Trading Interests: Domestic Institutions, International Negotiations, and the Politics of Trade.

Abstract

This dissertation addresses the relationship between domestic and international institutions in the context of the politics of trade. The dissertation identifies specific instances of how international institutions modify the effects of domestic institutions, and it shows how domestic institutions affect government behavior in international institutions. The first chapter focuses on the domestic politics of trade. A prominent literature argues that electoral institutions favoring narrow interest groups result in higher average tariff rates. The chapter argues that this literature has largely ignored the role of exporter interests and shows that, in the presence of trade agreements, this omission results in a biased understanding of trade politics. The second chapter expands on these issues, turning to electoral campaigns. Narrow interest institutions are not only associated with more support for protectionist trade policies in campaign statements, as would be expected from standard accounts, but also with more support for free trade. The finding further underscores the contemporaneous influence of protectionist and free trade interest groups in trade politics. The third chapter turns to government behavior in international institutions. It shows that domestic institutions can provide an explanation for differences in government engagement with dispute settlement procedures. Governments under institutions that are more prone to support narrow interest groups are more active in filing trade disputes against other governments. The final chapter addresses the question of why many international agreements lack strong enforcement and commitment mechanisms, even where agreements are used as hands-tying mechanisms by governments. The chapter emphasizes an incompatibility between institutions that tie the hands of governments, and thereby lock in policies, and international cooperation that is driven by domestic pro-cooperation groups. Agreements which lock in policies take an issue off the table, such that a government can no longer leverage it in political campaigns. Anticipating this, governments may be reluctant to lock in policies through international agreements.