- ‘Compare and Contrast Mercantilist, Ricardian and Structuralist Arguments on Trade Policy. Which Views Are Most Convincing as a Guide for the Current Trade Policy of Developing Countries?’
Essay Title - ‘Compare and Contrast Mercantilist, Ricardian and Structuralist arguments on trade policy. Which views are most convincing as a guide for the current trade policy of developing countries?’
In November 2001, the member nations of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) sat around the negotiating table in Doha, Qatar, and committed themselves to what was supposed to be their most progressive ‘round’ of international trade negotiations since the organisation’s inception (as GATT – General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade)) in 1947-48. The ‘Doha Development Round/Agenda’, as hinted at in its title, aimed to prioritise making the rules/regulations of the global trading game, so to speak, fairer with respect to the developing, and even more importantly, the least-developed nations of the world.
Within the main text of the Doha round’s ministerial declaration, came a multilateral commitment to - ‘Recognise the particular vulnerability of the least-developed countries and the ‘special structural difficulties’ they face in the global economy’, whilst simultaneously recognising the real need to be ‘determined, particularly in the light of the global economic slowdown, to maintain the process of reform and liberalization of trade policies, ensuring that the system plays its full part in promoting recovery, growth and development, and pledge to reject the use of protectionism’ (WTO, 2001, http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/minist_e/min01_e/mindecl_e.htm).
This declaration, fully in line with the WTO’s neo-liberal economic creed (or ‘Washington Consensus’ approach), sought to promote economic growth/development via ‘free trade’, and the eventual wholesale deregulation of the global marketplace. The advocacy of neo-classical macro-economic policies has, since the ‘debt crises’ of the early 1980s, become the mainstream ideological and strategic approach to economic development promoted by all the major international organisations/bodies (i.e. WTO, IMF,
In November 2001, the member nations of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) sat around the negotiating table in Doha, Qatar, and committed themselves to what was supposed to be their most progressive ‘round’ of international trade negotiations since the organisation’s inception (as GATT – General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade)) in 1947-48. The ‘Doha Development Round/Agenda’, as hinted at in its title, aimed to prioritise making the rules/regulations of the global trading game, so to speak, fairer with respect to the developing, and even more importantly, the least-developed nations of the world.
Within the main text of the Doha round’s ministerial declaration, came a multilateral commitment to - ‘Recognise the particular vulnerability of the least-developed countries and the ‘special structural difficulties’ they face in the global economy’, whilst simultaneously recognising the real need to be ‘determined, particularly in the light of the global economic slowdown, to maintain the process of reform and liberalization of trade policies, ensuring that the system plays its full part in promoting recovery, growth and development, and pledge to reject the use of protectionism’ (WTO, 2001, http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/minist_e/min01_e/mindecl_e.htm).
This declaration, fully in line with the WTO’s neo-liberal economic creed (or ‘Washington Consensus’ approach), sought to promote economic growth/development via ‘free trade’, and the eventual wholesale deregulation of the global marketplace. The advocacy of neo-classical macro-economic policies has, since the ‘debt crises’ of the early 1980s, become the mainstream ideological and strategic approach to economic development promoted by all the major international organisations/bodies (i.e. WTO, IMF,
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