Tracing the repeated failure of doha development trade round from a neo- gramscian perspective

Abstract

This paper analyzes the repeated failure of the Doha Round talks in world trade since 2001 from a neo-Gramscian perspective. The lack of progress and breakdown of multilateral trade negotiations reflect an emerging new architecture of power politics in the international economy. Four major players in world trade, the US, the EU, Japan and Canada, used to have a significant impact in terms of shaping the agenda of the multilateral trade negotiations as well as defining the outcomes. However, in the context of the WTO, emerging powers such as India, Brazil, and China began to confront the dominance of these countries. Developing and developed countries have contending views on the agenda issues, marked by confrontation on the former’s refusal to open non-agricultural markets and industrialized states’ refusal to open their agricultural markets. By undertaking a discourse analysis of statements of major social forces such as market-oriented capital groups, bureaucrats, and political leaders, the paper argues that both sides employ certain strategies and discourses to coerce or to persuade the opposing parties. Hence, the multilateral trade negotiations emerge as zones of exercising hegemony through discursive and strategic measures rather than being an area to produce common norms, values and policies for the well being of all members in the world trade regime.