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3 - Corporate Strategy in Times of Anti-Trade Sentiment

Current Challenges and Future Scenarios

from Part I - New and Old Challenges

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2019

By
Jappe Eckhardt  and
Louise Curran
Edited by
Manfred Elsig ,
Michael Hahn  and
Gabriele Spilker
Manfred Elsig
Affiliation:
Universität Bern, Switzerland
Michael Hahn
Affiliation:
Universität Bern, Switzerland
Gabriele Spilker
Affiliation:
Universität Salzburg
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Summary

Skepticism on the benefits of free trade and globalization has been on the rise in several Western economies, which poses major challenges to firms in these countries. In this chapter, we first explore the roots and the multiple faces of this backlash. We then discuss what we can learn from existing literature on corporate political activity (CPA) in such a changing context, where anti-globalization sentiment and the threat of trade protectionism have become a political reality. We also present findings from our study on the responses of trade-dependent companies to rising protectionism in the European Union. A key finding is that there is a high level of consensus among EU trade associations that trade protectionism is a threat and, although individual companies have been passive so far, trade associations had a mandate to lobby against it. Finally, we discuss how the engagement of trade-dependent firms may change depending on how the political context evolves by presenting three possible scenarios for the future.

Keywords

corporate political activitylobbyinganti-globalizationprotectionismEuropean Union
Type
Chapter
Information
The Shifting Landscape of Global Trade Governance
World Trade Forum
 , pp. 48 - 72
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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