Making Neoliberalism Possible: The State's Organization of Business Support for NAFTA in Mexico

“Mexico Bows to Protectionists in Its Decision Not to Join GATT,” Financial Times of London, March 31, 1980; and Saúl Escobar Toledo , “Rifts in the Mexican Power Elite, 1976—1986,” in Government and Private Sector in Contemporary Mexico, ed. S. Maxfield and R. Anzaldúa Montoya (San Diego, CA: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, 1987), 65-88.

“Mexico Rejects Reagan's Plan for a North American Common Market,” The Wall Street Journal, May 27, 1980; and Sidney Weintraub , Free Trade between Mexico and the United States? (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1984), 183.

Formal trilateral negotiations on the agreement began in mid-1991 and concluded in mid-1992; additional negotiations on labor and environmental “side-agreements” followed in 1993; and the agreement came into effect on January 1, 1994.

NAFTA has also served as a model for subsequent agreements signed by each of its three members with other countries, as well as the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas—see Mark Barenberg and Peter Evans , “The FTAA's Impact on Democratic Governance,” in Integrating the Americas: FTAA and Beyond, ed. A. Estevadeordal , D. Rodrik, A. M. Taylor, and A. Velasco (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press , 2004), 755-89; and Kenneth Shadlen , “Exchanging Development for Market Access? Deep Integration and Industrial Policy under Multilateral and Regional-bilateral Trade Agreements,” Review of International Political Economy 12, no. 5 (2005): 750-75. Mexico has been the most prolific of the three countries in signing subsequent FTAs, having negotiated agreements with Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Colombia, Venezuela, the European Free Trade Association, European Union, Israel, Japan, Nicaragua, El Salvador , Guatemala, Honduras, and Uruguay.

See Geoffrey Garrett , “The Causes of Globalization,” Comparative Political Studies 33, no. 6/7 (2000): 941-91; James Gwartney , Robert Lawson , and Erik Gartzke , Economic Freedom of the World: 2005 Annual Report (Vancouver: Fraser Institute, 2005); KOF Index of Globalization 2007 (available at http://www.globalization.kof.ch/ ); and Beth A. Simmons and Zachary Elkins , “The Globalization of Liberalization: Policy Diffusion in the International Political Economy ,” American Political Science Review 98, no. 1 (2004): 171-89.

For the most comprehensive analysis of the NAFTA negotiations, see Maxwell A. Cameron and Brian W. Tomlin , The Making of NAFTA: How the Deal Was Done (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000). Maryse Robert , Negotiating NAFTA: Explaining the Outcome in Culture, Textiles, Autos, and Pharmaceuticals (Toronto : University of Toronto Press, 2000 ) covers some specific industries and topics. Strom C. Thacker , Big Business, the State, and Free Trade: Constructing Coalitions in Mexico ( New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000) has the most comprehensive account of the process in Mexico, and Frederick W. Mayer , Interpreting NAFTA: The Science and Art of Political Analysis (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), of the process in the United States. Hermann Von Bertrab, Negotiating NAFTA: A Mexican Envoy's Account (Westport, CT: Praeger and CSIS, 1997) provides a more informal and personal insider's account. A good summary of the agreement's content is Gary Clyde Hufbauer and Jeffrey J. Schott , NAFTA: An Assessment, rev. ed. ( Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics , 1993).

Empirically, this article rests on 112 interviews I conducted in Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. (with negotiators, other public officials, politicians, political staff, private sector representatives, and other actors); a wide range of archival evidence (governmental and private sector publications, transcripts of legislative debates, news coverage, and public opinion polls); and previous academic studies and journalistic accounts of North American free trade. My Mexican interviewees were twenty-nine public officials of various kinds, eight private sector representatives, and two academics involved in the process. Translations from interviews and documents originally in Spanish are my own.

Thacker, Big Business, 88.

Judith Teichman , The Politics of Freeing Markets in Latin America: Chile, Argentina, and Mexico (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2001); and Thacker, Big Business. These alliances emerged even though economic and political elites in Mexico have historically been clearly distinct groups with little movement between the two—see Roderic A. Camp , Entrepreneurs and Politics in Twentieth-century Mexico ( New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).

Kenneth C. Shadlen , “Neoliberalism, Corporatism, and Small Business Political Activism in Contemporary Mexico,” Latin American Research Review 35, no. 2 (2000): 73-106.

Quoted in Excelsior, June 3, 1990.

