Divided Government and U.S.Trade Policy: Much Ado About Nothing?

2000 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 825-844 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Karol
Keyword(s):  
Trade Policy ◽  
Policy Preferences ◽  
Divided Government ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Trade Policies ◽  
Trade Barriers ◽  
Party Affiliation ◽  
Consistent Effect ◽  
Much Ado About Nothing

Scholars assert that divided government impedes the liberalization of U.S. trade policy. They claim that presidents favor freer trade and will use the negotiating authority Congress delegates to them to reach agreements lowering trade barriers. Since presidents gain more support from their congressional co-partisans, less liberalization ensues under divided government. This theory rests on the premise that party is unrelated to congressional trade policy preferences beyond legislators' tendencies to support their presidential co-partisans. Yet before 1970 congressional Democrats were relatively free trading regardless of the president's party affiliation. Since then, the same has been true of Republicans. Divided government facilitates the trade policies of presidents from the protectionist party since they win more support from their “opposition” in this area. Divided government does impede the efforts of presidents from the free-trading party to liberalize. I conclude that divided government has no consistent effect on trade policy outcomes.

scholarly journals Optimal Obfuscation: Democracy and Trade Policy Transparency

2006 ◽  
Vol 100 (3) ◽  
pp. 369-384 ◽  
Author(s):  
DANIEL Y. KONO
Keyword(s):  
Trade Policy ◽  
Electoral Competition ◽  
Consumer Welfare ◽  
Trade Policies ◽  
Trade Barriers ◽  
Nontariff Barriers ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Liberal Trade ◽  
The Impact

A growing body of research shows that democracies have more liberal trade policies than do autocracies. I argue, in contrast, that democracy has contradictory effects on different types of trade policies because electoral competition generates more information about some than about others. It generates considerable information about policies whose effects on consumer welfare are easy to explain to voters, but less information about policies whose effects are more complex. By increasing the transparency of some policies relative to others, democracy induces politicians to reduce transparent trade barriers but also to replace them with less transparent ones. I test this hypothesis by examining the impact of democracy on tariffs, “core” nontariff barriers (NTBs) such as quotas, and “quality” NTBs such as product standards in 75 countries in the 1990s. I find that democracy leads to lower tariffs, higher core NTBs, and even higher quality NTBs. I conclude that democracy promotes “optimal obfuscation” that allows politicians to protect their markets while maintaining a veneer of liberalization.

scholarly journals The Slide to Protectionism in the Great Depression: Who Succumbed and Why?

2010 ◽  
Vol 70 (4) ◽  
pp. 871-897 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry Eichengreen ◽  
Douglas A. Irwin
Keyword(s):  
Monetary Policy ◽  
Exchange Rate ◽  
Trade Policy ◽  
Great Depression ◽  
Gold Standard ◽  
Trade Policies ◽  
Trade Barriers ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Cross Country ◽  
Import Quotas

The Great Depression was marked by a severe outbreak of protectionist trade policies. But contrary to the presumption that all countries scrambled to raise trade barriers, there was substantial cross-country variation in the movement to protectionism. Specifically, countries that remained on the gold standard resorted to tariffs, import quotas, and exchange controls to a greater extent than countries that went off gold. Just as the gold standard constraint on monetary policy is critical to understanding macroeconomic developments in this period, exchange rate policies help explain changes in trade policy.

scholarly journals Polarized we trade? Intraparty polarization and US trade policy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon M. Friedrichs
Keyword(s):  
Trade Policy ◽  
Policy Preferences ◽  
Trade Negotiations ◽  
Trade Policies ◽  
The Us ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
Us Trade Policy ◽  
Partnership Agreement ◽  
Trade Preferences ◽  
Unique Dataset

