Centre for International Education Research

This paper employs new regionalism theory and regulatory regionalism theory in its analysis and theorisation of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) as a counter-hegemonic Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) regionalism. As (initially) the regionalisation of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution, ALBA is centred around the idea of a twenty-first century socialism that replaces the ‘competitive advantage’ with the ‘cooperative advantage’. ALBA, as a set of multi-dimensional inter- and trans-national processes, operates within and across a range of sectors and scales whilst the structural transformations are driven by the interplay of state and non-state actors. The Venezuelan government’s Higher Education For All (HEFA) policy, which is being regionalised within an emergent ALBA education space, assumes a key role in the direct democratic and participatory democratic processes upon which a bottom-up construction of counter-hegemony depends. HEFA challenges the globalised neoliberal higher education agenda of commoditisation, privatisation and elitism. Rather than producing enterprising subjects fashioned for global capitalism, HEFA seeks to form subjectivities along the moral values of solidarity and cooperation.

Centred around Antonio Gramsci’s concept of hegemony, this paper employs a critical globalization theory framework to argue that the 1990s notion of ‘changing the world from below’, understood as resistance to capitalist globalization through a ‘transnational civil society’, requires re-theorization in the light of the contemporary developments in Our America. I make a methodological case for a neo-Gramscian approach to argue that ‘counter-hegemony’, together with an adequate theorization of the state and power, should be the preferred concept over the inherently apolitical and under-theorized ‘alter-globalization’. Whilst the alter-globalization movement’s ideational and normative challenges to hegemony (captured in ex-British prime minister Thatcher’s There-Is-No-Alternative-Doctrine, TINA) are undisputed, the transformation of the global geographies of power through local actors alone has remained illusory. Rather, the experience of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America—Peoples’ Trade Agreement (ALBA-PTA) strongly suggests that counter-hegemonic globalization theory will have to consider the roles of both the ‘state-in-revolution’ and the ‘transnational organized society’. This will be shown through the analysis and theorization of the ALBA-PTA as a multi dimensional inter and transnational counter-hegemonic regionalization and globalization project that operates across a range of sectors and scales.

With Nicaragua's Sandinista People's Revolution (1979–90) as an ideological reference point, this paper adopts an historical approach to a theorisation of the contemporary (re)construction of popular power in Latin America and the Caribbean through the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America–Peoples' Trade Agreement (ALBA-TCP). At the core of the analysis is the Venezuelan government's concept of ‘protagonistic revolutionary democracy’ which, by drawing on Marxist direct democracy and CB Macpherson's participatory democracy, can be understood as the definitional foundation of the envisioned ‘21st century socialism’. Mechanisms for the exercise of direct democracy and of participatory democracy promotion are identified at the national and regional scales, through which the ALBA-TCP emerges as a counter-hegemonic governance regime composed of two dialectically interrelated forces: the ‘state-in-revolution’ and the ‘organised society’. They drive the regionalisation of ‘revolutionary democracy’, thus (re)constructing popular power in the production of the ALBA-TCP space.

Within a critical globalization theory framework, this article analyses the military dimension of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America–Peoples’ Trade Agreement (ALBA-TCP) and its agenda of ‘peacekeeping’ and ‘humanitarian intervention’ in Haiti. Since its launch in 2004, the ALBA-TCP has established itself as an increasingly institutionalized, multidimensional, and pluriscalar counter-hegemonic Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) regionalism and globalization project. Integral to the pursued transformation of world order is the launching of a counter-hegemonic military agenda. Grounded in the Bolivarian philosophy of regional union, the article explores the ALBA-TCP collective defence policies, institutionalized in the Permanent Committee of Sovereignty and Defence, and the ALBA-TCP-Haiti cooperation before and after the earthquake of January 2010. By interrogating the nature of the military alliance and its humanitarian agenda, I propose that the ALBA-TCP’s revolutionary approach to internationalism, peacekeeping, and intervention may be understood as employing an ‘enlarged conception’ of humanitarianism that means neither militarized humanitarianism nor humanitarian assistance as isolated, short-term technical disaster relief, but as long-term emancipatory structural transformation. Military alliance, however, is necessary to defend the project against imperialist aggression.

