Standing Up to Protect Workers?Policy Networks and the Politics of Labour Clauses in United States’ and European Union’s Preferential Trade Agreements

By casting the access and influence of labour issues in thetrade policy-making process of the United States and the European Union as dependent variable, this research will trace and compare the trade policy-making process of United States and European Union for the period between 2002 (EU-Chile agreement and Trade Promotion Authority - TPA) and 2016. The objective is to investigate the differences and similarities in the trade prolicymaking process of United States and European Union so to understand why labour issues seems to find more access and influence in the United States trade policy-making process than in the European Union’s. In order to reach the objective of this research, this work will develop a policy network framework in which institutions take part as intervening variables and in which there is the possibility of learning by the policy actors. The main hypothesis is that in the US, labour-trade policy networks have more bargaining power in the decision-making process. In the EU, in turn, policy networks favourable of the trade-labour linkage have a more indirect influence. These differences account for the distinct influence of labour issues in the decision-making process. In terms of expected results, this research may offer new explanations and empirical data concerning the drivers of trade policy in the EU and the US and shed light on new and integrative ways to analyse trade policy.