The Public Diplomacy of Trade
University of Southern California
PUBD 524
Spring 2010
Dr. Pamela K. Starr
Office: STO 99
Office Hours: W 2-4; Th 12-2
Phone: 213-740-4122
Email: pkstarr@usc.edu
Course Description and Content
The global debate on trade has shifted significantly during the past 25 years ago. For
most of the post-World War II decades, developing countries hesitated to embrace the idea of
open trading relations, favoring instead a strategy of protecting their domestic economies from
foreign competition. This changed markedly during the 1990s when Eastern Europe and Latin
America led the move among less-developed countries to embrace freer trade. Even as voices
decrying the shortcomings of free trade grew stronger at the end of the century, agreements
establishing more open trade ties among countries continued to be signed. This dynamic was
particularly pronounced in Latin America where the 1990s and early 21st century have been
marked by an explosion of regional free trade agreements and the creation of an alternative, nonmarket trading regime, the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas.
This course looks at these developments from the perspective of Public Diplomacy. It
looks at trade agreements as a tool of public diplomacy and considers the use of public
diplomacy and soft power in the formulation and maintenance of trade agreements since the
early 1990s. It is obvious that Latin America’s embrace of freer trade -- with the United States
and Canada, with extra-hemispheric actors, and among themselves – and the recent growth of the
Bolivarian alternative to market-based free trade cannot be understood independent of hard
power drivers. What is less obvious is the central role of the public diplomacy strategies
employed by a wide variety of actors in the regional trade debate. This is the piece of the story
we will emphasize.
This class unfolds in three phases. The first three class sessions introduce briefly 1) the
foundations of the historic debate about free trade, especially as it relates to developing
economies; 2) the origins and character of the post-World War II international economic order
which has framed this debate for a half century; and 3) the “victory” of free trade over
protectionism as the dominant global trade strategy in the early 1990s. The second section of the
course looks at three regional free trade agreements in the Americas – the North American Free
Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Mercosur, and the Free Trade Area of the Americas – to illuminate
the role of Public Diplomacy in the negotiations that defined their structure and in their ultimate
approval or rejection and the role of the negotiations and the treaties themselves as public
diplomacy in each participants broader foreign policy agenda. The final section considers the
regional backlash to free trade during the last decade. It looks at how opponents of free trade
have used public diplomacy to strengthen their position, the growing role of China in this trade
debate, the emergence and content of the Bolivarian Alternative, and what all this means for free
trade in the Americas and beyond.
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Course Requirements
Attendance and Class Participation:
All students are required to have completed the assigned readings before class each week
and to participate in the class discussion. Students writing a review paper for that week will
begin the discussion and the rest of the class must be prepared to join in the discussion. Since
participation in these discussions is an integral portion of the course, attendance is key to
students successfully completing the class.
Short review papers/presentations:
During weeks 4-12 of the course (the sections on “Hemispheric Free Trade” through
“The NAFTA Backlash in the US”), each student will write two short papers (1500 words) on
the assigned readings. Each paper should summarize the main arguments presented in this body
of work, highlighting the role of soft power and public diplomacy in the free trade debate, and
draw conclusions about the relative effectiveness of these policy tools. Topics for the review
papers will be assigned during the first week of class.
Student presentations:
During weeks 5 and 12 of the course (the sections on “Selling NAFTA” and “The
Backlash Debate”), students will analyze the use of the media in the free trade debate in the
Americas. The conclusions of their research will be presented to the class and should be based in
a clear argument about the use of public diplomacy in the debate and supported by video and
print sources.
Research paper:
Students will write a short, original research paper (2500-3000 words) on the role of
public diplomacy in the current trade debate in the Americas. Each paper will analyze the role of
in the trade policy of at least two actors (state or non-state, hemispheric or extra-hemispheric)
attempting to shape the regional debate and holding different policy positions. The object of this
exercise is to draw conclusions about the relative effectiveness of the policy tactics employed by
the actors analyzed. Why was a particular tactic or set of tactics either effective or ineffective
and how might they be improved?
Grading
Participation:
10%
Short Papers:
30% (15% each)
Presentations:
30% (15% each)
Research Paper:
30%
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Topics and Readings
January 12: Introduction
William Kamman, “US-Latin American Relations”, OAH Magazine of History (Fall
1992). http://www.oah.org/pubs/magazine/foreignpolicy/kamman.html
Recommended for students with limited knowledge of Latin America:
Alan McPherson, Intemate Ties, Bitter Struggles: The United States and Latin America
since 1945, Potomac Books, 2006.
