Path dependency and the politics of liberalisation in the textiles and clothing industry

New Political Economy

Volumn 13, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 1-18

  Heron, Tony ^a   Richardson, Ben ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CLOTHING INDUSTRY; INTERNATIONAL TRADE; LIBERALIZATION; TEXTILE INDUSTRY; TRADE POLICY;

EID: 40449128039     PISSN: 13563467     EISSN: 14699923     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13563460701859645     Document Type: Article

References (68)

1. See, interalia
2. Neil McCullock, Alan Winters & Xavier Cirera, Trade Liberalization and Poverty: A Handbook (Centre for Economic Policy Research, 2001)
3. Martin Wolf, Why Globalisation Works (Yale University Press, 2004)
4. Joseph Stiglitz & Andrew Charlton, Fair Trade for All: How Trade Can Promote Development (Oxford University Press, 2005)
5. Department for International Development, Eliminating World Poverty: Making Globalisation Work for the Poor (DfID, 2000)
6. Oxfam International, Rigged Rules and Double Standards: Trade, Globalisation and the Fight Against Poverty (Oxfam, 2002)
7. Commission for Africa, Our Common Interest: The Argument (Penguin, 2005).
8. Rorden Wilkinson, The WTO: Crisis and the Governance of Global Trade (Routledge, 2006)
9. Amrita Narlikar, The World Trade Organization: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2005)
10. James Smith, 'Inequality in International Trade? Developing Countries and Institutional Change in WTO Dispute Settlement', Review of International Political Economy, Vol. 11, No. 3 (2004), pp. 542-73
11. Richard H. Steinberg, 'In the Shadow of Law or Power? Consensus Based Bargaining and Outcomes in the GATT/WTO', International Organization Vol. 56, No. 2 (2002), pp. 339-74.
12. Adrian Kay, 'A Critique of the Use of Path Dependency in Policy Studies', Public Administration, Vol. 83, No. 3 (2005), p. 554.
13. Douglass North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance (Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 98-9.
14. Vivian Schmidt, 'Institutionalism', in Colin Hay, David Marsh & Michael Lister (eds), The State: Theories and Issues (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), p. 98.
15. For reviews of the different varieties of institutionalism, see Peter H. Hall & Rosemary C. R. Taylor, 'Political Science and the Three New Institutionalisms', Political Studies, Vol. 44, No. 4 (1996), pp. 936-57
16. Kathleen Thelen, 'Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics', Annual Review of Political Science, Vol. 2, (1999), pp. 369-404
17. Schmidt, 'Institutionalism', pp. 98-117.
18. Colin Hay & Daniel Wincott, 'Structure, Agency and Historical Institutionalism', Political Studies, Vol. 46, No. 5 (1998), pp. 951-7.
19. John Ikenberry, 'History's Heavy Hand: Institutions and the Politics of the State', paper presented at conference on the New Institutionalism, University of Maryland, USA, 14-15 October 1994, as cited in Thelen, 'Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics', p. 15.
20. Paul Pierson, 'When Effect Becomes Cause: Policy Feedback and Political Change', World Politics, Vol. 45, No. 4 (1993), p. 596.
21. Theda Skocpol, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States (Belknap Press, 1992), p. 58.
22. Kay, 'A Critique of the Use of Path Dependency', pp. 556-63.
23. Hall & Taylor, 'Political Science and the Three New Institutionalisms', p. 942
24. Schmidt, 'Institutionalism', p. 106.
25. Thelen, 'Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics', p. 397.
26. Karen Orren & Stephen Skowronek, 'Beyond the Iconography of Order: Notes for a "New" Institutionalism', in Lawrence Dodd & Calvin Jillson (eds), Dynamics of American Politics (Westview Press, 1994), pp. 311-32.
27. Ian Greener, 'The Potential of Path Dependence in Political Studies', Politics, Vol. 25, No. 1 (2005), p. 67.
28. James Mahoney, 'Path Dependence in Historical Sociology', Theory and Society, Vol. 29, No. 4 (2000), pp. 526-7.
29. See Wilkinson, The WTO.
30. Vinod K. Aggarwal, Liberal Protectionism: The International Politics of Organised Textile Trade (University of California Press, 1985), pp. 9-10
31. Ha-Joon Chang, Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective (Anthem, 2002), p. 19.
32. Vinod K. Aggarwal, Robert O. Keohane & David B. Yoffie, 'The Dynamics of Negotiated Protectionism', American Political Science Review, Vol. 81, No. 2 (1987), pp. 345-66.
33. Gardener Patterson, Discrimination in International Trade: The Policy Issues 1945-1965 (Princeton University Press, 1966), pp. 285-6.
34. Aggarwal, Liberal Protectionism, p. 73.
35. William R. Cline, The Future of World Trade in Textiles and Apparel rev. edn (Institute for International Economics, 1990), p. 147.
36. Kenneth W. Dam, The GATT: Law and International Economic Organization (University of Chicago Press, 1970), p. 229.
37. Ibid., p. 155.
38. GATT Secretariat, Textiles and Clothing in the World Economy (GATT, 1984), pp. 95-6.
39. See Gary Gereffi, 'International Trade and Industrial Upgrading in the Apparel Commodity Chain', Journal of International Economics, Vol. 48, No. 1 (1999), pp. 37-70.
40. Bruce Cumings, 'The Origins and Development of the Northeast Asian Political Economy: Industrial Sector, Product Cycles and Political Consequences', International Organization, Vol. 38, No. 1 (1984), pp. 1-40.
41. Tony Heron, The New Political Economy of United States-Caribbean Relations: The Apparel Industry and the Politics of NAFTA Parity (Ashgate, 2004), esp. ch. 4.
42. Bernard M. Hoekman & Michel M. Kostecki, The Political Economy of the World Trading System: The WTO and Beyond, 2nd edn (Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 229.
43. Cline, The Future of World Trade in Textiles and Apparel, pp. 173-8.
44. Geoffrey R. D. Underhill, Industrial Crisis and the Open Economy: Politics, Global Trade and the Textiles Industry in the Advanced Economies (Macmillan, 1998), ch. 5
45. Heron, The New Political Economy of United States - Caribbean Relations, ch. 6.
46. See Amrita Narlikar, International Trade and the Developing Countries: Bargaining Coalitions in the GATT and WTO (Routledge, 2003).
47. This theme is the subject of a now burgeoning literature. See, inter alia, Peter Gibbon, 'The African Growth and Opportunity Act and the Global Commodity Chain for Clothing', World Development, Vol. 31, No. 11 (2003), pp. 1809-27
48. Jennifer Bair & Enrique D. Peters, 'Global Commodity Chains and Endogenous Growth: Export Dynamism and Development in Mexico and Honduras', World Development, Vol. 34, No. 2 (2006) pp. 203-21
49. Kahlid Nadvi & John Thoburn,'Vietnam in the Global Garment and Textile Value Chain: Impacts on Firms and Workers, Journal of International Development, Vol. 16, No. 1 (2004), pp. 111-23.
50. In many cases the developed countries cynically exploited the ATC agreement by including products within the 10-year phase-out that had not actually been subject to any bilateral (that is, MFA) restraints in the first place. As a consequence, the 10-year liberalisation strategy effectively left the elimination of most quotas to the very end of the transition period: The proportion of quotas that were retained by the EU and the USA until 2005 was 73.3 and 86.5 per cent respectively.
51. The point to emphasise here is that, in respect of dynamic exporters like India and China, the backloading of the ATC has delayed but not denied the benefits of liberalisation. In the case of China, despite the backloading of quota removal and the introduction of textile safeguards in 2005, its post-ATC export performance has been quite remarkable. In the US market, T&C imports from China increased from US$14.5 billion in 2004 to US$22.4 billion in 2005 and US$27.1 billion in 2006; in the EU, the figures stood at US$14.9 billion, US$20.8 billion and US$22 billion respectively. Finally, it is worth noting that because of the pricedepressing effects of liberalisation (meaning that larger volumes of goods are shipped for lower prices) these figures probably greatly understate the overall significance of China's post-ATC export growth.
52. See Richard P. Appelbaum, 'Assessing the Impact of the Phasing-out of the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing on Apparel Exports on the Least Developed and Developing Countries' CGS papers, No. 5 (Center for Global Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2004); Oxfam International, Stitched Up: How Rich-Country Protectionism in Textiles and Clothing Trade Prevents Poverty Alleviation (Oxfam, 2004)
53. International Labour Organisation, Promoting Fair Globalisation in Textiles and Clothing in a Post-MFA Environment (ILO, 2005)
54. Tony Heron, 'The Ending of the Multifibre Arrangement: A Development Boon for the South?', European Journal of Development Research, Vol. 18, No. 1 (2006), pp. 1-21.
55. Raphael Kaplinsky, 'Export Processing Zones in the Dominican Republic: Transforming Manufactures into Commodities', World Development, Vol. 21, No. 11 (1993), pp. 1851-65.
56. Oxfam International, Stitched Up, p. 7
57. see also Appelbaum, 'Assessing the Impact', p. 20.
58. See Hildegunn K. Nordås 'The Global Textile and Clothing Industry post the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing', WTO Discussion Papers No. 5 (WTO, 2004).
59. Paul Brenton & Miriam Manchin, 'Making EU Trade Agreements Work: The Role of Rules of Origin', The World Economy, Vol. 26, No. 5 (2003), p. 757.
60. Under the GSP, eligible developing countries are permitted to source from other eligible developing countries on a regional basis under so-called diagonal accumulation. This allows members of four regional groupings that qualify for GSP entitlements - ASEAN, the Central American Common Market (CACM), the Andean Community and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) - to source regionally provided that EU rules of origin are still met. However, this provision is invariably complicated by a separate 'value-added' requirement which stipulates that the final stage of production must exceed the highest customs value of any of the inputs used from within the regional grouping. For example, garments assembled in Bangladesh but using Indian fabrics would not qualify for duty-free treatment because the latter typically represents a higher proportion of the value of the final export (roughly 65-75 per cent) than the former (roughly 25-35 per cent). See Paul Brenton, 'Integrating the Least Developed Countries into the World Trading System: The Current Impact of EU Preferences under Everything But Arms', World Bank Policy Research Paper, No. 3018 (2003), esp. pp. 13-14.
61. See Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, A New World Map in Textiles and Clothing: Adjusting to Change (OECD, 2003), ch. 1.
62. Heron, 'The Ending of the Multifibre Arrangement', p. 7.
63. Supachai Panitchpakdi, 'Director-General's remarks on the occasion of the 117th and Final Meeting of the Textiles Monitoring Body', speech at WTO, Geneva, 9 December 2004. http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/spsp_e/ spsp33_e.htm (accessed 10 May 2007).
64. See Tony Heron, 'European Trade Diplomacy and the Politics of Global Development: Reflections on the EU-China "Bra War" Dispute', Government and Opposition, Vol. 42, No. 2 (2007), pp. 190-214.
65. World Trade Organization (WTO), Doha Ministerial Declaration, WT/ MIN (01)/DEC/1 (2001), pp. 3-4.
66. Jörg Mayer, 'Not Totally Naked: Textiles and Clothing Trade in a Quota-free Environment', Journal of World Trade, Vol. 39, No. 3 (2005), pp. 399-404.
67. Panitchpakdi, 'Director-General's remarks'.
68. Carl P. Morgens, 'Director General of DG Trade speaks on Market Access Negotiations on Non-Agriculutral Products', available at http://trade-info.cec.eu.int/doclib/docs/2005/may/tradoc123173.doc (accessed 10 May 2007).