Globalization and Social Movements: Comparing Women's Movements responses to NAFTA in Mexico,the USA and Canada

The article examines the responses of women's movements in Canada, the United States and Mexico to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) from a comparative perspective. It argues that while some women's groups have raised important critiques of trade agreements from a feminist perspective, they have largely failed to make the gendered dimension of regionalization visible in public debate on NAFTA and have had virtually no impact on public policy. The nature of the women's movements in the three countries limited the possibilities of greater contestation of the form of economic liberalization at both the national and transnational levels. Drawing upon the literature on social movements, the article suggests that the ability of women's movements to respond to NAFTA was conditioned by: (1) the shifting universe of political discourse in each country - whether it permits the identification of macroeconomic policy as a gender issue - which is conditioned in part by the diverse forms of engagement with liberalism as a political philosophy in each country, and (2) the organizational structure of women's movements in each country, their relationships with their respective states, and their role within broader coalitions.     

Window on the world. From modest rights to commodification in Canada's welfare state

This paper examines the rise and decline of Canada's welfare state from 1945 to the end of the century. The years to the mid-1960s were marked by the introduction of an array of social programmes that produced a system inferior to that of the major western European countries, but distinctly superior to that of the United States. These developments gave 'modest social rights' to Canada's residents, whilst not fundamentally challenging the market base of the society. The years since 1971 have been marked by retreat, influenced by three considerations: the world oil crisis of 1973, which imported significant inflation to Canada and resulted in large government deficits; the threat of separatism in Quebec, which resulted in a massive devolution of authority from the central government to the provinces; and the Free Trade Agreement with the United States (reflecting a more general rise in neo-conservatism), which further integrated the economies and societies of the two countries. The impact of these changes has been to increasingly commodify social benefits within a market context, so that Esping-Andersen's 1989 classification of Canada as a 'liberal' welfare state has undoubtedly proved accurate, though a decade later than he identified. The paper explores benefits for children and the right to food as case illustrations of these fundamental changes.     

Economic integration and labor flows: stage migration in farm labor markets in Mexico and the United States

"This article examines the probable effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on migration from Mexico to the United States, disputing the view that expansion of jobs in Mexico could rapidly reduce undocumented migration. To the extent that NAFTA causes Mexican export agriculture to expand, migration to the United States will increase rather than decrease in the short run. Data collected in both California and the Mexican State of Baja California show that indigenous migrants from southern Mexico typically first undertake internal migration, which lowers the costs and risks of U.S. migration. Two features of employment in export agriculture were found to be specially significant in lowering the costs of U.S. migration: first, working in export agriculture exposes migrants to more diverse social networks and information about U.S. migration; second, agro-export employment in northern Mexico provides stable employment, albeit low-wage employment, for some members of the family close to the border (especially women and children) while allowing other members of the family to assume the risks of U.S. migration."     

North American free trade and the European situation compared

The author analyzes and compares the trade situation in the European Community (EC) with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). He finds that "while both the EC and NAFTA are designed to provide trade preferences to the member countries, the two groupings differ markedly in other respects. The Treaty of Rome, establishing what is now the EC, consciously used economic means to foster political cohesion in Western Europe; whereas, the NAFTA negotiations seek free trade rather than more comprehensive economic integration precisely to minimize political content. The EC contains many social provisions absent from the NAFTA discussions, the most important of which is the right of migration from one EC country to another." The effects of NAFTA on the economy of Mexico and on Mexican migration to the United States are also assessed.     

The uncertain connection: free trade and rural Mexican migration to the United States

"Will a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) decrease Mexican migration to the United States, as the U.S. and Mexican governments assert, or increase migration beyond the movement that would otherwise occur, as NAFTA critics allege? This article argues that it is easy to overestimate the additional emigration from rural Mexico owing to NAFTA-related economic restructuring in Mexico. The available evidence suggests four major reasons why Mexican emigration may not increase massively, despite extensive restructuring and displacement from traditional agriculture....NAFTA-related economic displacement in Mexico may yield an initial wave of migration to test the U.S. labor market, but this migration should soon diminish if the jobs that these migrants seek shift to Mexico."     

