors.349 The same interaction mechanisms identified before – extension, suppression,
and transformation – are in play in the process of thinking about ideational pathways.
These do not cancel out conflicts, the asymmetries of power among actors, nor do they
cancel out differences in all relational contexts. Again, as in the creation of coalitions, the
results have been agreements that are inherently provisional and unstable, and often
ambiguous, varying depending on specific time-space junctures. Particularisms coexist –
however uneasily – with broad compromises, and nonnegotiable issues persist.
Variation in how civil society organizations approach the problem of search for
alternatives is related, in part, to the institutional and political context in which they act at
the domestic level. Thus, the first section of this chapter describes and compares the
policy-making processes on trade in each country, and analyzes the tense relationships of
trade challengers to actors in the political system, and how these have changed in the last
See Blyth, 2002, esp. chapters 1 and 2, for an analysis of the impact of ideas in contexts of “Knightian
uncertainty.”
348
There is a large literature on the implementation of market reforms in Latin America in the 1980s and
1990s. For analyses of these reforms and the reactions of labor organizations and social movements, see,
for example, Murillo, 2001, Panfichi, ed., 2002, and Dagnino, ed., 2002.
349
This approach follows Mannheim’s argument that ideas are not the result of the isolated inspiration of
great geniuses, but are best seen as a product of their embeddedness in social relations. See Mannheim,
(1929) 1936.
347
195
decade. In the second section, the analysis of the contents of the document “Alternative
for the Americas” offers an unique example of the negotiated dynamics of consensusbuilding among members of the Hemispheric Social Alliance (HSA). While chapter 5
analyzed the organizational efforts of a heterogeneous group of challengers of trade
agreements to create this new coalition, this chapter analyzes their efforts to establish a
common political program.
The last section focuses on a particularly important issue in debates about
alternatives within the field of trade challengers: the question of national sovereignty.
After fifteen years of mobilizations, the key dilemma facing actors is one that is not often
openly discussed by them: the unresolved division between those who argue in favor of
more (but different) global governance, and those who argue in favor of the preservation
of national sovereignty and the strengthening of nation-states.
6.1 Trade Policy-Making and Changing Political Contexts in the Americas
Part of the scholarship on trade policy-making understands it through the lenses of
Putnam’s two-level game, according to which domestic groups pressure governments at
the national level to adopt favorable policies, and, in turn, national governments seek to
maximize their ability to satisfy domestic pressures at the international level.350 However,
as argued in chapter 2, the literature on transnational collective action has shown that this
type of analytical perspective is too narrow, because it implies a limited access of non-
350
See Putnam, 1988. For examples of the application of this framework to hemispheric trade negotiations
see, for example, Ostry, ed., 2002 and Sáez, 2005.
196
state actors to the international system that is not true in many issue areas.351 Trade is
undoubtedly one of these issue areas. The ties between non-state and state actors show a
much more complicated dynamic of interaction across these levels than the one we are
able to see through a two-level game model.
Almost all the 123 CSOs interviewed for this dissertation have some kind of
trade-related relationship to actors in the domestic political system, ranging from
informal dialogue to institutionalized forms of participation in decision-making
processes.352 Furthermore, many of the individuals interviewed are affiliated to political
parties. A lesser but growing number of organizations also has ties to legislators and
government officials in other countries.353 The ways in which these ties are constructed
within and across countries has been an important source of disagreements among
challengers of trade agreements.354 In part, variation is an outcome of the specific
institutional environments and political contexts of each country.
In Brazil, Chile and Mexico, the negotiation of international trade agreements is
under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Executive branch. These are then submitted to
national Congresses for a “yes” or “no” vote, without the possibility of revisions or
amendments. Thus, the main actors in the negotiations have been the ministerial
bureaucracies, but the agencies that are responsible for carrying out negotiations vary. In
351
See the critique in Keck and Sikkink, 1998:4.
Out of the 123 CSOs, only sixteen answered that they did not have trade-related activities vis-à-vis the
Legislative, and only eighteen did not engage in any kind of trade-related dialogue with government
officials.
353
Many Latin American organizations have participated in hearings and meetings in the U.S. Congress
related to the debates about trade agreements since NAFTA; most of these are not direct ties, however, but
they are short-term relationships brokered by U.S. civil society organizations.
354
For an analysis of these disagreements in the context of the FTAA negotiations up to 2002, see
Korzeniewicz and Smith, 2003.
352
197
Brazil, the most important actor in the negotiations is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but
others are also involved, especially the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign
Trade, and the Ministry of Agriculture. In Chile it is similarly centralized in the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs, and especially in the General Direction of Economic International
Relations (Direcon). In Mexico, the most important negotiating role is played by the
Ministry of Economic Affairs.
The United States stands apart from the Latin American countries because its
Constitution grants Congress the primary power over trade policy-making. Since 1974, it
is part of the legislators´ attributions to periodically approve a Trade Promotion Authority
Act (the TPA, best known as “fast track” legislation). It grants temporary authority to the
President to negotiate trade agreements with other countries, at the same time that it
limits the role of Congress to approving or rejecting the treaties within ninety days,
without the possibility of amending them. Although the restrictions on the role of
Congress have sparked criticism by those opposing negotiations, in the U.S. legislators
still have considerably more power than their counterparts in Brazil, Chile, or Mexico.
Through the TPA they can specify objectives that they expect U.S. negotiators to pursue,
and introduce criteria that negotiations must meet in order for agreements to be
subsequently approved. The President has to notify Congress before entering into an
agreement, and is required to consult with Committees during the negotiations. The U.S.
Trade Representative (USTR) is the main Executive agency in charge of conducting
negotiations.
The different trade policy-making rules and political contexts present challengers
with different logics in terms of their targets, the need to present alternatives, and the
198
contents of these alternatives. In the U.S., efforts at influencing trade policy-making are
divided between lobbying Congress – especially during “fast track” and trade agreement
votes – and USTR – especially during trade agreement negotiations. However, these
logics also vary with changes in the political context. Most U.S. CSOs interviewed
claimed they had less access to negotiators after George W. Bush took office, in 2001,
than during the Democrat’s administration, and therefore they have concentrated their
efforts on convincing legislators of the negative impacts of trade agreements, and on
strengthening relationships overseas.
In Latin America, on the other hand, most of the efforts of trade challengers are
directed at the Executive agencies in charge of negotiations. During the NAFTA
negotiations, the relationships between Mexican challengers of the agreement, on one
side, and those in the United States and Canada, on the other, were an exemplary case of
what Keck and Sikkink called the “boomerang.”355 In the absence of communication
channels and of opportunities to influence decision-making processes within Mexico,
Mexican CSOs, together with U.S. allies, took their grievances directly to the U.S.
Congress.356 At the same time, U.S. and Canadian organizations fed Mexican allies
information on the progress of negotiations to which they would not otherwise have had
access. A similar North-to-South dynamic was reproduced during the U.S.-Chile Free
Trade Agreement negotiations. The first draft of the agreement available to Chilean
CSOs was the one sent by the U.S. Alliance for Responsible Trade (ART) to the Chilean
355
See Keck and Sikkink, 1998. For an earlier description of cross-national strategies similar to the
“boomerang”, see Singer, 1969:25-26.
356
Mexican civil society organizations’ leaders participated in various types of activities: public hearings,
debates, press conferences, and meetings with U.S. legislators and with their staff in the U.S. Congress.
199
Alliance for Just and Responsible Trade.357 One of the challengers’ strategies in Brazil,
Chile and Mexico has been to try to make national legislators more prominent actors in
trade debates, but these initiatives have had limited success.358
During the FTAA negotiations, similar types of interactions have occurred, but
instead of Southern organizations looking towards the North for information and
influence in decision-making, there is a much more balanced interaction between North
and South, and even an inversion of the direction of the previous “boomerangs.”359
Contrary to what happened in the United States, in countries like Brazil, Argentina,
Venezuela and Bolivia, the new administrations elected after 2001 opened more channels
for dialogue with challengers of trade agreements. These new administrations saw the
potential gains of trade negotiations with more skeptical eyes than the previous ones, and
civil society organizations in the United States sought to build ties to potentially
sympathetic governmental officials overseas, using allies in civil society in those
countries as informal brokers. Through these ties, U.S. CSOs hoped to have a direct and
disrupting impact on negotiations. This strategy is popularly referred to as
“monkeywrenching.” For example, a U.S. participant during the 2003 FTAA Ministerial
Meeting used his access to U.S. negotiators to feed information to the Brazilian
delegation that he thought would be disruptive to the negotiations:
357
Interview with Coral Pey, ACJR, Santiago de Chile, June 2005.
For example, in Brazil civil society organizations gave support to the creation of a commission to follow
FTAA negotiations in the Chamber of Deputies. However, this commission was not very active, and after
negotiations became stalled it disappeared. Interview with Brazilian legislative staff, House of
Representatives, December 2004.
359
The inversion of the direction of the boomerang goes counter the idea that this type of tactics is most
successful when sent from the South towards the North. For a critique of this narrow understanding of the
boomerang as a typically Southern tactic, see Keck, 2006.
358
200
“There was collaboration with the Brazilians; I actually funneled information
[to the Brazilian negotiators] because I was at some meetings of U.S.
negotiators. They were saying some over the top unthinkable stuff about Brazil.
Zoellick [the U.S. Trade Representative at the time] was totally out of his
mind.”360
“Monkeywrenching” tactics are also commonly used by Public Citizen, which has
focused on exploiting existing tensions among negotiators:
“Here we are, saying fast track is going to be horrible, that the U.S. will be able
to give up everything, and Congress will have no check on anything. And here’s
what the memo [we wrote] to Brazilian negotiators said: ‘guess what? In the
fast track, Congress has constrained USTR, and USTR can no longer give you
agricultural concessions’.”361
Neither the “boomerang” nor the transnational “monkeywrenching” tactics can be
subsumed within a two-level game model that presupposes a rigid separation between the
domestic and international realms. Furthermore, the change in the origins of the flow of
information from the North towards the South means that countries in the South no
longer were merely places where impacts of decisions taken in the North were felt, but
were perceived instead as sites of decision-making. During the NAFTA negotiations,
Mexico still had a political system dominated by a single political party, and its
democratic transition was painfully slow. In contrast, countries such as Brazil, Argentina
and Chile had more consolidated democracies in the mid-1990s. Particularly after the
360
361
Interview with a U.S. participant, Washington D.C., July 2004.
Interview with Timi Gerson, Public Citizen, Washington D.C., May 2004.
201
election of Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva in Brazil (in 2001), Nestor Kirchner in Argentina
(in 2002), and Hugo Chávez in Venezuela (in 1998), challengers of FTAs in these
countries have often had better access to policy-makers than U.S. challengers under a
Republican administration. Thus, Brazilian CSO representatives that for the first time had
the chance to follow trade negotiation meetings as members of the official delegation362
became a source of information for challengers from other countries, much in the same
way that U.S. and Canadian CSOs had been sources of information for Mexican and
Chilean CSOs during the NAFTA, the Canada-Chile and the U.S.-Chile FTA
negotiations. As one of the U.S. informants explained:
“The NGO access to negotiators has diminished greatly, and what access we do
have is more of a public relations event than it is any real debate… when we
need information on the FTAA we go to Brazilian or Venezuelan negotiating
teams, because we have so little access to U.S. negotiators.”363
Other types of ties to the political system link CSO activists and political parties.
Coalitions such as the HSA have not admitted the formal presence of representatives of
political parties (see this discussion in chapter 5), but many of the activists are affiliated
to political parties, giving the latter at least an informal presence within the field of
challengers of trade agreements. These ties become especially relevant when these
political parties are elected to power.
362
At the 2003 FTAA Ministerial Meeting, held in Miami, the WTO Meetings in Cancun (2003) and Hong
Kong (2005), and various meetings among FTAA negotiators.
363
Interview with Alexandra Spieldoch, Senior Program Associate, Center of Concern, Washington D.C.,
May 2004.
202
The changes in the political environment in Latin America presented civil society
organizations with opportunities, but also new challenges. It reinforced internal
disagreements between what Smith and Korzeniewicz have called “insiders” and
“outsiders”, i.e., those that accept dialogue with government officials and focus mainly
on advancing demands to democratize negotiations and change part of the contents of
agreements, and those for whom trade negotiations are an opportunity for contestation.364
Furthermore, contradictory interpretations of what these new administrations mean and
what should be expected from them in trade negotiations co-exist within the countries
and among CSOs in different countries. The election of Workers’ Party leader Lula as
president of Brazil is a good example, because it disappointed many trade challengers
that thought that his government would pull Brazil out of the FTAA and the WTO
negotiations. As Lori Wallach, from Public Citizen, expressed her disappointment:
“First, we thought: ‘it’s a miracle! Lula is elected in the country that will
decide the fate of globalization!’ And, now, ‘Oops, Lula is in the country that
will decide the fate of globalization…’”365
While some Brazilian organizations might share this disappointment, it is by no
means a consensual view. As was seen in the last chapter, one of the main tensions within
the Brazilian Campaign against the FTAA was around the different interpretations of
what the election of Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva represented for the country. This
continuing tension is reflected in the absence of clear references to the new center-to-left
364
365
See Korzeniewicz and Smith, 2003.
Interview with Lori Wallach, Global Trade Watch, Public Citizen, Washington D.C., September 2005.
203
governments in the documents produced by the Continental Campaign against the FTAA,
as one Brazilian member explains:
“In Havana [during the Hemispheric Meeting against the FTAA], CUT and
REBRIP asked that Lula and Kirchner figure [in the final declaration] as
examples of progressive governments that blocked the FTAA, but that was not
accepted by the organizations, there was no consensus, and the final
declaration was much more generic.”366
The tensions between civil society organizations and political leaders were even
clearer during the Third Peoples’ Summit in Mar del Plata, organized in Argentina in
2005. For the first time, the Summit had the active participation of political party leaders,
including the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, and Argentinian and Cuban
politicians. Organizers of the Summit were ill-prepared for the challenges of this
participation. As one of the organizers later recalled: “What happened in Mar del Plata
forced us to think strategically about the delicate and complicated relationships among
governments, political forces, and social movements. Insofar as more Southern
governments that purport to be part of the popular field are elected, governments with
which we may be able to build specific or broader common positions, how can we take
advantage of points of agreement and opportunities for dialogue and even interaction but
prevent them form trying to control the social movements, ignoring their organizations
366
Interview with Roberto Leher, National Association of University Teachers - ANDES, Rio de Janeiro,
May 2005.
204
and action repertoires, and violating their goals?”367 This is an old issue for social
movements in general, but a new one for participants of the field of trade challengers.
