Free Trade Policy Research Articles

Making Parks Work: a Thought‐Provoking Argument, but Not a Guide

Making Parks Work: a Thought‐Provoking Argument, but Not a Guide

Transforming Subsistence Cropping in Asia

The Green Revolution has benefited many people in Asia, but not everyone. This paper examines how many farmers have increased their productivity with more intensive cropping systems of fruit, vegetables, and in some cases, flowers. Total area under these crops more than tripled between 1977 and 2003. Case studies to highlight the transformation include vegetable production to feed Asia’s booming cities, diversification of export crops in Thailand, vegetable production in Malaysia’s Cameron Highlands, flower production in Yunnan Province of China and opium replacement in the Golden Triangle. Access to the market is necessary for transformation, but changes are also driven by farmers’ own innovations combined with contributions from last century’s crop science, from phytohormones to hybrid technology. Other inputs are irrigation, fertilizers and pesticides, with overuse of the last two a serious threat to the environment as well as to human health. Concerns have also been raised regarding soil erosion caused by cropping on steep slopes. In addition to building roads and airports, government support has also come in the form of cheap credit for orchard establishment and more efficient quarantine procedures to facilitate exports. Cross-border trade that brings opportunities to inaccessible border regions will be further enhanced by regional free trade policy, particularly when liberalization of trade in fruit and vegetables is specified such as that just signed by ASEAN and China. Finally, a case is made for the need to improve cropping systems in less favorable environment with limited access to the market and the means through which crop scientists can work with farmers to bring this about.

Famines in (South) Asia

AbstractMost historical studies of South Asian famines have appropriately taken a political economy approach, allowing them to critique colonial governance and free trade policy. It would be useful to see more work on social and enviromental aspects of famine. There is a danger, however, typified by Mike Davis’ recent book, that analysis of the role of climate in causing famine can depoliticise the problem. Further studies are still needed of the politics of famine, under communist as well as capitalist systems.

A Perspective on U.S. International Trade

The author addresses three questions: Why do economists support free trade policies? What are the reasons for public opposition? What can be done to narrow the gap between economists and those opposed to free trade?

Comercio, manufactura y servicios en Arequipa a inicios de la República

The article analyzes the impact produced by the changes in national trade policies in Arequipa’s manufacturing, commerce, and service sectors at the beginning of the Republic. After the Independence, the economic protectionism was installed during the first decades promoted by the farmers from the north and mining entrepreneurs who were jealous of the competition from English, French, and American products. They preferred to protect the internal market with high tariffs. In the opposite side, the traders and farmers from the south were in favor of the free trade policies to rebuild the old viceroyal market with Bolivia and in order to export wool to Great Britain. The market opening was only achieved from 1836 to 1839 while the Peruvian-Bolivian Confederation lasted. Finally, the Peruvian economy opening was gotten in the middle of 1840 in the great guano’s age.

