Unpacking member state preferences in trade policy: a research agenda

In the field of European Union (EU) trade policy research, a large amount of fruitful work has focused on decision-making struggles at the European level. However, few studies have been devoted to the dynamics of preference formation within the Member States. There are no studies that systematically trace positions of EU Member States on trade issues over the years, and we know little of national decision making. Even basic information on governmental procedures is lacking, nor do we know much about the actions and viewpoints of domestic political or societal actors. Furthermore, only a handful of authors try to explain why country A took position X. Rather, Member State desiderata have remained largely exogenous to analyses while states have been treated as unitary actors. Building on an empirical and theoretical critique of the current literature, I argue that we need to complement the question of ‘Why “the EU” did-’, with analyses of ‘Why Member State X wanted-’. In other words: we need to open the black box of Member State preferences