Once more, a parallel can be traced to what happens in the World Social Forums.
After its 2003 version, in which the presidents of Brazil and Venezuela were both very
visible participants, one activist put her frustration in these words: “How on earth did a
gathering that was supposed to be a showcase for new grassroots movements become a
celebration of men with a penchant for three-hour speeches about smashing the
oligarchy? (...) For some, the hijacking of the World Social Forum by political parties
and powerful men is proof that the movements against corporate globalization are finally
maturing and ‘getting serious’. But is it really so mature, amidst the graveyard of failed
left political projects, to believe that change will come by casting your ballot for the
latest charismatic leader, then crossing your fingers and hoping for the best? Get
serious.”368
The skepticism of many participants and scholars about the prospects of new
center-to-left administrations sometimes reflects an overly idealized view of transnational
collective action. For example, Said and Desai, in their analysis of mobilizations against
trade agreements, have argued that the rise of what they call “the anti-capitalist
movement” “has attracted some nasty fellow-travelers in the guise of nationalist leaders,
Third World multinationals, and old left gurus. They are threatening to hijack the
movement and blot out its most attractive features – openness, cosmopolitanism,
367
368
de la Cueva, 2005: 91 (author’s translation).
Klein, 2003
205
informality, and popular appeal.”369 As will be seen below, the characterization of the
movement as “anti-capitalist” is problematic, as is its “cosmopolitanism.” Contrary to
what is expected by these scholars, an important source of tensions within and among
organizations relates to their attempts to juggle between domestic pressures, and building
common ground with foreign partners. The analysis of the different editions of the
document “Alternative for the Americas”, written by members of the Hemispheric Social
Alliance, offers a good illustration of these tensions.
6.2 “Alternatives for the Americas”
The document “Alternatives for the Americas” represents a unique370 effort by a
diverse range of CSOs to craft a common alternative platform at the hemispheric level. In
its first edition, the authors defined it as “more than an economic doctrine. It is a way to
achieve a social integration in which the ideas, talent and greatness of our peoples will
be shared for the benefit of all … It brings together proposals that were considered
viable and on which there was a broad consensus. The priority was the establishment of
the basis of an inclusive alliance” (my emphasis).371
Thus, Alternatives for the Americas is simultaneously an internal attempt to create
a common ideational platform for its members, and an effort to construct a common
frame for outsiders.372 By writing such a foundation for collective action, members seek
369
Said and Desai, 2003: 82.
As characterized by Doucet, 2005.
371
HSA, 1998: 6 and 10.
372
For example, during a meeting between civil society organizations and official negotiators, held in
Miami during the FTAA Ministerial Meeting of 2003, government officials criticized protestors for not
370
206
to build collective identity within the coalition, and foster their credibility with official
negotiators and other civil society actors. The five editions of “Alternatives for the
Americas” (henceforth “Alternatives”) produced between 1998 and 2005 offer a good
illustration of the mechanisms by which the members of the Alliance have attempted to
progressively construct agreement on common alternative proposals. Table 6.1 shows the
main topics and demands put forward, and how these changed through time, through a
comparison of two versions of “Alternatives” that were produced seven years apart.
When compared to the first version, the 120-page long document published in
2005 shows the progressive extension of topics, proposals, and demands. While its first
editions were limited to the agenda of official negotiations, the last ones added other
issues that were considered important to challengers of agreements themselves. Most
notably, “Alternatives” incorporated specific chapters on education; communications;
gender; and services (see Table 6.1). To work against free trade negotiations is defined as
an ethical imperative, not only one based on technical analysis that measure the impacts
of negotiations, nor on specific grievances of those who stand to loose from these
negotiations. By presenting it as a moral issue and as part of a broader crusade against
neoliberalism, the authors present their ideas as going much beyond specific trade
negotiations.
The five editions of “Alternatives” are as interesting for what is written in them,
as for what is suppressed. Absent, for example, is a common position on existing SouthSouth processes of integration. In spite of the critical support given by labor federations
presenting alternative proposals. In response, one of the members of RMALC argued that ever since the
NAFTA negotiations civil society challengers of free trade agreements had been working on alternative
proposals, which were consolidated in the document “Alternatives for the Americas.”
207
of the Southern Cone to MERCOSUR, and of the active participation of some of these in
the HSA, the topic is not mentioned. This suppression occurs because there is no
common agreement among members, and actors such as CUT-Brazil refuse to open an
internal debate that might question labor’s position. Also absent are references to more
recent South-South processes, such as the creation of a South American Community of
Nations, the Peoples’ Trade Agreements, and the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas
proposed by the governments of Cuba and Venezuela in December 2004. These are
received with varying degrees of sympathy and suspicion by the actors. Their suppression
from the agenda allows actors to “agree to disagree” on this topic.
Finally, the document presents several examples of how contents of demands put
forward have been transformed through time. Along with a greater emphasis on the
rejection of neoliberalism in general, recent versions make more references to the threats
posed by trade agreements to national sovereignty. These are exemplified most often
through references to the impacts of NAFTA’s chapter on investment (Chapter 11) on
domestic environmental laws. Having been written by many hands, there are also
contradictions within and among the different editions of Alternatives. However, the goal
was less to create a thoroughly consistent document, than to engage members in a process
of construction of provisional agreements that were taken a bit farther each round. In this
sense, the ambiguities in the document are also part of the efforts to create consensus.
The demands put forward in “Alternatives” are not anticapitalist.373 In addition, it
is not an antitrade, or an antiglobalization program. In all its editions, the authors
For example, on the issue of foreign investment, all versions of the document argue that “investment
regulation should not mean imposing excessive controls on investors or establishing protections for
373
208
emphasize that their goal is not to reestablish protectionist barriers, or demand the
implementation of isolationist trade policies, even though demands for protection of
specific sectors are put forward, as well as calls for a more interventionist state (see Table
6.1).374 It is, however, a revolutionary document in the sense that, based on its critique of
free trade policies, it presents a nonnegotiable denial of neoliberalism and the call for an
alternative model and the creation of “a new society.” This upwards “generality
shifting”375 provides a broader justification for the continuing existence of the
Hemispheric Social Alliance than the one provided by the cycles of free trade agreement
negotiations. In its 2005 version, the move towards a longer-term and broader agenda, in
which neoliberalism became the central target, was made more explicit:
“The HSA rejects any agreement based on the neoliberal model… At the same
time, we see the defeat of trade agreements as being only the first step. … The
ultimate goal is a new non neoliberal society.”376
Although it is unclear what neoliberalism would be replaced by, the different
versions of the document consistently demand a rebalancing between regulations
(domestic and international) and private initiatives, with a strong emphasis on the role of
national states as the main actors in international relations, and national populations as
the ultimate guarantors of popular sovereignty through participatory democracy:
inefficient industries. Rather, it should involve orienting investment and creating conditions to enable
investment to serve national development goals while obtaining reasonable returns” (see Table 6.1).
374
“The issue for us, therefore, is not one of free trade vs. protection or integration vs. isolation, but whose
rules will prevail and who will benefit from those rules” (HSA, 2002: 2).
375
Generality shifting is defined by Mische as a mechanism by which "speakers slide up or down levels of
abstraction in regards to the generality or inclusiveness of identity categories" (Mische, 2003: 271).
376
HSA, 2005: 5 (author’s translation).
209
“The goal should not be protectionism, but building a state accountable to
society that can implement a democratically established national development
plan. This may involve the protection of certain sectors considered strategic
within a country’s plan, but more importantly, it means promoting forwardlooking development. Regulation does not imply inhibiting private initiative. On
the contrary, it means establishing clear rules balancing rights and
obligations…”377
In spite of the dedication of members of the HSA to the development of
“Alternatives”, this activity is not seen with good eyes by all challengers of trade
agreements. For some, the internal contradictions and inconsistencies of the document
render it useless; for others, it is simply not worth the effort.378 It is here that the debates
about alternatives link with debates about which strategies are most effective in different
political settings. While the need to have feasible alternative proposals is not questioned,
for some the exercise of “Alternatives” is a waste of time, because it is not oriented
towards change in the short-term. Thus, organizations such as Public Citizen would rather
spend their resources building alternative proposals that are specifically designed to
address U.S. legislators concerns, framing them in a way that will affect decision-making
on trade policies in the United States. This implies having a set of proposals that are not
targeted at neoliberalism, but instead focus on electorally sensitive issues such as the
threats of free trade agreements to U.S. national sovereignty, jobs, the environment, and
food safety.
377
HSA, 2001: 42.
These critiques were raised during interviews with civil society organizations that are not members of
the Hemispheric Social Alliance.
378
210
In sum, trade challengers are roughly divided in two groups: one that sponsors a
pragmatic approach to alternatives, which is focused on specific issues and targets, and a
second that sponsors a more inclusive and long-term orientation. However, the
boundaries between these two groups are fuzzy, and shift according to changes in the
political context. Furthermore, both groups coincide on a central point: the emphasis on
the threats to national sovereignty posed by trade negotiations, and the need to reinstate
local and national power to implement public policies. As will be seen in the next section,
this emphasis on national sovereignty has led to ambiguous proposals. Once more,
“Alternatives” provides good examples.
6.2.1 The Sovereignty Dilemma
The focus on threats to national sovereignty as an outcome of trade negotiations
crosses North-South boundaries, as well as the left-right divide in the ideological
spectrum. However, the understanding of which are the sources of these threats, and what
are the most appropriate responses, varies considerably along these two axes. In the U.S.,
some of the most vociferous critics of trade negotiations are conservative groups that
understand these negotiations as undermining the national interest. For these actors, the
U.S. should only participate in the multilateral trade system under its own rules. As one
of the members of United States Business and Industrial Council (USBIC) Educational
Foundation argued:
“We certainly are not opposed to liberal laws on trade where it serves U.S.
nationalism, but we do not believe that they always serve U.S. national
interests… I want the American government to set the terms of doing business
211
with the United States unilaterally, and if other countries do not agree then they
do not have to do business with us… I don’t believe in a rules-based trade
system, because I think there will never be any meaningful consensus on what’s
fair. The WTO has become an anti-American ‘kangaroo court’. The highest
priority of its members is to keep the US markets much more open to their
imports than their markets are open for US exports.”379
The focus of these actors is on the growing U.S. trade deficit, the costs of creating
new international organizations and bureaucracies, and the negative impacts of pressures
towards the cutting of production costs, with the consequent loss of jobs to other
countries.380 Other conservative strands of U.S. politics also criticize the limitations
imposed by trade negotiations on national sovereignty, focusing on the transfer of power
from national to international institutions created by these negotiations, and the potential
for increased flows of migrants to the U.S. under new worker visa rules. As one article
published in The New American argues, “…the internationalist architects of the FTAA
intend to transform the nation-states of the Western Hemisphere - including the United
States - into mere administrative units of the supranational FTAA.”381
The partial overlaps between the arguments on sovereignty and democracy
presented by U.S. nationalist conservatives and more progressive trade agreement
challengers led to controversial short-term alliances during the NAFTA debates. As
Dreiling explains, center-to-left civil society organizations had difficulties differentiating
379
Interview with Alan Tonelson, Research Fellow, United States Business and Industrial Council
Educational Foundation, Washington D.C., February 2005.
380
For a more thorough exposition of these arguments, see, for example, Tonelson, 2000.
381
Jasper, 2002.
212
their approach from the conservative nationalist opposition to the agreement, a problem
that led to internal fissures in the U.S. trade coalitions, and to tensions with their Mexican
counterparts. 382 In the years that followed, most of the interaction across the ideological
spectrum has been limited to non-public exchanges of information, with occasional
meetings and signing of broadly worded joint letters addressed to trade negotiators.383
Differences between center-to-right and center-to-left trade challengers in the U.S.
are most clear with respect to the location of their activities and claims and the proposals
on how to deal with threats to national sovereignty. While the first have not engaged in
transnational collective action, and sustain their position strictly from within national
borders and a national interest discourse, this dissertation has shown how the latter have
become part of a multi-level field of collective action. As argued before, however, trade
challengers often find themselves squeezed between pressures to act according to
“national interests,” and the building of transnational agreements and solidarity. One
participant from the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops put this dilemma clearly:
“It gets a little crazy. [We have to answer] why are the U.S. bishops
supporting people in other countries, who are not the negotiators, over and
against the United States? … We would say that [it is about] commutative
justice, that the bargain itself should be just, that the U.S. has the
responsibility to look at not whether the deal will be good for the U.S. or the
U.S. people, but whether it is going to be good for the people that the bishops
382
See Dreiling, 2001, esp. pp. 77-85.
For example, on November 7, 2001, a total of 170 civil society organizations, including the USBIC and
various labor unions, NGOs and rural organizations sent a letter to the Speaker of the House of
Representatives in opposition to the “fast track” bill that was being debated them.
383
213
are concerned about in this [other] country. That’s a very complicated
political argument [to make] when people ask whether we are for or against a
trade agreement.”384
Other organizations deal with this issue by maintaining an internal division of
labor between those that follow trade negotiations at the domestic level, and those in
charge of international relations. While the first focus on local and national agendas, the
latter have a broader rhetoric. That is the case of many of the U.S. labor unions, which
separate the participation in trade debates between an office in charge of legislative
relations and another in charge of international relations.385 However, separating
inside/outside at the organizational level can lead to tensions within the field, as in the
case of the steelworkers’ successful lobby for protections against imports:
“We did not communicate with the unions that would be most affected by the
new bill. That mistake will not happen again, that was a lesson that we
learned.”386
From a Southern perspective, claims that free trade agreements threaten U.S.
national sovereignty are difficult to understand and accept, because people there see these
initiatives as tools that promote – not threaten – U.S. national interests and U.S.
imperialism in the region. As one of the most prominent activists building transnational
ties during the NAFTA debates explains, the Southern view of sovereignty threats was
one-sided:
384
Interview with Rev. Andrew Small, Policy Advisor, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Washington
D.C., January 2006.
385
It is the case, for example, of the USWA, UNITE, and UE.
386
Interview with Jerry Fernández, international corporate campaigner, United Steelworkers of America
(USWA), Brasilia, April 2005.
214
“During NAFTA, the difference between Mexico and the other two countries
was seen much more from Mexico than from the U.S. and Canada. The
sovereignty problem in Mexico is directly related to the development level and
the economic model that presupposed an economy subordinated to the U.S. The
treaty was seen as one more mechanism of sovereignty loss… while in the U.S.
and Canada, given their development and their normativity they had legal,
economic, even political protections [that we did not have].”387
The motto of the Brazilian Campaign against the Free Trade Area of the Americas
(FTAA) – Sovereignty, yes! The FTAA, no! – nicely illustrates the way in which the
process of multilateral negotiation has been domesticated within a nationalistic frame,
and how, in the South, it goes hand-in-hand with an anti-imperialist narrative. While
Brazilian organizations have not been troubled by the choice of framing in their
campaign,388 these appeals can also be a potential obstacle to building common ground
transnationally. As a representative from the AFL-CIO explained, when asked about
relationships with Latin American allies:
“…it is very hard to explain that [anti-imperialist] sentiment to U.S. workers.
