How Mexico built support for the negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement: Targeting the Mexican diaspora in the United States

The United States is home to most of the diasporas worldwide, including the largest ones, such as the Jewish, Central American, Mexican, African, Cuban, and Chinese communities. For the governments of the ancestral homelands, or home governments, a strategic alliance with their diasporas represents an invaluable political asset in the relationship with the American government. For several decades, Israeli policymakers have enjoyed the backing of Jewish-Americans to maintain a special relationship with the United States. In the early 1990s, Mexican President Carlos Salinas and President Bill Clinton formed an alliance with the Mexican diaspora in support of the negotiations of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).; Diasporic support does not necessarily spring automatically or without external influence. The existing academic literature does not dedicate sufficient attention to the question of how home governments contribute to generate diasporic mobilization. This dissertation identifies some research questions and hypotheses concerning the strategies that home governments are likely to adopt to build support for their foreign policy objectives, and the conditions under which they are prone to implement different strategies.; I examine the following propositions: Home governments are likely to adopt two strategies that may be considered as typical of them. I call them rapprochement and the ethnic card. A third strategy that home governments are inclined to implement implies offering side-payments, or benefits, to their diasporas. Furthermore, while homeland officials tend to flash the ethnic card under most circumstances, home governments are more prone to resort to rapprochement when the relationship with their diasporas is distant or deteriorating. There is also a greater inclination to target side-payments when the socioeconomic concerns of the diasporas prevent them from supporting the homeland.; The case study shows that when the Mexican government sought to mobilize its diaspora (the largest and fastest growing in the United States), President Salinas adopted all three strategies to build support for NAFTA. Mexican officials frequently flashed the ethnic card, for example, by honoring prominent figures with national awards. The Mexican government launched an ambitious strategy of rapprochement to improve the distant relationship with the diaspora, which included the creation of an office of diaspora affairs in the Foreign Ministry.; Moreover, President Salinas acquiesced to the creation of the North American Development Bank (NADBank), as a side-payment to crucial diaspora players reluctant to endorse NAFTA because of its potential costs for Mexican-origin workers and the border regions where segments of the diaspora were concentrated. Despite a history of minimal involvement in foreign policy issues, the diaspora responded by launching an unprecedented mobilization in favor of NAFTA, ultimately contributing to the ratification of NAFTA.; This dissertation contributes to the literature by clarifying the role of home governments as intervening variables in diaspora mobilizations. This study identifies capacities and limitations, and mechanisms that home governments use to influence their diasporas. The case study also broadens the understanding of the political connection between México City, Washington, and the Mexican diaspora in the United States by underlining the significant role diaspora actors played in the NAFTA debate. Finally, this dissertation enhances the understanding of how cooperation between México and the United States may be facilitated by the strategic role of both the Mexican government and the diaspora in the process of American foreign policymaking.