The book includes eight useful case studies (Chapters 2 through 9) of how research has influenced trade policy. Unfortunate for the policy makers who might find these studies useful, the studies do not include abstracts, nor do the overview chapters (1, 10, and 11) summarize them. Consequently, I will in this review summarize the major findings of each study. In the last section of the review, I explain why I found the overview chapters less useful than the case studies.
Chapter 9: The G33 and agriculture in the Doha negotiations (Paul Malby)
As developing countries (DC) have become important markets for agricultural products, pressure has increased on big markets such as India, China, and Indonesia to liberalize their import restrictions. Particularly in an environment in which the international market is distorted by extensive developed country production subsidies, DC reluctance to do so is more than a matter of simple mercantilism. DC agricultural trade policy is intertwined with issues of food security, livelihood security for the rural poor, and general issues of rural development.
The G33 was organized in Indonesia in 2003 to ensure that these concerns became an integral part of the Doha Round agricultural negotiations (p. 244). The chapter focuses on one of the instruments the G33 position has brought forward: special products (SP). The G33 proposal on SPs is that each DC will be allowed to self-designate a number of products – as SPs – for exclusion from any tariff-cutting formula the Round might agree.
The research program the chapter describes was about development of ‘indicators’ of the three concerns (food security, livelihood security, and rural development) that would guide the selection of each country's SPs. The program sprang in significant part from the entrepreneurship of the International Center for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) in Geneva. According to the chapter author:
ICTSD saw the moment as a ‘rare and strategic opportunity to inject public policy concerns into the WTO negotiations.’ (ICTSD 2005a, 6) Negotiating SPs and SSM based on self-designation using indicators relating to the three development criteria suddenly seemed a realistic possibility. (p. 253)
The research methodology, according to the chapter author:
is useful for identifying the special products that a country may put forward at the WTO, but it does not include a way of giving priority weightings to the products that are chosen … (p. 255)
In other words, the methodology can tell you what to put on the list, but it cannot tell you what to take off. The G33 position at the time of writing of the chapter was that each DC could designate up to 20% of tariff lines as SPs; a WTO Secretariat tabulation had found that:
this 20 percent would allow [representative] countries to shield as much as 98.4 percent and 94 percent respectively of the total value of their farm imports from Doha Round tariff cuts. (p. 246)
In sum, the G33 position began with almost all imports on the SP list; the research methodology provided no basis for reducing the list. As this finding would predict, the result has been that ‘According to Indonesia, the coordinator of the G33, these shifts [of G33 position] are more a reaction to demands advanced by opponents at the table than the result of particular research inputs’ (p. 248).
The role of research has been to provide a basis for discussion and eventually a degree of political solidarity among DCs – a rationale for retaining some protection, but neither research nor politics has provided an operational method for determining what that protection should be.
Chapter 8: Research by and for the G20 (Amrita Narlikar and Diana Tussie)
Chapter 8 examines how the research program of the G20 enabled it to become a key WTO player. The authors conclude that the most important outcome of the organization of the G20 and of the research provided in the name of the group is that it ‘legitimized’ G20 members' role in the agricultural negotiations. They analyzed and discussed proposals offered by the US and the EU in the technical and legal language employed by these traditional powers; they offered counter proposals within the same language and format. They became peers within the WTO system (p. 232).
Did particularly the research make a difference?
Some of the negotiators whom the authors interviewed spoke positively of research – such as an analysis of the impact on G20 tariff rates of formulas offered by the US and the EU; the preparation of an alternative formula that implied larger cuts by the US and the EU, smaller cuts by G20 members (p. 228). The authors additionally report that advocacy of such tariff formulas brought forward concerns (and counter-research) from Argentina and Brazil that such a G20 position would prevent them gaining improved access to major DC markets.
Overall, G20 negotiators who were interviewed minimized the impact of research, e.g.:
My perception is that the G20 positions are very general. I do not think there are vast amounts of research supporting position taking … (p. 225)
any policy or negotiating position boils down to the ‘political sense of the bureaucrats, who pick and choose opinions to suit them’. (p. 225)
About the best these interviewees had to say for research was that:
Most government officials interviewed pointed out that research inputs had not contradicted the positions taken by the G20.
Negotiators stating that they are more important than researchers is not, of course, conclusive evidence that they are.
Chapter 7: Research to support trade facilitation and FTA negotiations in India (Abhijit Das)
At the WTO Doha Ministerial Conference of 2001, India opposed including trade facilitation in the negotiating agenda.
