The Public Diplomacy of Trade
PUBD 524, Spring 2013
University of Southern California
Dr. Pamela K. Starr
Office: STO 99Phone: 213-740-4122
Office Hours:Tu, Th 2-4, and by appointmentEmail:
Course Description and Content
The global debate on trade has changed during the past 25 years ago. For decades after World War II, Western European nations, the United States, and Japan cautiously expanded economic integration with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade overseeing this gradual reduction in global barriers to trade. At the same time, however,developing and eastern bloc countries hesitated to embrace the idea of open trade, favoring instead a strategy of protecting their domestic economies from foreign competition. During the 1990s things changed markedly. Eastern Europe and Latin America led the move among developing economies to embrace freer trade and they were soon followed by China and India. Even as voices decrying the shortcomings of free trade grew louder as the twentieth century ended, agreements to open trade ties among developed and developing countries continued to be signed. This dynamic was particularly pronounced in Latin America where the 1990s were marked by an explosion of regional free trade agreements and the early 21st century by the creation of an alternative, non-market trading regime, the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas. Eastern Europe, meanwhile, joined the European Union and China offered its peculiar vision for authoritarian development with managed global trade, the so-called Bejing Consensus.
This course looks at these developments from the perspective of Public Diplomacy. It looks at trade agreements as a tool of public diplomacy and considers the use of soft power and social power (aid packages) in the formulation and maintenance of trade agreements since the early 1990s. It is obvious that the embrace of freer trade – gradually in post-World War II Europe and rapidly in the developing worldat century’s end – and the recent growth of alternatives to market-based free trade cannot be understood independent of hard power drivers. What is less obvious is the central role of the public diplomacy strategies employed by a wide variety of actors in the global trade debate. This is the piece of the story we will emphasize.
The objective of the course is for students to learn the theory and practice behind the process of socializing nations to a particular model of trade, as well as socializing leaders and their constituents to the wisdom of signing a particular trade agreement. On the foundation of this knowledge, the class will design a public diplomacy strategy to socialize North American leaders and publics to a new idea about trade and integration: The North American Idea.
The class unfolds in four phases. The first four class sessions set the stage by introducing 1) the theoretic roots of the free trade debate, 2) theories of socialization, 3) the rise of the European Union and the post-World War II international trading order, and 4) the “victory” of free trade over protectionism as the dominant global trade strategy in the early 1990s. The second section of the course looks at the adoption of freer trade in the developing world, including the accession of former Soviet-bloc countries into the European Union and the formation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The objective is to illuminate the role of Public Diplomacy in the treaty negotiations and their ultimate approval or rejection and the role of the negotiation process and the treaties themselves as public diplomacy. The third section looks at the backlash to free trade at the end of the last century emphasizing the use of public diplomacy by the opponents of free trade, especially NGOs, and the emergence of alternative ideas about trade early in the new century. The final section looks that the current situation with particular emphasis on the U.S. financial crisis and current troubles in the European Union, and asks student to build on what they have learned in the course to think about the future for global trade, and specifically for a North American Community.
Course Requirements
Attendance and Class Participation:
All students are required to have completed the assigned readings before class each week and to participate in the class discussion. Students writing a review paper for that week will begin the discussion and the rest of the class must be prepared to join in the discussion. Since participation in these discussions is an integral portion of the course, attendance is critical to students successfully completing the class.
Short review papers/presentations:
Between February 27 and April 9, each student will write three short papers (1500 words) on the assigned readings. Each paper should summarize the main arguments presented in this body of work, highlighting the role of public diplomacy and social power in the free trade debate, and draw conclusions about the relative effectiveness of these policy tools. Topics for the review papers will be assigned in the first class session.
Term Project:
Students will work in a group to write a policy memo proposing a public diplomacy strategy designed to improve the image of a North American Community in the United States, Mexico and Canada. The memo will be 20-25 pages in length and preceded by a 300-500 word executive summary. It must be both creative and realistic, taking into account the real challenges posed by the policy context in which the strategy would have to be implemented. The final version of the memo will be presented orally on the day and time of the final examination, accompanied by a power point presentation that demonstrates the communications strategies the policy will employ.
Grading
Participation:20%
Short Papers:30% (15% each)
Presentation:10%
Research Project:40%
Books Recommended for Purchase
Greg Ip, The Little Book of Economics: How the Economy Works in the Real World, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2010.
Robert A. Pastor, The North American Idea: A Vision of a Continental Future, Oxford University Press, 2011.
