American Opinion on Trade

American Opinion on Trade
Author: Alexandra Guisinger
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2017
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0190651830

Introduction -- The changing landscape of trade and trade knowledge -- Trade preferences and politics -- Economic vulnerability, self-interest, and individual trade preferences -- Community and trade preferences -- Racial diversity and white Americans' support for trade protection -- The negative perceptions of trade's national effect -- Could positive information shift national level beliefs? -- Conclusions -- References

Clashing Over Commerce

Clashing Over Commerce
Author: Douglas A. Irwin
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 873
Release: 2017-11-29
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 022639901X

A Foreign Affairs Best Book of the Year: “Tells the history of American trade policy . . . [A] grand narrative [that] also debunks trade-policy myths.” —Economist Should the United States be open to commerce with other countries, or should it protect domestic industries from foreign competition? This question has been the source of bitter political conflict throughout American history. Such conflict was inevitable, James Madison argued in the Federalist Papers, because trade policy involves clashing economic interests. The struggle between the winners and losers from trade has always been fierce because dollars and jobs are at stake: depending on what policy is chosen, some industries, farmers, and workers will prosper, while others will suffer. Douglas A. Irwin’s Clashing over Commerce is the most authoritative and comprehensive history of US trade policy to date, offering a clear picture of the various economic and political forces that have shaped it. From the start, trade policy divided the nation—first when Thomas Jefferson declared an embargo on all foreign trade and then when South Carolina threatened to secede from the Union over excessive taxes on imports. The Civil War saw a shift toward protectionism, which then came under constant political attack. Then, controversy over the Smoot-Hawley tariff during the Great Depression led to a policy shift toward freer trade, involving trade agreements that eventually produced the World Trade Organization. Irwin makes sense of this turbulent history by showing how different economic interests tend to be grouped geographically, meaning that every proposed policy change found ready champions and opponents in Congress. Deeply researched and rich with insight and detail, Clashing over Commerce provides valuable and enduring insights into US trade policy past and present. “Combines scholarly analysis with a historian’s eye for trends and colorful details . . . readable and illuminating, for the trade expert and for all Americans wanting a deeper understanding of America’s evolving role in the global economy.” —National Review “Magisterial.” —Foreign Affairs

How America Lost Its Mind

How America Lost Its Mind
Author: Thomas E. Patterson
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Total Pages: 227
Release: 2019-10-03
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0806165685

Americans are losing touch with reality. On virtually every issue, from climate change to immigration, tens of millions of Americans have opinions and beliefs wildly at odds with fact, rendering them unable to think sensibly about politics. In How America Lost Its Mind, Thomas E. Patterson explains the rise of a world of “alternative facts” and the slow-motion cultural and political calamity unfolding around us. We don’t have to search far for the forces that are misleading us and tearing us apart: politicians for whom division is a strategy; talk show hosts who have made an industry of outrage; news outlets that wield conflict as a marketing tool; and partisan organizations and foreign agents who spew disinformation to advance a cause, make a buck, or simply amuse themselves. The consequences are severe. How America Lost Its Mind maps a political landscape convulsed with distrust, gridlock, brinksmanship, petty feuding, and deceptive messaging. As dire as this picture is, and as unlikely as immediate relief might be, Patterson sees a way forward and underscores its urgency. A call to action, his book encourages us to wrest institutional power from ideologues and disruptors and entrust it to sensible citizens and leaders, to restore our commitment to mutual tolerance and restraint, to cleanse the Internet of fake news and disinformation, and to demand a steady supply of trustworthy and relevant information from our news sources. As philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote decades ago, the rise of demagogues is abetted by “people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.” In How America Lost Its Mind, Thomas E. Patterson makes a passionate case for fully and fiercely engaging on the side of truth and mutual respect in our present arms race between fact and fake, unity and division, civility and incivility.

Winners and Losers

Winners and Losers
Author: Diana C. Mutz
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 358
Release: 2021-07-27
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0691203032

From acclaimed political scientist Diana Mutz, a revealing look at why people's attitudes on trade differ from their own self-interest Winners and Losers challenges conventional wisdom about how American citizens form opinions on international trade. While dominant explanations in economics emphasize personal self-interest—and whether individuals gain or lose financially as a result of trade—this book takes a psychological approach, demonstrating how people view the complex world of international trade through the lens of interpersonal relations. Drawing on psychological theories of preference formation as well as original surveys and experiments, Diana Mutz finds that in contrast to the economic view of trade as cooperation for mutual benefit, many Americans view trade as a competition between the United States and other countries—a contest of us versus them. These people favor trade as long as they see Americans as the "winners" in these interactions, viewing trade as a way to establish dominance over foreign competitors. For others, trade is a means of maintaining more peaceful relations between countries. Just as individuals may exchange gifts to cement relationships, international trade is a tie that binds nations together in trust and cooperation. Winners and Losers reveals how people's orientations toward in-groups and out-groups play a central role in influencing how they think about trade with foreign countries, and shows how a better understanding of the psychological underpinnings of public opinion can lead to lasting economic and societal benefits.

Forgotten Americans

Forgotten Americans
Author: Isabel Sawhill
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2018-09-25
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0300241062

A sobering account of a disenfranchised American working class and important policy solutions to the nation’s economic inequalities One of the country’s leading scholars on economics and social policy, Isabel Sawhill addresses the enormous divisions in American society—economic, cultural, and political—and what might be done to bridge them. Widening inequality and the loss of jobs to trade and technology has left a significant portion of the American workforce disenfranchised and skeptical of governments and corporations alike. And yet both have a role to play in improving the country for all. Sawhill argues for a policy agenda based on mainstream values, such as family, education, and work. While many have lost faith in government programs designed to help them, there are still trusted institutions on both the local and federal level that can deliver better job opportunities and higher wages to those who have been left behind. At the same time, the private sector needs to reexamine how it trains and rewards employees. This book provides a clear-headed and middle-way path to a better-functioning society in which personal responsibility is honored and inclusive capitalism and more broadly shared growth are once more the norm.

