Citizenship and trade governance in the Americas

ROSALBA ICAZA; PETER NEWELL; MARCELO SAGUIER

Globalizing Citizen: New Dynamics of Inclusion and Exclusion

Zed Books Ltd.

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2010; p. 163 - 184

Social movements? resistance to neoliberal trade integration projects in the Americas has been associated with the emergence of new political spaces where citizens from across the region come together to protest, mobilize and express their concerns about trade liberalization. Through resistance to neoliberalism, ?old? social identities such as class are articulated alongside ?newer? identities and demands for gender and ecological justice in a common defence of democratic sovereignty. The key question we address is ?how do changing patterns of power and governance in relation to trade affect the meanings and practices of citizenship in a globalizing world?? The patterns that we explore relate to trade politics and their contestation by the women?s, labour and environmental movements in the Americas. The citizenship meanings and practices covered in this chapter emerge through transnational citizen mobilization around the distributional impacts of trade policies on entitlements and rights, and the procedural aspects associated with citizen participation and representation in trade decision-making processes.