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transcript
Transnational Social Movements, Elite
Projects, and Collective Action from Below in the Americas
William C. Smith Department of International Studies
University of Miami
and
Roberto Patricio Korzeniewicz Department of Sociology
University of Maryland, College Park
Abstract
This paper examines transnational networks and social movements in the context of the contemporary “third wave” of regionalism in the Americas, which we see as a complex, multi-layered arena for contestation among social forces and contending political projects. Some of these rival projects actively promote the globalization of markets, production, finance, and culture, while others attempt defensively to accommodate themselves to its seeming inexorable logic, and still others mount struggles of resistance to it. After presenting a stylized description privileging the negotiations for a Free Trade Area of the Americas and the Summit of the Americas process, the paper analyzes elite incentives to foment—while controlling—civil society participation and the crystallization of networks pursuing divergent “insider” and “outsider” strategies. The notion of “resistance from below” is critically interrogated by stressing key organizational constraints in transnational networks, highlighting emergent patterns of polarization among regional civil society actors, and linking these trends to a broader “political empty-box syndrome” afflicting the region. The paper concludes by delineating “degenerative,” “auto-centric,” “neoliberal,” and “transformative” projects for the purpose of capturing the dynamics of possible alternative regionalisms.
This is a draft of a chapter prepared for publication in Regionalism’s ‘Third Wave’ in the Americas, eds. Louise Fawcett and Mónica Serrano. New York: Routledge Press. An earlier version was presented at a conference on “Competing Regionalisms in the Americas” organized by the Centre for International Studies in association with the Centre for Brazilian Studies, both at Oxford University, and El Colegio de México. El Colegio de México, México City, March, 14-15, 2002. This paper is one of the projects of two research projects, one on “Civil Society Participation in the Summits of the Americas: Regional Tendencies and National Patterns,” conducted under the auspices of the Research Program on International Economic Institutions of the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (Argentina), and the second on “Mapping Regional Civil Society Networks in the Americas,” directed by the co-authors. Both projects are supported by The Ford Foundation. Please do not quote or cite without the authors’ permission. Comments are welcome.
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Introduction
The contemporary “third wave” of regionalism in the Americas constitutes a
complex, multi-layered arena for contestation among social forces and contending political
projects. Some of these rival projects actively promote the globalisation of markets,
production, finance, and culture, while others attempt defensively to accommodate
themselves to its seeming inexorable logic, and still others mount struggles of resistance to it.
From this perspective, regionalist projects such as the Free Trade Area of the Americas are
seriously misinterpreted if seen simply as the manifestation of a hegemonic project for
market-driven integration spearheaded by U.S. governmental and corporate elites.1 Similarly,
US-sponsored regionalism is not simply a proxy, a “building block,” or a way station toward
the triumph of neoliberalism or globalisation. On the other hand, integration schemes in
Latin America such as MERCOSUR are misconstrued if linearly interpreted as “progressive”
alternatives to U.S.-sponsored regionalism or, more modestly, portrayed only as “stumbling
blocks” challenging US hegemony and braking the momentum of globalisation.
Conceptualising regionalism as a contested arena, our interest focuses on the
emergence and crystallization of sui generis transborder networks linking individuals and
civil society organizations operating throughout the hemisphere at the local, national, and
transnational levels. Massive asymmetries in political power and social, cultural, and
economic resources generally translate into regional agendas in which state elites and market
actors are pre-eminent. Nevertheless, with a notable acceleration since the 1990s, a
heterogeneous ensemble of civil society actors active throughout the hemisphere have
created transnational networks and coalitions exercising voice and demanding participation
1 See Richard Feinberg’s chapter in this volume on the importance of Latin American initiatives on behalf of free trade.
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in regional integration processes. Moreover, some of these civil society actors have taken the
next step and have embarked upon the construction of transnational social movements in an
attempt to articulate rival, even antithetical, models or variants of regionalism and responses
to globalisation.
Recognizing the significance of these new transnational actors, however, does not imply
counterpoising a naïve vision of regionalism (or globalisation) “from below” to a monolithic
notion of regionalism (or globalisation) “from above.” Rather, we wish to explore the
opportunities for collective action on the part of civil society actors and to probe the
implications of the participation of these non-state actors, particularly transnational
networks, coalitions, and social movements, for the future of regionalism in the Americas.
Is there room for any optimism regarding the capacity of civil society actors to influence,
and even transform, the agenda of regionalism in the Americas? What are the possible
scenarios for civil society participation in the process of regional integration? On balance, we
are sceptical about the short- to medium-term prospects for the construction of well-
articulated regional or global movements capable of successful “resistance from below” in
frontal opposition to elite projects for regional integration. We argue that transnational civil
society actors, whether networks, coalitions, or social movements, face severe constraints
sharply limiting their capacity to wield significant influence, much less transform, the pace
and direction of regionalism. And rather than a single modal pattern of civil society
participation, we believe the advance of market integration deepens social fragmentation and
favours the emergence of divergent political trajectories across the region.
To advance our argument, we first present a stylised description privileging the Summit
of the Americas process and the negotiations for a Free Trade Area of the Americas, the two
most prominent instances of regionalism as economic integration and embryonic forms of
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governance. We probe some of the less visible dimensions of these projects by analysing
elite incentives to foment—while controlling—civil society participation. Next, we link this
analysis of elite incentives and collective action from below to the crystallization of
transnational networks pursuing divergent “insider” and “outsider” strategies. The third
section critically interrogates the notion of “resistance from below” by stressing key
organizational constraints in transnational networks, highlighting emergent patterns of
polarization among regional civil society actors, and linking these trends to a broader
“political empty-box syndrome” afflicting the region. Finally, we delineate alternative
“degenerative,” “auto-centric,” “neoliberal,” and “transformative” projects for the purpose
of capturing the dynamics of possible alternative regionalisms.
Elite Projects and Collective Action from Below
The official governmental discourse of many countries, particularly the United States,
Chile, Canada, and Costa Rica, now regularly emphasizes the promotion of civil society
participation in hemispheric negotiations, and considerable political clout and financial
resources have been expended to achieve this goal. The same is true of the World Bank, the
Organization for American States (OAS), and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB),
which have created special bureaucracies to promote region-wide civil society participation.
This explicit commitment confounds expectations based upon traditional arguments about
state sovereignty, according to which diplomats and trade negotiators could be expected to
resist public scrutiny and demands for transparency and participation.
What explains this apparent contradiction? Why have state elites made a priority of the
promotion of civil society participation in initiatives such as the Summits of the Americas
(SOA)? In contrast, why have governments been much more resistant to civil society
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participation in the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) negotiations? In addition, why,
after nearly a decade of summitry culminating in the recent Quebec meeting in early 2001 of
34 presidents and heads of government, have these efforts resulted in widespread
frustration, alienation, and a deepening impasse between governments and representatives of
civil society?
Most analyses of globalisation and transnational actors downplay the role of states,
domestic institutional arrangements, and international organizations in the formation of
transnational actors. This is a mistake. States and domestic institutional arrangements, as well
as international organizations, are crucial to understanding how social actors functioning
across borders constitute themselves and sometimes achieve access to decision-making
processes of governments and multilateral organizations.2 Transborder movements find
enhanced opportunities for participation when states have an incentive to delegate limited
authority to societal groups and when states have an incentive to encourage national NGOs
and advocacy groups to “go transnational” and to engage in self-regulation and monitoring with
regard to innovation and implementation in specific policy domains.
Delegation, self-regulation, and monitoring are particularly relevant with regard to certain
kinds of “global public goods” and to collective action by civil society actors generally
supportive of regionalism and globalisation.3 Many moderate movements possess specific
professional expertise and specialized knowledge that facilitates the construction of focal
points for resolving coordination problems across multiple issue domains arising from the
involvement of a diverse array of governmental and social actors located in many countries.
