Constraining the Australian State: AUSFTA’s Impact on Sovereignty Download

Description:

The likely impact of Australia ’s recently concluded bilateral trade agreement with the United States is contested. Proponents suggest that it ‘will deliver real benefits to all sectors across all states and territories’ (DFAT, 2005) whilst critics raise the spectre of national demise (Weiss et al., 2004). In this article we draw on a framework previously used (McBride, 2003) to analyse Canada ’s experience in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), to specify more precisely one potentially negative impact of the Australia – United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA) on Australia . Although Canada ’s capacity for policy autonomy has not disappeared under NAFTA, the agreement has circumscribed and constrained it in some significant ways. We suspect that the same – diminished sovereignty and capacity for independent policy-making – will be true of the Australian case.

Submitted On:

18 Mar 2007

Submitted By:

admin (admin)

File Date:

18 Mar 2007

File Author:

Elizabeth Blackwood and Stephen McBride

File Version:

1

File Size:

111.53 Kb

File Type:

pdf

Downloads:

452