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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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    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.
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    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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