Abstract

The civil society opposition to economic globalization, at times referred to as the ‘anti-globalization movement’, is often seen as unleashing new democratic energies. Some suggest that part of what we are witnessing is some form of deterritorialization of the democratic experience. What is often missing from this claim, however, is a more thorough evaluation of the images of democracy drawn by the movement itself. The first section of this paper will draw from various readings of the democratic experience in view of providing a conceptual framework capable of problematizing the equivalence between democracy and territoriality. On the basis of this understanding of democracy, a second section will offer a reading of the document Alternatives for the Americas prepared by the Hemispheric Social Alliance, a large coalition of civil society groups located throughout the Americas that has organized opposition to the Free Trade Area of the Americas. This document offers a unique opportunity to assess the anti-globalization movement's vision of democracy. The paper's reading of the document reveals a tension between territorial and non-territorial forms of envisioning democracy.