Political economy of domestic-trade policy linkage: The impact of the AT&T divestiture on United States telecommunications trade policy.

摘要

This study analyzes the political economy of the policy linkage between U.S. telecommunications deregulation, culminating in the divestiture of AT&T, and the Telecommunications Trade Act of 1988, enacted as part of the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988. At the heart of the OTCA was the so-called "Super 301," which seeks aggressively the reciprocal opening of foreign markets by a threat of retaliation. Besides this catch-all Super 301, the OTCA gave its sector-specific version, generally called the "Special 301," to the telecommunications industry alone. Why, then, was only the telecommunications sector provided with such special treatment as Special 301? This question is divided into two sub-questions. First, why was the telecommunications sector singled out for such extraordinary treatment? Second, among the other alternatives, why was a Special 301 chosen as the policy measure for telecommunications trade? In addressing these two questions, this study employs a systems framework, which views the state as a parallel-processing system. Two propositions are drawn. First, a domestic economic policy considered a failure is more likely than one considered successful to later become linked to foreign economic policy. The telecommunications industry received special treatment because the breakup of AT&T was widely considered a policy "error" that aggravated U.S. trade performance in that sector. The trade problem in telecommunications was unique, because, unlike other sectors, it was created by a domestic policy. The image of the "government's fault" was a strong rationale for demanding special treatment for telecommunications trade. Second, changes of a policy regime's basic characteristics would alter the likelihood of each policy alternative to be chosen. The choice of Special 301 was a result of a timely conjunction between policy demand and policy supply, both of which favored such a reciprocal trade policy measure. U.S. telecommunications industry preferred a reciprocal trade policy. At the same time, the U.S. trade policy regime changed substantially; fair-trade, rather than free-trade, was newly emphasized and Congress grew more active in trade policymaking. This change made such an unprecedented policy option now acceptable.