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Interpreting NAFTA : The Science and Art of Political Analysis, by Frederick W. Mayer
This book has moved back and forth between narrative and analysis. It has been a dialogue between fact and theory. The structure reflected the two goals of the book. The first was to understand the history of NAFTA: why the nations of North America decided to negotiate, why they negotiated what they did, and why they ultimately accepted what they negotiated. To understand this history required the application of different theoretical lenses, each of which brought different aspects of the history into focus. The second goal was to evaluate theory in light of evidence, to identify the uses and limitations of existing theories, and to modify and extend them when necessary. As the book moved through the chronology of NAFTA, it also developed an argument about the nature of theory for political analysis.
Political Analysis
Throughout, the book has used the term political analysis rather than political science to describe the task at hand. The distinction is between the problem of understanding a particular event and the problem of discovering universal tendencies in politics. Understandings of tendencies are useful as a guide to analysis. Yet general statements of the form “if X, then on average Y,” are at best a first cut for establishing a particular Y rather than an average one. The question for the political analyst is not whether, for instance, totalitarian governments are more aggressive on average than democratic ones, but whether a particular totalitarian government is likely to act aggressively in a particular circumstance. The object of (much) political science is probabilistic generalities; the goal of political analysis is accurate diagnosis. 1 Indeed, the ultimate purpose of political analysis is to inform strategy; it is diagnosis for prescription.
The medical metaphor is apt. When confronted with a patient complaining of discomfort, the physician cannot be satisfied with an analysis of the form, “medical research has shown that for your gender and age group you have a 0.3 chance of colon cancer.” That knowledge may inform an examination, but it cannot substitute for the careful dialogue between particular manifestations and general knowledge that is at the heart of good diagnosis. Without such probing inquiry, the physician cannot know what actually ails the patient and may do more harm than good.
Diagnosing NAFTA requires an analytic framework of some complexity. The politics of NAFTA operated at several levels: across the international bargaining table, in the corridors of Congress, in corporate boardrooms and union halls, and over dinner tables. At every level, the politics involved strategic interaction among contending interests; the operation of institutional rules, norms, and routines; and the contest of symbolic meanings. To understand NAFTA, therefore, requires an understanding of these different levels and modes of politics.
In the preceding chapters we have seen how different analytic lenses, focused on different levels and modes of politics, illuminated different aspects of NAFTA. In the course of the book, we have considered and applied theories concerned with bargaining among nations, interest groups, and individuals within interest groups; with institutional structures at the international level, the national level (constitutional structures), and the subnational level (within the U.S. Congress); and with constructed meanings held by international, national, and subnational communities.
The approach taken here for NAFTA is in some regards similar to that of Allison's use of alternative conceptual models for explaining the Cuban missile crisis. In Essence of Decision, a book which has served as something of a model for this book, Allison describes three broad models—the “rational actor” model, essentially realism; an “organizational process” model, a domestic-level institution approach; and a “bureaucratic politics” model, a domestic-level intragovernmental bargaining model. 2 This book expands Allison's typology in two ways: first, to consider the possibility of political processes operating at several levels of aggregation and, second, to add the politics of symbols to that of interests and institutions. In addition, more explicitly than in Allison, these approaches are treated less as alternatives than as complements in a comprehensive framework.
The political processes at work in the history of NAFTA, however, do not respect the boundaries of the cells of this matrix. The multiple levels of NAFTA politics were nested, not layered. They were simultaneously international, intergroup, and interpersonal. The behavior of Mexico, Canada, and the United States in the international arena is an artifact not only of international processes but also of domestic processes operating at the next level, which in turn often reflected processes at still lower levels. One cannot make sense of the U.S. insistence on labor and environmental side negotiations (or the U.S. stance in those talks) without understanding the interaction between Congress and the president, as well as the role of labor and environmental groups in U.S. politics.
Similarly, the politics of NAFTA were often simultaneously about interests, institutions, and ideas. In our discussion of the relationship between members of Congress and constituents, for example, we saw how constructed understandings of NAFTA by constituents defined real interests by members.
To understand the interaction of processes at one level with those at another and of one mode with that of another requires theory that crosses boundaries. Where possible, the book has drawn on theories that do that, most notably the two-level games literature. Most theory, however, is not designed for this purpose. Realism, for instance, concerns only the operation of interests at the international level. Pluralist theory concerns the interaction of interest groups at the domestic level. Contemporary interest group theory concerns the internal dynamics of interest groups. Most of the literature on Congress concerns either bargaining in Congress, often in committees, or the relationship between members and constituents, but rarely both. Some scholars have crossed boundaries between theories of interests and theories of organizations, but few attempt to incorporate rational choice and constructivist approaches. More energy has been expended defending the borders than in building bridges across them.
Political scientists focus on one level or one mode of politics for good reasons, but the tendency has led to insufficient attention to the linkages among these approaches and to the ways in which theories are complementary. Most notably, the effort to reduce all political phenomena to rational choice is misguided. A self-limiting logic to rational choice requires other approaches. First, except in unusual circumstances, it is not possible for political systems to be simultaneously rational on more than one level, as we saw in our analysis of bargaining in NAFTA. Second, all rational choice models require the prior specification of parameters to work forward to prediction of outcomes. Some of those parameters can be derived from other rational choice processes, but they cannot all be reduced to rational choice. Third, the logic of rational choice creates a demand for institutions and for symbols. If they did not exist, it would be rational to construct them.
