Trade balance and policy complexity: explaining political elites’ focus on international trade at the domestic level

The attention international trade receives at the domestic level varies widely across countries as well as among political elites within the same country. When and why are political elites likely to dedicate attention to this issue, and what is the policy position on which they are likely to focus when doing so? We argue that political elites are more likely to focus domestic attention on international trade when their country’s economy is more dependent upon trade. The balance of trade is likely to influence the degree to which trade liberalization or protectionism is the main focus of elites at the domestic level, and the complexity of their country’s trade policies is likely to mediate this relationship between the trade balance and the trade-policy positions that dominate the domestic agenda. We test this argument by analyzing how political elites chose to focus on international trade in their party platforms in the lead-up to national elections across fifty-three countries from 1960 through 2014. The results show that these characteristics of countries’ trade policies are related in important ways to political elites’ strategic choice regarding when and how to focus domestic attention on international trade.