AbstractResearch indicates that polarization has led to an increasing dispersion between moderate and more extreme voters within both parties. Intraparty polarization supposedly affects the nature of interparty competition as it creates political space for new political realignments and the rise of anti-establishment candidates. This article examines the extent and impact of intraparty polarization in Congress on US trade policy. Specifically, the article examines whether (and which) trade policy preferences are distributed within and between both parties, as well as how intraparty polarization has influenced the outcome of US trade negotiations. It is theorized that intraparty polarization causes crosscutting legislative coalitions around specific trade policies and political realignments around ideological factions, with consequences for the outcome of trade negotiations. By relying on a unique dataset of congressional letters and co-sponsorship legislation, the article first derives trade policy preferences from members of Congress and computes their ideological means. Two contemporary cases of US trade policy are examined: The Transpacific Partnership Agreement and the US–Mexico–Canada Agreement. Via a structured-focused comparison of both cases, the paper finally assesses under which combinations of preference-based and ideology-based intraparty polarization Congress manages to ratify trade agreements. Findings suggest that both parties are intrinsically polarized between free trade and fair trade preferences yet show variance in their degree of ideology-based intraparty polarization. These findings contribute to existing work on bipartisanship as well as factions in the foreign policy realm, as it shows under which circumstances legislators can build crosscutting coalitions around foreign policies.

Inclusion without Influence? NGOs in European Trade Policy

2007 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDREAS DÜR ◽  
DIRK DE BIÈVRE
Keyword(s):  
Trade Policy ◽  
Access To Medicines ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Trade Policies ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Societal Actors ◽  
European Trade ◽  
Economic Partnership

The actions of nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) concerned with such issues as development, human rights, and the protection of the environment voicing concerns to public authorities raises the questions: Do these newly mobilised societal actors influence EU trade policy outcomes? We answer in the negative, arguing that such groups, which have diffuse costs and benefits from trade policies, do not dispose of resources with which they can threaten or enhance political actors' chances of re-election or re-appointment. A survey of NGOs and business groups as well as two in-depth case studies on the negotiations concerning the EU's Economic Partnership Agreements and the EU's policy on access to medicines in developing countries support our reasoning. The analysis shows that although NGOs have gained access to policy-makers, they have largely failed to shift policy outcomes in their favour.

How bureaucratic leadership shapes policy outcomes: partisan politics and affluent citizens’ incomes in the American states

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 305-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Berkowitz ◽  
George A. Krause
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Policy Preferences ◽  
Administrative Leadership ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Partisan Politics ◽  
State Governments ◽  
Electoral Institutions ◽  
American States ◽  
Policy Objectives ◽  
Executive Agency

AbstractWe maintain that political institutions’ policy objectives are best met under conditions when they are unified, and also when their administrative leadership is effective. We apply this argument to the understanding of how unified Democratic and Republican governments in the American states have influenced the incomes of affluent citizens. We find that affluent income gains occur under unified Republican state governments when compensation to executive agency heads is sufficiently high. These income gains are notable relative to both divided and unified partisan control of state governments. The evidence highlights the asymmetric role that bureaucratic leadership plays in attaining policy outcomes consistent with political institutions’ policy preferences, while underscoring the limits of electoral institutions to shape policy outcomes of their own accord. Efforts to lower the capacity of the administrative leadership constrain unified political institutions from converting their policy objectives into policy outcomes.

scholarly journals Task Routineness and Trade Policy Preferences

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Blonigen ◽  
Jacob McGrew
Keyword(s):  
Trade Policy ◽  
Policy Preferences

scholarly journals When Britain Turned Inward: The Impact of Interwar British Protection

2019 ◽  
Vol 109 (2) ◽  
pp. 325-352 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan de Bromhead ◽  
Alan Fernihough ◽  
Markus Lampe ◽  
Kevin Hjortshøj O’Rourke
Keyword(s):  
International Trade ◽  
Trade Policy ◽  
Trade Flows ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Trade Policies ◽  
The Impact

International trade collapsed, and also became much less multilateral, during the 1930s. Previous studies, looking at aggregate trade flows, have argued that trade policies had relatively little to do with either phenomenon. Using a new dataset incorporating highly disaggregated information on the United Kingdom’s imports and trade policies, we find that while conventional wisdom is correct regarding the impact of trade policy on the total value of British imports, discriminatory trade policies can explain the majority of Britain’s shift toward Imperial imports in the 1930s. (JEL F13, F14, F54, N74)

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