North American Borders in Comparative Perspective


Book Description

The northern and southern borders and borderlands of the United States should have much in common; instead they offer mirror articulations of the complex relationships and engagements between the United States, Mexico, and Canada. In North American Borders in Comparative Perspectiveleading experts provide a contemporary analysis of how globalization and security imperatives have redefined the shared border regions of these three nations. This volume offers a comparative perspective on North American borders and reveals the distinctive nature first of the overportrayed Mexico-U.S. border and then of the largely overlooked Canada-U.S. border. The perspectives on either border are rarely compared. Essays in this volume bring North American borders into comparative focus; the contributors advance the understanding of borders in a variety of theoretical and empirical contexts pertaining to North America with an intense sharing of knowledge, ideas, and perspectives. Adding to the regional analysis of North American borders and borderlands, this book cuts across disciplinary and topical areas to provide a balanced, comparative view of borders. Scholars, policy makers, and practitioners convey perspectives on current research and understanding of the United States’ borders with its immediate neighbors. Developing current border theories, the authors address timely and practical border issues that are significant to our understanding and management of North American borderlands. The future of borders demands a deep understanding of borderlands and borders. This volume is a major step in that direction. Contributors Bruce Agnew Donald K. Alper Alan D. Bersin Christopher Brown Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly Irasema Coronado Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera Michelle Keck Victor Konrad Francisco Lara-Valencia Tony Payan Kathleen Staudt Rick Van Schoik Christopher Wilson




Canadian and Mexican Security in the New North America


Book Description

North American relations have undergone profound changes over the last 15 years. NAFTA not only created the biggest trading bloc in the world; it was also a catalyst in the conceptualization of the continent as an integrated region. Whereas, prior to 9/11 relations remained primarily at the economic level, the attacks on the U.S. unleashed a new dynamic in North American relations that has seen a significant increase in cooperation in a large number of areas, including security. It remains to be seen whether a new security perimeter encompassing the three countries will emerge. But momentum toward greater collaboration and further integration appears to be afoot. Because of the enormous economic dependence on their mutual neighbour, both Canada and Mexico will need to cooperate with the U .S. on security matters given its importance since 9/11. Ongoing analysis of the evolution of security relations in North America and the impact on Mexico and Canada will therefore not only be likely to continue, but will be necessary. This book aims to contribute to this endeavour.




Merger Of The Century


Book Description

No two nations in the world are as integrated, economically and socially, as are the United States and Canada. We share geography, values and the largest unprotected border in the world. Regardless of this close friendship, our two countries are on a slow-motion collision course—with each other and with the rest of the world. While we wrestle with internal political gridlock and fiscal challenges and clash over border problems, the economies of the larger world change and flourish. Emerging economies sailed through the meltdown of 2008. The International Monetary Fund forecasts that by 2018, China's economy will be bigger than that of the United States; when combined with India, Japan and the four Asian Tigers—South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong--China's economy will be bigger than that of the G8 (minus Japan). Rather than continuing on this road to mutual decline, our two nations should chart a new course. Bestselling author Diane Francis proposes a simple and obvious solution: What if the United States and Canada merged into one country? The most audacious initiative since the Louisiana Purchase would solve the biggest problems each country expects to face: the U.S.'s national security threats and declining living standards; and Canada's difficulty controlling and developing its huge land mass stemming from a lack of capital, workers, technology and military might. Merger of the Century builds both a strong political argument and a compelling business case, treating our two countries not only as sovereign entities but as merging companies. We stand on the cusp of a new world order. Together, by marshalling resources and combining efforts, Canada and America have a greater chance of succeeding. As separate nations, the future is in much greater doubt indeed.




North America


Book Description

This CFR-sponsored Independent Task Force report, North America: Time for a New Focus, asserts that elevating and prioritizing the U.S.-Canada-Mexico relationship offers the best opportunity for strengthening the United States and its place in the world.




