Factors that Influence Cross-Border Cooperation: A Preliminary Inductive Analysis

2009 International Studies Association Annual Convention Panel: The Future of North American Integration A paper prepared by scholars with the Frontier program for the historical studies of border security, food security, and trade policy Jason Ackleson, PhD Associate Professor of Government Co-director, Frontier New Mexico State University jackleso@nmsu.edu Julianne Jensby Research assistant, Frontier Kansas State University jcjensby@ksu.edu Justin Kastner, PhD Assistant Professor, Food Safety & Security Co-director, Frontier Kansas State University jkastner@ksu.edu

Abstract
Multidisciplinary inductive observations may prove useful for identifying new testable hypotheses regarding what works well when developing policies to promote cross-border cooperation. Our paper does this by exploring several noted cases of change and continuity in cross-border cooperation and conflict in the issues areas of trade, security, emergency preparedness, and mobility. Our paper utilizes multiple academic perspectives to document the evolution of cases in these areas, paying particular attention to North American examples such as the Shared Border Management (SBM) program, the agricultural and food trade, and trilateral emergency preparedness (for public health threats such as highly pathogenic avian influenza). While not deductive, this inductive narrative uniquely boasts a multidisciplinary richness that offers explanatory power. Ultimately, our paper contributes to the dialogue on North America by identifying specific, observed factors that have promoted cross-border cooperation in the North American context.

I. Introduction
Cross-border cooperation has persisted over time as one of the chief policy challenges of international relations. Both conflict and cooperation attend this challenge; history has witnessed sundry models by which state governments and private actors have pursued cooperation at and across frontiers between countries. It has also witnessed conflict at or across borders, from the relatively benign imposition of trade barriers to open violent struggle. In recent history, the advent of rules-based, multilateral institutions (e.g., the Bretton Woods institutions) set forth a model for cross-border cooperation in the economic realm. This model developed during the 20th century and, for particular policy areas (e.g., such the agricultural and food trade and health protection regulations), fueled the elaboration and establishment of issue-specific treaties (e.g., the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures) and standards and guidelines developed by scientific standard-setting organizations (e.g., the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), and the International Plant Protection Convention). More recently, multilateral models for encouraging international cooperation have been called into question, particularly with the decline of progress on the multilateral trade diplomacy agenda, as exemplified in the dramatic failure of the Doha round in July 2008. At the same time, many scholars have documented the rise of Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) which are generally concluded among regional partner. These PTAs, however, fragment and threaten the wider multilateral trade regime; by 2008, some 400 PTAs were acknowledged by the World Trade Organization.1 Meanwhile, in the post-September 11 world, an ever-increasing emphasis placed on security has elaborated models of cross-border cooperation (and often, conflict) characterized by rigid inspection and control policies. This is particularly the case in the United States. In an attempt to reconcile the demands of both trade and security, North American initiatives including the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP, 2005-2008) have provided the groundwork for cross-border models in which international movement of people and goods, and the assurance of security, were treated, in principle, as compatible. Such initiatives are seen by some as methods to advance, incrementally, the wider project of North American integration. This project is under some strain as 2009 opens. Operating within this general context, this paper, treble-authored by scholars with the Frontier program for the historical studies of border security, food security, and trade policy (http://frontier.kstate.edu), considers, through specific cases, instances of cross-border cooperation. Looking across the landscape of global economic, social, and political activities in which cross-border elements are salient, this paper settles on three policy domains. The first involves trade cooperation between the U.S. and Mexico in the transnational cattle trade; this instance of cooperation has been the subject of a number of Frontier research excursions. The second involves North American trilateral cooperation in the area of public health. The third involves a unique U.S.-Canada model of Shared Border Management (SBM) personally witnessed by Frontier scholars. Field-research observations of
1

See Heribert Dieter, The Multilateral Trading System and Preferential Trade Agreements: Can their Negative Effects be Minimised?, GARNET Working Paper No: 54/08 (Berlin: German Institute for International and Security Affairs, 2008). 2

cross-border cooperation, coupled with multiple academic perspectives, are used to elaborate inductivelythe outlines of a framework for what works well in cross-border cooperation in the North American context.

II. Methodological and Theoretical Considerations

From a methodological standpoint, this paper leans heavily on induction. All researchers, including the authors of this paper, adhere to methods of inquiry that may be generally described as deductive, inductive, or both. In deductive scholarship, scholars begin with general ideas, often termed theories, and develop specific hypotheses based on these ideas. The hypotheses are then tested, typically by the gathering and analyzing of data (observations). Conversely, in inductive research scholars first make observations, and then subsequently develop ideas, general statements, and hypotheses. These hypotheses are then tested on the basis of further observations. For centuries, philosophers of science have debated the merits of each approach. Many scholars view deductive methods as robustly superior to inductive methods. Others, including scholars in the social sciences, insist on the legitimacy of inductive methods.2 The research embodied in this paper relies on a methodology that is, admittedly, inductive. Specifically, and through field-research observations as well as multidisciplinary analysis, we consider the three instances of cross-border cooperation and, from these observations, ultimately induce factors that either encourage or discourage cross-border cooperation. Such factors may, with further research, form the basis for a testable hypotheses regarding cross-border cooperation. The term cross-border cooperation requires clarification as used in this context. The large question of why states choose to cooperate (choose not to) has puzzled scholars of International Relations (IR) and other disciplines for decades. A considerable canon of work has developed which offers varying explanations for why and how states cooperate over time.3 This discussion only gleams the surface of substantive and wide-ranging debates about what explains cooperation in the international realm. As Helen Milner indicates in a helpful review of this thinking, scholars have managed to develop a consensus definition of cooperation as well as a general framework to understand the causal factors that may lead to it.4 That definition, Milner suggests, is dominated by the thinking of Robert Keohane: when actors adjust their behavior to the actual or anticipated preferences of others, through a process of policy coordination.5 Conversely, competition and conflict mark an absence of cooperation in a policy area.
2