You show them: ‘here’s a great picture of an anti-FTAA demonstration in
Brazil, see how we are unified against this agreement?’, and someone asks:
Interview with Bertha Luján, former member of FAT and RMALC’s Coordinating Group, Mexico City,
August 2005.
388
A specific question was asked about this to the person in charge of the Secretariat of the Campaign
against the FTAA, who answered that the issue of whether or not a sovereignty-based frame was
appropriate was never raised by participating organizations. Interview, São Paulo, April 2005.
387
215
‘Why is that American flag burning?!’ Trying to explain that is very
difficult.”389
The interaction among actors has not completely solved the tensions derived from
nationalist and/or anti-imperialist views of trade negotiations, but CSOs are more
knowledgeable about how to avoid them. For example, when Latin American activists are
brought to talk with U.S. legislators, anti-imperialist claims are downplayed:
“When we talked to our partners coming up, we tried and helped them think
through how to make their arguments in a way that they get listened to. You
know, talking about U.S. imperialism probably wouldn’t be helpful with most
members of Congress.”390
“Alternatives for the Americas” is an attempt to find common ground among
progressive, or center-to-left, trade challengers in the North and in the South, by
accepting that the issue of national sovereignty is a key one for all countries. Four main
elements compose the shared view of the authors of “Alternatives” on the question of
sovereignty: first, national sovereignty is a right and should be preserved; second, it is the
nation-states’ responsibility to ensure that national sovereignty is protected; third, the
ultimate guarantors of sovereignty are the citizens, and thus sovereignty should be
understood as “popular sovereignty”; and fourth, national sovereignty is not in
contradiction with the establishment of international regulations, as long as these are
democratically arrived at, with the explicit consensus of the citizens of each country. The
2002 clarified the understanding of national sovereignty implied in the document:
389
390
Interview with a representative of the AFL-CIO, Washington, D.C., August 2004.
Interview with Karen Hansen-Kuhn, D-GAP, Washington D.C., September 2005.
216
“National sovereignty should not be understood as autarchy, isolationism or as a pretext
for disguised violations of universal human rights. Sovereignty continues to be a right of
nations and a basis for legal equality of states within the universe of nations.”391 Thus,
sovereignty claims represent political arguments about the right to self-determination,
rather than economic arguments against trade liberalization. In spite of this common
understanding, actors remain caught between the emphasis on national capabilities and
self-determination, and the presentation of alternatives that in fact lead to more
international regulation and less self-determination.
6.2.2 Caught between the Inside/Outside in Global Governance Debates
The sections of “Alternatives” on labor rights, environmental protection, human
rights, and enforcement and dispute resolution illustrate this dilemma.392 For example,
authors defend the preeminence of international environmental agreements over free
trade agreements, at the same time that they demand national sovereignty over the right
to restrict investments that have negative environmental impacts. This represents much
more a position that global rules are not necessarily bad, than a position against any kind
of international regulation. In fact, environmental organizations have often been willing
to impose limits to national sovereignty, as one U.S. participant explains:
“If you really want to deal with U.S. environmental problems, you want more
integration, and not less. … There is a central conflict of framing and thinking
within the environmental world. We have a strong belief that communities
391
HSA, 2002: 53-54.
See Doucet, 2005, for a discussion that approaches this tension through a discussion of non-territorial
and territorial forms of democracy in “Alternatives.”
392
217
should have a strong right to protect their way of life and their environment.
The problem is that if you deal with global scale problems, like global warming,
you have to deal with them at a global level. In a sense, you are going to
diminish the individual rights of people and communities. It’s a fundamental
tension which we don’t talk about very much.”393
The internationalist position is even stronger in the cases of the human rights and
labor sections of “Alternatives”. Not only do authors demand the ratification by all
countries of key international human rights conventions, but they also demand the
inclusion of their content in trade agreements, and the strengthening of the InterAmerican System of Human Rights. In the case of labor, the two key demands are: the
incorporation of a labor clause, and the progressive upwards harmonization of working
laws and conditions among signatories of trade agreements. While it would be hard to
find any member of the HSA that would be opposed to these general demands, they
presuppose a vision of global governance that is not shared by all, one that accepts
international regulations that in practice put limits to national sovereignty.
The agreement on labor clauses reached in the 2005 version of “Alternatives” (see
Table 6.1) is the result of a contentious debate among challenges of trade agreements,
labor and non labor, on the extent to which it is really advisable to introduce labor clauses
with trade sanctions for violators. Given the fear of many that these clauses would harm
workers in the South and benefit Northern actors (see this discussion in chapter 4), the
consensus reached shows the transformation of positions, towards a proposed
393
Interview with Jacob Scherr, Director, International Program, National Resources Defense Council
(NRDC), Washington D.C., October 2004.
218
arrangement with labor clauses that are targeted primarily at businesses (and not at
countries, as in the case of NAFTA), and that can only be triggered when expressly
requested by organizations representing the workers whose rights have been violated.
It is when actors debate possible sanctions and enforcement rules that consensus
are hardest, as the authors of “Alternatives” themselves admit: “We must acknowledge at
the outset the particular challenge of developing agreement on an enforcement process.
It is relatively easy to reach agreement on a concept of substantive rights. In the abstract,
people from widely divergent economic and cultural backgrounds can agree, for
example, that all workers should be paid a living wage. But adding the issue of
enforcement to the mix raises the important question of ‘enforcement at whose expense?’
During the numerous groups’ discussions that led to the creation of this document, it was
the issue of enforcement that brought out sentiments of nationalism, regional factions,
and concerns about protectionism. The proposal for a living wage in the context of an
enforcement process can variously be interpreted to be a plan to force low-wage
countries to lose their comparative advantage of cheap labor, a protectionist ploy by high
wage countries to curb job losses to low wage countries, or an unrealistic economic
theory that will destroy ‘natural’ wage differentials set by the free market. … The
proposals herein reflect an emerging consensus, and also the recognition of the need for
further work in these areas.”394
Not surprisingly, then, this is one of the sections that most changed in the
comparison between the first and the fifth editions of “Alternatives” presented in Table
6.1. The 2005 version is different from the 1998 one in several aspects: first, it puts
394
HSA, 2001: 74, repeated in HSA, 2002: 95.
219
greater emphasis on a system that is based on incentives, instead of coercion; second, as
in the case of the labor clause, the perpetrators (and not the countries) should be the ones
made accountable for violations; third, the enforcement process has to be transparent and
public, with the participation of civil society organizations and experts. It accepts the idea
of supranational tribunals to investigate violation cases and decide on enforcement, at the
same time that it guarantees greater control of decisions by demanding the participation
of representatives of those affected (see Table 6.1).
Similarly to the cases of labor, environment and human rights, this section is an
ambiguous balance between the creation of and compliance with international rules and
institutions, and respect for national sovereignty. It is also an example of the impact of
greater Southern participation in the field of trade challengers. The disciplinary focus on
actors that violate laws, instead of on the whole countries, was an early demand of
RMALC during the NAFTA debates about the labor and environmental side agreements;
furthermore, the inclusion of those affected by potential sanctions in the enforcement
debates and the emphasis on incentives are attempts to avoid that enforcement procedures
be used as protectionist tools, and to avoid the unintended consequence that penalties
affect negatively the development of the South.
These different approaches to global governance do not divide actors neatly
between an “internationalist” and a “nationalist” group. Rather, different emphases are
used ambiguously by the same actors, depending on the issue, the context, and the results
of negotiated interactions with allies. As Hobsbawn has argued in his historical analysis
about labor internationalism, “in the debate of political people, or ideologists, for whom
nationalism or internationalism imply major political choices, the two concepts are
220
regarded as mutually exclusive… But as a description of political behavior this is simply
misconceived… the development of mass working-class movements paradoxically
creates both national consciousness and international ideology simultaneously” (emphasis
in the original).395
Conclusion
Members of the Hemispheric Social Alliance face a well-known dilemma in their
efforts to go beyond the identification of common targets to building a joint
programmatic framework. The development of a progressively more sophisticated and
detailed set of demands and proposals limits the array of interpretations of what trade
agreements and their impacts are, and risks transforming the Alliance into what its
creators have rejected since the beginning: a new “International” of the 21st century.
Ultimately, to remain members of the HSA actors may have to face loosing most of their
freedom and their ability to use different organizational and ideational pathways to
transnationality. So far, members of the Alliance have avoided these problems by keeping
“Alternatives for the Americas” as a “living document” that at least potentially could be
totally changed in its next version, even if, in fact, that has not happened. Instead, there is
a certain degree of continuity and consistency between the first and the last versions.
However, the fact that the agenda has been extended, and the contents of proposals have
been transformed, involves an openness to revision and disagreement that could not be
found in the communist programme of the International.
395
Hobsbawn, 1988: 13-14.
221
This chapter complements the previous one by giving examples of the different
ideational pathways taken by actors in the field of trade challengers: those that invest
most of their resources in short-term proposals targeted to specific audiences, and those
that seek to create common ground on a broad variety of issues and on longer-term
strategies. The authors of “Alternatives for the Americas” best exemplify the latter
approach. However, even within this group, two antagonistic pulling forces are at work
simultaneously: one that underlines the limits imposed by trade agreements to the
capacity of national states to make decisions, and therefore, its antidemocratic character;
and the other that accepts the need for international institutions with power not only to
generate agreements, but also to enforce them. While there are many other conflicts and
ambiguities within the field of trade challengers, the ones derived from the emphasis on
one or the other of these forces constitute the most important challenges to be faced by
actors when thinking about alternatives in the future.
222
TABLE 6.1
“Alternatives for the Americas”: main topics and proposals in two versions (1998, 2005) (changes in italics)
MAIN TOPICS
MAIN PROPOSALS AND DEMANDS
st
1998 (1 VERSION)
2005 (5th VERSION)
Human rights
- Common agenda on human rights to be included in every agreement;
- Ratification of key international conventions;
- Inclusion of a “democracy clause” in FTAs;
- Reform and strengthening of the Inter-American System of Human
Rights.
Environment
- Preeminence of international environmental agreements over FTAs;
rules should be guided by the “precautionary principle”;
- Reorientation of investments towards alternative energy projects;
- National sovereignty over the right to restrict investment that
aggravates social or environmental problems.
Sustainability
(Part of the Forests and Sustainable Energetic Development Section)
- Greater incentive for investments in energy renovation and
efficiency;
- Eliminate policies that stimulate the rise in demand of fossil fuels;
- Create a Consortium of Efficient and Renewable Energy
Technologies.
Labor
- Incorporation of a labor clause (the commitment to respect basic
workers’ rights with an enforcement mechanism delegated to the
International Labor Organization – ILO with the possibility of trade
sanctions targeted at governments or businesses), and a safety net for
workers that lost their jobs;
- Progressive upwards harmonization of working rights and conditions.
- Human rights as the legal and normative framework; ratification of key
international conventions and the inclusion of their content in trade
agreements;
- Inclusion of a “democracy clause” in FTAs;
- Reform of the Inter-American System, which should monitor the impacts
of trade agreements on human rights.
- Preeminence of international environmental agreements over FTAs; rules
should be guided by the “precautionary principle”;
- Reorientation of investments towards alternative energy projects;
- National sovereignty over the right to restrict investment that aggravates
social or environmental problems;
- Rejection of the development of genetically modified organisms;
- Moratorium on mining exploitation in culturally and ecologically
significant areas;
- Stronger regulation of the use of insecticides and harmonization of
standards, and stronger regulation of toxic waste and harmonization of
procedures for registration of emissions and transfer of pollutants.
- Inclusion in trade agreements of mechanisms to favor domestic production
of goods necessary to provide for basic needs;
- Progressive reduction of exports of goods intensive in natural resources
and energy;
- Establishment of mechanisms to impede the deterioration of prices of raw
materials;
- Joint management of common environmental resources in the hemisphere.
- Incorporation of a labor clause (with the possibility of trade sanctions
targeted primarily at businesses, and only initiated when expressly
requested by organizations representing the workers whose rights have been
violated), and a safety net for workers that lost their jobs;
- Progressive upwards harmonization of working rights and conditions;
access of migrants, women, and informal workers to labor rights.
223
TABLE 6.1 – cont’d
MAIN TOPICS
MAIN PROPOSALS AND DEMANDS
1998 (1 VERSION)
2005 (5th VERSION)
Immigration
- Greater protection of immigrants’ rights;
- Inclusion in trade agreements of development initiatives in zones that
are major exporters of labor.
Mining
- Moratorium on mining exploitation in culturally and ecologically
significant areas.
- No limitation on popular sovereignty and on states’ capacity to meet
the economic and social demands of its citizens;
- Recognition that strategic sectors need special treatment; government
procurement policies should include preferences for domestic suppliers
and marginalized groups.
- Inclusion in FTAs of development initiatives;
- Renegotiation of FTAs to include the resolution of the immigration issue;
elimination of obstacles to the free movement of labor in the Mercosur and
the Andean Pact regions; inclusion of the immigration issue in the FTAA
negotiations, in the context of a broader social agenda;
- Amnesty for undocumented workers;
- Ratification of a hemispheric convention on immigrants’ rights.
(Part of the environment section)
Role of the State
st
Foreign
Investment
- Tougher regulation of foreign investment;
- Multilateral regulations to prevent unfair competition and a race to the
bottom;
- Internationally recognized human, labor and environmental rights
should take precedence over investors’ rights;
- Introduction of performance requirements.
International
Finance
- Total restructuring of the World Bank and the International Monetary
Fund, or their substitution for new institutions;
- Tougher regulation of speculative capital flows and institution of the
“Tobin tax”;
- Abandon structural adjustment conditions;
- Include in trade agreements the renegotiation of foreign debts.
224
- No limitation on popular sovereignty and on states’ capacity to meet the
economic and social demands of its citizens;
- Recognition that strategic sectors need special treatment; government
procurement policies should include preferences for domestic suppliers and
marginalized groups;
- Exclusion of education and health from trade agreement negotiations;
- All binding international agreements must be submitted to popular
ratification.
- Tougher regulation of foreign investment;
- Multilateral regulations to prevent unfair competition and a race to the
bottom;
- Internationally recognized human, labor and environmental rights should
take precedence over investors’ rights;
- Introduction of performance requirements;
- Removal of investor-state dispute mechanisms from FTAs.
