scholarly journals Transnational Activist Networks and the Emergence of Labor Internationalism in the NAFTA Countries

2003 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 577-601 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joel Stillerman
Keyword(s):  
Trade Agreement ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
Transnational Activism ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Labor Activism ◽  
The North ◽  
Labor Activists ◽  
The Status ◽  
Formed Part ◽  
New Institutions

Recent accounts of transnational activism have examined a variety of social movement organizations (SMOs) but have paid little attention to labor transnationalism. This article utilizes and adapts this new transnational social movements scholarship to understand contemporary labor activism in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) countries. Exploring the preexisting networks and intramovement cleavages that helped spawn labor opposition to NAFTA, it focuses on labor activists' complaints under the treaty's labor side accord. I explore how rising political opportunities associated with the treaty and its new institutions created new political arenas, targets for activists, and incentives for cross-border collaboration. The cross-border political exchanges that formed part of labor activists' strategies to utilize these new institutions helped activists create new movement frames, transnational identities, and coalitions. While these outcomes support the findings of literature on transnational SMOs, they point to the particular dilemmas labor activists faced in confronting these issues due to their vulnerability, the status of unions as formal organizations embedded in national institutional structures, and the difficulty of imagining policies and strategies that might be effective in this new transnational sphere.

Getting the Core: A Neo‐institutionalist Approach to the EMU

1995 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 347-369 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miriam L. Campanella
Keyword(s):  
Financial Markets ◽  
Monetary Union ◽  
Trade Agreement ◽  
Maastricht Treaty ◽  
Convergence Criteria ◽  
The North ◽  
Single European Act ◽  
Effective Role ◽  
Set Up ◽  
New Institutions

THE NEW REGIONALISM, MANIFESTED IN EUROPE BY THE SINGLE European Act and the Maastricht Treaty (1992) and in North America by the signature of the North-American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA 1993), is centred on strategic policies and new institutions, the aims of which are to achieve a more effective role in global competition. In Europe, the shift is marked by the impending process of monetary union and the creation of its related institutions. The new approach agreed in the Maastricht Treaty sets out four requirements for eligibility to membership of monetary union. Convergence criteria embodying the judgment of financial markets about future inflation, exchange rate and fiscal policy appeared to be the second best choice for governments seeking to institutionalize their commitment to inflation-avoiding policies. The whole mechanism is meant first to provide the region with a credible monetary institution able to win over the financial markets and secondly to set up bulwarks to the inflation-prone pressures of domestic sheltered interests. Thirdly, the aim is to commit member countries, through a so-called targeting exercise (in Keohane's words) to accomplishing the agreed objectives with monetary discipline and macroeconomic adjustment.

The impact of the NAFTA treaty on wage competition, immigration, labor standards and cross-border co-operation

2001 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 494-514 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfredo Hualde ◽  
Miguel Angel Ramírez
Keyword(s):  
Trade Unions ◽  
Free Trade Agreement ◽  
Trade Agreement ◽  
Living Standards ◽  
Labor Standards ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
The North ◽  
Economic Area ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Impact

The signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1993 led to the formation of a social and economic area characterized by marked asymmetry between its members: the USA, Mexico and Canada. Seven years later the results in terms of salaries, employment and labor standards are not very positive, although they have not produced the catastrophic results foreseen by some. In Mexico several hundred thousand jobs were created, especially in the maquiladora export industry, but this has been associated with falling living standards and rising poverty. Migration from Mexico to the USA has increased. Poor labor standards and illegal employment have led to collaboration between NGOs and trade unions on both sides of the frontier.

