Who votes for free trade and when? Geopolitics as the source of legislative preferences on free trade agreements

Why do legislators support some free trade agreements but oppose others? Despite a wide variation in legislative support for free trade agreements, the heterogeneous preferences of legislators have received little attention in the literature, which largely focuses on general trade policy preferences...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Review of international political economy : RIPE 2023-11, Vol.30 (6), p.2257-2284
Main Authors: Kim, Sung Eun, Yang, Joonseok
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agreements
congress
Constituents
Cooperation
Free trade
free trade agreement
Geopolitics
International cooperation
international political economy
legislative voting
Legislators
security externality
Trade
Trade agreements
Trade policy
Voting
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Summary:Why do legislators support some free trade agreements but oppose others? Despite a wide variation in legislative support for free trade agreements, the heterogeneous preferences of legislators have received little attention in the literature, which largely focuses on general trade policy preferences of legislators and individual voters. We bring in geopolitical factors as a key source of legislative preferences on specific free trade agreements. Using voting records of the U.S. House representatives on all major bills related to free trade agreements, we find that the geostrategic importance of potential trading partner has a substantial effect on voting for trade agreements. We find that legislators become less sensitive to their constituents' economic interests when considering trade agreements with allies or countries with closely aligned interests. This highlights the importance of examining security externalities of trade cooperation.
ISSN:0969-2290
1466-4526
DOI:10.1080/09692290.2022.2144927