Do Democracies Trade More Freely?

39 Pages Posted: 15 Aug 2007

See all articles by B. Peter Rosendorff

B. Peter Rosendorff

New York University (NYU) - Wilf Family Department of Politics

Date Written: September 2005

Abstract

What are the characteristics of the democratic polity that are relevant to trade policy? This chapter surveys the empirical evidence to address the first question, and presents a simple model of trade and politics to address the second. Democracies are, in general, characterized by divided polities. Two specific forms of this divided polity - separation of powers across decision makers and electoral accountability of leaders - are key to the trade-liberalizing tendencies of these regimes. The presence of a divided polity alters the reversion points - which in turn shifts the agendas for trade liberalization. The e¤ect is to make democracies both more willing to cooperate in Preferential Trading Agreement (PTA) formation, to unilaterally liberalize, as well as better able to extract concessions fromnon-democracies. Divided polities e¤ect both unilateral and bilateral strategies and outcomes in the trade liberalizing arena.

Keywords: Democracy, Trade Policy, Divided Government, Separation of Powers

Suggested Citation

Rosendorff, Bryan Peter, Do Democracies Trade More Freely? (September 2005). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1007288 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1007288

Bryan Peter Rosendorff (Contact Author)

New York University (NYU) - Wilf Family Department of Politics ( email )

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