Abstract
Elements of the North American security community provide the earliest examples of states forging ‘dependable expectations of peaceful change’ in their relations with others. Two of the three members of this community, the US and Canada, have shared the world’s longest undefended border since the 1870s.1 In the same period, however, US-Mexican relations were characterised by repeated military interventions and the militarisation of the border region. These different experiences inhibited the institutionalisation of political relations in the region until the 1994 NAFTA agreement ushered in a new era of economic integration. Because of these antecedent trends however, the North American security community cannot be attributed to the formalisation of trade arrangements through NAFTA, though the political processes associated with reaching and implementing the free trade agreement have contributed to the maturation of the security community.
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Notes
See James F. Rochlin, Redefining Mexican ‘Security’: State, Society and Region under NAFTA (London: Lynne Rienner, 1997), p. 7, see especially note 27.
Christian Deblock and Michele Rioux, ‘NAFTA: The Trump Card of the United States?’, Studies in Political Economy, 41 (2), 1993, p. 7.
William T. R. Fox, A Continent Apart: The United States and Canada in World Politics (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985), p. 15.
Sidney Weintraub, ‘US-Mexico Free Trade: Implications for the United States’, Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, 34 (2), 1992, p. 29.
Tom Farer, ‘Collectively Defending Democracy in the Western Hemisphere: Introduction and Overview’ in Tom Farer (ed.), Beyond Sovereignty: Collectively Defending Democracy in the Americas (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), p. 2.
Peter H. Smith, Talons of the Eagle: Dynamics of US-Latin American Relations, 2nd edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 257.
Stephen Randall, ‘Managing Trilateralism: The United States, Mexico and Canada in the Post-NAFTA Era’, in Stephen Randall and Herman W. Konrad (eds), NAFTA in Transition (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 1995), p. 38.
Ann E. Kingsolver, NAFTA Stories: Fears and Hopes in Mexico and the United States (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2001), p. 204
Jill Norgren and Serena Nanda, ‘Cultural Identity in the United States: Will NAFTA Change America?’, in Dorinda G. Dallmeyer (ed.), Joining Together, Standing Apart: National Identities after NAFTA (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 1997), pp. 92–3.
Timothy J. Dunn, The Militarization of the US-Mexico Border: Low-Intensity Conflict Doctrine Comes Home (Austin, Texas: CMAS Books, 1996), p. 164.
Cited by Denise Dresser, ‘Post-NAFTA Politics in Mexico’, in Carol Wise (ed.), The Post-NAFTA Political Economy: Mexico and the Western Hemisphere (University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000), p. 245.
See the opening chapter of Alex J. Bellamy, Paul Williams and Stuart Griffin, Understanding Peacekeeping (Cambridge: Polity, 2004).
See Strom C. Thacker, ‘NAFTA Coalitions and the Political Viability of Neoliberalism in Mexico’, Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, 41 (2), 1999.
Peter H. Smith, ‘The Political Impact of Free Trade on Mexico’, Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, 34 (1), 1992.
Guy Poitras and Raymond Robinson, ‘The Politics of NAFTA in Mexico’, Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, 36 (1), 1994, p. 9.
For a more detailed discussion of border issues see Kathleen Staudt, Free Trade? Informal Economies at the US-Mexico Border (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998).
Jaime Ros, ‘Free Trade Area or Common Capital Market? Notes on Mexico-US Economic Integration and Current NAFTA Negotiations’, Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, 34 (2), 1992, p. 62.
See Jorge Chabat, ‘Mexico’s Foreign Policy in 1990: Electoral Sovereignty and Integration with the United States’, Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, 33 (4), 1991, p. 15.
Though the NAFTA did have an impact on domestic politics in the US. See Sidney Weintraub, ‘US-Mexico Free Trade: Implications for the US’, Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, 34 (2), 1992.
