The Emergence of the GATT - What do realists and neoliberal institutionalists say? (PDF)

Master's Thesis from the year 2004 in the subject Politics - International Politics - General and Theories, grade: 2,0 (B), University of Heidelberg (Institute for Politcal Science), course: International Cooperation and Organisations, language: English, abstract: Introduction

The emergence of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1947 marked a substantial turning point in the American trade policy from protectionism to free trade. High tariff barriers and the absence of free trade were seen as one of the main reasons for the Great Depression in the 1920s. To prevent such international economic crisis in the future the United States of America pushed forward negotiations about international economic cooperation that led to the GATT. Until today the imitation of the GATT, the WTO, is - together with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank - the most important international economic cooperation.

Cooperation between states only comes into being if certain requirements are fulfilled. The different theories of international relations aim to explain under which circumstances such international cooperation emerges. Thereby each of these theories is based on different assumptions, i.e. about state behavior or the shape of the international system. The central research question of this paper is how good these assumptions of different theories fit the reality.

The objective is therefore to test if and how theories of international relations can explain the emergence of the GATT as an successful case of international cooperation. This will be done by concentrating on two different theories of international relations. The first one will be Neorealism and the second one Neoliberal Institutionalism.

In the first part the circumstances under which the GATT was created are briefly described. According to Neoliberal Institutionalists one of the main problems of inte rnational cooperation, cheating or free-riding, can be solved by international regimes. To understand if the GATT fits the requirements of an effective regime a definition of regime is given before the core assumptions of the two chosen theories are outlin ed. In the following second part the explanatory power of the two theories is tested by examining if the creation of the GATT fulfilled certain requirements of each theory. This will lead to the confrontation of the strength and weaknesses of each applied theory. It will be shown that the emergence of the GATT can be best explained by the Neorealistic Theory of Hegemonic Stability. The Neoliberal Institutionalism can explain why it was rational for several states to join the GATT but the theory fails in ex plaining who bears the costs of setting up the regime. [...]