The reduction of agricultural trade barriers accomplished at the close of the Uruguay Round (UR) of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade is a puzzle because previous research has suggested that producer groups would always succeed in blocking liberalization efforts. The author explains this apparent puzzle through the use of a comparative historical method developed by Collier and Collier for analyzing the UR as a critical juncture. The analysis suggests that transformations in productive technology enabled producer groups to reap extraordinary economic and political rents during most of the post-World War II era. However, the fiscal crises of the 1980s provided governments an incentive to exert relative autonomy from producer groups and initiate bargaining over trade barriers. As trade barriers and the political influence of producer groups were reduced, the UR emerged as the product of a critical juncture in the transition from the Fordist to the post-Fordist mode of agricultural accumulation.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
After Seattle, trade group scales back its agenda. (2000, February 8). The New York Times, p. C4.
2.
Anderson, Kym . (1983). Growth of agricultural protection in East Asia. Food Policy, 8, 327-336.
3.
Anderson, Kym , & Tyers, Rod. (1989). Agricultural protection growth in advanced and newly industrialized countries. In Allen Maunder & Alberto Valdes (Eds.), Agriculture and governments in an interdependent world (pp. 175-188). Brookfield, VT: Dartmouth Publishing.
4.
Avery, William P. (Ed.). (1993). World agriculture and the GATT. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
5.
Busch, Lawrence , Bonanno, Alessandro, & Lacy, William B. (1989). Science, technology, and the restructuring of agriculture. Sociologia Ruralis, 29, 118-130.
6.
Caporaso, James A. (1997). Across the great divide: Integrating comparative and international politics. International Studies Quarterly, 41, 563-592.
7.
Collier, Ruth B. , & Collier, David. (1991). Shaping the political arena: Critical junctures, the labor movement, and regime dynamics in Latin America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
8.
Curry, Dean . (1990). Global transformation and foreign economic policy. New York and London: Garland.
9.
Curzon, Gerard . (1965). Multilateral commercial diplomacy: The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and its impact on national commercial policies and techniques. London: Joseph.
10.
Economic indicators: Food spending 1993. (1994, April 2). The Economist, 100.
11.
Fertility rights. (1999, October 9). The Economist, 104.
12.
Food for thought. (1999, June 19). The Economist, 19-21.
13.
Friedland, William H. (1991). Shaping the new political economy of advanced capitalist agriculture. In William H. Friedland, Lawrence Busch, Frederick H. Buttel, & Alan P. Rudy (Eds.), Toward a new political economy of agriculture (pp. 1-34). Boulder, CO: Westview.
14.
Friedmann, Harriet . (1991). Changes in the international division of labor: Agri-food complexes and export agriculture. In William H. Friedland, Lawrence Busch, Frederick H. Buttel, & Alan P. Rudy (Eds.), Toward a new political economy of agriculture (pp. 65-93). Boulder, CO: Westview.
15.
Friedmann, Harriet , & McMichael, Philip. (1989). Agriculture and the state system. Sociologia Ruralis, 29, 93-117.
16.
Fulton, Murray , & Storey, Gary. (1990). A new world agricultural order? In Hans J. Michelmann, Jack C. Stabler, & Gary G. Story (Eds.), The political economy of agricultural trade and policy: Toward a new order for Europe and North America (pp. 195-229). Boulder, CO: Westview.
17.
George, Alexander L. , & McKeown, Timothy J. (1985). Case studies and theories of organizational decision making. Advances in Information Processing in Organizations, 2, 21-58.
18.
George, Susan . (1977). How the other half dies. Montclair, NJ: Allanheld, Osmun.
19.
Goodman, David . (1997). World-scale processes and agro-food systems: Critique and research needs. Review of International Political Economy, 4, 663-687.
20.
Goodman, David E. , & Redclift, Michael R. (1988). Problems in analyzing the agrarian transition in Europe. Comparative Study of Society and History, 29, 784-791.
21.
Gould, Stephen J. , & Eldredge, Niles. (1977). Punctuated equilibria: The tempo and mode of evolution reconsidered. Paleobiology, 3, 115-151.
22.