- Replacement of Bretton Woods institutions for other, including a Global
Central Bank and an International Insolvency Court;
- Tougher regulation of speculative capital flows and institution of the
“Tobin tax”;
- Abandon structural adjustment conditions;
- Audit of foreign debts and cancellation of the debt of low-income countries
and of illegitimate debts; recognition of the existence of an ecological debt
by the North.
TABLE 6.1 – cont’d
MAIN TOPICS
MAIN PROPOSALS AND DEMANDS
st
1998 (1 VERSION)
2005 (5th VERSION)
Intellectual
Property Rights
(Part of Author Rights section)
- Reject patenting of life forms and protect the collective rights of local
communities to the conservation of species;
- The Cartagena Convention on Biodiversity should take precedence
over trade agreements;
- Obligatory licensing to producers of generic medicines.
Agriculture
- Special treatment for agriculture in trade and investment agreements;
- Countries should ensure food security, including the right to exclude
strategic products from agreements;
- Agrarian reform to redistribute land;
- Incentives to the development of sustainable agriculture and foresting;
- Support for family agriculture;
- Upwards harmonization of subsidy policies, to achieve equal
percentages of the GDP.
Market Access
and Rules of
Origin
- Non-reciprocal and preferential treatment for less developed
countries;
- Negotiations should deal with non-tariff barriers that are used for
protectionist purposes, while accepting restrictions to protect public
health and the environment;
- Tariff reductions should be decided through a participatory process
and accompanied by support for local industries during the transition;
- Harmonization and modernization of customs procedures;
- Countries should be able to establish national content rules.
- Countries should remain free to establish intellectual property systems that
reflect their level of development; right to invoke safeguards for compulsory
licensing, parallel importing, and public non-commercial use provisions;
protection periods for patents should not be longer than ten years, and for
authors’ rights no longer than twenty years;
- Exclusion of intellectual property issues from trade negotiations;
- No patenting of life forms; defense of indigenous’ peoples rights;
- Primacy of the rules of the Cartagena Protocol on Biodiversity on
genetically engineered organisms over FTAs;
- Guarantee that copyright laws will benefit cultural workers;
- Primacy of international human rights conventions over intellectual
property rights.
- Principle of food sovereignty should be respected in all FTAs;
- Countries should ensure food security, including the right to exclude
strategic products from agreements;
- Prohibition of the use of patents of seeds and plants;
- Agrarian reform to redistribute land; incentives to the development of
sustainable agriculture and foresting; support for small producers and
payment of fair prices;
- Subsidies should be based on the needs of the majority of producers;
excesses should be curbed by financing subsidies through indirect taxes to
large producers that engage in dumping.
- Non-reciprocal and preferential treatment for less developed countries;
- Negotiations should deal with non-tariff barriers to trade that are used for
protectionist purposes, while accepting restrictions to protect public health
and the environment;
- Tariff reductions should be decided through a participatory process and
accompanied by support for local industries during the transition;
- Harmonization and modernization of customs procedures;
- Countries should be able to establish national content rules.
225
TABLE 6.1 – cont’d
MAIN PROPOSALS AND DEMANDS
MAIN TOPICS
st
1998 (1 VERSION)
2005 (5th VERSION)
Enforcement
and Dispute
Resolution
- Mechanisms of enforcement and dispute resolution should focus on
the reduction of inequalities; labor issues, human rights and
environmental issues should be an integral part of trade agreements;
- Review of the laws and practices of the countries before they become
members of an agreement;
- Continuous audits of businesses and the creation of a mechanism to
receive complaints about the behavior of firms in each country;
- Transparency through public reports and an appeals mechanism open
to governments and civil society organizations;
- Compensatory mechanisms and regional funds to help countries
comply with rules.
Services
--
Gender
--
Education
--
Communications
--
- Social standards provisions should form the core of FTAs;
- Enforcement system should be based on incentives, so that affirmative
enforcement of standards should be an unusual and extreme occurrence; in
violation cases, emphasis should shift from government entities to the
companies that are failing to comply with laws; Enforcement process should
be transparent and public; reports on compliance made by neutral experts
and civil society partners, and the development of plans to bring countries
into compliance; social audits of companies operating in two or more
countries within the area of a FTA, monitored by independent local
organizations; enforcement should utilize national laws; tribunal formed by
experts and representatives of the affected sector, with a clear appeals
process and broad participation of civil society; penalties should focus on
correcting the violation and withholding benefits under the FTA.
- Standards that regulate trade in services cannot be the same as those
applied to goods; preservation of states’ ability to maintain publicly owned
companies as the exclusive providers of vital services, and inclusion of
special and differential treatment for developing countries; countries have
the right to exclude essential services from negotiations, or to introduce
temporary safeguard measures; consumer protection laws take precedence
over FTAs.
- Inclusion of women’s groups in decision-making processes;
- Gender impact assessment of trade policy and the integration of gender
concerns in the renegotiation of agreements, excluding chapters on
investments, agriculture, and services in the areas of education, health,
water and food provision; broad alliance to fight for a new continental pact.
- Education should be excluded from negotiations, at the hemispheric and
global levels; funding for public education should be equivalent to at least 8
percent of GDP; equal and free access to all levels of education, with
special attention given to girls and women.
- Right to communicate as a universal human right; public broadcasting
should be exempted from the FTAA provisions, and community and
independent media sectors should receive special treatment;
- Sovereignty of states to regulate communications issues.
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Chapter 7 - CONCLUSION
When the wave of free trade negotiations hit the Americas in the 1990s, civil
society groups realized that the organizational and ideational tools available to them were
inadequate to deal with this new challenge. There were few hemispheric-wide spaces for
exchange of information and ideas, and some of the key actors involved in trade debates
did not speak to each other because of grievances inherited from the Cold War era.
Furthermore, the North-South transnational ties that did exist were based mostly on shortterm collaborations, and on solidarity initiatives prompted by human rights movements in
Latin America. Challengers of trade agreements were also ill equipped in terms of their
capacity to elaborate common alternatives to the neoliberal model that came to dominate
the hemisphere in the 1990s, which had trade liberalization as one of its pillars.
This dissertation contributes to the literature on collective action in general, and
transnationalism in particular, by analyzing the dynamic processes by which challengers
of free trade negotiations in the Americas have engaged in the construction of social
networks, coalitions, and alternatives to free trade policies. It offers a distinctive
approach to transnational collective action by adopting a relational perspective that
studies the impacts of interactions among actors in their goals, strategies, and agendas.
While it does not ignore the question of why actors have become interested in trade
negotiations in the first place (which is addressed in chapter 3), the main focus of this
research has been on understanding the different pathways to transnationality taken by
actors, and how these have changed, or not. Special emphasis has been put on the
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political aspects of interactions, that is, on the negotiations among differently situated
actors.
This dissertation also contributes to the literature on transnational collective action
by analyzing the unfolding of collective action through time. Had this study focused on
the case study of a specific campaign, it would have missed the relevance of previously
established relationships and lessons learned, and of the overlaps of ties created in
different trade-related contexts and initiatives. For example, if it had focused on the case
of the Continental Campaign against the FTAA, it would have taken into consideration a
much narrower set of actors, because many participants of the field of trade challengers
have not been active members of the Campaign. In fact, most Chilean and Mexican actors
would have been left out of such a case study, given the little priority the FTAA has had
in their agendas. Others, such as the Brazilian labor federations General Workers’
Confederation (CGT) and Labor Force (Força Sindical), have been active participants at
the MERCOSUR level, but not in the FTAA Campaign.
Furthermore, case studies of short-lived and narrowly targeted campaigns have
greater difficulty in analyzing conflicts within its members. By definition, these
campaigns are structured around common goals and against common targets. A broader
approach to transnational collective action offers the possibility of studying how these
campaigns relate to previous experiences, in which ways transnational collective action is
rooted at the domestic level, how sustained the relationships created around campaigns
are, and whether interaction changes the ways actors think about themselves and about
the goals and targets of collective action.
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Finally, this dissertation presents a distinctive approach to transnational collective
action by showing the relevance of Southern organizations and of South-South ties in the
construction of the field of trade challengers. As argued in the introduction, the literature
on transnational activism has tended to focus its attention on Northern organizations and
individuals, and most notably on NGOs, rather than on membership organizations. In
part, this bias results from a tendency to conflate the power of national states in the
international system with the power of national civil societies. There is an unwarranted
assumption in the literature that any attempt to influence multilateral negotiations will be
most effective if focused on actors and decision-making arenas from the more developed
countries, and that links to civil society organizations in the North will be the most
relevant ones. However, this is not always the case. This dissertation shows that Southern
organizations are among the most active ones in the field of trade challengers in the
Americas; and that diffusion of experiences and information does not only flow from the
North to the South, but also from the South to the South, and from the South to the North.
For example, when there are fewer political opportunities in the United States, civil
society organizations from that country look for access channels in other countries.
7.1 Have Trade Agreements Gone Too Far?
The new wave of free trade negotiations has presented important challenges not
only for civil society activists, but also for scholars who study trade policy-making and
coalition building. As this dissertation shows, although the liberalization of international
flows of goods and services remains at the core of these agreements, negotiations at
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regional and global levels now include regulations on almost all public policy arenas.
This change has transformed the debate about free trade and its alternatives in a much
broader debate about development and global governance. In part as a result of it, a more
diversified set of civil society organizations have incorporated trade agreement
negotiations in their agendas and activities, at different levels of priority. These actors
have also contributed to the expansion of what is understood as “trade-related” by
analyzing the impacts of trade negotiations from an increasingly broader perspective. In
common, trade agreement challengers share the view that negotiations have gone too far
in pressing for the incorporation in the agenda of too many new issues, as well as further
concessions in trade liberalization.
In this context, the scholarly literature on trade policy-making as a two-level game
cannot explain the much more complicated dynamics of interaction between negotiators
and nonstate actors that has become typical of trade negotiations in the Americas, and
also at a global level. Similarly, the literature on trade coalition building that focuses on
the polarization between free traders and protectionists with clear and fixed interests does
not present an accurate view of reality. It is often not easy to tell who are the beneficiaries
and the losers of new trade negotiations, and thus it does not make sense to predict
coalition building behavior in terms of these actors’ responses to gains and losses.
Although labor and business organizations remain important actors, the rise of multiissue NGOs and other types of organizations and their collaboration presents many new
possibilities of different combinations of actors at the domestic and transnational levels.
Furthermore, as argued in this dissertation, the goals and strategies of these civil
society organizations should not be understood as fixed choices made by isolated actors.
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At the same time, their embeddedness in relational contexts varies and changes through
time. The social network analysis tools provide a useful map of the relationships among
challengers of trade negotiations, both at the domestic and at the transnational level. This
data goes beyond information on who-relates-to-whom, focusing on the closest ties
among allies. It not only confirms that a myriad of different types of organizations
participate in trade debates in the four countries studied, but also that new ties have been
created within and across these groups of organizations that did not exist before.
7.2. The Duality of Networks
The approach to social networks used in this dissertation has been one that
emphasizes the agency of actors in the process of construction of ties, and, thus, it draws
upon recent literature that focuses on the “constructionist” aspect of social networks. In
doing so, it also contributes to efforts to create a dialogue among social network analysis,
social movement theories, and transnationalism studies.
This theoretical stance distances itself from the more common approach in social
network analysis that sees the structures of networks as the independent variable that
explains behavior. Such a structural deterministic analysis can be seriously misleading.
First, because it lacks a sense of dynamics and change. In the close allies’ networks
mapped in chapter 4, the emphasis has been on understanding how actors reached their
positions. An analysis based only on the current positions of actors would have missed,
for example, the changing role of key labor organizations, such as the AFL-CIO, in
transnational networks of trade challengers. Second, it is misleading to the extent that
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specific roles are derived from the positions held by actors. Thus, the analysis of
brokerage, in chapter 5, shows how similarly positioned organizations can play different
brokerage roles, or may not play them at all. Most importantly, this dissertation argues
that brokerage roles in collective action networks such as those mapped in this
dissertation are political roles. As such, an analysis of brokerage must take into
consideration broker’s claims to legitimacy, and the power asymmetries the different
brokerage roles entail.
In sum, this dissertation assumes the duality of networks, as previous structures
and as outcomes of collective action. It emphasizes processes and mechanisms rather
than the impacts of fixed positions. The social network data is interpreted in light of
ethnographic information that allows us to analyze the meanings of the ties, to identify
general patterns, and to understand how and why relationships have changed through
time.
7.3 Pathways to Transnationality
The future of collective action on trade is uncertain. On the one hand, this
dissertation gives credence to cautious views about the potential impacts of transnational
collective action, offering little empirical support for the more optimistic views about the
emergence of a powerful “global civil society.” Challengers of trade agreements remain
divided with respect to the necessary reforms to the governance of trade, and the limited
agreements reached by them at the hemispheric level are fragile. Furthermore, the
increased number of activities beyond borders puts additional pressure on organizations
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that have limited human and organizational resources. Although opponents of the FTAA
have claimed that the failure of negotiators to reach an agreement is due to their efforts,
challengers of trade agreements have neither been able to stop the negotiation of other
agreements, nor have they been able to significantly change the negotiating agenda.
On the other hand, this dissertation has also provided empirical evidence of the
creation of new forms of organization and common agendas that would not have been
possible twenty years ago. More specifically, coalitions created in the context of trade
debates share a common characteristic: they are sustained by a broad variety of types of
organizations, ranging from tiny NGOs to organizations with millions of members. As a
result of their interaction, particular agendas become extended ones, issues in which there
is no agreement become suppressed, and/or their contents are transformed. The analysis
in chapter 4 has shown that these changes have not been easy ones, and that not all civil
society organizations have felt the need to engage in negotiated interaction with other
types of organizations. Thus, of course not all civil society organizations have
participated in broad-based coalition building efforts, but among those that have are some
of the most powerful organizations in the hemisphere.
The notion of “pathways to transnationality” helps to make sense of the seemingly
paradoxical situation of increased levels of transnational collective action by
organizations that remain rooted at the domestic level. Instead of debating whether a new
global actor has emerged, it accepts that there is no single pattern of participation. Civil
society organizations can take different routes to reach similar positions, or to participate
in debates with similar goals and targets. The challenge is to understand why actors
choose different pathways, how sustainable these choices are, and what are their impacts
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in terms of collective action. This dissertation approached these questions by
differentiating between organizational and ideational pathways, that is, by analyzing the
efforts of actors to create coalitions and to establish a common set of alternatives to trade
policies within and beyond national borders.