EFFECTS OF WELFARE REFORM ON WOMEN'S VOTING PARTICIPATION

This study investigates the effects of welfare reform in the United States in the 1990s on voting among low‐income women. Using the November Current Population Surveys with the added Voting and Registration Supplement for the years 1990 through 2004 and exploiting changes in welfare policy across states and over time, we estimate the causal effects of welfare reform on women's voting registration and voting participation during the period in which welfare reform unfolded. During this time period, voter turnout was decreasing in the United States. We find robust evidence that welfare reform led to smaller declines in voting (about 3 to 4 percentage points, which translates to about 10% relative to the baseline mean) for women who were exposed to welfare reform compared to several different comparison groups of similar women who were much less exposed. The robust findings suggest that welfare reform had prosocial effects on civic participation, as characterized by voting. The effects were largely confined to presidential elections, were stronger in Democratic than Republican states, were stronger in states with stronger work incentive policies, and appeared to operate through employment, education, and income. (JEL D72, H53, I38, J21)     

Did NAFTA cause a “giant sucking sound”?

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) passed Congress amidst con-tentious debate in 1993. Detractors argued that it would produce an exodus of jobs while proponents argued that it would create jobs. We examine the economic effects of NAFTA. The evidence indicates that while the employment effects have been small, NAFTA has caused an explosion of trade. This increase in exports and imports has mul-tiplied gains from trade. In addition NAFTA helped Mexico recover quickly from the 1994-1995 peso crisis and provided a political anchor for Mexico's attempts to pri-vatize, deregulate, and liberalize. The resulting growth and stability in Mexico have benefitted the U.S., which shares a 2,000 mile border with Mexico.     

Inheritance of Welfare Recipiency: An Intergenerational Study of Social Assistance Recipiency in Postwar Sweden

Intergenerational transmission of welfare dependency has received increasing attention among social scientists, especially in the United States, as greater availability of longitudinal data has shed new light on this issue. It remains unclear, however, to what extent the intergenerational correlation of welfare recipiency observed in the United States reflects or interacts with unobserved variables, the racial composition of the population, and the institutional structure of social policies. This study focuses on Sweden, a country with an ethnically homogenous population and institutional social policy structures that differ from those in the United States. It utilizes an internationally unique longitudinal data set to test hypotheses on the inheritance of welfare benefit recipiency as indicated by reliance on means‐tested social assistance. A clear intergenerational effect is observed. This effect, however, reflects a combination of social assistance in the family of origin, children's school adjustment, and parental criminality. Children who lack this combination of problems do not show signs of intergenerational welfare dependency.     

The ‘First Three Years’ Movement and the Infant Brain: A Review of Critiques

This article reviews a particular aspect of the critique of the increasing focus on the brain and neuroscience; what has been termed by some, ‘neuromania’. It engages with the growing literature produced in response to the ‘first three years’ movement: an alliance of child welfare advocates and politicians that draws on the authority of neuroscience to argue that social problems such as inequality, poverty, educational underachievement, violence and mental illness are best addressed through ‘early intervention’ programmes to protect or enhance emotional and cognitive aspects of children's brain development. The movement began in the United States in the early 1990s and has become increasingly vocal and influential since then, achieving international legitimacy in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the UK and elsewhere. The movement, and the brain‐based culture of expert‐led parent training that has grown with it, has been criticised for claiming scientific authority whilst taking a cavalier approach to scientific method and evidence; for being overly deterministic about the early years of life; for focusing attention on individual parental failings rather than societal or structural problems, for adding to the expanding anxieties of parents and strengthening the intensification of parenting and, ultimately, for redefining the parent–child relationship in biologised, instrumental and dehumanised terms.     

Beyond 3×1: Linking Sending and Receiving Societies in the Development Process

In this paper, I explore the possibilities of linking and expanding existing sending and receiving countries' initiatives that mobilize immigrants to participate in the development process of their countries of origin in such a way as to advance two main goals of such initiatives: (1) to multiply their developmental impact in sending regions; and (2) to help increase the social and political capital of immigrants and immigrant associations, so as to facilitate both their role in the development of their countries of origin and also their integration in their host societies. In the paper, I will study the Mexican 3×1 programme and Spain's co‐development model and explore the ways in which programmes such as these could be ideally linked and implemented, in diverse contexts, in a way that is advantageous to both sending and receiving societies. The paper is based on research conducted over the past 9 years with Mexican immigrant associations in the United States; on interviews with Mexican government officials in Mexico and the United States; and on interviews conducted in 2008 and 2009 in Spain.     

Sociology

The authors describe how three elementary teachers working in very different parts of the United States teach about Mexico. These teachers' practices allow them to enhance the traditional social studies curriculum, help children learn about themselves and other people, and increase children's capacities for global citizenship.     

