| Four
years after the launching of the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA), debate over its costs and benefits remains intense—as revealed
late in 1997 when President Clinton failed to get Congress to approve
his administration’s request for a “fast track” authority
to negotiate the broader proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas
(FTAA). This volume of original essays attempts to understand why
by looking closely at the effects that NAFTA has already had and sorting
out fact from fiction.
The first part of the book examines the impact that NAFTA has had
on the Mexican economy, seeking to distinguish those trends that
can be attributed to Mexico's participation in NAFTA from those
that are more related to domestic politics and long-term structural
weaknesses of the country’s economy. The second part, using
an interdisciplinary approach, studies the wider political and economic
ramifications of NAFTA, asking how much NAFTA has helped or hindered
the efforts to establish the FTAA. The essays together provide alternative
explanations for the anti-NAFTA mood that prevails among important
sectors and constituencies within the United States.
The contributors are Peter Andreas, Denise Dresser, Stephan Haggard,
Jonathan Heath, Sylvia Maxfield, Manuel Pastor, Adam Shapiro, and
Ngaire Woods. |
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