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Can someone explain to me what the carrot and/or stick is, in getting these countries to sign this agreement?

by junto 12y ago

venomsnake 12y ago
Well ... those kind of agreements are used often as vehicles to bypass national sovereignty. Lets say that official X wants to make law Y, that has a slim chance of passing trough the national legislative body or public. But if it signs an agreement that have these provisions, than the country has to change its laws to fulfill the treaty. Due to reasons US Congress can vote only binary on approving the agreement. Take it as is or throw it all away. In other places it is similar. So there are internal politics to consider.
Goronmon 12y ago
The carrot is that companies pay the politicians. The stick is that the companies stop paying the politicians.
- pmontra 12y ago
  You're correct about the carrot but the stick is that companies will pay another politician, who'll get funds to be elected instead of the one who refused to be bribed.
toyg 12y ago
These agreements are supposed to reduce barriers in both directions, so there is an interest for businesses on both sides to reduce friction and allow greater access to foreign markets. Unfortunately, this laudable process has been more and more hijacked by special interest groups, to the point where international treaties are used as backdoors to impose legislation that would otherwise be very unpopular at home. An MP voting in, say, New Zealand to extend copyright terms, would get a lot of stick; but now he can say "hey, there is some good with the bad, less barriers are good for the economy blablabla" and vote for the whole bundle with significant political cover; he can then collect his copyright-lobby cheque AND keep his seat, win-win. In a way, this is natural; this sort of dealmaking was commonplace at local and national level at most times in history, and it took a lot of effort to make it fairly transparent through the democratic process; now it gets done at a global level, where there isn't a democratic process yet -- we don't vote for a "world parliament" where this sort of issues could be thrashed out in public, we rely on ambassadors and special envoys with wide negotiating powers and no accountability, which naturally results in corruption.
- jpollock 12y ago
  Actually, for New Zealand, there are huge benefits in terms of market access for their primary industries (milk and meat). Add to that the indirect benefits that the movie industry brings to the tourism industry (yep, they measured it), and you have an agreement that is beneficial to the top two industries. New Zealand wants to sell Americans milk and lamb. Then they're going to want to come over and teach Americans how to grow your _own_ milk and lamb.
clord 12y ago
I imagine the multinationals get to play both sides of the negotiation — they can lobby it to both governments. Hence it's probably mostly all carrot ("Sign and you'll get lower barriers to your own products"). I can imagine there may be some stick too: Sign this or you'll lose access to Disney and pharmaceuticals.

Can someone explain to me what the carrot and/or stick is, in getting these countries to sign this agreement?

by junto 12y ago

Can someone explain to me what the carrot and/or stick is, in getting these countries to sign this agreement?

Well ... those kind of agreements are used often as vehicles to bypass national sovereignty. Lets say that official X wants to make law Y, that has a slim chance of passing trough the national legislative body or public. But if it signs an agreement that have these provisions, than the country has to change its laws to fulfill the treaty. Due to reasons US Congress can vote only binary on approving the agreement. Take it as is or throw it all away. In other places it is similar. So there are internal politics to consider.

Goronmon 12y ago

The carrot is that companies pay the politicians. The stick is that the companies stop paying the politicians.

pmontra 12y ago
You're correct about the carrot but the stick is that companies will pay another politician, who'll get funds to be elected instead of the one who refused to be bribed.

toyg 12y ago

These agreements are supposed to reduce barriers in both directions, so there is an interest for businesses on both sides to reduce friction and allow greater access to foreign markets. Unfortunately, this laudable process has been more and more hijacked by special interest groups, to the point where international treaties are used as backdoors to impose legislation that would otherwise be very unpopular at home. An MP voting in, say, New Zealand to extend copyright terms, would get a lot of stick; but now he can say "hey, there is some good with the bad, less barriers are good for the economy blablabla" and vote for the whole bundle with significant political cover; he can then collect his copyright-lobby cheque AND keep his seat, win-win. In a way, this is natural; this sort of dealmaking was commonplace at local and national level at most times in history, and it took a lot of effort to make it fairly transparent through the democratic process; now it gets done at a global level, where there isn't a democratic process yet -- we don't vote for a "world parliament" where this sort of issues could be thrashed out in public, we rely on ambassadors and special envoys with wide negotiating powers and no accountability, which naturally results in corruption.

jpollock 12y ago
Actually, for New Zealand, there are huge benefits in terms of market access for their primary industries (milk and meat). Add to that the indirect benefits that the movie industry brings to the tourism industry (yep, they measured it), and you have an agreement that is beneficial to the top two industries. New Zealand wants to sell Americans milk and lamb. Then they're going to want to come over and teach Americans how to grow your _own_ milk and lamb.

clord 12y ago

I imagine the multinationals get to play both sides of the negotiation — they can lobby it to both governments. Hence it's probably mostly all carrot ("Sign and you'll get lower barriers to your own products"). I can imagine there may be some stick too: Sign this or you'll lose access to Disney and pharmaceuticals.