A Functional Anarchy

Abstract

During the Bush administration, the United States ratified a free trade agreement with five Central American countries and the Dominican Republic. Ratification in Costa Rica was considerably delayed because of widespread popular opposition that led to a referendum in October 2007. The strategies used to gain a victory for the Yes campaign were opposed by the Patriotic Movement for No, a diverse network of neighborhood-based patriotic committees, trade unions, agricultural organizations, academics, women’s organizations, environmental movements, and the Church. Resistance to the agreement in Costa Rica is helping to dereify free trade doctrines and producing proliferating forms of political association that articulate credible and appealing alternatives to neoliberalism. The referendum unleashed a struggle for hegemony in Costa Rica that has important implications for state—civil society relations and the rescaling of state power.