2 See Tarrow (2001) for an excellent survey of the relevant literature on transnational politics. See Pratt (2001) for examples and testable hypotheses grounded in rationalist approaches to collective action. With regard, to the relations between civil society actors and multilateral organizations, see, the important studies by O’Brien, et al. (2000) and Tussie (2001). 3 See Kaul (1999) for essays discussing global governance and the supply of global public goods, which are goods “with benefits that are strongly universal in terms of countries, peoples, and generations.”
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Rather than confronting the informational and transaction costs themselves, national leaders
and international functionaries frequently find that cooperation with transnational social
actors can provide more effective and efficient “private” solutions for implementing and
monitoring the impacts of politically sensitive policies.
In addition to these logics of delegation, self-regulation and monitoring, states and
technocrats at intergovernmental institutions such as the OAS and the IDB may also have
specific strategic political motivations for promoting networks and certain modes of civil society
participation. They frequently seek to neutralize or co-opt social potentially anti-systemic
movements in order to forestall lobbying efforts or public mobilizations in opposition to
important strategic initiatives or specific policy preferences (e.g., structural adjustment, trade
liberalization, protection for intellectual property rights, environmentally sensitive projects,
etc.) Moreover, concession of selective participation to some civil society actors may increase
the leverage of powerful governments such as the United States over weaker governments.
The opposite is also possible: weaker governments may be motivated to facilitate the
formation and activities of transnational networks for the purpose of mobilizing public
support in contentious negotiations with the United States or with multilateral financial
institutions.
Thus, rather than assuming an inevitable conflict, state elites and multilateral institutions
may have strategic reasons to help transnational advocacy networks and coalitions overcome
their collective action problems. In the process, these favoured civil society activists can
achieve limited participation in decision-making arenas. The dominant modality of collective
action in these transnational networks is information exchange, with relatively limited
capacity for the deployment of coordinated strategy and tactics (see Khagram, Riker, and
Sikkink 2002). Examples of transborder networks and coalitions based on the exchange of
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information and the organization of international campaigns abound. However, these forms
of collective action generally deliver only modest success in terms of greater civil society
participation and representation.
In contrast, full-fledged transnational social movements, whose dominant form of
collective action goes beyond information exchange to mount joint mobilization across
national boundaries, attract activists committed to more comprehensive goals of challenging
the prevailing social order (McAdam 1996; Khagram, Riker, and Sikkink 2002). Their
deployment of strategies of disruption and sustained mobilization require higher levels of
collective identity and solidarity, compared to networks and coalitions, as well as more
sophisticated forms of governance and organization.4
As we shall see next, some of the transnational activists who mobilized in Quebec
against the Summit of the Americas—like the activists targeting globalisation in Seattle, in
Washington, D.C., and Genoa—represent the incipient formation of a transnational social
movement. However, in the current “third wave” of regionalism in the Americas, all these
new transnational actors—networks, coalitions, and social movements—face significant
obstacles to their participation and capacity to achieve their goals.
Summitry and Free Trade Tracks — “Insider” and “Outsider” Actors
Elsewhere we have provided a detailed reconstruction tracing of the emergence of
transnational civil society networks active in the FTAA negotiations and the summits of the
region’s 34 presidents and heads of state held in Miami (1994), Santiago (1998), and Quebec
4 See Tarrow (1998), Khagram, Riker, and Sikkink (2002), and the studies of the international women’s movement by Thompson (2002) and of early forms of international labor organizing by Nimtz (2002).
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(2001).5 Here we want to deploy our analysis of elites, collective action from below, and
network formation to account for the crystallization of two parallel, and frequently
divergent, tracks characterizing the regional agenda.
Since the 1994 Miami summit, the SOA track, which has been managed primarily by the
foreign ministries of the 34 participating governments, has focused on broad themes
involving democratic governance, environmentally sustainable development, and other issues
such as gender equity, education, and judicial reform. The FTAA track differs significantly.
While trade and economic issues figured prominently in the agendas at the Miami, Santiago,
and Quebec summits, the FTAA negotiations have always operated along a highly
centralized track largely monopolized by regional governments acting through executive-
branch agencies responsible for finance and trade.
“Insider” Networks — Privileging Collaboration
These differences between the SOA and FTAA tracks underscore the significance of
opportunity structures, institutional arrangements, and the incentives for elites to facilitate,
deflect, or block collective action from below. Often, U.S. governmental agencies such as the
Department of State, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and the
National Security Council operating out of the While House have endorsed and/or
promoted the activities of both U.S.-based NGOs and regional networks led by foreign civil
society organizations. Similarly, the Canadian and Chilean foreign ministries have supported
collaborative civil society endeavours. Acting in concert, intergovernmental organizations
5 This section summarizes some of the findings presented in Korzeniewicz and Smith (2001) and (2002). This research was part of a project on “Civil Society Participation in the Summits of the Americas: Regional Tendencies and National Patterns” supported by the Ford Foundation and conducted under the auspices of FLACSO-Argentina’s Research Program on International Economic Institutions. See Tussie and Botto (2003) for important analyses of the SOA and the FTAA, including case studies of national patterns of participation and treatments of key thematic issues such as the environment, education, and judicial reform.
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such as the Organization for American States, the Inter-American Development Bank, and
the World Bank also provide significant funding and logistical support to many of the same
groups and networks.6
Some of what we call “insider” organizations, working “closely with the official process
[of hemispheric negotiations], sometimes compromising their demands so as to make them
political viable” (Pagés 2000: 172), were well established prior to the 1994 Miami summit.
These “insiders” simply moved to make the summits an important part of their concerns,
seeking to create new channels or take advantage of existing channels of dialogue with
hemispheric governments. Their operation exemplifies the logics of delegation, self-
regulation and monitoring, and strategic positioning discussed earlier. The most active civil
society organizations in this process include the Esquel Foundation (USA), the Canadian
Foundation for the Americas (FOCAL), the Corporación Participa (Chile), the North-South
Center (USA), the Inter-American Dialogue (USA), and the Fundación Futuro
Latinoamericano (Ecuador). These organizations formed the Civil Society Task Force that,
in the context of the so-called “Troika,” worked in close coordination with governmental
officials at the Summit Follow-Up Office of the Organization of American States (OAS) and
the Summit Implementation Review Group (SIRG).
The U.S. and Canadian governments, reluctant to be seen as infringing on the national
sovereignty of other regional governments, often favour indirect mechanisms to promote
region-wide civil society participation. These indirect means are reflected in the
incorporation of “insider” organizations linked to the official summit organizers. For
example, the aforementioned Civil Society Task Force, created in 1993 by USAID, and 6 It has been more difficult to generate substantial private foundation monies of these initiatives, with the exception of the Ford Foundation, which has provided financial support to several organizations in the U.S. and in Latin America and has promoted many of the regional civil society meetings held to generate suggestions for the summit agendas.
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coordinated by Esquel since 1996, functions “as a clearing house as well as a vehicle to
coordinate civil society input and monitoring action” on the Summits (Esquel Group
Foundation 1999a: 386). Over 400 groups participate in this network, including
“representatives from U.S. and international non-governmental organizations (CSOs),
government agencies, multilateral institutions, foundations, academia, the media, and private
for-profit organizations” (EGF 1999: 1).
