ABSTRACT
The late 1980s and early 1990s witnessed a vigorous revival of regional and international economic cooperation in world politics. Explaining the ‘rush to free trade’ (Rodrik 1994) was a critical challenge for scholars, both empirically and theoretically. This activism triggered an extensive body of research in trade politics, an area traditionally subject to intense debate as well as being the focus of different disciplines with alternative perspectives on the domestic dynamics surrounding international trade and what policy is or should be.