Interdiction at the Expense of Human Rights: A Long-term Containment Strategy

Migratory pressure is heavy around the globe and the available data does not indicate any decrease in the foreseeable future. It has always been there: the highest number of immigrants to have come to Canada in one single year is still that of 1913, with more than 400,000. Today, globalization has only increased independent intercontinental migration. Fast and cheap transportation is available, as is international communication, through telephone and internet; knowledge about host countries is circulating through television and videos; large communities exist in host countries and are able to help friends, family, and compatriots. The increase in global migrations also results from the fact that the differences in peace and prosperity have been sharpened between North and South in the past decades. Many societies in the South have become poorer and messier: some people need to escape increasing violence; others seek better survival opportunities for themselves and their children. The increase in these push factors is a negative dimension of globalization. In most host countries, the protection and promotion of rights and freedoms have been reinforced. Constitutional, regional, and international standards are more sophisticated, and implementation mechanisms are more effective. We now know that the interaction of political struggle and legal jurisprudence is key to effectively protecting human rights: the European Court of Human Rights, the InterAmerican Commission, the UN committees, the constitutional case law in, say, Canada, Germany, and South Africa testify that there is also a globalization phenomenon in the field of human rights. In host countries, this case law will often protect the foreigner and declare that she is equal to the citizen on most issues regarding fundamental rights. But our States nowadays often feel dispossessed in a field that has been at the basis of their legitimacy for the past decades: redistribution of wealth and social justice. This goal is challenged by yet another aspect of globalization: essentially free-trade policies and the pressure that economic actors exercise to lower the cost of production. Our States have tried to regain political ground by insisting on their traditional mission since the Renaissance: security. In the past twenty years, a phenomenon of securization of the public sphere has emerged and resulted in the definition of new fields of government activity: food security, environmental security, bio-security, transport security, industrial security, internal security, migration security, to name only a few. States have re-emphasized the role of the border as the traditional and tangible symbol of their power. This is not a new phenomenon. The border has always been used to distinguish between us and them. For example, in the aftermath of World War I, the Canadian government responded to the arrival of impoverished and displaced Europeans by tightening the laws and stationing immigration officials at ports in Europe to prevent further undesirables from setting sail. Following the sharp increase in asylum claims in the mid-1980s, States have launched a huge co-operative effort aimed at controlling migration flows, and in particular reducing irregular flows. This effort targeted especially asylum seekers, because, as these could count on human rights standards and mechanisms to argue against refoulement, host States knew there was a good chance that they would not be able to remove them from the territory. This co-operation was particularly productive in Europe, as the abolition of the control of persons at internal borders of the common European territory created a complete restructuring of all government agencies that used to work at the border (police, customs, health, transport, immigration, etc.). The Schengen process emerged from this and, following the Amsterdam and Nice treaties, the European Commission is now in a position to take the lead on immigration and asylum issues. …

57 channels and nothing on

Public Service broadcasters face stiff competition as a result of an increase in the number of broadcasters in the digital era. Further falls in their advertising revenue are the likely result. This will make it harder for them to finance their Public Service obligations.The EC concerned at the impact of US imports has promulgated the Television Without Frontiers Directive. This requires member states to impose cultural diversity obligations on broadcasters with their jurisdiction. The legality of these measures has been questioned by the US. Their effectiveness is thrown into doubt by the convergence phenomenon.The article examines these challenges. It also looks at the programming requirements imposed on public service broadcasters by the Communications Act 2003. |em|At a broadcaster level, the authors argue, the Directive provides a further illustration of the difficulty of achieving a workable balance between free trade and other social policy goals (such as cultural diversity).

An ‘Aladdin's lamp’ for free enterprise: Eisenhower, fiscal conservatism, and Latin American nationalism, 1953–61

This study explores the Eisenhower administration's efforts to promote free trade and investment policies in Latin America. US officials believed that private capital investment, rather than US foreign aid, would best promote Latin American economic development and improve its abiliry to purchase American products. By eliminating the need for foreign aid, Latin American economic autarky complemented Eisenhower's zeal for fiscal conservatism. Although most scholars have focused on the primacy of anti-communism in Eisenhower's inter-American policies, this study contends that economic nationalism posed the greatest threat to Eisenhower's policies. US officials eventually responded by expanding aid to Latin America, but the additional economic aid was always intended to complement private capital, rather than replace it. This article, based upon the papers of influential administration officials and State Department records, sheds considerable light as to why the United States promoted free trade and investment policies in the developing world, as it still does today.

Environmental standards as barriers to trade

This paper examines the case of a good, polluting in consumption, whose pollutive content is restricted by a government with strong environmental policies. When foreign producers are unable to comply with the restrictive environmental standard of such a country, to which they wish to export, they often allege that those standards constitute illegal barriers to free trade. An example of such a good is gasoline, excessively pollutive formulations of which are prohibited from importation into the United States by the 1970 Clean Air Act. Rather than banning them, such imports should be taxed, along with the domestically produced substitute good, according to their respective pollutant contents. This would foster economic efficiency and should be more acceptable to foreign producers than the outright prohibition mandated by the Clean Air Act. The results of this paper reaffirm the argument in a previous article in this journal (Socio-Economic Planning Sciences 29 (1995) 187), though the countries’ roles in the two papers are reversed, that free trade and Pigouvian environmental policies increase international welfare.