Similarly, the Red Interamericana para la Democracia (RID) was founded in 1995 at the
initiative of the Kettering Foundation and the Partners for the Americas (Compañeros de las
Américas. Supported by USAID grants, and with technical assistance from the Kettering
Foundation, this “insider” network includes some 150 organizations, although its core group
consists of groups with considerable previous regional experience, such as Esquel,
PARTICIPA, and FOCAL, as well as others with less international exposure, including
Asociación Conciencia (Argentina), Fundación Poder Ciudadano (Argentina), Fundación
BOLINVEST (Bolivia), the Instituto de Investigación y Autoformación Política
(Guatemala), and the Centro de Capacitación para el Desarrollo (Costa Rica), among others
(Citizen Participation 1999).7
“Outsider” Networks and Social Movements — Contestation and Mobilization
Domestic and supranational opportunity structures also shape the possibilities for
collection action and participation of “outsider” civil society actors who “exercise external
pressure, articulating their demands in a more explicit manner and often against
governmental positions” (Pagés 2000: 9). In contrast to the “insiders,” however, for these
7 See Korzeniewicz and Smith (2001) and (2002) for extensive citations of the literature of these organizations along with their Worldwide Web addresses.
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groups the valence of elite incentives and institutional arrangements works in the opposite
direction. As noted, FTAA negotiations are highly centralized and monopolized by
executive-branch finance and trade bureaucracies. This closed and opaque style of
negotiation has proven antithetical to significant civil society participation (even business
interests have been only sporadically invited into the discussions dominated by governmental
officials).
Moreover, trade officials are confident they posses the requisite professional
knowledge and reject the need for outside expertise, particularly from labour or
environmental groups. This posture largely precludes the options of delegation, self-
regulation, and monitoring. In addition, again in contrast to the SOA “public goods” agenda,
the most contentious FTAA issues—foreign investment, deregulation of capital flows,
lowering tariffs and non-tariff barriers, protection for intellectual property; and so on—have
significant distributional consequences and major externalities for third parties, including
other governments, firms, consumers, workers, farmers, women, indigenous groups, and
others. Consequently, the FTAA track is shaped by a dominant logic of exclusion.
“Outsider” networks involved in opposition to free trade typically overcome their
collective action problems by strengthening their ties with organized labour and grassroots
constituencies in their own countries and by forming coalitions with like-minded groups
throughout the hemisphere. One such “outsider” network—the Alianza Social Continental,
officially founded in 1999—is rooted in the widespread popular opposition that emerged in
the early 1990s in Mexico, Canada, and the United States to the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA). Domestic opponents among organized labour, environmentalist,
human rights activists, and other groups soon established linkages with like-minded groups
in the other countries and began to build transnational coalitions in opposition to the
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integration of North American in a single economic zone (Cook 1997; Ayers 1998; Carr
1999).
The Alianza Social Continental is the largest and most influential “outsider” network
in the hemisphere. The Alianza is a broad and heterogeneous mega-network, a red de redes,
consisting of a stable core group of well-organized affiliates (themselves a complex ensemble
of local and national NGO networks and grassroots groups) and a much larger array of
dozens of peripheral organizations whose participation in transborder activities is less
intense and more sporadic. The three most active and well organized core members are: The
US-based Alliance for Responsible Trade (ART), which operates with significant financial
support from organized labour to advance a “progressive internationalist” position on trade,
labour rights, and globalisation; The Red Mexicana de Acción Frente al Libre Comercio
(Mexican Network for Free Trade Action, RMALC), which coordinated the efforts of
Mexican unions and labour activists with their U.S. and Canadian counterparts and whose
extensive transnational links now encompass Latin American, European, and Asian
networks working on issues of trade liberalization and globalisation; and Common Frontiers,
a multi-sectoral Canadian network that grew out of the popular opposition movement to the
Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and to NAFTA.8 In addition, organized labour in Brazil
plays an important and growing role within the Alianza.
The Alianza, impelled by the logic of exclusion, according to its leaders has
consciously begun to advance beyond the network stage, and even the phase of coalitions
8 Other “outsider” organizations affiliated with the Alianza Social Continental include: the Alianza Chilena por un Comercio Justo y Responsable (Chilean Alliance for Just and Responsible Trade); the Réseau Québécois sur l'Intégration Continentale (Québec Network on Continental Integration); the Rede Brasileira pela Integração dos Povos (Brazilian Network for a People’s Integration); the Coordinadora Latinoamericana de Organizaciones del Campo (Latin American Coordinator for Rural Organizations, CLOC), an international peasant movement; and the Iniciativa Civil para la Integración Centroamericana (Civic Initiative for Central American Integration, ICIC). Again, see Korzeniewicz and Smith (2001) and (2002) for additional information on these organizations.
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and joint-issue campaigns, toward the construction of a genuine transnational social
movements with militant and confrontational strategies counterpoising elite projects with an
alternative vision of regionalism.
The Post-Quebec Impasse in Civil Society Participation
The contrasts between the SOA and FTAA tracks, along with the cleavages between
“insider” and “outsider” movements and networks, have challenged the legitimacy of
regional projects in the eyes of broad sectors of public opinion throughout the Americas.
Some civil society groups, particularly the environmentalists and citizen activist groups
linked to “outsider” networks such as the Alianza Social Continental, strenuously criticize
the secrecy and lack of transparency characterizing the free-trade talks, and have
progressively converged in terms of agenda, strategic collective action repertories with the
anti-globalisation mobilization at Seattle, Washington, D.C., Prague, Davos, and elsewhere.9
In this context, the Canadian organizers of the Quebec meeting pledged to stage a so-
called “Democracy Summit” focusing on three “baskets” of interrelated issues: 1)
strengthening democracy; 2) creating prosperity; and 3) realizing human potential, all linked
under the theme of “human security.” Their goal was that by “promoting democracy,” the
SOA agenda could be linked directly in the FTAA negotiating track with the objective of
“creating prosperity.”
9 See Seone and Taddei (2001) for analyses providing a broader context for understanding the evolution of what these movements. In this regard, it is significant he distinction between “moderates” and “rejectionists” within the Alianza became progressively blurred following the 1999 “Battle of Seattle.” Many Alianza affiliates such as ART, RMALC, and Common Frontiers to step up their cooperation with other coalitions such as the Global Trade Watch networks and to adopt a posture of strident, across-the-board opposition to U.S- and corporate-led globalisation and regional integration efforts.
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Moreover, by shifting the focus from a purely trade-driven agenda, Canadian government
officials hoped to bring the “insider” groups more closely into the official process, while
simultaneously placating the grassroots anti-trade and environmental activists alienated from
the summitry and FTAA processes. This overture to civil society representatives included
generous governmental financing given to Canadian groups such as Common Frontier to
help them organize an extensive series of academic conferences and civil society meetings, as
well as to support a parallel, officially sponsored Peoples’ Summit. These efforts at
rapprochement were only partially successful.10
Beyond the rhetoric, the numerous action plans and the Final Declaration were
predictable — the “Democracy Summit” turned out to be principally about free trade after
all.11 Pro-business advocates of regional integration criticized the Quebec Summit as
advancing too slowly toward a kind of “NAFTA lite.” The more moderate “insider”
representatives of civil society networks, which had staked much of their credibility on
expectations for substantial progress at Quebec, expressed some enthusiasm for the
inclusion of the “democracy clause” that limited participation in the FTAA process to
countries with democratic governments. However, even these supporters of summitry were
disappointed by the weak endorsements of labour rights and environmental protection and
10 In addition to Korzeniewicz and Smith (2001) and (2002), see the impressive website organized by AmericasCanada.org. This site, <http://www.americascanada.org>, contains invaluable background documents, explanations of participation mechanisms, information on civil society initiatives, information on parallel events, and useful links. 11 The hemisphere’s leaders agreed to: 1) conclude by January 2005 a Free Trade Area of the Americas, which would take effect (if ratified by the countries’ legislative bodies) by December 31 of that year; 2) release the preliminary draft of the FTAA negotiating texts as part of a commitment to “transparency and to increasing and sustained communication with civil society”; 3) consult on whether any country that suffers a “disruption” of its democratic system should be allowed to participate in the summit process; and 4) promote compliance with core labor standards and to “consider the ratification of or accession to the fundamental agreements of the International Labor Organization (ILO) Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work… as appropriate.” See the text of the Action Plan at <http://www.americascanada.org>.
