Global Governance: From Fordist Trilateralism to Neoliberal Constitutionalism

Abstract

The United States government has been, without doubt, the decisive force in establishing and shaping the main multilateral institutions of the world market since the Second World War. It has consistently pursued the opening of other nations’ markets. This leadership in liberalizing international trade has been mainly achieved by lowering access barriers to the American market. Given the mercantilist history of US foreign economic policy and the injury inflicted on many American industries by lowering tariffs, this leadership is quite an extraordinary achievement. This is all the more true, as trade deficits and, more recently, the end of the Cold War have undermined the original foundations of the American commitment to a liberal world market order: economic superiority and anti-communism.