Requiem or Revival?

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was launched amid great hopes and controversy in 1994. More than a dozen years later, progress toward economic integration has stalled. Mexico’s economy remains far behind those of Canada and the United States, and such pressing issues as energy security remain unaddressed. In Requiem or Revival? scholars and policymakers from all three nations dissect NAFTA’s failure to fulfill its early promise and evaluate the prospects for further integration. The authors explore the interaction between regionalism and multilateralism, the impact of the “new trade” agenda, and NAFTA’s unresolved problems—migration, security, and energy. Recognizing the limits of the NAFTA framework, they examine its relationship to the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas negotiations and the Doha Development Round, and they discuss various ways in which NAFTA could be revamped or improved. The result is an intriguing volume offering important insights on the future of economic integration in North America and beyond. Contributors include Chantal Blouin (North-South Institute), Theodore H. Cohn (Simon Fraser University, emeritus), I. M. Destler (University of Maryland), Charles F. Doran (Johns Hopkins University–SAIS), Christina Gabriel (Carleton University), Sergio Gómez Lora (IQOM, Inteligencia Comercial), Jerry Haar (Florida International University), Laura Macdonald (Carleton University), Gordon Mace (Université Laval), Isidro Morales (University of the Americas), Glauco Oliveira (University of Southern California), Antonio Ortiz Mena (CIDE), Jeffrey J. Schott (Peterson Institute for International Economics),Anne Weston (North-South Institute),Tamara Woroby (Towson University, Johns Hopkins University––SAIS), and Jaime Zabludovsky (Soluciones Estratégicas).

Isabel Studer is assistant director general for Canada at the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She has also served as research director at the North American Commission for Labor Cooperation. Carol Wise is associate professor of international relations at the University of Southern California. Her most recent books include Reinventing the State: Economic Strategy and Institutional Change in Peru (Michigan, 2003) and with Riordan Roett, Post Stabilization Politics in Latin America: Competition, Transition, Collapse (Brookings, 2003).