Farmers versus ideas: explaining the continuity in French agricultural trade policy during the GATT Uruguay Round

Abstract

France's protectionist position regarding agricultural trade is often claimed to result from French farm lobby influence. This article challenges such established claims, based on an analysis of French decision-making on the agricultural chapter of the GATT Uruguay Round. Farm lobby pressure cannot fully explain French policies, as governments often went against farmers' preferences and the level of pressure varied substantially, while there was continuity in French protectionist governmental preferences on agricultural trade. Instead, this article will show that ideational variables played a major role in explaining the continuity in French protectionist positions. While farm lobby pressure and economic payoffs varied over the course of the GATT negotiations, French ideas concerning its identity as la Grande Nation with a presence in world agricultural markets, leading a strong Europe as a counterweight to the United States, were a stable factor that guided French position-taking against the liberalization of agricultural markets.

La Grande Nationand Agriculture: The Power of French Farmers Demystified

“…10 Laurent Fabius even went so far as to frame the entire GATT issue as a question of American dominance versus French and EC independence: 'In essence the question is whether it is the United States that dictates the rules for the French and European economy or whether it is up to Europe to throw its weight in.' 11 This rejection and the line of argument applied by the government resonated well with the farm lobby discourse (Alons 2010). Considering the weak position of the government and the upcoming parliamentary elections, farm pressure simply could not be ignored.…”

“…The new deal included a smaller reduction in subsidised exports and placed direct income payments, which the EC had introduced with the 1992 CAP reform, in the 'green box' of support that was not subject to reduction. Since the majority of the reductions would already be covered by the CAP reform that EC member states had agreed in May 1992, the Blair House Accord was unlikely to involve additional economic costs and could even be considered advantageous in that it enabled conclusion of the Uruguay Round (Alons 2010). Despite the improvements in the Blair House agreement compared to the Dunkel Draft, France again rejected it as being incompatible with its vocation exportatrice.…”

Responding to Non‐Linear Internationalisation of Public Policy: The World Trade Organization and Reform of the CAP 1992–2013

“…48–49). In contrast, many political scientists have incorporated this impact in their analyses which have been guided by various theoretical and analytical frameworks such as ideational and paradigm perspectives (Alons, ; Daugbjerg and Swinbank, ; Garzon, ; Skogstad, ), two‐level games (Coleman and Tangermann, ; Meunier, ; Patterson, ), the punctuated equilibrium model (Sheingate, ), rational choice theory (Nedergaard, ) and institutional analysis (Daugbjerg, ; Moyer and Josling, ).…”

“…Most CAP analysts agree that the inclusion of agricultural trade in the Uruguay (1986–94) and Doha (2001–) trade rounds in the GATT/WTO was an important driving force behind the CAP reforms from 1992 to 2008 (Alons, ; Coleman and Tangermann, ; Cunha and Swinbank ; Daugbjerg and Swinbank, ; Garzon, ; Grant, ; Hendriks, ; Josling, ; Meunier, ; Moyer and Josling, ; Nedergaard, ; Patterson, ; Sheingate, ; Skogstad, ; Swinbank, ; Swinbank and Tanner, ; Swinnen, ). The CAP reforms from 1992 to 2008 made the CAP more WTO compatible through a gradual, albeit incomplete, phase‐out of the highly trade distorting price support that had resulted in substantial surplus production.…”