North American workers find their jobs more pressured and precarious but turn on the television and find pundits praising the glories of the global economy. Their counterparts south of the Rio Grande find themselves forced into the arms of global corporations that barely pay them their daily bread for work in dangerous plants that refuse to observe minimal safety or environmental standards. No wonder inequality is increasing in both countries. Although North Americans are told that Mexicans are stealing their jobs, workers can find "allies across the border." Like the U.S. labor organizers in the early part of the 20th century who created the C.I.O. in response to A.F.L. corruption, Mexico's F.A.T. (Frente Autentico del Trabajo or Authentic Workers' Front) is building a historic movement to create an alternative to Mexico's notoriously co-opted labor unions and collusion with government international capital. Allies Across the Border, the first book on F.A.T., analyzes this important group in the context of the globalization of capital and the necessary globalization of labor struggle. Dale Hathaway shows how F.A.T.'s dedication to worker education and self-management, union independence, and community development are key, not only in Mexico, but worldwide. Allies Across the Border includes detailed descriptions of F.A.T.'s growth from its liberation theology origins, through the Worker's Uprising and student movements of the late 60s, Mexico's debt crisis of the 70s and 80s, and F.A.T.'s work with women's groups, peasants, and consumer co-ops in the 90s. Hathaway's Allies Across the Border shows how F.A.T.'s dedication to worker's dignity offers lessons for North American workers who are fighting to keep corporations from pushing for greater exploitation of workers and environment in their home countries and worldwide. Dale Hathaway is Associate Professor of Political Science at Butler University in Indianapolis.

This occasional paper is a concise overview of the history of the US Army's involvement along the Mexican border and offers a fundamental understanding of problems associated with such a mission. Furthermore, it demonstrates how the historic themes addressed disapproving public reaction, Mexican governmental instability, and insufficient US military personnel to effectively secure the expansive boundary are still prevalent today.

The border region of the Sonoran Desert, which spans southern Arizona in the United States and northern Sonora, Mexico, has attracted national and international attention. But what is less discussed in national discourses is the impact of current border policies on the Native peoples of the region. There are twenty-six tribal nations recognized by the U.S. federal government in the southern border region and approximately eight groups of Indigenous peoples in the United States with historical ties to Mexico—the Yaqui, the O’odham, the Cocopah, the Kumeyaay, the Pai, the Apaches, the Tiwa (Tigua), and the Kickapoo. Divided Peoples addresses the impact border policies have on traditional lands and the peoples who live there—whether environmental degradation, border patrol harassment, or the disruption of traditional ceremonies. Anthropologist Christina Leza shows how such policies affect the traditional cultural survival of Indigenous peoples along the border. The author examines local interpretations and uses of international rights tools by Native activists, counterdiscourse on the U.S.-Mexico border, and challenges faced by Indigenous border activists when communicating their issues to a broader public. Through ethnographic research with grassroots Indigenous activists in the region, the author reveals several layers of division—the division of Indigenous peoples by the physical U.S.-Mexico border, the divisions that exist between Indigenous perspectives and mainstream U.S. perspectives regarding the border, and the traditionalist/nontraditionalist split among Indigenous nations within the United States. Divided Peoples asks us to consider the possibilities for challenging settler colonialism both in sociopolitical movements and in scholarship about Indigenous peoples and lands.

Why Walls Won't Work is a sweeping account of life along the United States-Mexico border zone, tracing the border's history of cultural interaction since the earliest Mesoamerican times to the present day. As soon as Mexicans, American settlers, and indigenous peoples came into contact along the Rio Grande in the mid-nineteenth century, new forms of interaction and affiliation evolved. By the late-twentieth century, the border states were among the fastest-growing regions in both countries. But as Michael Dear warns, this vibrant zone of economic, cultural and social connectivity is today threatened by highly restrictive American immigration and security policies as well as violence along the border. The U.S. border-industrial complex and the emerging Mexican narco-state are undermining the very existence of the "third nation" occupying the space between Mexico and the U.S. Through a series of evocative portraits of contemporary border communities, Dear reveals how the promise and potential of this "in-between" nation still endures and is worth protecting. Now with a new chapter updating this story and suggesting what should be done about the challenges confronting the cross-border zone, Why Walls Won't Work represents a major intellectual intervention into one of the most hotly-contested political issues of our era.

The authors argue that despite a shared continent and heritage, ambivalence has always characterized relations between the two countries - an ambivalence stemming from differences that Americans underestimate and that Canadians overstate. Thompson and Randall begin with the century in which Canada was a pawn in the relations between the United States and Great Britain. They consider the years until World War II, during which Canada and the United States erected many of the bilateral institutions and mechanisms that govern their relationship in the twentieth century. The authors then explore the World War and Cold War alliance based on economic interest and shared anti-Communist that made Canada part of a "new American empire." The years from 1960 until 1984 most merit their subtitle, Ambivalent Allies, as it was then that this continental consensus fragmented. In 1984 the relationship was restored as Canada's Conservative government embraced the United States with an ardour that stunned a Canadian body politic nurtured on the milk of anti-Americanism. The authors consider the economic and social dimensions of the relationship, from Canadian responses to the increasing weight of the U.S. cultural presence, to the archaic stereotypes through which Canadians and Americans understand each other. They conclude that while Canadians have been obsessed with the United States, Canada has been a matter of consuming disinterest to the United States public and to most of its leaders. Despite the oft-repeated platitudes about a "special relationship" between the two countries, the authors maintain that what is striking is the extent to which U.S. policy toward Canada conforms to U.S. policy toward the rest of the world. For its part, Canada's preoccupation with the United States has shaped Canadian national policies. Any apparent contemporary trend toward consensus and convergence between the United States and Canada, they conclude, must be viewed through the lens of two centuries of ambiguity and ambivalence.

In Reliability and Alliance Interdependence, Iain D. Henry argues for a more sophisticated approach to alliance politics and ideas of interdependence. It is often assumed that if the United States failed to defend an ally, then this disloyalty would instantly and irrevocably damage US alliances across the globe. Henry proposes that such damage is by no means inevitable and that predictions of disaster are dangerously simplistic. If other allies fear the risks of military escalation more than the consequences of the United States abandoning an ally, then they will welcome, encourage, and even praise such an instance of disloyalty. It is also often assumed that alliance interdependence only constrains US policy options, but Henry shows how the United States can manipulate interdependence to set an example of what constitutes acceptable allied behavior. Using declassified documents, Henry explores five case studies involving US alliances with South Korea, Japan, the Republic of China, the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand. Reliability and Alliance Interdependence makes a substantial contribution to our understanding of how America's alliances in Asia function as an interdependent system.

Over the past few decades, alliance and networks have been generally examined individually. This Handbook sheds new light on this research by combining the two topics and focuses on highlighting their similarities. The expert contributors discuss topic