Why Federalism Matters: Policy Feedback, Institutional Variation and the Politics of Trade Policy-Making in Canada and Germany

Guest speaker:

Jörg Broschek, Professor and Laurier Research Chair at the Department of Political Science, Wilfrid Laurier University. 

Description:

Constituent units in federal systems participate increasingly in the making of international trade policy agreements, a domain that historically represents an exclusive jurisdiction of the federal level. To explain this trend, existing research has emphasized external factors, most notably the changing scope and depth of trade agreements and social contestation. This paper, by contrast, contributes to more recent efforts that focus on endogenous factors that can explain variation in terms of how and with what implications constituent units have entrenched themselves in trade policy governance. It argues that ideational and institutional feedback effects explain variation in constituent units' trade policy participation. Using a most dissimilar case design, the paper reconstructs how federalism variously positioned the Canadian provinces and the German Länder to shape trade policy development over time: In Canada through institutional layering, in Germany through institutional conversion. Although both patterns of institutional change have empowered constituent units, they afford them with different options to influence trade policy.