POLICY AND POLITICS
POLITICAL ANALYSIS

CD8 Outline                                                                             Course Structure Index

Goals

The purpose of this course is to expose students to the political environment in which trade policy making takes place, both at the internal or national level, and at the level of trade policy conflict and accommodation among sovereign nations. This is the public aspect of the politics of trade policy.

At the national level, the course is designed to give students political strategies to navigate the world of bureaucratic competition, turf warfare, and consensus building in the development of a nation's trade policies. It will also address the political role of corporate and other important lobbies in influencing the politics of trade policy. At the international level, instruction will focus on the differences in political perspective that nations bring to trade policymaking and to trade agreements.

The private aspect of the politics of trade policy has to do with how corporations can position themselves to influence public policy to their own advantage, both domestically and abroad.

Topics Covered

Each week of the course would ideally be devoted to one of the following core topics:

·        How to achieve consensus within the international sector of the government regarding the content, directions, and strategies associated with a particular trade policy

·        After consensus is achieved at the national level, and a policy position is articulated, how to advance that position in an international context through engaging foreign ministries, international organizations, and foreign businesses and associations.

·        How to advance a particular policy solution in the face of a well-organized lobbying efforts to the contrary from business or other interested groups.

·        How to conduct a well-organized lobbying effort to influence the politics of trade policy -- from framing the issues to interpreting the implementation of trade agreements.

 Key Books and Articles

 The course will review relevant writings of key political thinkers, starting with Machiavelli.

Case Materials

 Case material will include a series of real-world political situations that have arisen in the context of trade policy, e.g., the U.S.-Japan Semiconductor Agreement, MEN for China, Congressional ratification of the WTO, U.S.-Chinese negotiations over intellectual property, imposition of super 301 cases, the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, etc. Cases will be analyzed for their political content *tom the point of view of key political thinkers.

 Criteria for Evaluating Teaching and Student Performance

 Students should be able to plan a lobbying campaign to support or to defeat a particular trade policy. They should also be able to develop strategies to mitigate or blunt the effectiveness of such a campaign. The course will be successful if students can also describe how to orchestrate a trade policy issue as it makes its way through the international strata of the government. They should, moreover, be able to suggest ways and means to promote the issue in the context of international debate and negotiation.