The question then is not which theory is right, but which theoretical approach is most appropriate for the problem at hand. The political analyst must decide what matters most and what can be safely ignored. To some extent this is a matter of judgment. But this judgment can be informed by theory, too. If national policy making processes are highly centralized and there is little domestic conflict over objectives, one would expect the international dynamic to be more important than domestic bargaining among interest groups. When national policy making processes are more consensual and there are factional differences of interests, domestic bargaining may take precedence over international circumstance. In policy areas for which there are repeated transactions, there is likely to be a greater demand for institutions. The less direct economic or other interest individuals have in policy outcomes and the less influence they exert over them, the greater the likelihood that their demand for information, if any, will be for symbolic communications. We could expect, therefore, to find symbolic politics playing a larger role among the rank-and-file membership of organizations and among the general public.
To understand an event as complex as NAFTA—at a depth sufficient not only to explain what happened after the fact, but to predict outcomes from observable circumstances and to have an informed strategy in the event—requires many analytic tools and the skill to use them. Admittedly, without firm guidelines about when to apply what tool, there is much art to this approach. The approach is not simple eclecticism, however. It is judicious use of appropriate technology.
NAFTA Interpreted
The story of the decision to negotiate NAFTA is a story about elite decision making in a particular historical circumstance. Although the international environment was an important factor in defining the circumstance, it was by no means the only factor.
For the critical decision by Carlos Salinas, both international and domestic conditions mattered. Among them were Mexico's need for international capital and its standing with potential international investors, the legacy of earlier partial opening of the economy that helped to create economic forces in Mexico favorable to further opening, a Mexican political system that suppressed populist pressures and allowed for bold presidential action, and the historic accident of a president and a cabinet trained in U.S. universities and steeped in free trade theory. The appeal of NAFTA lay in the way in which it fit with the larger domestic agenda of Mexico, the way it facilitated and locked in economic transformations that Salinas and his cabinet sought for Mexico, and the way in which it signaled those changes to the outside world.
For the United States, domestic considerations played a lesser role in the initial decision to agree to negotiate. Indeed, had they been more prominent, Bush might have been more hesitant to engage. For Bush and his key advisors, particularly Jim Baker, NAFTA was about foreign policy. In part, a regional free trade agreement was perceived as a counterbalance to trade competition from Asia and, particularly, Europe. Arguably we would not have a NAFTA (and before that a Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement [CUFTA]) had the Europeans not moved to create the European Union (EU). In part, NAFTA was a hedge against the failure of the Uruguay Round of the GATT. But the primary attraction of NAFTA was its predicted consequence for relations with Mexico. Like Salinas, Bush viewed a free trade agreement as a way of encouraging economic transformation in Mexico and believed those transformations would serve U.S. interests.
For Canada, Mulroney's request to join the talks, despite his initial visceral reaction to keep out, reflected a more considered view of Canada's trade interests, pressed upon him by business interests and by his trade officials. It also reflected a reconsideration of the domestic politics of NAFTA, a realization that opposition to NAFTA would be nothing like the populist backlash that accompanied free trade negotiations with the United States alone.
The fast track fight in the United States is a story of the intersection of institutions and interests. The conspicuous absence of a similar process in both Mexico and Canada points to the importance of the peculiarities of the U.S. trade policy making process. For interests opposed to NAFTA, the vote in 1991 not only created a moment to stop NAFTA, it was the last best chance to stop the process, given the nature of the fast track process. For other interests, most notably the mainstream environmental organizations, the vote on fast track provided an opportunity not so much to stop NAFTA, but to hold it hostage in exchange for the concession that environmental issues would subsequently be on the agenda.
Important to the story is the realization that sophisticated interest groups understood quite well the way in which a vote on procedure would affect their interests in the subsequent negotiations. In hindsight, though, the political forces mobilized during the fast track fight clearly reflected not only cool calculations of interest, but hot reactions to the symbolic content of NAFTA. Already, in 1991, among union members and social activists, NAFTA had come to stand for corporate greed at the expense of workers, communities, and the environment.
The story of the commercial negotiations is a story about the interaction not only of three states, but also of three political systems and three societies. Domestic interests, empowered by their relative ability to bring political pressure to bear on negotiators, constrained and sometimes determined what was possible in international negotiations. To understand the particular rule of origin for autos, or the long phase-out of tariffs for U.S. fruits and vegetables, or the refusal of the Canadians to negotiate on agriculture, or any of the myriad other ways in which the agreement deviated from the ideals of free trade, one must think not about national interest, but about the interests of powerful domestic factions.
