Journal ArticleDOI
The institutional foundations of hegemony: explaining the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934
TLDR
The Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act (RTAA) as discussed by the authors is a classic case of pressure group politics run amok, with the United States surrendering much of its tariff-making authority to a policy process in which internationalists had increasing influence.Abstract:
In 1930, Congress approved the highly restrictive Smoot–Hawley tariff, the textbook case of pressure group politics run amok. Four years later, Congress passed the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act (RTAA), surrendering much of its tariff-making authority to a policy process in which internationalists had increasing influence. While the United States had used reciprocity to expand exports before, the stick of discriminatory treatment took precedence over the carrot of liberalizing concessions. With the transfer of tariff-making authority to the executive, the United States could make credible commitments and thus exploit its market power to liberalize international trade. Despite later modifications, the RTAA set the fundamental institutional framework for trade politics.read more
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Democracy-Enhancing Multilateralism
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that participation in multilateral institutions can enhance the quality of national democratic processes, even in well-functioning democracies, by restricting the power of special interest factions, protecting individual rights, and improving quality of democratic deliberation, while also increasing capacities to achieve important public objectives.
Book
The power elite and the state
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a network of social power, indicating that theories inspired by C.Wright Mills are far more accurate views about power in America than those of Mills's opponents.
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Class Versus Industry Cleavages: Inter-Industry Factor Mobility and the Politics of Trade
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that political battles over trade policy appear to have sometimes divided societies along broad class lines and at other times split them into narrow industry-based coalitions and that this diversity stems from historical and cross-national variation in inter-industry factor mobility.
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Divided government and U.S. trade policy: theory and evidence
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors show that the institutional constraints placed on the President's trade policymaking authority are strengthened in times of divided government and loosened under unified government and that U.S. trade policy was significantly more protectionist under divided than under unified governments during the period 1949-90.
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The political economy of international trade
TL;DR: For instance, the authors argues that large-scale changes in political institutions, especially in the direction of democracy, may be necessary for the kind of massive trade liberalization that has occurred.
References
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Book
Agendas, alternatives, and public policies
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the origins, rationality, incrementalism, and Garbage Cans of the idea of agenda status and present a case study of noninterview measures of Agenda status.
Book
Structure and Change in Economic History
TL;DR: The Structure and Change in Economic History as mentioned in this paper investigates the question of property rights in the context of economic systems, and outlines an economic theory of the state and the ideologies that undergird various modes of economic organization.
Journal ArticleDOI
Structure and Change in Economic History.
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International regimes, transactions, and change: embedded liberalism in the postwar economic order
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the prevailing view of international economic regimes is strictly positivistic in its epistemological orientation and stresses the distribution of material power capabilities in its explanatory logic.
Book
Bringing the State Back in
TL;DR: The state and economic transformation: toward an analysis of the conditions underlying effective intervention Dietrich Rueschemeyer and Peter B. Evans as mentioned in this paper Theda Skocpol Part I. The state and Taiwan's economic development Alice H. Amsden Part II.