Small states and free trade: the domestic politics of CAFTA-DR in Nicaragua and Costa Rica

This project uses the U.S.-Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA, CAFTA-DR, or DR-CAFTA) as a critical lens for analyzing the intersection of transnational and domestic politics in Nicaragua and Costa Rica. The primary argument is that CAFTA-DR provided a unique opportunity for broad-based, mass mobilization against an array of neoliberal reforms, and that domestic institutions and state-civil society relations shaped the prospects for that mobilization. Despite the rise in transnational activism against free trade, and the material and political resources made available through it, the domestic arenas in which FTAs are ultimately approved or rejected shape how, and the extent to which significant anti-FTA interests will emerge and can influence state action on the policy. In Costa Rica, CAFTA-DR generated the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of citizens against the FTA. The FTA was put to a national referendum there—the country‘s first national referendum, and the first time an FTA was approved via popular vote. In Nicaragua, the FTA inspired the development of a much smaller opposition movement, and caused no significant disruptions among state actors or in political society. Despite demands from Nicaraguans that the state give the people the opportunity to vote on CAFTA-DR, state actors never proposed doing so. I argue that the variation in these domestic responses to the FTA can be found in the institutions and patterns of state-civil society relations in each country prior to CAFTA-DR‘s introduction. In Costa Rica, members of civil society could use existing institutions and the political traditions of dialogue and accommodation to mobilize opposition and secure some favorable responses from state actors. In Nicaragua, autonomous civil society is weak vis-à-vis the state as a result of the consolidation of political power by the dominant parties; personalistic politics and clientalistic linkages between parties and citizens; and low trust in government among the citizenry. This qualitative analysis is developed from secondary and primary sources including Web sites and publications from state agencies and civil society organizations, and open-ended interviews with state and non-state actors familiar with the politics surrounding CAFTA-DR conducted in Central America between June and August of 2008.Ph.D.Includes abstractVitaIncludes bibliographical referencesby Carolyn Jennifer Crai