Linked games, international organisations and agricultural trade

Over the past decade, most OECD countries have begun to reform fundamentally their agricultural policies. Some dispute has emerged over the extent to which policy-making at the international level has triggered these reforms. These disputes raise important theoretical questions about how we theorize and test for the degree of interdependence between international, regional (EU), and domestic policy change. This paper offers the concept of autonomous, linked games as a possible theoretical route to follow, a route that also permits more systematic theoretical consideration of the role of international organizations in policy-making. We focus, in particular, on the European Commission and the GATT Secretariat. Drawing on these concepts, we argue that policy reform by EU member states was significantly shaped by proposals and outcomes in the international negotiations on agriculture during the GATT Uruguay Round.