United we stand and divided we fall: Coalitions in the GATT/WTO negotiations

• Autor(a) principal: Cepaluni, Gabriel [UNESP]
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Outros Autores: Fernandes, Ivan Filipe
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UNESP
• Texto Completo: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0192512120940738; http://hdl.handle.net/11449/195572
• topic: World Trade Organization; trade coalitions; economic power; international trade negotiations; democracy

Coalition formation is considered an important tool to leverage bargaining power in GATT/WTO negotiations. While most of the literature has focused on developing countries, we show that sizable economies are the primary users of coalitions at the GATT/WTO. We also find evidence that middle powers do not exhibit distinctive collectivist behavior at the WTO. There is a linear and strong relationship between countries' economic power-measured as real GDP-and coalition participation within the GATT/WTO system. We explain these results, presenting evidence that large economies-countries that have greater trade negotiations power-join coalitions more often because they are better equipped to absorb transaction costs and more prepared to deal with the uncertainty of WTO negotiations. We also found a relationship between coalition entry and trade openness, with countries more open to trade joining coalitions more often.