Abstract
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has encouraged the activity of new transnational actors while old ones have remained in the field. Among the most active, indeed, are many of the social and civil organizations that formed part of the transnational coalitions that opposed NAFTA or fought for the introduction of commitments regarding labor and environmental protection within the latter. How successful have these actors been in forming transnational coalitions after the passage of NAFTA? What have been the opportunities for — or dilemmas of — cooperation? Have foundations been laid for even more powerful coalitions and transnational activity, or are we still at a stage of, at best, “strategic alliances” between organizations whose interests are only sporadically convergent?
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Notes
See Jay Mazur, “Labor’s New Internationalism,” Foreign Affairs 79 (1) (January–February 2000), 79–80.
See Barry Carr, “Globalization from below: labor internationalism under NAFTA,” International Social Science Journal 51 (1) (March 1999), 49–50.
Bruce Nissen, “Cross-border Alliances in the Era of Globalization,” in Ray M. Tillman and Michael S. Cummings (eds), The Transformation of U.S. Unions: Voices, Visions and Strategies from the Grassroots (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 1999).
See María Lorena Cook, “Regional Integration and Transnational Politics: Popular Sector Strategies in the NAFTA Era”, in Douglas Chalmers et al. (eds), The New Politics of Inequality in Latin America. Rethinking Participation and Representation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).
See Jorge Carrillo and Miguel Angel Ramírez, “Maquiladoras en la frontera norte: opinión sobre los Sindicatos,” Frontera Norte 2 (4) (1990), 121–52;
Cirila Quintero Ramírez, “Variantes sindicales en la frontera norte. Los casos de Coahuila y Chihuahua,” Frontera Norte 11 (22) (1999), 53–79; and
María Xelhuantzi López, La demoeracia pendiente (México: Sindicato de tele-fonistas de la Républica Mexicana, 2000).
See Bruce Nissen, “Combating Plant Closing in the Era of the Transnational Corporations,” in Lawrence G. Flood (ed), Unions and Public Policy: The New Economy, Law and Democratic Policies (Westport, Conn.: Greeenwood Press, 1995), p. 135.
See Richard Kiy and John D. Wirth, Environmental Management on North America’s Borders (College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 1998).
For a thorough analysis of the potentialities and uses of this mechanism, see John K. Knox, “A New Approach to Compliance with International Environmental Law: The Submissions Procedure of the NAFTA Environmental Commission,” Ecology Law Quarterly 28, no. 1 (2001), 1–122.
For an analysis of the BECC’s impact on public policy making in the border region, see María Carmsen de Mello Lemos and Antonio Luna, “Public Participation in the BECC: Lessons from the Acuaférico Project, Nogales, Sonora,” Journal of Borderlands Studies, 14, 1 (Spring 1999), 43–64.
See: Regina Barba Pirez, “La Unión de Grupos Ambientalistas en el proceso de negociación del Tratado de Libre Comercio,” Frontera Norte 5 no. 10 (July–December 1993), 118–32.
Carol Zabin, “Nongovernmental organizations in Mexico’s Northern Border,” Journal of Borderland Studies 14, 1 (Spring 1999), 43–64.
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© 2005 Blanca Torres
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Torres, B. (2005). Transnational Actors and NAFTA: the Search for Coalitions on Labor and the Environment. In: Fawcett, L., Serrano, M. (eds) Regionalism and Governance in the Americas. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230523029_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230523029_6
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