Silke Trommer

Legal Opportunity in Trade Negotiations: International Law, Opportunity Structures and the Political Economy of Trade Agreements

In 2009, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) challenged the European Union (EU)s interpretation of Article XXIV GATT in bilateral trade talks. Based on a legal analysis that West African activists initially provided, ECOWAS established that the clause allowed for more flexibility on market opening than the EU expected. Since then, market access constitutes one unresolved issue slowing down negotiations between the trade power Europe and trade- and aid-dependent ECOWAS. The example challenges the political economy literature dealing with trade policy-making on at least two accounts, namely the role of typically sidelines actors such as poor countries and transnational activists; and the role of the law in mediating strategic and discursive aspects of trade political processes. To assess the evidence and its theoretical implications, I combine the analytical concept of political opportunity structure developed in the transnational studies literature with pluralist approaches to law. I argue that trade political actors can become aware of the pathways to influence that legal uncertainty opens, in particular under conditions of multi-level governance where national, regional and international legal orders are intertwined. Overall, the way in which the law mediates ideas and interests thus deserves scrutiny in political economy approaches to trade.

Transformations in Trade Politics: Participatory Trade Politics in West Africa

This book examines the evolution and application of participatory trade politics in West Africa and discusses the theoretical implications for political economy and global governance approaches to trade policy-making. The author traces the involvement of a network of West African global justice Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO), local NGO and movement platforms, and trade unions in the negotiations for an Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union. Building on this empirical analysis, she develops a theoretical framework of trade policy formation that is not limited to conceptualizing trade as a policy field aimed exclusively at regulating exporting and importing activities in the global economy. Instead, she analyzes how material and ideational spheres interact in the way in which communities set the rules that enable them to trade across long distances. Attempting to reconcile demands for inclusivity with current economic policy-making, the author reframes the way in which we theoretically pose questions of who makes trade policy decisions, through which mechanisms and why trade policy-making practices change, or resist change. Transformations in Trade Politics will be of interest to students and scholars of International Political Economy, Global Governance, Social Movement Studies, International Economic Relations, International Trade Relations, African Politics, The Politics of African/International Development, EU politics and EU-African Relations.

Activists beyond Brussels: Transnational NGO Strategies on EU–West African Trade Negotiations

The literature on civil society interaction with European trade policy-making limits its analysis on Brussels-based campaigning and finds low impact levels. At the same time, the EU identifies global civil society as one factor of explaining the stalling of trade negotiations with African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. This article presents a case study of NGO campaigns on the EU–West African trade negotiations to suggest that the growing complexity of global governance presents the same political opportunities for non-state actor participation in trade as they have been shown to skilfully use in other policy domains. It concludes that political economy studies should integrate insights from the transnational activism literature in order to better grasp the effects of ongoing globalisations on trade policy-making. La literatura sobre la interacción de la sociedad civil con la elaboración de políticas comerciales europeas, se limitan a analizar las campañas basadas en Bruselas, encontrando niveles de bajo impacto. A su vez, la UE identifica a la sociedad civil globalizada, como un factor que explica el estancamiento de las negociaciones comerciales con los países africanos, caribeños y del Pacífico. Este artículo presenta un estudio de caso de las campañas de una ONG sobre las negociaciones comerciales entre la UE y África occidental, que sugiere que la creciente complejidad de la gobernabilidad global, provee las mismas oportunidades políticas de participación en el comercio de actores no estatales, como lo han utilizado hábilmente en otros campos políticos. El artículo concluye que los estudios de política económica deben incluir conocimientos de la literatura sobre el activismo trasnacional, con el fin de comprender mejor cómo se afecta la elaboración de políticas comerciales en el ámbito de una globalización cada vez mayor. 关于市民社会与欧洲贸易政策制定互动作用的文献将其分析局限于以布鲁塞尔为基地的运动，研究发现其影响力处于低水平。与此同时，欧盟将全球市民社会认定为是解释欧盟与非洲、加勒比以及太平洋国家贸易谈判停滞的一个作用因素。本文展现欧盟—西非贸易谈判中一个非政府组织运动的案例，认为全球治理的日益复杂表明，非国家行为体在贸易中的政治参与机会，正如在其他政策领域已表明熟练运用的机会一样。本文的结论是，政治经济研究应当将跨国政治活动主义文献中产生的洞见整合进来，更好地捕捉正在经历的全球化对贸易政策制定的影响。

Bilateral graduation: The impact of EPAs on LDC Trade Space

Abstract As trade is prominently mainstreamed into development policies, the ongoing Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations between the EU and the African, Carribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries are a turning point in Least Developed Countries (LDC) engagement with the international trading system. The process covers most UN-designated LDCs and is the first time they feature in the first row of international trade talks. We explore how the space LDCs occupy in the trade regime will be affected by EPAs. The analysis suggests that they move LDCs towards effective graduation from special and differential treatment, while innovating on policy tools to address underdevelopment.

