The European Union and Multilateral Trade Governance: the Politics of the Doha Round

This book offers the first theoretically driven, systematic analysis of European Union (EU) negotiating positions and strategies in the Doha Round of the World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations. This book aims to make sense of how trade actors define their strategies in international trade negotiations, offering an in-depth analysis of EU trade policy-making. Based on an empirical study of EU trade policy during the Doha Round this book employs an original theoretical framework that combines insights from different strands of literature to develop new theories on the variation of trade politics more broadly. It shows how trade politics vary according to state-society relations and according to the logic driving actors’ behavior, identifying four types of trade politics: pressure politics, executive politics, civil politics and deliberative politics. From the central premise of this study, that trade policy determines trade politics, the author develops a theory that utilises mainstream conceptual and theoretical tools to explain under which conditions these different patterns of domestic trade politics emerge. The European Union and Multilateral Trade Governance will be of interest to students and scholars of European Union politics and international political economy.

The book provides a comprehensive overview of the EU’s role in the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations. The empirical study is grounded in a theoretically driven discussion, in order to understand trade politics dynamics in the present international economic system. By providing both conceptual and empirical arguments, the volume provides an innovative perspective on the analysis of the EU as a global economic influence. The European Union and Multilateral Trade Governance will be of interest to students and scholars of European Union politics and international political economy.