Globalisation, NAFTA, and Higher Education in Mexico

Abstract

On the Mexican national scene, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has symbolised the country’s entry into the process of globalisation. No matter how widespread the perception, however, NAFTA was only a landmark in a continuous process of economic liberalisation, which began in 1986 with the country’s entry into the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).¹ NAFTA formalised as well the old process of silent integration between the economies of Mexico and the United States. Although that Agreement only had a trade component, the discussion around its suitability as an integral part of a national plan of long term development soon overtook the original framework and became part of a larger socio-political debate. This explains, first, the importance of NAFTA to the strategy of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari’s cabinet. It also clarifies the struggle that occurred among political parties in a country that was initiating the slow process of alternation in power after seven decades of near hegemony by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), and finally, the difficult but very important relationship between Mexico and its Northern neighbour.