Gourevitch, Peter . (1977). International trade, domestic coalitions, and liberty: Comparative responses to the crisis of 1873-1896. Journal of Inderdisciplinary History, 8, 281-313.
23.
Gourevitch, Peter . (1978). The second image reversed. International Organization, 32, 881-912.
24.
Gourevitch, Peter . (1986). Politics in hard times: Comparative responses to international economic crises. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
25.
Grigg, David . (1992). The transformation of agriculture in the west. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell.
26.
Guyomard, Herve , Mahe, Louis P., Munk, Knud J., & Roe, Terry L. (1993). Agriculture in the Uruguay Round: Ambitions and realities. Journal of Agricultural Economics, 44, 245-263.
27.
Hall, Peter A. , & Taylor, Rosemary C. R. (1996). Political science and the three new institutionalisms. Political Studies, 44, 936-957.
28.
Hallberg, Milton C. (1992). Policy for American agriculture. Ames: Iowa State University Press.
29.
Hathaway, Dale E. (1987). Agriculture and the GATT: Rewriting the rules. Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics.
30.
Hill, Brian E. (1989). The common agricultural policy: Past, present and future. Aldershot, UK: Avebury.
31.
Hillman, Arye L. (1989). The political economy of protection. New York: Harwood.
32.
Ikenberry, G. John . (1988). Conclusion: An institutional approach to American foreign economic policy. International Organization, 42, 219-243.
33.
Imamura, Naraomi , Tsuboi, Nobuhiro, & Odagiri, Tokumi. (1993). Japanese farm structure: Trends and projections. In Luther Tweeten, Cynthia L. Dishon, Wen S. Chern, Naraomi Imamura, & Masaru Morishima (Eds.), Japanese and American agriculture (pp. 51-69). Boulder, CO: Westview.
34.
Keeler, John T. S. (1996). Agricultural power in the European Community: Explaining the fate of CAP and GATT negotiations. Comparative Politics, 28, 127-149.
35.
Keohane, Robert O. (1984). After hegemony. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
36.
Kiser, Edgar . (1996). The revival of narrative in historical sociology: What rational choice theory can contribute. Politics & Society, 24, 249-271.
37.
Krasner, Stephen D. (Ed.). (1983). International regimes. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
38.
Krasner, Stephen D. (1988). Sovereignty: An institutional perspective. Comparative Political Studies, 21, 66-94.
39.
Lindblom, Charles . (1977). Politics and markets: The world's political economic systems. New York: Basic Books.
40.
McDonald, Brian . (1998). The world trading system: The Uruguay Round and beyond. New York: St. Martin's.
41.
Meunier, Sophie . (1998). Divided but united: European trade policy integration and E.U.-U.S. agricultural negotiations in the Uruguay Round. In Carolyn Rhodes (Ed.), The European Union in the world community (pp. 193-211). Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
42.
Milner, Helen V. (1988). Resisting protectionism: Global industry and the politics of international trade. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
43.
Moravcsik, Andrew . (1992). Preferences and power in the European Community: A liberal intergovernmentalist approach. Journal of Common Market Studies, 31, 473-524.
44.
Moyer, H. Wayne . (1993). The European Community in the GATT Uruguay Round: Preserving the common agricultural policy at all costs. In William P. Avery (Ed.), World agriculture and the GATT (pp. 95-119). Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
45.
Moyer, H. Wayne , & Josling, Timothy E. (1990). Agricultural policy reform: Politics and process in the EC and USA. New York and London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
46.
North, Douglass R. (1990). Institutions, institutional change, and economic performance.Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
47.
Olson, Mancur . (1965). The logic of collective action: Public goods and the theory of groups. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
48.
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development . (1994). Agricultural policies, markets and trade: Monitoring and outlook 1994. Paris: OECD Publications.
49.
Paarlberg, Robert L. (1993). Why agriculture blocked the Uruguay Round. In William P. Avery (Ed.), World agriculture and the GATT (pp. 39-54). Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
50.
Paarlberg, Robert L. (1997). Agricultural policy reform and the Uruguay Round: Synergistic linkage in a two-level game?International Organization, 51, 413-444.
51.
Patterson, Lee Ann . (1997). Agricultural policy reform in the European Community: A three-level game analysis. International Organization, 51, 135-165.