Bowling, Ann. Research Methods in Health: Investigating Health and Health Services. Buckingham, England: Open University Press, 1997, pp 102-5. 3 For a helpful review of this literature, see Helen Milner, "International Theories of Cooperation among Nations: Strengths and Weaknesses," World Politics. 44, no. 3 (1992): 466-496 4 Ibid. 5 Charles Lindblom, The Intelligence of Democracy (New York: Free Press, 1965), 227. See Robert Keohane, After Hegemony (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984) 3

The process of cooperation, Milner notes, generally involves rational decision making by actors that seek cooperation fundamentally to serve their own interests. This is of course not the only interpretation available. Accounts of the normative structure of international politics offer alternative explanations, for instance, as to why states cooperate in areas such as the observation of international law.6 As Reus-Smit argues, narrow self-interest cannot, on its own, explain the relatively high levels of state compliance with, for example, international legal rules governing world trade such as those promulgated by the WTO. Milner's review proceeds on a premise based on this consensus definition of cooperation and then moves to make several hypotheses about variables which would the likelihood of it occurring among states. This is a classic deductive approach with significant merit. Our approach here, however, is inductive in nature, seeking to extract from specific policy areas factors that promote or prevent cooperation. In addition, most work on these questions in IR focuses largely on inter-state behavior, often at the highest diplomatic levels and concerning matters of high politics such as the survival of the state. While this focus is of course important, our concern in this paper is with the contours of cross-border relations and governance at the sub-national level (also referred to here as region), where cooperation and conflict are often differently understood and realized. In regards to this focus and the specific geographic area under examination hereNorth America some thinking on cross-border relations in the regional context is appropriate. In a helpful contribution to this literature, James Scott notes that regional development is highly "contextsensitive;" having noted this, his analysis provides a three-tiered frameworkcognitive, discursive, and materialto categorize sources of cross-border regionalism.7 Cross-border cooperation is a critical element in each source category as each may propel or reduce the development of true cross-border regions. Other scholars, including Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly, have offered useful approaches as well.8 BrunetJailly proposes a framework consisting of four analytical lensesmarket forces and trade flows, local and central politics and policies, the political clout of border communities, and local cultureswhich impact the development of cross-border regions.9 Like Brunet-Jailly, using its own multidisciplinary approach, this paper seeks to develop its own framework that can be evaluated by others.10 Explicit in the process of sub-national regional development are structures which, as Brunet-Jailly suggests, facilitate crossborder policy parallelism.11 This parallelism can proceed in contexts like the
6

Christian Reus-Smit, Politics and International Obligation, European Journal of International Relations 9, no. 4 (2003): 591-625. 7 James Wesley Scott, European and North American Contexts for Cross-border Regionalism, Regional Studies 33, no. 7 (1999): 60; 8 Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly, Borderlands: Comparing Border Security in North America and Europe (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2007). 9 Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly, "Cascadia in Comparative Perspectives: Canada-U.S. Relations and the Emergence of Cross-Border Regions," Canadian Political Science Review 2, no. 2 (June 2008): 104-24. 10 At NMSU, for instance, students are beginning to test hypotheses derived from this framework. 11 Ibid., 116. 4

U.S.-Canadian relationship, even though both countries have different policy processes and governmental structures. Brunet-Jaillys additional research on views held by elites in the Cascadia cross-border region of the Pacific Northwest suggests the salience of factors such as trust and economic incentives in forging cooperation across frontiers. These factors are similar to those we discuss here. Thus, in both methodology and theory, this paper eschews a purely state-centric understanding of the possibilities of cross-border cooperation. That is, cross-border cooperation involves much more than cooperative activity between political actors but also, and true to the tradition of International Political Economy (IPE), collaboration amongst private economic actors. Indeed, some of this paper's case studies involve international trade and, as two IPE thought leaders have noted, no topic is more quintessentially IPE than trade.12 Taking a cue from IPE, this papers case study analyses provide observable snapshots of political as well as private factors that, in the end, make cross-border cooperation happen.

III. Policy Domains

Three policy-specific scenarios, discussed in this section, present the opportunity to observe factors that promote or frustrate cross-border cooperation. These cases document cross-border cooperation in animal disease regulation for the sake of the agricultural and food trade, trilateral efforts regarding the principal public health preoccupation of the twenty-first century (influenza), and a rather unique border-management model for North America.

