Abstract

The objective of this paper is to examine the influence of lobbies on the choice of a country’s trade policy. The existence of several illegal financings of electoral campaigns has led us to ask questions about the proliferation of protectionist trade practices. Indeed, there are sources of illegal financing such as bribes for granting a commitment to a tariff protection of a lobby’s interests.

A new conception attempts to show that the political players are the main responsible for the adoption of a protectionist trade policy: the political players, who are financed by companies during their electoral campaigns, should keep their promises vis-à-vis these companies by raising excise duties or adopting unfair trade policies such as export subsidies.

Lobbying is able to disrupt international trade negotiations by exerting pressure on its government and obliging it to take a decision that does not comply with the rules of international trade. International trade negotiations taking place within the GATT are often disturbed by political issues: the political and social pressures have continued ravaging the international trade negotiations. The best known example is the problem of agricultural subsidies between the EU and the United States.

To solve the problems related the control of political spending, we assumed the existence of a monitoring body that is called (ICCERGI) (Independent Commission for the Control of Elections and Research of General Interest) which plays the role of "Principal". The aim of the latter is to control the operations that take place between political parties and interest groups, that we called the "Agents".

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