Bureaucrats and the Constraints of Embedded Liberalism: Evidence from the TAA

• In Event: Bureaucracy in International Relations III: Bureaucratic Capacity

Abstract

Redistributive programs support free trade regimes by compensating workers adversely affected by import competition. However, the effective implementation of these programs depends on bureaucrats who run these programs. We argue that bureaucratic delays in delivering redistributive benefits might make losers of import competition aggrieved and support protectionism. We test this argument using local petition data from the US Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program. We find that bureaucratic delays in determining TAA petitions politically increase both voters' and politicians' preferences for protectionism. We recover the idiosyncratic traits of individual TAA bureaucrats’ and find that bureaucrat quality is negatively associated to TAA delays after controlling for local exposure to trade shocks and local political characteristics. We also show that where assigned bureaucrats are lower quality, voters are more likely to exhibit attitudes against cosmopolitanism, through their effect on TAA delays. Importantly, we show that this effect is moderated by strong labor unions as they help workers make more successful TAA petitions.

Authors

• Kyuwon Lee, University of Southern California

• Carlos Felipe Balcazar, New York University