Topics and Readings
January 16: Introductions
Introduction of the course, of participants, and of the market.
Introducing Topics
January 23: The Market Debate
Greg Ip, The Little Book of Economics: How the Economy Works in the Real World, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2010. Chapters 1-2, 6-7, and 14-15.
For those students without a background in the study of economics, it is highly recommended that you read/skim the entire book.
Thomas Lairson and David Skidmore, International Political Economy: The Struggle for Power and Wealth, chapter 2: “The Economics of the International Political Economy”.
Pamela Starr. “Perfecting Reform in Latin America: What Role for the State?” Latin American Research Review, 37:2 (2002): 183-199.
Douglass C. North’s Nobel Prize Lecture, “Economic Performance through Time”, 1993.
February 30: The Diffusion of Ideas
“A sensible starting point for public diplomacy is…a generous dose of modesty about one's own capacity to influence what others think.” --JanMelissen
G. John Ikenberry and Charles Kupchan, “Socialization and Hegemonic Power”. International Organization 44:3 (Summer 1990): 283-315.
Kurt Weyland, Bounded Rationality and Policy Diffusion: Social Sector Reform in Latin America, Princeton University Press 2006, chapters 1-2.
Jeffry Frieden. "Method of Analysis: Modern Political Economy” in Jeffry Frieden, Manuel Pastor Jr., and Michael Tomz, eds. Modern Political Economy and Latin America: Theory and Policy, Westview Press, 2000: 35-43.
Jeffrey T. Checkel, “International Institutions and Socialization in Europe”, in Jeffrey T. Checkel, ed., International Instituions and Socialization in Europe, Cambridge, 2007: 3-27.
Sarah Babb. Managing Mexico: Economists from Nationalism to Neoliberalism. Princeton University Press, 2001, chapters 1, 5, & 7.
Glen Biglasier, “The Internationalization of Chicago’s Economics in Latin America”, Economic Development and Cultural Change 50 (2001): 269-286.
February 6: Public Diplomacy in the Post-World War II Trading Order
This session will illuminate how the American idea of “free trade” became embedded in the post war triad of anti-communism, democracy, and free trade, the two-way socialization process that deepened the presence of Keynesian ideas in the United States, and the different roles public diplomacy played in this process.
Jeffry A. Frieden, Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the Twentieth Century, W.W. Norton, 2006: chapters 11, 12, & 15 (Reconstruction East and West, The Bretton Woods System in Action, & The End of Bretton Woods).
Thomas Lairson and David Skidmore, International Political Economy, chapter 4,“The Political Economy of American Hegemony”
Geir Lundestad, “Empire by Invitation? The United States and Western Europe, 1945-1952”,Journal of Peace Research, 23:3 (Sep., 1986), pp. 263-277.
Michael J. Hogan, “American Marshall Planners and the Search for A European Neocapitalism”, The American Historical Review, 90:1 (Feb. 1985): 44-72.
G. John Ikenberry, “A world economy restored”, International Organization 46:1 (Winter 1992): 289-321.
Eric Helleiner, “Reinterpreting Bretton Woods: InternationalDevelopment and the Neglected Origins of EmbeddedLiberalism”, Development and Change 37:5 (2006): 943-967.
February 13: Globalization trumps Protectionism (for now)
Navan Chanda, “What is Globalization?”, YaleOnline, November 2002 and Globalization 101, “What is Globalization”, Levin Institute.
Jeffry Frieden, Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the Twentieth Century, W.W.Norton, 2006, chapters 16, 17 & 18 (Crisis and Change & Globalizers Victorious).
Thomas Lairson and David Skidmore, International Political Economy, chapter 5, “Globalization and the World Economy”.
Rosemary Thorp, Progress, Poverty and Exclusion: An Economic History of Latin America in the 20th Century, Inter-American Development Bank and The John’s Hopkins University Press, 1998: chapter 7.
Pamela K. Starr, “Pax Americana in Latin America: The Hegemony behind Free Trade”, in Jorge I. Dominguez and Kim Byung-Kook, eds., Between Compliance and Conflict: East Asia, Latin America, and the “New” Pax Americana, Routledge, 2005: 77-109.
Fourcade-Gourinchas, Marion and Sarah Babb. 2002. “The Rebirth of the Liberal Creed: Paths to Neoliberalism in Four Countries.” American Journal of Sociology 108(3): 533-79.
Negotiating Free Trade Agreements
February 20: The Fall of the Berlin Wall and the Expansion of the European Union
This session will highlight the role of public diplomacy, and especially the acceptance of new economic ideas, in the rise of market democracy in Eastern Europe and the geographic and functional expansion of the European Union.