Kicking Away the Ladder: Infant Industry Promotion in Historical Perspective

This article introduces a new dimension in the debate on infant industry promotion by pointing out that, historically, the developed countries themselves did not develop on the basis of free trade policy and laissez-faire industrial policy that they currently recommend to, or even force upon, the developing countries. It first critically examines the "official history of capitalism", which sees the last few centuries as a continuous, if sometimes disrupted, advance of the free trade system. Then it shows how virtually all of today's developed countries, especially the UK and the USA, the supposed homes of free trade, used tariff protection and subsidies to develop their industries when they were in catching-up positions. It then criticizes the orthodox counter-argument that, while using protection in the early days of their economic development, today's developed countries never used it as much as today's developing countries have done. Finally, pointing out that the supposedly "good" policies of free trade and laissez-faire industrial policy have led to a collapse in growth in the developing countries during the last two decades, the article argues for a total rethink on trade policy and, more broadly, development strategy, for developing countries. Above all, it recommends that the global rules need to be rewritten in such a way that developing countries are allowed more actively to use tariffs and subsidies for infant industry promotion in accordance with their development strategy.

Corporate power and the globalization process

Looks partially toward a conceptual clarification of globalization interrelated to corporate power. The global economy has experienced structural transformation over time. An integrated network of world trade has evolved in the context of two separate stages. Stage one appeared during the period of the 1870s. The second stage appeared during the post Second World War era. To distinguish this period from stage one, the process of structural transformation now taking place is conceptualized and demarcated as corporate globalization. Given the growing increase in size, power and dominance of the MNCs, the locus of sovereignty is currently being questioned. An issue currently being raised relates to whether or not nation states or MNCs will be in control of the globalization process. Interjects and analyses the theory and policy of free trade, all of which is contained in a paradigm of culture evolution fed by the dynamics of technological change and economic development.

Political Parties and ngos in the Creation of New Trading Blocs in the Americas

The development of free trade agreements in North America has challenged the capacities of existing political organizations to play representative and responsive roles. This article evaluates the comparative roles of political parties, ngos, and the state in regional debates leading to the development of nafta. Changes following from those interactions are now reflected in ongoing negotiations over ftaa. In the latter context, the Canadian experience indicates an apparent strengthening role for ngos in the formulation of free trade policies along with signs of resistance to this increased participation among decision-makers. Alongside these internal developments are those involving the building of cross-border ties. While states (and thus the representatives of presently governing parties) continue to control the trade agenda, more broadly participatory forms of consultation on trade agreements are developing, gradually enhancing the representative role of ngos as well as providing new opportunities for parties (in and out of power) to improve their own performance.

Global constitutionalism and the arguments over free trade

In one of the most dramatic public demonstrations since the end of the Vietnam War, more than 40,000 citizens filled the streets of Seattle, Washington in the closing weeks of the twentieth century to protest against the World Trade Organization and corporate globalization. Why? By analyzing arguments for and against contemporary free trade policies in light of the history of the idea of free trade, the history of the institutions in charge of globalization management, and a recent attempt at creating a global constitution for finance (the Multilateral Agreement on Investment), this essay seeks to clarify the challenges and dilemmas faced in the “constitutionalization”; of our increasingly interconnected global community.

Gendering (Trans)National Advocacy

Whether lauded or deplored, transnational organizing among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) generally, and women's NGOs specifically, is recognized as an active player in debates about international economic policy. In this article, I turn attention toward one consequence of women's transnational NGO organizing that has been under-analyzed: the impact that transnational activism has on domestic political organizations and opportunities. The recent increase in activism on gender and policies of free trade in the USA is the product of women's transnational political organizingover the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In the case of NAFTA, theoretical insights about the ways that gendered categories undergird the economy were made visible by and through the transnational advocacy in which feminists engaged.And, this article indicates, these transnational advocacy efforts have helped to shift the domestic political terrain of women's organizing in the United States. I argue that as women's rights advocates in the United States were confronted with the realization that the nexus between gender and trade policy was important to many women's rights and feminist activists around the world, they began to question why the gendered implication of trade policy did not hold a comparable place in the US feminist arena. Thus, changes in the domestic political landscape of non-governmentalactivismmay be one of the longest lasting (and most overlooked) consequences of transnational political engagement.

