Why does international trade become politicized? : the role of political parties in the politicization of international trade in the United States

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Why does international trade become politicized?

The role of political parties in the politicization of international trade in the United States.

Author: Barbora Kramesova Supervisor:Joost Berkhout Second Reader: Wouter van der Brug Month and year of completion: June, 2019

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Statement of Originality

This document is written by Student Barbora Kramesova who declares to take full

responsibility for the contents of this document.

I declare that the text and the work presented in this document are original and that no sources

other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.

The Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences is responsible solely for the supervision of

completion of the work, not for the contents.

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Abstract

This study is concerned with the question of why international trade becomes politicized in the United States with particular reference to the role of political parties in this process. The study operationalizes politicization levels by looking at the number of Congressional bills introduced and executive orders issued following the occurrence of certain triggering events. Resting on three theoretical bases the paper presents a quantitative analysis of the effects of issue evolution, issue entrepreneurs, and issue ownership on the politicization of international trade. Reporting mixed results, the study concludes that the politicization of international trade is likely affected by further factors which lie outside the scope of institutional party politics. Additionally, on a normative level, the study comments on the level of governmental responsiveness present within the US government. It concludes that despite certain shortcomings at the executive level, the Congressional branch appears to largely succeed in addressing the short-term demands of the electorate and therefore may serve as the link between the general public and public policy.

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1. Introduction

In 2016, Donald Trump repeatedly attributed his electoral victory to his distinct view on trade which he had stressed in his campaign speeches prior to the election. Implicit in this occurrence is the idea that the politicization of international trade translates into electoral votes and thus into holding office. The thesis takes as its starting point the notion that political parties and their candidates act as rational actors who seek political office holding whether to push through their policy preferences or for the benefits intrinsic to holding office (Riker, 1982). Additionally, a large array of literature supports the argument that due to the decline of ideology and partisanship, citizens now prefer to vote for the parties and candidates who they deem as most competent to deal with the issues citizens prioritize (Walgrave, Tresch, Lefevere, 2015; Green and Hobolt, 2008). Thus, the politicization of certain issues above others may be one way for political parties and candidates to achieve their goals as rational actors. Donald Trump’s distinct and repeatedly emphasized policy view of international trade is characteristic of a topic that is polarized – one of the requirements Van der Brug et al. (2015) list as necessary for the politicization of a conflict. Working with a number of theoretical frameworks, this paper identifies a number of incentives present within the political party system of the United States which allow for trade to become politicized for purposes of electoral gain within the scope of party strategy.

Thus, the research question this study examines: ‘Why does trade become politicized?’

On a theoretical level, this study builds on both issue evolution theory and issue ownership theory. This means that the work is able to contribute to a large segment of literature in political science speaking to the key issue of how certain political issues rise to the public consciousness as above others. Issue evolution theory has a long history in political science, having been applied to topics as wide ranging as slavery (Riker, 1982), racial segregation (Carmines and Stimson, 1989), abortion (Adams, 1997), but thus far has not been used to draw any conclusions concerning the fluctuating levels of trade politicization. This is curious considering the extensive role which international trade plays in the modern economy and the ways its distributional effects are able to disrupt or enhance the lives of individual citizens. The potential dividing effect of international trade characterized by the distinction between the ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ of the economic processes of globalization may be manifested in the political space when parties strategically reposition themselves with respect to rising structural conflicts (Kriesi et al, 2006:923). Conversely, it is this repositioning and articulation of the new structural conflict by political parties which may be conceived of as the politicization process transforming the political discussion and activity around said conflict.

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2 Consequently, having outlined the mechanisms which give rise to the potential for international trade to become a politicized topic, the study identifies two institutional incentives which lead actors to try and capitalize on this potential – their position as parties in opposition and their ownership of the issue of international trade. These structures are thus important ways in which to better comprehend the agenda setting process relating to macroeconomic policy and the issue area of international trade. Thus, by utilizing both of these theoretical paradigms within its scope, the research paper is able to effectively underline the conditions under which international trade becomes a politicized topic. Examining these institutional processes, the study ought to be of interest to scholars with a focus on not only on trade, but agenda setting mechanisms and the role of party systems within this framework. Taking the form of an in-depth case study of the United States this study is able to comment in a substantive manner on the institutional characteristics which allow for the politicization of

international trade within a presidential, two-party political system. It is thus particularly relevant for scholars who may wish to apply the findings of this work to other political systems which operate within similar political structures.

Additionally, as the study takes international trade issue salience amongst the American public as its independent variable, the study is able to make conclusions concerning the level of Congressional and presidential responsiveness to the issue preferences of citizens. A growing concern present within the scholarly literature concerning political parties depicts parties as out of touch with their electorate and failing to take account of the concerns which voters highly prioritize (Sides, 2007). An alternative view of this dilemma is present within the work of Mair (2009) whose legacy examined the difficulty which parties face in being both responsive and responsible to citizen interests. While responsible parties are those who take into account the long-term needs of their people and countries,

responsiveness relates to the ability of parties to ‘respond to the short-term demands of voters, public opinion, interest groups, and the media’ (Bardi, Bartolini, Trechsel, 2014:237). While there is merit to both conceptions of the role of political parties, this thesis concerns itself with the normative argument regarding the importance which parties hold in the way of ensuring inclusiveness and political equality by responding to the concerns of the electorate.

Thus, the analyses present in this study attempt to examine the relationship between public opinion and the government agenda, particularly as mediated by the institutional mechanisms and incentives present in the system of party politics in the United States. By examining the reactions of political actors to what has been labelled ‘triggering events’, the study is able to make conclusions concerning responsiveness at different stages of the electoral cycle, thus not being limited to data collected at the pre-election stage such as that derived from party manifestos, during which candidates are positively more likely to respond to public preferences. Parties are therefore likely to position themselves rather differently in their election manifestos, as compared to the way they behave during their time in office or in opposition. By focusing instead on the way in which parties behave following a ‘triggering

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3 event’ and the ways in which they may be able to utilize these events in attempts to gain political capital, the work is able to comment on changes in the political agenda that are more frequent and more short-term than the electoral cycle. With relation to its normative scope, the study therefore comments on whether political parties, at least with reference to the issue of international trade, are still able to serve as the link between the electorate and public policy, thus fulfilling a key function of representative democracy.

