Search Results

This chapter focuses on the institutional developments surrounding the 30-year history of the fast-track trade implementation process that have a similarity to the BRAC commissions and tell an equally revealing story about contemporary separation of powers arrangements. While Congress has agreed to step aside in this way for 35 years, there was an eight year pause on fast track between 1994 and 2002 when these provisions expired after passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993 and the establishment of the World Trade Organization and the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade in 1994. These major agreements reignited simmering domestic controversies over the means and ends of trade policy. In 2002, fast track was reinstated for President George W. Bush as part of a post-9/11 legislative moment, and many members of both parties have since turned around on the issue by fighting the implementation of trade deals formed under the renewed processes, such as pacts with Central America, Chile, and, most recently, Vietnam and Peru.

This chapter focuses on mainport reforms during the era of liberalization. Mounting anxiety about the capacity of mainports to meet the requirements of a globalized economy resulted in organizational reforms that produced “an unprecedented transformation on a global scale.” In many countries, ports and airports used to be organized as conventional government bureaucracies, often integrated into a single national ministry or department. These old monoliths were now broken up and replaced by a larger set of organizations, each usually responsible for the management of a single port or airport. Decentralization was accompanied by autonomization—that is, the creation of legal barriers to protect mainports from political and bureaucratic interference.

George W. Bush came to office with an ambitious free trade agenda but without clear congressional support for it. Initially, the Bush administration engaged in a great flurry of activity, including successfully launching a new round of multilateral trade negotiations for the United States. By 2008, however, hardly any progress had been made at the multilateral negotiations, and other relatively ambitious regional plans failed to materialise. This chapter shows that what made it difficult for the Bush administration to advance its version of trade liberalisation was Congress's unprecedented opportunity to make its voice heard. In particular, the Bush administration's handling of multilateral trade negotiations during his first years in office had the unintended consequence of providing Congress the means to play a relatively active role in international trade policy in later years, making the Bush administration relatively vulnerable to Congress's position. It also discusses the Bush administration's restrained unilateralism, preference for bilateralism over multilateralism, and regional and bilateral trade agreements.

This chapter examines the role of the federal government in promoting job security by ensuring that the economy is at full employment. It begins by providing a historical overview of the government's role in mitigating job insecurity before turning to a discussion of how unemployment affects job security. It then considers government measures aimed at protecting workers and their families from unemployment and its ripple effects, as well as ensuring workers against unfair dismissal. It also analyzes the trends in employment and unemployment and argues that job security is key to economic security. The chapter concludes by offering suggestions on how the government can ensure job security and full employment, such as by promoting “short-time compensation” or “work-sharing,” reforming the unemployment insurance system to make it more responsive to economic conditions, and implementing trade policies that promote quality jobs.

This empirical chapter explores the dynamics of city delegation theory, the glue that helps hold together the urban political order’s pieces. The first half of the chapter takes a close look at the New York and Chicago city delegations in action, emphasizing the role of different institutions in holding the delegations together. The second half of the chapter includes statistical tests of city delegation theory, including an innovative dyadic framework, demonstrating that strong local institutions are associated with greater delegation cohesion. Together, these analyses illustrate that city representatives defend the interests of not only their own constituencies, but of their entire city. The analyses also show that the strength of local institutions of horizontal integration (IHIs) developed to order local government, also promote delegation cohesion in national representation.