The Multilevel Politics Of Trade

The Multilevel Politics of Trade presents a timely comparative analysis of eight federations (plus the European Union) to explore why some sub-federal actors have become more active in trade politics in recent years. As the contributing authors find, there is considerable variation in the intensity and modes of sub-federal participation. This they attribute to three key factors: the distinctive institutional features of federal systems; the nature and scope of trade policy and trade agreements; and the extent of social mobilization that accompanies a particular trade policy conversation. As a whole, The Multilevel Politics of Trade argues that sub-federal actors’ interests (jurisdictional, political, and economic) are what motivate them to participate in trade debates. However, institutional configurations, coupled with the influence of civil society actors, political parties, and others determine the nature and scope of that participation. Informed by a deep knowledge of federal dynamics, this volume provides extensive comparative analyses of all seven of the North American and European federations and represents a significant intervention into the study of both federalism and political economy.

Trade Policy in Multilevel Government investigates how multilevel polities organize openness in a globalizing political and economic environment. In recent years, the multilevel politics of trade caught a broader public's attention, not least due to the Wallonian regional parliament's initial rejection of the EU-Canada trade deal in 2016. In all multilevel polities, competencies held by states and regions have increasingly become the subject of international rule-setting. This is particularly so in the field of trade which has progressively targeted so-called 'behind the border' regulatory barriers. In their reaction to this 'deep trade' agenda, constituent units in different multilevel polities have shown widely varying degrees of openness to liberalizing their markets. Why is that? This book argues that domestic institutions and procedures of intergovernmental relations are the decisive factor. Countering a widely-held belief among practitioners and analysts of trade policy that involving subcentral actors complicates trade negotiations, it demonstrates that the more voice a multilevel polity affords its constituent units in trade policy-making, the less the latter have an incentive to eventually exit from emerging trade deals. While in shared rule systems constituent unit governments are directly represented along the entirety of the policy cycle, in self-rule systems territorial representation is achieved merely indirectly. Shared rule systems are hence more effective than self-rule systems in organizing openness to trade. The book tests its theory's explanatory power on the understudied case of international procurement liberalization in extensive studies of three systems of multilevel government: Canada, the European Union, and the United States.

Takes stock of current challenges to the world trading system and develops scenarios for the future.

This is a book about the ever more complex legal networks of transnational economic governance structures and their legitimacy problems. It takes up the challenge of the editors' earlier pioneering works which have called for more cross-sectoral and interdisciplinary analyses by scholars of international law, European and international economic law, private international law, international relations theory and social philosophy to examine the interdependences of multilevel governance in transnational economic, social, environmental and legal relations. Two complementary strands of theorising are expounded. One argues that globalisation and the universal recognition of human rights are transforming the intergovernmental "society of states" into a cosmopolitan community of citizens which requires more effective constitutional safeguards for protecting human rights and consumer welfare in the national and international governance and legal regulation of international trade. The second emphasises the dependence of the functioning of international markets and liberal trade on governance arrangements which respond credibly to safety and environmental concerns of consumers, traders, political and non-governmental actors. Enquiries into the generation of international standards and empirical analyses of legalization and judizialisation practices form part of this agenda. The perspectives and conclusions of the more than 20 contributors from Europe and North-America cannot be uniform. But they converge in their search for a constitutional architecture which limits, empowers and legitimises multilevel trade governance, as well as in their common premise that respect for human rights, private and democratic self-government and social justice require more transparent, participatory and deliberative forms of transnational "cosmopolitan democracy".

Firms are central to trade policy-making. Some analysts even suggest that they dictate policy on the basis of their material interests. Cornelia Woll counters these assumptions, arguing that firms do not always know what they want. To be sure, firms lobby hard to attain a desired policy once they have defined their goals. Yet material factors are insufficient to account for these preferences. The ways in which firms are embedded in political settings are much more decisive. Woll demonstrates her case by analyzing the surprising evolution of support from large firms for liberalization in telecommunications and international air transport in the United States and Europe. Within less than a decade, former monopolies with important home markets abandoned their earlier calls for subsidies and protectionism and joined competitive multinationals in the demand for global markets. By comparing the complex evolution of firm preferences across sectors and countries, Woll shows that firms may influence policy outcomes, but policies and politics in turn influence business demands. This is particularly true in the European Union, where the constraints of multilevel decision-making encourage firms to pay lip service to liberalization if they want to maintain good working relations with supranational officials. In the United States, firms adjust their sectoral demands to fit the government's agenda. In both contexts, the interaction between government and firm representatives affects not only the strategy but also the content of business lobbying on global trade.