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2. Literature Review

The literature review section of this study proceeds as follows. Firstly, through discussion of key political economy texts outlining the uneven distribution of the gains of international trade, the paper introduces the frictions within the mechanisms of international trade which give rise to the potential for this issue to become politicized. The study then turns to review an alternative theory of

politicization which highlights the importance of interest groups in the way of their ability to put certain issues on the political agenda and influence public policy. However, the study follows the conclusions of Kluver’s (2018) work which highlights the way in which the success of interest group activity is in fact preconditioned by the priorities of political parties which shape their willingness to take on board the advocacy of interest groups. The study then proposes a different view of

politicization where political parties play a central role.

International trade has repeatedly been argued to be welfare enhancing by authors who point towards the benefits it brings in terms of economic growth (Hoekman and Kostecki, 2001:9). Through structural adjustment international trade aids the successful reallocation of a country’s resources towards the production sectors in which this country possesses a comparative advantage in terms of productivity as opposed to other states (Romalis, 2004:67). In addition to this, trade has also been described as welfare enhancing due to the ability of firms to utilize economies of scale and external economies, which according to Krugman’s (1993:363) New Trade Theory allow for the production costs of a single good to decrease due to the fact that repeated investment in one specific sector of production increases efficiency. Furthermore, Krugman (2009:565) also accounts for specialization due to the benefits which firms are able to reap from decreased transportation costs that operate as an incentive to concentrate production in one specific location. Through all of these mechanisms then, international trade ought to structurally reallocate resources from less competitive industries to the ones which are able to compete on the global market. This also implies that in such scenarios, labor within the country moves from less productive sectors towards more modern economic activity, meaning that even when there is no change in productivity within those specific sectors, economic growth can be witnessed due to this form of resource reallocation (McMillan, Rodrik, Verduzco-Gallo, 2014: 11). Thus, it has generally been argued that there is a positive relationship between trade and economic development.

For a certain topic to become politicized the topic must be conflictual. Schattschneider (1957:936) argued that all forms of political organization inherently exploit some types of conflict while suppressing others as a way of mobilizing bias. Thus, the fact that we witness trade politicization within different forms of political activity (the media, trade unions, political manifestos...) implies that despite the general welfare benefits that trade brings about through the mechanisms outlined above, international trade must be conflictual. Despite the highlighted benefits of trade, there must therefore exist disagreement concerning the desirability of international trade. In developed economies such as

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5 that of the United States this disagreement largely arises from the fact that the distribution of these welfare benefits within society is unequal. Kriesi et al. (2006) have labelled this disagreement as the struggle between the economic winners and losers of globalization. The authors identified the political reaction to the economic processes of globalization as materializing itself most significantly at the national level, where the losers of these processes seek to guard themselves through emphasis on protectionist measures and the maintenance of clear national boundaries (2006:922). In such a scenario, political parties and actors which successfully appeal to the frustrations of the perceived ‘losers’ of globalization have the potential ability to transform these grievances into electoral gain. Globalization processes give rise to the movement of resources from less to more competitive

industries through the mechanism of comparative advantage, which largely results in a transformation where certain citizens are ‘left behind’ in the process of globalization. Thus, Kriesi et al. (2006) identify the entrepreneurs and employees in sectors which traditionally have been protected behind tariff walls as the key losers of the globalization process. Relevant to the case of the United States for example is the fact that its comparative advantage lies within high-skilled activities due to the fact that it is a skill-abundant economy (Jensen et al, 2017:431). Consequently, it is the economic activity which takes place within the lower skilled sectors that faces the greatest threat in terms of import competition. In recent years, the rise of China and its admission into the WTO in 2001 have been particularly key due to China’s comparative advantage in labor power. As a result of China’s opening up labor-intensive industries in the United States and other countries were faced with what Colantone and Stanig (2018:202) have termed the ‘Chinese-import shock’. The displaced of workers within these industries as well as the firms who operate within them are then perceived as the ‘losers’ of

international trade, explaining its position as a matter of conflict within politics. The firms operating in these sectors and the workers have much reason to pursue collective political action, whether that be through lobbying and the demand of trade barriers or by casting their vote and supporting certain political parties or candidates who promise to readjust the welfare inequalities created by international trade through protectionist measures (Hoekman and Kostecki, 2001:22).

Thus, while essentially welfare enhancing, it is the unequal distribution of gains which international trade produces that allows for it to become a contested and politicized topic, giving rise to its

articulation as a new structural conflict within the space of the political party system. Consequently we find the conflict structured within the national political space along two poles, one defending the pro-state position which is drawn towards a more defensive and protectionist view on trade policy, and the second being the pro-market position, which urges the enhancement of national competitiveness within the global market (Kriesi et al., 2006:924). Unless supported by the relevant welfare and labor institutions which aid wealth redistribution and successful labor reallocation through vocational and technical training (Jessop, 2018; Estevez-Abe et al., 2001:145) uneven distribution of welfare gains is

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6 practically inherent to the processes of international trade. Despite this, the saliency of international trade as a political issue and its politicization by the relevant actors fluctuates.

The linkage of international trade politicization with interest group influence has a long history. Going back to the 1930s, Schattschneider’s (1935) account of interest group politics depicted lobbyists as directly influencing the wording and the introduction of the Smoot-Hawley bill to members of Congress, reflecting their power and influence within the agenda setting process. Additionally, considering the amount of resources continuously invested into different fields of interest group activity, from lobbying to policy research to public relations campaigns, there exists a strong belief that interest group activity is the driver of international trade politicization and following from this, interest group pressure has been repeatedly linked to the passing of protectionist measures particularly with reference to areas such as the agricultural industry or the steel industry. However, when

considered more broadly, we find that analyses of the effect of interest group activity on policy outcomes has yielded mixed results, with scholars pointing to various levels of influence. Putting Schattschneider’s work to scrutiny, Bauer, Pool and Dexter (1972) engaged in a study of the renewal of the same piece of legislation over a decade later. Contrary to the image of the big lobbyist portrayed in Schattschneider’s account, the authors reported findings which were much less certain about the effectiveness of interest group activity. Bauer, Pool and Dexter described lobbying activity as ‘on the whole poorly financed, ill-managed, out of contact with Congress, and at best only marginally effective in supporting tendencies and measures which already had behind them considerable Congressional impetus from other sources’ (1972, 324).

