Getting To Yes: Belief Convergence And Asymmetrical Normative Entrapment In EUACP EPA Negotiations

 The theoretical origins of this dissertation arise from a quest to understand and explain two key puzzles relating to EU negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement (called Economic Partnership Agreement) with the African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) States. These negotiations have been ongoing since 2002. These puzzles are: 

One, there is the puzzle of how to explain the variable speed that now differentiates ACP regions and states in their ratification of their 2007 EPA agreement? ACP states can now be divided into those that have ratified, those that have signed and those that have only initialed an EPA.  While some seventeen states have now ratified their 2007 agreements, others have withheld ratification and even forced a renegotiation of the 2007 agreements.  In a recalibration of what John Ravenhill (1985) termed ‘horizontal collaboration’, we now see palpable differences among ACP states with regard to their attitude and propensity to accept trade reciprocity with the EU.  If one takes an ACP states ratification of an EPA agreement as a success for the EU, what explains such EU success in getting some ACP states (and not others) to a Yes!  

Two, why have these trade negotiations towards an Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) been more protracted and deadlocked than other recent EU FTAs? This is contrary to prevalent theoretical suppositions in negotiation analysis (Lempereur, 2009; Hirshman, 1945; Emersion, 1962; Ravenhill, 1985; Elgstrom, 2005) that trade dependence of the ACP states on the EU and the inordinate market power of the EU should have procured an expeditious conclusion to the negotiation round, as materially dependent states acquiesce to their dependency. Yet unlike other recent EU FTA attempts which have either been finalized or terminated within five years, ACP states in the EPA round have managed remarkable resistance to acquiescing to the EU offensive which has thus kept them from providing trade reciprocity to the EU for the past 10 years as per the EPA objectives.  EPA negotiations have dragged on for more than 10 years, propelled by successful ACP states resistance against the EU, in what has been called a case of a ‘not so weak south’. How can this remarkable resistance be explained in light of putative ACP material weakness and market dependency on the EU?

The research thus examines these two successes –ACP states success in resisting a quick concession to EPAs and the EU success in getting some ACP states to yes. Both of these puzzles and questions relate to how to explain efficiency in EPA negotiations. In explaining intra-ACP divergence in speed to ratification of EPAs, the research demonstrates the role of norms in catalyzing state behavior- beyond the exigency of material economic dependency as asymmetrical interdependence theorists would aver. On ACP strength in negotiation in spite of its putative economic weakness, the research finds that this can be explained by how ACP states exploit the norms of ACP-EU partnership to ‘trap’ the EU into a continuation of partnership identity. As such collective clientelism is squarely rooted into new surging institutionalism based interpretations of the EU’s strengths and weakness in its external governance.

This is a unique strength of the ACP states afforded by the norms of its institutionalized relations with the EU. In addition by measuring the degree of ACP states’ persuasion (belief/ideology) on the utility of an EPA, the research seeks to show how an ACP state propensity to ratify an EPA is predicated more on its belief in the appropriateness of the EPA for its economy, rather than by its trade dependence. By introducing these two theoretical interpretations [normative institutionalism and belief convergence] the research seeks to show that over and above trade dependence, expeditious conclusion of an asymmetrical negotiation is determined by the extent of the degree of normative convergence on the objectives of the negotiations, as well as the degree which weaker states deny or grant diffuse support to the social influence of the materially stronger state. Thus, it is the extent to which a dyad’s parties fulfill the expected roles of hierarchical power affordance that determines the speed of conclusion of a negotiation.