Castro G. Ignacio , “No Precipitar un Acuerdo Ampliado de Libre Comercio con EU y Canadá,” El Día, June 13, 1990.

My identification of and emphasis on these mechanisms follows from a particular interpretation of Antonio Gramsci's theory of hegemony: domination with the consent of the dominated. Gramsci developed his theory mostly in reference to the relationships between dominant and subordinate classes and the question of the reproduction or overthrow of capitalism. But in more general terms, Gramsci's theory of hegemony could be understood as a set of more general propositions about mechanisms by which a state and its dominant allies can convince other groups to support their agendas, even when those other groups stand to lose out from the agendas in question. See Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks (New York: International, 1971).

George Grayson , The North American Free Trade Agreement (New York: Foreign Policy Association, 1993), 12; and José Angel Gurría and Sergio Fadl , “ Mexico's Strategy for Reducing Financial Transfers Abroad,” in Government Responses to the Latin American Debt Problem, ed. R. Grosse (Coral Gables, FL: North-South Center, 1995), 121-58.

For a good overview of Mexican trade policy from the 1950s through the 1980s, see John M. Page Jr., “Trade Policies in Mexico,” in National Trade Policies: Handbook of Comparative Economic Policies , vol. 2, ed. D. Salvatore (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1992), 361-79. Herminio Blanco Mendoza , Las Negociaciones Comerciales de México con el Mundo ( México D.F.: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1994) provides a similar history, from the point of view of an influential Mexican official. Jorge Amigo Castañeda , “Regulación y Proyectos de Inversion Extranjera en México,” El Mercado de Valores 7 (1991): 3-7, discusses investment policy. Nora Lustig , Mexico: The Remaking of an Economy, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1998) has probably the most widely cited account of Mexico's economic history in this period.

Sarah Babb , Managing Mexico: Economists from Nationalism to Neoliberalism ( Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001); Miguel Ángel Centeno , Democracy within Reason: Technocratic Revolution in Mexico, 2nd ed. ( University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997); Miguel Angel Centeno and Sylvia Maxfield , “ The Marriage of Finance and Order: Changes in the Mexican Political Elite ,” Journal of Latin American Studies 24, no. 1 (1992): 57-85; Patrick Cronin , “Explaining Free Trade: Mexico 1985—1988,” Latin American Politics and Society 45, no. 4 (2003): 63-95; Yves Dezalay and Bryant G. Garth , The Internationalization of Palace Wars: Lawyers, Economists, and the Contest to Transform Latin American States (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002); Marion Fourcade-Gourinchas and Sarah Babb , “ The Rebirth of the Liberal Creed: Paths to Neoliberalism in Four Countries ,” American Journal of Sociology 108, no. 3 (2002): 533-79; Stephanie R. Golob , “ Beyond the Policy Frontier: Canada, Mexico, and the Ideological Origins of NAFTA,” World Politics 55 (2003): 361-98; Manuel Pastor and Carol Wise , “The Origins and Sustainability of Mexico's Free Trade Policy,” International Organization 48, no. 3 (1994): 459-89; and Thacker, Big Business.

Babb, Managing Mexico; Ben Ross Schneider , “The Material Bases of Technocracy: Investor Confidence and Neoliberalism in Latin America,” in The Politics of Expertise in Latin America, ed. M. A. Centeno and P. Silva ( New York: St. Martin's, 1998), 77-95; Judith Teichman , “The World Bank and Policy Reform in Mexico and Argentina,” Latin American Politics and Society 46, no. 1 (2004): 39-74; and Ngaire Woods , “The Bretton Woods Institutions and the Transmission of Neo-liberal Ideas in Mexico,” in Economic Doctrines in Latin America: Origins, Embedding and Evolution , ed. V. FitzGerald and R. Thorp (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 217-44.

In the words of Fourcade-Gourinchas and Babb, “Rebirth of the Liberal Creed,” 27, Mexico's technocrats “saw international financial pressures as an opportunity to advance both their political careers and their particular ideological program.”

