The Political Instability of Reciprocal Trade and the Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom

Sumner La Croix and Christopher Grandy

The Journal of Economic History, 1997, vol. 57, issue 1, 161-189

Abstract: The overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893 offers an illuminating case study of the political economy of preferential trading relationships between large and small countries. The limited-term reciprocity treaty of 1876 between Hawaii and the United States generated problematic strategic dynamics, as the normal operation of the treaty gradually worsened Hawaii’s bargaining position. This allowed the United States to extract better terms when the treaty expired in 1883 and to act opportunistically in 1890 with the passage of the McKinley Tariff. The political economy of the treaty contributed significantly to the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy.

Date: 1997
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:jechis:v:57:y:1997:i:01:p:161-189_01

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The Journal of Economic History from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().