Furthermore, Nelson (1989) has linked the difference within the conclusions drawn to a shift in the understanding of the place of international trade within the political space. He has argued that since Schattschneider’s analysis of interest group lobbying, international trade has become much more closely associated with the area of foreign policy; an area of politics where interest groups are viewed as much less influential than in domestic policy. In more recent studies of interest group influence within international trade policy, results analyzing PAC contributions and roll call votes within the House and the Senate have indicated that the campaign contributions and the roll call outcomes are essentially random, with null findings just as common as findings indicating influence (Smith, 1995; Baumgartner and Leech, 1998). In a further study, Baumgartner (2009) analyzed the reasons for these mixed results considering the general view of powerful interest politics and proposed the idea that the failure of interest group lobbying might be due to the fact that an opposing interest group emerged successful. The author’s analysis finds that out of ninety-eight issues, only seventeen can be considered as having only ‘one side’ represented within interest group politics (Baumgartner, 2009:94). From these works it would therefore appear that the role of interest group politics in the politicization of international trade is not straightforward and lobbying efforts result in varying levels of success, suggesting other factors are at work.

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7 Despite the ambiguity of the power of interest group lobbying suggested within the scholarly

literature, for the purposes of this study, it is important to note the discrepancy evident in the fact that interest group activity and the funds and resources allocated for these purpose have continuously increased, yet the politicization of international trade displays fluctuations over time. Klüver (2018) provides a potential explanation for this contradiction. The author’s work suggests that the potential influence of particular interest groups and their ability to successfully shape public policy is contingent upon the structure of party politics. By studying the responsiveness of five major German parties across eleven issue areas and seven elections from 1987 until 2009, the author suggests that the success of interest groups in shaping public policy is dependent upon whether or not the political actors they seek to influence believe that the demands pushed by interest groups will translate into electoral votes (2018:16). The implication of these findings is therefore that interest group activity is mostly effective when their priorities align with those already held by the political parties and actors they seek to approach. Thus, in the following section the study considers the mechanisms of party politics as key to explaining the politicization of international trade.

Downs (1972) labelled the phenomenon whereby issues shift in and out of public attention, as the issue-attention cycle. Through discussion of the way in which the ecology issue is raised within public attention Downs highlighted several stages through which issues pass before once again fading from public attention, largely unresolved. Downs labels as key the ‘alarmed discovery and euphoric enthusiasm’ which forces a certain issue onto the public agenda due to a shock event or series of events (1972:39). However plausible, this description lacks explanatory power as it is devoid of accounting for how such events are utilized by certain actors in pursuit of political mobilization. Downs’ (1972) description of the issue-attention cycle outlines the process as largely organic and therefore arguably incomplete as it fails to account for the agency of the actors which interact with these issues. Van der Brug et al. (2015:25) instead highlight how the events which push issues into the public consciousness are exploited by political actors, with special reference to the role of political parties. In this view, events which push issues into the public consciousness are therefore crucially not to be mistaken as the causes of politicization themselves. Instead, they increase the saliency of an issue within the public consciousness. Only if the issue is also characterized by polarization is there space for it to be politicized by the relevant political actors (Van der Brug et al, 2015:19). In the conceptual framework of politicization developed by these authors, and the one this study utilizes in relation to the politicization of international trade, there is a clear distinction between a latent conflict and a manifest conflict which is characterized by the relative salience of an issue, as visualized in Figure 1. Hence, it is the salience of an issue which manifests it as a political conflict. As highlighted above, the issue of international trade and globalization more broadly is already characterized by polarization as is evident in the distinction between the economic ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ of globalization processes.

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8 The increased saliency of this issue therefore ought to create the potential for its politicization by relevant societal and political actors.

Figure 1. Typology of politics towards a topic (Van der Brug et al., 2015) Following from this, our first hypothesis states:

H1: International trade is politicized following the occurrence of a triggering event.

Accordingly, the topic of issue evolution and the issue attention cycle has been developed to explain how the issue attention cycle is exploited by political parties. While parties must choose to address issues which are salient within the public consciousness, these issues are only politicized once parties or candidates decide to give them political expression (De Vries and Hobolt, 2012; De Vries and Marks, 2012). The scholarly literature related to the topic of issue evolution begins with a model of parties who act as rational and goal-oriented actors. In such a model, political actors seek office either as a goal in itself or alternatively in order to promote certain policies (Riker, 1982). Therefore, parties which find themselves out of office have great incentive to adopt distinctive positions on issues not currently on the agenda (Carmines, 2015:767). Through reshaping the political space by emphasizing a distinct view on a particular issue political parties increase their chances of securing seats at the next election by upsetting the current status quo. In this view the process of issue evolution is therefore dynamic and ongoing and accounts for the agency of the political actors who transform the space of political conflict. Party systems in equilibrium are disrupted by a certain event or sequence of events which force a certain contested issue onto the public agenda and following this, the issue is taken up by a political party or party entrepreneurs who hold a distinct position concerning this issue (Carmines and Stimson, 1981:114) .

This argument is similarly reflected in the work developed by Rovny (2012), who has argued that parties will only politicize those issues on which they hold an outstanding position. Political competition is key to understanding issue emphasis in Rovny’s work. The emphasis of a party’s distinct stance towards specific issues increases the issue’s importance within the space of political contestation and makes the party’s outstanding view more prominent among the electorate thus

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9 steering voters to consider this dimension when casting their vote (2012:273). Issue emphasis is therefore understood as a strategic approach undertaken by political parties in order to transform the space of political competition. This is in line with our understanding of politicization as developed by Van de Brug et al. (2015) who highlight the fact that politicization requires a divergence in parties’ framing of the issue and how the issue is to be dealt with. When there is convergence in party stances towards an issue or where positions of parties do not stand out, the issue will not transcend onto the political agenda. The works consulted therefore suggests that the process of issue evolution is in fact aided by the politicization of issues as undertaken by issue entrepreneurs within political parties. The idea that issue entrepreneurship is undertaken by parties who find themselves outside of political office has been developed by Green-Pedersen and Mortensen (2010) to encompass the role of the interaction which takes place between government and opposition parties. The authors argue that one of the central implications of the issue competition model, whereby parties compete in elections by pushing certain issues onto the political agenda as above others, is that opposition parties have more opportunity to focus on issue entrepreneurship. According to this analysis opposition parties are not confined by the need to develop policy solutions for which they are held accountable by the electorate as they are not in office at the time (2010:263). Consequently, when parties in government wish to raise the attention devoted to a certain issue, they must also think in terms of possible policy solutions, while opposition parties are free to criticize the parties in office on whichever issue they deem most favorable without those constraints.

