Abstract
World Trade Organization negotiations involve asymmetrical parties. This has led to issues of justice and power being raised at various stages of the negotiations. Yet the voices of the small, developing, less powerful states in this context remain severely understudied. In this chapter, Samuel demonstrates that feminist-informed multi-sited ethnography allows for the uncovering and analysis of the viewpoints of elites from these states responsible for framing trade-negotiating strategy and policy. This methodological approach elucidates the metaphor around which such policies and strategies are formulated: that of “justice” as involving global economic governance processes which allow for the development of state capacities for autonomous decision-making, and which involves inclusive democratic processes that acknowledge differences between states and the significance of such differences in the context of international trade. This reformulation of justice that takes into account such differences between states allows for more adequate policy responses than those offered in the absence of such understandings. The results of this study also yield guidance for policy makers and researchers as to how to reference, and implement, this particular conceptualization of justice to improve the effectiveness of international trade negotiations and their outcomes.
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Notes
- 1.
The Commonwealth Caribbean provides an interesting case study for the positioning of small developing states in the multilateral trade arena. These states exhibit the different characteristics associated with size, location, and governance capacity to which I have referred.
- 2.
On June 24, 2009, Reuters reported that the Brazil’s then Foreign Minister, Ceslo Amorim, noted difficulties faced by all WTO member states in reaching a deal. He condemned a call by then United States Trade Representative, Ron Kirk who stated that large emerging countries should open up their markets more to secure a deal. Amorim’s response was that “…this pre-selection of some countries to make some concessions is totally unfair.”
- 3.
GATT meaning the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which preceded the WTO and which was enfolded into the WTO in 1995.
- 4.
I use the term “neoliberal” to refer to the notion of universalism, which may be associated with the core GATT/WTO principles of non-discrimination and reciprocity. In this neoclassical approach, all economies are seen to obey certain universal laws of economics; policies, which are seen to guarantee economic success, are essentially the same from country to country. That economic processes are embedded in specific and diverse local social contexts is not a factor given sufficient currency in corresponding analysis. See Beneria 2003; Girvan 2000; and Harvey 2009.
- 5.
This study centers on small developing states, in particular those of the Commonwealth Caribbean, and not on the grouping of developing states as a whole or on the least developed countries (LDCs).
- 6.
See Samuel (2015) for a full analysis as to the significance of these characteristics.
- 7.
With the passage of the Legal Profession Act in Jamaica in 1972, the profession was fused and barristers and solicitors became attorneys-at-law, with the same training and rights.
- 8.
Because of my prior contacts with my subject-participants, I rarely faced the methodological issues associated with interviewing elites, such as securing access, building trust, and establishing rapport. For a good overview of the issues typically associated with this, see Mikecz (2012).
- 9.
- 10.
Of interest, this was an accusation thrust at me during the International Studies Association 2014 Annual Convention as I presented a paper on the use of ethnographic methods in IR research. The gentleman began his reproach with the comment that “I’m sure I speak on behalf of all serious international relations researchers…” (emphasis mine).
- 11.
At the same time, however, I note that Perlmutter (2015, B2) embraces the notion of the “lack of replicability inherent in ethnography,” and suggests that this may be a good thing as it contributes to the reliability of the data.
- 12.
From Nagel’s book by the same name (1986), the suggestion is that people cannot view the world in a detached manner, bringing nothing of themselves to the task of research.
- 13.
See for example Chang, Ha-Joon (2002) in which it is argued that developed economies pursued aggressive industrial policy strategies—including infant industry and export subsidy measures—for their own development purposes instead of the free trade ideology they now espouse.
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Samuel, L.M. (2018). Searching for Justice in International Trade Negotiations: A Feminist-Informed Multi-Sited Ethnographic Study of the Commonwealth Caribbean. In: Kachuyevski, A., Samuel, L. (eds) Doing Qualitative Research in Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72230-6_7
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