Using Decision Frames In Nafta Intranational Conflicts

The regular commercial trade among North American countries involves many issues. To foster free trade, NAFTA provides a legal and political framework for resolving commercial conflicts among its three signatory countries. However, there are also intranational conflicts among the economic actors in each country. Within a given country, participants in a NAFTA deal include individual firms or groups of firms, industry representatives, national commerce officials, state political leaders, and national political leaders, among others. Differences in decision frames and actor objectives can lead to controversy in many NAFTA deals. This article suggests making explicit the decision frame of each actor, or category of actors, and using a unified decision frame for obtaining national agreements on particular NAFTA‐related issues. Unified decision frames should include a common time frame and shared objectives, alternatives and information. This approach can promote agreement on the scope of a trade issue, help identify additional opportunities, reduce actors = uncertainties, clarify prefernces, and promote trust.