The Demand for Protectionism: Democracy,Import Elasticity,and Trade Barriers

Numerous studies suggest that democracies employ lower trade barriers than nondemocracies. In this article, we examine the conditioning role that the elasticity of import demand at the commodity level plays on the relationship between democracy and import barriers. Beginning with the assumption that democracies are more responsive than nondemocracies to the preferences of mass publics, we demonstrate that the value of free trade as a public good depends on the elasticity of import demand. When import demand for a given commodity is inelastic, trade barriers are more harmful to consumers; as such, democracies will employ lower trade barriers than nondemocracies. However, as import demand becomes more elastic, publics find it easier to adjust to higher prices; as a result, the difference in imposed trade barriers by regime type decreases. We find support for this argument in statistical analyses of crosssectional data covering 4,656 commodities imported by 73 countries Furthermore, we find that democracies raise higher trade barriers than nondemocracies on commodities for which import demand is very elastic.     

The Electoral Salience of Trade Policy: Experimental Evidence on the Effects of Welfare and Complexity

Why do some trade policies become electorally salient while others do not? While much of the literature argues that citizens act as a domestic constraint in the formation of trade policy, a general consensus has emerged that trade is most often a nonsalient issue among voters. This poses a paradox. On the one hand, trade models hinge upon voters’ rational self-interest and preferences for varying levels of protectionism to keep their governments accountable. On the other hand, the conditions by which trade becomes salient to these very voters in the first place are both undertheorized and untested. Using experimental evidence, I argue that two dimensions of a trade policy affect the likelihood of that issue becoming electorally salient. First, policies with large welfare effects should be more salient. Second, more complex issues should be less salient because such agreements are more likely to obfuscate an individual’s ability to discern its effects. I find support for my hypotheses that a trade policy’s salience tends to increase with the magnitude of its welfare effects and decrease with its complexity.     

Worker Influence on Capital Account Policy: Inflow Liberalization and Outflow Restrictions

How do workers impact openness to international investment flows? This article distinguishes between two types of openness: openness to inflows and openness to outflows of investment. Workers benefit from inflow openness due to increases in wages, productivity, and efficiency and due to reductions in borrowing costs, which are associated with investment inflows. Workers are hurt by outflow openness, as investors gain investment options, and therefore bargaining power, when outflows are permitted. Labor rights help workers overcome collective action problems, and democratic institutions increase policymakers’ responsiveness to labor organizations and make their commitment to labor rights credible. The theory thus predicts that, particularly under democratic institutions, labor rights are positively correlated with inflow openness and negatively correlated with outflow openness. Evidence from time-series, cross-sectional data is consistent with the theoretical expectations.     

韩国-东盟服务贸易的发展与自由化

2007年11月，韩国与东盟正式签署了《韩国-东盟全面经济合作构架下服务贸易协议》，这是继《中国-东盟服务贸易协议》之后东盟签署的第二份服务贸易协议。本文拟论述韩国与东盟国家服务贸易的发展水平和国际竞争力的特点，并分析韩国与东盟区域服务贸易自由化的特点和前景。     

俄罗斯的战略性贸易政策倾向——以汽车工业保护为例

俄罗斯在汽车工业领域采取了长期和短期政策相结合的支持政策,其中带有显著的战略性贸易政策倾向。作为一种鼓励创新的贸易政策,却在一个相对传统的行业中发挥作用,这是俄罗斯产业结构、市场结构和政府偏好相互作用的结果。正确理解政策发挥作用的充要条件,正确认识保护和竞争的关系,才能够正确制定和实施战略性贸易政策。俄罗斯的政策实践有着独特的借鉴意义。     

The Politics of Preferential Trade Liberalization in Authoritarian Countries

While autocracies constitute a third of all signatories of preferential trade agreements (PTAs), very little research has explained why some autocrats join PTAs while others do not. We argue that this variation reflects the leader’s degree of vulnerability to elite-led coups during leadership change–whether a leader enters power legally or extralegally. New extralegal leaders are more vulnerable than new legal leaders, which encourages extralegal leaders to use PTAs to both build support from exporters and pressure disloyal importers. We test our hypotheses using a dyadic data set of 120 autocracies from 1960 to 2014. Our results show that extralegal leaders sign more and deeper PTAs than legal leaders. Moreover, we find that extralegal leaders with a high risk of coups are more likely to form deep PTAs than extralegal leaders with a low risk of coups. In line with our argument, we also provide evidence that extralegal leaders sign trade agreements that are likely to be enforced. Our article has implications for the political economy of trade and for development studies.     

