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Begin New Search Political Geography Mexico

301. The Economic Logic of Illegal Immigration

Author:
Gordon H. Hanson
Publication Date:
04-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Illegal immigration is a source of mounting concern for politicians in the United States. In the past ten years, the U.S. population of illegal immigrants has risen from five million to nearly twelve million, prompting angry charges that the country has lost control over its borders. Congress approved measures last year that have significantly tightened enforcement along the U.S.-Mexico border in an effort to stop the flow of unauthorized migrants, and it is expected to make another effort this year at the first comprehensive reform of immigration laws in more than twenty years.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Development, and Economics
Political Geography:
United States, Latin America, and Mexico

302. The Japan-Mexico FTA: A Cross-Regional Step in the Path towards Asian Regionalism

Author:
Mireya Solís and Saori N. Katada
Publication Date:
06-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
University of British Columbia
Abstract:
By most accounts, Japan and Mexico remain distant economic partners with only a modest volume of bilateral trade and foreign direct investment, and a large geographical and cultural gulf between them. By this depiction, the Japanese decision to negotiate with Mexico is puzzling if not downright nonsensical: Why would Japan invest so much political capital in the negotiation of a complex free trade agreement (FTA) with a nation accounting for such a minuscule share of its international economic exchange? Solís and Katada challenge this interpretation of Japan's second bilateral FTA ever, and demonstrate that far from being irrational or insignificant, the stakes involved in the Japan-Mexico FTA were very high, and that this crossregional initiative stands to exert powerful influence over the future evolution of Japan's shift towards economic regionalism. For a number of Japanese industries (automobiles, electronics and government procurement contractors) negotiating with Mexico was essential to level the playing field vis-à-vis their American and European rivals, which already enjoyed preferential access to the Mexican market based on their FTAs. For the Japanese trade bureaucrats, negotiations with Mexico offered an opportunity to tip the domestic balance in favour of an active FTA diplomacy, despite the opposition of the agricultural lobby. Negotiations with Mexico constituted a litmus test, both for the Japanese government and in the eyes of potential FTA partners in Asia, on whether Japan could offer a satisfactory liberalization package to prospective FTA partners to make these negotiations worthwhile.
Topic:
Diplomacy
Political Geography:
Japan, America, Asia, and Mexico

303. "The Globalizers: The IMF, the World Bank, and Their Borrowers"

Author:
Joseph P. Joyce
Publication Date:
12-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
Woods is an insightful and thoughtful authority on the Bretton Woods institutions. In this book she examines their activities and focuses on their engagements with Mexico, Russia, and the sub-Saharan African nations.
Political Geography:
Africa, Russia, and Mexico

304. Program for the Study of Biofuels, Poverty and Food Security

Author:
Jikun Huang, Mark Rosengrant, Rosamond Naylor, Walter P. Falcon, David Victor, Kenneth Cassman, and Scott Rozelle
Publication Date:
02-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
The recent global expansion of biofuels production is an intense topic of discussion in both the popular and academic press. Much of the debate surrounding biofuels has focused on narrow issues of energy efficiency and fossil fuel substitution, to the exclusion of broader questions concerning the effects of large-scale biofuels development on commodity markets, land use patterns, and the global poor. There is reason to think these effects will be very large. The majority of poor people living in chronic hunger are net consumers of staple food crops; poor households spend a large share of their budget on starchy staples; and as a result, price hikes for staple agricultural commodities have the largest impact on poor consumers. For example, the rapidly growing use of corn for ethanol in the U.S. has recently sent corn prices soaring, boosting farmer incomes domestically but causing riots in the streets of Mexico City over tortilla prices. Preliminary analysis suggests that such price movements, which directly threaten hundreds of millions of households around the world, could be more than a passing phenomenon. Rapid biofuels development is occurring throughout the developed and developing world, transforming commodity markets and increasingly linking food prices to a volatile energy sector. Yet there remains little understanding of how these changes will affect global poverty and food security, and an apprehension on the part of many governments as to whether and how to participate in the biofuels revolution.
Topic:
Agriculture, Development, Economics, Globalization, Government, International Political Economy, International Trade and Finance, and Poverty
Political Geography:
United States and Mexico