This article shows that counter to the common representation of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America–Peoples' Trade Agreement (ALBA–TCP) as simply a bloc of nation-states, the initiative in fact constitutes a counter-hegemonic globalization project that operates through inter- and transnational processes across a range of (spatial) scales, from the local to the global. I draw on John Agnew's notion of the ‘territorial trap’ and theories of regionalism and globalization to analyse the transnational and pluri-scalar construction of the ALBA–TCP in Nicaragua (2004–2007) and El Salvador (2004–2010), to argue that the mobilization and empowerment gains associated with these processes are an important element in the construction of what is referred to as the ‘organized society’. As a politics of place, space and scale, the ALBA–TCP governance regime is sketched out, in which an emergent transnationally organized society integrates via the ALBA–TCP Council of Social Movements in the quest for progressive regional and global transformation.

The article employs an historical approach to cooperation and integration in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) in order to argue that, to date, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America - Peoples’ Trade Agreement (ALBA-TCP) is the only integration project under construction in Our America that not only actively integrates the entire LAC, but also is the most comprehensive, sophisticated and dynamic regionalism in the area. I draw on Frederik Söderbaum and Luk van Langenhove’s notion of ‘generations’ of regionalisms, identifying the import substitution influenced initiatives, the neoliberal ‘open regionalisms’, and the post-neoliberal and counter-imperialist projects launched over the past decade, especially the ALBA-TCP. By explicitly associating generations of regionalisms with particular political economic models, I emphasise politics and ideologies in the analysis, which are absent in Söderbaum and van Langenhove’s classification. The politics, institutionalisation and organisational structure of the ALBA-TCP as a third generation regionalism and counter-globalisation project are discussed.

This book theorises Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution as a counter- hegemonic globalisation project in which the construction of "21st century socialism" occurs simultaneously at the local, national, regional and global levels and scales through the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America - Peoples' Trade Agreement (ALBA- TCP). In these processes, the Venezuelan government's higher education for all strategy assumes a central role in the direct democratic and participatory democratic processes upon which the pluri-scalar construction of counter-hegemony depends. Within a critical theory approach, this fully revised and updated PhD thesis is grounded in a total of 16 months of ethnographic research conducted between 2005 and 2010 in Venezuela, Nicaragua and El Salvador, eight months of which in a municipalised Bolivarian University in Venezuela. The significance and originality of this interdisciplinary study of the construction of "21st century socialism" is revealed through the elaboration of structural features, political alignments and empirical findings, to explain the dynamics and geographies of the multi-dimensional development project.

Based on the argument that ALBA is a rival structure that has evolved, above all, from the social contradictions in globalization, this chapter analyses the historical emergence of ALBA in Nicaragua. After the electoral defeat of the revolutionary FSLN government in 1990, sixteen years of neo-liberalism culminated in an 'environment of ungovernability'. This provided the context for the construction of ALBA in Nicaragua from 2005 on, with subnational state and non-state actors strategically bypassing the neoliberal government of the day. The challenge ALBA poses to global capitalism builds on the regionalization of Venezuela's endogenous development, guided by the principles of solidarity, cooperation, and complementarity. In contrast to other contemporary regionalisms, the social dimension assumes a leading role in ALBA. The Nicaraguan case exemplifies ALBA's counter-hegemonic transnational operational mode, as well as its construction from the bottom up in the fields of education, health care, and energy supply. I conclude with an overview of ALBA during the first 18 months of the re-elected FSLN government led by President Ortega.

Este artigo investiga aspectos do processo Revolução Participativa da Educação na Nicarágua, centrando-se na sua relação com o modelo de desenvolvimento nacional de Poder Cidadão e com a construção do socialismo do século XXI na América Latina e Caribe através da Aliança Bolivariana para os Povos da Nossa América – Acordo de Comércio dos Povos (ALBA-TCP). Com base na noção de “democracia revolucionária”, a qual define os fundamentos da visão de socialismo do século XXI, desenvolve-se o argumento de que o Poder Cidadão, tal como promovido pela Frente Sandinista de Libertação Nacional (FSLN) desde o seu regresso ao governo em Janeiro de 2007, significa uma transformação estrutural do neoliberalismo para o socialismo do século XXI. Em lugar de uma análise exaustiva das políticas educativas da FSLN, dá-se particular atenção à desprivatização da educação e à sua restauração como um direito humano e uma responsabilidade do Estado. Examinam-se dois elementos da Revolução Participativa da Educação que têm uma relevância direta para a construção da democracia socialista/revolucionária: a Campanha Nacional de Alfabetização De Martí a Fidel e a Grande Consulta Nacional sobre a Reforma Curricular do Ensino Básico e Médio de 2007/2008.

