The declining exceptionalism of agriculture: identifying the domestic politics and foreign policy of agricultural trade protectionism

Abstract

This paper explores the similarity of agricultural and industrial protectionist foreign policies through an analysis of the political determinants of agricultural producer support in OECD countries. While most qualitative studies of agricultural protectionism assume that it is exceptional or at least in some ways still different, this paper builds on an emerging quantitative literature that finds evidence of similarity with industrial protectionism. The paper enhances first-generation general statistical models of agricultural protectionism in the political science literature by considering political-institutional variables central to the industrial protectionism literature. The results of several cross-sectional time-series analyses suggest that the politics of agricultural producer support conform to general patterns of protectionism in other areas of industry.

KEYWORDS:

• agriculture
• trade protectionism
• district magnitude
• presidentialism
• majoritarianism
• party fragmentation
• OECD

Notes

1 The lack of comparable, comprehensive data on agriculture producer groups makes it difficult to quantitatively test Olson's propositions (cf. Gawande and Hoekman, 2006). Thies and Porche (2007) test this approach using surrogate measures, including agricultural employment as a share of the total labor force and agriculture as a share of gross domestic product, as in previous econometric analyses (e.g., Beghin and Kherallah 1994; Honma and Hayami 1986a, 1986b; Sarker et al. 1993).

2 Thies and Porche (2007) test these two propositions through the use of indirect indicators, such as agricultural employment as a share of the total labor force, agriculture as a share of the GDP, agricultural labor productivity, and the factor endowment ratio.

3 The authors include a measure of GDP per capita to capture the level of industrial development with no explicit expectation for its impact on agricultural protectionism. They create a measure of land per labor in the attempt to capture Heckscher–Olin's notion that countries with an abundance of land compared with labor will have greater advantages in agricultural production. This proposition would probably have benefited from being placed in Rogowski's (1989) framework, which would suggest that the higher the land per labor ratio, the less likely agricultural protectionism. A measure of agriculture as a percentage of GDP is used ‘as a measure of comparative advantage in agriculture,’ which is somewhat odd given the land per labor measure could also serve as this type of indicator. They also expect that countries with a higher proportion of rural population would be more likely to provide higher levels of agricultural protection. This also appears to be an odd choice, since it is logically related to the GDP per capita measure in OECD countries and statistically highly correlated (see their summary statistics on p. 327). Of these control variables, only the agriculture as a share of GDP has been routinely used in previous econometric studies.

4 Persson and Tabellini (2003) suggest that winning coalitions are larger in PR systems, so this assertion is debatable.

5 Future work might consider splitting the PSE into the MPS and direct payments, or even using the TSE, which includes other transfers to agriculture. I thank a reviewer for noting these possibilities.

6 While the dummy variable reflects the adoption of the Agreement on Agriculture in 1995, it is obvious that the implementation of this agreement was not instantaneous. The effects on protectionism likely occurred later, such as after the EU CAP reforms in 2000 and 2003. We retain the dummy variable for comparison's sake to Thies and Porche (2007), although we recognize it is rather blunt in capturing the effects of the Agreement. I thank a reviewer for pointing out the problems with this variable.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Cameron G. Thies

Cameron G. Thies is Professor of Political Science and Director of the School of Politics and Global Studies at Arizona State University. He has published on trade with a specific focus on agricultural trade and the relationship between trade and interstate conflict. His work has appeared in journals such as the British Journal of Political Science, World Politics, European Journal of International Relations, and International Studies Quarterly.