In January–June 2005, India undertook research to identify the trade facilitation problems of Indian exporters. One result was appreciation of the possibility that India might consolidate its own domestic reform program by accepting WTO commitments in areas where it had already undertaken reforms. Thus, the author concludes, India's investigation of its own exporters' needs significantly influenced its negotiating position (p. 190). He does not report if there were recommendations for further autonomous reforms by India, or if the reform program was slowed so that otherwise useful reforms could be used as bargaining material in the WTO negotiations.
The author also explores the role research might have played in the negotiation by India of free trade agreements. Relaxation of restrictions on imports from Nepal and separately from Sri Lanka led to complaints from Indian industry about adverse impact. As a result, ‘India had to expend considerable resources and diplomatic capital to renegotiate the agreement[s]’ (p. 195).
The author concludes that negotiation of FTAs ‘call for a careful examination of the competitiveness of domestic production vis-à-vis imports …’ (p. 194) so as ‘to provide adequate protection to those industry segments that might be adversely affected through reduced employment, reduced unit value realization, etc.’ (p. 196).
He goes on to describe a research project undertaken in 2004–05 to identify the segments of Indian industry that would be made vulnerable by India granting tariff preferences to other countries. The process began with ‘a detailed six-digit level price sensitivity analysis’, this followed by 22 consultative meetings with 15 industry segments (p. 196). Econometric modeling was employed, but ‘as research based on econometric modeling is theoretical in orientation, extensive interactions with the stakeholders were required to validate the research results …’ (p. 197).
The author reports no further FTAs negotiated by India. This, to me, is not a surprise. The research he describes is in both process and philosophy identical with the making of United States trade policy in the early twentieth century: comparisons of US with foreign competitiveness, determination of peril points, and extensive input from protected industries. The outcome in the United States was the Smoot–Hawley Tariff.
Chapter 6: Egyptian tariff reform and negotiation of a partnership agreement with the EU (Ahmed Farouk Ghoneim)
The author examines the influence of research on Egyptian tariff reform, and in the negotiation of a partnership agreement with the European Union. His research method was principally to interview researchers and policy makers who had been involved.
As to tariff reform, ‘research did not directly affect trade policy’ (p. 168). Obvious flaws in the existing tariff such as tariff peaks and high effective rates on many items had been publicized for a long time. Their persistence was a matter of political decision rather than of lack of information about their existence or impact.
Interviews with persons involved in negotiating the EU partnership agreement indicate that they were quite sophisticated in their use of research. One interviewee reported that ‘researchers even in some international organizations changed the models they apply or the data they use to reach certain results that can help policy makers by backing up their arguments’ (p. 169).
The interviewee goes on to say that he had to learn to differentiate between good and bad research – this evaluation aided by consultations with stakeholders and by availability of research from several sources.
Overall, the author sees the link between research and policy as improving over the periods of time he studied (p. 176). Work by ministries' technical staff was often undertaken in collaboration with outside agencies, and the proficiency of the technical staff in English and their contacts with the business community and academia were definite assets.
Chapter 5: The adoption of the common external tariff in Nigeria (Kehinde Ajayi and Philip Osafo-Kwaako)
Adoption by Nigeria of the ECOWAS common external tariff (CET) was enabled by several factors. Perhaps the most important was the commitment by President Obasanjo to economic reform and particularly to regional integration. A detail of particular importance was the basing of trade reform on concepts that would both attract domestic constituencies and provide working tools for government staff – such as eliminating anti-export bias.
While members of a small economics team in the government were masters of the modern technology of tariff management, most government bureaucrats responsible for the detail of amending and reclassifying tariffs were minimally familiar with this technology, often unaware of the research that supported the design of Nigeria's reforms (p. 146).
In this environment, the role of research in the reform process was indirect. Nigeria has on paper a formal policy-making structure, but ‘In practice, the formation of trade policy occurs differently’ (p. 124). The organized private sector is the main influence and they, along with organized civil society, had traditionally opposed trade liberalization. Hence, it was important to conceptualize reform so that it attracted non-traditional business constituencies.
The research community did have some influence. Several local researchers and research groups enjoy prestige with policy makers; this allows a degree of influence, more often through informal, conversational, channels (through which policy is in reality made) rather than through the content of formal reports.
The informality of the policy-making process makes important the role of policy entrepreneurs. The ones the authors mention have earned international professional renown. They often direct local think-tanks; they weave together the different parts of their professional lives – participation in conferences, research publications, and contacts with officials – so as to create a synergy among them. Their influence was less through the submission of formally structured reports than through a percolation of ideas into the informal process – this facilitated by workshops and seminars convened locally by government departments, donor agencies, and international institutions.
