 Multilateralism, Bilateralism and Institutional Choice: The Political Economy of Regime Complexes in International Trade PolicyDirk De Bièvre and Emile van Ommeren Global Policy, 2021, vol. 12, issue S4, 14-24 Abstract: The global trading regime is characterized by the co‐existence of bilateral and multilateral politics. In this article, we offer a political economy explanation for this regime complex, by tracing public actors’ institutional choices back to political incentives for economic sectors and the firms active within them. First, we argue that product differentiation creates mixed motives on the part of firms, which in turn leads to a preference for the segmentation of markets, and thus bilateralism. Second, we contend that among these firms, multinational corporations (MNCs) are particularly well‐positioned to exert influence over policy decisions in multiple international fora, both bilateral and multilateral. This provides incentives for multinationals to push governments to create and sustain regime complexes in the form of nested regimes. We show how these expectations are largely born out in an empirical test for six different economic sectors. Date: 2021 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:glopol:v:12:y:2021:i:s4:p:14-24 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Global Policy is currently edited by David Held, Patrick Dunleavy and Eva-Maria Nag More articles in Global Policy from London School of Economics and Political Science Contact information at EDIRC. |
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