A. U.S.-Mexico cross-border cooperation in the transnational movement of livestock

The simplicity of the following statement is more apparent than real: to facilitate cross-border cooperation, both sides must do something. Indeed, the need for genuine bi-lateral activity recently manifested itself in the context of the transnational movement of livestock and meat between the U.S. and Mexico. In early January 2009, the chief animal-disease regulating body of the United States namely, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) announced plans to open a new cattle-crossing facility on the southern border of Arizona. The announcement, documented in a recent issue of World Food Regulation Review, well illustrates that unilateral policy action is, in fact, not enough to ensure cross-border cooperation. In the announcement, APHIS explained that the new U.S. port was capable of receiving Mexican cattle destined for U.S. feedlots and processing plants but, significantly, stipulated that the port would not receive any cattle until a new facility for the handling of animals is first constructed on the Mexican side of the border."13 The conditions required in the Arizona port announcement are not surprising if one gazes eastward along the U.S.-Mexico frontier. In Santa Teresa, New Mexico, a bi-lateral model of cross-border cooperation exists. There, a thriving
12

David Balaam and Michael Veseth, Introduction to International Political Economy (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1996), 104. 13 Page 18 of "Cattle Import Final Rule: New Port in Arizona." World Food Regulation Review 18, no. 8 (2009): 18. Italics added. 5

cross-border trade in cattle is observed, along with the crucial role played by genuine bi-lateral activity. On the Mexican side, northbound cattle are received, handled and documented by capable authorities, dipped in a solution to control for tick-borne diseases (an historically troublesome issue for U.S.-Mexico cattle trading), and then trafficked across to the U.S. port of entry. A picture of the border crossing appears in Figure 1. The border crossing at Santa Teresa has worked well and, in fact, Frontier scholars who have visited the crossing have labeled it as a worthy-of-attention example of cross-border cooperation.14

Figure 1: Southward view at the Santa Teresa border crossing

The assertion above that both sides must do something begs a more important and more complicated question: what factors encourage truly bi-lateral activity? Here it is helpful to draw on the multi-disciplinary framework of IPE. In the case of U.S.-Mexico cooperation at the Santa Teresa node, IPE, economics, and international trade law all offer explanatory insight. In international trade cooperation, economic and supply-chain realities are often influential, if not determinant. Northern Mexico produces a considerable supply of cattle for the U.S. beef industry. Young (300- to 500-pound) feeder calves are routinely exported from the Mexican state of Chihuahua into the U.S., often through the Santa Teresa port mentioned above. These cattle, subsequent to importation, are further fattened and finished within the U.S. (with over 10 U.S. states participating).15 While the U.S. is dependent on these livestock imports, there are biosecurity issues of concernprimarily animal diseases, some of which are zoonotic (capable of animal-to-human spread). Important risk-analysis evaluations and judgment calls must be made with regards to infectious disease agents and parasites that may be communicated northward from Mexico. Historically, the U.S. been
14

Visit http://frontier.k-state.edu for audio-podcasted and video-podcasted descriptions of the Santa Teresa border crossing. 15 William F. Hahn, Mildred Haley, Dale Leuck, James J. Miller, Janet Perry, Fawzi Taha, and Steven Zahniser. "Market Integration of the North American Animal Products Complex (Usda Economic Research Service Outlook Report Ldp-M-131-01)." 2005, 4-5. 6

concerned about Mexican cattle and tuberculosis, classical swine fever, exotic Newcastle disease, brucellosis, and babesiosis.16 The state of Chihuahua, an exceptionally export-oriented region in Mexico, has mobilized resources to ensure the northward flow of cattle at Santa Teresa. While one million head of Mexican cattle enter the U.S. each year, the majority of them originate in the Mexican state of Chihuahua.17 This economic realitynamely, the export-dependence of the Chihuahuan cattle industryhas encouraged private and public actors on Mexico's side to vigilantly control animal diseases. The result has been a rich trade relationship with the U.S. This rich trade relationship, however, has not flourished merely due to economic forces. In addition, unique cross-border policy toolschiefly, the trade policy concept of regionalization, enshrined in international trade lawhave enabled this U.S.-Mexico instance of cross-border cooperation. Under the WTO Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement), WTO member countries have the right to establish regulatory measures to protect animal, plant, and human health on the basis of scientific principles; to facilitate trade, WTO members are encouraged to follow standards and guidelines developed by three international scientific standard-setting bodies (most important for animal disease issues, the World Organization for Animal Health, or OIE). 18 In addition, the SPS Agreement's Article 6 encourages the recognition of disease-free areas and, in effect, an approach that recognizes different regions with nation-state borders. The OIE, in its Terrestrial Animal Health Code, has elaborated technical approaches to implement regionalization, or the recognition of disease-free or disease-controlled regions for the purposes of trade.19 In this U.S.-Mexico case of cross-border cooperation, the U.S. government (specifically, APHIS) recognizes the state of Chihuahua as regionalized with reference to bovine tuberculosis; areas with large numbers of dairy cattle are classified differently from the rest of the state. From an administrative and scientific-capacity standpoint, this requires an elaborate system featuring 21 checkpoints and 15 inspection stations, which are designed to control movement of cattle among bovine tuberculosis zones. Private actors in northern Mexico have put forth great regulatory and riskmanagement effort to ensure, for example, that animals from certain areas are not transported and offloaded into other areas.20 Such robust regulatory and risk-management efforts are needed,
16

