A TENTATIVE ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK TO ANALYSE THE TRADE-LABOUR LINKAGE IN THE UNITED STATES AND EUROPEAN UNION

Abstract

In the last decade, the promotion of labor standards has emerged as a key negotiation objective in the trade strategies of both the US and EU. These actors, by not being able to bring labor standards to the framework of WTO because of the opposition of the developing countries, engaged on the promotion of labor standards via preferential trade agreements PTAs . When it comes to negotiating these agreements, however, in spite of the similar rhetoric and similar results in the implementation of PTAs’ labor clauses, United States and European Union have different approaches to enforcement – legal-based enforcement in the US, contrasting with a non-vigorous approach focusing on cooperation in the EU. This seems contradictory, given that EU countries’ in average have stronger trade unions and more labor rights protection than in comparison with the US. While some works attribute this to the low politicization of European institutions in relation to US institutions – which supposedly grants more access of labor preferences in the voting stage – it does not solve this puzzle, given that there are works reinforcing that political cleavages may exert substantive influence in the EU policymaking process. Thus, what is the explanation for these different approaches? I assume that an answer can be found in the domestic politics of each actor. The aim of this paper is to provide initial elements to respond to that question by focusing on a theoretical possibility of such an inward looking perspective. Such an endeavor is challenging given the multitude of actors participating in the policy process. Given that, this work will focus on the relationship among distinct policy actors in the form of policy networks. It offers a matrix from which it is possible to extract four hypotheses as to the nature of the policy network and their impact in the policy process, according to the policy influence of the policy network supporting the trade-labor linkage vis-a-vis the influence of adversary coalitions

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