A fluid divide: Domestic and international factors in US trade policy formation

The history of US trade policy from the 1930s to the present shows that an adequate analysis of policy outcomes necessitates the inclusion of both domestic and international factors. The analysis also requires an exploration of the conditions shaping the relative explanatory significance of domestic and international factors, and of how this relative significance changes over time. Drawing on historical institutionalist analysis, and applying it to a field of action that encompasses both political levels, I argue that institutions account for the historically specific balance between domestic and international factors. By altering the political influence of actors in and across the two dimensions, institutional arrangements determine whether domestic or international factors are prioritized. The image of a Great Divide between two distinct fields is hence replaced with an image of a fluid divide between different levels of a unified field of action.