7.3.1 Campaign and Affiliation Modes of Coalition Building
Civil society organizations have created new forms of domestic and transnational
organizations in the context of free trade negotiations. The goal of trade challengers has
been to generate broad intersecting spaces that aim at organizing collective action
specifically related to trade negotiations. These spaces vary, however, ranging from
coalition building efforts that grant great autonomy to members through less hierarchical
structures, such as the Continental Campaign against the FTAA, to more ambitious
projects of collective action through the creation of affiliation based coalitions with
clearer membership boundaries, the best example of which is the Hemispheric Social
Alliance (HSA). This dissertation argues that studies on transnationalism have to go
beyond its current focus on the first type of coalition building mode to be able to
understand efforts at building sustained relationships.
The difficulties encountered by trade coalitions seem to confirm the skepticism of
those scholars who emphasize the obstacles to sustained coalition building across
national borders. In part, these difficulties are related to the mainly reactive character of
transnational collective action. Trade negotiations are intermittently in the political
agenda, leading to moments of high mobilization, followed by steep declines in the
attention given by civil society organizations and public opinion in general.
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Coalition building initiatives seem to yield better results in terms of their
sustainability through time when actors are able to adapt pre-existing social networks,
repertoires, and resources to deal with new challenges. That was the case of the Southern
Cone Coordinator of Labor Centrals, which became the most relevant (though not
unique) space for labor in the MERCOSUR region, and that was the case of the Jubilee
South Campaign, which incorporated the Campaign against the FTAA in Brazil by
adding it to a previously agreed agenda. In the cases of creation of new domestic trade
coalitions, the experience shows that problems of legitimacy are better avoided if the new
organization is headquartered in a previously existing organization with a good reputation
among those challenging free trade negotiations – such as the D-GAP in the United
States, FASE in Brazil, and the FAT in Mexico.
All coalition building efforts, however, have had to face the problems of
coordination and representation within and across domestic boundaries. In the four
countries studied here, the current organizational responses to these problems have faced
the criticism of those who feel excluded, and remain a key unresolved challenge for both
campaign and affiliation based coalitions.
7.3.2 The Strength of Missing Ties
The increased relevance of Southern organizations in the transnational field of
trade challengers points to a possible trend towards the creation of more horizontal
relationships between civil society organizations from the North and the South. The
inverted direction of the “boomerang” – thrown from the South to the North during the
NAFTA debates and from the North to the South during the FTAA negotiations – also
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points in that direction. However, as emphasized in this dissertation, relationships remain
asymmetrical: a relatively small number of organizations are the most visible ones within
and across countries, and concentrate access to funding and information.
In all four countries actors interviewed acknowledged the difficulty of creating
channels for the effective and continuous participation of all actors. In part this is a matter
of lack of resources to pay for traveling and communication expenses, but, more
significantly, it hides important disagreements among challengers of trade agreements.
Three types of ties among civil society organizations are missing from the networks
mapped.
First, as the example of the U.S. case showed, organizations outside of the
Beltway have criticized some of the most prominent actors in trade debates, such as the
AFL-CIO and Public Citizen, for investing too many of their resources on lobbying
activities, and for concentrating too many resources in their hands. As seen in chapter 5,
in other countries local CSOs have also complained about their lack of access to decisionmaking processes about the strategies to be followed, the distribution of funding, and the
definition of goals and targets. Second, there are other types of organizations that have
become less visible in the field of trade challengers through time. The radicalization of
the political positions within the field has in practice marginalized more reformist actors,
such as mainstream U.S. environmental organizations, and those that were focusing
mainly on the demand to open participatory channels for civil society organizations. The
agreement among participants in the Hemispheric Social Alliance and the Continental
Campaign to oppose the FTAA negotiations is not a consensus among organizations that
remain outside these initiatives.
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Finally, the analysis of social network data in chapter 4 showed that there is a
broad tendency towards the creation of ties across different categories of organizations.
However, the analysis of the cases of labor, rural, and multi-issue NGOs also showed that
there is great variation in the breadth of alliances, the ability of these organizations to
engage in dialogue and collaboration with each other. The case of rural organizations
affiliated to Vía Campesina is a good example of the difficulties in establishing ties,
especially at the transnational level. The case of labor organizations affiliated to the
Interamerican Regional Organization of Workers, on the other hand, is an example of the
ability of some of its members to reach out to other types of actors. In summary, this
dissertation shows that building horizontal and open spaces for participation remains an
unaccomplished goal and a critical challenge for the civil society organizations studied.
7.4. Future Directions of Research
As one of the interviewees said, the growth of the field of trade challengers, and,
most significantly, the increased participation of Southern organizations at the
transnational level, has imploded the “Jet Set” group made up of a small number of
individuals from a few resourceful organizations, that were the most knowledgeable and
visible in challenging trade negotiations at the international level. The field has become
much more varied, even if, as argued above, it is not an open space and collaborative ties
created are not necessarily sustainable through time. This change raises several
challenges for future action, as well as for future research and theorization on
transnational collective action.
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This dissertation argues that, after fifteen years of mobilizations, the key dilemma
for future action is one that is not mentioned by actors often: the unresolved division
between those who argue in favor of more global governance and the strengthening of
multilateral organizations, and those who argue in favor of the preservation of national
sovereignty and the strengthening of nation-states. This is also related to the clashes over
competing definitions of “national interest,” and how or whether it can be compatible
with other countries’ “national interests.” As seen in chapter 6, actors located within the
center-to-left of the political spectrum in the North and in the South have tended to
approach this debate in terms of a broad understanding of national sovereignty as the
right to self-determination, framing it as a democracy issue. While this focus on the
democratization of international decision-making processes gives differently positioned
actors a common basis for collective action, it does not solve the controversies about the
future of global governance.
From a theoretical perspective, this debate underscores the need for a better
understanding of the location of political life in general, and collective action in
particular. Both scholars and activists remain trapped in an either/or framework, whereby
political claims are either oriented towards a territorially bounded political community, or
towards universal values. This dissertation suggests that this might be changing; that
actors realize that they must negotiate their positions according to specific and changing
time-space junctures, in light not only of domestic pressures, but also of the claims of
allies and foes elsewhere. New approaches to this problem call for a greater dialogue
among international relations and social movement scholars.
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Future research on transnational collective action should also investigate whether
the trend towards creating organizations such as the Hemispheric Social Alliance is a
sustainable answer to the problems of coordination and representation beyond national
boundaries. More specifically, further research is needed on the roles of brokers in
transnational collective action. This study proposed a typology of different roles of
brokers within coalitions, and focused on the question of whether domestic trade
secretariats were able to play these political roles between the domestic and transnational
levels. There is still a gap in the literature, between the quantitative efforts of social
network analysts that focus on brokerage roles as a potential result of the positions
acquired by actors in networks, and the qualitative analysis of transnational collective
action scholars that, for the most part, ignores the social network analysis’ contributions
and understands brokerage simply as mediation, without exploring the different types of
brokerage possible.
With respect to the increased importance of Southern organizations and SouthSouth ties, two issues deserve further attention: first, the problem of the continuing
dependency of Southern initiatives on Northern sources of funding; second, the uneven
distribution of these funds and the concentration of decision-making power in specific
countries and organizations within the South. For example, during the field research done
for this dissertation, the Secretariats of both the Hemispheric Social Alliance and the
Continental Campaign against the FTAA were headquartered in Brazil. While this
coincidence may facilitate the coordination of activities of the two coalitions, it can also
generate a concentration of resources that may put into jeopardy the goal of building
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more horizontal relationships, not only between the North and the South, but also within
the South.
Given the emphasis of this dissertation on the problem of change in social
networks and collective action, it would be interesting, in the future, to do a second wave
of data collecting that would provide longitudinal data. Although social network analysts
have been paying more attention to the dynamic character of networks, the incorporation
of change remains both a theoretical and methodological challenge to be overcome.
Longitudinal data would allow us to confirm trends that were found in this dissertation. It
would provide additional evidence on the tendency for Southern organizations to become
more central actors, and would also confirm – or not – that close ties tend to concentrate
in labor organizations, rural organizations, and NGOs that approach trade from a multiissue perspective.
These empirical issues relate to broader theoretical debates. This dissertation
argues that previous ideological trajectories, social networks, and institutional logics help
to explain actors’ different pathways to transnationality, but, most importantly, that
interaction among actors can lead to changes in the way these actors perceive their
agendas, goals, and strategies. Thus, the relational approach used in this dissertation does
not ignore structural constraints and opportunities faced by actors, but studies the
reactions of civil society organizations to them through an analysis of their changing
embeddedness in relational contexts. In this sense, it can be linked to other bodies of
literature that were not explored here, such as work on deliberative democracy that
investigates how discussions among actors may lead to changes in their preferences. This
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literature could help in further understanding the relationships between old practices and
claims, and the emergence of new ones.
This study assumed that the boundaries among comparative politics, international
relations, and transnational studies have long become obsolete. It engaged in a broad
dialogue across disciplines that also took into consideration the contributions by
sociologists to the analysis of social networks and social movements. Such a
multidisciplinary approach provides the best way to enhance our understanding of the
contradictions, variations and changes in collective action within and beyond national
boundaries, and their impacts on social and political thought.
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APPENDIX A
RESEARCH DESIGN
This methodological appendix describes in greater detail the research design of
this dissertation. It gives special attention to the different steps of the social network
analysis procedures: first, the setting of network boundaries; second, the formulation of
social network questions; and third, the analysis of the data collected. It clarifies how the
analysis of social network data led to provisional hypothesis about the relationships
among organizations. These were examined in light of information from semistructured
and in-depth interviews, document analysis, and participant observation.
1. The Boundary Specification Problem
Limiting the number of actors to be studied is unavoidable, and, as argued by
Degenne and Forsé, “because these partitions are always something arbitrary, we must
bear in mind that there is always something tentative about network analysis data”
(emphasis in the original).396 Social networks do not have natural, pre-given boundaries,
but these are a result of analytical and methodological choices made by the researcher.
In this study, the inclusion rule was: the most active national-level civil society
organizations that participated in debates about free trade agreements and challenged
them up until the end of 2003 (the Ministerial Meeting of the FTAA celebrated in Miami
is the cutting point) should be interviewed. All these organizations share a critical
396
Degenne and Forsé, 1999: 22.
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perspective on trade agreements, but, for the most part, they cannot be characterized as
“anti-trade” or “anti-globalization.” In fact, the actors studied in this dissertation display a
variety of perspectives on trade, global governance, and globalization in general.
A roster of organizations was created before data collection began. The goal was
to generate a list as broad and heterogeneous as possible within the limits of the inclusion
rule described above. A first list was created based on the analysis of documents such as
membership lists in coalitions; lists of attendants in events; lists of organizers of events;
sign-ons; and various documents published by civil society organizations. This list was
then complemented by references found in a review of the literature on trade agreement
negotiations and the literature on civil society organizations in Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and
the United States.
During field research, this list was expanded by the interviewees themselves,
based on the snowball procedure: actors were asked if there were other organizations
missing from the roster. However, addition only occurred if an organization was
mentioned beyond a threshold of three times.397 Some names were excluded, because a
few organizations had ceased to exist at the time of the interview, and others were not
active on the trade debates any longer. Approximately 5% of the organizations
interviewed were added through snowball, and 10% from the initial roster were excluded.
This combination of strategies helps to avoid missing important actors, at the same time
that it helps to avoid having a list that is too homogeneous, based solely on snowballing
from an initially small number of key informants.
397
For an example of a social network study that uses threshold to expand selection, see Doreian and
Woodard, 1992.
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This dissertation does not assume, however, that the relationships found are
representative of the whole field of challengers. In fact, the organizations interviewed are
only a relatively small set of those that have been active in the last two decades in
mobilizations related to the negotiations of free trade agreements. In the United States,
for example, if local level organizations were included, it would amount to literally
hundreds of them. Furthermore, in a few cases actors refused to be interviewed, and some
could not be reached because of time and funding limitations. Those interviewed are,
however, an important sub-set, in that the most active national-level actors from each
country have been included.
This research design focused on the close ties among organizations, and therefore
excluded the more informal or short-term relationships. In order to gather information on
these, additional questions were added, which focused specifically on these ties. For
example, because it was expected that only a few business organizations would be
nominated, if any, a question about the relationships between challengers of trade
agreements and business organizations was added (question 27). Other questions on
relationships with actors beyond the boundaries of the networks focused on the domestic
relationships with legislative arenas (questions 26a and 26b) and with government
officials (question 25), and on the relationships with these actors in the other countries
(see questions 14, 19 and 24).
In each organization, the informant was the person in charge of following trade
negotiations. While some organizations have staff devoted specifically to this task, in
most cases I had to interview the person in charge of legislative affairs, and/or the
international affairs staff. In a few cases it was necessary to complement the interview
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with a former employee who could provide information on the past relationships of the
organization (see the lists of interviews in Appendix C).
2. Sources of Social Network Data
Before beginning the field research, I already had consistent information on who
knew whom, and on co-membership in coalitions, at the domestic and transnational
levels. This information was found in other scholars’ qualitative studies, in civil society
organizations’ documents, and in my own previous research.
However, archival data such as that provided by lists of members in trade
coalitions was not a very reliable source of information on the relationships among
organizations. Lists were not updated regularly, and, more importantly, what is
considered a “membership” in these coalitions is not always very clear. Thus, some
organizations that consider themselves members may not be listed, and vice versa. Other
types of archival data, provided for example by lists of organizations in events, also
proved to be at least incomplete, if not misleading, because many actors do not
participate regularly in events but are nonetheless active participants of the field of trade
challengers.
Thus, general questions such as “who do you know?” would have little empirical
or theoretical meaning, whereas “who are your closest allies?” (question number 6 in the
questionnaire, see appendix B) is meaningful because it approximates us to the goal of
uncovering relations that go beyond merely participating in the same coalition or
attending the same events. This approach takes into consideration only the strongest ties
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among actors. There is a long tradition of this type of questions in social network studies
from Moreno’s 1934 book, in which he asked school children “who do you like best?”
onwards.398 This first network question was then followed by a series of questions that
sought to gather data about change by asking about previous relationships, and that
sought to gather data on variation, by asking about relationships in specific contexts.
Other questions focused on a select number of key civil society organizations, and asked
all respondents to rank their distance or closeness to them in terms of their goals and
strategies in trade-related collective action (questions 9a and 9b).
A similar approach was used to map transnational relationships among civil
society organizations, but used a much smaller roster of key organizations in each of the
other three countries. This roster included the most active ones, but also organizations
from different issue areas, and with different positions on trade agreement negotiations.
