CivicTrade - Deliberative Quality in Trade- Related International Organisations

Deliberative quality is rooted in the idea that decision-making is not a simple aggregation of pre-existing preferences, nor an arena where the most powerful wins, but a process where different actors interact and justify their positions to find common ground for agreement. In the face of strong headwinds against multilateralism, eroding trust, and decreasing perceived legitimacy and relevance of trade-related international organizations (IOs), a solid and effective strategy of Deliberative Quality allows to better address such challenges, particularly paving the way for a renewed role for IOs.

This project aims to develop the concept of Deliberative Quality, focusing on its application in trade-related International Organisations (IOs), analyzing decision-making processes and stakeholder engagement strategies of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the United Nations Conference on Trade And Development (UNCTAD), and the International Trade Centre (ITC).

The main research questions are:

• How is Deliberative Quality produced in the three trade-related IOs?
• What determines more Deliberative Quality in decision-making processes, making them more inclusive, accountable, legitimate, and thus more impactful?

Using the lenses of Public Administration/Political Science, Behavioural Sciences, and Science and Technology Studies on one side, and the contribution of Anthropology, Law, and International Trade/Business on the other, this project will develop a transdisciplinary framework of analysis.

The project engages three organizations through the case studies carried out in the project – formal trade negotiations at WTO with the case of fisheries, trade analysis and reporting at UNCTAD with the commerce strategy, and trade empowerment at ITC with the women and trade initiative. The study will also use their engagement by validating the produced framework and disseminating the results.