The Failure of the International Trade Organization (ITO): A Policy Entrepreneurship Perspective

The paper aims to look at the developments that led to the demise of the ITO initiative in the years immediately after World War II. At the heart of the paper is the critical appraisal of the ITO episode from the policy entrepreneurship perspective. We identify six policy entrepreneurship functions that are necessary for the creation of the effective international economic governance structure and liberal international trade regime, and that have to tackle the issues of ideational consensus building, management of policy negotiations (by means of leadership and coordination), construction of appropriate and suitable negotiation proposals, attainment of ongoing political support of initiatives, and making policy formulation process commensurate with a broader economic and political context. It is shown that the failure of the ITO is attributed to inadequate exercise of policy entrepreneurship.