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Breaking gridlock: how path dependent layering enhances resilience in global trade governance

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  • Faude, Benjamin

Abstract

What are the implications of the proliferating preferential trade agreements (PTAs) for the liberal trade order? Many scholars and practitioners see large increases in PTAs as a destabilizing factor that undermines core features of the post-war international trade system. By contrast, this paper argues that the accelerated growth of PTAs since the mid-1990s enhances the resilience of the liberal trade order. PTAs increase the ability of the order to accommodate heterogeneous preferences and distributive conflicts. They represent a continuation of a longer path of liberalization set in motion by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). This path-dependent development created conditions for a gradual expansion of the membership and the regulatory scope of the GATT/WTO system, but also heightened levels of preference heterogeneity and distributive conflicts. By enabling groups of states with homogenous preferences to layer new rules on top of the multilateral GATT/WTO system, PTAs enable the continuation of the liberalization path. Consequently, PTAs have served as complements rather than to undermine the WTO.

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  • Faude, Benjamin, 2020. "Breaking gridlock: how path dependent layering enhances resilience in global trade governance," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 103927, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:103927
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    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/103927/
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    Cited by:

    1. Eugénia C. Heldt & Patrick A. Mello & Anna Novoselova & Omar Ramon Serrano Oswald, 2022. "Persistence Against the Odds: How Entrepreneurial Agents Helped the UN Joint Inspection Unit to Prevail," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 13(2), pages 235-246, May.
    2. Kenneth W. Abbott & Benjamin Faude, 2022. "Hybrid institutional complexes in global governance," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 263-291, April.
    3. Abbott, Kenneth W. & Faude, Benjamin, 2022. "Hybrid institutional complexes in global governance," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 109882, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Walid Tijerina, 2021. "Come In, We’re Open (and Flexible): Trade Openness, Labour Flexibility, and Varieties of Capitalism," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 12(5), pages 613-624, November.
    5. Karen J. Alter, 2022. "The promise and perils of theorizing international regime complexity in an evolving world," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 375-396, April.

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    JEL classification:

    • L81 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Retail and Wholesale Trade; e-Commerce

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