International Opportunities and Domestic Protest: Zapatistas,Mexico and the New World Economy

The EZLN (Zapatista Army of National Liberation) uprising in Chiapas, Mexico, in 1994 took advantage of many political opportunities in an economic and politically liberalizing state. Most significantly, the negotiation and passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) generated issues over which to mobilize and created political openings in the system to support mobilization. While NAFTA highlighted the dark side of globalization with its negative effects on living conditions in southern Mexico, it also ushered in political reforms that protected human rights and brought great international attention to Mexico. Many nations were watching to see whether Mexico had reached economic and political maturity. Taken together, these political opportunities provided the context for the EZLN to mobilize as a political movement.     

Social Class and Opportunity In Canada

Cet article illustre le niveau des differences regionales et provinciates qui existent dans la distribution de classe entre ceux qui sont nés au pays et des immigrants qui arriverent au Canada avant 1946 et durant la periode 1946–1961. En utilisant un index socio-economique compose de trois cent vingt (320) occupations, on etablit six classes sociales. Au Quebec et dans les provinces de l'Atlantique, ceux qui sont nes au pays sont quelque peu sous-representes dans les trois classes superieures, tandis que les immigrants venant des Etats-Unis, du Royaume-Uni, et de l'Allemagne sont sur-representes. Par ailleurs, ceux qui sont nes au Canada sont sur-representes dans la province de 1'Ontario et dans les provinces de 1'Ouest. Les immigrants americains qui emigrerent au Canada durant la periode de I'apres-guerre, sont substantiellement plus sur-representes dans les trois classes superieures que tout autre groupe d'emigrants. lis sont suivis, en cela, par les emigrants d'apres-guerre du Royaume-Uni. Ce sont les principales conclusions de l'auteur. This paper shows the extent to which regional and provincial differences exist in the class distribution of native-born and immigrants who arrived before 1946 and between 1946 and 1961. Using six classes based upon a socioeconomic index of 320 occupations the author shows that in the Atlantic provinces and Quebec, the Canadian-born are slightly underrepresented in the three top classes. Immigrants from the United States, tie United Kingdom and Germany are overrepresented. In Ontario and the Western provinces, the Canadian-born are overrepresented. The postwar immigrants from the United States have a substantially higher degree of overrepresentation in the three top classes than any other immigrant group, followed by postwar immigrants from the United Kingdom.     

Confronting Gender Discrimination in the Mexican Workplace

Abstract

This article focuses on the issue of gender discrimination in Mexico, in light of NAFTA since passed in 1993. A model of transnational contention from social movement theories is modified and used to analyze the integration of actions by Mexican, US and Canadian women's and labor group's actions, as they fight for Mexican pregnant workers' rights. Data from interviews with labor leaders, female legislators, political parties and feminist NGOs in Mexico and tri-national government documents are processed in a typology of transnational contention, revealing a high degree of integrated transnational and domestic efforts-which I argue is the basis for a growing women's labor movement in the region.     

Mexico and North American Free Trade

Book reviewed in this article: Region North America: Canada, United States, Mexico. Proceedings. Edited by Glen E. Lich and Joseph A. McKinney Undocumented Mexicans in the United States. By David M. Heer     

The Mother‐Citizen and the Working Girl: First‐Wave Feminist Citizenship Claims in Canada and Discursive Opportunities for Twenty‐First Century Childcare Policy

L'État providence Canadien est déséquilibré: leader mondial dans certains domaines de l'investissement social—plus particulièrement en soins de santé et enseignement supérieur—il traîne dans d'autres domaines de la dépense d'aide sociale, y compris les politiques de garde d'enfants. Nous constatons qu'aujourd'hui la résistance dans la plupart des régions du Canada à la politique de garde d'enfants universel a des racines historiques profondes. Elle est de fait intégré dans le cadre même du bien‐être social canadien: le contrat de citoyenneté sociale. Nous employons une approche de “bas en haut” sur l'état du bien‐être en nous concentrant sur la façon dont les acteurs collectifs, en particulier, les féministes de la première vague et leurs contemporains au sein des organisations du mouvement ouvrier, ont encadrées et caractérisé la citoyenneté sociale féminine; Nous constatons que l'exclusion de l'adhésion des femmes employées tronque les possibilités discursives par lesquelles des revendications pour des provisions universelles de bien‐être sociale pourraient être apportées. Canada's welfare state is lopsided: while leading the world in some areas of social investment—most notably health care and higher education—it is a laggard in other areas of social welfare spending, including childcare policies. We find that policy resistance to universal childcare in most regions of Canada today has deep historical roots and is, indeed, embedded into the very framework of the Canadian welfare state: the social citizenship contract. We employ a “bottom‐up” perspective on the welfare state focusing on how collective actors, in particular, first‐wave feminists and their contemporaries within labor movement organizations, framed and characterized female social citizenship in ways that excluded employed women from full membership and, in this, truncated discursive opportunities by which claims for universal welfare state provisions could be made.     