The idea that issue entrepreneurship is more likely to be undertaken by parties who are not in office is also developed by De Vries and Hobolt (2012). In their view, challenger parties will attempt to mobilize a latent conflict in order to change the basis on which voters may make their political decisions (2012, 247). In this study therefore, the authors find that challenger parties will attempt to generate a response from the voters and that voters are more likely to vote on the basis of the newly politicized dimension of conflict when opting to vote for a challenger party (2012:251). Additionally, they also found that parties engaging in the strategy of issue entrepreneurship through the processes described are more likely to attract new voters in elections (2012:250). There is therefore a large scope for parties outside of government and challenger parties to undertake this strategy for the purposes of improving their electoral chances. This is also why Mair (2009) has argued that challenger parties may be more representative in the modern party system than more mainstream parties, who he has argued begin to act more like governors than representatives and thus lose the valuable quality of acting as both the representatives of a polity while also serving the governing function of the polity. According to this interpretation then, challenger parties have an important function within the modern day party system – that of bringing the representative function back in where other parties have focused their attention more on the governing function.

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10 Consequently, our second hypothesis states:

H2: Trade is politicized by political parties who find themselves outside of office and thus work as issue entrepreneurs.

This theory of party competition strategy is particularly appealing in party systems where competition has ceased to concern ideological alignment of political parties, and instead parties find themselves competing based on their competency regarding specific issues (Green and Hobolt, 2008; Walgrave, Tresch, Lefevere, 2015; Bélanger and Meguid, 2008). Effectively, this means that party competition has now come to revolve around the ability of political actors to politicize certain issues as above others. Hobolt and Klemmensen (2007) additionally highlight that this type of democratic

responsiveness is structured by the level of competitiveness within a particular political system. The extent to which political parties prioritize issues which are high in salience among the public is therefore dependent on rules governing elections as well as legislative behavior (2007:310). Through empirical analysis of executive speeches and budgetary behavior they find that the presidential system in United States is highly responsive to public preferences due to the high level of separation of powers (2007:332).

Relevant to our study is therefore also the work developed on theory of issue ownership. According to this line of work, certain issues are more likely to be picked up by certain political parties which ‘own’ these issues (Bélanger and Meguid, 2008; Walgrave, Tresch and Lefevere, 2015). Particularly since the decline of partisanship whereby the electorate would cast their votes based on ideological beliefs, observers have pointed to the rise of issue voting. This view explains voter behavior by pointing towards the fact that parties and candidates strategically emphasize those issues which they are either perceived to be highly competent in dealing with, or alternatively, simply associated with through rhetoric present in manifestos, press releases, party leader speeches, or campaign ads (Walgrave, Tresch, and Lefevere, 2015:786). This provides two possible explanations of issue ownership – associational and competence ownership.

This theoretical approach, largely developed by Budge and Farlie (1983) and Petrocik (1996) serves a dual purpose in the academia concerning political science. It is held to provide explanatory power not only of voter behavior, but also of which issues parties strategically select and push onto their platform in order to attract voters. If a voter deems a certain issue to be of high importance at the time of the election, they are more likely to select a party or candidate on the ballot which they view as being most competent in dealing with this issue. Issue ownership is therefore irrelevant if that specific issue is not perceived by the public to be highly salient (Bélanger and Meguid, 2008:480). The ability to strategically utilize issue ownership in order to win more votes during election time is therefore conditional upon issue salience. Consequently, parties attempt to increase the salience of those issues that they historically have been able to attain ownership over. Issue ownership, particularly with

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11 reference to competence issue ownership, is therefore achieved incrementally, through many years of policy output. We would thus expect parties to politicize international trade only when they are seen as ‘owning’ this issue. While originally theorized as rather stable, with further analysis there has been a push towards interpreting issue ownership as more malleable and dynamic than originally thought (Lanz and Sciarini, 2016:212). The argument that issue ownership shows more fluctuation than traditionally thought has been advanced with reference to the communication strategies of parties, perceived government performance dictating public opinion, and change within the party system. (Bélanger, 2003; Brasher, 2009).

Thus, our third hypothesis states:

H3: International trade is politicized by political parties who are perceived to ‘own’ this issue at that specific point in time.

Other studies however, have pointed out that issue ownership theory does not always hold up in practice, particularly when parties engage in what has been termed as ‘issue trespassing’ (Abbe et al., 2003; Damore, 2004). Issue trespassing refers to the phenomenon whereby a party may choose to campaign on an issue, despite the fact that it is not perceived as having competence or associational ownership of this issue. This may happen more frequently when a specific issue is particularly salient among the public due to an unforeseen event or circumstance and therefore there is no space for either party to ignore this issue over an issue which falls under its ownership. Brasher (2009) has identified the emphasis on national security following the events of September 11 as a case of evident issue trespassing. Despite the Republican Party being perceived as most competent in dealing with national security, the Democratic Party was forced to compete on the same issue due to the salience of this conflict following the attacks (2009:72). Thus, the Democratic Party chose John Kerry as a nominee due to his status as a Vietnam War veteran, which would hopefully allow the presented candidate and thus the party to be seen as equally ‘competent’ in dealing with security issues. Thus, at times when international trade is perceived to be highly salient, particularly following events which have a widespread and lasting impact, issue ownership theory may not hold up, as instead parties find themselves trespassing on each other’s owned issues.

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12 Figure 2. Visualization of how trade becomes politicized

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3. Design/Methods/Data Section:

In the following section, the study presents and justifies both the case and dataset selection on the basis of which the theoretical arguments and hypotheses above are tested. First, the case selection is discussed, following which an argument is made concerning the selection of the dependent variable and its operationalization within this study. Lastly, this section discusses the control variables and their role within this study.

(a) Case Selection

The issue of international trade is particularly enticing for studying the processes of politicization and agenda setting, as it may be regarded as a divisive issue in policy terms. As highlighted in the

literature review, the distributional processes which accompany international trade result in sets of winners and losers. Because the benefits are spread diffusely, particularly over the consumer base of a society, while the gains tend to be concentrated in a particular demographic in the United States (low-skilled blue collar workers) there is a case for the issue to be polarizing and for political parties and actors to participate in positional competition in order to capitalize on the electoral gains which such positioning may incur. Additionally however, the decision to study the politicization of international trade still leaves space for it to speak more generally to other issues, and for our findings to be

applicable to other cases as well. International trade does not present itself as a new issue and calls for either protectionist measures or further liberalization of international trade have fluctuated for decades. This means that international trade exhibits the familiar pattern whereby it shifts in and out of public consciousness ‘largely unsolved’ only for the pattern to repeat itself at a later date. This characteristic has been similarly attributed to other issues such as abortion and issues to do with race. Thus, it is evident that international trade is not a ‘special issue’ in this sense. Additionally, the pattern is also often spoken about with relation to issues which are to some extent considered ‘new’ having emerged largely in the second half of the twentieth century, such as issues to do with environmental protection or migration. Consequently, by identifying certain windows of opportunity where the politicization of international trade is more likely to occur (as outlined in the hypotheses of this study) we may be better able to understand how actors within the political system behave in relation to these issues and conversely how they may be able to work these issues in their favor.

