Exploring National Trade Administrations

Abstract

How do countries formulate a position in international trade negotiations? Existing state-centric approaches have focused extensively on variation within the legislative power. A contemporary, comparative study of the administration itself is still missing. Using a most-diverse-case selection, this chapter explores the organisation and functioning of national trade administrations in Spain, Belgium, Estonia, and Poland. Through extensive interviews, a mapping was made along four dimensions: the number of public actors involved in the policy process, the coordination methods applied, the available human capital within the administration, and the relationship between state and society. The resulting findings raise new questions regarding the constitutive role of mobilised interests in trade policy while identifying several avenues for further research.