Cameron and Tomlin, The Making of NAFTA; J. Enrique Espinosa Velasco and Jaime Serra Puche , “ Diez Años del Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte,” in El Nuevo Milenio Mexicano, Tomo I: México y el Mundo, ed. P. García Alba, G. Torres Ramírez, and L. Gutiérrez ( México D. F.: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana— Azcapotzalco and Ediciones y Gráficos Eón, 2004), 163-205; Mayer, Interpreting NAFTA; Jaime Ros , “ Free Trade Area or Common Capital Market? Notes on Mexico-US Economic Integration and Current Negotiations,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 34, no. 2 (1992): 53-91; and Thacker , Big Business. Lloyd Gruber , Ruling the World: Power Politics and the Rise of Supranational Institutions ( Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), argues that the major motive behind Mexico's NAFTA proposal was the perceived threat and challenge represented by the Canada-U.S. bilateral FTA, enacted in 1989. That agreement was indeed noticed in Mexico—see, for example, Gerardo Bueno , “El Tratado de Libre Comercio entre Estados Unidos y Canadá,” Comercio Exterior 37, no. 11 (1987): 926-35; and Gustavo Vega Cánovas , “ Al Acuerdo de Libre Comercio entre Canadá y Estados Unidos: Implicaciones para México y los Países en Desarrollo,” Comercio Exterior 38, no. 3 ( 1988): 212-18. But, like Antonio Ortiz Mena, “Mexico and the WTO: A Regional Player in Multilateral Trade Negotiations,” CIDE Documento de Trabajo Número 74 (México D.F.: División de Estudios Internacionales, 2001), 220-21, I find no evidence that Mexican officials, or businesspeople, gave much thought to CUFTA or considered it a problem.

Interviews with Mexican officials; Carlos Salinas de Gortari, México: Un Paso Difícil a la Modernidad (Barcelona: Plaza & Janés Editores, S.A., 2000); Von Bertrab, Negotiating NAFTA.

Delal Baer , “ North American Free Trade,” Foreign Affairs 70, no. 4 (1991): 132-49; Robert M. Dunn , “Winners and Losers from NAFTA,” in Beyond NAFTA: An Economic, Political and Sociological Perspective, ed. A. R. Riggs and T. Velk ( Vancouver: Fraser Institute, 1993 ), 96.

German Chancellor Helmut Kohl told Salinas as much when they met in early 1990, according to interviews with public officials; Salinas, México, 48.

See Bastiaan Van Apeldoorn , “Transnational Class Agency and European Governance: The Case of the European Round Table of Industrialists ,” New Political Economy 5, no. 2 (2000): 157-81; and Maria Green Cowles , “ Setting the Agenda for a New Europe: The ERT and EC 1992,” Journal of Common Market Studies 33, no. 4 (1995): 501-26 on the role of capital in European integration. See Michael Dreiling , Solidarity and Contention: The Politics of Security and Sustainability in the NAFTA Conflict ( New York: Garland, 2001); and Mark Rupert, Ideologies of Globalization: Contending Visions of a New World Order (New York: Routledge, 2000) on American capital in NAFTA. See David Langille , “The Business Council on National Issues and the Canadian State,” Studies in Political Economy 24 ( 1987): 41-85; and Jack R. Richardson , “Free Trade: Why Did It Happen?” Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 29, no. 3 (1992): 307-28 on Canadian capital in the case of the 1989 bilateral Canada-U.S. FTA.

Barbara Geddes , “The Politics of Economic Liberalization ,” Latin American Research Review 30, no. 2 (1995), 202, in a review of neoliberal policy changes in Latin America, concludes that “the studies under review show little evidence that economic reforms are initiated in response to interest-group pressures,” whereas states play a strong leadership role. Stephan Haggard and Robert R. Kaufman , “Introduction: Institutions and Economic Adjustment,” in The Politics of Economic Adjustment: International Constraints, Distributive Conflicts, and the State, ed. S. Haggard and R. R. Kaufman (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 18, agree that “the case study literature on the politics of adjustment suggests repeatedly that governmental elites and state institutions are pivotal to the launching of reform efforts.”

The retrospective threat of NAFTA to different types of business groups in Mexico cannot be readily evaluated by examining its actual future effects, given the difficulty of disentangling them from the effects of the severe peso crisis of 1994—95. However, one recent study of Brazil finds that trade liberalization in that country has had significant redistributive effects—see Peter E. Kingstone , “Why Free Trade `Losers' Support Free Trade: Industrialists and the Surprising Politics of Trade Reform in Brazil,” Comparative Political Studies 34, no. 9 (2001): 986-1010. The effects in Mexico, with an economy much like Brazil's, should be similar. Consistent with that view, Enrique Dussel Peters , Polarizing Mexico: The Impact of Liberalization Strategy (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner , 2000), 213, argues that “micro, small, and medium firms ... have been the main losers” from economic liberalization in Mexico. He cites statistics showing that the total work-force of large manufacturing firms (those with more than 250 employees) grew an average of 4.9 percent from 1988 to 1998, whereas smaller manufacturing firms (with fewer than 250 employees) grew only 2.0 percent per year, on average (ibid., 94). This difference suggests, at the very least, that larger firms have indeed prospered under free market policies substantially more than smaller firms.

