ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an empirical analysis of the design and performance of the WTO negotiations with a focus on the members’ articulation of interests and communication. It argues that states with highly dispersed interests (i.e. with political salience distributed across the whole range of the negotiated issues) are less likely to articulate clearly their interests in the negotiations. Because of the threat of domestic political contestation, the states’ representatives do not have the incentives to commit openly to specific trade negotiation outcomes and to credibly signal their “red lines”. The argument is tested with a quantitative dataset of signalling behaviour in the Doha negotiations on the one hand, and interest dispersion on the other hand.
