Abstract
European Union (EU) trade policy is in the spotlight. The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations triggered substantial public mobilization which emerged in a surge of literature on trade politicization. Notwithstanding politicization’s topicality and significance, it varies considerably over time, across trade agreements negotiations as well as across EU member states. By picking up on the latter, this article examines why, despite similar economic benefits potentially to be gained from trade liberalization, TTIP negotiations revealed striking differences in politicization in Germany and the UK. Understanding this variation is illustrated by highlighting the impact of some of TTIPs’ substantial issues mobilizing a range of materially and ideationally motivated stakeholders, who in turn shaped diverging governments’ trade positions of the countries under scrutiny. In explaining this selective politicization across two European countries, focus is on three explanatory variables, domestic material interests (business associations and trade unions), societal ideas (voters and non-governmental organizations [NGOs]) dominant in these countries’ domestic politics, as well as their interaction with national institutions. For this reason, the societal approach to governmental preference formation is employed which provides a detailed exploration of these three domestic factors, as well as the importance of their interdependence, in shaping the TTIP positions of the UK and German governments.
Highlights
Throughout the last decade European Union (EU) trade policy, the oldest and most integrated policy, was viewed as a rather depoliticized and overlooked field of studies; research and literature were slim (Dür & Zimmermann, 2007, p. 772)
The United Kingdom (UK) and Germany, under scrutiny due to their variation in Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) trade stances, were chosen to compare different sets of interests, ideas and institutions—the UK representing a LME shaped by financial services and Germany serving as a CME shaped by manufacturing—and concerning the appropriate role of government—British adhering more to trusting market forces and Germans attaching more confidence to governmental regulation (World Values Survey, 2005–2009)
In line with the societal approach to governmental preference formation, the TTIP positions of the UK and Germany were strongly shaped by material interests, societal ideas and national institutions
Summary
Throughout the last decade European Union (EU) trade policy, the oldest and most integrated policy, was viewed as a rather depoliticized and overlooked field of studies; research and literature were slim (Dür & Zimmermann, 2007, p. 772). 166), is—excepting a handful of studies (Adriaensen, 2016; Bauer, 2016; Bollen, 2018; Bouza & Oleart, 2018; De Bièvre, 2018; Meunier & Roederer-Rynning, 2020)—either mistakenly replaced by viewing the EU level as the domestic level, or plainly ignored This lack of attention on the domestic level is astonishing as it is the level where trade policy making begins and where governments are constrained in finding negotiation positions originating from domestic societal demands. Assessing domestic level influences shaping governments’ trade positions is a vital preceding component in comprehending how and why certain trade positions are pursued at the EU level This deficiency, in looking at domestic factors to enrich knowledge, theoretical and empirical, has been criticized by van Loon (in press), who states that explanations for why European governments vary in trade positions and priorities, and how and by whom these are generated in the domestic preference formation process, remain largely unanswered. The last section concludes with a brief comparative summary on the theoretical and empirical findings
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