Suchergebnisse

1. Contesting cosmopolitan Europe -- 2. The evolution of EU trade politics : agency, competency, and decision-making processes -- 3. Prescription for influence? : NGOs and the EU's TRIPS, and access to medicines negotiations -- 4. Too thirsty to keep fighting? : NGOs and the EU's quest for water services liberalization -- 5. Where to from here?

In a deeply iniquitous world, where the gains from trade are distributed unevenly and where trade rules often militate against progressive social values, human health, and sustainable development, NGOs are widely touted as our best hope for redressing these conditions. As a critical voice of the poor and marginalized, many are engaged in a global struggle for democratic norms and social justice. Yet the potential for NGOs to bring about meaningful change is limited. This book examines whether improvements in participatory opportunities for progressive NGOs results in substantive and normative policy change in one of the major trading powers, the European Union. Hannah advances a constructivist account of the role of NGOs in the EU's trade policymaking process. She argues that NGOs have been instrumental in providing education, raising awareness, and giving a voice to broader societal concerns about proposed trade deals, both when they take advantage of formal participatory opportunities and when they protest from the streets and in the media. However, the book also highlights how NGO inputs are mediated by the social structure of global trade governance.