NAFTA‐ization: Regionalization and Domestic Political Adjustment in the North American Economic Area

Abstract

Europeanization is an example of initial bargains between states leading to ongoing political adjustment within the states. In this article I apply the concept to NAFTA and look at two of its member states, finding that despite the low level of institutionalization, NAFTA has set in motion new forms of political organization and behaviour, and new demands for political action. This is especially marked in Mexico, and in certain sectors. It is also clearly visible in the changing patterns of cross-border bureaucratic communication. The main conclusions are that: (1) even in a lightly institutionalized regional trade agreement, the institutional, legal and civil society capacity of less-developed members is strengthened; (2) despite the absence of a formal process of policy or institutional development and the lack of legislative instruments, NAFTA has begun a hidden process of domestic adjustment in technical and specialized areas; and (3) like the EU, pressures to expand and strengthen NAFTA have emerged as a result of the initial agreement as well as extraneous factors. These conclusions may offer lessons to the study and practice of regional organizations elsewhere.

The West and the Global Power Shift

“…4 An important question for all IR theorists is whether current and future power shifts will push states to band together in regional groupings that themselves become poles. Empirically, we can demonstrate that regionalism is consolidating around macro-blocs (Buzan and Waever 2003 ;Haass 2008 ;Aspinwall 2009 ). But the world's most advanced regional blocthe EU-has fallen on hard times.…”

Research Methods in European Union Studies

“…This work has been extremely useful in mapping how the EU can reshape national structures and processes of governance. Moreover, it has helped show how EU studies work can be applied beyond the EU case (Aspinwall, 2009). However, new regionalist work on other regions shows how regions can be impactful at national level despite their lack of formal institutions, an insight which may strengthen the discursive turn in Europeanisation studies and the emphasis on the political usages of European integration for domestic purposes (see Jacquot and Woll, 2004).…”

Governance Transfer by Regional Organizations

“…Since the late 1990s, there has been a general shift in the literature towards studying the outcomes rather than the drivers of regionalism, increasingly comparing regional institutions across time and space (Acharya and Johnston 2007;Hancock 2009;Börzel and Risse 2012a;Cooley and Spruyt 2009;Haftel 2012). At the same time, students of regionalism have become interested in how the pooling and delegation of political authority by states to the regional level feeds back into their domestic structures (Aspinwall 2009;Bruszt and McDermott 2009;Cowles et al 2001;Pevehouse 2005;Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2005). With the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, the role of regional organizations in supporting democratic transition and stabilizing democratic consolidation has received particular attention (Pevehouse 2005;Pevehouse 2002;McMahon and Baker 2006;Donno 2010;Kelley 2012).…”