Introduction: trade politics: environments, agendas and processes

Trade, together with war, constitutes one of the oldest modes of international communication and affects the well-being of an ever-larger segment of the world's population. Because of this, it has always been a central issue in national, regional and international politics, reflecting the fact that policy decisions regarding, for example, levels of tariffs at national borders, have differential effects on groups within and outside national communities. Whilst fashioning trade policy has never been easy, it has become immensely more difficult over the last few years. What we have witnessed since the mid-1990s is the interaction of old and new modes of trade politics reflecting an evolving trade agenda and changing configurations of political forces. Indeed, surprising things have happened to the world inhabited by trade diplomats. From operating in a relatively closed arena characterised by the arcane formulae: of tariff negotiations, suddenly, as at the Seattle World Trade Organization ministerial meeting in December 1999, they have been initiated into the world of public protest, tear gas and violence on the street. Underpinning this, of course, lie the tensions crested by globalisation, of which trade constitutes a key component. And here, the: debates over the merits and demerits of this contested concept have been further clouded by the consequences of 11 September 2001. Suddenly, assumptions concerning the inevitability of growing international interdependence have been torn asunder by the impact of the: 'new' security agenda and the fears that terrorism, and the responses to it, might halt what had hitherto appeared to some at least as an irreversible process, with disastrous consequences for world trade. This book seeks to shed light on what are proving to be these increasingly complex and highly significant issues.