Trading Discourses on Sustainable Development in the European Union: A Critical Realist Approach.

his dissertation takes a critical-realist approach to unpack sustainable development as an ‘essentially contested concept’ in EU trade discourses and practices. Taking stock of both institutionalist and discursive literature in EU
trade studies, this dissertation argues for a dialectical logic to investigate discourses of the most important institutional actors on sustainable development along three stages of EU trade policy making, namely: the European Commission in the negotiation stage, the European Parliament in the ratification stage, and the Civil Society Organizations in the implementation stage. More specifically, the dissertation contributes in three aspects: 1) A
typology of views on sustainable development in a context of trade deep integration, 2) The development of a critical realist theoretical framework to study the dialectical causal powers between political discourse and institutional
context, 3) A normative discussion on the EU’s approach in dealing with the tensions between deep integration and sustainable development.
First, the contestation over sustainable development is embedded in the development of deep integration in international trade. Taking inspiration from studies on the conceptualization of sustainable development and on the
surge of preferential trade agreements in recent decades, the dissertation synthesizes five views on sustainable development in trade, including market liberalist, environmentalist, socialist, external institutionalist, and internal
institutionalist. These views show policy makers’ competing priorities not only over economic, environmental and social aims, but also over external institutionalist and internal institutionalist means in implementing sustainable
development. Here, the dissertation unpacks the specific discourses on sustainable development of different EU trade policy makers, in response to unprecedented anti-free trade protests from 2014 to 2019. Second, drawing from broad critical realist litererature on philosophical foundation, institution and discourse, this dissertation develops an original theoretical framework to investigate the dialectical causality between political discourse and institutional context. In other words, political agents’ discourses can transform or maintain institutional context and be enabled or constrained by their institutional contexts. With Norman Fairclough’s analytical framework of political discourse as being ‘primarily argumentative and deliberative for arriving at decisions about actions’, this dissertation reconstructs the main arguments on sustainable development in the European Commission’s ‘Trade for All’ strategy, the Members of European Parliament’s plenary debate on the ratification of the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), and the Civil Society Organizations’ public debate on Trade and Sustainable Development (TSD) Chapters in EU trade agreements. In addition, it sheds light on the EU’s actions in economic, social, environmental, external and internal institutionalist dimensions brought by political deliberations in each cases. The empirical results show that the market liberalist argument was seriously challenged by the internal institutionalist argument within the period under investigation; contestation over environmental issues in EU trade has became risingly prominent since 2015; social issues in trade, such as
trade-related labour rights, have maintained a stable presence in three cases. In spite of its actions in enhancing both external cooperation with multilateral organizations and internal partnership with stakeholders, the European
Commission has maintained its neoliberal trade policy by negotiating more new preferential trade agreements and establishing a multilateral investment court. Third, and finally, the dissertation engages in a scholarly discussion on the EU’s institutional legitimacy in pursuit of sustainable development and its normative power in global trade governance. Here, it first explores the
enabling and constraining functions of institutional context on political agents through deontic powers. Based on a distinction of obligations and rights within deontic powers, the dissertation highlights the unequal power relations
among the European Commission, the Members of European Parliament and Civil Society Organizations. The dissertation then discusses the EU’s normative value in dealing with the tensions in pursuing deep integration and
sustainable development in trade and reflects the EU’s recent systematic rival label on China. Following Daniel Rodrik’s distinction between legitimate internal deliberation to ‘prevent the undermining of domestic standards’ and
illegitimate norm export to ‘improve other countries’ labour, environmental or social standards through trade agreements’, it highlights a shift of focus in EU trade strategy from domestic democratic governance in ‘Trade for All’ (2015) to geopolitical cooperation with like-minded partners in the latest ‘Trade Policy Review’ (2021).