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the limited incorporation of the rest of the social agenda defended by most civil society
activists.12
The Alianza network and other combative “outsider” organizations angrily rejected
governmental efforts to promote participation in the SOA and the FTAA negotiations. They
condemned the elite-sponsored projects for leading inexorably toward a “NAFTA clone” or
a “NAFTA on steroids.” Significantly, however, despite their rhetorical radicalism and street
protests, the leaders of the outsider movements were at pains to stress that they were not
protectionists, anarchists or idealistic “globophobes.” Indeed, they sought to articulate their
own “positive” vision for regional integration by giving greater substantive policy content to
their slogan “NO TO THE FTAA, ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE!” In this regard,
the Alianza Social Continental’s widely distributed policy document, Alternatives for the
Americas, emphasized that opposition to the neoliberal version of free-trade integration is
widely shared by citizens of various ideological persuasions across the hemisphere.13 Acting
on this premise, these groups redoubled efforts to organize broad grassroots constituencies
for mass mobilizations throughout the Americas in opposition to the FTAA.14
12 See Feinberg (2001) and two generally upbeat articles by Inter-American Dialogue President Peter Hakim (2001) and Dialogue member Ambassador Richard Fisher (2001). 13 This document proclaimed that “No country can nor should remain isolated from the global economy. . . . The issue for us is not one of free trade versus protection or integration versus isolation, but whose rules will prevail and who will benefit from those rules. Any form of economic integration among our nations must serve first and foremost to promote equitable and sustainable development for all of our peoples.” See ASC (2001). 14 Organized labor throughout the hemisphere largely shares this view and immediately after the Québec summit went on the political offensive against the FTAA. The Brussels-based International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) and the Organización Regional Interamericana de Trabajadores (ORIT) condemned the Québec summit’s Final Declaration saying that: “Leaders must acknowledge that without the involvement of civil society, without a strong participation of trade unions, the deal won’t work. Over all the Americas, the heads of states and governments clearly do not have support from their own populations when they make empty pledges to achieve trade liberalization. The governments must remedy this situation, put social development ahead of free trade, and listen to the voice of the people and their trade unions” (ICFTU-ORIT 2001).
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As positions hardened in the context of the “war on terrorism” following the events of
September 11, 2001 and the rising risks of a full-scale US-led war in the Middle East, many
“insider” organizations confronted a mounting disenchantment that will be difficult to
reverse in time for the 2004 summit scheduled in Buenos Aires. Moreover, the countdown
on the final negotiations for launching of the FTAA in 2005 generates even less optimism
among the “insiders.” Similarly, the successful meetings in 2001 and 2002 of the World
Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and a third meeting in 2002 of the Social Forum in
Buenos Aires, gave additional impetus for mobilizations by “outsider” movements in
opposition to elite projects for regional integration. The success of the 10,000,000-vote
plebiscite against the FTAA held in Brazil in 2002 with the imprimatur of the Brazilian
Catholic Bishops’ Conference confirms the potential for new forms of resistance from
below.
The Constraints on Transnational Civil Society Activism
So far, we have emphasized ways in which the opportunities for effective civil society
participation in the new regional institutional arrangements currently emerging in the
Americas are heavily conditioned by the interest of key state actors in controlling and
shaping these arrangements from above. In this section we wish to shift the focus to
emphasize other variables limiting greater participation by civil society actors at the
transnational level, namely pervasive organizational weaknesses and the growing divide
between “insiders” and “outsiders.”
Organizational Weaknesses
As remarked previously, much of the literature on transnational civil society actors rests
upon a problematic dichotomy that counterpoises processes of “globalisation from above”
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and “globalisation from below” (see Falk 1999). Working from this approach, some analysts
optimistically herald “global civil society” as a “domain that exists above the individual and
below the state but also across national boundaries, where people voluntarily organize
themselves to pursue various aims” (Wapner 1995, 313). Similarly, some observers,
especially those who tend to portray global civil society as a robust more fully constituted
actor, argue that transnational networks, coalitions, and movements—like the grassroots
organizations and local and national networks in which they are embedded—represent
organizational forms that are distinct from either markets or bureaucratic hierarchies, and
have a strong potential “to offset the cooptation of governments by the market-oriented
forces associated with globalisation-from-above” (Falk 1999: 163).15
Other observers are more pessimistic. For example, some interpret the emergence of
supranational instances of governance and coordination through third party enforcement
and regulation of contested markets to imply less “public,” less transparent, and less
legitimate institutional arrangements. Indeed, Sassen (1996: Chapter 2) argues that
globalisation erodes traditional notions of citizenship (as a property of individuals), and gives
rise to new, sui generis forms of “economic citizenship” as a property of firms and markets,
especially global financial institutions and markets. For example, O’Brien et al. (2000: 15)
argue that “[w]hile social movements may extol the virtues of global civil society, that space
has been and is largely dominated by the extensive formal and informal contacts of
transnational business and their allies.”
15 See Keck and Sikkink (1998) for the seminal statement of this literature. Also see Smith, Chatfield, and Pagnucco (1997); and Smith and Johnston (2002), and Khagram, Riker, and Sikkink (2002) among others. See Lipschutz (1992), Cohen and Arato (1992), and Cox (1999) for different conceptualizations of global civil society that alternatively stress elements taken from the Marxist, Hegelian, Lockean, Tocquevillean, and Habermasian “critical theory” traditions.
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Following such reasoning, we are sceptical that transnational civil society actors have
demonstrated the capacity to create “a parallel arrangement of political interaction…focused
on the self-conscious constructions of networks of knowledge and action, by decentralized
local actors that cross the reified boundaries of space as though they were not there”
(Lipschutz 1992, 390). Even more problematic, in our view, are claims that “transnational
communities of resistance” are in the process of “transforming the world economy into a
significant milieu, where ideas and modes of organization as well as ways of life and struggle
acquire a life that is relatively autonomous from individual agency” (Drainville 2001, 13;
Drainville 1995). Accordingly, our research leads us toward more cautious assessment of
observers such as Clark, Friedman, and Hochstetler (1998, 5), who aver that “the
construction of a global society is underway but is far from complete.”
Our scepticism dovetails with Jelin’s observation (1997: 93) that while some civil society
networks are moving toward “greater reciprocity and symmetry not only in terms of the flow
of resources but also in terms of ideas and priorities,” others remain “highly asymmetrical.”
Similarly, Florini (2000, 229) indicates that in a flourishing transnational civil society, “[t]he
troubling point remains the heavy dependence of many networks on Northern funding
sources.”16 As we shall see next, some of our other work confirms the prevalence of
hierarchies and asymmetries among networks in the Americas.
Given their prominence in newspaper headlines (e.g., Seattle, Davos, Quebec, Porto
Alegre, etc., as well as in much of the academic literature, there is surprisingly little empirical
16 Many observers of the new forms of organization adopted by labor at the turn of the previous century were optimistic about the potential of this movement. But in fact, “non-hierarchical” linkages turned out to be, if that at all, a momentary feature in the punctuated development of the labor movement. Engagement with power over the twentieth century led much of the labor movement into the adoption of more formalized, bureaucratic, and eventually hierarchical arrangements within their organizations. A similar process is likely to characterize more the more recent networks and organizations reviewed in this paper. In this regard, see Cooley and Ron (2002), who focus on “organizational insecurity, competitive pressures, and fiscal uncertainty” to underscore the difficulties of reconciling normative motivations with material pressures. They demonstrate that the result fosters opportunism, rent seeking, and other dysfunctional behaviors.