The case selection of the United States allows for the generalizability of our findings as concerns other two-party political systems of which there are a large number around the world. Two-party political systems may be found in Australia, the United Kingdom, and particularly in countries in Latin America which exhibit many similar features to the political system of the United States. We would therefore expect that the incentives present within these party systems function similarly in guiding certain political actors to take up the issue of international trade and thus our findings will have special relevance for these parallel cases. Additionally, the United States remains an interesting case to study due to the implications which the politicization of trade within the world’s largest economy has for the

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14 world trading network as a whole. It is evident that the United States as a case study presents an example of the processes described by Kriesi et al. (2006) where concrete political actors have been able to benefit from the frustrations experienced by certain segments of society who feel ‘left behind’ after years of trade liberalization by giving them political expression. Considering the tendency of countries to follow successful defection of trade liberalization measures of other countries, statements such as Donald Trump’s threat to pull out of the WTO, if they were to be economically rewarded, may lead to copycat measures by other states (Norrlof, 2018:67). Considering the repercussions that a large number of defectors within the system may have for the feasibility of the international trade system as a whole, it is important to study the institutional particularities and incentives that operate within political systems and which allow for episodes where international trade is politicized or instead largely absent from the party agenda. Thus, in the view of the author, the case selection of the United States remains justifiable.

Notwithstanding, our decision to embark on a single case study analysis inherently signifies certain limitations. As a two-party political system, the results yielded within our analysis will not be applicable to cases of politicization where such a push comes from actors on the margins of the party system. As explained in the literature review section of this paper, the party system of a state has large implications for the way in which issues are politicized in that particular state. In a multiparty system, we may expect that a push for politicization of certain issues would come from parties in the margins as the challenger parties would be seeking to upset the current status quo. Our case study is devoid of niche parties which are more frequent in multiparty systems and is instead more characterized by parties which attempt to sustain their inner cohesion. This means that parties within the US party system are more likely to avoid politicizing issues which may be deemed as internally divisive so as to avoid conflict within the party, but also to avoid dividing their electoral support base which may be similarly split on such an issue.

(b) Data Selection

(i) Selecting ‘triggering events’

Much of the current existing literature bases its analysis on the study of electoral manifestos (Green-Pedersen and Krogstrup, 2008; Kluver and Spoon, 2014; Rovny, 2012), which not only take years to draft and thus are not a prompt response to the rise of an issue in the public consciousness, but also do not reflect actual policy action taken whilst a party is in office. By looking at different triggering events of the nature discussed by Downs (1972) this study is able to track responsiveness and

politicization across the entire electoral cycle, not just preceding elections when parties are likely to be most responsive. We take the term ‘triggering event’ to be a real-world event characterized by a need for some sort of political initiative in order to redefine the issue (Cobb and Elder, 1983:83).

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15 The events have been chosen by focusing on a selection of articles published by the The New York Times or the Financial Times, as both may be regarded as large enough publications to warrant high degrees of public attention. This means that we would expect the salience of the issue of international trade to be high in these times and therefore it is worth observing the actions of political actors through means described below following these events. The events have been selected with the aid of the Lexis Nexis server (www.lexisuni.com), allowing for easy identification of such events and including data from both publications identified. By selecting certain criteria, such as the time scope, and focusing on key words related to the issue of international trade (international trade; trade talks; WTO) the study has selected those articles which are relevant specifically to the issue of international trade. Because the study is not directional it encompasses economic events across the spectrum. This means that our sample has been selected in a manner which includes articles which refer to the furthering of trade liberalization, as relating to new trade agreements or the WTO, but also articles which may draw attention towards the effects of international trade. There thus exists scope for politicization in the way of either liberalization or protectionism as relates to international trade. This method of case selection has ensured that the study considers politicization in its full scope, rather than only analyzing a limited form of directional politicization. The triggering events selected are as follows:

President Date Triggering Event

Bill Clinton 01/01/1995 The World Trade Organization is created in Geneva

Bill Clinton 24/10/1997 Group of 15 developing nations meet at Malaysia trade summit Bill Clinton 06/05/1998 Europeans to use WTO ministerial to push for new trade round Bill Clinton 20/05/2000 China and Europe agree on trade group entry

George W.H. Bush 01/12/2001 China formally joins the WTO

George W.H. Bush 10/09/2003 World trade talks in Cancun, Mexico collapse after four days of wrangling over farm subsidies

George W.H. Bush 09/04/2005 Exports rise ahead of target as India ‘upgrades’ trade policy George W.H. Bush 12/12/2006 There are signs that Chinese exports are beginning to diversify George W.H. Bush 21/04/2008 G8 Summit to discuss food price rises

Barack Obama 23/03/2009 WTO says global trade flows are set to shrink by 9% during 2009

Barack Obama 14/04/2011 The BRICS forum is formed encouraging commercial political and cultural cooperation between the BRICS nations

Barack Obama 22/08/2011 Russia finally joins the WTO after 18 years negotiating its membership

Barack Obama 17/07/2012 EU in push for free trade deal with Japan Barack Obama 18/11/2014 IMF and World Bank warn of 'peak trade'

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16 Barack Obama 08/03/2015 A trade deal must work for America's middle class

Barack Obama (16) 23/06/2016 BREXIT

Donald Trump 31/07/2017 Qatar takes complaint of ‘illegal siege’ to WTO Donald Trump 20/09/2017 EU revises rules to guard markets against dumping Donald Trump (19) 30/11/2017 Argentina blocks some activists from WTO meeting

The study therefore spans four presidential time periods, assessing data starting from January 1995 (President Clinton’s mandate). This has ensured that the study covers a time span long enough to encompass key periods of international trade politicization going back to the mid-1990s, thus

including the late years of the GATT through the formation of the WTO and much of its functioning. Additionally, this time period allows us to observe the fluctuation of changing issue ownership over international trade as discussed in the literature review section. Thus, because issue ownership changes over our selected time period both the Democratic and the Republican Party in the United States may be found to politicize international trade at different points in time.

