Great Expectations: the Democratic Advantage in Trade Attitudes

Why is trade with some countries more popular than with others? Linking the literature on regime type and trade cooperation with the literature on trade attitudes, the authors argue that the domestic political institutions and cooperative reputations of foreign states condition the willingness of the public and policy elites to deepen trade cooperation. Using survey experiments fielded on the American public and a unique sample of US foreign economic policymakers, the authors show that respondents prefer trade with democracies over trade with nondemocracies by large margins. Further, they find that this democratic advantage stems from a strong expectation that democracies will be more reliable and consistent cooperation partners. This study provides one of the first direct and causally identified tests of the mechanisms underlying theories of the political economy of regime type and international cooperation. Although the article focuses on the case of trade attitudes, the argument is general, suggesting that support for cooperation in other issue areas is conditional on similar factors.