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The Ties that Bind: “Silent Integration” and Conflict Regulation in U.S.-Mexican Relations

Review products

THE CHALLENGE OF INTERDEPENDENCE: MEXICO AND THE UNITED STATES. By the Bilateral Commission on the Future of United States-Mexican Relations. (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1989. Pp. 238. $14.95 paper.)
MEXICO AND THE UNITED STATES: MANAGING THE RELATIONSHIP. Edited by ROETT RIORDAN. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1988. Pp. 266. $25.00 paper.)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 October 2022

Kevin J. Middlebrook
Kevin J. Middlebrook*
Affiliation:
Indiana University
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Abstract

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Type
Review Essays
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , 1991 , pp. 261 - 285
Copyright
Copyright © 1991 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

*

I am grateful to Wayne A. Cornelius for his helpful comments on an earlier version of this review essay.

References

Notes

1. The report's principal authors are Rosario Green and Peter H. Smith. Five collections of background papers prepared for the Bilateral Commission were published by the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at the University of California, San Diego, in 1989: Images of Mexico in the United States, edited by John W. Coatsworth and Carlos Rico; The Economics of Interdependence: Mexico and the United States, edited by William Glade and Cassio Luiselli; Mexican Migration to the United States: Origins, Consequences, and Policy Options, edited by Wayne A. Cornelius and Jorge A. Bustamante; The Drug Connection in U.S.-Mexican Relations, edited by Guadalupe González and Marta Tienda; and Foreign Policy in U.S.-Mexican Relations, edited by Rosario Green and Peter H. Smith.

2. International Monetary Fund, Direction of Trade Statistics Yearbook, 1987 (Washington, D.C.: IMF, 1987), 283; and also Direction of Trade Statistics Yearbook, 1989 (Washington, D.C.: IMF, 1989), 279. Fuel products (crude petroleum, petroleum products, natural gas, and electricity) accounted for an average of 41 percent of all Mexican exports to the United States between 1980 and 1987, although this percentage fell steadily from 55 percent in 1982 to 19 percent in 1987. See Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, OECD Trade with Mexico and Central America (Washington, D.C.: CIA, 1989), t. 14, p. 54.

3. Direction of Trade Statistics Yearbook, 1987, 404–5; and Direction of Trade Statistics Yearbook, 1989, 402–3.

4. Survey of Current Business 69 (Aug. 1989):85, t. 29. This periodical is published by the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis.

5. U.S. Department of Commerce, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1989 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, 1989), t. 946.

6. See “Free-Trade Talks with U. S. Set Off Debate in Mexico,” New York Times, 29 Mar. 1990, p. 1; “Free-Trade Talks Seen for Mexico,” New York Times, 11 June 1990, pp. C1, 6; and “U.S. and Mexicans Cautiously Back Free-Trade Idea,” New York Times, 12 June 1990, p. 1.

7. Donald L. Wyman, “Dependence and Conflict: U.S. Relations with Mexico, 1920–1975,” in Diplomatic Dispute: U. S. Conflict with Iran, Japan, and Mexico, edited by Robert L. Paarlberg (Cambridge, Mass.: Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, 1978), 87–90. Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye argue that “complex interdependence” has three main characteristics: multiple channels connect societies and governments; the agenda of interstate relationships consists of multiple issues that are not arranged in a clear or consistent hierarchy; and military force is not used to determine the outcome of conflicts. See Keohane and Nye, Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition (Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown, 1977), 24–25

8. Wyman, “Dependence and Conflict,” 97.

9. See, for example, Mario Ojeda, México: el surgimiento de una política exterior activa (Mexico City: Secretaría de Educación Pública, 1986), 19–24. Mexico's dependence on the United States does not necessarily imply that the U.S. government has unqualified influence in bilateral relations.

10. Kevin J. Middlebrook and Carlos Rico, “The United States and Latin America in the 1980s: Change, Complexity, and Contending Perspectives,” in The United States and Latin America in the 1980s: Contending Perspectives on a Decade of Crisis, edited by Kevin J. Middlebrook and Carlos Rico (Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1986), 14–16.

