Kristen Hopewell

Breaking the WTO

How Emerging Powers Disrupted the Neoliberal Project

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Kristen Hopewell is Senior Lecturer in International Political Economy at the University of Edinburgh.

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Produktdetails

• Emerging Frontiers in the Global Economy
• Verlag: Stanford University Press
• Seitenzahl: 288
• Erscheinungstermin: 3. August 2016
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 228mm x 151mm x 20mm
• Gewicht: 414g
• ISBN-13: 9781503600591
• ISBN-10: 1503600599
• Artikelnr.: 45006687

Autorenporträt

Kristen Hopewell is Senior Lecturer in International Political Economy at the University of Edinburgh.

Inhaltsangabe

Contents and Abstracts
1Introduction
chapter abstract
This chapter explores the immense changes that are currently reshaping the
global political economy, with the rise of new powers, such as China, India
and Brazil, challenging the dominance of the US and other
advanced-industrialized states in the global economy and its governance. It
introduces and situates the key questions at the core of the book: What
agendas are the emerging powers pursuing? How is their rise affecting the
governing institutions created under US hegemony and the American-led
project of neoliberal globalization? It explains why the WTO is a critical
case to shed light on these questions and understand the causes, nature and
implications of contemporary power shifts. It sets out the book's central
argument: the rise of new powers has precipitated a crisis at the WTO, a
core institution of the neoliberal global economic order, signalling a
moment of disjuncture in the institutional project of neoliberal
globalization.
2Liberalism and the Contradictions of American Hegemony
chapter abstract
This chapter explores the tensions in the US-led global economic order. It
argues that, while multilateralism and free markets served as its core
pillars, both were in practice highly asymmetrical. The US created and used
multilateral institutions as a means to exercise its authority over the
international system and promote its own national political, economic and
security interests abroad. In the economic realm, the US hegemon deployed
the discourse and policies of free markets - propagated through
multilateral institutions - to compel other countries to open their markets
to its goods and capital, while nonetheless maintaining substantial
protections in its own. This exercise of American power, however, contained
the seeds of its own undoing: the expansion of global markets gave rise to
new economic competitors and involved the creation of institutions and
discourses that could eventually be used against the hegemon.
3Power, Multilateralism, and Neoliberalism at the WTO
chapter abstract
This chapter examines the WTO as a central institution in the American-led
project of neoliberal globalization. It provides an overview of the history
and evolution of the multilateral trading system. The chapter highlights
the tensions within the liberal principles of multilateralism and free
trade that lie at the center of the GATT/WTO. It shows how the superior
economic and political resources of the US and to a lesser extent other
Northern states have enabled them to dominate the institution and design
and structure the rules of international trade to serve their economic and
strategic interests. It also looks at the historically disadvantaged
position of developing countries within the multilateral trading system and
the particularly onerous costs exacted from them in the previous Uruguay
Round.
4Power Shift
chapter abstract
This chapter examines power shifts at the WTO, challenging the assumption
that the emergence of new powers is a function of their growing economic
might. While China's rise has been closely tied to its economic weight, it
shows that Brazil and India used their activist and entrepreneurial
leadership of developing country coalitions to propel themselves to power.
Despite their relatively small economies and limited roles in world trade,
Brazil and India assumed a more aggressive and activist position in WTO
negotiations than China and played a greater role in shaping the agenda of
the Doha Round. Later, China did come to exercise significant influence as
the negotiations neared a potential conclusion, but in a reactive veto
capacity, unlike the proactive agenda-setting of Brazil and India. It also
shows that even China, though a follower rather than a leader, has sought
the benefits and protections afforded by developing world alliances.
5Brazil: New Drivers of Liberalization
chapter abstract
This chapter focuses on Brazil's objectives and behavior at the WTO, which
have been driven by the rise of its highly competitive agro-export sector.
It shows that far from rejecting the discourse and tools of global
neoliberalism, Brazil has become arguably the most active and aggressive
proponent of trade liberalization in the current Doha Round. Brazil has
advanced the interests of its agribusiness sector by portraying them as a
universal interest of the Global South and strategically mobilizing a
discourse of development and social justice and the politics of the
North-South divide. The influence of Brazil and its agribusiness sector is
critical to explaining the direction that developing country "activism" has
taken in the current round, with an intense focus on liberalizing
agriculture markets through the removal of subsidies, rather than
advocating policies that would mark a more radical departure from the WTO's
traditional neoliberal trade paradigm.
6China: A Delicate Dance
chapter abstract
This chapter examines China's position at the WTO to highlight the
constraints on the emerging powers. China has a major interest in reducing
trade barriers and further opening markets to its exports but has been
cautious in pursuing its offensive trade interests in the Doha Round. For
China, the massive expansion of its industrial capacity and exports are
perceived by states around the world as a threat; aggressively seeking to
expand its market access through the Doha Round would risk provoking a
backlash that could ultimately jeopardize its exports and economic growth.
In addition, a further constraint operating on China and the other emerging
powers stems from the need to maintain their developing world alliances.
Thus, although they have indeed gained power and exercise considerable
influence at the WTO, the new powers are not unconstrained in their ability
to pursue their offensive trade interests.
7India: Balancing Complex Trade Interests
chapter abstract
This chapter examines India's agenda at the WTO. It challenges the
widespread characterization of India as an irresponsible power, intent on
derailing WTO liberalization. It shows that India's process of domestic
reform and liberalization, coupled with the development of a world-leading
services export industry with substantial interests in liberalizing foreign
markets, has fundamentally altered its orientation towards the multilateral
trading system. Far from an opponent of global trade liberalization, India
has major export interests that it has sought to advance through the Doha
Round, although its offensive interests are also balanced by important
defensive concerns in agriculture. India's negotiating position at the WTO
has therefore combined efforts to promote liberalization in its areas of
export interest and to secure protections in sensitive sectors where it is
vulnerable to liberalization. Contrary to the claims of its critics, far
from being unusual, such behavior closely resembles that of the traditional
powers.
8Conclusion: A Rupture in the Neoliberal Project
chapter abstract
This chapter argues that emerging powers have imperilled the neoliberal
project at the WTO - ironically, not by rejecting its goals and principles
but embracing them. Rising challengers usurped the dominant norms,
discourses and institutional tools of the WTO, which had once been
instruments of US hegemony, and used them to destabilize the existing
hierarchy. Yet their challenge to American dominance has had profound and
unpredictable consequences: when the weapons of the powerful became
appropriated by formerly subordinate states, the system itself broke down.
A situation of more equitable power relations among states has caused the
Doha Round to collapse and thus cut short the American-led neoliberal
project at the WTO. The current crisis at the WTO is a crisis of the
liberalism underpinning the international economic order created under US
hegemony, unleashed by power shifts that exacerbated the contradictions
contained within its foundational myths of multilateralism and free trade.