俄罗斯外贸政策和措施的分析与评价

俄罗斯是中国最为重要的邻国之一,也是中国前十位贸易伙伴国。处于经济转轨时期的俄罗斯在市场经济体制改革、国内经济结构调整以及加入世贸组织等多重因素推动下,国内市场开放度已经大体相当于中国目前的开放程度。但俄罗斯经贸政策变动频繁,且可操作性较弱,实施中具有很多不确定性,而技术性贸易壁垒和"灰色清关"为主的海关程序是目前中俄贸易的主要障碍。     

对促进中俄边境地区经贸合作的几点政策建议

目前,中国东北边境地区正在充分利用东南沿海发达地区的资金、技术和产品优势以及边境对面俄罗斯丰富的自然资源和市场的优势,成为与东南沿海经济带相互对应、相互依托、相互补充、相互促进的北方大陆沿边经济开发带。中俄边境城市大多是依靠贸易发展起来的,经济缺少工农业等基础行业支撑。因此,在确定合作发展方向时,必须以科学的态度慎重选择,合理布局,绝不能只想发展而不考虑后果,只顾及现在而忽视未来。     

Emerging Powers in the World Trading System: Contestation of the Developing Country Status and the Reproduction of Inequalities

ABSTRACT

This article investigates discursive struggles over the boundaries of the categorisation of developing countries in the world trade regime. A key principle of the World Trade Organization (WTO) grants special rights to the group of developing countries. Recently, it has become highly contested whether emerging economies such as China can legitimately claim to belong to the group of developing countries. This article uncovers how old and new economic powers have tried to strategically (re)frame the boundaries of the developing country categorisation in the WTO. I argue that ongoing contestation reproduces inequalities because many developing countries are unwittingly negatively affected by the lack of formal criteria for classifying emerging economies—even if emerging economies themselves may benefit. In doing so, I illustrate how informal practices of classification may undermine the original intention of categorisation in International Organizations that aims to address inequality among its members.     

Seal the Deal: Bargaining Positions,Institutional Design,and the Duration of Preferential Trade Negotiations

Multilateral negotiations at the World Trade Organization have stalled. This has contributed to a steep rise in preferential trade agreements (PTAs). At the same time, negotiations for PTAs have not always proven quick and painless: While some treaties are sealed within a few months or days only, other agreements are preceded by protracted bargaining processes in trade and trade-related issue areas. In this article, we provide a theoretical explanation for this empirical variation. More specifically, we argue that PTA negotiations take longer the greater the distance between the prospective partners’ initial bargaining positions. Moreover, we contend that negotiation processes become more protracted the higher the relative ambition of the prospective PTA. Due to the limited links to the domestic political arena in autocracies, we expect this latter effect to play out for groups of democratic bargaining partners only. We test these two hypotheses for 198 preferential trade negotiations using novel measures for bargaining templates and the ambition of PTA clauses. In our two-stage survival models, we find support for our argument. In line with qualitative evidence from recent preferential trade initiatives, our models indicate that services, investment and intellectual property rights are particularly sticky agenda items for democratic leaders at the international bargaining table.     

Buying National: Democracy,Public Procurement,and International Trade

Many studies show that democracy promotes freer trade. However, because they typically focus on “at-the-border” barriers such as tariffs, we know little about democracy’s effects on “behind-the-border” barriers such as discrimination in government procurement. We address this question by asking how democracy affects governments’ incentives to discriminate against foreigners when buying goods and services. We argue that “buy national” policies have unclear costs and are harder to attack than policies that visibly interfere with consumers’ ability to buy foreign goods. This makes such provisions more attractive than tariffs to democratic leaders seeking reelection. We thus hypothesize that democracy leads to lower tariffs but to greater discrimination in public procurement. We support this hypothesis with an analysis of procurement and imports in 138 countries from 1990 to 2008. Our results imply that a full understanding of the democracy–trade policy relationship requires attention to increasingly prominent behind-the-border barriers to trade.     

Terrorism and Counterterrorism: An Integrated Approach and Future Research Agenda

In this commentary, we make the case that the analysis of terrorism and counterterrorism must be based on an integrated theory that links both issues together. Terrorist groups’ ultimate goals must be distinguished from their strategic goals and the strategic logic by which they employ terror and select targets to further their ultimate goals. The strategic logic of terrorism is thus key to understanding patterns of terrorism and the counter-reaction by governments against it. We make the case for a unified approach and suggest major areas for future research.     

