Peruvian civil society’s meta-participation in relation to the free trade agreement between Peru and the European Union

This paper proposes the concept of “meta-participation” as a critical tool for assessment of multistakeholder mechanisms, looking at how their members wish, and work, to change the ways in which participation is organized. It uses the example of Peruvian civil society organizations that are dissatisfied with restrictive participation arrangements in the framework of European Union-Peru trade deal and have been trying to expand their participation opportunities through “meta-participatory” actions. “Meta-participation” has been underdiscussed in the academic literature and hardly applied in political science contexts. This paper lays out a roadmap for approaching research on meta-participation, or participation that has participation itself as its primary objective (Soler Masó, Novella Cámara, and Planas Lladó 2015). In particular, we highlight three dimensions that stakeholders may be interested in changing: topics open to being discussed in participatory mechanisms, participants of the discussions, and procedures for participation and decision-making. Ultimately, analysis of meta-participation serves to refocus from analysis of how participation structures are designed, towards the agents’ perception of, and action vis-à-vis, these structures. Instead of offering a general assessment, it highlights the ideas and priorities of stakeholders participating in specific arrangements. The empirical case discussed in this paper is well-suited for analysing diverse forms of meta-participation by civil society as well as reactions thereto by the Peruvian government and the European Union. The EU free trade agreement with Colombia, Peru and Ecuador is different from other similar agreements in that it allows the parties to use existing consultative mechanisms, which moreover do not have to be independent of the government, instead of creating new and independent ones. Existing mechanisms is what Peru opted for, initially deciding that the TSD chapter will be discussed in the framework of four consultative bodies working on labour issues, and nearly 10 bodies working on environmental issues. However, meaningful participation on trade and sustainability issues did not happen in these formats, and moreover Peruvian government continued violating labour rights and environmental norms which inspired further action. As a result, Peruvian civil society carried out several activities which fall under the concept of meta-participation. The empirical part of this paper is based on semi-structured interviews and review of primary documents and secondary literature, giving practical examples of meta-participatory activity and showing how diverse actors have been approaching the goal of improving the existing participation system.