52.
Pierson, Paul . (1996). The path to European integration: A historical institutionalist analysis. Comparative Political Studies, 29, 123-163.
53.
Piore, Michael , & Sabel, Charles. (1984). The second industrial divide. New York: Basic Books.
54.
Pollack, Mark . (1998). The engines of integration? Supranational autonomy and influence in the European Union. In Wayne Sandholtz & Alec Stone Sweet (Eds.), European integration and supranational governance (pp. 217-249). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
55.
Preeg, Ernest H. (1995). Traders in a brave new world: The Uruguay Round and the future of the international trading system. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
56.
Putnam, Robert D. (1988). Diplomacy and domestic politics: The logic of two-level games. International Organization, 42, 427-460.
57.
Rieger, E. (1996). The common agriculture policy. In Helen Wallace & William Wallace (Eds.), Policy-making in the European Union (pp. 97-124). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
58.
Rogoff, M. , & Rawlins, S. L. (1987). Food security: A technological alternative. BioScience, 37, 800-807.
59.
Sabel, Charles , & Zeitlin, Jonathan. (1985). Historical alternatives to mass production: politics, markets and technology in nineteenth-century industrialization. Past and Present, 108, 133-174.
60.
Sanderson, Steven E. (1986). The emergence of the “world steer”: Internationalization and foreign domination in Latin American cattle production. In F. LaMond Tullis & W. Ladd Hollist (Eds.), Food, the state, and international political economy (pp. 123-148). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
61.
Schott, Jeffrey J. (1994). The Uruguay Round: An assessment. Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics.
62.
Siebeck, Wolfgang E. (1988). Agriculture in the Uruguay Round. In Colleen Roberts (Ed.), Trade, aid, and policy reform: Proceedings of the eighth agriculture sector symposium (pp. 25-30). Washington, DC: World Bank.
63.
Skogstad, Grace . (1998). Ideas, paradigms and institutions: agricultural exceptionalism in the European Union and the United States. Governance, 11, 463-490.
64.
Stanton, Bernard F. (1993). Structural change in American agriculture into the next century. In Luther Tweeten, Cynthia L. Dishon, Wen S. Chern, Naraomi Imamura, & Masaru Morishima (Eds.), Japanese and American agriculture (pp. 117-140). Boulder, CO: Westview.
65.
Steinmo, Sven , Thelen, Kathleen, & Longstreth, Frank. (Eds.). (1992). Structuring politics: Historical institutionalism in comparative analysis. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
66.
A survey of agriculture: Grotesque. (1992, December 12). The Economist, 1-18.
67.
Survey of multinationals: Everybody's favorite monsters. (1993, March 27). The Economist, 1-20.
68.
Swinbank, Alan , & Tanner, Carolyn. (1996). Farm policy and trade conflict: The Uruguay Round and CAP reform. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
69.
Tracy, Michael . (1989). Government and agriculture in Western Europe, 1880-1988. New York and London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
70.
Tweeten, Luther . (1993). American agriculture: Organization, structure, institutions, and policy. In Luther Tweeten, Cynthia L. Dishon, Wen S. Chern, Naraomi Imamura, & Masaru Morishima (Eds.), Japanese and American agriculture (pp. 71-96). Boulder, CO: Westview.
71.
Tyers, Rod , & Anderson, Kym. (1992). Disarray in world food markets. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Wallerstein, Immanuel . (1974). The modern world-system I: Capitalist agriculture and the origins of the European world-economy in the sixteenth century. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
74.
Ward, Neil , & Almas, Reidar. (1997). Explaining change in the international agro-food system. Review of International Political Economy, 4, 611-629.
75.
Warley, T. K. (1989). Agriculture in the GATT: Past and future. In Allen Maunder & Alberto Valdes (Eds.), Agriculture and governments in an interdependent world (pp. 304-319). Brookfield, VT: Dartmouth Publishing.
76.
Winters, L. A. (1988). The so-called “non-economic” objectives of agricultural policy (Department of Economics and Statistics Working Paper). Brussels, Belgium: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
77.
Wolfe, Robert . (1998). Farm wars: The political economy of agriculture and the international trade regime. New York: St. Martin's.
