Negotiating the protection of culture in a free trade context

In the present context of increase and liberalization of commercial exchanges, the traditional involvement of the state in the cultural sector is called into question. The negotiation and implementation of free trade agreements have met with the resistance of a number of countries, preoccupied with the potential consequences that the massive penetration of foreign symbolic products on their territory could have on their cultural identity and anxious to retain their power to regulate trade in cultural goods and services.This Thesis discusses the place of culture within the World Trade Organization, the European Union and in the North American Free Trade Agreement. This analysis attempts to describe the negotiation techniques and strategies used by states to keep their cultural policies from falling within the free trade agreements' purview. This Thesis also describes the agreements' specific provisions that translate the achieved compromises and tries to show the tensions resulting from the difficulties to reconcile the cultural and economic objectives of nations