Cultural Product Clauses in Trade Agreements and Bilateral Movie Flow

• In Event: Poster Session: International Political Economy 2 & APCG (African Politics)
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: International Political Economy 2

Abstract

Service trade liberalization is a multifaceted and complex issue, particularly when it comes to cultural industries. This paper aims to shed light on this complexity by systematically examining clauses related to cultural products in trade agreements, with a specific emphasis on their impact on the international trade of movies. Movies serve as a critical medium for disseminating the cultural and social norms of their producing countries. In the face of the dominant Hollywood film industry, other nations must consider how to protect their own movie industries and fortify their cultural influence to counteract potential cultural colonialism from the United States. This paper examines countries' strategies in trade agreements. It systematically documents the various types of cultural product-related clauses found in different trade agreements. Additionally, it will assess their influence on bilateral movie flows and investigate the reasons behind countries' choices of specific cultural product clauses in their trade agreements.

Many countries have included the audio/visual cooperation promotion clause in expanded bilateral or multilateral trade agreements (Hofmann et al. 2017). The audio/visual cooperation promotion clause aims to promote bilateral/multilateral cooperation in audio/visual products, including movies (Hofmann et al. 2017). I argue that countries including this type of clause aim to promote and expand their domestic film industries. This type of clause would likely increase the composition and volume of bilateral movie flows. The second type of cultural-product-related clause is the cultural exclusion clause. The cultural exclusion clause aims to exclude cultural products from trade liberalization. It prevents cultural-related products from being treated the same as manufactured products that benefit from the decrease in trade barriers in trade agreements. The cultural exclusion clause would, therefore, decrease bilateral movie flow.

These two types of culture-related clauses illustrate the distinct strategies countries adopt to cope with the monopoly of U.S. films in international movie exchanges. Some countries actively defend their domestic film industries by strengthening regional movie cooperation, while others choose protectionist measures to shelter their industries.

To estimate the impact of cultural product-related clauses in trade agreements on bilateral movie transmission, I will rely on various data sources. First, I will use the Deep Trade Agreement database to identify different types of cultural product-related clauses. The Deep Trade Agreement database has already systematically coded the presence of audio/visual promotion clauses in various multilateral and bilateral trade agreements. I will further expand this dataset by coding the presence of cultural exclusion clauses in these trade agreements. Second, I will manually collect movie production and release information from the International Movie Database (IMDb) to serve as the source of bilateral movie transmission data.

Through this analysis, the paper seeks to provide clearer insights into the intricacies of service trade liberalization within the realm of cultural industries. The findings of this paper can enhance our understanding of the complex dynamics driving the interaction between trade policies and cultural industries. It enriches the literature on understanding the liberalization of the service sector during globalization.

Author

• Lu Sun, Texas A&M University