Transparency and Participation in the National Trade Policy Process International Conference on Research, Public Policy and Asian Public Policy Schools, Institut Teknologi Bandung,14 - 15 March 2005

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Transparency and Participation in the National
Trade Policy ProcessInternational Conference on
Research, Public Policy and Asian Public Policy
Schools, Institut Teknologi Bandung,14 - 15 March
2005

• Robert Wolfe
• Associate Professor
• School of Policy Studies
• Queens University, Kingston, Canada
• wolfer_at_post.queensu.ca

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Trade policy consultations in context

• Premises
• Transparency and participation part of seeing
  development as freedom (Sen)
• Participation can contribute to sustainable
  development (Cosbey) by ensuring that growth,
  environment, and social cohesion are all
  considered
• Questions
• Many ways to ensure transparency and
  participationdo trade policy consultations help?
• What is the role of academic experts and policy
  schools?

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Consultations as learning?

• opportunity for officials and the public to learn
  or chance for the public as principals to give
  instructions to their agents in government?
• process manipulative (elite attempt to persuade)
  or argumentative (social process aimed at
  changing the understanding of cause and effect in
  a domain)?

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Canadian consultation industry growing for more
than 20 years

• 1999 (est) 300 public consultations, from
  national climate change process to dialogue with
  rural Canadians about their priorities.
• Summer 2004, province of Ontario consulting its
  citizens on teacher workloads, mandatory
  retirement, rent control, urban sprawl, rural
  communities, drinking water, and new securities
  legislation

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History of trade policy consultations

• GATT tariffs seen as budget secrecy, a
  technical matter of no interest to non-experts
  that did not affect other domains
• but industry lobbyists were consulted anyway
• Tokyo Round 1970s requires consultation with
  provinces and business plus coordination of the
  federal public service on trade policy
• Canada-US FTA and Uruguay Round ijn 1980s move
  trade policy behind the border, which slowly
  changes demands for consultation

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Evolution in the 1990s

• Chrétien government (1993) committed to
  democratizing foreign policy
• OECD Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI)
• Protests (1997-8) both on substance and on lack
  of transparency in negotiations
• WTO ministerial meeting in Seattle (1999)
• extensive public participation in preparations
  and then attendance

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Key dimensions for trade policy

• accurate, objective and timely information
  promotes transparency and accountability and
  enables citizens to participate in the public
  policy process.
• Consultation processes seek the views of
  individuals or groups on policies that affect
  them directly or in which they have a significant
  interest.

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Information on website

• Discussion papers
• Briefings
• newsletters
• publication of legislation and regulations
• negotiating texts
• submissions to the WTO on disputes in which
  Canada is involved,

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Trade policy consultations

• Wide range of people can contribute useful
  information, and/or whose support will be needed.
• Other government departments, provinces,
  municipalities
• Broad and sectoral industry associations, civil
  society organizations, firms, academics, and
  citizens.

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Formal mechanisms

• interdepartmental committees
• federal-provincial-territorial (C-Trade) meetings
• Sectoral Advisory Groups on International Trade
  (SAGITs)
• Academic Advisory Council
• trade experts workshop
• Team Canada Inc. Advisory Board

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Informal consultation mechanisms

• multi-stakeholder meetings across the country
• electronic feedback forms on the ITCan web site

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Who should be consulted?

• Detailed technical information can be sought by
  officials from experts or economic actors.
• Exploring the possibility of a compromise on a
  difficult issue can be done in more broadly based
  multistakeholder settings where the point is for
  all sides to be able to listen to contending
  points of view.
• Trying to build a consensus might best be done in
  Parliamentary hearings.

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Is Hocking right?

• No longer can trade issues be dealt with as a
  brand of technocratic politics, insulated from
  the mainstream of political dialogue, a game for
  an elite operating behind closed doors, removed
  from prying eyes and the glare of publicity.
• Yes--for developing countries as well as Canada

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Consultations (seem) more elaborate, for 3
reasons

• behind the border negotiators need domestic
  information, while jurisdiction and authority are
  more widely dispersed, and engage a wider
  public
• Consultations especially contribute to policy
  analysis when available expertise is limited.
• Example in agriculture and in services,
  negotiators dealing with diffuse not concentrated
  groups, and with individuals, so new mechanisms
  needed
• Growing trade interest of citizens and civil
  society organizationspublic concerns political
  not economic, and more apparently idealistic
  concerns than egocentric

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Challenges?

• Difficult work of detailed negotiations does not
  excite public interest, except from farm groups
• Changing nature of consultations, or problem
  adapting mechanisms to new players involved
• Cost of participation, for proponents and
  opponents of liberalized trade.
• We have all heard ideology now analysis needed.
• Takes money and/or expertise. Oxfam can play,
  but how many others?

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Do consultations improve transparency and
participation?

• building consensus among stakeholders, narrowly
  or broadly defined?
• provide information in an educational role, to
  demonstrate the importance of trade to Canadas
  economy, and for building consensus
• Helping negotiators understand what Canadians
  want?
• obtain information, for example on offensive
  interests and defensive concerns in the services
  negotiations

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A role for academics?

• informal conversations with officials (frequent)
• attendance by officials at conferences (not
  common)
• reading the literature (frequency unknown) and
  publishing new research (yearly)
• SAGITs all include academics
• Academic Advisory Council to Deputy Minister (met
  yearly)
• witnesses before and advisors to Parliamentary
  committee hearings trade-related reports
• organizers of or participants in
  multistakeholder consultations
• Engagement with civil society organizations
• Public commentary in the press

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A role for policy schools?

• educational job is training citizens who can
  participate in the policy process, whether in
  civil society organization or at the highest
  levels of government
• Research dissemination role includes engagement
  with all the formal and informal aspects of
  consultation