11. For an excellent analysis of the use of interdependence rhetoric in U.S.-Mexican relations, see Carlos Rico F., “The Future of Mexican-U.S. Relations and the Limits of the Rhetoric of ‘Interdependence,”‘ in Mexican-U. S. Relations: Conflict and Convergence, edited by Carlos Vásquez and Manuel García y Griego (Los Angeles, Calif.: Chicano Studies Research Center and Latin American Center, University of California, Los Angeles, 1983), 127–74.

12. For a general discussion of vulnerability and bargaining power, see Keohane and Nye, Power and Interdependence, chaps. 1–2; and James A. Caporaso, “Dependence, Dependency, and Power in the Global System: A Structural and Behavioral Analysis,” International Organization 32, no. 1 (Winter 1978):13–43.

13. Neither book includes a section on energy issues, a topic that less than a decade ago was de rigueur in discussions of U.S.-Mexican economic relations.

14. The Bilateral Commission suggests that the Mexican government might in the future encourage Mexican-Americans to lobby for changes in U.S. immigration policy that are favorable to Mexico (p. 162).

15. In 1988 the United States deployed National Guard units in antidrug efforts at seven major border points, and in November 1989, the U.S. government created “Joint Task Force Six” (based in El Paso, Texas) under the command of the U.S. Army to interdict drug smuggling along the Mexican border. Both actions prompted strong protests in Mexico. See “Sovereignty Hinders U.S.-Mexican Drug Alliance,” New York Times, 25 Feb. 1990, p. 18.

16. “Mexico Calls Slain U.S. Drug Agent a Trafficker,” New York Times, 16 Jan. 1990, p. 12; “2 Ex-Mexican Officials Charged in '85 Murder of U.S. Drug Agent,” New York Times, 1 Feb. 1990, p. 1; “U.S. Charges in Drug Agent's Death: New Friction,” New York Times, 2 Feb. 1990, p. 10; “Mexico Says Suspect's Seizure Imperils Aid to U.S. on Drugs,” New York Times, 20 Apr. 1990, p. 1; “Justice Dept. Scrambles to Explain Mexico Abduction,” New York Times, 27 May 1990, p. 14.

17. Keohane and Nye distinguish between sensitivity and vulnerability. See their Power and Interdependence, 12–15.

18. Recent examinations of domestic Mexican politics can be found in Mexico's Alternative Political Futures, edited by Wayne A. Cornelius, Judith Gentleman, and Peter H. Smith (La Jolla: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego, 1989); Prospects for Mexico, edited by George W. Grayson (Washington, D.C.: Foreign Service Institute, 1988); Mexican Politics in Transition, edited by Judith Gentleman (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1987); and Roderic A. Camp, Mexico's Political Stability: The Next Five Years (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1986). With the partial exceptions of the Grayson and Camp volumes, these books do not address the implications of political change in Mexico for U.S.-Mexican relations.

19. Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, “Misunderstanding Mexico,” Foreign Policy 78 (Spring 1990): 113–30.

20. Howard J. Wiarda suggests such a linkage in “Mexico: The Unravelling of a Corporatist Regime?” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 30 (Winter 1988–89):23.

21. See, for example, “Mexican Politicians Look North of Border,” New York Times, 8 Dec. 1989, p. 1.

22. See Robert A. Pastor and Jorge C. Castañeda, Limits to Friendship: The United States and Mexico (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988), pp. 72–77.

23. Bendesky and Godínez's contention that conflictual cooperation offers no useful model of voluntary cooperation is unconvincing. See their contribution to Mexico and the United States, 62.

24. A bilateral consultative mechanism was created by President Jimmy Carter in 1977 with economic, social, and political working groups. President Reagan renamed this body the Mexico-United States Binational Commission. It meets every twelve to eighteen months and has a broad mandate for dealing with bilateral issues.

25. Cathryn L. Thorup, “U.S. Policy-Making toward Mexico: Prospects for Administrative Reform,” in Green and Smith, Foreign Policy in U.S.-Mexican Relations, 140, 147, 153–55.