Gender and Regionalization in North America: From NAFTA to CUSMA and Beyond?
| Author | Laura Macdonald |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00207020221146492 |
| Published date | 01 September 2022 |
| Date | 01 September 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Scholarly Essay |
Scholarly Essay
International Journal
2022, Vol. 77(3) 430–448
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/00207020221146492
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Gender and Regionalization in
North America: From NAFTA
to CUSMA and Beyond?
Laura Macdonald
Department of Political Science, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Abstract
The literature on world regions is largely gender-blind. This article suggests ways in
which the study of regionalism can incorporate gender analysis, based on the case of
North America. It argues that this can be done in three ways: through an examination of
the gendered impact of regional integration; through an examination of how gender
concerns are, or can be, mainstreamed into regional policies; and through research on
new forms of feminist-inspired activism that may shape regional outcomes. After
applying these perspectives to the case of North America and the new Canada–United
States–Mexico Agreement, it argues that despite the failure of the Canadian gov-
ernment to achieve the inclusion of a gender chapter, the inclusion of language around
gender discrimination in the labour chapter makes the new agreement a more effective
(if still limited) tool for promotion of some forms of gender equality.
Keywords
Gender, regionalism, North America, labour, CUSMA, NAFTA
The contemporary global system has become, in many ways, a “world of regions,”as
reflected in the title of Peter Katzenstein’sinfluential 2005 book.
1
The “region-ness”of
world politics has arguably only intensified in the context of the global pandemic, the
Corresponding author:
Laura Macdonald, Department of Political Science, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, B640 Loeb
Building, Ottawa, ON, K1S 5B6, Canada.
Email: laura.macdonald@carleton.ca
1. Peter J. Katzenstein, A World of Regions: Asia and Europe in the American Imperium (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 2005).
rise of economic populism, disruptions of global supply chains, and “nearshoring”
strategies in response to these disruptions. Despite the rich and diverse literature on
regionalism and regionalization, and also on the gendered character of the global
political economy, there has been very little academic examination of the gendered
nature of regional integration, including the North American region.
2
The terrain of regional integration in North America has proved to be tough ground
for promoting progressive policy agendas, including feminist objectives, and illustrates
many of the challenges with gendering regionalism. The character of the North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the first regional agreement in a wave of
“new regionalism(s)”that was launched in the late 1980s, was dominated by the
ascendance of neoliberal philosophy, the interests of large multinational corporations,
and the aspirations of the regional hegemon, the United States, which was determined
to use this agreement to promote its own political and economic objectives regionally
and globally.
3
Some of the most trenchant critiques of globalization and regionalization have come
from feminist activists and scholars who have argued that the liberalization of trade,
investment, and production relations has had a disproportionate impact on women,
particularly racialized women. These critiques emerged during the debate on NAFTA,
when cross-border alliances were forged between Canadian, US, and Mexican
women’s and feminist organizations.
4
Unlike the criticisms coming from the envi-
ronmental and labour movements, however, which resulted in the addition of two side
accords, feminist concerns were not addressed in the final NAFTA agreement (apart
from limited language around gender discrimination in the workplace in the labour side
accord, which was not enforceable).
The Canada–United States–Mexico Agreement (CUSMA),
5
which entered into
force in 2019, was a victory of sorts for the politics of “business as usual”in the context
of the wildly unpredictable, toxic, and misogynist Trump administration which had
threatened to tear up the preceding North American Free Trade Agreement. To some,
2. Anna van der Vleuten, Anouka van Eerdewijk, and Conny Roggeband, “Introduction,”in Anna van der
Vleuten, Anouka van Eerdewijk, and Conny Roggeband, eds., Gender Equality Norms in Regional
Governance: Transnational Dynamics in Europe, South America and Southern Africa (Houndmills:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 1–2; Leticia Gonz´
alez and Daniela VanesaPerrotta, “Dónde est ´
an las mujeres
en la integración regional? An´
alisis y propuestas desde el MERCOSUR,”Conjuntura Austral: Journal of
the Global South 12 (2021): 50.
3. See Stephen Clarkson, Does North America Exist? Governing the Continent after NAFTA and 9/11
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press and Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2008).
4. Christina Gabriel and Laura Macdonald, “NAFTA, women and organising in Canada and Mexico: Forging
a“feminist internationality,’” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 23, no. 3 (1994), 535–562;
R. Edm´
e Dom´
ınguez, “Continental transnational activism and women workers’networks within
NAFTA,”International Feminist Journal of Politics 4, no. 2 (2002): 216–239; Laura Macdonald,
“Globalization and social movements: Comparing women’s movements responses to NAFTAin Mexico,
the USA and Canada,”International Feminist Journal of Politics 4, no. 2 (2002): 151–172.
5. Also known officially in the United States as the “United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement”(USMCA)
and in Mexico as “T-MEC”(Tratado M´
exico-Estados Unidos-Canad´
a).
Macdonald 431
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