Trading Blows: Party Competition and U.S. Trade Policy in a Globalizing Era. By James Shoch. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001. 388p. $59.95 cloth, $19.95 paper.

Extract

In this history of American trade politics, James Shoch argues for the centrality of political parties in the making of trade policy. His thesis, simply stated, is that parties matter, and matter a good deal more than the literature generally acknowledges. As he depicts it, the historical record is something like a heavyweight prizefight, in which the Democratic and Republican Parties, driven by constituency pressures, ideological differences, and, especially, the quest for political advantage, spar ceaselessly over trade issues.