National Campaign against the FTAA: popular education, participation and foreign policy

Abstract

This article discusses how the National Campaign against the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), social movement formed by dozens of entities, uses popular education as a strategy to influence the formulation of Brazilian foreign policy. After debating the theme with the society using a wide variety of educational material, the Campaign organized a popular referendum in September 2002 and obtained more than 10 million votes. The result of this political action, according to the Campaign, would not have influenced only the Brazilian positioning in the negotiating process, but also provoked the strengthening of the Brazilian and Latin-American social movement. This work is the result of a doctoral thesis whose empirical research involved 72 interviewees. Keywords: Social movement. Popular education. Foreign policy. FTAA