United States trade policies at loggerheads: Super 301, the Uruguay Round and Indian services trade liberalization

In the 1980s the US government sought to encourage India to liberalize its trade regime in services and foreign investment. US officials sought to achieve their objective by naming India to the 1988 Trade Act's 'Super 301' list of target countries for mandatory market-opening negotiations under threat of retaliation while at the same time also pursuing Indian trade liberalization multilaterally under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) Uruguay Round negotiations. The two policies were uncoordinated and incompatible, and ultimately the Super 301 cases against India were terminated when US officials realized that they risked damaging prospects of success under the Uruguay Round talks. As a case study the US-India case exposes weaknesses in the ability of state actor-based theories of hegemonic stability as well as domestic politics and institutions-based explanations alone to yield a full account of interest formation and policy formulation. An integrative theoretical approach taking account of the role of epistemic communities is required to provide the fullest explanation both of individual decision making and institutional and structural factors.