Fixing Globalization Institutionally

Abstract

What are the origins of neoliberal and globalizing policies? The most common sociological explanation for the emergence of neoliberalism draws on the importance of institutional legacies. This article focuses, instead, on the fundamental role of institutional innovations. Rather than extant institutions, it was a new institutional context, itself an outcome of political struggles between supporters and critics of neoliberalism, which allowed for the emergence of neoliberal policies. The article investigates the case of trade liberalization in the US, showing that supporters of liberal trade defeated protectionists by challenging extant legacies, replacing old institutions with new ones. Internationalists managed to change protectionist policies by shifting decision-making authority from US Congress to quasi-judicial bodies in the executive and to judicial proceedings at the World Trade Organization.