Virtually every country today is either already a member of or seeking to accede to the World Trade Organization (WTO). (1) Numbers make a difference, but so does the intellectual landscape in which newcomers operate. Ideas in trade relations have become so dominant that they are invisibly embedded as a way of doing business. Reproduced in a spiral of precedents, they can then remain largely unquestioned and taken for granted, playing a subtle background role in shaping and limiting the articulation of policy alternatives. As such, ideas can serve to conceal the stratification of the global system into a core of rule makers and a broad band of heterogeneous rule takers. Institutions thus emerge as embedding the preferences and interests of some constituencies better than others. Since the WTO ministerial meeting in Cancun in 2003, there are two particular developments that characterize the participation of rule-taking developing countries in the WTO. (2) First, they are learning to participate more effectively through coalitions. Evidence of this can be found in the ever-growing numbers of such coalitions and their resilience. For instance, the Cancun meeting catalyzed the emergence of at least four new coalitions--the G-20, (3) the G-33, the Core Group on Singapore Issues, and the Cotton Group--in addition to the activism of others that predated the ministerial, including the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group; the Least Developed Countries Group; the Africa Group; and the Like-Minded Group. Several of these remain active and continue to bargain collectively in the Doha Round. Bargaining based on a coalition provides countries both weight and resources (including research) to balance the agenda. Second, the quality of developing country proposals has improved significantly in terms of range, depth, and feasibility, demonstrating substantive research and mastery of technical detail. Indeed, some participants present the production and exchange of research as core functions of the coalition itself. Research intensity has grown exponentially. No doubt as contending players grow in strength and stature, they are investing in the production of research to become technically empowered. After all, trade negotiations are about who gets what and how. What is the nature of this trade-related research that is of growing relevance in rule-taking developing countries? Research can contribute to the definition of interests, and identification of policy problems and preferred solutions, especially in their capacity to posit causal relationships. My aim here is to advance analysis of how research is produced in the management of trade negotiations by the developing countries that have established themselves as relevant process drivers (4) in the WTO. The Emergence of Process Drivers Clearly the intensity of research has not emerged from thin air. The incorporation of the Single Undertaking--emerging from the Uruguay Round--meant that all member countries were required to comply with the entire set of rules within the WTO. More flexible arrangements for opting in or out of particular agreements within the overall package were all but eliminated. All countries had to accept normal responsibilities and diffuse degrees of reciprocal bargains. This represented a major turning point in the participation and representation of developing countries, who had shed their mostly defensive positions and thus were showing a new willingness to take on full-fledged commitments. Their strategic dilemma turned from expanding their rights to free themselves from prevailing rules to choosing an appropriate strategy of participation that focused on what commitments to make and on how to micro-manage a bloated trade agenda. The challenges of inclusion soon proved to be highly demanding. Developing countries learned that greater participation did not automatically translate into leverage when they found it difficult to decisively influence the process of agenda setting or to shape the final outcome of negotiations. …
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Jan 1, 2011
Craig Jones 
Open Access