Research Design and Analysis

development, income distribution, social, environmental and public health policies.

This crisis of legitimacy turned civil society to a realm of vocal protests, which leads Gill (2000b: 135) to suggest that neoliberal hegemony entered the phase of “authority crisis.” This contested nature of neoliberal order was a significant factor in the failure of the investment case as argued in Chapter 7.

To be sure, this dissertation adopts a historicist epistemological approach and qualitative methodologies, and aims to understand the transformation of the trade regime within the context of the world order. The neo-Gramscian conceptual framework as outlined above intends to serve this purpose. The ideological framework of the U.S. and neoliberal hegemonic orders constitute the analytical background for an analysis of the trade regime’s transformation as conducted in the next Chapter. Although international regimes include both regulative and constitutive rules, Chapter 3 focuses on constitutive rules, i.e. the normative content of the trade regime. The analysis concentrates on the changes to the normative content of the GATT regime throughout the Uruguay Round (1986-94) with a view to illuminating the association of these changes with the shift in the ideological framework of the world order. To this aim, Chapter 3 contrasts the legal frameworks of the WTO with the GATT, and then focuses on the changes that ensued with the creation of the GATS to the principal norms of the GATT, i.e. non-discrimination and liberalisation. In this regard, the examination is based upon an interrogative reading to decipher the impact of those normative changes to the authority relations between the states and market actors. The legal frameworks and fundamental norms of the GATT and the WTO are examined through data compiled from relevant legal texts, and evaluated through

inference with the support of the authoritative interpretations provided in secondary resources in legal and economic disciplines.²⁸

The analysis of regime transformation and the roles of TNCs in this normative transformation is continued in Part II and III by looking into the intersubjective social context of GATT and WTO negotiations and the participation of TNCs to the process through their agenda-setting activities. Norm creation within the trade regime takes place in the context of multilateral negotiations called rounds. Norms and legal texts are built on a consensus basis through intergovernmental interactions in the form of written and verbal submissions, wherein actors aim to influence the outcome through argumentation. The negotiation process at the GATT and the WTO often starts with an official negotiation mandate agreed by all parties and continues in separable phases wherein parties incrementally agree on and narrow the parameters of rule-making. Consensus-building starts with the pre-negotiation phase where parties agree on the mandate. This preliminary phase continues during the negotiation phase where parties deliberate and try to influence the intermediate and final outcomes with their inputs. To analyse the intersubjective context of international regimes, Ruggie

28 King et al. (1994: 46) defines inference as “the process of using the facts we know to learn about facts we do not know” which are “the subjects of our research questions, theories, and hypotheses.” According to Cox, inference is needed since “[t]he documents that can be cited as authority are themselves part of the action.” Therefore, the researchers should question them in a critical fashion “so as to make them reveal things they do not explicitly state, namely their meanings” (Cox 1980: 485).

suggests the use of narrative forms of explanation which may be either descriptive or configurative.²⁹ Accordingly, this dissertation first creates an analytical narrative of the two cases in an interpretative fashion by deconstructing existing knowledge in the academic literature and reconstructing it upon the conceptual framework developed.

In line with this narrative framework, the dissertation uses the qualitative instruments of discourse analysis.

Following Hajer’s definition, discourse is taken broadly as “an ensemble of ideas, concepts, and categories through which meanings are given to social and physical phenomena” (Hajer 2006: 67). He identifies discourse analysis as “the examination of argumentative structure in documents and other written or spoken statements as well as the practices through which these utterances are made” (Hajer 2006: 66). For a narrative explanation of a phenomenon, Hajer suggests the use of “story lines” which encapsulates “the social-historical conditions” within which the argumentation takes place (Hajer 2006: 67). His method is compatible for an analysis of hegemonic production which entails a struggle for power through building coalitions around certain policy formulas. Hajer (2006: 70) utilizes “discourse-coalitions” to distinguish the alliances built around a shared narrative or story line for a period in time. These

29 According to Ruggie, descriptive narrative explanation “simply links ‘events’ along a temporal dimension and seeks to identify the effect one has on another” whereas configurative explanation “organizes these descriptive statements into an interpretive

‘gestalt’” (Ruggie 2002: 94).

coalitions may become “dominant” in expanding their coalition if the ideas they promote are used by a larger group of people (“discourse structuration”) and if they are “solidifie[d] into institutions and organizational practices (discourse institutionalisation)” (Hajer 2006: 70). When translated into the neo-Gramscian lexicon, a discourse coalition can be interpreted as a coalition of actors sharing a collective image and struggling to achieve hegemony. In this regard, certain collective images may become hegemonic (dominant) and can change the intersubjective meanings of the regime through “discourse structuration” and “institutionalisation,”

assuming that these images are no longer questioned and become natural and self-evident. In fact, like any multilateral institution, the GATT/WTO provides a forum where collective images may clash to become hegemonic. Actors adopt certain

“agenda-setting” strategies to influence the final outcomes, i.e. to solidify their ideas into the institutional and legal frameworks under negotiation. As Singh argues:

Agenda-setting is a process variable leading to inclusion or exclusion of issues being negotiated. In the macro sense, it refers to the big issues included in any trade round: in the micro sense, to issues included or excluded during meetings as the round progresses as negotiating parties work toward formulas and frameworks. Contrary to a common misperception, agenda-setting takes place throughout a negotiation and not just at the beginning. It includes sets of practices used to include, exclude or keep the focus on issues (Singh 2006: 46).

