Strongholds of Liberalism? The Reaction of Regional Integration Institutions to the Pandemic Trade Crisis

ABSTRACT

Regional integration institutions play an important but ambiguous role in the liberal international system, especially when it comes to trade policy. The Covid-19 pandemic generated a trade crisis, which gave them an opportunity to expand their role in a liberal or illiberal direction. An analysis of the framing and policy measures of five key regional institutions in Europe, South America, Africa and Asia will demonstrate whether they were geared towards liberalisation and/or interventionism in early 2020. The European Union stood out for its strong collective action on trade, working out a new balance between interventionism and liberalism. Other institutions hinted at interventionism but did not take collective action. The trade response was overwhelmingly state-driven, and regional institutions outside Europe clearly have limited agency in the global trade system. While their behaviour is difficult to qualify ideologically, their framing supported liberal principles of international relations.

KEYWORDS:

• regional integration
• trade
• liberalism
• political economy
• pandemic

Acknowledgements

The author would like to acknowledge the very helpful feedback of the journal’s editors and two anonymous reviewers. Thanks are also due to the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business at the University of Plymouth for funding the initial research, and to Michele Fox for her great work as a research assistant.

Notes

1 ECOWAS was founded in 1975 with the aim of developing the collective bargaining power of the region (Francis 2005, 132) at a time when developing countries were campaigning for a radically different international trade and financial system. By the 1990s, this political project had failed utterly and regions like ECOWAS were (at least formally) committed to integrating into the global economy on free-market terms.

2 Officially, 149 measures were notified to the WTO during this period; the ITC counts 285. The latter’s database was consulted for the study of the RIs’ member states.

3 The source for all Tables is the ITC database: https://www.macmap.org/covid19.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Patrick Holden

Patrick Holden is an Associate Professor of International Relations and Politics at the University of Plymouth, Plymouth, United Kingdom.