Overview

In Power and the Governance of Global Trade, Soo Yeon Kim analyzes the design, evolution, and economic impact of the global trade regime, focusing on the power politics that prevailed in the regime and shaped its distributive impact on global trade. Using documents now available from the archives of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), Kim examines the institutional origins and critical turning points in the evolution of the GATT, as well as preferences of the lesser powers of the developing world that were the subject of heated debate over the International Trade Organization (ITO), which failed to materialize. Using quantitative analysis, Kim assesses the impact of the global trade regime on international trade and finds that the rules of trade forged by the great powers resulted in a developmental divide, in which industrialized countries benefited from trade expansion but developing countries reaped far fewer gains. The findings indicate that a successful conclusion to the Doha Round of the World Trade Organization (WTO) is urgently needed to mitigate the developmental divide by increasing trade between the industrialized and developing worlds. Kim offers a timely reading of the GATT/WTO system as a way to think about how trade and globalization more broadly may be governed in this post-Cold War century, as the global economy contends with a new geopolitical configuration featuring rising powers from the developing world. Important trading nations such as China, India, and other emergent actors in the G-20 countries, Kim argues, reflect the new power politics that will shape the course of global trade governance in the years to come.

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9780801448867

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Reviews

""Soo Yeon Kim has made a real contribution to the study of international institutions and their centrality in determining global economic outcomes. Power and the Governance of Global Trade is particularly insightful in mapping how power has shaped the rules governing global trade and showing that those rules created uneven distributional effects that persist to this day.""-Brian Pollins, The Ohio State University ""Soo Yeon Kim's book provides a refreshingly new look at the most important multilateral organization in the international economy, the World Trade Organization. Her research focuses on the distributional outcomes of the GATT/WTO and the role of power in shaping the rules of the institution. In it she addresses many of the criticisms raised by the anti-globalization movement in a systematic and rigorous fashion. She shows that the developing countries never received the same benefits from the GATT/WTO that the developed ones did largely because of the design of the GATT/WTO. Power relations shaped that design and changing power relations today may portend new challenges to the institution. This book raises critically important issues for the world political economy and the future of the WTO.""-Helen V. Milner, Director, Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance, and B. C. Forbes Professor of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University ""In Power and the Governance of Global Trade, Soo Yeon Kim provides a thoughtful and extremely interesting account of the origins, evolution, and distributive consequences of the multilateral trade regime. Kim convincingly argues that power politics has played a key role in shaping the GATT/WTO system and her careful and sophisticated empirical analysis sheds new light on the linkages between power relations and the governance of global trade.""-Edward D. Mansfield, Hum Rosen Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania

In Power and the Governance of Global Trade, Soo Yeon Kim provides a thoughtful and extremely interesting account of the origins, evolution, and distributive consequences of the multilateral trade regime. Kim convincingly argues that power politics has played a key role in shaping the GATT/WTO system and her careful and sophisticated empirical analysis sheds new light on the linkages between power relations and the governance of global trade. Edward D. Mansfield, Hum Rosen Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania

Soo Yeon Kim's book provides a refreshingly new look at the most important multilateral organization in the international economy, the World Trade Organization. Her research focuses on the distributional outcomes of the GATT/WTO and the role of power in shaping the rules of the institution. In it she addresses many of the criticisms raised by the anti-globalization movement in a systematic and rigorous fashion. She shows that the developing countries never received the same benefits from the GATT/WTO that the developed ones did largely because of the design of the GATT/WTO. Power relations shaped that design and changing power relations today may portend new challenges to the institution. This book raises critically important issues for the world political economy and the future of the WTO. -Helen V. Milner, Director, Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance, and B. C. Forbes Professor of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University

Author Information

Soo Yeon Kim is Assistant Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland.

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