Synopses & Reviews
"The book by Hussain and Dominguez provides a thorough, comprehensive, and insightful assessment of the extent to which the three North American countries engage in trilateral activities and/or continue to rely on bilateral or unilateral interaction methods. Evidence on how NAFTA's actual provisions hold up in practice is based on a number of case studies drawn from trade, environment and institutional/administrative arrangements. The book offers valuable lessons for regional integration and multilateral undertakings elsewhere in the world. This wide-ranging and penetrating analysis of inter-state relations within NAFTA deserves a wide readership among practitioners and scholars alike." - Emil J. Kirchner, Jean Monnet Chair, University of Essex, UK
"This book is a timely assessment of the achievements of NAFTA after 20 years. The theoretical approach is enlightening and the analysis constitutes a realistic realty-check with focus on NAFTA's limitations and various turns to bilateralism. A must read for scholars of regional integration and citizens interested in changes in the global political economy." - Finn Laursen, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
Was the NAFTA experiment a means to other goals for Canada, Mexico, and the United States, or an end in itself? This twenty-year study of trade and investment, dispute settlement and intellectual property rights, and the environment and labor finds all three North American countries are pursuing alternate initiatives independently, many of their thrusts streamlining with globalizing forces, and just as many strengthening Westphalian statism. Those findings caution against overly optimistic and deepening integrative arguments, invite exogenous dynamics like security considerations to mix and mingle with endogenous (or NAFTA-based) counterparts, and stop safely short of die-hard integrative opponents while opening pathways for both theoretical and empirical reassessments.
Synopsis
Was the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) designed as a definitive trade agreement, or as a stepping stone? This book reviews NAFTA's performances on trade, investment, intellectual property rights, dispute-settlement, as well as environmental and labor side-agreements within a theoretical construct.
Synopsis
With Canada, Mexico, and the United States independently searching trade-agreements outside North America, this volume examines the puzzle if the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement was a means to other ends or an end in itself. A study of 20-years of NAFTA performances on trade, investment, intellectual property rights, dispute-settlement, as well as environmental and labor side-agreements confirms the means component of the equation. Couching this empirical dissonance within the integration-interdependence theoretical debate, permits us to propose the next research agenda: whether other regional economic arrangements also face the same NAFTA fate.
Synopsis
Was the NAFTA experiment a means to other goals for Canada, Mexico, and the United States, or an end in itself? This twenty-year study of trade and investment, dispute settlement and intellectual property rights, and the environment and labor finds all three North American countries are pursuing alternate initiatives independently, many of their thrusts streamlining with globalizing forces, and just as many strengthening Westphalian statism. Those findings caution against overly optimistic and deepening integrative arguments, invite exogenous dynamics like security considerations to mix and mingle with endogenous (or NAFTA-based) counterparts, and stop safely short of die-hard integrative opponents while opening pathways for both theoretical and empirical reassessments.
About the Author
As Professor Emeritus of International Relations at Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City, Mexico, Imtiaz Hussain has published on North American dynamics, democratization, West European integration, and globalization; received several transnational research fellowships; and won numerous teaching awards in both the United States and Mexico. He is from Bangladesh.
Roberto Domínguez is Associate Professor in the Department of Government at Suffolk University, Boston, USA. He was Jean Monnet Post-Doctoral Researcher at the European University Institute, Florence. His recent publications include Security Governance and Regional Organizations (2011) and European Union Foreign Policy (2008).
Table of Contents
1. North American Economic Integration: State versus Supranational Preferences?2. North American Trade: Growth with Strings?3. NAFTA and Foreign Direct Investment: Multilateralism Matters4. NAFTA's "Lynchpin": Dispute Settlement Mechanisms5. NAFTA and Intellectual Property Rights: Regionally Strapped?6. Environmental Side-Agreement: Societal Sideshow?7. NAFTA's Side-Agreement on Labor: Sidelined Forever?8. NAFTA's Inter-Governmental Underbelly: Westphalian Whispers?