Furthermore, it included domestic trade coalitions where these existed. Instead of asking
informants to indicate all those organizations they were closest to in the other countries,
respondents were asked to rank how close or distant their organizations were with respect
to these key ones in terms of their goals and strategies. Fewer questions were asked about
transnational relationships in comparison with domestic relationships mainly because of
time constraints (the questionnaire was designed to be conducted in one-hour interviews).
Several questions were included in the questionnaire to gather data on the
pathways to transnationality used by each organization: questions about their affiliation
to domestic and international coalitions; about their participation in trade-related events;
398
Moreno, 1934.
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open ended questions about how they met their current allies; and questions about how
they would contact organizations in other countries to prepare for a future event.
Thus, the social network questionnaire used different response formats to obtain
data: binary judgments on whether organizations had or not a specific relationship to each
other, ranking data on the relationship of all organizations to a specific, smaller, key set
of organizations; open ended questions; and multiple choice ones. In social network
research, the focus has been mainly on questions about whether relationships are present
or absent; the introduction of questions based on range and multiple choices gets at
subtleties of these relationships, while at the same time complementing the previous and
more general question on each organizations’ closest allies.
3. Analysis and Presentation of the Data
The responses to question 6 in the questionnaire were entered into the social
network software UCINet in the form of sociomatrices, or “who to whom” matrices of
one-mode data which show who identified whom as a close ally at the domestic level.
The software Netdraw was then used to transform these matrices into sociograms – “… a
sociometric tool used to build a record of relations among members of a group”399 – with
nodes, lines and arrows that show the direction of the relationships. This network data
was supplemented with attribute data on the different types of organizations, and
analyzed by focusing on the number of times each node was identified by another as a
399
Degenne and Forsé, 1999: 23.
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close ally (the in-degree measure) and the proportion of total possible ties present within
blocks of organizations (the density measure).
Centrality measures are useful to understand to what extent any given network
might be dominated by a single node, or a few nodes. This dissertation uses the most
simple of centrality measures developed by social network analysts: degree centrality,
which measures the number of connections among nodes. Given that the networks
mapped are directed networks, i.e., organizations nominated others as their close allies
but were not necessarily nominated by them, the measure used was in-degree centrality.
In-degree centrality counts the incoming ties, or the number of times that a node was
nominated by other organizations, in contrast with outdegree centrality, which measures
the outgoing ties, or the number of organizations that each node nominated. Other ways
of measuring centrality offer different approaches to analyzing these relationships. For
example, closeness centrality measures how close each node is to all other network
members, and betweeness centrality measures the extent to which each node is in the
shortest path linking other nodes.400 These alternative ways of measuring centrality were
not used to analyze the networks mapped in this dissertation because I only took into
consideration the closest allies’ relationships, and not all types of relationships.
Betweeness and closeness measures are more relevant when the data concerns who do
you know ties. For example, in the networks mapped in this dissertation an organization
with a high betweeness score would not necessarily have the potential to control the flow
of information and resources. The absence of a close tie relationship in the graphs
400
For a more thorough explanation of centrality measures, see Idem, esp. chapter 6, and Wasserman and
Faust, 1999, esp. chapter 5.
248
mapped in this dissertation does not mean that other types of relationships are also
absent, including exchanges of information and resources.
In-degree centrality identified the actors that were most nominated in each
country, as well as in the transnational network of close ties. It showed that the structure
of the networks in the four countries followed a similar pattern of asymmetrical
distribution of ties. Although no single organization or type of organization dominates
these networks, a few concentrate a much higher portion of the total number of ties than
the others. However, the most central organizations were not assumed to be necessarily
the most powerful actors. The interpretation of the meanings of these results was only
possible through a combination of the social network analysis results and qualitative
methods that provided additional information on the relationships among actors.
The second social network measure used to analyze the data in this dissertation is
density, which is the number of actual connections between members divided by the
number of possible connections. While the density of the four domestic networks gave
similar measures, more interesting information was obtained by partitioning
organizations in blocks according to six different types of organizations (labor, rural,
environmental NGOs, other NGOs, think tanks and foundations, faith-based
organizations, and business organizations). Density was measured then as the proportion
of total possible ties that linked organizations within and among these blocks. This
measure is a particularly important one because it indicates a greater degree of interaction
among organizations within the same block, but it also shows that there are many
exceptions to this homophily trend. Thus, this information provided the basis for a
qualitative analysis about relationships among different types of organizations, and the
249
variations in the scope of alliances of similar organizations. As emphasized in the
dissertation, the small number of civil society organizations included in this study limited
my ability to draw strong conclusions from the data.
3.1 Validity and accuracy of the data
As in all studies that rely heavily on self-reports, the validity of the data is an
important issue in this research.401 The problem of validity of self-reports, in conjunction
with the problems that arise from not having a representative sample, are the two main
reasons that explain the limited and cautious use of the data gathered through the social
network questionnaires in this dissertation.
For example, question 6 did not limit the number of organizations that could be
nominated as close allies. As a result, respondents had different thresholds for defining
what a “closest ally” was. This led some organizations to focus on a very small number
of organizations, while others went on to nominate most of the list. In this case,
interviewees were prompted to distinguish between close and very close relationships,
and when they did so only the very close ties were taken into account to build the
sociograms. This problem was also dealt with through the addition of another, more
specific question. Question 7 asked actors to identify between a minimum of three and a
maximum of five organizations with whom they most coincided with respect to goals and
strategies in the Free Trade Area of the Americas negotiation context. This strategy
allowed actors to go from the broader to the more specific networks of strongest ties, and
401
For a review of the problem of validity of self-reports, see Marsden, 2005.
250
also gave them another opportunity to identify other organizations that they might have
forgotten in the previous question.
Those organizations added to the roster through snowballing after the
interviewing process had begun might have had fewer nominations than if they had been
included since the beginning. However, the most important missing cases – for example,
the Sierra Club in the U.S. – were quickly incorporated, thus diminishing the possibility
that their in-degree (the number of times it was nominated as a close ally by others)
results were affected negatively.
The questions that required ranking of relationships were the most difficult ones
for respondents. In many cases they were reluctant to state that their organization was
distant or very distant from other organizations, or preferred to answer “don’t know”
because they felt that they did not have sufficient information on other organizations’
strategies and goals in order to answer. These problems led to a high percentage of
missing data (approximately 40%). In these cases, the answers given were useful not so
much because of the data gathered, but because by talking about the different possible
answers respondents provided a lot of information about the main differences and
agreements within the field o trade challengers.
3.2 The Problem of Change
This dissertation assumed that relationships among challengers of trade
agreements are dynamic, that they change through time and across space, as
organizations create and destroy ties, and as new challenges arise in the debates about
251
trade agreements. At the same time, however, this variation did not make any kind of
mapping of relationships unfeasible. The question of how much change and how much
continuity would be found was from the beginning an empirical question that required
different methodological approaches, as well as a theoretical perspective centered on the
processes of network formation and restructuring.
One of the most important challenges for current social network analysts is to
introduce dynamics to what are usually “snapshots” of relationships among actors in a
given moment in time.402 Given the fact that for this study it was impossible to conduct
surveys in different periods of time, the problem was dealt with by introducing questions
on the relationships among organizations over time. Thus, question number two finds out
how long the organization has been active on debates and mobilizations related to free
trade agreements; questions number 7a, 11a, 11b, 16a, 16b, 21a and 21b refer to the
origins of ties among organizations; question 7a asks for the duration of the ties; and
question 8 seeks to get data on the variation of ties based on a specific historic moment.
4. Triangulation of Methods
The combination of methods used in this dissertation has helped to overcome the
weaknesses and biases that might have resulted from a study based on the social network
analysis data, or limited to information gathered from in-depth interviews. As argued in
the introduction to this dissertation, social network analysis provides useful tools to map
402
For some examples of recent efforts to reconcile social network analysis and temporal change, see van
de Bunt, Wittek, and Klepper, 2005, and Steglich, Snijders, and West, 2006.
252
relationships. Furthermore, it helps in thinking theoretically about actors and their actions
as interdependent rather than autonomous from each other. The analysis of relationships
based on centrality and density measures provided information that could not have been
gathered in any other way. When woven together with semistructured and in-depth
interviews, document analysis and participant observation in events, it is possible to go
beyond the potential impacts of positions of actors to understand the processes and
mechanisms that shed light and dynamics into the maps of relationships found.403
Semi-structured and in-depth interviews conducted with key informants provided
information on the origins of ties among organizations, and how these ties have changed
– or not – through time. The interviews with Canadian actors (see appendix C) had the
specific purpose of gathering information on the first country that organized a campaign
against a free trade agreement in such a way that would be diffused to the rest of the
hemisphere in the 1990s. Document analysis, especially documents such as sign-ons and
membership lists also provided insights as to the dynamics of the collective action field
on trade.
403
For arguments in favor of the use of social network methods in conjunction with qualitative methods,
see Bond, Valente, and Kendall, 1999 and Mische, 2003.
253
APPENDIX B
SOCIAL NETWORK QUESTIONNAIRE
(U.S. CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS)
(A version of the same questionnaire translated to Spanish and Portuguese was
administered to representatives of civil society organizations in
Brazil, Chile, and Mexico)
Social Network Survey Questionnaire (U.S.)
This survey is part of research being conducted towards a Ph.D. dissertation in political science at The
Johns Hopkins University. This same questionnaire will be given to civil society organizations in the U.S.,
Brazil, Mexico and Chile. Your answers to the questions will provide information on the linkages and
networks among civil society organizations involved in the trade debates, from NAFTA to the FTAA. Your
name will not be disclosed; only the name of your organization will be identified when results are
disseminated publicly.
I. GENERAL INFORMATION
1. Name of the organization ___________________________________________
2. How long has your organization been involved in the debates about the consequences of trade
agreements?
a. Since before NAFTA ( ) Year:
b. Since NAFTA ( ) Year:
c. After NAFTA ( ) Year:
3. How long have you been following trade debates?
In this organization, since…….
And before that, since……
4. In the table below, if your organization participates in the coalitions listed, please state the year when it
began to participate. If your organization was a member of any of these coalitions/campaigns and is not
involved anymore, please state the period during which it participated:
Participates since…
Coalition/Campaign
Citizen’s Trade Campaign – CTC
Alliance for Responsible Trade – ART
Other domestic trade coalitions
Hemispheric Social Alliance
Continental Campaign against the FTAA
Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras
Maquiladora Health and Safety Support Coalition
Other regional-level coalitions
Our World is Not for Sale
International Forum on Globalization
Other global-level coalitions
254
Period (years):
5. Please mark with an “x” to which of the following events your organization has sent or will send
representatives (as organizers, participants in official delegations, as organizers of parallel events, and/or
other form of participation):
Event
Organizer
Organizer of
Part of the U.S.
Other form of No
of the event parallel event official
participation
participation
delegation
Belo Horizonte
FTAA Ministerial,
1997
Buenos Aires
FTAA Ministerial,
2001
Quito FTAA
Ministerial, 2002
Miami FTAA
Ministerial, 2003
First Summit of the
Americas, Miami,
1994
Second Summit of
the Americas,
Santiago, 1998
Third Summit of
the Americas,
Québec, 2001
WTO Ministerial
Conference in
Seattle, 1999
WTO Ministerial
Conference in
Cancún, 2003
First Hemispheric
Meeting against the
FTAA, Cuba, 2001
Second
Hemispheric
Meeting against the
FTAA, Cuba, 2002
Third Hemispheric
Meeting against the
FTAA, Cuba, 2004.
UNCTAD XI, São
Paulo, 2004
255
II. TIES
6. Which of the organizations listed below would you consider to be your closest allies (the ones you work
most closely with and you most trust) in your current activities with respect to trade agreements’
negotiations? Please mark as many as you wish with an “x”.
Action Aid – U.S.
AFL-CIO (includes Solidarity Center)
The Alliance For Democracy
The Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment
American Lands Alliance
American Welfare Institute
Campaign for Labor Rights
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Center for Economic Justice
Center for Economic and Policy Research - CEPR
Center for International Environmental Law - CIEL
Center of Concern
Communications Workers of America - CWA
Defenders of Wildlife
The Development Group for Alternative Policies D-GAP
Earth Justice
Esquel Foundation
50 Years is Enough
Freedom House
Friends of the Earth - FOE
Global Exchange
Greenpeace
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy - IATP
Institute for International Economics – IIE
Institute for Policy Studies - IPS
Institute for Social Ecology
International Brotherhood of Teamsters
International Forum on Globalization
International Gender and Trade Network
International Labor Rights Fund - ILRF
International Trade Union Federal Public Services International – PSI
Jobs with Justice
Mexican Solidarity Network
National Family Farm Coalition
National Wildlife Federation - NWF
Oxfam
Partners of the Americas
Public Citizen
Rural Coalition
UAW
UE – United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers
UNITE – Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees
United States Business and Industrial Council Educational Foundation
United Students Against Sweatshops - USAS
USWA (Steelworkers)
Washington Office on Latin America – WOLA
Are any missing from the list? If so, which ones?
256
7. Of these, please name between 3 and 5 organizations with which you currently most share goals and
strategies with respect to the FTAA negotiations:
7a. How long have you been working with each of them on trade-related issues?