G. Gale Wagner, "U.S.-Mexico Free Trade: Animal Health Issues." In Keeping the Borders Open, edited by R.M.A. Loyns, Karl Meilke, Ronald D. Knutson and Antonio Ynez-Naude, 50-55. Winnipeg: Texas A&M University, University of Guelph, El Colegio de Mxico, 2004, 50-51 17 Cristina Carmona and Rhonda Skaggs. "Procedures for Exporting Cattle from Chihuahua, Mexico, to the United States (Technical Report 43); Http://Cahe.Nmsu.Edu/Pubs/Research/Economics/Tr-43.Pdf." Las Cruces, New Mexico: New Mexico State University College of Agriculture and Home Economics, 2006. 18 "Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures," in The WTO Agreement Series: Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, ed. WTO (Geneva: World Trade Organization, 1998) 19 A. Scott, C. Zepeda, L. Garber, J. Smith, D. Swayne, A. Rhorer, J. Kellar, A. Shimshony, H. Batho, V. Caporale, and A. Giovannini. "The Concept of Compartmentalisation." Rev. sci. tech. Off. int. Epiz. 25, no. 3 (2006): 873-79; World Organization for Animal Health, Terrestrial Animal Health Code, 15th Ed. (Paris: World Organization for Animal Health, 2006), chapter 1.3.5. Zoning and Comparmentalisation. 20 See pages 4-5 of Cristina Carmona and Rhonda Skaggs. "Procedures for Exporting Cattle from Chihuahua, Mexico, to the United States (Technical Report 43); Http://Cahe.Nmsu.Edu/Pubs/Research/Economics/Tr-43.Pdf." Las Cruces, New Mexico: New 7

for APHIS is indeed strict in its evaluation of such regions; APHIS is most concerned with 11 factors of veterinary infrastructure, which are described in Title 9, Part 92, Section 92.2 (Application for recognition of the animal health status of a region) of the Code of Federal Regulations.21 In the U.S.-Mexico case of cross-border cooperation in the transnational movement of livestock, then, three factors emerge as promotional: (1) economic dependence (principally Chihuahua's exportoriented cattle industry, but also the U.S.'s dependence on cattle imports), (2) specific, legal tradepolicy tools (i.e., the WTO- and OIE-affirmed concept of regionalization), and (3) bi-lateral, not unilateral, activity. The seriousness with which export-dependent Chihuahua addresses animal disease regulation and regionalization is matched by the U.S., which is dependent upon imports of cattle from northern Mexico, and its efforts to recognize these regionalization efforts. Finally, cross-border cooperation is enabled in the U.S.-Mexico case by genuine activities on both sides of the border; in contrast to the pending APHIS-port-approval announcement in Arizona, the Santa Teresa node of cross-border cooperation boasts bi-lateral efforts.

B. Trilateral emergency preparedness

Pandemics occur when a new virus that humans have no immunity to causes epidemics worldwide, with large numbers of illnesses and deaths. Under globalization, international trade and travel have increased. This phenomenon, along with the number of developed areas that are densely populated, means pandemics are more apt to occur. Current epidemiological models predict that a pandemic could cause between 2 and 7.4 million deaths, which would overwhelm the current healthcare infrastructure and deal a devastating blow to the economy.22 The increased risk of pandemics developing, combined with the fact that countries worldwide are becoming more globalized, highlight the importance of countriessuch as the United States, Canada, and Mexicowho are particularly linked by economies and social ties, including within cross-border regions. Given these facts, a clear rationale for international cooperation, either on a bilateral or trilateral level, to deal with pandemics exists. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), The best opportunity for international collaboration to improve preparedness [...] is now, before the start of a pandemic.23 This collaboration may also be extended to working together in the case of a homeland security emergency when populations are at risk. The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) was announced on March 23, 2005 as a joint effort between Canada, Mexico, and the United States to enhance security and improve prosperity within North America. Laying out the security and prosperity agenda initiatives marked a step forward toward developing a cohesive emergency preparedness approach for the continent. At a
Mexico State University College of Agriculture and Home Economics, 2006 21 The authors thank Donald Link, Import Risk Analyst with APHIS's National Center for Import and Export, for this point. 22 World Health Organization. "Pandemic preparedness." Retrieved 29 January, 2009, from http://www.who.int/csr/disease/influenza/pandemic/en/index.html. 23 World Health Organization (2005). Strengthening pandemic influenza preparedness and response. A58/13: 7. 8

