Political Regimes and International Trade: The Democratic Difference Revisited

How do domestic political institutions affect the outcomes of international trade negotiations? Specifically, are the aggregate trade barriers agreed upon by a democratic pair lower than those by a pair composed of a democracy and an autocracy? I revisit these important questions by highlighting some problematic aspect of the analysis by Mansfield, Milner, and Rosendorff (2000). Contrary to their central conclusion, I find that whether the aggregate trade barriers are lower for a democratic pair than those for a mixed pair depends on the preferences of the decision makers involved. Thus, although domestic political institutions are important, they alone are insufficient to predict a higher level of cooperation among democracies.