‘Protectionism, obviously, is not dead’: A case study on New Zealand's biosecurity policy and the causes-of-effects of economic interests

Abstract

New Zealand is valuable as an extreme case in agricultural trade liberalisation and in market-oriented national biosecurity policy, for exploring the causes-of-effects of economic interests on national biosecurity policy. The article argues that the state is the best advocate of agro-economic interests and that international negotiations on trade liberalisation played a decisive role in the protectionist and economic orientation of New Zealand's biosecurity policies. The study contributes to improving theoretical work on the relationship between international cooperation and domestic reform politics. It suggests a historical-institutionalist and dynamic perspective which incorporates the role of institutionalised vested interests and effect of timing and sequencing. This perspective helps to explain why states' policy preferences originate from economic interests and why patterns of interaction between international and national processes have such a strong effect.

新西兰作为农业贸易自由化以及市场导向的 生物安全政策的一个极端案例，对探讨经济利益与国家生物安全政策的因果联系，是非常有价值的。作者认为，政府是农业经济利益的最佳辩护师，贸易自由化的国际协商对于新西兰生物安全政策的保护主义及经济的取向起了决定性作用。本研究致力于完善有关国际合作及国内改革政策之间关系的理论探讨。本文建议采用一种历史—制度主义以及动态的视角，将制度化的既得利益以及时间、时序的作用纳入视野。这样一种视角有助于解释为什么政府的政策倾向源自经济利益，为什么国际过程与国家过程的互动模式会有如此强烈的效果。

Keywords:

• biosecurity
• case study
• political economy

Notes

¹John Falloon, New Zealand Minister of Agriculture (Hansard 1994).

²New Zealand was not only represented and engaged in the SPS negotiations but also in the Codex Alimentarius Commission (Demortain 2012: 210; Hathaway 1993).

³For my search in Hansard, I used the online database knowledge-basket (http://www.knowledge-basket.co.nz), which is the only database containing all Hansard issues since 1987. The disadvantage of this database is that it does not indicate the Hansard page numbers of the respective speeches. However, as I indicate the name of the speaker and the exact Hansard date, my quotations are accessible.

⁴The Primary Production Committee received 82 submissions on the Biosecurity Bill 1993. Thanks to John Thomson, Clerk of the Committee, the author of this study obtained all submissions.

⁵I thank one of the reviewers for making me clear on these two strands of literature.

⁶Bell (2012) and Bell and Hindmoor (2013) follow more the constructivist line of reasoning and show how ideas affect power. For example, in their analysis of the Australian mining tax dispute, Bell and Hindmoor (2013: 7) argued that the power of business was dependent on what the government believed ‘about the credibility of business threats to disinvest’ (2013: 9).

⁷Farrell and Newman (2010) highlight the role of feedback effects and sequencing.

⁸Using Factiva, a search in the main New Zealand newspaper, the New Zealand Herald, for the period between 1 January 1986 and 31 December 1993 brought in a total of 175 hits; among them there were eight hits for ‘agricultural security’, one hit for ‘biosecurity’, no hits for ‘sanitary and phyto(-)sanitary measures’, 142 hits for ‘quarantine’, 17 hits for ‘animal welfare’, 15 hits for ‘plant protection’ and one hit for ‘food security’. Factiva indicates that the New Zealand Herald is only available from 28 April 1994, but in its database there are plenty of Herald articles before this date.

⁹The author scrutinised all submissions given by agricultural groups. Organisations like the Federated Farmers of New Zealand, New Zealand Pork Industry Board, NZ Vegetable and Potato Growers' Federation, Federation of Young Farmers' Clubs, New Zealand Meat Industry Association Inc. as well as Westland Co-operative Dairy Company Limited approved the bill and made only some friendly amendments.