Trade Battles

Winner of ASA's 2019 Charles Tilly Distinguished Book AwardTrade was once an esoteric economic issue with little domestic policy resonance. Activists did not prioritize it, and grassroots political mobilization seemed unlikely to free trade advocates. The passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in the early 1990s was therefore expected to be a fait accompli. Yet, as Trade Battles shows, activists pushed back: theyincreased the public consciousness on trade, mobilized new constituencies against it, and demanded that the rules of the global economy protect the collective rights and common good of citizens. Activists also forged asustained challenge to U.S. trade policies after NAFTA, setting the stage for future trade battles. Using data from extensive archival materials and over 215 interviews with Mexican, Canadian, and U.S. trade negotiators; labor and environmental activists; and government officials, Tamara Kay and R.L. Evans assess how activists politicized trade policy by leveraging broad divisions across state and non-state arenas. Further, they demonstrate how activists were not only able to politicize tradepolicy, but also to pressure negotiators to include labor and environmental protections in NAFTA's side agreements. A timely contribution, Trade Battles seeks to understand the role of civil society inshaping state policy.

Winner of Winner of the 2019 Charles Tilly Distinguished Book Award from the Collective Behavior and Social Movements section of the American Sociological Association.

“"When NAFTA was being debated in the early 1990s, enthusiasm for the neoliberal 'project' was at a fever pitch. Yet, against long odds and near unanimous elite support, an emergent coalition of labor and environmental activists managed to politicize the proposed treaty and shape the final agreement in significant ways. In Trade Battles, Kay and Evans offer a compelling account of this outcome. But theirs is also a cautionary tale of how this outcome led state actors to insulate trade policy from movement intervention, eroding democracy in the process." -Doug McAdam, Stanford University "Kay and Evans recount a quarter-century of civil society's 'inside' and 'outside' advocacy campaigns on labor and environmental standards in trade agreements. Starting with NAFTA and then tracing post-NAFTA trade agreements, the authors explore diverging strategies among advocates who seek a seat at the table and those who view trade agreements as cookbooks, with workers and the environment on the menu. This insightful framing analysis by two prominent scholars is also a ripping good story for those interested in trade, labor, and environmental affairs." -Lance Compa, Cornell University”

"Trade policy has always been politically contentiousâ In the charged Trump political environment, American trade policy has again been at the center of things, making this a timely book... Summing Up: Highly Recommended." -- CHOICE"When NAFTA was being debated in the early 1990s, enthusiasm for the neoliberal 'project' was at a fever pitch. Yet, against long odds and near unanimous elite support, an emergent coalition of labor and environmental activists managed to politicize the proposed treaty and shape the final agreement in significant ways. In Trade Battles, Kay and Evans offer a compelling account of this outcome. But theirs is also a cautionary tale of how this outcome led stateactors to insulate trade policy from movement intervention, eroding democracy in the process."-Doug McAdam, Stanford University"Kay and Evans recount a quarter-century of civil society's 'inside' and 'outside' advocacy campaigns on labor and environmental standards in trade agreements. Starting with NAFTA and then tracing post-NAFTA trade agreements, the authors explore diverging strategies among advocates who seek a seat at the table and those who view trade agreements as cookbooks, with workers and the environment on the menu. This insightful framing analysis by two prominentscholars is also a ripping good story for those interested in trade, labor, and environmental affairs."-Lance Compa, Cornell University

Tamara Kay is Associate Professor of Global Affairs and Sociology at the University of Notre Dame.R.L. Evans is currently an independent scholar.

How did activists create a dynamic broad-based movement during NAFTA negotiations that politicized trade, making it a contentious issue for the first time in history? And how did their NAFTA mobilization influence trade policy and set the stage for future battles over trade? Trade Battles draws on hundreds of in-depth interviews with Mexican, Canadian, and U.S. trade negotiators, labor and environmental activists, and government officials, and an extensiveanalysis of archival materials to understand the role of civil society in shaping state policy.Trade Battles shows how activists politicized trade policy by creating a new set of institutionalized and disruptive strategies around trade that leveraged broader cleavages across state and nonstate arenas. Activists exploited these leverage points by mobilizing across them, which enabled them not only to politicize trade policy with legislators and trade policy officials and among the public, but also to influence the content of the agreement itself. So powerful was activists' pushback against NAFTA that future administrations closed many state institutional channels in order to thwart public opposition, curtailing public access, participation and input. This forced activists to try to kill subsequent trade agreements whole cloth rather than improve them, as they did during the NAFTA struggle.Trade Battles reveals that the NAFTA battle was less about trade policy than the role of democratic state institutions in policymaking. By exposing the linkages between institutional opportunities and democratic practices, it reveals how critical state institutions are for activists' efforts to shape not only trade policy, but a number of international policies from climate change to migration. When the state closes institutions, it effectively severs policymaking from democraticintervention.

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