Why is the WTO protest-free?
Gideon Rachman notes that the WTO has been denuded of controversy, and wonders why: It’s strange to recall that – just a decade ago – the World Trade Organisation was a deeply controversial organisation. It was the WTO that was fingered by the anti-globalisation movement as the handmaiden of ruthless western capitalism and oppressor-in-chief of ...
Gideon Rachman notes that the WTO has been denuded of controversy, and wonders why:
Gideon Rachman notes that the WTO has been denuded of controversy, and wonders why:
It’s strange to recall that – just a decade ago – the World Trade Organisation was a deeply controversial organisation. It was the WTO that was fingered by the anti-globalisation movement as the handmaiden of ruthless western capitalism and oppressor-in-chief of the poor. The WTO summit in Seattle in 1999 degenerated into a street riot.
On Wednesday morning, however, the WTO staged a public forum in Geneva, without the need for riot police – and indeed without much public fuss at all. I chaired the opening session at the organisation’s modest headquarters on the banks of Lac Leman.
I think that one of the main reasons why the WTO is no longer in the line of fire is that the change in the pattern of world trade over the last decade – combined with a slump in the West and a boom in China and India – makes the idea that global free trade is a tool of western domination look increasingly absurd. The world has got a lot more complicated than that; and even the anti-globalisation movement has had to acknowledge that complexity, if only tacitly. These days, it is the developing nations that are pressing for completion of the Doha Round and the rich countries that are dragging their feet.
Hmmmm….. well, let’s call Rachman’s explanation the optimistic interpretation for why the WTO doesn’t attract demonstrators anymore. Let me offer a more pessimistic explanation, which consists of two parts:
1) Finance is the new bogeyman. The 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent Great Recession were caused by bubbles in financial markets — trade, at best, played a marginal role. Perhaps it’s not that trade has become less controversial so much as finance and capital flows have become way more controversial.
2) The WTO is no longer liberalizing. The WTO does an impressive job of ensuring that the status quo of a (largely) open trading system keeps functioning. What has exercised protestors in the past however, was the notion that further liberalization was going to take place. Since the Doha round is deader than a doornail. why bother with protesting?
Now imagine a world where there was forward progress on the Doha round — do you seriously think there would be no protests associated with the WTO? Oddly enough, in this case, a lack of protest is a bad sign for trade.
I would much prefer Gideon to be right — but I’m pretty sure he’s wrong.
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner
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