Introducing Topics
January 19: The Market Debate
Robert Heilbroner and Lester Thurow, Economics Explained (1998), section 3:
“Microeconomics: The Anatomy of the Market System”.
Thomas Lairson and David Skidmore, International Political Economy: The Struggle for
Power and Wealth, chapter 2: “The Economics of the International Political Economy”.
Pamela Starr. “Perfecting Reform in Latin America: What Role for the State?” Latin
American Research Review, 37:2 (2002): 183-199.
Recommended:
John Carles Pool and Ross M. La Roe, The Instant Economist, Addison-Wesley, 1985.
January 26: The Diffusion of Ideas
Jeffry Frieden. "Method of Analysis: Modern Political Economy” in Jeffry Frieden, Manuel
Pastor Jr., and Michael Tomz, eds. Modern Political Economy and Latin America: Theory and
Policy, Westview Press, 2000: 35-43.
G. John Ikenberry and Charles Kupchan, “Socialization and Hegemonic Power”.
International Organization 44:3 (Summer 1990): 283-315.
Kurt Weyland, Bounded Rationality and Policy Diffusion: Social Sector Reform in Latin
America, Princeton University Press 2006, chapters 1-2.
Sarah Babb. Managing Mexico: Economists from Nationalism to Neoliberalism.
Princeton University Press, 2001, chapters 1, 5, & 7.
Glen Biglasier, “The Internationalization of Chicago’s Economics in Latin America”,
Economic Development and Cultural Change 50 (2001): 269-286.
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February 2: Globalization trumps Protectionism
Navan Chanda, “What is Globalization?”, YaleOnline, November 2002 and Globalization
101, “What is Globalization”, Levin Institute.
Thomas Lairson and David Skidmore, International Political Economy, chapters 4-5.
“The Political Economy of American Hegemony” and “Globalization and the World Economy”.
Jeffry Frieden, “Globalizers Victorious”, chapter 17 in Global Capitalism: Its Fall and
Rise in the Twentieth Century, W.W.Norton, 2006: 392-412.
Enrique V. Iglesias, Reflections on Economic Development: Toward a New Latin American
Consensus. Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank, 1992: chapter 1 (pp.1-80).
Negotiating Free Trade Agreements
February 9: Hemispheric Free Trade and NAFTA – The Idea
Pamela K. Starr, “Pax Americana in Latin America: The Hegemony behind Free Trade”,
in Jorge I. Dominguez and Kim Byung-Kook, eds., Between Compliance and Conflict: East
Asia, Latin America, and the “New” Pax Americana, Routledge, 2005: 77-109.
Richard Feinberg and Javier Corrales, “Why did it take 200 years? The Intellectual
Journey to the Summit of the Americas”, in Richard Feinberg, Summitry in the Americas,
Institute for International Economics, 1997: 7-38.
Joseph Grunwald. “The Rocky Road Toward Hemispheric Economic Integration”. In
Roy Green, ed., The Enterprise for the Americans Initiative: Issues and Prospects, Westport, CT
1993: 123-141.
M. Delal Baer, “North American Free Trade” Foreign Affairs (Fall 1991): 130-149.
Golob, Stephanie R. “Beyond the Policy Frontier: Canada, Mexico, and the Ideological
Origins of NAFTA”, World Politics, 55:3 (April 2003), 361-398.
President George H.W. Bush, “Remarks Announcing the Enterprise for the Americas
Initiative,” 27 June 1990. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=18644
Carlos Salinas, Remarks made during visit to the United States, October 1989.
Brian Mulroney, Remarks at NAFTA signing ceremony, San Antonio, Texas, 7 October
1992. http://northernblue.ca/canchan/cantext/speech3/1992muna.html
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February 16: Selling NAFTA – The Tactics
Howard Wiarda. “U.S. Domestic Politics”. In M. Delal Baer and Sidney Weintraub eds.
The NAFTA Debate, Lynne Rienner, 1994: 117-143.
Barbara Franklin, “The NAFTA: Challenging Its Critics”, Speech given at the heritage
Foundation, May 6, 1993. http://www.heritage.org/Research/TradeandForeignAid/HL448.cfm
Ralph Nader, et al. The Case Against Free Trade: GATT, NAFTA, and the Globalization
of Corporate Power, North Atlantic Books, 1993: chapters 4, 6, & appendix 2.
Richard Rothstein, “Exporting Jobs and Pollution to Mexico”, in New Perspectives
Quarterly 8:1 (Winter 1991).
Byron Dorgan. “The NAFTA Debate that Never Was”, Columbia Journalism Review,
January 1994.
