Talking trade: common sense knowledge in the multilateral trade regime

The argument is that international trading institutions especially the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its system of judicialized dispute-settlement have legally locked-in trade liberalization, incentivizing compliance with global trading rules. The maintenance of free trade was more widespread than the variable of global market integration might have implied, with the poorest regions of the globe accounting for a very small proportion of the barriers that have been implemented. This chapter outlines a constructivist account of trade policy, which emphasizes the importance of discourses of external constraint, in particular the so-called Smoot-Hawley myth. The author aims in developing constructivist argument is twofold. For one, author challenge the dominant discourse about the WTO found in scholarly circles, which uncritically accepts the institutions role in providing the supposed public good of free trade. Second, author shows how ideas, long neglected in the study of trade decision making, are crucial determinants of policy outcomes.