Trust and Support for Comprehensive Trade Agreements in the European Parliament

Abstract

Abstract Comprehensive Trade Agreements (CTAs) constitute a new generation of free trade agreements, which challenge traditional models of trade preferences. To understand preferences toward CTAs I present a new predictor, trust in government, that explains support for CTAs in the European Parliament. I develop a unified framework that includes economic and noneconomic factors to explain trade preferences, and analyze support for three recent CTAs: the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement with Canada (CETA), and the EU-Korea Free Trade Agreement. Using an original dataset on trade voting and a multilevel model, I show that higher levels of citizens’ trust in government make Members of the European Parliament more likely to vote in favor of CTAs. My research offers a novel theoretical argument and insights on the connection between public trust and elite position-taking.