Toss Eisenstadt. “The Rise of the Mexico Lobby in Washington: Even Further from
God, and Even Closer to the United States”. In Rodolfo de la Garza and Jesus Velasco, eds.
Bridging the Border: Transforming Mexico-US Relations, Rowman & Littlefield, 1997: 89-124.
Jesus Velasco. “Selling Ideas, Buying Influence: Mexico and American Think Tanks in
the Promotion of NAFTA”. In Rodolfo de la Garza and Jesus Velasco, eds. Bridging the
Border: Transforming Mexico-US Relations, Rowman & Littlefield, 1997: 125-147.
Roberto Salinas-León, “A Mexican View of North American Free Trade” Cato Institute,
Foreign Policy Briefing no. 9, May 1991. http://www.cato.org/pubs/fpbriefs/fpb-009es.html
Jorge Castaneda. “Can NAFTA Change Mexico?” Foreign Affairs (September-October
1993).
In Class:
Gore-Perot Debate over NAFTA, 10 November 1993.
February 23: From NAFTA to FTAA?
Recall Harrison from January 27 and Feinberg and Corrales from February 3.
Gordon Mace, “The Origins, Nature, and Scope of the Hemispheric Project”, in Gordon
Mace, Louis Bélanger, and contributors, The Americas in Transition: The Contours of
Regionalism, Lynne Rienner, 1999: 19-36.
Lawrence E. Harrison, “Trade and Investment: From “Imperialism” to Integration?” in
The Pan-American Dream, chapter 9.
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Richard E. Feinberg. “Regionalism and domestic politics: U.S.-Latin American trade
policy in the Bush era”. Latin American Politics and Society 44:4 (Winter 2002): 127-151.
Text of Press Briefing by Vice-President Al Gore on the Summit of the Americas, 8
December 1994.
Remarks by President Clinton in Final Plenary Session of the Summit of the Americas,
11 December 1994.
Summit in the media.
Robert B. Zoellick “Free Trade and the Hemispheric Hope”, Prepared Remarks, Council
of the Americas, Washington, DC (May 7, 2001).
Ken Shadlen. “Globalization, Power, and Integration: The Political Economy of
Regional and Bilateral Trade Agreements in the Americas,” Journal of Development Studies 44,
No. 1 (January 2008), pp. 1-20.
Rubens Antonio Barbosa, “A View from Brazil”, The Washington Quarterly 24:2 (Spring
2001): 149-157.
Additional readings to be assigned.
March 2: Selling NAFTA and the FTAA – Student Presentations
The Free Trade Backlash
March 9: Mexico’s Complicated Backlash
Recall January 26 readings on the diffusion or “socialization” of ideas (Ikenberry &
Kupchan, Weyland, and especially Babb).
Soledad Loeza. “The Changing Face of Mexican Nationalism”. In M. Delal Baer and
Sidney Weintraub eds. The NAFTA Debate: Grappling with Unconventional Issues, Lynne
Rienner, 1994: 145-157.
Starr, Pamela K. “Monetary Mismanagement and Inadvertent Democratization in
Technocratic Mexico” Studies in Comparative International Development 33:4 (Winter, 1999): 3565.
Paul Rich, “NAFTA and Chiapas”, Annals of the American Academy of Political and
Social Science, Vol. 550, NAFTA Revisited: Expectations and Realities (Mar., 1997), pp. 72-84.
Additional readings to be assigned.
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March 16: Spring Break
March 23: The NAFTA Backlash in the US
Immediate Aftermath
Howard Wiarda, “After Miami: The Summit, the Peso Crisis and the Future of US-Latin
American Relations”, Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 37:1 (Spring 1995):
43-68 (skim the “road to miami” and “at the summit” sections).
Paul Blustein, “NAFTA: Free Trade Bought and Oversold”, Washington Post,
September 30, 1996 http://wpni.com/wp-srv/politics/special/trade/stories/tr093096.htm
Patrick J. Buchanan, “Mexico: Who Was Right”? New York Times (25Aug 1995): A27.
Robert Blecker, NAFTA and the Peso Collapse: Not a Coincidence, Economic Policy
Institute, briefing paper, May 1997. http://www.epinet.org/briefingpapers/1997_bp_nafta.pdf
Lasting Implications
Jeffrey J. Schott, Gary C. Hufbauer, “Whither the Free Trade Area of the Americas?”
World Economy, 22 (6), 1999: 765–782.
Geri Smith, “Was NAFTA Worth It?”, Business Week, 23 December 2003.
www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_51/b3863008.htm
Peter Andreas, “U.S.-Mexico: Open Markets, Closed Border”, Foreign Policy 103
(Summer 1996).