18
research on transnational CSO networks, particularly those active in the Americas. In part to
address this lacuna, we have been conducting a research project that seeks to provide a
preliminary mapping of these regional networks, their governance mechanisms, objectives,
activities and programs, financial resources, geographical reach, linkages to other civil society
organizations, to governments, and to multilateral financial institutions, and so on. In this
project, we identified nearly 300 regional networks (165 based Spanish-speaking countries,
56 in Brazil, and 99 headquartered outside the region) that were surveyed through electronic,
web-based questionnaires.17
One of the most sobering of our preliminary conclusions concerns the overall
asymmetries between organizations based in wealthier and poorer countries, as well as the
general weakness of these networks south of the U.S. border.18 To begin with, regional
networks in the Americas reveal tremendous disparity in their financial resources: while a
handful of regional networks have annual budgets in the $6-14 million range, one-third of
the networks surveyed had annual budgets of less than $100,000, and many have minuscule
budgets of only a few thousand dollars. Furthermore, confirming what other authors have
noted (see, for example, Sikkink 2002), most networks show heavy financial dependence on
a limited number of external funding sources, particularly U.S. and European development
agencies and foundations. The funding difficulties faced by most civil society organizations
17 We direct this Ford Foundation-sponsored (supported by the Foundation’s Rio de Janeiro, Santiago, and Mexico City regional offices) project in conjunction five national teams in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, and Mexico. The questionnaire (in Spanish, Portuguese, and English) and preliminary database may be consulted at www.bsos.umd.edu/redes/redes. 18 Others have noted these asymmetries. See, for example, O’Brien et al (2000) and Sikkink (2002).
19
and networks in the region undoubtedly constrain the capacity of such organizations to
participate consistently and effectively in international policy-shaping debates.19
In addition to limited financial resources, many networks in the region have fragile
administrative infrastructures. To some extent, this is a logical consequence of the lack of
financial resources. But the fragility of these administrative infrastructures is also due to the
limited human resources available to these organizations. Particularly as they seek to interact
with other actors in policy-making and/or the international arena, the smooth operation of
these organizations requires skilled leaders and administrators.20 However, the needs of
networks often exceed the local availability of such leaders and administrators. Furthermore,
anecdotal evidence from our surveys suggests that civil society networks are affected by a
high rate of turnover of personnel in leadership positions. For example, regional networks
have a fairly high level of exchange of personnel in leadership positions with other
organizations and networks. Additionally, many of the most active and committed NGO and
network activists frequently are recruited to work as administrators and outreach personnel
within international and supranational agencies. This high rate of turnover has been
significant in undermining the administrative capacity, consistency and effectiveness of
NGOs and civil society networks in the region (on this point, see also O’Brien et al 2000:
196).
19 For example, O’Brien et al (2000: 196) note that “[t]rade unions, NGOs, religious organizations and grass-roots associations have in most cases lacked sufficient staff, funds, information and coordination capacity to mount fully effective pressure on the [International Monetary Fund].” 20 For example, O’Brien et al (2000: 60) point out that women’s NGOs in El Salvador had to abandon efforts to participate in a broader international coalition, to a significant extent “because they were unfamiliar with the technical language of the discussions.” The same authors indicate that one of the reasons for the limited impact of NGOs on the policies of the International Monetary Fund has been that few NGO participants “have developed a level of literacy in economics that has enabled them closely to follow Fund reasoning. Monetary and financial regulators would be more willing to give social movements a hearing if they felt that the critics comprehended how IMF policy operated” (O’Brien et al 2000: 196).
20
Finally, many transnational networks have extremely weak collaborative relationships
sectors of civil and political society in the countries in which they operate. For example, with
few exceptions, most networks have extraordinarily weak ties with organized labour and with
political parties. In part, this is because there are lingering doubts among traditional, well-
established political actors about the extent to which civil society organizations and networks
effectively represent the specific interests of society they claim to embody, or even the
degree of transparency that characterizes decision-making and resource allocation within the
new organizations and networks (see Sikkink 2002).
Given these constraints, rather than a strong and well-articulated actor, a more accurate
portrait reveals “global civil society” is the Americas to be very much a work in-progress, a
project for the future only in the early stages of development. Moreover, as we shall see next,
this work-in-progress faces additional difficulties in the growing polarization between
“insider” and “outsider” organizations and networks.
The Polarization of ‘Insiders’ and ‘Outsiders
The regional networks constituted by “insiders” and “outsiders” are becoming
increasingly specialized in their strategies and tactics. In this context, some of the most
significant differences, highlighted earlier in our analysis, are summarized in Table 1 below.
[Insert Table 1 here]
Of course, whether an organization adopts one posture or the other is not always
easy to ascertain. What is perceived as participation by some may be construed as
contestation by others. Some organizations and networks begin in one equilibrium between
the two polar strategies, but later the dynamics of their own practice might impel them
21
toward a different equilibrium.21 Moreover, many organizations and networks adopt
practices that seek simultaneously to use and to transform existing arrangements, so they
might perceive their own orientation as straddling both “insider” and “outsider” strategies.22
For all these reasons, the organizations and networks in question (as well as observers) might
reject the label of “insiders” and “outsiders” as being too schematic a characterization of
their overall strategy.23
Nevertheless, the distinction between “insiders” and “outsiders” is useful to capture
some crucial features and contrasts in different patterns of collective action. Indeed, strategic
choices by different types of networks and organizations combine over time to configure
quite distinct patterns of institutional path dependence. “Insider” civil society actors and
regional networks tend to develop “collaborative” collective action frames. Seeking to
intervene on and/or reform very specialized and technical fields of knowledge, “insider”
civil society organizations and networks generally find themselves obliged to adopt
appropriate forms of operation (for example, by becoming versed in the specialized
knowledge and discursive strategies governing the practice of bureaucracies in national
21 Hence, “social movements and collective actors are not always neat, rational, and unitary: rather, they contain and express a multiplicity of meanings, varying according to context and historical conjuncture” (Jelin 1997, 80). 22 For example, participants in an “insider” organization might perceive their group as maintaining an autonomous identity, distinct from official mainstream agencies and dedicated to contesting limits of participation by expanding the opportunities for more effective civil society participation. Conversely, participants in “outsider” organizations often portray their strategies not merely as efforts to block official initiatives but as designed to construct more meaningful channels of participation. 23 The boundaries are also blurred depending on the particular universe of organizations and networks observed for comparison. For example, in the context of the process of hemispheric integration, some networks (such as the Alianza Social Continental) appear to be “outsiders” when compared with organizations that have chosen to participate more actively in the official opportunities provided for civil society participation. However, the same networks might be branded as “insiders” by groups (such as anarchist activists) advocate a more radical and open confrontation with the agencies and actors promoting hemispheric integration.
22
governments and multilateral organizations).24 Bureaucratisation, from this point of view,
becomes very much implicit in the very effort of “insiders” to transform existing fields of
power.25 Hence, the action repertoires of “insiders” focus almost exclusively on policy-
oriented research, the preparation of policy papers, the organization of civil society
consultations around official agendas, and networking with like-minded civil society
organizations from other countries.
In contrast, the collective action frames and discursive strategies of “outsider” civil
society actors and networks privilege the politics of “oppositional” identities, and their
action repertoires stress contestation—the mobilization of grass roots support, the issuance
of critical manifestoes, public teach-ins, protests, and demonstrations.26 They also seek out
network partners from other countries with similar institutional histories and worldviews.
