Patryk Galuszka

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) aimed to establish new international standards to help enforce intellectual property rights. Despite the secret nature of negotiations on ACTA, the treaty received significant public opinion attention in 2012 when protests against its signing took place in several European countries. Anti-ACTA protests led to a halt in the ratification process, which can be interpreted as a manifestation of a new type of public opinion engagement in the process of shaping intellectual property laws. However, little is known about the dynamics of the anti-ACTA protests and the mechanisms behind them. This project aims to address this gap by employing a political economy perspective during the analysis of the process of negotiating and rejecting ACTA. In particular, the project analyses how several groups which were excluded from the negotiation process (e.g. civil society groups) have managed to mobilise public opinion to engage it in massive protests against the treaty.