Theme Panel: Economic Security and the Shifting Politics of Trade

August 4, 2025 APSA Annual Meeting, Theme Panels Comments Off on Theme Panel: Economic Security and the Shifting Politics of Trade

Co-sponsored by Division 16: International Political Economy

Full Paper Panel with Virtual Participation

Participants:

  • (Chair) Stephen Chaudoin, Harvard University
  • (Discussant) Jiakun Zhang, University of Kansas

Session Description:

The international free trade regime is under attack by its very own architects. Unified calls for de-risking at the G7 as well as the United States frequently leveraging tariffs on friends and foes alike has made economic security a buzz word in policy making circles. How will the politics of trade shift now that free market principles are quickly being eroded under the guise of national security? This panel will dive into the shifting politics of trade by examining this economic security movement from several different lenses. We consider how elites, firms, and the mass public navigate these waters as well as whether these changes to the liberal international order will shift patterns of global leadership.

The panel’s first paper examines how elites in the United States Congress determine which traded products should be freely traded with rival states and which should be securitized. The second paper examines the interplay between elites and public opinion to examine the externalities of such policies. The third paper builds onto the next two by examining the actions of firms and how they respond to episodes of political risk which prompt these economic security policies in the first place by examining the case of Japanese firms and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Finally, paper four examines how trade dependence and other political factors shape the responses of global states to China’s efforts to position itself as a leader within the evolving liberal international order.