SPP summit in March of 2006, North American leaders agreed to develop a response plan for an avian influenza pandemic, and on August 21, 2007 the North American Plan for Avian and Pandemic Influenza was announced.24 The plans approach is based on the four pillars of emergency management: prevention and mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. The plan comports with guidelines for dealing with pandemics set forth by institutions such as the WHO. It also lies within the rules of the WTO and the North American Free Trade Agreement. Significantly, the plan aims to maintain travel and trade flows across borders in the instance of a pandemic while ensuring health protection. The plan sets a framework to (1) monitor, detect, and contain outbreaks within both human and animal populations to prevent transmission of avian influenza to humans; (2) prevent a new influenza strain from entering North America; (3) minimize occurrences of illness and death; (4) maintain infrastructure and moderate the economical impact. These plans fall into the domain of what a single countrys emergency preparedness and response plan may entail, but the North American Plan for Avian and Pandemic Influenza's framework includes joint exercises and trilateral emergency coordination and communication, including personnel exchange.25 The development of the North American Plan for Avian and Pandemic Influenza illustrates how Canada, Mexico, and the United States are capable of developing and agreeing to trilateral plans. This collaboration may be extended to working together in the case of homeland security emergencies and other policy issues falling in and out of the SPP's agendas. Notably, the existence of the SPP agenda and its accompanying working groups activities and leadership summitslikely encouraged development of the plan; a casual observer of the plan can see the SPP logo, displayed on the front cover.26 Simultaneously, Mexico, Canada, and the United States ramped up web-posted public announcements about avian and pandemic influenza preparedness. Using the Internet Archive website-snapshot tool,27 one can trace how the perceived imminence of the influenza threat and, perhaps, the existence of the SPP prompted the public announcements by the three countries health agencies. Table 1 provides a summary.

24

U.S. Department of State (2007). "Combating Avian Flu in North America: The North American Plan for Avian and Pandemic Influenza" Retrieved 3 February, 2009, from http://www.state.gov/g/avianflu/91282.htm. For the full plan, see North American Plan For Avian and Pandemic Influenza (2007), retrieved 5 February 2009 from http://20012009.state.gov/documents/organization/91311.pdf. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid, front cover. 27 Internet Archive (2009), retrieved 2 February 2009 from http://www.archive.org/index.php. 9

Table 1: Central government health agency web-posted announcements, snap-shot in time28

Health agency (URL) U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (www.cdc.gov) February 2005 No mention of avian influenza as an emerging infectious disease October 2005 Avian influenza mentioned for the first time February 2009 Web-posted general information, current affected areas information, travel health advisories, and link to a pandemic response plan Web-posted general information, current affected areas information, and travel health and food safety advisories Web-posted general information and food safety advisories

Health Canada (http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca)

No mention of avian influenza as an emerging infectious disease

Web-posted information on current affected areas and travel health advisories

Secretara de Salud (http://www.salud.gob.mx/)

No mention of avian influenza as an emerging infectious disease

No mention of avian influenza as an emerging infectious disease

The trilateral achievement in emergency preparednessthat is, the development of the

North American Plan for Avian and Pandemic Influenzaaccompanied both (a) the existence of the SPP agenda and (b) a growing preoccupation with the pandemic influenza threat. While correlation does not prove causation, an inductive observation of this instance of trilateral, cross-border cooperation suggests that the international structures and guidelines of both the SPP and the WHO were helpful. Perhaps more influential was the ever-increasing perceived imminence of the influenza threat.

C. Shared Border Management

The Context of Cooperation and Conflict on the US-Canada Border In the many decades since the establishment of the 49th parallel as the northern boundary of the United States and the southern border of Canada, both nations proudly boasted they shared the longest undefended frontier in the world. This idea informed the dominant story of the U.S.-Canada
28

Ibid. 10

frontier in political, economic, and social terms. The border straddles mutually interdependent communities, both on a local, regional, and national scale. In many places, the boundary has traditionally been unmarked or demarcated only by a post or sign, hence the long-standing application of the adjective undefended to the U.S.-Canada border. The U.S.-Canada borderlands are thus what border expert Oscar Martinez, in his typology of borderlands, would call interdependent or in some cases even integrated."29 National security interests in the United States, particularly in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, however, inserted a dynamic of resistance to the integration process. This is especially visible in the way the US-Canada border changed after the attacks. No longer did many U.S. citizens and policymakers, for instance, see the frontier in such sanguine and peaceful terms: instead, for some, the border became understood as a kind of dangerous, open sieve for potential terrorists or their weapons to slip across. For the United States, security at the boundary became primary; for Canada, however, ensuring its vital trade flows to the U.S. remained central (nearly 81% of Canadian exports are bound for the United States.) 30 Given the primacy of U.S. national security concernsand the policy steps this entailed (such as harsher inspection regimes at ports of entry)some analysts expressed concerns about the sustainability of historically vibrant patterns of cross-border trade and interaction. These U.S.-Canada cross-border relations need to be understood in the larger context of the North American integration process.31 In a useful schematic to analyze this process, Christopher Sands outlines four models of integration for the North American context: bureaucratically-led, politicallyled, institutionally-led, and values-led.32 Different interests, at different times and for varying reasons, have advocated each model, and in turn, other interests have resisted each integration trajectory. In these terms, several politically and bureaucratically-led integration efforts came to the fore soon after the 9/11 attacks. This was due to a growing understanding within policy circles in Washington, D.C. and Ottawa that security is a precondition for trade and further trade liberalization. This axiom was recognized in the Smart Border declaration and its 30-point action plan agreed to by both countries in late 2001. The agreement built on previous initiatives, such as the 1999 Canada-U.S. Partnership Forum (CUSP) and the February 24, 1995 joint accord, Our Shared Border, which both advanced risk management approaches for secure trade. The Smart Border Action Plan sought significant cross-border cooperation in the security domain. For instance, the agreement paved the way for a safe third-country agreement for refugee claims, a single alternative inspection system, air pre-clearance, and compatible immigration databases,. More
29