Borderlands


Book Description

Border security has been high on public-policy agendas in Europe and North America since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York City and on the headquarters of the American military in Washington DC. Governments are now confronted with managing secure borders, a policy objective that in this era of increased free trade and globalization must compete with intense cross-border flows of people and goods. Border-security policies must enable security personnel to identify, or filter out, dangerous individuals and substances from among the millions of travelers and tons of goods that cross borders daily, particularly in large cross-border urban regions. This book addresses this gap between security needs and an understanding of borders and borderlands. Specifically, the chapters in this volume ask policy-makers to recognize that two fundamental elements define borders and borderlands: first, human activities (the agency and agent power of individual ties and forces spanning a border), and second, the broader social processes that frame individual action, such as market forces, government activities (law, regulations, and policies), and the regional culture and politics of a borderland. Borders emerge as the historically and geographically variable expression of human ties exercised within social structures of varying force and influence, and it is the interplay and interdependence between people's incentives to act and the surrounding structures (i.e. constructed social processes that contain and constrain individual action) that determine the effectiveness of border security policies. This book argues that the nature of borders is to be porous, which is a problem for security policy makers. It shows that when for economic, cultural, or political reasons human activities increase across a border and borderland, governments need to increase cooperation and collaboration with regard to security policies, if only to avoid implementing mismatched security policies.




Dependent America?


Book Description

This provocative work documents how Canada and Mexico offer the United States open markets for its investments and exports, massive flows of skilled and unskilled labour, and vast resource inputs - all of which boost its size and competitiveness - more than does any other US partner. They are also Uncle Sam's most important allies in supporting its anti-terrorist and anti-narcotics security. Clarkson and Mildenberger explain the paradox of these two countries' simultaneous importance and powerlessness by showing how the US government has systematically neutralized their potential influence.




North American Homeland Security


Book Description

Did 9/11 revive a North American guns-butter trade-off? Established in the largest administrative overhaul since World War II, the Department of Homeland Security was charged with keeping the United States safe within a wider security community, but confronted the Washington Consensus-based Western Hemisphere free trade movement, beginning with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and extending to the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) in 2003, to materialize a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) compact. Whether 9/11 restrictions impeded these trade-related thrusts or not, embracing neoliberalism permitted Canada and Mexico to pursue their own initiatives, such as proposing free-trade to the US—Canada in 1985, Mexico in 1990, but, as during the Cold War, security imperatives ultimately prevailed. This work investigates Canada's and Mexico's Department of Homeland Security responses through three bilateral studies of policy responses along comparative lines, case studies of security and intelligence apparatuses in each of the three countries, and a post-9/11 trilateral assessment. Ultimately, they raise a broader and more critical North American question: Will regional economic integration continue to be trumped by security considerations, as during the Cold War era, and thereby elevate second-best outcomes, or rise above the constraints to reassert the unquenchable post-Cold War thirst for unfettered markets replete with private enterprises, liberal policies, and full-fledged competitiveness?




The North American Idea


Book Description

In its first seven years, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) tripled trade and quintupled foreign investment among the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, increasing its share of the world economy. In 2001, however, North America peaked. Since then, trade has slowed among the three, manufacturing has shrunk, and illegal migration and drug-related violence have soared. At the same time, Europe caught up, and China leaped ahead. In The North American Idea, eminent scholar and policymaker Robert A. Pastor explains that NAFTA's mandate was too limited to address the new North American agenda. Instead of offering bold initiatives like a customs union to expand trade, leaders of the three nations thought small. Interest groups stalemated the small ideas while inhibiting the bolder proposals, and the governments accomplished almost nothing. To overcome this resistance and reinvigorate the continent, the leaders need to start with an idea based on a principle of interdependence. Pastor shows how this idea--once woven into the national consciousness of the three countries--could mobilize public support for continental solutions to problems like infrastructure and immigration that have confounded each nation working on its own. Providing essential historical context and challenging readers to view the continent in a new way, The North American Idea combines an expansive vision with a detailed blueprint for a more integrated, dynamic, and equitable North America.




The Canada-US Border in the 21st Century


Book Description

Borders are critical to the development and survival of modern states, offer security against external threats, and mark public policy and identity difference. At the same time, borders, and borderlands, are places where people, ideas, and economic goods meet and intermingle. The United States-Canada border demonstrates all of the characteristics of modern borders, and epitomises the debates that surround them. This book examines the development of the US-Canada border, provides a detailed analysis of its current operation, and concludes with an evaluation of the border’s future. The central objective is to examine how the border functions in practice, presenting a series of case studies on its operation. This book will be of interest to scholars of North American integration and border studies, and to policy practitioners, who will be particularly interested in the case studies and what they say about the impact of border reform.




The State and Security in Mexico


Book Description

Internationally recognized experts from the academic and think-tank communities in the United States, Mexico, and Canada consider the origins of the current crisis in Mexico, and the nature and effectiveness of the Calderón government's response, through the lens of Joel Migdal's concept of "the state in society."