The Trade Agreement with the European Union: Defeat of the Anti-Neoliberal Movement in Ecuador?

Abstract

The present article analyzes the political influence of the anti-neoliberal social movement in Ecuador in the face of the negotiation process of the Multipart Trade Agreement (MTA) with the European Union (EU), between 2006 and 2016. The empirical investigation pursues the goal of understanding the shift in trade policy of the Ecuadorian government through the socioeconomic context on the domestic and global level. Different approaches to Critical International Political Economy (CIPE) were combined with the concept of political opportunity structure in order to trace the influence of the Ecuadorian anti-neoliberal movement in the face of the MTA with the EU. This process tracing is based on more than 20 qualitative interviews with relevant actors and a profound review of secondary sources. The article concludes that the political opportunity structure of the investigated movement deteriorated during the period of study. The alternative discourses to free trade lost influence within civil society and within the policy agenda of Rafael Correa’s government. In this context, the subscription of the MTA represents the inauguration of a new phase of open trade policy in Ecuador, and therefore a defeat of the country’s anti-neoliberal movement.