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

Fairbrother, Malcolm Malcolm Fairbrother,

ISBN 10: 0190635460 / ISBN 13: 9780190635466

Published by OUP USA, 2019

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 6666-GRD-9780190635466

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Free Traders: Elites, Democracy, and the Rise of Globalization in North America
• Publisher: OUP USA
• Publication Date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0190635460
• ISBN 13: 9780190635466
• Binding: paperback
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Today's global economy was largely established by political events and decisions in the 1980s and 90s, when scores of nations opened up their economies to the forces of globalization. In Free Traders, Malcolm Fairbrother argues that politicians' embrace of globalization was much less motivated by public preferences than by the agendas of businesspeople and other elites. Drawing on over one hundred interviews with decision-makers, and analyses of archival materials from Canada, Mexico, and the U.S., Fairbrother tells the story of how each country negotiated and ratified two agreements that substantially opened and integrated their economies: the 1989 Canada-U.S. and trilateral 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement. Contrary to what many commentators believe, these agreements-like free trade elsewhere-were based less on mainstream, neoclassical economics than on the informal, self-serving economic ideas of business. While the stakes in the globalization debate remain high, Free Traders uses a comparative-historical approach to sharpen our understanding of how globalization arose in the past to provide us with clearer trajectory for how it will develop in the future.

About the Author

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.