If you are unfamiliar with the history and structure of the EU, the Wikipedia page offers a good simple introduction. A more detailed (and much more lengthy) description of the EU is found in the first chapter of Paul Taylor, The European Union in the 1990s, Oxford, 1996. Since this is posted on blackboard, I recommend you skim it so you understand the historical and structural context within which EU expansion took place.
Alan Mayhew. Recreating Europe: The European Union’s Policy towards Central and
Eastern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998: chapter 1, pp. 3‐20. History of accession process – what the EU did; EU hesitation; attractiveness of EU to CEE.
Luciano Bardi, Martin Rhodes, Susan Senior Nello, “Enlarging the European Union: Challenges to and from Central and Eastern Europe”, International Political Science Review, 23:3 (July 2002): 227-233. Overview of issues.
Heather Grabbe. “European Union Conditionality and the Acquis Communautaire.” International Political Science Review, 23:3 (July 2002): 249‐268. Limits to effectiveness of conditionality and thus motivating change through strategic calculation
Heather Grabbe, The EU’s Transformative Power: Europeanization through Conditionality in Central and Eastern Europe, Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics, 2006: chapter 8. Roots of EU influence over political/economic reform in CEE.
Frank Schimmelfennig, “Strategic Calculation and International Socialization: MembershipIncentives, Party Constellations, and Sustained Compliance in Central
and Eastern Europe”, in Jeffrey T. Checkel, ed., International Institutions and Socialization in Europe, Cambridge, 2007: 31-62
Robert E. Norton, The American Out to Save Poland,Fortune Magazine, 29 January 1990.
Beata Ociepka and Marta Ryniejska, “Public Diplomacy and EU Enlargement: The case of Poland,” Discussion Papers in Diplomacy, Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingendael’, 2005.
György Szondi, “The role and challenges of country branding in transition countries: The Central and Eastern European experience,” Place Branding and Public Diplomacy 3, 8-20 (28 February 2007).
February 27: The North American Free Trade Agreement
Socializing to the Idea of Free Trade
Richard Feinberg and Javier Corrales, “Why did it take 200 years? The Intellectual Journey to the Summit of the Americas”, in Richard Feinberg, Summitry in the Americas, Institute for International Economics, 1997: 7-38.
Golob, Stephanie R. “Beyond the Policy Frontier: Canada, Mexico, and the Ideological Origins of NAFTA”, World Politics, 55:3 (April 2003), 361-398.
The Politics of Free Trade
Howard Wiarda. “U.S. Domestic Politics”. In M. Delal Baer and Sidney Weintraub eds. The NAFTA Debate, Lynne Rienner, 1994: 117-143.
Ralph Nader, et al. The Case Against Free Trade: GATT, NAFTA, and the Globalization of Corporate Power, North Atlantic Books, 1993: chapters 1 (Nadar), 4 (Brown), & appendix 2 (Citizens Trade Campaign).
Richard Rothstein, “Exporting Jobs and Pollution to Mexico”, in New Perspectives Quarterly 8:1 (Winter 1991).
Barbara Franklin, “The NAFTA: Challenging Its Critics”, Speech given at the heritage Foundation, May 6, 1993.
Jorge Castañeda, “Can NAFTA Change Mexico?” Foreign Affairs, 72:4 (Sept/Oct 1993): 66-80.
Roberto Salinas-León, “A Mexican View of North American Free Trade” Cato Institute, Foreign Policy Briefing no. 9, May 1991.
The Public Diplomacy of Free Trade
Toss Eisenstadt. “The Rise of the Mexico Lobby in Washington: Even Further from God, and Even Closer to the United States”. In Rodolfo de la Garza and Jesus Velasco, eds. Bridging the Border: Transforming Mexico-US Relations, Rowman & Littlefield, 1997: 89-124.
Carlos Salinas, Remarks made during visit to the United States, October 1989.
President George H.W. Bush, “Remarks Announcing the Enterprise for the Americas Initiative,” 27 June 1990.
Brian Mulroney, Remarks at NAFTA signing ceremony, San Antonio, Texas, 7 October 1992.
The NAFTA debate in the media.
Byron Dorgan. “The NAFTA Debate that Never Was”, Columbia Journalism Review, January 1994.
Selections from the Gore-Perot Debate over NAFTA, 10 November 1993.
