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What accounts for the large reduction in trade barriers among new
democracies in Asia after World War II? Using new data from Japan
and Thailand, this book provides a surprising answer: politicians,
especially party leaders, liberalized trade by buying off
legislative support with side-payments such as pork barrel
projects. Trade liberalization was a legislative triumph, not an
executive achievement. This finding challenges the conventional
'insulation' argument, which posits that insulating executives from
special interest groups and voters is the key to successful trade
liberalization. By contrast, this book demonstrates that party
leaders built open economy coalitions with legislators by feeding
legislators' rent-seeking desires with side-payments rather than
depriving their appetites. This book unravels the political
foundations of open economy.
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