Beyond Free Trade Alternative Approaches to Trade, Politics and Power

The world of trade policy and trade politics is changing rapidly, reflected in fundamental shifts in global trading patterns and relations of power associated with the 'rise of the South,' and with the burgeoning array of new trade projects, from fair trade to carbon emissions trading. Conventional economic trade theory has generally been unable to account for the political and social forces driving these new directions in international trade, giving rise to growing interest among social scientists from a variety of disciplines in innovative methods for understanding the political, social, ecological, ideological, and economic dynamics of international trade. Beyond Free Trade showcases these new approaches, seeking to destabilize and confront the vision of trade offered by mainstream economics with ones rooted in a messier, more complicated, and power-laden world.

Kate Ervine is Assistant Professor in International Development Studies at Saint Mary's University, Canada. She has published several articles and book chapters on carbon markets and carbon offsetting, climate change, global environmental governance, and biodiversity conservation. She is also the editor of Palgrave Macmillan's Environment, Politics, and Social Change series.

Gavin Fridell is Canada Research Chair and Associate Professor in International Development Studies at Saint Mary's University, Canada. He is the author of Coffee (2014), Alternative Trade (2013) and Fair Trade Coffee (2007), and of numerous articles and book chapters on international trade and development.

1. Introduction: Beyond Free Trade; Kate Ervine and Gavin Fridell
PART I: HISTORICIZING TRADE
2. Trade History: From the Tree to the Futures Market, the Historical Process of Coffee Commodification, 1500-Today; Steven Topik
3. Food Regimes and Food Import Dependence: An Analysis of Jamaica's Food Imports, 1950-2000; John Talbot
4. Historicising Trade Preferences and Development: The Case of the ACP-EU Canned Tuna Preference; Liam Campling
PART II: POLITICIZING TRADE: SHIFTING ALLIANCES AND NEW TRENDS
5. Regional Trading Agreements, the Geopolitics of China's Rise, and Development in East Asia; Paul Bowles
6. The New Chinese Presence in the Caribbean: Towards a Global Understanding; Cecilia Green
7. The New Geoeconomics of Capital in Latin America: Alternative Trade and Development in an Era of Extractive Capitalism; Henry Veltmeyer
8. Canada, Extractivism, and Hemispheric Relations; Ricardo Grinspun and Jennifer Mills
9. The Commodities Boom in South America: A Case of Regressive Restructuring?; James M. Cypher
10. Trading on the Offshore: Territorialization and the Ocean Grab in the International Seabed; Anna Zalik
PART III: TRADING FOR CHANGE?
11. Can Shopping Change the World?: Fair Trade Social Premiums and Neoliberal Development in the Global Recession; Mark Moberg
12. On the Margins of the Rising South: ALBA and Petrocaribe in the Caribbean; Gavin Fridell
13. South American Post-neoliberalism and External Imbalances: The Case of Argentina, 2003-2014; Ruth Felder
14. Trading Carbon: Offsets, Human Rights, and Environmental Regulation; Kate Ervine
15. The Resilience of Forced Labour in Global Production and Trade; Nicola Phillips
CONCLUSION
16. Trade Policy and Politics: From Comparative Advantage to Trade Gamble; Gavin Fridell and Kate Ervine