AMERICAN AGRICULTURE AND TRADE POLICY-MAKING - 2-LEVEL BARGAINING IN THE NORTH-AMERICAN FREE-TRADE AGREEMENT

This paper has employed Putnam's two-level bargaining framework to ana lyze the negotiations leading to the North American Free Trade Agreeme nt. The particular focus has been on agricultural aspects of the negot iations between the U.S. and Mexico, identifying the distribution of c oalitions and preferences across the U.S. polity that influenced the d rafting and ultimate ratification of the agreement. Special emphasis h as been given to how the negotiations were influenced by the intersect ing of agricultural interests and strategies at both domestic and inte rnational levels.