ABSTRACT
After several decades of ongoing, and recently accelerated, economic integration with the United States, Mexican respondents increasingly emphasize that national sovereignty and economic autonomy have to be reconceived within the realities of globalization: Autonomous national development is much more complicated now, and especially with NAFTA, the level of integration will be very advanced. As the economic crises and threats to national sovereignty in both nations became increasingly apparent in the early 1990s, there was a renewed sense of urgency to find viable strategies and abandon hollow rhetoric. The world-economy globalizes and segments at the same time, and the Third World has to defend itself against both tendencies. Integration can happen in an autonomous manner or in a subordinated manner. In addition to a strong state, a commonly-cited source of sustenance for national autonomy is Latin American regional integration.