Chapter 4: Argentine research and building regional integration (Mercedes Botto and Andrea Carla Bianculli)
The chapter takes up the role of research in Argentina's decisions about ‘deeper integration’ with Brazil through negotiation of removal of internal Mercosur barriers and establishment of a CET.
The model of ‘deep integration’ the Alfonsín government in Argentina saw as appropriate would have Argentine and Brazilian industries agree among themselves as to which products would be produced by Argentine companies, which by Brazilian companies. (The chapter authors are affirmative on the product-dividing approach; they describe it as ‘following a clear logic of productive complementarily’) (p. 110). Research included reviews by Argentine and Brazilian industries regarding the division between them of the product lists.
As to establishing a common external tariff, the Argentine Ministry of the Economy conducted internal studies by ‘technical experts in communication with industries’ and also commissioned a study by a group of academics (this paid for by UNDP). The Ministry of Foreign affairs commissioned a survey of its own, headed by Julio Berlinski, another university economist.
The private sector produced only two reports. One from the chemicals industry was in the spirit of dividing up the market with Brazilian companies. The other, published by the Fundación de Investigaciones Económicas Latinoamericanas (a known free-market institution) argued against the government's idea of deep integration with Brazil; proposing instead the negotiation of an FTA with the United States.
Domingo Cavalo eventually became Economics Minister and a major force behind Argentine liberalization. He dis-favored product-dividing industrial policy; the studies that had been done along that line consequently became irrelevant (p. 108).
As to the CET, the authors conclude that it was more or less unilaterally defined by Brazil. To the extent that Argentina was able to exercise certain exceptions to the draft CET, ‘the distribution of these exceptions did not rely on the knowledge and research works already performed, but on the traditional lobby practices deployed by the private sector’ (p. 109).
The message the authors provide is that while a number of studies were undertaken, in most cases the basis for the research was overrun by political events. Whatever its content, when that content was delivered it was no longer relevant to the approaches/options the government was then considering.
Chapter 3: European Commission Sustainability Impact Assessments (Clive George and Colin Kirkpatrick)
In the 1990s, a number of NGOs brought forward concerns about the adverse effects of trade liberalization on the environment, on employment levels and wages in high-income countries, and on the development process in poorer countries. In response to such concerns, the European Commission initiated a program of Sustainability Impact Assessments (SIAs) of all its trade negotiations, to ensure that policy choices were informed by an assessment of potential economic, social, and environmental impacts (p. 55)
The authors' evaluation of impact provides no information on any SIA's findings; they present instead commentary on the findings from various persons. These findings provide two conclusions:
First, persons interested in decisive results were not satisfied:
they are vague, offer arguments for protectionists as well as for more liberal negotiators. (Private sector) (p. 69)
the mitigation and enhancement measures fail to give specific recommendations how the EU trade position should be changed. (Non-governmental organization) (p. 71)
Second, persons whose values lie with process were positive:
the policy has fostered and facilitated comprehensive, balanced, systematic, and structured attention. (Trade official) (p. 69)
every opportunity is provided and studies are at least redrafted to reflect comments. (Expert) (p. 70)
The major impact of the SIAs has been to upgrade the consideration of environment, development, etc. to the same technical level as the consideration of traditional elements in trade policy analysis. Will this make trade negotiation agreements easier to reach? Likely not, more interests effectively represented is more likely to lead to difficulty in overcoming enough or to arrange sufficient side-payments to allow a decision.
Chapter 2: Canada's experience negotiating the Canada–US and North American Free Trade Agreements (Rafael Gomez and Morley Genderson)
Canada's shift from nationalistic and interventionist policies of the mid-1970s did not come from a change of government but from a change of view of the government in power. The authors quote Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in 1980 as promising:
new levels of government intervention to encourage ‘Canadianization’ of the economy … (p. 33)
versus Trudeau in 1982:
Personally, I remain convinced that the primary engine of economic development must be a dynamic private sector and that the market place is in most circumstances the best allocator of scarce resources. (p. 34)
The McDonald Commission, organized in 1982, was the vehicle for Canada's putting together a proposal for a Canada–US Free Trade Agreement. The authors focus on a straightforward question: did the politicians who eventually proposed the agreement follow the research findings of the Commission, or did they structure the research because they were confident that it would support a position they had already decided? (p. 40). They conclude that there were strong lines of causation in both directions.
As to research as an instrument rather than a cause of policy change, the authors point out that as mainstream economics is generally oriented against government intervention and toward open international trade, emphasizing economic research – as the Commission did – would be a shift from ‘the nationalist-interventionist arguments advanced in the 1960s and 1970s mainly by political scientists and sociologists’ (p. 39).
