The Politics of Trade

The rising era of post-paradigmatic wars in the field of international trade has narrowed ideological differences making policy more porous to independent research. But whose ideas matter? When? And how do actors make them matter? Why are some of the ideas that circulate in the research-policy arenas picked up and acted on, while others are ignored and disappear?' Is demand-driven research most likely to effectively influence policy?The episodes of trade policy change and negotiations included in this volume show the growing relevance of commissioned research in increasingly contested settings designed from the beginning to support a particular cause - research not as independent truth waiting to be 'hooked', but as instrumental and supportive to policy decisions taken on other grounds. The contributors include: Kehinde Ajayi, Andrea Bianculli, Mercedes Botto, Fred Carden, Abhijit Das, Clive George, Ahmed Ghoneim, Rafael Gomez, Morley Gunderson, Susan Joekes, Colin Kirkpatrick, Paul Mably, Amrita Narlikar, Philip Osafo Kwaako, and Diana Tussie.