Sunday, January 27, 2013

New Study on Domestic Trade Politics Studies Domestic Trade Politics

. Sunday, January 27, 2013

I like to complain a lot. A recent example was this little tirade about how IR/IPE academics don't do domestic politics very well, partially because we tend not to read much work done by other academics who specialize in domestic politics.

Well, this study (in the new International Organization) looks like an improvement over the norm:

A Referendum on Trade Theory: Voting on Free Trade in Costa Rica 
Robert Urbatsch 
Iowa State University, Ames. E-mail: rurbat@iastate.edu 
Abstract 
Research on mass opinion in international political economy overwhelmingly relies on survey data. This poses problems of external validity, especially for a frequently low-salience issue such as trade policy. To examine whether survey findings about attitudes toward economic openness apply outside of surveys, this note considers patterns of voting in the 2007 Costa Rican plebiscite about joining the Central American Free Trade Area. Several extant theories appear to explain voting patterns, but the results are less in line with traditional economic models based on locally important economic sectors.
I haven't read it yet, and my brain is so riddled with some nasty virus that comprehending anything denser than genre fiction is impossible so it'll have to wait. It looks interesting. The external validity problem doesn't go away... Costa Rica in 2007 isn't exactly representative. But still.

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New Study on Domestic Trade Politics Studies Domestic Trade Politics
 

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