Escobar , “Rifts in the Mexican Power Elite”; Aldo R. Flores Quiroga , Proteccionismo versus Librecambio: La Economía Política de la Protección Comercial en México, 1970—1994 (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1998); Dale Story , “Trade Politics in the Third World: A Case Study of the Mexican GATT Decision,” International Organization 36, no. 4 (1982): 767-94; and William Chislett , “ Mexico Embarks on Trade Policy Using Oil as a Weapon to Gain Benefits,” Globe and Mail, July 21, 1980.

Thacker, Big Business, 88-94.

Carlos Alba Vega , “ El Empresariado Mexicano ante el Tratado de Libre Comercio en América del Norte,” in Liberación Económica y Libre Comercio en América del Norte, ed. Gustavo Vega Cánovas (México D.F.: El Colegio de México, 1993), 213-38; Escobar, “Rifts in the Mexican Power Elite”; Matilde Luna , “ Entrepreneurial Interests and Political Action in Mexico: Facing the Demands of Economic Modernization,” in The Challenge of Institutional Reform in Mexico, ed. Riordan Roett (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1995), 77-94; and Matilde Luna , Ricardo Tirado , and Francisco Valdés , “Los Empresarios y la Política en México, 1982—1986,” in Las Empresas y los Empresarios en el México Contemporáneo, ed. R. Pozas and M. Luna (México D.F.: Grijalbo, 1991), 21-88.

Flores, Proteccionismo versus Librecambio; Thacker, Big Business.

Cronin, “Explaining Free Trade,” 64-65; Flores, Proteccionismo versus Librecambio; Blanca Heredia , “Contested State: The Politics of Trade Liberalization in Mexico” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 1996); Teichman, Politics of Freeing Markets; and Thacker, Big Business.

Some studies suggest that many businesspeople in Mexico accepted trade liberalization in the 1980s, but only because of widespread perceptions that increased imports could help control inflation—a serious problem at that time. In a context of serious price instability, according to these accounts, business actors were more willing to confront the challenge of import competition—see Cronin, “Explaining Free Trade,” 74; Pastor and Wise, “Origins and Sustainability of Mexico's Free Trade Policy.” By the early 1990s, however, Mexico's inflation rate was low, and proponents did not try to argue for NAFTA on that basis, so the reasons for businesspeople's acceptance of trade integration at that time must have been different.

Peter Evans , Dependent Development: The Alliance of Multinational, State, and Local Capital in Brazil (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979); Kingstone, “ Why Free Trade `Losers' Support Free Trade”; Dani Rodrik , “The Rush to Free Trade in the Developing World: Why So Late? Why Now? Will It Last ?” in Voting for Reform: Democracy, Political Liberalization, and Economic Adjustment, ed. S. Haggard and S. B. Webb (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 61-88; and Strom C. Thacker , “ Private Sector Trade Politics in Mexico,” Business and Politics 2, no. 2 (2000): 161-87. Some analyses of economic liberalization have perceived capital in general as the natural and direct beneficiary of neoliberal policy changes. This is particularly true, according to critics, given the now common linkage of trade liberalization to such measures as investor and intellectual property rights and the deregulation of transnational capital flows. This point of view correctly anticipates business unanimity in favor of economic liberalization but sees it as so natural that it does not warrant much explanation—for example, David Harvey , A Brief History of Neoliberalism ( Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2005); Kari Polanyi Levitt , “Keynes and Polanyi: The 1920s and the 1990s,” Review of International Political Economy 13, no. 1 ( 2006): 152-77; Rupert , Ideologies of Globalization ; and Alfredo Saad-Filho and Deborah Johnston, eds., Neoliberalism: A Critical Reader (London: Pluto, 2005). As a consequence, these accounts cannot explain historical variation in the extent of business support for liberalization, such as the change in Mexican business trade policy preferences from 1980 to 1990.

Rodrik , “Rush to Free Trade,” 68.

Workers, similarly, pay a price for losing their jobs and having to find a new industry in which to work. Consequently, in the sectoral model, capital and labor in a given industry have the same interests with respect to trade, while both capital and labor will be internally divided.