Looking at a set of 16 to 19 triggering events provides us with useful data for analyzing the

politicization of international trade, or lack thereof, because parties are likely to politicize issues when they are on the public agenda as this is when they are most likely to translate into electoral gains. A triggering event which would be widely reported across the nation would therefore place international trade high on the public agenda. We may consequently infer that such media attention would push international trade higher in the way of public issue priority. Specific events in the history of

international trade present themselves as highly advantageous for studying politicization, as they allow for the exact pinpointing of a time of high saliency, which is not the case with social movements or ideological changes. Consequently, by focusing on these events, we can see when parties take action to exploit these events for mobilization purposes, or alternatively when there is a lack of action. In this manner, we avoid placing emphasis on the event itself and instead grant agency to the political actors which may seek to capitalize on these specific circumstances. By selecting events which are external to the United States and outside of institutional politics, we have avoided conflating the variable of issue salience with factors such as the effect of civil society, as well as avoiding a circular analysis whereby a political event (for example a trade war) may lead to increased political activity. Thus, events such as the 1999 Seattle protest to disrupt the summit of the WTO are not included in the analysis present. Instead, examples of ‘triggering events’ included in this study are China formally joining the WTO in December 2011 and the Brexit vote in June 2016. These are both triggering events in the way of raising the issue salience amongst the American public, while being external to US politics themselves, thus avoiding issues of circular analysis.

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17 Lastly, it is worth noting that a large amount of the events selected center around news concerning the WTO. An argument can be made concerning the fact that since so many of the events selected concern a transnational organization, this may signify that political action would also take place at the

transnational level, rather than at the level of individual nation states. However, we believe that this may be a false equivalent, since despite many political decisions being transferred to the transnational level in the modern age states retain their national sovereignty and often either guide or oppose the actions of transnational organizations. Additionally, it is somewhat inherent to the issue of

international trade that much of the news coverage concerning the topic will focus on transnational organizations. Being fundamentally between states, international trade has become structured through these transnational networks and organizations. Considering these characteristics of the issue at hand we therefore do not believe that the large amount of examples selected which refer directly to the activity of the WTO is something which would significantly distort the findings of this study and we thus do not consider it a problem for the validity of our findings.

(ii) Measuring Politicization

By tracking responsiveness up to a month from the occurrence of the event we can see the extent to which political actors act upon the opportunity which triggering events provide for politicization. While there is no essential time limit by which actors ought to respond to an event, the study infers that considering the relative institutional ease by which issues are brought forth in the US Congress and the ability of executive orders to act as a direct response to current events, any attempts at politicization which occur after the one month mark following the triggering event are not considered as being responses to the event itself and thus are not included in the scope of the analysis of this study.

The study utilizes secondary data compiled by the Comparative Agendas Project (CAP) which assembles and codes information on the policy processes of different governments from around the world. The study looks at both bills introduced in Congress and executive orders issued by US Presidents available through the CAP database. The dataset available provides information on over 400,000 bills introduced in the US Congress spanning from 1947 up until 2016. Additionally to data on Congress, the comparative agendas data set also contains information about executive orders issued by the President of the United States, allowing us to undergo a study of both the executive and

legislative branches. With relation to executive orders, the dataset contains over 4,000 observations spanning the years 1945 to 2018. Executive orders are declarations by the President which have the force of law and do not require legislation to take effect. They are thus a Presidential prerogative, and though they may be overridden by either the legislative or the judiciary it very rarely happens. Analysis of the politicization of international trade through executive orders allows us to better comprehend the differences in responsiveness present in legislative and executive power due to the

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18 differences in incentives present. Additionally, because data is available for the Trump presidency in the form of executive orders issued, we may expand our analysis to include this data and thus increase the relevancy of our analysis as relates to current events. Thus, following the triggering events which we consider a point of high saliency for the conflict of international trade, we measure the activity of these political institutions or actors as our dependent variable.

The use of the data sources outlined within this section is based on the confidence that measuring politicization through the number of Congressional bills introduced and through the number of executive orders issued is most appropriate for the normative purposes of this study in the way in which it seeks to make certain conclusions concerning the responsiveness of political parties and actors. We primarily consider legislative and executive action a favorable method of conceptualizing politicization as it allows us to track political activity throughout the electoral cycle. Effectively, this improves the validity of our findings as it means that the study is able to comment on varying levels of politicization of international trade by political actors throughout a standard term in or out of office and thus allows us to assess governmental responsiveness in a manner which more accurately represents the day-to-day functioning of political institutions. If political parties and actors only respond to the short-term preferences of citizens prior to an election they fall short of fulfilling their representative function in a democratic system. Secondly, while politicization has previously been measured through manifestos or by examining statements of politicians we feel that governmental action or inaction may be more appropriate to comment on responsiveness as it signifies engagement with the political conflict through means other than rhetoric. Thus, the data available allows us to study the politicization of international trade in both branches of government and its responsiveness in relation to the saliency of international trade in its full scope.

Lastly, it is important to note a modification which has been made relating to the types of

Congressional bills and executive orders analyzed for the purposes of this study. In order to analyze whether such rise in saliency within the public affects the level of politicization we looked at the moving averages of the number of Congressional bills and executive orders issued each month. However, upon utilizing this method of analysis we had found a shortcoming in our dataset which has led to us to adjust the type of Congressional bills and executive orders we have included in our analysis.

Following an early analysis, we have found that the peaks identified in the number of bills introduced per month in the area of international trade are largely made up of bills which suspend the duty on certain imports (particularly to do with different chemical imports). With the exception of this subcategory, all other subcategories appeared to make up relatively balanced portions of the entire dataset. The United States follows a harmonization schedule in order to keep up with the requirements of the WTO and avoid legal disputes at the WTO level. A considerable portion of the Harmonized

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19 Tariff Schedule of the United States is made up of chapters and appendices to do with chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and intermediate chemicals for dye. Consequently, due to the number of different chemicals which the US imports and which are outlined in the tariff schedule, it is reasonable that the number of bills introduced would peak during such times as each single bill may relate to the

suspension of duties on any one inorganic chemical, organic or inorganic compound. Thus, the bills introduced in these peak periods are mostly to do with the levels of duties on certain imports and are introduced in line with these schedules. Considering the nature of the way in which international trade is regulated, the study has therefore excluded the bills which fall under the sub-topic of ‘tariff and import restrictions, import regulation’ from our analysis. The original graph displaying the peaks in the number of bills introduced in Congress per month is included within the Appendix for reference.

