"In a world that has become increasingly interconnected over the past decades - economically, politically, socially, and culturally - new challenges are posed to development. Since the 1980s, development has increasingly become interpreted in terms of increasing integration into the world economy. Export-oriented manufacturing became widely viewed as the surest recipe for realizing economic growth while reducing income inequality, and the role of foreign direct investments became increasingly important in development strategies worldwide. However, not every region, industry and social group managed to become successfully integrated into the world economy. In order to explain why these processes of economic restructuring have had such a differential impact, this study situates developments within a wider historical social and political context to establish how these processes of globalization are mediated at the regional and local level. The main object of study concerns the drastic socioeconomic transformation that has taken place in the state of Coahuila - situated in the northeast of Mexico, bordering the United States - over the past three decades. In particular since the start of NAFTA in 1994, Coahuila has become one of Mexico's most successful export-oriented manufacturing states, most importantly as a result of the large number of foreign direct investments it received. However, the effects of these developments have been unevenly distributed among its sub-regions, while questions must also be raised about its ability to contribute to sustained, long-term growth with equity. The key issue appears to be not whether, but how regions and localities become linked to the world economy."--page 4 of cover