Globalization, Resistance to Economic

Protests against Globalization

Social movements in the developing world have been mounting numerous large-scale public protests of the neoliberal economic reforms called for by the socalled Washington Consensus policies of the World Bank and IMF for several decades. Such protests, frequently of a scale much larger than comparable events in the North, have continued with very little media or public attention in the North.

Between November 27 and December 3, 1999, large protests were mounted during a Ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization. More than 700 organizations and between 40,000 and 60,000 people took part in the protests against the WTO. The demonstrators and activists were successful in disrupting the meeting, but the protests were marked with violence and police brutality. However, the event was highly successful in drawing the Western world's attention to the policies of the WTO and their consequences for workers, communities, and the environment. “Our World Is Not For Sale” (OWINFS) is a transnational network of activists and organizations that emerged from this event. Smaller scale protests, mobilizations, and teach-ins have been held in conjunction with subsequent WTO Ministerial meetings at Doha, Qatar, in 2001 and at Cancun, Mexico, in 2003.

An organized movement against the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) began with a People's Summit held in Santiago, Chile, in 1998. The Second People's Summit of the Americas was held in Quebec City in April 2001 as political leaders sought to negotiate a free trade agreement for the Americas. The People's Summit called upon the leaders to renounce neoliberal globalization and to allow social, environmental, human rights, and other nonmarket interests to take precedence over the goal of trade liberalization. The Quebec Summit was accompanied by several days of highly visible and publicized street marches, protests, and confrontations with police. People's Summits, representing very significant mobilizations of civil society organizations from throughout the hemisphere, were also organized in conjunction with subsequent FTAA meetings in Quito (2002) and Miami (2003). In Miami, a very significant police presence kept public protests to a minimum.

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