New forms of collective action and regional governance. The case of the FTAA: Strength and weakness

BOTTO, MERCEDES

Barcelona, España

Conferencia; “Society and Free Trade in a Global World”; 2008

Institute Barcelona D´Éstus Internacionais (IBEI)

This paper is intended to illustrate the changes and impacts of transnational collective action in national and regional governance through the experience of the hemispheric negotiations for the creation of a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) that took place from 1994 to 2005. Certainly, this process turned out to be the most ambitious and innovative process in terms of the negotiations procedures and forms. However, this case portrays an interesting paradox since these innovations were both key to its strengths but also to its weaknesses: the strength provided by the Southern governments’ support to this hemispheric process, would in time lead to its scarce sustainability. As facts have shown, the FTAA negotiations came to a halt when Southern governments, mainly led by Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela, made use of civil society mobilization to justify its difficulty to make important concessions’ without being granted better conditions in the areas of access to Northern markets and antidumping issues. The paralysis of this hemispheric negotiation has led thus to the establishment of bilateral and plurilateral agreements with the smaller economies in the region