(iii) Measuring Issue Ownership

To test our third hypothesis, whereby international trade is politicized by political parties who are perceived to ‘own’ this issue at that specific point in time, the study utilizes data made available by the Pew Research Group. Utilizing secondary data collected by a third party allows for the opportunity of longitudinal analysis, which is critical for the purposes of this research. Because we are analyzing the politicization of international trade over a relatively lengthy period of time it is crucial to employ panel data which asks the same question (perhaps allowing for slight modifications of the wording of

questions) over the time we attempt to study. The Pew Research Group is not affiliated with any political party or organization and partners with philanthropists and institutional funders to support their research. Issue ownership is thus measured by the question of ‘Which party could do a better job of dealing with the economy?’ This question was asked by the research group 35 times from October 1990 to October 2017. According to the Pew Research Group, international trade falls under the umbrella of dealing with the economy rather than foreign affairs, although so do other subsidiaries of what may encompass ‘dealing with the economy’. While these variables are arguably not

interchangeable the Pew Research Group provides the most comprehensive data available concerning these questions. To the author’s knowledge, the most complete survey series which asks specifically about the ownership of trade is one conducted by the Hart Research Associates Group for the NBC News/Wall Street Journal opinion polls. This data is crucially limited in the way of missing critical years from December 1995 until December 2003, and from July 2007 until April 2018, thus missing key periods of trade politicization such as the years of the President Obama presidency and the early period of President Trump’s presidency.

Additionally, the author believes that the question as posed by the Pew Research Group is asked in a manner that is less likely to skew answers towards a certain direction. Because the NBC News/Wall Street Journal public poll words the question as ‘When it comes to protecting America’s interest on trade issues which party do you think would do a better job – the Democratic Party, the Republic

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20 Party, or both about the same?’. While ‘America’s interest on trade issues’ can be interpreted as both trade liberalization and the employment of protectionist measures depending on one’s own views on international trade and its distributional effect, the phrasing has certain connotations to do with trade protectionism. This may have to do with the intention with which the research has been conducted, or the source of funding for conducting the opinion poll. Thus, this study holds that the opinion poll conducted by the Pew Research Group provides data that remains relevant for the purposes of our research, while also being more representative of the population as a whole. The results concerning issue ownership of the economy are presented in Figure 3. The figure also shows significant variation with relation to party ownership of the economy, which aligns with the findings present in the

literature review section of this paper showing that issue ownership changes over time periods and thus both parties may have incentive to politicize international trade at different periods of time.

Figure 3. Which party could do a better job dealing with the economy? (Pew Research Group, October 2017) To improve the reliability of our findings and as a methodological validity check the study has also tested the relationship between responses to the question of ‘Which party could do a better job of dealing with the economy?’ and the question of ‘Which party could do a better job dealing with trade agreements between the US and other countries?’. The latter question was asked by the Pew Research Group three times in total, once in 2016 and twice in 2017. The clustered bar chart in Figure 4 shows

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21 the relationship between the way interviewed respondents answered the two questions posed. From the visualization of this data, we may infer that there appears to be some correlation between respondents opting for the Republican party in both scenarios, and respondents opting for the Democratic Party in both scenarios, though the latter being a weaker correlation. The Chi Squared Test and Cramer’s V for the data available from the Pew Research Group April 2017 survey are shown in Figure 5 and Figure 6 respectively.

Figure 4. Clustered Bar Chart (April, 2016)

Figure 5. Chi-Square Testing the Relationship between the variables of ‘Which party could do a better job dealing with the economy?’ and ‘Which party could do a better job dealing with trade agreements between the US and other

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22 In Figure 5 the relationship between the categorical variables of which party could do a better job dealing with the economy and which party could do a better job dealing with trade agreements

between the US and other countries was examined to look for association, with the full crosstabulation being included in the Appendix. From Figure 5 we can see that the chi-squared test with 16 degrees of freedom was performed resulting in a Pearson’s chi squared value of 1189.053. Consequently, this value results in an asymptotic p value (2-sided) that is less than 0.05 and therefore there is strong reason to believe that there exists a strong relationship between the two variables tested. For further scrutiny, we have also employed a Cramer’s V test for correlation.

Figure 6. Cramer’s V Testing the Relationship between the variables of ‘Which party could do a better job dealing with the economy?’ and ‘Which party could do a better job dealing with trade agreements between the US and other

countries?’ (April, 2016)

Because our computed table is larger than 2x2 we refer to Cramer’s V rather than Pearson’s Phi, which does not indicate the correct coefficient due to the size of our table. As Cramer’s V is a more conservative measure of the Phi coefficient, the results are even more precise with =1 as representing a perfect correlation between the two variables. Because our measure of Cramer’s V = 0.543 which is significantly larger than 0.3, we can infer that the relationship between our two variables is a relatively strong, positive relationship.

Thus, having tested the correlation of these two variables as a methodological validity test, we

conclude that due to the strong relationship that these variables show and the fact that the measures for the economy variable encompasses international trade, we utilize the data available from the responses to the question ‘Which party could do a better job dealing with the economy?’ to measure issue ownership for the purposes of this study. We have recoded the data available from the Pew Research Group surveys into the datasets retrieved from the CAP, assigning each piece of legislation passed a specific value from -4 to 4 according to which party was considered to own the issue at the time when the bill was introduced with -4 representing a strong level of Democratic issue ownership and 4 a strong level of Republican issue ownership. By recoding the data into several categories which correspond to the strength of issue ownership for either the Democratic or the Republican Party, we are also able to make certain conclusions concerning the strength of issue ownership of these parties, thus acknowledging the variation present in issue ownership which would not be the case if we coded the data as a two-category variable.

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23 (c) Control Variables

As elaborated in the literature review section of this study it is evident that even though there exists disagreement concerning the extent to which interest groups are able to influence public policy, they do appear to play a certain role in the processes of trade politicization. Considering this, interest group behavior may be deemed to have certain implications for the validity of our findings. This study attempts to alleviate this concern and considers interest group behavior a control variable for two reasons. Not only does interest group pressure appear to be relatively constant over time, it is also evident that interest group pressure exists on both sides of trade liberalization and protectionism. For these reasons therefore, we do not consider interest group behavior to be a major concern for the results of our analyses and the conclusions we draw from them.

Secondly, we have also attempted to control for the influence of factors such as the role of protest politics or political activity which is internal to the United States through our event selection. By excluding cases of protest activity within the US from our study we circumvent analyzing instances of increased politicization which may occur as a result of such activity. Similarly, as highlighted in our selection procedure, by excluding news events which involve activity within US institutional politics we avoid the problem whereby increased politicization is attributed to existing political activity. It is evident that were the United States to be involved in a trade war this would likely lead to increased political activity in the way of more bills relating to the issue area of international trade being introduced in Congress, or more executive orders being passed relating to this. However, including such occurrences would result in an analysis which is largely circular and therefore does not unveil the underlying sources of trade politicization.

