Social movements and free trade in Latin America: what comes after ALCA?

Abstract

This article examines social move­ments and their experiences of struggle in the processes of trade liberalisation that have taken place in Latin America since the early 1990s to the present day. This has been a construction process of transnational collec­tive action in which each experience has served to innovate the preceding one, until an alliance of continental and multisectoral scope was constituted. However, this learn­ing process has not been linear; instead it has experienced both steps forward and setbacks, and its moments of progress have depended, to a great extent, on the capacity of the members of these networks to identify global capital as their enemy in the conflict.

Keywords

• social movements
• free trade agreements
• collective action
• Latin America