Big Business, the State, and Free Trade
Constructing Coalitions in Mexico

This book explains trade policy coalition politics and the opening of Mexico's economy.

Strom C. Thacker (Author)

9780521032131, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 2 November 2006

256 pages, 20 b/w illus. 21 tables
22.8 x 15.1 x 1.5 cm, 0.392 kg

'This book takes a big step beyond one-sided accounts of trade policy, either statist or sectoral, to examine the groups within the state and in big business who allied to push Mexico into NAFTA. Thacker's richly documented study offers a penetrating analysis of Mexican politics in recent decades and contributes important theoretical insights for comparative debates on the crucial nexus between business and government.' Ben Ross Schneider, Northwestern University

Many existing theories of economic liberalization fail to account for Mexico's experiences. Why has the Mexican government risked alienating its primary constituencies by pursuing trade opening and joining NAFTA? Big Business, the State, and Free Trade develops a general explanation of trade policy coalition politics and uses it to explain the opening of Mexico's economy. It emphasizes the role of business and state actors in constructing competing trade policy coalitions. The book traces the formation and relative strength of a protectionist and a free trade coalition across a series of policy episodes from the 1970s to the 1980s. It pays particular attention to the North American Free Trade Agreement, which consolidated a strong free trade coalition between big business and state elites. The conditions that strengthened the free trade coalition have also contributed to higher levels of political and economic instability since 1994. Coalition politics is likely to become more important as Mexico's political system democratizes.

List of figures
List of tables
List of abbreviations
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction: international context, domestic interests and Mexican trade reform
2. Coalition politics and free trade
3. Structural power relations between business and the Mexican state
4. Trade policy coalitions in the 1980s
5. Assembling teams and building bridges
6. Business participation in the NAFTA negotiations
7. Conclusion: Mexico in comparative perspective
Appendix
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP]