Rethinking the Dynamics of Inclusion and Exclusion in Trade Politics

Abstract

The economic populism said to be represented by the votes for Brexit and Donald Trump and the breakdown in trade and investment following the COVID-19 outbreak have rekindled interest in the redistributive consequences of trade liberalisation. Against this backdrop, the authors in this Special Section consider the broader drivers of inclusion and exclusion in trade governance, focusing on the trade politics of Canada, the European Union and the United States. This short introduction spells out the importance of considering the interplay between redistributive and deliberative drivers of inclusion and exclusion in producing trade policy contestation. It focuses on the three key drivers of inclusion and exclusion that the authors subsequently draw on in their contributions: discursive factors; institutional mechanisms and inter-scalar and multi-level dynamics.