See Oscar Martnez, Border People: Life and Society in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 1994). 30 Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, NAFTA @ 10 - A Preliminary Report (2003). Available at [http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/eet/research/nafta/nafta-en.asp]. Accessed 18 May 2006. 31 See Robert Pastor Toward a North American Community: Lessons from the Old World for the New (Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 2001) 32 Christopher Sands, "Different Paths Leading from Cancn," "North American Integration Monitor 3, no. 2 (2006) (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies.) 11

vigorous supporters of these ideas, including the U.S. Ambassador to Canada at the time, Paul Celluci, even called for further action, seeking to move the US and Canada towards a full-fledged security perimeter that would reinforce the external borders of the two nations (and possibly Mexico) but relax internal boundaries through a customs union, harmonized immigration policies, and other measures. The perimeter concept, while illustrative of strong cross-border cooperation, was too overwhelming politically, so the track was instead cleared for a focus on Smart Borders, which began to be implemented in 2002 and 2003. As a follow-up to the NAFTA and the Smart Border accords, the SPP was launched in 2005.33 The SPP, as argued above, is a framework for cross-border cooperation in North America; it is unique in that, as Sands argues, it was a bureaucratically-led integration project: The [SPP] negotiations allow officials to take the lead to manage and foster cross-border flows of people, goods, services, and investment.34 In this way, negotiators would continue to reduce barriers remaining after the NAFTA process concluded. Unfortunately, the progress on North American integration generally, and several forms of crossborder cooperation made under both the Smart Border accords and the SPP agreement, has slowed. The Smart Border process, and the SPP more recently, have lost momentum. The last trilateral meeting of North American leaders, held in New Orleans in April 2008, resulted in little more than a photo opportunity and a perfunctory press release. The progress of bureaucratically-led integration, while performed by mid-level officials, still required support by higher level political authorities. While the SPP may have enjoyed such support in its early period, more recent changes in political leadership in North America, as well as new political and economic priorities, contributed to the stalling of the initiative. In addition, certain policy changes promulgated by the United States in recent years have resulted in a creeping trend of border thickening." As a result, the US-Canada border has grown ever more difficult to transgress, both legally and illegally.35 These measures, as Beleliu maintains, are moving border policy away from the risk management strategy that enabled the border to remain secure with minimal damage to crossborder trade and commerce.36 More policy divergence than convergence thus appears to currently be the case between the two states. Divergence can lead to cross-border policy conflict. To illustrate this we will discuss one interesting border policy initiative called Shared Border Management (SBM). SBM represented the potential for cross-border cooperation but ended in disappointment.
33

Office of the Prime Minister, Canada, The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, (23 March 2005). Available at [http://pm.gc.ca/eng/news.asp?id=443]. Accessed 20 October 2005. 34 Volume 3, Issue 2 May 2006; Different Paths Leading from Cancn; Christopher Sands; http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/naim06_05.pdf 35 See Jason Ackleson, From Thin to Thick (And Back Again?): The Politics and Policies of the Contemporary US-Canada Border, American Review of Canadian Studies (special issue on the U.S. Elections and Canada-U.S. Relations (the 2008 Enders Symposium), (forthcoming, 2009). 36 Andre Belelieu, Canada Alert: The Smart Border Process at Two: Losing Momentum, Center for Strategic and International Studies Hemisphere Focus 11, no. 31 (2003): 5. 12

Shared Border Management In the spirit of the Smart Border declaration, one of the policy initiatives some U.S. and Canadian authorities were interested in implementing is called Shared Border Management or SBM. A pilot SBM process was planned for the Peace Bridge between Buffalo, NY and Ft. Erie, Ontario; for logistical and efficiency reasons, it was hoped that U.S. border screening could be moved across the river into Canada. In December 2004, Washington and Ottawa announced they would proceed with this land preclearance pilot project and one other, not named, site. This was an important decision for both symbolic and practical reasons; in this sense, it is suggestive of a values-based approach to integration. This is because of the symbolic value it representing, signaling a new principle of cooperation on border management between the two countries. It was important in practical terms because this particular border crossing is illustrative of the wider problem of inadequate infrastructure on the border. As Rey Koslowski indicates, the revolution in border security that moves from smart borders to virtual borders, ironically, requires significant physical infrastructure investments at or near the border in order to work as envisioned.37 In this case, the crossing is a highly congested port of entry with significant limitations for expansion on the US side. The situation at Buffalo speaks to a general truth about the border: both Canada and the United States are trying to operate a twenty-first century border on (mid)-twentieth century infrastructure. This is also the case with U.S.s southern border with Mexico. The problem is particularly acute on the northern frontier due to the chokepoints created by the tunnels and bridges which form the main crossings. Some 75% of U.S. bound trade passes through only four crossings. 38 As Todd Hataley points out, the infrastructure issue is both a security and a trade problem. The key crossing points are potentially significant targets for any terror organization wishing to disrupt the trade flows between the two largest trading partners in the world.39 The pressures to expedite trade have resulted in low inspection rates (Hataley cites low inspection rates: about 4.5 per cent for the Canada Border Services Agency). Moving US border inspections to the Canadian side of the frontier at the Peace Bridge, and expanding the port in a joint fashion, would be a step forward in both infrastructure and cooperative terms. It would indicate a fairly high level of trust, shared norms and operations, and a robust collaborative security environment. In April 2007, however, the plan collapsed. According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, this was due to the problem of subordination of U.S. law enforcement personnel and authorities to Canadian law rather than U.S. law and the inability to ensure necessary U.S. law enforcement
37

