Description
Free traders and protectionists alike wield tariffs as their weapon of choice - but toward opposite ends. Richard Cobden and Cordell Hull used tariffs as bargaining chips to achieve multilateral openness, whereas Joseph Chamberlain and Donald Trump deployed them to extract concessions and correct what they framed as structural unfairness in the global trading system. While IPE scholarship has long emphasized the primacy of structural incentives in shaping trade policy outcomes, this paper examines how and why individual agents deploy mercantilist ideas and tools during power transitions, effecting fundamental shifts in international trading regimes.
The paper makes two theoretical contributions, operating at both systemic and sub-systemic levels of analysis. First, it reconceptualises hegemonic stability theory (Krasner 1976) as a dynamic framework wherein agents actively disrupt (or stabilise) structure, revealing a recursive relationship in which crisis-driven agency can transform structural conditions themselves. Second, it demonstrates how pivotal individuals act as "switchmen" (Weber 1946), endogenously manufacturing uncertainty to redirect institutional trajectories (Blyth 2010). It draws on multiple archival sources and applies rigorous process tracing analysis to deepen our understanding of the role of trade policy decisions in power transitions. While direct comparison between the two cases may not be possible due to differences in scope conditions, the British historical case (1) illuminates whether the US protectionist turn under President Trump represents tactical manoeuvring or heralds the collapse of the liberal international order itself and (2) provides analytical tools for studying the role of individual agency in IPE beyond trade policy.
