Agriculture and Its Discontents: Coalitional Politics at the wto with Special Reference to India’s Food Security Interests
In: International NegotiationThe demise of the Doha round of trade negotiations is often attributed to deadlocks in agricultural negotiations between the developed and the developing world. Why has agriculture been so difficult to negotiate? This article explains North-South agricultural negotiations through the lens of coalition politics, especially the shift from bloc to issue-based diplomacy from the developing world. We argue against the proposition in the negotiation literature that multiple coalitions at the international level allow negotiators room to maneuver. Our study shows that bloc coalitions in fact allowed for compromise more than issue-based coalitions in agriculture, which are often supported by strong domestic constituencies. Empirically, the article focuses on the Uruguay Round when the North and South struck an agreement on agriculture and the Doha Round, which remains deadlocked. The article also provides an in-depth case study of India’s agricultural interests and its food security program in the context of the wto.
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In December 1992, Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha (krrs), a state-level farmers’ organization ransacked the Bangalore office of Cargill’s India affiliate to protest potential change in laws for patenting seeds. Farmers were afraid that new intellectual property laws would take away farmers’ right to produce, modify, use and sell seeds. The krrs eventually formed an alliance with farmers’ association from other parts of the country to organize a massive show of protest in New Delhi (Menon 1993).
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In 2014, 5650 farmers committed suicides (National Crime Records Bureau 2016). Sainath, a journalist who has covered the farm sector for decades, estimates that 296,4000028 farmers have committed suicide in India since 1995 when ncrb started maintaining data (Sainath 2014).
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Eventually, in November 2014, India agreed to ratify the tfa when the us agreed that India will not be subject to a dispute on account of its subsidies to low-income farmers and that this “Peace Clause” would continue to stay in place until the members found a permanent solution. This decision was approved by the General Council – a legal point that India had insisted on. (Bridges, “WTO Members Sign off on Food Stocks, Trade Facilitation Decisions,” 18:40, November 27, 2014)
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Agriculture and Its Discontents: Coalitional Politics at the wto with Special Reference to India’s Food Security Interests
In: International NegotiationThe demise of the Doha round of trade negotiations is often attributed to deadlocks in agricultural negotiations between the developed and the developing world. Why has agriculture been so difficult to negotiate? This article explains North-South agricultural negotiations through the lens of coalition politics, especially the shift from bloc to issue-based diplomacy from the developing world. We argue against the proposition in the negotiation literature that multiple coalitions at the international level allow negotiators room to maneuver. Our study shows that bloc coalitions in fact allowed for compromise more than issue-based coalitions in agriculture, which are often supported by strong domestic constituencies. Empirically, the article focuses on the Uruguay Round when the North and South struck an agreement on agriculture and the Doha Round, which remains deadlocked. The article also provides an in-depth case study of India’s agricultural interests and its food security program in the context of the wto.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 671 | 77 | 9 |
| Full Text Views | 408 | 23 | 1 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 213 | 50 | 2 |