Power, Identity, and Special Relationships: The US-Canada and US-Mexico Relationships in Historical and Comparative Perspective
How does the United States relate to the West? We tend, in the IR literature, to think about it in terms of the “ordering” of the West: Is it a civilization, an empire, a strategic bargain, a security community, or something else? Will the West hold together or break apart, and — putting the same question in a different form — can the United States continue to exercise leadership of the West? Much of our thinking about these questions is based on the assumptions that there is a coherent, singular West, and that the US relates to that western community in a coherent, singular way. But as Peter Katzenstein has argued, the West is both plural and pluralist, and the United States “fits” into the West in a variety of different ways, revealing many different sides of itself in the process. We begin here with the expectation that closer, comparative examination of the way that the US relates to specific partners can help us to untangle some of these complexities and contradictions.
Trade politics in the Third World: a case study of Mexican GATT decision
In 1980 Mexico decided not to join the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Certain objective conditions formed a positive environment for Mexican adherence, but President L6pez Portillo postponed Mexican entry indefinitely. This critical decision is examined from two perspectives: a left-leaning foreign policy, and domestic constraints in the Mexican political system. Major foreign policy factors were a growing resentment of U.S. dominance combined with a preference for conducting relations with the U.S. on a bilateral basis. Internal political pressures reflected the continued reform of the Mexican political system at the upper levels and the relative autonomy of some elite groups from the state. L6pez Portillo's decision did not constitute an outright rejection of trade liberalization. However, the decision could have international repercussions in ‘politicizing’ U.S.-Mexican trade relations, in slowing trends toward freer trade (especially in Latin America), and in strengthening multilateral organizations like UNCTAD in which Third World countries exercise considerable power.
Protest Movement in an Authoritarian Regime: The Mexican Case
As the literature of the past decade has demonstrated, protest movements provide a wealth of material for speculation from many theoretical viewpoints. This article will focus on the interaction between some of these movements and the government of Mexico, in an attempt to carry forward an inquiry demanded by Kalman Silvert. He expressed the problem in these terms: "Surely no reasonably strict categorization could include Mexico within the ranks of the formal democracies; and conversely, certainly we contribute nothing to clarity by dismissing that country as simply another authoritarianism. ... Plainly we are not meeting the facts with adequate theory and reasonably fine terminology."1 Our thesis is that, in comparison with events in other political systems already described as authoritarian, we shall find quantitative and qualitative differences in the Mexican system that will help provide the more refined taxonomic tool demanded by Silvert. Such a tool may in turn enable us to hazard some predictions about the kinds of change that might take place in different varieties of authoritarian systems.