On the other side of the coin, leading economic research in Canada had documented the high costs of the policies in place at the time. Perhaps this research had influenced the government's decision to shift policies. A complementary point the authors make is that the economists selected to lead the research, particularly Paul Wonnacott, Ron Wonnacott, and John Whalley, were leading practitioners and particularly effective disseminators.
Overview chapters (Diana Tussie, Fred Carden, and Susan Joekes)
The overview chapters (1, 10, and 11) might have begun with a statement that I found 34 pages into them:
The beauty of a [case] study is in the narrative. It presents a rich story, a history of events surrounding the policy change. As you read one of these narratives, you should be left with the feeling that you were there … (p. 279)
The content of these overview chapters demonstrate however that their authors were not there. They are explicit about what the chapters do not contain:
This introduction will not attempt to summarize and assess the wealth of material contained in [the case studies] but provides the underpinnings on which the case studies have been constructed. (p. 3)
This, I believe, was a bad choice. I found no ‘wealth of material’ in the overview chapters that comes close to what I found in the case studies. Indeed, I will argue, the overview chapters do not enhance the usefulness for policy-makers of that wealth of information – they serve a different sociological purpose.
What is in the overview chapters?
• much vocabulary, mostly new definitions of old words;
• an ‘analytical framework’ that is not reflected in the case studies.
As to vocabulary: to the overview authors, Chapters 2 through 9 are not ‘case studies’, they are studies of ‘episodes of policy change’. Introducing the new label provides the opportunity to discuss its meaning, word-by-word.
‘Policy’ they parse into two general types, ‘one classical and relatively straightforward type’, and ‘a second, more interaction-based type of policy’. ‘Change’ they parse into ‘instrumental change’ and ‘conceptual change’ (p. 16); ‘research’ into (a) ‘research as an idea … equated to the particular beliefs and principles held by a large number of people’, (b) ‘research as data provides answers to the “real” questions that preoccupy policy makers, such as “how far should I go in opening”’, and (c) ‘research as argumentation … when it is employed in advocacy’ (pp. 8, 9). Also marked by quotation marks or inverted commas are the labels ‘development research’, ‘use-inspired basic research’, and ‘post-academic research’.
My points here are two. First, I did not find these parsings at all helpful to understand the case studies. Only when I abandoned the overview chapters and read the case studies did I begin to enjoy the book – and I found that what I already took to be the meanings of the words ‘policy’, ‘change’, ‘research’, etc. were adequate to understand the cases. Second, the organizers themselves did not apply their own label in selecting the content of the book. Episodes of policy change? Four of the eight case studies are about the Doha negotiations, which have produced no policy change.
The ‘analytical framework’ that the overview elaborates is an extended outline (three levels of headings), but it did not serve as guide for preparation or even for presentation of the case studies. The case study authors refer not a single time to the overview chapters, or to any possibly working paper version of them that might have been available before the book. Furthermore, there is no overlap between the references that the case studies provide to their analytical frameworks and those the overview authors provide.
As with the new vocabulary, I did not find this ‘analytical framework’ useful to aid my reading of the case studies. The analytical framework I fell back on was what I learned in English 1: What is the thesis of the writing; what argument/evidence does the writer provide in support of that thesis? The information the overview authors take from the case studies, they use more to illustrate how to fill in their outline than to find what the case study authors want to say – African artifacts displayed in a London museum rather than used in an African household.
Other than the labels and the framework, the overview chapters provide a generic review of trade negotiators' information needs and a rant against (a) mainstream economists for whom ‘trade expansion through liberalization necessarily benefits all countries has come to have the status of doctrine’, (b) that professional standing depends on where one's degree is from or where one holds a chair, (c) that ‘dissenting voices are quickly branded as renegades rather than as quality controllers when an entire world view is being challenged’ (p. 312), and (d) that ‘“attachment to the cause” is used as a selection criteria’ (p. 314).
Salvation is however at hand, ‘post-academic researchers … are perhaps the closest to acting as authentic sanitation workers when they test out the specifications of potential negotiating packages against the touchstone of the public interest’ (p. 315). ‘Post-academic researchers’ is the name the overview contributors give to their epistemic community.
One of the lessons the organizers should have learned is that research, to be effective, should be presented within the language/concepts of users, of policy-makers. Another is that stories, examples, case studies are a more effective way to communicate with policy makers than is the sort of generic information to which the overview chapters aspire. To insist that the case studies be deconstructed into the specialized language/framework of a narrow epistemic community makes it more an expression of community identity and loyalty than an attempt to support policy makers.
Policy makers should not be faulted if they ignore the wealth of information in the case studies, the organizers of the work themselves did little with it. I hope the summaries in this review help to communicate to policy makers some of the wealth of information in the case studies.
