Review: The North American Idea A Vision of a Continental Future

Abstract

THE NORTH AMERICAN IDEA A Vision of A Continental Future Robert A. Pastor New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. 288pp, US$24.g5 (doth). ISBN 978-0199782413In June 2001, two Roberts met at the office of the United States trade representative in Washington, DC. One was President George W. Bush's new hard-charging, internationalist United States trade representative, Robert Zoellick, now president of the World Bank. The other was Robert Pastor of Emory University, himself no shrinking violet in intellectual combat. It seemed an auspicious time for such a meeting. At Zoellick's initiative, the Bush administration was poised to breathe new life into a US trade agenda that had stalled since the completion of NAFTA and GATT's Uruguay round in 1994. Pastor was one of the best-known scholars on North American integration and had just completed a new manuscript on the topic. After a discussion with Zoellick and his staff about the American trade agenda, including the pursuit of fast-track authority on which subject Pastor remains the expert), the two Roberts parted ways.At the time of the meeting, I was a doctoral student and intern in the trade representative's office of the Americas, working mainly on North American issues. In early July, a draft manuscript of Pastor's book made its way to my office. Zoellick had requested that someone read it and prepare a summary. The job was quickly delegated to me.The staff seized this opportunity to keep their intern busy for several days. In Toward a North American Community: Lessons from the Old World for the New (2001), Pastor argued that the US could learn many important lessons - many of them negative - from European economic integration. The postwarimperatives ofrecovery and security had initially driven Europe's experiment, which subsequently became a victim of its own success. Over time, sclerotic decision-making within the EU's supranational structures came to overwhelm the benefits of trade liberalization, labour mobility, and a common currency.By contrast, NAFTA left North America incomplete. The agreement had stimulated enormous economic activity and deepened ties among the United States, Canada, and Mexico. But the continent's potential remained unrealized because no governance structures had been established to manage it. Over-governance in Europe undermined competitiveness, but under-governance in North America generated a paralysis of its own. Pastor's book both explained how North America had evolved and prophesied what it could become. Even as it warned of the dangers of EU-style governance, it also charted possible paths toward greater trilateral cooperation, culminating in a customs or monetary union.Although Pastor acknowledged that these efforts would have a uniquely North American flavour rooted in the history and culture of each nation, he quickly attracted withering criticism from nationalist critics in all three countries, including both television pundits such as CNN's Lou Dobbs and antiglobalization street protestors. Given that the antiglobalization movement reached its zenith in 2001, Toward a North American Community had trouble attracting widespread support.His latest book, The North American Idea, offers a vision of what North America could be. It offers concrete proposals and impassioned advocacy in abundance. The North American prescription did not change significantly over the decade that elapsed between this book and its predecessor. …