ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors combine political and economic analysis in an attempt to account more fully for both the origins and sustainability of Mexico's commercial opening during the 1980s. They begin with a brief review of the major turning points in Mexico's trade liberalization. The authors then apply some of the most prominent international political economy explanations for free trade policy to the Mexican case and find them lacking. They attempt to systematize an alternative explanation of Mexican trade liberalization and provide evidence for their view. Global economic structures certainly contributed to the Mexican opening in that an externally induced crisis helped prompt policy change, and increasing intraindustry trade helped catalyze a new constituency in favor of liberalization. The trade policy shift also was pushed along by the greater insulation of trade policymakers by relocating them to certain key state institutions and by the unprecedented ideological free trade consensus shared by today's generation of politicians and economic managers.