Post-Brexit Trade Policy Autonomy as Pyrrhic Victory: Being a Middle Power in a Contested Trade Regime

Abstract The Leave camp and prominent Brexiteers typically present regaining political control over international trade policy after Brexit as one advantage of leaving the European Union. A newly autonomous UK government, so the argument goes, will be free to negotiate wide-reaching and ambitious trade agreements with the world and will not be restricted by the compromise-culture inherent in supranational, Brussels-based deliberations. In the absence of clear formulations of Britain’s post-Brexit trade political agenda, much of the debate remains hypothetical at this point. Yet, from a global governance perspective, it is clear that the institutional and legal architecture for international trade cooperation is currently fragmented. Given WTO negotiating deadlocks, the institutional strain resulting from parallel country-by-country negotiations, regulatory clash in the existing network of preferential trade agreements, and the UK’s new position as a middle power in the trade regime, this essay argues that Britain may find it more difficult to push its own trade agenda internationally than is currently conceded in the debate. With the global trade regime currently shifting back towards more power-based forms of international interactions, regaining trade policy autonomy post-Brexit may turn out to be a pyrrhic victory for the new trade middle power Britain.

The WTO in an Era of Preferential Trade Agreements: Thick and Thin Institutions in Global Trade Governance

This article examines how fragmentation of the global trade regime into preferential agreements, built on a multilateral baseline of World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, affects trade governance. The analysis relies on 105 interviews with trade policy professionals in core WTO members and a conceptual distinction between ‘thick’ and ‘thin’ institutionalism to capture institutional changes in the global trade governance architecture. The WTOs thick institutionalism facilitates institutionalized interactions among members of the trade policy community that are essential for transparency and dialogue and the rule of law character of the trade regime. It secures the continued belief of trade policy professionals in the WTOs centrality in trade governance. The thin institutionalism of the network of preferential agreements spells the return to a la carte forms of trade governance and benefits those with the technical and political capacity to successfully navigate the fragmented governance architecture. Ongoing institutional transformations shift global trade governance away from rules-based back to more power-based forms.

Representation Beyond the State: Towards Transnational Democratic Non-state Politics

Abstract The crises of representative democracy and of state-based politics have been declared many times and ‘participation’ is often advocated as a remedy for the shortcomings of both. While the literature has extensively discussed representative practices in relation to territorial states, we argue in this article that more attention should be paid to the question of representation within transnational social movements striving for a politics that transcends current territorially bounded representative democracy. Analysing the World Social Forum and West African participatory trade policy-making, we find that as transnational social movements aiming at democratic goals deepen their interactions, they can face demanding questions such as: who or what has a right to be made present in a given political process and how is this established? We claim that avoiding the question of representation in transnational non-state-centred politics leaves power too many places to hide.

Watering Down Austerity: Scalar Politics and Disruptive Resistance in Ireland

ABSTRACT Across Europe, resistance to austerity takes place in the household, the local community, and the everyday. Disruptive practices of refusal and subversion leave elite domination incomplete in the age of austerity. Under what conditions, disruptive resistance affects national and international policy-making is less clear. The article uses the analytical concept of scalar politics to engage this question. Exploring anti-water charges/anti-austerity protests in the Republic of Ireland, I highlight the importance of the scalar dimensions of materiality and culture in making disruptive resistance partially successful in this case. Economic crisis allowed Irish elites to transfer water reforms onto international and European political scales. The physical conditions required for reform meant that sustained local disruptions rendered implementation impossible. Irish history and culture provided semiotic signifiers to mobilise against an overwhelming force of domination. Scalar politics constitutes a useful theoretical frame for analysing the social embeddedness of the economy beyond the Irish case. If political economists acknowledge the social construction of scalar arrangements, we can investigate how political actors use dimensions of scale strategically to pursue their goals. We can also pay analytical attention to how certain normative preferences come to dominate certain policy domains through processes of scalar contestation.