Trade, Politics, and Democratization: The 1997 Global Agreement between the European Union and Mexico

Mexico and the European Union signed a new Political and Economic Association Agreement in December 1997 and ultimately a free-trade agreement in March 2000, aiming to establish a new model of relations with a more dynamic trade and investment component. This article analyzes the 1997 agreement as background to the final accord. Economic and political changes in the 1990s modified both parties' participation in the international political economy, helping to overcome some of the structural obstacles to the relationship. The policy toward Latin America adopted by the EU in 1994 was influential. The negotiation process revealed divergences over the scope of the liberalization process and the so-called democracy clause.

Branching bisimulation games.

Branching bisimilarity and branching bisimilarity with explicit divergences are typically used in process algebras with silent steps when relating implementations to specifications. When an implementation fails to conform to its specification, i.e., when both are not related by branching bisimilarity [with explicit divergence], pinpointing the root causes can be challenging. In this paper, we provide characterisations of branching bisimilarity [with explicit divergence] as games between Spoiler and Duplicator, offering an operational understanding of both relations. Moreover, we show how such games can be used to assist in diagnosing non-conformance between implementation and specification.