Interdependent and Domestic Foundations of Policy Change: The Diffusion of Pension Privatization Around the World

In the last two decades, striking correlations in the location and timing of structural pension reforms have raised important questions about the kind of information used by policy makers in their decisions to adopt such measures. This study tests the hypothesis that the adoption of pension privatization is shaped systematically by an interdependent logic, wherein the decision to privatize pensions in one country is systematically linked to corresponding decisions made by governments in relevant peer nations. Duration analysis with time-varying covariates of data from 59 countries between 1980 and 1999 reveals that the decision to adopt a private pension reform in one country increases systematically as the proportion of peer nations that have adopted corresponding measures rises. Importantly, the effect of this peer dynamic varies across groups of nations, with the most powerful impact of peer decisions being found among Eastern European and Central Asian nations. Peer dynamics likewise contribute powerfully to the adoption of private pension reforms in Latin America, but do not significantly shape the hazard of privatization among the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development member nations. Even controlling for diffusion mechanisms, the analysis shows that pension reform decisions remain subject to domestic political and economic considerations, including demographic pressures, financial costs and incentives to reform, and constraints delimited by the political institutions in each nation.     

The Politics of Foreign Direct Investment in Authoritarian Regimes

While political scientists find that democracy reduces political risk, little scholarship analyzes how authoritarian regimes attract foreign direct investment (FDI). This article argues that while authoritarian countries are generally risky, this risk can be minimized when authoritarian regimes are constrained from both “above” and “below.” Signing international investment treaties are critical for authoritarian countries to signal a commitment to FDI-friendly policies. However, only authoritarian signatories that allow some degree of public deliberation in their policymaking are then constrained from deviating from the policies of the international investment treaties. Panel statistical regressions and a case analysis support the hypothesis.     

Nativism or Economic Threat: Attitudes Toward Immigrants During the Great Recession

To better evaluate the weight of economic versus cultural factors in determining individual attitudes toward open borders, this article reports on a survey experiment conducted over the course of the Great Recession. Over the course of the recession, we measured changes in attitudes on both immigration and trade policies, controlling for economic circumstance. Based on the data provided by respondents on both their current salaries as well as a subjective assessment of their economic well-being, we illustrate how both objective and subjective perceptions of the economy interact with cultural factors and influence attitudes on open borders. The panel provides a unique picture of the “stickiness” of policy attitudes in hard economic times, and by extension, the level of commitment in the United States to globalization.     

中俄建立自由贸易区的积极效应分析

在中俄自由贸易区框架下，随着两国政治和经济关系的逐步加强，双方经贸合作的经济、政治和安全效应将日渐凸显：一方面，中俄双方的商品出口有望扩大，双边贸易额将达到预期目标，中俄双方也将得到实实在在的好处。另一方面，中俄自由贸易区的建立有助于增强中俄之间的政治互信和提高两国在世界事务中的政治影响力，同时有了稳固的经济和政治关系，中俄也可以就地区和国家安全问题进行广泛合作与磋商，从而在解决区域安全和国家安全问题上的立场更加一致，并在合作中使两国经济远离不安全状态。     

Experiencing Globalization: Active Teaching and Learning in International Political Economy

This article explores the teaching and learning challenges for the discipline of international studies (IS) that arise from the contemporary social, economic, and political changes usually labeled "globalization." The focus is upon the challenge posed to IS by a transformation in the nature of the relationship of teachers and students to the subject matter that they study: that is, teachers and students increasingly experience and contribute to globalization in the course of their daily lives as they simultaneously teach and learn about it. Significantly for the study of globalization in IS, pedagogical debates surrounding active teaching and learning highlight the potential for strategies that actively engage students' interests and everyday experiences with the subject itself. On this basis, the article outlines some potential routes into the active teaching and learning of globalization in the field of international political economy, illustrating these with examples from classroom activities and exercises.     

日元升值与日本对外贸易政策调整的绩效分析

198 5年以来 ,日元兑美元汇率升值幅度相当大 ,对日元升值与日本对外贸易变化之间的关系进行实证分析的结果表明 ,在日元升值期间 ,日本的出口贸易依然保持了较高的增长速度 ,进口增长却不像预期的那样快。产生这一现象的主要原因在于日本政府采取的一系列政策措施抵消了日元升值的不利影响。对于正面临着人民币升值压力的我国来说 ,应及早采取措施 ,预防可能出现的汇率波动冲击。     

Global Energy Governance: Trade,Infrastructure, and the Diffusion of International Organizations

Why do states choose to join and form international governmental organizations (IGOs) that regulate energy policy? In this article we make three specific contributions to the literature on international cooperation and diffusion. First, we show that countries form and join energy IGOs in response to memberships previously gained by direct competitors among oil and gas producers and consumers. Moreover, we demonstrate that energy IGOs diffuse among countries that share oil and gas pipelines. Finally, we provide evidence that the institutional design of established energy IGOs impacts the development of their membership network. To test these hypotheses, we rely on original data on oil and gas pipelines and the design of energy IGOs as well as on a newly compiled dataset that includes 152 countries and covers 38 years (1970–2007). We employ both network analysis and spatial econometrics.