INTRODUCTION

Political coalitions make policy, and state and social actors form coalitions within a given international context. Coalition politics links economic policy to state institutions, society, and the international system. The relations among each of these aspects of contemporary political economy are interactive and dynamic, constantly shaping and reshaping one another over time. I place coalition politics at the center of this web, as the political mechanism through which the international system, the state, and society help determine trade policy outcomes. Of course, these and other variables also exert their own, independent influence outside of their role in coalition politics. But focusing on their interactive impact helps sort out many of the complex causal paths linking various political economy factors to trade policy that have yet to be untangled, both conceptually and empirically (see Hall 1995). One goal of this book is therefore to explore the critical role played by political coalitions in economic policy making, and to delineate the most important factors that determine the patterns of formation and relative strength of competing coalitions and the causal relations among these factors.

Figure 2.1 presents a schematic portrayal of this conceptual mosaic. Coalitions are a critical intervening variable, both cause and effect. As effect, they result from the influence of international developments, social structures, and state institutions. Shifts in these indicators strengthen one or another coalition competing for power. As cause, coalitions control the actual process through which policy is made.