Rey Koslowski, International Cooperation to Create Smart Borders, paper prepared for the conference on North American Integration: Migration, Trade and Security, Ottawa, April 1-2, 2004. Available at [http://www.irpp.org/events/archive/apr04/koslowski.pdf] (accessed November 9, 2008): 9. 38 Sam Howe Verhovek, The Northern Border: Vast U.S.-Canada Border Suddenly Poses a Problem to Patrol Agents, New York Times (October 4, 2001): 1. 39 Todd Hataley, Catastrophic Terrorism at the Border: The Case of the Canada-United States Border, Homeland Security Affairs Journal, no. 1 (September 1, 2007).

13

authorities under Canadas legal framework.40 These were largely arguments over conflicts of sovereignty and law enforcement; specifically arrest authority and right of withdrawal, e.g., the right for U.S. officers to fingerprint travelers who come to the bridge, but then decide not to cross. While proponents of the initiative might hope for the plan to be revived in the Obama Administration, it appears unlikely. As Ron Rienas, general manager, Peace Bridge Authority maintains, It is highly improbable, in my opinion, that any elected official or a new administration in Washington will advocate for [shared border management] at the Peace Bridge.41 While only a single case, the failure of SBM as cross-border cooperation initiative is not singular; it can be seen in the context of certain US policies such as the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI), other inspection methodologies, protocols, and fees which have, collectively, added additional regulatory layers to the border in recent years. This would suggest we are indeed seeing more divergence on policy than convergence. Progress on security remains limited, advanced mainly by programs like NEXUS. In this sense, we have a thicker border in many ways for most travelers. As Goldman and Barutciski argue, the impact of *this+ border thickening is clear: businesses absorb additional compliance and transaction costs, and face greater unpredictability at ports of entry.42 Much of this can be attributed to the construction of Canada (and the border) as a security threat, a finding that is confirmed by other scholars, including Mark Salter who argues that we see in post-9/11 that U.S. public and governmental opinion has shifted from viewing the U.S.Canada border as low risk to one of high risk.43 In sum, despite some progress in the 1990s and in the immediate post9/11 period, it can thus be argued a kind of security deficit exists on the US-Canada border and that current policies and inertia are not moving cross-border cooperation forward as robustly as possible.

IV. Conclusion
Key factors contributing to the promotion or impairment of cross-border cooperation in North America may be induced from the insights of each case discussed above. In the U.S.-Mexico case observing livestock and meat trade relations, one can see the economic dependence of both nations on each other, the important role of specific trade-policy tools, and genuine efforts for bi-lateral relations. The economic dependence may be primarily based on Chihuahuas export-oriented cattle industry and the U.S.s complimentary dependence on cattle
40

United States Government Accountability Office, Various Issues Led to the Termination of the United States-Canada Shared Border Management Pilot Project, GAO Report GAO-08-1038R (September 4, 2008). Available at [http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d081038r.pdf] (accessed 20 September 2008): 9. 41 Jerry Zremski, U. S.-Canadian Land Swap Seen Unlikely, The Buffalo News (September 9, 2008). 42 Jesse Goldman and Milos Barutciski, The Challenges Of A Thickening U.S. Canada Border, The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel (October 2008): 56. 43 Mark Salter, Passports, Mobility, and Security: How Smart Can the Border Be?, International Studies Perspectives 5, no. 1 (2004): 71 91. See also Ackleson, From Thin to Thick (And Back Again?). 14

