ABSTRACT
Bargaining coalitions at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) are of increasing interest and importance in advancing negotiating positions in the emerging global trade regime (Narlikar, 2003). This chapter seeks to discuss and analyse the implications for this regime of the emergence of an important network of coalitions from the developing world as exemplified by the G20. The chapter argues that the activism demonstrated by the G20 reflects an inherent frustration with the results of WTO negotiations for key exporting states from the Global South. Thus the G20 can be seen as an experimental attempt to push forward an agenda in resistance to the stalling and compromises that stake out the WTO thus far on important matters vis-à-vis trade, market access, and dismantling non-tariff barriers. In particular the G20 has concentrated on insisting on removing the delays to reciprocal liberalisation in the developed world, above all with regard to agriculture. However, in doing so, the G20 is actually demanding that the North implements its own rhetoric regarding the supposed benefits of ‘free trade’. It is an interesting sign of the times – as well as the hegemonic status of liberal norms regarding economics – that the elites from key developing countries are demanding greater liberalisation, not less. This was most graphically illustrated at the WTO meeting in Hong Kong.