“Let’s Not be Laughed at Anymore: Donald Trump and Japan from the 1980s to the Present”

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 138-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer M. Miller
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Free Trade Agreement ◽  
Trade Agreement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
The Past ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
The North ◽  
The Relationship

This article explores the central role of Japan’s rise to global economic prominence in the evolution of Donald J. Trump’s worldview. It traces how the transformation of the relationship between the United States and Japan during the 1980s informed Trump’s ideas about trade and protectionism, globalization, the international economy, and executive power. Trump, it argues, was a product of U.S.-Japanese relationship; while he began his public career as a prominent critic of Japan, claiming that the country exploited American trade and defense policy, his career in real estate heavily relied on Japanese finance. This contradictory approach continues to shape his understanding of Japan. As president, Trump repeatedly condemns Japan as predatory and protectionist, but also seeks expanded Japanese investment in the United States to revitalize the U.S. economy. Equally important, Trump has expanded criticisms originating with Japan to countries like China and Mexico, international agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the World Trade Organization. By tracing Trump’s rhetorical, financial, and diplomatic encounters with Japan over the past thirty years, this article uncovers the sources of Trump’s contradictory attitudes towards trade, globalization, and cross-border investment and his understandings of strong leadership and executive power.

The Commission for Environmental Cooperation and Environmental Management in the Americas

1998 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 41-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen P. Mumme ◽  
Pamela Duncan
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Management ◽  
North America ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
Free Trade Agreement ◽  
Trade Agreement ◽  
Environmental Cooperation ◽  
Complete Answer ◽  
The North ◽  
International Commitments ◽  
New Institutions

To what extent has the North American Free Trade Agreement contributed to strengthening and deepening international environmental management in the Americas? Should the system be broadened to incorporate other nations? While a complete answer to these queries is currently beyond reach, there should be little doubt that NAFTA has influenced and continues to influence the direction of environmental management in North America and the hemisphere at large. The agreement has spawned a series of new institutions that are already reshaping current practices and that have considerable promise for broadening the range of international commitments to environmental management in the Americas. The most prominent and most relevant of these is the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC).

scholarly journals Impacts of U.S., Mexican, and Canadian Trade Agreement on Commodity and Labor Markets

2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-63
Author(s):  
Xin Zhao ◽  
Stephen Devadoss ◽  
Jeff Luckstead
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Labor Markets ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Free Trade Agreement ◽  
Bilateral Trade ◽  
Trade Agreement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
The North ◽  
United States Mexico

AbstractThe North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) renegotiation has resulted in an updated agreement known as the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA). Given the contentious nature of the renegotiation process, we analyze the impacts of the USMCA relative to a “what if” scenario of failed NAFTA renegotiation to examine the economy-wide impacts of USMCA on bilateral trade, production, consumption, prices, and domestic and cross-border labor markets. Our results show that, had NAFTA renegotiation failed, the ensuing economic conditions would have created incentive for more, not fewer, migrant workers to enter the United States. USMCA benefits Mexican and Canadian consumers marginally but harms U.S. consumers slightly.

scholarly journals The Trinational Coalition in Defense of Public Education and the Challenges of International Teacher Solidarity

2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 114-134
Author(s):  
Paul Bocking
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Education ◽  
Education Policy ◽  
Global Education ◽  
Trade Agreement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Practical Action ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
The North ◽  
Critical Issues

The ascendance of economic globalization, epitomized for the United States, Canada, and Mexico by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), has been paralleled by the increasingly transnational scale of education policy. While national and regional governments remain the employers of public school teachers, the policies articulated by supranational institutions including the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) are ever more influential. Teacher internationalism has become increasingly significant for its capacity to both articulate shared analyses of the predominantly neoliberal character of global education policy and coordinate cross-border solidarity. The Trinational Coalition in Defense of Public Education emerged in the context of the end of Cold War labor politics and the signing of NAFTA in 1994. It has become an enduring network of established and dissident teachers’ unions and movements in Mexico, Canada, and the United States. This article assesses how the Trinational has confronted critical issues for labor internationalism. These include navigating national and international union tensions, facilitating grassroots cross-border radical unionist networks, horizontal power relations in North-South alliances, moving beyond rhetorical declarations to practical action, and the long-term sustainability of international solidarity.

