Deeper concessions and rising barriers to entry: New regionalism for Turkey and Mexico

New regionalism is redefining core and semi-periphery relations in the world economy. Focusing on Turkey and Mexico and their respective regional agreements, NAFTA and the Customs Union with the European Union, this article claims that barriers to entry into regional blocs increased considerably during the 1990s. While systemic international relations theories explain why both Mexico and Turkey made significant concessions in order to enter into regional agreements, they cannot fully account for the timing and terms of bargaining during regional negotiations. A simultaneous look at both the domestic and international bargaining processes shows that it was the domestic pressures in the United States and the European Union (and the relative absence of such pressures in Mexico and Turkey) that enhanced the terms of bargaining of the existing members against these aspiring countries. A synthetic approach that combines international pressures with domestic dynamics explains why new regionalism in the global economy is becoming a new challenge for such countries.