Institutional Design, Information Transmission, and Public Opinion: Making the Case for Trade

Ryan Brutger and Siyao Li

Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2022, vol. 66, issue 10, 1881-1907

Abstract: Domestic debates about trade have increased the salience of international economic cooperation among the public, raising the question of whether, and how, domestic support can be rallied in support of international trade agreements. We argue that institutional features of trade agreements provide important cues to domestic audiences that shape support, particularly the membership composition and voting rules for multilateral deals. We use two survey experiments to show that the US public is more supportive of trade when it is negotiated with like-minded countries. We also find that the voting rules shape support for trade agreements, but differently across partisan audiences. Republican voters strongly favor the home country having veto power, whereas Democrats prefer agreements with equal voting rules. These differences are largely driven by perceptions of the agreement’s benefit for the nation and the public’s trust of the negotiators and perceived fairness of the rules.

Keywords: domestic politics; international institutions; public opinion; international cooperation; trade; institutional design (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jocore:v:66:y:2022:i:10:p:1881-1907

DOI: 10.1177/00220027221085072

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