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The paper argues that a multilevel field of contentious collective action has emerged around trade agreement negotiations in the Americas. Building on empirical evidence from field research in Brazil, Chile, Mexico and the United States, it focuses on the challenges of coordinating such a field. More especifically, it presents the cases of cross-sectoral coalitions created in Mexico and in Chile to act as brokers in trade-related mobilizations. Coordination problems are put in the context of power relations among civil society organizations, of broader dilemmas of connecting the local and the global, and in the context of the negotiation of a new generation of trade agreements. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates the limits of civil society organizations as electoral accountability advocates in democratizing societies. It discusses the Alianza Cfvica as a nonpartisan civic network that established to carry out a citizen monitoring effort on the presidential elections in Mexico in 1994. It explores the evolution of the programs of Alianza Cfvica to include other activities to improve the quantity and quality of the input of question by citizens on governance.

The article considers the role of civil society in the future of governance in North America. Opposition to the North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA) in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico brings to fore the need to recognize civil society. Currently, civil society actors from these three countries demand for the inclusion of equity, sustainable development, and democracy in any schemes that seek to deepen governance in North America. Civil society can be valuable contributors to governance-building in North America.

A flood of scholarship has demonstrated the importance of civil society to democratic transitions, democratic consolidation, and making democracy work. However, if civil society is important for democracy, what are the implications for countries where the state has historically controlled societal forms of organization? This research attempts to understand how civil society grows and develops in Mexico, a country with a traditionally weak third sector, which has grown exponentially since the decline of one-party rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the tendency for government agencies to open political opportunity structure and to support civil society activity in Mexico's border communities. History of the relationship between the state and the society in Mexico; Reason of government agencies for opening the political arena to civil society participation; Role of water and sewer service provision in the relationship between the state and the society.