Solidarity in Strategy

Solidarity in Strategy
Author: Lyn Spillman
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 532
Release: 2012-08-30
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0226769569

Popular conceptions hold that capitalism is driven almost entirely by the pursuit of profit and self-interest. Challenging that assumption, this major new study of American business associations shows how market and non-market relations are actually profoundly entwined at the heart of capitalism. In Solidarity in Strategy, Lyn Spillman draws on rich documentary archives and a comprehensive data set of more than four thousand trade associations from diverse and obscure corners of commercial life to reveal a busy and often surprising arena of American economic activity. From the Intelligent Transportation Society to the American Gem Trade Association, Spillman explains how business associations are more collegial than cutthroat, and how they make capitalist action meaningful not only by developing shared ideas about collective interests but also by articulating a disinterested solidarity that transcends those interests. Deeply grounded in both economic and cultural sociology, Solidarity in Strategy provides rich, lively, and often surprising insights into the world of business, and leads us to question some of our most fundamental assumptions about economic life and how cultural context influences economic.

Trade Is Not a Four-Letter Word

Trade Is Not a Four-Letter Word
Author: Fred P. Hochberg
Publisher: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2021-01-26
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1982127376

“A sprightly and clear-eyed testimonial to the value of globalization” (The Wall Street Journal) as seen through six surprising everyday goods—the taco salad, the Honda Odyssey, the banana, the iPhone, the college degree, and the blockbuster HBO series Game of Thrones. Trade allows us to sell what we produce at home and purchase what we don’t. It lowers prices and gives us greater variety and innovation. Yet understanding our place in the global trade network is rarely simple. Trade has become an easy excuse for struggling economies, a scapegoat for our failures to adapt to a changing world, and—for many Americans on both the right and the left—nothing short of a four-letter word. But as Fred P. Hochberg reminds us, trade is easier to understand than we commonly think. In Trade Is Not a Four-Letter Word, you’ll learn how NAFTA became a populist punching bag on both sides of the aisle. You’ll learn how Americans can avoid the grim specter of the $10 banana. And you’ll finally discover the truth about whether or not, as President Trump has famously tweeted, “trade wars are good and easy to win.” (Spoiler alert—they aren’t.) Hochberg debunks common trade myths by pulling back the curtain on six everyday products, each with a surprising story to tell: the taco salad, the Honda Odyssey, the banana, the iPhone, the college degree, and the smash hit HBO series Game of Thrones. Behind these six examples are stories that help explain not only how trade has shaped our lives so far but also how we can use trade to build a better future for our own families, for America, and for the world. Trade Is Not a Four-Letter Word is the antidote to today’s acronym-laden trade jargon pitched to voters with simple promises that rarely play out so one-dimensionally. Packed with colorful examples and highly digestible explanations, Trade Is Not a Four-Letter Word is “an accessible, necessary book that will increase our understanding of trade and economic policies and the ways in which they impact our daily lives” (Library Journal, starred review).

American Business and Public Policy

American Business and Public Policy
Author: Raymond Augustine Bauer
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
Total Pages: 534
Release: 1963
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780202241296

American Business and Public Policy is a study of the politics of foreign trade. It challenges fifty years of writ-ing on pressure politics. It includes nine hundred interviews with heads of corporations, including 166 of the 200 largest corporations; another 500 interviews with congressmen, lob-byists, journalists, and opinion leaders; and eight community studies making this book the most intensive survey in print of the politics of business. It is a realistic behavioral examination of a major type of economic decision. The authors introduce their study with a history of the tariff as a political issue in American politics and a history of American tariff legislation in the years from Europe's trade recovery under the Marshall Plan to the challenge of the Common Market. They examine in succession the changing attitudes of the general public and the political actions of the business community, the lobbies, and Congress. American Business and Public Policy is a contribution to social theory in several of its branches. It is a contribution to understanding the business community, to the social psychol-ogy of communication and attitude change, to the study of political behavior in foreign policy. American Business and Public Policy is at once a study of a classic issue in American politics--the tariff; decision-making, particularly the relation of economic to social-psycho-logical theories of behavior; business communication--what businessmen read about world affairs, what effect foreign travel has on them, where they turn for political advice, and how they seek political help; pressure politics, lobbying, and the Congressional process.

The Oxford Handbook of American Public Opinion and the Media

The Oxford Handbook of American Public Opinion and the Media
Author: Robert Y. Shapiro
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 804
Release: 2013-05-23
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0199673020

With engaging new contributions from the major figures in the fields of the media and public opinion The Oxford Handbook of American Public Opinion and the Media is a key point of reference for anyone working in American politics today.

Kicking Away the Ladder

Kicking Away the Ladder
Author: Ha-Joon Chang
Publisher: Anthem Press
Total Pages: 196
Release: 2002-07-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0857287613

How did the rich countries really become rich? In this provocative study, Ha-Joon Chang examines the great pressure on developing countries from the developed world to adopt certain 'good policies' and 'good institutions', seen today as necessary for economic development. His conclusions are compelling and disturbing: that developed countries are attempting to 'kick away the ladder' with which they have climbed to the top, thereby preventing developing countries from adopting policies and institutions that they themselves have used.