Sherrod Brown, Myths of Free Trade: Why American Trade Policy has Failed, The
New Press, 2006. Chapter 1.
Colombia FTA in the media.
March 30: Global Backlash to Free Trade
Jeffry Sachs, “Unlocking the Mysteries of Globalization”, Foreign Policy, Spring 1998.
“The New Trade War”, Economist (4 December 1999) and Pauline Hwang, “A View
from Ground Zero”, The Globe and Mail (3 December 1999).
William K. Tabb, “After Seattle: Understanding the Politics of Globalization”, Monthly
Review 51:10 (March 2000). http://www.monthlyreview.org/300tabb.htm
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Chakravarthi Raghavan, “After Seattle, world trade system faces uncertain future”,
Review of International Political Economy 7:3 Autumn 2000: 495–504.
John Lloyd, “Attack on Planet Davos” Financial Times (24 February 2001).
Walden Bello, “Battling Barbarism”, Foreign Policy, 132 (Sep.-Oct. 2002): pp. 41-42.
April 6: Regional Backlash to Free Trade
Pamela Starr, "Argentina: Anatomy of a Crisis Foretold", Current History 102 (February
2003): 65-71.
Anthony Faiola, “Argentina Doubts Market Wisdom: Crisis Weakens Region's Embrace
of Capitalism, Many Say”, Washington Post, August 6, 2001; Page A01
Larry Rohter, “A Fiscal Crisis Paid in Credibility”, New York Times, 25 December 2001.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A01E6DD1531F936A15751C1A9679C8B63
Paul Krugman, “Argentina’s Crisis is a US Policy Failure”, New York Times, 2 January
2002. http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/bwi-wto/imf/2002/0102us.htm
James E Mahon Jr., “Good-bye to the Washington Consensus?” Current History, 102
(February 2003): 58-64.
Additional readings to be assigned.
The Future of Trade in the Americas
April 13: The Bolivarian Alternative, Neostructuralism, and the Bejing Consensus
Teresa Arreaza. “ALBA: Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America and the Caribbean”
(2004). http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/doc/339
Michael J. Bustamante and Julia E. Sweig, “Buena Vista Solidarity and the Axis of Aid:
Cuban and Venezuelan Public Diplomacy”, The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political
and Social Science 616 (March 2008): 223-256 (focus on Venezuela).
Sean Burges. “Building a Global Southern Coalition: The Competing Approaches of
Brazil’s Lula and Venezuela’s Chavez”, Third World Quarterly 28:7 (2007): 1343-1358.
Hurrell, Andew “Lula’s Brazil: A Rising Power, but Going Where?,” Current History
vol.108, no.706 February 2008
Xin Li, Kjeld Erik Brødsgaard, and Michael Jacobsen, “Redefining Beijing Consensus:
Ten general principles”, Asia Research Centre, CBS, Copenhagen Discussion Papers 29, 2009.
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Antonio Castillo, “China in Latin America”, The Diplomat (n.d.)
http://www.the-diplomat.com/001f1281_r.aspx?artid=131
Excerpts from Latin Barometer Surveys.
April 20: The Current Free Trade Debate
Student presentations on the PD of trade in the Americas (countries or issues)
Video selections including Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales (on Jon Stewart), and Vicente Fox
(on Larry King)
April 26: The Future of Free Trade in the Americas
Sherrod Brown, Myths of Free Trade: Why American Trade Policy has Failed, The
New Press, 2006. Chapters 7-9. (skim chapter 7, focus particularly on chapter 9)
Louis Uchitelle “NAFTA should have stopped Illegal Immigration, Right?”New York
Times, 18 February 2007.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/18/weekinreview/18uchitelle.html?pagewanted=print
“Support for Free Trade Recovers Despite Recession”, Pew Research Center for the
People and the Press, (December 2006).
http://people-press.org/report/511/free-trade-support-recovers
Colombia FTA debate in the media; Heritage Foundation editorial on Colombia FTA;
Colombian PD (melanie’s paper)
Barack Obama, “Remarks by President Barack Obama for the opening of the Summit of
the Americas”, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, 17 April 2009.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/04/17/obamas-opening-remarks-summitamericans/
Alexei Barrionuevo and Sheryl Gay Stolberg, “Hemisphere’s Leaders Signal Fresh Start
With U.S.”, New York Times, 20 April 2009.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/20/world/americas/20prexy.html?_r=2&sq=Hemisphere%C3
%A2%E2%82%AC%E2%84%A2s%20Leaders%20Signal%20Fresh%20Start%20With%20U.S.
&st=cse&scp=1&pagewanted=print
In Class:
Video selections.
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