Transformations in Global Governance: Implications for Multinationals and Stakeholders,

The rapid globalization of business has propelled competition policy to a high place on the international governance agenda. WTO Ministerial discussions in 1996 made trade and competition policy one of the four “Singapore Issues ” demanding urgent attention by those charting the course of international economic cooperation (Hoekman and Kostecki, 2001:4). The case for greater attention to competition in individual markets appeared to grow along with the rapidly integrating world economy. Formal trade barriers have been lowered multilaterally or negotiated completely away in for a large part of international trade. Those who bargained for lowered trade barriers did so with the expectation that foreign goods – and some services as well – would otherwise be available in the newly opened markets on essentially the same terms as those of local provenance. The substitution of private restraints for official barriers clearly frustrates those expectations. This is one kind of competition policy issue in the current global economy: nationalism. In some cases this nationalism rests on the same obvious official favoritism that underlies traditional trade protection, but some nationalism may be subtler