Organization
Over 10 years
Over 5 years
Less than 5 years
1
2
3
4
5
8. If your organization participated also in the NAFTA debates:
were the organizations you just nominated also your closest allies during the NAFTA debates? If not,
please list the ones that were:
9. The next two questions are about the relationship of your organization with other prominent
organizations in the field.
a. Here are a number of prominent organizations in the field. Specifically with respect to your
organization’s goals (ultimate ends) in the trade debates, how would you characterize your organization’s
current relationship with:
Organization:
Very close
(agree on most
important
goals)
Close (agree
on some
goals)
AFL-CIO
PUBLIC CITIZEN
HUMAN RIGHTS
WATCH
INST. FOR
AGRICULTURE
AND TRADE
POLICY
GLOBAL
EXCHANGE
FRIENDS OF THE
EARTH
INTERNATIONAL
LABOR RIGHTS
FUND
NATIONAL
WILDLIFE
FEDERATION
OXFAM
ESQUEL
FOUNDATION
257
Distant (agree
on minor
goals)
Very Distant
(do not agree
on goals)
Don’t
Know
b. With respect to the same prominent organizations, how do you characterize your relationship with them
with respect to strategies chosen (the ways in which you choose to achieve your goals) in trade-related
activities:
Organization:
Very close
(agree on
most
important
strategies)
Close (agree
on some
strategies)
Distant (agree
on minor
strategies)
Very Distant
(do not agree
on strategies)
Don’t Know
AFL-CIO
PUBLIC CITIZEN
HUMAN RIGHTS
WATCH
INST. FOR
AGRICULTURE
AND TRADE
POLICY
GLOBAL
EXCHANGE
FRIENDS OF THE
EARTH
INTERNATIONAL
LABOR RIGHTS
FUND
NATIONAL
WILDLIFE
FEDERATION
OXFAM
ESQUEL
FOUNDATION
10. When searching for partners and allies to influence trade policy, which of the following criteria do you
consider most important in these different arenas? Check the three most important ones:
a) In looking for partners to work at the U.S. Congress:
( ) Common goals
( ) Coincidence of strategies to achieve these goals
( ) Need to strengthen mobilization capacity
( ) Need to incorporate different issue areas
( ) Common political orientation
( ) Others: _______________________________________________________
b) In looking for partners to influence the Executive:
( ) Common goals
( ) Coincidence of strategies to achieve these goals
( ) Need to strengthen mobilization capacity
( ) Need to incorporate different issue areas
( ) Common political orientation
( ) Others: _______________________________________________________
c) In looking for partners to participate in a domestic coalition:
( ) Common goals
( ) Coincidence of strategies to achieve these goals
( ) Need to strengthen mobilization capacity
( ) Need to incorporate different issue areas
( ) Common political orientation
258
( ) Others: _______________________________________________________
d) In looking for partners to participate in an international coalition:
( ) Common goals
( ) Coincidence of strategies to achieve these goals
( ) Need to strengthen mobilization capacity
( ) Need to incorporate different issue areas
( ) Common political orientation
( ) Others: _______________________________________________________
III. TRANSNATIONAL TIES
MEXICO
11. If your organization has contacts with civil society organizations in Mexico.
How would you characterize your relationship with:
Organization/coalition
Very close
Close
Distant
(agree on all
(agree on
(agree on
the most
some goals minor goals
important
and
and
goals and
strategies)
strategies)
strategies)
Red Mexicana de Acción
Frente al Libre Comercio
(RMALC)
Frente Auténtico del Trabajo
(FAT)
Vía Campesina
Centro Mexico de Derecho
Ambiental (CEMDA)
Central de Trabajadores de
México (CTM)
Unión Nacional de
Trabajadores (UNT)
Very Distant
(do not agree
on goals and
strategies)
Don’t
Know
Others:
(
) No contacts with Mexican organizations.
11a. Do you recall when your organization started having contact with Mexican organizations to debate
trade issues?
( ) Before NAFTA
( ) During NAFTA debates
( ) After NAFTA
( ) No contact
( ) I don’t know
11b. Can you tell me the story of when your organization first met with Mexican organizations to debate
trade issues?
12. Suppose the next Ministerial meeting of the FTAA will be held in Mexico and you need to discuss a
strategy for participating in it with Mexican organizations. Do you:
( ) get in touch with them directly. If so, which organizations would you first contact:
259
(
(
(
(
) get in touch through domestic coalitions, such as ART or CTC. If so, through which one:
) get in touch through other U.S. organizations. If so, through which ones:
) get in touch through regional coalitions. If so, through which one:
) I don’t know.
13. Does your organization help finance organizations and/or activities in Mexico?
( ) Yes ( ) No
If so, how much is sent and to whom?
Organization
Amount
Year
14. Do you also have established contacts with members of the Legislative and Executive powers of this
country? When someone from your organization goes to Mexico, do you also meet with members of the
Legislative and the Executive to discuss trade?
BRAZIL
15. If your organization has contacts with civil society organizations in Brazil:
How would you characterize your relationship with:
Organization/coalition
Very close
Close
Distant
(agree on all
(agree on
(agree on
the most
some goals
minor goals
important
and
and
goals and
strategies)
strategies)
strategies)
Central Única dos
Trabalhadores (CUT)
FASE
INESC
Movimento dos
Trabalhadores Rurais SemTerra (MST)
IBASE
Jubileu Sul
REBRIP – Rede Brasileira
pela Integração dos Povos
Others:
Very Distant
(do not
agree on
goals and
strategies)
Don’t
Know
( ) No contacts with Brazilian organizations.
16. Do you recall when your organization started having contact with Brazilian organizations to debate
trade issues?
( ) Before FTAA
( ) During FTAA negotiations
( ) No contacts
( ) I don’t know.
16a. Can you tell me the story of when your organization first met with Brazilian organizations to debate
trade issues?
260
17. Suppose the next Ministerial meeting of the FTAA will be held in Brazil and you need to discuss a
strategy for participating in it with Mexican organizations. Do you:
( ) get in touch with them directly. If so, which organizations would you first contact:
( ) get in touch through coalitions, such as ART or CTC If so, through which one:
( ) get in touch through other U.S. organizations. If so, through which ones:
( ) get in touch through regional coalitions. If so, through which one:
( ) I don’t know.
18. Does your organization help finance organizations and/or activities in Brazil?
( ) Yes ( ) No
If so, how much is sent and to whom?
Organization
Amount
Year
19. Do you also have established contacts with members of the Legislative and Executive powers of this
country? When someone from your organization goes to Brazil, do you also meet with members of the
Legislative and the Executive to discuss trade?
CHILE
20. If your organization has contacts with civil society organizations in Chile:
How would you characterize your relationship with:
Organization/coalition
Very close
Close
Distant
(agree on all
(agree on
(agree on
the most
some goals
minor goals
important
and
and
goals and
strategies)
strategies)
strategies)
Central Única de los
Trabalhadores (CUT/Chile)
Instituto de Ecología Política
(IEP)
Chile Sustentable
Recursos e Investigación para
el Desarrollo Sustantable,
RIDES
Corporación Participa
Corporación de Promoción y
Defensa de los Derechos del
Pueblo, CODEPU
Alianza Chilena por un
Comercio Justo y Responsible
– ACJR
Others:
(
Very Distant
(do not
agree on
goals and
strategies)
Don’t
Know
) No contacts with Chilean organizations.
21a. Do you recall when your organization started having contact with Chilean organizations to debate
trade issues?
261
(
(
(
(
(
(
) Before debates about U.S.-Chile FTA
) During debates about U.S.-Chile FTA
) After debates about U.S.-Chile FTA
) During FTAA negotiations
) No contacts
) I don’t know.
21b. Can you tell me the story of when your organization first met with Chilean organizations to debate
trade issues? Who introduced your organization?
22. Suppose the next Ministerial meeting of the FTAA will be held in Chile and you need to discuss a
strategy for participating in it with Chilean organizations. Do you:
( ) get in touch with them directly. If so, which organizations would you first contact:
( ) get in touch through domestic coalitions, such as ART or CTC. If so, through which one:
( ) get in touch through other U.S. organizations. If so, through which ones:
( ) get in touch through regional coalitions. If so, through which one:
( ) I don’t know.
23. Does your organization help finance organizations and/or activities in Chile?
( ) Yes ( ) No
If so, how much is sent and to whom?
Organization
Amount
Year
24. Do you also have established contacts with members of the Legislative and Executive powers of this
country? When someone from your organization goes to Chile, do you also meet with members of the
Legislative and the Executive to discuss trade?
III. OTHER TIES
25. Back to the U.S.: does your organization meet with members of the USTR to debate trade policy? And
for what purpose?
( ) Yes, frequently
( ) Yes, occasionally
( ) Rarely
( ) Never
( ) I don’t know
26a. What kinds of activities does your organization promote in Congress, if any?
For example, does your organization:
( ) Send letters to members
( ) Help staff and members in drafting legislation
( ) Answer requests for information from members and/or staff
( ) Participate in public hearings
( ) Meet with members to discuss trade policies
Others: ____________________________________________
26b. Has your organization been able to directly influence legislation? Can you give me an example?
262
27. If your organization is not a business organization:
Has your organization been exchanging information or collaborating in any form with business
organizations on trade issues? ( ) Yes ( ) No
If yes, with which ones?
Business organization
Type of activity
263
APPENDIX C
LISTS OF INTERVIEWS
Three types of interviews were conducted during field research: structured
interviews using a social network questionnaire; semistructured interviews; and in-depth
interviews. In some cases, more than one person from the same organization was
interviewed to answer the questionnaire. In other cases, individuals were interviewed
more than once. That is why the total number of questionnaires is different from the
number of individuals interviewed, and the number of semistructured and in-depth
interviews is different from the total listed in Table C6. In the case of structured
interviews, informants were told that only the names of their organizations would be
made public (see the questionnaire in Appendix B). Those quoted by name in the
dissertation gave their permission, and/or their quotes were taken from semistructured or
in-depth interviews. The great majority of interviews were face-to-face; only in some
cases (noted below) interviews were made over the phone.
C1. Total Number of Interviews, by Type of Interview, Number of Individuals and
Organizations
Type of Interview
Social network
questionnaire
Semistructured and
in-depth interviews
Total
Number of Individuals
Interviewed
Number of Civil Society
Organizations
148
123
56
19
204
142
264
C2. Organizations that answered the social network questionnaire in Brazil between
February and May 2005
Associação Brasileira Interdisciplinar de Aids (ABIAIDS)
Associação Nacional dos Docentes em Entidades de Ensino Superior (ANDES)
Action Aid Brazil
Cáritas Brasileira
Central Única dos Trabalhadores (CUT)
Centro de Educação Popular – Instituto Sedes Sapientiae (CEPIS)
Confederação Geral dos Trabalhadores (CGT)
Confederação Nacional dos Bancários (CNB)
Confederação Nacional dos Metalúrgicos (CNM)
Confederação Nacional dos Trabalhadores em Agricultura (CONTAG)
Força Sindical
Instituto Brasileiro de Análises Sociais e Econômicas (IBASE)
Instituto Brasileiro de Desenvolvimento (IBRADES)
Instituto de Estudos Sócio-Econômicos (INESC)
Internacional do Serviço Público (ISP)
Instituto Eqüit
Médicos Sem Fronteiras (MSF)
Movimento dos Atingidos por Barragens (MAB)
Movimento dos Pequenos Agricultores (MPA)
Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem-Terra (MST)
Oxfam Great Britain – Brazil Program
Políticas Alternativas para o Cone Sul (PACS)
Sempre-Viva Organização Feminista (SOF)
Pastoral Operária (PO)
Serviço Pastoral dos Migrantes (SPM)
União Nacional dos Estudantes (UNE)
Unafisco
World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
C3. Organizations that answered the social network questionnaire in Chile between
May and June 2005
Alianza Chilena por un Comercio Justo y Responsible (ACJR)
Asociación Nacional de Mujeres Rurales e Indígenas (ANAMURI)
Centro Ecuménico Diego de Medellín (CEDM)
Centro de Estudios Nacionales de Desarrollo Alternativo (CENDA)
Confederación Trabajadores Bancarios (CETEBES)
Comité de Defensa de los Derechos del Pueblo (CODEPU)
Corporación Nacional de Consumidores y Usuarios (CONADECU)
Confederación de los Trabajadores Metalúrgicos (CONSTRAMET)
265
Central Única de los Trabajadores (CUT)
Colegio de Profesores
Consumers International – Chile
Corporación Participa
Derechos Digitales
Fundación Terram
Instituto de Ecología Política (IEP)
LOM Editores
Oxfam Great Britain – Chile Program
Programa de Economía del Trabajo (PET)
Pastoral de los Trabajadores
Recursos e Investigación para el Desarrollo Sustentable (RIDES)
Servicio Paz y Justicia (SERPAJ)
Unidad Obrero Campesina (UOC)
Vivo Positivo
266
C4. Organizations that answered the social network questionnaire in Mexico in
August 2004 and August 2005
Asociación Latinoamericana de Pequeños Empresarios/México (ALAMPYME)
Asociación Nacional de Empresas Comercializadoras de Productores del Campo,
A.C. (ANEC)
Central Independiente de Obreros Agrícolas y Campesinos (CIOAC)
Centro de Análisis Político e Investigaciones Sociales y Económicas (CAPISE)
Centro de Derechos Humanos Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez
Centro de Estudios para el Cambio en el Campo Mexicano (CECCAM)
Centro de Estudios Ecuménicos (CEE)
Centro de Investigaciones Económicas y Políticas de Acción Comunitaria
(CIEPAC)
Centro de Investigación Laboral y Asesoría Sindical (CILAS)
Centro Mexicano de Derecho Ambiental (CEMDA)
Centro Nacional de Comunicación Social (CENCOS)
Confederación de Trabajadores de México (CTM)
Coordinadora Nacional de Organizaciones Cafetaleras – CNOC
Consejo Mexicano para el Desarrollo Sustentable (COMIEDES)
Consejo Nacional de Industriales Ecologistas (CONIECO)
DECA Equipo Pueblo
Frente Auténtico del Trabajo (FAT)
Frente Democrático Campesino de Chihuahua (FDC)
Greenpeace México
Grupo de Estudios Ambientales (GEA)
Movimiento Ciudadano por la Democracia (MCD)
Mujer y Medio Ambiente
Mujeres para el Diálogo
Oxfam International/Mexico
Seminario Permanente de Estudios Chicanos y de Fronteras
Servicio y Asesoría para la Paz (SERAPAZ)
Sindicato Mexicano de Electricistas (SME)
Sindicato de Telefonistas de la República Mexicana (STRM)
Unión Nacional de Organizaciones Regionales Campesinas Autónomas
(UNORCA)
C5. Organizations that answered the social network questionnaire in the United
States between May 2004 and January 2006
American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)
American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)
American Welfare Institute (AWI)
267
Campaign for Labor Rights (CLR)
Center for Economic Justice (CEJ)
Center for Economic Policy Research (CEJR)
Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL)
Center of Concern
Church World Service (CWS)
Communications Workers of America (CWA)
Defenders of Wildlife
The Development Group for Alternative Policies (D-GAP)
Earthjustice
Economic Policy Institute (EPI)
Esquel Foundation
Freedom House
Friends of the Earth (FOE)
Global Exchange (GE)
Human Rights Watch (HRW)
Institute for Agricultural and Trade Policy (IATP)
Institute for Policy Studies (IPS)
International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT)
International Labor Rights Fund (ILRF)
Jobs for Justice
Maryknoll
National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC)
National Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
National Wildlife Federation (NWF)
Oxfam America
Partners of the Americas
Public Citizen
Rural Coalition
Sierra Club
Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE)
United Auto Workers (UAW)
United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers (UE)
United States Business and Industrial Council Educational Foundation (USBIC)
United States Council of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)
United Steelworkers of the America (USWA)
United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS)
Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA)
268
C6. Semistructured and in-depth interviews:
NAME
Gonzalo Berrón
Adriano Campolina
Víctor Báez
Mosqueira
Adhemar Mineiro
Maria Sílvia
Portella de Castro
Rafael Freire Neto
Anonymous
Florisvaldo Fier
(Dr. Rosinha)
Antônio Ferreira
Costa Filho
Lúcia Maduro
Fátima Mello
Sérgio Schlesinger
Luis Alberto and
Luís Vicente Facco
Rosilene Wansetto
Etiel Moraga
Manuel Baquedano
and Bernardo Reyes
ORGANIZATION
Hemispheric Social Alliance and
Continental Campaign Against the
FTAA Secretariats
Americas’ Regional Director,
Action Aid International
Secretary General, Interamerican
Regional Organization of Workers
(ORIT)
Departamento Inter-Sindical de
Estudos Sócio-Econômicos DIEESE
CUT – Brazil
CUT – Brazil
Legislative Staff – Brazilian
Chamber of Deputies
Congressman, President of the
Joint MERCOSUR Commission –
Brazilian House of
Representatives
Secretary of the Joint
MERCOSUR Commission –
Brazilian House of
Representatives
National Industry Confederation
(CNI- Brazil)
Secretariat of the Brazilian
Network for Peoples’ Integration
Secretariat (REBRIP)
Project Sustainable Brazil at FASE
International Relations Secretary,
National Confederation of
Agricultural Workers (CONTAG)
Secretariat of the National and
Continental Campaigns Against
the FTAA
CUT-Chile
Political Ecology Institute (IEP)
269
CITY AND DATE
São Paulo, April 2005
Rio de Janeiro, March
2005
Belo Horizonte,
December 2004
Rio de Janeiro, March
2005
Washington, D.C.,
January 200
São Paulo, April 2005
Brasília, December
2004
Brasília, December
2004
Brasília, December
2004
Rio de Janeiro, March
2005
Rio de Janeiro, March
2005
Rio de Janeiro, March
2005
Brasília, April 2005
São Paulo, April 2005
Santiago, May 2005
Santiago, May 2005
Pablo Lazo
Anonymous
Héctor de la Cueva
María Atilano
Alejandro Villamar
Bertha Luján
Maureen Meyer
Manuel PérezRocha
Gilberto Silvestre
López
Víctor Suárez
Lori Wallach
Timi Gerson
Sehar Raziuddin
Átila Roque
Rick Rowden
Stan Gacek
Thea Lee
Jeff Hermanson
General Direction of Economic
International Relations (Direcon),
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Ministry of Labor
Director, Center for Labor
Research and Consulting (CILAS),
and member of the Mexican
Action Network on Free Trade
(RMALC)
General Coordinator, Mexican
Action Network on Free Trade
(RMALC)
Member of RMALC
Former FAT coordinator and
member of RMALC
Former employee of the Human
Rights Center Miguel Agustín Pro
Juárez
Former employee of RMALC and
Oxfam-Mexico
Central Independiente de Obreros
Agrícolas y Campesinos - CIOAC
Congressman, House of
Representatives
Director, Global Trade Watch,
Public Citizen
FTAA Coordinator, Global Trade
Watch, Public Citizen
State and Local Program
Associate, Global Trade Watch,
Public Citizen
Executive Director, Action Aid
U.S.
