Author: Ardevan Yaghoubi

Guest Post: Norm Diffusion in the Transpacific Partnership

[Ardevan Yaghoubi is a Ph.D Student at Princeton University's Department of Politics.] 

"As we speak, China wants to write the rules for the world’s fastest-growing region. That would put our workers and our businesses at a disadvantage. Why would we let that happen? We should write those rules."  - President Obama, State of the Union Address, January 20, 2015

Proponents of the recently-concluded Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) typically argue that the agreement will do one of two things: increase economic growth through exports and jobs, or advance favorable geopolitical and national security objectives. The economic perspective on the agreement sees a rational-choice model of expected economic utility; the geopolitical frame emphasizes the TPP’s role in creating reputation, prestige, and soft power. But the strictly material and abstractly ideational explanations of the TPP both miss an important feature of the agreement: that the TPP is designed to create norms that spread across the international system. It is not only intended to bring about economic benefits or directly buttress American allies in Asia to counter a rising power. In the study of international politics, this process is called norm diffusion. I argue that understanding norm diffusion helps to articulate the implicit theory behind President Obama’s metaphor of “writing the rules”. By melding insights about norm diffusion to the frame of a traditional trade agreement, the TPP is a unique and noteworthy innovation in international law and institutionalism. Whatever one’s thoughts about the merits of the TPP, the basic hypothesis undergirding its intended effects deserves greater clarity. In this post, I explore the logic of norm diffusion in the TPP: Is norm diffusion an objective of the TPP? If so, how exactly is the process of diffusion expected to occur? And what obstacles might block the reproduction of the TPP’s rules? I will address these questions in turn. Is the TPP Really About Norm Diffusion? Alongside their traditional role of merely cutting tariffs and lowering trade barriers, today’s FTAs are a tool of international economic competition: the rules contained in these agreements regulate and shape industries from agriculture to manufacturing to finance. It is hardly controversial, then, that FTAs will tend to reflect the economies and economic priorities of the states who have negotiated them. States don’t have total latitude in determining the content of FTAs, since WTO rules still exert substantial influence. But there are many parts of the world economy where the WTO’s influence is limited. What norms are these? Well, the TPP text agreed on in Atlanta contains chapters regulating norms spanning the right to organize, the illegal trade of wildlife and environmentally protected species, generic medicines, copyright infringement, 3D printing and manufacturing, financial investments, state-owned enterprises and government procurement, and of course, tariffs and non-tariff barriers to trade. But the TPP came into being at the end of a two-decade period in which American influence in the global trade system has been waning. While the number of new agreements negotiated has increased dramatically since the millennium, the U.S. has signed just a handful of notable new FTAs: with Korea (2012), Dominican Republic-Central America or DR-CAFTA (2005), Singapore (2004), Chile (2004), and Australia (2004). Taking stock of the total number of agreements by region, the U.S. lags behind the Asia Pacific, South America, Eurasia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Seen against this economic and geopolitical backdrop, the necessity of the TPP from an American policy perspective should be evident: it represents approximately 40% of global GDP across North and South America and the Asia Pacific, and nearly one-third of global trade. Without it, the U.S. loses leverage and potential economic opportunities in a century where its percentage share of the global economic pie will continue to shrink. It also brings post-war allies, like the U.S. and Japan, closer together as a key element of the “pivot to Asia”, while integrating non-allied states like Vietnam and Malaysia. Many geopolitical analyses of the TPP end with vague references to “soft power” or U.S. national security interests and little explanation of how the TPP will actually further those aims. What these narratives miss is that the logic of the agreement is based on a theory of norm diffusion. In its essence, norm diffusion (or sometimes called norm “cascade”) refers to “an active process of international socialization intended to induce norm breakers to become norm followers”. International relations scholars have given careful attention to the way in which norms and rules circulate and achieve legitimate compliance in international politics and international law. But what is striking about the TPP is that its architects are themselves conscious of these socialization effects. For instance, here is a representative statement by USTR Ambassador Michael Froman writing in Foreign Affairs: