ABSTRACT
This chapter applies the multi-method research design for the assessment of polarization’s effects on the U.S. trade leadership role during the negotiation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. The development of the initiative and its congressional deliberation exposed significant shifts between and within the parties with regard to trade, and the role of Congress and the President in regulating global commerce, as well as the role of followers (i.e. U.S. trading partners). The Obama administration’s strategy to cope with the various consequences of diagonal contestation, while historically unprecedented, proved to be particularly polarizing once Congress, after years of international negotiations, was finally allowed to renew trade promotion authority for the President. The dynamics of polarization consumed the traditional balance of power between Congress and the President, as well as the traditional conceptions about the proper distribution of the benefits of trade. An original data set was developed for the analysis, consisting of congressional debates, signatory alliances of congressional letters, and ideological scores.
