Bargaining vs Networking: an assessment of EU-US economic and trade cooperation twenty years after the New Transatlantic Agenda (NTA). Have private and non-governmental actors managed to shape policy outcomes?

This dissertation represents an attempt to find out whether and to what extent transatlantic economic cooperation has been institutionalized in the last decade. More broadly, it is also a review of trade relations between the European Union and the United States in the past twenty years. Firstly, my claim is that the institutionalization of practices like trade dialogues and/or fora after the New Transatlantic Agenda had a weak impact on how transatlantic actors govern their respective economic ties. Consideration is given to both 'who' governs in transatlantic relations (either state and non-state actors) and 'how', as evidence is sought either in official documents and case-studies to prove or disprove the claim that a “re-centralisation” of decision-making powers has resulted in less 'policy setting' and 'policy shaping' by lower level civil servants and non-state actors. Moreover, another key issue is what drove the overall design and strategy of trade and economic relations forward, on both sides of the Atlantic. Extensive use of case studies, process-tracing, and interviews is applied to a wide range of topics, covering the period from the establishment of the New Transatlantic Agenda until the re-launch of the partnership with the Transatlantic Economic Council (TEC) in 2007. A particular attention is devoted to public opinion as an explanatory variable. Trade undisputedly reflects better than any other topic the determinants and features of decision-making, and shows how strongly they are shaped by a variety of factors. Non-tariff barriers to trade are one of the most important limits to transatlantic dialogue, especially in sectors such as food products, health, chemicals or data privacy. The role of private actors in (re)shaping regulatory standards is increased for example during current negotiations in Brussels and in Washington for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. Finally, policy-making in the transatlantic sphere is adjusted to the needs and exigencies of the different relevant actors. Therefore, the peculiarity of the topic I am going to present can not be treated as if it was simply a matter of institutions, rational choices and bargaining. Policies are a result of a complex web of interactions, which can be framed by theories and are shaped by ideas and norms, as it will be shown in the theoretical part. I assume that political decisions can be explained by looking both at the different levels to which they are agreed upon and at the different factors they may be influenced by