What does federalism have to do with the political struggle between conservatives and progressives over economic policy? How do economic theories of fiscal federalism influence European, North American, and global forms of governance? In the first comprehensive account of the left-right politics of multilevel governance across federal, regional, and global levels, Adam Harmes identifies both free-market and interventionist political projects related to fiscal federalism. Harmes argues that these political projects and the interests that promote them explain a diverse range of phenomena across national contexts, across levels of governance, and over time. This includes the left-right dynamics of US and Canadian federalism, the free-market origins of British euroscepticism and the Brexit vote, the complex politics behind the NAFTA renegotiations, and the emergence of both populist and progressive challenges to global free trade. A highly accessible outline of fiscal federalism theory, The Politics of Fiscal Federalism also expands upon the broader value and policy differences between neoliberal, classical liberal, and Keynesian welfare economics on issues such as the role of the state, subnational and global trade, economic nationalism, and monetary integration. This original and innovative work demonstrates that a political economy approach is essential to the study of federalism, and why federalism and multilevel governance is a critical area of study for political economists.

This is a book about the ever more complex legal networks of transnational economic governance structures and their legitimacy problems. It takes up the challenge of the editors' earlier pioneering works which have called for more cross-sectoral and interdisciplinary analyses by scholars of international law, European and international economic law, conflict of laws, international relations theory and social philosophy to examine the interdependences of multilevel governance in transnational economic, social, environmental and legal relations. Two complementary strands of theorising are expounded. One argues that globalisation and the universal recognition of human rights are transforming the intergovernmental 'society of states' into a cosmopolitan community of citizens which requires more effective constitutional safeguards for protecting human rights and consumer welfare in the national and international governance and legal regulation of international trade. The second emphasises the dependence of the functioning of international markets and liberal trade on governance arrangements that respond credibly to safety and environmental concerns of consumers, traders, political and non-governmental actors. Enquiries into the generation of international standards and empirical analyses of legalisation and judicialisation practices form part of this agenda. The perspectives and conclusions of the more than 20 contributors from Europe and North-America cannot be uniform. But they converge in their search for a constitutional architecture which limits, empowers and legitimises multilevel trade governance, as well as in their common premise that respect for human rights, private and democratic self-government and social justice require more transparent, participatory and deliberative forms of transnational 'cosmopolitan democracy'. This second paperback edition replaces Chapters 15 to 18 of the first edition published in 2006 by four new chapters examining the alternative conceptions of 'International Economic Law' and 'Multilevel Governance' from diverse public and private, national and international law perspectives.

Europeanization has become a major theme within European studies in recent years, emphasizing the domestic effects of the EU on its member and applicant states. At the same time, multilevel governance has emerged as an important concept, highlighting shifts both in horizontal relations between state and society and in vertical links between actors at different territorial levels. In this state-of-the-art study, Ian Bache traces the relationship between these two key elements, considering the extent to which Europeanization advances multilevel governance within member states through the requirements of EU cohesion policy. Bache focuses especially on Britain, a member state whose political system has been increasingly characterized by multilevel governance since it became an EU member. Comparing Britain's case to that of ten other member states, the author distinguishes between the EU's effects in simple polities--in which voice, influence, and power are diffused through multiple levels and modes of governance--and in compound polities, where voice, influence, and power are more concentrated. Bringing together the conceptual tools of multilevel governance and policy networks and developing a framework for using these tools together in future research, this clearly written study will be valuable for scholars and students of EU and British politics.

"Political economy themes have - directly and indirectly - been a central concern of law and legal scholarship ever since political economy emerged as a concept in the early seventeenth century, a development which was re-inforced by the emergence of political economy as an independent area of scholarly enquiry in the eighteenth century, as developed by the French physiocrats. This is not surprising in so far as the core institutions of the economy and economic exchanges, such as property and contract, are legal institutions.In spite of this intrinsic link, political economy discourses and legal discourses dealing with political economy themes unfold in a largely separate manner. Indeed, this book is also a reflection of this, in so far as its core concern is how the law and legal scholarship conceive of and approach political economy issues"--

Offers a groundbreaking analysis of the distinctive substantive, theoretical and methodological contributions of subnational research in the field of comparative politics.