Regionalism and Domestic Politics: U.S.-Latin American Trade Policy in the Bush Era

Abstract With remarkable success, Latin Americans have sought to impose their free trade policy agenda on a very reluctant and internally fractious United States. They have an ally in President George W. Bush, whose senior appointments notably support hemispheric trade integration even as political pressures sometimes have yielded protectionist outcomes. Bush's trade negotiator, Robert Zoellick, pursues a doctrine of competitive liberalization while accepting some linkage between trade and social and political goals. In negotiating the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), the administration will have to balance many domestic pressures without alienating Latin America. Ultimately, FTAA ratification will signal a new Western Hemisphere economic-security alliance for the twenty-first century.

Free Trade and the Widening Gap Between Rich and Poor Countries

The gap between the world's poorest nations and the world's wealthiest nations continues to grow despite the promises made by the proponents of globalization. Increasingly, however, “new internationalists" argue that free trade policy should be reconstituted as fair trade policy. Current policies have only served to strengthen the influence multinational corporations have over the policy debate. The tradeoff has often been at the expense of qualities not easily measured in economic terms such as human rights, depletion of natural resources, and inequitable distribution of wealth. Future trade policy will have to contend with competing forces issuing from those fearing loss of national sovereignty on the right and others concerned with social and environmental well being on the left.

Reregulation and the Development of the New Zealand Wine Industry

New Zealand's wine industry has enjoyed a period of rapid growth since the mid-1980s. This period of growth coincides with the period of trade liberalisation and other neo-liberal reforms to the state that have dominated New Zealand's social economy in the last two decades. Political commentators and economists have cited the growth of the wine industry as an example of the efficacy of the reform programme. One account, prepared in the series Studies in APEC Liberalisation (the APEC report; Mikic, 1998), has proven to be particularly influential. It attributes the wine industry's recent growth to the free trade policies that guide contemporary economic policy in New Zealand. In this paper, I use a critique of the APEC report as a heuristic device to develop a more refined history of the New Zealand wine industry and its recent success, and the part played in these by regulatory change. The paper draws on an evolutionary perspective on industry development (Storper, 1997) and a real regulation conceptualisation of policy formation (Clark, 1992; Moran et al., 1996). It portrays the industry's development as occurring through enterprise choices that are embedded within a range of interconnected social and spatial contexts, of which the state forms an important part. I highlight the effects of technological change, the influence of enterprise evolution, the geography of production, the wider suite of legislative changes affecting the industry and its internal formation. New Zealand wine enterprises have responded to changing production, market and regulatory conditions, as well as their own developmental trajectories.

Globalización, crisis del capitalismo y ataque a Estados Unidos. ¿Del neoliberalismo al neoproteccionismo?

