Power and Ideas: North-South Politics of Intellectual Property and Antitrust

by Susan K. Sell

The first comprehensive political-science treatment of the global politics and diplomacy of intellectual property and antitrust, with focus on relations between developing and industrialized countries.

"This book fills an important gap in the scholarly and policy literatures. It provides the first good book on the politics and diplomacy concerning the creation of new global codes governing intellectual property and antitrust. It will be seen as an account of the negotiations about international economic restructuring that is a worthy revision, amendment, and extension of the standard books of Krasner and Rothstein on the era of conference diplomacy." -- Peter Cowhey, co-author of Managing the World The Consequences of Corporate Alliances

Once considered arcane issues, intellectual property protection and antitrust have emerged in the last decade as central items on national and international agendas. Susan K. Sell presents the first comprehensive book-length political science treatment of these issues. She analyzes the North-South politics and diplomacy of intellectual property protection and antitrust in two from the early 1970s to 1985, and from 1985 to the present. For the first era, the book analyzes multilateral negotiations over codes of conduct for technology transfer, restrictive business practices, and intellectual property protection. For the second era, the book focuses on the spread of antitrust policies in developing countries, the use of coercive bilateral diplomacy by the United States in its quest to strengthen global intellectual property protection, and the Uruguay Round of trade talks.

Power and Ideas provides historical perspective, a broad introduction to the issues, and an in-depth, substantive analysis of the global politics and diplomacy of intellectual property protection and antitrust. Sell highlights the profound changes underway in both developing and industrialized countries. Drawing upon international relations scholarship on the role of ideas, she emphasizes the importance of understanding how and why policy makers redefined their interests in these areas. By incorporating intersubjective dimensions of politics, the institutionalization of economic ideas, and power asymmetries, Sell explains significant trends that will shape international commerce for years to come.

"Sell uses both documentary and interview evidence to provide a thorough book-length treatment of the recent changes in North-South intellectual property regimes. The writing is active, straightforward, and very clear." -- Craig Murphy, author of International Organization and Industrial Global Governance Since 1850

289 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1997

Reviews

[Jeffrey Hart · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fine book about the political bargaining between rich and poor nations that deals with two policy areas: intellectual policy (patents, copyrights, etc.) and antitrust. The author sets up a theoretical framework in which theories of power politics are compared and contrasted with theories of the role of ideas in international politics. The former predict that the rich and powerful will always get their way, while the latter suggest that changing ideas and preferences are often just as important as power differentials in determining outcomes. In intellectual property, the poor nations did not get their way and nobody changed their ideas or preferences. In fact, the rich (led by the US) imposed a regime on the poor in intellectual property with the result that there was little compliance with the regime. In antitrust, the poor countries changed their minds about the importance of domestic competition and so voluntarily accepted the advice of the rich countries. Compliance was much greater as a result.