Partindo de um quadro teórico neo-gramsciano crítico à globalização, este artigo aplica a nova teoria do regionalismo (NTR) e a teoria do regionalismo regulatório (TRR) à sua análise e teorização dos tratados de comércio da Aliança Bolivariana para os Povos da Nossa América (ALBA-TCP) como regionalismo contra-hegemônico na América Latina e Caribe (ALC). A ALBA está centrada na ideia de um Socialismo do Século XXI, que, como (inicialmente) também a Revolução Bolivariana da Venezuela, substitui a ‘vantagem competitiva’ pela ‘vantagem cooperativa’. Em seu caráter de conjunto de processos multidimensionais e transnacionais a ALBA-TCP opera dentro de/transversalmente a um número de setores e escalas, ao mesmo passo que as transformações estruturais são movidas pela interação de agentes do Estado e agentes não estatais. A política de Educação Superior para Todos (ESPT) do governo venezuelano rejeita a agenda neoliberal globalizada de mercadorização, privatização e elitismo e reinvindica educação pública gratuita em todos os níveis como um direito humano fundamental. A ESPT está sendo regionalizado em um espaço educacional emergente da ALBA e assume um papel-chave nos processos de democracia direta e participatória, dos quais a construção popular (bottom-up) da contra-hegemonia e a redefinição política e econômica da ALC dependem. Antes de produzir sujeitos empreendedores conformes ao capitalismo global, a ESPT procura formar subjetividades ao longo de valores morais de solidariedade e cooperação. Isso será ilustrado com referência a um estudo etnográfico de caso da Universidade Bolivariana da Venezuela (UBV).

Sponsored via a highly competitive ESRC ‘1+3’ PhD Studentship (2003-2007, PTA-030-2003-00417), this transdisciplinary PhD thesis is the first socio-spatial theorisation of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution and the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) as a South-South counter-hegemonic globalisation project. Grounded in 13 months of ethnographic fieldwork, it analyses the role of the Venezuelan government’s 'higher education for all' strategy in the construction of ‘direct democracy’ and ‘participatory democracy’, identified as definitional of the envisioned ‘new’ socialism. The significance and originality of this pluri-scalar study is revealed through an analysis of processes, structural forces and political alliances among state and non-state actors involved in this multi-dimensional transformation of development geographies in Latin America-Caribbean. Key theoretically grounded concepts developed in the discussion include the ‘state-in-revolution’, the ‘transnational organised society’, and ‘pluri-scalar war of position’. This constructivist approach overcomes the state/society dichotomy that ontologically underlies much of the post-structuralist, especially the post-development literature.

Download of the original thesis (University of Bristol Library scan) at:
http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?did=1&uin=uk.bl.ethos.499925

Framed by critical globalisation theory and David Harvey’s ‘co-revolutionary moments’ as a theory of social change, this book brings together a multi-disciplinary team of researchers to empirically analyse how socialism is being constructed in contemporary Latin America and the Caribbean, and beyond.

This book uses the case of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America - Peoples’ Trade Agreement (ALBA-TCP) to invite to a re-thinking of resistance to global capitalism and the construction of socialism in the 21st century. Including detailed theory-based ethnographic case studies from Bolivia, Cuba, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Venezuela and the USA, the contributors identify social and structural forces at different levels and scales to illuminate politics and practices at work. Centred around the themes of democracy and justice, and the more general reconfiguration of the state-society relations and power geometries at the local, national, regional and global scales, ALBA and Counter-Globalization is at the forefront in the trend of interdisciplinary approaches to the study of social phenomena of global relevance.

Read WILLIAM K. CARROLL's review in the Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies/Revue canadienne des études latino-américaines et caraïbes, at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08263663.2014.985128
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274780631_Counter-globalization_and_socialism_in_the_21st_century_a_review

Read LAURENCE GOODCHILD's review in the International Journal of Cuban Studies, at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.13169/intejcubastud.6.2.0228