If ‘All Politics is Global’, how should you argue for a Transatlantic Marketplace?
GMF’s Economic Policy Program recently hosted Professor Dan Drezner of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, for a presentation of his new book, ‘All Politics is Global’ (Princeton University Press). You can read more about Drezner’s arguments here, and listen to a podcast interview here. I highly recommend the book for anyone who is interested in understanding why countries choose (or not) to coordinate on regulatory issues.
If Drezner’s analysis is right, it raises a question that may have significant implications for anyone who advocates efforts to deepen the transatlantic marketplace: are they making their arguments to the right people?
Briefly: Drezner’s argument posits that states remain the primary actors in the global economy, and that their power matters in determining the outcome of efforts to coordinate regulation: it will be effective if the interests of the ‘great powers’ (in today’s world, the EU and U.S.) are sufficiently closely-aligned. There is no role for companies, NGOs or other trans-national networks (’non-state actors’) to affect the outcome of discussions that take place between states – but they can play a domestic role in determining the interests/preferences that each state takes to the negotiating table.
Think of this in the context of this year’s renewed efforts to deepen the transatlantic marketplace. Over the last few months, many organizations (particularly business groups, such as the Transatlantic Business Dialogue) have worked to influence the outcome of the recent EU/U.S. Summit, calling for an agreement to further regulatory cooperation across the Atlantic (i.e. influencing discussions between the EU and U.S.). Some of them have also been working to influence that discussion from the bottom up, through domestic political channels, attempting to build a broader domestic coalition that believes it is strongly in the interests of their own national economy to cooperate (i.e. influencing each state’s preferences).
If Drezner’s model is right, wouldn’t the latter channel be clearly more effective than the former?
In other words, would we see greater progress if interested groups focused their efforts on building a stronger and more cohesive domestic coalition (in each of the EU and U.S.) in favor of transatlantic regulatory cooperation – challenging the interests of domestic voices with incentives to maintain the status quo – instead of trying to build support at the trans-national Summit?