ABSTRACT
As the trade agenda has become more crowded, so the cast of actors involved in international trade politics has become larger. It has become commonplace to conceive of the state as an actor that is steadily losing political ground to other actors such as firms, non-governmental agencies, or supranational bodies like the World Trade Organization (WTO). The state is by no means being eclipsed by these new actors; no other form of political or economic organization rivals it in terms of public legitimacy or in the capacity to coerce compliance from civil societies. Rather, the picture is one of states-the primary actors in international trade-increasingly finding that other voices can have an important influence in the conduct of international trade politics. The aim of this part is to explore these newcomers to the international scene and their relationship to the more ‘traditional’ players.
