Trust and Support for Comprehensive Trade Agreements in the European Parliament

Abstract

Comprehensive Trade Agreements (CTAs) constitute a new generation of free trade agreements, which challenge traditional models of trade preferences. To understand preferences toward CTAs I present a new predictor, trust in government, that explains support for CTAs in the European Parliament. I develop a unified framework that includes economic and noneconomic factors to explain trade preferences, and analyze support for three recent CTAs: the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement with Canada (CETA), and the EU-Korea Free Trade Agreement. Using an original dataset on trade voting and a multilevel model, I show that higher levels of citizens’ trust in government make Members of the European Parliament more likely to vote in favor of CTAs. My research offers a novel theoretical argument and insights on the connection between public trust and elite position-taking.

When politicization meets ideology: the European Parliament and free trade agreements

“…Relating to the determinants of more general support on trade agreements, evidence not yet corroborated by systematic large- n data collection acknowledges the importance of left-right dimensions, as well as of line of conflict over non-commercial issues (Shaohua, 2015; Van den Putte et al ., 2015). In contrast, Norrevik (2020) accounts for MEPs backing of the TTIP, CETA, and Korea Free Trade Agreement on the basis of government support and a number of political-economic variables. Finally, within the above-mentioned ‘politicization’ of EU trade policy (Laursen and Roederer-Rynning, 2017; Meunier and Czesana, 2019; Bianculli, 2020; De Bièvre et al ., 2020) – materialized in much higher public salience and contestation of trade agreements – recent contributions connect the EP to this subject suggesting that under high political salience MEPs seems to be more responsive to citizens (Rosén, 2019), and keener to use the contestation instruments at their disposal (Meissner and McKenzie, 2019).…”

Exploring New Sources of Economic Growth Amid The Covid-19 Pandemic

“…The direction of the relationship between the trade sector and economic growth is unidirectional, where an increase in the contribution of the trade sector will result in an increase in economic growth in Makassar City. Norrevik (2020) argues that the emergence of international trade or free trade requires intense production factors and the availability of abundant products. Making a product by determining how to combine different production factors so that it can increase economic growth in an area.…”

Foreign economic policy in the European Parliament and economic interdependence with foreign powers

“…After the Eurozone crisis and Brexit, EP scholarship has put more emphasis on the pro-EU/Eurosceptic dimension when explaining MEPs’ policy positions (Otjes and Van der Veer, 2016). A small but growing number of EP studies challenge the dominant narrative by emphasising variance across issue areas and finding issue-specific predictors of voting (Cencig and Sabani, 2017; Chiru and Stoian, 2019; Kang, 2019; Norrevik, 2020). Inspired by these findings on the dynamics of issue-specific voting (see also Hix and Høyland, 2013: 179), I investigate the sub-field of foreign economic policy in the EP.…”

“…Yet, studies that focus specifically on MEPs’ voting behaviour in foreign policy are missing, with a few exceptions: Chiru and Stoian (2019) analyse MEPs voting on directives relating to surveillance and the fight against terrorism; Norrevik (2020) analyses MEPs’ policy positions on comprehensive trade agreements with third countries. Relating specifically to the EU–Russia relationship, Braghiroli (2015) analyses the role of MEPs’ party group affiliation and nationality and their stance towards Russia using EP voting records between 2004 and 2012.…”