Issue Linkages as Coalition Strategies: Claiming Credit for Value Concessions

• In Event: Poster Session: International Political Economy I

Abstract

Why do governments attach value-based issues such as environmental protection to trade agreements? Existing studies argue that issue linkages increase the chances of policy success by giving buy-ins to other issue-area constituents who do not otherwise have a stake in the trade provisions at hand. The conventional accounts of issue linkages suggest that the corresponding expansion in the size of policy coalitions makes it easier for governments to pass the trade bills.

However, value-based issue linkages in trade agreements are at theoretical odds with the existing literature, because beneficiaries of value concessions are usually geographically diffuse and the effects of concessions are hardly visible in the short run. These two characteristics should make it difficult for politicians to claim-credit for any value concessions attached to trade bills. Considering these challenges, is it the case that environmental concessions do in fact buy legislators’ support for trade? If so, why do legislators find these concessions attractive?


To answer these questions, I present a theoretical framework that explicitly considers credit-claiming mechanisms in issue linkages. Towards lay voters—those without any private interest and expertise in environmental issues—the theory suggests that linkages buy legislative support only when environmental concessions are electorally appealing. That is, legislators change their votes in support of trade liberalization in response to environmental concessions when they gain geographically-targeted environmental pork. When environmental pork is geographically-targeted, legislators can claim credit for the environmental enhancement they deliver to their constituencies. By contrast, I argue that environmental pork is not sufficient to buy the support of legislators who are sensitive to the pressures by environmental issue constituents such as NGOs. Environmental issue constituents have stronger preferences for environmental protection and are suspicious about pro-trade governments’ commitment to faithfully enforce environmental clauses via trade sanctions once they lend support for trade. Since their source of distrust is one on the credibility of governments' long-term commitment, legislators find one-off environmental pork insufficient to placate environmental issue constituents with longer time horizons.

Empirically, I conduct an in-depth single case study on the congressional politics underpinning the ratification of NAFTA and its environmental side agreement in 1993. Drawing from historical primary source materials on NAFTA, I create an original data set that allows me to measure i) the environmental pork that each legislator in the 103rd Congress gained, ii) the legislators’ complaints about NAFTA’s impact on the environment both based on their floor speeches and private communications with President, and iii) the Clinton Administration’s evaluations of the legislators’ resistances to ratification by topic area. Employing both statistical analysis and process-tracing, I chart the temporal changes of the legislators’ positions on NAFTA. Specifically, I find that the legislators who gained environmental pork were more likely to change their votes in support of NAFTA, whereas those who gained campaign contributions from environmental lobbies or good ratings from environmental NGOs did not. Additionally, I conduct large-N statistical analyses on roll call votes on the U.S. trade bills considered in Congress from 1993 to 2005.

This paper shows that credit-claiming mechanisms work differently towards lay voters at large and issue constituencies such as NGOs. When targeting general voters, environmental concessions are conducive for expanding coalitions for trade when the concessions are made suitable for “short-term and visible credit-claiming.” Towards issue constituents such as NGOs, the same strategy is not effective because short-term visibility is not sufficient to buy off these issue constituents.

Author

• Boram Lee, Harvard University