The Politics Of Trade

The rising era of post-paradigmatic wars in the field of international trade has narrowed ideological differences making policy more porous to independent research. But whose ideas matter? When? And how do actors make them matter? Why are some of the ideas that circulate in the research-policy arenas picked up and acted on, while others are ignored and disappear?' Is demand-driven research most likely to effectively influence policy? The episodes of trade policy change and negotiations included in this volume show the growing relevance of commissioned research in increasingly contested settings designed from the beginning to support a particular cause- research not as independent truth waiting to be "hooked", but as instrumental and supportive to policy decisions taken on other grounds.

Table of Contents
1. Introduction: What is at stake in the trade arena?
Diana Tussie

Part 1: Paradigmatic shifts
2. Creation of values and principles: Canada's experience with the CUSFTA and NAFTA
Rafael Gomez and Morley Gunderson
3. Creation of processes: sustainability impact assessments
Clive George and Colin Kirkpatrick

Part 2: Instrumental change, operational research
4. The case of Argentine research in the building of regional integration
Mercedes Botto and Andrea Bianculli
5. The adoption of the common external tariff in Nigeria
Philip Osafo Kwaako and Kehinde Ajayi

Part 3: Understanding interests through research
6. Research uptake in an informal setting: the case of Egypt
Ahmed Ghoneim
7. Research uptake in an institutionalized setting: the case of trade facilitation in India
Abhijit Das

Part 4: The WTO: The use of research for global coalition formation in trade negotiations
8. Multiple Access Points: Knowledge Generation for the Group of 20
Amrita Narlikar and Diana Tussie
9. Centralized production: The Group of 33: Paul Mably

Part 5: Understanding episodes: Is this a new world of post-academic research?
10. Understanding Influence: The Episode Studies Approach
Fred Carden
11. The other side of the equation: How policy influences research in the trade policy domain
Susan Joekes

Readership
Primarily the development community. Also postgraduate students, especially those interested in the discussion on the construction of knowledge for the design of public policies in consted settings

About the author
Diana Tussie, Ph.D. (1985), London School of Economics, is Director, Dept of International Relations, FLACSO, Argentina, Director, Latin American Trade Network (LATN) and Senior Research Fellow, National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET), Argentina.