The political positions of business interest groups in trade agreements: quantitative text analysis and new theories of trade applied to the United States

• Grant number: 22/07254-7
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: April 01, 2023
• End date: March 31, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Political Science - International Politics
• Principal Investigator: Rodrigo Fagundes Cezar
• Grantee: Rodrigo Fagundes Cezar
• Host Institution: Escola de Relações Internacionais. Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Carolina Moehlecke
• Associated scholarship(s): 23/04774-2 - Compilation and analysis of the political positioning of business interest groups in US trade agreements, BP.TT

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to generate and start testing new hypotheses based on contemporary International Political Economy theories to explain the political action of business interest groups during the negotiation of trade agreements. New trade theories would expect firms within the same sector to position themselves differently from one another according to their size and integration to value chains. However, recent works do not account for the areas in which such cleavages are more or less noticeable, such as investment, sustainable development or rules of origin. This project contributes to closing that gap and therefore helps understand which topics tend to be privileged by firms in trade agreements. It will categorize and analyze a corpus of around 800 public submissions made by companies and trade associations during the negotiation of trade agreements by the US between 2007 and 2021. By means of structural topic models (STM), we will analyze the topics in which the cleavages between individual firms and sectoral associations is greater or lower when positioning themselves politically. Given that recent works employing new theories of trade expect large and integrated firms to position themselves individually and to be highly active on the politics of international trade, the results of this project are relevant to think about the future of the design of trade agreements. It can also help project the areas in which trade agreements are more likely to be seen as lacking legitimacy, as PTAs are often seen as instruments to serve multinationals, at the expense of public health and environmental protection. (AU)