Gendering (Trans)National Advocacy

Whether lauded or deplored, transnational organizing among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) generally, and women's NGOs specifically, is recognized as an active player in debates about international economic policy. In this article, I turn attention toward one consequence of women's transnational NGO organizing that has been under-analyzed: the impact that transnational activism has on domestic political organizations and opportunities. The recent increase in activism on gender and policies of free trade in the USA is the product of women's transnational political organizingover the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In the case of NAFTA, theoretical insights about the ways that gendered categories undergird the economy were made visible by and through the transnational advocacy in which feminists engaged.And, this article indicates, these transnational advocacy efforts have helped to shift the domestic political terrain of women's organizing in the United States. I argue that as women's rights advocates in the United States were confronted with the realization that the nexus between gender and trade policy was important to many women's rights and feminist activists around the world, they began to question why the gendered implication of trade policy did not hold a comparable place in the US feminist arena. Thus, changes in the domestic political landscape of non-governmentalactivismmay be one of the longest lasting (and most overlooked) consequences of transnational political engagement.     

Migration,Social Networks,and Child Health in Mexican Families

This paper examines the consequences of parental migratory strategies for children in three types of Mexican families: those living with their migrant parents in the United States, those living with parents who migrated and returned to Mexico, and those living in Mexico with parents who have never migrated. Using data on 804 children from the Health and Migration Survey (HMS), we found significant differences in children's health across the three types of families. Results also revealed robust effects on child health of the size of immediate and extended social networks and migration experience after controlling for potential mediators such as mother's general health, receipt of social support, and child's age and sex. Findings suggest that social networks and migration affect children in complex ways, offering health benefits to those with migrant parents in U.S. households but not to those living with parents who migrated in the past and returned to Mexico.     

Becoming Overweight without Gaining a Pound: Weight Evaluations and the Social Integration of Mexicans in the United States

Mexican women gain weight with increasing duration in the United States. In the United States, body dissatisfaction tends to be associated with depression, disordered eating, and incongruent weight evaluations, particularly among white women and women of higher socioeconomic status. However, it remains unclear how being overweight and obesity are interpreted by Mexican women. Using comparable data of women aged 20–64 from both Mexico (the 2006 Encuesta Nacional de Salud y Nutricion; N = 17,012) and the United States (the 1999–2009 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys; N = 8,487), we compare weight status evaluations among Mexican nationals, Mexican immigrants, US‐born Mexicans, US‐born non‐Hispanic whites, and US‐born non‐Hispanic blacks. Logistic regression analyses, which control for demographic and socioeconomic variables and measured body mass index and adjust for the likelihood of migration for Mexican nationals, indicate that the tendency to self‐evaluate as overweight among Mexicans converges with levels among non‐Hispanic whites and diverges from blacks over time in the United States. Overall, the results suggest a US integration process in which Mexican‐American women's less critical self‐evaluations originate in Mexico but fade with time in the United States as they gradually adopt US white norms for thinner body sizes. These results are discussed in light of prior research about social comparison and negative health assimilation.     

Does “Smarter” Lead to Safer? An Assessment of the US Border Accords with Canada and Mexico

The terrorist attacks of September 11 and their immediate aftermath along the US‐Canadian and US‐Mexican borders focused attention on border management strategies in ways previously unimaginable. Suddenly confronted by the fact that existing systems and processes were not particularly effective either at protecting security or facilitating legitimate traffic, the United States, in conjunction with the Canadian and Mexican Governments, demonstrated an uncharacteristic willingness to reconceptualize its approach to physical borders. While initiating a series of internal policy adjustments to secure themselves against terrorist threats, the US, Canadian, and Mexican Governments also signed two bilateral agreements — the 12 December 2001 United States‐Canada Smart Border Declaration and the 22 March 2002 United States‐Mexico Border Partnership Agreement. These agreements represent an important development in the US's relationship with each of its North American neighbours, acknowledging not only the deep economic, social, and cultural ties, but also the new reality that the United States cannot attain the additional security it desires through unilateral actions alone. Thus, while September 11 forced a reassessment of vulnerabilities, it simultaneously provided the United States an opportunity to work more systematically with its contiguous neighbours for security benefits, a realization likely to flow into other areas where the benefits of cooperation eclipse those of unilateralism. This paper analyses the first year of the two border accords, tracking their implementation and evaluating their successes and failures. Most importantly, the paper outlines outstanding challenges, highlights steps that the governments should take to achieve additional border security and efficiency, and draws conclusions regarding factors likely to make their efforts more, or less, successful.