D'un outil libre-échangiste à une modalité protectionniste : traité de commerce et insertion des économies dans la première mondialisation

This article examines the transformation of trade policy regimes during the first globalization through a comparative study of France and Switzerland in the nineteenth century. Drawing on regulation theory, it challenges the conventional interpretation of the Cobden-Chevalier Treaty as a foundational rupture introducing free trade in continental Europe. Instead, it argues that the treaty marked the culmination of an already established free-trade mode of regulation between 1851 and 1875, structured around the convergence of export-oriented elites, state officials, and political authorities seeking to stabilize industrialization through cheaper subsistence goods and expanded foreign markets. The article shows that trade policy choices cannot be reduced to an ideological opposition between free trade and protectionism. Rather, they reflect the institutional structuring of socio-economic blocs capable of imposing a coherent strategy of international integration. The crises of the 1870s, rising international competition, and growing social tensions contributed to the reconfiguration of these coalitions and to the emergence of protectionist blocs in both France and Switzerland. However, the shift toward protectionism did not imply a withdrawal from globalization. It gave rise to a new mode of regulation based on "negotiated protectionism," combining selective tariffs with bilateral treaties incorporating the most-favoured-nation clause. By emphasizing the institutional continuity between free-trade and protectionist regimes, the article contributes to debates on the political economy of the first globalization and helps explain the apparent paradox of sustained economic growth under protectionist frameworks.