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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