Farmers are among the most vigorous protestors against the European Union. However, contrary to some other groups, the farmers fail to cooperate. Transnational movements are quite rare, and quasi inexistent. It is for this reason that it is interesting to focus on this group in order to understand the limit of the transnational's in social movements and the factors which prevent cooperation between national movements across domestic boundaries. Two axes will be analyzed: firstly the material incapacity for the farmers to cooperate and secondly the lack of common interests which is the base for each transnational movement. Traditionally, political action in the industrial countries presupposed a specific concept of space and territory. The state used its power for the legitimate use of force in a limited area, to fix its borders. That is why, in a first time, former social movements took for granted the assumption that the national state defined the relevant political space for political contenders.
[...] However, it is clearly not the case for the farmers and one may think: why farmers too often choose national governments as the targets of their protests despite the fact that the EU is, to a large extent, responsible for the state of the farming industry in the European Community? The two arguments are that the national level is a strategic point and that farmers prefer this level because of the characteristics of the occupational group compared to non-occupational group. [...]
[...] But his activities were successful; it played a key role in forcing the European Union to declare a moratorium on the commercial planting of genetically modified crops against the USA. More recently, other movements took place, for instance, the taxation of the Roquefort in January 2009 and the foie gras in Mai 2009, these measures being more political. This led to strong protests among the farmers, targeting directly the U.S., but centralized in France. Nevertheless, cooperation between the farmers against a common enemy like the U.S. [...]
[...] As the coordination of collective action depends on the trust between the contenders, it explains why cooperation is very limited in the European Union. It is because of the mutual distrust among the contenders. Farmers work for themselves in a sector which is in difficulty, and for this reason, cooperation could be seen as a disadvantage because of the conciliation and not the battle for the markets. The farmers are an interesting group to analyze for many reasons: the heterogeneity of this group, the mistrust which exists among them because of the extreme diversity of their conditions of working, the strategies developed towards the states and the clear lack of resources. [...]
[...] The media, in their coverage, treated the farmers' protests as a manifestation of COPA's efforts to target the European Union, rather than framing the campaign as another example of transnational social movement mobilization. The transnational dimension of the protest also failed to attract particular attention. In fact, the media concentrated on the violence of the farmers[27] in this protest, as it is also the case in the other farmers' protests. This group is often depicted as a violent group, not well-organized. [...]
[...] International Organization Pp 427-460 In this Euro-strike in 1997, Spanish, French and Belgian Renault workers protests against the closing of the Renault factory of Vilvorde in Belgium. Doug Imig and Sidney Tarrow. Mapping the Europeanization of Contention. In Contentious Europeans. P Tarrow Power in movement. P J Stoetzel. Voting Behavior in France. British Journal of Sociology J. Smith. In The Blackwell companion to social movements. P Risse Green Cowles Caporaso J and Risse-Kappen T. 2001.Transforming Europe. London. Pp 11-12 Smith Chatfield C and Pagnucco R Transnational Social Movements and Global Politics: solidarity beyond the State. [...]
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