Anne O. Krueger , “ Asymmetries in Policy between Exportables and Import-competing Goods,” in The Political Economy of International Trade, ed. R. W. Jones and A. O. Krueger (Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell , 1990), 177.

Kerry A. Chase , “Economic Interests and Regional Trading Arrangements: The Case of NAFTA,” International Organization 57 (2003): 137-74; Shadlen , “Neoliberalism, Corporatism, and Small Business”; Thacker , “ Private Sector Trade Politics.” The small-versus-large—firm distinction may also amount to an industry-versus-industry divide within a given country if some industries are dominated by larger, more internationally competitive firms and others by smaller, less competitive firms.

Of course, Third World countries do not have a monopoly on import-competing, inward-oriented firms. But the weight of export-oriented relative to import-competing firms tends to be significantly greater in First World countries, making the private sector in developed countries—when forced to take a position as a whole—much more outwardly oriented and unified in support of trade liberalization.

William Robinson , “Social Theory and Globalization: The Rise of a Transnational State,” Theory and Society 30 (2001), 184, argues that “in the Third World, the nationalist bourgeoisie, petty-bourgeois, and revolutionary regimes [have been] displaced by transnationalized fractions of local elites.”

Shadlen, “Neoliberalism, Corporatism, and Small Business”; Flores, Proteccionismo versus Librecambio; Thacker, Big Business.

See, for example, James E. Alt , Jeffry Frieden , Michael J. Gilligan , Dani Rodrik , and Ronald Rogowski , “The Political Economy of International Trade: Enduring Puzzles and an Agenda for Inquiry,” Comparative Political Studies 29, no. 6 (1996): 689-717; Chase, “ Economic Interests and Regional Trading Arrangements”; and Michael J. Hiscox , “ Class versus Industry Cleavages: Inter-industry Factor Mobility and the Politics of Trade,” International Organization 55, no. 1 (2001): 1-46. The reason is that the factor that is relatively scarce in the isolated domestic market will be somewhat less scarce in the integrated international market. Each country will import goods rich in the home market's scarce factor, so the abundant factor becomes relatively less abundant and enjoys a price increase.

Dunn, “Winners and Losers from NAFTA”; William Watson , “ The Economics of NAFTA: How Much Zero-Sum?” in Beyond NAFTA: An Economic, Political and Sociological Perspective, ed. A.R. Riggs and T. Velk (Vancouver: Fraser Institute, 1993), 159-66.

Jeffrey M. Ayres , Defying Conventional Wisdom: Political Movements and Popular Contention against North American Free Trade (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998); Dreiling, Solidarity and Contention; Rhonda Lynn Evans , “ The Rise of Ethical Trade Advocacy: NAFTA and the New Politics of Trade” (PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley , 2002); Tamara Kay , “Labor Transnationalism and Global Governance: The Impact of NAFTA on Transnational Labor Relationships in North America,” American Journal of Sociology 111, no. 3 (2005): 715-56; Mayer , Interpreting NAFTA; Rupert , Ideologies of Globalization; and James Shoch , “ Contesting Globalization: Organized Labor, NAFTA, and the 1997 and 1998 Fast-track Fights,” Politics & Society 28, no. 1 (2000): 119-50.

Evans, Dependent Development.

See Barbara Hogenboom , Mexico and the NAFTA Environmental Debate: The Transnational Politics of Economic Integration (Utrecht , the Netherlands: International Books, 1998), 112-3, on evidence of early 1980s talks between Mexican and American business elites about continental economic integration.

Interview with business association leader.

Interviews with business association officials. See also Thacker, Big Business, 159.

Salinas, México, 52; interviews with business association and public officials. One high-level public sector interviewee also claims that Salinas rejected the idea of free trade with the U.S. even when it was suggested to him privately by his own trade ministry officials, soon after his inauguration as president.

NAFTA expanded on an earlier, slightly narrower agreement negotiated bilaterally by Canada and the United States in 1986—87. For accounts of that earlier process, see Bruce Doern and Brian W. Tomlin , Faith and Fear: The Free Trade Story (Toronto: Stoddart , 1991); and Michael Hart , with Bill Dymond and Colin Robertson , Decision at Midnight: Inside the Canada-US Free-trade Negotiations ( Vancouver: UBC Press, 1994).

Doern and Tomlin, Faith and Fear; Hart et al., Decision at Midnight; and Langille, “Business Council on National Issues.”

See, for example, Pedro Noyola and Jaime Serra , “Rebalancing Government Direction and Market Guidance,” in Mexico's Search for a New Development Strategy, ed. D. S. Brothers and A. E. Wick (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1990), 87.