See J. L. Granatstein and Norman Hillmer, For Better or for Worse: Canada and the United States to the 1990s (Toronto: Copp Clark Pitman, 1991), Charles F. Doran, Forgotten Partnership: US-Canada Relations Today (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984) and Edelgard Mahant and Graeme S. Mount, Invisible and Inaudible in Washington: American Policies Toward Canada (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1999).
See Chapter 7 of Robert Bothwell, Canada and the United States: The Politics of Partnership (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1992).
See Heraldo Munoz and Joseph Tulchin (eds), Latin American Nations in World Politics (Boulder: Westview Press, 1984).
Robert H. Holden, ‘Securing Central America Against Communism: The United States and the Modernization of Surveillance in the Cold War’, Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, 41 (1) 1999, p. 3.
For an introduction to realist accounts of security politics in Latin America see Michael C. Desch, ‘Latin America and US National Security’, Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, 31 (4), 1989.
Howard J. Wiarda, ‘Consensus Found, Consensus Lost: Disjunctures in US Policy Toward Latin America at the Turn of the Century’, Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, 39 (1), 1997, pp. 13–15.
Don D. Marshall, Caribbean Political Economy at the Crossroads: NAFTA and Regional Developmentalism (London: Macmillan, 1998), p. 156.
See Robert A Pastor, ‘The Bush Administration and Latin America: The Pragmatic Style and the Regionalist Option’, Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, 33 (3), 1991, pp. 15–18.
For a detailed account of the Panama intervention see Thomas M. Leonard, Panama, the Canal and the United States: A Guide to Issues and References (Claremont: Regina Books, 1993).
David Robertson, ‘NAFTA, the EC Single Market and the World Trading System’, in Robert G. Cushing et al (eds), The Challenge of NAFTA: North America, Australia, New Zealand and the World Trade Regime (New York: Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, 1993), p. 63.
Sidney Weintraub, NAFTA: What Comes Next? (Westport: Praeger, 1994), p. 64.
Leonard Waverman, ‘Post-NAFTA: Can the United States, Canada and Mexico Deepen their Economic Relationship?’, in Jean Daudelin and Edgar J. Dosman (eds), Beyond Mexico: Changing Americas (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1995), p. 72.
James F. Rochlin, Redefining Mexican ‘Security’: Society, State and Region Under NAFTA (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2000).
Gary Clyde Hufbauer et al, NAFTA and the Environment: Seven Years Later (Washington DC: Institute for International Economics, 2000), p. 5.
Michael E. Conroy and Amy K. Glasmeier, ‘Unprecedented Disparities, Unparalleled Adjustment Needs: Winners and Losers on the NAFTA “Fast Track”’, Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, 34 (4), 1992–3, pp. 15–18.
Michael Dreiling, Solidarity and Contention: The Politics of Security and Sustainability in the NAFTA Conflict (New York: Garland Publishing, 2001), p. 12.
A type of group not discussed here were feminist groups which developed in opposition to the NAFTA. See Christina Gabriel and Laura Macdonald, ‘NAFTA, Women and Organising in Canada and Mexico: Forging a “Feminist Internationality’”, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 23 (3) 1998.
John Herd Thompson and Stephen J. Randall, Canada and the United States: Ambivalent Allies (Atlanta: University of Georgia Press, 1994), p. 194.
Sidney Weintraub, ‘The New US Economic Initiative Towards Latin America’, Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, 33 (1) 1991, p. 2.
Sidney Weintraub, ‘US-Latin American Economic Relations’, Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, 39 (1) 1997, p. 60.
Gladstone A. Hutchinson and Ute Schumacher, ‘NAFTA’s Threat to Central American and Caribbean Basin Exports: A Revealed Comparative Advantage Approach’, Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, 36 (1) 1994, p. 128 and Andres Serbin, ‘Towards an Association of Caribbean States: Raising Some Awkward Questions’, Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, 36 (4) 1994, p. 62.
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© 2004 Alex J. Bellamy
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Bellamy, A.J. (2004). Asymmetry, Security and Trade: The North American Security Community. In: Security Communities and their Neighbours. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230005600_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230005600_8
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