A History of the FTAA : From Hegemony to Fragmentation in the Americas

Providing a critical account of the collapse of the FTAA negotiations and alterations to power relations in the Americas, this book argues that the collapse was rooted in a "crisis of authority" prompted by growing opposition in the Americas to US leadership and the neo-liberal reforms that had been promoted by Washington since the 1980s.

The book explores how the collapse of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) negotiations in 2005 was rooted in a ""crisis of authority"" with respect to the leadership of the United States in the Americas. This ""crisis of authority"" was prompted by growing opposition in the Americas to the neo-liberal reforms that had been promoted by Washington since the 1980s. Marcel Nelson demonstrates how the FTAA became the focal point of this opposition from a growing chorus of leftist heads of state in Latin America to the detriment of the negotiations. A neo-Gramscian theoretical framework will be used to frame the manner in which the ""crisis of authority"" came to the fore in the states of the Americas and in the institutional structure established to negotiate the FTAA.