“Protectionism, a realistic policy for the 21th century? A historical perspective on geoeconomics, protectionism and nationalism.”

Proposal for “The geoeconomics of trade and investment” and for “The role of geoeconomics for International Relations” Since Donald Trump’s election, protectionism and geoeconomic approach are a fashionable topic for IR students. However, most studies focus either on the US trade policy during Trump’s presidency or on recent evolutions of world’s economy. I propose a truly historical approach of protectionism and of the politicization of trade. The history of protectionism and economic-political dispute is old, complex, but we still lack an approach of protectionism, which encompasses the 19th and the 21st century. I focus on the protectionist policies in the USA, France, the UK and Germany. I will try to show the lessons, but the fundamental differences in the long history of the politicization of economics. My method rests on a historical comparison of the different phases of global economics. I will especially focus on the first (1880-1914) and on the second globalization (1990-today) to get a broad historical vision of geoeconomic tensions. I develop a mix methodology combining a quantitative analysis of protectionism with case studies based on a qualitative analysis of governmental archives in French, English and German. My hypothesis is that geoeconomic dispute are related to the more general question of the governance of globalization. I will try to show that there are two fundamental forms of globalization: a liberal one based on free-trade and international organizations and a “realist” one based on protectionism and national institutions. The first globalization corresponds to the “realist” model and the second rather to the liberal paradigm. Therefore, instead of opposing liberalism and economic nationalism, I intend to clarify a specific form of global governance based on national and regional alliances rather than on supranational organizations. However, the historical records give insight on the potential risks of protectionism and geoeconomic “wars”. The “realist” globalization of 19th paved indeed the way to nationalism and colonialism. Moreover, the comparison between the first and the second globalization brings us potential insights on the actual trends of globalization, which is increasingly dominated by power politics and the decline of the liberal order. About the author: Pierre Baudry is an assistant professor at the University of Dijon (France). He holds a Master from the University of Heidelberg. His Ph.D. was about the German European policy under Merkel during the 2008 and the euro crisis (CNRS/Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes). He is working on a second book on protectionism and nationalism through a historical study of global trade from 1880 to 2020 (project for a “post-doctoral thesis”/Habilitation). He as participated in several international conferences (ISA, ECPR...). He has published articles in leading French journals, and he has been submitted an article to the Bloomsbury press for a handbook.