Civil Society in Mexico and Regionalisation A Framework for Analysis on Transborder Civic Activism

Abstract: The paper theoretically analyses the emergence of oppositional TCA responses towards the disruptive socio-economic effects of regionalisation processes. In particular the paper discusses how neo-Gramscian and Polanyian IPE traditions look at the transborder agency of civil society actors in the making and re-making of regional orders. It notices that these traditions either emphasise that: a) agency is conditioned by powerful structures; or b) that agency is making up these structures. While not rejecting this altogether but attempting to go further, this paper advances a critique of both ‘emphases’ on agency and some alternatives.