imports. The specific trade-policy tools, such as the WTOs and OIEs-approved concepts of regionalization, can also enhance cross-border cooperation and benefit trade. In this case, because of the existence of these tools, APHIS proclaimed Chihuahua a disease-free state for the benefit of trade. Also, as in any international relationship, genuine efforts for productive bi-lateral relations, where each nation considers the others interests, play a significant role in advancing cooperation. Here, efforts were indeed genuine in order for actors to adjust their behavior to the actual or anticipated preferences of others through a policy coordination processthe classic definition of cooperation. The emergency preparedness case, involving North American trilateral cooperation that culminated in the development of a public health planning document, also presents observable factors. While the SPPs mere existence did not ensure the development of the plan, the SPPs working groups and agenda were nonetheless influential; that is, having a pre-existing international agreement (like the SPP), coupled with other international guidelines (e.g., those available from the WHO), encouraged the trilateral relationship and emergency preparedness initiatives. These culminated in the North American Plan for Avian and Pandemic Influenza, a truly interconnected response plan. In addition, Canadas economic dependency on the U.S., as well as the complimentary U.S.-Mexico dependency, encouraged trilateral planning for the sake of cross-border flows and public health. The growing appreciation of an imminent public health threat (like avian influenza) also appears to be influential. Finally, in the case of SBM, cross-border cooperation was advanced by key local interests (such as the bridge authorities, historical preservationists, and political figures), economic prerogatives (more efficient trade), and a good degree of trust on the ground in this integrated cross-border region. However, cooperation was ultimately hindered and ultimately shuttered by larger-level legal limitations, both in the US and Canada (and between them) as well as organizational inertia. Central governments in Ottawa and Washington, for instance, could not overcome administrative concerns a about key jurisdictional rules for law enforcement under a shared border regime. Finally, no strong binational institutional backing existed to mitigate concerns or advance a shared management regime. As Table 2 summarizes, three factors were salient in the two successful cases of cross-border cooperation. That is, three factorsvisible economic interdependencies, the availability of international guidelines or frameworks for the policy issue at hand, and genuine bi-lateral effort emerged in this inductive analysis. Interestingly, the factors reflect the general historical pattern of integration in North America. Such factors are noteworthy, for the North American process of crossborder cooperation is rather unlike the more aggressive, intergovernmental and supranational approach taken in the European Union. True to the factors identified in Table 2, North Americas story of cross-border cooperation has consistently featured a large economic dimension (anchored by NAFTA), followed up by modest bureaucratically and politically-led bilateral and trilateral measures which sought to mitigate problems resulting from this economic integration, such as poor border management. In North America and elsewhere, economics are often influential, but not necessarily sufficient to guarantee cross-border cooperation. As Table 2 indicates, the absence of key factors (notably viable legal frameworks, in the Shared Border Management case) can spoil cross-border cooperation initiatives. In contrast, in the successful cases of cross-border cooperation (i.e., in the emergency preparedness and agricultural trade policy domains), issue type, regional dynamics, and nature of the policy issue at hand have great bearing on whether or not the second factor (i.e.,
15

international rules, guidelines, or frameworks) exists. Indeed, for issues like avian influenza, relevant trilateral (SPP) working groups and global-agency (WHO) guidelines may be more accessible than they would be for, say, novel law-enforcement policy initiatives (e.g., in the Shared Border Management case). Table 2: Factors observed in three cases of cross-border cooperation
Factors observed Case Conspicuous economic interdependence Existence of relevant international rules, guidelines, or frameworks Genuine bi-lateral behavior, trust, and effort (including stakeholder buyin)

U.S.-Mexico cross-border cooperation in the transnational movement of livestock Trilateral emergency preparedness Shared Border Management

X X

X X

The conspicuous absence of a legal framework to facilitate the SBM program requires discussion and, at a more granular level, further explanation, as well as comparison to the other two cases. In the absence of international guidelines for SBM-like cross-border policy initiatives, the cases outcome was inevitably determined by nation-state sovereignty considerations, and separate judiciaries (i.e., U.S. and Canada-specific laws). In this case, and as the U.S. Government Accountability Office report alludes,44 it was largely interpretation of United States law that determined the outcome; as SBMs proponents might argue, the lamentable absence of clear international guidelines or rules or frameworks hampered cross-border cooperation. In contrast, actors in the other cases did have recourse to relevant international guidelines, rules, and frameworks (i.e., the WTO- and OIE-affirmed concept of regionalization in the U.S.-Mexico livestock case, and a pre-existing SPP agenda and WHO and OIE guidelines in the emergency management case). The three factors identified in this inductive analysis suggest a pattern of integration and cooperation that is uniquely North American. Those factors located at the sub-national level, such as those
44

See United States Government Accountability Office, Various Issues Led to the Termination of the United States-Canada Shared Border Management Pilot Project, 9. 16

illustrated in the Mexico-U.S. agricultural trade case, show particular promise for future cross-border initiatives. This finding is consistent with Brunet-Jailly's conclusion that crossborder regions are changingbecause the political integration of North America is taking the form of crossborder regions or of progressive and bottomup policy parallelism in a multitude of policy arenas.45 In this view, we can acknowledge this distinct approach to political integrationbased on policy convergence and harmonization, cultural interaction, and economic prerogativesand locate it largely at the subnational level (or, in the case of the national level, as a bureaucratic process). The two successful cases are, then, largely in line with Sands bureaucratically-led model.46 One of the principal contributions of this paper is for the academy itselfthat is, for the future of research regarding cross-border cooperation. With a view to add to ongoing work in other research centers (e.g., the Centre for Cross-Border Studies, devoted to analysis of border issues at the interface of the Republic of Ireland and the UKs Northern Ireland),47 this paper by the Frontier program presents a three-factor framework for evaluating and, perhaps, predicting cross-border effectiveness. Such evaluative and predictive exercises might begin with the elaboration of hypotheses based on the three factors, and then subsequent testing of hypotheses. The scientific process benefits from both inductive and deductive approaches, and now, having contributed new inductive-research insights in the multidisciplinary field of cross-border studies, the authors of this paper anticipate scholarly discussion about what hypotheses are worthy of testing.
45 46 47

Brunet-Jailly, "Cascadia in Comparative Perspectives," 117, emphasis added. Sands, "Different Paths Leading from Cancun." See http://www.crossborder.ie/.

17