Golob, “Beyond the Policy Frontier,” 376.

Interview with a business association official.

See, for example, Flores, Proteccionismo versus Librecambio.

Flores, Proteccionismo versus Librecambio; and Shadlen, “Neoliberalism, Corporatism, and Small Business.”

Transformación 37, no. 1 (1993), 28.

The first three columns do not quite add to the fourth column, because a small number (fewer than 2 percent) of economically active respondents occupied a miscellaneous category, for which results are not shown.

Results for the entire sample, including the economically inactive respondents, were 50.8 percent support, 16.0 percent opposition, and the rest indifferent, don't know, or no response.

Summary statistics of others can be found in Carlos Arriola and Rafael Marti , eds., Documentos Básicos (México D.F.: SECOFI, 1994).

Some of the polls covered the whole country, rather than just six major cities. They generated quite similar results. For example, excluding missing cases, survey TNA10691 (a nationwide poll taken in June 1991, with a sample size of 5,016) found 54.8 percent support and 12.9 percent opposition (again with the rest indifferent, don't know, or no response).

Miguel Basáñez , “Winners and Losers: A View from Mexico ,” in NAFTA Now! The Changing Political Economy of North America, ed. Brenda McPhail ( Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1995), 49-64. See also Carole Jeanne Wilson , “Understanding NAFTA in Mexico: Political Attitude Formation in a Changing Political and Economic Environment ” (PhD diss., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2001).

Survey #G0122020.

For example, Gary W. Cox and Scott Morgenstern , “Epilogue: Latin America's Reactive Assemblies and Proactive Presidents,” in Legislative Politics in Latin America, ed. S. Morgenstern and B. Nacif (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 446-68; Alan Knight , “ The Modern Mexican State: Theory and Practice,” in The Other Mirror: Grand Theory through the Lens of Latin America, ed. M. A. Centeno and F. López-Alves (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 177-218; and Alan Riding , Distant Neighbors: A Portrait of the Mexicans (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984).

For example, Centeno, Democracy within Reason.

Interviews with public officials.

Michael Lusztig , “ The Limits of Rent Seeking: Why Protectionists Become Free Traders,” Review of International Political Economy 5, no. 1 (1998): 38-63; and Thacker, Big Business.

See Mayer, Interpreting NAFTA.

Ayres, Defying Conventional Wisdom; Dreiling, Solidarity and Contention; Evans, Rise of Ethical Trade Advocacy; Kay, “Labor Transnationalism”; Mayer, Interpreting NAFTA; Rupert, Ideologies of Globalization; and Shoch, “Contesting Globalization.”

Grayson, North American Free Trade Agreement; George W. Grayson , “ Lobbying by Mexico and Canada,” in The Controversial Pivot: The U.S. Congress and North America, ed. R. A. Pastor and R. Fernandez de Castro (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution , 1998), 70-94; Jesús Velasco , “Selling Ideas, Buying Influence: Mexico and American Think Tanks in the Promotion of NAFTA,” in Bridging the Border: Transforming Mexico-U.S. Relations, ed. R. O. de la Garza and J. Velasco (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997), 125-47; and Jesús Velasco , “Reading Mexico, Understanding the United States: American Transnational Intellectuals in the 1920s and 1990s,” Journal of American History 86, no. 2 ( 1999): 641-67.

For example, Baer, “North American Free Trade.” Regarding labor rights and working conditions, they generally added that those improvements would follow from the economic development fostered by Mexico's integration with the U.S. and Canadian economies. NAFTA advocates both inside and outside of Mexico also sometimes suggested that American and Canadian opponents of the agreement were simply prejudiced against Mexico—for example, Von Bertrab, Negotiating NAFTA.

Jorge G. Castañeda , “The Clouding Political Horizon,” Current History 92 (1993): 59-66.

Raymond Tatalovich and Peter Sánchez , “La Política de Grupos de Interés en América del Norte: El Caso del TLC en México, Canadá, y Estados Unidos ,” in Los Sistemas Políticos de América del Norte en los Noventa: Desafíos y Convergencias, ed. J. Castro Rea , R. J. Jackson , and G. S. Mahler (México: UNAM y CISAN, 1999), 297-327.

Salinas, México.

Flores , Proteccionismo versus Librecambio; Guy Poitras and Raymond Robinson, “The Politics of NAFTA in Mexico,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 36, no. 1 (1994): 23.

