Free Traders: Elites, Democracy, and the Rise of Globalization in North America

In Free Traders, Malcolm Fairbrother argues that politicians' embrace of globalization was much less impacted by public preferences than the agendas of various firms and elites. Drawing on over one hundred interviews with decision-makers, and analyses of archival materials from United States, Mexico, and Canada, Fairbrother uses both NAFTA and individual cases from each country to tell the story of how they negotiated and ratified agreements that substantially opened and integrated their economies.

Malcolm Fairbrother is a professor of sociology at Umeå University, Sweden, and the University of Graz, Austria. He is also a researcher at the Institute for Futures Studies, Stockholm.