305. Intergenerational Influences of Wealth in Mexico

Author:
Seymour Spilerman and Florencia Torche
Publication Date:
12-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
Abstract:
Using the 2006 Mexican Social Mobility Survey, this research evaluates the influence of parental wealth on several outcomes of adult children, including educational attainment, consumption level, asset holdings, home ownership, and value of residence. Two mechanisms of parental influence on economic wellbeing are explored: an indirect effect mediated by parental investment in human capital, and the direct transfer of resources. Three main findings emerge from the analysis. First, parental wealth is a strong determinant of educational attainment, net of the standard indicators of advantage regularly used in stratification research, and the influence of wealth is stronger among the most disadvantaged children (those with low cultural capital, and residing in non-urban areas). Second, the mechanism of parental influence on adult children's economic wellbeing differs depending on the outcome: In the case of consumption level, the influence is largely indirect, mediated by parental investment in offspring's human capital, while the opposite is true for children's asset holdings, where a direct transfer of resources predominates. Third, while access to homeownership is only weakly stratified by parent's and children's resources, the value of the acquired home is significantly affected by parental wealth. These patterns of influence are similar to those found in Chile (Spilerman and Torche 2004, Torche and Spilerman 2006) and they highlight the critical impact of parental wealth in less developed countries.
Topic:
Demographics, Economics, Political Economy, Poverty, and Third World
Political Geography:
Latin America, Mexico, and United Arab Emirates

306. No sympathy for Chavez: Venezuela's president in the media

Publication Date:
06-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Media Tenor International
Abstract:
Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez has difficulties in exporting his socialistic ideas to the region. The newspapers of seven Latin American countries have shown little sympathy towards his ideas in the past months, as has been shown by a new Media Tenor analysis of 21 leading newspapers from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Columbia, Mexico and Peru (chart 1). Chavez's re-election generated positive headlines, but his leadership aspirations for the region as well as his announced renaissance of a new socialism of Latin American coinage (the “Bolivian Revolution”) were both met with skepticism. Some newspapers see Venezuela the brink of dictatorship, and the Mexican newspaper Reforma called Chavez a “tropical Mussolini”.
Topic:
International Relations, Mass Media, and Socialism/Marxism
Political Geography:
Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Latin America, Mexico, Peru, and Bolivia

307. Elections creating space for greater media participation? Mexico with increased awareness on international TV

Publication Date:
06-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Media Tenor International
Abstract:
Mexico is generally recognized as a country with a stable democracy, yet reactions to the general elections in December 2006 might have surprised many. Reminiscent of the U.S. election in 2000, Presidential candidate Felipe Calderon of the National Action Party beat Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the Institutional Revolutionary Party by a margin of 0.58%. This sparked violence, a hushed swearing in, and fears over the creation of an alternative government. This, years after the outgoing President, Vicente Fox, upset the Institutional Revolutionary Party's dominance in 2000, when he won the elections for the National Action Party for the fi rst time in 71 years.
Topic:
Political Violence and Democratization
Political Geography:
Mexico

308. Security and Intelligence in U.S.-Mexico Relations

Author:
Luis Herrera-Lasso
Publication Date:
10-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Wilson Center
Abstract:
The relationship between Mexico and the United States has been defined by the countries' shared border, their economic interaction (which has been growing since the signing of NAFTA), and by their common geopolitical arena.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, Intelligence, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
United States and Mexico

309. Education in the U.S. - Mexico Relationship

Author:
Eduardo Andere
Publication Date:
10-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Wilson Center
Abstract:
There are four words that summarize the U.S. Mexico collaboration in the area of education: asymmetric, fragmented, aimless, and “institution-less”. This paper, drawing, from the recent history and policies in the education relationship will document this status of education in the bilateral relationship. The paper is organized in three sections. Section one refers to the U.S. – Mexico asymmetries in almost every single area of comparison from competitiveness to wellness and from education to research and development. The asymmetrical relationship (both, in sheer economic, competitiveness and wellness indicators on the one hand, and institutional governmental agencies, on the other) will be given as an assumption of the difficulties of forward bilateral collaboration in all areas including education and knowledge. Section two will depart from the asymmetrical institutional relationship and will refer to the overall bilateral education relationship between the two countries. The lack of an institutional framework and binational institutions in the educational collaborative realm will entice me to a third section of proposals for policy makers.
Topic:
International Relations, Education, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
United States and Mexico

310. Policy Space for Mexican Maize: Protecting Agro-biodiversity by Promoting Rural Livelihoods

Author:
Timothy A. Wise
Publication Date:
03-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University
Abstract:
Since the introduction of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, traditional maize farmers in Mexico have faced difficult economic conditions. In barely more than a decade, as many as one million farmers may have abandoned their land under economic pressure from rising imports, low prices for maize and other traditional crops, weak local and regional demand, and large reductions in public sector support for agriculture. The losses are environmental as well as economic. With the loss of traditional maize, there has been a documented loss of the agricultural biodiversity of which these farmers and their ancestors have been stewards for centuries. With maize trade scheduled to be fully liberalized under NAFTA in 2008, many farm groups are calling for a renegotiation of the treaty's agricultural provisions to prevent further damage. This policy analysis examines the room for alternative policies in Mexico under existing economic and environmental agreements, including NAFTA. It concludes that the Mexican government retains access to many useful policy instruments that could promote rural livelihoods while arresting the losses of important maize diversity. What is lacking is the political will to make use of them.
Topic:
Agriculture, Development, Economics, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
North America and Mexico