Denise Dresser , Neopopulist Solutions to Neoliberal Problems: Mexico's National Solidarity Program (San Diego, CA: UCSD Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, 1991).

For example, Nicos Poulantzas , Political Power and Social Classes (London: NLB and Sheed and Ward , 1973); and Bob Jessop , State Theory: Putting the Capitalist State in Its Place (University Park, PA : Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990).

Teichman, Politics of Freeing Markets; and Thacker, Big Business.

Luna et al., “ Empresarios y la Política en México,” 38-39.

Interviews with business representatives; Alba , “Empresariado Mexicano”; Leonardo Martínez and Ben Ross Schneider , “Gatekeeper of Influence: The Mexican State and Agro-Industry in the NAFTA Negotiations,” Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 26, no. 51 (2001): 83-119.

Interviews with business association and public officials.

Interviews with both Mexican and U.S. business association and public officials.

The PRI was criticized for holding the consultations in the Senate rather than the Chamber of Deputies—see, for example, Adolfo Aguilar Zínser , “ El Tratado de Libre Comercio, Dimension Política,” in El Tratado de Libre Comercio: Entre el Viejo y el Nuevo Orden, ed. B. Driscoll de Alvarado and M. C. Gambrill (México: UNAM , 1992), 159-72. The PRI still held a majority of the seats in the latter chamber, but not nearly as high a percentage.

The Mexican executive branch was adamant that the hearings were serious. See Jaime Serra Puche , “TLC: Responde Serra,” Este País (1991): 15-30.

See Jorge A. Bustamante , “El Consejo Asesor del Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte,” in Testimonios sobre el TLC, ed. C. Arriola ( México D. F.: Diana-Miguel Ángel Porrúa, 1994), 127-33.

SECOFI document. The three labor members represented the CTM (Confederación de Trabajadores de México, Confederation of Workers of Mexico), the CT (Congreso del Trabajo, Labor Congress), and the telecommunications workers' union. Agriculture's representatives were from the CNC (Confederación Nacional Campesina, National Peasants' Confederation), the CNPP (Confederación Nacional de la Pequeña Propiedad, National Confederation of Small Property Owners), and the CNA (Consejo Nacional Agropecuario, National Agricultural Council).

El Mercado de Valores, October 15, 1992, ii.

SECOFI document.

Juan Gallardo , “La Coordinadora de Organismos Empresariales para el Comercio Exterior,” in Testimonios sobre el TLC , ed. C. Arriola (México D. F.: Diana-Miguel Ángel Porrúa, 1994), 135-44.

Carlos Alba Vega and Gustavo Vega Cánovas , “Trade Advisory Mechanisms in Mexico,” in The Trade Policy-making Process Level One of the Two Level Game: Country Studies in the Western Hemisphere (New York: Inter-American Development Bank, 2002); Cristina Puga , “Las Organizaciones Empresariales en la Negociación del TLC,” in Los Empresarios ante la Globalización, ed. R. Tirado (México D.F.: Cámara de Diputados del H. Congreso de la Unión, LV Legislatura, Instituto de Investigaciones Legislativas , 1994), 171-93; and Thacker, Big Business. Sylvia Ostry , “Preface ,” in The Trade Policy-making Process Level One of the Two Level Game: Country Studies in the Western Hemisphere ( New York: Inter-American Development Bank, 2002), iii, goes so far as to call the Mexican COECE model of public-private consultation developed for NAFTA “the virtual union of government and business in formulating and negotiating trade policy.”

Interviews with public officials.

Carlos Alba Vega, “La COECE: Un Caso de Cooperación entre los Sectores Público y Privado en México,” Comercio Exterior 47, no. 2 (1997): 153, 149.

See Thacker, Big Business.

Ibid., 147.

Shadlen, “Neoliberalism, Corporatism, and Small Business”; Poitras and Robinson, “Politics of NAFTA in Mexico.”

Thacker, Big Business.

This paragraph draws on Luna et al., “Empresarios y la Política en México”; and Shadlen, “Neoliberalism, Corporatism, and Small Business.”

Cameron and Tomlin, The Making of NAFTA; interviews with public officials.

