This chapter tries to explore the conditions in which such a discipline as International Relations in studied from the periphery taking Mexico as a case-study. Given the fact that Mexico has a very special relationship to the US, can we expect any special perspectives or contributions to the theorization of IR among Mexico’s specialists in the area? Which perspectives are Mexican IR specialists giving their students, which major schools of thought are privileged in the teaching of new generations of IR students? Which are the historical determinants or geo-political constraints of such ways to approach IR? This study tries to examine the case of two elite teaching programs with the discipline of IR in Mexico in order to give an answer to these questions.

Women’s organizing, both at the local and global level has been one of the new social movement phenomena in which the role of human agency to resist global restructuring is most significant.  However, such resistance strategies are particularly difficult when the challenge is not only confronting economic globalization as such but also part of the comrades in arms in such confrontation, that is trade unions that as such embody part of this resistance to transnational capital. The entanglement of the identities of class and gender is not unproblematic but it also opens new possibilities for example in the way of the creation of alternative labour organizations rejecting the traditions of authoritarianism and patriarchal hierarchies plaguing classical trade unions. The aim of this article is to show one such example of labour organizing among women workers within maquiladora (assembling factories-outsourcing) industries, the case of San Marcos in El Salvador. As it is well known, these industries have traditionally, in the first phases of their establishment and specially within textile manufacture, recruited mostly female workers, that is to say cheap labour. The story of their exploitation is quite well known, what is less well know is their organizing experiences, and these are quite varied. Taking as point of departure the example of El Salvador I want to illustrate how these women have been able to overcome many difficulties and sometimes form their own trade unions in alliance with NGOs. I will try to present their strategies and challenges as well as their potential for the near future. Thus, one can perhaps delineate the different factors that make this organizing possible, the importance of the local context vis a vis the international and the possibilities and limits of this kind of local resistance to the conditions imposed by globalization.

This article presents the case study of the Red de Mujeres Sindicalistas. RMSM (The Mexican Trade Union women's network) a network of female trade union activists who is trying to open a space for gender perspectives within several trade union movements in Mexico. Even though this network exemplifies one of the victories of trade union women in Mexico the article shows the many obstacle they still have to confront in order to make their rights recognized and respected. This case study also exemplifies the intersection of class en gender with transnational activism. The latter has helped the RMSM in a significat way to gain a certain independence from their organizations. This study is the result of several interviews with representatives of the network and their sister organization in the South of Mexico.

This paper represents a collective contribution to an ongoing debate on the benefits and disadvantages of  export-based industry jobs  for women as well as on the implications  of  global labor standards for these type of jobs. On the basis of extensive research on women in Mexico’s and Central America’s maquiladoras, this paper aims to problematize the viewpoints that present  export-based industry jobs as dignified alternatives for women in the South and to question the  scepticism around  global labor standards as a possible alternative for improving work conditions in all sectors producing for export. In so doing, the paper stresses three interrelated issues: a) the relevance of local and regional contexts that inform diverse industrialization paths over time, b) the agency the women workers represent and c) the legal instruments already existent in our common strive for solutions towards the aim of dignified jobs.

The objective of this report is to, based on the earlier identified trends presented in the studies written in 2008, 2007 and 2006, describe and discuss possible future consequences in terms of security policy, for great powers such as the United States, Russia, China, the European Union and in its extension, Sweden. The study pays special attention to important conclusions with possible security (policy) implications based on the earlier published reports as well as discussions of possible and plausible changes in the region that could have security (policy) consequences.

The point of departure of this essay is that  global restructuring, free trade and integration processes have not been sufficiently linked to women and feminist struggles and yet women are a very important part of the mass mobilizations that civil society has organized to protest big capital globalization from Seattle to Cancún. Moreover those studies that have focused on social organizing around free trade issues lack the different women actors perspective that can only be obtained through field work. This paper’s aim is to try to contribute to start filling  this gap. Accordingly, the goal is to analyze  how a gender perspective is being built/integrated into the anti-free trade discourses and movements  and if this perspective is  capable of mobilizing and impacting at three levels: the grassroots of the mobilization opposing free trade, the women’s movement in Latin America and finally the targeted  international/national structures.

In particular, the following questions are addressed: which are the conditions that activate  feminist groups’ resistance to global restructuring and free trade?, how is a gender perspective being integrated in free trade discussions and in relation to other  more ‘traditional’ themes among women and feminist coalitions in Latin America and what kind of strategies and coordination efforts  are these groups developing? This is part of a major project dealing with women as transnational actors in the case of NAFTA