<p>Si durante la segunda mitad del siglo XIX el capitalismo industrial emerge bajo el impulso de políticas librecambistas en reacción al proteccionismo mercantilista; y si a fines del siglo XX el capitalismo financiero retorna a políticas librecambistas de corte neoliberal que entran en crisis a principios del siglo XXI, entonces se abren algunas interrogantes sobre el futuro del propio capitalismo, entre ellas: ¿puede realmente la crisis del neoliberalismo resolverse desencadenando una nueva etapa de proteccionismo?, ¿resiste el capitalismo otra fase contracción como la que parece iniciarse en esta centuria?, ¿permite una nueva guerra internacional enderezar la economía estadounidense y relanzar un nuevo periodo de expansión para profundizar aún más la globalización del capital?, ¿qué nuevo orden mundial y qué eventual realineamiento de bloques puede surgir de una coyuntura en la que la estructura tripolar de los centros regionales y la competencia interbloques habían empezado a desintegrarse frente a la preeminencia de Estados Unidos? En este ensayo se apunta demás al análisis histórico del neoliberalismo y la globalización, donde ambos constituyen un momento histórico en las fases de librecambio y proteccionismo por las que transita el mercado mundial, impulsado por los ciclos de expansión y contracción económica que caracterizan la dialéctica del capital. Con la formación de nuevas potencias industrializadas a lo largo del tiempo y respecto a las diferentes etapas del capitalismo mundial, la expansión estadounidense por el control del mercado global llegó a límites extraordinarios. La etapa de la globalización, alcanzada a finales del siglo XX, luego de la desintegración del Pacto de Varsovia y el COMECON a principios de los noventas, y de la subsiguiente integración y unificación contradictoria del mercado capitalista mundial bajo el predominio del capital financiero y transnacional, conducen a que el siglo XXI se inicie en condiciones semejantes a las de principios del siglo XX; con un mercado mundial nuevamente unificado bajo predominio del modo de producción capitalista, aunque con niveles de desarrollo tecnológico-científico de creciente complejidad y bajo la hegemonía de una sola potencia. Y así, el ataque a Estados Unidos en septiembre de 2001 podría, en la línea de análisis que aquí se expone, poner el punto final a la fase de neoliberalismo y globalización económica inherente a la etapa de expansión y crisis del librecambio de fines del siglo XX, para abrir paso a una incierta etapa de neoproteccionismo hacia el inicio del siglo XXI donde dicho ataque parece marcar la transición a una eventual coyuntura de la globalización del poder militar, basada en el uso de la fuerza; y cuyo preludio, anunciado por los bombardeos contra Afganistán y la cruzada mundial contra el terrorismo, podría constituir el inicio de una nueva guerra internacional con epicentro en la región del Índico asiático. Este hecho coincide con un momento de crisis mundial de dimensiones muy profundas determinadas en gran parte por la dinámica que la política neoliberal y el proceso de globalización e internacionalización del mercado capitalista, liderados por estados Unidos, habían impuesto en el manejo de las relaciones humanas a nivel internacional convirtiendo a este país en la personificación de tal crisis, y donde el ataque contra su propio territorio parece constituirse en el detonante final de estos procesos cíclicos y el punto de partida para eventual transformación.</p>

Laissez-faireism and Export-oriented Industrialization: the Hong Kong Experience

Hong Kong is the earliest of the Asian Newly Developed Economies to have embarked on export-oriented industrialization. Its success has also been portraited as the best example of a free-trade policy that leads to sustained development. The paper presents the factors leading to Hong Kong's post-Second World War industrialization, the characteristics of its industries as well as the related government policies. In the second half, the paper treats in detail how Hong Kong's industrial economy has been extended into neighbouring South China in a new cross-border system since the 1980s. The paper doubts the relevance of non-interventionist policies in the current situation of industrial growth based on cross-border co-operation and argues for more government input for sustaining Hong Kong's future industrial growth.

A simulation model for investigating the effects of rice paddy fields on the runoff system

Rice production in Taiwan is likely to decrease because of two major threats: an increase in the industrial demand on water resources and cheaper imported rice resulting from the free trade policy which will be enforced when Taiwan joins the World Trade Organization. A shrinkage in rice paddy acreage raises environmental concerns, especially in relation to water conservation. Besides rice production, the existence of paddy fields promotes groundwater recharge and remediates floods. Unlike rice production, the value of the environmental conservation is difficult to quantify. In this study, the effects of paddy fields on groundwater recharge and flood remediation have been investigated. To assess the long-term significance of these effects, the study team developed a model based on hydrologic equilibrium. This model describes the performance of water recharge and detention. According to a case study, the amount of runoff from a rice paddy field is about 27% of the amount of the precipitation. This percentage is significantly lower than that of the runoff from a dry farming field, which is normally as high as 55% of the precipitation. In this case, the amount of evapotranspiration from a rice paddy field and that from a dry farming field are 56% and 31%, respectively. In this case, the amount of recharge from a rice paddy field, 17%, is higher than that from a dry farming field, which is 14%. Clearly, a significant increase in runoff and a decrease in groundwater recharge can be expected when a rice paddy field is converted to other uses. The second analysis includes an event-based simulation study regarding the effects of rice paddy fields on the flood peak. Attributed to its superior detention capacity, a paddy field typically has a much lower flood peak, about one third of a dry farm field. These positive effects of rice paddy fields on runoff should be considered in making decisions about the reduction of rice cultivation.