North American Regionalism and Global Spread

""The book by Hussain and Dominguez provides a thorough, comprehensive, and insightful assessment of the extent to which the three North American countries engage in trilateral activities and/or continue to rely on bilateral or unilateral interaction methods. Evidence on how NAFTA's actual provisions hold up in practice is based on a number of case studies drawn from trade, environment and institutional/administrative arrangements. The book offers valuable lessons for regional integration and multilateral undertakings elsewhere in the world. This wide-ranging and penetrating analysis of inter-state relations within NAFTA deserves a wide readership among practitioners and scholars alike." - Emil J. Kirchner, Jean Monnet Chair, University of Essex, UK "This book is a timely assessment of the achievements of NAFTA after 20 years. The theoretical approach is enlightening and the analysis constitutes a realistic realty-check with focus on NAFTA's limitations and various turns to bilateralism. A must read for scholars of regional integration and citizens interested in changes in the global political economy." - Finn Laursen, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark Was the NAFTA experiment a means to other goals for Canada, Mexico, and the United States, or an end in itself? This twenty-year study of trade and investment, dispute settlement and intellectual property rights, and the environment and labor finds all three North American countries are pursuing alternate initiatives independently, many of their thrusts streamlining with globalizing forces, and just as many strengthening Westphalian statism. Those findings caution against overly optimistic and deepening integrative arguments, invite exogenous dynamics like security considerations to mix and mingle with endogenous (or NAFTA-based) counterparts, and stop safely short of die-hard integrative opponents while opening pathways for both theoretical and empirical reassessments"--