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24

4. Analysis:

(a) Testing H1: Issue Evolution

(i)

Analysis of Congressional bills introduced

The study now turns to the analysis of our first hypothesis, where:

H1: International trade is politicized following the occurrence of a triggering event.

To test our first hypothesis the study presents a graph displaying the moving average of the amount of Congressional bills introduced per month. This will allow us to examine whether the occurrence of a triggering event results in a higher degree of politicization than what is observed during a standard month in Congress.

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25 Fi gu re 7 . Gr ap h d is p lay in g t h e m o vin g av erag e o f th e amo u n t o f bi lls in tr o d u ce d in t h e are a o f f o re ig n tr ad e p er mo n th ( 1995 -2 016)

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26 Figure 7 depicts a graph displaying the moving average of the amount of bills introduced per month, with vertical lines indicating the occurrence of a triggering event. As we can see from our graph, peaks in the number of bills introduced are quite common and often coincide with the triggering events identified. Considering the number of outliers in the data, as illustrated by the different peaks in the numbers of bills introduced, comparing the entire timeframe (1995-2016) and our triggering events may be better done by utilizing the median value. The median value of the number of bills introduced during the entire timeframe is five per month. Eleven out of the sixteen events selected are followed by an output of bills relating to the politicization of trade which is equal or higher than 5. Considering this, it does appear that the politicization of international trade is higher following a triggering event, than during a standard month. However, it is evident from looking at our graph that many peaks in the level of politicization are found even outside of our triggering events. Thus, while the triggering events selected in this study appear to indicate a general trend where the level of politicization is somewhat higher during the selected months, due to their random selection they are not exhaustive.

(ii)

Analysis of Executive Orders

This section of the study deals with the analysis of the trends observed in the levels of executive orders produced in relation to the issue of international trade.

Figure 8. Graph displaying the moving average of the amount of executive orders signed in the area of foreign trade (1995-2017) 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1993 1995 1997 1999 2002 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015 2017

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27 In Figure 8 we can identify three distinct peaks of trade politicization as measured by the number of executive orders signed during this time – 1993 (6); 1996 (5); 2001 (5). The first peak identified in 1993 was at the time of the Clinton presidency and the executive orders deal with different aspects of trade liberalization, through the renewal of China’s Most-Favored-Nation status, the implementation of NAFTA, and establishment of the Trade Promotion Coordination Committee. Half of the executive orders in 1993 were issued in October, so according to our understanding of politicization being influenced by triggering events we might infer that in September 1993 the saliency of international trade was increased through a triggering event. These executive orders may have therefore been fueled by frustrations to do with the lack of progress of the GATT Uruguay Round, widely reported in the news, which stalled during that period.

Additionally, with relation to our triggering events, none of the triggering events we have selected for our analysis are followed by politicization through executive orders. Considering the amount of triggering events we have selected for this study and the relative ease with which executive orders are drafted in light of changing political conditions the fact that none of them are followed by a response on part of the executive branch is perhaps indicative of a lower level of responsiveness as compared with our findings concerning Congressional responsiveness. It thus appears that the politicization of international trade does not follow the pattern described through issue evolution theory, whereby political actors capitalize on increased issue saliency within public consciousness resulting from the occurrence of a triggering event. This may be to do with the nature of executive orders. It is evident that the number of executive orders introduced during this period is much lower than the number of bills introduced, not only because bills may be introduced by any congressman or congresswoman, but also because as a Presidential prerogative they are a means of working the President’s will through the executive branch and it has been argued that they are a potential last resort measure which is utilized when the President is unable to achieve his goals through Congress (Deering and Maltzman, 1999). This phenomenon has been termed the strategic model of executive orders. However, further research into the topic has produced mixed results and our own findings show that the opposite appears to be true – the peaks identified in fact correspond to periods when the President’s party holds a majority in Congress. This is discussed further in section (b)(ii) with relation to our second hypothesis.

Furthermore, all three peaks identified in our graph coincide with President Clinton’s presidency. Clinton ran his campaign largely based on an economic platform, with a relatively high focus on trade liberalization (Wines, 1994). Since the President wields more power in the sphere of foreign policy than domestic policy in the United States executive orders are more likely to relate to foreign policy (Marshall and Pacelle Jr, 2005:84). Thus, if the President’s focus in relation to foreign policy lies within the area of international trade rather than other fields such as defense, we would expect a higher amount of executive orders to be issued in that policy field over others. Consequently, since Clinton’s own policy positions were focused on advancing trade liberalization it may explain why more

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28 executive orders were passed in the issue area of international trade during his Presidency while other Presidents may issue more executive orders in areas of defense or foreign aid. Thus, it may be the nature of the way in which executive power operates in the United States which allows Presidents to pursue action unilaterally with less regard for public issue saliency indicative of a lower level of executive responsiveness. This however is an explanation which perhaps focuses too much on the individualistic explanations of the numbers of executive orders passed and we will thus attempt to supplement it with analysis of our following hypotheses.

(b) Testing H2: Issue Entrepreneurs

(i)

Analysis of Congressional bills introduced

The study now turns to the analysis of our second hypothesis, where:

H2: Trade is politicized by political parties who find themselves outside of office and thus work as issue entrepreneurs.

To test our second hypothesis, whereby trade is politicized by political parties who find themselves outside of office and thus work as issue entrepreneurs, the study measures the amount of

Congressional bills brought forth by members of the opposition party relative to those brought forth by the party in office. This will allow us to examine whether political actors who find themselves outside of office at the time examined are more likely to politicize international trade as measured by the initiation of Congressional action. In relation to the executive branch, the variable is operationalized as whether the party which the President is affiliated with held a Congressional majority at the time when the specific executive order was issued. The bivariate relationships between our two variables are examined using a chi-squared goodness of fit test followed by a measure of Cramer’s V to test the strength of the relationship. By testing the expected distribution and the observed value we can determine whether our dataset reflects a distribution which differs from the expected value and whether this difference is statistically significant, thus suggesting a relationship between our two variables.

As outlined in the literature review, we expect that international trade during the period analyzed would be politicized by members of parties outside of office. This is because we expect members of those parties to have more reason to act as issue entrepreneurs with relation to new issues in order to upset the current status quo and gain electoral leverage at the next opportunity. In our study, this is determined by which party holds the majority of seats in the US Congress, starting with the 104th Congress (1995-1997) and ending with the 114th Congress (2015-2017). This information is then coded into our dataset of bills introduced related to the policy topic of international trade in order to analyze further trends.

Why does international trade become politicized? : the role of political parties in the politicization of international trade in the United States