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2051. México ante América Latina: Mirando de reojo a Estados Unidos

Author:
Guadalupe González González
Publication Date:
11-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze the patterns of continuity and change in Mexico's diplomatic strategies towards Latin America between 1945 and 2005 as a case study on the impact of systemic variables –specifically, changes in the distribution of power at world and regional level- on the foreign policy of intermediate states. It distinguishes four different periods in Mexico-Latin America relations using a typology of diplomatic strategies built upon two criteria: a) the intermediate state's level of attention and activity in its immediate regional area, and b) the level of alignment or convergence with U.S. policies, as the hegemonic power in the Hemisphere. The main argument is that changes in Mexico's relative position in the regional structure of power and the shift from bipolarity to unipolarity at global level do not explain the persistence of a historical gap between the symbolic and material dimensions of Mexico's relations with Latin America. Over the last six decades, the evidence points towards the existence of a growing disjuncture between Mexico's increasing power position in the region and its limited regional projection.
Topic:
International Relations and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States, Latin America, Central America, and Mexico

2052. La política internacional de las entidades federativas mexicanas

Author:
Fabiola Lopez Farfan and Jorge A. Schiavon
Publication Date:
06-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
This working paper analyses the participation of the Mexican federal units in the international arena. It seeks to answer three central questions: 1) do Mexican federal unit have a foreign policy of their own?, 2) which is the level of international participation of Mexican federal units?, and 3) which variables explain the variation in the level of internacional participation of Mexican federal units? To answer the first question, a brief analysis of the Mexican legal framework is presented, in order to clarify the legal limitations that federal units have in the foreign policy arena. To provide an answer to the second question, a typology of the international participation of federal units is developed and, based on it, the 32 Mexican federal units are classified. To answer the final question, it is argued that the degree of international participation depends on four types of variables: economic (income), political (party affiliation of state governors), geographic (border location), and local shocks (states' visibility). Evidence is provided to sustain the economic and geographic (at the Northern border only) variables. Finally, the last section presents three case studies (Federal District, Jalisco, and State of Mexico), which present huge variations in their level of international participation, in order to contrast them to better understand these extreme cases.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Government
Political Geography:
Central America and Mexico

2053. What Role for Learning? The Diffusion of Privatisation in the OECD and Latin American Countries

Author:
Covadonga Meseguer
Publication Date:
06-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
In this paper, I enquire whether 37 governments in industrial and in Latin American countries privatised as a result of learning from experience. Using a rational updating model, I examine whether the decision in the 1980s and 1990s to streamline the public sector was the outcome of a revision of beliefs about the effectiveness of privatisation or whether, alternatively, it was triggered by international pressures or mimicry. The results suggest that rational learning and especially emulation were two important factors in the decision to privatise. International pressures, here proxied by the presence or absence of an agreement with the International Monetary Fund and by European Union membership, are irrelevant to explanations of the decision to privatise. Finally, domestic political conditions appear relevant to the decision to launch privatisation but only when the analysis is carried out for each of the regional sub-samples. In the OECD countries, centre-left governments were more likely to privatise whereas in Latin American more repressive regimes were more willing to divest.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, and Government
Political Geography:
Latin America

2054. Opinión pública y política exterior en México

Author:
Guadalupe Gonzalez (ed), Susan Minushikin (ed), and Robert Y. Shapiro (ed)
Publication Date:
06-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
The 2004 Mexico and the World survey, conducted by Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE) and Consejo Mexicano de Asuntos Internacionales (COMEXI), is the first-ever comprehensive study of Mexican public and leadership opinion on international affairs. The study is designed to measure general attitudes and values concerning Mexico's relationship with the world rather than opinions on specific foreign policies or issues. This year's survey was conducted in cooperation with The Chicago Council on Foreign Relations' (CCFR) 2004 study of American public and leadership opinion on foreign policy, a periodic survey conducted since 1974.
Topic:
International Relations, Civil Society, and Politics
Political Geography:
America, Central America, Mexico, and Chicago

2055. Mexican Public Opinion and Foreign Policy

Author:
Guadalupe Gonzalez (ed), Susan Minushikin (ed), and Robert Y. Shapiro (ed)
Publication Date:
06-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
The 2004 Mexico and the World survey, conducted by Centro de InvestigaciÓn y Docencia EconÓmicas (CIDE) and Consejo Mexicano de Asuntos Internacionales (COMEXI), is the first-ever comprehensive study of Mexican public and leadership opinion on international affairs. The study is designed to measure general attitudes and values concerning Mexico's relationship with the world rather than opinions on specific foreign policies or issues. This year's survey was conducted in cooperation with The Chicago Council on Foreign Relations' (CCFR) 2004 study of American public and leadership opinion on foreign policy, a periodic survey conducted since 1974.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Government
Political Geography:
America, Central America, and Mexico

2056. What is New in the Study of Policy Diffusion? A Critical Review

Author:
Fabricio Gilardi and Convadonga Meseguer
Publication Date:
04-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
This paper surveys what is new in the study of the international diffusion of policies and institutions. We critically review the most recent contributions on the topic, trying to identify the substantive and methodological novelties in this literature. Regarding mechanisms, we argue that whereas there is acknowledgement that they overlap, there is hardly any attention to the way in which they interact (either with other mechanisms of diffusion or with domestic factors). More generally, mechanisms are studied separately and are not integrated into a coherent model of diffusion. Regarding empirics, we argue that existing studies have concentrated on policies that seem to have diffused in an explosive way despite the fact that both theory and methods are appropriate to study any type of diffusion. We argue that new empirical work should tackle the difficult issue of how to better operationalize alternative diffusion mechanisms. More attention should also be given to modeling diffusion processes to account for the fact that causal patterns may be highly heterogeneous in time and space. Finally, we show that the last wave of studies on diffusion may have had the unintended consequence of opening up new questions. Some of these questions are about the mechanisms that initiate vs. accelerate the diffusion of policies and institutions, why policies diffuse in clusters rather than globally, why some policies diffuse faster than others and why some policies do not diffuse at all.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Development

2057. The Consolidation of Democracy vs. the Price of Olive Oil: The Story of Why the CAP Delayed Spain's Entry to the EC

Author:
Lorena Ruano
Publication Date:
04-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
Why did agriculture, a supposedly 'low politics' issue area, become so salient in the accession negotiations between Spain and the EC? Why did it manage to obscure the 'high politics' motives of regional stability and democratic consolidation?
Topic:
International Relations, Agriculture, Democratization, and Politics
Political Geography:
Spain

2058. ¿Integración por la puerta trasera? La incursión del Tribunal de Justicia de las Comunidades Europeas en materia tributaria

Author:
Antonio Cubero and Loreno Ruano
Publication Date:
11-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Abstract:
To what extent do member states control the process of European integration? This question has traditionally confronted Intergovernmentalists with Neo-functionalists and Institutionalists of various sorts. This paper provides evidence that supports the second school of thought and refines its theoretical claims with a case study: the European Court of Justice's jurisprudence on direct taxation. This is a 'hard case', because in this sector, the member states' resistance to the expansion of Community competence has been particularly virulent. It will be shown how, inspite of this, the Court's jurisprudence has ventured in the field of taxation to the point of undermining the principle upon which rest all national fiscal systems (the distinction between residents and non-residents), putting under severe strain the coherence of national tributary systems. The Court's jurisprudence have also had effects on issues pertaining exclusively to national taxation, through the principle of 'inverted non-discrimination'.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, and Government
Political Geography:
Europe

2059. Border Management in the Kosovo-Southern Serbia-fYR Macedonia Vortex: a Local Perspective

Author:
Henry Bolton
Publication Date:
03-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
EastWest Institute
Abstract:
The impositions of firstly, the international border between the fYR Macedonia and Yugoslavia in 1992, and secondly the conversion of Kosovo's Administrative Boundary Line (the ABL), between the province of Kosovo and the Republic of Serbia, into a de-facto border in 1999, have had significant impacts on the social and economic lives of the predominantly ethnic Albanian border communities of Kosovo, Serbia and fYR Macedonia within the GPKT (Gjilan/Gnjilane-Presevo-Kumanovo-Trgoviste) micro-region. The situation in the past, whereby the people of the micro-region could travel and interact freely, whether socially or commercially, has changed. Now people wishing to cross from one side of the GPKT micro-region to another, say Gjilan/Gnjiilane to Kumanovo, must cross what are, in effect, two policed and guarded borders, complete with passport checks and customs inspections.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, and Government
Political Geography:
Eastern Europe, Kosovo, Yugoslavia, and Macedonia

2060. "Center-periphery" Relations in the Study of International Relations: Where is Turkey?

Author:
Pınar Bilgin
Publication Date:
06-2005
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Abstract:
"Standard" concepts and theories of International Relations have, over the years, proven "increasingly irrelevant" in accounting for the "realities" of the developing world. The article discusses how Turkey's International Relations literature has responded to this issue by focusing on the example of the literature on "security". It is argued that Turkey is located in the "periphery" of International Relations, which is characterised by a hierarchical structure whereby the "center" develops the concepts and theories to be adopted by the "periphery". This argument is supported by a survey of the two oldest journals of International Relations in Turkey, namely, the Turkish Yearbook of International Relations and Siyasal Bilgiler Fakültesi Dergisi.
Topic:
International Relations and Security
Political Geography:
Turkey