Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Open or Closed For Business? The Political Economy of Trade Protection in Developing Nations

University Of New Mexico, Albuquerque NM

Investigators

Abstract

This Doctoral Dissertation Research Support project moves beyond the existing literature on the politics of economic reform and specifically trade policy by focusing on the recent aggressive use of antidumping (AD) policy in the developing world. Evidence suggests that governments have been simultaneously "reforming" trade on the level of macroeconomic policy by slashing tariffs while adopting "backdoor" mechanisms to reverse trade liberalization at the less visible level of regulatory policy. There are not, however, adequate explanations for variation in nations' sudden use of these policies, nor have the determinants of the decision to provide protection been clearly identified. The research combines an in-depth qualitative and quantitative comparison of AD policy in three major developing countries-Argentina, Mexico, and South Africa-with a large-n, cross-national statistical analysis of the political and economic determinants of trade protection across the developing world. Focusing upon variation in the decision to create a national AD agency and agencies' subsequent general propensity to protect, the research sheds light upon the ways in which interest group pressure and institutional context shape policy adoption and implementation. In particular, the study fleshes out how characteristics of the executive and the AD agency interact with other variables to affect the policy process. The study draws upon a mixture of types of evidence, including interviews with agency commissioners, industry leaders, organized labor officials, and the lawyers who usually guide the AD petition and complaint process; examination of AD agency records and statistics; and measures of institutional factors including executive power, agency autonomy, and business strength. Using these types of information, the study examines the variables that influence trade protection policy on the basis of a comparative analysis of national-level AD agencies across developing nations, and in-depth analyses of national and sub-national factors-particularly characteristics of industries and sectors. The research is designed to contribute to the literature on the political economy of trade policy in developing nations by examining the trade protection policy process through the complex interactions of state and societal actors. Moreover, the study enriches the endogenous protection theoretical framework, which focuses on domestic interest groups' demands for protection and governments' responses, by employing an integrated theoretical approach that links interest group pressures to the institutions that potentially modify the policy process.