EFTA as a Equal International Organization? The Cases of Trade in Agricultural Product on EFTA Council
Date Issued
2011
Date
2011
Author(s)
Huang, Shang-Tzu
Abstract
There have been more and more countries engaged in negotiating free trade agreements or regional economic integration in the past few years. Even though they ensured all members have equal right by stated explicitly in convention, guaranteed every member has equal opportunity to participate in discussion, and made decisions base on consensus, members may not acquire equal interest. Agricultural related issues were one of the most critical issues in FTA negotiations. For instance, it came to a deadlock because of agricultural issues in Doha Development round of WTO.
In this thesis, we used the summary records of EFTA Council which was acquired by my advisor, Wei-Feng, Huang, form EFTA headquarter in Geneva. Our analysis focused on agricultural related cases. The purpose of this thesis was to explore that if the institution had ensured equal right for each member, the stronger countries may not predominant in negotiation. Therefore, the weak countries could express their opinion of their STAKE on trade or trade preferences. Furthermore, they could have the chance to take important position in making decision and get equal reciprocity on trade.
This thesis based on former scholars’ studies on negotiation. And we undertook a content analysis of the summary records of EFTA Council. Trying to transform the qualitative data into quantitative data, combined Structural Network Power Index (Kim, 2007) and STAKE Index to engage a statistical analysis. The empirical result verified that countries will reflect their power and STAKE background through their representative s’ speeches on the Council. Furthermore, their speeches on the Council have indirect effect on countries ability to lead discussions. The essential finding of this thesis is that strong countries can lead most discussions of agricultural cases on EFTA Council. And the result of Council’s decision didn’t satisfy those high STAKE countries’ need. Therefore, when countries are going to engaging FTA negotiation, they should be aware the consequence of power asymmetry between member countries.
Subjects
EFTA
international negotiation
content analysis
power
STAKE on trade
Type
thesis
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