The relationship between domestic interests and international bargaining did not all flow in one direction. In a very important sense, NAFTA provided an opportunity for all three countries to redefine the rules of the trade policy making game in ways that made possible policies otherwise politically infeasible. The clearest example comes from Mexico. The opening of financial services and the reform of agriculture (Salinas believed) were in Mexico's interest on their own terms, but were politically infeasible unless negotiated as part of a comprehensive free trade agreement. The same dynamic operated in the United States, although to a lesser extent. NAFTA made possible modest reductions in agricultural and manufacturing protection that would not have been politically feasible without being linked to other issues.
The decision to enter into side negotiations on labor and environment is a story about a changing domestic context compelling adjustment in an international agreement. The side negotiations began with a commitment in the heat of a presidential campaign, a decision that split the difference between positioning candidate Clinton with key interest groups and signaling his steadfastness in the face of interest group pressure.
Whereas in the commercial negotiations, economic interests determined national negotiating positions, in the side negotiations symbolic meaning played a significant role in determining negotiating positions. Once framed as the solution to the problems with “Bush's NAFTA,” side agreements became a matter of political necessity for Democratic members of Congress as well as potential deal breakers for Republicans. To establish a negotiating position, U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor not only had to navigate between business and environmental interests, he also had to find a formulation that would satisfy the symbolic need of Democrats for agreements with “teeth” and of Republicans for agreements with “gums.”
Although the agreements reached were significantly affected by the United States's debate with itself, their form also reflected Canadian and Mexican politics. The Canadian exemption from trade sanctions as an enforcement mechanism of last resort reflected the symbolic importance of sanctions to the Canadians and the symbolic unimportance of Canada to the Americans. The limits in scope and independence of the labor institution reflected the power of Mexican business interests.
The story of the rising tide of opposition in the United States is partly a story about national institutional arrangements, in that no comparable event occurred in Canada and Mexico, where constitutional arrangements made ratification largely a formality. This story is also partly about the mobilization of economic interests threatened by NAFTA, the kind of interests typically associated with support for protection. But to explain how NAFTA became the subject of the most intense public battle over a trade issue in the twentieth century requires an understanding not of how NAFTA impinged on interests, but of what it came to stand for. To a very great degree, the opposition to NAFTA had less to do with what NAFTA was than with what it meant. As constructed by NAFTA's opponents, NAFTA meant a “sucking sound” of jobs going to Mexico; a betrayal by government, corporate interests, and foreign agents; a license to pollute; a border more open to drugs and illegal immigration.
The campaign for NAFTA and its eventual victory in the fall of 1993 is a story about many things. It is about the power of corporate interests to influence members of Congress. It is about the ability of the president to bargain with members of Congress. But ultimately it is about political diagnosis, and political strategy.
In August and early September, the strategists in the Clinton administration, on the Hill, and in the business community, working together, began to understand that this was not trade politics as usual. NAFTA's problem had little to do with narrow protectionist interests, although pockets of opposition would need to be accommodated. At its core, the problem was with the constructed understandings of NAFTA, which not only created intense popular opposition in the moment but instilled fear in members of Congress that a vote for NAFTA would become a damaging campaign issue in the next election.
This diagnosis led to a strategy consisting of several parts. One part was an intense traditional lobbying effort in Washington, as the president, his cabinet, and corporate CEOs let members of Congress know the intensity of their interest. A second part was an untraditional effort by the business community to mount a countervailing grassroots campaign in targeted districts. But perhaps the most significant element of the campaign was an effort to reconstruct the meaning of NAFTA.
The public campaign for NAFTA was a story about the use of symbolic politics to reframe meaning. The campaign began with four presidents in the East Room of the White House, an image that wrapped NAFTA with living symbols of the American national interest. Television commercials starring Lee Iococca, the popular former CEO of Chrysler and symbol of American competitiveness, reframed the economic story from competition with Mexico to competition with Japan. A cable television “debate” between Vice President Al Gore and billionaire and ex-presidential candidate Ross Perot cast Perot as the villain and Gore as the conquering hero.
The campaign of interests and symbols altered the political calculus for members of Congress. Now a “no” vote seemed to carry significant political risk, whereas the risks of a “yes” vote looked less ominous. For House Republicans, in particular, the combination of business pressure for NAFTA and the apparent evaporation of the threat from Ross Perot made supporting NAFTA much easier. Wavering Democrats dined at the White House and were wooed by their president. Last minute efforts to change the sugar and citrus deals won support from the powerful agricultural lobbies in Florida and in turn from undecided members of the Florida delegation. In the end, NAFTA passed in the House by a surprisingly wide margin of 31 votes.
Passage, however, did not end the politics of NAFTA. NAFTA's legacy was a changed political landscape in the United States: a different presidency, a different Congress, a different public. The experience of negotiating NAFTA with the United States reverberated in the politics of Canada and, especially, Mexico. Although NAFTA was an economic event, its ultimate significance may have less to do with changes in the economic trajectory of North America than with its effect on the political, social, and cultural relationships among Mexico, Canada, and the United States. The process of negotiating—the engagement of three governments, three societies, three cultures—changed those relationships, and it changed the face of North America.
Endnotes
Note 1: See Alexander L. George, Bridging the Gap. Back.
Note 2: Graham T. Allison, Essence of Decision. Back.
Interpreting NAFTA : The Science and Art of Political Analysis
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