Agenda-setting takes place not only by argumentation, but also through an exercise of power that comes into play in the form of coercion applied outside of the

GATT/WTO. Singh (2006: 46-7) maintains that powerful actors such as the U.S. and EU are able to coerce weaker states through the use of trade and other sanctions, thus, forging consensus around their preferences. Singh’s observation is compatible with the coercive face of hegemonic relations, although coercion is deemed a secondary tool to get consent of subordinate actors. For this reason, the dissertation examines not only the negotiation processes but also external interventions with a particular focus on whether coercion came into play in the cases of services and investment and if TNCs leveraged certain coercive tools in their activities to set the GATT/WTO agenda.

Secondly, the analysis of the negotiation process was extended to TNCs through an examination of their role in the agenda-setting process which is taken as an intergovernmental phenomenon by Singh. As hegemonic social forces, TNCs can engage in agenda-setting by waging a war of position that can include case-building, education, and coalition-building activities towards gaining support of actors on the policy formulas they promote. In this context, TNCs can leverage both their structural power and direct exercise of influence through lobbying as instruments of agenda-setting. The analysis of the role of TNCs in the transformation of the trade regime was conducted through tracking the processes of production and dissemination of ideas that penetrated into intergovernmental deliberations on services and investment. In this context, the analysis focuses on the generation of ideational inputs in the form of

“collective images” and TNCs’ agenda-setting strategies in order to project these ideas to other actors including the state agents. The analysis of these ideational inputs were carried out (1) through an examination of their discursive structure, i.e. how certain problems were defined and solutions were framed; and (2) by interpreting the discursive order, i.e. which sets of ideas were dominant in a specific time. The data were further assessed to determine whether these ideas were adopted by other actors including state agents (discourse structuration), and to what extent they were interjected into negotiation texts in the multilateral setting (discourse institutionalisation). Secondly, the data on TNC strategies were processed to identify whether TNCs disseminated their ideas through building discursive coalitions with other companies and non-commercial actors, and if they endeavoured to educate policy-makers and negotiators. The same research process was applied to analyse the influence of NGOs in the WTO agenda-setting in the case of investment.

To create the story lines in the analysis of the incorporation of services and investment into the trade regime, data were collected from primary resources including government proposals, proposed and agreed negotiation texts, declarations, minutes of meetings, and secondary resources including academic literature studying the history of negotiations and trade politics. The narrative was constructed by assessing and categorising the data chronologically to distinguish “discourse coalitions” and

story lines and to identify phases and pivotal moments in GATT/WTO negotiations.

Primary data were collected from two major resources. The first source is the WTO database, which provides an extensive collection of negotiation documents since the inception of the institution in 1995.³⁰ On the other hand, the data for the Uruguay Round period were largely drawn from secondary readings of the negotiations.

Depending upon the availability and necessity to verify and supplement certain facts, arguments, and negotiation positions, this secondary data were supplemented with primary documents provided from the GATT Digital Archive,³¹ which is operated by Stanford University. The data on TNC and NGO inputs regarding services and investment issues were compiled from official letters, position statements, and articles written by campaigners as well as secondary resources in IPE literature.

Most of the study was conducted as desk research and document analysis to produce a chronology, structure concepts and ideas, and employ story lines. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with negotiators, TNC and NGO representatives in a supplementary way, either to understand the negotiation dynamics and prominent factors in consensus-building or to better capture certain key developments and

30 The WTO database is accessible at

http://docsonline.wto.org/gen_home.asp?language=1&_=1 last accessed on September 12, 2010.

31 GATT Digital Archive is accessible at http://gatt-archive.stanford.edu/ last accessed on September 12, 2010.

cognitive shifts.³² The interviews conducted primarily in Geneva fall into the first category and are pertinent to the case of investment. The second group of interviews were conducted with selected business campaigners and negotiators in relation to the services case.

Conclusion

This chapter outlined the fundamental theoretical assumptions of the dissertation within a historical perspective taking historical changes as a long-term dialectical interaction between social forces and historical structures. Hegemony in Gramscian sense, is applied as an analytical tool linking changing dynamics between social forces and historical structures as particular constellations of world orders. It is defined as the consensual aspect of the exercise of political power and the ethical framework for political action within a given world order. The coherence between power configurations, ideas and international institutions is determined by the hegemonic formation of the world orders. Social forces are argued to produce hegemonies through waging a war of position and shape ideational and material elements of hegemonic orders and associated international regimes. The chapter also laid out the main characteristics of the U.S. hegemonic order and neoliberal order with an

On structured and semi-structured interviews, see Wengraf (2001: 51-70).

emphasis on the distinct ideological framework of the two orders. The neoliberal order has been built upon structural and direct power of transnational capital, especially its financial fractions and knowledge intensive elements which ascended through the process of globalisation and emerging post-Fordist capital accumulation.

Global configuration of political power is no longer concentrated in the U.S. but rather dispersed along the G-7 nexus as transnational capital has largely been condensed in a tripolar regional scope centred in the U.S., Europe and Japan. Since the early 1980s, the neoliberal hegemony has been produced through projects of new constitutionalism that have advanced a market-driven economic order limiting and revising the roles of states in economy and at the same time rescaling states’ authority vis-à-vis supra-state and sub-national actors and entities. Nonetheless neoliberal globalisation has generated significant dislocations and resistance in global civil society in the 1990s. There are clear signs of an authority crisis in global political economy since the mid-1990s which is expressed in the mobilisation of resistance to globalisation in different forms.