When successful, these networks may transform themselves into effective coalitions capable
of coordinating sophisticated international campaigns. A few eventually may undergo a
24 In this sense, as observed by Weber, “When those subject to bureaucratic control seek to escape the influence of the existing bureaucratic apparatus, this is normally possible only by creating an organization of their own which is equally subject to bureaucratization” (1978, 224). 25 Organizations and networks also differ in the extent to which they adopt a formalized system of internal administration. In part, the adoption of formal rules by an organization generally develops in response to the need for greater and/or more precise coordination of the tasks performed. For example, networks that originally are informally set up among the organizations of different countries might eventually find a need to establish more clearly the rules and procedures through which decisions are made. Furthermore, these efforts often dovetail with efforts to acquire greater efficiency in pursuing objectives by developing a more detailed division of labor within the organization, frequently leading to the emergence of a more specialized administrative structure. All these internal dynamics are likely to promote greater bureaucratization within civil society networks and organizations. 26 “Outsiders” are probably what O’Brien et al. (2000: 12) have in mind when they argue that “[s]ocial movements, by definition, are not members of the elite in their societies. They are anti-systemic. That is, they are working to forward priorities at odds with the existing organization of the system. They rely on mass mobilization because they do not directly control the levers of formal power such as the state.” Similarly, Kriesberg (1997: 12) distinguishes between international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) that “reflect and reinforce the status quo” and transnational social movement organizations that “in contrast, are INGOs, such as Greenpeace or Amnesty International, that seek to bring about a change in the status quo.” In a different approach, Castells (1997: 70) points out that “social movements may be socially conservative, socially revolutionary, or both, or none.”
23
further metamorphosis and become transnational social movements capable of sustained
strategic political action promoting transformative projects.
From the point of view of the ability to attain goals, as indicated by Max Weber, the
adoption of bureaucratic mentalities and institutionalised procedures by “insiders” can allow
for greater “intensive efficiency.”27 Nevertheless, despite these efficiency gains, the adoption
of such practices by “insider” networks and organizations generally entails a trade-off
involving a perceived loss of many traits that accompany informality, such as closer, more
direct and less hierarchical relations between the leadership and rank-and-file members along
with a more “mobilisational” quality to the organization’s orientation. Consequently, while
the “insider” strategy privileges technocratic policy-making and tends to accentuate
bureaucratisation, the “outsider” strategy emphasizes direct popular representation as a
means of promoting empowerment and social equity.28
Power—and the institutional arrangements in which it is inscribed and reproduced—
operates in a sphere in which both "insider" and "outsider" networks appear to be at a
significant disadvantage in dealing with governments and the transnational corporate actors
that dominant hemispheric politics. Networks, advocacy groups, and issue coalitions usually
do not wield much power, at least not as conventionally defined. They are not political
27 This mode of administrative organization “[i]s superior to any other form in precision, in stability, in the stringency of its discipline, and in its reliability. It thus makes possible a particularly high degree of calculability of results for the heads of the organization and for those acting in relation to it. It is finally superior both in intensive efficiency and in the scope of its operations, and is formally capable of application to all kinds of administrative tasks” (1978, 223). 28 The tension between bureaucratization and representation is familiar to any observer of the development of labor movements and political parties in the twentieth century. For example, while labor movements often found their identity in opposition to existing political arrangements, the practice of negotiation often led trade unions and their leaders to enter into close negotiations with national political authorities. The development of such mechanisms of integration, while enhancing the ability of the new actors to influence and shape new patterns of institutional regulation, and sometimes leading these actors to challenge prevailing notions of citizenship, often entailed the professionalisation—and attendant demobilization—of the social movements in question.
24
parties, nor do they exercise bureaucratic power based upon mandates legitimated in
democratic elections, and they certainly do not command impressive material resources.
But transnational networks and coalitions are not without power of a different sort, the
power that stems from their values, their ideas, and their normative and ethical convictions.
Particularly given the skill they have acquired in recent years in playing the politics of
information, symbols, leverage, and accountability (Keck and Sikkink 1998), their ability to
exercise this second form of power has grown significantly. Obviously, genuine transnational
social movements capable of sustained strategic action wield even more power to frame
issues, shape political identities, and leverage other actors, including states and multilateral
organizations.
In the case of the "insiders," their power and ability to influence national and regional
agendas stems primarily from the politics of knowledge that comes with specialized forms
expertise. This knowledge has won them limited access to the decision-making arena where
SOA issues are debated and action agenda are hammered out and then implemented. Their
influence can be considerable, stemming as it does from the considerable mutuality of beliefs
and interests they shared with many political and administrative elites in positions of
governmental power and the ways in which these commonalities are manifested in
delegation and monitoring activities. The "insiders" want to make progress more rapidly, and
they are frequently frustrated with the resistance they face. But, fundamentally, they want to
improve and reform hemispheric arrangements, not over turn them.
The capacity of the "outsiders" to shape national and regional agenda is more nebulous
and difficult to pin down. The "outsider" networks, coalitions, and movements frequently
excel at critique, and pointing out the cynicism, contradictions, and short sightedness of
governmental and corporate elites, and even of timidity of the more ameliorative proposals
25
advocated by their "insider" counterparts. The knock on the "outsiders" (and more generally
on all those who resist the apparent inexorability of globalisation) is that they are alleged to
have no "workable alternative." The frequently heard refrain is that if civil society activists—
particularly the more militant "outsiders"—should either come up with fully worked-out
alternative blueprints, or cease their political agitation and allow integration to proceed. Seen
from the perspective of the longue dureé, however, this view misunderstands the historical role
that anti-systemic or counter-hegemonic actors, particularly social movements generated by
exclusion, have always played. Their task is to critique what exists; raise doubts about elite
proposals for reform; and to push for visions and scenarios that are more democratic,
inclusive and, most likely, utopian.
Some observers have defended the view that, although they may not be aware of it, the
activities of the “insiders” and “outsiders” networks complement one another and,
therefore, “it is essential for [networks] to maintain open lines of communication and for us
to act in a coordinated manner" (Pagés 2000: 172). However, as we have seen, significant
divides have emerged between the two types of organizations. Is convergence or polarization
between networks likely under these conditions?
Polarization in terms of strategies and collective action repertoires, rather than
convergence and collaboration, may be the more likely scenario in future practice of regional
civil society actors on issues related to hemispheric integration. A corollary is that, as the
summits and the FTAA negotiations reveal, the risks entailed in the divergence of
trajectories between the different networks is that their contrasting strategies may foreclose
many more opportunities for influence than they ever open. Instead of fluid lines of
communications and potential complementarities implied by an implicit division of labour
defined by their divergent strategies for collective action, “insiders” and “outsiders” may
26
inadvertently be placing their goals at risk because of growing conflicts and animosity. Were
this to occur, it is likely that the “insiders” will opt for effectiveness and influence vis-à-vis
policy elites, while perhaps sacrificing popular support and broad public participation. In
contrast, the “outsiders” may prove capable of establishing social movements mobilizing
considerable popular support (although these mobilizations and their consequences may be
quite episodic and evanescent), but, in the short run, this probably will come at a high price
in terms of lost opportunities to shape the political agenda. Most importantly, this
polarization might continue to reproduce, within the field of civil society organizations and
networks, a broader divide that has characterized Latin American politics.
The “Empty Box” Syndrome and “Low Road” Scenarios
Tensions between rationality/efficiency and participation/representation, such as those
present between “insiders” and “outsiders,” are neither new in Latin America nor restricted
to networks and social movements. In the current context of crises of state-centric strategies
of growth and globalisation, much of the region has been experiencing a disjuncture between
the expansion of markets on a world scale and the weakening legitimacy of national political
leaderships, together with a disturbing tendency for the broad sectors of the populace to
retreat from conventional electoral politics.29 This disjuncture has been accentuating Latin
America’s political “empty box” syndrome, wherein rational policymaking and the pursuit of
broader forms of representation come to be seen as antithetical strategic options rather than
mutually reinforcing spheres of political interaction.
29 For insightful analyses of changing class cleavages and shifts in patterns of participation and representational regimes in post-transition democratic regimes, see Hagopian (1998), Roberts (2001), and Friedman and Hochstetler (forthcoming).