Transnational Advocates and Labor Rights Enforcement in the North American Free Trade Agreement

2011 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly A. Nolan García
Keyword(s):  
Trade Agreement ◽  
Theoretical Work ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Labor Rights ◽  
Transnational Activism ◽  
Transnational Advocacy ◽  
The North ◽  
Recent Theoretical Work ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThis article investigates the impact of trade-based social clauses on labor rights enforcement. Drawing on insights from recent theoretical work on transnational advocacy networks and labor rights, the study examines how transnational groups and domestic actors engage the labor rights mechanisms under the NAFTA labor side agreement, the NAALC. A statistical analysis of original data drawn from NAALC cases complements interviews with key participants to analyze the factors that predict whether the three national mediation offices review labor dispute petitions. This study suggests that transnational activism is a key factor in explaining petition acceptance. Transnational advocates craft petitions differently from other groups and, by including worker testimony in the petitions, signal to arbitration bodies the possibility of corroborating claims through contact with affected workers.

Investor-State Dispute Settlement under NAFTA Chapter 11: The Shape of Things to Come?

1998 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 263-290
Author(s):  
J. Anthony VanDuzer
Keyword(s):  
Free Trade Agreement ◽  
Dispute Settlement ◽  
Trade Agreement ◽  
Minimum Standards ◽  
The North ◽  
State Behaviour ◽  
Nafta Chapter 11 ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Right

SummaryRecently, there has been a proliferation of international agreements imposing minimum standards on states in respect of their treatment of foreign investors and allowing investors to initiate dispute settlement proceedings where a state violates these standards. Of greatest significance to Canada is Chapter 11 of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which provides both standards for state behaviour and the right to initiate binding arbitration. Since 1996, four cases have been brought under Chapter 11. This note describes the Chapter 11 process and suggests some of the issues that may arise as it is increasingly resorted to by investors.

Eating NAFTA

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alyshia Gálvez
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Chronic Disease ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Food System ◽  
Dietary Habits ◽  
Trade Agreement ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
The North ◽  
The World

In the two decades since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect, Mexico has seen an epidemic of diet-related illness. While globalization has been associated with an increase in chronic disease around the world, in Mexico, the speed and scope of the rise has been called a public health emergency. The shift in Mexican foodways is happening at a moment when the country’s ancestral cuisine is now more popular and appreciated around the world than ever. What does it mean for their health and well-being when many Mexicans eat fewer tortillas and more instant noodles, while global elites demand tacos made with handmade corn tortillas? This book examines the transformation of the Mexican food system since NAFTA and how it has made it harder for people to eat as they once did. The book contextualizes NAFTA within Mexico’s approach to economic development since the Revolution, noticing the role envisioned for rural and low-income people in the path to modernization. Examination of anti-poverty and public health policies in Mexico reveal how it has become easier for people to consume processed foods and beverages, even when to do so can be harmful to health. The book critiques Mexico’s strategy for addressing the public health crisis generated by rising rates of chronic disease for blaming the dietary habits of those whose lives have been upended by the economic and political shifts of NAFTA.

Value Addition Through Higher Education: With Special Reference To Skill Development In North East India

GIS Business ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 341-348
Author(s):  
Dr. Mini Jain ◽  
Dr. Mini Jain
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Skill Development ◽  
Development Program ◽  
Value Addition ◽  
Quality Initiatives ◽  
North East India ◽  
North East ◽  
The North ◽  
Skilled Manpower ◽  
The Status

In India, higher education is a need of hour. The excellence of Higher Edification decides the production of skilled manpower to the nation. Indian education system significantly teaching has not been tested too economical to form youths of our country employable in line with the requirement of job market. Despite the rise in range of establishments at primary, secondary and tertiary level our young educated folks don't seem to be capable of being used and recovering job opportunities. Reason being they need not non-heritable such skills essential for demand of the duty market. The present study is aimed at analyzing the status of higher education institutions in terms of Infrastructure, various courses of the institute, quality Initiatives and skill development program offered by the Institutes, in the North-East India region, so as to see whether the Higher Educational Institutes of this region are in the process of gradually developing the skills of the students in attaining excellence. The paper also laid emphasis on the measures adopted by these institutes for quality improvement, and to find out their role in combating the adversity acclaimed in the region, since this region’s development is impeded by certain inherent difficulties However, this paper focuses attention on high quality education with special emphasis on higher education for forward linkages through value addition.

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