According to Professor Milenky:
This study will examine the origin, growth, and political processes of the Latin American Free Trade Association during its first twelve years of existence. The major issues of integration within LAFTA and the policies of the member states and other interested parties will be presented and analyzed, first on the purely empirical level and then through a theoretical model to be developed in the concluding chapter. The overall objective will be to explore the dynamics of a critical aspect of intra-Latin American politics.
He succeeds quite well in the established task given the qualifications that follow.
The most valuable aspect of this study is its rather comprehensive coverage of the origin, growth and processes of LAFTA. What these processes may be is open, however, to question. Since the author is primarily concerned with political implications, it is somewhat interesting that his topic is so loaded with economics. The main driving force in LAFTA has been economics with politics flowing in response. The main theoretical constructs are those of the economist Prebisch, expounded over the past 25 years, and just about everything else is built on the center-periphery argument and its refinements and extensions. While it is certainly plausible that a true discipline of political economy may someday develop, presently we are faced with an area dominated by economists because of the solid theory available.
What this leads up to is a charge that there is little analysis in chapters 1-9 that is not economics and that has not been said better elsewhere (note the bibliography). Chapter 10 promises more but really does not deliver. Perhaps this final chapter will be the seed for a political theory, but there is little evidence to that effect now. The author admits to the truth of this assessment again and again, through the sheer volume of his references to the economic benefits, costs, problems, and theory of integration.
In spite of these difficulties, the book is recommended as a good reference source for the events in the first twelve years of LAFTA.