27
We borrow the notion of the “empty box” syndrome from the late Chilean economist
Fernando Fajnzylber (1990), but give the term a somewhat different meaning from the
original intention. Fajnzylber used the term to indicate that from a comparative perspective,
successful economic growth in Latin America has seldom if ever been accompanied by
success in significantly attacking poverty or reducing inequality. In this sense, economic
growth and enhanced welfare in the region have tended to be characterized by a zero-sum
relationship, where advances in one dimension signalled a retroceso in the other. We call
attention to a different phenomenon, but nevertheless one intimately related to the analysis
advanced by Fajnzylber. We employ the term to underscore certain key dimensions of the
process of political representation, social inclusion, and leadership, rather than to capture key
features in the production of the production and distribution of wealth. Ultimately, the
failure to successfully achieve both economic growth and greater equity — Fajnzylber’s
“empty box”— is the flip side of the coin of the “political empty box” we address here.30
The political “empty box” helps us understand the institutional scenarios that have
tended to prevail in the region in recent years.31 The four scenarios graphically portrayed in
Table 2 below are generated by the interaction of the two dimensions constituting the
political “empty box” syndrome. The first axis taps the extent to which regimes promote
broader and more inclusive modes of popular participation and representation. The second
axis probes the extent to which regimes employ rational modes of policy-making and
implementation. Together, these two dimensions produce four possible scenarios.
The experience of the 1990s in Latin America attests to the difficulty of attaining the
30 See Korzeniewicz and Smith (2000) for an investigation of the “empty box” of growth and equity in contemporary Latin America; this article also probes the more explicitly political dimensions of the “empty box,” although we did not formulate the analysis is these terms. 31 For some previous efforts to envision alternative scenarios, see Acuña and Smith (1994) and Korzeniewicz and Smith (2000a and 2000b).
28
virtuous equilibrium located in the “empty box,” the “high road” of S4. In this admittedly
“utopian” scenario, elected officials strengthen effective representation, expand democratic
spaces for public debate, and incorporate political parties and other social actors more fully
into policy design and implementation. Transparency and accountability prevail in the
exercise of government, and practices of rule are largely free from corruption and
clientelism. Moreover, in this scenario, both “insider” and “outsider” social movements and
CSOs (and the transnational networks of which they are part) play a more crucial role in
promoting the autonomous participation for subaltern groups.
[Insert Table 2 here]
The high road path implies efforts to construct broad reform mongering coalitions
capable of addressing the changing concerns of the middle class, formal and informal
workers, women, environmentalists, and indigenous peoples. The participation of these
constituencies helps weaken potential veto coalitions that appeal to nostalgia for statist
protectionism and the illusion that the subsidies and rent-seeking privileges of import-
substitution can be easily restored. Among the corollaries of this relative deepening of
procedural democracy is the possibility of macroeconomic policies capable of generating
more robust growth economic performance and a more equitable distribution of income and
wealth.32
Clearly a transition to such a “high road” in Latin America has not been achieved.
Instead, many countries have witnessed troublesome elective affinities between neoliberal
technocratic policy-making and neopopulist politics (Roberts 1995; Weyland 2002). In the
32 Although the focus is on Fajynzlber’s economic “empty box,” see Korzeniewicz and Smith (2000a) for further exploration of this “high road” scenario. The “high road” also captures some aspects of the scenario of “inclusionary democracy” with strong social actors and an activist state depicted in Acuña and Smith (1994) and Friedman and Hochstetler’s (forthcoming) discussion of the representational regime they label “deliberative democracy.”
29
context, possible alternative scenarios have, if anything, become more extreme. For example,
the precipitous erosion of democratic politics in Venezuela under Chávez underscores the
fragility of populist politics allied with clientelistic practices. The same could be said for Peru
since the Fujimori’s exit from power. Similarly, the on-going crisis experienced by Argentina
provides a dramatic warning of the possibilities of economic collapse, social exclusion, and
political disarticulation entailed in the low road scenario.33 Furthermore, absent a return to
global economic growth and a shift toward more supportive policies by the United States,
even a reconstitution of the perverse equilibrium of the 1990s appears difficult.
Consequently, the high road (S4) remains, if anything, more elusive than ever.
The “empty box” of Latin American politics has important consequences for prospects
of promoting greater participation of civil society in the construction of a new regionalism.
Regimes characterized by the prevalence of populism, particularism, clientelism, and
corruption or by strong technocratic proclivities are not likely to be tolerant of greater
participation and contestation by autonomous organizations and networks of civil society.
Instead, such regimes are more likely to seek top-down mechanisms of policy design and
negotiation and to eschew transparency and outside scrutiny in public policy
implementation. More indirectly, such regimes are likely to be accompanied by broader
environments in which political constraints and incentives combine to deepen divisions
between “insider” and “outsider” civil society networks and social movements.
33 In this case, the proposal by prestigious economists (see Caballero and Dornbush 2002) for Argentina to delegate authority over fiscal and monetary policy to a team of “experienced foreign central bankers” for a period of perhaps five years illustrates absence of political imagination and latent anti-democratic inclinations informing the reigning orthodoxy.
30
Conclusions — Civil Society Actors and Competing Regionalisms
Bringing the various strands of our argument, we believe the future of regional
arrangements in Latin America likely will hinge upon a combination of path dependence and
historical contingency rooted in the possibilities created by the contending strategies
deployed by societal actors in the context of the tensions inherent in the political “empty
box.” As depicted in Table 3, we envision four contending regionalist projects, each rooted
in one of the stylised scenarios sketched in the previous section.
[Insert Table 3 here]
These four contending regionalist projects are generated by the interaction of the
two dimensions constituting the political “empty box” syndrome. The project of
“degenerative regionalism” is based upon the “low road” scenario, the perverse combination
of fragile democratic governance, economic crisis, and low capacity of the state to regulate
markets and to ameliorate poverty and inequality, which are exacerbated by the negative
impacts of globalisation. In the context of political collapse and plunging investment, it is
difficult to imagine a very positive role for local or transnational civil society actors, whether
they are “insiders” such as the civil society actors affiliated with the OAS Citizen
Participation network and the USAID-supported Red Interamericana para la Democracia, or
“outsiders” like the civil society organizations linked to the Alianza Social Continental
network. The logic of the “degenerative” project foreshadows deepening anomie and
despair, thus setting the stage of repression for the “ultra-outsiders” such as piqueteros and
caceroleros prominent in recent Argentine politics. Similarly, this project entails significant risks
of defaults to international institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank, and the Inter-
American Development Bank, and possibly violations of World Trade Organization norms
and growing isolation from the world-economy. Of course, this variant of regionalism poses
31
a severe “stumbling block” for broader market integration.
A project of semi-autarky and “nationalist regionalism” based upon the scenario of an
attempted “populist revival” and the aggrandizement of executive power promises no more
than meagre, and probably short-lived, economic compensation for the losers in processes
of market integration. However, populist rhetoric and the politics of clientelism might result
in a more-or-less successful effort to co-opt some anti-globalisation “outsiders,” particularly
those affiliated with more combative labour organizations. In contrast, more
technocratically inclined “insiders” active in summitry or the FTAA probably would find
themselves marginalized. State policies toward the “ultra-outsiders” might vacillate between
repression and half-hearted and episodic cooptation. The attempted aggiornamento of state-
led import substitution—combined with the rhetoric of resistance to the FTAA and
globalisation—underlying a nationalist project of regionalism could conceivably generate
limited economic growth, perhaps with limited openings of some segments of the market to
the world-economy. If successful, such a nationalist project might elicit some support for a
regional economic bloc (e.g., an inward-looking MERCOSUR). Nevertheless, the prospects
for dynamic economic expansion will be severely constrained by the globalising forces of
technology, trade, and finance.
