1 Expanding the boundaries of public debate on trade politics: the Hemispheric Social Alliance and the Free Trade Area of the Americas process

University of Warwick, UK. Currently under review at Third World Quarterly. Do not quote without permission. 2 The Hemispheric Social Alliance (HSA) is a transnational North-South coalition of trade union organisations, social movements and NGOs from all over the Americas. It emerged in 1997 in response to the prospects of a corporate agenda being institutionalised in the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) project. Despite the commitment of the hemispheric governments to make the FTAA a democratic and transparent process, the experience of the HSA reveals that the opportunities for engagement in a constructive dialogue with the official FTAA process were minimal or largely ineffective. This paper explores the initiatives undertaken by the HSA to open up a public debate on the consequences of creating a FTAA project (including, amongst others, issues of wealth distribution, democratic sovereignty, gender equality, and environmental justice). As a consequence of attempts to insulate the trade agenda from the demands of civil society, the HSA radicalised its position and launched a hemispheric-wide popular consultation on the FTAA at the grassroots level. It was only at this point that the largely uninformed public opinion finally recognised the FTAA project. This improved the conditions for a much-needed debate on the relation between trade and development in the region