Abstract
At the summit of American nations in 1994, thirty- four countries in the western hemisphere agreed to form the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), an agreement that would include all democratic nations on the American continent. However, despite promising progress made during the first rounds of negotiations the deadline of January 1, 2005 was missed and no agreement has been reached. This study examines the possibility that negotiators were unable to reach an agreement because the application of free trade and other neoliberal policies in the western hemisphere, while encouraged by international institutions, created dissatisfaction among the general population, especially in Latin American countries. Eventually, this dissatisfaction manifested itself in the form of social movements protesting the implementation of further neoliberal reforms, in some cases eventually threatening the political stability of nations. This thesis asks the question whether the anti-neoliberal movements in Latin America influenced their respective government’s decision to support or abandon the FTAA. In order to address this question, this study analyzes the cases of Argentina, Chile, Nicaragua, and Bolivia. Each of these cases will undergo a three-step analysis. First, the countries’ economic performance between 1994 and 2005 will be evaluated through the analysis of economic indicators, which are derived from datasets provided by the World Bank and the United Nations, as well as news and secondary sources. Second, each case will be studied for episodes of contention and social movements protesting free trade and neoliberal reforms occurring during the FTAA negotiations. The data for this methodological step mostly stems from secondary sources and news articles reporting about the events. The third step of the analysis identifies each country’s position on the FTAA by reviewing news accounts and press releases that quote country officials or trade representatives expressing their respective government’s intention and position in regards to the status of the FTAA negotiations. The data was obtained through the LexisNexis News database, the Google News search engine and from secondary sources. The results of the study indicate that countries experiencing strong social movements were less likely to support the FTAA than countries experiencing weak anti-neoliberal contention. These results point towards a relationship between national social movements and the outcome of international negotiations.