Backlash to Free Trade and the Rise of Competing Models for Trade
March 6: The NAFTA Backlash
In the United States
Howard Wiarda, “After Miami: The Summit, the Peso Crisis and the Future of US-Latin American Relations”, Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 37:1 (Spring 1995): 43-68 (skim the “road to miami” and “at the summit” sections).
Paul Blustein, “NAFTA: Free Trade Bought and Oversold”,Washington Post,
September 30, 1996
Patrick J. Buchanan, “Mexico: Who Was Right”? New York Times (25Aug 1995): A27.
Robert Blecker, NAFTA and the Peso Collapse: Not a Coincidence, Economic Policy Institute, briefing paper, May 1997.
Peter Andreas, “U.S.-Mexico: Open Markets, Closed Border”, Foreign Policy 103 (Summer 1996).
Polls
In the Americas
Recall readings on the diffusion or “socialization” of ideas (Ikenberry & Kupchan, Weyland, and especially Babb).
Michael Reid, “The Rise and Fall of the Washington Consensus”, in Forgotten Continent: The Battle for Latin America’s Soul, Yale University Press, 2007: chapter 6.
Mexico
Soledad Loaeza. “The Changing Face of Mexican Nationalism”. In M. Delal Baer and Sidney Weintraub eds. The NAFTA Debate: Grappling with Unconventional Issues, Lynne Rienner, 1994: 145-157.
Jaime Suchlicki, “Years of Crisis, 1994-1995” in Jamie Suchlicki, Mexico: From Moctezuma to the Fall of the PRI, Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 2001. Chapter 16.
Pamela K. Starr, “The Two “Politics of NAFTA” in Mexico”, Law and Business Review of the Americas, 2010, the first section on public opinion only.
Paul Rich, “NAFTA and Chiapas”, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 550, NAFTA Revisited: Expectations and Realities (Mar., 1997), pp. 72-84.
Argentina
Pamela Starr, "Argentina: Anatomy of a Crisis Foretold", Current History 102 (February 2003): 65-71.
Larry Rohter, “A Fiscal Crisis Paid in Credibility”, New York Times, 25 December 2001.
Paul Krugman, “Argentina’s Crisis is a US Policy Failure”, New York Times, 2 January 2002.
James E Mahon Jr., “Good-bye to the Washington Consensus?”Current History,102(February 2003): 58-64.
March 13: NGOs: Anti-Globalization and Fair Trade
Jeffry Frieden, Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the Twentieth Century, W.W.Norton, 2006, chapters 19 & 20: 435-472.
Laurence E. Rothenberg, “Globalization 101: The Three Tensions of Globalization”, Occasional Paper 176, American Forum for Global Education (2002-03).
Margaret E. Keck and Katheryn Sikkink. Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics. Cornell University Press, 1998: chapter 1.
“The New Trade War”, Economist (4 December 1999) and Pauline Hwang, “A View from Ground Zero”, The Globe and Mail (3 December 1999).
William K. Tabb, “After Seattle: Understanding the Politics of Globalization”, Monthly Review 51:10 (March 2000).
Chakravarthi Raghavan, “After Seattle, world trade system faces uncertain future”, Review of International Political Economy 7:3 Autumn 2000: 495–504.
John Lloyd, “Attack on Planet Davos” Financial Times (24 February 2001).
Walden Bello, “Battling Barbarism”, Foreign Policy, 132 (Sep.-Oct. 2002): pp. 41-42.
Immanuel Wallerstein, "What Have the Zapatistas Accomplished?", Commentary No. 224,Fernand Braudel Center, Binghamton University, Jan. 1, 2008.
Review Global Exchange web site,
Aaronson, Susan A. and Zimmerman, Jamie M., “Fair Trade? How Oxfam Presented a Systemic Approach to Poverty, Development, Human Rights, and Trade”,Human Rights Quarterly 28: 4 (November 2006), pp. 998-1030.
OxFam website on its Fair Trade campaign,
March 20: No Class. Spring Break.
March 27: Competing Visions of Trade: Free Tradeversus the Bolivarian Alternative
(readings to be revised)
Free Trade Area of the Americas:
Richard E. Feinberg. “Regionalism and domestic politics: U.S.-Latin American trade policy in the Bush era”. Latin American Politics and Society 44:4 (Winter 2002): 127-151.
Robert B. Zoellick “Free Trade and the Hemispheric Hope”, Prepared Remarks, Council of the Americas, Washington, DC (May 7, 2001).
Steve Early and Jeff Crosby, “Moving Beyond Seattle, Protesters Take Aim at 'NAFTA on Steroids'”, Boston Globe, 15 April 2001.