The ministerial process and power dynamics in the World Trade Organization: understanding failure from Seattle to Cancún

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes Amrita Narlikar, Department of Politics, Amory Building, Rennes Drive, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4RJ, UK. http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/org1_e.htm#ministerial Bernard Hoekman & Michel M. Kostecki, The Political Economy of the World Trading System: The WTO and Beyond, 2nd edn (Oxford University Press, 2001). In some discussions, however, observers have traced the usage to theatre‐lore, where the Green Room refers to the dressing rooms of the actors where they get ready for the actual performance on stage. Robert Wolfe, ‘The World Trade Organization’, in: Brian Hocking & Steven McGuire (eds), Trade Politics: International, Domestic and Regional Perspectives, 1st edn (Routledge, 1999), p. 216. Ibid., pp. 208–23. Ibid., p. 213. Hoekman & Kostecki, The Political Economy of the World Trading System, p. 50. For an overview, see Joel D. Aberbach, Robert D. Putnam & Bert A. Rockman, Bureaucrats and Politicians in Western Democracies (Harvard University Press, 1981), p. 4. Ibid., p. 19. Ibid., p. 255. Kaare Strøhm, ‘Delegation and Accountability in Parliamentary Democracies’, European Journal of Political Research, Vol. 37, No. 3, (2000), pp. 261–89. Reasons for this include the greater range of rewards and punishments that is available to the Congress, as well as better information availability. See John Ferejohn, ‘Accountability and authority: towards a theory of political accountability’, in: Adam Przeworski, Susan C. Stokes & Bernard Manin (eds), Democracy, Accountability and Representation (Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 131–53. Vertical accountability ‘describes a relationship between unequals: it refers to some powerful “superior” actor holding some less powerful “inferior” actor accountable. Or vice versa! … By contrast, horizontal accountability, taken literally, describes a relationship between equals: it refers to somebody holding someone else of roughly equal power accountable.’ See Andreas Schedler, ‘Conceptualizing accountability’, in: Larry Diamond, Marc F. Plattner & Andreas Schedler (eds), The Self‐Restraining State: Power and Accountability in the New Democracies (Lynne Rienner, 1999), p. 23. Robert Dahl, ‘Can international organizations be democractic? A skeptic's view’, in: Ian Shapiro & Casiano Hacker‐Cordón (eds), Democracy's Edges (Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 32. Guy B. Peters & Vincent Wright, ‘Public policy and administration: old and new’, in: Robert E. Goodin & Hans‐Dieter Klingemann, A New Handbook of Political Science (Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 628–41. See Charles Polidano, ‘The Bureaucrats Who Almost Fell Under a Bus: A Reassertion of Ministerial Responsibility?’, Political Quarterly, Vol. 71, No. 2 (2000), pp. 177–83. Harold Nicolson, The Evolution of Diplomatic Method (Constable, 1954), p. 77. Ibid., p. 89. Ibid., p. 92. Ibid., p. 93. For a historical institutionalist argument along these lines, see Amrita Narlikar & Rorden Wilkinson, ‘Collapse at the WTO: A Cancún Post‐Mortem’, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 3, (2004), pp. 447–60. John Odell, ‘Problems in negotiating consensus in the World Trade Organization’, unpublished paper presented at a conference at Peking University, 10 July 2001, and at the annual convention of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco, 30 August 2001. Transcript, WTO Press Briefing, US Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky (et al.), World Trade Organization Conference, Seattle, Washington, 2 December 1999. Also, see http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/minist_e/min99_e/english/about_e/resume01_e.htm For the reaction that these exclusionary tactics prompted from developing countries, see Odell, ‘Problems in negotiating consensus’. See Narlikar & Wilkinson, ‘Collapse at the WTO’. For a study of the negotiating strategies that were used to reach the elusive consensus at Doha in comparison to Seattle, see John Odell, ‘Making and breaking impasses in international regimes: The WTO, Seattle and Doha’, unpublished paper presented at the Conference on Gaining Leverage in International Negotiations, Yonsei University, Seoul, 14–15 June 2002. Interviews with delegates from developing countries, Geneva, May 2003. Interviews with delegates from developing countries, Geneva, May 2003 and Cancún, September 2003. Interview with an ambassador from a developing country, Geneva, 22 May 2003. Interview with an ambassador from a developing country, Geneva, 21 May 2003. Interviews with delegates from developing countries, Geneva, May 2003. For an account of such pressures, see Aileen Kwa, Power Politics in the WTO, mimeo, Focus on the Global South, Bangkok, 2003. The term ‘Quad’ is used to refer to the group of four, powerful, developed members of the WTO— Canada, the EU, Japan and the USA—which often adopted broadly similar positions since the old GATT days and operated as an informal coalition. Interview, ambassador from a developing country, Geneva, 21 May 2003. Interview, delegate from a developing country, Cancún, 10 September 2003. See Narlikar & Wilkinson, ‘Collapse at the WTO’. Some attention was given to geographical representation in the choice of Facilitators (Singapore on agriculture, Hong Kong on non‐agricultural market access, Kenya on development issues, Canada on the Singapore issues, and Guyana on other issues). But many developing countries complained of the lack of transparency in the selection process, as well as subsequent methods employed by the Facilitators. For some of the controversies, see http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/5409a.htm and http://twnafrica.org/news‐detail.asp?twnID=507 Phone interviews with delegates from developing countries, September–October 2003. Interviews with developing country delegates, Geneva, May 2003, and phone interviews, September–October 2003. Kwa, Power Politics in the WTO; and interview, Geneva, 22 May 2003. Amrita Narlikar, WTO Decision‐Making and Developing Countries, TRADE Working Papers, No. 11, South Centre, Geneva, November 2001. An NGO's recent response to this belief was: ‘To stop a bicycle from falling, you can put your foot down’. See http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/twr123g.htm Additional informationNotes on contributorsAmrita Narlikar Footnote Amrita Narlikar, Department of Politics, Amory Building, Rennes Drive, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4RJ, UK.

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