ABSTRACT
Knowledge, learning, and research are always intrinsic components of the policy-making process. When, what, how, and to what extent are matters that are widely discussed, as evidenced by the epigraphs at the start of this chapter. Nonetheless, these exercises in self-refl ection have not been extended to the more technocratic and polemical fi elds, such as trade policy and negotiations. The debate on trade policy, an inherently distributive policy, has paid little attention to the struggle of ideas or the role played by research and the systems used to disseminate it. How research is used, produced, and viewed by public policy in developing countries, and the specifi c nature of the trade policy fi eld, are matters that have not been subject to close scrutiny, despite the extent to which thinking has shifted as times have changed. It is as if this kind of knowledge is deemed to be absolved of the duty to examine and question itself, or to justify the validity of its explicit or implicit assumptions.