William P. Avery , “Domestic Interests in NAFTA Bargaining ,” Political Science Quarterly 113, no. 2 (1998): 281-305; Martínez and Schneider , “Gatekeeper of Influence”; Sylvia Maxfield and Adam Shapiro , “ Assessing the NAFTA Negotiations,” in The Post-NAFTA Political Economy: Mexico and the Western Hemisphere, ed. Carol Wise (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998), 82-118; Helen Milner , “Industries, Governments, and Regional Trade Blocs,” in The Political Economy of Regionalism, ed. E. D. Mansfield and H. V. Milner ( New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 77-106; and David Orden , “ Agricultural Interest Groups and the North American Free Trade Agreement,” in The Political Economy of American Trade Policy, ed. A. O. Krueger (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 335-82. One business association representative said that a lot of businesspeople had the idea that “If I can negotiate ten years, I can make it. In ten years, I can have a competitive company, in ten years I will have grown, I can have adequate technology, I can have well-trained people.”

Interviews with negotiators.

Figures from Blanco, Negociaciones Comerciales, 170. Banamex, México Social, 1994—1995: Estadísticas Seleccionadas (México DF : División de Estudios Económicos y Sociales, Banco Nacional de México, S.A. , 1996), 692; and Espinosa and Serra, “Diez Años,” 177, provide equivalent tables. The figures vary slightly because of methodological differences, but the general patterns are the same.

Hiscox, “Class versus Industry Cleavages”; Thacker, “Private Sector Trade Politics.”

This sort of thinking validates the statement by Leslie Elliott Armijo and Philippe Faucher , in “ `We Have a Consensus': Explaining Political Support for Market Reforms in Latin America,” Latin American Politics and Society 44, no. 2 (2002), 31-32, that “When opposition has failed, and when the course of market liberalization is set and unlikely to be altered, then those businesses that stand to lose from the change have little choice but to adapt to the new environment, reinforcing by their own actions the trend they initially opposed.”

First came the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas on January 1, 1994 (the day NAFTA went into effect), then two high-profile political assassinations in 1994, and finally, the peso crash at the end of the year and into 1995.

One business association representative summarized that the state's most enthusiastic message to Mexican businesspeople about NAFTA amounted to “Start investing! Because what you're going to have too much of is market!”

For example, Kyle Bagwell and Robert W. Staiger , The Economics of the World Trading System (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002); and Paul Krugman , “What Should Trade Negotiators Negotiate About?” Journal of Economic Literature 35 (1997): 113-20.

Jorge Juraidini , “NAFTA's Effects: A Mexican Analysis,” in Beyond NAFTA: An Economic, Political and Sociological Perspective , ed. A. R. Riggs and T. Velk (Vancouver: Fraser Institute, 1993), 188.

SECOFI, “La Competitividad, Punto Esencial del TLC,” in El Mercado de Valores 19, no. i-iv (Informe #6 de SECOFI. Intervención de Jaime Serra Puche realizó el 19 de septiembre 1991, en el Foro México Joven, organizado por la Universidad Iberoamericana, 1991), i.

Jaime Serra Puche , Conclusión de la Negociación del Tratado de Libre Comercio entre México, Canadá y Estados Unidos ( México D.F.: SECOFI, 1993), 8.

Blanco, Negociaciones Comerciales, 273-74; see also Luis Rubio , “La Globalización de la Economía,” in Hacia un Tratado de Libre Comercio en América del Norte (México D.F.: SECOFI and Miguel Ángel Porrúa, 1991), 20, 26.

For example, Pedro Noyola , “El Surgimiento de Espacios Económicos Multinacionales y las Relaciones de México con Europa, la Cuenca del Pacífico y América Latina y el Caribe,” in Hacia un Tratado de Libre Comercio en América del Norte (México D.F.: SECOFI and Miguel Ángel Porrúa, 1991), 117-46; and Serra , “TLC: Responde Serra.” There were certainly other arguments made for NAFTA. For example, in a speech the day the negotiations ended, Salinas emphasized that “consumers will benefit because you will encounter a greater variety of products, of better quality, and at better prices.” And Salinas did sometimes mention the goal of attracting investment: “Above all, the Treaty means more employment and higher incomes for Mexicans. This is fundamental; and it will occur because more capital will flow in, more investment, representing more employment here, in our country, for our countrymen,” reprinted in Carlos Salinas de Gortari , “ Negociación Trascendental para el Futuro de México,” Comercio Exterior 42, no. 9 (1992), 6. But these arguments were less common and less central than those about competitiveness and access to the U.S. and (to a much lesser extent) Canadian markets.

Paul Krugman , Pop Internationalism (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996). 111. Armijo and Faucher, “ `We Have a Consensus.' ”

Jessop, State Theory, 155.

Poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes.

Ibid., 298.