Policy Director, Action Aid U.S.
Santiago, May 2005
Santiago, June 2005
Mexico City, August
2004 and August 2005
Mexico City, August
2004 and August 2005
Mexico City, August
2005
Mexico City, August
2005
Mexico City, August
2005
Mexico City, August
2005
Mexico City, August
2005
Mexico City, August
2005
Washington, D.C.,
September 2005
Washington, D.C., May
2004 and September
2005
Washington, D.C.,
November 2006
Washington, D.C.,
February 2005
Washington D.C.,
January 2005
International Affairs Assistant
Washington, D.C.,
Director, AFL-CIO
October 2004
Assistant Director for International Washington, D.C.,
Economic Policy, AFL-CIO
August 2004
Senior Advisor, American Center
Washington, D.C.,
for International Labor Solidarity
September 2004
270
(The Solidarity Center)
John Cavanagh
Director, Institute for Policy
Studies (IPS)
Karen Hansen-Kuhn Secretariat of the Alliance for
Responsible Trade (ART)
Steve Hellinger
President, Development-GAP
Larry Weiss
Susan Ruether
Jack Howard
Fred Azcarate
Jerry Fernández
Didier Jacobs
Thomas Quigley
Alexandra Strickner
Anonymous
Anonymous
Anonymous
Anonymous
Anonymous
Anonymous
Washington, D.C., July
2004
Washington, D.C.,
September 2005
Washington, D.C.,
March 2006
Executive Director, Citizens’
Over the phone,
Trade Campaign (CTC)
September 2005
Program Associate, Citizens’
Washington, D.C.,
Trade Campaign (CTC)
September 2005
Former assistant to the President in Washington, D.C., June
charge of international relations,
2004
American Federation of State,
County and Municipal Employees
(AFSCME)
Executive Director, Jobs with
Washington, D.C.,
Justice
October 2004
International corporate
Brasilia, April 2005
campaigner, United Steelworkers
of America (USWA)
Special Adviser on Policy, Oxfam Boston, July 2006
America
Policy Advisor, Latin American,
Washington, D.C.,
Caribbean and Asian Affairs, U.S. January 2006
Conference of Catholic Bishops
(USCCB)
Trade and Global Governance
São Paulo, June 2004
Program, Institute for Agriculture
and Trade Policy (IATP)
Labor Department, U.S.
Washington, D.C.,
Government
March 2005
State Department, U.S.
Over the phone,
Government
February 2005
Democratic trade staff, Ways and
Washington, D.C.,
Means Committee of the House of March 2004
Representatives
Republican staff, subcommittee on Washington, D.C.,
Western Hemisphere
April 2004
Congressional staff for Democratic Washington, D.C.,
Congressman
March 2004
Congressional staff for Republican Washington, D.C., May
Congressman
2004
271
Anonymous
Democratic staff, U.S. Senate
Anonymous
Senior Policy Advisor to a
Democratic Member of Congress,
House of Representatives
Specialist in International Trade
and Finance, Congressional
Research Service, U.S. Congress
U.S. Congressman, House of
Representatives
Jeff F. Hornbeck
Sandy Levin
John Dillon
Washington, D.C., May
2004
Washington D.C., May
2004
Washington, D.C.,
March 2004
Washington, D.C., May
2004
Program Coordinator, Global Justice
Toronto, September
Project, Kairos: Canadian Ecumenical 2004
Justice Initiatives
Joseph Gunn
Ed Finn
Robert Baldwin
Jean Yves-Lefort
John Foster
Director of Social Affairs at the
Canadian Conference of Catholic
Bishops
General Editor, Canadian Centre
for Policy Alternatives
Social and Economic Policy
Department, Canadian Labour
Congress
Trade Campaigner, The Council of
Canadians
The North/South Institute
272
Ottawa, September
2004
Ottawa, September
2004
Ottawa, September
2004
Ottawa, September
2004
Montreal, September
2004
APPENDIX D
CHRONOLOGY OF MAIN TRADE-RELATED EVENTS IN THE AMERICAS
(1985 – 2006)
1985
Launching of negotiations of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA).
Creation of the Ontario Coalition against Free Trade.
1986
Creation of the Québec Coalition against Free Trade.
Creation of the Coordenadora de Centrais Sindicais do Cone Sul.
Launching of the Uruguay Round of GATT.
1987
April: “Maple Leaf” Summit in Ottawa - representatives of national organizations
agreed to create the Pro-Canada Network, later renamed Action Canada Network.
1988
Signing of the Treaty of Integration, Cooperation and Development between Brazil and
Argentina, predecessor of Mercosur.
Creation of Common Frontiers in Canada.
1989
1 January: CUSFTA came into effect.
1990
NAFTA negotiations are launched.
5-7 October: Mexican-Canadian Encounter: social organizations confronting free
trade, Mexico City.
1991
26 March: signing of the Asuncion Treaty, which launched negotiations towards
the creation of a common market with Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay
at the end of 1994.
11 April: Creation of the Mexican Action Network on Free Trade (RMALC).
October: Trilateral meeting of U.S., Mexican and Canadian civil society challengers of
NAFTA in Zacatecas, México.
November: Trinational Meeting on Agriculture, Environment, and the Free Trade
Treaty.
1992
May: founding of the Inter-American Network for Agriculture and Democracy (RIAD),
in Mexico.
1993
15-16 January 1993: Trilateral Meeting Canada-United States-Mexico of RMALC, ACN,
ART, Fair Trade Campaign, Québec Coalition on Trilateral Negotiations.
Creation of Vía Campesina.
1994
1 January: NAFTA came into effect.
February: First Congress of the Latin American Coordinator of Rural Organizations
(CLOC).
December: First Summit of the Americas, Miami, USA, where governments agree to
pursue negotiations towards a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).
Creation of the Coordinator of Organizations of Family Producers of Mercosur
(COPROFAM).
273
1995
June: First FTAA Ministerial Meeting, Denver, USA. First Business Forum; first Labor
Summit in parallel to the meeting.
1996
March: Second FTAA Ministerial Meeting, Cartagena, Colombia. Second Business
Forum; second Labor Summit in parallel to the meeting.
1997
May: Third FTAA Ministerial Meeting in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. In parallel, Third Trade
Union Summit, Civil Society Forum “Our America”, and Third Business Forum.
September: Colloquium Solidarity of the Americas, Montreal.
1998
March: Fourth FTAA Ministerial Meeting in San José, Costa Rica. Environmental and
Labor Forums were held in parallel.
15-18 April: Second Summit of the Americas in Santiago de Chile. First Peoples’ Summit
and Labor Summit were held in parallel.
12-13 October: meeting of HSA members in San José, Costa Rica, creates a Coordinating
Committee and an Operational Committee.
December: creation of the Brazilian Network for Peoples’ Integration (REBRIP).
1999
March: first meeting in Costa Rica of the HSA Coordinating Committee.
2-3 November: second meeting of the HSA Hemispheric Coordination.
3-4 November: Fifth FTAA Ministerial Meeting in Toronto; Conference Our Americas:
towards a peoples’ hemispheric agreement was held in parallel.
December: creation of the International Gender and Trade Network (IGTN), Grenada.
2000
27-29 November: Continental Forum “The Free Trade Area of the Americas: social and
political actors in integration processes”, organized by REBRIP, São Paulo, Brazil.
2001
25-30 January: First World Social Forum, Porto Alegre, Brazil, during which the
Continental Campaign Against the FTAA was officially launched.
7 April: Sixth FTAA Ministerial Meeting, Buenos Aires, Argentina; an international
conference was organized in parallel by the HSA, the Southern Cone Union Coordinating
Committee and ORIT.
20-22 April: Third Summit of the Americas, Quebec City, Canada. In parallel, the Second
Peoples’ Summit.
26-28 October: Meeting of the Hemispheric Council of the Hemispheric Social Alliance,
Florianopolis, Brazil.
13-16 November: First Hemispheric Meeting against the FTAA, La Havana, Cuba.
2002
26-27 May: Meeting of the Continental Campaign Against the FTAA, Quito, Ecuador.
1-7 September: Referendum against the FTAA in Brazil.
27 October - 1 November: Seventh FTAA Ministerial Meeting, Quito, Ecuador. Parallel
civil society meeting, “Continental Meeting of Exchange and Reflection: Another
America is Possible”.
25-29 November: Second Hemispheric Meeting against the FTAA, La Habana, Cuba.
September 2002 – March 2003: period defined by the Continental Campaign Against the FTAA
to hold national popular consultations about the Free Trade Area of the Americas negotiations.
274
2003
27 January: March against the FTAA, as part of the activities of the Third World Social
Forum, Porto Alegre, Brazil.
25 June: First Issue Meeting with the Participation of Civil Society of the Hemisphere,
promoted by the FTAA Committee of Government Representatives on the Participation
of Civil Society, São Paulo, Brazil.
10-14 September: 5th World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Meeting in Cancun,
Mexico
- September 10th : International Farmers’ March
- 10-14: parallel activities promoted by civil society organizations: People’s Forum on
Alternatives to the WTO, and International Farmers and Indigenous Forum
20-21 November 2003: Eighth FTAA Ministerial Meeting, Miami, USA. Two types of
activities were promoted in parallel by CSOs: the Americas Trade and Sustainable
Development Forum, inside the security perimeter, and several meetings and protests
outside the security perimeter. Also Business Forum.
2004
26-29 January: Third Hemispheric Meeting against the FTAA, La Habana, Cuba.
July: I Social Forum of the Americas, Quito, Ecuador.
17-19 September: Colloquium “10 years of NAFTA: Social Impact and Future
Perspectives”, held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, organized by RQIC.
8 December: signing of the Cusco Declaration, which launched the proposal to create the
South American Community of Nations, during the third summit of South American
heads of state, Cusco, Peru.
2005
28-30 March: meeting of the HSA Hemispheric Council in São Paulo.
27-30 April: Fourth Hemispheric Meeting Against the FTAA, La Habana, Cuba.
April: signing of agreements between Cuba and Venezuela in the context of the
Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA).
30 October: First meeting of the South American Community of Nations, Brasilia, Brazil.
1-5 November: Fourth Summit of the Americas, Mar del Plata, Argentina. Third Peoples’
Summit.
2006
12-15 April: Fifth Hemispheric Meeting Against the FTAA, La Habana, Cuba.
30 April: Signing of the Peoples’ Trade Agreement (Tratado Comercial de los Pueblos)
by Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba, in La Habana, Cuba.
8-9 December: Second Summit of the South American Community of Nations (CASA),
in Cochabamba, Bolivia.
275
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CURRICULUM VITAE
1. Personal information
Name: Marisa von Bülow
Date of Birth: August 3, 1971
Place of Birth: Madison, WI, USA
2. Education
Masters in Social Sciences, Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences, Mexico City,
Mexico (1992-1994). Thesis title: "Reestructuración productiva y estrategias sindicales el caso de la Ford en Cuautitlán 1987-1993" (Productive restructuring and labor
strategies – the case of Ford in Cuautitlán 1987-1993).
B.A. in International Relations, University of Brasilia, Brazil (1988-1992).
3. Current Appointment and Main Awards
Assistant Professor, Political Science Institute, University of Brasilia, Brazil (April 1996present).
Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Award (February-August 2005).
Fellowship, Ministry of Education, Brazil/Institute of International Education (IIE), to
pursue doctoral studies (2001-2006).
Travel grant awarded by the Program in Latin American Studies, The Johns Hopkins
University, to do field research in Mexico, August 2004.
Fellowship awarded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mexico, to pursue the Masters at
FLACSO-Mexico, 1992-1994.
292