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The institutional foundations of hegemony: explaining the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934

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  • Haggard, Stephan

Abstract

In 1930, Congress approved the highly restrictive Smoot–Hawley tariff, the textbook case of pressure group politics run amok. Four years later, Congress passed the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act (RTAA), surrendering much of its tariff-making authority to a policy process in which internationalists had increasing influence. While the United States had used reciprocity to expand exports before, the stick of discriminatory treatment took precedence over the carrot of liberalizing concessions. With the transfer of tariff-making authority to the executive, the United States could make credible commitments and thus exploit its market power to liberalize international trade. Despite later modifications, the RTAA set the fundamental institutional framework for trade politics.

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  • Haggard, Stephan, 1988. "The institutional foundations of hegemony: explaining the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 42(1), pages 91-119, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:intorg:v:42:y:1988:i:01:p:91-119_00
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    Cited by:

    1. Douglas A. Irwin, 2019. "U.S. Trade Policy in Historical Perspective," NBER Working Papers 26256, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Pierre-Olivier Peytral, 2004. "Economie politique de la politique d'ouverture commerciale mixte : interactions entre les groupes sociaux et l'Etat," Post-Print halshs-00104875, HAL.
    3. Ji-Hyang Jang, 2010. "Varieties of State in the International Political Economy of Developing Countries," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 13(3), pages 145-165, September.
    4. Irwin, Douglas A. & Kroszner, Randall S., 1997. "Interests, Institutions, and Ideology in the Republican Conversion to Trade Liberalization, 1934-1945," Working Papers 137, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    5. Thao, Chu Minh, 2018. "The Transformation Of Vietnamese Trade Policy," OSF Preprints 7qdnt, Center for Open Science.
    6. R Grant, 1993. "Trading Blocs or Trading Blows? The Macroeconomic Geography of US and Japanese Trade Policies," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 25(2), pages 273-291, February.
    7. Jean-Baptiste Velut, 2023. "Trade Linkages or Disconnects? Labor Rights and Data Privacy in US Digital Trade Policy," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 11(1), pages 249-260.
    8. John Hogan & Michael Howlett & Mary Murphy, 2022. "Re-thinking the coronavirus pandemic as a policy punctuation: COVID-19 as a path-clearing policy accelerator [Punctuating the equilibrium: An application of policy theory to COVID-19]," Policy and Society, Darryl S. Jarvis and M. Ramesh, vol. 41(1), pages 40-52.
    9. John Kunkel, 1998. "Realism and Postwar US Trade Policy," Asia Pacific Economic Papers 285, Australia-Japan Research Centre, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    10. Douglas A. Irwin, 1998. "From Smoot-Hawley to Reciprocal Trade Agreements: Changing the Course of U.S. Trade Policy in the 1930s," NBER Chapters, in: The Defining Moment: The Great Depression and the American Economy in the Twentieth Century, pages 325-352, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Irwin, Douglas A & Kroszner, Randall S, 1999. "Interests, Institutions, and Ideology in Securing Policy Change: The Republican Conversion to Trade Liberalization after Smoot-Hawley," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 42(2), pages 643-673, October.
    12. James N. Miller, 2000. "Origins of the GATT - British Resistance to American Multilateralism," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_318, Levy Economics Institute.

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