A “neoliberal” regionalist project has, of course, a strong elective affinity with the
technocratic scenario. To the extent that poverty (although perhaps not inequality) is
ameliorated through orthodox growth policies, this project is compatible with the
incorporation of moderate civil society actors, domestic and transnational, such as
PARTICIPA, Poder Ciudadano, and other groups affiliated with “insider” networks active in
summitry and the FTAA consultations. “Outsider” networks and social movements
committed to more militant forms of contestation, such as those affiliated with the Alianza
32
Social Continental and the organized labour movement, however, are unlikely to exercise
much influence under neoliberal projects. The “ultras” most likely will be ignored or
repressed, if this viewed as necessary to assure political and macroeconomic stability. In
short, this form of regionalism probably would exacerbate the “democratic deficit”
characterizing current projects of hemispheric integration.
In this sense, neoliberal regionalism is clearly a “building block” toward unfettered
globalisation led by state elites and impelled by the market. A variety of architectures are
compatible with this project, ranging from the consolidation of NAFTA with its present
membership, to an expanded NAFTA (e.g., perhaps incorporating Chile, Central America,
and the Caribbean Basin), to a full-blown FTAA compatible with World Trade Organization
rules and encompassing most if not all of Latin America. This variant also need not be
limited to by geography of the hemisphere. Chile, for example, could deepen its insertion of
globalising processes through consolidating its already significant links (i.e., 30 percent of its
exports) with the European Union or with the APEC countries.
Finally, there is the possibility that the “high road” scenario—strengthened procedural
and substantive dimensions of democracy, expansion of social safety nets to compensate
those sectors hurt by globalisation, and the regulation and coordination of markets—could
form the basis of a project of “transformative regionalism.” In contrast with the other
projects mentioned, we borrow from Mittelman (2000, 128-129) to underscore the point that
this variant of regionalism would be
… grounded in civil society, more as a future prospect than as a current phenomenon. In its embryonic form, transformative regionalism is partly a defensive reaction mounted by those left our of the mosaic of globalisation […] Stressing self-organizing the alternative formulation calls for regionalism that flows from the bottom upward and is linked to new forms of cultural identity being developed by the women’s movement, environmentalists, prodemocracy forces, human rights groups, and so on. At the end of the day, the possibilities and limitations of transformative regionalism rest on the strength of its links to civil society. Creative
33
potential for bringing about sustainable growth and democracy lies in popular support and a sense of involvement in multiple strata of the population […] transformative regionalism is clearly the expression of a dialectic. Forces from above seek to entrench the neoliberal framework, but encounter resistance from social forces at the base. At issue are local control and alternative directions of development, which also comprise a struggle over different visions of regionalizing processes. Sceptics probably will contend that the viability of this projects hinges on an
excessively optimistic interpretation of current realities. Certainly it is true that this project of
transformative regionalism is antithetical to the globalising forces of technology, trade, and
finance. While we recognize, as does Mittelman, that this is a “future prospect” rather than
an immediate reality, we prefer to argue that high road scenario embedded in a project of
transformative regionalism has the virtue of highlighting fundamental components of a
possible trajectory leading out of the “empty box” syndrome. We also believe that it also
might provide a firmer and more legitimate democratic foundation for deeper and more
comprehensive forms of rationalisation and globalisation. Our speculation, in this regard, is
buttressed by the view that transnational civil society networks, coalitions, and social
movements—including “insiders” as well as “outsiders”—can potentially make significant
contributions to a regional project in which the exercise of deliberative democracy is central.
Moreover, if an “other world” (Wallerstein 2002) really is a possibility, with acceptable trade-
offs that do not forgo the potential efficiencies of world markets, the participation of local,
national, and transnational civil society actors will be indispensable in rendering the forces of
rationalisation and globalisation compatible with greater social equity and new forms of
democratic politics and popular sovereignty.
34
Table 1 Convergence/Divergence in Regional Civil Society Networks
Insider
Networks Outsider Networks
Institutional Structures & Organiza-tional Path Dependence
Privilege close links with governments and multilateral agencies (e.g., IDB, OAS, USAID, etc.) Domestic politics and institutional arrangements facilitate delegation and self-monitoring by networks regarding the provision of public goods lead to transnational network formation.
Privilege ties to grassroots social movements and organized labour. Deployment of oppositional identities and confrontational strategies vis-à-vis globalisation. Blockage of access by institutional arrangements and strong distributional externalities lead networks to seek transnational alliances with counterparts in other countries.
Strategies of cooperation & collaboration; working the media and behind the scenes lobbying activities.
Strategies of confrontation, contestation & mobilization; teach-ins, street protests, and demonstrations.
Collective Action Repertoires
Policy-oriented research, policy papers addressed to influential political and private sector elites.
Action-oriented research, critical manifestos, and policy proposals addressed to key activists and broad mass publics.
Consultations focused on official agendas do not lead beyond the formation of networks, and eventual transborder coalitions tend to be rather weak; no social movement formation.
Intense informational exchange, cooperation, and joint issue campaigns with counterparts may foster transborder coalitions and, in some cases, the emergence of transnational social movements.
Priority on gradual reform of existing institutions.
Priority on accumulation of forces and systemic transformation.
Impacts on the Hemispheric Political and Economic Agendas
Relative success in influencing the rhetoric of national and multilateral policy elites via the politics of expertise, with little emphasis on generating broad public support.
Relative success in mobilizing grassroots sectors and framing issues, but only indirect influence in shaping policy agendas through the politics of leverage, framing, and transparency.
35
Table 2 The “Empty Box” Syndrome and Alternative Political Scenarios
Low
Participation & Representation High
Participation & Representation
Low Adminis- trative Capacity
(S1) Low Road • Growing fragility of democracy,
representation, and low-intensity citizenship (threat of “argentinización”)
• Little or no effective regulation of markets • Little or no redistributive capacity • Growing poverty and deepening inequality • No/slow growth and “race to bottom.”
(S2) Populist Path • Clientelism, particularism, and weak
institutionalisation of democratic politics; executive power strengthened at expense of parties/parliaments
• Extensive intervention in markets • Modest redistributive policies • Persistent poverty and inequality • Slow and erratic growth in a few
selected niches. High Adminis- trative Capacity
(S3) Technocratic Path • Effective management privileged over
disruptive politics of representation • Increased autonomy of the executive
combined with political reforms to enhance accountability
• Regulation of markets limited to the management of “risk”
• Some redistributive capacity results in some poverty reduction but inequality persists at moderate/high levels
• Segmented growth—rapid in some niches, stagnation in others.
(S4) High Road • Renovation of parties and
representative institutions to improve participation and inclusion
• Strengthening of deliberative mechanisms of accountability
• Regulation of markets as guided by public deliberation
• Redistributive capacity to create safety net and to compensate losers in market integration
• Gradual reduction in poverty and inequality
• Dynamic growth—more balanced across sectors.
36
Table 3 Competing Regionalist Projects
Low
Participation & Representation High
Participation & Representation Low Adminis- trative Capacity
“Degenerative Regionalism” • Based upon (S1) Low Road • Marginal role for both “insiders” and
“outsiders”; anomie and repression for “ultra-outsiders”
• Breakdown of international commitments leading to isolation from the world-economy
“Nationalist Regionalism”
• Based upon (S2) Populist Revival • Attempts a clientelistic capture of
“outsiders,” marginality for “insiders,” and cooptation/repression for “ultras”
• Resistance to agents of globalisation (IMF, USA, International Finance) and segmented integration with the world-economy
High Adminis- trative Capacity
“Neoliberal Integration”
• Based upon (S3) Technocratic Path • Incorporation of “insiders” but “outsiders”
marginalized while the “ultras” are ignored or repressed
• Concerted but unregulated efforts to enhance international linkages and promote market integration
• Full engagement with world-economy
“Tranformative Integration”
• Based upon S4) High Road • Incorporation of “insiders” and “outsiders”
and gradual decline of “ultras • Concerted but regulated efforts to
accumulate social capital and to promote market integration in ways compatible with equity
• Selective engagement with the world-economy with greater role for state coordination
37
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